Saturday, April 23, 2005

T-Minus One Hour ‘Til The Draft Ramblings

Well, my mom called at 9:30, confused why I wasn’t up yet, to ramble on about some stuff. There’s no point in going back to sleep, since I need a shower and the draft starts in 54 minutes, so why not just stay up and function on six quality hours of sleep? There’s a very big do I have a story for you I can’t put on the blog at the moment, so I’m just going to concentrate on short mini-blurbs about the draft, the NBA Playoffs and anything else that happens to crawl into my brain.

Oh, the reason I have all this time is we were going to go to Chicago for a Cubs game today – against the Pirates, actually – but Pete’s friend at Northwestern said last night’s rainout would probably be repeated and Chad and I decided against it. We’ll just come out this summer to a game and crash at Christina’s, as apparently the only hip Chi-town suburb is the Glenbrook North-area.

And go…

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As long as the Dolphins don’t take Aaron Rodgers with the Number Two pick, I’m happy. Ronnie Brown I’d be ecstatic with, Braylon Edwards I could deal with and multiple trades to move down in draft and pick up more draft picks would be even better. I’d love to trade down to five, then seven, pick up two or three quality picks along the way and come out of today with quite a few pieces. Trading Surtain to the Chiefs for a 2nd round pick replaces the suckiness that was our trade with the Eagles for AJ Feeley, so hopefully dealing with Tampa Bay or Minny will give us a few more selections.

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Phoenix over Memphis in four, and with RJ coming back and Shaq on one leg, I really want to take the Nets over the Heat. People forget that if J-Kidd was healthy last year, New Jersey knocks off Detroit in six games and probably gets creamed by either Indiana or LA to close out the season. I can’t do it, so I’ll say the Nets jump out early, Shaq gets healthy and the Heat win it in seven.

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Is there a safer bet in the draft than the Steelers taking Matt Jones if he’s still on the board? With Hines, Ben and Randle El, Cowher could conceivably have four quarterbacks on the field at one time – the perfect formation to run on key third and short situations. It must suck to have the best regular season in AFC history, then not be able to close the deal at home in the playoffs. 4-12 doesn’t look quite that bad in that situation.

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Pistons over the Sixers in five, as Tayshaun will slow down The Answer, and while I really want to take the Nuggets in the upset – as they have Big Banging Body X-Factor One, Francisco Elson, who gave KG fits at times last postseason – I can’t see even an injured Tim Duncan going down in the first round. Manu Ginobli is still on a high from his gold medal. Carmelo is still attempting to prove Athens was handled wrongly by Larry Brown, not him. Spurs in seven, best series of the first round.

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I don’t believe in these Celtics, I believe in Miller Time – Pacers in six. Seattle vs. Sacramento should be a fun series with the threes-a-flying, and I think Mike Bibby’s playoff experience can’t carry a bunch of newbies past the hot-shooting Sonics. Seattle in six as well.

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The more I think about it, the more I really want Ronnie Brown and the more I’m sure Antrell Rolle and Derrick Johnson are the safest picks in the draft. Braylon Edwards and Mike Williams sorta-kinda scare me, I wouldn’t touch Aaron Rodgers with a 10-foot pole and Cedric Benson has some mileage on him already. If we take with the second pick, we better take Brown, that’s all I’m saying.

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I’d be all about taking the Bulls if it wasn’t for their injuries, so I’ll take the Wiz Kids in six. As Sports Guy wrote, the talent drop-off after T-Mac and Yao is incredible on the Rockets, and with Dirk playing at such a high level and Michael Finley being as cold-blooded as he is, I’ll take the Mavericks in five.

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Andy MacKrell's prospie from Erie - Mark, who will be sacrificing potential warm weather and coed dorms to attend ND next semester - easily wins the Prospect of the Year award. Sure, he sorta let me down in our Pong game, but other than that, he was the absolute man. Kudos to him for quality prospy-ing.

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My prediction for the Blue-Gold Game, Notre Dame’s annual intersquad spring football scrimmage, this year sponsored by Chick-Fil-A?

Me not going, and a lot of people angry about this year’s The Shirt. Have you seen this thing?!



Who owns yellow clothing they can wear when The Shirt’s dirty?! Come on, we need to think about this stuff. I’ve got more green shirts than I could ever need, but yellow?

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I think Darko is really going to explode in these playoffs, just biding his time until he gets a second shot at Shaq…

…and I literally mean he’s going to explode. The faulty parts put in him when they built him and attempted to pass him off as the number-two pick are going to finally break down and he’ll flat out combust on the floor during garbage time of one of the Sixers game.

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Renee and National Champion Susan Pinnick, our lovely and cold-bloodedly evil euchre rivals, are stopping out at the Ranchero on their way to visit friends out in Princeton and Bethlehem, PA. They’re leaving Monday after we get done with classes, and being there for a night I can’t even begin to describe my excitement for:

Our first wing night of the summer.

A sleazy, rundown, potentially fatal bar will have never looked so good.

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Between the Blue-Gold game today and the ND-Mexico soccer games last night, there were way too many randos on campus. That's the only thing I don't miss about football weekends - the steady influx of non-students on campus starting late Thursday into Friday. By Saturday morning - and no, I'm not going outside to confirm this - there's so many Bookstore bags you realize why they can create a crappy new version of The Shirt and still sell 100,000 of them.

Draft rundown coming tonight or tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend, if the weather allows it.

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