3:03 PM Thanks to an ankle injury to QB Ricky Stanzi, Northwestern beat Iowa 17-10 in Iowa City today to end the Hawkeyes' undefeated season. Stanzi's replacement, redshirt freshman James Vandenberg, went 9-27 as a passer for 82 yards and a pick.
2:04 PMNewsday's Alan Hahn was courtside for Knicks' embarrassing non-competitive loss to the Cavaliers last night: "Knicks down 51-25....boos come at a timeout. Quick, throw the Yankees back on the court!"
1:57 PM Iowa's QB Ricky Stanzi is out of the Hawkeyes' game against Northwestern with a right ankle sprain. It's doubtful he'll return against the Wildcats, who lead 14-10 midway through third quarter. Iowa's new QB is redshirt freshman James Vandenberg.
1:04 PMMike Florio reported this week that a source told him NFL players might be considering striking during the playoffs. Patriots linebacker Adalius Thomas did his best to marginalize Florio in strongly denying the possibility. Florio is a former practicing attorney, he ain't making stuff up A.T.
When Chris Quinn isn’t driving Vito Corleone to the local fruit stand for oranges, he’s a guard for the Miami Heat; and takes his team photo responsibilities very seriously. Fun fact: He attended Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio; in the same class as Brady Quinn, although the two aren’t related (they also both went to Notre Dame). In fact, Chris might have snuffed out Brady’s football career before it even began, if fate had not stepped in. Read more…
Wherever your fan allegiances lie, it’s hard not to feel bad for Cleveland Browns fans. It’s bad enough that their city has been in decline for decades, but no fan base deserves to have their team yanked out of town, especially when said team ends up spurning you for Baltimore. Sure, Cleveland ended up getting the Browns back (sort of), but the last 10 years have been a near-constant kick to the nuts for fans of the brown & orange.
(Hall of Famer…by default?)
One constant that Browns fans have always been able to cling to throughout all the Tim Couches and Butch Davises has been the past. The Browns had an illustrious history up through the 1980s, and to the team’s credit, they created a team Hall of Fame to recognize the team’s glory days and distract fans from the crapfest on the field. Well, they had a team Hall of Fame, anyways: the team has decided to put the “Browns Legends” on hiatus for at least this year. Classy move, Cleveland.
The next step toward the inevitable future of football — robot players — has been taken by the new United Football League. A Miami-based technology company has invented The ID Coach, an electronic wristband device that quarterbacks will wear in which plays, and possibly their favorite TV shows, can be transmitted to them during games.
Somehow the makers of the device have convinced the UFL, which begins its inaugural season in October, to use it, but the NFL is going to be a harder sell. Donovan McNabb here seems to really dig it, however (“Will it tell me when overtime begins?”). Read more…
It was an incredibly tumultuous night in Cleveland, and the Cavaliers losing to the Wizards was the least shocking news of the night. (Although as the WASHINGTON POST’s Michael Lee points out, Washington joins the Lakers and Celtics as the only teams to beat Cleveland twice this season.) Yes, it’s not often that the best team in the league loses to the worst team in the league, but the Wizards are a unique case, with Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood finally back playing after missing almost all of the season with injuries.
No, most of the evening drama in Cleveland involved the Browns. First came some fallout from Jay Cutler’s trade to the Bears, specifically reports that Cleveland had tried to work out a three-way deal with the Broncos and Redskins that would have sent Brady Quinn to Denver and Jason Campbell to Cleveland. Browns coach Eric Mangini spent Thursday night denying these reports; expect Quinn to demand a trade because the Browns tried to trade him sometime within the next week.
And later in the evening, there was news in the DUI manslaughter case against Browns WR Donte Stallworth, and it was more than just his first appearance at a court hearing. It turns out that Stallworth was already in the NFL’s substance abuse program at the time of his arrest, which opens him up to a whole range of punishment from the league. Of course, he’s facing charges that could land him in jail for at least eight years, and having a history of substance abuse issues is not going to help his case, so I’d say that Roger Goodell is the least of Stallworth’s problems right now.
Meanwhile, there were no problems at the opening of the Hard Rock Cafe Yankee Stadium yesterday, just a lot of unintentional comedy as reported by MLB.COM. What do I mean? How about Yankees’ Executive Vice President Hal “The Pretty One” Steinbrenner joining rock stars/C-list celebs with nothing better to do Ace Frehley of KISS, Scott Ian and Frank Bello of Anthrax, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Bernie Williams and members of the Seminole Nation to smash guitars instead of cutting a ribbon. And yes, this means rock and roll is officially dead.
(Oh yeah, “Late Show With David Letterman” band drummer Anton Fig was there, which only means one thing: even Paul Shaffer had too much dignity to show up to this thing.)
Other news while you were rioting in the streets of State College to celebrate Penn State’s NIT victory:
As PUCK DADDY notes, it must be like getting their hearts ripped out all over again for Hartford Whalers fans to see a Hurricanes jersey with the Whalers’ logo (and a God awful color combination). Although I’d love it if the Ravens wore Browns jerseys for “Turn Back The Clock” day against Cleveland.
While the Jay Cutler trade solved one long-running NFL saga, the Anquan Boldin/Arizona Cardinals mess continues to fester. The latest comes from NFL.COM which reports that Boldin told a Florida radio station that he would “love to” play in his home city of Miami.
I had hoped that the America’s Cup had gone the way of 1980s fads like The Lambada, Swatches and The California Raisins. But apparently it’s still happening, and it’s now the focus of lawsuits involving people with more money than they know what to do with. The AP has the latest news, as software tycoon Larry Ellison and his boat “Oracle” have won the right to challenge the current Cup holders, Judge Elihu Smails and his boat “The Flying Wasp” (seen below at its coronation):
If you’re a former NFL player who gets arrested on drug charges, you would hope that the headlines wouldn’t call you “forgettable.” But that’s just how NBC DALLAS FORT WORTH described former Cowboy Leonardo Carson, arrested yesterday on intent to sell charges, and I’ll be damned if they aren’t right.
Now that Tim Floyd has turned down Arizona, TUCSON CITIZEN columnist Anthony Gimino wants to know if there’s anyone left who wants the Wildcats’ coaching job. May I make a suggestion: Former Baylor coach Dave Bliss is available and ready to talk. Sure, he’s got a checkered past, but the guy knows how to win. Barring that, perhaps Jerry Tarkanian is available.
I can’t imagine why parents in Shenendehowa, NY are upset to find out that a part-time track coach had his teaching license revoked 11 years ago after an alleged sexual abuse case. WTEN-TV says that while Don Paretta was not convicted, he admitted to giving a former student a note at graduation saying he would “miss the student’s face and body.” And this guy coached pole vaulting: let the jokes commence.
According to the NEWARK STAR-LEDGER, Boston College DT B.J. Raji - a projected Top 10 pick in the NFL Draft - committed a crime worse than scoring single digits on the Wonderlic test: he reportedly flunked a drug test at the NFL Combine.
Finally, HOME RUN DERBY sends a hearty congratulations to Manatee Community College, which defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 yesterday. Yes, those Pittsburgh Pirates, as in the “allegedly major league Pirates.” Bill Mazeroski would be rolling in his grave, if he were dead.
This year’s NCAA basketball tournament is apparently going to be the first one played without any #1 seeds, because nobody seems to want to claim any of them. This week, Pitt decided to be the latest top-ranked team to tank it, trailing by as many as 20 points in the second half in an 81-73 loss to Providence. The Friars are suddenly looking pretty good for an NCAA bid, with 9 Big East wins and 17 overall. This was their first win over a #1 team in nearly 33 years. Luckily for all involved, Jonathan Xavier was not at the game.
Professional golf, which ceased to exist last June when Tiger Woods got hurt, will finally resume today. Nobody’s happier for this development than the other golfers who Tiger will be competing against, whoever they are. Tiger’s first round match at the Accenture World Match Play Championships tees off at 2:02 Eastern time this afternoon. His opponent is someone named Brendan Jones, who just learned how to play golf last week. How confident is NBC that Tiger will make it to Saturday’s semifinals? They’re airing ads promoting Tiger’s appearance on the NBC broadcast this weekend.
(He didn’t win anything. This is just the trophy he gets to carry around every day for being Tiger Woods)
Do you have World Baseball Classic fever yet? Does anyone? This WBC seemed like a good idea a couple of years ago, but this year’s rosters are devoid of many of the sport’s biggest stars. Your U.S. roster features such giants of the game like Chris Ianetta, Jeremy Guthrie, and Matt Thornton. The Dominican team is without Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez (who’s from New York City, mind you), but now gets to deal with the distraction that is A-Roid. It’s all moot, of course, since the powerhouse Italians are winning the whole thing. Who can stop Val Pascucci and Nick Punto?
• TMZ says that Charles Barkleymight have to don a pink prison uniform during his five-day stay in the same jail that houses rapper DMX. Although, it appears as if Chuck has been given “work release” and only has to be in jail from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. So, basically he’s staying in a crappy hotel for five nights and wearing a pink snuggie.
• Charles Goldberg of the Auburn blog THE GOLD MINE writes that highly-regarded high school running back David Okuhas moved from Oklahoma to Lincoln, Nebraska to be closer to some girl he met while on an official visit to Nebraska. And his parents are OK with their kid taking off to go live on his own and date a college girl. This seems like a great idea.
• Speaking of Stephon Marbury, the poor guy had to accept a buyout of around $2-3 million less than his salary for “playing” this season for the Knicks. But Darren Rovell of CNBC says that Marbury earned enough that he could’ve bought a pair of his Starbury sneakers every nine seconds.
• The CFL isn’t recognizing there’s a recession, according to the VANCOUVER SUN. Four CFL cities (all of which are home to teams called the Roughriders) are in the process of securing funds for new stadiums or improvements to their current facilities.
• Former major league pitcher Rick Helling on steroids: “There is this problem with steroids. It’s happening. It’s real. And it’s so prevalent that guys who aren’t doing it are feeling pressure to do it because they’re falling behind. It’s not a level playing field. We’ve got to figure out a way to address it.” When did he say this? 1998. TIME has the story of a guy who went ignored way too long.
• PRO FOOTBALL TALK says that Eric Mangini and the rest of the new Browns staff is “lukewarm” on Brady Quinn. Which is rather insulting, considering Quinn won all those national championships in college.
Mangini will be replacing Romeo Crennel, which must be a bit of deja vu: Eric also replaced Crennel as the Patriots’ defensive coordinator when Crennel left to take the Browns’ head coaching job back in 2005. And to make Mangini feel even more at home, he’s also the brother-in-law of Cleveland Indians GM Mark Shapiro. Several sources are reporting that Crennel might be part of Mangini’s staff, either as defensive coordinator or special assistant. I’m sure that won’t be awkward at all.
Last week the Browns had two viable starting quarterbacks. Now they have none. Enter NFL re-tread and perpetual third-stringer Ken Dorsey. If Romeo Crennel didn’t have enough to worry about already, the loss of both Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson in two weeks means that his future as Cleveland’s head coach depends on a quarterback who has thrown a grand total of three passes all season. Oh, and none of them have been completed.
(This is not what Cleveland fans were looking for.)
The quarterback conundrum (hey, it’s not a controversy) comes as a result of an ESPN report that Anderson will be lost for the season after straining his left MCL in the fourth quarter of the Browns’ 10-6 loss to the Colts on Sunday. That’s right, they couldn’t score more than six points with Anderson, a Pro Bowler last year, which can’t make Dorsey optimistic about his own chances guiding the Browns offense.
Is it going to be like this for the next year and a half? Every NBA team with cap space rolling out the red carpet for LeBron James like it’s a recruiting trip and he’s Johnny Walker. Last night was the Knicks’ turn to playing willing host, both figuratively and literally - the fans gave him a hero’s welcome, and the team played their role as second bananas as they were little obstacle in the Cavaliers’ 119-101 win.
Meanwhile, let me remind again you that King James doesn’t become a free agent until July 2010 - that’s almost two full seasons from now. So expect the parade to be coming to your town very soon - perhaps he won’t be wearing special shoes dedicated to your city, but believe me, you’re going to get really sick of it very soon.
Also coming to your city is Ball State - provided that your city is Detroit, and not a place like Glendale, New Orleans, Miami or Pasadena where they have a BCS bowl game. The Cardinals took care of Western Michigan 45-22 to wrap up a perfect regular season and book a date in the MAC title game in the Motor City. So good for them, I guess.
Meanwhile, there were some damned compelling college basketball games last night. Chief among them was Notre Dame hanging on to beat Texas 81-80 at the Maui Invitational, as A.J. Abrams’ desperation 60-footer at the buzzer hit the rim but missed. It sets up a meeting against No. 1 North Carolina for the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish and a chance for their fans to have something to celebrate in advance of their annual thrashing at the hands of USC this weekend.
Say hello to Diagne Thierno Seydou Nouro, the Danny Almonte of Japanese high school basketball: The MAINICHI DAILY NEWS says the Senegalese exchange student shaved almost five years off his age to play on a championship-winning high school team.
In other financial news, the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE says that Cal coach Jeff Tedford has deferred a bonus payment due to him until…some time in the future.
Pete Carroll’s excuse for the otherwise inexplicable loss to Oregon State earlier this year? He tells the LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS that it was the aftermath of the hype of the Ohio State game.
Speaking of Oregon State, it looks like their path to their first Rose Bowl appearance since the 1964 season just got murkier, as THE OREGONIAN reports that star running back Jacquizz Rodgers is unlikely to play in their must-win Civil War game against Oregon this Saturday with an injured shoulder.
Just when Cleveland Browns fans thought they had seen the last of Derek Anderson doing anything other than holding a clipboard…the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER notes that he’ll be the starting QB for the final five games now that Brady Quinn is shelved for the year with his broken finger.
Julius Jones tells the SEATTLE TIMES just how fired up he is to face his former team the Cowboys this Thanksgiving. I’m sure that Dallas is just as excited to see his hapless new team the Seahawks come to town.
Uh-oh. Buffalo doesn’t have much going for it, so reminding every Bills fan of the one time they were a foot and a half from winning the Super Bowl isn’t really a great idea. Ryan Lindell joined Scott Norwood in the “wide right” hall of fame as the Bills lost to the Browns 29-27 on Monday night. It’s not an earth-shattering loss. I don’t think Vincent Gallo’s going to make a movie about shooting Lindell or anything. But it does drop the Bills to 5-5, which is now last place in the AFC East. Remember when they were going to run away with this division? Making all this more painful is the fact that Browns kicker Phil Dawson nailed a 56-yarder a minute earlier to take the lead.
(It was all downhill from here)
Still, it’s tough to pin this all on Lindell. People miss 47-yard field goals all the time, and Lindell isn’t the one who threw three picks in the first quarter (that would be the suddenly terrible Trent Edwards). And while the Browns did win tonight with Brady Quinn at the helm, I’m not ready to call him a difference maker. His completion percentage tonight was lower than Manny Ramirez‘ batting average with the Dodgers.
Get ready, Buffalo, because the Sabres are probably losing their next game on a goal with like four people standing in the crease.
College basketball always just comes out of nowhere, doesn’t it? ESPN is in the midst of a season-opening marathon of games. As you read this, Penn is preparing to play Drexel (tipoff at 10 a.m. Eastern). Earlier this morning, Saint Mary’s beat Fresno State 99-85 in a game that started at 11 p.m. on the west coast (2:00 in the east), followed by Hawaii’s 67-64 overtime win over Idaho State that tipped off at just after 4:00 a.m. in the east (11:00 Hawaii time). I don’t know if I’m supposed be proud of the fact that I watched both games in their entirety. ESPN is continuing to show games live all day today, culminating in Kentucky-North Carolina. I figure that since UK can’t beat VMI, they’ll be lucky to stay within 40 of the Heels.
The best game of the day should be Davidson’s matchup with Oklahoma. Each team has a pre-season first-team All-American (Stephen Curry and Blake Griffin, respectively).
Don’t tell Donovan McNabb (he’s already too confused), but they don’t have ties in college football anymore. That means that somebody has to win this weekend’s Apple Cup debacle between Washington and Washington State, who are a combined 0-20 against FBS teams this year. And the line is set: Washington by 8 1/2, according to the SEATTLE TIMES. Yes, a winless team with a lame duck coach is an 8 1/2-point road favorite in a conference game. The Cougars have been outscored 440-61 in eight Pac-10 losses (that’s an average loss of 55-7).
It’s the harvest season, so think of today’s links as being delivered to you in a cornucopia:
• Utah has a lot on the line in Saturday’s game against BYU. Win, and they’re in the BCS. Lose, and they’re probably going to the Poinsettia Bowl. The SALT LAKE TRIBUNE examines the situation, and the financial windfall that would come from the BCS bid, not just for Utah but for the entire Mountain West. In all honesty, it would be better for BYU as a university to lose the game.
• Things aren’t so rosy up the road at Utah State. They’ve fired their coach, Brent Guy, effective at the end of the season (what ever happened to just cutting a guy loose and going interim?) THE SPORTS NETWORK has the details.
• Oh yeah, baby. Cricket cheerleaders! But it’s India, so they can’t wear skimpy outfits. And it looks like there’s some dudes too. LION IN OIL shares our disappointment.
• NJIT (that’s the New Jersey Institute of Technology) lost its 35th consecutive game last night, a Division I record. The Highlanders (because nothing says rugged terrain like Newark) might not technically go in the record books, though, since they are a “transition” member of Division I. The AP has the game story.
• We have a double-feature from TAMPA BAY’S 10. First we have the story of a lady who’s being told that she can’t say “Ref you suck” at Buccaneers games anymore because it violates some code of conduct bullcrap. Because there’s nobody in NFL stadiums saying worse things than that. Here’s a picture of the woman:
• HOME RUN DERBY points out that, by his own criteria, Albert Pujolsshould not be accepting the NL MVP award. Seems Al said in 2006 that players who don’t take their team to the playoffs shouldn’t win the award.
• The SAN JOSE MERCURY-NEWS’ Andrew Baggarly wildly claims that the Giants are almost assuredly going to win the World Series next year because they’ve signed Jeremy Affeldt to a two-year deal at $4 million per. If you’re scoring at home, that’s approximately 10 times more than Tim Lincecum made this year. And Baggarly actually doesn’t think the Giants are going to be any good.
• The “Heidi” game was 40 years ago yesterday. If you don’t know how it all went down, here’s some video. Particularly brutal is the scene where a girl is shown falling out of a wheelchair and attempting to walk while the final score of the game scrolls at the bottom:
Thank God we finally have Brady Quinn’s first start out of the way so we don’t have to listen to the speculation every week about when he’s going to get a shot and see that stupid NFL draft footage anymore. Why do so many people care? I mean, great, he played pretty well for Notre Dame against Navy and Stanford but got killed in every big game. Way to go, bud, I guess doing all that and playing absolutely no NFL football is good enough to get yourself a Fathead.
Brady did, however, have the Browns in good position to win last night, leading the Broncos 23-13 after three quarters. But Jay Cutler finally lived up to his own hype and got it done in the fourth quarter, like a certain other Bronco quarterback did a couple of times in Cleveland. (See, aren’t these Cutler-Elway comparisons just ridiculous?) Denver scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and won the game 34-30. Cutler threw for 447 yards in the game, and Quinn put up a respectable 239 yards with two touchdowns. The game was viewed by approximately 39 fans on the NFL Network, and 17 people on a choppy SopCast feed from Denmark.
Speaking of football games nobody could watch, #10 Utah rallied from an early 10-0 deficit and beat #11 TCU 13-10 last night in a game that was on some channel called CBS College Sports. Never did I think I’d actually be complaining that a game wasn’t on Versus. Since this channel isn’t part of my DirecTV package, I assume that it ended in exciting fashion. Actually, there’s proof that it ended in exciting fashion (and a Dan Fouts sighting!).
(”I used to be on Monday Night Football and now I’m calling Mountain West games on some station that 4% of the country gets.”)
Over on ESPN, Virginia Tech took care of Maryland 23-13, plunging the ACC into even more mediocrity. Freshman Darren Evans set a school record with 253 rushing yards. One of the odd BCS rules out there is that a non-BCS team can actually automatically qualify for a BCS game if they finish in the top 16 AND finish ahead of the winner of one of the BCS conferences. And never has this been more possible with the top ACC being currently ranked 19th (North Carolina) and all 12 teams in the league sitting with at least two conference losses. So just because Utah or Boise State loses a game or you think Ball State is too far down to make it, it’s still very likely that we’ll be seeing one of these teams on Fox in January.
There was a spectacular ending in the NBA last night in Portland that most of you on the East Coast probably missed. With the Rockets trailing the Blazers 98-96 with 1.9 seconds left in overtime, Yao Ming hit an 18-foot baseline jumper while he was being hacked to tie the game. He then made the free throw to give the Rockets a 99-98 lead. But Brandon Roy swished a rainbow 30-footer as time expired to give the Blazers a crazy 101-99 win. Check out the video:
• Our favorite Indian pitchers, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, finally had their tryout yesterday. The ARIZONA REPUBLIC’s Jim Walsh has the details. In short, a lot of scouts think they deserve a shot, but nobody thinks it should be their team that gives it to them.
• The SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE quotes Padres GM Kevin Towers as saying that Jake Peavy’s “train has left the station,” which means the ‘07 Cy Young winner is going to be traded soon. He also has a full no-trade clause.
• The University of Oregon is debuting a baseball team this season. And you know what that means — ridiculous Nike uniforms!
The lines in the gray pinstripe uniforms are not actually solid lines — they’re the complete text of the university fight song.
• The Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones Jr. fight this Saturday isn’t really captivating boxing fans. BOXING NEWS says it’s because the fight is such a mismatch in Calzaghe’s favor.
