Basketball
drorzel | February 10, 2011Last night was Syracuse versus Georgetown in basketball, which is THE great historical rivalry in the Big East-- these are the teams that made the league great in the 80's, and while the Hoyas had a down stretch in the late 90's/ early 2000's, they're good again, so it's a huge game. Because of that, even though I'm usually the one to put SteelyKid to bed at night, Kate took her so I could watch the game.
So, of course, Syracuse lost. In the most annoying fashion possible, too: they had a small but consistent 4-6 point lead for a big chunk of the second half, and then right after SteelyKid…
drorzel | February 1, 2011the Wall Street Journal, of all places, has a profile of college basketball analyst Bill Raftery and how he prepares to call games. This would be nothing more than Links Dump material, save for the fact that bits of it appear to have been written for the benefit of visiting aliens who have never seen televised basketball before:
Over the years, the exercise evolved into the intricate system he uses today. On the far left side of the page, Mr. Raftery writes down each player's name and number. Next are the player's habits and tendencies, as few as three or as many as seven. This season's…
drorzel | January 7, 2011Barack Obama will be visiting Schenectady next Tuesday, and local notables are suggesting things he might do. Particularly notable was this:
Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, a basketball enthusiast like Obama, suggested that some hoop should be organized for the occasion.
"I'd like to challenge him to a two-on-two game .â.â. at the new YMCA in Schenectady," said Tedisco. He floated Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, or state Supreme Court Judge Barry Kramer as possible teammates.
Given that Tedisco is a Union alumnus, and was at one time a regular player in the noon hoops…
drorzel | December 9, 2010SteelyKid is off spending the weekend with her grandparents, so Kate and I went out to a nice restaurant last night (we love SteelyKid dearly, but miss eating in restaurants without a kids menu). I was kicking myself for forgetting to set the DVR to record a basketball game, though. Not the Duke or Kentucky games on ESPN, but the much more Mid-Majority friendly BYU-Vermont game up the road, on the local cable system.
Why? Because the game was being played in Glens Falls as a tribute to Jimmer Fredette, BYU's star point guard, and a local legend. Fredette started to get national attention…
drorzel | August 25, 2010New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie is getting mocked for a clip where he takes some time to name all his children (the clip isn't as bad as the description makes it sound-- he's slow, but he doesn't struggle all that badly). Cromartie claims that HBO manipulated the footage to make him look bad.
Of course, there's an easy way to avoid this kind of mess: simply give all the kids the same name, thereby reducing it to a previously solved problem.
In discussion on a mailing list where this came up, someone wondered about how many children Wilt Chamberlain would've fathered, given his…
drorzel | July 18, 2010SteelyKid has clearly inherited her father's fondness for basketball. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite understand how to play, yet. She does know that involves throwing a ball up in the air and jumping, though:
She'll get the rest of it eventually.
drorzel | April 22, 2010Most weeks, I try to find some natural-looking way to get SteelyKid and Appa in the picture together. Sometimes, though, there's just no way to get it done, and we have to resort to Kate holding Appa near her:
She's hugging her jacket because it got kind of cold this afternoon, but she's in a phase where she refuses to put her jacket on, and also refuses to go inside. Life's tough with a willful toddler.
To compensate for the lack of elegance in this week's Appa picture, here are two much better shots taken by Matt Milless of Mahi Matt Photo at last night's charity basketball game. First, a…
drorzel | March 3, 2010It's been an absurdly good hoops week at Chateau Steelypips-- Syracuse won a big one to take over the (admittedly meaningless) #1 spot in the polls, and now Maryland beat Duke in a tough game to move into a tie for the top spot in the (admittedly down) ACC. If both Duke (home to UNC) and Maryland (at UVA) win this weekend, they'll split the regular-season not-a-title. Go Tar Heels!
Kind of a weird game. It was Senior Night for Greivis Vasquez, Eric Hayes, and Landon Milbourne, which is always a risky business-- especially for a player as volatile as Vasquez. They came out all fired up, with…
drorzel | February 27, 2010They pushed the curtain back a few feet at the Carrier Dome, opening up a few more seats so they could set a new record for largest on-campus crowd to see a college basketball game for Syracuse playing Villanova for a share of the Big East regular season title. This is the sort of atmosphere where I'm used to seeing Syracuse teams really tense up and play tight, something they really couldn't afford to do against the Wildcats, so I was kind of nervous about this one. When I came downstairs from putting SteelyKid to bed, and they were down six, that seemed totally justified.
I was very…
drorzel | January 19, 2010I watched most of Syracuse's win over Notre Dame last night. Two basketball games in the same week! Luxury!
The thing that really jumps out at me about this team as opposed to last year's is that they're calm. Last year Eric Devendorf in particular, and to a lesser extent Johnny Flynn, tended to panic a little when the other team would make a run. A ten-point lead would get cut to three or four, and Devedorf would respond by chucking up a thirty-footer, which would miss, and give the opponent a chance to tie, followed by another forced shot, and so on.
This group, on the other hand, doesn't…
drorzel | January 16, 2010It's been a while since I did a basketball game recap here, mostly because it's been a while since I saw a whole game. Thanks to the DVR, I saw the whole Syracuse-West Virginia game today, in which Syracuse narrowly escaped Morgantown with a win. They had a ten point lead with two and a half minutes, but after Andy Rautins fouled out, West Virginia made a bunch of threes, and Syracuse made a bunch of minor errors, and the final score was a one-point win for the Orange.
The minute Rautins went out, I had a horrible flashback to Maryland blowing a ten-point lead to Duke in the final minute…
drorzel | January 11, 2010Depending on what you read at ScienceBlogs other than this blog, you may have noticed a New Year's fitness theme. Blame Ethan. So, now, everybody's posting workout tips and the like.
Which means, of course, that I'm obliged to post my Fitness Secrets here for free, when I could be charging money for them to build a college fund for SteelyKid. Curse you, Ethan!
So, what's my secret infallible fitness program?
Um, I don't have one. Sorry.
I've never had much luck sticking to a workout routine, mostly because I am easily bored. Mike Dunford waxes rhapsodic about swimming, but after a few laps I…
drorzel | December 8, 2009... walk into a bar. No, wait, that's not what I want...
In the interval before this morning's Mike and Mike show became the Tiger Woods Scandal Hour, they were talking about Tim Donaghy and his allegations about the NBA, which basically amount to the league being just a few steps up from the WWE. Mike Greenberg in particular kept blasting these rumors as completely outlandish because the sort of game-fixing Donaghy alleges would be blatantly illegal, and if it was exposed, people would go to jail. "These are wealthy and powerful people," he said, more or less, "You're crazy if you think they…
drorzel | November 20, 2009Kate and I went to the two games of the "semifinals" of the 2K Sports Classic Supporting Coaches vs. Cancer, Your Name Here for a Prince pre-season "tournament" last night (the scare quotes are because the four teams playing last night were guaranteed to be playing last night, regardless of what happened in the earlier "rounds"). We were in section 329 of Madison Square Garden, which aren't great seats in an absolute sense, but are pretty darn good for a game-day impulse buy. Not that there was any trouble getting seats-- the lower levels were maybe 3/4 full.
The first game saw Syracuse beat…
drorzel | November 19, 2009It's not often that I regret having a cell phone that is just a phone, but this is one of those occasions-- I stopped by my publisher today to talk about marketing and publicity, and record a video for the web, and got a stack of finished copies of the book, hot off the presses. If I had a cell phone camera, I'd post a picture, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for a plain-text "Woo-hoo!"
On an only vaguely related note, our cultural activities in NYC will include some college hoops, as there's a preseason "tournament" taking place at Madison Square garden tonight. Syracuse vs. Cal, and…
drorzel | November 10, 2009Syracuse head basketball coach Jim Boeheim won his 800th game last night. Fittingly, it was a thirty-point win over an overmatched New York school.
Since winning the NCAA tournament in 2003, Boeheim has finally started to get some respect in the college basketball world. Before that, he was regarded as a choker who couldn't win the big games. Which is a little unfair, but that's the coaching business for you. And, of course, everybody regards that 2-3 zone as a bit of a gimmick defense, despite the fact that they consistently win with it. With a title under his belt, though, all of a sudden…
drorzel | November 6, 2009"It's a question of character, of friendship. Hell, Leo, I ain't afraid to say it, it's a question of ethics." --Giovanni Gaspari
I'm back to lunchtime hoops after a two-week layoff due to teaching responsibilities. And this has reminded me of one of the great character tests that sports provide. Imagine that you're playing basketball, but are too tired to keep running with the fast break in both directions. You can't quit without pissing everybody off, though, and there's no-one you can have sub in for you. What do you do?
What do you do when you're too tired to run the floor in a basketball…
drorzel | November 3, 2009Over at the Mid-Majority, Kyle Whelliston (formerly of espn.com) has a great essay on the "Sportz" phenomenon:
Sports are great. Actual participation is awesome, but watching other people do sports can still be pretty good too. These days, people can watch sports anytime, anywhere and in whatever state of undress they choose. These are truly the days of miracles and wonders! All thanks to the Sports-Industrial Complex, which brought you mantertainment, lite beer and the Sports Bubble.
When sports became industrialized in the latter part of the 20th Century, the S.I.C. became the conduit…
drorzel | October 30, 2009It's fall, which means that the major American sports are all ramping up (baseball is in its brief period of being interesting, the NFL is nearing the middle of its season, the NBA has just gotten underway, which means that real basketball will start soon). This also means that the major advertisers have rolled out the commercial that will be annoying the hell out of everybody for the next several months.
Sports are really the only place that I see commercials-- I tend to watch sporting events live, but use the DVR to time-shift other programming, allowing me to fast-forward through the ads.…
drorzel | September 4, 2009Summer is drawing to a close, which means we're finally starting to get some actual sports to talk about, after a long, dull stretch of nothing but baseball. So I've started listening to "Mike and Mike" again in the mornings in my office. Which may have been a mistake because I've just had to listen to Mel freakin' Kiper talking about the draft prospects of college players who have yet to play a game this year, and they've rather omninously promised a fantasy NFL update coming up later.
These are both pretty dire portents of the immediate future, and I think they're connected. The unhealthy…