Sports
drorzel | April 24, 2006In a previous post, I dissed the NBA as being a haven for ugly pseudo-basketball. It does serve a purpose, though, as a sort of methadone program to ease the way down from the hoops-jukie high of March to the Great Sports Desert between the end of the NBA and the start of the NFL.
As I was feeling generally cruddy yesterday (side effects of some medication, I think, and we're going to be getting that dosage tweaked just as soon as the doctor's office opens), I wound up watching a little of the NBA playoffs, specifically, the Indiana Pacers playing the New Jersey Nets. Now, granted, these are…
stcynic | April 10, 2006And I don't mean the rape controversy on campus, I mean the basketball team for next year. They're already losing JJ Redick, Shelden Williams, Lee Melchionni and Sean Dockery to graduation, but now they're likely going to lose the only two big men they had returning next year. Eric Boateng, a freshman big man who would have seen a lot of minutes next year, has announced that he's transferring, and it looks virtually certain that Josh McRoberts is going to declare for the NBA draft. Ouch.
That means they'll have no one over 6'7 coming back next season, with only one big man coming in with the…
oracknows | April 9, 2006Unbelievable.
Contrary to my predictions last week, somehow the Detroit Tigers have managed to remain undefeated through the first week of the baseball season. They're 5-0. Just as enjoyable, the Cleveland Indians are right behind them, with a 4-1 record.
But that's not the best thing.
No, the best thing is that the dreaded New York Yankees are in last place as of this writing. They're 1-4.
I love it.
Yes, I know it probably can't last (with the possible exception of the Indians remaining in contention for winning the A.L. Central Division) and that the first 5 games or so of a 162 game…
stcynic | April 4, 2006As the resident college basketball nut, I suppose I should comment on Florida's national championship victory. This was only the second time ever that a team had gone from unranked to start the season to a national championship (Villanova in 1985 was the other). No one expected this team to be this good. They only got one vote in the preseason rankings, from Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, and came in 38th in that poll. They lost four of their five starters from last year, including David Lee (drafted by the Knicks) and the two idiots who left school early thinking they would get drafted and didn't…
evolgen | April 3, 2006Following my Sweet 16 optimism, my bracket was blown to shit. I am currently sitting in fourth place in the ScienceBlogs pool, but I last earned points when UCLA made it to the Final Four. Teutonic Thunder (whomever that may be) has won the pool regardless of who wins tonight (we think). He or she can step forward and claim the prize of absolutely nothing. As for the title to this post, see below the fold.
Why would I title my post "UCLA Wins the National Championship"? Let's just say it has something to do with this email I received from Amazon:
And, yeah, I would love to see UCLA get…
oracknows | April 2, 2006Opening day at last!
The 2006 baseball season starts this weekend. One thing that I can predict with a high degree of certainty is that, sadly, my old hometown team the Detroit Tigers will continue to suck, getting deeper into their second decade of futility as measured by sub-.500 records. In contrast, my other favorite team, the Cleveland Indians (which I came to root for during the eight years I lived in Cleveland), look strong. Given that they gave the Chicago White Sox a scare in the last couple of months of the season, almost catching them from a huge deficit before falling just short…
stcynic | March 31, 2006As we head into final four weekend, they're starting to hand out the end of season awards. The US Basketball Writer's Association split their player of the year award between JJ Redick and Adam Morrison, while the AP gave it to Redick, with Morrison finishing second. I suspect the Naismith and Wooden awards may split as well, and that would be appropriate. They were clearly the two best players throughout the year and they both deserve it.
The AP named Roy Williams Coach ot the Year and that is well deserved as well. No one imagined that after losing their top 7 scorers, Carolina would…
stcynic | March 30, 2006Ken Brown, who has been commenting here lately, has a post at the Crux Magazine blog that compares Adam Morrison to Che Guevera. And I gotta say, the resemblance is pretty close. But would Che have cried at the end of the UCLA game? Fear the Stache!
stcynic | March 28, 2006For the guys at In The Agora, ESPN is announcing that Kelvin Sampson of Oklahoma has been hired to replace Mike Davis as basketball coach at Indiana. This is a surprising choice, I really thought they'd hire Randy Wittman and keep it in the family. But it's a good choice. Sampson is a very good recruiter and a very good coach. He's won over 70% of his games at Oklahoma and led them to the final four once. His teams play tough, hard-nosed defensive basketball so that should translate well to the Big Ten. All in all, a pretty good choice I think.
stcynic | March 27, 2006Despite the fact that my two favorite teams, Duke and Michigan State, were knocked out earlier than expected, this has been an incredible NCAA tournament so far. How many classic games and amazing finishes could you possibly ask for? UCLA's comeback over Gonzaga was stunning. Texas' buzzer beater win over West Virginia had you on the edge of your seat. UConn's victory over Washington was almost heartbreaking because the Washington kids played so hard and came so close. But George Mason in the Final Four? Astonishing. Amazing. Unprecedented. And a hell of a lot of fun to watch. I'm rooting for…
stcynic | March 24, 2006Well, my Dukies are out of the NCAA tournament. I don't think anyone should be too surprised by that. Coach K has said all year that this is not a great team, it's just a good team. They relied too much on outside shooting and didn't have anyone who could play small forward either offensively or defensively. They had two great players in Redick and Williams and two future greats in Paulus and McRoberts (if he doesn't go pro this summer, which is a real possibility). But it was never a dominant team despite being ranked #1almost all season. They could easily have lost 4 or 5 more games, which…
drorzel | March 21, 2006Kevin at No Se Nada has a post up about Nobel laureate Carl Wieman leaving Colorado, and how it relates to the role of college athletics at an educational institution. (Check his comments for a special bonus Carl Wieman anecdote.)
Probably coincidentally, Timothy Burke at Swarthmore also has a post today about the role of college athletics. Burke is my go-to guy for deep thoughts on the mission of academia, particularly in the small college context, and this piece is typically excellent:
I noted that it's fairly odd in a way that so much fervor gets put into the debate over whether the…
evolgen | March 20, 2006Japan has jumped out to an early lead over Cuba in the World Baseball Classic championship game. Why do I mention this? Not only have Japanese researchers made great contributions to evolutionary genetics, but the emperor of Japan has actually actively studied evolutionary biology. Also, the Japanese left fielder, Hitoshi Tamura, happens to share his name with the fairly prominent scientist, Koichiro Tamura. Every time I hear them refer to Tamura, I think about the Tamura-Nei distance correction.
evolgen | March 20, 2006
Rounds one and two are over, and the rubble has settled. The fakers have been exposed, and the Cinderfellas have emerged. So, how good are the ScienceBloggers at picking college basketball games? Kevin Vranes (I think) is currently sitting in first place, but two of his final four teams (Kansas and North Carolina) have already been knocked out. I'm in a tie for third with Ed Brayton (I think) and two other folks whose identity I cannot discern. I managed to get 11 of the 16 teams remaining correct and all of my final four teams (Duke, UCLA, UConn, and Boston College) are still alive,…
stcynic | March 18, 2006I picked 23 out of 32 first round games correctly. Not terrible, I suppose, but I lost a couple of teams I had going pretty deep. In fact, I've lost 3 of my final 8 teams (Iowa, Kansas and MIchigan State), but thankfully none of my final four. So it's a mixed bag for me. And of course, I've lost one of my two favorite teams in Michigan State, which has had an incredibly disappointing year. They started the year ranked in the top 5, expected by virtually everyone to win the Big Ten and make a run at the final four. Instead they finished 6th in the Big Ten and got knocked out in the first round…
stcynic | March 13, 2006The NCAA tournament is finally here and I'm excited. Duke got the overall #1 seed, but I don't think they're the favorite to win it all. UConn is clearly the best, deepest and most talented team and I think they have to play down a bit for anyone else to beat them, including Duke. Frankly, I think Duke is very vulnerable to an upset this year. Neutralize Redick and you can beat them. Here are my thoughts on the brackets.
Atlanta Region: Duke is the #1 seed. Texas is a tough #2 seed and forget the fact that Duke beat Texas by 31 in December. This is not the same Texas team, they're much…
evolgen | March 12, 2006Dave Munger of Cognitive Daily has started an NCAA tournament pool for the ScienceBlogs community. If all of those links were confusing, go here to get the details. If you have no idea what the NCAA basketball tournament is, you should definitely participate -- in these types of things, the less you know, the better you do.
stcynic | March 8, 2006The only thing funnier than the Sports Guy may be the Sports Guy's readers, who have chipped in with a load of amusing questions in his latest mailbag. I love the way they draw connections between different aspects of popular culture with such accuracy. To wit, these two entries about Isiah Thomas:
As a Knicks fan, I'm dying here. The best parallel I can make with Isiah Thomas' tenure as GM is with Michael Jackson's nose. The more they try to correct the previous mistake, the worse it keeps getting.
-- Kevin, Brick, N.J.
and
With the Francis trade, has Isiah stolen the "laughably oblivious to…
evolgen | March 7, 2006I have been working from home today (mostly grading papers) and watching the World Baseball Classic. This is the first time I've been able to watch a complete game -- the previous games were in Tokyo, which meant they were shown live in the middle of the night. (Note to NBC, you can show sporting events in another time zone live.) Today's game between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic has the energy of a late season game between two teams in the middle of a pennant race. The Venezuelan team is staying with the favored Dominicans. I also plan to watch the USA-Mexico game, and I wanted…
stcynic | February 28, 2006Woody Paige of ESPN is reporting that Thomas has been summoned to Texas to meet with James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks, and that he is going to be fired in the next couple days. Whether it happens now or later, it's inevitable. A good case can be made that this is the worst example of running a team in the history of sports, not just the NBA. You have one of the marquee teams in the league, with the most famous arena in perhaps all of sports, one of the best coaches in the history of the game, a payroll more than double the salary cap and the team still has fewer wins than any other team.…