I heated up some leftover pizza on Monday, but it had a pretty soft crust, and when the cheese melted, it and the green peppers slid through the rack and onto the oven floor. The smoke alarms went off—the pizza bits that had escaped were now burning for their crime—but the pizza was ready to eat, so I paused the alarms, got the pizza out, turned off the oven, and promptly forgot all about the matter until just now, when—as I started to bake another frozen pizza—the pizza bits on the oven floor reached their incineration point again, started smoking, and anyway I’m about to either discover that you should throw green peppers into wood-fired pizza ovens or eat a very unappetizing arugula pizza from Trader Joe’s. Also, I really need to remember to clean off the oven this time. The smoke alarms are going nuts. It’s hazy in here. Apologies if these notes are smoky.
While the pizza bakes…
Mark Turgeon Is Out at Maryland
The school and the coach “mutually” decided to part ways, eight games into the season. Danny Manning becomes the interim head coach.
It’s a weird situation, and I don’t know Maryland well enough to speculate on what actually happened, but let me say two things:
1. This does not help Maryland’s long-term NIT chances. It also doesn’t hurt them. We’re in a situation in which the Big Ten needs to either get a lot less deep or start encouraging teams to pack their nonconference schedules with the weakest opponents imaginable if they’re going to get a team comfortably within the NIT picture. This doesn’t really affect that. Might help the first piece, but does nothing to change the second. (They could also just play fewer conference games, but nobody seems to want to hear that from their local NIT blogger.)
2. This does not help Maryland’s short-term NIT chances. They’ll be in the territory, sure, and I love the idea behind this, but they probably fired Turgeon too early. The ideal way to do it would have been to get off to a hot start, fire the guy, then wilt. The committee wouldn’t let a wilting team with an interim coach into the other tournament, but the NIT could still take them on the basis of them a) being pretty good and b) having an overall record above .500.
That’s how you do it, Maryland. But again, I like the idea here. The Big Ten has made people desperate. Let us all acknowledge that.
Drake: Oklahoma Coaching Bellwether? (Yes, we’re talking about the rapper; no, we aren’t talking about the school in Des Moines)
There’s a rumor going around that because Drake was in Oklahoma City for the Thunder game last night and because Drake is friends (???) with Dabo Swinney, this means Drake will be performing a concert in Norman at which Swinney will be announced as the University of Oklahoma’s new football coach.
Is this true? I don’t think so. For one thing, the announcement would have happened today, but for another, no, duh, obviously this is not true.
If it is true, though…man. Man, I hope it’s true. This is my favorite coaching rumor ever.
St. John’s: On Ice
St. John’s is semi-hosting Kansas tonight at the Islanders’ arena, and man…I hope they’re actually wearing skates. Even if they put a basketball floor in there. Imagine what skates would do to the St. John’s basketball court. Also, is this St. John’s third home court? Fourth? Is my living room also a St. John’s home court?
Nothing else huge this weekend in terms of funny college basketball. Got some good—hey, wait a second. Alabama’s playing Gonzaga at Climate Pledge Arena. Isn’t that where the Kraken play? Are there two basketball games on ice this weekend? Man. What a weekend we are about to have.
Other games that are NIT vibing (playing basketball in a hockey arena is the OG NIT vibe, for the record—we started that): Saint Mary’s at Colorado tomorrow (Gaels beat the Aggies last night but I won’t tell you which ones). BYU at Missouri State, also tomorrow. Memphis at Mississippi, you guessed it, tomorrow. UAB at Saint Louis? Tomorrow. Potential NIT favorite Loyola at DePaul? Tomorrow! Vanderbilt/SMU (least likable student bodies ever?) is tomorrow. Iowa State/Creighton is tomorrow. Rhode Island/Providence (get in a fight you cowards) is tomorrow. Current NIT favorite St. Bonaventure hosts Buffalo tomorrow. Our guy Shaka Smart coaches at Wisconsin tomorrow. Nevada plays North Texas tomorrow. Nothing on Sunday, though, right? That’s the Lord’s day? Guess again! Xavier visits Oklahoma State. Richmond’s at Northern Iowa (they’re feisty, guys, I don’t know what to tell you). K-State’s at W-State. And through the whole weekend we have the steady drumbeat of ACC hoops, where every single game has legitimate NIT implications.
This might be the best weekend of 2021 so far.
That Shaka Smart/Wisconsin Game
It’s big! Not a whole lot else to say. Hope our guy can get it done. We like the Badgers, but we like Shaka Smart more. That’s always been our rule. Hometown visit, though, so that’s cool. Wonder if he’ll eat his favorite childhood cheese curds.
Can Saudi Arabia Contain Formula 1?
As in, can the place keep the cars on the track?
F1’s in Saudi Arabia this weekend, and it did not go well at practice today for Charles Leclerc, who absolutely smoked the wall. Car’s destroyed, and folks are asking if it was a good idea to race here. Not because Saudi Arabia, you know, is a repressive authoritarian state, but because the track’s very new, possibly not the safest layout, and the drivers haven’t had time to practice on it, even in simulators. Race is Sunday, 12:30 PM EST, on ESPN2. Qualifying’s tomorrow, Noon EST, ESPNEWS. Penultimate race of the season, title could be decided, would be wild if it was decided because Formula 1 flew too close to the sun with this.
Snowball Derby
This is not about baseball, but that’s a fun idea too! Over here in the states, the Snowball Derby’s going down in Pensacola. It’s an annual short-track race often featuring some big-name drivers, and from NASCAR’s top ranks this year it has Ryan Preece and Erik Jones.
NASCAR Awards
The guys looked weird in suits and Chase Elliott’s still the Most Popular Driver. No surprises here. Although Elliott was wearing a weird hat. The guy at the store told him he’s the only person he’s ever seen who could pull it off.
Sens’d ‘Em.
Back to the ice for a minute, the Senators won! Beat the Hurricanes last night. Wasn’t pretty—Anton Forsberg had to weather approximately one zillion shots, at one point it looked like the Sens were forming a kick line on defense, and one Ottawa goal was scored because there was a pileup in front of the net when everyone forgot how to skate, but it was a win, dammit. A win.
Next up, the Senators host the Avalanche tomorrow evening. 7:00 PM EST. ESPN+. Meanwhile, there’s a chance 1) Eugene Melnyk sells the Senators and 2) the Senators build a new arena actually in the city, in LeBreton Flats and 3) both, so good news on that front. An aquarium is another LeBreton Flats idea, and it has been suggested that the two be combined, which would of course mean we’d advocate for having them play hockey on the frozen top of one of the tanks, which is also something we’ve long advocated for the Sharks to do.
Good stuff all around.
Burnley’s Got a Good Chance
Burnley visits Newcastle tomorrow at 10:00 AM EST, and it’s on NBCSN, so no peacock necessary (also no Peacock necessary). Huge one for Burnley, who could climb out of the relegation zone with a win and a Watford loss to Man City. James Tarkowski and Ashley Westwood will be back. Dale Stephens is out again, with Covid protocols this time. Ashley Barnes is still hurt.
Viewing Schedule
Tonight, it’s Kansas/St. John’s and then the Pac-12 Championship, which has major NIT vibes this year. Tomorrow, it’s Burnley followed by Shaka Smart (12:30 PM EST, FOX) followed by Louisville/NC State (2:00 PM EST, ESPN2) followed by BYU/Missouri State (4:00 PM EST) if I get CBSSN and trying to get CBSSN if I don’t get CBSSN followed by USC/Washington State (6:00 PM EST, P12) to see if Kyle Smith can hold Andy Enfield to negative points followed by the first half of Bama/Zags (8:00 PM EST, ESPN2) to see if they’re actually on ice followed by Iowa State/Creighton (9:00 PM EST, FS1) to close out the night. What a night it will be. Sunday’s plans will likely be announced Sunday, because it looks like they’re asking me to write notes overnight on Saturday. The people call, and I might answer.
***
Pizza turned out ok. Gotta remember to get that stuff off the oven floor, though. And reenable the smoke alarms.
