Drake gets a customized championship ring from Kentucky coach John Calipari

There’s been a lot of rappers who attach themselves to their favorite teams and we get used to seeing them in the stands. Rick Ross with the Miami Heat and Jay Z with the Nets, just to name a few. There’s also Drake, who has attending plenty of games at the University of Kentucky despite being from Canada. I guess being a big fan can get you a ring nowadays, though.

While Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilcrist and other members of the Kentucky Wildcats 2012 championship teams got their rings so did Drake. Not only did he get a ring though, he got a customized ring that says Drizzy.

While I may not agree with him getting a ring(because, you know, he wasn’t a part of the team) I love what Calipari is doing. Having a popular rapper associated with the program will only help him bring in all the recruits, although it’s not like he needs any help.

Eric LeGrand makes great ESPY’s Speech

If the ESPY’s is good for one thing, it’s been the speeches of the past. The speeches of two people in particular though: Jim Valvano and Eric LeGrand’s speech this year. Everybody knows the story of Jimmy V’s speech by now and the words “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up”. Valvano was dying of cancer and his speech was incredible.

As mentioned earlier, Eric LeGrand made an incredible speech this year. He was a football player at Rutgers two years ago and became paralyzed after a hit on a kickoff. There’s no need to hear me talk about it though. You can watch LeGrand’s speech below.

 

The Joe Paterno case reminds us again the problems with looking up to sports figures

A year ago, Joe Paterno was a legend. He was the head coach at Penn State and had been their for 45 years. At an old age, he was still like an unbeatable man on the sidelines. He was going to retire on his own terms, even causing some to joke that he’d die on the sidelines. Even after being dismissed from Penn State, at the time of his death former president George H.W Bush called him “”an outstanding American who was respected not only on the field of play but in life generally—and he was, without a doubt, a true icon in the world of sports.”

Now just a year later, Paterno is dead and his legacy has taken a huge beating. We’ve now learned his involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal was much more than we originally thought. Paterno not only didn’t report the incident to the police but he turned his back to it and tried his best to hide all evidence of it. The image of the once invincible Paterno is tainted. Nike has already removed his name from one of their buildings and there is talk to remove his statue from the Penn State campus.

Back in 1993, Charles Barkley starred in a Nike commercial that caused controversy when he said “I am not a role model”. Barkley knew how much young kids look up to athletes and his point was that you shouldn’t look up to him and other athletes, but people that you actually know like friends and athletes.

Charles Barkley’s words in 1993 carry as much weight as they do in today’s sports world, and more importantly today as we all watch the horrors of this Joe Paterno case. We’ve seen plenty of cases in the past that have reinforced this very point. Mike Vick, Barry Bonds and even the tons of athletes every year that get in small trouble over DUI’s or drug problems. They all have showcased poor decisions and have devastated fans as those who were fans of Joe Paterno.

This isn’t all to say that there aren’t good role models out there in the sports world. Derek Jeter, Tim Tebow and Drew Brees are all examples of people who have been great on and off the field and have given back with qualities that you would love to look up to. Like Paterno though, our visions of these figures we put above us can change in an instant.

Looking up to sports figures is a natural reaction. We see these people do things on the field that we can only dream of doing and get attached to our favorite athletes. Unfortunately though, Charles Barkley may have been right. Sports figures didn’t and never will make the best role models.

My problem with Brittney Griner

After being perfect all year long, Baylor finally finished it off tonight by beating Notre Dame in the championship game. I’m not going to pretend that I watched it. I couldn’t name anybody on Baylor not named Brittney Griner. Hell, I couldn’t name anybody in womens college basketball named Brittney Griner.

If I didn’t watch it, then what’s my problem with Brittney Griner?

My problem has been building up throughout this tournament though. I’m sure  Brittney Griner is great. She has ruled womens college basketball and go on to the WNBA where even less people will watch her play. If you turned on ESPN in the past week though, you have seen them talking about Griner. In almost every single highlight, you see the same “highlight” of Brittney Griner dunking.

Yes, I know that it may be somewhat rare for somebody to dunk in womens basketball but she does a dunk that 95% of the NBA can do, and she ends up on ESPN’s top 10 plays. And my head almost exploded when I heard them say the amount of dunks that she has had this year. We’re keeping track of her dunks now? Come on.

Womens sports want to be taken seriously and this isn’t the way to go. It’s the equivalent of praising a womens softball player for hitting a homerun. The dunk, just like the home run in baseball, is so simple in the mens game that the ridiculous amount of respect that is given to a women who can dunk is ridiculous.

So I don’t really have a personal problem with Brittney Griner. My problem comes more from the ridiculous coverage of her and Womens college sports. Go ahead and cover womens sports but if they want to be taken seriously don’t act impressed with Brittney Griners amount of dunks on the year.

Morris Claiborne’s 4 on the Wonderlic doesn’t matter at all

Every year, each prospect in the NFL draft has to take the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic  is a 50 multiple choice question test to be answered in 12 minutes. The test has been given to NFL players to a long time and an average score is 21.

An example of a question given on the test is “Paper sells for 21 cents per pad. What will 4 pads cost?”

Doesn’t seem so hard right? You’re probably wondering how someone doesn’t do well on the Wonderlic. Each year though, there’s somebody who does awfully on the test and everybody overreacts about it. Vince Young scored a 16(on his second try), Hakeem Nicks scored an 11, Donovan McNabb scored a 14. Even Hall of Fame QB Dan Marino scored a 16.

This year, everybody is overreacting about Morris Claiborne’s score of a 4. Don’t get me wrong, 4 is a real bad score. But it doesn’t matter.

Coming into the scouting combine and draft, Claiborne has been the top CB in the draft class. That shouldn’t change. A 2009 study by professors from Fresno State University, the University of Georgia and Towson State found no connection between Wonderlic scores and performance during the first three years of a player’s NFL career.

Claiborne played at LSU, who’s system isn’t easy, and played great. The Wonderlic test doesn’t test his ability to play on the field and learn the playbook, which should be all that matters. Not to make excuses for him, but he was diagnosed with a learning disability in high school that affects his reading. Take it how you want to. That may have an impact on his score or he may have just decided he didn’t want to finish the test.

No matter what the reason though, it doesn’t really matter. His low score on the Wonderlic shouldn’t matter, as many of the people mentioned with low scores were still very high draft picks. It shouldn’t impact his draft stock so there’s no need to overreact about Morris Claiborne’s 4 on the Wonderlic test.

Fab Melo declares for NBA Draft

Syracuse forward Fab Melo has signed an agent and is heading to the NBA. Melo, who Syracuse lost in the NCAA Tournament due to ineligibility, averaged 7.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.9 blocks. Melo was the Big East defensive player of the year. Melo is projected as a 2nd round pick right now.

Ray Lewis delivers a brilliant speech

Ray Lewis is good at some things. Playing football, getting his teammates pumped up, flying on Ravens. Apparently, he’s also good at giving pre game speeches to college teams. Ray Lewis delivered the brilliant speech you can watch below before Stanford’s NIT semi final game. I’ve heard that he gives adrenaline pumping speeches to his teammates before football games and this is just great. You should defintley watch this.

3 Heels declare for NBA Draft

After their disappointing loss to Kansas in the Elite Eight, it was expected that some of the players from North Carolina would be moving onto the NBA. Today, 3 important players from North Carolina announced they weren’t returning and moving onto the NBA.

Sophomore guard Kendall Marshall, Sophomore forward Harrison Barnes and Junior forward John Henson.

Even though Barnes had bad games in the last two rounds of his NCAA career, he is still projected to be a high draft pick this year.

Kendall Marshall missed the end of the season due to a fractured wrist, but he’s one of the 20 best prospects according to ESPN’s Chad Ford.

Also in that top 20 is John Henson, who won ACC Defensive player of the year last season with the Tar Heels.

Thoughts from Round 2 of the NCAA Tournament

Well Round 1 was fun. We saw tons of upsets and most of us saw our brackets fall to pieces. But something crazy about March Madness makes us enjoy watching our brackets fall apart for the sake of the upset. And we did while Lehigh and Norfolk State made two of the biggest upsets we’ve seen.

They got knocked back into reality in the 2nd round though.

On Sunday the Lehigh and Norfolk State both played. Norfolk State came up first and came out flat against Florida. The team that took the court against Norfolk State may have partied to hard after and it was obvious from the beginning that Florida had them figured out. Hats off to Billy Donovan and Florida for that. They earned their 34 point win and look dangerous moving forward.

Surely, Lehigh could try to make up for Norfolk State’s disappointment in the 2nd round. unfortunately though, they couldn’t come away with the victory although they played Xavier a lot closer than Norfolk State did with Florida. Lehighs 12 point loss was their first double-digit loss all season.

One thing to be learned from this is the same thing we see every time a major upset happens. The Norfolk State and Lehighs of the tournament may be able to surprise one team and catch them sleeping but once everybody else knows that they can’t sleep on them it’s up to talent which the teams usually can’t match up with.

There was action outside of Norfolk State and Lehigh though, and I want to start with Cincinnati. First off, here’s a thanks a lot to Cincy for officially destroying my bracket. Thanks a lot. The amazing thing though is that Cincinnati is even here. We all remember turning on the TV or seeing on ESPN the brawl that took place between Cincy and Xavier. I remember seeing Yancy Gates, who had just punched somebody in the face, barking at the whole Xavier team. Now both of these teams are in the Sweet 16. It’s absolutely remarkable and a special congrats has to go to both of those coaches and teams for bouncing back like they have.

North Carolina will have to be without their starting point guard, Kendall Marshall for the remainder of the tournament. Marshall, who averaged 7.8 points and 9.7 assists, broke his wrist after being fouled in the Tar Heels game against Creighton. Marshall will be missed greatly in the Tar Heels offense and their tournament run may be over without him.

Syracuse bounced back with an impressive win over Kansas State. For the first time they looked like they could actually be a competitive team without Fab Melo.

unfortunately, VCU has been eliminated again. Shaka Smart and VCU couldn’t have the same exact magic they did last year but I don’t doubt that he’ll have them back there next year.

Round 2 of the NCAA Tournament still had its ups and downs and even though there wasn’t as great of an upset special, the round was great. With the Sweet 16 starting on Thursday, we’ll have previews coming your way before tip-off.

The 16 over 1 upset could be closer than you think

When it comes to filling out a bracket one of the golden rules of it is that there’s always a 12 over 5 upset. You also always know there’s going to be upsets across the board. Maybe not a 15 over 2, but after this year those are going to get a longer look. One thing we always know though, is that you can take the 1 seed over the 16. The reason for this is that there’s never been a 16 seed to beat a 1.

That day may be sooner than we think though.

While watching UNC Asheville’s near upset over Syracuse, the announcers keep saying how one day there WILL be a 16 over 1 upset. At that time I was just thinking that they were saying that because it’s part of their job. Then though, after the Mizzouri and Duke upsets last night my opinion changed quite a bit.

With their being such close games between 16 and 1 seeds, and these 15 over 2 upsets from last night, the 16 over 1 upset may be closer than we think.