Month: March 2010

Mid-Week Grades — March 31

Posted by dobrien – March 31, 2010

Hope you enjoyed the madness of March. Should be an interesting April, too. Baseball’s starting and a Tiger is coming out of hibernation at Augusta National next week. Here’s a look at this week’s grade book.We’ll break these down around 8:20 Wednesday on WGEM SportsCenter on ESPN 1440. If you have your own grades, feel free to text them into us at 217-617-9437 or email us at sportscenter@wgem.com:

17535_fullA — Gus Johnson. He’s been the MVP — Most Valuable Performer — during the NCAA Tournament. His call of the double OT thriller between Kansas State and Xavier last week was classic. He makes great games better with his enthusiasm. Some people would like for Gus to cool down. To those folks, I’ll remind them that this isn’t study hall, it’s a sporting event. You should be excited. Sadly, Gus was eliminated after the Elite Eight. He won’t be calling the Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis despite some people’s better efforts. If you’d like a taste of Gus, check this out — and don’t let the smooth taste fool you.

andrewsdwtsjpgB — Dancing with the Stars. Watched the show for the first time in my life on Monday. As long as Erin Andrews, Pam Anderson and that gal from the Pussycat Dolls are on, this is some must-see TV. Chad Ochocinco and Olympic figure skating champ Evan Lysacek.  I realize this is supposed to be about sports, but dancing is a sport, right? I think we’re all winners here — except for Buzz Aldrin (poor guy) and that baby machine from the TLC show with the dopey ex-husband. Get rid of them.

C — Fran McCaffery. Seems like some folks in Iowa are having a tough time spelling the new University of Iowa men’s basketball coach’s name correctly. Heck, even the school got it wrong on the first try. He’s done some nice things at Siena, which probably isn’t enough to satisfy a fan base that thinks its basketball program should be fighting for a Final Four berth every year. Will it work out? Who knows. I like the fact that his wife, a former University of Notre Dame star, was once kicked out of a game for yelling at the officials. Just wait until she gets a load of the boo birds in Iowa City.

bradfordsmallD — Pro days. People were gushing about former Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford after his pro day on Monday. Because he was able to throw a few passes wearing some an Under Armor shirt and shorts are we supposed to be impressed? Let’s have someone push him to the ground on that creaky shoulder and see how it holds up. Then we’ll have a better idea if he’s ready for the NFL or not. There are more dog-and-pony shows like this to come between now and the NFL draft, which starts on April 22. The Rams can have Bradford if they want, and it looks like they may pick him No. 1 overall.

F — Jim Playfair. Considering what this American Hockey League coach did over the weekend, he has the most ironic name in sports right now. Playfair, who coaches the Abbotsford Heat and used to be the head coach of the NHL’s Calgary Flames, went absolutely nuts after a call went against his team. He broke two sticks and threw them on the ice as well as partially disrobing on the team’s bench. He was fined by the AHL on Monday, but said he wasn’t embarrassed by what he did. Probably the best minor-league coaching meltdown since this guy.

Box helps team win title

Posted by dobrien – March 30, 2010

boxkbltitleFormer John Wood Community College and Quincy University men’s basketball player Joel Box is soaking in his first professional league championship.

Box, a 6-foot-9 forward, helped Al Qasdia win the Kuwait Basketball League title over the weekend. He had 15 points and 14 rebounds in 30 minutes of action as Al Qasdia beat Al Kuwait SC 88-80 in the title game.

Box averaged 19 points, 13 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. He led the league in blocks. He was the league’s player of the week three times and is up for the league’s Most Valuable Player honor, which Box said will be decided in the next week or so.

He’ll try to help the team win a second straight Gulf Cup title next month before returning to the United States.

If you want to keep up with Box, you can become a member of his fan page on Facebook.

Pencil-neck geeks

Posted by dobrien – March 27, 2010

In case you didn’t see this on Rodney Hart’s blog — Hart of the Matter — I offer up our look at this weekend’s Wrestlemania 26 card. The first video blog in whig.com history is on pro wrestling. I’m sure our forefathers would be proud.

Rodney will be live blogging the card from my basement on Sunday night on his blog.

Eat your heart out, Mean Gene and Jim Ross:

Slap of the Week — March 26

Posted by dobrien – March 26, 2010

A lot of good that break did Florida football coach Urban Meyer.

The obviously paranoid University of Florida football coach hit the ground running this week when the Gators started spring drills. Meyer decided to rip into an Orlano Sentinel reporter for printing something wide receiver Deonte Thompson said about former Gator QB Tim Tebow, comparing him to new QB John Brantley.

Here’s what Thompson said:

“You never know with Tim,” Thompson said. “He can bolt. You’ll think he’s running, but then he’ll just come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything’s with rhythm, time. Like, you know what I mean, a real quarterback.”

In order to protect that aura of Jesus Tebow, Meyer threatened to throw Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler out of practice forever.

Meyer is no different than every control-freak coach out there — and there are tons of them from big schools like Florida to small colleges and high schools. Don’t shoot the messenger. If you don’t like something the kid said, use it as a teaching moment for the player.

Instead, Meyer comes out looking like a jerk for dressing down a reporter for simply doing his job.

Here’s to hoping Alabama and LSU lay it on Meyer and the Gators every chance they get.

Video proof of Meyer being a tool:

Rise and fire!

Posted by dobrien – March 25, 2010

Jim Nantz has a stranglehold on CBS’s two major sporting events each year — the Final Four and the Masters.

Early April has been his time, but it shouldn’t be any more. Nantz should head to Augusta National and the Masters early this year (and every year from now on) and give up his seat at the Final Four to Gus Johnson.

Johnson’s call of Thursday’s double-overtime game between Kansas State and Xavier was classic. And he was just as good earlier in the night during Butler’s upset of top-seeded Syracuse. His enthusiasm is contagious. One tweet on Thursday referred to him as “verbal five-hour energy.” People were wanting him to follow him around and commentate on their everyday moves. He could make our noon pickup games at the Quincy Family YMCA seem exciting.

I’ve been a big Gus fan for a while  - I watched an Ohio State-Northwestern game in the middle of the season just because Gus was on the mike — and now others are catching on. During the K-State-Xavier game, he rose all the way to No. 1 on Twitter’s worldwide trending topics. It seems like more people were talking about Gus than the game itself.

If you’re not familiar with his work, there are plenty of places on the Internet to find him. Snippets of some of his classic calls can be found here.

Maybe the Twitterati or the Facebook world can get CBS to wise up and get Gus to the Final Four. They got Betty White to host Saturday Night Live, so I guess anything is possible.

He’ll be on the mike for the last time in the tournament during Saturday’s Butler-Kansas State game. Talk about some must-see TV.

Here’s a taste of Gus:

Tiger to talk

Posted by dobrien – March 24, 2010

On the same day that Arnold Palmer suggested that Tiger Woods let the media have at him and get done with all of the gabbing, news hit Wednesday that Tiger will meet the media at the Masters on the Monday of Masters week — April 5.

It will be interesting to see how Augusta National handles the presser. Will ESPN, which has the broadcast rights for the first two rounds, be allowed to show the press conference live? Will the club just relegate it to the rest of the live press conference it will have on its Web site?

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I could care less about what Tiger did between rounds. That’s really between Tiger and his family. Does it make for good water cool talk? Sure. I want to know if Tiger thinks he can win a fifth green jacket. How does he think the last five months of drama will affect his golf game?

I truly think that by the time he’s hung up the clubs for good, this saga will be a mere blip on the radar.

Mid-Week Grades — March 24

Posted by dobrien – March 24, 2010

Back to regular programming this week after missing out on the grades last week thanks to the Quincy University men’s basketball team’s run to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Division II Tournament. (How many times do you think the Hawks will think about Springfield, Mass., today when they could have playing in the national quarterfinals?) As always, Josh Houchins and I will break these down around 8:20 or so on WGEM SportsCenter on ESPN 1440. (We have a cool new streamer, so listen in. All of the cool kids are doing it.)

A — Alex Hermann. The 17-year-old Glenbrook South student has what is believed to be the only perfect NCAA Tournament bracket in America. Yes, he had Northern Iowa beating Kansas and Ohio beating Georgetown. (Good news, UNI fans, he likes the Panthers to beat Michigan State, too.) The odds of this happening are one in 13.46 million. He has Purdue winning it all, beating Kansas State in the national championship game. If you want to see what a perfect bracket looks like, click here.

B — Northern Iowa men’s basketball team. Can’t believe the glee I noticed in these parts after the Panthers knocked off Kansas. Mizzou fans celebrated. Illini fans, who hate Bill Self for leaving them, were nearly as giddy over the Jayhawks’ second-round ouster. The only other team that would elicit that type of response after a loss would be Duke. Hats off to UNI. Nice to see them advance to the Sweet 16 and carry on the Missouri Valley Conference’s recent run of tourney success.Who knows, they might even make it all the way to Indianapolis.

C — Chris Cates. You may never hear about this guy again, and I only found out about him on Tuesday night while watching a Twins-Red Sox spring training game on MLB Network, the great channel ever. Cates stands all of 5-foot-3 and is the smallest professional baseball player in the world right now. He plays — wait for it — shortstop. He earned a little fame in 2008 when he was teammates with the tallest pro baseball player — Loek Van Mil — for the Twins’ farm club in Beloit, Wis. Don’t know if he’ll ever make the bigs, but the fact he’s getting at-bats in spring training games means he must at least be on the Twins’ radar.

D — Brett Yormark. This guy is the CEO for the worst basketball team in the NBA — the New Jersey Nets. Seems he didn’t like it on Monday night when a couple of fans were wearing bags on their heads for the team’s game against the Heat. Yormark didn’t like it and got caught on tape arguing with the fans. You’d think he’d want to suck up to the people who actually show up to watch his cruddy team play.

F — Hamilton School Board. After being fired as the West Hancock girls basketball coach late last week, Ken Schuster was told by currently in-hiding Hamilton superintendent Steven Breckon that he was being let go so the program can go in a different direction. Being that Schuster helped the program win three straight regionals, including a Class 2A state title in 2008 and a second-place trophy in 2009, the only direction for the program to go is down. Smooth move, folks.

Slap of the Week — March 19

Posted by dobrien – March 19, 2010

For some reason, the proposal makes a lot of sense.

The Chicago Cubs, wanting to generate some more revenue to help pay for their overpaid, underachieving roster, want to put up some more signage at Wrigley Field. Compared with the other parks in the bigs, Wrigley is pretty much a plain Jane. I love Wrigley, but the chances to enhance the place are limited because it’s so old. Short of stripping the ivy off the outfield walls, there’s little room for high-profile advertising spots.

The new brass wants to change that, but just look at who they want to do business with — Toyota. Seems that the team wants to erect a Toyota sign over the left-field bleachers by the time the season starts next month. While not as bad as having your field named after Enron (Remember that, Houston Astros fans?), it opens the Cubs up to being a punch line again.

We’ll see if this happens. Maybe Bartman can get a free Toyota if a Cubs player homers off the sign.

QU Review — Saint Joseph’s 104, QU men 103, 3OT

Posted by dobrien – March 17, 2010

The Hawks’ hopes of reaching an Elite Eight were snuffed out by a resilient Pumas squad in the title game of the NCAA Division II Midwest Region Tournament at the Sportscenter in Owensboro, Ky.

Here’s a look at Tuesday’s stars:

sloan-dayvon1. Dayvon Sloan

The freshman had the game of his life. He scored 43 of his career-high 45 points after halftime. He made big shot after big shot, including a 3-pointer to force overtime with 2.5 seconds left and getting Courtney Belger to leave his feet on another 3-point attempt with 9.3 seconds left. After Belger fouled him — his fifth of the game — Sloan made all three free throws, which led to a second overtime.

pierre0910jpg2. Mookie Pierre

As good as Sloan was for the Pumas, Pierre was just as valuable for the Hawks, especially after Belger fouled out. He scored 17 of his career-high 32 points in the overtimes. Near the end of the game, Sloan and Pierre tried to one-up each other on each possession. He was magificiant from the free-throw line, making 15 of 16 attempts.

collins-phillip3. Phillip Collins

All he did over the weekend was make the winning basket in the waning moments of each of the Pumas’ games. On Tuesday night, it was a left-handed layup with nine-tenths of a second left on a deflected 3-point attempt by little-used freshman Michael Lipton. Collins was named the tourney’s Most Outstanding Player after finishing with 16 points and six rebounds in the title game.

DOBservations

The Pumas (20-11) became the first No. 8 seed to reach the Elite Eight since the tournament starting seeding teams in 1994. … It’s the third region title in Saint Joseph’s history and the first since 1978. … The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Hawks on Kentucky Wesleyan’s home court. … At the start of warmups, the Hawks almost began their warmups at the wrong basket, but quickly turned around. … Former QU player Jessie Repay is a sophomore reserve for the Pumas. He played five games as a walk-on for the Hawks during the 2007-08 season. … The Hawks had a fan bus of more than 50 people make the 12-hour round trip to watch the game. … QU associate athletic director Greg McVey made the round trip twice during the tournament. McVey couldn’t lose on Tuesday. He’s a Saint Joseph’s graduate. … The Hawks’ 23 wins are tied for the most in a single season since the team joined the NCAA Division II ranks.

QU Review — QU men 66, Bellarmine 61

Posted by dobrien – March 14, 2010

The sixth-seeded Hawks advanced to their first-ever Sweet 16 on Sunday night with another upset victory at Kentucky Wesleyan’s Sportscenter in Owensboro, Ky.

Here’s a look at Sunday’s stars:

baptist09101. Billy Baptist

Not only did Baptist lead everyone on the court with 20 points, he made a game-clinching block on Bellarmine’s Jeremy Kendle with 16 seconds left to play. Baptist, paying attention to the scouting report, knew that Kendle loved to pump fake, which he did. By the time Kendle got around to shooting the ball, Baptist was there to swat it away. He also made two big buckets in the second half to give the Hawks the lead after the Knights had tied the game. He’s playing like a man possessed this weekend.

belger09102. Courtney Belger

Playing against Kendle, one of the best point guards in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, the sophomore more than held his own. Belger had 10 points and six rebounds, including two rebounds in the second half when he went above the crowd in the lane to come down with the ball. He also had seven assists against one turnover. When he plays like that, the Hawks are awfully tough to beat.

edmonds09103. Josh Edmonds

He was the hottest of a pretty-hot QU team. Edmonds drained four 3-pointers as part of a 14-point performance. When the Hawks needed big shots as the teams were jockeying for the lead, Edmonds delivered in a big way. He was also one of the few QU starters to stay out of foul trouble, logging a team-high 38 minutes.

DOBservations

In a 76-60 loss at Bellarmine two weeks ago in the GLVC Tournament, QU made just 4 of 10 3-pointers for the game. This time, the Hawks made four 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes, 5 seconds of the game. QU finished 9 of 17 from behind the arc, part of a strong shooting performance that saw the Hawks shoot 54 percent for the game (22 of 41) and 62 percent in the second half (13 for 21). … With Kentucky Wesleyan getting knocked out in Saturday’s quarterfinals, the Sportscenter was nearly empty most of the day. With an announced crowd of 3,200 for Saturday’s KWC-St. Joseph’s game, not more than a few hundred people showed up for Sunday’s semifinals. … The Hawks are now 3-3 in NCAA play during Marty Bell’s seven-year tenure. … While this is the men’s first Sweet 16 appearance, the QU women’s team reached the regional three times during the 2000s, going 1-2 in region title games. The lone win came in 2004 against Lake Superior State at Pepsi Arena.