March 30, 2007
3/30/07 - Where Did All The Mid-Majors Go?
If you are to believe the conspiracy theorists, lots of really good “mid-major teams” were denied a shot at the NCAA tournament in favor of incompetent and feckless teams from the lower echelons of the “power conferences”. So, the logical consequence of that miscarriage of justice ought to be that those worthy mid-majors should do well in the NIT since the power conference schools available to play there must be unable to tie their shoes correctly. So, without peeking, who played in the NIT Finals? I’ll tell you because the conspiracy theorists will conveniently ignore the fact that it was Clemson versus West Virginia. Neither team is “one for the ages” by any stretch of the imagination; between them, they lost 20 games this season. But please take note that two teams from the depths of two power conferences managed to survive the onslaught of all those unjustly ignored mid-majors.
Bob Molinaro in the Virginian-Pilot had an interesting perspective on this year’s NCAA basketball tournament and the way the top seeds have advanced:
“This year, while people where naively looking around for the next George Mason, the tournament failed to deliver on its promise. Upsets were harder to find than a Phi Beta Kappa in a headband.”
Nolan Richardson went from coaching the national champions at Arkansas to getting fired by the Razorbacks and then suing the school for discrimination. Then he sort of disappeared from the landscape for a while. About a week ago, Richardson surfaced as the coach of the Mexican Olympic team; I have no idea how you say “forty minutes of Hell” in Spanish, but I’m sure it will become a catch phrase wherever the team trains. Speaking to reporters in El Paso, Richardson said, “I remember as a young man growing up thinking I would love to coach the Mexican Olympic team.” Obviously, he has to say something positive and upbeat at such a time, but why do I have trouble believing that?
I want to get something on the record now before this becomes a commonplace topic of discussion. I acknowledge that Avery Johnson has done a really good job coaching the Dallas Mavericks this year and that he should get serious consideration for Coach of the Year. The same thing applies to Mike D’Antoni in Phoenix and Gregg Popovich in San Antonio. Some folks even say Isiah Thomas deserves consideration for Coach of the Year for having the Knicks in playoff contention this late in the season – even though they are in a dreadful division in a woebegone conference. I won’t allow myself to drink the “Isiah Thomas Kool-Aid” but I stipulate that the other three coaches are worthy. Nonetheless, here is my choice for Coach of the Year in the NBA:
Jerry Sloan – Utah Jazz.
Given the roster he has and the injuries the team has weathered, I think it has to be a feather in the cap of the coach there to win 50 games and it looks as if the Jazz will win 53 or 54.
Towards the end of May, the NFL owners will have their “Spring Meeting”. One of the items on the agenda will be to assign the venue for the 2011 Super Bowl. The usual suspects, the warm weather cities with interesting attractions, will obviously get consideration. Additionally, there will be pitches from Arizona, Indy and Dallas-Fort Worth. Arizona will host the game in its new stadium before 2011 but not before the meeting in May; so, I suspect the owners will want to wait and see just how that one plays out before going back for another game. That leaves Indy and Dallas-Fort Worth as the serious “non-traditional” contenders.
Indy has a domed stadium meaning the February climate in Indianapolis is not an immediate disqualifier. And before the folks in Indy trot out some climatological claptrap about weather in that part of the world in early February, realize that on Super Bowl weekend this year temperatures hovered between -5 and +10 in Indy. That’s without any wind chill tossed in. The weather there is hardly balmy at that time of year so anyone expecting to participate in any water sports better be prepared to go ice fishing. Recently, the city fathers in Indy passed a law making it illegal to scalp tickets and one of the supporters of the measure said it should help the city attract the Super Bowl to the town. If that’s all it takes to get the NFL to bring its showcase event to a town where the weather is likely to stink and where there is precious little to do even when the town is at its liveliest, then maybe Fargo, North Dakota should think about building a domed stadium…
The weather in Dallas at that time of year can be cold too but Dallas has a new stadium going up – this one won’t have a hole in the roof – and Dallas has Jerry Jones to “sell the idea”. Jerry’s new stadium was designed to have the ability to expand the seating capacity to 100,000 – just in case some big event happened to come along. It also has 300 luxury suites available for any and all high rollers to take the plunge on. Since I won’t be going to the Super Bowl game, it really doesn’t matter a whole lot to me where they put it, but I have to admit that there’s a small bit of me that would take a perverse pleasure in seeing Dallas-Fort Worth and Jerry Jones host that game. It would frost Danny Boy Snyder like nothing else…
Danny Boy fancies himself as a rainmaker and a deal closer. He’d probably fire his grandmother if it meant he could be the central focus of Super Bowl happenings and the host of the affair. But he plays in a cold weather venue and he plays in a mausoleum of a stadium with no roof. He’s got a long-term contract to stay out there in Prince George’s County, Maryland where the pockets aren’t nearly deep enough to fund a roof for that concrete block eyesore. So, Danny Boy will have to go to the game and watch his rival, Jerry Jones, strut around and display his prowess at rainmaking and deal closing.
Unless of course, Danny Boy’s Redskins are playing in the game… So, if the game is awarded to Dallas-Fort Worth, look for Danny Boy and his football maven friends to go nuts signing up whomever they can glom onto between now and 2011. That’s his solution to two problems; it’s his way of “producing a winner”; and it’s his way to share in the limelight his rival will get no matter how his rival’s team is doing.
Finally, after Peyton Manning’s successful appearance on Saturday Night Live there was some debate as to whether his show was better or worse than the one that Tom Brady hosted a couple of years ago. Whatever. I think the funniest quarterback in the NFL today might be Michael Vick. I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as when I heard his explanation that his “fake water bottle” was his way of carrying his bling.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
