Category Archives: Sports

February 10, 2011

What No One Else Will Say About Jerry Sloan

By mceezy

Call Jerry Sloan the anti-Favre. It’s never been a will-he-or-won’t-he situation with Coach in Utah. The man’s been at the helm of the Jazz for the majority of the time they’ve been there, literally. I knew the clock was ticking, but I never expected Sloan to step down midseason. The more I learned what the reasons were, the more I felt upset for him. Word quickly spread that he’s had a tumultuous relationship with Deron Williams that came to a head the other night, leading Sloan to proclaim that he’s “done.” I would’ve thought Phil Johnson would be the natural successor, but he quit too. I know Deron Williams is the best player and all, but if you’re the Jazz ownership, how can you let him drive out your coach of 23 years? Larry Miller wouldn’t have stood for this. But you won’t really hear many sour grapes over this – from Sloan or from anybody. Because that’s how his coaching career went. He didn’t make a big deal out of his himself, and neither did the media. There’s no shortage of ridiculous numbers detailing Sloan’s unparalleled tenure, so I won’t regurgitate too many of those, but the guy had ONE losing season in his entire career. He also took the Jazz to the NBA Finals twice. The knock on him, of course, will always be that he never won a championship, but c’mon, can we honestly say he ever had championship caliber talent? They were pretty much at that level in 97-98, but they ran into Jordan and the Bulls. You know what else Jerry Sloan never won? A Coach of the Year award. Frank Layden won it in 1984 when he had Adrian Dantley and Darrell Griffith combining for 50 points a night en route to a 45-37 record. Sloan topped that record 18 times. Sure he had Stockton and Malone, but didn’t anybody wonder why they stayed in Utah their whole careers? Yet somehow, in Williams’ 6th season, he’s decided he’d rather play for Tyrone Corbin. This really just feels like the beginning of the demise of the Utah Jazz, unfortunately. But you won’t see or read much about it. The world ignored Jerry Sloan for 23 years, so don’t expect anything to change (other than the Jazz’s fortunes). Next weekend I’ll be making my annual trip out to Utah, which is like my second home, and I’m pretty confident it’ll be the first time I’ve ever been there when Jerry Sloan was not the coach. It’s gonna be a weird vibe…….

9 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Sports

February 10, 2011

Daniel Tosh’s Un-Aired Super Bowl Commercial

By chappy81

It’s never in bad taste to poke a little fun at a woman’s sport, and if you’ve seen Tosh.0 ever, you’ll know he’s pretty good at pointing out the shortcoming in anything. This commercial SHOULD have aired last Sunday, it was worth $3M a lot more than some of the other ones…

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Comedy, Sports, TV

February 9, 2011

Sick Day Special

By mceezy

Much like when you watch a baseball game, there’s the possibility that you may witness something extremely rare. Well, the same can be said for Doin Work. Today was a very rare occasion, as yours truly actually stayed home from work. I’m like Brett Favre in the office. Though as bored as I was throughout the day, it gave me some time to catch up on some news. Here’s what I was thinking about……

Might we see Ellison in front of more purple backgrounds soon?

Larry Ellison Can’t Manage To Buy an NBA Team – Well documented was Ellison’s late bid to buy the Golden State Warriors last year. What I didn’t know was that he also tried to buy the Sonics when they were getting ready to leave Seattle. Now I’ve come to find out he supposedly offered $350 million to buy the Hornets, but was rejected, only to see George Shinn sell the team to the league for $300 million. Obviously the dollar amounts can be argued, but the fact remains that Ellison has tried to purchase at least three franchises now, to no avail. So now he is reportedly turning his attention to the Kings, with the intention of moving them to Anaheim. What I don’t understand is why he is widely rumored to want to move the Kings to LA, but his preference for the Hornets would be to move them to San Jose. Not sure why the different destinations for the different teams. Maybe next he can take a shot at buying the Raptors and moving them to Winnipeg.

Athletics Need To Get Michael Young – I know there aren’t many rumors linking the A’s to Young, especially since Young’s no-trade clause only includes 8 teams, of which Oakland, not surprisingly, is not included. If I know Billy Beane, though, the A’s front office is making a serious play for the third baseman turned DH. It’s been no secret that the A’s have been trying to replace Kevin Kouzmanoff at third. For a while they were rumored to be trying to work out a Kouz for Chone Figgins deal, but that seems dead. The Mariners aren’t that stupid. Therefore it’s looking like Young is our best option. They’ll just have to come up with a deal enticing enough to convince the Rangers it’s the best for the team, while at the same time, enticing Young to waive his no-trade clause to come to Oakland. Most experts are seeing the A’s as the most improved team in the AL West, and the most likely to challenge Texas for the division title. I’m sure he’d rather be in Anaheim, but wouldn’t he love to stick it to his old team in the green and gold? Maybe not.

Big East Is Stacked – They’re now the laughing stock of college football’s BCS automatic bid conferences, but they’ve emerged as the premier college basketball conference. The title had traditionally been held by the ACC and/or the Big Ten, but the Big East is dominating now. By my count, they’ve got 8 ranked teams, and are looking poised to send 11 teams to the NCAA tournament. Though they are arguably the best conference from top to bottom, the Duke-North Carolina game is still the biggest one on the day’s docket.

Alex and Cameron don't look so hot after a bag of popcorn and a few drinks.

A-Corn Is Ridiculous – I was as amused as anyone when Fox cut away to Camerom Diaz feeding Alex Rodriguez popcorn in a suite, but I didn’t expect people to still be talking about on Wednesday. True, it was an embarrassing shot, but word is A-Rod went on a tirade, demanding that they don’t show him again. It’s like Mike Greenberg said today, A-Rod is the ONLY guy this could happen to. Anyone else would brush it off and have fun with it, but A-Rod is continuing to amaze by making himself even less likable than he already was. To top it off, I caught some TMZ today, where they showed Rodriguez shopping for clothes while Cameron walked around bored, texting. To make matters worse, A-Corn was caught numerous times checking out his own ass in the mirror. To top it all off, the cameras caught him picking a pretty decent sized booger out of his nose. Apparently, A-Rod is just as tragic off the field.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

February 8, 2011

Pebble Beach Stories Part V: The Celebrities

By chappy81

I was on the road for the past six days visiting family and friends across California. My last stop on the way home was in Monterey. As many of you golf fans out there know, the AT&T Pro-Am is being held this weekend on the Monterey Penninsula. I stopped in to see my old boss at Pebble Beach, and see what condition the course was in. It looked as great as it always does, and made me realize that I haven’t written a Pebble Beach Stories post in a loong time. While I was walking past the putting green I saw George Lopez, and it reminded me of how cool some of the celebrities are, and George was one of my favorites. Since I’ve worked there, I haven’t seen that many celebs nor been able to interact with them aside from Big Papi in Vegas. Going back to the course and seeing some old co-workers re-reminded me of some of those memories. Since the AT&T Pro Am is 25% about the celebs in the tournament I thought I’d make a nice and not so nice celeb list based on my experiences with them while working at Pebble Beach. Granted some were longer conversations or meetings than others, so some people might have just been having a bad day. On the other hand, how can you really have a bad day if you’re golfing at Pebble Beach?!? I already talked about the Caddies in part IV. I rambled about Derek Lee, Adam Dunn, Cory Lidle, and Brett Boone in part III. I talked about Chi Chi Rodriguez in part II. I talked about Chris Berman and Vijay in the inaugural post of this series, so I won’t go into any details on those guys, and you can revisit those posts to see what happened with them in the links provided, Here’s some things that came to me while I was wandering around Pebble Beach Monday morning. I have more, but these were some standouts.

Hmmm, buddies with George huh, one more reason for me to dislike him...

Not So Nice

Charles Schwab – Couldn’t be more of a dick, and has earned a place in the HOF of assholes. If there was a less friendly guy that holds onto his money with a vice grip like he does I don’t think I’ve met him yet. To top it off, he never tips. A co-worker of mine once laughed at me when I helped him for a second time in two days. Helping him culminated in driving him out to his $60M dollar house that overlooks the 18th teebox. I got no tip, he didn’t say more than two words answers when I tried to make some small talk with him. This is a man that could drop $1,000 dollars on the ground and not be worth his time to pick it up, and he can’t even give me a five spot. Even worse he couldn’t make small talk with someone doing him a favor!?! Talk to Chuck if you want your money safe, but you never know he might be stealing it too. Continue reading

25 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Pebble Beach Stories, Sports

February 3, 2011

Doin Super Bowl Lines

By dyslecix

Dyslecix picks Green Bay (-2.5). I just really like the Packers’ playmakers on a fast track indoors. They aren’t a huge run team anyways, and I think the transition is harder for Pittsburgh early, getting use to that indoor turf and style… And by that I mean the Packers got a taste against the Falcons already and as we saw, it suited the team pretty well. 27-21 Packers….with a big 4th quarter push from the Steelers who were down early….

Chappy picks Green Bay (-2.5). There’s  four reasons why I’m picking Green Bay. One, Charles Woodson. He is possibly my third or fourth all time favorite Raider behind Tim Brown, Bo Jackson, and Howie Long. Woodson forced a game winning fumble that should have gotten the Raiders into the AFC Championship game. Yup, still hate the Patriots for that game. Second, I’ve been rooting for Aaron Rodgers since he went to Cal. I’d like to see him with the real Championship belt on.

Third, I just don’t like seeing rapists succeed. If Ben had served a little jail time, I would forgive him a little sooner, but it didn’t really feel like he was ever punished. Four games, whoopity doo-da. I’m sure he found out a valuable lesson about hanging around college kids in BFE. Fourth, I’m no longer liking how good this Steelers franchise is. I get tired of the same teams winning over and over. They do play a fun brand of football though. Maybe I just want there to be another New Orleans type story even though I know it can’t happen. Wisconsin is nice and all, but the storyline isn’t quite as good. Packers win 28-23

By picks Green Bay (-2.5). I’m still uncertain as to why Green Bay is the favorite here, yes the dome and artificial turf can be an advantage to Green Bay’s speed on the perimeter, but we’re talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers here folks, they’ll adjust.  If I do recall, it was the Steelers who just won a Super Bowl two seasons ago.  Not much has changed to their roster since then, maybe except for the fact that they’ve renewed their hunger for another ring.  I’m picking Green Bay here because I’m rooting for them, but in all reality I don’t expect them to win.  I don’t care what the odd makers are telling you, Green Bay is the underdog here, and if I’m a neutral fan, I root for the ‘dogs.  Actually, I’m not that neutral, I’m a big Cal fan and so I’ll be cheering for Aaron Rodgers to equal Brett Favre in Super Bowl victories.  I like pointing that out too.  The fact that if Aaron Rodgers wins on Sunday, he’ll be tied with Favre in Super Bowl victories.  Takes away from Favre’s “legend”.  Also, call me a glutton for pain, but as a 49ers fan, I enjoy how much it hurts to see how successful Aaron Rodgers has become knowing we passed on him for Alex Smith in ’05.  It’s like pressing on a bruise to yourself.  It hurts so good.  The x-factor in this matchup is Green Bay’s defense, specifically their secondary.  For as much hype as Nhamdi Awesome-Muah (yes that’s how I spell and pronounce his name) and Darrelle Revis get for being shut down corners, Charles Woodson is overlooked.  This despite him winning Defensive Player of the Year last season.  Green Bay’s offense is going to struggle for a better part of this game against the vaunted Steelers’ D, but if Green Bay’s D can keep it close, all bets are off and Rodgers and co. have a chance.  Here goes nothing, Pack 21 Steelers 17.

MCeezy picks PITTSBURGH (+2.whocares) No spread needed… I think the Steelers will beat the spread because I think they’ll WIN. Everyone’s real high on the Packers right now, including me, but it doesn’t mean they’ll have success against the Steelers. Pittsburgh’s got too many big game players.  Green Bay’s almost there, but not quite. They’ll be back though. They will need to replace some receivers in the next few years, and they’ll continue to have a revolving door at running back, but they’ve got enough pieces in place to be a perennial postseason threat. This weekend though, will belong to the Steelers. I won’t be particularly thrilled about it, but I see the Steelers pulling away in the second half and winning decisively. Largely because my high school and college, and my beloved Oakland A’s, all donned the green and gold, I’ll be rooting for the Packers, but this one’s gonna be all black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow… Steelers 36 Packers 17

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

February 3, 2011

Some Mike Iuzzolino Highlights

By mceezy

You may have seen this one coming. After Chappy brought up NBA Jam the other day, I can’t stop looking back fondly at all those dynamite duos from the original arcade game. Remember when everyone would fight over who got to be the Lakers, so they could run the floor with Vlade and James Worthy? If you were unlucky, you’d likely settle for the second best team, the Milwaukee Bucks with Brad Lohaus and Blue Edwards. The Seattle SuperSonics were pretty unstoppable, because what says fast break action more than Benoit Benjamin? Ultimately, you were always okay as long as you didn’t pick a team with one of those pint-size players like Tim Hardaway or Isiah Thomas. It was cool for Kings’ Spud Webb to be tiny, since he was, but can’t Mark Price at least look like a man and not a boy?

Speaking of men among boys, anyone who put a quarter into an NBA Jam machine earned themself a date with Mike Iuzzolino. Since the Mavs were arguably the worst team in basketball, the video game Mavs were no different. They were the first team you played, and Derek Harper must have pissed off some teammates since it looked like none of his digital cohorts wanted to play with him. Nonetheless, Mike Iuzzolino was happy to take on the challenge. Apparently Mike will take on any challenge. Check out this highlight reel I found. Not only can he excel on the basketball court while looking extremely mediocre, Iuzzolino also – unless I’m missing something in translation – has tons of skills in the editing room, converted an old run-down prison into a three star hotel, and runs a successful tire conglomerate that puts lots of names on their receipts….

2 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Sports, video games

February 3, 2011

The Death Of Free Sports

By mceezy

Tonight we lost a valuable commodity… ATDHE.net fell victim to the “ICE”. For the last few months we’ve been able to enjoy out-of-market games at no cost on the web, but it was too good to be true – like everything else on the web. No more Warriors games in LA and Sacramento for us.  We invite you to share your favorite ATDHE memories in the comments section….

5 Comments   |  tags: | posted in Sports, TV

February 1, 2011

Whatever Happened to the Two Sport Athlete? Are They About to Make a Comeback!?!

By chappy81

I was reading this Rob Neyer article, and he was talking about how great Bo Jackson was. To this day he is one of my favorite all time Raiders. I loved his Tiger handheld game as well. He dominated Deion in the battle of the best two-sport athlete by a long shot. Unfortunately for Bo, and for us, his career ended far too early. It got me wondering why there aren’t more two sport athletes these days, but if you look at the salaries back then he wasn’t making close to what guys are today. Granted it was the early 90’s, and with inflation money was worth a little more than it is now, but his final year in Oakland he earned $1.6M, and in Kansas City he pulled in $2.6M.  I’m not saying this is chump change, but the crappy players weren’t quite to the point of getting paid ridiculous amounts of money during Bo’s days, and even the best players weren’t completely paid. So my thinking was that as contracts rose in EVERY sport the need to play more than one sport lessened. The last guy I can even think of that stood out in two sports was Charlie Ward being the general for Florida State’s offense in football and basketball, but even he didn’t play two sports professionally, which I think proves my point that athlete’s don’t need to play two sports anymore because the money is so ridiculously good in whichever one they choose. The closest thing we’ve had recently is a Nike commercial with Lebron blocking a field goal for the Cleveland Browns. With the very real possibility of a lockout for two of our sports (NFL and NBA), I wanted to throw out some ideas for guys and types of players that I think would try to make the jump to another sport either out of boredom or the need to support the $500,000 a month spending lifestyle. Continue reading

25 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

January 30, 2011

Is It Fall Yet?

By mceezy

Now that we’re fast approaching the most boring time of year in sports, I found myself especially missing college football this weekend. With the exception of the Super Bowl next weekend, (yes, it’s a pretty big exception) there’s not much exciting going on for the next few weekends for the sports fan. I watch more than my share of NBA and college basketball, but they’re just not the weekend event that football is. The season may be a long ways away, but these two links got me pretty excited for the 2011 season….

Fbschedules – I could waste a day checking out every team’s schedule for the upcoming season. Especially with all the teams changing conferences. Boise State in particular – even though the dates have yet to be worked out, they host TCU in a Mountain West matchup… can’t wait for that game every year.

MaxPreps Top 20 Recruiting Classes – To know what games are gonna be big, you’ve got to know what teams are gonna be good. Since you can’t see them on the field yet, you’ve got to go with the experts’ rankings. And since it’s 2011, you can check out the players’ credentials for yourself.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Sports

January 28, 2011

In Search of a New Mancrush…

By chappy81

I think with the NBA more than any other sport I develop mancrushs yearly. Even if the player I fall for isn’t the best of the best in the league or will ever be a top five player, I always find myself completely in tune to what that player is doing on the court and in their personal lives. My most recent was Stephen Curry, and although I still have a bromance for the kid, he’s getting married, so I’m in search of my next crush. Blake Griffin? I like him, but his robotic ways with the media doesn’t do it for me. Sorry Blake, at the beginning of the year I was about to jump on board, but your off the court presence just doesn’t do it for me. It got me thinking back to all the fun crushes I’ve had over the years, from Arenas, to Wade (until he won his championship), to Amare, to CP3, to Curry crushing it at Davidson. Ok, my mancrush didn’t peak on Curry until he was drafted by the Warriors, but even before that there was a bromance brewing when he took Davidson deep in the tourney. This all got me thinking of where the bromances all started. The first time I can truly recall an infatuation with a player was Rickey Henderson, but he still wasn’t the all-time crush. With hoops it was all about my mancrush on Latrell Spreewell for a solid five years. (I mis-spelled Spreewell on purpose because my favorite saying when I was ten was Spree For Three, so I think I thought that was how you spelled his name at the time).

Latrell Spreewell, what can you say about a guy that passes up guaranteed contracts and finds himself broke? Nothing too much that hasn’t already been said, and my mancrush was a shadow of what it originally was by the time he was broke. Two years removed from Mitch Richmond’s departure to Sacramento the Warriors picked Spree with the 24th pick in the draft. Mullin and Hardaway were still on the team, but the sign was on the wall, they were about to go into a decade plus rebuilding process. Maybe the mancrush came along because that’s when I started listening to gangsta rap, and that was when it was at it’s best. Those guys were real thugs back then, you want to know how I know they are more hard core than the rappers around now? Because most of them are in jail right now, point, set, match. At the time, there was nobody more gangster than Spree in those cornrows on the court. Playing under Don Nelson, and being one of the few productive players, he played nearly 48 minutes a game. It was something that really attracted me to the guy. He would play all 48, and look like he could go another 48 just proving the guy was in phenomenal shape. He was the reason my favorite number is 15, which says a lot since you may or may not know how much I loved Rickey Henderson. I never thought he was in the wrong for choking coach Carlisimo. Honestly, wouldn’t you strangle the coach if he was telling you what to do with this crappy roster in 1997? Seemed fair to me, and I’ll stand behind it till I part with the earth. To this day, Spree is the last Warriors player to make the All-Star game. No Jamison, no Richardson, no Davis, no Arenas, no Hughes and probably no Ellis making the mid-season exhibition this year. We get no respect… So my question for the commenters is who was your first mancrush, and who, if anyone is yours at the moment?

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

January 25, 2011

Sanchez’s Dirty Handoff

By mceezy

The Jets played a pretty forgettable game on Sunday. Mark Sanchez was no exception. His most notable play in the first half was coughing up the ball which led to a fumble recovery return for a touchdown that put the game away just 28 minutes in. To his credit, he led a pretty solid comeback attempt but ultimately came up short. Perhaps THIS was his best play of the game though…..

6 Comments   |  tags: | posted in Sports

January 24, 2011

Angels $$ in the Outfield

By chappy81

Arte better not expect the second coming of Vlad with Vernon....

Did Arte Moreno ever really buy the Angels from the Disney Corporation? Are the Angels are spending all their money on outfielders in an attempt to bring back the classicly bad movie Angels in the Outfield? At the time the movie came out it was laughable that the Angels would ever win a pennant, and after a head scratching offseason it seems just as laughable right now spending more on their 30+ year old outfield than the movie grossed at the box office. Moreno is making Al Davis look sane these days.

You may or may not have heard they traded for Vernon Wells giving up Juan Rivera and Mike Napoli to the Blue Jays. Wells is a slight upgrade over Rivera, but not a $15M upgrade. Wells had a pretty good season last year, but if you look at his career numbers you will see he has one pretty good year, then a bad one, and the worst part about him is he has continually declined from his career highs he set in 04-06. I’m not saying he’ll be terrible this year, but he will never live up to his contract. Rivera was supposed to make $5M this upcoming season, while Wells is due to make $23M in 2011 with three more years of $21M left on his contract. Both Rivera and Wells are 32 years old, and without PED’s we know that their production will dwindle as time rolls along, unless some crazy undetectable strengthening drug comes along.

The Angels struck out on landing Carl Crawford, and decide to trade for a guy that the Blue Jays have been trying to get rid of for years!?! I even put him on my list of worst contracts in the MLB back in August of 2009. This move makes no sense at all, especially when the reason for them not wanting to sign Crawford was that he wanted too many years. He wanted seven, and that would’ve put him at 35 years old when his contract ran out, coincidentally that is the same age that Wells will be when his contract is done. I’ve got nothing against Vernon, but in two years which player would you rather have? Not a tough choice there right?

With their current outfield alignment, they weren’t especially bad out there, nor were they all that good, but having this be their major upgrade of the offseason seems like a joke. They are still paying for the final year of Gary Matthews Jr.’s ridiculous contract ($11.5M this year), and he’s not even playing anymore. They are spending $63M on the outfield including Matthews Jr. Yup, $63M is not a typo for (Matthews Jr, Wells, Hunter, and Abreu). That’s more than the A’s entire payroll, ok, maybe that was an exaggeration, but it’s close, and they still don’t look like a great team. I know Vernon won’t be labeled as the most overpaid fourth outfielder like Matthews Jr. was, but he could be in four years during the final year of his contract! Was it Torii Hunter’s contract working out that made them pull the trigger? I’ll be the first to admit that I thought Hunter was overpaid when they signed him, but this seems like a twice as risky scenario, since Wells hasn’t had an all-star worthy season since 2006, and Torii is known for his hard work ethic, not the same with Wells. Why wouldn’t they put in a better offer for Beltre since he obviously would’ve come to LA if the price was right since all Boras clients ever want is the most money. It would’ve sured up their worst infield position, and they wouldn’t be stuck with quite as large of a contract. They needed an upgrade at 3B much more than in the outfield. Whatever their reasons, I’m glad they are going to stick with Brandon the .200 hitter Wood at third base, and even happier they have Vernon for the next four years keeping a lot of salary tied up. Just so you know Brandon Wood makes the A’s Kevin Kouzmanoff look like a shoe in All-Star.

17 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

January 23, 2011

USF, Gonzaga Pass On The Escalator

By mceezy

One’s going up, while the other’s going down. I’ll try not to be my usual pessimistic self and talk about how the Gonzaga hoops dynasty is ending before our eyes. For one thing, I just that very thing last weekend with the Patriots. Also, Yahoo’s got that very post on their front page. I will mention that Gonzaga has won the West Coast Conference every year since I first stepped foot on the USF campus. The last time they didn’t win the conference, I didn’t even know the WCC existed. From Casey Calvary to Blake Stepp, Dan Dickau to Adam Morrison, Ronny Turiaf to Jeremy Pargo, the Zags haven’t been anything less than the best for the last ten years. They even became the poster child for mid-major Cinderellas for the entire decade. They were essentially the Boise State of basketball. This year, they entered conference play with an impressive, though not breathtaking, 13-5 record. Gonzaga is know for its “play anyone, anywhere” mentality, so it wasn’t much cause for concern since their losses came against San Diego State, Kansas State, Illinois, Washington State, and Notre Dame. However, this weekend was pretty much the beginning of the end for the Zags. They lost back to back games in the Bay Area at Santa Clara Thursday night, and then Saturday night on the Hilltop in San Francisco.

here’s a highlight reel that would have you believe USF won 96-3…..

Enough about Gonzaga, the real news here is the apparent resurgence of the University of San Francisco’s basketball program. With this weekend’s 96-91 overtime win over the Zags, USF has moved into sole possession of 2nd place in the WCC, donning a 4-1 record for the first time since 1982. You won’t see them in the Top 25 rankings anytime soon though. They were 6-9 at the conclusion of their nonconference schedule. Besides hanging tough against undefeated San Diego State in Las Vegas (62-56), the Dons had looked pretty listless in losses to San Jose State, Montana State, Loyola-Illinois, CSU Bakersfield, Louisville, Washington, IUPUI, and Colorado State. It did make for the 11th toughest schedule in the nation, and needless to say that ranking  is going up now that WCC play is underway. With a win Thursday night in Los Angeles against Loyola Marymount, and a Gonzaga win over St. Mary’s in Spokane, the Dons could find themselves sitting in first place, tied with the rival Gaels from across the Bay. Regardless of whether or not that happens, I’m definitely not predicting a conference championship for USF here. What I’m saying is they look well on their way to challenging for it again. Not only is their only one senior on the roster – center Moustapha Diarra is solid, but hardly a key cog – arguably their three best players are two sophomores and a freshman.

It’s always fun to see a hated dynasty fall, but down the road, it’s also fun to see them come back. It was great watching the Lakers, Cowboys, or Yankees fall from the top spot, but sports are just that much more fun when teams like that are good. It’s clear most people have long-forgotten the 1950s when Bill Russell and KC Jones were leading USF to back to back NCAA Championships. College basketball sure would be a lot more fun for me if they were good again. Something tells me we’ve still got a St. Mary’s dynasty to endure first though.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Sports

January 22, 2011

Doin Championship Lines

By chappy81

This football season sure has flow by. Maybe it’s because the Raiders were relevant for so long I kind of forgot what it meant to care about the regular season. I ended the year making good picks with three straight winning weeks, as soon as the playoffs started, I went down faster than a Charlie Sheen threesome culminating with last weeks 0-4 performance. What does this tell me about making picks in the playoffs, don’t listen to any of the hype. Pick the opposite of your instincts, and you’ll be okay. Maybe that’s not the best strategy, but I have to change it up since nothing I’ve done the first two weeks is working.

.500 in the playoffs, I’ll take it.  The bonus here is I successfully picked the biggest upsets in the playoffs thus far, Seattle over New Orleans and the Jets over the Pats, so I’m some what satisfied with my overall performance in terms of picking winners this post season.  Only problem is, I have no winnings to show for it.  Maybe I should stick to two spot parlays over four.  Well, there’s only two games this weekend …

Green Bay (-3.5) @ Chicago

Chappy picks Chicago (+3.5). I really don’t want to pick Chicago, and would much rather see Aaron Rodgers make his first Super Bowl appearance, but it’s opposite day with the picks, so I guess I’m rolling with Obama’s favorite team. In two games during the regular season the Bears held Rodgers to 27 total points. This looks like a different QB than the last time they played though as he tore through Philly and Atlanta, but I’m confident the Bears D can stifle him enough to keep the score close. The Bears are a much better defensive unit than those first two teams Rodgers faced. Even though the lowly Seahawks put up 24 points on the Beard D, that game wasn’t as close as it looked in the final score. I’m far from a Cutler fan, but his season has been pretty good, and whether I like to admit it or not, he is a franchise QB. He’s made the best from what he had, which isn’t much outside of Matt Forte on offense. He’s definitely prone to make some ill advised throws here and there, but overall Cutler has grown a lot since last year’s abysmal season. I can’t remember a home team that was the #2 seed, and won their division, and was still a dog. That point alone sold me on this pick.

I like the Packers defense and offense better than Chicago’s, but that doesn’t always win you games. I think a few turnovers, and some solid returns from Hester set the Bears up for a win. These divisional games are usually very close, so it’s impossible to not take the points.

By picks Green Bay (-3.5). Normally I’d be shocked to find that a team that barely made the playoffs (albeit through no fault of their own, 2010 Seattle Seahawks) would be the favorite on the road against a team who finished second in the conference.  But not if said team had Aaron Rodgers as their QB.  I was high on Atlanta all season, and despite the fact that they weren’t the Pittsburgh Steelers on defense, the Falcons still did enough to hold off opponents for wins.  But Aaron Rodgers absolutely destroyed them.  He’s been picking apart most of the defenses he’s seen for a minute now, and is easily the hottest QB heading into the conference championships.  Combine that with the opportunistic defense of Green Bay, and the Packers have a winning combination.  If “loosey goosey” Jay Cutler rears his ugly head at all this weekend, the Pack will get a few picks and send the Bears into hibernation.

NY Jets @ Pittsburgh (-3.5)

Chappy picks NY Jets (+3.5). Should we start calling him the Sanchize again? He’s already graduated from my nickname earlier in the year the SanCheckdown. I may have fallen prey to the media surrounding Sanchez, because he never can do enough to get love from the writers, me being one of them. He has had a good year, but this weekend against the league’s best rush defense he is going to have to step up. I don’t see him going for over 300 yards or anything, but his ability to pick up third downs will be the difference in the game. We know the Jets will run whether they gain yards or not, so it’s going to be up to Sanchez to find ways to convert those third and longs. I think the Steelers will win, but since it’s opposite day I have to stick with the Jets. Plus, I don’t really like that everyone calls the Steelers Americas team. It’s better than Dallas being called Americas team, but nobody outside of the Saints last year should have that label, because is America really rooting for the Steelers? Laughable if you ask me…

By picks N.Y. Jets (+3.5). As much as I think Alex Smith could easily be Mark Sanchez if it were he riding the coat tails of that tremendous Jets’ defense, I must admit, that scoring drive to answer New England’s, culminating in a beautiful touchdown grab by Santonio Holmes was quite impressive.  Impressive considering what was at stake.  If they don’t score, I truly believe New England’s momentum carries them to a come back victory.  But Sanchez nipped that in the bud.  The Steelers are a wholenother monster.  Sanchez will not perform so eloquently against the best defense in the business.  But he won’t have to.  I think Sanchez has developed a comfort level in being the game manager/clutch timely passing QB.  His 4-1 playoff record would back that statement up.  As good as a defense is, you need someone who can make the plays when it counts on offense.  If Sanchez could be the equivalent to the 2000 Trent Dilfer, then by all means Jets fans, take it.  I think he’s almost there.  When everything’s said and done, I believe the Steelers are by far the better team.  But if I have to go with my gut instinct, I think the Jets pull this out.

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January 20, 2011

Seriously, What Is This Move Called?

By mceezy

We’ve all seen it. Any time someone in any sport does anything good, he and his teammates resort to this move. I don’t know what it’s called, do you? I’d like to call an official Doin Work “Name That Move” poll. I’ve nailed this playing shuffleboard, but we need a name for it. Help us out…..

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports