Sports
stcynic | December 19, 2005This was prompted by a thread I saw on a Duke message board. With the conference pre-season schedules winding down and conference play about to begin around the country, who are the all-Americans at this point in the season? Interesting question, perhaps particularly interesting to me because at least 3/5 of the first team has to come from either Duke or MSU. I'll pick a first and second team at this point in the season. I'm not going to divide them up too strictly by position, but I will generally try to have 3 wing players and two inside players on each team.
First team::
Point guard. This…
stcynic | December 9, 2005I watched a high school basketball game last night on TV that included Lawrence North and their star, 7-footer Greg Oden. He was destined to be the #1 pick in the 2006 draft until the NBA's new agreement outlawed drafting kids straight ouf of high school. He's now going to spend at least one year at Ohio State, and after watching him last night I can say without hesitation that they're getting a real stud. He's 7-foot tall and he runs the floor like a gazelle, often beating the guards down the court. He's got great hands, a soft touch and he moves his feet on defense. He finished this game…
stcynic | November 23, 2005I know the season just started, but if there's a better game to be played than the one last night between Gonzaga and Michigan State, I can't wait to see it. If you missed it, you missed a triple overtime classic. It wasn't Duke-Kentucky in 92 great, but it was a small step below it. How about two teams playing their third game in 4 days, MSU doing it in what would literally be the middle of the night in their usual time zone, and hitting a combined 49 of 50 free throws in the second half? And serious basketball fans learned a lot from this game.
A. This is not your typical Gonzaga team.…
stcynic | November 21, 2005I don't know if anyone else saw the USC-Fresno State football game on Saturday, but I stayed up far past my bedtime to watch it. I didn't intend to, but I couldn't stop watching Reggie Bush put on a performance for the ages. Bush had 513 total yards against a top 20 team. That's a staggering number. Only 4 teams in all of college football gain that many yards as a team per game; for an individual to gain that many is mind boggling. This guy is Barry Sanders, folks. His ability to stop and go and be at top speed again in one or two steps is almost superhuman. When he gets in the NFL, they're…
stcynic | November 19, 2005I know we're only 10% of the way through the NBA regular season, but I don't think it's too early to pat myself on the back for what I wrote on October 26th, before the season started: the Detroit Pistons will be better this year than they were the last two years under Larry Brown. For the record, here's what I wrote:
The Pistons will be better this year without Larry Brown. I know, Brown is a legend. I know, he's the only coach ever to win both an NBA and NCAA championship. He's also entirely too rigid and doesn't adjust how he coaches to the players on the roster. We know the Pistons play…
stcynic | November 16, 2005I don't know how many people watched Duke play Seton Hall tonight, but if not you missed one of the most dominant games I've ever seen. Seton Hall went up 2-0. 22 missed shots later, it was 26-4 and all but over. The freshmen from Duke were really impressive, which bodes well for the future. They lose 4 seniors from this year's team, but the team lines up perfectly for next year. Paulus, Nelson, Pocius, Boykin and McRoberts start, Boateng and McClure off the bench, plus next year's freshmen. But this year, they're definitely the favorites to win it all. Just a brilliant performance all the…
stcynic | November 14, 2005Today may be the best day of the year. It's the start of college basketball season, with my Duke Blue Devils (yeah, yeah, forward me your hate mail - I'm not a bandwagon fan, i've been a fan since I was 14) taking on Boston University on ESPN at 7:30. Duke is the overwhelming preseason choice for the #1 ranking, returning two all-Americans from last year's team, losing only one player of consequence and adding the top recruiting class in the nation. They will have two first team all-Americans this year and perhaps the freshman of the year in Josh McRoberts.
Clearly the team to beat. My other…
stcynic | November 14, 2005Suspecting that there might be some press coverage in it, Jesse Jackson couldn't resist opening his mouth and making a fool of himself yet again. This time, he's claiming that Terrell Owens is being treated unfairly: And he's being joined by fellow camera-loving glory hound Ralph Nader, who has also said the punishment is too severe. Here's Jackson's statement in whole, with my comments:
"Terrell Owens did an interview last week and engaged in some unsportsmanlike speech, deemed detrimental to the team, but nonetheless free speech. He expressed some dissatisfaction with his contract, his team…
stcynic | November 9, 2005I'm not sure why I'm compelled to write about this, but I am. I think it's because past experiences in my life have showed some exact parallels with the kind of fake apology that he offered on TV the other day. And far too many people, at least far too many people I've known, can't distinguish between a real apology and a fake one. Owens' apology is obviously a fake one, and not just because of his past track record of behavior. Here's how you know it's fake: his words and his actions don't match up. While he says that he's sorry and he understands that he was out of line, he's still trying…
stcynic | October 26, 2005Okay, let's take a momentary break from the serious stuff and talk a little basketball. The NBA season starts next week and the college basketball season a couple weeks later and, as everyone knows, basketball is my favorite sport. I'm gonna make a few predictions for both the college and NBA seasons, starting with the NBA.
1. The Pistons will be better this year without Larry Brown. I know, Brown is a legend. I know, he's the only coach ever to win both an NBA and NCAA championship. He's also entirely too rigid and doesn't adjust how he coaches to the players on the roster. We know the…
stcynic | October 19, 2005NBA commissioner David Stern has imposed a dress code on all NBA players. If they're on the bench but not in uniform, they must wear a sportcoat and dress shoes. If they're going about league business, they must be at least "business casual", which means dress slacks and a dress shirt and sweater. Oh, and no ball caps, gold chains or do rags. Players are complaining about it, mostly because they think it's unfair to have to dress like that on those rare days that they're not in a courtroom.
stcynic | October 1, 2005The Michigan State-Michigan game begins in a moment. If MSU wins this game, they'll be a legitimate top 10 team looking for a BCS bowl bid. Go Spartans!
Update: Ugh. They did everything they could do to lose a game they should have won (and I'm sure Michigan fans would be saying the same thing if MSU had found a way to pull it out). Just an ugly game of stupid mistakes and bad coaching.
stcynic | September 24, 2005Got to watch the MSU-Illinois game on TV and I think it's time to start talking about MSU QB Drew Stanton as a serious candidate for the Heisman Trophy. His numbers this year have been phenomenal as he's led the Spartans to a 4-0 start. In those 4 games, here are his numbers:
Kent State: 22 for 29 for 297 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Hawaii: 21 for 26 for 301 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Notre Dame: 16 for 27 for 327 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 1 running TD.
Illinois: 20 for 26 for 259 yards and 5 touchdowns, and he didn't play the last 20 minutes of the game.
Overall: 73.1% completion rate, 13…
stcynic | September 19, 2005Just a short break from my usual subjects for a little whining. My fantasy football team is a keeper league, which means we can each keep up to 3 players from the last year's roster on our team for this year and everyone else goes back into the draft pool. I only kept one player this year and he happened to be the highest scoring player in all of fantasy football last year, Daunte Culpepper. And how bad has he been this year? In 2 games, he's thrown 8 interceptions and 0 touchdowns. Oh, and he also has 2 fumbles. In fact, in two games the Vikings offense has had a total of 24 offensive…
stcynic | September 9, 2005It's funny, just the other day as I saw a report on the US Open on Sportscenter, I thought about the fact that I never watch tennis anymore. When I was a kid, we would always spend the 4th of July at our cottage and we had a tradition of watching Wimbledon on Sunday morning. This was in the days of the Borg/McEnroe rivalry, so it was really something to watch. I became a fan then and stayed one for a long time, through the Ivan Lendl era, Stephan Edberg and Boris Becker, then Courier, Agassi and the greatest of all, Pete Sampras. On the women's side, I watched first Martina Navratilova then…
stcynic | August 29, 2005Okay, now that I have all these comments to reply to, I'm gonna have to beg off until later tonight or tomorrow. Tonight is the draft for my fantasy football league. This league is really more about competitive trash talking than about football, of course. And we've been fighting over rule changes and pre-draft trades and tonight should be one giant pain in the butt. Hopefully I'll end up with a good team. My only keeper is Daunte Culpepper and I'll build the team around him.
stcynic | July 28, 2005My best friend just called to tell me that his daughter Kara, who I went and saw play softball a few weeks ago, just won the state all star team championship and, in the process, pitched a no-hitter with 10 strikeouts in 4 innings (they won 19-0, so the game was called due to a mercy rule). The girl is 9 years old and pitches nearly 50 mph (I'm told that the top college softball pitchers throw in the low 60s) and gave up something like 4 or 5 hits the entire season. She's a badass.
stcynic | June 30, 2005Okay, I gotta take a break from the seriousness once in a while and talk about sports. I am, as you all should know, a major college basketball nut and Tuesday was the NBA Draft. The first thing you must do if you care about this subject at all is go read the Sports Guy's draft diary, which he does every year. This year's is hilarious, as always. My favorite part is this:
9:02 - ESPN should have a feature in the post-draft special with NBA fans calling friends who aren't watching the draft to tell them what happened in the last 10 picks. I just called my buddy House, who's at the Nationals…
stcynic | May 20, 2005Last night was a bittersweet one for me as a basketball fan. Yes, the Pistons beat Indiana to advance to the conference finals. But they did it by ending the career of one of my favorite players, Reggie Miller. Miller was the guy you loved to hate and then came to love out of sheer respect for his talent and his will. He was brash and bold. He talked smack on the court, but then he backed it up. And has there ever been a better clutch shooter than Reggie? I think the game against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, in the playoffs, scoring 8 points in 9 seconds to keep his team alive,…
stcynic | April 5, 2005I suppose being a big fan of both Duke and MSU should make me upset that North Carolina won the NCAA championship last night, but it doesn't bother me at all. More than anything, I am a college basketball fan and I thought the Tar Heels were the best team all year and picked them to win it. And I've just never been able to be what I call an "uber-fan", one of those people who take rivalries so seriously that they invest too much emotion both in "loving" their team and in "hating" the other team. I guess I just reserve such emotions for real people that I know personally.
I think it's great…