Sports fodder for a Friday morning ... The best thing to happen to the Nevada Wolf Pack's NCAA Tournament hopes this year took place Wednesday night in Moscow, Idaho. And the Pack didn't even have to get off its couch. The Utah State Aggies lost a Western Athletic Conference game, 64-56, to the Idaho Vandals. Yes, it can be done. The Aggies, now 11-1 in WAC games, are not invincible. Their mystique is dead. They can be beat. The Vandals proved it. The WAC Tournament in Las Vegas in March is now, officially, up for grabs. Why can't the Wolf Pack win it? No reason. No reason at all.
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Former Wolf Pack point guard Armon Johnson, now playing for the Idaho Stampede of the NBA's D-League (The D stands for Defect), ripped the Dakota Wizards Tuesday night for 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Former Pack forward Luke Babbitt has scored a grand total of 21 points in 91 minutes this season in the NBA with Portland. Neither Babbitt or Johnson was obviously ready for the NBA this year. The only thing they were ready for was a six and seven-figure income. They should be at Nevada this year helping the Pack get to the NCAA Tournament.
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Johnson and Babbitt never got to the NCAA Tournament at Nevada. That's why it is so strange to even imagine a Pack team with two freshman, a sophomore and two juniors in the starting lineup, and nine newcomers on the roster, getting to the NCAA Tournament after starting the season 4-13. But that is why college basketball will always be more interesting than the NBA. If Nevada was an NBA team, that 4-13 start would have forced them to trade Dario Hunt and Olek Czyz to the Orlando Magic for draft picks by now.
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Can BYU's Jimmer Fredette make it in the NBA? Can he become a star? Will he be a lottery pick? Is he the next J.J. Redick, Stephen Curry, Pete Maravich or Fennis Dembo? Will he play consistent minutes as a rookie in the NBA or will he bounce back and forth from the D-League like Babbitt and Johnson? Who cares? Let the kid enjoy his college experience. Fredette is the best, most interesting thing about college basketball right now. He's made BYU the team nobody wants to play in the NCAA Tournament. Let him worry about the NBA next year.
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Spring training is just around the corner, and the San Francisco Giants have gotten almost no buzz or love this winter other than Brian Wilson showing off his magical beard on the talk show circuit. Blame it on the ESPN Syndrome. If you aren't located in New York, Boston or Los Angeles, or in an area that has suffered a recent natural disaster or the site of one of Jimmy Valvano's last speeches, you are considered a one-year fluke by sports' Big Brother. Everyone else is yesterday's news as soon as the last shred of confetti hits their head during their victory parade. Why can't the Giants repeat this year? Well, because ESPN has already put the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. That's why.
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The most overlooked and ignored team in professional sports, though, is the San Antonio Spurs. All the Spurs have done is win four NBA championships since the end of the Chicago Bulls' dynasty in 1998. And, by the way, their 44-8 record this year is by far the league's best. ESPN, though, only cares about where Carmelo Anthony is going to be traded.
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Former Pack point guard Ramon Sessions is on one of the worst teams in NBA history with the Cleveland Cavaliers. But he couldn't be on a better team at this stage in his career. Sessions had one of the best games by a NBA point guard this season on Wednesday as the Cavs lost 103-94 to the pathetic Detroit Pistons. It was the Cavs' NBA record 26th loss in a row. Sessions, though, scored 20 points with 12 assists, five steals and six rebounds. This season he's averaging 11.8 points, 5.2 assists and has solidified himself as a legitimate point guard in the NBA for years to come. In the NBA, it's not about winning and losing. It's about getting consistent minutes. Just ask Babbitt and Johnson.
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I could not care less if the NFL went on strike this summer and stayed away for two or three years. It seemed like this NFL season would never end. The league has turned into a watered down melting pot of mediocrity. All it produced this year was two good-but-not-great teams playing a good-but-not-great Super Bowl. This Super Bowl was like eating a candy bar. It was satisfying for a few minutes but all you were left with was empty calories. The only thing anyone will remember about that Super Bowl is how Christina Aguilera messed up the National Anthem.
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If I hear one more Green Bay Packer player or executive claim that the Vince Lombardi Trophy is now back where it belongs, I'm going to, well, let's just say it will resemble the color of those hideous Packer uniforms. Do the poor, unfortunate, freezing folks of Green Bay forget that even Lombardi couldn't wait to get out of Green Bay at the end of his career? The NFL never should have named the trophy after Lombardi or anyone else. This isn't hockey. The World Series trophy doesn't have a name attached to it. But if they had to have a name on the trophy, it should have been Pete Rozelle. He's the reason there is a Super Bowl in the first place.
