Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
It happened to me again the other day and my frustration continues to grow.
Imagine a man who innocently walks in a sporting goods store, or perhaps even in a department store, with the sole intention of replacing his running suit which he has worn to shreds, and his wife threatens to throw out when he is not looking.
It is a given that male pride tells him he can find the exact running suit he needs to fit his particular needs without his wife accompanying him.
He edges up to a row of running suits and first looks at material and color. He needs to know if he wants lining in his running suit for colder winter weather or something lighter for hot summer weather.
Color is also important. Being a Michigan State University graduate I understand that a green and white running suit could make an important statement about me as opposed to a maize and blue number that screams the University of Michigan.
One must also be careful about the color green. A light green simply will not do. A British racing green is perfect. The latter is almost impossible to find so usually I settle for a blue and white, two-tone blue or black running suit.
If I were an amateur and not a lifelong athlete then I would purchase the suit and be on my way. Since I competed for Michigan State and continue to be not only a masters (40 and over) but a seniors (50 and over) runner, there is one more critical test to make before the purchase.
Any running suit I buy must have pockets with zippers in the jacket, front pockets with zippers and a back pocket with a zipper in the pants. The operative word here is zippers in case you missed the point. Some suits have fewer pockets and one pocket with Velcro as an afterthought.
When I find another running suit with the exact combination of zippers I want, it will be a miracle similar to Michigan State winning another national championship in football. The probability of this happening in my lifetime is close to zero.
People who design running suits today could not possibly be athletes or people who are interested in safeguarding their valuables. Pockets without zippers allow wallets, money and keys to fly out when running or even sitting in a chair.
What exactly is wrong with designers that they do not create what any sane, athletic man wants and used to get in a running suit? Are the designers all without half a brain in their head, or do they not care enough to make what the consumer needs?
I believe that what has happened in the design industry is that the people who design have been told to cater to a younger buyer who is interested in fashion and not utility. We have millions of kids and young adults running around the country today who want to look athletic and cool but are not athletic or cool.
They are the pawns of the fashion industry who are easily led to slaughter by designers with no other intent than putting out a new fashionable fall color to ring the cash register.
The biggest culprit just might be Nike, you know, the company that does not need to use its name because it has the carefully marketed and branded swoosh to announce its presence.
When I competed at Michigan State, Nike was not even a thought in Phil Knight's head. It was some years after I graduated that Nike was born and rose to prominence as a store for athletes, especially runners.
Steve Prefontaine was Nike's only spokesman and symbol. Pre was America's greatest middle distance runner in his prime and is American's greatest running legend.
I cannot tell you how saddened I was when I went to Nike's huge store in Seattle and found only a few pair of actual running shoes, all of the rest were fashion shoes for kids to show off.
Once Nike became serious about manufacturing running apparel things have really gone downhill. I was in Macy's yesterday looking at Nike running suits and found no zippers or Velcro on any pockets. Everything was made in Thailand and accompanied by an expensive price tag. Good grief!
Nike might as well advertise itself as the fashion wear leader since athletes and runners have been pushed aside to make room for more sales and profits. You would think that some enterprising person would figure out the void and fill it with the product I want and need.
I am disgusted with current running suits and the designers who design them.
I am even more disgusted with Nike and Phil Knight. He competed for the University of Oregon as a runner. He has made millions and apparently donated millions to the Ducks' athletic program but cannot now even make running suits for runners that have a single zipper to protect valuables.
Even Pre would not wear the running suits Nike is manufacturing today. That makes two of us.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
What Makes a Person Want to Run, and Why Few Will Ever Know the Joy of Running
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
He stood there by the side of the track, looking sweaty and satisfied but dazed.
My teammates and I had just come back from a leisurely 10-mile run through the woods and along the banks of the Red Cedar River, and I felt compelled to wander over and ask, "Are you OK, man?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but confused," he answered, looking like he was at a loss for words. "I tried to tell my roommate what it's like to be out here. Do you think he will ever understand?"
"No, don't even try," replied I. "Just be thankful that you are here; leave him where he is."
People just do not get it, unless, of course, you are a middle distance runner, and even more so if you have been a very good middle distance runner.
I remember those fall workouts on the Michigan State University campus when the leaves on the deciduous trees would burst into color along the wooded trail, and the sunshine would filter down through the trees.
Running gives you peace of mind that settles your soul.
You bound along at a pace that would exhaust the average person, but you are trained to run at a brisk pace for a long time and distance. You would run faster in a race, but your goal today is to finish feeling pleasantly tired, knowing that you could have run much faster.
I have my high school cross-country coach to thank for introducing me to the pure joy of running.
Like many of us who have become successful in life, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to a certain teacher or coach who influenced us in a way that we will never forget.
In my case, it was my coach Varnard Gay, a finer person you will never meet on your best day. He would buy shoes for minority kids who could not afford them. He would go and pick up kids who had no way to get to the school meets and no money to ride a bus. He never said a word, he just did it, as naturally as he would breathe while running.
Varnard was arguably one of the greatest high school cross-country and track coaches ever. He just missed qualifying for the 1932 Olympic Games by 2/10ths of a second if memory serves me correctly. In his day he was the only coach in Michigan high school history to win state championships in all four size divisions.
He was an incredible coach who guided his cross-country and track teams to many championships and trained many Flint Central High School athletes to win state titles and to set state, regional, local and school records.
Varnard would call me aside and remind me that my success in running was great, but that I should continue running after my high school and college careers. He would have been smiling from above when I checked in to compete in the 1998 Nike World Masters Games at age 54.
Varnard ran his entire life. When running became impossible, he jogged, and when jogging became impossible he walked. He was an inspiration and remains an inspiration in my life.
I can tell you without qualification that running is one of the greatest natural highs you will ever experience. There is absolutely no need to become a drug head in high school when you can run and compete and enjoy success in a much more productive, positive way.
When training and competing under stress your body can and does release natural endorphins, hormones that are secreted within the brain and the nervous system that activate the body's natural opiate (as in opium) receptors, causing an euphoric effect.
You have perhaps heard amazing stories of women weighing 100 pounds who have lifted up the back of an automobile when their child was trapped underneath, so they could be pulled out by their bigger sister. These feats happen because natural endorphins are released when we are under great stress.
In Flint, Michigan in the early 1960s we had racial unrest, but there was no division on our cross-country and track teams. We ran side by side and won race after race against many other integrated teams and perhaps a few segregated teams we did not even recognize as such. We learned respect for each other.
Athletics can bring diverse populations together in the spirit of competition and make us all better people and citizens in the process.
But back to running. I still treasure the times I when I am running along on a sunny day without a care in the world. Few people know that O Positive blood types generally release tension by vigorous activity; I would know as I am an O Positive.
My wife, an A Positive blood type, releases her tension by sitting on the couch, clearing her mind and doing nothing except for dozing or reading novels.
Few people know and understand another value of running, and that is it increases your self-confidence, self-image and self-worth. This happens because running puts you psychologically in control of your life. You feel as a free spirit, uncontrolled by the troubles of your world.
I suspect it is much the same effect for people who are fond of riding motorcycles on the weekend.
Should I have a heart attack while running or competing I cannot think of a better way to go. It sure beats the debilitating agony of having terminal cancer and hanging on for five years, knowing your battle against death is inevitable.
I shall work out by running, jogging or walking until the day I die, and this should be interesting because I plan to live to be 110.
He stood there by the side of the track, looking sweaty and satisfied but dazed.
My teammates and I had just come back from a leisurely 10-mile run through the woods and along the banks of the Red Cedar River, and I felt compelled to wander over and ask, "Are you OK, man?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but confused," he answered, looking like he was at a loss for words. "I tried to tell my roommate what it's like to be out here. Do you think he will ever understand?"
"No, don't even try," replied I. "Just be thankful that you are here; leave him where he is."
People just do not get it, unless, of course, you are a middle distance runner, and even more so if you have been a very good middle distance runner.
I remember those fall workouts on the Michigan State University campus when the leaves on the deciduous trees would burst into color along the wooded trail, and the sunshine would filter down through the trees.
Running gives you peace of mind that settles your soul.
You bound along at a pace that would exhaust the average person, but you are trained to run at a brisk pace for a long time and distance. You would run faster in a race, but your goal today is to finish feeling pleasantly tired, knowing that you could have run much faster.
I have my high school cross-country coach to thank for introducing me to the pure joy of running.
Like many of us who have become successful in life, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to a certain teacher or coach who influenced us in a way that we will never forget.
In my case, it was my coach Varnard Gay, a finer person you will never meet on your best day. He would buy shoes for minority kids who could not afford them. He would go and pick up kids who had no way to get to the school meets and no money to ride a bus. He never said a word, he just did it, as naturally as he would breathe while running.
Varnard was arguably one of the greatest high school cross-country and track coaches ever. He just missed qualifying for the 1932 Olympic Games by 2/10ths of a second if memory serves me correctly. In his day he was the only coach in Michigan high school history to win state championships in all four size divisions.
He was an incredible coach who guided his cross-country and track teams to many championships and trained many Flint Central High School athletes to win state titles and to set state, regional, local and school records.
Varnard would call me aside and remind me that my success in running was great, but that I should continue running after my high school and college careers. He would have been smiling from above when I checked in to compete in the 1998 Nike World Masters Games at age 54.
Varnard ran his entire life. When running became impossible, he jogged, and when jogging became impossible he walked. He was an inspiration and remains an inspiration in my life.
I can tell you without qualification that running is one of the greatest natural highs you will ever experience. There is absolutely no need to become a drug head in high school when you can run and compete and enjoy success in a much more productive, positive way.
When training and competing under stress your body can and does release natural endorphins, hormones that are secreted within the brain and the nervous system that activate the body's natural opiate (as in opium) receptors, causing an euphoric effect.
You have perhaps heard amazing stories of women weighing 100 pounds who have lifted up the back of an automobile when their child was trapped underneath, so they could be pulled out by their bigger sister. These feats happen because natural endorphins are released when we are under great stress.
In Flint, Michigan in the early 1960s we had racial unrest, but there was no division on our cross-country and track teams. We ran side by side and won race after race against many other integrated teams and perhaps a few segregated teams we did not even recognize as such. We learned respect for each other.
Athletics can bring diverse populations together in the spirit of competition and make us all better people and citizens in the process.
But back to running. I still treasure the times I when I am running along on a sunny day without a care in the world. Few people know that O Positive blood types generally release tension by vigorous activity; I would know as I am an O Positive.
My wife, an A Positive blood type, releases her tension by sitting on the couch, clearing her mind and doing nothing except for dozing or reading novels.
Few people know and understand another value of running, and that is it increases your self-confidence, self-image and self-worth. This happens because running puts you psychologically in control of your life. You feel as a free spirit, uncontrolled by the troubles of your world.
I suspect it is much the same effect for people who are fond of riding motorcycles on the weekend.
Should I have a heart attack while running or competing I cannot think of a better way to go. It sure beats the debilitating agony of having terminal cancer and hanging on for five years, knowing your battle against death is inevitable.
I shall work out by running, jogging or walking until the day I die, and this should be interesting because I plan to live to be 110.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
A St. Patrick's Day Toast to Irish Runners Marcus O'Sullivan and Eamonn Coghlan
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
A week before St. Patrick's Day I bought a pair of Saucony Kilkinney cross-country racing flats. They are a screaming Irish green and stick out like neon lights.
It reminded me of the Sports Illustrated magazine cover I have on my office wall recording the moment from 1994 when Eamonn Coghlan broke the tape at the finish line to become the first man over the age of 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile.
Any day is a good day to raise a glass of Jameson Irish whiskey to the likes of Marcus O'Sullivan and Eamonn Coghlan, but an even better day when it is St. Patrick's Day.
Before I honor these two Irish running legends let me first acknowledge another great Irish middle distance runner: Ron Delany.
Delany ran for legendary coach Jim "Jumbo" Elliott at Villanova, a Roman Catholic university in the tradition of St. Augustine in Pennsylvania.
Delany became the seventh member of the 4-Minute-Mile Club, but still struggled to make the Irish team for the 1956 Olympics. Once he arrived in Melbourne, he qualified for the 1,500 meter final in which the Australian runner John Landy was the odds-on favorite.
Landy indeed set the pace as Delany fell in behind until the bell lap when he ran a brilliant 53.8 split to set a then Olympic record and took home Ireland's first gold medal in 24 years.
I believe this is where the great Irish middle distance tradition really got wings. I was 12 years old in 1956, Eamonn Coghlan was 4 years old and Marcus O'Sullivan was born 5 years later.
Delany would go on to win 4 successive AAU titles in the mile, another 4 Irish national titles and 3 NCAA titles for Villanova and Jumbo Elliott.
Marcus O'Sullivan could not get into any Irish universities in his day, but would quickly become a world class runner for Jumbo Elliott at Villanova.
He would win 3 world indoor 1,500 meter titles, compete for Ireland in 4 Olympic games over a 12-year period, and run 101 sub-4-miniute-miles.
O'Sullivan was generally regarded as a better indoor than outdoor miler, winning the prestigious Wanamaker Mile in the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden 5 times and setting the world indoor 1,500 meter record in 1989 with a time of 3:35.4.
His personal best for the mile—3:50.96—was set indoors in 1987, and his personal best for the 1,500 meters was 3:33.65 in 1992.
After his competitive running career, O'Sullivan returned to Villanova and continues today as Villanova's Head Coach for Cross-Country and Track.
Guess who also ran for Jumbo Elliott at Villanova? Eamonn Coghlan won 4 NCAA titles at Villanova in the 1,500 or the mile.
Coghlan ran his first sub-4-minute-mile in 1975, setting a new Irish record in 3:53.2.
Like Frank Sinatra in another venue, Eamonn Coghlan would become known as "The Chairman of the Boards" because of his success on indoor tracks. He won the Wanamaker Mile a record 7 times from 1977 to 1987 at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden.
Coghlan set the world record in the indoor mile at 3:50.6 in 1981 and again at 3:49.78 in 1983, a record that would stand for 14 years until Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj ran 3:48.45 in 1997. Coghlan's 1983 time still remains the fastest mile ever run in the United States, and 1 of only 3 sub-3:50 miles run on American soil.
Coghlan won a world outdoor title at 5,000 meters in 1983, but he was absolutely lights out devastating indoors. Coghlan was small compared to many of his competitors and perhaps his size gave him a miniscule advantage negotiating the tight turns on the boards indoors.
He also proved he could go up in distance, setting the record for the indoor 2,000 meters in 1987 at 4:54.07, which stood for 11 years until Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia ripped off a 4:52.86 in 1998.
Coghlan also had a bit of Irish mischievousness in him when he won the 5,000 meters at the outdoor world championships in 1983. He looked at his Russian competitor ahead of him with glee as he hit the last bend before the finish, knowing he could outsprint him, and then promptly ran the Russian into the ground as he blew by to win.
Eamonn Coghlan's personal bests are eye-popping: 800 meters (1:47.0), 1,500m (3:35.6), 1 Mile (3:49.78), 3,000m (7:36.6), 5,000m (13:19.11), 10,000 (28:09) and even the Marathon (2.25:13).
His two fourth place finishes at 1,500 meters in the 1976 Olympic Games and at 5,000 meters in the 1980 Olympic Games did nothing to enhance his sterling accomplishments.
He more than made up for it in 1994 when he returned to the boards at Harvard's Albert J. Gordon indoor track and became the first man over 40 to break 4 minutes for the mile, running an astonishing 3:58.15 indoors.
Coghlan was 41 years old on the day he set the record. He ran more than a second faster than Englishman Roger Bannister in 1954 when he became the first ever to crack the 4-minute-mile barrier on an outdoor track.
It was a stunning moment in track and field history. Here was a man 40+ who had set the world indoor record at 3:49.78 in his prime, ran 74 sub-4-minute-miles, won 11 Irish titles and spend 30 years running competitively when it came to his last lap as fans cheered him on.
Eamonn Coghlan, like so many times before, came flying off on the final turn and sprinted for the tape and, as they say, the rest is history.
"It was like old times," said Coghlan after the race. "Those last two laps brought it all back to me. My eardrums hurt from all the cheering, but my legs responded."
He cited breaking the 4-minute-mile barrier indoors at 41 as his most pleasing moment, even better than the world records and the string of Wanamaker Mile victories at the Millrose Games.
It is my fond wish that the memories of these outstanding Irish middle distance runners outlast their records. Long live Ireland (Erin Go Bragh!) and the running of the green.
A week before St. Patrick's Day I bought a pair of Saucony Kilkinney cross-country racing flats. They are a screaming Irish green and stick out like neon lights.
It reminded me of the Sports Illustrated magazine cover I have on my office wall recording the moment from 1994 when Eamonn Coghlan broke the tape at the finish line to become the first man over the age of 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile.
Any day is a good day to raise a glass of Jameson Irish whiskey to the likes of Marcus O'Sullivan and Eamonn Coghlan, but an even better day when it is St. Patrick's Day.
Before I honor these two Irish running legends let me first acknowledge another great Irish middle distance runner: Ron Delany.
Delany ran for legendary coach Jim "Jumbo" Elliott at Villanova, a Roman Catholic university in the tradition of St. Augustine in Pennsylvania.
Delany became the seventh member of the 4-Minute-Mile Club, but still struggled to make the Irish team for the 1956 Olympics. Once he arrived in Melbourne, he qualified for the 1,500 meter final in which the Australian runner John Landy was the odds-on favorite.
Landy indeed set the pace as Delany fell in behind until the bell lap when he ran a brilliant 53.8 split to set a then Olympic record and took home Ireland's first gold medal in 24 years.
I believe this is where the great Irish middle distance tradition really got wings. I was 12 years old in 1956, Eamonn Coghlan was 4 years old and Marcus O'Sullivan was born 5 years later.
Delany would go on to win 4 successive AAU titles in the mile, another 4 Irish national titles and 3 NCAA titles for Villanova and Jumbo Elliott.
Marcus O'Sullivan could not get into any Irish universities in his day, but would quickly become a world class runner for Jumbo Elliott at Villanova.
He would win 3 world indoor 1,500 meter titles, compete for Ireland in 4 Olympic games over a 12-year period, and run 101 sub-4-miniute-miles.
O'Sullivan was generally regarded as a better indoor than outdoor miler, winning the prestigious Wanamaker Mile in the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden 5 times and setting the world indoor 1,500 meter record in 1989 with a time of 3:35.4.
His personal best for the mile—3:50.96—was set indoors in 1987, and his personal best for the 1,500 meters was 3:33.65 in 1992.
After his competitive running career, O'Sullivan returned to Villanova and continues today as Villanova's Head Coach for Cross-Country and Track.
Guess who also ran for Jumbo Elliott at Villanova? Eamonn Coghlan won 4 NCAA titles at Villanova in the 1,500 or the mile.
Coghlan ran his first sub-4-minute-mile in 1975, setting a new Irish record in 3:53.2.
Like Frank Sinatra in another venue, Eamonn Coghlan would become known as "The Chairman of the Boards" because of his success on indoor tracks. He won the Wanamaker Mile a record 7 times from 1977 to 1987 at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden.
Coghlan set the world record in the indoor mile at 3:50.6 in 1981 and again at 3:49.78 in 1983, a record that would stand for 14 years until Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj ran 3:48.45 in 1997. Coghlan's 1983 time still remains the fastest mile ever run in the United States, and 1 of only 3 sub-3:50 miles run on American soil.
Coghlan won a world outdoor title at 5,000 meters in 1983, but he was absolutely lights out devastating indoors. Coghlan was small compared to many of his competitors and perhaps his size gave him a miniscule advantage negotiating the tight turns on the boards indoors.
He also proved he could go up in distance, setting the record for the indoor 2,000 meters in 1987 at 4:54.07, which stood for 11 years until Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia ripped off a 4:52.86 in 1998.
Coghlan also had a bit of Irish mischievousness in him when he won the 5,000 meters at the outdoor world championships in 1983. He looked at his Russian competitor ahead of him with glee as he hit the last bend before the finish, knowing he could outsprint him, and then promptly ran the Russian into the ground as he blew by to win.
Eamonn Coghlan's personal bests are eye-popping: 800 meters (1:47.0), 1,500m (3:35.6), 1 Mile (3:49.78), 3,000m (7:36.6), 5,000m (13:19.11), 10,000 (28:09) and even the Marathon (2.25:13).
His two fourth place finishes at 1,500 meters in the 1976 Olympic Games and at 5,000 meters in the 1980 Olympic Games did nothing to enhance his sterling accomplishments.
He more than made up for it in 1994 when he returned to the boards at Harvard's Albert J. Gordon indoor track and became the first man over 40 to break 4 minutes for the mile, running an astonishing 3:58.15 indoors.
Coghlan was 41 years old on the day he set the record. He ran more than a second faster than Englishman Roger Bannister in 1954 when he became the first ever to crack the 4-minute-mile barrier on an outdoor track.
It was a stunning moment in track and field history. Here was a man 40+ who had set the world indoor record at 3:49.78 in his prime, ran 74 sub-4-minute-miles, won 11 Irish titles and spend 30 years running competitively when it came to his last lap as fans cheered him on.
Eamonn Coghlan, like so many times before, came flying off on the final turn and sprinted for the tape and, as they say, the rest is history.
"It was like old times," said Coghlan after the race. "Those last two laps brought it all back to me. My eardrums hurt from all the cheering, but my legs responded."
He cited breaking the 4-minute-mile barrier indoors at 41 as his most pleasing moment, even better than the world records and the string of Wanamaker Mile victories at the Millrose Games.
It is my fond wish that the memories of these outstanding Irish middle distance runners outlast their records. Long live Ireland (Erin Go Bragh!) and the running of the green.
Millrose Games Celebrates 100th Birthday as Track's Most Prestigious Indoor Event
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
I guess you would have to be a runner to appreciate the Millrose Games, which celebrated its 100th running during the weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The Millrose Games is not arguably the most prestigious indoor track meet in the world, it is in fact THE most prestigious indoor invitational track and field meet in the world. As a runner in high school and college, you dream about running on the boards at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden the same way a football player dreams about playing in the Super Bowl.
Track and field has fallen on hard times in the United States lately and that is why the 100th running of the Millrose is so significant. Only the 2007 Millrose Games, as Dick Patrick wrote in USA Today on Thursday (2-1-07), "has survived the demise of a once vibrant indoor circuit that the USA monopolized."
Patrick has it right.
Not only did Camelot lose its luster with the tragic loss of President John F. Kennedy, the Millrose Games has lost some of its bloom but is still able to blossom because of the famous Wanamaker Mile competition and enough world-class athletes to merit 2 hours of live coverage by ESPN2 on Friday and 1 hour by ABC Saturday.
I was glued to the TV for both showings.
Many runners who would watch the Millrose Games on the tube would not do so if it were not for sportswriters like Dick Patrick. His pre-meet coverage of the event in USA Today was interesting, informative and plentiful.
The Millrose Games were started in 1908 by John Wanamaker of the Wanamaker department store chain and first gained prominence in the 1920s. Herb Schmertz, who worked for the Wanamaker department store in New York, became the Millrose meet director in 1934 and ran the Millrose games for 40 years, until 1974, when his son Howard, a New York City lawyer, took over in 1975 and continued until 2003.
The Schmertz family ran the Millrose Games for 69 years and Howard Schmertz continued as the meet director emeritus for the 100th running of the Millrose Games. The new meet director is Mark Wetmore of Global Athletics Management.
John Wanamaker of Wanamaker department stores was a giant in American retailing. He opened Philadelphia's first department store in 1861 and would eventually have 15 more stores in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
Wanamaker is credited with being the father of modern advertising in America. He was the first to copyright his advertisements, the first to guarantee his goods and offer exchanges and refunds, he created the price tag as we know it today, and was the first to locate a restaurant inside his department store.
Wanamaker was far ahead of his time as the first department store with electrical illumination (1878), first store with a telephone (1879), first store to install pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880) and the first store with an elevator (1884).
It is hardly surprising that John Wanamaker would sponsor a major sports event and give birth to the Millrose Games. As major sponsorship, meets and attendance began to fade in the 1990s, Europe became a much more important indoor player; however, the Millrose Games continued thanks to the Schmertz family.
The Millrose Games has been through three Madison Square Gardens, two world wars and one Great Depression and still survived to celebrate its 100th birthday.
This year's centennial meet saw 40-year-old Gail Devers, already the meet and American record holder in the hurdles, win the event in 7.86 seconds—the fastest time in the world this year and nearly a full second better than the listed world record for masters (40+) athletes at 8.71.
Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva set a Millrose Games record while competing for the first time on U. S. soil. Isinbayeva is the 17-time world record holder; she continually breaks her own world record and tried on her last attempt at Millrose but missed.
In the famous Wanamaker Mile Saturday, four-time winner Bernard Lagat was facing off against Craig "Buster" Mottram, the 6-foot-3 Commonwealth Games champion, and Alan Webb, America's new "home grown" miler. Lagat, a Kenyan runner, apparently has become an American citizen.
Lagat's legacy is already assured as he is a two-time Olympic 1,500 meter medalist. Webb became the first American high schooler ever to break 4 minutes for the mile indoors (3:59.86), and at the outdoor Prefontaine Classic in Eugene (OR) would run 3:53.43 to break Jim Ryan's 36-year-old national high school record. In 2004, Webb won the 1,500 meter Olympic Trials, and he ran an outdoor mile in 3:48.92 last year.
The Wanamaker Mile is different and difficult because Madison Square Garden has a 160-yard-banked-board track compared to normal indoor tracks of 200 meters. Because it is shorter, the turns are more difficult and it is 11 laps rather than 8 laps.
In this year's race, Alan Webb led behind Pacemaker Moise Joseph's 1:54.99 half mile, and then Bernard Lagat, the defending champion, took over until the Australian Buster Mottram sprinted in front with 4 laps to go.
Mottram knew that Lagat considered it vital to be leading with two laps to go to win, and so Mottram poured it on and still led into the final lap. Lagat then went into another gear and won with better finishing speed in 3:54.26. Mottram was second in an Australian record 3:54.81, and Webb was a disappointing fourth.
I really felt for Alan Webb. He was so psyched to do better against Lagat. When interviewed with Lagat before the race, the announcer reminded Webb that Lagat that gotten the better of him several times and asked how Webb would beat him this time. My heart sank.
I have run too many races and understand how the announcer might well have sealed Webb's fate right there. I do not think Webb was prepared to answer such a question just prior to the competition, and could not adjust mentally before he competed.
Webb's answer to the announcer was that he "needed to be tougher" when a better answer would have been "he needed to be smarter," especially if Webb had run a more tactical race and knew his leg speed was as good as Lagat's at the finish.
If not, there is no way he could have won without pushing harder earlier in the hope of wearing Lagat out. Lagat is a Kenyan, not a turtle. He can fly as well as run. Webb's best indoor mile prior was a triumphant 3:55.18 a short week ago in Boston.
Remember, Lagat won in 3:54.81, only 37 one hundredths of a second faster. My guess is Webb is physically ready, but he has some work to do emotionally and mentally to beat Lagat, whose hardened, winning experience and confidence showed better.
They run the Wanamaker Mile for the same reason they play the Super Bowl. You can talk all you want about who will win or why, yet the winning team will have to prove any statements on game day.
Dick Patrick ended his pre-meet story with this outstanding sidebar:
Howard Schmertz was 7 years old when he saw his first Millrose Games in 1933, accompanying his father, meet director Herb Schmertz.
Howard Schmertz, who succeeded his father as director in 1975, since has missed only two Millrose meets when he was fighting in World War II. (Here are Howard) Schmertz's top Millrose moments:
10) Bernard Lagat wins the 2005 Wanamaker Mile in a Madison Square Garden record 3:52.87.
9) Suleiman Nyambui wins the 1981 5,000 (meter race) after a duel with Alberto Salazar, coming off a New York Marathon win. Nyambui sets a world record 13:20.4.
8) Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan wins a record seventh Wanamaker Mile in 1987, outdueling Marcus O'Sullivan (another great Irish runner).
7) In the 1984 long jump, second-place Carl Lewis takes over first and sets a world record of 28 feet, 10¼ inches.
6) Marine Corporal John Uelses, using a newly designed fiberglass pole, becomes the first to clear 16 feet in the pole vault.
5) In 1974 Tony Waldrop records the first sub-4-minute mile in Millrose's history.
4) Mary Decker wins the 1,500 (meter race) by 80 yards in 1980 and sets a world record 4:00.8.
3) In 1955 Denmark's Gunnar Nielsen reclaims his mile world record from Wes Santee in 4:03.6. Meanwhile, Fred Dwyer, forced off the track on the last lap, and Santee practically wrestle down the homestraight in Nielsen's wake.
2) In 1942, Cornelius Warmerdam, borrowing a bamboo pole, becomes the first to clear 15 feet in the vault. He broke the Millrose mark of 14-3, held by Sueo Ohe, killed several weeks before in Japan's invasion of the Philippines.
1) In 1959 John Thomas, 17, becomes the first to clear 7 feet indoors in the high jump, outdueling Charlie Dumas, the first to clear 7 feet outdoors.
Hats off to Dick Patrick for bringing back some great memories. And hats off to the Millrose Games, still the best indoor games in the world.
I guess you would have to be a runner to appreciate the Millrose Games, which celebrated its 100th running during the weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The Millrose Games is not arguably the most prestigious indoor track meet in the world, it is in fact THE most prestigious indoor invitational track and field meet in the world. As a runner in high school and college, you dream about running on the boards at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden the same way a football player dreams about playing in the Super Bowl.
Track and field has fallen on hard times in the United States lately and that is why the 100th running of the Millrose is so significant. Only the 2007 Millrose Games, as Dick Patrick wrote in USA Today on Thursday (2-1-07), "has survived the demise of a once vibrant indoor circuit that the USA monopolized."
Patrick has it right.
Not only did Camelot lose its luster with the tragic loss of President John F. Kennedy, the Millrose Games has lost some of its bloom but is still able to blossom because of the famous Wanamaker Mile competition and enough world-class athletes to merit 2 hours of live coverage by ESPN2 on Friday and 1 hour by ABC Saturday.
I was glued to the TV for both showings.
Many runners who would watch the Millrose Games on the tube would not do so if it were not for sportswriters like Dick Patrick. His pre-meet coverage of the event in USA Today was interesting, informative and plentiful.
The Millrose Games were started in 1908 by John Wanamaker of the Wanamaker department store chain and first gained prominence in the 1920s. Herb Schmertz, who worked for the Wanamaker department store in New York, became the Millrose meet director in 1934 and ran the Millrose games for 40 years, until 1974, when his son Howard, a New York City lawyer, took over in 1975 and continued until 2003.
The Schmertz family ran the Millrose Games for 69 years and Howard Schmertz continued as the meet director emeritus for the 100th running of the Millrose Games. The new meet director is Mark Wetmore of Global Athletics Management.
John Wanamaker of Wanamaker department stores was a giant in American retailing. He opened Philadelphia's first department store in 1861 and would eventually have 15 more stores in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
Wanamaker is credited with being the father of modern advertising in America. He was the first to copyright his advertisements, the first to guarantee his goods and offer exchanges and refunds, he created the price tag as we know it today, and was the first to locate a restaurant inside his department store.
Wanamaker was far ahead of his time as the first department store with electrical illumination (1878), first store with a telephone (1879), first store to install pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880) and the first store with an elevator (1884).
It is hardly surprising that John Wanamaker would sponsor a major sports event and give birth to the Millrose Games. As major sponsorship, meets and attendance began to fade in the 1990s, Europe became a much more important indoor player; however, the Millrose Games continued thanks to the Schmertz family.
The Millrose Games has been through three Madison Square Gardens, two world wars and one Great Depression and still survived to celebrate its 100th birthday.
This year's centennial meet saw 40-year-old Gail Devers, already the meet and American record holder in the hurdles, win the event in 7.86 seconds—the fastest time in the world this year and nearly a full second better than the listed world record for masters (40+) athletes at 8.71.
Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva set a Millrose Games record while competing for the first time on U. S. soil. Isinbayeva is the 17-time world record holder; she continually breaks her own world record and tried on her last attempt at Millrose but missed.
In the famous Wanamaker Mile Saturday, four-time winner Bernard Lagat was facing off against Craig "Buster" Mottram, the 6-foot-3 Commonwealth Games champion, and Alan Webb, America's new "home grown" miler. Lagat, a Kenyan runner, apparently has become an American citizen.
Lagat's legacy is already assured as he is a two-time Olympic 1,500 meter medalist. Webb became the first American high schooler ever to break 4 minutes for the mile indoors (3:59.86), and at the outdoor Prefontaine Classic in Eugene (OR) would run 3:53.43 to break Jim Ryan's 36-year-old national high school record. In 2004, Webb won the 1,500 meter Olympic Trials, and he ran an outdoor mile in 3:48.92 last year.
The Wanamaker Mile is different and difficult because Madison Square Garden has a 160-yard-banked-board track compared to normal indoor tracks of 200 meters. Because it is shorter, the turns are more difficult and it is 11 laps rather than 8 laps.
In this year's race, Alan Webb led behind Pacemaker Moise Joseph's 1:54.99 half mile, and then Bernard Lagat, the defending champion, took over until the Australian Buster Mottram sprinted in front with 4 laps to go.
Mottram knew that Lagat considered it vital to be leading with two laps to go to win, and so Mottram poured it on and still led into the final lap. Lagat then went into another gear and won with better finishing speed in 3:54.26. Mottram was second in an Australian record 3:54.81, and Webb was a disappointing fourth.
I really felt for Alan Webb. He was so psyched to do better against Lagat. When interviewed with Lagat before the race, the announcer reminded Webb that Lagat that gotten the better of him several times and asked how Webb would beat him this time. My heart sank.
I have run too many races and understand how the announcer might well have sealed Webb's fate right there. I do not think Webb was prepared to answer such a question just prior to the competition, and could not adjust mentally before he competed.
Webb's answer to the announcer was that he "needed to be tougher" when a better answer would have been "he needed to be smarter," especially if Webb had run a more tactical race and knew his leg speed was as good as Lagat's at the finish.
If not, there is no way he could have won without pushing harder earlier in the hope of wearing Lagat out. Lagat is a Kenyan, not a turtle. He can fly as well as run. Webb's best indoor mile prior was a triumphant 3:55.18 a short week ago in Boston.
Remember, Lagat won in 3:54.81, only 37 one hundredths of a second faster. My guess is Webb is physically ready, but he has some work to do emotionally and mentally to beat Lagat, whose hardened, winning experience and confidence showed better.
They run the Wanamaker Mile for the same reason they play the Super Bowl. You can talk all you want about who will win or why, yet the winning team will have to prove any statements on game day.
Dick Patrick ended his pre-meet story with this outstanding sidebar:
Howard Schmertz was 7 years old when he saw his first Millrose Games in 1933, accompanying his father, meet director Herb Schmertz.
Howard Schmertz, who succeeded his father as director in 1975, since has missed only two Millrose meets when he was fighting in World War II. (Here are Howard) Schmertz's top Millrose moments:
10) Bernard Lagat wins the 2005 Wanamaker Mile in a Madison Square Garden record 3:52.87.
9) Suleiman Nyambui wins the 1981 5,000 (meter race) after a duel with Alberto Salazar, coming off a New York Marathon win. Nyambui sets a world record 13:20.4.
8) Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan wins a record seventh Wanamaker Mile in 1987, outdueling Marcus O'Sullivan (another great Irish runner).
7) In the 1984 long jump, second-place Carl Lewis takes over first and sets a world record of 28 feet, 10¼ inches.
6) Marine Corporal John Uelses, using a newly designed fiberglass pole, becomes the first to clear 16 feet in the pole vault.
5) In 1974 Tony Waldrop records the first sub-4-minute mile in Millrose's history.
4) Mary Decker wins the 1,500 (meter race) by 80 yards in 1980 and sets a world record 4:00.8.
3) In 1955 Denmark's Gunnar Nielsen reclaims his mile world record from Wes Santee in 4:03.6. Meanwhile, Fred Dwyer, forced off the track on the last lap, and Santee practically wrestle down the homestraight in Nielsen's wake.
2) In 1942, Cornelius Warmerdam, borrowing a bamboo pole, becomes the first to clear 15 feet in the vault. He broke the Millrose mark of 14-3, held by Sueo Ohe, killed several weeks before in Japan's invasion of the Philippines.
1) In 1959 John Thomas, 17, becomes the first to clear 7 feet indoors in the high jump, outdueling Charlie Dumas, the first to clear 7 feet outdoors.
Hats off to Dick Patrick for bringing back some great memories. And hats off to the Millrose Games, still the best indoor games in the world.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Jerramy Stevens - A Troubled Tight End, a Great Talent, a Greater Disappointment
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Welcome to Seattle. I would like you to meet our poster child for success.
Shake hands with Jerramy Stevens, our troubled tight end who used to play for the Seattle Seahawks and never will again. He has worn out his welcome with the sorry excuses of a loser.
Stevens has proven to be a troubled tight end, a great talent and now a greater disappointment.
He could have been one of the greatest tight ends in the history of the National Football League, and even have ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. At the rate he is disintegrating, it is more likely he will end up in jail or dead.
Stevens was arrested Tuesday morning (3-13-07) in Arizona on suspicion of DUI (driving under the influence for the uninitiated) and marijuana possession at about 2:30 a.m. (like after the bars close at 2 a.m. and you cannot drink any more so you get into your vehicle and drive home after admitting to drinking "four or five margaritas" according to the Scottsdale police report).
Stevens, a quarterback at River Ridge High School in Lacey, would play his college ball at the University of Washington as a tight end and create enough of a stir on the field to catch the attention of then Seattle Seahawks General Manager and Head Coach Mike Holmgren. Holmgren made Stevens the Seahawks' number one draft choice in 2002.
He was a 6-foot-7, 265-pound tight end that was not hard to miss.
Stevens was also no stranger to trouble. His criminal history dates to 1998 with convictions for assault, hit-and-run property damage and reckless driving.
Before he arrived at his first Seahawks' preseason camp, he had spent five days in jail for violating his probation after driving into a nursing home in 2000 in a hit-and-run case. He was a student and athlete at the University of Washington at that time.
In 2003 he pleaded guilty to reckless driving in a plea deal after being stopped in a Seattle suburb on investigation of drunk driving and spent another two days in jail.
Sixteen days after this arrest in 2003 was clocked traveling 90 mph in a 60 mph zone, his sixth infraction in an eight-month period.
His on again-off again performance on the field showed just enough possible greatness to escape harsher punishment for his indiscretions.
As an unrestricted free agent in a market short on tight ends, Stevens could probably have made a guaranteed $15 million during this signing period.
Among the many platitudes you can say about Stevens' talent, you can also say he will never be mistaken for a mental giant.
Holmgren clearly took a chance on drafting Stevens and giving him the opportunity of a lifetime to live a privileged existence that working stiffs could only dream about.
Holmgren also drafted another problem child a year prior when he took Koren Robinson as a number one pick in the 2001 draft. Robinson, a talented wide receiver from North Carolina, blew his opportunity of a lifetime and was released after too many run-ins with the law.
You may fuss at Mike Holmgren for his judgment in making those draft picks but in doing so you must also credit him for his first round draft choices of Shaun Alexander and Steve Hutchinson, both of whom became All-Pro players and legitimate All Stars in Seattle's 2005 Super Bowl season.
If you rounded up every miscreant like Stevens in the NFL over the past five years, you would have enough players to field a NFL expansion team.
We have far too many talented millionaire professional football players and players in every major sport who are simply underperforming adults with little sense of responsibility, accountability, judgment, common sense and decorum.
If you were to bring them together in one place you would have a room full of medicore minds. I am sure the majority of them would either find someone else to blame for their own stupidity or seek more sympathy for their miserably inadequate behavior while still refusing to correct it.
Enough is enough.
Those who would refer to Jerramy Stevens as a man-child simply enable him to act like a child in an adult world. He is a perfect example of a 27-year-old who acts like an irresponsible 13-year-old child.
We expect a 13-year-old to do something irresponsible during his maturation process. We expect a 27-year-old adult to grow up, take responsibility for his actions and do more to help himself.
Seattle Times sports columnist Steve Kelley had this to say about Stevens' latest encounter with stupidity: "Second chances are handed out like breath mints in Stevens' world. Every misstep is excused. Every arrest is forgiven. Every dropped pass is explained away." I agree.
Far too many sportswriters say this about miscreants like Stevens: "Trouble follows Jerramy Stevens." I say garbage. Jerramy Stevens follows trouble. He can and should make better choices.
I have little sympathy for Stevens. He and other talented millionaire professional athletes like him can grow up anytime they decide to do so.
Millions of working people without their God-given talent, opportunities and income manage to solve much greater personal problems than Stevens and his ilk ever thought about having, much less solving.
In football and in life there are really only two outcomes to any action: results or excuses. People who cannot produce results will always have excuses. Excuses are a game that losers play, not winners.
Welcome to Seattle. I would like you to meet our poster child for success.
Shake hands with Jerramy Stevens, our troubled tight end who used to play for the Seattle Seahawks and never will again. He has worn out his welcome with the sorry excuses of a loser.
Stevens has proven to be a troubled tight end, a great talent and now a greater disappointment.
He could have been one of the greatest tight ends in the history of the National Football League, and even have ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. At the rate he is disintegrating, it is more likely he will end up in jail or dead.
Stevens was arrested Tuesday morning (3-13-07) in Arizona on suspicion of DUI (driving under the influence for the uninitiated) and marijuana possession at about 2:30 a.m. (like after the bars close at 2 a.m. and you cannot drink any more so you get into your vehicle and drive home after admitting to drinking "four or five margaritas" according to the Scottsdale police report).
Stevens, a quarterback at River Ridge High School in Lacey, would play his college ball at the University of Washington as a tight end and create enough of a stir on the field to catch the attention of then Seattle Seahawks General Manager and Head Coach Mike Holmgren. Holmgren made Stevens the Seahawks' number one draft choice in 2002.
He was a 6-foot-7, 265-pound tight end that was not hard to miss.
Stevens was also no stranger to trouble. His criminal history dates to 1998 with convictions for assault, hit-and-run property damage and reckless driving.
Before he arrived at his first Seahawks' preseason camp, he had spent five days in jail for violating his probation after driving into a nursing home in 2000 in a hit-and-run case. He was a student and athlete at the University of Washington at that time.
In 2003 he pleaded guilty to reckless driving in a plea deal after being stopped in a Seattle suburb on investigation of drunk driving and spent another two days in jail.
Sixteen days after this arrest in 2003 was clocked traveling 90 mph in a 60 mph zone, his sixth infraction in an eight-month period.
His on again-off again performance on the field showed just enough possible greatness to escape harsher punishment for his indiscretions.
As an unrestricted free agent in a market short on tight ends, Stevens could probably have made a guaranteed $15 million during this signing period.
Among the many platitudes you can say about Stevens' talent, you can also say he will never be mistaken for a mental giant.
Holmgren clearly took a chance on drafting Stevens and giving him the opportunity of a lifetime to live a privileged existence that working stiffs could only dream about.
Holmgren also drafted another problem child a year prior when he took Koren Robinson as a number one pick in the 2001 draft. Robinson, a talented wide receiver from North Carolina, blew his opportunity of a lifetime and was released after too many run-ins with the law.
You may fuss at Mike Holmgren for his judgment in making those draft picks but in doing so you must also credit him for his first round draft choices of Shaun Alexander and Steve Hutchinson, both of whom became All-Pro players and legitimate All Stars in Seattle's 2005 Super Bowl season.
If you rounded up every miscreant like Stevens in the NFL over the past five years, you would have enough players to field a NFL expansion team.
We have far too many talented millionaire professional football players and players in every major sport who are simply underperforming adults with little sense of responsibility, accountability, judgment, common sense and decorum.
If you were to bring them together in one place you would have a room full of medicore minds. I am sure the majority of them would either find someone else to blame for their own stupidity or seek more sympathy for their miserably inadequate behavior while still refusing to correct it.
Enough is enough.
Those who would refer to Jerramy Stevens as a man-child simply enable him to act like a child in an adult world. He is a perfect example of a 27-year-old who acts like an irresponsible 13-year-old child.
We expect a 13-year-old to do something irresponsible during his maturation process. We expect a 27-year-old adult to grow up, take responsibility for his actions and do more to help himself.
Seattle Times sports columnist Steve Kelley had this to say about Stevens' latest encounter with stupidity: "Second chances are handed out like breath mints in Stevens' world. Every misstep is excused. Every arrest is forgiven. Every dropped pass is explained away." I agree.
Far too many sportswriters say this about miscreants like Stevens: "Trouble follows Jerramy Stevens." I say garbage. Jerramy Stevens follows trouble. He can and should make better choices.
I have little sympathy for Stevens. He and other talented millionaire professional athletes like him can grow up anytime they decide to do so.
Millions of working people without their God-given talent, opportunities and income manage to solve much greater personal problems than Stevens and his ilk ever thought about having, much less solving.
In football and in life there are really only two outcomes to any action: results or excuses. People who cannot produce results will always have excuses. Excuses are a game that losers play, not winners.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Dantonio Finally Arrives on the Big 10 Stage as Head Coach at Michigan State
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Michigan State University has a football history of folding when it counts. In recent years they seem to win early in the season and then raise losing to an art form when it really matters. Those days may be over starting this fall.
By unloading John L. Smith and hiring Mark Dantonio as their new head football coach, the Spartans have put themselves in a position to perform better than any time since the legendary Duffy Daugherty coached Michigan State to a combined 19-1-1 record in 1965 and 1966, winning back-to-back Big Ten and National Championships.
The reason is simple: Dantonio is a winner from a pedigree that screams success.
He does not have to talk about what he is going to do as Michigan State's new coach because he, unlike so many others, has already done a lot of significant winning in support roles under Nick Saban, Jim Tressel and Earle Bruce, all winners and outstanding football coaches.
To say Michigan State has been in the dumper since Duffy Daugherty left in 1972 is being kind. In 34 seasons, the Spartans have been barely above .500. They have won only 8 or more games just once in consecutive seasons and have had one Rose Bowl appearance which happened under Nick Saban with Mark Dantonio as his secondary coach. Dantonio spent 6 seasons at MSU in this role.
He also contributed to Michigan State's successful 1999 season when the Spartans went 10-2, won the Florida Citrus Bowl and were ranked No. 7 in the final polls.
Michigan State's secondary under Dantonio was regarded as one of the best in college football, ranking 10th in pass efficiency defense in 1998 and 7th in 2000. A half dozen Spartan defenders under Dantonio were NFL draft picks.
Now Dantonio returns as head coach and things are going to get a lot better in Spartan Stadium.
Dantonio spent 3 years as head coach at the University of Cincinnati where he became the first head coach in 23 years to pilot a team to a winning season in his initial campaign, capping the season with a convincing 32-14 win over Marshall in the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl.
Only the legendary Sid Gillman had taken Cincinnati to a bowl game in his initial season as head coach.
Even this season the Cincinnati Bearcats upset then No. 7 Rutgers on Nov. 18, the highest ranked team Cincinnati has ever beaten.
Before moving on to Cincinnati, Dantonio served as defensive coordinator under Jim Tressel at Ohio State, assembling the defense that led the Buckeyes to the national title in 2002. Ohio State was 2nd nationally in scoring defense and 3rd in rushing defense during its perfect season.
In 2003, Dantonio's defense at Ohio State was 2nd nationally against the run, 10th in total defense and 16th in scoring defense.
He was a member of Earle Bruce's Ohio State staff in 1983 and 1984, helping the Buckeyes to the Fiesta Bowl and Rose Bowl.
Dantonio has spent the majority of his coaching career in Ohio where he also helped the Akron Zips to an 8-3 record and an appearance in the Division I-AA playoffs.
He then joined Jim Tressel's staff at Youngstown State and helped the Penguins make 3 Division I-AA playoffs during 5 seasons, and posted a perfect 11-0 regular season record in 1990 when he was the defensive coordinator.
When Tressel became Ohio State's coach Dantonio followed as his defensive coordinator.
Dantonio is clearly a winner, and I believe he will find some winning players and train them to excel. In business and in football there are really only two possible outcomes: results or excuses. Dantonio has made a career out of producing results.
I believe that Mark Dantonio is savvy enough to surround himself with more winners like himself, and together with his staff will lead the Michigan State Spartans out of the mud hole that they have been stuck in for far too long.
Let me make it clear that I am a Michigan State University graduate from the Class of 1966. I know that dates me, but it hardly affects my memory. I remember when Michigan State was arguably THE football team in the country during 1965 and 1966.
I am so happy that Dantonio is a Midwest boy born and bred. He has the strong Midwest ties to compete effectively against major magnets like Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame.
I was born and raised in Michigan and now reside on the West Coast in Washington State. Let me tell you that folks in Washington are different than those in the Midwest, not better or worse but different.
When I go to battle I want a Midwest boy in the foxhole with me. Welcome aboard, Mark Dantonio. I will dig the foxhole, you can throw in the trophies.
Michigan State University has a football history of folding when it counts. In recent years they seem to win early in the season and then raise losing to an art form when it really matters. Those days may be over starting this fall.
By unloading John L. Smith and hiring Mark Dantonio as their new head football coach, the Spartans have put themselves in a position to perform better than any time since the legendary Duffy Daugherty coached Michigan State to a combined 19-1-1 record in 1965 and 1966, winning back-to-back Big Ten and National Championships.
The reason is simple: Dantonio is a winner from a pedigree that screams success.
He does not have to talk about what he is going to do as Michigan State's new coach because he, unlike so many others, has already done a lot of significant winning in support roles under Nick Saban, Jim Tressel and Earle Bruce, all winners and outstanding football coaches.
To say Michigan State has been in the dumper since Duffy Daugherty left in 1972 is being kind. In 34 seasons, the Spartans have been barely above .500. They have won only 8 or more games just once in consecutive seasons and have had one Rose Bowl appearance which happened under Nick Saban with Mark Dantonio as his secondary coach. Dantonio spent 6 seasons at MSU in this role.
He also contributed to Michigan State's successful 1999 season when the Spartans went 10-2, won the Florida Citrus Bowl and were ranked No. 7 in the final polls.
Michigan State's secondary under Dantonio was regarded as one of the best in college football, ranking 10th in pass efficiency defense in 1998 and 7th in 2000. A half dozen Spartan defenders under Dantonio were NFL draft picks.
Now Dantonio returns as head coach and things are going to get a lot better in Spartan Stadium.
Dantonio spent 3 years as head coach at the University of Cincinnati where he became the first head coach in 23 years to pilot a team to a winning season in his initial campaign, capping the season with a convincing 32-14 win over Marshall in the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl.
Only the legendary Sid Gillman had taken Cincinnati to a bowl game in his initial season as head coach.
Even this season the Cincinnati Bearcats upset then No. 7 Rutgers on Nov. 18, the highest ranked team Cincinnati has ever beaten.
Before moving on to Cincinnati, Dantonio served as defensive coordinator under Jim Tressel at Ohio State, assembling the defense that led the Buckeyes to the national title in 2002. Ohio State was 2nd nationally in scoring defense and 3rd in rushing defense during its perfect season.
In 2003, Dantonio's defense at Ohio State was 2nd nationally against the run, 10th in total defense and 16th in scoring defense.
He was a member of Earle Bruce's Ohio State staff in 1983 and 1984, helping the Buckeyes to the Fiesta Bowl and Rose Bowl.
Dantonio has spent the majority of his coaching career in Ohio where he also helped the Akron Zips to an 8-3 record and an appearance in the Division I-AA playoffs.
He then joined Jim Tressel's staff at Youngstown State and helped the Penguins make 3 Division I-AA playoffs during 5 seasons, and posted a perfect 11-0 regular season record in 1990 when he was the defensive coordinator.
When Tressel became Ohio State's coach Dantonio followed as his defensive coordinator.
Dantonio is clearly a winner, and I believe he will find some winning players and train them to excel. In business and in football there are really only two possible outcomes: results or excuses. Dantonio has made a career out of producing results.
I believe that Mark Dantonio is savvy enough to surround himself with more winners like himself, and together with his staff will lead the Michigan State Spartans out of the mud hole that they have been stuck in for far too long.
Let me make it clear that I am a Michigan State University graduate from the Class of 1966. I know that dates me, but it hardly affects my memory. I remember when Michigan State was arguably THE football team in the country during 1965 and 1966.
I am so happy that Dantonio is a Midwest boy born and bred. He has the strong Midwest ties to compete effectively against major magnets like Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame.
I was born and raised in Michigan and now reside on the West Coast in Washington State. Let me tell you that folks in Washington are different than those in the Midwest, not better or worse but different.
When I go to battle I want a Midwest boy in the foxhole with me. Welcome aboard, Mark Dantonio. I will dig the foxhole, you can throw in the trophies.
Boise State Looked Oklahoma in the Eye and Showed How Belief Makes a Winner
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
After checking out the list of college football bowl games, I focused on paying attention to two of the 32 games scheduled: Boise State taking on Oklahoma and Florida against Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game.
The bowl season which started on December 19 ends with Florida/Ohio State this coming Monday, January 8. When it is all said and done, 32 bowl games will be played in 21 days.
So why Boise State and Oklahoma on New Year's Day?
For openers, Boise State came into the game undefeated with a 12-0 record and was snubbed by the BCS system for a shot in the National Championship Game against Ohio State. The reason is simply that Boise State is a small Division I school and plays in what many pundits consider the substandard Western Athletic Conference.
The WAC includes Utah State, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Idaho, Fresno State, Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii. Boise State won the WAC title with an 8-0 record. Many die-hard football fans do not even consider the WAC a conference.
Oklahoma, on the other hand, plays in the mighty Big 12 conference which boasts such current powerhouse programs as Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Nebraska. Oklahoma won the Big 12 South championship with an 8-1 mark and came into the Fiesta Bowl with an 11-2 record.
You can imagine that Oklahoma was favored not only to take down but also slap around Boise State and its unblemished 12-0 record.
Someone forgot to tell the Boise State players not to bother showing up.
In one of the most exciting bowl games in college football history, Boise State not only led early on (21-10 at the half) but looked to put the game away until Oklahoma methodically mounted a comeback, taking a 35-28 lead with 1:02 remaining when Sooner cornerback Marcus Walker's returned an interception for a touchdown.
The Boise State Broncos subsequently found themselves at midfield with a fourth-and-18 and only 7 seconds left.
It was enough time for Boise State to pull off a jaw-dropping 50-yard pass play to Drisan James at Oklahoma's 35, and for James to lateral the ball to Jerard Rabb who raced into the end zone to tie the game at 35. It was a play the Broncos practiced all season but seldom ran.
Oklahoma's defensive secondary moved with James as his catch and run was going one way when James pitched to Rabb going the other way. The defensive secondary was out of position and could not stop Rabb from tying it up, sending the game into overtime.
The Oklahoma Sooners scored on the first play in overtime as Adrian Peterson scampered virtually untouched for 25 yards. It looked as if the game was over.
But Boise State receiver Vinny Perretta threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to Derek Schouman to put the Broncos within an extra point kick of tying it up yet again.
However, Boise State Head Coach Chris Petersen and his Bronco players decided not to give Oklahoma another chance and went for the two-point conversion and victory instead.
On the decisive last play, Broncos quarterback Jared Zabransky looked at three wide receivers to his right, pump faked, and then he handed the ball behind his back to Ian Johnson who raced untouched into the end zone for the dramatic victory.
Who would have thought to run the old Statue of Liberty play in a game this important? Answer: Boise State. Talk about a kahuna. Oklahoma could not even spell the word, much less stop Johnson on his run into Boise State history.
The final score read Boise State 43 and Oklahoma 42. There were a lot of unhappy Sooners and Sooner fans and a lot of ecstatic Broncos and Bronco fans after the amazing game-ending play.
Ian Johnson, who scored the winning two-point conversion, kept running right over to his cheerleader girl friend and proposed; she accepted and jumped into his arms. This is college football folks, not pro football which sometimes can put you to sleep on its best day.
Petersen completed his first year at Boise State undefeated at 13-0 after taking over for Dan Hawkins who left to become head coach at Colorado.
Underlying this incredible college football bowl game was the belief of the Boise State players that they could upset Oklahoma, proving once again that anything man can see and believe he can achieve.
Never, never, ever underestimate the power of belief. Clearly, the Boise State players would not have won the game as underdogs unless they believed they could win.
One of my favorite expressions is ask and you shall receive, don't and you won't.
In this case, it was believe and you shall win, don't and you won't.
After checking out the list of college football bowl games, I focused on paying attention to two of the 32 games scheduled: Boise State taking on Oklahoma and Florida against Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game.
The bowl season which started on December 19 ends with Florida/Ohio State this coming Monday, January 8. When it is all said and done, 32 bowl games will be played in 21 days.
So why Boise State and Oklahoma on New Year's Day?
For openers, Boise State came into the game undefeated with a 12-0 record and was snubbed by the BCS system for a shot in the National Championship Game against Ohio State. The reason is simply that Boise State is a small Division I school and plays in what many pundits consider the substandard Western Athletic Conference.
The WAC includes Utah State, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Idaho, Fresno State, Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii. Boise State won the WAC title with an 8-0 record. Many die-hard football fans do not even consider the WAC a conference.
Oklahoma, on the other hand, plays in the mighty Big 12 conference which boasts such current powerhouse programs as Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Nebraska. Oklahoma won the Big 12 South championship with an 8-1 mark and came into the Fiesta Bowl with an 11-2 record.
You can imagine that Oklahoma was favored not only to take down but also slap around Boise State and its unblemished 12-0 record.
Someone forgot to tell the Boise State players not to bother showing up.
In one of the most exciting bowl games in college football history, Boise State not only led early on (21-10 at the half) but looked to put the game away until Oklahoma methodically mounted a comeback, taking a 35-28 lead with 1:02 remaining when Sooner cornerback Marcus Walker's returned an interception for a touchdown.
The Boise State Broncos subsequently found themselves at midfield with a fourth-and-18 and only 7 seconds left.
It was enough time for Boise State to pull off a jaw-dropping 50-yard pass play to Drisan James at Oklahoma's 35, and for James to lateral the ball to Jerard Rabb who raced into the end zone to tie the game at 35. It was a play the Broncos practiced all season but seldom ran.
Oklahoma's defensive secondary moved with James as his catch and run was going one way when James pitched to Rabb going the other way. The defensive secondary was out of position and could not stop Rabb from tying it up, sending the game into overtime.
The Oklahoma Sooners scored on the first play in overtime as Adrian Peterson scampered virtually untouched for 25 yards. It looked as if the game was over.
But Boise State receiver Vinny Perretta threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to Derek Schouman to put the Broncos within an extra point kick of tying it up yet again.
However, Boise State Head Coach Chris Petersen and his Bronco players decided not to give Oklahoma another chance and went for the two-point conversion and victory instead.
On the decisive last play, Broncos quarterback Jared Zabransky looked at three wide receivers to his right, pump faked, and then he handed the ball behind his back to Ian Johnson who raced untouched into the end zone for the dramatic victory.
Who would have thought to run the old Statue of Liberty play in a game this important? Answer: Boise State. Talk about a kahuna. Oklahoma could not even spell the word, much less stop Johnson on his run into Boise State history.
The final score read Boise State 43 and Oklahoma 42. There were a lot of unhappy Sooners and Sooner fans and a lot of ecstatic Broncos and Bronco fans after the amazing game-ending play.
Ian Johnson, who scored the winning two-point conversion, kept running right over to his cheerleader girl friend and proposed; she accepted and jumped into his arms. This is college football folks, not pro football which sometimes can put you to sleep on its best day.
Petersen completed his first year at Boise State undefeated at 13-0 after taking over for Dan Hawkins who left to become head coach at Colorado.
Underlying this incredible college football bowl game was the belief of the Boise State players that they could upset Oklahoma, proving once again that anything man can see and believe he can achieve.
Never, never, ever underestimate the power of belief. Clearly, the Boise State players would not have won the game as underdogs unless they believed they could win.
One of my favorite expressions is ask and you shall receive, don't and you won't.
In this case, it was believe and you shall win, don't and you won't.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Dear Dallas: Thank You for Bringing Your "Rookie" Quarterback to Seattle
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
A botched 19-yard-field-goal attempt on fourth down with only 79 seconds left caused the Dallas Cowboys to be one point short and one yard short of a first down as the Seattle Seahawks hung on to advance in the 2006 NFC playoffs, beating the Cowboys 21-20 at home in Seattle.
While there was blame enough to pass around for the loss in the wild-card game, the final mistake came when "rookie" quarterback Tony Romo lost control of the ball on Martin Gramatica's 19-yard-field-goal attempt.
Romo, the holder, caught the ball cleanly but bobbled the ball when placing it down for Gramatica's attempt. Romo tried to scamper into the end zone on the play but was stopped short by Jordan Babineaux's game-saving tackle at the 2-yard line, one yard short of a first down.
Untested quarterbacks who become starters historically screw up in big games, and Romo did not disappoint. He did not make any excuses for costing Dallas the victory and advancement in the playoff game, and Romo deserves credit for shouldering the blame.
He was the holder on kicks for the Cowboys last year before replacing Drew Bledsoe this year. He blossomed into a Pro Bowl pick by winning five of his first six starts and turning the Dallas season around at that point. Romo's fast start and big statistics fell apart quickly as the season progressed.
Many money players (including myself) bet Seattle to win behind Matt Hasselbeck's experience and Romo's inexperience in the playoffs.
True to form, Hasselbeck was 18-of-36 for 240 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, both of which resulted in Dallas field goals. Matt Hasselbeck was a Pro Bowl pick last year but was bothered by injuries and a weaker offensive line this year.
Romo was 17-of-29 for 189 yards and a touchdown and no turnovers, but all it took was the botched kick attempt to mar his effort.
Pushing aside all statistics, the ball clearly bounced right for Seattle and wrong for Dallas, but that is why we play the game. As a Seattle Seahawk fan, it almost goes without saying that I love first year starting quarterbacks playing for the opposing team.
Two other big plays helped Seattle advance in the playoffs.
The first big play happened when trailing 20-13 after failing on a fourth-and-goal play with 6:40 left in the game. The Seahawks started their comeback with two points on a safety when defensive back Kelly Jennings forced Dallas receiver Terry Glenn to fumble the ball into the end zone when the Cowboys took over deep in their own territory.
The ball shot out of Glenn's arms and took one bounce into the end zone as three Seattle defenders converged on the opportunity for the Seahawk defense to score in the Cowboy's end zone.
Linebacker Lofa Tatupu, an All Pro rookie last year, dove for the ball to keep it from going out of bounds and tipped it back into play then safety Michael Boulware recovered it for what appeared to be a touchdown.
A replay showed Tatupu was out of bounds when the ball was tipped inbounds, so the Seahawks were awarded a safety and the Cowboys lost possession of the ball.
The second big play came when Seattle received the ball on a free kick following the safety. The Seahawks took the winning lead on a 37-yard touchdown pass from Matt Hasselbeck to Jerramy Stevens.
Stevens arguably had the best day of his 5-year career, catching five passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns, his first touchdown being a 15-yarder to give Seattle a 13-10 lead in the third quarter. The Seahawks could not have won without Stevens because Seattle's go-to wide receiver Darrell Jackson (D-Jack) and D. J. Hackett both left the game with injuries.
Dallas was not to be denied as Romo drove the Cowboys right back down the field and into position for the win when a pass to Jason Witten was initially ruled a first down. A replay showed the Cowboys were short.
It looked as if Dallas Coach Bill Parcells was tempted to go for it on fourth-and-1 as he left his offense on the field until Seattle called for a timeout. Then Parcells sent in Gramatica for the ill-fated field goal attempt.
This playoff game was as exciting as any wild-card game ever played.
Miles Austin, an undrafted rookie, had a 93-yard kickoff return for Dallas that became the first kickoff return for a touchdown in the Cowboys playoff history. Austin's electrifying run put Dallas up 17-13 in the third quarter only 11 seconds after the Seahawks had gone ahead.
Defending on the play were such no-names as John Howell, Rich Gardner, Ben Joppru, Oliver Celestin, Marquis Weeks and Lance Laury.
Seattle lost starters Kelly Herndon and Jimmy Williams with season-ending injuries against Tampa Bay a week before the game. Starter Marcus Trufant, one of the best tacklers at cornerback in the NFL, suffered a high ankle strain earlier in the year.
Thrust into the spotlight to defend against Terrell Owens (arguably the best current receiver in the NFL) and Terry Glenn (arguably the fastest receiver in the NFL) was rookie Kelly Jennings (who caused the fumble that resulted in Seattle's safety), safety-turned-cornerback Jordan Babineaux (who covered Terrell Owens and made the game-saving tackle on Tony Romo) and nickel back Pete Hunter (who was out of football a week prior and was working as a loan officer in Dallas).
If you are not impressed by the performance of Jennings, Babineaux and Hunter, you are most certainly a Dallas homer.
The Seahawk defensive secondary that had been decimated going into the playoff game helped hold the Cowboys to a season-low 14 first downs, its second-lowest total yards at 284, its second-lowest net yards passing at 168 and only 23% conversions on third downs.
A lot of Seahawks played tough on defense and the defensive secondary, which figured to get a lesson in what not to do against Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn, held its own like the Seattle Seahawks NFC conference championship team of a year ago that went to the Super Bowl.
Is there unfinished business in Seattle? Yes, there is. Next stop is in Chicago against the Bears, the No. 1 seed in the NFC. The Seahawks come in as a 9-point underdog.
The Bears humiliated Seattle 37-6 earlier in the season on their home turf, but as a betting man, I like Seattle to upset the Bears and continue on their run to another Super Bowl appearance.
The Seahawks earlier defeat by the Bears was played with a banged-up offensive line, Shaun Alexander was unable to play because he had a cracked bone in his left foot and Michael Boulware left the game with a concussion.
Let the Seahawks try again, this time healthier, stronger, hungrier and more focused on the prize that eluded them last year when Pittsburgh beat them 21-10 to win Super Bowl 40 (XL).
A botched 19-yard-field-goal attempt on fourth down with only 79 seconds left caused the Dallas Cowboys to be one point short and one yard short of a first down as the Seattle Seahawks hung on to advance in the 2006 NFC playoffs, beating the Cowboys 21-20 at home in Seattle.
While there was blame enough to pass around for the loss in the wild-card game, the final mistake came when "rookie" quarterback Tony Romo lost control of the ball on Martin Gramatica's 19-yard-field-goal attempt.
Romo, the holder, caught the ball cleanly but bobbled the ball when placing it down for Gramatica's attempt. Romo tried to scamper into the end zone on the play but was stopped short by Jordan Babineaux's game-saving tackle at the 2-yard line, one yard short of a first down.
Untested quarterbacks who become starters historically screw up in big games, and Romo did not disappoint. He did not make any excuses for costing Dallas the victory and advancement in the playoff game, and Romo deserves credit for shouldering the blame.
He was the holder on kicks for the Cowboys last year before replacing Drew Bledsoe this year. He blossomed into a Pro Bowl pick by winning five of his first six starts and turning the Dallas season around at that point. Romo's fast start and big statistics fell apart quickly as the season progressed.
Many money players (including myself) bet Seattle to win behind Matt Hasselbeck's experience and Romo's inexperience in the playoffs.
True to form, Hasselbeck was 18-of-36 for 240 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, both of which resulted in Dallas field goals. Matt Hasselbeck was a Pro Bowl pick last year but was bothered by injuries and a weaker offensive line this year.
Romo was 17-of-29 for 189 yards and a touchdown and no turnovers, but all it took was the botched kick attempt to mar his effort.
Pushing aside all statistics, the ball clearly bounced right for Seattle and wrong for Dallas, but that is why we play the game. As a Seattle Seahawk fan, it almost goes without saying that I love first year starting quarterbacks playing for the opposing team.
Two other big plays helped Seattle advance in the playoffs.
The first big play happened when trailing 20-13 after failing on a fourth-and-goal play with 6:40 left in the game. The Seahawks started their comeback with two points on a safety when defensive back Kelly Jennings forced Dallas receiver Terry Glenn to fumble the ball into the end zone when the Cowboys took over deep in their own territory.
The ball shot out of Glenn's arms and took one bounce into the end zone as three Seattle defenders converged on the opportunity for the Seahawk defense to score in the Cowboy's end zone.
Linebacker Lofa Tatupu, an All Pro rookie last year, dove for the ball to keep it from going out of bounds and tipped it back into play then safety Michael Boulware recovered it for what appeared to be a touchdown.
A replay showed Tatupu was out of bounds when the ball was tipped inbounds, so the Seahawks were awarded a safety and the Cowboys lost possession of the ball.
The second big play came when Seattle received the ball on a free kick following the safety. The Seahawks took the winning lead on a 37-yard touchdown pass from Matt Hasselbeck to Jerramy Stevens.
Stevens arguably had the best day of his 5-year career, catching five passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns, his first touchdown being a 15-yarder to give Seattle a 13-10 lead in the third quarter. The Seahawks could not have won without Stevens because Seattle's go-to wide receiver Darrell Jackson (D-Jack) and D. J. Hackett both left the game with injuries.
Dallas was not to be denied as Romo drove the Cowboys right back down the field and into position for the win when a pass to Jason Witten was initially ruled a first down. A replay showed the Cowboys were short.
It looked as if Dallas Coach Bill Parcells was tempted to go for it on fourth-and-1 as he left his offense on the field until Seattle called for a timeout. Then Parcells sent in Gramatica for the ill-fated field goal attempt.
This playoff game was as exciting as any wild-card game ever played.
Miles Austin, an undrafted rookie, had a 93-yard kickoff return for Dallas that became the first kickoff return for a touchdown in the Cowboys playoff history. Austin's electrifying run put Dallas up 17-13 in the third quarter only 11 seconds after the Seahawks had gone ahead.
Defending on the play were such no-names as John Howell, Rich Gardner, Ben Joppru, Oliver Celestin, Marquis Weeks and Lance Laury.
Seattle lost starters Kelly Herndon and Jimmy Williams with season-ending injuries against Tampa Bay a week before the game. Starter Marcus Trufant, one of the best tacklers at cornerback in the NFL, suffered a high ankle strain earlier in the year.
Thrust into the spotlight to defend against Terrell Owens (arguably the best current receiver in the NFL) and Terry Glenn (arguably the fastest receiver in the NFL) was rookie Kelly Jennings (who caused the fumble that resulted in Seattle's safety), safety-turned-cornerback Jordan Babineaux (who covered Terrell Owens and made the game-saving tackle on Tony Romo) and nickel back Pete Hunter (who was out of football a week prior and was working as a loan officer in Dallas).
If you are not impressed by the performance of Jennings, Babineaux and Hunter, you are most certainly a Dallas homer.
The Seahawk defensive secondary that had been decimated going into the playoff game helped hold the Cowboys to a season-low 14 first downs, its second-lowest total yards at 284, its second-lowest net yards passing at 168 and only 23% conversions on third downs.
A lot of Seahawks played tough on defense and the defensive secondary, which figured to get a lesson in what not to do against Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn, held its own like the Seattle Seahawks NFC conference championship team of a year ago that went to the Super Bowl.
Is there unfinished business in Seattle? Yes, there is. Next stop is in Chicago against the Bears, the No. 1 seed in the NFC. The Seahawks come in as a 9-point underdog.
The Bears humiliated Seattle 37-6 earlier in the season on their home turf, but as a betting man, I like Seattle to upset the Bears and continue on their run to another Super Bowl appearance.
The Seahawks earlier defeat by the Bears was played with a banged-up offensive line, Shaun Alexander was unable to play because he had a cracked bone in his left foot and Michael Boulware left the game with a concussion.
Let the Seahawks try again, this time healthier, stronger, hungrier and more focused on the prize that eluded them last year when Pittsburgh beat them 21-10 to win Super Bowl 40 (XL).
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Florida Becomes the First Team to Repeat as NCAA Champion Since Duke in 1992
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
The Florida Gators became only the seventh team in NCAA Basketball Tournament history to repeat as national champions Monday night, pushing aside Ohio State 84-75 in a game with all of the excitement of looking at an ashtray.
After four very exciting rounds of basketball in the 62-team playoff tournament, the last two rounds put a lot of fans to sleep, including me.
The Final 4 found #1 Ohio State easing past #2 Georgetown 67-60 even though freshman phenom Greg Oden only played a half game (20 minutes) because of foul trouble early on. All Big 10 freshman guard Mike Conley Jr. stepped up with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assets and exactly 1 turnover.
Oden came back big in the second half, scoring 13 points and picking off 8 rebounds.
There is not another team in the country with two freshmen like Oden and Conley. Oden is only the top NBA draft prospect in the country, and at times he has played as advertised. No one should be comparing him to the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar yet, but he certainly will get better in college if not in the pros next year.
Georgetown's 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 1 blocked shot in 24 minutes of play and held his own against the younger, more celebrated Oden.
Hibbert, however, had little support from teammates Jeff Green, who scored 9 points on only 5 shots after averaging nearly 16 points in the tournament, and DaJuan Summers, who scored only 3 points after averaging nearly 18 points in his two prior playoff games.
It was the 22nd straight victory for the Buckeyes who would see their streak come to a screeching halt against Florida.
In the second semi-final, Florida dealt UCLA another spanking, advancing 76-66, and the score was a lot closer than the game on the court. Florida knocked off UCLA in last year's NCAA tournament 73-57 to win the national championship.
When Bruin guard and Pac 10 Player of the Year Arron Afflalo went to the bench early in the first half with foul trouble the game was over. Despite a second half rally that fell way too short, Florida had this game in the bag.
Coach Ben Howland has done a great job turning around UCLA's program but he and the Bruins will have to wait another year to become more famous.
Never mind that UCLA entered the game at 11-1 against ranked opponents this year or that they were 17-2 against teams in this year's NCAA tournament. Florida has done a little butt kicking of its own, going 20-1 in postseason play the last three years, and going 22-1 in March during that time.
So Florida and Ohio State headed into a national championship for the second time in a year, this time in basketball. Florida beat Ohio State by 27 points in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) national championship football game in January. Both schools have become powerhouse programs.
Ohio State had Oden, Conley and a lot of hope and prayer. Florida had five starters each of whom was averaging in double figures yet sharing the ball, as all averaged within 2.4 shots of one another and none averaged as many as 10 shots a game. That is called balance.
The Buckeyes decided to leave Oden underneath and did not challenge Florida shooters on the perimeter, and the Gators canned enough 3-pointers to move away quickly and stay ahead.
Florida drained 10 three-pointers, shot 49% from the floor and 88% from the free throw line.
Ohio State's big impression center Greg Oden led all scorers with 25 points and tied for the game-high with 12 rebounds, but he had little help from his teammates who would have needed a ball with eyes to catch Florida.
For the record, this was the first Final 4 in which all four finalists had 30 or more wins. It was the second Final 4 in which every team was a No. 2 seed or better. And the championship game was only the 5th pairing of no. 1 seeds.
Show a little love for Billy Donovan and his players, all of whom decided not to go pro and came back to try a repeat. They did it. It sounds so simple to say but Florida was the first team since Duke in 1992 to win back-to-back championships and only the seventh team ever to do it.
The others were Oklahoma State (1945-46), Kentucky (1948-49), San Francisco (1955-56), Cincinnati (1961-62), UCLA (1964-65 and 1967-73) and Duke (1991-92).
UCLA won 9 titles in 10 years and 7 in-a-row under coach John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach to ever walk on the hardwood. UCLA also entered its Florida game with an all-time winning percentage of .738 in the NCAA tournament and an all-time 93-33 record.
Coach Billy Donovan has some work to do if he ever expects to rival John Wooden.
After winning his second national championship, Donovan said "I think this team should go down as one of the best teams in the history of college basketball.
"Not as the most talented, and not on style points, but because they encompassed what the word 'team' means, " said Donovan. "They did it the first year with no expectations, then they did it again with all the expectations."
Buckeye coach Thad Matta did not wear out his mind agreeing with Donovan, saying "I would put them in a category of some of the best teams to win."
Florida just ripped Ohio State a new backside.
The starting five for the Gators—Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey—is thought to be the only starting five ever to win back-to-back titles. Florida's 68 wins over the past two seasons are tied for the 10th most in NCAA history.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 5 – The Final 4
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Georgetown 67-60
#1 Florida eliminated #2 UCLA 76-66
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 6 – Championship Game
#1 Florida eliminated #1 Ohio State 84-75 to win its second straight title.
The Florida Gators became only the seventh team in NCAA Basketball Tournament history to repeat as national champions Monday night, pushing aside Ohio State 84-75 in a game with all of the excitement of looking at an ashtray.
After four very exciting rounds of basketball in the 62-team playoff tournament, the last two rounds put a lot of fans to sleep, including me.
The Final 4 found #1 Ohio State easing past #2 Georgetown 67-60 even though freshman phenom Greg Oden only played a half game (20 minutes) because of foul trouble early on. All Big 10 freshman guard Mike Conley Jr. stepped up with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assets and exactly 1 turnover.
Oden came back big in the second half, scoring 13 points and picking off 8 rebounds.
There is not another team in the country with two freshmen like Oden and Conley. Oden is only the top NBA draft prospect in the country, and at times he has played as advertised. No one should be comparing him to the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar yet, but he certainly will get better in college if not in the pros next year.
Georgetown's 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 1 blocked shot in 24 minutes of play and held his own against the younger, more celebrated Oden.
Hibbert, however, had little support from teammates Jeff Green, who scored 9 points on only 5 shots after averaging nearly 16 points in the tournament, and DaJuan Summers, who scored only 3 points after averaging nearly 18 points in his two prior playoff games.
It was the 22nd straight victory for the Buckeyes who would see their streak come to a screeching halt against Florida.
In the second semi-final, Florida dealt UCLA another spanking, advancing 76-66, and the score was a lot closer than the game on the court. Florida knocked off UCLA in last year's NCAA tournament 73-57 to win the national championship.
When Bruin guard and Pac 10 Player of the Year Arron Afflalo went to the bench early in the first half with foul trouble the game was over. Despite a second half rally that fell way too short, Florida had this game in the bag.
Coach Ben Howland has done a great job turning around UCLA's program but he and the Bruins will have to wait another year to become more famous.
Never mind that UCLA entered the game at 11-1 against ranked opponents this year or that they were 17-2 against teams in this year's NCAA tournament. Florida has done a little butt kicking of its own, going 20-1 in postseason play the last three years, and going 22-1 in March during that time.
So Florida and Ohio State headed into a national championship for the second time in a year, this time in basketball. Florida beat Ohio State by 27 points in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) national championship football game in January. Both schools have become powerhouse programs.
Ohio State had Oden, Conley and a lot of hope and prayer. Florida had five starters each of whom was averaging in double figures yet sharing the ball, as all averaged within 2.4 shots of one another and none averaged as many as 10 shots a game. That is called balance.
The Buckeyes decided to leave Oden underneath and did not challenge Florida shooters on the perimeter, and the Gators canned enough 3-pointers to move away quickly and stay ahead.
Florida drained 10 three-pointers, shot 49% from the floor and 88% from the free throw line.
Ohio State's big impression center Greg Oden led all scorers with 25 points and tied for the game-high with 12 rebounds, but he had little help from his teammates who would have needed a ball with eyes to catch Florida.
For the record, this was the first Final 4 in which all four finalists had 30 or more wins. It was the second Final 4 in which every team was a No. 2 seed or better. And the championship game was only the 5th pairing of no. 1 seeds.
Show a little love for Billy Donovan and his players, all of whom decided not to go pro and came back to try a repeat. They did it. It sounds so simple to say but Florida was the first team since Duke in 1992 to win back-to-back championships and only the seventh team ever to do it.
The others were Oklahoma State (1945-46), Kentucky (1948-49), San Francisco (1955-56), Cincinnati (1961-62), UCLA (1964-65 and 1967-73) and Duke (1991-92).
UCLA won 9 titles in 10 years and 7 in-a-row under coach John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach to ever walk on the hardwood. UCLA also entered its Florida game with an all-time winning percentage of .738 in the NCAA tournament and an all-time 93-33 record.
Coach Billy Donovan has some work to do if he ever expects to rival John Wooden.
After winning his second national championship, Donovan said "I think this team should go down as one of the best teams in the history of college basketball.
"Not as the most talented, and not on style points, but because they encompassed what the word 'team' means, " said Donovan. "They did it the first year with no expectations, then they did it again with all the expectations."
Buckeye coach Thad Matta did not wear out his mind agreeing with Donovan, saying "I would put them in a category of some of the best teams to win."
Florida just ripped Ohio State a new backside.
The starting five for the Gators—Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey—is thought to be the only starting five ever to win back-to-back titles. Florida's 68 wins over the past two seasons are tied for the 10th most in NCAA history.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 5 – The Final 4
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Georgetown 67-60
#1 Florida eliminated #2 UCLA 76-66
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 6 – Championship Game
#1 Florida eliminated #1 Ohio State 84-75 to win its second straight title.
The Final 4 for the 2007 NCAA Tourney - Florida, Ohio State, UCLA & Georgetown
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Now there are only four teams left, exactly as the statistics predicted.
No more than two No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final 4 in 18 of the last 22 years and now it will be 19 of the last 23 years. And no team seeded below No. 4 has won the championship for 18 consecutive years and this year will make it 19 consecutive years.
There is much weeping for the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Kansas Jayhawks, both No. 1 seeds who were beaten by their No. 2 Seed opponents over the weekend.
The Final 4 will be No. 1 Florida against No. 2 UCLA, and No. 1 Ohio State against No. 2 Georgetown.
Forget last year's miracle team—George Mason—and the Cinderella team of two years ago—Butler. This year's almost underdog miracle—UNLV—made it to the Sweet 16 but was promptly dispatched by Oregon, 76-72.
Despite all of the hoopla about Butler this year, last year's national champion Florida proved just as tough and physical as Butler, winning 65-57. Florida then put some major hurt on Oregon 85-77 to advance to the Final 4 once again.
No. 1 Seed Florida is trying to become the first team since Duke in 1992 to win consecutive national titles. A lot of fans have other favorites besides Florida, but to be the national champion that team will have to upset the defending champion Florida first.
Oregon's Tajuan Porter, the 5-foot-6 freshman guard no other big school wanted, was sizzling against UNLV, getting nothing but net while setting an NCAA regional record with eight 3-pointers among his 33 points. Unfortunately, Oregon's normal hot shooting hand was cold against Florida when it came time to finish.
No. 1 Ohio State had all it could handle against Tennessee. Freshman sensation Greg Oden was in foul trouble and the Buckeyes were down 20 points when senior Ron Lewis and Mike Conley brought Ohio State back to life down the stretch to win 85-84.
Lewis scored 18 of his 25 points in the second half and Conley scored 9 of his 17 from the foul line, including the winner with 6.5 seconds left.
Ohio State dodged the bullet against Tennessee and then crushed Memphis 92-76 to advance to the Final 4.
The No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks were not the fanny kickers many predicted. Kansas barely got by #4 Southern Illinois 61-58 when Tony Young missed a desperation 3-pointer from halfcourt at the buzzer. When it was over the Jayhawks were probably saying their prayers.
Apparently No. 2 Seed UCLA did not miss much of the Jayhawks performance against Southern Illinois as they crushed Kansas 68-55 to eliminate the Jayhawks and move on to the Final 4 for a record 17th time.
The Bruins Arron Affalo, absent in some big games for UCLA as the season ended, resurfaced with 15 of his 24 points in the second half and looked like the Pac 10 Player of the Year that he was coming into the tournament.
Before taking care of Kansas, UCLA never trailed in eliminating Pittsburgh 64-55. Ben Howland coached Pittsburgh to some major successes before leaving Pitt for the UCLA job. Pittsburgh's head coach Jamie Dixon is Howland's best friend and Howland's former assistant coach at Pitt. Someone had to lose, perhaps it is better that Dixon's mentor won.
Given the success Howland has had at UCLA and also Dixon at Pittsburgh there is no question that they will meet again in the playoffs at some point in the future.
North Carolina looked like a No. 1 Seed in eliminating No. 5 Southern California 76-64 even though North Carolina was down by 16 early in the second half. When it counted, Southern California folded like cheap K-Mart deck chair; they mostly did a lot of looking around while North Carolina went on a scoring spree.
But North Carolina picked up some bad habits while watching Southern California fold. The Tar Heels were up by 13 against Georgetown but completely collapsed at the end, making only one field goal in the final 9:54 of regulation and the first 4:52 of overtime.
During that stretch North Carolina missed 21 of 22 shots from the field as the Hoyas shut them down with their zone defense, arguably the best zone defense at game's end in the tournament.
With only 31.2 seconds left in regulation Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace, an unlikely hero, tied the score with a three-pointer, sending the game into an overtime period that Georgetown dominated, finally winning 96-84.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams was apparently playing with a team full of underclassmen, and it showed down the stretch.
You could call Georgetown the comeback team as the Hoyas were down 13 to Vanderbilt before coming back to win 66-65 and qualify to face North Carolina.
There have been no less than 10 double-digit comebacks in the 2007 tournament, but none will be remembered a year from now. At this time next year, we will only remember who won the national championship, most of us may even space out on who they played.
It is as it always is, it is much easier to remember who won rather than who lost. Remember, it is basketball, it is a game, not the game of life, that will come later when these marvelous athletes move on to the next chapter of their life.
2007 NCAA Tournament Pairings for the Round 6 – The Final 4
Saturday, March 31:
#1 Ohio State (34-3) against #2 Georgetown (30-6)
#1 Florida (33-5) against #2 UCLA (30-5)
The National Championship Game will be Played Tuesday, April 2
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 3 – The Sweet 16
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #5 Butler 65-57
#3 Oregon eliminated #7 UNLV 76-72
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #4 Southern Illinois 61-58
#2 UCLA eliminated #3 Pittsburgh 64-55
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #5 Southern California 76-64
#2 Georgetown eliminated #6 Vanderbilt 66-65
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #5 Tennessee 85-84
#2 Memphis eliminated #3 Texas A&M 65-64
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 4 – The Elite 8
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #3 Oregon 85-77
West Regional:
#1 Kansas was upset by #2 UCLA 68-55
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina was upset by #2 Georgetown 96-84 (OT)
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Memphis 92-76
Now there are only four teams left, exactly as the statistics predicted.
No more than two No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final 4 in 18 of the last 22 years and now it will be 19 of the last 23 years. And no team seeded below No. 4 has won the championship for 18 consecutive years and this year will make it 19 consecutive years.
There is much weeping for the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Kansas Jayhawks, both No. 1 seeds who were beaten by their No. 2 Seed opponents over the weekend.
The Final 4 will be No. 1 Florida against No. 2 UCLA, and No. 1 Ohio State against No. 2 Georgetown.
Forget last year's miracle team—George Mason—and the Cinderella team of two years ago—Butler. This year's almost underdog miracle—UNLV—made it to the Sweet 16 but was promptly dispatched by Oregon, 76-72.
Despite all of the hoopla about Butler this year, last year's national champion Florida proved just as tough and physical as Butler, winning 65-57. Florida then put some major hurt on Oregon 85-77 to advance to the Final 4 once again.
No. 1 Seed Florida is trying to become the first team since Duke in 1992 to win consecutive national titles. A lot of fans have other favorites besides Florida, but to be the national champion that team will have to upset the defending champion Florida first.
Oregon's Tajuan Porter, the 5-foot-6 freshman guard no other big school wanted, was sizzling against UNLV, getting nothing but net while setting an NCAA regional record with eight 3-pointers among his 33 points. Unfortunately, Oregon's normal hot shooting hand was cold against Florida when it came time to finish.
No. 1 Ohio State had all it could handle against Tennessee. Freshman sensation Greg Oden was in foul trouble and the Buckeyes were down 20 points when senior Ron Lewis and Mike Conley brought Ohio State back to life down the stretch to win 85-84.
Lewis scored 18 of his 25 points in the second half and Conley scored 9 of his 17 from the foul line, including the winner with 6.5 seconds left.
Ohio State dodged the bullet against Tennessee and then crushed Memphis 92-76 to advance to the Final 4.
The No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks were not the fanny kickers many predicted. Kansas barely got by #4 Southern Illinois 61-58 when Tony Young missed a desperation 3-pointer from halfcourt at the buzzer. When it was over the Jayhawks were probably saying their prayers.
Apparently No. 2 Seed UCLA did not miss much of the Jayhawks performance against Southern Illinois as they crushed Kansas 68-55 to eliminate the Jayhawks and move on to the Final 4 for a record 17th time.
The Bruins Arron Affalo, absent in some big games for UCLA as the season ended, resurfaced with 15 of his 24 points in the second half and looked like the Pac 10 Player of the Year that he was coming into the tournament.
Before taking care of Kansas, UCLA never trailed in eliminating Pittsburgh 64-55. Ben Howland coached Pittsburgh to some major successes before leaving Pitt for the UCLA job. Pittsburgh's head coach Jamie Dixon is Howland's best friend and Howland's former assistant coach at Pitt. Someone had to lose, perhaps it is better that Dixon's mentor won.
Given the success Howland has had at UCLA and also Dixon at Pittsburgh there is no question that they will meet again in the playoffs at some point in the future.
North Carolina looked like a No. 1 Seed in eliminating No. 5 Southern California 76-64 even though North Carolina was down by 16 early in the second half. When it counted, Southern California folded like cheap K-Mart deck chair; they mostly did a lot of looking around while North Carolina went on a scoring spree.
But North Carolina picked up some bad habits while watching Southern California fold. The Tar Heels were up by 13 against Georgetown but completely collapsed at the end, making only one field goal in the final 9:54 of regulation and the first 4:52 of overtime.
During that stretch North Carolina missed 21 of 22 shots from the field as the Hoyas shut them down with their zone defense, arguably the best zone defense at game's end in the tournament.
With only 31.2 seconds left in regulation Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace, an unlikely hero, tied the score with a three-pointer, sending the game into an overtime period that Georgetown dominated, finally winning 96-84.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams was apparently playing with a team full of underclassmen, and it showed down the stretch.
You could call Georgetown the comeback team as the Hoyas were down 13 to Vanderbilt before coming back to win 66-65 and qualify to face North Carolina.
There have been no less than 10 double-digit comebacks in the 2007 tournament, but none will be remembered a year from now. At this time next year, we will only remember who won the national championship, most of us may even space out on who they played.
It is as it always is, it is much easier to remember who won rather than who lost. Remember, it is basketball, it is a game, not the game of life, that will come later when these marvelous athletes move on to the next chapter of their life.
2007 NCAA Tournament Pairings for the Round 6 – The Final 4
Saturday, March 31:
#1 Ohio State (34-3) against #2 Georgetown (30-6)
#1 Florida (33-5) against #2 UCLA (30-5)
The National Championship Game will be Played Tuesday, April 2
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 3 – The Sweet 16
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #5 Butler 65-57
#3 Oregon eliminated #7 UNLV 76-72
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #4 Southern Illinois 61-58
#2 UCLA eliminated #3 Pittsburgh 64-55
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #5 Southern California 76-64
#2 Georgetown eliminated #6 Vanderbilt 66-65
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #5 Tennessee 85-84
#2 Memphis eliminated #3 Texas A&M 65-64
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 4 – The Elite 8
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #3 Oregon 85-77
West Regional:
#1 Kansas was upset by #2 UCLA 68-55
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina was upset by #2 Georgetown 96-84 (OT)
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Memphis 92-76
First 2 Rounds in 2007 NCAA Tournament Produces Just 4 Real Upsets in 48 Games
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
The first two rounds of the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament produced just 4 real upsets in 48 games.
Do not tell Duke, Notre Dame, Wisconsin or Washington State that it was a good tournament. They were all eliminated and humbled by lesser lights with Hollywood's biggest klieg lights focused on them.
Perhaps the toughest pill to swallow belonged to #6 seeded Duke, which fell to #11 Virginia Commonwealth, 79-77.
Eric Maynor of Virginia Commonwealth was the best player on the floor and proved it with a 15-foot jumper with 1.8 seconds left to seal the victory. He finished the night with 22 points, 6 in the final 1:24. Maynor's just a sophomore.
The game was close as VC never led by more than 2 points. They overcame a 13-point first-half deficit and also trailed by 11 in the second half.
Virginia Commonwealth knocked off George Mason, the tournament's surprise team last year, to win the Colonial Athletic Association title 65-59 and qualify for the tournament. Maynor sealed that victory as well by scoring 9 of his 20 points in the final two minutes.
Duke lost a first-round game for the first time since 1996, ending the Blue Devils string of Sweet 16 appearances at 9. Only North Carolina's streak of 13 straight appearances is better.
Duke's legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski had only two upperclassmen this year; his team was the most inexperienced in his 27 years at Duke, one of the nation's powerhouse programs.
Notre Dame, a #6 seed, had high hopes coming into this year's tournament, its first appearance since 2003, as the Irish won the most games—24—since its 1974 season, but #11 seed Winthrop had bigger dreams as it dropped the Irish 74-64 with a 37-10 run that bridged the first and second half.
Winthrop came into the tournament with a 29-4 record with its only losses coming from North Carolina, Wisconsin (in overtime), Maryland and Texas A&M, all teams that made the tournament with a combined 117-27 record.
Winthrop was clearly small but no slouch. Winthop was eliminated by Oregon 75-61 in Round 2.
Winthrop might well be a trivia question. Few who follow NCAA basketball would know that the little school from Rock Hill (SC) is part of the Big South Conference, which is only big to the teams in it.
Part of the greatness of the NCAA format is that each team that wins its conference tournament gets an automatic bid to participate in the March Madness that forces teams to advance by winning or see their season end abruptly.
Washington State, which was picked to hover at the bottom of the Pac 10 in preseason polls, rose up under new, first-year head coach Tony Bennett to become one of the nation's huge surprises. The #3 seeded Cougars put together a 26-8 record and finished as runner-up in the Pac 10 season standings.
After knocking off #14 Oral Roberts 70-54 in Round 1 Washington State found it could not hit three open shots in the final moments of its game with #6 Vanderbilt and lost 78-74 in a double-overtime heartbreaker.
Number 2 seeded Wisconsin got by #15 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 76-73 before running into #7 UNLV and losing 74-68. UNLV became part of the Sweet 16 by polishing off Wisconsin after beating #10 Georgia Tech 67-63.
In six other games that hardly qualified as upsets, three #9 seeds beat #8 seeds, and three #5 seeds beat #4 seeds. They were all pretty equal. All of the 5 seeds—Butler, Southern California and Tennessee—made it to the Sweet 16. All of the 9 seeds—Purdue, Michigan State and Xavier—did not.
Here are the 2007 NCAA Tournament Round 3 Sweet 16 Match-Ups:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida versus #5 Butler - Friday
#3 Oregon versus #7 UNLV - Friday
West Regional:
#1 Kansas versus #4 Southern Illinois – Thursday
#2 UCLA versus #3 Pittsburgh – Thursday
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina versus #5 Southern California - Friday
#2 Georgetown versus #6 Vanderbilt - Friday
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State versus #5 Tennessee - Thursday
#2 Memphis versus #3 Texas A&M – Thursday
So who will make it the Elite 8?
Consider three cold, hard facts of life:
1) When you know that no team less than a #4 seed has won the championship for 18 straight years, you might want to eliminate #5 Butler, #7 UNLV, #5 Southern California, #6 Vanderbilt and #5 Tennessee.
That leaves #1 Florida, #1 Kansas, #1 North Carolina, #1 Ohio State, #2 UCLA, #2 Georgetown, #2 Memphis, #3 Oregon, #3 Pittsburgh, #3 Texas A&M and #4 Southern Illinois.
2) Only three of the #1 seeds are likely to advance to the Final Four since only 70% of #1 seeds advance into the Elite Eight.
So you figure out who will be eliminated on Thursday or Firday: Florida, Kansas, North Carolina or Ohio State.
3) Amazingly, exactly one or two #1 seeds have made the Final Four 18 of the last 22 years.
You figure it out. Good luck, you will need it.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 1:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #16 Jackson State 112-69
#2 Wisconsin eliminated #15 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 76-63
#3 Oregon eliminated #14 Maimi (Ohio) 58-56
#4 Maryland eliminated #13Davidson 82-70
#5 Butler eliminated #12 Old Dominion 57-46
#6 Notre Dame was upset by #11 Winthrop 74-64
#7 UNLV eliminated #10 Georgia Tech 67-63
#8 Arizona lost to #9 Purdue 72-63
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #16 Niagara 107-67
#2 UCLA eliminated #15 Weber State 70-42
#3 Pittsburgh eliminated #14 Wright State 79-58
#4 Southern Illinois eliminated #13 Holy Cross 61-51
#5 Virginia Tech eliminated #12 Illinois 54-52
#6 Duke was upset by #11 Virginia Commonwealth 79-77
#7 Indiana eliminated #10 Gonzaga 70-57
#8 Kentucky eliminated #9 Villanova 67-58
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #16 Eastern Kentucky 86-65
#2 Georgetown eliminated #15 Belmont 80-55
#3 Washington State eliminated #14 Oral Roberts 70-54
#4 Texas eliminated #13 New Mexico State 79-67
#5 Southern California eliminated #12 Arkansas 77-60
#6 Vanderbilt eliminated #11 George Washington 77-44
#7 Boston College eliminated #10 Texas Tech 84-75
#8 Marquette lost to #9 Michigan State 61-49
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #16 Central Connecticut State 78-57
#2 Memphis eliminated #15 North Texas 73-58
#3 Texas A&M eliminated #14 Pennsylvania 68-52
#4 Virginia eliminated #13 Albany 84-57
#5 Tennessee eliminated #12 Long Beach State 121-86
#6 Louisville eliminated #11 Stanford 78-58
#7 Nevada eliminated #10 Creighton 77-71 (OT)
#8 Brigham Young lost to #9 Xavier 79-77
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 2:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #9 Purdue 74-67
#4 Maryland lost to #5 Butler 62-59
#3 Oregon eliminated #11 Winthrop 75-61
#2 Wisconsin was upset by #7 UNLV 74-68
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #8 Kentucky 88-76
#4 Southern Illinois eliminated #5 Virginia Tech 63-48
#3 Pittsburgh eliminated #11 Virginia Commonwealth 84-79 (OT)
#2 UCLA eliminated #7 Indiana 54-49
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #9 Michigan State 81-67
#4 Texas loses to #5 Southern California 87-68
#3 Washington State was upset by #6 Vanderbilt 78-74 (2OT)
#2 Georgetown eliminated #7 Boston College 62-55
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #9 Xavier 78-71 (OT)
#4 Virginia lost to #5 Tennessee 77-74
#3 Texas A&M eliminated #6 Louisville 72-69
#2 Memphis eliminated #7 Nevada 78-62
The first two rounds of the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament produced just 4 real upsets in 48 games.
Do not tell Duke, Notre Dame, Wisconsin or Washington State that it was a good tournament. They were all eliminated and humbled by lesser lights with Hollywood's biggest klieg lights focused on them.
Perhaps the toughest pill to swallow belonged to #6 seeded Duke, which fell to #11 Virginia Commonwealth, 79-77.
Eric Maynor of Virginia Commonwealth was the best player on the floor and proved it with a 15-foot jumper with 1.8 seconds left to seal the victory. He finished the night with 22 points, 6 in the final 1:24. Maynor's just a sophomore.
The game was close as VC never led by more than 2 points. They overcame a 13-point first-half deficit and also trailed by 11 in the second half.
Virginia Commonwealth knocked off George Mason, the tournament's surprise team last year, to win the Colonial Athletic Association title 65-59 and qualify for the tournament. Maynor sealed that victory as well by scoring 9 of his 20 points in the final two minutes.
Duke lost a first-round game for the first time since 1996, ending the Blue Devils string of Sweet 16 appearances at 9. Only North Carolina's streak of 13 straight appearances is better.
Duke's legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski had only two upperclassmen this year; his team was the most inexperienced in his 27 years at Duke, one of the nation's powerhouse programs.
Notre Dame, a #6 seed, had high hopes coming into this year's tournament, its first appearance since 2003, as the Irish won the most games—24—since its 1974 season, but #11 seed Winthrop had bigger dreams as it dropped the Irish 74-64 with a 37-10 run that bridged the first and second half.
Winthrop came into the tournament with a 29-4 record with its only losses coming from North Carolina, Wisconsin (in overtime), Maryland and Texas A&M, all teams that made the tournament with a combined 117-27 record.
Winthrop was clearly small but no slouch. Winthop was eliminated by Oregon 75-61 in Round 2.
Winthrop might well be a trivia question. Few who follow NCAA basketball would know that the little school from Rock Hill (SC) is part of the Big South Conference, which is only big to the teams in it.
Part of the greatness of the NCAA format is that each team that wins its conference tournament gets an automatic bid to participate in the March Madness that forces teams to advance by winning or see their season end abruptly.
Washington State, which was picked to hover at the bottom of the Pac 10 in preseason polls, rose up under new, first-year head coach Tony Bennett to become one of the nation's huge surprises. The #3 seeded Cougars put together a 26-8 record and finished as runner-up in the Pac 10 season standings.
After knocking off #14 Oral Roberts 70-54 in Round 1 Washington State found it could not hit three open shots in the final moments of its game with #6 Vanderbilt and lost 78-74 in a double-overtime heartbreaker.
Number 2 seeded Wisconsin got by #15 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 76-73 before running into #7 UNLV and losing 74-68. UNLV became part of the Sweet 16 by polishing off Wisconsin after beating #10 Georgia Tech 67-63.
In six other games that hardly qualified as upsets, three #9 seeds beat #8 seeds, and three #5 seeds beat #4 seeds. They were all pretty equal. All of the 5 seeds—Butler, Southern California and Tennessee—made it to the Sweet 16. All of the 9 seeds—Purdue, Michigan State and Xavier—did not.
Here are the 2007 NCAA Tournament Round 3 Sweet 16 Match-Ups:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida versus #5 Butler - Friday
#3 Oregon versus #7 UNLV - Friday
West Regional:
#1 Kansas versus #4 Southern Illinois – Thursday
#2 UCLA versus #3 Pittsburgh – Thursday
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina versus #5 Southern California - Friday
#2 Georgetown versus #6 Vanderbilt - Friday
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State versus #5 Tennessee - Thursday
#2 Memphis versus #3 Texas A&M – Thursday
So who will make it the Elite 8?
Consider three cold, hard facts of life:
1) When you know that no team less than a #4 seed has won the championship for 18 straight years, you might want to eliminate #5 Butler, #7 UNLV, #5 Southern California, #6 Vanderbilt and #5 Tennessee.
That leaves #1 Florida, #1 Kansas, #1 North Carolina, #1 Ohio State, #2 UCLA, #2 Georgetown, #2 Memphis, #3 Oregon, #3 Pittsburgh, #3 Texas A&M and #4 Southern Illinois.
2) Only three of the #1 seeds are likely to advance to the Final Four since only 70% of #1 seeds advance into the Elite Eight.
So you figure out who will be eliminated on Thursday or Firday: Florida, Kansas, North Carolina or Ohio State.
3) Amazingly, exactly one or two #1 seeds have made the Final Four 18 of the last 22 years.
You figure it out. Good luck, you will need it.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 1:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #16 Jackson State 112-69
#2 Wisconsin eliminated #15 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 76-63
#3 Oregon eliminated #14 Maimi (Ohio) 58-56
#4 Maryland eliminated #13Davidson 82-70
#5 Butler eliminated #12 Old Dominion 57-46
#6 Notre Dame was upset by #11 Winthrop 74-64
#7 UNLV eliminated #10 Georgia Tech 67-63
#8 Arizona lost to #9 Purdue 72-63
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #16 Niagara 107-67
#2 UCLA eliminated #15 Weber State 70-42
#3 Pittsburgh eliminated #14 Wright State 79-58
#4 Southern Illinois eliminated #13 Holy Cross 61-51
#5 Virginia Tech eliminated #12 Illinois 54-52
#6 Duke was upset by #11 Virginia Commonwealth 79-77
#7 Indiana eliminated #10 Gonzaga 70-57
#8 Kentucky eliminated #9 Villanova 67-58
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #16 Eastern Kentucky 86-65
#2 Georgetown eliminated #15 Belmont 80-55
#3 Washington State eliminated #14 Oral Roberts 70-54
#4 Texas eliminated #13 New Mexico State 79-67
#5 Southern California eliminated #12 Arkansas 77-60
#6 Vanderbilt eliminated #11 George Washington 77-44
#7 Boston College eliminated #10 Texas Tech 84-75
#8 Marquette lost to #9 Michigan State 61-49
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #16 Central Connecticut State 78-57
#2 Memphis eliminated #15 North Texas 73-58
#3 Texas A&M eliminated #14 Pennsylvania 68-52
#4 Virginia eliminated #13 Albany 84-57
#5 Tennessee eliminated #12 Long Beach State 121-86
#6 Louisville eliminated #11 Stanford 78-58
#7 Nevada eliminated #10 Creighton 77-71 (OT)
#8 Brigham Young lost to #9 Xavier 79-77
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 2:
Midwest Regional:
#1 Florida eliminated #9 Purdue 74-67
#4 Maryland lost to #5 Butler 62-59
#3 Oregon eliminated #11 Winthrop 75-61
#2 Wisconsin was upset by #7 UNLV 74-68
West Regional:
#1 Kansas eliminated #8 Kentucky 88-76
#4 Southern Illinois eliminated #5 Virginia Tech 63-48
#3 Pittsburgh eliminated #11 Virginia Commonwealth 84-79 (OT)
#2 UCLA eliminated #7 Indiana 54-49
East Regional:
#1 North Carolina eliminated #9 Michigan State 81-67
#4 Texas loses to #5 Southern California 87-68
#3 Washington State was upset by #6 Vanderbilt 78-74 (2OT)
#2 Georgetown eliminated #7 Boston College 62-55
South Regional:
#1 Ohio State eliminated #9 Xavier 78-71 (OT)
#4 Virginia lost to #5 Tennessee 77-74
#3 Texas A&M eliminated #6 Louisville 72-69
#2 Memphis eliminated #7 Nevada 78-62
The 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament Has 30 Million Americans Involved in Office Pools
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Dang, no wonder why work suffers so much this time of year.
Call it a productivity slow down or whatever, but the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament will have its day, or shall we say several days starting today (March 15) and continuing to the national championship game on Monday, April 2.
Between now and then 64 teams will be whittled down to 2. This is a loser out affair, only winners advance in what is traditionally called The Big Dance. The 32 winners on Thursday and Friday will play again Saturday or Sunday.
By late Sunday night, the season will have ended for 48 teams as only 16 will advance to the third round next Thursday and Friday. These 16 are known as the Sweet 16. Two days later, 8 more teams will been eliminated and we will have what is known as the Elite 8.
Then the Final 4 and finally the national championship game.
So how will 30 million Americans be involved? Simple, office pools.
Experts estimate that more than $2.5 billion (yes, billion) will be wagered this year. For those of you who are counting, that is more than was bet on the last Super Bowl. And only 4% of the $2.5 billion will be wagered "legally" in Nevada.
Mathematical types will be overjoyed to know the odds of picking a perfect bracket.
Are you ready? It is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1. Please do not ask me who figured this out.
This number is a tad more than Bill Gates' fortune. It is 9 quintillion to 1, or a billion times as big as 9 billion. Good grief.
You might want to think of it his way: if every man, woman and child on planet Earth randomly filled out 10 million brackets each, the odds would be LESS than 1% that even one would have a perfect bracket.
This thought would be according to one RJ Bell of Pregame.com. If you know who RJ Bell is, you have probably been gambling online at some point in time.
It may be a little late for some advice on who to pick as the winner in the office pool, but RJ Bell offers these pointers:
(Editor's Note: These statistics cover the last 21 years of the tournament, since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.)
In Round One, be very selective picking any team below a No. 12 seed to win. No. 16 seeds are 0 for 88 and No. 15 seeds are only 4 for 88.
If you are looking for upsets, No. 12 seeds have beaten No. 5 seeds in 11 of 24 games the last 6 years, and No. 9 seeds have a winning record against No. 8 seeds.
In Round Two, advance No. 1 seeds almost automatically, they win their first two games 86% of the time.
Keep advancing the No. 12 and No. 10 seeds you picked to win in Round One. They win almost half the time in Round Two.
Only 9% of the teams seeded No. 13 or lower advance past Round Two the first weekend.
In the Sweet 16, advance exactly three of the No. 1 seeds as only 70% of the No. 1 seeds advance into the Elite Eight.
No team seeded No. 12 or lower has ever advanced into the Elite 8.
Advance one or two No. 1 seeds to the Final Four. Amazingly, exactly one or two No. 1 seeds have made the Final Four 18 of the last 22 years.
Advance no team lower than a No. 8 seed to the Final Four as only 2 of 88 Final Four teams have been seeded lower than No. 8.
Advance no team below a No. 6 seed to the championship game as not a single one has made it in the last 21 years.
Pick a No. 4 seed or higher to win it all as a No. 4 seed or higher has won the championship for 18 straight years.
Good luck and stay tuned. I may have more coverage on this exciting tournament in the days ahead.
Dang, no wonder why work suffers so much this time of year.
Call it a productivity slow down or whatever, but the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament will have its day, or shall we say several days starting today (March 15) and continuing to the national championship game on Monday, April 2.
Between now and then 64 teams will be whittled down to 2. This is a loser out affair, only winners advance in what is traditionally called The Big Dance. The 32 winners on Thursday and Friday will play again Saturday or Sunday.
By late Sunday night, the season will have ended for 48 teams as only 16 will advance to the third round next Thursday and Friday. These 16 are known as the Sweet 16. Two days later, 8 more teams will been eliminated and we will have what is known as the Elite 8.
Then the Final 4 and finally the national championship game.
So how will 30 million Americans be involved? Simple, office pools.
Experts estimate that more than $2.5 billion (yes, billion) will be wagered this year. For those of you who are counting, that is more than was bet on the last Super Bowl. And only 4% of the $2.5 billion will be wagered "legally" in Nevada.
Mathematical types will be overjoyed to know the odds of picking a perfect bracket.
Are you ready? It is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1. Please do not ask me who figured this out.
This number is a tad more than Bill Gates' fortune. It is 9 quintillion to 1, or a billion times as big as 9 billion. Good grief.
You might want to think of it his way: if every man, woman and child on planet Earth randomly filled out 10 million brackets each, the odds would be LESS than 1% that even one would have a perfect bracket.
This thought would be according to one RJ Bell of Pregame.com. If you know who RJ Bell is, you have probably been gambling online at some point in time.
It may be a little late for some advice on who to pick as the winner in the office pool, but RJ Bell offers these pointers:
(Editor's Note: These statistics cover the last 21 years of the tournament, since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.)
In Round One, be very selective picking any team below a No. 12 seed to win. No. 16 seeds are 0 for 88 and No. 15 seeds are only 4 for 88.
If you are looking for upsets, No. 12 seeds have beaten No. 5 seeds in 11 of 24 games the last 6 years, and No. 9 seeds have a winning record against No. 8 seeds.
In Round Two, advance No. 1 seeds almost automatically, they win their first two games 86% of the time.
Keep advancing the No. 12 and No. 10 seeds you picked to win in Round One. They win almost half the time in Round Two.
Only 9% of the teams seeded No. 13 or lower advance past Round Two the first weekend.
In the Sweet 16, advance exactly three of the No. 1 seeds as only 70% of the No. 1 seeds advance into the Elite Eight.
No team seeded No. 12 or lower has ever advanced into the Elite 8.
Advance one or two No. 1 seeds to the Final Four. Amazingly, exactly one or two No. 1 seeds have made the Final Four 18 of the last 22 years.
Advance no team lower than a No. 8 seed to the Final Four as only 2 of 88 Final Four teams have been seeded lower than No. 8.
Advance no team below a No. 6 seed to the championship game as not a single one has made it in the last 21 years.
Pick a No. 4 seed or higher to win it all as a No. 4 seed or higher has won the championship for 18 straight years.
Good luck and stay tuned. I may have more coverage on this exciting tournament in the days ahead.
Friday, April 6, 2007
"Coach Carter" Sends an Outstanding Message About a Coach with Integrity, Honor and Goodness
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Coach Carter – 3 Stars (Good)
Samuel L. Jackson plays Coach Ken Carter in a good sports drama with an outstanding message for today's high school basketball players who see playing with the pros as their only objective in life.
Coach Carter, a successful sporting goods store owner and an outstanding athlete in his day, returns to his alma mater which is located in a poor area of Richmond (CA). He inherits a team with players that have a poor attitude, poor performance and virtually no expectations for their future should they fail to advance their basketball careers.
The team at Richmond High School is designed to have its student athletes fail by not requiring greater expectations, discipline and accountability. Coach Carter is the centerpiece of this movie about values based on a true story of a California team.
He immediately lays down the law, Carter style, demanding discipline, hard work and accountability. Carter and his players sign a written contract that demands standards for behavior, a dress code and good grades to stay eligible to play.
Carter believes that scholarship and ethics should go hand in hand with outstanding basketball play.
Given some standards to meet, his players take a 180 degree turn and start winning from the outset of the season, going undefeated through several games. Then the community starts showering them with attention and praise and the players become overconfident and ignore their class attendance and studies.
Carter finds out that several of his players are nearly failing and takes immediate action, benching his team and shutting down the basketball program until the players toe the mark in their studies. You can imagine the reaction of the parents and community in general.
Coach Carter finds himself under immense pressure to give his players a pass. He becomes probably the only basketball coach in America to stand fast with an undefeated team. He flatly refuses to cave in, forcing his players to be accountable for their performance both on and off the court.
This is an incredible story of a coach who will not compromise his values by not compromising his integrity. Coach Carter has the guts and audacity to stand fast and right wills out in the end.
Listen to what Coach Carter has to say at his board hearing: "You really need to consider the message you're sending these boys by ending the lockout. It's the same message that we as a culture send to our professional athletes, and that is that they are above the law.
"If these boys cannot honor the simple rules of a basketball contract, how long do you think it will be before they're out there breaking the law?
"I played ball here at Richmond High 30 years ago. It was the same thing then; some of my teammates went to prison, some of them even ended up dead. If you vote to end the lockout, you won't have to terminate me, I'll quit."
Powerful? You better believe it. Ignore the violence, sexual content, poor language, teen partying and drug material in this film, it is just Hollywood's clumsy way of stereotyping high school basketball players.
There is too little recognition in films for prep basketball players who are not only outstanding collegiate and professional prospects but also outstanding students with great character and values.
Nonetheless, there are players like Coach Carter inherited, and this movie illustrates an important and needed statement about what really matters. Coach Carter is not interested in winning games to advance his career; he is totally focused on making young men into confident, productive, well adjusted adults.
Thankfully, the movie Coach Carter enjoyed some success, generating the highest opening weekend ($24 million) of any release by an MTV film. There was little recognition for this film among the most prestigious award givers. No matter. It was an Academy Award message in its own right.
See this movie for its excellent message. And yes, take your children with you, they need the message even more than you do, they are now in the spotlight and you are behind it.
Coach Carter – 3 Stars (Good)
Samuel L. Jackson plays Coach Ken Carter in a good sports drama with an outstanding message for today's high school basketball players who see playing with the pros as their only objective in life.
Coach Carter, a successful sporting goods store owner and an outstanding athlete in his day, returns to his alma mater which is located in a poor area of Richmond (CA). He inherits a team with players that have a poor attitude, poor performance and virtually no expectations for their future should they fail to advance their basketball careers.
The team at Richmond High School is designed to have its student athletes fail by not requiring greater expectations, discipline and accountability. Coach Carter is the centerpiece of this movie about values based on a true story of a California team.
He immediately lays down the law, Carter style, demanding discipline, hard work and accountability. Carter and his players sign a written contract that demands standards for behavior, a dress code and good grades to stay eligible to play.
Carter believes that scholarship and ethics should go hand in hand with outstanding basketball play.
Given some standards to meet, his players take a 180 degree turn and start winning from the outset of the season, going undefeated through several games. Then the community starts showering them with attention and praise and the players become overconfident and ignore their class attendance and studies.
Carter finds out that several of his players are nearly failing and takes immediate action, benching his team and shutting down the basketball program until the players toe the mark in their studies. You can imagine the reaction of the parents and community in general.
Coach Carter finds himself under immense pressure to give his players a pass. He becomes probably the only basketball coach in America to stand fast with an undefeated team. He flatly refuses to cave in, forcing his players to be accountable for their performance both on and off the court.
This is an incredible story of a coach who will not compromise his values by not compromising his integrity. Coach Carter has the guts and audacity to stand fast and right wills out in the end.
Listen to what Coach Carter has to say at his board hearing: "You really need to consider the message you're sending these boys by ending the lockout. It's the same message that we as a culture send to our professional athletes, and that is that they are above the law.
"If these boys cannot honor the simple rules of a basketball contract, how long do you think it will be before they're out there breaking the law?
"I played ball here at Richmond High 30 years ago. It was the same thing then; some of my teammates went to prison, some of them even ended up dead. If you vote to end the lockout, you won't have to terminate me, I'll quit."
Powerful? You better believe it. Ignore the violence, sexual content, poor language, teen partying and drug material in this film, it is just Hollywood's clumsy way of stereotyping high school basketball players.
There is too little recognition in films for prep basketball players who are not only outstanding collegiate and professional prospects but also outstanding students with great character and values.
Nonetheless, there are players like Coach Carter inherited, and this movie illustrates an important and needed statement about what really matters. Coach Carter is not interested in winning games to advance his career; he is totally focused on making young men into confident, productive, well adjusted adults.
Thankfully, the movie Coach Carter enjoyed some success, generating the highest opening weekend ($24 million) of any release by an MTV film. There was little recognition for this film among the most prestigious award givers. No matter. It was an Academy Award message in its own right.
See this movie for its excellent message. And yes, take your children with you, they need the message even more than you do, they are now in the spotlight and you are behind it.
Coach Was Color-Blind, He Only Wanted to Know If You Could Play Basketball
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Glory Road – 2 Stars (Average)
Basketball Coach Don Haskins does not have to wait for his legend to happen. He is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Few today would remember Don Haskins. He was the coach at Texas Western in 1966 when his 27-1 team played Adolph Rupp's 27-1 University of Kentucky Wildcats for the NCAA title.
Nothing too unusual about that, except that Haskins would become the first coach in NCAA history to start an all-African American lineup when the Miners squared off against Rupp's all-white Kentucky team that featured two players who would become well-known in the NBA pro league: Pat Riley and Louie Dampier.
Remember these names: Bobby Joe Hill, David Lattin, Orsten Artis, Willie Worsley and Harry Flournoy during February, Black History Month. They were the starting lineup for Texas Western when the Miners won the NCAA championship against an all-white Kentucky team, 72-65.
I would graduate from Michigan State University two months after Texas Western won the title, and would not be aware of just how historic this event was. My high school and college cross-country and track teams were integrated. Kentucky would not even offer African Americans basketball scholarships, and there were many other colleges and universities which excluded African American players in 1966.
There was a lot of hatred in the South at that time. Heck, there was a lot hatred everywhere, but not in Don Haskins' will to win for Texas Western, known today as UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso. Haskins was color-blind and simply put the best players on the floor to compete.
Haskins recruited the best players, nothing else mattered. Not even the lousy treatment and death threats both Haskins and his players received from die-hard, ignorant, bigoted Texas Western boosters and donors. They sing a different tune in Texas today, especially at the University of Texas.
Glory Road in 2006 retold the story of Don Haskins and Texas Western. Josh Lucas played the role of Don Haskins, Derek Luke played Bobby Joe Hill and John Voight played Adolph Rupp.
Glory Road is not one of the best movies ever made, but the story of Texas Western is on par with other great victories in sports history, including the 1980 U. S. Hockey team winning the Gold Medal in the Olympics.
Contrary to the movie version, the title game was not as big an upset as was depicted. Texas Western had an excellent team, as evidenced by its No. 3 ranking the final polls that year. Haskins was not the first coach to play African Americans, Texas Western had African American players on its roster before Haskins arrived.
Haskins was the first to start an all-African American lineup in the NCAA title game, and it is also true that Texas Western was the first college in a Southern state to integrate its athletic teams. Good for Texas Western.
Glory Road had a good message of hope for African Americans. At least one coach had the backbone to play the best. Do not think for a moment that this was Don Haskins' one moment of glory, and that he was courageous but not an excellent basketball coach.
Since Glory Road was not as much about Don Haskins as some very talented, very tolerant and very brave Texas Western players, let it be known that Don Haskins:
1) Played three years at Oklahoma A&M under Hall of Fame coach Hank Iba and was Team Captain.
2) Was tied for 4th place among the NCAA's most winning active coaches when he retired with 719 wins and 353 losses.
3) Had 33 winning seasons at UTEP in 38 years of coaching.
4) Led UTEP to no less than 17 20-win-seasons, an NCAA title in 1966, 7 Western Athletic Conference (WAC) championships, 4 WAC tournament titles, and 21 postseason trips (14 to the NCAA playoffs and 7 NIT—National Invitational Tournament—appearances).
5) Changed college basketball forever by starting an all-African American team against an all-white Kentucky team in the NCAA tournament and winning the title.
6) Coached Hall of Famer Nate "Tiny" Archibald, NBA All-Star Tim Hardaway, and Antonio Davis, and mentored future coaches Nolan Richardson and Tim Floyd.
Glory Road is a film for every basketball enthusiast. It has a great message and represents a great moment in the evolution of basketball as we know and enjoy it today.
Glory Road – 2 Stars (Average)
Basketball Coach Don Haskins does not have to wait for his legend to happen. He is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Few today would remember Don Haskins. He was the coach at Texas Western in 1966 when his 27-1 team played Adolph Rupp's 27-1 University of Kentucky Wildcats for the NCAA title.
Nothing too unusual about that, except that Haskins would become the first coach in NCAA history to start an all-African American lineup when the Miners squared off against Rupp's all-white Kentucky team that featured two players who would become well-known in the NBA pro league: Pat Riley and Louie Dampier.
Remember these names: Bobby Joe Hill, David Lattin, Orsten Artis, Willie Worsley and Harry Flournoy during February, Black History Month. They were the starting lineup for Texas Western when the Miners won the NCAA championship against an all-white Kentucky team, 72-65.
I would graduate from Michigan State University two months after Texas Western won the title, and would not be aware of just how historic this event was. My high school and college cross-country and track teams were integrated. Kentucky would not even offer African Americans basketball scholarships, and there were many other colleges and universities which excluded African American players in 1966.
There was a lot of hatred in the South at that time. Heck, there was a lot hatred everywhere, but not in Don Haskins' will to win for Texas Western, known today as UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso. Haskins was color-blind and simply put the best players on the floor to compete.
Haskins recruited the best players, nothing else mattered. Not even the lousy treatment and death threats both Haskins and his players received from die-hard, ignorant, bigoted Texas Western boosters and donors. They sing a different tune in Texas today, especially at the University of Texas.
Glory Road in 2006 retold the story of Don Haskins and Texas Western. Josh Lucas played the role of Don Haskins, Derek Luke played Bobby Joe Hill and John Voight played Adolph Rupp.
Glory Road is not one of the best movies ever made, but the story of Texas Western is on par with other great victories in sports history, including the 1980 U. S. Hockey team winning the Gold Medal in the Olympics.
Contrary to the movie version, the title game was not as big an upset as was depicted. Texas Western had an excellent team, as evidenced by its No. 3 ranking the final polls that year. Haskins was not the first coach to play African Americans, Texas Western had African American players on its roster before Haskins arrived.
Haskins was the first to start an all-African American lineup in the NCAA title game, and it is also true that Texas Western was the first college in a Southern state to integrate its athletic teams. Good for Texas Western.
Glory Road had a good message of hope for African Americans. At least one coach had the backbone to play the best. Do not think for a moment that this was Don Haskins' one moment of glory, and that he was courageous but not an excellent basketball coach.
Since Glory Road was not as much about Don Haskins as some very talented, very tolerant and very brave Texas Western players, let it be known that Don Haskins:
1) Played three years at Oklahoma A&M under Hall of Fame coach Hank Iba and was Team Captain.
2) Was tied for 4th place among the NCAA's most winning active coaches when he retired with 719 wins and 353 losses.
3) Had 33 winning seasons at UTEP in 38 years of coaching.
4) Led UTEP to no less than 17 20-win-seasons, an NCAA title in 1966, 7 Western Athletic Conference (WAC) championships, 4 WAC tournament titles, and 21 postseason trips (14 to the NCAA playoffs and 7 NIT—National Invitational Tournament—appearances).
5) Changed college basketball forever by starting an all-African American team against an all-white Kentucky team in the NCAA tournament and winning the title.
6) Coached Hall of Famer Nate "Tiny" Archibald, NBA All-Star Tim Hardaway, and Antonio Davis, and mentored future coaches Nolan Richardson and Tim Floyd.
Glory Road is a film for every basketball enthusiast. It has a great message and represents a great moment in the evolution of basketball as we know and enjoy it today.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
On Cars, Baseball and the Halcyon Days of Summer
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
The automotive world was introduced to economies of scale in 1954 as Nash and Hudson (yes, those were makes of cars exactly 52 years ago) merged to form American Motors. Both Nash and Hudson models are history now. Heck, American Motors has taken a hike since then too.
Two other auto manufacturers—Studebaker and Packard—also merged their production in response to economies of scale. They are both gone now as well.
As these four auto manufacturers were headed toward oblivion, another entrepreneur was just getting started. Ray Kroc founded McDonald’s in 1954 and went on to create the fast food restaurant industry as we know it today.
The first nonstick pan was produced in 1954, leading to Teflon (a trademark for polytetrafluoroethylene), and Reagan (who would become the Teflon President) was not even President. It was another guy named Ike (Dwight David Eisenhower), who in 1944 was made Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion of Europe during World War II.
While Ike was busy making war plans, I was born in Flint (MI), then headquarters of General Motors and its vast manufacturing facilities.
The New York Yankees, who had won five consecutive World Series from 1949 through 1953, were watching the World Series from the sidelines in 1954, as the National League Champion New York Giants (the other team from the city so nice they named it twice) swept the American League Champion Cleveland Indians in 4 games.
Leo Durocher, the Manager of the Giants, could not say "Nice guys finish last" that year.
Interestingly enough, Cleveland’s Bob Lemon lost games 1 and 4 of the Series and Early Wynn lost game 2. Both Lemon and Wynn are in Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Cleveland’s Bobby Avila also won the American League batting title in 1954 with a .341 average (now that is what you call a trivia question), and Larry Doby (who broke the color barrier in the American League) won the home run title with 32 dingers.
For the Cleveland Indians, it became what some would call a bad year. Imagine getting to the promised land and coming up short with two eventual Hall of Fame pitchers, a batting champion and an eventual Hall of Fame home run champion.
I remember the 1954 Series as the one at the Polo Grounds when Willie Mays made "The Catch," a dramatic over-the-shoulder catch off a line drive by Vic Wertz to deep center field which could otherwise have given the Cleveland Indians a game one victory (remember, the Giants swept the Series that year, winning four straight games).
A lot more happened in 1954, but here you get the tidbits I learned later in life, much later. I celebrated my 62nd birthday June 27.
In 1954 I was 10 years old and just about my whole world was baseball. We played during the school year but there was never enough time. Summer was a dream come true, no school and lots of hot, sunny days. After rolling out of bed, eating the requisite breakfast and meeting my buddy Tommy, we walked two blocks to St. Michael’s, the private school in our lower middle class neighborhood.
We could not afford to go there, but we wore out the brick wall on the side of the school all summer.
The Catholics who built St. Mike’s meant for it to stand for a long time. At that point in time, Christianity had been around for 19.5 centuries, and they built it like they meant for it to be there for another 19.5 centuries.
No one ever ran us off the property. We were very lucky, too small or too insignificant to be noticed. Maybe they thought we were their students.
Back then Tommy and I played several games a day. We were there by 10 and did not quit until after 3. Man, it was hot most days. Having a game with only two players was simple. The home team pitcher took the mound, an appropriate distance away, and fired in a rubber ball. The batter stood about 5 feet from the brick wall, and if he did not swing at the pitch or swung and missed, the ball bounced off the wall and back out to the pitcher.
You learned pretty fast how to throw strikes, because if you did not, you were running all over the blacktop lot to retrieve the ball after each pitch.
When you connected, the distance of the ball in the air determined what kind of hit you had, hit it to the chain link fence on the fly and it was "Good-bye Baseball, Hello Home Run." The rubber ball you hit never went as far as you thought it would. You had 3 swings for each out, and 3 outs to an inning. Balls were ignored to not cause disputes.
The sun would get hotter as the day wore on. Even at age 10, we thought we invented sweat because it was so prevalent in the blistering sun. No one ever called us to come home, both our parents worked when it was not the thing to do. I think it was called survival on the wrong side of the tracks.
We never thought about lunch. We were a couple of 10 year olds, dreaming about the 9th inning with the scored tied, 2 outs and a 3-2 count on the batter. Always we thought of Mickey on that fateful pitch.
Mickey Mantle of the Yankees did not win the American League home title in 1954, but even at 10 we knew he was a legend was in the making. Mantle did win the home run title the following year (1955) and added 3 more titles in 1956, 1958 and 1960.
In 1961, Roger Maris of the Yankees would break Babe’s record with 61 humdingers. We were so excited on that day we could not pee straight.
After hours of play we headed to the local drugstore. Both Tommy and I worked or we would not have had money. I had a TV Guide route with about 200 customers. Youngsters today would have no idea that TV Guide, long before it relied on grocery stores and direct mail for sales, had routes just like paper routes. We delivered once a week and collected monthly.
We lived for two things at that drugstore, baseball cards and cherry Cokes. I purposely down-cased the "c" in cherry because back then you could not buy Cherry Coke off the shelf at your local supermarket like you can today.
You got Coke and the fountain person would squirt in cherry concentrate and stir it up, pour in ice and bam, once that hit your throat after 5 hours in the hot sun, it was like visiting another world.
We would sock down 4 or 5 of them while buying baseball cards, and with each pack of cards we opened, the bubble gum would go into our mouth, every last slice of it. We were looking for that elusive Mickey Mantle card, and when we got more than one, we had an awesome bargaining chip for trades.
Always, we tried to build up enough chewing gum so we could push it out in our cheek, like Nellie Fox, the sure-handed second baseman for the Chicago White Sox with the biggest chaw of tobacco in his cheek you ever saw.
Fox was another Hall of Famer, and probably would have been even without the chaw of tobacco. He was a 12-time American League All-Star who never struck out more than 18 times a season in 15 full seasons, and was the American League Most Valuable Player in 1959.
We loved Nellie because he was a little guy like us that made it big. Fox had 200+ hits in 1954 and a .319 batting average (his best year in the majors). Man, we thought Nellie was something.
We then walked home, exhausted, happy, poor kids who never knew any better. It would be a number of years before we got our first car, and cruised the A&W Root Beer stand on Friday nights after the high school football game. But without any cars or car repair bills, 1954 was a great summer.
The automotive world was introduced to economies of scale in 1954 as Nash and Hudson (yes, those were makes of cars exactly 52 years ago) merged to form American Motors. Both Nash and Hudson models are history now. Heck, American Motors has taken a hike since then too.
Two other auto manufacturers—Studebaker and Packard—also merged their production in response to economies of scale. They are both gone now as well.
As these four auto manufacturers were headed toward oblivion, another entrepreneur was just getting started. Ray Kroc founded McDonald’s in 1954 and went on to create the fast food restaurant industry as we know it today.
The first nonstick pan was produced in 1954, leading to Teflon (a trademark for polytetrafluoroethylene), and Reagan (who would become the Teflon President) was not even President. It was another guy named Ike (Dwight David Eisenhower), who in 1944 was made Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion of Europe during World War II.
While Ike was busy making war plans, I was born in Flint (MI), then headquarters of General Motors and its vast manufacturing facilities.
The New York Yankees, who had won five consecutive World Series from 1949 through 1953, were watching the World Series from the sidelines in 1954, as the National League Champion New York Giants (the other team from the city so nice they named it twice) swept the American League Champion Cleveland Indians in 4 games.
Leo Durocher, the Manager of the Giants, could not say "Nice guys finish last" that year.
Interestingly enough, Cleveland’s Bob Lemon lost games 1 and 4 of the Series and Early Wynn lost game 2. Both Lemon and Wynn are in Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Cleveland’s Bobby Avila also won the American League batting title in 1954 with a .341 average (now that is what you call a trivia question), and Larry Doby (who broke the color barrier in the American League) won the home run title with 32 dingers.
For the Cleveland Indians, it became what some would call a bad year. Imagine getting to the promised land and coming up short with two eventual Hall of Fame pitchers, a batting champion and an eventual Hall of Fame home run champion.
I remember the 1954 Series as the one at the Polo Grounds when Willie Mays made "The Catch," a dramatic over-the-shoulder catch off a line drive by Vic Wertz to deep center field which could otherwise have given the Cleveland Indians a game one victory (remember, the Giants swept the Series that year, winning four straight games).
A lot more happened in 1954, but here you get the tidbits I learned later in life, much later. I celebrated my 62nd birthday June 27.
In 1954 I was 10 years old and just about my whole world was baseball. We played during the school year but there was never enough time. Summer was a dream come true, no school and lots of hot, sunny days. After rolling out of bed, eating the requisite breakfast and meeting my buddy Tommy, we walked two blocks to St. Michael’s, the private school in our lower middle class neighborhood.
We could not afford to go there, but we wore out the brick wall on the side of the school all summer.
The Catholics who built St. Mike’s meant for it to stand for a long time. At that point in time, Christianity had been around for 19.5 centuries, and they built it like they meant for it to be there for another 19.5 centuries.
No one ever ran us off the property. We were very lucky, too small or too insignificant to be noticed. Maybe they thought we were their students.
Back then Tommy and I played several games a day. We were there by 10 and did not quit until after 3. Man, it was hot most days. Having a game with only two players was simple. The home team pitcher took the mound, an appropriate distance away, and fired in a rubber ball. The batter stood about 5 feet from the brick wall, and if he did not swing at the pitch or swung and missed, the ball bounced off the wall and back out to the pitcher.
You learned pretty fast how to throw strikes, because if you did not, you were running all over the blacktop lot to retrieve the ball after each pitch.
When you connected, the distance of the ball in the air determined what kind of hit you had, hit it to the chain link fence on the fly and it was "Good-bye Baseball, Hello Home Run." The rubber ball you hit never went as far as you thought it would. You had 3 swings for each out, and 3 outs to an inning. Balls were ignored to not cause disputes.
The sun would get hotter as the day wore on. Even at age 10, we thought we invented sweat because it was so prevalent in the blistering sun. No one ever called us to come home, both our parents worked when it was not the thing to do. I think it was called survival on the wrong side of the tracks.
We never thought about lunch. We were a couple of 10 year olds, dreaming about the 9th inning with the scored tied, 2 outs and a 3-2 count on the batter. Always we thought of Mickey on that fateful pitch.
Mickey Mantle of the Yankees did not win the American League home title in 1954, but even at 10 we knew he was a legend was in the making. Mantle did win the home run title the following year (1955) and added 3 more titles in 1956, 1958 and 1960.
In 1961, Roger Maris of the Yankees would break Babe’s record with 61 humdingers. We were so excited on that day we could not pee straight.
After hours of play we headed to the local drugstore. Both Tommy and I worked or we would not have had money. I had a TV Guide route with about 200 customers. Youngsters today would have no idea that TV Guide, long before it relied on grocery stores and direct mail for sales, had routes just like paper routes. We delivered once a week and collected monthly.
We lived for two things at that drugstore, baseball cards and cherry Cokes. I purposely down-cased the "c" in cherry because back then you could not buy Cherry Coke off the shelf at your local supermarket like you can today.
You got Coke and the fountain person would squirt in cherry concentrate and stir it up, pour in ice and bam, once that hit your throat after 5 hours in the hot sun, it was like visiting another world.
We would sock down 4 or 5 of them while buying baseball cards, and with each pack of cards we opened, the bubble gum would go into our mouth, every last slice of it. We were looking for that elusive Mickey Mantle card, and when we got more than one, we had an awesome bargaining chip for trades.
Always, we tried to build up enough chewing gum so we could push it out in our cheek, like Nellie Fox, the sure-handed second baseman for the Chicago White Sox with the biggest chaw of tobacco in his cheek you ever saw.
Fox was another Hall of Famer, and probably would have been even without the chaw of tobacco. He was a 12-time American League All-Star who never struck out more than 18 times a season in 15 full seasons, and was the American League Most Valuable Player in 1959.
We loved Nellie because he was a little guy like us that made it big. Fox had 200+ hits in 1954 and a .319 batting average (his best year in the majors). Man, we thought Nellie was something.
We then walked home, exhausted, happy, poor kids who never knew any better. It would be a number of years before we got our first car, and cruised the A&W Root Beer stand on Friday nights after the high school football game. But without any cars or car repair bills, 1954 was a great summer.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Florida Becomes the First Team to Repeat as NCAA Champions Since Duke in 1992
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
The Florida Gators became only the seventh team in NCAA Basketball Tournament history to repeat as national champions Monday night, pushing aside Ohio State 84-75 in a game with all of the excitement of looking at an ashtray.
After four very exciting rounds of basketball in the 62-team playoff tournament, the last two rounds put a lot of fans to sleep, including me.
The Final 4 found #1 Ohio State easing past #2 Georgetown 67-60 even though freshman phenom Greg Oden only played a half game (20 minutes) because of foul trouble early on. All Big 10 freshman guard Mike Conley Jr. stepped up with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assets and exactly 1 turnover.
Oden came back big in the second half, scoring 13 points and picking off 8 rebounds.
There is not another team in the country with two freshmen like Oden and Conley. Oden is only the top NBA draft prospect in the country, and at times he has played as advertised. No one should be comparing him to the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar yet, but he certainly will get better in college if not in the pros next year.
Georgetown's 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 1 blocked shot in 24 minutes of play and held his own against the younger, more celebrated Oden.
Hibbert, however, had little support from teammates Jeff Green, who scored 9 points on only 5 shots after averaging nearly 16 points in the tournament, and DaJuan Summers, who scored only 3 points after averaging nearly 18 points in his two prior playoff games.
It was the 22nd straight victory for the Buckeyes who would see their streak come to a screeching halt against Florida.
In the second semi-final, Florida dealt UCLA another spanking, advancing 76-66, and the score was a lot closer than the game on the court. Florida knocked off UCLA in last year's NCAA tournament 73-57 to win the national championship.
When Bruin guard and Pac 10 Player of the Year Arron Afflalo went to the bench early in the first half with foul trouble the game was over. Despite a second half rally that fell way too short, Florida had this game in the bag.
Coach Ben Howland has done a great job turning around UCLA's program but he and the Bruins will have to wait another year to become more famous.
Never mind that UCLA entered the game at 11-1 against ranked opponents this year or that they were 17-2 against teams in this year's NCAA tournament. Florida has done a little butt kicking of its own, going 20-1 in postseason play the last three years, and going 22-1 in March during that time.
So Florida and Ohio State headed into a national championship for the second time in a year, this time in basketball. Florida beat Ohio State by 27 points in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) national championship football game in January. Both schools have become powerhouse programs.
Ohio State had Oden, Conley and a lot of hope and prayer. Florida had five starters each of whom was averaging in double figures yet sharing the ball, as all averaged within 2.4 shots of one another and none averaged as many as 10 shots a game. That is called balance.
The Buckeyes decided to leave Oden underneath and did not challenge Florida shooters on the perimeter, and the Gators canned enough 3-pointers to move away quickly and stay ahead.
Florida drained 10 three-pointers, shot 49% from the floor and 88% from the free throw line.
Ohio State's big impression center Greg Oden led all scorers with 25 points and tied for the game-high with 12 rebounds, but he had little help from his teammates who would have needed a ball with eyes to catch Florida.
For the record, this was the first Final 4 in which all four finalists had 30 or more wins. It was the second Final 4 in which every team was a No. 2 seed or better. And the championship game was only the 5th pairing of no. 1 seeds.
Show a little love for Billy Donovan and his players, all of whom decided not to go pro and came back to try a repeat. They did it. It sounds so simple to say but Florida was the first team since Duke in 1992 to win back-to-back championships and only the seventh team ever to do it.
The others were Oklahoma State (1945-46), Kentucky (1948-49), San Francisco (1955-56), Cincinnati (1961-62), UCLA (1964-65 and 1967-73) and Duke (1991-92).
UCLA won 9 titles in 10 years and 7 in-a-row under coach John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach to ever walk on the hardwood. UCLA also entered its Florida game with an all-time winning percentage of .738 in the NCAA tournament and an all-time 93-33 record.
Coach Billy Donovan has some work to do if he ever expects to rival John Wooden.
After winning his second national championship, Donovan said "I think this team should go down as one of the best teams in the history of college basketball.
"Not as the most talented, and not on style points, but because they encompassed what the word 'team' means, " said Donovan. "They did it the first year with no expectations, then they did it again with all the expectations."
Buckeye coach Thad Matta did not wear out his mind agreeing with Donovan, saying "I would put them in a category of some of the best teams to win."
Florida just ripped Ohio State a new backside.
The starting five for the Gators—Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey—is thought to be the only starting five ever to win back-to-back titles. Florida's 68 wins over the past two seasons are tied for the 10th most in NCAA history.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 5 – The Final 4
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Georgetown 67-60
#1 Florida eliminated #2 UCLA 76-66
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 6 – Championship Game
#1 Florida eliminated #1 Ohio State 84-75 to win its second straight title.
The Florida Gators became only the seventh team in NCAA Basketball Tournament history to repeat as national champions Monday night, pushing aside Ohio State 84-75 in a game with all of the excitement of looking at an ashtray.
After four very exciting rounds of basketball in the 62-team playoff tournament, the last two rounds put a lot of fans to sleep, including me.
The Final 4 found #1 Ohio State easing past #2 Georgetown 67-60 even though freshman phenom Greg Oden only played a half game (20 minutes) because of foul trouble early on. All Big 10 freshman guard Mike Conley Jr. stepped up with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assets and exactly 1 turnover.
Oden came back big in the second half, scoring 13 points and picking off 8 rebounds.
There is not another team in the country with two freshmen like Oden and Conley. Oden is only the top NBA draft prospect in the country, and at times he has played as advertised. No one should be comparing him to the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar yet, but he certainly will get better in college if not in the pros next year.
Georgetown's 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 1 blocked shot in 24 minutes of play and held his own against the younger, more celebrated Oden.
Hibbert, however, had little support from teammates Jeff Green, who scored 9 points on only 5 shots after averaging nearly 16 points in the tournament, and DaJuan Summers, who scored only 3 points after averaging nearly 18 points in his two prior playoff games.
It was the 22nd straight victory for the Buckeyes who would see their streak come to a screeching halt against Florida.
In the second semi-final, Florida dealt UCLA another spanking, advancing 76-66, and the score was a lot closer than the game on the court. Florida knocked off UCLA in last year's NCAA tournament 73-57 to win the national championship.
When Bruin guard and Pac 10 Player of the Year Arron Afflalo went to the bench early in the first half with foul trouble the game was over. Despite a second half rally that fell way too short, Florida had this game in the bag.
Coach Ben Howland has done a great job turning around UCLA's program but he and the Bruins will have to wait another year to become more famous.
Never mind that UCLA entered the game at 11-1 against ranked opponents this year or that they were 17-2 against teams in this year's NCAA tournament. Florida has done a little butt kicking of its own, going 20-1 in postseason play the last three years, and going 22-1 in March during that time.
So Florida and Ohio State headed into a national championship for the second time in a year, this time in basketball. Florida beat Ohio State by 27 points in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) national championship football game in January. Both schools have become powerhouse programs.
Ohio State had Oden, Conley and a lot of hope and prayer. Florida had five starters each of whom was averaging in double figures yet sharing the ball, as all averaged within 2.4 shots of one another and none averaged as many as 10 shots a game. That is called balance.
The Buckeyes decided to leave Oden underneath and did not challenge Florida shooters on the perimeter, and the Gators canned enough 3-pointers to move away quickly and stay ahead.
Florida drained 10 three-pointers, shot 49% from the floor and 88% from the free throw line.
Ohio State's big impression center Greg Oden led all scorers with 25 points and tied for the game-high with 12 rebounds, but he had little help from his teammates who would have needed a ball with eyes to catch Florida.
For the record, this was the first Final 4 in which all four finalists had 30 or more wins. It was the second Final 4 in which every team was a No. 2 seed or better. And the championship game was only the 5th pairing of no. 1 seeds.
Show a little love for Billy Donovan and his players, all of whom decided not to go pro and came back to try a repeat. They did it. It sounds so simple to say but Florida was the first team since Duke in 1992 to win back-to-back championships and only the seventh team ever to do it.
The others were Oklahoma State (1945-46), Kentucky (1948-49), San Francisco (1955-56), Cincinnati (1961-62), UCLA (1964-65 and 1967-73) and Duke (1991-92).
UCLA won 9 titles in 10 years and 7 in-a-row under coach John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach to ever walk on the hardwood. UCLA also entered its Florida game with an all-time winning percentage of .738 in the NCAA tournament and an all-time 93-33 record.
Coach Billy Donovan has some work to do if he ever expects to rival John Wooden.
After winning his second national championship, Donovan said "I think this team should go down as one of the best teams in the history of college basketball.
"Not as the most talented, and not on style points, but because they encompassed what the word 'team' means, " said Donovan. "They did it the first year with no expectations, then they did it again with all the expectations."
Buckeye coach Thad Matta did not wear out his mind agreeing with Donovan, saying "I would put them in a category of some of the best teams to win."
Florida just ripped Ohio State a new backside.
The starting five for the Gators—Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey—is thought to be the only starting five ever to win back-to-back titles. Florida's 68 wins over the past two seasons are tied for the 10th most in NCAA history.
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 5 – The Final 4
#1 Ohio State eliminated #2 Georgetown 67-60
#1 Florida eliminated #2 UCLA 76-66
2007 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 6 – Championship Game
#1 Florida eliminated #1 Ohio State 84-75 to win its second straight title.
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