I Am Preoccupied With College Basketball

  I have suffered from sensory overload this week. Seemingly wall-to-wall basketball, both college and pro. Upsets and close finishes. Disappointments more than I want. All with my editor sojourning in Spain (Basquing) and nobody to proofread this blog but my own bleary eyes—compounded by my devouring a “beach read” paperback for our book club entitled People We Meet On Vacation. And cold weather lingered one more day before Spring arrives—in the same week which we actually had snow remain on our lawn for almost 12 hours, a new seasonal record for 2023.

Sure, Rutgers fell to Hofstra in a stirring finish to an overtime NIT game at Jersey Mike’s Arena. Take away all that talk about RU being slighted by not making the NCAA Tournament. The Pride—I longly wanted to call then the Flying Dutchmen once more—simply wanted this game more. Speedy Claxton, a Hofstra star who played in the NBA, returned to Hempstead and made his team better. The hustle, the second chance rebounding and inside scoring were all a product of an intensity which I saw in the NCAA’s this weekend by the teams which produced the wins. 

Forget that Hofstra went home and played badly in a second round loss to amore formidable Cincinnati squad. At least they won a post-season game. 

For that matter, Seton Hall, the other “top” New Jersey team, also lost to Colorado by one point in an opening round NIT match played in Boulder.  Two losses by a hair and these programs had nothing to show for it. 

Conversely, New Jersey started out 4-0 in the NCAA Tournament. That’s because Fairleigh Dickinson—every sports fan now knows who they are, and the school isn’t named after Emily’s brother—went out and smoked Texas Southern to get into the main draw and then smote mighty Purdue in maybe the greatest upset in tournament history. The second time in 152 tries a #16 seed beat a #1 seed—five years and a day after UMBC demolished Virginia 74-54.

With Princeton drawn into the same conversation with wins over first #2 seed Arizona and then #7 Missouri, the Tigers are a sweetheart team in the Sweet 16. Anybody who thought they were just another Ivy League team and did not warrant enough attention thought wrong—hey you on the Selection Committee, I’m not happy with you for a lot of reasons. This was the 10th best rebounding team in the nation and that was on full display against Mizzou. 

FDU gave every small team great hope. I mean that literally because Purdue was the tallest team in the country with 7’4” Zach Edey, while undistinguished FDU was the smallest team in Division I. 

FDU had heart. They weren’t even the winner in the Northeast Conference. Merrimack won the conference tournament title and since the North Andover, Massachusetts school hadn’t finished the four year probationary period assigned by the NCAA when transitioning to Division I, the second place Knights received the automatic bid. 

FDU was the last team placed in the tournament. Number 68. The oddsmakers had them listed as a 23.5 point underdog. Now the Knights can claim that they were the lowest seed EVER to win a first round game and they overcame the biggest odds to win a game—which will resonate heavily in New Jersey, Nevada and online. 

You have to hand it to Tobin Anderson, the FDU coach. After winning versus Texas Southern, he brashly commented that he saw weaknesses which could be exploited against Purdue. And that’s what the Knights went out and did. Plus it didn’t hurt that the Boilermakers disintegrated at the end of the game and they couldn’t seem to get the ball to their tall star in the post. 

These kids shouldn’t have been in the tournament let alone have the ability to stand up to mighty Purdue out of the Big Ten. Yet, inspired by the basketball lifer, son of a coach who coached at Division III schools Clarkson and Hamilton and Division II’s St. Thomas Aquinas prior to landing in Teaneck, his team achieved the nearly impossible. With grit and determination any team would want to have. 

Alas, the bubble burst. Florida Atlantic downed the Knights but never will this loss end their memory of a lifetime. 

Princeton took care of the Pac 12 winner in Arizona and a ranked SEC school in Missouri. Their dead eye shooting without fear showed, just like the smiling confidence of their coach Mitch Henderson, himself a Princeton grad who was a star on the Tigers squad which downed a vaunted UCLA team and whose leap in joyous celebration has forever been captured in Princeton lore. Do not believe that this team might not do more damage next weekend in Louisville. 

I thought the Selection Committee did another lousy job. Already, two top seeds were eliminated by the end of the Round of 32. Only Houston and Alabama are alive as #1’s, and they had to work hard to survive. If there are a number of upsets, this shows that the ratings the committee formulated weren’t very accurate. Just look at St. Peter’s last year—exciting but another abysmal failure to properly rank teams. 

We had other upsets along the way, just not as monumental. Snake-bitten #4 Virginia fell to #13 Furman, an upset a number of pundits touted. #11 Pittsburgh had to defeat Mississippi State in a play-in game on Tuesday, then came back to handily dispatch Iowa State, which left the state of Iowa 0-3, as the Cyclones joined Iowa and Drake on the sidelines. A tough Xavier team took care of the Panthers’ hopes. 

Penn State, coming off its second-place finish in the Big Ten Tournament, throttled Texas-A&M before losing to a better Texas Longhorns team. Should Houston and Texas win next Friday in Kansas City, they battle for the Midwest Regional crown and a trip to the Final Four. 

Northwestern valiantly battled UCLA before falling to the Bruins. How about the UCLA bench player with the dyed yellow hair with the blue paw prints? San Diego State has quietly looked good, as has Houston, but the Cougars were expected to be a title contender while SDSU is more of a long shot. 

Duke was a hot team heading into the the tournament. Then a key player was injured. Tennessee played a level of thuggery which the officials didn’t reign in and executed better. No surprise that the Vols advanced. 

Kentucky, with its elite talent, was one-upped by a diminutive guard for Kansas State by way of Harlem, The Patrick School in New Jersey and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. Markquis Nowell introduced himself to those who did not know him. Get used to this kid—he just might make it to the NBA.

Michigan State and Marquette engaged in a slugfest. Just like revered Marquette coach Al Mc Guire would have liked it—and how present MSU head man Tom Izzo, current possessor of the longest consecutive number of NCAA appearances with one school apparently liked it more, as the Spartans prevailed, setting up a tremendous matchup with K-State at Madison Square Garden. MSU is the only one of eight Big Ten schools to survive to next weekend. 

Arkansas dethroning Kansas was not that big a surprise; I believed the Big 12, like the Big Ten to be a bit overrated. So the final accounting of the Sweet 16 is this: SEC 3; Big East 3; Big 12 2; and the ACC, West Coast, Big Ten, WAC, Conference USA, AAC, Pac 12 and the Ivy League have one representative. 

My wife picked Duke to win it all. I picked Gonzaga. Her final four was Alabama, Duke, Xavier and Gonzaga. Mine was Duke, Gonzaga, Arizona and Indiana. She feels she is finished. I know her bracket is very much alive and well, potentially poised to vanquish me two years in a row. She has Xavier, Alabama and Gonzaga alive to the Final Four. I only have Gonzaga. Do the math. 

In between all of the March madness, I managed to watch the Golden State Warriors lose three games on the road this week in Los Angeles against the Clippers; in Atlanta without Draymond Green, who was suspended for attaining his sixteenth technical foul versus the Clippers; and then Saturday night at Memphis, minus Ja Morant. 

Somehow, the Warriors are not the same on the road as they play when in the Chase Center. Without Andrew Wiggins, the team seems to be devoid of a key presence, both offensively and defensively, to take the pressure off of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Look for a very quick exit from the playoffs if things don’t change—which I cannot imagine they will. 

While I have reveled in the Golden State championships, I long for much more from my teams. Ergo, I have come around to the thinking that the Jets should go all in for Aaron Rodgers, provide the needed players and make one concerted push for a long-awaited second title. Rodgers does not have much more quality playing time left in his Hall of Fame career, and I am not going to wait forever on the heretofore ineptitude of the franchise. 

Let me also chide Rutgers. You are a behemoth. Act like one. Sure, three appearances for men’s basketball in the post-season is fine. But you can do much better—it isn’t that hard to be Northwestern, Maryland or Purdue (although coach Matt Painter seems to be snake-bitten by double digit seeds and New Jersey teams) or even Indiana in basketball and challenge yearly for the Big Ten crown. And it is not enough to know that Rutgers football produces talents like Isiah Pacheco of the Kansas City Chiefs but cannot peek at .500 in the conference. My patience runs thin. 

With no Yankees baseball until March 30 and Rodgers’ trade has not been formalized, I am preoccupied with college hoops for another week. 

My Love Affair With Basketball

  I have kind of been glued to my TV set this past week. For it has been wall-to-wall coverage of college basketball—both men’s and women’s. With a healthy measure of the NBA thrown into the equation. And I cannot get enough. 

This is not to say that I haven’t been living an ordinary life (for me). There are the usual chores, exercise, physical therapy, shopping, cleaning and I do the bulk of our cooking. I sometimes find time for a nap in addition to my normal night’s fitful sleeping—a thing that occurs regularly to people in their 70’s and older. 

Sure, there are other sports going on. I routinely check the NHL scores, as the New Jersey Devils have had a youthful renaissance after too many miserable years. I also am more than cognizant of the Boston Bruins incredible pace to break a number of records for wins in a season, points, and home and away overall records. Plus I look to see which teams are in the playoff picture as the season heads to its conclusion; of course, in the New York area, we are clued into what the Rangers and Islanders are doing, too (both presently are in position to secure playoff berths.

Baseball is in the midst of its exhibition season in both Florida and Arizona. MLB has reinstated its World Baseball Classic, which I have little interest in—is it truly a World Series when Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are not participating? Besides, why would I even be interested in late start times from Phoenix which could keep me up until 1:00 am with the advent of Daylight Savings Time? To watch Great Britain or Canada play the U.S.—no thanks. 

Yes, I read the papers and what is online about injuries and how teams are doing. The Yankees already have a number of important players suffering maladies which will preclude them from beginning the season on time. I will be primed and ready for the season opener on March 30—even if there are other distractions and my son and I will be resuming our Devils through Canada saga with a trip to Winnipeg in early April when, hopefully, the temperatures and precipitation will be as cooperative as it was during our trip to Edmonton—when we landed five days after the last below zero cold snap. 

Ranking the sports in the order I care about them, it would be baseball first, closely followed by basketball, then hockey and football. (Tennis, swimming and golf were leisure activities, no matter how much I worked at them) I can even break those categories down based on professional and college teams.  Notice that football is last—I am, after all, a long suffering New York Jets fan and the talk of Aaron Rodgers coming to be a savior is irksome, to say the least. 

Baseball will always be number one. I could play it with relative ease compared to any of the other sports I had any ability in—I could not stop as a skater which is why I have played only once or twice as a lad on the frozen ice of the ponds at Johnson Park in my hometown of Highland Park. With football I was too small but my stubbornness caused me to have a brief one year career on the Highland Park H.S. freshman team before being concussed (it hurt like hell for a couple of days but in 1964, you sucked it up and continued to play) and realizing I didn’t belong out there.

Whatever level I played baseball—if it was a catch on my home street or in the driveway, a pick up game at Hamilton School, stickball, or organized youth leagues, I more than held my own. Obviously, I played baseball well enough to forge a very undistinguished career at Franklin and Marshall. One thing I always knew about baseball was that I understood it and I could always hit and throw fairly well, despite my size and lack of speed.  

Moreover, my baseball prowess helped me get my first real job with the Public Defender, Appellate Section and I made many friends along the way because of my love of baseball. Offer me a chance to go to a MLB park, I’ll be there if I can. This is why I am so adamant about getting to the last 5 remaining franchises’ ballparks. 

Most people don’t really know my history with basketball. It is long and it is a bit complicated. I always wanted to shoot baskets—my father nailed a backboard (it had to have a net to be official) over our garage, and I was out there, in the cold or heat, with or without wind or elements. From balloon balls to more appropriate orbs, I always had a basketball. 

In my youth, I watched plenty of Knicks games from Syracuse, Rochester and Philadelphia. I watched national TV games with Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell—my first NBA game was in January, 1962, when I saw the Wilt and the San Francisco Warriors annihilate the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. 

I played recreation league baskets all with a running clock in the Hamilton School gym. I wasn’t that bad, but I really was just okay. But I didn’t know better. That is where I learned how to keep score, which led to my high school career as the scorekeeper and statistician for the freshman and varsity teams. 

Just as much as I watched the NBA on television, I watched college basketball. I saw early games such as when Loyola of Chicago won the NCAA Tournament in 1963, the National Invitation Tournament before that with NYU, St. John’s, Bradley and Dayton all coming to play at the old Garden on Eighth Avenue. Bill Bradley and his Princeton Tigers were a Saturday afternoon favorite. I thought the gyms at Manhattan and Fordham were dingy. I learned of the scandals at CCNY and LIU. UCLA was an absolute phenomenon and I read a ton about their coach, John Wooden. I became a very willing student of the game. 

Besides seeing my high school play at the Asbury Park Convention Hall—the first portable floor I had ever dribbled on—I practiced with the varsity at times in my duties as a manager. I would try to make as many free throws in a row as I could and take shots from half court daily. That was because in my freshman year, I actually suited up in our road maroon uniforms with my low cut black Converse All-Star sneakers like the Boston Celtics (we lost and I did not enter the game). I did play in three games involving my high school—a trip to the State Reformatory at Annandale which I will never forget as I actually scored five points and made a foul shot—I was so nervous; a Teachers-JV game where I was horrible; and an Alumni-Varsity game in December, 1968 when I scored three points against a squad that went to the State semi-finals, which left me elated. 

Did I play pick up games? You bet I did. At Rutgers; in both the Dillon and Jadwin Gymnasiums at Princeton; many times at F&M, including after baseball practice. I played on the second tier team for my intramural group and once scored 31 points bombing away. I went to the YMHA in West Orange, shooting when had the opportunity while playing vertically challenged defense. At lunchtime, while the Public Defender office was in East Orange, I played almost every work day at the Orange YMCA, with some guys who played college ball, including the legendary Feldman brothers, who were high school stars in Newark and at George Washington. They couldn’t have been nicer to me. 

While I have continued my love of watching televised basketball for over 65 years, when I went to my first live college game at the old College Avenue Gym on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, I was hooked. Rutgers and then F&M became my teams. 

I have seen Rutgers at home so many times against so many teams and I still go when I can. I have traveled to Penn State and Cincinnati to watch RU play, as well as at MSG. While in law school, I was able to get into the locker room when the Scarlet Knights faced the University of Delaware in 1974. I met stars Phil Sellers, Mike Dabney and an assistant coach named Dick Vitale.—the same one who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame for his legendary broadcasting. 

Although I had studies and work for baseball, I hardly missed a game at F&M during the 3 1/2 years I was on campus. I watched Glenn Robinson win his first varsity game and I was in the stands for his record-breaking 667th win—most in Division III. 

I have been to a Division III Final Four; the NIT Championship game; and a NBA Finals game. I made a pilgrimage to the old Boston Garden. I have driven by numerous arenas to burn the image in my brain. I have shot one shot—a swish—at a vacant Rutgers Athletic Center. I made a foul shot at Littlejohn Coliseum on the Clemson campus. I had to go inside the Dean Dome at North Carolina and see the beehive floor at the old Charlotte Coliseum. I was able to toss an errant ball back to Michael Jordan before a game at the Meadowlands. The list goes on and on. 

On Saturday night, I watched Steph Curry go on a shooting rampage against the Milwaukee Bucks, the best team in the NBA, pulling out a dramatic overtime win. This was with me alternately watching the Duke-Virginia ACC title clash while texting my F&M roommate, an avowed college basketball junkie and a Maryland fan for many years. I probably watched games in eight or nine conferences over the course of four days, while checking on the progress of Centennial Conference teams from Johns Hopkins and Swarthmore in the DIII Tournament. This is me. 

My wife and kids learned early on to stay away from me when the Selection Show comes on CBS in early to mid-March. I am always excited to see how the brackets unfold, and this year I was praying that a subpar Rutgers team gets in. Which, in my prior blogs I believed they were not worthy of getting into the NCAA’s, and I was right. Except for the snobs at the University of North Carolina, who nixed an invitation, there is nothing wrong with extending a team’s season by playing in the NIT.

On a warm night in June I will be glued to the NBA Finals. I saw the Grant Hill pass to Christian Laettner for his miracle shot. I remember Jordan hitting the winning shot for UNC just like he did for the Chicago Bulls. These are just a few of my thousands of memories. 

There is so much more I can relate about basketball which is etched in my mind. I wish I still had our in ground basket on the side of our driveway. I could recreate Bobby Lloyd of Rutgers dribbling and shooting. Or Larry Bird sinking a long shot. Or I could just be lost in the fun of shooting an orange ball through a metal rim with some nylon below it. 

This is my continuing love affair with basketball.

Let The (March) Madness Continue

  On Sunday, I counted 18 men’s college basketball games being televised. Seven women’s hoops games made it to TV. College hockey, four college wrestling championships, five NBA contests, two NHL matches and a slew of auto racing, golf, tennis and rodeo permeated the airwaves. Not to mention the XFL and the NFL combine. Plus exhibition baseball. Sounds like over saturation?

Rutgers laid two more eggs this week. The once-formidable Scarlet Knights lost a game at last-place Minnesota on a last ditch three point shot that won it for the Golden Gophers. 

Then on Sunday night, Northwestern came to Piscataway. Unlike the game earlier this season in Evanston, this was a tale of two teams. One which nobody picked to end up in second place in the Big Ten (Northwestern), while the other (Rutgers) picked by some during the season to win the conference title and obtain a high seed for the post-season. 

What I saw was a mismatch. Northwestern had better players and it was apparent how well those players had been coached. The Wildcats deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament. Rutgers does not. 

Rutgers decline was palpable on both the offense and defense. Unable to score, shoot free throws and stop the other teams which had a plethora of open shots, this was not a good recipe for success. 

The Big Ten Tournament begins this week in Chicago. In the 8-9 game, Rutgers plays Michigan. The Wolverines gave a very good Indiana team all it could handle, taking the Hoosiers to OT in Bloomington before losing. And Michigan trounced the Scarlet Knights in February at Jersey Mike’s Arena. 

Who do you blame here? It’s not the players alone—although they are making some bad decisions. That’s too bad. 

Instead, Head Coach Steve Pikiell’s optimism does not work anymore. Sometimes a coach needs to see how he can change things—shake up a bad stretch with some noticeable changes. Trouble is that RU does not have the talent to let Pikiell make those tweaks that his team so desperately needs. 

Moreover, what will this disastrous end to a promising season mean for recruiting? Things are not right with Rutgers basketball. This season may have detrimental consequences for years to come. 

While I loved going to the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden when RU was part of that conference, I really don’t like those kinds of events. Play the regular season out and do not make good teams go thorough another test—injuries occur and sometimes teams come from virtually nowhere to win the automatic bid to the Big Dance. In the smaller conferences, the best team does not always reach the NCAA’s. Exhibit #1 is St. Peter’s University last year, which defeated a good Iona team directed by Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino.

Invariably, there will be some Cinderella team which wins its conference tournament. Could it be 11-22 Lafayette downing the Patriot League regular season champs, Colgate? Or FDU, which was so-so in the Northeast Conference regular season, but is going to the NCAA’s because the top team, Merrimack, is ineligible as the school transitions to Division I? And maybe Shaheen Holloway can once more astonish us by leading Seton Hall to a Big East tile and trip to the NCAA’s. He does have the pedigree. 

I am happy that UCLA ended up winning the Pac 12 regular season crown. Yet I wonder if the Bruins have to play Arizona for a third time, will UCLA lose a possible top seed as a result of a loss?

There were many upsets this last weekend of the regular season. Kansas actually lost and still managed to stay in the top four of the AP Top 25.  Number one Houston won at Memphis on a buzzer beater. Alabama faltered with a loss at Texas A&M—the Aggies rose from #24 to #18 with that win. Baylor went down three spots to #10 with a loss to Iowa State. Yet St. Mary’s advanced from #17 to #16 with a loss at #9 Gonzaga. 

Expect plenty of carnage this week. I will hold off on my Final Four picks until I see the brackets. Of course, I will let you know my wife’s picks, because she apparently is the current expert in this household. 

Troubling news came from the NBA, college basketball and college football. Memphis star Ja Morant was seen flashing a gun at a night club in the Denver area. As a result of his indiscretion, Morant has separated himself from the team for an undetermined time. Police are investigating and charges are possible—even in an open carry state like Colorado. This was not the first time that Morant had flashed a gun nor been in trouble with the law, reports stated. 

Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter was involved in an auto accident which took the lives of two others. The allegations of drag racing, which resulted in criminal complaints and a brief trip to the jail before Carter was released, did not deter him from returning to the NFL combine in Indianapolis.

Texas Tech’s men’s basketball coach was suspended by the school for using racially insensitive language to his team. His apologies immediately afterwards weren’t good enough. He claimed he was citing the Bible to make a point. Nor were the statements from Davis and the need for Morant to distance himself from the NBA to seek “help”.

All this comes on the heels of Brandon Miler, the star Alabama basketball player, who allegedly supplied a gun which was used by teammate Darius Miller in a homicide. Miller was not too contrite when he faked a pat down search after the news broke about his supposed involvement. At least Alabama got it right by dropping Miles from this team—one which many believe can win it all. They fumbled the pat down situation. 

Everyone is presumed to be innocent. This is sacrosanct in the legal system. But in the court of public opinion, each of these incidents received scathing condemnation. 

Certainly time and circumstance dictate how an individual responds to negative stimuli. What was absence was the NBA, NFL, the colleges or even the SEC keeping these individuals from participating in their sports. 

I will not guess how these transgressions will turn out. I will say that these individuals definitely placed themselves in jeopardy by their own actions. 

If Ray Rice and Colin Kaepernick are examples of punishment by the NFL, Davis might be sitting out some time in the future and his high draft stock may have taken a serious hit. 

What will happen with Morant? The NBA should have zero tolerance for guns. Period. Not to worry. Nike and Gatorade still support him—they have lots of money invested in his brand. Which we might be seeing isn’t too good. 

Texas Tech suspended Mark Adams for his insensitivity and the school is investigating if Adams allegedly spit on a player earlier in the season. Hopefully they will educate him in the use of the Bible as a teaching guide for college players. 

For all the good inherent in sports, these types of incidents give the teams, conferences and leagues image problems. Maybe they need to be more proactive with discipline. Wouldn’t that be a good teachable moment?

I leave you with this: the most exciting players in sports right now are Connor McDavid on the Edmonton Oilers and Caitlin Clark, the star of the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team.

McDavid has crossed the 100 points mark already and has scored 50 goals. He is the runaway M.V.P. in my mind. He reminds me a bit of a cross between Sidney Crosby, the star of the Pittsburgh Penguins, in his prime, and the Great One—Wayne Gretzky. High praise indeed.

Clark has almost single-handedly led Iowa to the Big Ten championship with a triple double in the finals. Iowa is now #2, behind the dynamo known as South Carolina. Keep your eyes and ears on how this might become a great championship game in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. She might be the next Diana Taurasi or Sue Bird. 

Baseball is less than four weeks away from the start of the regular season. Cold weather is predicted for the next couple of weeks. I am really looking forward to those frigid nights in April and seeing how the pitchers will react to the pitch clock. 

With so many sporting events televised to distract us, isn’t it just easier to find a good book or watch Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick than to see the reality of life unfolding? You be the judge (not Aaron).

Then again, let the (March) madness continue. 

Am I Asking Too Much?

  It was a tantalizing sports week for me. Plenty of college hoops, some hockey and, oh yeah, some NBA basketball, too. I’m not into exhibition baseball, so that was a no no. And in the end, I came away satisfied on Sunday with Rutgers, Golden State and UCLA, my favorite in the NCAA Tournament, all winning. 

In the past week, the college basketball landscape became more defined. The Who’s Who of the collegiate ranks asserted themselves, narrowing the pool of wannabes for an NCAA Tournament invite. There were buzzer beaters galore. Enormous comebacks by Iowa and Rutgers to win seemingly unwinnable games. Kentucky is on a roll as March approaches. North Carolina won a critical game over #6 Virginia at home, but can they sustain this sudden momentum? 

The UConn Women are tumbling. St.John’s actually defeated the Huskies in Hartford. Geno Auriemma’s team has fallen back to the pack. After all these years of unparalleled success. 

Damien Lillard turned the NBA upside down with a scintillating 71 point outburst against the lowly Houston Rockets. The Lakers in desperate need of wins to make the post-season, came from 25 down to top Dallas. 

Most impressive was the 176-175 2OT win by the Sacramento Kings in Los Angeles versus the Clippers. Sacramento is third in the West and nobody has taken much interest in them. Maybe it’s time to look at the Kings for real. 

The New Jersey Devils won in a 7-0 rout of Philadelphia on a night the team honored the 2003 Stanley Cup champs. Then, possibly overpaying, the Devils acquired free agent Swiss sniper Timo Meier from San Jose. 

It makes the team better with this trade. It does not get them any closer to Boston, which keeps on winning at a record pace. The Bruins have an astounding 95 points in 58 games, with only Carolina being near enough to them—and that’s 9 points behind Boston.

My week began with Franklin and Marshall, my alma mater, and the sixth seed in the Centennial Conference Men’s Basketball Championships, traveling down U.S. 30 to take on the #3 seeded Gettysburg Bullets. The Bullets shot out to a double digit lead, padding it to 20 points at the half. The Diplomats could not make a three pointer, going 1-11 in the first stanza. The final was 71-51. 

Gettysburg would be dismantled by Swarthmore, the #2 seed, while #4 seed Muhlenberg, an easy winner over #5 Ursinus, last to top-seeded Johns Hopkins. In the final, Swarthmore overcame a 16 point deficit to win over Hopkins on the Blue Jays floor. The Garnet get the automatic bid; JHU will almost surely have an at-large bid to the DIII Tournament. 

I have to rant a bit. Perhaps I am a bit spoiled, too. F&M has had an almost unparalleled history in DIII men’s basketball, well, since right after I graduated in 1972. That’s because Glenn Robinson, a West Chester grad who played both baseball and basketball for the Rams, graduated from freshman coach and phys ed instructor to become the head coach for the Diplomats basketball team. 

Robinson compiled a career that most coaches would want, except for one thing—he never won a National Championship. Two trips to the finals and his teams came away with loss. 

That does not diminish what he achieved while leading the Diplomats. How about a 967-360 overall record? 45-28 in the NCAA’s. A 19-9 mark in the Centennial Conference tournament, with a record 12 titles. Plus. 22-7 record while F&M competed in the Middle Atlantic Conference, with 9 titles. 

Twenty-three appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Sixteen times in the Sweet 16. Ten appearances in the Elite Eight, including five Final Fours. He has been named Coach of the Year so many times. And his graduation record is astounding—all but three of his players failed to graduate. Plus one of his best players is presently the Head Coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA. Why the all-time winningest coach in NCAA DIII history is not enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame boggles my mind. 

Robinson assistant Nick Nichay took over the reins when Robinson retired. His record this season was 12-14, with a career total of 32-43. Swarthmore and Hopkins have taken over dominating the conference. F&M is almost an afterthought, eking its way into the tournament because the team had defeated Haverford twice, which was the tie-breaker. 

In his third season, Robinson finally had the moribund Diplomats playing over .500 ball. From there, he built a dynasty. 

I am a die hard F&M fan. I root hard for the teams to succeed. It rankles me when NESCAC schools, very academic and revered colleges like Amherst, Williams and Middlebury regularly do better than F&M. More so, like my good friend and college roommate in Maryland, we cannot fathom the seemingly unending success by Johns Hopkins—even knowing that the highly successful Men’s and Women’s lacrosse programs at the DI level help fund the remaining sports at a level that no other Centennial Conference school can. F&M, once a pretty good wrestling school, no longer wrestles with, let alone competes comparably with the elite teams in the East.

Entering the 2022-23 campaign, the F&M Athletics website boasts of 4 National Championships, 147 conference titles and 534 All-Americans in 145 years of intercollegiate athletics. Fairly good statistics if you take those numbers at face value. 

Yet football, basketball and baseball have never won National championships. Women’s lacrosse has two titles (2007 & 2009)—which of course is fine. The others went to women’s cross country (1985) and men’s soccer (1952).

The facilities have undergone some distinct upgrades. Every outdoor sport plays in a newer facility except baseball and softball. The teams which use the Alumni Sports and Fitness Center thrive in a great, modern environment. However, Mayser Center is old, home to the basketball, wrestling and volleyball teams, and the look of newer bleachers doesn’t give the air of a thriving new athletic building. 

I get it that gifts make things different. My baseball teammate, Larry Shadek, also a quarterback during his days in Lancaster, gave so generously that there is a great new football stadium, with lights, also used by the lacrosse teams, too. I ask, to no one particular—when will F&M build a more modern indoor facility which will obviously help with recruiting? Ditto with baseball and softball—it was eye-opening to see the facilities at Kean University, part of the New Jersey college system. You wonder where that tuition, the second highest among U.S colleges, according to U.S. News and World Report, is going?

Right now, the football program is rebuilding under a new coach hired from the top tier program at Williams. Baseball was projected to be the Centennial Conference champs for 2023, and it is early, so one can discount the 1-4 record against better competition which played outside before the Diplomats practiced in the Lancaster air. 

After wrestling, football was always tops at F&M. It wasn’t too good during my middle two years there—Coach Dave Pooley was tough but his teams weren’t as tough—but won the MAC Southern Division in 1968 and 1971.  

However, with the legacy of Coach Robinson and his aura still fresh, Nachay and his teams have struggled mightily. The trouncing by Gettysburg must be a low water mark for this new era of F&M  basketball. The teams aren’t on the level that I watched while on campus—two 4-16 years and one 3-17 season under Chuck Taylor, who became the Head Trainer when Robinson took over. And Robinson’s first season was an improvement—7-14—but left my four years at F&M with a combined 18-63. Which is why my tolerance for this backwards movement of F&M hoops is wearing thin. 

In no way am I calling for Nachay to be fired. But this centerpiece of men’s programs for years—from 1971 to 2019—needs to show improvement or the Nachay tenure might not be anywhere as long as the Robinson era. 

I want to see F&M winning again. Downing the Blue Jays and Garnet repeatedly. Having enough successes that will get them back to the NCAA’s besides in lacrosse, golf and soccer. 

Am I asking too much? 

That's Baseball In February For You

  I am flying solo this week. My trusted editor has abandoned her retirement pursuit for the life of leisure, for at least one week, at her near-beachfront manor in a southern state. I hope she comes back well-rested for the final basketball push and the NCAA’s. As well as what mistake the Jets might make mortgaging the future should they sign Aaron Rodgers or make an equally dumb move inking Derek Carr, formerly of the Las Vegas Raiders. Moreover, the NBA picks up again for its stretch drive after the All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. And hockey is pushing towards its playoffs, with its trade deadline fast approaching and the Devils and Rangers perhaps heading to a first round playoff series. For the record, Spring training games begin on Friday. 

So I forge ahead blindly in my prose, subject to run on sentences and bad grammar. Syntax is everything, I hear. I digress, with my sincere apologies.

Rutgers men’s basketball team came alive—just enough to beat a subpar Wisconsin squad at the Kohl Center in Madison. Defensive POY Caleb Mc Connell was a last minute scratch due to back spams, leaving the Scarlet Knights very vulnerable, already shorthanded with the lost of Mawot Mag.

Up stepped two players. Cam Spencer, the Loyola (MD) transfer, who burst onto the scene with his three point shooting, which included the dagger three pointer at then #! Purdue, broke out of a prolonged shooting slump to lead the Knights in the first half. One knew it was his day when Spencer sank the first three pointers he took, overcoming a 7-2 start by the Badgers to a give RU a 11-7 lead. 

The game was a ragged affair. Late in the second half, Rutgers lost a five point lead and trailed 57-54. Andre Hyatt, another transfer, rose to the occasion. So did Omoruryi, Rutgers’ fine young center—he blocked a last ditch Wisconsin shot to save the 57-56 victory.

This win was key to any chance Rutgers has to make the NCAA Tournament. It stopped a three game losing streak. Next is Michigan, which dispatched Michigan State at home on Saturday night in an emotional affair—it was the Spartans first game after the tragic shooting on the MSU campus. Rutgers has only beaten the Wolverines once in 11 times in Big Ten play. It will be the annul Blackout game—the crowd will be dark and loud. 

Rutgers has two road games after the Michigan game. First is Penn State, a team the Knights routed in January. The Nittany Lions are a possible NCAA pick, which will make this contest much more difficult than the first meeting, a rout in favor of Rutgers. 

Then there is last place Minnesota. Talk about a must win. Lose that and the team’s resume is much more bleak. As would be their chances to get into the Big Dance. 

The final game is a home contest with Northwestern. Maybe the hottest team in the Big 

Ten right now. The Wildcats are 20-7 and ranked for the first time, holding the number 22 spot. Having to win that or a Big Ten tournament game or two to secure an NCAA bid might be too much. Which is why RU needs to take care of business, starting on Thursday night.

The AP Top 25 poll has Houston once more at no. 1, after now no. 2 Alabama suffered a loss to no. 11 Tennessee. The Cougars are 25-2 and are a legit national title contender. I cannot really discount any of the top eight teams—Houston, Alabama, Kansas, UCLA, Purdue, Virginia or Arizona—to make the Final Four. And it would not surprise me if a Big 12 school besides Kansas gets hot in March. With no clear cut favorite, March Madness is going to be that. 

Division III basketball is playing conference tournaments this week. The NESCAC played its opening round games this past weekend and while top seeds Williams and Hamilton both won, #6 Colby defeated #3 Wesleyan in OT and #5 Tufts had to go two overtimes to down #4 Middlebury.  The Ephs hosts the White Mules and the Jumbos and Continentals meet for the right to win the NESCAC crown. Gotta love those nicknames. 

F&M, almost counted out for any chance to make the top six in the Centennial Conference Men’s playoffs, downed Dickinson and Mc Daniel on the road to land in the #3-#6 game at Gettysburg on Tuesday. Maybe the Diplomats can stun the Bullets. Ursinus and Muhlenberg clash in the other opening round matchup. Top-seed Johns Hopkins awaits the winner of the #3-#6 battle, since the Swarthmore Garnet lost to Gettysburg on Saturday, gift-wrapping the regular season hoops title for the Blue Jays, who will host the semi-finals. 

With all this basketball, what did I do on Saturday afternoon? I spent six hours at Kean University in the 42 degree cold and slight wind, watching my Franklin and Marshall Diplomats baseball team meet the Cougars in a doubleheader. 

Wearing my newly-acquired F&M team cap, courtesy of Coach Ryan Horning, who promised the hat to me in October when we and two teammates lunched in the shadow of the campus, I was ready to go. Except I wondered how I might have played the game as I watched it unfold. 

Kean has a beautiful turf field—that would have been the first one I would have played on, since Astro Turf was a new thing in my collegiate years. Plus they had lights, which went on in the second game around the 5th inning. That would have been another first for my career. 

The sun went from behind left field to beyond the stands in right field. That is different from most fields, where the sun is in play. Yet it caused the pitcher to flinch when his F&M teammate tossed the ball lightly after recording an out at first base. 

The speed of the pitches looked to be a bit faster than when I played. Also, the Kean pitchers thrived on throwing off speed balls, which threw off the F&M hitters, who struck out 26 times in the two games. I saw players swinging at balls landing way in front of the plate or far outside of the strike zone—if not taking strike three looking. 

When the batters made contact, the hits rarely went beyond the infield. In Game 1, there was only two extra-base hits. Fly balls and even long pop ups were an adventure—the Kean right fielder had trouble with a medium fly ball, dropping it for an error. I can relate to that, having done the same against Muhlenberg in 1970 on a towering fly to right field on the then-F&M diamond. It was my lone error in college and it landed me back on the bench. 

Kean had played four game prior to meeting F&M, sporting a 3-1 record. It showed versus the F&M hitters, who were facing their first live pitching. Plus the overall defense was spotty at times—the Diplomats made four errors in the Game 1 7-1 loss. And five Kean batters were hit by pitches. While I grimaced, it sort of reminded me of how bad our 1970 team was—- where a 5’5” kid for Highland Park who hadn’t played high school ball (that would have looked good on the roster web page) managed to become a starter and somehow get six singles in 29 at bats while fanning just once. My average was among the better ones. 

I also felt the frustration in Game 2, where the Kean pitcher went the distance to shut out the Diplomats 1-0. We were shut out 4-0 in a second game at home against Moravian, after we managed to win the opener 4-3 and I had two hits. In that second game, I was on deck with the bases loaded and none out, only to watch a triple play unfold—the only one I have ever seen live. And I singled in my next at bat. 

That doubleheader-the first one I ever played in—was tiring and long. We went seven innings each game and now the teams play two nine innings games. Plus the families collectively bring food for the plates to eat between games—I might have thrown up if I had eaten the nice-smelling sandwiches with Boar’s Head wrappers which sat behind me in the stands. 

The umpiring was questionable. The home plate umpire didn’t like the heckling from the F&M partisans, so he had a father tossed from the stands. Coach Horning more than once had loud conversation with the umpire, as he picked on some of the F&M players for things only he perceived they had done. 

Despite the twin losses, F&M will get better. Picked in the pre-season to win the conference, they may have met a perfect storm to open the season. Our first DH in 1970 against Scranton was cancelled due to snow. That was in March. Plus the weather at St Joseph’s, where we opened the season, was akin to what the conditions were on Saturday. I collected my first hit, as a pinch hitter, with the ball hitting the netting in left field. Stunned that I hit a pitch against a school which played in the Middle Atlantic University Division, I stood watching and only reached first base. We lost 11-4, en route to a 4-12 record.  

Wearing that hat and watching the game from up close in the first row—I actually had a foul ball roll to me as it seeped through the protective netting (you cannot keep the NCAA ball at this level)—I now feel a part of this team. I hope they do better than we did. Or, being superstitious like baseball players are, a losing record will be on me. Because I don’t think I would have done any better than my new “teammates.”

It was a fun day of memories and new adventures. That's baseball in February for you. 

A Tour De Force

I have been replaying in my cluttered mind how to write this week’s blog. I have gone through  many scenarios that were worthy to draft. By no means have I settled on a format which is going to be perfect. So here goes. 

Let’s start with Lebron James, who was sitting in a box with his wife, inside State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona to watch the Super Bowl. The day before, he was in San Francisco, on the sidelines, where he caused a young girl to gush on national TV because she was sitting next to Lebron James!

That girl had thought out a scenario where James would break the all-time points total held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that night at the Chase Center against Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and the defending World Champion Golden State Warriors. What a place to be—courtside when the record was broken. Curry was out with his leg injury and James was in civilian clothes, having hurt his toe. 

Alas, the girl and her brother posed for selfies with King James.  Notwithstanding that James had ended his pursuit of the record with a fade away jump shot in a Lakers loss at home to Oklahoma City. The game stopped momentarily for him to hug with Abdul-Jabbar,  a cordial greeting considering that James and Kareem didn’t have the best relationship prior to this. 

This reignited the debate about who is the G.O.A.T. in professional basketball. Is it Lebron or Michael Jordan? Compelling arguments can be made for each using the numbers. 

I am not going to do that. When people clamor about how Jordan has won more championships than James—they are correct. Then again, the legendary Bill Russell nearly doubled the number that Jordan won. For that matter, Robert a.k.a. “Big Shot Bob” Horry won 7 rings with Houston, the Lakers and San Antonio. 

What stood out to me are two things. First, in collecting his points, Abdul-Jabbar swished exactly one three point shot. Lebron has made 2,237 from beyond the arc. This is what allowed him to pass Kareem in many fewer years. 

Secondly, in the Jordan era, he was the marquee player. Not Reggie Miller. Not Isaiah Thomas. Nor Patrick Ewing. Bird and Magic were on the back side of their careers. 

In this so-called James era, he is not the top draw. I don’t know that fans flock to see the Lakers play just to see James. I do know that fans flock to see the Warriors play because of the three-point magic and ball-handling wizardry of Curry. In fact, I believe that James is as much of a draw as Kevin Durant who, as of last week, left the Brooklyn Nets for Phoenix in the wake of co-complainer Kyrie Irving, who was dealt to Dallas, where he is sure to sow the seeds of misery once more. 

Lebron James is a great player. He will set the record for points scored that may be untouchable. His teams might garner championships once more. Then again, Michael Jordan decided to go play baseball for a couple of years in his prime, so we can all speculate how many more trophies he might have hoisted and how many more points he might have scored. 

Let me touch on college basketball. What is becoming abundantly clear is that there is no dominant team. Those enthralled with Purdue saw the Boilermakers fall to their third defeat at the hands of a very good Northwestern Wildcats team which is destined to play in the Big Dance. 

And I will repeat myself. The Big Ten is overrated. Rutgers, once the darling of the media and thought to be a challenger to Purdue, has sunk to an 8-6 record in the conference, placing the team seventh. With an upcoming schedule and a rash of injuries and bad play, the Scarlet Knights could easily find themselves in ninth place, hoping that they can play their way into the NCAA Tournament. 

Alabama won a tough road game at Auburn. They are pretty solid, but I think this is a down year for the SEC. Surging Arizona lost—are they the best in the Pac 12? North Carolina played one of its best games of the season in routing a highly touted Clemson squad. Could the Tar Heels manage to start playing up to their pre-season potential? Seemingly everyone wins and loses at the top of the Big 12. 

We are less than four weeks away from Selection Sunday. There is a lot of sorting out which will occur before the teams are announced. Even then, we might not have a clearer picture of who really is a favorite to win it all. 

I want to quickly remark on Texas and Oklahoma paying $100 million to leave the Big 12 early and join the SEC in 2024. This is really money for the Big 12 to spend on getting new members and to assuage FOX Sports on losing a year of the Longhorns and Sooners on their channels. It will be a nice farewell tour for these behemoths. It will also begin anew the sport of poaching schools from one conference to another. Just a year earlier. 

We have concluded Super Bowl Sunday, the unofficial national holiday which combines commerce, sports and entertainment in one giant television extravaganza which stretched over nine hours. Much was said about Rihanna, from how great her singing sounded and her fearlessness while suspended off of the floor of the stadium, to one critic likening her enthusiasm to that of a sales clerk at a local store. 

Of course, the media rated the commercials. For big bucks stars attempted to hock the wares of many companies. Please, somebody tell me what Maya Rudolph really was trying to do with her M&M commercial?

In the end, there was a football game. As there always is. This was one of the rare occasions where the two best teams during the course of the regular season managed to square off for supremacy. 

Forget all the subplots of the Kelce brothers, Nick Siriani (who cried during the National Anthem) versus KC’s Andy Reid, the all-time wins leader for the Eagles. Those ultimately didn’t matter.

This was a great football game. Filled with tension, and not determined until the final seconds. Too bad it was played on a field that was better suited for golf, which was its main purpose when the grass was developed at Oklahoma State. The NFL spent $800,000  for the turf that would resist both the game and the halftime spectacle. They failed miserably. 

What we saw were two magnificent teams, led by two incredible quarterbacks. 

The play-calling was outstanding. Against two legitimately good defenses. 

Both Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes were surreal. Hurts scored three TD’s and threw for one. Mahomes rebounded from another apparent injury to his right ankle at the end of the first half to take the Chiefs to an improbable comeback victory over an excellent Philadelphia Eagles defense. 

This was a game where each punch was countered with another punch in the second half. It was obvious as time started to ebb that the team which had the ball last was likely to win if the game did not head to overtime. That team was Kansas City, behind the arm and legs of Mahomes. 

I know that Eagles fans are up in arms about the pass interference call on James Bradberry when he held the jersey of KC’s JuJu Smith-Schuster. Despite the tons of critics, including FOX’s Greg Olsen, who did a credible job along with co-NewJerseyan Kevin Burkhardt—they go way back to when Burkhardt covered Olsen’s Wayne Hills High School games for local radio—clamoring that the ref should have eaten the whistle, it was a gutsy and correct call by the official. Which was backed up by Bradberry’s admission that he held the jersey and got caught.

That’s the way games sometimes end. Even the titanic ones. By the whistle of an official, or a reversal on replay. 

Somebody had to win. This time it was the Chiefs. Maybe the next time it will be the Eagles. Mahomes is an elite QB, one who is starting to elicit way-too-soon comparisons with G.O,A.T. Tom Brady.  Hurts has poise and confidence which is unreal. Combined with the talents of Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, Buffalo’s Josh Allen and the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, the NFL has plenty of young future star power at the quarterback position. (Note to the Jets—stay away from Aaron Rodgers—please!!)

What a way to end a week of sports. With a tour de force.