“Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of.” – James Harden
Wow! James! That’s a big promise, especially coming from a guy who is famous for keeping his promises, like agreeing to play under every contract he’s ever signed.
Obviously, this is entirely overblown. Hard to say Harden even dislikes Daryl Morey. He said it abroad, and everyone knows you can say whatever you want if you say it in a foreign country. It doesn’t count! It’s like robbing a bank.
Even if it did count, though, think about where James Harden was when he said this: He was at an Adidas event in China. China. The country whose government severed all financial ties to Morey’s then-employer, the Houston Rockets, when he suggested on Twitter in 2019 that perhaps China should stop crushing democracy and committing human rights abuses in Hong Kong. This is like when bands cover Sweet Home Alabama on tour stops in Birmingham. Harden was simply playing the hits.
Does Stanford Want an NIT Super Conference?
A lot of people have been talking about the Pac-12 calling itself the Conference of Champions, and they’ve been saying it’s not because of football, and then they’ve been making a big swing and a miss when they say why it really is. No, it is not because the Pac-12 schools have the most combined NCAA championships across all sports. It’s because Stanford has won three NIT titles, including two in the last dozen years.
UNC conspicuously was a “no” vote when the ACC took names on who wanted and who didn’t want Stanford in the league. This tracks. UNC hates the NIT, just like UNC probably loves all the human rights abuses China does in Hong Kong, and presumably loves the ones Russia’s been doing in Ukraine, and I don’t know probably supports cancer, too, and pedophilia, and all the other biological and societal plagues. There’s not a lot I’d put past UNC. Also conspicuously, though, Stanford didn’t get a vote. Does Stanford even want to join a league whose flagship university so egregiously disrespected the greatest of all tournaments?
A lot has been made of the debate between the Pac-4 turning to the Mountain West and the Pac-4 turning to the American Athletic Conference. This is kind of funny, it’s a funny thing to argue about, you’re basically arguing over which soup Steve Buschemi’s character from Big Daddy is gonna order on Thanksgiving afternoon. But! It should be noted that any move Stanford makes towards the AAC is quite obviously an attempt to team up with North Texas, reigning NIT champions, and Memphis, 2021 champs. Make of that what you will.
What Is Happening with Jim Harbaugh?
On Saturday, news broke that the NCAA’s deal with Jim Harbaugh had fallen through. As a refresher: The NCAA is punishing Jim Harbaugh for recruiting players during a dead period. There was something involving a cheeseburger, but to my knowledge the core infraction was that he kept recruiting guys during a time when the NCAA had told everyone to stop recruiting. There was a rule, Jim Harbaugh broke it, he is going to be punished. This all adds up. People like to say things don’t add up with college sports, but they ignore some very basic things adding up. “Nothing makes sense in conference realignment,” they write ominously, and then explain like fourteen different angles of conference realignment, all of which track in direct, logical ways.
Anyhoo, I saw the headline and assumed Jim Harbaugh had rejected the punishment, which seemed hilarious. Why would the NCAA let a guy accept or reject his own punishment? That’s not how punishment works! Turns out, it was the NCAA rejecting it, which is even funnier. Someone with the NCAA negotiated a punishment, but then they had to bring it to a voting body within the NCAA and said voting body hollered, “No! Not enough!” If I worked for the NCAA, this is the point at which I would need to quit my job. Otherwise, I would definitely respond to this triumph of bureaucracy by brandishing a gun and bellowing, “WHAT?! DO YOU WANT ME TO FUCKING KILL THE GUY!??” In other news, it has been five years since I left Corporate America.
There’s a scene at the end of The Germans, a famed episode of British comedy show Fawlty Towers, in which a German patron looks at the chaos induced by a concussed British hotelier and laments, “How ever did they win?” Sometimes I feel that way when I think about how the NIT got beat by these clowns.
(I think someone on the voting body would say yes. I bet the voting body hates cheeseburgers.)
Shaka Smart Got Another Guy to the Hall
Dwyane Wade, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program 2019–NIT–Champion–and–Renowned–Guy–Who–Was–Nice–to–Me Shaka Smart built at Marquette, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend. Really cool. He didn’t mention Shaka Smart, but that’s ok. True coaches don’t need the recognition. The product of their work is enough.
Joe Kelly’s on the IL
*brandishing a gun*
Joe Kelly’s Got Forearm Inflammation
*brandishing a second gun*
Joe Kelly’s Going to Have a Mariachi Bobble Head
*putting the guns away*
Chris Streveler Is Having a Bad Week
Last night, as I scrolled Twitter before going to bed (great strategy for helping yourself sleep), I started seeing an account a whole bunch of retweets of an account called “Morbid Knowledge.” Fucked up stuff. No false advertising, but it was fucked. Curious who was retweeting this, I looked at the account name and it said, “Memecoin.” I did not realize I was following an account named Memecoin.
What evidently happened was that Chris Streveler got hacked. Who’s Chris Streveler? A free agent quarterback. He’s from Crystal Lake, so even though he went to Marian and I don’t know him, I follow him. I assume he went to Marian because Jon Budmayr went there. Wanted to play in college, you know? And it worked! The guy made the NFL! But, technically from Crystal Lake. Even if Marian is in Woodstock.
Streveler got cut last week by the Jets. That’s why he’s a free agent now. I bet it’s putting the Twitter hacking in perspective.
Fargo Got a Good Draw
Fargo Little League won’t open play until Friday in the Little League World Series, grabbing a first-round bye. This is huge. My impression is that for as much as this team rakes, they don’t have a ton in the way of pitching. I have yet to see a child wearing the Fargo uniform who is throwing gas. Granted, I’ve only partially watched any of their games, and I’ve only done that twice, and it was late in the Regional so pitching may have been worn down, but these guys are trying to win games by scoring twenty runs, not by shutting teams out.
They’ll open against the winner of Needville Little League, from just outside Houston, and Media Little League, from Philly (Delco).
Burnley Covered the Spread
In my head, the Burnley/Man City spread was 3.5 goals. A 3–0 defeat, then, is success. You do not understand how many times Man City has beaten Burnley 5–0 in the last few years. Also, with Aston Villa losing by four, Burnley is not in last place.
Much was made of the incident where a spectator in the stands threw a lighter at a Man City player, but less was made of the facts surrounding the situation. Or should I say: The lack thereof! We don’t know if the guy who threw it even likes Burnley!! And Rico Lewis, while he did not deserve to be hit in the head by a lighter, had flopped pretty bad a few minutes earlier. Just wanted to get that on the record.
Premier League, welcome back to Burnley. It’s a joy to have you.
Also, great work by Burnley FC to catch the lighter-thrower. Can’t have that around.
I Don’t Want Chase Elliott to Make the Playoffs
You know a sport’s gotten a little boring when you start rooting for the unusual even if you otherwise wouldn’t. It’s the first sign on the path to nihilism. So, when I found myself pulling *hard* for Michael McDowell to hold off Chase Elliott yesterday, I took it as a sign that NASCAR has gotten a little boring. If Chase Elliott were to make the playoffs after missing seven races due to 1) breaking his leg snowboarding in the middle of the season and 2) intentionally wrecking a guy, what are we doing? You’ve got to make sure he misses the playoffs in a year like this. Good work, McDowell. Good work, NASCAR (if you rigged it, which I almost always support).
