STARTING FIVE

1. Like a Kidd on Christmas Morning

Ho Ho Horrible

A few days after losing their best player, Brook Lopez, and two days after their first-year coach, Jason Kidd, says that “it’s getting very close to just accepting losing”, the Brooklynettes lose their fourth straight, by 17 at home to a sub-.400 Chicago Bulls team. We will remind you that the ‘nettes, now 9-19, have the NBA’s highest payroll.

Oh, and Kevin Gar-Net was in the holiday spirit.

New York City is losing a lot these days: the Knicks are also 9-19, the Giants and Jets will not even make the playoffs in the one season their stadium will host the Super Bowl, the Yankees have lost Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano (but can’t seem to lose A-Rod, alas), the city is losing Mayor Bloomberg (make all the soda jokes you want, the city is in outstanding shape), and Saturday Night Live is losing Seth Meyers.

My city of ruins, indeed.

2. Max Preps…For No Rose Bowl Action

Whatever Michigan State middle linebacker Max Bullough did to merit a suspension, it cannot have been worth missing out on his final collegiate game that just happens to be the school’s first Rose Bowl in a quarter century. Bullough, a senior, was a three-year starter at that position, a two-time captain, and a legacy: both his grandfather, Hank (1952-54, at guard) and his father, Shane (1993-86, at linebacker) played for the Spartans. As did two uncles. As does younger brother Riley, a redshirt freshman. Yet another younger brother, Byron, is a verbal commit to Sparty.

Bullough was both a third-team All-American and a first-team Academic All-American (3.56 GPA) who was one of 15 players nationally honored for their academic acumen at a banquet in New York City earlier this month. Nicknamed “The Computer”, Bullough had made a team-high 40 starts and was basically the quarterback of the nation’s No. 4 scoring defense for a 12-1 squad.

In other words, this is out of character.

MSU sent out a press release with the news at 9:19 p.m. on Christmas night, not long after its plane touched down at LAX for Rose Bowl week.

No idea yet what the transgression was, but Bullough, who had 76 tackles this season, will be missed.

3. “Bruuuuuuce!”

I know I’ve been on a Bruce Dern jag of late, but this profile of him by Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone is fantastic. What’ you’ll learn about the 77 year-old actor: he once did a nude scene with Ann Margaret in which she insisted he doff his boxers; he lives in Pasadena but drives every day to Santa Monica (a 50-mile round trip) to check a P.O. box that he has kept for decades; before the scene from the 1972 film “The Cowboys” in which he is to shoot John Wayne in the back, The Duke, highly inebriated on Wild Turkey at 8:30 a.m., laughed and said, “They’re going to hate you for this”; he has run approximately 300 marathons (Hedegaard’s fail: Not to ask Dern his PR; he was probably dying to tell you, Eric) and, finally, for a role that may just win him a Best Actor Oscar later this winter, in “Nebraska”, Dern was paid a princely sum of $65,000.

By the way, Hedegaard’s last two RS profiles have been of Charles Manson and Dern, both California-based septuagenarians who are more than a little unhinged.

Set the DVR for Bravo tonight at 7 p.m. Dern and his lovely daughter, Laura, (for her 18th birthday he took her on a tour of California’s prisons…where paths would Charlie could have crossed) will appear with James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio.”

4. “All is Calm, All is Bright”

 

Christmas eve, around midnight. A man attempts to enter “Slick’s Go-Go Bar” in Irvington, N.J., (near Newark) which happens to be hosting a “Sluddie Tuesday” …because why not on Christmas eve? Bouncers pats him down, feels a gun. Next thing you know the bouncer, Woodley Daniel, and two others, including an employee named Clervoyant who clearly was not, are shot dead. The shooter remains at large. Sleep in heavenly peace.

5. Clips Lose, But Have Two More Ads Starring Their Starters

In a chippy contest that saw both Blake Griffin and Draymond Green ejected, the Golden State Warriors beat the L.A. Clippers. Chris/Cliff Paul missed two bunnies down the stretch and had another one blocked, and then decided –after the final buzzer had sounded–that he needed to grab the ball out of Warrior center Andrew Bogut’s clutches, because that seemed like the smart thing to do. And hence the game’s 43rd mini riot erupted.

The funniest item: the two teams refused to attend chapel together –a common rite in the NBA–on Christmas day. Guys, neither of you are yet good enough to be pretending you’re the Bulls and Pistons of 1991.

Meanwhile, the most impressive team in yesterday’s marathon (in which four of the five visiting teams won) was the Houston Rockets, who staked themselves to a 40-point first quarter at San Antonio and never trailed. Dwight Howard (a Miles Plumlee-esque 15 points and 20 rebounds) appears to have found a home.

Reserves

Utah’s First Couple

I’m nearly four weeks late on this, but congratulations to BYU’s All-American linebacker Kyle Van Noy and celebrated Miss Utah Marissa Powell on their engagement (but, really, congratulations are far more in order for Van Noy). I hate to say it, Brent Musburger, but you were wrong: “you quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women” was not 100% accurate.

You may recall this Miss USA moment (“how to create education better”…as if any of us would’ve done any better while wearing an evening gown on national television) with Powell, but it actually transformed her into the star of the pageant (Miss Connecticut is over in the corner yelling, “Hey, remember me?!? I won!”) and she more than compensated for it with this appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Also, Powell is a 4.0 student who was the Utah Class 5A Defensive Player of the Year in volleyball as a high school senior.

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Pre-Remote Patrol

AMC is airing a “Godfather”/”Godfather II” marathon all day. You owe it to yourself, if you really want to wear your grown-up man pants, to watch both these films. Far more important than memorizing the state capitols.

REMOTE PATROL

Poinsettia Bowl

Utah State vs. No. 23 Northern Illinois

ESPN 9:30 p.m.

I’ve already advised “Inside The Actors Studio” at 7 p.m., but for a sports fix how about Jordan Lynch’s final college game (assuming he does not violate team rules in the next 12 hours)? The Husky QB, who needs 119 rushing yards to become the first player to pass AND run for 2,000 in a season, did finish third in the Heisman voting, after all.