What a snooze-fest the NCAA Championship game as turned in to. It feels like there hasn’t been a competitive game since Webber called his timeout (which never really happened since UofM erased those Final Four trips from their history books). I’m tired of it. Someone needs to start point shaving this game. Maybe someone can bring in a Toledo football player to make that happen. Or if you have a ten point lead you have to put in those token white guys at the end of your bench. Or you have to play with only four guys, or you have to turn it into an all-star game and just try to throw ally-ops to each other. Anything to make it more interesting. They also need to to move the game up from 9:30 Monday night to at least 8:00 or move it to Saturday night. I’m sick of staying up late and wasting my time watching a low quality basketball game. I just hope the Women’s Championship game is better tonight. (OK sorry. Bad joke. I’m not really watching the women’s basketball game. But during Saturday’s Final Four games, when it was 4-2 Florida during the first TV timeout and 6-5 during the second, I did make the bet with my brother than more points would be scored during the Women’s Final Four than the Men’s. It’s pretty bad if that bet can even be considered.)
I kind of feel bad for Ohio State. Poor guys just can’t beat Florida. Florida is their Michigan football during the John Cooper era. Florida is Ohio State to Michigan football during the Jim Tressel ear. They are Jordan’s Bulls to Price’s Cavs. They are the Yankees to the Red Sox (pre 2004). They are Roger Federer to the rest of tennis and Tiger to the field at Augusta. Poor Buckeyes. And yet OSU was dubbed “The Program” by Sports Illustrated. Weird.
Greg Oden played like it was his last college game. He couldn’t play more than 20 minutes in the previous three games but managed to play 38 against Florida. It’s like he decided he wanted to go out with a bang and win the title only his teammates couldn’t help him. Seriously, Oden finally put up the kind of game everyone expected all year with 25 points and 12 boards and a handful of impressive blocks and he couldn’t get any support? OSU’s talented guards and shooters had a better chance of sneaking into Florida’s locker room after the game and getting a ring than they did of making an outside shot. I found it funny that Jim Nance and Billy “I am the most hated man associated with the title game and that’s saying something since Joakim Noah is playing” Packer kept saying how tired Oden looked. Of course he’s tired. He carry his team and he’s not use to playing a full game. He’s averaged only 24 minutes a game this tournament. But now he carry his game to the NBA where he should wear No. 00 and be called Robert Parish Jr., or Chief II.
Father and son?
Florida made history with their back-to-back titles but it won’t be all happy news in Gainesville in the next few days. Coach Billy Donovan will be leaving for Florida. You heard it hear first. By Wednesday, maybe Thursday afternoon, Donovan will be at a press conference sitting in front of a big blue and white UK explaining why he left Florida. This why he will leave. 1) He has nothing left to do at Florida, 2) he has never said he wasn’t interested in Kentucky only that his attention was on UCLA then OSU, 3) he coached under Pitino at UK and 4) they are offering him something like $78 million more a year than Florida will.
Yes!!! I’m going to Kentucky!!
Not only does Florida lose their coach but they will lose their top six players too. I hope somehow Noah ends up with the Detroit Pistons to keep the ugliest NBA team alive going strong.
It’s never too early to pick a champion for next year so I’ll throw out Maryland call. Why? No idea. I guess I just like turtles. I just hope whoever they play, it’s a better game than the last few. What I do know for sure though, is that in 2009 the National Champion will be The Kentucky Wildcats. Give Donovan a year to recruit in Kentucky and he will stack that team with the best talent and win another title to go down as one of the all time greatest college coaches.
On an unrelated topic, I made a very significate discovery this weekend (well, actually my brother did). ESPN Classic is now showing American Gladiators. That’s right, American freaking Gladiators!!! Take a moment to let that soak in.
SWEEEEEEEET!
We all have our own special memories of AG and what the show meant to us. My brother and I were so into the show, we re-enacted most of the events in our basement growing up. The easiest ones to do were the football game and the wrestling. But, by far, our favorite event was ‘Assault.’ The game when the Gladiator shot balls from some big gun at the Challenger and the Challenger shot different objects at a target above the Gladiator. My brother and I had a few of those Nerf guns we used to make this happen and set up stations around our basement while the other sat on the stairs and threw tennis balls at the other. Good times. It’s so nice to see AG back on TV.
A good point was raised by my brother. Do you think Japan TV stations take old AG tapes and dub them over like Spike TV does with MXC? There is an erie similarity there.
