Not To Worry

It’s the precursor to March Madness. The college basketball post-season tournaments are occurring. Not something to stop the world, mind you. That happens next week with the NCAA Tournament.

But for so many schools, it is the last gasp chance to reach the Big Dance and continue an epic Cinderella run. And in this topsy-turvy time, a lot can affect the outcome of these soirees. 

The big player in these scenarios is not some talented 7 foot behemoth. Nope. It is that persistent predator, COVID-19, which always looms large in the sports landscape.  

Perennial NCAA tournament invitee, Duke, needed some help to reach 25 straight years in the Dance. In its first ACC Tournament game, the Blue Devils did their part and won. 

That was it for Coach K and his guys, because a positive test after the win has shut the program down. The Duke men’s program joins the women’s program on the sidelines, as the women were shut down much earlier in the regular season.

Then news came that defending national champion Virginia was struck with a positive test. Their ACC games are finished. Moreover, they will need seven consecutive days of negative tests to be able to participate in the NCAA Tournament. This may require creative math along with a lot of luck for the Cavaliers to be playing next Friday—if they aren’t disqualified because of their unknown test status. 

Kansas, another basketball blue blood, had a positive test show up on Friday. Just like UVa, the continuation of their season is very much up in the air. It hasn’t been a real good week at Kansas. More on that later. 

Others still have hope in the Big East. Georgetown upset #1 seed Villanova on Thursday at Madison Square Garden. While reveling in the victory, Hoyas’ Head Coach and Knicks legend Patrick Ewing was miffed that security continually checked him for his passes, given that he is probably the most recognizable Knickerbocker, with the exception of Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who ever entered the building. Perhaps the security personnel only knew of Ewing as an Orlando Magic player and coach; it has been awhile since he played for New York. 

Seton Hall is also desperately looking at a long shot to have their name called on Sunday night as a NCVAA Tournament team. They drew Georgetown in the Big East semifinals, and the winner would play the winner of UConn and Creighton fo the conference’s automatic bid. Georgetown continued to play beyond expectations, downing the Pirates and they meet Creighton in the Big East finals. 

If Georgetown manages to beat Creighton, and Oregon State, who reached the Pac 12 final on Friday night, wins that title game, two more bubble teams will have their dreams dashed. Selection Sunday will not come soon enough for a number of teams whose hopes are only remotely alive.

North Carolina has suddenly become formidable. A win at home over Duke last Saturday and two resounding wins over Notre Dame and Virginia Tech in Greensboro on Thursday pitted them against #2 seed Florida State in the ACC semis. 

While I think that the Tar Heels have made the Tournament, a win over a Florida State team headed to  the Dance would not hurt the resume. The winner of this game would play a rested Georgia Tech in the final, as the Yellow Jackets now don’t have to overcome Virginia in the semis. FSU won by 3. UNC enhanced its position.

I have waited to talk about Rutgers. With their win over Minnesota, they all but punched their first ticket to the Dance since 1991. Thursday night’s ugly game versus a poor shooting Indiana Hoosiers team onside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis became a boo fest for the IU faithful, who cannot fathom a sub.500 record and want Head Coach Archie Miller’s scalp.

RU didn’t as much win the game—they did have some clutch shots by soph Paul Mulcahy and enter Myles Johnson was again big on the boards—as Indiana’s horrible shooting from the free throw line down the stretch along with being ice cold from the field sealed IU’s fate. Hey, a win’s a win, especially when it cements their Tournament status.

The prize for winning was a date with #2 seed and third-ranked Illinois. The Illini have been hot recently, with many experts believing that they are better right now than #1 seed Michigan, and in line for a top regional seed in the NCAA’s. 

RU beat Illinois in Piscataway much earlier in the season. That was then and this is now.  The well-rested Illini walloped RU. Not to worry, RU fans. We’re still in. Unless there is a COVID-19 outbreak—which would mean, besides the illness unfortunately targeting  a person or persons, that Rutgers is never going to make the NCAA Tournament because there is a hex, curse or whatever upon the school. 

I have viewed projected brackets which have RU as a #8 seed in a region. Doing the math, that means that the Scarlet Knights are between the 29th and 32nd best college basketball team in the country. 

Let that sink in for a moment. I think that the analytics are overblown in this year of limited play outside of the respective conferences. While the Big Ten might have up to four teams in the top eight seeds, it does not mean that they are necessarily that much better than the Big 12 or SEC. Or for that matter, Gonzaga, the presumptive number 1 overall seed. That is why they play the games—to determine who is the best and how good are the rest. 

Now I want to discuss the money-grabbing NCAA. Shut out last season because of the pandemic, the leadership is hell bent to hold a successful Tournament. Because that means big $$. Which they did not make in 2020.

Of course, COVID is a major impediment. The design to play all of the games in locations in and around Indianapolis is a fine idea. Not perfect like last season’s NBA plan, but conceptually it has its merits. 

However, COVID does not conform to plans. The emergency plans of fill-in teams from conferences in the case of a selected school being unable to play or to have teams submit their names as possible at-large berth substitutes underlies why the NCAA is determined to play to the end this year. 

So too is this absurd rule that if there are 5 players on a team in the Tournament, the school can continue to participate. Injuries or players fouling out against a superior team with more able players doesn’t matter. So much for the integrity of the game. 

To me, this is shameful. I hope for the sake of the already polluted college game, neither of these scenarios eventuate. 

A lot of QB contract restructuring in the NFL before free agency along with a number of significant salary dumps to open up cap space. Tom Brady took less money but can be the Tampa Bay QB until age 48 with his new deal. Patrick Mahomes also restructured his mega deal to allow the Chiefs more flexibility. New England and Cam Newton agreed to an incentive-driven one year pact.

These measures are the new normal in the NFL  Make ridiculous contracts and hardly ever keep to them. For it is only play money in the NFL, right?

My wife and I have this spot we love to go to in a newly developed area in nearby Florham Park, on the site of an old Exxon research facility. Between office buildings, there is a grassy area with some chairs overlooking a pond (undoubtedly infused with some gnarly stuff) which has ducks, geese and an entertaining fish which periodically jumps out of the water. 

This little bit of serenity in an industrial and residential complex has a big centerpiece—the home of the New York Jets. Through the trees, the gargantuan building rises up as a  monolithic monument to the corporate power of the National Football League and the incentives offered by the local and state power brokers to lure the Jets from Long Island. 

I’ve shared with you that I have been inside and the facility is beyond impressive. But the product which comes from that training center is as mediocre a one as resides in the NFL.

We found ourselves relaxing there the other day when the temperature hit 75 degrees. While the conversation was mostly about how nice it is to be there, the topic of the Jets arose.

Beyond the pond sits that enormous building, and what do the Jets have to show for their membership in the NFL? One Super Bowl win in Super Bowl III. The past Super Bowl was Super Bowl LVI. The Jets franchise hasn’t been there in 52 years.

Yet the team has another relatively new GM in Joe Douglas. Douglas jettisoned the previous coach and has brought in a young wunderkind. He has the second and nineteenth picks in the upcoming draft, four of the top 51 choices, to work with. There is $69.3 million of cap space money available to spend, second only to Jacksonville. And he has a QB who he talks about in nice, polite terms but really hasn’t committed to for the 2021 season when there is a phenom from BYU, Zach Wilson, who the scouts say can be better than the consensus number 1 pick, Trevor Lawrence and Deshawn Watson, the unhappy QB in Houston.  

What we thought about was what was going on inside of the building with the men who make the decisions. When is someone in this moribund organization which has frustrated me so much through the years going to make the right choices and draft the best personnel and find the right free agents to become a quality team? 

Why not with Darnold as the QB? Give him some true receivers and a running back (would I ever love for the Jets to get one of Alabama’s gifted pass catchers and the powerful runner Najee Harris) plus plug some gaps on the offensive line and and at defensive back? Or if they opt to either trade down or select Wilson or acquire Watson, the team still has a great chance to change the dynamics of the team immediately. 

This is a pivotal time for the Jets. Get it right and they will begin to contend Buffalo, with the new big kid in the AFC East, or reach equal terms with New England and Miami. Mess it up, and Jets fans are resigned to more cruel years in purgatory. 

When we drove pas the complex on the way home, there was apparent turf construction underway. I thought to myself that this could be a new era on a new field, or another beautiful addition to a gleaming edifice that didn’t matter. 

As I alluded to earlier, things at the University of Kansas have not been too good this week. In addition to the positive COVID test sidelining the Jayhawks men’s team, football has been the bigger news.

Les Miles, the former LSU National Championship football coach, reached an agreement to a buyout of his contract when news of the allegations of a toxic culture which he permitted in Baton Rouge surfaced. The investigation was into inappropriate conduct with female students for which Miles received a reprimand, was not permitted to hire student employees to babysit and prohibited Miles from being alone with students.  Pretty serious stuff, although there was no finding that he had sexual relations with any of the women. Along with Miles, AD Jeff Long, the man who hired Miles at Kansas, was gone, for not having properly vetted Miles; Miles had told him there was “a legal dispute in Louisiana” which was nothing to be concerned about.

This is the sports equivalent of what is transpiring with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is under intense pressure to resign. I am not going to discuss the merits of that matter, as this blog refrains from political discourse. 

Kansas is a football backwater. The last winning season was 2007, when the team was an astounding 12-1. In the 20 years since the turn of this century, the football team has reached .500 or better four times. Twice the team didn’t win a game in a season, including 2021, and two other times Kansas won only one game. 

Hiring Miles was perceived as a good football move—even if Miles was in his 60’s and perhaps better days had passed him by. Long knew Miles from their days together at Michigan where Miles was an assistant coach and Long an assistant AD. 

Which is probably why Long had overlooked the troubles Miles had gotten into at LSU. He desperately wanted a winner and he thought his old friend could achieve that at KU.

Except that history follows those who take advantage of others. Some face harsh treatment—iconic actor/director Woody Allen is another on the hot seat for his past activities as detailed in the recent HBO documentary. 

Society has no room for this kind of behavior. Past inappropriate behavior of those in visible positions of power come under greater scrutiny. That it discolors the ability to lead or pursue further opportunity is a morality judgment which I am not debating. 

The actions of others takes down those who are overseeing the situation. Look at Penn State as Exhibit #1. 

With Miles’s indiscretions, coupled with the intolerance at Kansas given the men’s basketball team has had four serious Level 1 infractions leveled at it and Head Coach Bill Self, there was a very dark cloud hanging over those in athletics In Lawrence. That made Long’s firing all but inevitable.

It is sad to see this. I look at Rutgers and hope that AD Pat Hobbs, a lawyer by background, has made the right choices to run clean and successful programs with his choices of Steve Pikiell for men’s basketball and Greg Schiano for football. For if Kansas cannot afford this kind of misery, certainly Rutger s shouldn’t either. 

On the baseball front, the Yankees suffered a significant loss when lefty reviver Zach Britton announced he will undergo surgery for bone chips in his throwing arm. How significant it will be we cannot yet determine. 

Meanwhile, the young pitching prospects and the veterans continue to shine during Spring Training. No real injuries have been reported. The bats haven’t heated up yet, but that will happen soon. Optimism continues to surround the Yankees’ camp.

With all that I have written about, people should trust the process. When I began to write this week’s blog on Friday, I believed there was nothing to worry about. It was as certain as A-Rod and J-Lo getting married or my faithful editor receiving her long-promised watch for her incredible help. 

I am taking next week off to give myself a rest and to brace for any aftereffects from the second COVID vaccine next Friday. Somehow, I still believe there is nothing to worry about.