From Pete
Twitter Rushmore was really fun. I really like the Braves old uniforms for the 70s.
What did you settle on?
Pete -
Thanks. In honor of Thursday's Throwback Press Row from 1-3 p.m. because of Vandy hoops, we had a mini-Twitter Rushmore of the best Throwback uniforms. It was fun. Our picks (one from each sport) would be the 1970s Pirates with the Stargell stars on the hats, the powder blue Chargers, the old-school and simple Philadelphia 76ers (all that's really missing from those would be Dr. J's 'fro) and the Boston Bruins. Baseball, on average, has more good ones. Think the 1970s Braves with the lower-case 'a' hats or the Brewers back in Robin Yount's day and even the powder-blue Phillies and the White Sox.
The NFL has the wildest swings. The Chargers and the Cowboys have great ones; the Steelers and the really old Broncos are eye-sores.
Not a lot in the NBA. The Dominique-era Hawks uni is pretty good as are the old Suns and the basic script Blazers.
Amazingly a lot of the best uniforms of today do not have a throwback version because they have not changed all that much, you know. The Lakers, the Celtics, the Dodgers, the Yankees. There have been modifications of course, but the style is pretty much the same.
This is a pretty good time for this week's Rushmore recap.
Rushmore of cereals (this one is amazingly personal so have at it) - Crunch Berries, Froot Loops, Corn Pops and Frosted Flakes.
Rushmore of TV/movie quarterbacks (special shoutout to OG for the Reno Hightower love - well-played indeed) - We'll go pro, college and high school divisions: Pros - Paul Crew (Longest Yard), Seth Maxwell (North Dallas Forty), Steamin' Willie Beamon (Any Given Sunday) and Shane Falco (The Replacement); College division - Joe Kane (The Program), Stan Gable (Revenge of the Nerds), Paul Blake (Necessary Roughness) and Johnny Utah (Point Break, remember he led his team to the Rose Bowl before joining the FBI); High school division (and this one is tough) - Reno Hightower (Best of Times), Matt Saracen (Friday Night Lights, TV show), Johnny Walker (Johnny Be Good) and Rifleman (All the Right Moves). With an honorable mention to Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. As for the pre-high school division, Junior Floyd from Little Giants is the clear choice. (Wow, we know way too many fictional QBs, and this is one of the tougher Rushmores around to tell you the truth.)
Rushmore of Bells - Liberty, Alexander Graham, Blue Bell Ice Cream and Cool Papa Bell.
Rushmore of TV commercial characters - Humans - The Most Interesting Man in the World (He stepped down this week after 10 years and Dos Equis had 35 percent growth since 2007 with him pitching), Geico Cavemen (they got their own TV series for Pete's sake), the "Time to the make the donuts" guy and The Kool-Aid Man; Animals - Morris the Cat, the Energizer Bunny, Spuds McKenzie and Aflac Duck.
---
FILE - In this March 18, 2015, file photo, the NCAA logo is at center court as work continues at The Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, for the NCAA college basketball second and third round games. A federal judge in Chicago gave preliminary approval Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, to a reworked head-injury settlement between thousands of former college athletes and the NCAA that includes a $70 million fund to test for brain trauma. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File) From ETSUBuc13
Hello,
You recently posted an article concerning the NCAA selection committee and how they choose their at large bids. I think it spoke about choosing the best team not getting a bid over who the committee thinks would win on a neutral floor? Could you link that article again and please explain how this happens? It makes sense no one wants to see holy cross upset saint mary's but do we really need to see seven big ten teams in the dance? The tournament is fun because every now and then David wins and the world rejoices as he waves goliaths head around in victory! Wouldn't march add a little more madness if we replaced those "deserving teams" with ones that actually wanted to be there! (ETSU anyone)
And again I understand you have to include your big 5 teams or else it wouldn't be fun.
ETSUBuc13 -
Sure. Here's the best story I found on the topic (it's from Grantland a year ago, but the theories hold uo; side note: I miss Grantland.com already). The NCAA allows a collection of media
types behind the curtain for a mock selection process.Here's one that pertains to this year.
There are several layers to this onion, though.
The debate between big conference teams that finished in the middle of the pack vs. small conference teams that had a good or potentially great year against a weaker schedule will never fade. And that's a good thing and makes the tournament selection more fun.
ETSU's resume is good but not great. In fact, UTC's case study this year would have been incredibly intriguing if, say, ETSU had upset the Mocs in the conference finals on a buzzer beater, or for this experiment's sake, a really bad call.
UTC has a better resume than a lot of the teams that will get at-large bids (and those teams will be seeded higher than the Mocs) but whether they would have made the Dance would have been a huge question.
The craziness that is March is aided by the craziness that Holy Cross and the rest provide.
We'd be open to adding more teams to the NCAA tournament, if those teams were the regular-season champions of conferences outside of the bigger leagues. Still, the passion and finality of the one-bid conference tournaments makes for great drama. I watched more college basketball last weekend and into the early part of this week than I have or will this weekend.
Those tournaments mean something - heck, for a lot of teams they mean everything - and that is awesome. And heartbreaking.
---
From Jomo
JG- is there really anything more boring than the SEC basketball tourney ? as evidence by a 1/3 full arena last night and a boring blowout. seems only people that care are Kentucky fans who cant get tickets to regular season games, Vol fans who want to wear their "outback bowl champions" sweatshirts and the SEC media. Basically 4 teams from SEC are in the NCAA tourney, almost win or lose this weekend, and privately their coaches don't mind if they are out after one or two games so they can rest their players for the NCAA's. the other 9 teams basically have no chance. The bottom line is there is absolutely no drama, and ONLY Kentucky fan base that is passionate about it.
Jomo -
Press Row cohost David Paschall has described this best for years: There is no championship anywhere that has a shorter celebration time than winning a major college conference hoops tournament.
The SEC will crown its winner on Sunday (and unless UT or UK is in the final, there will plenty of good sections available) and in about three hours after that, all anyone will be talking about is matchups and brackets.
I believe the conference tournaments should flip. Play the SEC tournaments and the bigger conferences last weekend and let the SoCon and the small leagues have the spotlight leading into the Selection Show.
The only way there's drama in any of these is if you get a scenario like you did with Georgia several years ago and winning the Tornado Tournament to get to the NCAA tournament.
---
FILE - In this Jan.28, 2015 file photo former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Starkville, Miss. Republicans are using the latest attacks in Paris to appeal to U.S. voters jittery about terrorism. Several Republicans, including presidential hopeful Jeb Bush and former candidate Mitt Romney, appeared on the television networks Monday to decry President Barack Obama's policies as half-hearted and to suggest that a U.S. ground war against the Islamic State may be inevitable. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) From Stewwie
Any value odds for Mitt Romney (just in case)? And the bookies seemed to write off Cruz a week or two ago...my how things have changed. Trump still holds a big lead in FL and has a modest lead over Kasich in OH. March 15 will be a big day.
Jay, for the bag, if Bernie's "free" tuition at public colleges ever becomes reality, how do you think that will affect NCAA sports?
Stewwie -
GOP nominee odds as of this morning after last night's Kumbaya debate:
Trump - 1-to-3 (meaning you have to bet $300 to win $100)
Cruz - 4-to-1
Kasich - 8-to-1
Rubio - 20-to-1
Paul Ryan - 40-to-1
Mitt Romney - 50-to-1
(One bookmaking house is offering Michael Bloomberg at 100-to-1, as well.)
This is a great question, and one that has really been under-reported, to tell you the truth. (Well, not sure if under-reported is the right word, since Bernie has only a slightly better chance at being president than you do, so there's that.)
Free public tuition at public colleges would reshape the narrative of college sports.
The big schools would look to re-invest in (i.e. pay) the players. The cost of attendance since the schools would not have to pay back into themselves. (That said, we have always been somewhat curious about the claims that the biggest expense of athletic programs being the actual scholarships since they theoretically are paying themselves, so moving it from athletics to the bursar's office is line-item movements as much as it's capital movements. So if the athletics department is losing money - and it's biggest expense is tuition - but the school is actually making money, isn't that a whirlpool of accounting riddles.)
So if athletic departments did not have to write the tuition checks, they would have excess funds to move around, at least on the short term before the school starts repurposing that since the school will need extra cash. (Seriously, waiting on Bernie's federal funds would not be overly smart.)
So the big schools would compete with higher stipends and packages. Private schools - at least the big ones with monster endowments - would still offer their educations with scholarships but may not be able to compete with the extra benefits.
Since Bernie's such a pie-in-the-sky candidate, it's hard to give it too much thought, but the ripples would be huge and far-reaching.
---
scole023
Hey gasbag, you still talk too much.
It's about time for another contest, right? You haven't gone cheap on us have you?
Scole023 -
As always, it's great to hear from you.
Yep, the first-out, last-in challenge is right around the corner. That's the 5-at-10 March Madness contest where to try to pick the first No. 1 seed to get beat and the last double-digit seed still dancing. Good times.
In addition, we will be playing along in the Press Row bracket challenge sponsored by Penn Station East Coast Subs and ESPN 105.1 the Zone. (If you want to participate in that one against the Press Row crew and listeners, go to espn.com and click the tournament bracket icon. The group name is ESPN Chattanooga and the password is press row. If you have questions about it, let us know.)
As always, thanks for playing along.