ESPN’s halftime show had a “special guest,” who turned out to be Bill Walton. Based on the way the discussion with Walton went, he is not so big a college hoops fan since his sons graduated. He mostly talked about the pros. Steve Lavin started bringing up things like Haight-Ashbury, how Bill Walton hung out with people like “Cheech and Chong and Robert Duval.” I think it was Robert Duval, some actor from the seventies, I forget who. The also made the obligatory Grateful Dead references. The best part though, was, when they were wrapping up the Walton segment, Walton started saying how because of the internet, people no longer had the excuse of checking out west coast players. He said something about the internet, for college basketball, erasing all bounds of time and space. Then, Steve Lavin says, “You sound like Marshall McLuhan.”
I didn’t see that one coming.
ESPN is hyper-promoing the Memphis-Tennessee match up on Saturday night. It is kind of interesting monitoring the hype building up for this game. The coaches have sort have been trading quotes in the press that are remarkably congenial. There was the story about Bruce Pearl calling John Calipari for tickets to the game, and then another story about Calipari saying that Tennessee should be ranked #1. Maybe they’ll tie. I haven’t seen much of either team this year, so I have no idea who’ll win. But… that won’t stop me from making a prediction. Memphis 84 Tennessee 70.
One the one hand you have the love fest between those two and on the other you’ve got the Krzyzewski Williams battle of words in the east. Just a thought, I think a lot of people hate Duke because Billy Packer loves them so much. But, yeah this is a story where if you are at all invested in one of the teams it’s going to totally color who you see as right and wrong. These are two coaches I really can’t stand. I personally can’t stand Roy Williams’ faux-righteousness more than anything about Coach K, but I have a lot more problems liking Duke as team. Either way I think they are both big babies.
Who is Steve Calipari?
Corrected. My luck I get 800+ hits because some Tennessee Vols fan website links to my blog and I a.) call John Calipari “Steve” Calipari and b.) predict a Memphis win.