With earthquakes, nuclear and economic meltdowns and all of the other good tidings channeled to us through our television, thank goodness for college basketball. We could ponder why the Japanese engineers built a nuclear power plant to withstand a 9.0 quake while engineering the backup power to keep the plant from melting down not to withstand the ensuing tsunami. We could wonder what Plutonium-239 having a half life of 24,000 years means to us. The story of Wall Street moguls pocketing unindicted millions while 9 % of working minions are unemployed is compelling. This weekend, we would rather focus on Butler versus Virginia Commonwealth.
Escapism is a Yard tenet. Work and mortgage payments rarely permit such travel but one can dream. Since the first vestiges of March, college hoops has provided a 24/7 happy place from the wrath. The devastation in Japan is biblical. New Zealand has not recovered and that is suddenly old news. Good news is that 216,000 citizens found work while 13 million cannot. The Butler Bulldogs and the Virginia Commonwealth Rams are playing in the national semifinal on Saturday afternoon. CNN? We don’t need no stinking CNN.
The NCAA national basketball tournament goes deep beyond the arteries of the major sports cities into the capillaries of America. Saturday afternoon, Richmond Virginia and Indianapolis, Indiana will shut out the world and root for their respective local teams. The Yard will be right there with them for every shining moment. March media provided little solace from the events of the day. Tragedy was everywhere and our hearts wept for the unfortunate. College basketball was our escape during March.
Butler and VCU are our compelling stories. VCU beat USC in the play in game last summer or something just to get in. They have won one more game than anyone left in the dance VCU was soundly lambasted by ESPN’s Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas for having the audacity of accepting the 67th tournament bid. If Bilas had his druthers, the Commonwealth would have demurred on the tourney and given their bid to a much more deserving Colorado or Alabama team. There are never “one and dones” at VCU or Butler. Players go to those schools to pursue careers other than the NBA. Hoops are for these moments not the next level. The one and dones are in the UCONN-Kentucky game that follows.
Kentucky coach John Calipari is widely recognized as the best coach for players who will play one year and then go to the NBA. The University of Kentucky must be so proud of their coach’s prowess with incoming freshmen. He also holds the NCAA for vacating the most Final Fours because of recruiting violations as well. Actually, he has vacated the only two Final Fours that he has coached. Jim Calhoun will be suspended for five Big East conference games next year for recruiting violations. The Yard is pulling for Butler to do what they should have done last year and win it all. We were pulling for them last year because we hate Duke. They are a better story with this year’s run.
When college basketball was between rounds, it was also nice to see the Lakers “flip the switch” before the second round of the playoffs on their way to a championship. The Lakers stumbled into the playoffs last year with three straight losses. This year they tumbled into the All-Star weekend with three straight losses culminating in a Greek tragedy at the Quicken Loans arena starring the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mitch Kupchak pondered breaking up the team. Ron Artest and Andrew Bynum were the only people he was talking to but he got everyone’s attention. Artest was behaving and saying all of the right things. He was shooting 37% and lost on the floor. Andrew is seven feet of lost in the City of the Angels. He has a lot of potential and he should not risk finding it in Cleveland as Baron Davis has been exiled to do with a bum hip and bad beard. Both are leading the charge since Mitch’s comments.
It is one thing to take their usual bitch slap tour of Texas and beat San Antonio and Dallas by double digits. It is quite something special to come of the pasting of Dallas, fly to Salt Lake fall behind by 17 and rally to win by 11. The Lakers are never good on the second night of a back to back and most notably when flying to the city where fun goes to die. Falling behind by double digits in games like this has been a Laker tradition since the days of Magic and James. Rallying to win by double digits is an exception for this two time defending champion. Get the bus ready, there will be a parade in June on Figueroa.
Final Thoughts: Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale speak about a mid-Majors resume like they are applying for a job. They seem to be saying that there is a career path to becoming a major-Major and get CBS’s respect. Jay, you are starting to morph into Billy Packer. Be careful, he got sent packing. Dickie V, try to talk without your hands just for one shining moment or at least block out a bit more of your mug with those mitts. You also made a great prediction about Louisville making a long run in the tournament. We know Pitino is your big buddy but his Cardinals did not make it to lunch time on the first day of the dance.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
The kids are alright!
It never felt like we were all in on Las Vegas until we peeled off the rubber band and unfolded the Las Vegas Review-Journal to the lead story of that morning, “Brothels fire back on Reid”. Libya is bombing their citizens. The economy is teetering with little insulation. Nevada has different concerns. Brothels are well brothels and Reid is our US Senator Harry Reid. The whores are upset that Senator Reid wants to close them down. With unemployment at 14%, the housing debacle and construction in the dumpster, it does not appear that prostitution is where Senator Reid needed to focus his attention and our tax dollars at this time. US Senators should be careful when they start calling out the working girls. The US Senate and prostitution are not always that different.
March Madness is at fever pitch in Sin City. The spate of basketball tournaments has attenuated the signal in the days leading up to the brackets being announced on Sunday. The Yard has opened the annual basketball pool. Credit card limits have been analyzed in the unlikely event that this Bruin team makes a run for Indy. The 2006 Trek to Hoosierville was a MasterCard moment that is still being paid for and will be passed on in our codicils. Indianapolis is one of the best cities to go to for the Final Four. Indy gets the Final Four every four years because the NCAA said it is so. During the finals, downtown is packed with college basketball being preached on every street corner. There is no event that is more than two beers away from the last one.
Basketball in Indiana is not a game. It is more. Indiana was set to observe Daylight savings for the first time in state history in 2006. The farmer’s clocks were set to spring ahead at 2:00 AM for the first time since the invention of clocks. The UCLA-LSU National Semifinal would end near midnight that night. The governor had to take executive action and push the deadline to 4:00 AM to ensure the bars stayed open. When UCLA pasted Big Baby and LSU that night we toasted a politician who had that kind of foresight. We had no idea then it was going to be the only game that UCLA would win in three straight visits to the Final Four. Fortunately, we partied like it was.
There are colleges and mascots who will be placed into brackets this Sunday that we will have never hear of now or again. The Long Island Blackbirds are in and representing the Northeastern Conference. The Wofford Terriers are in the dance as well. The basketball Blue Bloods will dominate but never intimidate. North Carolina and Kentucky change out their superstars every spring. George Mason and Butler athletes play together through their senior season. They are the kids who might play pro in another profession but they can still play. They have played together for years, will graduate on time and upset a Blue Blood. Which one is the devil in your pool?
For the chosen who embrace the March brilliance, we share collective moments that will always be clear even as the mind fogs. The late Jim Valvano doing laps around the basketball court looking for someone to hug when NC State upset Clyde and The Dream in 1983. In 1992, Christian Laettner corralling a 75 foot pass from Grant Hill to sink a 17 foot jump in overtime to beat Kentucky 104-103 after the Wildcats had taken a one point lead with two seconds left. Bruin Tyus Edney’s 4.8 second dash down the length of the court dash to beat Missouri in 1995. Valparaiso guard Bryce Drew draining a 23 foot jumper with no time on the clock to beat Ole Miss in 1998. Jayhawks Mario Chalmers game tying shot 3-pointer that pushed the 2008 Championship game into a runaway victory for underdog Kansas. Every moment has alternative perspective based in geography or in your place in your pool.
Gas prices are hovering at $4 per gallon. Charlie Sheen and Moammar Gadfhi are in a spiraling death match of insane irrelevance. Wisconsin is in revolt. Tune in a college basketball game and cheer for your team or an underdog or neither. Their colloquial passion will refresh your spirit. Their enthusiasm will rekindle your soul. And deep in your heart of hearts, ask yourself why it is that college education is so underwater and CBS is paying billions to telecast college basketball?
March Madness is at fever pitch in Sin City. The spate of basketball tournaments has attenuated the signal in the days leading up to the brackets being announced on Sunday. The Yard has opened the annual basketball pool. Credit card limits have been analyzed in the unlikely event that this Bruin team makes a run for Indy. The 2006 Trek to Hoosierville was a MasterCard moment that is still being paid for and will be passed on in our codicils. Indianapolis is one of the best cities to go to for the Final Four. Indy gets the Final Four every four years because the NCAA said it is so. During the finals, downtown is packed with college basketball being preached on every street corner. There is no event that is more than two beers away from the last one.
Basketball in Indiana is not a game. It is more. Indiana was set to observe Daylight savings for the first time in state history in 2006. The farmer’s clocks were set to spring ahead at 2:00 AM for the first time since the invention of clocks. The UCLA-LSU National Semifinal would end near midnight that night. The governor had to take executive action and push the deadline to 4:00 AM to ensure the bars stayed open. When UCLA pasted Big Baby and LSU that night we toasted a politician who had that kind of foresight. We had no idea then it was going to be the only game that UCLA would win in three straight visits to the Final Four. Fortunately, we partied like it was.
There are colleges and mascots who will be placed into brackets this Sunday that we will have never hear of now or again. The Long Island Blackbirds are in and representing the Northeastern Conference. The Wofford Terriers are in the dance as well. The basketball Blue Bloods will dominate but never intimidate. North Carolina and Kentucky change out their superstars every spring. George Mason and Butler athletes play together through their senior season. They are the kids who might play pro in another profession but they can still play. They have played together for years, will graduate on time and upset a Blue Blood. Which one is the devil in your pool?
For the chosen who embrace the March brilliance, we share collective moments that will always be clear even as the mind fogs. The late Jim Valvano doing laps around the basketball court looking for someone to hug when NC State upset Clyde and The Dream in 1983. In 1992, Christian Laettner corralling a 75 foot pass from Grant Hill to sink a 17 foot jump in overtime to beat Kentucky 104-103 after the Wildcats had taken a one point lead with two seconds left. Bruin Tyus Edney’s 4.8 second dash down the length of the court dash to beat Missouri in 1995. Valparaiso guard Bryce Drew draining a 23 foot jumper with no time on the clock to beat Ole Miss in 1998. Jayhawks Mario Chalmers game tying shot 3-pointer that pushed the 2008 Championship game into a runaway victory for underdog Kansas. Every moment has alternative perspective based in geography or in your place in your pool.
Gas prices are hovering at $4 per gallon. Charlie Sheen and Moammar Gadfhi are in a spiraling death match of insane irrelevance. Wisconsin is in revolt. Tune in a college basketball game and cheer for your team or an underdog or neither. Their colloquial passion will refresh your spirit. Their enthusiasm will rekindle your soul. And deep in your heart of hearts, ask yourself why it is that college education is so underwater and CBS is paying billions to telecast college basketball?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Karna never sleeps
The Yard covered our first sporting event Las Vegas this past weekend. We have a lot of catching up to do and we started at the Thomas and Mack Center. The San Diego State Aztecs were in town to face our Running Reb’s in a Mountain West showdown. It was a compelling matchup and 18,000 Las Vegans showed up to root on our team. It was a raucous crowd and we admit that one simple question changed our entire perspective when we were at the concession stand, “Do you want Grey Goose or Kettle One?” We have never been asked that question in over 35 years of attending games at Pauley Pavilion. It caught us off guard but we went with the Goose.
Yard bylaws require the staff to follow most major sports except hockey, soccer and NASCAR. The Yard is a homer and there are not enough American stars in hockey. Most of the stars in the NHL have just too many vowels in their names to garner interest or accurate reporting. Soccer is only compelling every four years and only if the US makes World Cup pool play. The NASCAR stars seem like fun guys who like to drink beer, drive fast and brawl with each other in random precision. We just cannot commit an afternoon to watching cars drive really fast in circles. We did not plan to follow lacrosse either and did not even know there was a professional indoor lacrosse league.
We read that the Boston Blazers had a racy halftime show featuring scantily clad women giving lap dances to the team’s mascot. Apparently, the team apologized for the halftime promotion that “wasn’t executed as spelled out to us.” It sounded like a hell of a promotion that was executed to perfection. We are checking to see if the Blazers have any Las Vegas dates. Las Vegas is jonesing for a professional team in any sport and lacrosse could be a fit.
Karma has been an ethereal wrapper of sports consequence since early man. Good karma has rarely been congealed down to its core elements. Good guys finish last and all of that. Bad karma is noted, tallied and tweeted about for all of mankind or at least to those with connectivity to social media. Lebron tweeted, re-tweeted, and then tried to un-tweet his gloat about the bad karma his former team suffered when the Cavs were lapped by the Lakers on 1/12/11. The Karmaliers went on to lose another 15 games in route to 26 in a row. On the verge of setting the record for most losses by any professional franchise, they got a Friday night game against the poster child of NBA futility-The LA Clippers. Donald Sterling is the ruddy poster boy of that franchise’s bad karma. It is well deserved and fully vested. The Cavs won and now enjoy as much chance of making the playoffs as our Donald’s Clippers. The Washington Wizards having lost 25 straight road games played the Cavs two nights later and ended that streak in Cleveland. Karma is fleeting. Lebron, you still have a karma deficit that will be recovered on national television in Boston in late May.
Ben Roethlisberger, you just threw two interceptions and failed to rally the Steelers to their third Super Bowl Title in six years, what are you going to do now? He is definitely not going to Disneyland with Aaron Rogers. The Magic Kingdom wanted no part of the not too gentle Ben even if he had rallied the victory. The Yard hopes Ben is not headed to another college bar restroom to grope a coed but it is a long off season and there could be a lockout. He did not get convicted for that incident but Commissioner Goodell suspended him anyway. Righteous Roger did not suspend him for banging the casino hostess in Tahoe who cried foul in an attempt for a civil payday. Apparently, Big B can foul a casino hostess as long as he can beat the civil suit but no more drunken coeds for Ben. Ben, karma can be expensive.
March Madness is within our headlights. UCLA might actually make the tournament in a down year for the Pac-10. The UCLA women have a better shot in their tournament. The University of Connecticut Women’s basketball team is to be commended for their amazing persistence during their 90 game winning streak. It is the longest streak in women’s basketball history and most likely will never be broken. During the hoopla and the quest to win 89 in a row, Uconn coach Geno Auriemma demanded respect and recognition for his women that they did deserve. But Geno, your women Huskies did not break the men’s basketball record of 88 games in a row. That record will never be broken either. It is a compelling story and a great thing for Uconn and women’s basketball but can anyone please reply with one epic matchup during the Uconn streak? Did anyone race home to catch a game on TV?
John Wooden’s Bruins beat Digger Phelps four times before his Fighting Irish ended the streak. The Bruins had wins over Bob Boyd’s # 2 ranked Trojans, Bobby Knight’s Hoosiers, Lefty Driesell’s Terps and Jerry Tarkanians 49’ers. UCLA beat every Pac-8 Team six straight times. The Bruins won twelve tournament games and three NCAA Titles during those 88 games. Chick hoops is chick hoops just not NCAA men’s hoops. It is just not the same level, importance or history. We do not cover women’s basketball, either.
Luck happens when perspiration and preparation meet opportunity. John Wooden
Yard bylaws require the staff to follow most major sports except hockey, soccer and NASCAR. The Yard is a homer and there are not enough American stars in hockey. Most of the stars in the NHL have just too many vowels in their names to garner interest or accurate reporting. Soccer is only compelling every four years and only if the US makes World Cup pool play. The NASCAR stars seem like fun guys who like to drink beer, drive fast and brawl with each other in random precision. We just cannot commit an afternoon to watching cars drive really fast in circles. We did not plan to follow lacrosse either and did not even know there was a professional indoor lacrosse league.
We read that the Boston Blazers had a racy halftime show featuring scantily clad women giving lap dances to the team’s mascot. Apparently, the team apologized for the halftime promotion that “wasn’t executed as spelled out to us.” It sounded like a hell of a promotion that was executed to perfection. We are checking to see if the Blazers have any Las Vegas dates. Las Vegas is jonesing for a professional team in any sport and lacrosse could be a fit.
Karma has been an ethereal wrapper of sports consequence since early man. Good karma has rarely been congealed down to its core elements. Good guys finish last and all of that. Bad karma is noted, tallied and tweeted about for all of mankind or at least to those with connectivity to social media. Lebron tweeted, re-tweeted, and then tried to un-tweet his gloat about the bad karma his former team suffered when the Cavs were lapped by the Lakers on 1/12/11. The Karmaliers went on to lose another 15 games in route to 26 in a row. On the verge of setting the record for most losses by any professional franchise, they got a Friday night game against the poster child of NBA futility-The LA Clippers. Donald Sterling is the ruddy poster boy of that franchise’s bad karma. It is well deserved and fully vested. The Cavs won and now enjoy as much chance of making the playoffs as our Donald’s Clippers. The Washington Wizards having lost 25 straight road games played the Cavs two nights later and ended that streak in Cleveland. Karma is fleeting. Lebron, you still have a karma deficit that will be recovered on national television in Boston in late May.
Ben Roethlisberger, you just threw two interceptions and failed to rally the Steelers to their third Super Bowl Title in six years, what are you going to do now? He is definitely not going to Disneyland with Aaron Rogers. The Magic Kingdom wanted no part of the not too gentle Ben even if he had rallied the victory. The Yard hopes Ben is not headed to another college bar restroom to grope a coed but it is a long off season and there could be a lockout. He did not get convicted for that incident but Commissioner Goodell suspended him anyway. Righteous Roger did not suspend him for banging the casino hostess in Tahoe who cried foul in an attempt for a civil payday. Apparently, Big B can foul a casino hostess as long as he can beat the civil suit but no more drunken coeds for Ben. Ben, karma can be expensive.
March Madness is within our headlights. UCLA might actually make the tournament in a down year for the Pac-10. The UCLA women have a better shot in their tournament. The University of Connecticut Women’s basketball team is to be commended for their amazing persistence during their 90 game winning streak. It is the longest streak in women’s basketball history and most likely will never be broken. During the hoopla and the quest to win 89 in a row, Uconn coach Geno Auriemma demanded respect and recognition for his women that they did deserve. But Geno, your women Huskies did not break the men’s basketball record of 88 games in a row. That record will never be broken either. It is a compelling story and a great thing for Uconn and women’s basketball but can anyone please reply with one epic matchup during the Uconn streak? Did anyone race home to catch a game on TV?
John Wooden’s Bruins beat Digger Phelps four times before his Fighting Irish ended the streak. The Bruins had wins over Bob Boyd’s # 2 ranked Trojans, Bobby Knight’s Hoosiers, Lefty Driesell’s Terps and Jerry Tarkanians 49’ers. UCLA beat every Pac-8 Team six straight times. The Bruins won twelve tournament games and three NCAA Titles during those 88 games. Chick hoops is chick hoops just not NCAA men’s hoops. It is just not the same level, importance or history. We do not cover women’s basketball, either.
Luck happens when perspiration and preparation meet opportunity. John Wooden
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