So much to say...

So I'm covering four things with this specific blog:
1) The Super Bowl Champion Giants (goddamn that sounds good)
2) Bobby Knight
3) The Shaq Trade
4) UCONN Men's Basketball

Under normal circumstances I'd have written a blog for each, but I've actually been quite busy, so they all get a paragraph.

In this age of Boston vs. New York sports, this would equate to a groin kick of the greatest magnitude. Oddly, I don't feel like gloating - I am WAY too proud of this New York Giants team to really care about the feelings of Patriots fans (or, rather, how I could make them even more miserable). Osi, Tuck, Manning, Tyree, Strahan are the heroes you know well at this point - but this was without question a team effort. I've been trying to think of metaphors for this team for the past three days, but f it - there really are none. When the going got tough, Eli Manning got going. I have heard people say, "Oh, he didn't play well at all," "He was mediocre." People, he was unbelievable. He can not go backwards now - he is a Super Bowl Champion Quarterback. With the third youngest team in the NFL behind him, I'm pretty sure (and absolutely hoping) it won't be his last.


With all the talk over the last two decades about "Bob Knight hasn't really won since the '80's," you would think he was Mike Davis. Who cares that Knight graduated his players? Who gives a crap that he produced a ton of NBA players? Who cares that he helped his players get jobs after graduation if basketball wasn't their first choice? Who cares that he produced an insane amount of head coaches from the graduate students that he would take in? Who cares that 99.9% of his former players speaking nothing but glowingly about him?

He didn't win enough. Because that's truly the goal of intercollegiate athletics, right? Not to get kids an opportunity to receive a free education. Not to make sure the kids take advantage of that opportunity. Not to give opportunities to players and students that graduated who want to continue their career in basketball. It's to win. It's to feed the machine. It's to figure out what sponsors he brings back to the school. It's to hang another banner up on the wall. It's to win regardless of the casualties of students you leave in your wake.

Bob Knight never had a recruiting violation. He graduated 90% of his players (with the majority of others leaving school for the NBA early). He left the Army, Indiana, and Texas Tech program's markedly better then they were when he got there. He also messed up a few very public times. But 99% of the time he did it the right way, and he's the reason the Bob Huggins', Jim Harrick's, etc. make me physically ill. Isn't it possible to think that he just simply rose above the corruptness that had infiltrated the game? College basketball corruptness was like steroids in baseball throughout the 90's. Most everyone was doing it, very few people got caught. Knight made it known that was never going to be how he did it. Maybe he missed out on players because he refused to pay them. He showed at Texas Tech that he could still win college basketball games.

Popular rumor has it that the boosters at Indiana simply wanted him out because he would not pay for the top talent in and out of the state, and were looking for any reason to do it. The validity of that is obviously forever in question. But the fact that that was even talked about proves my point. It wasn't enough to recruit good kids, who played hard, who consistently made the NCAA tournament, and who graduated. I'm guilty of the fact that I sit here and cheer the fact that UCONN has the #12 recruit in the country coming in next year. What on earth do I know about this kid? At this point I can only root that he goes to UCONN for 2 years, plays well, and doesn't cause trouble. That doesn't make me feel good to write. Wherever Bob Knight has gone, at the end of the day, you can say he recruited good kids, who graduated, and had a career - whether basketball or not - afterward. That should make any fan of his programs proud to say.

Off my soap box, on to Shaq. Sorry everyone who liked watching the Suns win games 140-135, but that doesn't win you an NBA Championship - especially when the playoffs roll around and you continue to get schooled by teams who can actually protect the rim. Even with this trade, I think the Lakers are still the team to beat in the West (Bryants, and Gasols, and Bynums, Good Lord!), but the Suns have put a final line of defense in place for the next two years. With the Jazz rounding into shape after the Korver trade, and the Spurs, Lakers, Suns, and Mavs as strong contenders - not to forget about Chris Paul and the Hornets or Baron and the Warriors - this is going to be a HELL of a playoff season in the Western Conference.

Finally, my hat's off to Jim Calhoun for how he has handled his team and the media during the Wiggins/Dysom fiasco. Reeling off a 6-game win streak against a very tough schedule, with the media shining strongly down on your team is one of the most remarkable feats of his historic coaching career. Forced to actually coach again, after simply relying on talent for years, Calhoun has showed that he is still able, when pushed, to put together offensive game plans that work, and defensive game plans that are stifling. This team, behind the offense of Adrien and Price, and the defense of Thabeet, has been fun to watch mature before our eyes.

To Michael Strahan, Hasheem Thabeet, Bobby Knight, and Shaq (all for various reasons): ONE MORE YEAR! ONE MORE YEAR! ONE MORE YEAR!