Beantown Sports Guys

Best way to end a game?

Is there anything in sports that is better than a Buzzer Beater? Perhaps. The walk-off hit or home run is awesome, as is a Field Goal that is flying through the air (or a pass) as time expires.

But the Buzzer Beater really has only a home in the NBA (or college hoops).

There is no buzzer in football or baseball, and although there is one in hockey, you can’t win on a shot from center ice if time expires while it’s traveling to the net. It’s just how it is.

Basketball is another animal entirely.

There is so much drama involved in the Buzzer Beater. You can’t beat that with a stick. Over the last few years, the NBA has added the backboard red border that lights up as soon as time expires. It helps the officials determine if the ball was out of the shooter’s hands in time. It also adds more drama to it. There is something very dramatic about a shot that is sailing through the air, the backboard lit up, and everyone just waiting for it to either drop through the hoop or bounce out.

Michael Jordan was the king of the Buzzer Beater, routinely tearing the hearts out of his opponents and their fans and dropping them on the floor.

This past Friday night, Paul Pierce was unceremoniously fouled beyond belief underneath the Nets basket by Vince Carter and the official called for a jump ball. Carter won the jump and the Nets proceeded to make a shot and go up by 1.

The Celts came up court, and with Jason Kidd in his face, Paul Pierce drilled a 17 foot fadeaway jumper as the buzzer sounded. You could see the life sucked out of the arena and the Nets fans, and quite the opposite emotion on the other side, as the Celtics stormed the court and even had Coach Doc Rivers pumping his fist.

It’s definitely one of the coolest, most final ways to win a game. I’ll never forget watching Robert Horry drain a last second buzzer beating 3 in what could be up there in one of the most amazing shots I’ve ever seen. Michael’s shot against the Cavaliers is still famous to this day, popping up in Gatorade commercials from time to time. And if it happened during this newer, fresher modern era and Christian Laettner took that last shot, the score board would have lit up much like it did for Pierce of Friday night. And that would have made that moment even more dramatic for the Dukies and traumatic for Rick Pitino and Kentucky. If that were even possible.

Post Draft Breakdown

Now that all the writers in the sports world that covered the NFL Draft and have had their Mock Drafts blown up on them (myself included) I figured it would be a good time to recap and put my two cents into how insanely unpredictable this draft was.

First off, Sean Salisbury from ESPN said two weeks ago if Houston doesn't grab Reggie Bush with the first pick overall the entire front office should be drug tested. I couldn't agree more.

Secondly, a lot of people are handing out grades for all the teams, but I'm just going to highlight the winners and losers, and my own category: the winsers (people or teams that are both winners and losers).

Winners:

Jets - they drafted the best OT and the best C in all of college. For the most part, that should keep whatever QB they have upright. It will be interesting to see the more athletic and less hefty OT Ferguson does against the likes of Jason Taylor and Richard Seymour.

Patriots - anytime a team gets the 2nd best RB, arguably the best WR, the best FB in the country, the 5th best TE, and the 5th best OT you are doing great.

Philadelphia - at first it seemed like they were off kilter, grabbing a DT, and a OT, but Andy Reid's method of madness will pay off down the line, as they went on to grab a great DE and a great OG. Oh yeah, and they got Jeremy Bloom too, who should definitely help out in the realm of returns. Reid worked some trades and is working on both the present and the future right now. Great draft.

San Francisco - amazing draft by any standards. They grabbed the best TE in Vernon Davis, which provides Alex Smith with an awesome go to guy, they snatched up Manny Lawson who could be the best and smartest defender to come out in the draft (time will tell), and they grabbed Penn State QB/WR Michael Robinson, someone who is so incredibly gifted that will give Smith another target, and also some comfort in case they want to pull some WR trick plays.

Steve McNair - most would look at his upcoming release or trade as a bad thing, but this guy just wants to play, and the Titans don't want him near them. If he goes to the Ravens he'll be in a good situation and can help mentor Kyle Boller who needs some bigtime help at the helm.

Packers - If Brett Favre didn't already say he would come back and wanted to wait for the draft, he would be coming back right now for sure. The Pack front office drafted the best OLB, the best ILB (some say Hodge is even better than Greenway from Iowa, as he was in on over 1/2 of all of Greenway's tackles), Will Blackmon (huge target for Favre) and some QB insurance with Ingle Martin who can also push Aaron Rodgers. They also traded off team-cancer Javon Walker to the Broncos.

Falcons - two picks stand out in my head: Virginia Tech CB Jimmy Williams (who was mentored by DAngelo Hall at VT and they know how to play with each other) and Georgia QB D.J. Shockley. They didn't have a lot to work with but they got the job down and have a nasty secondary, especially since signing Lawyer Milloy in the secondary as well.

Detroit - Wow. I never thought I'd throw them in here. They filled many needs on both sides of the ball, at LB with Ernie Sims, SS, OT, and OG. Mike Martz should be pleased with the line pickups, as Detroit hasn't had a good history of QBs that have time to throw.

Oakland - the Huff pick doesn't surprise me, it surprises me more that I didn't think of it. The fact that they also grabbed arguably the second or third best safety in Darnell Bing later is amazing. Added UTEP's Howard fills their draft up with some solid, young, smart defenders. Al Davis must have thought it was time to bring back the attitude that comes with wearing the Silver and Black.

Kansas City - Tamba Hali: Amazing athlete, amazing person. He'll never take anything for granted or a play off. That is what you want in a player. Adding QB Brodie Croyle and safety Bernard Pollard, they are starting to shape up a bit more on defense. If Herm Edwards can convince Ty Law to sign with them, they'll be a lot better in a short period of time.

Tampa Bay - it was tough last year in the postseason watching Chris Simms struggle so much, but his line didn't give him too much to work with. Gruden goes offense all the way drafted a great OG and OT, along with one of the better underrated WRs in Maurice Stovall.

Losers:

Marcus Vick - in general, he is a loser. He's only started 24 college games, missed a whole season for a marijuana charge, was arrested for brandishing a firearm, and kicked a player during a Bowl game in the calf with his cleat, then denied it. On the one hand, I wanted him to be Mr. Irrelevant, but I think that message would have been lost on his tiny brain. Miami brought him in, and there is no doubt he is talented, but he's a head case and belongs with Lawrence Phillips and company.

Giants - how many DEs are they going to draft and sign from the rookie pool of free agency??? They had a lot more pressing needs, like another WR to help out Eli and take pressure off Plaxico and Shockey. Totally confused about this.

Texans - Mario Williams is a good player, even above average. But one defender cannot change a game like one offensive player like Reggie Bush. It was sad to see them showing high school highlights of Williams. Is his senior campaign that incomplete they need to drudge that up? And did they even watch it? Out of 6 plays I saw he was in on one tackle. ONE. He had about 5 or 6 really good games to finish out his senior year, but Reggie Bush has had an amazing career at USC. Totally stupid. I'm sure he'll be good, but this is the biggest mistake the Texans have ever made and the fans were upset about it for good reason.

Bears - just an awful draft. They reached on a few picks and didn't get really anyone with noting. After already signing Ricky Manning, they draft another CB named Manning, and he's from some small school most people can't pronounce. They definitely could have done better to give Grossman some weapons to work with.

Winsers:

Buffalo - in the first two rounds they reached and bombed, and in the 3rd and 4th round they got great value, grabbing Youboty and Ko Simpson to solidify a really awesome secondary. They could have done a lot better though, but could also have done a lot worse in my opinion.

Matt Leinart - everyone is talking about him losing out on $10 million for not coming out last season, but how do people know this? He was having issues with his shoulder and could very well have been the # 1 pick last year, but there is no telling what he would have gotten for a contract. He's in a great situation with the Cardinals: he has two of the best young receivers who both pulled in 100 passes for over 1000 yards each, he has one of the best running backs in Edgerrin James who will look to prove a point to the Colts they should have signed him, he has a great mentor in Kurt Warner, and his college Guard was signed to protect him. How much better can that be for him?

LenDale White - I felt for this kid. He just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. Yes, he lost out on millions of dollars but he could work hard and use that as motivation and most likely will, for his 2nd contract. He also has a no pressure situation to play an usurp Chris Brown's spot, and Travis Henry's. Oh yeah, and the Titans also drafted who could be the best QB to come out of college in I don't know how many years in Vince Young. Two offensive studs in the same draft, both played in the National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl. What else could he want?

Overall, this draft was great. The league is better because of it, and a lot of grades for teams I have seen range from high B's to low C's. No A's, no D's, no F's. I think that is right. The parity in the league is a lot better because of this draft.

As for the rookie free agents that weren't drafted, I found it hilarious that half of the Patriots' signees are from schools where Belichick has tight connections: Notre Dame and Florida (his buddy Urban Meyer is the head coach, and B-squared spent over a week down in the Sunshine State getting the school from Meyer while playing golf).

Also, the Bears may have stunk in the draft, but they made a great pickup in Texas Tech Safety Dwayne Slay. He was a projected 3rd rounder but went undrafted. He hits like a ton of bricks and has ideal size, but is missing some of the other intangibles. Either way, great pickup and I expect him to make the squad.

End of March Madness and SOX WIN!

So all of March Madness finally came to an end last night as Florida beat UCLA. And I failed to watch even a single second of it. I still love the tournament but I have just been watching less and less each year. This year I barely watched either final four game over the weekend. Seriously maybe a couple minutes to look in and see how the underdog George Mason was doing. Once I saw they were out of it, I could have cared less. Both Florida and UCLA are usually teams I stay away from every year when picking teams to move on in my brackets as they are usually always upset early. So this was a strange tournament with not one #1 seed advancing to the final four. So congrats to Billy Donovan anyway as I grew up watching him way back when, help Providence College advance to a final four under Pitino. Billy deserves all the praise he will get now with winning it all. Great job Billy D!

How about those Sox yesterday? Schilling looked great. His fastball was even reaching 94-95 on the gun, which it hadn’t been hitting all spring. So that was a great sign. Even those 2 runs he gave up were pretty cheap on a line shot for a HR to the shortest area of the ballpark. Dumb luck for Blalock there. But many guys looked good, including Big Papi of course with another boom-shot. Coco looks MUCH faster than Damon sprinting over those bases. Loretta will be a nice fit in the 2-hole and even seeing Lowell get his first HR should help his confidence tremendously. If anyone needs to get off to a good start, it is Lowell, so that was great to see there! Many positives in that game with only a shaky 9^th by Foulke as the only negative. And even that, it didn’t affect anything and gave us a great look at Coco’s glove work in the field making a fantastic catch going back to the wall to keep the game in control. Great stuff from the Sox. Only 161 more games to win to get that all-elusive perfect season. Haha! Go Sox!!!

UNC Wins It All!!!

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ARE THE 2005 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Illinois played tough, but they got into some foul trouble early. May was a monster and at one point only missed one of his shots. Roy Williams finally has his championship after 40 NCAA Tourney wins. I think the Dean Smith Center might actually catch on fire tonight. I certainly wouldn't be surprised. I've been a Tarheel fan since I can remember, and this is an odd time in one's sports life:

Favorite Football team: New England Patriots - 3 Super Bowl wins in the last 4 years
Second Favorite Football team (my NFC team): Tampa Bay Buccaneers - won in between the Pats winning their first two

Favorite Men's B-ball team: UNC - this year's winners of the 2005 NCCA championship
Second Favorite Men's B-ball team: UConn - took it all just last year

Favorite NBA team: Celtics - won how many championships in the 80s??
Second Favorite NBA team: Bulls - Michael Jordan. 6 championships in 8 years (would have been 8 for 8 had he not retired)

Favorite Baseball team: Boston Red Sox - broke an 86 year old curse and had the most amazing comeback in sports history to win the World Series
Second favorite Baseball team: Chicago Cubs - been a fan of them since I can remember because they knew what Boston fans were going through...and they are still going through it...

How often does someone's favorite teams all win championships in such a short period of time? It will be even crazier if the Celtics can find a way to win it all this year. I'll probably die on the spot if that happens.