Hockey done right

Ed. note: As you guys may or may not have noticed, I know very little about hockey. But that hasn’t stopped me from being a longtime Stars fan. Now, I try to keep this blog as much about sports as possible without all the talking heads content mostly because ESPN has like 50 channels now. But there’s one exception to this rule and that’s hockey. ESPN has nothing on me or better yet B-Kizzle. The man knows his shit.

So I asked Senor Kizzle to provide us with some analysis on our Dallas Stars’ matchup against the Detroit Red Wings (what the hell are Red Wings anyways? Sure hope it’s not the urbandictionary definition…) and here’s what transpired.

Not since 2000 have I been watching the NHL playoffs so intently in May. And even better, I know that the assholes in Anaheim are bored right now because of the team I follow, and the same for San Jose (just kidding, Shark Tank, you guys stay classy).

(But still AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSS BRENDEN MORROW)

A-Rod is also a crybaby.

Since I’ve never been apart of child birth, at least not on the catching end, I don’t know much about it. Hollywood and Santa Claus believers tend to think it’s beautiful, magical and a positively life changing experience. But I know that in reality, the creature that comes out resembles more of an alien than a human. Which begs the question, will he/she be so gross that he/she will cause me to hurl or in A-Rod’s case, faint?

But then again, karma may have finally caught up to him and the baby looks something like this: UPDATE: New better pic!

I’m awesome at photoshop.

Back with a bang

There has been a lack of posts the last three weeks which is like three years in blog time. But don’t worry dear readers, Practice and Playoffs? is very much alive. In fact, I may have a few guest writers on so that I can build my fortune and cash a $360,000,000,000 check.

Even though I’ve been busy with school and have stopped updating, don’t think I haven’t been paying attention. In the last 24 hours, there really has only been one thing on my mind: BRENDAN MORROW!

What a stud…

Jose likes softball

During the commercial breaks yesterday of the Suns-Spurs game, I was flipping through different channels and caught Jose Canseco on The Best Damn Sports Show. Now like I said, I was merely channel surfing so please don’t judge me and insult my taste in my choice of TV shows. (In fact, I’d like to think I have good taste in what I watch, two of my favorites came back from the writer’s strike yesterday.)

But as I was saying, Canseco was on a terrible FOX show, (surprise right?) and the questions that you expected were asked. “Did A-Rod really cheat on your wife?”, “Do you stand by your statement that A-Rod used steroids?”, blah blah blah. Other than coming of like the complete douchebag that we all know and love, he seemed to try to come off as the victim because baseball has “black-balled him”.

Postseason disappointment

Since I’m a pretty die hard Braves fan and longtime Stars fan, I’m pretty much immune to postseason heartbreaks. And no I’m not whining about why my teams always get so close and lose because I realize Pirates, Browns, and fans of other annual doormat teams would trade places with me any day.

But after jumping on the Memphis bandwagon after they beat the Longhorns, that championship game for the ages was a little upsetting. That may or may not have to do with my recent man crush admiration I’ve developed for Derrick Rose but to see them lose on free throws made me want to hurl.

Guys, seriously? Free throws? I never understood why even some NBA players have so much trouble with free throws, and I think we would all agree that it’s definitely one of the easiest parts of basketball. And for a team like Memphis to collectively suck at the line is just mind boggling. I mean come on, even a little girl can do it. Although, making 84 out of 100 is damn impressive. Way to go Libby.

Making up for last week

Aside from the great weekend of games, last week was a pretty slow sports week both in news and in relevant games. Here’s a rundown of my favorite stories from last week.

• By now you’ve probably all seen these photos of Matt Leinart partying with 19 and 20 year old coeds. A lot of people made a big deal about this, saying how this isn’t the way a franchise QB is supposed to act blah blah. But seriously, let the man be! He really hasn’t done jack in the NFL so who knows if he’ll be around much longer. Before you know it, he’ll end up just like any other douche partying it up with underagers. The real question we should be asking is what the hell is Nick Lachey doing at these parties? You’re 34 man, about time to move on from the frat days. And in case you thought, Matt is discriminatory, well he likes guys too. On a sidenote, Alex Smith decided to do his best Leinart impression. Again another prospect that hasn’t done jack.

Final four wrapup

Wow. What a weekend. I’m really surprised that I got any work done.

What an amazing final four. What a slate of NBA games. What did I do this weekend? Well you guys get the picture.

The first ever “all four #1 seeds” final four did not disappoint. Once everyone got past the mystique of UCLA and their 11 national titles, anyone who’s seen this Memphis team play this season will quickly realize that these Tigers are no pushover. Their swagger, their attitude and their confidence are all apart of who they are. These Tigers have really bought into Coach John Calipari’s war cry of “no one believes in us”.

I’ve said this many times and I will say it again. College basketball is all about guard play. It’s really as simple as if you have the best guards playing the right style, you have a real good shot of winning it all. And the Tigers have just that with Derrick Rose and CDR.

Assuming Rose enters this year’s NBA draft, he should be the #1 pick. So listen up Miami, Seattle, Minnesota or whichever team ends up with the #1 pick. Don’t make the same mistake the Hawks’ and Bucks’ made in the 2005 draft when they passed on Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Sure Michael Beasley is a hell of a player in his own right but Derrick Rose has “sure thing superstar” written all over him. And the best part: it’s all happening in front of our very eyes. I can’t wait to see him play in tonight’s game and in the NBA.

Baseball opening day

Before I attempt to write the shortest baseball season preview ever, let me mention a few things regarding the Memphis-Texas game. As sad it is for me to say it but I don’t think we could’ve beaten those guys even on our best day. It didn’t help that we played tight from the very beginning and the Tigers looked like a Rucker league team back in the playgrounds. I was concerned with how the Horns were going to handle the Tigers’ back court size but I had no idea it was going to give them that much trouble.

And Derrick Rose. My god, that boy can play ball. I was hoping his cut wouldn’t stop bleeding because his paranoia of needles was probably the only thing that could’ve helped the Horns. The Memphis Tigers are just better, plain and simple. And I hope that D.J. comes back for one more year but it’s pretty unlikely.

So onto the baseball preview.

Big men are funny

After shopping with Greg Oden last week, we now find Greg playing pickup games with us little people (literally). Of course the no fun league known as the NBA, freaks out because the next big superstar could have sacrificed his career.

NBA, calm yourselves. Being someone that plays pickup basketball games on a regular basis, the Trail Blazers have nothing to worry about. Oden doesn’t have to jump to make a shot, block a shot or anything for that matter. At UT, I’ve played a pickup game with Dexter Pittman when he was buried on the Longhorn bench and all my teammates probably had like 50 assists. Now take Dexter and add about 50 pounds, 5 inches and more athleticism, and you’ve got Oden who really can be sleeping while he plays against us scrubs.

What’s wrong with a player coming back from a severe injury that I’m sure lowered his confidence to regain some of that juice by playing with us untalented folk? We welcome him dunking on us.

Dallas teams in chaos

Imagine this: the Dallas Mavericks don’t make the playoffs.

Is it possible that the team that was one game from winning the title two years ago will miss the playoffs this year? Is it possible that the reigning MVP’s team will be sitting at home come post season?

Well Mavs’ fans, meet reality and as they say, the truth hurts.

After watching the entire Mavs/Nuggets game tonight, I now understand why they’re 0-9 against teams with winning records after the Kidd trade. The offense is just wrong. (And yes I would be happy to coach the Mavs if Cuban asks me to).