Basketball decisions
We're in February. Did January take 45 minutes or 45 days. What day is it? Yeah, it's Groundhog Day.
Regular-season college hoops is a space filler in terms of TV numbers and revenue for a vast majority of college basketball. That's doubly true in a pandemic when very limited crowds are allowed in.
Simply put the real money comes in the tournaments - national and conference.
And we know that the NCAA will move Heaven and myrrh to have March Madness, March Maskness, or whatever alliterative name you want to give it.
How about this one: Money Madness.
Hey, I'm all for finding ways for the sports to continue, but let's be very clear about the goals moving forward. It's about the tournament, plain and simple.
The NCAA lost $600 million by not having a tournament last spring. Another empty March and there will be nuclear winter for who knows how many programs at dozens of universities across the country.
The very real financial threats also led me to this thought: Should they have college tournaments? Not will they, but should they, considering it will be a confined event with multiple exposures that could potentially detract or delay the absolute must-have March Madness.
More over, if you are Gonzaga and need to win the WCC tournament as much as Warren Buffett needs to win the lottery, would you even go and risk half your bunch catching the COVID?
Or even what about this: If you are the SEC, do you tell Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Missouri - four teams who are all-but-assured a ticket to the dance - to sit this one out and roll the dice that Kentucky could win the thing and get another pass to the Madness?
Thoughts?
LeBron vs. heckler
So, LeBron's Lakers beat the Hawks last night because they're better than the Hawks. Deeper. More experienced.
The game made little ripple across the sports landscape. Sure LeBron is LeBron so some people watched, and the Hawks are better now than they have been.
But it was a loaded night on the NBA slate - almost 10 games - so a rather uneventful eight-point win was rather forgettable.
Well, until some lady courtside got ejected for getting into a shouting match with King James. Hence the trending topic of Courtside Karen on Twitter. (Side question: Is Karen really the whitest name for a female? What's the whitest name for a male? Would it be Ken, maybe? Thoughts?)
In some ways, with limited crowds and much less background noise than normal, I'm surprised this has not happened more in NBA and even in college games.
The exchange in real time looked odd, but the videos from the lady (I guess) and other fans were wild. And the reaction was far-reaching. Afterward James said, "I'm happy fans are back in the building. They might have had a couple drinks, maybe." And also added that he thought the woman was there with her father but it turned out to be her husband.
So there's that. And take a look around, because the videos from Ms. Karen are certainly NSFW.
Super Bowl contest
Of course we're having a contest. It's our way.
More on that in a moment.
Saw this story, and the American Gaming Association believes the pandemic will cut the number of folks betting on the Super Bowl by more than a third.
I was stunned by that original number too, especially with the much larger number of folks who have legal ways to wager on sports now compared to this time last year.
But the biggest hit will come from the casual Super Bowl wagers that come from betting squares or pools at sports bars and Super Bowl parties.
So even with an increase to almost 8 million folks wagering online - an increase from last year of 63% - the survey expects there to be about 23 million Americans betting on the Super Bowl with more than $4.3 billion risked. Last year there was $6.8 billion bet by 26 million Americans.
So there's that.As for the cost-free (hey, you get what you pay for, right?) Super 5-at-10 Super Contest, well here are the categories. Most correct answers wins some stuff.
> Primary color of Jim Nantz tie (Blue is the favorite);
> Length of the national anthem, over/under 120.5 seconds;
> Head or tails;
> Player to score the first TD;
> Longest play over/under 44.5 yards;
> MVP;
> Spread, Chiefs minus-3.5;
> Total yards combined, over/under 765.5:
> Total points scored, over/under 56.5:
Who's in? Submit your picks in the comments or email me at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com. Deal? Deal.
This and that
- How was your Monday. Bet it was better than the Excedrin-sized headache the principal at East Ridge Middle dealt with. Christy Drake apologized for saying that the school's slogan would be "All Lives Matter" for Black history month, which is a perfectly noble sentiment but has been spun by some to be interpreted as anti-Black. The timing and the optics make this an unfortunate miscue, so I understand the apology from Drake, who is Black. I also believe you can say and mean Black lives matter, without buying into the organization 'Black Lives Matter' which is openly for defunding and abolishing the police and stands against a lot of family views I hold dear. And to be fair, it states in the story the demographics of East Ridge Middle, which has 36% Hispanic students, 27.2% white students, 34.9% Black students and 1.6% Asian students.
- Speaking of college hoops, the 'pay for play conversation was broached again, this time by a Rutgers basketball player named Geo Baker. The demands and protocols of playing during the pandemic completely expose the extreme value of college basketball and football players for those that run college athletics. And, even in the worst financial crunch in NCAA history, the most ardent defender of the shamatuerism structure of college sports realizes that the model most be altered and players (i.e labor) has a place in the revenue stream, at least at the programs that are paying the bills for the 90 percent of the rest of the scholarship sports out there. Still, Baker's phrasing - that college sports is 'modern-day slavery' - is so far over the top that not even Sly Stallone could recognize it.
- Screech Powers died Monday. He was 44.
- Hal Holbrook last month. He was 95. When you can go from Deep Throat to being a mentor in Wall Street to arch villain in Fletch Lives to playing a spitting image of Mark Twain, well, that's some kind of acting range. Side note: Holbrook was married three times, most recently to Designing Women star Dixie Carter, and each lasted at least 17 years.
- That rodent in Pennsylvania got spooked and says we've got six more weeks of winter. Stupid Phil. I prefer David Glenn to be honest.
- Saw this stat, and thought it was interesting. Sunday's game will push TB12 past LeBron in all-time championship game viewership. There have been 904.9 million viewers for James' 55 NBA Finals games; going into Sunday's game, 898.8 million viewers watched Brady's previous nine Super Bowls.
- You know the rules. Here's Paschall on what is likely going to be a quiet signing day for new coach Josh Heupel and the Vols.
- Lindsey Young's look at the budgets of high school athletic departments getting hammered by smaller crowds was also an interesting story in today's TFP.
- Thought this story about the lack of restaurant aid in the almost $2 trillion COVID relief bill that Blank-Check Biden is about to cash was interesting. It also juxtaposes the impact of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This stat/sentence leaps off the page: "In a 2019 report, (the Congressional Budget Office) said raising the federal minimum to $15 by 2025 would boost the wages of 17 million workers and lift 1.3 million out of poverty. But it also said 1.3 million other workers would become jobless."
- Man lots of eye-catching headlines in today's TFP. Here's a story dubbed "Anal warts are treatable with medication, surgery." So how about that Spy?
Today's questions
True or false, it's Tuesday after all.
True or false, you watched Saved By the Bell.
True or false, Groundhog Day, the movie, is good.
True or false, you will make a monetary wager on this Super Bowl.
True or false, they will change/alter the conference basketball tournaments.
True or false, you have a true or false for me. If so, fire away.
As for today, Feb. 2, well, let's explore.
Shakira is 44. Friend.
On this day - 2/2 - Rushmore of '2' and be creative. (And remember the Super contest.)