The NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the Washington Redskins trading for the number two pick in this year’s NFL draft (Robert Griffin, III) have been competing for time at the water cooler over the past couple of weeks in D.C. Before the Indiana Pacers game last week, I first asked several Washington Wizards players how their brackets were doing, here are some of their responses:

Shelvin Mack:

“I don’t wanna talk about my bracket. It is awful right now.”

Roger Mason Jr.: Read more »

There were no NBA games to be watched on Monday night, which meant like everyone else, I had to view that poorly-played NCAA championship game between Butler and Connecticut.  I sat down expecting to see the best from Connecticut’s Kemba Walker, and Butler’s Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack. I expected to see these experienced players lead their respective teams to a well-played, nip-and-tuck affair.  Instead, I saw field-goal percentages that rivaled winter temperatures and turnovers that even the Washington Generals would not make.

Connecticut was able to shake off the poor play just long enough to make a late game run and come out victorious 53-41.  Walker had a game-high 16 points to go with nine rebounds, Connecticut center Alex Oriahki had 11 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, and in a losing effort, Mack had 13 points and nine rebounds. Howard added seven points and six rebounds for the Bulldogs, but he shot 1-13 and he was a non-factor throughout the game.

Although Walker led the team in scoring and made some timely shots throughout the night, the key to Connecticut’s victory was freshman Jeremy Lamb.  After missing his only two field-goal attempts with no points in the first half, Lamb went 4-6 with 12 points in the second half, giving his Huskies a desperately needed cushion.  When Connecticut faced its largest deficit of 25-19 after Butler’s Chase Stigall hit a three 20 seconds into the second half, Lamb scored 11 of his team’s next 18 points during a 18-3 run that saw UConn take the lead for good at 37-28 with 11 minutes left in the game.

As happy as I was for the freshman, I immediately became concerned that this strong performance in an otherwise mediocre game would inflate his ego — and more importantly, his NBA prospects.  I worried that Lamb would ignore Kemba Walker’s shining example of how a good player leads his team from November to March, and attempt to ride into the NBA on the heels of an OK season and a one very good college game (although, worth noting that Lamb scored 97 points over six NCAA Tournament games, an average of 16.2 points that topped his 11.1 points per game during the season).  At one point I even tweeted that I hoped Lamb had a sub par game, so he would be convinced to stay in college.

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{photo: A. McGinnis, TAI}

The birth of the John Wall Dance phenomenon was fueled solely by Kentucky Wildcats’ fans, before the craze went nationwide and ultimately became Wall’s pop culture trademark. The initial act at Kentucky’s Midnight Madness before Wall’s freshman year was the first glimpse of the special relationship between Big Blue Nation and Wall.

Their admiration has carried over to his professional career with UK fans coming in droves to see Wall play throughout his rookie NBA season. It is almost a guarantee that you will see several Kentucky jerseys and UK related signs at every Wizards home games. The Washington organization wisely welcomed the D.C.-area Kentucky alumni group to a home contest versus the Sacramento Kings earlier this season featuring Wall against his former UK teammate Demarcus Cousins.

Cats fans have even supported Wall all over the country through the Wizards’ 0-25 road record. A large contingent almost equal to those rooting for the Pacers supported Wall when Washington visited Indiana for an afternoon game on New Year’s Eve 2010.

The love is a two-way street and reciprocated heavily by the 2010 SEC Player of the Year.  Anyone who follows Wall’s Twitter account (@jimmywa11) knows he is always tweeting about #BBN (Big Blue Nation) and wishing this year’s Wildcat team luck.

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Recently I had a chance to interview Clark Kellogg over the phone. It was set up by a PR team in conjunction with promoting the Capital One Cup, which is a new award to be given out to the top men’s and women’s collegiate athletic programs (you’ve likely seen commercials about this on ESPN).

Points for the Cup will be accumulated according to how schools fare across 13 tiered men’s and women’s Division I sports programs (Men’s: Tier 1 – football, basketball, and baseball; T2 – soccer, swimming & diving, outdoor track & field, and lacrosse; T3 – cross country, wrestling, ice hockey, indoor track & field, golf, and tennis; Women’s: Tier 1: volleyball, basketball, and softball; T2; soccer, swimming & diving, outdoor track & field, and lacrosse; T3: cross country, field hockey, indoor track & field, golf, tennis, and rowing — Tier 1 sports are worth three times the points, Tier 2 sports are worth two times, and Tier 3 sports are worth their actual point number. Sports are tiered to “reward success in sports with the most student athlete participation and fan interest.”).

Schools with the most cumulative points across all men’s and women’s sports will each be presented with a trophy, $200,000 to fund student-athlete graduate-level scholarships, and will be honored at the ESPY Awards held in July. Top 10 finishers for men’s and women’s sports cumulative point totals will also each be recognized.

Kellogg was selected by Capital One to be an advisory board member for the award along with Doug Flutie, Brandi Chastain, Lisa Leslie, Robin Ventura and Rece Davis.

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John Wall, heard of him?

Okay, good. David Falk recently made him the “official” number one overall draft pick of the Washington Wizards. Didn’t know Falk, as Evan Turner’s agent, still had that power.

All kidding aside, Wall has been the pick for a long time now. The hype surrounding the assumption he would be taken by the Wizards became so pressurized that even small considerations of taking Turner became unreasonable — potentially creating another situation akin to when the Timberwolves traded Brandon Roy for Randy Foye.

Not saying that the schism between Foye and Roy as players would be emulated by Turner and Wall, Turner could very well be better. But a selection of Turner over Wall would create a situation where you’d have one player being measured in comparison to the other before they ever step on the court (I know, with Roy and Foye it was a little bit different).

Sounds unfair, and perhaps an irrational buy into the hype. So, I guess it’s silly to play this ‘what-if’ game and Wizards fans should just continue with the assumption they’ve been making all along, that John Wall is coming to D.C., and not look back … even though Ted Leonsis says he’s not allowed to talk about Wall. Curious, since barely after the Los Angeles Clippers won the 2009 NBA Draft Lottery, Mike Dunleavy, who severed ties with the franchise in March 2010, said, “Clearly, we’re taking Blake Griffin.” The day after winning the lottery, the Clippers began a marketing campaign featuring Griffin.

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As previously mentioned, Cedric Jackson, who signed with the Washington Wizards from the D-League on March 31st, went to Cleveland State. The Vikings are in the same conference as the Butler Bulldogs, whom they beat for the Horizon League title in 2009 to advance to the NCAA Tournament; as a 13-seed, Cleveland State won its first round game against 4-seed Wake Forest. But in that ’09 Horizon championship game, Butler’s Gordon Hayward had seven points,  Matt Howard had 14 and Shelvin Mack had 18. Meanwhile, Cedric Jackson threw up 19 points, eight assists and seven rebounds … and got the 57-54 win.

His opinion being qualified, I briefly chatted with Cedric about Butler and the 2010 NCAA championship before Tuesday’s game against the Golden State Warriors.

One sad tiger.
flickr/zeandroid

Congratulations to the Kansas Jayhawks for persevering to win the NCAA championship last night. Today, everyone has been concentrating on the missed Memphis Tiger free-throws, and well, they should. No, the game wasn’t exactly lost or won on a single play…..they rarely are. But it seems like we are conditioned to pick out the most egregious mistake and focus on it like it’s our one and only. But aside from this season, Memphis has had a tumultuous relationship with the free-throw line in the past.

Let me take you back to March 12, 2005. Memphis, with a record of 16-14 entering the Conference USA tournament, won three straight games (against Saint Louis, Charlotte and USF) to set up a championship match against 28-4 Louisville. Before the CUSA tournament began, Memphis had no chance of making the Big Dance and was probably going to come up short of the NIT as well.

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I must apologize to the good folks at We Rite Goode. I’ve neglected their work, which is written very well. How could I oversight inclusion in my Google Reader? Well, it happened.

After doing a google search for LeDell Eackles, thanks to this post from Mr. Irrelevant, I re-stumbled across this We Rite Goode post about our buddy LeDell, which sparked so many childhood memories of LaBradford Smith [dunking on the UCLA Bruins], Pervis Ellison [whudda thunk?, a highlight reel dedicated to Pervis....in a Bullets uniform], and Michael Adams. I could go on and on like grandpa on scotch; I’ll unlock my Bullets vault one day. By the way, it’s not like I never went to WR Goode, I just didn’t digest in my daily dose, thus missing some good shit (for lack of a better word). Point being, I’m back.

[Coincidently, it seems that Jake from Bullets Forever saw the same Ledell Eackles post from Mr. Irrelevant, googled LeDell to see what would return, and came up with a different LeDell Eackles-themed We Rite Goode post, It's French for 'the dell' - also well worth the read]

So, in catching up with WRG, I thoroughly enjoyed this more recent post, Root of the problem: New website, same old complaints which spoke of this article on theroot.com [I Don't Do Brackets, and Here's Why. by Martin Johson]. Thus inspired to do so, I began composing a comment on WRG which became obnoxiously long before I knew it…..obviously down the path towards a blog post of my own.

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OJ Mayo: “I’m all about some me” – Okay, not a direct quote. But after my introduction to the kid via watching this video of Mayo’s last high school dunk, it’s easy to assume. Nice dunk, but then you realize there’s still time left on the clock after he throws the ball in the stands and celebrates himself while showing up the other team, along with getting a technical foul.

Still not convinced he’s a jerk? Well, go watch this video of OJ pushing a ref to the floor. He gets one technical foul after a dunk. The clip is cut, but he seems to hold onto the ball after the jam in yet another celebration of himself. A player from the opposing team seems to bait OJ into getting a second tech, after which he knocks the referee to the floor.

If you still aren’t convinced, I implore you a read more:

• Down With The OJ Mayo Era by Bill Simmons
• Or….the famed ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you’ NY Times article on Mayo
• Or….FireThisPerson.com’s thoughts on OJ Mayo
• Or….Baron Davis wondering who the hell this kid thinks he is.

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