When you choke, it shouldn't matter what seed you are

I just watched one of the most exciting NCAA games in years, an historic upset in the making against one of the college basketball giants. Mighty Duke was in danger of losing to Belmont, a name more familiar to horse racing than hoops. It was a game they will talk about for years to come, a brave and valiant attempt by a tiny little David to topple mighty Goliath.

What they should remember it for, is one of the greatest choke jobs in NCAA tournament history.

Sorry, Belmont. You are to be congratulated for your effort. You most definitely came to play tonight, and by all rights should have been the second #2 seed ever to win a college basketball post-season game. You deserved it. You earned it. You outplayed a team who assumed you'd run away scared at the opening tip.

And when it came time to turn it up, the Blue Devils couldn't. Missing shot after shot, getting outboarded and outpounded by your relentless team, they pretty much handed you the game in the end, your chance at immortality. No one would ever have forgotten your name, ever. You had the lead AND the ball in the final minute. Even when you lost the lead, you still had the ball under their basket with :04 remaining, down by a single point. Timeout.

Your coach orders up a play you've worked on all season, a lob to the hole and a subsequent slam dunk. If run correctly, it's virtually indefensible short of giving up a foul. In which case, you'd get the chance to beat arguably college basketball's biggest name from 15 feet away, while they watched helplessly. Or at the very least, you'd take them into overtime. With all the momentum in the world.

The horn blows, you break the huddle and take the court. The ref hands you the ball. You take it out of his hands, look away briefly to throw Duke's attention elsewhere. Then you lob it, as diagramed. Right to Duke.

Game over.

It will never be talked about, since you shouldn't have been in the game with seconds remaining to begin with. Anyone even whispering the C word will be scolded immediately by all around him. After all, they came so close! But you know. I know. And everyone saying nothing about it knows.

It's not the biggest choke in the history of March Madness. It could never be. You didn't grab the ball down a point with just seconds remaining and call a timeout your team didn't have. Chris Webber's gift to North Carolina is and will always be the #1 Choke Of All-Time. And it's not even second. You didn't trail by a point with just seconds remaining and essentially hand the ball to your opponent. Georgetown's gift, again to North Carolina, will most likely be the #2 Choke Of All-Time. (Wow, those UNC boys must be pretty scary, if teams just keep handing them national titles!)

So congrats, #3. With one tight-throated pass, with one ill-executed play, you turned history into infamy. But at least you gave a valiant effort. Remember that on the ride home.

If it made sense, they wouldn't be wearing helmets

It's official. The nation's all-everything #1 high school quarterback, Terrell Pryor, has finally made up his mind. Yet after an additional month of hype and speculation, it seems clear he didn't spend the extra time in deep thought. Not simply because he chose Ohio State over Michigan--though it qualifies as sufficient evidence on its own. But because the deciding factor was that he thought he had a better chance to make it to the NFL as a Buckeye.

Ummmmmmmm... huh?

Michigan has sent six of its last seven QBs to the NFL (Elvis Grbac, Todd Collins, Scott Driesbach, Brian Griese, Tom Brady and John Navarre). The seventh (Drew Henson) was projected to be THE top overall pick of the 1994 NFL draft before deciding to pursue a baseball career (after mulling over the 18,000,000 reasons a Buckeye fan named Steinbrenner presented to him). And the current one (Chad Henne, above) is looking to go anywhere from mid-1st to mid-2nd round this April.

Currently (as in fall 2007, after the final cuts of training camp), only one Big 10 school can boast of having more than two quarterbacks on the NFL depth charts. Michigan. Even Indiana has more active signal-callers in the pros than Ohio State. Indiana! In fact, that quarterback factory in Columbus can't even match the number of NFL arms pumped out by two MAC schools (Miami of Ohio and Akron). I know, it's easy to sit back and be a Monday morning quarterback. But when it comes to counting Sunday morning quarterbacks, the Buckeyes aren't even in the top two of their own state.

If Pryor had instead insisted that his chances of winning a Heisman Trophy were better there, okay, then say that. The Bucks win the Heisman-winning QB shootout, 1-0. Just don't pretend your selection has anything to do with something it can't possibly have anything to do with. It's like saying you picked Ohio State because you've always wanted to play for JoePa, or that you love how the students spray-paint the helmets gold on Friday nights.

From a career standpoint, even the Heisman rationale would seem unwise for a kid who-- let's just say he's not weighing pre-med programs. Alhough nine of the last 15 Heisman winners were QBs, only one has gone on to anything resembling greatness. That would be Carson Palmer, so clearly I use the G word very liberally here. Yes, the jury's out on Matt Leinert and fellow Buckeye Troy Smith. But the pattern is set. In fact, since 1970, only Jim Plunkett has had what you could call a stellar pro career. Vinny Testaverde and Doug Flutie were respectable, mostly by being durable. And a few others made it to the NFL but just couldn't keep their jobs (Pat Sullivan, Andre Ware, Ty Detmer,Chris Weinke and Danny Wuerffel). Suffice to say, your odds of being a Jason White, Eric Crouch or Gino Torretta are far greater than being a Plunkett or Palmer.

Every other reason for Pryor's choice of letter sweater makes less sense. Michigan just switched to a wide-open spread offense--the identical offense Pryor ran through high school. And the Wolverines have an immediate vacancy at the position, not to mention a proclivity for starting freshmen (Rick Leach, Rich Hewlett, Chris Zurbrugg, Elvis Grbac, Scott Driesbach and Chad Henne all started on or around their first move-in weekend). As a member of the scarlett and grey, with returning junior Todd Boeckman having led the Bucks to the brink of a national title, it's more likely The Sweatervest will hand him a different red shirt. Sometimes you handle the drug. Sometimes, the drug handles you.

Less likely to make it in the NFL? A former Michigan QB has won three Super Bowl MVP trophies this millenium. Michigan INVENTED the forward pass. Michigan taught Notre Dame and Ohio State the forward pass. Michigan's winged helmet was introduced 60 years ago to enhance their passing attack.

It doesn't have to make sense. The rich get richer. While the poor get... coaches from West Virginia.

See? I DID pick the Giants to upset the Patriots!

I just picked the wrong game, that's all.

Anyway, I can no longer sit silently while this election season rolls along. So, I've created a politics blog. Borrowing from Barack Obama's reference to the words of Rev. King, I've called it "The Fierce Urgency Of Blog". The URL is:

http://thefierceurgencyofblog.blogspot.com/

Anyway, check out the new site, read on & let me know what you think. Don't worry, I'll keep posting here on my Detroit Sports blog as well. No such luck for you!