Ole Miss suffered through a disastrous week of sorts, losing at home to Georgia and then getting mauled a bit in the second half during a loss at LSU. With one week of the regular season remaining, the Rebels appear to be in the NCAA tournament field, but their standing is likely a bit precarious. Spring football is set to begin this week in Oxford, Major League Baseball's spring training games are set to begin, the NBA is approaching the stretch run and Malik Newman talked about a couple of potential choices. Thoughts on those topics and more follow here, thanks to Oxford-based RE/MAX agent Harry Alexander.
1. Two years ago, essentially on this very weekend, Ole Miss lost at Mississippi State, looking flat and listless and sloppy in the process. I wrote that team off in a postgame column and asked Andy Kennedy about his job security.
Two weeks later, that same team won the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville. I'm an idiot, I'll admit, but I try to learn from my mistakes. Case in point: I'm not making the same mistake twice regarding Ole Miss basketball.
The Rebels looked flat, listless and sloppy Saturday in Baton Rouge, blowing a first-half lead en route to a loss at LSU, one that came just days after a similar looking effort in a home loss to Georgia. Two years ago, the Rebels rebounded from that stinker in Starkville with a home win over Alabama and a road win at LSU to catapult them into the tournament in Nashville. This Ole Miss team heads to Alabama Tuesday and then plays host to Vanderbilt on Saturday night in the regular-season finale.
I'm not predicting two wins. I'm not predicting two losses. Hell, I'm no Jeffrey Wright here; I'm not predicting anything. I just won't be surprised if there's no panic, and I'll be shocked if there's an ounce of quit. Like I said, I learned my lesson 24 months ago.
"There's not a drill we're going to be able to do (Sunday) to change some of the things we do. We are what we are," Kennedy told Hugh Kellenberger of the Clarion-Ledger Saturday in Baton Rouge. "With us going to the Bahamas, we've been together since July. Guys that are struggling know they're struggling. I'm a big believer in owning it. Let's own it, and figure out how to fix it.
"I've coached this game and played this game for a number of years, and you know how you fix it? You see that ball go in the basket. You don't allow the negative to weigh you down. Your self-talk has to be positive, which is easier said than done when things are not going well, and you got to man up and close strong. That's what we're going to do."
Yes, it's really that simple. Ole Miss didn't shoot well last week, and when teams shoot poorly, they look flat and listless. In Baton Rouge, Ole Miss was 38.3 percent from the field as a team. Stefan Moody was just 3-of-16 from the field and 1-of-7 from 3-point range. Jarvis Summers was 1-of-7 from the floor, and 2-of-7 at the free throw line.
As Kellenberger wrote Sunday morning, Ole Miss is 17-3 when it shoots at least 40 percent from the field (the only losses are at Kentucky, Dayton and Georgia).
"Of course it's frustrating," Moody told the Clarion-Ledger. "At the end of the day it's all of us. The whole team. We all just got to play better."
2. There's no cause for panic, at least not yet. If the tournament were seeded today, Ole Miss would get in. The Rebels would likely be a No. 10 or 11 seed, but they'd get in. If Ole Miss can finish the season with a pair of wins this week, it would likely be safely in the field when it arrived in Nashville, regardless of what happened at the tournament. A loss would likely mean Ole Miss had work to do in Nashville. Two losses would, I'm guessing, be catastrophic. At this point, the Rebels can't give two thoughts to NCAA tournament seeding. Their resume is too flawed for that. At this point, it's a matter of just making the field and seeing what happens.
3. Ole Miss will begin spring football this week. Hugh Freeze will hold a press conference on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Practice that day is closed to the media. We were informed late last week we will have a schedule of media availability early this week. The Grove Bowl game is set for April 11. Anyone interested in playing offensive line in that game should contact the Ole Miss football office soon (I kid, I kid).
I'm not a major fan of spring football. It's typically kind of (read: Very) boring. I doubt that changes much this spring for a team where there aren't a ton of jobs on the line. However, there are some compelling story angles. Such as:
A. The three-man race for the starting quarterback job likely won't end this spring (again, I'm guessing, but I'd bet decent money on it). Ryan Buchanan and DeVante Kincade have had two years in the system, but let's not kid ourselves here; Ole Miss didn't sign Chad Kelly because they felt great about the future at quarterback.
B. Laremy Tunsil will almost certainly be out for the spring while he recovers from the injury suffered in the Peach Bowl. We'll find out Tuesday who else will be available this spring (Robert Conyers and Christian Morris and Daronte Bouldin and practically everyone with a jersey number between 50 and 79 had surgeries after the season. That lack of depth will make spring challenging.
C. Freshman Javon Patterson will likely get a long look this spring. There's a lack of depth at the position (get used to that sentence), and he's talented enough to contribute early.
D. Da'morea Stringfellow is eligible this season. Tee Shepard is healthy. Tony Bridges transferred into the program in January. There are high hopes around the program for all three.
E. The Rebels' pro day is Thursday. Senquez Golson and Cody Prewitt should hear their names called during the NFL draft, but the hope around the Ole Miss program has to be that when Roger Goodell reads those draft cards from the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft, there will be a heavy Ole Miss presence. Tunsil, Laquon Treadwell, Robert Nkemdiche and Tony Conner are all projected --- at least by some publications --- as first-round selections in 2016. Hugh Freeze could use that NFL exposure on the recruiting trail.
4. Malik Newman hears from plenty of college coaches. The five-star guard from Jackson, Miss., also hears from his peers.
Fellow elite prospects Isaiah Briscoe and Ben Simmons want Newman to join them at their respective future homes, Kentucky and LSU.
Newman wrote in his USA Today blog that he could win an NCAA title at either school playing alongside either one of his friends.
"My boy Briscoe hits me up about coming to Kentucky with him and my boy Ben is trying to get me to come with him to LSU," Newman wrote. "It makes sense that they would because those are a couple of the schools that I'm considering, and I feel like if I team up with any one of those guys we can win the national championship. I really believe that! They don't blow me up too much, but they'll definitely hit me and let me know that they want me there with them."
Newman is also considering Kansas, N.C. State, Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
"I don't even know when I'll be ready to make a decision, but I know the McDonald's game is a little over a month away and if I'm ready and comfortable about making a decision by then I would definitely think about doing it there," Newman wrote. "Right now I don't have any plans to do it though. I still have to take visits and I haven't set any dates or anything yet."
5. The NCAA's proposed concussion settlement has positives, but it doesn't go far enough because it fails to pay former college athletes if they are diagnosed with a brain injury, prominent concussion expert Dr. Robert Cantu, who also opposes the soon-to-be-approved NFL deal, told CBSSports.com's Jon Solomon this week in Birmingham, Ala.
If a federal judge eventually approves the NCAA settlement, Cantu will be one of five people on a committee that oversees a $70 million medical monitoring fund. The fund would cover diagnostic medical costs if a former athlete qualifies for testing based on a questionnaire, not the actual treatment, Solomon wrote.
"I think it's very unfortunate," Cantu told CBSSports.com. "Unfortunately, where it's left is these individuals are going to be able to be given the diagnosis and then they've got to sue either in a class or individually, and they either have to go after a given school, or if they want to include the NCAA they can. I think a lot of individual schools will get sued."
According to Solomon, a federal judge denied preliminary approval of the NCAA settlement in December and a status hearing is scheduled for April 17. The NFL went through a similar process and final approval of its settlement appears imminent.
6. I wondered a year ago how Max Scherzer could do it. How, I wondered, could a young man walk away from $144 million guaranteed.
Now I know the answer.
According to FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal, the 30-year-old Scherzer based his confidence upon an insurance policy that he had purchased to cover any potential lost earnings if he was injured before reaching free agency.
The policy would have provided him with $40 million tax-free if he suffered any type of injury that prevented him from receiving an offer below the Detroit Tigers' original $144 million proposal. The policy cost Scherzer $750,000. Scherzer signed with the Washington Nationals this past offseason for $210 million over the next seven years.
"Once you took the injury-risk factor out of it, and you can just go play baseball and not have to worry about anything, I was set," Scherzer told FoxSports.com. "When you combine that with the fact that I've already made some money in my career, you're talking $50-plus million in the bank, I think I'm going to be fine.
"In a way, I had already won. I was already set. I didn't have to worry about trying to pitch for a contract --- 'I have to pitch well this year, I have to stay healthy to get this deal.' --- I had taken all the risk out of it."
7. Aramis Ramirez announced earlier this week that this season will be his final one as a Major Leaguer. The Milwaukee Brewers' all-star third baseman made the decision when it came time to leave home --- and his 2-year-old daughter, Cristal Marie --- for spring training in Arizona.
"When I was leaving (home) this year, it was tough," Ramirez told the Chicago Tribune. "I don't think I can do that anymore. I promised my daughter this is the last time I leave her."
Ramirez, who began his career with Pittsburgh before being traded to the Cubs in 2003, has played 17 seasons in the majors. He's a career .285 hitter with 369 home runs and 1,342 RBI.
Barring a shocking season in Milwaukee, Ramirez will never play in the World Series. He got painfully close in 2003. Ramirez had a good view of Cubs teammate Moises Alou trying to grab Luis Castillo's slicing foul into the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. Asked if Alou would have caught the ball it if were not for Steve Bartman's infamous interference, Ramirez answered in the affirmative.
"I think so," Ramirez told the Chicago Tribune. "If he hadn't got in the way, he had a play. But that doesn't mean we were going to win it. We would probably have advanced to the World Series, but we have one more game to go."
Ramirez admitted that the play comes up all the time when he and Alou get together, but he said they don't blame Bartman.
"The ball was in the stands," Ramirez told the Chicago Tribune. "Any other fans that sit in that seat were going to reach for the ball. The ball was in the stands. Maybe they would have gotten seven straight hits (after that play). You just never know. In baseball you just never know what's going to happen. There's no guarantee. If he had made that play, we might not have won anyway. It was only a 3-0 game. You never know what's going to happen."
No, 11 ½ years afterwards, I'm not over it.
8. The Miami Marlins made national headlines this offseason by signing star outfielder Giancarlo Stanton to a 13-year, $325 million contract extension. Their most unusual winter acquisitions were never made public.
According to the Wall Street Journal, one was a private jetliner, customized to include training tables and first-class seats for the entire team. The other was an executive chef, whose job will be to prepare more nutritious meals for players.
Both moves, according to the WSJ, stemmed from October meetings in which team officials discussed a question that is vexing executives throughout Major League Baseball: How do we get players to better survive the slog of a 162-game season?
Last year, less than 9 percent of position players appeared in 150 or more games, the lowest such percentage in MLB history, according to Stats LLC. More and more, teams are trying to build rosters with enough depth to give their best players more days off. But that strategy hasn't done enough to keep their offenses from wearing down. According to Stats LLC, run scoring in September last year was seven percent lower than it was during March and April, twice as steep a decline as the historical norm.
The Marlins are trying to ease the toll of air travel and improve their players' diets. Other teams are consulting with sleep scientists to see if players' rest habits need to change. Why? As the WSJ wrote, "Hitters are increasingly sputtering on fumes by late summer. And teams are spending more time than ever trying to figure out what to do about it."
"It's such a part of the game now that you have to be mindful of and you have to respect," Michael Hill, the Marlins' president of baseball operations, told the WSJ. "It's a long season."
Baseball has been impacted by the ban on amphetamines that took effect in 2006.
"There used to be a phrase in baseball: Never go out there alone," former major-league pitcher Ron Darling told the Wall Street Journal. "That referred to amphetamines. It was an elixir or a friend that could take away all those insecurities you had from being fatigued."
Offense has also been impacted negatively by the increase in hard-throwing pitchers. The number of pitchers whose fastball velocity averages 95 mph or more is nearly double what it was in 2009, according to the statistical website FanGraphs. Throw in fatigue and day games after night games and "You worry sometimes during the season about the quality of play," Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said.
Last season, the Wall Street Journal reported, the Seattle Mariners hired a company called Fatigue Science to collect data on players' sleep habits. Players were given wristbands with software developed by the U.S. military to predict fatigue among pilots and soldiers based on their opportunities for sleep. Co-founder Pat Byrne said what he learned about baseball players surprised him.
"I thought, 'These guys have it pretty easy. They go to one city and stay there for three days,'" Byrne told the Wall Street Journal. "But their travel was way worse than I expected once we ran it through our software. They have much more severe issues than I expected."
The Marlins previously flew on standard United charter planes, with only about 16 first-class seats, Hill said. Most MLB teams have similar arrangements, but the Marlins wanted a more comfortable ride, so they had another air carrier customize a plane to their specifications. The St. Louis Cardinals, who share a spring-training complex with the Marlins, also have made nutrition a focus. The team has removed sodas and potato chips from the clubhouse and recently added a second nutritionist-chef to its cooking roster.
9. Russell Westbrook fractured his zygomatic arch (cheek bone) and will missed Sunday's game against the Los Angeles Lakers. Westbrook's injury came with two seconds left on Friday night in Oklahoma City's loss at Portland. It was ironic that it occurred in the final moments of February, as the month represented the best of Westbrook's career and likely catapulted the Thunder's all-star point guard into the MVP mix.
With Kevin Durant out for most of the month with foot problems, Westbrook had a historic run. Besides winning All-Star Game MVP honors in New York, Westbrook led Oklahoma City to a 9-3 mark. He averaged 31.2 points, 10.3 assists and 9.1 rebounds, becoming the second player in NBA history to average at least 30-10-9 for a calendar month (the other is Oscar Robertson).
Westbrook finished off the month with three consecutive triple-doubles. It's the first time anyone has done that since LeBron James in March 2009 and only the fourth time in the past 20 seasons (Jason Kidd in 2008, Grant Hill in 1997). No one in the NBA has had four consecutive triple-doubles since Michael Jordan in 1989. Westbrook closed out the month with six consecutive games of at least 10 assists. It's the longest streak of his career and the longest in the entire NBA this season. In 12 February games, Westbrook compiled an NBA-high 374 points. The next closest was James Harden with 267 (107 less).
Westbrook also finished February with 109 rebounds in the month, tops on the Thunder and ninth in the entire league. But all the players above him were post men: DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Hassan Whiteside, Joakim Noah, Nikola Vucevic, Greg Monroe, Al Horford and Pau Gasol. Among guards, Evan Turner's 80 February rebounds were the closest to Westbrook's 109. Among point guards, Eric Bledsoe's 66 rebounds were the closest.
Other thoughts from the week that was in the NBA:
A. If you want your team to stay healthy, don't let me buy tickets to one of their games. Since buying tickets to Thursday's Thunder game versus the Chicago Bulls in the United Center (a part of an upcoming boys' trip with my son, Carson), Westbrook, Durant and Derrick Rose have had surgeries, and on Sunday, Jimmy Butler was injured in the second quarter of the Bulls' loss to the Los Angeles Clippers and did not return. Perhaps I should buy season tickets from the Warriors, Rockets, Spurs and Grizzlies. Just a thought.
B. Westbrook probably won't win the MVP award. Houston's James Harden and Cleveland's James have much better chances, as does Golden State's Steph Curry. Harden scored 33 points in the Rockets' win over Cleveland on Sunday, one that was made possible in large part because of a pair of missed free throws by James in the final seconds. Houston is much better since the midseason acquisition of Josh Smith, allowing them to tread water while Dwight Howard misses time. Cleveland, meanwhile, played for the second straight time without guard Kyrie Irving, who injured a shoulder during a win last week over Golden State.
C. Kevin Garnett's return to Minnesota last week was just cool. I have no investment whatsoever and it got a little dusty in my study when I watched his pregame introduction in his first game back with his original franchise. To reciprocate, Garnett bought 1,000 tickets for Monday night's home game against the Clippers. Even cooler.
D. Rest in peace, Anthony Mason. Your time with those Knicks teams of Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, John Starks and yourself were fun to watch. Those bruising battles with the Bulls, Pacers and others were phenomenal.
10. I've blocked more people on Twitter than Serge Ibaka has blocked shots. Well, not really, but you get the point.
A lot of colleagues criticize me for not having a thicker skin. They brag about not blocking anyone, ever. Maybe they have the right philosophy; I just catch myself fighting back far too often. So I block in an effort to get away from the negativity. Turns out I may be on to something.
A new study shows a link between angry tweets and heart disease. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently analyzed 148 million county-mapped tweets from 1,347 counties. They compared "tweet sentiment" with other forms of data relating to atherosclerotic heart disease, or AHD.
According to NPR, the amount of "anger, hostility, and aggression on Twitter is better able to predict patterns of heart disease than 10 other leading health indicators, including smoking, obesity, and hypertension."
NPR notes that angry tweets may be the result of inhabiting stressful environments, and that the people sending these tweets may simply be feeding off the negative energy around them.
It's a lesson I'm trying to make myself learn: One can't rationalize with irrational people. Trying to do so, on Twitter or otherwise, is harmful to one's health.
Note: There won't be a 10 Weekend Thoughts next Sunday. I'm spending the weekend with Carson, as I mentioned earlier. Thoughts will return on March 15.
