Blogs I find Interesting

http://oklahomawine.blogspot.com
http://roundfootballs.davewalker.org
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.sbnation.com
http://bleacherreport.com

Basketball rumors begin

Much has been made of my love for the University of Central Oklahoma Bronchos.

The same goes for my love for the New York Yankees and New York Giants. You might know that I also am a lover of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

This though is more of a love affair between my favorite basketball team and another basketball team that represents what basketball is all about. Sometimes.

While watching a sports television show on Tuesday, I heard another fan of this team say that being a fan is emotionally complicated. I immediately related with a confirming nod and realized how much I still like this team.

The other complicated factor in sports fandom is that fact that Oklahoma City has only been around for four years. I’ve been a fan of one sports team or another most of my life.

Spending a winter night watching the Knicks play is something that only certain people can enjoy. Most of the time enjoying a Knicks game comes at the expense of winning.

Late Monday night was the first installment of the New York Knicks versus the Brooklyn Nets. The Brooklyn Nets are spending their first year in the New York City borough after a move from across the bridge in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The Nets won that game in overtime and it caused quite the storm of debates across the sports universe. Tons of questions were asked about whether or not the Nets are for real and could contend with other teams but more questions were asked about the new rivalry.

Some journalists are not sure whether we can call it a rivalry yet because it has only been one game. In a couple of months the teams will have played four games and a better gage of whether or not it is going to remain as intense of its inaugural version.

Let me tell you what will not only make it as intense but even more of an attraction for the fans of the NBA. The New York Knicks need to trade Amar’e Stoudemire for Pau Gasol as soon as possible.

This is the most recent rumored trade in the NBA. Even though the rumors come early and often in the 82 game season, this one makes the most sense and for both teams.

Mike D’Antoni was recently named head coach of the Las Angeles Lakers and the Lakers new point guard Steve Nash played alongside Stoudemire in Phoenix for D’Antoni. The chemistry would be instant for a team that needs something, anything instantly.

Now for Gasol, he averages 13.4 points per game and just over nine rebounds per game. The Knicks would love this. The way they play has been head-scratching because of the chemistry problems with Stoudemire and Knicks star Carmelo Anthony.

Here is where the trade gets interesting. Stoudemire hasn’t played this season due to injury and Nash hasn’t played since October when the season began. Which means, you wouldn’t trade away a player who hasn’t played this season because your team might be better. Also, you wouldn’t trade away a valuable player like Gasol without knowing how he really can play with Nash.

There has always been a question mark around Gasol and the addition of Nash this year meant that Gasol would be fed the ball in the right place at the right time.

If I’m the General Manager of either team today, I make the trade. What D’Antoni wants to do in Las Angeles doesn’t have anything to do with Gasol and what the Knicks need when Stoudemire comes back from his injury is no Amar’e Stoudemire.

For the sake of all the Knicks fans, whether part-time or not, make this happen and make it happen soon for the greater good of the sport.

All the leaves have fallen

The final week of the season is upon the Broncho football team. No way, this stinks, I want more.

Football is one thing I will readily admit to throwing fits about. Whether it be a bad call, my team losing or the end of the season. This season has gone by way too fast. You might think why on earth I’m so bent out of shape regarding a season in which the football team only managed two wins through the first nine games. Or, how I can get so excited about a game that ended up with UCO on the wrong end of the worst loss in this school’s last 93 seasons.

It really depends on your level of patience and your commitment to the university. Whether or not you’re the kind of student that comes to school and the leaves the school as soon as your class is over. Or the student who comes to school early and leaves late all the while being involved throughout the day. The student who just loves to watch the bronze and blue compete whether it be the football team who can’t seem to win or the soccer team who surprises us with a loss every once in a while.

Then you add to the equation whether or not you won’t ever see a Broncho football game again, as a student, or as the student body media’s Sports Editor. Being a senior is full of emotional moments, from the happiest of highs to those wait a minute this isn’t ever going to happen again moments.

Don’t get me wrong there isn’t going to be any tear-jerking moments on Saturday when the final horn sounds on the Bronchos season. It’s just kind of a buzz-kill knowing that some of the guys on the team are done, it’s over for them more than it is me, I just write about the games, they give all they have purely for my entertainment, and yours.

Sitting in the coach’s office every week I’ve grown more attached to this season than any other. I didn’t even write for The Vista last year and now I’m an editor. Which means making my rounds through Hamilton Fieldhouse and asking the coaches why we lost.  This can be challenging at times, but once you’ve got a couple of quotes to plug into your story then the conversation can easily stray into family, classes, high school football or even politics. This is what pulls me into the stadium each and every home game. I could easily make covering the game someone else’s job, but personally I wouldn’t miss the game for the world and as the sports editor I have a nice seat on the 50 yard line.

Covering one more game is going to be awesome, not just because of the President’s Cup and the game against Northeastern is always good. But because it will be one last chance to see the Bronchos as a student at UCO. It’s senior day, and not just for the players. This one’s going to be a good one.

Basketball Jones

Timeout. The Miami Heat are better. What? When did this happen? Why? They aren’t supposed to get better, they’re supposed to have been lucky to win last season and their time was over, it’s our time.

This team wasn’t even supposed to win last summer, the Thunder were a better team and had the talent to beat the Heat. 

The forecast never said Heat, only Thunder in Oklahoma City in June during the NBA Finals.

Strangely enough, the Thunder have lost to the eventual NBA champion in each of the last three seasons, the only three seasons our favorite group of guys from Bricktown have been in the playoffs. The Lakers, the Mavericks and the Heat have defeated Oklahoma City respectively, the last three versions of the NBA Playoffs. The Heat doing it in The Finals in only five games, after the Thunder won the first game and the world thought we had arrived.

Now all of the sudden we, Oklahoma City, find ourselves in an awkward position of having to prove to the entire world that we haven’t taken any steps backward and are in fact a better team. A special thanks to James Harden for what he did here, however, I hope you find a nice television in Houston to watch next summer’s edition of The Finals.

In an offseason in which the Heat and the Mavericks and the Lakers all “Got better,” the Thunder, according to some, made the biggest mistake of their young history and traded away Harden.

Umm, not exactly.

Photo by Cyn Sheng Ling, The Vista

Miami is better, this we now know. Dallas is better it appears, despite losing a Hall of Fame point guard and a thrilling, sixth man of the year winner of their own. The Mavericks ran through the Lakers on Tuesday night, literally, Elton Brand ran through Pau Gasol on a play and emphatically made a statement that Dallas is going to be a force to be reckoned with. Dallas beat LA 99-91 and now for a moment some of the attention will be shifted away from Oklahoma City and our front office moves, and focused on the Lake show and how they acquired some pretty hefty players and suddenly they might not be the least bit a better team.

When speaking of the upper-echelon of teams in the NBA, these four teams are always going to be in the argument. Alongside, Chicago and maybe Boston, there aren’t really any other teams that are serious contenders this season. San Antonio is always a contender whether serious or not, usually not talking about them fuels the Spurs to a number one seed in the playoffs, but we’ll find out tonight whether or not they have a team worth mentioning.

Halloween means one thing in my household, and that is that it’s basketball season. And with that comes all sorts of thundering up. The rollercoaster of a season in which each and every week the media will flip-flop on who the best team is and what’s wrong with the team that we thought were the best. It’s basketball season, charge up that cell phone and put on your seat belt, we are in for a long ride.

Baseball Reflections

Timeout. Six different Yankees had a zero in the hit column of the box score Wednesday morning. This means two-thirds of the team, well slightly less, ten players went to the plate.

But I’m not telling you some surprising mathematical equation, you probably know two-thirds of your team not hitting the ball isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination. The part where your imagination has to stretch is the fact that this is the Yankees we’re talking about. The Bronx Bombers.

A couple of weeks ago, while catching my friend up on the game I’d been watching, I was interrupted after saying my favorite ball team was using “Small ball,” to get a victory. Small ball is using walks and singles and smart base running to score a few runs towards a win. Yankee ball is sending three to four pitches back, back, back, ehh, you get the idea.

So why all of the sudden are the New York Yankees being forced to try a different brand of baseball just to get a victory? That is a fabulous question, the kind of question that would stump the smartest, most intelligent sports fan in the world. No, that’s not me, I’m serious this question would stump some of sports all-time wizards.

Two things are often heard by this Yankee fan. One being, “How much did that championship cost you?” the other being myself replying to such a question with, “That is a cheap comment by someone whose team loses all the time.”

I usually follow up my defense with you still have to play the game. You don’t win ball games in the bank, you win them at the ball park. Pitch by pitch and batter by batter, you win the game by outplaying the opponent. Sports’ most basic rule: Score more runs than the other team and you win the game.

As simple as it sounds, hit the ball, score the runs, win the game, suddenly I’m scratching my head like a 73 year old lady with an iPhone 5. Why can’t the game’s best players just hit the ball?

And then there is the benching. Ten players took to the plate on Tuesday with their sights set on the best pitcher in baseball. Two players who did not were Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher. The two regularly feared batters both hit .272 this season, respectable. Rodriguez is 3-24, Swisher 4-26 in these playoffs, that’s .130 and .154 respectively, not respectable.

It doesn’t stop there. Robinson Cano 3-36, he is an MVP candidate. Also one who was considered more than once this season as an MVP is Curtis Granderson. Yeah, he’s 3-29. Barring a ninth inning single that led to squat on Tuesday, Cano hadn’t gotten a hit in his previous 29 at bats and this second baseman has been in the top-20 in batting average in each of the last seven seasons. Top-17 in home runs each of the last three seasons.

I actually thought pitching was the problem. With a good guy, an old guy and another guy who said he doesn’t even like baseball being our front men in the rotation, I thought we needed to re-tool. Then I looked at the box scores.

This isn’t Yankee baseball. On the team’s page on Major League Baseball’s website it reads, New York Yankees, Hero’s Remembered, Legend’s Born. I’m suddenly left remembering a lot of hero’s but have yet to see the birth of a legend. I would be okay with just seeing a regular guy take the bat of his shoulder and hit the ball.

The Swirl of Sports

The best time of the year is upon us. Some fall sports are wrapping up as winter sports are beginning. Baseball, football, soccer, volleyball and now wrestling and basketball.
What a time it is to be a sports fan!
Every night of the week guarantees you a chance to watch some quality sports. If going to high school game on Friday night isn't enough, then you can fill your Saturday and Sunday with football from the best college has to offer to the best in the world with the NFL.
Monday Night Football might not always be the best, so let's throw in playoff baseball. Game five and your team has their backs against the wall, or game seven and your team is on the road looking to make the biggest upset of the postseason. What more could you ask for as a sports fan?

The home court of the Minnesota Timberwolves
of the National Basketball Association

Well the middle of the week is now sure to be filled with basketball. If you are a fan of the NBA then you will absolutely get one game per night for the next eight months. If you like college, well then you will get one game per night for the next six months. This is a win win situation for sports fans.
Not to mention squeezing in those trips to the soccer field, blanket in tow, to watch your favorite team blank the toughest of competition. Soccer might not produce the most goals in the realm of sports, but watching it live definitely keeps the action going. And volleyball, another sport in which live is better.
The best time of the year is upon us.
What is it you love about the fall season and sports? I love the non-stop action. I love being able to check my phone for updates and actually having too much to handle. This is a time when too much to handle is a good thing.
Oh yeah, I can't wait to go to a fight next week with hopes of a hockey game breaking out!