EZ The Blog

When a washed-up sports radio host has only one outlet left.

Just hours after Rick Pitino told the local media that all underclassmen players were returning to the Louisville basketball team for the 2010 season (and their brand new KFC Yum! Center), Samardo Samuels may be doing otherwise, but I doubt it.

Over the last three hours, the big scuttlebutt has been exactly whether or not Samuels has declared for the NBA Draft.  The Jamaican Basketball Association issued a release saying just that (click here to read it).  Disclaimer: please TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH.  There are misspellings and misinformation in the release (I’m pretty sure Louisville didn’t make the Final Four).

According to many mock drafts, Samuels may not even get drafted.  Samuels doesn’t show up in DraftExpress.com’s latest mock draft.

My guess is that he’s just testing the waters–declaring for the draft this year, coming back, then going for sure next year.  But who really knows?  The press release, based on grammar alone, is not nearly enough for me to make a really good guess.  But, it’s a guess nonetheless.

But the bigger story is the perception that was created of some lack of communication between Pitino and, arguably, his best returning player.  Only five hours transpired between Pitino saying all players were coming back, and Samuels declaring for the NBA Draft.  Even if Samuels was only testing the waters, I’m pretty sure Pitino would’ve said something about it at his press conference earlier today.

A very bizarre afternoon in Louisville.

(h/t Adam Zagoria at ZagsBlog.com)

Kentucky fans, I know this hurts to relive.  But, it was the best basketball game of all time.

It’s crazy for me.  There’s only a handful of events in my life where I know where I was when that event transpired.

On March 28th, 1992, I was with my grandfather watching the Indiana high school state championship at the old Hoosier Dome (RIP) in Indianapolis.  The game didn’t start until 8pm, but we got back to the arena early to watch the game–Kentucky vs. Duke.

I remember, despite constant grumblings, they wouldn’t show the game on the jumbotron inside the stadium.  So we had to go out to the concourse.

There were more fans crammed in the concourse all the way around the dome watching the classic game than there were in the actual dome itself watching the pregame shootaround for the state’s most important annual basketball game.

It was wild, but you all know that.

Take a look at what this year’s football schedule looks like for Charlie Strong’s first year at the University of Louisville.

What do you think about the schedule?  Comment below.

My crush, Erin Andrews (and, yes, Lady EZ knows), did pretty good last night on Dancing With The Stars for Week 1.  Well, forget my opinion.  We’ll save that for later.  Let’s get to the good stuff.

Now, I caught this video online just like you probably did.  Therefore, I have no frame of reference for how show did comepared to the rest of the field.  But given my high level of expertise in dancing, I hope she continues to improve.  She will need to do so to keep advancing.

(h/t The Big Lead)

Want to see what a 96-team bracket would look like?  I decided to sit down and make one using the NCAA and NIT fields.  Check it out by clicking here: 2010 96-Team NCAA Tournament.

Keep in mind that this is using the NIT teams to add the extra 32 teams.  So some teams got in based on winning their conference’s regular season (therefore getting the automatic bid to the NIT).  I didn’t mess with the seeds too much.  I kept most of the seeds the same, except I moved the low-conference automatic bid winners down to seeds 22 through 24, and stuck the NIT teams above that, seeding them solely based on RPI.  Just so you know.

Enjoy.

One of the reasons I’ll probably never make it big time in the sports radio biz (besides the fact that I’m not very good at it) is because I don’t “attempt” to make “shock jock” radio. Now, sometimes it can come off that way I’m sure.  But, it’s definitely not intended.

To me, though, the kind of radio that WFAN’s Mike Francesa tried to pull off yesterday is the definition of “shock jock” (I hate that term).  It’s also some of the same material that has made Francesa a household name to many across the country, especially in the Northeast.

And it’s also the kind of radio that I refuse to do, for better or worse for me personally and professionally.

No need to give it any context, and it is a bit long.  You don’t need to watch the whole thing to get the drift (although the part that really sends me over the edge is at the very end).  It gets more and more tense the further you go.

Not that’s it up to me…

But after Syracuse’s second-straight loss (losing to Georgetown) and subsequent early exit from the Big East Tournament, I keep hearing the talking heads tell me that Syracuse is still a 1-seed.

If the tourney started today, they’re probably right.

But, as we learned with Louisville last year, wins in the conference tournament can serve as a last-minute caapul to that top line.

That’s two losses in a row for the Orange–still one of the favorites to win it all. Find me another team who entered the dance on a two-game losing streak and was still a 1-seed?

There’s still a lot of conference tourney hoops to be played.

Now, other teams that want that slot have some work to do, but there are a few who I think can swap with the Orange IF AND ONLY IF they win their respective conference tournaments:

- Kansas State
– Purdue
– Ohio State
– West Virginia

All of these teams would’ve theoretically pulled off some monumental wins en route to their conference crown.

And the top line.

I’ve always wanted to go to the Big East Tournament.  I’ve never been to Madison Square Garden and I thought this year may be the year where I could pull it off.

So I got tickets, for the whole shebang… and I can’t go.

So I sold my two tickets in the lower level (Row F) for all 15 games of the tournament for $1,500.  I was under the gun, and I let the buyer (a Villanova fan) off with a good deal ($750 per ticket–or $50 per game–compared to what they’ve sold for on StubHub, is a STEAL).

So I decided to check out the average prices for similar tickets at all of the big conference tournaments FOR ALL SESSIONS, to see which ticket was really the most valuable.  Here’s what I came up with.

Big East: $1,695 ($113/game) – Probably could’ve sold mine for a lot closer to this price per ticket if I would’ve moved a little quicker.

SEC: $956 ($87/game)

ACC: $626 ($57/game)

Big 12: $589 ($54/game)

Big Ten: $419 ($42/game)

Pac 10: $340 ($38/game)

So, there you go.  If I’m going for value, I’m heading to Conseco Fieldhouse for the Big Ten Tournament.  I was surprised by the price of the ticket for the SEC Tournament.  Well done, Kentucky (I refuse to give any other team credit for the price of that ticket, not even my man Bruce Pearl).

I’ve been so bad about posting, but I’m a busy guy. The daily radio show (and all that surrounds it), is a full time job. My apologies (as if you care)!

Howie Lindsey, with CardinalSports.com, send local media a list of games each week for us to pick winners on. I’ve been near the top (at least last I checked), but NOT QUITE THERE.

With it being championship week, instead of picking winners of individual games, it’s time for us to pick conference champions.

Here are my picks:
BIG EAST – WVU
BIG 12 – KANSAS
ACC – DUKE
PAC-10 – WASHINGTON
BIG TEN – MICH ST
MOUNTAIN WEST – BYU
ATLANTIC-10 – RHODE ISLAND
CONFERENCE USA – UAB
SUN BELT – NORTH TEXAS
SEC – KENTUCKY

Where have I gone wrong? Let me know.

To me, it’s funny and not all that brutal, but my goodness–Rick Pitino was mad last night, and Ralph Willard may have got the brunt of it.  Steve Masiello, literally, was taken aback by it.  Make your own observations.