LeBatard's Blunder

Interesting note I picked up from PFT today, especially considering it was regarding NCAA/NBA basketball and not the NFL. It was regarding comments made between ESPN's Jay Bilas and Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald on the subject of race in the NBA Draft.

If you read the papers frequently, you probably know Dan is one of the more opinionated writers in the country. He often takes the side of the athlete, imploring the readers to understand the athlete's point of view when faced with issues of celebrity misconduct and contract negotiations. I appreciate his style because it is refreshing; most sportswriters are quick to jump the gun and bemoan professional athletes from their pulpits. I despise that kind of journalism.

However, Dan's opinions are often very controversial. The race card is played frequently, despite the increasing lack of respect for that argument in America today. The comments in question were regarding Tyler Hansborough and his draft status. Le Batard argued that because he is white, and America typically doesn't produce elite white basketball players, Tyler will slip on draft board. Bilas was taken aback and disagreed vehemently enough that he flat out called it "stupid".

It's not often you see that kind of argument between guests on a radio show and their hosts. But it doesn't surprise me that this sort of issue provoked such a reaction. We are living in a PC world, yes, but Le Batard often stretches the boundaries of political correctness when he feels he speaks the truth. In this case, he is right in that American white players aren't exactly lighting it up in the NBA, so his argument is somewhat valid. It doesn't necessarily have to apply to Tyler, but it remains pretty accurate.

Of course, there are plenty of white players from other nations who are successful, so an argument singling out a race as being inferior at basketball might not hold water. The key here is that Dan said "American". Regardless, it's a slippery slope. It's too hard to pigeonhole guys just because of their race. Then again, if a trend shows one thing, then making the argument based on that trend is usually considered a valid process of reasoning. In this case, you'd need more evidence than "lack of good white players" to go out on a limb and say GMs will stay away from Tyler. Then it becomes more of an assumption that Dan isn't quite qualified to make.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting issue and thought I might bring it up to see what you guys think. I know Le Batard isn't liked (or even respected) by most sports fans, but I do respect his opinions.

Should Zo Retire?

We were all under the impression that this was Alonzo Mourning's final season, and when he went down with that nasty leg injury earlier in the year, we just assumed it was over for Zo. He has his ring and needs to focus on his longterm health for his family. Even Zo was heard saying it was over for him on the court.

However, Alonzo has progressed nicely through his rehab, and is said to be a month ahead of schedule. According to Israel Gutierrez, Mourning has said "time is going to dictate my basketball future." Doesn't sound like he is retired to me.

Personally, he should have retired after the Dallas series. He dominated defensively and defined his legacy on the Heat. It would have been perfect to ride out in a blaze of glory. Instead he returned for this smoldering heap of garbage. That being said, with the right moves, the Heat could be back in contention as soon as next season. If he feels he's still got it, and his health hasn't been negatively affected at all, then I'm all for it.

But I'm greedy. Zo really needs to consider his family and his future above all. Hopefully he will make the best decision.

Dolphins LB Chatter

Just saw that both the Herald and Sentinel Dolphins blogs address the Dolphins' options at linebacker in the upcoming NFL Draft. Both suggest that Chris Long may no longer be the frontrunner as the #1 selection because Miami has been bringing in guys like Quentin Groves and Tavares Gooden for workouts.

I would agree with their assessments. Long is great, but is he that much better than the next level of guys available in rounds 2 or 3? I personally think Lawrence Jackson is a beast and would be a great pickup in the 2nd round. Same for Gator-killer Quentin Groves. I support Tavares as he is a Cane, but I don't think he is an option for this team because he doesn't fit the bill as an outside linebacker in a 3-4. Not big enough.

Assuming this is where the Dolphins are going, I would hope this means they are seriously considering Jake Long or trading down at a bargain price instead of drafting Matt Ryan. At this point I don't care if we get equal value according to some dumb trade value chart. I just want to stockpile picks and fill the holes in our roster. Jake Long would be a fine pick. Nothing special, but a good addition to the line. Matt Ryan would be disastrous. For some reason, I keep seeing a number of mock drafts that have Matt as our #1 selection. I don't know why anyone would think we are interested in an interception machine, especially considering he isn't a consensus 1st-round grade, much less Top 5 material.

Rose Chokes, Memphis Loses

Well, I wouldn't say choked. But Derrick Rose did have a chance to ice the game last night and failed miserably. Without him, Memphis wouldn't have been in the position to win, but it was still disappointing to see him miss a free throw that would have sealed the deal and the title. Eerily reminiscent of the Game 6 free throws that Dwyane Wade missed. Luckily, Miami pulled off the victory anyway. Not so for the unfortunate Tigers, who I felt looked like the better team (but not by much).

It goes to show that one moment doesn't have to make or break a player's career. Rose is one of the top 2 talents in the draft, and most people seem to think he is the logical selection for the Heat if he is available. 18 of the 23 people who voted on the poll on this site preferred Rose over Beasley. I would venture to say that Riley will likely select Rose if we have the option. He just fits a bigger need and is the best option to play with Wade long-term.

I have to say I'm impressed with Rose overall. He looked like he had a killer instinct late in the game, save for the missed free throw. His penetrating ability is excellent and he might be the best rebounding guard I've seen come out in some time. He would be a huge asset to the Heat and even if Michael Beasley ends up being a superstar, I would feel comfortable drafting Derrick Rose.

Canes Ranked #1

As predicted yesterday, Arizona State's loss to Stanford propelled Miami to the top of the polls. Miami is on top of most of the major polls that have been released so far, including Baseball America, USA Today/ESPN, and Rivals. The NCWBA poll should also have Miami #1 (had us #2 last week), but has yet to be released.

It's a great honor for Jim Morris and his boys down in Coral Gables. However, I have to stress that they need to continue to be focused and consistent in order to have a successful season. This #1 ranking means little if the Canes can't at least make it deep into the College World Series. From a roster like this, I would expect nothing less than title contention. So far, they have kept up to their billing.

The Canes will now have a couple of cupcake games against Florida Gulf Coast and FAU before heading to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech in a road ACC series. This should be Miami's first real test in some time. The Yellow Jackets have been ranked as high as 14th as of last week, and recently split a double-header with UNC.

EDIT: The Gators are now ranked 21st and the Yellow Jackets are 19th. NC State is 27th, so our only two losses have come against fringe Top 25 teams. That makes the resume look much better now that UF and NC State are getting some more recognition nationally. As of last week, Miami had played 0 games against the Top 25 at the time.

Riley Selected into Hall of Fame

No-Brainer #2 of the day was the selection of coach Pat Riley into basketball's Hall of Fame today. It's been a tough year, but Riley surely will get some solace from receiving this honor. I can't imagine many people more deserving of the honor than Riley.

He's won 5 titles as coach with 2 different teams, most recently leading our beloved Heat to the 2005-2006 NBA Championship. Riley also holds the NBA record for most victories as a coach, currently with 1208. What makes Riley exceptional is his years of experience handling talented teams and balancing the egos on those rosters. He is a master motivator, with a seemingly endless supply of techniques and ploys to help complacent or indifferent players back on the path to success. Without him, Miami doesn't win the 2005 title. Stan Van Gundy wouldn't have been able to pull those guys together and help spark a comeback in the Finals.

Riley will be inducted along with All-Time greats Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, two dominant centers that faced off against each other as Riley coached in the 1994 NBA Finals between the Rockets and Knicks. It's good company to have. Also, Dick Vitale, a staple of College Basketball telecasts, will be inducted in the Hall of Fame. Annoying as he may be, that honor is well-deserved as well.

Haith Gets His Extension

Kirby Hocutt has made an impact on UM athletics and he hasn't even officially taken over the AD position yet. It was pretty much a no-brainer, but we have to be happy that Hocutt and President Donna Shalala recognized the need to lock down Frank Haith. Without him, this program would slip back into obscurity. Haith needed a couple of years to bring in his own kids and produce the results we were looking for when we hired him from Texas, but it finally paid off with a nice run in the NCAA Tournament.

The extension runs through the 2012-2013 season, though the contract numbers weren't released. Hopefully they are paying him well, because if Miami continues its rise to the top of the ACC standings, other teams will come looking for Haith to rejuvenate their own programs. It's imperative that we keep him here. With the heralded young kids coming in to replace King and Hicks, this team should be even better next season than they were this year.

That being said, Round of 32 is what we should expect from this team. Until we sign several McDonald's All-Americans, it would be hasty to expect Sweet 16 or above. Sure, there are Cinderella stories, but we can't bank on being a surprise team in the tournament. Haith needs to get Kenny Boynton on this team and establish a trend where the top players will seriously recognize this program. Miami has a lot to offer that other schools don't. The only thing we lack is basketball tradition. A lot of kids couldn't care less about history, they just want to play where they can win. I think we can do that here in Coral Gables.

Canes Complete Sweep of Tigers

Miami didn't have an easy time of it this weekend. Despite the fact they swept the series, all 3 games were competitive until the very end. Last night's game was blown open late by an offensive barrage and tonight's game wasn't very different, as the Canes pulled off a 7-6 victory.

The bats have been there this weekend, but for some reason our pitching staff has been struggling to get it done. Freshman Chris Hernandez turned in a subpar performance on Friday and Enrique Garcia returned to his early season form yesterday. The starting pitching kept Clemson in the games and we were lucky enough to drive in enough runs to come out of the weekend unscathed.

It's nitpicking, but if Miami plans on being a title contender, they have to be consistent against top competition. Clemson is good but nothing special. If you have trouble against their lineup, then how will you fare against UNC or FSU? That's the only downside to Miami's season so far. They haven't really been tested by an elite team yet. Once we see them dominating top talent, then I think it will be fair to make them the favorites to win the CWS.

Speaking of that, #1 ranked Arizona State got blasted earlier this weekend by Stanford, so there's a chance that Miami will become the consensus #1 team in the country. I'm not sure I would drop ASU if I were a voter, considering their schedule hasn't been as easy as ours but they've managed to stay dominant as well. But since I don't have a vote, don't be surprised to see the Canes ranked #1 if they don't stumble before the next polls come out.

Rose Looking Good Tonight

Right now it would be hard to make the case that Miami would be making a mistake by taking Derrick Rose over Michael Beasley. I don't think you can go wrong with either, but Rose is looking very impressive against UCLA tonight. He has excellent driving ability and can finish at the basket. He also is very aggressive on the boards and can find the open man. He really is the perfect point guard to be paired up with Dwyane Wade.

I think I would be leaning towards Rose now because of who Dwyane Wade is. Beasley is a special talent, but he won't be taking any of the ballhandling duties from Wade. We've seen this season that Dwyane desperately needs a good point guard who can get him the ball. When he is forced to create for himself and for his below-average teammates, Wade gets reckless and turns the ball over. Beasley would be a scoring option, but he wouldn't dominate the ball. Rose can handle the point guard duties, letting Wade do his thing.

That's probably the tiebreaker between the two prospects, assuming of course that we get the #1 pick. As you've seen, we aren't guaranteed even a Top 3 selection, something that is required if we want any shot of drafting Derrick Rose. With the news that Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, and Jerryd Bayless are going pro, Miami will have plenty of solid options at #3 or #4 in that scenario. I don't know if any of those guys will make the immediate impact that either Rose or Beasley could make, and in that case I would consider trading down or packing the pick for something useful.

Marlins and Canes Win on Walk-Offs

Pretty rare coincidence occurred last night, and no it didn't have anything to do with the fact the Marlins actually won a game. Instead, it was how they won. Florida topped the Pittsburgh Pirates on a walkoff home run by Mike Jacobs to put their record back at 500. Likewise, the Canes were in a bitter battle with the Clemson Tigers before Yonder Alonso's 2-run shot in the 9th capped things off.

The Marlins are doing a decent job so far of not getting blown out of the ballpark, but I don't expect them to stay at 500 for too long. Their entire offense consists of home runs. To have a consistently good team you probably need to have more guys who bat for average than for power. We don't have that on this roster.

The Canes had a rare competitive game against an opponent that wasn't about to lay down for them. Miami has been flat out dominant this season and hasn't had to play in too many tight games. Last night proved that they are fully capable of performing when the pressure is on. It's easy to slam 15 runs in when you're up by 10 or more runs, but how good can you be when the game is on the line? I guess we saw last night. Good job guys.

On one last note, I read something about Jemile Weeks supposed to have been suspended for the game for breaking team rules, but later appeared as a pinch hitter. I'm not sure about that situation except that I think the decision to play Weeks was up to Jim Morris and not the ACC. Otherwise we might see some relatively nasty repercussions. I wouldn't make much of it for now, though.

Official Lottery Odds

So much for my bad math. Apparently they do remove the lottery balls of selected teams before the next lottery selection is drawn. These are the official official numbers, per Ira, assuming we don't blow it and win 5 games in the closing stretch.

Top Pick: 25% and our selection is either Beasley or Rose.
Top Two Pick: 46.5% and it's probably Rose.
Top Three Pick: 64.3% and frankly, I don't know. Unless we get lucky and Memphis is ahead of us (they won't need Rose), then we are looking at either D.J. Augustin or Brook Lopez or God knows who.

Should the Dolphins Pass?

Much has been made about the possibility that Miami will simply let the clock expire and let someone else pick #1 overall. I find this an intriguing option. The sheer amount of guaranteed money that we'd have to give to Chris Long or Jake Long or whoever is insane. An unproven rookie instantly becomes one of the Top 25 paid players in the NFL. I think there is something seriously wrong with the way rookies are getting paid right now.

Letting the Rams pick ahead of us would be optimal. I don't believe the Rams are big on Chris Long and they would rather draft Jake Long or Glenn Dorsey. That way, we could still land the guy we seemingly want and pay him less. Heck, the Falcons might take Matt Ryan next and let us slip down to 3. The Raiders might target Darren McFadden. And so on. The reality is that the top 6 prospects in this draft grade out pretty evenly and Miami shouldn't have a strong preference over any of them. At this point I would rather be the Jets with the #5 pick than the Dolphins with the first.

Even if the guy we want is taken by the time we would hypothetically jump back into the draft, there are still players who can make an impact. Someone like Vernon Gholston might fall all the way down to 6 or 7. I sure as hell would rather draft him then and pay him half of what you would have to if he were the top pick.

The only problem I see with this situation has nothing to do with bad PR. What I foresee is a long holdout for whoever we pick. Remember the Philip Rivers/Eli Manning trade? The Chargers had the #1 pick and traded it for the 4th so they could take Rivers. Philip's agent subsequently argued that the Chargers had effectively rated Rivers #1 overall and demanded Rivers get paid like the #1 pick. I don't believe they got the same deal Manning got, but Rivers was compensated more because of the circumstances.

Any guy we draft will argue that we could have had them at #1 and that they were our target all along, therefore they should be paid as a quasi-#1. It would be hard to argue against that thanks to the precedent set by the Rivers trade. We would end up having to overpay a #2-#5 pick instead of overpaying for a #1. It does save us some money in the long run, because there is no way a #2-#5 pick will get paid the same as the top overall selection, but it's still a bit counterproductive because agents are greedy.

Canes Prepare for FIU, Clemson

The nearly consensus 2nd ranked Miami Hurricanes baseball team is about to face off against in-town rival FIU. The Canes are coming off a nice weekend, with a pair of victories over Duke in Durham and a solid thumping of FAU yesterday. The 22-2 Canes have won 9 straight.

Miami opened the series against Duke with an uncharacteristically poor performance by freshman lefty Chris Hernandez. Leave it to me to jinx him by dubbing him the pitching staff's MVP over the first half of the season. Hernandez started off strong but had a rough 5th inning and blew the team's 5-0 lead. He went deep into his pitch count (102) before being relieved in the 7th by Kyle Bellamy and Carlos Gutierrez. Luckily, the Canes' offense is good enough to bail out our young studs when they have off days and Miami rallied to win in extra innings.

Saturday's game was the complete opposite, with Enrique Garcia making me look foolish once again. Garcia shined against the Blue Devils after I had pointed out his season long struggles. Miami topped Duke 8-1 thanks to Garcia's strong performance and a balanced attack throughout the entire lineup. I'm glad Enrique had a good outing, but looking deeper into it, even in his struggles he hadn't lost a game all season. None of our starters have.

Game 3 was canceled due to inclement weather. No biggie there as it gives the Canes' arms an extra day to rest. Miami has been so dominant of late that most of these games have become a formality. I really want to see how they do against FSU and UNC because despite our success, none of the victories have come against teams in the Top 25. #1 ASU in comparison has 6. That's why we haven't been able to crack the top spot.

Marlins Win First of the Season

You can thank Pedro Martinez's strained hamstring for tonight's victory, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get. This team isn't making the playoffs, but it's not like the NFL or NBA where you might want your team to tank the season in hopes of getting a better pick. The baseball draft is such a crapshoot that I prefer the Marlins just win their games rather than hope for a Top 5 selection. What I want is moot really, seeing as how they will probably have a top pick anyhow, but whatever.

In any case, it was nice to see the young guys pull out a win against the NL favorites to go to the World Series. The Marlins won on a 10th inning walk-off HR by 3rd baseman Robert Andino, his first career home run. I was actually expecting Andino to be a major factor at 3rd base this season with Miguel Cabrera gone. I had heard he was a top prospect a couple of years ago and just assumed the Marlins would move Cabrera to 1st and eventually bring Andino up. I'm not sure how he lost the job to Jorge Cantu (a terrible defensive player), but then again I don't know everything about our farm system.

I'm happy that the bullpen managed to hold the tough Mets lineup under control long enough to let the Marlins pull off the victory. That was certainly unexpected. Now we can expect to see Andrew Miller's Marlins debut tomorrow against Oliver Perez.

Crean to IU

Why is this important? The fate of the Indiana University basketball program usually has little to do with South Florida sports (unless you are talking about Devin Ebanks, but he's not coming here), but tonight there is an interesting twist that might make the exception. Marquette coach Tom Crean has been pegged to replace Kelvin Sampson at Indiana next season.

If you remember, it was Crean that coached Dwyane Wade back in 2003 when Marquette went to the Final Four before getting bounced by Kirk Hindrich and the Kansas Jayhawks. It had been suggested somewhere in the media recently that Crean might be an interesting option as the future head coach of the Miami Heat. Pat Riley's status for the next season is still unknown, and catering to your star player might have proven a wise move, considering the fact the team is still in rebuilding mode.

Now that option has been taken away. Not that it was ever a viable choice, but still it makes for a good reminder that it's still up in the air as to who Miami's coach will be next season. I would like Riley to return and fulfill his contract, but eventually the reins have to be handed over to Erik Spoelstra if he really is the prodigy everyone makes him out to be.