Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .
The Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball team is closer to a NCAA Tournament berth than you might think. The WAC has changed its format for its eight-team postseason tournament March 9-12 in Las Vegas, making it easier for the top two seeds to win the tournament. The top two seeds earn a bye into the semifinals and need only to win two games to win the tournament and the automatic berth into the NCAA tournament. Seeds three and four get a one-game bye and seeds five through eight have the difficult task of winning four games in four days. With just four games left in the WAC regular season, the Pack (7-5 in league play) is just a game behind New Mexico State (8-4) for the No. 2 seed. But they are also just a half game ahead of Boise State and Idaho and possibly dropping to the dreaded No. 5 seed spot. The Pack plays Idaho and Boise next week at home and New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech the following week on the road. All four games are must wins if they want to finish second. That's why, as far as the Pack is concerned, the WAC Tournament begins Feb. 24 when Idaho comes to Lawlor Events Center.
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What, exactly, are the St. Louis Cardinals and Albert Pujols thinking? Both sides failed to come to a contract agreement for the slugging first baseman by Wednesday's silly deadline. Pujols now says he won't talk contract with the Cardinals until after the season because he doesn't want to be a distraction for his teammates. Isn't Pujols on the roster without a contract beyond the 2011 season a bigger distraction for everybody? If Pujols truly wanted to avoid being a distraction for his teammates he would have signed the Cardinals' reported $200 million offer for eight years. He would have worked out a deal this winter. So don't believe all that "I don't want to be a distraction" talk from Pujols. What he wants is to be the highest paid player in major league history.
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The Cardinals would be fools to give Pujols $300 million for 10 years The man is already 31-years-old. He's already had some injury issues. The days of a player getting better and stronger from the ages of 35-40 are, we are told, over in the big leagues. Yes, Pujols is a great player. Yes, he's going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And, yes, he deserves a ton of money. But if the Cardinals give Pujols $300 million he'll be surrounded by four Justin Biebers, three Paris Hiltons and one, old fat former 'N Sync kid (Joey Fatone?) in the batting order the next decade.
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The Los Angeles Lakers are in panic mode. The NBA is falling apart. The Lakers are crumbling. Don't believe it. The Lakers' loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers (and former Pack guard Ramon Sessions, who had 32 points for the Cavs) does not mean the Lakers can't win another title this summer. All it means is that the Lakers were bored, tired and disinterested as they got ready for All-Star weekend (the NBA's version of a 72-hour New Year's Eve party) this weekend. They played the game with as much passion as Phil Jackson would attack the Boston Marathon. It will still be the Lakers against either the Miami Heat or Boston Celtics in the Finals.
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The top six Wolf Pack sports events in 2011 now all belong to football. The Super Six are, in order, Letter of Intent signing day, spring football, the NFL draft, summer practices, the regular season and the bowl game. Football is king up on north Virginia Street once again and, well, no other sport is even close right now. It wasn't all that long ago (2000 through 2004, to be exact) when the average Pack fan couldn't tell you the name of the head coach and starting quarterback, not to mention the latest change in the Pack uniform.
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Runs will be harder to come by in college baseball this year. The ball won't be exploding off the metal bats like it used to thanks to new, duller, less lively and, supposedly, safer bats. Is this a good thing for college baseball? We'll see. It will definitely be good for the pitchers. But the game might put fans to sleep. We might see a bunch more 4-2 games that finish in well under three hours now instead of the typical 10-7, four-hour marathons we've seen over the last three decades or so. Say what you want about the old lively bats, but they kept fans in the seats. No game was over until the last out. Now most games will be over when it's 4-0 in the third inning.
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Michael Vick absolutely did the right thing (gee, never thought I'd ever write those seven words in that order) by canceling his Oprah Winfrey interview this week. Vick doesn't need to do any additional interviews. He cannot do anything but harm his reputation by drumming up all the dogfighting stories again. In the NFL, it's all about performance on the field. Football fans and organizations don't care what a NFL player does off the field. All they care about is how that player helps them win their NFL bet, fantasy league or Super Bowl on the field. Vick doesn't need to talk to anyone, especially Oprah.
