And the worst Division I gym in America is…

So I was watching Lafayette beat Lehigh at home today in some Patriot League action and I couldn’t get over how crappy Lafayette’s Kirby Sports Center is.  Check out this shot of Lafayette’s Michael Gruner, he looks like he’s shooting into the back of a Costco:

Hey, I don’t expect this program to have a Rupp Arena clone, but there are high schools in Indiana that would be embarrassed to play in this building.  Oh well, at least Lafayette fans can go to a game and pick up a 300-count box of Pop Tarts and a barrel of Hawaiian Punch before they leave.

John and the Og talk the NCAA bubble

Specifically the chances of four teams - Richmond, William & Mary, Mississippi State and St. Mary’s - heading into March:

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Josh Howard: When keeping it real goes wrong

I know this is mainly a college sports forum, but I gotta give a shout out to Josh Howard. The Wake Forest product came in with LeBron’s class in ‘03-’04 and turned into a solid contributor for the Mavericks.

However, it’s been a downward spiral for Howard the last few seasons, culminating with Team Cuban unloading him on the Wizards a few days ago.

Word from Dallas is that Howard actually missed a game with a HANGOVER back on January 20.  Luckily for him, he didn’t wake up with a missing tooth and a tiger in his bathroom. And according to Tim McMahon of ESPN.com, it didn’t stop there:

“Members of Dallas’ front office stood behind Howard after a controversial stretch in 2008. Howard revealed in a radio interview during a playoff series against the New Orleans Hornets that he occasionally smoked marijuana. Days later, after a critical loss, Howard in the locker room passed out flyers to his birthday party, prompting then-coach Avery Johnson to cancel the next day’s practice.

That summer, Howard was arrested in North Carolina for street racing. The incident was followed by a video surfacing of him disparaging the national anthem at a charity flag football game, with Howard saying, ‘I don’t celebrate this [expletive]. I’m black.’”

Weed, playing the race card at a flag football game AND street racing?  How badass is that?  If I didn’t know better, I’d think this guy played for Dennis Erickson at the U.

Birthmarks are confusing

Just ask Oprah:

Can UNC, UConn and Florida all get the shaft this year?

Can the schools responsible for six out of the last 11 national championships all whiff on March Madness this year?  There’s a strong possibility that might come to pass.

Even after an 84-75 thrashing of 4th ranked Villanova over the weekend, UConn is sitting at 15-11 overall and 12th in the Big East.  Some might get the notion that now that Jim Calhoun is back from his medical leave of absence, the Huskies will catch fire coming down the stretch.

I’m not so sure that’s going to be the case, because while UConn was 3-4 without Calhoun, the team was only 2-4 in the six games before he took his break.  The New York Stock Exchange fluctuates less than this erratic bunch.

I think the Huskies have to win their last five regular season games and at least one in the Big East Tournament to get an at-large bid.  And that’s a very tall order for a team that hasn’t won three games in a row since December 27.

Florida’s another school sporting recent NCAA title hardware (’06 and ‘07) that’s in danger of not making the NCAA field this year.  And for Billy Donovan, that’s starting to be a very alarming pattern.  Since that last title, he hasn’t taken a team back to the Big Dance.

The Gators currently sport an underwhelming 6-4 SEC record, and while the league is improved over last season, don’t mistake it for a power conference just yet.  But at 17-8 overall, this team has a decent shot to clear the 20-win barrier that’s so important in attracting the love of the tourney selection committee.

But how decent of a shot does this team REALLY have to clear 20 victories?  Florida gets three ranked SEC East foes coming down the stretch (#2 Kentucky, #17 Vanderbillt and #20 Tennessee), which presents a very real opportunity to do some RPI boosting.  The problem is that they’ve already lost to every one of these teams…who’s to say they can salvage a split with any of them?

While UConn and Florida at least appear  to have an outside shot at sucking it up and doing enough to get in, defending champ North Carolina doesn’t have a chance in hell.  This squad started off 7-1 but now sits at 14-12 overall.  The downward spiral just continues in Chapel Hill.

Oh, there’s technically a chance that Roy Williams can work some magic in Greensboro and lead UNC to an ACC Tournament crown that would provide an automatic bid to the NCAAs.  But a team this sloppy and ineffective on the offensive end will most likely be bowing out of that event very early.

It’s pretty signficant when teams sporting this much championship hardware from recent years are sitting at a combined 46-21 on the season.  If all three fail to get into the Big Dance, the landscape of America’s best sporting event is radically changed.  This is definitely a year when a mid-major or two can make some noise.

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