The Bitter 48

Or is it the Sweet 16?

            It’s gettin a little played out to just blame the refs every time your favorite team loses or your least favorite squad wins.  Check the scoreboard at the end of the game, read it, and quit actin like, well, use your imagination.

I Heart Delusional Knick Fans

When you read things like this:

“If the New York Knicks trade Randolph and either Eddy Curry or Jamal Crawford for short-term deals, they can be under the cap and in the bidding for King James.”

This sort of thing just illustrates the make believe world that the once proud New York Knicks currently reside in.  As if Jimmy Dolan, Zeke Thomas, and Starbury weren’t cartoonish enough, the media and the delusional fans feed even more into the fantasy that success is possible here.

Handicapping the S.O.D. race already:

2-man race in my eyes… I’ll toss out some others just because.

1. Lavelle Hawkins, Cal WR

2. Tom Zbikowski, Notre Dame SS

PJN: Tourney Go Time!

 

    I’ve had a couple requests to breakdown the brackets before things get goin’, so I figured I better get on this. I figured I’d just go region through region, and give you all places where I think upsets could happen, as well as give you who I think will play in the regional finals and then my Final Four picks:

Championship Week notes from the UL

First of all, we gotta change this UL, there has to be something better than that, Esa, get on it!

So, as this week has gone on, there have been some upsets, some beat downs, some coaches calling a timeout with 2:04 left in the game, with their team down 4, and walking into the locker room for the duration of the timeout, and some more horrible officiating. Where to begin…?

It’s Never Too Early to Get Your Story Straight: The NFL On the Move

While all the world will be focusing on March Madness this month, then the NBA Play-offs and Finals [assuming they’re not of the Spurs vs. Cavaliers snooze-fest variety], I will be wildly working away at providing you with pertinent information on the NFL and the goings on within [or as best I can for not having that kind of access]. All of my analyses will be in an effort to help you get your story straight for the upcoming season. If you haven’t noticed, teams are currently making moves and game-planning for this year’s draft. I plan on bringing to you a post ’07-’08 wrap-up with looks to the future, a post draft/free agency wrap-up, a pre-season outlook and some sure bets for all those fantasy football teams you manage [I know you have at least 2 ;-)]. At the end of the day (read: season), you’ll be able to look back and say, “You know what, that guy on the blog sure had some insightful advice” or you might find yourself saying, “Hey! That douche really screwed me with all his so-called ‘analyses’… douche.” Either way, it’ll be a learning and growing experience for us all.

Hope to be reading you all soon. 🙂

Dissent in the UL

I know I am in fact a Pac-10 guy.  So is it wrong for me to doubt that the Pac-10 is as good as ESPN says we are?  We have 1 great team in UCLA, 1 really good team in Stanford, and then we have 3 alright teams that I think get way too much cred in Wazzou, SoCal, and Arizona State.  And why are we even still talking about Oregon, Arizona and Washington?  For all the times in football season that I complain about East Coast bias, you’d think I would just embrace generous praise… Oregon is just so obviously inconsistent and unclutch!  Getting a berth just seems so unjust… you must acquit.

Blaze Nation: Rise of the Upper Left Coast

The North East corner of the United States is always relevant. Even when the NY Knicks aren’t relevant, they are relevant because of their irrelevance. Beantown has risen to an epic level with Football and Baseball teams dominating their sports over the last half decade, and if the NBA Season goes as many are predicting, the C’s will be Red Auerbaching their way into Pats and Sox company.

The lower part of the Left Coast is never short of attention, hype and expectation with its Hollywood, Dodger blue, the Purple and Gold, 49er Gold, the Golden Bear’s Allison Stokke, UCLA Hoops, USC football, LA Kings, and most importantly LA Sparks.

PJN’s Tourney Punchout…

What up ya’ll, it’s your boy Petejn back to drop a little more college hoops knowledge. Hopefully you’re all immersed in the week that is conference tourneys! I’m currently watchin one of my sleeper picks get drilled. If Rider can make the comeback, I’d love ’em for it, but you gotta understand their second best player, Ryan Thompson, is out with an injury. I may know my stuff, but even I can’t predict injuries! This second go round I’ma hit you up with a list of teams that I feel have a chance to make it to San Antonio, but I don’t feel can win it all.

Blaze Nation: Tomorrow

It isn’t often that a team that is 6.5 games out of the final playoff spot gets talked about as often as the current installment of Port Town’s Blazers do. I get the distinct feeling in my interactions with other Blaze Nationals, that they just assume Portland should be talked about on ESPN as glowingly as they are, or on TNT telecasts that don’t even feature the Blazers, just because we think that highly about our hometown boys. We should take the time to understand how out of the ordinary this actually is. Keep in mind that the #9 Nuggets and the #8 Warriors don’t get as much run as the #10 Blazers. That’s right, 2 teams vying against one another for the final playoff spot in the uber competitive Left Conference are apparently so much less compelling that they lose airtime to a team they are a combined 11 games better than.