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Title IX: “Hey guys, let’s play basketball.”
A group surrounds Title IX. It is the usual suspects: Big E, Stick Boy, The Franchise, Buddha of Babble, Petal to the Metal, The Sports Producer and the Encyclopedia of Baseball.
Stick Boy: “Basketball? There’s not enough of us for basketball.”
Title IX: “We can play four on four. That would be a fair game.”
The Sports Producer: “Hey, I can’t run all day long.”
With that being said, four shadowy figures stroll on to the basketball court and stand there as if someone should ask them to play.
Cheryl: “Did someone say basketball?”
The Sports producer: “Yeah, why?”
Cheryl: “Can us girls get in on this game?”
The Sports Producer: “I guess…”
Title IX: “I am on their team.”
The Franchise: “Me too.”
Big E: “Hey!”
Buddha of Babble: “Ladies…”
Cheryl: “Why don’t the best of you guys, stay there, and the not so good players come over here?”
The grumbling from the group sounded like an executive council meeting at a Fortune 500 Company.
The Sports Producer: “Girls…”
Title IX:”Women. And do you know who they are?”
Franchise:”Nancy Lieberman ,Old Dominion, 1976-80.  A three-time Kodak All-American, she revolutionized the point guard position and averaged 18.1 points and 7.2 assists in her collegiate career. She became the youngest player to win an Olympic medal (silver in 1976, when she was 18) and is a Naismith Hall of Fame member. The Nancy Lieberman Award is given annually to the nation’s best point guard.”
Big E:  “Cheryl Miller USC, 1982-86.  At 6 feet 2 inches, she was the Candace Parker of her day, able to do things usually associated with much smaller players. Miller was a four-time All-American who scored 3,018 career points and had 1,534 rebounds. She won national championships in 1983 and ‘84. USC was 112-20 in her career.”
The Encyclopedia of Baseball:”Diana Taurasi, Connecticut, 2000-04.  Able to hit a pull-up jumper from seemingly anywhere on the court, at times she was unstoppable. Taurasi led Connecticut to three straight NCAA championships        and was a two-time national player of the year.”
Buddha of Babble: “Please, nobody is unstoppable.”
DEAD SILENCE
Title IX: “Chamique Holdsclaw Miller, Tennessee,  1995-99.  A forward with finesse, she was the heart and soul of  the Tennessee teams that won a historic three consecutive NCAA  championships. She was the Final Four MVP in 1997 and ‘98, and led the team in scoring all four seasons she played.”
Buddha of Babble: “I’ll watch her, she is closer to my age. On second thought,
I’ll play on her team”
BIG E: “Hey!”
The Franchise: “Hey!”
Petal to the Metal: “Who cares?”
Title IX: “We do.”
Cheryl: “Guys, who is on our team?”
EVERYONE RAISED THEIR HAND… well almost everyone.
Moral of the story:
EVERYONE WANTS TO PLAY WITH THE BEST PLAYERS AND ON THE TEAM THAT SHOULD WIN
Good luck Miami. Sorry New York, there’s a worm in the Big apple. Chicago, the City just got a little windier. And Cleveland… well, at least you have a new TV Series names after you…
By the way, the BUDDHA OF BABBLE and the “women” destroyed the boys from FNM and nobody on our team claimed they pulled a hamstring.

Just in case you missed it, the women are having their Final Four this weekend as well.  The women are not close enough to the men to say they live in their shadow.  When basketball fans say their bracket or March Madness they are not referring to the women.  I will admit that most of the time I prefer to watch the men play as well.  Having said that, I do not prefer men’s basketball over women’s basketball all of the time.  I want to encourage you all and especially you men that never watch the women play, watch them this Sunday.  Put away just a little of your machismo and save some time to watch some of a women’s game.  You will be entertained and maybe even surprised just how talented some of them are as basketball players.  I did not say as women basketball players, just as basketball players.  No, they do not run as fast nor jump as high.  They do pass the ball and they do shoot free throws better than some of the men’s teams.  That last  one was for you superstars at Kentucky.  It is not even an argument that the women do not get the coverage they deserve because they don’t.  Let’s do a run down of the remaining teams.

Let’s begin with Oklahoma, probably the least publicized team left. This is life after Courtney Paris who graduated as the only four time All American in Women’s College Basketball.  The Sooners are in the final four for the ninth time.  There is a California connection as #34 Abi Olajuwon is from Marlborough High School in LA.  She is the daughter of Hakeem Olajuwon.  The Sooners take on Stanford.

Stanford is the last team to beat UConn and gave the Huskies a fairly close game in December.  They lost that game 80-68 and I believe that is the closest game the Huskies have had all season.  Tara VanDerveer is an all time great coach.  Her teams are disciplined, smart and more athletic than they are given credit for.  They beat Xavier in their last game by two when guard Jeanette Pohlen went the entire length of the court and put the ball up just before the buzzer went off.  Pohlen was a former Gatorade High School Player of the year from Brea Olinda.  One of the greatest ever from Orange County.  She is a junior and will be joined next season by Sara James from Oak Ridge High School from El Dorado Hills up here in Northern California.  I saw her in person and in the State Championship against Long Beach Poly on TV.  Long Beach heavily favored and going for five titles in a row were torched for twenty points in the first half by James.  She is one of the most complete all around players you will see at the high school level and I expect she will have much success at Stanford.  Yes, I am hoping the Cardinal can get by Oklahoma and upset UConn.

The Baylor women will be riding the talents of freshman Brittney Griner.  I saw her for the first time a few weeks before the season ended.  She is 6′8″  and fast and athletic.  She does things in a manner that you have not seen before.  I think she will be over matched against the Huskies but she will be something these next couple of years.  You need to check her game out.

We could spend forever talking about the Huskies and their dominance.  They have won 76 games in a row and are looking to go undefeated for the second year in a row.  They have won six National Championships under coach Geno Auriemma.  They beat their last tournament opponent Florida State by the score of 90-50!  Auriemma took over a team that had one winning season in its 11 year history.  He went 12-15 his first year in 1985-86.  That was his first and only losing season.  His teams have gone undefeated three times and they have won 30 games or more 15 seasons!  His coaching record at Connecticut is 730-122.  Diana Taurasi went from Don Lugo High School in Chino all the way across the country to win three National Championships with the Huskies.  Current player, Maya Moore is a three time All American and can join Courtney Paris as the only other four time All American.  What I have shared here does not even begin to tell of their true domination.  Their next two opponents may be looking for divine intervention or maybe just a slight case of food poisoning.  Regardless you need to watch them even if only for the first ten minutes or so.  You can watch one of the greatest teams of all time and Brittney Griner at the same time. 

So there it is guys.  Do yourself a favor and check at least part of these games out.  Who knows you might be inclined to let the lawn go for one more week.

I know all of the talk the past weeks has been about the brackets for the men’s tournament.  Only one number 1 seed made it to the final four and all of the lower seeds busting the brackets.  I did fill out a bracket and it got busted but for me it always gets back to the game and the human stories connected with the games.  This year there are tons of stories of interest.

First some thoughts as I watched the games last weekend.  Watching John Wall I could see what all of the fuss was about.  I wondered how does one move that fast and especially move that fast dribbling a basketball.  I also thought that obviously he was another one and done player.  I personally think that NBA rule is stupid.  It is not John Wall’s fault that he wanted to go to the NBA but did not have the option.  Some free and unsolicited advice for Kentucky coach John Calipari.  Whatever free throw shooting drills you have your team doing; stop them now!  Don’t do anything.  If your team is shooting free throws at the end of practice just end practice and send them to the showers.  Your drills did not work at Memphis  and did not work at Kentucky.

I was also wondering how those BCS computers would do in picking the winners.  Would some of you out there admit how nice it is to have teams decide the winner on the court instead of on paper.  Would Butler have made it in the final four?  Would St. Mary’s have made the sweet 16?  I know that Cinderella does not win it all, so what.  The kids at Northern Iowa and St. Mary’s want to win but more than that they want the opportunity to compete and win.  Here is the insanity.  College football has the opportunity to improve their sport and won’t.  College basketball has a great thing going and now may expand the field to 96 teams.  Forget student athlete, forget tradition it all comes down to money and who is controlling that money.

Let’s take a look at only some of the story lines, big and small.  Duke the only team seeded number one to make it to the final four.  Mike Krzyzewski has quietly led his team.  One would think coach K would not have to defend himself but he is another coach that gets penalized for being such a great coach.  In other words he is judged against his own tremendous previous success.  Nolan Smith is the story here.  He is a guard and the son of former Louisville great Derek Smith.  Derek was a star on the 1980 Louisville National Championship team in Indianapolis.  He died of a heart attack at age 35.

West Virginia is back in the Final Four for the first time in 51 years.  That squad was led by the great Jerry West.  Jerry’s youngest son, Jonnie is on the roster and averaged 1.5 points per game.  Bob Huggins who has had many personal problems is back at his Alma Mater seeking atonement and rewarding the WV administration for his hiring.

Michigan State loses Kalin Lucas and still gets to the final four.  I will not even go into if Tom Izzo is one of the greatest coaches or not.  He is period.  I love to watch his teams play, you can see how well coached they are, even when they lose.  In Izzo’s 14 years as head coach 86% of his kids that complete their eligibility get their degrees.

My personal favorite, the Butler Bulldogs.  I hate to admit it but I did not even know that Butler was in Indiana!  They are the home team their campus just around six miles from Lucas Arena.  They have an enrollment of around 4,000 compared to Michigan State’s 47,000.  They play in the powerful Horizon League, that is right The Horizon League.  Their coach Brad Stevens looks young enough to be a player on the team.  This young man is quite impressive.  They make it to their first Final Four ever and it is in Indianapolis.  Now throw in the fact that Bobby Plump played at Butler after playing on the State Championship Milan team in 1954. Yes it is Hoosiers all over again.  Bobby Plump was the actual real life model for Jimmy Chitwood the fictional character based on the real life Plump.  Are you following me?  Let us add also Gene Hackman played the coach in Hoosiers was born in San Bernardino.  So there is a California connection.  This  story is  my personal favorite, go Bulldogs.  Enjoy the final four.

I just had the pleasure of hanging out with some friends from my days of past. Yes, those people who grew up in a political atmosphere of lies and deception. And for some reason, every time we get together, the word honesty jumps into our conversations.

Can someone tell me why in the world of sports, Coaches have to play the game of rhetoric instead of just laying the facts out in front of us? Please, this is not the world of politics or a world economic council deciding the fate of the world. This is the world of sports, a world that some people still naïvely think of as pure. No matter how you look at the world of sports, would it not be refreshing if there was a feeling of straightforwardness when someone steps in front of a microphone.

I guess I would think that most spokespeople for a team, usually the coach, would want that respectability for the general audience, especially for the fans of the team he or she represents. It must be that most of the coaches do not think we have the moral strength to hear the truth about the teams we love. That if they give us the plain, naked truth, that we will flinch or runaway.

Ah, how refreshing would it be to watch a game, ask the coach a question and just get the true to life picture of the game everyone was watching. Now, before any of you start writing responses and point out one or another isolated instance from this or that coach, please stop. Send me examples of colorful press conferences where coaches laid it out for us about their teams. I am talking about coaches that, game after game, lay out factual, unimpeachable statements about their teams. When coaches do that, they bring respectability to the team and to the players on that team.

Are you not tired of hearing from a coach, when their team cannot score in traditional high scoring sporting event:  “We just played against the most incredible defense today. No matter what we did, we couldn’t score.” Coach, we saw the game, and we as fans saw numerous opportunities for your team to score.  “We just didn’t execute well today.” In other words coach, your team stunk, and you got out-coached by the coaches across the field. “We just didn’t play well enough to win.” Well coach, there are people out there that do not make enough money to pay all their bills each month, but they find a way. They do not give cliché answers.

See coach, you really know why your team didn’t win. So show me a little moral strength, have a little good faith in us the fan, and show us that we are worth the truth. Please, after you are genuinely candid with us on what did or did not happen in the game, do not worry if we question what you did on the court, field, and diamond that night.

Have I encountered a few coaches that are exact, legitimate, unquestionable, true to life, honest as the day is long?  Yes I have, and I respect every win they cherish and I feel bad for every lose they suffer with after a game. They are the coaches that get to stand up there in front of me and talk about the dynasties they have created, and tout all the championships they have won. But they are few, and for most of us, they are the coaches that we remember thru out the years. But again, they are the few.

So, come on coach, the next time you are asked a question with a microphone in front of you, if you are on a national program, local show, college station or even in the parking lot with an overzealous fan who loves the team as much as you, do us all a favor when you answer the question, have faith, show us your virtue, be true-to-life, be unimpeachable, legitimate and unquestionable… just tell the truth.

It is refreshing to hear that an athlete is not connected to talk of cheating on a spouse and now apologizes for the “indiscretion.” Indiscretion is not counting a stroke on the golf course when you happen to be playing by yourself. Cheating on your spouse is not an indiscretion, farting in the supermarket cereal aisle is an indiscretion. The problem though with this topic is that it wasn’t an athlete’s stupidity, it is a college basketball coach, a well respected family-man, devout Roman Catholic college basketball coach. A college basketball coach that happens to where white ice cream suits on the bench of my favorite college basketball program growing-up, the Louisville Cardinals.

Rick Pitino has Final Fours with Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville. He is one of the games great coaches. His resume speaks for itself and his assistants that moved into head coaching aren’t too shabby either. Now his resume can list one more thing, D.A. His affair wasn’t simply with a woman he met at a restaurant. His ‘indiscretion’ took place on a restaurant table. This is one reason that separates Pitino from other great coaches is his decisiveness. He is not going to wait for a recruit to come to him or if he doesn’t like a call, he will take the initiative. That’s what he did in that restaurant six years ago. He took initiative. Why try to run around discretely? No, Pitino was bold like his coaching and initiated an offensive full court press.

No coach Pitino realizes his indiscretion now but six years ago it was a good time. Now he realizes that the woman he had an affair with may or may not be telling the entire truth. Pitino says this has been “pure hell” for his family. The only reason the media is hounding him and the reason this situation has led to an extortion case, an abortion claim, and him receiving criticism for being unfaithful is because Rick Pitino was unfaithful and this whole circus is his fault and no one else. He has ascended to the realm of sports stupidity and will forever be a member. Another great acheivement for the Good Humor Man.

But let’s not forget the real important thing in this whole sordid affair. No, it is not his wife now knowing that her husband is a cheater. No, it is not his five children will read about his personal life in the media or that he is not as devout as he claims. Nor is the importance that the question can be asked, if he cheated on his wife, what stopped or is stopping him from cheating and committing NCAA rules violations. No the importance in all of this is what Pitino said about the Louisville program: Pitino said Louisville would continue to be a Top 10 program despite the scandal. “It has not hurt recruiting one bit. We will still bring in Top 10 players,” he said. This is what really matters, basketball. Pitino also said “Enough’s enough, everybody is tired of it”. “We need to get on with the important things in life like the economy and really some crucial things in life like basketball.”

And no Rick, everyone is not tired of this because this is entertainment. This is something out of a movie and you are lucky you don’t have rabbits. The information coming out of this whole affair will keep sports fans entertained because it keeps getting weirder and more bizarre each time you speak and the other woman speaks. And because she may be ordered to get a mental exam, who knows what will come out of her mouth, truth or not. It is your fault Pitino. We all will grab the popcorn and put down the remote when this comes on the screen as a made for television movie and then on Maury.