SportsHoncho

The CBI? and why I like it!

Its the CBI, and to clarify, it stands for College Basketball Invitational.  Haven't heard of it?  You are not alone.  But let me tell you why I already like it.

It gives my Utah Runnin' Utes an opportunity to play in the post season.  You see... Utah didn't have the best year.  New coach and new system didn't produce the results that we are use to at Utah.  Under Majerus, Utah became a powerful program, during the 1990's Utah was in the top 10 winning-est programs.  The Majerus-era spoiled us and the programs has slipped since.  I am looking forward to the Jim Boylen era and think this year was more a product of the last coach, Gaci-something.   So for Utah to get the chance to play in a post season tournament, at any level is good.  It gives this young team more practice time and competition from around the country.

Looking into the CBI, and this opinion is skewed by my teams chance to play in it, seems well organized and is trying hard to keep fans informed, with their website.  The website has information on each team, news stories about each game and it is updated soon after the games end.

The best thing about the CBI?  It has a tournament ending best-of-3 series.  One draw back to the tournament is that only 11 of the 17 games will be televised and on Fox College Sports, which I don't even get under my expanded sports package.  So unless Utah gets to play a lower seed along the way, I won't see them play.

Utah beat UTEP on their home court, and will face Tulsa on Monday.

GO UTES!

A couple of negative thoughts, before March Madness

Here are my issues with Conference Tournaments, specifically the Mountain West Conference (MWC) Championship:

• Conference seasons are easily enough to determine who should go to the post-season.  Period.  After a 16 or 18 game conference season, the teams have proven where they rank.  Taking into account the non-conference games they play, this should be enough to place them in the 'Dance.' 
• Several tournaments, including the Mountain West Conference (MWC), are played on the home court of a conference team. I don't have a problem with this, IF THAT TEAM EARNS that privilege.  The MWC has played on UNLV's home court for several years and created an unfair home court advantage for them, they have won the tournament 2 straight years.  The conference tournaments need to be played on: 1) Major neutral arena, 2) Rotated arbitrarily through the league, or 3) Played on the home court of the Conference's Season Champion.

Is this whining?  Yes!  Is it going to change?  No!  Its just my thoughts and issues with conference tournaments. 

Now lets talk March Madness.  I know this tournament isn't perfect either;  Legitimate teams get left out (ASU, Virginia Tech), Unworthy teams are allowed in (Baylor, American), and Some bad/lopsided games in the first round.  However, even with these flaws, I can't complain.  I love this tournament, watch all the games I can, cheer for the underdogs, cheer for everyone Duke plays, and come up with creative reasons to miss work on Thursday and Friday. 

We have one day before the tournament starts, I have filled out 12 different brackets and looking for more groups to join, I still don't have my 'illness' lined up for Thursday, but working on it and am stocking the fridge for the weekend... Its March Madness!

ENJOY THE TOURNAMENT!

I don't really want to talk about it...

but, yes I went to the Utah/BYU Men's Basketball (rivalry) game on Saturday.  It was an ugly game, with only one player, Lee Cummard from BYU, actually performing well (ESPN Box score).  Everyone else stunk it up and tried to give the game to the other team.  I was hoping Coach Boylen could win his first rivalry game. 

(Don't take the following as questioning Coach Boylen's decision, I personally love his style and what he is doing at the U).  Utah had the ball, down by 1 with 33 seconds left, and held for the last shot.  I personally, and maybe thats why I am writing this blog rather than coaching Div. I basketball, do not like holding for the last shot when losing.  If the score is tied, yes, but not when losing.  It ended up Utah couldn't get the desired setup or shot, so Kepkay had to improvise and threw up a prayer as the shot-clock expired.  On a brighter side, the Utah women's team took it to BYU later in the afternoon, starting the game 22-0.  Yeah, it is 'grasping for straws,' but when it comes to losing to BYU, I look for anything to cheer me up, even women's basketball.

I am really sick of Bob Knight.

I admit it, I liked Bob Knight.  He was brash, funny, did whatever he wanted, and didn't really care about anyone else.  After closely watching his interviews over the past couple of weeks, I realized that I only had this opinion of him because I only saw and watched the highlights/lowlights of his rants through SportsCenter.  A few nights ago, I cringed as I saw him bring his grandson into the press box.  My first thought was, 'I've seen this before,' (see picture on the right). The entire room was uncomfortable with the situation and what might happen.  So Bob obliged them and throws the kid up in the air.  I was truly scared, Bob was wingin' it and looked as if that was the first time he had thrown the kid in the air. 

 

Then last night, Bob won his 900th game, and treated the press conference like Bill Belichick treats them, as a nuisance and a burden.  He gave no meaningful information, swore at a couple of questions asked, didn't want to talk about the 900th win, and pretended that it didn't mean anything.  The last time he tried to convince us that a record meant nothing (the most wins record) he wept for a couple of hours after the game.  The best part was that he then pouted about how much attention Joe Paterno got for his 500th game and indicated that he, Bob Knight, did that 25 years ago.  So he is telling us 'No Big Deal' one second, then he is jealous of attention other coaches are getting the next. 

Bob, you are officially off of my likable coaches list, you've "Jumped the Shark" and I probably should have realized and proclaimed that several years ago.

Utah pulls out the WIN!

#3 Utah upsets #1 Georgia in Gymnastics last night.... by .100!  Actually, Georgia should have won the meet, up by .300 going into the last rotation.  Then Georgia fell twice on the beam.  Now I am not claiming to know all the rules, but 6 members of the team do each event, and the final score is the sum of the 5 best scores (I think).  If only one Georgia Gymnast had fallen, they would have kept the lead. 

Our tickets turned out to be 1 row in front of the Georgia fan section, however we made nice and talked to them throughout the meet.  We (when I say "we" in the context of being social and talking to people, I mean "mostly Holly") ended up talking to the family of the freshmen Georgia gymnast, Cassidy McComb.  She was Outstanding!  In fact, had her routine on the beam counted, (she did a beam routine, however it was claimed to be an "Exhibition," after the 6 team members had already gone) Georgia would have taken the meet.

This being my second ever Gymnastics meet, I have a lot to learn, but I thought it was great how much the Utah crowd, cheered for the Georgia routines and performances throughout the night.  I think it is a courtesy rule to cheer for all contenders... however, it was a competition and that cheering diminished greatly on the last rotation.  The cheers were clearly less for each Georgia routine and when the falls came, their were cheers for the possible outcome these falls meant.

7 straight for Utah!

Utah beat Navy last night in the Poinsettia Bowl, for their 7th straight bowl win.  That is tied for the longest consecutive bowl wins in the nation.  Other awesome facts about Utah's bowl season:

• 6 straight bowl games appearances,
• 7 straight bowl wins,
• Utah is 10-3 in bowl games (.769)

A couple of strange things about the game: 

1. They gave Joe Dale the defensive MVP for the game... and as a Ute fan watching the game, we noticed how many times he screwed up on his assignment.  He got worked over several times by Navy's option offense, so I was a little surprised that he got MVP.  With that said, other than Martell Burnett, I can't think of anyone on Utah's defense that deserves it for a bigger play than the interception to end the game. 
2. The offensive MVP went to Brian Johnson, WHAT?  Darrell Mack had a much bigger game and performed consistently through the entire game.  Johnson struggled off and on throughout the game.  Alas, he is the QB so he gets the trophy.
3. The STRANGEST thing was the No-Call near the end of the game, when Utah's Brooks fumbles the ball, which hits the pylon and they do not call it a touchback for Navy.  They even reviewed it and didn't give the ball to Navy.  That was a bad call, and the refs are now admitting it.
4. I couldn't believe how many times the commentator with marbles in his mouth (Lou Holtz), said that Utah was probably the best of the Non-BCS schools.  Fact is we are better than some of the BCS programs, but that is great thing to hear from a nationally recognized expert.

Not the best game from the standpoint of consistency and winning in style, but it was a win, so its a great start to the Christmas weekend.

College Basketball and Database update.

Me and my brother-in-law, Wayne, went to the Utah basketball game today.   We both are having college football withdrawals, but are trying to fill it with college basketball.  Its hard to get into the basketball season with some football remaining (Poinsettia Bowl).  Good win for the Utes, they played very well the first half and kind of stalled in the second, they really need to work on finishing games and opponents.

ZipCodeSports.com database update:  The following schedules have been uploaded to the website for the 2008 season (Click here to see all schedules uploaded to the database):

• AMA Supercross
• Freestyle Motocross
• Toyota AMA Arenacross
• NHRA POWERade Series
• NHRA Lucas Oil Series
• NASCAR Sprint Cup
• NASCAR Craftsmen Truck
• NASCAR Nationwide Series
• Men's Champions Tour
• Men's PGA Tour
• Women's LPGA Tour

Epilogue: College Football Rivalry Week (Utah at BYU)

OK, so I have had a few days to reflect, think and let off steam concerning Utah's 17-10 loss at BYU.   I have come to terms that Utah lost the game when they allowed BYU to convert a 4th and 18, from their own 10 yard line, and NOT because of the two horse-shit calls made against Utah right after that play.  As you can tell, I haven't completely absolved the referees part in the loss, but after watching the replay of the game can accept the loss. 

The two bad calls were Unnecessary Roughness and Pass Interference, one right after other, right after the 4th down conversion.  Being at the game and when talking to people right after, I was adamant that they were horrible, horrible calls; the refs were obviously paid off and giving the game to BYU (I'm a Utah fan, what else was I suppose to think).  After watching the replay I have toned that down to just 'two BAD calls.'  The problem with the unnecessary roughness call was the inconsistency, since almost the exact same thing happened a few minutes earlier against a Utah receiver, without a call... and the safety was in the air to hit the receiver, who did get a hand on the ball.  The pass interference, when watched live, looked like the BYU receiver pulled the Utah corner onto him, but after seeing the replay, I think it should have been a no call.  The Utah corner had caused the receiver to run the route further out and DID turn to find the ball.  The receiver was out of position to get to the ball without cutting back into the corner.  (Yes, I understand that my argument could be flipped to defend the PI call, but that is not how I see it.)  The corner didn't grab or shove the receiver, only made him run outside of the correct pattern.

Now my biggest problem with the game is that the announcers for the The Mtn. (the Mountain West Conference TV channel) were the two biggest BYU homers they could have assigned to the game.  Both are ex-BYU something or other, I felt like I was watching the BYU channel.  They sounded depressed when Utah took the lead and jubilant when they came back.  I think a conference-wide channel should provide at least a little bit of objectivity to the announcing team.

College Football Rivalry Week (Utah at BYU)

I can't believe the college football season is coming to an end already.  Utah's season ends this weekend with its rivalry game with BYU (see this Wikipedia entry that describes the great characteristics of the rivalry).  One of the great parts of this rivalry is that immediate family's have divided loyalties.  I grew up a BYU fan (that makes me sick to admit) because my Dad is a BYU fan.  However, I went to Utah, saw the error in my fandom and now support Utah (and hate BYU!).  My brother-in-law Wayne was a longtime BYU fan, he was personally recruited by Lavell Edwards, but now has season tickets with me to Utah.... and 3 of his 4 sons are still BYU fans and call him a traitor.  Family dinner discussions during the football and basketball seasons can get a little heated.

Utah had won 4 straight until last year's win by BYU.  I still have not watched a replay of this game, where BYU throws a last second TD to win (makes me sick to watch, so I refuse to embed the video into my blog).  Wayne has watched it and insists its one of the best ever games between Utah and BYU.  However, Utah has beaten BYU on their home-field 6 of the last 7 times, and the last 2.   

Unfortunately, since college football changed to 12 regular season games, the Utah/BYU rivalry has been on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  I say unfortunate, because I have always had a huge Thanksgiving weekend in St.George, UT with my Dad's family.  This has been an annual event for our family since before I was born (33 years ago) and I think I have only missed 1 year.  I realize that many people think this is a great weekend, since they will be coming "home" to the Salt Lake valley and can enjoy the rivalry, but since I leave town, it is a hassle when I have tickets.  And... I have had tickets to both home and away games in the rivalry for the last 6 years, so I make my family come home early.  This year will be no exception.  Me, Wayne, my nephew Nathan from Iowa, and an unspecified lucky person (most likely my brother Bruce) will be going this year, along with Spud, my high school buddy, and his family.  Should be a good time and a great game.

Another 180 by Utah?

Utah played UNLV tonight, who we have not lost to since 1979, yes... that's last century... almost 30 years ago... I was 5!  Not only did we loose, but we were embarrassed, 27-0.  Utah goes from destroying #11 UCLA a week ago to embarrassing ourselves this week.  We now have a 1-3 record, 0-2 in conference.  I can't even type anything else, it was such a horrible performance, I should have stayed in the rain at the AST Dew Tour.