Chant n’ Rant

Who would have guessed that the standings would resemble anything close to what they are this season?

To start The Marlins leads the NL East while Philly and NY combine for a .500 record.  In the NL West the re-vamped Padres are in front of the heavily favored Dodgers.

And the AL is no better. In the East Baltimore and Toronto are in the lead of the three heavy favorites: Boston, New York, and Tampa.  In the Central Kansas City has some how jumped to the front of the line while Cleveland has tripped coming out of the box and are now 1-7.  Finally in the West Seattle is leading perennial power house LAA by two and a half games.

With new faces one every squad it will be interesting to see how long these trends last.

The overrated, over hyped Tyler Hansbrough has become irrelevant in UNC’s game plan as of late.  The Tar Heel forward scored just 8 points in the more recent game against Oklahoma and only 15 against LSU in their second round game, after averaging over 20 points a game this season.  Frankly Blake Griffin and Chris Johnson absolutely dominated Hansbrough in those two match ups and exposed just how average his game is.  Hansbrough has been unbelievably overrated his entire career as he lacks true talent and has gained respect simply through being a hustler and a hard worker.  But now that hes been matched up against a couple formidable opponents he has been rendered basically useless.  The freshman tandem of Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller have looked more impressive in the tournament, and if not for the return of point guard Ty Lawson, who is the true star of the team, the Tar Heels might have been doomed by this point in the tournament as there is no way Hansbrough could have carried them this far.

Lance Armstrong was taken to the hospital after a fall during the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon, a race held in Spain. He was knocked off of his bike and taken to the hospital immediately after. It was there were doctors determined that Armstrong had broken his collarbone.

Lance Armstrong released a statement on the social-networking site Twitter that read: “I’m alive! Broken clavicle (right). Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days. Thanks for all the well wishes.”

Thad Matta wins the award for the biggest dumbass on earth today with his less than pathetic coaching preparation and display against Sienna today.  For starters, Sienna has  runa three-quarter press all season and Matta has had five whole days to prepare  for this simple defensive scheme, but when it came to game time Ohio State was entirely clueless as to how to handle the press and it forced turnover after turnover down the stretch ultimately costing Ohio State the  game. 

Second, OSU was dominated on the boards 51-33.  Whats incredibly pitiful about this stat is that Sienna’s biggest player is the 12-year-old girl looking, sophomore Ryan Rossiter who stands 6′9” who is followed by Josh Duell who is 6′ 7” and played all of 3 minutes in the double over time game. Whats pitiful about getting out boarded by a bunch of undersized high school players is the fact that Lauderdale has a wing span of 7′ and B.J. Mullens stands 7′ tall.  Mullens is another point of Matta’s disaster of a supposed effort at coaching, as Mullens was no where to be found in the second half after dominating in the first.  

And finally, OSU was up by three points in the last posession of the first overtime after P.J. Hill converted two free-throws.  So instead of fouling Sienna who shoots 66 percent from the line as a team, which happens to be one of the worst in the NCAA, Matta decides to let it play out just to see Sienna drain a three-point-shot to send it to a second overtime. 

This is the biggest blunder of Matta career, without a doubt.  He should write a public apology to Ohio State and their fans for being such an idiot!

Check out the HD trailer for Tyson, James Toback’s incredibly candid documentary on the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.

This one drops in select theaters on April 24th. Don’t miss your chance to see the film that won the Regard Knockout Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Round two of the crazy dunks. Kristof Ongenaet’s scary dunk the other night might have been enough, but it wasn’t. While this one does not look nearly as painful, Adam Waddell of Wyoming did a full backlip after the completion of his dunk. Watch the following video to see such beauty.

With one of the most unpredictable seasons in recent history and so much chaos with teams unable to hold the top spot there’s destined to be several first round upsets in this years NCAA tournament.

Starting in the Midwest:  12 seed Arizona over 5 Utah

East: 11 seed VCU over 6 UCLA

South: Potentially 12 Western Kentucky over 5 Illinois if Frazier is still out

Bracket Buster: second round in the South region look for the 7 seed Clemson to pull off the upset of the 2nd seed Oklahoma

Sleepers: 6 West Virginia, 11 VCU, 7 Clemson, 3 Villanova, 3 Missouri

Senior, Kristof Ongenaet of Syracuse, had one of the hardest falls after a fast break dunk on Saturday night. As intense as the fall was, he was still able get up and walk off afterwards. Syracuse would go on to lose the game, but still put on a great performance in the Big East tournament.

Watch the video below of Kristof Ongenaet:

With ‘Selection Sunday’ just around the corner here a few rules to remember when filling out your NCAA tournament bracket.

1.  The national champion will have at least a ten game win streak throughout the regular season.

2. There will be one 5-12 upset in the first round. 12 seeds have 3 wins in the past three years over the 5 seeds.

3. There will also be a 6-11 upset in the first round.

4. Teams from power conferences who only qualified by winning their conference tournaments are destined for an early loss in the tournament as they are usually burnt out by the time the NCAA tournament starts.  Kentucky and Ohio State are recent examples of this rule.

5. You must have a sleeper. Some unexpected cinderella will rise to the elite eight or final four, aka Davidson and George Mason of recent years.  But they dont often come from the mid-majors, they usually come from one of the power conferences.  Teams like Vandy last year or Georgetown a few years ago are prime examples.

6. A common misconception is that the best back courts will win, and while having great guard play never hurts it’s actually more often the teams with great front courts are the ones who over achieve when it comes to the tournament.

7. Since 1991 all national champions have come from one of the six power conferences (1 Big Ten,6 ACC, 5 SEC, 2 Pac Ten, 3 Big East, 1 Big 12).

8. One seeds are anything but a lock for the final four.  Before last year atleast three of the four one seeds hadn’t made the final four since 1999.

9. Favor teams with balanced scoring.  In the tournament teams have a very limited time to scout opponents so teams with multiple scorers have a huge advantage as compared to teams who are dependent on one star player.

There you have it, the rules you need to succeed in your pool this year.

The best sports songs are meant to get your adrenaline flowing, your heartbeat up and put you in the heat of the moment. These songs are frequently played at stadiums to get the crowd in the game, and they usually get the job done.

We have compiled our list of the top five sports songs of all time. They are listed as follows:

5. Steam – Kiss Him Goodbye (listen)
4. AC/DC – Thunderstruck (listen)
3. Queen – We Will Rock You (listen)
2. Gary Glitter – Rock and Roll Part 2 (listen)
1. Queen – We are the Champions (listen)

These songs are also great for tailgating and any sports-related event in general. Don’t be disappointed that we left off songs like “Who let the dogs out” because those songs simply suck. 

Don’t agree with us? Well, tell us what you think by leaving us a comment.