11:35 PMCal upsets Stanford @ The Farm on Saturday night 34-28. Cardinal QB Andrew Luck goes 11-29 passing, including a late INT deep in Cal territory. Coach Jim Harbaugh with a questionable 4th down, Belichickian call that caused Stanford to need a late TD to win.
10:09 PM ESPN BCS guru Brad Edwards reports today on ESPN Radio that Penn State will be selected over Iowa for Fiesta Bowl. Iowa is likely to land in the Capital One Bowl, in a game against Ole Miss. Edwards cited TV ratings, fueled by Joe Paterno's presence, as reason PSU gets BCS over Iowa.
10:08 PMDrew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press reports on ESPN News Saturday night that UM AD Bill Martin has confirmed Rich Rodriguez will be back next season as Michigan Coach.
Hey man. You cool? You look cool, man. Don’t be narc-ing on me or nothin’, all right? Let’s all just be cool. You got any of the good stuff on you? Aw man, you’re sober? Here? Now? Too bad, man, you’re totally missing out.
(Lady Liberty’s reaching me! This is the most intense anthem EVER!)
Don’t look at me funny; I get kinda ‘noided out when people start looking at me funny. Totally harshing my mellow. Like, it’s cool if you’re allergic to LSD or whatever, I got a cousin like that who won’t touch the stuff, that’s cool man! That’s cool. I’m just sayin’, you haven’t lived through the Star Spangled Banner ’til you expand your mind. Aw, hold on, hold on, the show’s about to start! Here we go! This is gonna roooooooooooock!
Ah, the beginning of October. It’s a magical time, when a good 20 college football teams are still dreaming of hoisting the glass football. That includes Boise State, oddly enough; the perennial mid-major Cinderella is counting its ifs for reaching the title game, according to the IDAHO STATESMAN, and none of them are entirely unreasonable.
(”Give me freedom or… wait, the Statue of Liberty doesn’t say that. Great, now I just look ridiculous.”)
But wait. It seems paradoxical, but is getting a non-BCS team to the BCS Championship Game really in the best interest of the non-BCS conferences? It really depends on your definition of the word “fair.”
Earlier this week, Pete Carroll raise a few eyebrows when he more or less said that Washington’s Jake Locker was a better QB than Terrelle Pryor. After all, Carroll’s Trojans just beat Terrelle’s Buckeyes, and #3 USC was expected to humiliate the Huskies up in Seattle today. I mean, come on - Washington was winless last year and needed to beat lowly Idaho last week to end a 15-game losing streak.
Turns out Pete was right all along - and we’re sure he wishes he wasn’t.
It’s a scientific fact* - the only people who like football’s BCS system are the people who are getting rich off of it. The suits who run the BCS conferences and athletic programs, the corporations who sponsor college football games and broadcasts, the sham “non-profit” organizations whose “revenue in excess of expenses” overfloweth - these are the people who love the BCS, and unfortunately it’s their opinions that count when it comes to any potential reorganization of college football.
(Small conference football doesn’t matter, right?)
The non-BCS conferences have been complaining about this for years. Programs like Boise State have proved that teams from smaller conferences can compete and win at the highest levels of competition. The Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences and people like Sen. Orrin Hatch have been yelling loud and clear that the system is broken. But when given an opportunity to take a stand and strike a serious blow to the BCS’ legitimacy, what did the MWC and WAC do? They signed an agreement to keep the current system in place. So much for social justice.
That sound you heard in New York last night were league officials and ABC executives quietly weeping into their gin and tonics while watching Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Because what they were watching was the one thing they didn’t need: a Los Angeles Lakers blowout. For the casual fan, the 100-75 drubbing of the Orlando Magic just confirmed what they already knew, that this series is a letdown after the hype of Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James, and the Lakers are going to crush the upstart Magic.
Sure, it was close…for a little over a quarter. The Magic did have a five-point lead early in the second quarter, and then the roof collapsed. This is what happens when a team that relies on three-point shooting has a sub-par shooting game (going 8-for-23 from beyond the arc). Without having to fear the Magic from the outside, the Lakers could double and triple-team Dwight Howard, a form of kryptonite that even Superman couldn’t overcome, going 1-for-6 and scoring just 12 points.
So while Howard struggled, Kobe was superb, scoring 40 points while coming close to a triple-double. He had 12 points in the second quarter as the Lakers established their dominance, and was able to create opportunities for Pau Gasol and the rest of his supporting cast. And with Phil Jackson being 43-0 in series where his team wins the opening game, Magic coach Stan Van Gundy has to be sweating through his Men’s Wearhouse coat.
But if the Magic need any inspiration, they only need to look to the Stanley Cup (assuming they get Versus in central Florida). Facing a 2-0 deficit against the defending champion Detroit Red Wings, the Pittsburgh Penguins have rallied to tie the series after a 4-2 win in Game 4. Which is especially impressive since they managed to turn an early lead into a 2-1 hole in the second period, which could have easily crippled a lesser team.
And in what can only be seen as a good sign for the Penguins, Sidney Crosby had his first goal of the series, while Evgeni Malkin added a goal and an assist. So now we basically have a best-of-three series starting tomorrow night in Detroit. While the Red Wings are still probably going to win the series, at least the Penguins have made it interesting.
Finally, let’s tip our hat to Randy Johnson, who became the first pitcher since Tom Seaver in 1985 to get his 300th victory in his first attempt thanks to the Giants’ 5-1 victory over the Nationals. Thank you for sparing us of the daily update on the ESPN crawl and live game updates ruining our PBA Tour broadcasts on Wednesday nights on ESPN2. The Giants are planning a pregame celebration before their next home game to congratulate Johnson on his 300 career wins - all four of them with San Francisco.
The French Open women’s singles final is set, with Dinara Safina and Svetlana Kuznetsova taking each other on in an all-Russian final. In terms of eye candy, this isn’t exactly the Maria Sharapova vs. Ana Ivanovic Australian Open final from last year.
Calvin Borel isn’t just confident that he’s going to win the Belmont Stakes on Mine That Bird to win the jockey Triple Crown, he’s guaranteeing it. (At least that’s what we think he said with molasses-thick drawl.) If he does pull this off, does this mean he gets put out to stud?
LeBron, here’s your slap on the wrist: the NBA fines King James $25,000 for bailing on the post-game press conference after the Cavs’ Game 6 loss to the Magic in the Eastern Conference finals. Plus, you made David Stern cry. How does that feel, LeBron.
You want Dontrelle Willis to succeed in his comeback with the Tigers, but then something like this happens: in 2-1/3 innings against the Red Sox yesterday, Willis gave up five runs without allowing a hit, walking five and hitting a batter.
Just when you thought that it couldn’t get worse for the New York Mets than getting swept by the Pirates, it also turns out that Jose Reyeshas a torn hamstring.
John Raines, a substitute teacher and athletic trainer at Sussex Central High in Delaware, has been arrested and charged with “inappropriately touching a student-athlete while treating her injury and threatening to prevent her from playing her sport when she tried to stop his advances.” Which is bad enough, but even worse when considering he’s the second faculty member arrested on sex crimes in the past two days and the third within a year.
Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson has selected ESPN’s Chris Berman to introduce him before his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and PRO FOOTBALL TALK wonders if that’s such a great idea. (Seriously, was Jim Kelly busy?)
Former Tulsa football player Neal Sweeney apparently got into a business dispute with the wrong person, as it ended up with him being shot dead at his fuel sales company. Police have arrested the person they believe is the triggerman, and hope this leads to further breaks in the case.
Maurice Neal, a linebacker for the Utah Utes, has been arrested in connection with a bar fight where he took out two men. Shouldn’t Utah be the last place that a bar fight should be happening?
Rick Majerus: good-natured goofball or basketball tyrant? Despite the image he tries to project (and his resemblance to the Dad from “Just the Ten of Us,” it’s becoming abundantly clear that the only thing the former Utah and current St. Louis coach loves more than a free buffet is making his players’ lives miserable. At St. Louis, he’s managed to set the bar so low for his team before the season that they’ve tripped over it and later said his team had no chance to win the conference tournament.
But that’s nothing compared to his exploits at Utah, where according to an earlier SPORTS ILLUSTRATED piece he had a thing about being naked and showing off his … ahem … Running Ute. Somewhat lost in the hubbub and mass vomit that took place thanks to the mental images created of a sweaty, naked Rick Majerus naked in a steamroom was his treatment of certain players, including center Lance Allred, who has 80 percent hearing loss. Majerus might have been cleared of any wrongdoing in a school investigation, but a new book by Allred reviewed by CLEVELAND SCENE sheds more light onto his claims.
Ever since Lane Kiffin arrived at Rocky Top, the Tennessee head honcho has been making his case as the kookiest coach in the SEC. (Ripping off recruits’ shirts, warning other recruits they’ll end up pumping gas for a living, that sort of thing.) And it seems Lane is well on his way to leap past the previous king of SEC lunacy, Nick Saban. (Comparing a loss to Louisiana-Monroe to 9/11 & Pearl Harbor, threatening recruits that he’ll turn them in to the NCAA, that sort of thing.)
But we should all know well enough that you can’t keep the Crimson Tide coach down for long. Sooner or later, Saban will do or say something silly once again to reclaim his crown as the SEC’s top screwball. And he doesn’t disappoint, as Nick knows who to blame for Alabama’s poor performance in last season’s Sugar Bowl:
Across the country, companies from across all industries are forcing employees to take unpaid furloughs to try and bridge gaps in their fiscal budget. Well, colleges are no exception, and at some pretty big schools like Arizona State, Clemson and Maryland, senior employees like head coaches are being hit in the wallet worse than nearly anyone else. According to this story in USA TODAY, Sun Devils football coach Dennis Erickson will lose at least $20,800 of his $450,000 annual salary for the 10-12 day period he’s going to be forced to take off.
(You wanna know what I think of the furlough program!?!)
In the big scheme of things, $21G is hardly a huge deal for Erickson, who gets additional compensation from performance bonuses and lucrative sponsorship tie-ins. Still, $21G is $21G, and it’s pretty hard to believe that he’s cool with just writing off the cash.
We know what you’re saying: “Wait, who scored how many on which team now?” The answer to that is not as significant as the subset in which the points came: A college basketball game in the SEC.
That’s right, Jodie Meeks, a junior guard for Kentucky, had the night of a lifetime, dropping a whopping 54 points on the No. 24 Tennessee Volunteers in a shockingly one-sided 90-72 win. Meeks hit 10 of his 15 three-point attempts, helping the Wildcats take control of a game that was still up in the air in the second half. In the process, he set the Kentucky record for most points in a single game. Really. It’s also the most points scored by one player in regulation in a decade, and six teams scored fewer total points on Tuesday night than Meeks did himself.
Not surprisingly, his coach and teammates had some choice quotes about the junior sharp-shooter.
“It was the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen,” said his coach, Billy Gillispie.
“I wouldn’t be talking at all,” Kentucky forward Patrick Patterson said about Tennessee players who he said continued to talk trash. “My mouth would be shut. Especially when a guy’s got 54 in your own gym. They can talk all they want. Jodie’s shots speak for themselves.”
If you’re like us, you saw the name of the NCAA nightly stud and thought, “Who is this Meeks guy?” Well, here’s some things we should all get to know about the most legitimate single-game college output since Kevin Durant was still wearing orange.
Meeks is averaging more than 24 points-per-game this season, which means we probably should have known about him already.
He was on the 2007 All-SEC Freshman Team and All-America Freshman Team (so we really should have known about him)
He’s from Norcross Georgia (how did he possibly not end up at Georgia Tech?)
Meek’s 24 ppg (before Tuesday’s avalanche) were a stunning improvement from his prior seasons, when he averaged 8 ppg … despite playing fewer than 10 minutes less per game.
While the 54 points were beyond what anyone could have expected, these big busts aren’t unanticipated; he dropped 46 on Louisville at Freedom Hall back on December 20. Guess he really likes playing on the road.
Here are the highlights from Meeks’ absurd performance. Grab your popcorn, you don’t want to miss any of it.
The best part about Meeks? His demeanor actually matches his name. There was no jersey-popping after his big night, just honest answers. When asked why his performance was so special, he just dropped this gem: “We just never won here before.” Priceless.
If Kevin Garnett thinks Paul Pierce is Superman, what does that make LeBron James? We ask because LeBron’s triple-doubles have become almost matter-of-fact, with last night’s triple-double — it was just another workmanlike 30 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists — in Cleveland’s 102-87 win in Memphis almost seemed like an afterthought. With the Grizzlies on the schedule, you actually expected LeBron to drop a triple-double with at least 30 points.
The most amazing thing is that the points and rebounds weren’t even the most impressive part about LeBron’s night. No, that would be his defense, which included an early block that clearly set the tone for Cleveland’s defensive pressure.
Then there are plays like this, which really just aren’t fair.
It’s almost impossible to think about just how significant a cultural factor LeBron will be if the Cavaliers somehow win the title. He’s on the cover of this month’s edition of GQ. He makes his own commercials for Nike. Heck, he’s making the city of Cleveland relevant. That’s astounding in itself.
In fact, LeBron is already such a household name, and his cultural morays thereby tacitly acceptable, that he may subtly do for tattoos what Michael Jordan did for baggy shorts. Think about it. BronBron sports nearly full-sleeve tattoos on both arms, with images swirling into one another. He’s added to his tat collection each season, and it almost seems like a matter of time before the shirts with all of his tattoos start flying off the shelves (remember the Iverson edition back in the day?). By 2020, don’t be surprised if 75 percent of the people you know are sporting tats of some kind, and a lot of that may be due to LeBron, whether we want to admit it or not.
Speaking of basketball and the (not so) distant future, this announcement seemed to slip past most radars yesterday: Billy Packer and Bob Knight are going to be providing NCAA Tournament analysis for FOX SPORTS from Las Vegas during the opening weekend of this spring’s tournament. And, because they’re in Vegas, Packer and Knight are going to be televising their rants from a casino sports book.
(Get thee to Vegas, and quick!)
That seems like a good idea. After all, a sports book is definitely the place to catch all the first and second round action. And all of this would be well and good except, as FANHOUSE delicately points out, for the fact that the NCAA absolutely, positively does not condone gambling on its games.
That’s right folks, FOX SPORTS is openly thumbing its nose at the NCAA, taking a preeminent coach and a recently deposed preeminent broadcaster and having them talk about the tournament from the very site that the NCAA wants to believe won’t touch the games themselves. It’s a little like holding a dieting workshop at the entryway to a Twinkies factory. Sure, Packer and Knight may not talk about the gambling lines, but they’ll be surrounded by them. You might even be able to see them scrawl across the backdrop behind their set.
Just one more incident that proves the NCAA has much less power than it thinks it does. That and that alone should at least give the rest of us hope that eventually we’ll get that football playoff, by hook or crook (smart money’s on crook, sad as it may be).
Will the last person not named Bill Belichick on the New England coach staff or front office please turn off the lights? We know that Billy-B sleeps on a cot already.
If there was any question that Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo is headed to Real Madrid this summer, doubters should consider this: His agent is already copyrighting “CR9“, meaning his next number is probably “9″.
It was close, but last night’s BCS Championship Game was far from a classic. Now nobody’s sure who the best team in the country is, with Utah, USC, and Texas all able to make legitimate claims. It certainly didn’t look like either one of the teams playing last night deserved it. The only thing we do know is that Fox broadcaster Thom Brennaman has a Florida-sized man crush on Tim Tebow, who finally decided to not suck in the fourth quarter of the Gators’ 24-14 win over Oklahoma. Brennaman and Charles Davis‘ gushing reached unbearable levels late in the game, when, after Tebow received a taunting penalty, they suggested that he was baited into it by an OU player (with zero evidence to suggest that was true). How could this guy have possibly done anything wrong?:
As for the Sooners, Sam Bradford continued a storied tradition of that year’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback playing like crap in the title game. Lions fans officially have nothing to look forward to.
The highlight of the game for me personally was the fact that ACC referee Ron Cherry was involved. Cherry made waves last season for creating a new reason to call a personal foul:
We know that the coaches are supposedly required to give their #1 vote to the BCS winner (although Utah’s Kyle Whittingham says he’s voting for his team), but the AP title was up for grabs. And even though Florida’s win could be considered somewhat lackluster (the defensive effort was really good, I’ll admit), they got 48 of 64 first-place votes, with the Utes receiving the other 16 and finishing #2. Way to make a statement, there, disgruntled sportswriters of America.
Rocco Baldelli and his weird mystery disease signed with the Red Sox yesterday. He’ll only get $500,00 in base salary, but can earn an additional $1.75 million if he stays on the roster all year. John Smoltz is rumored to be the next signing for the Red Sox. Meanwhile, Trevor Hoffmansigned a $6 million dollar deal to be the closer for the Brewers this year.
Let’s get on with the linking:
• YAHOO SPORTS’ Adrian Wojnarowski writes that the Portland Trail Blazers are threatening litigation against any team that decides to sign Darius Miles. The Blazers were able to purge Miles’ contract from their salary cap last year when they succesfully argued that he had suffered career-ending injuries. But Miles recovered, and has played eight games. If he plays two more games, his salary goes back on Portland’s cap, limiting the Blazers’ versatility in the offseason free-agent market and also sending luxury tax money to every other team in the league. The Blazers are worried that some team will sign Miles to a 10-day contract just to screw them over.
• Stanford’s win over Washington in women’s basketball was expected. But nobody really thought the Cardinal would win the game by 77 points. Yikes. It’s the largest margin of victory in Pac-10 history. Stanford led 62-15 at halftime and rolled to a 112-35 win. The SEATTLE P-I has the game story.
• Iowa Hawkeyes radio broadcaster and former NFL player Ed Podolak was having some fun down in Tampa last week before the Outback Bowl. THE WIZ OF ODDS has the photos, courtesy of an Iowa State message board (of course):
• Curt Schilling is getting after Dan Shaughnessy again, this time about Shaughnessy treating Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez differently in the same situation and suggesting the race card. THE BIG LEAD has the details.
• The EXAMINER’s Paula Duffy reports that the WNBA and L.A. Sparks are doing their best to pretend that they aren’t furious over the news that 2008 league MVP Candace Parker is pregnant. Parker is set to give birth in May, and it’s unclear when she’ll be able to return to the court, if at all, in 2009.
