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Bar Chat

03/30/2017

Bring It On!

[Posted Wed. a.m.]

NCAA Women’s Basketball Quiz: Who is the last team, aside from UConn, to win the national title? [Hint: 2012]  Answer below.

Professional Sports Playoff Streak Quiz: I screwed up last time, call it careless, when I said the Detroit Red Wings, who won’t be in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year for the first time in 26 years, had the longest all-time pro sports playoff streak.  But there are two with longer ones...among the four major professional leagues in North America.  Name them.  Answer below.

Final Four Weekend

I’m looking forward to this Final Four as much as any in recent memory.  Just some great story lines...and a North Carolina-South Carolina final would be delicious...ditto, Oregon-Gonzaga.

Dana O’Neil / ESPN

“South Carolina’s Frank Martin embraced his mother in an endless and tearful hug.  Gonzaga’s Mark Few jumped from a ladder and into the arms of his Poland-born big man.

“Oregon’s Dana Altman soaked up a Gatorade bath.

“North Carolina’s Roy Williams?  He grabbed a Final Four hat and ambled along, just as he did last year, just as he has done eight other times in his career.  The national semifinals isn’t a birthright to anyone, of course, but it is at least a fairly regular destination for the Tar Heels.

“Which makes the blue blood the outlier in this college basketball quartet, the only team that can truly act like it has been there.

“ ‘Tears of joy and makes your heart warm to like 350 degrees Celsius or something,’ Few said after his team beat Xavier.  ‘Maybe Fahrenheit. It’s been a while since I was in class.’

“Few can be forgiven his scientific snafu.  His time outside the classroom is a blip compared to Gonzaga’s wait for a Final Four.

“Never (Gonzaga), never (South Carolina), might as well have been never (Oregon) and North Carolina – that’s the simple way of looking at this Final Four.”

--No secret I haven’t been a fan of South Carolina coach Frank Martin, but that is just from observation.  I do need to take you back to something I wrote in this space....

March 10, 2014

“South Carolina coach Frank Martin was suspended for one game (which the Gamecocks won on Saturday, 74-62 over Mississippi State) for what the athletic director called ‘inappropriate verbal communication as it relates to the well-being of our student-athletes.’

“Martin was caught on national television yelling profanities at freshman point guard Duane Notice in the second half of South Carolina’s 72-46 loss at Florida last week.

“Martin apologized: ‘I embarrassed my family, my kids, my past current and past players and my bosses. My actions are not acceptable. I work at my problems every day. I’ve got to get better. I’m still not where I need to be.’

“After a successful five-year run at Kansas State, Martin has struggled his two seasons in Columbia and the Gamecocks finished up the regular season 12-19 and 5-13 in the SEC, after going 14-18 in 2012-13.

“He also had an outburst on Jan. 18 that he later had to apologize for.”

Nicole Auerbach / USA TODAY

“Anecdotally, it appeared that coaches had gotten out of control this season. ‘Bad coaching behavior’ was the way it was put, set in contrast to what college basketball coaches are supposed to be: as molders of young men on and off the court.

“Statistically, that’s not the case.

“John Adams, the NCAA’s national coordinator for basketball officiating, provided USA TODAY Sports with the following numbers:

“ – From November 2012 through January 2013, 468 technical fouls were called in Division I men’s basketball games, 92 on head coaches for unsportsmanlike behavior.

“ – From November 2013 through January 2014, 315 technical fouls were called, 85 on head coaches for unsportsmanlike behavior.”

Me:

“Adams cautions these are estimates and self-reported as box scores don’t include reasoning behind technical fouls. 

“But back to Martin, his players seem to like him. My point would be this is 2014, not 30 or 40 years ago when verbal abuse of the kind he displayed would be more easily tolerated. But I won’t rant further on the topic like I was preparing to do before I saw Martin’s apology. I hope he changes. You can keep the intensity, just watch what you are saying when others can hear, or the television cameras and cellphones are on. [Virginia’s Tony Bennett is one to emulate.]”

So that was three years ago.  It should be no surprise you didn’t hear of this situation last weekend, because coaches are treated as gods when it we get to the tourney.  I also can’t help but point out the aforementioned Duane Notice from 2014 is a key senior on this year’s team, so I guess Martin’s actions didn’t bother him too much.

The truth is Frank Martin has indeed come a long way.  He didn’t pick up his degree until a decade after graduating from high school, where he was a JV coach.  It then took him eight years before he eventually coached varsity while also teaching math at Miami Senior High.  He was a part of eight state championship teams.

Martin then took a lowly assistant coaching job at Northeastern, just so he could get a toe in the collegiate coaching business.

But his big break came when Bob Huggins gave him a shot as an assistant in 2004, which is kind of funny, seeing as how I’ve expressed my admiration for Huggins, whose style often mirrors that of Martin, or vice versa.

And then Martin was hired for the head job at Kansas State in 2007 and took them to four NCAA tournaments in five seasons, before he left after irreconcilable differences with his athletic director and took the South Carolina job, where it was expected he’d fade into obscurity.  The Gamecocks certainly didn’t have any kind of basketball tradition

Martin has been able to get the likes of Sindarius Thornwell, a McDonald’s All-American, to stay in state.  Thornwell said: “Signing and growing up in South Carolina, all we asked for was a chance to make it.  We didn’t ask for – coach ain’t guaranteed us anything, but to come here and just work hard and give ourselves a chance.  All we wanted was to make it.  All we wanted was a bid in the tournament, to see our name on the board. And when we got our name on the board, the rest we’ll take, the rest takes care of itself. All we wanted was a chance.”  [Matt Norlander / CBS Sports]

--Sports Illustrated’s All-America Team

PG Lonzo Ball, freshman, UCLA
SG Josh Hart, senior, Villanova
PG Frank Mason III, senior, Kansas
PF Caleb Swanigan, sophomore, Purdue
PG Nigel Williams-Goss, junior, Gonzaga

--Sports Illustrated’s Final Four prediction before the tournament started was pretty good.

Duke, Gonzaga, UNC, Oregon [UNC champion]

But like a lot of us, they had South Carolina losing to Marquette in the first round.

In the Women’s NCAA Championship...the Final Four to play on Friday:

UConn vs. Mississippi State; Stanford vs. South Carolina.

UConn, with its winning streak up to 111 games, demolished Oregon Monday night in the regional finals, 90-52.  Coach Geno Auriemma passed Pat Summitt for the most NCAA tournament wins at 113 and counting.  The Lady Huskies are gunning for their fifth consecutive NCAA women’s title, 12th overall.

--Two boring games in the NIT semifinals Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.  I started off watching CSU Bakersfield vs. Georgia Tech, it bored me to tears, and I turned it back on with a few minutes to play, only to see Bakersfield’s players make some incredibly chippy, unnecessary late fouls as Georgia Tech won going away, 76-61.

In the nightcap, TCU whipped UCF 68-53.  The final is Thursday.

NBA

Incredibly, the Washington Wizards clinched their first division title in 38 years with a 119-108 win over the Lakers in Los Angeles on Tuesday.  According to the Washington Post and CSN’s Chase Hughes, this was the longest divisional drought in U.S. sports – well ahead of the 30 years the Edmonton Oilers have waited.  To state the obvious, the Wizards have emerged as a serious threat in the East for the stumbling Cavaliers.

NFL

It’s official...the Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas as NFL owners voted 31-1 for the move at their annual league meeting.  Due to the NFL’s longstanding objection to sports gambling, this was a move never thought possible, but now the franchise is leaving the city of Oakland a second time.  The Raiders had left following the 1981 season and played in Los Angeles from ’82 through ’94 before returning in 1995.

This is the third franchise relocation the NFL has approved in less than a year, the other two being the Rams’ move from St. Louis to Los Angeles, where they played this past season, and the Chargers, who exercised their option to move from San Diego to L.A.

The Raiders are to remain in Oakland while a $1.9 billion stadium for the Raiders and UNLV’s football team is under construction, so certainly at least throughout the 2018 season.

The problem has been there simply hasn’t been a viable new-stadium alternative in Oakland to keep the team there.

The Raiders are now the second pro sports franchise in Vegas.  An NHL expansion franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, will begin play in the league’s 2017-18 season.

For the Raiders, Bank of America is replacing the $650 million of funding that casino mogul Sheldon Adelson was to have provided before he dropped out.  The Raiders are kicking in $500 million and there is $750 million of public financing in place.

Michael Powell / New York Times

“As it happened, I was on the telephone with Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland on Monday when the NFL’s chief pirate called to say that his fellow corsairs would steal away her city’s beloved Raiders.

“It was early afternoon and the mayor had been describing her efforts to convince Commissioner Roger Goodell that a public gift of 55 acres, major improvements and private financing added up to a heck of a deal for his private enterprise crew.

“ ‘My argument,’ she told me, ‘is yes, we cannot put the same kind of public dollars into this as Las Vegas.  But –‘

“Her phone rang and she checked her caller ID.  It was Goodell.  He told her that the NFL owners, fantastically wealthy men all, just had voted to commit grand theft franchise and plop the Oakland Raiders in a patch of desert just south of Las Vegas.  Their conversation lasted a minute or two.  No need for tears.  Shaking down cities and sticking in the shiv is a patented move for the league. It’s not personal; it’s strictly business.

“ ‘I was not surprised, but I was entirely disappointed,’ Schaaf told me afterward.  ‘I do not regret that we stood firm on no public funding for stadium constructions.’

“In the NFL’s world, displays of principle and common economic sense are for chumps.  Las Vegas and Nevada adopted the league’s preferred stance: They rolled belly up.  Politicians raised taxes to provide a historic $750 million public subsidy.

“This led to unremarked-upon cognitive dissonance in Las Vegas.  Even as politicians increased taxes for stadiums, Clark County school officials voted last spring to increase public class sizes and to close a school for at-risk students.  There was simply no money.  ‘This is the last thing we ever want to do,’ Linda Young, president of the school board, said at that time.

“It’s a shame the school board did not build a football stadium, perhaps with a public school annex....

“Despite the enormous outlay of tax money, it is, in almost every way, not so great. The league is deserting the sixth-biggest television market in the United States, one of the nation’s most pleasant climates and a city much on the upswing, for head-throbbing heat in a much smaller TV market in a city where there are fewer foreclosures than there used to be.

“So great is the blasted heat that Las Vegas officials had to guarantee that the new stadium would come with an expensive roof.

“Las Vegas also is synonymous with gambling, a sin Goodell and the NFL profess to abhor.  Myself, I would place a fair bet that Goodell discards his hair shirt for a high-roller’s linen number in a few years.  There’s simply too much money at stake with gambling, and money is what the NFL does very well.

“Theoretically, Schaaf and Goodell engaged in negotiations these past many months.  She, however, refused to pour more public dollars after bad....

“I asked the mayor if she found solace in having stood on principle.  She had refused to hock her city’s finances to make a $14 billion league happier.

“There was a long pause at the other end of the telephone. Then she spoke slowly.

“ ‘This team was blue-collar and born and raised here, and the pride and passion that Oaklanders feel about this team is in our blood,’ she said. ‘It breaks my heart to lose this team.’

“You hope Goodell reads that as he drifts off to sleep tonight.”

MLB

It all starts anew Sunday, with three games, including a terrific matchup in Arizona, Giants-Diamondbacks, Bumgarner-Greinke.

My Mets open Monday against the Braves and what this all means is that starting next week, my schedule totally changes.  No more Fox News at night...it’s all about Mets baseball (unless they are on the west coast or North Korea is threatening to annihilate its neighbors).

So your official “Pick to Click” for 2017 is Mets over Red Sox in the World Series.  Sure, it’s all about the Mets’ starting staff staying reasonably healthy, but I’m recommending if you are between the ages of 9 and 15, bet no more than $5,000; ages 16-21 $12,500; and 22 and older, $684,000.

Cleveland will have a terrific season, but they’ll lose in the ALCS in heartbreaking fashion to Boston, while Joe Maddon will make a critical poor decision in Game 7 of the Mets-Cubs NLCS series.

But one thing I hope is that the Angels do better than projected (they truly suck on paper). I mean Mike Trout deserves far better.

Think about it.  As Sports Illustrated pointed out in their baseball issue, Trout has five Top 5s in the MVP voting his first five full seasons* (1st or 2nd each one) and he’s been in a whopping three playoff games over that time, all losses.  He’s a professional, but he has to be going nuts.

So I want Mike Trout to hit 75 home runs, drive in 210, hit .389 and somehow carry the Angels to postseason play.

*By comparison, Mickey Mantle had three Top 5s in the MVP voting his first five full seasons, Willie Mays three, Barry Bonds one, Ken Griffey Jr. one, and Hank Aaron three.

I also hope the fans come back in a huge way in Cleveland*, and that Andrew McCutchen has a big bounce-back season in Pittsburgh and that the Pirates do better than projected (Sports Illlustrated has them 83-79).

*Despite Cleveland’s highly-successful season last year, they drew only 1.59 million, compared to 3.1 to 3.4 million from 1996-2001.

Bottom line, it’s just great to have our warm friend baseball back.

Ring Ring.... “Hey, Editor...I have front row seats for Springsteen and a limo will pick you up with four Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.”  “Don’t bother me...I’m watching the Mets.”

College Sports Review

Division I Baseball Poll (March 27)

1. Oregon State...always have some Beaverwear handy come spring
2. Louisville
3. Texas Tech
4. TCU
5. Clemson
6. LSU
7. South Carolina
8. North Carolina...kind of funny, these two together with the Final Four looming
9. Florida
10. Cal State Fullerton
15. St. John’s

Wake Forest is off to a solid start, 19-7, 6-3 in ACC play.  Go Deacs!  [Though we haven’t played any of the elite in the conference yet.]

Division I Men’s Golf Poll (March 27...Golfweek)

1. Southern California
2. Baylor
3. Vanderbilt
4. Oklahoma State
5. LSU
6. Florida
7. Illinois
8. Wake Forest...Ding ding ding! Deacs have been playing great this spring
9. Kent State
10. Oregon

Division I Women’s Golf Poll (March 27...Golfweek)

1. Stanford
2. Arizona State
3. Alabama
4. Florida State
5. Florida
6. UCLA
7. Duke
8. Furman
9. Southern California
10. Georgia
11. South Carolina
12. Wake Forest...Ding ding ding!

Golf Balls

--Jason Day said he expects to travel to Augusta on Friday to start preparing for The Masters...a tradition unlike any other...on CBS.  But he said he could still pull out, depending on his mother’s recovery following surgery for lung cancer last week.

“Obviously, I’m still nervous because we’re still waiting to see...if it has spread or not,” he said on Monday.

It bears repeating, Day’s father died of cancer when Jason was 12.  He owes everything to his mother and I can see that he’s an emotional wreck.  So we wish her the very best and our prayers.

--Going back to last weekend’s WGC Match Play event, Dustin Johnson never trailed through seven matches and 112 holes at Austin Country Club.  It’s too bad his final match with upstart Jon Rahm was on at the same time as Kentucky-North Carolina, because it was hard to enjoy both as I’m sure like me, many of you were flipping back and forth.

I mean Johnson vs. Rahm is a dream matchup and here’s hoping these two are battling it out down the stretch at a few majors.  Forget Jordan, Jason, Rory, Justin, Hideki and Rickie...Jon Rahm could easily outdo them all...as long as DJ cooperates.  [And at Augusta, you’ll also be talking about grizzled veterans like Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson.]

Jaime Diaz / Golf World

“Everyone loves showdowns between the most physically imposing athletes. The allure of the gifted big man is what makes heavyweight title fights so electric, and what can bring magic to other sports lucky enough – such as professional basketball was in the 1960s with the rivalry between Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell – to feature match-ups between extra-large marvels.

“In pro golf, the big man, however, hasn’t traditionally dominated.  The sport has often been the little guy’s revenge, a game of mistake-avoidance in which finesse and precision usually overcomes power alone.  Over the years, big golfers have tended to have bigger holes in their arsenals.

“That’s not to say the game’s most popular great players haven’t been those who possessed extraordinary power and length.  And when two such players meet at big moments, history remembers.  Consider the storied match-ups of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead at the 1954 Masters, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer at the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Nicklaus and Tom Watson at Turnberry for the 1977 British Open....

“Which is a long way of explaining why Sunday at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play was special....and the spectacle will be remembered for much more than Johnson winning 1 up....

(Their) scrappy showdown, in which neither played as well as they had in previous matches, was an epic demonstration of big-man power – the modern game personified....

“(Rahm), with four top-five finishes in his last five appearances, (has) quickly become the most intriguing player in golf today....Rahm seems to have everything.  His thick build is a larger version of Nicklaus circa 1962, giving him the strong base that supports his massive explosion of rotation and extension through the ball, a feat of extreme speed and athleticism that Rahm nonetheless seems to repeat easily....

“With his short backswing, Rahm’s move is more efficient than many of his peers.

“Rahm also possesses the charisma of the great competitor. His near comeback from 5 down against Johnson was evocative of Woods in three U.S. Amateur finals....

“ ‘He just seems like he might advance to World No. 1 in his career,’ NBC’s Johnny Miller said of Rahm during the tournament telecast.  ‘It just seems like he’s got it written all over his forehead.’

“It was a meaningful match.   A good one for Johnson to win, reinforcing his growing confidence in being able to win ugly. And perhaps a good one for Rahm to lose, as he’ll reflect on how letting his emotions get the better of him on the front nine cost him holes and adjust accordingly.

“And like all the great fights for the heavyweight title, everyone now awaits the rematch, one that will be watched even more intently.”  Yeah, especially if Carolina isn’t playing Kentucky at the same time.”

--Back to the Masters, Dustin Johnson is now a 5-1 favorite, replacing 2015 champion Jordan Spieth, a 13-2 pick, as the top selection.  Rory is third at 8-1.  Day is 15-1.  Mickelson, Justin Rose and Matsuyama are 20-1.  Bubba, Stenson and Fowler are 25-1.

Stuff

--I didn’t have a chance last time to note the death of Sprint car driver David Steele at DeSoto Speedway in Bradenton, Fla., on Saturday night.  I’ve watched the amateur video a few times and what seemed relatively minor was fatal as his car spun into the air, after hitting the car in front of him, and Steele hit an outside retaining wall.  He died instantly.

Steele, 42, won the USAC Silver Crown Series in 2004 and 2005, and recently won a record 100th event in Florida.   He leaves a wife and three children.  All of NASCAR honored him at their race in Fontana on Sunday, with winner Kyle Larson mentioning Steele’s passing in his post-race remarks.

--It’s almost Stanley Cup Playoff time...which means I’ll be watching the New York Rangers again, though I’m not that optimistic.  As they head to their seventh straight playoffs, this has been a very strange season, and not a particularly great one after a super start.  They also lost their fourth game in five Tuesday in San Jose to the Sharks, 5-4 in overtime.

--The United States traveled to Panama City on Tuesday to take on Panama in another World Cup qualifying match and emerged with a point, a 1-1 draw.  It seems that the Mexican refereeing crew was rather one-sided so the U.S. is probably lucky to get this much out of it.  Panama was called on 14 fouls, yet not a single yellow card was issued despite their highly-physical play and a roaring home crowd.

--This just in as I go to post....from BBC News:

“A missing Indonesian man was found dead inside the body of a python, according to local police. 

“Akbar went missing on Sunday on the island of Sulawesi, after leaving to harvest palm oil.

“In the search for the 25-year-old, police told BBC Indonesian that they had found a huge snake they suspected had swallowed the man.

“The reticulated python, reported to be 7m (23-feet)-long, was cut open and the man’s body was found.

“Reticulated pythons are among the world’s longest reptiles and suffocate their victims before swallowing them whole.”

A moment of silence in tribute....

And yet another reason not to go harvesting palm oil without your Swiss Army Knife with the hacksaw attachment for protection.

You could also argue this was an act of revenge by the Climate Change Gods.

--Adele has been hinting this year’s world tour will be her last.  Speaking between songs at her final New Zealand concert in Auckland on Sunday, the 15-time Grammy winner admitted flying halfway across the world and performing in front of thousands of screaming fans may not be her idea of fun.

“Touring isn’t something I’m good at,” Adele said.  “Applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable.  I don’t know if I will ever tour again... I’m not sure if touring is my bag.”

Adele is just 28 and according to industry insiders, she is pulling in at least $1 million a night – and around $200 million in total – as part of her current 122-date world tour, which wraps up in London in July with a final four-night stand at Wembley Stadium.  [Sydney Morning Herald]

NCAA Women’s Basketball Quiz Answer: Baylor defeated Notre Dame for the title in 2012.  It’s been UConn since.

Professional Sports Playoff Streak Quiz Answer: The other two teams with longer playoff runs than the Detroit Red Wings are the Boston Bruins, 29 seasons (1968-96) and Chicago Blackhawks, 28 (1970-97). 

Next Bar Chat, Monday.

I’m posting a new All-Species List column by noon on Wednesday...concerning a serious topic.

 

 

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