Starting Five

1. A female from Rhode Island, Olivia Culpo, wins Miss Universe and the University of Notre Dame has the top-ranked football team in the nation. We’re taking the Mayans minus the points.

Mathazar and the rest of the Thermians will protest the “Universe” part of the title, reminding all that Rhode Island is “not an island, either.”

2. The Oklahoma City Thunder Snow win their 12th straight while the Los Angeles Clappers win their 11th straight. Fine, but when will Steve Nash return to the Lakers?

3. We are entering the “Twelve Days of Cliffmas”, as Washington has just a dozen more days to negotiate a deal to spare us from the Fiscal Cliff. Did you know, by the way, that House Speaker John Boehner 1) is five-foot-six and 2) was a linebacker at Moeller High School whose coach was Gerry Faust?

Speaker of the House/ Workin’ on Plan B/ Dedicated servant/ Of aris-to-cra-cy

4. The University of Connecticut’s No. 2-ranked Huskies held a pre-game ceremony to honor the 26 victims of the Newtown massacre, then went out and allowed just 25 points to Oakland University in a 97-25… massa victory.

5. The New York Jest will release Tim Tebow, a man of profound religious faith who spent the past four months gaining a true appreciation of the term “purgatory.” If there are any teams out there looking for a dedicated punt protector, we got a guy for you. Also, the Jest are shopping Mark Sanchize. All we have to say is this: If the Jest draft USC quarterback Matt Barkley, we will laugh and laugh and laugh.

No, I do not want a copy of “Bright Lights, Big City” as a Christmas present, thank you very much.

Reserves

The bodies of the two killers who framed Truman Capote’s classic work, “In Cold Blood”, are being exhumed. It turns out that Richard Hickok and Perry Smith may have committed a second series of murders during thier 1959 rampage. Capote’s book has long been considered the apotheosis of true crime reportage –if not the seminal work on such –but it turns out he may not have been as thorough as we all thought.

LSU’s aussome Aussie punter, Brad Wing, has been suspended for the Tigers’ Chick-Fil-A Bowl against Clemson, a game that will determine who really plays in Death Valley (and is the best Tigers). If we are Les Miles, we comfort ourselves by remembering that Clemson allowed 70 points in its previous bowl game, so there’s a chance that Wing would never have gotten on the field, anyway.

For Domers, from Dennis Dodd, this is just eerie. Kudos to Ted Mandell for all the research but it still doesn’t excuse him from being the executive produder of the Freekbass video. One last nugget for you, Dennis: 1988 was the last year in which I didn’t professionally cover a college football game…until this year.

A tiny French village, Bugarach, may be your best hope for salvation when the world ends tomorrow. Our advice: book  round-trip fare to Paris, just in case they’re wrong.

Pic de Bugarach, which many believe houses an extraterrestrial spaceship. As Al Roker noted, “Didn’t the Coneheads come from France?”

This study asserts that, the 12.12.12 gig notwithstanding, rock stars die earlier than the general population. As the always insightful Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal tweeted in response to this story, “Still totally worth it, no?”

Richard Deitsch provides his year-end media awards at SI.com. Solid, no big surprises. Too many honorable mentions. Also, we’re sorry, but we just cannot get behind any awards list that includes Rachel Nichols. The woman has a perpetual smirk on her face.

By the way, only when we researched that photo did we learn that there is ANOTHER Rachel Nichols, an actress who unlike the ESPN personality graduated from an Ivy League school (ESPN’s RN attended Northwestern). We feel obliged to also provide a pic of the thespian Rachel Nichols, whose credits include both the sequels to Dumb and Dumber (“Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd”) and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. 

Ironically, this pic was snapped at the ESPY Awards (where she was named “Best Rachel Nichols?”)

In the best battle of father-son Ricks since “I Love Lucy”, the elder Pitino led Louisville to a 24-point win against his son’s Florida International squad last night. We can picture Mrs. Pitino welcoming home her husband today with a “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.” (although, fans of Lexington restaurant after-hours shenanigans will note she has done this before)