Augie

It breaks my heart. I used to follow Xavier basketball almost like the Bills. I’d make an annual trip to Cincinnati, travel to games anywhere close and try to get to their city in the NCAA tournament. Those were some awesome times! Now I have no idea who’s on the roster, what theirs skills are, where they came from or how many years of eligibility they have left. Eligibility actually means very little, since it’s a series of one year contracts. Every year is like a new pickup game at the YMCA. Please don’t get me wrong, I think the players should be paid and they should have mobility. I just don’t happen to like the resulting product nearly as much. They desperately need some guardrails on this mess. BTW - I spent a week at UNC hoops camp in Chapel Hill every summer for at least 4 years when the kids were young. Awesome times!

And he may in fact be a bust, but I have a hard time reconciling the guy who looked promising early and the guy who came back after the injury. I’ve heard his explanation, I just want to see him after a re-boot. It’s hard to even guess without seeing some more, for me. .

You can be a tough grader with high expectations distorting the value of your opinions. You think it’s a wasted season if we don’t win the Super Bowl, because after all that is why we play the game. There are degrees, and there is still plenty of time for hope.

My takeaway is that it’s too soon to know. A lot of very good players took some time to get up to speed. That’s a fact, but I’m not slanting my interpretation in any direction. Some people here try to sound like they have an objective position, but they are fairly transparent in how they feel.

That is not what I took from that at all, but then, I don’t have an agenda here.

Somehow, that just got even creepier than I remember. I bet he still wants to kiss Suzy Kolber!

Thank you, zombie is all I needed to know.

That is an excellent point about the G League and effort. I’m sure there is little loafing going on there. Strangely, it’s an anonymous world to me and associated with nothing I recognize so I don’t care. They don’t have the teams you love and the teams you hate, and they don’t have March Madness.

….but…. what if you go blind?

Broadway Josh? I don’t think so. Just keep doing what he’s doing, and stay healthy. That’s enough. A Lombardi trophy cements it. Edit, I wonder how many here are too young to remember Broadway Joe Namath stretched out in his pose in his stockings.

The “load management” games where they sit out bother me. What’s far worse imo is being on the floor and just coasting thru a game, like an actor in a play trying to get to the curtains. I want to see real effort, or I’m not interested. It’s not always pathetic, but it is pathetic far too often. College ball may not be as talented, but they give close to 100% every time I watch. I find it to be better entertainment for that reason, despite the way that world is crumbling off the court.

The NBA is “different” now. With an 82 game season and the huge dollars involved, these guys aren’t giving 100% until the playoffs or some rivalry game. They could play defense on a Tuesday night in Charlotte, but from our experience that would be too much to ask for. We took our kids to a Hornets game (among many others) in return for good behavior during boring things a kid would not appreciate when we traveled, like visiting our friends. It turns out the NBA game was also boring. Just a few minutes in my scrappy little AAU point guard turned to me and said “they’re not even trying!” Yep, last game I’ve attended and one of the last games I even watched, and this goes back a couple decades. If they cut the season in half, which will obviously never happen, maybe they could be bothered to give a bit more effort during the regular season. But there is zero doubt in my mind that in general today’s athletes are clearly superior specimens. .

Nobody WANTS to have back surgery, but sometimes it’s just necessary. I know 3 people who put it off as long as possible, and their eventual outcomes varied widely due to multiple factors. Two of them followed Doc’s orders and while it was an ordeal (and not a magic bullet), their lives became more manageable. My BIL, unfortunately, did not followed doctor’s orders and ended up having FIVE back surgeries. I bet if he could do it over he would have stopped skiing and jogging after his first trip under the knife. A college buddy was unable to walk a city block without surgery. That’s not the quality of life he was looking for. Sometimes you just do what you have to do.

I’m not on there, but I watched it. I send IG stuff to people not on it, and tell them they just have to click on the X. You can watch it, but I don’t care much about what Carmelo Anthony has to say about team sports. Keon seems to get it, but time will tell how much actual progress he’s made in his game on the field. I’m optimistic, as usual.

I certainly wouldn’t. I’m on record as not loving the international games, but I’d have been there if the Bills played the Steelers in Dublin. That would be a lovely silver lining!

Ohh, Geez! The little voice from my right shoulder is back.

So, are you calling Tom Izzo a bad person? Maybe, just maybe, he did the right thing and helped him find his most promising path. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been a contributor in time at MSU.

I was in 4th or 5th grade and had strep throat so I couldn’t go to the home preseason game against the Eagles. I remember listening about giant Harold Carmichael tearing us up in a meaningless game. I remember that more clearly than most of the games from that era I actually attended. I guess it was “different” so it stands out in my mind, and your brain must process it a bit differently. 🤷‍♂️ .

Tom Izzo recruited him to one of the top basketball programs in the country and gave him a scholarship. Let’s not pretend he’s not very skilled in basketball. Yes, his ceiling is higher in football, but he’s still a pretty damn good basketball player. .

Can we slip that into the Chief’s Gatorade in the playoffs? Or would that be too obvious now?

😂 I don’t want the Jets telling me what’s a good idea and what is not. Might I suggest they work out an actual contract extension before trading for someone who then decides he doesn’t want to play for you?

Is that some form of an apology? 😂

They called to invite my son to play All Stars one year when he was young. They offered him 2nd base and lead off hitter. I told them I would ask. My son’s response was “Do I have to? Half the guys are standing around, and the other half are sitting.” From the mouths of babes. He went on to play sports with a bit more action. I will say it can make some nice background noise. Even my baseball loving college buddy agrees that the pitch clock has helped move things along. He was All State in high school, and he felt it was too slow moving.

I just realized she could hypothetically be about my wife’s age. My wife looks great, and better than ever to me…..but she doesn’t have LA Docs for every little wrinkle. .

And sometimes feet, but that’s more in the NBA. They lost a lot of big guys to chronic foot injuries.