Category: Sports

This is the first, and quite possibly only time I’ve ever posted about the NBA. The fact that I even saw part of an NBA game should be as shocking to you as it is to me, but I just finished watching something amazing.

Cleveland just beat Detroit in Game 5 in Triple Overtime 109-107. Lebron James scored 48 points in the game. Impressive, but my big playoff game standards it’s good, not magnificent. But get this. He scored the last 25 points for Cleveland, spanning the end of regulation and all three overtimes. Get that? He was the only person on his team to score in all three overtimes.

He hit threes under pressure. He drove to the basket. He even got a steal. Outside of Detroit, I can’t imagine that there was any one in the country watching this performance who wasn’t rooting for him to get this win. I was. And the fact that I was rooting for anyone to do anything in an NBA game is astounding.

I haven’t seen a performance like this since Scott Howard wolfed out and carried Chubbs and the gang to the championship. The only thing Lebron didn’t do was steal the ball from his teammates. I’m out of words here. That was amazing.

Today was the 133rd Kentucky Derby, or the 1st Laura-noticed Kentucky Derby. We came home for the Derby this weekend and went to a party held at Paradise, where there was betting on each race, a draw out of a bucket for 1st, last and 7th places horses, and the single best Derby Horse auction in existence (Nice job, Brian). As we were placing bets on every race Laura, who knows that horses have four legs, cashed in in the 7th, 8th, and 9th races of the day for overall winnings of $60+.

It was fun to watch her win, and really enjoy the races. I also gave her a set of chopsticks and she immediately caught a fly with them It was pretty amazing. So, if, in the coming weeks you are looking for Laura, I’d start by looking at the nearest OTB or sportsbook.

It was a very fun day.

With the NCAA Finals set for Monday. It’s Florida vs. Ohio State. This means that the same two schools who played for the football championship this year will also play for the basketball championship.

I’m going with the Packer Method on this one, because I tried to look it up, but it gave me a head ache. I think it’s a safe statement that it has never happened that the same two schools have played for the championship in the same year. I’m going out on a limb here and saying that no two schools who have played for the NCAA football championships have ever faced off for the NCAA men’s championship. In any year. Ever. I’d be really surprised if I was wrong about this. My knowledge of football records is lacking, but think about the last 30 or so NCAA men’s champions. How many of those schools even have football titles?

1977 Marquette – Nope
1978 Kentucky – Nope
1979 Michigan State -Nope
1980 Louisville – Nope
1981 Indiana – God No
1982 North Carolina – Nope
1983 NC State – Nope
1984 Georgetown – Nope
1985 Villanova – Nope
1986 Louisville
1987 Indiana
1988 Kansas – Nope
1989 Michigan – Yeah, but I guarantee they didn’t play Seton Hall in any of those football games
1990 UNLV – Nope
1991 Duke – Nope
1992 Duke
1993 UNC
1994 Arkansas – Nope
1995 UCLA
1996 UK
1997 Arizona – Nope
1998 UK
1999 Connecticut – Nope
2000 Michigan St.
2001 Duke
2002 Maryland – Nope
2003 Syracuse
2004 UConn
2005 North Carolina
2006 Florida -Yep, but I don’t think they’ve ever played UCLA for a title

Which brings us to now. So, Michigan and Florida are the only two possibilities in the alst 30 years. I don’t know if UCLA ever won a Football title, but that takes care of the previous ten years, with the exception of Indiana, NC State and UTEP.

There I just put about 10 minutes more effort into proving my blanket statement than is necessary to make an assertion using the Packer Method. I’d love to know if I’m wrong about this, so if someone either knows off the top of their head or feels like looking up whether two schools who have played for the basketball title have ever played for the football title I’d be interested.

Also, go Big Ten. Go Buckeyes.

JT

It was never my intention to post twice in a row about Billy Packer but here we are. Last night I was watching Costas NOW on HBO, thanks entirely to Adam letting me know it was on and Reggie Miller was dressing down Myles Brand.

I’m going slightly off topic here, but having mentioned both Reggie Miller and Myles Brand I need to comment on both of them. 1.) I’ll pretty much watch or listen to anything Reggie Miller has to say. He’s great on TV and Radio. he knows his stuff and he’s very entertaining. I’d pay for a sports package that pretty much only airs conversations between Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller. That’s just gold. 2.) Myles Brand is one of the worst people on the planet. He was a horror show as the President of Indiana University, and he’s the perfect figurehead for as broken and ineffectual organization as the NCAA. He’s just awful. God, is he awful.

Here’s a question for you. How do you ensure that Myles Brand is not the biggest moron on your show? Answer. Interview Billy Packer at the same time. The point of the piece on Costas last night was about graduation rates and the new age limits, etc. Is it harmful to have Kevin Durant go to school for one year, if he chooses to go to no classes his second semester because he knows he’s gone and by the time his absences matter the season will be over, which is a charge that has been leveled against him in particular and sited as a major problem with the 19 year old rule. I could go on at length about this rule. I have some very definite opinions about it, but that’s a story for another time.

Costas interviewed the incomparable Billy Packer for this piece because he’s always on TV, and frequently says things that are either controversial or just wrong, so he makes for a good person to interview about anything. Billy Packer’s point is that a vast majority of the kids who get into colleges as athletes would not get into these schools if they weren’t athletes. And he said the following.

"I don’t know how many of them wouldn’t get in. Let’s just make up a percentage 10-15% of these kids would get in."

This is the problem with Billy Packer in one quote. "Let’s just make up a percentage." What?!?!?!?! Let’s just make up a percentage?

There are some other things I’d like to prove, using the "Packer-Method."

1.) UK fans are illiterate hillbillies. In fact, only 3% of them can read, and only 6% have all their teeth.
2.) Jim Rome and Arsenio Hall are the worst interviewers in the history of the world. 98% of people who have asked questions on the air are more qualified.
3.) 96% of things on the internet are about kittens
4.) Only 12% of people who play World of Warcraft have ever kissed a girl, and of that number 90% are other girls.
5.) 100% of people who buy windows based machines would never do it again if they had to set it up themselves.
6.) When there is a car wreck, it is the woman’s fault 62.8% of the time.

Who wants to make up some more percentages, based on nothing? Please, feel free.

This post was longer and WAY more rambling than it should have been, but based on my policy of not editing what I write, I have not edited what I wrote. 76% of people think that’s a sound plan. 100% of my 6th graders use this rule when they write anything for class.

JT

In the spirit of 21 I’ll take the first part last. That is a reference to this comparison, that is excruciatingly funny.

Now, the first part. I was watching the Georgetown v. Vanderbilt game last night, and while I fully expected Georgetown to make it this far, see my earlier post, where I say a number of things that I state as fact (btw, I was pretty much dead on with all of those so far. Not Notre Dame or UNLV, but they can’t all be roses. It didn’t help my bracket. I needed to be right about a lot more than those. Stupid chalk). The final shot of the game by Jeff Green, where he sets up his right foot as his pivot, then picks it up and changes his pivot to his left foot before making the winning basket. That is a travel my friends. As the play happened there was not only no call, but no mention was made of it by Billy Packer or Jim Nance. As I was starting to think I had imagined it, they went back to the studio, where Clark Kellog said something to the effect of "Dude, that was a travel. Here watch it. He totally traveled."

I’m not complaining about the missed call, though how they weren’t watching the feet of the post man in that situation I have no idea. Nor am I complaining about how the announcers missed it. Billy Packer missing things is pretty much par for the course. I’m used to his being wrong. I’ve actually set my watch by it.

What bugged me, and increased the accuracy of my watch set to work on the inverse Billy Packer principle, which states that my watch’s accuracy is in inverse proportion to how wrong Billy Packer is, to the point where I’ll never have to replace the battery, was what Billy said during the next game. When Jim Nance asked him about it during the next game. The conversation went something like this.

"Dude, do think that was a travel."
"No, Gabe Kaplan, it wasn’t a travel."
"What about what Clark said, and what the video shows, that he changed his pivot foot before taking the shot, which, Billy, as I’m sure you know is the according to Hoyle definition of traveling.’
"With the game on line like that, that wasn’t a travel. Even if he did change his pivot foot, which he didn’t do."

You’ll have to check the tape for the exact transcript of this conversation and also to see if he actually called Jim Nance, Gabe Kaplan, but that was the sum and substance of it. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Billy Packer is sticking by his initial opinion that there was no traveling involved here. He also can’t wait to get to the final four, where he is sure that he and Jim will be greeted as liberators.

JT

So the two big questions from today’s news about Tubby Smith leaving UK for Minnesota are:

1.) How white will the new coach of UK be? I’m guessing pale, like bucket.

2.) Is there another place on the planet more racially diverse than the state of Kentucky? Oh, right, Minnesota. Lots of blonde haired blue eye Scanda-nubians, which is, as of this moment, on the eve of a racism workshop I’m attending for work, my new favorite word invented by me. Scanda-nubians is now trademarked.

Also, as a third question. With the reports that Alford is leaving the Big Ten and Tubby is coming in is the Big Ten getting a coaching upgrade? And does the Big Ten now have more street cred? I say, yes. Big ups to the now, slightly darker Big Ten coaching fraternity.

JT

15:59 UCLA up by one. 6-5. They are monstering DJ. They must have watched about :30 seconds of tape. He’s thrown the ball away twice and taken two suspect shots. I can’t believe they haven’t talked about it with him. He must be unbelievable bull headed. He always dribbles toward the corner and picks up his dribble. Johnny Lowery used to do that on my 5-6th grade basketball team.

Also, if, UCLA continues to switch little and big on ball screens like they did two possessions ago, DJ is going to be wide open. I hope the keep doing that.

15:15 UCLA chases and traps the dribbler at half court. IU’s got to present for Bassett. If you can get two defenders out at half court and move the ball well, there will be some very good shots.

13:56 DJ out into the corner. Again. Nice job Johnny.

13:46 Coach Sampson should call Kirk Hasten so he can talk to DJ. DJ has got to make a much faster post move. He waits for the double team to come that he has no ability to handle. Still 6-5.

13:17 The half court defense on both ends has been relentless. That’s nice to see. IU 7-6.

12:15 I don’t know how, but Brad Miller is back in college and is playing for UCLA. Maybe it’s just his headband.

11:54 Some just ignored the myth. That is the first time any announcer has noticed DJ’s double team problem and suggested some solutions. Coudos. Ant not to make it seem like I’m dumping on DJ. He’s been very good on defense tonight. At least two blocks and he’s cleaning up the boards. 0 points, but doing all the other things.

9:58 That Westbrook dunk over Wilmont was sick.

9:43 Calloway can drive all day long. If he can make good passes to people who are ready, that may win IU this game.

7:30 Here’s the problem for IU in this game. The games where they have looked the worst and had the most problems are against teams who lock it down in the half court. They play well defensively and that keeps it close, but without being able to establish an offensive rhythm makes it really hard to win.

5:00 Another great defensive possession by IU. IU is shooting 19% and UCLA 25%. That last one went to the end of the shot clock and UCLA was forced to take a 25 foot contested jump shot.

4:45 Another front end missed. With the shooting as tough as it is, free throws are even more important in this game than most.

3:08 Even the open shots are tough to make tonight. This is a great game, that may not break 100 points total. I wish I’d bet the under, whatever it is.

2:09 Nice hustle Lance Stemler. No points though. Rolled ankle for Calloway.

1:15 UCLA is sagging off Lance Stemler. His man is playing in the middle of the lane and waiting to go double team DJ. Either Lance needs to go as far away from DJ as possible, or the entry pass needs to come from him. If he has the ball his man needs to come up and that makes the double team a little slower.

Halftime: God that was brutal UCLA 20- IU 13.

18:35 This game is gonna be decided by the first team who can put together a 5 possessions in a row with points.

18:16 Double Team. Turnover. lay-up. Crap.

17:17 There’s four in a row for UCLA. I hate it when I’m right. Indiana has been very patient on offense. Not a lot of bad shots, but they’ve almost been too patient. They’re gonna need to start pushing the action on the offensive end if they’re gonna score at all.

16:06 Two possessions where the action has been pushed by IU. Good results. As much as I hate basketball that requires the dribble. Dribble penetration would help IU a lot here.

13:49 At this point, while IU is still playing good defense, UCLA is getting much better looks than is IU. IU’s defense needs to go back on lockdown. It would also be helpful for IU to hit a 3 pointer or two.

12:45 This time I like being right. IU has gone to dribble penetration and are suddenly scoring.

10:51 The intensity has picked up, but they gotta get away from passing into the post. It’s been almost completely useless. Penetrate and kick. I’d also like ot see Rod wake up and score.

9:42 GENIUS!!!!! Pentrate and kick = 3 points for Bassett. IU on a 9-0 run.

7:18 That’s bad. got it down to 7, back out to 12 now. This game needs momentum for IU to get back in it, and that’s gonna take some stops. Right now, I’m not seeing them.

5:11 It’s not looking too good. At this point it comes to speeding this game up without that leading to sloppy defensive play. IU will not catch up with every possession lasts 25-30 seconds.

4:36 Shot clock violation, but again too long of a possession.

4:27 LANCE STEMLER FOR 3!!!!!!! I just wish it hadn’t take all season to find his stroke again. Maybe too late.

3:11 IU on a run. Down 9. Increased urgency and early fouling against Mata. Then two missed  free throws. IU hitting from 3 now. 6 point game.

2:36 STEMLER FOR 3!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT! IU down by 3.

1:45 Worst shot selection ever and Wilmont hits it!!!! down by 2. No timeouts for either team.

1:14 This is now a real ball game. Stemler’s confidence is all the back. He’s looking for his shot and it has lead to 3 free throws and a chance to cut this to a 1 point game. IU has missed 10 free throws to this point. one miss. Two point game IU rebound. Calloway lay-up. Tie ballgame!!!!

38.1 IU down by 2 with the ball. Time for one more penetrate and pass.

31. IU turnover. Poor inbounds play. UCLA with a chance on the line to push it to 4. And Calloway is out. Makes the drive and dish that much harder.

28.7 UCLA by 4. This is gonna be tough.

10.5 IU falls apart in the last 20 seconds. Fought all the way back and then just got stupid.

End. All things considered I’m pretty proud of the way this team played tonight. Very good on defense, and never quit. I think if there’d been one more timeout in the bank the mental breakdown at the end might have been prevented. The character of this team is a real reflection of the work Sampson has done with them this year. To have to work that hard all game to get anything going offensively and still tie the game with a minute left to go. Indiana basketball is in good hands and is heading in the right direction.

After watching the first day of the NCAA tournament here are my thoughts.

1.) I wish I’d tried my chalk only bracket this year instead of last year. Which makes me think…

2.) Either the committee has figured out the relative differences between the Major conferences and the Mid-Majors and have begun seeding according to who is really the better team. SUI and Butler are high seeds. Illinois is a 12. Those seem right to me. So, maybe they have really seeded correctly for the first time in the history of the tournament. Or, and only time will tell, Thursday was a fluke and today is the day my brackets get effed in the A. If drawing conclusions based on what has happened in the past is the correct way to make predictions, then the latter is most certainly the truth.

3.) Two and a Half Men is not funny, and no amount of commercials will make me tune into that crap.

4.) Mia Hamm as a soccer mom and Kevin Garnett as the "milk man." I’m not sure where I come down on this one, but it leaves me uneasy, though I like Peyton forgetting his play book, again. Mild chuckle.

5.) DJ passed out of a double team last night and Rod hit the three. This happened relatively early in the 2nd half. I only point it out because the infrequency of this occurrence makes it notable. Like Jim Carey doing something funny. I laughed one time during Dumb and Dumber, after claiming there’s no way I would laugh at all. 12 years later I still remember the line I thought was funny. Same thing.

6.) I have no idea how Lance Stemmler went from being a decent outside shooter to being Todd Lindeman, but it’s horrible. I stand by his value to the team as a defensive presence and an all around good player who the Rock would like because he knows his role, but he clunked a number of wide open shots last night. It was ugly.

7.) Speaking of which, Gonzaga missed more gimmies than "insert teen-aged protagonist from any ‘guys trying to get laid in high school movie ever made’" Watching them shoot last night was like watching Mikey call Nikki about 40 times too many in Swingers. We’ve all frakked up like that, but it’s not fun watching someone else do it. Repeatedly. For 40 minutes.

I’m stopping at 7 and here’s why, and I gotta warn you this is gonna make next to no sense. I was in my Administrative Theory class the other night. Last night of the quarter, first 70+ day of the year. You can imagine my ability to focus. My professor for reasons I’ll never be able to get my brain around, brought up new math and using base 7. I’m 31, and I’m at the older end of the spectrum in this class. There are probably a few people 3-5 years older than me, but most are younger. I never had one minute of schooling on base 7 or anything like that. His explanation, filtered through my 35% attention rate basically boiled down to counting on your fingers, if you had three missing, and the 7 is like 10. This makes no sense to me at all. I’m not sure I care enough to figure it out. I did google base 7 and got some math explanation that make my Transitive Theory of Tim Hardaway look as dumb as it is, maybe more so. I gave up quickly, but not before I got a headache from it.

So, based on my understanding of base 7, I have now used up all of my fingers. My ten observations are now done.

JT

THIS is the most wonderful time of the year. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the greatest sporting event of this or any other year. For world wide appeal and it’s infrequency, the World Cup can lay claim to the biggest sporting event. For sheer money making potential, and as it turns out an ability to set back free speech and increase censorship (Thanks Ms. Jackson. I’m nasty) the Superbowl packs a bigger punch, but there is nothing more exciting in sports than the first four days of the NCAA tournament.

For any basketball fan, or any sports fan for that matter, the thrill of the buzzer beater, the 12-5 upset, the George Mason’s of this or any other year create an intense gutteral reaction that cannot be matched. For the casual observer it is a chance to fill in your brackets and pull for your teams. It’s a chance for Sally from accounting to pick based on mascots and kick the crap out of everyone in the office who knows anything about basketball. It’s a chance to fill out multiple brackets, one filled with all the teams you hope make it to the final four that will be busted all to hell by 6pm on Thursday. It’s a week of lost productivity. Though, I gotta say I don’t buy this one. If people weren’t filling out their brackets they’d be shopping on ebay or playing minesweeper, or whatever it is people do not avoid work at work.

A few thoughts on this year’s tournament.

1.) Georgetown is for real. I’ve never been sold on a team so hard after watching so little of their games. If this team doesn’t make the final four, I’ll eat Otto Franken’s hat.

2.) Also, look for Notre Dame to make a bit of noise. I’m thinking sweet 16.

3.) Kansas will be the first number one to drop.

4.) SUI and Butler are sweet 16 teams.

5.) Don’t you love how I state this as fact, when there’s no doubt I’ll be wrong on at least half the things I say.

6.) This thing is all about your draw and IU got a shitty one. Though UCLA’s been on a bit of a skid. Nevada got the best deal out of all the 7 seeds.

7.) IU is destined to play the late game. I’m not certain, but I don’t think they’ve gotten an early game since Knight was fired. Same again this year.

8.) Enjoy watching Kevin Durant. In college he’s a special standout player. I won’t give two shits about him as a pro. There are a dozen player who play his type of game in the pros and I don’t care to watch any of them, but in college he’s in a class all his own right now.

9.) As always, here’s hoping for Kentucky to get their asses handed to them in the first round.

Enjoy the tournament, but more importantly, enjoy the commercials for Two and a Half Men.

JT

After watching last night’s IU v. Illinois game in the Big Ten tournament I have a lot of things to say, but I’ll keep this to basically one point, with a short preface. I haven’t play-by-played the last two games because I didn’t watch them at home, but I wish that I had, because I watch the game more closely and feel and instead of just shouting things to an empty room and having Laura ask me who I’m talking to (you think she’d know by now that I’ll talk whether there’s an audience or not) I can write my impressions which means someone may read what I was pissed or excited about. Makes it more fun, I guess is the short answer.

As an example, during last night’s game, this year’s IU SID myth became very clear. Last year, if you were watching as much as I was you heard every announcer who did an IU game refer to two
things throughout the course of the game. 1.) Robert Vaden’s High Basketball IQ. I don’t know how you measure that but if it is done by observation of the way he plays and the choices he makes on the court, and not by some mysterious Wonderlic Test given at admission, Jamie and Adam would call this one BUSTED! Jay Edward’s and Alex Smith’s early jumps to the pros are to planning for your future through savings and wise investment as Robert Vaden’s frequent decisions are to collecting grease and  reselling it to plan for retirement. (I can count on one hand the number of people who are going to completely untangle that last analogy. My thought process is sloppy at best, but trust me that makes sense and is mildly amusing). 2.) Marco Killingsworth has 5% body fat. God Bless Rick Majerus, who may be one of the industries experts on body fat, for pointing out during one game late in the Big Ten season last year that there’s no way in hell the Marco Killingsworth had 5% body fat. No one, in the previous 20 or so games thought to call shenanigans on that piece of information. The announcers just read from the sheet the the University’s Sports Information Director (SID) gives them, assuming that it’s correct without paying attention to what is really going on some sometimes.

Well, and I thought this was going to be short, this year’s myth(, myth. Yeth?) has to do with DJ White. The announcers during last night’s game made frequent mention of DJ’s abilty to pass out of the double team. Making statements to the effect that one would think DJ would average more points, but he doesn’t because he frequently gets double teamed (True) and his ability to pass out of these situations results in a number of open 3s for his teammates, which is why IU leads the Big Ten in 3 point shooting (FALSE!!!!!!) When the ball goes into the post and a double team comes DJ, almost always dribbles parallel to the baseline toward the sideline as the double team follows him and the court gets smaller. He then throws a bad pass which either gets tipped, picked, or does not result in an immediate shot. I don’t have the tape to examine, but I’d bet the number of assists he gets per game from these situations hovers around my little league batting average (somewhere in the .00001 range). In fact it happened twice in the first half last night. DJ threw the ball away twice while being double teamed. This made no difference to the announcers who, in the second half mentioned at least twice how good he was at passing out of the double team.

I gotta get in touch with the SID and see if I can get some completely crazy information put in there so that it becomes reapeated to the point of truth. Any suggestions?

JT