NCAA Basketball Quiz: [Some very easy…some not so. You have to get them all to earn a six-pack of premium from your spouse or significant other….or insignificant other, if there are…others.] 1) Name Michigan State’s coach in 1979 when they won it all. [Easiest first…if you were watching the action Sunday.] 2) Name Kansas’ coach when they won in 1988. 3) Name Michigan’s coach when they cut down the nets in 1989. [Now it gets harder] 4) In 1971, Penn finished the regular season 26-0 and was ranked #3 in the final AP poll. Who was the coach? 5) In 1976, Rutgers finished up 28-0 before losing in the semis of the Final Four. Who was the coach? 6) Who replaced Al McGuire in 1977 after McGuire went out on top that same year? Answers below.
Not exactly a time for Cinderella. The tourney has gone basically according to “chalk.” [Boy, I hate how quickly this is suddenly the new phrase.] Needless to say, yours truly has flamed out with Wake Forest. Plus I had Clemson and West Virginia in the Elite Eight to shake things up. Ha!
For the record, Sports Illustrated also had Wake Forest in the Final Four, along with Pitt, UConn and North Carolina, with Pitt winning it all. Me, Barack, loyal reader Shu, and a host of others still have the Tar Heels.
But congratulations to the Big East. For the first time in tourney history a conference has five representatives in the Sweet 16.
What an embarrassment on Friday night in losing to Cleveland State, though as a basketball fan I admire how tough the upstarts played.
But it’s an amazing thing about Wake b-ball. As the stats prove, we are truly the worst team in NCAA history when it comes to the tourney. No other school has done as poorly as we have with high seeds (4 or better).
And as more than one Wake fan, and sportswriter, has discussed, what is it with us? Wake Forest is a tough, grind it out school. Kids work hard on their studies (except moi back in the day), we have a highly successful football program (the last three years) where the coach doesn’t try to recruit the top players in the country, but rather looks for people of good character he can mold for five seasons (most are reshirted as freshmen), and the system appears to work.
Yet when it comes to the basketball program this decade in particular, we’ve recruited some Hollywood types, McDonald’s All-Americans, and they’ve done nothing but let us down.
Case in point, Chris Paul. Yes, I know I’ve told this story more than once, but understand each night I check out former Wake player Darius Songaila’s Washington box score, and of course I check out Tim Duncan’s, but I couldn’t care less about Paul.
Why? Because in his sophomore year, in the last game of the regular season, Chris Paul hit North Carolina State’s Julius Hodge in the groin in a flagrant cheap shot, Paul was suspended for the first round ACC game, Wake lost, and in so doing lost a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tourney, got a 2 instead, and lost its second game to West Virginia, 111-105 in double overtime. We had a great team, but in not getting a No. 1 because of Chris Paul, we got a bad matchup and it killed us.
Paul then jerked Coach Skip Prosser around before announcing for the draft, thus limiting Prosser’s ability to find a replacement. The result was the program suffered the next few years, while Paul wants to be seen as Mr. Winston-Salem and Mr. Wake Forest, yet the guy played there only two freakin’ years and didn’t do anything!!! It will forever tick me off.
Anyway, Skip Prosser drops dead the summer of 2007 and the athletic director did the right thing at the time, naming assistant Dino Gaudio as head coach. Amazingly, Gaudio held onto the recruits Prosser had lined up, including Al-Farouq Aminu, who ended up being one of the better freshmen in the land this year.
But Gaudio can’t coach, as proved the second half of the campaign after Wake earned a No. 1 ranking in the country in starting out 16-0. We lost our focus, blew the first-round ACC tourney game, and dropped from a 3 to a 4 seed, thus drawing Cleveland State. Today, the program itself is suddenly on the verge of a total meltdown as we await to see whether sophomores Jeff Teague and James Johnson, plus Aminu, go out early for the NBA draft. No way Teague, for starters, is ready, but with the uncertainty over the coaching situation, who the hell knows what goes on in the minds of these kids…and just who (shady agents, shoe contract shysters) is feeding them poison.
“Wake and its future pros was a wiseguy pick in a lot of brackets to make the Final Four. But the young and flighty Demon Deacons have had problems all season with overlooking opponents. Fatal mistake this time.
“ ‘They thought we were going to be scared of their jersey name,’ said (Cleveland State’s J’Nathan) Bullock, a standout high school football player in Flint, Mich. ‘That’s never the case with Cleveland State. We’re not here to be no laughingstock.’”
“Now that was an absolute flameout. Most of America must have liked it, but Wake Forest should be completely embarrassed….
“The best guard on the court was not Wake’s shrinking violet Jeff Teague – who had seven turnovers and only 10 points – but Cleveland State’s whirling dervish Cedric Jackson.
“The best coach on the court was certainly not Wake’s Dino Gaudio – who had his team ranked No. 1 for awhile in January before supervising this freefall. It was Cleveland State coach Gary Waters, who managed the game beautifully while Gaudio crouched and simmered….
“It was Weak Forest at its worst. And it will be a loss that will be remembered for decades.”
“No matter how many future lottery picks or past McDonald’s All-Americans the Demon Deacons rolled out, they simply could not keep pace with Cleveland State.
“The tenor of the loss will inevitably bring up the coaching credentials of Wake Forest Coach Dino Gaudio, an assistant to Skip Prosser who took over this season after Prosser’s death. Gaudio was 68-124 as a head coach at Army and Loyola, and he looked overmatched on the sideline.
“He waited more than 10 minutes to call a timeout while Cleveland State raced to a double-digit first-half lead….
“Three consecutive times in the second half, the Vikings scored easy baskets on inbound plays. How teams execute and defend inbound plays are often a good barometer of coaching, and Waters made Gaudio look feeble.”
Wake Forest Nation (should have given you a cliché alert) is now on pins and needles as to what will transpire the next 4-6 weeks. Early consensus, among my many connections, is that Gaudio stays. And he should probably get another year. But what of the players? Forget the Big Three. There are some other key underclassmen that could transfer…and who’d blame ‘em?
Meanwhile, I’m embarrassed to jog in my Wake Forest shirts…just like a few years back when Wake got blown out by Butler in the NCAAs. It’s a good time for me to whip out all the other shirts I’ve picked up in my travels, starting with Davidson…and Wyoming…and Chadron State…and I have about ten Black Hills State shirts (they’re in Spearfish, S.D.). Yeah, that’s the ticket. Chadron and Black Hills State it is.
“Hey, I thought you went to Wake Forest, Editor.”
“Ah, ah, no. You must be thinking of Arnold Palmer.”
Don’t worry. Come football season and an incredibly easy early schedule, I’ll be back on board. I just need some time to recover from this one.
So, you thought you could take some time off from the A-Roid watch, eh? Wrong.
Brad Hamilton / New York Post
“The Manhattan madam linked to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer claims she had a ‘connection’ and ‘flirtation’ with scandal-scarred Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez.
“Kristin Davis, who says she met the third baseman at a Philadelphia gym in 2005, told the Post that: ‘our paths have crossed both personally and professionally,’ and that ‘there was a flirtation there.’
“ ‘I’m not going to deny there was a relationship there,’ said the 32-year-old blond bombshell, who ran high-class call-girl service Wicked Models.
George Rush / New York Daily News
“A former Manhattan madam who supplied Eliot Spitzer with hookers…found (A-Rod) so charming she dated him herself for free, former employees of the call-girl agency tell the Daily News.
“A-Rod wooed ex-madam Kristin Davis with flowers, jewelry, persistence and heated e-mails, according to the sources.”
When A-Fraud met Davis at the Philly gym, she didn’t know who he was but found him “hot as hell,” she told a friend. A-Rod asked her, “What are you doing tonight?” “I said, ‘I’m having dinner with my boyfriend. But if you’re looking for someone to hang out with, here’s a number.’ I gave him my agency’s card.’”
That night, A-Phony booked a two-hour “date” with one of the girls, who met him at the Four Seasons. [Heck, I’ve stayed there a lot…never knew one could….]
A-Rod soon became a regular customer of Davis’ agency, and the Daily News obtained some e-mails from 2006, including one from Nov. 17, 2006, that purportedly reads: “Thanks for setting me up with Samantha. She was gorgeous. But she is not you. When can I see you you are gorgeous…”
Alex: “You have been playing hard to get for a year now, your (sic) killing me.”
Davis: “It’s not playing I am hard to get. Maybe you should try harder.”
[Ed. Hey, that’s Avis’ slogan!]
Alex: “Kristin, I definitely will and I love the pics. I put the one on my cell so I can look at you all the time. [Ed. Oh brother.]”
Alex did reject a girl sent by the agency one time and kept asking for Kristin. His persistence, sources told the News, paid off. But….
“Davis told a friend she and Rodriguez grew apart ‘when he found out I had a new boyfriend. He got upset. What was I supposed to do? He was married.’”
OK…I promise, this is the last non-baseball-related story on A-Rod…until next time.
Davis is currently on probation for five years after copping a plea to promoting prostitution.
BERLIN, (AFP) – “Times are difficult down at Berlin’s Pussy Club where a new all-in service is on offer: 70 euros for girls, drinks and food.” Such a deal!
“Like many of its counterparts, the brothel has been hit by the credit crunch and has had to come up with its own stimulus package for a trade that was legalized in Germany seven years ago.”
I was in Berlin a little over a year ago. How did I miss that? [Just kidding, sports fans.]
“The Belle Escort, another Berlin brothel, has never before faced problems, but the current financial crisis has triggered a sharp decline in clientele, said its owner Isabelle [don’t know her].
“ ‘I’d estimate that we have at least 20 percent less people coming here,’ she sighed.”
Huh! [Feigning surprise]
“As a bartender and trainer at a national restaurant chain, Rebecca Brown earned a couple thousand dollars in a really good week. Now, as a dancer at Chicago’s Pink Monkey gentleman’s club [haven’t been there], she makes almost that much in one good night.”
Kind of makes you think that a lot of guys at the place where she tended bar were saying to their buddies, “She’s hot.” But I digress….
“The tough job market is prompting a growing number of women across the country to dance in strip clubs, appear in adult movies or pose for magazines like Hustler….
“ ‘You’re seeing a lot more beautiful women who are eligible to do so many other things,’ said Gus Poulos [don’t know him], general manager of New York City’s Sin City gentleman’s club. [Ed. By the way, 95% of men attending a gentleman’s club aren’t really gentleman, by the classic definition…Bar Chat continuuuuues.]
“The transition to the nightclub scene isn’t always a smooth one – from learning to dance in five-inch heels to dealing with the jeers of some customers.
“Some performers said they were initially so nervous that only alcohol could calm their nerves.
“ ‘It is like giving a speech, but instead of imaging everyone naked, you’re the one who’s naked,’ Brown, 29, said.”
But the guys aren’t spending as much. One executive of the Association of Club Executives, a trade group for adult nightclubs, said “They’re not getting the guys who come in and drop $3,000 to $4,000 a night anymore.”
Good lord. Those are A-Roid dollars.
By the way. In case you wondered how the girls, independent contractors, are paid, they pay clubs a nightly flat fee depending on how long they work. At the Pink Monkey [or Pink Minkey…as Peter Sellers would have said], dancers who arrive at 7 p.m. Sunday through Thursday pay a $40 ‘house fee,’ while women who don’t arrive until midnight pay $90. Yes, they keep their tips.
And that’s your adult entertainment update for Monday, March 23, 2009.
–One of the many things that makes the NCAA basketball tournament so fascinating is just observing who steps up and who doesn’t. First team All-American James Hardin of Arizona State was one who didn’t. 9 points in his first game, 10 in his second…this from a guy averaging 20 this season. So Jeff Teague wasn’t the only one to disappear.
Speaking of Teague, I was checking his stats and until the last six games, he was 40 of 78 from three. Then he went 5 of 24.
Teague was a consensus first-team All-American after the first 16 games as the Deacs ran the table to that point. In games 13-16, he cemented his reputation, scoring 30 against BYU, 34 against UNC, 29 at Boston College, and 24 at Clemson. Then he had about three good games in his last 15. Yet some insist he’s a lottery pick. Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?
–Phil W. was in Greensboro for the NCAA tourney and on Thursday night, as Duke was romping, the Dookies were calling for a seldom-used reserve named Steve Johnson to get into the game, chanting in classic Duke fashion, “IN-SERT JOHN-SON”.
–Yes, it’s way in the future, but the NBA faces a lockout in June 2011, with a key date being Dec. 15, 2010, when the owners can give notice they will let the current labor agreement expire the following year. With the economic crisis, the owners want to drastically change the salary cap and the provision that mandates 57% of revenues go to the players. It’s tough to pay incredibly mediocre, second-line players $5 million or more a year, guaranteed. All of this is important, today, because it will impact which players leave college early for the NBA to try and get as much as possible before what could be a crippling strike. For example, if you leave this spring, at least you’d get the rookie level max for two years before any lockout.
–Speaking of the economy, from Richard Sandomir and Ken Belson / New York Times.
“The NFL cut 169 jobs, and its commissioner reduced his salary by about 20%. The NBA shed a tenth of its staff, and ESPN will not fill 200 vacant jobs. The United States Olympic Committee laid off 54 workers to cut millions from its budget, and NASCAR teams have laid off hundreds of employees.
“The LPGA Tour is dropping four tournaments because three title sponsors dropped out, and the PGA Tour will lose three title sponsors but no events. Wells Fargo rescued the insolvent bank Wachovia – then stripped Wachovia’s name from a PGA Tour event….
“Teams have frozen or cut ticket prices, and some, like the Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves, will give refunds to season-ticket holders if they lose their jobs….
“And the Arena Football League canceled its 2009 season to cut labor costs and drop its salary cap well under $2 million a team.”
And you have 15 NBA teams in the red, 12 of which borrowed recently from a $200 million addition to the league’s $1.7 billion credit facility.
Major League Baseball is the real test case, since the NBA and NHL seasons are largely over. “Two-thirds of the 30 major league teams have not raised ticket prices…But even if nearly 79 million fans show up for regular-season games, as they have in recent years, how much will their spending on food and souvenirs decline?”
–Former major leaguer Whitey Lockman died. He was 82. Richard Goldstein / New York Times, describing the scene on Oct. 3, 1951:
“The Giants trailed the first-place Dodgers by 13 ½ games in mid-August that year but came back to forge a tie for first place in the National League. In the finale of a three-game playoff, the Giants trailed the Dodgers, 4-1, going into the last of the ninth inning at the Polo Grounds.
“Alvin Dark singled off Don Newcombe, the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, and Don Mueller singled Dark to third. Monte Irvin fouled out, bringing Lockman to the plate.
“A left-handed batter, Lockman was a line-drive hitter, an excellent bunter and a speedy base runner. But he was not envisioning a single when he fouled the first pitch from the hard-throwing Newcombe back to the screen.
“ ‘My one thought when I came up to bat in the ninth was to go all out for a homer, although I wasn’t that much of a homer hitter, especially against Newcombe,’ Lockman told Ray Robinson in ‘The Home Run Heard ‘Round the World’ (1991).
“Lockman connected on Newcombe’s second pitch, high and outside.
“ ‘My instinct and muscle control took over,’ Lockman remembered. ‘I knew it was impossible to pull it for a homer, so I sliced it to left.’
“The ball landed just inside the foul line, and by the time left fielder Andy Pafko chased it down, Lockman had a double, Mueller was on third base, severely injuring his ankle as he arrived there, and Dark had scored to make it 4-2.
“Ralph Branca relieved Newcombe, then (Bobby) Thomson came to the plate. His home run over the left-field wall gave the Giants a 5-4 pennant victory in perhaps the most dramatic moment in baseball history.”
Lockman had a solid 15-year career, hitting .279 with 1658 hits, 114 homers, and 563 ribbies. He made the All-Star team in 1952. And then he managed the Cubs for parts of three seasons in the early 1970s, replacing Leo Durocher.
Lockman hit a home run in his first big league at bat, incidentally. Very cool.
SN: Did you ever use amphetamines – greenies, it seems they were called?
Aaron: I never had anything. I didn’t make enough money to buy anything but a loaf of bread. I came up at $5,000 a year. The most I ever made was $250,000. That was pretty good money, actually, my last two years.
–Here I write of my favorite non-Mets ballplayer, Adam Dunn (along with Ichiro), and then Sports Illustrated’s Ben Reiter has a story titled:
“Where’s the Love? The baseball world has concluded that the Nationals’ Adam Dunn doesn’t really like the game. But if that’s the case, then how come he plays hurt and hits so many homers?”
Hear hear! Reiter adds, “He played in 791 games over the past five years, an average of more than 158 per season. During that span, only three players – Ichiro Suzuki, Miguel Cabrera and Michael Young – appeared in more.” Dunn once played with a torn meniscus in his right knee that hampered him for at least two years.
–The other day I mentioned Boston University hockey and I received a note later from an old next door neighbor of mine growing up, Steve G., who I’ve since quaffed some adult beverages with out in Colorado. What I didn’t know was that his father, Joe, played hockey at BU back in the 30s. Turns out Joe led the team (and probably the league) in penalty minutes. Joe kept the box scores and his specialty was tripping, and claimed he played on the checking line against the opposition’s best one. Joe hasn’t been feeling real well these days so we extend our best wishes. Steve and his family were terrific neighbors.
–Brian Hitterman, USA TODAY Sports Weekly (an excellent publication, by the way…and cheap, plus it’s delivered to your home…thrown in the driveway like the old days…but I digress) on Alabama offensive tackle Andre Smith, once considered a possible No. 1 overall selection, who went AWOL at the Indianapolis scouting combine, then held a workout on campus:
“Smith weighed in at 325 pounds, down from 332, but struggled on the bench press, hoisting 225 pounds 19 times. He struggled even more running the 40-yard dash, his soft mid-section jiggling, and he was timed between 5.25 and 5.35 seconds.”
“Worse, though, he removed his shirt at the weigh-in and before running the 40. While that might not have been an issue for a sleek wideout, the look did not flatter Smith. ‘He never should have done that,’ says one scout. ‘The guy has an ugly body. There’s no other way to say it.’” SI has a picture…good gawd, I wouldn’t waste an 8th-round pick on the guy.
–Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke. [Sports Illustrated]
–Bill Fields of GolfWorld on Arnold Palmer, who turns 80 later this year.
“Palmer has heard some groaning from players the last few years about how taxing his course (at Bay Hill) has gotten, especially since it was converted to a par 70 of 7,157 yards in 2007. But if players are piqued at how strenuously Palmer is making them work, they also should pause to remember the things that got Palmer where he is: Remember where you came from. Don’t take fans or sponsors for granted. Never forget that being a highly-paid pro athlete is a privilege, not a right. And most of all: Play hard.”
–Congratulations to Washington Univ. of St. Louis for winning the men’s Division 3 basketball tournament, defeating Stockton (N.J.).
–We note the passing of a solid hockey player, Walt Poddubny of the Rangers and Devils. Poddubny collapsed at his sister’s house in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He was only 49. Poddubny scored 30 goals three times in his career, 184 overall.
Wellington, New Zealand (AP) – “A hatchling of a rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found in the wild on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years.”
Run for your lives! It’s a tuatara! “The last lizard-like descendants of a reptile species that walked the Earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago.”
Actually, about 50,000 of them live on 32 small offshore islands cleared of predators, including jerks like man, but this is the first sighting on the mainland…and needless to say bears watching.
–I recently told you ticket sales for the revival of “West Side Story” were going gangbusters…a great sign for the health of Broadway…and now with the musical’s opening the reviews are coming in. Rave after rave. The original writer, 91-year-old Arthur Laurents, is directing it and I saw a great piece on him on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” yesterday. [Paid for by the New York City Dept. of Tourism]
–The promo for “X-Men Origins” being shown during the NCAA tournament makes the movie out to be a total mess. I mean it looks like the producers decided to throw in every possible kind of special effect, whether it fit or not. But we’re such a nation of idiots, it will probably do $80 million the first weekend.
–Happy 87th birthday to Marty Allen! And Chaka Khan…Chaka Khan Chaka Khan…is 56.
–Is there a classier man than Liam Neeson? He has handled his nightmare with amazing grace.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/21/70: #1 “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Simon & Garfunkel) #2 “The Rapper” (The Jaggerz) #3 “Give Me Just A Little More Time” (Chairmen of the Board)…and…#4 “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)” (John Ono Lennon) #5 “Rainy Night In Georgia” (Brook Benton…man, what a classic…whoever did the arrangement deserves a lifetime of premium) #6 “Let It Be” (The Beatles) #7 “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” (Hollies) #8 “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” (Edison Lighthouse) #9 “Evil Ways” (Santana) #10 “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” (The Delfonics)
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answers: 1) Jud Heathcoate coached Michigan State in 1979. 2) Larry Brown coached Kansas in 1988. 3) Steve Fisher coached Michigan to the title in 1989, taking over late in the season… 4) Dick Harter coached Penn in 1971…met the man. 5) Tom Young coached Rutgers in ’76. 6) Hank Raymonds replaced Al McGuire.
