This Weekend in Sports

This Weekend in Sports

I guess this weekend is kind of like the calm before the storm when it comes to sports. Next weekend you will start to have some exciting college basketball match-ups with conference rivals battling it out as the regular season schedule nears an end; you will have a FULL baseball team practicing (do pitchers and catchers REALLY gain that much by reporting one week earlier?) and the NFL Combine will have just concluded, leading to “Who will the Steelers take in the 4th round this year?” talk. But this week was really just boring!! It was so boring that I actually watched the marathon of “Beauty and the Geek” that was on MTV today. Go ahead and make fun of me, but I know everyone out there has their television shows they watch and enjoy but won’t admit it. Hey, I’m admitting it! Honestly though, that is how exciting this weekend was in sports. Anyway, here is my recap.

SATURDAY:
*A bunch of college hoops, but very few, if any, really interesting match-ups. Sure, North Carolina at Boston College was for the ACC lead, but everyone knows that Boston College doesn’t even belong in the same gym as UNC so that wasn’t really worth watching.
*The NBA skills contests were on TNT. Did you know that they actually broadcast the skills contest on ESPN radio???? How boring is that? It was the worst radio that I have ever heard, and that includes my shows on the Point Park station. For the most part those contests are interesting, but I would change them up a bit. For example, the 3-point contest, oops, my fault, the AT&T Long Distance Shootout needs to be more of a game-like shooting contest. I don’t care if a guy can get 24 of 30 points standing still while picking a ball up off a rack. How often do you pick a ball up off a rack during the game? Ok, so we add a passer, and now the guy has to catch and shoot like a game. I also think you need to put up a 7-8 foot high Plexiglas wall about two feet in front of the shooter. This would pose as a defender because again, how many wide open looks do you get during a game? That is enough on the shooting. Next is the dunk contest. All I want to see in the dunk contest is power and verticals. I don’t care if you can jump over a box and dunk a ball; I’ve never seen a box just sitting in the middle of the court during a game. A new rule, if you are going to use props they must be things that are on the court during a game, so that limits us to human beings. If you want to impress me, ask Shaq to stand under the hoop and try to block your dunk. If you make it, you win! Also, I was upset when I heard that Dwight Howard wanted to raise the hoop to 12-feet for a dunk. That would have been impressive, but they wouldn't let him! Yeah, I know, the hoop isn’t 12-feet during the game, but that at least shows some skill for someone to jump that high and dunk a basketball.

SUNDAY
*This Sunday, which is celebrated all over the Deep South and as far North as West Virginia for one thing, we like to call it the Redneck New Year. The running of the Daytona 500 took place today; here is my brief recap:
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
CRASH
*The Penguins did play and win again today, which was nice, they are 14-0-2 in their last 16 games. With a win tomorrow in New York they would match the team record of 17 straight games without a loss, dating back to the 92-93 season.
*The NBA All-Star game took place tonight, although it seemed that more players selected for the game missed due to injuries than actually took part. My brief recap of the NBA All-Star game:
DUNK
DUNK
Unnecessary fancy pass, which leads to a DUNK
Alley-Oop DUNK
DUNK

Hopefully, you were busy this week skiing, shopping, and heck, doing anything BUT watching sports. If you were that fortunate, good job on your scheduling. Just make sure it is the last weekend until Mid-April that you have anything planned because for the next 7 weekends or so, you won’t want to leave your couch.