Just Ask Tom Brady

  I admit that I have not watched much college basketball this season. Nor have I gotten into pro basketball either. Which really isn’t like me. 

I have been into football since baseball ended. I have watched more hockey than Steph Curry, largely because the Warriors continue to disappoint and even my favorite NBA player went down briefly with injury. 

The NBA In-Season Tournament? I saw my first game on Tuesday night when Golden State visited Sacramento. Only for the first quarter. Not exactly scintillating basketball—even if the players professed the importance of the game. Naturally, I missed the Warriors going up on the Kings by as much as 24, needing to win by 12 or more in the point differential formula the NBA had devised to eliminate teams from the next round—only to awaken and learn that the Warriors had frittered away that lead and Sacramento had advanced to the quarterfinals with a 124-123 victory. 

The Knicks actually made the quarters as a wild card; Phoenix was the fourth team from the Western Conference. The good teams mostly advanced and there is plenty of star power—Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana, the Lakers and New Orleans also made the second round. 

Maybe it will become more interesting now. To make up for missed games, the league has devised a way to ensure that each team plays the requisite number of games it would have during the regular season. While the survivors are playing for that $500,000 top prize, no one goes home unhappy, I guess. 

Are Lebron or Giannis motivated to win the inaugural championship after earning a trip to Las Vegas where the semi-finals and finals will be played? Might we see Kevin Durant in the finals again? Could an upstart team like Sacramento, New Orleans or Indiana come out on top? 

It’s an NBA marketing coup. Will the ratings be commensurate with the risk of implementing this tournament? We shall see if it is thrilling enough to capture the attention of the masses. After all, this is prime football season in the college ranks this weekend and certainly in the NFL as the schedule winds down. 

Speaking of the NFL, His Eminence, Tom Brady remarked about how mediocre the league is. I then saw former Dallas Cowboys star and Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman comment on Brady’s statement. Aikman said he once was mediocre on bad Dallas teams when he first came into the league. Moreover, compared to Brady, who else measured up anyway? 

So is the NFL mediocre as Brady says? Sure, there are bad teams. The New York Jets are currently horrendous. The big news was that Aaron Rodgers was cleared to practice. The amount of interest on his repaired Achilles tendon almost rivals what is going on with the lovebirds in Kansas City now that Taylor Swift has completed her South American tour and is with beau Travis Kelce and double-dating with Patrick and Brittany Mahomes. 

The Chicago-Minnesota snoozefest was not a good game—it was plagued by turnovers by both teams and the Bears won despite not scoring a touchdown. New England is not vey good and G.O.A.T. Bill Belichick might be gone. Frank Reich was again canned in mid-season, this time for not making the Carolina Panthers into a respectable team. Then there are the New York Giants, led by a QB who sleeps in his childhood bed; Cincinnati is below average as is Cleveland without their starting QB’s. 

There are a bevy of teams which are exceptional—Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco in the NFC; Kansas City, Miami, and surprisingly good Jacksonville are the best of the AFC.  Denver, which you recall lost 70-20 to Miami in Week 2, seems to be on the rise. I am not sure how good the Detroit Lions are, as they win too many close contests, nor am I convinced that Pittsburgh and Cleveland, both with 7-4 records are playoff worthy.

Yes, there are ten more teams with five or more wins, placing them in contention for a playoff berth. Unless they suddenly get hot, most won’t make the post-season. And there is the NFC South, where Atlanta and New Orleans are tied at 5-6. Not very good, indeed. 

I think that Brady was also ruminating about the level of play overall. Defenses are either very good or very bad. Ditto with the quarterbacks, with so many starters not playing due to injury. Plus the number of penalties seems to be at an all-time high—stupid ones at that. Look at Jason Kelce collecting two straight penalties—he’s a Hall off Fame center—then he blows up a defensive back allowing Jalen Hurts to waltz into the end zone for the winning score in overtime on Sunday versus a very average Buffalo Bills team.

I find myself drawn to watching the good teams—KC; Philly and SF which clash on Sunday before the Eagles head to Dallas. There is excitement when those teams take the field. 

Every league has bad teams. The NBA has eight teams with six or less victories, led by woeful Detroit which has lost fifteen straight games, a franchise record. Ten NHL teams have below .500 marks. 

I still find many NFL games to be entertaining. Even if the play was lackluster, the Bears won the game at the end of regulation by stepping up just enough to squeeze the winning field goal in in the past seconds of play. That was exciting. 

I guess Brady had to say something to pivot attention to him. I don’t think that Tiger Woods, Sidney Crosby, Steph Curry or Lebron James would be so critical about the product which allowed them to star. Then again, they aren’t retired, either. 

Reverting back to college basketball, I really don’t know which teams are that good. Sure, Purdue is number one; but I am never enamored with Big Ten schools playing basketball. Only Illinois, at #24, is another Big Ten in the Top 25. They take on Rutgers at Jersey Mike’s Arena on Saturday. And I have seen Rutgers beat lesser lights and lose badly to Princeton in the teams’ opener. (Why isn’t Princeton ranked after last year’s ride to the Sweet 16?) After six games and before conference play starts, eleven ranked teams are unbeaten. One unbeaten is defending champion UConn, which gets no real love with a ranking at #4. 

Evidently at James Madison, the football and basketball teams are pretty good—the Dukes are 10-1 on the gridiron and the men’s basketball team, which beat Michigan State in East Lansing, is 6-0. The same can be said at Arizona, Kansas (who would have believed that the football team might be good when the losing always abounded in Lawrence), Duke, Kentucky, Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma. Good football and good men’s hoops can co-exist. 

I watched a dreary end to the Franklin and Marshall-Gettysburg game the other night. F&M defeated the Bullets after having lost seven straight to G-burg. It was sloppy, foul-plagued and bad shooting basketball. F&M is now 5-0, which is maybe a promising start to a decent season. 

It is certain I will slowly get into college basketball. The sports channels are bloated with games every day and even more on the weekends. With conference play kicking in, there will be some more interesting matchups which will change the rankings. I doubt that there will be an unbeaten or even one loss team when tournament time rolls around. 

Have to close this up. We are headed to Atlanta for a family bar mitzvah for the weekend. Where it will be full of Alabama and Georgia fans in town for the SEC Championship Game on Saturday. Hartsfield International Airport will be buzzing. 

And when we fly back on Sunday, our plane might take us over Met Life Stadium while the Atlanta Falcons and New York Jets are beating on each other. It was the right thing to not fly back early on Sunday to make it to the game. 

Odds are I would get sick. That’s just from the product on the field. Just ask Tom Brady.