The Kaos Theory

I completely forgot to mention this but Mark Cuban is a LOSER. I don’t care how much money he has, he’s still a big fat crybaby loser. I was so happy when Robo Rob told me that Dallas lost to Golden State last night. As bad of a day I had today with work, this made up for it tenfold.

Splat……. Now that’s gonna leave a mark, I’d say. Generally speaking I’m a West Coaster, if there is a team from the WC in the playoffs I’ll root for them. However this theorem doesn’t hold water when it comes to good ol’ Marty ShootmyselfinthefootcuzicantwinthebiggameHeimer. I get a touch of Schadenfreude when it comes to Marty. I got nothing against the guy he seems to be a decent guy but there’s something about him when he’s standing on the sideline. I can’t quantify it but it’s palatable to me.

Smells like Roses and here. The SC defense made Chad Henne look like Sonja Henie. Hart had no Heart and the rest of the team didn’t show. A couple more pics after the fold.

Good job. I’m glad they won because a good guy like Zo Mourning gets to taste the sweetness of complete victory after years of paying his dues. If anybody in the NBA deserved a ring it’s him. Also, it nice to see Pat Riley get another one after 18 years, good on ya. Best yet is that Marc Cuban didn’t win. I don’t think I could bear to see him running around spouting off his mouth for the next year. He’s an unsufferable little twit who happens to have more money than god but he’s still a first class A-hole. I hope his ownership tenure with the Mavs is like the Greek myth of Syssiphus(sp), they get to the finals only to have their dreams dashed against the rocks. Keep pushing the ball up that hill Markie-poo cause it’s only going to roll down the other side with you screaming in utter misery and fustration. BTW, Commisioner Stern is a tool. LOL

The way the NBA sets up it’s post season is a complete fiasco. I was looking at my local dead-tree sports page where the list the records of all the teams vying for playoff spots. Just because you win your division should not make you automatically put the team in the top three of the conference. At this moment the Denver Nuggers with a 44-36 record are the 3 seed and Dallas sporting a 60-21 record are a fourth seed. This make absolutely zero, zilch, nada sense. Memphis, LAC and LAL all have better or the same record as Denver and Sacramento is only 1 1/2 games back. This means if Dallas and San Antonio win their first round series the will meet in the conference semi’s. That’s great thinking on the part of the NBA. Denver should be no higher than a 6th seed and more likely a seventh seed. One way to fix this I think that after the first round they should reseed the teams based on their records. Don’t let me go off on the Eastern conference where only 5 teams have a winning record, for you people in Rio Linda that means they won more than they lost. Another one for the OTB Beltway traffic jam.

This blog post will be updated throughout the day or until I passout drunk which ever comes first.

9:00 am. I’ve been getting geared up for this game going on two weeks and I’m ready for it to start. Been watching and listening to ESPN this week and all I can say is, the talking heads all want SC to lose. Actually they’ve been talking this way throughout the year so I shouldn’t be surprised. As always this game is going to be tough. I don’t care if the teams are 10 – 1 vs 1 – 10, its always a barnburner. Be back in awhile.

10:53. Beer check, burgers check, chips check. Oh what the h*ll. As my mom always reminded us, “It’s Happy Hour somwhere”.

11:51. It’s currently 41 degrees here in the Northwest. That’s not too bad actually because I get to store my beer outside instead of in the frig in the garage. This means I conserve my energy and save it for screaming at the television. My first impression watching Texas vs Colorado, Colorado sucks donkey d**k. I’m coming to the conclusion the Big-12 is not all it’s hyped up to be.

12:31. Let me reiterate this once more, COLORADO SUCKS DONKEY D**K!

1:14. 16 minutes and counting and I have nothing to add except to have you visit Brendan Loy’s site. He has some great links to the ESPN College game day photos and photos from the pregame at From the Sidelines.

3:28. Halftime is almost over so i decided to add my rant. If Reggie Bush doesn’t win the Heisman trophy then nobody should. 18 carries 228 yards in the FIRST half. That total is some college players 2 or 3 games worth of yards. My view of the game is the pundits are mostly wrong most of the time. All week I heard from the TH (talkingheads) that USC defense is suspect, they give up big play etc. 31 – 6 at half against a team averaging 40 points a game, I guess the SC defense must really be bad. Reggie has more yards, BY HIMSELF, than the whole UCLA offense. I don’t know why I get my panties or my flannels Pj’s I in a bind when I listen to these so called experts. I think I’m going to call into one of these ESPN radio shows and vent. Then again I might just keep all this in my personal vault for after the championship game.

4:22. End of third quarter. HA. 52-6. Can you say OVERRATED? I mean come on UCLA, I thought you were the MAN? This is 7 wins for SC against UCLA in a row. There are some senoirs on UCLA team who haven’t beat SC during their 4 year career and some 5 year senoirs too.

4:40. Nice reception for Matt Leinart as he concludes his USC career

5:57. Here’s my synposis. UCLA was highly overrated. Their defense was worse that advertised.You can’t spot a team 31 points at half and expect to win. I half expect the ESPN crowd to find some way to talk themselves out of their hole.

8:20am Sunday. Well, the beer won. I vaguely remember talking to my friend Jim after the game and he said something about tickets to the Rose Bowl. I guess I have one with my name on it. Woo Hoo! I just finished reading the sports page and some stats of the game are very telling.

USC, 0 punts, so much for UCLA’s vaunted special teams. Also SC had more kickoff return yards 70 to 53.

USC 249 yds passing to 146 for UCLA. All this with Leinart crying through the first half.

USC 430 yds rushing to 129 for UCLA. Lendale White had 154 yds all by himself.

All I can say now is, bring Texas on!

Well I guess if you don’t win by 40 points on the road you must suck. The BS poll is out and SC dropped to second.

Here are a couple of videos from the Notre Dame game by Brendan Loy
He graciously gave me permission to post these on my site. The first is when Leinart fumbled the ball out of bounds on the goal line. Most important is not the videos themselves but the sound of the crowd. The Notre Dame fans go ape thinking the clock had run out and they were victorious over their hated rivals. The second is the touchdown run by Leinart to win the game. Just listen to the air rush out of their balloons. It’s fabulous. I get chicken skin listening to it. Thanks again to Brendan for the vids.

Here’s the fumble

Here’s the touchdown

Update:Looks like the link to the fumble vid is screwy, I’m not sure if it’s me or the mpg player I use. Anyhoo the touchdown link will still give you the flavor of the moment. If you have problem with viewing or hearing the video, leave me something in the comments and I’ll try to fix it.

Update 1: My friend Jim sent me this audio of the Leinart TD, thanks to Howie too.

Here’s the audio

Update 2: Links to the vids are fixed. Evidently blogger changed the path of my video to www.blogger.com when I specified the path to my server. Strange.

Since the Superdome, home of the Sugar bowl will not be used to play this seasons game, I think they should play it at the Rose Bowl. The BCS championship game is at the Rose Bowl on January 4th and there is no game at the Rose Bowl on the 1st. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to the bowl games, I still believe the PAC 10 and Big 10 champs should play in Pasadena. Until the BCS gets its act together, I’ll live with it for now. I know the Sugar Bowl is going to be played in Atlanta but there is a chance you could have a 10-1 UCLA playing 11-0 Va Tech playing in the Sugar. If you moved it to the RB you could easily sell it out given UCLA’s LA ties. You wouldn’t have hotel problems either with the possiblity of a SC vs Texas BCS title game. Why would an SC fan need to get a hotel room if the game is in their backyard? Therefore, you would have only 2 teams travelling to SoCal for both games. Pasadena and surrounding communities could easily handle this influx of tourists.

To tell you i’m not just worn out from that game would be a lie. What a game. Hats off to the Irish, NOT. The Irish had about every break you could get and SC tried as hard as they could to give them more. Penalties, penalties and more penalties but still they men of Troy found some way to beat a ranked team in the opposing teams stadium. Once again I’m astondished at the way the game is being called by the ref’s and they were from the PAC-10. Point 1 on the punt return for a touchdown by the Irish, how many blocks in the back did you count? Me, I counted 2. What about the Irish fumble at the beginning of the second half where SC got called for a personal foul after about a 12 minute scrum. Both squads were pushing, pulling and battling with each other and the replay never showed any foul. If anything a foul should have been called on both teams. How about the 4th and 9 with about 1:30 to go? That has to be one of the greatest plays during the Pete Carroll era. How clutch can you get?

I’m biased I know, I’m an Angel fan. The call by the umpire was an egregious error. I’m listening to the interview with the ump and he is a complete idiot. He’s claiming the ball hit the ground but he called the batter out TWICE. Check the video. He screwed the pooch and I believe he is “stuck on stupid”. Errrrrgh.

I’ve been following SC football since about 1972. Probably my first induction was Anthony Davis running back the second half kickoff during the Notre Dame game of 1974. I remember the Pat Haden, JK Mackay Hey days as well. One thing amazing me these days is the way the football “pundits” be it the “announcers” or talking heads in Sports Center will “misunderesatimate” the final outcome of the game. If SC is losing at any time the general consensus is “oh no what has happend to SC”, ” they’re in danger”, “who would of thought!!? I know they want to keep their viewers from leaving the game but come on. At this point it’s getting ridiculous. Look at the last 3 games as an example. Here are the final stats of each of the last three games. If you’d been watching the game or listening to the Sports Center guy, you’d thought SC had lost. The only team that can beat SC is SC.

PS.

These stats are against 2 top 25 teams at their home fields. Playing at Autzen(Oregon) and Sun Devil Stadium( ASU)are not the easiest to play in. Ask LSU and Nebraska a few years ago.

Oregon vs USC

USC      ORE
Score.........................       45       13
FIRST DOWNS...................       31       16
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............   42-278    29-65
PASSING YDS (NET).............      315      197
Passes Att-Comp-Int...........  39-23-1  37-21-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS.....   81-593   66-262
Fumble Returns-Yards..........      0-0      0-0
Punt Returns-Yards............     5-27     2-10
Kickoff Returns-Yards.........    4-104    7-152
Interception Returns-Yards....      1-0     1-38
Punts (Number-Avg)............   2-41.5   6-40.5
Fumbles-Lost..................      2-1      1-0
Penalties-Yards...............    11-86     7-68
Possession Time...............    32:40    27:20
Third-Down Conversions........ 10 of 14  5 of 15
Fourth-Down Conversions.......   0 of 1   0 of 1
Red-Zone Scores-Chances.......      7-8      2-4

Arizona State vs USC

USC      ASU
Score.........................       38       28
FIRST DOWNS...................       27       20
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............   49-373    32-68
PASSING YDS (NET).............      258      347
Passes Att-Comp-Int...........  39-23-0  45-26-5
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS.....   88-631   77-415
Fumble Returns-Yards..........      0-0     1-14
Punt Returns-Yards............     3-13    3-111
Kickoff Returns-Yards.........     1-18    3-107
Interception Returns-Yards....     5-14      0-0
Punts (Number-Avg)............   7-44.7   6-48.2
Fumbles-Lost..................      2-1      1-0
Penalties-Yards...............    12-85     5-50
Possession Time...............    34:52    25:08
Third-Down Conversions........  5 of 15  6 of 14
Fourth-Down Conversions.......   0 of 2   1 of 2
Red-Zone Scores-Chances.......      2-2      3-4

Arizona vs USC

Score.........................       21       42
FIRST DOWNS...................       12       39
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............    23-64   52-337
PASSING YDS (NET).............      181      387
Passes Att-Comp-Int...........  25-16-1  44-29-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS.....   48-245   96-724
Fumble Returns-Yards..........      0-0      0-0
Punt Returns-Yards............     1-13      0-0
Kickoff Returns-Yards.........    5-159     1-17
Interception Returns-Yards....     1-34      1-0
Punts (Number-Avg)............   6-46.0   2-43.5
Fumbles-Lost..................      0-0      2-1
Penalties-Yards...............     2-15     6-60
Possession Time...............    23:00    37:00
Third-Down Conversions........   1 of 9 10 of 14
Fourth-Down Conversions.......   1 of 2   1 of 2
Red-Zone Scores-Chances.......      2-3      5-6

I’ve been watching the ALDS, Anahiem from where ever vs the Evil Satan Yankees. I have to say Joe Morgan has to be the best baseball commentator around. I’m not talking about play-by-play because Vince Scully owns that but for general baseball information explained in a concise manner he has no peers.

Update: Growing up in L. A. I was always a Dodger fan. I lived through Reggie Jackson, Goose Goosage and that 3rd base man who will not be named(Greg Nettles) beating my boys. I find it refreshing if not damn near exhilirating to see an ex-Dodger, Mike Scioscia, manageing the Angels like the Dodgers SHOULD be managed. Hit and run, stolen bases, an occasional long ball and great pitching.

I love it, I love it, I love it. There’s nothing better than seeing the faces of the BoSox fans in defeat. Just some history here, my mom grew up in Quincy, Mass and she couldn’t stand the BoSox either. She was a Boston Braves fan in her youth. Now I need the Angels to drub the hated Yankees and I’ll be even happier. ESPN has the coverage. This week is turning out to be brilliant.