Category Archives: NCAA Basketball

Pretty Sure I was Right

How about that

How about that

Not that this is some sort of conclusion that results in me being right about this, I am going to go with a lot of evidence is pointing that way.

Every post on Instagram from my original post linked above as well as the tweets they came rolling in on have been deleted by our esteemed, upstanding pornographic movie star.

In the meantime, check out my book marks – I got some good ones up there.  I highly recommend The Verge.

Hrm.

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Pretty Sure Siva Isn’t Hitting Up Porn Stars

This is a lesson in how to fake a celebrity texting/tweeting at you.  Warning, some of the links here are quasi #NSFW, depending on where it is you work I guess.

After the National Title game tonight, a porn star named Jenna Shea (apparently she hasn’t gotten around to launching her website) started tweeting out how Peyton Siva was hitting her up via text, saying how he wanted her & things of that nature.  You can see the twitter posts here, which are screen shots from her Android phone (gross) which she posted to Instagram (key for later)

So naturally, as most would – I clicked to links to see what he had allegedly said to her.

The first thing that threw me off on this is that Peyton (at least in his media side) is very devout and always talks about his girlfriend.  Could that be just a media persona?  Sure.  I am just speculating really based on what has been published and what is going on up here.

But a lot of this really doesn’t add up.

  • First off – the contact name and phone number.

The first thing I checked was the area code, which yes – that is a Louisville area code.  That would seem to be pretty straight forward.  However, I have had my phone since high school and I haven’t changed my area code to 206, as I stay loyal to the 253.  That aside (who knows, he could have changed it) it is ridiculously easy to just change a contact name to what you need it to be for screen shot purposes.

For example:

Apparently Peyton Siva hit me up tonight too.

Apparently Peyton Siva hit me up tonight too.

I added the hearts for effect, but you really can change anyone’s name here to what you want it to be and just have that person text you.  I did this from my wife’s phone (I changed her name back, but I thought about leaving it as Peypey <3 <3 to mess with people)

  • The pictures & the convo

Considering Peyton is a heavy user of Instagram and also a super popular athlete, I decided to give the old Google Search a try with “Peyton Siva Shirt Off”.  Here are the results if you don’t want to do it yourself.

Interesting, one of these photos looks pretty familiar

Interesting, one of these photos looks pretty familiar

Unless Siva’s camera roll on his phone just happens to be something that is near the top of Google Image searches of him, something tells me that this photo is on the internet somewhere, and lo and behold, it is in 2 places.

First off, and the one I am going to go with where she didn’t find this image (but looks like there are plenty others if she wants to continue to extort college seniors) is here on KSRcollege.com (wut) and then the most probable and obvious place she would find Peyton Siva selfies…his own Instagram.

So there's that

So there’s that

The image that took me a little longer to find was the one of him heavily filtered, hunched over showing off that six-pack.  I had to dig through the depths of his Instagram, but I found that one too.

He also is a selective cropper

He also is a selective cropper

He clearly didn’t want that pr0n star going after the wrong dude, so he made a few edits.  Also, again – pretty easy to edit around on a phone (hell, a crop tool is built into iOS, and while I haven’t used Android in a while, I am going to bet large sums of money that it either exists or you can get an app to crop) to make this what you need it to be for a little attention-grabbing spotlight.

So with all of that being said, check out what Peyton sent to me tonight!  This scoundrel!

I went Lennay on him

I went Lennay on him

I snagged another selfie that Jenna didn’t choose and decided to send that to myself.   Either way, there are some things I can’t straight away explain (the phone number, it is a Louisville area code, but with Google Voice, I could have an area code of pretty much any place I wanted, again, NOT HARD) and the times the texts were sent.

A few of them would coincide with times he would have been on the court cutting down the nets tonight, but it is just as probable that these texts weren’t sent today or tonight.  I did some quick research on the Galaxy S3′s text window if it displays back dates like iOS does when you look at older convos (it will time stamp with the date as well) but I really didn’t want to get that deep into it, because I think what I got so far makes it pretty obviously fake.

So Peyton, I don’t know if it is even worth addressing, but you might want to make your social media accounts private.

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The Real Reason Mike Rice Got Fired

Angry Mike Rice

Man, poop has hit the fan in Piscataway, New Jersey. Head basketball coach, Mike Rice, took his coaching a little to serious and his actions reached the “inappropriate” level (here is the video). Did you watch the video? Good, I don’t want to explain what he did. I want to get into the real reason he was fired. It is really simple math. Here are the numbers .463 and zero. That is his win percentage and a zero representing many things: winning seasons at Rutgers, national titles and NCAA tournament appearances. Those numbers are the real reason Rice got the axe.

We have seen a coach go about things very similarly and he got to keep his job. I am sure you all remember some guy named Bobby Knight. His numbers are a little better. Just looking at his time at Indiana, he had a .731 win percentage, three national titles. The only zero he had was the losses his team had in 1975-76. Yes, Knight eventually got canned, but it wasn’t the chair throwing, the player choking, the fan pushing, the cop punching, the lack of sensitivity toward rape, the cussing at Big Ten commissioners, the shooting of hunting partners or the grabbing of students. It was the losing.

Bobby Knight had quite a few more incidents over a longer period of time and got to keep his job. Why? It’s simple, he won. Winning cures all problems. Mike Rice no longer has a job, because he didn’t win. Losing creates problems that may not even exist, so when the problem does exist, it makes it exponentially worse. The point is when you win, you can get away with murder. My suggestion to everyone is just win a bunch and then go crazy. You’ve earned it!

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Irrational Zags Fans: YOU MAD

Zag meme

I heard a lot of chatter from the irrational Gonzaga fans before the NCAA tournament that Mike Hart and the #1 ranked Bulldogs were going to have no problem running through The Big Dance. There was the non-stop “Mike Hart has so much hustle!” or the “Long hair don’t care, Kelly Olynyk can’t be stopped!” Saying a guy has a lot of hustle without mentioning any other part of his game is the same as saying an ugly person is nice (trust me I know, I am really nice). Good players don’t get mentioned with the word hustle, because it goes without saying. All of this, of course, was based on the Zags wrecking the WCC. I know, I know, the WCC is terrible but Gonzaga fans were serious with the WCC talk. I am not even going to get back into how terrible that conference was.

The wheels almost came off in the first game against Southern. As RJ stated in the previous post, that game didn’t have any affect on the next game, which is true. It was merely just a sign of what was to come. Southern exposed Gonzaga for what they were, which is a below the rim team who relied too much on jumpers. That works fine against the crappy WCC, but it doesn’t work against the best teams in the nation. Wichita State put the nails in the coffin on a familiar sight for Gonzaga, putting the Bulldogs out in the Round of 32.

Now that we have seen Gonzaga go do the same ol’, same ol’ in the tourney, all you irrational Zag fans can zip it up with all the “we deserve to be #1″ talk, forever. Gonzaga is a very successful program and what has happened in Spokane fan should be proud of. However, they are only the best of the second tier. Your blind fandom as irrational fans makes for a great atmosphere in The Kennel, but makes it impossible to tell you about the flaws of your team. No matter how many times you were told your team lacks depth, back-court size, they hadn’t played a decent team in almost three months, or the lack of athleticism, you wouldn’t listen to the rational folks of the world. Maybe, you will start to listen after another bad showing on the big boys’ stage.

Irrational Zag fan you have once again been humbled by the poor play of your team against tournament teams. I have used my “Jump to Conclusions” mat to notice that your lack of Facebook, Twitter, texts and other social media mean…

Camron-You-Mad

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Is Gonzaga in Trouble?

Hold on to 'em tight!

Hold on to ‘em tight!

Dick Vitale was quoted yesterday to say Gonzaga would lose their next game against Wichita State, given their poor performance against Southern.

Do I agree with Dicky V.?

The short answer is a resounding “NO!”  The long answer is a bit more complicated than that…

Here’s a quick history lesson.  In 1989, #1 seed Georgetown beat Princeton by 1, 50-49.  They went on to win their next game by 13.  In the same year, #1 seed Oklahoma beat East Tennessee St. by 1, 72-71.  They won their next game by 43, 124-81.

Yes, Gonzaga’s win against Southern was the smallest margin of victory for a #1 seed since 1996.  And the game was tied with less than four minutes to play.  That’s why they play 40 minutes, not 36.

In 1982, #1 seed North Carolina beat #9 seed James Madison 52-50 in the second round.  NC went on to beat Alabama, Villanova, Houston, and Georgetown to win the tournament.

In 1983, NC State won 5 of their 6 games by a total margin of 13 points (two games by one, two games by two, and one game by seven…they beat Utah by 19 in the Sweet Sixteen) and went on to win the tournament.

In 1993, eventual runners-up, #1 seed Michigan, beat UCLA by only two in the second round.

I could keep listing situations where teams who eventually won (or went to the Championship Game) had a close-call with a team they should beat.  It happens almost every year, and that’s what we all love about the NCAA Tournament.  Every game is a new game, especially in the NCAA Tournament.

The Zags could absolutely lose their game against Wichita State on Saturday.  But it won’t be because of their performance against Southern. It won’t be because Elias Harris went 2-10 a day ago.  It won’t be because Southern had eight blocks while Gonzaga had zero.  It will be because Wichita State outplays them (more specifically, out-rebounds them).

Gonzaga also has a blessing disguised as a curse.  They can compete with anyone.  In turn, that also means anyone  can compete with Gonzaga.  And though they won 31 games this season, there were a few close calls with teams who had no business competing with a #1 seed in the Tournament (i.e. San Diego).

Hold on to your butts, Zags fans.  Your team is bound to put a few more gray hairs on your noggin before the end of this tournament.

*As I write this, I realize the #3, #4, and #5 seed in the West Region have been knocked out in the Round of 64 (first time EVER that has happened in the same region)…clearing the way for Gonzaga, perhaps?*

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Mike Krzyzewski: YOU MAD

Coach K

Just for the record it was almost 33 years ago.

 

Last week, the Duke Blue Devils took a loss to the unranked Virginia Cavaliers at John Paul Jones Arena. The game was an exciting and close game which ended in a five point win for the “good guys.”  As soon as the final horn went off, the University of Virginia students rushed the court. Which, in my opinion, happens a little to frequently for my liking and I am 100% against rushing when it isn’t a major upset. However, this was an unranked Virginia team against the number three team in the country. I can see a cause for a ruckus after a win like that. This isn’t two unranked teams who just happen to be playing their rivalry game. This is a pretty good upset, one that warrants an court storming. Well, when Coach K got to the press conference, he wasn’t too happy with how the whole thing went down.

Here is a video of the least crazy floor rushing I have ever seen.

After that mild mannered court rushing, the winningest college basketball coach of all time expressed his views on fans rushing the floor. He spouted off a bunch of hypotheticals about player, coach and fan safety. Now I am paraphrasing here, but it went a little something like this: What if a player punches a fan? What if a fan gets in a players face? What if the coaches get into it with a spectator? Ok, we get it Coach. Crazy things can happen. How often have they happened in the past, Coach? Looking at the video above, as well as a few others, the security staff did a very good job of blocking you and your players from any fan interaction. Not only did they do a good job, it looks like all those fans avoided anyone associated with your program. Pretty sure Cavalier fans were as classy as you can be rushing the court in the faces of your opponent.

Coach K you just lost to a kid that played in one of the lowest levels of high school basketball in the state of Washington. Face it Mike, you just don’t like losing. When you get up on the microphone next time, just tell the truth….

Camron-You-Mad

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Gonzaga Will Be Ranked #1 in the Nation

Looks like they knew all along!

Looks like they knew all along!

If you missed all the college basketball going on this week thus far, you really missed out.

Three of the top four teams lost, including #1 ranked Indiana (Lost to Minnesota) and #3 ranked Duke (lost to Virginia). It also includes #4 ranked Michigan, who lost to Penn State.  For the record, that is Penn State’s ONLY Big Ten Conference win thus far.

Something you might notice is #2 ranked Gonzaga is not in the group I listed above.  On Thursday night, they were able to go into Provo, UT on Senior night, in front of nearly 20,000 fans and pull off a 70-65 victory over an inspired BYU team (isn’t every team inspired to beat Gonzaga though?).

Thanks to 19 points from the (you heard it here first) All-American, Kelly Olynyk, and 15 from Gary Bell Jr., the Zags held off a late-game surge by the Cougars to preserve their unblemished Conference record.

With these losses by Indiana, Duke, and Michigan, and assuming the Zags can beat Portland (11-19, 4-11 WCC) there is very little chance that any team will jump Gonzaga for the top ranking in the land.  And as much as I dislike being the contrarian to my esteemed “colleague,” it is Gonzaga’s time.

One might be able to make a case that Gonzaga’s strength of schedule (SOS) is not that of Indiana or Michigan, and it shows in Joe Lunardi’s “Braketology.” Gonzaga’s SOS is 75, while Indiana’s is 24 and Michigan’s is 55.  However, that’s why the Hoosiers and Wolverines, alike, can have twice as many losses and still be ranked above the Zags (before this week, at least).

The Zags have lost two games this year – an early season matchup against Illinois, and a buzzer-beater to Butler in Indianapolis.  Both of those teams are in the top 50 RPI.  They’ve won EVERYTHING ELSE.  They crushed the likes of Oklahoma and Kansas State, they went to Stillwater and beat Oklahoma State, and they handled Saint Mary’s in both conference matchups (including a 17-point win in Moraga).  This year, Gonzaga has beaten their conference foes by an average of 19 points. 19 POINTS!

As the regular season comes to an end, it is no longer about SOS or RPI or BPI or even ranking.  It’s about who can win in the spotlight.  And quite frankly, Gonzaga can play with any team out there.

They have a big man in Olynyk who has outside touch.  Elias Harris is a guy who plays bigger than his 6’8” frame with a solid jump shot.  They have exceptional guards in Kevin Pangos, Bell Jr., and David Stockton.  They also have a number of guys in the bench who can contribute.

Sam Dower is a big man with inside finesse and the ability to knock down 20-footers.  They also have Drew Barham – a guy who shoots .468 from behind the arc.

Gonzaga also has Hart.  Sure they have “heart” as well, but the source of that heart is Mike Hart.  Hart is from Portland, OR and walked on in 2008.  He was not recruited by anyone.  Now, he starts for one of the top teams in the land.  A guy doesn’t get to where Hart is without unrelenting hustle and determination.  I invite anyone to watch a Gonzaga game and follow Mike Hart around the court.  I guarantee you’ll be tired just watching him.

It is now March, sports fans.  It is time for bets, brackets, and buzzer-beaters.  Who will be your pick to win it all?  My pick will most likely be a team who hails from Spokane, Washington.

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Gonzaga Won’t and Shouldn’t be #1

Adam_Morrison-floor1

By now, I am sure most of you have heard the Minnesota Golden Gophers beat the #1 Indiana Hoosiers, last night at Williams Arena in Minneapolis. This has fans in Spokane getting really excited at the chance at having that “#1″ next to Gonzaga in Monday’s rankings. I am here to tell you Gonzaga not only doesn’t deserve to have the top ranking, but they won’t be sitting on top come Monday.

Let’s first start with the last time Indiana lost as the top ranked team in the land. They lost at Illinois, 74-72  and won at Ohio State, 81-68, before the next poll came out. At the time they held 58 of the 65 first place Associated Press votes. After the loss, there was a four-way split for the first place votes between Indiana (26), Duke (20), Miami (17) and Gonzaga (2). This will most likely be the case again. With Indiana holding all but one (Gonzaga) of the AP first place votes in the current poll. The votes will again be split between multiple teams come Monday, which will likely include: Indiana, Continue reading

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The Magical IU to Notre Dame Jacket

Now that football is basically dead to me for the foreseeable future, I wanted to get to a post that has been a month in the making. Ok, maybe “dead to me” is a little dramatic, but that game this past weekend took what was once a fierce hangover to complete joy, back to a somewhat tempered hangover.  I would have preferred to not go back to the hangover but losing like that was soul crushing.  It moved from alchohol induced to just “icing the kicker” induced, and no – I am not talking about Smirnoff Ice.  That would have been preferred.

Plus, I feel like we have been tearing up the football beat when there are other good things just starting to get fired up, and that is collegiate basketball.

To throw another Tom Wilhelmsen curve at you, this isn’t a collegiate post about the Huskies fast start to Pac-12 play.  I am going to save that one for another time.  I can’t decide if they are quasi-real.

I wanted to touch on a tweet that NoFairWeatherFans.com fan (I looked at that a few times, I think that looks right), Brian Creighton, passed along to me that hits right at the core tenet of the name of this site.

Now, I thought the fair weather fan really was a PNW thing – the teams here generally aren’t that good, and when they are good, everyone comes out of the woodwork.  Every Seattleite has a Huskies hoodie from the 1991 Rose Bowl victory, a Refuse to Lose sign, one of those god-awful rust colored Sonics #20 jerseys, and now the Russell Wilson jerseys.  I accept Seattle for what it is.

But, this phenomenon has taken roots in the Midwest as well, in a phenomenon I thought, seriously, wasn’t real.  I had to double take at this photo a few times.

Hoosiers “fans” – for shame.  The description of this product just floors me.  This is a must-have?  I can think of at least one player that wouldn’t agree with that statement.

Antwaan Randle-El

“That jacket sucks” – Antwaan Randle-El

I think my favorite part of this piece of opinion editorial is that I have used Antwaan Randle El twice in the matter of a few months.  Name another blog that has done that! (Probably for good reason, but I think I am stumbling upon SEO gold here.)

I get IU football hasn’t been that good over the years.  Now, their futbol team is actually really good, but I don’t think anyone goes to college soccer games unless you live in Akron. In fact, the American Football version of the Hoosiers has been downright terrible.  According to Wikipedia (entire piece of work debunked using this as a source) the all time record for IU in football is 454–624–45 (.424).  Ouch.  This also included one year of Sam Wyche in 1983 (who coach the Bengals to some degree of success with Boomer Esiason) and a BUNCH of Lee Corso.  That last sentence really was the most painful to type.  He coached there from 1973 to 1982.  Take that to your local trivia game and clean house.

These numbers aren’t inspiring.  I can see why students wouldn’t be so excited for IU football.  But can you really claim a private Catholic school in Indiana as your football team when you don’t go there?  It isn’t even another state school or satellite campus.  At least then I could write about “Campus Confusion” (ask Ben) but that can’t be claimed here.  Do you think ND students claim IU as their basketball team?  I don’t know if that is the case.  If anything, I would adopt IU’s sweet basketball warmup pants, but that’s about it.

The Hoosiers warm up for a game

You can only rock those pants when you are amazing. They are, so there’s that.

Candy-striper pants aside, I have always dreamed about the player who rocks one jersey during a game and then flashes the other teams jersey when they do something like score on their own basket or take a safety on purpose.  That would be so incredibly awesome, I don’t think the 685 previous words could describe how great that would be.  There would be a real product opportunity (reversible jersey/jacket/hat/undershirt) as this player would be emblazoned in the halls of my personal sports glory forever.  But just a straight up reversible jacket catering to people that want their cake and eat it too?  Weak.

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Keep the Maui & Great Alaska Shootout, Dump the Rest

Empty Seats cheered for the Huskies Loss

An electric atmosphere at Mohegan Sun

Opening season tournaments are great ways for schedule challenged teams, like Washington, to get out on the road and face some top competition. This gives them hope to build their own personal resumes, as well as, the conference’s.

For Washington – and this is very apparent having watched Washington hoops over the past decade, is that they are a team who feeds off the crowd. They are a very, very tough home team – and the Huskies have traditionally used their crowd to start to build winning streaks and take down others in the PAC-12 who are national powers.

Give last years preseason tournament in MSG, and this year’s tournament at Mohegan Sun (seriously? A casino/WNBA arena?), these are tournaments that are harder for the Husky faithful to follow them and give them the energy that they need.

Against Ohio State earlier today, I think there might have been 15 people at the game, even counting the benches and coaches for both teams on the court. This is pathetic. At least with the tournament at MSG last year, Seattleites would want to go to NYC. NYC is cool. Rural Connecticut probably sucks. I haven’t been there, but looking at the Google Map, I can’t imagine anyone would want to go there besides gamblers. I also tried looking at a Bing Map, and I came to the same conclusion. Norwich hasn’t been a cracking place since 1789.

Going to the east coast also has never done the Huskies any favors. Any time any team from Seattle travels to the east coast, they might as well throw up the L and get back on the charter plane. At least that way, they don’t have an opportunity for that dreaded jet lag. They get more charter plane goodies, such as movies and snacks, for an entire day.

I don’t think winning these games on the east coast does anything for the vaunted “West Coast Bias” that we all know and love in our forested corner of the country. If anything, it hurts the Huskies more to just go there and lose.

These tournaments in Maui and Alaska do draw east coast teams. This is the chance to beat them. Make THEM fly! Plus, it is just easier for guys like me to jump on an Alaska Air direct flight and actually see some of these games and fill these arenas. It is just crazy how empty these arenas are for west coast teams. Unless it is UCLA or Arizona, there is no way you are getting some random from Norwalk off the craps table to go see a game. However, most west coasters would get off their ass to see a decent east coast team beat the tar out of someone like Chaminade or U of Alaska – Anchorage (note, not U of Alaska – Fairbanks, based on this hype video, I would never want to play them in any sport. It’s the BULLS THEME SONG and Kenny Loggins. Note to self, never go to the Carlson Center.)

So Woodward, if you are reading this – let’s keep the Dawgs on the west coast for now.

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