THIS and that to chew on over lunch: Tulsa, Fresno tussle
will be fun to watchThe best game of the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament just might be tomorrow's matchup between Tulsa and Fresno State.
The Golden Hurricane are coming off a sweep of the three Texas schools and have the best defensive player in the conference, senior forward Michael Ruffin. Junior post player Brandon Kurtz led the team in scoring during WAC play.
Those two, along with swingman Marcus Hill, will have to offset the athleticism and savvy of Fresno State's Chris Herren and Courtney Alexander, who for my money is the second best player in the conference -- behind Andre Miller, of course.
Herren lit up Colorado State yesterday and Hawaii fans saw up-close what Alexander can do.
The winner will probably play Utah in the semifinals. I'm not sure Tulsa can handle the Utes. Fresno on the other hand, has enough pure talent to hang with them or maybe even win on a neutral floor.
So, the Department of Education might have to cut about from $2.4 million from its athletics budget under one of two plans being being floated by Superintendent Paul LeMahieu.
That's the best-case scenario.
Worst-case is the elimination of the entire athletics budget.
That's pretty drastic. Makes you wonder, where is the phantom $150 million surplus?
You remember. During last fall's campaign, Gov. Cayetano said the state had that much extra money lying around. Maybe the key word there was "lying."
I did a little arithmetic and discovered something deliciously coincidental. If the legislators' pay was cut from its current $32,000 a year to, say, $10,000 per bi-annual session, that would save about $2.05 million.
Meeting every other year would be plenty. It was always meant to be a public service, not a pocket-padding career.
Why can't legislators do twice as much in half the time for a third of the money?
Sound rough?
Sounds about like what they're telling those in public school athletics to do.
Somehow, I always knew losing my brother's autographed baseball would cost me.
Yesterday, I was proven correct when Orlando Cepeda was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame.
During the 1973 season, my brother tracked down a ball one Sunday afternoon during batting practice before a Twins-Red Sox game at old Met Stadium.
Cepeda happily autographed it that day.
Two summers later I was going to play a pick-up game at the park and, like an idiot, I took the ball with me. It was the first one I could find and I thought for sure that I'd just play a little warm-up catch with it and that would be that.
Well, that was the last I remember seeing the ball. I'm sure I left it somewhere on Diamond 1 at Hughes Field.
Sorry, Jack. What can I say? If I had known then what I know now ... I probably would have done the same thing.
Hey, I was 13.
Dennis Rodman sure seems to be the right tonic for the formerly Lost Angeles Lakers.
Naming Kurt Rambis head coach was the right move, too.
Rodman and Rambis. On the surface, it seems like an unlikely pairing. But who better to understand Rodman's game than the guy who basically played the same role on four Lakers championship teams?
Both Rodman and Rambis understand that superstars carry teams to NBA titles, but those guys need someone to bang the boards, play the tough D and chase down loose balls.
Rodman might be a little crazy, but he loves the game and can flat out play.
