Sports fodder for a Friday morning ...We should have seen it coming. Mark Fox leaving the Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball program for the Georgia Bulldogs shouldn't shock anybody. First of all, basketball coaches come and go. It's what they do. And, second, Fox continually dropped hints to us all season that he wasn't exactly thrilled to be coaching at Nevada anymore. In February he went out of his way to tell us how assistant coach David Carter should be the next Pack coach once he leaves the program. He made that passionate plea, by the way, in front of athletic director Cary Groth in a postgame press conference. A few weeks later, right before the Pack was to host a College Basketball Invitational game at Lawlor Events Center, Fox told us how he asked the athletic program to make sure his team went out on the road for the game. In that same press conference he pointed out how the NCAA looks down on teams from conferences like the Western Athletic Conference when it comes to picking teams for the NCAA Tournament and NIT.
---
Make no mistake, the Wolf Pack will miss Fox. But this program survived the loss of Trent Johnson and it will survive the loss of Fox, especially if Carter is indeed the new coach. Hiring Carter might be crucial for the Pack to keep this successful era going, if only to make sure that young players like Luke Babbitt, Armon Johnson and Dario Hunt remain in Silver & Blue. Carter has certainly earned the job.
---
Fox was never going to retire at Nevada. The guy proved right from the start that he was a big-time coach. He deserves to be at a big-time school like Georgia, where he can now go up against his buddy Johnson at LSU every year.
---
Have you made any plans for this Thanksgiving weekend yet? Well, how does a couple days in Boise sound? Pretty awesome, huh? You bet. Well, you better get your hotel room now, you know, before the guys in the orange hunting vests grab them all.
This Nov. 27, the Friday after Turkey Day, the Wolf Pack football team will take on the hated Boise State Broncos in what could be the biggest game in Nevada history. A nine-game losing streak against the hated Boise Boys should be enough to get the Wolf Pack excited to go to Boise. But how does an 11-0 Wolf Pack record going into the game sound with visions of a BCS bowl game dancing in your head?
---
Hey, it's April. It's OK to dream, right? The Pack opens its season at Notre Dame and Colorado State before debuting at home against Missouri. That's three wins right there. Notre Dame hasn't been Notre Dame since Lou Holtz left South Bend. Colorado State lost its top running back (Gartre Johnson) and quarterback (Billy Farris) off last year's team. Missouri is starting over with 59 freshmen and just one senior on its roster. After that comes very winnable games against UNLV, Louisiana Tech. Utah State, Idaho, Hawaii, San Jose State, Fresno State and New Mexico State. That makes the Pack 11-0 for the first time since 1991, heading to Boise on a tryptophan high. A perfect 12-0 regular season is there for the taking. The Pack will be the Utah of 2009. Dare to dream, Pack fans.
---
But enough about football season. It's still basketball season, right? If your NCAA bracket was destroyed (like mine) last weekend and you are looking for someone to root for in the Final Four, how about North Carolina? The Tar Heels could become just the second team in history to win a NCAA Tournament after playing the Wolf Pack in the same season. UTEP, in its historical 1965-66 title year, is the only team to play the Pack in the same season it won a national title.
Pack and advance to the Final Four in the same season. The others are Cal (1946), Drake (1969), UTEP (1966), UNLV (1987, 1991), Georgia Tech (2004), Illinois (2005), UCLA (2006) and North Carolina last year. Now go win a bar bet.
. . .
Do you want a prediction from someone who thought Pitt would beat Memphis (hey, anybody could have predicted North Carolina over Connecticut, right?) in the NCAA title game? Michigan State is going to have a big home court advantage this weekend. Villanova is certainly playing well. But, like the Celtics and Lakers in the NBA, it's hard to pick against North Carolina and Connecticut facing each other on Monday night. When the Tar Heels are whipping UConn, think back to those first 10 minutes at Lawlor on New Year's Eve when the Pack was better than the best team in college basketball.
. . .
The NCAA needs a new basketball rule. How about making it a violation to fire a head coach, look for a head coach or announce the hiring of a new head coach during the NCAA tournament? Why take away any of the attention from the teams and players that deserve it this time of year? All of the Tim Floyd, John Calipari, Arizona, Memphis, Virginia, USC, Kentucky (the list goes on and on) talk this month is a bit ugly. We should be focusing on all of the great accomplishments on the court at this time of year and not all of the slimy coaching moves going on.
. . .
Do you want a baseball prediction from someone who thought the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series last year? Well, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels will make the playoffs in the American League and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cubs, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies will make it in the National League. The Cubs will beat the Angels in the World Series. And, no, none of those teams will play the Wolf Pack this season.
. . .
If we can dream in April about Wolf Pack football, we had better start dreaming about the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's. You know, before it's too late. If we can predict a 12-0 Pack football season we can certainly tell you that the Giants have a legitimate chance to win half their games and finish second in their division. We love the Giants pitching and youth in the everyday lineup with Pablo Sandoval, Fred Lewis and Travis Ishikawa. The A's? It's hard to dream about this team. Jason Giambi and Nomar Garciaparra will likely spend half the year on the disabled list (or bench) and Matt Holliday will almost definitely be traded by Aug. 1. Couple that with the fact that nobody but Billy Beane can name three pitchers on the A's roster and, well, it looks like a 75-win year in Oakland.
. . .
The North Carolina men's team isn't the only Wolf Pack connection to basketball royalty this weekend. The Louisville women, which lost to the Wolf Pack in the Nugget Classic in late November, are in the Final Four in St. Louis on Sunday. It was the greatest victory in Wolf Pack women's basketball history. By the way, Louisville's Angel McCoughtry was the best player -- man or woman -- to play at Lawlor this season.