- This weekend was not a good couple days for me injury-wise. Without getting to the how, where, and why, I’ll at least give you the what: fat upper lip, bruised knee, sprained left index finger, sprained right wrist, bruised left elbow, bruised left hip (all sports-related by the way)…I guess that’s the cost of doing business, so I don’t expect anyone to shed a tear for me, but at least nothing seems broken (I don’t think). Give me a couple more days, and I should be good to go.
- 2 things that Krissy and I watched this weekend that are from completely different ends of the spectrum but both highly recommended by us: ESPN’s Magic Johnson documentary “The Announcement” and the Zoe Saldana flick “Columbiana.”
Not a bad movie pick by the ol' hubby if I do say so myself.
- Mark Turgeon’s 1st season as head honcho of Maryland’s men’s basketball team ended in the 2nd round of the ACC tourney on Friday, as the Terps probably had no chance of making the NCAA’s aside from winning their conference tournament. They finished the year 17-15 overall (6-10 in the conference), and the only 2 tournament teams they beat all year were Colorado and Notre Dame. Hell, the Terps didn’t even get an NIT invite, so it might have been the worst Maryland basketball season that I’ve ever witnessed…and yet, the notion that it was a successful 1st season for Turgeon might be true at the same time. Looking at the roster going into the year, I thought this could be a truly awful team, the kind that only wins 2 or 3 conference games and finishes well below 0.500 overall. Their best player from the year before, Jordan Williams, stupidly entered the NBA draft. He would have been a junior this year, and undoubtedly their best player. He’s limited overall, but to me he resembles a poor man’s Jared Sullinger, and he most likely would have been All-ACC this year had he stayed in school. When Gary Williams abruptly announced his retirement last spring, Hauk Palsson (who probably would’ve started at 1 of the forward positions had he stayed for this season) decided to bolt, and 3 recruits chose to jump ship when they heard the news as well. Those were some pretty big handicaps for Turgeon to overcome right off the bat. Add to that the fact that starting point guard Pe’Shon Howard missed early parts of the season recovering from a broken foot and the end of the year after tearing an ACL in practice, and you would think this team would have 2-14 in league play written all over it…but Turgeon seemed to be able to piece together a team that was at least competitive in a year they probably shouldn’t have been. Next year, the Terps will return all the key components of this team sans senior Sean Mosely. If Howard can make a full recovery, Terrell Stoglin can eliminate 2 or 3 (or 5) bad shots per game, and Nick Faust can make the traditional leap from his freshman to sophomore year, the Terps should have a pretty decent backcourt. The development of their 2 frosh bigs should be interesting as well. Alex Len got pushed around too much at times, and Ashton Pankey seemed somewhat rusty (he had been injured his senior year in high school and redshirted last year), but it’s conceivable that both could make a decent leap in their respective sophomore seasons as well. On top of that, Turgeon is supposed to have a pretty strong recruiting class coming in. All in all, I’m definitely buying the Terps as a team on the rise next season.
- While I might be all-in on the 2012-2013 Terps, I can’t say that for my woeful Redskins. Over the weekend, news surfaced that the Skins were going to make a blockbuster trade with the Rams in order to acquire their number 2 pick in this year’s upcoming draft. The Skins swapped this year’s 1st rounder with St. Louis’ pick, and then gave the Rams 2 additional 1st rounders and a 2nd round pick as well to presumably select Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. There are 2 schools of thought here. The 1st is that you have to have a franchise quarterback to win in the NFL, and if RG3 is viewed as that guy by the Redskins brass, you have to go get him. If he’s a bust, well, you were probably going to stink while you played “journeyman quarterback-X” over the next couple of years anyway. Peyton Manning didn’t seem to have any interest in coming to DC, and you couldn’t go into next year with Rex Grossman, John Beck, or even someone like Kyle Orton as your number 1 guy. The 2nd school of thought is the 1 that I’m leaning towards, and that is that you basically just traded away 4 starters for 1. 1st and 2nd rounders are expected to at least start and possess the potential to be All-Pros when they’re drafted. Statistically, it’s about a 50-50 proposition that a quarterback drafted in the top 5 picks will be a bust, so Robert Griffin and Andrew Luck better take a good hard look at each other because 1 of them might be your local insurance salesman in 5 to 10 years. The keeper of the 2 could very well be Griffin, who by all accounts is a beast, a freak of an athlete, and is bursting with charisma and smarts to boot, but who’s to say for sure? Anyone that says the Skins had to make this move regardless of whether RG3 flops or not because they were going to stink without him anyway should take a second to think about that. The Skins have drafted pretty well in Mike Shanahan’s 2 years in Washington. I held my breath every time Rex Grossman dropped back to pass as much as the next diehard Redskins fan last year, but if you’re saying Grossman couldn’t have had a slightly better record last year with a solid right tackle, a stud receiver, or a lock down corner on the other side of the ball you would be out of your mind. The Chicago Bears somehow made it to the (and probably should have won) the Super Bowl with Grossman at the helm several years ago. They probably got there in spite of Rex on some level, but it showed it’s still possible. Now, the crapshoot nature of the draft says that those 4 picks they swapped away for the 1 they got back are all just as likely to be busts as Griffin is, and quarterbacks drive the bus in the NFL, so why not take a chance on a QB you think could be the man for the next 10 years? All true, but the Skins mortgaged their draft future on him, and they are stupidly being penalized about $36 million in cap space over the next 2 years by the league for the contracts they signed in the un-capped season as well, so don’t expect Washington to be able to bring in a whole lot in the way of reinforcements for Griffin over the next couple of years either. RG3 better be every bit as fast as he looked at Baylor and when he ran in tights at the combine, because he might be running for his life next year. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but, lifelong Redskins fan that I am, I naturally fear the worst.
RG3 looks like the real deal...he better be.
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