7:36 PMLou Holtz observing Opposite Day on ESPN set today after Navy dominated Notre Dame during 23-14 victory in South Bend today: "It was obvious Notre Dame was the better football team."
7:17 PM Here's a thought: When watching the Yankees ticker-tape parade from one of the adjacent buildings looming over the route, don't toss documents out the window that contain people's social security numbers. Or meatballs.
6:13 PM Navy upsets Notre Dame 23-14. After losing 43 straight to the Irish, Navy has won two in a row at Notre Dame Stadium. Mayor McCheese with a whistle just commenced to melting.
If you went to bed early or had other things to do besides watch the Denver-Utah game on ESPN last night, you made the wrong decision. One, because the NBA is awesome and this is its strongest iteration since about, oh, 1996; and two, because you missed Carmelo Anthony’s enormous dunk over Paul Millsap, who is legit in his own right. Or was. RIP Millsap’s cred, you will be missed.
(Melo, my man.)
The play was an effective dagger into Utah’s heart for the night; the Nuggets had begun to pull away in the second half, but Utah was still hang-ging around, hang-ging around, down 8 halfway through the fourth quarter. Millsap had just corralled a defensive rebound and sent a lazy pass up the court to a waiting Deron Williams. Bad decision, sir, as Anthony was waiting for the pass. Anthony picked it off, took one dribble, and utterly posterized Millsap, who compounded his earlier bad decision by standing in the crease. Video? Of course there’s video, after the break.
So the NBA is kind of touchy when it comes to their players referencing gangs — remember when the Celtics’ Paul Pierce was fined $25,000 for flashing a Piru Blood gang sign at the Hawks’ Al Horford in 2008? The Nuggets’ J.R. Smith may also be skating on fragile frozen water if anyone in the league office examines his Twitter account.
According to the DENVER POST, Smith’s Twitter is creating controversy due to the way he’s presenting some of his posts — spelling words with a “k” in place of a “c,” or removing the “c” altogether, which is commonly associated with the Bloods street gang. Because Smith has more than 15,000 followers, it’s creating some noise.
One of the most jarring aspects of the Stanley Cup finals, other than the ease with which the Red Wings dispatched the Penguins on Sunday night to push the series to 3-2, has been NBC’s hardball with fans in Detroit and Pittsburgh. For the duration of the playoffs, both teams have been able to hold massive viewing parties in and outside their arenas. It was such a wonderful, organic expression of the communal nature of fandom that it was basically destined to be ruined by business in short order.
(Thousands of fans watching the game with each other? Nope, can’t have this!)
A near-sellout of Joe Louis could shave a ratings point off the local television ratings measurement, and such ratings are used to establish advertising rates.
So to that, if the all-important ratings model can’t deal with 8-10 thousand people watching a show in one place on one screen, you know what? The ratings model is completely worthless. Seriously. How can NBC or Nielsen not figure out what to do with a giant honking party of some of the most hardcore fans all watching one screen? Is that really a deal-breaker?
And if so, if they’re really curious as to what the ratings would look like if everyone stays home, away from the shared community aspect from which most of the value of a ticket to a game is derived, there’s a really easy answer to all of this. You ready? Dick Ebersol, you taking notes?
All NBC has to do is announce that in exchange for showing the game outside both arenas, attending fans have to fill out a simple, anonymous survey about where they would otherwise watch a game (their place or someone else’s), with how many people, and whatever other information the network needs to most closely approximate what ratings would look like. Use that and Nielsen data to extrapolate what the final ratings would be with that many eyes on a TV, and adjust. That’s it. Easy.
This is a rare, rare opportunity for the NHL and NBC. At no other point are they ever going to be able to get this kind of a free pool of television watchers from whom they can mine valuable demographic information. Forcing them back into their homes and away from a group of thousands of like-minded, passionate fans for the sake of moving a needle one or two points does the city, fanbase, and team a disservice. It’s so easy to work around. Figure it out.
Speaking of soccer [I thought we were talking about hockey. No, I’m dead certain of it.–ed.] [Shut up.–AJ] [You have problems.–ed.], UEFA just got a seismic news flash as Real Madrid, evidently furious at having seen FC Barca take the title, has bought the contract of Kaka from AC Milan. Too bad UEFA contract holder SETANTA SPORTS probably won’t survive to see him in the new kit.
Kaka, a sensational striker from the one-word-name factory that is Brazil, will reportedly command a 6-year, $94 million contract. That’s enough to make it the most expensive in soccer’s history, barely beating out Zinedine Zidane’s 6-year, $65 million deal with Juventus from eight years ago. Meanwhile, David Beckham is running around for a crappy MLS team in Los Angeles for 30 cents on the dollar and going home to a bag of antlers with oversized sunglasses and the “I’m married, but still vain” haircut straight from Jon & Kate + 8. Sic transit gloria mundi: Glory is fleeting.
But as we (rightfully) focus on the three people killed far before their time, we should point out that one passenger in Adenhart’s car, 24-year-old Jon Wilhite,has, in fact, survived the crash that left him in critical condition (via the RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE). Wait, that doesn’t appropriately convey the gravity of what happened. He survived internal decapitation.
As MANOLITH explains, internal decapitation, which is exactly as horrifying and life-threatening as it sounds, happens when the skull detaches from the spinal column. It’s usually fatal. Wilhite somehow survived without total paralysis, which is unbelievably rare, and he’s now in rehab with the help of several major leaguers. He’s got a long way to go, but he’s on the right track.
Thanks to the sports media’s ludicrous east coast bias, GASLAMP BALL is the only site to notice THE ONION’s satirical piece on NL home run leader Adrian Gonzalez’s anonymity doesn’t even have the right picture of him in an article about said east coast bias. Intentional? Maybe. It’s fitting either way.
This is Dahntay Jones, Chris “Birdman” Andersen, Grant Hill, and Amar’e Stoudemire playing “The Team Mating Game” on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE. Big ups to BALL DON’T LIE for finding the video, and yes, you are watching this with rapt attention. Don’t lie and say you’re not; yes, you are.
David Ortiz’s stupid excuse to blame his eyes on his slump didn’t work; they’re fine. Is Rafael Nadalgoing down the same road with his knees?
And finally, the Oakland Raiders have spent a metric buttload of high-level draft picks on skill players, but is their best move in the return to relevance the signing of 16-year free agent fullback Lorenzo Neal? FANTASYPROS911.COM thinks so.
Would someone care to tell the Western Conference Finals to get its plot straight already? With yet another tight game going down the stretch in the fourth quarter, the Lakers used tight defense and some key assists from Kobe Bryant — yes, assists — to push past the Nuggets to a 3-2 series lead heading back to Denver.
No, the series isn’t over yet, but Bryant may have helped his team take the biggest step toward an earlier conclusion with a beautiful assist that took advantage of his personal reputation, up-faking on a shot with just more than a minute to go and connecting with Lamar Odom, who dropped in a layup and was fouled, giving the Lakers a dominant 10-point lead.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Bryant took credit for the shift in his style that catapulted L.A. to a series lead, despite the superstar’s lowest scoring game of the playoffs.
“It was a big gamble for me coming in, but I wanted to change my approach this game and be more of a decoy,” Bryant said of his eight assists, many off fourth-quarter double-teams. “The past couple games they really were loading to my side and I figured I could be a decoy and try to give chances to my teammates.”
It’s an interesting shift for L.A.’s signature star, though you wonder if he’ll be content to try it again in Game 6. Interestingly, this is the ultra-rare scenario where the Nuggets might be happy to let him try it, too. Hey, it’s better to have someone else trying to torch you in the fourth quarter than know Kobe’s the guy to do it.
Meanwhile, in the college game, we’re starting to see a pattern from uber-coach John Calipari. It seems like whenever his program is nearing punishment, the ol’ ball coach flies the coop.
All this comes in the aftermath of allegations that a Memphis player cheated on the SATs during Calipari’s watch, citing “knowing fraudulence or misconduct” on an SAT test by a player on the 2007-08 team. Making the matter more grating is the fact that the player is almost certainly NBA Rookie of the Year Derrick Rose.
Making matters harder for Calipari and his new employer, Kentucky, is the fact that he was told of the allegations on January 16th, in the middle of the season. Sure, a Kentucky spokesman told ESPN.COM that Calipari was open about the allegations when he interviewed for the job, but can we really trust that that’s the truth? It’s a leap of faith, to say the least.
Of course, allegations of cheating to land top recruits is nothing new with Calipari. His UMass team that lost to Kentucky in the national semifinals has since vacated the school’s Final Four apperance because of improprieties in the recruiting of former superstar center Marcus Camby and other Minutemen. If Calipari’s Memphis squad has to abdicate its runners-up finish, Calipari would become the first coach to have two of his teams’ Final Four credits taken back by the NCAA. That seems like a pretty big condemnation of character, doesn’t it? At least the folks back in Memphis are taking it pretty well.
Well, the Stanley Cup Finals are set, but we’ve got more than a week to go before they start. Is that what the league needed? Well, no. No it isn’t. That being said, if a league was going to serve up a finals rematch, it could have done a lot worse than Red Wings-Penguins.
We’ll get Sidney Crosby + kids vs. the Detroit hockey factory, which is newly reinforced with Marian Hossa, who took flight from the flightless birds last offseason because of this gem of a quote:
“It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I want to have a best chance to win the Stanley Cup. I feel like Detroit is the team.”
Something tells us that’ll be bulletin board material in Pittsburgh, no? As for the photo below, well, we’ll have to see if Pittsburgh fans take a cue from the classy folks in Chicago. Clearly they’re on a higher mental plane.
The 15 minutes of fame from the YouTube impersonator of Red Wings star Henrik Zetterbergthat was found over on Yahoo!’s PUCK DADDY blog are bound to continue, both because the guy looks amazingly like Zetterberg and because, well, he’s got some pretty stinking funny video concepts.
As if Shaquille O’Neal wasn’t already funny enough, now he’s rolling out with YouTube video apperances next to Ron Jeremy and Ben Stein? When did he completely jump the shark? Oh yeah, when he entered the NBA. Nevermind.
Maybe Man U would have been more successful if their mascot had punched a few Barca players in the face, following the lead of this Norweigian Bee. Wait, is that a bee? We really can’t tell.
We’re all familiar with the Denver Debacle by now - how the WWE was kicked out of the Pepsi Center for Monday, May 25, because the Nuggets were facing the Lakers in Game 4 of their NBA Western Conference Finals series. Well, Vince McMahon vowed he would get his revenge on Stan Kroenke, the owner of both the Nuggets & the Pepsi Center.
And last night from Staples Center, he got it. Sort of. Kind of.
Oh, just see for yourself:
You go, Vinnie Mac! Kudos to you for that funny XBA joke. And who knew Kroenke’s real first name was Enos?
• The Pepsi Center double-books a Nuggets-Lakers playoff game & WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” on the same night. Of course, Vince McMahon is going to have lots of fun with this Denver Debacle.
• Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger is hoping her boyfriend, Formula One star Lewis Hamilton, will soon race with her to the wedding altar.
Say what you will about Vince McMahon (and many people have), but the guy is a marketing genius. When it turned out that the WWE & the Denver Nuggets were both booked for the Pepsi Center this Monday, McMahon let loose in verbally vilifying Stan Kroenke, saying how the Nuggets owner “did not have enough faith in his own team” to leave an open date for a possible playoff game, and how he should be “arrested for impersonating a good businessman.”
(Watch your back, Stan - Vince is ready to cut you down! And he even brought his own clippers!)
But even with a guaranteed sellout, the WWE was told in the end to hit the road. So Vince has moved his “Monday Night Raw” to L.A.’s Staples Center. Still furious with the eviction, McMahon has challenged Kroenke to a steel cage match on ESPN (which would complement well with the AWA reruns ESPN Classic has been showing). Obviously, Stan has declined, with a team spokesman adding, “We’re preparing for basketball games. Whatever (McMahon) does from here is of no concern.”
Well, you may have won the battle, Kroenke, but you haven’t won the war.
