SpongeWorthy

I had thought CP3 was under contract for awhile and now I see that he has a player option after next season. Interesting.

Wade is easily better than Durant. Durant's great but let's not draw sweeping conclusions from one game shall we? KD is also an absolutely horrific defender too. Although from what I've seen of him so far this year he's gone from historically awful to merely terrible. He still needs a ton of work in that area. what i was saying is i would rather have the 21 year old, 4 million dollar a year kevin durant over a 27 year old 15 million dollar a year wade. Even if you put wade over durant he's not that much better to where he makes up for being six years older and getting paid over 10 mil a year more. Just for refrence, when wade was 21 he was averaging 16 ppg, durant is averaging 28. also, it's not like durant is about to turn 22, he turned 21 about a month ago. If someone was starting a team and was guaranteed to keep a player for the length of his career, all players played until they were 35, et al; Most people would take lebron then durant Durant will be pulling in one of the highest salaries in the league as soon as his rookie deal is done. I see what you're saying about youth and potential and all of that and I don't necessarily disagree. I was just saying it's pretty silly to all of a sudden change your mind about Durant vs. Wade because Thabo stopped him in one game. As for the who would you take to build a team around argument...I would dispute that. Durant would get some votes here and there but most would take Howard and Paul I think (after Lebron of course).

Wade is easily better than Durant. Durant's great but let's not draw sweeping conclusions from one game shall we? KD is also an absolutely horrific defender too. Although from what I've seen of him so far this year he's gone from historically awful to merely terrible. He still needs a ton of work in that area.

France doesn't advance if Ireland fails to score here? wtf

Nice, France getting away with blatant handballs in the box to tie it up!

What has to happen in the last minutes of this Ireland/France game to determine who advances?

Russian player just got red carded.

Minutes are down but the offense not running through him is nothing new really. He plays off the ball more than just about any other top flight point guard in the league. That was the case last year as well. It's a motion heavy offense and Rose is rarely allowed to work in isolation. I wish he'd dictate more of that instead of so much screen and roll. We don't have the big men that can spot up/drive for heavy doses of the pick and roll game.

Lack of confidence, lack of floor spacers, bum achilles, Vinny, out of wack expectations. I just hope it's mostly the injury at this point and he's still working his way back. Edit: I do think he's improved on D more than slightly UMFan. Mainly because it was so terrible last year but he's not playing the matador defense and working much better through screens.

that about sums it up. I wonder who we could get to fill the position. Kevin Wilson, Gus Malzahn, Charlie Strong?

Do they even work on offensive sets in practice? Howland's a great coach but sometimes it seems like he coaches his team like a scrappy midmajor rather than UCLA.

Weis's problem is that he can't or won't teach fundamentals. It's a huge weakness in the college game. He'll be back in the NFL as a coordinator, and quickly, if he checks his ego at the door. I'd even be interested in him for the Bears although I do think the Bears need a lot of work on fundamentals, sadly. Moreso than other teams.

I can't disagree with much of that. He's right on the money about the NFL being a passing-centric type league. Having a good running game is (almost) a luxury for good NFL offenses to help ice games and complement other aspects of the offense (play action, boots, etc.). But the idea that you run to set up the pass is largely dormant...it's definitely the other way around. The philosophy from the scheme to the roster needs to be about building a dangerous and efficient passing attack.

Here's an article from a couple years ago that Michael Lewis wrote about going for it on 4th down: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3641375 I remember reading something similar awhile back that said Belichick actually read academic papers saying that coaches should go for it on 4th down more often and I've been waiting for him to do something pretty radical but I didn't expect it in that situation. Edit: Here's the paper http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/PAPER_NFL_JULY05_FORWEB_CORRECTED.pdf ...I'm pretty sure the Christina Romer thanked in that article is now one of Obama's top economic advisers.

I think if they knew they were going for it all along they would've ran it twice from 3rd and 2. I actually like the call overall but the fact that they threw it twice instead of setting up a potential 4th and inches type situation by running on 3rd down leads me to believe that Belichick said F it and decided to go for it.

In other news, Manny Pacquaio is officially one of the greatest boxers of all time.

Jennings is a killer. Wow.

If La Tech somehow beat LSU and TCU continued to paste Utah I wonder what the shakeout would be.

Anyone know what time the Pac/Cotto fight is supposed to start?

It would seem pretty ridiculous to get rid of Mangino after the season they had in 2007. On the other hand, it's kind of looking like those years were a perfect confluence of teams being flabbergasted by a wide open spread passing attack--same deal with Mizzou. That edge has been diminished a lot.

Harbaugh can compete for conference titles and maybe more the next 3 years as long as Andrew Luck is there. I think he'd have to be bowled over with an offer to leave (NFL, Michigan).

I remember after Florida had a "down" year when Tebow first took over as starter and they lost to Michigan, Meyer kind of threw some people under the bus and was basically a big prick about some of his players being quitters, bad fits, etc. Then I just thought he was a big [expletive]. I kinda hope Carroll does the same now. The loosy-goosy style is starting to backfire. More accountability needed I guess.

I think Ohio State would beat Oregon. They're too Jekyll and Hyde and I think the Bucks could pound them a bit. There isn't a team that more heavily leans on positive momentum. Stanford is more dangerous, IMO. They're extremely balanced, mean, and physical as all hell. Gerhart gets 2 yards of body lean on every play...he's a frigging load.

This is a snuff film.

Brutal.