These are just the Conference Championships, and already March is getting Mad.
In the men's Southern Conference Championship this week, it was a 70-foot pass and the last second
heroics of David Schuck that lifted the UNC-Greensboro Spartans to victory, and to an NCAA berth.
The George Mason Patriots won the colonial conference by scoring just 35 points in the championship game and staving off a shot by their opponents that got off just 0.1 seconds too late that would have tied the game.
The Eastern Illinois Panthers beat Austin Peay, 84-83, with a last-second shot on which Austin Peay's Theanthony Haymon was called for goaltending.
And on the women's side, an amazing game between #1 Notre Dame and #2 UConn to settle the Big East
Championship came down to a last-second shot that sent the Lady Huskies to the upset win and the Conference title.
Phew. Let's hope next weekend is just as good.
BOTTOM OF THE WEEK
KENTUCKY
Two huge blows were dealt to the University of Kentucky Wildcats this week.
How could any college team rack up 36 NCAA violations in just two years? Ask the Kentucky football program. That's how many an internal investigation uncovered dating back to February 1999, including academic fraud and paying for prospective players' travel. The school will now be instituting a number of self-imposed sanctions in hopes that the NCAA will not
levy any deeper penalties.
But, what may be worse is what has yet to come in basketball. Former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino is
considering the open head coach position at one of Kentucky's strongest rivals, Louisville. This is a slap in the face of the fans of Kentucky and the boosters that made Pitino rich.
It just wasn't a good week to be a Wildcat..
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
DOES BEING A JOCK
AND BEING GAY CORRELATE?
Does being a star jock mean it's more likely that you're gay? We'll probably never know, but we were intrigued by research discussed by Timothy Noah on
Slate.com.
John Manning and Rogan Taylor of the University of Liverpool did research that determined that, according to Noah, ``excellence in athletics correlates with a long ring finger.'' Noah then mentioned the widely reported study published in ``Nature'' last year that found that lesbians (and by inference) gay men tended to have ring fingers that are noticeably longer relative to their index fingers.
Noah put the two pieces of research together and came up with the suggestion that being an elite jock and being gay may be related. For example, Noah said, the ``Nature'' study suggested ``that gay men, far from being feminized men, were in fact
hyper-masculinized men.'' As anyone who's being to a circuit party can tell you.
In fact, Noah has fun with the idea and the studies prove nothing definitive. But it does jibe in some ways with what Outsports has heard from a couple of gay college coaches who based on their experience and perceptions that there might be a higher percentage of gay men in sports than in society as a whole.
Sports is the final closet for gay men in society, the last bastion of perceived hyper-heterosexuality. We know this to not be true and studies like this, if supported by further research, help chip away at the myth.
GOLF It's amazing how fickle the sports media can be. Just nine months ago, Tiger Woods was the most amazing athlete in the world - incomparable - the Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky of golf. He was the kid everyone wanted a piece of.
Now, he's a spoiled brat who can't even win a tournament in the United Arab Emirates.
Yes, Tiger Woods is on a streak of eight tournaments without winning. So, reporters and sportscasters everywhere are wondering, "what's wrong with Tiger?" But, nothing's wrong with him. In those eight tournaments, he hasn't finished worse than 13th - an amazing streak.
The sports media needs to get a little perspective, report the news, and stop trying to vilify the guy. He is, after all, one of the best ever.
NFL Hang it up, Troy. The Dallas Cowboys waived quarterback Troy Aikman to avoid a large hit to the salary cap. Aikman, who has not played a full season since 1996 and seems to get a concussion every time he’s hit, insists he will play this year. As a friend says, Troy is just one shot away from needing a drool cup when he’s 50. It’s time for him to go. Aikman won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys.
WHAT'S WITH THE
HAIR? He plays a hell of a game, but Stanford's Casey Jacobsen has something funky going on with his hair. At the beginning of the season, it looked pretty good - the bleached thing made some nice highlights and really brought out his eyes. But now - it's this orangish mess. Someone, please, get the man some help before the tournament.
A SCORING CHAMP Southwest Missouri State's Jackie Stiles became the all time Division I scoring leader on Thursday after scoring 30 points against Creighton in a 94-59 victory. Stiles now has 3,133 career points, breaking the old record of 3,122 set by Patricia Hoskins of Mississippi Valley State from 1985-89. Said Stiles after the game, "the pressure's off. Now we can just concentrate on winning basketball games. It's just a burden off my shoulders."