7:32 PM I'm sure Michigan football fans will be more than happy to spend an additional $83,000 to maintain their seat location at Michigan Stadium. With RichRod piloting the ship and the state of the economy, all is well.
Earlier today I posted video of Jerrell Jackson’s incredible one-hand snatch against Colorado. Just a few minutes later, Riley Cooper also made an improbably single-handed grab for a touchdown against Georgia.
(Jerell Jackson and Riley Cooper: Spectacular)
There’s no doubt that Jackson made the better catch. The angle that he caught the ball was such that there’s very few guys out there with the hand strength to make that grab.
That’s not to discount Cooper’s catch, but the point is, there’s a lot more guys who could’ve converted Cooper’s completion compared to what Jackson’s, which was something out of Cirque de Soleil. Jackson’s played looked like it was out of one of those some recent NFL commercials that were faked via special effects.
UPDATE: Florida’s Riley Cooper also made a jaw-jacking grab in the UF-UGA tilt. I matched up videos of both catches today for you to decide (vote on) which was better. I still say Jackson’s (below) was the superior haul.
Missouri’s Jerrell Jackson is your leader in the clubhouse for college football’s catch of the year.
Apparently when the majority of us moved into the new millennium, a few unfortunate folks in the Midwest lagged behind and got lost. Those would be administrators in the University of Missouri athletic department, who somehow failed to realize that when you auction off your coaching staff’s old cell phones, it might be wise to erase the personal information therein.
(Unfortunate Ad Placement)
Columbia resident Mike Bellman bought the 25 cell phones for $190, and hilarity ensued. He had planned to sell the phones for parts, but after discovering that they still had stuff on them such as Mike Anderson’s personal texts and emails, he decided to do things the American way and sell them as collector’s items. Read more…
As much as the media likes to wring its hands about vicious anonymous Internet sports fans contributing to the downfall of Western civilization with their uncouth attacks on the media, rivals, coaches, athletic directors, and the NCAA, the truth is that fans have long found ways to give voice to their concerns/taunts that have nothing to do with a computer. Like, for example, the billboard.
This billboard popped up in South Bend, Indiana, the other day. In case you live in a sports black hole, you’ll recognize it as impugning the lackluster coaching abilities of Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. This is just the latest in a long lines of rather clever sports billboards put in strategic locations. But how does it stack up against the great sports billboards of the past? Let’s take a walk down memory lane.
Who is this mysterious fake Chase Daniel? The real one — formerly the quarterback for the Missouri Tigers, currently with the Washington Redskins — is royally peeved that someone has apparently put up a Facebook page using his name. And Daniel, the real one, is not a person to let a social networking insult slide. Oh, no.
Daniel has gone out of his in interviews to emphasize that he doesn’t use his real name on his Facebook page — of which only a few people know the url. But lately, he says, someone has been Facebooking using his name. So Daniel took to Twitter to ask people to get the word out that this Facebook Chase Daniel is a cad and an imposter. Read more…
Back in 2005, the Missouri football team lost a freshman defensive end named Aaron O’Neal, who collapsed during a summer workout and died shortly thereafter. Only last month, nearly four years later, did the University of Missouri settle a lawsuit with O’Neal’s family, which awarded them $2 million.
But there’s plenty that’s fishy about the settlement, which is sort of to be expected when dealing with young men who die under athletic supervision. As the ASSOCIATED PRESS notes, the settlement is worded (and trust us, this is no accident) to absolve anyone involved of blame:
Missouri agreed in March to pay O’Neal’s parents, settling a 3 1/2-year-old suit before trial. The settlement includes language that attributes no fault to [head coach Gary] Pinkel, athletic director Mike Alden, sports medicine director Rex Sharp, strength and conditioning director Pat Ivey and 10 other current or past university employees.
That’s incredibly strange, when you consider the litany of decisions made by Missouri staff that likely directly led to O’Neal’s death. Read more…
Any grousing about how the Big East didn’t deserve three 1 seeds in the tournament is pretty much dead and buried at this point, isn’t it? Aside from the fact that the original argument relied exclusively on “because it just shouldn’t be that way” rather than “because Memphis/Duke/Oklahoma earned it more than UConn,” it’s been proven true throughout the tournament, and especially today.
(FTW! No seriously, this was for the win.)
During the early game, UConn held off the same unusually frisky Missouri team that ran Memphis right out of the gym. The final was 82-75, with freshman (eep!) Kemba Walker scoring 23 points on just nine shots from the field (EEP!) for UConn.
That game didn’t hold a candle, though, to one of the best Elite 8 games of all time, as Pitt and Villanova (both Big East, mind you) went toe-to-toe, using every single bit of their 40 minutes before Villanova prevailed, 78-76. Read more…
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.
Here’s a new rule, proposed by me and submitted via blog: if you’re not on the roster at the start of the NCAA tourney, you don’t get to play. I really think Vegas will be behind me on this one.
You might have guessed this new rule has something to do with Dominic James, Marquette’s star point guard. His broken foot coincided with the Golden Eagles’ fall from the ranks of college basketball’s elite. Well, by the power of Jesus, or maybe Dwyane Wade, James is at this very moment getting ready to suit up against Mizzou.
Take a minute to crumple up your bracket, and join me after the jump. Read more…
