NCAA Experts

A Tournament of Unpredictability

It’s been a wild NCAA basketball tournament thus far. In the first weekend alone, 8 double digits seeds moved on to the 2nd round. 3 of those; #12 Cornell, #11 Washington, and #10 Saint Mary’s; moved on to the Sweet 16. Those don’t even include the biggest upset of them all, when #9 Northern Iowa beat #1 overall seed Kansas in the second round, ruining an unbelievably large amount of brackets country wide. Now the Final Four consists of #5 Michigan State, #5 Butler, #2 West Virginia, and #1 Duke. So raise your hand if you got this Final Four right. That’s what I thought.

The Experts

I woke up this morning and, as usual, put on Sportscenter where I saw Doug Gottlieb making his predictions on who is going to the championship game in Indianapolis and who will eventually be holding the trophy. I sat there and thought to myself “What do I care what Doug Gottlieb predicts, did 

Jeremy Tyler Quits Maccabi Haifa

         In April 2010 high school junior Jeremy Tyler announced that he would be skipping his senior of high school and play professional basketball in Europe for two years before entering the NBA Draft in 2011. In August of the same year, he announced his signing with Israeli team Maccabi Haifa. Tyler played only 10 games for Maccabi Haifa, averaging a mere 2.1 PPG in only 7.6 MPG. On Thursday March 18, 2010 Tyler declared that he will leave his professional team and return to his home in San Diego, California.

Brandon Jennings

One year removed from the Brandon Jennings experiment, Jeremy Tyler decided to take it one step further. While Jennings circumvented the NBA age minimum of 19 by joining Lottomatica Roma, a professional team in Italy, Tyler decided to skip both his freshman year of college AND his senior year of high school. Instead of going into

NCAA Tournament Opening Round Game

         In honor of the start of the 2010 NCAA tournament, it’s time to discuss one of the most pointless games in one of the best sporting events of the year, the opening round game. The first game of the NCAA tournament is played on the Tuesday after Selection Sunday between the two lowest seeded, automatic bid teams. The winner has the honor of playing one of the number one seeds in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. If you ever wondered why 65 teams, as opposed to 64, make it into the tournament, it’s because of this extra game. This year, the opening round game is between Winthrop, winner of Big South Conference, and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, winner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The victor then plays Duke in the first round. Is it me or is this game 100% useless?

The Play-In Game

Originally named the “play-in game,” the NCAA now refers to it as the “opening round game” because technically the two teams playing in it are in 

Floating Realignment in MLB

The Committee

Commissioner of Major League Baseball Bud Selig created a “special committee for on-field matters” that has already come up with a big idea for a change. The committee proposed the notion of floating realignment. Under floating realignment, teams will be able to change divisions based on payroll, location, and potential to make the playoffs. For example, a team like the Tampa Bay Rays, who are in the AL East, could move to another division so that they can get out of the shadow created by the Yankees/Red Sox and compete for a playoff spot without having to compete with those two teams every year. Conversely, a rebuilding team, such as the Kansas City Royals, can move to the AL East 

Baylor’s Brittney Griner Suspended

The Punch

In a women’s college basketball game between Baylor and Texas Tech, Baylor freshman phenom Brittney Griner and Texas Tech’s Jordan Barncastle got their arms tangled up while Barncatle was trying to guard Griner in the post. Barncastle was called for a foul as she spun Griner around and tossed her aside by the arm. Griner responded by throwing a punch at a defenseless Barncastle, who wasn’t even looking at Griner at the time, hitting her square in the face and breaking her nose. Griner was ejected from the game. If you haven't seen it, here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtaPtQnu370

The Punishment

As a result of her punch, Griner has been suspended for two games (one by the NCAA and one by the school.) Baylor has one game left in the regular season so Griner will miss that game and Baylor’s first round game of the Big 12 tournament. This seems to be an absolute joke of a 

Possibility of NBA Retiring Michael Jordan’s 23

          Everyone knows that Michael Jordan is more than likely the best player in NBA history. If you don’t agree with that, since there is no definitive list, you should agree that he is definitely top 2, but definitely reconsider your stance on who is number 1. However, as great as Jordan was on the court, can you mention him and someone like Jackie Robinson in the same sentence? Probably not, but Lebron James seems to try to.

The Thought

We may not know if Lebron James is going to have a new team for the 2010-2011 season, but we do know that he will have a new jersey number. James said he filed paperwork to change his number for next season from #23 to #6, the number he wore for Team USA during the Summer Olympics. James has been enthusiastic about his beliefs that the NBA should retire

Nate Robinson’s 3 Straight Dunk Contest Victories

         I know this is a little late in comparison to the 2010 SLam Dunk Contest, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t still be said. If anyone is less deserving of just one dunk contest trophy, let alone three, it’s Nate Robinson. If you break down the three contests in which he won, he only really deserved to win the 2009 competition, still arguable though, when he beat out Dwight Howard. Here is a breakdown of the 3 he won.

2006 Dunk Contest

In the end, the two best dunkers made it to the the finals, Nate Robinson of the Knicks and Andre Iguodala of the Sixers. But in the finals, injustice occurred. I have to make a side note about the 1st round though: In my opinion, Dala’s second dunk, an alley-oop