College basketball swoops in to save TV after my favorite shows end their new seasons. ACC/Big Ten Challenge, AMAZING. College B-ball doesn't limp into the conference schedule and it starts out with awesome preseason tourneys like Maui and the NIT. Every night features a decent college B-ball game with either a "bracket buster" or legitimate top 25 teams lacing them up. I love UNC and just watching them jump out to a good start VS. Michigan State got me all kinds of jacked up. Fresh players and some coaching swaps add to the already immense drama to college B-ball. Things I'm personally looking for to pan out: UNC and the new kids defending the crown, Big East basketball. Calipari and Kentucky falling on their faces, the preseason top 25 getting shredded, Huggins not graduating a player from West Virginia continuing his excellence on the court and in the klassruom, the Big Ten season and how far the Badgers ascend past their #9 in the Big Ten ranking and Bucky making the Big Dance, John Wall and other freshman who are going to tear it up all year.
On a side note it's complete horseshit how Bobby Bowden is being sent out after all these years. OK, Florida State is no longer competing in BCS bowl games and are not a top-10 team, but Florida State wasn't on the map until Bobby Bowden got there. If he's losing games then help him out, don't just abandon him. 34 years at the same institution coaching football better than anyone not named Paterno during the time. Florida State was THE Florida team in the early 90's and succumbed to Florida now and when Spurrier was there, but they were always in the hunt. Bowden should not be forced until leaving until he says so. There's no way they can repay him for creating Florida State, or signing them to a multi-million dollar contract with Nike that helps pay his salary. Fuck whoever is spearheading this coup and it's totally shameful what's going on. He had some downfalls of having players that couldn't read play, and a few recruiting violations pop up. but 34 years of loyal service should be worth something. Service that took them from nothing to the top of college football more than once. Good fucking luck getting talent away from Urban and THE U without Bowden's name attached to the program. I hope he burns the house he built to the ground upon his exit.
I'm reading Bill Simmon's The Book of Basketball and am struggling with weeding through his very interesting stats and observations and his complete bias towards all things Celtics. Choking through the first chapter explaining his lovefest with Larry Legend and the Shamrocks is ok, but an entire chapter of explaining why Russell is better than Chamberlain? Not really necessary, though he does break down some statistics and refutes the view of haters, meanwhile not conceding the simple fact that Chamberlain put up the numbers but didn't get the wins. That's the only argument that's relevant. Everything comes back to that premise and defending it any other way is a waste of time that dabbles in lunacy trying to explain who had the better supporting cast 50 years ago based on some video and opinions. I'm hoping it improves from here because he clearly loves himself and the Celtics more than the game that consumes his life, and that's saying quite a lot. Namedrop, namedrop blup blup Celtics rule... It's better than that, but that could serve as an outline for some moments in the 740 or so page epic. In it's defense I did rip through 60 pages on the first night... more to come on this one.
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