Ah, Rick Reilly. We love him here at The Scores Report. Whenever Anthony and I get together for a drink or dinner we always start off with a moment of silence in honor of Sir Rick. (That’s what we call him.) Without Rick Reilly’s genius, neither of us would have ever become writers. It was Sir Rick who inspired us.

Juuuust kidding. Can’t stand the guy. He can write, and he’s the King of the Schmaltz, but we can’t stand the guy.

Example #247, his postmortem on the BYU/Florida game, entitled, “Jimmer grows dimmer.” (Like I said, genius.)

Except for a stretch in the middle, when he was brilliant, Fredette was brutal.

Yes, he scored 32 points, but he took 29 shots to do it. He seemed to be wearing a blindfold from the 3-point arc — 3-for-15. Plus, he committed six turnovers and wandered aimlessly through the lane on defense like Moses in the desert. I’ve seen dead people play better defense. At least they occasionally trip people.

If his last college game is what he’s bringing to the NBA, then I’d say, in five years, he’s got a really good chance to be your Provo area Isuzu dealer.

As Reilly notes later, Fredette played 44 minutes against Florida and is asked to carry most of the scoring load for his team. His defense is definitely suspect, but he can’t be expected to expend a lot of energy on that end of the court if his team needs him to score 40 points to win. Cut the guy some slack.

“He’s a little Maravich,” a guy in a BYU shirt told me.

No! No, he isn’t! He’s not within a mile of Mardi Gras floats of Maravich. Maravich could get his shot off from the bottom of a swimming pool. He could get 40 in handcuffs. He averaged 44 points a game in college (to Fredette’s 28 this season) and that’s without the 3-point shot. With it, studies of his game film have shown, he would have averaged over 55.

Of course he’s not Pete Maravich, but why is Reilly devoting precious column space on ESPN.com on the rambling delusions of a BYU fan? Fredette doesn’t have Maravich’s handle, though he does have a wide range of scoop shots that would make Pistol Pete proud.

It was one of Fredette’s worst shooting nights of the season, but he still managed to score 32 points and lead his team to overtime. Reilly only wants to kick him while he’s down.

Where was he when Jimmer dropped 52 points on New Mexico, or 43 in a home win against a very good San Diego State defense? Or even five days prior to the Florida loss, when Fredette hit 7-of-12 three-pointers en route to BYU’s 18-point win against a pretty hot Gonzaga team?

Shooters shoot. And sometimes they have a night like Jimmer did against Florida.

After all the kid has accomplished this season, why does Reilly feel the need to devote 900 words about what he’s not?

Rick Reilly wrote a piece about how TCU’s win over Wisconsin proves, yet again, that college football needs a playoff. I agree with just about everything he says, but then he writes this:

What a lie this BCS era is. They say a playoff would take too much time away from school, yet Oregon’s players will have had 37 days off when they play again.

They say with this system, “every game counts.” Except of course, TCU’s epic win over Wisconsin to stay undefeated Saturday. Counts exactly as much as a rainbow to Stevie Wonder.

Here’s what was going through my mind as I read that section…

What a lie this BCS era is. Yep. They say a playoff would take too much time away from school, yet Oregon’s players will have had 37 days off when they play again. Yep. They say with this system, “every game counts.” Except of course, TCU’s epic win over Wisconsin to stay undefeated Saturday. Not epic, but yep. Counts exactly as much as a rainbow to Stevie Wonder. Wait, whaa? Leave Stevie out of it!

Seriously, dude is blind. He’s had enough to deal with in his life without a sportswriter (who has won National Sportswriter of the Year 11 times — sigh) invoking his handicap to make a lame joke so that his column will seem like it’s funny.

This is why I don’t generally read Rick Reilly. I read this piece because I’m in favor of a college football playoff and I wanted to see if he had anything new and/or interesting to add.

Nope.

Every so often, Rick Reilly comes up with something good. Here are his rules for rushing the court:

This has got to stop. Therefore, here are the Ironclad and Unbreakable Rushing-the-Court Rules. From now on, you can NOT rush the court if …

• You’ve won an NCAA title in the past 20 years.
• You’ve been in the Final Four in the past five years.
• The team you just beat is not in the top three.
• Or is ranked within 15 rungs of you. (Somebody do the math for Wake.)
• Or is really a football school. This includes Florida, Texas and Ohio State. Get over it.
• You’ve beaten this same team in the past five years.
• You won the stupid game by more than 10 points. There is no such thing as a PRTC (Premeditated Rush The Court.)
• You’re a university and you just beat a college.
• Coach K comes to your coach’s clinic.
• You have a dead-mortal-lock lottery pick on your team.
• Your team has appeared in a recent “One Shining Moment.”

I think RTC has become something that fans want to do at least once in their college career, so they make up an excuse to do it. That’s understandable, I guess. And I’d rather fans be too exuberant at times (NCAA) than asleep in the stands (NBA).

Here are a few random thoughts:

- I don’t like the 20-Year Rule. Really — Arkansas (1994) and UNLV (1990) aren’t allowed to rush the court if they beat a #1 team on their home court? Let’s make it the 10-Year Rule.

- I buy the Final Four, Top Three and 15 Rung rules, though I’d make it a 10 Rung Rule. If you’re ranked 12th in the country and just beat the #1 team at home, I get it.

- I don’t like the “really a football school” rule. A top three team is a top three team. Period.

- I buy the Repeat Rule, but not the 10-point rule, especially if the home team is a big underdog. PRTC is fine with me.

- The last four? Meh. Lots of teams appear in “One Shining Moment” — it doesn’t mean that they didn’t just get a huge win at home.

So what do you think of Reilly’s rules? (He does offer up a few exceptions.)

Photo from fOTOGLIF

- After USA’s win over Canada in hockey, RUMORS AND RANTS asks, “Hey Canada, How Does That Feel?”

- DRAFT ACE lists 10 players who should shine at the NFL combine.

- In light of USA’s upset over Canada, COLD HARD FOOTBALL FACTS lists 10 days that shook the sports world.

- PRO FOOTBALL TALK says that Julius Peppers’ lack of passion makes him a big free agent risk.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS says that Bill Simmons took a shot at Rick Reilly over the Tiger Woods’ statement.

Rick Reilly writes in his latest column (which has become one inspirational chain e-mail after the other) that Kurt Warner may be leaning towards retirement.

Still, if Warner does quit in the next couple of weeks — talk to him, you’ll be convinced he will — it won’t be because of his seven kids landing 720 McTwists on him, or 300-pound linemen crushing him from the blind side. It’ll be because it’s become nine parts job and one part fun.

“Not the Sundays,” he says. “The three hours on Sundays are still fun. But it’s the whole week, the whole commitment, the ability to sustain it to your fullest, day in and day out.

Brenda Warner — the most quotable wife in the NFL — has said the decision is between “Kurt and God.” What does that mean, exactly?
“It means I pray that God takes away the desire in me to play this game,” he says. “I’ve loved it for so long. I need Him to take that away from me, so that I can be comfortable with this decision.”

So a lung-collapsing, cleat-raising hit like the one in New Orleans is a little message from above?
“Exactly.”

I say leave, Kurt Warner. Go walk your daughters down the aisle without a limp. Go play your beloved hoops until you’re 60. Go write the books you want to write and host the radio show you want to host and maybe even run for politics the way people are asking you now. Go exhale.

Reilly can share his opinion if he likes (he always does), but who’s to say that any of us know what’s best for Warner? This isn’t a case of an athlete that is past his prime and can’t contribute on the field anymore – Warner is still playing at a high level.

Professional football can be a cruel mistress. It’ll build you up, reward you handsomely and then before you know it, you’ll walk away and it’ll be gone forever. That’s why I say if Warner has even a shred of desire to come back, then he should. Reilly’s right when he says that Warner has nothing left to prove. But athletes don’t have to prove anything to anyone put themselves and their teammates. And if Warner still enjoys the game and everything that comes with it, then he should play until that desire is no longer there.

From Rick Reilly’s blog. (Yes, he has a blog.)

Until Woods answers some questions, he is only teaching his students that the best thing to do in a crisis is to run and hide.

These are those questions:

1) What made him lose control of his car?
2) Why did it happen at 2:25 a.m.?
3) If his wife, Elin, was indeed coming to his aid as he lay unconscious in the front seat of his Cadillac Escalade, why did she smash out the rear windows?
4) Why won’t he speak to the Florida Highway Patrol about the accident?
5) Did the report from the National Enquirer just days before that he was seeing another woman play a role in the early-morning wreck?

That pretty much sums up what everyone wants to know. Woods has always been a private person, and the events of the last few days have rocked his world. If this had happened to a regular Joe, he wouldn’t owe an explanation to anyone (save the police). But since Woods is a huge celebrity, his life is under a microscope. The questions aren’t going to go away, so he might as well answer them.

- BLEACHER REPORT ranks the hottest cheerleader for each NBA team.

- RED’S ARMY has the details of how Glen “Big Baby” Davis broke his hand. The site also reports that Celtics ownership might suspend him.

- PHILLYBURBS has the story of a Phillies fan so desperate to get tickets to the World Series that she was willing to trade sexual favors. It’s a shocker that this didn’t end well.

- DEADSPIN describes how Antoine Walker burned through more than $55 million in his career. Sigh.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS discusses how a movie adapted from one of Rick Reilly’s books might save the world. Not really.

In one of his recent articles for ESPN.com, Rick Reilly took aim at Tiger Woods and his constant temper tantrums on the course.

The man is 33 years old, married, the father of two. He is paid nearly $100 million a year to be the representative for some monstrously huge companies, from Nike to Accenture. He is the world’s most famous and beloved athlete.

And yet he spent most of his two days at Turnberry last week doing the Turn and Bury. He’d hit a bad shot, turn and bury his club into the ground in a fit. It was two days of Tiger Tantrums — slamming his club, throwing his club and cursing his club. In front of a worldwide audience.

If there were no six-second delay, Tiger Woods would be the reason to invent it. Every network has been burned by having the on-course microphone open when he blocks one right into the cabbage and starts with the F-bombs. Once, at Doral, he unleashed a string of swear words at a photographer that would’ve made Artie Lange blush, and then snarled, “‘The next time a photographer shoots a [expletive] picture, I’m going to break his [expletive] neck!”

It’s disrespectful to the game, disrespectful to those he plays with and disrespectful to the great players who built the game before him. Ever remember Jack Nicklaus doing it? Arnold Palmer? When Tom Watson was getting guillotined in that playoff to Stewart Cink, did you see him so much as spit? Only one great player ever threw clubs as a pro — Bobby Jones — and he stopped in his 20s when he realized how spoiled he looked.

This isn’t new. Woods has been this way for years: swearing like a Hooters’ bouncer, trying to bury the bottom of his driver into the tee box, flipping his club end over end the second he realizes his shot is way offline.

I know what you’re saying. We see more Tiger tantrums because TV shows every single shot he hits. And I’m telling you: You’re wrong. He is one of the few on Tour who do it. And I keep wondering when PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is going to have the cojones to publicly upbraid him for it.

I liked this piece by Reilly. Of course, I liked it better when Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post wrote about in early April after Tiger pissed and moaned through the Masters.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Reilly plagiarized (he definitely didn’t) or ripped off Kiszla because after all, the same sports topics are brought up ad nauseam on a daily basis and therefore there is bound to be some crossover. But read Kiszla’s piece, then Reilly’s, and then tell me there aren’t some obvious similarities.

Again, this isn’t to say that Reilly can’t touch on a subject that has already been talked about before (after all, we bloggers do it all the time). But we’ve seen this kind of lazy writing before from Reilly, most notably when he (essentially) reused a story he wrote for SI in 2003 as a “new” article for ESPN.com in May of this year. It drives me nuts how some believe that this guy is one of the most creative and innovative writers in the business and his work is often lacking.

Getting back to Tiger, would it be nice if he were a statue after hitting a bad shot? Yeah – it would be great if we didn’t have to watch him channel his inner Happy Gilmore every time he nailed one into the rough. But even though he’s a bit of a sore loser, Woods is an immense competitor and if guys like Reilly and Kiszla weren’t writing about his temper tantrums, they’d probably be criticizing him for not showing more fire and emotion when he plays.

At this point, I think Tiger is so good that some writers are going to try to find ways to criticize him any way they can. After all, how many times can you write about how amazing he is? Again, it would be nice if he showed a little more class on the course, but to say he’s disrespecting the game is a bit much. The guy is a model citizen (as Reilly points out) off the course so I’m going to give him a mulligan (corny pun phase initiated) for his club-throwing temper tantrums.

Rick Reilly puts together a top 10 list of the best sporting events to see live and I couldn’t disagree more with his top 5.

5. Tour de France — Like trying to get to 20 Super Bowls in 23 days, but worth it. Pick a climbing stage, bring friends and a bike, ride the course in the morning before the race (you’re allowed), have lunch in a hamlet atop some exquisite Alp, watch the heart-skipping finish, have a bottle of Bordeaux, spend the night, bike down in the morning. Rinse and repeat.

4. North Carolina vs. Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium — Fans pulling the hair of Tar Heels players as they inbound the ball; students camping out for months in K-Ville for tix; the hilarious chants from the Crazies, who once yelled at Grant Hill’s parents, “One more kid!”; public school vs. private; an electricity that makes the Final Four and its corporate crowd seem like a three-day seminar on bunions.

3. Wimbledon — There’s nothing in America within a par-5 of it. It’s a Windsor Castle garden party with grunting. It’s queens and cobblers, cheek to cheek, over grounds so huge it would take you and your Toro a month to mow. It’s a phantasmagoria of color — greens and purples and yellows — and that’s just Bud Collins’ pants.

2. Kentucky Derby — My life’s aspiration was to be Damon Runyon, and the Derby is as close as I’ll get. With its wooden stands, elegant barns, men in seersucker suits and women in hats you could land an F-14 on, it’s 1927 everywhere you look. Don’t miss the fillies the day before in the Kentucky Oaks or the Barnstable Brown Gala or the awful race-day breakfast at Wagner’s Pharmacy, across from Gate 3. If you hear a tip there, book it, because everyone around you is a trainer, an owner or a groom.

1. Masters — Sneak into the clubhouse for the peach cobbler and steal into the Eisenhower Cabin, where some paintings are actually by Eisenhower. Do the par-3 tourney Wednesday and Arnie’s first tee shot Thursday; see the droop-shouldered cut players driving out Magnolia Lane Friday, Amen Corner Saturday and golf history Sunday. Because Augusta already has most of the money printed in America, it has not sold out an inch. There are no ads, just flowers. No luxury boxes, just $1.50 egg salad sandwiches. Timeless.

You know that friend that we all have? You know the one – the guy/girl that only likes things that are not in the mainstream? All of his or her favorite bands are underground and all the movies that he or she likes are ones that nobody else enjoyed because they, “just didn’t get it.” We’re okay with these friends, but we know damn well that the only reason they like certain things is because they’re not in the mainstream.

Yeah, that’s Reilly in this piece.

I’ve never been to the Masters, Kentucky Derby, Wimlbedon or Tour de France, so as far as I know they’re the most thrilling events of all-time to see live. But I’m more focused on Reilly here. Was he just trying to be different with this list? Is he trying to separate himself from other top 10 lists? Because I find it incredibly odd that he left out the main four (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) out of his top 5.

If he did so just to be different, I find him more annoying than every before.

- THE SPORTZ ASSASSIN argues that the NFL should let Michael Vick play.

- ON 205TH lists 10 reasons why David Ortiz is struggling.

- Will Leitch of DEADSPIN writes about why the NBA Draft Lottery is so great. DEADSPIN also compares a 2003 column by Rick Reilly to a 2009 column by Rick Reilly.

- Brooks of SPORTSbyBROOKS isn’t happy that a somewhat prominent radio host mentioned his blog on the air. Now he’s thinking about shutting his site down.