Post your roster questions here. Be sure to get them in by Saturday morning and let me know if you are in a PPR league. It helps to make my advice a little bit better.
Author: John Paulsen (Page 604 of 937)
Kevin McHale is known as one of the worst GMs in the league. Now he has decided that he is better equipped to be the Timberwolves’ head coach.
The Timberwolves relieved Randy Wittman of his job, though he should feel relieved after dealing with rumors of his imminent demise all season.
Wittman hasn’t lived up to the “goals and expectations” considering the “talent” he had to work with, according to Wolves owner Glen Taylor. Those are curious claims considering what Wittman had to run out there every night courtesy of Kevin McHale and Taylor.
Wittman could have coached Brandon Roy and O.J. Mayo. Instead, he had Randy Foye and Kevin Love. Those draft-day moves go on McHale’s ledger and perhaps it’s time for Minnesota’s favorite basketball son to answer for them. McHale stepped down from his post as VP of basketball operations to coach the Wolves once again.
Since McHale put this team together, he ought to be the one dealing with this 4-15 mess. Other than power forward Al Jefferson, the rest of the roster is either unrealized potential or veterans, such as Mike Miller, who aren’t part of the future. Taylor sounds as if he’s not letting McHale off the hook lightly.
“It is my expectation that Kevin will be able to get the most out of our team and our players,” Taylor said in a statement released by the team.
The Wolves could have as many as four first-round picks next summer. Minnesota needs to hit big in the Draft and/or put together a package to ease the pressure off Jefferson, while helping the development of Foye, Love and Corey Brewer, who recently suffered a season-ending knee injury.
“I truly believe that we have a talented group of players in our locker room who have a great amount of potential,” McHale stated. “I’m confident that we can get this turned around and get back to playing a brand of basketball that our fans can be proud of.”
McHale has a close relationship with Taylor which is why he’s lasted this long given his performance as the team’s GM. This smells like Taylor might be getting a little tired of the losing (and/or of McHale blaming the coach for the team’s performance) so he wants McHale to step in and put up or shut up.
What are the odds that there is a new GM and head coach in Minnesota next season?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how much better Marvin Harrison is playing at Lucas Oil Stadium. At that point, he was averaging 4.8-62-0.8 (or 15.8 fantasy points) at home and 2.2-22-0.0 (or 4.4 fantasy points) on the road.
Fast forward four weeks and the trend continues. In Week 11 against the Texans at home, he posted 9-77-1. In Week 12 at San Diego, he went for 6-44-0. In Week 13 at Cleveland, he posted 3-27-0. And in Week 14 against the Bengals at home, he finished with 3-78-1. Over the course of the entire season, his averages look like this:
At home: 5.2-67.3-0.8 (or 16.7 fantasy points)
On the road: 2.9-25.6-0.0 (or 5.5 fantasy points)
Harrison looks like a great start against the Lions next week, but should probably be benched (depending on your options) in Week 16 at Jacksonville.
There’s no real logic to this trend, but through 14 weeks, it’s hard to deny that it exists.
(Be sure to check out last week’s version of the bracket as a comparison.)
What’s done is done. That’s the…..um……great thing about the BCS system. Oklahoma jumped Texas last week in the rankings and now the Sooners are slated to face the Gators in the title game. As in years past, fans are supposed to just swallow this bitter pill and move on. Some lazy, narrow-minded sportswriters are happy to have the “debate” because their next few columns will essentially write themselves.
The truth is that the current system is not only a slap in the face to the Longhorns and their supporters, but to all college football fans across the country. The vast majority of us (85%-90% if you believe the polls) would like to see some sort of college football playoff. So the last few weeks I’ve been summarizing a proposed playoff system.
Here are my assumptions…
1. There would be an eight-team playoff. The six BCS-conference champs get an automatic bid unless they are ranked outside the top 15.
2. If a conference champ is ranked lower than #15 in the rankings, they give up their automatic bid and it becomes an at-large bid. (This rule is to ensure that the regular season keeps its meaning and only the elite teams make the playoffs.)
3. Seeds and at-large bids are distributed based on the current BCS standings. Certainly, these rankings need to be tweaked to place more of an emphasis on head-to-head matchups, but they are fine for now. If an at-large team has a better BCS ranking than a conference champion, they will get a higher seed.
4. There will be three rounds of playoffs. The first round will be held at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team. The semifinals and the final will rotate amongst the four BCS cities (Miami, Pasadena, Tempe and New Orleans).
So how does last weekend’s action affect our playoff field?
8-seed Cincinnati @ 1-seed Oklahoma
Both teams did what they needed to do. The Bearcats sneaked by Hawaii and Oklahoma was convincing in its win over Missouri.
5-seed USC @ 4-seed Alabama
In this case, it looks like the BCS rankings work. Both teams have one loss, but Alabama lost to a better team. Who wouldn’t want to see the Trojans visit Tuscaloosa? The winner would face the winner of the 1/8 game.
6-seed Utah @ 3-seed Texas
This format works for the little guy, or at least it works for Utah. (Sorry Boise State!) In order to advance, the Utes would have to win in Austin.
7-seed Penn State @ 2-seed Florida
With the Hawkeyes’ recent play, suddenly the Nittany Lions’ loss to Iowa doesn’t look so bad. They would face a tough test trying to win in Gainesville against the surging Gators.
This format would set up pair of semifinals that would pit Oklahoma versus Alabama and Texas versus Florida.
ACC champion Virginia Tech gives up its bid because the Hokies are not ranked in the top 15. With four losses, few would argue that VT should be included. With a win over #17 Oregon and an undefeated record, Boise State has the biggest gripe. We would have to move to a 12-team format (or require the conference champs to be ranked in the top 10, eliminating Cincy) to include the Broncos.
The other teams that are on the outside looking in — Texas Tech, Ohio State, TCU, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Georgia — either have three losses or have lost to teams that made the playoff, so the regular season clearly still holds its importance. (If Texas Tech had beat Oklahoma, if Ohio State had beat Penn State, if TCU had beaten Oklahoma and Utah, etc.)
The exclusion of Boise State is regrettable, but like March Madness, does anyone really think that the Broncos would be able to win three straight games against the elite teams in the country en route to a national championship? Unfortunately, in an eight-team playoff, we wouldn’t know for sure. It would be nice to have an option for a play-in game when there is an undefeated team from a non-power conference. In this case, Boise State could play Cincinnati for the right to play Oklahoma. However, if Ball State hadn’t lost to Buffalo, we’d be looking at two undefeated teams that would have been excluded. Then things get a little more dicey.
Another option would be a 12-team playoff that includes all the BCS conference champions and six at-large bids. That way, in addition to Oklahoma, Florida, USC, Penn State, Cincinnati and Virginia Tech getting bids, at-large teams Texas, Alabama, Utah, Texas Tech, Boise State and Ohio State would also get bids. I’m warming up to the idea of a 12-team playoff because it would account for cases like Boise State. Critics say that it would add too many games, but the only teams that would potentially play four games would be teams ranked #5 through #12 that made it to the title game (which is an unlikely scenario). Otherwise, everyone would play three or fewer additional games.
I’m not much of a boxing fan, but even I knew that there was a big fight on Saturday. It turns out Manny Pacquiao overcame a weight disadvantage to pound Oscar De La Hoya into a mercy stoppage.
In the end, it was a bruised, battered and utterly befuddled De La Hoya, 35, sitting with a blank look on his face as new trainer Nacho Beristain stopped the fight after much discussion before the start of the ninth round. It was a mercy stoppage and one that could have come from referee Tony Weeks during the seventh round, a classic example of a 10-8 round without a knockdown. Pacquiao battered De La Hoya in the round, landing 45 power shots, the most ever recorded by CompuBox in the 31 De La Hoya fights it has tracked.
De La Hoya might have been a shot fighter when he walked up the steps for battle, but Pacquiao, 29, the icon of the Philippines, also deserves credit for the upset in a fight many critics proclaimed as a mismatch. They thought it would be Pacquiao who would be annihilated because he had spent his career fighting in much smaller weight divisions before this leap to welterweight. The ironic thing is that the bigger guy entering the ring was actually Pacquiao. He weighed in officially on Friday at 142 pounds to De La Hoya’s 145. But on HBO’s unofficial scale on fight night, Pacquiao was up to 148½ and De La Hoya was surprisingly only 147.
Pacquiao’s domination earned him his third victory of the year in his third weight division. A former flyweight, junior featherweight and featherweight champion, Pacquiao won the junior lightweight championship by beating Juan Manuel Marquez in their March rematch and then moved to lightweight, where he won a title with a destruction of David Diaz in June. Pacquiao then made the jump to welterweight to face De La Hoya and surely locked up fighter of the year honors by completing his Henry Armstrongesque year.
Next up for Pacquiao likely will be junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton in the spring. For De La Hoya, let’s hope there is no next fight. If this is indeed the end for him, as it should be, he deserves our respect for a great career and a hearty thanks for the memories. He will be missed but he will not be forgotten.
It’s funny how all the pre-fight talk was about De La Hoya’s weight advantage, but it was Pacquiao that actually weighed in a little heavier just before the fight. Not funny like “ha ha” funny, but funny like “hmmm” funny.
Screw it – you know what I mean.
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑