Sunday, March 21, 2010

Madness Indeed.

I'll have to address the one-on-one tourney next week; I don't got enough time this week. I am with Angela in Rexburg just having one of the best weekends of my life. She is great and we've made some good memories this weekend. I can't wait to spend the first part of my birthday with her tomorrow. She must be really special too, since I have missed most of March Madness since Thursday and haven't really cared a bit. She was amazing though and let me watch the BYU-Kansas State game and even brought me food while I was watching it. What a woman?!

What I have seen and heard of this year's madness has been great. Of course, my bracket is done for, but it is great to see these white nobodies like Cornell, St. Mary's, and Northern Iowa make names for themselves. It has been a crazy tournament and its nice to see the madness back after last year's somewhat boring tournament. You gotta love it... But just not as much as I love Ang I guess!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Tourney and my own NBA 1-on-1 Tourney

Well, the madness is about to begin! What a good time of year. There has already been some great moments in just the conference tournaments; I think it will be a memorable real tourney. I just went down to the Mountain West conference tournament and the Friday night BYU-UNLV game was one of the most exciting games I've ever been to. I am ready for it to begin tomorrow. I'm still unsure with some of my picks, but I'm pretty certain I'm taking the Jayhawks. They've seemed to be the best team all year, and they've got the most experience.

There are a few things that I need to vent about with the seeding though. If Kansas is the number one overall, then why do they seem to have the toughest road. And then Duke, I usually don't believe the Duke conspiracy theories, but they sure do seem to have the easiest road and why do they get to play the play-in winner; I thought that was for the number one overall. Also, I am not happy with BYU getting a 7 seed. I can list at least five teams seeded higher they had a better year than. At least they get to play Florida though and not another big, black, and athletic team like A & M again.

Last of all, this week I heard about a sweet 3 on 3 game planned between Kenny Smith, Hakeem, and Rick Fox vs. Donovan McNabb, TO, and Antonio Gates. But you hear about these events all the time, yet I've never seen one on TV. There was supposed to be Michael Phelps vs Chad Ochocinco in swimming and Rajon Rondo vs Chris Johnson in a race, but I never heard anything more than roomers on either. They should do a lot more of these sorts of things though. And then actually televise them at reasonable times on reasonable networks. I guess there was that Shaq show, but I mean like real legit competitions. Here's a couple I think would be fun to watch.
  • Usain Bolt vs a horse in a 200 m race
  • Ron Artest vs Stephen Jackson in a UFC match
  • Shane Battier vs Grant Hill in a UFC match
  • UConn's men's basketball intramural champions vs the women's team
  • Shaq vs the oldest former living NBA player who shot over 80% from the free throw line in a free throw contest.
  • I've always thought a one-on-one off-season tournament would be awesome too... Take the 16 best players in the league and have them play until there is a champ. Here's who I think the field of 16 should be. (I know they could never get all 16 to commit though, plus there's probably not many teams that would risk injury and let them do it too.)... and next week I'll talk about who wins each. These are the first round games.
--close calls to participate: 20. Danny Granger - would have made it last off-season
19. Paul Pierce - like his team, just getting too old and slow
18. Steve Nash - easily one of the top 16 players but don't know if he could hold his own in 1-on-1
17. Pau Gasol - also probably a top 16 guy but I just don't want to see his ugly game or his ugly face in the summer time
__________________________
1. Lebron vs 16. Monta Ellis (takes Paul, Steve, and Pau's spots because he would be exciting to watch. Gerald Wallace is another guy I considered here, which would make a way better match-up, but sometimes I wonder how good he actually is and how much is just crazy athleticism)
2. Kobe "Bryant, slam dunk giant, outplay the Kob, son don't try it" vs 15. Tim Duncan "He aint frontin', step on the court and he'll show ya somethin' (had to do this match-up because of the old sprite commercial; and a few years ago, Tim would have been a 1 or 2 seed himself)
3. D Wade vs 14. D Rose (Chicago natives)
4. Dwight Howard vs 13. Amare (Battle of the bigmen)
5. Melo vs 12. Joe Johnson (both are over-sized shooting guards)
6. Kevin Durantula vs 11. B Roy (future MVP's)
7. Dirk vs 10. Chris Bosh (battle of the softer bigmen)
8. a healthy Chris Paul vs. 9. Deron Williams (you knew this was coming)

***Man, now that I did this, I really think they should do this. These match-ups would be off-the-heezy good.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

March and Movies

Well, Ang and I had another wonderful weekend together, but it is getting harder and harder not having her around during the week. It'd be nice doing some of the everyday, little things together. We have so much to plan for our future, but it's tough to discuss those things over the phone. Since I only see her about every other weekend, I want our weekends to be special and not wasted with tedious tasks like studying, planning wedding stuff, and figuring out future finances. It's difficult planning this way and I wouldn't recommend long distance engagements to any one, but I know it'll all be worth it in the end. We'll get it all planned out some how.

I can't complain with life though. March is really a great month! The sun is coming out already and the weather's getting better--I was even able to run outside this week. My birthday is this month too. Plus, the greatest sporting event of the year is about to kick off. I can't wait for March Madness. The tournament is flawless, except for that weird 64-65 play-in game that no one really knows why it's there. Yeah, it adds one more team in for an at-large bid, but I don't think that's really needed. You also hear a lot of analysts and coaches complain they should expand the tournament even more for more of these at-large, bubble teams to get in; but what they are always forgetting is that it is already a 300+ tournament that just starts a couple weeks before. It's win or go home starting with the conference tournaments. If these teams really want to get off the bubble, then don't lose in their tournaments. The NCAA tournament is win or go home, so if they can't win in their conference tournaments, they probably don't have a good chance of winning anything in the regular tourney either. It's merely flawless as is; you just can never please some people. I'm extremely excited for it though!

Last of all, in honor of the Oscars, I thought I would return to my top 5 lists. Here are my best actors and movies.

Actors (with my favorite of their flicks)

HM. Ed Norton - (American History X)
5. Leo - (Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond)
4. Tom Cruise - *Crazy, but he makes good movies (Minority Report, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, Last Samurai)
3. Denzel Washington - (Glory, John Q, Man on Fire, Deja Vu, Training Day, Great Debaters, Remember the Titans)
2. Will Smith - (Independence Day, Men in Black, Hitch, Pursuit of Happiness, Seven Pounds)
1. Matt Damon - (Bourne movies, Ocean's movies, Good Will Hunting)

Actresses
(This was hard to make - I don't really have a lot of favorite actresses... some of them may have to do with just crushes at one point)

HM. Jennifer Love Hewitt (Can't Hardly Wait, Heartbreakers)
5. Jordana Brewster (Fast and Furious)
4. Catherine Zeta Jones (Zorro, Entrapment, The Terminal)
3. Keri Russell (August Rush, Bedtime Stories, Honey I Blew Up the Kid)
2. Sandra Bullock (Blind Side, While You Were Sleeping, The Net, Crash)
1. Claire Danes (Little Women, Brokedown Palace, Stardust, Romeo + Juliet)

Comedy/ Romance films

(honorable mention - Airplane!, Ocean's movies, Shanghai movies)
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. Billy Madison
3. Win a Date With Tad Hamilton
2. Fletch
1. Hitch

Drama/ Inspirational

(Glory, Gladiator, American History X, Good Will Hunting, & A Few Good Men...all edited of course; John Q & Finding Forrester)
5. Seven Pounds
4. October Sky
3. The Last Samurai
2. The Pursuit of Happiness
1. Braveheart

Sports Movies

(Might Ducks I &II, Forever Strong, Pride, Rudy... Still gotta see Invictus)
5. Remember The Titans
4. Blind Side
3. Cool Runnings
2. Hoosiers
1. Rocky (1 - 4)

Action/ Sci-fi

(Star Wars, The Rock, Back to the Future movies)
5. Chronicles of Narnia
4. Avatar
3. Batman (the original and the 2 latest)
2. Lord of the Rings
1. Bourne Series (Ultimatum tops the list)

Others

(Big Fish, Ray, Blank Check, Airborne, Willow, August Rush)
5. Goofy Movie
4. Forrest Gump
3. That Thing You Do
2. Catch Me If You Can
1. The Count Of Monte Cristo