The SoapBoxers

Editor’s note: make sure to enter The Soap Boxers’s pool. Details can be found here.
 

It is that time of year again. March Madness! Although they should change this title to something with “April” in the title as this thing is starting to drag out farther than the NBA playoffs!.

The Men’s bracket should be interesting this year. There has been a lot of debate about how evenly balanced this field is, how really it is the shortest list of deserving teams that did not get in…i.e. this is one of the weaker tournaments in recent memory. The talking heads on television and radio love the week leading up to the tourney as sports talk is spirited and millions of people hang on every word making deep analytical decisions when filling out one of their fourteen office pool brackets.

Most of us delve through the websites, watch the seemingly round the clock ESPN Bracketology specials to pick our upsets. One of the #3 seeds always seems to get beaten. The #12 seed wins 34% of the first round games recently. The TV guys love all this talk. Bob Ryan on ESPN’s Around the Horn commented yesterday that eleven teams could take down the Jayhawks in their side of the bracket.

C’mon Bob … really … eleven? You had me until you mentioned Northern Iowa as a team that could spoil it for the boys from Lawrence. Talk about a bold prediction!

Now I of all people love the underdog. It gives you something to brag about to your co-workers and friends when you look smarter than the world when you have Cornell making it to the elite 8 … and they actually do. You do have to pick a few upsets don’t you?

Nope.

This year Johnny is going straight with the chalk. Well mainly. I won’t divulge my entire bracket here, but I am taking the Jayhawks to win it all.

My pick for the team to “make some noise” Kansas State … They have a complete team and great guard play. A factor that is always important in the tourney.

On the Women’s side, well gimmie the chalk again, at least until the Sweet 16. I think the Huskers will be the first #1 seed eliminated. While the team went 30-1 this year it greatly over-achieved, even in an extremely difficult conference with seven teams ranked in the top 25 most of the year. You have to pick UCONN, if someone beats them it will be considered a major upset, after all they have won 72 straight games.

My pick for the team to “make some noise” Texas A&M. The Lady Aggies are playing fabulous right now, are very athletic and are very well coached.

I am sure I will be called a Big XII Homer by someone reading this but I don’t care. Good luck to all of you in your office pools!

My apologies to the Connecticut Women’s Basketball team and their fans, but the entire content of this article will likely be offensive to you …

A dynasty is alive and kicking in NCAA Women’s hoops. It is worse than Duke of the 90’s, The New York Yankees, the Patriots and well … it even makes me more sick than Notre Dame Football.

The UCONN Lady Huskies

This just in … they are pretty damn good. Jedi Mind tricks do not work on the great recruiter Geno Auriemma …

About now I am waiting for all of you to chime in and say “Goodman, you are a Husker fan, and the Lady Huskers are undefeated this year so far and ranked #3 in the country so of course you are to dog the Huskies.”

True all these items are …

My question is this … is Geno the Hut a good coach or just able to work with SUPERIOR talent year in and year out?

I can make a bunch of comparisons here. Coaches that can recruit but really are not that good of coaches in my opinion include:

Mack Brown – CLEARLY the #1 on this list
Roy Williams – This year prove a lot to me
Rick Barnes – is there a Texas theme developing on this list? YES!
Les Miles – wow, he misses Pelini
Rich Rodriguez … nice job there Michigan
Charlie Weis … well … I guess the golden domers did figure that one out.

I think GENO is in fact a good coach. He has a lot of ladies that go on to not just careers in the WNBA, but are in fact some of the best in the league. Many of these players are three and four year starters at Connecticut … and they do indeed improve their games a LOT by the time they get drafted.

UConn will likely win it all again this year. They have utterly destroyed just about every single team they have played all year. But this is not necessarily a good thing for Women’s Basketball in general. The sport is gaining popularity. The is definitely MORE parity than I can remember in a long long time. Heck the Big XII conference has SEVEN count em, SEVEN teams in the top 25 alone.

I for one will be rooting for everyone else. It will be more publicity than ever in the tournament this year if the Lady Huskies get knocked off. There is truly not a dominant team in the Men’s side of things this year, so the Lady Huskies are front and center. It would be one of the better things that could happen for ESPN coverage if the do get beat. Here on Monday when they have set the record for consecutive wins, it has been on all day long

It is on television all day long, because fans love a winner. Especially the home team fans. But ….

EVERYONE roots for the underdog …

My new favorite team this year is now whoever is playing the Lady Huskies.

Editor’s note: We’re happy to announce the return of Johnny Goodman!

First off my apologies to the loyal (are there still any) readers of my column. Unfortunately Johnny Goodman hasn’t been feeling so good the last few months. A return of Hodgkin’s cancer, a couple of special trips down chemo lane, and a few weeks set aside to spend time in the hospital due to complications puts a lot in perspective. Through this entire struggle I have found out stuff about the human body that I never realized, and discovered they can put tubes and wires in such in places that are un-imaginable … but I digress.

Sports was a common theme that kept the fun times going during my hiatus. I was really knocked down with a number of issues right at the first of the year, allowing my hospital bed as a warm respite to watch a variety of college bowl and NFL playoff games.

The Olympics were a nice break. Even nicer that the neighbors to the north won the Hockey Gold Medal. I think Al Michaels said it best indicating that there was a lot of merriment in the streets of Vancouver but if the color would have been silver, the jubilation would not have been quite as great.

The Olympics in many ways have me reflect on my own struggles of going through cancer. There are good days, and bad days. There are high notes, and low notes. There are times where people overcome incredible odds, and times when they disappoint miserably.

The big winner this year has got to be curling. I cannot remember a single sport getting so much free publicity and coverage as Curling received this year in the Games. NFL stars, Face book pages, clothing sites, and I am sure a few other sites as well, will hopefully carry some momentum to more of the warmer reaches of our country as well as others in brining this sport to the next level of popularity.

Too much is made of the drama in all the prima donnas of the sport in my opinion. How many times can we see the tiara put on with the tears flowing. I like Lindsay Vonn but there has to be better stories to cover in depth, such as the US Men’s Bobsled team.

Overall the television coverage did another nice job this year and as the coverage wraps up, I find myself doing what I do every year when the Olympics are over … waiting for another 2 years to see the next games smothered all over of my TV screen.

This is the worst week for sports this time of year. No college football….does anyone else feel the same way.

So with nothing really FUN to talk about here are a few quick hits this week in the world of sports.

Roy Halladay vs Cliff Lee. The baseball pundits are already spinning their webs on this one. I like Halladay more, much much more. He has been in the brutal American League East for years pitching on bad teams and dominating the competition. He will go to the National League and be totally dominating, even more so than he has been. Cliff Lee …. two seasons does not a career make.

Jake Locker – What are you doing? You have the chance to be the number one overall pick in the NFL draft according to some of the experts. Come back for your senior year for the Huskies? It is not like your team is going to contend for the National Title or even Rose Bowl for that matter. Take the money and run kid. Even if you have a good year in 2010 you are STILL going to get drafted high by a crappy team in the NFL, and the money won’t be near as good one Goodell restructures the rookie contracts this off-season.

Tiger Woods – Just when you thought you had heard it all, now possible ties to doctors that have prescribed steroids and HGH to the likes of Marion Jones and A-Rod. Could it get any worse for Eldrick? Can’t wait to see what transpires with this story in the next couple of days.

Toby Gerhart once again proves the East and Southeast bias in the media is alive and well. We have too many folks voting for the Heisman. How you can have Colt McCoy ahead of Gerhard on ANY ballot is a crime. I am still not convinced Ingram is the best candidate but I do think the person that should have won the award got jobbed.

And now the all obvious NFL comments of the week

Will everyone on ESPN quit talking about the Dallas Cowboys? We get it already, they don’t win in December. We can watch our Plasma big screens and figure that one out by ourselves.

Here is another news flash, Randy Moss appears frustrated and played like a pouting four year old on this past Sunday. Have we heard this story before.

And while we are at it … Will the Colts sit their players? Will the Saints sit their players? Who freaking cares? They are both going to the playoffs. Just as long as I don’t have to listen to another crappy 1972 Dolphins and drinking Champagne reference over the next couple of weeks.

Here is hoping next week has better “and fresher” stories to talk about

Bah Humbug!

A lot of water cooler talk around the offices this week after the games this past weekend.  Today, Johnny Goodman looks to find the truth about many of the issues in College football.

Fact- Alabama and Texas will play in the BCS Championship game

Truth- yep I can’t come up with another argument here.  These are the two most deserving teams and I have no beef with that

Fact:  Alabama beat Florida soundly

Truth:  Florida really isn’t that good.  Who have they beaten or dominated all year.  Heck I think the SEC is terribly overrated this year.  A lot of good teams yes, a lot of GREAT teams?  C’mon…no way…This conference gets more verbal blow than anything and it is totally unfounded this year.  Play a bowl game or better yet a nonconference road game outside of the southeast sometime.  What is your conference record the last 51 times you have left the southeast?  25-26.  Overrated!!!!

Fact:  Mack Brown was named Big XII 2009 AP Coach of the year

Truth:  Did you watch the Texas vs. Nebraska game?  Then tell me which team imposed their will and their style of play and was :01 away from pulling off the upset as a 15 point underdog.  Coach of the year?  This guy can’t coach at all.  If Tom Osborne would have had the talent Texas gets every year in their program the Huskers would have had about five more national titles during his tenure.  Mack Brown is a average coach in arguably the easiest place to land fantastic recruits.  Saturday night was just another example of that.  His total and complete mis-management of the game clock at the end of the game almost prevented his kicker from having a shot at the game winning kick and the Horns from a shot in the BCS title game.  This guy is the luckiest coach ever…but he isn’t even in the top three coaches in his own conference.  Frankly I am surprised that Texas fans are not piling on about this right now.  After they get wood-shedded by Alabama, maybe they will be.

Fact: Cincinnati deserves to be playing in the BCS game against Alabama

Truth – you gave up a forty spot to Pittsburgh?  The argument stops there.  The Panthers are not exactly an offensive juggernaut.  Brian Kelly likely is gone to Notre Dame, and bad coaching by Wannestadt might make it a certainty now.  The Bearcats are good, but top 3 in the county???….nope.

Fact:  The refs put back one second on the clock in the Big XII title game

Truth:  They did get this one right although I hate to admit it being a Husker fan.  If time expired it would have made LSU coaching buffoon moves at the end of the game a few weeks ago look like no big deal.  The Truth also is that the #3 team was lucky to escape and was dominated by a team with a far superior defense who unfortunately for them has an offense that would barely be effective in your kids Pop Warner league.

Fact:  This year is a toss-up for the Heisman Trophy

Truth – Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh should win the award but won’t.  Lets run down the top candidates here.  Tim Tebow – nope –  lost last game and cried on the sideline.  There is no crying in Football Timmy! – and had average statistical year, Colt McCoy, laid an egg in final game and last second (literally) gaffe almost cost team a shot at the title game.  Jimmy Clausen – hardly.  Mark Ingram – you can’t get pulled in the next to last game for being ineffective and win THIS award.  Toby Gerhart – I could see this as I think he has been most consistent – Suh –has been dominating in every big game for the Huskers defense which is very good.  He had 4.5 sacks and 12 tackles – 8 for losses – an numerous hurries in the Big XII title game.  Can you honestly say there is a better or more dominating player in the country this year?

As we had into the college bowl season, (which is coincidentally the best time of the year bar none) I have a few predictions from the cheap seats this week.

The Pac 10 conference technically does not have a championship game, but they do this year. Oregon and Oregon State play in the Civil War. The winner goes to the Rose Bowl. The loser … who the heck knows! Now I am the first to admit that huge rivalry games are tough to predict. Just look at Texas A&M giving Texas all they wanted last week, or Auburn nearly knocking off Alabama. Basically no team is safe in a huge rivalry game.

Oregon is playing too well in my opinion, and are more two dimensional in the run and the pass compared to the Beavers. I give the edge to the Ducks and whatever horrific uniforms Nike decides to sport them in this week. Oregon 41, Oregon State 28

Texas will play host ( who is anyone kidding) to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Big XII title game held at Jerry’s place in Dallas. Anyone who thinks this is not a home game for the Longhorns is smoking something. The Cornhuskers have been put on a pedestal all week about how great their defense is, and how they will give the Longhorns all they want. Two things give Texas trouble … a mobile quarterback and a team that is willing to take deep shots in the passing game early and often. Nebraska has neither of these things. Even being the Husker Homer that I am, I see a woodshed job here … Texas 42, Nebraska 7

Now we go to the game that everyone in SEC country is waiting for and everyone else is tired of hearing about. Florida and Alabama. This one is close to call but the difference could be the DUI arrest of Carlos Dunlap, who is arguably one of the better defensive players Florida has. Could this be the difference? I hate to pick a winner in this game because I really don’t like either team. So I will go with the Crimson Tide, who I think has a better defense and can grind it at the Gators on the ground, in a close low scoring battle Bama 17, Florida 14

One last note, if you are sports fans are looking for an interesting read, check out Jason Peter’s book Hero of the Underground. It is graphic it is definitive and it is raw and I am guessing lightly edited straight from his mouth account of football, and his spiral in to drug use while in the NFL. It is an easy but entertaining read.

What a week of bad coaching moves in football, at least some perceived coaching moves. The one getting the most scrutiny on ESPN and all of the local talk shows was New England’s Head Coach Bill Bellicheck’s decision to go for it with a fourth and two from his own 28 yard line. Mind you the Patriots had a 6 point lead at the time. What is lost is that the guy on the other side of the ball you are punting too, Peyton Manning, has just led the Indianapolis Colts on two quick scoring drives. Manning seems to have figured it out, he is in a groove.

I don’t mind the coaches decision here although he has gotten roasted for it. If the Pats pick up the first down he looks like a genius and is heralded as a go for broke gunfighter coach with you know what made of steel. Ah, the fickle business of pleasing the masses.

In THE GAME between Yale and Harvard, there was even a worse decision. Yale decides to run a fake punt on fourth and twenty-two with a 3 point lead in the game. Yale was also the underdog in this match up. Fourth and cab fare???? Even if the fake works you have to pick up roughly a fourth of the field to get the first down. BOOOOOOO! Bad decision here that may have contributed to Yale losing the game.

The most inexcusable and worst thirty seconds of coaching I have ever witnessed took place in the LSU vs Ole Miss game. First of all they call horrible plays on second and third down and lose big yards, which take them out of potential game winning field goal range. Then the inexplicably fail to call time out and let 19 seconds run off the clock. The Tigers try a hail mary and pick up the first down and then have a measly one second left. Spiking the ball to kill the clock won’t work, not enough time. Nice job by Les throwing his QB under the bus telling him he wasn’t motioning him to spike it although television replays CLEARLY show he is motioning for this to happen from the sidelines. Where is your field goal unit read to run onto the field? Where is one of your assistants or players at while 19 seconds run off the clock and you just stand around, slowly letting it slip away, giving your team no opportunity to make a play at the end.

I am guessing LSU fans are almost as unhappy as Notre Dame fans right now, but for different reasons.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

It only took 65 official starts but a major breakthrough victory occurred on the LPGA tour this weekend. Michelle Wie, won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico

Wie has been one of the most talked about figures of all time in Women’s Professional golf. Heck she has been one of the most talked about sports figures regardless of any sport over the last 4-5 years.

She brings a lot to the table, young, spunky with her attitude, enormous power which is unusual for the women’s game, one overbearing parent in her dad Charlie, coached by the great David Leadbetter, and on and on and on.

She has played against the guys a few times in various events, and not shown up. She has played poorly in some events and even withdrawn under some scrutiny on one occasion when a high score would have prevented her in playing in some future LPGA events due to a weird scoring rule they have built in on that tour.

On the other hand as a very young player she had close but no cigar calls in all major golf tournaments. Showed flashes of brilliance at times and even was a major part of the United State Solheim Cup Victory this year at Rich Harvest Farms in the Chicago area.

Yes, Wie has secured millions of dollars of endorsement deals, has a army of fans even at this early age, good looks to go with her good game … the only thing missing was a victory. Until Sunday.

Wie beat an impressive filed, likely as strong as any major golf tourney. Kerr, Creamer, Pressel and Ochoa all finished in the top 6. Her normally average at best putting was good enough this week to take her to the place she has not been before. The victory podium

I think this could be the beginning of an impressive run. Wie appears to have been under a LOT of pressure, I believe by her immediate family, as well as herself to produce results. You could tell in her interview following her win that she was more relieved than happy. It seems the proverbial monkey is now off her back.

She has the talent, she has the following, she has game … now she just might have her head right. And if so, the rest of the LPGA better look out, as they might be in for a long ride .

WIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Brett Favre.

His name seems to be the only topic of conversation in the NFL lately.

Did the Packers end up better off, or the Vikings. The pundits will argue both teams have made off with just what they wanted. The Packers had been grooming young Aaron Rodgers to take over the QB role. He was ready. Favre was getting older and was in a continual bout of wavering about retirement. After all, Rodgers does have one of the highest passer ratings in the league in his first two years as a starter.

The Vikings had assembled a much better defense. Installing key parts such as Jared Allen. They have arguably the best running back in the league and a very good offensive line. Their receivers were nothing to write home about and the quarterback play had been marginal at best.

Enter Brett Favre.

The Vikings are 7-1 this year with their only loss coming against a tough Steelers team at their house. They have shown the ability to play great defense, and move the ball both in the air and on the ground. They are arguably the top team in the entire NFC.

The Packers? They have struggled a lot due mainly to injuries at running back, and at the offensive line. They are still trying to find continuity on offense and defensively they have been good but not great.

Lost in all of this is the Vikings really wanted the Packers all along, and the Vikings were likely prepared to give up quite a bit for him . If the Packers would have pursued a trade with the Vikings at the time, I am sure they would have been able to reap the benefits that could have brought them some additional young drafted talent, an area which in comparison to the Vikings right now, they just are flat lacking … talent overall talent.

But the Green and Gold could never trade their beloved quarterback to the hated division rival. The fans would not stand for it. The uproar would be unimaginable. Brett Favre playing for the Minnesota Vikings?

Guess it is working out pretty well for the Favre guy. The Vikings in the end have gotten what they wanted all along, and the Packer fans are still pissed off that Favre is wearing a Purple #4 now. But that is where he is, and likely where he will be for at least another year.

And in the meantime, the Viking fans love their teams chances to reach a Super Bowl.

We are entering that great time of year when the end all of end all college football arguments just starts to heat up.  That’s right, the BCS talk.

A plethora of one undefeated teams still remain.  A lot of great one loss teams are out there.  The conference match-ups are starting to hit full bore and the host of rivalry weeks are soon to be upon us.

Phooey!

I for one am proposing that we totally re-vamp the BCS program.  What is that you ask?  Johnny you need to get in line with countless of hundreds if not thousands of others that argue the same thing.

Nope, I propose we scrap the whole shooting match and go back to the bowl tie in agreements that each conference used to have pre-BCS. 

Let’s look at the facts.  The BCS is driven by two factors … and no they are not determining who is ultimately the most deserving national champion each year.  Heck most years we can’t even agree who should be playing in the game. 

Factor one is pure and simple greed.  Greed of the NCAA, greed of the sports stations such as ABC/ESPN and CBS who cover the majority of games. ( I am not including FOX in the argument as they only have only covered the BCS games the last few years and frankly their telecasts are painful at best to watch) 

Factor two is the perception that this alignment actually settles something.  That it actually does determine the best and most worthy team at the end of the year.

I miss the by gone days of long ago, before many of you who likely read this blog were even following college football.  In those “olden days” each conference had multiple negotiated terms to send their teams to certain bowl games.  It still works much the same way today for the non-bcs games. 

What this accomplished each and every year was exciting and epic games on New Year’s day.  You didn’t have to “hang around” until January 7^th to see if your team was going to win.

The best part of the “old way” was the scenarios were impossible to predict.  Since I am a Husker at Heart … lets take 1982.  When due to a series of upsets earlier in the day, the Clemson Tigers and the Cornhuskers found themselves playing on New Year’s Day night in the Orange Bowl for all the marbles.  This could not have happened today, and it lead for great drama and excitement.  Heck this same scenario played out countless times in the early years of the television bowl era …

Was it so wrong?

The BEST part of college sports is the water cooler talk, the speculation.  The Horned Frogs could beat Florida because of so and so….the ol’ My Dad is Bigger than your dad argument … that is where the true passion and fun of college football exists.

So let’s jump back up the rabbit hole, throw out the man behind the green curtain, and we just get an instant replay and see that the wrong call was made on the field?