Week in Review - 4/4/2010

Baseball baseball baseball baseball baseball.  Seriously, this NCAA hoops championship matchup really sucks, but at least we have baseball.  Hell, I even enjoyed the hell out of the Yankees/Red Sox last night, and usually I'd rather die than watch those two teams play.  Now, if some of their fans want to go at it, who am I to stand in the way?

God bless baseball.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Harrison Barnes.  Did you happen to check out any of the McDonald's All-Star festivities this week?  If you did, you would have definitely noticed Harrison Barnes.  First was all the goofy stuff, in which Mr. Barnes finished third in the three-point competition and third in the skills competition while eschewing the dunk contest because he was too pimp and knows that dunk contests are for the same people who love monster truck rallies and Big Buck Hunter.  Then he went out and dominated the actual all-star game, scoring 18 points and grabbing I think something like 40 rebounds.  He is going to be a beast.  Remember the part where I said he finished third in both the skills competition and the three-point contest?  Yeah, he's also 6-7.  And I read where somebody called him "the most competitive high-school player since Kobe Bryant."  I have no idea what that means since I never saw Kobe in high school, but I have to imagine it's some kind of compliment.  Should've picked the Gophers, Harrison.  Your bad.

I should also mention that soon to be Duke PG Kyrie Irving's favorite book is Catcher in the Rye, which automatically means I'm a big fan of his and he's now my second all-time favorite Dookie behind Ricky Price, who was god on Coach K for the Genesis.

2.  Missouri State/Virginia Commonwealth.  Congrats to these two teams for winning their tournaments, Mizz State the CIT and VCU the CBI.  Unlike the NIT you can actually take pride in winning these two tournaments (more on that below).  Your team sucked and wasn't worthy of an NCAA bid and probably had no shot since day one, but you get to keep playing against other semi-crappy teams and if you win you've proven you're the best of the lousiest.  Hey, it's something.  Better than being Iowa.

3.  Eric Hayes.  I know you don't know who this is, so I'll just tell you.  He's a graduating senior guard on Maryland who averaged 11 pts and 4 assists per game this season, but more importantly he took his 45% three-point shooting to the NCAA Three-point contest earlier this week and won the whole thing, and dominated while doing it.  He posted the best score in each of the three rounds while shooting his way past guys like Ryan Wittman, Jason Bohannon, and other assorted whities to grab the title and join the prestigious list of past winners which includes nobody who I can remember right now.  And that's really I have to say about Eric Hayes.  You can expect Blake to be in this thing next year.

4.  Butler.  I have no idea why I'm not solidly behind Butler.  I mean, I'll be rooting for them since they're playing Duke who are all gays or jerks or gay jerks, but I'm just not buying into the whole underdog thing.  Maybe it's too much of being shoved down my throat and all the retarded comparisons to Hoosiers.  I don't know.  I just know that I'm not a Butler fan.  Except for tonight.  Tonight I will be praying to god that Butler wins, and you know God cares about this one because everybody knows Duke is Satan's team.

5.  The Taco Hawks.  Seriously you guys, me and Snake's Fantasy Baseball team (named after former WKU star Orlando Mendez-Valdez) is just stacked.  Check this out:
C - Matt Wieters.  See here
1B - Justin Morneau - 30 homers + fun factor?  Perfect.
2B - Rickie Weeks - he walks often and has power, expect a big year after his injury last season
3B - Evan Longoria - you know you have a crush on him too
SS - Jason Bartlett - last year wasn't a fluke.  Nice trade, Twins.
OF - Matt Kemp - 30/30 is his downside
OF - BJ Upton - he's back, baby.
OF - Jason Kubel - yet another MVP candidate on our team
UT - Billy Butler - keeps getting better

SP - Zach Grienke - will probably win 20 even on that shitty team
SP - Cole Hamels - thanks for letting him slide, draft-mates
SP - Chad Billingsley - a lock for 20 wins
SP - Tommy Hansen - stud
SP - Matt Garza - yes, that's five Cy Young candidates on our team
RP - Rafael Soriano - plenty of chances for saves with the Rays
RP - Jon Rauch - Believe it.

And that's without even getting into the potential breakout pitchers on our bench - Stephen Strasburg, Homer Bailey, and Madison Bumgarner.

I told you - we're stacked..  And we did it without a single Yankee, Red Sock, or White Sock, so there are no dirty feelings.  Although you should know Snake was pushing to take Jeter around the fourth or fifth round.  Ick.


WHO SUCKED

1.  J'mison Morgan.  No, he's not here for that horrendous spelling of his name, but because he seems like he might be following the Jaron Rush school of squandering your talent.  Morgan was the #25 recruit coming out two years ago and the #4 center in his class.  Since signing with UCLA, however, he hasn't done much and was dismissed from the team earlier this week.  Morgan was suspended for a game in early March for missing a meeting and didn't play in either of the Bruins Pac-10 Tournament games, and pretty much struggled with being fat all season long.  When he did play he didn't do much, averaging just 2.1 points and 1.1 rebounds per game over his two years, with career highs of 8 points and 4 rebounds.  UCLA has now lost Morgan and Drew Gordon this season, but honestly they're probably better off.  Howland really needs to recalibrate his recruitilizer before he ends up without a team.  I hear Monson is gunning for the UCLA job.  Also nice name, jackass.

2.  Dayton.  I know that I've ever said anything good about Dayton, and I'm not going to start now just because they won the NIT.  Hey morons, how about you play like this during the season, actually live up to expectations and make the NCAA Tournament instead of winning something that almost ten people in the whole world even know is going on.  Chris Wright, Marcus Johnson, and Chris Johnson all had a couple of really nice games in Madison Square Garden in the Flyers' wins over Ole Miss and UNC, but where were you all season long?  If you were a little more consistent you wouldn't have lost to St. Louis.  Or Duquesne.  Or St. Joe's.  I swear winning the NIT is nothing more than a reminder that your team shit the bed and way underachieved all season long.

3.  West Virginia.  Da'Sean Butler didn't bother to show up until the game was mostly out of hand, the Mountaineers played basically zero defense and little offense, they couldn't keep Zoubek off the glass, and for some unfathomable reason Bobby Huggins never went with the 1-3-1, despite the fact that it was the team's go-to defense all year long and that man-to-man was doing nothing but giving Duke wide open looks.  If you were worried about going zone against a team with shooters like Duke, trust me, they couldn't have gotten more open.  Just an ugly, crappy, shitty game by a Mountaineer team that on Saturday didn't come close to resembling the team they were all season long.  Ugly. 

4.  Chicago Cubs.  Guess who the Cubbies' fourth starter is this year?  Come on, guess.  You'll never get it.  It's Carlos Silva.  It seems he's not only still in baseball, which seemed unlikely enough, but also beat out Jeff Samardzjia and Sean Marshall, which means those two should probably start considering killing themselves - or, failing that obvious move, retire.  I can't even come up with anything else to say here.  Carlos Silva won the fourth spot in the Cubs' rotation really just speaks for itself.

5.  Red Sox.  They actually allowed the Yankees to pull off the double steal, first and third thing.  Seriously, what is this, little league?


Finally, I leave you with the following:

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again."