DEJUAN BLAIR IS THE BIG EAST POY. SORT OF.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:02:14 -0500

Regardless of the fact that Dejuan Blair got the best of Hasheem Thabeet on national television as well as the fact that Pitt was responsible for two of UConn's three losses this year, the two big men have no choice but to split this year's Big East Player of the Year honors. Direct your anger at the Big East coaches, who were responsible for the vote. Thabeet averaged 13.6 points, 10.8 rebounds, 0.5 assists and 4.5 blocks per game; Blair's numbers were 15.6, 12.4, 1.2, and 1 bl...

PITT GETS A SCARE, THEN ROLLS

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:00:47 -0500

Down 57-48 with 16 minutes left in the game, Pitt decided that yes, they did want to keep that #1 seed in the NCAA tournament possible and outscored Marquette 42-18 the rest of the way en route to a 90-75 win at the Pete. That's 20 in a row at home and 14 wins in the conference, a school record. Mike Tomlin was clearly impressed. Or perplexed at whatever Mark Nordenberg was saying.Other than a few highlight-reel dunks, this was vintage Pitt: pounding the glass, blocking shots, and hitti...

Usain Bolts To Second Gold While NBA Legends Gather for Charity and Current NBA Players Lured to Europe

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:41:09 -0500

USAIN BOLTS THROUGH MY HEART "We have the best coffee on the planet. We have Bob Marley. And now we have Usain Bolt. We are overjoyed and overwhelmed" ? Jamaican Minister of Information, Culture, Youth & Sports Olivia Grange. Usain Bolt broke former U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson's 12-year-old world

Second to None: The Best Second Round Picks in the NBA's Modern Era

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:33:17 -0500

Think you can fall asleep once the first round of the NBA Draft is over? Think again. It seems like every year, a player or two from the second round emerges into a solid NBA contributor, eventually developing into an All-Star caliber player. Here is a list of the Top 10 second round picks in the modern era of basketball. (Most people believe that the modern era of the NBA began when the three-point rule was instituted, in the 1979-80 season.) The criteria are simple: how good was the player ...

Let the Herb Williams era begin in earnest: A very perkisabeast commentary

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:36:21 -0500

Okay, we admit the fact that we're a little biased here. First a disclosure, I hate the Knicks and I hate Isiah Thomas with a passion. If given a choice though, my hatred for Thomas runs far deeper than it ever does for the New York Knickerbocker organization, who have had some of my favorite players of all time wear the uniform: Oakley, Ewing, X-man, Anthony Mason, Charles Smith (okay, I'm lying about the last three). To me, Thomas has been the perennial snake oil salesman of the NBA for the past ten years. He is a man who trades on his reputation rather than his prowess as a basketball mind, someone who sells the sizzle without the steak, an yet still manages to avoid being outed as a fraud, even by the normally voracious New York media. First, he parlayed his playing career into a gig with the Raptors, where he was largely a failure, even though he amazingly gets credit for being a good "talent evaluator." This label has stuck with him despite the fact that he drafted Marcus Camby over Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, and future homeboys Stephon Marbury and Jermaine O'Neal. And later as king of the Knicks he picked Renaldo Balkman over Rajon Rondo and Marcus Williams. We could give him a mulligan because he got T-Mac the next year but anyone who dismisses one of the greatest players of all time as being "just another player" because he's a racist, or leads his team off the floor without shaking hands as he did against the Bulls, or runs a hall of fame coach out the door because his ego can't handle being challenged, or thinks it's okay to call a woman a bitch doesn't deserve a mulligan. He deserves to be cast out of the NBA and fast. ****Please note we've left off several other minor basketball atrocities that he's committed including threatening opposing teams players, allowing his own players to act like goons, and bankrupting the CBA.*** In fact, the one big positive I can see about Thomas, which is often taken as his biggest negative, is that he's managed to blow a big chunk of Charles Dolan's money on bad contracts. However, after reading what an absolute bastard Dolan is to his staff, I think I'm gonna slide that onto the other side of the ledger, spend away zeke, spend away. I actually thought Isiah was done after his stint in Indiana where he took a championship team and coached them into the toilet for three or four straight seasons. I was at all three games in the Fleetcenter when the Celtics played the Pacers in 2003 and I can say I've never seen worse coaching, and I lived through the M.L Carr and John Carroll eras. In fact, his coaching was so ham fisted that at one point it looked like the Pacers were just looking to start a fight instead of win ball games. It was as if knowing they had no way to beat the Celtics they thought they could earn themselves a reprieve by being tough guys. I can still remember Jermaine O'Neal lamely putting his fists up to try and scare Mark Blount, our third string center at the time, after a particularly hard foul by Blount. O'Neal was booted from the game and the team lost the series. I don't know if he has yet to recover from Thomas' brain washing. However, in retrospect I kind of wish he had decked Blount. But we all knew that bad basketball decisions alone weren't going to spell the end of this man in the NBA. After all, there will always be another owner who is blindsided by Thomas' championship rings and thousand-watt smile. No, it had to end like this, with shameful revelations that reveled his true character. How could a man who degrades his season ticket holders by calling them a bunch of , "white motherf*^kers" (does that include Spike?) be allowed to steer one of the NBA's marquee franchises. If that's not bad enough, how about this beauty that he spilled under oath. "A white man calling a black female 'bitch,' that is wrong with me. I am not accepting that. That's a problem for me," he (Isiah Thomas) said. But asked if he'd have a problem with a black man calling a black woman "bitch," Thomas said, "Not as much." He said that under oath, this is not locker room chatter, this is not Kobe Bryant being caught on tape. This is a man so arrogant, so full of hate, that he is willing to say these racist and sexist things during a deposition. Trust me, it takes a real slime ball to say these things for the record. It's either that, or this man has the emotional intelligence of a gnat. Either way he shouldn't be allowed to run a franchise. And let's not leave Chuck Dolan out of this. He's the bigger idiot to not settle this thing. He had to know what Isiah said in his deposition and yet he still felt like they could win in the courtroom. The truth is that New York doesn't deserve a guy like this and the Knicks organization deserves better. The franchise is at an all time low and being steered straight into the ground. New York is a good sports town so the fans will always support their team but perhaps they should think twice when the first of November comes around, because any ticket you buy to watch this team play while Thomas is at the helm is a vote in favor of vile bigotry and hubris. How could anyone root for the two little lord Fauntleroy's to win? No Knick fans stay away. Stay far away. Boycott this ownership and its flawed management and everything else this group stands for. You'll be better off. That is unless Herb Williams is at the helm, which if there is any justice in this world he will be.

Yardbarker: Charles Smith

DEJUAN BLAIR IS THE BIG EAST POY. SORT OF.

PITT GETS A SCARE, THEN ROLLS

Usain Bolts To Second Gold While NBA Legends Gather for Charity and Current NBA Players Lured to Europe

Second to None: The Best Second Round Picks in the NBA's Modern Era

Let the Herb Williams era begin in earnest: A very perkisabeast commentary