The Sports Curmudgeon

As the next phase of the NCAA Basketball Tournament is about to unfold, let me say that Tim Floyd has reestablished himself as a competent basketball coach this year. When Floyd and the Chicago Bulls parted company, Floyd looked like someone who didn’t have a clue what he was doing; his tenure in New Orleans didn’t erase that impression. That was all a mirage; the Bulls were awful; they had just blown up their championship teams and they were deficient in talent; in the NBA, that is a ticket to a disastrous record no matter who the coach is. And Tim Floyd happened to be the coach of that talent-starved team.

Floyd landed at USC in the spring of 2005. USC has been the college basketball stepchild in LA for about the last 50 years; in two seasons, Floyd has USC on the map as a major basketball school within the Pac-10. They have a tough draw this week against UNC; they only have one big kid/inside player and he’s a freshman. Whatever the outcome, Floyd and USC have had a fine season.

ESPN.com ran its Bracketology Men’s Tournament Challenge a few weeks ago. People filled out more than 3 million brackets and exactly ZERO of those entries have predicted all of the games correctly to this point. That’s not all that surprising; here’s what is surprising. Only 45 of the entries (out of 3.3 million) had all 16 of the teams correctly placed in the Sweet Sixteen; meanwhile, 5,404 entries had none of the teams identified correctly in the Sweet Sixteen. It would seem to be as difficult to get all of these wrong as it would be to get all of them right, but notice the disparity in these numbers.

Syracuse lost at Clemson last night in an NIT game. Prior to last night’s game, Syracuse played an earlier round NIT game at home in the Carrier Dome and the crowd was 26,752. That is a record attendance for any NIT game – remember the NIT is actually older than the NCAA Tournament – and it makes one stop and wonder for just a moment. Syracuse was one of the teams on the bubble who did not make it into the NCAA Tournament – much to the dismay of Jim Boeheim and other pundits. So, is it possible that the Selection Committee made an economic decision to put Syracuse in the NIT?

Recall that the NCAA now owns the NIT; it purchased the tournament from its previous owners/organizers in order to settle an anti-monopoly suit brought against the NCAA by the NIT organizers. So the NCAA stands to profit most when the NIT does well. And look at the fannies that Syracuse put in the seats in that game…

Paging Mr. Stone … Mr. Oliver Stone … Please come to the Information Desk…

In addition to the names of baseball players on the customer lists for some of these steroid/HGH distributors, it seems as if the names of some pro rasslers are there too. If anyone is surprised to learn this, he/she might also be surprised to learn:

1. Dr. Seuss did not win the Nobel Prize for Medicine

2. It is not necessary to bring toilet paper to a craps table.

3. Cured bacon has not been injected with penicillin.

Last week, Dallas Cowboy uber-fan, “Crazy Ray” Jones died after a prolonged illness. In the Denver Post, Mike Klis reported that the guy who goes to Broncos’ games wearing only a barrel – Tim McKernan - will do that next year but then would give up that habit. He has had some medical issues stemming from an abdominal aneurism that burst several years ago and his doctors do not want him out in freezing temperatures wearing only a barrel. Fancy that medical advice; I’ll bet he had to pay top dollar to get that kind of insight. And they called the Cowboys’ fan, “Crazy Ray”…?

A year ago, Thomas Jones and Lance Briggs were “demoted” from the top line on the Bears’ depth chart in the spring because both players chose not to participate in the team’s “voluntary” off-season workouts and both opted to work out on their own. Interestingly, Jones has now been traded away and Briggs is definitely not one of the “happy campers” on the team having said he will never play another down for the Bears. This year, Tank Johnson will definitely miss these team workout sessions because he’ll be a “guest of the state” while he models orange overalls as a result of his jail term for violating his probation. As of this morning, Tank Johnson is still listed as the #1 guy at right defensive tackle for the Bears. Interesting…

Speaking of Tank Johnson, one of the really egregious things that came out at his sentencing hearing on the probation violation was the statement he made to the court in his own defense as to why he should not go to jail. You would think that this would be a prepared statement that his lawyers and advisors would have parsed pretty carefully. If so, how did they allow Johnson to say that one of the reasons he should not go to jail is that it would hurt his ability to get endorsement contracts. I’m sure the judge has heard dumber pleas from defendants over the years, but that one has to rank pretty high on the “self-serving scale.”

In MLS, the commissioner handed down a ruling denying a request by the NY Red Bulls that the team be allowed to fly on chartered jets instead of commercial aircraft. According to the NY Daily News, this request was denied because it would provide the Red Bulls with an unfair advantage and might “start an off-field spending race between teams”. Remember, this is the league that just signed David Beckham to a “$250M contract” and is reportedly courting other widely known soccer stars to hype the league. But those won’t start an “on-field spending race between the teams”? Say what?

Finally, Dwight Perry had this “prediction” recently in the Seattle Times:

“Veteran NFL observers predict that free-agent tight end Jerramy Stevens, with his arrest for DUI marking his latest run-in with the law, will likely get two to four years.

“In the form of a Bengals contract offer.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…