The Greatest College Basketball Game in a Long While

Was played yesterday in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Vols had kicked their best player off the team and suspended 3 others. Others were injured or in foul trouble, and a walk-on with a name that belongs more in a law firm that handled your grandfather's estate than on a hoops floor nailed a 3 during crunch time to help the Vols upset #1 Kansas. You can read the recap from espn.com here.

It's not everyday we hold as equivalents character and NCAA Division I sports. But Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl and the Vols' administration took a stand -- at great cost to their program -- and they were rewarded with the type of effort that should epitomize college sports. They're not always supposed to be about the exploits of the kid who was identified as the star when he was 12 years old. On occasion, they're supposed to be the stories of walk-ons such as Sklar McBee, the player who hit the critical 3-pointer. Sure, McBee probably went into the season figuring that he'd add value as a gung-ho, happy-to-be-there practice player, but yesterday he showed that he's much more than that. The kid shined on a national stage.

Which makes you wonder what if everyone -- from boosters to your average alums to athletic directors, coaches and players -- had the attitude of the walk-on or lightly recruited player who's told up front that he'll have little chance of the bright lights and playing time but who shows up day after day and gives his all?

What would all college sports -- and particularly the revenue sports -- be like?

Hats off to the Tennessee Volunteers for one of the great character moments in the recent history of college basketball and the NCAA.

Should the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Have 96 Teams in It?

Good article in December from the Wall Street Journal.

I agree with Northwestern's Bill Carmody -- 65 teams (the current number, out of a possible 334 Division I basketball teams) is plenty. I like the scarcity -- it gives the regular season a great deal of meaning, and there aren't all that many controversies about who gets in and who doesn't (outside of 1 or 2 per year). Another argument against increasing the number is that some observers believe that increasing the number would just be a payoff to the big conferences, given that right now they get most of the at-large bids. So, increase the number of teams to 96 and, guess what? Will the Big East, which now gets about 7 of its 16 teams into the tournament, suddenly get 12 of the 16? Would the Big East deserve it?

The article points out that more than half the teams in the NBA and NHL make the playoffs. And look what that lack of scarcity and selectivity has done to those leagues? Their brands are diluted and weak. But, the article also points out that the NCAA can opt out of its $6 billion contract with CBS, precisely because of the reason that it might want to increase the roster of teams to 96.

This bears watching.

The Hidden Benefits of Exercise

Required reading from the Wall Street Journal.

Climb stairs. Walk instead of ride. Get an exercise bike, a treadmill, some light dumbbells, medicine balls, Pilates or yoga DVDs, but whatever you do -- do something! You'll enhance your quality of life, fortify your good cells, kill the bad ones, live longer and think better. Sometimes it's hard to get started, but once you do, you'll look forward to exercising every day.

Eagles' Debacle Isn't McNabb's Fault

Sure, the QB is in the crosshairs, but last night's armageddon in Dallas resulted from the Cowboys' better preparation and better play in the trenches. Put differently, when you control the line of scrimmage (translated -- when you push the other team around at will), you win the game. And sometimes it isn't even close.

And, last night, it wasn't.

Oh, sure, Donovan McNabb isn't as precise a passer as Kurt Warner or Tom Brady, but even those guys would have wilted at the thrust that the Dallas line had all night. And those guys also would have been skittish playing behind an offensive line, 3/5 of whom weren't starters when the year began. The defensive line play was more of a mystery, because those guys are generally pretty good. But the play at linebacker was awful, and the play in the secondary not much better. For those who lament the loss of Brian Dawkins, let's lament the loss of his leadership. But, truth be told, he was a step behind the plays for most of last season, so having him on board last night would not have been a cure-all. Remember, if you're one of the ones who waxes nostalgic, bringing back Jeremiah Trotter only demonstrated to the fans how woefully unprepared Andy Reid was at the season's outset, when apparently the Eagles' front office knew that starting middle linebacker Stewart Bradley was entering the season on an iffy knee.

So, what should the Eagles' fans be mad at? Here are a few points:

1. The front office and Andy Reid. When Reid re-upped, he talked about the organization's being the "best in class." C'mon, show some humility. How many Super Bowls has the organization won? Until you win one, you're not best in class. Period. That was ridiculous and because it was a silly claim, it was insulting.

2. Andy Reid for having what seems to be an annual blind spot at a position. Sure, B-Dawk was a step slow, but you don't can a legend unless you have a better solution, and no one back there proved to be an equal, let alone an improvement. Macho Harris was anything but at the free safety position. A few years back there was a blind spot at punt returner, and, at times, there have been blind spots at wide receiver and, yes, linebacker. This year, there were blind spots at linebacker and safety, but the Birds were too self-congratulatory regarding their upgrades at wide receiver and running back to notice. Once again, those blind spots left them vulnerable, and good teams took advantage.

3. The trenches. Is the defensive line good enough to push other offensive lines around? Apparently not in big games. Is the offensive line good enough to offer a chance at a balanced offense that keeps opponents guessing? Apparently not, period. The Stacy Andrews' signing is a big bust, and Jason Peters is overrated, even if he made the Pro Bowl. He didn't show much yesterday -- and that's not Donovan McNabb's fault.

So, there are many problems that the team needs to address before it gets to quarterback. Donovan McNabb had a good year, and he should return next season. Yes, he's the symbol of the franchise, and fans are quick to forget all the good that he has done when he gets sacked or throws behind a receiver. He isn't the most precise passer, but he can win football games. Last night, though, he didn't have a chance to.

And the debacle that was the 34-14 loss to the Cowboys was by no means Donovan McNabb's fault.

Not even close.

If you were to give Andy Reid a shopping list for next season, here are a few thoughts:

1. a leader on defense.
2. a few linebackers who are better than free-agent pick-ups or 7th-round picks who we're supposed to hope become all-pros.
3. a few playmakers on defense (outside Asante Samuel and Trent Cole, where are they?).
4. a huge run-stuffing defensive tackle.
5. two offensive linemen who have Jon Runyan's mean streak.

You need all of those components before you start a conversation about the quarterback position.

And you need a head coach to take stock of his approach and realize that he needs to be aggressive on all 53 roster spots and at all positions and not take an annual flyer on one or two of them.

Achilles had his heel. Andy Reid has two positions every year that come back to haunt him. He's been at the helm for eleven seasons, so he should have learned by now that you can't leave yourself this vulnerable.

If he doesn't learn soon, he'll be regarded as a very good head coach.

But not a great one.

Who Are the Real Rodents?

The Philadelphia Daily News announces "Once Rat-Infested, the State Capitol's Cafeteria Reopens."

This begs the question whether state legislators are allowed back into this establishment.

Mike Shanahan Will Fail

To win a Super Bowl with the Redskins, that is.

There are several reasons for this comment:

1. No coach in NFL history has won a Super Bowl with more than one team. A few got to the Super Bowl with two teams (Dick Vermeil, Bill Parcells and Don Shula come readily to mind), but no coach has won a Super Bowl with more than one franchise.

2. Dan Snyder goes through coaches more quickly than Larry King goes through wives. While Shanahan will get more of a leash because of who he is, it's hard to believe that the owner will not meddle. Friction could occur early between owner and coach, unless the owner is under sedation.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American life. This is a corollary to the first point, but many excellent coaches haven't been able to win a Super Bowl with a second team.

As for the first point, Vermeil's career was amazing because he lost a Super Bowl in '81, took 16 years off and then came back and won one with the St. Louis Rams. (In other words, he had a second act of sorts in reverse order, but the hunger and humility were there because he didn't take his long hiatus after winning a Super Bowl). Look, Don Shula was one of the best coaches of all time. Vince Lombardi was a legend, as was Bill Parcells. But what's to say that Shanahan won't turn into George Seifert, who failed in Carolina (and his career ended miserably there with a 1-15 record in his last season) or a Joe Gibbs (who tried his second act with the same franchise after a much longer hiatus than Shanahan's and fared okay but a far cry from what he had achieved in his prime).

Washington fans shouldn't get too gleeful about this development. Their franchise has too many problems, and the odds are better that finding the next Mike Tomlin or Ken Whisenhunt would give the team a better chance than hiring Mike Shanahan.

More Stupidity from the Washington Wizards

Oh, to be young, a multimillionaire, have your bags carried by someone else, fly charters, stay in five-star hotels and be responsible for absolutely nothing.

Don't the four Wizards implicated in the linked article realize how good they have it?

Apparently not.

They made a bad situation worse, embarrassed their organization (not that they seem to care at all) and humiliated their teammates that seem to have some sense of responsibility.

Playing in the NBA is both a right and a privilege, but it's much more of a privilege. Sure, you can make all of the constitutional arguments you want that anyone has the right to do anything, but to play in a supposedly elite league, with the compensation and accommodations these players get, is a privilege. Most young kids would do almost anything to achieve this status, and there are many players around the world who would love to play in the NBA. But some guys will never get it -- either ever or until it's way too late.

I forget who wrote "youth is wasted on the young," but whoever said it might have had situations like this in mind.

Sheesh.

Increasingly it seems like Commissioner David Stern is running a preschool for overprivileged, irresposnsible and ungrateful young men. And when the ratings and attendance continue to fall, the league will only have to blame its lack of discipline and ingratitude for the privilege it currently has to demand so much of people's wallets. The trademark is at its weakest, and marginal dollars to spend on second-rate sporting events are becoming even more scarce.

But it doesn't seem like the league gets it until a big crash occurs.

What (on Earth) is Wrong with Ivy League Men's Basketball?

Dartmouth men's coach Terry Dunn resigned suddenly yesterday. Click on this link to the Princeton Basketball blog for the story and links.

Dunn's players apparently were going to boycott the team's next game. This resignation comes atop Penn's dismissal of its head coach, Glen Miller, after the Quakers started 0-7.

Remember, this is the Ivy League. Not the NBA, Major League Baseball or even bigger-name conferences where coaching tenure sometimes rests halfway between a cliff and a 300-foot drop without a parachute or cushion.

So, what gives? This is distressing to say the least. What's driving it? Is there too much pressure on coaches and athletic directors? Are the players becoming too entitled? Are the fans unrealistic? Are the coaches themselves so autocratic that they become impossible to live with?

Remember, this is the Ivy League. Stuff like this isn't supposed to happen. It's almost as though blurbs like this belong under Sports Illustrated's banner "This Week's Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us." This is the league where the term "student-athlete" should mean more than what it connotes in other conferences. This is supposed to be the nerdy, eggheaded conference, where kids actually can conjugate Latin verbs, decline Latin nouns, perform differential equations and discuss Proust and Goethe and do physics experiments while riding their unicycles to their small-group classes on political conflicts in ancient Greece.

I suppose not. But, then again, the Miller and Dunn situations sound, on the face of it, distinctly different. In the Miller situation, the Penn men's hoops brand was becoming about as valuable as that of AIG, and, in the Dunn situation, it seems like the players had a lot more to do with it. Still, two resignations out of eight mid-season? In any league, that's very significant, and, correspondingly, a disaster.

If you have one firing mid-season and that's the first one that people can remember, you can chalk it up to something idiosyncratic. Have two, and either you've fallen victim to the odds that lightning doesn't strike all that frequently in the same place or, alternatively, you have a cultural problem. And the thing of it is, Ivy hoops -- with the exception of an outstanding Cornell team -- is a far cry from where it used to be.

What gives?

Princeton Women's Basketball Team is On Fire

Here's the link for the Tigers' women's team.

They are off to a 12-2 start, having lost only to Cal and UCLA, and neither of those losses was a rout. They start two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior, and they could well be a) the first Tigers' team to make the NCAA tournament (okay, the Ivy season hasn't even started yet) and b) the best Princeton women's hoops team ever. Coach Courtney Banghart is doing a great job in Jadwin Gym, and if you haven't seen this Tigers' team play, you should check them out. They play with great precision and accuracy, and they are a lot of fun to watch.

Go Tigers!

Sad Case at Tennessee

Another gun case. All-America candidate Tyler Smith was kicked off the team because of a felony gun-possession charge.

Yikes.

What is compelling these young men -- in college and in the NBA -- to carry guns? Is their safety that much in jeopardy? There has to be a back story here -- do they believe that their lives are in danger?

Much has been written about Smith, his transfer back to Tennessee, the death of his father, his decision to stay in school, etc. Unfortunately, his actions just wrote the epitaph on his career at Tennessee. What will stick in everyone's mind for a while is how his career ended.

What a shame. What a waste.

It took Tyler Smith years to build a trademark and a career at Tennessee. It took several hours of bad decisionmaking to destroy both.

Pennsylvania Sells a Little More of Its Soul

State passes an expanded gaming law.

My father once said that society is on the precipice when it has to resort to legalizing gaming as a way to save itself and its finances. Great, so people who can't afford it will now lose money to help pay for state programs that will subsidize them precisely because they don't have enough money to live on. I applaud the courageous legislators who voted against the bill.

Mark Twain was right -- no honest man rests easily when the legislature is in session.

A Third College Football Coach is Canned for Alleged Player Abuse

South Florida fired head coach Jim Leavitt, who built the program from scratch.

Note that the headline reads "canned" and not "caned," but perhaps that will come next. Funny, but you would have thought that a canning would have happened because Leavitt couldn't beat the 'Canes.

Are college presidents and athletic directors showing more backbone, or have these cases been so bad that they left their universities' administrators no alternatives but to show their head coaches the door?

What Philadelphia Refuses, Houston Uses

Goofball alert.

The Astros are going to sign former Phillies' #1 draft pick and starting pitcher Brett Myers to a 1-year deal.

Myers has a million-dollar arm (or, in this case, a five-million-dollar arm), but has on many occasions displayed a ten-cent head.

Astros' GM Ed Wade, who held the same job with the Phillies for about 8 years, has made a habit of obtaining some of his former players. In his case, familiarity breeds (being) content.

Wade once had this to say of one-time Phillies' ace Curt Schilling: "He's a horse every fifth day, and in between he's a horse's ass." And this about a possible Hall of Famer. I can't wait until Wade waxes eloquent on Myers, who also once served as the Phillies' closer. What might he say: "He's a jack-of-all-trades on the field, and a jackass off it?"

Good luck, Astros. Perhaps the Phillies' refusal to re-up Myers sent him a signal that it's finally time to grow up. The guy has talent and has shown flashes of brilliance, but he's maddeningly inconsistent.

The NBA Has No Choice But to Suspend Gilbert Arenas

And it looks like that will happen.

Otherwise, what type of message is the league sending to players and fans? That anything goes so long as you're an elite performer? That the rules don't apply to you?

History is littered with examples of fallen heroes and stars who surrounded themselves with people who told them their sweat didn't stink, who enabled them, and who didn't tell them when they were out of line. Drunk on their success, these folks would begin to think that everything they touched would turn to gold or that the rules didn't apply to them. What then happened to many of these fallen stars is that they handed out with people who did bad things, who were interested only in their money, or who gave bad advice. In addition, these fallen stars started to act poorly because they saw no limits.

It's an old tale.

And it happens too frequently.

Perhaps by taking a stand every now and then the NBA will hold its players more accountable and, correspondingly, save a few of them from an inevitable decline and, yes, from themselves.

Gilbert Arenas should use this incident as a wake-up call, before he ends up on basketball's scrap heap, a washed-up mid-thirty something sixty-five pounds over his playing weight, having little to do but pass his time and wonder where all his money went. Sorry to sound harsh, but again, this sounds like the late-night re-run of an old movie whose plot line we've seen in many forms before.

The Mike Leach Saga: It Takes Years to Build a Brand, Only A Season to Tarnish It

There have been many articles on the issues going on behind the dismissal of Texas Tech's football coach, Mike Leach, and this one gives a different side to the story (which at first looked like a battle between an AD, a player with a strong-willed and well-known father, and a head coach). It's a good read, as it's not every day that a school fires a coach before the end of the first season after they had given him a new (and lucrative) five-year contract.

Leach's firing marked the second firing in the Big 12 this year of a successful coach who either had gotten too big for his program, too abusive or too unaccountable. Whatever the case, the terminations of Leach and now-former Kansas head coach Mark Mangino are evidence that the coaches don't control their schools or hold them hostage precisely because they're winning. What these terminations also can point to is the tremendous stress and responsibility placed upon these head coaches, so much so that their jobs are as consuming as any in the country -- and that type of burden can damage a person, physically (see the case of Urban Meyer) and emotionally.

I recall a quote from Bill Belichick's father, Steve, himself a revered assistant coach, when asked if his son was a genius. "Genius?" The elder Belichick responded. "All he does is run up and down the sidelines coaching football for a living."

Perhaps it's time, again, to look at the perspective the big-time schools have about football (seemingly above almost everything else) and what the purpose is of having a big-time college football program. Two successful coaches were fired this year because of what can only be described as behavioral irregularities -- coaches who only a short while ago had been hailed for turning their programs around and building winners. Now these men are out on the coaching scrap heap, damaged, partially because of their own bad decisions, partially because of a system around them that encouraged tough (and sometimes) mean decisions, and partially because of a culture that stresses winning football games more than anything else.

These men are human. They are not geniuses. Football is a game, like basketball, baseball, hockey, lacrosse, volleyball, field hockey, softball, that should be for kids. For fun.

What has happened at Texas Tech and Kansas demonstrates that it is -- and has been for a while -- a ruthless big business that, for every winner there is, creates collateral damage in terms of ruined coaches, damaged or uneducated players, and college kids who perhaps spend too much time following games and partying around them than learning better skills to get more out of life. Okay, so the latter point might be a bit of a stretch, but when you write sometimes you shock to provoke a response. Still, people should ask themselves why college football has become so important in some places to create situations like these.

General Patton was a hero for what he did during World War II. My guess is that he wouldn't have survived media scrutiny and political pressure today. Neither would have Bear Bryant (a quick read of "Junction Boys" would tell you that).

College football will continue to chug along, untransparent and unchecked to a great degree. But cases like those of Mike Leach and Mark Mangino deserve scrutiny and should be studied, so that we all can remember that this is just a game.

More on the Washington Wizards, formerly the Washington Bullets

Here's more on the incident at the Not So OK Corral.

The NBA needs this as much as it would need a hole in the head.

Mark Macon Tries to Stabilize Basketball at Binghamton

Good article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer regarding former Temple star Mark Macon, who is now the acting head coach at Binghamton, which is trying to rebuild after a series of problems resulted in the suspension of its head coach and the dismissal of about a half a dozen players from the team. Binghamton is 4-10 with only 7 scholarship players on its roster. Macon had always wanted to be a head coach, but not in this fashion. The article is a good, short read and a good way to get caught up on Macon.

Another Sign That the NBA is Becoming Irrelevant?

Guess who might be playing in the All-Star game.

Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady.

I don't think I got the memo from the league office that announced the adoption of the resolution requiring the league first and foremost to be about entertainment and sales of merchandise and second about good basketball. My guess is that someone wrote it and circulated it, but that perhaps I and others were watching team sports.

The economy isn't getting a whole lot better, and the competition for the marginal sports dollar will become more fierce. There will be winners and losers, and if taxes go up for the people who can afford the tickets the most, they'll have to make choices.

That and a diluted brand won't help the NBA.

Nor will this.

Reflections on Penn and Princeton in Ivy Hoops

Two nights ago I went to see Princeton host Wagner at Jadwin Gym. The Tigers won 45-42 on a three-point play by Kareem Maddox with about 5 seconds to go. The game was tied at the half, and then coming out of the locker room the Tigers looked asleep. Wagner went on a big run to go up 34-22, and then with about 10 minutes to go, the Tigers pressed and took Wagner out of its game. Before then, Wagner pounded the ball inside to its senior center, with good results. The press disrupted Wagner, the Tigers went on a run of their own, got 21 points from junior guard Dan Mavriades (the only Tiger who shot the ball consistently that night) and held on to beat a terrible Wagner team. For the complete writeup, please, as always, consult the Princeton Basketball blog.

A few observations about that game:

1. Wagner coach Mike Deane looks about 75 years old. He's about 57, and I don't know if he's had health problems or this season has aged him. But he sounds like an old grouch out there. I predicted to my son five minutes into the game that Deane would draw a technical foul, and I was right -- he got one in the second half. It's hard to see how a recruit would be interested in joining this program if he had a choice of other DI schools. Deane should change gears every once in a while.

2. Princeton looked asleep for a good part of the game. In the first half, I saw the most energy from two freshmen, Ian Hummer and Will Barrett. Hummer had a spectacular block, and Barrett showed great energy following up a missed shot. Both have some size, and that bodes well for the Tigers.

3. The Tigers' offense looked better than last year's, in that they took very few shots with five seconds or less remaining on the shot clock. In the early days of Coach Sydney Johnson, the offense looked disorganized, and the team took quite a few bad shots with the shot clock about to expire. That's the good news. The bad news is that the offense still doesn't look crisp enough against a zone defense, as the players are thinking enough about what they should do with the ball in advance of their getting it. As a result, a player gets the ball, holds it for a few seconds, allowing the defense to catch up, or he'll take two dribbles, the defense catches up and then he'll pass the ball to someone too far away from the basket to shoot. If you watch the elite teams, they zip the ball around quick to try to take advantage of an overload or a mismatch. The Tigers' offense against the zone was too predictable, too undisciplined and too unconfident to paste a team like Wagner, which, from all accounts, was ripe for a shellacking.

4. Frosh guard Jimmy Sherburne didn't have his best night, made some bad decisions and turned the ball over too many times in the short time he was out there. He displayed good energy and looked quick, but he has to make better decisions.

5. I don't understand the coaching huddle that Coach Johnson has with his assistants after a timeout. They walk to the middle of the floor and talk for 20-30 seconds, leaving the players by themselves, standing around. To me, that's wasted time. Coach Johnson might want to be inclusive and build consensus, but I would think that he'd be conferring with his assistants and then know precisely what to say during a timeout. Maybe it's just a matter of style, and that's it.

6. Overall, Princeton was lucky to escape with a win over a bad opponent. Yes, I'm speaking with Pete Carril-like frankness, but the average long-term fan shouldn't get overly optimistic about this team's chances in the Ivies. The team doesn't look like it has solid leadership yet, and it doesn't look like it knows how to execute a game plan with great precision and put an opponent away consistently. Yes, they've had their share of wins, and that's all good, but they'll need to do more to beat Cornell and Harvard.

As for Penn . . .

When the wheels fall off the bus, they really fall of the bus. I watched most of the Penn-Duke game last night on ESPN2, and while they say that no publicity is bad publicity, whoever offered that wisdom didn't see its team lose 114-55 on national television. Yes, Penn was without Tyler Bernardini, its sharpshooting forward, and Mike Howlett, its leading rebounder, but even if it had those two guys it still probably would have lost by 35 or more. Interim coach Jerome Allen substituted freely, and, overall, the Quakers looked lost. The forwards looked mostly interchangeable, one-time top prospect Darren Smith looks rusty at guard, and outside of soph guard Zack Rosen (who might be wondering why he turned down Harvard two years ago), no one on the Quakers looked all that special. Penn has some talent, and my guess is that when the Ivy season starts, Coach Allen will have an eight- or nine-person rotation and the Quakers will finish somewhere in the middle of the Ivy pack. But, right now, Penn is a very-hard-to-believe 0-9, lost and looking for answers.

It can take decades to build a top brand. It can take only a few seasons with the wrong coach at the wrong time to wound it enough to knock a team from a preeminent perch into the ranks of the also-rans. But that's precisely what has happened at Princeton and Penn at around the same time. The Tigers look to be (somewhat) on the rebound, while it's tough to figure whether Penn's hit bottom yet or whether the Quakers will continue their fall, at least for a little while longer.

A Different Meaning to the Term "Gunner"?

Read this and see what I mean.

There will be a big investigation into this, as the report is that Washington Wizards players Gilbert Arenas and Jarvis Crittenton drew guns on each other after Crittenton tried to collect on a gambling debt. Arenas allegedly drew first.

Let's not convict anyone on the internet or in the media, but if this were to prove to be true, well, yikes!