Thursday Take Twos

The time between President’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day is long, laborious and lazy in sports. I long for Easter eggs and Memorial Day BBQs already. Spring Break is looking good and splendid, especially if a beach is involved. But we have to endure a few more winter weeks before Spring escalates into summer baseball season.
Here are a few things that went down this week:
Big East basketball is one thing you can count on being great. You cannot belittle this year’s crop of high profile players and teams. Monday’s strenuous showdown between Uconn and Pitt painted a pretty picture of the most powerful conference in college basketball. The Panthers played to their own strengths and came up big down the stretch to win convincingly over the number one Huskies. Uconn tipped off with their big man, Hasheem Thabeet, but lost 68-76 at home. It was only the second time the Huskies went down for Jim Calhoun. The team is now 24-2, suffering their first loss back in December, also on a Monday at home, to Georgetown. The XL Center crowd was delighted because a powerful and physical Pitt team put on a prodigious display. The Panthers forced the Huskies into foreign land, according to the Uconn Head Coach. Pitt was the smarter team, penetrating the paint and using every opportunity to dismantle the frazzled Huskies. Uconn committed 19 fouls to Pittsburgh’s 18 and were outrebounded for the first time all season. Pitt’s Levance Fields was the unsung star, notching two key 3-pointers to put the game away late. Jamie Dixon’s visiting number 4 team should rise in the next rankings. They were also led by DeJuan Blair and the versatile, Sam Young. The win was Pitt’s 6th straight victory and enabled the team to stand dead even with the Huskies at the top of the Big East. It’s still early yet for a clear cut favorite but May 7th will be the next time these two teams play. The game will be in Pittsburgh this time. Thabeet may be the best overall player in the conference but Pitt has such a talented starting team. The decadent and deliberate DeJuan debilitated Thabeet and gave all he had against the all-star center. The Panthers seem to always find a way to dominate the conference tournament. It will be extra difficult with the talent all around this year for Pitt to make a solid run at the crown. Even if they do win out, will they have anything left to steamroll through the NCAA tournament field?
Ken Griffey, Jr. snubbed the Atlanta Braves (thankfully) and signed on with the team he established his career with, the Seattle Mariners. I’m happy Ken is back in Seattle, minus the dome. I always loved Junior. The centerfielder could be one of the truly clean players left in his era of steroid using baseball players.
Today is the NBA trade deadline. Rumors were swirling that Vince Carter could be dealt. NJ was looking to move Carter and the Rockets were potential candidates to pick up his contract. Tracy McGrady was in the trade discussion. I couldn’t see Houston trading Tmac to any team after news came down about his season ending knee surgery. It is such a shame Tmac is out. I remember the top-tier talent Tracy’s pre-Rocket days when he was slamming and shooting for Orlando in 2003. He was the league leading scorer that year.
The Hornets and Thunder had a deal in place for Tyson Chandler to join Chris Paul in New Orleans. That deal fell through late yesterday when Chandler failed a physical.
Finally, can this steroids thing just go away? You can’t start retracting records because there is no way to quantify how each record was affected by a particular player’s use of steroids. There is no real solution. I mean, when did steroids in baseball begin? And, how can there be an honest assessment of the drug’s overall impact? Which numbers would be different if players had not used them? Even if PEDs or HGH make a person stronger, hit the ball further or see pitches better, how can you go back an analyze each and every game? How many changes would there have been numerically? It’s anybody’s guess, just like which players are using and which aren’t is anybody’s guess.