Spurs Run Thunder in Game 2

Tonight the Thunder started off clueless against the Spurs pick and roll game. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were successfully able to get to the rim all night because of the Spurs’ big men relentlessly screening Russell Westbrook. He was left on an island all by himself because Thunder big men did not want to leave Tim Duncan wide open down in the post as a result of helping Westbrook. The Spurs started off dominating the game even though Duncan had an awful performance on from the field. Duncan was able to get open in the paint was either not able to make the shot or had trouble getting a hold of the ball. Great ball movement from Parker and Ginobili allowed Kawhi Leonard and other Spurs role players to get open shots.  The Spurs also played superior defense in the first half as Durant was the only Thunder really able to get to the rim with Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Westbrook.

Splitter spent much time at the line due to the
Hack-A- Splitter technique

The Thunder on the other hand really struggled to get the ball rolling at all during the game. They had no real offense going throughout the game and most of their points coming from their Big 3. Unable to run plays, the Thunder relied on one on one basketball and fast break points for their offense. With the Spurs running all over the Thunder the Thunder decided to go to the Hack-A-Splitter strategy. It worked a little as Tiago Splitter struggled from the line. In the end it did not work as well as planned because the Spurs were able to score with the clock stopped and the Thunder failed to capitalize on offense.

Unless the Thunder can find some sort of homecourt advantage the Spurs will most likely run all over them on their way to the NBA Finals. What more can you expect from a team that seems to have everything. They have a big 3 that is capable of rebounding, scoring, and passing while also possessing a great depth of role players. This depth will help them later on in the season as they will not get tired late in games. They also have the most experience together of any of the teams left in the playoffs, Parker, Ginobili, and Duncan have been around since the end of the David Robinson era. It will be interesting to see if the Heat or Celtics challenge the Spurs in the Finals.

bedlam before Bedlam

Thank you Oklahoma State for causing controversy within the BCS, all you had to do was win out and everything would have been fine. Since you lost it will most likely be between Oregon and Alabama for who should play LSU in the title game.

If there was a plus one system, we could see LSU play the winner of Oklahoma State vs. Oklahoma, and Alabama vs. Oregon, then the winners of those games would play for the BCS championship.

top offenses vs. top defenses, 2 games to see which would prevail and if defense really does win championships

What Happened in Game 6?

 Game 6, which might of been the greatest world series of recent memory, started off as one of the ugliest baseball games ever seen. If not for the uniforms and Busch Stadium, a fan could of confused the game with a middle school game. Fundamentals were nowhere to be found as multiple pop ups were dropped and Matt Holliday found a way to get thrown out retreating to third base(and injure himself in the process). Off the field it wasn't any prettier as both Tony La Russa and Ron Washington made decisions that where not true to the book. Tony, who has not had a spectacular world series, replaced Jaime Garcia who was throwing a strong game through 3 innings. Ron was not to be outdone though, he decided to pitch Derek Holland in relief, who some considered a candidate to throw game 7. Later on in the game an odd situation came up where he brought in a pinch hitter who was not warming up in for Feldman, who Joe Buck thought was their best pitcher available.
 After the game hit the 3 hour mark, the game became great but was still incredibly sloppy. David Freese's game tying triple of been a fly ball to right field which Neslon Cruz misplayed and Freese took advantage of a mistake pitch. Considering that the Rangers twice had the Cardinals down to their last strike, the Rangers should of won the World Series last night. David Freese again played the hero as his walk off home run won the game for the Cardinals and created a game 7.

In game 7 I am going to give the nod to the Rangers. I do believe that Carpenter is the better pitcher but the Rangers have shown the ability to get runs off the best pitcher in baseball (Justin Verlander) and I expect them to get to Carpenter. Harrison is no slouch and the Rangers have a deep bullpen that although got kicked around last night, I predict they are going to bounce back from an off night. Also hurting the Cardinals is Matt Holliday's injury so I'm going to go Rangers 5 to the Cardinals 3.

NFL Power Rankings - Week 8

All four contributors each ranked the NFL teams from 1-32. We then took the average of each teams' rank and then finished with the final power rankings.

The Green Bay Packers stay atop the Rankings as the unanimous choice.

Note: Contributor Key - Man (TheMainManmiller), Mole (themole25), Bill (Buffalo Bill), Rupp (FruitRupp)

Pos. Team Overall Rank Man Mole Bill Rupp

1. Green Bay Packers 1 1 1 1 1

2. New England Patriots 2.25 2 3 2 2

3. San Francisco 49ers 4 3 2 6 3

4. New Orleans Saints 4.25 4 6 3 4

5. Detroit Lions 5.5 5 5 7 5

6. Buffalo Bills 6.75 6 4 8 9

Pittsburgh Steelers 6.75 7 9 5 6

8. Baltimore Ravens 7 10 7 4 7

9. New York Giants 9.25 9 8 10 10

10. Cincinnati Bengals 10.25 11 10 12 8

11. San Diego Chargers 11.25 8 14 11 12

Atlanta Falcons 11.25 14 11 9 11

13. Houston Texans 13.5 13 15 13 13

14. New York Jets 14 15 12 14 15

15. Chicago Bears 14.5 16 13 15 14

16. Oakland Raiders 17.25 12 17 19 21

17. Dallas Cowboys 18.25 22 18 17 16

18. Tennessee Titans 18.5 18 16 18 22

19. Philadelphia Eagles 19 19 23 16 18

20. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20 17 26 20 17

21. Cleveland Browns 21.25 20 22 23 20

22. Washington Redskins 21.75 23 19 22 23

Kansas City Chiefs 21.75 24 20 24 19

24. Carolina Panthers 22.75 21 24 21 25

25. Denver Broncos 23.75 25 21 25 24

26. Seattle Seahawks 27 26 25 29 28

27. Jacksonville Jaguars 27.25 27 30 26 26

Minnesota Vikings 27.25 28 27 27 27

29. Arizona Cardinals 28.5 29 28 28 29

30. Miami Dolphins 30.25 30 31 30 30

31. Indianapolis Colts 31 32 29 32 31

32. St. Louis Rams 31.25 31 32 31 32

NFL week 7 headlines

Tim Tebow is finally getting his chance to play. The Broncos realized Orton's 6-21 record isn't that good and so why not let Tebow play. All Tebow did in college was win, now this is the pros, he isn't very accurate but almost led a comeback against the Chargers if it wasn't for a dropped 2-pt conversion. Thank you Denver for finally giving Tebow the job. He is not going to win the super bowl or even lead them to the playoffs he might not even win a game this season. But does it matter if the Broncos don't win a game the rest of the season. For all those people that don't think he should play because he isn't good, how do you know he isn't good he played 3 games last year went 1-2, Orton had his chance and didn't do shit with it, it is time to see if that first round draft pick was a good pick or not. Let Tebow play and let him fail if he is going to fail so at least we all know he can't play in the NFL. But only good can come out of Tebow finally playing.

• He can lead then to a winning record and the playoffs (doubtful).
• Everyone will find out if he can actually play QB in the NFL.
• More fans will be at Denver's games now to see Tebow, therefore more money for the NFL
• They lose the rest of their games, Andrew Luck is their starting QB next year
  

I know some bad can come out of it, like for all you Tebow haters, if he plays well he will have proved you wrong.

Carson Palmer now plays for Oakland after the Bengals surprisingly accepted a trade for 2 first round picks or a first and second round pick (not exactly sure). Im not sure why you would accept 2 draft picks for a player you don't need nor want but they did it anyway. Because of Jason Campell getting hurt many expected Palmer to start and the question arose. Can Palmer start after being retired just 5 days ago? Well he is not starting, I thought he would, Kyle Boller got the nod. But is it a big deal if Palmer would have gotten the start, the other QBs are Kyle Boller (who is starting) and Terrelle Pryor. Boller tried to play for the Ravens but that didn't work and Pryer has just been activated this week also. Palmer could have been picked up yesterday and he would still play better than the other QBs for Oakland. Plus Palmer played last year and has been working out all summer in case he had the chance to come back.

Jerome Harrison was about to be traded back to the Eagles for Ronnie Brown but a physical denied the trade. When Harrison was examined by Philly doctors they found a brain tumor. If it wasn't for this trade the tumor could have became serious before it was found and the NFL world could have lost a player who just 2 years ago rushed for 286 yards in a game. Luckily for Jerome his tumor was found and his surgery went well according to espn's Chris Mortensen.

HandshakeGate what does that even mean. This was the big handshake controversy between Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz. The reason Schwartz went after Harbaugh after the handshake is because Harbaugh did shake his hand hard but pushed him on the back as he went by. Schwartz wasn't happy with the push and you could see him turn and say "what the fuck" then he proceeded to run after him and get all up in his grill. Both coaches didn't do anything wrong they just got a little carried away with it. Harbaugh shouldn't have slapped and shook his hand so hard and Schwartz was fine with going after him but he took it to far when he kept try to get in the face of Harbaugh. The best thing about all of this was it reminds me of back in 1992 when John Chaney(Temple basketball coach) went into John Calipari's(UMass basketball coach) press conference after their game and said "I'm gonna kill you". So next time two people with the same first name start getting into it just start video taping because it will end up being youtube worthy.

1-32 NFL running backs

These are the 32 starters according to espn and I ranked them 1-32 based off of this year so far.

1. Fred Jackson
2. Adrian Peterson
3. Darren McFadden
4. LeSean McCoy
5. Frank Gore
6. Michael Turner
7. Maurice Jones-Drew
8. Matt Forte
9. Ray Rice
10. Beanie Wells
11. Ryan Mathews
12. Cedric Benson
13. Ahmad Bradshaw
14. BenJarvus Green-Ellis
15. Arian Foster
16. Willis McGahee
17. Chris Johnson
    
18. Shonn Greene
    
19. Rashard Mendenhall
    
20. DeAngelo Williams
21. Steven Jackson
22. Marshawn Lynch
23. Peyton Hillis
24. Pierre Thomas
25. Earnest Graham
26. Ryan Grant
27. Reggie Bush
28. Ryan Torain
29. Delone Carter
30. Thomas Jones
31. DeMarco Murray
32. MauriceMorris

notes: Solid top 4. Jackson(1) having a better year than Peterson(2) and hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. Forte(8) lots of yards 1 TD. Mendenhall(19) not consistent lots of yards last week. Johnson(17) can't seem to get anything going this year. Graham(25) could be higher if he played all year. Morris(32) steps in for Best, not many touches so far. Bottom 10 a little shaky at spots, most have 1 TD and around 175 yards rushing.

Sports and Money

One of the faces of the ugliest situations in sports

 We are over 100 days into the NBA lockout and it looks like it will never end. It is an argument between millionaires and billionaires, neither side is exactly hurting for money but I do believe that the owners put themselves in this situation. The owners put themselves in this situation by allowing a soft cap to be put into place and agreeing to guaranteed contracts for some reason. The average NBA player makes 5.15m a year while the average MLB player is 3m. Do the players need to be arguing for more money, no, but it isn't fair for owners to be making a ridiculous amount of money of players considering they are the product. Attendance in the NBA last year was down partly due to the fact that ticket prices are through the roof, a by product of spending to much money on players and other staff, therefore having to bring more money in.

 We have problems with money in all pro sports, it reduces the competitiveness between teams because only the rich prosper(we should love this in America because of our love of capitalism, in which the rich get richer the poor get poorer and we have less people teams that can compete due to a wide gap between social classes.). This why I suggest that we bring back pro sports to how they were before players got free agency. In addition to taking away free agency, teams will have a limit to how much teams can charge fans to view the game. In order to that, because no league would want to lose money, we need government intervention ins sports.
 Obama needs to create a new cabinet position regarding athletics and recreation because the job of our government is to satisfy our needs and if you haven't noticed, Americans like sports. These are the changes that I recommend to the appointed leader(if it is not me)
1. Players have all costs covered

I guess it's a sport

All athletes will pretty much play for free except all their living expenses are covered. They will have a modest house with a modest house(they don't need lavish houses or homes cause let's face it, athletes aren't exactly changing how the world runs and don't deserve to be paid more than leaders of countries or leading scientists). If you don't believe that athletes won't play for minimum salary, look at the WNBA, many women play for almost nothing because it is a sport they love and it is a way to take care of their family(their job as a mother).I know I'm stretching it calling women's basketball a sport(it's a tough argument) but it benefits my argument so for the rest of the article it is considered a sport). Minor leaguers play not just for the chance to make it to the majors, only a small fraction of them have a chance, but because it allows them to play the game they love well into their adulthood. Also, every member of this staff would play   their favorite sport for only a small apartment, rides back and forth from work, and 3 meals a day. 
 Depending on the size of their family, players would get paid enough so that their family could live a decent life, which would most likely be better if these college dropouts would have to go into the work force. This system is very similar to how basketball works in parts of Europe except that they won't be making extra money for playing. I don't see how players could complain about this considering they would never have to pay for anything, meaning no dealing with agents, checkbooks, and greedy people trying to take their money.
2. Limit ticket prices
Owners are going to hate this part of the plan, but look at how much money they are going to save in option #1. I'm going to throw #20 as the top ticket price, yes that means courtside tickets would be worth $20, and the nosebleeds would be worth $1. Teams would not be making as much revenue off of tickets but I didn't say anything about the cost of merchandise. The more fans that show up to the game and the more money they have means they can buy apparel and other over priced items from the team store, I'm not going to mention concessions since teams would most likely start charging $10 for a beer.
3. Make the Games Available to Everyone
 This means that all games will be on basic cable(another service that should be provided by the government, just basic cable, not HBO or Star or anything but everyone should have the right to watch Tosh.0 or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). This will take away from the huge amount of money that teams get from media, but they are also cutting the budget in other places and team owners deserve to make less a year than players because the players are the product that the fans come to watch. This again brings merchandising into play because the more people that allowed to watch the team play, the more people will become fans of the team and buy the team's clothing, hats, etc,. 


This is my plan to fix professional sports, hopefully if it is adopted professional sports will fall behind college sports in popularity because that is where I believe truth athletics live. Professional sports should be entertainment, not a place where billions of dollars sit so greedy players and owners can fight over them.