This week's Monday Washington Post Column (and bonus column from weekend)

Here is this week's The Washington Post column -----

If Abe Pollin were alive right now, the past week might well have been as painful as any he suffered through during the 45 years that he owned the NBA team in Baltimore, Landover and downtown Washington.

The 10-21 record wouldn't have been anything new for Pollin, especially coming off last season's 19-63 debacle. Anyone who has followed the team now known as the Wizards has seen just about everything when it comes to losing during most of the past 25 years. The team has been mediocre; it has been reasonably good; and it has been truly awful.

But never before last week has the public known that its players are showing up armed. Note that phrase: has the public known. The chances are pretty good that Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton aren't the first players to show up at Verizon Center with guns.


Click here for the rest of the column: Gilbert Arenas has worn out his welcome in Washington

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From the weekend:

Even before this basketball season began, George Mason Coach Jim Larranaga knew he was in for a bumpy ride. The Patriots are talented but young -- seriously young -- with only one senior, two juniors, three sophomores and seven freshmen. 

"Not only are we going to have good nights and bad nights, we're going to have good halves and bad halves," he said this fall. "We may even go way up and then way down from timeout to timeout."

Larranaga probably never imagined the November and December he and his team would go through. There were close losses to Villanova and Dayton. There were solid wins over Creighton and Indiana.

There was also a health scare: On the afternoon of Nov. 15, Larranaga walked into Patriot Center prior to his team's game against Dartmouth and felt his heart racing. When Mason's team doctor, Patrick Depenbrock, examined him he told him the problem right away -- atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heartbeat. 


Click here for the rest of the column: George Mason Coach Jim Larranaga aims to keep heart, team in check