Sports Smorgasbord

The Critical Nature of The ISU/Texas Game
They say everything is bigger in Texas. The Cyclones are about to find out just how much bigger as 6’10”, 290 pound center Dexter Pittman (pictured) and the #1 Texas Longhorns visit Hilton Coliseum Wednesday night. Texas (15-0) is coming off a 103-point outburst against Colorado last Saturday. Rumor has it that there are serious issues going on behind the scenes in the ISU locker room. Chris Colvin (ISU’s star freshman recruit) was suspended indefinitely for walking out of a closed-door meeting after the Duke loss last week. Apparently there have been other “tweets” and conversations about dissension in the ranks. As McDermott appears dangerously close to losing this team, this game becomes critical not only for the direction of the rest of this season, but possibly his career.

Colo-Nesco
How do you know you have basketball fever? I guess when you can’t make it to a Royals game (home late from kid’s basketball practice) and pace the house like a caged lion, wondering how the game is going. That’s what happened Tuesday night as the Royals faced Bondurant-Farrar. I just found out the Royals squeaked out a close one: 40-37. Great win. Royals improve to 10-2. Wish I could tell you more.

Lane Kiffin to USC: Maybe Al Davis Was Right?
You’ll never hear those words out of my mouth again, but hear me out on this one. I think Al Davis (Owner of the Oakland Raiders) is just about the worst owner in all of sports. But after the news that Lane Kiffin (a former coach for the Raiders that Davis both hired and fired) bolted to USC after just one season at Tennessee, you have to wonder if he was right with his comments about him. According to an article by Beth Rucker of Rivals.com, Davis said that Kiffin was “a liar who brought disgrace on the Raiders.” I’m guessing there are about 6 million Volunteer fans that would echo that statement tonight. Kiffin was the flashy new-hire in Knoxville last year who brought in a great recruiting class and had seemingly restored some of the luster to the Tennessee football program. Along the way, he also incurred some NCAA violations, so he should be a PERFECT fit for USC in Southern California. Kiffin better hurry--you don't want to mess with a bunch of ticked off Smoky-Mountain men with muskets and bloodhounds chasing you after you've disgraced their football program!

Alabama/Texas BCS Title Game
It really was too bad that Texas QB Colt McCoy got hurt in this game. It would have been interesting to see what the outcome might have been with him in there for the whole thing. At the same time, Texas blew two golden opportunities early to put the Tide behind the 8-ball. Two red-zone opportunities, two field goals. Six points instead of fourteen, then Coach Mack Brown makes a BONEHEAD move to shovel-pass right before half time, and before you can blink, the Longhorns are down 18. I like Texas and Alabama so much that I shut the TV off and went to bed at half time after that. Seriously, Mack Brown’s wife could coach Texas to a National Championship game. It’s TEXAS for crying out loud! Where they give babies footballs instead of pacifiers, and half the nations five-star recruits practically beg to play for the Longhorns.

Sports Smorgasbord

Too many choices to blog about this week, so I'll give you a good variety:

1. Iowa Football--As a Cyclone fan, watching last nights Orange Bowl was downright scary. I'll give the Hawks credit in this one; they dominated that game. I've been skeptical all season long with their unconvincing wins against teams like UNI, Arkansas State and Indiana. But last night, there was no doubt--this defense is as nasty as they come, and the scary part (as a 'Clone fan) is that most of that defense (and offense) will be back next year. Boy, do I hope Adrian Clayborn changes his mind and decides to go pro! On the flip side, that was a PERFECT match-up for the Hawks. Georgia Tech is too one-dimensional, and that one dimension played right into the hands of that tenacious run-stopping Iowa defense.


2. Iowa State Basketball--In the next 30 days, we'll find out if the Cyclone Men's basketball team is good enough to make the tournament. It all begins tonight with a clash against the 12-1 Duke Blue Devils, rated #5 in the nation. Next Wednesday the Cyclones face #2 Texas, and ten days later: #1 Kansas. Doesn't get much more difficult than that. The way I see it, ISU needs to get at least one win out of those 3 games in order to make the NCAA Tournament. Two wins against three of the nations top ten could be the makings of a special season.


3. Mike Leach and Texas Tech--I'm not a Texas Tech football fan, but this story is one everyone is talking about. What Mike Leach did was stupid; plain and simple. You can't lock anyone (especially someone who's suffering from a concussion AND whose dad is a national television analyst) into a "closet" or "shed" in the year 2010 and expect it to go unnoticed. 50 years ago, maybe, but not today. Whether it was a fire-able offense or not is not so plain and simple. Both the "shed" and "closet" were quite large, and the player was in no threat of any kind of danger. From all accounts, Adam James is a spoiled, rich, son of a former NFL running back, who thinks the world should serve him everything on a silver platter. After all the complaining (allegedly) his father and ESPN analyst, Craig James did to Coach Leach to try to get his son playing time, you can't blame Leach for WANTING to give James his college discipline version of a "timeout" by putting him in those places. But wanting to do something like that and actually DOING something like that is what got him in trouble. In my mind, it all comes down to money. Leach was in the first year of a huge contract that Texas Tech decided they didn't want to pay, and this was their "out." Consider this: Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers is the same AD who HIRED Bob Knight to coach the Red Raider basketball team back in 2001. Talk about a double standard.

4. Colo Nesco Basketball--There was no sluggishness to be found on this basketball team after a long holiday break. The Royals crushed Collins-Maxwell Baxter on Tuesday night, 82-34, behind a season high 27 points from Travis Guy, 20 from Brandon Eley, and 10 points/7 assists/6 rebounds/6 steals from Austin Larsen who had his best game of the season. After a busy holiday schedule, I'm excited to get back and watch the upstart Royals.