Wednesday, February 25, 2009
There are a couple of cut and dried titleholders this season in college basketball.
A non-concussed Blake Griffin is the best college basketball player in the nation. Courtney Paris is the most dominating female post player in America. Tennessee’s Pat Summitt is America’s most successful coach. And finally, Alabama State senior center Chief Kickingstallionsims owns the best name in college basketball.
Honestly, can there be any competition? Kickingstallionsims, whose full name is Grlenntys Chief Kickingstallionsims Jr., is a nightmare for public address, radio and television announcers as well as opposing Southwestern Athletic Conference post players.
He is listed at 7-foot-1 and 260 pounds, and, unsurprisingly, leads the conference with 2.8 blocks per game — a full block more than the next closest player. Alabama State is also at the top of the conference with a 13-1 record, a vast improvement on the 3-7 mark it owned after the non-conference portion of the schedule.
As undeniably awesome as his name is, Kickingstallionsims isn’t a great scorer, or even a good rebounder for that matter. Case in point: he lists his greatest athletic accomplishment as being named “Best Name in College Sports” by Sports Illustrated.
THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE IS BACK
After two months spent waiting for the knockout stages to begin, soccer fans are once again in footy heaven as the Champions League got back under way Tuesday afternoon.
The day’s marquee matchup — Manchester United against Inter Milan — was a ho-hum 0-0 draw at the Stadio San Siro in Milan, but there is plenty to look forward to today as heavyweights Liverpool and Real Madrid clash in Madrid. Also on the card is another English-Italian matchup between Chelsea and Turin giants Juventus.
The competition’s format in this stage calls for two matches to determine which team advances — one at each team’s stadium — with aggregate goals deciding the victor and away goals separating the two in case of a tie.
You can see Chelsea play Juventus on ESPN2 (Channel 34) at 1:30 p.m. and Real Madrid face Liverpool on ESPN Classic (Channel 35) at 4 p.m.
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC
I love baseball as much as the next red-blooded American, but the World Baseball Classic marketing department may have made a mistake making Alex Rodriguez one of the faces of its marketing campaign.
Derek Jeter and Ichiro are both decent choices — although I wonder if it might be time to put Jeter in the background as his skills continue to slide — and they couldn’t get anyone from 2006 runner-up Cuba for obvious reasons.
But A-Fraud? I know he apologized for the steroids controversy and all, but why not choose another player from what amounts to a stacked Dominican Republic roster?
Just a few who deserved consideration: David Ortiz, Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes. Of course, Rodriguez would be the obvious choice minus the current controversy, and odds are the television spots were recorded months ago, but you would think officials could scramble to find a replacement without a media cloud hanging over his head.
— — Edited by Chris Horn
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