iggymcfly

I liked Hogan just straight up tapping out to Angle at KOR 2002. I know it's not an original finish per se as Angle's pulled people from the ropes more than once, but just the idea that Hogan wouldn't be able to escape the submission, and would actually have to tap out, that was fantastic.

Here's the deal with Duke. Since they have so little depth, their players get a little fatigued, and they lose a couple games that they shouldn't here and there. However, when they're playing in a big game, and giving their best effort, they get the job done consistently. I knew there would be comments about them being ranked that high, but especially watching that Wake/Duke game, you can just tell they're more talented than Wake Forest. They were one shot away from winning at Wake, and when they were at home, Wake never really had a chance to win the game. Also, you can't really tell me that Duke losing to Maryland and VT is any worse than Wake losing to GT and Florida State. As for the BC thing, I agree completely. When I saw that, I honestly felt embarrassed for them. I remember, earlier in the season, I was at the UCLA/WSU game, and we had almost the same record as them, and the Cougs were actually favored by four points. When we were up three with 5 seconds left, everybody started moving up to the railings, and you could tell they wanted to rush the floor. The idea of it bothered me enough that part of me was actually glad that we gave up the easy three and let them win in overtime.

Just the idea of going to that college is so depressing that I honestly think I might have nightmares about it. If I was going there, I'd have to drop out imediately before I fucking killed myself. Two more things that I noticed from their site: "All lights must be out by midnight." "Freshmen and sophomores may not use their vehicles to go to and from work." OK, for the first one, I can see why they're not accredited. This is supposed to be college right. That would mean that sometimes you would have to study or do homework, and having someone make sure you're in bed by midnight wouldn't really be feasible. And the second one's just ridiculous. They're so into controlling people's lives that they can't even let you have the possibility that you might have a little bit of freedom somewhere. How do they expect these people to function in society? Oh, and when George W. visited there on the campaign trail, he must have wondered what he'd done to himself to share any commonality with these people. I mean when he was in college, he was driving drunk and doing lines of coke. Now, he's the hero for thousands of people who aren't allowed to watch a PG movie.

OK, they're hot and fresh this time. Here's my college basketball rankings for the new week. 1. Illinois 27-0 2. Boston College 22-1 3. North Carolina 22-3 4. Duke 19-4 5. Wake Forest 22-4 6. Oklahoma State 20-3 7. Kansas 20-3 8. Kentucky 20-3 9. Washington 21-4 10. Michigan State 19-4 11. Connecticut 17-6 12. Pittsburgh 18-5 13. Syracuse 22-5 14. Gonzaga 21-4 15. Louisville 23-4 16. Villanova 17-6 17. Arizona 23-4 18. Oklahoma 19-6 19. Alabama 21-4 20. Wisconsin 17-6 21. Utah 23-3 22. Pacific 22-2 23. Charlotte 19-4 24. Notre Dame 16-7 25. Texas Tech 16-7

Scraps would be tight. I'd actually be more interested in the NHL if they had a 30-game season every year. Although at this point, excitement about the prospect of a season is long gone.

Virginia Tech's actually better than people think. They definitely deserve a tourney berth.

I can't believe anyone's really suggesting this thing has some validity. They could sell all the video games they wanted to minors, and at the most, the the store that sold it would be subject to a small fine. BTW, when I was 13, I bought the Slim Shady LP from Wal-Mart, and nobody questioned it. It had the little label on it and everything. Oh, and it didn't hurt my mind either; it just introduced me to good rap.

In real life, I don't remember ever neglecting to correct someone's grammar for fear that they'd "slam a brick in my face".

Maryland's too up-and-down to be worth too much of a feather in the cap. I could see GW pulling a 6/11 upset, but I don't think they'll make it past the second round.

OK, I'll stay on topic. I didn't see Trish on Raw last week because I turned off the show and started playing NCAA after Jericho's shitty promo. It's really embarrassing to see how far downhill he's gone. He's gone from clever and edgy to spilling xenophobic, homophobic crap that only seems funny if your twelve years old or have never been outside your trailer. Really, ever since his storyline with Trish ended, Jericho's been completely lost. He needs to go somewhere radically different with his character right now if he's going to become interesting. Both the typical face character he's been playing off-and-on since 2000 and the typical heel character he's been playing off-and-on since 1997 are completely stale. If I were booking, I'd have him start some kind of a tweener stable. I still think that if they got a group together called the Canadian Mafia that went around in leather jackets or red tuxes, and just targeted people and beat the shit out of them, it would be really good. It would be nice to see the serious dimension of Jericho's character and get him away from the crowd pandering that he does endlessly as both a face and a heel. The only problem is that it would be hard to find people to join at this point. Christian and Trish would have to completely drop the backstory of the last few months if they were to join up, and Lance Storm's no longer on Raw. I'd say that you could start it with just Edge and Jericho, until finally Edge reached out and brought Christian back together with them. As long as they maintained the tension within the group, it could work fine. In fact, they could even add Trish and Tomko, but have Tomko always wear black instead of red or something, as he would only be the bodyguard of the group, and would be refused membership on the grounds of not being Canadian.

Let's forget other sports for a minute. The NHL had plenty of parity last season. The Stanley Cup Finals featured Tampa Bay and Calgary for god's sakes. Those teams weren't spending at anywhere near the levels of Detroit, Colorado, or the NY Rangers. The real issue is that hockey was facing a slight recession in popularity and many of the owners were losing money. To combat this, the NHLPA offered a 24% rollback in salaries to improve the situation immediately, as well as a salary cap and tiered luxury tax to discourage salaries from raising back to too high of a level. However, the NHL realized that the less they pay their players, the more leverage they have in the long run, and decided that they'd make more money by not paying the players a full year's salary to play a 30-game schedule. Thus, the players will be desperate to make a deal next year, and the owners will lock themselves into a situation where they are guaranteed a profit, regardless of business acumen or operating costs.

The baseball strike is actually worse if you think about it. How the players played 100+ games, and then just decided to quit and not finish through to the World Series is beyond me. You'd think a strike could have waited until the end of the year.

According to ESPN, the players are all pressuring Goodenow to make one last offer at the NHLPA press conference, and if he does, there is a chance, however slight, that the NHL will still play this year. Oh, and maybe it's just me but it seems like if they did have a season at this point, this could be great publicity for the NHL. If they'd had a season the whole time, I probably would have only watched one or two games tops, and I wouldn't care at all about the rest of the regular season, but if they did play, I'd be really excited to see some hockey.

It's funny, everybody was saying they had to make a deal at this point, but deep down, I had a really strong feeling that they weren't going to. The thing that really got me was when they were saying on ESPN that the magic number for the cap was going to be $45-46 million, because I knew that Bettman was way too stubborn to go that high. The players' association would have had to cave hardcore, which I thought they might, and apparently they're not doing it.

Bettman won't counter as high as $45 million. I say he waits until about 30 minutes before his press conference tomorrow, and then calls the NHLPA and offers about $43.5 million, they say they'll take $44 million and boom, we have a deal. Even at this point though, I wouldn't put it past them to cancel the season.

Ha, I knew Kentucky was overrated. I may have been a little off on Pittsburgh, but the Wildcats showed they're definitely not a Top 3 team.

Fuck putting over new talent. It's not 1984. Nobody will even remember that shit after two months anyway. If Angle's going to leave wrestling in the next few months, they should hype WM as his last match, and make his match with HBK a co-main event. Let Angle kick out of the superkick, and then have HBK turn heel on him only to lose the match anyway, as Kurt gets one last courageous victory in a double turn. That way, HBK's got somewhere new to go with his character and isn't really hurt by the loss, they get something memorable for Mania, and Kurt gets to go out on top. That would work way better.

I think the Orioles could be really good if they just got a....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pitching staff.

Well, you can weed out a few shitty teams which is all you ever do anyway. In every sport that over half the teams make the playoffs, the regular season is more of a chance to show the fans games than a serious portion of determining a champion. Besides, football has a 16-game season and they seem to do all right. I'm actually really excited about the prospect that they'll save the season, and I think a 28-game schedule will work just fine.

Actually, I just looked at Joe Lunardis bracket on ESPN, and if it stayed like it is now, I'd predict Kansas gets knocked out by Maryland in the second round. With the (obviously tentative) way he has it set I'd have: Alberquerque: (3) Oklahoma St. over (4) Gonzaga Chicago: (1) Illinois over (3) Syracuse Austin: (2) Duke over (8) Maryland Syracuse: (1) North Carolina over (3) Washington I'm not 100% sure who plays who from there, but from the way I understand it, in the Final Four, we'd have: (1) Illinois over (3) Oklahoma St. (2) Duke over (1) North Carolina leading to a championship of (1) Illinois over (2) Duke

Well, Kansas does have an Elite 8 trip and a trip to the national championship in the last two years. I think they're probably an Elite 8 team again this year, but exactly how far they get will depend on their draw.

I have Utah in the Top 25, at number 21 in fact. I was just saying that by Crimson's logic that MSU shouldn't be in the Top 15 because their best win was at Minnesota, then Utah wouldn't deserve to be in the Top 25 because their best win was home against Air Force, and they lost by 26 to Utah State.

The Spartans aren't a great team, but they take care of business. They aren't losing to teams like Memphis (Louisville this week), Oregon State (Washington this week), Washington State (Arizona), UMass (UConn), or San Francisco (Gonzaga). The thing is there are a lot of teams out there that haven't fully proven themselves, but Michigan State's the only four-loss team that hasn't embarrassed themselves yet. They're not ready for the Top Ten yet, but you can't justify dropping them below a team like Louisville or Gonzaga either. If Michigan State doesn't belong in the Top 15, neither does Louisville, and Utah doesn't even belong in the Top 25.

Wow. What an upset and what a basketball game.

Holy shit. That's a crazy three. Kansas could still do it, but it's gonna be awfully tough now.