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.

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.

Kevin Barlow has something lodged in his throat, or he thinks IU is choking.

Thanks to The Big Lead for this gem.

I would think that Tom Crean makes copies of this and puts it up on the locker of every player.

Okay, that sounded so corny.

Great television last night, but there’s a reason that Purdue’s Kevin Barlow is making that choking gesture, since the Hoosiers missed three straight front-ends of one-and-ones late in the game.

Well, we’re about 24 hours removed from the third straight loss by a college basketball team ranked number one in the country–Kentucky’s 68-62 loss to South Carolina.

I, like make UK fans, thought the time to really be nervous about a potential loss for the Cats was last Saturday when they played Arkansas in the game that would’ve basically stamped the number one ranking on them officially.  Cal’s kids wiped right through the Hogs and all was right in Big Blue Nation.

And I also figured there was no need for the Nation to get all uptight about going into South Carolina to play against an inferior team.

But, oh, Ken Pomeroy, the guy I constantly love to link to when it comes to college basketball, knew a loss was coming for Kentucky.  I’m sure most of us did.  But what’s really alarming is that, even before UK’s loss to South Carolina, Pomeroy told the masses that these Wildcats have some obvious flaws (keep in mind, this was BEFORE UK’s Tuesday nignt loss):

This year’s edition of Kentucky has a history of not putting away weaker opponents. Normally that’s a sign of bad things to come, and in this case it’s the direct cause of UK’s lower-than-expected rating. In recent contests against both Georgia and Auburn, the game was tied with eight minutes to go. A week ago the Cats were tied with Florida with five minutes left. Essentially, the Wildcats have been willing to throw away the first 75 to 85 percent of the game. Playing what amounts to a five- to eight-minute game against a less-talented opponent is normally a dangerous thing when done regularly–it gives the more-talented team less time to prove its superiority.

So far, Kentucky hasn’t been burned by this pattern of play. They’ve had some close calls, sure, but they’re still unbeaten. The question is whether UK is headed for a reality check like other teams that have repeated close calls against weak competition, or whether they are truly different.

Pomeroy compares this year’s Kentucky to the ’06 Gonzaga team that had Adam Morrison as the star.  They were so offensively superior than other teams that they didn’t have to play all that tough on defense, put it on cruise control for 35 minutes, then “flip the switch” and win the game.  That is, until they had to play someone with similar offensive talent in the tournament–UCLA–and lost.

It’s just one loss for Kentucky.  Hell, it’s the only loss for the Cats.  But, Pomeroy’s opinion and data have definitely been noted.