March 2008 - Posts
http://thewizardofodds.blogspot.com/2008/03/gridiron-bash-gets-busted-by-ncaa.html
The Kelly Clarkson concert set for Kinnick Stadium April 18, the night before the Iowa football team's spring game (of sorts) apparently is cancelled according to the organizer, New York-based MSL Sports and Entertainment.
The same goes for every "Gridiron Bash" scheduled at 16 schools around the country.
Had this story involved a musical act of the highest quality, this would be sad news indeed.
TAMPA, Fla. -- It would have been Drake vs. San Diego in Sunday's second-round of the NCAA tourney.
You really, really would have liked the Bulldogs' chances to have won that and advanced to the Sweet 16 against, almost surely, UCLA.
But all Drake can say is that is was part of the best first-round game of the tournament.
Sports can be cruel. If Ty Rogers hadn't made that 26-footer at the buzzer of overtime in Western Kentucky's 101-99 win over the Bulldogs, the team from Des Moines would have had its praises sung from coast to coast all the way down to Tampa Bay Friday for its magnificent comeback from a 16-point hole.
But weird things happen in Florida, from hurricanes to alligator attacks to elections that go haywire. Not only did Drake fall here in Tampa today, but so did big boys Connecticut and Vanderbilt, to the likes of San Diego and Siena.
Drake may very well have been the 14th-best team in the nation this year, in accordance with its AP ranking. But Western Kentucky may be the 13th-best.
I know someone who works in a Las Vegas casino. He told a mutual acquaintance that everyone in his casino was rooting for Drake, and not just those with money on the Bulldogs. People loved the way they played.
Ah, well ...
It's the eve of the Drake-Western Kentucky game, I signed a piece of paper allowing me to blog from the NCAA tournament, and so I will.
Except that I'm plagued with a nasty cold clouding my brain, not to mention other areas of my head and chest.
I had the cold before I left Cedar Rapids Wednesday, but it couldn't have been helped from being in a packed flight of people going from Detroit to Tampa.
At the gate in the Detroit airport, one woman was coughing and coughing among the hundred or so people waiting to board. She'll probably sit next to me, I thought.
She did.
But the rest of the plane was filled with other kinds of sickness like people arguing over whose seat was whose before the flight departed.
There was someone who couldn't stop reaching across the aisle in front of me to point out things in the in-flight magazine to a traveling companion.
And, of course, there was the mandatory screaming baby in the back of the plane.
But then, who was the clown who accidentally knocked a glass of soda onto the coughing woman? That would be moi. I apologized profusely, and she couldn't have been more gracious. Which made me feel even smaller, because I'd singled her out as a bad seatmate before even boarding the plane.
Now then, I see Drake in for a very difficult game today, perhaps as hard a game as it would have Sunday against Connecticut should it get past Western Kentucky.
Western Kentucky isn't some cute, boutique basketball program. This is the school's 20th - count 'em, 20th - NCAA appearance, and it has 15 wins. It has four straight 20-win seasons. Guard Courtney Lee, by all indications, is a possible first-round NBA draft pick come June.
Drake, in 32 games, has come across few future NBA players this season. The season reaches a higher level today. If the Bulldogs' came doesn't do likewise, it will have a brief stay in this tourney.
Nyquil time. Seacrest out.
Take the No. 1 seeds in your NCAA tournament pools.
Leave the upsets for the amateurs. Pros like you and me go with the chalk (that's pro talk).
We don't pray to St. Joseph's or St. Mary's. We don't believe in Temple, and Oral Roberts has passed on.
We know Boise State is a football school. There are no Statue of Liberty plays in basketball.
We don't like hyphens. Cal State-Fullerton, Texas-Arlington, Maryland-Baltimore County? No-no-no.
We know George Mason was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and we're not talking about this year's George Mason.
We know that since Bobby Knight picks Pittsburgh to win it all, then Pittsburgh will win ... considerably less.
We like the No. 1 seeds. The reason they're No. 1 seeds? They're the best.
UCLA over Kansas for the championship.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must leave for Tampa to cover Midwestern team Drake play a team from Kentucky in the West Regional.
Maybe Big Ten men's basketball teams just play the world's best defense.
And maybe the conference's tournament is only a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sea.
Heading into Saturday's semifinals, the show it the league was putting on in Indianapolis wasn't fit for a state that thinks it invented, molded and perfected basketball. It wasn't fit for many states, really.
Michigan went 11 minutes without a field goal against Iowa Thursday, but it didn't matter because the Hawkeyes went 16 minutes without a basket against the Wolverines. Then Michigan shot 20 percent from the field against Wisconsin in scoring 34 points Friday. Wisconsin shot 34 percent and won easily.
Illinois was 8-of-20 from the foul line and made 23 turnovers, and still beat Purdue in Friday's quarterfinals.
Minnesota was the better-shooting team in its win over Indiana Friday, with a blistering 33.4 percent from the floor.
In the first five games of the tourney, 43.6 percent was the best any team could muster.
Meanwhile, Tennessee beat South Carolina 89-87 in an SEC quarterfinal that was what basketball looks like when it is played with a little pep and athleticism. Duke and North Carolina each scored 82 points in ACC quarterfinals. It's not defense isn't in vogue in the SEC or ACC, you know.
But today (Saturday) is another day. Illinois plays Minnesota in a Big Ten semifinal this afternoon, and I can't wait. Both played last night, so you know their legs will be weary. And since neither is all that wonderful to begin with, oh, what a mess this thing could be.
SATURDAY ADDENDUM
Illinois' 54-50 win over Minnesota was everything I expected and less. The UCLA-Stanford Pac-10 final that followed on CBS featured basketball that was so much better, with UCLA winning 67-64.
I didn't see a second of it, but Arkansas' 91-90 victory over Tennessee in the SEC semis Saturday must have been something else.
Speaking of the SEC tourney, it's wonderful that no one got hurt in the Georgia Dome Friday night when a tornado did some (apparently) minor damage there during the quarterfinals. Not to make light of what could have been a true tragedy, but maybe the basketball gods were telling the conference not to play its tourney in a football stadium.
I've attended NCAA games played in the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, and the now-gone Kingdome in Seattle. None were fit for basketball, and neither are any other domed stadiums. Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Big Ten has made its postseason tourneys home, is the gold standard for basketball venues.
Given how every major-college basketball program can stack its nonconference schedule with patsies, the fact Iowa has missed out on two consecutive postseasons is a bit stunning.
The Hawkeyes got no NIT bid last year with a 17-14 record, and are done for this season at 13-19.
The last time Iowa went two straight years without a postseason berth was 1976-77 and 1977-78, and it went 20-7 in the first of those two seasons with a Big Ten mark of 12-6. But that was in an era of a smaller NCAA tournament.
The NIT could afford to be picky back then.
Automatically assuming far better days are coming to Iowa next season may be flawed thinking. Do you see one true impact player on the Hawkeyes' returing roster?
Never mind a D.J. White or Eric Gordon. Is there a potential first-team all-conference player aboard right now? That's a definite maybe at best.
Look, Iowa will be better in 2008-09. How could it not be? But Purdue and Michigan State and Wisconsin should stay strong. Ohio State will be better. Illinois and Minnesota will be better.
Michigan, which beat Iowa the last two times they met this season - in Iowa City and on a neutral court - started three freshmen and two sophomores in its 55-47 win over the Hawkeyes Thursday.
Expecting Iowa to be competitive and put itself in position for some kind of postseason tourney seems reasonable. Looking for a massive turnaround in one year may be no more than a pipe dream.
Linn-Mar graduate Jason Bohannon and Wisconsin have been good for each other.
The Badgers' Bohannon earned the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year
award Monday. The sophomore guard averaged 27.8 minutes and 8.9 points a game in league play. He was the league-leader in free-throw shooting in conference games, and has made 39 consecutive foul shots.
And, he did so for a team that won the Big Ten regular-season championship with a 16-2 record.
Wisconsin won at Northwestern Saturday, 66-52, to claim the title outright. The crowd in Evanston, Ill., was 8,117. It was reported that at least 5,000 of those were Badger fans. Bohannon went 6-of-6 from the foul line to extend his streak to 39 and break Wes Matthews' school-mark of 35 that had stood for 27 years.
Bohannon has also made 44 of 111 three-pointers for 39.6 percent, which is 13th-best in the league.
He's a fine ballplayer, and getting better all the time.
New Mexico beat UNLV 59-45 Tuesday night in Albuquerque in the Lobos' home-finale of the season.
Steve Alford's New Mexico team is 23-7. Speculation, perhaps born and nurtured in Albuquerque, suggested Alford is a possible successor to the deposed Kelvin Sampson as Indiana's next coach. Why, it's as if Iowa of 2001 is now New Mexico of 2008.
“Let's keep the focus on the seniors,” Alford told the crowd after Tuesday's game during the ceremony for the seniors. “This coaching staff isn't going anywhere.”
The Lobos' sellout crowd of 18,018 - that's 18,018 on a Tuesday night - reacted happily. It was the second-straight sellout in The Pit, the first consecutive sellouts there in 11 seasons.
Earlier today, someone suggested to me what an irony it would be if Drake under Keno Davis met New Mexico in the first-round of the NCAA tournament. Who would you bet on?
The Iowa women's basketball team is co-champion of the Big Ten Conference.
A lot of entries in this blog and all over cyberspace are to complain or mock. A little more time should probably be spent recognizing tangible achievements.
So I repeat: The Iowa women's basketball team is co-champion of the Big Ten Conference.
There are no asterisks. The title was earned on the court, after a 2-3 start in the league made such an accomplishment seem most unlikely. It warrants noting, and congratulating.