Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Bert and Ernie, on the other hand...

One possible side effect of the Tiger Woods announcement yesterday, which immediately put ESPN into all-Tiger all the time mode, is that it might reduce the national overreaction to whatever Tim Tebow does at Pro Day this morning. It's unlikely he's been able to completely revamp his throwing motion in a few weeks, but I suspect it will look better. After the ridiculous response to his perfectly unremarkable Wonderlic score, I'm sure the usual posse of people who seem to have made ripping Tebow their full time job leading up to the draft will find something to base him again for. One sample sneering tweet from a basher last night: "Only twelve more hours before I see the lefthanded Messiah in Gainesville" Hopefully things go well for Tebow - he's not perfect, but I do not understand the obsession some have with tearing him down.

MSU's Rick Stansbury better have a fine or suspension coming his way after his comments about the officials not calling a potential lane violation in the Bulldogs SEC Championship loss the Kentucky. It's one thing to be frustrated with a missed call, even though it didn't affect what happened, but when you trot out lines like "At Mississippi State, you’re supposed to take it and be quiet." my sympathy ends. No one was rigging that game against MSU. If anything, the conference had every reason to want them to win and ensure a fourth SEC NCAA bid. For Stansbury to even insinuate otherwise is irresponsible, and he should be hammred for it under the Lane Kiffin rule.

Apparently someone was under the impression Steve Mariucci and Tom Izzo, who we're told every Michigan State hoops broadcast are best friends, might actually be more than friends. As they revealed to HBO'S Real Sports, ummm... no. Not quite. Some people really need to back away from the gossip maagzines, it would appear.

I'm on my way to Oklahoma City to cover Florida in the NCAA Tournament. I imagine they'll be some conversation about Charles Pierce's over the top rip job of John Calipari there and elsewhere today. Never been to Oklahoma, so this should be interesting. Time to board my flight, so I have to cut the blog entry here. More UF details tomorrow after watching them practice and talking with the kids today.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I agree that Stansbury needs to be fined heavily for what he said, but it's hard to argue that that call didn't have an effect on the outcome of the game. The UK player (Patterson, I believe) fumbled the rebound at first and Wall was right there to scoop it up. Had he been a bit farther back he might not have gotten to the ball before the State player or, at the very least, wouldn't have gotten a shot off early enough for Cousins to be able to put the ball back in the hoop. Even a 0.2 second delay in him getting there wins the game for MSU. Lucky break for UK and the Gators.