Friday, November 03, 2006

Friday 11/03 A.M. Quickie:
Louisville Rules BCS?

Top Story: L'ville 44, WVA 34. Louisville sizzles, West Virginia fizzles, and the BCS enjoys a little more clarity. If they can win out, L'ville has put itself in a position to meet the OSU-Mich winner in the BCS title game. More on that a little later this morning.

More on today's biggest news:

Suddenly, how huge is next Thursday's primetime matchup between Louisville and unbeaten Rutgers (at Rutgers)? Come on: Who ISN'T rooting for Rutgers?

(And I'm not talking about rooting for Rutgers for the purposes of helping your one-loss SEC, Pac-10, Big 12, Big Ten or "Independent" team of your choice; I'm talking about rooting for Rutgers because HOW ALL-TIME AMAZING WOULD IT BE IF RUTGERS MADE THE BCS TITLE GAME? Exactly.)

And how much of an instant non-factor is WVA? I'm sort of embarrassed I put them at No. 2 this week.

Melo ejected for bitching: You kind of expected Rasheed Wallace to get caught in the NBA's crackdown on player whining. But it's fascinating to see Carmelo Anthony, basketball's poster guy for the offseason (best player on the USA Oops team), get thrown out in Game 1.

Spurs beat Mavs in Dallas, and Tim Duncan didn't even have that great of a game. Of course, when you're talking about these two teams, Game 1 doesn't matter. Come talk to me when they're playing 95 games from now in a Western Conference playoffs Game 7.

Daunte Culpepper could miss the rest of the season. The Dolphins are considering putting him on injured reserve. That qualifies Daunte (along with the Dolphins, more generally) as the Bust of the Year.

David Garrard to start for the Jags: Byron Leftwich seems mystified, but presumably Del Rio doesn't like the state of the health of his former No. 1 QB. Controversy ahead.

NFL to gut "12th Man" home-field advantage: The league is reportedly going to test radios inside all players' helmets, effectively negating the effect of crowd noise on a visiting offense. The NFL claims its to speed up the games by limiting false-start penalties, but isn't that precisely the impact that loud home crowds are going for?

Daisuke Matsuzaka: Let the bidding start at...? Teams have until Wednesday to post their bid to earn the rights to negotiate exclusively with the Japanese pitching sensation. If he really would come in as one of the Top 10 starting pitchers in MLB (which I think he would), how can you NOT break the bank to sign a front-line guy? What's your over-under on the highest posting bid? I'll take the Boss for $30 million.

MLB Gold Gloves: Does Kenny Rogers' fourth straight G.G. (5th overall) come with a bit o' stick 'um on the edge?

Tennessee AD doesn't like potty language: I'm sorry, I can't agree with this. The student section should be encouraged to come up with the most clever cheers possible. Yes, even if they contain nasty phrasing. Hell, especially if they contain nasty phrasing. It's part of their charm.

NYC Marathon: All eyes on Lance Armstrong. In addition to being the big attraction of the event (who needs, you know, winners?), he'll be paced by Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit Samuelson and Hicham el-Guerrouj. I paced my sister at the Chicago Marathon a couple years ago; needless to say, I don't expect it to be similar.

Breeder's Cup: Coming off my Pick of 2006 (Barbaro at the Kentucky Derby), I feel I have to weigh in. I'm liking the hype for Lava Man.

Coming later today:
NFL Week 9 Preview/Picks
CFB Weekend Preview/Picks

Last word: Borat.
Success!

-- D.S.

25 comments:

Christian Thoma said...

And to answer the question:
Who ISN'T rooting for Rutgers?

Two answers:
1) Louisville fans
2) That Rutgers Prof that tried to get rid of the football program

Gary said...

Umm, how does Jeter win the gold glove over Alex Gonzales? That's a damn shame. Gonzales was by far the best defensive short stop in ALL of baseball this season. Jeter is a great player, probably MVP this year, but his lone weakness is his defensive range. When he gets to a ball, he's as solid as they come, but as far as getting to all the balls that come his way...well, besides the homosexual joke I could make, he just doesn't cut it.

I don't know the numbers, but errors don't matter for shortstop in gold glove, heck Ozzie Smith made tons of errors because he simply got to more balls than any other player in the league, so it can be misleading.

I think the gold glove voting is lazy anyway. Only one first time winner among the AL gold glovers? I guess it's not a big deal because I think people know that Jeter is overrated (only defensively) and doesn't deserve this award.

Steve said...

That new bitching rule, one word: AWESOME!

I have a bet with my dad that Lance Armstrong will run the marathon in under 3 hours. Did I make a good bet? I'm not sure, but we'll soon find out.

If Rutgers wins out they will not be #2 in the BCS and they will get shut out which will be the greatest thing ever. Go Rutgers.

Anonymous said...

I think the Tennessee AD can do whatever he wants. The reason I got into college football is because of the atmosphere at the games. Of course, I cheer for perennial underachiever Syracuse, so no one is getting that worked up at our games.

That's the whole appeal of a minor league like NCAA football, it's the atmosphere. I love the bands, the low prices (again, I cheer for SU) and the tradition. I can't get that at Bills games. And in the future, why would I spend a huge amount of money to take my son to a game featuring all the behavior I've been trying to keep him away from for _ years?

On some level, you can't control fan behavior, but if it's a bad experience, you're going to lose money. And ADs have to make money.

And, this _is_ Tennessee, Dan. Different culture completely, look at their Senate Democrat candidate. He's more conservative than Guiliani and Bloomberg.

CMFost said...

To go along with Gary, the people who vote for the gold glove should be ashamed for voting Jeter over Gonzales. This is supposed to be about who is the best defensive player not a popularity contest and the stats in this case favor Gonzo big time.


FROM TODAY's BOSTON GLOBE
Jeter won even though he made more than twice as many errors as Gonzalez (15 to 7) and had a lower fielding percentage (.975 to .985).

RevScottDeMangeMD said...

"You're alllllllllllllll wiiiiiiiiiiiiinners!"

Borat looks fantastic.

Didn't Boston U. eliminate cursing in their student section? I thought about this a few days ago (yes, scary thought...me thinking). Who decided that words like "shit," "fuck," "cuntrag" were bad words? They are just words. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Cock. Balls.

Brave Sir Robin said...

Solomon, part of that atmosphere is the rowdy student section. The best moment in the atheletic history of my school (Div III) was when the NCAA rep threatened our student section with a forfeit if they didn't stop doing the BULL-shit chant.

Also, I'll bet that your son uses language on the playground (if he's older than 8) that you would never dream he has even heard. I doubt the chants will teach him anything new.

Matt T said...

It looks like Dan was a year early on the Louisville in the BCS 'championship' game.

Lousiville vs. the winner of Ohio St./Michigan will be an entertaining game.

If WVU wins out, do they get an 'at-large' bid to one of the other BCS games? I think there may be too many good teams, especially in the SEC.

Dan Shanoff said...

Matt, you remembered that in August 2005, I picked Louisville to play USC in last year's national title game! Good man!

Christian Thoma said...


Matt, you remembered that in August 2005, I picked Louisville to play USC in last year's national title game! Good man!


Or a creepy stalker. One of the two.

Pete said...

I love your thoughts on the NHL Dan. You know their season started right?

Jon said...

I'm not a huge Rutgers fan, but I am now hoping that they win out including their bowl game. I'm also hoping that Ohio State/Michigan loses to whomever they are playing in the BCS championship game, so the BCS will crown a 1 loss champion while we have Rutgers on the sidelines finishing with 0 losses.

Gotta love the BCS.

As for the Jeter vs Gonzalez debate. Gold Gloves haven't meant anything in years. Jeter might not be the greatest winner, but he's not the worst. That would be Rafael Palmeiro a few years ago when he DH'ed for about 95% of the year and still won the GG for 1st base.

I agree with Steve on the new bitching rule. Great idea by Stern. Baseball should adopt it for the guys who always cry about called strikes....Frank Thomas would lead the world in ejections.

Unknown said...

Just words eh?

the N-word is just that..
so is anything else in that realm..

As a Yankee, I'm sure that the words used at Tennessee aren't always just simply 'clever'.

Anonymous said...

My money is on Ed Viesturs beating Lance Armstrong.

Viesturs has said that when training for a summit attempt he runs 10 miles a day a 7:30/mile pace. That pace would put him over the finish line around 3:15, but with race day bonus, he can probably shave a few minutes off that.

Matt T said...

I remember because I predicted Lousiville to play in the game last year also.

Brian said...

I feel bad for the Tennessee students. At St. Joe's, the band can't play the "Hey" song anymore because of the "You suck!" that always followed shouting "Hey". I understand where the AD is coming from, but a lot of schools have been freaking out about things like this unnecessarily.

As for Lance, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't break 3:00.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Dan -

Re: Kenny Rogers

What the hell does that mean?

Have you ever watched Kenny Rogers play/make plays (diving/running/rolling off the mound)?

Does your snarky little question even make any sense?

How about a little Instant Credit for the season's best fielding battery? You can make snarky comments about those other four World Series pitchers...



Also, was Louisville that impressive? I was pulling for them, since I've been predicting for nigh on two months that they would destroy WVU, and they kept frustrating me with dumb penalties (how many 'dead ball - personal foul's were called in that game? 12?) and sacks allowed at just the crucial moments to kill drives.

And that juggernaut offense was having a lot of trouble punching it in (in general, but now I remember especially the drive where they almost settled for another field goal because they couldn't move 2 inches) - imagine the trouble they'd have against a serious defense. I only saw the first half and 5 minutes of the second, but I saw a ton of dropped passes and receivers falling of their own accord (wtf?), and Louisville did get one honest-to-goodness offensive TD against what can only be called a very suspect secondary/line/defense, but the game was not tilting either direction until the defense capitalized on UL's insanely clever "surrender a fumble to advance the ball since WVU will inevitably fumble" strategy. Rumor (aka ESPNEWS) has it that 7 of those points also came from a... 40-yard punt return, which must be among the shortest TD returns in the history of everything.
I can't speak to the offensive contributions after the 12-minute mark of the 3rd, but I know I was watching a team with a finishing problem get a lot of help from their friends.

Don't be blind! Somebody has to win EVERY game! Just because Louisville finally demonstrated that WVU really isn't that great, doesn't mean that Louisville is! ...does anybody think those two stupid California newspaper guys will vote UL #1 now? I hope they feel like huge douchebags (they are).

This topic frustrates me beyond compare, go Scarlet Knights.

(oh, and Dan - I do want to see Rutgers win out, and I even almost believe in it, but I don't want to see the complete competition vacuum that is the Big East make a mockery of the national championship game. Maybe if they had an SEC-Big East play-in game and Rutgers proved their mettle against a good team.)

Also, your dismissal of Michigan all season is starting to prove humorous to me. That is all.

pv845 said...

I would be entertained by Louisville playing Mich-OSU winner.
On another note, is anyone else just as mystified as I am that the NFL fined Chad Johnson? I mean seriously?!?

Christian Thoma said...

I think Chad Johnson was fined for butchering the Spanish language.

Unknown said...

couple short notes....

the stick-um was pine tar and it was on his pitching hand not glove hand

i watched that game and the 'ville and wvu both STINK (look at the comments section Dan)

jeter winning gold gloves is like if david ortiz winning gold gloves, yeah they both mae very few errors but they have just about the same range

did anyone see the HS basketball sched ESPN is putting up? i think its 10 games, oak hill, dematha, (the traditional powerhouses) as well as huntington (read: OJ MAYO ) all play twice

fining chad johnson was retarded, he didn't even wear it during a game, can they fine him if he walks down the street wearing it???, as far as i know you can wear whatever you want during warmups, does anyone know any diff?

what's hockey?

i'm not sure how the Techs are helping the NBA... last year: 831 techs in 1230 games, so far this season 37 techs in 17 games....you don't have to be a math wiz to figure this out

let's not forget who started the "out-of-line cursing in the stands"..... Maryland Terps B-ball against Duke 3 years ago (some may recall the ( F - U - J - J ) chant that got espn fined by the fcc because you could easily hear it on tv...leading to espn said they weren't going to do terps/duke games anymore till they stopped...leading to the university getting a law passed that said they could toss you for chanting that stuff

ToddTheJackass said...

One of my all-time favorite sports quotes comes from Baseball Prospectus in regards to Jeter:

"[T]he reason Jeter has hurt his team defensively is that he doesn't get to many balls and is not spectacularly efficient with those he does get to. Fans new to the game sometimes think his nickname is "Pastadiving" because they hear the phrase "past a diving Jeter" so often during Yankee broadcasts."

Does any Yankees fan actually believe that Jeter deserved the Gold Glove over Alex Gonzalez or Orlando Cabrera?

-Todd (Boston)

Steve said...

Well my response to that is FUFCC!

TBender said...

Jeter reminds me of Ryne Sandberg.

Sandberg was nails on anything hit within two steps of him...and for that (and his offense) he racked up Gold Gloves left and right.

ToddTheJackass said...

Actually now that I look at it, Michael Young was also way more deserving of the Gold Glove than Jeter. Had a better fielding pct., more assists, and putouts than Jeter, his range factor was nearly a point higher, and he wasn't playing behind the primiere ground ball pitcher in the AL.

I hate the Yankees.

-Todd (Boston)

Anonymous said...

To anyone complaining about the prudish nature of the country towards four letter words, I implore you to watch the Profanity episode of the show Bullshit! with Penn and Teller. The show is just awesome by its own right, but they really hit the nail on the head on this topic. Cliffs notes: people who campaign against bad language are just control freaks who perpetuate the significance of those very words.

re: BCS rankings. I honestly believe that an undefeated team who only beat Division II teams would be fanatically defended by a significant number of people as NC-worthy. Just look at the arguments people are putting up here, and take them to their logical extreme.