Jay Bilas is usually a fairly reserved guy from what we can tell. Sure, he can be annoying at times because he’ll talk Xs and Os until you’re blue in the face, but he still seems like a pretty nice fellow. But it seems that Bilas has a sore spot when it comes to Michigan coach John Beilein. How sore? Let’s just say that these two probably didn’t spend the holidays together.
Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting. First, and I say this as a guy who thinks that basketball is far more complicated than most seem to understand, to refer to your own basketball understanding as ‘wisdom’ seems a bit much. Knowledge, yes. Wisdom, take a pill. Even John Wooden wouldn’t refer to his own knowledge as ‘wisdom.’ Second, if your system is so complicated that you need to refer to recruited athletes and students admitted to the University of Michigan as the basketball equivalent of toddlers, maybe you should simplify things so you can compete favorably with Harvard, Central Michigan or Western Kentucky.
Bilas’ hate isn’t exclusively reserved for Beilein; turns out that he has a problem with the entire Wolverines program, starting with their AD, Bill Martin. Here’s his take on the team from mid-December.
Asked in a college basketball chat of which program was in bigger trouble — Michigan or Kentucky, Bilas said, “Michigan. They just don’t get it. I think that John Beilein will do a great job, with time. But, it will take time. Michigan had a dirty program, brought in Amaker to clean it up, and he did that. Along the way, he won. He just didn’t crack the NCAA Tournament barrier. Now, with good talent, they are getting their heads bashed in because they are starting over. How do you think those kids feel? Their heads are spinning. It is clear to me that one person needs to go…and that is Bill Martin. He has presided over this, and if the prior coach needed to go, then Martin should go too. If an AD’s job is to put the pieces in place to have a winning program, then Martin is not living up to that end. Sorry, but that is how I see it.
Links:
[Freep.com]: ESPN’s Bilas: `Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting.’
[Freep.com]: ESPN’s Jay Bilas believes U-M AD Bill Martin needs to go
Apparently ESPN gives out awards to honor people who mimic our weekend routine and nobody bothered to tell us about it. But its okay, we’re not bitter. Nope, we’re going to use the news as motivation so that we might crush the 2008 “Ultimate Couch Potato” Jeff Miller, taking our first steps toward destroying the evil empire known as ESPN. Until then, we’re just going to laugh at the pathetic showing of 40.5 consecutive, sleepless hours, staring at television screens while being confined to a Lazy Boy.
The contest was held in the ESPN Zone in New York where Windy City native Miller sat for almost two full days before being declared this year’s champion at 2:30 Thursday morning.
Although I tried to visualize and imagine the conditions and how this competition would play out, I was still unprepared for how difficult the whole thing was. The first 12 to 15 hours are pretty easy because there’s plenty on TV and all the highlights are new, but at 3 a.m. it’s extremely difficult to not fall asleep,” said the 24-year-old Miller.
We’re not trying to toot our own horn here, but did he seriously have to “visualize and imagine the conditions” beforehand? Hell, we haven’t left our couch since the bowl season began sometime in mid-December and we haven’t even broken a sweat yet. And no sleep is not a problem for us; we just get all jacked up on Mountain Dew. Now, if you’ll excuse us, a World Series of Poker marathon is about to get started on the Deuce and we’ve got some training to do.
Links:
[NBC5.com]: 2008 `Couch Potato’ Named Following Competition
You might think that the NBA has a flawless relationship with “The Worldwide Leader in Sports,” but you’d be wrong. Even though the pair have a strong partnership together pumping hoops, as you’d expect, ESPN is basically the wild, bratty little sibling that the big brother NBA must keep in check from time to time. Especially when ESPN is backhandedly trying to promote a season-ending injury to one of the league’s greatest superstars.
The NBA, late last week, was moved to make a phone call to ESPN, one strongly suggesting that “ESPN Attitude” had again gone too far in the pursuit of the young and desensitized.
On Dec. 7, an ESPN.com poll asked what Boston-specific event one would most like to see happen, over the weekend: 1) “Steelers beat the Patriots.” 2) “Johan Santana traded to any team besides the Red Sox.” 3) “Kevin Garnett blow out his knee.”
Following the NBA’s complaint, ESPN removed the question.
In return the NBA has agreed to remove a poll from NBA.com that asked which SportsCenter anchor would most like to see hung by his toes and beaten like a piñata by a class of fourth-graders: 1) “Stuart Scott.” 2) “Stuart Scott.” 3) “Stuart Scott.”
If you thought that ESPN‘s stupid “Who’s Now” filler segments were a complete and utter waste of your time then hold on tight because the mothership is basically throwing three minutes of every SportsCenter telecast straight down the toilet. Introducing the totally useless ESPNU Championship Series.
Kirk Herbstreit: “We’re going to move USC into the next round to play LSU.”
Lee Corso: “Ohhhh, that’ll be a good one.”
Herbstreit: “That should be a very good game.”
Actually guys, it won’t be a good game because your system isn’t real!!!
Does America want a playoff? Hell yes! Is America going to be satisfied with a hypothetical scenario that could possibly allow for Hawaii to win a national championship as a play-in? Hell no!
People that tune into SportsCenter, those who still do, want analysis, recaps and even an occasional prediction. However, what they don’t want is to be treated like fools who are supposed to actually care if Lee Corso believes Kansas could be the sleeper of a fake playoff series!
Living with the horribly unfair BCS system is way better than trying to breakdown imaginary matchups for some imaginary title. Why don’t you guys make yourself useful and simulate the Orange Bowl on NCAA Football 07 so we know who to put our money on.
We thought ESPN had totally lost its marbles when they started trying to compare the current Celtics with the 72-win, Michael Jordan led Bulls of 1995-96. Well, Shady Acres is prepared to admit the entire Bristol bunch after Countdown aired a piece on how Tony Romo and Snoop Dogg are cut from the same cloth. We’d like to think this was a joke, but the evaluation is earnest (for the most part). No Kenny Mayne in sight.
Tune in next week to see the crew’s piece on the unbelievable parallels between the lives of Ray Lewis and Weird Al Yankovic.
And since we brought up “weird” and “Ray Lewis”, here’s video of Phil Dawson’s 51-yard field goal attempt giving the Baltimore uprights a pole dance.
We know that different people have different hobbies and we try not to judge other people too harshly based on what they do in their free time, but when it comes to Boston College safety Jamie Silva we’ll make an exception. Dude, you’re gross.
Ewwwww!
So, because Silva is a freak, some sideline reporter has to jump into a dumpster and fish around for hair gel? Hey, at least it is somewhat refreshing to know that the women aren’t the only ones at ESPN who get treated like, ahem, garbage.
Links:
[Awful Announcing]: Quint Kessenich Is A Team Player, Jumps In Dumpster
Remember when Lloyd and Harry started eating peppers in Dumb and Dumber? Well, Rob Stone would have given anything for some squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup after he downed the hottest pepper in the world.
Geez, man; what are you? Some sorta idiot? The pepper dude said it had a million Scoville heat units. Wait; don’t tell us you’re not familiar with the Scoville scale of heat transfer. What a dweeb.
The commercials from the College Gameday (“built by the Home Depot”) crew keep getting better and better and this one is no exception.
That one had us chuckling pretty good, but, sorry guys, the award for `funniest analyst in a self-belittling commercial’ still resides in Scott Van Pelt’s coal-crushing grip.
In case you missed the third quarter of Monday night’s game between New York and Atlanta then you didn’t miss much. Well, you didn’t miss much on the field. Inside the commentators box was a whole other story.
The MNF crew welcomed Jimmy Kimmel into the booth and then immediately regretted it as he started ribbing on Joe Theismann.
The last remark was ignored by Kornheiser, Jaworski and Mike Tirico.
Jay Rothman, ESPN’s “Monday Night” producer, called Kimmel’s comments “classless and disappointing. It was cheap. The more he went on, the worse he got.
Kimmel was basically banned from the show afterwards, but we’re curious to know what they expecting when they brought him in? You knew he was going straight for the throat before you even hunted him down to do the spot.
Theisman claimed to not have an opinion about the whole situation other than saying “it’s nice to know you’re missed” and “It’s interesting that people remember me.”
Aww, come on, Joe; of course we remember you! How could we forget the guy who tried to kiss Suzy Kolber on-air. Oh, wait, wrong Joe. Were you the guy who got his leg snapped?
Links:
[NYTimes.com]: `Monday Night’ Is Not Amused by Kimmel
The College GameDay crew made their way to Norman on Saturday to take in the Oklahoma/Missouri game first hand. Needless to say, the signs were aplenty and not all of `em were all that nice.
Considering that GameDay comes to our living rooms live every Saturday morning, ESPN has to be careful to monitor the sea of poster board behind the set to make sure that nothing too wild goes beaming out to the throngs. Thanks to Blake Jackson of NewsOK.com, we now have a better idea of exactly what we can and can’t get away with.
Apparently, when you’re in Oklahoma, life-size cutout of Bob Stoops and Sherri Coale are cool. So are the multitudes of “We (heart) Herbie” signs. You know, the only member of ESPN your girlfriend can name besides Jesse Palmer.
But, then you’ve got the stuff that Jackson found behind the stage. These are the types of signs that ESPN hired guns plucked from the crowd, never to be seen on-air.
Chase Daniel eats boogers.”
“Missouri loves company.”
“Chase Daniel. Hungry? Why wait?”
Several signs parodied Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy’s recent tirade toward Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson:
One read, “Lee Corso is twice the man Mike Gundy is. He’s 80!” Another, “Curtis Lofton, he’s a man. He’s No. 40.
But our absolute unseen favorite has to be the one that had a giant picture of Lou Holtz with the phrase “Thoonerth” printed over his head. (Think about it for a second.)
Don’t fret though, we learned from Lou himself that even if the GameDay thugs rip that sign into a million little pieces, belief in ourselves can put it back together.
Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting. First, and I say this as a guy who thinks that basketball is far more complicated than most seem to understand, to refer to your own basketball understanding as ‘wisdom’ seems a bit much. Knowledge, yes. Wisdom, take a pill. Even John Wooden wouldn’t refer to his own knowledge as ‘wisdom.’ Second, if your system is so complicated that you need to refer to recruited athletes and students admitted to the University of Michigan as the basketball equivalent of toddlers, maybe you should simplify things so you can compete favorably with Harvard, Central Michigan or Western Kentucky.
