I'm pretty sure we didn't make this up...

Quentin Thomas, of "Just the Two of Us" fame from 2005's Midnight Madness, is going to be providing the intro to NBA Live 2010. We'll be checking for YouTube clips in November, when the NBA Season really starts.

Here, Thomas is seen clearly fouling Gerald Henderson, now of the Charlotte Bobcats.

From the N & O:
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1602045.html

Roy is more popular than Coach K in North Carolina and in life...

In a poll that should surprise no one, the Public Policy Polling firm declared that Roy Williams is liked by more people in the state of North Carolina than is Mike Krzyzewski. Sixty-one percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Roy while only fifty-two percent felt the same about Coach K. This indicates that fans of Duke and UNC appear to have a healthy respect for the suit on the other sideline. On an interesting note, Sidney Lowe and Dino Gaudio had zero favorable opinion* in this poll.

http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/williams_leads_coach_k_in_popularity

*Dino Gaudio and Sidney Lowe were not part of this survey, but zero percent popularity is our most approximate figure based upon State fan griping that they didn't have a winning season yet again and Wake fan griping that their team quit on their coach during their first round loss to Cleveland State.

Now you too can dress like your favorite Final Four coach...

As you've watched Roy's Heels over the last couple of years, you may have probably thought to yourself, "How does our team play so well while our coach wears such ugly ties?"


I often wondered where Roy Williams got his ties, and now I present to you the very same ties that Roy has famously worn over the past couple of seasons. From Alexander Julian:

Julian updated the UNC uniforms in the late 80's by adding the argyle to the UNC Uniforms after consulting with Michael Jordan and Dean Smith. This was certainly a nice touch, bringing argyle to basketball before the Izod Center did, shown here:


Of course, Jay Wright is no slouch. I've heard he has a nice 12 piece outfit he just picked out just for Saturday's semifinal. I'd be remiss to leave him out of this discussion of well-dressed coaches. The University of Pennsylvania even gave him space to write his own editorial in response to not being in People's Sexiest People issue.


If you're wondering how the two coaches compare, you can read up on GQ's editors discussing Dick Vitale's list of best dressed coaches. Both Wright and Williams made the list with favorable reviews from Glenn O'Brien, one of the first people to discover Haitian neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquait.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Wow, how loyal of google/blogspot to keep the blog up and running while John and I were slumbering through the dog days of August and the booooring second half of the baseball season. The sports scene is picking up again, and its time to put the blog back in its regular rotation. The return of NFL action and college basketball being just around the corner should have John and I posting at near '06 levels (ah, the blog honeymoon years). Keeping up the analogy, John and I have decided to add a new "partner" to the mix, we welcome one time guest poster and long time friend Cason Dwyer to the fold. Cason will help us nail down the inside scoop on how the Packers look without Brett Favre for the first time since Bush was in office I was in Kindergarten. We also need to make a decision about what NFL contest we'd like to pursue this year. Pick 'em is so 2 years ago, I'm thinking we'll mix it up with one of those "pick the 100 yd rusher/reciever" games like they play on the Sunday NFL pregame shows (but a good showing for Pick 'em in the comments would go a long way to granting it a stay of execution for the season).

Ok, enough blabbering, the real motive for my posting (other than to kickoff the blog season) is to link to the great AA piece:

"grab onto those giant condor-like wings arms and ride....RIDE....young Michael Phelps to ratings gold, NBC!"

NBC has decided to do just that, hoping to glean what ratings they can from the greatest Olympian of all time they've picked up several swimming world and US championships. Will these events be even half as popular as the Olympics? My money's on no, but only time will tell, you never know how many "Phelps Phans" there are out there.

On another note, if you enjoy long conversations about the arbitrary rules and negotiations that surround MLB's mid-June draft, be sure to read this interview with Nationals' GM Jim Bowden about the attempted signing of #9 overall pick Aaron Crow (SP Missouri).

Edit: As of today's date (August 21st) all Tar Heel early entrants to the NBA Draft have elected to return to school. The Heels only underclassman loss is Alex Stepheson who is transferring to USC to be closer to his family and ailing father. We regret the error and the lack of immediate updated coverage and hope none of our loyal readers were confused (or miffed).

The World Series Preview

Here are some links to VegasWatch where there are previewing the World Series matchup between the Clevelan Indians and the Boston Red Sox. I mean, that's what it is, right? Essentially? Ok, ok, the Rockies could probably take on either of these teams, despite not having a starting pitcher that would crack the top 2 (Cleveland) or top 3 (Boston) of the rotation.
(edit: upon further review, Francis' VORP is higher than both Schilling and Matsuzaka)

Lineups
Fielding
Starting Rotations
Bullpens
(yeah, he's a little Indian crazy)

To tag on (in case the VW preview didn't quite fill you with enough knowledge of the ALCS combatants, from BP:
"six different hitters homered versus New York, and of the 12 who played, 11 collected at least one extra-base hit. In the Indians' balanced attack"
Also from that article, though the Sox and Tribe tied for 1st in the AL with 96 wins, the Red Sox projected win total was 15 games higher than that of the Indians (103-88)

Links (thanks as usual to Deadspin, AA, etc)
Dick Vitale's MLB Playoff picks (click only if you have a strong stomach)
Manny Acta interview (not sure why this is here, John and I both read it)
And Will Carroll's weekly injury report, I'd be worried but no one in my fantasy league bothers to read this blog OR update their rosters

Later: John and I co-post to knobslob the new BP!! (and preview our plans for hours and hours of College Basketball viewing)

Knee Jerk Top 10

Yeah, so I've decided to get a little lazy in my poll making, and a Power 16 doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense anyways, so 10 it is. Not only 10 because its the first 2 digit number, or because we have 10 fingers and are ruled by 10-based number systems, but 10 because that's how many teams will eventually make BCS bowls. So this week will be a nice wrap-up of 2 Saturdays' worth of activities

1) LSU - Easily the #1 team in the country, haven't I said this for a while?
2) OSU - Also very very impressive, I don't know how the AP has Cal ahead of them (ok, I do know, they started higher in the preseason)
3) Cal - Winning on the road in the Pac-10 is a good sign, though I'm not sold on the rest of their resume
4) USF - Wow, how does UNC pick their schedule? We always seem to play the wrong team the wrong year (ND/Rutgers last year, USF this year)
5) SC - Only loss is at the obvious #1 team in the country, what's wrong with that? Should easily be the top 1-loss team, and probably ranked higher than some unbeatens (as they are here)
6) Oklahoma - I'm not one to hold a grudge over one loss
7) Missouri - They seem to be impressing people (ok, ok, I'm copying the blog poll, sorry I didn't happen to watch any football this past weekend, I had better things to do)
8) WVU - Strong bounce back effort against 'Cuse, they should show that they're for real in the coming weeks
9) BC - This makes me sick, in fact, I was going to rank them 6th, but I can't, there is no way. I'm going to drop them to 9th on principle alone, they have beaten NO ONE, next year I want UNC to stack the schedule to start with 4 cupcakes that we should beat a 2 decent teams on par with us. Soon a 6-0 start, slippage at the top, and the Butch Davis year 2 will be off with a bang. Honestly AP poll, #4?, Really? Have you no shame? Semi-bold prediction, BC finishes the year 2-4.
10) Illinois - I think from now on the #10 spot will go to a newcomer to the top 20 or so who has shown some real potential, could they definitely beat Kentucky or Oregon the other 2 competitors for this slot? Maybe, but I'm basing this more on recent performance and potential.

Dropping (from the top 10) - USC, Florida, Rutgers, Texas, Oregon)

The day's links:
Jon Beason is rocking out as the Panthers new MLB
The Panthers have signed a QB who is closer to my parents' age than my own (not to mention drafted in the same position, but 15 years earlier, than David Carr)
The man who will be (and is currently) most responsible for the mercinarification (is that a word?) of sports, especially baseball, thinks A-Rod is worth 500 million for the next 10 years (are we crossing into an era where players begin to directly make money from their own revenue? first Becks and now this)
Deadspin editor Will Leitch's Fair and Foul blog with the NY Times is definitely worth a read

Week 3 Pick 'em Recap

I warned you all that it was going to be a rough week, so, here are the standings (with John's upset bonus points to come as an edit later tonight).

John (2): 9 pts, 4-2 (25 pts 12-6)
Ryan (1): -1 pts, 3-3 (11 pts, 11-7)
Jesse (0): -11 pts, 1-5 (-11 pts, 7-11)

Wow, the guests had really been treading water, which is expected with the fact that the games we pick seem to be nearly toss-ups, you would expect about 50-50 and a .500 record. I should have put more faith in my gut call of Dallas over Chicago, which turned out to be right, but instead I left it down at 1 point to earn me literally nothing. John combined the usual blog poster record on the week (4-2) with a good allotment of point values to rack up 9 points on the week. The Minnesota collapse really hurt all of us, costing the panel a total of 15 points, I mean, really, the Chiefs? Oh well, like they say, any given Sunday. The next two weeks I'll do what I can to mail my picks in from Thailand, and John will be in charge of tracking down a guest or inviting trusty old Abe Lincoln (and his friend the random number generator to weight the games) to do the guest honors. We could make it internatonal week if Chuck wanted to weigh in from Poland, just a thought.

News Updates:
Catfight in Bristol! (sorry John, Erin Andrews isn't involved)
The Rockies are roaring back into the playoff race (+7% in one day!)
Oh yeah, and Peter King must have been playing the Brian Westbrook owner in his Fantasy League this weekend, its really the only possible explanation for this.

Depending upon how noisy these Starlings get I might be back on later for my "Knee-Jerk Power 16" (and Byron, its not going to be pretty for your Gators)

(note Ryan's first attempt at HTML tagging)

Week 3 Pick 'em

I'm going to go ahead an apologize for a weak posting week, as I notice that our most recent post was about last week's picking action. So I'll lead off here with a few web discoveries:
1) Vegas Watch - my new favorite blog is pretty much 100% stat-devoted, hopefully they'll keep up the posting as the baseball season winds to a close
2) Reggie v. LenDale - with the Titans/Saints showdown approaching, Epic Carnival wonders: which USC product will turn out to be the better back? (Does this qualify as Cason-baiting?)
3) Beatpaths! - the return to importance of Beatpaths (it looked sorta silly after Week 1), this is a site that takes wins literally and ranks teams based on the teams they've beaten (and the teams the teams they've beaten have beaten)
4) BlogPoll - the recap of the week's blog poll from MGoBlog

Now, the week's NFL pick 'em lineup (paying attention, Jesse?)
Minnesota @ Kansas City
Miami @ New York (AFC)
Jacksonville @ Denver
Cincinnati @ Seattle
Cleveland @ Oakland
Dallas @ Chicago

As always, lines are courtesy of Vegas Insider. An aside: in case you haven't noticed in the past 2 weeks, the home team gets a 2.5- to 3-point advantage just for playing at home.

PS: I'm at work listening to Starling song, so I apologize for the lack of formatting, Safari sucks and I don't know html

Editor's note: John has taken the liberty of cleaning up not only the links in the post, but the grammar and spelling as well.