BASKETBALL SEASON STARTS IN 2 DAYS aka ACC preview

HOLY GOD ITS BASKETBALL SEASON!!

This is the most exciting time of the year for me. At least until Thanksgiving when we have Feast Week, and later on in March when the Madness begins (even though they came perilously close to ruining with their greed). It's college basketball season, and nothing brings the scrillas together like some good, all-american college hoops. This post will not examine the end of Greivis' career, either in general or speficially how it ended. That's still far too touchy a subject, and I will need some time to reclaim my soul before ever discussing that at length.

What this blog post will be is a preview of the upcoming ACC season, with my exclusive, 100% correct picks for things. So let's get to it, in reverse order this time!

12. Virginia Cavaliers - The Cavs started strong last year at 5-2 in the conference despite a bunch of early season non-conference losses, and it looked like Tony Bennett was going to perform a miracle and get his team into NCAA tournament, and possibly even league title contention. But the team started losing, and then kept on losing, a stretch of nine straight to close out the season before beating Boston College in the ACC Tournament. The big story in the late season fallout saw Sylven Landesberg miss most of the stretch before eventually declaring for the NBA Draft. The Cavs also lost fourth leading scorer Jeff Jones, who trasnsferred to Rider. If those two had stayed, Virginia could have used its solid recruiting class to make at least a little noise in the conference, but now they're destined for the cellar. Mike Scott is a pretty solid big man, good enough to make an All-ACC team if he played for a better team, but after that it's pretty bleak. Sammy Zeglinski is the second leading returning scorer, and the other contributors back include Jerome Meyinsse and Mustapha Farrakhan, none of whom are good enough to start for a tournament caliber team. Tony Bennett's first recruiting class is...disproportionately white, to say the least, although it does feature two solid big men (James Johnson and Will Regan) that the Terps recruited. I guess the good part is that if last year's season finale is any indication, the fine* folks in Charlottesville have a good chance at some shitty but free Raising Cain's chicken after the games.

11. Wake Forest Demon Deacons - Dino Guadio made a good sauce, but alas his olive oil skin and guinea charm weren't enough to keep him employed. Instead, Wake Forest elected to go with Jeff Bzdelik of Colorado who had been a pretty spectacular failure (10-38 in conference games) at that school. But even though he's almost 60, he's an old pal of the Wake AD so he got the job. To make matters worse, the team lost a lottery pick in Al-Farouq Aminu as well as the reliable Ish Smith, plus defensive stalwart LD Williams, HOF neanderthal Chas MacFarland, and Tony Woods (to legal trouble). As freshmen, CJ Harris and Ari Stewart were reliable (albeit inefficient) scorers at the guard spots, and Wake does bring in a decent class, headed by forward Travis McKie. But while there may be some promise for the future, the future is not now.

10. Georgia Tech - It speaks to the weakness of the ACC at the bottom that Georgia Tech would be ranked even this high. There was plenty of drama in the offseason when, despite making the NCAA tournament last season, most Tech fans seemingly hoped that Paul Hewitt would leave to go home and coach Saint John's. It was not to be, but it's probably hard to blame fans for being restless. Hewitt has been the coach for ten seasons and despite plenty of talent (Jack, Bosh, Young, Favors, Crittendon, Lawal, Morrow), he's only had one season better than 8-8 in the ACC. At 67-93 overall in the ACC, it's amazing that he's been able to keep his job at a program with as much tradition as GT, even despite making 5 NCAA tournaments and a National Championship Game. As for this year's team, well, it doesn't get easier to win without Derrick Favors, not to mention Gani Lawal. Even with Favors gone, there is plenty of potential in the current sophomore class (led by Brian Oliver and Glen Rice, Jr.) to assist the enigmatic Iman Shumpert. That said, Yellow Jacket teams with more talent and experience than this one have failed to do much under Hewitt, so it while the team certainly has the capability of getting at or close to the .500 mark in the ACC, I'd bet that they fall short of that.

9. Boston College Eagles - Al Skinner was very successful during his time in Boston, going to 7 NCAA Tournaments, winning three Big East regular season titles, and coaching guys like Jared Dudley, Craig Smith, Troy Bell, and Tyrese Rice. Apparently the powers that be at the school thought the program had stagnated, leading them to replace Skinner and his turtle neck with up and comer Steve Donahue from Cornell. The good news for the team is that everyone returns, including Joe Trapani and the emerging Reggie Jackson. The bad news, of course, is that those everyones were rather mediocre last season. The recruiting class doesn't hold much promise for immediate help, although most of Skinner's didn't either and he had his share of success. Jackson was borderline all-conference quality last year (averaging 12.9/5.7/4.5) so he could be the team's next star if he continues improving in his final two seasons. Al Skinner is like a bloodhound finding these diamonds in the rough like Jackson, much as his jowls are like those of a bloodhound.

8. Miami Hurricanes - A year after finishing last in the conference despite a 15-1 overall start, this team seems to be getting more respect than you'd anticipate. They lost their top two scorers, Dwayne Collins and James Dews, so it isn't even a case of a bad team returning everyone. Still, some key guys like JR SF Dequan Jones and SO guard Durand Scott, both of whom were good recruits, have enough experience to drag the team up a few spots. Scott in particular looks like an emerging star after averaging in double figures last season. On a related note, the Fighting Frank Haiths have now dropped two straight to the Terps after dealing us a series of horrific defeats over the past few seasons (see e.g. 2007 at Miami where the Terps shot below 0%, 2007 in the ACC Tournament first round 5/12 game, and 2009 in Miami with a great comeback). Good times!

7. North Carolina State - C'mon! It's Sid Lowe! You didn't really expect that I was going to go with the crowd and pick the friggin Sid Lowe-led Wolfpack to finish in the top half of the division, did you? Sid is great at wearing a garish red jacket to the games, but I'm not sure that anything more complicated than that is within his scope of competence. Tracy Smith is great, but what will the team do without the incomparable Dennis Horner (Kevin Pittsnoggle Memorial White Trash Award winner, 2010) and Farnold Degand (Olu Babalola Memorial Name of the Year Award, 2010)? Plus Sid doesn't know how to use Smith, and I've got the feeling that former-Terp target CJ Leslie is going to be less Shawn Kemp-in-training and more Terrence Jennings (former Maryland commit now at Louisville). I'd say nice things about Javy Gonzalez, but I remember about two years ago when Greivis absolutely abused him for the duration of the game. I think it may possibly have been the epic post-600 win game where he came a rebound short of getting a triple double. (Remember that time Greivis DID get a triple double against UNC and we had an insane OT comeback win!? HOLY COW ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I miss Greivis.)

I'm tired of writing. Top half...later. SPOILER: The Terps figure prominently.

Things Said Ten Years Ago

From Sports Illustrated, March 29, 1999:

Fifth starter Sidney Ponson is big - 6'1", 220- and slightly roly-poly. He was born in Aruba, where he learned to throw a killer sinker and a curveball that falls off a shelf. The 22-year-old has a veteran's confidence, which is odd, because as a rookie last year he was less than stellar. He did, however, win seven of his last 10 decisions. In the off-season he got in better shape, and got stronger, and he goes into the '99 season with the expectations of a realist: to win 12 to 15 games, pitch 180 to 200 innings and keep his ERA under 4.00. "The thing about Sidney is that he's smart," says manager Ray Miller. "A smart pitcher with a 97-mile-an-hour sinker is gonna get a lot of people out."

It certainly is comforting to note that Sidney was a smart guy who got in shape and had a biting, near 100 mph sinker. The future is bright.

My Favorite Non-Ravens

Let me preface this by saying that in general, these players all suck and I hate them.

That being said, I must admit, some of my favorite players in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (Copyright 2008 Ron Jaworski) are not Ravens. Mind you, none of them are in the AFC North, but that's more of a result that the Browns and Bengals suck and I hate the Foremans with so much passion that his smug face pisses me off at all times. At all times!

So without further Maurice Edu, and in no particular order, my favorite non-Ravens are:

AFC EAST

Bart Scott - Ok, so this is borderline cheating because he was a former Raven and Ray Lewis junior, but I don't care. After he threw a ref's flag into the stands during the primetime game against the undefeated Patriots, I was forever enamored with him. Sure, he's a pretty good player and all, so it makes it easy, and but he's also a good reminder of how the Jets are now the kid brother of the Ravens, and that makes me smile. So do run-on sentences. (BTW, Rex Ryan lost this game for us due to his untimely time-out call right before a 4th down stop. Now he's a head coach. Good luck New York!)

Randy Moss - Straight Cash Homie

Pat White - He's such a great scrambling quarterba... wait a minute. He signed a MLB contract in August just before the season begins? Right when baseball is winding down? Seriously? I thought West Virginia didn't let in idiots. Guess I've learned a valuable lesson today.

AFC SOUTH

Commerical Pitchman Peyton Manning - Fantastic

4th Quarter Winning Drive Peyton Manning not playing my team - Amazing

4th Quarter Winning Drive Peyton Manning playing my team - SHEEEEEE-IT

AFC WEST

Champ Bailey - First, his name is Champ. Second, his brother's name is Boss. Upon further review, it's only a nickname. I don't like him quite as much now

NFC EAST

Clinton Portis - This

Chris Cooley - He once showed hit dick on his website, just because he could.

Dez Bryant - His mom's a hooker. True story.

Sexy Rexy - I completely forgot that he was with the 'Skins. He makes the list entire only the Rex Grossman Principle

NFC NORTH

Brett Favre - He's just a gunslinger. Such a kid out there, he loves playing the game. I want to have his babies and make love to his stubble, preferably in a pick-up, doing some American things. Good feelings, old people, pie!, bluejeans, David Eckstein, the way things used to be, good little ballplayer, heart, man of the people, love, wrangler, football.

NFC SOUTH/WEST

The Saints are the new Red Sox. Mark it now.

Vernon Davis - THE DUKE. He owns every Maryland weight lifting-type record ever invented. He's also seen Mike Singletary's boxers (we think that's all he saw). If he was a ref, he'd be Ed Hochuli (all praise be upon him)

Everyone else in these divisions is WOEFUL

Well there you have it, I've blogged

Ravens Listomania by Phoenix

I was driving to class this morning, and once again, there was no music on. I could have - nay, should have - simply plugged in my iPod, but I decided against that route. Instead, I made the sketchy decision to tune into 105.7 to catch some sports talk radio, in this instance Mark Viviano and someone calling himself O-dawg/dog (did not sound like Orland Hudson). Of course they were discussing the Ravens, and the conversation turned to Derrick Mason. At this point, my new pal O-dawg/dog proclaimed his undying love for Mason and said that Mason was one of the top five players in Ravens history.

Whoa.

That can't be right, can it? I love Mason as much as you can love a possession receiver, but he seems more Harold Baines than Jim Palmer. Sure, the Ravens are younger, but really? Clearly the only way to clarify the issue is a LIST of the TOP TEN RAVENS OF ALL TIME. And we're going to START WITH NUMBER 1 HOLY CRAP!!1

1. Ray Lewis - Could it be anyone else. The man has been with the team, and has really been the star of the team, since its first year in Baltimore. He has come to represent his franchise in a way that Cal, Brooks, and Johnny U did in Baltimore years ago, and in a way that few people in modern sports do (think: Jeter, Brady, Manning, Kobe, Pujols...and that's about it). More to the point, the Ravens have always been associated with defense, and probably will be for a long time to come, and Ray has always been the focal point and spiritual leader (if not the best every single year) of that unit. Simply put, Ray Lewis IS Baltimore football in the 21st century.

2. Jonathan Ogden - I have no idea if Ogden was good or not. Literally, no clue. I am man enough to admit that when it comes to offensive lineman, I never even notice them. Sure, Jon Ogden played the role of Mountain of a Man Who Will Maul You Like a Grizzly Bear for a decade, but even Bruce Campbell did that at Maryland sometimes in between not being eligible/hurt. But hey, you don't go to the Pro Bowl eleventy billion times without being pretty good, nor do you get your named tossed around in the GOAT Left Tackle discussions (rare as they are), if you're just some 330 pound floater.

3. Ed Reed - Oh Edgerton. No one takes me from elation to conniption quicker than he does when he hawks the balls, takes it 30 yards downfield, and then tries to make a spectacular lateral because he can't leave well enough alone. Despite any of that nonsense, there's a reason why the re was a Play Like Ed Reed Today sign in 2201E Calvert Hall during the 2007 season - because Ed Reed is fucking awesome. He's the only man besides the top 2 to make the All-Pro team more than once (he's done it 7 times), and like Ray, he's won the DPOY. Who knows if this is the end of the line, but he will be in Canton someday.

4. Matt Stover - Matt Stover was Mr. Reliable. He was the last Cleveland Brown to play for the Ravens, and he last 14 seasons with the team. Then the Ravens let him go because, hey, he's 41, and it's not like the flying Anders(e/o)n brothers played until they were wearing dentures instead of mouthguards. This was, of course, immediately followed by Steve Hauschka, an NC State graduate, blowing every game last season. Matt Stover never did that. Or if he did, I have no recollection of it because there is no concourse level in football.

5. Peter Boulware - Remember this guy? This is the guy. He played for Florida State, back when they were awesome. He was a first round pick in 1997, a year after the Ravens got Ray and JO, cementing Ozzie Newsome's rep as a guy who is going to pwn the draft every year, except when Bizarro Ozzie Newsome kidnaps him pre-draft so as to select Travis Taylor. But I digress. Boulware made four Pro Bowls, back when such a thing meant...well it didn't really mean anything back then, either. But I'm sure Pete loved Hawaii. He also basically only played seven seasons before hanging it up. He's a few months older than Ray, and he was pretty much done by '03. Think about that.

6. Todd Heap - This is probably one of the few Ravens who could be described as "iconic" in the city. Heap has been with team for a decade now, never having played anywhere else. He managed to be the lone bright spot for years in a passing game which featured incompetent QBs and mediocre receivers. Looking over it a bit more, Heap's numbers have, by and large, been a bit less than I remembered. He's had four seasons in his career where he recorded 403 yards or fewer, and that aside, he's never been a great pass blocker. He's also arguably not the best Raven from his school (Arizona State). Which leads us to....

7. Terrell Suggs - TSizzle is, all things considered, not a very good nickname. But at this point, does anyone NOT call him that? There all seems to be some drama following TSizzle. Terrell is holding out. Terrell is giving Tom Brady a cheap shot. Terrell is committing felony assault. Well, you know what, Terrell has 58 career sacks and Terrell is a specimen. Give him another year or two and I'll definitely have him ahead of Heap. He probably should be there already, but give me a break, I didn't actually compile the list before writing the entries, ya dig?

8. Derrick Mason - So he makes the list, I guess. He's actually been here for six years. If this were baseball, and he were, well, let's just say more like David Eckstein, he'd probably be described as gritty. I'm pretty sure he went out there one week with two broken arms, possibly in traction, and hauled in 8 balls just through sheer force of will. Does anyone even remember that he was a Titan? Or that the Titans were probably near as hated around these parts as the Steelers were back then? Now they don't even rate. How soon we forget about that January 2004 playoff game.

9. Jamal Lewis - He had a 2,000 yard season. His legs kept moving. He also went to jail for a criminal fucking conspiracy for helping the New Day Co-Op slang that ye-yo. He kinda didn't do a ton outside of that one season. That's not entirely fair given that he had two more 1300 yard seasons and another over 1,000 in just 12 games. But his career petered out here pretty quickly before he went to Cleveland where he did have a brief rennaissance before playing poorly for the remained of his career. Such is the life of the Modern American Running Back.

10. Chris McAlister - I don't think I've ever made a secret about not really being a huge fan of McAlister's. But he's on here for a few reasons. For one thing, the Ravens D needed at least one more player, and he's one of the few remaining guys who had a long enough tenure here to merit mentioning. For another, he was damned good, even if his occasional boneheaded plays made me angry. Plus I mainly shied away from giving him any props because my dad sang his praises like he was the fucking offspring of Jim Henson and Dick "Night Train" Lane. Yeah, I get it dad, you want to marry him. Chris should probably be ahead of the two guys he's behind if not for that, but hey, them's the breaks. I would give at least three fingernails to see him rather than some of the turds we've trotted out at DB in then recent past.

HONORABLE MENTION: Haloti Ngata, Kelly Gregg, Michael McCrary, Rod Woodson, Adalius Thomas

DISHONORABLE MENTION: Travis Taylor, Mark Clayton, Steve Hauschka, That One Fat White POS Lineman Who I Can't Remember, Mike Carey

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT

Guess Who's Back

back again? Scrillas back. Tell a friend.

So I was just thinking today that I need to bring this here weblog back into production, and the OWL goes and makes a post. Coincidence or sign from the blog writing gods?

It's been upwards of seven months since last we blogged. A lot has changed since...ah fuck it, nothing has changed. We're all still saying things. Maryland suffered one of the worst things to ever happen of all time in March. I'm pretty sure I promised a blog post about that at some point, but I'm still in no mood to revisit that. Greivis deserved better.

The Terps came back to win the Atlantic Division just one year after going 2-10. Now some of you might say that's a bit presumptuous given that all the Terps have this season is a tight win over Navy and a rout of Morgan State, but it would be tough to argue that the Terps aren't on pace to go 14-0. It's definitely probable that they'll lose once on their way to the ACC Championship Game, but for now, 12-0 is a possibility.

And speaking of championship caliber teams, how bout dem O's? The Buck came aboard and suddenly the Orioles are playing like gangbusters! Or maybe it's ghostbusters. I'm pretty sure a rotation of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and That Other Guy could have beaten the Diamond Dave Orioles or even the Juan Samuel "Screech" Powers edition. (By the way I almost referred to both Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as "Tom Hanks". That's about as bad as calling Rob "owl" or referring to a bus as a computer).

But yeah, that's pretty neat. I'm kinda rambling right now because I'm excited to bring this back. I'm going to have a long ass post on the Wire sometime very soon, just because. And partially to bait turd back into posting something on here. Also on the docket is Bob's finished post about whatever the fuck it was that had something to do with Landon Milbourne that was going to be epic before he totally crapped the bed on it. Also maybe Andrew can rewrite his pretzel post to include the crab pretzel.

Coincidence: Unlikely

Wandering around Borders Books yesterday, I came across this guy...

Now, I'm not saying anything. But all I could think about was this...

and this...

and certainly this...

Now, I know his death is still in fairly recent memory, but, did you SEE the cover and title of that book? Lolz.

JORDAN FUCKING WILLIAMS

JORDAN FUCKING WILLIAMS