Retraction

On Saturday, March 21st we reported that the Arizona Wildcats proved that they deserved to be in the Tournament by beating the Runnin' Utes. It was brought to our attention, by Louisville's 103-64 trouncing of Arizona, that Arizona was given a berth by reflex and didn't actually deserve to be there. We regret this mistake.

Reduked to nothing

You hate Duke.

And if you're thinking, "No I don't", then you're lying. Or at least part of you is lying. All of us have held a deeply embedded hatred for the Bluedevils at one time or another. Why? To us, they are the real-life equivalent of the Socs, the silver-spooned rivals of the Greasers. Remember how much you hated that preppy team from the Sandlot? The one that even Scotty Smalls took deep? Yeah yeah, I thought you did--that's Duke. When we think of Duke, players like Shane Battier, J.J. Redick, Grant Hill, and Bobby Hurley come to mind. Piano playing trust fund babies who just happened to be ballers; hence, they went to Duke instead of Harvard.

See? You hate Duke.

The question is, should you and I even care that Duke is fading faster than Kevin Costner's English accent in Robin Hood? The answer is, Yes. College basketball is obviously a cut-throat business mired with slithering agents, ankle-dangling sponsors, and two-faced coaches. Natural selection has brought with it the end of many successful programs--do you really think Indiana fired Bob Knight because of his temper?

So why should we care? One simple word: Krzyzewski.

See, while you and I hate Duke, we love Coach K. We love his quiet, humble nature; we love that his players gradaute (even though we despise them personally); we love that he is the antithesis of his mentor, Bobby Knight; we love that he resurrected TEAM USA; we love that he went to West Point.

He's the very symbol of college basketball. And for all he's done for the game, Coach K is losing his corner of the market as the smart-player's choice for the college game. Younger, hotter coaches like Jay Wright, Jamie Dixon, and Sean Miller are showing that not only can they recruit the Mike Dunleavy Jr.s of the world, they can also get ballers with first-name-prefixes like "La"or "Tre". Outside of Corey Maggette, Coach K hasn't been interested in or able to land top-flight recruits like Tyreke Evans or Hasheem Thabeet. Coach K's bench looks more like a BYU college ward's starting five than what a top 5 program's bench should look like. This didn't matter until the last few years, when every major D-1 school became frantically worried about winning every single year. This Wall Street-esque frenzy brought with it young coaches like Wright, Dixon, and Miller. Suddenly the recruits that Coach K had on lock were presented with multiple options from upstart programs willing to do anything to become perennial winners (outside of the last five years, when was the last time Pitt and Xavier were both good in the same year?).

Now, will Duke come back? Sure. D-1 college hoops is cyclical, so while these newer, hotter programs are on top now, look for the Bluedevils to make a comeback soon. And as sour as that makes me feel, at least it means that Coach K will be on top again too.

Arizona (12) vs. Utah (5)

This is the first time all season that I have actually sat down and watched a basketball game. I figured that with the longest running streak of appearances in the Tourney (25), I should probably show the Wildcats some love. Plus, the Beach Boys always told me: Be true to your school, just like you would to your girl or guy. The Beach Boys, however, didn't say anything about letting your 5-year old son stay up until 10:30 being true to your school with you because I think the Beach Boys knew that any 5-year old would be too tired to function the following day. Where were you on that one Beach Boys? I could have used the heads up.

I was interested to see how my current school (Utah) would stand up against MY school (Arizona).

Arizona came out with a full-court press that Utah didn't know what to do with. The Wildcats jumped out to an early 3-point lead. Utah responded by tying the game at 3, at which point Arizona took over the game and lead by an average of 10 points for the rest of the game. The top scorers in the contest were Nic Wise with 29 points (21 in the second half), and Chase Budinger with 20 points. Jordan Hill dominated the boards with 13 rebounds. Nic Wise also lead the 'Cats with the most turnovers (5). I think at least 3 of his turnovers were made in an attempt to get Utah's center, Luke Nevill, to foul out. Nevill had 4 fouls for the better part of the second half but he never fouled out. Arizona won the game 71-84.

I'm excited that Arizona is moving on to the next round and I'm excited that Wake Forest was upset by the 13th seeded Cleveland State. I think that gives Arizona a good chance of getting into the Sweet 16. I hope they go far. Everyone said they didn't deserve to be in the Tournament but after they way they man-handled Utah last night, I think they've proven otherwise.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Yeah, it's still on there. Don't be afraid.

Sexy People

Please, stop whatever you're doing and visit this site*.

Here are a few samples of what you'll find.

*You may want to put on some adult pampers, or at the very least, line your chair with newspaper.

Yeah, I said it.

I like dancing. It's not that I like to dance. I actually hate to dance. And it's not that I like just any ol' kind of dance either. I'm talking about America's Best Dance Crew. We're talking about a show where guys do back flips six feet in the air. Head spins, barrel rolls, air flairs (it's actually a break-dance fighting move), windmills, and at least two-dozen other moves that I don't know the names of, are all staples on this show.The season finale is this Thursday, March 5th. Quest Crew will be going up against the Beat Freaks to see who the best crew in America is. My vote is for Quest Crew espcially since they busted out some Jazz piano as part of their routine. Check out the hip-hop decathlon on MTV's website to see what I'm talking about. Don't think too much about the "decathlon" in the title, I haven't been able to find 10 of anything. I just attribute that to MTV assuming its audience doesn't know anything. I think the show is starting to outgrow its MTV audience.

After watching for the last two seasons, there is no reason that this show couldn't make it on network TV. I wouldn't mind seeing it replace American Idol.

John Albert Elway Jr.

I never liked John Elway back in the day. I can't say there was ever anything that John Elway did that caused my hard feelings for him. In fact, I can't even say that I remember seeing John Elway play. There is a faint memory of the Broncos beating the Cowboys back when I was a Dallas Fair-Weather fan, and being upset about that. But I'm not even 100% sure that ever happened. Maybe that was my way of justifying my disdain for him.

Or maybe it was the Church Ball Coach that would take me out of the game and say "You never make that pass! Unless you're John Elway, don't even try it!" Apparantly this guy wasn't a fan of full-court passes.

Or maybe it was getting beat every day at recess in 5th grade by the team with the 6th grader for a quarterback. Of course the kid's name was John, so you can imagine what everyone called him. "He throws like John Elway!" all the kids at school would say. He always wanted to use the Junior Size football that only three kids could catch. I started to dread recess because I knew we were headed for a beating. Eventually we had to stop playing because someone broke an arm. I did miss being able to play football at recess but I didn't miss playing against John.

I don't know why, but I never outgrew my dislike for John Elway, the man I knew nothing about. He was the Ben Roethlisberger of his day: he didn't look, talk, or act like someone who was good at football. He was retired by the time I started really caring about football so I never learned anything about him. I should have given him a second chance.

I am here today to say that John Elway is a hero and there are few, if any, pros that I respect more. I was checking out ESPN.com the other day and I came across an article by Rick Reilly titled Hey, pro, don't want to be a role model? It's not your choice. In the article he tells of a boy, Jake, who loses his father, and with that, his will to exist. Jake and his father were simple guys who loved the Broncos. When his father died, Jake didn't care about anything. Reilly surprised Jake by taking him to Elway's restaurant where they ran into the owner himself. Not all the details are clear about how much of the day was arranged by Reilly, but by the end of the day Elway kept surprising all of them. John Elway was a super hero to Jake. All it took was one day of kindness from an icon to bring a boy back to life.

Thank you, John Elway, for caring about the people who care about you. I think as kids we would all love to be friends with our favorite pros. As we grow older we start to think that all pros spend all their free time in gentlemen's clubs and shoot themselves in the leg for fun. I think there are a lot of good guys out there and I don't think our media gives them enough credit. On the other hand, giving the good guys credit makes it hard to keep hating them. A few more examples:

Santonio Holmes: shut down the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history and shattered the dream of Cardinal's fans everywhere. So what does he do after the game? Goes back to the hotel with his kids and goes to bed! He didn't commit any crimes, or humiliate himself on the national stage. How am I supposed to feel about the guy now?

Pete Carrol: the thorn in the side of every other Pac-10 team. This guy steals our recruits, beats us during homecoming, and is condecending every time he talks about Tucson. You know what else he does? Spends his evenings and weekends with inner city kids trying to teach them that there is more to life than what they learn on the street. He figures if he's going to take a job in L.A. he might as well try to do some good while he's there.

It really tears a guy like me apart.