Bobcats Mother Bitches!

The Michigan perspective

Some of you may already be familiar with Detroit's Sports Talk Radio legend Mike Valenti. He is a Michigan State alum that is most famous for going completely postal following the Spartans' absolute meltdown against Notre Dame about five years ago. If you haven't heard that it is worth a listen, and you can find it here.

On Friday Valenti was taking some reaction from Michigan fans that had just had their guts ripped out by Evan Turner. The best part is the replay of the Michigan radio call. The podcast is only about 15 mins. long and at times hilarious.

Additionally, Eff Michigan.

Obviously the Turner shot was the best part of the game. I loved this stat that they flashed on the screen during the game though. Thad Matta and Jim Tressel are a combined 18-3 against Michigan. AWESOME.

Suck it Michigan.

Just one question...

Who is Thad Matta yelling at after the shot?

Zach G.

10,000 team basketball tournament in the works according to Jim Boeheim

Nice suit.

That's of course Syracuse Head Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim. I heard an interview with Jim a day or two ago where once again he was discussing the number of teams in the NCAA tournament. For several years now Coach Boeheim has been saying that there should be more teams in the tournament.

Given that no team seeded lower than 8th has ever won the thing, that certainly seems to make sense. Clearly what one of the best sporting events going needs is the addition of a whole bunch of other teams that have absolutely no chance of winning the thing.

Most coaches are likely in favor of an expanded tournament. Why? Because nothing gets a coach fired faster than missing the tournament.

Of course, none of the coaches will come out and say that's why they want more teams in the tourney. And so when asked, you get spectacular coach-speak from guys like Boeheim.

I heard this garbage from Boeheim on the radio a couple days ago.

"See, yesterday (Monday), Connecticut was out of the tournament, and they still may be out, but they're a team that can win games in the tournament. That's why we need an expansion," Boeheim said.

He goes on to say that because of all the automatic qualifiers, we're not actually getting the best 65 teams in the country. He's referring of course to all the mid-major conferences that get one automatic bid to the Big Dance.

Approximately half of the bids are automatic. That means the selection committee is selecting the best 32 after the automatics. Some of those automatics ARE in fact teams that are amongst the best 32 in the country.

I know the math can be painful, but the point here is that as was previously stated, no team seeded lower than 8th has ever won it. That means if you're outside of the top 32 teams, you have almost NO CHANCE of winning the whole thing. So again, Boeheim is basically saying throw a whole bunch of teams into the thing just for the hell of it.

And as for the UCONN comments. Could they win a game or maybe even two in the NCAA tournament? Of course that is possible.

What about the fact that they have been HORRIBLE this season? They have a losing record in their conference. If you're going to let a team like UCONN into the tournament based on name alone it would seem, than why have a regular season at all?

As if the NCAA basketball regular season wasn't already meaningless enough. Now you want to make it even more meaningless by essentially letting any team with a pulse into the postseason?

Why don't we do away with regular season games altogether and just hold an open tournament. Any organization with a classroom and five tall guys can get in. We'll keep playing until someone is crowned king.

They do it in soccer. How hard can it be?

ESPN dickbags

Believe it or not I'm not here to bash Tim "The Virgin Warrior" Tebow again. There'll be plenty of chances for that before, during and after the NFL Draft. After that we'll have to wait for him struggling mightily in an NFL camp and lamenting the fact that he'll likely be lining up as a TE in the pro's before we can rip him again.

In the meantime, it seems the void left by The Great and Powerful Tebow has the braintrust over at ESPN scrambling for any topical college football news whatsoever. They're probably wondering if there will even be another season. Some inquiries have likely been sent to the NCAA wondering if the sport has been outlawed in light of the Tebow departure.

Anyway, all that aside. You see the guy in the picture here?

No, no, no, not the virgin, the other guy. You know who that is right?

Me neither. And I'm guessing almost everyone outside of the Greater Gainesville, FL area is in the dark as well.

Apparently that's the heir to the Virgin Warrior's throne, John Brantley. And the fact that 99% of ESPN's loyal minions have no idea who the guy is doesn't stop The Leader from giving him the full "US Weekly treatment." You know how Tiger Woods' kids can't go to school without some "media outlet" reporting what's in their lunchboxes? It seems that's the type of attention and scrutiny Mr. Brantley has to look forward to.

John Brantley's father has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. That is unfortunate.

Why in God's name anyone, anywhere thought anyone outside of the Brantley family needed to be informed of this is beyond my comprehension. And yet there it was right on the front page of ESPN.com in between discussion of the St. Louis Rams' draft options and IOC review of the Canadian women's hockey frat party.

For fucks' sake ESPN. Would you guys please get your collective heads out of your asses and try to focus on what made you the most powerful entity in televised sports? What is the possible relevance of John Brantley's father or his prostate to anyone not named Brantley?

The Kings of Snarky over at Deadspin.com summed this all up rather well.

Tales of the Virgin Warrior

Time for more Tebow.

Here's my first question. More annoying QB, Tim Tebow or Brett Favre? I don't know the answer, I just know those two clowns seem to get more attention from ESPN and the like than anyone else on the planet.

I don't know why I get annoyed by the crawl on ESPN but I do. For those of you not familiar with the vernacular, "the crawl" is the steady stream of drivel that rolls across the bottom of the screen on any of the 37 ESPN channels. For the most part, or at least in the "old days" (whenever that was) all that you saw at the bottom of the screen were scores and stats. Apparently that wasn't good enough and in fairness, perhaps we have CNN or Bloomberg to blame for this?

I don't watch Sportscenter anymore. Stuart Scott pretty much sunk that show all on his own. I don't know why you need to watch Sportscenter anymore though given the breadth of information that is pushed across the crawl. Any remotely interesting sports news is immediately fed to the viewer via the crawl. Again, I'm not sure why I find this annoying. Probably because 90% of the "news" isn't news at all, at least in my opinion.

Did I really need to read 9,000 times on the crawl that Brett Favre had retired? No, I didn't. He hadn't retired after all you see.

Anyone, more mindless fodder rolled across the crawl yesterday. This time the pressing matter was Lord Tebow's throwing motion. "Former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is working to change the way he holds the football and on three and five step drafts in an effort to improve his draft position."

So what you're saying ESPN is that I needed to be told IMMEDIATELY that Tim Tebow is attempting to improve his horrendous throwing motion and would like to be drafted as high as possible in the upcoming draft. Got it. Good thing you let me know or else the entire space-time continuum might have been ripped apart.

And by the way, a guy attempting to completely overhaul his throwing motion weeks before his pro day would raise great big giant red flags if I was an NFL team, which I'm not.

Speaking of Oregon football...

They're putting together quite an offseason run here. You know things are going well when the local newspaper, The Oregonian, is running the following poll on its website:

Which allegation against the Ducks troubles you most?

FIGHTING. Players allegedly involved in a brawl or retaliation for brawl. (Rob Beard, Mike Bowlin, Matt Simms)

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Player allegedly beat up girlfriend. (LaMichael James)

DRUNKEN DRIVING. Player arrested for allegedly driving under the influence. (Kiko Alonso)

INSUBORDINATION. Player dismissed after publicly challenging Chip Kelly's authority. (Jamere Holland)

THEFT. Players accused - but not charged - in stealing items from fraternity house. (Jeremiah Masoli, Garrett Embry)


Additionally, John Canzano of The Oregonian ran this column yesterday.

You don't question whether the coach has lost control of his program when the quarterback is accused of theft. Or when the star running back is charged with pushing and strangling a woman and spends the night in jail. Or when the kicker is cited for assaulting a woman.

You don't wonder whether University of Oregon coach Chip Kelly has control of his team when he goes public Friday insisting his players understand what's expected of them, and then wakes up Saturday morning to learn a linebacker has been cited for driving under the influence.

You don't question the man in command when athletes do dumb things. You don't wonder about administrative oversight when the police are regulars in the football offices. You don't ask yourself if Kelly's players respect him enough to listen to him when it appears they do not.

Hold up. You don't?

Because that feels exactly like what we should all be doing today.

I wear my sunglasses at night

A little more football fix...

The big OOC game of the upcoming season will feature the Miami Hurricanes making a trip to Columbus, OH. 'Da U was last season in their home state getting ran over by the slow and plodding Wisconsin Badgers.

I can't wait to shut those whiny clowns up.

From Bucknuts.com:

Mooning over Miami…And speaking of the 2010 season, one of the speed bumps to the obligatory national championship talk will be Da U, Miami, on September 11. In addition to the ominous date of the game, we expect a lot of pre-game hype and player comparisons. Like comparing quarterback Jacory Harris to our own recovering Terrelle Pryor. Or how good is their top RB, Graig Cooper, dinged in their bowl game loss to Wisconsin? Then there’s Miami’s terrific kicker/punter Matt Bosher and starting linebackers Jordan Futch and Ramon Buchanan as well as reserve running back Lee Chambers.

Well, the ‘Canes start their spring practice this Tuesday and all of the aforementioned will miss the spring. Harris, Cooper, Bosher, Futch, Buchanan and Chambers are all hurt and Cooper might miss the entire 2010 season. Also, O-lineman Joel Figuero and D-lineman Levi Paalua are out for the spring.

We will update you with further reports of their progress in August!

A little football fix...

Had enough curling, ski jumping and hockey?

Me neither.

C'mon it's once every four years for crying out loud. What else are you going to watch? Bullriding?

That all being said, it's never the wrong time for a little Ohio State football conversation. Collegefootballnews.com gives us the 'Ohio State Offseason Lookback & Lookaheads.' That's catchy isn't it? Here's a bit:

2009 Recap: The sky was falling, the program needed to be overhauled, and Jim Tressel had lost his touch. That was concern after the offense struggled with its consistency over the first half of the season and the Buckeyes lost a 26-18 stunner at Purdue in mid-October. And then the team caught fire as the no-name defense stepped up its play, the running game found a groove, and OSU managed to reel off six straight wins including a dominant 24-7 victory at Penn State, a thrilling overtime win over Iowa, and an easy win over Michigan before handling Oregon in the Rose Bowl. While the Purdue loss was a problem and the home loss to a mediocre USC team set the team back early on, but there’s excitement for the future with the expected emergence of Terrelle Pryor into a superstar and with a loaded defense coming back.

Looking Ahead: The Buckeyes are the far-and-away favorites to the win the 2010 Big Ten title and will be in the mix for the national title from the start. Miami is coming to Columbus, but there isn’t any USC to deal with this year. There are only two dangerous road games, Wisconsin and Iowa, but if the team really is national title-good, it needs to win those. The offense is loaded with experience and the defense should be solid once again as the tremendous recruiting classes of the last few years restock the shelves.

Why to get excited: The average fan probably can’t name a Buckeye defender, but seven starters are back from the Rose Bowl team and nine are back on offense including four linemen and everyone in the backfield. Remember, OSU had (arguably) the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2009 and will get an influx of supremely talented redshirt freshmen ready to provide solid depth. Basically, if you’re waiting for the Buckeyes to slip, this isn’t going to be the year.


Also, CFN has OT Jim Cordle as the "biggest offensive loss." Jimmy seems like a nice kid, but I'm not exactly losing sleep because we won't have him back next season.

Russian Curling

Hi there.

Thanks for playing

That'll do it for the U.S. Curling team. They got punked by Canada today to finish with a 2-6 record in pool play.

The U.S. team was so bad that they even had to replace their Skip halfway into Olympic play. John Shuster (pictured) managed on multiple occasions to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Well done!

I'd say that settles it, I'm headed to the Columbus Curling Club to get ready for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Basketball apathy Part II

I read a few responses to Bob Hunter's column about apathetic OSU basketball fans and everyone has an opinion. I think you can sum up the problems fairly easily though with the following:

- I think by now it's obvious to everyone that the Science & Engineering Library on campus has more atmosphere than the Schottenstein Center (you will never ever catch me referring to it as Value City Arena because that's an utter abomination). The university wanted to attract Britney Spears and the circus so they built a cavernous sound stage instead of a basketball arena. The architecture is really bad for collegiate basketball and unfortunately that's never going to change.

- Compared to almost every other college basketball venue in the country, the student seating is an embarrassment. The infamous shot of a woman knitting while sitting courtside tells you all you need to know about Ohio State's fucked up priorities.

- Ohio State is a football school. You can bitch and moan about the BCS all you want to but the current system means that for the Buckeyes, almost every single football game has major implications. Collegiate basketball is exactly the opposite. The 65-team NCAA tournament has rendered the regular season almost completely meaningless. Watch how many of these no-show Ohio State fans are suddenly hyped for basketball when the tournament starts.

And stop complaining about one-and-done players folks. They aren't the reason you're not showing up. It might even be the opposite. There is not a single one-and-done guy on this team. How much better was the attendance when Oden and the gang were wearing scarlet and gray?

More Olympic hockey...

Forgot to mention, every four years I watch Olympic hockey and frankly, it's WAY better than NHL hockey. The larger ice makes a huge difference. It really opens things up offensively. The defenders can't just sit back and crowd the middle.

Also, I'm all for a good hockey fight now and then but there seem to be considerably fewer penalties in Olympic hockey and a lot less of the lame clutching and grabbing that slows the game down.

Watching NHL games on TV is almost unbearable. The speed does not translate at all. That is far from the case with Olympic hockey.

It's never going to happen but the NHL (particularly in light of their current status as a second-class professional league) should at least consider increasing the size of the ice.