The NCAA tournament is my favorite sporting event of the year, but this year’s tournament left me uninspired (as you will be able to tell by how little I say about it). In fact, college basketball seems to be down as a whole. I’m not saying this because I’ve heard talking heads like Jay Bilas and Jon Barry say it. I’m saying it because as someone who loves watching college basketball and watches quite a bit of it, it’s what I’m seeing with my own eyes. The level of play is poor overall. Why? There are a lot of theories and contributing factors: the prevalence of the 3 point line, influences of AAU basketball, early entrees into the NBA draft, etc. The tournament itself had promise, but aside from Duke and Missouri going down within hours of each other on the 1st Friday I’m not sure we will remember this year for much more than Kentucky’s dominance. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other memorable moments or buzzer-beaters or anything like that normally make the tourney great. Also, the 2 teams that probably could have most closely matched Kentucky’s talent, Syracuse and Carolina, lost maybe their most important (not necessarily their best) players before and during the tourney’s 1st weekend, respectively. As for Kentucky, I found myself not being as impressed with them as others. I won’t deny that they were head-and-shoulders better than everyone else, but in a historical context I’m not sure they stack up as 1 of the greatest teams of all time or anything like that. I do think they have anywhere from 4-6 pros on their roster, and their commitment to defense and their overall unselfishness was pretty remarkable given the AAU mentality that all of these highly touted freshman come to school with, but I don’t think this team would be a dynasty if this was still the age of players staying in school through their junior or senior year. They only went 6 deep, for Pete’s sake, and their only 2 losses of the year were against teams (Vanderbilt and Indiana) that weren’t exactly superpowers. I don’t think they were as good as some of the Carolina teams over the past 10 years, the Florida teams that won back-to-back championships, or even the Juan Dixon led Maryland team from 2002…but then again it’s hard to scoff too much at a 2 loss season, and I think my position is more of an indictment on the state of college basketball as a whole than of this Kentucky team itself. Now, how about some NBA power rankings?
See you in the league.
1. Miami Heat (PR=3, 39-14)…A couple wins and big performances by LBJ coupled with some slippage by OKC and Chicago has LeBron back atop the MVP race and the Heat back atop the rankings.
2. Oklahoma City Thunder (PR=2, 40-14)…2 L’s in a row albeit against 2 very good teams, but it’s hard for me to believe OKC is anything but fine.
3. San Antonio Spurs (PR=4, 38-14)…Hold everything! This marks the 1st time all year that the top 3 has included anyone besides the Heat, Thunder, and Bulls. 9 wins in a row and a Tim Duncan resurgence will do that for you though.
4. Chicago Bulls (PR=1, 42-13)…This has got to be the 1st time in the history of any power ranking system that a team with the best record in the league gets ranked 4th, but the Bulls went 1-2 this past week, and Rose’s absence is starting to be a cause of real concern.
5. LA Lakers (PR=5, 35-20)…I can’t stand the Lakers, but they are starting to round into playoff form. If Bynum can stay on the court, and Kobe continues to be (kind of) willing to use his teammates, LA could be dangerous this spring.
Please sirs, I'd like some more.
26. Sacramento Kings (PR=26, 19-35)…Despite finding themselves on this end of these rankings, the Kings have been playing better of late. It’s probably not coincidental that Boogie Cousins has been playing up to his potential.
27. Cleveland Cavaliers (PR=Not Ranked, 17-35)…1st appearance for the Cavs on this list so far this year, and they get a little bit of a pass with Kyrie Irving’s injury, but 9 losses in a row is hard to overlook.
28. New Orleans Hornets (PR=28, 14-40)…Having Eric Gordon back is cause enough for a mini-Mardi Gras parade.
29. Washington Wizards (PR=29, 12-42)…I’m picturing what Michael Kidd-Gilchrist would look like in DC red, white, and blue.
30. Charlotte Bobcats (PR=30, 7-45)…With 9 losses in row now, let’s just say that Bobcat fans are probably similarly daydreaming about Anthony Davis right now.
Cavs fans would like to see the need for that shoulder brace diminish.
Rising: Boston, Indiana, and Phoenix
Falling: Orlando (yuck) and Philadelphia
Lastly, in this week’s edition of crappy sports movies that we didn’t have to pay for because we hacked my brother-in-law’s Netflix account, I present to you “Full Ride.” The movie focuses on a troubled football player, Matt Sabo, who gets a 2nd chance at a college scholarship by playing in a high school football all-star game. For some reason, Sabo’s downfall is that he likes to burglarize houses. Seems like something that would be relatively easy to give up, but towards the end of the movie Sabo nearly has a “relapse” into his robbery ways. Is he a kleptomaniac maybe? What gives? And why would a college offer someone a scholarship just for an all-star game performance anyway? And why do all these all-stars have to get shipped off to what looks like a summer’s worth of football camp to play in 1 game? And why is there so much emphasis on this game? It’s an exhibition game for crying out loud! The 1 thing I will give the movie props for is that the lead is a blocking fullback, not something you see in football movies every day. Aside from that, this movie is a mess. Sabo’s played by Riley Smith, who as far as I can tell from his IMDB profile spends a lot of time playing single episode characters on every version of “CSI.” His love interest is played by Meredith Monroe, who, I was told by my wife, used to be on “Dawson’s Creek.” Their on-screen romance is pretty uncomfortable to watch. 1 reason could be the fact that at the time the movie was released in 2002, Monroe was 34 years old, and she is playing a high school or college age townie (it’s never really made clear). Also, Monroe’s character lies about being a virgin to Sabo, and later basically admits that she sleeps with football players on this all-star team every year in hopes that they will be her 1 way ticket out of town. I didn’t know that scholarship offers had a stipend for hanger-on girlfriends, but whatever. When Sabo finds this out and confronts the girl, he sobs like a baby (even though it’s implied that Sabo is a bit of a man-whore himself)…pretty weak for a chain-smoking fullback with a record for breaking and entering. In an equally uncomfortable pool makeout scene earlier in the movie, Monroe’s character tells Sabo, “Kiss my neck,” among other cheesy porno-ish lines that should have tipped Sabo off to the fact that this girl might have been around the block a time or 2.
Oh boy...here we go again.
Thinking back though, the silliest aspect of the whole movie might have involved the head football coach. The coach seems as if he’s all about team unity and the kids that play for him all throughout the movie (the corny team motto is “33 bodies, 1 heart,” which Krissy thinks “Friday Night Lights” may have gotten their “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” mantra from), and then he does a complete 180 in a pro wrestling style heel turn, copping to using Sabo as his ticket to coaching at a big time college football program (again, it’s a high school all-star game, and Sabo is a blocking fullback for the sake of all that is good and holy). The movie ends after the conclusion of the big game, when Smith and Monroe play out a scene where Sabo basically forgives her and tells her that maybe they will cross paths again in the future. The screen literally fades to white after this conversation, and that’s it. The movie has almost no recognizable characters aside from Monroe, but I was at least happy to see 1 of the guys from the old NBC Saturday morning tweener show, “Hang Time,” get a bit role as Sabo’s house-robbing partner in crime, but that’s about it. Still, if you like awkwardly bad, unintentionally comedic sports movies (like me), this one’s for you. Other than that, I have no idea why anyone would ever venture into “Full Ride”…this one’s a doozy.
No comments:
Post a Comment