Steakateria double followed by an early morning steakateria shift. Sorry to be brusque/but today’s IAH at dusk. Enjoy the tourney.
-JW
If you are a sports fan –and you probably are if you are reading this — then today is the equivalent of Christmas morning. TOO. MANY. PRESENTS.
1. Let’s Dance!
Thirty-two games, beginning with No. 14 Valparaiso vs. No. 3 Michigan State at 12:15 p.m. from Auburn Hills. The earliest local start belongs to No. 13 New Mexico State and No. 4 St. Louis, who will tip off at 11:10 a.m. local time from San Jose…. Easiest “upset” picks of today: No. 11 Bucknell and Mike Muscala over No. 6 Butler or No. 12 Oregon, led by 6-7 Iranian native and Rice transfer Arsalan Kazemi, over No. 5 Oklahoma State and freshman stud Marcus Smart. Or is Kazemi’s presence on the Ducks’ roster just a gigantic ruse disguising his real covert mission in the USA, a mission that will only become clear to all of us 30 years from now when Ben Affleck buys the rights to his story? Hmmmm….
2. Over at Deadspin Drew Magary — who else? — has compiled the Ultimate Curse Word Bracket (don’t hit the link, mom) that is inspired in terms of its seeding. Of the four No. 1 seeds, we’d only supplant one, switching it out with the No. 5 seed in that same regional (you’re smart; you can figure it out). Left out and presumably headed for the NIT of Curse Word Brackets: Rat Bastard. A fun game, if it were possible, would be to cross off every one of these 64 terms once a coach uses one during an NCAA tournament game.
3. Heat Night! (and no matter how far and wide we searched, there was no YouTube video of this tune by The Waitressses. It’s a shame) Down 27 with just over 18 minutes to go in Cleveland — the Cavs kinda blow and were without their three leading scorers, yet somehow had managed to gain a 27-point advantage — the LeBronsters came all the way back. In fact, Miami led by nine with three minutes remaining, meaning a 36-point reversal in about 15 minutes of play. James, who played all 24 minutes of the second half and nearly accumulated a post-halftime triple-double (his overall stats were 25, 12 and 10), exerted his will. The streak extends to 24. And Cleveland, poor Cleveland, experiences yet another excruciating kick to the (see Nos. 8 and/or 16 in the “Body Regional” bracket from the item above) as far as sports fandom.
4. Gone, Baby, Gone
Remember Gavin Smith, the handsome Fox movie executive (okay, he was a distributor) who disappeared last May 1st? Smith, a former UCLA basketball player under John Wooden (his son Evan played at USC last year), simply vanished without a trace. Now, finally, LAPD detectives appear to have some solid evidence to lead them to conclude that he was murdered.
5. This list is, well, to use the author’s own name, Gall-ing. I’m not even a Stuart Scott fan, but how do you leave him off the list of the 20 Greatest SportsCenter anchors but include Kevin Frazier? Also, Rich Eisen would be in my Top 10. Way ahead of Dave Revsine. And I agree with Neil “Howzit” Everett: “(He’s) in the top ten, Roger.”
My Top Five: Patrick & Olbermann (it’s a matched set), Kenny Mayne (back when he actually worked for a living), Chris Berman (once upon a time; he was their first huge star, you cannot deny that), Scott Van Pelt, Neil Everett. Eisen as sixth man. Then Linda Cohn.
If you’re keeping score, Kate Upton has a dinner date with Arnold Palmer, 83, (pssst, Kate, order an Arnold Palmer) and has been asked to the prom by a reach-exceeding-grasp high school student. And yet Arash Markazi has her on speed dial. We are not even going to add a photo of Kate Upton in here, which may make us the first sports blog ever to mention Kate Upton without including a photo. Instead, here’s a photo of a hippopotamus. Not that we are making a comparison, because we are not.
He was sentenced to write “I Will Not Carry A Prohibited Firearm” 100 times on a chalkboard. Or at least I hope that was the punishment.
Tina Fey checks the “Meet and Be Interviewed by James Lipton” box off her career to-do list. And revives Sarah Palin while doing so.
Speaking of Alaska, it looks as if the Iditarod is setting up for an historic finish! Mush Madness, y’all! And, yes, there are Musher Babes: twin sisters Anna and Kristy Berington.
REMOTE PATROL
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament
CBS, TruTV, TNT, TBS
12 p.m. to pass out
What are the odds that CBS invites Ed O’Bannon on to discuss his views of the tournament and the NCAA at large? I could tell you about the day’s most intriguing matchups and players, but CBS “senior blogger” Matt Norlander has done a better job than I could do right here.
We give you the words of Ian McCulloch, lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen, who sang, “Everybody’s got their own good reason/Why their favorite season is their favorite season/Winter winners and those summer sons/Are good for everyone, good for everyone/Spring has sprung/And autumns so well done
1. Opening night of the NCAA tournament (like many curmudgeons, we refuse to refer to it as the first round). While Marv Albert and Steve Kerr don’t regularly call college hoops, give credit where it’s duo (yes, I meant that). They called the game for TruTV, which as Marc Isenberg points out, was once CourtTV, so there’s a basketball connection after all. Solid job, and Marv, as long as you’re going to wear a rug, why not wear a blond one? Bully for you, even if it does remind me a little too much of Javier Bardem in Skyfall…
I make a joke on Twitter about North Carolina A&T being a favorite of dyslexics, and naturally Steve Rushin devises a superior joke: “There’s no ‘can’t’ in “NCA&T’ (I’m now being told there is)”…. Matthew Dellevadova –who is not a Russian female tennis player, despite that surname –shot 5 of 7 from beyond the arc and scored 22 points to lead the St. Mary’s Gaels past MTSU (“There is no ‘MUST’ in MTSU?); Dellevadova shot 1 of 18 outside the arc in the WCC tourney, but he appears to have rediscovered his long-range accuracy. If the NBA doesn’t draft him, Kim Jong Un will.
2. Nuggets stun Thunder in OKC, but even farther out west –and you probably did not hear about it — the Kings shocked the Clippers. Denver had a nice litte 12-game win streak going, but after an overtime win at Chicago the night before, this scribe gave them no chance of extending it against the league’s second-best team with the best home fans. Wrong. Denver, which has now outscored opponents in the paint for 50 consecutive games, silenced the Thunder, 114-104. Meanwhile at Arco Sleep Train Arena, (checking to see if “Sleep Train” is the title of a Counting Crows song), the Sacramento Kings outscored the Clips by 23 points in the final 11:17 to win 116-101. LOL City had an eight-point lead early in the final period and then suddenly the became the Robot when Dr. Smith would pull the power battery from his back side on Lost In Space. Bad loss, Vinny. Bad loss.
3. Explaining North Korea’s sabre-rattling via a YouTube video from the recently completed SXSW Conference (which, like the Bigfoot Conference, is better than anything Jim Delany has come up with…you may have noticed by now that I have little respect for Jim Delany). Anyway, I could get all Fareed Zakaria on you and attempt to explain the tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul, the Dennis Rodman factor, the imagined attack by the North Koreans on Washington, D.C. (soon to become a Jerry Bruckheimer flick), the dynamics that led Major Houlihan to have an affair with Frank Burns when it was obvious she had the Hot Lips for Hawkeye (because she didn’t have enough self-confidence, that’s why), but really, this is what’s going on and this is what will happen if Kim Jong Un pushes it too far.
4. So Notre Dame begins spring practice this morning and head coach Brian Kelly informs the media that the team’s best player, Stephon Tuitt, will miss much of spring practice to nurse a “sports hernia.” Have you noticed how much more manly an injury/illness sounds if you just use “sports” as a prefix? For instance, “Last night I had a magnficent bout of sports diarrhea?” See?
5. President Obama speaks to ESPN’s Andy Katz –apparently Andy told POTUS what questions he would ask before they went on-air and then did NOT pull a switcheroo (Jim Boeheim may have contributed reporting to this item) — to provide his annual tournament bracket. I like this tradition and let’s face it, having Mitt Romney break down the National Collegiate Equestrian Association national championship that takes place later in April (I’m not even making that up) does not quite pack the same punch.
Obama’s Final Four? Louisville, Indiana, Ohio State and Florida, with Pitino’s crew cutting down the nets. Shouldn’t someone be dispatched to obtain Marco Rubio’s response to these picks?
Belatedly, my John Stockton story. This, too, comes from my infamous trek across America with Adam Duerson and Jamie Lowe in March of 2004. Our mission: to witness — as fans as many NCAA games as possible. I know. Tough gig. So it’s an off day –we had just watched a women’s tournament game from the lovely haven that is Missoula, Mont., the night before — and we decide to visit Gonzaga. The Zags had just been bounced from the tournament two days earlier.
It was Jamie’s day to write, and so she set off in search of Blake Stepp. Adam and I decided to find Jack & Dan’s Tavern, the saloon that John Stockton’s father owns. It’s a sunny, quiet Tuesday afternoon. An inconspicuous day.
So there we are, nursing our expense-report beers, when who should stroll in wearing sneakers, jeans and an Izod Lacoste collared shirt, but the NBA’s all-time assists and steals leader. He’s got a pair of keys in his hand and he hands them off to his dad. As if he’s just any other man visiting his pop at his place of business.
Adam agitates. “I’m going to go ask for his autograph!”
“No! No! No!” I beg. “You CANNOT do that. John Stockton is notoriously private. He’d never even do an interview with SI. He ducked Steve Rushin for an entire bonus piece, inspiring Rushin to go all ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on him in print about how he was unable to be interviewed (He would not, could not, in the bar; he would not, could not, in his car/He would not, could not, at the gym/We would not, could not, speak to him). You will blow our cover, man!”
This story is about to improve.
About then, a bartender (not Mr. Stockton) approaches us all folksy like. “So, you guys visiting from out of town?”
“Um…yes,” I reply.
“Cool. So what do you do?”
“We’re accountants,” I say. “Traveling across the country on a road trip.”
“Accountants,” he replies. “That’s interesting. You guys are able to take a road trip in the middle of tax season?”
This may have been my all-time Costanza-est moment.
“Yes,” I say.
At this point he knows I am lying. I know that he knows I am lying. He knows that I know that he knows I am lying. It’s the O.K. Corral, with duplicity. We just stare one another down, and finally he leaves.
Adam never got the autograph. We drank up and left.
Jamie phones to tell us that she is having absolutely no luck finding Blake Stepp. Adam and I walk down the street to a very cool, intimate 50s style diner to grab some lunch. Who is in there, eating all by himself and looking as if someone just shot his dog? Blake Stepp.
It was that kind of odyssey.
KKK: Beneath the Hood
Discovery Channel, 8 p.m.
Let’s face it: You don’t know the name of a single player on any of the four schools playing tonight in Dayton (or at least I don’t). And so to watch basketball tonight is akin to having a turkey sandwich on the eve of Thanksgiving. So why not trade hoops for hoods and learn a little somethin’ about one of the darker (irony intended) organizations in the history of the U.S.A.? No idea whether they will explore the eye hole question that was broached in Django: Unchained.
1. Heat Wave
“As owners of the NBA’s second-longest win streak, the Heat can’t ignore the obvious,” reads the subhed on the home page of ESPN.com. Hey, Bristol, have you been paying attention? Miami doesn’t want to ignore it. This team, these players, are fully aware of their shot at history and the only real downside is that now they’re going to have Mark Schwartz pulling a Pedro Gomez, riding shotgun on this magnificent quest, until they lose again.
If you’re a Heat fan, you breathe easy knowing that the next true test does not come until Miami visits San Antonio on March 31. If you’re a Celtics fan, you say, “Well, welcome to the NBA — finally — Jeff Green (the former Georgetown stud scored a career-high 43 in what is his fifth season).
Two more items: 1) the Denver Nuggets have their own little 12-game win streak going (much obliged, Joakim Noah), but that ends this evening on the second night of a road back-to-back in Oklahoma City. 2) If the Heat keep winning, they’ll go for record-breaking 34 on Tuesday, April 9 — one night after March Madness ends, how convenient — at home versus Milwaukee.
2. Tiger Woods, meet Alfred Hitchcock.
The world’s best golfer and film’s master of suspense had/have a type. And it’s the same type.
TIGER
(Elin, Lindsey)
SIR ALFRED
(Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint)
3. Flori-Duh: Deer head heist!
4. Boston Phoenix. It’s not just the 1976 NBA Finals (Gar Heard!), but it’s also one of the the country’s oldest alternative newspapers. Except that now, after nearly 50 years in print, the Phoenix is $1.2 million in debt and must stop printing. Ironically, and tellingly, the newspaper informed its readers of this sad news via tweet. Some 40 employees will begin looking for steakateria gigs be unemployed.
5. In case you STILL haven’t heard, Twitter is a public forum. It appears that the son of the FDNY (Fire Dept. New York) commissioner, Salvatore Cassano, never learned that lesson or even cared. Joe Cassano, an EMT, recently resigned in the wake of his pro-Hitler, pro-boob job, anti-Obama tweets (kudos to young Mr. Cassano for upholding the public’s — and Denis Leary’s — stereotypes of NYC firemen, by the way). Stick around for the last two grafs on the second page, by the way.
Jere Longman of the New York Times with a take-out piece on the long, slow and tragic descent of Tim Danielson, the second American high school boy ever to break the four-minute mile.
Stephen Douglas of The Big Lead with an inspired account of a long, fast and not-so-tragic descent involving Katherine “World Wide” Webb.
We should note, by the way, that “Splash” originated in Holland under the title “Sterren Springen“, or “Celebrities Jump”.
I guess it’s time for Medium Happy to move its home offices out of Nicosia. That’s the capital of Cyprus, which is where lots and lots of corporations –particularly Russian ones — based themselves to avoid paying standard tax rates. But now Cyprus banks are being compelled to up their tax rates if they hope to receive Eurozone bailout money.
Ken Pomeroy, alias “KenPom”, outs my former SI colleague Seth Davis on Twitter, noting that Seth chose Kansas to win it all over at SI.com and Louisville to cut down the nets at CBSSports.com. This is what our mutual ex-colleague Chad Millman might call “hedging your bets.” Between this and Josh Elliott’s deleted “black smoke” tweet from last week, these are sad days for former members of the SI bullpen.
You win $10,000 for making a halfcourt shot at halftime of the Atlantic 10 tournament final, so how do you celebrate? By speding about 11% of it –before taxes — at your favorite steakateria.
Defiance, Ohio, is not just a town but its T.J. Lane’s theme. While being sentenced to life in prison for a school shooting that left three classmates dead, the Chadron, Ohio, teen wore a T-shirt that read “killer” and flipped the bird to people in the courtroom, including family members and victims’ families. At least he correctly spelled “KILLER”.
Remote Patrol
Middle Tennessee State vs. St. Mary’s
NCAA Tournament Play-In Game First Round
ESPN 9:10 p.m.
We are desperately lobbying Mayor Bloomberg to call for the eradication of the “First Four” in Dayton (64 is a nice, round number that is both eight squared, four cubed, and two to the sixth; why would you mess with that???), but he is just so busy these days ruining everyone else’s vices fun. The Blue Raiders went 28-5 and 16-0 at home, which seems deserving of an NCAA bid. The Gaels went 19-3 in their final 22 games, with all three losses at the hands of No. 1 Gonzaga. As you know, they also boast Aussome Aussie Matthew Dellevadova, the most onions scorer in the tournament.
xxxxx
1. Unofficially, by my count, 32 states and the District of Columbia are represented in the NCAA tournament. Uninvolved: Texas, which is No. 1 in the Lower 48 in terms of geographical size and No. 2 in terms of population. No school from the Lone Star State has won the tourney since 1966 (Texas Western, now UTEP) and none has appeared in the final since the Phi Slamma Jamma gang from Houston lost to Georgetown in 1984… California and Pennsylvania have the most representatives — five schools apiece — while New York and North Carolina each have four.
2. Quick tourney items: Gonzaga point guard David Stockton will play in the same arena for the Zags’ opening/second round game (Lord, do I hate the tyranny of the minority on this one) in Energy Solutions Arena, formerly the Delta Center, where his dad, John, played his entire NBA career. All John Stockton (tomorrow, my John Stockton story) did was become the NBA’s all-time leader in both assists and steals and how often do you hear announcers mention his name?… Indiana spent the most weeks at No. 1 this season, but the Hoosiers self-intercoursed at the Big Ten tournament, and so instead of a Midwest Regional Sweet 16 contest just 40 minutes north of campus in Indianoplace, they’ll be in D.C. at the Verizon Center for the East Regional… Duke is the lowest-seeded No. 2? Really? The tournament committee did No. 1 overall seed Louisville no favors here….(highly personal and subjective) sportswriter rankings of best opening weekend tourney sites at which to be deployed:
1. Austin: Miami (Shane Larkin) and Florida (Mike Rosario), UCLA and Shabazz Muhammad, and the country’s best college town. Is SXSW still going on? No? Oh, well.
2. Salt Lake City: Gonzaga and Belmont, plus you can go skiing on your off day.
3. Lexington: These folks know hoops, even if the hometown defending national champs are NIT-bound (and gagged) (honestly, the best thing that could happen to John Calipari would be to lose the NIT opener; the longer you remain in, the longer your friends notice that you’re on a blind date with the fat girl). The noisy neighbors from Louisville will take over Rupp Arena, while you will be enchanted by Bucknell’s Mike Muscala.
4. Philadelphia: Of course the committee placed Duke in Philadelphia, site of Christian Laettner’s historic shot. Doug McDermott of Creighton is the tourney’s most prolific scorer, Florida Gulf Coast is the smart scribe’s sleeper pick, and there’s a fantastic running path along the Schuylkill River.
5. Kansas City: Terrific BBQ, you get to hang with local Dennis Dodd, you get both Kansas and Kansas State, as well as the loaded weapon that is Mississippi’s Marshall Henderson. Wisconsin, too.
6. San Jose: Climate is sublime, but there is no school ranked higher than No. 4 Syracuse. My guess is Stewart Mandel will be courtside. He’s good people.
7. Auburn Hills: The locals will go bonkers over the Wolverines and Spartans. Nate Wolters of South Dakota State is a fun watch, but UM should silence him. Spend the off day visiting famous sites from the HBO series “Hung.”
8. Dayton: Have you visited Dayton in March? We have. Have you visited UD Arena? We have. Solid teams here –Indiana and Ohio State, plus No. 10 Iowa State will beat No. 7 Notre Dame by at least six — but we’d rank this site 9th if we could.
3. The Miami Heat go for their 23rd consecutive win, at Boston, on the fifth anniversary of the Houston Rockets’ streak of 22 consecutive wins being stopped. Who ended it? The Celtics (cue eerie music).
4. One of the reasons that I love Rob Sheffield and Rolling Stone is lists such as this. “The 30 Greatest Rock & Roll Movie Moments.” You can quibble with some of the omissions (no “Moving in Stereo”, the Phoebe Cates’ red bikini moment in Fast Times at Ridgemont High? No “Don’t You Forget About Me” in the closing scene of The Breakfast Club? What about “Stuck in the Middle With You” from Reservoir Dogs or the “Sister Christian/Jessie’s Girl” twinbill during the drug deal scene in Boogie Nights, which is Thomas Jane’s career apex?), but it’s a tight list and extra credit to RS (you realize the initials cover both entities?) for remembering that “Tiny Dancer” played a crucial part in a very poignant — no seriously– moment from the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.
5. Two teens found guilty in the Steubenville rape case.
The Lakers win without Kobe Bryant. Okay, sure, it was a home game againts the Sacrificial Lambs Sacramento Kings. Steve Nash goes for 12 assists while six Lakers score in double figures. That sounds like a Nash-ian team. When Kobe returns, that all disappears. The Lakers cannot win for any extended stretch without Kobe. But as long as Kobe is on the court, Steve Nash’s ability to help a team offensively is severely compromised.
The world’s top-ranked comedian at present, Louis C.K., masterfully handles a “heckler” who was actually trying to compliment him. Thank you for this, Louis. This is the wisest rant you’ve had since “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy”. CK: “You’re not welcome to speak… it is not appropriate to yell shit at me right now… it is less appropriate to yell at me than almost anybody within several square miles… if you yell at a guy on the street you are not ruining a show for 2,500 (bleepin’) people.”
ESPN suspended Bill Simmons for three days — but just from Twitter; Ha! — for his take on First Take. Some scribes agreed with Bristol’s punitive measure, saying it is never permissible for an employee to publicly trash his employer. Generally, I agree, but ESPN is about sports and opinions. And when an entity is as large as ESPN is, it’s difficult to be candid about sports and gain the trust of your audience while ignoring the influence that ESPN has on sports in general. For instance, I loved Bill Walton’s quips last week about Ray Lewis (a recent ESPN hire) emerging from a limousine and about Simmons’ suspension.
The beauty of Walton is that he could give a crap about ESPN suspending him or even firing him. He’s his own man. So, too, to an extent, is Simmons. Let that be a lesson to you kiddies: When you got nothin’, you got nothin’ left to lose. And that’s a terrific and liberating thing. See, Walton really does listen to Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, there’s Dave Pasch playing the loyal soldier role and saying “We’re just going to dismiss that.” You know who each of these characters would be in “Dead Poets’ Society”, don’t you?
Anyway, if it’s up to me, ESPN maintains the right to mete out these suspensions while voices of integrity such as Simmons, Bilas, etc., maintain the right to speak their minds. As long as it’s not bigoted (Rob Parker) or neanderthal (Tony Kornheiser, Ron Franklin), speak your mind. If Big Brother disapproves, he censures you for a spell, but there’s no lasting effect in terms of job security.
Yes, South By Southwest took place in Austin last week (and the week before), but up north in Fort Worth they were staging the 12th annual Bigfoot Conference. I hope they served Slim Jims. And I am certain that Neal Sampat was there.
I do believe I’ve found the real-life inspiration for Spinal Tap. Please tell me I’m wrong. And even if I am, if you are over the age of 40 (45?), this tune will revive some terrific memories. Sweet! Do yourself a huge favor and stick around until the :59 mark, at least.
Miami Heat at Boston Celtics
ESPN 8 p.m.
With a victory the Heat will own the second-longest win streak in NBA history. The Celtics have won 11 straight at Whatever-You-Call-Our-Arena-It-Is-A-Sacrilege-That-You-Don’t-Call-It-Boston-Garden-Anymore, a streak that began with a defeat of the Heat. Boston is not about to catch Miami napping, but they are catching them on the second night of a road back-to-back.