So much for the invincible Orlando Magic. Eight-and-oh in the playoffs … but against whom? Overmatched Charlotte, which is built around … Steven Jackson? Gerald Wallace? A sweep of those guys, but so what? (And one game was decided by four points and two by nine. Yeah, a butt-kicking.) Then the Atlanta Hawks, nice team […]

[Read more →]

It’s Friday. Metrics of this blog indicate that readership on Friday tails off and stays down for the weekend, then comes back on Monday. What? Are you cheeky monkeys reading this while on company time? How can you live with yourself? Just fine? Hmm. OK. So, today I’m going to ramble a bit on two […]

[Read more →]

So, roll out of bed on the other side of the world, and there is the final score: Boston 120, Cleveland 88? Boston 120, Cleveland 88! One of the bigger surprises in sports since I got here, in October. Absolutely did not see this coming. Even after the Celtics won Game 4 to even the […]

[Read more →]

Got to get this in before tipoff, which is about a half-hour away. Can we get a shout-out for the Butler Bulldogs? Doesn’t every right-thinking American have to be pulling for Butler? A mid-major in the NCAA basketball Final Four? OK, right-thinking Americans who live in East Lansing, Durham and Morgantown are exempt. But everyone […]

[Read more →]

This was cheesy. A sellout wrapped in a semi-clever package. But still a sellout. Yesterday, April 1 … the espn.com home page seemed to have a new feature. Streaming across the upper half of the home page was a ticker sort of concept. Moving news, right to left. Like the cable news stations use across […]

[Read more →]

Well, good for him. I always liked Steve Lavin, and my opinion is, of course, the acid test for coaching hires. No. Really. He was a relentlessly pleasant guy, upbeat and optimistic, all that. He recruited like crazy. His UCLA teams had a habit of winning big games. He just had a habit of losing […]

[Read more →]

Ah, yes, the NCAA tournament bracket. I went with the “highest seed in every round” system … in the year that two No. 5 seeds and a No. 2 got to the Final Four. Nice timing. So, no, I will not be finishing atop the Abu Dhabi Ballers (sponsored by Tandoori Corner) standings. But I’m […]

[Read more →]

Remember when India conjured images in the western world of hundreds of millions of people starving in the streets? That concept is getting a little threadbare. And now we have more evidence of it: A group of Indian investors just paid $333 million for an expansion franchise in the Indian Premier League. That is, India’s […]

[Read more →]

Dirhams. Generally pronounced DEER-ems. That’s what we spend over here in the United Arab Emirates. It’s the currency. Dh100 (shorthand for 100 dirhams) is equal to $27.20. The contribution to enter the Abu Dhabi Ballers III NCAA Tournament competition was … Dh50. Or about $13.60. And did it keep me from rooting for Northern Iowa […]

[Read more →]

For those of you waiting with bated breath for how I made my NCAA Tournament picks … After mulling this for, oh, five minutes two days ago, I went with the most weasel-y way of all:

[Read more →]