If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It.

There is talk of the NCAA expanding the men’s tournament from 65 to 96 teams. Come on!!! Really!!? There is nothing wrong with the tournament and it should be left alone.

This has become a hot-button topic on internet message boards. And after searching through a whole bunch of them, I didn’t see too much support for the idea. Pretty much everyone hates it except one guy who claimed to be a local bookie in his town (the move would increase his business while waiting for the baseball season to start).

I hate the idea. The tournament is fun and fine the way it is. The current format for deciding the men’s college basketball champion is loved by most fans. I think the only format people love more is the NFL Playoffs.

The move serves one purpose for the NCAA which we all know (say it with me): MONEY. As Randy Moss would say, “straight cash homie.” This move brings in more money for the NCAA and that’s all they care about. It’s the same reason we have the BCS in college football instead of a playoff.

Let’s be honest. Does anyone think that the 82nd or the 95th team that make the tournament has a real shot of actually winning it? I don’t think so. Adding 31 more teams would just water down the product.

Some people have said it would solve the problem of worthy teams getting in. No, it wouldn’t. Team 97 or 98 would still complain that they got snubbed. What about the travel and scheduling games? Do the top-ranked teams get byes? If they do, does that throw off the competitive balance of the tournament? This idea just makes more problems than it solves.

I hope this idea doesn’t happen but I think it will. The NCAA has shown that they chase the money. It’s pretty much the only thing you can count on them doing. They are going to turn the tournament into the BCS: something we hate, but accept.

50 Games!? That’s All!?

Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas was officially suspended by the NBA yesterday for the rest of the season. The suspension will amount to 50 games and cost Arenas somewhere between seven and eight million dollars.

50 games!? Seriously!? That’s all the punishment you get for bringing a gun into the workplace. Even more absurd, basketball writers are saying that if the Wizards try to void the 80 million dollars left on Arenas’s contract, they would probably lose.

So let me get this straight. A guy brings a gun into the workplace and gets suspended without pay for a while and doesn’t get fired. If the NFL Players Association is paying attention, they need to try to get their guys the same contracts that NBA players get.

I am a huge Gilbert Arenas and Washington Wizards fan but this is ridiculous. You have to make an example out of guys bring guns into the workplace, especially when they hear that you can’t do such a thing at the beginning of every season.

When this incident came to light, I thought that NBA commissioner David Stern would make sure that he taught Arenas and every other NBA player a lesson, especially after Arenas didn’t  take responsibility for bringing the gun into the locker room and made light of it.

If I were Stern, Arenas would be out until after next season’s All-Star break. With all the people that are killed by guns each year, you can’t take this situation too lightly. What if the gun would’ve gone off? What if a team employee had accidentally shot themselves while cleaning out his locker.

Like I said before, I am a huge Arenas fan, but he got off lucky. He should be suspended longer and the Wizards allowed to immediately tear up his contract. To me, that would’ve sent a message that no NBA player would forget.

U.S. Open: not the finish we wanted

After four rounds over five days, the U.S. Open finished with Lucas Glover making a par on 18 to win the title.

Glover held off a charging Phil Mickelson and David Duval to win the championship.

The first three rounds of the tournament was plagued by rain delays, Phil and Tiger struggling to hang around and unknowns leading the tournament. The first three rounds felt so disjointed because of the stoppages and delays.

That changed Monday when the leaders, Lucas Glover and Ricky Barnes started bogeying holes to bring the likes of Tiger, Phil and Duval back into the fold. The final round was as exciting as one could ask a final round in a major to be. With Glover and Barnes struggling, you just felt that one of the marquee names would capture the championship.

The excitement faded when Mickelson bogeyed 15 and 17 and Duval bogeyed 17 to fall two strokes behind Glover. Those two holes sucked the excitement out of the tournament because it was then people began to realize that an unknown would win the championship.

All congratulations must go to Glover who birdied 16 to lock up the championship, but the ending would have been more exciting seeing Tiger, Phil or Duval win the title. It would have been exciting to see Tiger storm back to win his first major when trailing after 54 holes. It would have been great to see Phil win his first U.S. Open title for his wife Amy after she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago. It would have been great to see Duval win the title after falling to 882th in the World Gold Rankings.

After all the buildup to the U.S. Open, the tournament itself and the finish just left you wanting more.

Vick/Stallworth cases will get different attention

There will be different feelings whenever Michael Vick and Donte Stallworth return to the field.

When Vick returns to the field there will be much protesting and you can be sure PETA will be out in full force picketing the stadium of the team that signs him (if anyone will). When Stallworth returns to the field, however, I doubt anyone will here much protest about it. The same happened after Leonard Little returned to the St. Louis Rams after serving jail time for killing a motorist while driving drunk.

I think that it’s ridiculous that many people have come out against Vick, yet you will not here much from people when Stallworth returns. I listen to sports talk radio and there are more people against Vick than Stallworth. The backlash against Vick was swift and harsh, but Stallworth has not and will not receive the same backlash.

What does this mean? Does it mean that people place a dog’s life above a human’s? I honestly do not believe that, but it almost seems like people find what Stallworth did more forgiving.

I believe dogfighting and drunk driving are both heinous crimes. But I also think drunk driving is more serious than dogfighting.

I am also surprised at the difference in sentencing for the two players. Vick recieved about two years for dogfighting, yet Stallworth only recieved 30 days for driving drunk and killing a man. It must be stated that the family was on board with the sentence and did not want the case to go to trial, but 30 days for taking a human life seems awfully light in my opinion.

Lakers take Game 1 in rout

Kobe Bryant outscored the trio of Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis, 40-33, in a 100-75 win over the Magic in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Bryant was unstoppable and did practically whatever he wanted to on the court.

Howard was just as bad as Bryant was good. The Magic center scored on 12 points and 10 of those points came from the free throw line. Another reason for the lopsided loss was the Magic’s 3-point shooting. After lighting up the Cavaliers from downtown in the Eastern Conference Finals, Orlando only made eight 3-pointers and shot 35 percent overall for the game.

Jameer Nelson played 22 minutes in the game.  But he looked rusty after not playing since early February and the Magic’s offense looked stagnant while he was running the offense.

The bad news for the Magic is the Lakers supporting cast really didn’t do that much damage. The only other Lakers to score in double figures were Pau Gasol with 16 points and Lamar Odom with 11. Trevor Ariza and Andrew Bynum got into early foul trouble and were ineffective when they were in the game.

The good news for the Magic is it’s only one game. They just need to forget about Game 1 and focus on Game 2. They have no choice because if they lose Game 2, they will put themselves in a big hole since it is unlikely they will sweep the middle three games in Orlando.

Lakers in 7

After taking a while to think about the NBA Finals matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, I like the Lakers in 7. There are several reason for this.

1. The Lakers have the size and speed that the Cavaliers didn’t.

The biggest reason the Magic dominated the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals is because of the size of Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu. Both players are 6’10″ and can shoot the lights out. Every lineup Cleveland put on the floor was either too small or too slow to deal with the two. Even though the Lakers are more of a finesse team, they can match up a little better. The Lakers have Trevor Ariza (6’8″), Lamar Odom (6’10″) and Luke Walton (6’8″) to counter. These guys have a better combination of size and speed to defend Lewis and Turkoglu.

2. Jameer Nelson may not play and if he does, he won’t be 100%.

The Magic won the two regular season games against the Lakers. Who was the player most responsible for those victories? Dwight Howard? No. Hedo Turkoglu? I don’t think so. Rashard Lewis? Guess again. It was Jameer Nelson. Nelson averaged 27.5 points and 6.5 assists per game. More importantly, he was able to blow by Derek Fisher anytime he wanted which opened up the lob to Howard or the kick-out 3 for Lewis or Turkoglu. Rafer Alston has been playing well, but he is no Jameer Nelson.

3. Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol.

While the Magic have Lewis and Turkoglu to cause matchup problems on their offensive end, the Lakers have Odom and Gasol to do the same thing. Odom is 6’10″ and Gasol is 7’0″ and both players can back down smaller defenders, drive past slower defenders and step out and shoot mid-range jumpers against stronger defenders. In Odom’s case, he can hit the three. The Magic will have a hard time matching up against these two. Slowing down Odom and Gasol will be just as important as slowing Kobe Bryant.

4. The 2-3-2 Finals format.

The 2-3-2 format does not favor the Magic. The NBA switched to the 2-3-2 format for the Finals in the ’84-’85 season. Since then, only two teams (’04 Pistons and ’06 Heat) have won the 3 middle home games. That means the Magic will probably have to win two games in Los Angeles where the Lakers went 35-6 in the regular season and have gone 8-2 so far this postseason.

5. Kobe is on a mission.

There are no stats to back this reason up. Kobe is movitated to get this title. He needs to exorcise the demons from the 39-point beatdown the Celtics laid on him and the Lakers in Game 6 of last year’s finals to win the title.  He desperately wants to win a championship without Shaquille O’Neal. Kobe will do his best Michael Jordan impersonation and will not allow the Lakers to lose.

Vince Young backtracking through agent

It’s a good thing Vince Young’s agent is coming out and saying his client did not request a trade. It’s a good thing because his agent knows that Young’s trade value is at an all-time low. I think people understand Young’s frustration since he is not starting right now. But to come out and say that if the team doesn’t play him, someone else will is not a good move.

The fact is no team in the league is going to give up a lot for a high-paid quarterback whose team and coaching staff seemed to have lost faith in him. People also have wondered about the mental state of Young and a team can’t afford to have a quarterback that they’re not sure about mentally because quarterback is the toughest position in all of sports.

Young needs to show people that he is ready to play football mentally and physically. It’s hard to do that when he is not playing but he should just keep his mouth shut and try to win the job back from Kerry Collins. Going to the media and seemingly saying trade me or play me, is not the way to show your team or other teams you get it. Going to practice working hard and doing whatever he can to help the team win will go a long way in doing that.

Kobe, please!!!

Did anyone believe Kobe Bryant when he said in a recent interview with Magic Johnson it is not important to him to win a NBA championship without former teammate Shaquille O’Neal? I didn’t think so.

Now, in defense of Kobe, he had to say that. There was no way he could admit that he wanted to win a championship without Shaq. He has tried hard to move past the incident and doesn’t want to be seen as digging up the past. But people know deep down inside, Kobe wants nothing more than to win a title without Shaq.

Kobe said in the same interview that Shaq couldn’t have won those championships without him and he is right. The Lakers are not the same team without Kobe. But Kobe also knows that most people give most of the credit to Shaq for winning those titles. Kobe said he wants to win another title just to win it, but he knows there is a difference between being on a team that wins a title and leading a team to a title.

Kobe knows his legacy will be enhanced if the Lakers can take down the Magic in the Finals. He will be seen as Batman instead of Robin. He also knows that he will get more credit for a fourth title than Shaq gets for his fourth title, since Shaq had Dwyane Wade on that Miami Heat team that won the title a few years ago.

Kobe can say all he wants that it is not important to him to win a title without Shaq, but people know the truth.

Del Rio questions Henderson’s desire

Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio blasted defensive tackle John Henderson Tuesday because Henderson pulled himself out of a drill saying he had a hurt shoulder. Del Rio told the media Henderson had nothing more than a shoulder bruise and if that injury happened to someone who played in Del Rio’s day, they wouldn’t have missed a single snap. Del Rio even said that Vince Lombardi must have been rolling over in his grave over Henderson’s decision to pull himself out of the drill.

I understand Del Rio’s frustration. He thought that Henderson was just trying to get out of the drill. However, he did not have to blast Henderson in the media like he did.

Coaches tell players all the time to leave team problems in the locker room and I understand that. Teams want to project an image to the fans, media and opposing teams that they are a unified team. That rule should also extend to coaches too. To go to the media and blast a player is not right because if the situation was the other way around, the player would be disciplined. Del Rio has already had problems with players before. He sent former Jaguars linebacker Mike Peterson home from a meeting about a year ago for insubordination.

One has to think that Henderson is not going to happy once he hears the comments his coach made about him. One also has to think whether this will cause problems between the two in the future. Del Rio’s and Peterson’s relationship was never the same after their dust-up and Peterson signed with the Atlanta Falcons earlier this offseason.

If Del Rio is going to command respect from his players, he need to learn to show respect to his players. Calling Henderson to his office and talking to him privately would have been a better solution than ripping him to the media.

Berto will still have to wait for mega fight

Andre Berto may have defended his WBC welterweight title Saturday night, but he didn’t make any new fans. Berto defeated the IBF junior welterweight champion Juan Urango easily by a unanimous decision with scores of 118-110, 118-110 and 117-111.

However, Berto did not make the kind of impression that will force the top welterweights in the division like Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Miguel Cotto fight him. At one point in the fight, fans were booing.

In boxing, the top-tier guys weigh risk vs. reward when deciding who they fight and right now, Berto isn’t worth the risk. He is powerful with good foot and hand speed. Berto is also short and compact, making him a hard target to find. When you combine his physical attributes with the fact he doesn’t have a huge fan base, you get a fighter that is too dangerous to fight if you are at the top of the division.

If Berto would have knocked Urango out, he would have created more of a buzz with the fans and top welterweights. He was expected to have a better performance against Urango, especially since Urango was coming up in weight to fight him. With the lackluster performance, however, he is still in the same place he was before the fight. That means Berto is going to have to fight another decent fighter before names like Mosley, Mayweather and Cotto agree to fight him.