Happy Hoops!!!

I had a great Thanksgiving, it was good to be home. I've eaten turkey 6 of the last 7 days, and I'm not tired of it, yet. Actually, I love my mom's homemade stuffing. She really nailed it this year. You'll be very proud of me, I did get in a run after Thanksgiving dinner. I think I averaged about 9 hours of sleep over the break. I didn't think I was that tired, but I guess I was.

I've asked Santa Claus to bring me a set of new Taylor Made irons. They were only $300 at Dick's, half off the regular price, you can't pass that up. I really don't need anything else, maybe some new basketball shoes. Getting back into playing has worn out my already worn out shoes even more. It's time for a new pair of kicks.

Well, college hoops is underway, so life is really good. Now let's see if I can remember all of my thoughts from all of the teams/games I've seen:

• Kansas/Florida. This was worth staying up for til almost 2AM last weekend. Kansas played with great energy and played very well. Florida can play a lot better, yet they were still in the game. Florida wasn't as good defensively as they were at the end of last year. Julian Wright for Kansas is fun to watch. For a guy as tall and long as he is, the way he can handle and pass the ball is incredible. Taurean Green for Florida kept them in the game with solid play and good shooting. He continues to improve.
• Duke/Indiana. Right now, Duke is not a top 10 team. It's been painful watching them play offense this year. They're very young, they can't do anything about that. But with the exception of DeMarcus Nelson, Duke's veterans aren't stepping up. Josh McRoberts has great skills, but where are they during games? Greg Paulus is still getting healthy, but his decision-making should be better than it has. Duke's freshmen will be good, but they're not ready yet. If you've read the blog, you know I was a Mike Davis fan and that I'm not a Kelvin Sampson fan. Seriously, does Sampson coach offense? I've watched them against Butler and Duke now and I thought I was watching Oklahoma, ugly. I do like Bassett and Joey Shaw, their two freshmen, they're going to be really good players.
• Xavier/Miami. I really like Xavier a lot, they have what it takes to go far, hence my Final Four sleeper. Stanley Burrell, the ballplayer not MC Hammer, is turning into a big time player. Drew Lavender is playing under control and shooting the ball well. If Lavender can continue to shoot the ball well and Josh Duncan can play up to his potential, X is dangerous. Miami is 3-4, losing to the likes of Kentucky in Rupp, Illinois in Chicago, and Xavier at Cintas. They've played all those teams tough, but the missing ingredient is perimeter shooting. Despite Nathan Peavy playing like the MAC Player of the Year and Tim Pollitz rounding back into form, Miami is shooting just a shade above 40% from the floor, 29% from 3.
• Obviously, the big story is Butler, now 8-0 after winning at Valparaiso tonight. If you have good guards, you can beat anybody. Graves is the prototypical Butler guard, great shooter, gritty defender. Green is the x-factor with his quickness and shooting ability. And their big guys, most notably Brandon Krone shoot the ball really well from outside also.
• The Missouri Valley is up to their old tricks again. Wichita St. winning at LSU, Missouri St. beating Wisconsin, Bradley playing Illinois tough, and Northern Iowa beating their old coach and his Iowa St. team tonight.
• Georgetown has already lost to Old Dominion and Oregon at home. The Big East hasn't been too impressive yet.
• As I write this, Air Force is beating Wake Forest 63-31?!?!?! Air Force has routed Stanford and Colorado along with beating Texas Tech.
• Maryland/Illinois. Maryland is 8-0 and they're playing basketball the way their coach wants them to play. Mike Jones and James Gist are playing really well. Vasquez may be the most underrated freshman in the country, he is tough. What a 2nd half he played against Illinois. Speaking of Illinois, their best guard right now is the UD transfer Trent Meachem. Chester Frazier is still maturing, and Rich McBride is nothing but a catch and shoot guy, still. They'll be better when Jamar Smith and Brian Randle are back and 100%. After Wisconsin and Ohio St., the Big 10 is wide open.
• Michigan St. has good chemistry, but the talent isn't there, especially at the 4 and 5 spots. Raymar Morgan and Maurice Joseph will be good players.
• Ohio St./North Carolina. Wow, what a game. So many young players, so much talent. It looks like UNC will win. UNC wore out the Buckeyes with their depth and OSU got in a little foul trouble. I hadn't seen Ohio St. yet and all of their freshmen, but wow. Mike Conley is a little jitterbug with the ball, Daeqean Cook is doing everything he did at Dunbar, he's just in a different uniform. David Lighty is a good wing player, and the juco Othello Hunter is solid. How did Ron Lewis go from Bowling Green's 6th man to a great Big 10 player? Jamar Butler is the glue guy and a great shooter in his own right. And they don't even have Greg Oden yet!!!! Ohio St. can win the national championship. As for UNC, there are going to be some unhappy people with their playing time, and I guess the complaining is starting to occur just a little bit. They don't have their identity yet, but it should start with Hansbrough and Wright down low. Lawson is lightning quick, Ellington is a great shooter, and it goes on and on. They want to play fast, but can they play in the half court in March and will they remain happy?
• Gonzaga is doing it again. They beat Carolina and controlled much of the game. Raivio has taken the next step to improve his shooting and Heytvelt is a beast inside. But how long has Sean Mallon been there. Is he a 7th year senior, it seems like he's been there forever!

Now for some quick hitters:

• An Ohio St./USC championship would be intriguing, but Ohio St. will win. Troy Smith is a better QB than Vince Young. Young is a better athlete, Smith is a better QB. I'm glad OSU/Michigan lived up to the hype.
• I hope it's not Michigan/Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl. Michigan will win by at least 3 touchdowns again.
• As much as I like smaller conference teams getting to play in bowl games, I can't say I'm that excited to see Western Michigan play Cincinnati in the International Bowl.

Alright, UNC has this one in the bag, but I was really impressed with Ohio St. I thought UNC would literally run them out of the building, but Ohio St. has a lot of great shooters (especially for all of those guys being so young) and when they get Oden, if he's half as good as the hype, Ohio St. will be in the Final Four.

2:59.36

Lance Armstrong crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon in 856th place. Not a place you're used to seeing from Lance, but maybe one of his more impressive performances. He came in with nagging shin splints and having only run 16 miles as his longest training run. And during the 2nd half of his race, it appeared he wouldn't achieve his goal of breaking 3 hours. But in true Lance fashion, he found something at the end and achieved his goal, despite being in obvious pain as he crossed the finish line. If I would've known nbcsports.com had a live webcam on him throughout the race, I would've watched. It was great to see Lance out competing. With all the recent talk about former teammates doping and his supposed involvement in it, a performance like his yesterday makes you remember how much competitive fire he has and what a treat he is to watch.

Other weekend thoughts:

• I made the trip to Kalamazoo to watch Miami take on Western Michigan and again the Redhawks came up just short, losing on a late chip shot field goal 27-24. Western improved to 7-2, keeping their MAC West hopes alive while Miami is now 1-9. Once again, Miami had a chance in the 4th quarter to win the game, but another crucial mistake robbed them of victory, this time a fumbled handoff inside the Western 15 with 8 minutes left proved to be the turning point. But the 16 starters that will return for Miami next year are gaining valuable experience and learning great lessons. Miami football will be back.
• Ohio St. and Michigan got their wakeup calls this past weekend. Can both of them make it through one last game before The Game on the 18th. Ohio St.'s trip to Northwestern is a little tougher now after the Wildcats' win at Iowa. Michigan travels to Bloomington to face a fired up Indiana team trying to become bowl eligible and coming off a blowout loss at Minnesota. You can be sure Coach Hep will have his guys and Bloomington itself fired up and rockin, but will it be enough to pull the upset? These games are on at the same time on different channels, so there will be some flipping going on.
• Unfortunately, a lot of football fans are rooting for Louisville to lose so they won't play for the national championship. You can't blame Louisville for beating everyone on their schedule. They scheduled programs that were good at the time of the scheduling who are having down years: The U, North Carolina, Kansas St. All but one of their wins have come without star tailback Michael Bush, and some of them have come without star QB Brian Brohm. If they can run the table at Rutgers, vs. South Florida, and at Pittsburgh, they have every right to play for the national championship. And to all those SEC fans, play somebody out-of-conference!!!! With the exception of Florida/Florida St., Georgia/Georgia Tech and Tennessee/Cal, Arkansas/USC this year, your nonconference schedules blow. Sorry Auburn, Washington St. (I'd be impressed if you went to Pullman), Buffalo, and Arkansas St. among others won't get it done.
• I may have to go see this Borat film this weekend, I need a good, long laugh.
• Election Day is tomorrow which means the last day of political ads, woohoo!!!!! I will be voting after work.
• Current book I'm reading: Kennedy and Nixon. Written by Chris Matthews, it's very good so far (about 100 pages in). And yes, I'm very surprised I like a book written by Chris Matthews, although it would be hard to write a bad book about Kennedy and Nixon given all the subplots surrounding the two.
• And college hoops starts this week. And I'm more than ready.

Go vote tomorrow. Do your civic duty.