PantsCast March 29 2011

The Final Four and the one person who called it correctly, Jason and Jalen Rose vs Coach K, the idiot known as Dez, and Virginia schools quickly making a name for themselves on "What's Wrong With Humans."

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PantsCast March 21 2011

The bleeding out of our March Madness brackets, why Joe refuses to root for Pitt ever again, another bit for Chad Ocho Cinco, the Mets get bit by the past again, and a holy trifecta of ingredients for this week's What's Wrong With Humans.

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PantsCast March 14 2011

Moving talk, NFL officially locks out, NCAA March Madness, and our favorite fatty friend, JaMarcus on "What's Wrong With Humans."

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One Shining Moment

Tired of listening to Gus Johnson scream as he calls March Madness games? Or maybe you enjoy Johnson's excitable outbursts. Either way, you'll never listen to him in the same way once Skillet the Bulldog takes advantage of a stuffed animal to Johnson's commentary:

CBS Sucks At Drama

I love me some March Madness, but CBS is doing their best to ruin it for me.

Find Out Why.

Bleeding Brackets Means Love For The Underdog

So your brackets are bleeding after the Kansas debacle, the Villanova shake down, and the general blood-letting of the three and four seeds (there is only one team left of each seed and that would be Baylor and Purdue...not exactly a murderer's row).

But you're still holding out that just MAYBE you'll still win your pool. A few upsets here, your darkhorse here....

Here's some more sobering news for you: Michigan State and West Virginia just lost their engines for the rest of the tournament.

The Spartens are lead by Kalin Lucas and with him they destroyed Maryland in round two. Then he got hurt and Maryland nearly pulled off a miracle comeback. Cool game? Yes. But it should serve as a giant warning flag to those men who wear green and those who have those men wearing green sneaking up towards the Final Four.

Michigan State was a fun darkhorse pick this year because they had the look of a late season attacker. They made the final game last year. THey had a rough patch of season this year which dropped the seed down, but they still had Tom Izzo coaching and Kalin Lucas running the show. Oops.

It doesn't stop there though. West Virginia was also a major player in the Final Four hunt. In fact, I had them knocking off Kentucky in my personal bracket. Then I read this.

Can I have a mulligan? There's no worse position to lose on the court than the point guard during tournament time. That guy generally determines the pace, controls the ball, and keeps the offense moving. Without the regular point guard, an offense can turn into one giant fire drill.

I know, anything can happen in the tournament, but maybe you should just accept the destruction of your bracket and root for a historic run by an underdog...unless the guy next to picked Northern Iowa to beat St. Mary's in the final.

Rising From The Ashes

March Madness is in full swing and your favorite school might be in there. Or maybe its not.

Sometimes you have to look for other schools to follow because your team is eliminated early or simply didn't make the tournament at all. If you're one of those people, let me introduce you to the Baylor Bears.

The Bears have never been an NCAA powerhouse in basketball, but no one could imagine the Bears even sniffing the tournament after what the school has been through this decade.

Lying? Check. Major NCAA infractions? Check. Murder? Check and mate.

In 2002-2003, Baylor was coached by Dave Bliss. He recruited two players to transfer in order to play of him. Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Dotson showed up at Waco and shortly thereafter all hell broke loose.

When the smoke settled, Dennehy was dead, Dotson was arrested for shooting him, then hiding his car so the police wouldn't find out, and Coach Bliss was nailed for a laundry list of hideous violations including illegal payments, and attempting to paint Dennehy as a drug dealer and telling his players to lie to investigators about it in order to avoid sanctions. Bliss' actions were discovered when an assistant coach taped conversations after Bliss threatened to fire him if he didn't go along with the plan.

Turns out that Bliss was aware of all sorts of drug violations, yet did nothing and also paid money to several players. Then he tried to orchestrate an entire symphony of lies in order to avoid investigation into the Dennehy murder.

You had a one dead player, one player arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison for murder, and a coach that ran a program dirtier than sceptic tank. Most players transfered away from Waco at light speed.

This is what coach Scott Drew took over when he became the head coach of Baylor in 2003. The Bears were never that good to begin with, now the program had this albatross to completely destroy recruiting.

But Drew just went to work and now in 2010, he has a team that is in the tournament as a number three seed.

There's no telling where the Bears will go this years since they haven't had much tournament history. Maybe they'll fall to Sam Houston State in the first round or maybe they'll make a Final Four run. Either way, this is a team to root for because they are building a program left in ashes. That's a good enough reason as any to wish them success.

When It's More Than A Loss

Upsets happen in the college basketball conference tournaments. Highly ranked teams go down early all the time.

So why would it be a big deal if Georgetown upset Syracuse in the Big East tournament?

Well, it wouldn't be under normal circumstances. The Orange are still making the NCAA tournament, they'll still be a top seed, and they'll still be on the short list to make the Final Four....maybe.

It all depends on one MRI.

Arinze Onuaku is only 6'9", but he's the biggest person on the team (260 pounds) and a senior leader. He anchors the middle and does a lot of dirty work. That's fairly important during the Madness of March.

Onuaku's knee will be the most talked about thing in the Salt City over the next day. If he's okay, the Orange dream goes on. If he's out, the Orange bubble gets a nice fat pin stuck into it.

So we'll find out in a day if the Orange just lost a game, or lost a big chance. All for one play. I guess there's something in there about fleeting chance at success or somesuch. Whatever, take what you want out of it.

Underdogs In Every Way

Now that your March Madness bracket has been burned to the ground and the power of Big East basketball has disappeared in a puff of smoke, it's time to crown a new college basketball champion tonight.

You have no doubt heard that the Final Four is being held in Detroit this year and I'm sure you've also seen the multiple stories about how this Final Four can bring just one night of reprieve to the hard luck city of Detroit where citizens are looking for any sort of aegis from the daily grind. And look, a team from Michigan is playing for the championship!

Yes, the Spartans are an underdog to pre-season favorite North Carolina. No, Michigan State doesn't have the athletes to hang with the Tar Heels if the two teams play a wide open game, so the Spartans have to be careful with every possession so that the game doesn't get out of hand quickly. Yes, Ford Field will be filled with Michigan State fans rooting for their little David to stop the championship run of a basketball Goliath.

I usually get a tired head from reporters finding a story line before a championship game and beating it into the ground from every angle conceivable thereby making it a bigger deal than it actually is.

This is not one of those cases.

Living in Detroit sucks on a good day, but now it's even worse than you think. The more I read, the more I wish a mercy rule could be given to the city (and that's saying a lot considering the number of obnoxious Red Wings fans I've had the misfortune of being around.)

We all know Detroit has a high unemployment rate. But it's worse than high. The national rate has hit an incredibly high 8.5%. That's not even half of Detroit's unemployment rate which sits at a mind boggling 22% as of March. (Insert pun about March Madness in Detroit.) That's high enough to help Michigan rank 51st out of 50 states in unemployment which includes District of Columbia. That's like a Spinal Tap ranking system.

Want to go to the store and buy some groceries? Too bad. The grocery stores have closed in Detroit. You'll have to go to the Kwik-E-Mart and get overpriced milk that expires in three days.

So why not just sell the house and get out, right? That's not much of a choice either. Even if you could find a buyer, the median price for a house in Detroit is around $7000. You might pay more for a used car.

Throw in the snow, pollution, violence, shoddy civic leadership, and utter collapse of the economic backbone, and you have a metropolitan disaster area.

Even the sports teams don't help. The Pistons are collapsing, the Tigers have been a colossal disappointment after the World Series appearance a few years ago. Sure, the Red Wings brought home a title last year, but that was offset by the record setting joke that is the Detroit Lions.

I'm not sure how reporters think a Michigan State title will somehow make everyone happy in their beat down of a Detroit life, but if you're desperate for anything to make you happy, I guess it'll have to do.

Go Tar Heels.

And Now A Word From The Greedy Rich Divorced Couple..

Not a bar discussion about sports goes by without someone bringing up how much athletes are paid. Yes, some athletes have lost all sense of reality due to too much money too fast.

My personal favorite story is when Deion Sanders became a Dallas Cowboy, he was house shopping. He apparently kept insisting on getting a house with a large fence so that no fans wouldn't know where he lived. Once he found a fence large enough to suit his needs, Sanders immediately went out and purchased a giant gate for the driveway entrance with his nickname 'Prime Time' on them in giant golden letters making the giant fence pointless.

But athletes are still basically just working class guys who get paid really really well. They still clock in to work every day and their job is based on performance.

You want to find people who have lost all sense of the basics of life, go look at the white collar bastards whose soul purpose is to collect as much money as possible by any legal (sometimes illegal) means possible.

Everyone has heard of AIG by now, but that company is just the poster child for the others who have managed to escape public notice.

The latest story of the ridiculously rich is the divorce proceedings of financial man George David and his ex-wife Marie Douglas-David.

First all, I should point out that Ms. Douglas-David is apparently a Swedish countess, so she's already unaware of any semblance of normal life.

Secondly, Ms. Douglas-David is saying that she needs $53,000 a week just to survive after her loveless marriage soured. And she has the expense sheet to prove it!

Some of the highlights of her needs:

-She only needs $350 for food, but $4,500 a week for clothing.
-She needs $1000/week for hair care
-She needs $1500/week for entertainment
-She needs $1000/week for horse care
-She needs $8000/week for travel

Oh, and this is on top of the $36 million she's already been offered.

Her weekly income from employment? Zero.

Bummer.

But instead of going on some diatribe about the evils of rich people, I'm going to take a positive approach and put you in the place of the Countess. Boob jobs are not required for you.

Let's say you just stuck the $36 million in a retirement fund. Which means you could probably retire now.

Here are a few highlights of what you could get with your $53,000/ week allowance this week:

-A 50" wide screen, high def, plasma screen television to watch March Madness on

-Cab rides to and from your place for 20 of your friends so that they don't go Donte Stallworth on someone by accident.

-20 high-end Belgium beers for each friend. We're talking the kind with 11% alcohol like Delirium or Duvel. They will knock you on your ass.

-2 high-end pizzas for each person. We're talking coal oven super style pizzas with any topping they want.

-a couple of punching bags so your friends can beat up whatever team they hate aka Duke punching bags.

-A basketball hoop to put outside so you and your friends can make drunken idiots out of yourselves trying to replicate moves made on the television.

-2 Hooters waitresses to serve you. Or if, Hooters girls aren't your thing, you can probably just hire a couple of exotic dancers to pose as Hooters Waitresses.

-A Bose surround sound system that includes a CD and DVD player in case your friends want to play music so that the exotic dancers can strip

-A video game system plus games that everyone can play if they get bored with the strippers.

-The ability to pay off the neighbors so no one will call the cops during any of your hedonistic activities.

And you still have around $20,000 left! So let's just hire more hot women to watch the game with your friends.

Dreams are nice.

Madness In The Month Prior To April

It's almost time for March Madness and you should be interested even if you have yet to watch a college basketball game this season because it really is the best tournament in sports. It's the one event that casual basketball fans can all gather together and watch.

The chasm in drama between the NBA playoffs and March Madness grows wider for me every year and will soon reach Grand Canyonesqe levels. Therefore I must get my fix in now before I grow bored with the sport.

Why is the chasm so big? Let me just give you quick stat:
Since 1980 (the birth of the modern age as far as I'm concerned) there have been 19 different teams that have won the March Madness tournament. In that same span there have been eight NBA teams that have won a championship. In nearly 30 years, the NBA has split the championship between the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, Rockets, Pistons, and Bulls plus a one time championship for the 76ers and Miami Heat.

Wow, exciting.

Want to know how the NBA will end up this year? The Lakers will play either the Celtics or LeBron James in the Finals.

L.A. will get to the championship series thanks in large part to a fleecing trade last year where former Lakers executives working in Memphis basically gave the Lakers All-Star forward Pau Gasol in return for some cheese and Jack Nicholson's autograph.

If the Cavs get to the Finals, it will be because the team sucked during the right year so they could draft King James. Take LeBron away from the Cavs and that team might be the worst team in the NBA. That's some team building right there!

I'll root for other teams like the Mavericks, Magic, and Hornets to make the Finals, but I'm not holding my breath.

March Madness, on the other hand, has a much larger pool of champions to pick from. There are still only five to ten teams that will actually be able to win the championship, but which one will it be? That's the key to the drama.

And we've been reminded during the conference tournaments that anything can happen. In the Big East Tournament, the second seeded Pitt Panthers were upset by West Virginia while Syracuse upended third seeded Connecticut in a thrilling six overtime battle through inanition.

Meanwhile, the Big 12 tournament has already been turned on it's ear as top seeded Kansas, second seeded Oklahoma, and fourth seeded Kansas State have all been knocked out early. No one thinks that Baylor will actually win the tournament, but they changed the the look of it by upsetting the Jayhawks.

That's the greatness of the NCAA tournament. It's not who wins, but who survives. So get your bracket set up and start praying to the basketball gods because the Madness begins next week and soon there will be blood.

Well, probably not blood, but there will be drama for sure.