Holy crap! A new post!

So, I've neglected this thing for... a long time now, and I really want to try to get back in the habit of updating it regularly with my random thoughts/musings about sports and life.  There are a number of things I want to talk about here, but I think I'm going to focus on something that I personally found as a let down this year.

The men's and women's NCAA tournament.

I know right away everyone is going "How the hell were you NOT happy with the tourny this year?"  Well, the problem for me with the men's tournament was that it ended up with a UConn/Kentucky title game.  I've told many people many times before how much I simply despise John Calipari, so rooting for Kentucky was out, and I have never liked UConn, especially after all the crap that Jim Calhoun got away with at the end of his career.

That's right you dirty bastard, you made me hate UConn.

I don't care if he hasn't coached the team in two years, he really soured me on the team.  I'm not going into specifics here on why I can't stand Calhoun/Calipari, because I don't want this post to be over 10,000 words long, and it will very quickly turn into angry badness, and I'm not feeling that today.

So with these two teams in the Championship game after an otherwise awesome tournament, I really could care less.  I didn't watch the game, I found out who won the next day, I've yet to see any highlights, I really don't care, and that's REALLY rare for me.  I didn't even watch the absolutely worst song ever played over a highlight reel that is featured after every tournament.  These two teams battling it out really made me not care that much.

But all of this pales in comparison to how I feel about the Women's tournament.  Yes, like the vast majority of America, I didn't watch a single minute of it, but I feel obligated to comment on it after reading a recent article discussing why this dominant UConn team is good for women's basketball.  (I can't find the article again, though I am finding more and more that correspond with what I'm about to say.)

Yet another one

UConn is absolutely terrible for women's basketball.  Women's basketball already has a nasty stigma attached to it of being a boring game, and having one team that is absolutely worlds better then everyone else makes every game even more boring.  Why bother watching anything when you know who will eventually win?  It's not even a guessing game.  Several years ago I filled out a women's tournament bracket to test a theory I had.  I went all chalk, not a single upset, had all the one seeds in the final four.  I wound up getting over 90% of the bracket correct, including the final four and eventual champion.  It is the best I have ever done for any bracket in all of these years of filling them out.  There is simply no parity in the women's game, and it is very unfortunate.  We also are doomed to see more of this in the college ranks, as every good women's player goes to a select few schools.  UConn, Notre Dame, Stanford, Baylor, Tennessee... and that's it.  No one else stands a chance.  The overall talent level that exists outside of the few superstars in both the women's college and pro ranks is very poor as well, which makes it so one player can come in and absolutely destroy everyone singlehandedly.

Don't believe me?

Say hello to Candace Parker.

Hi Candace!

Candace Parker attended the Univeristy of Tennessee, and played under the legendary Pat Summit.  Parker is one of the few women's athletes to have left school early to pursue a professional career in her sport.  Why did she do that?

Because no one was better then her.  At any level.  She entered the WNBA draft where she was drafted #1 overall by the Los Angeles Sparks.  In her first ever professional game, she had 34 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 assists.  Lines like that that are as impressive as they are balanced don't happen in a sport where the talent level is even.  She was better then everyone.  She went on to win the rookie of the year and MVP awards.  The only other athlete I can think of in any sport to accomplish that duo is this guy:

I-CHI-RO!

In 2001 as a 27 year old rookie who had played for nearly a decade in Japan, he came into the league as a "rookie" and walked away with that crown and the MVP.  Ichiro is a unique exception to the rule, and given that he wasn't a teenager walking into the league, but rather an actual veteran who was only a rookie by the loosest of terms is why this double whammy happened.

So that's why I don't watch women's basketball.  It quickly becomes a game of 1-1 with the two best players on the court, and they play sloppy and don't dunk.

But Jake, you just talked about Candace Parker!  She dunks!  She even won the high school dunk contest!

Yes she did.  But I watched that contest.  It wasn't impressive.  And she truly only won because she's a girl.  Don't believe me?  Watch this and tell me who you think won.  She dunks the same way I do.  Barely.

So after all that bitterness, I leave you with the best story of the tournament, and I only do this because the inevitable ending happened on April 8th.  I've always liked Michigan State (I'm a Tom Izzo fan) and this just made me like them more.

Lacey passed away late Tuesday night at her St. Johns Michigan home.  She was held by her parents as she passed.