Thursday, January 28, 2010

No sign of the peanut butter covered UGA guy last night?

Florida basketball isn't going to make the tournament by winning home games against Georgia and South Carolina, but losing them would have been devastating to their chances of being in the field of 65. Road wins are the key to not being on the edge of the field when selection Sunday rolls around. So far UF has ones over NC State and Arkansas, but Sunday's game with a struggling Tennessee has the potential to be a high value conquest. Bruce Pearl is not a better game coach than Billy Donovan, and it's time the results on the court begin to reflect that.

At the end of Tuesday night's surprising South Carolina win over Kentucky, I realized I was about to see something I never had at a basketball game before. The fans were going to storm the court, and there wasn't a chance in hell of "security" stopping them. Yesterday the bill came due, as the SEC fined South Carolina 25 thousand dollars. Fans were ticked off about the fine, although the rules are very clear and were agreed to by everyone in the conference. Florida makes sure fans won't enter the court or field by having lots of police ringing the playing surface ready to arrest anyone who attempts to do so. South Carolina has 50-something women in yellow jackets that say "security" holding a piece of clothesline to restrain the crowd. Forcing schools to improve on that kind of poor planning is exactly why the rule exists. Fortunately the big moment for Gamecock fans led to no major problems, but there's no way to know what will happen when thousands of people simultaneously charge into an area while the competitors are still there. The SEC is right on this.

With all the scrutiny of Tim Tebow right now, it's easy to get lost in the blizzard of commentary. There are some people who I've followed long enough to know that what they say has value when it comes to how the NFL evaluates personnel. Mike Lombardi of the National Football Post is one of those people. He's been a front office guy with the 49ers and Raiders, among others, and you might have seen him on CBS as an NFL Today contributor a few years ago. Lombardi takes a look at what type of team is most likely to be a fit for Tebow while also encouraging people to back off and let the situation breathe a little bit. His opinion is vastly more relevant than that of Todd McShay or any of the ESPN afternoon screamfest panel shows.

Is sending nude pictures of yourself to someone a great idea? Probably not, even if the person wants them at the time. There's always a chance they could be stolen, accessed by someone inappropriate if they're on a computer, etc. And of course should things between the two of you turn out poorly, sharing the pics with folks they weren't intended for is a natural revenge option. Having said that, why exactly did Greg Oden need to apologize yesterday? He took photos for someone he was involved with. They weren't intended for broader viewing, nor did he have anything to do with that changing. It had nothing to do with Oden's job performance, and he's never been involved in any public moralizing that makes this hypocritical on his part. It's not against the law to take a nude photo and give it to someone. Since he wasn't harming anyone with unwanted advances, where's the problem here?

You can't give yourself a nickname, or you'll come off like a clown. The flip side of that is the inability to escape a nickname once it's hung on you and catches on. Glen "Big Baby" Davis no longer wants to be called that. Making that known only further ensures he will be called it by everyone he sees. You don't get to pick a nickname, and you don't get to decide if you like the one you wind up with. Thus it has been, and thus it will always be. Sorry, Big Baby.

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