Starting Five

1. The University of Akron should win the MAC tournament and should, with a 24-5 record (15-1 in conference) earn a berth in the NCAAs. However, all is in flux now after starting point guard Alex Abreu was arrested and charged with marijuana trafficking. Abreu, who was averaging more than 10 points and six assists per game for the Zips, has been charged with two third-degree felonies and has been suspended from the team.

 

We’ve typed this before but we believe that drug trafficking is the great underreported means with which many scholarship athletes support themselves. Let’s see: You’ve got young men who want spending money, who are not allowed to work, who (for too many) have no financial support from their parents, and who have access to people and materials, especially to people who’d like to get close to them for exploitation purposes. Trust me: there are a few more Alex Abreus out there.

2. New York Yankees: today it’s Mark Teixiera. Eight to ten weeks with a strained wrist. If you’re scoring at home, now Tex is being overpaid to NOT play baseball. When comes the plague of locusts and the parting of the Harlem River? Someone get me Wilhelm on the line. Honestly, even Carl Pavano is shaking his head.

 

3. Even The Sports Guy loathes First Take. “It’s amazing to me that people get so worked up about ‘First Take’,” Bill Simmons tweeted yesterday. “Who cares? Just don’t watch it. There are like 800 TV channels.”

Simmons’ tweet was aroused by this even-for-First-Take beyond the pale bickerfest between Seattle Seahawk cornerback Richard Sherman and fellow low-blowhard and FT co-host Skip Everhair. Simmons also sent out these two tweets: “I am not defending this segment. I thought it was awful and embarrassing to everyone involved. Seriously.” And this: “But what bothers me about the reaction to this segment is everyone saying that Richard Sherman ‘won.’ Nobody won. Everyone lost. Including ESPN.”

 

4. So yesterday I penned this column for CollegeSportsScholarships.com on college athletes and travel. Unbeknownst to me a pertinent pilgrimage anecdote was unfolding at the very same time (thanks to @okerland). The University of Maine’s women’s basketball team has, in the wake of a February 26 bus accident that rendered no significant injuries but rattled pretty much everyone, chosen not to participate in the America East conference tournnament this weekend in Albany.

“My recommendation,” said dean of students Robert Dana, “…is that the (team) end its season to spend this time continuing to recuperate. They are back in the UMaine community and that’s what matters.”

Who does this Dana guy think he is, acting all sane and stuff? We must note that the Black Bears (4-24) were seeded 8th, and would have been facing No. 1 seed Albany, in the tourney.

5. Reports out of South Bend are that redshirt freshman quarterback Gunner Kiel, the most heralded (and harked) quarterback from the prep class of 2012, is considering a transfer. And why not, if you’re Kiel? He’s sitting behind a QB, Everett Golson, who has three seasons of eligibility remaining and who in his first led the Fighting Irish to the national championship game. There is an incoming QB, Amir Carlisle (my bad: I meant Malik Zaire) who has some serious talent. And, of course, there is always Tommy Rees, who is entering his 9th season at Notre Dame and who will probably still pull out two games for the Irish next autumn.

 

Brian Kelly stockpiles QBs. You cannot blame him. As happens at most schools, if they are athletic enough and willing, they find another position. Kiel, a 6-4, 210-pound pro-style QB, could easily bulk up and become a terrific linebacker or tight end if he so desired. If not, he can always go play for Charlie Weis. Or most anyone else. Kiel’s uncle, Blair Kiel, was a four-year starter at quarterback for Notre Dame from 1980-83.

Also worth noting: This would be the second spring in a row that the Irish lost a player entering his second season who at the time of his recruitment was rated the nation’s top player at his position (Aaron Lynch, DE, now at USF). Lynch left for personal reasons (“Cupid, draw out your bowwwww….”). Kiel, who is a Hoosier native, would be departing for strictly pragmatic reasons. Does he stay in-state and transfer to IU or Purdue? Or does he look around? He still could start for 90% of the schools in the country.

Reserves

This is just awful. A Swiss league hockey player, 33 year-old Ronny Keller, is paralyzed after being checked from behind into the boards.

Kyle Smith of the New York Post is not a fan of my other profession (you know, the one that actually pays). Ignorance and condescension all in one essay. I’d be angry at Kyle, but as someone who has sat in a 9th-floor cubicle of the Newscorp Building (NY Post’s editorial headquarters) and as someone who serves at Manhattan’s top-grossing restaurant, I’ll sate myself knowing that I’m both having more fun and earning more money now.

Kudos to my good friend Jill Montgomery who was dealt a bad hand recently (“Ugh! Men!”) but who is rebounding nicely back in her best time zone. Jilly B., a sideline reporter and studio host who rocked her stint doing sideline work on ESPN’s Big Ten games in the winter of 2011, will be back in the winner’s circle. She’s in the top ten, Roger.

Remote Patrol

Houston Rockets at Golden State Warriors

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

I get excited (okay, not like tail-wagging excited, but at least intrigued) imagining where each of these teams will be in a year or two if they keep their nuclei (Latin, masculine plural “nucleus, nuclei”) together. The Rockets (33-29) with James Harden, Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and the shot-blocking/rebounding potentate that is Omar Asik. And the Warriors (35-27) with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee and Andrew Bogut. Fluid, beautiful hoops the way the game was meant to be played. Enjoy.

 

-The End (For this week)