Thursday, March 31, 2011

Some good news...

In a world where people BITCH about everything, here's something to put most things in perspective. We wish the kid the best of luck. Click here.


Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Best we can do...




Tuesday, March 29, 2011

W-O-W

76ers 97 Bulls 85. On the road. Nice.


Monday, March 28, 2011

The glory days...





Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Man can coach...


Coach Cal. Most despise The Man. (We love him.) But you can't deny the guy knows how to coach. He made Roy Williams look like a buffoon today. Not that that's overly difficult to do.



Saturday, March 26, 2011

B-U-T-L-E-R


Wow. What a game. Clutch shots by Butler. And some poor decisions by Florida down the stretch. Here's to Matt Howard growing his stache back for the Final Four.



Friday, March 25, 2011

Derrick Williams...

We told you he'd be the best player on the court last night. He absolutely terrorized the Dukies.





Thursday, March 24, 2011

March Madness resumes...

Haven't spent a heckuva a lot of time writing about March Madness. (We have spent a helluva lot of time watching it. By the way, the move to show every game on either CBS, TNT, TBS or TruTV is pure genius.)

A quick peak at tonight's four pack:

UConn & San Diego State -- This should be a very close game. The Aztecs have the height advantage. But how can you pick against Kemba Walker?!? UConn 72 San Diego State 68.

Florida & BYU -- We'll say this about Jimmer. The dude's L-E-G-I-T. He will be a top 10 pick in June. And, no, he's not the next J.J. Reddick. He's got more size. More athleticism. And more range. He can pull up from 27 feet and flick it in like nothing. Look at the picture in this week's S.I. He's shooting a jumper and he's damn near three feet off the ground. We haven't liked the Gators all year -- but they have the athletes and the bench to win. Jimmer will get 30+, but everyone else will struggle. Florida 66 BYU 57.

Arizona & Duke -- Duke, our predicted championship runner-up, sputtered against a gritty Michigan team last Sunday and easily could have lost. The Wildcats won their first round game against Memphis by 2 and followed that up with a 1 point win against texASS. They will have the best player on the court tonight in Derrick Williams. The 6'8" sophomore averages 20 points a game, 8 rebounds and 1 block. And he hits his threes at a 58 percent clip. After tonight, his next game will be in the NBA. Duke, though, has enough good players to overcome one great player. Duke 64 Arizona 50.

Butler & Wisconsin -- Gosh, we hope the Butler ride continues. Their coach is refreshingly humble. Their best player is a white guy with a stache. And most of all, we just don't want to watch Wisconsin's boring brand of basketball. Ugh. Butler 51 Wisconsin 47.





Wednesday, March 23, 2011

W-O-W

We've always been a big YES when it comes to Serena Williams. Not sure why, but we're kind of in the minority on that one. (For the record, we are NO on sister Venus.) Anyway, pretty, um, neat promo for this video game. Even better when you turn on the sound.




Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Best we can do...





Monday, March 21, 2011

Woo! Woo!

The beauty of a March snowstorm.


Sunday, March 20, 2011

Gumbel makes a BONER...





Saturday, March 19, 2011

Here it is...


Friday, March 18, 2011

The annual Personal Day...

We always take it the Friday of the first round of March Madness. More times than not, the Thursday afternoon games are the ones that feature all the upsets, (Yesterday no exception, as Our Louisville Cardinals went down hard because they suck at the basics, like rebounding, foul shooting and defending the trey.) but we still love this day -- good games or not. The kids always have a half day (conferences), so we go out and grab lunch and bring it home and eat in front of the TV. Good stuff.


Thursday, March 17, 2011

Chalk...

We'll go into our bracket more in depth later, but we wanted to get this up ASAP. Our Final Four consists of ... wait for it ... all four #1 seeds -- Ohio State, Duke, Kansas and Pitt. By the way, the Southeast bracket is total crap. We don't think Pitt is all that good, but who-the-hell-is-Mel-Kiper who-the-hell-else-are-we-gonna-pick?!? Our second grade team from the 2009-10 season (undefeated/league champs) could take this region without breaking a sweat. But we digress. Anyway, we have Kansas beating Duke. Though we may be changing that before the noon tips today. (Because Coach K is Coach K. And Bill Self is, well, he's Bill Self.)




Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Stop being stupid...

Memo to Jalen Rose & Jimmy King: Shut your frigging mouths. Props to Skip Bayless for telling them to eff off.



Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Seriously?!?

We are off to our second lacrosse practice of the season. Yes, we are the assistant coach. And, no, we don't know anything about the sport.



Monday, March 14, 2011

Boomer Sooner...





Sunday, March 13, 2011

Three & out: March Madness edition

1. Louisville got S-C-R-E-W-E-D! How are they a 4 seed, but Syracuse and UCan't are 3 seeds?!? Frigging insane.

2. How is Gene Smith the NCAA Chair?!? He's the AD at Ohio State. You remember them. They're the school where the football coach lied about NCAA violations. Classic.

3. Why are Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith involved in March Madness?!? They are superb when discussing the NBA. Based on today's showing, they are piss-poor when discussing the college hoops.



Saturday, March 12, 2011

We are officially a pretty good team...

76ers 89
Celtics 86





Friday, March 11, 2011

Afternoon delight...

We'll say it again. There is nothing better than college football or basketball during a weekday afternoon. Yesterday we had the UConn-Pitt game playing on our classroom computer (via ESPN3). School had officially ended with five to play. We sat and watched Kemba Walker make Pitt big man Gary McGhee look absolutely stupid as he drained a step-back from 19 feet to win at the buzzer. We then grabbed our book bag and screwed home to catch the tip of St. John's and Syracuse. We have come to like Jim Boheim. And if you don't enjoy watching the way Steve Lavin's Johnnies play, then you are a frigging liberal commie. The two teams went back and forth for 40 before prized Orange rookie Fab Mello finally lived up to his prep portfolio (14, 4 & 2 in 22 useful minutes). As the Big East goes prime time tonight, we'll enjoy an afternoon of viewing the ACC, Big 10 and PAC 10.








Thursday, March 10, 2011

Any questions?!?





Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Good gawd, man...

If this doesn't give you absolute W-O-O-D, then nothing will.





Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The world has ended...

The Playmaker's Sister "lost" her cell phone today.




Monday, March 7, 2011

D.C.





Sunday, March 6, 2011

One day weekend over...

Ugh. Back to the grind tomorrow.



Saturday, March 5, 2011

Hoops: The journey ends...

What follows is a reprint of the blog from over a year ago -- February 28, 2010. It's perhaps the column we are proudest of. Other than the Thanksgiving and Christmas ones, it's our All Time Favorite. We run it today because The Playmaker's basketball season ended today. The Nets suffered their third straight loss and finished 7-5. We lost 24-22. The Playmaker had 10 points. Unfortunately, we couldn't coach today -- our school was doing a Saturday snow-day makeup session. (No sheeeet.) It was a season that started with such promise (3-0 and then 7-2), but ultimately we could not close out tough games. Indeed, four of our five losses were by a combined 10 points. (Again, no sheeeet.) So tomorrow we go back to the gym and begin to rebuild. There was no one in the league this year (3rd grade or a year above in 4th) who got to the rack like 3rd grade Playmaker did. The problem was he got there so effortlessly that he hardly every took a shot outside six feet. And as The Legend spread, opposing coaches began to put their tallest player on him and that basically screwed him. So tomorrow we will head to the gym, with Mr. D tagging along to observe. Thirty minutes of nothing but shots from 10-15 feet. That will be followed by 30 minutes of one-on-one with a chalk semi-circle drawn on the court 10 feet from the hoop. There are but two rules: first to 11 hoops wins. And no shooting inside the semi-circle.

We will not go 7-5 again next season.

Enjoy the flashback:


Sunday, February 28, 2010
A somber game followed by a friendly night...

Things don't always go as planned. Sad but true.

Take yesterday, for example.

When we last met, we were on our way to Mr. D's house for coffee and egg whites. Problem is, errr, was, that we were operating on about 4 hours sleep (long story). So we texted The Man and told him we would see him later that night for the BIG high school tournament game the locals were in. A few minutes later he texted back and said he would pick us up for the game around 5. (Dude travels in a suh-weet Lexus SUV.) And with that we went back to bed for 2 hours.
Fast forward to The Playmaker's 12:30 basketball game. The Bucks throttled another opponent. The score was 50-12. (Repeat: 50-12!) And no, we did not run up the score. We were missing one of our 10 players, yet we never double shifted The Playmaker or our second best player. Plus, after about 15 minutes we made our kids pass the ball three times before shooting. The Playmaker notched his second double-double of the season. He went for 12 and 12 (6-10 shooting) and handed out 4 assists. We are now 7-0 on the season.

The second part of our day did not come off as well. Actually, it did not come off well at all. Our Town HS Basketball Team lost its tournament game, 74-70. They had a 5 point lead with 6 to play and could not hold on. We sat with Mr. D. (We piled The Playmaker, The Playmaker's Sister and her friend into the back of the Lexus.) Confession time. Mr. D and The Star Player's Dad (introduced in last week's post titled The torch will one day be passed ... "In about 10 years this sheeet will all be yours, and you'll be the one standing here in my shoes." ) are the same person. When the game was over, he looked physically wiped. He stood for a long time and applauded his son and the team. Then he made his way down to the court where he found his boy and wrapped him up in a bear hug. The Son cried into his father's arms for close to 20 seconds before he joined the handshake line. The Star Player's Dad talked to a few of the other parents on the team before making his way back to us. "Let's get the hell outta here," he said quietly.

We envisioned a silent (and somber) ride home. Even the three kids realized the situation and did not not make a peep as we walked back to the car. Once on the road, however, Mr. D asked about getting some dinner. We assumed he was just being polite. Surely he would want to get home and be with his wife (she had travelled to the game with other neighbors) as they awaited the return of their son. We pointed out it was past the kids' bedtime. (It was past 9 at this point.) The Man asked The Playmaker, "Your mom's at a party, right?" (Our wife was attending a party at the home of a co-worker.)

"Yep," said our son.

"What time do you think she will be home?"

"Probably late."

"So then she'll never know that you went to bed late, right?"

"Yep," said our son.

Mr. D laughed. The Playmaker laughed. The girls laughed. Finally, we laughed, too.

Twenty minutes later we were picking up Chinese food. We headed back to Mr. D's house. Mrs. D was already there when we walked in. She was drinking a glass of wine. It was obvious she had been crying. She patted The Playmaker on the head and gave us a hug. We introduced the girls to her. Then she disappeared into the kitchen with the food. Mr. D went and got juice boxes for the kids and beers for each of us. We all sat on the floor of the family room and ate. No one talked about the game. Instead, The Man asked The Playmaker about his game. "We won, 50-12," was all he said. "Holy cow!" screamed Mr. D before we quickly interjected that The Playmaker had bagged a double-double, 12 and 12. The Star Player's Dad took a long drag of his beer and said simply, "Well done. Very well done." He finished his beer and looked at the three kids. He told them how there would come a day when they were all in high school and playing in a Big Game. "Enjoy the moment," he said. "Because it will end quickly." We're pretty sure the meaning of his lecture was lost on the kids. In fact, we got the feeling he was saying it more for his own benefit.

There was an awkward silence that followed. It quickly ended when Mr. D asked, "How about some more food? And another beer for the dads." Another round of eating and drinking ensued. The TV eventually was turned on. The Man asked Michael what he wanted to watch. Syracuse and Villanova was his answer. Mr. D looked over at us and smiled. "That's awesome." Eventually we asked where The Son was. Mrs. D said, "He and some of the guys on the team are having a sleepover at a player's house. I think they need to do some venting." She left the room. Mr. D quickly looked over at us and said quietly, "This will be their venting." He cocked his arm in the ever familiar drinking pose. And then he gave us a wink.

It was our turn to say, "That's awesome."

We clinked beer bottles and watched the game on TV.




Friday, March 4, 2011

Good parenting...

Tired as sheeeet. Wife dining with her sister. So we threw the kids in the car and got Subway for dinner.


Thursday, March 3, 2011

The GREATNESS of UMass...





Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Sorry, but he currently SUX...

The irony is incredible. On the front page of today's USA TODAY (top left corner) is a promo for an article in the sports section on the top prosects in baseball. Along with the tease is a beautiful picture of Phillies prospect Domonic Brown. He looks strong, athletic ... heck, he looks like a young Darryl Strawberry. (Before the drugs, of course.) The problem is Dom Brown currently SUCKS. In three spring training games, he is oh-for-11. Even worse, he has 8 strikeouts.

p
Undoubtedly, he will be a good player. (Cripes -- we hope so.) But he is clearly not ready for anything other than a full season at AAA.



Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Transition period...

Spent 40 minutes in the freezing outdoors practicing lacrosse and baseball with The Playmaker.