All this week, we'll be running college basketball team previews for the 20 (or so) Most Interesting Teams. Today we present the Royal Blues, and then we'll work our way up to the Big Guns.
Is it strange to anyone else that the five most legendary teams in college basketball all wear blue? When you look at the four winningest programs in history, it's blue all the way — Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke. Turn to national titles, and UCLA emerges as the fifth major power. (Yes, Indiana, you would be the sixth. And yes, you're red, but you can't be mad; you're the best team in the country this season, and the national title favorite.) This year, the Royal Blues are ranked from third to 13th, and since the NCAA landscape resembles 2009-10, when the absence of truly dominant teams opened up the race, they all have at least a hint of a title shot. We begin with last year's champs.
The thing with objectivity, in sports journalism as in life, is that it's a myth made to sustain something that's already dead, and was never truly alive. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Lying to you or lying to themselves, but lying either way. Everything is subjective, including your reaction to this opinion. Welcome to being human — the water's fine.
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In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
In his greatest act of humility yet, Tim Tebow threw for just nine completions and 136 yards as the New England Patriots crushed the Denver Broncos 45-10. The most awkward part of the game came when Bill Belichick demanded that Tebow acknowledge his own mediocrity as a quarterback, saying he had the power to blow him out or give him a close, honorable defeat, and Tebow was like, "You could have no power at all against me unless it had been give you from above, therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greatest sin," and Broncos head coach John Fox was like, "hey, wackos, leave me out of this."
Top-ranked Kentucky and no. 5 North Carolina played the most anticipated college basketball contest of the young season Saturday and delivered a game that more than lived up to its hype. Kentucky came out with the one-point, 73-72 win thanks to Anthony Davis’ block on what would’ve been the game-winning shot from Carolina’s John Henson. With as many as 12 potential first-round draft picks playing in this game, there was certainly enough to keep viewers entertained. But here are the three things I couldn’t help but notice while I watched:
Here's your Friday whip-around on the stories dominating the headlines and lingering in the margins of the NFL. No pads needed.
Despite head coach Bill Belichick opting not to play his starters in the New England Patriots' first preseason game, last week, Tom Brady and the rest of the first team looked to be in midseason form, last night against the Tampa Bay Bucs. The Pats won 31-14. A typically brassy Belichick said, "I thought we accomplished a few things." It's that kind of brazen collar popping that drives Rex Ryan up a tree. In his first preseason action, Brady overcame a clinically diagnosed case of being "antsy" to go 11-19 for 118 yards and two touchdowns.
