Cuse Conquers the Hall

When the undefeated Syracuse Orange came down to the Rock in Newark NJ to face one of the hardest working teams in college basketball you knew you were in for a battle and that’s exactly what we got.

I got an opportunity to sit in press row to take in the game and wanted to share a bit of the experience with you.

The crowd appeared a little late arriving especially in the expensive seats but it’s probably because they were enjoying the great amenities at Rock, which really is a first class arena. Waiting for the game I got to enjoy(?) the seton hall band. Their ensemble seemed a little small quite possibly because its holiday break, however their bass drummer didn’t seem to realize that fact and was wailing away. Unfortunate for me as I was about 10 feet away from him.

The crowd despite being in NJ had a heavy component of Syracuse fans as games played by the Orange in the NY/NJ area always do. It was probably a 60-40 split Seton Hall to Syracuse fans with plenty of Orange shirts sitting next to Juice the Orange shirts.

Some interesting people in the crowd included a scout for the Knicks as well as Leon Washington of the Jets. Have to wonder if the Knicks are planning on making some trades since Zeke traded away their first round pick this year (sorry Knicks fans).

The game got started and it was a sloppy contest throughout with Syracuse turning it over 24 times during the game. Seton Hall jumped out to a 12 point first half lead with 4:35 to go. The Orange were able to go to their bench and got a great contribution from little used Mookie Jones as well as Scoop Jardine to tie the score at the half. Seton Hall wasn’t discouraged and again jumped out to a lead behind the effort of Herb Pope and Jeremy Hazell. However after being read the riot act by Beoheim in a timeout with 12:54 to go in the half SU came out with some fire and a few Sportscenter worthy dunks by Kris Josephs and Wes Johnson later the Orange would take the lead for good.

After the game I assumed Beoheim would be more upset about the sloppy play of his team, but he said every game in the league is going to be tough and this is what you expect. Similarly I expected Bobby Gonzalez to be more upset that only Pope and Hazell had been able to contribute anything but instead he was more worried about missed opportunities on touches inside and overall shooting percentage.

Overall it was a great time. Syracuse is clearly a top 5 team in the country and arguably top 3. Seton hall after tough losses to the #5 and #6 teams in the country within 3 days should be able to give every team they face hell this year. It was the largest crowd to see college basketball at The Rock and hopefully Seton Hall fans will continue to come out to support their tough, energetic team throughout the season.

Have You Watched The Bowl Games?

Starting December 20th the NCAA FBS (Football Bowl Subdivison) kicked off the bowl season with the first of their 34 bowl games. Now on January 3rd as I write this the 32nd bowl game is being played with 2 more to go. Of those bowl games I can say I watched major portions of a grand total of 4 of those games and plan on watching the final two… maybe. So my question to you is: how many games have you watched?

The games I’ve watched are as follows:

Rutgers-NC State I watched nearly all of because I’m from NJ and would like to see Rutgers do well even if I never went there.

Oregon v OK State I watched a good portion of because I thought there might be some good offense.

Pitt v Oregon State I watched a good portion of because one of my best friends went to Pitt so I figured It’d be a good game to be able to talk about.

Penn State v USC I watched the first half of because I wanted to see USC and turned off at the half because it wasn’t particularly close.

Out of 34 bowl games I will have NOT watched 28 of them. My guess is most people would say similar things to what I have above. They watched their alma mater they watched their friends alma mater, maybe a random game here or there and then the big games. The hardcore college football fans maybe watched a few more or even caught them all, but I would guess most fans did not.

So what’s the point? The college presidents, the networks etc. are worried they will make less money if they move to a playoff system (don’t buy any other b.s that’s the real reason we don’t have a playoff).

Yet if they had more tv vierwership they could sell the games for more money correct?

Imagine (and I know this is tough but just go with me on this) if they moved to an 8 or 12 team playoff and still had bowl games for the rest of the teams that didn’t qualify. Would you not watch your alma mater or your friend’s alma mater just like you do now? I’m betting you would watch just as many non playoff bowl games. Then you put in a playoff, wouldn’t you watch almost all if not all of those games? I would.

Let’s say you have a 12 team playoff that would be 11 games between top teams. Add the lets say 3-4 more non playoff bowl games I would still watch and I’ve gone from watching 6 bowl games to 13-15 games. My viewership has more then doubled.

My suggestions then are this:

If you’re a college president: move to a playoff and make more money.
If you’re a college fan: Don’t go to or watch bowl games you don’t care about. Maybe if no one watches eventually they won’t keep making all this money and realize they need a change.

How is Michigan (basketball) Not Top 25

With college football's regular season coming to a close you may not have noticed college basketball is in full swing. In that case you certainly would not know that Michigan has been excluded from the most current top 25. At 6-2 this isn't unfathomable until you take a closer look and when you do I think you won't be able to do anything else but scratch your head.

I have no love for Michigan Sports, C-webb blowing the national finals for the Maize and Blue didn't bother me one bit. That being said certain things in sports don't make sense to me and this is one of them.

Michigan as I stated is currently 6-2. Who have they lost to? At a neutral site to Duke who is 8-1 and the current number 7 team in the nation and on the road at Maryland a fellow fringe top 25 team. So neither of them were particularly bad loses.

So no bad loses how bout big wins? How does winning their second meeting with Duke who was in the top 5 at the time sound? How about a neutral site victory versus the then top 5 and current number 15 ucla bruins? Those sound like pretty nice wins to me.

So they have no big loses and a couple big victories, but that doesn't mean much if the rest of the top 25 can also make that case. They can't. Take number 25 Kansas their only loss was a neutral site loss to Syracuse who is currently number 13, so not a bad lose even if 'Cuse was unranked at the time. However who's their biggest win against? Washington? not an awful team, but not great either or maybe Kent State? New Mexico State?

Or how about number 24 Marquette who's 7-1 as well, and beat a very quality team in Wisconsin. However they also lost to Dayton, not a pushover, but not a borderline top 25 team either.

I could go on but I'll just add one more team they could easily be ahead of… UCLA. I know that's silly after all UCLA is much better right? But uh UCLA lost to Michigan, UCLA lost to Texas and you know who UCLA has beaten? NO ONE. I think everyone knows UCLA will end the season ahead of Michigan and yes early season rankings don't matter but I don't understand how they deserve a top 25 spot and Michigan doesn't.

Was it Really That Bad? Sean Avery Addition

So I read Sean Avery was being suspended for his comments the other day and I was shocked. Mostly because it’s not the playoffs yet so I didn’t know the NHL season had started, but also because he was suspended for comments.

Don’t get me wrong I can understand why the comments themselves were offensive to women, and shouldn’t have been said. As a guy I can’t fully understand how offensive they were but I understand they were offensive.

In all honesty I doubt a good percentage of women where all that offended and this yahoo article details that.

But I don’t want to argue about how offensive the comments are or are not, I’m willing to concede that they are offensive. However offensive they are though they’re still just words, comments, etc. Don’t we usually just fine people for comments? I mean in the NBA people get fined for all kinds of comments about referees and other things. I don't recall anyone getting suspended in this way for just comments.

The NHL has players elbowing each other, fighting each other, taking each other out at the knees and doing all types of reprehensible acts and this is what makes news? This is what warrants a 6 game suspension?

As far as I can tell the NHL made this a much bigger situation than it warranted by suspending him. There’s a good chance if they had just fined him and moved on no one outside of Dallas and parts of Canada would have even known he said it in the first place.

I’ll finish by asking this simple question: Sean Avery was suspended by Gary Bettmen and the NHL. Is it a coincidence that Sean Avery is also the same guy who basically said the NHL didn’t know what it was doing and didn’t know how to market itself?

The Giants Are Just Cooler Than You

Cool has a lot of meanings in our society. It could mean you’re just plain cold because the weather out is frigid. It could mean you’re the epitome of what’s “happening” or what’s “hip” or it could simply mean you don’t get rattled. If you haven’t guessed by now which cool I’m talking about in terms of the New York Football Giants it’s clearly the latter.

The Giants are not an exceptionally talented team. They have good players all around but I don’t think anyone would argue they have the QB, running back, LT, etc in the league. They had one of the better receivers in the league, but are currently 2-0 without him. One can’t really say they’ve been all that fortunate. They’ve had injuries to cornerbacks, Osi has been out all season, Brandon Jacobs has been out a game, and Plaxico is now suspended for the rest of the season for being the dumbest player in the league.

Yet despite all this they’re 11-1 and increasingly the biggest reason is they’re just plain cooler then you.

Perhaps it stems from the coaching staff, which demands complete focus no matter what’s going on around you. Or maybe it stems from their QB who once was criticized for being too unemotional, when in fact it’s his calm demeanor through the bad and the good that has been his biggest asset the last two years.

Whatever the case may be the Giants this year have been plain unflappable. Whether it’s the Plaxico suspension or the Plaxico self-mutilation, whether it’s a horrid loss against Cleveland on Monday Night or a schedule that features 10 straight winning teams to finish the season, the Giants just keep rolling along.

There’s still a lot of football to be played and still four more good teams in the regular season, but as a Giants fan I couldn’t be any more pleased with how they’ve played this year. I’m not going to predict the future I’m simply telling you where they are now and how they got there. Simply put they’ve shown that teamwork and coolness are probably the most important things that separate the 11-1 teams from the 0-12 in the NFL.

Hey Coach: Move the Ball to the Middle of the Field

If there was one thing that bothered me about this weekend’s games it was 2 coaches eschewing the chance to move the ball to the middle of the field for late game field goals. The coaches I’m talking about are Wake Forests Jim Grobe and South Florida’s Jim Leavitt.

Wake Forest was down a point with a minute or so to go in the game they drive down the field late and get it to the 23 yard line with about 15 or so seconds to go and a timeout remaining. The ball was on one of the hashmarks and it was second down and 4. Grobe elects to throw 2 passes that go incomplete and then try the field goal. Unfortunately while its only a 40 yard field goal for one of the nations best/most experienced kickers it is from the hashmark not the middle of the field. Luckily for Grobe they make the kick, but all I keep thinking is wouldn’t it have been smarter to run the ball to the middle of the field and then use your timeout and kick the field goal? While I may not be a kicker personally, kicking the ball from an angle is clearly tougher then kicking it straight on.

Later in the day Jim Leavitt makes a similar decision (maybe it’s a Jim thing). UCF tied the game late, but South Florida came down and had a chance to win the game in regulation with a field goal. Leavitt had a chance to move it to the middle of the field but didn’t and unlike with Grobe’s decision it did backfire as the kid missed the field goal wide left I believe. Had the ball been in the middle of the field and he kicks the same kick the ball goes in. Who knows if he kicks the same kick from the middle of the field then as from the left hash, but I like my chances better in the middle of the field.

Now maybe the reason I haven’t heard anything about these decisions is because both men won their games, but they both seemed like silly decisions to me.

How Brett Favre Made me a Worldly Individual or I’m sorry to see Brett Go

Editors Note: I wrote this a couple days ago, but i didn't get around to editing it or posting it till today, so hopefully it's still enjoyable.

Well Brett Favre has finally been traded. I’m not going to analyze the trade, or wax poetic about his time in Green Bay, I’ll leave that to others. What I will say is I’m somewhat sorry to see him go. Not because I wanted him to stay in Green Bay and not because I wasn’t sick of the coverage of will he or won’t he go, because I certainly was.

No I’m sad to see Brett Favre go because the coverage of his every move by ESPN was actually turning me into a worldly fellow. It used to be I would turn on ESPN in the background as I was on my computer or I would watch it while eating some dinner (yes I eat dinner in front of the tv, whatever). Then Brett Favre decided he wanted to play again and ESPN decided it was their duty to tell us of his every text message, let alone actual moves. Not only that, but we needed to know everything the Packers coach, GM and President were doing and thinking. If that wasn’t enough we needed the opinion on a daily basis from everyone on first and 10, PTI, Around The Horn, NFL Live, Sportscenter and pretty much every other show ESPN has. We needed their opinion on not only what was happening but what would happen next and what should happen.

So I could listen to this on a daily basis if I wanted or I could chose to watch something else. Personally over the last week or so perhaps more I made the choice to turn off ESPN every time they mentioned Brett Favre. So what’s a guy to do with no ESPN? I started watching the news instead of Sportscenter. I would occasionally turn on the history channel or even the e network to glimpse at who the paparazzi were stalking today. (I figure its good to be up on all types of current events even if you find them repulsive, because you wanna be able to speak with a variety of people)

Alas, Brett Favre has been traded and while it may take a little while for ESPN to get over it, maybe now they’ll actually cover stories that will interest me or at least ones I haven’t heard about constantly for days on end. Who knows they might talk about training camp developments around the rest of the league. They might talk about the Olympics, or the MLS, or even cover the NL West race a little bit (yes they suck but someone has to get into the playoffs). Heck they played a recap of the Houston Texans 2007 season and that’s more interesting then the Favre Saga.

So here’s to hoping now that the Brett Favre saga is over I won’t turn back into my normal mindless self.