Columbia Professors Are Morons, Duke/Temple, UNC escape, Eric Gordon, Missouri Valley, Where Have You Gone?, Joe Gibbs, and Baseball Hall of Fame

On a non-sports note: did I read correctly that the liberal professors at Columbia University feel the need to send a delegation to Iran to apologize to their genocidal, insane president at how he was treated by the University's President on his visit in the fall. As John McEnroe would say, "you can't be serious!" What a bunch of weasels. It is behavior like this that threatens to force me to become a full-fledged Republican. YUCK!

I will be down at the Wachovia Center tonight as Duke will battle the hometown Owls. Duke will need to compensate for the loss of their only big man, as Brian Zoubek broke his foot for the second time in a matter of months and will be lost indefinitely (I cannot see him getting back and being effective this season). Duke's rotation, thought to be 11 deep at the beginning of the year, is now down to 8, 9 if you still hold out hope that David McClure can start logging meaningful minutes. And with no post presence, Duke will need to push pace and attack on both sides of the court even more than they have been early on this season.

The hoops game between UNC and Clemson on Sunday night showed that Clemson is a really good team that is unlikely to have a collapse similar to last year, when they missed the NCAA Tournament after starting the season 17-0. If they could have made a free throw here or there, they would have finished off the upset over the #1 team in the land. On the other hand, Carolina got little (compared to what they are used to) from Player of the Year candidate Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson still struggled to hit jumpers consistently, and yet they still found a way to win on the road, in a very tough place to play, against a very good team. That is the mark of a team that has a very good chance to cut down the nets in April.

Speaking of Player of the Year candidates, Eric Gordon was unstoppable last night in the house next to the Big House. This kid is clearly one and done, and will be effective next year in the NBA. The only mystery is how brutal the Illinois fans will be when he visits Champaign later this season.

The conference that seems to me to have fallen the most over the past couple years is the Missouri Valley. This conference got I think 6 teams in the dance two years ago, and I would not be surprised if they were a one-bid league this year. The best team in this conference in the early going has been Drake, which has not played this well since the second best player from Overbrook high school, Lewis "Black Magic" Lloyd, ended up in Des Moines in the late '70s and early '80s. (I assume you know who Overbrook's best player was...) Besides Drake, Illinois State and Indiana State also sit atop the standings, with favorites Southern Illinois, Creighton, and Bradley all struggling mightily.

Joe Gibbs retired from the Redskins yesterday. This guy may not be able to draw up the X's and O's as well as he once did, but you would be hard pressed to find a better leader of men than Gibbs. After the Sean Taylor tragedy, and after Gibbs himself helped cost the 'Skins a game by calling back to back timeouts, he kept his team together and led them to four straight wins to close the year and make the playoffs. It was a remarkable feat, and Redskin fans will surely miss their idol, especially if Dan Snyder does not hire a strong personality, enabling Snyder to get more involved in football operations again.

Baseball had its Hall of Fame elections yesterday. Goose Gossage finally got a well deserved invitation to Cooperstown. I am still not sure why Jim Rice cannot find his way to the Hall. I am normally much tougher on criteria for enshrinement than most media members that vote (I typically would vote for 1-3 people while these media types often vote for 8-10), but to me Rice is a no brainer. I guess the media is still pissed that he was not the easiest to get along with in his playing days. Ridiculous.

My buddy Uncle Charley is obsessed with Kansas Head Football Coach Mark Mangino and chimed in that he "didn't know Tyvek made coaching pullovers", and when studying the Virginia Tech roster before they played, he noted Macho Harris and said "Mmmmm....Nacho Harris."