By Sean Quinn
Part of it was George Mason. OK, a lot of it was George Mason. Still, long before the Patriots slipped on the glass slipper, nobody was rooting for the Connecticut Huskies – not even themselves.
The Huskies had as much talent as any team in the country, but they were as heartless as the girls that rejected me in high school.
LSU is back in the Final Four for the first time in 20 years after defeating Duke and Texas, the top two seeds in the Atlanta Regional. Their tight defense and great frontcourt play dominated in both games for the 4th seeded Tigers.
LSU features five starters who are from just over 50 miles from the school campus. Glen Davis, Tyrus Thomas, and Garrett Temple are all from Baton Rouge, while Tasmin Mitchell is from the small town of Denham Springs which is within five miles of Baton Rouge down I-10. The lone senior starter, Darrel Mitchell, is from the town of St. Martinville.
These five players have been playing with or against each other for years, which is one of the major advantages for a team that is one of the youngest in the country.
Johnny Damon, when age and ability are both taken into consideration, was the best available free agent in this off season’s anorexic market. Instead of receiving the due diligence owed from his employer, The Boston Red Sox, both Damon and his representation felt slighted by the organization when they took a decidedly lackadaisical approach toward negotiations. When the New York Yankees stepped up both their pursuit and offer, Damon bolted, shedding ties with the team and fans that catapulted his image into stardom, and granted him the opportunity to shine on Baseball’s biggest stage. He did this with all the complex tact of a thief in the night, tainting sacred memories still lifting the spirit of Greater New England.
With this week being the last week of fantasy basketball, I thought I would review this NBA season in terms of the fantasy world. What players turned out to be fantasy busts? What players had breakout seasons? What trades and/or other major events shook the fantasy world?
Notes to readers: For the purpose of this article, I played on the Yahoo! game under Head-to-Head scoring. In addition, listed next to all honorable mentions are the reasons why they did not make the cut.
Ever wonder what it’s like to be 14 years old and be with three celebrities for a whopping 18 holes of boring… long… golf?
Did I mention this was for community service?…
Dan Snyder has opened his checkbook and spent liberally on both coaches and players this off-season. But will it work?
Please bear with me all you baseball fans in full time spring training mode. Take your eyes off of those brackets for just a second you college hoop nuts. NBA and NHL fans that can’t wait for some springtime playoff action give me your undivided attention. I’m a member of all the above groups, except for the baseball thing, but one sport always supersedes the others in my humble opinion. I live in an NFL world and there is always something to get excited about, even this deep into the off-season. What’s got my football heart pumping a bit faster this year you might ask…or might not? From this little spiel’s title you don’t need a six on the Wonderlic test to figure it out; Vince Young starring as an Oakland Raider is what consumes my slightly insane mind.
I remember the Laker glory days. In 2000, Phil Jackson joined the team as the head coach, and all of a sudden, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal lead their team to a 67-15 season. Despite the scare they received from the Trailblazers (they rallied from a fifteen point deficit in the fourth quarter), the Lakers won their first championship since the Magic Johnson era. Two more champions would arrive in Tinseltown in 2001 and 2002 with the team only facing competition from the Sacramento Kings in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. They were the most feared team in all of basketball.
History would rear its ugly head during the Lakers run for a fourth championships. The Lakers had a roller coaster season capped by a twenty-point blowout by the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs. Derek Fisher’s tears appeared to signal the end of the Lakers’ championship run. However, determined to keep the team together, management enlisted the aid of veterans Karl Malone and Gary Payton in 2004, creating a fabulous four sometimes dubbed “The Four Beatles.” Though they captured the Pacific title despite an assortment of injuries to Bryant, O’Neal, and Malone, the team was demolished by the Pistons in what was the biggest upset in all of NBA history. The Pistons would not only beat the Lakers but also destroy the dynasty. O’Neal left for Miami during the offseason, and the Lakers rebuilt under Kobe Bryant and a new Lakers team composed of Mihm, Odom, Butler, and Atkins. Despite an average 13-9 start, the Lakers missed the playoffs for the first time in eleven years.
In 2005, Jackson once again returned as the Lakers head coach. He, like the rest of the Lakers organization, expects the team to compete in three years. Currently, the Lakers are overachieving as the seventh seed, but is this really an accurate prediction? Will the Lakers ever return to their past glory?
A first time entry stating why Steve Nash should be this years NBA MVP.
by Matt Wells
Imagine this, if you will: you’re doing what you love to do. You’re getting paid $10 million to perform your dream job. You’re also one of the best at what you do in your field.
Then, why complain? Ohhhhh, I get it. You’re Alfonso Soriano – the Terrell Owens of football. Soriano has already made Jim Bowden the laughing stock of GMs, the Washington Nationals the laughing stock of the league (for now), and he has made himself the butt of sports jokes everywhere.