The Stat Smacks

The UConn women were unbeaten in the last 90 games. Stanford ended that.

Some people, and by that I mean UConn coach Geno Auriemma, have been stomping around, upset that women aren't getting their due. Auriemma's team broke the UCLA men's team's record of 88 consecutive wins. The week they did, he demanded some R E S P E C T. "And all the miserable bastards that follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they're pissed," he said.

I wondered why the coach felt he needed to get that off of his chest. Probably he knows that it's hard for the men's basketball fan to respect Globetrotter-General type scores for most of UConn's schedule. Geno is thinking about a number; what about the championship in April?

A lot has been made of Tom Brady avoiding throwing a pick this season. He broke the all-time record for attempts without an interception. Having seen every New England game this season, I remember at least five catch-and-drop interceptions out of Brady's hand. The pick-less streak is more impressive on paper. Those dropped interceptions that left my mouth hanging were good fortune on Brady's part, not proof of his skill.

Then again, a dropped pick is meaningless. Almost only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons. I'm on the East Coast, and CBS usually shows Pittsburgh or New England on Sunday. That's it and that's that. They know what draws numbers, better than I ever will, and those two teams attract the people.

We like statistics. More than that. We simply like those numbers. Numbers can be dangerous. They don't lie. We do.

Supermarket: The Ugly Citrus Thing

What a scary orange. It's like a very slow explosion. Or another remake of The Blob.

Doc's Props? Pending

Boston finally dispatched with the Orlando Magic, winning Game Six by 12 points. Now it's on to the Finals, and a chance for the Celtics to win their eighteenth title.

"If you come off the two series they just had, I mean, they beat two very good teams, and they made us look like we weren't very good teams, OK?" Van Gundy said. "I think you have to be fair and say a lot of it had to do with them, and they are playing very, very well right now." The C's have been underdogs in the last two series. Then they waxed the Cavs and Magic, leaving no doubt as to the better team.

No one saw this coming; all winter long Boston appeared talented, but faded. They had an incredible start, but an uninspired second half of the season. KG's injury kept the starting five apart for long periods. They backed into the playoffs--though, in the East, that wasn't too difficult. At some point, NBA observers have to start giving Doc Rivers his due. That hasn't happened as of this writing. Rivers hasn't built a sizable resume'. So even if Boston goes all the way, we can't quite put him in the Phil or Popovich category, yet.

To get on that level, he'll need success with a different group of players. Maybe with a new team. Doubtful he's going anywhere, any time soon. We can talk for miles about the Big Three, and Rondo, who's in the process of taking over this team.

But Rivers deserves credit too. He'll have to win the title again, to get some.

Just Saying: On the Subject of Term Overkill

After all these years of playing sports... reading about sports... watching sports... listening to people talk about sports... I realize that sports fans, like any other members of a culture/demographic, borrow from one another. Borrowing leads to repetition, and, finally, laziness.

Listen to sports radio casually over the course of a week, and you'll hear Something That Must Be Stopped. This Something is destined to burn brightly in our language for a few years, and then become annoying. Kind of like the word slammin'.

It's not even proper to call this Something a word. It's both a word, and a phrase in the form of a question. And that phrase is Really? As in Did you really just say that?

Someone saying this word to you, in that manner, is insulting you. I probably don't need to point that out...

Whether pop culture borrowed from sports talking heads or the reverse... "really?" is a monster in some circles. I usually hear teenage boys using it to deride their friends. They just repeat the word, adding more astonishment each time.

It's actually replaced the previous Overused Champ: Tremendous. That game was tremendous. His talent is tremendous. [Related: Seriously? ]

NCAA Basketball Tournament: 'Parity' Is Like Ash In My Mouth

Another March Madness, another busted bracket. I only do one bracket a year, and picked Kansas to whip Villanova in the title game. We're done with the opening two rounds of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, and this is no longer possible. That's a fact. Also a fact: After the first weekend, the most over-used word is parity. "We now have parity." Parity? Where? When did that begin? When Cornell makes the Sweet 16 four of six years--that's when we can say that the playing field is level. Let's see Northern Iowa actually win the title, and then reach the second weekend again in '11. Only then could we claim that there is a true sense of unpredictability. But those things are not going to happen. More than likely, these teams (and the entertaining St. Mary's College) will be replaced by a handful of other upstarts. Every March, we get so excited over the upsets that we get amnesia. Upsets happen every year. Brackets get destroyed quick and in a hurry.

The one recent exception was 2009, where all four #1 seeds made it to the national semifinals. There will never be true parity in major college ball. Although the usual murderer's row didn't appear in the tournament this year--represented by perennial powers like UNC, UCLA, and UConn--do you really doubt that they'll miss again next season? Schools like North Carolina are just on a different level. They have the recruiting network. The money. The boosters and alums. Big-time community support that, in most cases, has been there for over a generation.

You're going to see the same twenty or so universities making the tournament for another generation. There are exceptions to this old-school theory, like a Gonzaga, which has built a winning program in recent memory. But they still aren't part of the upper echelon--they're merely outstanding (so far). They're not Michigan State, or Duke.

Yes: that kind of powerhouse, where a great coach leaving or a losing season are just bumps in the road. Not the beginning of a retreat to obscurity. Remember when that team did good that one year?... This is why I'll always be most enthusiastic for the NBA over college. (Other than the obvious upgrade in play and talent.) At least the pro league doesn't pretend to be something it is not. Its flaws are there for everyone to see. Meanwhile, the NCAA proposes adding thirty-two teams to the Madness, yet pretends that the phrase 'student-athlete' is still written in the correct order.

Come on. Try and convince me.