Maddux Sports Blog

Before we get into the bowl previews, I just want to look at one issue with the Mike Leach situation. I’m not going to try to decode whether he did what he is alleged to do, whether it is as bad as it seems, or what punishment he should face. I justwant to ask one question – if you were going to harass one of your players, wouldn’t a smart person make sure that the player they were harassing wasn’t the son of an ESPN commentator who loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice? If Leach goes down then it will be incredibly hard to have any sympathy for him because of this shocking lack of judgement. Any self-respecting bully knows that you pick on kids who can’t defend themselves, not those who have a vocal advocate on their side.

EagleBank Bowl
UCLA (-5) vs. Temple
Tuesday, December 29, 4:30 pm ET

(more…)

As we did last weekend, here’s a look at what I think are the most interesting top 25 games of the weekend. Not included on here is the obvious one – USC-Ohio State. If you’re not totally sick of hearing about that game by now then you are a better person than me. For the record, I think USC will win, but I think the line movement has been utterly ridiculous this week. It also doesn’t include perhaps the most interesting top 25 game of the week – Kansas-USF – because that one has already happened.

(more…)

I’m going to weigh in tomorrow with in-game analysis during both games. Until then, I just wanted to share a couple of interesting things that have popped up today and provide us with more to think about as we try to make winning picks on the big games:

(more…)

UCLA is a very popular choice to win it all, and they are very likely to find themselves going very deep in most of my brackets. It only makes sense – they have been to the Final Four twice in a row, and this team is just as good as the last two teams. Kevin Love is probably the best player who has played for the team during this run. It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. Two of the starters are hurting. Love has a sore back that has limited his participation in recent days. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute sprained his ankle for the second time this season, and that kept him out of the Pac-10 championship game against Stanford. So, the question is this – should we panic? Will these injuries damage an otherwise promising run? Here’s a look:

(more…)