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• Lawyers ask not to bring up Barry Bonds’ testicles during testimony.
• A-Rod’s needle-happy unnamed cousin has finally been found.
• Verne Gagne may have beaten his nursing home roommate to death.
• Penn State & Illinois were very offensive with their offense last night.
Basketball: it’s a beautiful game. Or fantastically ugly, depending on which game you watched last night. On one hand, you had the Phoenix Suns putting up 140 points for the second straight game in their 142-119 victory over the depleted Los Angeles Clippers. On the other, there was Penn State and Illinois, who combined scored exactly one-half as many points as the Suns did in the Nittany Lions’ 38-33 upset victory over the Fighting Illini.
Let’s talk about the latter game first. It wasn’t the lowest scoring game since the 45-second shot clock was introduced in 1986, but it was close. (That distinction belongs to Monmouth’s 41-21 win over Princeton in 2006.) They also flirted with the record for fewest combined points in a half, with the two team’s output of 32 just eclipsing the record of 28 set by Mississippi and South Carolina back in 2003.
The box score tells you all you need to know about the debacle. Exactly one player scored in double digits: Penn State’s Talor Battle, who put up 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting. Heck, the Nittany Lions as a team shot 28.3 percent from the field, and they won.
At least the two teams didn’t let a little thing like not being able to hit the broadside of a barn stop them from shooting the deep ball: they combined to go 6-for-33 from the three-point line. And Illinois didn’t attempt a free throw. For the game. Way to be aggressive, guys. But I guess a win’s a win, even if it’s the most embarrassing and pathetic kind possible. Congratulations, Penn State, I guess.
And then there are the Suns. You’ll excuse me if I don’t get too excited by the sudden return of the high-scoring, fast-paced, exciting Suns with Alvin Gentry as head coach after putting a hurting on the Clippers on back-to-back nights. First off, it’s the Clippers to begin with, but if a team with Amare Stoudemire (for now) can’t murder a team that’s missing Chris Kaman, Marcus Camby, Brian Skinner and Zach Randolph, then something is seriously wrong.
Check back with me on Sunday after you guys visit Boston, and we’ll see how you’re doing.
But the Suns have a date with Oklahoma City before then on Friday, which will be without newly-acquired Tyson Chandler. Permanently. That’s because the Thunder rescinded their trade with New Orleans from Tuesday and sent Chandler back to the Hornets after he failed a physical with their team doctor.
As TRUEHOOP notes, it’s probably going to be pretty awkward in New Orleans as Chandler has to return to the team that just unloaded him for Joe Smith and Chris Wilcox. (By the way, is Joe Smith involved with every strange trade or free agent signing in the NBA?) What makes things even more odd is that Chandler didn’t fail the physical because of his sprained left ankle - it was because of a big toe injury he suffered in 2007. And the Thunder’s doctor was the one who performed the surgery.
And speaking of injuries…Ken Griffey Jr. is back with the Mariners! All joking aside, I think most people of my generation will think it’s pretty neat to see Junior back in a Mariners uniform (presumably) for the rest of his career. And the story of his signing with the Mariners is unique; the SEATTLE TIMES says that apparently the No. 1 salesman for Seattle was Harold Reynolds, a close friend of Griffey’s. He had been working on Griffey to sell him on the move to Seattle when he played his trump card: hugging Willie Mays.
Reynolds set up a phone call between Griffey and the Say Hey Kid, who was Griffey’s idol and the reason he wears No. 24. And sure enough, soon after having the phone conversation with Mays, Griffey told the Mariners that he would sign with them. A great story, although I’m not sure I’d take advice from Willie Mays on how to end your career gracefully.
More sports stories to learn about as you ponder if anyone’s life could be stranger than Tracy Morgan’s…
• NFL Conference Championship weekend in review: The Cardinals soar over the Eagles, while the Steelers pluck the Ravens.
• But who cares about this year’s Big Game when you can already bet on next year’s?
• Rex Ryan is your next Jets coach to be fired after a few seasons.
• The Red Sox are spending money on everything else - why not snatch up a fickle fan’s loyalty, too?
When you think great football, you don’t usually think Northwestern. As an NU alum & fan, I’ve sat through my fair share of woeful Wildcat seasons. But things are looking up for the perennial Big Ten basement dwellers. We have a young & exciting coach in Pat Fitzgerald. We just completed a surprising 9-4 season with yet another bowl game appearance - and we almost won it this time. (Damn Missouri.)
And now NU AD Jim Phillips has come up with a great idea to bring further fun & exposure to a pigskin program on the rise: Play a game against rival Illinois at Wrigley Field.
The Friendly Confines proved to be a fabulous success hosting the outdoor NHL Winter Classic between the Blackhawks & Red Wings. And even more so, the Bears called 1060 W. Addison home for many, many years until settling at Soldier Field.
With so many Wildcat & Illini alums in the Chicago area, and the opportunity to attend a football contest inside such a historic venue, the game would most certainly be a guaranteed sellout.
But there’s only one problem - Illinois doesn’t want to do it.
You might remember Cleveland State as a footnote in NCAA basketball history: back in 1986, the Vikings became the darlings of the hoops world when they beat Indiana and St. Joesph’s to become the first No. 14 seed to reach the Sweet Sixteen. Both their wins came in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, one of the sites for the early rounds of the East Regionals (remember back when game sites actually had some geographical relevance to their bracket?)
Flash-forward 22 years, as Cleveland State makes their return trip to Syracuse, this time to take on the previously-unbeaten and 11th-ranked Orange. The Vikings - thought to be a contender in the Horizon League before a rash of early losses - put up a good fight and lead late, only to see Syracuse’s Arinze Onuaku tie the score at 69-69 with two seconds left on a put-back basket, setting up the inevitable overtime where the better team uses their superior depth and athletic ability to pull away from the game underdogs.
And then this happened:
Cedric Jackson drains the 60-footer - just like they work on it in practice - and Cleveland State stuns Syracuse 72-69. All of which left Orange coach Jim Boeheim pretty irritable at the post-game press conference. Add in a faulty microphone and you’ve got a late contender for coaching meltdown of the year. (Thanks to NESW SPORTS for the heads up 
Yowza. I know it looks bad, but Boeheim was obviously in a bad mood and I’m sure he feels really bad about it. (Although that mic totally had it coming.) After all, he doesn’t want to set a bad example for his students, so they can think they can act out in violent and destructive fashion and not be punished.
Oops, never mind. Still, it’s a great win for Cleveland State head coach Gary Waters. Let’s just hope he doesn’t suffer the same downward spiral that the last Vikings coach to win in Syracuse did, but I hope Waters is smart enough to not get caught high as a kite leaving a crack house.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Eagles kept “Operation Don’t Let a Tie with the Bengals Ruin Our Season” going for at least one more week last night, pasting the Cleveland Browns 30-10. (And really, is there any other way to beat a Ken Dorsey-led team?) That’s three straight wins after the debacle against the Ravens that led to Donovan McNabb’s benching and a general consensus that the Andy Reid Era in Philadelphia was over.
Impressive, but will it be enough? Let’s just say that the odds are stacked against them. Not only will they need to beat Washington (who are imploding, but it’s on the road) and Dallas (the perpetual question mark), but they need either Atlanta (games against Minnesota and St. Louis) or Tampa Bay (San Diego and Oakland) to lose once.
With three almost guaranteed wins there, the Eagles have to pin their postseason hopes on the less-than-golden arm of Tarvaris Jackson. Good luck with that.
Other sports news that happened while you and everyone else in America were not out watching “Delgo” at your local movie theater:
How ironic is it that the giant nail in the coffin of John McCain’s Presidential hopes last night came when the networks declared Ohio for Barack Obama. After all, McCain appeared to run his campaign like Jim Tressel cluelessly bumbling his way through coaching Ohio State to another BCS Title Game meltdown. In this analogy, Obama really was LSU or Florida: faster, hungrier and ready to deliver a hellacious beatdown.
(Does this make Sarah Palin the Maurice Clarett of the ticket - initially exciting but eventually a total disaster? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.)
But while the Maverick of the Senate might have suffered an historic thumping on Tuesday night, the Mavericks of Dallas were taking a venerable but aging institution out to the woodshed, beating the Spurs 98-81 to drop San Antonio to 0-3 for the first time in the team’s NBA history. They can’t possibly be missing Manu Ginobli this much, could they?
And what about Matt Lindland, the MMA fighter who was the Republician candidate for a State House seat? Unfortunately for him, he was about as competitive as Kimbo Slice, as he fell to a double digit defeat at the hands of his Democratic opponent. I would have said that having a campaign manager named Tootie Smith was a bad sign, but then again…Scooter Libby.
On to the other, slightly less significant news:
Remember Chief Illiniwek, the white kid who dressed up in full costume and did a big dance at halftime of every game at the University of Illinois? He was supposed to be gone and buried in 2007, when the school complied with the NCAA’s directive to end all potentially “abusive” imagery involving American Indians.
But not so fast. Seems that a group of Illini students with way too much time (and money, apparently) on their hands are bringing the Chief back, without university approval. However, the group of Chief enthusiasts will be using university property for their new unveiling. This is going to go over great with the NCAA.
We had a decent slate of early games today, with most ranked teams waiting until the late afternoon and evening games to play. But those who slept in missed plenty.
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(Why “Hook ‘em, Horns”? Why not “Gore them” or “Mutilate them”?)
The dominant story, of course, is Oklahoma’s defensive collapse in the Red River Shootout, relinquishing their top ranking after falling to Texas, 45-35. OU was up 14-3 early and still led 28-20 in the third quarter, but Texas scored the last 15 points while Sam Bradford imploded for the Sooners.
And the hilarity didn’t stop in Dallas.
U of Illinois head football coach Ron Zook is an absolutely dogged recruiter and coming off a top season for the program, complete with Rose Bowl appearance as the sacrificial lamb to USC and Pete Carroll.
So, what is he doing for a follow-up with this new-found attention on what used to be a floundering program? He and his football team will be part of a season of reality TV on the BIG TEN NETWORK.
The CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Teddy Greenstein says “Illinois Football: The Journey” will be a 10-13 episode series airing on the conference’s cable channel, which has had some difficulty getting off the ground and into homes.
• Julius Erving doesn’t like it when you call him Bill Russell.
(Dr. J & Bill want to know where’s Kareem’s white hair & beard)
• Here’s probably the only blogger Mark Cuban doesn’t hate.
• Ray Allen’s daughter has been diagnosed with diabetes.
• Rashard Mendenhall is on the warpath with his former Illinois team.
• Rocco Mediate knows to keep quiet around Tiger Woods. But will that silence the scorn of NBC soap viewers?
