Opening Night Tonight

Tonight kicks off the college basketball season for the UCONN Huskies with the Men’s Madness and Women’s Supershow at Gampel Pavillion.

The schedule for tonight is as follows:

  • 6:30 PM-7:15 PM- Autograph session outside Gampel with Men’s and Women’s teams
  • 7:30 PM-8:50 PM- Women’s Supershow
  • 8:50 PM-10:15 PM- Men’s Madness

Look for the Lady Huskies to be led by their quartet of juniors, Mel Thomas, Brittany Hunter, Charde Houston, and Ketia Swanier. Also expect big things from Renee Montogomery, an early favorite for Big East Player of the Year.

For the men, tonight marks the long awaited debut of AJ Price, who was highly touted when he first arrived on campus. He was sidelined his freshman year with an intracranial hemorrhage in his brain and then last year was suspended for his role in “Laptopgate”. The men’s team is a young team this year and will be led by returning sophomore, Jeff Adrien. The men’s team boasts 8 new players this year, led by East Hartford’s Doug Wiggins and 7’3′ center Hasheem Thabeet, who has not been cleared by the NCAA yet to play.

While tonight is a fun night for both teams as the freshman get to really see what it’s like to play basketball at Connecticut, look for them to get their first real tastes of a Coach Calhoun or Coach Auriemma practice tomorrow.

As we get closer to opening night for both teams, check back here at Random Thoughts as I will do a review of both teams.

R.I.P. Cory Lidle

(photo taken from Yankees.com)

This afternoon, a plane that was carrying Cory Lidle and an instructor crashed into a building in New York City killing them both. The crash caused debris to be thrown to the ground and brought back memories of 9-11 to the residents of the city. In talking to a friend who was in the city at the time, she stated NYC was in a complete lockdown with basically every car getting searched looking for god only knows what. But given the past, this was necessary.

My prayers and thoughts go out to the family and friends of Cory Lidle.

Five UCONN Football Players Kicked Off the Team

Well let’s see so far this season, UCONN has had 6 people kicked off the team for different reasons. The latest 5 for purchasing a six pack of Corona and a six pack of Heineken.

The five players dismissed were junior defensive end Harold Stanback, junior safety/linebacker Ricky McCollum, sophomore wide receiver Nollis Dewar and two freshmen, receiver Todd Dorcelus and linebacker Carl Teague. A few weeks back, starting strong safety Marvin Taylor, was booted off the team when he was arrested for 6th degree larceny and credit card fraud.

According to Dewar, the incident happened outside the UCONN hotel in Tampa where they were staying on Friday night. The players were confronted by the recruiting assistant, Carl Kotz and asked whether or not they had anything in their bags. They lied to him and said no.

“We were at a gas station and it happened to have beer and someone said, `Let’s get some,'” Dewar said. “There was no plan before like, `Lets go buy some beer and have a party.’ “We were walking back to the hotel and [Kotz] saw us. We just said we were going back to the room. He asked if we had anything in our bags and we all said no. Then we were in meetings later and he went through our rooms and searched through all our things and he said he found the beer. “No one drank it. No one did anything with it. Nothing happened with the alcohol. And I am 21. There was no crime committed at all.”

What gets me is this is the second time that Edsall has allowed the players to play, then subsequently booted them off the team. He allowed Marvin Taylor to play in the Wake Forest game before kicking him off the team. A normal coach would have suspended the players for the game, then had a meeting with them to determine their punishment. For some of them, it was the first time they were ever in trouble.

I guess our football team is becoming big time around here when we have one guy arrested and 5 others kicked off the team for buying but not drinking beer.

Hawaii

As some of you may or may not know, my brother resides in Hawaii. Well this was taken from a local TV station out there a few months back. Thanks to my brother for the tip about the video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
0UzG9J0opi8[/youtube]

UPDATE: Torre Out as Yankees Manager?

Just reported on ESPN and earlier in the New York Daily News, Joe Torre will reportedly be fired by the end of the day today (October 8th) and be replaced by Lou Pinella. Stay tuned to this as I will post any new developments here.

I know some of you are asking why I would post news about the Yankees firing Joe Torre. Well the reason is even though I am a Red Sox fan, I am a baseball purist. Joe Torre to me is a great manager and he deserves better than this. I don’t see it as his fault for the reason why the Yankees didn’t advance. As seen by TEAM USA’s recent failures in certain sports, a team of all stars usually doesn’t win. Anyways, good luck to Joe Torre in his future endeavors.

UPDATE: It is being reported on ESPN and ESPN.COM that Joe Torre will return for a 12th season as the skipper of the New York Yankees. To me, this is big Stein’s way of keeping the Yankees on the back pages of the New York papers while the Mets are in the playoffs still.

ALCS & NLCS Predictions

Ok, so I didn’t do so well with my predictions for the Division Series matchups going 1 for 4, only getting the Mets right. So we are gonna try this again and see how we can do.We will start off with the American League Championship Series since they start tonight.

Oakland A’s vs Detroit Tigers:

Surprisingly, the Detroit Tigers dispatched the vaunted New York Yankees in 4 games. How did they do this you ask? They did it with superior starting pitching. The only starter who had any trouble with the Yankees lineup was tonight’s game 1 starter, Nate Robertson, who took the loss in game 1. Justin Verlander, Kenny “Roasters” Rogers, and Jeremy Bonderman beat up on the Yankees hitters in the next 3 games. Also, the best bullpen in baseball shut down the Yanks as well. For the A’s, some clutch hitting in spots by Frank Thomas propelled them to a sweep of the Twins. I didn’t see this one coming as the American League pitching Triple Crown winner, Johan Santana, didn’t dominate like he did towards the end of the season. The big bats for the Twins didn’t come thru like they had all year. I am going to take Detroit in 6 games. Pitching Matchups:

  1. Nate Robertson (Det) vs Barry Zito (Oak)
  2. Justin Verlander (Det) vs Esteban Loaiza (Oak)
  3. Dan Haren (Oak) vs Kenny Rogers (Det)
  4. Rich Harden (Oak) vs Jeremy Bonderman (Det)
  5. If Necessary, TBA
  6. If Necessary, TBA
  7. If Necessary, TBA

Now onto the National League Championship Series.

New York Mets vs St. Louis Cardinals:

Well they are still playing baseball in NY, but its not the team everyone had hoped for. The New York Mets were said to not have the starting pitching to carry them thru the Dodgers series. So what happens? John Maine and Tom Glavine carry them to wins in the first two games. The Mets ended up slugging their way in sweeping the LA Dodgers. For the Cardinals, strong pitching in the first two games propelled them to victories over the San Diego Padres. A small bump in the road in game 3 saw the Padres beating the Cardinals in St. Louis. After a shaky start by Chris Carpenter in game 4, the Cardinals and him overcame it and defeated the San Diego Padres in 4 games. My prediction is Mets in 6. Pitching Matchups:

  1. Jeff Weaver (StL) vs Tom Glavine(NYM)

  2. Jeff Suppan (StL) vs John Maine (NYM)

  3. Steve Trachsel (NYM) vs Chris Carpenter (StL)

  4. TBA

  5. If Necessary, TBA

  6. If Necessary, TBA

  7. If Necessary, TBA

Blog Gets More Pub

Well as usual on a Sunday, I sit here and watch football and relax, peruse the normal sites of the day, Deadspin, ESPN, and of course Yahoo Fantasy Football. So when looking at Deadspin.com, I saw my blog’s name there and was like umm ok. So of course I had to check it out. Well the Mighty MJD, the weekend editor at Deadspin must ohave that thought the story was interesting enough to be included in the leftoverdome section of deadspin. You can see it here to see for your own eyes.

At Least We Still Have Tailgating

In another lackluster peformance tonight, the UCONN football Huskies were spanked by the Bulls of South Florida tonight by the score of 38-16. With the loss the Huskies drop to 2-3 on the season.

The normally stingy UCONN run defense allowed 203 yards of rushing and 4 touchdowns, 3 of which came by the starting QB for the Bulls, Matt Grothe. The once potent rushing attack of the Huskies usually led by Terry Caulley and Lou Allen was held to 60 yards on the ground. For Lou Allen, his touchdown tonight gave him a team leading 4 rushing TD’s.

Since it was a road game and the game was on against the Mets NLDS game, I can’t give a total in depth analysis but I can say I did watch Matt Nuzie shank a field goal and miss an extra point. He was replaced by Greg Vicidomino on the field goal try that happened at the end of the first half after UCONN couldn’t score from the 2 yard line.

So let’s take a look at the remaining games for the Huskies. Next week is Army. Army is coming off a 62-7 win over V.M.I, a 1-AA team. Look for UCONN to rebound off the losses to Navy and USF and win this one by the score of 27-24. After that game, the West Virginia Mountaineers come to the Rent for a Friday Night ESPN game on the 20th. Look for West Virginia to blow the Huskies out in that one by the score of 59-7. Then its onto a Sunday Night ESPN game on the 29th at Rutgers. Rutgers has one of the top backs in the Big East in Ray Rice and is nationally ranked for the first time in a long time. Look for Rutgers to prevail in this one 31-17. That would put UCONN at 3-5 with 4 games remaining. 6 wins is needed to be bowl eligible. The last game of the season will most likely be a loss as the Huskies will travel to Louisville, KY to play the current number 8 team in the land, Louisville Cardinals. Look for that one to be won by the Cardinals by the score of 34-17. So before that, UCONN will have to beat a much improved Pittsburgh team at home, a much improved Syracuse team on the road, and the Cincinnati Bearcats. Look for the Huskies to win only 1 of the 3 games and finish the season with a 4-8 record. A loss to Army this weekend, all but seals another season without a bowl bid for UCONN.

So as the title says, at least we still have tailgating at the games.

What does $200 million dollars buy you?

What can you buy with $200 million dollars? For starters, you can buy 200 million jr bacon cheeseburgers. It also gets you tee times on the golf course if you play for the New York Yankees.

I know that everyone in America picked the Yankees, including myself, to beat the Tigers this series. But Detroit did it. They beat the “Evil Empire” in 4 games. Absolutely phenomenal pitching by Detroit’s Jeremy Bonderman, who was perfect thru 5 innings, having thrown 35 pitches, 29 for strikes. Leading the way hitting wise for the Tigers tonight was Magglio Ordonez and Pudge.

Some interesting numbers to look at from the Yankees in this series:

  • AROD had another great postseason going 1 for 14 (.071)
  • Johnny Damon was 4 for 17
  • Jason Giambi was 1 for 8
  • Gary Sheffield was 1 for 12
  • Yankees starting pitching was good the first two games but awful the last two including today’s starter Jaret Wright who went 2 2/3 innings, 4 runs with 3 of them earned.

I could go on with this as the Yanks hitters could do nothing to muster any offense other than in Game 1 when the probable American League MVP, Derek Jeter went 5 for 5 and Bobby Abreu had 4 RBI’s.

As a Red Sox fan, I absolutely love this. Ever since the Red Sox were eliminated, the talk was that the Yankees were going to win the World Series this year. Well guess what….y’all were wrong. Now it will be another offseason of crying by the Yankees fans as well as us Boston Red Sox fans.
As a comparison for the payrolls, the Yankees were at $200 million dollars. The Tigers at $80 million dollars. What does this prove? Well that you can’t buy championships. If you are going to spend that kind of money, you really should get some starting pitching and bullpen help. The salaries of the middle of the Yankees lineup was a combined $66.7 million dollars and contributed 3 hits. That’s $13 million dollars less than the entire Tiger’s lineup.

I think what you will see next year is a totally different lineup for the Yankees. If they were smart, they’d bring up some younger guys to play as they have had success with some guys from their farm clubs. Wait a minute, the Yankees have traded away most of the talent they have. One thing to look for is the Yanks to trade AROD. Personally, I don’t think he’s cut out for New York.

So to the New York Yankees, I wish you much luck on the golf course with some of your Red Sox breathern.