Sports fodder for a Friday morning ... There was a time not too long ago when it was interesting to see Tiger Woods lose any golf tournament, let alone a major. Tiger losing was like the sun setting in the east, the Nevada Wolf Pack football team beating Boise State or Bobby Knight smiling on camera. It just didn't happen very often, if at all. Well, Tiger losing is no longer interesting. In fact, now it's just plain sad and boring. Golf needs Tiger to win. Golf fans need Tiger to win. Charlie Sheen is right. We all need some Tiger blood. Golf without Tiger winning is as intriguing as heavyweight boxing since Muhammad Ali retired. Where have you gone, Tiger Woods? Tiger! Come back! OK, sorry, enough with the tired music and movie references. So, like a wise old man with too much hair gel once said, "Just win, Tiger." And hurry up about it.
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Derrell Conner and Marko Cukic officially leaving the Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball team this week is good news for all parties involved. Conner and Cukic weren't going to play much, if at all, next year. No offense to Conner and Cukic, but this isn't the same as losing Luke Babbitt and Armon Johnson. The Wolf Pack roster this past season was far too bulky and unmanageable. At times it resembled an American Idol try-out at the Oakland Coliseum with waves of players coming and going off the bench. If this group of players is going to get the Pack back to the promised land (the NCAA Tournament) in the next two or three years, the roster needed to be pared down.
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If Dennis Rodman can get into the basketball Hall of Fame, who's next? World B. Free? Rodman is simply not a Hall of Famer. The guy was never the first, second, third or even the fourth best player on any team he played for and that includes Southeastern Oklahoma State, the ABA's Long Beach Jam, Orange County Crush and Tijuana Dragons and Madonna. Rodman was a great rebounder late in his career, a solid defensive player early in his career, a nice piece to a championship puzzle and one of the all-time great cartoon characters. But he was never a great basketball player. He couldn't shoot, dribble, pass, handle the ball or make smart decisions on the court. And, oh yeah, he embarrassed his sport on a daily basis off the court. Just this week he showed up dressed like Sonny Bono in the 1960s for the Hall of Fame announcement. The wedding dress, we assume, must have been at the cleaners. This is a Hall of Famer?
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It seems like it is only a matter of time before the Sacramento Kings leave for Southern California. That could make the greater Los Angeles area the modern day version of the New York football and baseball Giants with two teams with the same name. The Los Angeles hockey Kings? Doesn't sound right. Can So-Cal really support three NBA teams? Can they even support two NBA teams? The NBA needs to step in and prevent this from happening. Sacramento supported that sorry franchise through years of ugly basketball. The league owes it to Sacramento to keep the Kings in No-Cal.
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Nobody should have been shocked to see Butler and Connecticut play arguably the worst NCAA Tournament title game in history. That's what happens when you get four good, but not great, teams in the Final Four. The whole theory of the Cinderella in the tournament is all well and good. But the Prince only marries Cinderella in the fairytale. In real life the glass slippers eventually shatter, the coach and horses they used to get to the Final Four turn into a pumpkin and a bunch of frantic mice who can't hit a 12-foot jumper. Unfortunately, though, we might need to get used to ugly Final Four weekends. All of the great college basketball talent is now in the NBA. The quality of play in college hoops now is sort of like the D-League with hustling players. It doesn't always make for aesthetic basketball.
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LeBron James' mother was charged with assaulting a valet this week because her car wasn't retrieved quickly enough. Witnesses said there was a strong smell of alcohol on her breath. And you wonder why LeBron acted last summer like a spoiled kid who didn't have any guidance from his elders? Now you know why.
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James doesn't get it. He'll never get it. He was shocked last summer when the city of Cleveland reacted negatively when he announced he was signing with the Miami Heat. And now he signs a marketing deal with the Boston Red Sox owners and the Fenway Sports Group. Why would a member of the Miami Heat associate himself with anything to do with the city of Boston? Why? He's LeBron. That's why. This is the same guy, don't forget, that used to wear New York Yankee hats around Cleveland and couldn't understand why Indians fans were upset. Don't you want to be there the first time he wears a Yankee hat to one of his Fenway Sports Group functions? Maybe then he'll finally get it.