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March 2006

Florida cast as the villain

By Mark Bradley | Friday, March 31, 2006, 07:26 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Indianapolis — At 6:07 p.m. Saturday, the hated Gators will be hated as never before. They’ll be hated in a way that even Ray Goff could never muster for Steve Spurrier, and this time it isn’t Florida’s fault. It just happens to be the team playing the most huggable underdog in Final Four history.

“We’re definitely going to be the villains,” Joakim Noah said. “But that doesn’t matter… . It doesn’t matter what stories are being said about who. Like [teammate] Adrian Moss says, ‘There’s 10 players and two buckets and one ball — that’s what it’s all about.’ “

Usually it is. This is a bit different. Florida is facing not just George Mason but a nation of casual observers who have decided George Mason is their favorite team ever. Said Jim Larranaga, the Patriots’ coach: “We’ve been embraced by the whole country… . We all feel it would be great to be the underdog and to overachieve. I think we all can identify with that attitude.”

The Gators can. They weren’t picked to finish first in the SEC East and weren’t a No. 1 (or even a No. 2) seed when the Big Dance began. But suddenly they’re the massive favorite to squash George Mason and take the title to boot.

“We still feel we’re the underdog,” Gators point guard Taurean Green said. “With all the hype surrounding George Mason, we still feel we have something to prove.”

And then, in the next breath, a somber Green said: “We’re here to handle business. We’re not here to have fun.”

The cuddly Patriots, by way of conspicuous contrast, were living the dream Friday. They were wide-eyed when they took the floor at the RCA Dome for their public practice, and during Larranaga’s media briefing, guard Lamar Butler could be seen poking his head through a curtain and smiling at the immensity of it all.

Said Butler: “I was looking at how big this [interview] room is. Never seen so many people here just to write a story.”

Four teams have gathered here, but there’s only one real story. Can George Mason win again? Is George Mason about to unseat the 1954 Milan High School Indians — the real-life inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers” — as the most improbable champion crowned in this city?

The most famous scene in “Hoosiers” has coach Gene Hackman gathering his Hickory squad on the floor of Hinkle Fieldhouse and measuring the rim to prove it’s the same 10 feet as the ones back home. How eerie is it that Hinkle, which stands 7 miles from the RCA Dome, is part of Butler University and that George Mason’s most effusive player is named Butler?

And what are we to make of Lamar Butler’s first cast at the 10-foot rim in the Dome?

“I shot an airball,” he said. “I’ve never in my life been inside a dome. All I could think of was Peyton Manning throwing all those touchdowns.”

The Patriots were loose and effusive. The Gators were something else. Noah and Green met the media and were alternately confrontational and sullen. Noah sparred with questioners and, just for the heck of it, answered a French correspondent in French.

Given that Noah is the son of a tennis champion and a Miss Sweden and that Green’s dad played in the NBA, they came across as too worldly to be truly excited. Their next opponent knows little of the world but seems delighted that many of its denizens have just discovered George Mason.

Guard Tony Skinn: “Even though we’re far from home, I think we have just about everybody cheering for us… . Whenever we score, we’re going to hear the crowd roar.”

But the crowd doesn’t actually get to play, and Florida has played better than any other team in this tournament. The happy George Mason story figures to end Saturday. Unless it doesn’t. Unless all that hating undoes the Gators, same as it did UConn.

“I hope [people] come out tomorrow and cheer us on,” Butler said. “For us to get into the Final Four, people have something to cheer for. We’re the Dallas Cowboys [meaning America’s Team] of the 2006 era.”

And the Gators? In the court of public opinion, they might as well be from France.

Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

The biggest hits at the Dance

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 09:32 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

This NCAA tournament has induced all manner of superlative-slinging. George Mason beating Connecticut was the biggest upset ever, and the doings of last Thursday and Friday produced the greatest round of 16 ever, and surely the combination of all the above has given us the best tournament ever.

Rather than simply recap the wonders of the last fortnight, the aim today is to review other “bests” in the annals of March Madness. Be advised, though, that the 2006 Big Dance is well represented herein.

• Best first-round Thursday: March 14, 1991

Six of the 16 games are upsets, including No. 14 Xavier over No. 3 Nebraska and No. 11 UConn over No. 6 LSU and Shaquille O’Neal. The biggest is Richmond over Syracuse, the first time a No. 15 seed undoes a No. 2.

• Best first-round Friday: March 14, 1986

Cleveland State, a 14th seed led by Mouse McFadden, takes down Indiana and Steve Alford and Bobby Knight. Arkansas-Little Rock, another 14th seed, fells Notre Dame and Digger Phelps.

• Best first-round game: North Carolina State over Pepperdine, 1983

Jim Valvano’s team trails Jim Harrick’s Waves by six with 70 seconds left in the first overtime. Cozell McQueen tips in Dereck Whittenburg’s missed free throw to force a second OT. State wins 69-67 and will become the most beloved underdog in the history of the Big Dance. (Before George Mason, that is.)

• Best second-round Saturday: March 14, 1981

Within three dizzying hours, NBC viewers (CBS didn’t get the rights until 1982) see St. Joseph’s unseat No. 1 DePaul on a last-second layup, see Arkansas upset reigning champ Louisville on U.S. Reed’s halfcourt fling and see Kansas State down No. 1 seed Oregon State on Rolando Blackman’s baseline jumper.

• Best second-round Sunday: March 19, 1995

Tyus Edney goes coastal to beat Missouri and save the season for top-ranked UCLA. Defending champ Arkansas needs OT (and Lawrence Moten calling a timeout his team doesn’t have) to survive Syracuse. Don Reid follows an Allen Iverson miss at the horn to send Georgetown past 14th-seeded Weber State.

• Best second-round game: Georgia Tech over LSU, 1990

LSU, with Shaquille O’Neal and Chris Jackson and Stanley Roberts, leads Tech by 17 points. The Jackets, with Dennis Scott and Kenny Anderson and Brian Oliver, win 94-91.

• Best regional Thursday: March 23, 2006 LSU beats No. 1 Duke. West Virginia ties Texas and loses to Texas in five blurry seconds. UCLA scores the last 11 points to oust Gonzaga.

• Best regional Friday: March 24, 2006

Villanova beats Boston College on an inbound backdoor. Florida beats Georgetown on Corey Brewer’s no-look flip. UConn ties Washington on Rashad Anderson’s 3-pointer and wins in overtime.

• Best regional semi: Jacksonville over Iowa, 1970

Artis Gilmore fouls out, but the Dolphins’ other 7-footer — Pembrook Burrows III — tips in a Vaughn Wedeking miss to give fourth-ranked Jacksonville a 104-103 victory over seventh-ranked Iowa, which features John Johnson and Downtown Fred Brown.

• Best regional final (regulation): Kentucky over Indiana, 1975

The Wildcats avenge an earlier 24-point loss by beating the undefeated Hoosiers 92-90 in the most intense game ever played.

• Best regional final (overtime): Duke over Kentucky, 1992

Grant Hill to Christian Laettner. Maybe you’ve seen the clip.

• Best set of regional finals: March 26-27, 2005

Three of the four go to overtime. Louisville surges from 20 down to beat Wake Forest. Illinois rallies from 15 down with four minutes to play to beat Arizona. Michigan State comes from six down in OT to beat Kentucky. The fourth game — North Carolina over Wisconsin — is decided by a whopping six points.

• Best semifinal (regulation): Duke over UNLV, 1991

Laettner — yes, him again — makes two free throws with 12 seconds left to upend the unbeaten and presumably unbeatable Rebels.

• Best semifinal (single OT): UCLA over Louisville, 1975

The Cardinals, coached by former UCLA assistant Denny Crum, fall when Terry Howard, who hasn’t missed a free throw all season, misses. Richard Washington hits the winner with two seconds left. Afterward, John Wooden announces he will retire after the Bruins’ championship game against Kentucky. (UCLA wins, giving Wooden his 10th title.)

• Best semifinal (multiple OTs): North Carolina State over UCLA, 1974

Down 11 in regulation, down seven in the second overtime, the Wolfpack and David Thompson outlast Bill Walton’s gang to end the Bruins’ run of NCAA championships at seven straight.

• Best semifinal Saturday: April 3, 2004

Will Bynum drives and twists and sends Georgia Tech to the final over Oklahoma State. Emeka Okafor follows his own miss to cap an epic UConn comeback — the Huskies trail by eight with 3 1/2 minutes left — against Duke.

• Best final (regulation): Villanova over Georgetown, 1985

‘Nova makes 78.6 percent of its shots, wins by two measly points, which tells us how splendid Georgetown is on this night of nights.

• Best final (single OT): Loyola (Ill.) over Cincinnati, 1963

The top-ranked Bearcats lead by 15 points with 12 minutes to play and are poised to win their third consecutive title. Loyola sends the game to overtime on Jerry Harkness’ shot with five seconds left. The Ramblers win 60-58 when Vic Rouse follows a miss by Les Hunter with one second remaining in OT.

• Best final (multiple OTs): North Carolina over Kansas, 1957

Carolina becomes the unbeaten national champ in triple overtime — it had similarly worked three overtimes against Michigan State in the semis the night before — against Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas. The winning points come on free throws by center Joe Quigg with six seconds left after he’s fouled by Chamberlain.

• Best Final Four (all games): 1977

Marquette beats UNC Charlotte on Jerome Whitehead’s last-second layup off Butch Lee’s deflected length-of-the-court pass. North Carolina beats UNLV by one point in a frenzied semifinal. UNLV and UNC Charlotte combine for 200 points in the consolation game. (Remember those?) Dean Smith goes to the Four Corners in the final. It fails. Marquette wins. Al McGuire weeps.

• Best tournament (not counting the Final Four): 1990

Northern Iowa beats third-seeded Missouri on a last-second trey. Top-seeded Michigan State needs OT to survive Murray State and Popeye Jones. North Carolina upsets top-ranked Oklahoma. UConn’s Tate George takes Scott Burrell’s 90-foot pass and hits at the buzzer to beat Clemson. Georgia Tech’s Anderson hits at/after the buzzer to force OT against Michigan State. Laettner hits the first of his regional winners against UConn. Loyola Marymount makes its impassioned run to the Elite Eight after the death of Hank Gathers. The Final Four, alas, is an anticlimax. UNLV beats Duke by 30 in the title game.

• Best tournament (before this one): 1983

It starts with N.C. State beating Pepperdine in double OT and ends with Lorenzo Charles jamming home Whittenburg’s air ball and Valvano running around looking for somebody to hug. Of State’s six victories en route to the most improbable title on record, four come by either one or two points. The ‘83 tournament also includes Georgia’s upset of North Carolina and Michael Jordan, Louisville’s overtime defeat of Kentucky in the schools’ first meeting in 24 years and the breathtaking Houston-Louisville slamfest in the Final Four.

Permalink | | Categories: Mark Bradley

The biggest hits at the Dance

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 09:32 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

• Best first-round Thursday: March 14, 1991

• Best first-round Friday: March 14, 1986

Cleveland State, a 14th seed led by Mouse McFadden, takes down Indiana and Steve Alford and Bobby Knight. Arkansas-Little Rock, another 14th seed, fells Notre Dame and Digger Phelps.

• Best first-round game: North Carolina State over Pepperdine, 1983

• Best second-round Saturday: March 14, 1981

• Best second-round Sunday: March 19, 1995

• Best second-round game: Georgia Tech over LSU, 1990

LSU, with Shaquille O’Neal and Chris Jackson and Stanley Roberts, leads Tech by 17 points. The Jackets, with Dennis Scott and Kenny Anderson and Brian Oliver, win 94-91.

• Best regional Thursday: March 23, 2006 LSU beats No. 1 Duke. West Virginia ties Texas and loses to Texas in five blurry seconds. UCLA scores the last 11 points to oust Gonzaga.

• Best regional Friday: March 24, 2006

Villanova beats Boston College on an inbound backdoor. Florida beats Georgetown on Corey Brewer’s no-look flip. UConn ties Washington on Rashad Anderson’s 3-pointer and wins in overtime.

• Best regional semi: Jacksonville over Iowa, 1970

• Best regional final (regulation): Kentucky over Indiana, 1975

The Wildcats avenge an earlier 24-point loss by beating the undefeated Hoosiers 92-90 in the most intense game ever played.

• Best regional final (overtime): Duke over Kentucky, 1992

Grant Hill to Christian Laettner. Maybe you’ve seen the clip.

• Best set of regional finals: March 26-27, 2005

• Best semifinal (regulation): Duke over UNLV, 1991

Laettner — yes, him again — makes two free throws with 12 seconds left to upend the unbeaten and presumably unbeatable Rebels.

• Best semifinal (single OT): UCLA over Louisville, 1975

• Best semifinal (multiple OTs): North Carolina State over UCLA, 1974

Down 11 in regulation, down seven in the second overtime, the Wolfpack and David Thompson outlast Bill Walton’s gang to end the Bruins’ run of NCAA championships at seven straight.

• Best semifinal Saturday: April 3, 2004

• Best final (regulation): Villanova over Georgetown, 1985

‘Nova makes 78.6 percent of its shots, wins by two measly points, which tells us how splendid Georgetown is on this night of nights.

• Best final (single OT): Loyola (Ill.) over Cincinnati, 1963

• Best final (multiple OTs): North Carolina over Kansas, 1957

• Best Final Four (all games): 1977

• Best tournament (not counting the Final Four): 1990

• Best tournament (before this one): 1983

Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

It’s about integrity

By Terence Moore | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 08:03 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

No question, Bud Selig has to pull a Ford Frick these days. That is to say that, if somebody with artificially inflated arms hits a 756th home run to surpass Hank Aaron’s all-time record, the baseball commissioner has an obligation to slap an asterisk the size of Barry Bonds’ bulging neck next to that sucker.

Better yet, what baseball should do is take a page from the NCAA. Whenever its members are found guilty of flouting the rules, whole sections of their accomplishments during a given period are declared “vacant.” So, in baseball’s case, Selig should announce that all of the bloated statistics produced during this steroid era are there but not there. Even better, Selig should strip those statistics from the record book forever, along with the names of the frauds behind them. If not, the future only will produce more clenched teeth from those of us who believe in truth, justice and Ken Griffey Jr., as the only legitimate slugger of his generation.

It’s about integrity. Baseball is built on the word, especially when it comes to the sanctity of its numbers that have been tainted by things in the past (decades of segregation, spitball, dead ball, designated hitters), but not like this. So, on Thursday, baseball said in New York that it finally will investigate its steroids mess. Nobody is headed for the slammer, though. That’s because, despite the commissioner’s office hiring former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to conduct its version of the Watergate hearings, this won’t be a criminal probe. Not only that, many among the guilty will plead their version of the Fifth. That is, if they even agree to meet with those conducting the probe. Here’s another thing: No matter what Mitchell uncovers, the notoriously strong heads of the Major League Players Association won’t allow suspensions, fines or even spankings as punishment. They’ll allow nothing. Even so, Selig can do something. See our reference to Frick, the former commissioner who placed an asterisk next to Roger Maris’ 61 home runs after he managed his record in 162 games compared to the 154 that Babe Ruth used for 60. There also is something that those of us who vote for Hall of Famers can do. We can ignore the artificially inflated sluggers on our ballots. We’ll know who they are sooner than later. Despite the inevitable stonewalling to come throughout Mitchell’s investigation, his committee will expose those among the guilty who you already know and those among the guilty who will make you cry, “Say it ain’t so.” Which brings us to this: No matter how baseball tries to spin it otherwise, its decision to do the right thing and explore the depth of steroid use in the game is all about Bonds. For one, he’s the biggest name implicated by the BALCO scandal regarding the use of illegal steroids by athletes. A recently published book even shows Bonds’ involvement with performance-enhancing drugs through affidavits filed by government entities in the case. For another, Bonds is seven home runs shy of surpassing Babe Ruth’s 714 total and 48 from toppling Aaron’s 755. Yeah, this is about Bonds. It’s just that it also should be about Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and the others who have slugged integrity as often as possible over the farthest fence. Through his tortured looks and “I’m not here to discuss the past” mantra before a Congressional committee last spring, McGwire admitted that he was juiced when he broke Maris’ home run record for a season. Sosa flashed his guilt, too, before that same committee by insinuating for the first time ever that he couldn’t speak English. Palmeiro already is a proven liar after he denied his steroid use while wagging his finger at those congressmen and later testing positive. Plus, you have either confessions or semi-confessions from Ken Caminiti, now dead with much help from steroids, to Jose Canseco to Jason Giambi to the instant growth of the likes of Bret Boone and Brady Anderson. Whatever the case, Selig can make an awful situation better regarding baseball’s record book with a large bottle of Wite-Out or by hitting the delete key.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore

Don’t hesitate, vacate juiced-up records

By Terence Moore | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 08:03 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Here’s another thing: No matter what Mitchell uncovers, the notoriously strong heads of the Major League Players Association won’t allow suspensions, fines or even spankings as punishment. They’ll allow nothing. Even so, Selig can do something. See our reference to Frick, the former commissioner who placed an asterisk next to Roger Maris’ 61 home runs after he managed his record in 162 games compared to the 154 that Babe Ruth used for 60.

There also is something that those of us who vote for Hall of Famers can do. We can ignore the artificially inflated sluggers on our ballots. We’ll know who they are sooner than later. Despite the inevitable stonewalling to come throughout Mitchell’s investigation, his committee will expose those among the guilty who you already know and those among the guilty who will make you cry, “Say it ain’t so.”

Which brings us to this: No matter how baseball tries to spin it otherwise, its decision to do the right thing and explore the depth of steroid use in the game is all about Bonds. For one, he’s the biggest name implicated by the BALCO scandal regarding the use of illegal steroids by athletes. A recently published book even shows Bonds’ involvement with performance-enhancing drugs through affidavits filed by government entities in the case. For another, Bonds is seven home runs shy of surpassing Babe Ruth’s 714 total and 48 from toppling Aaron’s 755. Yeah, this is about Bonds. It’s just that it also should be about Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and the others who have slugged integrity as often as possible over the farthest fence.

Through his tortured looks and “I’m not here to discuss the past” mantra before a Congressional committee last spring, McGwire admitted that he was juiced when he broke Maris’ home run record for a season. Sosa flashed his guilt, too, before that same committee by insinuating for the first time ever that he couldn’t speak English. Palmeiro already is a proven liar after he denied his steroid use while wagging his finger at those congressmen and later testing positive. Plus, you have either confessions or semi-confessions from Ken Caminiti, now dead with much help from steroids, to Jose Canseco to Jason Giambi to the instant growth of the likes of Bret Boone and Brady Anderson.

Whatever the case, Selig can make an awful situation better regarding baseball’s record book with a large bottle of Wite-Out or by hitting the delete key.

Permalink | Comments (81) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore

Bonds is hardly baseball’s only cheater

By Jeff Schultz | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 07:52 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Bud Selig gathered his posse Thursday and made one thing abundantly clear: “Nothing is more important to me than the integrity of the game of baseball.”

Well. Between that and George Mitchell inviting, “all those who have information to come forward,” we should have this thing cleared up in no time.

Cheaters, please step to the left. Everybody else, follow George into the deposition room. We’ll have cookies.

Perhaps while Selig and Mitchell are unearthing every single baseball player who has ever taken steroids, they can explain some of the other black holes in our history books.

The second gunman on the grassy knoll.

Aliens in Roswell.

MTV.

I am against cheating as much as the next commissioner. Cheaters don’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Using performance-enhancing drugs is cheating (hence the term, “performance-enhancing”).

But it’s one thing for somebody with a Hall of Fame vote to make a determination on an athlete’s career. It’s another to start pouring through old box scores and trying to decipher which numbers go and which ones stay.

Steroids equals cheating.

Guess what? When a pitcher cuts a baseball, that’s cheating. When a hitter uses a corked bat, that’s cheating.

I would venture to say that a cut ball or a corked bat can be every bit as performance enhancing as an illegal substance.

Remember Norm Cash? He played for the Detroit Tigers. In 1961, he had a career year. Won the American League batting title hitting .361 with 41 home runs and 132 RBI. Did you know Norm Cash admitted he used a corked bat in 1961? He explained to Sports Illustrated how he drilled an eight-inch hole in the barrel of his bat and filled it with glue, cork and sawdust.

Question: How come nobody wants Norm Cash’s records expunged?

Have you heard stories about Whitey Ford cutting the baseball with his wedding ring? Joe Niekro’s slider was helped by the emery board that fell out of his pocket one day. Gaylord Perry won 314 games. Did the man throw a legal pitch in his life? Nobody seems to want to strip Gaylord Perry of 314 wins.

Hall of Fame voters will judge Barry Bonds. History will judge Barry Bonds. But we can’t throw out Barry Bonds’ records because we would have to throw out every other cheater’s and there are two big problems with that: 1) We can’t begin to know every cheater, even in just the steroid era; 2) We can’t prove the ones even that we think we know.

Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield - we all know the primary suspects. That’s all that matters. If we white out those numbers, we need to white out everybody’s. And we can’t.

Albert Belle was caught with a corked bat. But isn’t it safe to assume there were other games he wasn’t caught?

Jose Canseco won an MVP award in 1998. Do we take that away now and give it to Mike Greenwell. (Answer: Of course we do, because Mitchell sits in the front office of the Boston Red Sox, a conflict everybody but him seems to be bothered by.)

Lenny Dykstra hit 19 home runs in 1993. He hit as many as 10 only one other time in his career. Kevin Elster hit 24 home runs in 1996. He hit 64 total in the other 12 years of his career.

Brady Anderson his 16 homers in 1995, jumped to 50 in ‘96, then dropped back down to 18 the next year.

I know. The wind was blowing out.

It’s understandable the focus has been on Bonds. He’s approaching arguably the most cherished record in sports. But he wasn’t the only one juicing and he’s certainly not the only one cheating.

Throw out numbers? OK, I’ll play along. Let’s say Sheriff Bud finds indisputable proof that 17 players took steroids. He impounds their statistics.

What about the teams? Shouldn’t baseball make them vacate victories? That’s the way it works in the NCAA when a school uses an ineligible athlete.

Shouldn’t an owner have to return all profits accrued with that players. I seem to recall McGwire and Sosa selling a few tickets. Responsibility shouldn’t stop with the player. Do you believe the Giants knew nothing about Bonds while they were selling out?

It’s a little late to get serious about the past now. History will judge Barry Bonds. History judges all cheaters.

It doesn’t matter what the numbers say.

Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz

Tired thoughts on Final Four

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 30, 2006, 12:33 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Headed for Indy… Too tired and too jazzed to form a complete sentence… Hope fragments aren’t offensive to y’all… Never thought I’d see the day when UCLA is the least-discussed Final Four team. . . Never thought I’d see the day when we’re actually talking seriously about George Mason winning it all… Never thought I’d be bragging on John Brady’s coaching (or Billy Donovan’s, for that matter)…

Say Brandon Bass had stayed at LSU… greatest frontcourt since UCLA 1971 (Wicks-Rowe-Patterson)? … since Houston 1983 (Olajuwon-Drexler-Micheaux)?

Say Walsh and Roberson had stayed at Florida… worst chemistry this side of UConn? … Say Jim Calhoun went a bit easier on his guys… best team since Kentucky 1996?

Can’t think of UCLA in the Final Four without thinking of the Bruins against Elvin Hayes and Houston in the 1968 rematch of the Astrodome upset…Final score was 101-69… Still the most awesome performance in the history of the sport… Still the greatest team in college basketball history, that band of Bruins (Alcindor-Warren-Allen-Shackelford-Lynn).

Can’t see how Kelvin Sampson is an upgrade at Indiana… Can’t imagine LaMarcus Aldridge or Rudy Gay or Tyrus Thomas playing collegiately next season… Can’t remember a big man disappearing more completely than Aldridge did against Big Baby… Can’t say picking Villanova to win it all was the highlight of my career… Ten minutes into Nova’s NCAA opener against Monmouth and I’m already saying, “Too small” …

Can’t think of anything else to say…

Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit

She didn’t win Fiasco, but give her credit for GMU

By Mark Bradley | Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 04:57 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Bita Honarvar/AJC

Tammy Kapper didn't win the Final Four Fiasco, but she was the only one to pick George Mason in the Final Four.

Having founded the Final Four Fiasco and overseen it, for better or for worse, for 19 years now, I have a pretty good idea how it’s going to go. If you get two No. 1 seeds and a No. 2 and a No. 4 in the Final Four, maybe two dozen entrants will have picked that parlay. If you get a No. 8, maybe one Fiascan will have nailed the foursome. And if you get a George Mason …

Well, that’s the thing. In the 19 years of our little contest, there had never been a George Mason — an 11th seed spiking boldly upward. I knew as soon as Denham Brown’s trey clanged on Sunday that nobody would have this exact Final Four. What I didn’t know was if anyone would have picked George Mason.

I know now.

Tammy Kapper, alone out of 3,469 entrants, had the Patriots reaching the Final Four. This technically doesn’t make her the Fiasco winner — she missed the three other regions — but it makes her a case study in how to spot an upstart coming. Hint: It helps to be an alum.

Tammy Kapper lives in Sandy Springs and works for the federal government. She’s in her 40s. She admits, “I don’t know that much about college basketball.” She knows George Mason because she went to school there twice, once as an undergrad and once for her master’s. She’s from Falls Church, Va., which is next door to Fairfax and GMU.

Did she watch the Patriots play as a GMU student? “I went to a couple of games,” she says. And then: “Mason has never put a lot of money into athletics. It puts money into bricks and mortar and professors. But it’s a huge school — almost 30,000 students go there, and it’s really the only state school in northern Virginia.”

Kapper filled out her Fiasco bracket “on a whim,” forecasting a Final Four of George Mason, Georgetown, Pitt and Southern Illinois. “I picked schools where friends had gone,” she says. She monitored the Patriots’ progress through the tournament and got really excited watching George Mason play Connecticut in the regional final. Excited and mad. “The sportscasters were clearly biased for UConn.”

Somehow GMU overcame Rudy Gay and Rashad Anderson — and Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery to boot — to book its improbable passage to Indy. And now? Well, Kapper’s daughter attends North Springs High and has been wearing GMU regalia to school all week, which could cause a conflict. “Her math teacher went to LSU,” Kapper says.

Because anyone who picks George Mason to reach the Final Four and is proved right deserves more than just seeing her name in the paper, Kapper will receive the same prize as the actual winner — a handsome Final Four sweatshirt. And the actual winner of the 19th annual Final Four Fiasco is …

Christopher McNeil of Bossier City, La. He’s 33. He works as a slot technician at a casino (which means he knows something about probability). McNeil was one of three to tab the three non-GMU Final Four teams, and McNeil trumped the other two — Mark Harris of Athens and Landon Thomas of Canton — on the first tiebreaker by picking six of the eight regional finalists.

His method? “Being here in Louisiana, LSU is the talk of the state. I thought they had what it took to beat Duke and Texas. And Florida had beaten LSU twice.” And UCLA? “There was nothing wrong with Memphis, but Conference USA really wasn’t that strong. I thought UCLA would beat them in the regional final.”

Our champ, it should be noted, had George Mason losing its first game. (So did I. For the first time since 1989, I went 0-for-the-Final-Four.) But McNeil hasn’t been immune to the Patriots’ charm. “They’re the feel-good story. I wouldn’t want them to beat LSU, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them beat Florida even though I picked Florida to go to the finals.”

We turn again to our local expert. “I’m picking George Mason to go all the way now,” Kapper says. “It’s anybody’s game with all the No. 1 seeds out.” And then, just in case anybody has missed the point: “I’m a proud Patriot.”

Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

What a breeze

By Terence Moore | Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

The second best job (behind AJC sports columnist, of course) is working as commissioner of the NFL. That’s especially true now, because Pete Rozelle and his retiring successor, Paul Tagliabue, already have done all of the heavy lifting.

Courtesy of huge and lengthy television contracts, the owners and the players have more than a few pennies. New stadiums are everywhere. Labor peace is guaranteed for years. Attendance continues to soar. No wonder Condoleezza Rice kept saying until recently that she wouldn’t mind leaving the State Department for this cushy position.

Falcons executive Rich McKay also has been mentioned as a candidate. So has a slew of others, and why not? At this rate, a potted plant could run the thing pretty well.

Now there’s an idea. Just as Stanford University has that tree as its mascot in sports, the NFL could go with some plastic roses shaped like a goalpost.

Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore

Veteran prospect nears ‘what I’ve been fighting for’

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 09:16 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Kissimmee, Fla. — In year one of his career, Ken Ray had the Major League Baseball logo tattooed on his left shoulder. He probably realized at some point during some bus ride from one outpost to another that tattoos don’t come with mojo.

“You know,” said Ray, looking at the tattoo, “it’s one of those things you look back on and think, well …”

Rockford, Wichita, Wilmington. Omaha, Fresno, Yuba-Sutter. High Desert, Huntsville, North Shore.

We could keep going. Fifteen teams. Thirteen leagues.

If Ken Ray really wanted a tattoo, he should’ve picked the Mapquest logo.

The Braves were overrun by home-grown players last year — Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann and Kyle Davies, to name a few. Ray, a pitcher, also the latest. But it’s been a while. He was drafted in the 18th round (497th overall) out of Roswell High School by Kansas City in 1993.

Soon after, he dropped into the abyss, tattoo and all.

Given that Ray has spent an eternity in the minors — save a 13-game reprieve with the Royals in 1999 — it’s no wonder that he has heard “Crash” Davis references from younger teammates along the way. Ray laughed and said, “I tell them to respect their elders.”

The Braves break camp Thursday. When they return to Atlanta and play a pair of exhibitions Friday and Saturday, they’ll bring a 31-year-old obscurity with them. Ray wears No. 81 and is on a minor-league contract. But this isn’t merely a case of, “Let’s show the kid what Turner Field looks like.”

“He’s got a shot to make the team,” Braves manager Bobby Cox said. Ray threw an inning of shutout relief Tuesday against Houston. That gives him five shutout innings in four appearances, yielding just three hits to 18 batters (.167). He struck out four batters in two innings the other day against the New York Mets. He has good speed and a solid change-up. As a former starter, he has the ability to throw a few innings of relief, a quality Cox likes to have in the bullpen.

“I’m getting pretty nervous about it,” said Larry Ray, Ken’s father, a custodian at Haynes Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta. “Ken is determined to make it to the big leagues. Even when he hurt his arm, he didn’t let it get him down.”

“It seems like a long road,” the son said.

We call this: understatement. Ray played only two years at Roswell High — as a freshman and a senior. Ray said during the two years in between, he “got mixed up with the wrong crowd in high school. The next thing you know, you don’t care too much about baseball.” He didn’t elaborate. But didn’t drift so far away that he couldn’t come back.

Seven seasons in the Kansas City organization yielded just the short trip to the majors in 1999. Then his odyssey began. He was the “player to be named later” in a trade with the San Francisco Giants in 2000. But he pitched only seven games in the minors, then had surgery for a torn labrum. The injury didn’t improve. Ray had a second operation with a different doctor the following year. He missed all of 2001 and most of 2002, then signed with an independent team in California (the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox in the Western League. They’re not on ESPN).

“We would go from Chico to Solano, then Yuma, Ariz.,” he said. Bus rides were as long as 12 hours.

Ray’s vagabond existence continued. The Milwaukee Brewers signed him, then left him. The Chicago White Sox did the same. They brought him to spring training last year, then cut him with five days left. So it was back to the independents. The Braves spotted him playing for North Shore in the Can-Am League last season, liked what they saw and needed a starter in Richmond. They tried him as a reliever in a Mexican winter league, and he impressed them again.

Can this be it? Finally? Ray has a wife and a 6-month old son living in Arizona. There comes a time when you have to get a real job. He considered quitting two years ago and joining some friends at the police academy but figured he would give it one more shot.

“When you’re down in A-ball making $1,350 a month and you have a mortgage and everything, it gets stressful,” he said.

But now comes some reward. “It’s what I’ve been fighting for my whole career, to be able to play in front of a hometown crowd.”

The hometown is Atlanta. That might have gotten lost along the way.

Permalink | Comments (53) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz

The Tuesday Countdown

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

10: I believe it was Socrates who first said, “I blog, therefore I am.”

9: Fortunately, blogging gives us occasional journalists an outlet for things not really worthy of a story. Like Monday, when I told Braves general manager John Schuerholz I hadn’t read his book yet but asked who would play him in the movie. “My choice would be James Dean, but he’s gone. I was Rebel without a Cause. I had a red jacket, white T-shirt and a certain pair of jeans that I wore just about every night up to the corner, when we sang ’50s songs. But that’s another story.” Actually, it’s probably just another blog.

8: The first six players in the Yankees’ batting order in Monday’s spring training game: Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi. I guess they didn’t take Jorge Sosa in Braves’ fifth starter pool.

7: Sosa went four innings. He’s in mid-season form.

6: I still like Connecticut over Boston College in the title game.

5: It’s the NCAA tournament. Everybody loves upsets. But if I’m CBS, I’m sweating a Final Four of George Mason, Florida, UCLA and LSU.

4: Bobby Cox, after remarking how closers often become undone by the pressure: “Fifteen years ago, I thought, ‘Three out — what’s so hard about this [expletive]?”

3: Cox again, this time on the time he asked for a raise after hitting .337 for the Great Falls Electrics (Pioneer League) in 1963: “I wrote a letter to the farm director. All I wanted was a $25 raise [per month]. I was making $400. He wrote me a nasty letter back. He essentially told me the groundskeeper could’ve hit 300 in that league.”

2: It’s significant in terms of guaranteed income for the Mora family. But let’s not get carried away with the significance of Jim Mora’s re-worked contract with the Falcons because the bottom line remains the same. If the team wins next season, he keeps his job. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. Otherwise, this is a nice PR move.

1: Barry Bonds says, “My life is in a shambles.” Cry me a river.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit

The Tuesday Countdown

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 11:32 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

10: I believe it was Socrates who first said, “I blog, therefore I am.”

9: Fortunately, blogging gives us occasional journalists an outlet for things not really worthy of a story. Like Monday, when I told Braves general manager John Schuerholz I hadn’t read his book yet but asked who would play him in the movie. “My choice would be James Dean, but he’s gone. I was Rebel Without a Cause. I had a red jacket, white T-shirt and a certain pair of jeans that I wore just about every night up to the corner, when we sang ’50s songs. But that’s another story.” Actually, it’s probably just another blog.

7: Sosa went four innings. He’s in midseason form.

6: I still like Connecticut over Boston College in the title game.

5: It’s the NCAA tournament. Everybody loves upsets. But if I’m CBS, I’m sweating a Final Four of George Mason, Florida, UCLA and LSU.

4: Bobby Cox, after remarking how closers often become undone by the pressure: “Fifteen years ago, I thought, ‘Three outs — what’s so hard about this [expletive]?”

2: It’s significant in terms of guaranteed income for the Mora family. But let’s not get carried away with the significance of Jim Mora’s re-worked contract with the Falcons because the bottom line remains the same. If the team wins next season, he keeps his job. If it doesn’t, he doesn’t. Otherwise, this is a nice PR move.

1: Barry Bonds says, “My life is in a shambles.” Cry me a river.

Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit

Back down? Not Reitsma

By Jeff Schultz | Monday, March 27, 2006, 07:53 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — It’s a week before opening day, and the Braves’ new closer looks like neither the before nor after picture for a frontal lobotomy. Let’s embrace these positive signs as they come.

Granted, even Dan Kolb hadn’t yet morphed into instant oatmeal at this time a year ago. But Chris Reitsma doesn’t project any signs of impending cranial meltdowns. He acts and speaks as if he actually wants this job and can do this job. Kolb panicked every time the bullpen door opened and he realized he wasn’t at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Great closers attack like they’re on fire. Kolb had a doctorate in duck-and-cover.

Reitsma? If he doesn’t succeed, it won’t be because of his mind-set. You don’t intimidate somebody who doctors briefly speculated might have cancer.

“I’ve been through a lot,” he said Monday. “I’ve broken my arm twice throwing a baseball. I’ve had doctors tell me I would never throw a ball again. That makes you tough. That makes you go through thinking your career is over, to just being able to pick up a ball again, to having success and telling yourself to keep going. I learned a lot through that time, and I think I’m better for it.

“My whole philosophy is, if you can’t be confident then don’t be at all — get out because you’re not going to be successful. I’d like to think that a lot of things have happened to prepare me for what I’m going to go through.”

Reitsma left an outing against the New York Yankees Monday with a slight hamstring strain. The team will re-evaluate his status in a day or two. But if he doesn’t immediately panic, it’s because he’s been through worse.

He fractured his elbow in the minors in 1997 as a Boston Red Sox prospect. It was such an unusual injury, he said, “Doctors thought I had bone cancer. It just snapped right in half. That never happens.”

Fortunately, that possibility was ruled out. But Reitsma’s bad luck hadn’t ended. The following season he suffered the same injury. “They told me I’d never throw again,” he said.

Against all logic and probably good sense, Reitsma didn’t abandon thoughts of a pitching career. Funny. He hasn’t been on the disabled list for eight years.

Resiliency alone doesn’t foreshadow greatness. The Braves’ original plan was to re-sign Kyle Farnsworth, who bolted to the New York Yankees (as a setup man) in free agency. Plan B was to sign anybody else. When it didn’t happen, Reitsma became the closer by default. So much for the vote of confidence.

It’s not as if he hasn’t shown the ability. He converted nine straight save opportunities last July. Then came the plummet. He blew three saves in his next four appearances and went 0-4 with five blown saves the rest of the season.

Mentally, however, he did not fall apart like Kolb and is not at all intimidated by the role or John Smoltz’s ghost.

“I think that was part of the problem with Kolby last year,” Reitsma said. “Everything he heard from [media] and others was, ‘What about Smoltz?’ Smoltz is one of the best pitchers our game has seen in the last 20 years. I’m not him. I’m never going to be like him. If I try to be him and try to strike out everyone with a nasty slider, I’m going to fail.”

In his first four appearances this spring, Reitsma allowed two hits in four scoreless innings with six strikeouts. He also has leaned on Smoltz as a personal adviser.

“The hardest part of the role is listening to what people say and think,” Smoltz said. “If he can turn a deaf ear and block all that out, he’ll be fine. Nobody says anything to the sixth- or the seventh- or the eighth-inning guys. It’s a ridiculous role when it comes to the credit and the blame.”

Reitsma will tell you he spent a long time as a setup guy. Getting three outs in the eighth or the ninth — what’s the difference?

“You’re still just getting three outs,” he said. “If I get the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters out in the eighth, what’s the big deal about doing it in the ninth?”

Well, only that it secures a victory. But if the man can’t see the difference, it beats the alternative. Oatmeal.

Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz

OK, so who had George Mason?

By AJC | Monday, March 27, 2006, 01:25 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

AJC

We received around 3,500 entries for Mark Bradley’s annual Final Four Fiasco contest, and it’s going to take a couple of days to sort through all of them.

But we’re too curious to wait, and so we have to ask: Anybody out there have George Mason in their bracket? If so, please shoot an email ASAP to speacocke@ajc.com. We gotta talk about this.

(Poseurs need not apply; we’ll verify by checking your screen name with your actual entry bracket.)

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Gators will win the greatest tourney ever

By Mark Bradley | Sunday, March 26, 2006, 09:43 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

After 13 days and 61 games and 1,300 Krzyzewski commercials, we’re left with one inescapable conclusion.

Greatest … tournament … ever.

How else to describe an event that has seen J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison exit in tears and Tony Skinn and the bouncing Big Baby play on? How else to categorize a Big Dance that has more No. 11 seeds remaining than No. 1s? How else to explain the bewildering saga of the nation’s most talented team needing a series of Harry Houdini escapes just to reach overtime in its regional final? And having wriggled free once again, could mighty Connecticut possibly be toppled in OT by a team that, only three weeks earlier, had needed an extra period to survive Georgia State in its conference tournament?

You can talk about N.C. State over Houston and Villanova over Georgetown, but George Mason over UConn is the new paradigm of NCAA upsets. The only other 11th seed to reach a Final Four — LSU in 1986 — got there by beating a Kentucky team it had already faced three times. Surely the difference in aggregate ability would unnerve the Patriots, but it didn’t.

As astonishing as George DMason’s ascent has been, the sight of UConn imploding in increments was equally riveting. For all of Jim Calhoun’s ranting — maybe because of his ranting — the Huskies refused to guard anybody. They were good enough, just, to get away with it three times. They weren’t good enough to beat the team that didn’t reach the finals of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament.

Here’s how crazy this month has been: On March 4, George Mason trailed Georgia State, which would finish 7-22, by 11 points in Richmond. On March 26 in downtown D.C., the same Patriots never trailed UConn, which has the former ACC rookie of the year Ed Nelson as its 10th man, in overtime.

Every NCAA is delicious in its way, but generally the tournament tracks a familiar course: upsets early, chalk late. This year has seen the reverse, with more near-misses than actual shockers in the first two rounds and then all manner of upheaval in the regionals. Not one No. 1 seed is heading to the Final Four, and that’s something that has happened only once — in 1980, just the second year of seeding — before. Not one higher seed won its regional final.

And not one Big East team is left, which qualifies as a shock. The Big East was seen as the strongest conference all season. The SEC was considered no better than fourth-best, and a lot of observers, this one included, didn’t foresee one SEC member in the Final Four, let alone two, let alone two that now figure to play for the national championship.

When last Florida and LSU met, it was in the SEC semifinals. The Gators, who’d already beaten the Tigers in Gainesville, won again rather routinely, their way eased by the absence of the burgeoning Tyrus Thomas, who was resting a tender ankle. Nothing about that game in Nashville seemed to augur a rematch in Indianapolis, but in the NCAA tournament things can change in a hurry.

LSU and Florida, teams of tender years, can grow up overnight. LSU can beat Duke and Texas, which were considered the nation’s two best teams back in December, in the space of 47 hours. Florida can dominate Villanova, a small team that had seemed indomitable. Indeed, no team in the tournament — not LSU, not even George Mason — has looked better than the Gators. If you’re looking for a favorite in an event where it has proved perilous to be favored, they’re now it.

Let’s assume LSU overwhelms UCLA underneath and keeps the Bruins’ guards from running wild. (Didn’t that formula work against Texas?) Let’s assume Florida ends the beyond-belief run of George Mason. That will leave us with Florida-LSU, Take 3, and while it’s tempting to pick the Tigers — Villanova over Georgetown was a third meeting, if you recall — it’s difficult to see LSU, even with Thomas in full flight, taking down the multifaceted and many-splendored Gators. In the end, LSU will fall one guard short.

And that would leave Florida as the national champion, the same Florida that finished behind Tennessee in the SEC East. And we’ll be left with just another reminder as to why it isn’t called March Sameness. Because weird things happen. Because George Mason happens.

Mark Bradley ranks the five biggest upset runs in the history of the NCAA tournament:

• 1. George Mason, 2006: 11th seed reached the Final Four, beating three schools that had won four of the past seven NCAA titles.

• 2. LSU, 1986: 11th seed reached the Final Four, beating the top three seeds in the Southeast Regional.

• 3. Penn, 1979: Ninth seed reached the Final Four, beating North Carolina, Syracuse and St. John’s en route.

• 4. Missouri, 2002: Beat Miami, Ohio State and UCLA to become the only 12th seed to play in a regional final.

• 5. Villanova, 1985: Eighth seed beat two No. 1s and two No. 2s to become the lowest-seeded national champion.

Permalink | Comments (58) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

This time, Ames left Tiger in the dust

By Furman Bisher | Sunday, March 26, 2006, 09:12 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. — The last time Stephen Ames made news, Tiger Woods destroyed him in the World Match Play Championship, 9-and- 8. That’s a golf equivalent of Georgia Tech beating Cumberland 220-0. To Secretariat winning the Belmont by 30 lengths. The last time Ames had a chance to make news in The Players Championship, a pro from out of nowhere, totally without distinction, trumped him down the stretch.

The year was 2002. The pro was Craig Perks of New Zealand, who, as Ames put it, caught him with “a chip-in, one-putt and chip-in,” while Ames stood helplessly by, expecting a playoff that never came.

This time, the Players belonged to him. All alone. By a country mile. With his brother Robert on the bag. The last set of professional Ames Brothers were a foursome who sang. This was a twosome of Ameses who dealt in birdies, and walked out of St. Johns County with a purse of $1.44 million.

Ames began the day at The Players Club a stroke ahead of Vijay Singh, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach and plays this course on a regular basis. Ames finished the day six strokes ahead of Retief Goosen, who had moved past Singh. So had a passel of others, leaving Singh in their dust after his disturbing round of 77.

Ames shot a 67 and had only one threatening burp in his round. He left a shot in the bunker on the 10th hole, which he double-bogeyed, but righted his ship and sailed in 15 strokes ahead of Woods, just as a matter of sizing up the wallop of his performance.

Later, he gave his brother credit for helping him calm down after that temporary setback. Thus, Ames brings distinction in golf to a part of the world hardly known for it. He is a native of Trinidad, the dominant half of the Trinidad & Tobago island twins, off the northern coastline of South America, a darkly handsome man whose father is English, his mother Portuguese.

The first tournament he won was the Trinidad & Tobago Open, but there was some championship heritage in his bloodlines. His grandmother was twice women’s champion of the islands.

For a fellow who likes heat, he has gotten about as far from it as he can. He met and married an airline stewardess from Canada, and now makes his home in Calgary, holds dual citizenship, but has had a bout or two with U.S. immigration authorities along the way.

The PGA Tour proprietors will blow this place up within a week and rebuild it entirely. However, on Saturday several players might have been wondering why they didn’t get started earlier. The tournament was beginning to look more like a demolition derby than a golf tournament until Ames finally settled in at 207, 9-under par. There had been no lower number all week until Ames enlarged it on it Sunday, in sunny but sometimes chilly weather, unaccompanied by the swirly winds of previous days.

It was a somewhat peculiar leaderboard at the start of the round. Seven members of the four lead pairings were internationals — Singh of Fiji, Sergio Garcia of Spain, Henrik Stenson and Carl Pettersson of Sweden, Mike Weir of Canada, Goosen of South Africa and Ames. Tom Pernice Jr. was the only native American.

And in the end, there had been only a slight change in the nationalities at the top of the board. Pat Perez and Jim Furyk, who had led the first two rounds, represented the U.S. among the leaders, more an international kind of mixture expected at the British Open.

There was a time when it appeared that Ernie Els might make a run at him, then Goosen, but Ames simply never took his foot off the pedal, and his challengers fell back as he charged on.

If there was one particular stroke that rated above all others in setting himself on course, it was a putt of about 15 feet on the 14th green. While all the “train wrecks” were taking place around him, that putt saved par, to be followed by a birdie on 15 and eagle on the par-5 16th, and thus his power finish was being shaped.

“I played for the center of every green. I watched the scoreboard from the first hole on, and I knew where I stood,” the 41-year-old champion said, an admission that many a tour player eschews.

While he spoke of passing up the Masters, since it would conflict with a family outing planned long in advance, that is a decision that may be reconsidered down the road. For the time being, though, there is a $1.44-million addition to the Ames bank account to be celebrated here.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf

Resilient Tigers prove worthy of Final Four

By Mark Bradley | Sunday, March 26, 2006, 05:44 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

It was a celebration as wild and as careening as any in the history of March Madness. The 310-pound center wore a yellow feather boa and hugged his mother and issued a shout-out to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The burgeoning freshman forward ran to the corner of the stands and authored the Georgia Dome equivalent of a Lambeau Leap. It was a Bourbon Street funeral without an actual body.

“Final Four!” bellowed the Big Baby, and even after the protracted game had ended and the LSU Tigers had taken their hard-won victory and you knew full well that Indianapolis was indeed this team’s destination, it still defied belief. Except that this is the NCAA tournament, where absolutely nothing beggars belief.

This is why you watch the Big Dance in the first place, and this is why it keeps you coming back. Where else can you see a group of homegrown players take down the flower of the mighty ACC and the respected Big 12 in the span of 47 hours? Where else can you watch a 310-pound center hit the killing 3-pointer in OT? Where else can you behold a team that was 8-5 on Jan. 7 become the first to book passage to the highfalutin’ Final Four?

“You know, we can’t predict the future,” said Glen Davis, the bouncing Big Baby in his Louisiana lilt, and certainly few among us saw this team coming. Not when the Tigers trailed Texas A&M with five seconds left in Round 2. Not when regal Duke scratched out a five-point lead with 8¸ minutes remaining Thursday night. And especially not after Texas fought from five down with four minutes to go to force overtime Saturday.

“My goal in the timeout [before OT] was to make sure my players didn’t feel we could in any way lose the game,” said John Brady, the LSU coach, and as bold as that sounded it also flouted credulity. You lose a lead with a chance to go to the Final Four? You’ve got to be devastated. Don’t you?

Uh, no. LSU needed all of four seconds in OT to take a lasting lead, Tasmin Mitchell hitting from the baseline off a Darrel Mitchell feed. From there it was utter domination, the big men Davis and Tyrus Thomas feeding off one another and feasting on the fading Longhorns. Said Thomas, who rooms with Big Baby: “It was time to fight. When [Davis] fights, I fight.”

And then it was time to howl. Once again, an unheralded LSU band had come to this city and taken down the region’s Nos. 1 and 2 seeds and left an Atlanta audience charmed by its resilience and convinced of its worth. It had happened in 1986, and in the aftermath Dale Brown, the loosely wrapped Tiger coach, had foregone the custom of snipping the nets with scissors, choosing instead to bite them.

In his moment of triumph, Brown’s successor exercised somewhat more restraint.

Rather than claim the entire net for himself, Brady took a two-inch sliver and left the rest for Darrel Mitchell.

It has been a long slow slog for the 51-year-old Brady, who apprenticed as a high school coach and a Mississippi State assistant and the head coach at Samford, whose technical acumen has been doubted in this space (and others). But now he’d arrived, and the funny part was that John Brady didn’t feel the journey was yet complete.

“The celebration was great,” he said, “but really I thought I would react differently. Something in my mind says that we’re not finished yet, that this is not over. We’re going to the Final Four, and that’s supposed to be what it’s all about, but for some reason this doesn’t seem like the end for me. I have the feeling there’s something more in store for this team.”

Yes, that seems unlikely. Barring a George Mason upset of Connecticut, LSU will be the lowest seed in Indy. But the Tigers were the lower seed twice this week under the Dome’s Teflon roof, and they were the ones who left with the trophy and the nets. None of us can predict the future, least of all where this unfettered bunch is concerned.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

UCLA claims ugly battle of infamy

By Terence Moore | Saturday, March 25, 2006, 11:17 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Oakland, Calif. — Given the nearly 40 minutes of messy basketball Saturday night at the Oakland Arena, nobody from this regional final deserves to play the rest of this season. Unfortunately, it isn’t called the Final Three, which means UCLA is forced to advance into next weekend’s little event in Indianapolis after surviving Memphis during the worst game ever played this deep into March Madness.

If nothing else, it was in the top 10 of infamy, with silly turnovers, botched free throws, crazy jumpers, dumb plays and baffled coaches. Said Memphis’ John Calipari, reflecting on the suddenly brutal ways of his team that roared into the game after winning 33 of its 36 games, “I thought we tried to play hard. I thought we competed. We just did stuff that I haven’t seen since the first of the season.”

Still, despite looking worse than pathetic for much of the evening, Memphis was within a surge of rushing past UCLA and sprinting all the way to the Final Four inside the final five minutes. The thing is that Calipari had it right earlier in the week, when he said that those who prosper throughout the NCAA tournament are those whose stars become stars.

The Tigers’ stars weren’t stars, especially the biggest one of all. Rodney Carney was just a meteor that crashed to earth.

At the end, with the final buzzer signaling a 50-45 victory for UCLA, Carney tried to keep from sobbing as he dropped down at midcourt. “Basically, I was reflecting on my whole career, reflecting on how we lost the game, reflecting on how we played bad,” said Carney, usually a brilliant senior who wasn’t this time. Until he nailed a trey with .8 seconds left, he spent most of the game with just two points. It was partly the stifling defense of UCLA’s Arron Afflalo, but it mostly was Carney blowing the biggest game of his life. Said Carney, “Most of the shots I missed, I was open. It was me more than anything.”

Just like it was more UCLA playing slightly less awful than Memphis than anything else.

So many things have changed since Memphis last met UCLA during an NCAA tournament. We’re talking the 1973 championship game. That Bruins team was unbeatable (literally), and this one needed at least one miracle to roll into the regional final. Mostly, that Bruins team had Bill Walton dominating on the court instead of watching from the stands.

Too bad the efficient Walton hasn’t any illegibility left. Still, you had the feeling that these teams were focused before the game by their reaction after the public address announcer gave the final from the Atlanta regional, with that winner slated to face this one: “In overtime, LSU 70, Texas 60.” There was no expression. Not from the Memphis or UCLA players, still moving stoically and quietly through their pre-game drills, still concentrating on the opening tipoff when they would try to do something memorable.

Instead, both teams did a lot that was forgettable, particularly Memphis. If you didn’t know any better, you would say that, for one of the few times this season, the Tigers were showing their considerable youth. They hoisted enough awkward shots to make just one of their first 13 attempts. Not only that, they had several lazy shots blocked from this side of the Bay Bridge toward the golden one in San Francisco. They fired a couple of air balls that missed by a bunch. They had a shot-clock violation. They also had turnovers, and not because of their purposefully chaotic style.

It also didn’t help Memphis that UCLA’s Ryan Hollins was using every inch of his 7-foot frame to terrorize the Tigers on offense and defense. Whenever UCLA got the ball in the post (which was often), Memphis hadn’t a clue of how to stop whatever Hollins wanted to do at the moment. Well, except at the foul line. He sank two of 11 overall, and it contributed to the Bruins making just six of 17 overall in the first half before they finished 20-for-39.

Anyway, you could tell that UCLA eventually would become the least of the worst during the first half. At one point, the Bruins reeled off seven consecutive points for a 21-9 lead that threatened to grow larger in a hurry. With UCLA streaking, and with the overwhelming Bruins crowd screaming its approval, Calipari called a timeout. Across the way, his counterpart, Ben Howland, met his smoking bunch heading to bench with frantic handclapping, a yell of his own and the look of a guy who thought he already was in the Rocky Mountains along his way to Indianapolis. He was, but if his Bruins play like this again, it won’t matter.

Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

Bohn feels like a million bucks

By Furman Bisher | Saturday, March 25, 2006, 09:35 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. — Spectating at The Players Club was not easy. The wind blew in huffs and puffs. Sometimes chilled, sometimes a tropical touch. “Think how it must be with the players,” they say. So, it’s their own tournament on their own course.

The pin placement on the notorious 17th green was right down front, an unreasonable temptation for any guy who tried to hit it close. As has been written before, it’s a carnival hole. “Step right up. Come one, come all. Hit the green and win a fuzzy doll.”

Show you how devilish it could be: One glance at the leaderboard I saw that Jason Bohn was 5 under par, just three strokes back of Jim Furyk and motoring right along, including an eagle-2 on the first hole. Jason not only is an amiable fellow, but he’s also from our territory, playing out of Cartersville Country Club.

He was on the 15th hole by the time I reached him, paired with Rich Beem. You know, the guy with a zest for living who beat Tiger Woods for the PGA Championship at Hazeltine. Jason was no longer 5 under but now 1 under, not an ounce of stress creasing his athletic features.

“Yeah, I thought I had it going out there, but that wind gets tricky and I let shots get away,” he said later, but no trace of whine in his voice.

“Somebody told me I should ask you: What’s your favorite day of the year?” I said.

“November the 1st.” He was quick, with a twinkle in his eyes. “That’s the day the check arrives.”

Uh, the check? Well, this is how it is. He had come down from Lewisburg, Pa., to play golf at Alabama. No scholarship, a walk-on. He entered one of those hole-in-one contests in Tuscaloosa, knocked his shot in the hole, about 170 yards away, and won a million dollars, should he choose to accept the money and lose his amateur standing — and the scholarship, which he had earned by that time.

“It was no decision at all. It guaranteed bread and butter on the table for 20 years. The check comes in Nov. 1 until 2012, and I had a stake to see how far I could go in this game.”

First, there was business to take care of at Alabama. He found a job at a golf course, finished work on his degree in finance — a quite fitting major — then set out in pursuit of the little white ball. He made over $250,000 playing the Nationwide Tour, then last year, playing his second full year on the PGA Tour, he made it look easy. He even won a tournament, the B.C. Open, that brought him two exempt years, and a bankroll of $1,888,568, and his career decision at Alabama was looking even better than a million dollars. He’d won on the Canadian Tour, he’d won on the Nationwide Tour, now he’d won on the big tour, and there was nothing out there to stop him now but bogeys.

“It has been a great life,” and he’s just 32 years old.

His wife, Tewana, was a co-ed at Alabama, and he followed her home to Cartersville. They live in Acworth, but he plays out of Cartersville Country Club, just a happy fellow settled where happiness comes easy, and the check still comes in Nov. 1. He finished his round at even par, then said, “I think I’ll go have a beer and watch the rest of the guys play.”

What he saw would not settle a fellow’s stomach. The names at the top of the leaderboard kept changing, like fruit basket turn-over. Furyk fell first and fast, then came Stephen Ames, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Arron Oberholser in marching order, then Garcia again, but it was Stenson who did it with a touch of the dramatic. The Swede put on his own hole-in-one contest, knocked in his 175-yard tee shot on No. 13, the third there in two days.

Stenson is not just another exciting Swede. He ranks 16th in the world, and he, too, like Bohn, is a master of finance in his own way. He left his native land and settled in Dubai, there to escape Sweden’s burdensome taxes. Stay tuned, no telling who might be leading this thing today. Tell you one thing, you’ll know this game has gone to hell if you ever see Tiger Woods putting with one of those broomsticks.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf

Blank’s plays, players better

By Jeff Schultz | Saturday, March 25, 2006, 09:22 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

As self-made billionaires go, it wasn’t the best year for Arthur Blank. His team went down in flames. His coach went up in smoke. His attempt to bring the Super Bowl to Atlanta imploded (again). His franchise suddenly became dwarfed by a big downtown fish tank that was built by his former business partner. (And not once during the aquarium media blitz did anybody look like clownfish and throw down a microphone.)

Blank called the Falcons’ last season “disappointing.” There are varying degrees of disappointment. Some of us are fine after a latte.

Blank’s degree of disappointment had employees walking on eggshells, worrying about their next paycheck and chain-popping aspirin. He had general manager Rich McKay and coach Jim Mora “go through a process” of assessing every player, coach and roll of tape.

“I wouldn’t say I asked them to re-justify their jobs,” Blank said. “I asked them, ‘Are there ways we can get better?’?”

Which is self-made billionaire-speak for: “Get better.”

That brings us to this offseason. The Falcons have gotten better. They added two experienced impact players on defense, safety Lawyer Milloy and defensive end John Abraham. They added another safety, Chris Crocker, who with every breath proves to be better than what the Falcons had a year ago. Other moves are forthcoming.

Blank? For as much as he has been a walking magnifying glass in Flowery Branch, he has done one important thing: left football decisions to football people. He opposed Matt Schaub being included in the Abraham deal — but he primarily wanted every other possible scenario explored. And they were.

Blank has a comfort level now with his organization he didn’t have when it was more GM-by-committee with Ron Hill, Bobby Beathard, Ray Anderson and coach Dan Reeves.

“I was a little bit nervous about some of the decisions that were being made,” he said. “I didn’t see the compatibility. I didn’t see the clear kind of consensus. That doesn’t mean people weren’t listening to each other, but they weren’t connecting.”

We can safely assume that disconnect is what led to expensive mistakes like Peerless Price. The Falcons needed a No. 1 receiver for Michael Vick, but Blank can’t say the assessment of Price would have been the same with McKay and Mora. He also said, “Was that cohesiveness between the coach and the personnel department there? I would say no.”

Price was dumped before last season — a year after Reeves. The former coach has since said that dealing for Price primarily was Blank’s idea, saying on his Internet radio show: “No matter how hard you tried to tell him that wasn’t a deal and you didn’t need to pay that kind of money, he was determined that that was what he was going to do.”

It’s a sensitive subject for Blank, and he vehemently denied Reeves’ characterization.

“Dan was not the first one to run into the room and say, ‘We ought to do this.’ But the structure of the organization at the time was not so dysfunctional where anybody would have ever brought in a free agent or drafted a player Dan Reeves didn’t want,” Blank said. “Dan is a great football coach and a great guy. But he’s a very strong-minded person. He has the ability to fill up a room. He was a dominant force in the franchise. [Price] would never have been brought to the organization without his endorsement.”

Regardless, this much is certain: That 10-car collision in Falcons meeting rooms doesn’t exist any more. Blank can lead without dominating.

“I can step back and support them, give them resources and be the cheerleader,” he said.

If even while holding a blowtorch.

Permalink | Comments (45) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz

No 3-ball, no problem for LSU

By Mark Bradley | Saturday, March 25, 2006, 08:41 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

The Atlanta Regional final offered a juicy little metaphysical teaser: Is it possible, in the modern realm of college basketball, to make a Final Four run virtually without benefit of the 3-point shot? There have been, as we know, teams that have made it largely on the strength of the trey — Providence 1987, Duke 2001 — but LSU plays basketball the way it was played in the long-ago days of Bob Pettit.

(Speaking of whom: Pettit was in attendance at the Georgia Dome on Saturday, sitting next to LSU athletics director Skip Bertman. Pettit remains a great trivia question in this city: Which athlete has a retired jersey in Philips Arena without having ever played for an Atlanta professional franchise? The answer: Pettit, who was the greatest of all St. Louis Hawks and who as an undergrad took LSU to the 1953 Final Four. That’s his No. 9 you’ll see in the Philips rafters should you ever work up the nerve to go watch the latter-day Hawks.)

But back to the 3-pointer. LSU had made only two treys in its Round 2 victory over Texas A&M, two more in its Sweet 16 dismissal of Duke. Granted, treys were the biggest baskets in each game. Darrel Mitchell hit with 3.9 seconds remaining to beat the Aggies, and Mitchell hit again to pull his team within two after Duke had nosed out to a five-point lead. You can live without the most powerful weapon in the college game for a night or two, but can you reach a Final Four essentially without it?

LSU, dead on pace, hit one trey in the first half Saturday against Texas. The Longhorns made four, which enabled them to be tied at halftime despite having missed 19 of 28 shots and having scored three fewer baskets than the Tigers.

There’s something almost puritan about seeing a contemporary team play high-level basketball without hoisting up 20-footers, but boy is that a tough way to live. Going without the triple means you can never really stretch out a lead; instead you have to work in multiples of two, and that’s difficult when the other team can override six of your baskets with four of its own.

But give the Tigers credit: In their throwback way, they’d gotten this far and showed no indications Saturday of being frazzled by the hard way they’d traveled. They fell behind 9-2 but kept defending and rebounding and doing all the things that had unnerved Duke, and soon enough they were ahead.

Inside the final 10 minutes, they were ahead still. But it was always a narrow margin, apt to be dashed by a Texas trey. Sure enough, Daniel Gibson sank a 3-pointer to make it 43-all — it was the Longhorns’ seventh 3 of the game — and force LSU back to work. And back it went.

Tyrus Thomas, the burgeoning star of this regional, drove on Brad Buckman. Glen Davis, who outplayed LaMarcus Aldridge badly, shouldered into the lane to give LSU a four-point lead, and soon Tasmin Mitchell took a Big Baby feed and drained a trey from the corner. And now it was 50-45 inside the final five minutes and the Tigers could all but glimpse the outskirts of Indianapolis.

Only here came Texas, closing as quickly as its football counterpart had done in Pasadena. Kenton Paulino made two free throws. P.J. Tucker banked home a hook. And then, after an unbelievable scramble that lasted nearly 15 seconds and contained two LSU blocks and a near-steal, Gibson rose for the trey that tied it with 32.1 seconds left.

Regulation came down, as you knew it would, to an LSU 3-pointer. Garrett Temple took it from the left wing, the Final Four hanging on his cast, and he missed. Overtime.

To that point, LSU had played four halves in the Dome and had made one 3-pointer — and one only — in each. So naturally it was a trey from the 320-pound Big Baby that was the key shot of OT, giving the Tigers a seven-point lead that even Vince Young couldn’t have surmounted. LSU had taken the hardest of all possible ways to Indy, but it’s headed there all the same.

Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Miracle Bruins recall ghost of Edney

By Terence Moore | Friday, March 24, 2006, 09:38 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Oakland, Calif. — It won’t matter. Memphis should win, but surely those involved with UCLA’s basketball miracle know the Bruins are in the vicinity of pulling another Tyus Edney. If not, then how else can they explain dribbling beyond the impossible quicker than a steal, a pass and a layup at the frantic end against Gonzaga to reach the Elite Eight?

Although it’s two days later, with ESPN showing the wonderful chaos again and again, I still can’t believe what I think I saw. The same goes for those who pushed the Bruins into Saturday night’s game at the Oakland Arena against Memphis in search of doing what Edney’s UCLA bunch did 11 years ago: Win another national championship for the Bruins, and do so along the way by turning a sure loss into a shocking victory.

Back then, it was Edney sprinting 4.8 seconds from baseline to baseline for the clinching basket during the second round against Missouri. This time, it was Cedric Bozeman swiping the ball, Jordan Farmar throwing the pass and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute providing the game winner to create gasping throughout a packed house.

Suddenly, that Edney thing lives again. Or does it? “We’re just hoping all of the positives are on our side,” said Bozeman, a senior who is familiar with the Bruins’ legacy that has featured11 national championships, 27 Pac-10 titles and now The Steal, The Pass and The Layup to rank with The Dash. “Hopefully, somebody up there is on our side pulling us to win. You know, we definitely can’t take anything for granted.” Added UCLA coach Ben Howland, who also suggested that he believes in magic after whatever it was that happened Thursday night, “I think [the Gonzaga victory] gives us an opportunity to feed off of this.”

To which Memphis guard and catalyst Darius Washington Jr. tried to stifle a laugh. After he failed miserably, he paused to collect his thoughts before saying of UCLA as a possible team of destiny, “I mean, UCLA is a good team.” Then he paused some more, likely recalling how Memphis destroyed the Bruins earlier this season along the way to the Tigers’ current 33-3 record, and said, “Destiny, you know, they won a couple of games, and we won a couple of games. That’s behind them. That’s behind us. Now we just have to come out and play.”

Which brings us to UCLA’s problem against Memphis. If this one comes down to how both teams “play,” the Tigers will chew up the Bruins and spit them out, sort of like Memphis did in November during the Preseason NIT. “[The final score of] 88-80 is not indicative of the game,” Howland said. “They crushed us.”

Others know the feeling. Just in this tournament, Memphis used its youth, athleticism and depth to manage consecutive 16-point victories over Oral Roberts, Bucknell and Bradley. What makes Memphis even more potent is that the Tigers are spurred by a significant number of freshmen and sophomore who operate like juniors and seniors. Not only that, they are improving by the millisecond inside the hectic yet controlled system of coach John Calipari.

There is freshman (well, officially) Antonio Anderson, for instance, who spent last year starring at a prep school in North Carolina. He already is starting for Memphis, and he leads the team in steals and ranks third in assists. “Usually everybody will be a little bit more nervous when they come to college, but we knew coming in that we were going to be able play some minutes,” Anderson said. “Coach told us that we can’t be out there playing like freshmen. We got to be able to be out there and take some of the punishment that the older guys take, be able to get out there and take screens and do things like that.”

They do those things with the incredible quickness that has Memphis rolling along as if it invented the transition game on offense and defense. To hear Howland tell it of the Tigers, “They have at least three, four NBA players minimally, the guys we’ll see down in the NBA down the road. You know, could be five.”

Memphis should win, all right, but I keep emphasizing “should.” Nothing is for sure in March Madness when the other team is sprinkled with pixie dust.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

Texas no-call leads to a moment of splendor

By Mark Bradley | Friday, March 24, 2006, 06:38 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

The best part about the Texas-West Virginia ending wasn’t even what happened, which was really terrific, but what didn’t. Kevin Pittsnogle made a fallaway trey over LaMarcus Aldridge to tie the game with five seconds left. Kenton Paulino made a splay-legged 24-footer at the horn to win it. But the key figure in that dizzying sequence was Texas coach Rick Barnes, who did …

Nothing.

He could have called timeout after Pittsnogle’s shot. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of college coaches would have called timeout, college coaches feeling the urge to control every blessed dribble. But Barnes had told his men in the huddle before West Virginia pursued the tying basket that he wouldn’t call timeout if the Mountaineers drew level. (He did concede Friday that he’d have burned one had three or fewer seconds remained.) He wanted them to run their normal transition offense. He assumed they’d know what that entailed.

“Rick Barnes did a smart thing,” said John Brady, whose LSU Tigers will play Texas Saturday. “After Darrel Mitchell’s shot [which put LSU ahead by a point with 3.9 seconds left in Round 2], we thought Texas A&M might have been better off letting Acie Law make a play on the fly.”

Instead the Aggies’ Billy Gillispie, being a card-carrying college coach, called timeout. And the game ended with LSU aligning its defense so that Law never touched the ball and that A&M never got a shot. Said Brady, still speaking of Barnes: “It was a great no-call on the timeout, a great decision to attack a retreating defense.”

The NCAA tournament is a splendid thing in just about every way except this — there are too many stoppages. TV gets its extra-long timeouts and coaches feel compelled to use every last opportunity to demonstrate their acumen, and sometimes you feel that players are almost incidental to the strategic doings. Barnes put the game in his players’ hands, and they won the thing for him.

“This time of year, players have to make plays,” he said. “We wanted to create traffic, and by that we mean for our players to get lost in traffic.”

Paulino ran down the left wing and situated himself so expertly that teammate A.J. Abrams, pushing the ball up the middle, knew where he’d be but that defender Frank Young, who arrived a millisecond too late, couldn’t deny the pass. Paulino caught the ball and squared his shoulders — his lower body was moving too quickly for him to get his legs in rhythm — and let fly.

The day after, Paulino admitted (albeit sheepishly) that he’d “watched the shot over and over” back at the team’s hotel. “I wanted to soak it all in. . .. I just tried to enjoy it as much as possible.”

Said Barnes: “He did ask for four copies [of the game tape] and a VCR.”

Said Texas forward P.J. Tucker: “At breakfast, KP walked in with shades on and his hat backward and a new pair of shoes.”

Barnes: “And he actually did say, ‘Vince Who?’ “

The last bit was a reference to Texas quarterback Vince Young, worker of wonders in the epic Rose Bowl victory. That game gave the football Longhorns a national championship, but even if the basketball team loses Saturday it will have etched itself in history as the breathless winner of the greatest uninterrupted double-bang NCAA tournament finish ever.

In 1992 Sean Woods put Kentucky ahead of Duke with 2.1 seconds remaining, whereupon Christian Laettner snatched the game back. In 1981 Kelly Tripucka hit from the dead corner at the old Omni to put Notre Dame ahead of BYU with eight seconds left, whereupon Danny Ainge drove through the Irish team for the winner. But in both of those famous games, the dramatic shots were separated by a timeout. What happened Thursday night was a sequence of pure and blissful basketball, enabled by a coach who, contrary to the micromanaging nature of his profession, trusted his players.

BRADLEY SAYS … There will be no mismatches Saturday. Texas has just as much talent as LSU, and John Brady proved in beating Duke that he can so coach at this exalted level. There will be no shocks of the sort that befell the Blue Devils, who weren’t used to playing against bigger and faster guys. There will be no stylistic mismatches of the kind that made the Longhorns’ game against West Virginia — which spreads the floor and shoots only treys and plays like few other teams in existence — so fascinating. The Atlanta Regional final is a test of strength on strength, a meeting of actual peers. The game will not be won down low, where Glen Davis and Tyrus Thomas will fight LaMarcus Aldridge and Brad Buckman to a draw. For all the splendid big men on the floor, the key players will be the little guys. As Brady said Friday: “Our perimeter needs to hold up again,” and it’s difficult to see that happening. LSU has made four 3-pointers in its last two games. LSU is better in transition than in halfcourt sets. Texas has enough guards — Kenton Paulino, Daniel Gibson, A.J. Abrams — to play any style. Brady likened the Longhorns to Florida, and that’s a telling comparison. See, the Gators beat LSU twice. Texas 71, LSU 67

Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Speedy Memphis chases greatness, respect

By Terence Moore | Thursday, March 23, 2006, 11:58 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Oakland, Calif. — Long before Memphis did exactly what it needed to do Thursday night at the Oakland Arena against a pesky yet overmatched Bradley bunch, John Calipari was talking big and bad. He was talking greatness. Then again, why not? His Tigers are big and bad, but they entered this portion of the Sweet 16 as that other No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

It didn’t matter. By the time this one was over, with the Tigers going fast, faster and even faster than that during the second half of their 80-64 victory, Memphis looked like the definitive No. 1 seed. There was the excellence of senior Rodney Carney combining with enough gifted freshmen and sophomores to keep the Tigers threatening to roar through the rest of March Madness until they’re the Final One.

“We don’t watch the [television] analysts and listen to what they say,” said Carney, who led all scorers with 23 points after the Tigers won by 16 points for the third consecutive time in the tournament. They got help, because speedy Bradley did the foolish by trying to sprint past the wind, and the wind often wears Memphis blue.

Darius Washington Jr., among those gifted sophomores, forced a smile before saying of Bradley’s strategy, “It played into our favor. They wanted to run, so we’re down running, because that’s our style. That’s Memphis basketball. We run. They wanted to run with us, and we got the victory.”

Memphis has what it takes to get another victory in this tournament, or maybe two or three more. That’s because the overwhelming youth on the Tigers’ roster is deceptive. That is, if you don’t understand that youth, athleticism, poise and skill are a potent mix. No wonder the Tigers have 33 victories and just three losses. Two of those losses were against powers Duke and Texas, and the other came against an Alabama-Birmingham team that was efficient enough to slide into March Madness.

It’s just that, to hear the slew of Memphis nonbelievers tell it, the Tigers’ record was so gaudy for a reason: They were the only dominant force in what remained of Conference USA after the departures of Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and DePaul before the season. In response, Memphis just kept winning and dominating and rushing in the direction of reaching its first Final Four in 21 years.

Thus Calipari’s little mission statement regarding his Tigers: “This team is chasing greatness. We’ve been talking about it. We’re still on that path, chasing greatness. I don’t want them to think about anything except playing.” For Memphis to accomplish such a goal without losing the rest of the way, Calipari added, “The thing I’ve tried to tell each of these players is to be ready for your moment.”

Those moments nearly came in a hurry after Bradley was a mess at the start, with a turnover and a couple of botched lay-ups before the game was three minutes old. In contrast, Memphis rolled with ease to seven points to the Braves’ zero, and this was a rout in the making.

So much for appearances. Just like that, it was quickness vs. quickness after Bradley coach Jim Les inserted instant energy off his bench in Lawrence Wright, a former starter, who was among those purged from the lineup in mid-January when the Braves were barely ordinary. Patrick O’Bryant never left Bradley’s lineup, and for good reason. He’s 7-feet, and he’s a rebounding machine, which Memphis discovered again and again.

Anyway, with Wright and O’Bryant stealing part of Calipari’s game plan by taking advantage of their “moments” for Bradley, the underdog proceeded to give the big dog fits. After Bradley outscored Memphis 11-2 at one point midway through the first half, things remained cozy and interesting along the way to Memphis finally scooting to a 35-30 lead at intermission. On the one hand, you could say Memphis was surging at that point, and you could attribute it to the Tigers’ ability to score 16 points off Bradley’s 14 turnovers in the half. On the other, you could say Memphis was struggling at that point, because O’Bryant was helping Bradley clobber the Tigers on the boards, 23-15, with O’Bryant managing 11 of those rebounds.

Whatever the case, greatness was on hold for Memphis. Greatness doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll dominate all the time, but greatness does mean that you’ll eventually find a way to do the only thing that counts, and that is win.

Mission nearly accomplished for the Tigers in search of a few more.

Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

LSU takes Duke’s punch and swats it away

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 23, 2006, 11:01 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

They took the blow. They took all the blows. They watched Mike Krzyzewski do his voodoo dance on the refs and watched Duke, as if on cue, ease out of a game-long hole into a five-point lead with 8:47 to play, and if you were betting right then you’d have bet the ranch and the plow that the addled LSU Tigers would lose by a dozen.

Instead: LSU 62, Duke 54.

Instead: Shady Brady 1, Coach K nil.

Instead: The biggest shocker in a tournament of shocks.

You expected Duke to win because you watch Duke on TV all winter and that’s what Duke does — it wins the close ones. It gives an opponent hope and then dashes it to bits. But these Tigers would not be dashed or daunted. Said Darrel Mitchell, the tough little guard: “We knew they’d give us a good punch.” And they smacked back in a way that almost nobody ever smacks Duke.

Over the last 9:38, the nation’s No. 1 team managed one basket. It was a big one — a J.J. Redick trey that gave the Devils their last lead — but as the game wound down the regal Dookies were running on fumes. Shelden Williams, who ruled the night for 30 minutes, abdicated in the last 10. The forlorn Redick kept missing and was ultimately reduced to imploring the officials to cut him some slack, and in the main they showed no mercy. And none of the other McDonald’s All-Americans on the Duke roster could do a thing when it mattered most.

And the homegrown guys from Louisiana just kept running the floor and blocking shots and scoring just enough points and seizing offensive rebounds off free throws, and all of a sudden they were up eight and beyond even Redick’s reach, and at that sweet moment forward Tasmin Mitchell looked to the LSU crowd and, pulling his jersey aside, pointed to his heart.

This game was about heart, sure, but it was also about stronger legs and bigger bodies. Over time the ACC has played the best basketball of any conference, but there is no team in that proud league that can approximate LSU’s wealth of talent. Duke did the same things it always does, but this time the Tigers were there to fight through screens and rise above the rim and throw the Devils’ shots back in their famous faces. Said Krzyzewski: “I don’t think we ever adjusted to the physicality of the game.”

Statisticians credited LSU with nine blocks, but surely the Tigers touched at least a dozen Dookie shots and left another dozen open to shooters’ last-second reassessments. Duke made 18 baskets in 40 minutes. Redick had more turnovers than hoops. Williams needed 18 shots to score 23 points. Garrett Temple clamped down on Redick on the perimeter, and the Tiger freshman Tyrus Thomas ultimately wore out everyone underneath.

“They have a lot of shot-blockers,” Redick said, and Thomas’ utter dismissal of Greg Paulus’ weak runner with 30 seconds left and LSU up three would have served as the game’s exclamation point. It would have except that, not 15 seconds earlier, Thomas had made an even more outrageous maneuver, taking the ball the length of the floor and splitting a double-team in the lane and rising for a massive dunk that told the basketball-watching world these Tigers weren’t waiting for the game to fall in their laps. On the contrary, they seized the darn thing.

They seized it with a grip so powerful that, at the end, the proud Dookies couldn’t even muster enough spring to block out on free throws. Glen Davis, the irrepressible Big Baby, snatched two in six seconds, and that was the game in miniature: A team of strong will had its will broken by a band of better ballplayers.

“I’m not a great athlete,” Redick said. “LSU has great athletes.”

LSU might or might not be a great team, but in this tournament that doesn’t really matter. What counts is, on the night of judgment, the Tigers let Duke hit them in the mouth and then, surprising the nation and perhaps even themselves, they knocked out America’s Team (as presented by American Express).

Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Perks came out of nowhere, and he’s making a return trip

By Furman Bisher | Thursday, March 23, 2006, 07:06 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. — Sometimes it happens this way at a golf tournament. You go out on the course to follow a player who has been a puzzling subject quite a time, and you run into Davis Love and Jim Furyk. What’s so unusual about that is, they’re leading The Players Championship.

There were three 7s on the portable scoreboard when they finished the round, Love and Furyk in red, the other a dark shade. That belonged to the guy I went out to watch, who would be missing the cut in his 16th tournament in a row. And why, oh why, follow some guy who misses 16 cuts in a row?

Well, it’s this way: When Craig Perks won this championship in 2002, he would have been a 1,000-to-1 shot at Ladbroke’s. He had been to qualifying school nine times. He had played the Hooters Tour, the Nationwide and whatever other tour he could get into. Now, he had won four times on the Hooters, but that tour’s alumni don’t win the big ones on the PGA Tour. (I might point out here, that that was a premise carelessly ventured before Chad Campbell came along.)

Perks not only won here that Sunday four years ago, he won with one of the most exciting finishes I have ever seen. It had been a weathery weekend, and the players went out in threesomes the last day. Carl Paulson was the leader by a stroke over Perks, who had played three good rounds of 71-68-69, but to the gallery, he was no more well known than the guy who parked cars.

Perks had come to this country with his friend, Grant Waite, and played golf at Oklahoma, an All-American, it says in the press guide. He transferred to Southwestern Louisiana, for reasons unknown, then worked behind the counter at a club called La Triomphe at Lafayette, in between making runs on bush league tours. He was still trying to establish himself when he came in here for the first time in ‘02.

Stephen Ames was resting comfortably on the lead, with nobody but this nobody still to finish out. As it turned out, Perks had to make only one putt — one — the last three holes. He chipped in for birdie on 16. He sank a long uphill putt for another birdie on the infamous 17th. He chipped in again for birdie on the 18th, where he actually needed only a par. He won over the shellshocked Ames by two strokes, and on the sideline, some seven strokes further back, Tiger Woods said, “Have you ever seen such a finish!”

Well, four years later Perks is still looking for another finish ever close to it. He was a hero back in New Zealand, “Sportsman of the Year,” “Player of the Month” on the PGA Tour, but suddenly it all went away.

Since then, he has finished in the top 10 only once, no better than 146th in player rankings, and beginning this year, down to 206th. Here he was paired with a U.S. Open champion, a PGA Champion and a two-time winner of The Players. He made the turn 3-over par, then lost four more strokes on the back nine, playing at times with a kind of indifference, though later he confirmed it as puzzlement.

“Yes, I’ve been working with a coach. I’ve worked as hard as I can, and it only gets worse. I don’t know what it is,” he said, as gracious as could be. He’s tall and has an easy smile, no sign of failure on his features.

Love said, “I don’t know that I paid close attention, but I think it’s his driving. He hit three drives that cost him today. He’s a good putter and has a good game otherwise, but his driving gets him in trouble.”

Then he suggested a feature he applies to his own game. “You think positive thoughts. You look at a shot and you’ve got good feelings about it. There’s something about feeling comfortable over a shot.”

Something that Craig Perks hasn’t been feeling since sometime last year. Where did it all go? How did it just fade away after he’d won a tournament with three of the most harrowing finishing holes in the land? And out of it again this year with a 79 beside his name.

Permalink | | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf

I think…

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 23, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

By no popular demand whatsoever, here’s one of those NCAA tournament “I think” things:

I think Jim Calhoun is fun to be around, but I’m glad I don’t have to be around him 12 months a year.

I think Jay Wright is the next Krzyzewski, but without the smirk.

I think Duke has a better chance of losing to LSU tonight than to Texas or West Virginia on Saturday.

I think Florida has a very good chance to reach the Final Four.

I think Villanova has a slightly better one, though.

I think those people who think of the Missouri Valley Conference as an upstart need a bit of a history lesson. In the ’50s and ’60s, the MoVal was a huge deal.

I think the Big East has proved in this tournament that it was just about as good as advertised.

I think Roy Williams has some explaining to do.

I think Bill Self has even more.

I think the latest hot rumor — Bobby Knight to Cincinnati — is intriguing on many different levels, not least this one: Knight is a big Reds’ fan.

I think Randy Foye is slightly better than teammate Allan Ray, but only slightly.

I think the arc on Rudy Gay’s jump shot is a beautiful thing.

I think Marcus Williams is the name of the tournament, given that UConn’s Marcus Williams and Arizona’s Marcus Williams were two of the five best players in a sterling sub-regional in Philly.

I think I was an even bigger idiot than usual for breaking my own rule and picking Kansas to go to the Final Four. New rule: Never pick Kansas to win even a first-round game.

I think if Kentucky and Arizona had played all season the way they played against UConn and Villanova, they wouldn’t have been playing UConn and Villanova in Round 2.

I think Tubby Smith is staying at Kentucky.

I think UConn played pretty close to peak capacity Sunday and still only beat Kentucky by four points.

I think that should give the rest of the field even more hope.

Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit

Even Cinderella wouldn’t believe it

By Terence Moore | Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 08:49 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Oakland, Calif. — Cinderellas are fun, cuddly and even inspiring, but when it comes to longevity during March Madness, they are flukes. For every North Carolina State rocking a Phi Slamma Jamma or Villanova doing the impossible against Patrick Ewing and his mighty Hoyas, you have what will occur Thursday night at the Oakland Arena, and that is Memphis turning Bradley into a pumpkin before midnight.

Sorry to the dreamers out there, but the Final Two is about the Big Boys, with those who comprise the fun and the cuddly spending the latter part of early spring watching instead of playing. Glass slippers are no match for sneakers filled with studs from traditional powers. Such will be the case this time when a couple of teams not named George Mason, Wichita State or Bradley will meet in a couple of Mondays for the national championship.

The Big Boys are just deeper, wiser, better near the end. So it was nice while it lasted for what nevertheless is an impressive Bradley bunch that has a tendency to suffocate opponents on defense. The Braves also have an efficient three-guard offense, along with Patrick O’Bryant doing wonderful things with his 7-foot, 260-pound body in the middle, and Marcellus Sommerville dribbling from here to the standouts of the NBA. If nothing else, they can tell their grandchildren how they once defeated more celebrated foes from Kansas and Pittsburgh in this NCAA tournament before Memphis made things sour for them during the Sweet 16.

Not surprisingly, the Bradley players view their fate differently as the lowest seeded team (13) left in the tournament. They see themselves as the first such team ever to make the Elite Eight or better.

Or do they? Let’s just say that, after Bradley’s practice on Wednesday at the Oakland Arena, I got something akin to deer-smashed-into-headlights looks from three of the most significant Braves, and here was my question: How much of a shock is it to you that Bradley still has a chance to reach the Final Four?

To paraphrase the collective answer from the trio: Did you say “shock?” We’re absolutely flabbergasted.

Said J.J. Tauai, among Bradley’s starting guards, “As far as this being a shock at being here, you want to go into every game thinking you’re going to win.” He paused, before adding with a sigh, “I mean, as far as actually going through what we’re going through right now with this media and all of this attention we’re getting, I’d have to say it is real shocking.”

Added O’Bryant, nodding nearby, “I think it’s more just kind of a surreal feeling with all the fans and media and stuff.” Then Sommerville smiled, before saying with a laugh, “They pretty much said exactly what I was going to say.”

That’s all to say that Bradley is just glad to be here. Not only did the Braves begin this season with four consecutive losing years, but they were a sorry 8-6 overall and 2-4 in the Missouri Valley Conference in mid-January. They spurted in the aftermath when coach Jim Les declared that only O’Bryant was assured of a starting job, and they contributed to a highly competitive tournament that still isn’t as uniquely upsetting as you may think.

The NCAA defines a major upset as a game in which a team loses to another one that is at least five seeds lower on the bracket. If you include Bradley’s victories over No. 4 Kansas and No. 5 Pitt, we’ve had 10 upsets this year. Well, been here, done this. According to research by USA Today, there also were 10 upsets in 1986, the first year after the tournament expansion to 64 teams, and in 1990 and 2002. In fact, that Final Two in 1986 featured Louisville topping Duke, and then it was UNLV over Duke four years later, and then came Maryland handling Indiana 12 years after that. There were no fairy tales along to happy endings in that group.

Even so, dreamers are allowed to join O’Bryant in fantasizing.

“I think we all think [winning a national title] is possible,” O’Bryant said. “That’s what we’re striving for — to get to the Final Four next, then to the championship. Yeah, I kind of do catch myself dreaming about it sometimes or thinking about it. You know, [you] just kind of get jittery.”

Jittery? Definitely not good for the Braves, especially if they’re trying to keep from shattering those glass slippers.

Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

LSU has talent to beat Duke, but likely not the coach

By Mark Bradley | Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 04:27 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

For a month, people have theorized that Duke will be in trouble if it runs across a certain kind of team. LSU is that kind of team — big and fast and fearless. “A guy like me who’s kind of low on the radar,” said the Tigers’ Glen Davis, “is licking his chops right now.” And the amiable Big Baby, as we know, has ample chops to lick.

Big Baby and his wingman Tyrus Thomas will give Shelden Williams, who blocks shots but is an overblown man-to-man defender, a rough ride underneath. Darrel Mitchell will make it rougher still for the freshman Greg Paulus, who has 13 turnovers in this tournament already, and surely the Tigers, who had the second-best field-goal percentage defense among SEC teams, can contrive to hold J.J. Redick under 40 points.

LSU has the players to win this game. At issue is whether it has the coach. John Brady has never faced a higher seed in NCAA play, let alone toppled one. Indeed, the only time his Tigers have advanced to Round 3 remains a case study in lousy tournament coaching.

March 23, 2000: LSU, the highest remaining seed in the West Regional, lost to eighth-seeded Wisconsin 61-48. The Tigers had as many first-half turnovers (14) as points. Not only did LSU fail to feed its two big men, Stromile Swift and Jabari Smith, it went long stretches without crossing midcourt. Given five days to prepare, Brady and staff couldn’t ready their men to handle a solid man-to-man defense.

That was six years ago to the day, and maybe Brady has learned a little about attacking man-to-man pressure. If not, his team will be sunk tonight. Duke always pressures the ball, but these Devils are susceptible to guards who can keep the ball and penetrate with it. (Georgetown proved it. Miami re-proved it.) If LSU limits its turnovers and keeps its collective head, it can win.

Mike Krzyzewski is the second-best coach in the history of college basketball, but he’s not invincible. Recent history indicates that if he’s going to lose, this is where it’s apt to happen. Duke has lost in the Sweet 16 four of the last six seasons, falling to teams coached by the best (Tom Izzo, Roy Williams), the pretty good (Billy Donovan) and the not-so-hot (Mike Davis). Where does Shady Brady, as he’s unflatteringly known around the SEC, fit in that matrix?

“ESPN flashed Mike Krzyzewski’s tournament resume against mine,” Brady said. “It did dwarf mine a little bit, but it certainly didn’t intimidate me any. … With due respect to Coach Krzyzewski and his team, we have played against some good coaches and some other mighty fine programs and been able to win a few of those games along the way.”

If demeanor counts for anything, LSU arrived in a better mood than the favored Dookies. Big Baby was his ample charming self with the media Wednesday, and even Brady, who can be prickly, didn’t snap at anyone. By way of contrast, Krzyzewski was in full whine, dismissing a charming Glen Davis story about meeting the famous Duke coach at a summer camp as “a fairytale,” and even soliciting sympathy for his Devils.

“We had about three weeks of something no other team in the country had to deal with,” said Krzyzewski, referring to the February run of refereeing conspiracy theories and the attention lavished on the record-breaking Redick. (Certainly no other program had to make do with only seven McDonald’s All-Americans and one TV network — ESPN — at its disposal.) The Devils seemed as businesslike as ever, but not everything in March is business as usual. Sometimes the hungry dog, as opposed to the pedigreed dog, wins.

“I want my own stamp of immortality,” Big Baby said, and he and his teammates could buy themselves one tonight. The Tigers have the team to beat Duke, but somehow it’s hard to imagine Shady Brady outflanking Mr. American Express. For all the strange things that have happened this month, that would be the strangest yet.

Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

LaRussa’s got the ‘touch of genius’

By Furman Bisher | Tuesday, March 21, 2006, 05:13 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Jupiter, Fla. - Tony La Russa has spent his career as a major league manager often viewed with a jaundiced eye. He has managed three teams, the Chicago White Sox, the Oakland A’s and now the St. Louis Cardinals, who spend the springs at a base where the Braves would have been had the Disney Company not made them an offer too good to turn down.

George Will once wrote a book that portrayed him as a genius, enough to make him blush. This, of course, referred to his career in managing. As a player, he fell somewhat short of such a lofty status. He describes himself “as a pretty good Triple-A player,” and what has escaped most historians is that he was once a Brave, a month and a half with a team that finished third.

The year was 1971. Felix Millan, the second baseman, came down with an injury in August. “The Braves traded for me to fill in. I don’t think they ever delivered the player they were supposed to, so the A’s settled for cash.

“I hadn’t had a hit when Millan was supposed to come back, but he took an extra day. I went 2-for-3, and that gave me a National League average I can be proud of.”

He had two hits in his seven at-bats in nine games as a Braves player, good enough to earn him an invitation to spring training. “I was disappointed when they sent me to Richmond. I hit .300 there” - .308, to be exact, with 10 home runs - ” and only four players hit .300 in the league that year. I was disappointed again when they didn’t call me up.”

He hit .314 at Wichita the next season, but his major league career was done, except for an appearance as a pinch-runner after the Cubs called him up. That convinced him it was time to look for a backup career. He had been signed by the A’s the night he graduated from high school in Tampa, but there was a family intervention.

“My father was happy. He wanted me to be a ball player, but my mother wanted me to get an education.” So he enrolled at South Florida University, and seven off-seasons later, he got his degree in industrial management. But he wasn’t through with education. After more seasons in the minor leagues and more disappointment, he decided to go to law school at Florida State. More seasons of baseball, more off-seasons of education until he got his law degree in 1978, about the time the rambunctious Bill Veeck came into his life.

“He needed a manager at Knoxville, not a good ball club, but we did pretty well and he told me he’d have me back the next season, but I had to promise that I’d take the bar exam first, and I did, and I passed.”

Give wily old Bill credit for seeing something there that George Will saw later, a touch of genius. The major leagues eventually would have only its fifth manager in history who held a law degree, and surely the only one with degrees from two universities.

“I’ve never tried a case in court, but I came close once, when I was part of a suit of an old lady trying to get her competency restored. That was a close as I got. I’m part of a small firm in Sarasota, and still listed, I guess. I renew my license every year, in fact, I think I still have my card here.”

He fished around in his wallet and came up with it. “There it is, ‘Anthony La Russa Jr., Florida Bar Association.’”

Doubtless, never to be used in practice. “But does it help out pleading your case with the umpires?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I have had umps say, ‘Sorry, counselor, that’s not going to do you any good here.’ “

One other record he holds alone, though hardly to be coveted. The year was 1989, as if we could forget.

Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher

The Tuesday Countdown

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 21, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

10: Bill Parcells. Terrell Owens. Tick, tick, tick …

9: I understand it’s not unusual for Parcells to be a press conference no-show when the Dallas Cowboys introduce a new franchise savior. But between Owens’ checkered resume, owner Jerry Jones’ desperate-sounding insistence that EVERYBODY was on board with the signing and Parcells’ close relationship with the dispatched Keyshawn Johnson, there’s reason enough to suspect Parcells wasn’t thrilled with this move.

8: Owens says he is a “good teammate.” Was that before he dumped on quarterback Jeff Garcia in San Francisco and after he called out Donovan McNabb on ESPN in Philadelphia? I’m confused. Maybe he can explain it to Drew Bledsoe.

7: When does the World Baseball Classic start?

6: I realize there have been a lot of complaints about NASCAR being taken over by Madison Avenue. But I’ll believe it when I’m asked to cover the Panos and Pauls 500.

5: I understand the Falcons’ reticence to part with backup quarterback Matt Schaub. What I don’t understand is this assumption that the kid is an NFL star in waiting. The last time the organization was this confident about a backup, Doug Johnson turned into Perry Klein.

4: I’m not suggesting the Falcons dump Schaub for a seventh-round draft pick. But if the New York Jets are willing to give you a bonafide defensive star in end John Abraham, shouldn’t that be enough for a guy who basically has proven nothing?

3: If the Jets buckle and the Falcons can make the deal for less, that’s great. But if this thing backfires and their defense gets stepped on again next season, this falls on general manager Rich McKay and owner Arthur Blank (assuming he’s signing off on this decision).

2: Not that McKay needs the job, anyway. Hey look! Paul Tagliabue just retired!

1: And for the loud and obnoxious minority out there: Matt Schaub starts over Michael Vick? It will never happen.

Permalink | Comments (61) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit

For Lester, it’s a start — and a finish

By Jeff Schultz | Monday, March 20, 2006, 08:17 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

If it was up to Bill Lester, he wouldn’t be a history lesson. This would be about a 45-year-old rookie avoiding rear-end collisions with a leader and inadvertent right turns into the wall. It would be about racing, not race.

“I represent myself,” the Smyrna resident said Monday. “I’m doing this for myself and my family. I’m glad so many people, especially from the minority community, are taking note of what I’m doing. But I drive for Bill Lester.”

It just so happens there’s a lot of baggage along for the ride.

Lester became only the sixth African-American driver in the history of NASCAR’s elite series — and the first in 20 years — to make the field when he drove in the rain-postponed Golden Corral 500. He finished 38th — but he did finish. The fact he was encircled by TV cameras outside his garage and invited to the interview room was all anybody needed to know about history lessons.

Lester didn’t win. This wasn’t a Hallmark special; it was reality. First-time Nextel Cup drivers don’t win races; they just hope to survive. Lester drove like you want your teenaged son to drive (albeit, a few notches lower on the speedometer). Get from start to finish without hitting anything.

One race by one African-American will not change a sport. But it’s a start. Notwithstanding the inane comments by track fossil Bruton Smith last week that Lester won’t sell tickets, it’s nonsensical to think that his presence won’t grow the sport in the black community.

“To be honest, I don’t know what it’s going to take to really move the needle,” Lester said. “But obviously when I’m out there, I’m getting a whole lot of interest.”

Lester completed 319 of 325 laps. He stayed on the lead lap until No. 104. His only battle scar came on lap 24 when his Dodge got a little high between Turns 1 and 2 and scraped the fence. “I gave myself an Atlanta Motor Speedway stripe,” he joked.

He could’ve gotten stupid and punched the gas pedal more often, particularly near the end after pitting for new tires and finding himself right behind Mark Martin (who finished second). But for what — to crack the top 35?

“There were opportunities for me to take chances, but it wasn’t worth it,” he said. “I could’ve passed [Martin]. I could’ve gotten in the way, but I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to give away the farm, but by the same token, I didn’t want to cause an incident or do something boneheaded, and make these guys fearful of racing with me.”

He’s driving for acceptance. So did Willy T. Ribbs, who raced three Cup events in 1986 (his best finish was 29th.) So did Wendell Scott, who started 495 races and is the only African-American with a Cup win (Dec. 1, 1963).

Lester may not embrace being history, but he knows he can’t avoid it.

“If you asked me 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything,” he said. “But I’ve learned a lot about it. I spoke to Wendell Scott’s daughter and son. They’re elated I’m getting this chance.”

Scott worked as a taxi driver and learned to be a mechanic in the Army. He delivered moonshine in the evenings in Virginia. Lester is a study in contrasts. He went to Cal-Berkeley and earned degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked in management for Hewitt Packard for 16 years.

In short, he didn’t have to be black to stand out in Monday’s field.

A full-time driver on NASCAR’s truck circuit, Lester said “it was cool” to be out there on the premier circuit, even while “embarrassed” by the attention. His sponsor, Waste Management, had committed to two more Cup races in Michigan (June 18) and California (Sept. 3), but it’s reasonable to assume the company, thrilled with Lester’s media exposure, will add more.

He is scheduled to run the next truck series race on April 1. That’s two days before his wife, Cheryl, is expecting the couple’s second child. She was among those who waited out the rain Sunday and returned Monday.

“I was telling the baby, ‘This is daddy’s weekend, not yours,’ ” she said.

It will be a story the Lesters can tell their second child. And given the historical backdrop, nobody will ask, “What’s the big deal?”

Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Auto Racing, Jeff Schultz

NASCAR needs to figure out racing in rain

By Jeff Schultz | Sunday, March 19, 2006, 11:44 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

I am talking to the only person at Atlanta Motor Speedway with some common sense.

“I mean, what’s all the fuss about?” comedian and actor Rob Schneider said Sunday during a rain delay of the Golden Corral 500. “They have pit crews if something goes wrong.”

Forty-three of the best race car drivers in the world congregated Sunday at AMS. Then it started drizzling and it was like watching Dorothy spill water on the Wicked Witch.

The best drivers in the world can’t drive around an oval during a drizzle? Maybe we should all stay off I-285.

Imagine if this was the mentality before NASCAR was born.

“I’m sorry, Fred. I just can’t make it to the next county with this week’s supply of moonshine. It’s drizzling. Plus, I just got my hair tinted.”

Maybe we should just turn this into Disney. Make all the cars go the same speed and put a pretend steering wheel on it. (Ssssh. Don’t tell them. They look so cute.)

“It would be great if they could run in the rain,” AMS president Ed Clark said. “It would make my day go a lot smoother. But it’s been the formula for this many years, so it’s probably not going to change now.”

Look, I’m not suggesting they race Chevys on an inch of water. But for most of Sunday’s delay, it was a painfully slow drizzle, and the fleet of drying trucks — which might have logged close to 500 miles without skidding even once — had the AMS oval relatively dry.

This wasn’t a driving rainstorm. This was the kind of drizzle that prompts you to flip on your wipers every five minutes. This was the I-better-go-turn-on-the-sprinklers-because-these-drops-won’t-save-my-crops kind of drizzle.

Race tires are slick. Cars are heavy. Cars are fast. A little moisture. Bad combination. I get it. Duh. Try this: Cut grooves in the tires. Slap some wipers on the windshields. (With all of the money and automotive engineering brainiacs on the circuit, I’m guessing it could be done.) And then, if possible, just … drive … a … little … slower.

“Building a good tread tire — it just hasn’t been done,” NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter said. “I’m not saying it can’t be done. But driving slower — that defeats the purpose of racing.”

OK. So if 43 cars topped out at 120 mph instead of 200 mph, it’s not racing?

“I’m not saying they couldn’t do that,” Hunter said. “I’m saying we don’t want to put them in that position — and there’s more than one race in a season and we might not have any drivers left. When they buckle on the helmets, common sense seems to dissipate, like I wish this weather would. They’re gonna go fast no matter what. And the fans wouldn’t put up with it.”

Excuse me? Fans wouldn’t want to see a car mistakenly go too fast, slide across the oval and take out six other cars? Isn’t Fox all about edgy programming?

Hunter: “It would quickly turn into a demolition derby. Come to think of it, they probably would like it.”

Don’t people get paid for these ideas?

“The viewership for that probably would be an all-time high,” Clark said. “It would be exciting. You got me thinking now.”

NASCAR and Goodyear have experimented with rain tires at road courses. They have been used in testing, but never in a race. But after years of storage, the tires started to break down and crack. Now, they’re not even considered an option on a road course, let alone an oval.

Clark, who said, “we were close to sending the cars out there,” rolled his eyes when asked why drivers can’t just slow down.

“I remember once Bill France suggested that at Talladega when they were having tire trouble,” he said. “Drivers gave him the same look I just gave you. Slowing down sounds real good until some guy goes by you.”

So, then you go a little faster. It’s still racing with the same racing tightrope: What’s too fast?

But we wouldn’t want anybody to get wet, would we?

Permalink | Comments (37) | Categories: Jeff Schultz

Madness in all its manifestations

By Mark Bradley | Sunday, March 19, 2006, 10:56 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Philadelphia — Just because six of the eight No. 1 and 2 seeds are still playing and just because the number of upsets hasn’t reached its usual quota doesn’t mean this Big Dance has lacked for excellence and passion and all that jazz. Consider what happened here over the weekend as the best evidence that another NCAA tournament is off and zinging.

Connecticut, the consensus pick to win it all, could have lost twice already. Villanova could have seen its splendid season end in its hometown. Two No. 1 seeds flirted with elimination on the same floor Sunday, and that both were steely enough to prevail should in no way be seen as a failure of March to work its usual madness.

Said Villanova coach Jay Wright: “That was a fun college basketball game to be part of. I think Arizona is playing as well as anybody in the country, and I hope I’m right. If I’m not, then we’re in trouble in our next game.”

Villanova needed a Randy Foye banker and Allan Ray’s free throws to outlast Arizona. Earlier, Connecticut required another bravura performance from point guard Marcus Williams and three Hilton Armstrong offensive rebounds off free throws in the span of 33 seconds to subdue the worst Kentucky team in 15 years. It was, as Wright said, a fun and frazzling day.

How frazzling? Here’s Jim Calhoun, speaking of his massively gifted Huskies: “This is a very fragile group.” As odd as that sounded, it also had the ring of truth. Even Calhoun doesn’t know if UConn is any closer to fulfilling what many see as its manifest destiny.

“My opinion hasn’t changed. We can beat anybody in America and get to Indianapolis, or we could get knocked out along the way.”

Some teams with similar designs on Indy are already gone. North Carolina led George Mason 16-2 and contrived to lose. (Hey, wasn’t it the other George from the D.C. area — Washington, as opposed to Mason — that was supposed to make the biggest NCAA noise?)

Kansas and Pitt were both undone by Bradley, and how embarrassing is it for a correspondent named Bradley to have seen neither upset coming? (Answer: Very.)

The Missouri Valley Conference has as many teams still going as the almighty ACC and two more than the brawny Big Ten. The Big East had a bad opening day — three member teams lost Thursday — but has been ferocious since, and this week each regional will feature a representative from the nation’s best conference.

The Oakland Regional, considered the least apt to hold form, instead finds its three top seeds — Memphis, UCLA and Gonzaga — alive and reasonably well. (Although Adam Morrison cannot have another off-game for the Zags to keep winning.) The Washington, D.C., Regional, by way of contrast, is positively defoliated. UConn can reach the Final Four without facing an opponent seeded above No. 5, which is a fairly nice way to travel.

Duke, by way of contrast, faces a grind in the Georgia Dome. LSU and Texas are the sort of big, quick teams that could make the Devils seem pedestrian, but Duke didn’t get to be Duke by not knowing how to counteract big guys. And tiny Villanova will have to go against beefy Boston College in Minneapolis, but ’Nova showed the nation something Sunday.

It was the second of two terrific games in the Wachovia Center, each matching a No. 1 seed against a blue-chip program having a down season. Kentucky wouldn’t let Connecticut, which played its best game in three weeks, run away in the opener, and the suddenly dauntless Arizona Wildcats made Villanova work for its passage into the Sweet 16.

At the end of the frenzied day, both No. 1s were still standing, both having seen their leads cut to two points inside the final 20 seconds, both having responded the way a No. 1 seed should and walking away with four-point victories.

Some Final Fours haven’t seen as much talent as this Round 2 doubleheader, and it’s easy to imagine the two winners here facing one another on Semifinal Saturday in Indy.

And who will be there with UConn and Villanova? Probably UCLA, once the gold standard of college basketball, and the current benchmark — Duke.

Or it could be George Mason playing Georgetown on April Fool’s Day in the RCA Dome, with the winner getting the Bradley Braves or LSU’s Big Baby for the national championship. The beauty of the NCAA tournament — and this goes for all NCAAs, not just the ones suffused with upsets — is that nobody knows. Everybody guesses, and nobody knows.

Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Old hands keep young Thrashers on even keel

By Terence Moore | Saturday, March 18, 2006, 11:46 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Lethargy usually gets you beat, and so it was for the strikingly indifferent Thrashers Saturday night at Philips Arena. They spent much of the opening two periods watching (literally) the Philadelphia Flyers attack the net at will to send the home team chasing its elusive playoff spot in reverse.

Not good. Not with the place stuffed beyond capacity and ready to explode into screams of navy blue, gold and crimson as opposed to just blue. Not since Montreal lost to pitiful Pittsburgh later in the night to give the Thrashers a chance to slip into that elusive playoff spot. Not since the Thrashers are scheduled next week to play four games in six days against nobody even close to resembling pitiful Pittsburgh.

There is good for the Thrashers, though, and its name is Scott Mellanby, who uses his veteran tongue to calm his frantic teammates in times like these. “You have to emphasize being professional and trying to ride that even-keel situation,” said Mellanby, a right winger spending his 20th NHL season with the Thrashers. “The closer we get to the end here, you’re going to have huge victories, and you’re going to have crushing defeats. That’s reality. You can’t put your head down, because nobody’s going to feel sorry for us as a team.”

Not when your goalie had his worst day in a month and half during a 4-2 loss, and not when you botched a slew of power plays (1-for-9) and made other gaffes to turn your evening into a nightmare. Even so, the Thrashers still can return to their dream of reaching the playoffs for the first time with just a little more focus, but I’m just wondering about something.

What took them so long to come this close to such a dream? And, please, let’s not hear those tired excuses that often come with these situations in sports. Those excuses range from evoking the old “five-year plan” that Pete Babcock made perpetual and infamous with the Hawks to claiming that the youth on what usually is just an underachieving squad is on the verge of maturing to suggesting that Jupiter hasn’t aligned with Mars.

The thing is that Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Anaheim rank with the Thrashers as NHL expansion teams since the early 1990s, but each of those other franchises made the postseason in their fourth seasons. Minnesota and Florida did so in three, with the Panthers roaring past the league’s big boys that same year into the Stanley Cup Finals.

Not only that, during the first coming of professional hockey to Atlanta, the Flames spent just their second season in existence going to playoffs. By contrast, when compared to the Flames, the Wild, the Panthers and the rest, the Thrashers are terribly flawed in their development at 6 years old. They’ve never been this far above .500 this late in a season, let alone contend for a playoff spot.

Even so, the Thrashers have turned their seven-game losing streak earlier this year into a distant shadow. They sprinted toward the sunshine of the postseason after they won nine of 12 games to sit only a point out of that last playoff spot before the Flyers came to town.

Now to answer that question — the one about why the Thrashers finally are on the verge of doing what they should have done before: They’ve never had a locker room like this, and we’re not necessarily referring to the shining likes of Ilya Kovalchuk scoring goals and Kari Lehtonen stopping them (well, usually). Take it from Thrashers coach Bob Hartley, referring to NHL teams in general and his team in particular when he said regarding the close of winter, “This time of year, it’s not exactly the best players that will make their teams better. It will be the best people.”

Make that the best mix of people, and for the Thrashers, it starts with the fact that they have 10 players on their roster with playoff experience, including three who have played in the finals of the Stanley Cup. In addition, the Thrashers have Marc Savard joining Kovalchuk and Lehtonen among gifted youngsters who never have reached the playoffs. So the young is inspiring the old through their wide-eyed exuberance, and old is telling the young how to stay under control during the pressure of it all.

At the moment, the Thrashers need the old more than the new.

Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Terence Moore, Thrashers / NHL

Celebration of the ‘mortar between the bricks’

By Furman Bisher | Saturday, March 18, 2006, 09:15 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

They went into rerun at Atlanta Motor Speedway Saturday, flashing back in history not just a few pages, but a bookful. It might have been a preview of the first class of inductees in the new NASCAR hall of fame, as well as a new track record for the number of grand marshals for any race.

They ran in a time before agents and public relations contacts, and when every race car came equipped with a lighter. Ah, an unlikely union here of guys who used to smoke like a forest fire and a product promising to break the habit in the Nicorette 300, to be run later in the day. This, for an organization that for years wore the name of a cigarette. Goodbye Winston, hello Nextel.

Between them, these six won more races than all the drivers who would take the flag in the 500-mile Golden Corral Sunday. If you want a number, it was 412 — 200 of them by one man alone, Richard Petty. Last year, Tony Stewart earned $13 million on the track. Petty drove 13 years to make his first million, and they threw a party for him.

“That was a big deal back then,” said the man known as “The King.”

Here they were, lined up in a row of director’s chairs. All came out of tough American stock. Ned Jarrett worked in his daddy’s sawmill. Benny Parsons was a mechanic for a taxi company. (“My folks had to move to Detroit to find work. We were poor.”) Richard Petty and Buddy Baker both came out of their daddy’s garage. Life wasn’t easy. Race car driving was their ticket out of the backroads of life.

They’d as soon have worn a straitjacket as a shirt and tie. The nearest any of them got to a hair stylist was the local barber. Not until Fireball Roberts introduced it did any of them get into a fitness program. Fireball — Glenn was his name — was the only one who got close to a college. He went to Florida a while.

They don’t come down out of the Southern mountains any more. They come from California, Wisconsin, Missouri, Washington State and some even come out of college. They flocked to the South in coveys, settling mostly around Piedmont North Carolina, and the new hall of fame chose to be their neighbor in Charlotte.

When the old warriors’ running days were over, most of them went back home. Jarrett pioneered the driver-to-broadcaster route, but he never left Newton. “The house where I live is about five miles from where I was born.” Parsons made his way in as one of those analysts, but he hasn’t gone far from his birthplace, which was Wilkesboro, N.C. “Actually, I came from Parsonsville, just outside Wilkesboro, and I’m building a house now at the corner of Parsonsville and Benny Parsons Road,” he said.

His introduction to the metropolitan life in Detroit opened his eyes and ears. “I saw these nice tomatoes at this market one day, but I didn’t see anything to put them in. I went inside and said, ‘You have a poke to put these ‘maters in?’ Man, I was a real hick.”

(Translation: “Do you have a bag in which to put these tomatoes?”)

“The man looked at me like I was from the moon.” Now he’s the analytical voice of stock car racing on NBC.

Here they were in a reunion of sorts of the good ol’ boys. Petty still operates the two-car team of Kyle, his son, and Bobby Labonte. Jarrett is retired, except for a daily radio racing feature, and so are Pearson, Baker and Allison. But historically, these are the mortar between the bricks of which today’s NASCAR racing is built, the guys who turned dollars into millions. And while this weekend the emergence of Bill Lester as the first black American to qualify for a Cup field in 20 years is celebrated, these were the guys who raced with Wendell Scott in the raw days of NASCAR, the first black driver who won a race.

They were friends and they raced with respect for one another. At least two of them were at the Jacksonville track when Scott won his only race, a nod ahead of Buck, Buddy Baker’s father. “He told my daddy, ‘You can kiss the queen, but I get the check.’ “

“Wendell was a good man who asked for nothing, worked hard and had a lot of friends,” Jarrett said. “Everybody up here has worked on his own car to get to the race track. That’s what we did.”

And let’s get one thing straight here: There was no color barrier in NASCAR. The field was open. Only Wendell Scott chose to get in.

Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Auto Racing, Furman Bisher

Villanova gets more from what seems less

By Mark Bradley | Saturday, March 18, 2006, 07:16 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Philadelphia — It didn’t happen by design. Jay Wright didn’t wake up one day and decide to re-invent the basketball wheel. The Villanova coach simply found himself with few big men and a slew of guards. So he said, “We’re going to try this.”

And now, when the Wildcats are the Big East co-champ and a No. 1 NCAA seed and the stylistic talking point of this tournament, does the architect feel vindicated? Not really. Said Wright: “I still question it every day… . I find it hard to believe that people think we can win the NCAA tournament because, you know, we play four guards.”

Lots of coaches have deployed three guards at once. Lute Olson, whose latest Arizona team will play Villanova today, won a national championship in 1997 with Mike Bibby, Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson — and with Jason Terry as a sub — but never in that run did it occur to Olson to go even smaller. “I think it worked out pretty well with three,” he said, laughing.

Even Villanova people concede the obvious: This is one weird-looking team. As Wright noted, the 6-foot-4 Randy Foye — “our power forward,” the coach said — is the same size as Arizona point guard Mustafa Shakur. As Olson noted, ‘Nova’s second-leading offensive rebounder is Kyle Lowry, a 6-foot point guard.

Said Foye: “I never imagined we would go with four — maybe at the end of the game, if you’re holding the ball… . But Coach just wanted to put the best five out there, and it just happened that four guards were four of the best five.”

‘Nova figured it would have Curtis Sumpter and Jason Fraser, who suffered knee injuries last year, back for the new season. But Sumpter hurt his knee again in the fall and was lost for the duration, and Fraser’s halting recovery from surgery has rendered him unable to play more than a few minutes a game. “We thought we were going to have a lot of good forwards,” Wright said, but when November arrived he saw a four-guard array as his only real option.

The four: Lowry, a penetrator and defender; Foye, the strongest and best of the bunch; Mike Nardi, the 6-2 former point guard who’s now a wing, and Allan Ray, the 6-2 shooter who recovered from the eye injury suffered in the Big East tournament to score 19 vital points in Friday’s shaky victory over Monmouth. They constituted 80 percent of Villanova’s lineup at the season’s opening tip, and they still do.

“We played Oklahoma [on Dec. 3] and I still wasn’t convinced,” Wright said. “Then we beat Louisville on the road [on Jan. 5], and then we came back and lost to West Virginia, but I thought we played a good game.” And by then the teensy Wildcats were a top 5 team, albeit the smallest one since … who? Rupp’s Runts of 1966? The UCLA full-court pressurers of ‘64 and ‘65?

On Feb. 13, Villanova played No. 1 Connecticut in the Wachovia Center. Watching from Tucson, Olson had this take: “I thought they’d be in trouble because of their size.” Villanova won 69-64.

A month later, ‘Nova finds itself back in the big downtown arena, back bearing the weight of doubts. Local wisdom holds that 12-loss Arizona is a smart bet to undo the No. 1 seed. Said Wright: “That’s definitely the perception, and I’m not surprised. That should have been the perception all year. We’re a small team.”

Still, smallish Villanova didn’t rise to the top of the ravenous Big East by, ahem, shrinking from an opportunity. Said Foye: “You have to have the will to go and in there and fight for the ball. Because the other guys are going to be four inches taller.”

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

A win by a No. 16 seed is closer than you think

By Mark Bradley | Friday, March 17, 2006, 07:30 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Philadelphia — It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. It will happen before this decade is done. It could well happen next year. It could have happened Friday.

Inside the final six minutes, a No. 16 seed was within seven points of a No. 1 seed. Then Monmouth’s Dejan Delic, who’d just made a trey from the right baseline, rose again on the right baseline for the 3-pointer that would have slashed Villanova’s lead to four. “That ball was in the air for like 15 seconds,” Delic said. And then: “The roar was really loud.”

Imagine if Delic had made the second trey. Imagine the sound inside the Wachovia Center had a game regarded as a scrimmage for hometown Villanova become a full-blown stem-winder. Already generous portions of the sellout crowd had begun to back the underdog, prompting Jay Wright, the ‘Nova coach, to say: “I thought this was going to be a home game. Where did all these people come from?”

It didn’t happen Friday, but it could have. Monmouth, which had to win the play-in game just to reach the first round, kept it close enough that Villanova, this correspondent’s choice to win the whole shebang, could never get comfortable. The Hawks were within 10 points with 15 minutes to play, and also with 10. Imagine if this scenario hadn’t been Villy in Philly, hadn’t been a Catholic school playing at home on St. Patrick’s Day. Imagine if this game had been, say, in Dayton.

We’re reminded every March that no 16th seed has ever beaten a No. 1, that No. 16s are an aggregate 0-87. But those 40-point Round 1 pastings of years ago are going the way of the dodo. Only one No. 16 lost by more than 12 points in last season’s tournament, and Southern gave Duke a competitive game in Greensboro on Thursday. One day a Monmouth team carrying 14 losses held the Big East co-champion to 16 baskets.

“When [the lead was cut to seven], the whole building rose up,” said Monmouth guard Tyler Azzarelli. “That was the loudest atmosphere I’ve every been in. At that moment, we all looked at each other and thought, in unspoken words, ‘We can do this.’ “

The Hawks didn’t quite. They wound up losing by 13 points. But they more than achieved coach Dave Calloway’s tacit goal. “Did CBS stay with [the game]? Usually after about 10 minutes you’re not watching Monmouth anymore.”

Calloway’s team more than held the network’s interest, and had the Hawks not gone the first nine minutes without a basket — Monmouth missed its first 12 shots — it could have positioned itself for something truly historic. “If we’d shot better the first half,” Calloway said, “maybe our [second-half] run is to take the lead.”

Imagine the weight that would descend on a No. 1 seed that falls behind a No. 16 inside the final five minutes. As Wright said: “You don’t want to be the first 1 to go out against a 16.”

And someday soon, some team will be. Said Monmouth guard Chris Kenny: “It will eventually be done. Princeton came pretty close against Georgetown [in 1989] and we fell a little short today. But it was a moral win for us…It’s going to happen in my lifetime. I’ll go on record as saying it will happen.”

For a 16th seed to break through, everything will have to break right. Monmouth got a lot of what it needed but not all. “The margin is closing,” Calloway said. And then: “We ran a play and got a guy wide open [for the Delic shot that would have cut it to four], but the stars didn’t line up.”

He smiled, ruefully but also proudly. “But they almost did. I guess it was only a half-moon tonight.”

Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

The enigma that is UConn

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 16, 2006, 06:25 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Philadelphia — People keep saying this NCAA tournament is wide open, but most of those same people are picking Connecticut to win it. That seeming disconnect is a credit to the Huskies’ talent, which cannot be overlooked. It can, however, be overrated.

Here’s Jim Calhoun, who knows what it takes to win a national championship: “We have one big flaw — ballhandling… . We don’t have a 2-guard on this team who can play. We have so much depth up the middle and on the wing, and we have one good point guard. But we’re a flawed team. So is Duke. So is every team on the board.”

It should be noted that Calhoun talks the way his team often plays. He starts slowly and gathers speed. He winds up wearing down listeners with sheer volume of verbiage. And here, having paused for breath, he was off again.

“Do I think we’re the best team in the country? We can beat anyone we play and win a national championship… . We’ve overpowered a lot of people, sure, but in 2004 [when Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon powered UConn past Georgia Tech for the title] we had no flaws. In 1999 [when Richard Hamilton shot down hugely favored Duke in the final] we mixed well. But this team doesn’t have a second guard who can make plays.”

He pointed to the first Villanova game, which was played in the same building where the Huskies will begin NCAA play today, as evidence. The pressuring Wildcats forced UConn out of its offense and made it create on the fly, and UConn couldn’t. (The Huskies lost 69-64.) If Connecticut is allowed to play to its strengths, it’s the strongest team in the field. But what happens if has to improvise?

“If we’re not the most talented team in the country, we’re one of the top three or four,” said forward Josh Boone, a starter on the 2004 titlists. “We’ve got so many guys to go to. We’ve got seven or eight guys who’ve scored 20 or more in a game.”

When UConn is the subject, hyperbole comes easy. Truth to tell, only five of these Huskies have had 20-point games this season. That’s still really good, but it’s not quite seven (or eight). And there are other really gifted teams in the field. (Duke, to name one. Texas and Villanova, to name two more.) So why is it that only Connecticut’s abundance of aptitude inspires such awe?

“We’re tall,” Calhoun said. “We rebound and we block shots.” As the former Texas coach Abe Lemons used to say, this sort of team looks unbeatable walking through an airport. But will UConn, which lost its first game in the Big East tournament, unbeatable in this Big Dance?

“We’re not exactly coming in off a disaster,” said Calhoun, recalling the overtime loss to Syracuse. “We’re 27-3. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.”

Maybe all the Huskies need to remind themselves. On Feb. 26 they beat Villanova by 14 in an impassioned rematch, and they haven’t been half as passionate since. They nearly blew a huge lead against South Florida, the worst team in the Big East, and then they played from behind in their home finale against Louisville. And then they went to Madison Square Garden and exited forthwith.

A month ago this was the best-looking, best-playing team in the land. It’s still the best-looking, but the playing part is suddenly in question. Said Boone: “I don’t think it has anything to do with our work ethic — Coach Calhoun wouldn’t stand for that. I think we’ve had some big leads and hit some lapses.”

A lapse in February will get you scolded. A lapse now sends you home. And being the overwhelming favorite isn’t a blessing. Said Calhoun: “When you’re the hunted, you think of what could go wrong. When you’re the hunter, you think of what could go right… . This way is harder on your stomach.”

Contrary to popular belief, this NCAA isn’t UConn’s to lose. The Huskies could well win; so could a half-dozen other teams. Talent is a fine thing, but it isn’t the only thing.

Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Same old Dickie V.

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 16, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

I’m in Philadelphia. I’m in the press room at the Wachovia Center. I’m reminded of the first time I set foot in an NCAA tournament press room. It was in Rupp Arena, site of the 1977 Mideast Regional. I was still in college, covering the event for The Cat’s Pause. And the first coach’s press conference I ever attended at an NCAA tournament was…

Dick Vitale’s.

He was coaching Detroit, which was about to play Michigan in the regional semi. For the Detroit Titans, it was the game of a lifetime. (Michigan wouldn’t schedule them in the regular season.) For Vitale, it was an opportunity to orate.

I walked into Vitale’s session a little late, having been distracted by two bathing-suit-wearing models on loan from the boat show next door. (Hey, I was 20 years old.) When I arrived, Vitale was…

Screaming.

I asked Dick Fenlon, the very nice man from The Louisville Times, “What’s he mad about?” And Dick said: “I don’t think he is. I think this is just the way he talks.”

Little did we know.

Long story short. Vitale’s Titans played well but lost to Michigan, the No. 1 team in the country, by five points. Michigan lost to UNC Charlotte and Cornbread Maxwell two days later. Vitale went from the Detroit Titans to the Detroit Pistons to, as history will record, ESPN. He still talks rather loudly. But I now know to expect it.

Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit

NCAA tourney questions looking for answers

By Mark Bradley | Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 10:15 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

It’s the Big Dance. It’s for the Gold Trophy, the Whole Enchilada. (Or as Jim Donnan, who coached a different sport, used to say: The Whole Chilardo.) It’s the time of year when a Prime Time Player must Step Up so his team can be a Tough Out. Otherwise they’ll be undone by some Cinderella, some Spoiler, some Bracket Buster. You know the drill: If you Survive And Advance, you get to March On.

On the day the NCAA tournament begins in earnest, everybody has buzzwords and questions at the ready, but nobody yet has the answers. The only thing we know for sure is that, come April 3 in Indianapolis, one team, and one team only, will Get It Done.

Wasn’t it a good sign for Duke that J.J. Redick resumed normal shot-making service in the ACC tournament? Wasn’t it an even better sign that Josh McRoberts and Greg Paulus, the latest of the Dookies’ many McDonald’s All-Americans, started to play to their lofty billing?
Isn’t it a bad sign that Connecticut followed its signature victory over Villanova on Feb. 26 with three performances of vacillating enthusiasm? Isn’t it a good sign for the Huskies that a North Carolina team of comparable talent entered the tournament last year with a reputation for not always playing hard and went home with the Gold Trophy?
Why does every sportswriter and sportscaster feel compelled to make an unfunny joke about Adam Morrison’s mustache? Why do so many sportswriters and sportscasters fail to grasp that Morrison’s Gonzaga Bulldogs haven’t negotiated the transition from Cinderella to colossus?
If one of the Missouri Valley Conference’s representatives — Southern Illinois, Bradley, Wichita State and Northern Iowa — doesn’t Survive And Advance to the Sweet Sixteen, won’t the carping from Tobacco Road about a mid-major receiving as many NCAA bids as the almighty ACC grow to a full-throated roar?
Who’s the best coach now working — John Chaney no longer counts — never to reach the Final Four? Bill Self, right? Who will be the best coach never to reach the Final Four if Self breaks through with Kansas this year? UCLA’s Ben Howland? Gonzaga’s Mark Few?
Gerry McNamara: Overrated? Underrated? Rated just right?
Why are West Virginia and North Carolina State, considered Tough Outs a month ago, now viewed as potential Round 1 losers? Is it possible that playing an odd style of basketball can’t fully mask the absence of really good basketball players?
When you see a stat like this — that over the past five tournaments the 29 SEC invitees have lost to lower seeds 20 times — aren’t you reading an indictment of the league’s coaching?
How exactly did Tennessee finish behind LSU in the SEC regular season, lose to the Tigers head-to-head, exit a game earlier in the conference tournament — and wind up a No. 2 seed to LSU’s No. 4? Is Tennessee the weakest No. 2 in the history of seeding? Are the Vols about to become the fifth No. 2 to lose to a No. 15?
Why is Michigan State, which had a horrible season according to its own expectations, being regarded as a Spoiler? Are the Spartans, who haven’t guarded anybody since last March, going to morph into expert defenders now? Isn’t Tom Izzo’s heretofore spotless résumé the only thing this team is capable of spoiling?
Pops Mensah-Bonsu gets hurt; George Washington faces scrutiny over its use of players from questionable prep schools; the Colonials lose to Temple in the Atlantic 10 tournament and slide to a No. 8 seed: Has a happy story ever gone sour so quickly?
When Iowa loses, does Steve Alford take the Indiana job on the spot? Does he pull a Roy Williams and respond to questions about his career path with an on-camera obscenity? Does Indiana still want Alford, or is the former Atlanta Hawk Randy Wittman, who has never coached in college, the Hoosiers’ first choice? How will it look if Mike Davis takes his last Indiana team to the Final Four, same as he did with his first band of Hoosiers?
Doesn’t it say something that Duke was only 2-1 against the Big East and 28-2 against teams from everywhere else? Doesn’t it say something that Boston College left the Big East and wound up third in the ACC regular season and second in the conference tournament? Doesn’t it say that a Final Four with two, or even three, Big East teams is no flight of fancy?
The Texas Longhorns: Poised to March On to Indianapolis? Or more apt to stick Rick Barnes with the tag that Mack Brown shed Jan. 4, 2006 — Can’t Win The Big One?
Besides Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim, which coach in this tournament has taken teams to at least three NCAA championship games? How many among us realize that Steve Fisher, once of Michigan, now coaches a San Diego State team that could well be a Bracket Buster?
Which injuries will matter? Mensah-Bonsu and his knee? LSU’s Tyrus Thomas and his ankle? Villanova’s Allan Ray and his eye?
Why are the same people who were calling Ohio State underrated two weeks ago calling the Buckeyes overrated now? If the Ohio State hype is suddenly so excessive, why does nobody count center Terence Dials among the nation’s Prime Time Players?
Who’s the best forward in the field? Before you say Morrison or Rudy Gay, shouldn’t you cast an eye toward Cal’s Leon Powe, who was hampered by a bad knee for two years but was just named MVP of the Pac-10 tournament? Did you know that Powe (pronounced “Po”) is nicknamed, “The Show”? Is Powe The Show ready to Step Up?
If this is Tubby Smith’s last bow, who succeeds him at Kentucky? Florida’s Billy Donovan, once a Wildcats aide? South Alabama’s John Pelphrey, once a beloved Wildcat? Should Pelphrey’s team upset Donovan’s Thursday, would that change the pecking order?
Did the incoherent Digger Phelps have the foresight to license his unbelievably overused phrase — Get It Done — the way Memphis coach John Calipari did with Refuse To Lose at UMass? What if some talented team simply Refuses To Get It Done? Will that describe Calipari’s team if it falls to Arkansas in Round 2?

Bonus question: What’s a Chilardo?

Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Lehtonen holds Thrashers’ playoff fate

By Jeff Schultz | Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 09:02 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Somebody once said, “They shouldn’t call the sport hockey, they should call it goalie.” We’re pretty sure it wasn’t former Thrashers coach Curt Fraser, or the quote would’ve been, “They shouldn’t call it hockey, they should call it, ‘We surrender.’ “

Suffice it to say, no single position in any sport influences an outcome as much as a goaltender. Average teams with great goaltenders challenge for the Stanley Cup. Great teams with average goaltenders have the longevity of a water balloon — and reach a similar conclusion.

This brings us to the Thrashers.

If they miss the playoffs, it will be because of the games Kari Lehtonen missed. If they make the playoffs, it will be because of the games Kari Lehtonen played.

See? No deep analysis necessary.

Lehtonen has started 17 straight games and won seven of his past nine, allowing three or fewer goals in that stretch. The Thrashers have 17 games left. If Lehtonen doesn’t play all 17, it probably means coach Bob Hartley been stuffed into a closet, with his mouth, arms and legs duct-taped.

“I know there are people in this organization who have been waiting longer than me, but I’ve been waiting a long time for somebody to take over [in goal],” Hartley said. “There is no doubt in our mind; he’s the guy. He’s the guy who can be the difference for us.”

To the extent that Hartley said, alluding to Lehtonen’s groin issues earlier this season: “Every time he goes down, I close my eyes and wait to see if he’s going to get up. From training camp on, it was probably the worst nightmare of my coaching career, with goalies coming and going like there were saloon doors in the locker room.”

This is March. Games are closer checking and lower scoring. This is when goalies matter most. This is when Thrasher goalies have been at their worst.

Understand, goalies shouldn’t be defined by how many “bad” goals they allow, but rather when they allow them. A bad goal in the first period — no problem. A bad goal in the third period or overtime — you lose.

The Thrashers are in the race in part because, since Lehtonen has returned, they are 6-0 in overtimes and shootouts. Their record before Lehtonen’s return: 2-6.

After Lehtonen: 4-0 in shootouts. Before Lehtonen: 0-4 in shootouts.

See? No deep analysis necessary.

If the Thrashers make the playoffs, it will be partly because of a decision their rookie goalie made two months ago. He pulled out of the Olympics. Thrashers officials had dropped hints that using the Olympic break to rest and strengthen his core muscle group with a specialist in Vancouver might be a good idea. Lehtonen, who wanted to play for Finland, took the hints. Since the season resumed, he is a different player, mentally as much as physically.

“When we went to play games after the Olympics, I could tell those guys who [went to Turin] were tired,” he said. “We went to Buffalo and [Toni] Lydman and [Teppo] Numminen said they were exhausted. When you look at it that way, that’s one reason why I’m doing better.

“The toughest thing of playing in the NHL is inside your head. It was good for me to throw all that hockey stuff away for a while and just think about fishing and whatever. Especially for goalies, you’re under so much pressure. I had just played like 20 straight games great. So it was great to have a break there.”

The goalie plays better, everybody plays better, because everybody isn’t thinking, “We’re dead.”

Quoth team captain Scott Mellanby: “It just becomes a non-factor in your thought process. When you get a penalty, the first thing you think isn’t, ‘Oh jeez,’ because you know he can save you.”

It’s March and the Thrashers have a goalie, not a white flag. End of analysis.

Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL

Selig’s catch-22

By Terence Moore | Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

The most controversial decision on the horizon in baseball will be a tie: We’re talking about whatever commissioner Bud Selig does involving this Barry Bonds mess, and whatever those who run the San Francisco Giants do after their beleaguered slugger tops Babe Ruth’s 714 and maybe Hank Aaron’s 755.

Selig has to do something. The same goes for the Giants’ brass. It’s just that whatever they do will get blasted farther than a ball from Bonds’ artificially inflated arms.

For starters, Selig could suspend Bonds right now courtesy of the allegations in a couple of recently published books that he used performance-enhancing drugs out of jealousy of Mark McGwire’s power rush in 1998. Or Selig could appoint a committee to determine the role of Bonds and others throughout baseball’s steroid era. Or Selig could do nothing and let nature take its course.

Glad I’m not Selig.

I’m also glad I’m not Giants owner Peter Magowan or his top assistant, Larry Baer. They’ve already announced that they will honor Bonds when he likely ties and then passes Ruth this season. Here’s the question: What exactly will they do, and will the moody Bonds even participate with whatever that is?

Yikes.

Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore

March thoughts always drift to McGuire

By Terence Moore | Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 07:03 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

It’s called “The Little Prince,” a paperback book of 113 pages, but only if you include the cartoon illustrations weaved throughout the simplistic but deceptively profound dialogue. I mention all of this, because never does an NCAA basketball tournament approach that doesn’t find me recalling these words jotted in bold strokes on the opening page:

To Terry.

Seashells and balloons.

Al McGuire.

1978.

I mean, is he really dead? Yes, and it has been five years since the former Marquette coaching great, television sage on college hoops and philosopher for the ages left us in body. He remains in spirit, though. You can see as much whenever March Madness comes along and flaunts nearly every aspect of McGuire’s personality: Quirky; emotional; colorful; dramatic; inspiring; bizarre; unforgettable.

Come Thursday and Friday, the opening rounds of this year’s tournament will have a combination of the expected, featuring UConn and Villanova starting their sprints to the Final Four, and the unexpected, featuring a shocking winner or three among the likes of Alabama-Birmingham, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and North Carolina-Wilmington. We’re back to McGuire, who always warned his teams and others to be wary when meeting any opponent that has a hyphen in its name.

With McGuire’s philosophies still dancing in my head, here’s my dark horse to at least gallop down the stretch toward a national championship: North Carolina. For starters, the Tar Heels won it all last year, but they were forced to replace four guys who became first-round draft picks in the NBA draft with four freshmen who helped North Carolina play out of its mind near season’s end. Entering the ACC tournament, for instance, this rapidly maturing bunch owned a seven-game winning streaking, including a victory at Duke to end the regular season over the hated Blue Devils and their Cameron Crazies. Several days later, North Carolina roared to its eighth consecutive victory by blowing out Virginia to open the ACC tournament.

Not good. Not according to McGuire, who used to say that it is best to lose before the start of the NCAA tournament to have your players start listening to you again. So it actually was a blessing for North Carolina loaded with impressionable youth to miss a date with Duke in the finals of the ACC tournament by dropping a game the day before to Boston College.

Neither UConn nor Villanova won its conference tournament, either. Although they both are more seasoned than North Carolina, they are similar to the Tar Heels in that they suddenly are more dangerous in defeat since they both have players with wide-open ears again when their coaches speak.

To be fair, one of McGuire’s axioms damaged a team in search of March Madness. Florida State took his theory literally about filling your early schedule with “cupcakes” to have a better chance of making the Big One. Instead, the Seminoles are in the Little One called the NIT. Members of the NCAA selection committee suggested that they cringed at the sight of Florida State building its 19-9 record by whipping the Campbells, Stetsons and Texas Southerns of the earth.

There still are more hits than misses among those McGuire things. Growing up in the Midwest and having the opportunity to attend more than a few Marquette games at the old Milwaukee Arena, I was a McGuire junkie. He was into collecting toy soldiers, riding motorcycles and screaming his way into technicals to spark his team. So that day was special in November of 1978, when we sat Indian-style in his office near the Marquette campus and chatted between nibbling on cookies. This was the year after he stunned reality by announcing his retirement from coaching at 48, just before he led Marquette to a national title at the old Omni. He spent the close of the game crying forever on the bench.

Anyway, at the end of our captivating two hours or so in his office, McGuire reached into a drawer to give me that paperback book, and then he scribbled something on the inside before saying, “It takes me about 15 minutes to read it now, but I guess a good reader can do it in five. The book reminds you to live for the moment and not to take yourself too seriously.”

Sounds like a lesson for those involved with March Madness. That, along with those involved with life.

Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

The Tuesday Countdown

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

10: Whither Bode?

9: On a whim, which I believe best defines what blogs are all about, I went to “JoinBode.Com,” the website set up by the acid-induced marketing geeks at Nike for Bode Miller (former marketing creation, part-time skier). And what’s this? It’s gone!

8: Actually, go to the website and you will find a message from Nike’s humiliated elves, thanking you for joining Bode (in beer-drinking?), with this kicker: “You all made join Bode more than just a website. You helped build a forest.” Just one question: Huh?

7: Texas, Memphis, UConn and Boston College. Monmouth over Bode in the play-in game.

6: One of the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders caught in the bathroom NOT washing her hands (blog code) with another Carolina Panthers cheerleader, reached a plea bargain in her case. She will perform 50 hours of community service and attend an anger management class. Most importantly, she is not allowed to benefit financially from the incident. Alas, no video.

5: I know nobody in Chapel Hill wants to hear this but if I’m Tyler Hansbrough, I’m coming out now. He runs the floor, plays the post and these eyes witnessed B.C. beating the tar heel out of him in the ACC tournament - but he kept coming back. He’d look good in a Hawks uniform. Well, as much as anybody would look good in a Hawks uniform.

4: Speaking of who: Mike Woodson was voted as the second-worst coach in the NBA in a Sports Illustrated survey of 248 players. He still has 21 games left to catch Toronto’s Sam Mitchell.

3: These surveys generally are bunk. But it was amusing to see Larry Brown finished third among “best” coaches and sixth among “worst” coaches. Had there been a category for two-faced coaching legends, the two sides might’ve been united.

2: One mock draft now has Texas quarterback Vince Young lasting until seventh in the draft. Is this the same Vince Young who after the Rose Bowl some thought would go first? If so, I’d love to see how Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath would’ve scored on the Wonderlic.

1: Two things that just shouldn’t intersect: Kevin Shaffer and $36 million contract.

Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit

Jodie Meeks speaks low, stands tall

By J.C. CLEMONS | Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 06:33 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

J.C. CLEMONS

Jodie Meeks heard the whispers, although he blocked them out. Word was the Norcross High guard was a very good player but not assertive enough to lead a state-title charge. In other words, critics said, Meeks’ game was too much finesse and not enough brawn.

“I mean, I really don’t listen to that stuff,” he said. ” I just kept on playing my game.”

Yes, he did, staying cool, calm and collected — all the way to a Class AAAAA state championship. And in an age when “Thug Life” is more than just a motto for far too many African-American youngsters, when gangsta-wannabe hoopsters preen on the basketball court, Meeks kept his head.

No trash-talking. No gaudy tattoos. No chest-thumping.

Just heady floor play that exemplified a feel for the game — selflessness, determination and discipline — that also reflects a fine upbringing.

“What he is, is not selfish,” says his father, Orestes Meeks. “Jodie’strying to win games, not score as many points as he can, or show someone else up. He’s got a fire inside him, but Jodie’s not out to bring a lot of attention to himself. “Off the court, he realizes he’s a young man first, not an athlete. Jodie’s able to separate the two, which bodes well for how any kid approaches life. The last thing this world needs is another spoiled, pampered athlete.”

Funny, Orestes Meeks would usethose words “spoiled” and “pampered.” Way too often, basketball players whose game was honed outside the ‘hood — like Jodie — aretagged as such. Think: David Robinson, Grant Hill, Tim Duncan or even early Kobe.

Fantastic players all but detested by many for a perceived lack of “street cred.”

Thank goodness Jodie Meeks hasn’t fallen for that trap.

Yes, his family lives well. But that’s due to the industriousness of his father, an executive with IBM, and mother Margaret, an administrator with Gwinnett County Public Schools. Don’t, however, think for a minute that Jodie and his sisters, Brianna, a Norcross freshman, or Kolby, 10, are coddled.

There are household chores and other responsibilities.

“Jodie understands nothing is promised,” Dad said, “and you have to work for everything you get.”

If the message gets muddled,Orestes Meeks, an All-America long jumper at Middle Tennessee, can always throw back to his hardscrabble Chicago roots. “I tell people, ‘We were so poor, we’d go down to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and lick other people’s fingers.’ “

He is only half-joking.

Orestes Meeks’ father died when he was 14, leaving his mother to raise six children. “My mother did a great job raising six of us,” he said. “We never lacked for love or guidance.”

Neither, it’s apparent, has Jodie.

During pregame drills, an observer was amazed that Jodie — the team’s established star — was running the hardest duringsprints. Orestes Meeks asked his son why?

“He said: ‘Dad, if I’m not working hard, I feel I’m cheating myself,’ ” Orestes Meeks recalled. “He’s a good person, and that’s why I’m proud of him. Not puffed-up pride, but pride in a sense he’ll turn out well.” With basketball-rabid Kentucky as his next stop, Jodie Meeks is making another huge step in his life, basketball and otherwise. Dad has already started prepping him.

“I told Jodie, ‘They are going to put you up on a pedestal,’” Dad said. “‘You have to be able to separate all of that and don’t forget where you came from.’ He said, ‘Dad, I’m not going to forget.’ “I think he’s ready.”

Yes, Dad, he is.

Permalink | | Categories: J.C. Clemons

Next WBC, find another season

By Furman Bisher | Monday, March 13, 2006, 07:05 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Orlando — If your experience has been like mine, the World Baseball Classic was pretty much a mystery until games sprang up on television between such teams as Korea and Chinese Taipei and South Africa and Mexico. You mean they play baseball in South Africa?

It has been rather loosely organized, sort of flung together, considering that its public relations has been of the same order. It smacked me in the face when I walked into the Braves facility at Disney’s Wide World of Sports and there before me was a sign that read “Dominican Republic Clubhouse.” The Braves had graciously taken a four-day road trip to accommodate their international brethren. The organization, put together by Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, together with the International Baseball Federation, featuring Tommy Lasorda as ambassador-at-large, has depended largely on getting the news around by word of mouth, or TV.

(By the way, did you catch a view of Lasorda’s ceremonial first pitch the other night? It was a “breaking” ball that traveled about 10 feet.)

My question: Is this the major leagues, or have we taken it upon ourselves to spread the gospel of baseball? Do we have missionaries of cricket or rugby invading the United States promoting their games?

Baseball hasn’t exactly been living on starvation rations around the world. This tournament includes teams from 16 countries. A man named Fred Hunter and Babe Ruth made a goodwill mission to Japan in the 1930s. Next thing you knew, we were in a deadlier game with that country. I thought another might break out Sunday night when the U.S. and Japanese teams played in Anaheim. The Japanese scored the leading run on a tag-up play in the 8th inning, but an American umpire overruled the call. It was universally concluded that the Japanese got robbed, and I agree. Got rather tense there for awhile, but after stalling a bit, the Japanese continued the game, and later lost.

Well, on to the matter at hand. Is this a good idea, playing this tournament in the middle of spring training, removing some players from their teams for around three weeks? There are two opinions down here, pro and con. And I’ll say this, the pros talk with forked tongue. No one has dared be as flagrantly critical as George Steinbrenner, and who’s not to take his side for a change?

Bobby Cox, for instance, says this, “I’ve supported it, but …”

Tony LaRussa says, “There are some plusses and some minuses, but more minuses than plusses.”

John Schuerholz says, “I don’t want this to sound like I’m building a case for Bud Selig, but I think it is working out well.”

But what about pitchers going five innings this early in the year? “That has concerned some of us, so they put in some restraints, number of pitches and such,” Schuerholz said. “As for position players, they’re doing about what they usually do this time of year. They’re playing more and they’re probably going to come back ahead of where they would have been.”

Attendance has been a smash in the Orient, in Arizona, in Orlando and in the Caribbean. What Americans are seeing on television opens their eyes. When two Latin American teams play, it’s like a fiesta. Cheerleaders, musicians roam through the stands, they sing, they chant, they swing and they rock, not unlike Americans at football. When Venezuela and the Dominican Republic played the other night, an old inviolate U.S. tradition was smashed. There was cheering and singing in the press box, and correspondents danced in the aisles. I trust baseball doesn’t consider that progress in spreading the word.

Obviously, some countries are not ready for such competition. Italy filled out a team with any American whose name might rhyme with spaghetti. In Korea, anyone named Kim was eligible, to go with Chan Ho Park and Hee Seop Choi, established major leaguers. But China was hard-pressed to match its baseball with progress in golf, and had to settle for a manager with a French name, Jim Lefebvre.

You don’t grow baseball like vegetables. Nations had their own sporting preferences before we got there. And if they want to do it again, please, stay away from that American ritual, spring training. Try the Caribbean and South America in the winter, and South Africa, Australia and south China in the winter months when their weather is summery there.

Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher

‘My 755 is going to be there’

By Terence Moore | Monday, March 13, 2006, 06:35 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Once again, the venerable Henry Louis Aaron is giving us a lesson on patience, fairness and decency.

Yes, Barry Bonds has done the unusual by spending the latter part of his career growing muscles on his muscles. Not only that, a heavily documented book is suggesting that he ripped all of those home runs by using performance-enhancing drugs as opposed to eating lots of spinach.

Well, it’s like this: After chatting with Aaron on Monday, I still think Bonds should just go away, but not until his fingerprints are discovered on that already smoking gun.

“Being who I am, and having lived in this country for so long to see injustice prevail the way that it has on numerous occasions, I just prefer to wait until the final verdict is in, and the final verdict is that you have to put Mr. Bonds somewhere on the stand and say, ‘Hey, did you or didn’t you use (steroids)?’ ” Aaron said. “I don’t know the answer, and I don’t think anybody does. We all sit here and try to pretend that we do, but we really don’t. Until you’re proven guilty, you’re innocent.”

Sounds good to me, especially since Aaron has as much at stake in this matter as anybody. We’re talking about a stake that is the width and length of 755 home runs. Nobody has slammed more than Aaron. Still, courtesy of a gigantic spurt that the book claims resulted from an artificially inflated body, Bonds is at 708. He’ll eventually top Babe Ruth’s 714 that was magical until Aaron surged by the old legend 32 years ago.

I’m clenching my teeth. It always happens whenever I recall how Bonds likes to whine about the anguish he says he experiences from battling pitchers and critics. The thing is, Bonds is spitting on Aaron’s legacy. After all, during Aaron’s nearly three years of evolving into the new legend by catching and passing Ruth, he was forced to handle death threats along with pitchers and critics, and Aaron did so mostly with silence.

Which brings me to this: Let’s say that we do find Bonds’ fingerprints on that gun before, during or after he reaches “756” someday. The smoke from that gun will suffocate Bonds’ accomplishment and leave Aaron’s mark breathing forever.

Or will it?

“Listen, I’d be wrong as heck to sit back here and point a finger and say whether or not my record or anybody else’s will be tainted by somebody,” Aaron said. “It’s kind of up to Barry to do his own thing, and he hasn’t admitted to anything. If he did something wrong, then he’s the one who is going to have to pay for it. So, really, to be honest, I’m out of it.”

Yes and no. For one, Bud Selig is among Aaron’s closest friends, and the commissioner has a dilemma: Does he suspend Bonds on the basis of that book that is loaded with sealed testimony from a grand jury and public court records, or does he further risk the wrath of the public by shrugging as Bonds slams his way closer to Ruth and Aaron?

Said Aaron, “I don’t know what Bud can do. No matter what decision he makes, it’s going to be wrong.”

There also is Aaron’s respect for the late Bobby Bonds, Barry’s father and a former major league standout. As a result, Aaron shakes his head between sighs whenever he hears that the younger Bonds is considered to be something less than what Aaron always has been: Honorable.

“I’m not a bosom pal of Barry’s, but I do feel sorry for anybody who has gotten themselves into this kind of position,” said Aaron, who first met the younger Bonds “about eight years ago.” Since then, Aaron has been highly supportive of Bonds’ pursuit of his record, and he took the same approach with Ken Griffey Jr., before the Cincinnati Reds slugger was slowed by injury. Aaron laughed, saying, “No matter what happens with Barry or anybody else, my 755 is going to be there next year, the one after that and the one after that. I’m not going to hit another home run.”

Then Aaron paused to reflect on his 72 years on earth that now revolve around his Atlanta car dealerships, Chasing The Dream foundation for youth and family that includes his wife, Billye, five children, numerous grandchildren and 95-year-old mother. “My life is really good,” Aaron said. “I’m happy with it, because I don’t have to go through what I had to when I was chasing Ruth’s record. God knows I had my fill of it. I had a lot of good things happen, and a lot of bad things.”

Bonds can relate.

To a point.

Permalink | Comments (72) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore

Jodie Meeks speaks low, stands tall

By J.C. Clemon | Monday, March 13, 2006, 06:35 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

J.C. Clemon

“I mean, I really don’t listen to that stuff,” he said. ” I just kept on playing my game.”

No trash-talking. No gaudy tattoos. No chest-thumping.

Just heady floor play that exemplified a feel for the game — selflessness, determination and discipline — that also reflects a fine upbringing.

“Off the court, he realizes he’s a young man first, not an athlete. Jodie’s able to separate the two, which bodes well for how any kid approaches life. The last thing this world needs is another spoiled, pampered athlete.”

Funny, Orestes Meeks would use those words “spoiled” and “pampered.” Way too often, basketball players whose game was honed outside the ‘hood — like Jodie — are tagged as such. Think: David Robinson, Grant Hill, Tim Duncan or even early Kobe.

Fantastic players all but detested by many for a perceived lack of “street cred.”

Thank goodness Jodie Meeks hasn’t fallen for that trap.

There are household chores and other responsibilities.

“Jodie understands nothing is promised,” Dad said, “and you have to work for everything you get.”

If the message gets muddled, Orestes Meeks, an All-America long jumper at Middle Tennessee, can always throw back to his hardscrabble Chicago roots. “I tell people, ‘We were so poor, we’d go down to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and lick other people’s fingers.’ “

He is only half-joking.

Orestes Meeks’ father died when he was 14, leaving his mother to raise six children. “My mother did a great job raising six of us,” he said. “We never lacked for love or guidance.”

Neither, it’s apparent, has Jodie.

During pregame drills, an observer was amazed that Jodie — the team’s established star — was running the hardest during sprints. Orestes Meeks asked his son why?

With basketball-rabid Kentucky as his next stop, Jodie Meeks is making another huge step in his life, basketball and otherwise. Dad has already started prepping him.

“I think he’s ready.”

Yes, Dad, he is.

Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: J.C. Clemons

New guys are right at home in ACC

By Jeff Schultz | Monday, March 13, 2006, 12:18 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Greensboro, N.C. — Two years ago, the ACC lived the greed-is-good philosophy and gutted the Big East like a flounder.

It’s not that there was anything wrong with their little Southern-steeped conference. But how could generating another several million dollars be a bad thing (pillaging and plundering notwithstanding)?

“The comfortable thing is to keep things the way they are,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said Sunday. “There’s an old saying: ‘It wasn’t raining before Noah built the ark.’ “

It’s not raining in the ACC. Tradition has just sort of been slapped around a little.

Virginia Tech, not fully embraced as a new partner on Tobacco Road, won the ACC football title in its first season and last year played in the inaugural conference championship game.

Boston College, which is from, like, way up there, stepped on history and North Carolina on Saturday and nearly upset Duke on Sunday before losing 78-76 in its ACC basketball tournament debut.

Virginia Tech.

Boston College.

Kind of feel like somebody just plowed your cornfield and put in an interstate?

“I was the athletic director at North Carolina when Florida State came into the league, and Dean [Smith] was not real keen on that,” said Swofford. “I respected that opinion. But we voted for Florida State to come into the conference. Simply, Dean’s preference at the time would’ve been to leave the conference alone because basketball was successful.”

Leave it alone. That pretty much was Mike Krzyzewski’s position when he heard the ACC wanted to import Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. He viewed it for what it was: a transparent attempt to build the conference as a football power, which would lead to a title game, which would lead to greater television revenue.

Krzyzewski, like Smith, was understandably protective of the ACC’s basketball tradition and didn’t see what the fuss of fall Saturdays was all about. “The thing that made our league is basketball,” he said in 2003 when asked about expansion plans.

Swofford understood. He listened to Krzyzewski. He listened to anybody else who grumbled about a Northern invasion. Didn’t make a difference, of course.

“Everybody doesn’t have to have the same opinion — and never has in our league,” he said. “When Florida State came in, it was not unanimous. When Georgia Tech came in, it was not unanimous. Change is not always easy for some people.”

If Krzyzewski still harbors some resentment, he tried to not let it show after Sunday’s game.

Asked if the non-traditional ACC final of Duke-Boston College felt different, he said, “It didn’t feel different because we have tremendous respect for Boston College. They’re a Final Four-caliber team.”

As to expansion, specifically, he said: “Whatever happens, you make it work to the best of your ability. Boston College is a tremendous school. We’re lucky to have them in the conference. If we had to have expansion, then they’re a terrific addition. They represent the ACC very well, and they’re a difficult team to beat in the ACC tournament.”

Swofford said Boston “is now part of our footprint.”

Think about that if Beantown lands the ACC tournament in 2011. Just guessing there’s no Stamey’s barbecue in Back Bay.

Swofford denies the idea that expansion was totally driven by football, even if the title-game dollars made that the biggest furniture in the room. “That’s way too simplistic,” he said. “Certainly, that [football] needed to work, and it has. But where our schools came out, and I came out, was that the risk was not in [expanding] to 12 [schools], but in staying at nine. Most of us felt staying at nine we could have a real challenge staying as one of the major conferences in the country. You had to look beyond that one sport.”

To a large degree, that meant looking beyond one state. North Carolina is still trying to get used to it.

Several UNC fans showed up at Sunday’s games but seemed to stay neutral. Who to boo loudest? Duke or the team that beat you in the semis?

BC’s presence in the title game could be perceived as validation of the expansion. But Swofford said only, “It makes it rather obvious that we strengthened ourselves, and added depth.”

Also dollars and somewhat foreign accents.

Permalink | Comments (8) |

Braves’ Betemit on call once again

By Furman Bisher | Monday, March 13, 2006, 12:11 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Orlando— After several springs of bouncing around from one dateline to another — Lake Buena Vista, Disney World, Kissimmee, Wide World of Sports, and now, the anointed Ballpark at Disney Wide World of Sports (derived by some guy with no respect for the cost of newsprint) — I have come to the conclusion that Orlando covers it all. So, greetings from Orlando and the immeasurable delights of spring training.

There has never been another like it. The first view was that of the national team from Venezuela working out. What I came across next was a placard that read “Dominican Republic Clubhouse.” Where was I, Caracas or Santo Domingo?

What has happened is that international baseball has spread its wings, vigorously championed by Major League Baseball in the guise of Bud Selig, as if the commissioner didn’t have enough on his plate. Nine Braves players have been away playing on a team of one nationality or another. Five won’t be back until about March 20, including Chipper Jones and Jeff Francoeur, all out there spreading the gospel from Australia to South Africa, outposts where baseball barely registers above room temperature.

Now, while some fans following the Braves might fret, El Classico Mundial Beisbol comes as good news to Wilson Betemit. While Chipper is away, Betemit, unchosen by his native Dominican team, gets to play and is making the most of it. His is a story that began in 1996, when at age 15, he was signed by the Braves for a $40,000 bonus. Rich stuff for a kid on the island where swinging the bat might be the national symbol. “You don’t walk off the island,” as some native once said, no reference to transportation.

Betemit has run the gamut since. He had played another season in the Dominican before the Braves moved him into their rookie league. At one time, “highest rated prospect in organization,” his progress was steady until he hit the Class AAA level. There he became hung up for three seasons, and the glamour wore off; he was dethroned as “highest rated prospect” and succeeded by Andy Marte, once designated as Chipper Jones’ successor.

Now the story begins to take an intriguing twist. Betemit’s native position is shortstop, and when Rafael Furcal bolted and signed with the Dodgers, his spirit rose. Betemit had had an interesting season filling gaps and coming off the bench when called on. His batting average, .305, was the highest of National League rookies, and so was his on-base percentage. He put in time at third base and shortstop, pinch-hit, playing on call, yet it seemed all his heroics were barely noticed. How do you overlook a rookie hitting .305 in 115 games?

“I know I can play,” he said the other day, in a quiet manner, which is his way. “I’m just waiting for the right opportunity.”

Well, it arrived last December, when Furcal bolted and signed with the Dodgers — or so it seemed. There went the Braves’ spark plug, their prime leadoff man. Betemit finally was the Braves’ shortstop — for two days, at which time they traded with the Red Sox for Edgar Renteria. And who was trade bait? Andy Marte.

So, here was Betemit back where he had been before. Utility man again. On call again. The perennial bridesmaid. But assuming it all with his customary even demeanor. “The year before, I was just looking to have a good year at Richmond and getting ready for the Braves, but I had a couple of injuries ,” he said. “I don’t want to use that as an excuse, but, well, I just want to play.”

As it turned out, he turned springtime into Betemit-time and he is now a confirmed member of the tribe, and whenever the situation arises, he’ll be ready. “That’s all I can do, be ready when the opportunity comes along.”

Now shortstop is in the hands of a veteran who has known the pressure of playing on a World Series champion at the age of 22, in six postseason series, winner of Silver Sluggers and Gold Gloves and other such collectibles multiple times, and this, in the words of Tony La Russa, his former manager in St. Louis: “I don’t know Furcal that well, but I would take Edgar Renteria any day, any time. Good hitter, good fielder, good team man and a good person.”

Shortstop is in good hands, with backup insurance. Check the Sunday box score.

Permalink | Comments (42) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher

It’ll be three top seeds, one irresistible tease

By Mark Bradley | Sunday, March 12, 2006, 10:54 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

A month ago I’d have said Duke would be the national champion. Two weeks ago I’d have said Connecticut. Four days ago I’d have said Villanova. Now I’m saying all of the above will convene in Indianapolis — along with a fourth team that everybody should have seen coming — and one of them will take the title.

So begins the 19th annual Final Four Fiasco, guaranteed to frustrate one and all. Already the NCAA tournament committee has served up a passel of frustration: Gasping Tennessee a No. 2 seed? Steady Boston College only a No. 4? Surging Kansas only a No. 4? Cincinnati out and Air Force in? But as much as we Fiascans might grumble, we’re forced to play the bracket we’re dealt. Here goes.

The temptation is great to pick against Duke in the Atlanta Regional. The Devils haven’t dazzled anybody the last three weeks, and the enervating run to yet another ACC tournament title might have actually hurt a thin team. That said, who in this regional can beat the Dookies?

George Washington? Nope. UNC Wilmington will upset the Colonials in Round 1. Syracuse? Nope. The Orange guzzled all its juice in the Big East tournament and will lose to Texas A&M. Iowa? The Hawkeyes will be undone by West Virginia in Round 2. Texas? When these teams met in December, the Longhorns lost to Duke by 31 points.

Texas has the best starting five in the country — better even than UConn — but somehow the orange whole is less than the sum of its parts. You’d think a frontcourt of LaMarcus Aldridge, P.J. Tucker and Brad Buckman would be able to neutralize Shelden Williams, and you’d think a tandem of Kenton Paulino and Daniel Gibson would be the near-peer of Greg Paulus and J.J. Redick. But then you remember that score from December: Duke 97, Texas 66.

The Oakland Regional is one of the weakest ever, and the result will be upsets galore. None of the top three seeds — Memphis, UCLA and Gonzaga — will be around by the Sweet Sixteen. Memphis will lose to Arkansas, which gets better with every week. Gonzaga will arrive in Salt Lake City grumbling about being seeded No. 3 and will exit after being chilled by Xavier. UCLA will lose to Marquette, which will get past Alabama because Tom Crean will outscheme Mark Gottfried.

The best teams in this regional are seeded fourth and fifth. Pittsburgh is the personification of grit, but the Panthers don’t shoot well enough. Having won 15 of 16, Kansas is the hottest team on the board. Kansas is so impressive that I’m breaking my personal rule — having been burned way too often, I refused to pick the Jayhawks to make the Final Four — and picking the Jayhawks to beat Marquette to reach the Final Four.

The Washington Regional is loaded with potential glamour games in Round 2. But UConn-Kentucky won’t happen. UAB, which ousted the Big Blue in 1981 and 2004, will do it again. North Carolina-Michigan State will come off, but the Spartans aren’t half the team they were a year ago. Tennessee, which is dead on its feet, will lose to No. 15 Winthrop.

UConn could lose to Illinois in the Sweet Sixteen or to North Carolina in the regional final, but Illinois doesn’t have the size to cope with that massive front line — remember how Sean May overwhelmed James Augustine last year? — and Carolina, for all its young talent, lacks a true point guard. I don’t like the way UConn drifts in and out of games, but I do love its talent.

Any of the top four seeds in the Minneapolis Regional could reach the Final Four without overachieving. Boston College is Pittsburgh with a bit more skill. Florida’s young big men are a joy to behold. Ohio State is a No. 2 seed on merit and, once the next wave of Buckeyes arrives, will be a No. 1 next year.

For all that, the NCAA tournament is about guards, and Villanova doesn’t have two or three good ones. It has four. The Wildcats are simply too quick for BC and too skilled for Ohio State, which will turn back Florida in the best game of the Sweet Sixteen. The eye injury suffered by Allan Ray shouldn’t undo Villanova; I’m guessing he’ll be OK by Round 3, and the Wildcats shouldn’t be troubled before then.

Not many Duke-Kansas matchups could ever be considered the lesser of the two Final Four semis — Duke will win, by the way — but UConn-Villanova is simply a monster. The first of their two regular-season meetings was the game of the year, and the third installment should be better still.

UConn has great players. Villanova is a great team. The Wildcat guards can offset size with penetration, which is how they beat the Huskies the first time. Indeed, guard penetration will be the key to this Final Four. UConn is vulnerable to it, and Duke — as Georgetown showed when it beat the Devils in January — is especially susceptible. After much internal debate, I’ve come to a decision. I’m saying Villanova.

Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC

Baby Hawks finally getting it

By Terence Moore | Sunday, March 12, 2006, 12:19 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

You have some of this, a little of that and a whole bunch of maturity that comes with time. Even so, the primary reason the overwhelming youth on the Hawks is suggesting that this may evolve into a vibrant NBA team someday is that they don’t wish to stuff a basketball down their coach’s throat anymore.

Guess Mike Woodson prefers the taste of meat instead of leather. He has tweaked a few things in his second season ever as the head guy at any level, which is good. He just hasn’t tweaked his mostly unyielding coaching style to the point of giving in to the Hawks’ shrinking number of knuckleheads, which is better.

Said Woodson, “I’ve tried to be more open and ready to cater to their needs, because they are so young.”

Then, before anybody could get the idea that Woodson was fulfilling the wishes of those knuckleheads by evolving into, well, you know, a wimp, he hinted that the old Woodson is always a botched assignment away. “When I see slippage, they put me back where reality is, and it’s my job to point it out,” Woodson said. “I always say to the players that it’s not the tone. You’ve got to listen to the message that’s being delivered, and I think a lot of young guys don’t do that.”

Uh, no. Not fully, but the Hawks’ young guys have adjusted to Woodson enough these days to make this team interesting and promising out of nowhere. On Saturday night, for instance, the Hawks couldn’t do enough to slay the significantly taller and thicker Chicago Bulls at Philips Arena in a 95-90 loss. Still, the Hawks continued to play in spurts with the combination of energy, athleticism and intelligence that the franchise has lacked since the start of its playoff drought during the end of the last century.

Josh Smith finally has a shot beyond several inches from the rim. Marvin Williams is shedding his wobbly legs in crunch time for solid ones. Salim Stoudamire isn’t rolling his eyes as much about playing time. Josh Childress is looking more confident than confused. With much help from Woodson, the Baby Hawks are starting to fly by winning 18 of their past 42 games, but it took a while. Not only that, there was much ugliness along the way. Like 14 losses during the Hawks’ first 16 games.

Through it all, whining surfaced from nearly every corner of the league’s youngest locker room over Woodson’s tendency to emulate his mentors named Bob Knight and Larry Brown. In other words, the Hawks coach rarely speaks to his players below a scream.

“At first, I didn’t realize that he was going to get on you, because I was young last year, and I’m still young, but that first year he was constantly on me, and I didn’t realize it was for a good reason,” said Smith, 20, a former prep star at McEachern in Powder Springs before he jumped to the pros from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.

Thus we’re talking about a scary combination in today’s society: An athletic standout from Generation Y, as in “timeouts” (the school kind, not the basketball kind), and as in parents, teachers and coaches who spend more time smiling than frowning to keep from hurting little Johnny’s feelings. “I felt like I was playing my hardest when I first came here, but [Woodson] didn’t think so, and that was tough,” Smith said. “I understand more now, but I still ask a lot of questions of the coaches, because I’m still trying to figure out how to get by in this league.”

So is Childress, and he spent three years discovering Generation A through X stuff by walking through the hallowed palms of Stanford University. Not only that, compared to Smith, Childress is an old-timer at 22. That said, he also wasn’t ready for the likes of Woodson.

“I never had a screaming coach,” Childress said, wide-eyed. “This was a new experience for me, to say the least. I always had coaches who got their point across in their own way. For instance, [former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery] was a teacher, and he just sat and talked to you as opposed to projecting his voice.”

Yeah, well, welcome to the loud and direct world of Coach Woodson. It’s becoming a successful place, whether what remains of those knuckleheads like it or not.

Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore

Upstart ACC newcomer not intimidated by it all

By Jeff Schultz | Saturday, March 11, 2006, 09:37 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Greensboro, N.C. — One Boston College player sinks a 3-point shot, makes a safe sign and screams, “It’s over!” Another feeds a teammate in the post and screams, “He’s too small!” (The opponent, not the teammate.)

If the BC Eagles have proven anything this season, it’s not merely that they belong in the ACC, but that they are a threat to dirty the face of it.

“I don’t think we’re crashing their party,” coach Al Skinner said. “We’re all part of a new league. You might as well get used to this.” Somebody spilled chowder on Tobacco Road.

One night after dumping Maryland by 14 points, the Eagles, with equal parts smack and talent, once again drop-kicked history and tradition. They led North Carolina by as much as 14 points, then held on and beat the Tar Heels 85-82.

The win moved BC into Sunday’s ACC tournament title game against Duke.

You remember Duke, don’t you?

“They had a headline on ESPN [Friday] night that said, ‘Duke-UNC showdown’ with a question mark on there,” Eagles guard Tyrese Rice said. “I don’t understand why people keep overlooking us. Maybe we have to beat Duke to get the respect we need.”

The whole we-don’t-get-respect thing gets milked to death in sports. But BC’s stature in Greensboro almost is humorous.

The team is staying in a hotel 25 miles outside of Greensboro in Winston-Salem. Also, as a new conference member, it received only one-third the ticket allotment of incumbent ACC schools.

On Saturday, that amounted to 675 fans in a crowd of 23,745, which was predominant painted powder blue.

“I’ll take that little dot of fans,” Rice said. “Because when the rest of the crowd isn’t cheering and I hear our little dot, that’s when I know we’re doing something right.”

If it felt like Chapel Hill, well, then it’s no wonder BC won. It went into the Dean Dome for the first time as a conference member in January and won 81-74.

“Some of the guys on the team look forward to situations like this,” Louis Hinnant said. “We play better in a road type atmosphere. We knew coming into this tournament that the North Carolina schools were close and they would have a lot of fan support. Nobody in this building is really rooting for us. But the guys use that as a motivating factor.”

They haven’t been intimidated by the crowd. Or the opponents. Or the tradition.

If anything, they can’t figure out why everybody else thinks they should.

The level of competition in the ACC and the Big East, Skinner estimated, “is fairly equal. There’s a lot of credibility in both tournaments. For us, it’s just the location that’s different.”

Sure. But when Boston College lost its first three ACC games to Maryland, Georgia Tech and N.C. State, its projected location wasn’t the conference finals. But the Eagles won 11 of their next 13 and entered this tournament 24-6 overall — just in case most didn’t notice.

“In the preseason they said we’d finish second behind Duke,” Rice said. “Then when we started 0-3, people started to question us. Like, ‘Is this team good enough to play in the ACC? Are they even gonna get a win in the ACC?’ We would just sit there and watch TV and see what people had to say about us. We feed off that stuff.”

It was Rice who hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the first half, giving BC the lead, 43-42. It led for all but one minute of the second half. After Carolina jumped ahead 45-43, the Eagles went on a 27-12 run by hitting jumpers (they shot 61.1 percent), minimizing mistakes and playing physical at both ends of the court.

When the Heels tried frantically to come back near the end, Rice iced it when he got behind the Carolina defense followed his own miss with a left-handed tap-in to make it 85-78 with :24 left.

That “hustle,” Skinner said, “is what pleases me most about this team.”

The Eagles will return to Greensboro Sunday from their outpost in Winston-Salem. The crowd will be decidedly Duke. That is, unless the Carolina fans stick around, just in hopes of seeing somebody other than the Blue Devils win it.

There is plenty of room at BC’s party.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC

SEC fun, but a week to forget quickly

By Mark Bradley | Saturday, March 11, 2006, 07:55 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Nashville — South Carolina can win the SEC tournament Sunday, and Dave Odom, the only coach who can turn an interview session into a flight of ozone-scraping oratory, sees it as the opportunity of his Gamecocks’ young lives. Said Odom: “Little kids grow up, not just in South Carolina but around the country, dreaming of playing on Sunday afternoon in a conference tournament in college basketball.”

And kids do. But we grownups have seen enough to know that the greatest fallacy in this sport is that what happens in the tournament of a major conference really has a bearing on that realm of even greater dreams. Sunday is a big day in college basketball, but what matters is the Big Dance.

This is Selection Sunday. What happens here and in Greensboro (site of the ACC tournament) and in Indianapolis (Big Ten) and in Dallas (Big 12) won’t be the big story for even a single news cycle. The anticipation and the unveiling of the NCAA bracket renders the Sunday conference championships the most-watched, least-remembered games of the college season.

Unless you’re South Carolina. The Gamecocks entered this event 15-14, not yet assured of even an NIT bid. If they beat Florida Sunday — and they probably won’t — they’ll be in the NCAAs. For South Carolina, the conference tournament means everything. For Syracuse, the Big East tournament meant everything. For most all the other big names apt to be included in the field of 65, this week meant nothing.

Losing in the Big East might drop Connecticut and Villanova to a No. 2 seed. Winning two games here might have made Kentucky a No. 8, as opposed to a No. 9. But in the grand scheme the loud and furious doings of the major conference tournaments — the smaller leagues, as we know, are a rather different story — signify next to nothing.

Being all too human, we on the periphery believe otherwise. We’ll watch the games today and we’ll think to ourselves, “Gee, Iowa looks unbeatable,” or, “Gosh, Texas seems shaky,” and we’ll use these perceptions as the foundations of our precious NCAA brackets. But the cold truth is that three of the last four national champs not only didn’t win their conference tournaments but failed even to reach the finals. So much for leading indicators.

A middling team can ride the lightning for a week, but eventually the storm passes. Arkansas won four SEC tournament games in 2000 to play its way into the NCAA, whereupon it lost in Round 1 to Miami. Syracuse won’t be the same frenzied team next weekend that it was this. Simply put, middling teams don’t get to the Final Four.

And a loss in a conference tournament doesn’t render a really good team null and void. North Carolina lost to Georgia Tech in the ACC semis last season; then the Heels went out and won it all. Georgia Tech lost to Duke in the ACC semis in 2004 and played for the national championship 23 days later, having lasted one game longer than did the Blue Devils.

Sure, conference tournaments are great fun, but that’s all they are. South Carolina is the exception. South Carolina upset Tennessee on Friday and Kentucky on Saturday, and if the Gamecocks win again it will surely cost another SEC member — possibly Arkansas but more probably Alabama — an at-large berth.

“Winning games and beating teams that beat us during the conference whatchacallit,” said the Gamecock’s Tarence Kinsey, referring to the regular season, “it just [makes you] feel more excited.”

And it should. But we bracket-fillers shouldn’t put too great a weight on such a flurry. South Carolina is a nice little story. Syracuse was a nice little story. Neither should be confused with the Big Dance itself.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC

Boom Boom was hockey’s perfect missionary

By Furman Bisher | Saturday, March 11, 2006, 05:43 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Saturday was supposed to have been a day of celebration of the illustrious career of Boom Boom Geoffrion in Montreal. Instead, it became a memorial, for on the dawning of the day, he left us. And I must say this, that the world of hockey, of Canada, of Atlanta and of goodwill have been dealt a crushing blow.

Boom Boom came to us in Atlanta as the first coach of the Flames. (“Da Flame,” in his French-Canadian dialect.) To coach a new team in a sport foreign to this crossroads of the South, where few were even able to stand up on ice and even fewer knew what “icing the puck” meant.

The year was 1972. Tom Cousins was responsible for bringing the National Hockey League to Atlanta, and a man named Cliff Fletcher was responsible for bringing us Boom Boom. (You’ll notice quotations aren’t used around the name Boom Boom, for that was far more descriptive of him than Bernie, his real name.) Atlanta was breaking out on a new front. It was all a part of Cousins’ plan to bring some life into downtown, and with the Flames, also imported the Hawks from St. Louis.

Cliff Fletcher couldn’t have chosen a more amiable missionary to spread the gospel of hockey in Atlanta. Boom Boom had been a glittering star as a player in Montreal — Hall of Famer, six Stanley Cups (five in a row), rookie of the year, most valuable player, leading scorer in the NHL in 1955 and ‘61 and a hometown hero who had grown up on the streets of the city. He had skated on some of the Canadiens’ most memorable lines, but as a threesome, he and Jean Beliveau and Dickie Moore stand front and center in history. The “Boom Boom” came from his slashing style and the fact that he popularized the exciting slapshot. He retired as a player in 1964.

“Da Flame” was pieced together from players considered expendable by the other teams in the NHL, an expansion draft, in others words; but Boom Boom made the best of the situation. In his two and a half years, he put one team in the playoffs. Of those early Flames, 10 of them never left, settled here and made it home. You may add Boom Boom and his wife, Marlene, to the list. East Cobb is still their home and Mt. Paran North is still their church. Marlene, by the way, is the daughter of another Canadiens player of great note, Howie Morenz, but who died a tragic death. He had been hospitalized after suffering a broken leg in a game, but developed an infection that took his life at age 36.

After the Flames, Boom Boom did two more tricks as coach, first of the New York Rangers, then of the Canadiens he loved so much, but had to take leave of both because of stomach problems. In the meantime, the Flames were on the way out of town, sold and transferred to Calgary, where later they won the Stanley Cup.

Boom Boom became a fixture in any local level in which he traveled. Played tennis in charity matches, never turned down a charity golf event. He was an enlivening addition to any affair, and this side of his personality was marketed on television by titillating commercials he did for Miller Lite.

It had been the Canadiens’ plan to retire his No. 5 jersey in a ceremony before a game with the Rangers on Saturday night. Even as late as Wednesday, Boom Boom had talked of being there, but took a turn for the worst soon after and Saturday morning the worst came, though not in his eyes. He and Marlene had become devout Christians several years ago, and he had spoken of “being in a better place, if not in Montreal.”

A lovely man in every sense of the word, and I had come to treasure his friendship, for there was a realness there. What he did in his community, he did with feeling. The brogue never disappeared, thank heaven, but he only transferred it to the new land he came to love. You rarely ever had the privilege to know one such as Boom Boom, and to think we only had him 75 years. Born on Valentine’s Day.

Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Thrashers / NHL

Morris is now Wildcats’ savior

By Mark Bradley | Friday, March 10, 2006, 10:31 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Nashville — Randolph Morris wasn’t supposed to be on a college court this season. If you listen to other SEC coaches, Randolph Morris shouldn’t be on a college court. But the Atlantan who aspired to be a pro at 19 remains an amateur at 20, and Friday he realized, not for the first time and surely not for the last, that the collegiate game has something the too-cool NBA cannot approximate.

It’s called March Madness, and it’s loud and it’s glorious. It’s the kind of game Kentucky and Alabama produced here Friday, a game that went back and forth and every which way, a game that inspired Randolph Morris, a Wildcat never renowned for his ferocity, to turn into a one-man wild bunch in the final seven minutes.

“It was just special,” Morris said. And then, no irony in his tone: “It’s all about the college experience. We have the best fans in the whole history of college basketball.”

Eleven months ago, Randolph Morris informed Tubby Smith he was making his name available for the NBA draft — by fax. After a series of indifferent workouts, no pro team saw fit to draft a 6-foot-10 center with obvious skill. Morris was scheduled to take part in the Hawks’ rookie and free agent camp in July, but he was a no-show for that, too. By then he’d decided to return to Kentucky, a move he and his family believed was possible because he hadn’t signed with an agent.

The NCAA wasn’t so sure. Morris missed the first 14 games and was about to miss the entire season before Kentucky, in a stroke of 11th-hour fortune that still defies belief, produced the aforementioned fax. Therein Morris expressed a desire to retain his college eligibility by not hiring an agent, and the NCAA bought this bit of apparent evidence. Morris was cleared to play in mid-January, and in the two months since he has been Kentucky’s leading scorer. On Friday he was Kentucky’s best player.

The Wildcats trailed Alabama, a team of much talent that is conspicuously undercoached, by 10 with seven minutes left. Kentucky called time out and ran a play to Morris, who scored on a turnaround. Alabama would score two baskets the rest of the way. Morris overwhelmed all comers in the lane, all-SEC center Jermareo Davidson chief among them. Over the last seven minutes, Morris had four points, two rebounds, two blocks and a steal.

Did he feel he’d outdone Davidson when it counted? Said Morris: “You always think you get the better of someone if you get the win.”

Two years ago, he was a senior at Landmark Christian. Two years ago, he spurned Georgia Tech, essentially saying he didn’t want to work that hard as a student. Nine months ago, his basketball career seemed to have fizzled on the launch pad. Now Randolph Morris appears finally to have some notion of what it is he wants and needs to do.

“My situation has made me stronger,” he said. “It made me grow up faster.”

If he could find some NBA team to sign him, he could turn pro tomorrow. (Once you’ve gone undrafted, you’re an unrestricted-free-agent-for-life in the NBA’s eyes.) But Morris said he has eyes only for the Big Blue: “The way things are going, I definitely think [staying at Kentucky] is the way to go.”

No, he’s not banking fat checks on the 1st and 15th of the month the way AAU teammates Dwight Howard and Josh Smith are, but neither are they getting to play before 10,000 traveling ‘Cat fans at a supposedly neutral site in the mind-blowing midst of March. “If you saw me last year,” said Morris, speaking of his formerly meandering sensibilities, “you understand how far I’ve come.”

He has come a ways, and now he and his underperforming team seem capable of going a ways. No longer is Randolph Morris a case study of how bad advice can unravel a young life. He seems instead an object lesson in the redemptive power of college basketball.

Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC

Duke’s reputation will buy a No. 1 seed

By Jeff Schultz | Friday, March 10, 2006, 10:19 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Greensboro, N.C. — It’s good to be Duke. Play in 10 Final Fours and win three titles over 20 years, reach eight straight ACC tournament title games, become a blueprint for college athletics, you tend to stand out.

On Friday, it was supposed to be really good for Duke. The Blue Devils had lost two straight. Signs of the apocalypse. Fans were angry. Players were angry. Their coach was angry, and you just don’t want that little man angry. Miami was supposed to be served up Friday like a dead trout.

Didn’t happen. Oh, Duke won. Somehow. But if it’s still good to be Duke, it’s only because that name, that coach and that reputation all seemed to sway the forces and officials down the stretch. (I know — not for the first time.)

The Blue Devils managed a narrow escape, winning 80-76 over a Miami team that had lost six of its final seven regular-season games and looked whipped the day before against Clemson.

The Hurricanes outrebounded Duke 46-32. They had 21 offensive rebounds, a slap at any team’s ability to defend and box out. They shot better than Duke. They looked like the better, and certainly more athletic, team. Duke looked overmatched on defense, dropped passes and missed open shots on offense.

Duke? Duke.

Those consecutive losses to Florida State and North Carolina — maybe they weren’t an aberration after all.

“It’s always a concern, but I think we’re playing harder,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said of his team’s defense and rebounding as he walked back toward the team bus. “We understand there needs to be more attention to detail. But if we can get better at that — I mean, how many times did they get second chances?

“We have to be better. We have to close the deal. It’s the never-ending pursuit of truth, justice and the Duke way. But we’re trying.”

Trying is good. But the NCAA tournament is around the bend. Big-picture problem areas seldom are corrected in March. If Duke really is deserving of a No. 1 seed in a regional, the field of 65 might be even more flawed than we suspected.

Senior guard J.J. Redick hit a big jumper with 33 seconds left, giving Duke a 76-73 lead. But the Devils reached Saturday’s semifinals more because of good fortune.

The best example came after Miami’s Guillermo Diaz hit a 3-pointer to close the score to 78-76.

Duke immediately inbounded the ball to Redick — and Miami’s Robert Hite was called for a foul. Redick hit two free throws to ice the game.

Hite on the foul: “I didn’t touch him. I ran up on him, and he [Redick] pushed off on me. But they called the foul on me. Things happen.”

Yes, it’s good to be Duke.

The No. 1 seeded Blue Devils Saturday will face 12th-seeded Wake Forest, which has pulled off consecutive upsets over Florida State and North Carolina State.

A 1-12 match-up generally is a foregone conclusion. But given Wake’s wakeup call and Duke’s play of late, nothing’s a lock.

Redick, who was coming off a 5-for-21 performance in the North Carolina game, missed his first four shots Friday and then hit 9 of 13.

It pleased the women, who held up signs like, “Marry Me J.J.” and, “Teachers Skip School For J.J.” (Nice. And they make fun of our government educators.) But this appears to be the most fragile of elite teams.

“Right now, we’re just fouling too much, and we’re not doing as much as we should with our defensive rebounding,” Krzyzewski said. “You can’t keep giving people free shots, and free second shots and second exchanges. It wears you out.” Even if you’re Duke.

Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC

Tech engineers wretched ending to dismal season

By Jeff Schultz | Friday, March 10, 2006, 01:00 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Greensboro, N.C. — It wasn’t just an exit. It was the end of a season that for weeks has been crying for euthanasia.

Two years ago, Georgia Tech reached the national finals. On Thursday, it reached its nadir (we assume). Seldom does one expect both ends of the spectrum in such close proximity to each other.

The year ended with a 18-point loss to Maryland, 82-64, in the first round of the ACC tournament. But given that the lead had already ballooned to 21 points in the first half and reached 70-41 in the second, there is a built-in assumption that the Terrapins could have won by 79 if not for a fear of excessive laughter and hyperventilation. It was that bad of an ending to that bad of a season.

So. What memory to incinerate first?

The eight-game losing streak? The 1-12 record off-campus (0-9 in the ACC)? The conference-leading 290 turnovers? The lineup changes, the players-only meetings — it all sort of runs together after a while.

The Jackets finished 11-17, their worst record since 1996-97. If you’re a Tech fan, you hope this was an aberration. You assume this was an aberration. You tell yourself, “If next year proves this was not an aberration, watch how quickly I forget that Final Four run a couple of years ago.”

When asked to summarize his feelings about this season, Tech head coach Paul Hewitt said only, “When you have a talented basketball team and you go 11-17, that pretty much speaks for itself. We didn’t get it done.”

In the previous two seasons, Hewitt spun 48 wins and consecutive NCAA tournament berths. OK. This happens. College basketball has become a trap door. A star point guard leaves a year early, the cupboard is empty and things change quickly. It happened at Tech, which lost Jarrett Jack. It happened at Wake Forest, which lost Chris Paul. (The difference on this day: Tech played like a doormat; Wake upset Florida State.)

Early defections have made success for college basketball programs a fragile commodity. Everybody points to Duke and North Carolina. But Duke and North Carolina are not merely the standards — they’re generally the exceptions.

Hewitt was caught off guard this season by his players’ lack of resolve, by their tendency to fizzle in crucial moments of the game (on those rare occasions when Tech actually played its way to a crucial moment). As much as he kept telling us the team was getting better, it was hard to notice. That’s on him.

But for one year, he gets a pass. Two years? No. If Tech comes back next season and resembles the bunch that flopped this year, it will undo much of what Hewitt has accomplished on The Flats.

“The big thing now is, you can slip, as long as you’ve got an answer,” former Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Cremins said. “In Georgia Tech’s case, everybody is coming back, and they’ve got a great recruiting class coming in. That’s the key. Everybody slips. But you don’t want to slip too far for too long. Then all of a sudden, people start thinking you have a losing program. That’s when things really get bad.”

Cremins should know. In 1995-96, Tech went 24-12, including 13-3 in the ACC. Then Stephon Marbury left after his freshman season. Cremins kind of figured Marbury wasn’t going to hang around long enough for his doctorate. But losing him after one year blindsided him and, with other early defections, wrecked his team.

Over the next four years, the Jackets went 3-13, 6-10, 6-10 and 5-11 in conference, with no NCAA tournament appearances. Exit Cremins.

“You have to have foresight [in recruiting],” Cremins said. “I lacked foresight. I think Skip and Paul were hoping that Jarrett [Jack] and Chris [Paul] would stay, and there was no way they would stay.”

Losing Jack hurt more than Hewitt anticipated. Tech didn’t have a floor leader all season. Then again, given what Jack’s supporting cast would have been, it might not have made a difference.

The Jackets trailed 12-9 early in the game, then went over six minutes without hitting a field goal (0-for-10). Maryland’s lead swelled from three points to 10 to 14 to 21. The Jackets left the floor trailing 42-27, lugging with them a 33.3 shooting percentage.

For whatever reason, they decided to come back for the second half. Maybe they thought things would get better. But not this night. Not this year. Was that all a dream two years ago?

Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC

Bulldogs finish up short on talent, shorter on heart

By Mark Bradley | Friday, March 10, 2006, 12:51 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Nashville — Deep into February, Dennis Felton believed his Georgia Bulldogs were in position to make the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Then reality set in, as reality invariably will. Georgia lost six of its last seven regular-season games, the only victory coming by one point against a South Carolina team that everybody beats by one point. The Bulldogs went the way of teams that are neither old enough nor talented enough to win essential conference games after Valentine’s Day.

But for such teams, one last recourse remains. It’s the conference tournament, and usually for such teams it’s a forlorn hope. If you’re not good enough to beat Arkansas on the final Sunday of the regular season at your place, why should you beat the same Hogs four days later on a neutral court?

Because this is March, and strange things happen in March. Sub-.500 Loyola Marymount can come within a blown layup of winning at Gonzaga. Syracuse’s Gerry McNamara can shoot down Cincinnati and Connecticut in the span of 24 hours. Eight days after beating the best team in the ACC, Florida State can lose to the worst. When March arrives, never say never.

And it wasn’t as if Georgia hadn’t showed it could play a little. It beat Western Kentucky, which had a nice season. It beat Georgia Tech, which didn’t. Given where the Bulldogs were in Year 2 after Harrick, Year 3 marked a clear upgrade. Lasting beyond Round 1 of the SEC tournament would have only emphasized the point.

But the Bulldogs who played Thursday bore little resemblance to the dauntless bunch that felled Alabama and Vandy (at Vandy) in early February and gave Felton reason to believe, if only for a moment. Georgia topped out five weeks ago, and that’s what happens when a team starts to think it isn’t good enough to win. You’d have bet that a coach as forceful and ambitious as Felton wouldn’t have let such doubt to foment, but if you had you’d have lost.

Five weeks ago Georgia seemed a team with a clear idea. The team that lost here was devoid of coherence. No, the Bulldogs don’t have enough players — enough big men, especially — to win at the highest level, but for no apparent reason Georgia’s undermanned bunch of last season defended with greater purpose. This team yielded 40 points in the first half Thursday, and the Bulldogs were never going to outgun the sleeker Razorbacks.

Georgia led for a little while. Then it fell behind. Then it fell further behind. The Hogs led by 10 in the first half, by 18 with 13 minutes to play. This game — and this Georgia season — was over. But on an otherwise bleak night, a glimmer of hope could be espied.

Arkansas, lest we forget, was where Georgia was not so long ago. Like Georgia, it underwent an ugly coaching transition. (From Nolan Richardson to Stan Heath, in the Hogs’ case.) Arkansas muddled through a 9-19 season in Heath’s first year — Georgia was 8-20 in Year 2 under Felton — but is about to finish the four-year climb from desolation row to the NCAA tournament. Next season will be Felton’s fourth in Athens.

And next season could/should be a nice one. The Bulldogs lose nobody of consequence, and this year’s freshmen — Mike Mercer, Billy Humphrey, et al — should continue to grow into full-fledged players.

There’s a reason Georgia is where it is, and it’s called probation. But the memory of Harrick (and the resulting sanctions) can’t be used as a crutch forever, and next season figures to be the point of departure. If the Bulldogs aren’t in the NCAA tournament next March, Dennis Felton isn’t as good a coach as he needs to be.

Permalink | Comments (20) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC

Cats claw back in unfamiliar spot

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 9, 2006, 08:06 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

Nashville — Playing on the first day of the SEC tournament for the first time in 27 years was indignity enough. Just imagine if the Kentucky Wildcats had been eliminated on the first day.

Thursday afternoon is normally the time the Wildcats and their legion of fans arrive at the host city and settle into their hotels and make their dinner plans. On this Thursday afternoon, Kentucky was not only playing but losing. After 12 minutes the ‘Cats trailed Ole Miss, which had lost by 40 in Rupp Arena 15 days earlier, by nine eye-opening points. Even worse — and not much is worse than being nine points down to Ole Miss — Kentucky looked both discombobulated and disinterested.

“I don’t what the reason was why we started like that,” said forward Bobby Perry. “We were playing for our [NCAA] tournament lives. I was really surprised we were kind of sluggish.” At this late date, the only surprise about Kentucky is that these Wildcats can do anything that surprises anyone. Some games they make shots and defend like demons. Some games they manage only one of the above. Some games they can’t be bothered to do either. Had Kentucky lost to Ole Miss, the program that has graced every NCAA field since 1991 would have be no lock to be invited in 2006.

Asked about the tenor of his halftime message, Tubby Smith said: “We wanted to challenge our players, to let them know how important the game was.” In other words, Tubby threw a tantrum.

Said guard Ravi Moss: “He wasn’t happy.”

No coach would have been. In previous seasons Smith always prided himself on his team’s defense, but this bunch ranks in the bottom half of the SEC in field-goal percentage against. In this first half the Wildcats suffered the ultimate indignity: They were forced into a zone by sub-.500 Ole Miss. How does that happen?

Answer: By not playing hard enough. Kentucky teams throughout history have been exemplars of effort, but this curious assemblage somehow missed the memo. “Ole Miss gave us a taste of our own medicine,” said Perry, and by halftime the always-fearful ‘Cat fans were worried that their team might get bounced from both the SEC and the NCAA tournaments on the same wretched afternoon.

Didn’t happen. Kentucky played hard and well in the second half, driving the Rebels out of their offense with full-blown pressure — the heck with that zone stuff — and the Wildcats won by 14 points. “Defense is what gets us going,” said Moss, and the lingering mystery is why Kentucky chooses to defend with such apparent reluctance.

In postseason events, the crowd at a neutral site falls in love with a spirited underdog. With Kentucky, there’s always never such a thing as a neutral site. Big Blue backers travel in packs of thousands, rendering almost every arena a satellite Rupp Arena. For all the heat they get for being critical of Smith, those fans helped propel Kentucky past Ole Miss. Once the Wildcats nosed ahead, the Gaylord Entertainment Center got so loud and so festive that even the coach noticed and endorsed.

“The fans did give us a big lift,” Smith said. “The faith and belief they have in us is something else.”

That faith has been tested by a shockingly indifferent regular season, but Thursday’s second half served notice that this team isn’t quite ready to spit the bit. Even a tepid Kentucky is still Kentucky, and now the Wildcats get the chance to return to normalcy. They had no knowledge of how it is to play on the first day of an SEC tournament, but they know all about playing on Friday. And on Saturday. And on Sunday.

Permalink | | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC

Pre-tourney TO

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 9, 2006, 03:50 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

I saw Belle & Sebastian and the New Pornographers at the Ryman Auditorium — I’m in Nashville, duh — last night. (Who are Belle & Sebastian and the New Pornographers? The former is from Vancouver, the latter from Scotland. Turn the radio dial to 88.5 WRAS, the Georgia State station. You’ll hear both within an hour.) And that’s one of the fringe benefits of the job. If you travel enough, you’ll be in the right town on the right night.

I’m not a huge fan of either act, but I like them enough to walk two blocks from the hotel to see them. Mostly I wanted to say I’d seen a show at the Ryman, a place of such historic weight that these college-rock staples were awed. Stevie Jackson, the multi-instrumentalist in B&S, even did a lovely version of Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway” as a tribute to his surroundings.

The Ryman, if you’ve never been, is tiny. It has pews, as opposed to chair-back seats. You feel like you’re in church. (Indeed, the Ryman is known as the “Mother Church” of county music.) Stuart Murdoch, the B&S front man, noted how inspirational it was to play on the same stage once graced by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. And both bands, I should note, seemed to rise to the venue.

So I caught a good break, being here on the night before the SEC tournament began. I catch two bad ones next week. Ray Davies, whom I haven’t seen since 1980 at the University of Cincinnati Armory, is on tour behind his solo record, and he’ll cross the South next week. He’ll be in Nashville on Tuesday, two days after I leave, and in Atlanta over the weekend, when I’ll be off at an NCAA site. Rats.

And if you’ve never heard of Ray Davies, there is, I’m sorry to report, no hope for you.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit

Tech’s only hope is that bizarre occurs

By Jeff Schultz | Wednesday, March 8, 2006, 09:36 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

Greensboro, N.C. — Georgia Tech arrived in town as the No. 11 seed, walked through the arena corridors as the No. 11 seed — which is to say, unencumbered — and in all probability with run into the same rhyme tonight as most No. 11 seeds: One. And done.

But if ever there was a season when something bizarre could unfold in the ACC tournament, this is it. Granted, it’s hard to grasp four straight wins for a team that hasn’t won four straight since January — and that run was bookended by Bethune-Cookman and Centenary. It would be bizarre on the Elvis-was-my-alien-love-child level of bizarre.

But it could happen. Couldn’t it?

“Hey, it’s like we’ve got a new season right now,” guard Mario West said. “We’ve got a chance to make something happen.”

I know. Tech has had that chance for 27 games. It had that chance at Georgia, at Air Force, during an eight-game losing streak. The Jackets had a chance to make something happen against Clemson five days ago, when Ra’Sean Dickey said, “It seemed like we just kind of gave up.” And then his coach confirmed it. No videotape necessary.

This has been the worst and most improbable of basketball seasons for Georgia Tech.

The kind that makes a Tech fan look forward to football season.

Will it change Thursday night against Maryland? Depends. How easily can the Jackets channel spirits from 1993?

Thirteen years ago, Tech coach Paul Hewitt was an assistant at Villanova. The school had been bounced from the Big East tournament and Hewitt, planning a recruiting trip to Florida, caught the next flight out of New York in hopes of beating a snowstorm.

He made it as far as Atlanta. Meanwhile, in Charlotte, the sixth-seeded Jackets were stunning their ACC counterparts on the way to a tournament championship.

“I was stuck at the Atlanta Airport Marriott, watching James Forrest torch the rest of the league,” Hewitt said Wednesday. “We had gotten knocked out of the Big East tournament and I just wanted to get out of the Northeast. So I fly into Atlanta on Friday night and the next morning there was two feet of snow on the ground. I was in the hotel for three days. I watched every single minute of every single game of that tournament.”

Tech beat Duke, then Clemson, then North Carolina. Hewitt eventually made it out of town, but his weekend viewing serves as the strongest hope of a possible miracle in Greensboro.

When asked if he had prepared his speech about the 1993 team for his players Thursday, he said, “No, I haven’t. Maybe I should.”

No seed lower than sixth has ever won the ACC tournament. Certainly, as foreshadowing goes, this is not where the Jackets want to be. But this has been the strangest of ACC seasons. Duke has lost two straight after losing one of the first 28. Boston College lost its first three conference games (including one to Tech), then won 11 of 13.

Clemson enters the tournament with a three-game winning streak for the first time in 42 years.

Florida State lost to Virginia Tech, then beat Duke.

North Carolina: 12-4 after losing everybody.

Wake Forest was projected to finish No. 3. That three? It turned out to be the Demon Deacons’ conference win total.

But for Tech to win, it will need a personality transplant. There have been too many second-half fizzles, too many soft-minded moments at crucial times. It is one thing for a team to be short of talent and experience. It’s another to lack resolve, toughness and heart.

They are an 11th seed. With that comes low expectations. But, Hewitt said, “I don’t think they have low expectations for themselves. They don’t want me to take the approach, ‘I feel sorry for you.’ They want to prepare to win.”

Hewitt remembers Tech in 1993 and Villanova in 1995. He wears a reminder of the latter around his wrist — a watch commemorating Villanova’s Big East tournament title. The Wildcats followed that up with a first-round exit from the NCAA tournament.

“The watch is to remind me how quickly things can change,” he said.

Tech needs that kind of metamorphosis, but in the reverse.

Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC

Tubby needs better coaches, players

By Mark Bradley | Wednesday, March 8, 2006, 08:40 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

An SEC tournament usually begins with people asking if anyone can beat Kentucky and ends with the grinning Wildcats holding the trophy. This, however, is a most unusual year. For the first time since 1979, the league’s bluebloods will play on the tournament’s opening day. For the first time since 1990 (and only the sixth time in 80 years), a regular season has ended with 11 Kentucky losses.

‘Cat fans are alarmists of the first rank, but this time their worries have been warranted. Ranked No. 9 in the preseason, the Wildcats fell from the Top 25 in January and haven’t really rallied. Yes, they won at Tennessee eight days ago, but they followed that with a 15-point loss to Florida. It was their fifth loss in Rupp Arena, formerly a fortress. At a time when Kentucky traditionally is playing for a No. 1 NCAA seed, this team will have to win the SEC tournament to rise above a No. 8.

Tubby Smith’s body of work stamps him as one of the nation’s five best coaches, but this season’s yield has been a blot on that pristine resume. His team should have been buoyed by the midseason return of the Atlantan Randolph Morris, but Kentucky was 10-4 without Morris, who was suspended after his brush with the NBA, and is 9-7 with him.

With 30 games gone, there’s still no mesh. Guys simply come and go. Rekalin Sims, who scored 22 points against Iowa in November, has 16 in SEC play. Shagari Alleyne had 16 against Georgia State in December, 13 since. Lately Smith has turned to Brandon Stockton, a tiny senior who managed 15 points in the first 26 games. Only Morris and point guard Rajon Rando have been anything approaching constants, and even they haven’t been quite as good as advertised.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Kentucky should never lack for players, but this team does. Ever since the misadventures of his 2001-02 team, which featured lethargic big names in Marvin Stone and Rashaad Carruth, Smith has had an aversion to McDonald’s All-Americans and their baggage. His ideal crew consists of selfless worker bees, like the Georgia Bulldogs he took to a No. 3 NCAA seed in 1997, like the star-starved Wildcats he coached to the 1998 national title.

Thing is, not many teams win it all without a McDonald’s All-American, and the nation’s winningest program can’t satisfy its legion of fans simply by playing hard with marginal talents. Worse still, the gifted homegrown shooter the Wildcats spurned — Chris Lofton of Maysville, Ky. — lifted Tennessee to first place in the SEC East.

This slack season has spawned another round of Tubby rumors: Namely, that he’s tired of grief he catches from ‘Cats fans and is headed for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats. But Smith has been thought to be outbound before — the Hawks were his presumed destination at least twice — and he has stayed put. Assuming he stays yet again, he’ll need to address the weakness in his program.

Smith has long gotten away with having a substandard staff because he’s smart enough and driven enough to handle most everything himself. But he’ll turn 55 in June, and having better assistant coaches would redistribute the load. Hiring better assistants would shore up recruiting.

Twenty-four years ago, Joe B. Hall wasn’t sure Kentucky needed a prospect from Roberta, Ga., but aide-de-camp Leonard Hamilton (now Florida State’s head coach) convinced him. That prospect was Kenny Walker, who stands No. 2 among all-time Wildcat scorers. Put bluntly, Smith needs a Leonard Hamilton.

He needs someone to galvanize his operation the way the former Clemson coach Larry Shyatt has as a Florida assistant. Smith needs a consultant of stature to advocate spending a scholarship on a Chris Lofton. Shyatt’s team won’t be playing on Day 1 in Nashville, and neither will Lofton’s. But Kentucky, winner of 10 of the last 14 SEC tournaments, will be. Put bluntly, the ‘Cats should be better than that.

Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC

What a surprise

By Terence Moore | Wednesday, March 8, 2006, 03:45 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Say it ain’t so. There is gambling in the piano bar, and a new book is claiming that Barry Bonds actually used performance enhancing drugs.

And did you hear about the Titanic?

Only the naïve actually believes that Bonds just hit all of those home runs by eating all of his Wheaties. The same goes for Mark McGwire, the other power-hitting fraud who admitted that he was juiced during his pursuit of Ruth and Maris by what he didn’t say before Congress.

The biggest hero during baseball’s steroid era is Jose Canseco, who joined Bonds and McGwire as another artificially inflated slugger. At least Canseco has shown the guts to admit to what everybody already knows.

Or should know.

Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Quick Hit, Terence Moore

Baseball strikes out with WBC

By Terence Moore | Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 06:30 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Nobody has run through the stop sign of the third base coach and scored more often than Bud Selig. To the surprise of many, including your humble columnist, he has done so by knocking over tradition along the way to home plate with interleague play, wild cards and changes to the All-Star Game to give the winning league home-field advantage in the World Series.

Well, the baseball commissioner just got thrown out by a mile. His latest gamble called the World Baseball Classic is a disaster in progress for so many reasons, but let’s start with this: In case you haven’t been paying attention during the last couple of decades, international competition at this level or just about any other for the United States has lost its relevance.

See the Turin Winter Olympic Games, which was less popular in this country than Flavor Flav’s reality show.

Americans need an enemy when it comes to their sports teams. Georgia has Florida each fall; Duke has North Carolina in college basketball; the Yankees have the Red Sox; and Notre Dame has everybody. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the Olympics lost its zing within these 50 states after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The Miracle on Ice became bigger than life because the Russians were our greatest rival of all time. The Nazis were in that vicinity, which is why Jesse Owens sprinted beyond mythical heights that summer in Berlin after he snatched four gold medals before Adolf Hitler. In other words, it’s nice that the Hawks’ Joe Johnson was among 23 guys chosen to compete for Team USA in Olympic basketball this time around, but, well, uh, who cares? Come the 2008 Beijing Games, not many folks will have gigantic signs hanging from their cars or planted in their yards imploring Uncle Sam to “Beat Argentina.”

Team USA actually finished third in basketball during the last Olympics behind Argentina and Italy, but unless Mussolini rises from the dead, we haven’t a problem with the Italians either.

Which brings us to the World Baseball Classic and a question: Why?

According to Selig, this 16-team tournament that represents as many different countries eventually will take place every four years to promote the globalization of baseball. Which brings us to another question: What? Baseball is more global than any of the major professional sports leagues. While the NFL and the NBA are overwhelmingly filled with Americans, the NHL has a slew of Canadians. In contrast, when you visit any team in the major leagues, it’s like walking through the halls of the United Nations.

Just on the Braves’ 40-man roster, you have players from Curaçao (Andruw Jones), Colombia (Edgar Renteria), the Dominican Republic (Jorge Sosa), Cuba (Brayan Pena), Mexico (Oscar Villarreal) and Canada (Pete Orr). Elsewhere, the reigning National League most valuable player (Albert Pujols) and the reigning American League Cy Young winner (Bartolo Colon) are from the Dominican Republic. Plus, the reigning manager to win the World Series (Ozzie Guillen) is from Venezuela.

That means, since most teams in the World Baseball Classic are dominated by major leaguers, you’ll have more silly matchups similar to the one this week during an exhibition game involving the Braves’ John Smoltz against the (ahem) Netherlands’ Andruw Jones — you know, teammate vs. teammate, with it all evolving into a comedy routine.

We’re back to that hatred thing that doesn’t exist anymore for Team USA against other countries, especially when it comes to a contrived event such as the World Baseball Classic. It’s also a dangerous event for those trying to do something such as win a division, pennant or world championship.

The whole thing takes place during spring training, when pitchers need each of those six weeks to prepare their arms. You also have players switching positions, teams and leagues. To have them interrupt their transition for this mess isn’t wise.

Neither is putting everybody who participates in the World Baseball Classic at risk of snapping, breaking or pulling something. Then you have those fans who will come to their favorite Florida or Arizona spring site and pay nearly major-league money to see mostly minor-league talent.

Speaking of attendance, Team USA played its first game in the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday in Phoenix, but most of the 32,727 at Chase Field were loud and colorful Mexican fans. It wasn’t until Team USA rallied late in the game that the perfunctory chants of “USA, USA, USA” replaced the previous yawns from the American fans.

Sorry, Bud, but you definitely get the thumb on this one.

Permalink | Comments (57) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore

NASCAR hall belongs in Charlotte

By Furman Bisher | Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 06:19 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Look, it was Charlotte all the way. Had nothing to do with life after 8 p.m. in Atlanta, nothing to do with where Dale Earnhardt Jr. lives, and think of this: Joe and Josephine Taxpayer of Georgia have been spared $102 million. Besides that, Brian France already had a home there, and if you checked that benign grin of his on our front page Tuesday, a peaceful calm had come over the third generation of Frances who have presidented the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. (And you won’t see that spelled out here again.)

You will notice as well, the mayor of Charlotte vigorously high-fiving the governor of North Carolina and successfully blocking him out of the picture. How he managed to thrust himself to the forefront, take all the bows and never make mention of Lowe’s, Charlotte’s motor speedway, and the man whose bucks have built stock car racing in that area, Bruton Smith, typified excessive political incorrectness.

Shockingly amazing that this whole deal should have been reported without a mention of Smith’s name. Early in the going, Smith had said that a monorail should be built between the race track at Harrisburg and the hall of fame, and that he would contribute $50 million to the project. Since that time, he had assumed a neutral stance, since he owns both the Charlotte and the Atlanta racing facilities.

“I have an allegiance to Atlanta as well as here,” he said from his Charlotte headquarters. “It was wise that I maintain a low profile.”

Then he dropped his own personal bombshell. “There can still be a racing hall of fame in Atlanta. It just won’t have NASCAR on it. You know, the first major motor speedway in America was built in Atlanta in 1910. Asa Candler, of the Coca-Cola family, built it at the old airport. To get an idea of the location, where the Delta headquarters are now would be in the middle of the infield.”

Ed Clark, who operates Atlanta Motor Speedway, did confirm that Smith never took sides. “He couldn’t lose, either way it went, since he owns both tracks. We’re still shellshocked down here, because a lot of people put a lot of effort into this project.”

Richmond and Kansas City were no more than decoys, though one member of the France family does own the track in Kansas. Daytona Beach was the logical choice, for NASCAR was created there in 1948 - in the old Streamline Hotel, which still stands - its feature race is run there, opening the season in February, and NASCAR headquarters are located there. But small town Daytona Beach didn’t have a chance. The Frances were looking for big bucks, had no intention of digging into their own jeans. That was the repulsive thought that struck Georgia taxpayers, that they should be called on to build a temple glorifying the Frances and their game. It didn’t necessarily follow that if Atlanta built it, they would come, to filch a line from W.J. Kinsella’s “Shoeless Joe.”

That the Aquarium has been such a raging success appealed to Brian France, who said he preferred the location in Atlanta but that Charlotte offered “the best package.” The truth is that NASCAR is expected to be moving more of its operational headquarters to Charlotte in time, I’m told. Another truth is that Atlanta could not come close to guaranteeing anything like the one million attendance the aquarium has attracted in about three months. Besides, there’s something more attractive about live, moving objects than the mere presence of Fireball’s old No. 21 racing machine, for example.

There’s also something more attractive to a man like Bernie Marcus, who put up his own money and built his own showplace. He built it, they have come.

Historically, Charlotte was the site of NASCAR’s first authorized race. I sat in a room in the old Selwyn Hotel and listened to Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins, his sidekick in NASCAR, outline their plans for their first Grand National race, as they dubbed it. When I raised the question of what’s “national” about it, France growled, “You wait and see.”

Well, I have waited. I have seen it grow from grass roots and moonshine runners to one of television’s most popular draws. Drivers don’t come down out of the mountains of the South any more, they come from California, Wisconsin, Nevada, Missouri and New England, and they dress nattily, use fragrant lotions, find privacy in luxurious motor homes and live the kind of life that Junior Johnson, Rex White, Joe Weatherly, Fireball, Soapy, Lee and Possum would wonder about.

Now they have their own NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte is its home and there it belongs.

Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Auto Racing, Furman Bisher

Return of the Tuesday Countdown

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 03:45 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

10: Hello. I’m back. Michelle Hiskey was in charge of blogging from Turin. They only allow me to blog from the next county over.

9: News item: Yanni is arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. Question: Since when do mellow pianists seek street cred?

8: News postscript: Yanni told police he injured his finger in the incident. Comment: Forget that part about street cred.

7: NFL owners have TV deals totaling close to $24 billion. I’m not begrudging them. But, please, let’s not paint these CBA talks as being another case of spoiled, overpaid athletes.

6: The lack of guaranteed contracts have made NFL players the most abused of all in the four sports. I use the term abused loosely, of course. (Yanni, a little music, please.)

5: So now Thrashers general manager Don Waddell says he only “guaranteed” the team would make the playoffs so as to steer attention away from a losing streak and Ilya Kovalchuk’s Stickgate. OK, I’ll bite. So if it’s the case, why say now that you were only kidding? To steer attention away from a late-season rebound? Raise your hand if you smell fish.

4: Steve Belkin. Meet Yanni.

3: I understand the position that you don’t dump on somebody when they die. But I’m sorry. When I hear “Kirby Puckett,” I don’t think baseball ambassador and World Series hero. I think fraud.

2: News item: Baseball teams will start selling pre-approved supplements to players. Comment: This is actually a great idea. I just wish I could convince myself that players won’t continue to buy the non-approved stuff in back alleys.

1: If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only watch one thing, would it be: 1) Arena football; 2) World Baseball Classic; 3) Yanni. And, yes, you have to be sober.

Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit

Elevator no longer Charlotte’s top attraction

By Jeff Schultz | Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 11:49 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jeff Schultz

In a surprise to no one, least of all us terrorized citizens of Atlanta (sister city of Kabul), NASCAR announced Monday its intention to build a hall of fame in Charlotte.

This comes a day after Felix Sabates, one of the sport’s power brokers, said in a story posted on NASCAR’s Web site: “Would you want to go to Atlanta at 8 o’clock at night and walk around by yourself? I told [NASCAR President] Mike Helton one day, ‘Do you want to take your wife and kids and walk the streets a few blocks away from the hall of fame in Atlanta?’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Just try it and you’ll see.’ ”

Let me be the first to congratulate Sabates. For all NASCAR has accomplished in terms of exposure, corporate sponsorships and mainstreaming its product, it only took one yahoo to blow it up with the ease of one pluck on a banjo.

Felix, enjoy walking around downtown Charlotte. You should feel safe. You’ll be the only one there. The NASCAR hall of fame instantly becomes Charlotte’s top tourist attraction. The elevator in the Wachovia building drops into second.

Why Charlotte? NASCAR says it wanted to go back to its roots. But in truth, the sport’s roots are not in Charlotte but Wilkes County, the former moonshine capital of the world. You want roots? Stick the hall between the pines, just over the hill from Ol’ Roy’s still, that is when Roy isn’t playing sheriff. And judge. And mayor.

NASCAR wanted to puts its hall in the same state where most of its teams were based. As Sabates, the visionary, noted: “These guys are not going to get in an airplane to fly to Atlanta to do appearances.”

Personally, I wasn’t aware that the financial viability of a museum hinged on how close Dale Earnhardt Jr. lived to the gift shop. I thought tickets sales hinged on other factors. Like, say, ticket buyers. If you eliminate the drivers and the family of drivers and the friends of the drivers, none of whom will pay for tickets, is there really a belief that the NASCAR hall of fame will turn a greater profit in Charlotte … than Atlanta?

The hall would have been built downtown, in the same cluster as the aquarium, the new Coke museum, Centennial Olympic Park, CNN, Philips Arena, the Georgia Dome and the World Congress Center. In the city’s original bid to NASCAR, the city projected 1 million visitors annually.

Now, I realize chambers of commerce can get goofy with projections. Even NASCAR wondered whether the numbers were legit. So, “We backed it off to 800,000,” said Atlanta Sports Council President Gary Stokan, “even though Bernie [Marcus] has gone through a million [visitors] in three months at the aquarium.”

Do you know what Charlotte’s projected annual attendance was in its bid? Um, 400,000. (Remember, that’s their projection.)

Charlotte’s bid slogan was: “Racing was built here. Racing belongs here.” But this isn’t about a race. It’s about honoring a sport’s history and building a tourist destination. If the hall didn’t come to Atlanta, it should’ve gone to Daytona Beach, which is home to the circuit’s biggest race and sits in the vacation central of states.

In building a gleaming hall in Charlotte, are NASCAR officials hoping to get the tourism spillover from Greenville?

NASCAR has been all about growth and diversity in the past decade. It’s not rednecks-only anymore. Sponsorships have a more Madison Avenue feel. There are African-Americans in ownership and behind the wheel.

There was a Busch race last weekend in Mexico City. Putting the hall in Charlotte isn’t honoring the past, it’s stepping into the past.

Charlotte pushed hard for this. So did some outfit called the “Checkered Flag Team,” which included North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and, go figure, Sabates. Their projected cost of this venture: $137 million. Funding will come predominantly from a hotel tax.

There are built-in assumptions there: Build it and they will vacation. Build it and the hotels will be filled. Neither can be guaranteed. But there is this: It’ll be nice and quiet downtown.

Permalink | Comments (99) | Categories: Auto Racing, Jeff Schultz

Under the radar, Dogs show progress

By Terence Moore | Sunday, March 5, 2006, 09:52 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Athens — There are certain truths for the ages. The earth revolves around the sun, water is wet, and nobody gives a bark about University of Georgia basketball.

To be fair, my last point is an overstatement, but not by much. Even Damon Evans, the Bulldogs’ perceptive athletics director, admits to the shrugging wrapped inside apathy that has engulfed Georgia hoops since its first official dribble around the Theodore Roosevelt administration.

“I think the thing that has been difficult for us, especially over the last 10 or so years, is that we’ve had so many changes,” said Evans on Sunday at the nearly empty tomb for Georgia home games called Stegeman Coliseum. “We went from Hugh Durham, who took the team to the Final Four, to Tubby [Smith], and he gets the thing going for us, and then he leaves. Then we had Ron Jirsa, and things don’t go well. We make a change, and we get [Jim] Harrick. He gets it going, then we had the problems that we had in the program. We just need to keep it going in the right direction without starting over again.”

Two things: First, despite Georgia just ending the regular season with a sixth loss in seven games, courtesy of a 74-57 whipping by a mostly average Arkansas team, the Bulldogs are going in the right direction. Second, whether they are within years of starting over again depends on Dennis Felton, their talented head coach in his third season. Will he become another Tubby and bolt for his version of Kentucky sooner rather than later, or will he attempt to become the Adolph Rupp of the Bulldogs? You’ll hear Felton’s answer after we discuss how Georgia needed a victory against Arkansas to stay within a dribble of the NIT. Those who bothered to watch it all could have squeezed into Uga VI’s doghouse. Spring football began for Georgia on Saturday, which isn’t good for basketball or anything else seeking attention from the Bulldog Nation. It also was a gorgeous afternoon for doing something other than, say, filling one of those thousands of empty red seats at Stegeman.

Even with those spurts of goodness under Durham, Smith and Harrick, Georgia’s record in basketball over 73 years of SEC play is exactly 200 games below .500. Only Ole Miss and South Carolina of the 12 current SEC members are more putrid over that stretch. That’s why baby steps aren’t necessarily bad for Georgia. Given the mess that Felton inherited from the Harricks and a trip to the NCAA slammer, the Bulldogs are taking giant steps.

Consider that they struggled to win eight games overall (two in the SEC) last season with a short-handed roster, and they’ve nearly doubled that win total with their current record of 15-14 overall and 5-11 in the conference.

There even was early February, when Georgia was a bubble candidate for the NCAA tournament. Then along came injuries to frontcourt players Kendrick Johnson and Terrance Woodbury. What already was a shaky rebounding team became a sorry rebounding team. Felton also had to suspend gifted freshmen Billy Humphrey and Mike Mercer for a key game after they flaunted team rules.

The SEC tournament is ahead, though, and if Georgia wins its rematch against Arkansas in the opener and a game after that, maybe the NIT will call.

Probably not. But if Felton stays a while at Georgia, along with his nice résumé from Western Kentucky (three trips to the NCAA tournament in five years) and his stint with the Bulldogs that included an NIT trip in his first season, Georgia hoops might even become relevant to Georgia fans.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a dream, but more of a vision of what I came here excited about and what I continue to be excited about, and it’s a spectacular thing,” Felton said. “The fact that Georgia hasn’t enjoyed much tradition in basketball, and then on top of that we’ve had to work from such a difficult position, that makes the opportunity more invigorating. It’s going to be a beautiful thing when we do climb that mountain. There’s going to be incredible passion and appreciation for it. I just see it being much more rewarding at the end of the road than your average situation.”

Sounds good. It would sound even better for those in the Bulldog Nation if Felton can find a way to incorporate the forward pass into his fast break.

Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC

Time is now for Thrashers to make an impression

By Mark Bradley | Saturday, March 4, 2006, 10:45 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

The Thrashers have entered what center Marc Savard calls “the biggest month in franchise history,” and he isn’t exaggerating. Over the next month — six-plus weeks, to be exact — the Thrashers have the chance to grab hold of the Atlanta market in a way they haven’t quite.

The Thrashers are positioned to make a full-blown playoff push. They’re four points behind Montreal for the final qualifying spot among Eastern Conference teams. The Thrashers, as we know, have never made the playoffs. Their GM has guaranteed they will this time, though the proclamation was apparently weightless. (Will Don Waddell get fired if the Thrashers fizzle? Uh, no, said co-owner Bruce Levenson.)

Truth to tell, it’s past time for this club to make its great leap forward. They’ve been drafting high and accumulating talent since their inception, and you can’t carry yourself like an expansion team forever. At this late date, the Thrashers need to get busy.

The good news: They appear capable. Savard again: “We’ve got the hockey club to do it.” The Thrashers now have the requisite pieces, scorers and grinders and a few capable defensemen and even a slick young goalie. Some NHL observers pegged this team one of the chief beneficiaries of the post-lockout rule changes, but it started sluggishly and then sagged again before the Olympic break, which is why they have four points to make up over the next to be ninth in a 15-team conference.

But there’s still time. If all these guys stay healthy — the essential center Bobby Holik just returned from a broken foot, and the young goalie Kari Lehtonen is always one butterfly save away from a groin pull — this is, on talent, a playoff team. The Thrashers can skate and shoot with anybody; at issue is whether they can defend to specification in the pressurized games to come. (Only six teams have scored more goals, but only four teams have yielded more.)

An even bigger issue: How does a franchise that has never played a postseason game handle itself with the postseason on the line? A tiny indicator came Saturday night. Playing their first home game after the Olympics, the Thrashers faced the league’s third-worst team and wound up falling behind early and blowing a lead late. That’s not the way Punch Imlach would have drawn it up on the ol’ blackboard.

But they won anyway. They shrugged off a deflected tying goal that came with 26 seconds left in regulation to win in overtime. “The sign of a team that’s desperate,” said coach Bob Hartley. “A team on a mission.”

The doings of the next six weeks will do more than decide whether this team gets to play beyond the regular season. The Thrashers have arrived at a point of departure for this franchise and this sport in this city. The way is clear for maximum exposure: The Hawks aren’t going anywhere and the Braves are still a month from playing a for-real game and neither Tech nor Georgia will make the NCAA tournament. Hockey remains a foreign concept to a lot of Atlantans, but an engaging young team on a riveting run would surely turn a host of heads.

“I go watch the Braves and I’ve gone to watch the Falcons, and I’ve seen how it is when they win championships,” Savard said. “We want to get to the playoffs and get that crowd behind us, and if they like what they see they’ll be back.”

No, the Thrashers won’t turn into a broad-based phenomenon on the order of the Braves in 1991, but a big finish to this regular season could allow this team to grow beyond the niche it occupies in the local consciousness. It isn’t that nobody in Atlanta likes hockey; it’s that the Thrashers, in business since 1999, still haven’t won over the casual sports fan. That could be about to change. This franchise seems on the verge of growing up.

Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Thrashers / NHL

New AD already a good fit to Hewitt

By Terence Moore | Friday, March 3, 2006, 07:19 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Let’s get something out of the way, because everything else we discuss in this space involving the state of Georgia Tech basketball will hinge on the following question: So, Paul Hewitt, do you wish to hug the Yellow Jackets’ new athletics director or choke him, and does this mean that you’re staying or going?

Hewitt answered quickly, which was a wonderful sign if you’re partial toward old gold and white.

“Obviously I haven’t worked a day with him,” said Hewitt, referring to Dan Radakovich, the outsider from LSU who was picked over celebrated Tech man Bill Curry to succeed Dave Braine. Just so you know, Braine is Hewitt’s sugar daddy who hired the previously unknown coach from Siena six seasons ago. But back to Radakovich, with Hewitt adding, “I’ll tell you what. I’ve gotten more calls from people who really don’t have a dog in the race, as they say, who have been glowing about this guy. They’ve done some background checks on him, and he always comes up five stars. That includes what I hear from Lonnie Cooper’s office.”

That’s Cooper, the noted Atlanta agent with more than a few clients who have interacted with Radakovich during his journey as a college administrator from Miami (Florida) to Long Beach State to South Carolina to American University and to LSU. That’s also Cooper, Hewitt’s agent, the person who placed all of those clauses in Hewitt’s contract that allow him to bolt to another school within two years after Braine’s departure or to an NBA job at any time.

Looks like Hewitt isn’t going anywhere, which is yet another reason why you can ignore the fluke that is the ongoing bust of a season for Tech. Come next year, with the maturation of what currently is the ACC’s youngest roster, and with the arrival of Javaris Crittenton along with other recruits, the Jackets should rise from the dead in a hurry.

So why did Hewitt still have a mortician’s demeanor? He gets it. He knows that coaches who wish to stay among the elite never are satisfied. As a result, he prefers not to discuss the promise of the future when he has to deal with the mess of now.

“It’s been a very humbling year, and by far, this has been my toughest year,” said Hewitt, whose wildly inconsistent Jackets enter their last conference game of the regular season today at Clemson with a 4-11 record in the ACC and 11-15 overall. Such ugliness happens when you play more freshmen and sophomores than anybody in one of the nation’s toughest conferences, and your accomplished point guard, Jarrett Jack, leaves early for the pros.

Still, with a bunch of shooters such as Anthony Morrow and Lewis Clinch, this Tech team hinted of becoming more prolific on offense than many of its forefathers. The Jackets also have Jeremis Smith, a mostly complete player, and defensive wizard Mario West, all enough to make us surmise before the season that the Jackets would do nothing less than surge on the verge on the ACC tournament.

Instead, they’ve stunk.

“Even that second year when we started out 0-7 at one point and finished out winning eight of the last 10, I knew we were going to be really, really young and that it would be an uphill climb, but this one has caught me off guard,” Hewitt said. “Boy, we’ve lost so many close games that could have made a difference in us being on the bubble of the [NCAA] tournament. Fourteen-point lead to Florida State. Double-figure lead at North Carolina. The game we had here, when we blew an eight-point lead against Duke with eight [minutes] to go. We had games right there.”

They lacked toughness, though, and Hewitt said he’ll help his Jackets acquire it before next season. He’ll also continue to collect the type of gritty players who led Tech to the NCAA title game two seasons ago. Thus his recruiting trips that included one this week to Baton Rouge, where Radakovich remains for the moment as LSU’s senior associate athletics director.

“I stopped by Dan’s office, and I just spent 10 minutes with him,” Hewitt said. “I ran into somebody there that I know on the basketball staff, and he said, ‘You’re getting a great guy.’ So I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Good. No, great.

Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore

No ‘shade’ for Texas’ Brown

By Furman Bisher | Friday, March 3, 2006, 05:24 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Furman Bisher

Austin, Texas — The Vince Young saga had still not played out at Texas. That story out of the National Football League combine in Indianapolis, alleging that the quarterback rage had scored only 6 points out of a possible 50 on an exam intended to gauge prospects’ intelligence, had triggered Mack Brown’s ire.

“That six was inaccurate. It was graded improperly,” he said. “It just mushroomed from that. It’s some kind of goofy test that doesn’t seem to have stood up too well in the past. Vince is a very intelligent young man. He left needing only three and a half hours for his degree and he would have graduated in the fall.

“I’ll tell you this, we have no place to hide ‘em at Texas,” inferring that there is no soft curriculum for athletes.

Spring practice was just beginning and Mack Brown was about to rebuild his case for the defense of the national championship the Longhorns had won in the Rose Bowl Jan. 4. (“My mother’s birthday,” he said. “She called and asked me what I was going do for her next year.”)

This hadn’t happened in Austin since the days of Darrell Royal, who did it three times, 1963, 1969 and l970. This was what Mack Brown came to Texas for, and he has done it in the stadium bearing Royal’s name. Royal is still about, 81 years old and visitor to practices nearly every day. He has his own particular Longhorn vernacular, such as “The less you say, the less you have to take back,” “Don’t sit in the shade,” and other chuck wagon sayings. His approval of Brown as a Longhorn is couched in this phrase: “He’s been dipped and vaccinated.”

The Browns come from Cookeville, Tenn., and football has put food on their table for a long time. Mack’s grandfather was the winningest high school coach in eastern Tennessee. His brother, Watson, a year and a half older, is head coach at University of Alabama-Birmingham.

“Not many coaches can pick up the phone, call another coach and say ‘I’ve got this problem, what would you do about it,’” Mack said. “And I do now and then, and so does he.”

Both Browns went to Vanderbilt, Watson because he wanted to be a sports writer — but later saw the light — and Mack planned to be an attorney. Something changed his mind as well and he switched to Florida State, there lettered two seasons as a running back.

There has been one particular thorn in Mack’s side at Texas — Oklahoma. The Sooners. “We beat them the first two times, and nobody said anything. Then we lost five in a row” — twice when Oklahoma ran up over 60 points — “and it became like a burr under everybody’s saddle. Then we beat them last year and nobody says anything.”

This was a major stop on the road to National No. 1, and Texas is still celebrating. No doubt he would have been everybody’s “Coach of the Year” if 79-year-old Joe Paterno hadn’t intervened. Nevertheless, Mack has won more games the last ten years than any coach in the big dog division.

“Now, I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy it. We may hold onto it and sit out the year,” he said and grinned. “Just kiddin’. As Coach Royal says, ‘Don’t sit in the shade.’”

He is surrounded by the Taj Mahal of facilities and a state crawling with prime prospects.

“Recruiting in Texas is the hardest thing I have to do. There are 1,200 schools that play football, more prospects in the Houston area than in all of North Carolina. And about all we can take is 20 or 25 .”

The first shoes to fill are the large brogans of Vince Young, 6 feet 6 , 235 pounds. Right now the leading prospect is about as Texas as a kid can get — Colt McCoy out of Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, population 620. Colt is 6 feet 3, about 195, and led the state in everything legal and decent in Level 2A, and is ready to move up after a year of running the scout team.

Now, about Young’s future in the NFL, how would he best be used, as Mack Brown sees it. “Well, lean heavily on his throwing, but let him do it with what he does best, run, like Michael Vick. We didn’t run him a lot.”

Statistics show that he was Texas’ leading rusher, 1,050 yards to go with his 3,036 passing. The indelible memory of his championship game is a run, his last for the 8 yards that put Texas over the top against Southern Cal. Right then he owned the world, No. 1 draft pick, top of the heap. Things have changed, having nothing to do with the NFL’s IQ exam. Brown is aloof to opinion on how his pro career will shape up, sorry that he took early departure, but also says little of that. Except to say, “You have to do what you have to do.”

One of the first messages that greets a fellow approaching the Darrell Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium area is a stern admonition that shouts out: “We Are Texas.” And don’t you forget it.

Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other

If I’m Blank, I’ve got questions

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 2, 2006, 07:35 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

I’m not Arthur Blank. (If I were, I wouldn’t be working for a living. I’d be living in a villa on the Costa del Sol.) But if I were Arthur Blank and I’d chosen to own the Falcons, these questions would spring to mind.

If my coaching staff is as clever as Jim Mora says, why did Michael Vick have better passing numbers under Dan Reeves? Is there any reason why Vick should have been more polished in 2002 than in 2005? Have we already reached the point of diminishing returns with the guy I handed a $130 million contract extension?
Why have the last four receivers we’ve imported —Peerless Price, Dez White, Michael Jenkins and Roddy White — failed to make the expected splash? Is it because they can’t get open? Is it because our $130 million quarterback can’t get them the ball? Is it because our player analysis has been misguided?
Speaking of player analysis: Should we really spend our upcoming first-round draft choice on another Virginia Tech cornerback? Given our problems at safety and our inability to stop the run, don’t we need someone to make the occasional tackle? Someone like Darnell Bing of Southern Cal or Ko Simpson of South Carolina?
Is Jim Mora as smart as he seemed in 2004 or as smart-alecky as he came across in 2005? Is he one of those guys who fell into a good situation but didn’t know what to do when things started to go wrong, or is he the keeper Rich McKay insists he is? And what about that temper? Do I want a hothead as the face of my fan-friendly franchise on autumn Sundays? Should I have looked harder at the placid Lovie Smith?
If, as Mora keeps saying, we don’t really run the West Coast offense, why I am paying the West Coast savant Greg Knapp to be my offensive coordinator?
Does the hangup over the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement and the likelihood that the salary cap will get frozen around $95 million mean the only way we can sign a big-name free agent is by dumping a big name? Do we dare part with T.J. Duckett when Warrick Dunn just turned 31? Then again, will we have to wait until Duckett is 31 for his breakout season?
By replacing one quarterbacks coach with another, am I just papering over the cracks? Is it really possible to coach what Vick does best? Might we actually have overcoached him?
Shouldn’t I be worried about how thin-skinned Vick seems to have become? Do I want my highest-paid player trying to answer his critics, as opposed to leading his team?
Why, when I keep shuttling public-relations personnel in the attempt to package my team more professionally, do I have to put up with that weirdo Alex Gibbs muzzling my offensive linemen? How does a “consultant” cut so wide a swath?
When a defense peopled by small, quick guys gets run over the way ours did at the end of last season, does that defense need to get bigger and stronger? Which was the real read on Ed Donatell — the defense that ranked ninth against the run in 2004 or the one that ranked 26th in 2005? Would a healthy Ed Hartwell have made that great a difference?
With all these headaches regarding a franchise that faces a 16-game schedule, why on earth would I want to buy a team that plays 10 times that many?
Do Bernie Marcus’ fishies have a collective bargaining agreement? Do they run the West Coast offense? Would big buddy Bernie trade his shiny new aquarium for a slighty used football team?

Permalink | Comments (45) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley

Thanks be to Conyers…

By Mark Bradley | Thursday, March 2, 2006, 04:02 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mark Bradley

I spoke to the Rotary Club of Conyers today, and that was pretty weird. Not the speaking part, at least not for me. (It might have been weird for the Rotarians.) The weird part was going to Conyers. Because…

I first set foot in Conyers, Ga., on March 6, 1984. I went to Rockdale County High School to interview Traci Waites, who was the best girls’ player in Georgia. I remember because it was the first story I did for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I left the Lexington Herald-Leader on March 1, 1984. I started work here four days later. My wife was still in Lexington packing. I was living at the Marriott at Windy Hill. I reported for duty on a Monday and, halfway through the day, Gary Caruso — the no-nonsense executive sports editor — said, “Go do a story on Traci Waites.”

Being a professional reporter, I said, “Who’s Traci Waites?” Told she played for Rockdale County, I said, “Where’s Rockdale County?”

Eventually I asked enough questions to find my way to Conyers the next day. I remember little about my interview with Waites. I remember only that I worked on that modest story like I was Bob Woodward on Watergate. I called Andy Landers at Georgia for a quote about Waites. I called Cleveland Stroud, the Rockdale County men’s coach, because he’d seen Waites playing against his guys (and taking them to school, figuratively). Heck, I called Pat Summitt at her home in Knoxville. (She wasn’t quite so famous back then.)

I guess the story turned out OK. Even Caruso seemed to not hate it. The display guys on the Consti (as we called the morning paper in those long-ago days) gave it a nice ride layout-wise, and for the first time I started to think that leaving a columnist job in Lexington to become a GA (general assignment) guy in Atlanta wasn’t the worst professional decision I could have made. Almost 22 years later, I’d say it was the best.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit

Labor, economic issues force tough decisions for NFL teams

By Terence Moore | Wednesday, March 1, 2006, 06:37 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Terence Moore

Socialism doesn’t work, not even in the lordly NFL, where you had the illusion of it doing just fine for 44 years. That was the short run, though, especially when you consider that they had such a system in Eastern Europe for nearly twice that amount of time, and it crumbled into oblivion along with the Berlin Wall.

So the inevitable was bound to happen to a professional sports league that Pete Rozelle and a bunch of chummy owners spent the early 1960s turning into a revenue-sharing success. Remember? This is the same professional sports league that went beyond Vladimir Lenin’s wildest imagination through the turn of the 21st century, with all of that economic equality making a slew of players, coaches, executives and owners pretty rich and really famous.

As for the “inevitable,” we’re talking about greed. We’re talking about good, old-fashioned, capitalistic greed. Suddenly, courtesy of outrageous revenue streams from luxury boxes and marketing opportunities indigenous to certain cities, the NFL owners don’t look alike anymore. Those among the lower and middle classes want the upper-class folks to split all or at least more of their total football wealth with everybody (you know, which was the case for their forefathers such as George Halas, Wellington Mara and Rankin Smith Sr.). In contrast, those upper-class folks couldn’t care less about old traditions and want either the status quo or their version of trickle-down economics.

No compromise is in sight, even if you ignore the usual rhetoric that comes with these situations. Greed does that. In fact, since the NFL owners are locked into a philosophical debate about whether they should continue to tear down their Berlin Wall or try to patch it back together, the NFL players have to put their socialistic demands on hold. The players want more of a percentage of total football revenues, and if they don’t get it, they say they won’t do their part to have the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) extended before Friday.

That is, if the owners settle their multiple issues by then.

Although the CBA officially doesn’t expire until after the 2007 season, here’s the problem, and it’s huge: A dozen years ago, the negotiators shoved all sorts of poison pills into the deal to make sure that the owners and the players realized that death would occur if all of those involved didn’t have a quick resolution this time.

I guess greed also takes away the fear of death. Barring NFL owners getting struck any time soon by that frequently elusive blinding light in labor negotiations called common sense, Armageddon is here for our national obsession. Barring that light, for instance, Warrick Dunn is a candidate to be gone from the Falcons. Can’t afford him - not given the economic landscape for the league if a new revenue-sharing deal inside a new CBA isn’t finished by Friday, which starts the league’s calendar year and signals when teams can sign free agents.

The Washington Redskins? We’re talking about the Washington Deadskins. Barring that light, they’ll have to slice so many veterans that they could have nearly 30 rookies on their roster.

Usually, teams can play games with the salary cap, ranging from extending bonuses over the course of years to renegotiating player contracts. Well, among those poison pills is the disappearance of the salary cap for the 2007 season. That means, barring that light, teams such as the Indianapolis Colts are on the verge of going from extraordinary to ordinary. Consider that the Colts owe Peyton Manning and Marvin Harris combined bonus money of $18 million. Barring that light, every penny of that amount will count against the Colts’ salary cap for this season, and that means the Colts will be forced to operate without even more of their considerable standouts beyond just Edgerrin James.

Barring that light, you also have the changing dynamics of the Terrell Owens sweepstakes. The Denver Broncos once were the favorites to land the insufferable but talented wide receiver. It’s just that their salary cap situation is as brutal as that of the Redskins. On the other hand, the sorry Browns will have plenty of room under the salary cap regardless. So this NFL Armageddon might have a plus. It might force Owens to sign with Cleveland, and he would never be heard from again.

Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore

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