Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

THUMBS UP

Bobby Knight for speaking openly, honestly and directly about integrity in college basketball with his rather pointed comments about Kentucky coach John Calipari. Maybe if more coaches had the spine to speak openly about this type of behavior, we wouldn't have the cesspool of conduct that exists today.

----------

Northwestern University for their grit and fight in the Outback Bowl in Tampa versus Auburn University. One of the most entertaining bowl games of the season. NU is another school that does it right academically and still competes well on the football field. Came up a little short at the end, but it was great to see them mixing it up with the big boys.

-----------

Tim Tebow's college football finale. Fitting way for him to go out and even more of an interesting resume enhancer for his future foray into the NFL. Kudos to Brian Billick for pointing out how strange it is that people would root against him to succeed. Maybe all the jealousy is because he takes a little bit of media attention away from other fine role models such as Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and the like? Perhaps.




THUMB DOWN

Texas Tech's football program.

We have either on of the following elements at play here, if not some sort of toxic stew of all elements blended together.

1) an old-school, out of control coach overstepping his bounds by dictating medical procedure to his athletic training staff to discipline a player he disliked.

2) a prima-dona player with a hyper-involved, little league parent gone wild.

3) a school with buyers remorse over being taken to the cleaners in recent contract negotiations who no longer wants to honor said agreement.

See y'all in court numb nuts.

---------

Washington Wizards Gilbert Arenas and some other guy I never really heard of carrying, storing and now reportedly brandishing weapons in the locker room.

Now, I seem to recall Plaxico Burress losing his job, let's see how the NBA smooths this one over. Of course, these guys won't have a preening, posturing mayor pushing the so-called Justice system to turn the screw tighter. And these guys won't have to worry about witnesses, because I'm sure there won't be any bitches doing any snitching and junk. Not that there should be any bitches in an NBA locker room, but you know what I'm saying?

Gives whole new meaning to the chatter you hear about a guy being a good "locker room presence". Now you have to know if a guy has a reputation for packing, or if he'll pull his piece and start capping half your team in the ass.

Oh and WTF were we gambling on that allegedly brought on the Gunfight at the Not-OK Corral? Anything to see here?

NBA Basketball, It's FAN-tastic!!!