Sports Chic

UNC 2009 Champs!!

2009-04-07T19:56:00.002-05:00

From an old high school classmate who now lives on the west coast but wishes he could have been in Chapel Hill last night. Thanks, Geramy!
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Vitale put dook in his top 5? Never saw that one coming.

Roy can't win the big games.
Roy's a great recruiter, but chokes in the big games.
Roy won the title with Doherty's players.
Roy will get outcoached by (fill in the blank).

UNC is overrated.
UNC can't play defense.
UNC will choke again.
UNC hasn't faced a team as tough/deep/talented as (fill in the blank).

The entree of the day is Crow. Eat up folks!

Nothing can be done to placate the jealous, the haters, the whiners, and those who simply do not understand the game at all. There are still a lot of defective craniums out there who still believe the following:

Anybody can "coach" that kind of talent and win a championship.
Rebuttal: Doherty couldn't. Remember John Thompson & Georgetown of 1985? Remember that Houston team of 1983? It's a very long list...

UNC has all those future nba players on their roster. It wasn't fair.
Rebuttal: Izzo (a great coach) had the same opportunity to recruit every single player on UNC's roster. A vast majority of you seem to think all those UNC players will fail in the pros anyway, so how could they be so dominant? Who knows or even cares what type of professional career they'll have, and that has no bearing at all on this season or the game last night.

UNC gets all the talent, they don't even have to try, those recruits just fall in their laps.
Rebuttal: Remember Roy? He's that guy that does all that great recruiting. He's also the guy that makes all that talent jell together into a championship team. How many more does he need to win to prove it? Weren't Pitt, UConn, Louisville, etc. supposed to have just as much, if not more talent? I know, it gets confusing. Denial does that to a person.

I could turn this into a novel, but why bother? Congrats to a great UNC team.

More on that shot (because it's fun to talk about, okay?)

2009-01-29T20:41:00.002-05:00

I, too, didn't think about the lack of defense on Ty Lawson until well after the fact, but in retrospect, that decision was absolutely ludicrous.

Let's compare it to the 1992 Duke-Kentucky game. You know, the one where Christian Laettner gets the ball on an inbounds play with 2.1 seconds left to beat Kentucky in the NCAA East Regional Finals. On that play, Kentucky coach Rick Pitino opted not to defend the inbounds pass.

Pitino knew the decision wasn't a great idea, but due to the circumstances presented to him, decided to allow Grant Hill to inbound the ball undefended. Perhaps he overthought the situation; perhaps it was just bad luck. But regardless, Pitino cited valid reasons for not defending the inbounds pass. Furthermore, Pitino did have a man on Laettner, that man just wasn't able to prevent Laettner from scoring.

The Seminoles, with 3.2 seconds left in the game (read: more time than was left in the Duke-Kentucky game) not only chose not to defend the inbounds pass, but also didn't guard the person most likely to receive the ball (read: it took no effort whatsoever to get the ball to Lawson; perhaps they were hoping that he would trip over his own feet).

I am quite sure that anyone who knows anything about college basketball knows that Lawson can run the entire length of the floor, while dribbling the ball, in less than 5 seconds.

So again...why did FSU play absolutely no defense on in the inbounds pass? The more I think about it, the more it baffles me. I have yet to find an explanation.

But hey, I'll take the outcome of the game.

Heels win on last second shot

2009-01-29T13:28:00.002-05:00

I was too elated last night to think about it then, but this question occurred to me this morning as I drove into work: Why on earth did Ty Lawson even have the ball? If you're FSU, why aren't you face guarding the one guy on the floor who would be able to get even that close to the basket in three seconds? Joe Ovies shares my confusion.

Oh well, works for me. On to Raleigh.

Did you like the calls during the UNC-FSU game?

2009-01-28T23:55:00.002-05:00

No, no, you did not like the calls during the UNC-FSU game. It doesn't matter if you're a UNC fan, an FSU fan, or just a plain ol' basketball fan. The game was not well-officiated. Karl Hess is partially to blame. The funny thing about Hess & Company's poor performance is the rant posted below, written by Jonathan Howard before the game even started. He's a VCU alum, so he's none too happy about the VCU-Northeastern game:

When comparing college sports, sometimes it's really difficult to figure out which is better, football or basketball. On the one hand, college football season affords fans to build up excitement for an entire week before cheering their guts out on Saturday. On the other hand college basketball's post-season system is one of the most exciting in all of sports. However, there is one thing that I believe college football has that college basketball has yet to figure out: Consistency within the refereeing system.

Now, I'm not trying to say that all college football referees are great. Some are just plain horrible. ACC fans such as myself have yet to figure out how Ron Cherry is still employed. However, at least it's consistent. College football referees are not independent contractors. They work in crews with specific conferences. Basically, while Ron Cherry tends to be a giant question mark in the eyes of the arm-chair quarterback, at least he and his crew are the same giant question mark week in and week out while doing ACC games. If something goes wrong, they'll hear about it – as a group.

College basketball is a completely different animal. Referees are independent contractors. While they may appear in a number of conference games, they are not tied down to any specific conference, enabling to do a number of games in different conferences per week. Also, because they are independent contractors, they can do as many games as they want. I'm sure the same fans who shutter at the thought of Ron Cherry on the football side, have the same reaction to Karl Hess, Duke Edsall and Jamie Luckie on the basketball court.

However, the performances of these officials have more factors attached to it. For one, because they are independent, they don't work with the same people every time. This makes for a different flow in officiating for every game. Referees can work together many times, but it's not a night-in and night-out kind of thing. Also, referees are humans just like the athletes, and have to do just as much running. If referees are traveling the country and doing multiple games per week, it puts strain on their bodies. Like an athlete, they suffer from fatigue. And to put it bluntly, like an athlete it leads to a decline in performance.

Hess is a great example of this. Tuesday night he officiated a CAA contest between Virginia Commonwealth and Northeastern. It was his sixth game in seven days and rumor around the arena was that he'd be doing the North Carolina-Florida State game on Wednesday. It's safe to say that those in attendance found Hess' (and really the entire crew's) performance on Tuesday below par. And why not? He's been running up and down a basketball court all week, he just did a Big East game the night before with an ACC showdown the following night. Why is a Colonial Athletic Association game important? The fact is, the VCU-NU game was for first place in a conference that is highly competitive at the top. It deserved the same type of attention that a UNC-Duke or Pittsburgh-Georgetown game would receive. Unfortunately, it did not, and the flow and consistency of the game showed it.

I have a simple solution for this problem and perhaps the NCAA will one day think of it to. Simply manage basketball referees the same way they manage their football counterparts. Make them work in crews, within one conference, and limit their games. Games will instantaneously become more consistent and have an even flow. No referee will have to be singled out because it will be on the crew to have a solid performance. Until this happens, college basketball officiating will continue to be a joke.

Pack pumps it up...and in

2008-12-01T15:55:00.004-05:00

I went to the RBC Center yesterday afternoon and watched NC State beat up on UNC-Greensboro. As a person who doesn't have much loyalty to either team, I have a few observations.

First, State is a lot better this year than they were last year. The folks at firesidneylowe.com should have less to gripe about during the 2008-2009 season. Courtney Fells and Ben McCauley looked fantastic. Courtney Fells looks fantastic. Tracy Smith and Trevor Ferguson were fun to watch. Brandon Costner did not have a particularly good game, but still carries high expectations.

They still need better guard play, and also need to make sure they don't take naps on defense. The only time UNCG looked good was toward the beginning of the first half when the Pack seemed to forget that aspect of the game. Other than that, it was a strong showing for the Wolfpack.

Second, there are several differences between the RBC Center and the Dean Dome, many of which are rather obvious:

1. The RBC Center is newer than the Dean Dome, and therefore has nicer amenities, including luxury suites. No such thing in the Dean Dome.

2. I was much colder in the RBC Center than I've ever been in the Dean Dome, partly because there was a Hurricanes game scheduled a few hours after the basketball game, and partly because I was sitting in an aforementioned suite. It's hard to get warm when you're not packed like sardines in the nosebleed seats, especially when there's a sheet of ice somewhere below the visible floor. I kept my sweater on the entire time, whereas I would have taken it off immediately in the Dean Dome.

3. In the Dean Dome, you can hear the sound of the students jumping up and down in the riser section. In the RBC Center, you can hear the sound of students jumping up and down in the riser section...

...but wait...I could hear the sound of jumping up and down, but I could not identify any groups of fans jumping in a manner that would create such a noise. Does State pipe in "bleacher jumping" noise? I honestly want to know. If someone knows where that sound is coming from, please let me know. Is the Pack the Indianapolis Colts of the NCAA?

The Puck on Tobacco Road: October 5, 10, 13: RBC Center

2008-10-01T16:09:00.003-05:00

If you think there wasn't any hockey in North Carolina until the Hurricanes arrived, you're wrong!

Want proof?

The Puck on Tobacco Road, an exhibit about the history of hockey in North Carolina, will be displayed in the RBC Center on October 5, 10, and 13 during Carolina Hurricanes games. A series of panels will convey photographs and information about hockey teams in Charlotte, Raleigh, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Fayetteville going as far back as the 1950s.

This exhibit is a joint project between the Society of North Carolina Archivists (SNCA) and the Carolina Hurricanes in order to celebrate North Carolina Archives Week and American Archives Month.

A rule's a rule, stupid or not

2008-09-06T22:24:00.003-05:00

Maybe I'm just mean, but I think everyone's lost their minds. According to an ESPN poll, 78% of the nation thinks that the excessive celebration penalty called against University of Washington quarterback Jake Locker was a bad call (most of the 22% who voted otherwise, not surprisingly, appear to be from the state of Utah).

Maybe I'm missing something here.

According to referee Larry Farina, "After scoring the touchdown, the player threw the ball into the air and we are required, by rule, to assess a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. It is a celebration rule that we are required to call. It was not a judgment call." This statement was backed up by ESPN's SportsCenter, which aired the portion of the rule book in question. The rule is rather clear: no throwing the ball in the air after scoring a touchdown.

Period. The end.

But after airing the rule, several ESPN personalities, including Mark May, forcefully commented that they thought the referee made a horrible call. Given reasons included the following:

-they followed the language of the law, not the spirit of the law
-the refs shouldn't be allowed to decide the outcome of the game/the refs shouldn't be allowed to make calls in key situtations
-Locker had just made a great play
-the rule is stupid

Well, Locker had just made a great play, and perhaps the rule is stupid. Unfortunately, I'm rather sure there's nothing in the rule book stating that refs can pick and choose which rules they enforce. I'm also rather sure there's nothing in the rule book stating that the refs can choose not to enforce rules after great plays. But hey, I've never read the rule book cover to cover, so, you know, maybe those statements are in there somewhere. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

Perhaps the spirit of the law is to reduce taunting, but that's not explicitly stated in the rule. It's clear that throwing the ball high in the air is not allowed.

As far as whether or not the refs should be allowed to decide the outcome of the game/the refs shouldn't be allowed to make calls in key moments is concerned...I've never understood this argument. Are you telling me that the call would have been legit had it happened in the first quarter? Or a mere five minutes earlier? Isn't it just as unfair to call a penalty at certain times and not other times? I've always been baffled by this argument in basketball, when people argue that the refs shouldn't be allowed to call fouls at the end of a close game. Furthermore, there appears to be a universal assumption that had the PAT been kicked from the standard 15 yards instead of 27 yards, the block wouldn't have occurred. I guess we'll never know, but I'm not sure I buy that assumption.

Would a Washington win have been great? Yes. Do I feel sorry, once again, for Ty Willingham? Yes. But I'm not going to hang the refs for the game's outcome. They were just doing their jobs. The rule can be reviewed during the offseason.

Brett Favre? Whatever. Brandon Jennings is the story.

2008-07-17T20:39:00.002-05:00

For starters:

At this point, I'm not sure I care what happens between Brett Favre and the Packers. Is anyone surprised that he's changed his mind about retiring? No. Is anyone surprised that the Packers are now between a rock and a hard place? No. Let's just get him in a Panthers jersey and call it a day. Yeah, right.

Okay then, now:

Has an 18-year-old kid just opened the floodgates for reforming the NCAA/NBA system? The potential is certainly there. By signing with Pallacanestro Virtus Roma Oak Hill Academy's Brandon Jennings has proved what everyone should have known all along: American players don't need to go to college in order to go pro and make a lot of money. Hell, they don't even need to go to the NBA in order to go pro and make a lot of money.

I'll admit, I have, in the past, been one of those people who griped about players leaving college early for the NBA. I liked the idea of the one-year rule. Why? Because I'm a college basketball fan, and college basketball is less fun when your favorite players don't stick around for all four years, or don't show up on campus at all. Had the one-year rule been in effect back in 1996, oh, can you imagine: Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Ed Cota, and Kobe? Together? In the Dean Dome? Oh, I salivate at the thought.

But you know, Kobe's done rather well for himself without the NCAA, and that's really the point here. Was college going to benefit him at all? Does college benefit basketball players who don't want to be there, but do want a chance to play pro basketball?

Not necessarily.

College basketball should be played by college students who want to play basketball, but would probably be on campus even if they didn't. It should not be played by basketball players who would never consider going anywhere close to another academic institution after high school graduation if it weren't for the current system of making it to the NBA.

But the one-year suits both the NCAA and the NBA quite well. The NCAA makes money off of the talented players, many of whom probably don't want to be in college anyway. NCAA games make NBA scouting easy, or at least a lot easier than locating all of the high school gyms the scouts would otherwise need to visit.

And, theoretically, the rule suits the players. Go to college. Get the education that you need. Get more exposure. You'll be better off, really.

It's true that many college players benefit from the exposure. But there are some--Kobe, LeBron--who have done just fine without it. Do basketball players need a college education? Not if they don't want one. Does the NCAA need those same players in order for them to make the amount of money that they're accustomed to making? Absolutely.

But if they don't go to college, what will they do once they retire from basketball? I would buy this point if it weren't for the numerous people I know who willingly, without the promise of NBA fame and fortune, spent an average of four years obtaining completely useless degrees. Are you telling me that upon retiring from the NBA, a player is going to easily transition into the mundane world of non-NBA players because he has a Communication Studies degree (or in the case of Michael Jordan, a Geography degree)?

I don't think so. Brandon Jennings doesn't seem to think so. I applaud him, and am waiting to see if other high school players follow his lead.

It's Funny Because it's True

2008-03-14T18:36:00.003-05:00

I'm about three-fourths of the way through Will Blythe's To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever, a Tar Heel fan's exploration of the Carolina-Duke rivalry. Thus far, I highly recommend it. I bought it at Border's last week, sat down at the adjoining coffee shop, and had to resist the urge to laugh out loud by page 3. It's funny because it's true, I thought. But there were numerous study groups huddled around their tables; caffeine-addicted students trying to get their assignments done. So I sat in silence, but had a big smile on my face the whole time. The book is so accurate that I thought my friend Johnny had already read it. I told my husband that Johnny had lifted all of his funny lines from this book. Then my husband talked to Johnny and discovered that Johnny in fact had not read the book. Weird.

One aspect of the book that I like is Blythe's comparing and contrasting--not just Carolina v. Duke, but also Southern vs. Northern, Democratic vs. Republican, and black vs. white. He notes that sports coverage in the south is much more polite than sports coverage in the north; for various reasons, mean-spirited sports coverage just doesn't fit into southern culture. And I thought, this is why I never panned out as a journalist, or as a blogger for that matter. I'm too polite, too superstitious to say exactly what I think about any teams, but especially my teams, to a public audience. Sure, I'll tell my opinions to your face if you ask (and oftentimes even when you don't ask), but it's completely different when addressing a mass audience. I suppose it's a passive-aggressive tactic--I'll say what I like to my friends, but to say anything too loudly is just mean (although I have made my distaste for Billy Packer known. But then again, who hasn't?).

So anyway, if you haven't already read this book, you should.

With all that being said, what really happened to Sidney Lowe and the N.C. State Wolfpack this season? I mean, I thought they came into the season a bit overrated, what with them having no suitable replacement for Engin Atsur, but who thought that they'd finish dead last in the ACC?

What seems obvious to absolutely everyone is that the Pack played with no heart. Maybe it's a one-year chemistry problem, and everything will be back on track next year. What worries me is the Pack's problems, at least to someone with absolutely no access to the Wolfpack athletic department or any of the players (yeah, that's a big disclaimer...), appear to be very similar to the problems Matt Doherty had while he was coaching Carolina. Let's think about it:

Doherty Year #1 (2000-2001): Team overachieves, and Doherty wins Coach of the Year, despite the team taking a bit of a nosedive during the second half of the season. This didn't seem like much of a problem until...

Doherty Year #2 (2001-2002): A team depleted of their previous talent finishes with the worst record in school history. Everyone knew the team would not be of the usual Carolina caliber, but 8-20? Players start transferring to pretty much any other school that will take them.

Doherty Year #3 (2002-2003): Team wins 19 games and makes it to the NIT with the help of a few super freshman. A much better team than the previous year, but the players are still unhappy. More players (including Sean May) threaten to transfer, and that's all she wrote for Doherty's career at UNC.

Now here's Sidney's resume at NCSU:

Lowe Year #1 (2006-2007): With the help of Sidney's red blazer, Wolfpack beats Tar Heels for the first time in who knows how long. Fans are so happy about this win that the Pack missing the NCAA Tournament seems to not matter. Next year promises to be better, despite the absence of Atsur...

Lowe Year #2 (2007-2008): Expected to finish third in the ACC, Pack fans soon discover that Atsur's absence is more of a problem than originally anticipated. Okay, 15-16 isn't exactly 8-20, but team clearly lacks chemistry and heart, highlighted by a 31 point loss to UNC. Fans begin to wonder what happened to Herb Sendek.

Lowe Year #3 (2008-2009): TBD, but hopefully won't end up like Doherty's Year #3. As I've already noted, I have no reason to think that Lowe has a revolt on his hands other than what I've seen on the court. And even that doesn't necessarily mean anything. But based on what we all saw happen at Carolina, it does make you (okay, me) wonder what's going on.

To be continued next season...

Recovering from a fortnight of basketball

2008-02-11T17:22:00.001-05:00

Well, really it was only regulation and two overtime periods, but one of the FSN announcers referred to it as a "fortnight of basketball." I figure this either means that he doesn't know what the word "fortnight" means, or someone's been living in a time warp.

I always hate the UNC-Clemson game in Chapel Hill because of that gosh-darn (now) 53-game winning streak. It's more stressful than the Duke games. And for the first 37 minutes or so of last night's game, it looked like that streak was going to end. Let me tell you what saved the Heels. It wasn't the shooting, or the rebounding, or any semblance of defense. Nope, it was my friends' 3-year-old son.

Disclaimer: I know that at some point on this blog I've mentioned that I'm quite superstitious. If you don't go for superstitions, you might want to stop reading now.

So we spend 37 minutes of the game losing, for various reasons that I'm sure you find on other blogs. And then, the magic happens. With 3:13 or so left in the game, my friends' 3-year-old soon walks upstairs from the basement, where he had been playing, into the living room.

And Carolina starts making a comeback. Those of us sitting in the living room, including his mother, understood that this child absolutely could not go back downstairs. Doing so would surely ruin the comeback bid.

But of course, the kid didn't want to stay upstairs, and he's not old enough to grasp the (probably foolish) notion of sports superstitions, "mojo," and the like. Trying to hold onto him while he squirmed to go back downstairs to play with Thomas the Train was not going to work. But he had to stay upstairs, and the adults all understood this.

So his mother bribed him with candy at 8:00 at night. And upstairs he stayed. And Carolina went to overtime.

Soon we had a ridiculously hyper three-year-old boy running around in circles on the oversized ottoman in the middle of the room, lips blue from bubble gum and gumdrops. And Carolina went to the second overtime.

Then it got tricky again, because he done eating the candy and the trains were still downstairs. So his mom tried to bribe him with paints. It didn't seem like the paint bribe was going to work at first, but when she took out the oversized watercolor book, his eyes lit up and he decided to stay. He even tried to paint within the lines.

And Carolina won the game.

So no, it had nothing, nothing, to do with Tyler Hansbrough's 39 points, or QT's better-than-usual performance, or Wayne Ellington's hot hand.

Nope, it was all the kid.

When are they going to change that rule, baby?!?!

2008-02-05T20:36:00.000-05:00

Awww...you thought I was referring to Dick Vitale's constant complaint that the possession arrow "jump ball" rule is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, the possession arrow "jump ball" rule is ridiculous. But what I'm referring to is the "it looks like a situation where we might want to implement the ridiculous possession arrow 'jump ball' rule, so let's just let them play instead of calling a foul like we would usually do" non-call.

Yes, that's exactly what happens. If it looks like two players from opposing teams might possibly possess the ball at the same time, the refs allow them to shove, elbow, and otherwise wrestle until they decide to blow the play dead. Quite a difference from touch fouls in the backcourt and Greg Paulus flops. I mean, seriously, that's exactly how Ty Lawson hurt his ankle. Ryan Reid threw him to the ground in a way that should have caught the attention of the WWE. I'm not accusing Reid of playing dirty, or intentionally hurting Lawson, or anything of the like. I just think the play should have been stopped before either player ended up on the ground.

Super Giants Bowl

2008-02-05T19:55:00.000-05:00

Last year's Super Bowl between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts was historic. Peyton Manning won his first Super Bowl. Tony Dungy became the first African-American Coach to win a Super Bowl. This year's Super Bowl between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots was also historic. Eli Manning won his first Super Bowl, preventing the Patriots from completing the first perfect season since 1972. Overlooked has been the fact that Giants' GM Jerry Reese became the first African-American GM to win a Super Bowl. Congratulations, Jerry!

A few more notes:

1) Too bad the MVP trophy almost always goes to an offensive player. No offense to Eli Manning, whose fourth quarter escape from an almost-certain sack created an amazing play to keep the winning drive alive. But really, the Giants' defense won the game. Who knew that Plaxico Burress' prediction would be almost correct?

2) Not that too many people took Plaxico seriously in the first place. Did anyone, even those fans who thought New York would win, really think New England would only score 14 points? And if you did, did you think that BEFORE Tom Brady jinxed himself by laughing at Plaxico. The two people (if that many) who usually read my posts know that my brother prides himself on making fairly accurate predictions. Even he had to admit that he was way off with his 38-24 Patriots win prediction (or it might have been 34-28...way off, either way).

3) Man, I'm glad Peyton won the Super Bowl last year. Can you imagine how mad he'd be if Eli had beaten him to it? I mean, really!

4) There are already questions about whether the Giants can repeat next year. The answer is no. Don't get me wrong; they're a good team. You have to be a good team to win the Super Bowl. But the Giants are like the 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers: good enough to win a Super Bowl; not good enough to be able to get there two years in a row. Heck, the Patriots can't even figure out how to pull that one off. Let's face it: teams in recent memory who have pulled off back-to-backs (Denver 1998-1999, Dallas 1993-1994, San Francisco 1989-1990) haven't tended to be wild card berths with 6 regular-season losses. I will say this, though: Tiki Barber looks rather silly.

We like defense

2008-01-13T18:54:00.000-05:00

This week's theme in men's college basketball? Low-scoring games. On Thursday, Virginia Commonwealth beat Georgia State 49-47. On Saturday, VCU managed to score a few more points to beat Hofstra 59-49. According to one of the sports reporters for VCU's student newspaper, The Commonwealth Times, the Rams could very well make it to the NCAA tournament again this season, but don't look for them to pull off any upsets over, say, Duke.

George Washington beat St. Louis by 29 points despite only scoring 49. That's right, folks...the mighty Billikens (click here to learn what a Billiken is) scored a grand total of 20 points for the entire game...7 in the first half and 13 in the second half. Hey, at least they almost doubled their production after halftime.

"Oh, but those are mid-major teams," you might say. Ah, but the mid-majors are not the only victims of the "we can't find the basket" debacle. Take, for instance, N.C. State. Not only do the Wolfpack play in the ACC, but they were picked to finish third in the conference by most people who bothered to make such predictions. At the moment, they look, at best, like the fifth best team, and that's really a rather generous statement on my part. On Wednesday, they scored 54 points while beating North Carolina Central, who only managed to score 29. And on the previous Saturday, they only managed to scrape together 50 points against Presbyterian, a school I didn't even know existed until they showed up on State's schedule (they are located in Clinton, SC). And, as everyone in the Triangle surely knows by now, State scraped together a meager 13 points in the first half against UNC yesterday. Which, granted, wouldn't have looked so bad had UNC not scored 43 in the first half. Granted, State scored 49 points in the second half, although it really didn't mean a darn thing as UNC scored 50 and won the game by 31, 93-62.

I know, I know, I'm a Tar Heel fan and I'm sitting here picking on State, but they just happen to be a perfect example for this post. I also know that the scores of the past week or so are not wholly unique (although St. Louis' score was a newsmaker)...there are low-scoring teams every year. Maybe it's just because I'm used to the Heels scoring 90 or so points per game, but there just seems to be a bigger discrepancy between the high scoring teams and the low scoring teams this year...and there seems to be a lot more low scoring teams. I hope this doesn't lead to a snoozer of a NCAA tournament this spring.

I Heart Bobby Frasor (and Wayne Ellington)

2008-01-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I wasn't too concerned when Bobby Frasor went down with a torn ACL against Nevada last month. It's not that I didn't like Bobby, or that I didn't appreciate his talent, or that I had some personal grudge against him. I just figured that the Heels are a talented enough team to get along without him. And, well, they might be. But after watching last night's game, I'm fretting that torn ACL more and more.

Why?

Ty Lawson can't play the whole game, and when Ty goes out, QT comes in. My mom loves QT. She always tells her fourth grade students what a good team player he is. Which is probably a valid point. But, if I had to choose between QT and Bobby, my money would go to Bobby. The QT factor was absent for the first few games after Frasor's injury because QT also had an injury, but it was out in full force last night: 8 minutes of playing time, 3 turnovers, and an ill-advised scoop shot that might as well have been a fourth turnover. But I suppose Roy doesn't really want Marcus Ginyard playing backup point guard for the rest of the season, which is what took place while QT was injured.

On another note...maybe it was because I was so distracted by the score last night, but I think that during the Wayne Ellington had the quietest 36 points I've ever seen. Now we get to debate whether Clemson is "really that good," or if Carolina is "not as good as advertised." The truth probably lies somewhere in between, although Clemson could have major problems if they don't improve their foul shooting (they would have won the game had they not missed almost half of their free throws). Clemson did find a way to shut down Tyler Hansbrough--if you consider 12 points and 12 rebounds as being shut down. My friends and I wondered if Tyler was sick, since his face looked much redder than usual. But then again, maybe he was working harder than usual. Or my buddies at FSN threw the color off, which is always a likely answer :)

In conclusion: Bobby Frasor, we salute you. Go take care of that knee. Wayne Ellington, we also salute you. Keep on knocking them down.

Those '72 Dolphins can rest easy

2007-11-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

I'm going on record now...the New England Patriots will not go undefeated this season. I've thought this the entire season, actually. Going undefeated is just too hard to do, no matter how good the team. Which is, quite frankly, why it rarely ever happens in sports. Any sport. And as we all know, it's only happened once in the NFL.

The proof? Indianapolis' loss to San Diego. New England's win over the Colts during week 9 was supposed to be proof that the Patriots were invincible...they played a less-than-spectacular game against another undefeated team that clearly played better...and still won. But then the Colts turned around and lost to an up-and-down Chargers team that, on paper, the Colts should have had no problem beating. But paper doesn't play the games, and Peyton Manning threw an unprecedented (for Peyton Manning, anyway) 6 interceptions. And now the Colts have gone from being perhaps the best team in the NFL to, at best, the third best team.

More proof? The St. Louis Rams beating the New Orleans Saints. Granted, like San Diego, New Orleans is another team that can't seem to decide whether or not it wants to be good. But St. Louis? Come on, who predicted that one?

The final proof is last December, when the Miami Dolphins beat the Patriots in a game that, again, on paper, Miami had no business winning. But it was the end of the season, and by that point, neither team had anything to lose.

It'd be funny if Miami beat a still-undefeated Patriots on December 23, ruining the Pats chances at a perfect season, assuring the '07 Dolphins at least one win, and preserving the '72 Dolphins champagne ceremony. But I'm not really counting on it. And it might be a moot point, anyway, as New England has to play Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore before the Miami match-up. Call me crazy, but I think the '72 Dolphins can sleep soundly knowing their accomplishment of being the only undefeated NFL team will remain intact.

I guess they were due

2007-11-13T19:23:00.001-05:00

What? A Carolina-State game nearing the end of the fourth quarter with Carolina's defense on a goal-line stance? Like that's never happened before...except this time State actually made its way into the end zone. Gah.

Okay, phantom offsides call or no, the better team did win. Which I suppose makes up for last year, when Carolina beat the snot out of State (by the end of the game, I actually felt kind of bad for the State fans that had shown up at Kenan Stadium). And for all of the other games that Carolina won in the past ten years, causing State fans to scream about the injustice of missed/botched/otherwise unfair calls.

It was fun to see Carolina climb back into the game, though. I mean, hell, if Carolina did keep State out of the end zone, it probably would have assured the Tar Heels a win in a game that looked like an easy Pack win half-way through the first quarter.

It's funny...I was just thinking that what has bothered me about the Tar Heels all season (other than the ever-increasing number of interceptions) is the defense's ability to make otherwise so-so running backs look like All-American candidates. Cedric Peerman (UVa)? 186 rushing yards. Jamelle Eugene (NCSU)? 159 rushing yards. But as I looked through the season's statistics, I realized that those are the only two players to have posted ridiculous rushing numbers. Maybe I'm combining the Tar Heels' efforts with those of the Carolina Panthers' defense. Man, this has been a hard football season for someone who roots for the Tar Heels, the Panthers, and (perish the thought) the Miami Dolphins.

I'm Just Going to Rant Awhile Here...

2007-11-02T16:29:00.000-05:00

I've lost my voice. It's amazing how you don't realize how essential your voice is until you can't use it. Especially when your co-workers decide to take the opportunity to pick on you when you can't say anything back. So now I've sat at home for the past day and a half, which hasn't been too bad since I don't make a habit of talking to myself out loud. What's more annoying is that I've also lost my sense of taste. This all may or may not have to do with the medication I've been taking for the poison ivy I got a few weeks ago, which thankfully is now pretty much gone. So as you can probably tell, I'm not a fun person to talk to at the moment, and wouldn't be even if I could actually talk.

So in the name of complaining, here are my sports-related gripes of the day:

1) Not that anyone feels sorry for me, but my fantasy team didn't win last week. They tied, leaving me at 7-0-1 for the season. The culprit is Brett Favre, who threw that spectacular touchdown pass in overtime against Denver to Greg Jennings instead of Donald Driver.

2) Until Kobe Bryant has actually left the Lakers for another team, I don't want to hear anymore speculations about where he is going to play. The same goes for Alex Rodriguez. Just tell me when the deals are done.

3) I'm currently watching PTI, where they are discussing the fact that the Dolphins are trying to pay celebrities to attend games. The assumption here seems to be that no one wants to attend Dolphins games because they are a horrible 0-7. Which is a valid point. But hell, the Dolphins have been awful for years now, and the one game I attended in Miami was arguably the worst sporting event I have ever attended (10-7 Dolphins win against Cleveland. It was cold, even though we were in Miami, and we just wanted someone to win in regulation so we wouldn't have to stay for overtime). So I would really encourage the Dolphins front office to find good players to play on the field instead of celebrities to fill the stands. Thanks!

4) There is no such thing as running up the score in pro football. I guess I'm biased, though, as Tom Brady is my starting quarterback. But let's think about it: these guys are getting paid lots of money to do the best job that they can. So, 1) a team should be able to score as many points as they can without being questioned, and 2) the other team should, in theory, be able to prevent the first team from scoring that many points in the first place. Right?

5) Barry Bonds needs to lose his voice.

I'm sure there will be more to come...

Fantasy Football Week 5: That was almost a disastrous decision

2007-10-10T20:52:00.000-05:00

Or better titled: I'm starting Romo and T.O. and Nick Folk against Buffalo. How can I go wrong?

Which, really, I'm still asking myself. Starting that trio against Buffalo should have been the best plan ever, and yet it took Folk's last second (and for that matter, second) 53-yard field goal for me to win my fantasy matchup. The one week I decided to start Romo over Brady, and Romo nearly self-destructed with five interceptions and a fumble. Brady, of course, had his usual near-perfect game. This is what I get for taunting my friend who wanted me to trade Romo to him for Donovan McNabb.

I like Romo, though. One of the post-game interviews with him went something like this:

Reporter: How were you able to pull yourself together after you threw those four interceptions in the first half?

Romo: I had four interceptions in the first half?

Reporter: Yes. Well, actually, you had five overall, but only four in the first half.

Romo: Oh, I thought I had like seven in the first half.

Yes, the usually dismal Buffalo defense had five interceptions, two of which they ran back for touchdowns, and a fumble recovery. Special teams ran in another touchdown. Which means that the Buffalo offense, even with "the media drools all over me" Trent Edwards, mustered a mere three points. My husband was quite infuriated when he realized that he would have won his fantasy matchup had he started Buffalo's defense over Chicago's defense. Go figure.

Vinny Testaverde, yeah...

2007-10-10T20:36:00.000-05:00

...He's the best quarterback in the American Football Conference Eastern Division...

Okay, so the song is a little outdated, but with the way David Carr has looked thus far this season, I might be willing to sing it loudly and proudly.

I'm also beginning to think that Carr likes getting sacked, because, well, he gets sacked all the time. Sometimes he gets sacked because the line doesn't protect him well enough, and sometimes he gets sacked for reasons that I haven't quite figured out. I applauded the Panthers when they acquired Carr during the off-season, figuring that his lackluster performance in Houston was due to the fact that he was, well, playing for Houston. But seeing as how Houston doesn't look quite so horrible with Matt Schaub, and Carr has not looked significantly better playing for Carolina, I'm beginning to think that I should stop making excuses for him.

So...Vinny Testaverde, yeah...

Sing it!

UNC v. Miami: Everyone takes the blame

2007-10-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

I love the unwritten understanding amongst sports fans that each person--no matter how removed from the playing field--has the ability to affect the outcome of games. It's something that is acknowledged by seemingly all sports fans, and not understood at all by people who couldn't care less about sports.

Yesterday's UNC-Miami game played at Kenan Stadium is a perfect example. UNC was leading 27-0 at halftime after playing a nearly flawless first half. Then, disaster struck. My brother and his girlfriend moved down from their seats in Section 209 to sit with me and my husband in Section 112. The daugther of the people sitting next to me came over from the student section to sit with her parents. I moved down one row so I could sit next to my husband instead of behind him. And boom. 27-0 turned into 27-20. Really fast. So, my brother and his girlfriend moved back to Section 209. The other girl moved back to the student section. I moved up one row and sat behind my husband. Crisis averted, we won 33-27. So you can clearly see how the people in my section were responsible for this near collapse, only to readjust so UNC could pull out the victory.

Right. It sounds oh so ludicrous. But almost everyone I talked to after the game had their own story about how they were responsible for what had happened. I love sports fans.

It would have been nice...

2007-10-03T22:15:00.000-05:00

...to have been able to watch the Carolina Hurricanes' season opener on TV. But hey, whatever.

Someone explain Notre Dame's troubles to me, please.

2007-10-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

We all know that Notre Dame football is awful this year. They've started their season 0-5, a program first. Experts think it's pretty much a given that they'll go at least 0-8 before seeing their first win, and many think it's possible that they'll go 0-12. It's a common story for, say, Duke, but at this point, it seems entirely likely that Duke will beat them when they play on November 17.

How did the Fighting Irish come to hit rock bottom? I've discussed Carolina's disastrous 8-20 baketball season on this blog before. I know about the perfect storm of circumstances that brought about that challenging year: Gutheridge had done a poor job recruiting because everyone knew he was going to retire; Doherty then took over a mediocre team who didn't like his interpersonal skills. And voila...you got the season that every Tar Heel fan loves to sweep under the carpet and every Duke and NCSU fan loves to rehash every chance they get.

But are those the circumstances surrounding Notre Dame? Weiss is in his third year as head coach, is coming off a 10-3 season with a Sugar Bowl appearance (albeit a loss), and has a strong recruiting class coming in next year. Compare to UNC: the 8-20 year was in Doherty's second year as coach, coming off a 26-7 season (albeit with a disappointing second half of the season and a second round loss in the NCAA tournament), and with a great recruiting class coming in.

Hey, I don't know much about Notre Dame football, so I'm asking someone to please explain to me how this is happening. Inquiring minds want to know.

No, I'm not trading Romo. Or Brady.

2007-10-03T21:12:00.000-05:00

Still undefeated for the time being. I got an email from my Fantasy League informing me that another manager had proposed a trade:

Donovan McNabb and Chris Cooley for Tony Romo. Or if I couldn't part with Romo, Tom Brady.

I had to tell him that:

1) Donovan McNabb had been on my "no draft list" before the season started,

and

2) his performance against the New York Football Giants didn't exactly make me rethink that decision,

and

3) Chris Cooley doesn't sweeten the deal as I already have Kellen Winslow and Donald Driver,

and

4) giving him Romo or Brady would just mean that he would beat me with whichever one I parted with the week that I play him.

So, as you have probably already figured out, I rejected the trade.

But his proposal has made me wonder about what I should do with Romo on a weekly basis. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to get rid of him, but it seems like an awful waste to bench him the entire season except for New England's bye week. What to do, what to do? It might end in a coin toss this weekend.

I also realized that I have managed to build a bench that can outperform my starters. With the exception of Romo, both of my defenses, and Shayne Graham, I have acquired my entire bench off of waivers since Week 2. I think I did a good job, but it makes my decision-making tougher.

Decisions that will not end in coin tosses are as follows:

1) Cedric Benson: benched. I don't think I need to explain this one.

2) Sammy Morris: starting. I don't think I need to explain this one, either.

3) T.O.: starting, as usual, although it amazes (and frustrates) me that Dallas scored 35 points and T.O. racked up an anemic 33 yards. But HEY, I hear he threw an amazing block enabling Patrick Crayton to score. More on Crayton in a minute...

4) Joe Jurevicius: benched, as usual, although in retrospect, I should have started him over T.O. last week.

Decisions that probably will not end in coin tosses but who knows:

1) Donald Driver: benched. Green Bay's playing against Chicago, who still concerns me despite their poorer than expected performance thus far this season. Ah, expectations.

2) Shaun McDonald: starting. He's playing against Washington, and Detroit loves to throw.

Now back to Crayton...based on last Sunday's performance, 31,055 Yahoo! Fantasy Football managers added him to their teams this week. This reminds me of a few years ago when seemingly every other manager added DeShaun Foster to their teams after he had one great game. Being an avid Panthers follower, I could have told all of them that the move was probably futile, seeing as how Foster is dreadfully inconsistent. And I'm sure many of them figured that out a week or two later, and perhaps ended up dropping him in the end. Now, I'm not saying that Crayton is the same type of player as Foster, but it does surprise me that so many people are willing to pick a guy up after one good game.

Fantasy Football: Week 3 Redux

2007-09-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

Alrighty, my team is now the only undefeated team in my league. Which I think is cool, although it makes me think that I'm in for a rude awakening sometime soon. LT (15 points) definitely did better than last week, although he still isn't producing like he has in the past. I should have started Shaun McDonald (13 points) over Jerricho Cotchery (5 points) and Sammy Morris (10 points) over Cedric Benson (7 points--he had 10 points until he fumbled). Seattle's D (15 points) performed better than Green Bay's D (7 points), and Nick Folk (11 points) kicked his way to more points than did Shayne Graham (8 points). But as my opponent scored a mere 36 points (they started Marc Bulger (-1 points) and left Ronnie Brown (40 points) on the bench--doh!), it really didn't matter.

Notes from Week 3:

That Jake Delhomme (15 points)-Steve Smith (1 point) combo I raved about last week? Doesn't work so well when Delhomme is injured and Smith drops passes. David Carr, anyone?

I'm really glad my team played against Brian Westbrook in Week 2 (15 points) and not Week 3 (40 points). I would have lost big.

As mentioned before, I'm glad my Week 3 opponent graciously overlooked Ronnie Brown (40 points) sitting so nicely on the bench.

I can't say I ever paid attention to Kevin Curtis (40 points) until this past Sunday.

Along with LT, Philip Rivers and the entire San Diego team looked much better. Speaking of which...

...did anyone expect Green Bay to be good this year? Not me. I guess they traded fortunes with New Orleans.

Moves for Week 4:

Not many. Folk is gettting kicking duties this weekend. I dropped the injured Matt Spaeth and added Donald Lee (actually, I first added Bubba Franks, and then realized he probably wasn't going to play. Note to self to read the player reports before making moves). I'll start Lee if Kellen Winslow doesn't play. McDonald will start over Cotchery if Cotchery doesn't play, but since Detroit's playing Chicago and the Jets are playing Buffalo, I'm hoping Jerricho will be a go. I'm keeping Green Bay's defense in against the Vikings.

--
For those of you wondering why I'm not writing about Tar Heel football, it's because I don't have that much to say. The most conversation generated thus far this season has been about the now-infamous reviewed field goal. Now every time someone kicks a field goal, I yell, "Review it!" Note: I can really be an obnoxious person sometimes.

Fantasy Football: Where's LT?

2007-09-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

After two weeks of fantasy football, my team is 2-0 and in first place in my league by a whole three points (230 points). This past Sunday's studs? Tom Brady (26 points), Jerricho Cotchery (16 points), and Kellen Winslow (16 points). They scored enough points to make up for the fact that LT did, well, almost nothing (5 points), and Seattle's defense also did, well, almost nothing (3 points). I ended up winning my match-up by a mere seven points because Brian Westbrook would not stop scoring points (15 points, just enough to make me sweat since I had thought that I had a comfortable lead going into the Monday night Eagles-Redskins game).

This scare made me take a closer look at my 1) defense and 2) my woeful bench. The Packers "D" is in, Seattle's is out. Brandon Jackson, Drew Bennett, Matt Jones, Chris Baker, and Dave Rayner? Waivers. Sammy Morris, Shaun McDonald, Joe Jurevicius, Matt Spaeth, and Nick Folk? Welcome to my bench.

Interesting observations:

1) Jake Delhomme (55 points) outscored Peyton Manning (47 points). But my husband still isn't starting Jake over Peyton.

2) I'd love to have the Jake Delhomme (55 points)-Steve Smith (50 points) duo on my team. I also wish the rest of the Panthers would step it up as well.

3) This Fantasy Football thing is way addictive.

Week 2 Fantasy Football Decisions

2007-09-13T19:10:00.000-05:00

I mentioned two things in my last blog that I am now having to revisit:

1) Cedric Benson. After last week's disappointing performance, I seriously considered picking up another starting RB. But here's what I figure will happen: if I get rid of him, he'll have a breakout week this Sunday. So alas, I'm keeping him and starting him again.

2) Tom Brady and Tony Romor. I stated that I wasn't going to start Romo over Brady, even though Romo had fantastic numbers last week. And I'm still not going to start Romo over Brady. But Patriot-gate has me worried: are Brady's numbers going to go down if the Pats no longer know the defensive plays in advance? Argh. We'll have to wait and see. Who knows, maybe Romo will be starting after a few weeks.

Quote of the week: "The Michigan Wolverweenies better win big this weekend, because they're bringing Appalachian State's strength of schedule down." --caller on "Prime Time with the Pack Man"

Fantasy Football/How good is App?/Wrigley Field

2007-09-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, Week 1 of Fantasy Football is nearly over. I only have one player playing right now, and it's my kicker, so I don't plan on racking up that many more points.

Right now I'm sitting at 109 points. My biggest lesson of the weekend: I should have started Tom Brady over Tony Romo. Who would've picked that one? Will I put Romo in over Brady next week? No. But then again I'm hard headed.

I lucked out in my league and got the #1 draft pick, which means I picked up Tom Brady, LaDanian Tomlinson, and T.O. I also got Donald Driver, Jerricho Cotchery, Kellen Winslow, and, um, Cedric Benson, who I shouldn't have started in front of Brandon Jackson.

So at the moment I can't complain. I just wish the folks at Yahoo! would do their jobs and update point totals for the Ravens-Bengals game. We're all still sitting at 0 although the score is 9-7. Oh well.

---
I was in Chicago last weekend when App beat Michigan. Oh man, were the Michigan fans in Wrigleyville easy to pick on! They were none too pleased when I told them that the people at App are a bunch of hippie pot heads.

Quote: "You mean we were beaten by a bunch of hippie pot heads?"

So everyone catches (don't call it) Division I-AA fever, and the AP even decides that (don't call it) Division I-AA teams can receive votes in their poll. And hey, why not? Sure, it's a lot like comparing apples to oranges, and it's unlikely that any (don't call it) Division I-AA team will ever make it into the AP poll for any more than a week or two at a time, but it's fun to know that they can can get in there. I mean, if Duke's football team is allowed to receive votes, (don't call it) Division I-AA teams should be able to as well.

Granted, Oregon's thumping of Michigan at the Big House makes me wonder why App couldn't beat the Wolverines by more than 2 points. But I guess I'm being picky.

---
Speaking of Wrigleyville, I had the opportunity to go to a Cubs game while I was in Chicago. Here are a few facts about Wrigley Field that everyone already knows, but I'm going to take the time to point them out anyway:

1) It's windy there. Especially when you're sitting at the top of your section by the fence, and that little bit of wind is squeezing through just to chill you to the bone. Even in August.

2) It's possible to end up with a seat behind a pole that's next to impossible to see around. I did not have such a seat, but the poles do prevent you from seeing plays in the outfield every now and again.

3) Milwaukee is only a few hours from Chicago, so lots of Milwaukee fans come down for Brewers-Cubs games. They cheer loudly. Cubs fans get upset.

4) There are restrooms on the upper levels, but they're easy to miss. Don't be surprised if you end up going to the restroom and getting food all the way at the bottom of the ramp.

5) All in all: Priceless.

Some People. Take The Joy. Out of Everything.

2007-08-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

I don't think it takes a super-attentive sports fan to figure out that sports have been, well, not much fun this summer. We had to listen to the minute-to-minute updates regarding whether or not Bud Selig would be in attendance when Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run. We had to listen to all of the controversy surrounding the fact that Bonds was about to hit his 756th home run. We had to endure Denmark's Michael Rasmussen's dismissal from the Tour de France. Then there was Michael Vick. Then there was there was Tim Donaghy. Sheesh. I have co-workers who simply do not understand the point of watching sports, and lately, I don't think there's much to say to convince them otherwise.

Ah, but there's Tiger Woods! He won the PGA Championship on Sunday, inching him closer to breaking Jack Nicklaus's record for major victories. This win was just the story the sporting world needed. Clean-cut Tiger, winning his thirteenth major in front of his wife and baby daughter.

But of course, some people must ruin everything. Take ESPN's Josh Elliott, who announced on Mike & Mike in the Morning that people might begin to speculate that Tiger himself has done steroids. Gah. This is what happens when people have to talk on the radio for hours at a time and have to say, well, anything, to avoid dead air. I mean, Josh might be right. People might begin to wonder whether or not Tiger has really obtained his success by lots of practice as opposed less legitimate means. But right now there is absolutely no reason to think that that's the case. So can we just enjoy one untainted sport for the moment? If there suddenly becomes evidence of steroids in golf, then let's talk. But let's just have...one...week...of..fun...thinking that someone has accomplished something legitimately, and that he won't be indicted or arrested anytime soon.

Also, I am going to be playing Fantasy Football for the first time this season. I've sworn it off for years because I want to enjoy watching the games without worrying about my players. I'll keep everyone updated on my progress.

Mike Bacsik is now a trivia answer

2007-08-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

Michael J. Bacsik to be exact. In case you missed it, the Washington Nationals pitcher gave up Homer #756 to Barry Bonds. Despite the fact that everyone knew he was going to break the record any day now, it was still easy to miss because Time Warner Cable doesn't carry MASN, which has the rights to all Nationals games. So in order to see the historic homer, you had to watch the ESPN News feed on ESPN2 and wait for them to cut in with Bonds' at bats. So he hit the homer, and then the hooplah began.

The game stopped. Hank Aaron came on the jumbotron screen and gave a speech. Bonds made a speech. There were fireworks. All during the bottom of the 5th inning. Since I don't have MASN, I currently have no idea whether or not the game has restarted. Crazy.

Now, are sports fans going to move on to other discussions, or are they going to continue the steroids debate? I think this question is, in a way, more interesting than the fact he broke the home run record. That was inevitable. Does that discussion now stop? Are we all going to forget about the controversy and move on to preseason football?

Whatever you decide to talk about, remember Mike Bacsik. It will pay off for you one day.

Sports or Beach?

2007-07-02T17:09:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a week in Maui. There's beautiful beaches and mountains, and countless places for great swimming, snorkeling, surfing and windsurfing, hiking, etc. I'll have the pictures available sometime in the near future.

Anyway, being in Maui and all, I didn't pay as much attention to the sports world as I usually would. As in, I didn't completely ignore the fact that Carolina was playing in the CWS, or that the NBA draft was taking place, or that there was some good tennis being played at Wimbledon, but I didn't sit glued to my TV, either. Now, there wasn't a ton of nightlife in the area where I was staying (which was perfectly fine due to the fact that my husband and I were usually dead tired by the end of our daily adventures), so had the CWS games started at 7:00 p.m. Hawaii time, I might have actually watched as opposed to checking the score in a bar on the wharf in Lahaina. And I might have learned that the Bobcats traded Brandan Wright to the Warriors hours earlier than I actually did. But you know, when you're in Hawaii for one week only and it's the middle of the afternoon, the beach somehow becomes waaaay more interesting. And to tell you the truth, it was nice not to have anyone in my face reminding me that UNC had lost to Oregon State once again, although we did meet quite a few people from Oregon. (Note: Whereas West Coasters apparently go to Hawaii all the time, it seems somewhat of a novelty to meet East Coasters there. I'm basing this statement on the fact that every time we mentioned that we were from North Carolina, people always responded, "oooh...that's far away. We're from L.A./Portland/Seattle, etc.)

Now, people who actually live in Hawaii must get used to all of the tropical attractions, because there does appear to be a market for viewing sporting events. ESPN is on at every bar (which is how we kept up with the CWS). One of the bellhops at our resort was even quite knowledgeable about UNC basketball and the Carolina Panthers. I assumed that Hawaiians had the luxury of watching Sunday NFL games on tape delay, but my understanding is that fans actually get up at 7:00 in the morning to watch. I'm not really all that surprised, because the sun rises at 4:00 and the birds will wake you up well before 7:00 anyway. Which, again, is why I didn't mind staying in nightlife-less South Maui.

Now if we could just figure out a good way to watch the NFL while sitting on the beach...

Have Some Hokie Pride Today

2007-04-20T06:23:00.000-05:00

Please remember to wear Hokie maroon and orange today to remember the 32 students and faculty members murdered at Virginia Tech Monday morning, April 16.

Wear the colors even if you don't root for VT in the world of sports. Today is not about sports. I'm wearing the Hokie Nation colors. My mom is even wearing the colors, and that's roughly equivalent to me agreeing to wear Duke gear.

My fiance is perhaps exempt from this request, because I stole his orange and maroon clothing.

Gah, does anyone like Billy Packer?

2007-03-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a burning question: how does Billy Packer keep his job as lead college basketball analyst at CBS?

I ask because no one (with the possible exception of the people who work at CBS) seems to appreciate his "talents." There are petitions. There are blogs. There are people hanging around their break room water coolers.

The verdict from, well, pretty much everyone, is that Packer has to go. He's negative, without one nice word to say for anyone, with the possible exception of his alma mater, Wake Forest. At least "oh my God turn the sound down it's..." Dick Vitale has enthusiasm for the game, even if he does talk about certain ACC teams a bit too much (although those Hooters commercials ought to be illegal).

The list of complaints against Packer goes on and on...insulting female Duke students...showing more sympathy for the fact that Gerald Henderson was ejected from the March 4 Duke-Carolina game than the fact that Tyler Hansbrough had a bloody nose...just having a reputation for being that guy who rains on everyone's parade.

If Packer worked for ESPN, he would have been axed long ago. ESPN has not the first problem with firing or otherwise reassigning analysts it finds to be embarrassing to its image or ineffective (read: Michael Irvin and Joe Theismann).

The latest laughable incident? In an interview with WFAN radio, Packer called Tar Heel senior Reyshawn Terry's game "soft." Terry responded to CBSsportline Columnist Mike Freeman by effectively telling Packer off . The really funny part? Unless I've missed something, no one cares. They chuckle because they think it's funny that a player said such things about Packer to a member of the media. There's no outrage about disrespect. There's no outrage about speaking out of place. Maybe Packer thinks it's funny. After all, he doesn't seem like the best judge of what is appropriate speech and what isn't. In the end, though, it just adds up to another example of why CBS needs to enter the 21st century and find an analyst that speaks to a new generation. Or an analyst that can just muster up the energy to say something nice every once in a while.

Just keep that person out of Hooters commercials.

About Duke

2007-03-16T16:28:00.000-05:00

I'm a UNC fan. I don't like Duke. I don't like Coach K. I loved watching VCU come from behind to win last night's game, leaving Duke one-and-done for the first time since 1996.

That being said, I think the criticism reigning down on the Blue Devils is a bit unfair. As usual, I'm calling for some rationality.

We knew coming into the season that the team wasn't going to be up to par with past Duke teams. The AP ranked them 12th in their preseason poll; ESPN/USA Today ranked them 11th. For most teams, such a ranking would be an honor. But for Duke, such a ranking was a sign that things were amiss. J. J. Redick was gone. Shelden Williams was gone. There were no comparable players to replace them. Greg Paulus? Puh-lease.

Some people took it almost as a sign of Duke's apocalypse. After all, even UNC was ranked 19th in both preseason polls before the infamous 8-20 season (they dropped out in the Week 3 polls). So I can just imagine some confused voters trying to figure out what to do with a Duke team that wasn't going to be ranked 1 or 2:

"Hmmm...we don't think Duke is going to be as good as usual this year. But...it's Duke...they can't really be that bad. Let's just throw them somewhere in the middle of the poll and see how things pan out."

But unlike UNC, Duke managed to stay in the Top 25 for most of the season, with the exception of a brief absence following a 4-game skid. Did they look like a Top 25 team? Sometimes yes, mostly no. But they didn't look like a bad team, either. They were still a good team, but an average type of good, rather than the usual spectacular type of good.

They lost 11 games total. They finished 8-8 in the ACC, good for 6th place. They lost to NCSU in the opening round of the ACC Tournament, meaning they would not win the tourney for only the second time since 1999. They had two 4-game losing skids: one to UVa, FSU, UNC, and Maryland, and the other to Maryland, UNC, NCSU, and VCU. They lost their remaining three games to Marquette, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech. Nine of these losses were to teams that made it to the NCAA Tournament; the other two teams made it to the NIT. Duke can at least say it lost all of its games to quality teams, unlike some teams (Syracuse) that failed to make the NCAA Tournament (Syracuse) and then whined about it (Syracuse) by pointing to their, let's say 3, quality wins (Syracuse).

As much as I hate to admit it, Duke is no Syracuse. Some people think they should have been ranked lower than a 6 seed, and based on last night's loss, that might very well be true. Or it could mean that VCU should have been ranked higher than an 11 seed. In the end, the seeding didn't matter. VCU won; the only reason Duke might not be back in Durham yet is a snowstorm in Buffalo. But despite their relatively sub-par season, I wouldn't count them out for the longhaul. Maybe this season was a sign that Coach K is slipping, and that might very well be true. But I think I'll wait and see what happens during the next couple of seasons before I make that assessment. After all, UNC did come back from that 8-20 season to win a national championship three years later.

And with that, I'm going to take a shower so I can wash off all this "apologizing for Duke" crap. Go Tar Heels!

Okay, they only won by 2

2007-03-15T20:45:00.000-05:00

If anyone made a big bet on VCU winning by 3, I apologize for the fact that they only won by 2.

Nice.

VCU v. Duke

2007-03-12T20:23:00.000-05:00

Sources say VCU will beat Duke by 3. I'd link you to this prediction, but it's all contained in an AIM away message.

Ty Lawson Message Board Madness

2007-03-12T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going to get a lot of nasty comments about this post. Or I would, if more than two people read it.

Here it is: people post stupid things to message boards. This apparently applies to any message board. For instance, I sometimes go to the Lost message board in order to see if people have interesting insights about the latest episode. What I usually find is something along the lines of:

1) This week's episode was the worst episode ever. The writers are way off track. Why aren't they answering any of my questions? I think I'm going to stop watching this stupid show.

(Which would be fine, except that the same person will say the exact same thing the next week)

or

2) Why aren't they showing more of Sawyer? He's soooo hot!

But since this is a sports blog, I'll stick to sports-related message boards. In particular, I'm going to focus on the message boards that UNC and NCSU fans tend to frequent. I don't post to them, but I sometimes read them to see what people are saying. What I see is not any better than the Lost board. Since we're all supposed to be intelligent folks in the Triangle area, I'm calling for people from both schools (and ECU fans, who like to troll the NCSU boards) to stop making stupid comments on message boards.

Here's yesterday's scenario:

UNC and NCSU played an exciting game that everyone should remember for a long time. The fact that NCSU made it to the final game was a great story, and most UNC fans that I know were rooting for the Wolfpack until they played the Tar Heels in the final.

With less than 10 seconds on the clock, UNC rebounds the ball. It ends up in Ty Lawson's hands. Lawson sprints down the floor and dunks the ball, which we all thought was funny because we always joke that he can't actually do that since he usually lays it in.

After that, my fiancee and I looked at each other and said, "The State fans are going to say that that was classless."

Which they did, repeatedly.

Well, okay...I'll admit...maybe he shouldn't have done that. But according to the NCSU message boards, Lawson's dunk was not the result of an excited freshman celebrating the Tar Heels' first ACC championship since 1998.

Oh no. It was a sign of disrespect directed specifically at the Wolfpack. State fans know this, because at the end of the Boston College game, the Tar Heels elected to take a shot clock violation instead of running up the score. Therefore, Lawson dunked the ball because he was playing State.

I don't know Ty Lawson, and I haven't drilled him about the reasons that he dunked the ball. But my guess is he didn't do it as a sign of disrespect toward the Wolfpack.

I think this because I think players respect one another a lot more than fans respect one another. You see, many of the players on opposing teams don't despise one another as much as the fans want them to. Some of them went to high school together. Some of them played on McDonald's teams together. Some of them know each other for other reasons. They don't go around stealing each other's mascots, spray painting other schools' property, or writing maniacal diatribes on other fans' message boards.

So let's end that thread now.

Here are my other gripes about the message boards:

1) Is it really necessary for UNC fans to comment on NCSU boards or vice versa? Doing so accomplishes nothing but creating a flame war. It doesn't matter if you compliment the other team or if you go in guns blazing. Then again, maybe that's what people are going for.

2) NCSU fans should not whine about "Carowhina" fans. Think about it.

3) Make sure you say something somewhat intelligent (or at least make sure you don't say something retarded). Example: An NCSU fan, in response to a thread that Roy Williams and/or Ty Lawson are classless, wrote: "NC = No Class" Think about it.

I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt that a trolling ECU fan wrote that.

4) Furthermore, there was not a conspiracy to put UNC in the hardest bracket (although there is a legitimate argument that they are in fact in the hardest bracket). They're a #1 seed. If someone wanted a conspiracy, I don't think the #1 seed would have happened. Along those lines, Tyler Hansbrough's broken nose did not cause Carolina to be in the hardest bracket. Let's be reasonable here.
--

End rant. Why post to message boards when I can rant on my own blog?

==
UPDATE
I saw some of these comments last night and for some reason didn't mention them, but WRAL did.

So...

5) Don't make racist comments on message boards. That goes for UNC fans, NCSU fans, and Duke fans.

And anyone else for that matter.

Sheesh.

He does it again!

2007-03-06T18:53:00.000-05:00

Since my brother is, in fact, supposed to be a contributor on this blog, I'll make his contribution for him by posting the podcast of his correct prediction of last night's George Mason-VCU game--VCU by six. And to think that Rick Roth and Larry Richmond laughed at him on The Sportsline. Skip to the end of the segment if you don't want to hear about Zabian Dowdell or Virginia Tech in general.

Better than the Swami

2007-02-05T17:57:00.000-05:00

Check out Virginia Commonwealth University's Commonwealth Times Super Bowl preview, where Sports Editor Jonathan Howard predicted that the Colts would win 34-17, and rather accurately broke down why.

Way to represent the family, little bro.

Creating a College Football Playoff

2007-01-18T19:22:00.000-05:00

The college football season is now long over. There are plenty of great stories to remember, including Boise State's win over Oklahoma, Wake Forest's Orange Bowl run, and the Ohio State-Michigan game. The Florida Gators are the national champions, (perhaps) crowned with less controversy than some other teams in recent years.

Now that the season is over, let's rationally discuss why college football needs a playoff system. This conversation is hard to have during the season, because emotions tend to cloud rational judgment. People tend to say things like:

"Boise State's win over Oklahoma proves why there should be a playoff system."
"Even if we had a playoff, some deserving team (Boise State, for instance) would get left out."
"There aren't ever enough deserving teams to justify a playoff."
"A playoff would destroy the existing bowl system, which everyone likes for their own reasons."

Here's what I'm asking for: an eight-game playoff system. I think it can be done relatively easily, if the BCS is committed to doing it. And I think it beats the four-game playoff that BCS coordinator Mike Slive has said he is "open-minded" about considering.

For the love of [insert your deity here], Division I-A football is the only Division I-A NCAA sponsored sport without an organized tournament to determine a champion. Every other division has a playoff. We'd scratch our heads if at the end of the season, the NCAA decided that the #1 and #2 ranked basketball teams would play each other to determine a national champion, sans the NCAA Tournament.

With that said, let's pick the above arguments apart one by one. Be prepared for lots of references to college basketball.

"Boise State's win over Oklahoma proves why there should be a playoff system."

Boise State's win over Oklahoma bolsters the argument for a playoff, but by itself proves nothing. Just like George Mason's 2006 run to the Final Four bolstered the argument that letting more mid-major teams into the tournament was a good idea, but in reality didn't prove a thing (what if no mid-majors make it to the Final Four this year?). Really, I think everyone knows that this argument is silly. But emotions make people say silly things, see?

"Even if we had a playoff, some deserving team (Boise State, for instance) would get left out."

Well, you've got me there. That very well could happen. It supposedly happens in basketball every year, despite the fact that 65 teams get to go to the NCAA tournament. 65 teams. So yeah, I suppose at least one team is going to feel left out each year. But under the current system, only two teams get to play for the championship. So let's toss this argument out the window.

This argument actually supports my idea that an eight-game playoff is superior than a four-game playoff. With a four game playoff, all of the major conferences wouldn't even have a chance to be represented, so you can definitely forget about your Boise States.

"There aren't ever enough deserving teams to justify a playoff."

And here's the other extreme. This argument is really only relevant when discussing an eight-game playoff, not the four-game playoff. And of course, I'm going to use the NCAA Tournament again to make my point. The NCAA Tournament has 65 teams. 65 teams. Do you honestly think every single one of those teams really has a chance to win the whole thing? Doesn't a favored heavyweight almost always end up winning?

Plus, you're never going to convince me that there aren't eight teams deserving to go to a playoff. If we had had an eight-game playoff this past season, here's how it might have looked. We'll assume the champions from the six major conferences, plus two at-large bids:

ACC Champion: Wake Forest
Big Ten Champion: Ohio State
Pac-10 Champion: USC
Big 12 Champion: Oklahoma
Big East Champion: Louisville
SEC Champion: Florida

WAC Champion/At-large bid: Boise State
At-large bid: Notre Dame

Oh, I know, I know. What about Michigan? What about LSU? Etc., etc.

I think I've proven my point.

"A playoff would destroy the existing bowl system, which everyone likes for their own reasons."

Here are the reasons:

The schools like it because of the money involved.
The hosting cities like it because of the money involved.
The fans like it because all their teams have to do is win six games, and they (usually) go to a (usually) meaningless post-season game that gives them an excuse to go on vacation to a place they (usually) wouldn't go otherwise. Or at the very least, it allows them to watch their team for one last game.

Why would having a playoff get rid of any of these aspects? An eight-game playoff would require seven games. There were 32 bowl games this past year, and if the creation of the Toronto Bowl, indicates anything, there could probably be more. Everyone likes these bowls, right? And hey, if any of these bowls fail, I don't think a playoff would have much to do with it.

From 1998 until 2005, eight teams played in four "BCS" bowls. Those bowls, the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Orange Bowl, were already being used for marquee games. The only difference was that one of the games was the "national championship game" between the top two teams in the BCS standings. The current system has five "meaningless" games taking place in traditional bowls, plus an additionally created national championship bowl. Neither of these formats destroyed the bowl system, so why would a meaningful playoff system? You wouldn't even have to extend the season further into January (playing the championship game on January 8 seemed a bit late to me, but I don't like having the Super Bowl in February, either). You can have multiple playoff games on the same day, just like in the NFL playoffs. They would all get spectacular ratings, just like in the NFL playoffs. They would all be well attended, just like in the NFL playoffs.

Hell, if the BCS wanted to, they could even continue to play the Pac-10 champion and the Big Ten champion against one another, even if it would mess up the seeding. Yeah, it would be a little silly, but no sillier than not having a playoff at all.

So let's have this idea turn into reality. I can wait until 2010 if need be. Just don't tell me that it can't, or shouldn't, be done.

He's heeeere!

2006-11-27T09:36:00.000-05:00

After receiving my video message from Butch Davis, I can now breathe easy that he really is going to be UNC's coach next season. I don't like getting excited over unofficial deals. Remember Bobby Cremins taking the job at the College of Charleston, only to change his mind mere hours later? Not to worry, Tar Heel fans. He's now decked out in Carolina Blue, with the fight song running in the background, saying how glad he is to be UNC's coach. He's a coach to get excited about. Don't associate him with "the dirty Miami program," as I've heard some people refer to it. He had a fantastic win-loss record with the Hurricanes, despite the fact that he was also cleaning up that program. Davis should bring the same level of honor and respectability to the university as did John Bunting, but (hopefully) with a better record.

On the one hand, I feel bad for John Bunting. He's definitely a first-class guy. On the other hand, I don't think his firing is going to have a major negative impact on his career. That's the beauty of the coaching profession...if you don't succeed with one team, you still have a good chance of finding another coaching job elsewhere and making an impact. Look at Matt Doherty. After a humiliating "resignation" from UNC, he's gone from the television booth to Florida Atlantic to SMU. Butch Davis is another example. After his success with the Hurricanes, he was unable to accomplish anything with the Cleveland Browns (insert your favorite Cleveland Browns joke here). Point being, Bunting's career is not over.

Neither are Larry Coker's or Chuck Amato's, for that matter. Here's where the fun begins!

Actually, talking about the Miami coaching search is no fun at all. It's going to be either Rutgers coach Greg Schiano or Wisconsin athletic director (and former head coach) Barry Alvarez. Period.

Now, I do think it's fun that Miami is trying to woo anyone from Rutgers. A friend of mine who lives in New Jersey swears that there are three truths in life: death, taxes, and Rutgers football sucks. Due to Rutgers unexpected performance this season, she's probably now wandering the shoulder of the turnpike carrying signs predicting the end of the world.

Barry Alvarez makes sense, especially when you remember that Miami president Donna Shalala used to be the chancellor at Wisconsin. I've got no problem with Alvarez, but I am troubled by the idea that he would be both the head football coach and the athletic director. Hello? Les Robinson? Why does anyone ever think being both a head coach and an AD is a good idea?

Of course, Alvarez turned the Hurricanes down once before, back in 1995. But that was before Shalala was there. And shoot, Roy Williams said no to UNC the first time they asked. Well, okay, maybe this coaching search is fun to talk about after all.

Now onto NC State, which has already had one fun coaching search this year. Don't worry, Wolfpack fans. This search should be shorter and less circus-like. Why? Because the circumstances are different.

The decision to leave NC State was Lee Fowler's not Chuck Amato's. Amato liked being at State. The names State has supposedly targeted as potential replacements, Navy head coach Paul Johnson and Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow, are people who would benefit from becoming the head coach at an ACC school.

This thought, of course, assumes that Bill Cowher is not going to leave the Steelers to coach the Wolfpack, although he does have a nice house in Raleigh. I really can't imagine why Cowher would want to leave the NFL in order to coach college. Coaches leave the NFL for college for two reasons:

1) It's a promotion. As it would be for Norm Chow, and as it was for John Bunting.
2) They left college for the NFL, and realized it was a mistake. As it was for Steve Spurrier and Butch Davis.

Cowher fits into neither category.

I've also heard people mention Steve Logan. I'm not going to flat out say he wouldn't do it, but I doubt it. I think if he wanted to get back into coaching college football, he would have done it by now.

The process of finding a new coach should be short and painless. Now let's compare this search with the basketball search. Sendek had Lee Fowler's full support, at a premiere ACC school, and still chose, for all intents and purposes, to leave Raleigh in the middle of the night. While many Wolfpack fans celebrated Sendek's departure, many coaches probably saw Sendek's actions as a big warning sign, i.e. "Don't coach here." State then turned around and courted coaches (read: Rick Barnes, Rick Pitino, etc.) who would not benefit from leaving their schools to go to NC State. I bring up the basketball search not so much to make fun of it, but to point out why the football search should not resemble it at all. AT ALL.

But these things always have twists and turns. Let the fun begin.

The Sports Chic returns (at the most opportune time)

2006-11-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

For my two fans who have asked about my blog, I'm back. The master's paper is done, the semester's almost over, and there's still tons of football and basketball to be watched.

I think I picked a good two months or so to tune out. Who wants to write about UNC getting trounced by South Florida, anyway? That was the last game I attended until the NC State game this past weekend. The South Florida game was cold, we lost to a team that everyone thought we could beat, and I didn't get my free hot dog for Student Appreciation Day because of some planning snafu (as in, the vendors seemed unaware that every student in the stadium was going to ask for a hot dog). It was enough to make me wonder why I wasn't watching the game in a climate-controlled bar, with beer, where I had the option of watching other games as well.

I was so distraught, I decided to go underground and do things like attempt to graduate on time.

I re-emerged into the sports world just in time for the UNC-NC State football game. I think I timed that as well as I possibly could. UNC continued its mini-tradition of beating State, regardless of their performance during the rest of the season. The only drawback of this victory? Lee Fowler might just decide to can Chucky. UNC fans feel the same way about Chucky as they did about Herb Sendek--they like him because UNC always finds a way to beat him.

Oh well. UNC gets Butch Davis (we think..we hope...the end of the Dook game can't come fast enough...). I'm more than happy to sit back and watch another NC State coaching search circus.

Okay...let the catching up begin.

New Updates Soon

2006-10-17T07:49:00.000-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, the Tar Heels football team has not driven me to stop posting on this blog. I just caught up with trying to graduate (imagine that! I'm stopping at 5 degrees!). Stay tuned.

Clemson 52, UNC 7

2006-09-25T10:57:00.000-05:00

Let's revisit a few sentences from last week's blog about the Furman game:

1) "There's no defensive players in here. I've killed them all."

That's what John Bunting told reporters after UNC's narrow victory over the Furman Paladins, during which UNC's defense(?) gave up 521 yards of total offense.

2) Now my question is, if Bunting killed them all, who's going to play defense(?) against Clemson this weekend?

Well, ladies and gentleman, we now have the answer to my question! Absolutely no one!

I don't think I need to go into detail about what went wrong here. The defense didn't show up. The offense didn't show up. The final score looked like a score we're accustomed to seeing for Dook, not us.

Here's a very important consequence of Saturday's loss: my dad has decided he wouldn't mind if John Bunting gets fired.

For those of you who don't know my dad, he's rather passionate about Carolina football. He goes to the games and yells. If you didn't know better, you'd think he's always waiting for the coach to get fired so he can get a chance at the job. But in reality, he's usually on the coach's side. His saying has always been that you don't fire a coach mid-contract over a matter or wins and losses.

Don't look for him to start contributing to FireBunting.com anytime soon. But his statement that he would not disapprove of Bunting being fired is, for me anyway, quite a strong statement.

So what's caused my dad's change of heart? Read on. I've inserted some of my own commentary as well.

1) This is John Bunting's program.

That's right. He's been the head coach since 2001. The recruits are his. The system is his. He's had time to dismantle any remnants of Carl Torbush's system.

Dick Baddour axed Torbush after a mere three seasons, after he had racked up a 16-18 record (17-18 if you count his first game as head coach, the 1997 Gator Bowl). Torbush's biggest problem was that he was the first head coach after Mack Brown. Brown compiled a 62-32-1 record during his tenure as UNC's head coach, including a 20-3 record in his last two seasons. UNC had big expectations and a renovated stadium. 16-18 wasn't going to cut it. You can argue that Torbush got a raw deal. After all, Brown went 2-20 during his first two seasons. But that's a whole different line of discussion.

What is up for discussion is that Bunting now has a 25-39 record at Carolina. That's 9 (or 8) more wins in 5+ seasons than Torbush had in three seasons. And he's already lost more games than Brown lost in 10 seasons. Lucky for him that he's the second coach after Mack Brown and not the first.

All this talk leads to...

2) The program isn't going anywhere.

If anything, it's going backwards. Sure, it's great that we can beat State and Dook most years, and the 2001 win against FSU and the 2004 win against Miami were nice. But when you give up 40+ points and have to rely on a last second field goal to beat a Division I-AA team, and then lose 52-7 the next week, people begin to dismiss your team (if they haven't already).

Let's go back to Carl Torbush's first win as UNC's head coach, the aforementioned 1997 Gator Bowl.

I remember this game quite well. I was visiting my family in Miami. On the day of the game, my dad, brother, and I boarded a commercial flight to Jacksonville, rented a car, went to the game, and then flew back to Miami. The next day, we got in the car (with my mom) and drove home to Virginia. Don't worry if those arrangements don't make any sense to you.

Anyway, the Tar Heels were ranked #4 in the nation, and had a legitimate argument that they should have gone to a BCS bowl. Denied, UNC played an up-and-coming program who many people had never paid attention to before, and won the game 42-3.

The team they beat? Virginia Tech.

As I said, the program isn't going anywhere. And unfortunately, that all leads back to Bunting.

3) The natives are restless

It's nice to think that Tar Heel fans will sit back, smile, and root for their team regardless of performance. But this never happens in reality, either in college sports or professional sports.

Look, going to games is time-consuming. You have to find and pay for a parking spot. You've got to walk to the stadium. You've got to push your way through the crowd. You've got to pay for the overpriced concessions. You've got to watch the game while avoiding getting your eye poked out by an over-enthusiastic pom-pom waver. Then you've got to find your car and wait 5 years to get out of the lot/deck. I'm not whining. I love going to games. But the more disappointing the team, the less likely people are going to be to go through the whole ordeal, especially when they can watch the game at home and flip to a better game when necessary. It's no coincidence that good teams play to packed stadiums, and bad teams play to empty stadiums. And no amount of arguing that "fans should support their teams no matter what" is going to change that.

John Bunting knows this. That's why he thanked the fans during their support during the Furman game.

--

Okay, so we've established reasons why Bunting should go. Now, let's not do silly things like expect the first top-name coach we can think of to take the job should it become vacant. I've seen the names Jimmy Johnson, Lou Holtz, and Tommy Bowden all thrown out on FireBunting.com. Don't be disappointed if none of those coaches are there next season. For all we know, Bunting will still be there. A few years ago, many Tar Heel fans started talking about Steve Spurrier coming to Chapel Hill. The only problem was that the team didn't have a coaching vacancy. And Dick Baddour says he's not planning to fire anyone.

Panthers: I know I'm not a coach...

2006-09-18T23:14:00.000-05:00

...and there's a good reason that I'm not a coach. I know that John Fox is much more qualified to coach the Panthers than I am.

But I am absolutely speechless about two calls Fox made versus the Vikings on Sunday.

1) You know what this point is without me saying it. Why, with a 13-6 lead...midway through the fourth quarter...with momentum...and good field position...did Fox tell Chris Gamble to throw a lateral on a punt return?

My initial reaction: "Leon Lett is off the hook."

I can't say anything more about this play. I am absolutely speechless.

2) Since the Vikings took advantage of their fantastic field position and scored a touchdown, why...with 15 seconds left in the game...with two timeouts remaining...on the road...when you know sudden death is the alternative...did Fox decide to run out the clock and go to OT? Delhomme couldn't have taken a shot at the end zone? Or tried for field goal position?

So, the Panthers took a risk when they didn't need to, and chickened out when they should have gone for the win.

I know, I know. I'm not the coach.

UNC D(?)

2006-09-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

"There's no defensive players in here. I've killed them all."

That's what John Bunting told reporters after UNC's narrow victory over the Furman Paladins, during which UNC's defense(?) gave up 521 yards of total offense. The Sports Monday section of the Daily Tar Heel: "UNC eludes embarrassment, barely."

Now, had you told me that the defense(?) would give up such numbers after UNC's loss to Rutgers, I probably would have believed you. After all, Rutgers' running back Ray Rice rushed for 201 yards and three touchdowns. My final assessment: offense okay, defense bad.

But the following week against Virginia Tech, the defense played just fine. Sure, the final score was 35-10, but VT got a bunch of those points due to interceptions. My final assessment: offense took fall break a month or so early, defense just fine.

So, I don't quite understand how during the Furman game, the offense looked as good as it's probably going to look, and the defense(?) looked like it had forgotten it had played so well against the Hokies.

The only glitch in the offense was the one Cam Sexton interception. That was my friend's fault. For whatever reason, he commented that we hadn't had any interceptions. Sexton threw the INT during the next play. People who aren't sports fans don't understand sports fans' beliefs in superstitions and jinxes. But oh, how real they are. In fact, maybe my blog is a jinx...

...okay, that's a whole different blog post.

Now my question is, if Bunting killed them all, who's going to play defense(?) against Clemson this weekend? Will they prove to be consistently bad or consistenly good, or will they keep us guessing each week?

Tune in Saturday to find out.

Meet Stanley

2006-09-14T17:53:00.000-05:00

To celebrate the beginning of NHL training camp, let's take a few moments to view last season's ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup. Most of these pictures were taken at the home of Carolina Hurricanes' Director of Media Relations Mike Sundheim. The latter pictures were taken at Linda's Bar & Grill on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Many of the pictures feature Kyle Hanlin, the Hurricanes' manager of media relations.

A few comments: It's the real Stanley Cup. No, not the original Stanley Cup. We all know that one's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Get over it. But this one is the current real Stanley Cup, not the replica that gets taken to promotional events.

Also, if anyone wants to post their own Stanley Cup pics on this blog, let me know. I'll see what I can do. Watch out for new pics as they appear.

Enjoy.

Click here to see Stanley.

Panthers: the season is not lost...

2006-09-10T19:55:00.000-05:00

...although Fox's announcers would like for you to think it is. According to them, the fact that Carolina lost to Atlanta signifies "a major shift in the NFC South." (I apologize for not remembering who the announcers were.)

Mind you, the Panthers lost their opening game of the season last year to the New Orleans Saints. I don't think that loss lead to a major shift in the NFC South. Come on, folks. It's the first game of the season. In fact, the Panthers have now lost their past three season openers--all at home. This isn't college football. You can lose some games along the way without sending your season into the oblivion of meaninglessness.

Furthermore, it's not like the Panthers looked awful in the pre-season. But since everyone seems to have picked Carolina as their Super Bowl favorites, the Panthers are going to have to deal with the fact that every blemish on their record is going to be overly scrunitnized.

With that being said, I was disappointed by the 20-6 loss. Atlanta's offense, lead by Warrick Dunn, had their way with the Panthers' defensive line. Carolina's offensive line couldn't figure out how to stop Falcon offseason acquisition John Abraham. I could go on and on, but the main theme is this: the Falcons looked like they were ready to play, and the Panthers didn't.

It's true that the Panthers were playing without Steve Smith, who was sidelined with a hamstring injury. Had he played, he might have been able to electrify the offense. But I'm not going to dismiss this loss as something that happened because Smith didn't play. Yes, I'd like him to get healthy as soon as possible so he can get on the field. But although he's the Panthers #1 offensive weapon, he's certainly not the only one. The Panthers are talented enough to run a good offense without Smith, although they are more talented with him.

In summary: Today's loss doesn't really mean much. And don't blame Smith's injury for it.

As always, and perhaps more annoying than the Panthers performance, was the fact that the game was on Fox. Let's list some of the more interesting aspects of the broadcast:

1) On more than one occasion, the cameraman in charge of following the ball failed to do so.
2) On at least one occassion, the person in charge of adding the "down/to go" arrow graphics displayed the wrong information.
3) Near the beginning of the game, Carolina linebacker (and former Georgia Bulldog) Thomas Davis was called for a late hit. The crowd started booing. One of the announcers commented that this was probably the first time Davis had been booed in Georgia. Apparantly that guy isn't too good at geography, as the game took place in Charlotte. I can pick apart his statement even further, but I'll spare you.
4) Sound level issues.
5) Once the Falcons-Panthers game ended, the Jaguars-Cowboys came on. On at least one occasion, one of the announcers (mind you, different announcers) referred to the Cowboys as the Panthers.
6) Etc.

Oh, the joys of watching football on Fox.

This is going to be a long season...

2006-09-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

When Tar Heel football fans first heard that the team had a quarterback controversy, they might have thought that there were two good quarterbacks fighting for the starting positon.

Instead, John Bunting seems to be picking the lesser of the two evils for each offensive drive. It seems that the thing the Tar Heels do the best is throw the ball to the other team.

If you've been lucky enough to miss the Tar Heels' first two games, let me explain. Before the season started, John Bunting announced that the quarterback position would be split between two players: Cam Sexton and former Nebraska Cornhusker Joe Dailey. On Labor Day weekend against Rutgers, Dailey played the entire game. His performance included two interceptions, including one to end the Tar Heels' potentially game-winning final drive. Some of us laughed that Dailey forgot he had switched teams, and therefore threw to red jerseys. UNC lost 21-16. Sigh.

The game today against Virginia Tech started ominously enough. Bunting started Dailey. UNC scored a field goal, and the cheerleader who does push-ups went ahead and did three. Push-ups on field goals? When did we start doing that? I really thought we only bothered doing push-ups for touchdowns. Maybe I remember incorrectly...

Then Dailey threw two interceptions. I pulled out my cell phone, only to realize that I didn't have John Bunting's number programmed in. My message to him would have been: PUT SEXTON IN THE GAME. Lo and behold, Sexton came into the game on the next offensive drive. I was so excited. The drive didn't go anywhere, but I decided that was better than throwing another interception.

As the half was winding down, I was reasonably content that that the Tar Heels were going into the locker room down only 14-3. The Tar Heels even had the ball and looked like they might have had the opportunity to tack on one more field goal. Instead, they ran out the clock. On the one hand, it's understandable that they wanted to prevent VT from getting the ball back and scoring again before halftime. On the other hand, it seems like the team gave up then and there.

Onto the second half. Sexton started. After a few more drives, I thought I had figured out Bunting's quarterback controversy: Dailey was perfectly able to drive down the field, but would then throw an interception. Sexton didn't throw interceptions, but couldn't drive the ball down the field. Sexton therefore didn't get anyone's hopes up too high. I was trying to decide which situation was the lesser of the two evils. The score was 21-3. I figured I could live with that. After all, UNC had given up 21 points to Rutgers the week before. VT is supposedly a much better team than Rutgers. The defense seemed to be playing much better than the week before. So, really, everything was more or less okay...

Then Sexton threw an interception. 28-3. Then Sexton threw another interception. 35-3. I never leave games early, but at that point, with six minutes left in the fourth quarter, my friends and I figured we'd had enough. By the time we got to Franklin Street, the game had ended. 35-10. I have no idea how we managed to score a touchdown, but I imagine a VT player must have intercepted the ball and mistakenly ran into the wrong end zone.

Oh man. The only reason I've calmed down is because NC State LOST TO AKRON 20-17. Poor Chuck Amato. All the NC State fans are now going to talk about how Bill Cowher recently bought a house in Raleigh, and that he can be their next head coach. Right. Just like Rick Barnes was going to be their basketball coach once Herb Sendek left.

That's right. I make myself feel better about the Tar Heels losing by making fun of NC State. But come on, they lost to Akron. THE AKRON ZIPS (the mascot is actually a kangaroo)! That's a good story.

Cheering Etiquette

2006-09-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note folks:

When you are at a football game, you CHEER LOUDLY when your team is on DEFENSE. You want to make as much noise as possible in order to prevent the offense from being able to hear. Therefore, you NEED TO BE QUIET when your team is on OFFENSE, because otherwise they can't hear.

Tar Heel fans seem to be picking up on this concept better than in the past, but there are still a few enthusiastic fans in the student section who haven't quite figured it out.

I also want to commend the "Turn it Blue" campaign on its excellent job of getting most of the fans to actually wear Carolina Blue to the games! The stands looked much bluer than I remember in the past.

Now if we had only won the game...

For "diehard" fans only!

2006-09-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

What's the latest controversy on the UNC campus?

The ever-increasing tuition rates?
The overpriced textbooks?
The lack of parking?
The ongoing construction?

Nope. The latest controversy in the Southern Part of Heaven is the new online distribution system for basketball tickets. According to the (many) critics, this system will allow "casual" fans to easily gets tickets, while the "diehard" fans will have to settle for watching the games on TV. The system's advocates argue that it gives all students a fair chance to get tickets.

As someone who considers myself a "diehard" Tar Heel fan, I support the new system. Why? Keep reading.

Here's how the new system works: students go to www.tarheelblue.com and click through a series of screens in order to enter themselves into a lottery. If a student is selected to receive tickets, he will get an email instructing him to confirm his tickets. He can reserve up to two tickets. The tickets will then be sent to him in PDF format 48 hours before the game.

This system replaces the "old" bracelet system, which began in 1997. Under this system, students obtained numbered bracelets. Students then lined up outside the Dean Dome on designated Saturday mornings in order to pick up their tickets. The person who had the bracelet with the selected "magic number" was the lucky first person in line. The rest of the bracelet holders lined up in numerical order behind that person. If you weren't in line at 7:00 a.m., you forfeited your spot.

Before 1997, students camped out for tickets.

Here are some of the arguments presented by the critics against the new system, and my responses to them:

Changing the system destroys tradition.

Oh please. There are many traditions at Carolina, and the bracelet distribution system isn't one of them. As stated above, the bracelet system started in 1997 It went through several changes during its nine-year existence. For instance, when I was a freshman, I had to walk down to the Dean Dome in order to get my bracelet. The "magic number" was then printed in the DTH the day before ticket distribution.

The Carolina Athletic Association (CAA) figured out reasonably quickly that students were going down to the Dean Dome multiple times and obtaining multiple bracelets. I'll plead guilty to this one. I have a small wrist, so I could easily slide my bracelet off and get a new one. Students then waited for the DTH to print the magic number so they knew which bracelet they needed to wear to line check. The smart folks at the CAA then decided not to announce the magic number until after they conducted line check. This change put a halt to the bracelet hording.

At some point after I graduated, the CAA moved bracelet distribution to Kenan Stadium and started announcing the magic number in the Pit the Friday before ticket distribution. Since I'm quite sure students didn't become more honest after I graduated, I assume the CAA started swiping ONE Cards at bracelet distribution to assure each student obtained only one. I don't know this for certain, though.

And let's not forget that when I was an undergraduate, people were complaining that the bracelet system destroyed the camping tradition.

If you want tradition, we can go back to watching the games in Carmichael. The atmosphere would be a lot better. And since the stadium is much smaller than the Dean Dome, a lot less students could see the games. So maybe that's not the best solution now, is it?

I could list numerous other Carolina "traditions" that have been destroyed over the years as well. Had one of them stood the test of time, Michael Jordan would have never been a Tar Heel.

The bottom line: "tradition" is a ridiculous defense.

Changing the system allows "casual" fans to easily obtain tickets.

The thinking behind this argument is that only "diehard" fans will bother to get a bracelet and show up for line check Saturday morning. A few years ago, I might have agreed with this argument. When I was an undergraduate, I spent many a frosty Saturday morning standing outside the Dean Dome waiting for my tickets. But in January 2005, I returned to Carolina as a graduate student. Oh, how I wanted to get basketball tickets again. The only problem was that I had to be at work, in Raleigh, at 9:00 sharp Saturday mornings. According to the new system's critics, this fact threw me into the "casual" fan category. Yup, that's me: the casual fan.

To be fair, I had other ways of obtaining student tickets. In fact, I signed up to get "Ceiling Fan" (i.e. the last few rows of the upper level) tickets with other graduate students from my department last season. I went to a couple of games. No one else from my department did. And since I only had one ticket (the bracelet system allowed you to pick up two as long as you had two ONE cards with you), I couldn't invite anyone else to keep me company. I decided I would have more fun watching the games with my (non-student) friends on Franklin Street at Linda's.

Point being: EVERY student, whether or not they have the ability or desire to show up at the Dean Dome on Saturday mornings, pays the fees that allows students to have "free" tickets. Therefore, EVERY student should have an equal chance of getting tickets. If students really don't want to go to basketball games, they won't sign up for the lotteries. Similarly, if you're not sick, you won't go to Student Health. But if the need arises, it's there for you. Your student fees pay for it.

Furthermore, what is a "diehard" fan? Only those people who showed up for line check at the Dean Dome? The people who used to camp out for tickets probably don't think that's too diehard. To think that every student at UNC pays fees so that who you consider to be "diehard" fans can attend games is just snobbery.

Changing the system prevents groups of students from sitting together.

Well, that is a problem. As the system stands now, there is absolutely no way to guarantee that more than two friends can sit together. But I'm willing to bet the CAA can fix this problem. And if it doesn't happen this season, it will happen next season. It's really not a reason to scrap the system altogether.

The new system abolishes the Ceiling Fan system.

Despite my unfortunate experience as a Ceiling Fan (see above), many people liked the system. But since the Ceiling Fan system was designed to enable people who couldn't show up for line check to get tickets, the online system makes it unnecessary. Well, almost. Keeping the Ceiling Fan system might satisfy some students who want to sit in large groups. I'm sure others would complain that it prevented the "diehard" fans from having good seats.

Dook doesn't have this "stupid" system.

This argument ranks right up there with the "tradition" argument. I don't know why we care what Dook does for ticket distribution. Is it because Krzyzewskiville always makes the news before UNC-Dook games? Dook Athletics has been in the news for other reasons lately, but I don't think we want our lacrosse team accused of rape, our basketball players arrested for drunk driving, or our starting quarterback(s) suspended for plagiarism. I'm leaving out the last one because I don't want this blog to become a "pick on Dick Baddour-fest."

That's all, folks. Time to get over it and move on with our lives.

NFL Preseason Update: Plutoizing, etc.

2006-08-30T07:07:00.000-05:00

What's been perhaps the most interesting aspect of the NFL preseason? Listening to Tony Kornheiser's commentary. Who else is going to use the term "Plutoized" in their commentary? (For the record, he said something along the lines of: "The Bengals had been so bad for so long that they could have been Plutoized from the league.") Classic. He might want to lay off on the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern references, though.

Well, it's a good thing the Bengals weren't Plutoized from the league after all. They looked absolutely fantastic Monday night. Based on his performance, you'd never know that Carson Palmer suffered a career-threatening injury at the end of last season. The team looked like a well-oiled machine.

Granted, they were playing the Packers, who looked more like the guys from Necessary Roughness than an NFL team. Brett Favre's performance calls into question his decision not to retire before this season. But let's be fair. The team has many more problems than Favre. In fact, Favre would have looked somewhat better had his receivers actually held onto the ball. Or at least looked like they were trying to catch the ball, which in many cases they didn't. The team also can't block (last year's miserable o-line does not appear to have improved), and they most certainly can't tackle. I don't know what the Packers organization is paying the defensive unit for, but it's most certainly not tackling. I can think of at least two Bengals touchdowns where it looked like the Packers were trying not to tackle.

Of course, the problem is that everyone wants to see Favre go out on a high note. We're just going to have to accept that, unfortunately, he's not.

But onto better teams...

Yesterday Adam Gold announced that he thought either Carolina or Tampa Bay would be the NFC representative in the Super Bowl. He acknowledged that most people didn't agree with him about Tampa Bay. Don't worry, Adam. Sports Illustrated has one-upped you and announced their Super Bowl teams: the Panthers (no shock there) and the Dolphins (!?).

Yes, I mentioned in a previous post that the Dolphins should be a much better team than in recent years, especially since they acquired a quarterback who can get the job done. But the Super Bowl? That's a bold pick, SI.

I don't even know what I'd do if the Panthers and the Dolphins played in the Superbowl. It would be the childhood team vs. the team that presently gets my allegiance. I think I would just sit in front of the TV in utter confusion. I'm personally hoping SI is wrong so I can avoid the whole thing.

William & Mary players in NFL training camp!

2006-08-21T14:03:00.000-05:00

A former co-worker of mine sent me this rundown of William & Mary players currently in the NFL, or at least in NFL training camp. The grand total: 6 players. Yes, he's a W&M alum. Enjoy:

As for W&M players, get a good look now, because I don't think most of them will be employed come September. To wit:

DB Billy Parker, Carolina: had a great year in the AFL last season...this is his second camp (after Miami last year)...haven't heard any news on him at all, and he's at the bottom of the depth chart on the Carolina web site...could stick since he can play both positions, but I haven't heard any news on him.

OT Adam O'Connor, Carolina: undrafted free agent, played DT in college...big guy (6'8"), but again I haven't heard anything on him from camp...the only things I've read about the offensive line is that it looks really thin, so he's probably not impressing...then again, as a defensive line convert, he's going to be a project...if he showed anything at all in camp, he'll be on the practice squad.

QB Lang Campbell, Cleveland: was in the Browns camp last year, too...I thought he had a chance to be drafted last year after a spectacular senior season for the Tribe, but alas no...remember how good he looked against you guys two years ago?...he played two weeks ago and looked good against the Eagles scrubs, but didn't play Friday night, which has me wondering if his last chance for the NFL has come and gone, especially as the Browns website has a new article about two other schlubs competing for #2 behind Charlie Frye...who knows, maybe he'll make the practice squad or get signed by another team.

WR Dominique Thompson, St Louis: played two games for the Rams last year, and was on their practice squad the rest of the season, so I don't know if he's got any eligibility for that left...could make what is a very deep WR unit...then again, I haven't heard any news, so I don't know how he's doing.

WR Rich Musinski, New England: has been kicking around the camp grind for a couple of years now...read an item in Patriots Football Weekly recently along the lines of "great hands but too small and slow to separate from dbacks," which probably means sayanora for little Richie...but he plays hard and Belichick likes these project guys to come out of nowhere and make the team, plus the Pats are really thin at WR, so who knows? He does keep playing in the pre-season, and caught a TD Saturday.

FS Darren Sharper, Minnesota: loved him when he played for my favorite team (Green Bay), but hate him now that he plays for my brother's fave...still can't tackle, but has a nose for the ball (9 picks last year, 45 career)...another all-pro season likely.

My first real prediction for the season is...

2006-08-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

...that Peyton Manning will get injured. I'm making this prediction because Al Michaels just said that Manning is indestructible. Damn those jinxes!

The NFL is back!

2006-08-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

Oh man...I know I haven't posted anything to this blog in so long! Don't worry, with classes starting up again on Wednesday, I'll be posting on here all the time in order to procrastinate from doing work. I've also discovered that 850 & 620 The Blog have linked to this blog (thanks, guys!), so I have added incentive to keep it updated. And finally, I have two other writers posting to this site, and they have classes starting up this week, too. So...this blog will be jam packed with sporting goodness, at least until exams end in December.

Anyway...

The NFL is back! I've been counting the days since last season ended. I'm pleased with the Panthers' performance in their first two games, and after years of badmouthing Keyshawn Johnson, I have to admit that he seems like a good addition to the team. As long as he doesn't cause any distractions, I'm fine with Keyshawn.

Aside from the Panthers, here are the teams I'm looking forward to watching this season:

1) The Dolphins. I'll start by disclosing that my family is from Miami, and I've therefore always been a Miami fan. But at some point in my life, I got bored with watching their mediocrity year after year, especially when I could watch the Panthers instead. The last straw was when my dad, brother, and I sat in the cold and watched the Dolphins squeak out a 10-7 snoozer of a win against the Browns in 2004. Yes, that game was played in Miami. Yes, it was cold. Anyway, since the Dolphins finally realized that Dan Marino retired years ago, they went out and found themselves a decent quarterback. I'm eager to see if Daunte Culpepper can take the Dolphins to the next level. Granted, they no longer have Ricky Williams. It'll be interesting to see if they can compensate for that "loss," too.

2) The Colts. I don't think I have to give much more of an explanation on this one. It's always interesting to watch Peyton Manning. They will be a little bit less interesting to watch because they no longer have David Thornton.

3) The Chargers. Drew Brees is out. Philip Rivers is in. I have to admit I'm excited to see what the former Wolfpack quarterback can do. I hope it's been worth the wait. Speaking of Drew Brees...

4) The Saints. They have Drew Brees. They have Reggie Bush. They don't have Aaron Brooks. This combination should be a recipe for improvement.

5) The Titans. They have Vince Young. Ah, and they also now have David Thornton. I usually have little reason to be excited about the Titans, so these players are key for me. In fact, the last time I really payed attention to the Titans was when Samari Rolle played for them, and that's really only because I like his name. Not a great reason to be interested in a football team.

6) The Texans. They make my list only because because of Mario Williams, another former Wolfpack player. As long as he stays healthy, I'm sure he'll have a great career. I don't think he'll ever get the credit he deserves, though. Too bad defensive ends typically aren't as exciting to watch as running backs.

7) The Steelers. Can Willie Parker have another spectacular season? Can the Steelers succesfully defend their title? Will the commentators spend at least half of each Steelers game talking about Ben Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident? Tune in to find out!

Note that the Cowboys did not make this list. I'm sure I don't have to watch any Cowboys games in order to get the latest T.O. updates. Sheesh.

Since the football preseason is underway, the Sporting News Radio Network has been full of commentary about the NFL. Last Tuesday, Dave Smith went on a tirade about how boring the NFL is and how college football is so much better. And I do mean a tirade. I think he talked about it for an hour. Well, fine. That's his opnion. I do have a few rebuttals in the NFL's defense, however:

1) Dave Smith is based in Los Angeles. L.A. and the NFL don't mix. But there's great college football to be had there. I smell bias. It's the same thing as when I argue that college basketball is better than the NBA. I live in Chapel Hill. I've never lived more than an hour away from Chapel Hill. Of course I'm going to argue that college basketball is better than the NBA.

2) Dave Smith argues that college football is more exciting because every regular season game is like a playoff game. He then turns around and admits that the NFL has a better playoff system, and that college football should scrap the BCS and implement a playoff system. Now, a playoff system wouldn't mean that 6-5 teams could win the National Championship, but it probably does mean that, say, Miami could lose to both Florida State and Florida in the regular season and still win it all. Every regular season game a playoff game, eh?

3) Dave Smith argues that the NFL's clock management/field position game is boring. Sure, it's not the most exciting thing to watch, but I've also seen it in the college game. Maybe I'm watching the wrong college teams. The Triangle isn't exactly a football hotbed.

4) Dave Smith argues that throwing a 3-yard pass on 3rd and 7 is stupid. I can't argue with that one. It is stupid. It drives me crazy. I don't think that's a problem with the NFL, though. I think it's a problem with individual coaches. Some of them don't make the best calls. It's also not a bone-headed play that's confined to the NFL. I've seen college teams run the same stupid play. Again, maybe I'm watching the wrong college teams.

Let's get the Landis facts straight

2006-07-29T08:13:00.000-05:00

Good call, Stephanie. Let's address the Floyd Landis doping issue.

My initial reaction to the story, before I knew any of the details was: "How could anyone, after watching Lance Armstrong contstantly having to defend himself, be stupid enough to do such a thing?"

The answer might simply be that he wasn't stupid, and he didn't do anything. Landis's case is not like the Barry Bonds saga, where a player clearly took a synthetic performance enhancing drugs and has been pleading ignorance ever since. Lets get the facts straight, since the media seems to be having trouble doing so.

Floyd Landis did not test positive for:

* steroids.
* abnormally high levels of synthetic testosterone. (As much as I love NPR, they never seem to get the sports stories quite right.)
*abnormally high levels of plain ol' naturally occuring testosterone.

But, he did test positive for having a high testosterone (which is a performance-enhancing substance) to epitestosterone (which is not) ratio. In the cycling world, any ratio greater than 4:1 is considered suspicious. Of course, since we are dealing with ratios, and not actual levels, a ratio greater than 4:1 could mean that Landis's epitestosterone levels were low. If that's the case, having normal testosterone levels would have set off the alarm bells.

You might be asking yourself what threw the ratio off. Good question. Landis's backers claim that the imbalance is natural, and could have been caused by cortisone shots or alcohol (Landis took a shot the night before after his disappointing performance in Stage 16). They also point out that at the time of his amazing Stage 17 comeback, no one thought anything was amiss.

Do I think Landis did anything wrong? I honestly have no clue, but I'd like to think that he's smart enough to stay away from the doping scene. It's easy now to pounce on any sports figure who might possible have taken performance-enhancing substances. It seems that after years of turning a blind eye to what was obviously going on in baseball (I still can't figure out why so many people were so shocked when that story broke--I had been waiting for Bonds and McGwire to get caught for years), there is now a tendency to jump on anyone who might have done something wrong.

Had Landis tested positive for steroids or high levels of synthetic testosterone, I'd jump on that bandwagon. And even though he didn't, I still have to admit that having the high ratio doesn't sound good. The 4:1 ratio isn't arbitrary, and there are good reasons to think that anything over 4:1 means an athlete cheated. And if Landis did in fact cheat, I might stop paying attention to the Tour de France for a few years.

For the moment, however, I'll wait and see what happens.

There have been no new posts because...

2006-07-25T21:13:00.000-05:00

For those of you who actually read this blog, I apologize for the absence. The reason is twofold:

1) I went to the beach and actually spent my time doing beachy things. AND I played golf (okay...it was a par 3 pitch and putt). By the way, I'm not good at golf. At all. For those of you who have never played golf and complain that it looks easy when you watch Tiger Woods play, go try it out. Anyway, the point is, I wasn't blogging during that time.

2) It's summer. There's not much to write about. I'm sure the baseball fans are all mad at me now. I could write about the ongoing A-Rod saga, but I'm not. You know me, I like the football and the basketball more than the baseball.

So with that having been said, here's my brief two-cents worth on those sports:

1) Kevin Love has decided to attend UCLA instead of UNC. I'm not sure whether or not I should be upset about that, since UNC seems to have a good list of incoming recruits with or without him. Part of Love's reasoning for going to UCLA is that Ben Howland had been recruiting him since eighth grade. I know it's not at all uncommon, but it still kind of shocks me when I hear that players get recruited that young. I know no one was recruiting me to go to their college when I was in eighth grade, for athletics or anything else. Shoot, I was still selling Girl Scout cookies in the eighth grade. By the way, refrigerating the Tagalongs makes them all the more delicious.

2) UNC (and the rest of the ACC's North Carolina teams, for that matter) is expected to have a lousy football season. Shocking. Next.

3) The ACC has devised a hurricane rescheduling plan, meaning you can't avoid getting trampled by Miami, FSU, and VT due to tropical disasters. Put away your rain sticks.

4) If you listen to the hype, Reggie Bush is threatening to sit out the entire season and re-enter the draft if the Saints don't offer him more money. If you listen to calmer voices, Bush has considered the above idea but probably won't do it. Good for him. His image would suffer greatly, especially since he would be walking out on New Orleans. Perhaps unfair, but true.

Okay folks, until next time.

American Soccer: An incomplete response to the Sports Chic

2006-07-09T19:05:00.000-05:00

First of all the headbutt by Zidane was stupid, immature, may have gave the game to those grass-diving pansies the Italians, and absolutely hilarious. I really want to know what set Zidane off because there is no way someone jogging away from the play would just turn around and head butt another man in the chest for no reason. Right?

Anyway, for my first post on the Sports Chic I just wanted to give an answer to the Chic's five gripes below.

1) The stretcher factor. From what I understand, if you lay down for a while they bring out the stretcher. Not to necessarily because the player needs it, but just to get the player off the field as fast as possible regardless of what the injury is.

2) The "no one can touch anyone" factor. This World Cup had some terrible officiating. Sometimes you couldn't even breath on an opposing player without the ref calling a foul (of course the diving didn't help either). Other times, people could be slamming people to the turf and nothing would happen. The gripe shouldn't be the crazy non-fouls but the inconsistent officiating.

3) The *yawn* factor. Well, the net is huge but the holes they've got to shoot it through are pretty small. Can't be easy to shoot a goal while surrounded by defenders and trying to find a spot the goalie can't get to easily. Your alternatives are shooting it through everybody from the outside or trying to get a perfect pass to a perfectly placed defender in order to get the goalie out of position. Combine that with the difficulty of getting a shot at all and relatively few rebounds it's pretty damn hard to get a score in soccer.

4) The "no golden goal" factor. Well if there was a golden goal rule people would complain that it takes away any chance for the other team to come back in the allotted play time. One can argue that you get a set amount of time to prove yourself out on the field and that time should be played. Probably less annoying than sudden death in the NFL since both teams get their chances, but it's the same idea.

Also, having a golden goal tends to make each team become more defensive minded, not attacking for fear of losing on a quick counter attack. Ironically, this means that more games end up going to PKs because there's less scoring in the overtime periods. I can't imagine anyone wants that.

5) The anti-climactic factor. Yep, I hate games decided by PKs too. It's more shocking to see someone miss a PK than hit it. But after 120 minutes, I can't imagine another way to decide the game.

American Soccer: At least we didn't headbutt anyone

2006-07-09T17:38:00.000-05:00

We Americans love the violence of American football. One of my problems with soccer is that everytime a guy trips, 5 doctors and a stretcher comes onto the field. Maybe if our team started headbutting people, Americans would get excited and pay attention.

I have to say, I've seen a lot of violence stupid penalties/stupid fouls in American sports. Kicking, punching, biting, headbutting someone else's head, you name it. Today, however, might be the first time I've seen someone headbutt someone else's chest. Not only that, the culprit, Zinedine Zidane, was in the last game of his career and heading toward overtime in one of his country's biggest games.

So needless to say I'm a bit surprised by his decision to pick up a red card at such an inopportune time. I did laugh my ass off, though.

Now, Jonathan, here are my problems with watching soccer, at least at the international level. I know it's sacreligious. I'll go ahead and admit that I played soccer for years and loved it. And no, it doesn't explain why I don't pay attention to soccer at any time other than the World Cup. I've made my point about priorities before. I can only pay attention to so many sports at one time, and soccer hasn't given me much of a reason to pay attention.

Here we go...my gripes with watching World Cup soccer:

1) The stretcher factor: The guy tripped and he needs a stretcher? Give me a break! Even I'm not that big of a wuss, and I'm a pretty big wuss.

2) The "no one can touch anyone" factor: I know there's been discussion about the number of yellow and red cards during this World Cup. No kidding. It's a contact sport. People fall down. Get over it and let the guys play the game.

3) The *yawn* factor: How many World Cup games did I watch where teams needed overtime or penalty kicks to win? My two cents: if the teams play for two hours and can't score, they should both lose. The net's frickin' huge. Why can't they score?

4) The "no golden goal" factor: Once we're in the overtime period, the first goal doesn't win? Why? It's not exactly a fast-paced, high-scoring game. It's not like American football where teams get alternating possessions. Having said that, the NFL STILL has the "golden goal" rule. Why? Because they realize it's time to end the game!

5) The anti-climactic factor: And so then, after all that...90 minutes of regulation and another 30 minutes of overtime where the first goal doesn't win so we're forced to keep watching...the game ends on penalty kicks that a 5-year-old could make? Not to sound like a broken record, but the net's frickin' huge. Admittedly, I did see a game where one of the teams managed to miss most of their shots. But what are the odds of that, really? If someone tell me that I'm wrong, and that teams do not usually make their penalty kicks, I'll actually be happy. Can't we back the guys up a few yards or something?

There. Now I sound like a stupid American. And proud of it.

American Soccer: PUT UP OR SHUT UP

2006-07-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

According to the FIFA world rankings, the United States ranks as the 5th best soccer nation in the world out of 200 countries. After watching the 2006 World Cup, I wonder how countries such as Portugal, France, Italy, and Germany; the countries who made up the final four teams in the tournament ended up behind the United States. After watching all of these teams play, it became quite obvious that the skill was there for the United States, but a team wasn’t. I am among the people who believe that the United States needs a new coach. No offense to Bruce Arena, he has done a fine job making the USA look like a contender, but that’s as far as he has gotten. The United States seems to enter and leave tournaments every four years with the same expectations. Unfortunately, they never reach them. After a horrible outing in 1998, America managed to reach the round of 8 in 2002 before losing to Germany. This year was supposed to be even better, but another early exit in group play ensued. I don’t want to place all the blame on Coach Arena. Talent doesn’t win games when talent doesn’t work hard… and honestly, the US looked pretty lazy in this year’s tournament. However, I don’t want to put all the blame on the players either. For right now I will call it 25% coach, and 35% players. That leaves 40%. And if you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m placing the remaining blame on the rest of America. It’s come to the point where I believe that the American team doesn’t under-perform, causing us not to care. Alas, I believe it is exactly the opposite. The American public does not care, therefore the American team under-performs. It is hard to find a soccer fan in American until the World Cup comes around. Suddenly everybody is a soccer fan and an expert. I don’t care for the MLS and I don’t have the proper channels to watch the English Premier League, but I at least care enough to watch qualifying and friendly matches when they come on television in years not hosting the tournament. I feel I am in a minority who at least care to do this. It also doesn’t help that America’s best athletes don’t care either. America’s best athletes become basketball, football, and baseball players. Many of them played soccer as youths, but didn’t care enough to continue on with the world’s most popular game. If the fans don’t care, and the athletes don’t care… well I guess we are just an apathetic nation. If the American public wants their soccer team to be as good as their world ranking, it’s time to start caring, it’s time to start paying attention, and yes it is time to put up or shut up.

Garnett to Chicago? That's a lot of bull.

2006-07-05T22:57:00.000-05:00

It's not a new topic, but since it made it's way onto PTI this afternoon, it seems to be getting more attention than usual:

1) Will the T-wolves trade Kevin Garnett? (Minnesota fans have been thinking about it longer than I've been paying attention.)

and if so...

2) Will he go to Chicago?

My two cents worth: not if there's any brainpower in the Bulls' management office. Come on, Garnett's a good player, but unless Minnesota is looking to get rid of him by any means necessary (read: Lakers dealing Shaq, or perhaps more impressively, the Magic dealing Stevie Franchise...your vote), Chicago will have to deal too much young talent in exchange for a 10-year veteran who hasn't successfully lead a team through the playoffs. Bottom line: it's not a fair trade.

Now...if we tell the same story...

...and take out Minnesota and Garnett...

...and replace them with Cleveland and LeBron or Miami and Dwyane Wade...

...then we've got a deal that's more fair.

But as that's not the rumor in question (nor will it be), let's get back to the matter at hand.

Will the T-wolves trade Garnett? Only if they can find a team that's willing to trade a lot of talent in return. My guess is that he stays in Minnesota. And definitely don't look for him in Chicago.

NCAA Tournament stays at 65

2006-07-01T11:15:00.000-05:00

Potentially ending the fun water cooler arguments of the past week or so, the men's and women's basketball committees turned down the National Association of Basketball Coaches proposal to expand the NCAA Tournament to 128 teams.

Big shock there, as it seems that the only people who liked the idea were the members of the NABC. I attempted to outline some reasons that the expansion might be a good thing, only to have a friend of mine exclaim, "I can't believe you'd say anything in favor of that proposal. Oh, and saying it would allow more coaches to keep their jobs is not a legitimate argument."

Well, yeah, it probably wasn't the best argument on the list. If my friend was a coach, however, he'd probably think it was a great idea.
Funny how that works.

There is one lingering argument in favor of expansion that really irks me. The George Mason argument. It's plastered all over the ESPN article declaring the expansion idea dead, at least for the moment. Of all the arguments I heard in favor of expansion, that's the one that made the least sense to me.

I admit, I thought George Mason's run was great. Hell, if you're going to upset UNC in the second round, you might as well get to the Final Four. But are the coaches saying that George Mason's run was so unique that they proved that 63 more teams deserve to get in? Doesn't the fact that they got into the field of 65 prove that they were worthy of a chance to make a Final Four run? Did they not join an already impressive list of teams who won more games than everyone expected them to? Has everyone forgotten that Gonzaga built its reputation by doing just that? Do you think either George Mason or Gonzaga would have made runs as the 128th ranked team in the tournament?

So please. Stop with the George Mason argument. I think it actually insults George Mason more than it defends it.

The KNICKS!

2006-06-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

As you know, I'm a huge Tar Heel basketball fan. I'm watching the NBA Draft and waiting for the second round. If any Tar Heels get drafted, it will be David Noel...and he's not going in the first round. To add excitement to the first round, I've been predicting that each team will draft Noel. I figured if any team actually did it, it would be the Knicks. THE KNICKS! What other team would make such a silly move with their first round pick?

Did the Knicks take Noel? HELL NO! They took South Carolina's Renaldo Balkman! RENALDO BALKMAN!

One of NBA Draft talking heads: He's been described as a combination of Rodman and Artest.
Sports Chic: Which aspects of Rodman and Artest? That could be disastrous.

They could have at least gotten some dunks out of Noel. How insulting.

New Sports Chic Bloggers | UNC Loses the CWS | Tantrums

2006-06-26T21:29:00.000-05:00

I'm adding more people to the Sports Chic team! Say hello to Jonathan Howard and Dan. Yes, they are male. Yet they have still agreed to contribute to a completely pink blog. They're quite manly, I must say. Welcome, guys!

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Unfortunately, last night's wish that the UNC baseball team would do a better job of fielding did not completely come true. To be fair, they did field better than the night before for most of the game. But then they lost the series on what should have been a routune out at first base. I'm proud of the guys for making it as far as they did, and I don't want to criticize them too much. I will say, however, that if such a mistake had been made during the finals of basketball's NCAA Tournament (Chris Webber 1993, anyone?), the team would never hear the end of it.

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Lastly for the night, the Asheville Tourists manager succeeded in throwing a bigger tantrum than I tend to throw when UNC is losing a basketball game. Yup, he should be suspended for quite awhile. Nope, not a good role model for the 18-year-old players. But entertaining to watch on SportsCenter? Hell yes. Gotta love it when your home state makes the news in such fashion.

More on a proposed expanded NCAA Tournament field

2006-06-26T11:52:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I gave a brief gloss-over about why an expanded NCAA Tournament field doesn't sound so bad. I'd now like to expand on the pros and cons of the proposal (which, by the way, is merely a proposal. Don't look for 128 teams to be in the tournament next season). It's just a few points that I think NCAA officials should ponder if and when they seriously consider expansion:

Here's some possible good points for expansion:

1. Hey, why not? It only adds a week to the tournament. After the initial round, we're back down to 64, like usual. It would give more teams exposure and money, similar to college football's bowl system where most of the bowls don't count for anything, but everyone goes home happy.

2. It could give more deserving mid-major teams a chance to go to The Dance. The days of going 27-3 and missing the tournament because no one cares about your conference and/or your RPI and SOS wasn't too strong could be over.

3. It would enable more coaches to keep their jobs. See point #1 above.

And now some possible downfalls:

1. Would it really give more mid-major schools a chance to go to The Dance, or would it merely allow more mediocre ACC, Big East, SEC, etc., teams to get in?

2. More games mean more chances for the heavyweights to slip up and lose a game to a team they shouldn't lose to. Granted, that can happen in the tournament as it is now (no offense to the Weber State fans who are still celebrating their 1997 tournament victory over the Heels, but I think in a seven game series, UNC would have come out on top).

3. Whereas I understand where the magic number 128 came from (64x2, which seems like the logical way to expand), it just seems rather excessive. I understand that every year, some deserving teams get left at home. But is doubling the field really the answer? I think if the NCAA decides to include more teams, it would need to consider reformatting the tournament altogether. And THAT is something I don't see happening anytime in the near future.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this topic if it stays in the news...

5 More Years! | UNC in the CWS | NCAA Tournament expansion? | GO HEAT!

2006-06-25T21:58:00.000-05:00

Good news! Less than a week after winning the Stanley Cup, the Carolina Hurricanes locked up 5-year contract extensions for coach Peter Laviolette and captain Rod Brind'Amour. I didn't realize Brind'Amour planned to play for five more years (he's currently 35), but I'm not going to complain. I'm comforted by these signings, since it's well-known that several Hurricanes players, including Doug Weight, Martin Gerber and Glen Wesley, are probably not going to return to the team. Edmonton is also going to lose at least one key player, as Chris Pronger has requested a trade to a team that's anywhere further south from the Arctic Circle.

I want the Hurricanes to keep as many players as they can, but wish the best to the guys who are leaving. I think after watching the UNC basketball team lose its entire starting lineup after winning the NCAA championship in 2005, I can handle pretty much anything. Plus, a little change can't hurt, as we learned during the 2002-2003 season after the 'Canes made it to the Stanley Cup finals the previous season.

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I certainly can't complain about UNC's performance in the College World Series. Until tonight, they were undefeated. I have to admit that I'm disappointed by tonight's performance, though. Carrying a 5-0 lead into the fifth inning, the Heels looked confident and ready to bring a championship back to Chapel Hill. This confidence somehow translated into them throwing their pitching and fielding fundamentals out the window, as they allowed 7 runs in the bottom of the fourth and ended up losing the game 11-7.

Here's to a good night's rest and some extra fielding practice before tomorrow's final game (7 p.m. ET, ESPN 2). As always, GO HEELS!

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So, the NCAA is considering expanding the field of 65 to a field of...128? Hmmm...it seems a bit excessive, but expanding the field to allow more teams could be good for the tournament for the following reasons:

1. It would end a lot of the bickering amongst coaches, analysts, etc., over teams that supposedly should have gotten into the tournament and didn't, or teams that shouldn't have gotten into the tournament and did.

2. It could end a lot of the annoying "Who's in?/who's out?/who's on the bubble?" talk that starts way too early in the season and culminates in the dilemma described in point #1 above.

The main downside I see to this expansion is that it will cause the tournament to be longer, which will add yet another week to the decreased work productivity that occurs in North Carolina from the time the ACC Tournament begins to the time the last ACC team (well...more like last North Carolina team) is eliminated from the NCAA Tournament.

So please, please, don't make the tournament last as long as the NBA playoffs.

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Speaking of which...GO HEAT! I've been waiting to celebrate this championship since the team came into existence, but it seemed to get lost in the mix of the Stanley Cup. Since I got to see the Heat play from the very last row of the upper deck at American Airlines Arena in December, I can say that I've seen a championship team play in Miami. Trust me, it was a much better experience than the Browns-Dolphins game I saw in Miami the previous December.

Redneck Hockey | The New York Knicks

2006-06-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

First of all, here's what we're not going to talk about. Ozzie Guillen's comments. Why? Because if everyone stops talking about it, it's no longer a story.

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Next, hockey. As you should already know, the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup on Monday. I echo Dan Lucas' feelings about hockey. I was a Hurricanes fan before this playoff run, but there have always been other sports (mainly college basketball and the NFL) that have taken priority. But now that the NHL season is over, I keep looking at the picture of Cam Ward, Rod Brind'Amour, and the boys that's decorating the desktop on my iBook. Man, I wish next season would hurry up and start.

You have to excuse us southerners for being slow to catch onto hockey. You see, it's not exactly a southern sport. In this region of the country, ice means one of two things:

1) something you really, really want in the summer.

2) what knocked everyone's power out for days on end in December 2002.

Furthermore, hockey coverage here isn't exactly great. The guys on 850 the Buzz and 620 the Bull do a great job, and we get some games on OLN. I remember following Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins when they made their Stanley Cup runs in the early 1990s. For all I know, that might have been the last time ESPN covered hockey on SportsCenter. When I flipped to see their Stanley Cup coverage following Monday night's Game 7, they were talking about the NBA.

So please forgive us. We do love the hockey. My sunburned head is still recovering from Tuesday's parade around the RBC Center.

In case you missed it, Mike Commodore did finally get his hair cut, raising $15,000 for pediatric cancer research.

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Finally, the train wreck officially known as the New York Knickerbockers. I don't really know how to express my comments in words. Good luck, Isiah. You now have the chance to make Larry Brown look stupid by showing him how to successfully coach the players on your roster. Unfortunately, I don't think you can. I've also heard a rumor that Larry Brown could be headed down to Charlotte. If that does in fact happen, I'd like to go ahead and give a big thank you to the Knicks management. But one should never believe rumors, especially since last I checked, the Bobcats still had a coach.

Welcome!

2006-06-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

That's right...after months of complaining that blogs are stupid and pointless, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Not only that, but I'm creating a sports blog, because you know there just aren't enough of them already. So get ready for a female, Tar Heel Born/Tar Heel Bred perspective on football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and hockey. No NASCAR. I promise.