sports

I recently bought three albums: Paramore’s “Brand New Eyes”,Rise Against’s “Appeal To Reason”, andKings of Leon’s “Only By The Night”. So far, “Brand New Eyes” is the onegrabbing my attention with several good songs and some variety of style. And, as always with Paramore, Hayley Williams’ voice is amazing.After “Ignorance”, the angry song getting play...

While I’ve been frustrated by Bledsoe’s consistency, I was never among the Dallas Cowboy fans that was calling for Tony Romo to replaceBledsoe. I didn’t think an unproven quarterback could make much difference. But the drive I just watched Tony Romo lead was very impressive.No matter how tonight’s game finishes, I see Romo as the...

Rather than a story-book ending for Zinedine Zidane, he’s sent off after being red-carded for a totally classless move: head-butting anItalian player in the chest. Whether his team will also lose the World Cup final remains to be seen…Update: Zidane’s team, France, do lose.Update 2: Video of the incident.

David Robinson sued by Major League Baseball Is there a more idiotic publicity move than this? A logo that hasn't been used in nine years, and the only commonality is that it has an interlocking C & A. Not the same colors, not the same font, and, of course, the Carver Academy has no halo...

According to Mark Stein, Michael Finley has decided to sign with the San Antonio Spurs! This follows the signing of Nick Van Exel earlier this week. Both players decided to play for the defending champs to in order to help them repeat as NBA Champions. It seems that winning it all, but needing seven games...

Ok. The Spurs selected Ian Mahinmi with their only draft pick this year. He is 6'10", so I guess that's why the Spurs picked him over Wayne Simien. But I think if you're not drafting for that one needed spot at the 3-spot, you should go for the best, proven player, and Simien is definitely...

Even though the Spurs pick 28th this year, I'm still interested in the draft. One reason is that Wayne Simien, the star of my alma mater, Kansas, might be available for the Spurs. In fact, that's exactly where NBADraft.net has him. Other mock drafts I've seen have him going before 28th, or have him getting...

I wrote before that Duncan deserved the Finals MVP, even though I felt torn, and that Ginobili was really close. I voted for Duncan over on the Spurs Blog poll, and supported that vote in the comments.But Matt just posted something that convinced me that I was wrong, and that I should have listened to...

The San Antonio Spurs are the 2005 NBA Champions! The most important factor was that their terrific defense finally reappeared. My theory is that playing that up-and-down high-scoring series against the Phoenix Suns kind of put the Spurs down the wrong track for a while. But in Game 7, they played excellent defense in the...

The San Antonio Spurs blew a good chance to win the Championship. They had it close must of the game, but couldn't quite make it happen. It was a tough game. The Pistons, especially Billups and Hamilton, hit a lot of very well-defended shots, while the Spurs, especially Barry and Ginobili, missed several wide open...

I'm quite hopeful that the San Antonio Spurs will finish off the Pistons tonight, especially since Detroit hasn't won in San Antonio since 1997. So, now may be my last chance to speculate on the Finals MVP (other than during the game).In my mind, how players played during losses doesn't matter. So lets examine the...

Nevermind the stats: Robert Horry was the MVP of Game 5. After four blowouts, we now have a game go to overtime, where Robert Horry makes the game-winning three. He went 5-6 from three-point range in the game.After Manu Ginobili's performance in Game 1, Rasheed Wallace said about Manu: "Ain't nothing too special about the...

Why, oh why!? Why have the San Antonio Spurs decided to make me (and a lot of other folks who gushed over them after games 1 & 2) look like utter fools?The poor officiating in the game (though, again, not a primary cause of the Spurs failure) was only exceeded by the continuing atrocious announcing....

So many things went wrong in this game, it's hard to catalog them all. The officiating was bad, and lop-sided, but that's not why the Spurs lost. Any time both Duncan and Ginobili have bad games, the Spurs are in big trouble. The Pistons defense does deserve some credit, especially inside on Duncan, but Duncan...

That's the question that Tyler Cowen asks over on Marginal Revolution asks. I was suprised to see this post, as I read Marginal Revolution because it's a fantastic economics blog... Tyler doesn't have any answers, but he does have provocative questions:Can you imagine Bruce Bowen holding MJ to thirty points and Duncan going around Bill...

The Spurs win big, 97-76! Manu Ginobili scores 27 pts on 6-8 shooting, 4-5 from 3pt, and 11-13 FTs, with 7 assists, 3 steals, and 3 rebounds. A nice "did you know" from the end of the game: the Spurs are the first team since 1951 to win by 15+ in the 1st two games...

Good read on the man, Manu Ginobili, from Scoop Jackson. Via San Antonio Spurs Blog.

The San Antonio Spurs got a solid win against the Pistons in Game one of the NBA Finals. The Spurs struggled early, but in the 4th quarter, Manu Ginobili really picked up his game, and finished with 26 points on 10 of 16 shooting. Another amazing performance in the end. I'll let Matthew give you...

Game 1 between the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons is still close late, and it's a good defensive game. But one thing not good so far is the announcing. The analysis is fine: nothing amazingly insightful, but nothing rediculous either. However, they are being really lazy when it comes to be factually accurate...

As always seesm to happen lately, I meant to blog this a while ago, I've been too busy. This thought struck me as I watche the U.S. Men's National Soccer team play Costa Rica in a World-Cup qualiying match on Saturday. But before I get to that, I have say how impressed I was by...

The Spurs lost, but it was close. The good news is, we played horribly for streches of the game, the officiating was bad, and hurt us a bit disproportionately, and we still had a chance late in the game. So, here's looking for the Spurs to win in Phoenix for game 5.

I still really don't know what to say about the San Antonio Spurs impressive success against the Phoenix Suns in the first three games of the Western Conference Finals. While I thought we matched up well against the Suns, and am not suprised by their success, it hasn't gone quite how I expected.The first two...

I talked about the classiness of the Denver Nuggets fans last round. The Seattle Supersonics fans decided they needed to one-up them. They didn't just perform audible chants of "bull-shit" in every home game, multiple times per game. There was also a sizeable contigent that cheered when it appeared that Tim Duncan of the San...

The San Antonio Spurs won game 2 over the Sonics without much difficulty, taking a 2 game lead. The Spurs are doing well, and should win the series pretty easily. I shoudl be happy and calm, but I've got a couple complaints that are really bugging me.The first is the refereeing. We're winning, so this...

The San Antonio Spurs win in overtime, despite what Charles Barkley called "One of the worst officiated games I've ever seen in my 20 years associated with the NBA." Duncan played well, but fouled out in overtime. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili picked up their games even further in overtime to seal the win. Spurs...

Just wanted to post about this while I remembered: you gotta love the classiness of the Denver Nuggets fans. For the second game in a row they get an extremely audible chant of "bull-shit" going. I don't recall for sure if they had any cause in Game 3. However, in Game 4, they are completely...

"I'm going to put in on tape and show my son how to play basketball -- just put your head down and run into people," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "I guess that's a new brand of basketball. It's not very pretty. He just goes in there and throws his arms up in the air...

The Spurs grind out a good win over Denver, taking back home-court advantage. So, so far the San Antonio Spurs have: lost by only 6 playing badly, especially Duncan, won by 28 points playing well, and then had Duncan play badly and still win by 8.Manu Ginobili played excellently, stepping up his game with Tim...

Very happy to see the Spurs step it up and win in the 4th quarter against the Rockets. I'm just surprised they managed to do it with Tony Parker suddenly deciding he's a jump-shooting point guard. I don't think he tried to penetrate even once all game. I can't figure out why, and I have...

Wow. So that's it. That's the rediculously anti-climactic ending to the careers of 4 Kansas Seniors who have had so much post-season success in the past.Bucknell played terrific basketball. I'd say they have a very good shot against Wisconsin. However, Kansas played plain-out awful. Langford was hurt; he just couldn't do the things he normally...

March Madness goes to market. The most interesting article about NCAA tournament predictions I've seen. Found via A Constrained Vision and from Yoco.When the opening bell sounds at the stock and commodities exchanges around the country tomorrow morning, the traders will be buying and selling the usual products -- crude oil, gold, Treasuries, the S&P...

Go read a great article on Shawn Marion of the Phoenix Suns, and Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs. Or the Matrix and The Sickness.

Looking through the stats for the Spurs team defense, you'll find they excel in almost every category. They're 1st in number of point allowed. 2nd in opposing team's field goal perecentage. 10th in opposing team's turnovers. However, the Spurs are 27th in opposing teams' 3pt. field goal percentage.

Was that a great game or what? Finally, they looked like a team that could compete for a National Championship. Yes, I know that they were playing a depleted Texas team. But it's not about how easy things were, or about the final score. It's the fact that showed a full-game's worth of effort. They...

I don't blog about the San Antonio Spurs here as much as I'd like. Luckily, there's someone who does. To get my thoughts on my favorite NBA team, just read this blog, and then look for my comments on his posts.

Via an e-mail from the author (assumably), I found out today about a quite good college basketball blog. If you're a college basketball fan, I suggest you check it out.

"Players ought to be there on time, period," Coughlin said. "If you are on time, you are on time. Meetings start five minutes early."Footbal coaches live in an alternate universe, where they apparently make a lot more sense than they do in this universe.

People who think that the rules difference between NBA and international basketball is just an excuse haven't really been paying attention. I think that some compromise on rules should occur, to get all the levels of basketball (NBA, College, International) at a mostly consistent rule-set. I'm not interested in making the rules adnantageous for the...

Best sports we don't generally get to see:HandballWater Polo (Handball in water)Sports that would fit in best at the X-Games:DivingGymnasticsSports that you're not quite sure qualify as "sports":Table TennisEquestrian

Well, there's no excuses this time. No jet-lag, no fluke 15 3-pointers. Just an old-fashioned butt-whooping.The 3-point line is shorter: why do we shoot worse here than in the NBA? And what did Carmelo Anthony do that made the coaches keep him on the bench?And why didn't the US team try pressure defense until midway...

It's good to see the US improving, as I've now watched the US barely beat Germany, and decisively beat Serbia and Montenegro. And they did it by playing to their strengths: use superior athleticism to play pressure defense, and get most of their offense through the transition game. In fact, they looked a lot like...

The best 3 point shooter on the US men's basketball team is Richard Jefferson at .364 for last season. The league average .347. The league leaders wer Anthony Peeler, at .482, and Brent Barry at .452. Jefferson, having made only 48 3-pointers, doesn't qualify for the Top 50 list, which cuts off at 50, but...

So, the men's Olympic basketball team lost badly. Will this Olympic games be the first, since NBA players started playing for the Olympic team?Sure, it's only one game. But there are serious problems, and I don't know if they can be overcome. And the similarities to the woes of my favorite NBA team, the San...

Went to the KU vs. Colorado baskbetball game. Sat in the student section, and fairly close up. It was a lot of fun. Very exciting atmosphere. Glad I finally got to got to a game.But the relaxation of watching on TV will probably win out for all future games...