No style points for bricked free-throws

One day and one blog entry after throwing John Calipari some praise, I'm throwing him some criticism. It's a dog-eat-dog world.

The Memphis Tigers shot .597 on FT% for the regular season. It was the third worst in NCAA Division I (326 of 328). It does not help that Calipari has pandered to his players in allowing guys like Chris Douglas-Roberts (who gets to the line more than anyone on the team) to execute rank habits at the free-throw line.

Every time Douglas-Roberts goes to the line he whacks his shooting arm with his off arm in between dribbles. All this while leaning his body away from the basket in an unorthodox alignment that decreases any natural symmetry. With that style, he might as well be on a boat trying to skip rocks into the Pacific Ocean.

Douglas-Roberts is shooting .418 from the arc and yet he is only shooting .698 from the line. Bruce Bowen anomalies aside, that is telling of a lack of concentration and/or rhythm from the line.

Memphis's free-throw problem almost ended their season in the second round of the tournament. Against Mississippi State, Memphis missed more free-throws than they made. They missed four out of their last six free-throws as an eight point lead with 22 seconds to go nearly rotted away in their 77-74. Mississippi State was only a missed three away from taking the game into overtime.

Perhaps Calipari's complacency is due to the fact that his team is 35-1 and they coasted into a number one seed for the tournament. Perhaps with everything otherwise going so well, Calipari did not want to mess with his player's psyches. Pull the reigns to hard and the horse will buck.

He needed to make that horse buck, if not shoot it!

It's no secret that when a player or team is not making his free throws, that it'll come back to haunt them. There are notable exceptions. Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan were lucky enough to guide their teams to championships while weathering their atrocious free-throw shooting stretches.

If I were in Calipari's shoes, I would tell Douglas-Roberts to knock it off if he cannot shoot at least 85 percent from the free-throw line. Coach Bobby Knight would tell him to grab some pine and give him a solid verbal thrashing and then remind him that he's a basketball player at a big-time NCAA program, not a showboat on the playgrounds of Detroit.

Calipari is content with letting the inmates run the asylum. Sure his team has a chance of winning it all. Of course it's much more like placing a bet on the corner numbers of the roulette wheel than it is a matter of grabbing the bull by the horns.

No horses or bulls were harmed during the making of this blog entry.

(What about Bob?) Coaches like Bob McKillop of Davidson are the difference makers come Tourney time

Last week in the middle of the Pittsburgh/Michigan State game, I texted my friend that I could no longer bare to watch it. It was terrible. Guys hacking, running down the court and taking the first off balance shot they could take. It was as if there was no coach and Memphis had already called 'next'.

It's not a given that the best coach will always go the farthest in the NCAA tournament (Ask Mark Pugh of Gonzaga) and in some cases I am not sure that coaches are not getting too much credit. COroyUGwillGHiams.

Rick Pitino of Louisville and John Calipari of Memphis have both reached the elite eight as they often do, even when they are not at the most prestigious schools. Unlike other coaches, Coach Pitino seems to be able to put his ego on the back burner. He uses a microphone at practices to teach rather than try to get the rush that a minority of coaches get from yelling at young kids .

It is no coincidence that since Ben Howland left Pepperdine and went to UCLA, Pepperdine stopped making the tournament and UCLA went back to be a powerhouse and perennial Final Four team.

Look at how Bo Ryan's coaching defense was able to take Wisconsin to 31 wins and sweet 16 despite having a discernible shortage of offense and no go-to player.

Similarly Xavier's coach, Sean Miller always managed to keep a cool head. His team has emulated that and made it to the Elite Eight even though other teams that didn't make it that far clearly had more stars.

Possibly the most impressive example has been Bob McKillop of Davidson. He has managed to take his team from the tiny school of Davidson to the NCAA tournament in four out of the last eight years.

McKillop, in his 19th year with the team is very reminiscent of the Utah Jazz's Jerry Sloan. Both are great coaches in relatively small spotlights. Both exemplify poise and dignity while clearly instilling high degrees of disciplined team basketball.

It's took a special player like Stephon Curry to make them into a title contender, but without McKillop's leadership Davidson would have likely been one and done verses Gonzaga.

2008 NCAA Tournament headshakers and predictions

When it comes to the NCAA Tournament There are always going to be teams that get "snubbed." There are always going to be teams that get an unfair seeding. There are always going to be the teams that get to play home games at neutral sites.

This year is no exception. However, this year seems to be the worst I can remember seeing it. Of course recent events always seem worse, and this is the first year, I'm blogging on it. Next year at this time we'll have something to compare it to.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of what has went awry. Here are a few notable head shakers:

--- Might as well go with the elephant in the room to start. Taking Arizona (19-14, 8-10) over Arizona State (19-12, 9-9) is easily the biggest injustice. Besides finishing higher in the Pac-10, ASU beat Arizona both times in head to head.

I realize ASU's RPI was in the eightees, but a better conference record and head-to-head sweep is where the surf board hits the wave.

Besides that when did 19-14 become good enough for an at-large bid, no matter what conference a team is from? Do we even now care that Arizona's streak of 24 consecutive appearances, the current longest in the nation and third most of all-time, if they're going to there invite served to them on a platter?

Arizona interim coach O'Neill added insult to injury not only by claiming his team was just as worthy as ASU to get the invite; but by saying that his teams was 3-8 without his two star guards playing in the line-up together.

We all know, that injuries or not, a team is expected to get it done. The what if talk on the injury front should be reserved for fans, not for coaches trying to justify whether his team deserves to be in the tournament. That was preposterous and the radio host he was talking to was too intimidated to call him out on that horse and buggy thinking.

Arizona getting in over ASU reminds me of the movie 'Unforgiven.' Right before Clint Eastwood shoots a mortally wounded Gene Hackman with a shotgun, Hackman cried he didn't deserve it and that he was building a house. Eastwood's response: "Deserves gots nothing to do with it." Well ASU can build their house all they want but the more prolific, less deserving team is in and most likely so that the NCAA could preserve a higher money producing headliner.

--- Ever hear of Garner Webb? No, it's not a player it's a school. Kentucky (18-12) knows who they are. They lost to them by 16 in their own arena.

That is not Kentucky's most humiliating loss though. Only on Feb. 12, Vanderbilt handed them their you-know-whats, routing them by 41 points.

To begin with, 18-12 is NIT territory. A team better have a top 15 RPI with that.

Kentucky was also 2-5 verses teams that were ranked at the time. If the selection committee justifies selections based on quality win percentages, then shouldn't a team be discounted when they prove they don't stand up to the quality teams? Especially, a bubble team at that.

Not only that, Kentucky was bounced in the opening round by the Georgia Bulldogs. At 17-16, Georgia went on to win the tournament and stole some team's spot with an automatic bid. But not Kentucky's spot! Kentucky is a legacy, why hold them accountable. Why not crush a more deserved team's dreams. After all, we established deserves has nothing to do with it.

Of course the selection committee does not just drop bombs, they drop nukes. They want everyone to know, that their logic is superior. They gave Kentucky an 11 seed, not a 14 or 15 seed that would be much more logical (though not precedented).

--- USC vs. Kansas St. It's cool that the two most exciting college players, OJ Mayo and Michael Beasely are squaring off. But we all know the fix is in to get that.

This is a 6 vs. 11 match-up if you can believe that. Chances are if you didn't scrutinize it, then you did.

USC had close 4 point losses to 1 seeds Kansas and Memphis. So what. I can promise you that in years past, when better Gonzaga teams were struggling for recognition, close but no cigar was the answer they always heard. With that they'd get a 'here enjoy your 11 seed and by the way we matched you up with a team that deserved a three seed.'

USC clearly scored points from the Pac-10 having a strong year. But just because a team is from a top performing conference should not be cause for too much credit. USC had 11 losses and like Kentucky was 2-5 vs teams that were ranked in the top 25. Nothing about that screams sixth seed to me.

Do we realize that sixth seed should roughly equate to a team being in the top 25? More on that in the Davidson/Gonzaga segment. Sufficed to say USC is not in the top 25 for a reason and they had no business getting the sixth seed.

On the other side of the coin, Kansas State went 3-7 vs. Tournament teams. If a mid-major team did that they would not get consideration let alone warrant the eleventh seed. But we all knew that having the best player in the country was about as good of an automatic bid as a team not in the top 25 could ever get without winning their tournament. The eleven seed is the sprinkles on their cake.

--- Davidson vs Gonzaga. Year after year, by the rankings, I see the committee putting teams that should be in a fifth or sixth seed at the 7 to eleven seed.

It's usually the little guy that has played well and is ranked in the top 20 or 25. This year Davidson is 23 and Gonzaga is 24. Davidson got the 10 seed and Gonzaga the 7 seed. Both teams are perfect examples of teams that deserved a better seed than USC. Can we really say we wouldn't expect these teams to go 2-5 vs. top 25 teams?

Well the Zags didn't have a spectacular year vs. top 25 teams, going 1-3, so a good guess is a stalemate there. So why not give it to the team who otherwise achieved more?

The Zags lost to Memphis by 8 and USC lost to Memphis by 4. The committee loves to justify seedings by silly little nuances like that.

Davidson was 0-3 vs top 25 teams. Of course, when the losses are close losses to top 10 teams like UCLA, Duke and North Carolina, it wouldn't be such a crime to give them the 6 seed they deserve.

Still, we know that the committee loves their fuzzy math, when it comes to getting teams seeded where they want.

--- North Carolina can go to the Final Four without even leaving their state. That's right four games slated for Raleigh and Charlotte; the East Regional one seed stays in North Carolina. So North Carolina essentially has four home games.

Obviously rhis was planned well in advance for the sake of having better odds of getting NC or Duke to the Final Four and consequently creating better ratings deep into the tournament.

For all their ethical hang-ups the NCAA are shrewd businessmen. More on that ahead.

--- The selection committee make-up is fundamentally flawed! I was surprised to learn the types of people on the ten member committee. Some members include SEC commissioner Michael Slive (next year's committee commissioner), UCLA athletic director Daniel Guerrero and UCONN athletic director Jeffery Hathaway.

That is about as sound as having Senator Mitchell, a Red Sox board member do the steroid report. Not surprisingly, no dirt on Big Papi or Manram was included in that report.

How is it that the NCAA can crack down on violations with regularity and even admirable precision and then on the other hand completely ignore fundamental rules of ethics? Lots of

narcissistic personalities would be my guess.

There is no doubt in my mind that money and insider considerations play a big part (whether collusion is involved or not). Don't ever expect fair brackets as long as that foundation exists.

--- BYU is a team that has not had an Adam Morrisson to bring credibility to their achievements (Nevermind that they have not won a first round game in forever). For a team like them, they get the shaft with regularity. When they finish in the top 25 or near it and would reasonably expect a 7 seed or better, they never get it.

This year it's worse since they got the 8 seed while being ranked 25th on RPI and finishing in the top 25.

They sported 27 wins and seven losses, but Perdue and West Virginia who both had 24 wins and ten losses and worse RPIs were seeded six and seven ahead of them.

It may seem like a small thing, to drop two or three spots, but it is not. Last time I checked, the nine seed has actually won more match-ups then the eight seed. Generally a six seed will get a much softer opponent. For instance, the weak St Josephs is an 11 seed this year.

Ideally a team can control the 6 vs. 11 match-up and be tuned up to win the next game for a sweet sixteen entrance. That second game is often verse a three seed they would match-up well with or against a 14 seed that pulled off a first round upset.

The reality is a team like BYU is forced to scrap in an 8-9 match-up and then if they manage to come out of it, they are rewarded with a game against a one seed.

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And now for the part that we've all been waiting for; some tournament predictions.

Let me preface it by saying I've always predicted at least one Final Four entrant, but have yet to predict all four. There was a year that I came close, picking three out of four and having my other pick make it to the sweet 16.

Unfortunately that was before bracketology. I was writing in my predictions and posting it on the fridge long before most people knew what March madness was. But that doesn't make me extra special (Ok, maybe just a little).

Still I don't want to sound like a groupie proud of himself/herself for liking a band before they ever went platinum. Quick tangent for my groupies: Remember that time we went to the Boxcar Racer (Blink182 side band project) concert, because Mr. Deeds won free tickets.

One friend made a girl mad by calling them Soapbox car racer and she called him out for not being a fan and winning tickets on the radio. Then on top of it, I was late and just walked right into the concert hall and down into the pit without even having my ticket. I asked my other friend if I needed a ticket and he just laughed for years.

But away from the concert and back to the big dance.

I have North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Stanford and UCLA going to the Final Four. I may end up changing out Vandy for Kansas or Stanford for Wisconsin or Memphis. But for the purpose official picks on this blog, that is my Final Four.

In my own interactive bracket, I may make changes based on things I may see in first round and second round games; but the fun of it all is predicting the Final Four before the ball one jump ball even goes up in the air (If you'll allow me to not count the play-in game that took place yesterday).

I have North Carolina beating UCLA in the final. Incidentally, I can't think of two teams I generally would rather not see in the Final more than those two teams. Of course the rule is that teams I root for usually lose, while teams I root against win; so my predictions seems to comply with universal standards.

Also, I don't think UCLA is anything too special, but they clearly seem to be in the easiest region. Duke is a terrible two seed and may not even make the Elite Eight. Xavier is nothing special for a three seed. UCONN is a legacy pick at four. They shouldn't even be in the west. A team like Vanderbilt is tougher and would make more sense. Drake at the five seed, benefited from a 20-0 league record in a bad league. UCLA really got the nod by default.

UCLA is talented and well coached though, so it is not my intention to put the knock on them. They are deserving of their one seed.

Upsets I predicted in earlier games include:

• #12 George Mason over #5 Notre Dame. ND is clearly where they are for their home domination. On a neutral court, it's more of a coin flip. I expect a close game. Maybe I would have picked ND if I thought they'd beat Washington State in the next game. So I have one and done for the winner of that match-up, so picking the 12 seed just made for more fun.
• #3 Louisville over #2 Tennessee in the East semifinal. Tennessee is only 3-2 on neutral courts, and Rick Pitino is the only coach to take three teams (Providence, Kentucky, Louisville) to Final Four appearances. Plus I have it on good authority that Larry Bird and Kevin McHale will be walking through his door to suit up.
• I want to throw caution to the wind on the potential #9 Kent State vs. #1Kansas match-up in the 2nd round. But I have Kansas winning that game. Still if Kent State has their outside shots dropping, it may come down to the final minutes.
• Vanderbilt is my dark horse, but I half-way expect them to not make it to the Final Four. Vandy has proven they can beat good teams like Tennessee. That combined with facing an overconfident Kansas team in the Midwest semifinal is a good formula.
• I believe the winner of Davidson/Gonzaga will beat Georgetown. I especially think Davidson is the strongest 10 seed in the tourney (and stronger than Gonazga). Meanwhile the Hibbert mania isn't catching on with me. He's no Oden. He's not dominant. He's too slow and and mediocre on defense to to be compared to Patrick Ewing. I have just not been impressed with Georgetown this year. Even if I'm wrong about them not making the sweet 16, I still haven't seen such a poor two seed in a long time.
• It's a small upset, but I have #10 St. Mary's beating #7 Miami, FL. St. Mary's was good enough to not only get a rare WCC at-large bid, but got one of WCC two at large bids. But my main thinking is I just see them as a much more disciplined team than Miami. That makes the difference in close match-ups at this time of year.
• I have Stanford beating #2 Texas and #1 Memphis. Texas is over-rated at the two seed and Pac-10 insiders point out how tough Stanford is. Their smart play and inside presence of Lopez's 1.7 blocks per game should be enough to dismantle Texas. I think Memphis is a more savvy team, but they seem to let teams stick around. I think that'll be playing with fire, if they do that with Stanford. Still picking Stanford is always volatile. They are subject to getting knocked out in any round or beating a team in any round. Picking Stanford is not for the faint of heart.
• In the West, the only higher seed I have winning is #5 Drake over #4 UCONN in the 2nd round. It's the weakest region and still no upsets to predict. I just want to rip up that bracket and blackout all the games. Sports Center highlights will do there.

In the end just remember this: The team that wins will be the team that says, "Goonies never die!"

It was NOT 'The Steroid Era'; It was 'The Better Steroids Era'

There is a misnomer out there in the media that starting in the late eighties with the Bash Brothers, baseball descended into the 'Steroid Era.' The reality is the last 20 years in baseball has just been the 'Better Steroids Era.'

Steroids were prevalent in the sixties and seventies, according to former pitcher, Tom House (pictured right), who testified to Congress in 2005. He attributed it to the general drug culture of the sixties and seventies. He also believed six to seven pitchers on every team's staff used steroids.

Do we have any reason to believe that by the early and mid eighties as drug use shot up to the point in which 'The War On Drugs' was considered a miserable failure, that somehow the baseball culture righted its own ship.

All the hair loss, balls shrinking, mood swing talk in the world was not going to stop the progression of steroids. If anything like the rest of sports medicine, we can reasonably assume that the underground multimillion dollar market had incentives to improve the products while limiting side effects. Those common side effects that we often heard in the eighties, we now barely hear peeps about them.

In his book, Canseco has estimated that 85 percent of players were using steroids. In 1995, long before the steroid scandal was in the spotlight, Tony Gwynn estimated that 30 percent of the players in the league were users.

Baseball would do nothing to investigate claims by players like Gwynn. As Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine said in a commercial, "chicks dig the long ball." Instead, MLB also juiced the balls and the bats to keep the billions rolling in.

MLB has never been pro-active to stop steroids, unless Congress was looking over its shoulder. Even when Fay Vincent added steroids to its banned substances list, it is conceivable he was acting on insider information that the Feds were onto Big Mac and Canseco.

Ten months after MLB prohibited steroid use, Curtis Wenzlaff was arrested May 7, 1992 for steroid distribution charges. Wenzlaff admitted to helping take Canseco from "novice user" to "steroid guru," but refused to discuss McGwire.

We are inclined to believe the insiders like Gwynn and Canseco over MLB's reports that 5-7 percent were users in 2003, and 1-2 percent in 2004. We wonder about leaks in testing times, let alone the truthfulness of the results. In 2004, no player was caught twice and thus under the collective bargaining agreement of that time no name was released. The storm was being weathered, even the lesser of skeptics would think.

By the 2002 season, the steroid current that had long been in baseball, was blowing too strong in the public conscious. The Senate ordered Commissioner Bud Selig and players union president, Donald Fehr to institute a "strict" drug testing program into their new collective bargaining agreement.

MLB instituted a 10-strike, random and anonymous survey style testing.

The league announced that 5 to 7 percent of the 1,438 tests were positive for steroid use, setting in motion mandatory tests for 2004. In 2004, Selig proudly announced that steroid use was down to 1 to 2 percent.

Oddly enough no player tested positive a second time, which would warrant public notoriety. Since MLB controlled the release of all results, this claim could never be independently verified. No subsequent Congressional pressure seems to have broached the oddity either.

MLB was not even giving out token suspensions until the Balco hype kept steroids in the spotlight. Of course that has spiraled into Bonds. Fair treatment required that the Feds not look the other way on Clemens.

This reminds me of a Scooby Doo episode. Someone pull the mask off Selig and you might see Bonds. Wait, pull off the mask, maybe its Alex Rodriguez? Well maybe their isn't just one villain wearing the mask. But certainly a lot of villains may be saying, 'I would of got away with it too if it weren't for those meddling IRS investigators (Balco).'

But actually, we do know that most of the culprits will get away with it. We have no way of knowing who did what fair in baseball in the last 50 years. We do not know even if guys like Reggie Jackson were on the level when he was hitting monster shots onto Detroit Stadium's roof.

We all know about Charlie Hustle's (Pete Rose) character issues. Guilty til proven innocent is for the court of law. In the court of public opinion, a guy like that won't get the benefit of the doubt.

If we want to know the truth, we need to treat this like the presidential records. Those are sealed for fifty years after a president is dead.

And why? Because their is a premium on truth in this world. We want to know history for what its worth, but nobody wants to sacrifice their current glory for it. Look at what doing that did for Rafael Palmeiro. He went from a first ballot Hall of Fame choice, to the shame of MLB,

So sit all the living baseball players in a room. Hook them up to lie detector tests and grill the hell out of them. Promise that none of the results will be released for 50 years and that'll take care of the mess. Sure we'll have to wonder our brains out in the mean time, but it wouldn't be much different from the carrots we are picking out of the huge pot of steroid stew now.

Sorry baseball fans, but your league has been conning you for years. Wake up to the reality and decide if you want the truth or to just fry a few convicts in hopes that baseball players won't cheat anymore.

Even if you are happy with that, at least demand that various independent agencies, not beholden to MLB and conspirators conduct the steroid testing. It's obvious that the almighty dollar is what counts at MLB. Collusion or corruption by omission equals billions when done right. That is a proven formula.

One thing is for sure, this is a huge cultural mess, not just some fad or even as much as an era. The clean-up effort has to to match the scope of the issues if the problems are to be eradicated.

Borseth: Pathetic on many levels

Here is the most recent coaching meltdown, courtesy of Coach Kevin Borseth at the University of Michigan. It is pathetic on many levels. Here's just some reasons:

1. Michigan is a team on the bubble of making a NCAA tournament. Yet this meltdown is the only newsworthy event in women's basketball all year. I give the women's game some credit. The quality of play has improved over the last decade. Now instead of playing on a junior high boys level, they've advanced to something more comparable to the freshmen boys level. That is the reason this is the only reason this story is the only real women's basketball story. Sorry feminists, it has nothing to do with misogyny. Although I will grant their are many shock jocks who ruthlessly demean women athletes; and it is inappropriate.
2. When did it become acceptable for coaches to shout and swear at the media? Thank you again Bobby and a university and Indiana.
   
3. Michigan will not likely suspend him for his tirade let alone fire him. I advocate firing even as those in the know believe Borseth is simply overly passionate and volatilebut not ill-willed. Even in his press conference you can see him calming down and showing a more humanistic side. However, he is charged with acting appropriately towards the media and his players, and even if some yelling is allowable, its clear that he was out of control and not a leader. This situation is different from that wiesel, Sampson who premeditatedly broke rules then garnished three quarters of a million dollars from a university in Indiana. In lieu of Borseth's work, some low-end buyout could be appropriate. But to keep him on shows that such actions are tolerated at that institution.
   
4. A man called Gundy at a university in Oklahoma had a much more disgusting and insulting rant. Gundy who was protesting criticism of a public athlete playing on a college division 1 level, yelled out personal insults at a female reporter. Gundy was out of control and incited personal attacks on his perch, as a naive media applauded his exit. His actions were ludicrous and contemptuous and well worthy of being fired, and nothing happened to him. It is no wonder that Borseth felt emboldened to act the way he did.
5. Getting back to the crux of the first article. His team lost an 18 point lead. Who cares? If people weren't going to give Adam Morrison sympathy for crying after his cinderella Gonzaga team lost in the NCAA tournament, then why would Borseth think he would get any sympathy. Such a tirade became the story; not the refs not making calls, not blowing an 18 point lead, and certainly not being able to get rebounds, all which were never much of stories to begin with outside of the bubble he lives in.
   

Corruption In College Coaching

Jim Calhoun's greedy remarks are indicative of a warped system

Kelvin Sampson: A cheater trying to prosper

Scurrilous Trojans: Mike Garrett and Tim Floyd allowed OJ Mayo to cheat

Borseth: Pathetic on many levels