Sign of things to come?

The first college basketball game I watched this season was an 8-point Pittsburgh win over Rhode Island. It was November 8th- nearly 3 months ago- and I'm still asking myself, where are the great teams? Because I don't see any.

Ohio State is close. Undefeated actually, but does anyone think the Buckeyes will cut down the nets in Houston? I don't. Jared Sullinger is great, no doubt, but he's still a freshman, which should raise a few concerns if you're picking them to win it all in your office pool.

This weekend saw a remarkable 13 ranked teams lose, and 9 of those losses came against unranked opponents.

The Big East looked to be head and shoulders above the other conferences, but its top teams continue to lose. The AP's No. 2 Pittsburgh lost to Notre Dame this week.  Uconn lost to Louisville Sunday. Syracuse has lost 4 in a row. Villanova has dropped 3 of 4. We hear every year how great the conference is, but the Big East hasn't had a national champ since Uconn in 2004.

The loss of Duke's Kyrie Irving has hurt the Blue Devils, who were were taken out early by St. Johns Sunday. That's another questionable loss for Duke, who lost to Florida State on January 12th.

Kansas and Texas are the teams in the Big 12 this year, and one of the two will probably grab a No. 1 seed in the dance. Kansas lost to the Longhorns last Saturday, ending their 69 game home winning streak and undefeated season. Texas already has 3 losses but are playing as well as anyone right now.

BYU and San Diego State look like potential Butlers or Davidsons this year, but neither looks truly great so far.


Most years by this time, I have 2-3 teams who I think will win it all. Last year it was Kansas or Duke.

Right now I could fill out 10 brackets and have 10 different winners. The level of parity should make for a ridiculous NCAA tournament, which might have more upsets in 2011 than any year in recent memory.

Nobody watches the Pro Bowl anymore

Do they? I've probably watched the game once or twice in the last 10 years. And when I say "watched the game" I mean I turned it on for a few possessions before turning the channel or throwing the remote through a window out of sheer agony.

Football is as popular as it is in America because of the violence. We love the hits, hate the penalties for big hits, and want to see more violence. Football's main draw is the exact reason its all-star game is on par with figure skating and billiards on ESPN 2.

Baseball, basketball, and hockey all have much more entertaining all-star games. Baseball is the best in my opinion, because it's the hardest to fake.

You can decide whether to take a charge or not. Or whether you want to check a guy into the boards, or lay out a receiver coming across the middle. But you can't decide if you're going to hit a curveball. You just do it. Pitchers go all out for their 1 inning and guys are swinging for the fences. It's easily the closest to a real game you'll find among the 4 major sports.

So how should they fix the Pro Bowl? Any of these would be more entertaining:

-Make it 7-on-7. Take out the lineman and just the skill positions play.
-Take the 2 worst teams in the league and let the winner get the #1 pick in the draft.
-Make the game mean something: One member of the losing team gets shipped to...... Detroit. Just one year though. Let's not be too harsh.
-Take notes from the NHL and have a draft.
-Make the entire losing team watch a replay of the Pro Bowl immediately following the game.
-Get rid of it


Any of these would work, commissioner. No one is watching anyway.

108-3?

This will be my first and last post about high school girls basketball, I promise.

I just read about a beating of epic proportions. Christian Heritage High (Utah) utterly destroyed conference foe West Ridge Academy 108-3 last week.

The soccer moms might want to leave the room for this one, because I have no problems with that score after reading the winning coach's comments after the beating.

Heritage's coach after the game, from the article:

"That's why I'd rather have a team play me straight up, and that's why I played them straight up. Because I didn't want to taunt them, I didn't want to embarrass them, I didn't want them to think we could do whatever we want."

Someone gets it. This isn't 2nd grade CYC basketball on a 7-foot hoop. These are 17 and 18 year old kids. If the score was so bad, they could have forfeited. Or, if they were feeling really crazy, they could have hit a shot or two. Or 50.

So maybe West Ridge doesn't belong in the same universe as Heritage, let alone the same conference.

It's not the other team's fault they played a terrible squad.

And anyone who's ever played at the YMCA has seen that guy. He's the guy who played in college. He's better than anyone else in the gym and it's not even close. And for some reason, he likes to mess around, passing up easy layups or dunks just to dribble around instead of putting you out of your misery. That's 100 times worse than losing 11-0 and stepping off the court.

If a bunch of hacks at the local rec would rather be played straight up, a legit high school varsity team should feel the same way.

And if not, I'm sure there's a CYC league they can join. Maybe their moms will give them capri suns and cookies after the games too. And if they're lucky, maybe they won't keep score.

Conference championship weekend

Could you get 4 better teams in the conference title games? Tradition, titles, and hall-of-famers falling off the bone here:

Bears: Home of the Super Bowl Shuffle, Bill Swerski's Super Fans, and 26 members in the Hall of Fame (most in the NFL) including Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, and Walter Payton. Not bad at all.

Packers: The Super Bowl trophy is named after a Packers coach, There's about a 50 year waiting list for season tickets, 21 members in the Hall of Fame (second only to Chicago), 3 Super Bowl titles, and their fans wear cheese on their heads.

Jets: A New York team (So they'll never be as good as the media wants us to think, but we'll still hear about them non-stop) One Super Bowl title in 1968, Home of one of the craziest fans ever, Fireman Ed, A hilarious head coach, and last but not least, Bart Scott. He can't wait!

Steelers: A ridiculous 6 Super Bowl wins, One of the best football dynasties ever in the 70's, third most Hall Of Fame members, One of the league's best fan bases (tied with Green Bay as best in my book), and a quarterback looking to tie Tom Brady with 3 rings.


Packers (-3) @ Bears, Sunday 2:00 CT: The greatest rivalry in professional football right here. These teams have been playing since 1921, the longest in the NFL. 181 meetings but only once in the playoffs, in 1941 with the Bears winning 33-14. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been playing out of this world lately, throwing for 22 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions in his last 9 games. The Green Bay defense has played even better recently, only giving up 12 points per game the last 3 weeks. The Bears dominated the Seahawks with the help of a great performance by QB Jay Cutler, throwing for 2 TD's and rushing for 2 more. However, I couldn't tell how much playing the Seahawks had to do with the big game. Cutler is only 1-4 against the Packers all-time and I think Green Bay's blitzing defense will be too much on Sunday. The Packers were my pre-season Super Bowl pick (I had them beating Peyton Manning) and I'm not turning back now.  Packers 30, Bears, 20
  

Jets @ Steelers (-3.5) Sunday 5:30 CT: Bart Scott's tirade after the Jets' win over the Patriots is an all-time great, especially after that war of words the two franchises had over the course of the week. For some reason, The Jets shut up this week. I don't know why. I get that they respect the Steelers, Big Ben, and Mike Tomlin. But the Patriots are identical to the Steelers. Why stop now, Rex? Maybe he understands Roethlisberger does nothing but win in the post-season? Tom Brady is the same way, I'm still confused. Anyway, it's going to be mighty tough for the Jets to knock off THREE super bowl winning quarterbacks in a row, all on the road no less. They've already taken out Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. I think their run stops in the big ketchup bottle on Sunday night. Steelers 27, Jets 14.

Unwritten rules for fans

We all know about the unwritten rules in sports. In baseball you never lay down a bunt to break up a no hitter. When intentionally throwing at a hitter, don't aim high. If a pitcher gives up back-to-back home runs, step out of the box and give him a second before digging in. The list goes on and is used in every sport.

Fans should have a code too. Maybe they do and I just don't know about it. Either way, after watching Santa Clara students storm the court tonight after Santa Clara beat Gonzaga 85-71 it got me thinking. Why exactly did they storm the court? Gonzaga isn't great this year. Sure, they had dominated 23 of the previous 25 meetings, but they aren't special this season.

There should be rules for this. You should never, under any circumstances, storm the court if:

1) Your team is favored
2) You beat an unranked team
3) You are ranked
4) You've won a national title in the last 20 years.

I didn't think #4 needed to be said, but I found this video of Syracuse fans storming the Carrier Dome court in 2008 after beating Georgetown.

In case you forgot, Syracuse won the 2003 National Championship. Why their fans felt the need to act like Tennessee Tech just beat the Lakers is beyond me.


Irrational storming of courts is just one of my fan pet peeves, followed closely by:

-fair-weather fans in general.
-Saying a score with the lower score first. "It's only 4 to 9 right now!"
-Saying "we" when referencing your favorite college team when you never actually attended the school.
-Telling everyone within earshot, "The refs are out to get us!"

My college hoops top 10, January 20th edition

1) Ohio St.: This could be Ohio St. or Kansas at #1, as both teams have had recent struggles with less than stellar competition. The Buckeyes escaped Iowa, Michigan, and Penn St. by less than 5 points in the last 2 weeks.

2) Kansas: After struggling to beat Michigan, Iowa St, and Nebraska, the Jayhawks put on a clinic against Baylor Monday night, 85-65. Texas travels to Lawrence on Saturday, and the winner will be in the driver's seat in the Big 12.

3) Pittsburgh: If I was picking a national champion right now, Pittsburgh would be my team. After opening Monday night's game against Syracuse on a 19-0 run, the Panthers held on for an eight point win and improved their record to 18-1.

4) Syracuse: The Orange almost recovered from that ridiculously bad start Monday, but spotting Pittsburgh 19 points was too much. This is still a really good team, though. They have another big game Saturday at home against Villanova.

5) Duke: I'm still not sold the Blue Devils can win a title without Kyrie Irving. I think the outstanding guard trio of Irving, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler can make up for the lack a of post presence, but without Irving it might be tough.

6) Connecticut: Another Big East team? Yes, the conference is that good right now. Kemba Walker is on the short list of national player of the year honors, and they just beat my #7 team, 61-59.

7) Villanova: Last Big East team, I promise. The two Coreys, Fisher and Stokes, are getting 16 and 15 ppg respectively. Fisher went off for 28 points in Monday's loss to Connecticut, but the Wildcats are still a game ahead of Uconn in the Big East standings.

8) Texas: If head coach Rich Barnes can somehow stay out of the way, Texas can make a deep run in March this year. They certainly have the talent to compete with Kansas for the Big 12 title with Jordan Hamilton averaging 19 points a game.

9) San Diego State: I'm not really sure about San Diego State yet. They're undefeated, but they haven't played a ton of good teams so far. The rest of their schedule only has three obstacles remaining: @BYU Jan. 26th, @UNLV Feb. 12th, and BYU at home on Feb. 26th. 3 wins there and we might have an undefeated team this season.

10) BYU: The only reason I like BYU here is Jimmer Fredette's ability to score at will most nights. The Cougars are 18-1 and are 6th in the nation in scoring, getting 84 points a game.

NFL playoffs: Does seeding really matter?

In the last 10 years, at least one wild card team has made the Super Bowl 7 times.

2001, 2002, and 2009 are the only exceptions. And if the Packers or Jets win this weekend, we'll have another wild card team representing their conference, which begs the question: How much does seeding really matter?

Every team fights all year for that first round bye and home field advantage, but it often seems like it doesn't even matter. Take this season as an example. The Jets and Packers are 6-seeds, yet they've already won two road playoff games as underdogs. The Jets just beat Peyton Manning and Tom Brady on the road, and if they beat the Steelers this Sunday, they would have beaten three Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in a row, all on the road no less.

The Packers had to win their last two regular season games just to get into the post-season, only to have a date on the road with the Falcons, the #1 seed. The Falcons had a week off while Green Bay was already in playoff mode for two weeks. We all saw what happened, the Packers put on a clinic on their way to a 48-21 win.


Obviously every team and it's fans want a bye to rest up and home field advantage, but as we see every year, it doesn't really matter.