NCAA Basketball Quiz: Name five players off the 1995-96 national champion Kentucky Wildcats, coached by Rick Pitino, who defeated Syracuse (John Wallace et al), 76-67. UMass and Mississippi State were the others in the Final Four that year. Answer below.
2012 NCAA Final Four
Louisville vs. Kentucky
Ohio State vs. Kansas
For fans in the state of Kentucky, talk about a must-win game. I can just imagine how much fun it would be to watch this in a bar just about any locale there on Saturday. Talk about intense.
And not for nothing, but I couldn’t agree more with those saying, ‘Why the heck isn’t this the second game?’ What an incredibly stupid decision on the part of CBS. I guess CBS believes the other contest has the better chance to be competitive and keep the audience, and that Louisville-Kentucky is too parochial for some, but any basketball fan worth his salt understands the importance of the game.
Oh well…regardless, I hope we see something special in both contests. I also wouldn’t mind at all Kentucky winning the title because every now and then, you want greatness to prevail.
—AP All-American first team:
Thomas Robinson, Kansas; Jared Sullinger, Ohio State; Anthony Davis, Kentucky; Draymond Green, Michigan State; Doug McDermott, Creighton (the school’s first to receive such an honor, while also joining three-time selection Pete Maravich of LSU as All-Americas coached by their fathers).
Second team:
Isaiah Canaan, Murray State; Marcus Denmon, Missouri; Tyler Zeller, North Carolina; Jae Crowder, Marquette; Kevin Jones, West Virginia
So much for the likes of Harrison Barnes and Jeremy Lamb, pre-season first-team picks.
–Kansas State coach Frank Martin is moving on to South Carolina, which I just don’t understand. Isn’t this a lateral move? Martin was 117-54 at K-State and led them to the NCAA tournament four of the five seasons he was there. Personally, don’t like the guy off what I see on television.
–It’s official. Duke’s Austin Rivers is leaving. Coach K said, “Austin had a terrific year as a freshman and has put himself in a position to pursue his dream of being a great player in the NBA. We look forward to watching him continue to develop and excel at the next level.” After which everyone at the press conference blew into their hand and muttered “Bulls—.”
–In Norman Chad’s “Ask the Slouch $1.25 Cash Giveaway” (Chad being the first, by the way, to write of being a slouch, couch, etc., he’s been ripped off royally), David Haley of Kansas City, Mo., asked:
“Does the new iPad come with the Clark Kellogg-to-English translation app preloaded?”
Women’s Final Four
Baylor vs. Stanford
UConn vs. Notre Dame
Tebowmania, New York Version, Part Deux
Sorry if you’re already tired of this, but as Ronald Reagan once said in a debate in New Hampshire, it’s my site and I’ll do what I want with it. Or did Ronnie say, I paid for this microphone…
Anyway, Tim Tebow could not have performed better at his formal coming out party, a press conference at Jets headquarters (ten minutes from where I live) on Monday, with at least 200 in attendance, though, crazily, not Jets owner Woody Johnson or coach Rex Ryan because they were at the NFL owners’ meetings.
Tebow offered up what you’d expect in his usual classy way.
“I think for everybody who puts on a uniform, you want to go out there and play. Every day in practice I am going to go out there, and I am going to compete.”
Tebow didn’t believe the move was a publicity stunt, as former Jet great Joe Namath put it.
“I just think it had more to do with some coaches believing in me,” he said.
Later, coach Ryan, who has been mercifully silent for awhile, felt compelled to speak out at the NFL meetings:
“The great thing is that nobody has any idea how many snaps it’s going to be. But you better be prepared.”
Ryan also stood by an earlier assertion Tebow will get about 20 snaps a game, which in most cases is about 1/3rd of the total snaps. That’s insane. It won’t possibly work. Which is why we’re headed to Tim Tebow, starter.
“I’m absolutely putting it out there. I think the Wildcat is alive and well,” Ryan thundered.
So Coach, why wasn’t incumbent quarterback Mark Sanchez informed of the acquisition before it went down?
“Mark’s job is to play quarterback not to be the general manager. Mark will be okay with it…if we win. Mark’s our quarterback. We’re hitching our wagon to him.”
Owner Woody Johnson, while backing Sanchez as the starter, added:
“Mark is very, very good in the fourth quarter. We’ve all seen him in the fourth quarter. Wish he would get better in the first quarter perhaps.” Doh!
For his part, Sanchez, who had stupidly been in hiding, finally had a conference call after Tebow did his presser, and Sanchez said the right things, like, “We’re adding another player. We’re not replacing anybody. I’m not worried about losing my spot.”
Here’s the bottom line…at least the latest one as of Wednesday afternoon. The Jets invested $58 million in Sanchez with his contract extension, with more than $20 million guaranteed in the first two years, so do they just throw that away and go with Tebow full time?
“We can obsess for months – will obsess for months – over what we don’t know about Tim Tebow.
“Can he replicate, at all, what he created in Denver, when for a few fleeting moments it seemed he could perform the Jedi mind trick on one defense after another? Don’t know.
“Will he be a distraction in the locker room? Kryptonite for Mark Sanchez? A target of envy, derision, or both by jealous teammates? Don’t know.
“So yesterday was for discovering things we can be sure of about this new addition to the Jets’ toy box of personality. Tebow surely delivered that much. We talk all the time about new coaches standing in front of skeptical scribes and winning the press conference, but that is precisely what Tebow did.
“He was sincere. He was funny. He talked about the ‘honor’ of playing for the Jets, and you wonder if there have been five Jets going back to 1960 who bothered to say that, or even fake it. He was deferential to both Mark Sanchez (‘The exciting thing is me and Mark have a great relationship, we are going to have a great working relationship and I think we will have a lot of fun together’) and the Giants (‘I’m not qualified to be in that argument’)….
“The last time a Jet was given a stage like this one, the setting was Toots Shor’s, the date was Jan. 23, 1965, and it’s entirely possible Don Draper and Roger Sterling were there, knocking back vodka tonics with the sportswriters. The next day’s Herald Tribune, for instance, marveled at the horde of ‘five sets of klieg lights, three cameras, various microphones and what have you,’ after Joe Namath delivered the first money line when asked what would become of him and his $427,000 contract if he didn’t make it.
“Forty-seven years later, the quarterback is more modest, the welcoming ballyhoo exponentially greater. Maybe it’s worth remembering that most people in New York – and in 1965, the Giants cast an even larger shadow than they do now – believed Sonny Werblin’s boy was just a publicity stunt, the hiring of a celebrity in a celebrity town.
“We know how that played out. We don’t yet know about this one. But it ought to be a helluva – sorry, heck of a – fun ride finding out.”
“ ‘I will give my whole heart to being the best Jet I can be,’ Tebow said.
“He’ll be giving his whole heart to the starting quarterback spot by December, you can bet on that. The irresistible marketing force has landed.”
A group led by Magic Johnson emerged as the winners of the bidding for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Magic’s group paying a record $2 billion for a sports franchise, with Magic vowing to “drive the Dodgers back to the front page of the sports section.” Magic’s group is paying an additional $150 million for the Chavez Ravine property, with the group controlling the parking lots for Dodgers games and working with previous owner Frank McCourt on any future development. Magic won out over groups fronted by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke and a partnership headed by hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen. The transaction is to close by April 30, the day McCourt has to pay his ex-wife $131 million in their record divorce settlement.
The sales price is over $1 billion more than the previous record for a baseball team, $845 million paid for the Chicago Cubs in 2009. Mark Walter, CEO of the $126-billion Guggenheim Partners financial company based in Chicago, is the controlling owner of the group fronted by Magic. Guggenheim itself is not going to be involved in the day-to-day operations, supposedly.
It’s pretty amazing to think the Dodgers haven’t won the World Series since 1988.
“Just like that, the Dodgers are credible again, promising again, connected to their city again.
“Go ahead, Los Angeles, dig out that dusty Dodgers cap and unwrinkle that Dodger Stadium seating chart and shout yourself blue again. Go ahead, it’s safe now, after two years in hell your city’s most enduring sports team has just been placed in the giant hands of its most enduring sports star….
“Johnson, whose business acumen equals his former Lakers court sense, will become a full-time executive with an office in Dodger Stadium and a giant welcoming reach that will stretch to every corner of the disaffected Dodgers nation. (Longtime baseball executive Stan) Kasten, a traditional baseball guy who built the perennially contending Atlanta Braves from scratch and helped shape the surging Washington Nationals, was interested in the Dodgers before McCourt bought the team in 2004 and has long held a dream of restoring them to greatness….
“The new owners know that Dodgers fans are not a bunch of poor saps on a deserted beach standing around an ‘SOS’ rock formation and waiting desperately for the first ship to save them. They know that Dodgers fans are, instead, huddled and hidden in a clump of trees in the middle of the island, defiant, distrustful, and willing to remain out of sight until somebody shows up with enough smarts and savvy and charm to coax them back home….
“On Tuesday night, they got him, and the fastbreak is on.”
Ball Bits
–In his first public comments on the trampoline accident while playing with his son, Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain said, “I’m never going to look at anything I do with my son as reckless. Obviously I’m not going to skydive with my son, but when it comes along these lines, you could look at anything – throwing him around in the pool, just little things you’ve done. There’s a certain element of accidents in everyday life.
“I felt like I let my team down to be perfectly honest with you, and that’s the most frustrating part. But when I look and realize what was going on, I will never question being a father. It was me and him jumping on a trampoline like a lot of parents do.”
Joba said he and his boy were at a trampoline facility and jumping trampoline to trampoline when he slipped. He insists he will be back this season. I’m not going to pile on in this instance.
As for the Yankees, they could release the pitcher if they want.
–A Honus Wagner card from the 1909 T206 series released by the American Tobacco Co. is slated to fetch about $1.5 million in an online auction that began Tuesday, according to the president of St. Louis-based sports memorabilia auctioneer Goodwin & Co. Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick purchased a version of the same card with a higher grading for $2.8 million in 2007, the most expensive baseball card ever sold, as reported by Eben Novy-Williams of Bloomberg.
In all, 528 cards from the T206 are being auctioned and it closes April 19. All 528 are owned by an anonymous man in Texas, who acquired them in 1985. Another card in the collection, that of Philadelphia A’s hurler Eddie Plank, may fetch $500,000. You also have cards of Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.
If I could get just one, I’d be torn between Johnson and Mathewson. Those would be way cool.
To those out there who blindly spout off about how great we are, I hope you saw what happened the other day in the soccer world. The United States failed to qualify for the Olympics. Read that again. The U.S. men’s soccer team failed to qualify for the Olympics!!! What a freakin’ joke. The U.S. needed to defeat El Salvador in the final game of group play in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament and instead tied, 3-3, in Nashville, no less! Not down there. Nashville! A damn home game! They allowed the tying goal with less than one minute to go.
So it’s Honduras vs. El Salvador (that would be fun, if you were in a luxury box, behind bullet-proof glass) and Canada vs. Mexico, with the two winners qualifying for London.
The United States missed the Olympics for the second time in three tries. Great job, guys.
–Disgraced, and suspended, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton said he has spoken numerous times with Bill Parcells about becoming interim coach for one season as Payton serves out his suspension. I totally agree with those who think this makes eminent sense. Heck, I’d take it if I were Parcells. You’ve got Drew Brees, for starters.
However, should Parcells take the job, the clock on him getting into the Hall of Fame, which he should have been selected for in his first year of eligibility but missed out, would start all over again and he’d have to wait another five years to get back on the ballot. It isn’t out of the question the bylaws would be changed in this instance.
Meanwhile, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the investigation into bounty program allegations in Washington and other teams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was associated with are still ongoing. He also said at the owners meeting that some in the Saints organization were lying to NFL investigators as late as March.
[One side note to the meetings. An overtime in the regular season will now have the same scoring rules as the postseason; so the game ends on a team’s first possession only if it scores a touchdown or the defense forces a safety. If the team kicks a field goal on its first possession, the opposing team also gets a possession.]
–Trainer Bob Baffert suffered a heart attack on Monday while in Dubai, though he’s expected to be released from the hospital shortly. He was in the UAE to train a horse entered in the Dubai World Cup this week. Baffert, 59, was said to be in good spirits. Baffert tweeted that it was his wife, Jill, who convinced him he was having a heart attack and to call paramedics. He had three stents inserted in two arteries. It also sounds like he’ll have no problem quickly resuming normal activities, so with a number of horses as candidates for the May 5 Kentucky Derby, he’ll be quite a side story that day.
–Alabama football coach Nick Saban, after his second national title in three years, was given a raise and contract extension worth $5.62 million a year, which Saban claims represents his intention to finish his career in Tuscaloosa.
His contract now runs through Jan. 2020. Saban will earn $5.32 million this year, escalating to $5.97 million in 2019.
–The betting books in London and Las Vegas have Tiger Woods as the favorite for The Masters…a tradition unlike any other, only on CBS. Rory McIlroy is the second choice.
–Forgot to note last time that Tony Stewart won again last Sunday at the rain-shortened Sprint Cup race in Fontana, Calif., Stewart’s seventh win in 15 starts going back to last fall’s Chase. It was also his 46th career victory. Pretty darn impressive, Smoke!
–Attention College Hockey Fans…your Frozen Four matchups, Apr. 5-7 in Tampa, Fla.
Union vs. Ferris State
Boston College vs. Minnesota
–How bad is the state of Wake Forest golf? As of the March 23 issue of Golfweek and the Sagarin College Rankings, neither the men’s or women’s teams are in the top 35 in the country. Cheyenne Woods, at No. 50, is the only man or woman among the top 50 individuals.
Basketball, golf, baseball below .500 in ACC play, football looking so-so at best…it’s enough to keep the Deaconwear in the Drawer of Designated Losers.
–So how old was the late boxing writer and historian Bert Sugar? I’ve seen 73, 74, 75…Only Mrs. Sugar knows for sure, maybe. Regardless, anyone who followed boxing even a little has long known of him. One day I need to get up to the Boxing Hall of Fame in upstate New York as his fingerprints are undoubtedly all over the place. [He was inducted as an observer in 2005.] Bert Sugar was boxing, spanning all eras. With his trademark fedora and cigar (which might have killed him…he dying of cardiac arrest while having lung cancer), as Bob Velin wrote in USA TODAY, “There weren’t many better ambassadors of the sport than Sugar.”
I mean the guy wrote 80 books on the sport and was present at the greatest fights, including the Ali-Frazier trilogy.
But you know what? Bert Sugar was an expert on baseball, too. “Bert Sugar’s Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America’s Greatest Game,” has been described as a ‘treasure chest’ of memories, according to Bob Velin. [Gotta get that one.]
And Bert Sugar was smart, very smart. He graduated from the Univ. of Maryland and earned a JD and MBA from the Univ. of Michigan. He worked in the advertising business in New York after passing the bar exam and was one of the original “Mad Men” of the 1960s.
I mean did you know that Bert Sugar created the “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best” campaign?
The Wall Street Journal notes that “Sugar liked to drink at saloons in the tradition of Toots Shor’s, the places sportswriters of yore congregated to booze and tell stories. For several years, he kept a typewriter in O’Reilly’s Pub, not far from Madison Square Garden, where he could smoke and drink while he worked. His card gave the pub’s address as his office.”
Here’s a sample of his prose, an introduction to an essay on black champion Jack Johnson.
“In the world of the early 1900s, still awash with Victorian gentility and doily-type embroidery on everything from manners and modes to conversation and conventional heroes, the name of the heavyweight champion stood out in stark relief, a man of swaggering virility who epitomized the turbulent yet proud surety of the populace of a nation destined for greatness.”
Writing in his book, “Boxing’s Greatest Fighters,” Sugar said this of Mike Tyson, who Sugar ranked No. 100. [Sugar Ray Robinson was rated No. 1.]
“To perplexing questions like ‘Why does Hawaii have interstate highways?’ and ‘Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?’ can be added another: What the hell happened to boxing’s kamikaze pilot, Mike Tyson?’” [Bruce Weber / New York Times]
“A man in Vladivostok has been charged with allegedly killing a drinking buddy and eating his corpse.”
–Fans of Mad Men, of which I’m one, enjoyed Jessica Pare’s rendition of the 1961 French pop hit “Zou Bisou Bisou.” Pare (secretary Megan Calvet) had quite a season-opening evening, I think many of you would agree. It was also the most-watched episode ever, so absence does make the heart grow fonder
Top 3 songs for the week 3/24/62: Phewww…real music… #1 “Hey! Baby” (Bruce Channel) #2 “Don’t Break The Heart That Loves You” (Connie Francis) #3 “Midnight In Moscow” (Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen)…and…#4 “Let Me In” (The Sensations) #5 “Duke Of Earl” (Gene Chandler) #6 “Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)” (Roy Orbison) #7 “Slow Twistin’” (Chubby Checker with Dee Dee Sharp) #8 “What’s Your Name” (Don & Juan…has aged well) #9 “Twistin’ The Night Away” (Sam Cooke…one and only) #10 “Her Royal Majesty” (James Darren)
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answer: Members of 1995-96 Kentucky title team:
Tony Delk, Ron Mercer, Antoine Walker, Derek Anderson, Mark Pope, Walter McCarty, Jeff Sheppard, Anthony Epps, Wayne Turner, Allen Edwards
Next Bar Chat, Monday…your EXCLUSIVE Baseball predictions…and on April 12, your EXCLUSIVE final stats based on the first 7-8 games…if you keep it where it is.
