Posted on November 9th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Last year, in the first game of Mark Turgeon’s first season at Maryland, he shook hands with counterpart Buzz Peterson of UNC Wilmington.
Friday night, when Turgeon’s second campaign tips off at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., he’ll exchange pregame pleasantries with coach John Calipari of the defending national champion Kentucky Wildcats.
The considerable difference in season-opening opponents is largely coincidental, but it exemplifies the basketball program’s sea change. A transformation is under way, one that has put Maryland and Kentucky in the same discussions since last summer (and not just previews of their matchup in the Barclays Center Classic).
Wednesday brought an exclamation point for the Terrapins: The NCAA, reversing its earlier decision, ruled that Xavier transfer Dez Wells is eligible to play. His immediate availability is expected to lift Maryland into the ACC’s upper echelon and the NCAA tournament.
But even if Wells had been forced to sit out the entire season, he still would get credit for boosting the program in September, when he chose Maryland over Kentucky.
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Posted on November 5th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The early-season excitement, the euphoria surrounding Robert Griffin III is gone. The Washington Redskins‘ fast start and unexpected promise has evaporated. Hope that a change was at hand in Mike Shanahan’s third season at the helm has disappeared.
Slowly but slowly, it has dissipated, like air escaping from a tire’s slow leak.
Or like a wideout working free against Washington’s leaky secondary.
There actually was good news Sunday in the Redskins‘ latest defeat, 21-13 against the visiting Carolina Panthers. Quarterback Cam Newton passed for just 201 yards, the lowest total that Washington has relinquished all season. It also marked the second consecutive week — and just the second week, period — in which the opponents gained fewer than 290 yards through the air.
However, the Redskins continued their trend of being gouged for long pass plays, this time early in the fourth quarter (as opposed to late in the fourth quarter, like the 77-yarder a couple of weeks ago against the New York Giants).
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Posted on November 2nd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The NCAA is patting itself on the back after passing a series of sweeping changes that will make cheating costlier for coaches and athletic programs. The threat of season-long suspensions, lengthier postseason bans and heftier fines is supposed to cleanse the underbelly of big-time college sports.
But all this latest reform does is ignore the driving force behind the sordid issues — money. In the process, the NCAA has lost a longtime supporter of its quaint amateurism.
I give up. Count me among the growing chorus of voices who call for demolishing the current structure, not tweaking it.
“As hard as the NCAA tries to push holdouts like me into the ‘pay-for-play’ camp, I’m still not there,” read words in this space last year. ” I still disagree with the notion that student-athletes should be paid.
“Clarification: I continue to believe they’re paid enough, in the form of tuition, room, board, travel, training, gear and health care.”
That was before The Six Major Conferences continued to act like The Six Major Crime Families, engaging in another round of turf battles. That was before Alabama football coach Nick Saban received a raise and extension, taking his average salary to $5.6 million annually through 2019. And that was before Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch’s 14,000-word report in The Atlantic, detailing the NCAA’s despicable nature.
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Posted on October 31st, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Someone in the NBA office has a cruel sense of humor. Either that or the schedule-maker discovered a problem very late in the process and devised a quick-fix solution that sticks out like a polka-dot basketball.
The season tipped-off Tuesday with just three games on the schedule. You’ll never have an easier answer for a “What’s-wrong-with-this-picture?” question.
Two games formed a TNT doubleheader, with the defending champion Miami Heat facing the Boston Celtics in the early contest. The nightcap featured the Los Angeles Lakers — favorites to win the Western Conference — against the Dallas Mavericks. Those four teams combined have captured six of the past seven NBA titles.
The only other game on the calendar pitted the Washington Wizards against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Those teams combined have won one NBA title in the past 60 years.
Way to rub it in, NBA, though I’m sure the country thanks you for restricting Wiz-Cavs to local TV only.
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Posted on October 29th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
No matter what else happens in the upcoming season, the Washington Wizards will be in good shape if their top draft choice follows the recent trend in D.C., where rookies have made the leap easy as 1-2-3.
That’s one, as in the Nationals’ Bryce Harper (a No. 1 overall pick), and two, as in the Redskins’ Robert Griffin III (the second selection in this year’s draft). Three would be the Wizards‘ Bradley Beal, his draft spot and uniform number.
Hope abounds as new seasons dawn, whether it’s longing to stay on top or aspiring to escape the basement. Teams open each campaign with the absence of former members and the addition of unfamiliar faces. The Wizards have received much attention for the players swept out and the replacements welcomed in.
But, in a sense, Beal is the only “new” Wizard. He’s the bright package with the big bow that we’re dying to unwrap and see what it can do.
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Posted on October 28th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Oklahoma City has been quite the NBA story the past few seasons.
The Thunder play in a quaint, small market that’s absolutely crazy about the team. A frenzied college atmosphere drapes Chesapeake Energy Arena during games. The stands are packed with fans in uniform T-shirts.
It’s the type of story that, sadly, tends to be romanticized in pro sports.
They’re the feisty little guys holding their own against the big, bad Lakers and Mavericks. They’re the thousands of fans who gather outside to watch playoff games on a huge video screen attached to the arena. They’re the homegrown stars who were hand-picked and developed by the team, including three-time scoring champ Kevin Durant, who signed a five-year extension as LeBron James was taking his talents to South Beach.
Aww, isn’t this market so adorable? Isn’t this franchise so cute? Isn’t this saga so sweet?
OKC was a fairy tale to Thunder fans, especially innocent youngsters who don’t know better. Everyone else knows that fairy tales aren’t true, especially in pro sports. The Thunder proved as much Saturday night by trading James Harden to the Houston Rockets.
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Posted on October 25th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Entering this season, the Redskins’ offensive line wasn’t known for performing in beautiful harmony with precise choreography like “The Five Heartbeats.”
Washington’s group up front was more like “Trent Williams and the Flatliners,” with the lead facing questions about his dedication, concentration and maturity.
The O-line was considered one of the team’s biggest problems, an area with plenty of mediocrity but little depth. Aside from drafting third-rounder Josh LeRibeus, fifth-rounder Adam Gettis and sixth-rounder Tom Compton, coach Mike Shanahan had done nothing to bolster the unit in the offseason. When star left tackle Williams went down in Week 3, he was replaced by Jordan Black, a man who spent last year out of the NFL — and it showed.
“There are a number of people that were worried about our offensive line,” Shanahan said last week. ” The offensive line is a group of people working together as a unit that give you a chance to be successful. Everybody’s got a piece of the puzzle — your offensive line, your tight end, your quarterback, your wide receivers. That’s why we’re very successful right now, because we have a group of people all going in the same direction. They know the system, they know each other, they’ve been fairly healthy there. They’re working together.”
A funny thing happened as we were holding our noses and complaining about the O-line’s smell. The offense has continued to blossom, from the 40-point, 459-yard outbreak against the defense-averse New Orleans Saints in Week 1, through the turnover-impaired 23 points and 480 yards Sunday against the New York Giants.
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Posted on October 23rd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Having rediscovered the love of basketball, my 13-year-old recently tried out for her middle school team and made the final cut. This will be her first organized play in several years, dating to the phase when she was a veritable tomboy who lived and breathed hoops.
Naturally, my interest in basketball featuring females has risen again and is likely to remain elevated until I no longer have a family member involved. At that point, basketball featuring males will reclaim its prior market share of my hardwood affection, approximately 99 percent.
Sequoia dreams of playing in college and proceeding to the WNBA. I’m grateful that such opportunities for scholarships and paychecks even exist for little girls. I’ll do everything in my power to help her pursue her goals, while rooting like crazy for every team she makes.
But the growth of women’s basketball doesn’t rest on folks like me, who are into it primarily because a relative or friend is involved. The sport’s popularity will increase only by cultivating more genuine fans, whose attraction runs deeper than personal connections. One of the best ways to do that is through a simple act, a move that would make the game more exciting and increase the players’ efficiency:
Bring the basket closer to the ground.
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Posted on October 21st, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
When Lance Armstrong’s moment of truth finally arrived, after years of avoidance, deception and misdirection, he ignored the advice of the sneaker company that recently disowned him.
Nike says “Just do it.”
Armstrong just blew it.
In the cyclist’s first public comments since the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released an exhaustive report detailing his use of performance-enhancing drugs, the seven-time Tour de France winner didn’t come clean. He didn’t admit what many observers considered painfully obvious for more than a decade. He didn’t use the moment to confess his deeds while continuing to profess his cause.
Instead, the same man who vehemently denied doping since his first Tour de France victory in 1999, the same man who disparaged former teammates who simply told the truth about him, and the same man who vowed to fight accusations until his dying breath, skirted the issue like a pile-up in the peloton.
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Posted on October 18th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Few things bring complete strangers together more than sports and tragedies. Whether we’re residents celebrating a world title or residents navigating natural (or man-made) disasters, we’re in it together. The common bond unites in moments like those, making it easier to see ourselves in one another.
Unfortunately, the connection is fleeting. We retreat to our personal silos and circles before long, and everything returns to “normal.” The spirit of community hibernates until the next event — or until we’re reminded of past incidents.
That’s what we have in the new documentary, “Benji,” which airs Tuesday on ESPN. It’s the story of 17-year-old Ben Wilson, the sweet-natured boy who was the nation’s top basketball prospect when he was gunned down in November 1984. He was Chicago’s 669th murder victim that year, but his senseless killing shook the city like none other.
“He had an infectious-type personality, first of all, because he was 6-foot-8, handsome, and always laughing and smiling,” said Kurt Jones, a close friend and teammate of Wilson’s at Chicago’s famed Simeon High. “Not only was he a nice person who people were attracted to because they loved his personality, but he was always looking out for others. He always said positive things to people.”
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