I am looking forward to taking my daughter to some of the festivities! Perhaps I can get lucky and get some tickets!
Category Archives: Sports
Mike Anderson Stays A Tiger, Mizzou That Is…
Obviously there is something that Mike Anderson loves about the program he’s built at Missouri. His team reached the Sweet 16 before a hard fought loss against UConn. And as Calipari left for the brinks truck they are giving him in Lexington, Anderson left some $700,000 on the table to stay in Columbia. It was nice to see good things from Mizzou again since Quinn Snyder (a really good guy who didn’t succeed here as coach) left town amid much controversy.
Calipari at UK? A With The Devil
I really like John Calipari. I think he is a great coach and a tremendous motivator. I hope he doesn’t chase the dollars and strike a deal with Satan in the Bluegrass state. Remember the movie, “The Devil’s Advocate?” That’s the University of Kentucky when it comes to the basketball program. With all the success of the past decades, the administration is a disaster and they should have listened when Rick Pitino warned them not to fire Tubby Smith. But that’s the SEC – The good ole boy’s network. Guys get fired even when they are successful. Just ask Tommy Tubberville. Teams in the SEC continue to hire the same tired cats that fit the good ole boy mode… instead of the most qualified guys. Remember when Alabama hired football coach Mike Shula? Auburn recently hired a loser in passing over Turner Gill.
UK basketball is the ultimate good ole boy’s network with the exception of when they got Pitino and Smith. After failing miserably the last couple seasons, they want to get Pitino Jr. in hopes of reclaiming the glory days. They want to give Coach Cal something like $35 million from what I hear. And that is my point.
As much as I love college basketball, that kind of jack for one coach is just over the top. That cost will trickle down right to the tuition cost of the average student who wants to get in.
And by the way, if he does take the job I bet you won’t hear anybody screaming about the economy and how Coach should have taken less like they did with Manny Ramirez. But I digress. The money would be good money and I am a capitalist. But sometimes the money and the perks come with too great a cost. They want Coach to see the money and desire the perks that come along with being a part of that system. And that is why vanity is John Milton’s favorite sin.
Mizzou Lays it All Out… Advances!
I have to give it up for the Missouri Tigers getting the best of Memphis Tigers by beating them at their own game. I don’t think they took the team from Boone County that seriously until it was too late! I think they thought they would punk Mizzou early on and then got shocked!
Still it was a heck of a game as they were going at it!
Basketball Jones and Hoops Junkies Week; Day 4
Seattle,
You are looking at pictures from a Seattle highway in the middle of rush hour. But there are hardly any cars on this normally packed section. It seems that Brackethoopolus has taken over this region and many of the regions across the nation. Thousands upon thousands have called in sick. It’s an epidemic! It is predicted that many who do show up will take extended lunches or leave work early.
Corporate work production will be lost in the billions. But bars and pizza parlors are expecting a large windfall.
Welcome to the NCAA Basketball Tournament!
Basketball Jones and Hoops Junkies Week Day 3
Tuscon,
Reports are coming in that workers are moving very slowly today. What seemed like slight cases of flu like symptoms have really gone to a new level. Sneezes and coughs can be heard from office to office. Alka-Seltzer and Robitussin are stocked in many cubicles.
In another strange twist. Workers are scrambling with long pieces of paper that look as if they have some sort of cryptic maze on them. Money is being passed around quietly and according to sources, sport handicapping sites are being dinged at as high a rate as any other time of year.
Las Vegas gambling guru Lenny Grimes says the last time they have had this many calls and hits on the web site, it was the Superbowl.
Something strange is happening. I wonder if workers will make it in on Thursday.
Tomorrow we will wrap up this series in Seattle.
Charlie Bubba on AIG and Imus
It was a slow Monday evening. No college basketball on television. The World Baseball Classic is totally irrelevant no matter what Tommy Lasorda says about it being something we should care about. So what was I to do? Been a while since I’ve been over on the East Side. So I head to one of my favorite watering holes for some special Crown. The bartender called and told me that somehow he got a bottle of the Cask No 16 that Hines Ward was giving away to his teammates after the SuperBowl. I was down for that!
No sooner than I walk in the door… I see my main man Charlie Bubba ghetto philosopher and street scholar of the hood. It had been a while since I’d seen Charlie. Or (Cholly) as we call him. I thought to myself, “Now I know the evening will be exciting. We can talk about the NCAA tournament. Manny Ramirez or something. But no politics cause I was tired of the news as it is.” I tried to head him off at the pass when he laid eyes on me.
Me: Cholly whats up baby! Who you got going to the Final 4? Who’s going to take it all!
Cholly: Fuck that nigga! That shit ain’t coming on till Thursday. It’s MONDAY fool! Hell who gone be president in 2012? Who gone be Bristol Palin’s next baby-daddy. Hell I don’t know. Gotta wait till it get here. Shit.
Me: Dang Cholly why you all “sensitive” today?
Cholly: Man these fools tried to take my crib – 4Close on a nigga. While these fuckers at AIG, (Always Is Gangsta) taking MY tax dollars for god-damn bonuses and shit?
Why did I ask? He got me.
Cholly: Come on C! How many times these white boys, these anti-big government, anti-government helping out anybody, anti-welfare shit on the little man leaches keep coming back to the Amerikkkan people begging for hand-outs? I hope Bama (Obama) knows what he’s doing. Cause last time he talked about how it wasn’t about being pissed at them, but about saving the economy even though they pissed over the last stash they got. Now they just made an ass out of him as far as I’m concerned. Cause the same shit keeps happening over and over again. Give them assholes money, and they put it in their pockets. Then I hear this broad talking on TV about how they were “contractually obligated” to give these bonuses. What? Like they were contractually obligated to give them money for the hoes they paid for at the spa a few months back? Right? That’s some bullshit! First of all, who is giving out the bonuses anyway? The same mother fuckers who asked for the money? The same folks who are on the board deciding that they were “contractually obligated” to pay themselves all that loot? The same jokers who’s decisions ran the company down in the first place? What kinda shit is that?
Cholly was really angry. I tried to get a word in but he kept going.
Cholly: And what if somebody with some balls at the top decided that these bonuses were not going to be given out. If the others tried to sue, what fuckin judge is going to side with them. I know they don’t write up contracts that say, ‘Even if you run the company into the ground and we are strapped for cash, we’ll still give you millions for the trouble you put us in.’ I just don’t see that happening. And hell if they didn’t get multiple bailouts, where the fuck would they have gotten the money? I’m telling you man! They say they don’t want no socialist government and shit, but they can’t be trusted to run these businesses on their own obviously! And why is Bama nem’ keep giving them the money with no fuckin oversite? You keep trusting the same robbers and thieves to do the right thing? That just goes to show you. White folks broke the mode on crime I don’t care what they say?
Me: Well man you have said a mouthful Cholly. Care for some of this No. 16 to take the edge off?
Cholly took the drink and swished it around his mouth before swallowing. “This some good shit here boy!”
Me: I’m sorry about…
Cholly: And did you get a load of that Imus bullshit he was saying about his prostate cancer? ‘I think I got this from stressing all that media pressure at my doorstep a while back. ‘ First of all I don’t give a fuck about your prostate! Second of all you opened your fool ass mouth and said some shit you shouldn’t have calling some black college educated women, ‘nappy headed hoes’ and then blame us for making your life stressful? Cry me a fucking malt liquor bitch! Sucks to be you huh? I tell you C, only in this country do white folks think such dumb ass shit. Then he calls Giuliani about his dick getting hard. First off Rudy ain’t getting no pussy he ain’t paid for. Have you seen that guy? What is going to do, rub his little cabbage patch head against a woman’s…
Me: CHOLLY! That’s too much information bruh!
Cholly: Yea you know what I’m saying. Who would want to fuck Imus anyway? That crinkled up old dude. Every timeI see him I think to myself, “There goes Maude!” Look at his face, the way it looks if it can get hard he can use that! He may want to get it circumcised first…
Me: Alright Cholly I’m about to bounce.
After a couple glasses of the No. 16, I was good to go but Cholly was just getting started. This was my time to exit cause he was already on a mission as it is.
Me: Cholly man I’m sorry about the house? What are you gonna do about it?
Cholly: Man I don’t know. But Cholly Bubba always work thangs out. Maybe I can catch one of them AIG niggas at the ATM machine.
I gave Cholly some dap and bid bye to he and the rest of the patrons. Always having to have the last word though…
Cholly: Louisville! Rick Pitino bitches! Cardinals all the way over that robot Tyler Hansbrough for the championship!
Me: Whatever! Carolina all the way!
Basketball Jones and Hoops Junkies Week; Day 2
Report from Nashville,
It’s a beautiful partly cloudy day in Opryland. The temperature is supposed to get to 69 degrees. Nevertheless the strange infection known as bracket-hoopollus seems to be spreading around offices abroad. Just like in New York, what started off as a sneeze is getting a bit more serious. People are walking a bit slower and seem to be a bit weaker. Here is how one Fed-X employee described his struggle.
Yea I thought this would be a 24 hour thing. But it seems to be a bit rougher than I thought. I’m a soldier though. I expect to get better and I plan on toughing it out. I won’t be leaving early or anything like that.
** Reporters notes: For whatever reason, the symptoms of this infection always seems to strike when the boss is near. Whenever Mr. Jones walks out of his office, he pauses as the sounds of coughing and sneezing sounds bark out simultaneously. This is really strange.
Tune in tomorrow where we’ll be reporting from Tuscon!
Basketball Jones and Hoops Junkies Week, Day 1
It’s that time of year again. Beware!
There is a strange germ in the air. It usually hits the nation on Selection Sunday when the NCAA selection committee fills the field of 64 65 to decide a national champion for college basketball. By Thursday, this infection will hit it’s peak causing millions to miss work.
Scientist (called Bracketologist) have named this strange infection and it’s commonly known now as Bracket-Hoopollous. BB&G currently have correspondents all over the nation tracking this phenomenon. And we will report on this very predictable infection as it spreads across the nation.
DAY 1
Brooklyn NY,
Many are starting to feel slightly under the weather. It’s nothing serious mind you. The men and women with these symptoms mostly say it could be allergies with the weather changes and the greenery around starting to bloom. A sneeze here, a cough there. No real cause for concern. Just something to keep an eye on.
Not leaving anything to chance, they put their vitamin C on their desk cubicles so that the boss can see it.
That’s it from Brooklyn. Tomorrow we go to Nashville to see if this infection is the same in the Midwest.
Hot Mess In The The Land of the Rising Suns
Not that this any of my business… after all everybody knows that I am a long standing member of the Lakers organization. But I have to stick up for Terry Porter since he was fired by Western Conference foe Phoenix Suns on Monday.
It’s not that I am crazy about Porter as a coach. I don’t know one way or the other if he is a good one or not. I do know that he was hired to do a job and was not able to see that job through.
The Suns in recent years have been a 50 plus win team consistently. Under coach Mike D’Antoni, they ran up the score and ran teams out of the building on the regular. The team was not successful in the playoffs however, though they did make it to the conference finals before falling to the Spurs who would go on to win the championship.
The team hired former NBA player Steve Kerr to the GM’s position to make the personnel changes that would take the team over the top. Kerr eventually got rid of three core players, Boris Diaw, Sean Marion, and Raja Bell. They brought in guys like Shaquille O’Neal, and Grant Hill. They also strung D’Antoni along at the end of the year not saying whether they wanted him to continue to coach until he finally signed on to coach the Knicks. Kerr and D’Antoni didn’t see eye to eye as the new GM wanted to slow the offense down and route everything around the aging Shaq.
They bring in Porter t0 coach these players in Kerr’s vision of slow defensive mode. This becomes problematic because for one the team was used to running. Not to mention their point guard is Steve Nash, a two time MVP who can’t check me if I was playing. Nash, one of the best point guards in recent history has all of his strengths on the offensive side with a dead on jump shot and an array of passes that bolstered the stats of guys like Amare Stoudemire. Stoudemire got a lot of easy dunks and looked like a superstar with Nash, which got him paid. Porter changed the system and slowed things down as he was told.
Still the “experiment” has not been an early success as the Suns are a lowly 28-23 at the All Star Break 13.5 games behind the Lakers. It’s tough for a team to adjust that fast to a new system and a new group of core players. The Western Conference is also a great conference with the Lakers and Spurs being the cream of the crop. The Suns obviously got anxious with the slow start. So they make even more changes. And who get’s the ax? Porter.
Porter? Let me get this straight; It was Kerr who moved D’Antoni. It was Kerr who moved Marion, Diaw, and Bell. It was Kerr who brought in O’Neal who is playing quite well but has not played on the tail end of back to back games in order to rest The Big Cactus. It was Kerr who hired Porter and has only given him half a season to work with this roster – It’s Kerr who is in the midst of shopping around the Suns’ biggest ticket item Stoudemire. Kerr has dismantled the whole foundation of the organization and barely gave the changes a chance to work before he offs Porter and names Alvin Gentry as interim coach. And what is coach Gentry’s direction for the team? To run the ball and play at the old fast pace. What? You mean the same thing D’Antoni did when he was coach and had the players to do just that.
Steve Kerr, a very good NBA player and one of the best clutch shooters ever created this mess… and yet other guys are being shown their walking papers in the midst of the debacle. From what I see, this is another example of good/great players who are not good executives. Everybody can’t be a Jerry West or a Chris Mullin who put together a pretty decent squad in Golden State. Some guys are like Michael Jordan and Isaiah Thomas instead. They become organization killers! They make choices and the choices fail, then they blame the very people they chose in the first place for failing.
Terry got a raw deal. But hey, that’s their business. My team is doing just fine.
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