Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Did You Know? ESPN Writers Are Idiots!

Talk about having a slow sports news day. I loaded the ESPN web page on my Blackberry the other day to see this little tidbit:

Did you know? Three of David Eckstein's 35 career home runs have been walk-offs.

Yep. Mr. Grit himself gets front page status because the only HR he hit this year so far was a walk-off home run. Of all things happening at a given time in sports, you decide to write a '"Did You Know" that the best-known active average white baseball player hit a fucking home run. Really?!?

It really is amazing that he attracts so much attention for an average ball player. True, he does hustle and is willing to get himself dirty, hence our Mr. Grit reference. He was also the inaugural winner of the Heart & Hustle Award in 2005. But the guy just has some sort of media magnetism that attracts all sorts of accolades and applause because he is short, white and is willing to get himself dirty.

I just don't get it.

Oh! And my vendetta still stands for this year. If David Eckstein and the San Diego Padres make the playoffs this year. I will kill someone!

Coming soon - the season's first Joe Chat! SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Is 96 the New 65?

A lot has been said so far regarding the possible change to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament from 65 teams to 96. I'm sure there will be much more to come once the Board votes to expand the tournament and/or cancel the current TV contract with CBS in hopes to rake in even more cash. So I thought I would give my two cents worth on the topic in a Good, Bad and Ugly format.

Good - the expansion of the tournament to 96 teams would give more hype and enthusiasm to the first week of the tournament. I love the first two days of the tournament with 16 games in one day and four games going on at the same time most of the day. Now you would have that on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday! How can you NOT love that!

Bad - With 65 teams, you can already claim that adding a sixth, seventh or even eighth team from a conference that comes in as a #11 or #12 seed could be considered diluting the pool of teams. Adding another 31 teams could mean that you are now adding a ninth or tenth team from the Big East or SEC to the tournament. North Carolina and Connecticut would have made the tournament this year under the 96-team format. They barely made the NIT this year. Would the Selection Committee be more committed to adding second or third teams from a mid-major conference or more BCS conference teams with sub-.500 conference records?

Ugly - My brackets are ugly enough with 65 teams. I do not even want to comprehend right now how bad it could be with another 32 games to pick.

Good - Better opportunities for coaches. Most school's benchmarks for coaches is whether or not they can make the NCAA tournament on a consistent basis. You basically have three or four years to either make the tournament or make it back before you are typically shown the door in a BCS conference school. Two if you are coaching Kentucky. Allowing another 31 teams would give more chances to teams and coaches.

Bad - Teams that play on Thursday or Friday now have to play an extra game since the #1 thru #8 seeds would have a first-round bye. It would be harder for a Northern Iowa to upset a Kansas. A #9 seed would have to beat the #24 seed on Thu./Fri., then the #8 seed on Sat./Sun. and then would face the #1 seed on Tue/Wed. Meanwhile, the #1 seed would only have to play the winner of the #16/#17 matchup on Sat./Sun. before meeting the that #9 seed. So Northern Iowa would be playing its third game in six days while Kansas would be playing its second game in four days. By the time the #9 thru #24 seeds make it to the Sweet Sixteen, they are now playing their fourth game in eight days. The games are such an emotional and physical drain that playing that many games in a short period will make it hard to maintain the momentum to make it past the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight. The teams that get the bye will have an added advantage the further you get into the bracket.

Ugly - Trying to find enough excuses to miss work on Thursday and Friday plus the following Tuesday and Wednesday to watch all of the games. After a couple of years I'll be left with rickets, scurvy or knocking off a relative (sorry, Uncle Joe) in order to skip work.

Good - More money from a re-negotiated contract will mean more monies for the conferences and schools which will trickle (supposedly) down to other sports at those schools. Obviously basketball and football are the revenue-generating sports that help fund the lacrosse, track and field, soccer and other sports at a vast majority of colleges. Adding another round of games should, in theory, allow the NCAA to milk more money from one or more networks.

Bad - Students missing more classes due to the extended schedule of games. Granted, this only affects a portion of those in the tournament, but the NCAA seems to be willing to sacrifice some more of the athletes school time for more money. The irony of this is the main argument of the NCAA's stance against a football playoff is that it would mean students would miss more school. Oops.

Good - I am OK with expanding the number of teams if the NCAA chooses to give the regular season champions AND the conference tournament champions automatic bids. Personally, I feel that the conference tournaments devalue the regular season for most of the non-BCS conferences. For teams in the Ohio Valley Conference or Summit League, if you won your conference's regular season, but lost in the conference tournament, then you have been typically hosed unless you have a resume like a Butler or Gonzaga.

If you give the automatic bids to the regular season and conference tournament champs, then you are giving more credence to the regular season and less emphasis on the conference tournament. You may still have one team that wins both (such as Murray State and Oakland this year in their conferences) and that is OK. Now teams would have more to play for at the end of the regular season than just adding a banner to your ceiling for winning your conference's regular season and a #1 seed in your tournament.

Bad - I'm guessing the expansion to 96 teams would mean the end of the NIT. Sad, but the NIT has unfortunately been relegated to second-tier status for a few decades and since the NCAA owns the tournament, they can kill it. Or at least I hope they would kill it. Granted if they do not kill it, it would be the same as adding the teams that currently play in the CBI and CIT tournaments. Which is starting to reach the bottom of the barrel as far as teams that are worthy to play in the post-season.

Ugly - this would unfortunately mean more of Jim Nantz. Is it a requirement with CBS to use Jim Nantz for all of its major broadcasts (Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, The Masters, etc.)? I'm so fucking tired of Jim Nantz. At least CBS got rid of Billy Packer, so there is still some hope...

Expansion for the sake of money is not necessarily a good thing but don't knock expanding the tournament just because it will be a change to a beloved two and a half weeks. There were plenty of people who griped and complained that moving to 64 teams was blasphemy! And now we believe it is the something sacred that should not be messed with.

The more I think about it, the more that I can see that expanding to 96 teams could be a good thing. COULD. At the moment, I do not have faith in the Selection Committee to do what is good for basketball and not what is good for the BCS conferences. If they put something in place that would aid the mid-majors such as giving automatic berths to the regular season and conference tournament winners, then this could become something even better than this season's awesome tournament. But this could just as easily be a money grab by the NCAA and the BCS conferences and continued screwing of the mid-majors conferences. Only time will tell.

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Monday, April 5, 2010

LomHenn.com 2009 NFL Season Picks

I just realized that we never posted the results of our NFL Prognostication Pool from last season. Oh, well, better late than never.

Like many sports sites, we like to think we have the prognostication powers of Nostradamus when it comes to picking how teams will finish the season, who will make the playoffs and who will win the Super Bowl. For the past four years, many of us at LomHenn.com have stretched our powers of prognostication and we've determined that we are closer to Nostradumbass than Nostradamus.

We would like to congratulate Kringlebert on his runaway victory and wrenching the tropy from Slut, winner of the previous two years. Kringlebert finished with 80 points (out of a possible 160), with Zinglebert (64 pts), O'Hoolix (59 pts) and Slut (53 pts) left in his dust. Kringlebert correctly picked the finishing positions for 21 of the 32 teams in addition to picking more of the playoff games than the rest of us. It did not hurt that most off us had the Indianapolis Colts and New York Giants in the Super Bowl as well.




Congrats to Kringlebert who enjoys watching us from the sidelines, but can't seem to step to the plate and actually write something. Come on, Kringlebert! All of our readers, Slut and I are anxiously waiting for you to post something...ANYTHING at this point. Don't be afraid. We don't bite. (Not sure about some of our readers though.)

LomHenn.com NFL Pool Champions
2009 - Kringlebert Fishtybuns
2008 - Slut Bunwalla
2007 - Slut Bunwalla
2006 - Zinglebert Bembledack

You're Tuned To "The Tiger Channel": All Tiger, All the Time

So it's the week of The Masters golf tournament, and of course the major story is Tiger Woods and his return to competition after his much-publicized hiatus due to his martial issues and "sexual addiction" treatment.

One of the most anticipated events of this week is today's news conference with Tiger. This was announced a few weeks ago, and of course it has received enormous coverage. But ESPN has dedicated three of its channels to covering the press conference live! ESPN, ESPN-2, and ESPN News all have the press conference in its entirety, with ESPN and ESPN-2 preempting normal programming (i.e. opening day baseball games) to carry the press conference live.

I have no problem with ESPN News having the press conference live. However, why must all of the ESPN networks carry it? Even if you make the argument that ESPN News isn't on as many cable systems as ESPN or ESPN-2, why do both of those channels need to simulcast it? Never mind that the press conference was also on MSNBC, Fox News, CSNBC, CNN, and The Golf Channel simultaneously. Heck, I think it was also carried live on Animal Planet. Overkill, anyone???

The whole point of ESPN having multiple channels is to carry more programming. What is the fucking point of simulcasting the press conference and the mind-numbing analysis that followed by Tirico & Co.?? You have two channels so you DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS, yet you do it anyway.

Critics of media convergence and the current state of media ownership cite a complete lack of diversity as one of the problems when huge media conglomerates own multiple media outlets. Those critics are speaking more of diversity of viewpoints and ideas rather than simple sports programming when they make those arguments, but I think it applies here. ESPN is doing no one a service by carrying Tiger's press conference live on three networks--and ESPN doesn't care. Having the press conference on multiple channels makes ESPN feel like it's more credible, when the opposite is true. The funny thing is, in the next few days some people on ESPN will start complaining about the fact that people won't let the Tiger story die--when they're very network is on of the big reasons these types of stories get overhyped in the first place.

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Ohhh, That Pesky Joe Morgan

Yes! THE season has started. As much as I love the NFL and the Indianapolis Colts, my heart still can't wait until baseball season starts. And it started last night!

Of course, ESPN HAS to start the season with Sunday Night Baseball. And if you have Sunday Night Baseball, then that means you get...Joe Morgan. Love him or hate him (We love Joe the baseball player. We hate Joe the baseball commentator.) he is at least good for giving us loads of sounds bytes or Joe Chat quips.

Thankfully, Joe did not waste any time in providing some quality material on opening night.

Jorge Posada hit a second-inning home run off the Pesky Pole. John Miller started to tell the story about Johnny Pesky and why the pole is named after him and his "warning track power."

Miller: Most of the time when Pesky hit the ball for a home run it went off the foul pole, hence the naming of the Pesky Pole.
Morgan: I think they used to call it the Pesky Pole didn't they?
Miller: *pause* They still do.
Morgan: Oh.

Ahhhh, thanks, Joe. It is good to see you are already in mid-season form.

COMING SOON: Once again Slut and I will don our prognostication caps and show that we know just as little as all of the pundits when it comes to picking how the teams will finish and who will win the World Series. FYI - Slut was correct in last year's pick of the Yankees and we both had the Yankees and Angels in the ALCS. We were just way off when it came to the NL. Cubs in the World Series...what the fuck was I thinking...

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Go Blue!

For those of you just joining the Butler bandwagon, welcome aboard. Many of us have been Butler fans for quite a while, but it is definitely nice to have our ranks swelling for the past couple of weeks.

All of us at LomHenn.com would like to say,

"GO BULLDOGS!"





I would love to say that we knew this would happen, but this is almost beyond comprehension at this point. It is going to be a nerve-wracking evening, but this is going to be a night to remember for all Butler fans and alumni.

Nothing like a good ol' David versus Goliath battle for the championship. It is scary to think that the last time a team that was not from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 or SEC won the tournament was 1966. 1966! So it's been 44 years since a non-BCS team has won the finals and since 1979 that a non-BCS team has even been in the finals (Indiana State).

**EDIT**
As Slut pointed out in the comments, I erred in my statement above. I forgot about UNLV's championship in 1990. Although, as Slut also pointed out, they were fashioned to be a basketball factory and ended up getting caught for several violations. Butler is anything but that.

I cannot find the article that I looked at over the weekend, but they skipped UTEP/Texas Western and went back to 1963 and Loyola (Ill.) as the last non-BCS school. Oh, well. Shame on me. Feel free to point this out on another blog. You know, bad writing about bad writing about bad sports writing.
************

It will be interesting to watch the game tonight. Butler is essentially playing a home game as the majority of the crowd will be rooting for the Bulldogs (or rooting against Duke). I think most writers have dropped the Cinderella tag by now, but Butler has not really worn the Cinderella crown for several years. They have established a program that focuses on the team, not star individuals, and the right mentalities. The team adopted the Colts mantra of "the next game." The next game is the only thing to focus on. Not the big game three of four games up the road. Not winning the championship before the first round game. Always the next game.

Well now we've reached the summit and that next game is THE game.

"GO BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Side Note: This could the last entry for the vast majority of us at LomHenn.com as we may all suffer deadly heart attacks, brain aneurysms or nervous breakdowns while watching tonight's game. If so, we would like to thank all of our readers (or reader) over the past couple of years. Should we survive, we look forward to screaming about a Butler victory.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010

It's All About the Benjamins

One of the big topics of discussion in the coming weeks will be the likely expansion of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Vito Forlenza thinks that if the NCAA wants to be so greedy, then they need to pay the players who are making them all of this money. I think he's a ginormous fucktard, but that may just be me.

NCAA Needs to Show Players the Money

Let's talk about money.

Personally I’d prefer to talk about sex, but since this is your article and you brought it up, we can talk about money.

After all, it's the only thing NCAA officials can think about. Well, they're not exactly putting it that way. They're framing it as expansion of the NCAA tournament.

The NCAA is going to give many reasons for desiring to expand the Men’s tournament to 96 teams. Money is obviously the biggest and I have not really heard anyone shy away from that fact.

But don't be fooled. The NCAA is threatening to add 32 teams to the Big Dance because it thinks it can make more money. That's it and nothing more. Money is not the underlying factor that has the NCAA mulling expansion. It's the only factor.

First of all, fucktard, they are threatening to add 31 teams. Let me try and explain this so your small brain can comprehend this without exploding. If there are currently 65 teams that make the tournament each year and you want to expand to 96 teams, 96 minus 65 equals 31. I have not seen anything anywhere stating the NCAA wants to expand to 97 teams. You’ve pretty much lost all integrity by your little oversight. Plus, shitcan the editor, if there is one, who did not catch this before it was released.

You didn't really think it was about giving more kids the opportunity to experience the thrill of the tournament, did you?

No. I know several coaches that would like to make the tournament every year to give them some additional job security. If a coach does not make the tournament every so many years, they are generally shown the door. Adding 31 teams gives coaches some additional chances every year.

It's all about money. So let's talk about money. And let's finally get serious about giving players their fair share of the mountains of cash the NCAA rakes in.

I would say money is probably 80-90% of the reason. The other 10% I would attribute to the coaches wanting a better chance of making the tournament and the kids having the opportunity as well.

The NCAA can opt out of its current 11-year, $6 billion TV deal with CBS after the Final Four and begin shopping around the tournament broadcast rights this summer. It expects suitors to wage a fierce and expensive battle over this lucrative piece of Americana. The negotiations could potentially lead to unconventional bids and partnerships among network and cable sports broadcasters.

The NCAA has already requested proposals from the networks in regards to the new bidding process should the NCAA opt-out of the current contract. Adding another week, an additional 16 games to the current format, could result in a few billion extra dollars. Whether or not CBS can maintain its stranglehold on the tournament will be hard to tell.

Despite making a ton of money with the current format, the NCAA wants more. And apparently, the yet-to-be-determined sum from a new TV contract is not enough to satisfy its greedy appetite. Before heading to the negotiating table, the NCAA is prepping to sweeten the deal by expanding the field to a whopping 96 teams.

Yep. Is that necessarily wrong? I can’t really say no to that. While I have to say I enjoy the current format and was definitely against it when talk of the expansion began, I can definitely see good and bad points to expansion (hopefully another entry on that topic will be coming soon!).

Disgusting, I know. But not only because it's going to ruin the country's best sporting event.

You know, people said the same things when the NCAA expanded the tournament to include 64 teams in the 80’s. While I do not enjoy the fact that the Selection Committee will no doubt add a tenth Big East team to the tournament over a more deserving second or third mid-major conference team, adding another round of 16 games between teams of more equal caliber could lead to some exciting games. Change is not always bad, Vito.

What frustrates me even more is the NCAA's hypocritical, blatant and reckless exploitation of the players. The current set-up is bad enough. Still, it wants to squeeze even more cash out of the cash-strapped kids.

I hate that fucking analogy. I’m not sure what portion of basketball players are “cash-strapped”, but you will not squeeze more cash from the players. If you are going to gripe about how the NCAA exploits basketball players, then you better be griping about how they exploit the football players as well. I have not seen anything regarding them in here yet.

So go ahead, NCAA. Expand your tournament. Grab your billions of dollars. But pay your players.

They are paid you fucktard. They get an education in exchange for reaping their college some major bucks to fund the rest of the athletics at their school. They get free room and board. If you want to bitch about players needing cash, then bash the NCAA for allowing players to have more ability to work while in school. If you are going to pay basketball players, then how can you not pay the soccer players or hockey players or the underwater basket weavers? Yes, the basketball and football programs bring in the monies to help fund all of the other programs. But how can you can you justify paying only some of the sporting teams?

A radical change to college sports' highest-profile event requires a radical change to the overall structure. Stop the charade and float some cash to the kids.

Do you think Shaq got rich in Orlando? No, he got rich in
college!

Because if you expand this tournament and make these kids play half an NBA season, all this talk about getting an education, upholding the integrity of the intercollegiate athletics and playing for the glory of Dear Old State will morph into lip service. And make no mistake, we're poking at that threshold now. One-and-done players, academic scandals and kickbacks to high school coaches already cloud college basketball's culture.

You are adding one game to the current tournament format. ONE FUCKING GAME, DICKHEAD!

One-and-done players are not the NCAA’s fault. I don’t think the NCAA went to the NBA and asked them to install the one year of college rule in order to get more NBA caliber players to go to college instead of straight to the NBA. The NCAA does gain some benefits from these players, but they tend to harm the schools more unless they can make it to the Final Four or win it all.

Academic scandals and kickbacks have been present for decades in all sports so don’t try and blame those on a single sport’s tournament. Douchebag!

Now the NCAA wants to expand the tournament, add another week to the season and pull these kids out of even more classes? Unless it's all a ruse, how can the NCAA approve this proposal and pretend to uphold its core values? How can it believe it's still looking out for the best interests of the kids? And - oh, don't get me started -- how can it extend the basketball season, but claim a football playoff is impossible because the players will miss too much class time?

One, adding a football playoff would require adding more than one week to the football season. Two, you are only modifying the existing basketball tournament versus modifying the current football bowl structure. The BCS conferences, bowls and bowl sponsors do not want that cash cow to go away and no one has come up with a good solution to satisfy everyone…yet. Class time might be their excuse, but this is definitely one where the money going to the BCS conferences is dictating the stance against a football playoff.

The only way the NCAA can even think about expanding the tournament while maintaining a sliver of dignity and curtailing corruption is by paying the players. I'm not suggesting millions of dollars. I'm advocating a flat stipend allocated across the board -- in both men's basketball and football.

OK, now you finally mention football.

Of the money that currently goes to the conferences and teams, I’m sure that there is not enough there to pay players and paying for the other sports at schools. At most schools, those monies do not even cover the cost of the other sports as it is! Now you think they should pay the players too?

Some of the money schools make from men's basketball and football supports the non-revenue sports like soccer, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, swimming and gymnastics. If the big-revenue sports are able to subsidize their smaller-revenue brethren, that’s a great use of the money. But the actual people responsible for making all that money - players - must benefit from it, too.

See my response above.

To make it happen, an independent body needs to be brought in to study all the different revenue streams from men's basketball and football - from TV rights and gate receipts to sponsorships and jersey sales. Then, it would determine a fair athletic grant that changes on a yearly basis to keep up with the money the NCAA, conferences and schools are taking in.

If there are 344 NCAA Division I teams that are eligible for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and 12 players per team, that works out to be 4,128 players. How much money are you proposing? $500 per month? At $500 per month for 9 months per year (assumes they do not get paid during the summer months) that would equal $18,576,000 per year. Granted, that is a drop in the bucket of the billions the NCAA receives from CBS. But what about football? Granted, there are only 119 Division I BCS schools, but if the average team has 60 players, that is another $32 million. Over 10 years you are talking over $500 million dollars. I don’t think the NCAA is willing to part with that much to pay players that are already receiving scholarships plus room and board.

Please, please, please don't tell me that college athletes are getting enough from a free education and room and board. That doesn't mean a thing if their parents back home can't pay the rent. That need inevitably leads to cheating, whether in the form of side deals with agents, extra benefits from boosters, stuffed envelopes from well-off alums or some combination of all three. When the kids aren't seeing a penny of the millions they know they're generating, it's hard to fault them for accepting something under the table.

So, do you expect an athlete will take the $500 a month stipend and sent it to his parents so they can make their rent? Get real.

Dude, this is not the 80’s where the stuffed envelopes, free cars and police looked the other way. Universities and coaches have staff that enforce that this does not happen, because when they get caught, it will not only cost them their jobs, it affects the players, the university and the conference. Granted, it still does happen but most of these coaches have probably already left before the shit hits the fan.

These kids are already getting between $5,000 and $100,000 in free tuition per year plus a place to stay and free food. Just to play basketball or football. Something they obvious love to do. Some in the hopes to make it to the pros, others just for the love of the game. For every student athlete that come from a poor family scrapping to get by, how many come from a Carmel or a Cathedral-type school?

If you think the payola is at a high point now, just wait until the NCAA arms all the agents, boosters and alumni with new ammunition of an expanded tournament. It'll be that much easier to convince these kids that everyone in the Ivory Tower is taking advantage of them.

Again…ONE FUCKING ROUND OF GAMES IS NOT GOING TO MAKE THAT BIG OF A FUCKING DIFFERENCE TO THE PLAYERS!!!!!!!!!! The NCAA will get more revenue and that revenue makes it to the conferences and schools. I’d rather a school have the ability to offer lacrosse or underwater basket weaving than pay student athletes.

The NCAA and its member conferences and schools have gotten away with hoarding all the money for far too long, while the players have been left with empty pockets. It's time to pay up.

Go crawl back into your little hole, Vito. Like it or not, change is going to happen. If not this year, the seed has been planted and we’re all going along for the ride, like it or not.

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Happy April Fools Day!

Remember - it's always funny 'til someone loses an eye...then it's even funnier.

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Butler Fight Song Lyrics Reminder

Congratulations to the our Butler Bulldogs making the NCAA 2010 Final Four, in Indianapolis to boot!

I know those of us here at LomHenn are quite excited about it. So in honor of the Bulldogs and since everyone will no doubt here the Butler fight song during the ensuing games this weekend, we thought we would remind our readers of the lyrics to the song...at least the version that we sing.

Click on the link here to listen to the fight song and feel free to scream the lyrics. I know that Slut and I have during this year's tournament run.
This is the Butler Fight Song, I don't know the words
This is the Butler Fight Song, I still don't know the words
This is the Butler Fight Song, I really don't know the words
This is the Butler Fight Song, what the fuck are the words
What the fuck are the words!
So please help us cheer the 'Dawgs on their way to the championship and sing our version of the lyrics! At least they make more sense than the actual lyrics.

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