February 2008 - Posts
Pierre Pierce's legacy in Iowa is and always will be a bad one. But in the story by Carol Slezak of the Chicago Sun-Times that I've linked below, at least Pierce is blaming no one but himself for his two sexual assault charges while he was on the University of Iowa men's basketball team. True rehabilitation has to start with that.
But Pierce's spiritual guide, youth minister Albert L. White of One Lord One Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, says the university bears some responsibility for Pierce's second sexual assault.
'If the
first (assualt) had been taken care of properly, the second wouldn't
have happened. The college has just as much of the blame. They gave him
a slap on the wrist when he deserved a harsher penalty. People
protested when he was allowed to come back (to the team) after the
first incident, and they should have protested.''
Unfortunately, we'll never know if White's logic is spot-on or not. But you can't help but wonder ...
<a href="http://www.suntimes.com/sports/slezak/818790,CST-SPT-pierce29.article"</a>
Finally, someone with a little clout inside the Big Ten Conference is telling the truth about what the Big Ten Network has done to the conference and its fans this season.
That someone is Michigan State men's basketball coach Tom Izzo, who has the pedigree and authority to stand up to the public-relations nonsense the BTN people have been feeding the public the last several months.
"We have so many things right now that we're trying to fight—the price of tickets, the economy of our state," Izzo said. "And then we throw this at them."
Good for Izzo, who has always represented his conference extremely well.
If cracks like this are widening within the league, the BTN better gets things straightened out with major cable companies, and pronto. Its delusions of grandeur should be delusions no longer.
Besides, basketball season is almost over, and if the BTN wants anyone to watch its gripping array of baseball and tennis coverage this spring, it better make itself a little more available to everyone.
in scoring defense.
That's 328 teams, and Iowa is fifth, allowing 57.8 points per game.
That would be good, except the Hawkyes are 327th in the nation in scoring offense with 56.0 points per game.
Which makes for very dull basketball. Dull like, say, a 5-10 Big Ten record and 12-16 overall mark.
Wisconsin is second nationally in scoring defense, at 55.3 points allowed. That's not as boring when you win, which the Badgers do every year. They're 13-2 in the Big Ten, in first place. Georgetown's scoring defense is fourth in the country, UCLA's in sixth. They're doing OK, too. Great defense typically means glossy records.
But these teams are averaging 80 or more points: North Carolina, Duke, Tennessee, Kansas, Vanderbilt, Memphis. They are all Top 15 teams. They are what basketball should be like, the jazz of sports in which great talent can improvise and floursih and entertain amid a sound structure.
Drake has structure, but is entertaining as well. The 20th-ranked Bulldogs average 72.7 points and allow 60.7. They're 15th in free-throw percentage, 15th in fewest turnovers per game, and 10th in fewest personal fouls per game. Those are signs of a smart team. But the 'Dogs are also 18th in 3-pointers made per game. They're like Todd Lickliter's last Butler team. Smart as whips, but as fun as a swimming pool in July.
And if you saw Leonard Houston's fabulous finish of an alley-oop with a high-flying, one-handed jam in Drake's big win at Butler Saturday, you saw something that would have been the best play in that night's Tennessee-Memphis national showdown.
Excuse me, now, I'm off to watch the Texas-Kansas State game on ESPN. Michael Beasley. I always wondered if anyone named "Michael" would be a good basketball player.
In the previous entry here, I gave you the link to an Albuquerque Tribune column that was rather gushing about former Iowa men's basketball coach Steve Alford. The author, Richard Stevens, basically said Indiana would be insane not to hire away Alford to be the Hoosiers' next coach after they deep-six scandal-ridden Kelvin Sampson.
That was one of the Tribune's last pieces of commentary. The paper is ceasing publication after Saturday, leaving its city with one daily newspaper. Which is all most cities Albuquerque's size can handle in the 21st Century, an unfortunate fact for every citizen who likes to read, and learn, and think.
But the Tribune is going out with a warm feeling about Alford's New Mexico basketball team, and why not? The Lobos are 21-6 overall, 8-4 in the Mountain West Conference. Say what you will, that's a mighty fine first season for a coach at a place, especially a place that experienced just 15 wins last season.
Paid circulation of the afternoon Tribune, which stood at 42,000 in 1988,
has declined to about 10,000 copies. The morning Albuquerque Journal's paid circulation is 106,000 daily and 145,000 Sunday. You can't survive on 10,000 copies a day in a metropolitan area of over 700,000 people. So another newspaper goes bye-bye.
Enjoy the Internet, everyone. Don't forget to take your laptops along to read the day's news as you sit down to breakfast, or are waiting for a bus, or are killing long periods of time in doctors' waiting rooms.
Bitter? Moi? Pshaw!
OK, a little. OK, a lot.
Old Mike spent Tuesday night in the warmth and safety of his home, listening to Internet streaming audio and good old-fashioned AM radio.
I heard Drake's rollercoaster ride of a tough 1-point loss to Bradley via Internet, and Iowa's rally from a hideous hole in edging Northwestern 53-51 thanks to good old WMT-AM. Drake commentator Dolph Pulliam was a lot more upbeat than Iowa play-by-play guy Gary Dolphin for most of the night, but Dolphin's team got the win and Dolph's blue leather suit finally produced no good luck at Drake's Knapp Center.
Iowa and Drake have vastly different records, but both have this in common: They each have a few games left they can lose. Drake goes to Butler Saturday. Iowa visits Michigan State. Tough duty for both.
Meanwhile, there's this from Richard Stevens of the Albuquerque Tribune urging Indiana to hire New Mexico Coach Steve Alford to replace soon-to-be-deposed Kelvin Sampson:
http://abqtrib.com/news/2008/feb/19/richard-stevens-alfords-indiana-return-destiny/
I don't care how difficult it may be to use the "comments" feature of this blog, you good people have to have something to say about this.
Sunday afternoon, a snowmobile buzzed down the middle of my street. In the heart of Cedar Rapids.
That was a first. I didn't like it.
First, there was the amazing ice storm that seems like eons ago but was actually just the start of this winter. Then there was the ridiculous foot-and-then-some of snow in a 24-hour period two weeks ago. This weekend we got the ice/snow shovel double, perfect for adding layers of ache to already aching muscles of those of us who still get rid of this white junk the old-fashioned way, via scooping it ourselves instead of using a machine.
What does this have to do with sports? Nothing, of course. Although, it pleased me not a whit to have snowbound television sports options from Daytona (the 500) and Los Angeles (the PGA Tour). People were wearing short-sleeves both places. A pox on their swimming pools.
Someone named Ryan Newman won the big race. That's pleasing, because everything that was foisted on us in the week leading up to it seemed to be about the monster Hendrick race team of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and new addition Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Ryan Newman? I wouldn't know him if I saw him at the nearest supermarket. Not that I'll be there anytime soon, unless that neighbor with the snowmobile has room for a passenger.
Put me down for Friday in the pool for which day the Indiana men's basketball coach is fired for his misadventures with NCAA rules.
Nice hire, Rick Greenspan. You brought in a guy with NCAA baggage, and he added several carry-ons in a short time.
But hey, he did sign Eric Gordon, who will no longer be a Hoosier himself in two months.
How nice will it be, for a change, to watch an Indiana basketball coaching search that doesn't involve Iowa?
Bad enough that the Big Ten threw together a television network without getting agreements to air it from most of the Big Ten region's major cable companies.
Now it looks like the league won't have a true men's basketball champion. Through Tuesday, Purdue was 11-1 in Big Ten play, Indiana 9-1. They have yet to play each other, and will only do so once this season, at Indiana Feb. 19.
They have an 18-game men's basketball schedule, which means each team will play eight league foes twice and two others just once. Indiana and Purdue, from the same state and rivals since the only the way to get from West Lafayette to Bloomington was via dirt roads, meet just once this season.
That's nuts. And it isn't very fair to the Boilermakers, who have beaten Wisconsin and Michigan State in back-to-back games. Purdue's Matt Painter may be the top threat to Drake's Keno Davis for National Coach of the Year.
Then again, how fair is that Indiana only plays Northwestern - 0-10 in the Big Ten through Tuesday - once?
Going from 16 to 18 games was a good move by the league. Going from 18 to 20, over the raging howls of all 11 league coaches, would be even better.
Drake has won 20 consecutive men's basketball games, which is one of those deals that don't happen just any old year. Or any year at Drake, before this one.
You don't see 20 straight of much of anything good. Case in point: It has snowed approproximately 20 straight days in Eastern Iowa. Polar bears have seen television footage of the weather here and said "Whoa!" It's true!
Memphis has won 22 in a row in men's b-ball, mainly because it plays in a conference with the likes of East Carolina, Rice, DeVry Insitute and the University of Esoterica.
Kansas recently had a 20-game men's hoops winning streak halted by Kansas State, and I already hate myself for using the term "hoops."
Connecticut's women's basketball team had won 20 straight until it lost to Rutgers this week. Don Imus is surely aware of that, and so is Rev. Al Sharpton.
Lakeland Financial Corporation recently reported its 20th consecutive year of record income performances. If you really want to make a pile of dough, though, start with one dollar and double it every year for 20 years. It doesn't sound like it would be much, but do the math.
$1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256 + 512 + 1,024 + 2,048 + 4,096 + 8,192 + 16,384 + 32,768 + 65,536 + 131,072 + 262,144 + 522,288 = $986,575.
How are you supposed to double it every year? How do I know? I don't work for Lakeland Financial Corporation.
So someone who has spent his whole career espousing principles has walked out on his team with over a month of this season still to be played?
"He said he was tired and that it was best to go ahead and do it
now. I think Bob is through with coaching. I think he got to the point
where it wasn't fun for him."'' - Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance
Unless Knight was sick and isn't telling anyone ... boo hoo. He was tired? It wasn't fun for him? I'm sure a few hundred of his players were tired and not having fun in February, too. You start a job, you finish it.
Maybe it's just a coincidence Knight waited to retire until he broke Dean Smith's record for career wins by a men's basketball Division I coach last season. Maybe it's just a coincidence he hung it up two weeks after getting his 900th win (He closed with 902), and put a season's worth of distance between himself and Smith's 879.
Of course, numbers don't mean anything to Knight. Just ask him.
Hey, maybe they don't. It's very possible he is doing the best thing for Texas Tech and his team by stepping down now instead of after the Red Raiders' inevitable loss in the NIT. Maybe by getting his son, Pat Knight, some on-the-job training during a season, Texas Tech basketball will be stronger for it in years to come.
Maybe Texas Tech men's basketball wasn't much nationally before Knight got there, won't be much now that he's gone, and wasn't a Big 12 champion or national-title threat while he was present.
Dude won a lot of games, lasted a lot of years. Many of us thought this would end far worse for him than it did. You know, Woody Hayes-type bad. Insane-type bad. It didn't. That's good.
Big Ten basketball for decades was Bob Knight. There were national-champs at Michigan and Michigan State, but Big Ten basketball was dominated by Knight's Indiana Hoosiers.
Big 12 basketball since Knight got to Lubbock has mostly been ... Kansas. The Jayhawks are on their way to their fourth-straight Big 12 regular-season title and sixth overall since Knight arrived at Texas Tech. That covers two different Kansas head coaches.
Legendary coaches still need to be at the right institution to lead a basketball dynasty. Texas Tech wasn't the right institution. But it let Knight be Knight, which is what he needed and demanded.
He'll be missed, at least by those who didn't think he was already gone.
So I'll say Giants, 17-14.