FIVE MO' THINGS
1) Great game, important win, for the Bearcats.
It might not have been the most aesthetically-pleasing basketball game you'll see, though few Big East games are, but Saturday night's UC/Marquette game provided great theater, emotional swings, controversial officiating (the three men in stripes did not have a good night), clutch plays, great coaching, and most important, a huge Cincinnati win.
On Saturday night, UC found a way to win a game without Cashmere Wright. This would be impressive had the win come against almost anyone on their schedule, given Cash's importance to the team, but for it to come against a good Big East foe at this stage of the season made it one of the signature wins of not only the season, but of Mick's tenure at UC.
That's not a statement of hyperbole. Cronin coached a great game against the Golden Eagles, finding ways to facilitate the offense without Cash, often using Titus Rubles in the backcourt (where he should stay), and scheming to get Sean Kilpatrick not only his typical high volume of shots, but make-able ones. It helped that the Cats took care of the ball, for them to turn it over just 11 times in 45 minutes with no Cashmere Wright is almost astounding.
Defensively, their zone worked, making me wonder if this team should employ it more.
Most important, this team overcame. Their most important player was on the bench, three frontcourt players fouled out, they spent the entire game with shooting percentages in the low 30s, they blew a 16-point halftime lead, they had no answer for Davante Gardner (I've never seen a guy go 1-8 for the field and yet look so unstoppable), and the game always seemed on the verge of getting away from them.
Yet they won, giving them a measure of momentum heading into today's game at Syracuse, and pulling those still teetering, a little bit further away from the ledge.
Great game. Great atmosphere. Great win.
2) Xavier is 4-0 in the Atlantic Ten. The turnovers and missed free throws against LaSalle are problematic, and tougher portions of the schedule remain, but they're unbeaten in league play a quarter of the way through the season. The more things change....
3) 49ers win. Ravens win. Everyone else is a loser. Perhaps the part of the NFL Playoffs I hate the most, in fact probably the only thing I hate about the NFL Playoffs, is how lazy we get in handing down indictments against the QBs and coaches who lose. Today's narrative: Tom Brady and Matt Ryan are losers because they didn't win yesterday. It's lazy and it's unfair. Tom Brady s still one of the best five human beings to every play quarterback ever and Matt Ryan, while not flawless, did far more to help his team win that he did to torpedo their championship run. Both teams that fell yesterday lost to better teams. San Fran is superior defensively and has a quarterback that presents matchup problems for nearly every defense in the league. Baltimore has done a better job of surrounding their quarterback with weapons, including a running game, and they have the more physical defense. But today, with our ever changing knee-jerk narratives, the conference title games will be more about who lost them and what the impact will be on their (still evolving) legacy than anything else.
4) HarBowl. Jack Harbugh, John and Jim's dad, will be asked about 7,000,000 times this week which teams he's rooting for in Super Bowl 47 (get used to never seeing Roman numerals on this blog), and he'll answer it very diplomatically, claiming that he's not choosing sides.
He'll be lying.
Every parent has a favorite. Mine did. Yours does. And if you're a parent, you do as well. Human beings pick sides, form biases, choose favorites, and parents of Super Bowl coaches are no different.
If I was Jack Harbaugh, I'd choose the son who acts like this...
5) Stan Musial and Earl Weaver. The passage of the former Orioles Manager makes me particularly sad, if only because another of his kind has passed, and because with his death, baseball moves away from a different, and more entertaining age.
Weaver. LaSorda. Herzog. Martin. Sparky Anderson. Great managers, but even better, great personalities. They were more identifiable with their teams than most of the players that played for them. They were great quotes, and they came across as great storytellers. There was a time, and it wasn't all that long ago, where many managers were the biggest personalities in the game, and often the best characters.
Who didn't love a great Earl Weaver argument?
Or a great LaSorda postgame rant? Or maybe some truth-isms from Whitey Herzog? These guys were great, the kind of managers that sadly, we see less and less of today.
You can picture yesterday's skippers sitting in their offices before the game, smoking cigarettes, telling stories. And you can picture them after the game, having a couple of cocktails in the hotel bar after the game, telling even better stories.
Today's managers are more likely to have their faces buried in their laptops, rarely offering up anything of any substance. Their teams might be better of, but I'm not sure the sport is.
But Wait There's More....
-Brett Favre is spending retirement playing in church dodgeball tournaments. Wait a minute, there's church dodgeball tournaments?
-Auburn is bad. Really bad. I mean, really, really, bad. But maybe UK turned the corner Saturday night.
-Though I'm kinda exhausted by the Manti Te'o story, this seems timely: you can create a fake girlfriend for just $39.99.
-Double dipping on the radio today and tonight. ESPN1530 at 3:04, 700WLW at 6:05. Listen to all six hours. Here, among other reasons, is why I'd never try ski jumping.
