One week of college football down, not enough weeks of college football left to go. Your two favorite podcast hosts discuss some of the big games from last week as well as what’s on tap for week two. We also attempt to figure out some of the mysteries of soccer’s transfer window, but not before taking shots at the frequency with which soccer players fall victim to injury.
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As promised, ALDLAND is back at it again with another college football preview blowout. Every BCS conference is discussed, and don’t worry, we didn’t forget about the Domers. Join Marcus and I, along with a special surprise guest as we unveil our picks and discuss the major players in the 2013 season as we see it. College football! So exciting!
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The ALDLAND Podcast might have taken two weeks off, but it is back and better than ever. Listen to your favorite cohost get all melodramatic about the NBA Draft before moving on to actual NBA discussion as we recap the exciting NBA Finals. Also featured is discussion of Darren Rovell’s interesting take on the Aaron Hernandez situation. Last, but not least, I unveil my innovative compromise to the Washington Redskins name situation.
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(via @AlexWeprin)
You followed the live blog, now listen to the live podcast. Join Marcus and me as we discuss the NBA FInals DURING the NBA Finals. This is so groundbreaking that your mind might explode! We also talk about college football recruiting and how crazy that is. So crazy. You don’t even know. But you will soon.
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So far, the NBA Finals has been a tale of two blowouts. The most recent one belongs to the San Antonio Spurs, who routed the Miami Heat 113-77 to take a 2-1 series lead. The big story on offense was the three-point shooting of Danny Green and Gary Neal, who together made 13/19 shots from distance. As a team, the Spurs shot 50% from behind the arc, and they attempted 32 such shots.
Thirty-two three-point attempts seemed like a lot to me. The season average across all teams this year was 19.9, that number representing a record high. Thirty-two attempts is not an all-time record, though. In 1996, Dallas attempted forty-nine three-pointers in a 127-117 win over New Jersey. (Somebody named George McCloud was responsible for twenty of those attempts. The Nets, as a team– a team featuring none other than future Maverick Shawn Bradley– only attempted five. Rick Mahorn also played in that game, so do with that what you will.) In fact, there have been 404 games in NBA/ABA/BAA history in which a team attempted at least 33 three-point shots. It isn’t even the most this season, in which eighty-three games saw a team attempt at least 33 threes, and seven of those performances came in these playoffs. All time, only twenty-three playoff games have seen at least thirty-three attempts, though, which certainly comports with the trend the Sporting News discussed in the above-linked story on the steep increase in three-point shooting.
That the Spurs’ thirty-two attempts on Tuesday seemed like a lot to me only means that I haven’t been watching a lot of NBA basketball in recent years, which is absolutely correct.
Enjoy game 4 tonight if you’re capable of enjoying such things.
Technical difficulties and general laziness are a good combination for going two weeks without a podcast. Fear not, dear listeners, as one of the two of those issues has been fixed and a brand new ALDLAND podcast is available for you to take in. Join Marcus and I as we preview the NBA finals, discuss the latest in MLB steroids news, and take a look at our preseason World Series picks.
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The first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is in the books, and half of the teams are back home hitting them, their basketball days finished until next season. First, a look at which teams made it to the Sweet Sixteen, then a check on the standings in ALDLAND’s bracket challenge. Continue reading
Next up in our coverage of Super Bowl XLVII, we go outside the ALDLAND Archives for another memory of championship plans gone awry, the last of our unadvised foray into the nexus of football and politics. – Ed.
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It was the waning days of the Clinton administration. Deep in the swingingest of swing states– the very and only one that determined the outcome of the election to name the President’s successor– a team of Southern footballers prepared to play for a championship. If they won, it would be their first. The squad’s “moral and spiritual leader” was a man named E. K. Robinson, a defender against offensive social values and offensive passing attacks. The day before the Super Bowl, Robinson received the Bart Starr Award “for high moral character.”
He celebrated receipt of that award and sought to prepare himself for the next day’s game according to his own, privately determined preparatory plan. A leader of the team all season long, he neither sought nor required governmental oversight in the execution of his preparation. He received it anyway, though, and as often is the case with government intrusion into individuals’ private lives, the results were disastrous.
Specifically, the government infringed upon Robinson’s attempt to contract privately with another individual in order to further his physical preparation. Before he knew it, it was 3:00 am (the very day of the championship tilt), and Robinson was under arrest.
Although he was released from custody later that morning and allowed to play in the game, the damage from the government’s regulation was done. Robinson was tired and distracted, and his teammates were rattled. From the People’s History:
[W]ithout much sleep the night before due to the [aforementioned invasion of privacy], Robinson gave up an 80-yard touchdown reception to Broncos receiver Rod Smith, giving the Broncos a 17-3 lead over the Falcons. Later, in the fourth quarter, he missed a tackle on Denver running back Terrell Davis that enabled Davis to break a long run to the Atlanta 10-yard line. The Atlanta Falcons ended up losing the game 34-19.
As the San Francisco Chronicle remembers, “The lopsided loss might have happened anyway . . . but the pregame distraction clearly rattled them.”
We’ll never know for sure, though, a fact that illustrates that the externalities of Big Government’s invasion of the private life of even one citizen truly constitutes an invasion of the private lives of every citizen.
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