The NCAA tournament and other hijinks
While everyone's talking about sports scandals, how about this for a new one...I think bubble teams that didn't make it into the NCAA round of 64 have a major bone to pick with the selection committee. I'm not qualified to say whether or not the Iowa Hawkeyes belong in the tournament, while teams like DePaul, Maryland, Notre Dame, and Buffalo don't, but I hope everyone is aware that Iowa's Athletic Director, Bob Bowlsby, heads the selection committee. Somebody has to, but Bowlsby is a permanent fixture on this board. Shouldn't there be a rotating group of selectors representing each of the eligible institutions?
Bowlsby obviously benefits if his University benefits, but in this particular year, the Hawkeye's selection may have a significant impact on Bowlsby's future employment. The success of Iowa's football team has probably secured Bowlsby's position for the foreseeable future, but the heat is on from the standpoint of the school's basketball team. The Hawkeye fans that I work with, almost to the person, want head coach Steve Alford out. For these fans, the new best-case scenario resulting from yesterday's selection is that Alford will now be considered a valuable coaching asset again by his alma mater, Indiana. The Hoosiers were a bubble-team not selected, which increases the likelihood that they will be pursuing a new coach. The anti-Alford crowd now fears, however, that Alford will serve out the rest of his contract, which runs, I believe, until 2009.
These are all interesting scenarios, but why is Alford's boss in charge of determining which teams get picked, and why is he in charge every year? Why is no one else talking about this? I think the whole thing stinks.
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Thursday stands to be a big day in baseball's history with the beginning of the Congressional Hearings on steroids. The "witch-hunt" is underway, and I use that word without knowing for sure that McGwire is innocent of the charges of steroid use. Unfortunately, he's already been convicted in the court of public opinion despite the lack of any evidence, so even if the Committee leaders deny they were interested in a "witch-hunt," we can already see the results.
After Saturday's report in the New York Daily News that McGwire was linked to a federal investigation in the early '90s, I now believe it is necessary for McGwire to meet the committee and answer their questions publicly.
On this blog, we are McGwire fans, and we will continue to take him at his word until evidence is presented to the contrary, but Mark is being fried in the media. I've advocated in the past that McGwire stick to his simple, written denial in February, if he is, in fact, innocent. Even if he testified, I thought, there would still be too many people willing to believe the word of a a jealous, vindictive ex-teammate, and a group of criminals over his own.
Sorry to say, it now appears that any good will McGwire may have earned by his actions on the field is insignificant because his employer, Major League Baseball, is so universally distrusted, and rightly so. I'll have more on this topic later in the week.
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Sad news from Omaha and Hollywood, the Associated Press reports our favorite film director, Alexander Payne, and his wife, actress Sandra Oh, have decided to separate. The parting is amicable, we're told, but this puts a real damper on the arrival of "Sideways" on DVD, April 5th (complete with behind-the-scenes featurette, 8 deleted scenes, audio commentary by stars Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, theatrical trailer, and 3 Easter Eggs.)
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Long weekend. I haven't taken this much time between postings since we started. I've been clearing my head watching some films on DVD. The extras on these things can be extraordinary. What an age we live in for movie and television buffs. "Pulp Fiction" is a particularly great package, with the addition of a "Siskel and Ebert" show from 1993, and a Tarantino interview on "Charlie Rose" from that same time.
The "Citizen Kane" box takes the cake, though, so far. There are two different commentary tracks, one by Welles biographer and "Sopranos" star Peter Bogdanovich and one by Roger Ebert. The box is worth the price if only for the inclusion of the 2 hour documentary feature, "The Battle over Citizen Kane."
The best audio commentary I've ever heard: "Night Court" creator Reinhold Weege on the show's pilot episode. He only has 23 minutes to give us behind-the-scenes info, but he's spitting it out at twice the normal human talking speed. Good stuff.
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Final Four teams: Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Wake Forest, and North Carolina. Mark it down.
posted by CM @ 7:31 PM
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