Starting Five
1. Pope-ourri
(The judges would also accept “Popin’ and Prayin'”, “Rome is Smoking”, “Papal Cliff”, and “What the Hell is Josh Elliott Doing in Vatican City?”)
Latest from the papal election: No, it is not true that the cardinals use first edition copies of “The Da Vinci Code” to create the black smoke… there was a moment of silence for the reposed of the soul of Stan Musial… a few of the cardinals have been teasing New York’s Timothy Dolan that if he gets elected, they’ll be calling him “The Pope of Greenwich Village”…. a small fracas broke out yesterday when two cardinals fought over the single electrical outlet inside the Sistine Chapel in order to charge their smartphones.
Sistene Candles
2. Last night in the NBA, in free throws:
Boston Celtics…………………….. 16 of 25
Charlotte Bobcats………………. 24 of 30
San Antonio Spurs…………….. 16 of 18
Minnesota Timberwolves…… 7 of 18
Washington Wizards…………. 23 of 28
Cleveland Cavaliers…………… 19 of 25
Dallas Mavericks……………… 22 of 27
Milwaukee Bucks………………. 14 of 17
Atlanta Hawks …………………. 10 of 14
Miami Heat………………………. 22 of 30
New Orleans Not-Yet-Pelicans…. 13 of 15
Brooklyn Nets……………………….. 23 of 31
Memphis Grizzlies………………… 21 of 31
Portland Trail Blazers…………… 28 of 29
Orlando Magic……………………… 13 of 17
Dwight Howard……………………. 25 of 39
Kobe is hungry
That’s correct. The Laker center attempted eight more free throws, versus his former team, than any NBA team last night. That figure ties Howard’s own NBA record for free throws attempted in a game. Kudos to him for shooting 80% from the line (16 of 20) in the second half when the Magic employed the Hack-A-Howard strategy. And, yo, Blazers, we noticed that 96.6 % shooting from the stripe.
Which reminds us: Why not a free-throw shooting contest at the All-Star Game? Simple rules: Ten players enter. You shoot two at a time. If you miss, you’re out. Last player to miss wins. I’d watch.
3. Notre Dame 61, Connecticut 59. It was a thriller from Hartford, as the Huskies came back from a six-point deficit in the final 2:55 and had the ball for the final possession, only to toss an errant pass to Skylar Diggins. The Fighting Irish studette dribbled through from one free throw line to the other, through a gauntlet of Huskies, before finally finding a wide-open Natalie Achonwa (wumba) for the game-winning lay up.
The greatest college Skylar to not fall for Will Hunting. How do you like them apples, Geno?
Notes: This marks the first time in 19 seasons in which UConn failed to win at least a share of either the Big East regular season title or the Big East tournament… UConn shot 0-5 from beyond the arc, the first time in 403 games the Huskies failed to sink a three-pointer…. Notre Dame finishes its final season in the Big East 16-0 and wins its first Big East tourney, men or women… the listed attendance at the XL Center was 9,085, or slightly over half-capacity. That is mildly concerning for a UConn women’s hoops game… for those with good memories, the final few moments were somewhat reminiscent of the 2001 Big East championship, when Sue Bird dribbled the length of the court and pulled up for a sweet game-winning J as time expired.
4. The USA Today’s top-ranked high school boys basketball team in the nation is Findlay Prep. This would be awesome if, you know, Findlay Prep were an actual high school. I trod this ground last March for The Daily. It bothers me that USA Today and ESPN recognize a tail-wags-dog arrangement such as this. Findlay Prep is an AAU team that just happens to be quasi-home-schooled together.
Goss
To be fair, though, Findlay’s top player, point guard Nigel Williams-Goss, is quite the accomplished youth. The 6-3 guard, who is headed to Washington, has never received a grade lower than an A and had learned to speak Mandarin by the time he was in the fifth grade.
5. First, Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing) passes away. Then, Bonnie Franklin (Ms. Romano). Now Valerie Harper is terminally ill with brain cancer. It’s been a bad year for CBS stars from the ’70s. We note that Edith Bunker, a.k.a. Jean Stapleton, is still going strong at age 90. As are Sue Ann Nivens, a.k.a. Betty White (91) and Phyllis, or Cloris Leachman (86).
The scarves, looking back, were an ominous harbinger
Reserves
I gotta be honest. I wouldn’t mind if this happened to more golfers. Particularly those who constantly tell you how they shot yesterday and how they would’ve broken 80 if it weren’t for those two putts that lipped out.
The most dominant athlete in the world over the past year is not over six feet tall and does not play for the Miami Heat. The world’s most dominant athlete is a five-foot-seven Argentinian with a slight paunch. Lionel Messi scored two goals yesterday for FC Barcelona in a 4-0 defeat of AC Milan in the Round of 16 of the Champions League (Milan had won the opener, 2-0, which meant that Barca needed to win by at least three goals to win the two-leg round outright). In just the past two years alone Messi has scored a staggering total of 126 goals for Barca in La Liga and at the Cup and Champions League levels. No one else is even close. Cristiano Ronaldo, by comparison, has scored 102 goals in the same span.
The world’s most dominant athlete belongs on the cover of SI
Steve Nash’s line last night in 32 minutes of play: two assists, three turnovers, four fouls. I don’t even know you anymore.
Pamela Anderson: “I got tired of talking boyfriends and boobs.” Now she’s an activist. Last week she spoke at the University of Cambridge in England. You know who also addressed that famed institution once? Sir Winston Churchill (I should tell you that Winston is my all-time hero of the 20th century…. I mean, right after Roger Staubach).
From Baywatch to Britain
Just realizing that the last two figures I mentioned are both from British Columbia. Wondering if Steve Nash has ever met Pamela Anderson…
Remote Patrol
Honestly, there’s nothing on. Go bowling. Better yet, here’s three books I’d recommend to anyone:
1. The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God, by John Powers
I still don’t understand how this has never been turned into a movie
2. The Tender Bar, by JR Moehringer
3. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (Lately I’ve come to realize that Wall Street is basically Milo Minderbinder)
Having checked Twitter today, always a good source for volume humor attempts, my best offering is
Everybody Popes.
Do you think Pujols is regretting giving up the title of “best Cardinal” only a year ago? Had he known then …
I always think of the word “Skylar” as the far end of the how-Boston-do-you-want-to-talk spectrum of movie dialect. In Hunting, it’s never more than Skylah. Affleck knows his post-vocalic Rs, but the absolute peak of Bahsten in that film is Robin Williams saying “she used to faht in her sleep.”
IF I make it to the pearly gates, I’m going to ask the Ice-Cream God for a double scoop of Rocky Road.