[Posted Tuesday pm due to scheduling issues Wednesday.]
College Basketball Quiz: According to sports-reference.com, which are the four oldest Division I conferences today, all going back to pre-1920. Answer below.
College Basketball Review
AP Poll [records thru Sunday]
1. Indiana 24-3 (64 first-place votes)…then lose at Minnesota (19-9, 7-8), 77-73, on Tuesday
2. Gonzaga 27-2…so do the Bulldogs get their first-ever No. 1 slot next time?
3. Duke 24-3
4. Michigan 23-4
5. Miami 22-4
6. Kansas 23-4
7. Georgetown 21-4…on a roll…
8. Florida 22-4…then falls to Tennessee (17-10, 9-6) on Tuesday 64-58
9. Michigan State 22-6
10. Louisville 22-5
18. Saint Louis 21-5
25. Louisiana Tech 24-3…first time since 1984-85 and Karl Malone
In losing to Florida State on Tuesday down in Tallahassee, Wake Forest coach Jeff Bzdelik fell to 1-23 on the road in ACC play. Wow, that’s strong.
“At halftime of Maryland’s game against Clemson on Saturday, the school finally – finally – got around to acknowledging the 17 remarkable seasons (Lefty) Driesell contributed to life at the school. For years, different leaders acted as if that period in Maryland basketball history, when he built the Terrapins from doormat to national power, never existed. In 2002, when Maryland invited almost anyone who had ever set foot on campus back for the closing of Cole Field House, Driesell wasn’t on the invitation list.
“ ‘Must’ve gotten lost in the mail,’ he joked back then when asked about the non-invite, but the snub had to hurt.
“It also clearly hurt last year when Maryland named the court for Gary Williams when it hadn’t so much as raised a banner with Driesell’s name on it. The man won 348 games in 17 years, winning an ACC title, a National Invitation Tournament title (in 1972, when that still meant something) and going to the Elite Eight twice. Maryland did not become the ‘UCLA of the East’ as Driesell had vowed it would at his first news conference, but it became a force to be reckoned with in the ACC.
“ ‘He breathed life into basketball up there,’ Dean Smith, his greatest and most infuriating rival, said several years ago. ‘Whenever you played them you knew you were in for a long, tough night.’
“In return for all of that, Maryland honored Driesell with…almost nothing. A spot in the Maryland Hall of Fame, given grudgingly no doubt. That was it….
“It was more than 26 years ago that Driesell stood in an empty Cole Field House to announce he was resigning as Maryland’s coach, having been made the scapegoat by Chancellor John Slaughter in the wake of Len Bias’ death. When he walked through the tunnel that morning, arms around (wife) Joyce and daughter Pam, it was about as sad a sight as you could possibly see.
“Saturday, as he walked to midcourt at the Comcast Center with no cane in his hands and Joyce by his side, with the entire arena on its feet and the cheers finally ringing in his ears at Maryland again, it was also worth a tear or two.
This just in…From Fairfax, New Zealand News:
“A New Zealand police officer fired 20 shots at a shark which attacked and killed a person at Auckland’s Muriwai Beach on Wednesday, a witness says.
“Emergency staff confirmed the person’s body had been pulled from the water following the early afternoon attack. The shark had been killed but was still floating in the ocean….
“About 200 people were on the beach and people quickly ran.
“ ‘Everybody was evacuated from the water. Word of mouth, ‘shark,’ and everybody left the water.’
“TV3 reported from the beach that as many as three sharks may have been involved….
“The distressed man signaled for help when he was attacked, before he was pulled underwater.
“At this point, the witness said three or four other sharks appeared in the area….
“Earlier this week surfer Bourne Nobel Buiski posted on Facebook that there had been a ‘massive’ shark spotted near surfers on Monday at Piha, 14 kilometers south of Muriwai.
“He said that a local man ran out of the water ‘white faced and terrified.’
“ ‘He was saying that a great white, a massive great white had just swum right beside him,’ Buiski said.
“There have been 14 known fatal shark attacks in New Zealand, since records began about 1837, according to Department of Conservation shark expert, Clinton Duffy.”
Last year there were 12 fatal shark attacks around the world, three in Australia.
Stay out of the water until we find out where the other three sharks who may have been involved in today’s attack are. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to go back in.
“Manti Te’o may have performed admirably in his press conference with a massive media horde on Saturday, but he left a little bit to be desired during his 40-yard-dash performance at the NFL Scouting Combine Monday.”
Like try 4.81 and 4.8 in his two attempts. Not awful, but not exactly explosive from the linebacker position, let alone for a first-round pick. [The official electronic time was later said to be 4.82.]
“NFL Network caught the reaction of Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh after Te’o’s first run, which showed him mouthing the words ‘4.83’ and shaking his head.”
“The value of this combine is famously mixed. There is always the potential for a player’s name to be lifted by a startling performance – Texas wide receiver Marquise Goodwin, who competed in the long jump at the 2012 Olympics, ran a blistering 4.27 in the 40-yard-dash on Sunday. But there’s a long list of NFL stars whose mediocre combine performances gave little evidence of their potential, including 2012 running back Alfred Morris, who was underwhelming in Indy, drafted 173rd, and wound up being the NFL’s second-leading rusher as a rookie. On Sunday the NFL Network ran some comical footage of a wannabe quarterback wandering through a combine more than a decade ago. His 40 resembled a man crawling over the top of a cheesecake. But Tom Brady turned out to be pretty good.”
–Speaking of Brady, he just accepted a three-year, $27 million extension, far less than he could have received, to help the team allocate money elsewhere. Saints QB Drew Brees, for example, is on a $20 million-per-season deal, a mark Joe Flacco now looks to match or exceed.
Don’t cry for Brady, though. He receives a $30 million signing bonus, paid out through Feb. 2015.
Confused? Well it goes back to his previous contract, which contained $48.5 million in guarantees, which took effect at the start of the 2011 season.
So it seems he has $30 million in guarantees left, plus he has salaries for 2013 and 2014, $1 million and $2 million, that are guaranteed, while his salaries for 2015, 2016, and 2017 are $7 million, $8 million and $9 million, respectively, that are fully guaranteed.
Confused? If he suffers a career-ending injury in 2013, $57 million is still guaranteed.
—Lance Armstrong plans to argue that the case the federal government has launched against him is too old to pursue and that he never submitted a false claim to the government, as reported by USA TODAY’s Brent Schrotenboer. Armstrong’s “legal team will argue that the government knew or should have known about doping on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team – but did nothing to stop it.”
“The strategy shows the tightrope of technicalities that Armstrong will seek to walk after the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday that it has joined a civil fraud case against Armstrong under the False Claims Act.”
It will come down to the six-year statute of limitations and the legal definition of a false claim.
Plus, “What did the USPS know and when did it know it?”
–Daytona’s television ratings were the best since 2007, thanks to Danica Patrick and the Nationwide crash the day before. She is primed to end Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s 10-year streak as NASCAR’s most popular driver.
–The Lakers’ Dwight Howard is hitting 48.5% of his free throws this season and is 58% for his career. On Monday night, in a 119-108 loss to Denver, Howard was 3 of 14 from the line.
–Baseball is going to be fun in these parts this year. At least the first month or so. For Mets fans, it’s apparent the team is loaded in the starting rotation (including the prospects coming up the next two years), even if Johan Santana doesn’t round back into form. But we have about the worst outfield in America. I just think the Mets will at least play spirited ball and us fans hope they are playing meaningful games in August. [September is out of the question.]
But the Yankees could be far more fascinating. The injury to Curtis Granderson, out until May with a broken forearm, doesn’t help. They are old! Old, old, old. It’s very possible they have a .500, or 84-78, at best, season. The spoiled Yankees fans would be livid. That would be so much fun to see for the rest of us.
–The Washington Post’s Norman Chad, bemoaning the loss of wrestling as an Olympic sport in 2020.
“Best I can tell, the IOC’s baffling decision to drop wrestling is tied to television; apparently, wrestling’s not a prime draw with the younger TV audience.
“Alas, the world revolves around the 18-to-34 demographic; I half-expect the Vatican to name One Direction as the next pope….
“Anyway, since it’s all about ratings – and now that the Olympic movement has foregone that whole ‘amateur’ pretense – why not replace freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling with Vince McMahon-style professional wrestling?
“Another idea: In ancient Greece, wrestlers trained and competed in the nude. That’s right, naked wrestlers– you think that might move the meter? Also, back then, many matches ended in death. Sure, you’d create the problem of having to replace your athletic pool every year, but – and I hate to give the IOC and NBC any ideas – wrestling-to-the-death would produce ginormous ratings, no?”
Q: If my 2012 Pittsburgh Pirates highlights DVD quits playing halfway through, should I ask for my money back or assume it was meant to work that way? (Mark C., Pittsburgh)
–So I did stay up Sunday night to watch the entire Oscars and I did get a kick out of some of the commentary on Seth MacFarlane’s performance.
Sunday ended up being the most watched Oscars since 2007. Hosts get about 15 minutes to put together their opening and MacFarlane’s 16-minute bit was both praised and panned.
“MacFarlane’s tone-deaf, unfunny, sexist, puerile, straight-from-the-ninth-grade-locker-room ‘We Saw Your Boobs’ routine about nekkid actresses was lower than a cockroach’s pedicure. Charlize Theron’s pained reaction shot (which was part of the act, but fitting anyway) spoke for the world: Several of the actresses MacFarlane mocked were shown in rape scenes.”
How can you criticize him? The guy is brilliant. OK, maybe some of it was sophomoric. I didn’t think the Boobs deal was funny. But MacFarlane is incredibly talented and I admire he’s doing it all his way and is immensely successful despite the critics.
Parade Magazine featured him on Sunday and while I normally don’t read these pieces, the one by David Hochman was quite good.
Heck, he signed a contract with Fox in 2008 that paid him $100 million! Really. Why not? He’s the creator of Family Guy, American Dad! And The Cleveland Show. Then his movie Ted raked in half a billion worldwide.
I also liked David Hinckley’s comment in the New York Daily News:
“MacFarlane is a different animal, a perfect smile that only occasionally parts to reveal shark teeth.”
The only thing about him is he appears, from the Parade interview, to have a thin skin. As in he’s continuously criticized by Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker, who pooh-poohed the idea of MacFarlane as Oscar host. So MacFarlane called Tucker out personally on Twitter: “Please tell me how I may earn a review as glowing as the one you gave Urkel.”
Meanwhile, the “In Memoriam” segment of the Oscars was harshly criticized for omitting the likes of Phyllis Diller, Andy Griffith and Larry Hagman. Griffith and Hagman were in films, while Diller often had minor roles in them. Plus directors Michael Winner, a legendary British director and David R. Ellis, who directed “Snakes on a Plane,” were left out. Heck, I forgot Richard Dawson was left out, too. He did some films.
–Imagine you’re on Taiwan and you’re watching the Oscars and see native director Ang Lee win his second Oscar for “Life of Pi.” We take so much for granted here. For them a tremendous shot in the arm for the country. Plus the film was shot there.
–I forgot to mention last time that my high school alma mater, Summit, won its first boys state swimming title since 1976 the other day. Now I wouldn’t cite this except that was my senior year and one of my good friends, Brad K., was a stud on that team and, believe it or not, ended up in the pool business! [High-end pools, sports fans. We aren’t talking little plastic jobbies. Like all steel, in fact.]
—Bill Murray’s favorite rock group, The Rascals, are coming to Broadway, thanks in no small part to Steven Van Zandt who will be presenting “The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream” at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on 46th Street in Manhattan, April 15 thru May 5, running 15 times. Original Rascals Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati, Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish have reunited. What’s kind of astounding is this is the first time they’ve all been together since 1970.
Last year they had a reunion concert in a New York suburb and all four musicians received praise, so what the heck. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
Top 3 songs for the week 2/22/75: #1 “Pick Up The Pieces” (AWB) #2 “Best Of My Love” (The Eagles) #3 “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (Grand Funk)…and…#4 “Black Water” (Doobie Brothers) #5 “Have You Never Been Mellow” (Olivia Newton-John) #6 “Lonely People” (America) #7 “My Eyes Adored You” (Frankie Valli) #8 “You’re No Good” (Linda Ronstadt) #9 “#9 Dream” (John Lennon) #10 “Nightingale” (Carole King)
College Basketball Quiz Answer: Four oldest conferences.
Big Ten (1899), Ivy League (1902), Missouri Valley (1908), Pac-12 (1916).
