Summer of Love - get it?

I was able to watch a decent chunk of the draft last night, but was unable to blog it because while watching I was also holding ^Wonderbaby. First comments on the Wolves' results, then the draft as a whole.

Round 1 - OJ Mayo (traded to Memphis with Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric, and Gerg Buckner in exchange for Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal, and Jason Collins)
I do wish they would have announced this right after the pick, because I went to bed talking myself into OJ Mayo and looking forward to having him and woke up seeing he was traded. I'm not so sure, but I can see the upside here. I'm madly in love with Mike Miller, one of the best shooters in the NBA, and I'm excited to have him in Minnesota. Cardinal is still as annoying as ever, and Collins is worthless, but I'd rather have those two than Jaric, Walker, and Buckner. As for Love, personally I ignore his lack of "measurables" and pay more attention to his production. I didn't think Mayo fit the Wolves all that well because the backcourt would be undersized, but now with Love, the frontcourt will be undersized.

Love should fit in well, and will be a productive player, although I don't think he's all-star material, where Mayo had that kind of potential. And as much as I like Miller, he doesn't really make that much sense for a rebuilding team. Even though I like Love and was never a huge Mayo fan, I hate this deal. You aren't winning with Jefferson, Love, Miller, Foye, Telfair.

Round 2 - Nikola Pekovic - I was completely disgusted with this pick when it was made, and am only slightly less disgusted after doing a little more research into this commie. Turns out he's not your typical Euro: seven feet tall, skinny frame, soft, averages of 5 pts and 5 rebs per game. He's actually quite good, averaging nearly 20 points per game and being named EuroBasket's player of the year. Even so, he just signed a rich, 3-year contract with his team in Europe, so he wouldn't even be available for three more years. I also read that he "hates the NBA" so he may never come over at all. And they could have had Bill Walker.

Round 2 - Mario Chalmers (traded to Miami) - I liked the Chalmers pick here, especially with the weaknesses the Wolves at PG, and don't understand why they'd ship him off for two future second rounders, especially from Miami when they just picked up Beasley and will be improving. The picks will almost certainly be lower than #34 (where Chalmers was picked), and he was talented and would fit the team perfectly. Don't get it.

In short, despite liking Love quite a bit, I completely and totally hated this draft in every possible way. Snacks made a good point about the direction the Wolves are heading in an email to me, which hopefully he'll repost in the comments, but I can't shake the disappointment I feel from trading Mayo.

Let's move on to the draft as a whole:

1. Derrick Rose - Chicago: No brainer. Plays a valuable position, no real concerns, played well on a big stage, and is from Chicago

2. Michael Beasley - Miami: All the Mayo talk was just talk, as it should have been. The Derrick Coleman comparisons are ludicrous.

3. OJ Mayo - Minnesota (to Memphis): The third of three guys with the potential to be a star. We don't need him.

4. Russell Westbrook - Seattle: I don't get the Westbrook love. He's a great defender, yes, but he's too small to play the 2 and doesn't have the PG skills to play the 1. And he's not a good shooter.

5. Kevin Love - Memphis (to Minnesota): See above. I like Love and think he'll be qualilty, but it pains me that the Wolves passed on a potential superstar.

6. Danilo Gallinari - NY Knicks: Obviously I've never seen him play, but seeing as he's foreign and was drafted in the lottery, I'm going to predict bust. I'm sure Bill Simmons will mention this as well, but watching him get interviewed by Stephen A Smith was hilarious.

7. Eric Gordon - LA Clippers: Bust. Shrinks in big games, just isn't NBA ready. May get there in time, but not this year.

8. Joe Alexander - Milwaukee: Don't get the love here either. He's too slow to drive, too weak to post up, and doesn't have the outside shot to be a perimeter guy. Maybe he can combine the three to become a good player, but I doubt it.

9. DJ Augustin - Charlotte: Excellent pick, as Augustin is built for the NBA. Will be a better player than Gordon, and could join the Deron Williams/Chris Paul discussion down the road.

10. Brook Lopez - New Jersey: Whatever. Tall. Good. We'll see if it translates. He sounds like Jame Gumb.

11. Jerryd Bayless - Indiana (to Portland): I've mentioned I love Bayless, and I love what Portland is doing. Bayless will be a huge upgrade over Jarrett Jack.

12. Jason Thompson - Sacramento: You know, there was a lot of talk about how Rider had an NBA draft caliber player this year, but he never really dominated the way you'd think if he was going to go twelfth. Very curious to see how he works out.

13. Brandon Rush - Portland (to Indiana): Can't hate this pick, he's very solid. Rush is one of the safest players to pick, but also with not a whole lot of upside. You know he's going to be a quality rotation type player, who may crack a starting rotation at some point, but will never be a star.

14. Anthony Randolph - Golden State: A bit of a super athletic project, but at this point, why not?

15. Robin Lopez - Phoenix: Jame Gumb with the Sideshow Bob hairstyle. Lopez is a defensive kind of guy, and by going to the Suns shows they may be looking to change up their team identity a bit. I think he would have been well-served staying in school for a year to show he could carry a team himself, but 15th is nothing to be ashamed of.

16. Marreese Speights - Florida: I have a really good feeling about Speights. He's excellent down low, but also has a better outside game than many realize.

17. Rob Hibbert - Indiana: I guess he has to be taken somewhere. I wouldn't touch Hibbert until later than this, but I suppose there is also a place for a 7-2 uncoordinated, slow big man in the NBA.

18. Javale McGee - Washington: I have no idea why you would take him ahead of Darrell Arthur or Kosta Koufos if you want a big man. No idea.

19. JJ Hickson - Cleveland: I'd think you'd want a guy with a little more polish if you're the Cavs and are trying to simultaneously take the next step as well as convince LeBron not to leave when his contract is up - like Darrell Arthur.

20. Alexis Ajinca - Charlotte: He has a girls name, is from France, and averaged 5 ppg in a french league - guess how this one will turn out.

21. Ryan Anderson - New Jersey: Bascially Joe Alexander with a better outside shot, and 13 picks later.

22. Courtney Lee - Orlando: Great pick. Guy will be a very solid 2 guard.

23. Kosta Koufos - Utah: I think he will be a very solid player, and going to Utah and Jerry Sloan is a great fit. He needs to gain some weight and get stronger, but already has a good post game and can step out and hit the outside jumper. Like this pick.

24. Serge Ibaka - Seattle: I'm not even going to pretend I know who this is, but he's from the Congo so he'll likely be killed by Killer Apes before he even gets to the NBA.

25. Nicolas Batum - Houston (to Portland): Another Frenchy. According to the Blazers GM, they have a chance to actually sign Batum for this coming season. How weird is that? Teams keep drafting guys who they won't even see for a few years. Don't get it.

26. George Hill - San Antonio: The Spurs' backup PG is Jacque Vaughn, so they clearly need a PG here. Why Hill over Chalmers? I don't know.

27. Darrell Arthur - Memphis: A steal, as long as those Kidney issues - which caused him to drop to here - don't end up being a big deal.

28. Donte Green - Houston: Some people (Snacks) really love Green. I don't. he doesn't do anything other than shoot three pointers. The problem is he's 6-11, over half of his FG attempts last year were from three, and he only shot 34.5%. He has talent, if only he can figure it out.

29. DJ White - Detroit (to Seattle): I think White has a real chance to be a contributor right away. For two second round picks, it's a great move for the Sonics.

30. JR Giddens - Boston: I didn't even realize he was considered first round material, but he is a hell of a player. Lots and lots of off court issues, but lots and lots of talent. A big gamble. Boston also picked up Bill Walker in the second round, who is another possible first rouond talent kind of guy if his knee turns out to be ok. If even one of the two work out, the Celtics will be in great shape. Ainge might be turning out to be a pretty good GM.

So there you have it, and congratulations to all the underclassmen who declared and either went undrafted or were picked in the second round. Special shout out to USC's Davon Jefferson, a very talented freshman last year who definitely would have been first round material, possibly lottery, with another year or two in college, but declared this year and went undrafted. Good luck in the D League, genius.

I Heart Chicago

Really I do. It's the greatest city in the world (other than maybe Rome). And here I am, getting to fly in and do two days of training here, and do all the fun Chicago things. Flew into O'Hare this afternoon. Awesome. Except, wait. My training is not in Chicago. It's in somewhere called Naperville, a good 45 minutes to an hour outside of anything that could reasonably be called Chicago. And it's basically a poor man's Blaine. Great. At least I got a nice meal (Cajun Ribeye at Morton's) but there is nothing else to do here and I don't have a car. The good news is that they have beer in the little market thing by the lobby. The bad news is that Naperville has some kind of homosexual rule where they have to open the beer before you can take it to your room, so the max I could get at a time is four, and I'm in the room furthest from the lobby - it's like a ten minute walk back. I don't feel a whole lot of stamina tonight, mostly because Wonderbaby^TM has decided she quite enjoys crying at night, so let's see how this goes. F Naperville.

- Did you see the Blue Jays hired Cito Gaston as their manager again? I was so confused when I saw that. It was at like 4 am when I was feeding Wonderbaby^TM and watching Sportscenter, and I was wondering if I had drifted off and time travelled back to 1991. I mean seriously, the guy hasn't managed since 1997. That may not seem like much, but it's 9 years! That's almost 10. I don't even know what he's been doing since then, and I'm not going to look it up, but I'm betting it involved a street cart and some tacos of dubious quality.

- 10,000 B.C. comes out on DVD on Tuesday, and I'm telling you for your own good don't rent this. If you're a gigantic nerd like me, you were super stoked by the previews and got a nerd boner and wanted to see this. Well, I wasted my time and money in the theater and it's a huge piece of crap. I'm not going to get into a whole movie review thing here, because that's more Dawg's thing if he'd ever bother to post ever again, but let's just say that it's a mess. Theres a whole thing with a Sabertooth Tiger that is just forced and stupid, and the terrain they traverse somehow changes from frozen tundra to tropical forest to desert very quickly. That is a magical continent. Don't rent it. Don't.

- Other movies I've seen lately - SemiPro was also a huge turd, as was Fool's Gold (obviously). National Treasure 2 was also a piece of crap. I really liked the first one, but this second one just went out of it's way to try and be on a really grand scale and it did not work - at all, although Diane Kruger is quite attractive. Strange Wilderness was also bad, which surprised me because I think both Steve Zahn and that fat kid from Superbad are both quite hilarious. Juno was very good. And surprising me was a movie called Senior Skip Day which was really not bad. Mostly due to the performance of the lead character, who is basically a younger, slightly less than rich man's Ryan Reynolds (who I would probably make out with). It's kind of a Can't Hardly Wait/Eurotrip quite movie, that if I still was ever able to go out drinking all night and then come home with friends and drink some more, that would be in the late night rotation. Too bad I'm all grown up and totally responsible now.

- Speaking of not writing for this site anymore, since Grand Slam has disappeared of the map, our own Nick Faldo has offered up his services as our golf blogger. We should see his first contribution this week, so be gentle.

- The Girl Next Door is also a very good movie. I mean, I saw it a long time ago, but I'm flipping channels here and it's on FX. Good movie.

- So Curt Schilling's career is probably over. Let the Hall of Fame debate begin. Now, the biggest knock on him is he only has 216 career victories. To give a little perspective, that's less than Jamie Moyer and only one more than Kenny Rogers, neither of whom are anywhere near Hall of Famers. It is also sixth among active players, which is a note in his favor.

If you know and understand baseball and statistics, you know that wins are not the best measure of pitcher, not even close. I do, however, think they can give you a pretty good gage of a pitcher's career. Obviously, there are a lot of metrics that need to be looked at beyond that, but it is a decent surface look barometer, and Schilling doesn't really measure up.

I'm not a big believer in the 300 win barrier, as only 23 players in the history of the game have hit that number. So let's ignore things like career wins, 20 wins seasons, and all star games that idiots like to look at, and concentrate on things that matter.

First off, ERA. Now, ERA is also a fairly dubious way to evaluate a player, since it depends a lot on luck and the defense behind him, but it's not totally useless. Schilling finished in the top 10 in ERA in nine seasons - that's pretty good. Strikeouts per nine is a good way to look at dominance, and he finished in the top ten there ten times. WHIP is my personal favorite pitcher stat, and he finished in the top ten there 11 times. Eleven. That's fantastic. He posted a WHIP under 1 (phenomenal) twice, and under 1.10 nine times.

Another thing people will point to is his lack of a Cy Young award, and will point to this as not being "the best pitcher of his era." Well, he finished in the top four four times, including finishing second three times in a four year span - that's pretty dominant.

Honestly, when I started writing this, I figured no way was he Hallworthy, but now I'm a little more conflicted. He's hurt quite a bit by not becoming a full time starter until he was 26, and that's reflected in his win total, but once he did, he was absolutely one of the best pitchers of his generation. He finished with a WHIP+ over 120 twelve times, and was just incredibly consistent. Consistent at a high level.

According to baseball reference, his most similar pitchers are Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, and Orel Hershisher. That sounds like a pretty good pitcher, one of the best in the league for a stretch, but not a hall of famer, and that's pretty much my impression of him. Now, the big X-factor for Schilling is his postseason performance, which is nothing short of phenomenal. In 19 career postseason starts and 133.1 innings, he's posted a WHIP of 0.97 (and a 10-2 record). Just to put that WHIP into a lit bit of perspective, since Schilling broke into the league, just only nine pitchers have had a season where they pitched that many innings and posted a better WHIP (Greg Maddux (3), Pedro Martinez (5), Randy Johnson, Johan Santana, Kevin Brown, Roy Halladay, Jason Schmidt, Bret Saberhagen, and Pascual Perez?). Cherry-picking stats? Yes. But still makes an interesting point.

Basically, I think Curt Schilling is stil not a hall of famer (although baseball reference disagrees), but it's a hell of a lot closer than I originally thought. Another very interesting case is Mike Mussina, but I'll save that for another time.

- Speaking of Mussina, I just finished an interesting book by John Feinstein called "Living on the Black" which follows both Mussina and Tom Glavine around last season to give a little insight into the life on an aging pitcher. Honestly, although I love baseball books and I love Feinstein and I have a mad crush on Mussina, it was a little boring. His big mistake was just following the two pitchers and never delving into the lives of their teammates. Despite having a season where Glavine won number 300, the Mets had a historic collapse to end the season, and the first time ever Mussina was pulled from a starting rotation, it's still really slow. Needed to flesh out a little more of the teammates and what life was like for all of them. So not bad, but not great. Next up: 3 nights in August starring Tony LaRussa - although right at the start the author, Buzz Bissinger of "I hate blogs" fame goes into how people who are into statistics to evaluate baseball players "don't get it", so I'm already a bit apprehensive.

- On the way to the office today, they KFAN guys were talking about Jessica Simpson. At one point they mentioned her music, and I have spent the rest of the day trying to think of a single song of hers, and I got nothin'. Seriously, I can't think of a single song she has ever sang, ever. So her entire musical career has left zero imprint on my life. Killer rack, though.

- I was described by a co-worker today as "the quintessential really smart guy who doesn't fully apply himself because he doesn't have to." Pretty accurate. Not exactly high praise, but I'll take it.

- You know how when you're in a hotel, often times they will have labels on the tv stations, so when you change channels you'll know what channel you're on? Well this hotel has them, but they are all wrong. It says ESPN, but it's A&E. It says HBO, but it's USA. What the f is up with that? Your stupid city doesn't suck enough, you have to f with me on the tv too? It's all I have. Thank god for the internet.

- With the NBA draft just a few days away, I should probably say something, but I'm having trouble being interested, even with the Wolves having third pick because they will just screw it up. Here is Chad Ford's latest mock draft and I have some things to say.

1. Rose should definitely be the pick at #1. Beasley looked incredible last year, but things seemed really be really easy for him. Once he hits the NBA, he's going to have to work his ass off, and it's not clear if he's up to the challenge, whereas Rose appears to be. Stupid? Yes, pretty much, but when two players are this close, you have to find some kind of seperation somewhere.

2. Please don't take OJ Mayo. Please either trade down (great move) or take Jerryd Bayless. And it has nothing to do with Mayo's "character issues" because "character issues" are pretty much the most overrated thing ever. I'll take talent over charity work every time. Bayless is and will be a better player. Plus, and everyone seems to be ignoring this, Mayo will absolutely not resign in Minnesota after his first contract is up. Craves the spotlight waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.

3. Going way too high: Eric Gordon, Mario Chalmers, Kosta Koufos, Robin Lopez, Mareese Speights. Interesting is to see Joe Alexander in the lottery. I expected him to be more of a sleeper mid-first pick, and I love his game. It seems Chad Ford might be figuring this whole thing out, I'll be interested to see if NBA GMs can do the same and take him that high. I'm predicting a Brady Quinn-like freefall.

4. The Wolves have two very early second round picks (#1 and #4), the kind where you can actually get solid players. According to Ford, they will get Devon Hardin and some dude from Australia, while NBADraft.net has them taking some Serbian dude and Bill Walker. I'd be pretty happy with Hardin and Walker. Ideally, I'd love to see them get Walker and Courtney Lee. Another intriguing possibility is Mike Taylor, formerly of Iowa State who lit the Gophers up at the Barn. Honestly, if Walker is there and they pass I'm going to assassinate Kevin McHale. Not kidding.

- Of course, NBADraft.net also has Trent Plaisted being drafted, and I'm almost positive he pulled out of the draft. Checking ESPN and I'm wrong, it was Lee Cummard who pulled out. Way to go Plaisted, enjoy being this years Rickert. Twenty bucks says the Jazz take him at #53 and then Boozer punches him in the face in a pickup game.

- There's more to talk about and tell you why everybody else is wrong, but I'm very tired, even though it's early, and the lady with the beer is very far away. More tomorrow.

Weekend Wrapup or Whatever

So some stuff happened this weekend.

- First off, Sergio Garcia won the Players at Sawgrass, beating little known Paul Goydos in a playoff. Goydos missed a par putt on 18 that would have won it, but a lot of people bogeyed that hole, so I wouldn't overly hold it against him. Goydos is featured prominently in the John Feinstein book, "Tales From Q School" which I can't recommend highly enough. If he could have held on, it would have been like a 16 seed winning in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Alas, it was not meant to be, and Sergio takes it down. Look for Garcia to end up winning his first major this year as well. I'm betting the British but the US Open or the PGA wouldn't surprise me.

- The Twins went 2-1 against the Red Sox a this weekend, including holding onto a 9-8 victory while waving around pretty pink bats on Sunday, despite Nathan's best efforts to give the game away. Of note was Craig Monroe's two homeruns. Also of note is that his mother's name is Marilyn. Yes, Marilyn Monroe. Not that one.

- In a shocking turn of events, Patrick Reusse actually wrote a good article. Of course, it's basically a beat writer style recap of the Twins game, and he's actually supposed to be an opinion columnist, but whatever, it's an improvement. Fear not, as Jim Souhan used Reussian logic in part of his article, wondering whether Gardenhire did a great managerial job in 2002. Using arguments like, "Corey Koskie is hurt now" and "Torii Hunter was bad then" and "Jacque Jones is bad now" to try to show Gardy got the most out of his players. I'm not going to break the whole thing down, but it is truly a dizzying mess and I'm actually pretty surprised it came out of Souhan rather than Reusse or Sid.

- A scandal has been uncovered involving former USC star OJ Mayo, who recently declared for the NBA draft. According to one of Mayo's former friends, Mayo received money and gifts including a flat screen TV for his dorm room. Allow me to speak for everyone when I say, "Well no shit." This story must have broken by the same guys who broke the "Barry Bonds used Steriods" story.

- Oh yeah, Nicky Punto is on the DL, which would normally be good news but it means we're going to see a whole lot more of Adam Everett than anyone could ever want to. Yes, I'm aware he hit a homerun Sunday night, but let's not pretend he's good when we all know he sucks dirty Dawg ass. By the by, that gives Everett 36 career homeruns, 9 more than Scott Stahoviak, about whom Bear once said, "he'll be a perennial 30 homerun hitter" and I'm not even kidding.

- My baby is the cutest baby ever. If you don't believe me, just look:



I asked her once what she thought of Delmon Young, whereupon she shat herself. So she's smart too.

Night Hoops

- Michael Beasley is just sick. He can pretty much get to the rim whenever he wants. He is officially who I hope the Wolves get with the #1 pick.

- Bill Walker is really disappointing in the couple K-State games I've seen. Maybe it's the injury I don't know, but I really thought he'd be better.

- So K-State was beating Oregon all game, then gave up three straight wide open 3's (Oregon hit all three), turning it over twice, and now gave up an offensive rebound for a Duck layup and are down by 6 with 6 minutes left. Seems about right for them from what I've seen.

- Aaron Rodgers looks EXACTLY like Brett Favre in the shotgun, all the way down to the mannerisms.

- Great game. Oregon and K-State trading baskets over the final minute and a half Until the Ducks' big white foreign center gets three offensive rebounds of his own misses until he's fouled, going to the line down 1. If he's like every other big dopey white center, they're just hoping he makes one at this point.

- New rumor: Santana to Boston for Crisp, Buchholz, Lowrie, and Michael Bowden. Buchholz instead of Lester is huge. Bowden is a pitching prospect ranked slightly lower than Masterson, but that trade off is worth it to get Buchholz instead of Lester. If this is on the table, pull the trigger now. Also, as far as Yankee deals go, I have zero to less than zero interest in Melky Cabrera.

- Makes one, and Jake Pullen goes flying down the court completely out of control and gets called for a charge, and we're heading to OT.

- Geez, USC is on TV again? Against Oklahoma this time. I wonder if Mayo will care.

- Beasley is awesome, but he can't seem to keep the big goofy white guy, Maarty Leunen, off the O-boards.

- TaJuan Porter looks like he's about 5-2, but he's quick as hell and a great shooter - and Leunen fouls out on one of the dumbest, ticky-tackiest fouls you'll ever see. That won't help.

- K-State is 5-12 on FTs in the game. That just fits in with the rest of their philosophy of running around like idiots with no plan on offense and being unsure of where to be on defense.

- Unreal. Oregon up 3 with six seconds left, shooting two FTs, miss both, KState rebounds and goes the other way. Throw it to Andre Gilbert on the wing who immediately drives and goes up for the dunk, realizes they are down 3, and tries to kick it out, but it's too late, and Oregon wins by 3. This team is an absolute basket case. It's like a whole team of Kevin Clark's out there (did I already use this joke?)

- 3 first half fouls on Taj Gibson for USC - that is not good. He might be their best player, depending on Mayo's motivation on each particular night.

- OU's Blake Griffin, another excellent freshman, should be able to go to work with Gibson out. Except instead of posting up, he just chucked up a three and airballed it. I swear so many of these players are total idiots.

- Mayo gets all the press, but fellow freshman Davon Jefferson should get more attention. He has 12 already with four minutes left in this game, and scored 20 against Southern Illinois. Mayo is 1-7, and their up 8 anyway. I might be becoming a believer in this USC team.

- OJ Mayo's favorite current NBA player is Steve Nash. I can honestly I wouldn't have guessed that in 100 guesses.

- USC stomping 29-18 at half, and Gibson's been on the bench for most of it. Blake Griffin sucks.

- Since this game is so incredibly boring, here's a quick rundown of the Gophers opponent on Saturday, the UC-Riverside Highlanders:

They're 2-4, with a 1-point win over one of the worst DI programs in the country in Idaho and over something called Hope International. They lost to Gonzaga by 36. They only have one guy averaging more than 10 ppg and nobody with more than 5 rebounds per, and score only 59 points per game as a team. In short, they suck. Gophers 79, UCR 51.

- Longar Longar is tall. Gophers didn't need him though.

- OJ Mayo is every bit as good as advertised, especially when he's aggressive, but aggressive within the flow of the offense. Nobody on Oklahoma can stop him.

- For those waiting for an update on DePaul's (aka Dumpster College) Will "Wheel" Walker, he's had 5 points and 2 points in their last two games, once of which was a loss to North Carolina A & T. Seriously. Nice school.

- USC wins 66-55 and completely controlled the game against a good Oklahoma team. I'm very much a believer in this team. And Blake Griffin sucks.

- Lastly, here's this week's football picks, with a 1-0 start to the week:
St Louis -3 vs. Atlanta
Washington -5.5 vs. Buffalo
Minnesota -4 vs. Detroit
Tennessee -3.5 vs. Houston
Jacksonville +6 @ Indianapolis
Miami -1 vs. NY Jets
KC +6 vs. San Diego
Philly -3 vs. Seattle
SF +3 @ Carolina
Cleveland +1 @ Arizona
Denver -3.5 @ Oakland
New Orleans -3 vs. Tampa
Chicago +1.5 vs. NY Giants
Pitt -7 vs. Cincy
Baltimore +20 vs. New England

Season: 83-82-10

Beasley/Mayo

- Kansas State is incredibly athletic, all the way around, except for the white kid from Minnesota. It's funny that Bob Huggins helped put this team together, because it reminds me alot of some of his Cincinnati teams: really athletic, but no all that disciplined and kind of all over the place, both on offense and defense.

- Beasley is getting all the press, and rightfully so, but his fellow freshman point guard Jacob Pullen is really impressing me so far. He can score going to the rim or outside, he's playing some great pressure defense against the George Mason guards, and the offense seems to just run more smoothly when he's in there.

- These announcers are killing me. They brought up before the game how K-State is so young and Mason has all the experience. Now they are using that as the storyline no matter what. Example: K-State up 18-13, Mason hits a three and the quote is, "You see how George Mason's experience led to them not panicking down five?" And there were 10 minutes left in the first half.

- Geez, K-State is basically a street ball team. I wish I would have known that before I wagered on them. They look like idiots. Probably why they're losing 39-30 to Mason at half.

- I think I severely underrated George Mason. They look really good.

- You've probably heard rumors, but I'm going to go ahead and confirm that Michael Beasley is ridiculous. He was in a bit of foul trouble in the first half, but with 10 minutes left he has 24 points on 10-13 shooting. And he's doing it inside, outside, with the dribble, mid-range. Wow. Just wow.

- K State might be able to come back, except that every time they start to make a run they get stupid. Forcing shots, dumb passes, or just leaving Mason's guys open on defense. They're just completely out of control.

- K-State goes down 87-77. Geez what a waste of talent. I hope those guys can figure out a way to pull it together.

- We're four minutes into the USC/San Diego game and OJ Mayo hasn't attempted a shot yet. I'm so confused.

- This is NOT the same OJ Mayo I saw in the McDonald's game. He's totally in the flow of the offense, has given it up to get teammates easier shots when he easily could have fired it up, and is busting his ass on defense (he's a terrible off-the-ball defender, but not for lack of effort.) With him playing like this, plus Gibson and Hackett, they might end up being pretty good.

- Ok, I'm all for balance and everything, but it's halftime and Mayo has taken three shots, all three outside jumpers. He's involved and all, but not looking for his shot. He tried to drive once and got called for the charge. It's almost like the time Kobe Bryant got all pissy about people saying he shot too much, and took something like seven shots in the game. OJ needs to look to score more than this. It's no surprise they are up only 27-24 at half. Meanwhile over on ESPNU, Gonzaga reminds me why I used to have a "never bet on Gonzaga" rule. Should probably go back to that.

- 3 second half possessions, three shots by Mayo, lead up to 9 already. Much better.

- Mayo is not only a bad off the ball defender, but it appears he's subpar at guarding the guy with the ball as well. This is an interesting development.

- Gonzaga wins, but doesn't cover due to their complete and total inability to handle the press with 22 seconds left. It's also very weird to watch them without Raivio. I think he was on the Wade Lookingbill eight year plan.

- I'm really confused by Mayo. He looks like a slightly above average college freshman. And he just lost his man again who hit a wide open three. I wonder if he got into the weed or something. Completely and totally unimpressive.

- Maybe it's that he's just kind of disinterested half the time out there. He just had a span where he hit a nice jumper, then picked the ball from the point guard trying to bring it up and dunked. Totally electric, the opposite of what I'd seen so far. Anyway, USC wins 60-50, and should have won by 30. Jerks.