Starting Five

1. Don Who

Don Ho. Don Juan. Don Corleone. In a sense Don Draper was all of the above last night. “Thanks for the toy,” says his neighbor, Dr. Rosen (no relation to Dr. Rosenrosen, I assume), when Don hands him some swag in the form of a camera. And little do we know it at the time, but Don might as well have replied, “Likewise.”

It’s Christmas, 1967 (Peggy Olsen gave it away when she said that it’ll be “The Packers against the Raiders or the Oilers” in the Super Bowl) at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don is still Don and Roger remains Roger (when Don vomits at Roger’s mom’s memorial, Sterling quips, “He was just saying what everyone else is thinking”), but metamorphoses are taking place (maybe Don should be reading Kakfa instead of Dante?). Anyway, show creator/writer sets up his theme of portals (the episode is titled “The Doorway”) via Roger speaking to an analyst, a sure sign that Wiener watches The Newsroom.

 

It’s a little too easy –here, I’m just going to have my character spew the premiere’s theme out to a shrink midway through the two-hour premiere — but it’s still a terrific, cynical and sobering point. We are all just going through portals, and each one closes behind us. “Experiences are nothing,” notes Roger, who will take the news of his mother’s death with stoicism, almost nonchalance, but breaks down in tears when he learns of the death of his shoeshine guy. “They’re just some pennies you pick up off the floor, stick in your pocket. You’re just going in a straight line to You Know Where.”

For more, read the incomparable Alan Sepinwall, who notes that this was also the time when The Doors themselves were just beginning to break big.

2. No Title For Skylar Diggins

Is Skylar Diggins the best female basketball player ever to don a Notre Dame uniform? She IS the school’s all-time leading scorer and she is certainly the most photographed female athlete in Fighting Irish history. A South Bend native, she has represented the school proudly, leading the Irish to three straight Final Fours.

The Irish failed to win a championship, however, and this was the year they should have. Baylor was bounced in the Sweet 16 and the Irish just needed to get past a pair of Big East foes, UConn and Louisville, against whom they’d gone 5-0 this season. Notre Dame beat Louisville, which will meet UConn tomorrow night, by 29 and 24 points earlier this season.

Last night Diggins was completely outplayed by UConn freshman Breanna Stewart, a 6-foot-4 swing player with a deadly jumper. Stewart, from upstate New York, scored a career-high 29 points. It’s worth nothing that when Diana Taurasi faced the Irish in the Final Four as a freshman, she went 1 for 15. The Irish won that game and their first — and still only –national championship.

Ruth Riley led that Irish squad, and if Diggins is not the best player in school history, she is.

Notre Dame had beaten UConn seven of its past eight meetings, all during the Diggins era. Nobody beats Geno Auriemma that often. Nobody. Not even Pat Summitt. But if Auriemma can survive the Diggins era being able to say that the Huskies won two national championships in those four years and Notre Dame zero, that’s a major coup.

3. From Mad Men to mad man: Is Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim an insufferable grouch? Does Syracuse play zone defense? The Orange coach  and longtime misanthrope must exhaust his limited supply of charm on lovely wife Julie, but I will excuse him –slightly–for his latest cantankerous post-game outburst. Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com, a fearless columnist who marches to his own beat, admirably, was called on to ask the first question after the Cuse lost its national semifinal to Michigan. Gregg led with, “When do you think you’ll decide, announce, whatever, whether or not you’re coming back next year or do you already know?”

Valid question? Yeah, I guess. Boeheim is 68. Then again, Mike Krzyzewski is 66 and I doubt anyone asked him that question after Louisville defeated Duke last Sunday. There are a few things going on here. First (and as someone who is beginning to get up there in age but can still outhustle snappers of whip 20 years my junior), aging lions completely resent being reminded that they won’t be around forever, particularly when their performance has yet to drop off. Coach K led his squad to the Elite Eight while Boeheim and Rick Pitino, age 60, advanced to the Final Four (and Pitino might win it all). So, unless Boeheim is ill or his team’s performance is noticeably suffering, yeah, he’ll take offense to that question. And I don’t blame him.

Second, Gregg is a veteran of pressers. That’s not a question you lead off the presser with unless you are deliberately going after the Howard Stern/Stuttering John moment. Gregg said 100 hands went up in the air and he was surprised to be chosen first. Two things: One, all of us have more than one question in our arsenal. Two, if you know it’s that type of question, you don’t raise your hand initially. You let a few questions pass before you step up to the plate.

Could Boeheim have handled it better (and how many times can we ask that about Jimmy B. over the course of his career, especially in pressers?)? Of course. He could have pulled a Mark Dantonio and tersely replied, “Yes. Next question.” But I don’t blame him for being a little pissed off at Gregg.

4. This should bother you: The Tanzanian government plans to kick Maasai tribesmen off their land so that wealthy oil barons from the United Arab Emirates can use the area for trophy hunting of lions and leopards, etc. Poaching is bad enough. Government-sponsored poaching is just terrible. Can’t Matt Damon or George Clooney make a film about this? Can Toto perform a benefit concert?

 

5. Instead of a bunch of words on Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister who died today at the age of 87, I’ll provide one of her many memorable quotes (why are British heads of state so much more quotable than American heads of state???): “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Reserves

On “Weekend Update” Drunk Uncle is joined by brother-in-law Peter “Drunklage.” Drunk Uncle on taxes: “You know what I’m writing off this year? The next generation.” Drunklage, staring at his Scotch glass while discussing social media: “You know what’s in my Tumblr? Regret.”

Dinklage, by the way, was a convincing drunk. But the dude who portrayed PFC Dinkins on “Mad Men” was intoxicatingly good.

I got into a little Twit-snit with women’s hoops reporter Wendy Parker this week. Last Tuesday she tweeted, “Louisville-Cal will be a fun game. Don’t call it an undercard, (as compared to Notre Dame-UConn).” Then yesterday, by way of a link to her advance story on the game, she tweeted, “…the undercard (Louisville-Cal) has its own appeal.” To be fair to Wendy, she made a point in her story of noting that people consider that game an undercard, but it is not.
Except that, by every definition of the term “undercard”, it kinda was. Though she’s correct, it was a fun game. Geno Auriemma had the best line on the Louisville-Cal game, noting that Cardinal coach Jeff Walz was wearing a red-and-white checkered shirt: “He’s wearing an Italian tablecloth. I should hire him for my restaurant.”

Hey, everybody, Wesley Snipes is a free man again.

Jon Stewart, in his Lords of Flatbush get-up, interviews George Carlin in 1997. At the end (9:45), Carlin tells Stewart that “you are going to show us a lot, and I look forward to it.”

Remote Patrol

NCAA Championship Game

Louisville vs. Michigan

CBS 9 p.m.

Tip-off is at 9:23 p.m. Here’s betting that Phil Mushnick of the New York Post has already written his column blasting the suits at the NCAA and CBS for starting a title game after most kids’ bedtime. And, you know what? He’s right.