1987-88 NCAA Basketball Quiz: Danny Manning led Kansas to the national title in defeating Oklahoma 83-79 in the title game. Name one other player on that Kansas team. Answer below.
The Sweet Sixteen
San Diego State vs. UConn
Duke vs. Arizona
Florida vs. BYU
Wisconsin vs. Butler
North Carolina vs. Marquette
Ohio State vs. Kentucky
Kansas vs. Richmond
Florida State vs. VCU
I am scared to death that Kemba Walker will simply break down the SDSU defense and within the first four minutes get two fouls apiece on Kawhi Leonard and my man Billy White, with White getting a technical to boot. Yup, that’s my nightmare. At that point UConn would roll as D.J. Gay has a miserable 2-12 from 3-point land in his attempt to make up for Leonard and White being on the bench much of the first half as UConn gets off to a 38-24 lead and cruises from there.
My hope is that UConn is overwhelmed down low by the Aztecs’ jumping jacks and we get their big men in early foul trouble.
One thing to me is sure. SDSU seldom gets in foul trouble but there could be a ton of early calls on both sides that severely impact the game’s outcome and that would be unfortunate.
Conference Performance
Atlantic 10…3 bids…1 left [Richmond]
ACC…4…3 [Duke, UNC, Florida State]
Big 12…5…1 [Kansas]
Big East…11…2 [UConn, Marquette]
Big Ten…7…2 [Ohio State, Wisconsin]
Colonial…3…1 [VCU]
Horizon…1…1 [Butler]
Mountain West…3…2 {San Diego State, BYU]
Ohio Valley…1…none
Pacific 10…4…1 [Arizona]
SEC…5…2 [Kentucky, Florida]
West Coast…1…none
So here’s what it comes down to in terms of the above. The much-maligned ACC owes everything to Florida State and their win over Notre Dame Sunday. There was little question both Duke and North Carolina would get this far, but with all the other conferences falling on their face to one extent or another, save for the Mountain West and, perhaps, the SEC, us ACC fans owe the Seminoles big time for saving our reputation and I’m doing a tomahawk chop in their honor tonight. [I better warn the neighbors first, though.]
As for the Big East, their flameout is slightly deceiving in that they played each other a few times in round two [Not round three as the NCAA had their announcers propagandize! The play-in games were a joke and not round one!]. But I actually thought Charles Barkley had a point on Sunday when he said with basically the exception of Kemba Walker, the Big East was really no different than any other conference in terms of talent. They just played very competitive ball all year and I feel were still definitely deserving of 10 bids (I actually had a problem with Marquette).
I also don’t feel that just because Florida State saved the ACC it means we deserved one or two more bids. No…four was appropriate.
On the plethora of dumb mistakes in the tourney thus far, John Branch / New York Times:
“When Butler’s Shelvin Mack made what he called ‘the dumbest mistake of my life’ against Pittsburgh, it was merely the second-silliest thing a player did in the course of six-tenths of a second.
“Mack was just one of many seemingly smart players who committed a game-bending goof in the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. A theme has emerged, summed up in one word: Oops.
“Many of the 16 teams remaining have been aided by last-minute blunders – a halfcourt shot lofted long before the buzzer, a timeout when leading in the final seconds, a misstep across the backcourt line, missed free throws, poorly timed turnovers and – in the case of Butler and Pittsburg – back-to-back fouls, with less than two seconds left, that defied explanation….
“ ‘I’ve never seen anything like that in 39 years of coaching,’ said (Jim Calhoun of UConn). ‘Both plays.’”
Then you had my favorite, North Carolina’s John Henson, who on Washington’s last tick desperation shot that was short, leapt to knock it away on what could have been called goaltending (though the shot turned out to be from two-point land, not the needed three).
“ ‘I said, ‘What were you thinking?’’ North Carolina Coach Roy Williams said of Henson….
“ ‘What were you thinking?’ is, so far, the unofficial motto of the 2011 tournament….
“How about Arizona, winner of two games by a combined 3 points? The Wildcats trailed by 2 on Sunday when Texas’ Jordan Hamilton hauled in a loose ball with 14 seconds left. Instead of waiting to be fouled so he could attempt the clinching free throws (Hamilton was a 78% shooter from the line), Hamilton called a timeout – now the most famous timeout since Michigan’s Chris Webber called one that the team did not possess in the 1993 championship game.
“After the timeout, Texas was unable to inbound the ball – the referee counted to five a little quickly – and turned the ball over to Arizona. The Wildcats did put the ball in play. They not only scored, but Derrick Williams was fouled and made the free throw for the winning point.”
And then there were those last-second attempts by Louisville (vs. Morehead State) and Vanderbilt (vs. Richmond) that were taken by ineffective reserves, not the regulars. ‘Sup wit dat?
“I had probably the worst foul in Butler history. But then the dude from Pittsburgh made up for me.”
B-Ball Bits
–Considering the regular season was really the pits, save for Kemba and Jimmer (and a few of us would add the emergence of SDSU), the tourney has been as compelling as any in recent memory. Regardless of how this weekend unfolds, we are headed for a super title game.
–The Florida State – Virginia Commonwealth matchup is the first time ever for 10 and 11 seeds.
–Tennessee finally fired one of the true jerks in the sport, Coach Bruce Pearl. It turns out other transgressions aside from the commonly known NCAA investigation from last fall have come up, including drug use on the team. The coach and his staff also appear to have violated the player “pass list” for a late-season game against Kentucky. Pearl compiled a 145-61 record in Knoxville and was still popular among the faithful. But then this is a community that tolerated all manner of shenanigans involving the football team as well.
—Rick Pitino was fine in the CBS studio last weekend, but it was kind of comical seeing him defend the referees and act as if we’re a bunch of schmucks and couldn’t figure out his hidden agenda.
Elizabeth Taylor
For anyone over about the age of 45, Liz Taylor defined Hollywood. Her son Michael Wilding said of his mother, who died on Wednesday at the age of 79:
“My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor and love. Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts.”
“Long after she faded from the screen, she remained a mesmerizing figure, blessed and cursed by the extraordinary celebrity that molded her life through its many phases: She was a child star who bloomed gracefully into an ingénue; a femme fatale on the screen and in life; a canny peddler of high-priced perfume; a pioneering activist in the fight against AIDS.
“Some actresses, such as Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman, won more awards and critical plaudits, but none matched Taylor’s hold on the collective imagination. In the public’s mind, she was the dark goddess for whom playing Cleopatra, as she did with such notoriety, required no great leap from reality.
“Taylor, New York Times critic Vincent Canby once wrote, ‘has grown up in the full view of a voracious public for whom the triumphs and disasters of her personal life have automatically become extensions of her screen performances. She’s different from the rest of us.’
“Her passions were legend. She loved to eat, which led to well-publicized battles with weight over the years. She loved men, dating many of the world’s richest and most famous, including Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger and Malcolm Forbes, and married eight times, including the two visits to the altar with (Richard) Burton.
“She loved jewels, amassing huge and expensive baubles the way children collect toys.
“ ‘It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a big ring on Elizabeth Taylor’s finger,’ Andy Warhol once mused about the woman who owned the 33-carat Krupp diamond ring – a gift from Burton that she wore daily. It broadcast to the world that she was a lady with an enormous lust for life.”
But Taylor was also a walking M*A*S*H unit, suffering an estimated 70 illnesses. By her own count, she nearly died four times. For much of her life she dealt with pain and developed an addition to alcohol and prescription drugs.
No. 1…Conrad Nicholas Hilton Jr. [lasted eight months]
No. 2…Michael Wilding [five years]
No. 3…Mike Todd [just a year before he was killed in a plane crash, leaving her a widow at 26]
No. 4…Eddie Fisher [about five years, though with a two-year separation during which time Liz was having an affair with Burton]
No. 5…Richard Burton* [ten years]
No. 6…Richard Burton [retied the knot…for less than a year]
No. 7…John Warner [about four years]
No. 8…Larry Fortensky [five years]
*Burton said of the first time meeting Liz at a swim party:
“She was, I decided, the most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen.” She was, “beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography.”
Taylor won Oscars for her roles in “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
But if you had to pick one film and role that defined her it was “Cleopatra,” with a record-breaking production price of $62 million that symbolized Taylor’s life and many excesses. She also contracted pneumonia during filming in Rome and almost died.
Liz Taylor, though, may end up being remembered for her AIDS activism as much as anything. In 1985, with friends of hers dying from it, she agreed to chair the first major benefit. Sinatra turned her down, but it was then that Rock Hudson made his stunning admission and her high-profile plus public sympathy for Hudson allowed them to raise $1 million.
So we bid a fond adieu to a giant in the truest sense of the word…Liz Taylor. RIP.
–My initial first reaction when reading of the first day of the Barry Bonds trial and the jury selection was he’ll never be convicted. [Eight women, four men.]
But on Tuesday once again Greg Anderson, Bonds’ personal trainer, refused to testify. He was immediately escorted by marshals into custody and another term in prison, his fifth for his role in the BALCO case and ongoing refusal to testify.
So the man who allegedly supplied steroids to Bonds is hangin’ with his buddy and the prosecution is screwed.
Meanwhile, one of Bonds’ lawyers, Allen Ruby, said Bonds admits he used steroids, but, trainer Anderson misled him into thinking he was taking flaxseed oil and arthritis cream, to which Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Parrella responded such claims were “ridiculous and unbelievable.”
And as I go to post, on Wednesday, Bonds former business partner Steve Hoskins told the jury that Baroid did indeed use anabolic steroids in 1999.
–Hall of Fame football player Lawrence Taylor received six years probation for statutory rape of a 16-year-old prostitute.
Steve Serby / New York Post…Serby having co-authored LT’s second book.
“There will be more than a few football Giants fans, most of them fathers, who sadly will hide their beloved 56 jerseys in the back of their closet, and some may even burn them, if they haven’t done so already. Maybe in six years, if he can avoid the trouble that has relentlessly chased him the way he once chased quarterbacks, they can wear those 56 jerseys proudly again and not have to explain to their children that the hero they worshipped as LT is a sex offender.
“In the meantime, across the next six years, Lawrence Taylor will be wearing a Scarlet Letter, one he knitted himself inside a dark Room 160 of a Holiday Inn in Montebello, N.Y., on May 6. He will be 58 years old when his probation is scheduled to end, when those fathers will decide whether it is safe to wear 56 again….
“At his Hall of Fame induction in 1999, he concluded his moving speech talking about what he wanted his legacy to be:
“ ‘Life, like anything else,’ he said, ‘can knock you down, it can turn you out….You have problems every day in your life…and no matter how many times it knocks you down, no matter how many times you think you can’t go forward, no matter how many times things just don’t go right…Anybody can quit. Anybody can do that.
“ ‘A Hall of Famer never quits. A Hall of Famer realizes that the crime is not being knocked down, the crime is not getting up again.’
“I sincerely hope he gets up again. But if you don’t see as many 56 jerseys in the stands at New Meadowlands Stadium this season – and there will be a football season, trust me – you’ll understand why. And, for as long as saddened Giants fans look at him now not as LT but as S.O. – sex offender – so should he.”
[Note: The judge will rule in April what level of sex offender LT is, which then determines various steps LT must take on an ongoing basis in terms of registering with authorities.]
–I did indeed sleep better Sunday night and it had to be my subconscious telling me that Monday morning, at 8:08 a.m., Mets lefthander Oliver Perez would be released, the team eating the last year of a 3-year, $36 million contract that goes down in baseball history as one of the 4 or 5 worst, no doubt. So coupled with the release of second baseman Luis Castillo and his $6 million deal for 2011, Mets fans rejoiced.
[Castillo was signed to a minor-league contract by Philadelphia and then inexplicably didn’t show for his first exhibition game until hours after the contest.]
But just imagine, during the course of the first two years of Perez’s outlandish deal, he went 3-9 with a 6.81 ERA in 31 appearances. He also walked an even 100 in 112 innings over that span. What really did him in with both fans and his teammates, though, was his refusal last season to go to the minors to try and get his act together.
Unfortunately, while the Mets may be a little more likable without these two albatrosses, I still pencil them in for 43-119. And as the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro points out, without Castillo and Perez the fans will be looking for new scapegoats.
“A word of advice to Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran: Get off to hot starts. An additional suggestion to Francisco Rodriguez. Replicate your perfect spring come April. Because you three, sirs, are the next men up.”
–I knew the Chicago Bulls and Derrick Rose were having a good season, he a ‘great’ one, but where have I been? It’s like I suddenly look up and after Tuesday’s demolition of Atlanta it hit me. These guys are 51-19! Heck, I remember when they started the season 9-8. 42-11 since. Goodness gracious.
—The Knicks, thru Tuesday, are now 7-9 with Carmelo Anthony, while Denver, who received four Knicks players in return for Melo, is 10-4 since the trade (which also involved other teams). Monday night was a pure embarrassment at Madison Square Garden as the Knicks blew a big lead and lost 96-86 to the Celtics with Melo and Amar’e Stoudemire both going scoreless in the fourth quarter. Boston showed the Knicks how to play, and win, as a team.
–NFL owners have voted to change the rules on kickoffs to cut down on injuries. The kickoff will be moved up 5 yards to the 35-yard-line, plus no member of the kicking team other than the kicker can line up more than 5 yards behind the ball so they would get less of a running start. The kickoff had been moved back to the 30-yard-line in 1994 to encourage offense. Now, with the changes, an estimated 30% of kickoffs will be touchbacks. This is incredibly stupid.
The owners’ competition committee also ruled referees can review all scoring plays, rather than just during the final two minutes of each half and overtime. This will give me another option in terms of timing for getting another beer.
–Lee Trevino told Golfweek’s “Forecaddie” of a solution for slow play on the PGA Tour.
“When I went out on Tour years ago, they gave you two shots, automatic,” Trevino recallsed. “(Jack) Nicklaus got two shots right away, (1962) up at Portland. [Former tournament director] Joe Black gave it to him. I’ll never forget it. He was slow playing. He said, ‘You got two.’ He won it anyway. He still won. But he got two…These guys [today] are making $10 million a year. What the hell is a fine? You understand? I don’t care if it’s a $10,000 fine; that’s not anything.
“I guarantee you, after you give a couple of them, these guys will be running up No. 1. They will hit their driver. They will be jogging out there. They will be wearing Fred Couples shoes, those Eccos, where you could run and everything.”
—Nikolai Andrianov, the great Russian gymnast, died at the age of 58 of a degenerative nerve disease. It was in the 1972, 76, and 80 Summer Olympics that Adrianov won a then-record 15 medals, seven of them gold. He was the 1976 Olympic all-around champion. Among men, only Michael Phelps, now with 16, has won more Olympic medals.
–Superstar polar bear Knut died of undiagnosed brain damage, the Berlin Zoo said after performing a preliminary autopsy.
–Good news. Production on “The Hobbit” is finally in full swing after numerous delays. The first of the two parts is slated for Christmas 2012. And now with New Zealand’s latest devastating earthquake, the jobs created by Peter Jackson’s production in the country, an estimated 1,000, along with an anticipated $1 billion in spending, couldn’t be more timely for the Kiwis’ economy.
—Squirrel update: After my note on the squirrel issue in Bennington, Vermont, that threatens to involve the nation in another war, though this one on our own soil, Brad K. passed along a piece from Lance Cpl. Victor Barrera who reports there is a serious threat at Camp LeJeune, N.C. The squirrels have been wreaking havoc all over the base and Chad Garber, a local wildlife expert, said homeowners need to keep their lawns clear of debris because squirrels chew on anything on the ground.
But I’m thinking the opposite should be tried. Spread bird seed and nuts all over one lawn and attract hundreds of them to that location, a true sting operation, then call in the airpower. Pow! No more squirrels. [It would be over so quickly, no one in Congress could bring up the War Powers Act.]
–Mattel’s Ken doll turned 50 and the company decided to give the plastic one a new face, a la Kenny Rogers. Kurtis Taylor, a former defensive lineman for Iowa State, won a contest to be the new look for Ken.
The thing is, Ken, who had broken up with Barbie in 2004, got back together with her on Valentine’s Day, so talk about messin’ with Barbie!
“Ah, I didn’t want to tell you but the company insisted on it.”
“Don’t you read your contract, Ken? You’re such a putz. I’m going to the Hasbro Club and find me an Afghan war vet…a real G.I. Joe.”
–Oh baby. I’ve promoted Paul Sorvino pasta sauces before, but just discovered Paul Sorvino pasta and I swear it’s delicious. Produced in Italy, friends. From the Sorvinos to us. Thank you, Paul.
–Forbes Lifestyle reports that of the 1,210 billionaires they came up with, worldwide, just 36 have never been married, which is kind of startling. Another 81 are divorced and six are separated, so 123 billionaires looking for love, but only 33 of them are under the age of 50. Sixteen of the single billionaires are bachelorettes. [Don’t know any of ‘em, mused your editor.]
–A growing number of Queenslanders in Australia have taken to eating a national icon, the emu, one of the healthiest meats on the menu. Sarah and Stephen Schmidt own the only commercial emu farm in the state…some 1500 birds…and recently started selling emu kebabs, sausages and steaks. And a local pie shop in Queensland is going to start its own range of emu pies. Evidently it is very rich and tender, plus it’s low in saturated fat, a good source of protein and omega 3, sports fans! Kind of like the noble Yak, whose meat, never gamey, is healthier to eat than skinless chicken or fish!!! [Almost ordered some Yak burgers from Del Yaks of Montrose, CO, but they’re out.]
–Rocker Sammy Hagar said it’s true, he really was abducted by aliens, at least his brain was. In an interview with MTV to hump his new book, “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock,” Hagar says:
“It was real. They were plugged into me. It was a download situation…Or, they uploaded something from my brain, like an experiment.”
—Ralph Mooney died. He was 82. Don’t know him? I did. Mooney was only the best steel guitarist in history, an architect of the “Bakersfield sound,” and a man who played with the likes of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Waylon Jennings, with whom he played for 20 years. Mooney even performed last year on four tunes for Marty Stuart’s Grammy-winning album “Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions.”
Stuart said of his friend, “He was my all-time country music hero as far as musicians go.”
Chris Hillman, a founding member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, said: “Nobody played steel like Ralph…When Ralph took a solo, you knew it was all California.”
Mooney actually brought the steel sound back in the 1950s and 1960s when the Nashville sound was beginning to dominate. As a songwriter, he co-wrote the classic “Crazy Arms,” a No. 1 hit for Ray Price in 1956.
When Waylon Jennings hired Mooney, Waylon said: “Hell, there’s only one steel guitar player, and it’s Ralph Mooney.”
As for his relationship with Merle Haggard, Mooney played on such hits as “Swinging Doors” and, my favorite, “The Bottle Let Me Down.” Now that has to be a top ten song title of all time.
Ralph Mooney was born in Duncan, Okla., in Sept. 1928 and moved west to California to live with one of his sisters. He actually worked for Douglas Aircraft before hitting the music scene.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/28/64: #1 “She Loves You” (The Beatles) #2 “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (The Beatles) #3 “Twist And Shout” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “Please Please Me” (The Beatles…who were these guys, these Beatles?) #5 “Dawn” (The Four Seasons) #6 “Fun, Fun, Fun” (The Beach Boys) #7 “Suspicion” (Terry Stafford…sounded like Elvis) #8 “Hello, Dolly!” (Louis Armstrong) #9 “My Heart Belongs To Only You” (Bobby Vinton) #10 “Glad All Over” (The Dave Clark Five…the next five years would be music’s best, including the 100 years encompassing Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninoff)
1987-88 NCAA Basketball Quiz Answer: Danny Manning had 31 points and 18 rebounds in his performance for the ages. His main teammates were Milt Newton, Kevin Pritchard, Chris Piper, Scooter Barry, Keith Harris, Jeff Gueldner, Lincoln Minor, Clint Normore. Oklahoma’s starting five, by the way, was Dave Sieger, Stacey King, Mookie Blaylock, Harvey Grant, and Ricky Grace. Andre Wiley and Terrence Mullins were key reserves.
