#Basketball and football with all their timeouts and media timeouts
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Coach the NBA Finals, or perform in the Superbowl Halftime Show? I’d coach the NBA Finals because uh, I know more about basketball than performing at a halftime show. [x]
#Taika Waititi#Taika Tuesday#Edit#taika does a new interview where he looks straight into the camera#10 dead 500 injured#Also I'm SO delighted to see his beautiful face again#And as someone who has worked in sports#THIS ABSOLUTELY TOOK ME OUT HSJKSL#like...basketball speedround? basketball death match?? basketball hunger games???#HONESTLY SIGN ME UP#Some games of certain sports would just...go on for SO FREAKING LONG LMAO#UNNECESSARILY LONG#I guess longer if you're not entirely into the particular sport but goodness#Basketball and football with all their timeouts and media timeouts#And then baseball can just DRAAAAAAG#At least basketball is relatively fast paced when it gets going but still#he has a Point PFFFF#POINTS WERE MADE
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Some of us are starting to admit there might be a real need for change.
Well, we lost to Georgia yesterday, and for all of the reasons that it normally sucks, this one sucks even more because it seems as if some of us have realized that major changes are needed after trying to hold off on that talk for quite some time.
SNAP JUDGMENTS
I feel like the staff here at College and Mag has been some of Gus’s biggest supporters over the last two years. I think most of us are off now. The players executed well *enough* to keep this game close, but it’s clear we are a in a purgatory of being better than most of the conference but definitively less talented than the elites. It’s frustrating, because Gus deserves a ton of credit for turning Auburn into a consistent top 15 team. But there are clear, definitive decisions you can point to that have kept Auburn from getting over the hump. Tonight, the timeout before half was the backbreaker. Absolutely inexcusable. In the larger scheme, it’s mind-boggling that the guy who championed a unique, specific offense refuses to run it until his back is against the wall. At that point, it’s too late. I don’t know guys. I love this team and the players on it. But the relationship between Gus and the alumni/fan base is beyond repair. I wish him all the best, but I don’t think it will be here.
Time to go drink.
-Ryan Sterritt
We didn’t play well enough to win, and yet these ******* ****s get every ******* call again. Big surprise.
-James Jones
We can gripe about the officiating and it was highly suspect at the end but you can’t get into a 21-0 hole at home and expect to win. The two key plays I’ll remember from this game are Gus sending Anders out to attempt a FG on the first drive when he was going to go for it which turned into 0 points. And second, with the offense doing nothing, he calls a timeout that gave Georgia’s offense some time to go down the field and score right before half. Our defense forced NINE 3 and outs!! As usual, they played their tails off and have nothing to show for it.
I thought this was a game Gus had to win and I’ve defended Gus for a long time but I don’t think I can do that anymore. It’s gonna be a longgg few weeks on the Plains.
On the plus side, Bruce and basketball are 4-0 on the court and getting it done in recruiting! Welcome Chris Moore!
-Will McLaughlin
Time for some soul searching, folks.
-Josh Dub
I dunno man, this sport has way too high of stakes. Wish I didn’t care so much about it. Georgia shouldn’t feel good about this, but they should feel better than us.
-Son of Crow
I am damn proud of the players on this football team. They ain’t perfect. Bo Nix isn’t yet good enough to beat the best teams in the country but he’s showing more & more flashes every chance. Boobee Whitlow fights his butt off on every carry. Seth Williams was THAT DUDE tonight. Every single player on that defense should pay for nothing the rest of their lives in the city of Auburn. There’s a lot of special football players but more importantly special people in that locker room. They have my full support & I will be cheering my ass off for them in Jordan-Hare in a couple of weeks.
But they deserve better. Not every failed play is Gus Malzahn’s fault but the trend has been there for too long. For the 4th straight year AU has been good enough on the defensive side of the ball to play with anyone. Consistently the point of failure has been Malzahn’s offense. His scheme is predicated on running the football yet he’s built a program better fit for the Air Raid. The biggest flaws upon his resume isn’t what he’s done against Bama like the national media wanna say. It’s what he’s done against UGA & LSU.
2015 UGA
2016 UGA
2017 LSU
2017 UGA SEC Championship
2018 LSU
2019 UGA
Win half of those games & I can be bummed about tonight but still on the bus. But he didn’t. He continually loses against any team with remotely similar talent. Winning on the road against top team is hard but you better at least protect your own house. He’s not doing that.
I like Gus Malzahn. I still think there’s a good coach inside there. I WANT him to be a success because that’s what’s best for Auburn. But we are 7 years in now with the same consistent afflictions. We are ramming our head against the same ceiling. Making a change is risky & could set the program back but not making a change traps AU in purgatory.
I hopped off the bus after Tennessee in 2018 but hoped I would see an opportunity to hop back on board. Tonight felt like the final blow, at least to me. Maybe AU comes out & takes down Bama in 2 weeks vs a backup QB. Maybe they get the bowl win & finish with 10 wins. That would be awesome! I would love that. But right now, on November 16, 2019, count me as one of those who is done with the Malzahn era
-AU Nerd
You can’t call that timeout before the half knowing the opposition gets the ball to start the second half. They looked completely fine with going to the locker room and making adjustments, but if you’re willing to roll the dice, so were they. The game turned when Georgia went up 14-0. Our defense played outstanding and deserves so much better than 3 losses at this point in the season. Our offense was so out of sorts for 3+ quarters that we get routed without their effort. Derrick and Marlon laid their guts on the line and came away empty handed. And their ain’t a damn thing they can do about it but go on out there and lay them on the line again. And again. And again. But man, what a discouraging feeling to know Georgia crossed our 40 yard line 3 times and we crossed theirs 7 and we muster 14 points in a touchdown loss. People with much more authority, influence, and money have got some hard things to look at. And no matter my disagreements and/or agreements, we can all see this coming. Steve Spurrier I think said it best when he left Florida that you tend to lose 10% of your fanbase with each year you’re at a school. Well we’ve seen this for 10 years total now and I think that statement has at least some truth to it.
This team is capable of beating Alabama in 2 weeks because this defense is too good and has too much pride to do anything but leave it all on the field. But the optics of this, with a flurry at the end, are only something to build upon when it’s your first year in Baton Rouge and you wonder what might’ve been if you had another 15 minutes. In year 7, it’s showing a real crack in the foundation. At least one side of the football has been broken for the better part of 10 years, with some wild success and major failings included along the way. But the feeling of seeing the defensive side build something consistently for 4 straight seasons and to come away with your _best_ season to date in that time frame netting you 4 losses is something I’m not willing to be OK with.
Auburn should’ve been a playoff team at least once since 2014. They should be on their way to at least 1 more division title. They should have at least 1 more conference title. Instead we’re regulated to a postseason destination that’s nothing more than hopefully a reward to somewhere warm for a group that has fought their guts out and deserves to have some fun, but a trip that will ultimately mean nothing meaningful, and be a source of contention.
I’ve never thought this was a year where Auburn would make a coaching change for the sheer size of the buyout. I still believe that. What I’ve hoped is that we could do enough to calm the waters in 2020, when you essentially replace both sides of the line of scrimmage. Maybe there is enough by beating Alabama in 2 weeks. Maybe not. But as we move forward, I think it’s a fair question to ask ourselves what the expectation is at Auburn. At Alabama it is to win national championships. At Georgia it is now to just win 1. At LSU it was to beat Alabama and get back to a competitive standing in the SEC every year. What about us? What do we expect? Because I think it depends on who you ask, and if we can ever get on the same page with that answer I think it will help us all figure out what we need to do to get there.
-Josh Black
I’ve been one of the ones that wanted to keep Gus Malzahn for multiple reasons. He’s never missed a bowl. None of his predecessors can say that. He was the architect of an offense that got us to two national championship games. None of his predecessors can say that. For the most part, we’ve been in most games that we’ve played while he’s been at Auburn. Getting blown out is, by and large, a thing of the past. Is that a direct result of his offense or the other elements around the team? It’s tough to tell. The last four years, Kevin Steele’s defense has been a huge part of that, but Gus hired him. He made a great decision there.
However, were his successes on offense in 2010 and 2013 due to the guys who we’ll come to cherish more and more as time passes? Cam Newton was the best college football player I ever saw, and Nick Marshall was perhaps the perfect zone read quarterback. Did Gus benefit from them more than they benefitted from him? In hindsight it seems like a yes.
As for the game itself, we got screwed in some aspects — the missed facemask on the last drive that would’ve given us a first down and momentum, the Seth Williams overturn, the onside kick — but maybe we shouldn’t have waited three-plus quarters to start playing offense. That’s on Gus. I still don’t really know what our gameplan was, and I don’t know what it was in Gainesville or Baton Rouge either. For a season in which Gus bet on himself, there needed to be some wild stuff happening on that side of the ball and we just haven’t seen it. It’s really hard for me and others to rationalize why the innovator of the HUNH doesn’t want to run it until he has to, and then it’s successful. Why won’t that work earlier? There’s no real answer.
Maybe it is time to move on. At this point it’s probably best since the trust factor between Gus and the fanbase is gone. It sucks, because we’re obviously griping about a season in which we’re 7-3 with losses to two teams currently in the Playoff top four, and another top ten team at their place. What will satisfy us? For this season at least, a win over Bama and the promise of something more in the future.
-Jack Condon
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Blogify your World
http://www.businessinsider.com/disney-ceo-bob-iger-says-there-are-too-many-ads-on-tv-2017-2
Almost every single one of us enjoys television in one form or another. Whether it is through traditional means like cable and over the air broadcast, to more modern services like internet streaming, we all enjoy watching our favorite shows. The universal enemy of television programming however, has always been the commercial. A necessary evil in the world of broadcasting, commercials are an increasingly large part of every broadcast so producers can squeeze every cent they can out of their programming. Some are starting to feel the backlash from too many commercials. In the world of live sports production (which is considered by most to be the only thing still keeping cable television alive) commercials have become an overwhelming part of the broadcasting process. Televised games now stretch hours past their original run times to fit in as many commercials as possible. The national championship game for the NCAA division 1 college football playoff this past year topped out at an impressive four hours and twenty one minutes of run time, an almost one hour increase from the average time to complete a college football broadcast. All of this is done in the name of advertisements. Even here at the University of Nebraska we run into the same issues. For example, in every college basketball game each team is allotted five time outs to use at their discretion. That’s ten time outs total. For media, their are timeouts scheduled every five minutes of play time, regardless of how many timeouts have been used up to that point. So its a close game in the second half and both teams have their time outs. Between media time outs (which are usually 4-7 minutes compared to a team timeout of 1 minute or 30 seconds) you can have a game stopped four or five times and taken to commercial without even a minute of game time being played. This is obviously problematic to the people who matter most in a broadcast, the audience. In the article posted Disney CEO Bob Iger talks about the need to move away from excessive commercials and to adopt a more stream-service like format to broadcasting. This comes as a response to many of Disney’s most profitable holdings, notably ESPN, seeing a large and consistent decline in viewership. ESPN’s new strategy to maximize commercials on big broadcasts has been to now broadcast the same program on all of its sub-channels. Now the national championship is being broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and even ESPN’s spanish language partners. This way, the same broadcast can run at a shorter time and theoretically get advertising for four times as many viewers. So far this strategy has been successful, but many in the broadcasting field have concerns about whether this strategy helps or hurts by splitting viewership to multiple channels. Only time will tell if this strategy continues to be successful, but the age of commercialized television is slowly but surely going away. New advertising strategies will certainly take the place of the traditional commercial, but it has become apparent viewers are fed up with forced advertising.
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Your Friday Briefing – The New York Times
Brexit is here. Most of Britain shrugs.
When the sun rises over Britain on Saturday, the country will no longer be part of the European Union.
The issue of whether to stay or leave has already divided British families, cast a shadow over businesses and paralyzed the government, writes our London bureau chief, Mark Landler. And the trade talks that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government will have with the bloc’s leaders in the coming months could prove just as traumatic.
But for now, Mark writes, the prevailing emotion in the United Kingdom is a characteristically British reflex: Get on with it.
Another angle: Pro-Europe “remainers” are girding for new battles over how Brexit will affect trade and immigration, among other issues. Some of them see the American left’s response to President Trump’s 2016 election victory as a useful model.
Closer look: The E.U. gave a final seal of approval to the withdrawal agreement on Thursday in a way that was quintessentially Brussels: bureaucratic and undramatic.
Finer points: Because the European Union dictates Britain’s departure, Brexit will be official at the stroke of midnight, Brussels time, which is only 11 p.m. in London.
Some responses to the virus, which has sickened nearly 10,000 people, mostly in China, can be seen as rational calculations based on the risk of infection. Others are xenophobic and feed off latent bigotry linked to China’s rise as a global power, our Tokyo bureau chief writes.
World Health Organization: The agency declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday, citing fears that the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems.
Related: After thousands of passengers were blocked from leaving a cruise ship docked north of Rome over concerns that someone aboard might have had the virus, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said that his country had blocked all flights to and from China. The United States also issued a “do not travel” to China advisory, and Russia ordered the closing of its 2,600-mile border with China, starting today.
Opinion: Ian Johnson, an author who has lived in the Chinese capital for more than 20 years, writes in an Opinion piece that the government’s “inability to formulate a measured response” will make the current outbreak a direct successor of the SARS epidemic.
Republicans push to end impeachment trial
President Trump’s impeachment trial may end as soon as today — but only if Republicans can muster enough votes to block witness testimony.
As of late Thursday, they appeared to have the margin they’d need, although Democrats were hinting at a last-minute gambit to frustrate their plans. Here’s the latest.
Above, a sketch artist’s view of the trial, which is closed to cameras that are not operated by government employees.
Analysis: The Republicans have offered multiple rationales for refusing fresh testimony, but our chief Washington correspondent says they’re worried that hearing from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, would lead to a cascade of other witnesses.
Background: Mr. Bolton’s coming book corroborates a central piece of the case against Mr. Trump over his pressure campaign in Ukraine.
Profile: Mitt Romney, a former presidential candidate, is one of two Republican senators pushing for witnesses in the trial.
If you have a few minutes, this is worth it
Doing the political math in Paris
President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party declined to make the mathematician Cédric Villani its candidate for the Parisian mayoral election in March.
But Dr. Villani, above center, is running anyway as a dissident candidate. His platform promotes information technology, and he notes that the city’s first elected mayor, in 1789, was also a mathematician.
“Politics is where rationality and irrationality meet,” said Dr. Villani, a deputy in the country’s National Assembly. “As well as passion.”
Here’s what else is happening
Sexual abuse: A French appeals court on Thursday overturned a ruling against Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, who had been convicted last year of covering up decades-old sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese. Cardinal Barbarin served none of his suspended six-month sentence.
Kobe Bryant crash: The company that owned the helicopter that crashed into a fogbound mountainside on Sunday, killing the basketball legend and eight others, did not have certification for its pilots to fly in poor visibility, sources familiar with the company’s operations told The Times.
Deutsche Bank: The German bank, once Europe’s largest by assets, said it had lost a total of €5.3 billion in 2019. It’s fighting to recover from years of scandal and mismanagement that have caused its share price to plummet more than 90 percent since 2007.
The Guardian: The newspaper said it would no longer accept advertisements from oil and gas companies, making it one of the latest institutions to limit financial ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Snapshot: Above, kayaking in Florida’s Everglades National Park. In an essay for our Travel section, the journalist Nina Burleigh explains how the low-lying area is threatened by rising sea levels. “I’ve traveled far but never found a place where the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man are so palpable in one place,” she writes.
Brad Pitt: Our film critic explores how the actor embodies “contemporary masculinity and its contradictions.”
U.S. politics quiz: The Democratic primary season for the 2020 presidential election begins on Feb. 3 and lasts until early June. Take our quiz to see which candidate could be your match.
What we’re reading: This essay in Cleveland Magazine. Stephen Hiltner, an editor on the Travel desk, writes: “Dave Lucas, Ohio’s poet laureate, ruminates on the beauty and the mystery of Lake Erie’s annual freeze.”
Now, a break from the news
Cook: Sausage and peppers pasta with broccoli riffs on a classic Italian combination.
Go: Terra-cotta and wood sculptures form the “visual and emotional heart” of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York about the history and cultural heritage of kingdoms on the Sahara’s rim, our art critic writes.
Read: In “A Woman Like Her,” the journalist Sanam Maher explores the society that enabled and applauded the murder of Pakistan’s first social media star, Qandeel Baloch.
Smarter Living: When donating to environmental organizations, it can be hard to figure out who’s actually making a difference. Here’s what to look for.
And now for the Back Story on …
The ethics of watching the Super Bowl
On Sunday night, around 100 million people are expected to tune in for the ultimate American party: the Super Bowl. But with growing concern over the violence of American football, what are the ethics of watching the biggest sporting event of the year? Our culture critics have their own take, and here’s what Ken Belson, who has been reporting on C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, told our Briefings teammate Remy Tumin.
What keeps fans coming back?
It’s an event that transcends the sport. The N.F.L. has been brilliant in turning it into a spectacle, and there’s nothing like it. That’s partly because of how the league has structured it — one final game, winner takes all, in a neutral city, on the first Sunday of February, every year. Other sports don’t have the same permanency.
You’ll be watching from the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. What can you see that viewers can’t?
Often when there’s an injury timeout, they go to commercial. I’ll be able to see doctors tending to players, including a neuro-trauma consultant who is on the sidelines (and wears a red hat). If you see the consultant get involved, it means someone has had a concussion.
What would you say to fans who are having moral issues?
It’s a collision sport at heart, and if you don’t want see it, turn on something else. If you can’t reconcile that violence, and it is violence, then there are many other sports. I think it’s O.K. to watch it and have misgivings. It’s human nature — you can both admire and be horrified by the same thing.
That’s it for this briefing. Have a great weekend.
— Mike
Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the coronavirus outbreak. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Half a pint (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Copies of The New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project” are back in stock for the final time in our online store.
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15 Famous Athletes from the University of Michigan
Navigation:
Tom Brady
Chris Webber
Michael Phelps
Derek Jeter
Desmond Howard
Jim Harbaugh
Jalen Rose
Charles Woodson
Juwan Howard
Dan Dierdorf
Glen Rice
Barry Larkin
Mike Matheny
Rudy Tomjanovich
Anthony Carter
The pride and tradition of Michigan Wolverine sports will be etched in sports history forever. Some of the greatest athletes in the world wore maize and blue colors with great pride. Here are the fifteen most famous athletes from the University of Michigan.
Tom Brady
Love him or hate him, Tom Brady is considered the GOAT (greatest of all time) in the National Football League. Six Superbowl titles, three league MVP awards, and countless other records have Brady at the upper echelon quarterbacks to ever play the game. From San Mateo, California Brady once considered transferring from the Wolverines due to lack of play.
Chris Webber
I know what you are thinking. Webber’s legacy will forever be tainted by the infamous timeout call in the NCAA championship game against North Carolina. April 5, 1993, will forever be a dark cloud in Michigan sports history. Born in Detroit, Webber was able to launch a successful NBA career after that epic blunder. He made pitstops around several different teams including the Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers, and Detroit Pistons.
Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps is the most successful and decorated Olympian of all time. Phelps has 28 medals and holds the record for Olympic gold medals. Phelps is from Baltimore, Maryland and is a prominent figure in the sport of swimming.
Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter is a memorable figure in Major League Baseball and a decorated Wolverines alumnus. Born in New Jersey, Jeter was the face of the New York Yankees for many years, and he currently serves as CEO and part owner of the Miami Marlins. Jeter’s conduct on and off the field epitomized what class and good character are all about.
Desmond Howard
Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio Desmond Howard will be revered as one of the greatest special teams players for the Green Bay Packers. During a rival game with Ohio State, Desmond wanted to do something special after scoring a touchdown. He imitated the pose of the football player on the Heisman trophy, immediately receiving national media attention.
Jim Harbaugh
Jim Harbaugh, from Toledo Ohio, is the current head football coach of the Wolverines. Harbough also tasted success in the NFL nearing winning a title in a great Superbowl against his brother, John Harbaugh. Harbaugh played for six different NFL teams, and he was honored as NFL comeback player of the year during the 1995 season.
Jalen Rose
Jalen Rose is a Detroit native that made tours around the NBA with six different teams. Rose helped propel the Indiana Pacers to three consecutive Eastern Conference Finals appearances. Rose was a member of the infamous Fab Five and currently is a television personality.
Charles Woodson
Charles Woodson was a two-way player who played both offense and defense for the Wolverines. He helped lead the Wolverines to a national championship in 1997. From Freemont, Ohio Woodson was involved in the infamous tuck rule play against Tom Brady and the Patriots in the 2002 AFC championship game.
Juwan Howard
Hailing from Chicago, Juwan Howard was a dominant center that helped propel the Miami Heat to back to back championships in the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Howard returned to the Heat as an assistant coach after retiring in 2013.
Dan Dierdorf
Dan Dierdorf was born in the location of the NFL hall of fame in Canton, Ohio. He played 13 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals and was selected to six Pro Bowls. He spent 15 years as an announcer for CBS, and he currently is a color analyst for the Wolverines football team.
Glen Rice
Glen Rice won both the NCAA championship and NBA championship during his collegiate and professional career. Glen Rice was a local born in the and made pit stops with six different NBA teams before retiring is 2004.
Barry Larkin
Barry Larkin was one of the pivotal pieces of the 1990 Cincinnati Reds World Series championship team. Larkin has some other career highlights and accolades including three Gold Glove Awards, the National League MVP, nine Silver Slugger Awards. He was also inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in July 2012.
Mike Matheny
Mike Matheny was one of the most accomplished defensive players of his era. He won four Gold Glove Awards and played for four different MLB teams. Matheny is a native of Columbus, Ohio and was the first manager in MLB history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first four seasons.
Rudy Tomjanovich
Rudy Tomjanovich led the Houston Rockets to two consecutive NBA championships. During his collegiate career with the Wolverines, he holds the record for rebounds that continues to stand. Tomjanovich had also coached the United States basketball team to a gold medal.
Anthony Carter
Carter finished his collegiate career with as the all-time leading receiver, and he played professional football for 13 years. He was a three-time Pro Bowler, and he played for four different NFL teams.
If you happen to be in Michigan, have a break by visiting the LIVNFRESH shop to see their great collection of items that you will love.
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15 Famous Athletes from the University of Michigan
Navigation:
Tom Brady
Chris Webber
Michael Phelps
Derek Jeter
Desmond Howard
Jim Harbaugh
Jalen Rose
Charles Woodson
Juwan Howard
Dan Dierdorf
Glen Rice
Barry Larkin
Mike Matheny
Rudy Tomjanovich
Anthony Carter
The pride and tradition of Michigan Wolverine sports will be etched in sports history forever. Some of the greatest athletes in the world wore maize and blue colors with great pride. Here are the fifteen most famous athletes from the University of Michigan.
Tom Brady
Love him or hate him, Tom Brady is considered the GOAT (greatest of all time) in the National Football League. Six Superbowl titles, three league MVP awards, and countless other records have Brady at the upper echelon quarterbacks to ever play the game. From San Mateo, California Brady once considered transferring from the Wolverines due to lack of play.
Chris Webber
I know what you are thinking. Webber’s legacy will forever be tainted by the infamous timeout call in the NCAA championship game against North Carolina. April 5, 1993, will forever be a dark cloud in Michigan sports history. Born in Detroit, Webber was able to launch a successful NBA career after that epic blunder. He made pitstops around several different teams including the Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers, and Detroit Pistons.
Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps is the most successful and decorated Olympian of all time. Phelps has 28 medals and holds the record for Olympic gold medals. Phelps is from Baltimore, Maryland and is a prominent figure in the sport of swimming.
Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter is a memorable figure in Major League Baseball and a decorated Wolverines alumnus. Born in New Jersey, Jeter was the face of the New York Yankees for many years, and he currently serves as CEO and part owner of the Miami Marlins. Jeter’s conduct on and off the field epitomized what class and good character are all about.
Desmond Howard
Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio Desmond Howard will be revered as one of the greatest special teams players for the Green Bay Packers. During a rival game with Ohio State, Desmond wanted to do something special after scoring a touchdown. He imitated the pose of the football player on the Heisman trophy, immediately receiving national media attention.
Jim Harbaugh
Jim Harbaugh, from Toledo Ohio, is the current head football coach of the Wolverines. Harbough also tasted success in the NFL nearing winning a title in a great Superbowl against his brother, John Harbaugh. Harbaugh played for six different NFL teams, and he was honored as NFL comeback player of the year during the 1995 season.
Jalen Rose
Jalen Rose is a Detroit native that made tours around the NBA with six different teams. Rose helped propel the Indiana Pacers to three consecutive Eastern Conference Finals appearances. Rose was a member of the infamous Fab Five and currently is a television personality.
Charles Woodson
Charles Woodson was a two-way player who played both offense and defense for the Wolverines. He helped lead the Wolverines to a national championship in 1997. From Freemont, Ohio Woodson was involved in the infamous tuck rule play against Tom Brady and the Patriots in the 2002 AFC championship game.
Juwan Howard
Hailing from Chicago, Juwan Howard was a dominant center that helped propel the Miami Heat to back to back championships in the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Howard returned to the Heat as an assistant coach after retiring in 2013.
Dan Dierdorf
Dan Dierdorf was born in the location of the NFL hall of fame in Canton, Ohio. He played 13 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals and was selected to six Pro Bowls. He spent 15 years as an announcer for CBS, and he currently is a color analyst for the Wolverines football team.
Glen Rice
Glen Rice won both the NCAA championship and NBA championship during his collegiate and professional career. Glen Rice was a local born in the and made pit stops with six different NBA teams before retiring is 2004.
Barry Larkin
Barry Larkin was one of the pivotal pieces of the 1990 Cincinnati Reds World Series championship team. Larkin has some other career highlights and accolades including three Gold Glove Awards, the National League MVP, nine Silver Slugger Awards. He was also inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in July 2012.
Mike Matheny
Mike Matheny was one of the most accomplished defensive players of his era. He won four Gold Glove Awards and played for four different MLB teams. Matheny is a native of Columbus, Ohio and was the first manager in MLB history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first four seasons.
Rudy Tomjanovich
Rudy Tomjanovich led the Houston Rockets to two consecutive NBA championships. During his collegiate career with the Wolverines, he holds the record for rebounds that continues to stand. Tomjanovich had also coached the United States basketball team to a gold medal.
Anthony Carter
Carter finished his collegiate career with as the all-time leading receiver, and he played professional football for 13 years. He was a three-time Pro Bowler, and he played for four different NFL teams.
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Still Can’t Get It Done – Observations from Celtics 121, Sixers 114 (OT)
Merry Christmas.
Let’s talk about the final play of regulation.
If you were like me, you were probably thinking that the ball would end up in the hands of Jimmy Butler or Joel Embiid, but JJ Redick took and missed the shot instead. If he hits from 18 feet, we’re talking about a wonderful road win. Instead he missed, the Sixers went on to lose in overtime, and the reactions were borderline apoplectic, at least on social media.
I don’t have too much of a problem with that play call. Sure, you can go isolation with Butler, who has hit a couple of tough three pointers at the buzzer this season. You can run the two-man game with Embiid and Redick.
Brett Brown decided against using a timeout and instead wanted Redick on the baseline, running that “inverted pick and roll” with Ben Simmons.
Watch it once while focusing on Redick and Simmons, then watch it again and check out Embiid’s body language:
I put “inverted pick and roll” in quotations because that’s only maybe 50% of what the play is. Sometimes it looks like a brush cut and sometimes it looks like a dribble hand-off. It’s a little bit of all three of those things at once.
Whatever the case, it’s a set they’ve used before with success. All you’re really doing it spreading out the floor and putting the onus on two defenders to navigate the brush, or else Simmons is going to drive the lane. JJ ended up with the ball and got a mid-range look that really is a higher percentage shot than those iso three-pointers Butler made earlier in the year.
The only problem I have with using Ben in that situation is that he’s obviously not a threat to shoot, so if you cut off the lane, you know he’s going to dump it off to Redick instead. And in this situation, he really didn’t get any contact on Gordon Hayward, nor did JJ do a good enough job of running Hayward into Marcus Morris. It was rushed and poorly executed:
Hayward can’t just round Simmons there, you need to get some body on him or drive him into his own man.
In hindsight, the skill sets of Butler and Embiid allow for more improvisation or flexibility when you’re in a crunch time scenario like that. Butler can drive OR shoot. Embiid can get to the foul line. You only needed one-point there, and Redick was not having an amazing shooting night, yet that’s where they went.
The other thing is this:
They didn’t need to take a timeout. Taking a timeout allows Brad Stevens to sub in Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier and take Hayward and Kyrie Irving off the floor. It also allows the crowd to sort of whip themselves into a frenzy. Letting your team go down the floor, seeing the matchup, and calling the play you want is fine in that instance. I didn’t think that was a huge deal at the end of the day.
This all leads us to Brett Brown, who unsurprisingly took a lot of flak last night, not just for that final play but because of the overtime collapse.
Let’s start by taking a step back and defining Brett Brown.
Brett likes motion, movement, rhythm, tempo, and sharing of the basketball. His base offense takes bits of things he learned under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and also incorporates some Mike D’Antoni concepts as well. It’s space and pace, right? They spread the floor, sling the ball around, and get out in transition.
All of that is fine for 45 minutes, but it runs antithetical to late game NBA basketball, which is about slowing things down and executing half-court offense. Sometimes you just have to put the ball in your best player’s hands and let him do his thing.
I know I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s kind of like a spread offense football team doing well for three quarters. They throw bubble screens and hit you with read options and really kill you in space. Then, all of a sudden, the situation changes, the defense tightens up, and you need to line up in I-formation and just give the ball to your 240 pound fullback and let him bulldoze somebody for a difficult first down.
The Sixers aren’t great with that, that concept of changing pace and slowing it down and closing out a game. I don’t know if the base offense and some of their more common sets interface well with late-game basketball. They certainly aren’t running the floor and getting transition three-pointers with 45 seconds left on the clock, and a lot of times that renders Ben Simmons as more or less useless in the half court.
I don’t think all of this makes Brett Brown a “bad coach” per se, but philosophically the late-game approach has to shift. He needs to micro-manage more than he does. It’s nice to trust your team in a hands-off way, but a younger squad can’t just feel their way through these games, they need guidance from the sidelines.
This quote from Embiid last night I think sums it up a bit:
Joel Embiid had this to say about what he thought went wrong against the Celtics. pic.twitter.com/LYKvpptdl6
— David Murphy (@ByDavidMurphy) December 26, 2018
No player should ever be saying that they don’t feel like they’re in the right situation. I know Joel is putting the onus on himself to do more, but this sounds like he’s still not fully on board with whatever the Sixers are doing right now. He also needs to not turn the ball over six times, but it’s hard to criticize a guy who put up 34 points and 16 rebounds on 59% shooting while going 12 for 12 from the foul line.
One more little Embiid nugget from David Murphy’s Inquirer story:
Any ambiguity that may have seemed present in those sentiments was quickly dispelled when Embiid was asked why he thought the ball did not find him down the stretch.
“Don’t know,” the big man responded. “Got to ask coach.”
Hmm.. I dunno. Joel sometimes has these emotional knee-jerk types of reactions. He just did this a few weeks ago and it was squashed. We’ll see if anything comes from this round of griping.
For what it’s worth, I do think the “perimeter” stuff is a bit overblown, because Joel more often than not finds himself in the post after the Sixers go through their motions in the base offense. He gets post looks off elbow sets and they find various ways to get him in the block. A good sidebar story would be to look through the film and analyze every double team he’s received over the past three or four games.
Anyway, in the overtime period they hit one of eight field goal attempts, which obviously is not going to get the job done.
They were:
Redick open 3 (miss)
Butler tough turnaround mid range jumper (make)
Simmons tough layup from behind backboard (miss)
Wilson Chandler 23-footer after offensive rebound (miss)
Butler relatively open three-pointer (miss)
Redick contested three-pointer with shot clock expiring (miss)
Simmons transition layup against Al Horford (miss)
Butler three pointer with a hand in his face (miss)
The Sixers didn’t even hit the rim on those last two possessions, with 45 and 30 seconds on the clock respectively while down by 4 and 6 points. They really just did not execute well in overtime and they missed some open shots, rushed their sets, and looked really uncomfortable in the half court.
This one stood out to me:
Butler and Embiid pick and roll? Great. Love it.
They’re just a little sloppy going through it. Butler picks up his dribble early. Embiid has Chandler wide open in the corner, but picks out Simmons who is also open under the basket. Ben ends up catching the ball behind the backboard and has a tough finish there.
On the next trip down the floor, they did this:
That’s not a bad look at all.
Yeah, Chandler might have been able to get Embiid down low there, but you can live with an open Butler three.
They just didn’t get it done when it mattered last night. If Kyrie misses at the end of regulation or JJ hits his shot, again, we’re sitting here talking about a great win. The Sixers really had some promising patches of play last night and I thought they played some ferocious defense down the stretch. They went on some nice runs to erase Boston leads, and they even built leads late in the game. They just couldn’t finish the job by executing in the half court.
Other notes:
The Simmons jumper wasn’t a big deal. He shot it because he had to. He’s not taking that shot during a normal possession.
You see the clear difference in depth in these games. The Sixers got 13 points from their bench while Boston got 26.
Mike Muscala couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn yesterday. His 1-8 three point total really killed them.
3-7 for Ben from the foul line doesn’t get the job done.
Chandler had a nice game. 15 points on 5-11 shooting while going 3-6 from three? You’ll take that any day of the week.
The defensive rebounding in the third and fourth quarter was very good.
Boston didn’t shoot that well. Credit the Sixers for some of that, but you’re not gonna get a ton of 42% shooting nights from them at the Garden.
The national broadcasts are underwhelming.
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Do college football’s 2 best 2017 QBs play for rivals? Doesn’t happen often!
NFL folks love Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen, but a Big 12 rivalry also has two of the country’s best.
In 1988, the narrative focused on Los Angeles. After UCLA whipped No. 2 Nebraska by 13 and USC throttled No. 3 Oklahoma by 16, the Bruins and Trojans were on a collision course. Only a slip-up by UCLA at home to Washington State (coached by Dennis Erickson, who would take the Miami job) kept USC-UCLA from being a battle of unbeatens.
UCLA was led by Oklahoma transfer Troy Aikman, who won the Davey O’Brien Award and would be the first pick in the NFL draft. USC’s star QB was Rodney Peete, who won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and would have a long NFL career. Peete and Aikman finished second and third in Heisman voting, beaten out by Barry Sanders.
Almost three decades later, we might be treated to a USC-UCLA repeat.
USC will be preseason top five, thanks in no small part to Sam Darnold, who ended 2016 on fire and is on every preseason All-America list. If USC can replace its top two receivers and three offensive linemen, the Trojans will contend.
UCLA’s Josh Rosen is also one of the best. He was a five-star recruit who performed well as a freshman and saw his 2016 derailed by injuries and a poor coordinator hire. The Bruins need to find their running game, but USC and UCLA could meet with a Heisman, division title, playoff implications, and the draft at stake.
Dan Kadar’s first 2018 mock draft has the pair going Nos. 1 and 2 next year.
Are there other instances of two arch-rivals having QBs considered elites by either the NFL or by the rest of college football?
Let’s start with 1980 and find some examples.
Oliver Luck (West Virginia) and Dan Marino (Pitt) in 1981
Before becoming an athletic director and member of the Playoff committee, Luck was an outstanding QB. He was as a second round pick of the Oilers.
Marino had a somewhat more successful NFL career, throwing for over 61,000 yards and 420 touchdowns.
Both regressed in their senior seasons, with Marino dropping from 6.8 adjusted yards per attempt to 4.6, while Luck dropped from 6.7 to 5.3. Their biggest meeting came during Luck’s senior swoon and Marino’s junior surge. 4-0 Pitt beat 4-0 West Virginia, 17-0. Marino was hurt, so Jackie Sherrill deployed a game plan that he described as “the most conservative I have ever played.”
Luck’s son would have more success in rivalry games.
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Todd Blackledge (Penn State) and Marino in 1982
Marino faced another arch-rival (apologies to Penn State fans and their views on whether Pitt is a rival) in a critical game.
No. 2 Penn State hosted No. 5 Pitt. Both QBs would finish in the top 10 of Heisman voting. Both would be first-rounders. Marino had missed a national title in 1981 because of a loss to Penn State, so 1982 was a chance at revenge.
The same thing would happen in 1982. Pitt’s defense played much better and the Panthers had a 7-3 lead at halftime, but were outscored 16-3 in the second half. It was the ‘80s, so a battle between two of the best quarterbacks in the country could produce only 29 combined points and one touchdown pass. Penn State moved on to the Sugar Bowl, where they would win Joe Paterno his first title.
Tommy Maddox (UCLA) and Todd Marinovich (USC) in 1990
Neither is remembered as a great college QB, but this is interesting for two reasons.
First, both would be first-rounders, with Marinovich going 24th to the Raiders (the next quarterback, nine picks later: Brett Favre) and Maddox going 25th the next year to the Broncos.
Second, the 1990 game was one of the most exciting in the history of the rivalry. USC won, 45-42, with the lead changing twice in the last two minutes. Enjoy Keith Jackson calling a crazy ending in a season full of crazy results.
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Mark Brunell (Washington) and Drew Bledsoe (Washington State) in 1992
USC didn’t go to the Rose Bowl in 1990 because Brunell and Washington had clinched a berth.
After being hurt for much of the Huskies’ title run in 1991 and ceding the reins to Billy Joe Hobert, Brunell returned in 1992. Washington had clinched a third straight Rose Bowl when the Huskies went to play Washington State.
Bledsoe would be the first draft pick, throwing for over 7,000 yards in college and over 44,000 in the NFL. Brunell would be a fifth-round pick and throw for over 32,000 in the NFL. (For good measure, Hobert was a third-rounder and started 17 games in the NFL.)
With roughly 80,000 future yards of NFL talent behind center, the teams combined for 65 points in a snowstorm. The most memorable play of Washington State’s 42-23 win was Bledsoe completing a touchdown that ended in a snow pile.
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Gino Torretta (Miami) and Charlie Ward (Florida State) in 1992
One QB’s NFL career line would be 5-of-16 for 41 yards, and another took up pro basketball. Still, it’s impossible to ignore a game between Heisman winners.
Torretta is viewed as one of the weakest Heisman winners in history; Ward became a great college quarterback, after Brad Scott conceived of the Fast Break offense.
The ‘92 game would be remembered for a lot of reasons, but QB play was not one. Marvin Jones showed no respect for Larry Jones in one of the great hits in football history (and one that would still be legal today):
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It was also memorable for Dan Mowrey etching his name into Wide Right lore by missing a 39-yard field goal at the end.
Peyton Manning (Tennessee) and Tim Couch (Kentucky) in 1997
OK, Kentucky-Tennessee is never going to be on lists of the best rivalries in college football, but they play for a trophy, and UK fans view it as a rivalry.
In 1997, each was led by a quarterback who would go No. 1. (Couch would have a typical career for a quarterback drafted by the Browns.) That’s only happened two other times: 1985 Oklahoma-Miami (Aikman vs. Vinny Testaverde) and 1954 Stanford-Oregon (Bobby Garrett vs. George Shaw).
The game went how you would expect when two great college QBs, one coached by David Cutcliffe and the other by Hal Mumme, meet. The teams combined for 90 points and 999 yards in a 59-31 win for the Vols.
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Aaron Rodgers (Cal) and Matt Leinart (USC) in 2004
The West Coast has been blessed with great quarterback rivalries. The best might have been when future first-rounders Rodgers and Leinart finished first and second in the Pac-10 in completion percentage, yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt, and passer rating. Their teams went unbeaten against the rest of college football during the regular season. A spot in the title game was decided when USC beat Cal, 23-17.
Rodgers’ performance is one of the most underrated ever. Against what proved to be the best defense in the country, one that would hold Oklahoma’s epic offense to 19 points in the BCS Championship, Rodgers didn’t throw an incompletion for the first 51 minutes. He hit his first 23 passes. And in the end, USC’s defense stopped him inside the 10.
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Brady Quinn (Notre Dame) and Matt Leinart (USC) in 2005
Again, Leinart competed against a top college QB in a game that decided a spot in the title game. Again, the QBs combined for good numbers: 565 yards passing.
And while Leinart needed a little help on his last offensive play, his fourth-down throw to Dwayne Jarrett to keep USC alive was a thing of beauty.
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Matt Stafford (Georgia) and Tim Tebow (Florida) in 2007-08
Tebow won a Heisman in 2007, a title in 2008, and 12 games in 2009. He was a first-round pick of the Broncos, where he made the playoffs in his first season and disappeared into a yaw of media overreaction.
Stafford started for Georgia as a freshman, led his team to a No. 2 ranking as a sophomore, and played well enough during a disappointing, 9-3 junior season to be the top pick.
The year 2007 started with the world’s most inclusive first-quarter touchdown celebration and ended with Georgia winning, 42-30.
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In 2008 was a Florida blowout that ended with Urban Meyer getting vengeance by calling timeouts to rub salt in Georgia’s wounds.
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Sam Bradford (Oklahoma) and Colt McCoy (Texas) in 2008
Bradford won the Heisman in 2008, leading one of the most productive offenses in history. After an injury-marred 2009, he was the first pick, after which he has had ... an injury-marred NFL career.
McCoy finished second in Heisman voting in 2008 and third in 2009, and was a third-round pick of the Browns, leaving him to the same fate as Couch and Quinn.
In 2008’s meeting, they combined for 664 yards and six touchdowns. Bradford threw for five of the touchdowns, but his team lost when Texas scored 25 of the final 32 points.
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Texas fans, annoyed by Oklahoma getting the tie-breaker in a three-way Big 12 South tie (and thus a path to the national title game), paid for a banner with the score of the game to fly over Bedlam that November.
McCoy would have to wait a year to play in the title game, when his participation lasted less than a quarter because of a shoulder injury.
Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma) and Mason Rudolph (Oklahoma State) in 2017?
Right after Darnold and Rosen in Kadar’s draft list is Rudolph, whose team comes into 2017 with high expectations.
Mayfield is not high in projections, because of his size, but has the more impressive college resume, having finished fourth and third in the Heisman voting. Mayfield is seventh in NCAA history in career passer efficiency and yards per attempt.
They also met in 2015 and 2016, with Mayfield’s team winning both comfortably.
So one of the running themes of 2017 could be quarterback rivalries.
One would be in the state where Aikman was raised and started his career; the other would be in the city where he became a star.
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The Challenge At The Heart Of Declining Ratings And Attendance!
There have been a number of articles floating around in the ether the last week or two that have talked about the decline in attendance, the decline in ratings, and the challenges that are at the heart of tackling these twin issues in a meaningful way.
I’ve seen the millennials attention span in regards to speed of play blamed for baseball’s decline, even if participation has been on the decline for years, even with a modest bump over the last year or two.
In football, we’ve heard that politics got in the way. But participation in football has been declining for about the last 5-7 years at all levels.
For basketball, the declining attendance and ratings are just being swept under the rug under the PR of the NBA’s success with their stars on social media.
MLS says it is growing rapidly, but the numbers don’t quite add up. Especially when you compare the “growth” with the amount of expansion that is going on. (Or, in other words, if I keep adding teams, my attendance better go up.)
The NHL has seen its attendance and ratings take hits too. With the NHL’s ratings dropping significantly this year. All the while, participation in Canada’s national pastime has been dropping for the last several years.
These are all terrible signs and painful to write about because they signal a long term challenge that has been ignored for a long time.
And, we all know the saying that it is better to fix something earlier than later.
If you pay attention to sports business, you could even be fooled that the leagues and teams are paying attention to the challenges, right?
MLB is “addressing” the issues of pace of play.
The NHL hired a new CMO.
The MLS is expanding.
The NBA seems to be doing everything it can to spruce up their arenas.
The NFL is going to change its timeout structure to not make the game faster, but to have less stoppages of play that are longer.
Which, minus the NHL hiring a new CMO, don’t address the real issue at the heart of all of these shared challenges…which is that fans just don’t care the way that they used to.
Unfortunately, no amount of new stadium amenities, revamped commercial breaks, or expansions will change that fact.
The solutions to many of these issues are disguised as things that are easy to neglect or avoid all together like:
Marketing in a holistic manner.
Undertaking long-term fan development.
Creating communities around your teams and buildings.
Focusing on the experience that your customers have from start to finish of their journey.
Let’s take a look at all 4 of these ideas as a starting point because while there is no end to the number of different ways that we can tackle the issue of growing and maintaining sports and sports business, these 4 are pretty good places to start.
Marketing in a holistic manner:
Let’s be honest, most of what passes for marketing in American sports right now is pretty haphazard, at best.
Especially at the local level where most sales happen.
I’m on the email lists of a number of teams that are local or that I have lived near over the years. Unfortunately, they are all pretty uniform in their lack of compelling content.
Or, have you visited your own websites lately?
Because I visited 5 and they all had some sort of popup, but not one had a legible headline or big, splashy attention grabbing “THIS IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW!” that you could read from the landing page.
Better on mobile?
Not really.
Maybe the score of the most recent game was right there, but whatever the big thing you want your fans to do or know when they visit your site? Not so much.
That’s a problem because these are all touch points that add up.
And, one of the big issues in solving ratings and attendance issues is in marketing.
In sports, too many of people involved just imagine that everyone cares as much as they do. But the truth is that in many cases, no…no they don’t.
They may care very little.
That is your problem not theirs.
Because that money is being spent somewhere.
The thing about it is, in the world of sports, we have year round opportunities to talk with our prospects and customers.
And, with the plethora of opportunities we have to communicate with our fan base and customers, it is essential that we think about the journey we are going to take our customers and fans on.
What is the story of the season?
What’s the off season story and focus?
Are you generating content everyday?
Are you using content as a tool to draw passive followers closer and closer?
Do you use one content platform to feed another to create a web that catches people all over the place.
The thing about the holistic marketing strategy is that it doesn’t mean you need to be everywhere or on everything, but it does mean that you need to have a story that starts and builds over the course of a season and renews itself in the off season.
Instead of allowing each year to be its own independent entity, maybe there is a beauty in doing something like Tottenham does in the Premier League with #COYS or the Washington Nationals did for many years with #Natitude that gave the organization a sense of continuity.
Whatever it is, create a consistent narrative and a consistency of touch points and engagements.
Undertake Long Term Fan Development:
This should be a no-brainer.
If we don’t start fans early, they are going to develop other interests.
If they are interested in other things, even if we win them over…they are less attached to us and don’t have the same cultural touchstones that cement the relationship.
This is why the sports participation numbers are so important.
If you play a sport, the likelihood that you are going to be a fan goes up.
Again, duh.
Unfortunately, too much long term fan development is haphazard.
I wrote somewhere earlier in the year that I loved the idea of a team giving a kid a gift bag at birth, then the Capitals did it during their playoff run.
Do you think that the parents aren’t going to pay a little more attention to the team?
Do you not think that the kid is going to hear stories about her first onesie being a Caps’ onesie?
These are just easy ways to catch on some of the emotional moments that bring fans to sports.
From birth, it should be a long journey to get people to engage with sports, play sports, and pay attention to sports.
Besides the positive benefits to our bottom line, we also get tons of positives like:
Healthier people.
Closer communities through a shared touchpoint.
Civic pride.
Don’t try to jump from zero to 100, but take what you are already doing and figure out how you can include more kids, more people, get more kids involved in your sport.
Creating Communities Around Your Team and Building:
This is a favorite topic of mine because I feel like we don’t do as good a job worshipping our buildings and their history as teams in other countries do.
Minus, Fenway and Wrigley that is.
But even if we have a new building, we can still build a community around the team and the building.
Look at NY, where the Mets fans have suffered.
The thing about being a Mets’ fan is that you are still a part of a community. Maybe a disgruntled community, but still a community.
In Manchester, England, Manchester United has turned this into an art form. They have over 200 authorized fan clubs around the world. Their fans have followed the team all over the world to see their matches. And, they are estimated to have over 600 million “fans” on social media.
That’s a pretty great community.
The thing is, if Manchester United can do that, why can’t we?
We may not get to 6o0 million fans or 200 fan clubs right away, but there is real power in our teams, our history, and our buildings. If we don’t tap into it and extend it, we are missing out on an opportunity to pull our fans, customers, and prospects closer and closer to us.
Again, start with where you are:
What kind of social media presence do you have now?
Are you cultivating an email list like I talked about above?
How are you treating your fans at the games?
Are you creating opportunities for your community to watch your games when you aren’t at home?
Which brings me to:
Focusing On The Experience:
Experience is at the core of everything we do.
Which is great because we know that more and more, people demand experiences.
You know what we do better than anyone else?
We offer up experiences.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always equate to a great experience when fans show up.
Which is a shame.
But we have it in our power to make even the most meaningless games a great experience for our fans.
The easiest place to start is by making sure that the people we have interacting with our guests are really happy to have them there.
I can’t count how many times I have been to a game where the staff has been disinterested or, even, negative towards guests.
That’s unacceptable.
Institute a one strike rule.
People are dying to get into sports business, maybe they can offer up a level of service that is better suited to have customers feel appreciated and like they want to come back regularly. (I’M SERIOUS!)
What about the food and beverage choices?
I know some of us love a stadium hot dog and a Bud Light…but what about when they set you back $20?
Or, I love a stadium dog, but what local food can you offer up?
Do you have to cut out all of the local stuff?
Can you add local beer?
Food carts?
What about traditions?
What about new traditions like the bar inside the Green Monster in Boston?
Can we steal things about experience from other forms of entertainment? Like how the Sydney Opera House will use old stage furniture for popup bars and seating locations?
Or like visiting the Grove on a Saturday in Oxford.
Or the Quad in Tuscaloosa.
Whatever the idea is, there are so many ways to enhance and build on the experience at our stadiums.
Because we aren’t competing against other sports, we are competing against other forms of entertainment. We are competing against the phones in our pockets. We are competing against doing nothing at all.
This goes for all of the things on my list.
We aren’t just competing against other sports, we are in a competition against almost everything imaginable.
Which makes the battle we are fighting that much tougher.
Because right now we have more entertainment options than ever: dining, video, books, etc.
We have to reimagine everything about how we market and sell our sports, our experiences. Because if we don’t, we will get left behind.
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NFL on TV: 5 ways to make a better broadcast
Sunday Night Football is great. Let’s make it better. (Getty Images)
Welcome to the Wednesday War Room, where your favorite Yahoo Sports NFL writers weigh in on the most serious and critical NFL topics of the day. Read on for how you can join in. Today, we’re talking how to fix the NFL on TV, and suggesting second sports careers for your favorite NFL players. Onward!
Question 1: With the news that NBC is looking to move to fewer but longer commercial blocks, what improvement would you like to see in NFL broadcasts?
Shalise Manza-Young: My vote: go to the soccer broadcasting model. Let someone “sponsor” the scorebox, let a company pay to have its logo in the corner during replays, put company patches on the uniforms, and the only actual commercials we see is during halftime. A lot of people watching at home who are watching just one game at a time are probably doing what they can to zip through the commercials anyway, or getting up during commercial breaks to refill their cup of salsa, use the bathroom, whatever. This way, the games get shorter, there aren’t as many delays, and game play might be smoother too.
Kevin Kaduk: Get team-specific announcers. No, this isn’t an anti-Joe Buck stance, though I won’t complain if you want it to be. I just don’t understand why fans of a team can’t get the same set of announcers for all 16 games of a season. As it stands, NFL games are called by a rotating cast of broadcasters who parachute into town and recycle the same notes prepared by the media staff week after week. Plus, if your team sucks, you’re stuck with an uninteresting down-roster duo from CBS or Fox. (The sound of Kenny Albert or Sam Rosen’s voice is instantly depressing to any lower-tier NFC team.)
Yes, getting a dedicated hometown call might open the door for over-the-top homers and it might cost the league a few more bucks. But it would expose fans to more informed analysis about their own teams and less annoying gushing over whatever opposing player is picking your team apart. It’d also allow the broadcast to nurture a stronger bond between team and fan as the broadcasters would give the audience someone to celebrate or cry with.
This wouldn’t be new territory, either. Turner has broadcast the last few Final Fours on three different channels: One with the national Jim Nantz call and the other two featuring announcers associated with the schools. At the very least, the NFL could just pipe in the local radio broadcasts — though that would prevent us from hearing a hundred promo reads for whatever season of “24” or “The Amazing Race” they’re on. (See, this isn’t such a bad idea, is it?)
Jay Busbee: Second screen, second screen. I’d like to see a dedicated second-screen experience for your phone or tablet, the way that some TV shows already use. Question about whether Leonard Fournette got into the end zone on a dive? Five different camera angles all at your fingertips. Aaron Rodgers throws a miraculous touchdown? Boom, a window’s right there to show you all his best Hail Marys. Antonio Brown hurdles three defenders on a breakaway? Hey, here’s a link to a story about how he trains to get ready for game day. Plus, you can have all your fantasy stats updating in real time along the sidebar. This is a genius idea, and in case anybody is already thinking about it, this is my proof of concept, copyright 2017 Jay Busbee and Yahoo Sports.
Frank Schwab: The XFL made many mistakes (please, don’t make me list them all) but it also had some great ideas. The best idea it had, aside from “HE HATE ME,” was a general one: Give fans more access. More players and coaches mic’ed up, more cameras on sidelines, more anything that brought fans into the game. The NFL has improved that part of its broadcasts (which, ultimately, is the legacy of the XFL, as told so well in the recent XFL “30 for 30”), but the inside-football stuff still is scrubbed up so we rarely hear what’s really being talked about on the sideline. We’ll never get real-time sound from players or coaches, because NFL teams guard everything like war-time secrets, but it sure would make broadcasts a lot more fun if we could.
Eric Edholm: I assume this will do away with the touchdown-commercial-extra point-commercial-kickoff-commercial cluster we were forced to deal with, which would be nice. I truly think the next advancement is the inclusion of an analytics expert — either in the booth or back in a studio who can provide on-the-spot nerdy numbers. The game has been trending that way during down time, so why not during games when it matters most? Another one would be a former coach who can talk game-management strategy. To me, so few people understand how to manipulate the clock, timeouts and the like, and that includes the people calling games.
Tony Romo at a pro-am at Pebble Beach in 2012. (AP file photo)
Question 2: Tony Romo recently tried, and failed, to play golf at a professional level. What NFL player would you like to see try another sport? (Gronk, everyone’s favorite answer to every NFL question, is not permitted to be used in this exercise.)
Eric Edholm: No Gronk, eh? I guess Chris Hogan playing lacrosse is a crummy substitute then. So is Nate Ebner playing rugby, because we all had our chance to actually watch him last summer. (Admit it: You missed that.) I think for the sake of the Seahawks I might gently request that they trade George Fant to a D-League team if he’s not going to get better at blocking, and it’s not his fault; it’s the team’s for thinking he could handle NFL pass rushers. I’ve heard Drew Brees is a sick tennis player. That’s cool. And there’s obviously a lot of former baseball and basketball players who could hold their own. But I might nominate Josh Lambo, who was a first-round pick in the MLS. Dude made the right choice, salary-wise, but I want to know how good a soccer player he really is.
Shalise Manza-Young: Awww…no Gronk? Imagining Gronk as a no-holds-barred (pun intended) WWE champ or Charles Barkley-esque rebounding machine is fun. But since we’re not supposed to go that route, how about the return of the two-sport athlete? There has to be someone out there like Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders, able to excel in the NFL and MLB or even NFL and NBA. LeBron James is too old to jump into football, and it’s been years since new Colts signee Mo Alie-Cox, a power forward at Virginia Commonwealth, played football. But with the sheer off-the-charts athleticism we’ve seen from athletes in recent years, it has to be possible.
Jay Busbee: I want to see James Harrison in an MMA fight, not because I think he’d necessarily win, but because I want to see dudes 20 years younger than him shattering their fists on his jaw like he was Luke Cage. I want to turn Julio Jones loose against LeBron James in a one-on-one matchup, any sport. I want Julian Edelman and Conor McGregor to have a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all, Axe-Body-Spray Bro-Off. And I want to bring back “Battle of the Network Stars” from the 1970s and watch Martellus Bennett compete against Cersei Lannister, Negan, and the “Stranger Things” kids in a potato sack race. My wishes are not un-do-able, folks.
Frank Schwab: We’ve seen a few players make the basketball to football jump look easy, but it’s rare to see high-level football players shift to hoops (we see you, Charlie Ward). Terrelle Pryor was a top-30 basketball recruit in the class of 2008, pretty much a borderline McDonald’s All-American. Guys like Iman Shumpert, Klay Thompson, Isaiah Thomas and Draymond Green were ranked outside of the top 30 in that class. That doesn’t mean Pryor would have been an NBA star like Thomas if he chose basketball, but he’s a certified athletic freak. Making the transition from failed NFL quarterback to 1,000-yard receiver had only been done by Marlin Briscoe before Pryor did it. There’s no question Pryor had the athletic skills to make it in the NBA. And hey, he’s only 27. Who needs a 6-foot-4, 223-pound small forward?
Kevin Kaduk: This is a trick to get me to write something about Tim Tebow and hockey/WWE/poker isn’t it? I, for one, am not biting (though if Tebow wants to give bull riding a try, I’m on board.)
There you have it. Weigh in with your own thoughts below. Got ideas for future questions? Email us and you might just find your name in lights. Now, start creating your catchphrases; Monday Night Football might have a job for you soon. ____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
More from Yahoo Sports: • ESPN’s Berman loses wife in tragic accident • Usain Bolt shuts down NFL star’s challenge • Michael Lee: How Ginobili once again gave the Spurs hope • Dan Wetzel: Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction vacated
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Your Friday Briefing – The New York Times
Brexit is here. Most of Britain shrugs.
When the sun rises over Britain on Saturday, the country will no longer be part of the European Union.
The issue of whether to stay or leave has already divided British families, cast a shadow over businesses and paralyzed the government, writes our London bureau chief, Mark Landler. And the trade talks that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government will have with the bloc’s leaders in the coming months could prove just as traumatic.
But for now, Mark writes, the prevailing emotion in the United Kingdom is a characteristically British reflex: Get on with it.
Another angle: Pro-Europe “remainers” are girding for new battles over how Brexit will affect trade and immigration, among other issues. Some of them see the American left’s response to President Trump’s 2016 election victory as a useful model.
Closer look: The E.U. gave a final seal of approval to the withdrawal agreement on Thursday in a way that was quintessentially Brussels: bureaucratic and undramatic.
Finer points: Because the European Union dictates Britain’s departure, Brexit will be official at the stroke of midnight, Brussels time, which is only 11 p.m. in London.
Some responses to the virus, which has sickened nearly 10,000 people, mostly in China, can be seen as rational calculations based on the risk of infection. Others are xenophobic and feed off latent bigotry linked to China’s rise as a global power, our Tokyo bureau chief writes.
World Health Organization: The agency declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday, citing fears that the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems.
Related: After thousands of passengers were blocked from leaving a cruise ship docked north of Rome over concerns that someone aboard might have had the virus, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said that his country had blocked all flights to and from China. The United States also issued a “do not travel” to China advisory, and Russia ordered the closing of its 2,600-mile border with China, starting today.
Opinion: Ian Johnson, an author who has lived in the Chinese capital for more than 20 years, writes in an Opinion piece that the government’s “inability to formulate a measured response” will make the current outbreak a direct successor of the SARS epidemic.
Republicans push to end impeachment trial
President Trump’s impeachment trial may end as soon as today — but only if Republicans can muster enough votes to block witness testimony.
As of late Thursday, they appeared to have the margin they’d need, although Democrats were hinting at a last-minute gambit to frustrate their plans. Here’s the latest.
Above, a sketch artist’s view of the trial, which is closed to cameras that are not operated by government employees.
Analysis: The Republicans have offered multiple rationales for refusing fresh testimony, but our chief Washington correspondent says they’re worried that hearing from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, would lead to a cascade of other witnesses.
Background: Mr. Bolton’s coming book corroborates a central piece of the case against Mr. Trump over his pressure campaign in Ukraine.
Profile: Mitt Romney, a former presidential candidate, is one of two Republican senators pushing for witnesses in the trial.
If you have a few minutes, this is worth it
Doing the political math in Paris
President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party declined to make the mathematician Cédric Villani its candidate for the Parisian mayoral election in March.
But Dr. Villani, above center, is running anyway as a dissident candidate. His platform promotes information technology, and he notes that the city’s first elected mayor, in 1789, was also a mathematician.
“Politics is where rationality and irrationality meet,” said Dr. Villani, a deputy in the country’s National Assembly. “As well as passion.”
Here’s what else is happening
Sexual abuse: A French appeals court on Thursday overturned a ruling against Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, who had been convicted last year of covering up decades-old sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese. Cardinal Barbarin served none of his suspended six-month sentence.
Kobe Bryant crash: The company that owned the helicopter that crashed into a fogbound mountainside on Sunday, killing the basketball legend and eight others, did not have certification for its pilots to fly in poor visibility, sources familiar with the company’s operations told The Times.
Deutsche Bank: The German bank, once Europe’s largest by assets, said it had lost a total of €5.3 billion in 2019. It’s fighting to recover from years of scandal and mismanagement that have caused its share price to plummet more than 90 percent since 2007.
The Guardian: The newspaper said it would no longer accept advertisements from oil and gas companies, making it one of the latest institutions to limit financial ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Snapshot: Above, kayaking in Florida’s Everglades National Park. In an essay for our Travel section, the journalist Nina Burleigh explains how the low-lying area is threatened by rising sea levels. “I’ve traveled far but never found a place where the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man are so palpable in one place,” she writes.
Brad Pitt: Our film critic explores how the actor embodies “contemporary masculinity and its contradictions.”
U.S. politics quiz: The Democratic primary season for the 2020 presidential election begins on Feb. 3 and lasts until early June. Take our quiz to see which candidate could be your match.
What we’re reading: This essay in Cleveland Magazine. Stephen Hiltner, an editor on the Travel desk, writes: “Dave Lucas, Ohio’s poet laureate, ruminates on the beauty and the mystery of Lake Erie’s annual freeze.”
Now, a break from the news
Cook: Sausage and peppers pasta with broccoli riffs on a classic Italian combination.
Go: Terra-cotta and wood sculptures form the “visual and emotional heart” of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York about the history and cultural heritage of kingdoms on the Sahara’s rim, our art critic writes.
Read: In “A Woman Like Her,” the journalist Sanam Maher explores the society that enabled and applauded the murder of Pakistan’s first social media star, Qandeel Baloch.
Smarter Living: When donating to environmental organizations, it can be hard to figure out who’s actually making a difference. Here’s what to look for.
And now for the Back Story on …
The ethics of watching the Super Bowl
On Sunday night, around 100 million people are expected to tune in for the ultimate American party: the Super Bowl. But with growing concern over the violence of American football, what are the ethics of watching the biggest sporting event of the year? Our culture critics have their own take, and here’s what Ken Belson, who has been reporting on C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, told our Briefings teammate Remy Tumin.
What keeps fans coming back?
It’s an event that transcends the sport. The N.F.L. has been brilliant in turning it into a spectacle, and there’s nothing like it. That’s partly because of how the league has structured it — one final game, winner takes all, in a neutral city, on the first Sunday of February, every year. Other sports don’t have the same permanency.
You’ll be watching from the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. What can you see that viewers can’t?
Often when there’s an injury timeout, they go to commercial. I’ll be able to see doctors tending to players, including a neuro-trauma consultant who is on the sidelines (and wears a red hat). If you see the consultant get involved, it means someone has had a concussion.
What would you say to fans who are having moral issues?
It’s a collision sport at heart, and if you don’t want see it, turn on something else. If you can’t reconcile that violence, and it is violence, then there are many other sports. I think it’s O.K. to watch it and have misgivings. It’s human nature — you can both admire and be horrified by the same thing.
That’s it for this briefing. Have a great weekend.
— Mike
Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the coronavirus outbreak. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Half a pint (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Copies of The New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project” are back in stock for the final time in our online store.
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March Madness Day 1 recap: Best and worst from a day light on upsets
yahoo
The 2017 NCAA tournament got underway Thursday with a full slate of 16 games that were … kind of boring.
That statement is relative, of course. March Madness is never boring. To say anything to the contrary is heresy. But whereas the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament are often filled with upsets, buzzer-beaters and chaos, this year’s curtain-raiser was anything but.
Here’s a look at a day devoid of the typical March excitement, but not completely devoid of entertainment:
STARTING FIVE
1. Northwestern wins its first-ever NCAA tournament game
Northwestern apparently isn’t satisfied with merely making history. The Wildcats, who are first-time attendees at the Big Dance, took responsibility and made Day 1 of the 2017 NCAA tournament interesting — something nobody else seemed too intent on doing. Purple-clad fans descended on Salt Lake City, and witnessed six lead changes in the final 1:36 of No. 8 seed Northwestern’s game against No. 9 seed Vanderbilt. The Wildcats pulled out a win after blowing a 15-point lead, but its the play that led to the sixth of those lead changes that everyone is talking about…
2. Matthew Fisher-Davis, first the hero, then the goat
Riley LaChance’s layup put Vanderbilt up one with under 17 seconds to play. Three seconds later, Fisher-Davis, who had spurred Vanderbilt’s second-half comeback, made a critical mental mistake. Thinking his team was down one rather than up one, he fouled Bryant McIntosh, whose two subsequent free throws were ultimately the difference in the game. It’s one of the biggest brain farts in NCAA tournament history.
On the surface, it might not have been as damaging of a play as it initially seemed. Northwestern was still shy of the double-bonus, so the foul sent the Wildcats to the line for a one-and-one. And even with two made free throws, Vanderbilt would have the ball in its hands with a chance to win the game. If Fisher-Davis had sent an average free throw shooter to the line, the play alone wouldn’t have sunk Vanderbilt’s win likelihood too low.
The issue, of course, is that McIntosh is an 86-percent free-throw shooter. The other issue was Vanderbilt’s last possession. Rather than attacking the rim, LaChance settled for an NBA-length 3-pointer with a hand in his face. Northwestern survived.
Bryant McIntosh’s two free throws gave Northwestern a historic victory, but it’s the play that put him on the line that everyone is talking about. (Getty)
3. Favorites rule the day in 5-12 games
Northwestern was one of 14 higher-seeded teams to survive Thursday, and of the two upsets, one, No. 12 Middle Tennessee over No. 5 Minnesota, wasn’t actually an upset. The Blue Raiders were the only No. 12 seed to advance, but they did so as 1.5-point favorites. Elsewhere, Notre Dame is still alive after Princeton spurned a few potential game-winning shots. Virginia sputtered early and fell behind by 15 to UNC Wilmington, but the Cavaliers’ offense found its rhythm and sent Tony Bennett’s team onto the second round. In the night session, Monte Morris led Iowa State past Nevada. The lack of 12-5 upsets contributed to the uneventful day, but it will set up several intriguing 4-5 matchups on Saturday.
4. Middle Tennessee is the least Cinderella-y of Cinderellas
Middle Tennessee was the talk of the first two days of the tournament at this time last year after shocking Michigan State as a 17-point underdog. This year they returned as one of the bigger stories of the opening day. That’s where the similarities end, however. Whereas last year’s team was a cute little upstart that was squashed by Syracuse in the second round, this year’s squad is a legitimate threat to make more noise. It now boasts a 31-4 record and the No. 40 spot in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, and has a big three — Giddy Potts, Reggie Upshaw and JaCorey Williams — capable of going head to head with most major conference lineups. The Blue Raiders get Butler on Saturday, and could get North Carolina in the Sweet 16. Don’t bet against them in the second round; don’t rule them out even further down the line.
5. Top seeds struggle, then pull away comfortably
Gonzaga fans were smashing panic buttons at around 2:30 p.m. ET on Thursday afternoon with the Zags toiling against 16th-seeded South Dakota State. Mark Few’s team couldn’t hit wide-open jump shots, and trailed 22-19 at the under-four timeout of the first half. But the Zags found their footing, locked down on defense, and cruised to a 66-46 victory.
Villanova’s win over Mount St. Mary’s later Thursday evening followed a similar trajectory. The Wildcats needed a Jalen Brunson bucket on the final possession of the first half to take a one-point lead into halftime. But Jay Wright’s team went to work in the second half and blew past the No. 16 seed to a 20-point victory.
Both top seeds will be tested on Saturday, Gonzaga by Northwestern and Villanova by Wisconsin, which beat Virginia Tech. But neither should worry about the early trouble Thursday.
yahoo
WORST DUNK ATTEMPT OF THE DAY, PART I
Dunk City? More like Flunk City! (Sorry)
So close. #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/UCSA7Xrj4K
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 17, 2017
Brandon Goodwin didn’t just get stuffed by a combination of Florida State player and rim, he hit the ground hard. The Eagles battled the Seminoles, but lost by six.
WORST DUNK ATTEMPT OF THE DAY, PART II
Villanova’s Donte Divincenzo has made a bad habit out of embarrassing missed dunks. Here’s his latest:
Fortunately, DiVincenzo recovered the ball and finished the play with a layup. But still, not his best moment.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Over the past four days, the story of Northwestern and its first NCAA tournament has gone from heartwarming to, for some college hoops fans, annoying. That’s thanks to a few — OK, a lot of — Northwestern alumni in sports media who can’t stop talking/tweeting/raving about their school’s team.
There is one particularly insufferable sports journalist, however, who went to Vanderbilt. So Northwestern Athletics’ official Twitter account couldn’t resist after the Wildcats’ victory:
Vanderbilt drops anchor on Northwestern's fairy tale. Better school, better alumni, better ex-player coach, far better basketball tradition.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) March 12, 2017
We hear you, @Twitter. But not *everyone* in the media went to @NorthwesternU.#B1GCats | #PoundTheRock | #ItsTime https://t.co/hOR1GXAvOj
— #B1GCats (@NU_Sports) March 16, 2017
They weren’t the only ones taking postgame digs at Bayless either. Even one Northwestern player hit him with a quote tweet:
Thanks Skip ! We needed the motivation ???????? https://t.co/YHUpvjgbUH
— Dererk Pardon (@dererk5) March 17, 2017
DAD OF THE DAY
It’s Doug Collins. No contest. Doug has set social media into a frenzy before with his reactions while watching his son Chris’ Northwestern games. Sometimes he freaks out. Sometimes he has to pace through the concourse.
Thursday, he had a new strategy: No reactions. None. Not until the final buzzer. So even with Northwestern close to locking up its win over Vanderbilt, and with Wildcats fans erupting into cheers around him…
Doug Collins struggling to keep it together is everything #marchmadness. #prouddad pic.twitter.com/z48Tn2O8xK
— Kevin Kaduk (@KevinKaduk) March 16, 2017
Doug Collins is the best. Refused to celebrate until 0.00 pic.twitter.com/8rre4KQPSJ
— Henry Bushnell (@HenryBushnell) March 16, 2017
Stay calm, Doug. Be proud. And get ready for another nerve-racking two hours on Saturday.
FATHER-CHILD FAN DUO OF THE DAY
There’s a lot going on here…
A++++ parenting from this VCU fan here pic.twitter.com/qYvjpsNhus
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) March 17, 2017
BEST POSTGAME MOMENT
It has to be Northwestern’s locker room celebration:
It doesn't get any better than this. #B1GCats | #PoundTheRock | #ItsTime pic.twitter.com/kg52tuLuzM
— NU Men's Basketball (@NUMensBball) March 16, 2017
Followed by Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s intrusion:
.@coach_collins' post-game speech was interrupted by… @coachfitz51. #B1GCats | #PoundTheRock | #ItsTime https://t.co/9ixZCVXLeg
— NU Men's Basketball (@NUMensBball) March 17, 2017
WEIRDEST POSTGAME MOMENT
Imagine leading off an NCAA Tournament press conference with this question. pic.twitter.com/U7xJ3XwR0U
— Robert O'Neill (@RobertONeill31) March 17, 2017
DiVincenzo must have had no clue what was going on.
SATURDAY TIP TIMES
With all of Saturday’s matchups set, the TV schedule has also been set for the first day of the second round:
SATURDAY TIP TIMES. pic.twitter.com/oTvp5CKbAk
— Rush the Court (@rushthecourt) March 17, 2017
More March Madness coverage from Yahoo Sports: • NCAA tournament live blog: Follow the action with the Yahoo Sports team • Perfectly awful: Here’s the worst NCAA tourney bracket • Vanderbilt’s foul may be the worst March Madness blunder ever • Former President Obama has two big mistakes in his women’s bracket
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Today’s sports roundup also features Ole Miss Women’s Basketball Suffers First Home Setback of Season, Transfers Mary Kate Smith, Julia Phillips Sign with Rebel Soccer
HottyToddy.com provides readers a roundup of the commentary and information about the Ole Miss Rebels from various publications around the Web.
Readers can check out the latest information in a single post each day throughout the year. Here at HottyToddy.com, we are doing all the leg work to find the information that people want about Ole Miss sports.
Ole Miss Football Welcomes Early Enrollees
Ole Miss Football Coach Hugh Freeze address the media . HottyToddy.com photo
Ole Miss Football took a big step in bolstering its defense with the addition of high school early enrollees Ryder Anderson and Breon Dixon on Monday, the first day of spring semester classes.
Anderson, a defensive end from Katy, Texas, and Dixon, a linebacker from Loganville, Georgia, join a 2017 class that already includes three junior college defensive standouts – Jones County JC defensive back Javien Hamilton, Northeast Mississippi CC linebacker Brenden Williams and Jones County JC defensive end Markel Winters – and New Mexico Military quarterback Jordan Ta’amu. These six will go through spring drills with the team in preparation for the 2017 season.
“Ryder and Breon are extremely talented young men, and we are excited to have them on campus for the spring,” head coach Hugh Freeze said. “Ryder is a winner and a gifted pass rusher that brings great length on the edge. Our staff made a strong connection with Breon during the recruiting process, and we hope he can help us address a need area right away. We appreciate both student-athletes and their families for their commitment to our program.”
The rest of the 2017 Ole Miss class can begin to submit national letters of intent on National Signing Day, which is Wednesday, Feb. 1.
Below are complete bios on the Rebels’ high school early enrollees.
Ryder Anderson | DE | 6-6 | 231 | Katy, Texas | Katy
HIGH SCHOOL: A consensus 3-star prospect according to the major recruiting sites … Ranked the No. 85 defensive end in the country by ESPN and the state of Texas’ No. 10 DE by Scout … Helped Katy to a 10-3 record as a senior after a perfect 16-0 season and state championship his junior year … The Tigers’ allowed just 62 points his entire junior year, pitching shutouts in 10 games … Compiled a high school career record of 55-6 … Played defensive end, outside linebacker and tight end … Younger brother of Oklahoma running back Rodney Anderson and nephew of former Alabama and NFL defensive end Mark Anderson.
Breon Dixon | LB | 5-11 | 218 | Loganville, Ga. | Grayson
HIGH SCHOOL: Under Armour All-American … Rated a 4-star prospect by ESPN, Rivals and Scout … Listed as the nation’s No. 144 overall recruit and No. 8 outside linebacker by ESPN … Listed as the No. 18 OLB by Rivals and No. 24 OLB by Scout … Rated the No. 19 prospect in Georgia by ESPN, No. 24 by Rivals and No. 32 by Scout … Led Team Highlight with three tackles for loss in the Under Armour All-America game … Helped Grayson to a 14-1 record and the 2016 7A state championship with a 23-20 overtime win over Roswell … Posted 64 tackles, two interceptions, 12 sacks and more than 20 tackles for loss as a senior … As a junior at Peachtree Ridge, had 12 sacks and four interceptions … Transferred to Grayson after his junior year, the same high school as former Ole Miss defensive standouts Denzel Nkemdiche and Robert Nkemdiche.
Follow Ole Miss Football on Twitter (@OleMissFB), Facebook and Instagram. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/16ouVLF.
Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports
Ole Miss Women’s Basketball Suffers First Home Setback of Season
The Ole Miss women’s basketball team (13-7, 2-5 SEC) got as close as one possession in the final two minutes but couldn’t complete the comeback dropping a 65-57 contest to Alabama on Sunday afternoon at The Pavilion at Ole Miss. The loss snapped a 12-game home win streak for the Rebels.
Madinah Muhammad (Chicago, Ill.) led the offense with 18 points while Taylor Manuel (St. Louis, Mo.) tallied her second consecutive game in double figures with 13 points. Shandricka Sessom (Byhalia, Miss.) added 11 points and a team-best six rebounds.
Ole Miss used a 5-0 run to open the fourth quarter sparked by a putback from Manuel and a triple from Muhammad to take a 48-44 lead and forced the visitors to take a timeout less than a minute into the fourth quarter. Alabama (15-5-3-4 SEC) fought back though and held a 57-55 lead with 2:19 remaining before going on an 8-2 run over the final minutes to earn the win. The Rebels struggled from the floor for the second consecutive game, shooting just 35.6 percent (21-of-59).
Out halftime, Ole Miss started with the ball and Muhammad promptly nailed a jumper to spark a 6-0 spurt, which tied the game at 25-25 forcing the Crimson Tide to call a timeout at the 7:42 mark. From that point the teams traded buckets, but Alabama was able to keep the lead until the 2:54 mark when Manuel converted an old fashioned three-point play to give Ole Miss a 41-39 lead at the 2:46 mark – the first lead for Ole Miss since the 7:09 mark of the first quarter.
The third quarter was close throughout with neither team taking more than a four-point lead throughout, but it was the visitors with a 44-43 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Alabama jumped out to a 8-4 lead behind two big threes from Hannah Cook forcing Insell to call a timeout to help the Rebels regroup and the home team was able to get a little momentum from Muhammad who hit a triple, but Ole Miss trailed 17-9 a the end of the first quarter.
Alabama extend its lead to 10 points, 21-11 at the 7:59 mark, but Ole Miss used some defense and a bucket from Cecilia Muhate (Madrid, Spain) to get the lead back to single digits midway through the quarter. Ole Miss’ renewed energy on the defensive end forced the visitors into nine turnovers in the second quarter as Ole Miss was able to cut the Alabama lead to two possessions, 25-19, at halftime.
Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports
Transfers Mary Kate Smith, Julia Phillips Sign with Rebel Soccer
Photo courtesy of Ole Miss Communications
Ole Miss soccer landed two key transfers in Mary Kate Smith and Julia Phillips, head coach Matthew Mott announced Monday.
Phillips joins the Rebels after a year with Florida State, where she helped lead the squad to a 14-4-4 record. In her time in Tallahassee, the Seminoles fell no lower than No. 13 in the top-25 poll, advancing to the second round of the NCAA Championship.
Smith starts her final two years at Ole Miss after previous stops at Southern Miss, and most recently Jones County Junior College. The Ellisville, Mississippi native was named a NJCAA Division I Honorable Mention All-American and All-Region 23 performer after scoring 21 goals and 18 assists in 2016.
See below for a full bio and quotes on Smith and Phillips.
Julia Phillips | So. | Midfielder | 5-6 | Ashburn, Va. | Florida State
2016 (Freshman – Florida State): Transfer from Florida State … Saw minutes in wins at Middle Tennessee and at home against Mercer … Helped FSU to the second round of the 2016 NCAA Championship … Seminoles were ranked in top-10 of poll all of regular season.
HIGH SCHOOL: Attended Bishop O’Connell and Stone Bridge High School … Varsity starter during freshman and sophomore seasons … Named second team all-conference as a freshman … Earned all-metro honorable mention and first team all-conference honors as a sophomore, as well as being named a finalist for Virginia Player of the Year … Also played basketball.
CLUB/ODP: Competed for FC Virginia ECNL and was ranked in the top ten for final three seasons … Invited to the Atlantic ECNL PDP team in 2013, 2014 and 2015 … Played in a friendly match against the U-17 Italian National Team at Centro Technico Coverciano … Traveled to Germany with the Virginia State ODP team in 2011 and was a team captain … Competed with the Washington Spirit Reserves in the WPSL during the summer of 2016.
PERSONAL: Full name is Julia Paige Phillips … Born October 15, 1997 … Daughter of Brad and Tina Phillips … Has one brother, Tyler.
COACH MOTT QUOTE ON PHILLIPS: “Julia is a very good midfielder who can score with either foot. She’s very good in the air and very good in possession. We’re excited to bring her in so she can help strengthen our midfield. Getting her here this semester will certainly help her to play in the SEC.”
Mary Kate Smith | Jr. | Midfielder | 5-4 | Ellisville, Miss. | Jones County JC
2016 (Sophomore – Jones County JC): NJCAA Division I Honorable Mention All-American and All-Region 23 performer … Scored 21 goals and recorded 18 assists totaling 60 points, second-most in the MACJC and Region 23, and 15th nationally … Helped the No. 11 Lady Bobcats to a 15-2 record, the MACJC/Region 23 Tournament Championship, and an appearance in the NJCAA District H playoffs … Scored two goals and was named the South team’s MVP in the MACJC All-Star Game in November.
2015 (Freshman – Southern Miss): Played in all 19 contests for the Golden Eagles … Second on the team in points (8) after scoring two goals and leading the team in assists (4) … Scored in games at Nicholls (Aug. 28) and vs. UTEP (Oct. 18).
HIGH SCHOOL: Lettered at South Jones High School in Ellisville, Mississippi … Helped Braves to the playoffs each season … Named first team all-district as a freshman, sophomore and junior … Selected to the 2015 South All-Star team … Also played football, earning second team all-region 3-5A honors … Honor student and member of the Beta Club, Student Council and S.M.A.R.T. Club, while serving as class president.
CLUB/ODP: Played club with Gulf Coast United.
PERSONAL: Full name is Mary Kate Smith … Born June 15, 1997 … Daughter of Jesse and Jennifer Smith … Has one brother, Conner.
COACH MOTT QUOTE ON SMITH: “Mary Kate comes highly recommended from a number of coaches I respect. She’s a hard-working, fast forward that can play also in midfield. Watching video on her, I think she’s someone that could come in and help us right away. She comes to us from the same area as Sara Coleman, and there have been a lot of comparisons between the two. We look for her to be a very good player for us.”
Keep up with all the latest news and information on the Rebels by following Ole Miss Soccer on Twitter at @OleMissSoccer, on Facebook at http://ift.tt/2cqzopV, and on Instagram at http://ift.tt/2cRokAf. Also follow head coach Matt Mott on Twitter at @CoachMattMott. Additionally fans can get a behind the scenes look at Ole Miss Athletics on Snapchat under the handle, @WeAreOleMiss.
Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports
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Do college football’s 2 best 2017 QBs play for rivals? This doesn’t happen often
NFL people love Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen, but a Big 12 rivalry also has two of the country’s best.
In 1988, the narrative for much of the season focused on Los Angeles. After UCLA whipped No. 2 Nebraska by 13 and USC throttled No. 3 Oklahoma by 16, the Bruins and Trojans were on a collision course. Only a slip-up by UCLA at home to Washington State (coached by Dennis Erickson, who would take the Miami job) kept USC-UCLA from being a battle of unbeatens.
They had two of the best quarterbacks in the country. UCLA was led by Oklahoma transfer Troy Aikman, who won the Davey O’Brien Award and would be the first pick in the NFL draft. USC’s was Rodney Peete, who won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and would have a long NFL career. Peete and Aikman finished second and third in Heisman voting, respectively, beaten out by Barry Sanders.
Almost three decades later, we might be treated to a USC-UCLA repeat.
USC will be preseason top five, thanks in no small part to Sam Darnold, who ended 2016 on fire and enters on every preseason All-America list. If USC can replace its top two receivers and three offensive linemen, the Trojans will contend.
UCLA has lower expectations, but Josh Rosen is also one of the best. He was a five-star recruit who performed well as a freshman and saw his 2016 derailed by injuries and a poor coordinator hire. The Bruins need to find their running game, but USC and UCLA could meet with a Heisman, division title, playoff implications, and the draft at stake.
Dan Kadar’s first 2018 mock draft has the pair going Nos. 1 and 2 next year.
Are there other instances of what we’ll call the Aikman-Peete Phenomenon, when two arch-rivals have QBs considered true elites by either the NFL or by the rest of college football?
Let’s start with 1980 and find some examples.
Oliver Luck (West Virginia) and Dan Marino (Pitt) in 1981
Before becoming an athletic director and member of the Playoff committee, Luck was an outstanding QB. He was as a second round pick of the Oilers.
Marino had a somewhat more successful NFL career, throwing for over 61,000 yards and 420 touchdowns.
Both regressed in their senior seasons, with Marino dropping from 6.8 adjusted yards per attempt to 4.6, while Luck dropped from 6.7 to 5.3. Their biggest meeting came during Luck’s senior swoon and Marino’s junior surge. 4-0 Pitt beat 4-0 West Virginia, 17-0. Marino was hurt, so Jackie Sherrill deployed a game plan that he described as “the most conservative I have ever played.”
Luck’s son would have more success in rivalry games.
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Todd Blackledge (Penn State) and Marino in 1982
Marino faced another arch-rival (apologies to Penn State fans and their views on whether Pitt is a rival) in a critical game.
No. 2 Penn State hosted No. 5 Pitt. Both QBs would finish in the top 10 of Heisman voting. Both would be first-rounders. Marino had missed a national title in 1981 because of a loss to Penn State, so 1982 was a chance at revenge.
The same thing would happen in 1982. Pitt’s defense played much better and the Panthers had a 7-3 lead at halftime, but were outscored 16-3 in the second half. It was the ‘80s, so a battle between two of the best quarterbacks in the country could produce only 29 combined points and one touchdown pass. Penn State moved on to the Sugar Bowl, where they would win Joe Paterno his first title.
Tommy Maddox (UCLA) and Todd Marinovich (USC) in 1990
Neither is remembered as a great college QB, but this is interesting for two reasons.
First, both would be first-rounders, with Marinovich going 24th to the Raiders (the next quarterback, nine picks later: Brett Favre) and Maddox going 25th the next year to the Broncos.
Second, the 1990 game was one of the most exciting in the history of the rivalry. USC won, 45-42, with the lead changing twice in the last two minutes. Enjoy Keith Jackson calling a crazy ending in a season full of crazy results.
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Mark Brunell (Washington) and Drew Bledsoe (Washington State) in 1992
USC didn’t go to the Rose Bowl in 1990 because Brunell and Washington had clinched a berth.
After being hurt for much of the Huskies’ title run in 1991 and ceding the reins to Billy Joe Hobert, Brunell returned in 1992. Washington had clinched a third straight Rose Bowl when the Huskies went to play Washington State.
Bledsoe would be the first draft pick, throwing for over 7,000 yards in college and over 44,000 in the NFL. Brunell would be a fifth-round pick and throw for over 32,000 in the NFL. (For good measure, Hobert was a third-rounder and started 17 games in the NFL.)
With roughly 80,000 future yards of NFL talent behind center, the teams combined for 65 points in a snowstorm. The most memorable play of Washington State’s 42-23 win was Bledsoe completing a touchdown that ended in a snow pile.
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Gino Torretta (Miami) and Charlie Ward (Florida State) in 1992
One QB’s NFL career line would be 5-of-16 for 41 yards, and another took up pro basketball. Still, it’s impossible to ignore a game between Heisman winners.
Torretta is viewed as one of the weakest Heisman winners in history; Ward became a great college quarterback, after Brad Scott conceived of the Fast Break offense.
The ‘92 game would be remembered for a lot of reasons, but QB play was not one. Marvin Jones showed no respect for Larry Jones in one of the great hits in football history (and one that would still be legal today):
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It was also memorable for Dan Mowrey etching his name into Wide Right lore by missing a 39-yard field goal at the end.
Peyton Manning (Tennessee) and Tim Couch (Kentucky) in 1997
OK, Kentucky-Tennessee is never going to be on lists of the best rivalries in college football, but they play for a trophy, and UK fans view it as a rivalry.
In 1997, each was led by a quarterback who would go No. 1. (Couch would have a typical career for a quarterback drafted by the Browns.) That’s only happened two other times: 1985 Oklahoma-Miami (Aikman vs. Vinny Testaverde) and 1954 Stanford-Oregon (Bobby Garrett vs. George Shaw).
The game went how you would expect when two great college QBs, one coached by David Cutcliffe and the other by Hal Mumme, meet. The teams combined for 90 points and 999 yards in a 59-31 win for the Vols.
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Aaron Rodgers (Cal) and Matt Leinart (USC) in 2004
The West Coast has been blessed with great quarterback rivalries. The best might have been when future first-rounders Rodgers and Leinart finished first and second in the Pac-10 in completion percentage, yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt, and passer rating. Their teams went unbeaten against the rest of college football during the regular season. A spot in the title game was decided when USC beat Cal, 23-17.
Rodgers’ performance is one of the most underrated ever. Against what proved to be the best defense in the country, one that would hold Oklahoma’s epic offense to 19 points in the BCS Championship, Rodgers didn’t throw an incompletion for the first 51 minutes. He hit his first 23 passes. And in the end, USC’s defense stopped him inside the 10.
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Brady Quinn (Notre Dame) and Matt Leinart (USC) in 2005
Again, Leinart competed against a top college QB in a game that decided a spot in the title game. Again, the QBs combined for good numbers: 565 yards passing.
And while Leinart needed a little help on his last offensive play, his fourth-down throw to Dwayne Jarrett to keep USC alive was a thing of beauty.
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Matt Stafford (Georgia) and Tim Tebow (Florida) in 2007-08
Tebow won a Heisman in 2007, a title in 2008, and 12 games in 2009. He was a first-round pick of the Broncos, where he made the playoffs in his first season and disappeared into a yaw of media overreaction.
Stafford started for Georgia as a freshman, led his team to a No. 2 ranking as a sophomore, and played well enough during a disappointing, 9-3 junior season to be the top pick.
The year 2007 started with the world’s most inclusive first-quarter touchdown celebration and ended with Georgia winning, 42-30.
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In 2008 was a Florida blowout that ended with Urban Meyer getting vengeance by calling timeouts to rub salt in Georgia’s wounds.
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Sam Bradford (Oklahoma) and Colt McCoy (Texas) in 2008
Bradford won the Heisman in 2008, leading one of the most productive offenses in history. After an injury-marred 2009, he was the first pick, after which he has had ... an injury-marred NFL career.
McCoy finished second in Heisman voting in 2008 and third in 2009, and was a third-round pick of the Browns, leaving him to the same fate as Couch and Quinn.
In 2008’s meeting, they combined for 664 yards and six touchdowns. Bradford threw for five of the touchdowns, but his team lost when Texas scored 25 of the final 32 points.
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Texas fans, annoyed by Oklahoma getting the tie-breaker in a three-way Big 12 South tie (and thus a path to the national title game), paid for a banner with the score of the game to fly over Bedlam that November.
McCoy would have to wait a year to play in the title game, when his participation lasted less than a quarter because of a shoulder injury.
Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma) and Mason Rudolph (Oklahoma State) in 2017?
Right after Darnold and Rosen in Kadar’s draft list is Rudolph, whose team comes into 2017 with high expectations.
Mayfield is not high in projections, because of his size, but has the more impressive college resume, having finished fourth and third in the Heisman voting. Mayfield is seventh in NCAA history in career passer efficiency and yards per attempt.
They also met in 2015 and 2016, with Mayfield’s team winning both comfortably.
So one of the running themes of 2017 could be quarterback rivalries.
One would be in the state where Aikman was raised and started his career; the other would be in the city where he became a star.
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