8:00 PM CSN Baltimore has video of Marcus Smith, a U.S. soldier who dressed as a minor league umpire to surprise his children at a Bowie Baysox game with a home visit from Afghanistan.
7:45 PM A Japanese Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was swept out to sea during last year's tsunami washed up on a shore in British Columbia last month. The bike's owner asked that the motorcycle be displayed at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee as a memorial to the tsunami victims.
7:30 PM Buffalo Bills receiver David Clowneytweeted the results of his HIV test which came back negative. And to the critics of his decision to share his results, Clowney added: "Some people are Ridiculously stupid ... And can't see the bigger picture about things that are important in this world."
Now that the Lakers have won the NBA championship and the basketball season is over, it’s time for everybody to start wondering what’s going to happen next with the latest world champs. Are they good enough to repeat? Will they be able to keep Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza? Will Adam Morrison be allowed to touch the basketball next season?
The biggest question surrounding the Lakers, however, is the future of their head coach Phil Jackson. The Zenmaster just won the 10th NBA title of his 19-year career, and if there was ever a moment for the 63-year old coach to ride his motorcycle off into the sunset, this would probably be it (of course, according to some, Phil hasn’t been coaching the Lakers for a while now). Well, Jackson hasn’t given any indication of what his plans are, but some are already speculating that he is going to retire and that Mike Krzyzewski is waiting in the wings.
Andrew Giuliani’s absurd lawsuit against Duke University for kicking him off the golf team was just the latest frivolous litigation that ties up our courts and wastes taxpayer dollars. That’s what I thought, at least, until a district court judge told Li’l Giuliani to go play in the sand trap, with the greatest legal screed of our times.
(You’ll get nothing, and like it.)
I’d like to nominate Wallace W. Dixon for the Supreme Court, because his written opinion savages Giuliani’s case by way of some awesome golf puns and even quotes from Caddyshack. As Ty Webb would say, “Don’t sell yourself short, Judge, you’re a tremendous slouch.”
Remember when the Texans drafted Drew Henson as a safety plan, then held his rights hostage when he decided he was ready to give up being the Yankees’ third baseman and wanted to come back to football? Well, there’s a PRO FOOTBALL TALK rumor that the Packers have worked out Duke point guard Greg Paulus at quarterback, despite the fact that Paulus hasn’t thrown a competitive pass since high school. If that sounds surprising, well, this may be even more shocking: The Packers may be dead serious about drafting him, too.
(Yes, this really could be Aaron Rodgers’ new backup in Green Bay.)
While Paulus was never going to set the world ablaze as Duke’s point guard, he still insisted on playing for Coach K because Greg’s just a hoopster at heart. That’s never taken away from his overwhelming talent behind center, where he was the starting quarterback in the U.S. Army All-American game and was also a Parade Magazine All-American. How good was Paulus in high school? Good enough that, if he decided to take a scholarship offer to play quarterback and point guard at Notre Dame, Miami or Syracuse, he easily would have been not just the top quarterback recruit on Rivals.com’s list of national prospects, he would have been the top ranked recruit overall.
Those of you trying recoup lost money in the stock market are all too aware of the meltdown of the financial system. At the center of that implosion throughout has been Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.
(Coach K.: Picking this up can mean 9 figures in your bank acct.!)
Goldman, along with J.P. Morgan Chase, is largely regarded as the best-run financial institution in the land, and the WALL STREET JOURNAL reports today that the company has regained its financial footing in past months. (Phew!)
One of guys apparently behind the turnaround is 36-year-old Ashok Varadhan. Varadhan pulls down eight figures annually as a Goldman’s top currency trader and recently purchased a Manhattan condo for $16M. Varadhan’s neighbors now include Denzel Washington and Bob Costas.
There was a lot of attention surrounding UConn entering last night’s Sweet 16 matchup with Purdue, and it was all for the wrong reasons. In the midst of an ongoing investigation of the school’s recruitment of now-departed super-stud prospect Nate Miles, no one has received as much heat as UConn’s architect himself, Jim Calhoun.
So what is a Hall of Famer like Calhoun to do? That’s easy: Win the whole thing, then walk away. If Calhoun’s Huskies get out of the gate as well as they did against Purdue last night. Not only did UConn sprint to an 8-0 lead and never look back, the Huskies showed the balance and Hasheem Thabeet-led inside dominance that could lift them back to another national title.
Sure, they’re out West, but with the additional inspiration UConn has received since its exit from the Big East tournament — first Calhoun’s hospitalization, then the Yahoo! investigation — UConn suddenly looks like the biggest beast left in the dance.
Meanwhile, Missouri proved that John Calipari - a past subject of NCAA indiscretions & Calhoun’s scorn after he stole onetime UConn recruit Marcus Camby- still has some work to do if he’s ever going to deliver a national title to the C-USA program he’s taken under his wing. Mizzou did everything that Memphis tries to do — run, trap, press and run some more — except they did it more effectively and efficiently. Even a late heat-check from Tyreke Evans and near-collapse from Mizzou couldn’t resuscitate Memphis, which means that the one team standing between Calhoun and a return trip to the Final Four is Mike Anderson. At least we know what the game plan will be come Saturday: Everybody press! Ready, break!
That wasn’t the case back East, where UConn once assumed it would be, and where No. 1 seed Pittsburgh struggled through another lackluster tourney win. It’s certainly not what Pitt fans will want to hear, but the Panthers just don’t seem to be clicking on all cylinders. In fact, one could argue that Pitt hasn’t played on its top speed since knocking off UConn … again … near the end of the regular season. In fact, let’s run the gauntlet of recent Pitt performances: Lost to West Virginia in Big East tournament, underwhelmed in beating No. 16 seed, trailed No. 8 seed Oklahoma State throughout much of second-round win, then eked past a Xavier team that should have been completely overwhelmed.
If that sounds like Pitt has set the table for a suddenly hot Villanova team to swoop in a steal a ticket to the Final Four, well, maybe they have. The Wildcats smoked a Duke team that was finally exposed at the point, with streaky shooters and with no semblance of a legitimate interior game. Perhaps not surprisingly, Duke again rolled snake eyes in the tournament because it was over-reliant on outside shooting and couldn’t stop a deep set of athletic guards and swingmen. Let’s see, Virginia Commonwealth (Eric Maynor), West Virginia (Joe Alexander), anyone in the Villanova starting lineup. Hmmm, anyone else see a pattern?
But there were other sports outside of the tournament right? Well, we suppose.
We’ve seen plenty of big sports stars in bad movies in the past — Kazaam comes to mind, no? — but none may be worse than the upcoming flick Never Surrender, which features Quinton Rampage Jackson, Anderson Silva, Heath Herring, and Georges St. Pierre and B.J. Penn.
This is just made for a bad-karma jinx. They’re plenty of points away from clinching a division title, but you can already get your hands on Washington Capitals Southeast Division Championship gear if you know where to look.
Speaking of the Caps, coach Bruce Boudreau is more than sick of people bitching about Alex Ovechkin’s celebration of his 50th goal. He can’t even take it anymore.
Darren Rovell: Responsible economic journalist, proud CNBC talking head, expat of ESPN integrity, producer and eater of preposterously large burger? Now he is.
Has anyone bothered to tell Colorado coach Dan Hawkins that he’s been struggling to make bottom tier bowls the past couple years? How, exactly, does he expect to win 10 games in 2009?
Brazilian soccer stars are known for being big partiers — seen any pictures of the older, fatter Ronaldo lately? — but this may take the cake: A 12-hour soiree with a transvestite pornstar.
I understand the need to get a**es in the seats for the women’s NCAA Tournament, but the notion that forcing higher-seeded teams to play true road games in the tournament should be seen as some sort of reward for a great season is ludicrous.
Last night, #1 seed Duke was blown out by #9 seed Michigan State in the second round — a game played at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. The Spartans ended the game on a 16-2 run. Think the home court might have had anything to do with it? The crowd was even extra riled up to boo Duke’s current coach, Joanne P. McCallie, who spent seven years as MSU’s coach before bolting for Durham in 2007. Think this was “coincidental” from the tournament committee? Shouldn’t Duke be completely livid about this? For now, the DETROIT FREE PRESS is there to rub it in McCallie’s face.
Meanwhile, other top seeds Connecticut (as if they need any more help) and Maryland got to play their first two games at home, and both cruised to easy wins. The last #1, Oklahoma, was sent to Iowa City but avoided a matchup with the Hawkeyes, who lost in the first round. In another upset, seventh-seeded Rutgers obliterated second-seeded Auburn by 28 points on the Scarlet Knights’ home floor in Piscataway.
We could debate the relative merits of women’s basketball for days here, but one of the reasons that the men’s tournament works so well is that there’s some semblance of neutrality. Sure, UNC gets to play in their home state all the time and Villanova somehow was able to play in Philly. But you would never see, say #9 Siena getting to play #1 Louisville on their home floor in Albany (and wouldn’t that home-court advantage have been enough to lift the Saints to the upset win?).
(Her team might’ve had a prayer in Albany)
Would a Duke-Michigan State women’s game have drawn even 2,000 fans if it were played in Boise or Lubbock? No, and I guess that’s the point. The competitive balance isn’t as important to the NCAA in this tournament as selling tickets, which is just an admission that it’s not something that people really want to watch outside of the markets that are directly involved. But why not just give all of the top two or three seeds home court advantage in the first two rounds? There are ways to do this that don’t involve screwing over teams that work hard all year to earn a high seed only to have to play for their tournament life on the road.
On to the NBA, is there a sadder franchise than the Detroit Pistons right now? I know everyone is injured now, but a team that once looked destined for a dynasty is now reduced to running Kwame Brown and Walter Herrmann out there for key minutes. And that whole Iverson thing has really worked out well. He’s not playing, and now his bank account is about to be $260,000 lighter. They lost again last night, this time to Chicago, and now are tied in the loss column with the Bulls in the playoff race. Which means that there’s a very real possibility they’ll be playing the Cavs in the first round, and it was just two years ago that Cleveland stunned Detroit in the East finals. Now, it would be a shock to not be a Cavs sweep.
(”Can someone please eject me so I don’t have to watch this anymore?”)
• Minor-league outfielder Jose Tabata has some problems. His wife allegedly kidnapped a two-month-old baby on Monday, then was arrested when she turned the infant in yesterday. Oh, and by the way, Jose is 23 years younger than his wife (she’s 43 and he’s 20). And that’s not the worst part — he was traded from the Yankees to the Pirates last year. I think the one of the few things worse than being married to a cougar who kidnaps infants is having to deal with that while playing for the Pirates.
• the WAYNE FONTES EXPERIENCE touches on the passing of George Kell, who was as well known for his days as a play-by-play man for the Tigers as he was for his 14-year Hall-of-Fame playing career. Kell was a 10-time All-Star who hit .300 nine times.
• Wait, so was Ric Flair really injured by Chris Jericho in Monday night’s RAW telecast, or was that just a fake gash, like Massive Head Wound Harry? Or was it supposed to be a fake injury but turned into a real one? Somehow, Flair ended up with 12 staples in his head, according to PWTORCH.
• Making a 75-footer to win a Collegeinsider.com Tournament game is kinda like winning Powerball when it’s only $500,000. And since it’s the CIT, you get to watch Bradley’s win over Oakland from the classic local news baseline camera angle:
• It looks like Ty Lawson is going to play in Friday night’s Sweet 16 game against Gonzaga. Bobby Frasor has done a nice job filling in, but UNC is up against a talented and confident Zags team that can play with anybody. The Lawson-Jeremy Pargo point guard matchup could be a classic.
• George Gillett, who owns the Montreal Canadiens and a controlling stake in NASCAR’s Richard Petty Motorsports, is thinking of selling the hockey team because it’s just too mind-boggling that someone could possibly be involved in both of those things. FULL THROTTLE says Gillett is looking to cut his losses.
Any story that begins with Barack Obama and Coach K sounds like a joke, and they’re about to be joined in a bar by a priest, a rabbi and an imam. But this is no joke: a minor tiff between the Duke coach and the fricking President of the United States threatened to spiral out of control, dragging our country into a second civil war.
What started as a jab by Krzyzewski at Obama over his snub of Duke in his NCAA bracket has required a team running damage control, including Krzyzewski’s wife Mickie, Obama’s aide Reggie Love, and an ESPN investigative team. Everything seems cool now, but for a while there, Coach K might have been the leadership of the Republican party.
