Monday -- early edition

by Glenn Logan on Apr 21, 2008 9:16 AM EDT in Media

As all college team bloggers sometimes discover upon a review of the events of the past few days, this morning I found that there was pretty much no uncovered ground in Kentucky football, basketball or even baseball. In case you missed my update below, Kentucky defeated Florida in the rubber match of a three game home stand yesterday to claim a 2-1 victory in the series. That should help Kentucky's national ranking, as the Gators are ranked #24 in the country. Great news, and despite their rather pedestrian record in the SEC the Bat Cats are starting to come out of their recent ... well, it's hard to call it a slump ... two weeks of slight under-achievement.

But beyond that the spring football game is over and, we are mostly waiting for word -- from Josh Harrellson, Paul McCoy, Maurice Sutton, Ater Majok, Morakinyo Williams, Derrick Jasper -- word on what is going to happen next in their futures. I don't like writing over and over again about recruits and players waiting to take some kind decision. I find it monotonous.

So instead, I thought I would look at a few of the things going on around the basketball and football universe today. First off, we have a short piece from the Philadelphia Daily News talking about a new attitude for the U.S. Olympic basketball team. If Jerry Colangelo lives up to his word, things could indeed be different:

[Team USA] might not include the most talented Americans, but it will include the best team - one that can adapt to international style.

No one need apply who doesn't "check his ego at the door," Colangelo said. "We're well aware of the attitudes. "That's not going to happen. If it does, they're gone."

Well. Now that is definitely lip service to a change, at the very least. It remains to be seen if this is real, or just more posturing. There is also this article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which goes into a bit more depth on the issue. If you believe Jerry Colangelo's words when discussing the U.S. Olympic team's performance in Athens in 2004, there may be some meat on this bone:

"I was embarrassed," said Jerry Colangelo, the long-time Phoenix Suns executive and a Hall of Famer. "I was embarrassed to watch those games -- I can't be any more honest than that. It was a sad moment to see the state of basketball, as far as the U.S. was concerned."

What bothered him most?

"The body language. The performance. The attitude."

Note: He didn't say anything about talent.

Heh. "The attitude," eh? You mean the, "This is a darn nice vacation, and who cares if we win" attitude, Jerry? Or the, "I'm not takin' a chance on hurting my knee for this crap" attitude? Take your pick, I guess. If Colangelo can actually scape together a team that truly cares about winning in Bejing, it would be a minor miracle, and definitely won't include the likes of Carmelo Anthony, who doesn't even seem to care if he kills somebody driving around in his car. I'll keep my own counsel on this until I see more.

Next, we have the Saban Rule. "What's that," you ask? Well, the NCAA enacted a new rule forbidding college football coaches from showing up at high schools and "bumping into" coveted recruits. Apparently, Nick Saban used this tactic to such an effect, the vast majority of NCAA coaches felt the need to level the playing field by passing a rule against it. What does Nick Saban think? He's agin' it.

In the SEC, the two main "offenders" on this have been Urban Meyer of Florida and Nick Saban of Alabama. Naturally, the papers of Florida and Alabama have little good to say about the rule. But Nick Saban being Nick Saban, he is determined to find another way to get into the hearts and minds of recruits, and with the help of Fox Sports Net South, he has found television a great way to peddle his wares, even in the off season.

You have to admire determination like that.

Finally, we revisit this recent blog post of mine talking about members of congress from a few states that felt the sting of the BCS this year. Kyle King of Dawg Sports has a great piece about why he thinks investigating the BCS is bunk, and there are several interesting editorials ridiculing the resolution and using it as an excuse to rail against the BCS.

But the most fascinating article I found on the subject was this one; not because I agree with it, but because part of me is in complete shock that anyone would actually make this argument and post it on the Internet. Predictably, somehow, it comes from WRAL in the Raliegh-Durham area. The author, one Barry Jacobs, argues that the BCS is great. Why? Because if the current petition for three more bowl games are agreed to and no other bowls are discontinued, college football will have almost 60% of its D-1 schools participating in some bowl or other.

He goes on to explain why this is good -- because "35 teams will end their seasons wreathed in triumph. Even if the financial payoff from some of these games is relatively small, the rewards in satisfaction, prestige, extra practice time, new experiences, and coaches' bonuses are not to be minimized." He goes on to rip college basketball's post season, lamenting the fact that, including the NIT and the CBI, only 113 out of 341 teams get to participate, and "of all those participants, only three teams go home on a victorious note." Oh dear.

Without engaging in bitter, pointless sarcasm at the remarkable silliness of that suggestion, I can only imagine that Vince Lombardi, should he read this piece, would roll over in his grave and curse the fact he can't regale Mr. Jacobs with tales of competitiveness, and what a truly competitive nature is all about. Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Jacobs could handle Coach Lombardi's truth. You wonder how guys like this ever get to write about sports.

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Comments

In Defense of Barry Jacobs

Barry is the probably the best informed, one of the most respected, and among the most experienced basketball writers you can ever read. He introduced the discussion of both meaningful and trivially entertaining statistics in his seminal "Fan's Guide to ACC Basketball" yearbook a generation ago. His insight into real basketball :), ie, Triangle teams, is seldom equalled and never exceeded by a writer or professional talker.

I suggest that you read Barry's bowl article as ironic rather than as literal. We do that down here, don't you know. And he is a Dookie. We Tar Heels don't lightly praise the Devil's progeny.

Jacobs is truly one of the good guys.

by Ford Prefect on Apr 21, 2008 12:21 PM EDT reply actions

Irony?

Well, perhaps. It isn't as if I read him a lot, and maybe that's why the sarcasm seems invisible to the untrained eye of a one-time reader.

I concede that if he is truly as informed as you suggest, he could easily have fooled me with an attempted bass-ackwards take on something he has commented on before. But even on reread, I fail to detect a point at which one might actually discern an ironic intent. Maybe we just don't to enough of that around here, at least without more overt clues to the reader.

Perhaps, in this case, his subtlety is more perceived than actually intended. Or maybe he is poking fun at some of the Duke administration, which would no doubt support a literal interpretation. One need only remember their bizarre antics during the faux lacrosse scandal to see how that might work.

by Glenn Logan on Apr 21, 2008 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions

Mello Hates Humanity

I want to begin by saying how much I enjoy reading this blog. Not only does it save me from having to peruse hundreds of pages of virtual garbage, but it is consistent in its quality. Praise aside, I'm not sure I agree that an instance of driving drunk - as hammered as Mello might have been - indicates that he (or anyone else for that matter) "doesn't even seem to care if he kills somebody driving around in his car". Of course, I get the logic. If one drives a car drunk and it MAY result in death, then it follows that neither drunkenness or death are of much concern to the individual involved in the former. Ipso ergo <something and something else in Latin> and poof!: Mello doesn't care about killing people in a car.

But let's be honest. I'm sure Carmelo Anthony would care about killing someone in his car. Not just because he would be liable (and guilty), but because killing another person isn't really as easy to shrug off as say.... a poor decision made after a night of drinking (unless that decision results in killing someone).

The flame response to this is obvious: Drunks kill people. This athlete was drunk and thus could have killed someone. Therefore he doesn't care about human life. Sure. I understand. But drunk driving is to murder as shooting a gun in the air is to shooting someone in the face. There are no firm statistics on numbers of deaths resulting from ALL instances of drunk driving (not incidents mind you), but I would imagine from my experience living in Lexington for a decade that the number is extraordinarily low. I mean, Tates Creek Road is a veritable moving after-party from 1-3 on Friday and Saturday nights. This in no way excuses drunk driving or makes it any less criminal, it just suggests that those doing it are not care-free murderers until they actually kill someone and shrug it off. It's hard sometimes to connect your fourth Maker's and water to homicide. Why? Because it is terribly rare.

I'm not a Mello fan. In fact, I don't even watch pro basektball. I am also not a representative for an AA group that has recommitted itself to extended bouts of recreational drunk driving. I was just struck by the relative ease in which an equivalence is made between dui, killing people, and a lack of basketball nationalism. That's all.

-tissuetendons

-tissue

by iamprobablycorrect on Apr 21, 2008 6:12 PM EDT reply actions

Rare?

According to the CDC, in 2005 there were 16,885 alcohol-relatd traffic deaths-- That figure represents 39% of all traftic deaths.

by Ken Howlett on Apr 21, 2008 8:18 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm am completely against drunk driving

BUT I am inclined to think that the above statistic includes accidents in which the driver had alcohol in his or her system but was below the legal limit and that a great number of the deaths were probably the drunk drivers themselves. I refuse to drink and drive, but I can't say that I never have done so in the past, not even once.
Frankly, I don't much care what anybody calls Carmelo (or any NBA player for that matter) - but I don't buy that it is a logical criticism.

My my my, we need some UK news; I cannot even believe I am posting such a useless comment.

by cdnWildcatfan on Apr 21, 2008 8:58 PM EDT up reply actions

Correlation?

16,885 alcohol related traffic deaths versus how many (undocumented I would imagine) instances of inebriated driving? Again, I would imagine the percentage is incredibly low. This statistical lacuna aside, I still find it somewhat bothersome when someone's moral character (despite the public's clear decision that professional basketball players are garbage) is attacked vis a vis an argument that makes a huge scalar jump from drunk driving to an indifference to human life.

I'm just saying....

-tissue

by iamprobablycorrect on Apr 21, 2008 9:36 PM EDT up reply actions

Ah ...

you're probably right. I took a bit of literary license there, maybe unfairly. Of course he cares.

I think I was trying to be deliberately absurd to point out the excesses we see in NBA players, the hubris, the selfishness. Of course, this is not universally true, nor is it true of any particular player all the time. Many of them are copiously generous with their money and time to good causes and get precious little credit for the good works they do.

So your point is well made. It was definitely reckless of Carmelo to do what he did, and we can all hope he learns from his error. The dig I made at him was perhaps a little unfair and unbalanced. But then again, when any of us makes a big mistake in life, few people remember the good we do, at least for that moment in time.

So if I was too unrelenting on Carmelo, I apologize. But the provocation, I think, was sufficient for just a bit of unfairness. Surely karmic balance will be struck if he works off his burden in good deeds.

by Glenn Logan on Apr 21, 2008 11:04 PM EDT up reply actions