Wow, I just looked up Game 6 of the 1992 Finals - widely known as a game MJ struggled and the Bulls' reserves did some heavy lifting - to see if it was worse, and I find 13/24 FG, 2/3 3FG, 5/5 FT, 33 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast, 4 stl. So yeah, it was.
These calls have been legit. Most of them have, yeah. I'm not seeing a whole lot of bad calls. The worst call I've seen was Pierce getting free throws because he leaned into Gasol while on the perimeter. Though the Lakers got a break on the Pau shot there.
Coaches generally agree to get wired only if they're assured that anything interesting won't get shown. The Jackson "They lose games in the 4th quarter" speech was pretty interesting. Which is why it was such a shock when they ran it. There were rumors that Jackson might not wire himself up again after that.
The Utah to Pac-10 move makes sense to me, they've been pretty good the last 15 years in both of the big sports. If I were the Big 12 I'd think about adding BYU and another team (maybe TCU, maybe somebody else), but it doesn't seem like they're interested in doing that.
I want to see more Colvin too, though I can see the showcasing Fuku argument. Although I don't see us getting a whole lot for a 12M a year outfielder who isn't all that great a hitter, even if he is really good in right field. It's nice to go up and see a win. Ron Santo rolled right by me in a motorized cart being escorted up to the booth today, too. I was wearing my Santo jersey. A bit surreal.
Supposedly the Big 12 (-2) will play a 9-game conference schedule to increase their value to broadcasters, which is a good and probably necessary idea.
In a way Lou pisses me off even more, because at least most of Baker's stupidity was predicated around an actual belief he had (not caring about walking), stupid as it may have been. Lou just seems to do stupid [expletive] for no apparent reason.
I like Kobe and I can't stand anything about the Celtics (Rondo's thuggishness last year, KG's ridiculous behavior the last two seasons, Pierce's wheelchair, and the fact that Boston fans are constantly [expletive] whining about the Gasol trade and completely ignore that a former Celtic gift-wrapped them KG for little more than an injury-prone poor man's version of him). I would have rooted for the Suns or Magic over either of these two teams, but the Lakers are fine to me.
2005 and 2006 were products of Weis-hype, getting a lot of mileage out of the USC game, and then being way over ranked to start the next season (preseason #2 IIRC). I'm not really talking about BCS exemptions or whatever. I would be surprised if there are any teams that have appeared in multiple BCS games that have won fewer games against good teams than those two Irish teams. That's an extremely long-winded barometer which I suppose is correct if only because there are a handful of cases of teams going to two straight BCS games (if we're only looking at the BCS era since 1998). And it's not Notre Dame's fault the media decided that Quinn, Samardzija and Zbikowski were the only three ingredients needed to win a national title. They surely did their part during the season by dropping ND after wins twice that season, including once after a win over a good Georgia Tech team on the road while everyone else was playing cupcakes. This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand though, so there's no reason to clog the thread with it.
The deck-stacking debate continues to be hilarious, by the way. Notre Dame absolutely HAS to win ten games to get a BCS bid (no 9-3 ND team is ever going to be allowed by the pollsters to be eligible for a BCS game unless the 3 losses come under extremely extenuating circumstances). Meanwhile, ACC teams who win 8 or 9 games go to the Orange Bowl every year and no one bats an eye.
I love how we still call them 'unwarranted' BCS bids. The 2005 bid was an auto-bid because they were in the top 6. The 2006 bid was because the only other eligible at-large selection was West [expletive] Virginia. Just because they got smoked in 06 doesn't mean they didn't deserve to be there by the parameters set by the BCS for regular-season play. And GR is probably talking about the caliber of talent that Weis got to ND (which he couldn't coach, which is why he isn't there anymore, but he got the talent there). Because of his recruiting, Brian Kelly is in a position to win immediately and build a strong team for the future, a luxury that neither of his two predecessors were presented with. I don't know how any of this plays into the strength of ND's independence, to be honest, so I'll stay out of that.
I thought it was fairly humorous that the VT/Virginia non-separation talk came up tonight...the two have been in the same conference for all of six years, they're not exactly joined at the hip here.
Just chiming in that there's no way in hell that the Big Ten would split into divisions in basketball. The Big East did it and it was stupid and they un-did it. They'd keep the basketball as is.
Why exactly is the ACC a better fit? Mainly, because there are more private schools, and unlike the Big Ten, whose response to a religiously affiliated university is uncertain at best, the ACC already has one (Wake Forest). It's academic, of course. ND to the ACC is even more unlikely right now than ND to the Big Ten.
For humor's sake I'd love to see the Big Ten take crappy Big East teams and then watch Notre Dame join the ACC, which is a much better fit for them in every way except, obviously, geographically.
I'm not sure why the Pac-10 would stop at CU, but the easy solution would seem to be for the Big 12 to grab two of BYU/TCU/Utah/Houston and then the MWC to add Boise to keep itself viable.