That's Shaaady

Big Game, November 22, 2008

3rd and 7 or so, Stanford has the ball. A Stanford receiver runs a post pattern, Tavita Pritchard throws a low ball for him, and he scoops it just before it hits the ground, and adds some yards after the catch to make it 4th and 1.

The play is then shown on the big screen and it is EASILY seen that the ball in fact hits the ground before it is caught. It is so obvious, that coach Tedford sprints onto the middle of the field to make sure the play is reviewed before another one is snapped. The ref's review it, and decide not to reverse the call.

That's shaaady.

(in case you were wondering, it did not matter, we stopped them when they went for it on 4th and 1, and we destroyed them in the game)

The zune is making moves again . . .

News on the Zune front (besides the addition of sudoku, checkers, and a game just like phoenix on the TI-83, but tricked out a little more): a writer on gizmodo is switching to a zune for the music subscription.

This is the start of a slow, but steady shift in the market, and you will see, as time goes by, Microsoft will grab some of the market back. Keep an eye out, and keep your mind open when you're buying your next player . . . You might just be impressed with the Zune if you take a test drive.

That's Shaaady

I've decided to start a little thing called 'that's shaaady' where any time I see/hear about a shady call/move/etc., I'll post about it here. If this blog existed earlier, things that would have made the 'that's shady' hall of fame would include the Pau Gasol for nothing trade, the verbal abuse Materazzi heaped upon Zidane, and a lot of the McCain campaign in general.

Let's start it off with yesterday's Warrior's/Blazers contest, which I attended.

The Blazers, down by 2 with 5 seconds left are playing defense, trying to steal a side-line inbounds from the Warriors. The Warriors throw it to the backcourt, but overthrow the intended man, Anthony Morrow. Rudy Fernandez sprints to get it, but in an effort to keep the game from being tied, Morrow holds onto Rudy.

Foul is called.

But wait . . .the foul is called on Rudy, somehow, some way. Coach McMillan of the Blazers complains, gets t'd up, and that's your ball game, Warriors escape with a win.

That's Shaaaady.

I'm Old. You're Old. We're All Old.

One of my friends constantly reminded me that as soon as I turned 20, it would be down hill from there. Yeah it was a joke, and I treated it that way until I realized that the day after I played basketball, my back started hurting, my muscles were sore, and walking wasn't as easy as it used to be.

I'm starting to get older, and it's slowly starting to hit me. Yeah, yeah, it's only 20, I'm about to hit my prime, and I'm not really old, but you know what, the definition of old for me is what I thought it was when I was a kid. Old was your parents taking your advice genuinely, living by yourself (plus a roommate) and making a majority of your own decisions. Old was learning how to make the right choice. Old is finding out that some of your friends are engaged, and realizing that you're going to hit that 9-5 within a couple of years. Old is watching your cousins become the age you remembered like it was yesterday, except that you're 9 years older than him.

I can go on, but you get the picture. And according to that definition, I'm in that old picture.

I don't ask for birthday gifts from my parents anymore, and this year, I tried a different path; I asked my dad for some advice. What he told me made me realize that as you get older, you need to look at life differently.

The way you lived your life, how you made decisions, they were all based on a preset notion of what your overall goal was. Was the goal to have fun? Was it to gain some knowledge at school? These goals determine your lifestyle and choices, and these goals change as you get older. I can say that I knew of the concept and it made sense, but I never thought about it, and it never hit me until this year. It was some of the simplest and best advice I have ever received in my life, and it has the potential to shift my life in a huge way. Whether his advice holds true or not, only time will tell; I'm going to take it for a test drive in the following years, and I will pass it on if it holds up. Regardless of the outcome, however, that transcending idea of adapting to your age is going to carry on no matter what.

Maybe getting older isn't such a bad thing. If your goal was to have fun, you were happy succeeding in it. If your goal changes to do well in school, and you pull a 4.0, then you again will be happy. If your future goal is to live on the beach, and travel internationally on business, and you are working towards that goal, then you may be happy, even if you're old in that process.

I used to fear getting older, mostly because I didn't want to hit the stage where I couldn't compete with the young'uns on the basketball court. I didn't want to get to the world where every day was a work day without real summer/winter vacations and taking a road trip to watch a football game did not happen as often as it should. But, those were all bad because they went against my current mind set. Maybe when I get older, that won't be what I'm looking for in life, and missing out on that won't be as bad.


That being said, as the younger one of our year, I'm going to age a little slower than the others, so thank god for that.

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S.O.T.D.

Outkast - So Fresh, So Clean

Youtube Clip

MJ loses to a CEO at one-on-one. Yes, at basketball, not at managing a company, or say, a basketball team.
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In case you didn't know . . .

• Obama will be the 44th president of the U.S. He is already holding steady on his resolve not to get involved with 'big corporate' in that he is refusing money from large corporate sponsors for the inauguration.
  
• That being said, president-elects have to fund a good portion of their own inauguration because the government only provides so much.
• Obama is like Michael Jordan. I'm down to be on any team with MJ, and if a = b and b = c, I'm definitely down to be led by Obama. (6th bullet down)
• If you are like me and don't have car, then I have some news for you. Gas is $2.30/gallon
• Former Phoenix Suns Guard Kevin Johnson is the mayor of Sacramento
• Granada Hills felt left out of all the news coverage from the fire in Porter Ranch, so it started it's own.
• USC is ranked 6th in the nation, which means there are 5 teams that are better, but if you go to Vegas and were to look at the point spread for each matchup, USC would be favored against all of those teams. Explain that for me please.
• I had no idea, until prop 8 was passed, how big the bubble I lived in was.
• Yao Ming must now be referred to as Dr. Yao Ming. Isn't his last name Ming? Why does it say Yao on his jersey, he's not Brazillian.
• The waiter at a dinner I went to was Ze Roberto. Thank you Brazillians for inventing that name, I like it. The name also belonged to a soccer player on Brazil.
• What rivalries exist that are legitimate anymore? Cal vs. Stanford? I don't feel it so much. Lakers vs. Celtics? You'll have to talk to 50+ year olds for that one. Yankees vs. Red Sox? I'll give you that one, though now that they are pretty much the same, buy the best team on paper clubs now, I don't see what the fans hate about the other team so much when they look in the mirror every day and are happy with what they see. Nope, I don't think rivalries last more than 2 or 3 years and then fizzle out into memories and constant rehashing from pre-game shows.
  
• Though it hasn't been advertised as much, do your research before you invest in a MacBook or iPhone . . . There have been a lot of bugs and a lot of firmware fixes that have had to be sent out. I think it is because they have such a large volume customers now, that they can no longer put as much time into quality as they could before.
• I implore all of you to learn how to solder correctly.
• You can now order pizza from your TiVo, but you'll have to like Dominos.
  
• Blu Ray player prices finally broke $200 without rebates, emphasis on broke
  

I'm done hibernating . . .

But apparently the Bears and Clippers are not.

Again, sorry for the prolonged absence, hell in the form of midterms coupled with laziness rivaling the defensive 'effort' provided by the 'savior' boom-dizzle (I should receive a pat on the back for refraining from using boom-fizzle to describe his ineptitude) kept me from writing.

As you can sense from the tone of that previous paragraph (I'm big on tone, aren't I?), this here is going to be a slightly more negative post, but hey, maybe there's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, although on my drive back up from USC, I saw the end of the rainbow, and there definitely was not any gold.

Where to begin, Clips or Cal? Flipped a coin, no identity on one side (representing the Clips), lack of showing up when they need to on the others (representing the Bears) . . . and it fell on the Bears.

California Golden Bears:

Let's start with the defense, because I want to have at least one snippet of hope. I love this defense. In the past 2 years I have been here, I have always had to worry about defense, worry about where we are going to get beat. But you know what? One article I read put it best: this is a championship level defense. We kept USC to 17 points, and it really should have been 10. We have had our faults in allowing Jacquizz Rodgers to tear us apart, but other than that, I am proud of the way our unit played. Our linebackers were amazing, our corners were great, we have some good safeties developing and our line is pretty solid.

Next year, we are going to lose 3 of our starting linebackers, but you know what, we have two pretty good ones remaining in Mike Mohammad and Eddie Young. Our other talents will develop as well.

Now comes the questions about the defense. The 3-4 scheme was designed to take advantage of our amazing linebacking corps. We had the speed and ability to run this defense, but with 3 of our 4 gone, can we still run this defense? If not, we'll have to switch back to the 4-3, which over the past two years (and especially last year) didn't work too well. I'm not going to get into further detail about this, because I don't know all the problems internally the defense had, and I really feel that talent is not the reason our defense ever gets beaten, there is always something else going on, whether it just be sloppy play on our side of the ball, stellar play on the other side, or personal reasons.

Either way, I think we'll be ok there, if not great; there were problems other than the 4-3 on the defense, and I think we've adressed it for the most part.

As you can tell by the hurried way in which I skimmed over the defense, I just wanted to get to the offense and tear them apart like I would a 3rd grader on the basketball court if doing so got me a million bucks. Just kidding, I'm too much of an optimist to tear them up, plus it's just mean, seeing as I can't do any better. But still, I have some harsh words for them.


Kevin Riley/Nate Longshore/QB Position in general

• This year, it was obviously inconsistent. Longshore became hesitant in the second half, so much so, that a normal, par performance that made no mistakes, but did nothing special was received with happiness and thrill, even from me. Thats never a good sign. Riley was mobile, and made big plays, but man, he needs to hit open receivers IN STRIDE. Notice the in stride. Personally, I believe his focus on making the pass meet the receiver in his hands kept him from getting the ball in the best position for yards after the catch. Commentators on ABC talked about how our receivers weren't getting much YAC, but if you get a ball that stops you in your tracks, you're going to get hit before you can get back up to speed.
  
• Solution? Longshore graduates, that problem is gone. Easy, huh? For Riley, go to ESPN zone, and play that game where you throw footballs to moving cardboard pieces with holes in them. Improves accuracy and you learn to hit receivers in stride. All summer. So much so that it becomes second nature and he can focus on winning a game rather than just managing it.
  
• Outlook? Good. I can see him putting in the time and improving. The job is his alone next year, and he can focus on getting better as a junior

Runningbacks Jahvid Best/Shane Vereen

• Our focal points of offense this year should only get better. There isn't anything else positive to say about them that hasn't already been said: they are both quick game changers that can break free for 30 yards at any given moment.
  
• Changes still need to be made though if this tandem wants to be one of the best in the nation, which is where their ceiling is. Jahvid just needs to focus on game tape and learn how to either get through holes quicker, or recognize defensive tendencies. These are basically 'the little things'. He has all the physical gifts, and he already breaks off huge runs, but sometimes he gets caught right before he is about to break off a big run. Yeah, I'm nitpicking, but if what I have read about him is true, he'll nitpick at himself as well. And that is what I want.
• As for Shane Vereen, he has been known as the 'Lightning' to this 'Lightning and Lightning' combo, but I feel that he hasn't reached that category yet. He is a great back, and I see him as the Forsett to the Lynch, but he can get stronger, and again, game tape watching will help him out.
  
• Yes, this is nitpicking again, but there's not much that these guys didn't do for us. Hopefully they continue to get better and lead us to the top.

Offensive Line

• Injuries, injuries, injuries. And still, our line did a better than serviceable job. I can't say anything bad about them, because they probably had the hardest year out of any of the other positions on the team.
  
• We lose Alex Mack to the NFL, but his backup Chris Guarnero is supposed to be a big talent. He filled in at OT this year, but got injured . . .again, like most of the offensive line. The only good thing about this is that the young guns got playing time, and were thrown around just enough that their confidence wasn't shot, but so that they could see they have a LOT of work to do in the offseason. This translates to a good training camp and hopefully a good year next year for our highly touted 2007 O-line draft class. We'll see what happens, it is still, like always, a toss up.

Receivers - Receivers A/B/C/D/E . . .

• I know their names, I just refuse to use them until one, or even two if I dare hope, of them can separate themselves from the pack. Personally, I believe a lot of the times it is either Riley or Longshore's fault for them not being able to catch passes. When you run as fast as they do, and then throw the ball behind them, short, or too high, you're asking them to act on reflexes when they've been trained week in and week out to keep to their routes and expect the ball in a catchable place. At the same time, there were still way too many dropped passes, and route running can always be better.
  
• The positive? They are all young, and we aren't losing any real talent this year, so there's a good chance we will be better in this area next year. Tons of upside, but that means nothing on the football field.
• Tedford, if you are reading this blog, as I know you look for only the best in football advice, I suggest the Hofstra receiver training program to help our receivers catch the ball (worked for Marques Colston of the Saints): color the tips of each football a different color, and in the middle of the football, write any number from 0-9. When your receiver runs a route in practice and the coach throws the ball, the receiver must 1) yell out the color of the ball and 2) after catching the ball, yell out the number on the ball. Yelling out the color forces the receiver to focus on the ball as it's coming so they don't worry about what is happening around them. Yelling out the number makes sure they secure it (so they can read the number) and guarantee the catch first.
  

This year was a slight disappointment in that I felt we could have played better than we showed. Teams who scouted us probably changed their QB scout boards from 'pick your poison' to 'pick inconsistency or over throws'. We could have beat Oregon State, we could have beat Arizona, and we definitely could have stayed in the game with USC. We'll just have to see what happens next year, and hopefully, it turns out for the better. All in all, if I had to give us a grade, I'd give us a B-. Passing, a little above average, but not a fundamental understanding of the subject. We need fundamental understanding if we want to be first in the class.


Now, for your, Los Angeles Clippers!

Frustration. Anguish. Cheated. Tormented. These are a few of my fav- sorry, these are a few of the emotions I feel. Bill Simmons calls this team the most jinxed in the NBA, and knowing my luck, I'd end up a Clippers fan. I'm not switching, and I'll never think of switching. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't, not after I received a clippers hat, basketball shorts, and hoodie for my birthday. But you know what? We still deserve better.

This team has no identity. We are 12th in the league in pace; we're outrunning the warriors and suns, yet this Mike Dunleavy team is supposed to run half court sets. We are taking way more outside, long distance shots than mid-range and inside shots, yet we have a 'slashing' PG, and a good center. Players are saying there are too many plays to remember, too many rotations. Coaches are saying that the defensive effort isn't good enough, so we're switching up the players. Blowing big leads. Getting blown out early. Not finishing out close games.

The sad part is, all of this is true, meaning that to get better, the clippers need to fix . . . . wait for it . . . drum roll please . . . everything. Everything needs to be changed. The clippers haven't been the best of teams for a long time. Even still, 1-6, which is where we are at now, is the worst start we've had in a LONG time, as in at least a decade.

I understand we are building for the future with all of these contracts that expire in 2010. But you know what, we need to build up from the bottom again, just like the Blazers. We need to find a core player to build around, whether it's Baron Davis or not, and provide good locker room guys who have the drive and talent to take this team far, year in, year out.

Solutions? Wait. Wait until free agency. This team is too . . . weird, dysfunctional, different, to be able to win now. Every player is going to be playing for their contract, becasue they know they're not going to be here this time next year. It's a horrible feeling for a fan, and it hurts to know that this year is basically wasted. But all you can do is go watch a game or two, look for the current mainstays, B-Diddy and Kamen, to get better, and start looking at the free agent list and dreaming of a lineup of Bosh, LeBron, Baron Davis, Kamen, and Thorton.

To rebuild, you have to break some things down. This is the break down stage, and you know what, it stinks. Light at the end of the tunnel? I've been saying that for far too long. We'll see if that light is coming up this offseason. Until then, I'll continue to check up box scores and read ClipperBlog, but if they're going into hibernation during the season, then why can't I as well.

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S.O.T.D.

N.E.R.D. - Spaz

Youtube Clip:

Clippers Ineptitude