Monday Digest

With college football about to crown its champion tonight (or at least the BCS champion since it's not decided on the field), college basketball is alive and kicking...


ESPN Gameday Revisited

Hubert Davis is a rising star on ESPN, as he was added to the ESPN Gameday Road Crew. His signature word is "outstanding" as he uses it in every segment he is on. And he is not a Dookie :-)

Jay Bilas felt like he was playing in college gain: He got dunked on by Big Baby.

Digger Phelps opened up his wallet and offered to pay for the books of an LSU student attempting to hit a half-court $10,000 shot

Funny "Cribs" segment on Big Baby with Andy Katz. I hope the beauraucrats at the NCAA don't consider Big Baby drinking his muddy nutritional supplement "Alive" as a commercial endorsement (or his favorite movie soundtracks).

You can never have too many point guards. Case in point North Carolina: They have three, yet two of them went down with injuries at about the same time.

Dickie V and his family were sitting around the TV, crying, after Notre Dame got owned by LSU in football. I kid you not, Dickie V said that :)

Dumb, dumb move by Stanley Robinson of UConn. Taunting Big Baby was not only un-sportsman-like, but it was also stupid. Maybe that's why he was left off the McDonalds team? His team lost the game, yes, lost the game, so he went into TO mode and looked like a total idiot.



Random, incoherent thoughts

One way ticket purchased: Mike Jones (Syracuse), Mark Egerson (Georgetown)

Funny graphic by FSN portraying Roy Williams as a Chef, narrated by Mike Gminski

New weekly 30-minute college basketball show to debut on ABC, on Saturday January 13, 2007. The name: Inside College Basketball.

Congratulations to Tubby Smith: His players got the highest GPA average in Tubby's coaching career in the Fall of 2006 semester. (This according to Tubby Smith on his Coaches show)

OJ Mayo made a Top 10 appearance with an acrobatic fastbreak score during his ESPNU game.

Deron Washington cleared Greg Paulus as he jumped over him. If this was high-jump in the Olympics, it would have been a valid attempt! Take that Dookies!

Do you really think Virginia Tech could beat Duke without the Coca Cola commercial? I think not :-) If you haven't seen the Virginia Tech student Coke commercial, you may not get it. I'm sure its posted on the Coke site or YouTube, if you missed it... Keep up the good work Hokies!

Lavin and Brent Masburger almost got in trouble with the ...Cornjerkers (Thad Matta connection)


TV Wars

Cable TV Wars: Comcast moved FSN+ from its standard cable slot to digital cable. In its place Comcast is showing its own CSN+. This is what happens when service providers become content providers.

I wonder how the FSN executives felt during the ACC Sunday Night Hoops broadcasts when they saw that the big halfcourt ad for ...Comcast Sports Net!


Rants

Memo to Comcast and ESPN: Please work it out and add ESPNU to your cable systems already!

I am upset about the misuse of the word "upset". And the people who misuse it are not basketball people. They are play-by-play guys (Tim Brando is notorious for his non-basketball-savvy comments), highlight anchors (Sportscenter, FSN Final Score, local sports editors, etc), and casual/seasonal basketball fans. They think that an upset is every time a lower ranked (or non-ranked) team beats a higher ranked team. Jay Bilas has pointed out this issue repeatedly but it's falling on deaf ears. Maybe ESPN can get all their people together and have Jay Bilas lecture them. Oregon beating UCLA in Eugene, Oregon, in a conference game is not an upset. North Dakota State beating Wisconsin at the Kohls center is an upset.

How do you select the "Player of the Year" and the "Freshman of the Year"? This is a multiple choice question:
A) The player who played the best as of right now (eg Alando Tucker, Kevin Durant)
B) The player projected to have the best season by the end of the season
C) The player projected to have the best career after he completes his college eligiblity
D) The player projected as an NBA player in the NBA Draft (eg Greg Oden)
E) The player's projected impact and achievements during his future NBA career

Classic Quote by eponymous: "I took a paycut when I went to the NBA".