Category: Sports

Commentary and news about sports and sports teams — and media coverage of them.

Best lines of the day

Brad Stanhope of the Fairfield (California) Daily Republic:

Here are five things you should know about the best sports event on TV:

1. Every newspaper sports copy editor in the country is eagerly awaiting Niagara University’s first appearance since 1970. Not because they expect the Purple Eagles to make a run, but they can’t wait for them to lose, so they can write “Niagara falls” as a headline.

2. Something to watch on TV: CBS analyst Billy Packer will commend coaches for a “great timeout” and will compliment them for the players’ action (“great defense by Roy Williams!” “Great play by Bob Knight”) at least a dozen times a game. The coaches, of course, will be sitting on the bench.

3. Top-ranked Illinois gets a weak team with a great heritage when it faces Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday. Here’s what most people don’t know about Fairleigh Dickinson: His mother is sultry actress Angie Dickinson, his grandmother is noted author Emily Dickinson.

Or, so I say.

4. Everyone should root for Louisiana-Lafayette when it meets Louisville. That’s because the team is “The Ragin’ Cajuns,” the best nickname in college sports.

5. It was bad news for the University of Pennsylvania when it drew Boston College in the first round. Pennsylvania was desperately hoping to face the Chaminade Silverswords in the first round – because everyone knows that Penn is mightier than the Swords.

Link via yoco :: College Basketball.

True to form

Billy Packer on CBS saying he didn’t think a last-second game-winning shot by Wisconsin was good, saying he wasn’t going to argue about it with Jim Nance while he was doing just that, and then being proven wrong by the replay.

Not so million dollar baby

Some insight into women’s boxing — “Battered Women ” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who says, “I’ve been to more than a dozen women’s fights since that first one, and nearly all were just like it, 45-second bloodfests.” Here’s his description:

The worst male fighters know how to play defense, but these girls looked like they’d never been trained. They didn’t even try to protect themselves. There was no effort to dodge, no shifting of weight, no clever, calculated movement of feet. Both girls just kept charging, swinging both fists at the same time. It was like watching six-year-olds fight before they’re old enough to realize that they might be hurt: All you want to do is make it stop. The action in the middle of the ring was an inchoate tangle of limbs and fists. Thirty seconds into the whirling, Angie fell down, striking the mat violently, as if she was attacking it. Jessica waved her arms above her head chaotically—a caricatured Rocky gesture—a huge grin on her face. I thought to myself that these two must be the worst girl fighters in the world. But it turned out that six months earlier, Jessica had placed second in her weight class at the National Golden Gloves—this was as good as it got.

They never should have let Angie back in the fight, but they did. She wobbled out to the center of the ring, too hurt to lift her hands above her waist. Jessica whacked her right in the nose; Angie went down, a series of limbs hitting the canvas in a successive heap. The nervous white girl from Lancaster started dancing around, and it was “Sweet Ass Jessie”? this time, her reward whistles and hooting. Angie was out for 15 minutes, white-cloaked medical personnel bending ominously over her.

Bracket busters

From the bottom of the bracket to the top of Class 3A girls basketball: The Santa Fe Indian School Lady Braves took their fanatical fans on a ride to remember.

SFIS, a school with an enormous fan base but until now, no state championships, finished their improbable climb through the State Tournament field with a 42-37 win over two-time defending champion Portales on Friday night. SFIS won its first title in its first season as a member of 3A. The Lady Braves were in 2A for years but moved up this year as their enrollment increased.

From AP via The New Mexican

And they did it in front of 14,000 at The Pit.

Pay daze

According to www.baseball-almanac.com, this is the 75th anniversary of Yankees GM Ed Barrow’s declaration that “no one in baseball will ever be paid more than Ruth” after he signed the Babe to a two-year deal for $80,000 a season.

Fast-forward to 2005, when Alex Rodriguez will make $80,000 — about every five innings.

Sideline Chatter

Hey Shaq, try this!

[John] Wooden, as noted here recently, once made 134 consecutive free throws in competition in a pro league. He said he shot them underhanded, as was common in those days. But, he said, his form was different from that used years later by Rick Barry. Wooden said he put his left foot ahead of his right and didn’t dip as much as Barry.

Repeating the exact motion every time was the key, he said, recalling that he could close his eyes and still make his free throws.

Morning Briefing

Bronze and steal

From Sideline Chatter:

The Utah Jazz plan to honor John Stockton and Karl Malone with dual statues — 1½ times life size — about 20 feet apart outside Delta Center.

Added Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune: “No word on whether there’ll be a statue of Michael Jordan between them stealing the ball.”

It’s just a game

From The New York Times:

Temple suspended its men’s basketball coach, John Chaney, for the remainder of the regular season on Friday, three days after he ordered a player to commit hard fouls that resulted in a potentially career-ending broken arm for a senior forward at city rival St. Joseph’s.
…

This was the second time that Chaney has been suspended. In 1994, he was barred for one game after threatening to kill Massachusetts Coach John Calipari during an argument after a game.

Sideline Clucker

From Dwight Perry’s Sideline Chatter:

Bromley Lowe, a former Baltimore Orioles mascot, is one old Bird who was only too happy to fly.

Sweltering summer days in a costume made of synthetic feathers, foam and fiberglass will do that to a guy.

“Parades are the worst,” Lowe told USA Today. “I was in a Fourth of July parade in Laurel, Md., in 1995, and it felt like it would never end. I was treated in an ambulance. They hooked me up to an IV.

“I think the San Diego Chicken put it best: ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the chicken.'”

The Miracle

The U.S. defeated the Soviet Union 4-3 in Olympic hockey 25 years ago today. Here’s the lead from The New York Times:

In one of the most startling and dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog United States hockey team, composed in great part of collegians, defeated the defending champion Soviet squad by 4-3 tonight.

The victory brought a congratulatory phone call to the dressing room from President Carter and set off fireworks over this tiny Adirondack village. The triumph also put the Americans in a commanding position to take the gold medal in the XIII Olympic Winter Games, which will end Sunday.

Kiss the court

Greg Hansen writes about Salim Stoudamire’s last game at the McKale Center (Arizona’s home arena). The senior had nine threes and finished with 31 points in under 30 minutes.

If he had one regret about Sunday’s game it’s that he didn’t time his exit to stoop down and “kiss the court” as he was removed from the game.

Already a favorite, that move, had he made it, would have brought down the house.

Potty mouth

From Sideline Chatter:

It won’t make anybody forget George Carlin’s “seven words you can’t say on television,” but Tiger Woods certainly gave it a try in his TV debut at age 2.

And all because, 27 years ago, Earl Woods somehow talked Jim Hill of Los Angeles’ KCBS-TV into doing a profile of his toddling golf prodigy.

“After shooting some footage of Woods hitting balls and rolling in a series of amazingly lengthy putts,” wrote Steve Elling of the Orlando Sentinel, “Hill’s crew propped Tiger on his dad’s knee and did everything possible to get him to speak.

“Hill said he practically pleaded with Woods to utter something. Anything. Please.

“Finally, Tiger turned his head, let out an audible sigh and said, ‘I have to go poo-poo.’ ”

The outtake never aired, but Hill saved it and showed it to Woods last year.

Let them play!

A great essay from Broken Cowboy on the Hokies win over Duke and the quality effort by ESPN.

And so as another Ewing three-point attempt clanked off the rim and the good folks of Blacksburg, VA, showed their inexperience at celebrating as they tentatively wandered down onto the court, looking like hesitant swimmers dipping their toes in the water, I wondered why all basketball games couldn’t be like this.

Welcome to the ACC Virginia Tech. Football champions and a very respectable 6-6 in their first season on the hard court.

Sideline Chatter

These from The Seattle Times: Sideline Chatter —

Lovie Smith and Romeo Crennel made it to the finals, but this year’s Valentine’s Day salute goes out to the star of the Kentlake High School girls basketball team: Luv Rattler.

Syndicated columnist Tom FitzGerald, on the only awkward Super Bowl XXXIX moment: “When the game ended and Doug Mientkiewicz ran onto the field and took off with the football.”

Clang!

Michael Sokolove has an interesting and provocative essay on what’s wrong with the NBA in the The New York Times Magazine. The whole article is worthy, but a couple of excerpts:

Many others over the years have seen basketball as jazz, an apt comparison when the game is played well — as an amalgam of creativity, individuality, collaboration, improvisation and structure. Much of what makes basketball interesting is the give and take, the constant tension, between individual expression and team concepts. On the best teams, players take their turns as soloists, but not at the expense of others in the quintet.
…

But I do hope that college and high-school basketball will again ban dunking, so that players on the way up have some chance of acquiring something other than a repertory of slam dunks.

The three-point shot is another matter altogether. No reason it should not just disappear. ”The dagger!” announcers sometimes call it, as if it were the shock-and-awe of the hardwood, a weapon that brings opposing players to their knees. The three-pointer is a corruption of the sport, a perversion of a century of basketball wisdom that held that the whole point of the game was to advance the ball closer to the basket. If its intent was to increase scoring, the three-point shot definitely has not done that, and if it was to make the game more wide open and exciting, it hasn’t accomplished that either. The unintended consequence of the three-pointer has been to make the game more static as players ”spot up” outside the arc, waiting for the pass that will lead to the dagger.

Class act

A nice column about Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson from Mike Waldner at the Daily Breeze. The following is an excerpt:

Olson put on a coaching clinic Saturday after UCLA expanded a 39-38 halftime lead to 47-42.

Just when the Bruins thought they were in control, he called a timeout and cleared the cobwebs in the heads of Channing Frye and Ivan Radenovic, his two big men, with more than a few choice words.

He wanted Frye, who is 6-foot-11, to remain inside on offense. He wanted 6-10 Radenovic to move his feet and help out on defense.

How clear the message was is seen in the manner in which Arizona immediately took charge.

“It wouldn’t stop,” a frustrated UCLA coach Ben Howland said following the game.

What would not stop was the 19-0 Arizona run to settle the game then and there.

Olson has 301 Pac 10 victories, second only to John Wooden with 304.

The respect Wooden has for Olson is demonstrated in a trip he plans to take to Tucson.

“Coach Wooden is coming out to practice at our place on the 22nd,” Olson said. “That’s going to be a great thrill for our guys.”

Don’t underestimate how much Olson is looking forward to the day with Wooden.

“I might have him put together the practice plan for the day and run the practice for us,” he said.

Link via College Basketball.