And The Dolphins Select....

Jake Long, Univeristy of Michigan. According to numerous reports, the former All-American offensive lineman has entered into negotiations with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins have also expressed interest in the other Long, Chris Long of Virginia, and Glenn Dorsey of LSU as possible number one selections.

The Miami Dolphins finished last season with a record of 1 and 15. They didn't win their first game until week 15 when they knocked off the Baltimore Ravens. It also didn't help them when Ronnie Brown, their star running back, went down with a season ending injury.

While at Michigan, the 6-7, 313 pound senior dominated opposing defensive lineman. Jake Long is able to play both tackle positions, has excellent technique, and is great in the pass and run. The one drawback Long has is that he has trouble with speed rushers. That can be corrected however when he gets to the next level.

Self to Stay at Kansas

Three days after Kansas's National Championship game victory, the Jayhawks week gets even better. Following rumors of possibly leaving for his alma mater Oklahoma State, Kansas head basketball coach Bill Self said Thursday he will stay at Kansas.

The news comes after a ten-day period that was certainly kind to Self and his Jayhawks. An Elite Eight victory over Davidson cemented Self's first Final Four appearance, a victory over the overall #1 seed North Carolina in the Final Four, and the nine point comeback with two minutes left in the championship Monday night, gave Coach Self much incentive to remain on the sidelines at Phog Allen Fieldhouse.

The decision to stay came once Oklahoma State contacted Self to gauge his interest in the position and Self was not interested. "I couldn't see myself leaving this place" Self said during his press conference today.

SWG's First Podcast- Wednesday April 9, 2008

This Week's Show

- Up-to-date Updates

- NCAA Championship Game

- NBA Western Conference Playoff Picture

- Alley Oops

After microphone issues delayed our debut podcast last week, we deliver to you listeners our second attempt at our first podcast. We begin with the news stories of the day in a segment we call Up-to-Date Updates. Then we discuss Monday night's thrilling NCAA Championship Game and explain how Kansas pulled it out at the end. Brendan and I throw in a little NBA talk featuring the wild, wild western conference where we talk about the playoff picture in the West. And finally, we unveil our latest segment ALLEY OOPS, with one of us throwing it up, and the other slamming it down. Tomorrow this podcast will be up and ready for downloading and your listening pleasure!

Download Options For April 9th Podcast
- HiFi Streaming
- HiFi Downloadable

Update : Our First Podcast And A Sad Puppy

Due to technical difficulties with Jason's microphone, I have deemed our first podcast un-listenable. There is just too much background sound and static. I'm terribly sorry that we can't get it to you to listen but we will be making it up with a podcast coming live for download on Thursday afternoon! We will still be recording every Monday and posting the podcast every Tuesday starting next week. Luckily Jason decided to invest in some nice headphones so we won't expect any more problems with sound quality.

That High School Athlete's Jersey....Your Tax Dollar At Work

In what will be a three part series, Sports Wise Guys plans on revealing how your tax dollars are spent on high school athletics. We will also get into the issue of whether a higher priority is set on athletic achievement over educational.

Today's post, Part One of our series, will outline my opinion on the subject of high school athletics as it pertained and pertains to me and my experiences.

Part One : My Opinion and Yours

Next time -----> Part Two : Athletic Achievement Is Greater Than Educational Achievement

I have played sports since I was about five years old. My dad was a strong believer in using sports as a way to stay active and healthy. I never looked at sports as an end to a mean. And by that I mean, it was always a dream to become a professional basketball player, but in reality, who's going to want a 6'2" 230 pound white kid running the point? I knew I was never going to make it in professional sports and that I didn't have to to become successful. Kids, especially the unfortunate ones in the inner city high schools, have nothing else to work towards other than an athletic scholarship. Now I don't mean to make a sweeping generalization about inner city high schools that the only way they get out of the ghetto is through sports, but that's reality. You will not find a lot of kids shooting for an academic scholarship. This mentality needs to change and quickly. Too many kids are fed a dream of grandeur, the mansion, the cars, the wealth, and the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Not only are these dreams fed by family, but far too many times by their own teachers, who should instead be teaching these kids how to read and write at a high school level. In addition to the failure of some schools to instill a high education expectation, these programs suck up money some schools need to buy the necessities for their kids to learn properly.

Nice jersey, who bought it?

My realization that something was wrong with how public tax dollars were spent at my school occurred when my Spanish teacher could not allow us to take our books home. We could not take our books home because there was not enough books so all the kids taking Spanish could take them home. Not only that, we had teachers without classrooms, floaters were what they were referred to, and this was after we had a huge addition to our high school. Now, I'm all for school athletics, it keeps kids out of trouble for the most part, promotes a healthy lifestyle, and gives the student body a reason to have some school spirit (I hated typing that). However, I don't think that our education should suffer because of athletics. The athletes always had a bus to get to games and they always had new uniforms every year. Why can't I have a new textbook, or at least one I can take home? Why does my teacher not have a room to prepare her or his lesson plans for the day. Only 20% of the the average high school student body par take in athletics, only less than 1% make it to a professional level in a sport. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm pretty sure more kids in those student bodies are going to get a 4 year degree from an accredited university. And I am also pretty sure it would be much easier for this students to do so if they had better learning materials and better instruction.

My former high school had over $20,000 budgeted for supplies for student activities, which I could only assume included sports. I could find no specific referral to the athletic department in their budget. A tenth of that ( $2,000 ) was budgeted for community service supplies which in my eyes would serve the local community a great deal more than any football game that's played. If more people knew this, do you think they would start asking more questions? I would sure hope so. If my kid isn't playing a sport, why should I be paying for it? Some people would counter this question with another question, "Well, what about Key Club or the Math Team?" In that case, my response would be, "What would carry more weight on a college application? That you were a bench warmer on the basketball team or that you were on a Math Team?" Education will always take precedence over athletics in the real world because it allows more opportunities when you enter it. For me, Mary Tedrow, a National Board certified teacher and former student-athlete said it best,

"What would happen if resources for sports were removed from schools and consolidated into single sporting complexes where we supported community teams? When education funds are no longer diverted to transportation, uniforms, and maintaining interest in sports, both the energy and resources could be used to improve instruction. As a result, kids might actually want to come to school, not to play ball, but because the increased attention to instruction will help every student succeed and find a skill to translate into a lifetime of learning and earning."

Missed Free Throws Doom Memphis, Kansas Takes Championship

At the beginning of this tournament I had been one of those people who didn't think Memphis would make it all the way to THE GAME. My biggest concern with them was their terrible free throw percentage (339 out of 341 teams) and a weak conference. I didn't think they would be able to win a close game against a quality opponent if it came down to making critical free throws. Memphis was able to prove me wrong this entire tourney because they never got into that situation. Last night however it got close against Kansas, and their free throw woes finally caught up with them.

Memphis missed 4 of their last 5 free throws towards the end of the second half. Those free throws, had they'd been made, would have sealed the Tigers first National Championship. NCAA basketball historians however will remember how those missed free throws gave Kansas' Mario Chalmers a chance to tie the game with a 3 pointer and only 2.1 seconds left in regulation. A chance Chalmers was more than willing to take, and make.


Mario Chalmers three pointer to end regulation capped a 9 point comeback by the Jayhawks with 2:12 to play in the game. The Jayhawks then went on to outscore the Tigers 12 to 5 in the overtime period thus sealing Kansas' first title since 1988. Darrell Arthur contributed a double-double scoring 20 points and collecting 10 rebounds. Memphis' Chris Douglas-Roberts led all scorers with 22 points. In what was probably his last game as a Tiger, Derrick Rose once again proved why he is the best point guard prospect in college basketball. He had 18 points, 8 dimes, and 6 boards. Rose in the second half scored 14 of his team's 16 points during one stretch to lift the Tigers to a 60-51 lead with 2:12 left. But that's when the wheels fell off the bus.

It was a spectacular game to watch. All the experts and personalities who said this tournament had no story lines and lacked excitement ate their words last night. Bill Self finally beat that monkey off his back and I think John Calipari is crying in a corner somewhere. It's hard to not love this game!

So....About Those Picks I Made

I was wrong, terribly and horribly wrong. I've made a lot of predictions in my life, and this might take the cake as far as bad ones. Last night, Kansas and Memphis promptly threw down the gauntlet. Both teams dominated their opponents while leading me to look like a total jackass. If I don't get a lot of "Wow, you suck at predictions" e-mail from you guys, I will be extremely disappointed.

UCLA Bruins

STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
J. Shipp, G-F	37	3-9	1-3	0	2	0	3	9
L. Mbah a Moute, F	34	5-13	2-2	6	13	0	0	12
K. Love, C	36	4-11	4-4	2	9	1	1	12
R. Westbrook, G	36	10-19	0-0	2	3	2	4	22
D. Collison, G	33	1-9	0-0	1	4	4	5	2
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
A. Aboya, F-C	6	1-2	0-0	0	0	1	1	2
J. Keefe, F	11	0-1	4-4	1	2	0	1	4
L. Mata-Real, C	7	0-0	0-0	0	2	0	2	0

Memphis Tigers

STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
R. Dozier, F	30	3-7	0-0	1	3	0	2	6
J. Dorsey, F	27	0-3	0-0	6	15	2	3	0
A. Anderson, G	38	5-11	0-0	1	3	3	0	12
C. Douglas-Roberts, G	35	9-17	9-11	0	4	0	2	28
D. Rose, G	37	7-16	11-12	4	9	4	4	25
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
S. Taggart, F	22	3-7	0-0	2	7	1	3	7
W. Kemp, G	4	0-1	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
P. Niles, F	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
D. Mack, G	6	0-2	0-0	0	1	0	0	0

The Bruins final lead in the game came with 15:27 to play, IN THE FIRST HALF. From that point on the Memphis Tigers used their superior athleticism to run up and down the court at will. Future NBA draft pick Derrick Rose lit up the Bruins for 25 points while grabbing 9 rebounds. The Tigers Chris Douglas-Roberts led all scorers with 28 points. Kevin love suffered his first poor shooting night of the NCAA Tournament and looked winded towards the middle of the second half of the game. He finished with only 12 points on 4 of 11 shooting. Collison, the Bruins star point guard also picked a poor time to not shoot well. Drew ended up shooting only 1 of 9 from the floor for a whopping total of 2 points.

Final Score - Memphis 78 UCLA 63



Kansas Jayhawks

STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
D. Arthur, F	32	3-9	0-0	0	9	2	2	6
D. Jackson, F	17	5-6	2-2	1	4	2	3	12
R. Robinson, G	30	2-5	2-2	0	4	4	2	7
M. Chalmers, G	31	5-10	0-2	0	4	3	3	11
B. Rush, G	32	11-17	1-2	3	7	2	2	25
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
C. Teahan, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
S. Collins, G	29	4-9	2-2	1	4	4	4	11
J. Case, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	1	0
T. Reed, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
S. Kaun, C	9	2-4	0-0	0	0	0	3	4
C. Aldrich, C	16	2-4	4-4	4	7	0	1	8
M. Kleinmann, C	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0

North Carolina Tar Heels

STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
D. Thompson, F	25	2-4	3-4	0	4	0	2	7
T. Hansbrough, F	36	6-13	5-6	6	9	1	3	17
M. Ginyard, G-F	32	0-3	0-0	1	3	2	1	0
T. Lawson, G	28	2-8	4-4	1	3	2	1	9
W. Ellington, G	33	8-21	1-1	2	6	0	3	18
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	OFF	REB	AST	PF	PTS
M. Campbell, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
Q. Thomas, G	13	0-2	0-0	0	1	2	1	0
W. Graves, F	2	0-2	0-0	1	1	0	0	0
D. Green, G-F	20	6-13	0-0	1	5	0	3	15
J. Tanner, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
S. Wood, F	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
J. Wooten, G	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
A. Stepheson, F	6	0-1	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
M. Copeland, F	1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0

At one point during this game, the Kansas Jayhawks led the Tar Hells 40 to 12. UNC made a heroic comeback to get within five points but that was as close as they would come all game. Thanks to a spectacular effort from Brandon Rush (25 points 9 rebounds), the Jayhawks were able to send their old coach, Roy Williams, packing. Unanimous Player of the Year winner Tyler Hansborough contributed 17 points and 9 rebounds. He however only converted on 6 of his 13 shots, his worst shooting performace in the tourney. UNC guards Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington combined to shoot 10 of 29 for only 27 points while only contributing 2 assists total. Thanks in large part to Mario Chalmers, the Jayhawks suffocating defense held the Tar Heels to a 36% field goal percentage, their lowest this season.

Final Score - Kansas Jayhawks 84 North Carolina Tar Heels 66