NCAA Basketball Quiz: If you watched ESPN’s “I Hate Christian Laettner,” which was very good, then this quiz may be for you. In the 1990-91 season, Duke beat undefeated UNLV in the semis of the tournament and then Kansas 72-65 for their first title. Name the ten on the consensus first and second team All-American squads. I’ll give you Christian Laettner (2nd team) and the initials and schools on the other nine. [S.S., E.M., K.J., S. A., B.O., L.J., J. J., K.A., S.O….UNLV (2), LSU, Syracuse, Ohio State, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, Providence, East Tenn. State) Answer below.
College Basketball…let’s get it on…
AP Poll (Mar. 16)
1. Kentucky 34-0 (65)
2. Villanova 32-2
3. Wisconsin 31-3
4. Duke 29-4
5. Arizona 31-3
6. Virginia 29-3
7. Gonzaga 32-2
8. Notre Dame 29-5
9. Iowa State 25-8
10. Kansas 26-8
11. Northern Iowa 30-3
14. Wichita State 28-4…but a 7-seed?!
18. SMU 27-6
Simple rule at Bar Chat. We don’t report on ‘multiple’ brackets. Simple rule No. 2…if you said at the start of the season that Team X was going to win it all and they’re in the field, well you have to stick with them.
So my Elite Eight is…
1 Kentucky over 7 Wichita State
1 Wisconsin over 2 Arizona
2 Virginia over 1 Villanova
8 San Diego State over 2 Gonzaga
SDSU over Wisconsin 56-52
Of course this is totally ridiculous, but I had to go with the Aztecs when I said before the season started they’d go all the way. And I’ve also said Kentucky would go down at some point and Wisconsin will be the team to do it.
Actually, I really am confident SDSU, if it gets by St. John’s (and the Johnnies, playing without their big man, Obekpa*, are doomed), can defeat Duke. I just see that as a favorable match-up. The Aztecs have some bodies they can throw at Okafor and if he has a poor night at the foul line, who knows.
*Obekpa was suspended hours before the tournament bracket was released on Sunday for failing a drug test…marijuana.
As for the first round (no, I don’t think the play-in games are the first round), the only upsets 12 or higher I have are 12 Buffalo over 5 West Virginia; 12 Wofford over 5 Arkansas; and 13 E. Washington over 4 Georgetown. [The Eagles have the nation’s leading scorer in Tyler Harvey, plus the game is in Portland, Oregon.]
–I noted early in the season that Providence could surprise some people this season and thus far they have. I have them losing to UVA in the Sweet 16.
–Should Wichita State and Kansas win their first-round games, that sets up a matchup between two in-state rivals that haven’t played each other since 1993, if you can believe that. Actually, as Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal puts it, “Kansas fans care so little about Wichita State that they prefer to pretend the Shockers don’t exist.” Oh yeah, we want this game. Shockers coach Gregg Marshall deserves it, too.
“Only two rookie coaches have reached the Final Four. One was Bill Guthridge, who took over a strong top-seeded North Carolina team in 1998. And the other was Steve Fisher, who got thrust into the Michigan coaching role when Bill Frieder jumped ship to Arizona State just before the tourney, prompting Bo Schembechler to famously snap, ‘A Michigan man will coach Michigan.’”
Meanwhile, regarding ‘snake-bit’ coaches, by which Greenberg means coaches that have at least five trips to the dance but no Elite Eight appearances, you have Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, who has taken 11 teams to the tournament, but has just one Sweet 16 appearance.
–The consensus Vegas odds have Kentucky at an unheard of 1/1; or rather Vegas is taking Kentucky and giving you the field. It just doesn’t happen like this.
Vegas is also saying that while Kentucky is great, the other so-called powers are far from great. I would definitely agree with that. This tournament would really be up in the air without Kentucky.
–One year after the state of Indiana was shut out it has five schools in the dance…Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Butler and Valparaiso.
–In Tuesday’s play-in games, 16 Hampton defeated 16 Manhattan 74-64 to earn the right to get annihilated by Kentucky, while in the nightcap 11 Ole Miss trailed 11 BYU 49-32 at half, only to storm back and torch the Cougars for 62 points in the second on the way to a 94-90 win. The Rebels now face 6-seed Xavier. BYU’s stellar senior guard, Tyler Haws, ended his career with 33 points.
–Dr. W., for the record, has Arizona defeating Gonzaga in the finals.
–Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal says by now we all know the drill when it comes to March Madness and our bracket.
I’m quaffing domestic throughout this exercise, as well.
“Kentucky Coach John Calipari may have summed it up best when he said recently: ‘I just want the regular season over with.’
“The NCAA tournament has arrived to rescue us from months of a different kind of madness.
“No one even pretends anymore that the college version of a great game, conceived by James Naismith and propagated by John Wooden, is in good shape.
“This season’s national per-team scoring average, according to analytics guru Ken Pomeroy, was 66.85 points per game entering the NCAA tournament. That projects to eclipse the record low of 66.91 points in 2012-13.
“College basketball coaches are strangling free-flow offense with their incessant use of timeouts and go-slow tactics of clock-shot management.
“The exodus of one-and-done players to the NBA continues to deplete the talent pool and refocuses the game on defense, which is easier to teach….
“Basketball has become the opposite of football, where defenses are chasing innovative, fast-paced college offenses like those run at Oregon and Auburn….
“The stingiest teams exhaust the 35-seond shot clock while, as Pomeroy puts it, ‘hunting and pecking’ for offense….
“ ‘I think the game is in crisis,’ said Doug Gottlieb, a former college player who is a CBS analyst. ‘And I don’t think it’s in crisis just because of the final scores.’….
“Perhaps nothing has been more damaging than awarding automatic NCAA bids to conference tournament champions. One bad day or a lucky shot can wipe out four months of hard work….
“This season, Murray State won 27 games and went 16-0 in the Ohio Valley Conference, only to lose the league tournament championship on a last-second shot by Belmont. That shot sent the Bruins (22-10) to the NCAA tournament, while Murray State had to settle for the NIT.
“College basketball is a cautionary tale for why college football doesn’t want to risk its riveting regular season for an extended playoff….
“National attendance figures sagged 2.2% in 2013-14 and it looks like the trend continued this season as cable and conference networks saturated the airwaves with games.
“Fans once eagerly awaited intersectional rivalries like UCLA vs. Notre Dame. This season, only die-hards would remember Duke at Wisconsin on Dec. 3.
“On a recent Saturday in Los Angeles, 51 college games were available on television.”
–I said last time I was doing something on Len Bias and I’m just going to hold off until the anniversary of his death in June, having some material that is in addition to what I wrote last July, which was related to the mini-controversy over whether the University of Maryland should honor him, which the school finally did.
I’ve been writing for a few years now that the NFL, and its fans, are in a state of denial. I’ve written I love the sport, but the concussion issue is only going to get worse and one day a player is going to die on the field, one who has reentered a game when he shouldn’t, and the sport will be changed forever. That’s been my mantra.
So we had Patrick Willis retiring at 30 the other day, and three others with him, and then on Monday we learned San Francisco linebacker Chris Borland, all of 24 and one of the league’s promising talents as a rookie last season, said he was retiring out of concern for the long-term effects of potential concussions and head injuries should he play the sport for years.
Borland told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” “I just honestly want to do what’s best for my health. From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
Borland added, “I’m concerned that if you wait till you have symptoms, it’s too late… There are a lot of unknowns. I can’t claim that X will happen. I just want to live a long healthy life, and I don’t want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise….
“I mean, if it could potentially kill you – I know that’s a drastic way to put it, but it is a possibility – that really puts it in perspective to me,” he said. “ To me, it just wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“I can relate from the outside looking in that it wouldn’t make sense to a lot of people, and I’ve had close friends who have said, ‘Well, why don’t you just play one more year, it’s a lot more money, you probably won’t get hurt.’ I just don’t want to get in a situation where I’m negotiating my health for money. Who knows how many hits is too many?” [Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada / ESPN.com]
Borland was selected by the 49ers in the third round of the 2014 draft, after starring at Wisconsin, where he earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2013. He then went on to make 107 tackles for San Fran, starting the last eight games after replacing the injured Patrick Willis.
49ers general manager Trent Baalke said in a statement: “While unexpected, we certainly respect Chris’ decision. From speaking with Chris, it was evident that he had put a great deal of thought into this decision. He was a consummate professional from day one and a very well respected member of our team and community. Chris is a determined young man that overcame long odds in his journey to the NFL and we are confident he will use the same approach to become very successful in his future endeavors. We will always consider him a 49er and wish him all the best.”
“Nobody will stop watching pro football because Chris Borland retires at the age of 24. You still better pay attention to this. Borland was working on a four-year contract worth around $3 million, and there was more where that came from. He made more than 100 tackles last season. He was on his way. Now he decides he does not want to make a living in a sport where the bill that can be presented later on can ruin the rest of your life.
“This isn’t about some aging player talking about the kind of bill that has been presented to them in their 40s and in their 50s, the kind of bill that has been presented to aging boxers for a long time. This is a young guy doing it. Again: The business of the NFL will go on. You can bet, the way people love to bet on pro football, that there will be a chorus of current players and even ex-players trying to drown out what Chris Borland told ESPN.
“ ‘I just thought to myself, ‘What am I doing? Is this how I’m going to live my adult life, banding my head, especially with what I’ve learned and knew about the dangers?’’ Borland says to ‘Outside the Lines.’…
“(Borland) is not calling anybody negligent here. This is a promising football player talking about being ‘proactive.’ He has been diagnosed with two concussions in his life, only one because of football, the other suffered as a teenaged soccer player. But he says he has been thinking about doing what he now does since the end of the preseason, telling his family at that time that he thought his career in pro football might be brief.
“It turns out to last a year. Now he tells you all about it. An eloquent voice speaks with great clarity to the dangers of a violent game. Chris Borland, who used to play for the 49ers, makes sense while he still can.”
–In a 118-111 loss in double overtime to visiting Denver on Sunday night, New Orleans’ Anthony Davis had one of the great performances of all time in becoming the first player since blocks were recorded – in at least 30 seasons – to have at least 36 points, 14 rebounds, nine blocks and seven assists in an NBA game.
Davis also became the second player in NBA history to score more than 30 points, grab more than 10 rebounds, block eight shots and record seven assists, which Hall of Famer David Robinson did twice.
–Marc Berman of the New York Post had a story on Phil Jackson and his disastrous first year running the Knicks. He has a five-year contract but one really does wonder if he’ll pack it in, if not after this season and the draft (my thought) or just anytime soon.
“After watching the 69-year-old former ‘Action Jackson’ hobble from his black Mercedes-Benz up the stairs of the UCLA gym Thursday, it is more understandable why he hasn’t made a Knicks road trip other than to his Los Angeles neighborhood. Knee, hip, back and heart issues have plagued Jackson for years….
“On multiple occasions, Jackson has blamed (this disastrous season) on his fiancée, Lakers president Jeanie Buss.
“Since his 2011 coaching retirement, Buss had wanted Jackson to do more than putter around their Playa del Rey, Calif., home and take long walks on the beach. Buss told confidants she wasn’t planning on retiring from the Lakers anytime soon, especially during the transition following her father’s death. Hence, she wanted Jackson to stay busy.
“When asked Thursday why he wanted to become president of the Knicks, Jackson said, ‘It’s not something I wanted to do, it’s something my partner said, ‘You’re sitting on all this information. Come on out and destroy a basketball team that you love.’ So that’s what I’ve done.’
“Longtime Jackson watchers think he’s just putting us all on. But the truth is Jackson’s first choice was to run the franchise potentially relocated in Seattle. Except the Sacramento Kings…stayed put.
“In a recent interview, Jackson made a foreboding comment about his Knicks longevity.
“ ‘It isn’t ideal,’ Jackson said of a bicoastal relationship. ‘It was not something I would necessarily bargain to do, to live away from the companion I’ve had for 15 years. But she said, ‘We’ll be fine.’ And there is something about being fruitful, purposeful in life.’
“And then Jackson added the kicker: ‘If I’m not here four or five years down the road, then I have a young coach I believe in who will complete it.’”
He’s gone. He could leave after the draft and free-agency and say he began to put together the pieces that will bring the franchise back. It would help if the Knicks won the lottery and selected Okafor or Willie Caulie-Stein, who has rocketed up draft boards the past few months. Or, he could wait for the team to get off to a solid start next fall, say 20-20, and leave around mid-season. But I’m guessing he is out by next spring…doesn’t last all next year. And no one will protest.
–We note the passing of former NBA player Jack Haley, just 51. The cause of death was heart disease. Haley was a reserve forward-center for nine seasons and picked up a championship ring with the 1996 Chicago Bulls. He also played for the Nets, Lakers and Spurs. The Bulls drafted him out of UCLA in 1987.
–Oh brother…it’s started again, before the first pitch of the regular season. Another Mets pitcher needing Tommy John surgery, this time young gun Zack Wheeler, who I noted last time was supposedly OK…until he wasn’t.
Nine Mets – Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Jeremy Hefner, Jenrry (sic) Mejia, Mike Pelfrey, Bobby Parnell, Josh Edgin and Wheeler, have gone down to TJ surgery since 2010, though deGrom came back to become N.L. rookie of the year last season, Mejia has become a successful reliever, Matz has fully recovered and could be on the big-league squad by mid-season, while in the case of Harvey, he threw four shutout innings on Monday and we’ll see what happens this year, and Parnell, the former closer, is due to come back around May.
The Mets’ medical team has been criticized heavily over the years, but of course it’s an industry issue, torn elbow ligaments. But as an organization are they really doing something wrong?
GM Sandy Alderson said in the case of Wheeler, he dealt with an elbow issue all last season, and had MRIs in September and January that were clean, so when the kid arrived in camp, the medical staff didn’t feel Wheeler should be treated any differently than he had been.
But as an outside physician told the New York Times’ David Waldstein, most likely Wheeler had a partial tear last year that wasn’t picked up.
Meanwhile, Wheeler was such a key component that while the team is deep in starters, if they had any hope of competing with Washington, they probably needed an improving Wheeler. Washington, of course, has Tommy John survivors Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg.
—Pete Rose petitioned baseball commissioner Rob Manfred asking that his lifetime ban be lifted.
“I want to make sure I understand all of the details of the Dowd Report and Commissioner [Bart] Giamatti’s decision and the agreement that was ultimately reached,” Manfred said after a meeting with Dodgers players in Arizona on Monday. “I want to hear what Pete has to say, and I’ll make a decision once I’ve done that.”
Gaining reinstatement is a first step in having Rose on the Hall of Fame ballot.
–Bobby C., one of Summit High School’s all-time great pitchers, and teammate of Willie Wilson’s, was at Padres camp in Arizona the other day and said Matt Kemp looked great. Healthy and in shape, as he put it. Plus, “he signed autographs for every kid who wanted one at every opportunity. Upbeat, sunny, sense of humor!” Personally, I was hoping the Mets would pick him up.
Golf Balls
—World Golf Rankings after the Valspar Championship won by Jordan Spieth.
1. Rory McIlroy
2. Bubba Watson
3. Henrik Stenson
4. Adam Scott
5. Jason Day
6. Jordan Spieth
7. Jim Furyk
8. Sergio Garcia
9. Dustin Johnson
10. Justin Rose
15. Patrick Reed
–There’s a piece in Golfworld talking about Michelle Wie’s hole-in-one this weekend at the Bear’s Club, her home course in Jupiter, Fla. She reported it was the 11th of her life, her first coming at age 12. Wie, still only 25, is thus tied with Kathy Whitworth for the most aces ever recorded by a woman professional, at least according to a Golf Digest survey compiled in 1990. Nancy Lopez is next at nine.
For the men, Art Wall’s 45 still leads all tour pros, with Sam Snead second at 32. According to a recent USA TODAY story, Jack Nicklaus had 22, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player 19 apiece, and Tiger Woods 18.
But hole-in-ones are not necessarily a measure of greatness. Ben Hogan only had four, Lee Trevino and Annika Sorenstam three, and Seve Ballesteros just two.
–In another blow for Tiger, Rory McIlroy is replacing him as the face of EA Sports’ PGA Tour video game. Woods and EA Sports had released a total of 14 video games together, though the partnership actually ended in October 2013.
–Could be an interesting weekend at Bay Hill as the greens are being criticized during the practice rounds. The course is changing them for next year, but some players are describing the surfaces as shaggy and not up to typical Tour standards. Players were actually advised last week at the Valspar Championship that Bay Hill wasn’t up to snuff.
–Over the years I’ve had many stories on how Tiger Woods shaped today’s PGA Tour…how just as in Arnie’s day, today’s pros owe so much to Tiger.
The other day I had a conversation with a former Wake Forest athlete (a football player who back in the 1980s actually made the cover of Sports Illustrated) and it was about my business and his. Unfortunately for me, there isn’t a fit, yet, but I knew he was once with IMG, where among other things he managed the careers of some golfers, so we briefly talked about the money made today vs. back when he was in the game.
So once again I couldn’t help but go back and look at some representative stats. The PGA Tour has one of the better past stat sections and on PGATour.com the money list goes back to 1980 (would love to see it eventually at least get to 1960).
I’m just picking some random dates, some of it being because of the Wake associate’s timeline. And the focus of our conversation was on the #125 cut line for retaining one’s Tour card.
1980…Tom Watson was #1 with $530,808 in winnings (he won 7 events that year)…#125 was at $19,895. 1980 was my first year in the workplace as a clerk/typist for an insurance/brokerage firm in Manhattan and I was earning $9,100 annualized ($175 a week)…the point being this was pathetic that such a good golfer, even if #125, was hardly making a living, especially given all his expenses…caddy, travel, paying off sponsors, etc.
Now fast-forward to 1988, around the time C.R. (sorry, C.R., couldn’t keep calling you ‘Wake associate’) was beginning his IMG career.
Wake’s Curtis Strange was #1 on the money list with $1,147,000 (4 wins).
It’s kind of interesting…Sandy Lyle was #7 at $726,934, though he had 3 wins. Tom Kite was #6 at $760,405 (but with zero wins…this was a memorable stretch for us golf junkies…talk about always being in the hunt….Kite had a lot of similar years).
1990…Tom Lehman was #1 at $1,780,000…#125 was at $123,908.
1996…Tiger hits the scene as a professional…#125 earns $167,852.
Tiger’s impact then means everything for every single golfer on Tour.
2000…Tiger earns $9,188,000 (9 wins). Phil Mickelson is second at $4,746,000. #125 is $391,075! Look at the jump just since 1996! Why that’s Weimar Germany type inflation, sports fans!
2004…Tiger is going through one of his retooling jobs and Vijay Singh is #1 at $10,905,000 (9 wins…we forget what a spectacular year that was for Vijay). Tiger was 4th at $5,365,000, winning just once. But #125 was up to $623,262! [On the other hand, marginal baseball and basketball players were still making far more…yet another reason why I love golf as much as I do; I respect the hell out of these guys. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS!!!]
2009…Tiger is #1 at $10,508,000…#125 is at $662,000
2014…Rory McIlroy is #1 at $8,280…#125 at $713,000. [C.R., I told you around $500,000 off the top of my head…my bad.]
Well, you see the point rather graphically. Tiger Woods made the world a better place for the PGA Tour and every golfer worth a damn recognizes that.
But as I pointed out a few months ago, it’s still only the top 30 or so, in the world, making the truly spectacular bucks, including endorsements, whereas there are about 150 MLB and NBA players doing the same. The NFL is deceiving, while the NHL pales in comparison.
And then there is the LPGA Tour. I’ve covered that topic better than anyone around. Unless you are top 60 or so, it’s tough to make any kind of a living and that’s a shame.
—Baseball America College Poll
1. LSU
2. Florida
3. TCU
4. Vanderbilt
5. Texas A&M
13. Florida State*
18. Dallas Baptist
*Wake Forest (14-8, 3-3 ACC) won one out of three in Tallahassee this past weekend. The Deacs’ Will Craig is hitting .432 with 7 HR 33 RBI. As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’ I said before that starter Parker Dunshee was a freshman…well the roster now shows him morphing into a sophomore.
–So I mentioned the weather at the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, but at the time didn’t have more details. The race started at Dodger Stadium and wound its way to Santa Monica and by noon, the thermometer at the beach near the finish line had hit 90 degrees. The start of the race was moved up a ½ hour to 7:30, but 185 people were treated along the way and at least 36 transported to hospitals. One man suffered a heart attack near mile-marker 22. He was revived by paramedics but his condition was unknown.
But you know how I had another one of those articles the other day about drinking too much in endurance races?
“Brian S. (I’m withholding his last name), 36, who traveled from Tennessee to compete in the elite men’s group, said he decided to drink twice as much fluid as usual before the start of the race because he was worried about dehydration.
“A few miles in, he was struck with a crippling side stich. He tried to push through the pain, but at mile 16, he decided to quit.
“When it became pretty clear that the race was going to be ugly, it made more sense to cut my losses,” he said.
Meanwhile, those who weren’t running enjoyed the record heat at the beach.
–The converse of record heat, of course, was Boston’s winter…and so for the archives we congratulate Beantowners on their record snowfall, achieved Sunday night…108.6 inches at Logan International Airport, topping the record of 107.9 inches set in 1995-96, according to the National Weather Service.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh tweeted: “Superbowls, World Series’, Stanley Cups, and snowfall records. We are truly a title city. There will be no parade.”
February’s record-setting monthly snowfall was 64.9 inches. The previous single month high was January 2005 when 43.3 inches fell.
–It’s estimated 7.5 million pints of Guinness were quaffed on St. Patrick’s Day, globally, which seems like a low number to me.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/19/77: #1 “Love Theme From ‘A Star Is Born’ (Evergeen)” (Barbra Streisand… whatever….) #2 “Fly Like An Eagle” (Steve Miller…spring of my freshman year at Wake and one of my friends overplayed this album ceaselessly…) #3 “Rich Girl” (Hall & Oates)…and…#4 “Night Moves” (Bob Seger) #5 “Dancing Queen” (Abba) #6 “I Like Dreamin’” (Kenny Nolan…I dream about the Mets and Jets winning a title…) #7 “Torn Between Two Lovers” (Mary MacGregor) #8 “Don’t Give Up On Us” (David Soul…cashed in on TV fame…hit #1 a month earlier…) #9 “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Thelma Houston) #10 “Go Your Own Way” (Fleetwood Mac… my favorite of theirs is ‘Hypnotized’…)
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answer: Consensus 1990-91 First-team All-American: Kenny Anderson (Georgia Tech), Jim Jackson (Ohio State), Larry Johnson (UNLV), Shaquille O’Neal (LSU), Billy Owens (Syracuse). Second-team: Stacey Augmon (UNLV), Keith Jennings (E. Tenn. St.), Christian Laettner (Duke), Eric Murdock (Providence), Steve Smith (Michigan State). Source: ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia [Hardcover…not sure this is still published but terrific book and source of all my recent quizzes.]
