Welcome folks and I am about to just jump right into it this week because I am tired as hell and have had a migraine for about 95% of the week so far and even had a bit of an upset stomach all this past weekend. So considering I actually feel pretty good, I want to try and get some sleep and am about to hop in bed.
But I will say that we are still without Triggs as he still tries to figure out how Adam Archuleta is a replacement for Lance Briggs. Don’t worry though because the rest of us are here and there’s even some fan mail…well, I wouldn’t call it fan mail. But there was mail.
Awww the hell with it…
1.) NCAA Men’s Tournament Thoughts
Paulie: Wow, has this thing gone by the numbers or what? I’ve damn near lost interest. Duke got bounced. So that was good. My sleeper picks went bye-bye pretty early. Xavier got ROBBED against Ohio State. How does a guy SHOVE another guy to the ground with no intention of going for the ball at all and it not be flagrant, two shots, and the ball? Of course, you could also ask why, with just a few seconds left, your team is up by three, the other team has the ball, do you NOT foul them and make them go for the freak chance intentional miss put back rather than letting them get a half way decent look for three, even if it is from 25 feet? I’m still sticking with my UNC/UCLA final though. Might as well since all my other picks, including my NIT predictions have gone down the crapper. Can’t go changing now.
Chuckles: Xavier did not get robbed. They gave it away. Everyone is completely overacting to the Oden foul. Was he going for the ball, no. But in end of the game situations no one is going for the ball and every one of them could be called “intentionalâ€, but none of them ever are and that shouldn’t have changed there. As for the “aggressiveness†of the foul, the guy who got fouled made it look A LOT worse than it was. If this were a hockey game he would have picked up 2 for diving. That was almost as bad as some of those futbol players who have to be carried off the field on a stretcher only to return perfectly healthy 30 seconds later. Add in to the fact Oden is 7 ft, 250 something and the guy who got fouled is 6’3-4†170, and its going to look worse. The refs made the right call and Xavier just couldn’t hit their free throws or stop the 3.
Very ho hum tourney so far as far as Cinderella’s go. UNLV is the lowest seed still alive and they are just a 7. Texas A&M put a good scare in me during their second game, but with Acie, I’m confident they can still run the table.
Spaulding: Might I say that after the first two days of the tourney, my ass was out in front of our pick ‘em league. Two days later I went to dead last. DEAD – LAST!
This has been a very fun tournament with some extremely close games, monster comebacks, and Duke is out of the damn running for champs. Nothing could be sweeter unless my LSU Tigers had actually made it into the drive to stay alive, oh well. No-one has actually stood out so far and made an impression on me. The Salukis, even though ranked 4, are by far the team I have the most fun watching. There is no reason in hell that school should be in the Sweet 16, but those kids have talent and heart and I give them all the credit in the world. Hell, as I type this they are holding their own against Kansas at 27-24. I still am seeing Georgetown as the overall champion when this is said and done because that is just a damn talented squad and I feel they have the ability to take it to anyone.
As long as Florida doesn’t win the damn thing again.
2.) NCAA Women’s Tournament Thoughts
Spaulding: Well since I have no other LSU teams to go off of right now…no see, that’s a bullshit excuse. I watch women’s college basketball and I love it. I think it is exciting and just enjoyable to watch…unlike the WNBA. These women are fighting their hearts out just as much as in the men’s tourney or maybe even more but barely get any of the recognition for it.
Maryland is gone and there will be a new champ crowned this year. So far it’s been kinda by the numbers as much as the men’s tourney has except for Marist who is just rolling along like they are a top seed. My LSU Lady Tigers got a big time scare the other night from upset-minded West Virginia and were down 11 with less then 12 minutes to play. But then they got Sylvia Fowles angry and you just don’t do that. I watched that game and saw her triple-teamed and I swear to God that on three different occasions I saw her quadruple-teamed by the Mountaineers. That woman STILL got the ball when passed to her inside and even got her own board to put it back in at times. She’s freakishly insanely good! Many thought LSU would struggle this season with the loss of Semoine Augustus and then really thought the struggle would come in the tourney with the Pokey Chatman scandal (which I’ll touch on later) but this team is holding strong and really impressing a lot of people. Needless to say, they should have already been impressed.
Paulie: Umm… I know Maryland got beat so there will be a new champ. Outside of that, does anyone actually watch these games? I can’t say that I’ve ever watched a women’s basketball game all the way through. Too much disparity in the talent levels. From the box scores I’ve seen even closely ranked teams rarely have a good close game.
Chuckles: Wait…women play basketball now?
*ducks
Marist is playing the role of Ali here and “Shocking the world†by making it to the sweet 16. Just the third time a 13 seed has made it to the sweet 16 in the 5 year history of the women’s tourney.
*ducks
And they’ve been doing it impressively too. Both games have been relative blow outs with Marist scoring upwards of double digit points in the two games combined.
*du…eh screw it, you can hit me for that one, that was good.
3.) NASCAR
Chuckles: NASCAR moves to Bristol. The first short track on the circuit this year. If the only races you’ve seen are Daytona and ‘Dega, this is must watch. As the leaders cross the start finish line to take the green flag, the cars at the tail end of the field are still in the back straight away. 5 laps in and the track becomes a conveyor belt of cars going 140. But this week’s race will have a completely new set of problems as this week NASCAR will be debuting the Car of Tomorrow. The car of tomorrow, or “COT,†is supposed to even the playing field and make all the cars about the same as well as make them safer, and more importantly for the owners, cheaper. They want a car that more teams can afford and give some of the struggling one car teams a chance to be competitive week in and week out. The car obviously looks different than the current cars. The front valence is indented with numerous rods to adjust the height of the valence and the rear spoiler has been changed from the old straight up off the back of the car type spoiler, to the cheap, flat spoiler every Suzuki ever made has. The spoiler is the change that I think is going to be hardest for the teams to get a hang of. With the flat spoiler sticking farther out the back of the car the air coming off the top of the car is going to push down on the back more than the old spoiler and the front wheels will feel like they are coming off the ground. It won’t be as much of a problem on a short track like Bristol, even though I do think tight is going to be a very recurrent theme over the weekend, but at bigger tracks like Daytona, Texas, Atlanta, and Talladega the front end is going to want to pick up and nobody is going to feel like they can drive their car down into the corner. There are going to be a lot of people complaining about their cars this week, but it’s still going to be an excellent race.
Spaulding: Ok, I can’t touch on the races much because I know so little about them that it would simply just be disrespectful of me to fans if I am blindly talking about them. But I have read up this Car Of Tomorrow deal. Now I’d like to understand something that is a bit fuzzy to me. Sure there are rookies and drivers that aren’t so good, but how does this help the countless drivers that are experts in this sport? If it evens the playing field then isn’t that just asking for the finishes to be a little less overdramatic? I mean here we have a sport in which you usually see the top guys at the front of each race but then a crash or a rook having a great day comes in and makes his way up front.
If this evens the playing field and makes things safer, meaning less crashes, then won’t we simply see the same people at the front of each race and winning them every single time? That’s just how I feel about this because I don’t watch NASCAR as yall may know by now, but I don’t see how this can help the sport in the least.
Paulie: NASCAR huh? Car of Tomorrow? After this weekend, will they call it the Car of Right Now? Yeah, I stole a joke from… someone, just call me Mencia. If they’re trying to make all the cars the same, then what’s the point of having the teams? What’s the point of guys driving different brands? I thought this was supposed to be stock car racing? Have they changed the definition of stock on me? Is that’s supposed to mean, a car, straight off the line, onto the track? I guess it hasn’t really been stock car racing in a while then. But like Danny said, they keep trying to make the cars more and more alike and if they take away teams’ ability to tweak the car how they want, it’s going to end up being the same 5 guys in front every week. And taking what Chucklebutt said, with the change in the spoiler, if it’s gonna cause the front end to come up off the ground more, how is that safer? I would think that, at 190MPH, the front end coming up even a little bit is gonna cause a car to do nifty little backwards end over end flips. And while that makes for outstanding TV, I wouldn’t really call it… safe.
GO DICK TRICKLE!
4.) Pete Rose In The Hall Of Fame…Ever?
Paulie: Pete Rose bet on baseball. Pete Rose bet on his own team. Did he bet on his team to lose? Somehow I doubt it. But it’s beside the point. If he embarrassed anyone it was himself. Not baseball. Not America. Not Bud Selig. The man was a hell of a player. The man deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Do you exclude Babe Ruth because he was a fat drunk? No. Do you exclude the certainly numerous womanizers, tax cheats, drug users, and generally unscrupulous types? No. So stop excluding Pete Rose. To not have one of the greatest hitters of all time in the Hall is more of an embarrassment than anything Rose could do.
Chuckles: As Paulie said, Rose deserves to be in the baseball Hall of Fame. He’s admitted that he bet on his team every night to win. There are people who say he’s lying because his lips are moving, but come on, enough is enough. Year in year out he’s going to try some stunt to get him into the hall. Just put him in, and lets all shut up about it and forget it every happened. If you want to send a message to the youngsters not to gamble on baseball, write it on his plaque. “Was suspended from baseball for X-number of years because he bet on baseball while managing the Reds.†You don’t have to fully reinstate him in the game like he wants, he wants to be a manager again, which I don’t think would be a wise idea. Too easy to fall back into old habits. But put him in the hall where he belongs.
Spaulding: Simple enough, we will go three for three here as I say Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall Of Fame. The man has admitted to betting on baseball. He has admitted to betting on the very team he coached night in and night out. My God, he is one of the greatest hitters to ever step foot onto the diamond and you want to keep denying him his right some twenty to thirty to God knows how many years later? Let me guess…MLB is going to wait until he dies and then induct him out of pity and everyone will talk about how he “always†deserved this spot. You just don’t want to give him the little bit of joy it would bring him to actually be at his own induction ceremony.
5.) Random Rant
Spaulding: I don’t have anything to bitch about with my Saints because they haven’t done anything wrong. Almost 28 years in this world and I have NEVER had the honor of saying that. The Hornets could have had a great run this year but injuries just totally killed us. Even if we get to the playoffs, which there is a damn good chance the Bees could, I doubt we’d make it past the first round. Other then that I’d simply like to beat my neighbor’s skull in because he knocks on my wall randomly to tell me my TV is too loud and sometimes the damn thing isn’t even on. I’d like to knock him in his damn toothless mouth. Him and his llama’s ass looking woman.
Paulie: Oh man, a rant, huh? Well, I’m 30 now. My beard is getting greyer every day. My back hurts, my knees are killing me, and I’ve been coughing since Thanksgiving. Oy vey gevalt. Oh… not that kind of rant? Here’s something. Why hasn’t Carolina done more in free agency? Their safeties are getting ancient. There were some decent ones out there this year. GET ONE! Sheesh. Dammit, someone broke my favorite pen here at work. Larry Bud Melman died last night. That kinda sucks. SI is reporting about wrestlers taking steroids. DUH! Thank you Ric Romero for that stunning discovery. Why doesn’t Cricket get more coverage over here? Heard tell some drunk dude got the ever elusive six 6’s in an over the other day. Only the third time it’s happened… EVER. And the first in World Cup play. Yet no one outside of the Cricket World seemed to care. Poor Cricket. I play the flash games online. Seems kinda fun. Maybe even better than baseball. But no one cares. Poor Cricket player dudes.
Chuckles: Two things NCAA wise. Congratulations to the 2007 NCAA National Champion Minnesota Golden Gopher wrestling team. They took the championship last weekend over Iowa. In doing so Cole Konrad won his second consecutive Individual Championship and four others placed high enough to earn All-American status. The team will return virtually intact next year, the only loss will be Konrad, so it’s a big loss. Secondly, NCAA hockey. How did North Dakota, who is ranked in the top ten in the nation, and playing some of the best hockey of the year, the 3 seed in Minnesota’s region? There are only 16 teams in the hockey tournament and North Dakota should have been no worse than a two seed. And to put them in Minnesota’s bracket (Minnesota is the number 1 ranked team in the nation and won 22 consecutive games earlier this season, which is anything past 10 is amazing in the college game) is an atrocity. But it will make for a fantastic second round game when UND beats Michigan and Minnesota beats Air Force. For the rest of the bracket, I was surprised to see St. Cloud St. get only a 2 seed, they were the second best team in the country most of the year but got knocked out of the Conference tourney early on by North Dakota. Notre Dame, Clarkson, and New Hampshire picked up the other one seeds. Look for a frozen four of North Dakota, BC, St. Cloud St. and Boston U. with a WCHA Final of UND vs. St. Cloud St. with SCSU getting retribution for the conference tourney and winning the National Championship.
Ok everyone that is it for this week and I’m gonna wrap this up quick, but first I did get some e-mail last week concerning what we here at PTP had to say about the Pokey Chatman scandal at LSU.
This happens in every sport. Women’s sports are picked out in everything. She is a great COACH. Someone is always out to get you. Please give her a break. I personally met her in Starkville before the game. I love LSU and her. Please give her the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks,
Jo
Thanks for the e-mail Jo, it is always appreciated. Now I want to be the first to point out that I am an LSU fanatic. I went to 7 of the 8 home football games this past season. I watched every men’s and women’s basketball game that came on TV and am rooting for the Lady Tigers now as they enter the Sweet 16. I type this as an LSU mouse pad sits underneath my hands and multiple LSU hats, jerseys, shorts, pictures, framed artwork, and more are spread around my apartment.
I loved Pokey Chatman and still do. I think she was a great player when she was in college, was a fantastic assistant under the late great Sun Gunter, and she was one of the best head coaches I’ve ever seen. Not just in women’s basketball, I mean in all sports period…men and women’s. We still don’t know her exact side of the story, but you have to realize there must be a little bit of truth in it considering the lengths she had to go to in order to keep her team out of it. And I applaud that more than anything. She knew they had something coming up to focus on and she stepped aside. But had none of it been true, she could have at least fought to keep her job. I hope we hear her side of it soon and no matter what…guilty or not even though as I said, she should have known better, I still will always admire and respect her because it’s what she deserves.
Thanks peoples and until next week…so drop us a line by e-mail or go here in the forums.
And if anyone watches Arena Football and can check out the New Orleans Voodoo game on Saturday night? Look for yours truly sitting in the 6th row from the field around the 20 yard line. I am going to be FIGHTING people if a ball comes within 7-8 seats of me any way. I’ll be the one in the purple #5 LSU jersey slapping people to get a football.
Voodoo 58 Avengers 43
