Thursday, March 30, 2006

Odds & Ends

I thought the story about a charity executive embezzling money to, among other things, hire a professional dominatrix was strange enough. Yet, I think the more important question is why did he fly from New York to Ohio to see her? Not speaking from personal experience of course, but I certainly would have thought New York would be an easier to find paid perversions than Ohio. Well, except maybe Cincinnati. Nothing but freaks up there.

Speaking of perversions, I'm not sure the oddest part of this story about a couple microwaving a dildo to heat up a urine sample. Whoever is doing the testing must be pretty thorough if the woman felt the need for a fake organ. Of course, didn't she realize a woman whipping out a wang might lead to more questions?

To begin with, I'm not really sure that either JJ Redick or Adam Morrison is really the best college player in the country. Sure they score a lot, but do they really do anything else well? I certainly don't think they should be a lock over Randy Foye or Brandon Roy. Yet, what is really ludicrous is even trying to compare those two to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Anyone who thinks these two bozos are even remotely close to those two legends needs to see a doctor about some head-from-anus surgery.

Another story from the "What were you thinking?" file. A Spanish "artist" has converted a German Synagogue into a gas chamber, and apparently doesn't understand why some people might find it slightly offensive.

Of course, cluelessness is running amok in this country. I'm not just talking about teachers purchasing academic credentials. I'm talking about a school board member who is "baffled" at why the teachers were fired. I guess she thinks someone committing academic fraud would be the perfect role model for students who might be inclined to cheat.

Then there is Sharon Stone. Not to question the intellect of a Hollywood celebrity, but she surprised even me when she said Hillary Clinton was "too sexy to win" the Presidency. I can give a lot of reasons why I wouldn't vote for Hillary, but that certainly isn't one of them. Husband Bill must not think she's too sexy when you consider the "bimbo eruptions" that cropped up during his career.

Speaking of Sharon Stone, I saw a preview for her new movie Basic Instinct 2. It looks exactly like Basic Instinct 1. Of course, I'm sure I will eventually watch it, but a part of me is hoping that she used a body double at this stage of her career.

I'm usually not from the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, and I have no problem with a well managed immigration program. However, when you start waving the Mexican flag during a protest of American policy, my only response is "If you don't like it, GET THE HELL OUT".

Sunday, March 19, 2006

First Round Thoughts and Opinions

I've never been a big St. Patrick's day person. I'm not Irish nor Catholic. I also don't like to wear green, so I don't know why I'm supposed to wear green and act Irish on St. Patrick's day. Actually, if I was Irish or Catholic (and especially both), the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated would be somewhat offensive. Not only is St. Patrick an icon of Ireland, he's been sanctified by the Catholic Church. Yet, what is the expected behavior on St. Paddy's Day? Getting drunk. Doesn't really seem like the proper way to celebrate a missionary's life. Yet, there I was in an Irish Bar (McCarthy's) on St. Patrick's Day. However, there was one good thing about it. I found a lot of humor in watching a bar full of UK fans rooting for the Wildcats while wearing the colors of their opponents, UAB. I don't know who sells those silly "Gettin Lucky In Kentucky", but they made some money if they stocked up on the green ones.

I understand the thought process that led Billy Packer and Jim Nantz to mug the NCAA tournament selection committee chair, Craig Littlepage, during a post-selection interview. It does seem strange that the Missouri Valley Conference got in as many teams as the ACC. However, it's still not a good reason to be rather rude to a business partner. They didn't just disagree with Littlepage. They about called him a liar and then interrupted him when he wanted to give a simple congratulations to the teams in the tournament. Besides, considering that Packer didn't seem to know what day it was (he talked about one matchup before the pairing was announced), he's not exactly a good choice to make any argument. His theory was that at-large bids should measure a conference's historical trends which means that Wichita State should be excluded because Florida State plays in the ACC where Duke and UNC have been more successful in the tournaments than Southern Illinois. Doesn't matter whether or not Florida State is better than Wichita State (they're not), but their conference has been historically better, so they should get the automatic bid. To begin with, that argument is crap. MVC teams that make the NCAAs have to start out with low seeds meaning they play a top team out of the gate. Of course their historical trend will be worse, but it doesn't matter anyway. If the tournament is supposed to be the top 65 teams, it should do away with automatic bids. Why should the SWAC get any team in? It doesn't matter who their conference champ is, it won't be a top 65 team. The funny thing is that we're basically arguing about whether a good small conference team or a mediocre major conference team will be a double digit seed. Does it really matter? After all, since they began seeding in 1979, only two teams seeded lower than eight (11th seed LSU in 1986 and 9th seeded Penn in 1979) have ever made the Final Four. The lowest seeded team to win it all was Villanova which was an eight, but the '88 Kansas and '83 NC State teams (both 6 seeds) are the only other champs that weren't at least a four seed. So, we're talking about a bubble team which has virtually no chance of even making the Final Four, much less winning the title. I say reward the small team for a good season rather than a major school for an underwhelming one. Granted, Packer and Nantz did sort of apologize during the UK/UConn game, but what else could they do? Two of the four MVC teams, neither of whom won the conference tourney, were already in the Sweet Sixteen which is two more than the Big Ten. Hell, the only conference with more is the Big East.

Besides, CBS has the worst coverage. While watching the UK game, I could see where Murray State was tied with North Carolina with a minute left. Yet, they waited until 16 seconds were left before switching to it. I realize that the UK/UAB game was close, but there were over 10 minutes left. Why not switch? Or use that split screen they used to have?

Since I don't have a team in the tournament, I can pull for my bracket teams. So I was already happy that UConn beat UK because a loss would have killed my brackets. However, there was another reason. Phil basically shaved his head hoping it would help UK beat UAB. I was afraid if they had beaten UConn, Phil would have shaved other body parts. Which is fine if that's what he wants to do, but my real fear was that he would post the pictures, and we shouldn't have to see that.

I'm not a big fan of the "Duke Mystique", but Duke teams always play hard. With all the talent on the UConn roster, they would be unbeatable if they played as hard as Duke. Which was why I was scared to pick them to win it all. It was mindboggling to me that UL stayed closer at UConn during the regular season than they did against Rutgers or St. John's. They'll start jogging back on defense and standing around on offense. You get the feeling that Rudy Gay could take over this tournament, but he doesn't. Letting a UK team shooting 50% on threes in the second half come back from a big deficit wouldn't indicate that much of a problem, but letting Albany get a 12 point lead with 12 minutes left in the game does. It's almost like they have too much talent and figure they can always pull it out. Which they almost always do.

I didn't think I'd see a better shot in this tournament after Chris Lofton's game winner in the first round. Then I saw the game winner by Northwestern State's Jermaine Wallace's to beat Iowa. Lofton's as actually a better shot (a fall-away baseline 19 foot jumper with a man in his face), but his was drawn up. Wallace's was a rebound a miss, get stuck in the corner and bury a three. Plus, there were mitigating factors. One is that it was a huge upset by a school that some drunks (we started right after lunch and the place was already crowded) in the aforementioned Irish Bar refused to believe me when I said Northwestern State was in Louisiana. Even I couldn't tell them which city it was in. Two, they were down while the Vols were already tied and would have still had overtime. Three, it was funny to see the two Northwestern State players hugging in celebration at half court while Iowa still has a second left to get off a shot. Lucky for them, the guy with the 'fro got back on defense and kept Iowa from getting off a good shot. Needless to say, both will probably end up in next year's highlight clips to be played over and over.

I thought this was interesting. Apparently, the IU players were happy that Iowa lost in the first round because it meant that Mike Davis went farther than Steve Alford. Of course, they needed a completely inept play by San Diego State (guy gave up a turnover when he incorrectly thought he would have been called for a backcourt violation) and pass tipped directly to an open man to win. Then lost by 10 to a beatable Gonzaga who had won their previous three games by a total of 9 points. Actually, it was pretty stupid of the IU players to celebrate publicly, because even though I wouldn't hire Steve Alford (1 NCAA win in six years), Indiana might. Do you really want to tick off your next coach?

Actually, Mike Davis is lousy coach. He got lucky early when his team got hot and took him to the title game (helped by Jason Williams bricking a free throw). Since then Indiana has tried to strive for mediocrity despite having a number of talented players. Contrast that with Bruce Pearl at UT. It may seem strange that I think Tennessee's team overachieved this year. After all, they barely beat Winthrop in the first round before dropping the second to Wichita State. Still, when I look at that roster, it's got no size and relies too heavily on outside shooting and should never have won the SEC East or been a 2 seed. But it did. As much as I like Chris Lofton, that team had nothing like a Jared Jeffries who Davis inherited. Watch out for UT when Bruce Pearl gets more talent there.

Monday, March 13, 2006

This One Is For Phil

According to his review of my blog, Phil is disappointed that I stick to opinion issues and avoid the personal. As everyone knows, it hurts me greatly to disappoint Phil, so I have decided to have an entry that includes something new. Since everyone else likes to put pictures of their pets on their blogs, I have decided to put a couple of pictures of one of my pets. This is Little Guy. He is a fancy rat. He's actually the larger of my two rats, but that's because he eats anything that moves. He'll even try to eat Styrofoam if looks like popcorn.

Oh, and since Phil expects every blog to include an entry about the ski trip, I have to admit that I thought about sneaking Little Guy along and letting him loose at an opportune moment to see how people would react. Actually, what I really want to say about the ski trip is - good food, cold beer, Louisville beats Notre Dame, Steelers win the Super Bowl, nobody pissed me off. Does anyone have to ask whether I had a good time?

Another bone for Phil. The Republicans in Congress are engaged in out of control spending that would make a Democrat blush. Well, probably not, but at least Democrat aren't running as the party of low spending. It's small consolation to me that Ted Stevens and Don Young (both Republicans) haven't tried to add money to build a bridge between two Alaskan ice floes.


Interesting note - if you run the blogspot spell-checker, blog is not a word.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Aimless Thoughts While Waiting For NCAA Bracket

If you've watched any Syracuse games, you've probably heard that Gerry McNamara was recently voted the most overrated player in the Big East by Sports Illustrated (he also was voted the biggest crybaby in the Big East). That led to an obscenity laden tirade by coach Jim Boeheim (must not have asked which coach is the biggest crybaby since nothing says class like dropping the F bomb at a press conference) in which he said Syracuse would not have won 10 games without McNamara (it's tough to find a 36% shooter with a 2-1.1 assist to turnover ratio). I hope the other players thanked Jimmy for his confidence in their abilities. Does this mean that Syracuse fans should get ready for a 10 win season next year? McNamara has played well in the Big East tournament, but his disappearing act in big games during the regular season is one reason Syracuse went in as a bubble team. However, let's look at the poll. To begin with, McNamara actually tied with Rudy Gay as each had 27% of the vote. Who did the voting? One player from each Big East team, but it wasn't 16 voters because the five teams playing their first year in the Big East (Louisville, Marquette, etc) didn't get a vote because of the conference scheduling, they hadn't played every Big East team yet. What that means is the "poll" that got everyone in a tizzy was actually three players saying McNamara was overrated. I can't take a poll seriously that only includes 11 people. It looks even worse when you consider that Uconn was voted the team with the most respect for its coach even though that coach, Jim Calhoun, was voted the coach they would least like to play for.

I like ESPN's Pride of the Program blurbs. However, I don't like it enough to make a point of figuring out when everyone is on. So, it would be nice if they would at least list which moment they used for each program. I understand if they don't want to reveal a particular moment until it airs, but you would think that they could keep a running tally after they show it. Yet, if you go to ESPN's website, you wouldn't even know this programming exists. Plus, I want to know who is picking the moments. I was watching the one on Utah State, and they picked a three overtime loss to UNLV. Sure, Utah State set a record for most points in a loss, but I remember a few years back when 12th seeded Utah State knocked off Ohio State in the NCAA tournament. Do they really think Utah State fans are prouder of a high scoring loss in a regular season game than a big upset in the Big Dance?

I said in a previous post that ESPN should not have let Dick Vitale call Duke games from the moment he admitted to a magazine that Duke is his favorite team. It's one thing for a local basketball broadcast to have a certified homer on it, but ESPN is national and should avoid having an active booster of a school call their game. Especially when his loudmouth act got old years ago. The Duke/Wake Forest semifinal game was the perfect example of just how embarrassed he should be. I had just flipped over to the game just in time to miss the actual play, but hear Vitale declare that the refs made a wonderful call when they ruled a foul intentional. He said that the Wake player never went for the ball. Then, they showed the replay. Yes, a foul occurred because the Wake player did wrap his right arm around the Duke player, but he not only was going for the ball with his left hand, he actually stripped it out. You would think a competent announcer would have backtracked after seeing the replay, but not Dick. He went right ahead with his belief the call was intentional. Even better, he later followed that up with a theory that was ingenious. Wait. That's not the right word. Incredibly stupid fits much better. He addressed the midseason controversy about Duke seemingly getting favorable treatment from game officials and actually had the nerve to declare that the calls go against Duke because they are so good. I guess we shouldn't focus on how the critical calls always seem to go their way in close games, and just be happy that Duke is able to overcome such adversity.

Glad to see Rick Pitino changed his mind about going to the NIT (or had it changed for him). If he has players who are hurt, don't play them. The NIT doesn't mean much in the standings, but for an inexperienced team, it's extra practice time and at least one more competitive game. Pick up some more experience and maybe UL will score more than two points in their first ten minutes of the Big East tournament. Actually, the only reason that I could see why Pitino didn't want to play in the NIT is that it would be his second trip in his five year UL career, and he didn't want it on his resume. UL isn't paying him the big bucks for NITs.

CBS coverage is friggin' joke. At the end of the SEC championship game, they never showed a replay of Florida's Joakim Noah's block with seconds left and South Carolina down two. It looked like there might have been some contact to it (there wasn't), but CBS acted like it never happened. They showed Noah's go-ahead put back, and then showed the Florida bench reaction to it. ESPN was getting ready to show it, but they cut back to the ACC title game (which makes sense), but ESPN2 didn't cover themselves in glory either. They were talking bracketology at the half of the Southland title game, and were still talking about what a possible win by South Carolina would do to selections. Nobody thought to tell them that the game was over five minutes ago? If it was on tape, that was poor decision making, because they had to know that the game was close to ending.

Monday, March 06, 2006

The Oscars

There's a lot of things to love about the Oscars. The pomp. The pageantry. The fact that they give an Oscar for the best short animated film. The stars showing up in environmentally correct cars that were mostly loaners meaning they don't actually own a Toyota. Mega-wealthy stars getting a gift bag worth thousands of dollars. What's not to love?

Hey, Kirby Puckett died.

I didn't actually watch the Oscars (A Fistful Of Dollars was on another channel). Looking at the ratings, I wasn't the only one. I didn't really have much of an interest in the festivities, but it might be because the only movie with nominations in the major categories that I actually saw was Walk The Line. Looking at the box office numbers, I was the rule not the exception. Granted, the amount of money a movie makes obviously doesn't indicate quality. However, you would think at least one of the Best Picture nominees could have beaten The Dukes of Hazzard, although I think Brokeback Mountain did actually catch the documentary about penguins. While I didn't see any of the Best Picture nominees, I can't believe they were all better than Walk The Line, but unfortunately, the Johnny Cash biopic had two problems. One, it made money. Two, Cash spent the whole movie chasing his soulmate June Carter. It probably would have gotten an Best Picture nomination if he had spent the whole time chasing Waylon Jennings. In the end, it came as a shock to everyone that Crash beat out the gay sheepherder movie for Best Picture. Never thought I would write those words.

The Best Actor and Actress winners were somewhat expected. Reese Witherspoon won for her earnest portayal of June Carter in which she showed a side of June that I didn't know existed. Man, she was a nag. Her only real competition was Felicity Huffman who should have been in a category all her own. She should have been up for the straight-female-used-to-playing-sluts-now-playing-a-man-about-to-get-his-wang-sliced-off Oscar. She would have won that one. The Best Actor went to Philip Seymour Hoffman who surprised everyone (well, all 10 people who watched Capote) with his second (at least) portrayal of a gay man. And in this case, he wasn't creepily lusting after Dirk Diggler's johnson. I was pretty happy that he won over whoever was in Brokeback Mountain. I would hate for the makers of Capote to second guess their lack of a sodomy scene in the movie.

In the supporting category, Rachel Weisz won for the her role in The Constant Gardener which surprised me since I read she got killed at the beginning. Because of that, I will probably never watch the movie. It's got to be all flashbacks. However, it is nice to see a Hollywood movie that would take an anti-corporate viewpoint, because the only wholesome corporations are major movie studios that do all their filming in Romania to avoid union wage scales. According to George Clooney, the Oscar voters are a daring bunch. At least he alluded to that in his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor. After all, the movie he won for was Syriana which blamed the U.S. in general, and Big Oil, in particular, for al the world's ills. Making a movie that comes across as a liberal soundbite is tremendously courageous in Hollywood. I'm not sure Clooney can get a job parking cars there now. Of course, he could have been talking about the nomination of his movie Good Luck, and Good Night which was another one of those movies that nobody saw, but did raise awareness of that huge social problem - McCarthyism of the 1950s. After all, nothing says courage more than going after a guy who died in 1957 and was discredited in his own lifetime. Maybe his next project will be about a an aide to McCarthy during his Red Scare days who would later authorize wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr. Somehow I doubt it since his name was Robert Kennedy. I will say one thing in Clooney's defense. At least he didn't take the opportunity to poke fun at another actor's debilitating illness.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Living On Another Planet

I often wonder why so many Americans refuse to see the problem that is Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There seems to be a tendency to "blame the victim" rather than the perpetrator. The cartoon issue is just the most recent example. The cartoonist themselves are condemned for offending Muslims, but the Muslims who want them killed are less so. The invasion of Iraq is blamed for Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, but somehow I must have missed all those American troops were in Baghdad when the planes flew into the World Trade Center towers. The fact of the matter is that while planning was being made for that terrorist attack in Afghanistan, the mean ole U.S.A. was providing more aid to that famine stricken country than anyone else. That was in spite of them harboring Osama bin-Laden who was wanted for terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa. Many of the problems of the Middle East are blamed on Israel. Somehow, a country that is just over 8000 square miles (compared to over 6 million square miles that make up Arab countries) and has just under 7 million people, of whom almost 20% are Arabs (compared to about 300 million Arabs outside Israel) causes otherwise sane, tolerant people to strap bombs to themselves and blow up buses, pizza parlors and skyscrapers. As for the belief that the anger is over their treatment of Palestinians (who are ethnically, religiously and culturally no different from other Arabs), that's a laugh. Palestinians are treated like garbage in other Arab countries. Arabs in Israel have more rights (the right to vote) than most Arabs in Arabic countries, not to mention more rights (right to freely practice their religion) than non-Muslims in Muslim countries.

So, where's the problem? One area just might be higher education. Normally, it's political correctness run amok. I can cite numerous examples of students or faculty members facing punishment for holding politically incorrect views. One of the biggest is the recent resignation of Lawrence Summers at Harvard. It's not often that a former cabinet member of the Clinton administration is considered too conservative, but apparently this one is for the Harvard faculty. His greatest crime was saying that innate gender differences (along with discrimination and social reasons) may explain why there weren't more women in higher level faculty positions in math and science. Just because it was an academic conference and there is a body of research indicating the possibility of such things is no reason to allow anyone to deviate from the PC playground. Yet, as long as you come from the poor, discriminated Muslim population, true misogyny is fine. I just found out that an ambassador at large for the Taliban wasn't just accepted into Yale, he was actively recruited into Yale in spite of being a fourth grade dropout (although he did get a GED). I guess noting that men and women are different is far worse than representing a government that put women down to the level of livestock. Actually, that's wrong. Under the Taliban, women were worth less than livestock.

This cluelessness isn't just academia. It's also national media. A recent Newsweek article shows just how out of touch some of them are. Somehow the Dutch have become the intolerant ones because they want Muslim immigrants to actually accept their values. Values like women's rights and not brutally murdering someone on the streets because he offends an abusive culture. Yet, somehow, the Dutch are portrayed as wrong. Of course, the Newsweek writer doesn't have a clue what's going on. Back when there was rioting in France, the international press went out of their way to avoid pointing out that all the rioters seemed to be Muslims. One reporter was so clueless about what was happening that she actually referred to the Tunisian immigrants who started the whole thing as "African-Americans" which is taking the whole PC thing a bit too far. Actually, Newsweek is definitely behind because the Dutch pushback against Muslim immigration began long before the cartoons (actually, the cartoons were probably part of that). It began even before the Van Gogh murder. In 2002, Pim Fortuyn was set to make a strong showing in Dutch parliamentary elections on an anti-Muslim immigration platform, but he was murdered by an animal rights nut. The inherent stupidity of the press was very present at the time because they insisted he was a "Far Right" politician because of his views. This was in spite of the fact that he was a gay, sociology professor. Much like the Newsweek article, it was assumed that he must have been an enemy of tolerance and multiculturalism because of his anti-Muslim stance. Actually, his anti-Muslim stance was to protect the tolerance and multiculturalism of Dutch society from an immigrant community that refused to assimilate into that open society. He knew that unfettered immigration would lead to a violent sub-population opposed to the liberal Dutch society. Unfortunately, Europe is beginning to realize the same thing.

Duke Basketball

I'm not a big Duke basher. Never have been. One reason could be that Louisville hasn't played them since beating them for the 1986 Championship. I guess if UL was 1-6 against them since beating them for an NCAA basketball title (like another local college team), I might be more critical. I'm not going to hate them because they win. I wish Louisville had been as successful in the past 15 years. It's tough for me to hate Mike Krzyzewski. He's a West Point grad who was the first ACC coach to really stand up to the most irritating, sanctimonious coach to ever grace the sidelines - Dean Smith. We're talking about the man who took the "stall" and called it the Four Corners Offense. Everyone else called it boring. He always seemed to think he was special and above every other coach, whether it was name-calling opposing players or thinking he could stop the game whenever he wanted. He's also the guy who turned down his alma mater, Kansas, when they asked him to come back and coach the Jayhawks. Said he wanted to stay with the program that he built at North Carolina. Yet, when it came to Roy Williams, he shamed him into dumping the Kansas program that he had spent 15 years at in order to return to North Carolina, simply because Smith wanted him to continue his legacy. So, I have a tough time believing Smith ever did anything that wasn't for his own benefit.

So, if I have such disdain for the Tarheels, it makes it tough to really dislike Duke. In fact, I still can't figure out why white players at Duke are so hated especially by other white people. Ferry, Laettner, Hurley, Wojo and Redick have been despised, but not Hill, Dawkins, Deng or Brand. However, I cannot believe how bad ESPN got with the latest Duke-North Carolina game. Really, three different channels showing three different angles. Please. To begin with, I've never thought much of the Cameron Crazies. They pass out cheer sheets (so much for spontaneity) which means I could care less about having a camera stuck in with them. I realize ESPN has the ACC contract and Duke is a big draw, but this is way too much. They don't seem to realize perception is quickly becoming reality. I've always thought Dick Vitale should have been pulled from Duke games the moment he said Duke was his favorite team (for the record, I don't think he should call UL games because of his business relationship with Rick Pitino in horse racing). ESPN is a national network which shouldn't have a homer calling games. It's gotten so bad that one of the more objective basketball analysts is Dookie Jay Bilas. How can anyone look at it as anything other than ESPN being Duke's home network?

Other college basketball quick hits:
Does it make sense to anyone that the NCAA is supposed to be helping student-athletes by punishing schools for low graduation rates? To begin with, I've always looked at college athletes as adults, so their success or failure academically is up to them, just like it is for any other college student. However, does taking away the number of scholarships benefit the student-athlete since it means fewer scholarships available?

I can't believe that Rick Pitino has indicated that UL would pass on the NIT because Freedom Hall probably wouldn't be available for home dates. I never really believe anything he says, but if he's being honest, he's stupid. He's blamed the team's problems this year on inexperience (the same problem Carolina and Kansas are supposed to have), so why wouldn't he want extra games?

One of the most laughable things I heard was during the UK-LSU game. The commentators were saying how much the lineup change had benefited UK as Brandon Stockton started instead of Rajon Rondo (among others). Please. UK was down 12-4 when the good players came in. Considering LSU's lack of depth means all their games are close, a better start could have made a difference.

I thought Cincinnati firing Bob Huggins the way they did was garbage. The timing (at the beginning of the school year) was designed to get rid of him, but not the players. That left former assistant/interim head coach Andy Kennedy in a lousy position - win in turmoil even though your connection to Huggins means you likely won't be considered for the job. He's done a great job, but I hope he doesn't get it full time. I hope another team gives him a chance that doesn't have the crap administration that Cincinnati does.

The irony is that I heard back when Huggins was fired that Kennedy was to be an interim coach with the expectation that former Xavier coach Skip Prosser would come back to Cincinnati. Might be a harder sell now that his present team, Wake Forest, has done a backflip into the toilet and are 12th in the ACC.

Speaking of Wake Forest, am I the only one who thinks former Wake (and present South Carolina) coach Dave Odom looks like the dad from Alf?