A local radio station has been playing this song lately. I’m not sure what the origin of it is, but it cracks me up every time I hear it. If you haven’t heard him talk, then it may not be as funny. But it just kills me.

The USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ preseason basketball poll is out.

Not surprisingly, Florida is the top-ranked team. What I did find surprising is that #2 North Carolina received ZERO first place votes. Florida received all but one, which went to #4 Ohio State. Florida returns everyone and will be very good. North Carolina returns practically everyone and had a very good freshman class as well. To receive no votes is very surprising.

My team - Duke - is #11, which is a fair ranking for them. They lost a lot with Redick and Williams, but they have a lot of promise for this season with Paulus (once healthy), Nelson and McRoberts, plus a great freshman class. They will probably be in the top 10 some during the season, but will probably be in the #3, maybe even #4 seed range at the end of the season. They could sneak into a #2 if they do particularly well in the ACC, where they’re being picked to finish second or third.

The poll breakdown by conference looks like this:

• ACC (4) - North Carolina, Duke, Boston College, Georgia Tech
• Big 10 (2) - Ohio State, Wisconsin
• Big 12 (3) - Kansas, Texas A&M, Texas
• Big East (5) - Pitt, Georgetown, Marquette, Connecticut, Syracuse
• Pac 10 (3) - UCLA, Arizona, Washington
• SEC (5) - Florida, LSU, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee
• The other three schools in the top 25 are Memphis, Creighton and Nevada.

I think it’s very possible that by season’s end, North Carolina will probably be more of a favorite to win the title than Florida. Neither team was expected to do much last year, and both had great seasons. I think Florida will have a little bigger target on them with a title, and a much bigger one than last year. North Carolina, despite being young, always has a target on them, so that won’t be a surprise for them. I think in the end, Carolina will likely be the best team in college basketball by season’s end. Obviously, that doesn’t mean they’ll win the title. But I think they’ll be the favorite.

I think some of the SEC teams - namely, LSU and Alabama - are somewhat overrated. LSU had a great run at the end of last year, but I don’t think they’re a top 10 team, especially without Thomas. Alabama, likewise, may not quite be a top 12 team, and Gottfried is just not a good coach. Tennessee I’m not sure about, mainly because I just didn’t watch them play much last year, other than the tournament games where they were far less than impressive. Granted, they beat Florida twice, but Florida wasn’t the Florida we saw in March all year long, and Tennessee finished the season losing 5 of their last 8 games.

The Big East, not surprisingly, has the most teams (along with the SEC). Of course, the Big East has 47 teams in the league now, so the odds are good for them. Pitt was strong last year, but I think I’d pick Georgetown ahead of them in the Big East. I’m looking forward to the Duke-Georgetown game at Cameron in December. I think it will give me an idea of how Duke will fare this season. Connecticut lost most of their experienced players from last year’s ridiculously talented team, but they’ve become like other great basketball schools - Carolina, Duke, Kansas, etc. - in that they simply reload. Like those three schools, they have a young but talented team and a very good coach.

It’s also a little surprising to see the Big 12 with only 3 teams, and one of them being Texas A&M. No Oklahoma or OK State, no Texas Tech or Iowa State. Same with the Big 10, with only 2 schools. No Michigan State or Indiana.

I can’t argue too much with the rankings at this point. I’ll be anxious to see how the season goes through the end of the year, and then into conference play during January. You’ll start to get a feel for who really belongs where in one of these polls. I’m sure my opinions of the poll will change in the coming weeks, and certainly a couple of weeks into the season, but this is just my random thoughts having looked it over today.

The journey to Atlanta begins shortly. And there will be much rejoicing.

I guess I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but saw it today. Florida coach Billy Donovan pulled off a pretty good practical joke at Florida’s “Midnight Madness”. After raising the national championship trophy in front of the cheering crowd, he appears to drop the trophy, which shatters on the stage floor. Fortunately, it was a replica created for just that purpose. Pretty funny, although I’m sure a lot of people there didn’t think so at the time.

Mark Elrod posted about this today. I’ve never thought much of Sean Hannity, but I didn’t realize he would say something this ridiculous.
Update: But wait… there’s more!

It appears that my unspoken fears that Arkansas might slip up against Ole Miss and lose were unfounded. Arkansas hammered Ole Miss 38-3 yesterday and remained the only unbeaten team in the SEC at 4-0. The Hogs next have another non-conference game before going to South Carolina, which will be a huge game for them. A win at South Carolina puts them in great position to reach the SEC title game. They would need only one more win if they won at USC, and I think they’ll get that against LSU in Little Rock, regardless of what happens against Tennessee. Obviously, I hope they win out, but all 3 games will be difficult. Tennessee goes to USC the week before Arkansas, so I’m hoping they wear out the Gamecocks and Arkansas has a little easier time. But nothing is easy in the SEC. Just ask Georgia.

I’ve yet to post anything about the debacle that was the Miami - Florida International game last week. Much has been said and written about it in the past week, and there’s not much else I could add. However, I was thinking about it yesterday as I saw reports that Miami barely escaped Duke, and I have a couple of thoughts.

First, let me interject that Duke is really bad. They usually make bad teams look good. I’m not sure why they stayed in the game against Alabama a couple of weeks ago - I suspect Alabama was on auto-pilot and wasn’t really into that game. They should’ve won more easily. However, Miami, after having numerous players suspended, also needed an interception on the final play at the goal line to hold off Duke. I could pretend that perhaps Duke is improving, but I think a more rational response is that this says a lot about where Miami is right now. Miami of old would still be able to put away a team like Duke by halftime with anyone on their team playing. Now, they lose a number of key players and they barely escape. If the losing and the brawl don’t get Larry Coker, surely a narrow win at Duke will.

Okay, so on to my real comments regarding the brawl. I didn’t get this posted yesterday as I was thinking about it, and then found that John Feinstein “stole my thunder” this morning on The Sports Reporters with the same angle I was thinking of, which is this: The ACC was so anxious to get Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to move to their conference a few years ago and now look what it’s gotten them.

The move to add these schools was agreed with by every school in the conference except North Carolina and Duke. The reason was to strengthen the football in the league. Or so they said. The real reason was to strenghen the bank accounts of the schools in the league. It was all about money, as it usually is. This is something I complained about at the time and every opportunity I’ve had since - I liked the basketball home-and-home that everyone played, which is now gone. Duke and NC State don’t even play twice every year, and that’s a crime. So, being a basketball fan, and loving ACC basketball as I do, I wanted no part of this addition (despite the two great games Duke and B.C. played last year.) It was one of only two leagues that was primarily a basketball league (along with the Big East) and had (and still does, in my opinion) the best basketball of any conference in the country. But I believe it will be harder to maintain it with three non-basketball schools in the league.

So, all in the name of money, the league now is home to Virginia Tech, whose Marcus Vick embarrassed the league last year, and also to Miami, who’s actions last week were beyond embarrassment, first on the field, and then later by the adminstration’s relative lack of punishment afterward. (I mean, come on - a punishment of 1 game for all but 1 player, and that game is against probably the worst D-1 team in the country in Duke?) And the ACC itself hasn’t exactly stepped up, either, thus making their intentions regarding the expansion more obvious.

I’m not sure what the ACC was expecting, particularly from Miami. If they expected more than what they’ve gotten, then they were expecting way too much.  I’ll bet they can’t wait for basketball season.

I haven’t had much time this week and thus have neglected to post about the trip to Razorback stadium last weekend. I had a pretty good time. We had great seats, and I enjoyed watching a live college game for the first time in years. And by years, I mean at least 11 years. It was a great game if you enjoy watching Arkansas score lots of touchdowns. In fact, they scored on their first play from scrimmage, and it was pretty much over at that point. Even though the Hogs were ahead 42-0 at the half, we stayed through the end of the 3rd quarter. As the 4th began, and with the score at 63-7 (which would be the final), we made our way to out of the stadium. It was a fun afternoon, and we now want to try to start attending some of the games every year. Hopefully, some more intersting games against real opponents.

A view from our seats at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville last weekend.

Next up tomorrow is Ole Miss. I haven’t seen Ole Miss play this year, other than catching the last couple of minutes and overtime of last weeks game against Alabama. As for common opponents, they’ve beaten Vanderbilt and came close against Alabama, so it’s hard to tell, I guess. I think, playing at home, Arkansas shouldn’t have too much trouble with them, but it seems this year, you can’t count on much of anything in college football. So, I’ll be watching tomorrow morning to see how they finish.

One other game I’ll be interested to see tomorrow is the Tennessee/Alabama game. At Knoxville, I can’t see Tennesee having too much trouble with Alabama. I doubt it will be a blowout, but I see Tennessee winning without too much difficulty. I think Tennessee’s two remaining tests will be at South Carolina and at Arkansas. I think they’ll win their home games, including against LSU, without much trouble. However, I just can’t see Tennessee winning the East due to the fact that Florida should win out. Georgia, Vanderbilt and South Carolina remain on their schedule, and I can’t see them losing to any of those teams. I think Florida coasts to the SEC championship game.

Who they will face will depend largely on Arkansas’ preformance the rest of the year. Assuming they beat Ole Miss tomorrow (and MSU later this season), they will need at least 1 win in their 3 games with South Carolina (road), Tennessee and LSU (all games which they can win.) And, if Auburn wins out, they would need 2 wins. Auburn has to go to Ole Miss and Alabama, and based on what I’ve seen from Auburn (they have scored just 2 offensive touchdowns in their games against LSU, Arkansas and Florida, including ZERO against Florida), they could still lose either of those games. They wouldn’t even have wins over LSU or Florida if those teams didn’t shoot themselves in the foot multiple times. Nevertheless, I figure they’ll get by Ole Miss, and while I think they’re better than Alabama, this might be the year Alabama finally stops the Auburn winning streak in the Iron Bowl. I’m not willing to count on Alabama, so I want Arkansas to beat South Carolina first, and if they do that, I say they go to the championship game. Even if they lose to Tennessee - which is their most difficult game remaining, I still believe they will beat LSU, who will be out of the race by then. But it all starts tomorrow. They simply cannot lose to Ole Miss.

So I did something yesterday that I never do on purpose. I watched Oprah.

Yes, you read that right. Now, I’m no lover of Oprah. I don’t care for her for a number of reasons that I won’t go into now. However, my wife often watches it and usually records the show daily on our DVR, and I turned it on last night before “the lineup” (see below) for only one reason - to see what Barack Obama had to say.

I’ve seen a little of this guy in the last couple of years, since he won a Senate seat in Illinois. I’m not too much into politics, but I’m always interested in someone who seems to be genuine and not just spouting the party line or saying what they believe people want to hear. I’m not certain if Obama is one of those folks or not. After all, he is a politician. But from what little I’ve seen and heard from him so far, he seems less partisan than most. I may be proven wrong. Anyway, I endured Oprah herself in order to see his appearance, and enjoyed once again listening to him speak to various subjects related to his life, family and politics. I want to hear more from this guy.

And I will. I plan to start reading his new book, The Audacity of Hope : Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, in the next few days. There’s even a lot of speculation about him running for President in the future, possibly even the near future. Is this guy for real? Time will tell, I suppose, and I’m anxious to see what becomes of Barack Obama over the next few years.

I mentioned “the lineup” above. That’s a reference to Wednesday night television now, as there are 3 shows on Wednesday that I’m now watching regularly, one during each hour of primetime. Last year, I basically watched 2 television shows with any regularity - Lost and Monk. I began watching Monk a few episodes into it’s first season several years ago, and have not missed an episode yet (well, maybe one.) Lost I began watching from day one, having sat down to fold laundry as the pilot first aired 2 years ago, and haven’t missed one since. These are my two favorite shows.

This season, a host of new shows have hit the air that, at least for now, have drawn my interest, and I’m still hanging with them so far. One is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which actually airs on Mondays. I’m enjoying this so far. It’s good, but not great. I like a number of the people on the show - Steven Weber, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford, Timothy Busfield, and even Matthew Perry, depsite my disdain for all things Friends. I look forward to seeing how it progresses, and will likely stick with it all year.

The other two shows I’m watching bookend Lost on Wednesday evenings. Even though the shows are consectutive, I’m still thankful for my DVR, because without it I’d have to plant myself for 3 hours straight in front of the television, which I don’t have time for. At 7:00 on CBS is Jericho, which I’m not sure what to make of yet. It’s somewhat intersting now, but can it last? It just seems like every few minutes the mayor’s sons run off to rescue someone or save the day, as if they’re the only ones in town capable of doing so. What are all of these other people doing standing around? I’m not sure I will be committed to this for the full season, although I am curious as to what has actually happened and exactly what this Hawkins guy is up to.

The other show, airing at 9:00 after Lost on ABC, is The Nine, which, like Jericho, I like thus far, but am also not sure if I will remain interested all year long or not. Nine folks who were a part of a 2-day standoff during a bank robbery (eight as hostages, and one as one of the thieves) are now somehow “connected” in their post-robbery lives. What exactly happened during the robbery? Well, that’s the mystery. The pilot jumped from a few minutes into the robbery to the end, and we (and some of the hostages) are left wondering what really went down during those 2 days. I think this one has a better chance of keeping me than Jericho, but we’ll see.

Steven Weber (Studio 60), Tim Daly (The Nine), Tony Shaloub (Monk)… all former Wings cast members. I just realized that. I always liked Wings, and it’s cool to see all of these folks weekly again. But Tony Shaloub is the best, and Adrian Monk is my favorite character on television.

Speaking of favorite characters, I saw some folks elsewhere naming their favorite Lost character. For the record, Sawyer is by far my favorite. He just cracks me up. I’d have to say Sayid, Hurley and Eko are probably the others I like a lot. Sometimes I like Kate and Locke, but other times I don’t. I guess I’m on the fence there. As for least favorite, I never liked Michael much from the very beginning - he always seemed angry and confrontational, and Shannon and Ana always annoyed me as well, but I guess they won’t much anymore, being dead and all (although, there’s always a chance they’ll show up again in a flashback, or, as with Boone’s appearance last night, a dream/vision.) Oh yeah, and I’m really tired of Jack, too. Considering the trailer for next week, I am anxious to see what happens to Sawyer, as well as what this (apparent) new ability of Desmond’s to know the future will mean.

Gotta love Alice. Here’s an article about the side of Alice most fans never see.

College basketball will be here soon, so expect to see a fair amount about it here. But before I start in on basketball, allow me to direct you once again over to Scott Freeman’s place to check out the converstaions going on regarding non-violence. Excellent posts and discussiong thus far. Okay, maybe a couple of other things before basketball, too.

Charlie Brown

My daughter and I went to see “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” last night at the worship center of our church. The creative arts ministry at our church put on the play for the community, including several public schools who attended yesterday afternoon. There are more showings tonight and tomorrow night, so if you’re reading this in the Little Rock area, go check it out. It was fantastic. I laughed a lot, enjoyed the singing and dancing, and my daughter loved it. They did a great job and I will look forward to seeing more productions from them in the future.

Hogs

We’re heading up to Fayetteville later today and attending the homecoming game tomorrow against “nobody state” or something like that. They’re playing a IAA school tomorrow and should beat them like, well, like USC beat them last year. Oh, and this year, too. I won the tickets here at work a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I’ve never been to a game in Fayetteville (having only been to LR games in the past), so I’m looking forward to it. Plus, since they’re the tickets of our company president, they’re going to be pretty good seats.

No Paulus?

College basketball is just a month away, and I couldn’t be more excited. November through March is the greatest time of the year. And, with the season tipping off shortly, preseason articles about the upcoming season are being written more and more often. I just wanted to comment on one I read a couple of days ago.

This article is a ranking of the best college point guards for the upcoming season by this guy over at CBS Sportsline. Clearly, this man is an idiot. He has a top 20 point guard list for the upcoming college basketball season. The glaring omission is Duke point guard Greg Paulus. Obviously, I’m biased. But no sane person who knows anything about college basketball could possibly leave Paulus off a top 20 list. I’d think most would have him in a top 10 list, but defintely a top 20. I’m not suggesting he’s #1, but there simply are not 20 point guards in college basketball who will be better than him. It just won’t happen. Last season Paulus showed many signs of things to come, and like Bobby Hurley before him, I expect the freshmen turnovers to go by the wayside as he enters his second season. I’ve read that he’s also taken a cue from J.J. Redick in getting him self in excellent shape during the off-season. I don’t know if he’s in “Redick-shape” (probably not), but he’s obviously intent on improving, and he was pretty good as a freshman. With Redick and Williams gone, this will be his team and I expect him to be very good as a sophomore.

Of course, on the other hand, he did vote Josh McRoberts as the number 2 power forward, and that sounds about right. Perhaps he was just having a bad day when he did the point guards. Maybe he was a power forward (I doubt it) and knows nothing about point guards. Maybe he was on medication and was unable to think clearly. I don’t know, but Paulus’ omission is an egregious error that should be corrected immediately. There’s just no excuse for that.

More on college basketball over the next six months…

I’ve been looking forward to the Third Day / David Crowder Band concert for months. I’ve wanted to see Third Day for the past 10 years. I had a ticket once before - in 1999 - when they were about 30 miles from Little Rock. My wife was pregnant with our daughter and not feeling well at the time, and so I chose to not go. I’d not really had another good opportunity to see them until now.

The fact that David Crowder Band, who is one of my very favorites now, was playing with them just made this a must-see event. I was not going to miss it if it was at all possible.

So, last Thursday night I wandered over to Alltel Arena to check it out. The evening kicked off with Hyper Static Union. I’d not heard them, other than listening to a few clips last week before the concert. They came out and sang 4 songs, and were good. I’m not running out to buy their music, but I enjoyed them live. A humorous moment came when the lead singer asked the audience about “calling the Hogs.” This, unfortunately, set the crowd into a full on “Hog call.” I’m an Arkansas sports fan, but I’ve never “called the Hogs.” I simply refuse to do it. Nevertheless, these guys didn’t know what they were in for.

Next up was probably the #1 reason I came - David Crowder Band. They were just outstanding. My major beef with their set was that it was too short. I would liked to have heard more from them. I hope to see them again when they’re the main act, but the 8 songs they sang were excellent and they were an entertaining group. Crowder himself was also pretty humorous. They opened with a progressively louder instrumental piece that eventually moved into “Here Is Our King.” They sang primarily from A Colllision, with songs like “Wholly Yours”, “You Are My Joy”, and what was probably the best song of the entire show, “I Saw The Light.” They ended with “O Praise Him” and “Sing Like The Saved”, which really rocked.

Another thing I liked about their set was that, while it was a fun time, they also had the words projected in order to allow everyone to sing along. They intended not to just be a concert, but worship. It was great, and I think everyone was hoping they would come back out for an encore. But it was not to be.

After a brief intermission, the lights went down and Mac Powell, Brad Avery and Mark Lee came on stage with an acoustic “Blessed Assurance”. After a couple of verses, the curtain behind them dropped and the rest of the band kicked in and finished the song with them. From there, they moved into “You Are So Good To Me”, then really kicked it up a notch with “I Got A Feeling.” That got the crowd going and they sang a few more from recent albums.

Next up, Mac explained that their next song was one of their most requested. It was #1 on my list last week - “Thief” - and I was thrilled that they sang it. It was the highlight of their set for me. Next was a 3-song acoustic set, which ended with another of my favorites from their first album, “Love Song.”

After the acoustic set, they took off again with “Took My Place” and “Come on back to me.” An extended period of Mac speaking to the crowd preceded “Cry Out To Jesus”, in which he explained a little about how the new album came to be and talked about that song in particular. They closed out with “God of Wonders” and “Creed.”

The obligatory encore was next, and they cranked it up again with “Tunnel” from the new disc and then “Come Together.” Finally, they closed the night with “Agnus Dei.”

It was an oustanding show. I enjoyed it as much as any concert I’ve been to in the last 15 years, probably (including Alice Cooper at Huntsville’s Big Spring Jam in 2003.) I mentioned last week that Third Day’s recent records seemed to have sounded too much alike, but it was great to finally see them live. They put on a great show.

As with any show, you’re always hoping for a few songs that don’t make an appearance. DCB sang only 8 songs, so they couldn’t have sung all of my top 10 from last week. In the end, they sang 6 of them. I’d liked to have heard the other four, but time didn’t allow.

I suspect Third Day’s set list varies a little more considering a larger catalog. I’m sure songs drop off and others make the list on certain nights. They ended up only singing 3 of my 10, but it still was not really disappointing because they put on a great show and the songs they sang were great as well. And, while among my favorites, there are several songs on my list that I didn’t expect to make the cut anyway. However, “King of Glory” would’ve been a nice addition, and I was a little surprised “Your Love, Oh Lord” didn’t make the set list.

The only real disappointment was that I was hoping to see DCB return to the stage and sing a song or two with Third Day at some point, but that didn’t happen. I think that could’ve been the highlight of the night.

Overall, I was quite pleased and very glad that I was able to make it to this show. It was excellent, and if you have the chance to see it before the tour ends, be sure and do. It’s more than worth it.