Friday, March 04, 2005
TERTIARY
Welcome to Friday. The weekend is upon you. If you haven't gotten a chance to see how weird it is to try and make Mario fly in Super Mario 3 using your keyboard and reversing hand controls, then I'll give you just one more shot to find out.
Also, if you've ever wondered how Sue Bird keeps track of her favorite TV shows while playing in Russia, this (select curse words render it probably not work-safe) is how. The writers at Television Without Pity are absolutely insane, and boy, do they have the gift of ramble. An hour-long episode of ER? No problem; their writer will write 13 pages' worth of stuff on it.
For the random...one of the things I miss about Ellensburg is the snow, though obviously not even the mountains around here are getting snow this year. What's great about snow? For someone that played baseball for many years through to high school, I can say there's one great thing about snow: throwing snowballs. Sure, it's better not to throw at cars or people, but there were ample legal and inanimate targets at which to throw. Big tree outside the east door at Lind Hall? That was a favorite target of mine, I'd be the second baseman completing the double play. Of course, the tree had a lot of vertical reach, so I couldn't overthrow it. The best reward of that whole sequence, though, is seeing the nicely packed snowball just explode radially. Extremely gratifying, along with the "poof/paf" sound effect that you get upon impact. The tree was a great target, though a lot of times I'd gone with the submarine/sidearm rock-skipping technique to try and nail trees and the occasional sign. In the Student Village parking lot I had this slushball and I hit a sign by the sidewalk on Alder, and it was pretty loud. I hope it wasn't that late at night when I uncorked that one. I'm known to be up at insane hours. College is where I honed that craft, and it prepared me for things such as typing out these posts at insane hours of the morning.
To the post...
MARINERS
Today's fluff: Jeremy Reed. The first part's about when he got the news of being traded, and the second is about his possible role with this team, what he can bring to this team, and his work ethic, etc.
If I were an oddsmaker, I'd set an over-under for the number of times between now and Opening Day that we're going to get the "what if Felix is too good to keep off the big club?" article. There's about a month to go, so I'll have to say 12, at the least. Anyway, the article talks a little more at length about what he's got between the ears, and how he might handle adversity.
Also, Mike Hargrove likes Miguel Olivo's gun, along with (unfortunately) Willie Bloomquist. This of course must mean that Willie Bloomquist has incriminating photographs of at least three managers in the Majors.
Richie Sexson also likes the fact that he can check-swing during a game and not have his shoulder explode. This is good considering the money the team shelled out for him, as well as the fact that they didn't insure themselves when it came to the shoulder. If Arizona didn't unload the coffers for Troy Glaus, I seriously wonder sometimes about how much lower the Mariners could have gotten Sexson in terms of money.
SEAHAWKS
In an offseason in which the Seahawks already would have had to address their deficiencies in their defense, Ken Lucas just poured some more gasoline on the fire. Granted, the Seahawks probably weren't going to compete with a $13M signing bonus, but...DAMMIT! We learn in the Farnsworth article that Mike Holmgren declined comment. As per usual, if the Seahawks lose anyone vital this offseason or find themselves hamstrung, I'm blaming it all on Bob Whitsitt. Anyway, this leaves Bobby Taylor, Kris Richard, Jordan Babineaux, and Michael Harden on the depth chart to fill the void. That is, of course, before any possible free agents or draftees come into play. In the free agent department, Renaldo Hill of Arizona is named in both articles, while Farnsworth also mentions that Fred Smoot, Samari Rolle, and Ty Law are free agents. Itula Mili and Orlando Huff visited with Arizona yesterday, and Mili has quite the travel itinerary.
Named in the Times article as another possibility on defense is Jeremiah Trotter of the Eagles, a free agent.
BASKETBALL
The Miah Davis Update
In the Roanoke Dazzle's 94-90 win over the Florida Flame, 1999 Bremerton graduate Miah Davis played 38 minutes and had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, and a steal. That's a Brent Barry circa-last year kind of line. Of course, the four turnovers, along with the shooting (3-for-12 from the field, 9-for-15 from the line from a good free-throw shooter) could have been a bit better, but Miah's only had starters' minutes for a couple games here.
The Roanoke Dazzle plays at Florida tomorrow and they host Florida the following Saturday.
The Marvin Williams Watch
In 2nd-ranked North Carolina's 91-76 win over Florida State, 2004 Bremerton graduate Marvin Williams scored 17 points and grabbed 4 rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench. He was 7-for-11 from the field and hit 2 of 3 from beyond the arc. Extrapolating totals out to 30 minutes, Marvin is averaging 15.6 points and 8.8 rebounds a game.
The Tar Heels host some team from Duke on Sunday (1p, CBS), the only game remaining before the ACC tournament.
Huskies
The Dawgs put a hurtin' on the Bears from Berkeley, a 106-73 win. Cracking the century mark against a team like Sacred Heart is one thing, but to do it against a Pac-10 team is something else. Bobby Jones tied a career-high with 22, Nate Robinson had 21, and Tre Simmons had 20. Three guys breaking 20? Not bad. Jamaal Williams and Brandon Roy also went for double figures off the bench as well, for good measure. Will Conroy scored two points, but had 14 assists to break Chester Dorsey's all-time Husky record. The Huskies shot 16-for-29 from downtown, so I guess the Sonics aren't the only team in town that likes threes.
Too bad the Cougars really cluttered up the Huskies' possibilities to get the first seed at the Pac-10 tournament. Not that it wasn't a great win for them on the road in Stanford, because it was. Of course, the team that gets that first seed in the Pac-10 tournament just might get the Cougars. I'll just say that if Arizona loses to Wazzu in the first round, hilarity will ensue.
The Huskies are at Stanford tomorrow (1p, CBS) before they open Pac-10 tournament play on Thursday, with the games being televised by FSN so that nobody on the east coast can see them.
Bulldogs
In the WCC tournament, the Zags get the winner of Saturday's game between San Diego and the winner of the Friday game between Pepperdine and Loyola-Marymount. The Zags' first tournament game will be at 6pm on Sunday, televised on ESPN2.
Sonics
Ray Allen. He scored 31 against Cleveland a couple days ago. The weird thing is, to me he has the quietest 30-point nights I've seen. I saw Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp play together when they were here, and they barely ever got into the 30s, and it was a pretty big deal if either of them did. Of course, their teams were so balanced -- they didn't have players like Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson, whose priority number one is rebounding, rebounding, and rebounding. On the Finals team, Shawn Kemp pulled down 11.4 boards a game, and no one else even pulled down half that many on average. This year's Sonics seem to spread the wealth a lot more on the glass. But about that article...how about Ray's dig on Elliott "Socks" Perry? I remember that year with the Suns and Perry and Rex Chapman falling out of bounds hitting three-pointers...bad times.
No, Les Carpenter isn't about to rain on this parade. The Sonics have some similarities with in terms of the team concept -- kind of like the same one that helped the Detroit Pistons fell the Lakers last year. Carpenter also brings up that although this is a jumpshooting team, it's how well the Sonics get their shooters open that's ultimately the deciding factor. That's where big bodies and setting screens and picks comes into play. This is why I'm so excited about this Sonic team having a chance in the playoffs, because they're so much better in the halfcourt sets than even the great Sonic teams were. I don't have the fear that the Sonics can't get out in transition when the playoffs come around, because that was back then (and for Phoenix, right now). These Sonics can run plays, get their shooters open, and sometimes get under the skin of opposing players down low. Ervin Johnson wasn't getting under anybody's skin when he was here, though Frank Brickowski might have.
Upcoming...
Tonight vs. Detroit (7:30p, FSNNW)
Sunday vs. Phoenix (6p, FSNNW)
Tuesday vs. Houston (7p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
Upcoming...
Tonight: Portland at Vancouver, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 3 of best-of-5)
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 4 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Sunday: Seattle at Portland, Vancouver at Kamloops, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 5 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Wednesday: Tri-City at Seattle, Everett at Spokane, Manitoba at Grand Rapids
---
Have a great Friday, and enjoy your weekend if you aren't reading us on the weekend. To those who can read us on the weekends, we'll keep the machine in operation, don't worry.
Also, if you've ever wondered how Sue Bird keeps track of her favorite TV shows while playing in Russia, this (select curse words render it probably not work-safe) is how. The writers at Television Without Pity are absolutely insane, and boy, do they have the gift of ramble. An hour-long episode of ER? No problem; their writer will write 13 pages' worth of stuff on it.
For the random...one of the things I miss about Ellensburg is the snow, though obviously not even the mountains around here are getting snow this year. What's great about snow? For someone that played baseball for many years through to high school, I can say there's one great thing about snow: throwing snowballs. Sure, it's better not to throw at cars or people, but there were ample legal and inanimate targets at which to throw. Big tree outside the east door at Lind Hall? That was a favorite target of mine, I'd be the second baseman completing the double play. Of course, the tree had a lot of vertical reach, so I couldn't overthrow it. The best reward of that whole sequence, though, is seeing the nicely packed snowball just explode radially. Extremely gratifying, along with the "poof/paf" sound effect that you get upon impact. The tree was a great target, though a lot of times I'd gone with the submarine/sidearm rock-skipping technique to try and nail trees and the occasional sign. In the Student Village parking lot I had this slushball and I hit a sign by the sidewalk on Alder, and it was pretty loud. I hope it wasn't that late at night when I uncorked that one. I'm known to be up at insane hours. College is where I honed that craft, and it prepared me for things such as typing out these posts at insane hours of the morning.
To the post...
MARINERS
Today's fluff: Jeremy Reed. The first part's about when he got the news of being traded, and the second is about his possible role with this team, what he can bring to this team, and his work ethic, etc.
If I were an oddsmaker, I'd set an over-under for the number of times between now and Opening Day that we're going to get the "what if Felix is too good to keep off the big club?" article. There's about a month to go, so I'll have to say 12, at the least. Anyway, the article talks a little more at length about what he's got between the ears, and how he might handle adversity.
Also, Mike Hargrove likes Miguel Olivo's gun, along with (unfortunately) Willie Bloomquist. This of course must mean that Willie Bloomquist has incriminating photographs of at least three managers in the Majors.
Richie Sexson also likes the fact that he can check-swing during a game and not have his shoulder explode. This is good considering the money the team shelled out for him, as well as the fact that they didn't insure themselves when it came to the shoulder. If Arizona didn't unload the coffers for Troy Glaus, I seriously wonder sometimes about how much lower the Mariners could have gotten Sexson in terms of money.
SEAHAWKS
In an offseason in which the Seahawks already would have had to address their deficiencies in their defense, Ken Lucas just poured some more gasoline on the fire. Granted, the Seahawks probably weren't going to compete with a $13M signing bonus, but...DAMMIT! We learn in the Farnsworth article that Mike Holmgren declined comment. As per usual, if the Seahawks lose anyone vital this offseason or find themselves hamstrung, I'm blaming it all on Bob Whitsitt. Anyway, this leaves Bobby Taylor, Kris Richard, Jordan Babineaux, and Michael Harden on the depth chart to fill the void. That is, of course, before any possible free agents or draftees come into play. In the free agent department, Renaldo Hill of Arizona is named in both articles, while Farnsworth also mentions that Fred Smoot, Samari Rolle, and Ty Law are free agents. Itula Mili and Orlando Huff visited with Arizona yesterday, and Mili has quite the travel itinerary.
Named in the Times article as another possibility on defense is Jeremiah Trotter of the Eagles, a free agent.
BASKETBALL
The Miah Davis Update
In the Roanoke Dazzle's 94-90 win over the Florida Flame, 1999 Bremerton graduate Miah Davis played 38 minutes and had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, and a steal. That's a Brent Barry circa-last year kind of line. Of course, the four turnovers, along with the shooting (3-for-12 from the field, 9-for-15 from the line from a good free-throw shooter) could have been a bit better, but Miah's only had starters' minutes for a couple games here.
The Roanoke Dazzle plays at Florida tomorrow and they host Florida the following Saturday.
The Marvin Williams Watch
In 2nd-ranked North Carolina's 91-76 win over Florida State, 2004 Bremerton graduate Marvin Williams scored 17 points and grabbed 4 rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench. He was 7-for-11 from the field and hit 2 of 3 from beyond the arc. Extrapolating totals out to 30 minutes, Marvin is averaging 15.6 points and 8.8 rebounds a game.
The Tar Heels host some team from Duke on Sunday (1p, CBS), the only game remaining before the ACC tournament.
Huskies
The Dawgs put a hurtin' on the Bears from Berkeley, a 106-73 win. Cracking the century mark against a team like Sacred Heart is one thing, but to do it against a Pac-10 team is something else. Bobby Jones tied a career-high with 22, Nate Robinson had 21, and Tre Simmons had 20. Three guys breaking 20? Not bad. Jamaal Williams and Brandon Roy also went for double figures off the bench as well, for good measure. Will Conroy scored two points, but had 14 assists to break Chester Dorsey's all-time Husky record. The Huskies shot 16-for-29 from downtown, so I guess the Sonics aren't the only team in town that likes threes.
Too bad the Cougars really cluttered up the Huskies' possibilities to get the first seed at the Pac-10 tournament. Not that it wasn't a great win for them on the road in Stanford, because it was. Of course, the team that gets that first seed in the Pac-10 tournament just might get the Cougars. I'll just say that if Arizona loses to Wazzu in the first round, hilarity will ensue.
The Huskies are at Stanford tomorrow (1p, CBS) before they open Pac-10 tournament play on Thursday, with the games being televised by FSN so that nobody on the east coast can see them.
Bulldogs
In the WCC tournament, the Zags get the winner of Saturday's game between San Diego and the winner of the Friday game between Pepperdine and Loyola-Marymount. The Zags' first tournament game will be at 6pm on Sunday, televised on ESPN2.
Sonics
Ray Allen. He scored 31 against Cleveland a couple days ago. The weird thing is, to me he has the quietest 30-point nights I've seen. I saw Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp play together when they were here, and they barely ever got into the 30s, and it was a pretty big deal if either of them did. Of course, their teams were so balanced -- they didn't have players like Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson, whose priority number one is rebounding, rebounding, and rebounding. On the Finals team, Shawn Kemp pulled down 11.4 boards a game, and no one else even pulled down half that many on average. This year's Sonics seem to spread the wealth a lot more on the glass. But about that article...how about Ray's dig on Elliott "Socks" Perry? I remember that year with the Suns and Perry and Rex Chapman falling out of bounds hitting three-pointers...bad times.
No, Les Carpenter isn't about to rain on this parade. The Sonics have some similarities with in terms of the team concept -- kind of like the same one that helped the Detroit Pistons fell the Lakers last year. Carpenter also brings up that although this is a jumpshooting team, it's how well the Sonics get their shooters open that's ultimately the deciding factor. That's where big bodies and setting screens and picks comes into play. This is why I'm so excited about this Sonic team having a chance in the playoffs, because they're so much better in the halfcourt sets than even the great Sonic teams were. I don't have the fear that the Sonics can't get out in transition when the playoffs come around, because that was back then (and for Phoenix, right now). These Sonics can run plays, get their shooters open, and sometimes get under the skin of opposing players down low. Ervin Johnson wasn't getting under anybody's skin when he was here, though Frank Brickowski might have.
Upcoming...
Tonight vs. Detroit (7:30p, FSNNW)
Sunday vs. Phoenix (6p, FSNNW)
Tuesday vs. Houston (7p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
Upcoming...
Tonight: Portland at Vancouver, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 3 of best-of-5)
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 4 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Sunday: Seattle at Portland, Vancouver at Kamloops, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 5 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Wednesday: Tri-City at Seattle, Everett at Spokane, Manitoba at Grand Rapids
---
Have a great Friday, and enjoy your weekend if you aren't reading us on the weekend. To those who can read us on the weekends, we'll keep the machine in operation, don't worry.
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