Weekend winners
- SEC-Big 12 challenge. Most of you guys know the overall lack of enthusiasm I have for regular-season college hoops. Well, the day-long made for TV event between the SEC and the Big 12 added some intrigue and some pretty good games. It also helped that it was on the weekend between the NFL championship games and the Super Bowl and a respite to the conference schedule. Hope it stays.
- UCLA football. There's a ton of consternation right now amid college football. Recruiting is stressful. Coaching changes - initiated from each side - can drastically affect programs. It's a trying time in a very competitive venture. Then something like this happens and you remember how positively impactful college sports can be. Well-played Bruins. Well-played indeed.
- John Scott. The 6-foot-8, 260-pound enforcer was the storyline before the NHL All-Star game by being voted in by the fans before the league asked him not to come. Well, Scott showed up and won the MVP. It was pretty cool across the board. (Side note: The NHL may have made the biggest strides in rule-changing advances in an All-Star game. The three-on-three thing was cool, and the various divisions playing semifinals and a finals with $1 million going to the winning team were both aces.)
- Cleveland Cavaliers. That's kind of what everyone was expecting, right? The Cavs flexed their muscles Saturday night and hammered the Spurs. Cleveland looked like a contender for the first time this season.
- Novak Djokovic. With Serena Williams' stumble this weekend at the Aussie Open, Joker's dominance of Andy Murray (and Roger Federer in the semifinals) make it clear who is the most dominant athlete in an individual sport.
- Bonus: Congrats to all of the folks picked to be the 2016 class of the Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame, but a special tip of the visor to longtime TFP SEC ace and Press Row cohost David Paschall who joins current TFP sports staffers Mark Wiedmer, Ron Bush and Ward Gossett.
In this Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015, photo Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel watches on the sidelines during the second half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, in Cleveland. Police have released a dash-cam video and 9-1-1 emergency calls from a roadside incident involving Manziel. The former Heisman Trophy winner was questioned by Avon, Ohio, police last week after Manziel got into an argument with his girlfriend, Colleen Crowley. (AP Photo/Aaron Josefczyk) Weekend losers
- Dude, it's a grown-man's world. It's time to act like a grown-up. Now he has Texas cops using a helicopter to tack him down after an altercation with his former girlfriend.
- Johnny Jones. While the SEC-Big 12 title was overall a success, it exposed Johnny Jones as the worst coach in all of college sports. Dude has the best player in the country - LSU freshman Ben Simmons - and in a tight game with Oklahoma, Simmons got a grand total of seven shots and did not touch the ball in the final 90 seconds of a one-possession game. Awful in its awfulness.
- The Lakers. Los Angeles has lost 10 consecutive games, tying a franchise low point. It's a testament to how bad this bunch is and how great the organization has been before this. It stinks to have this much going right in the NBA and the Lakers to be a complete non-factor. (Side note: Anyone want to bet against the Lakers getting the No. 1 overall pick in the 'lottery' and drafting Ben Simmons?)
- Sunday TV viewing. No football for the first Sunday since early September. Thank goodness the weather was inviting. If you watched the Pro Bow, well, sorry. If you bet on the Pro Bowl - we loved the over 75 - you need help. So it goes. And yes, it will likely get a rating higher than every non-World Series baseball game of the year. The Grease: Live thing was awful. Man, is it August yet?
- Local basketball sportsmanship. Yes, the Ooltewah nightmare was an outlier, but dear buckets, what's going on around us in high school basketball. Friday night, a Cleveland player punched a Soddy-Daisy player. That happens at all levels of sports when emotions go the wrong way, and that's not an excuse for the Cleveland kid who will get suspended for two games and it should be more. But a reported parent of the kid who was punched ran on to the floor looking to fight. Staggering.
- Bonus: Did you see the Belgian cyclist who was caught cheating? Yes, she had a hidden motor on her bike. A hidden motor? That's against the rules now?
UTC hoops
TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer apparently agrees with some of you folks that the UTC Mocs are the best men's basketball team in the state.
(We still think Vandy takes them head-to-head, and saying Vandy lost to Dayton and UTC upset Dayton is a lot like saying Ole Miss beat Bama, and then Memphis beat Ole Miss, so..)
That said, we must take a step back and admire what these Mocs have done in year one of the Matt McCall regime. (Side note: Having spoken with Coach McCall a multitude of times, we believe this: If UTC can figure out a way to pay the man and keep the man here for at least five years, he will get this program back to the lofty expectations layer down by Murray Arnold and Mack McCarthy and the players that made UTC a recognized name in college hoops. Yes, that's a big if, but if McCall is here heading into 2021, UTC will be a renowned mid-major across the country.)
UTC is 18-3 and has won five in a row. That's excellent. (It's also pretty impressive that this bunch won Saturday on the road playing below average basketball. Finding a way to win is a true skill in basketball, and developing that skill on the road in conference play is beneficial come March.)
Eight Mocs average more than seven points a game, and that includes Casey Jones, the preseason SoCon player of the year who has played in eight of the 21 games. Nine guys play more than 15 minutes a game on average. That's depth and balance.
The Mocs are impressive in every metric: +2.1 in turnover margin; +4.1 in rebound margin; +4.3 in FT attempted per game. And they are efficient shooting right at 47 percent from the field (38.6 from 3) and better than 71 percent from the line.
UTC has 10 regular-season games left, six at home. A 9-1 sprint to the finish could get the Mocs ranked, and that would be a big deal for the program and even generate whispers about being in the discussion of an at-large bid.
We think the SoCon is still a one-bid league, but if UTC is flirting with being ranked, and gets to say 29-5 (a 9-1 finish with two tournament wins before losing in the title game) with wins over UGA, Dayton and Illinois, it will be discussed.
And if the Mocs can keep McCall around for the foreseeable future, that discussion will be an annual occurrence.
This and that
- Kung Fu Panda 3 dominated the box office with more than $57 million on its opening weekend. It's the biggest opening weekend for an animated film ever. That's saying something right there. On the opposite end of the spectrum, "Fifty Shades of Black" tanked. Hard to say we're surprised by either of those turn of events.
- Unsure if this was a weekend winner or loser, but Cam Newton's pants certainly were something this weekend . Couple of things: We can see the argument that he makes it work. (We first wrote, "We can see the argument that he pulls them off" before realizing that's unfit for a family-oriented, interweb-based sports column.) We also know, it's pretty far out there too - some could even say ridiculous. To borrow the phrase that helped jumpstart Matthew McConaughey, Cam is "L-I-V-I-N, liven' man."
- The moist accurate and consistent Iowa pollster has released their finding as the Corn State heads to the caucus today. It has Trump (28 percent), Cruz (23 percent) and Rubio (15 percent) on the GOP side. It had a very tight Democrat result with Clinton (45 percent) edging Sanders (42 percent).
- The NFL VP of officiating did not offer good news for those of us who want the catch rule cleared up .
- Here's the list of the best trash talkers for each team from ESPN's litany of NFL reporters .
- The polls come out today, and there's a real chance the Duke men and the UT women will not be ranked. That's hard to fathom.
Today's question
Weekend winners and losers, so fire away.
If you need a Rushmore, well, today is a pretty monstrous day in the world of cameras.
Today in 1893, Thomas Edison completed the first motion picture studio.
Today in 1900, Kodak issued the first $1 brown box camera.
Today, in 1951, the first telecast of an atomic explosion happened and the first X-Ray process was demonstrated.
Today, in 1968, during the Vietnam War, a South Vietnam officer executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head. It was caught on film.
Today, in 2003, the Challenger exploded in one of the most dramatic images in live TV history.
With that, let's spin this a little more positively and go with the Rushmore of sports photographs.
Whatcha's got?