Almost Famous

First things first.

In response to one of my (potential) thousands of readers, KState did get a good win this week. I believe that I have said this before, but any road win in conference play is a good win. I will never argue that.

Adding on to that, the Big 12 standings could be shaping up to be quite historic. Kansas has all but locked up the number 1 seed in the conference. KState looks to be in very good shape to take the second seed. And after last night's events Missouri sits alone in 3rd place, one game ahead of Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M. Never in the history of the Big 12 (that's all the way back to 1996-1997) have the top 3 teams in the conference been from the same division, North or South.


However, Mizzou has 2 really tough games left. At Manhattan on this saturday and a week from saturday (in Columbia) against Kansas. They also have a date in Ames mixed in, but if that team is going to amount to anything, they must win in Iowa.


Now on to the exciting news.

Pat Forde is a columnist for espn.com. He frequently writes a column called Forde (pronounced Ford - E) minutes. It hits on 40 different names, places, schools, etc. dealing with college sports. He mentioned a Dandy dozen of the best remaining college basketball games this year. One of those games was Kansas vs. Missouri on March 6th. He went on to say, "Some good potential drama here, with the Jayhawks conceivably trying to ice a 16-0 Big 12 season on the home court of their bitter rivals."

Here is my email to him:
Pat,

Huge fan of yours, first time emailer. I would like to give you more potential for the epic battle that is Kansas @ Missouri on March 6th. If Kansas finds a way to win the next two games, they would not only be playing for an undefeated conference regular season, but they would also be playing for victory #2000 as a program. As a Jayhawk fan, I can think of no better place to get such a monumental victory. Thanks for the great columns!



Having emailed some national media before, I was not optimistic for a response. Low and behold, the day after I got an email reply:


DDSF*: Thanks for writing. I've had that pointed out by a few Kansas fans and I wish I had included that in the story. As you said, one more reason that should be a must-watch game. Enjoy the rest of the season.
Pat Forde

*He addressed it using my real name, but for the mystique of the post, I chose to change it.

Pretty sweet. He may be my new favorite.

Direct and personal contact with the national media. Just another reason for you to keep reading.
Almost famous,

DDSF

Big Monday

I want to quickly talk about the NBA and specifically the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Huh?

Yes, I know. On a night that my Jayhawks are likely to grab the Big 12 title (or at least a share of it), I want to talk about the NBA. But if there is one player in the NBA I would want to see it is Kevin Durant.

I have seen Lebron, and he is amazing. But in my opinion, he is an amazing athlete. He does have some amazing basketball skill, but more than anything he is an athlete. Kevin Durant is a scorer, and possesses Hall of Fame type basketball skill.

KDur (a joke if you deal drugs) has scored 25 or more points in 28 straight games. Only one player in recent history has done more, and that's Michael Jordan. During those 28 games, the Thunder are 20-8. And Durant is only 21 years old. He has only been in the league for 3 years.

This may seem like some rambling, but I am really impressed by this. Even when Lebron was coming along, he didn't have this good of an offensive season that early in his career. Neither did Kobe. Iverson may have been close, but he was a college player and older at the same point in his career in the league.

He's currently shooting 48% from the field, 38% from 3, 88% from the line and throwning in 7.5 rebounds per game just for kicks. He is doing all of this, while playing the fourth most minutes of any player in the league and does so by averaging just over 2 fouls a game. And based off of his career averages, he is dishing out more assists, blocking more shots and snagging more steals.

.........

Ok, quick first reaction to KU's victory (I type this with KU up by 22 with 7:20 left in the game). X is playing out of his mind. And tonight, doing it early helped settle the team. Collins, Aldrich and McMorris were all just a touch off and needed someone else to score. X was there.

Also, I dont know that I've talked much about it here, but in order for KU to succeed (by succeed I mean make a run at the final four) Tyshawn Taylor has to be a factor. Tonight, he did not make a flashy impact like he did saturday against Colorado, but he has been solid. He made a big 3 early, played solid defense on a good freshman in Mason-Griffin and didn't make any boneheaded plays.

With Morningstar in the starting lineup, KU could win it all. With Morningstar, you know what you are going to get. Solid, smart basketball, with not a lot of flash and some pretty decent shooting.

With Taylor in the starting lineup, KU can do one of two things: win it all convincingly, or fall flat on their face. He is the Y factor (do you really think I'm going to use X?) for this team. He has the talent to take the ball to the rim and finish. He has the talent to hit big 3's. He has the talent to be a force on defense. But......

Does he have the head? This is the same palyer that broke his hand in a fight with the football team (the Jayhawk football team... ugh). This is the same player that was upset with his playing time, not understanding his role and thought of transferring (and posting some of that on his facebook page... ugh).

Watching him the last 2 games as a starter, I am optimistic for the future version of Tyshawn Taylor. But it is a cautious optimism.

To end the night.... I think that Bobbby Knight is a good color commentator. He is my favorite because he tells it like it is and points out the little things, the fundamentals. That said, he struggled tonight to just talk about nothing.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk, six for KU!

DDSF

Sunday's Quick Hits

NBA:
The NBA trade deadline passed on Thursday and without much fanfare. The big deals happened before Thursday (the Mavs getting Caron Butler and the Cavs getting Antwan Jamison) and many teams were busy clearing cap space for the this summer's free agent pool. My winners and losers:
Winners:
Cavs- the fact that Lebron has someone else who cal play at an all star level makes them a little scary.
Mavs- Caron Butler is underrated in my eyes. The Mavs need an impact player who can match Dirk's consistency. The question is whether or not he can play when it counts.
Knicks - They successfully cleared cap space and got a good marketing tool in Tracy McGrady. TMac could be good and if he does agree to stay for a discounted price, they could really draw some talented

Losers:
Clippers- There is no way they are going to be able to get great free agents, so clearing cap space is an exercise in futility. I will say dumping Marcus Camby for might have been a good move, but they needed to move a lot more than that.
Bulls - I have absolutely no idea what they were doing. They got rid of an underachieving athletic big man (Tyrus Thomas) and picked one up (Hakim Warrick). They basically traded role playing guards for role playing guards and made pretty much gave themselves a tougher chance to make the playoffs by making Milwaukee a little bit better.
Nuggets - They are too inconsistent to win with what they have now and basically made no moves. They will lose to the Lakers in the conference finals if they find a way to beat Dallas.

MLB:
Spring training is about to start up and its my goal to get more conversations going about both the Royals and the Rockies. I am excited for summertime to return.

College Basketball:
Kentucky finds a way to win. Its not pretty and they get the advantage of some brainlessness from the referees and opposing players, but they find a way to win. That said, there is no way they are going to win it all. I have seen them get down to the end and miss a ton of free throws. You can't do that if you want a national championship. Just ask Memphis.

Speaking of Memphis, the Jayhawks have all but locked up another Big 12 title. With a win over Oklahoma on Big Monday tomorrow, they will have assured atleast a tie for the title. The bigger news for the Jayhawks is the race to 2,000 wins. Kansas currently has 1996 wins as a program. If KU somehow finds a way to go undefeated in Big 12 play (I am not saying they will by any means) they will get win number 2,000 in Mizzou Arena. I understand that means beating another top 10 team (Kstate) at home, beating one of the hotter teams in the Big 12 on the road (Okie State) and finding a way to win a rivalry game on the road to close out a long conference season. But it would be Legen...... wait for it.... dary!

To top it all off, North Carolina is currently sitting at 1998 wins as a program. If KU can win out and Carolina only wins one more conference game, KU will beat Carolina to 2000. This is pretty amazing because to start the year, UNC had 14 more wins than KU. Excitement!


Olympics
Finally, something live! USA vs. Canada men's hockey. Pretty great stuff. Even Mrs. DDSF is getting excited! Go USA!

I think that's enough for today.

Give me thoughts on what you are excited about right now. Comments will appear just below the post, so feel free to start the discussion.

DDSF

New Layout, new year, new thoughts, same old awesomeness

Starting today, DDSF will have a new layout and hopefully a more frequent update (ok, atleast some updates).

The question that I want to start with is this:

Why are the olympics not live at every second of the day?

Seriously. Can you tell me that (especially early in the olympics) there are not events that are happening at every second of the day? Please.

I watched the US women's hockey team the other day on USA. Not bad, something new to watch, I'm open for new things. Then I turned on the TV the next day to Universal HD, the USA channel in HD, and there was the exact same game in HD. Why is this a problem?

BECAUSE IT WAS NOT LIVE!!! WHY HAVE THE LO DEF VERSION OF SOMETHING YOU ARE GOING TO BROADCAST IN HI DEF A DAY LATER?!?!?

The biggest beef I have may be because of the time zone that I live in. Our local networks seem to be contractually obligated to show the "prime time" TV at the same time as central. So when the olympics start at 7pm Central time, they also start at 7pm Mountain time. Ick. Just irritating. If I want to know the results of something after the fact, I wouldn't watch it. Which is what is ending up happening. I love the olympics, but when I dont have any suspense (I know, if I wanted it I could just wait) I dont get into it as much.

Anyway, think it over, get back to me and let me know.

New question tomorrow,
DDSF