Maddux Sports Blog

So long, Tim Floyd. One of the slimiest coaches in basketball has reportedly resigned from his post at USC. He’s embroiled with a scandal over allegations that he personally paid an associate of O.J. Mayo so that Mayo would choose to attend USC. He hasn’t admitted to doing anything wrong, but this resignation is the next best thing. It was only a couple of months ago that Floyd declared his love to USC and chose to stay instead of taking the job at Arizona, sp this is a relationship that soured quickly. Now USC has to find a good coach at an awkward time, and they can’t afford to screw it up. The search won’t be made any easier by the sins of Floyd – no coach would be eager to jump into a school that could be hit by sanctions. I’ve never been a fan of Floyd, and this is just a clear sign that I can trust my instincts.

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I love college football for a lot of reasons, but one of them is how quickly things can change. Take Boston College, for example. Two years ago they were totally secure in their quarterback situation with Matt Ryan – probably the best QB in the country. Now their QB situation is an absolute shambles. It was already going to be ugly, but things got really bleak yesterday. Dominique Davis started four games as a freshman last year, and he was likely to be the starter at the beginning of this year. He was the only quarterback on the team who had ever thrown a college pass. Now he’s gone. He was suspended by the team for academic reasons, and the situation was serious enough that he decided to transfer instead of sticking it out and fixing the problem. Now the Eagles have just two guys -redshirt freshman Justin Tuggle and junior college transfer Codi Boek . I already wasn’t at all optimistic about BC in the ACC this year, but his only serves to further cloud their prospects in my eyes.

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I find myself writing about Kentucky basketball way more than any single program deserves in the offseason, but so much of what is going on there is just so compelling that I can’t help it. It’s rare that a team goes through such a complete overhaul in an offseason, never mind an iconic program like this one. The program found itself in the news three different times yesterday, for three totally unrelated reasons:

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- Well, the seemingly inevitable has finally been confirmed – point guard phenom John Wall will spend his one year in college playing basketball at Kentucky. He was a virtual lock to go to Memphis before John Calipari left for Kentucky. Since then he flirted strongly with Duke, and he even reportedly gave a soft verbal commitment to Miami of all places, but he has landed in the place that totally makes sense for him. The dribble-drive offense is tailor made for a guy like Wall just as it was for Derrick Rose. In fact, Wall is frequently compared to Rose, though he is said to be even faster and more athletic. That’s scary for opposing teams to hear.

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It’s not particularly surprising that LeBron James was named MVP today – he certainly deserved it. What was surprising, though, is the margin by which he won it. There are 121 first place votes cast, and James picked up 109 of them. He’s the youngest player since Moses Malone in 1979 to win the award, and the third youngest ever. Cleveland coach Mike Brown was also named coach of the year last month, and that raises a surprising stat – this is just the fourth time that a team has had the MVP, top coach and the best record in the league in the same year. Just one of those teams, the 1996 Bulls, has gone on to win the title.

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Kevin Garnett is being held out of action until the playoffs. The official story is that there is no point in playing him in two totally meaningless games, but I’m not buying it. Wouldn’t you want to have a chance to test your knee and your fitness before the games got intense? Wouldn’t you want to ease back into action gradually? I sense that there is more to this story than we are hearing, and that makes me a bit uneasy.

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Dear Stephen,

You don’t know me, and you really have no reason whatsoever to listen to me, but I’m going to offer you some advice anyway. I hope you will listen to it because you know I am right – stay in school! You have another year of eligibility, and I beg you, implore you, and several other synonyms, to use it. Don’t just do this for me, though. Do it for yourself. Here are eight good reasons:

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It’s a shame that no one (full disclosure – myself included) cares about women’s basketball, because what UConn finished off last night was truly impressive. They thumped Louisville in the championship game to cut down the nets. More impressively, they weren’t beaten all year. I know that women’s basketball is more top heavy than men’s is, but it still seems incredible to me that a team can go all the way without faltering. Never mind that UConn is always about that good. This accomplishment is almost enough to make me want to start watching women’s basketball. Not quite, but almost.

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I’ll write one more article about my tournament thoughts and reflections and so on in a day or two, but let me just sum up the final last night with three words – wow, oops, and yawn. Wow, as in wow North Carolina looked incredibly good. Oops as in, oops, I guess I was wrong when I repeatedly said that I thought North Carolina looked vulnerable coming into the tournament. Yawn as in that was a truly boring game to watch despite the Tar Heels’ laser precision. Ugly.

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Here’s the way it looks as the ACC’s UNC Tar Heels take on the Big Ten’s Michigan State—the Spartans have to stop the Heels. Is that possible? UNC has been consistently the best team in the country. As the odds play out, the Tar Heels are favored by 7.5 points. The best money line you can get on UNC is -360. The best you can get on the Spartans is +310.

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