We Can't Win the Pool... Emo Alert!

“Time to put on our Dashboard Confessionals record…”

As a person who has done bracket pools a lot, I usually know that the Final Four spells elimination not only for the teams involved, but also for the people in the brackets. With only four teams left, only a few people have anything on the line while the others.

This is no exception for our pool.

Here are the standings thus far:

Gossip on Sports – 91
The Battle of California – 82
The Sports Lounge – 80
The Play in CA – 76
Apples & Moustaches – 75
Bears Necessity – 68

A few of you will remember that we picked UCLA all the way and might think “well if UCLA wins it all, then these guys might have a chance. That’s where you are wrong…. dead wrong! Though UCLA winning will bring us major points, The Sports Lounge has the exact same picks as us, and since they have more points than us now, they would end up being higher than us in the end anyway. Just think of it this way: if UCLA and UNC go to the finals and UCLA wins, then we both get 64 more points, meaning in the end they’d still be 4 points ahead of us. We can get no higher than second. Shit.

So do we still care? Of course! As others may remember, we also ran a side bet with Bears Necessity. They have Kansas going all the way and we have UCLA. We’re also up by 8. Thus we’re rooting for a Kansas knockout via UNC or a UCLA championship run. Go California!

Anyway, here’s a breakdown of the scenarios of who wins the pool if the Final Four plays out in the following scenarios:

If the championship game comes down to UNC vs. UCLA:
UNC wins, the winner of the pool is: Gossip on Sports
UCLA wins, the winner of the pool is: The Sports Lounge
We win our side bet with Bears Necessity.

If the championship game comes down to UNC vs. Memphis:
Gossip on Sports wins no matter who the champion is.
We win our side bet with Bears Necessity.

If the championship game comes down to Kansas vs. UCLA:
Kansas wins, the winner of the pool is: Bears Necessity(we lose our side bet with Bears Necessity)
UCLA wins, the winner of the pool is: Battle of California (we win our side bet with Bears Necessity)

If the championship game comes down to Kansas vs. Memphis:
Kansas wins, the winner of the pool is: Bears Necessity (we lose our side bet with Bears Necessity)
UCLA(Oops, Memphis) wins, the winner of the pool is: Gossip on Sports(we win our side bet with Bears Necessity)

As you can see Gossip On Sports has the most “outs” to win this one. I would like to attest that in all the pools I have done, females surprisingly do better than males. Make what you want of that.

So that pretty much wraps it up. We still want to win our side bet, so we pray to god that UCLA can get some help from the refs again.

We hope this happens. Fuck Kansas!

The Giants Are All Out, All Season

Forget March Madness! My picks sucked anyways. There's no hope for me. It's baseball time. The Red Sox already beat the A's in the earliest season opener ever in Japan. It's time for my two cents on my favorite team. Let's talk about my beloved San Francisco Giants.


That is the new San Francisco Giants slogan for the upcoming 2008 baseball season. "ALL OUT ALL SEASON." Personally I believe that this slogan is purrrrrrfect. Why? Because they're going to suck so bad that they're going to get all outs, all season long. Their PR guy must be the smartest psychic in the world or the dumbest person in the world.

Before the season started, we knew the Giants were going to suck balls, great big GIANT baseballs. And guess what? With Spring Training almost over, no surprises. Dead last in the majors with a 8-20-2 record. How are we going to last a full 162 game schedule? Can we just forfeit our season? We knew we were going young, but plans have definitely changed.


Kevin Frandsen, whom we thought was going to be the young and fun up-and-coming star of the future Giants taking over as the everyday second baseman/shortstop, will probably miss the rest of the season after injuring his Archilles tendon running from 1st to 3rd base in a game. If Brad Pitt couldn't take an arrow in his heel, nobody can.


Ok, that's only 1 player. How about Dan Ortmeier, the big and strong switch-hitting first baseman who has been honing his defensive skills with legendary Giant J.T. Snow? Well, it seems like he's sucking so much "due to the pressure of learning a position and switch-hitting" that he might not even get to start there. That job may go back to our fan-favorite Rich Aurilia, who specializes in no-look behind the back helmet passes to the grass.


Fine. Maybe we have to wait another year for our young stars. Our veterans can play and be role models for one final year. This can be our post-Barry Bonds transition years to finish off the rest of our old players. Players like Omar Vizquel and Ray Durham will be able to lead the younger guys and play with class, right? WRONG!

Omar Vizquel: INJURED. Ray Durham: INJURED.

GODDAMN!! We still got Aaron Rowand in center though, right? We paid him a good $60 million for 5 years to keep running down balls and break his nose a couple more times for no reason, since the Giants are going nowhere.


In your dreams, Giants fans. Although he's not injured as bad, he's listed as day-to-day. Still, an injury is an injury.

Aaron Rowand: INJURED.

Giants fans, I'm sorry. The season is over. I'm not bagging on the Giants, because I'm an avid Giants fan myself, but I'm throwing in the towel. I really hope a miracle will happen, believe me, but I highly doubt it. I don't mind another year if they can actually get somewhere.

San Francisco Giants: All Out All Season. Goodbye.

The Lopez Twins, A Day After the Game

Brook and Robin Lopez arrive back to their apartment after flying in from Texas on a Saturday night, one day after their loss to the Longhorns.

Robin: Damn man, I can’t believe we lost. That was a tough game.

Brook: Yeah. I can’t believe those Texas assholes got into my head. I really shouldn’t have let them beat me mentally.

Robin: Well it’s not like that takes much effort, all they need to do is give you an English test. Hey-o!

Brook: Hahaha, good one Robin (in a low voice) you asshole.

Robin: What did you say?

Brook: Oh nothing. Anyway, what do you have planned for the night?

Robin: Um…

Brook: Because, you know I don’t have anything planned. I figured after a loss like that, none of the guys would be in the mood to party. Hell, I’m not. That’s why we could use this time to have some good old brother to brother bonding! I borrowed my friend’s Wii, and he has a copy of Smash Brothers Brawl! How cool is that? I was really excited when I heard it was out, and now we can finally play together. Let me just go get it, it’s in my room. Who do want to be? I call Mario…

Robin: Um actually Brook, I kind of had plans already.

A look of panic and shock sets into Brook Lopez’s face.

Brook: What? Where are you going? Who are you going out with?

The door bell rings.

Robin: Oh, actually, that’s her right now…

Brook: You don’t mean… tell me it isn’t….

Michelle: Hey spazzo.

Brook: Crap.

Robin: Yeah, Michelle and I are just going to call it a day. I think we just might rent a movie from Blockbuster or something. You’re welcome to join us…

Michelle starts coughing.

Robin: Um right. Actually, I think it’s just going to be a night for just us.

Brook: Oh I see. It’s cool. I guess I’ll just play by myself.

Brook begins to slowly pace back to his room. Robin grabs his shoulder.

Robin: Hey man, it’s nothing personal. It’s just, you know, I haven’t seen Michelle all week because of the tournament, and you know she’s gone a lot on all those golf tours. It’s really hard to get some quality time between us two. You understand, right?

Brook: Yeah, whatever.

Robin: Don’t be mad.

There is a pause of silence. Brook then turns and faces Robin.

Brook: I just got four words, Robin: twin bros before hoes.

Michelle: I’m still here asshole.

Brook: I know.

Brook’s door slams shut.

If You're Up the Superman, Don't Pit the Warriors and the Lakers Against Each Other

Screw an introduction, screw feelings, screw keeping it politically correct. Fuck that last call. 4 seconds left and you call a fucking offensive foul?? I don’t even care if the call was legitimate, unless Fischer is on the ground crying and Monte Ellis hits the game winner you don’t make that call. Both players were on the ground, Fischer PULLED Al Harrington down, everyone else had still been unaffected by the act; let the fucking players play. Wow, someone either got cut in high school and is still bitter, or doesn’t get enough loving at night and is bitter. Either that or maybe that ref really likes to blow on things and just couldn’t resist.

Alright. I’m glad I got that one out. Now, onto the match-up. While some suggest the Lakers, being without Gasol and Bynum, will squash the Warriors if they meet in the playoffs, I for one would like to argue the opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I was the happiest man alive when Dirk went down because

A) it will expose how shitty Jason Kidd really is.

B) it gives the Warriors an opportunity to move into the 7th seed, lowering the chances of a Warriors Lakers 1st round match.

And no, I’m not worried the Lakers will run the table on the Warriors; I like both teams and I want to see them both make it far in the playoffs.

But the Warriors are the most dangerous team in the NBA. Sometimes they’ll show up and get ahead by 26 points on you. Then, in the next 5 minutes they’ll blow that and let you crawl all the way back. In the end if Stephen Jackson is feeling lucky, the Warriors are fucked because he’s going to launch them from outer space and go 8 for 27 on the night. If he isn’t, the Warriors can beat anyone, considering more capable players like Monte Ellis, Al Harrington, and Baron Davis get the opportunity to produce. And quite frankly, the Lakers don’t have anyone since Tyronne Lue that can defensively handle the Warriors’ guards. And with Don Nelson taking shots of vodka before tip-off, causing him to make the Warriors run fast break plays throughout the entire game, Turiaf, (does he remind anyone else of Rick Fox, wow that’s an ugly combination) Bynum and Gasol will be on oxygen tanks before the 2nd quarter begins.

Then again, the Lakers, when healthy, are the BEST team in the NBA (yeah, even better than the Celtics). Gasol and Bynum are 7 feet tall; there’s no center/power forward combination that can score and rebound as well as these two do. And Gasol can pass so well too. Gasol is simply the ultimate threat; he’s agile, tall, and can score/pass from anywhere inside the 3 point line. If it doesn’t show in my writing I was bitter for years that the Bulls did not make a trade for him…instead they signed Noah, who blew my hopes of getting to see a NCAA Championship banner enter Pauley…twice…now I no longer cheer for the Bulls sigh. And then there’s Kobe. Simply put, the second best player in the NBA (Lebron is #1 and he really needs to stop smirking and saying that Kobe is #1 every time the Cavs beat the Lakers)

With Farmar maturing and fitting into his role, and old man Fischer still hitting perimeter shots, there’s no team capable of winning a 5 or 7 game series against the Lakers, provided they are healthy and have chemistry.

Now that’s what makes the playoffs this year interesting. The Lakers are NOT healthy and will NOT have chemistry come playoff time. Gasol is injured. Bynum says he is getting better, but his return keeps getting delayed. Kobe needs to get slashed in the face by Baron Davis in order to forget his ankle pains. Lamar Odom is an alien who was sent, along with Gary Payton, to construct the pyramids and play basketball.

The problem with injuries is that sometimes they don’t go away. Kobe’s injury to his pinky and his ankle won’t go away; and although he has come to terms with the pinky he now has to change his style of play because of his ankle. When Pau Gasol returns he may not be the same player; same thing with Bynum. The key will be to get all of them on the court for as long as possible because all three will be different players. And because of that, the rest of the team has to understand their similar but yet still slightly different style of play, and adjust. Honestly, I don’t think 6-7 games are enough time to get into rhythm.

Yes, as stated earlier, if the Lakers were healthy all 82 games this season, the NBA title would be handed to the Lakers after 97 games. But they aren’t. And Stephen Jackson is still firing threes from the beyond the three point line when he’s on his own 1 on 4 fast break. Both teams have their drawbacks, and as this 2 game series proved to us, the Lakers probably don’t want to play the Warriors. Then again, Don Nelson is probably too drunk to realize Stephen Jackson does more harm than good for the team.

Hopefully they don’t have to meet in the first round because having to go the distance in the first round will leave either team susceptible to blowing it in the 2nd round.

KCCAL would like to note: “I have no idea what that title means. Anyone want to explain to me it is translated in street slang?”

The Verdict is IN: And Ben Braun is OUT! Time to Partayyyy!

The Daily Cal will probably publish a story that goes: “Goodbye Ben Braun! Cal Hoops Rejoice!”

Or maybe not.

Anyhow, I’m not taking credit for Ben Braun’s departure; however, did I call it? If ever I have lost faith, my hope is now restored that Cal can be good! I would like to thank all readers, anyone who participated in firebenbraun.com, and to all the Cal players for their patience and hard work despite poor coaching. Cal deserves better. And I’m looking forward to seeing our basketball team being better than our football team next year. (Oh yeah, it’s going to happen!)

Wow, let’s take a second to bask in all this wonderfulness.

Another second.

And lastly.

"Give me a five, up high, down low! Oh yeah, here's to future victories!!!"

You think I’m being mean about this predicament? You think we here at TPIC enjoy the downfall of one man named Ben Braun?

You’re wrong!

I will not lie though: I think everyone is happy, taking shots of buttery nipples, grabbing someone’s butt at a bar (with permission, of course), and drinking lots of water to recover in the morning. Why? Well, for those who haven't been paying attention to the men's basketball team this season: the Bears placed 9th in the Pac-10, made the NIT, and lost in the second round to Ohio State on Monday night. It was not pretty.

Kccal also adds: Braun was also acting like a bit of a douche as of late. Recently, the Daily Cal ran an article about how Braun was on the hot seat. To quote Braun, "If we're in the Tournament a year from now, which I think we will be, people will say I'm a better coach." Well, no duh, dipshit, but how do you have the audacity to claim that people will be licking your balls if we make the tournament considering the disappointing seasons we have had of late. Do you really think that making the tourney as a 12 seed and losing to the likes of Louisville in the first round is really going to make people say, "Hey that Ben Braun is a coaching genius!" ? I think not.

Even more ridiculous is what Braun says later on in the article, "A lot of people said Jim Boeheim (at Syracuse) couldn't win one. They said that about Dean Smith, too. Those coaches were at their schools 20 years before they won a championship, and you know what, they're good coaches." Yeah, they are good coaches, something you are not. That's pretty high company to compare yourself to, and considering you haven't earned an ounce of respect to even be in the same stratosphere as them, well that just shows that Braun deserved to be in the hot seat in the first place. As I reiterate, what a douche.

After 12 years, Braun leaves Cal with a 219-154 record at the school. His most successful season was his first. The Bears went 23-9 in 1996-97 and went to the third round of the NCAA tournament.

Oh how we miss the past.

But we're in the present. And my initial title of this post was going to be "How it hurts to be a Cal Fan…."

It's the truth though, and I'm still hurting. Our men's team kept losing, but when all hope was fading, I could at least say, "Our women's bball team is SOOOOO LEGIT, you don't even know!!!!"

And then our women's team (#3) lost to George Washington (#6) at the last second in the second round of the NCAA tourney. The whole debacle was basically "Chris Webber's timeout mistake, the female version."

DAMN. (I really thought we had that one too)

Alas, we lose even when we're supposed to win. And it is Cal's tradition: not knowing how to win.

But as a fan, you don't want to accept this. You want to believe your school can win, that other schools suck, and that by some divine miracle, your team will come out on top!

And with enough heart, faith, and beer drinking, that does happen! Example: Giants vs. Patriots!

This last week has made me envy other schools. I thought to myself, "Oh I wish I were from LA." Because as Tony Toni Tone say it, "it never rains in Southern California." Ok, maybe that's not the truth. But it probably doesn’t rain on the hearts of So Cal kids as much as it does for us up here in the North.
Damn I was hating sports. But today is another story, I don't hate Cal sports anymore!

And you know why?

Because Ben Braun is GONE!

From Around the Blogs:
The McDonalds HS All Star Team [The Dagger]
These statements seem familiar [Run Up the Score]
Former Olympic star tries out for football [Shot to Nothing]

Chris Webber Retires: A Look Back at a Career That Was Above Average

In an earlier post I suggested that Chris Webber would flop in his return to Oakland, scoring 4 points, grabbing 2 rebounds, and turning the ball over 3 times in 10 minutes of play; eventually getting cut and losing all his money in a heist by the rap group Luniz. In actuality, Chris Webber put up 3.9 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.2 turnovers in 14 minutes per game. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Okay, he didn’t get cut, and no Luniz were involved. Whatever.

Ah Chris Webber, you will be missed. We out in the Bay Area will never forget your rookie season. Nor will we forget the fallout between you and Coach Donny “Swig before game-time” Nelson. And we most certainly promise to forget that you were ever part of the Washington BULLETS. We can, however, forget that you dislocated your shoulder in a game against the Warriors that same season, foreshadowing the demise of your career.

But with all due respect to C-Webb, I thought it would be nice to portray the highlights of his career and life.

#10 Tom Gugliotta. That’s who we got plus 3 draft picks for you, Chris Webber. Maybe someone out there can find this as a positive.

#9 Fan Appreciation Night in Philly. Allen Iverson and Chris Webber don’t show. Chris Webber gets his contract bought out (25 mill) and gets cut soon after. Probably not a good thing but hey, that’s money in the bank.

#8: Chris Webber was named Mayce at birth. Mayce Edward Christopher Webber…you know if he went by that name he would’ve fulfilled one of my dreams and had to kill the actual MA$E over name conflicts. (Sorry but Puff Daddy and MA$E should never have been as famous as they became…screw Harlem World).

#7:127 million dollars. That’s how much Chris Webber’s contact was worth with the Sacramento Kings. Kudos to you for making that much buddy. No seriously, I don’t know how you did it.

#6 Webber put up 20 points on 9 of 13 shooting in the playoffs for the Pistons. For a 13 year vet at the time those are really amazing numbers. Too bad King James was in the building, as Webbers last shot at winning an NBA title was abolished.

#5: Chris Webber led the BULLETS to the playoffs. That should be number #1. The BULLETS in the playoffs…wow. Too bad some guy name Mike was still playing at the time and they were swept by the Bulls.

#4 FILA. Yes FILA. You would not know what the hell FILA was if it wasn’t for two men: Grant Hill and Chris Webber. It’s a shame that those Puerto Rican officials found marijuana in your bag, causing FILA to drop you from their endorsements.

#3: How about that 2001-2002 season? Winning a franchise record 61 games, C-Webb took the Kings to the Western Conference Finals, only to blow it in the 7th game of the series, going 2-9 in the 4th quarter/overtime.

#2 The FAB 5. Yes Chris Webber was part of the FAB 5. Yes, Chris Webber was the one that fucked up and caused Michigan to forfeit its victory again Cincinnati in the Final Four and to remove their 92 and 93 NCAA Final Four banners. Yes, that really sucks and Michigan banned him for 12 years. But still…he was part of the FAB 5 and that is cool.

#1 Rookie of the Year! Chris Webber will forever be remember by the Warriors as the man who scored 17 points and almost 10 rebounds a game to earn himself the Rookie of the Year award. He even led the Warriors to the playoffs that year.

Happy trails, Chris!

We also were considering his relationship with Tyra Banks as a career highlight, but anyone who watches The Soup on E! or her show knows that she's a little nutty, and C-Webb dodged a huge bullet there.

From Around the Blogs:

Barry Bonds has not run to Mexico...yet [Busted Coverage]

Media Approval Ratings in graph form [Deadspin]

Spring time is hockey time [HLOG]

UCLA: Team of God....Or At Least Team of Crooked Refs Who Don't Want Their Legs Broken

When the game was over on Saturday, it seemed that UCLA had put another game away in the books. It was close, but it was over. Though some people said that UCLA looked a little vulnerable and not the invincible team that ESPN analysts have been drooling about over the past days, a win was a win. No sweat.

Then a funny thing happened. Yesterday, when I checked out my Deadspin, a giant photo appeared on the front page of the most pivotal shot in the UCLA-Texas A&M game.

As the photo clearly shows, it was a foul, but it was never called. Shipp gets credited with a block on Sloan and the game is over.

Now flash-forward to today where in the aftermath we’re left with a bunch of fans from Texas bitching for redemption. What else are they going to do now that high school football season is over? Normally, I would make some kind of snarky remark regarding their situation, but for once, I actually think their complaints are valid. I don’t know what the refs saw, because I see nothing but hand.

The unfortunate thing is that this kind of stuff is nothing new to me. While people out east are probably new comers to UCLA’s miracle calls, us people in the west are not. Remember that game against Stanford? Or two days later at Cal? Even though it was only 2 weeks ago, people somehow have forgotten that UCLA has been pulling this shit all year! In fact, here are some photos from UCLA games. The captions underneath show whether the refs would call those plays legal or illegal:

"Legal."

"Legal."

"Legal."

"Illegal. Clearly a travel."

"Legal."

"Legal! Giggity, giggity, giggity...."

At first, I thought these lucky “bad” calls were a Pac-10 ref thing, but after seeing things in the tournament, there is really one answer for all of it: UCLA is a team of God. With office pools and wagers, us sports gamblers are simply getting punishment for all the sin that goes on during march.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why would God make a favorite his team? Wouldn’t that make gamblers happy to see them win so much? Okay, so maybe I’m wrong then. Davidson is probably the real team of God (they are a private school after all).

This whole theory was the best reason I could come up for UCLA’s luck with the refs, but whatever, I have them winning in one of my brackets. So until the end of the tournament…. go crooked refs…er… UCLA!

From Around the Blogs:
Free throws are overrated [Epic Carnival]
Bill Cowher takes putt putt very seriously [KSK]
Well that was a bummer... [The Band is Out On the Field]

The Battle of The Blogs College B-Ball Pool Score Update:
Apples & Moustaches – 43
Gossip on Sports – 43
The Battle of California – 42
The Sports Lounge – 40
The Play in CA – 40
Bears Necessity – 36

Winning Isn't Everything, Prepubescent Rap Stars Are

Like many of you, my NCAA bracket is already in serious trouble (curses, Georgetown...) But with the first weekend of the tournament behind us, it's a good time for some reflection. Everybody knows the big winners from the first two rounds (or in some cases, the barely winners...)

And...


Sure, the big boys - UCLA and Stanford - survived and moved on, and that's the name of the game in the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, San Diego stunned UConn in the first round, and then was shocked to learn that it actually had a chance of getting into the Sweet 16 when Western Kentucky managed to beat fifth seeded Drake to set up a 12 versus 13 matchup. Then San Diego went out and promptly lost to the Hilltoppers. But let's not forget those others who were not as fortunate to make it to next weekend. Although the Queen song "We Are the Champions" loudly sings the line "no time for losers," we have plenty of time for them - especially now that finals are over.

Here's a quick recap of the losing California schools from the opening rounds of the Big Dance. First, there was USC, falling to Kansas State 80-67 in what was one of the first "upsets" of the tournament - an 11 seed over a 6 seed. Then there was underdog St. Mary's, unable to overcome Miami 78-64.

Let's start with St. Mary's. Many people picked the Gaels to be the Cinderella of this year's tournament. Why? Honestly, I'm not quite sure. I mean, I guess they're a decent squad and they have that Australian guy on their team...but they play in the WCC. Yeah, yeah I know you'll point to Gonzaga and their success to prove me wrong. But let's be real here - the Gonzaga of today is not the Gonzaga of previous years, especially with the absence of big name players like Adam Morrison and Ronny Turiaf. Still, I think that the lasting memory of Gonzaga - in my mind, at least - will forever be this:

Don't worry, Adam Morrison. I know your NBA career is on hold right now because of your knee injury. But at least you've got a backup plan: a career in porn. I mean, that's why you have your mustache and hair like that, right? Or I guess you could always be a professional hick.


Anyway, the point is that St. Mary's was probably overrated and didn't stand a chance in the tournament. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I foolishly bought into the hype and had them beating Miami in my bracket.

Let's just move onto USC. Now I know that some people who may not follow sports as closely are wondering, "Wait...I thought the Trojans just played football..." And it turns out you're right. It was a much-hyped matchup between super freshmen OJ Mayo of USC and Michael Beasley of K-State, better known as the "We're just doing this because David Stern won't let us go straight to the NBA" game of the tournament. The Wildcats and Beasley came out on top, and the SC basketball team returned to its rightful place: in the shadows of the football team.

Now, with Mayo heading for the draft, Trojan fans may be pondering the future of basketball at USC. But never fear, Trojan faithful. Help is on the way next year with the arrival of Percy Romeo Miller, Jr - also known as this guy:

That's right. Lil Romeo. (Yes, he has gotten slightly older since that picture was taken). Romeo, as you may recall, has put out such chart-topping hits as "My Baby" and....well, actually that's about it. And the only reason you might remember "My Baby" is because it sampled (and when I say sampled, I mean basically re-used) the hit Jackson 5 song "I Want You Back."

But we're getting off track. Back to Lil Romeo coming to SC. A press release has compared Romeo's game to that of Allen Iverson's. Of course, that press release was written up by Romeo's people. In reality, Rivals.com has him as a two-star recruit, so he's not exactly going to be the next...well, OJ Mayo. But let's be honest, the only reason people care about is Romeo is because he's better recognized as the son of this man:


Don't worry, Trojan fans, spring football practice is underway.

Get your peace signs up, fight on...and make 'em say UGHHHHHHH!!!!!

From Around the Blogs:
Adu vs Bryant [Docksquad Sports]
OSU Baseball Team Making Like The Football Squad [The Fan's Attic]
Gloating Over Duke's Loss [Loser With Socks]

Trent Johnson Gets Ejected For Acting Like Trent Johnson

You probably are all aware of the close call game Stanford survived yesterday. It basically came down to a last second Brook Lopez shot to seal the game away. You also are probably aware of the rejection Trent Johnson received just before the close of the 1st half. Basically, he was kicked out of the game after he walked onto the floor during a call by the ref. Storming mad onto the court, he began to yell his case, then bam, ejection thrown! You got served, bitch.

As Johnson walked off the court into the locker room, he glared at the officials, and by glared, I mean he remembered what the refs looked like so he could test out his new truck tires’ traction on their faces. That's not a joke either. Johnson really is a scary looking dude.

I'm kind of surprised he got the ejection though, because Johnson pulls this kind of shit year round. Actually, if you watch Stanford play throughout the year, it's pretty much a normal thing to see Johnson yelling and stalking the refs like a madman. I was kind of confused at first why he was getting thrown out. It wasn't until they explained the situation I realized, "Oh, that's illegal?" Whoops. Thanks for ruining my understanding of the rules, Trent.

This is also where my "Trent Johnson: Most Murderous Looking Coach" honor was created. When Trent comes charging onto the floor, it really looks like he wants to kill the zebras. Throughout the day, I thought that the refs didn't kick out Trent for breaking rules, but they kicked him out for their own protection. They were probably fearful that he was going to walk up and rip out their pancreas on national television (that would have been pretty sweet though).

It seems that Trent calmed down though as he stated: "The bottom line was, the responsibility was on me, and I was out of line. Just leave it at that if you would, please."

This translates to me as "It was my fault.... that I didn't kick the ref's testes in. And reporters, if you ask me about this again, I will kill all of you, even you Stewart Mandell."

Fortunately for us, the Cardinal prevailed, thus allowing another potential Trent Johnson meltdown to happen. I really want to see a coach choke out an official. Jim Nantz would shit his pants.

Hell Yeah! I Am The King of San Diego!

"Not you, you douchebag."

"Or you golden boy."

"Or you, you fat fuck."

"Or you, Mr. MVP who can't run in the cold. You don't own San Diego, there's only one guy who does...."

"ME! Now where's that bottle of champagne, I'm going to get wasted until Sunday comes!"

Why Can't a 16 Seed Be More Like a 15 Seed?

"It was one of those nights for MVS."

The last shot was thrown from almost mid court. The tension was high, players and coaches were sweating with anticipation, and the crowd was silent as the ball sailed to its final destination as seconds ticked down. A million eyes were watching what could have been an amazing upset. But alas, the ball was just a little too much to the left and the game was over. Duke barely survived. The final score was 71-70, and even though Belmont lost, it was still a great game.

Then, it was UCLA and Mississippi Valley State’s turn to play in front of the nation. Would this match up conjure as much drama as the game I had witnessed a few minutes ago? The answer was simple: HELL NO. UCLA quickly jumped up to a 10-2 lead, and the ass whooping officially started.

As I watched UCLA decimate Jerry Rice’s former school, a question had popped into my head: Why is it so often that number 15 seeds can come so close, but number 16 seeds get blown away year in and year out? Does the one difference in seed really matter that much?

In the past few years, we’ve seen some close calls by 15 seeds. This year there was Belmont. In 2006, there was a near 2 vs. 15 upset when Tennessee barely beat Winthrop thanks to a Chris Lofton three pointer. In 2005, 2-seeded UConn survived a two possession scare against UCF, beating them 77-71. In 2003, Wake Forest barely beat E. Tennessee St by 3 points. The 15 seed also have won 4 games, with a particularly memorable win by then Californian Steve Nash who lead Santa Clara over Arizona way back in 1993. Is there anything Steve Nash can’t do? (Please don’t answer that question).

The 16th seed on the other hand hasn’t fared quite as well. The last time the 16th seed was remotely close to winning anything was wayyyyy back in 1996 when Western Carolina lost two number 1 Purdue by only 2 points. For a 15 seed, you only have to travel to last night.

The other embarrassing fact that everyone knows is the 16th seed has a winning percentage of zero in the NCAA tournament. Sometimes I really wonder what the coach of a 16th seed tells his team before the game:

“Okay guys, now I know we are a huge underdog in everyone’s eyes, but remember, the underdog always has a chance. That’s how David beat Goliath, Rocky beat Apollo Creed, and, um, how the Little Giants beat that pee wee football team coached by Al Bundy!”

Player raises hand.

“Hey coach, can you point to any real examples?”

Coach starts to sweat.

“Well um, back in 1972, I believe a 16th seed won… oh wait, there were no 16th seeds back then. Well back in 1990… oh, that didn’t happen either… um….”

Awkward silence. Another player raises his hand.

“Um coach, you still with us?”

Coach looks dumbfounded.

“Shit, we’re fucked.”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s how the Miss. Valley State locker room pregame went, because they sure played that pathetically on the court. Meanwhile, Belmont gives Duke a run for their money and coach Rick Byrd is a hero for one day. The media loves him, CBS loves him, Vince Gill really loves him, and he didn’t even win the game!

"Butt buddies. That is all."

It’s pretty crazy how a one seed differential can lead to such a disparity in results. Even in office pools, the 16th seed is taken as a joke. A person can look like a total jackass for picking 16th seed UT-Arlington to upset Memphis. A pick like that would raise eyebrows and a few “what the fuck is wrong with you”s from co-workers who take this stuff seriously. Meanwhile, someone who picks Austin Peay to upset Texas later today or Boise State to beat Louisville is sometimes seen as a gutsy guy (or girl) who has to be some kind of college basketball genius in order to make such an outlandish pick. It’s sad that even a person who has no interest in college basketball until tourney time can sniff out the pure crap that a 16th seed often is labeled as.

Yet, that begs the original question, how is a 16th seed that much crappier than a 15th seed? Is the seeding committee really that accurate? If the 15th seed played the 16th seed 100 times, would they win 100 times? Will the 16th seed ever win a game?

My answers: probably, maybe, not for a while.

Thus that begs another question, if the 16th seed always loses, why do they play at all? I mean as a 15th seed, you kind of figure 4 teams did it before, but technically as a 16th seed your chances are zero. Sure there’s pride, but at what cost? It’s hard to have a winning mentality with history against you. And as Miss. Valley State proved yesterday, being a 16th seed really makes you that much horrible because yesterday, in Anaheim, they fuckin’ sucked. I mean 29 points? Really? That’s it? Even Cal State San Bernardino scored more points. Who? Exactly.

The worse part is when the CBS commentators try to say that Mississippi Valley State tried their hardest and they should be proud. Yeah, I’m sure they’re fucking sterling right now.

I don’t mean to sound like an ass or anything, I’m just pointing out the complete difference a team performs when they are labeled a 16th and a 15th seed. One plays utterly horrible; the other plays somewhat decent while hoping to catch their opponent snoozing. While that’s not much to hope for, at least they have a chance to win. I have a gut feeling that if UCLA was a 2 seed and Miss. Valley St. was a 15 seed, maybe at least MVS could score more than a feeble 29. Maybe they’ll even get to 40!

Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong today, and maybe a 1 seed will go down thanks to UT-Arlington or Mt. St. Mary will pull through and win one! What the hell am I saying? They’re going to get killed. If only they were a 15th seed, then it would be close until the inevitably fuck up at the end (what kind of shitty end play was that Belmont?)



From Around the Blogs:
There's a women's NIT? Who knew? [Wildcat Blitz]
In other California-NCAA basketball news, CSF lost [Wizbang Sports]
Maria Sharapova can throw a football. This adds 10 to her hotness points [Busted Coverage]

Our gambling addiction (AKA blogger pool) scoreboard:
Gossip on Sports: 12
Apples and Moustaches: 12
The Play in California: 12
Bears Necessity: 11
Battle of California: 11
The Sports Lounge: 11

The Tournament Begins Today, and We Begin Three Weeks of Regret

"Here we go...crap."

So the day has come. 64 teams enter, one leaves. I pretty much consider my favorite time of the year (fuck you Christmas with your cheer and happiness. Just give me my bottle of scotch and leave me alone). Besides, I don’t need presents when winning other people’s money is much more satisfying. I feel like I’m a winner, until I realize I’m a winner in something completely trivial. Shit. Now, seriously, give me my bottle of tequila (since it’s more of a spring kind of drink) and leave me alone….

Other than money, there’s also pride on the line. We’re in a little bloggers bracket, if you haven’t heard. Actually, you probably haven’t heard of it, because, according to the Bears Necessity, we don’t get many readers. So I’m sure five of you know the deal with our wager against the other blogs, but the other ten readers we have probably don’t. Basically it’s us against The Sports Lounge, Bears Necessity, Gossip on Sports, Battle of California, and Apples and Moustaches. Winner gets to post on the loser’s blogs for a day. We also set up a little side bet with Bears Necessity, where whoever does better gets a week of posts.

With so much on the line, I decided that we needed to call everyone up to combine our college basketball knowledge to make one bracket that overflows with crazy stupid smart picks. Unfortunately, the combination of our brain juices doesn’t lead us to “crazy stupid smart” picks, but more like amateur, not so intelligent picks based simply on who lost to who and not on matchups or anything that involves expert knowledge. Whatever. Since when did gambling become a science anyway? Oh yeah, since poker became popular.

Thus, we all got together and combined our powers, kind of like the Planeteers, but not gay. U12, me, Ace of Spades, and Ms. Auto gathered in a chat room to make our picks. Eazy-E was not present, probably because he realized how uncool the situation was. Damn him. And it was St. Patrick’s Day. Fuck, we’re losers.

We had a basic voting structure, one blogger, one vote. Unfortunately this failed miserably since many picks came out to an even 2-2 vote. I told you we weren’t very good at this. When there was a tie, most of it came down to arguing for five minutes and then a coin toss. Great. Some highlights during the process:

When discussing about George Mason vs. Notre Dame:

Kccal: So Notre Dame?
U12: The only problem with that is George Mason did put up a fight against some good teams and they beat U$C.
Kccal: They did?
U12: Unless that’s another USC…..

A few minutes later…

U12: …which it is.
Kccal: South Carolina.
U12: Oops.
Kccal: They should really just use the $ to replace the ‘S’ to make things less confusing.

Our college basketball knowledge is grand, what can I say? Somehow when discussing a Tennessee vs. Butler match up, 3 6 Mafia came into the conversation since they’re from Tennessee. U12 pointed out the 3 6 stands for 666 Mafia…

Kccal: Man, they should just be 666 mafia then.
U12: But then white kids won’t buy their albums because they’re devil worshipers.
Kccal: No, white kids will buy more albums since they’ll think it gives them street cred.
U12: Oh yeah…

We decided that the coin toss method didn’t work to do tie breakers, so we did something even more ridiculous: online paper, scissor, rock. How do you that, you ask? Quite frankly, I’m not even sure how we did it.

U12: Okay, how about rock paper scissor?
Ms. Auto: How is that going to work?
U12: Type in the one you want and someone else type in 1 2 3. Then we'll just hit enter at the same time.
U12: LOL
Kccal: Oh god.
Ace of Spades: 1
Ace of Spades: 2
Ms. Auto: 3
U12: Rock

No response…


U12: Damnit, lets try this again.
Ace of Spades: 1
Ace of Spades: 2
Ace of Spades: 3
U12: Paper
Kccal: Rock
U12: OWNAGE
Kccal: Shit.
Kccal: I saw that you put paper before I pressed entered. I was temped to cheat.

Yeah…Um….Yeah… We did have one college insight though about Kansas:

Kccal: Man I don’t know about Kansas making it to the final four. I guess it's just because they're Kansas. I know they’ve been really good all season, but still. It’s like if the Buffalo Bills had a perfect season, I wouldn't be surprised if they still lost the Super Bowl.
Ace of Spades: Or the Chiefs.
Kccal: Hey don't clown on the Chiefs just because they have an awesome QB in Brodie Croyle.

It’s tough being a Chiefs fan. Well after pretty much all of this, we finally completed our bracket:

We’re totally going to win now, as you can see we have a plethora of knowledge when it comes to making college basketball picks. Man we are screwed.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the day as we reveal how the other blogs picked…

UPDATE: We got lazy. Just stay tuned for score updates tomorrow.

From Around the Blogs:
Glenn Dorsey to the Rams? [Gridiron Gab]
A Tiger-Braves trade in the works, maybe [Bless You Boys]
A's spring training info [A's Nation]

Our gambling addiction (uh, I mean bloggers pool) update:
Gossip On Sports responds to the trash talk [Gossip on Sports]

AccuScore Should Really Consider Changing Their Name

"And in the final four is.... Mississippi St?!? WTF?!

As the March Madness tournament approaches closer and closer, it leaves many of us struggling to make our picks before the deadline Thursday morning. For a lot, and I mean a lot, of people, the three day gap I between Selection Sunday and the opening round is the time where we ensure that our picks are superior by doing furious research at home. By home, I actually mean you’re cubicle while simultaneously checking to see if your workplace blocks media streaming, since CBS streams the games live nowadays.

I myself needed a crash course in college basketball. The only basketball I’ve really watched all year was Pac-10 basketball and sadly Cal basketball. Watching a sucky team get stomped on by Pac-10 powerhouses leaves a rather biased taste in my mouth, and I really doubt that a team like Oregon is the shit just because they played in the Pac-10. Thus, I needed to do my own research to broaden my view on this year’s basketball scene.

My first stop for research: ESPN. Surely they would let me know who’s who in non Pac-10 basketball. And what did you know, the first thing that popped on my computer screen was this: the ESPN Bracketcaster powered by AccuScore.

For those of you who don’t know what AccuScore is, here’s the little description they give about themselves: The AccuScore Super Computer has powered more than 10,000 simulations for every possible NCAA Tournament game for ESPN.com. Each game is simulated one play at a time and repeated 10,000 times. “Pretty fuckin’ sweet,” I thought to myself. In my mind, this super computer probably has calculated every single statistic, every single factor, every ranking, RPI, win loss, whatever, into their simulation. Not only that, but the process is repeated 10,000 times. Not even a Bob Costas blogger could pull out that kind of nerd capacity. This is probably the same computer that plays chess and operates Google. I mean, how can a company called AccuScore, not be accurate? That’d be completely retarded.

Well, after using this simulator thingie, let’s just say I don’t recommend it to anyone gambling their spouse away to pay a debt. You will lose and your wife will run away with a Russian loan shark.

Let’s examine what happened exactly on the first run, region by region. First the East (to get a bigger view, click on the image):

The one cool thing is that they have little percentages next to the teams. It’s like watching poker when they have little percents next to the cards, and you don’t have to listen to any of Norman Chad’s extremely nauseating jokes. He’s the Dennis Miller equivalent of poker commentating, and I’m not even sure if poker commentating is that hard to mess up.

The first round went off kind of how I expected, nothing that surprising. The only upset was George Mason, but it’s not that big of a deal. I also that it was a little weird they gave Indiana such a staggering percentage (61). I guess they don’t factor in coaching scandals to their analysis. Then things get a little peculiar the second round. South Alabama beats Tennessee, and with almost a 30 percent chance. Then again, Tennessee does tend to fuck up a lot in the tournament. Then, in the Sweet 16, Washington State beats UNC. I’ve seen Washington State play. They’re good, but not THAT good. Washington State closes out to make it to the final four. As I look at the region I just simulated, a lot of it is kind of odd, but overall still a little believable. I mean I CAN see these games happening, but do I really think it will happen. Hell nah. On to the next region.

The Midwest region is actually a little more realistic then the South. All the games are also pretty kosher, even the Gonzaga upset in the second round. I don’t really agree with the whopping 45 percent chance though Gonzaga has against Georgetown. That’s like saying it’s a coin toss. Trust me, it isn’t. In fact, Gonzaga is the “favorite” against USC? When did this happen? Perhaps it’s my Pac-10 bias, but OJ Mayo has been playing pretty solid as of late, so where’s the love for him?

Maybe this AccuScore thing is based in Seattle and controlled by Paul Allen and his cronies at Microsoft. The big surprise USC was able to claw its way to the final four. But then again, they made it by beating Kansas, a staple for fucking up in the tourney. Not really a surprise there.

On to the West…

Now it gets retarded. Belmont in the Elite Eight? What the fuck. Yeah that’s about all I have to say. The only thing AccuScore got right: highlighting the ridiculously easy path UCLA has to the final four.

Lastly is the South…

Looks like AccuScore decided to lay one bomb and then take another dump all over the brackets. Texas losing to Austin Peay? Matthew McConaughey is not amused.

Even sadder is that Miami only has a 67 percent chance to beat AP in the next round. Of course the big “shit, I’m screwed” moment comes when Miss St. wins the whole thing and becomes the last member of the final four by beating….. Marquette. AccuScore sucks.

In the final four we have 3 Pac-10 teams. Guess my west coast biased is kind of right? I’m not really to sure, since this simulator shares the same biased, and that’s not a good thing…. AT ALL. USC downs Washington St (which they haven’t been able to do all year), and UCLA beats Miss St (what a shocker). UCLA then wins it all. At least they got the national champ somewhat right.

Now I know it’s hard to base things on one run, so I tried two more just to make sure my bad luck wasn’t at fault.

This bracket was even shittier then than the last one, and Washington State still made it pretty far. I also don’t know how Stanford ended up beating UCLA. Actually, it that does make sense, considering no Pac-10 refs will be involved.

This bracket is much closer to something “realistic” though Tennesee doesn’t seam to get love anywhere on any of these simulations. Oh, and Georgia isn’t going to make it that far, unless a sandstorm hits Phoenix and they’re forced to play a double header again.

So, yeah, that concludes my research and, on the grand scale, wasted a lot of time. It still beats doing that TPS report, though.

Have fun watching the games, just make sure you don't lose a finger for "insurance".

Update: Seems like the folks at AccuScore actually left a comment! Thus, I do think you should check out the Bracketcaster, since AccuScore seem to be good sports about it. If anything, it should just be a good little timewaster as the big dance inches closer and closer. Here is AccuScore's website.

From Around the Blogs:
Why this guy hates USC [Cal Golden Blogs]
The Jim T lookalike [Run Up the Score]
An auto racing blog. Who knew? [Restrictor Plate]

Our gambling addiction (uh, I mean bloggers pool) update:
Our Alexa ranking may be low, but our awesome ranking is up the roof [Bears Necessity]
TSL are really nice guys. That is all. [The Sports Lounge]

George Steinbrenner Has Incredible Buying Abilities

George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, has soooooo much money. He used that money to buy the New York Yankees, and thought that he could buy himself a championship every year with that money. It worked for awhile in the 20th century, but it's the 21s century now, George...IT AIN'T WORKING!! He bought players like Randy Johnson, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Alex Rodriguez. If he could, he would buy steroids for all of them too. Actually, I'm pretty sure he did. But in the recent years, we have seen that the Yankees are going nowhere. Buying players doesn't seem to work for George anymore. Therefore, he tried to buy players for different reasons to win.


First, he bought a guy named Shelley Duncan, yes a guy named Shelley is not really a guy. He bought him to come into the game during Spring Training to kick a fellow baseball player (Akinori Iwamura) in the groin, which caused a benches-clearing brawl. Very nice! He thought taking out some good Japanese talent would stop the recent import of Japanese players. But the Japanese know how to play baseball. They're so good that players would want to play in Japan, even San Francisco's beloved Barry Bonds, who would consider Japan a possibility if the MLB doesn't work out this year. Japan is awesome; who needs steroids when you got sushi rice balls and sashimi, with some miso soup on the side?


Old fashion groin kicking didn't work out for George, so he decided to fulfill someone's dreams instead of worrying about his team. He bought the 60-year-old Billy Crystal for a 1-day contract to play baseball. And of course he wore #60 for his age. What happened? He struck out. The only highlight of the at-bat was a mere foul ball down the first base line. To give him credit, he did work the count to 3-1 before striking out. It was a good publicity stunt.

At 60 years old, Billy Crystal's reactions may be a little slow. Just like his career!

Billy, baseball's not your thing. I think you need to meet Sally again and re-evaluate your life.

Anyways, yes George Steinbrenner can do whatever he wants with his money. If he wants to make everyone's dreams come true, can he fulfill mine? I've always wanted to make Jessica Alba's baby, and look what happened? Cash Warren.


Better look at the hot HOT mui caliente Jessica Alba than that actual Cash Warren. Cash Warren. Did you have anything to do with this George? Just because his name's Cash? I can change my name to Cash if you want. Cash Register, or Cash Money like the Millionaires.

We know George has money, but New York isn't working out. It's time to move. Where else you ask? California of course! The Bay Area has 2 baseball teams, LA has 2 baseball teams, now San Diego can have 2 baseball teams. You can be the new Carlsbad Yankees! Since you have money, you should only buy players who are named Carl, or last-named Carl, like Carl(ton) from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Carl Carlson from The Simpsons. I'm sure they'll do fine.


Then you can buy out all the Carl's Jrs out there and make them your official sponsors and only sell the Six Dollar Burger for $15 at Carlsbad Stadium. You can also trademark the phrase "Carl's bad," which can mean 2 things. "Carl's bad" can mean that Carl is playing horribly so he is bad. But "Carl's baaaaaaaaad" can also mean that Carl is playing soooooo well that he's baaaaaad. The cool people use it, so should the Carlsbad Yankees.


George Steinbrenner, this is a golden opportunity for you to succeed in the Golden State. Don't worry about the New Yorkers, although I'm sure you're not worried about them. But hey, they have the Mets, who are actually good, but so are the Carlsbad Yankees! But speaking of the Golden State, go Warriors! #8 is the new #1.

But yes George, this pointless post is about you because you paid me $343 million to write it. So here's to you:

"Fuck Donald Trump; I'm George Steinbrenner. You're fired!!"

Now that the baseball season is starting, we're getting close to Torre-time. It's going to be awesome, we hope...

From Around the Blogs:
Bostonians celebrate St. Patty's Day [KSK]
No more winning for the Sharks [Sharkspage]
The best 3-point shooters in college [March Madness All Seasons]

Our gambling addiction (uh, I mean bloggers pool) update:
The last entrant, and they noticed our Patrick Willis obsession [Apples and Moustaches]
Battle of California seems to be acting like a ringer... [Battle of California]

Raiders Look to Get D-Hall, Al Davis Excited About Ruining Another Career

Is Wayne Brady gonna have to smack a bitch? The better question is …are the Raiders gonna win 5 games???

With the acquisition of a player like DeAngelo Hall, the Raiders’ secondary looks incredible: Nnamdi Asomugha, DeAngelo Hall, Michael Huff, and Gibril Wilson. In all honesty I really can’t think of a better secondary in the NFL. If the Eagles were a tad bit younger, the signing of Asante Samuels would definitely put them above the Raiders. Nevertheless, the Raiders were tough on defense last year and look far better this year. On the other side of the ball, JaMarcus Russell gets a chance to build chemistry with newly signed wide receivers, Javon Walker and Drew Carter. And with Justin Fargas at back, the Raiders have the capability to put up about 14 points a game, instead of 3. Are we excited? Sadly, hell yes!

Oh yeah, and one subtle note…the Raiders have the 4th pick in the draft this year. And if anyone knows anything about Al Davis, they know that he will most certainly pick Darren McFadden. Al Davis is a blind old man. He goes to bed at night and dreams of creating the next Joe Montana Jerry Rice combination…but blacker. I’m not being racist, okay? Al Davis just has this obsession with creating America’s next top black football model. Anyway, even if he does select McFadden in the draft and does nothing to solidify either line, both of which could use help, the Raiders will still look like the best mediocre squad out there.

Let’s not get out of line; the Raiders will not win 10 games. But at the same time, let’s acknowledge the work that Al Davis has done. The last time the Raiders did something positive was a minute prior to the infamous “tuck rule” play. Since then, the Raiders have flat out sucked. Oh, there was the Superbowl back in 2003, but their humiliating loss was just the culmination of their suckiness that year. I think they went into the game thinking, "hey guys we haven't sucked in a while, so let's just lay a gigantic bomb on the world." Mission accomplished. I mean they’ve sucked so bad, Oakland’s suicide rate has surpassed its homicide rate, and that's not an easy thing to do. (We're going to hell for that joke).

And yes, we can sit here like everyone else and look at all the bad things Al Davis has done, but I would like to take the high route. Here is my list of achievements Al Davis has made in the past 5 years.

#1 Randy Moss: He used a brilliant psychological technique whereby he made a down hill athlete hit rock bottom, only to make him desire so badly to leave for another team that when he was given the opportunity, he took full advantage of it. So in a sense, Al Davis and the Raiders are true motivators.

#2 LaMont Jordon: A top 5 rusher a few years ago, Al Davis just didn’t like him. Signing Dominic Rhodes and giving Fargas more carries, Jordan found less motivation to work hard, getting fatter and more injury prone. This was a brilliant move by Davis because we all know that LaMont Jordan is getting old and won’t be the dynamic running back he was for the next 5 years. Thus, it only makes sense to kill him when he’s hot to make way for a Darren McFadden…right?

#3 Dominic Rhodes: The Colts win the Superbowl…Davis snags their running back. Brilliant right? I mean everyone thinks the key to the Colts’ success was Peyton Manning but nooo Davis is smarter then that; he knows that without Rhodes the Colts would’ve..umm…yeah I got nothing on this one Davis you fucked up man. Sabatoge is Davis's forte.

#4 Warren Sapp: Disgruntled? Hurts the team more then he helps? Who cares, he got a lot of sacks! Davis may not have won many games, but the Raiders yielded a decent amount of sacks, especially when the game didn’t matter anymore so kudos Davis for putting the Raiders atop the list of garbage stats.

#5 EVERY SINGLE OTHER WIDE RECEIVER ON THE TEAM

Al Davis had great wide receivers and receivers with great potential. All of which were given unfair chances, Jerry Porter didn’t get enough touches while Ronald Curry had too many and then there’s Mike Williams who never even had a chance. Why does this make Al Davis brilliant? Because only Al Davis is out there showing NFL superstar athletes that life isn’t fair…that just because you are talented and you try hard and do everything correctly, you can still get fucked over because that’s just how life works. So good for you Al Davis, way to expose the harsh reality that is this world we live in haha. Think of him as a life coach.

Now looking at the 2008 Raiders, keeping in mind the brilliance that is Al Davis, it is easy to see that the Raiders will eclipse their 4-12 record of 2007. Also, it is clear that the Raiders have a lot of potential; having the strongest secondary in the NFL, a tough front 7 on defense, and an explosive QB who has a pair of decent wide receivers to throw to. Yet, more clear than anything else is the fact that Al Davis will find a way to screw everything up. Look for the Raiders to raise eyebrows a few times next season with amazing games (all 5 of them!), but don’t expect them to be out of character; they’ll still somehow lose to the Chiefs next year. Take that KC Cal!

From Around the Blogs:
Tim Tebow is the male Erin Andrews [Busted Coverage]
Lackey out 3-4 weeks [Babes Love Baseball]
Strange baseball opening day starter [One More Dying Quail]

Our gambling addiction (uh, I mean bloggers pool) update:
Looks like Gossip on Sports heard we've been talking smack [Gossip on Sports]

Time To Prove Our Awesomeness With Gambling (AKA Us Vs. the Blogs)

"Not much explanation for this one."

A few weeks ago, we made a challenge out there to a few good bloggers willing to put their blogs and dignity on the line in the wake of the gambling frenzy that took over us with March Madness lurking around the corner. With such a bold declaration of ass whooping, we expected that we’d get a ton of responses from other blogs who wanted to put a little blog wager on the tournament. We were wrong. Thus, we instead decided to contact some of our own blog buddies across the west to see if they were interested. Amazingly, some replied! Yay, we do have friends!

Thus, a few email exchanges later, the bloggers pool was set. Five blogs enter, three blogs are left for dead, one blog contracts syphilis, and the last blog leaves alive.

Us, The Sports Lounge, Gossip on Sports, Bears Necessity, and Battle of California all are in a pool to declare blog supremacy. We're all in a pool, and each blog submits a bracket. What does the winner get, you ask? A day full of blog posts on all the losers’ blogs. We also have a side bet with Bears Necessity. Whoever wins between us two gets one whole WEEK of posts. I can already see myself saying “I made a huge mistake.”

This whole wager was partly inspired by the wager that the Ladies and KSK did last year, and since they don’t seem to be doing it again this year, I figured why don’t we take a stab at it. It seemed like a grand old time. Plus, it would allow us to spread the gospel of Jim Harbaugh ridiculousness to a whole new audience.

We’re not very good at the old trash talking though. Okay, actually we’re very good at it, we could go on for a millennia about how awesome we are and how much we are going to destroy the competition. However, we felt like we needed a pro to help us out, a pure craftsman in the art of talking shit. So without further ado, we present to you “Why These Blogs Suck” by Shawne Merriman. Enjoy!

It’s bracket time bitches! When The Play in California asked me to do this special trash talking session for them, I told them, “Fuck you, these guys aren’t Jeff Fisher!”

Then I realized, “Damnit, I haven’t laid a hit on anyone in 2 months! I need to get out some aggression.”

That’s why I decided to go along with their little game, so now, Shawne Merriman is going to lay the smack down on all these bitch ass mother fuckers!

HOO-RAH!

The Sports Lounge? You do not make sense to Lights Out! You’re telling me to sit, relax, and enjoy? Don’t you know those are all the things that Shawne Merriman hates? Ain’t nothing enjoyable about a Shawne Merriman hit in which I blind side a bitch ass quarterback and make him taste the lawn fertilizer fresh from Home Depot. The only time I make fools sit and relax is when I send their punk asses to the hospital! When it comes to sports, SM is all about intensity and punishment, not this weak ass shit! After I’m done with you, your name is gonna be changed from the Sports Lounge to the Sports Emergency Intensive Care Unit Specializing in Ruptured Spleens! Did that shit make sense? Hell no, but it don’t matter, because I’m pumped up with roids and ready to take you out! Ohhhhhh yeah!!!!

Here’s some Albert Hayensworth action for you!

Gossip on Sports? All this pink and purple makes Shawne Merriman ANGRY!!!!! When I think of the fierceness in sports, I don’t think of pink! Ain’t nothing scary about that color. You want scary? Just live a day in my shoes. Offensive linemen, screaming fans, Al Davis. That’s the kind of shit that I deal with week to week. Sports ain’t supposed to be fluffy and frilly. And most of all, it ain’t supposed to have gossip!! Gossip is like talking shit without backing it up, and you know what happens when I hear that about me? I punch people's faces!

I BREAK YOU!!

Battle of California? Hockey? This sport is supposed to be brutal? Fuck that shit! I eat Canadians for breakfast! What the hell are they doing in California anyway? Don’t you know son, this ain’t hockey land, it’s Shawne Merriman’s territory! You know what happens when people get in my territory? Do I really have to ask…

BOOM BITCH!

And lastly there’s the Bears Necessity! You got some real balls challenging The Play in CA to a full week of posts. There’s only one problem? I just grabbed your nuts, ripped them out, and spiked that shit to the ground! That’s what Shawne Merriman does, he strips men of their manhood! I read that you cover a lot of stuff about Cal. Well guess what bitches, after my boys at the TPIC win, they’re going to let good old Shawne Merriman have non stop publicity on your puny site. It’s gonna be 7 days of pure Shawne Merriman mayhem. And guess what, I’m gonna shit all over everything California. Nate Longshore? Boom bitch, I just tombstone piledrived his ass! Kevin Riley? Came up from behind him and suplexed him to the ground! Ain’t no quarterback safe, even Joe Ayoob! I’m coming after all you all!

So watch out blogosphere, because TPIC is going to win this shit, and when they do, the beast is going to be released….

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM BITCHES!!!!

From Around the Blogs:
Bloggers coming out [Blog of Hilarity]
Jose Canseco no shows at a poker event [Morning Buzz]
A day with the bird whisperer [10,000 Takes]

NBA Teams That Should Lose on Purpose.... And the Clippers

D Wade out …whos next?

C’mon lets be real here. Dwayne Wade could play the rest of the season. Take the Miami Heat out of last place, put them in 6th 7th or 8th, and then ask Wade how he feels during a postgame interview and he’ll spit out the first 5 positive adjectives he can think of. It doesn’t take the president of the chess club at Cal Tech to realize that the Miami Heat are bidding for the first pick in the draft. Realistically speaking, this is a smart move for the Heat; give their star player enough time to revitalize and use this summer to build chemistry between their newly acquired forward Shawn Marion, and their newly drafted top pick. The notion of throwing in the white flag 20 games prior to the end of the season might sound cowardly but is probably the right move. So, what other teams should opt to get in the same mindset as the Heat? Here are my top 5:

5) Portland: It’s a sight to see the Trail Blazers not in trouble with the law and not in last place considering their hopes and dreams turned out to be a lemon before his first game. After giving up Bonzi Wells, and not having father time, aka Greg Oden, for the entire season; winning 30 games is truly something to brag about. However, Portland is in the Western Conference; a conference where the 8th seed is going to win 50 games this season. Portland is not going to do that. Sitting 6.5 games behind the Warriors, who might I say are EN FUEGO, they really don’t have a chance. My advice would be to throw in the white flag for this season and hope that you get a top 5 pick next season. It would technically be like getting two top 5 picks in the draft since Oden didn’t play this year. Imagine Roy, Aldridge, Oden, and a Top 5 point guard; that’s a pretty young/talented starting 4.

4) Chicago: 25-38 and the Bulls are a game and a half out of the playoffs. That’s just sad. Even if the Bulls made the playoffs they wouldn’t do anything except for giving the Celtics a very very easy 4 game sweep. The Bulls by far are this season’s biggest bust; I predicted the Bulls being top 3 in the East season how sad is that! Maybe it’s time to give up on this season and try to work some things out. Maybe, start Tyrus Thomas consistently and see if he really is as good as a white boy from Cal Poly and an Indian boy from LA think he is. Or, how about trying out some new point guards and benching Kirk Heinrich, we all know he doesn’t deserve to play anymore. And maybe with a draft pick they can package enough players into a deal for a young talented player (not like Ben Wallace sigh what an idiot move). Sigh..Mike if you’re reading this, maybe it’s time to put the old white 45 back on.

3) Minnesota/Memphis : In all honesty, I put two teams here because quite frankly I know absolutely nothing about either team. I’ve seen them get squashed by the Lakers a few times. I know Memphis used to have Pau Gasol, and still has Rudy Gay. Minnesota, well they’ll always be the idiots that took Antoine Walker in the Kevin Garnett trade. But in all honesty, how fans show up to watch these two teams play is beyond me. Best bet for both teams would be to lose out the remainder of the season and try and surround the little talent they have with young athletes and somehow try and force Antoine Walker into retirement.

2) Atlanta : I was originally going to place Seattle here. But I thought about it, and I can’t just put the every shitty team on this list because that defeats the purpose of making this list. I should just retitle this post “listing the worst teams in the NBA”. And to be honest, the Sonics aren’t that bad. They don’t have much support for Durant but he’s been playing quite well for a rookie. I mean, I’m impressed. And yes, I’m sure drafting high would allow the Sonics to add support for Durant. But losing out the rest of the season would not be beneficial for young Kevin. This is a golden time for Seattle and Durant; he gets the opportunity to learn how to succeed in the NBA with nothing to lose. So Seattle should play to win while they still are the Seattle Supersonics.

Now was for the Hawks. I’ve seen their games against the Bulls, Warriors, and Lakers; three very different teams. Yet, each and every time the Hawks have been right in it as the aggressors. They have a solid squad with a few missing pieces. And yes, I know it’s ridiculous for me to say that the 8th seed should drop out of the playoffs and lose all their remaining games but it just might be what puts Atlanta over the top for the next decade. Joe Johnson is amazing. So is Al Horford. I couldn’t believe how many boards they were getting over the Lakers. I like Bibby as their PG once he settles in to his new location. Marvin Williams can be replaced but Josh Smith isn’t bad at all. That means they are one piece away from having a solid starting 5. I think it would be more beneficial to go for that last piece then it is to sit around as the 8th seed only to get squashed by the Celtics or the Pistons, in the event that they upset Boston’s finest.

#1) Isiah Thomas: Not for the state of New York. Not for MSG and Manhattan, the first site I saw when I got out of that subway for the very first time this summer. Not even for the team that plays in MSG. Hell, not even for Spike Lee. But please, if you need any reason to lose out the remainder of this season it is to GET RID OF ISIAH THOMAS. Court cases for sexual assault? Marbury problems…still?? Marbury has been a problem for how many years now? I mean, seriously this is no longer player personnel issues it is bad parenting. First damn time I’ve ever seen a team give up in a game, actually give up. I know it was the Celtics but 59-104? Are you fucking kidding me? The Knicks are done, and not just for this season either. They are pretty much done until Isiah Thomas is gone..and then a year or two on top of that too. I like Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph. Nate Robinson is adequate. But the rest of the team can go, and that’s including the coach.

Oh and you Los Angeles dwellers might be asking..'What about the Clippers?'. Shouldn't they be on this list too? NO. They had their chance for success when they had E.T. aka Sam Cassell. Now they are just a bunch of players who can't be helped. Elton Brand getting injured was a huge bust. Not only has it prevented the Clippers from progressing as a team, but its given minutes and respect to Chris Kaman, who truly deserves neither. Tim Thomas sucks. Breven Knight sucked years ago...nothing has changed. Mobley and Maggette are troopers but are getting old and are about ready to call it in too. All of this leaves the Clippers with a mediocre team with players too good to be replaced by rookies and too bad to win consistently. My advice for Clippers fans, don't come hunt me down after reading this and hope that they cut their entire squad except for Elton Brand and their rookies/sophs. Then maybe next year theyll be on this list as the #1 team to lose out the season.

From Around the Blogs:
Bob Costas thinks bloggers are losers, tell me something I don't know [Wizbang Sports]
How does Dick V spend his Saturday nights? [Chris' Sports Blog]
Finally, a real man's sport [Sports Shovel]

Ben Braun, Get Gone!

Are you a devoted, disenfranchised, now disappointed Cal Bears fan??

Me too!

Being a fan of the Golden Bears is just this bittersweet experience.
Kind of like cops – we love them and hate them at the very same time. But when I say that, I sing that, the way John Mayer does in Kanye West's song, "Bittersweet" (that makes reference to relationships, not cops).

Anyhow..

Cops pull you over. Fuck.
Ben Braun loses. Fuck.

Cops make you take the breathalizer tests. Damn.
Ben Braun goes into overtime. Damn.

Cops let you go even though you fucked up. Praise the lord.
Ben Braun wins. Praise the lord.

Maybe this isn’t the best of comparisons. But I was reflecting on current law enforcement; smiled a bit, got angry, then wiped my forehead in relief because, for the most part, I’ve gotten away with things when I could have really been in some hot water.

And this is how I feel about the Bears. I get happy, I get sad, I get disappointed, and sometimes I’m relieved. Cal is a good team with a lot of potential BUT at the same time, with the inability to close games. Over and over I watch them, and dammit, it really sucks to lose in the last minute. It sucks to lose by 1 point. It sucks to lose in double OT. It sucks.

Watch that UCLA game last week? OUCH!
Watch them yesterday? MORE OUCH!
And this is when I can openly say I HATE LOVE! Damn you Kevin. (no hard feelings though, but just crush my heart why don't you?!?)

I love you Bears, so when I point fingers, I'm not going to point at the players, you guys are a group of skilled players who need the right coaching and direction. BUT Ben Braun, you just leave me speechless. And I ask this: can anyone honestly vouch for him as an effective Bears’ head coach???

To save us from dead awful silence, we should just be realistic:

BEN BRAUN, GET GONE!
And I'm not the first to voice this, look:
firebenbraun.com

So when you look at the overall scheme of things, Cal cannot move forward with Ben Braun pulling them back.

With a lot of goodbyes lately (on and off this blog) I’m opting to write Ben Braun a farewell poem too. People have scolded me for not being punctual, and I’m sorry. But unlike my Mike Bibby poem, I’m not going to say goodbye after his departure. Hopefully though, this poem is not too premature:

PLEASE!
Here's the real poem, an attempt at a haiku.....

Ben Braun, please get gone
You were good back then, but see…
We’re tired of defeat

Week after each week
Your plays don’t change, obsolete
And it makes us weak

We go to games drunk
Hoping that we’ll be surprised,
come out the victor

In the end, hot damn
We just leave Haas oh so sad
Nothing goes as planned

We respect your tries
Cal sees you’ve done all you could
We love you, but please…

Hold your head up high
Say goodbye and walk away
With a little grace

Please? Or else, again:
Check firebenbraun.com
SIGN THE PETITION!

From Around the Blogs:
Aaron Rodgers learns from Brett Favre, first lesson: how to retire [Sports Pickle]
The Yanks - Rays brawl [Rays Anatomy]
People on scooters = dumb jabronis [My Brain Says Rage]

Kevin Johnson - Sacramento’s Tomorrow (No Really, We're Serious)

Kevin Johnson is running for mayor of Sacramento.

Let’s backtrack with a quick Kevin Johnson Overview:

-->1966: Sacramento, CA baby and point guard in the works
-->1983-87: Cal bball stud
-->1987: Drafted by the Cavs (7th pick overall)
-->1988-1998, 2000: Phoenix Suns sidekick to Charles Barkley (before Dwayne Wade and T-mobile!)
-->1989: founded and served as CEO to St. Hope Academy, a nonprofit community development corporation
-->2003: St. HOPE formed St. HOPE Public Schools, a pre-K-12 independent charter school system
-->March 2008: announces his run for mayor of Sacramento

Before we discredit KJ because he is an athlete, here are 10 reasons KJ should be mayor:

10. Invested in Oak Park (and people from Sacramento try to avoid Oak Park)
9. Turned Sacramento High School into a charter school (Go education!)
8. Not that tall, so he's not so intimidating
7. He’s come to Cal to give speeches (check POLITICAL SCIENCE 179: Undergraduate Colloquium on Political Science)
6. People pay some attention to him
5. Gave his best in the finals against the Bulls (I mean, who could really beat MJ back then?)

4. Dunked on Hakeem Olajuwon.
3. Tough. He grew up in Oak Park.
2. A rolemodel; lots of kids look up to him and see hope.
And finally:
1. He knows 100x more about geography (and imagine the general knowledge) than former teammate, Sir Charles.

“I think Argentina would be somewhere near Greece”

You have to applaud a man who gives back to the community. Despite his ups and downs, the man has definitely been trying to revitalize a part of Sacramento that many have come to overlook and give up on.
Substantial community success? The right intentions? Experience? Change?

Let Sacramento decide.

If by chance KJ does become mayor, I wonder if he’ll have some influence on the Kings! Point guard pointers? How to deal with Barkley? We’ll have to wait and see…

GO KINGS!

From Around the Blogs:
Meet Adam Loewin [Minor League Baseball]
Pacman Jones and John Daly really should hang out [Your Face is a Sports Blog]
Community projection of Barry Zito [McCovey Chronicles]

Randy Moss, Spygate, Raiders, and Javon Walker

It was the great Deion Sanders who once said Randy Moss is “like a beautiful woman who can’t cook, doesn’t clean, and doesn’t want to take care of the kids. You really don’t want her, but she’s so beautiful you can’t let her go.” The Randy Moss today cooks, cleans, and even changes diapers. But the question remains, what exactly did Randy Moss see in the Patriots? Why didn’t he comeback to the Raiders? What makes New England so great? Obviously, its the fans, huh?

What’s wrong with Oakland (a lot of things), or any other team for that matter?

#5 Moss, making a great fit for the Eagles, Cowboys, and several other NFC teams…feared being in the same division as Patrick Willis.

#4 Moss met with Culpepper to discuss teaming up once again. They played Madden 08 after trading to be on one another’s team. Culpepper threw 3 interceptions in a losing effort….against the Raiders.

#3 Moss claims he has great chemistry with Tom Brady. He says Tom Brady and him, throwing for a record number of touchdowns this season can be replicated next season. He really believes in the connection he was with Tom. All lies. He sees the chemistry with Tom’s lover, Gisele.

Okay, this was just an excuse to put up a picture of her.

#2 Randy Moss had a nightmare the night before the agreement was made. He dreamt he read the papers and it said that he had been traded to the Raiders. He dreamt he enjoyed one season where he admitted to not playing hard and they won barely any games and he hated his life there. And on top of that, every night he had to go to his home in Oakland…fearing for his life. He woke up, ran downstairs, picked up the newspaper from his front porch and read the sports headline only to see how much the Oakland newspapers hated him, and some rioting.

#1 The Spygate scandal actually crossed more boundaries then known by the media. Not only did Bill Belichick spy on the Jets, Rams, and various other teams; but he was able to capture Randy Moss performing certain actions in his own home, and used this footage to blackmail Moss into staying and signing a below value contract. And by certain actions, we mean a prostitution ring. Hey, New York Governors need to get their hookers from somewhere.

Guess Randy won’t be in a black and silver jersey for a while. All of this is irrelevant though, since the Raiders signed Javon Walker, also known as Randy Moss version 2.0. Twice the hype, probably twice the disappointment.


From Around the Blogs:
Alternatives to saying the bubble [Women Like Sports]
David Ortiz to the Hall of Fame? Maybe the ESPN Hall of Fame [Fire Jay Mariotti]
A Rod Benson update.... um, yeah.... [Fear the Beard]

Bubble Teams to San Diego: Thanks A Lot, Assholes

“Now San Diego sports finally have something to rejoice about, until the NCAA tournament begins and they are soundly crushed, probably by Louisville or something.”

For those of you who missed it yesterday or found out this very morning, San Diego shocked the world, err, the nation, err, California I guess, with a stunning upset over number 22 ranked Gonzaga. USD had a small lead going into the half, but the real show stopper came in the second half when San Diego went on a 19-4 run on route to their victory. The real stars of the game were Rob Jones, who scored 15 points, and De’Jon Jackson, who scored 18 points with 8 rebounds. De’Jon Jackson also bears a name very similar to a certain Cal star. I’d like to think of him as the French version of DeSean, despite the fact that De’Jon probably has never stepped a foot in France. I just have a thing for hilarious French stereotypes, okay?

With their victory, they captured the WCC title and the attention of millions of gambaholics who are gearing up for March Madness.

On the way to the WCC championship, the Toreros beat the St. Mary’s Gaels along with Gonzaga. With their win, USD locked up a tournament spot while Gonzaga and St. Mary’s will be left wondering what their fate is until Sunday. I’m no Joe Lunardi or anything, but the math seems pretty simple to me. Gonzaga is a sure shot at large candidate. Even though St. Mary’s has been on the ropes the last week, their non conference profile with wins against Drake and Oregon should get them in. And San Diego makes three. That’s right, the WCC gets three teams in.

This in turn makes every other single bubble team not happy. Oh, if only these teams can talk… wait they can! Well, they can if you stretch your imagination a little…

The following is an imaginary conversation between a select number of teams on the bubble. Is the notion of treating a team as a physical entity ridiculous? Um, yeah, but why the hell not? This is March Madness after all, where ridiculousness comes hand in hand with the tournament. I mean if the idea of gambling away your house on amateur basketball is less silly than the concept of this imaginary round table to you, then you need to go this website.

Illinois State, Arizona, Florida, Miami U, and VCU sit in a room discussing the situation at hand:

Illinois State: Okay guys, we’re in deep shit now. San Diego just won the WCC tournament, meaning the chances for us to make it in have gone down by one.

Arizona: Don’t forget about South Alabama. They lost too, but they’ll probably be an at-large candidate. Knock another spot off.

Florida: Well why are we here?

Illinois State: Well it’s pretty clear with all these upsets happening left and right that the number of bubble teams getting in the tournament is going to diminish in the next week. Thus, we’re all going to discuss why we deserve to be in the tournament.

Miami U: Well not me. I’m pretty much a safe bet to make it, with my strong RPI and SOS. Hell I only have 9 losses so far, 10 tops after the tournament. I’ll be watching you assholes in the NIT while I’m cruising through the Big Dance.

Arizona: If you know you’re in, why are you at this meeting?

Miami U: I heard Arizona State was going to be here.

Arizona: Wrong school, asshole.

Miami U: Like there's a difference.

Illinois State: I agree.

Arizona: Touche, Miami U. When did you start playing basketball anyway?

Miami U: When our football team started to suck.

Arizona: Oh yeah…..

Illinois State: Anyways, gentlemen, Miami has already made its case. What say the rest of you? Why should you guys make it to the field of 64? Let’s start with you Arizona.

Arizona: Well it’s pretty clear we have one of the toughest schedules in all of college basketball. I mean we’re number 2 in SOS and we still managed 17 wins.

Florida: But you have 13 losses…

Arizona: Yeah but we also have an RPI of 31.

Florida: But you lost to Oregon twice.

Arizona: Um yeah, so what? You lost to Tennessee by 20….

Florida: SO…

Arizona: And to Arkansas by about 20….

Florida: Um….

Arizona: And even to LSU!!

Florida: Shit.

Illinois State: Yeah, why are you here Florida?

Florida: Um, because we have Billy Donovan, and you know how much the committee loves him!

Arizona: Shit. He got us there.

Florida: What about you Illinois State, why are you here?

Illinois State: Well, we have a 34 RPI, pretty impressive right?

Arizona: Not really. We get that with our eyes closed. Give us a better one.

Illinois State: Well we’re also second in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Florida: Which conference is that again? Is that the one with the school whose mascot is an airplane or something? That’s one cool looking airplane.

Illinois State: No that’s Dayton, and that’s the A-10.

Florida: Oh, nuts.

Illinois State: Um, let’s go on to our last member. VCU, why should you make it to the tournament?

VCU: Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary.

Illinois State: What?

VCU: Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Should have beaten William and Mary. Fuck George Mason.

Illinois State: Um, okay. Well that pretty wraps up our meet-

Houston: Hey guys wait for me…!

Arizona: Who are you?

Houston: We’re Houston! We’re on the bubble too!

Arizona: You are? Sorry pal, don’t recognize you.

Houston: C’mon, you know, Houston! The Cougars! You know, The Dream, Clyde, Phi Slamma Jamma?? You have to know us!

Florida: Oh yeah, you guys lost to UTEP! Now I remember.

Houston: Shit, you remembered too…… Guess I’ll just leave….

Coldplay - Trouble can be heard in the background as Houston exits.

Trust me, when Selection Sunday rolls around, a lot of teams will be playing “Trouble.”

From Around the Blogs:
J-Russell is getting really fat [The Hater Nation]
Who's the NBA's MVP? [Lakers4life]
Steroids and Gov. Spitzer [Steroid Nation]

The Last Pitcher Preview (Finally!): Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

The strong Los Angeles Angels gets even stronger, both offensively and defensively, both position players and pitchers.

The Angels won the American League West last year, yet that still didn't stop them from getting both Torii Hunter and Jon Garland to boost up their already boosted roster. Disneyland, Anaheim, Los Angeles--it doesn't matter where you are or who owns you. The only thing that matters is winning, and the Angels know how to do just that. Where does winning all began? According to their manager Mike Scioscia, and their Rally Monkey, who knows a thing or two about winning (2002 World Series Champions), it all starts with pitching.

John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Jon Garland, Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders

What is up with the city of Los Angeles? Is it law to have 6 starters instead of 5? Is it required to have awesome pitchers in their entire rotation and have awesome backups as well? Lackey and Escobar are the co-aces leading this staff. Both pitchers totaled over 400 innings pitched and 27 wins last year, close to their goal of 40 wins. Bringing in Garland definitely boosts the staff, having back-to-back 18 win seasons in 2005-06. Garland hasn't missed a single start in his entire 7-year career. Weaver is good, we all know that; he's not like his brother Jeff, starting 0-10 or something like that last year before getting his first win. Finally, Santana, who looks to bounce back from a dismal year and Saunders, the only lefty in the rotation, are both worthy of the 5th spot. This is a very powerful and finesse core of pitchers, with Lackey, Escobar, and Santana supplying the power while Garland, Weaver, and Saunders pounds the strike zone and keeps hitters off-balanced.

Here's an interesting fact: they're all tall giraffes! Weaver is 6'7, Garland and Lackey are 6'6, Saunders is 6'3, Santana is 6'2, and Escobar is 6'1.

"Looks like the Rally Monkey will keep on rallying for some time."

From Around the Blogs:
Leonard Hamilton.... and thugs? [The Serious Tip]

Indiana upset by Penn St [Cobra Brigade]

No real reason to put this here, but we could always use more cheerleaders [Pro Cheerleading Blog]

Pac-10 Refs: 2, Northern California: 0

"So this is what it sounds like when doves cry."

I have to admit, as much as I loved to egg on Stanford, I really did think that the Cardinal got a little screwed over in that game against UCLA. The Pac-10 officials had claimed they made the right call, but even admitted that it was a bit “game inappropriate” to make the call with so much on the line considering that the foul Lawrence Hill made was a bit hard to spot.

I felt pretty bad for the Cardinal. Then, two seconds later, I came to my senses.

Flash forward to Saturday, when Cal and UCLA squared off. I wasn’t really expecting anything big from Cal. Our at-large hopes pretty much had flown out the window after the sweep given to us at the hands of the Washington schools. Even though I’m a Cal fan, I really had no invested interest in the game, and the only reason I was watching was because it was either the game or Sex in the City on TBS. Seeing that I did not have a vagina, I chose the game.

Needless to say, as the game progressed, I was rather surprised that Cal got the lead early in the game, and maintained it until the half. Sure the 7 point lead wasn’t as dominating as the 12 point lead that Stanford had on Thursday, but this was Cal playing, so I took what I could get. I was pretty optimistic that maybe we would upset UCLA, and that I could finally write something about Cal basketball not relating to how god awful Ben Braun is at coaching or the lack of skill our Asian basketball players posses. However, in the back of my mind, I was still a little skeptical when I realized UCLA came back on Thursday against Stanford. To make it worse, I realized we were no Stanford.

As the second half got underway, UCLA slowly came back, but not as strong as they did against the Cardinal. In fact, up until the last shot, UCLA never had the lead. Up by 4 with 1 minute left, I felt pretty safe. Then….. it happened.

Kevin Love hits a 3 with 31 seconds left. Shit. It’s ok though, we’re still up by one. Ryan Anderson dribbles and gets some contact in the corner. The ball goes out. Phew. That’s a foul if I’ve ever seen on. Wait, isn’t there supposed to be a whistle blown or something? Where is it?? WHERE IS IT???

What?!?! No foul, what the hell!!!!! Steve Lavin is parading his mouth like a chimpanzee asking where the foul was. Replays show that Ryan Anderson totally got mobbed as the ball left his hands. Even then, if it wasn't a foul, it seemed that the ball came off a Bruin, not Anderson. Man.............

Naturally, like they did against Stanford, UCLA takes the opportunity and makes another miracle play. I’m not going to go into the details of Josh Shipp’s last shot, because you probably have been hearing all the ESPN, CBS scrotum slobbering that has gone on over that highlight.

As I said in the other post about UCLA’s win: “The players shake hands and start heading to the locker room. You hold your head in disappointment and all you have is Jack Nicholson’s smug little face to look at, which is never comforting. The only thing you ever see in Jack’s face is him slowly undressing you with his eyes. It’s pretty creepy.”

Fuck. And don’t forget the trumpets:

Whomp, whomp.

This is no knock to UCLA. They made the right plays when handed the chance to make them, but the point is that they never should have been handed those moments in the first place. That leads to the question that everyone is asking: What Pac-10 officials are UCLA blowing in order for things to go so swimmingly for them? First they call a foul when they shouldn’t have, then they don’t all one when they should! And the better question is who are they going to blow when the NCAA tournament comes around? Hmm….

"That's Billy Packer, by the way."

Perhaps my animosity to UCLA is indeed misguided. They are not the enemy, they’re just a pawn in the grand scheme of things. There’s always the age old conspiracy that lurks around when any favorite gets calls thrown there way. One has to wonder if the Pac-10 is just trying to pump up UCLA’s resume as they head into the tournament. After all, a UCLA upset before the big dance would certainly give the Pac-10 nothing to win. We do, after all, want to look like the best of the best comes from the Pac-10, and a number 2 seed sure doesn’t look very noteworthy.

Actually, this goes beyond the scope of the Pac-10. Like a good Cal alum, I’ve come up with a conspiracy theory to explain this officiating mess. We’ve already established that if UCLA looses, the Pac-10 looses. Let’s take it beyond that. If the Pac-10 (the toughest college basketball conference in the land) looses, all of college basketball looses. And if college basketball looses, America looses (honestly, what’s more American than March Madness). And if America looses, the terrorists win! Noooooooooooo!

Who’s the mastermind behind all of this?! Well, also like a good Berkeley citizen, the monster is always in the form of one man:

"That's George W. Bush, by the way."

So there you have it, the reason why UCLA keeps getting all these miracles is because freedom is at stake. I guess I can live with that though. Besides, if Cal had won, Ben Braun probably would still be our coach next year, and if that happens, the terrorists really would win.

From Around the Blogs:
The Pac-10 helmet schedule [Bears Necessity]
A really great "There Will Be Blood" parody [Cousins of Ron Mexico]
Indiana's Eric Gordon vs a Billy Madison reference [Why Don't We Get Drunk and Blog?]

The 49ers Add on Offense & Defense: Say Hello to the St. Louis Rams v 1.5

Over the past week, the San Francisco 49ers added a couple of veteran players to their roster, hoping that they will help transform last season's horrible disaster to the upcoming season's Cinderella story.

We all know Alex Smith and Frank Gore sucked. They were the core of the team. Naturally, this is a losing game plan. That's why the 49ers brought in Mike Martz right after the season to straighten Alex Smith and the offense out as the offensive coordinator. The Lions had a reasonably fair offense last year, so let's see what he can do to the even worse 49ers. The 49ers don't want a regular fair Mike Martz. The 49ers want the Mike Martz who helped the St. Louis Rams win the Super Bowl a few years ago. Or helped them lose to the Patriots. Dick Vermeil, Mike Martz, whatever, they're all just old white people. I just know one of them doesn't bitch around after every loss AND every win. That one guy was Martz. Therefore, Mike Martz will either be...

...and offensive genius...

...or another bust for the 49ers.

To help him to hopefully become a genius, the 49ers brought in the old, I mean, talented and skilled for his age, Isaac Bruce.


Just look at those guns, pushing defenders away like they were playing pee-wee football. If president Bush is looking for weapons of mass destruction, he should just look at Issac's biceps. Bruce has been in the league forever, so he knows what's up. He can still run, he can still catch. He's no Terrell Owens or Randy Moss, but he did win a Super Bowl. Plus, tears of love don't pour down his face once someone mentions the name Tony Romo. Let's just hope he doesn't turn out to be a too-good-to-be-true-and-too-expensive Darrell Jackson, who did absolutely NOTHING for the 49ers, except take away their money. The only catches he made were on the practice field.


So Isaac Bruce, please bring back your smile and talent from your St. Louis Rams Super Bowl days and help the 49ers get somewhere?


OK, so next year we will have Martz leading the 49ers offense, which would be an upgrade. We will still have Smith and Gore at QB and RB, so maybe they can bounce back. Vernon Davis will need to stay as a TE beast, and Bruce needs to lead the offense with his veteran presence, by making 3209463290 catches and scoring 38294730 TDs. Or zero.

In addition to offense, the 49ers also picked up a defensive sacking machine in defensive end Justin Smith from the Cincinnati Bengals.


Just look at him taking Chad Pennington down and out. Wow, unbelievable! OK, you're right, it's only Chad Pennington. Hey, at least Jet fans were happy about that hit. And fine, Smith only had like 2 sacks last season, but he was injured and it was a fluke, just like Alex Smith, or Frank Gore, or all of the Niner roster. The 2 seasons before, he had 16 sacks each, so like Isaac Bruce, we want the older version of Justin Smith. If it works out, linebacker Patrick Willis and Justin Smith could be a good combo on the 49ers defense. So Justin Smith, please bring out the fierce in you for the 49ers.


So with these two acquisitions, it sounds like the 49ers are looking for these veterans to get back on track like they used to when they were younger. Man, that sounds so much like the San Francisco Giants bringing in veterans around Barry Bonds to try to win it all, and we all know how that turned out. What is up with San Francisco? We are playing in the NFL here, not this:

"Though I wouldn't mind if they brought this back."

OK, OK, let's be optimistic and patient here. Let's hope that the 49ers will be able to turn their season around with these player acquisitions who may or may not be past their prime. Let's just be patient and wait over half a year to see what else the 49ers can do to improve their roster. If we want some football action, let's just stick with our San Jose Sabercats in the Arena Football League right now. They're actually not that bad, being in the league for the 13th season with 3 championships, the most recent being this past year. So before we say "Go Niners!" in the NFL, let's root for our wonderful Sabercats and "Meow!"

God Bay Area football sucks right now.

From Around the Blogs:
Australian Cheaty McCheater [Dave's Football Blog]
Kevin Johnson and the Sactown mayor race [The Sports Hernia]
Lebron is no Kobe [YAY Sports]

Tough Loss Stanford, But That's What You Get For Stealing My Bed!

"Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! My-yummy!"

Ooooooh, the sadness Stanford, the sadness! Victory was yours for the taking! Weren’t you ready to pour fountains of champagne and reign supreme atop the Pac-10 mountain? Weren’t you ready to finally taste the sweet sweet nectar of glory by beating one of the top teams in the nation? Weren’t you ready to lose that title as the second best team in the West?

It looked pretty sweet for most of the game huh? By the half, your defense held UCLA to 18 measly points and you had a nice cushy 12 point lead. Forcing UCLA to shoot only 7-22 during the half is quite an accomplishment. Pretty sweet. I’m sure Trent Johnson was fired up. He probably killed someone on the way to the locker room from getting all pumped up during the first half. (If you haven’t noticed, Trent Johnson is probably the most murderous looking coach in all of college basketball).

The second half started off great too. Brook Lopez added another two, making your lead to a nice 14 pts. But then, slowly but surely, UCLA started creeping back. A Kevin Love shot here, a Collison lay-up there, and all of a sudden UCLA was inching closer. You’re thinking this is horrible, a Ben Braun coached squad could do better. (Okay maybe not).

It wasn’t a total blow out run though, you guys kept in there to the last shot. In fact, with the last shot on the line, you guys were up by two. Pretty impressive considering you were facing a tough crowd down in Westwood.

So with 2 seconds left, you’re thinking “okay, just don’t do anything stupid Stanford. For the love of god don’t do anything stupid.”

Collison goes for the shot and…

Lawrence Hill blocks it. Yes! Stanford is awe-… wait what? Why are they stopping the game? Why did the ref blow his whistle? Why is my erection going down?

Foul!?!?! Foul!?!?! What foul?!?! He totally had all ball on that?!! What?!? This is ridiculous…

Collison hits one shot…. Collison hits another and….

Just like that you knew the game was over. Once OT started, UCLA got hot and never looked back.

The players shake hands and start heading to the locker room. You hold your head in disappointment and all you have is Jack Nicholson’s smug little face to look at, which is never comforting. The only thing you ever see in Jack’s face is him slowly undressing you with his eyes. It’s pretty creepy.

"I'm sorry for unleashing these man boobies on your fragile eyes."

In a flash, things just went down hill, and all I have to say is boo fuckin’ hoo because………. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR STEALING MY BED!!! NEXT TIME BRING AN INFLATABLE MATRESS AND KARMA WON’T BE SUCH A BITCH.

You guys totally deserved to win yesterday, but totally didn’t.

Whomp, whomp! Better luck next time suckers.

With all that said though, go Stanford. Like I said before, I got money to win during March Madness.

From Around the Blogs:
We didn't really feel like watching the Cal game, so someone else did, oh wait they didn't [Conquest Chronicles]
The Nuggets are kind of the new Warriors [Free Darko]
Two words: beach soccer [Uncommon Sportsman]

Introducing Our New Commentator, Hailing From UC Davis

So it's my first post for TPIC and the first thing that I've noticed on this blog is that there's a lot of love for Cal and UCLA. Don't get me wrong; these are both fine institutions. In fact I'm a big Bears fan...and let me say I'm still upset that this year's football season went from this:

To this:
(Throw the ball away, Kevin Riley!!!)

Anyway, I attend a different UC, one that is largely overshadowed by its bretheren from Berkeley and Los Angeles: UC Davis. And since this is a sports blog, I thought it would be appropriate to give a short Q&A on UC Davis athletics:

What's the mascot?
Our mascot is the Aggie. I know your next question: What the hell is an Aggie? Short answer: it's basically a farmer. For the longer answer, look it up on wikipedia.

Do you guys even play sports?
Yes. In between tractor driving and cow tipping, we do find time to compete in the athletic arena. In fact, we're the only other UC besides Cal and UCLA to have a football team.

Who do you play?
UC Davis just reclassified to Division I (after winning 6 Directors Cups in Division II, I might add) and competes in the Big West Conference, with other NCAA powerhouses such as Pacific, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge.

Okay, wise ass, who are your notable alumni?
I'm glad you asked that.
How about the 49ers' newest backup quarterback AKA the guy who is going to fill in when Alex Smith gets his overrated ass injured again, JT O'Sullivan?

Look at that form.
Or how about the San Jose SaberCats star quarterback and winner of three Arena Football League titles Mark Grieb?

More seriously, though, there's Mike Belotti, head football coach at Oregon. There's also Boise State head football coach Chris Peterson and Colorado head football coach Dan Hawkins.
However, in my opinion, UC Davis' greatest alumni of all time is Martin Yan, chef host of Yan Can Cook.

Why are you telling me all this about UC Davis?
Because UC Davis is an athletic program on the rise! Because our fans are passionate! Because we are the Aggies!

Do you really believe all that crap you just said?
Not really. Look, it's hard to get excited when you're playing teams like UC Riverside. But we do have some decent athletics here and we've made some noise in the past. For example: beating Stanford in football and basketball in 2005. Granted, that was when Stanford sucked at life (not that they still don't) but hey, it's still sort of a big deal around Davis.

Anyway, I promise not to bore you too much about UC Davis. I mean, I can name more guys on the Cal football team than I can on the Davis football team, so that probably gives you an idea of the level of commitment I have to my own school. (Also, there's not much to talk about when your men's basketball team just snapped an 11-game losing streak to improve its record to 9-20). Hopefully I'll just bring another voice to the table, and we'll have some laughs along the way.

Go Ags. From Around the Blogs:
Let's get Fran(cesc) [That's On Point]
I'll listen to anything Rashida Jones says [Young, Black, and Fabulous]
Cancel all slogans [Fire Joe Morgan]

Aaron Rodgers' Second Happiest Day In His Life

"Adios NFL, since my team can't even sign Randy Moss!"

Since TPIC is all pro-Cal all of a sudden, let's talk about one of our football heroes Aaron Rodgers!

Tuesday, March 4, when Aaron Rodgers woke up and heard that Brett Favre was retiring, he must have jumped up in joy and called everyone he knew that today was the second happiest day in his life. He was going to finally be the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, after Ironman Brett Favre kept the job for 9032653 years. Since this is his new role, Aaron Rodgers is going to have to change his playing style a little bit from now on out.

Here's a few things Rodgers did and accomplished playing behind the incredible Favre:

"Growing out his hair like a true Cal Berkeley bum on the sidelines 'cause he had nothing else to do besides holding the clipboard."

"Giving Brett Favre back rubs/massages on the practice field and trying to convince Favre to get injured or retire and let him play, or trying to injure Favre himself."

"Piggy-back rides on teammates' backs to kill time and promising to throw them the ball when he plays."

"Sharing awkward moments of silence with Favre."

That was then, this is now. The post-Favre era has just begun, and Aaron Rodgers is going to have to change his gameplan a bit. He must:

"Hand the ball to his fellow runningbacks."

"Drop back for a few passes from time to time while giving dramatic stares into the defense."

"Hand the ball to his fellow runningbacks, again."

"Get sacked a couple times a game. Just don't get injured! (He has a hankerin' to do that during the season)."

"Hand the ball to his fellow runningbacks, some more. Throw the ball you say? That's practically suicide!"

Aaron Rodgers, the 2005 NFL Draft Day/Signing Day was the happiest day in your life, knowing that you were drafted by the Green Bay Packers, meaning that you will get free money sitting on the bench behind Brett Favre. Now it's time to show the NFL world what you can do. In fact, you may even try to bring back some Cal plays for your offense. That would be awesome for us Cal fans to see--you leading some Cal plays on offense while fellow Cal alum Desmond Bishop plays and puts some smashing Cal defensive plays on the other side of the field.

"Go Bea...err...Packers!! I bleed green and gol..err..yellow!!"

Maybe I should become a cheesehead.

From Around the Blogs:
Now that Favre is retired, what will Peter King do?? [KSK]
SF Giants spring preview [Giants Baseball Blog]
The only reason we're linking this blog is to help raise their Ballhype rank. We know, we're generous. [Sports Couch Potato]

People From Stanford Are Bed Stealing Assholes

"President Truman can't be wrong."

If you’re an avid reader of this blog, or even a newcomer, you may have noticed that there is a bit of slant in terms of our college coverage. Sure, we try to be unbiased, but when you have alumni sprouting left and right from a certain school and these people are contributing, it’s a bit useless to mask our biases. Even when we try, we end up covering two certain schools (cough cough Cal cough cough UCLA) more than other schools (cough cough Stanford cough cough USC). We pretend to care about the other schools, but their coverage seems to get dominated by the two other schools.

At first, I would try to rationalize my bias stating the simple fact “I went to Cal, it’s my blog, I can do whatever the hell I want, jabroni.” This logic is pretty much what I apply to many other things. “It’s my car, biatch, so if I feel like driving 120 mph, then so be it.” Of course I don’t advocate speeding, but I do advocate speeding if it’s done by me. Just kidding. If the CHP is reading this and you see a rusted Toyota Echo driving down the 101 at dangerously high speeds, it’s definitely not me driving in it. I swear.

Anyway, that logic was pretty much why I would allow such a bias to Cal continue on a blog claiming to cover all of California. I mean, I can’t cover everyone, or there would be posts about UC Santa Cruz’s frisbee team, and trust me, no one wants to read that.

However, after a particular incident, I came up with a new conclusion, “people from Stanford are inconsiderate douches, and the reason I don’t cover Stanford as much is because I don’t want to be infested with their douchiness.” It’s contagious after all.

“What is this said incident?” you ask? Well it’s pretty simple and can happen to anyone. The story starts after a hard night of going out on a Saturday. The time was about 3 am, and after some boozin’ and movin,’ we all headed back to crash at our friend E’s place. (This is the same E who loved Mike Dunleavy. She’s a good kid though, so we’ll forgive her). 3 am is pretty late, and it seems even later when all you consumed 5 hours prior were some shots of liquor washed down with a few chips. E also got in a bit of a scuffle at the bar (which I will reference some more in a later post titled “E’s Fight Night Out”) so my energy was even more drained. Needless to say, I was about to shrivel up and die from exhaustion.

So back at E’s place, I pretty much eyed the first couch and went lights out. Cut to 4 am, a bunch of loud Stanford jerk offs barge through the room where I was sound asleep. In a moments notice I was awake while they continued their inane banter. Sensing that I had woken up, they did what any polite, courteous Stanfordian would have done: they said a half assed sorry and continued to raise hell. Son of a bitch.

I wasn’t the only one who was awoken by the volume though. I learned on my way to the bathroom E and company were also awake, probably from the noise. After the ruckus, I wasn’t really in the mood to sleep, even though I was famished, so I chatted it up with E and her friends for a bit. After about 30 mins, the noise seemed to calm down, and I suspected that our rude awakeners were sound asleep. I walked back to my bed anticipating to crash out again and to see if they all dozed off. Well they dozed off all right, on the bed that I was sleeping in! Assholes!

One of the guys noticed he had taken my bed and said, “Sorry dude, I didn’t know.” Then he went to back sleep. Real classy. I’m sorry too, dude, sorry you guys grew up to be such grade-A douchebags. I then proceeded to drive my groggy ass home at 5 am to finally get some real sleep.

In the wake of the Stanford basketball team tearing things up in the Pac-10, you would think that TPIC would be covering it. Well you think wrong, because I don’t feel like endorsing a school this week that is infested with so many jerks. Maybe later on in the month things will change, but for the purpose of this post, there’s just a teeny message I would like to relay: fuck you, you Stanfordian bed stealing assholes.

In fact, why stop there? Let’s continue with the fun. Fuck Stanford. Fuck their new stadium, fuck the color red, fuck Palo Alto.

Fuck the Stanford band. I thought Stanford was a private school, so why is the band made up of a bunch of rejects from the retarded version of the Village People? At least you got the gay looking part right.

Fuck the Stanford tree. No one thinks it’s adorable. In fact, I’m pretty sure it gives little kids nightmares because of its creepy grin on its goofy face. And learn how to handle your booze, you shitty mascot.

Fuck Hoover Tower. Nice going naming one of your landmarks after one of the shittiest presidents of all time. It’s glorious that he led us into the Great Depression. Can’t wait for the Andrew Johnson library to come out.

Fuck John Elway. What took you so goddamn long to win a Super Bowl?

Fuck that one guy on the Real World Road Rules Challenge who went to Stanford. He always loses on that show anyways, so he fuckin’ sucks.

Fuck Jim Harbaugh. Actually, don’t fuck him. We enjoy having him around so we can clown on him.

Fuck the Stanford S. North Carolina State’s S is better anyway.

Fuck you Stanford, for today. I hope you lose in the Pac-10 tournament to Oregon State or something. But go Stanford when the NCAA Tournament comes around. I got money to win after all.

From Around the Blogs:
Free your mind, Craig [Melt Your Face Off]
The Ladies... are back from vacation [Ladies...]
Countries better than America: Saudi Arabia [Holy Dog Water]

Michael Turner Signs With Falcons, Realizes He's Just Made A "Huge Mistake"

The Play in California has just learned that Michael Turner has been signed to a multi million dollar, 6-year deal. How is he taking the news? One can only imagine…

Whoa nelly, you thought you could shelf Michael Turner to the bench forever, huh San Diego? Thought I’d be LT’s little insurance policy forever? Well guess what, you were all wrong! I’m out of here suckers!

My agent just told me that I got a multi million dollar deal. That means I won’t have to deal with waiting for my turn anymore. I’m primetime now baby!

No more having to wait until LT bitches out with an injury, AFC Championship style. No more having to deal with Norv Turner’s shitty “pep talks.” Hey Norv, you’re about as motivating as a sack of day old prunes. At least the prunes have fewer wrinkles than you. No more having to deal with Shawne Merriman when he decides to go all Bane on the locker room after a tough loss. No more having to deal with Philip Rivers. Hey Phil, I get mad at the fans once in a while too, but I don’t bitch about it, do you know why? Because I don’t have a vagina.

I’m free! Free! Yes!

(Phone rings. It’s his agent)

Hey sup man. Thanks for telling me the good news. Who signed me anyway? What? Are you serious? Atlanta? Shit. Who am I playing with? Jerious Norwood? Double shit. Who else? Joey Harrington? I thought he was dead. Fuck! Triple shit. What kind of shitty agent are you? I was supposed to go to New England or something, not the fucking Falcons. I didn’t even know that Atlanta was still playing after last year. Thought Mike Vick got them banned from the league. Shit. All right man I’ll talk to you later.

(Hangs up the phone)

Yeah…. Um…. So ….. Atlanta sounds….. Shit….I’m done for. Guess I’ll be this generations next TJ Duckett. Fuck.

From Around the Blogs:

Papelbon rips Hank [Sliding Into Home]

Best/worst free agent signings [End Zone Buzz]

Can you identify these WWE action figures? [Mental Floss]

The Clemens - Pettitte Lovefest Pitcher Preview: San Francisco Giants

The Bonds-less San Francisco Giants era has begun.

Finally, no more steroid interrogations in the Giants clubhouse. No more playing baseball around arguably the best baseball player in history. No more sitting in the shadow of a living legend, or not. No more waiting for Barry to hit the long ball and win the game. It's time to play small ball, and have some fun.

This season, the new Giants squad will focus their entire team around their starting rotation, one of the best in the majors, surrounded by a group of youngsters aged 29 or younger.

Barry Zito, Matt Cain, Noah Lowry, Tim Lincecum, Kevin Correia

Led by Zito, this starting core looks very promising. Working with the major pitching deal on his back, Zito will look to bounce back this season and prove that last season was a fluke. Cain and Lincecum (Caincecum) are one of the up and coming power pitchers who will dominate the league for years to come. Lowry is a solid contributor for the team, who led the team in wins last season. Giving up too many walks is his only problem, and with trade talks flying around him this winter, he will look forward to proving everyone wrong in a month or so. The 5th starter was the only gap in the rotation, but it seems like Correia will occupy that spot, finishing last season with a 3-1 record, a 2.54 ERA, and a .222 opponents batting average after being put in the rotation for the final 6 weeks of the season.


Remember Zito's Big Three days with Oakland with Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder? (You can even say they had a Big Four if you add in Rich Harden.) Well, the Giants will be looking to match it with their own version of the Big Three (Zitocaincecum), and possibly a Big Four as well with Noah Lowry.

Baseball world, beware...these young boys are going to come out shooting rockets when the season starts, as long as Zito doesn't play ball dressed as Paula Abdul or sleeps during a game.



From Around the Blogs:
Chris Simon is a jerk [Mike Chen's Hockey Blog]
The Kinks vs Smokin' Joe [No Mas]
Photo captions [LOLjocks]

John Wooden Suffers Broken Wrist and Collarbone, Enhances Bad Ass Reputation

Former UCLA coach John Wooden was hospitalized yesterday after taking a bit of an old man fall. He suffered a broken wrist and collarbone in the incident, but doctors expect him to be fine.

Now, I know many of you are going to expect a crude joke about how we should laugh when old people fall, but seriously, at 97, John Wooden is tougher than all of us. A broken wrist and collarbone would probably call for all of us to go home and ask mommy to heal our boo boo, but not John Wooden. And how many of us can honestly say that we’re going to even make it to the young age of 97? I for one cannot raise my hand.

A fall could prove mighty disastrous for anyone approaching the century mark, but not good old John. He has already garnered the respect from everyone in the college basketball world for his coaching skills, now he’s getting respect for his longevity, so kudos to him.

To put it simply, John Wooden is more gangster than any of us. Want more proof? Well, let’s just say he also still has it in the ladies department…

What a pimp.

From Around the Blogs:
Derek Anderson Leaves Browns For Free Agency, Signs With Browns [Deadspin.com]
Firing odds of NCAA Football coaches [EDSBS]
Winners and losers of the trade deadline [Sharks Page]