Ole Miss lost two of three to LSU at jam-packed Swayze Field, the Rebels wrapped up an unconventional basketball recruiting class, the NBA and NHL playoffs began and the NCAA's problems continued to mount. My thoughts on all of those topics and more follow, thanks to my friends at Grenada Nissan, follow.
1. Usually, I have very little Ole Miss baseball analysis to provide. This weekend, however, I watched Thursday's game on television (In all honesty, I was flipping between the Rebels and ESPN's 30-for-30 documentary on the Detroit Pistons' Bad Boys era), attended Friday's game in the left field stands with my son and then returned from Carson's baseball practice Saturday afternoon to see the last few innings of the series finale.
I know Ole Miss lost two of three, but I have to tell you: If I were an Ole Miss fan, I'd be optimistic about this club. The Rebels pitch it well enough to get to Omaha. They hit it well enough to get to Omaha, and the computer metrics are in place to have the tournament run through Oxford on its way to that steak haven in middle America.
Infield defense is a wart, certainly. It cost Ole Miss Thursday's 13-inning contest. However, Chris Ellis matched Aaron Nola pitch for pitch. On Friday, Christian Trent was terrific, and then on Sunday, Sam Smith provided yet another solid outing. Give LSU some credit. The guys in purple and yellow are usually pretty decent at baseball, and the kid in right field made one hell of a play Thursday and Saturday to really aid the Tigers' cause.
Ole Miss likely needs to go 7-5 down the stretch to host. Given the schedule and the Rebels' talent level, that's far from impossible. The Rebels are about to play a lot of meaningful baseball. They need to get Aaron Greenwood healthy --- his absence Thursday was likely a key factor in the Rebels' loss --- but the pieces are there to make a long run.
2. M.J. Rhett signed with Ole Miss Friday, choosing the Rebels over Miami, Connecticut and others. Rhett is likely the final addition to what will be a revamped roster when November rolls around. Andy Kennedy signed two junior college transfers and two players --- Rhett and former UT-Martin guard Terence Smith --- who are graduating from their original school with one year of eligibility remaining. Throw in rising seniors Jarvis Summers, LaDarius White and Aaron Jones, and Ole Miss will field a seasoned, experienced club.
John Calipari has his version of one-and-done recruiting. Kennedy, apparently, has his. It's worked in Lexington. Kennedy's version won't be as talented, but he shouldn't have to deal with some of the immaturity Calipari must work through. If nothing else, it promises to be a very interesting chemistry experiment.
3. Clarion-Ledger beat writer Hugh Kellenberger covered the Rebel Road Trip stop in Jackson on Wednesday. I didn't. Turns out I probably should have, as Kellenberger came away with a pretty decent scoop.
Suspended Ole Miss linebacker Denzel Nkemdiche, Kellenberger subsequently reported, is not in the clear, but he is able to be with the team again. Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said Nkemdiche has regained the right to work out with the team on Monday.
"I have contact with him every day," Freeze told the Clarion-Ledger. "I try not to be overly optimistic, but everything is going really great right now. Hopefully he's learned from the mistakes he's made and be able to prove that he has. So far, so good."
Freeze suspended Nkemdiche in February after he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and failure to comply with a police officer. Nkemdiche will definitely miss the team's season opener against Boise State as part of that suspension. The extent of the disciplinary action beyond that has not been determined.
"We'd love to have that kid back with us," Freeze said. "I love the young man and he has a good heart and he's not a bad kid, but he's not represented our program and he knows that. Now every kid that goes to college has choices to make, and college kids make poor choices. It's no different with football players, but when he makes one it's going to be all over everything as we've seen. We can't have one of our guys that's in a leadership role that does that. We've explained that clearly to him, and we sure hope we can move forward.
"I really think we could go through a lot of things but I really felt like he thought he was invincible and the social media that had built that platform for him certainly didn't help him to not feel that way. I'm not blaming people, it's ultimately the decisions that he makes."
Nkemdiche would give Ole Miss a playmaker at linebacker, but I didn't sense that his presence was missed in the spring. Frankly, Nkemdiche had become a bit of a distraction inside the program during the offseason. For the first time, I'm sensing that Nkemdiche needs Ole Miss more than the Rebels need him.
4. The New York Giants signed Josh Freeman to a free agent deal last week. Make no mistake, the former Tampa Bay and Minnesota quarterback isn't going to challenge Eli Manning, but given Manning's struggles last season and his ankle surgery this offseason, it's worth asking if the Giants are beginning to prepare for life after Eli.
"He'd be the first one to tell you that he could've had a better year," Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride told SiriusXM. "We all could've done better. But again, when you're getting pummeled the way he was getting pummeled, it's hard to be as effective as you normally are … Now again, one of the things that he is wont to do, that has been something we get frustrated with ? but he quite frankly doesn't care ? if you're down by a couple of scores near the end of the game, he's going to throw it up and give his guys a chance to go get it. … He'll do whatever it takes to give his team a chance to win. Because those first six games were abysmal, we were in that situation far too often. It's not something we encourage, but he's going to do whatever. And if that means he's going to throw another interception or two in those situations, he really doesn't care."
The Giants spent a lot of money on defense this offseason. They're expected to focus on offensive line in the early portion of the draft this spring. Manning could certainly use the help.
5. Frank Haith left Missouri for Tulsa late last week, just days after Cuonzo Martin left Tennessee for California. Those two departures prompted Yahoo columnist Pat Forde to opine that those job changes "perpetuate a trend that should deeply concern Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive. African-American coaches keep leaving his league for lesser jobs.
"Haith and Martin are merely the latest to do so. Two years earlier, Trent Johnson jarringly jumped ship at LSU for TCU, a basketball sinkhole where he has won two out of 36 Big 12 games. And in 2007, Tubby Smith started the trend by leaving blueblood Kentucky for mediocre Minnesota.
"I can't think of another conference that had four coaches make such surprising lateral-to-downward moves within the last seven years. Or within any seven-year period.
"The fact that all of them are black could be a Southeastern coincidence more than a reflection on the Southeastern Conference. But it also raises questions ? and could create a perception ? about the work environment for a black coach in the South."
Forde is entitled to his opinion; Yahoo pays him for it. However, I'm entitled to mine, and I think Forde is really, really reaching here. Johnson left for TCU because he wasn't getting it done in Baton Rouge. Smith, once a legend at Kentucky, left for Minnesota because he was no longer winning to the Wildcats' lofty standards. Martin left Tennessee for two reasons. One, his returning roster next season is anything but strong (It looks like former Ole Miss guard Michael White is going to get first crack to work with it) and two, his feelings were --- understandably --- hurt when thousands of Volunteer fans signed a petition begging the school's administration to bring back Bruce Pearl last season when Tennessee was struggling. Haith was underachieving at Missouri, and anyone with two eyes and an objective opinion could see it.
Finally, it should be noted both Martin and Haith were going to get more time at Tennessee and Missouri. Only Haith, in fact, was going to enter next season on the hot seat. Their race, in my opinion, is a coincidence and not a sign of an epidemic.
6. Jameson Taillon is just 22. He was supposed to be one of the future aces of the Pittsburgh Pirates' pitching rotation. Instead, Taillon is recovering from Tommy John surgery just 382 innings into his professional career.
Taillon, who earned a $6.5 million bonus out of high school, has been throwing harder than 90 miles per hour since he was 16. He's also part of an epidemic of sorts within baseball circles. Taillon is American, and he's a product of the tournament and showcase system that many believe is damaging young pitchers.
"Major League Baseball gets the blame for pitchers getting injured," Glenn Fleisig, research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., told SI.com. "But the fact is these pitchers definitely have some damage in their arm when they get them."
Major League Baseball is 24.2 percent Latin American (as of Opening Day), but only one of the 20 Tommy John surgery patients so far this year --- Detroit reliever Bruce Rondon, of Venezuela --- came from there. The others are American, and that's likely not a coincidence.
"Latin American pitchers are allowed to grow into their velocity," one scouting director told SI.com. "It's a common story to sign a guy throwing 84, 85, who eventually winds up throwing in the 90s. (Yankees pitcher) Michael Pineda is one. You're looking for someone with a good, athletic body who can throw the ball around the plate and has a feel for spinning the ball. The velocity comes in time, with training and better nutrition and physical growth. Here? The statistics don't lie. We need to look elsewhere around the world to find a better way. It's time."
Taillon is a victim of the travel baseball phenomenon that many believe damages arms. When he was 16, he threw at six Perfect Game events in a 13-month period. During the season, he pitched for his high school team in The Woodlands, Texas. Now he's one of five top-30 picks from the last three years to undergo Tommy John surgery.
"People like to say you have only so many bullets," Fleisig told SI.com. "That's not exactly true. One thousand pitches over a month is much different than 1,000 pitches over the course of two years."
The problem is too big to be detailed here. Kids are throwing curveballs too young, trying to throw too hard too soon. They're throwing too many pitches, too many innings with not enough rest. And they're breaking down with alarming regularity.
Unless something changes, the epidemic is one that could have a dramatically negative impact on the game.
7. The NCAA's legislative council approved a measure on Tuesday that would allow schools to provide unlimited meals and snacks to athletes. The action, one that gave the NCAA a rare public relations win, is going to stress multiple schools, including some at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics. Further, as my friend and SI.com college football writer Andy Staples pointed out this week, the move means that the surging athletes-rights movement loses an effective-if-slightly-disingenuous narrative. Further quoting Staples:
"This is great news for the schools and their beloved status quo, unless they screw it up, which they probably will. They'll probably override this attempt at deregulation. Remember, it was representatives from the member schools who took a well-meaning suggestion a few years ago and turned it into a ban on cream cheese in a futile effort to keep from widening the gulf between the spreadable Haves and the dry-bagel Have-Nots. They're also the ones who couldn't bear the thought of deregulating college football recruiting communication so they overrode an attempt at common sense. These people looooove their rules, and many of them wouldn't know what to do without them."
As Staples and others have opined, the emphasis on meals and meal plans is going to add another ingredient to the arms race in college athletics. Will schools hire celebrity chefs to prepare meals for their athletes? It sounds crazy, but would LSU hire an Emeril Lagasse pupil? Would Ole Miss hire a John Currence protege? That's likely extreme, of course, but you can bet some schools are going to try to use their menus as a recruiting tool.
Speaking of the NCAA, NCAA President Mark Emmert appeared on ESPN's Mike & Mike radio show Friday morning, ostensibly to help clean up some of the comments he's made about college unionization over the past month.
The highlight of the interview was Emmert's response to Northwestern University football players, who were recently deemed employees of the school by the National Labor Relations Board, according to Brian Bennett of ESPN.com.
In Emmert's own words: "If I can hire someone to play football for me why would I hire an 18 year old? Why not someone who plays in the CFL?"
On discussing the new change to the NCAA's food policy, Emmert also had a flippant reply to Connecticut basketball player Shabazz Napier, who claimed there were some hungry nights were he "goes to bed starving."
"If UConn wants to feed Shabazz breakfast in bed, they can," Emmert said.
Dear God, someone shut him up. It's almost impossible to believe that a $1.7 million per year employee of an organization that oversees institutions of higher learning could be that dense in such a public forum.
8. Major League Baseball continues to become more and more of an afterthought in its battle with the NFL, NBA and other sports for television viewers. The league has itself to blame.
Almost eight years ago, commissioner Bud Selig vowed to do something about the local television-blackout rules keeping tens of millions of fans from watching his sport. He said he did not understand the reason pockets of America who wanted to see ballgames on TV couldn't. Then he made a vow: "We have to do something about it."
Instead, what Selig has essentially done is leave blackouts in place and make it difficult if not impossible for people in certain areas to watch games. The issue revolves around the exorbitant local television dollars that regional sports networks have lavished on teams in the past five years and the concern that in a true free market with a-la-carte pricing for games, the local TV networks would not pay anywhere close to the tens of billions of dollars they have promised teams around the sport.
Teams are bringing in almost $9 billion per year in regional TV revenue, but that has left MLB seemingly willing to punish fans in Iowa, Las Vegas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Buffalo and other locations with multiple-team blackouts.
Predictably, lawsuits have followed. Already the judge in the case, Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York, has turned down the league's motion to dismiss. While the league and the broadcasters named in the suit (including a handful of RSNs and DirecTV) filed the motions last week under seal, other court documents show a combative MLB insisting that territorial-rights system is "the heart of the business" and "fundamental to MLB and its relationships with fans, sponsors, and communities nationwide."
This is where baseball has it all wrong. The sport is bleeding fans. Blacking out fans based on locality and regionalism is downright idiotic. Technology has changed fandom, something other professional sports leagues have recognized. Baseball, predictably, is dragging its feet.
Fans in areas such as Iowa, Las Vegas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Buffalo suffer through blackouts that prevent them watching multiple teams. Millions of viewers, who should be allowed a-la-carte choices, are instead moving on from the once-grand game. Goodness knows they have plenty of other entertainment choices at their disposal. In this marketplace, the odds are baseball is risking losing a generation of fans.
In many ways, that's Selig's legacy as commissioner. A man too stubborn for his own good has helped owners build their war chests all the while making decision after decision that make it more difficult to be a fan.
9. The NBA playoffs began Saturday with a packed house in Toronto for the Raptors' series against the Brooklyn Nets. While 16 teams began their quest for the Larry O'Brien Trophy, other teams began the painful process of self-evaluation and reconstruction.
The Boston Celtics figure to be one of the busiest teams in the offseason. The Celtics (25-57) need to upgrade their talent, but Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens and Co. might not be all that patient.
Ainge won't rule out trading for an all-star. Kevin Love's name has emerged in some rumors. He also hasn't ruled out a sign-and-trade for a restricted free agent; Utah's Gordon Hayward and Detroit's Greg Monroe have been mentioned as possibilities.
Unless Ainge decides to make point guard Rajon Rondo expendable, there just isn't much in the cupboard to pique outside interest. Ainge has picks at his disposal, though, and with a deep 2014 rookie crop coming available in late June, the Celtics could hold the key to a crazy offseason around the league.
Other thoughts from around the NBA:
A. Good news for Brooklyn, Golden State, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Miami, Washington and Houston/Portland. According to ESPN, there have been 453 best-of-7 series in NBA history. Teams that win Game 1 go on to win the series 77.3 percent of the time.
B. Houston Rockets center Dwight Howard decided to make a deal with fellow teammate Chandler Parsons recently. If Parsons got a mohawk, Howard would give him a Ferrari. Parsons posted a picture on Instagram to thank Howard, saying, "Catch me if you can - thanks, @dwighthoward."
C. Washington's win over Chicago Sunday evening was the Wizards' first playoff win in six years. Get used to them. John Wall has arrived. Bradley Beal is a future star. Ownership is committed to winning. Don't be shocked if the Wizards are in the Eastern Conference finals.
D. Miami's LeBron James passed Larry Bird Sunday and moved to No. 8 all-time in NBA playoff scoring. James isn't 30 yet. Think about that.
E. Speaking of James, Bill Laimbeer played at a time when Michael Jordan was coming into his own, redefining the game of basketball in the process. He played against Larry Bird's Boston Celtics and Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers teams of the decade and helped propel the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back titles in the late 1980s. Still, Laimbeer thinks James might have been the best even during his era. "There was no one like him physically in our time slot," Laimbeer told Sports Illustrated Now.
F. Dallas will remember that fourth-quarter collapse in Game 1 Sunday at San Antonio. The Mavericks had the Spurs on the ropes but couldn't score when it counted. That doesn't work against a team as clutch as the Spurs.
G. Indiana's funk continued in Game 1 Saturday in an embarrassing, confounding loss to Atlanta. The Pacers' body language was stunningly bad. Barring a turnaround, Indiana isn't going deep in these playoffs. Look for an offseason overhaul in Indianapolis. That team's chemistry is obviously caustic.
H. "That's why they got me here," Brooklyn's Paul Pierce yelled to no one in particular late in the Nets' win over Toronto Saturday. I can't wait for the Nets-Heat series. Can't. Wait.
I. Why do I not believe in the Clippers? Did you watch Saturday? They simply can't defend. Blake Griffin commits dumb fouls and when the 3-ball doesn't fall, they're pedestrian. I still think the Clippers will get past the Warriors, but I personally believe the Oklahoma City-Memphis winner beats Doc Rivers' club in the next round.
J. New commissioner Adam Silver made it clear last week that pushing back the league's age minimum from 19 to 20 is at the top of his list of priorities. Silver wants to enact new legislation to push that age limit into effect before the 2016 draft. Silver told ESPN.com the NBA and the NCAA have discussed creating some programs and provisions to help players stay in college longer as part of a way to get the union to accept the changes, including a "financial incentive for them to stay in college. That's been an option that has been raised over the years, but that's not something that is on the table right now." Silver said he's also talked to the NCAA about lowering the college shot clock from 35 seconds to something closer to the NBA's 24-second clock.
10. Who knew being a mascot could be so hazardous for your health? Mr. Met, the mascot of the New York Mets, was once in the crosshairs of snipers at the old Shea Stadium.
A.J. Mass served as Mr. Met from 1994 to 1997, which meant he was present for former President Bill Clinton's visit to Shea Stadium for the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking MLB's color barrier. In his new book, Yes, It's Hot in Here: Adventures in the Weird, Woolly World of Sports Mascots, Mass reveals a pretty interesting experience.
Mass was given strict orders by a Secret Service agent to steer clear of Clinton during the president's visit.
"Now listen to me very carefully," Mass writes in his book, quoting a Secret Service agent. "We have snipers all around the stadium, just in case something were to happen. Like I said, do whatever it is you normally do. Nobody will bother you. But approach the president, and we go for the kill shot. Are we clear?"
Crystal.
11. Why are sports important? The games, after all, really don't matter. Sports, do, however, give a community a chance to congregate in one place, support a common cause and --- at least for a few hours --- escape reality. Nineteen years ago this weekend, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing more than 200 people, including 19 children. Two decades later, that horrible act of terrorism resonates in the city. The memorial which sits at the site was wonderfully done. There's always a stillness and a peace at that place where an unspeakable act of violence once destroyed so many innocent lives.
Many in the city will tell you the Thunder's arrival helped Oklahoma City finally move on from the bombing. One of the team's mottos is "Rise Together." The Thunder organization takes every new player to the memorial before he plays his first game for the franchise. The purpose: Understand you're playing for something bigger than yourself. Sports might well be meaningless, but they can be oh so powerful.
Along those lines, the Boston Marathon will be run Monday morning, a little more than a year since two bombs rocked the city and claimed innocent life near the finish line. The running of the race won't erase the pain or sense of loss for the families of last year's tragedy. It won't provide closure.
However, the running of the race represents victory for the survivors and sends a statement to the perpetrators that good overcomes evil, and there's a certain amount of healing that comes with that declaration.
On Monday, thanks to a sporting event, we're all Bostonians, at least in spirit. Yahoo's Dan Wetzel expressed it better than I could. His column is linked below.
Happy Easter.
This post was edited on 4/21 8:44 AM by Neal McCready
The power of sports in midst of tragedy
