Friday, March 24, 2006
Basketball
Here's my Elite 8 bracket picks for the NCAAW. Not very creative. Ohio State & my one "Cinderella" pick Florida State are gone. There's less "parity" in the women's game because there's no NBA forcing coaches to put together two year programs, leaving mid-major schools to develop smooth machines of junior & senior veterans. I'll be delighted if Rutgers advances.
North Carolina
Tennesee*
Ohio State
Baylor*
Duke
UConn*
LSU*
Florida State
In the men's NCAA, I think I've seen more bad, rushed shot attempts this year than ever before, plain dumb run down the court & heave the ball tosses that would send a high school coach into a rage. So it's been a joy to watch Kevin Pittsnogle of WVU. If he doesn't have a great game, it's not because he's playing stupid. & last night he was part of one the best up/down final 5 seconds ever. The Gonzaga collapse was also a wonder to behold. Not that I was surprised they lost. Just how they lost. & wasn't it Jerry Izenberg of Newark Star-Ledger who just a week or so ago was saying the Seton Hall basketball program was in better shape than Rutgers? I mean men's programs. Now Louis Orr is gone. Jerry doesn't like the girlie teams because he can't write something like that they"re "sturdy sons of blue-collar fathers who carried lunchboxes to grimy factories in Paterson & Camden so the next generation could carry their dreams to the great arena where TV cameras record the feats of working class gladiators. " Well, of course he could, & I think Jerry even tried a few times. But he prefers twisting similes & stretching metaphors around an event like the Kentucky Derby, where a glass of mint julip might remind him of, oh, a stagnant pool of algae-coated water next to the Turnpike on sunny May afternoon. Still, I imagine the guy sitting in a press box tapping out copy-to-go on an old manual Smith-Corona, with cigar in his mouth & bottle of bourbon under the chair.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
North Carolina
Duke
LSU*
In the men's NCAA, I think I've seen more bad, rushed shot attempts this year than ever before, plain dumb run down the court & heave the ball tosses that would send a high school coach into a rage. So it's been a joy to watch Kevin Pittsnogle of WVU. If he doesn't have a great game, it's not because he's playing stupid. & last night he was part of one the best up/down final 5 seconds ever. The Gonzaga collapse was also a wonder to behold. Not that I was surprised they lost. Just how they lost. & wasn't it Jerry Izenberg of Newark Star-Ledger who just a week or so ago was saying the Seton Hall basketball program was in better shape than Rutgers? I mean men's programs. Now Louis Orr is gone. Jerry doesn't like the girlie teams because he can't write something like that they"re "sturdy sons of blue-collar fathers who carried lunchboxes to grimy factories in Paterson & Camden so the next generation could carry their dreams to the great arena where TV cameras record the feats of working class gladiators. " Well, of course he could, & I think Jerry even tried a few times. But he prefers twisting similes & stretching metaphors around an event like the Kentucky Derby, where a glass of mint julip might remind him of, oh, a stagnant pool of algae-coated water next to the Turnpike on sunny May afternoon. Still, I imagine the guy sitting in a press box tapping out copy-to-go on an old manual Smith-Corona, with cigar in his mouth & bottle of bourbon under the chair.
