Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Caps Thankful for Varly in 2-0 Win
Thanks to This Week's Advertisers
>>The votes are in and as of now, it looks like the Washington Wizards will not be represented in this year's NBA All Star game. Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison, both elected last year, will have to make other plans for All Star weekend after the coaches left them off of their ballots this year. Arenas is a suprising omission given that he's fourth in the entire league in scoring in addition to the three rebounds and six assist he give the Wiz each and every night. Despite the snub, Arenas has one last chance to make the roster. NBA commissioner David Stern must still announce a replacement for the Pacers Jermaine O'Neal, elected as a starter by the fans but unable to play because of injury, sometime next week. However, a DCist source tells us Jason Kidd will get the nod instead. Look for Arenas to send a message to the league tonight at home against Cleveland.
**UPDATE** As many commenters have noted, Arenas was just selected as O'Neal's replacement. Justice is served. Pardon us while we go flay our inside source.
>> No doubt buoyed by their recent DCist coverage, the Maryland women's hoops team knocked off the #1 ranked UNC women on the road in Chapel Hill last night. The Lady Terps needed an extra session to get the W, but outscored the Lady 'Heels 15-13 in OT to make sure there are no unbeaten teams left in Division 1. The Terps fought back from a 14 point defecit in the last 12 minutes of regulation, including Ashleigh Newman's long 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into OT. The Terps are now tied with the 'Heels at the top of the ACC standing with Duke hot on their tails.
>> New Nat Alfonso Soriano must be real beat up about losing his salary arbitration hearing. Instead of getting the $12 million he asked for, the judge awarded him 'only' $10 million. The verdict, which is considered a 'win' for the owners, is still the highest salary ever awarded in arbitration, topping the $8.2 million awarded to the Braves Andruw Jones earned in 2001. Think he'll play the outfield for 10 large next season?
>> Lots of great local hoops action coming our way on TV this weekend. Duke and Maryland renew their rivalry on Saturday at 1 p.m. on CBS. But be sure to get your remote ready for some hot channel flipping action at 2 p.m. when #8 George Washington tips off against St. Joe's in Philly on ESPN2. Non-televised action includes George Mason hosting Towson on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Georgetown at West Virginia on Sunday at 7 p.m.
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Hobbs is calling it their toughest game for the rest of the regular season!
stern picked gilbert. he's no dummy.
Arenas was just selected as O'Neal's placement.
Think he'll play the outfield for 10 large next season?
No. Nor do I think he is a particularly good fit for the Washington Nationals.
Don't forget the Caps take on Philly tonight and Sidney Crosby and the hated Pens tomorrow (at MCI) to complete pleay before the Olympic break.....
Andrew beat me to the punch.
Arguably the two top candidates for the Calder (rookie of the year) on the ice tomorrow night at MCI.
C'mon, DC, show the Caps more hockey love.
I try to show love but not $75 dollar love! The caps give away so many damn tickets to sponsors and corps the only ones left are the $10 nose bleeds (and they usually go in 5 minutes) and lower bowl +$75 seats. Less than a year after the strike and now operation slapshot, old time hockey is getting harder and harder to love eh?
I just updated the entry, thanks everyone.
You hockey fans need to speak up. We had a hockey entry last week that didn't get many comments, leading me to believe no one wanted hockey coverage.
We want more hockey coverage. That goal that Ovechkin had a while back where he scored over his head as he was on his back was one of the best plays I've ever seen in sports. I thought the Caps were giving away tickets for five bucks if you bought four? And is the Georgetown game really five bucks to get in? I payed $12 plus fees to get into the GW game the other night. Did anyone else see Danilo Pinnock's slam dunk in the second half of the Dayton game. That was SICK!
The problem with Ovechkin and Arenas is it's easy to look good when you are a good player playing on a team that is total junk around you. This coming from a season ticket holder (of the expensive seats mind you) to the caps. They put up impressive numbers, but one would have to wonder what kind of numbers they would put up if they had support.
The 'zards are coming back they have looked good as of late. All that really matters is they get at least a 5 or 6 seed, its all about the playoffs baby!
One game Kyle overlooked: The Wizards welcome King James and the Cavs to the MCI Center tonight at 7 p.m.
yes, georgetown offers $5 tickets for all games at MCI Center .......... The GU v. WVU game is BY FAR the most important local game this weekend and probably the most important game in the country all weekend (perhaps a close second to illinois / ohio state) ... two national top 15 teams separated by a half-game at the top of the best conference in the country, both GU and WVU have similar styles of play and have matched up well against each other lately ... it's absolutely absurd that this huge matchup is only being televised on newschannel 8 locally and on ESPN's Full Court satellite package nationally ........... the MD / Duke game features an NIT team against the 2nd best team in the country and St. Joe's is a .500 team in a one-bid conference, sounds like fireworks to me!
The Maryland/Dook games bring in excellent ratings for the networks, do the math.
From UMTerps:
Maryland's victory over Duke in the 2004 ACC Tournament title game was the most-watched basketball game during "Championship Week" on ESPN. During that week, ESPN and ESPN2 combined to air 56 total games, and the Maryland-Duke game rated No. 1.
PD, don't try to sound too smug or anything, ok? #8 GW is undefeated in conference and hopes to keep it that way. I saw John Thompson III walking around the other day, it's outrageous that wasn't the top story on SportsCenter!
andrew, are you really trying to say that the GW / St Joe's game is more important or would even be a better game than #15 Gtown (8-2 Big East) v #9 West Virginia (8-1 Big East)? that's all i said, that it's the most important game of the weekend ... props to GW for having a great season, i'm sure the selection committee will overlook that #290 / 334 strength of schedule and give them a top 3 seed
TUL, no doubt the terps/duke matchup brings in good ratings, and that 2004 ACC title game was a great matchup .... ok, so i did the math, how does that make this game on Saturday so important? MD is a bubble team at best, probably NIT
Kyle, good work on the Soriano break, I think you beat the Post! They can be sooo slow at times, for a while their rss feed had stories that were like 2 weeks old.
Or just be as smug as you want. If you read my three sentence post, nowhere do I say it would be a better game. Depends on what you mean by better though - Ken Pomeroy has GT and WV as two of the slowest offensive teams out there. As for GW's schedule, it's not great, but Georgetown's non-conference strength of schedule is 202, probably a step up from previous years when you all were the MEAC Champions, but it's nothing to scream about it.
And GW is 6-1 against RPI top 100 teams, Georgetown is 7-4. These numbers aren't that different.
Sparky, those cheap seats (Eagles Nest tickets) have only been sold out twice when i've tried to get them, both time for weekend games when i went to purchase at the last minute. They're $10/each, but fall to $5 if you buy four. In other words, its cheaper to buy 4 tix ($20) vs. three ($30). If you're going to buy two, ask for four and give the extras away if you have to. Help Caps attendance where ever you can.
Jonny, its the fact that Ovechkin is surrounded by such garbage that makes him that much better a player. For most of the season, Crosby has been surrounded by superstars (Lemieux, Palffy, etc), while AO has had no one. Yet AO is outscoring Crosby, and is top 10 in goals and points overall. Seriously, the kid is a miracle on ice. Seeing him w/ the puck is more than worth the price of admission. And Saturday's game gives you two superstars in the making for the price of one.
DCist Kyle, i was out of town last week on business and wasn't able to keep up w/ the site. Had i known that was the one big shot to push for more hockey coverage, i would have. As such, allow me to officially second Jeff Jetton: WE WANT MORE HOCKEY COVERAGE.
yic,
odd
Andrew, maybe georgetown fans should share all the arguments we had to use to defend our weak non-conference schedule when it came to tourney time with GW fans, because god knows you'll need them ... it might be fun to compare records against the RPI top 100, but Duke, Uconn, Villanova, Pittsburgh, Illinois, and West Virginia are a little different than NC State, Maryland, Temple, St. Joes, and Xavier ... however, i like your selective use of statistics and breaking out kenpom, it's one of the first tools you'll need to defend that #290 SOS ... best of luck come selection sunday, and if your coach is so devoted to having home games, i hope he can convince some good teams to come into your arena next season and beyond
PD - You have to understand Duke/Maryland is an ACC marquee matchup between two prominent, national programs. Granted the Terps aren't exactly NC contenders this season, but a win at College Park would certainly get them off the bubble for at least the time-being. That being said, it's only natural it will attract a larger viewing audience. People always want to see an upset. Well, that and the fact that Duke always seems to have a nationally televised game at least once a week.
TUL, you seem to be misunderstanding me, much as andrew was ... of course MD v Duke should be a nationally televised game, and it's great that the country can get a better look at GW ... all i was saying is that Gtown v. West Virginia is by far the most important local game of the weekend and probably the most important national game of the weekend and that it's completely absurd that it's not nationally televised ... I hope GW can turn it around after this lackluster 1st half, this (or any loss by GW coming down the stretch) would be a bad loss for them in terms of seeding
Andrew, here's a good story about some GW fans who came to the Gtown/StJohns massacre on Thursday night, a whole half of the MCI Center was chanting "OVERRATED" at these idiots .... if you go to another local team's game to trashtalk with signs saying "What's Your Ranking?", you should at least know what RPI means!
PD - the first good team I'd like to see at the Smith Center is Georgetown, but your last three coaches have said no, much like most other coaches of good teams. John Thompson (not III) and Escherick would only play GW at the MCI Center without splitting tickets evenly, taking most of the gate, putting the GW students in the very top, and they wouldn't agree to a home and home. That sounds like a great deal for GW. And thank you for posting that SOS number again, but for the third time, I am not defending our schedule, it's bad. But yours is nothing too impressive either - 200. I mean, if you just want to repeat yourself, go ahead. As for that story from your message board - tearing up the GW fan's hat, that's really classy, I applaud your fans. In other news, GW is still ranked #8, 20-1 and 10-0 in conference.
yeah, it's real classy to show up to another local team's arena to talk trash with signs like "What's Your Ranking?" ... i haven't even seen UMD fans doing that
i'm really not sure where you're coming up with Gtown's 200 SOS ... the good thing about playing in a "power conference" is that we can afford to slack a bit in our out-of-conference schedule (if you call Duke and Illinois "slacking") ... it's fun that you're getting creative about massaging numbers, but our SOS is 125 according to realtimerpi and 33 according to Pomeroy, both of which will climb much higher in the next two weeks with 4 of our next 5 games against top 50 RPI teams
i think it would be a great idea for GU and GW to have a regular series, especially if we could rope UMD (and George Mason) into the deal ... i've heard different facts about our previous offers to GW (the issues with scheduling UMD and a certain WashPost reporter who runs the BB&T are much more well-documented), but i know that JT3 has wiped the slate clean from the Esh-regime and i'd hope he'd at least have some good faith negotiations to get the series started up again
how do you think the series should work? if we're going to do a home-and-home, would your gym be split in half for Gtown fans? i would think it would make sense to play every year at MCI Center if we could work out a fair ticket split, so we could satisfy the ticket demand (MCI seats 20,000 and you guys seat ~5,000 right?) ... do you ever expect UMD to come to play at your gym?
PD, your out of conference SOS is 200. I should have mentioned out of conference the second time
http://www.kenpom.com/rpi.php
But anyway, we agree about the GU-GW series. I'd like to see a home-and-home between the two teams, or maybe a yearly thing like the Big 5 in Philly - more of a series than a tournament, so GU, GW, UMd, Mason and maybe American and Howard all play each other during the season. I think they play most of those Big 5 games at the Palestra, a semi-neutral site (it's Penn's home court), and I agree that MCI would be a good place. The Smith Center has 5000 seats, but I have to think we would need more than that for GW-G'town, especially since it's been so long. But we'll leave that part to the ADs. It looks like Jack Evans is already trying to get a game, he sent a letter to the presidents of GW and Gtown trying to get a "Ward 2 Championship" between the two teams.
24 out of 25 seasons GW is not good at hoops. Why the sudden DEMAND to play Georgetown? Why was there no public outcry for this game during the previous mediocrity? What's the point of starting a "rivalry" when it's really boring most of the time?
Nobody comes to games featuring DC teams that aren't interesting. Check Gtown v Howard a few years back.
Wow. Only a college hoops dilettante would suggest that GWU has only been "good" one out of the past 25 seasons. And the public outcry for a Georgetown-GWU matchup has been well sustained for the better part of the past decade. I guess what I'm trying to say is, "Welcome to DC!"
DC Hoops, how dare you besmirch the honor of GWU ... GW has an incredibly rich basketball history, most of which is attributable to coach and unintended ironic author Mike Jarvis [be sure to read the review by Fritz Peterson]
They were pretty good in the mid-50s. Flash-forward 40 years, and in 1993 they got their program's first 2 wins in the NCAA tourney and made it to the Sweet Sixteen! Then they got one more tourney win in '94 and, ummm ..... finished in the top 20 RPI in '95 and '96!
Unfortunately Jarvis left the mid-majors for a incredibly fruitful career at St. John's. Then half his team gang-banged a couple of whores and the uptight priests over at St. John's made ole Mike leave.
But their coach Karl Hobbs got them an A-10 title last year and will probably stay at GW his entire career because he knows he can build a big program and win consistently there ... so all will be well in Foggy Bottom!
Man, I thought we had gotten past the snarkiness here. GW also made the NCAAs in 1998 and last year, and have beaten Maryland 4 of the last 5 times the two have played. And also, GW and Georgetown have played each other more times than either have played any other schools. So besides I think a logical rivalry, it's a historical rivalry.
"They were pretty good in the mid-50s. Flash-forward 40 years, and in 1993 they got their program's first 2 wins in the NCAA tourney and made it to the Sweet Sixteen! Then they got one more tourney win in '94 and, ummm ..... finished in the top 20 RPI in '95 and '96!"
If this is what makes for a rich basketball history, it makes me laugh. How many schools does this apply to?
UNC, Univ. of KY, Kansas... those are schools with rich basketball histories...
Top 20 RPI in '96 followed by an exclamation point made my day!
you are aware of a thing called sarcasm, right? i figured the link to mike jarvis' treatise would give it away