Old Man Jim McFather was right about March Madness, and if you don't believe me you should read JD's last two columns. In the meantime, the entire world is filling out their brackets and there isn't any reason you shouldn't too. As mentioned yesterday here on GRH, we are having our own bracket challenge. (You can sign up here, password is GRH). We aren't getting all the headlines by giving away $1,000,000,000 like Warren Buffet, but you can set the odds of winning our challenge at a number you've heard of. All you have to do is beat Brian and I (and everyone else who beats us). Go ahead and sign up. I'll wait to finish Brain Droppings while you're gone...
Ok. Now that that's out of the way, on to the random thoughts of the week. Remember, use the hashtags and comment on any of these thoughts on Twitter or just be lazy and comment at the bottom. Your choice.
1) #ShockedShockers - So it's been almost 25 years since UNLV managed to reach the NCAA tournament with an undefeated record. Wichita State managed to do it again this year and are rewarded with what amounts to the NCAA's version of the Group of Death. Once the Shockers make it past whatever #16 seed they play, they are likely to be rewarded with uber-talented Kentucky. Now the Cats haven't been what everyone thought they would this year, but they are still loaded with talent and if shooting the ball well can beat anybody. The path gets no easier for the mid-major should they vanquish Calipari's squad. Most people project defending champ and one of the hottest teams in the country, Louisville, to be their Sweet 16 opponent. Find a way to get past the Cardinals and you have a good chance at seeing Duke or Michigan in the Regional Finals. In other words, I'd be shocked if there was an undefeated team left by the time the Final Four rolls around.
2) #CaribbeanStud - As reported earlier on GRH, I took a cruise for Spring Break last week. It was a much needed getaway and I enjoyed lounging by the pool for a week. However, it wasn't a complete week off. GRH never really takes one of those. My cruise ship had a giant screen poolside and when the World's Sexiest Man competition wasn't being shown on it (which I was robbed of by the way), it was usually tuned in to ESPN Caribbean. This meant I got to see how the rest of the world viewed sports. Let me let you in on a little secret, it was actually difficult to find a basketball game to watch. Between soccer, cricket, and tennis there wasn't any programming time left. I missed a lot of the conference tournaments but enjoyed being subjected to sports I don't normally watch a lot of. Expand your minds people. There are a lot of interesting storylines and amazing athletes outside of America.
3) #Battlefor69 - No, this is not the perverted part of the column. Get your mind out of the gutter. Locally, a team from Georgia did not get into the NCAA tournament (well, Mercer did). But, two schools did manage to make it to the nation's 2nd most prestigious post-season basketball tournament, the NIT, where they will be pitted against 30 other schools for the right to call themselves the 69th best team in college basketball. McFather and I will be live tweeting from the UGA-Vermont game tomorrow night. Check it out.
4) #WheresJeeves - The owner of the Indianapolis Colts, Jim Irsay was pulled over the other night and charged with 4 felony counts of possession of a controlled substance and DUI. It begs the question, why don't you just hire someone to drive you around. Listen, I don't want to make light of the fact that Mr. Irsay does seem to have a problem. That is serious and I hope he can get some help. However, the man is rich enough to own one of the more successful NFL franchises of the last 15 years. Don't you think he could afford a chauffeur? I get the fact that you want to do things yourself and don't want to hire someone for every little detail, but if you know there's a strong chance you're going to take a bunch of prescription pills and go out drinking, then there's a chance it'd be better if someone else drove you.
5) #DoubleDippinDawgs - Four UGA football players were arrested last night for "theft by deception." You may ask what the hell that means, so I will tell you. Apparently these four guys (1 starter), were given their scholarship stipend checks by the UGA Athletic Office. They then allegedly deposited/cashed them in multiple locations. UGA was the one who called it in (not the bank). The gentlemen were then arrested, charged with a misdemeanor, and released on bond. All of this on the eve of spring football practice. Twiter immediately erupted with ol' "Here we go again at UGA" and "How does this keep happening under Coach Richt" tweets. Including one by Kirk Herbstreit which drew the ire of the idiot UGA fanbase. Coach Richt has excused his fair share of players. Probably more than anyone else in the SEC I can think of and this still continues to happen. Frankly, I'm not sure what else Coach Richt can do. Kids make bad decisions. It's magnified in places like Athens and people are on the look out. This isn't good for the program but I assume these players will be disciplined if found guilty and things will continue moving forward. I'll say this though, the timing is abysmal. The team should be taking the field for spring practice today with headlines about their new defensive coordinator and the schemes he may install or how much Todd Gurley is going to practice. Instead, we have to hear about this. Hopefully it will be the only incident of significance in the offseason for the Dawgs but history tells us not to hold our breath.
Alright folks, that's it for this week. Follow us on Twitter @GRHuddle and like us on Facebook too. I'll be back with more thoughts next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment