It's been a while since I posted, due to a combination of laziness and a nice trip down DC for a wedding. Most of you already know this of course because at least five of the ten people who actually read my blog were at said wedding. The wedding was kick ass, it was in Georgetown, and needless to say I'm a much bigger fan of the area than I am of the local university's basketball team. I must pat myself on the back for looking phenomenal in my tux, and I was even told as much by several admirers, including one very fetching cougar who was all about my set, but I digress. Anyway as a result of the weekend's festivities I didn't watch nearly as much basketball as I would normally have and can only speak on a few limited aspects of the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. So here are a few things I couldn't keep my mouth shut about. First, a few people cried about a supposed travel by Jeff Green in Georgetown's exciting win over Vanderbilt, and my take is this: how come guards travel almost everytime they come into the lane and no one says boo, but everytime a big man takes two and a halfsteps they can;t believe there was no whistle? If you go by the rule book definition on travels there's probably a travel on every possession, and just because guards are smaller, quicker and smoother doesn't mean that they should get away with it more, although they do. The one game I actually got to watch this weekend was Ohio State's huge comeback against Tennessee. The Buckeye's had no business getting that far down in the first place, but they really kept their cool and allowed the Tennessee style to even itself out, then when the game was on the line Oden was able to make his presence felt on the defensive end. Once again proving why Oden needs to be the number one pick in next year's draft.
I was able to follow the Georgetown-UNC game on the radio, and with five minutes left UNC had seemingly taken control of the game and were up ten, but after that point the Tarheels fell apart completely, I wish I'd been able to see the game on TV but this game was so good that even translated on the radio. Not only have Hibbert and Jeff Green established themselves as sure lottery picks, but I'm starting to come around on Tyler Hansbrough and I'm starting to think that someday we'll be looking back at this game as a classic featuring six future lottery picks. The most interesting subplot for me was seeing JT3 outcoach Roy Williams. Williams supposedly had gotten the monkey off his back a couple years ago by winning the national title, but it seems to me like there was just too much talent on that team for Williams' poor game coaching to take over. Between his days at Kansas and now at UNC he has arguably coached the most talent of out of any college coach over the last twenty years and to see him with only one title has got to be considered a disappointment. Meanwhile John Thompson III is emerging as a superior coach to even his father. In some ways it reminds me of how Bill Belichick emerged from Parcells' shadow to become the superior head coach. You would think that equalling the legend would be impossible, let alone surpassing it, but JT3 already seems to be a superior game coach and if he can continue to get the big recruits he could have a more succesful career than his legendary father.
Anyway, that's all I've got about college basketball for now, and in the world of sports there really isn't much else going on as best exemplified by the fact that Michael Ray richardson's "anti-semitic" remarks have dominated sports radio today. What Richardson said was stupid, but I really didn't care to hear about the dumb comments of the head coach of the Albany Patroons. The one silver lining in all of this was an anecdote that made it to the air today involving something richardson had said as a player. When he was playing for the Nets one particularly difficult season he declared "This ship be sinking." Then when the reporter asked him how low it could sink he said, "The skies the limit." In case you were wondering, richardson, a former NBA All-Star is far from the most famous coach to ever lead the Patroons, in the mid-eighties their coach was Phil Jackson, so maybe someday Richardson will end up as a coaching legend, who knows?
One last sports note, Jonathan Papelbon has been moved back into the closers role this year. Good news for my fantasy baseball team, but bad news in the big picture. It's a waste to have someone of Papelbon's talent level in the role of closer. The contribution of a closer as compared to that of a good starter has become completely overrated in the last couple years. If I have to endure one more person making the point that Mariano Rivera has been the most important player for the Yankees over the last ten years, I may vomit. At this point he's one of only two guys who has been there for the full time period, along with Derek Jeter, who was not the player as a rookie, that he is now. But more importantly, if Rivera had been a number one or number two starter for those ten years he would've been a hell of a lot more valuable. People see the closer as such a critical role because it's a very obvious thing, any idiot can see that when a closer blows a save he cost them the game, but it's a lot more difficult to quantify the value of a high level starter. Hopefully the Red Sox can fnd a less talented guy to be a top closer next year and Papelbon can start to fulfill more of his potential, give him a shot at greatness, and if he can't quite hack it, they'll move him back to being a dominant closer.
Those are my sports thoughts for today, I'll be back soon to fill you in on the world of entertainment.
-Bender Out
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