The Final 4 lineup is set and what we have is 4 number one seeds. How often have you seen that? Like never! This makes the Final 4 really high-profile and very interesting. We all love the cinderella stories - the Davidsons and the George Masons of the World, but to have the best 4 teams in the nation in the Final 4 is unique and I truly believe that has happened this year. This year's tourney had it's share of upsets and cinderellas, but from day 1 it was clear there were some elite teams and then then there were others. The others were playing the usual tourney while the elite teams were really playing at HNL ('hole 'nother level). All the four top seeds were part of these elite list plus a few others like Texas. Unfortunately for Texas, they ran into an elite Memphis team today and were bounced easily. Derrick Rose of Memphis is a stud! He will look good in any NBA uniform.
These number 1's are better than what you see in the tournament usually. So while the 4-Th and 5-Th seeds were having trouble with 12's and 13's, these guys went straight to the top. This tournament's darling, Davidson almost beat Kansas, but Kansas prevailed. We will all miss Stepehn Curry in the Final 4. He is fun to watch. Instead, what you have are 4 elite teams and they'll fight it out. Memphis is on a roll. I wouldn't be surprised if they take care of UCLA. The NC-Kansas match-up should be a dandy. Thats a lot harder to call in my opinion. Who knows, may be this Final 4 ends up being Psycho-T's coronation. Can't wait for next weekend. Can you imagine how much fun it would be if these 4 teams played a round-robin tourney?
By the way what's happening to the Sporting calendar? We used to be done with the Final 4 when the baseball season started. Then we got to a point where the national championship game coincided with opening day for a few years. And this year the MLB season will almost be a week old by the time the Final 4 rolls around. Close to 2 weeks if you count the As-Sox games in Japan. Speaking of MLB, how ironic is it that the season started off with boos as W threw the first pitch in Washington. A fitting start to another steroid=scandal covered MLB season. Hopefully this will be the last one. Bush's only contribution to the country might have been his efforts in shining some light on the MLB steroid controversy. The highest office he should have gotten to should have been the commissioner of the MLB. Even thats acceptable only because Bud Selig is so bad that W would have been a better choice! Unfortunately we ended up with W running the whole country.
Enough of politics and steroids. Lets pick the MLB division winners. I think my DBacks stay on top and win the West. This year is Milwaukee's year. I like them to win NL central though it's going to be a tough race with the Cubs and the Cards. I pick the Mets to come out of the East. They better do something with all that money and talent. Phily and the Braves will give them a run. The Rockies take the Wild Card in the NL. As for the AL, I think Seattle takes the West. My favorite AL team, the A's are in deep re-building mode and will not even be in the picture this season. Expect to see some real ugly attendance numbers in Oakland. Detroit wins the Central. They look real good right now, though Cleveland might have the better rotation. Same old, same old in the East. Boston stays on top with the Yanks chasing them all season and ending up with the Wild Card. My dream of both these teams missing the playoffs is not going to happen this year, though Toronto is going to be good. Poor guys are stuck in the wrong division in a sport with an unfair economic system.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
March Greatness
Last couple of weeks have been a busy time in my life. Couldn't blog about the March Madness last weekend as much as I would have liked to. The first weekend of the tournament is the best weekend, may be of the entire year, because of the sheer volume of the games and the unique single-elimination drama of it all. A BIG upset on the first day was averted as Duke almost lost to Belmont. I am sure a 71-70 win against a 15-Th seed was not what coach-K was looking for. Right there you knew Duke was in trouble the rest of the way. They lost to West Virginia the very next round. Friday was more spectacular than Thursday. 12-Th and 13-Th seeds this year won all over the place. Western Kentucky beat Drake. San Diego eliminated Connecticut and Villanova took care of Clemson. Davidson and Gonzaga played a beauty and Davidson went on to beat no-2 Georgetown in the second round. Davidson is the official cinderella team. They are in the sweet-16 as a 10-Th seed and are now waiting for Wisconsin. Should be a great game.
As for the big names and superstars, North Carolina has looked real unbeatable so far. Kansas is not too shabby either. Memphis had a tough time against Mississippi state and UCLA had to struggle a bit against Texas A&M. Michael Beasley and OJ Mayo for Kansas State and USC didn't do much. They played each other in round 1 and USC and Mayo were disappointing. Kansas State was not much better in round 2 against Wisconsin. The other great game of the first weekend was Marquette-Stanford. Stanford's coach got kicked out on Ts and the Cardinals still figured out a way to win at the end. Now they have to face Texas in the sweet-16. Many great match-ups coming up this weekend and I just love this time of the year. I don't know whether to pick Memphis-Michigan State or Louisville-Tennessee or Davidson-Wisconsin as the best game. I wish I sit at home and watch all of them.
The star of the tourney so far has been Stephen Curry. He is Dell Curry's son and is averaging 35 points in the first 2 games. Impressive! He is a little under-sized but can shoot lights-out like his old man. He will be one of the main attractions at the sweet-16 as the 10-Th seed Davidson try to keep dancing. Plus the TV cameras are all over his mom Sonya Curry, who is not too bad to look at. As for upsets, I know there will be some, but hard to pick the right one. I am never super lucky, but my worst performance is always with the NCAA bracket. I rarely do well and this year is no different. I don't follow the NCAA as closely as the NBA and with my shaky luck, it's just not a great combo for bracket success. Lets see how the rest of the tournament goes. It should be a lot of fun.
As for the big names and superstars, North Carolina has looked real unbeatable so far. Kansas is not too shabby either. Memphis had a tough time against Mississippi state and UCLA had to struggle a bit against Texas A&M. Michael Beasley and OJ Mayo for Kansas State and USC didn't do much. They played each other in round 1 and USC and Mayo were disappointing. Kansas State was not much better in round 2 against Wisconsin. The other great game of the first weekend was Marquette-Stanford. Stanford's coach got kicked out on Ts and the Cardinals still figured out a way to win at the end. Now they have to face Texas in the sweet-16. Many great match-ups coming up this weekend and I just love this time of the year. I don't know whether to pick Memphis-Michigan State or Louisville-Tennessee or Davidson-Wisconsin as the best game. I wish I sit at home and watch all of them.
The star of the tourney so far has been Stephen Curry. He is Dell Curry's son and is averaging 35 points in the first 2 games. Impressive! He is a little under-sized but can shoot lights-out like his old man. He will be one of the main attractions at the sweet-16 as the 10-Th seed Davidson try to keep dancing. Plus the TV cameras are all over his mom Sonya Curry, who is not too bad to look at. As for upsets, I know there will be some, but hard to pick the right one. I am never super lucky, but my worst performance is always with the NCAA bracket. I rarely do well and this year is no different. I don't follow the NCAA as closely as the NBA and with my shaky luck, it's just not a great combo for bracket success. Lets see how the rest of the tournament goes. It should be a lot of fun.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
ASU Snubbed
ASU was left off the big dance again. With a decent 9-9 PAC-10 record including 2 wins against Arizona (though the wildcats had a down year) and a 19-12 overall record, they will be sitting at home watching the tournament and I don't like that one bit. I think ASU deserved a bid, though the loss at Oregon after the USC win was a killer. There are way too many decent teams being left off of a 65 team bracket and I am wondering where the bids go? I have never been a fan of expanding the field, but it might be time. The automatic bids are a killer. I support the mid-majors and they make this tournament what it is, but still the automatic bids rob a lot of good major conference teams. I don't want to leave it all to at-large picks either because then the mid-majors will definitely get screwed. So thats why you expand. I don't want a 128 team field like coach Knight is suggesting or even a 96 team field. I am proposing a 80 team field with 16 extra games among the bottom 32 to round off the final 64. Basically a complete play-in round much like the stupid play-in game. Can you imagine how much fun it would be if there are 8 games each on Tues and Wed leading up to the usual Thurs through Sun games? I am turned on just thinking about it :-) The best time of the year would get even better.
In the bizarro world of the NBA, the Houston Rockets are on top of the Western conference with the Fakers at 2 and the Hornets at 3. The Suns, Spurs and the Mavs are at the 5-Th, 6-Th and 7-Th spot respectively. Are you kidding me? Show me anybody who predicted this at the beginning of the season, I will show you a liar or an idiot or may be both. Of course the race is air-tight and anything can still happen, but still it's amazing that the Rockets are at the top after a 22 game winning streak. They seem to be fine without Yao, though I think that won't be the case in the playoffs. They will miss the big guy in the NBA's version of the big dance. They have had some lucky breaks like today they when they beat the Fakers without Pau Gasol. But anyway you cut it, a 22 game winning streak is impressive. The only thing more impressive might be the Denver Nuggets scoring 168 against the Sonics tonight. Thats 2 games worth of scoring right there for most of the Eastern conference teams. This, after the Sonics gave up 138 points to these same Nuggets in February. The Sonics have lost these 2 games against the Nuggets by a total of 94 points. Noce! How do you score 116 points and still lose 52 points!
The Suns seem to be on a roll coming off the Spurs win. They then beat the Warriors on Thursday with a high-scoring game and kinda got their run-and-gun mojo back for the first time since the trade. They continued that against the Kings with a rather impressive performance. There was a stretch in the second quarter when they were in that zone where they were running up and down and hitting everything. When the Suns are playing that way, it's a thing of beauty like no other. They have not been in this kind of flow in may be a year. Finally the joy of playing and winning seem to be back and if thats the case, that might be the biggest gain from this whole Shaq trade. They seem to have gotten their swagger back after beating the Spurs and they should keep this momentum going. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure anymore if that Spurs win was actually that impressive because the Spurs are just 5-5 in their last 10 and have lost 3 straight. But most of Sports is mental and beating the Spurs seems to have kick-started the Suns. It's ironic that both the Spurs and Suns are streaking in the opposite direction since that game. Oh by the way, STAT is back completely. It has taken a year and a half, but Amare is as good as he has ever been. 30-10 is an average game these days for him and more importantly, his hop seem to have reached the pre-surgery levels. Another gain from the Shaq trade could be Amare's renewed energy, his slightly different role on offense and his commitment on defense.
In the bizarro world of the NBA, the Houston Rockets are on top of the Western conference with the Fakers at 2 and the Hornets at 3. The Suns, Spurs and the Mavs are at the 5-Th, 6-Th and 7-Th spot respectively. Are you kidding me? Show me anybody who predicted this at the beginning of the season, I will show you a liar or an idiot or may be both. Of course the race is air-tight and anything can still happen, but still it's amazing that the Rockets are at the top after a 22 game winning streak. They seem to be fine without Yao, though I think that won't be the case in the playoffs. They will miss the big guy in the NBA's version of the big dance. They have had some lucky breaks like today they when they beat the Fakers without Pau Gasol. But anyway you cut it, a 22 game winning streak is impressive. The only thing more impressive might be the Denver Nuggets scoring 168 against the Sonics tonight. Thats 2 games worth of scoring right there for most of the Eastern conference teams. This, after the Sonics gave up 138 points to these same Nuggets in February. The Sonics have lost these 2 games against the Nuggets by a total of 94 points. Noce! How do you score 116 points and still lose 52 points!
The Suns seem to be on a roll coming off the Spurs win. They then beat the Warriors on Thursday with a high-scoring game and kinda got their run-and-gun mojo back for the first time since the trade. They continued that against the Kings with a rather impressive performance. There was a stretch in the second quarter when they were in that zone where they were running up and down and hitting everything. When the Suns are playing that way, it's a thing of beauty like no other. They have not been in this kind of flow in may be a year. Finally the joy of playing and winning seem to be back and if thats the case, that might be the biggest gain from this whole Shaq trade. They seem to have gotten their swagger back after beating the Spurs and they should keep this momentum going. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure anymore if that Spurs win was actually that impressive because the Spurs are just 5-5 in their last 10 and have lost 3 straight. But most of Sports is mental and beating the Spurs seems to have kick-started the Suns. It's ironic that both the Spurs and Suns are streaking in the opposite direction since that game. Oh by the way, STAT is back completely. It has taken a year and a half, but Amare is as good as he has ever been. 30-10 is an average game these days for him and more importantly, his hop seem to have reached the pre-surgery levels. Another gain from the Shaq trade could be Amare's renewed energy, his slightly different role on offense and his commitment on defense.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Big Win For LOSSUNS
Big win for the Suns finally this season. They beat the hated Spurs on Sunday on ABC. I expected Shaq to be of help against the Spurs and sure enough, he was huge yesterday. Of course I didn't know the Suns would be so bad with Shaq against everybody else, but I did expect them to do better against the Spurs with Shaq and that indeed was the case. Granted, it's not like they took care of the Spurs easily. The Spurs were still very tough and a miss here or a make there, this game could have very easily gone the other way and we would all be singing a different tune today. But thats the nature of Sports and the Suns did pull out a close win that required every ounce of their defensive energy. I still do not know who wins more games if these two teams play 10 times (or 7 for that matter). But at least for one day, everything was fine in the new Suns Shaq-land.
The good part is, the Suns played VERY hard especially on the defensive end. I guess it's obvious by now that the Suns have been horrible defensively since THE Trade. I guess the players figured they can't win without a superior defensive effort and they brought it today. The tough part is, can they do this day-in and day-out, play-in and play-out? They have to if they want to win anything meaningful this season. Thats how wanting they are defensively. If they don't play this hard, it aint happening. Jeff Van Gundy started the game yesterday calling out Steve Nash and his defense. It was shocking! The MP3 is under the microscope these days now that Matrix is gone and he has to guard a perimeter-stud nightly because most teams have at least 2 of those and Raja can't guard both. In fact, Raja can barely guard even one these days, but thats neither here nor there.
Nash was good offensively as always. It's ridiculous how bad the +/- is when he is in the game versus when he is not. Makes you think he is still the MVP of the league. Shaq is rebounding like a monster since the trade. Granted, he is the only one in this Suns roster who even tries to get a board, but still his 11.3 per game is impressive. Against the Spurs, he had 14-16 to go with Nash's 19 and 14 dimes. Those 2 got it done. Parker didn't kill Nash like I expected he would. I think Parker is still a little rusty, but the team D got it done yesterday. Mike D'Antoni was real good coaching the final few minutes as well and Shaq had some key plays on D at the end. They toughed it out and now they have to do it consistently. Their Jerseys said Lossuns due to some Hispanic-related promotion and it looked ominous to me at the start since they have been losing consistently lately. Now I want it every day. I think it's lucky.
Perfect Sunday since the Suns beat the Spurs and the Fakers lost at home to the Kings with Kobe missing the potential game winner at the buzzer.
The good part is, the Suns played VERY hard especially on the defensive end. I guess it's obvious by now that the Suns have been horrible defensively since THE Trade. I guess the players figured they can't win without a superior defensive effort and they brought it today. The tough part is, can they do this day-in and day-out, play-in and play-out? They have to if they want to win anything meaningful this season. Thats how wanting they are defensively. If they don't play this hard, it aint happening. Jeff Van Gundy started the game yesterday calling out Steve Nash and his defense. It was shocking! The MP3 is under the microscope these days now that Matrix is gone and he has to guard a perimeter-stud nightly because most teams have at least 2 of those and Raja can't guard both. In fact, Raja can barely guard even one these days, but thats neither here nor there.
Nash was good offensively as always. It's ridiculous how bad the +/- is when he is in the game versus when he is not. Makes you think he is still the MVP of the league. Shaq is rebounding like a monster since the trade. Granted, he is the only one in this Suns roster who even tries to get a board, but still his 11.3 per game is impressive. Against the Spurs, he had 14-16 to go with Nash's 19 and 14 dimes. Those 2 got it done. Parker didn't kill Nash like I expected he would. I think Parker is still a little rusty, but the team D got it done yesterday. Mike D'Antoni was real good coaching the final few minutes as well and Shaq had some key plays on D at the end. They toughed it out and now they have to do it consistently. Their Jerseys said Lossuns due to some Hispanic-related promotion and it looked ominous to me at the start since they have been losing consistently lately. Now I want it every day. I think it's lucky.
Perfect Sunday since the Suns beat the Spurs and the Fakers lost at home to the Kings with Kobe missing the potential game winner at the buzzer.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
3-5 - The Suns saga
Another loss for the Suns tonight. This time at Denver. No defense again. They won yesterday at Portland, which is not a bad team. But it was an ugly win as well. They are now 3-5 with Shaq and some of the games have been ugly. I am not sure whether to be happy or sad with the ugly wins. One theory says uglies are good because that means they can now play and win muck-up, defensive basketball. I am not so sure. I think they are only winning winnable games in a ugly way while they used to do it in style. I still have not seen them win a big game or games they would typically lose. They get their chance this Sunday as they play the mighty Spurs on ABC-HD. I had very low expectations from the Shaq trade, but I thought the one team he can help us with are the Spurs because the Spurs always force the Suns to go half-court. But the Suns defense has clearly taken a step back since the trade. They gave up 126 to Denver today. They could never guard Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli and it can only get worse this Sunday with this new perimeter defense or the lack thereof.
My worst fears have come through as far as missing Marion goes. I think they miss him bad on the perimeter. Raja Bell has been average at best this season at either end of the floor and Marion was the only other threat on defense. Now thats gone. Shaq can guard the paint, but he has never been that great defensively. Also you can't be a sieve on the perimeter and hope the paint will be guarded by the bigs. It doesn't work that way. The really ironic part of the whole deal is this. Can Nash be missing Marion more than Marion is missing Nash? Many people thought that Marion was dumb to want to get away from Nash and all the easy baskets he gets him. While thats true, suddenly there is a lot of talk among the Suns fans about how Nash is struggling. The MP3 was UNTOUCHABLE and he owned the city of Phoenix until 3 weeks back. But now there are some murmurs in the valley of the Sun about how his game has slipped. His turnover numbers are up and he is not spraying assists like he used to. He did get 13 dimes today but had just 4 against Portland yesterday. No wonder that win was ugly.
With Shaq in there instead of Marion, the spacing is all gone and Nash doesn't get as many assists on open 3's. It's easier to predict where the ball goes now and that explains some of the turnovers. Also, no easy fast-break dunks and alley-oops without Marion in there. My fear with the trade was that Marion did a lot for this team, for which he never got too much credit and we will miss him bad when he is gone. Even if Shaq did what he was supposed to, who's going to replace Marion? Because they are 2 entirely different players and the Suns need both those skill-sets. Shaq is actually not doing too bad. For instance, he had 12-18 today. I think this whole thing is not really about Marion or Shaq being good or bad or better than the other, it's all about who fits this team and this system better. Thats definitely Marion and not Shaq if you ask me. Shaq will help if they also get a good replacement for Marion. Now they have Gordan Giricek. Dude played 20 minutes and shot 4/8 for 11 points against Denver. Thats a good start. I think he can help, but where are the 6-Th seed Suns going this season when all is said and done? Only time will tell.
My worst fears have come through as far as missing Marion goes. I think they miss him bad on the perimeter. Raja Bell has been average at best this season at either end of the floor and Marion was the only other threat on defense. Now thats gone. Shaq can guard the paint, but he has never been that great defensively. Also you can't be a sieve on the perimeter and hope the paint will be guarded by the bigs. It doesn't work that way. The really ironic part of the whole deal is this. Can Nash be missing Marion more than Marion is missing Nash? Many people thought that Marion was dumb to want to get away from Nash and all the easy baskets he gets him. While thats true, suddenly there is a lot of talk among the Suns fans about how Nash is struggling. The MP3 was UNTOUCHABLE and he owned the city of Phoenix until 3 weeks back. But now there are some murmurs in the valley of the Sun about how his game has slipped. His turnover numbers are up and he is not spraying assists like he used to. He did get 13 dimes today but had just 4 against Portland yesterday. No wonder that win was ugly.
With Shaq in there instead of Marion, the spacing is all gone and Nash doesn't get as many assists on open 3's. It's easier to predict where the ball goes now and that explains some of the turnovers. Also, no easy fast-break dunks and alley-oops without Marion in there. My fear with the trade was that Marion did a lot for this team, for which he never got too much credit and we will miss him bad when he is gone. Even if Shaq did what he was supposed to, who's going to replace Marion? Because they are 2 entirely different players and the Suns need both those skill-sets. Shaq is actually not doing too bad. For instance, he had 12-18 today. I think this whole thing is not really about Marion or Shaq being good or bad or better than the other, it's all about who fits this team and this system better. Thats definitely Marion and not Shaq if you ask me. Shaq will help if they also get a good replacement for Marion. Now they have Gordan Giricek. Dude played 20 minutes and shot 4/8 for 11 points against Denver. Thats a good start. I think he can help, but where are the 6-Th seed Suns going this season when all is said and done? Only time will tell.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Favre is done. Or is he really?
No sooner had Brett Favre announced his retirement than people started talking about his comeback! Number 4 announced his retirement on Mar 4-Th and shocked the Packer nation. The very next day, people are saying he may have second thoughts by the time August rolls around. I guess thats because usually Favre is waffling until late into spring/summer and he always decides to play. Now he made a decision early like he said he would and people think he might have second thoughts later. That would be weird if his retirement is shorter than Roidger Clemens a few years back. Leagues should enforce a rule that if you retire, you got to at least stay retired for one full season.
The other curious factor was Favre retiring the day after Moss re-signed with the Patriots. I believe those 2 events were related. Favre wanted Moss and probably thought he can put them over the top since they were so good last season. Once Moss was gone, I think Favre made up his mind to retire. He did say that winning a Super Bowl would have been the only reason for him to come back. In his mind, Moss was that guy. Now it's A-Rod's team. I wonder if Aaron Rodgers will be as good as Alex Rodriguez is in baseball. I always liked this guy and it's his time to shine now. He also inherits a great team and is lucky Favre retired now and not when the team was real bad.
I was lucky I made the trip to Green Bay last year. I have been postponing my trip for years and I should thank my cousin in Milwaukee for hooking me up with the tickets. If I had postponed one more year, I would have missed Brett Favre at Lambeau. He really owned that place. Warren Sapp also retired yesterday and unfortunately for him, nobody cares. He picked the wrong day. He will probably make the Hall Of Fame in 5 years if anybody remembers he actually retired yesterday! Speaking of the HOF, apparently Packer fans are already planning for the Canton trip in 5 years. Thats a committed fan base.
The other curious factor was Favre retiring the day after Moss re-signed with the Patriots. I believe those 2 events were related. Favre wanted Moss and probably thought he can put them over the top since they were so good last season. Once Moss was gone, I think Favre made up his mind to retire. He did say that winning a Super Bowl would have been the only reason for him to come back. In his mind, Moss was that guy. Now it's A-Rod's team. I wonder if Aaron Rodgers will be as good as Alex Rodriguez is in baseball. I always liked this guy and it's his time to shine now. He also inherits a great team and is lucky Favre retired now and not when the team was real bad.
I was lucky I made the trip to Green Bay last year. I have been postponing my trip for years and I should thank my cousin in Milwaukee for hooking me up with the tickets. If I had postponed one more year, I would have missed Brett Favre at Lambeau. He really owned that place. Warren Sapp also retired yesterday and unfortunately for him, nobody cares. He picked the wrong day. He will probably make the Hall Of Fame in 5 years if anybody remembers he actually retired yesterday! Speaking of the HOF, apparently Packer fans are already planning for the Canton trip in 5 years. Thats a committed fan base.
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