The Academy Awards Of College Basketball

In honor of Sunday’s Academy awards I’ve decided to put together my own college hoops themed Oscars. These are the players, coaches and teams who I think deserved to take home the hardware. Also, anything I can do to get Bruce Pearl to make a speech I am all for.

Best Team: Syracuse
The Orange really hurt themselves when they lost to Louisville on Saturday. But even that wasn’t enough to take them out of contention for the Team of the Year Oscar. Like “The Hurt Locker” the Orange haven’t been full of special effects and big name stars, but they’ve done a great job putting it together when it counts and winning when and where it matters.

Best Supporting Player: DeMarcus Cousins
Like Christoph Waltz, Cousins came into this category with a lot of hype and like Waltz he delivered. Cousins has been Cousins all season and even though he’s playing second fiddle to the enormously talented John Wall, rest assured he has been amazing this year.

Best Player: John Wall
Like Jeff Bridges, John Wall has been the favorite coming in. Also like Jeff Bridges, people can root for other guys, but when you see his performance there’s no denying who was the best this year.

Best Coach: Bruce Pearl
Kathryn Bigelow made waves as the first woman to ever win the Oscar for Best Director and Bruce Pearl is doing the same as the very first Jewish coach to win my Best Coach award. Never mind that this is the first year I’ve given the award and no one really cares what I think.

Best Small School Game: Penn over Cornell
This is sort of like Best Foreign Film because you probably didn’t see it when it happened and you probably don’t really care. But even so, this game was probably the biggest upset in Ivy League play in the past 10 years. Penn came into the game with a record of 3-15 against the perinial Ivy League title contenders. Cornell was even ranked at the time. Penn put together an amazing game and somehow came away with the victory. Penn went on to win two games after that game, but they’ll always have that fateful February 12.

Best Game Plan: Bruce Pearl – Tennessee
After having one of his best players kicked off the team and seeing some of his most talented players suspended for various legal indiscretions, Pearl laid out a great game plan that kept the Volunteers competitive this season. Even with all that Tennessee has been one of the best teams in the country this season, with victories over KU (Kansas) and UK (Kentucky).

Violence In Women’s Sports

What in the world is going on in women’s sports today? It’s a given that when there’s a high level of competition, aggressiveness tends to rear its ugly head at times. But lately it seems as if women are becoming just as aggressive as their male counterparts. Sports in general are becoming more sensationalized with a “win at all cost” mentality. How far will the violence go?

Last year we saw the nasty nature of tennis player Serena Williams. In a semi final match of the US Open, she verbally abused a line judge for a foot fault that she felt was inappropriate. Williams later explained, “As a competitor and as someone who’s really passionate about their work, I got a little overexcited.” That outburst only cost her a fine and a slap on the wrist from the tennis federation who said that if it happens again, she “could” face a suspension.

In November of 2009, New Mexico college soccer player Elizabeth Lambert took her aggression to a new level. She was seen throughout the whole game making illegal tackles, and throwing elbows and punches to the back and face of various BYU players. But the defining moment came when she pulled her opponent’s ponytail whipping her neck around, and throwing her to the ground like a rag doll. She didn’t receive a penalty for that, but did receive a yellow card for tripping her opponent who was trying to score a goal. Where were the referees, and who was controlling this game? Lambert apologized for the incident saying, “This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player I am.”

Most recently, on March 3, 2010 we saw Baylor University basketball player Brittney Griner sucker punch her opponent from Texas Tech. Griner and her opponent were jockeying for position in the paint when the Texas Tech player took Griner and whipped her around, causing her to lose her balance. Griner retaliated with a knuckle sandwich, breaking the other player’s nose. The fisticuffs resulted in Griner’s ejection, and other consequences her coach may hand down. The Texas Tech player shot her free throws, left the game, but more importantly, could be out for the rest of the season.

As an athlete and soccer player myself, I have seen the various levels of both physical and verbal violence first hand. I know of what I speak. But wasn’t it bad enough when Tanya Harding took a hit out on Nancy Kerrigan? How far is it going to go? Will it eventually lead to someone getting a chunk of their ear bit off like poor Evander Holyfield? Aggression will always be a part of sport, but is it ok to passively sit on the sidelines waiting for a change? What would you stand for?

The 5 Most Dangerous Teams in the Country

If you know anything about sports, you know that in single-elimination tournaments the best team isn’t always the one that walks away with the championship. Everyone is making arguments for who the best team in the nation is right now, but that’s not what really matters. What matters is which team can pull a win out of nowhere when it counts.

These are the five teams that, no matter where they’re seeded or who they’re playing, I wouldn’t put my money against.

5. Maryland
Two words: Greivis Vasquez. The Terps play pathetic defense, they lost to William & Mary (ALWAYS an indicator to lower expectations) and the ACC is the weakest it’s been in my lifetime. But despite all this, that fiery Venezuelan has a win-at-all-costs cockiness that makes great players into legends.

4. Syracuse
I personally believe the Orange are the best team in the tournament this year. They’re very well coached, they’re poised and they’ve got great size. Syracuse is dangerous because they’re hungry. Coach Boeheim hasn’t won a title in seven years and I think he’s the kind of coach that takes it personally. Also, the Big East so much better than every other conference in college basketball it’s almost pathetic.

3. Georgetown
The Hoyas are the best team in the country when they want to be. When they don’t want to be, they’re almost painful to watch. Watching them beat Villanova and then annihilate Duke, I really thought they were going to make a run at a number one seed. But when they fell to USF, Rutgers and Notre Dame, I let go of that thought real quick. Still, when they’re good, they’re very, very good.

2. Tennessee
The Vols have beaten everyone worth beating this year and they’ve done it every way you can possibly imagine. They’ve won short-handed, they’ve won as the favorite, they’ve won on the road, they’ve won by beating the other team inside and by killing teams with the three. This team is short on talent, but big on heart and they’re very well coached. Most importantly, they play with the confidence that they can beat anyone.

1. Kentucky
This is hands-down the most athletic team in the nation. If they didn’t all play together, I think the combination of Wall-Cousins-Patterson could legitimately go 1-2-3 in the NBA draft. They’re that good. The most dangerous thing about Kentucky is that they haven’t put together a full game yet. Every competitive game they’ve been in this year, they played down to the competition until crunch time, then turned it on. In terms of sheer athleticism, no one can touch this team. It’s just a matter of whether they’ll be able to turn it on when it counts.

Around The Association 2-17-10

Well, we are sneaking up to trade deadline time. This usually means a great deal of rumors with most, if not all, never panning out. Some years the trade-deadline-buzz flat out fails to deliver. It is following that same path this year. While talk of Amare to Cleveland or Ray Allen being exiled abound, we are left with some lack luster news. The Clippers got rid of Marcus Camby for Scott Blake and Travis Outlaw.

While the trade does get the Blazers a Center that isn’t currently in crutches or naked on the internet, it doesn’t lift them into the playoff picture at all. From the Clippers standpoint… Wow, did you see that..? I actually stopped caring mid-sentence there.

Meanwhile, some teams are on the hot seat to make a trade. Boston is going through some growing pains. They seem to be a bit old or too dysfunctional to challenge for the title as currently designed. I guess things look that way when you lose half time leads to the lowly Hornets. They remind me of Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally… You could see the inevitable aging happen on screen, right before your eyes. And so it is with the Celtics. With every game, they look more and more like a middle-aged white woman.

Ron Artest Is Ready To Lose It

If you’re anything like me you have been waiting patiently for a blow up from Ron Artest. We were almost treated to one late last week. Ron-Ron took offense to being held up by Joey Graham and almost socked his face.

The above clip is particularly delightful for a number of reasons. My favorites are as follows:

Joel Myers reaction of “ooo” when Artest spun and fired the haymaker is priceless. In that instant he was really saying. “No Ron, for the love of god they will suspend you for the entire season!”

But what is magical is the debate between Stu Lantz, the color commentator for the Lakers and Joel Myers on why there was a technical. When Myers fails to illustrate that almost hitting someone with a closed fist isn’t enough, they decide it’s the playful shove of the face that did it in the end.

Either way I am now glued to the TV for every game, as I am sure Artest is one ticky-tack foul away from going mailman on everyone.

Arenas & Crittenton Banned For Season

Gilbert Arenas is still waiting to hear the full extent of his fate, but that’s not the case with Javaris Crittenton. The Wizards guard reached a plea deal with prosecutors that was accepted by the judge, resulting in one year’s worth of unsupervised probation.

As for Arenas, he’s still waiting to get setenced… but seeing as how he was charged with a felony, it certainly won’t be as soft of a punishment.

Either way, Commisioner Stern threw the league book at booth, banning them for the remainder of the season!

Around the Association 1-23-2009

All-Stars
Proving once again that the general populace can be trusted with not even the slightest of responsibilities, Allen Iverson was voted into the Eastern Conference All-Stars. The NBA did side step embarrassment when Tracy McGrady was finally outpaced in voting. This did not deter the public at large from voting in Iverson as a starter in this year’s festivities. Granted the East is this year’s equivalent of the short yellow bus, but there are more deserving guards in the Association.

Iverson has played a grand total of 19 games. Those 19 games were not grand or spectacular. Allen Iverson is a mediocre player attempting 14 shots a night. What happened to the glory days of chucking up 25-30 a game? Diminished skills are not the only reason he should be watching from home February 14th. Karma should have a say as well. He mentally and physically quit on the Grizzlies forcing them to trade him away. Time and again this type of action gets rewarded in sports. Iverson gets a homecoming to the team that started his career, as well as an undeserved All-Star bid.

Blake Griffin
Blake had successful knee surgery which will keep him resting 4-6 months. He hopes to be back and training by summer. This should give him ample time to get well enough to re-injure himself before the start of the 2010-2011 season.

Dunks
This week, the lineup for the Slam Dunk contest was finalized. It is by far the worst lineup to date. All participants can dunk with creativity I am sure. But there is not a celebrity amongst them. Nate Robinson will return, again. It was tremendous to see what he did the first and second times around. But I get it now. You’re small. You dunk. Congratulations!

In what reeks of desperation, the NBA will have a dunk off between Eric Gordon and DeMar DeRozan for the final dunk spot. Really, a play-in game for the Dunk Contest. How has the play-in idea worked for the NCAA?

Kansas Got Beat On Saturday…

That’s not really news, Texas is number one now and everyone knows what happened. What is news is why Kansas got beat. The previously-top-ranked Jayhawks got beaten (soundly) by a team missing four of its top eight scorers and probably its best player, because they don’t understand the concept of a sweet spot. This wouldn’t have happened if the Jayhawks or their coach had bothered to watch a few episodes of “Full House”?

On one episode of “Full House,” one that Kansas coach Bill Self obviously missed, Uncle Jesse plays in a basketball tournament. Of course Uncle Jesse is terrible, until – and this is key – he finds his “sweet spot.” Once he’s got his sweet spot, Uncle Jesse can’t miss. If you’ve seen this episode, you’ll remember that Kareem Abdul Jabar played the ref in the tournament and Uncle Jesse famously complained to him that the defense was “standing on my sweet spot.” This is also key.

The Kansas Jayhawks are obviously a better more talented team than the Tennessee Volunteers. We all know that. When you are more talented than your opposition the only way they can beat you is if you play lazy defense and allow them to get shots from wherever they want. This can be especially detrimental if you let someone like, oh, let’s say Renaldo Woodridge, who averages 4.8 points per game, shoot from the exact same spot on the floor three times. It hurts even more if he makes all three of them. It hurts that much more if he does it on three consecutive possessions.

Once Kansas coach Bill Self finally told his defense to stand on Woodridge’s sweet spot, he scored a total of two total points the rest of the game.

The dagger for the Jayhawks was letting Skylar McBee, a white, 190-pound freshman, walk-on from Rutledge, Tenn., get to his sweet spot and splash a three to ice the game. I don’t have a scouting report on McBee, but if I see that the Volunteers have a white, 190-pound, freshman, walk-on in the game, call me crazy, but I’m going to defend the three-point shot.

I know Bill Self probably didn’t have a whole lot of film on McBee, Woodridge or any of the other volunteers playing for Bruce Pearl that day (get it?) but he’d been watching the team’s play all day. If you can’t figure out the sweet spots of a team full of walk ons and back-ups, then I’m sorry, but you don’t deserve to be the head coach of a major basketball program.

Looks Like The Joke’s On Gilbert Arenas!

Hey everyone, nothing to worry about as Gilbert Arenas and Javarus Crittenton were only joking around… well, at least Arenas was. And the guns weren’t even loaded, so really, there’s nothing to worry about.
Right?
Someone wanna tell David Stern that?
Or maybe he did himself with that “Guns Up” salute before last night’s game.
Way to go, Gilbert! Way to go!

Around The Association 12-18-09

Kobe is playing with stomach aches and broken fingers. Referees are missing blatant calls and calling ones that don’t exist. It must be another week in the NBA.

Kobe
Kobe had 42 points against the Bulls Tuesday night – not very impressive for a man with his skill set. What is astonishing is that he did it with a fractured finger on his shooting hand. What is even more remarkable is that he was having er, um, digestive problems all day. I remember I ate a bad calzone once. I immediately lost five pounds, shook uncontrollably, and slept for a week. Kobe Bryant decided to drop 40 points on the Bulls while his stomach had the taco gurgles. Oh the next day he hit the game winner against the Bucks. I am definitely underachieving in life.

Hall-of-Fame Jerry Colangelo, Naismith’s newly elected chairman of the board is toying with the notion of allowing the fans and media to have a say in who makes it into the Basketball Hall-of-Fame. He said the fans would be “involved,” which many are hoping means the results would be made public much like the NBA and MLB do. What makes me cringe is having the fans actually have even a modicum of say in who makes it into the Hall. These are the people that are voting Tracy McGrady into 2nd place in All-Star voting this year. This just in, T-Mac has not played at all this season.

Creamsicles
Kevin Durant unveiled his new line of Basketball shoes in a game against Dallas Wednesday night. They look as if Nike went to Nerf and said gives us the first thing that comes to mind. I tried to watch the game but between Durant bricking shots and the whole team wearing these atrocities my eyes stopped working for two hours. I didn’t go blind necessarily. My eyes just refused to capture the images on the screen. It was actually the only pleasant part of the game.

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