Starting Five

Steakateria double today. This will be as brief as my Calvin Klein undies (TMI!)

1. Streak Ends at 27 Miami loses at Chicago, and thus endeth the second-longest win streak in NBA history. Former Dookies Luol Deng and Carlos Boozer scored 28 and 21, respectively. Somewhere, just out of habit, Mercury Morris popped open a bottle of Dom.

2. Life keeps getting better for Oscar Pistorius, whose bail has been eased. He may now compete internationally in track meets while awaiting trial. A moment now as we update the status of Reeva Steenkamp… oh, yes, still dead. If I’m the starter at Oscar’s next race, I’m firing the pistol four times.

3. From the “Print is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet” files: The Sporting News is laying off at least a dozen writers and editors, including my old AOL Fanhouse colleagues Lisa Olson and David Whitley. The analogy of polar bears looking for an iceberg on which to rest while treading water in a steadily warming polar region applies here.

“So I won’t be covering the Final Four this year?”

4. You know, on second thought, give me a home where the buffalo don’t roam…

5. Rick Reilly to Aaron Craft: “Could you see how some people might find you annoying, not just in basketball but in real life?” Craft to teammate: “I think he’s asking you, Deshaun.” Sportswriters, do the following: 1) Pull out old “Bobby Hurley” feature. Step 2: Insert “Aaron Craft” wherever you see “Bobby Hurley”. Step 3: Press “Send”.

REMOTE PATROL

East Regional semifinal, Syracuse vs. Indiana

CBS 9:45 p.m.

Let’s replay the 1987 national championship game! The Orange beat a No. 1 ranked team back in January, when they edged Louisville by two at the Yum Center. Tonight they’ll take on Cody Zeller and top-ranked Hoosiers in the Sweet Sixteen.

Starting Five

1. “You heard me, rabbit! I said, ‘Draw!'”

So I wanted to tell you about the 0-0 draw between USA and Mexico in the World Cup qualifier last night (this is apparently important stuff on a night when the Heat don’t play and Amanda Marcum’s husband is not coaching), and I was looking for a pop culture reference. Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”? Too violent, but you know, the USA does cross into Mexico and wreak havoc, so the analogy rang somewhat true. Then I thought I recalled Yosemite Sam (“The toughest hombre to cross the Rio Grande…and I don’t mean Mahatma Ghandi”) barking the line atop this item — but I was unable to locate it.

So, yes, the USA picked up an important draw at Azteca Stadium

However, I did unearth this 91-second clip that reminds me all over again of the genius of Mel Blanc. We were five year-old kids watching this stuff, most of the jokes flying way over our heads, but who cares? Eventually, we got them. There’s no Smurf/Care Bear/Spongebob inanity going on here. Everything from bad puns (“Sue City”) to gin rummy. If I ever have children, they will be fed a steady diet of Bugs Bunny and we’ll refer to each other as “you darn  galoot.”

2. Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna. Delaware hoops: Delle Donne.

In her final home game as a Blue Hen, Elena Delle Donne (no relation to Roseanne Rosanadana) scores 33 points to lead Delaware to an upset of North Carolina and a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. The 6-6 senior eclipsed the 3,000-point mark and is now just one victory away from an Elite Eight showdown versus Geno Auriemma and the Huskies. It’ll take an upset of Kentucky to do so –and maybe some more referee support; as Tar Heel coach Sylvia Hatchell said after last night’s game in Newark, Del., “I wish Delaware good luck when they get on a neutral court”… oooh, suh-nap!)

Other Blue Hens of note include Joe Flacco and Jeff Pearlman

ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo, erstwhile sunny-faced post player who also led a then-nowhere program to the Sweet Sixteen (and beyond) back in 1995, tweeted this after last night’s game: “Can’t remember the last time I enjoyed seeing someone play as much as Delle Donne. The best part: She acts like she’s been there before.”

In other words, she would have made a perfect Husky (by the way, B., I can remember the last time: her name is Diana Taurasi).

Kind of a shame that it’ll take a near-miracle (newphemism alert: a “nearacle“) to see Delle Donne go up against Brittney Griner (who also scored 33 points last night0. And even more of a shame that this never happened.

3. The Coach K tree is growing more branches. Former point guard –and arguably the best leader Mike Krzyzewski ever coached — Bobby Hurley accepts the head coaching job at Buffalo while another former guard, Chris Collins, has agreed to terms with Northwestern… a school that has never ONCE been to the NCAA tournament, even though the first NCAA championship game was played on its Evanston campus. Meanwhile, Jay Bilas is THE keeper of the flame of college hoops at ESPN. So where the hell is Christian Laettner these days?

Meet Teddy Greenstein’s new best friend.

Turns out that he runs the Christian Laettner Basketball Academy, which as you can see, offers discounts to players from Kentucky, Connecticut and North Carolina “for causing you all so much pain, agony and hate over his four-year career at Duke.”

4. He’s taking the black. Chase Hilgenbrinck, who played soccer at Clemson and then professionally in both Chile and then the MLS, is a 5th-year seminarian. If only he weren’t so homely looking, maybe Chase would have found a girlfriend.

Carmela Soprano has already requested he be assigned to her parish. As the girls would say, “Fr. Whatawaste.”

5. One of my very favorite people at the steakateria (and the list keeps growing) is a hyperkinetic actor named Dan who, besides looking like the lead singer of a rock band and having more manic energy than anyone I’ve ever met, is absolutely obsessed with baseball. So Dan has implored me to mention one Yasiel Puig, a 22 year-old Cuban outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers who batted .526 in the Cactus League this spring with an .842 slugging percentage. Yesterday the Dodgers sent Puig down to their double-A affiliate, with manager Don Mattingly noting that Puig “didn’t look happy” about the news. Mattingly calls Puig “an unpainted Ferrari.” In a year or so Puig will own a few of those.

When Yasiel makes the Show, the bleachers in the outfield behind him will be known as The Puig Sty

Reserves

Wide receivers Davonte Neal and Justin Ferguson are transferring from Notre Dame. And just when Bookstore Basketball is starting up. If you’re going to transfer from Notre Dame, fine. If you’re going to endure January, February and March in South Bend only to depart when the weather is finally improving and the coeds are only wearing one layer of sweatpants to class, I question your sanity. It has been noted that with the departures of Aaron Lynch, Gunner Kiel and now Neal, the Irish have lost the top three players from their 2012 recruiting class. Lynch and Neal left for (mostly) hometown honey-related reasons (i.e., fatherhood), why Kiel wanted to be someplace where he could start.

Neal in the national championship game.

As noted here before, the Washington Wizards are one of the best, if not the best, bad teams in NBA history. The Wizards are 26-44, but when oft-injured John Wall, who scored a career-high 47 points in Monday night’s defeat of Memphis, is in the lineup they are 21-16. From 4-28 on January 6 after losing by 28 to the Heat, they have gone 22-16.

This is a squad that has now beaten Memphis, Oklahoma City (whom it visits tonight), Miami, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Milwaukee, both New York teams, both Los Angeles teams, and Denver (twice).  In other words, the Wizards have beaten seven of the eight playoff-bound teams in the East and six of the eight playoff-bound teams (as of today) in the West.

They’ve also lost to Charlotte. Twice.

Still, Randy Wittman is correct: They’re no circus.

John Wall (the “ters” is silent)

Here are the standings for both conferences. Washington has beaten every team that is bold-faced.

EAST

Miami

New York

Indiana

Brooklyn

Chicago

Atlanta

Boston

Milwaukee

WEST

San Antonio

Oklahoma City

Denver

LAC

Memphis

Golden State

Houston

LAL

Remote Patrol

Miami Heat at Chicago Bulls

ESPN 8 p.m.

Wouldn’t it be just like 5-7 Nate Robinson to ruin the anticipation of the Easter Sunday showdown between the Heat and San Antonio Spurs? Miami has this bad habit of falling behind in the first half on the road recently, but against teams such as Orlando and Cleveland, it has not cost them. Tonight, versus Chicago, such a flawed first half might be more costly.

Will Nate flex versus the Heat?

XXX

Starting Five

1. The Gift of the Magi(c) The Heat’s first stop on its four-game road trip is a puddle Lake Okeechobee-jumper upstate to Orlando, who own the league’s second-worst record. Miami went on a 20-2 run late in the third and coasted to its 27th straight win, 108-94 . Of course, this was the second-most important game between two Florida-based teams this week (FGCU vs. UF in NCAAs later on). Meanwhile in New Orleans, Denver’s 15-game win streak was truncated by Brian Roberts (WHO???) and the New Orleans Not-Yet-Pelicans. Roberts, a rookie from Dayton making his second start, had 18 assists as the NONYP Gulf-coasted, 110-86.

Life of Ti

2. He’s baaaaaaaaaaack. Tiger Woods wins the Arnold Palmer Invitational (our invitation never arrived, either) and more importantly, returns to his rightful No. 1 ranking for the first time since October, 2010 (you know what happened the following month). Tiger went some 2 1/2 years without a victory. He has now won six times in his past 20 starts and three times in 2013. It’s actually going to be a surprise if he does not win at Augusta next month.

3. Hey, JW, is there any connection between Florida Gulf Coast basketball and Notre Dame? Why, as a matter of fact there is. The NCAAs may be the Big Dance, but the world’s largest annual outdoor basketball tournament, Bookstore Basketball, is just commencing in South Bend. More than 600 teams participate. Last year’s champion, Hoops We Did It Again, was led by Beau Bauer, a Notre Dame athletic department employee who also happens to be a former captain of the FGCU basketball squad. Bauer hit the game-winning/tourney-winning shot in a driving rain storm (big thanks to @SIDandtheScribe for this info).

Beau Bauer

Bookstore Basketball buckets (of rain)

4. In sportswriter transaction news, Will Leitch announces that he is leaving New York magazine to join Sports on Earth, the USA Today site. So SoE loses Joe Posnanski, picks up Leitch (and a copy editor to be named later). In related news, and I am not making this up, Will’s old pal Buzz Bissinger announces that he is a…shopaholic. Term I want to use more often: shopaholism. (I think all three of these men suffer from an advanced case of megalomania, but that’s another item for another day).

You can’t go any further from anti-establishment (Deadspin) to establishment than to join “the Nation’s newspaper.”

5. Don’t look now, but it appears as if Geno Auriemma may have gotten the message through to his Huskies after they lost the Big East Championship game to Notre Dame earlier this month. UConn, playing the first two games of the Women’s NCAA Tournament on campus, won by margins of 68 (Idaho) and 33 (Vanderbilt) points. Now Geno’s Traveling Show must trek a full 78 miles southwest to Bridgeport for rounds 3 and 4. A potential Elite Eight matchup would pit UConn against Delaware and former Husky recruit Elena Delle Donne, a six-foot-five senior who is second in the nation in scoring (25.5 points per game). For those of us who are actually interested in women’s hoops, this is the matchup we’re dying to see. Delle Donne has never played UConn.

You can be sure that Geno is Delle-aware

Reserves

In music and physical science news, My Chemical Romance is breaking up dissolving. The solvent? It would seem that lead singer Gerard Way, as this letter attests, had an epiphany while performing in Asbury Park, N.J., last May. So, despite what their most popular tune promises, MCR will not in fact “carry on.”

In replay news, Costa Rica demands a do-over with USA in soccer and Italian prosecutors want to retry Amanda Knox for murder. Double jeopardy is not a principle of the Italian criminal justice system. Extraditing Knox from Seattle to Italy may prove difficult.

Remand Amanda? (You law students, feel free to overturn this caption on grounds of insufficient evidence)

That moment, later this week, when NBA fans realize that the epic Miami Heat at San Antonio Spurs game can only be seen on NBA TV.

This is no way to fight for an 8th seed. The Loss Angeles Lakers (36-35) drop their third straight (although, on the bright side, at least this time it was to a playoff-bound squad) at Golden State. The Warriors (41-31) led by 23 at halftime. Warrior coach Mark Jackson was blunt: “We are the better basketball team. They are in the rear view mirror and I have not checked it and I will not.” Stephen Curry (25 points) and Klay Thompson (22) are fast becoming the most dynamic backcourt in the NBA. And Jarrett Jack (19 points) is a super third guard to have around.

East Baywatch: Curry and Thompson, both of whom are sons of former NBA players.

This seems, well, unnatural, but somehow the U.S. men’s cross-country squad finished ahead of Kenya in the World Cross Country Championships in Poland this weekend. Ethiopia took gold, the U.S. silver, Kenya bronze.

Kenya believe it? Yanks finish ahead of African juggernaut in Poland.

Chicago native Tom Zbikowski, who was released after one season with the Indianapolis Colts, signs a one-year contract with the Chicago Bears. He always belonged there. Best Chicago native/ND alum to become a Bear since Chris Zorich.

Zibby, back in his “I Could Be the Lead Singer for A-Ha” days in South Bend

Time magazine puts out its annual Twitter 140.   Jim Rome made this list over Bill Simmons, Cecil Hurt and Steve Rushin, meaning that Time did not follow its own standard of finding “the very best wit and wisdom that Twitter has to offer.”

Cyprus banks remain closed until Thursday, or until George Bailey can convince the Russians not to pull all of their money out.

As Flock of Seagulls once sang, “Aurora Borealis comes in view, Aurora comes in vi-eeeeewww.” The Northern Lights, as seen from Iceland last week (doesn’t this deserve an Enya soundtrack?)

When you were 15 and alone in your bedroom, chances are that you were not using your time as productively as Nick D’Aloisio. He taught himself to write computer software and devised a free newsreading app that he sold to Yahoo! yesterday for $30 million. D’Aloisio, who is now 17, will work for Yahoo! out of its London office. No word yet on whether Marissa Mayer will allow him to work from home, even though he seems to do all of his best work there.

Remote Patrol

Walking Dead marathon

AMC 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Taking you from the Season One finale far into Season 2, as Rick and the refugees flee Atlanta. Zombies? No, Freaknic. (I kid, I kid.)

“No. He said, ‘Walking.’ If I were…dead that would not be…something…you would enjoy seeing…on televsion.”

We note that both “Splash” and “Smash” (What rhymes with “trash”?) are on TV tonight. Apparently, the latter is a decent show.

Big weekend. Big. Let’s begin, shall we?

Starting Five

1. Sweet 16: The Iranian, the Maxim Cover Model, and Some Dude Named Cleanthony

You want colorful? Oregon, a 12-seed that everyone, before the tourney began, decried was the most egregious mistake the selection committee made, advances while being led by a native of Iran, Arsalan Kazemi. A transfer from Rice, Kazemi grabbed 33 rebounds this past weekend. What does Oregon know about advancing in the NCAA tourney? Well, the Ducks won the inaugural tournament back in 1939, but other than that…

Kazemi: The Middle East’s answer to Eduardo Najera

Then there’s Florida Gulf Coast University, located in Dunk City, Fla. Not only are the Eagles the first No. 15 seed to advance to the Sweet 16, but they are just one of seven schools this weekend that won both games by at least 10 points. This was no accident. The particulars you need to know:

1. The school only began holding classes in 1997.

2. It first fielded a Division I hoops team in 2007.

3. Coach Andy Enfield shot 92.5% from the free throw line as a player at Johns Hopkins (he holds the NCAA record for FT accuracy), earned his MBA, made a fortune with a computer software company, and then took a Maxim cover model, Amanda Marcum, out on a first date that included an NIT game and a trip to Taco Bell. In Queens (or so I’ve read). And she married him.

Practice your free throws, kids.

Finally, there’s Wichita State, which knocked off No. 1 seed Gonzaga. They are the Shockers, but let’s not call their victory a shocker. Please. Cleanthony Early, coming off the bench in both games, scored 37 points for Wichita State (Kansas has two teams in the Sweet 16; Florida has three) over the weekend. We desperately hope that Cleanthony has an evil twin named Dirtyrone.

2. Now THAT is a white-out! (a.k.a. “Denver Pile…of Snow”)

If you channel-surfed away from the March Madness blowouts on Friday night and happened upon ESPN, you came upon the surreal scene of a World Cup qualifier (Costa Rica vs. USA from Denver) being played in an epic blizzard. While the Costa Rican soccer federation is protesting the game — Team USA won 1-0, after having lost last month in Costa Rica — this story by The Daily Mail illustrates that soccer has been played in similarly snowy conditions over the decades.

Maybe soccer belongs in the Winter Olympics

3. Minnesota Women

Minnesota has produced the likes of Jane Russell, Cheryl Tiegs, Jessicas Biel and Lange, and Loni Anderson. Add the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team to that august list, as the Golden Gophers defeated Boston University 6-3 in the NCAA championship game to consummate their sport’s first perfect season. The GGs went 41-0 to win their second consecutive NCAA championship while extending their winning streak to 49 games.

Amanda Kessel, the top player in women’s collegiate hockey (whose brother, Phil, plays for the Maple Leafs), scored 2 goals in the final.

4. This family from Overland Park, Kansas, really does not want to hear you whine about your harrowing airport experience.

5. This is Kyle Dake. On Friday evening the Cornell senior became the first wrestler in NCAA history to win four national championships in four different weight classes: 141 pounds as a freshman, 149 as a sophomore, 157 as a junior and 165 as a senior. He had to defeat defending NCAA champ David Taylor of Penn State in the final, a match so anticipated that event organizers rearranged the schedule so that it would be the final bout of the night. Dake finishes his collegiate career with a 132-4 record. Now it’s on to Brazil in 2016.

Reserves

Fron the “Wooden You Know It?” Files: Saturday evening: Sources report that UCLA coach Ben Howland has been fired. Later that evening, UCLA issues a press release saying that Howland has not been fired. Sunday: the Bruins fire Howland.

Were this anyone else in the world of sport, you might be surprised. But it was Sergio Garcia, so you were not. Birdies don’t exist in these kinds of trees.

This may be why Garcia always struggles in desert stops on the PGA Tour

Anderson D. Cooper (“Danger is my middle name”) goes diving with Nile crocodiles on “60 Minutes.” Of course he does.

Cooper: “To be honest, the line outside the men’s room at Splash in Chelsea is more harrowing.”

As many of you know, I’ve been on the Nate Reuss bandwagon since seeing his former band, The Format, open for All-American Rejects back in 2006 (don’t hate me; I took my two nieces to the show).  When I first visited the steakateria to discuss working there, he happened to be sitting next to me at the bar and we struck up a conversation (just two Arizona natives hanging out in the Big Apple). Anyway, this is my favorite song from his breakthrough album with fun.. (Do I write “fun..” at the end of the sentence or is it just “fun.”? Help me, Joseph Erwin).

Jay Leno keeps poking the bear. After all that he’s done (ask Messrs. Letterman and O’Brien), the funniest part of all this is that he’s auditioning for the role of sympathetic figure.

The Heat have won 26 in a row. The Nuggets have won 15 in a row. Both play tonight, in the southeast. They don’t play one another the rest of the season.

Someone in New Jersey purchased the sole winning ticket for the $338 million Powerball lottery. And if history is any guide, their life is about to be pure misery.

Remote Patrol

After four days/nights of gorging yourself on NCAA hoops? Go to the gym tonight.

Starting Five

1. “LaSalle Shocks K-State” reads the ESPN.com headline. “Harvard Pulls NCAA Tournament Schocker vs. New Mexico” proclaims the USA Today. Gentlemen: There are no unbeatable teams in this tournament. There were five different No. 1-ranked (and as many No 1-rankled) schools this season: Indiana (twice), Duke (twice), Louisville, Michigan and Gonzaga. Miami is arguably better than all of them.

A Notre Dame-Kansas final would provide a “Hail Mary, full of grace/The Lord is Withey” headline

Why was the La Salle win a “shock?” Because the Explorers were a lower seed? Didn’t La Salle defeat one more top ten opponent (Butler) this winter than the Wildcats did? And while I’ll grant you that Harvard over New Mexico was a mild upset, both schools had three losses since New Year’s Eve. If a No. 16 were to defeat a No. 1 — all eyes on you later tonight, Western Kentuckuy — for the first time in NCAA tournament history, I’d grant you the s-verb. Until then, let’s not overhype first-round upsets.

There are no shockers in this tourney. There are Shockers (Wichita State moved on to the Round of 32) and there’s Shaka (Smart, coach of VCU), but no shockers.

2. Print is dead. Dominus vobiscum.

Even the pope is canceling his newspaper subscription. The newly elected Pope Francis phoned a Buenos Aires kiosk earlier this week to inform them that he would no longer be needing his daily newspapers (“But what if we offered you the next ten weeks free? And added a Religion section?“)

3. ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy says that winning 33 consecutive NBA games is a “bigger accomplishment” than winning the NBA Finals and apparently this is controversial? I understand –and JVG understands — that the goal is to win the Larry O’Brien trophy (now THAT is LOB City), but someone does that by default ever year. No one has won 33 consecutive NBA games in more than 40 years. There’s a reason for that: it’s very difficult to do.

Sure, we could post a Jeff Van Gundy pic here, but this is Julianna Hough. Her boyfriend –Ryan Seacrest — just dumped her.

The Miami Heat are a better squad than both the Boston Celtics and certainly the Cleveland Cadaverliers, and yet trailed the former by 14 and the latter by 27 before winning both games earlier this week. The Denver Nuggets, owners of a 13-game win streak, needed five points in the final 10 seconds to outlast a moribund Philadelphia 76er team playing on the second night of a back-to-back — at altitude — after having lost by 29 one night earlier.

My point? The Heat –and the Nuggets — are going to get their opponents’ A-plus games for as long as their streaks shall survive. That’s why it’s such a tremendous accomplishment (and that is also the hidden cost of creating a college football playoff and eradicating the current system, imperfect as it may be).

4. Yesterday we noted that hippos kill more humans in Africa than any other wild animal. However, we at MH like to consider ourselves a hippo-neutral enterprise. We recognize that while hippos may be deadly, it’s usually only to protect their turf (and since they cannot own guns, what other choice do they have, Mr. LaPierre?). Anyway, we came across this video yesterday and thought we’d present it in the interest of delivering “fair and balanced” hippo content.

To all the hippo-critics out there: shut your yaps.

5. Terrific investigative feature on UCLA prodigy Shabazz Muhammad by Ken Bensinger in the Los Angeles Times. It turns out that Shabazz is actually one year older — 20, not 19 — than listed in the UCLA media guide, but who cares? As for his overbearing dad, Ron Holmes, who are we to judge? And how is Ron Holmes all that different from Earl Woods (father of Tiger) or Richard Williams (dad of Serena and Venus). All three raised children in southern California, all three encouraged –and often pushed — them to succeed in their chosen sports, and two of the three fathers have ridiculously wealthy offspring. Soon, three of them will.

We predict Muhammad will score 19 –no, make that 20 — points versus Minnesota tonight

The stories you rarely if ever read about are of the dads who go full-metal Marinovich on their offspring, who either rebel or fall far short of any type of success. But, hey, who doesn’t have an issue with his or her parents at some point in their lives?

REMOTE PATROL

March Madness

CBS/TNT/TruTV

Still on the docket for tonight: Notre Dame versus Iowa State, Western Kentucky attempts to become the first-ever No. 16 seed to knock off a No. 1 seed (Kansas… expect to hear the name Ali Faroukhmanesh if it does), and Minnesota takes on UCLA in a battle between schools whose campuses are located in cities that have been home to the Lakers.