CLEVELAND ROCKS

It's not often I pass up a potential sporting event. Sometimes though its just not meant to be. Two nights ago I almost went to the Cavs / Heat game. As everyone knows though, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. While not the hype I imagine surrounded the firs meeting back in November, had I gone I'm sure it would have been one of the best sports atmospheres I have ever been to. Kudos to the Cavs for not embarrassing both themselves and their fans again, hanging tough after blowing a huge lead, and pulling out an emotional win. Easily the biggest win of the season, which isn't even arguable since they only have 15. The only unfortunate part was that this is March, not November. No chance the season plays out drastically different for a team in shambles, but I also don't think they lose 26 in a row or own the worst record outright in the league. More importantly, the team that took the court Tuesday wasn't the team that Lebron dumped like an angry high school girl last May. I think the Cavs really needed the win in november while last years core was still in tact to really make a statement. Either way the residents of the Mistake by the Lake got theirs. Hopefully next year they can build off of wins like Tuesday. They can only go up from this year.

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR

About two weeks ago, a lot of analysts were commenting on the lack of talent in this years March Madness, that the overwhelming amount of parity this year would lead to a boring tournament. Instead, we have what may possibly be one of the most compelling series of games in recent memory. The four number one seeds? Gone. The four number two seeds? Gone. The four number sixteen seeds? Just kidding. One half of the teams remaining pairs the highest seeded final four game ever, while the other half returns two big programs to the top. Every round has had at least two games come down to the final seconds, and best of all the "Gus Johnson Rule" is in full effect. I'd say parity hasn't been too unkind in the last two and a half weeks. While you twiddle your thumbs waiting for the games to start up again on Saturday, here are some other things to think about.

• Remember in 2007-08 when the Patriots fell just short of a perfect 19 - 0 season. Everyone made a big deal about being the first undefeated team with the expanded schedule, bettering the Dolphins 17 - 0. If its that big a deal when a team at the tail end of a dynasty is vying for it, how crazy is it then that VCU may be the first to win 7 games in a tournament with the expanded schedule. VCU! Four weeks ago people probably didn't even know what state the school was in, and probably thought Shaka Smart was Maxwell Smart's adopted brother.
• If UCONN wins the whole thing, is their run along with Kemba Walker's play the greatest ever? Perhaps not, but the man's stock is climbing higher than ever. The average person would probably rather still be watching Jimmer-mania, mostly because his entertainment value is so high. Comparing the two though, Kemba's overall game is far superior.
• Last week before the sweet sixteen started I wrote that Butler was probably the scariest team left. Two more drama filled games later, nothing has changed. You cant teach or coach experience, and this group has more than any team left. Two new points about this team: Aside from their first round game this year, their game Saturday may be the first where they aren't considered an underdog which may play with their psyche. Second, it's a definite toss up what would be more improbable at the beginning of the season. VCU advancing this far, or Butler putting two "Cinderella" runs together back to back while losing their best player and adding no one.
• Finally are we seeing a changing of the guard of what the elite college coach is? VCU's head coach Shaka Smart is young and animated. He's on the same level as his kids, sharing all the emotion and wearing it on his sleeve. Brad Steven's has already been here once, and has reformed to being somewhat stone faced on the sidelines, but you can tell he gets in his car and sings "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta," at the top of his lungs on the way home. We've have already seen it work in the NFL with Mike Tomlin and in baseball with the Red Sox' Theo Epstein. With the exception of the established veterans, younger coaching seems to be the next trend across all sports.

No mention of Kentucky doesn't mean I'm counting them out. Their freshman Knight is a stud, and Coach Callipari, despite his shaky past, is an elite coach and one of two coaches ever to bring three different schools to the final four. So here's to parity. If this is what it means for the tournament every year, count me in.

PUT ME IN COACH

There's an ESPN Insider heading today on the sites front page posing the question of who should be Coach of the Year in the NBA, Greg Popovich (Spurs) or Tom Thibodeau (Bulls). I don't belong to Insider so I cant see what is written, but if there's a strong case made for Popovich then someone is just lying to themselves for the sake of an article. Have the spurs been the best team this year? Probably. They have had the leagues best record from about a month and a half in to the season through now. Despite a stretch run collapse equivalent to the New York Mets in recent years, they should be a lock for the #1 seed out of the West. Pop has been doing it for years. After falling off their blistering pace though, the Spurs could expect anywhere from 60 - 65 wins by seasons end which has become common place for the leagues best. He has also had the luxury of a team that, until a few weeks ago, had made it most of the season injury free. On the other hand this is Thibodeau's first time at the helm. He has steered a Bulls team coming off of two .500 seasons to the best record in the East and approximately an additional 20 wins, with essentially the same players. The Bulls have dealt with serious injuries all season, and yet Thibodeau's defensive system has gotten them through. Now a lot of the credit also has to go to Derrick Rose and him taking his game to a whole new level. During the aforementioned injuries, specifically to key players Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah who both missed 20+ games this season, Rose carried the team. Combined though, its been Thibodeau's coaching that has made Rose a complete player. Popovich and the Spurs have always been applauded for their success by playing team ball. It also helps though when you potentially have the greatest power forward ever in Tim Duncan surrounded by other all star talent for the better part of his career. Thibodeau has Rose, a couple of near all stars, and another handful of guys that never play or have been this close to being traded a handful of times. I take nothing away from the Spurs and their 2010 - 2011 campaign. Being 35 - 5 halfway through the season when everyone said the team was too old is nothing to sneeze at. For Popovich to be a serious contender though, I think the Spurs would have had to exceed greatness along the lines of 70 wins or doing it without one of their big three for most of the season. Sometimes its just not your year. Thibodeau has made the most of his opportunity to the point where you have to wonder if the Celtics would still bring back Doc Rivers for another title run, or part ways to lock up Thibodeau for the next decade if they could do it again. As it is, Thibodeau has a small cushion over his old team for the East's best record and the advantage of an easier schedule to close out the season. Then, in June, Thibodeau can focus on where he would rather catch up to Popovich as far as awards go.

WHY EVERYONE SHOULD MOVE TO WYOMING

Last night, around 9, I started to feel like I was dosing off. Either because of my new schedule, or the snooze-a-thon that was the Bulls - Hawks game. Then I remembered the Lakers game was starting. As a fan, I felt I was obligated to watch as my keeping up with the sports world has slipped a little this week between a new job and March Madness. After three overtimes and nearly four hours later at 1:15AM, I could rest easy after another Laker win. I also had the added comfort of being lulled to sleep by the girl next door screaming out for her daddy. My initial thought, aside from wondering if the girl next door was just working for her tip, was how this would have never happened if I was back home. It's an age old debate whether watching sports on Pacific Time or Eastern Time is better. Both have their pros and cons. In the East, you get to sleep in a little later during football season. You listen to Mike & Mike in the morning live rather than on your Ipod. Best of all, you can be at a late night bar  and watch a live game rather than the third repeat of SportsCenter's top ten. On the downside, half the games most nights don't end until the wee hours of the morning. Pushing that a little further, you never even see the games that don't even start by the time people are going to bed making way for the dreaded "East Coast Bias." In the West, games starting early can either be bad or good. If you're like me, you wake up early and the word hangover is not viable in your vocabulary, so rolling over and turning on a TV that already has games on is great. For others, they have no idea what College Gameday is, or what Lee Corso looks like. Turning on the TV at 11AM to see your beloved Carolina Panthers already in a 24 - 3 hole is demoralizing. Still, being able to go to bed at night at a reasonable hour and know the outcome of every game is the best. You could argue that the general sports fan in the West is more knowledgeable than those in the East because they see every games outcome, and watch SportsCenter 1000 times before going to bed. While Mike & Mike is great, waking up to Colin Cowherd is an acceptable substitute. In the end, I suppose it ll really comes down to if you're an early or late riser. Although when God created DVR on the eighth day and in turn brought world peace, anywhere you choose to live can be justified with a click of the big red button on your remote. My solution: Wyoming. A tranquil environment where games don't start too early or end too late. Together, soon to be and already middle aged, overweight men can build a sports town akin to the Roman Empire at the height of its powers. Replacing 2.3 kids with 2.3 DVR's per household is just the beginning. You have a man cave in your basement? Well here in Utopia, our entire house is a man cave. We even have TV's underneath the toilet seat lid so you never miss any of the action. Since we live in Wyoming where there are no pro teams, we get all the best games on basic cable freeing up our sports packages for the losers that have to see the end of that Panthers game because being down 10 points in the fourth quarter is the closest they've been in 7 weeks. So who's it going to be? All it takes is one to start the trend. Only then will all of our viewership problems be solved. Of course, this is all based on you being okay with being lulled to sleep by a girl next door screaming daddy on a nightly basis.

ITS MADNESS

It's funny how this always happens. Every year the players change, some of the coaches change, venues change, but the drama and excitement remain the same. Headed in to the 2011 edition of March Madness, some were skeptical about the level of play without any premiere team this year or sure fire #1 pick in June. With parity comes chaos though, and through one weekend of play there has been quite a bit of it. Of the 16 teams remaining, there are only a small handful of them that have played their games to a convincing finish. Surprisingly, one of those teams is this years Cinderella, VCU, who has won not 2 but 3 games thus far having handily beat USC in their play-in game. Richmond too is a Cinderella contender, but at this point the sales clerk at Foot Locker is still checking to see if they have the slipper in their size. The three best individual players, Kemba Walker, Jimmer Fredette, and Derrick Williams, continue to carry their teams but its still tough to tell if the guys around them are enough to cut down the nets. Best team left: Ohio State. If Sullinger was two inches taller, he'd probably be the NBA's #1 pick this year should he decide to come out. Even at 6'9 though the freshman is still a top 5 player in the country, and the #1 is still a good possibility depending on who gets the pick. Also, the Buckeyes continue an almost surreal 3 PT shooting percentage that leaves their opponents in the dust. The scariest team left: Butler. Losing Gordon Hayward last year to the NBA was a big loss, but to draw this team in the brackets may be a death wish for anyone. After two highly emotional first-weekend games, momentum is the last thing you want a team with this much experience having. Couple that with one of the brightest young minds in college basketball, coach Brad Stevens, and they could easily find themselves back in the Final Four. So after one weekend of play, were right on track with everything you'd expect from the tournament -- unless you're the fan of a Big East team (11 teams made it in, in what's considered the best conference in the nation, and only two remain). Upsets, Cinderellas, Gus Johnson, Jimmer-Range, etc., everything that we have come to know and love is still in play. Including this excruciating 3 day wait until the next round of games starts again.

ROAD TRIP

After a nearly four month home-stand, the Santa Monica Finers are on a four and a half month long road trip. My new tour is for a company called Red Peg out of Alexandria, VA, representing the National Guard via 3 on 3 basketball tournaments at college campuses. Last week at Grambling University was intense. Being such a small school, everyone knew about us and the turn out on Saturday was enormous. Aside from the 3 on 3 tournament we also run 3 PT, free throw, half court, and dunk contests as well as the "World's Biggest Game of Knockout" and strength challenges. Each individual winner getting an Ipod. The highlight this weekend though was the 3 on 3. We play fifteen minutes games by ones and twos to fifteen (whichever comes first), call your own fouls, etc. Playing for the championship game and a new flip cam for every team member, the favored team was down 8 - 3 before making a furious come back and tying the game at 11. After stealing the ball they used their lone time out to set up a play. You'd think that a bunch of college kids running a play in a pick up game would just try a simple pick to get an open look at the basket. Cue the following: Person A inbounds the ball and sets a quick screen for person B. After person B comes around the screen, person A rolls off it towards the basket. Person B lobs the ball to the hoop, and person A catches it behind his head and one hand tomahawks down with about 2 seconds left. Let me know the next time you see something like that on the local playground. The nearly 200 people that were still hanging around exploded a la the stands in the old And1 mix tape videos. We were poised for an equally impressive dunk contest, until the gym coordinator told us we couldn't do it because of the lack of break away rims. Overall the weekend was a lot of excitement and success. The team and the person I replaced before me have made this the most successful program that the Guard has, so I plan to do my part to keep it going. This week we are in Carbondale, IL at Southern Illinois University. First impressions: The city of Carbondale should never be a place you come to on purpose. It is still early though. So that was week one. If you would like to know more, check out nationalguard.com\basketball. Come back tomorrow for all my thoughts on the first weekend of March Madness.

                                                    ACTIVITY COURT SET-UP

                                                               3 ON 3 SETUP

FORMER NBA PLAYERS TOM HAMMOND (BACKGROUND), AND JOHN "HOT ROD" WILLIAMS

THE CHOSEN "1"

"And the other guard at 6'3, from CHHHHHIIICCCCAAAGGGOOOO, number one, Derrick Rose!" Notice something there. Last Friday when I attended the Bulls/ Hawks game at the United Center, I certainly did. Normally when a player is introduced, the PA announcer lets you know where the player attended school. Not Derrick Rose -- He is far too important. Everyone is made clear that Rose was born in Chicago, grew up in Chicago, and one year of college at Memphis withstanding has lived there his entire life. In three short years he has blossomed from the number one overall pick with lots of talent, yet lots to learn, to perhaps the premiere guard in the league. There were two things that really stood out to me about Rose in person. One, was his undying will to attack the basket. He already has a vast array of crossovers and spins to get to the rim for easy points, but in spots where he used to try and make an extra pass he now muscles his way to the free throw line, as well as some spectacular "and 1's." In the most recent edition of 'Chicago' magazine, an interview with Rose suggests that being more physical and getting to the line are clear goals of his this year and it showed. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the leadership he imposes over his team. Going to the half, the Bulls were down two to a Hawks team that had beat them in a close one in Atlanta just a week prior, and is one of the Eastern Conference teams that could potentially contend for a title. They're offense was decent but their defense was porous, allowing lots of easy points in the paint. Rose answered with this sequence to begin the third quarter: steal and layup, block and breakout layup, steal. Nine minutes in to the third I realized the Bulls had only allowed 5 points. When all was said in done, the Bulls only allowed 26 total second half points in what ended up being an easy Bulls win. So easy in fact, that Brian Scalibrini even found his way into the final minute, and hit the last basket of the game to a defeaning roar. Obviously the Bulls made some adjustments at the half, but even from the upper seating you could see Rose yelling at guys to get back, pushing the tempo on offense, and setting the tone for everyone else. For my money's worth, Derrick Rose is indeed the MVP of the NBA this year, barring some monumental collapse down the stretch. He spent most of the year either without Joakim Noah, or the teams big time off season acquisition Carlos Boozer, or both. Boozer even sat out this particular game, and you start to realize how little star power is actually around Rose. His Bulls are currently in a tie for first place in the East. Where every other contender has two or three super stars, Rose is flying solo. In the years since Jordan left Chicago, it has been a long, tumultuous return to the top. Chicago basketball has once again found its savior, this time a young, hometown hero. Late in the fourth and with the game in hand, Rose crashed the rim and gracefully banked in a shot over his head with a little help from the rim. As he stepped tothe line, "M-V-P" chants rang out through the United Center. The same 'Chicago' article mentioned that Rose always misses when the MVP chants are going, but on this night he made them all. Perhaps because, like the rest of Chicago, he's starting to believe. 

                                                

BEWARE THE HONOR CODE

Before I blow your mind, I give you the facts: 11 - 2. 11 - 2. 10. - 3. 11 - 2. BYU's Football record in the 2006 - 2009 seasons respectively. Last season, 7 - 6. The 2010 - 2011 BYU Basketball team coming off the weekend win over SDSU: 27 - 2, highest ranking in school history, likely possess colleges' offensive player of the year. Last night, they were embarrassed for a second time by New Mexico in what's easily their worst loss of the season thus far, and can expect to fall from their potential tournament one seed perch. The common denominator? Last April BYU dismissed their all time leading rusher Harvey Unga. Late Tuesday BYU dismissed Brandon Davies, the teams leading rebounder and third leading scorer. Both men engaged in premarital sex, thus breaking the honor code. If bumping uglies is all it takes to bring BYU and its sports teams to their knees then its simple -- are we not looking at the real life Pleasantville. In a picture perfect, regulated town (i.e. BYU's Provo campus), with a distinct set of rules (i.e. honor code), Reese Witherspoon's provocativeness (i.e. sexual frustrations of the two athletes above) leads to everything in town falling apart including the basketball team not being able to hit a jumper to save their life. The parallels I'm sure run deeper, but I haven't seen that movie in a loooooong time and I have no interest in making it my next rental. I'm always one for the benefits of sex but if this the kind of ramifications it's going to have on the Mormon faithful every time it happens then perhaps it is better that it's outlawed. Either way, there's no denying the uncanny similarities and now I am interested to see if "Breaking the honor code," becomes as catchy as "Taking my talent's to South Beach" when referring to doing the dirty, or other various dirties.