This SHOULD be a fun Final Four for the simple reason that the games should be close to the finish, regardless of who wins on Saturday. There’s no one nearly as good as North Carolina was a year ago and our long Saturday drought should come to an end.
Think about it. Semifinal Saturday is always billed as one of the best days in sports. Not so much the last five seasons. In 2004, both semis were decided in the final seconds: Georgia Tech’s Will Bynum hitting a buzzer-beater to beat Oklahoma State and Connecticut coming from behind the last three minutes to catch Duke.
Since then, there have been ten Saturday games played and not one of them was decided in the final seconds. Last year’s Connecticut-Michigan State game had the emotional element of the Spartans playing ‘for,’ Detroit but the game itself wasn’t that dramatic. Carolina-Villanova was over at halftime as was the title game two nights later. In 2008 the championship game between Kansas and Memphis was great but the Saturday games were both over before the last two minutes.
I just can’t see any of these four teams either collapsing or running away. For one thing, none of them play that style of basketball. Duke-West Virginia should be a donnybrook inside. Both teams play very good half-court defense, rebound like crazy and are inconsistent on offense. Butler and Michigan State have both played superbly to get this far and believe—correctly—that they are as capable of winning the title as anyone.
There are also great story lines, the most obvious being Butler, The Little School That Did, coming home to Indy to play The Final Four. For the record, Butler’s campus—I’m told—is the third closest to a Final Four site. Apparently Louisville in 1958 was a two-mile drive from Freedom Hall and UCLA traveled about three miles cross-town in 1967 and 1972 to the L.A. Sports Arena. (For some reason I had it in my mind that they played in Pauley Pavilion in ’67 but Matt Bonesteel at The Post says not so and since my memory isn’t what it used to be, I’m taking his word).
Butler’s not George Mason. For one thing, the Bulldogs had a tournament pedigree coming in—two recent Sweet 16s—and were a No. 5 seed. Mason was a No. 11 seed and had never won an NCAA Tournament game. But Butler didn’t back in by any means. It beat the top two seeds in the West, Syracuse and Kansas State and made big plays at the end in both games after falling behind. Frequently when an underdog loses the lead after having it for a while it spits the bit. That didn’t happen.
Michigan State’s two victories this weekend are a tribute to just how tough-minded the kids Tom Izzo recruits are year in and year out. Losing your point guard is hard enough but when he’s your best player—as Kalin Lucas was—no one would blame you if you mailed in the rest of the tournament. The Spartans not only won twice but if you watched them there’s no reason to believe they can’t win twice more. Izzo is just flat out good—which isn’t exactly going out on a limb since he’s now been to six Final Fours in 12 years and is going for a second national championship. He’s also a good guy, universally respected by his peers. You will never hear any whispers about Izzo or his program.
Bob Huggins has heard more than whispers through the years. He became kind of a national whipping boy because of his graduation rate at Cincinnati and because his players found off-court trouble often, including most famously a player pulling a ‘Blazing Saddles,’ move and taking a swing at a police horse. There were health issues too—drinking problems, a serious heart attack—and finally a battle with the school president he couldn’t win.
No one—NO ONE—ever said Huggins couldn’t coach and if they did they were flat out wrong. That’s why there wasn’t any doubt that West Virginia would be good when he came home to his alma mater three years ago. This is a classic Huggins team: it plays, “ugly,”—to quote assistant coach Billy Hahn—but it will guard you getting off the bus and rebound all day and all night. It is also mentally tough, a lot like its coach. Huggins was unhappy with the 23 turnovers the Mountaineers committed against Washington. I haven’t double-checked but I think the number was THREE in the Kentucky game? And that’s against a team that can really attack on defense. Joe Mazzulla’s performance, coming in for Truck Bryant at point guard, was phenomenal. Plus, he’s a smart, funny kid, the kind you want to root for to do well.
I think West Virginia’s the best team left. Its game with Duke, as I said, will probably be a 65-61 type of game. Let me pause here though to give some credit to Mike Krzyzewski for getting this group to The Final Four. I’ve said all year—and still believe—this isn’t even close to one of his best teams. The so-called Big Three—Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith—are all nice players but wildly inconsistent shooters. Singler was zero-for-10 from the field yesterday. Scheyer had been in a slump until the second half of the Purdue game. Smith was excellent yesterday but has bouts when he can turn the ball over three times in four possessions.
But Duke’s good. It plays great defense and the four big guys it plays can’t throw the ball in the ocean but they get rebounds and make it tough to get inside.
Of course there will be the ritual whining about Duke’s draw and the charge that Brian Zoubek took with Duke down two late in the game. Yup, the Krzyzewski-haters (and they are a legion) will say he’s now won 793 games thanks to the officials. (I think they concede the 73 wins at Army may have been legit). Fine. If that makes you feel better, go ahead and think it. And if saying Krzyzewski’s one hell of a coach makes me a ‘Duke guy,’ that’s fine too. Somehow thinking Izzo is great doesn’t make me a ‘Michigan State guy,’ but that’s life.
Krzyzewski has NOT recruited as well the last few years as in past years. But he’s in his 11th Final Four—as many now as Dean Smith; one less than John Wooden. It’s tough to shoot that number down.
One other note on Baylor Coach Scott Drew who has done amazing work rebuilding that program after the Patrick Dennehy tragedy and the Dave Bliss debacle seven years ago. I’m sorry, I know this will upset some people but I have to say something about his comment yesterday that a postgame prayer is, “the right way to do things.”
Look, if Drew and his team want to pray before, during or after games, that is absolutely their right. But praying is neither right nor wrong on a universal level. For some people it is the right thing to do; for others it isn’t. I remember when I was working on ‘A Civil War,’ and Charlie Weatherbie was Navy’s coach. Weatherbie believed in praying as a team all day every day. On game day he led a prayer before pre-game breakfast; before the coach’s morning meeting; before the team met at the hotel; in the locker room before the game; on the field after the game; in the locker room right after that.
Once I got to know some of the players I asked them how they felt about all the prayers. Some thought it was great. Some shrugged it off. Some didn’t like it at all. “God has better things to do,” was a frequent comment. And some said this: “If coach thinks it will help us win, I’m all for it.”
Like I said, if Scott Drew and his players choose to pray on the court after a game, that is absolutely their choice. But it isn’t the right way or the wrong way to do things. It is just their way—period
----------------
Last thing: I see where Norman Chad is taking shots at me again in his stale Washington Post column. Apparently I can’t write and he can. Let me just say this: If I ever end up commenting on poker on TV for a living, don’t ask any questions, just shoot me.
Showing posts with label Norman Chad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norman Chad. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A plea to AP voters – vote Boise State No. 1; Kudos to Bobby Cremins and Roy Williams
Okay, here we go again.
A year ago at this time I publicly pleaded with my brethren who vote in the AP football poll to pick Utah No. 1 on their final ballots for two reasons: First, you could make a case the Utes were as deserving as Florida after they blasted Alabama in The Sugar Bowl and second, to send a message to the BCS bullies that a lot of people are sick and tired of their system and aren’t going to take it anymore.
Not surprisingly, I was largely ignored. So much for independent thinking among members of the fourth estate.
Well, if nothing else, I don’t give up easily. I come before everyone today to ask those with AP ballots to please—PLEASE—vote Boise State No. 1 in their final poll. My reasoning is the same as last year: The Broncos went 14-0 and whipped Pac-10 champion Oregon, the one BCS school that had the guts to schedule them. They beat a TCU team in The Fiesta Bowl that had gone unbeaten in The Mountain West Conference which, if you check, did not lose a bowl game until the Horned Frogs crossed paths with Boise State.
TCU won on the road at Clemson and hammered Virginia—the only BCS schools willing to play THEM.
Now, you BCS apologists will talk about the depth of the SEC and the fact that Boise would finish no better than third in that league. That might be true. But there’s no proof is there? Until and unless the power teams are willing to schedule Boise instead of Chattanooga and Charleston Southern we can’t know what would happen if Boise played Alabama or Florida or, for that matter, Texas.
That’s the entire point of deciding championships on the field: there’s no arguing, you just go out and play. The BCS folks are so arrogant and so gutless they wouldn’t even give TCU and Boise the chance to play their schools in bowl games—matchups that would have been far more compelling than Georgia Tech-Iowa or, for that matter, Florida-Cincinnati.
Why didn’t the BCS want TCU and Boise matching up with their conference champions? Simple: Utah-Alabama; Boise State-Oklahoma; Utah-Pittsburgh. Can’t have that. Can’t have people saying things like, “Florida had to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama and Utah dominated Alabama so…”
And please don’t give me the, “Alabama wasn’t motivated with no national title to play for,” excuse. How’d Florida look the other night bashing Cincinnati (a BCS school for those scoring at home) with no national title to play for? What’s more when was the last time you saw a Nick Saban team fail to show up to play—in a major bowl game no less? No. Utah just whipped Alabama. Given a chance Boise and TCU might have done the same thing, which is why they weren’t given the chance.
That’s why the AP voters should Just Say No to the BCS, which isn’t a pox the way drugs are a pox but is pretty damn sickening. They should vote Boise No. 1 and the winner of Alabama-Texas No. 2. The Alabama-Texas winner will still get a trophy and all the BCS hype as national champions and that’s fine. I can’t tell you for sure that Boise would beat either of those teams anymore than anyone can tell me those teams would beat Boise. And we’ll never know because the BCS bullies won’t allow us to find out.
Here’s the problem: For all of our vaunted claims of being independent thinkers, most of us in the media aren’t. Earlier this season I wrote to a friend who had not voted Navy in his top 25 but had five—FIVE—teams from the lousy ACC in his top 25. He wrote me back and said, “I know Navy beat Notre Dame but it did lose to Temple.” I pointed out two things in response: Temple might finish in the top four in the ACC and Navy had played the Owls without their starting quarterback, without their best slotback and had lost in the last minute. He wrote back, “Oh, didn’t know that.”
A week later he STILL didn’t have Navy in the top 25.
What’s more, there are guys voting in the poll who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Guys who work for ESPN? Are you kidding? ESPN and the BCS are business partners. That’s like letting me vote for the best books of 2009. Let’s see, “Change-Up,” looks pretty good at No. 1, followed by “Are You Kidding Me?” and at No. 3 I’ve got the paperback version of, “Living on the Black.”
Most of the voters—the ESPN guys aside—cover BCS teams. Like my friend, they not only don’t see Boise State live (perhaps TCU since it played two ACC teams) but they don’t even see the Broncos on TV because they’re covering games every Saturday. Maybe they saw the Oregon game but I bet a lot of them said, “well, that was way back in September.” Who would you bet on today in a rematch?
You see, this problem’s not going away because the BCS schools will just continue not to schedule power schools from the non-power conferences. Can San Jose State get a game with a BCS power? You bet. Boise State? Not so much. Karl Benson, the commissioner of the WAC, who is one of the more honest guys I’ve encountered in athletic administration through the years, said earlier this season Boise had contacted TEN BCS schools about playing them the next couple of years ON THE ROAD and all ten had said no thanks.
So, here’s my final plea: spread this around. Go online and get the list of AP voters—it’s there every week, which is more than I can say for the ridiculous coaches' poll—and write to anyone you can and say VOTE FOR BOISE STATE. It doesn’t even take a lot of guts to do it. It isn’t like saying, ‘I’m voting for Villanova because it won the highest level tournament there is in college football.’ This is a team that met every challenge it was asked to meet. It is now 2-0 when given a shot at a BCS game and is willing to play anyone, anytime.
By the way, don’t be surprised when the final poll comes out if Florida finishes ahead of Boise State too. That’s how little faith I have in my colleagues. I would love for them to prove me wrong and vote Boise No. 1. But it isn’t going to happen. The irony is it would be a great STORY. Sadly, a lot of these guys don’t know a great story when they trip and fall over it. And if that upsets some of them—fine—prove me wrong and I’ll gladly shut up.
-----------
A number of people wrote me yesterday to ask why Norman Chad continues to annually take a gratuitous cheap shot at me in his Washington Post column. There are two answers: I really don’t know because I’ve never exchanged an angry word with him and didn’t when we worked a few desks away from one another at The Post years ago, and, answer number two, I’m pretty sure I do know.
My guess—and that’s all it is but others who know Chad think I’m right—is that Chad was supposed to go to Hollywood and become a big star writing screenplays because he’s so smart and so talented. I happen to think he is smart and talented but the screenwriting thing never happened for him and now he makes a living commenting on poker and writing the same, tired column he’s been writing for about 20 years, once a week. Twenty years ago he was funny. Now he’s just bitter. The column says the same thing every week: I watch a lot of TV, I’ve been divorced twice, I like bowling, I drink Rolling Rock and I’ll prove how smart I am by calling other people dumb. He’s even turned on Tony Kornheiser in his bitterness because Tony, well, is very, very successful.
So, about once a year comes the shot that I’m a no-talent and to be honest I think it makes Chad (and the paper) look kind of silly and I doubt if it changes anyone’s feelings about my work one way or the other. All I can say is if I ever end up doing commentary on poker please—PLEASE—ask no questions, just have me dragged away and put inside a small room someplace where I can’t hurt anyone.
-------------------
And finally: Kudos today to Bobby Cremins for The College of Charleston’s stunning upset of North Carolina last night. There is no one—I mean NO ONE—in college basketball who doesn’t enjoy Cremins. He’s been one of the game’s true characters for a long time.
The line that best summed Bobby up came from an ACC referee who I asked about all the league’s coaches when I was working on, “A March to Madness.” Of Cremins he said, “if Bobby Cremins says you missed a call, you missed the call.”
Bobby almost never argues with officials. One reason for that is that he often can’t remember their names. When I was working on the book, I often sat next to the Georgia Tech bench. Almost without fail, Bobby would walk over to me a couple of minutes before tipoff and say, “John, do me a favor and tell me which official is which.”
It reminded me of Al McGuire who would often come over before doing a telecast and say, “give me one kid on each team I can talk about.”
The funny thing is, for all the wackiness, they were both so damn good at what they did. Apparently Bobby still is damn good at what he does.
Kudos also to Roy Williams for playing the game AT Charleston because of his long-standing friendship with Cremins. There are very few big-time coaches who will schedule a reasonably good mid-major on the road. Roy does it. He lost a game but my guess is his team will be fine and his career is still in pretty good shape. That may not sound like much but if I told you the number of coaches who have told me through the years, “NO WAY,” will they play a mid-major of quality on the road it would blow your mind.
So good for Bobby. And good for Roy too.
A year ago at this time I publicly pleaded with my brethren who vote in the AP football poll to pick Utah No. 1 on their final ballots for two reasons: First, you could make a case the Utes were as deserving as Florida after they blasted Alabama in The Sugar Bowl and second, to send a message to the BCS bullies that a lot of people are sick and tired of their system and aren’t going to take it anymore.
Not surprisingly, I was largely ignored. So much for independent thinking among members of the fourth estate.
Well, if nothing else, I don’t give up easily. I come before everyone today to ask those with AP ballots to please—PLEASE—vote Boise State No. 1 in their final poll. My reasoning is the same as last year: The Broncos went 14-0 and whipped Pac-10 champion Oregon, the one BCS school that had the guts to schedule them. They beat a TCU team in The Fiesta Bowl that had gone unbeaten in The Mountain West Conference which, if you check, did not lose a bowl game until the Horned Frogs crossed paths with Boise State.
TCU won on the road at Clemson and hammered Virginia—the only BCS schools willing to play THEM.
Now, you BCS apologists will talk about the depth of the SEC and the fact that Boise would finish no better than third in that league. That might be true. But there’s no proof is there? Until and unless the power teams are willing to schedule Boise instead of Chattanooga and Charleston Southern we can’t know what would happen if Boise played Alabama or Florida or, for that matter, Texas.
That’s the entire point of deciding championships on the field: there’s no arguing, you just go out and play. The BCS folks are so arrogant and so gutless they wouldn’t even give TCU and Boise the chance to play their schools in bowl games—matchups that would have been far more compelling than Georgia Tech-Iowa or, for that matter, Florida-Cincinnati.
Why didn’t the BCS want TCU and Boise matching up with their conference champions? Simple: Utah-Alabama; Boise State-Oklahoma; Utah-Pittsburgh. Can’t have that. Can’t have people saying things like, “Florida had to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama and Utah dominated Alabama so…”
And please don’t give me the, “Alabama wasn’t motivated with no national title to play for,” excuse. How’d Florida look the other night bashing Cincinnati (a BCS school for those scoring at home) with no national title to play for? What’s more when was the last time you saw a Nick Saban team fail to show up to play—in a major bowl game no less? No. Utah just whipped Alabama. Given a chance Boise and TCU might have done the same thing, which is why they weren’t given the chance.
That’s why the AP voters should Just Say No to the BCS, which isn’t a pox the way drugs are a pox but is pretty damn sickening. They should vote Boise No. 1 and the winner of Alabama-Texas No. 2. The Alabama-Texas winner will still get a trophy and all the BCS hype as national champions and that’s fine. I can’t tell you for sure that Boise would beat either of those teams anymore than anyone can tell me those teams would beat Boise. And we’ll never know because the BCS bullies won’t allow us to find out.
Here’s the problem: For all of our vaunted claims of being independent thinkers, most of us in the media aren’t. Earlier this season I wrote to a friend who had not voted Navy in his top 25 but had five—FIVE—teams from the lousy ACC in his top 25. He wrote me back and said, “I know Navy beat Notre Dame but it did lose to Temple.” I pointed out two things in response: Temple might finish in the top four in the ACC and Navy had played the Owls without their starting quarterback, without their best slotback and had lost in the last minute. He wrote back, “Oh, didn’t know that.”
A week later he STILL didn’t have Navy in the top 25.
What’s more, there are guys voting in the poll who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Guys who work for ESPN? Are you kidding? ESPN and the BCS are business partners. That’s like letting me vote for the best books of 2009. Let’s see, “Change-Up,” looks pretty good at No. 1, followed by “Are You Kidding Me?” and at No. 3 I’ve got the paperback version of, “Living on the Black.”
Most of the voters—the ESPN guys aside—cover BCS teams. Like my friend, they not only don’t see Boise State live (perhaps TCU since it played two ACC teams) but they don’t even see the Broncos on TV because they’re covering games every Saturday. Maybe they saw the Oregon game but I bet a lot of them said, “well, that was way back in September.” Who would you bet on today in a rematch?
You see, this problem’s not going away because the BCS schools will just continue not to schedule power schools from the non-power conferences. Can San Jose State get a game with a BCS power? You bet. Boise State? Not so much. Karl Benson, the commissioner of the WAC, who is one of the more honest guys I’ve encountered in athletic administration through the years, said earlier this season Boise had contacted TEN BCS schools about playing them the next couple of years ON THE ROAD and all ten had said no thanks.
So, here’s my final plea: spread this around. Go online and get the list of AP voters—it’s there every week, which is more than I can say for the ridiculous coaches' poll—and write to anyone you can and say VOTE FOR BOISE STATE. It doesn’t even take a lot of guts to do it. It isn’t like saying, ‘I’m voting for Villanova because it won the highest level tournament there is in college football.’ This is a team that met every challenge it was asked to meet. It is now 2-0 when given a shot at a BCS game and is willing to play anyone, anytime.
By the way, don’t be surprised when the final poll comes out if Florida finishes ahead of Boise State too. That’s how little faith I have in my colleagues. I would love for them to prove me wrong and vote Boise No. 1. But it isn’t going to happen. The irony is it would be a great STORY. Sadly, a lot of these guys don’t know a great story when they trip and fall over it. And if that upsets some of them—fine—prove me wrong and I’ll gladly shut up.
-----------
A number of people wrote me yesterday to ask why Norman Chad continues to annually take a gratuitous cheap shot at me in his Washington Post column. There are two answers: I really don’t know because I’ve never exchanged an angry word with him and didn’t when we worked a few desks away from one another at The Post years ago, and, answer number two, I’m pretty sure I do know.
My guess—and that’s all it is but others who know Chad think I’m right—is that Chad was supposed to go to Hollywood and become a big star writing screenplays because he’s so smart and so talented. I happen to think he is smart and talented but the screenwriting thing never happened for him and now he makes a living commenting on poker and writing the same, tired column he’s been writing for about 20 years, once a week. Twenty years ago he was funny. Now he’s just bitter. The column says the same thing every week: I watch a lot of TV, I’ve been divorced twice, I like bowling, I drink Rolling Rock and I’ll prove how smart I am by calling other people dumb. He’s even turned on Tony Kornheiser in his bitterness because Tony, well, is very, very successful.
So, about once a year comes the shot that I’m a no-talent and to be honest I think it makes Chad (and the paper) look kind of silly and I doubt if it changes anyone’s feelings about my work one way or the other. All I can say is if I ever end up doing commentary on poker please—PLEASE—ask no questions, just have me dragged away and put inside a small room someplace where I can’t hurt anyone.
-------------------
And finally: Kudos today to Bobby Cremins for The College of Charleston’s stunning upset of North Carolina last night. There is no one—I mean NO ONE—in college basketball who doesn’t enjoy Cremins. He’s been one of the game’s true characters for a long time.
The line that best summed Bobby up came from an ACC referee who I asked about all the league’s coaches when I was working on, “A March to Madness.” Of Cremins he said, “if Bobby Cremins says you missed a call, you missed the call.”
Bobby almost never argues with officials. One reason for that is that he often can’t remember their names. When I was working on the book, I often sat next to the Georgia Tech bench. Almost without fail, Bobby would walk over to me a couple of minutes before tipoff and say, “John, do me a favor and tell me which official is which.”
It reminded me of Al McGuire who would often come over before doing a telecast and say, “give me one kid on each team I can talk about.”
The funny thing is, for all the wackiness, they were both so damn good at what they did. Apparently Bobby still is damn good at what he does.
Kudos also to Roy Williams for playing the game AT Charleston because of his long-standing friendship with Cremins. There are very few big-time coaches who will schedule a reasonably good mid-major on the road. Roy does it. He lost a game but my guess is his team will be fine and his career is still in pretty good shape. That may not sound like much but if I told you the number of coaches who have told me through the years, “NO WAY,” will they play a mid-major of quality on the road it would blow your mind.
So good for Bobby. And good for Roy too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)