5:29 PMSt. Petersburg Times columnist Robyn E. Blumner is alarmed that state-funded college football coaches inject religion into their programs. She's a little late to the party, but does have a point. Wonder if ACLU will take notice.
5:07 PM Not really sure why the Sacramento Bee is reportingChris Webber calling Sacto "Cowtown" as news. That's what everyone in the state calls the city. Same thing with my hometown, Kansas City - and no one cares there.
4:42 PM Surprise from early games: Texas Tech smokes Oklahoma. Another big win for Mike Leach, who could be headed to Louisville after the season to take over Cards football program.
4:41 PM Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio on NBC-TV tells Jim Brown to "put a sock in it" when it comes to speculation over who will soon be running the Browns organization.
College coaching sources tell me this afternoon that the University of Kansas is in the process of discussing a possible buyout of the contract of football coach Mark Manginowith representatives of the coach.Also,the University of Maryland is meeting with reps of Ralph Friedgen to discuss a possible buyout of his contract. Additionally, Paul Wulff of Washington State is facing the same scenario at this time.
Discussions are ongoing, and none of the deals will likely be announced today. Though my source indicates agreements for each of the three could be consumated by the end of the weekend. Read more…
Meanwhile, over at the INSIDEMD SPORTS.COM message board, a poster is calling for the ouster of University of Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow (pictured below). Not such a big deal … just about everyone at Maryland is unhappy with Yow … baseball coaches, basketball … even him. But there’s one big factor here.
The author of the above message happens to be the John Turner, the father of Maryland starting quarterback Chris Turner. He admitted writing the post to a BALTIMORE SUN reporter on Wednesday. And the elder Turner knows about being unpopular and losing your job, believe me. In the early 1980s he was the drummer for the hair metal band Ratt, before being kicked out just before the group made it big. Read more…
The Maryland Terrapins have overhauled their college football stadium for 2009. If I were a late night television host, I would have said that sentence, literally one person in the audience would have cheered for the mention of the Terps, and we’d get one of those funny, weird vibes in the room that makes other people laugh and then I can joke about one person liking Maryland. I guess what I’m saying is Maryland is marginally popular to the point of amusement.
(Architecture! Renovation! Improvement! Now the team will win more games for sure!)
But we’re getting off track already. Renovated stadium for Maryland, and like all new BCS-level stadia, it’s going to feature luxury suites. Good! And the luxury suites are going to have beer and wine. Better! And it’s going to be strictly limited! Best! Bad news.
You can hardly blame the sports media for overhyping, at every single possible occasion, the importance of public smack-talk by teams before they play an important game. Not only does it make the media’s job of filling inches and radio time that much easier, but it also lets the media feel like they’re part of the game now, even when they aren’t. Whatever “bulletin board material” comes from the pre-game interviews probably has about zero effect on the game itself.
(Not the team you want to talk trash about)
That said, if you’re going to question a team’s credentials, don’t do it if they’re eight seeds better than your team, and really don’t do it to the point where you suggest their team’s no better than yours. Coaches (and 99% of America) know this, and that’s why their players are coached to be boring, generic talking point robots; let’s keep the embarrassment on the court, etc. etc. But then there’s Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez, whose only problem has ever been, um, “caring too much.” Someone asked him a loaded question about Memphis’ strength of schedule, and the star Terrapin answered with the kind of honesty that makes coaches want to quit.
But now it’s time Streeter got his revenge, and he finally gets back at Amir, thanks to a phony half-million-dollar halftime basketball shot. Video of Streeter’s pricey payback starts after the jump.
I’m not going to suggest that the Boston Celtics weren’t completely focused last night, but…for God’s sake, they lost to the freakin’ Los Angeles Clippers! I know that they were without Kevin Garnett, and then Paul Piercedislocated his thumb in the third quarter. And I know that the axiom that there are no easy road games in the NBA.
Except when you are playing the Los Angeles Clippers - I don’t care where you play them or what the circumstances are, that should be an “easy game” for any team. If they can’t beat the Clippers, then I guess we can eliminate the Celtics as legitimate NBA Finals contenders. We might as well go ahead and crown the Lakers…
…who lost to Sacramento earlier this year, who actually somehow have managed to be worse this season than the Clippers. OK then, how about the Cavaliers? What, they lost to Washington earlier this season? We’re going to wind up with the Spurs as champions again, aren’t we. The point is: it was a really, really bad loss, but no worse than any other team has during the course of a season. Let’s not freak out to much about it yet.
Nothing against Nolan Smith, but doesn’t anyone who isn’t a Duke fan feel good about seeing a Blue Devil get laid out by a vicious screen? Maryland’s Dave Neal was the one delivering the shot, flooring Smith and causing Mike Krzyzewski to fume. Smith had to be helped off the court but didn’t appear to be seriously injured, allowing us to enjoy our little moment of schadenfreude:
Of course, as the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER points out, that screen might have been the worst thing that could have happened to the Terrapins, as Duke’s Gerald Henderson came out of the ensuing time out as a man on a mission, scoring 11 of his 19 points in the game’s final 15 minutes and change afterward. Or, it could just be that Duke is a much better team than possibly NIT-bound Maryland; either way, Duke won 78-67.
Meanwhile, this is how bad it’s gotten for Indiana: they were swept by Northwestern. The Wildcats did what would have seemed improbable going into this season, breaking a 35-game losing streak at Indiana on Wednesday with a 75-53 victory. Then again, even with a young, inexperienced team, thinking that Indiana would be 6-21 overall or 1-14 in the Big Ten would have been pretty loopy before the season started.
More sports news as you fire up your NES and decide whether to play “Wrestle Jam” as Randy “The Ram” Robinson or The Ayatollah:
Remember those Powerade commercials that had LeBron Jamessinking one full-court shot after another to the amazement of a local reporter. After watching this pre-game video found by BALL DON’T LIE of King James swishing a more than half-court shot - underhanded- I’m starting to wonder how much editing trickery was used:
Further proof that Alex Rodriguez just doesn’t get it: FOX SPORTS says that after hitting a home run in his first Spring Training game, he left the stadium in an SUV … with his cousin Yuri Sucart, the same cousin who was allegedly his steroid supplier.
REUTERS says Australian swimmer Nick D’Arcy - pulled from the Olympic team after allegedly caving in another athlete’s face during a barroom brawl while celebrating making the team - will have to wait another month to learn his fate.
I know it’s from the Celebrity Game during All-Star Weekend, so it’s a little bit old, but seeing ESPN’s Jon Barry bite this hard on the old Harlem Globetrotters “Confetti in the Bucket” trick is worth it. Didn’t he ever watch the Globetrotters on “Wide World of Sports” as a kid?:
Another day, another investment scam impacting sports. This time NEWSDAY reports that two former New York Islanders executives have been arrested and charged with “with misappropriating more than $500 million in client investments, including tens of millions allegedly taken for things like expensive stallions and pricey Teddy bears.”
More news in the slow, inevitable slog towards Manny Ramirez finally signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers: the LA TIMES reports that the team has made him a two-year, $45 million offer that he could respond to as early as today.
CANES COUNTRY has another sign that either newspapers are dying or economy is falling through a well (or both): the News & Observer has decided to not send reporters to Carolina Hurricanes away games, likely for the rest of the season and possibly beyond.
The PALM BEACH POST reports that Michael Jordan and his 30-year-old paramour, Cuban model Yvette Prieto, are moving in together in a house in suburban Miami. Michael: if you find Charlie Sheen coming out of your house at odd hours of the night, you have bigger things to worry about than your underwear.
Booing never makes much sense. Sure, there are fans who say things like “I was booing the coach, not the players,” or the like, but you can’t make some people on the field/court/rink/chess table hear it and not others. It’s a boo. And unless it’s for a crappy call by the ref, it only compounds a frustrating situation for the athletes. That, and it reflects very poorly on the fan base as a whole.
(By the way, if they were booing his ridiculous beard thing, all commentary below is recalled.)
Maryland basketballer Greivis Vasquez is acutely aware of this, which made for a positively frosty night in College Park last night. According to the WASHINGTON POST (thanks, MR. IRRELEVANT), Vasquez violated Rule #1 of Booing Management 101, which is simple: never, ever, ever engage the fans. When booed after a missed free throw or a bad play, he shushed the fans with his finger or told them to, ahem, “shut the (expletive) up.” Over and over. Read more…
Teams that were supposed to win won, and players that were supposed to perform performed, as the day’s early games seemed just an appetizer for the big OSU-Michigan and Texas-Mizzou tilts.
(The closest Vandy came to stopping Moreno all day).
As Knowshon Moreno goes, so goes the Georgia Bulldogs. Vanderbilt found that out the hard way, falling to UGA 24-14 in the early slate’s only matchup of ranked teams. Moreno trampled the Commdores for a season-high 172 yards, touching the ball on more than a third of Georgia’s snaps. Freshman AJ Green, who is becoming one of Matthew Stafford’s favorite targets, had 132 yards and a touchdown.
