Wookie On Sports: March 2007

Friday, March 23, 2007

Weekly Theme Music

Here's to the Lady Rebels hopefully shocking the world and upsetting Oklahoma in the elite eight.

As for the men's tourney this has been the most boring tourney ever with no upsets. So I'll continue it by saying all four 1 seeds make it for the first time ever. My canine companion declined to vote this time after Nevada was knocked out.

Off The Market

A few off the field incidents were news worthy in the last few days.

First, Ole Miss should be ready to return to glory again in the year 2032 team. The former Rebel and current New York Football Giants signal caller should got down on one knee this week and asked longtime girlfriend Abby McGrew for her hand in marriage. Sorry ladies but that means Eli is Off The Board and no longer available. What are they going to do this weekend to celebrate? I imagine they'll stay in town and head to 30 Rockefeller plaza to see Eli's big brother Peyton guest star on this week's edition of Saturday Night Live!

I've put the over under on jokes that make fun of Eli at 13 and I'm taking the over since the show's filmed in New York.

A couple of coaches also put themselves off the market. First Tubby Smith resigned his position in Kentucky and moved up to the less pressure filled world as the head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. What will be interesting to see is who Kentucky raids for their next head coach and what that does around the country. I just hope their next head coach also goes by a nickname he got for what he slept in as a child. The SEC's going to miss the ole bathtub.

The other coach was caught sleeping at the wheel. Tony LaRussa was found asleep at a stop light with his foot on the brake in Jupiter Florida this week and charged with Driving Under The Influence after he registered with alcohol in his blood stream. The best thing about this is that LaRussa is notoriously hypocritical about other coaches who have had alcohol problems in the past. Looks like he'll have to eat a little crow for that one.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Mad Props To The Lady Rebs

The Lady Rebels have had a remarkable season thus far and deserve a lot of credit for what they have managed to achieve. The had some huge upsets including victories over LSU and Vanderbilt.

But last night put them over the top as they defeated the Defending National Champion, Maryland, on route to a Sweet Sixteen Appearance. They caused turn over after turnover to keep Maryland out of their game plan and disrupt their offense. It paid off as the Lady Rebels took a big lead early scoring 42 points off of Maryland turnovers. Then all they had to do was hold off a vicious comeback attempt in the last five minutes to seal the victory.

What lead the Rebels was the solid back court of guards that were simply too quick for

Maryland. Ashely Awkward and Alliesha Easley scored 22 and 16 points respectfully. But the big hero last night was the same one its been for four years, Armintie Price. She will go down as one of the greatest athletes in Ole Miss history after her amazing career. She scored 29 points but even more amazing are her steals. She currently has 125 steals on the season. If she nabs four more steals she will be one of two collegiate players to ever collect 2,000 points, 1000 rebounds, 400 assists, and 400 steals.

Next up to reach the Elite Eight the Lady Rebels face three seeded Oklahoma.

Rough Week For Local Baseball

This past weekend the Ole Miss Baseball team faced off against gave up the tying run in the bottom of the the then undefeated number one ranked Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville for the opening SEC series for both teams. The Rebs managed to win the Saturday game but sadly lost the other games of the series to loose the series 1-2. This was especially sad for Rebel "Closer" Scott Bittle. The Rebels had a 2-1 lead going into the bottom of the 9th against Vanderbilt's ace David Price (who many think might be the number one pick in the summers MLB amateur draft). Bittle gave up the tying run in the ninth and the loosing run in the bottom of the tenth.

Not to be out done by that performance, on Sunday's game the Rebels again turned to Bittle with the lead in the bottom of the ninth. Bittle promptly gave up the winning runs to Vanderbilt to snatch defeat in the face of victory. I'm not ready to give up on Bittle yet, or worse call him Kolb-esque, but Bianco needs to think hard and really make sure he's got the mind to be a closer in the SEC. He's got the arm but it takes more than that to be a successful closer.

Of course you don't think it could get any worse for baseball player do you. Well if your

Mississippi State's Mitch Moreland you had a worse week. Mitch hit what he though was a four run grand slam against Dallas Baptist. Only he out ran a fellow Bulldog baserunner and was called out on a 3 run scoring fielder's choice to hit one of the rare three run grand slams. Sadly this could have proved to be the difference as State lost the game.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Weekly Theme Music

SEC baseball starts tonight. Here's to the Reb's as the face the number one team in the country Vandy in Nashville.

Now drink a Pabst and grill a dog.

Prediction Time

Its another Friday so that means its prediction time again.
I'll update next week but for now the final four predictions are Florida, Pittsburgh, Texas, and Ohio State.

My sweet sixteen teams are:

Florida, Maryland, Oregon, Wisconsin, Southern Illinois, Pittsburgh, UCLA, Villanova, North Carolina, Texas, Vandy, Boston College, Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Nevada.

My canine companion has instead decided to cast his vote for Nevada wolf pack to win the championship out of a final four of Old Dominion,

Villanova, North Carolina and the University of Nevada. I can only assume its comes from his support of their star player Nick Fazekas.

Either that or he loves wolves.

Or it could just be random.

It's The NIT Baby!

The Rebels got to continue the season after accepting an invitation to play in the 2007 NIT tournament. Unfortunately for the Rebels the NIT switched to a seeding format for the first time this year and then showed its ineptness. For some inexplicable reason the NIT gave one SEC Western Division Co-Champion Mississippi State a one seed. They then gave the other SEC Western Division Co-Champion a four seed. Wait you think maybe State won more games. Well actually they tied in SEC wins and the Rebels won more games overall. Okay well surely then State must have finished with a higher RPI? Wrong again Ole Miss actually has five spots on State in the RPI. State did have a slightly stronger strength of schedule but enough for the difference in a one and four seeds? When Ole Miss had more wins and a stronger RPI? This is truly appalling and egregious on behalf of the selection committee.

In the meantime the Rebels deserve credit for taking out one of the three teams that bracketologist (Not to be confused with a Breazeologist who actually study the mating habits of Norwegian Shrimp) considered to be one of the three biggest snubs of the NCAA tournament (with Syracuse and Drexel.) The Rebels lead by Todd Abernathey and Kenny Williams came out an routed the Appalachian State Miners 73-59.

The Rebels are now set to travel to South Carolina to face the south region's number one seed the Clemson Tigers on ESPN at 6:00 P.M. thanks to the shady seeding of the NIT committee. Meanwhile state plays Bradley. That's terrifying.

Since its on ESPN maybe we'll get Dick Vitale to call the game. It's the NIT Baby! Maybe he'll point out the complete flop the committee did in seeding this tournament. It's gonna be awesome!

Friday, March 9, 2007

Weekly Theme Music

Wet Hot American Summer fans will like this choice.

Jerry Reese has certainly shown that he has to do it his way.

But this goes out to the well deserving AP SEC coach of the year Andy Kennedy who has turned his players loose and lets them play whatever style fits them best. Now lets hope they get loose on the Coonies tonight.

So This Is What They Do In Red Stick.

The LSU Women's basketball coach recently resigned among controversy after it became public that SHE had previously had sexual relations with one of her players. The Story.

I've got little to add because I really don't want to develop a mental image.

AHH!!! Too Late!!!

Giants Actively Do . . . . . . Nothing ... Until Now

The Giants have decided to stay out of the free agency period thus far this year. Its hard to argue with the strategy at this point because of the insane money teams (ahem 49ers) are throwing at marginal players just because with the new bargaining agreement in place teams have too much cap money. Its also a pretty weak year since most prospects resigned in the last year to protect themselves in case the League and the Union couldn't reach a new collective bargaining agreement last year. General manager Jerry Reese is not letting the market drive us into bad contracts and that is admirale since most teams feel the need to do something if anything.

The problem with the situation is that we cut our starting left tackle for cap room to sign players. I didn't have a problem with that when it looked like we were going to bring some top notch free agents. Cutting Arrington makes more sense now with the complete lack of interest he's draw from other teams showing that he's clearly damaged goods and doesn't have much left. However Pettigout is coming off some of his best albeit injury plagued seasons and just signed a big deal to join the Buccaneers while drawing contract offers from other teams. If Giants GM Jerry Reese thinks Deihl and Whimper are the future at left tackle that's fine. But why not bring Pettigout back and see what you've got in him at least as an insurance policy. Its not like you need the cap space. Particularly when anything you gained by cutting Pettigout you lost by cutting Arrington. Makes little since unless they feel like they can get Levi Brown out of Penn. State at the 20th pick in the draft. But you would still think they would want some vetern option at one of the four most important positions in football in left offensive tackle.

I have no problem with letting kicker Jay Feely move on to Miami since he clearly doesn't have the leg strength to be an elite kicker and is not worth the money he wanted. His percentage numbers make him sound like a better option than he was because the Giants conceded that he wouldn't hit long attempts and quit trying them. And then there's always the Seattle game. He'd be great if you could put him in a college system and have one kicker for kickoffs and long field goals and another for short attempts and extra points. But with limited roster spots he's not versatile enough.

However just when I'm about to give up on Reese he goes out and makes a huge deal and completely redeems himself by acquiring running back Reuben Droughns. Late this afternoon the Giants traded away an injury prone and unproductive second round bust of a wide receiver out of Auburn Tim Carter for veteran Droughns who ran for over a thousand yards in 2004 and 2005 (In Cleveland no less) and has 8 years of experience to protect the Giants in the upcoming Brandon Jacobs era in case Jacobs is not ready to be a feature back in the NFL. Judging by Jacobs' difficulty last season (think Cowboys at Giants 2006) in being the short yardage back and he's lack of elusiveness its within the realm of possibility. This is one of those trades that's almost too good to be true. The Giants get rid of one of the players they should have cut years ago our at least last month when they were cutting injury prone players. This clip is the perfect example of his career. Speed, but can't catch and scared to get hit. This trade will be the most the Giants ever get out of Carter.

Welcome Reuben!

Thursday, March 8, 2007

SEC Tourney Predictions

In a further attempt to prove how terrible of a sports prognosticator I am I've done a bracket for the SEC tourney. So know this. Vandy will not win the SEC now. Sorry smart kids. On the bright side you've got a lot going for you after college and stuff.

First Round:
Kentucky over Alabama (Right!)
South Carolina over Arkansas (Wrong)
Auburn over Georgia (Wrong)
Tennessee over LSU(Wrong)

Second Round
Kentucky over Mississippi State (Wrong)
Vandy over South Carolina (Wrong)
Florida over Auburn (Right)
Tennessee over Ole Miss (Wrong)

Third Round
Vandy over Kentucky (Wrong)
Tennessee over Florida (Wrong)

Finals
Vandy over Tennessee (Wrong) (Like I said at least you got your fancy degrees.)

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Hotty Toddy Hotline Biased; Wrong

The hosts of the Mississippi based radio program the Hotty Toddy Hotline were recently posed the question, "Who would win in a footrace: Robert Lane or a Tauntaun?" These hosts and "football experts" unanimously agreed that Robert Lane would win the race because of his tremendous heart.

Tauntauns are capable of running 90 kilometers an hour. That's roughly 56 miles per hour. Lane is a superb athlete and rumored to run a forty yard dash in the low 4.5's. But I don't care what type of heart Lane has he is not going to run 56 miles an hour. That is humanly impossible. The fastest humans ever could only reach into the high twenties.

This proves that the hosts at the Hotty Toddy Hotline are ridiculously biased and lack any objectivity.

Monday, March 5, 2007

Congrats To SEC West Co-Champions

The Rebs dramatic win against Auburn on Saturday clinched a share of the Western Division Championship. While most teams wouldn't get as excited for a co-championship for a division in a conference where they just broke even its a huge step for the Rebels since they finished in last place last year. The expectations were low for this years Rebels and they greatly exceeded them with this Co-Championship.

Credit must go to the first year head coach and a trio of senior guards who drug this team into a winning season. If they can pull off two wins in the SEC tourney they might still make the NCAA's. It will be tough though since they would first have to beat the Tennessee-LSU winner on Friday and presumably Florida on Saturday.