It occurs to me that I spend a lot of time on this column hyping my favorite things or, more precisely, times in sports. When I write about college football in the summer, I breathlessly announce how many days until my favorite sport is going to start. My March Madness column last year was entitled, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I talk about the hidden gems in the cross-tour big money golf tournaments in Asia, and excitedly declare allegiance to soccer, poker, and CFL.
But no, seriously, this really, truly is my favorite time on the sports calendar, and that's because of the glorious overlap between college football and college basketball. Add in those Far East golf tournaments, the CFL playoffs, and Ohio State/Michigan, and I have no use for friends in November.
* As I write this, I am keeping one eye on one of these early-season basketball matchups, Rice vs. Gonzaga. It's odd to see the 'Zags not in the top 25 this year. I thought I had the formula down: Gonzaga graduates a star, the media anoints a returning player as the next big Gonzaga deal, that player comes through for the media, rinse and repeat. See Blake Stepp to Ronny Turiaf to Adam Morrison. I just figured they would annoint Derek Raivio, Josh Heytvelt, or Sean Mallon, but no, nobody.
* The only thing as old and trite as bad announcing is riffing on bad announcing, but I can't resist. The play-by-play guy just committed my favorite announcer sin: instant redundancy. "Rice only has eight points! They're still in single digits!" He gets bonus points for pointing out something everyone watching can see for themselves. Every time a player scores, the analyst says, "That's what (player) does." and then describes how he made the basket. "That's what Schmoe does, he has great range." "That's what Blow does, he penetrates."
* My favorite college basketball upsets so far this year: Southern Utah over Utah, Vermont over Boston College, and Butler knocking off Notre Dame and Indiana in the NIT tournament.
* The Bob Knight slap is a non-story to me. I've exhausted all the bile I can muster for Knight. It doesn't really matter if it was a slap or just a overzealous "look me in the eye!" move because everyone knows what they are getting from Knight. He hasn't learned anything from choking Neil Reed, he doesn't think he has ever done anything wrong, and he has the support of the administration and the kid's parents. Kids who enroll in Knight School, and parents who send their kids there, are there because they want that drill sergeant, beat-the-kids-into-shape approach. Indeed, the kid's dad said it was what his kid needed, as he is lacking discipline. God help us.
* If Rutgers finishes undefeated and doesn't end up in the National Championship Game, it'll be the biggest travesty in the BCS era. Rutgers is not Boise State. They play in a BCS conference, one that this year is better than one or two other BCS conferences at least. If a one-loss Florida team really is miles better than Rutgers, it still doesn't make a difference to me. If you finish undefeated in a BCS conference, you have to be considered ahead of any one-loss team. Otherwise, let's make a list at the beginning of each year which BCS teams will not be eligible for the National Championship Game no matter how well they do, because they are not respected enough.
Onto this week's picks. 2-3 last column, need to go 5-0 to each .500 on the year. Home team in caps, pick listed first.
OHIO (-4.5) over Akron
As an Akronite, it pains me to pick this, but Akron has not been competitive against a good team since September, and home-standing Ohio is 7-3 and playing to clinch a spot in the MAC Championship Game.
WAKE FOREST (+1.5) over Virginia Tech
What exactly does Wake Forest have to do to get some respect? They're 9-1 and kinda blew the one game they did lose. They just handed Florida State their first shutout loss at home since 1973. They've beat the spread in six of their last seven games (the one they did not, of course, was the last time I picked them). They're at home. I mean, honestly, what is the deal with this line?
Temple (+31.5) over NAVY
Temple's actually covered three of their last four, and Navy might be looking ahead to Army.
KENTUCKY (-19.5) over Louisiana-Monroe
Like Wake Forest, Kentucky is due some more credit. They are having their best season in ages and looking to move up the bowl ranks. ULM isn't even one of the better Sun Belt teams. I don't see this being close-ish as the line suggests.
Rutgers (-6.5) over CINCINNATI
I'm hearing a lot of scuttlebutt about Rutgers suffering the classic letdown game here. It's not gonna happen.
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