Cuonzo Martin, Perspective, and Why I Stopped Caring Who Our Coach Is

I have two ways of feeling about Cuonzo Martin.

Feeling 1: Cuonzo Martin is boring. His style is boring. The games are boring. The players are boring. I miss Bruce Pearl. I miss his sweaty orange jacket. I miss his veiled trash talk. I miss how badly I wanted to be his friend. I wish Dave Hart would make UT the rebellious school that told Mark Emmert to f*** off and hire back our coach that got screwed over because the NCAA wanted to make an example of him.

Feeling 2: We are delusional and acting entitled if we want Cuonzo gone. If not Martin, then who? Who are we, Tennessee, going to lure away to our mediocre basketball program? Some other mid-major guy looking for a pay raise? Are we really going to roll the dice on someone else, hoping for Bruce Pearl again? This really shouldn’t matter so much.

Fans are impossible to please. We come to sports as an unapologetic consumer, devouring everything our athletes and coaches throw out at us. The more wins, the more we gorge ourselves. When those wins don’t come, then the we’re up in arms because our plate is not quite as full as it once was.

Such is the state of Tennessee basketball. Bruce Pearl gave me something. I want it back. FireCuonzoMartin.com.

I go back and forth on this like a teenage girl picking out clothes for a first date. Feeling number two, however, made a strong push Tuesday night against Florida. I sat in the 300 section with my 20-month-old daughter, Ayda, in my lap. This was her second game at Thompson-Boling, but her first men’s game with the arena at a near sell out. Normally, she’s firecracker who rarely stops moving, but the game action and crowd noise had her wide-eyed in stimulation overload. She barely made a sound, or even moved. She got restless only when someone in front of her stood up and she couldn’t see.

In that moment, I stopped caring who our coach was, and started caring that she would be entertained enough to make it at least through the first half. I started caring about laying the foundation that we’ll enjoy sports together as she grows older. That going to games will, at the very least, be something that we share together. Everything else about the game was extra.

A family of Florida fans were sitting behind us (I say it like they’re a species being observed in National Geographic), and their two boys, not older than seven or eight, kept telling their dad who their favorite players were. I’m pretty sure this changed as the game went on because they probably named off six different numbers. (They didn’t know their names.) They yelled basketball terms they didn’t understand, like, “Pressure! Pressure!” and asked questions about nearly every aspect of the game.

That kind of interaction is all I want from UT basketball. I want her to be that excited to tell me who her favorite player is as those little boys were about Scottie Wilbekin. Excuse me, I mean number five. If you want an argument for or against Cuonzo, RockyTopTalk.com has a great post comparing him to previous, non Pearl coaches at Tennessee. But for me, it just doesn't seem that important anymore.

Don't Blame Peyton. The Broncos Loss was a Team Effort.

It took me a long time before I finally gave up hope. Even after Percy Harvin’s kick return, I still believed Peyton could do it. That he could bring them back. When he threw the touchdown to Demaryius Thomas, I thought, “Now here comes the comeback.” 

But it never happened. It was like waiting for a date to show. Every near miss from a receiver. Every missed tackle. Someone was supposed to show up. Something was supposed to happen and it never did. The game was there’s for the taking and Denver never even lifted a finger. Not because they weren’t capable, but because they played not to lose. When two teams make it to the super bowl, one is never significantly better than the other. Denver had the best offense in history. These were professional athletes. They were all prepared. All capable.Yet Denver might as well have been a star struck college team while Seattle played like they knew who they were. This is why the game was so frustrating to watch. Seattle did whatever they wanted. 

The Broncos O-line allowed Seattle to push them back the entire game. Peyton was constantly under pressure. They played on their heels. The defense never looked aggressive. Denver’s corners were never physical and kept giving soft coverage that gave Seattle all the room they wanted across the field. Even when they were down four touchdowns, Denver still played conservative. Played safe. Didn’t blitz. Didn’t play press coverage. Just played on their heels while Wilson threw wherever he wanted. He hadn’t played that well all season. The Broncos defense gave Seattle’s receivers so much space they were asking them to please not score. While Jack Del Rio and the Denver D clearly spent the entire two weeks planning to stop Marshawn Lynch, Seattle created plays that allowed Russell Wilson to be the confident quarterback he has become. His throws on the run will gain the attention, but his precision throwing across the middle will most incredible. While labeled the “other quarterback”, Wilson affirmed that the Super Bowl is not won or lost squarely on the shoulders of the man under center. It‘s won as a team. Seattle kicked Denver’s ass as a complete team.

As a Manning fan and therefore a Denver fan, watching that game was maddening. Not because they lost. Losing happens. But losing shouldn’t happen the way it did last night.  

When Manning was asked if it was embarrassing, he replied, “It’s not embarrassing... Embarrassing is an insulting word.” The truth is, though, it was embarrassing. Not for Manning, but for the men around him. The ridiculous legacy talk will swirl around him but his teammates should feel embarrassed for letting their leader down. Peyton had a record setting performance last night to cap off a record setting season. But football is a team game. It’s the ultimate team game. No other sport even comes close. One player is only as good as the others around him. 

Peyton Manning is Not Superhuman, and I'm Okay With That

All my sports heros from my childhood are gone. Chipper Jones and John Smoltz have retired, Reggie White has passed away, and Brett Favre’s mind is starting to betray him. My last connection to watching sports as a kid is Peyton Manning, but every game gets a little more bittersweet to watch.

Manning, by every conceivable measure, is having the season of his life. But have you watched him play? Have you seen his face during a game? He looks tired and worn down, like a farmer after decades of fighting nature. His eyes are sunken and faded. The man looks old.

Like every other East Tennessee kid around my age, I have lived believing Peyton was mythic. Super-human. Now, even in his success, he seems exposed. Watching him play these last two weeks in New England and Kansas City was like reading “The Death of Superman” or the final scenes of Beowulf. It’s difficult for me to grasp there will be a time he won’t be playing football, but it looks so inevitable now.

However, maybe it’s for the best I see him this way. Not as a fading superhero, but as a man. When I accepted that my dad wasn’t the character I’d created him to be, I grew to appreciate who he was. So much of my devotion to Peyton was built around what he did for me as a fan, but maybe it’s better to see him as a no more of a man than I am. Sport is at its best when we as fans are compelled to be great because we see greatness in athletes. The best thing I’ll ever gain from watching Peyton is to be as amazing in my life as he was on the field.

Still, something in me will change when he’s gone. That connection to my 12 year old, football obsessed self will seem a little more distant, and I’ll be a little bit older. But until then, I’ll watch every snap I can. I’ll get sappy and nostalgic and tell my wife stories about where I was when he did something I’d never seen before, because it's a hell of a lot of fun to feel like a kid.

We Need to Stop Celebrating Nick Saban

In high school, I was the worst player on my baseball team that was winless for two years. 

I’m not exaggerating. I could not throw, hit, field, or run the bases well. I was an excellent encourager.

To my coach, my inept abilities on the field embodied our team’s inept abilities to come within ten runs of the other team. He went particularly ballistic on my failures, and berated me during games in front of my teammates. The upper-classmen followed suit, and I was the butt of most of their jokes.

I’m a grown man now. I’ve got a wife, two kids, a dog, a mortgage, and all the other normal things grown men have. But I still think of what happened when I was 17, walking off the field at Maryville College with my coach screaming in my ear because I didn’t run to third when I had the chance. I can still see the look on his face, enraged by what I couldn’t do.

Will West’s (WNML) rant about Nick Saban brought me back to that moment on the field. Back to that dehumanizing moment, like I might as well be the shit on the bottom of his shoe. Men like Saban don’t need to be celebrated and worshipped. They need to be stopped. His verbal abuse of players is no different than Mike Rice at Rutgers. It’s just as hurtful, if not more so.

We need to stop accepting this type of behavior as “tough love”. It’s not. It’s abuse of athletes who do not have the ability to speak up for themselves. 

In Defense of Tom Crean

We give up certain things in adulthood, like driving all night to (insert random city) or going to Taco Bell at 2 am. The list is longer if you're in a leadership position. It's even longer if your leadership position is the head coach of a major college basketball team.

So when Tom Crean went ballistic on Michigan assistant and former Indiana assistant Jeff Meyer after the Hoosiers’ win Sunday for his role in the crippling sanctions handed down on IU in 2008, Crean of course got the “you should have been the adult” treatment from writers and analysts (most notably by ESPN’s Dana O’Neil). He later apologized publicly, calling it a "professional misunderstanding", and said he called Meyer to apologize on his way back to Bloomington.

IU fans should have greeted him at the airport like a conquering hero.

Crean did everything you could ever want from a coach. While most in the profession more closely resemble mercenaries than father figures, Crean did a very adult act and stood up for IU the same way a dad stands up for his child that's been shoved on the playground. He stood up for Christian Watford and Jordan Hulls who bought into the program when in it was 6-25 and had one conference win. He stood up for the administrators who patiently stood by him while he struggled his first three years. He stood up for the fans that kept showing up at Assembly Hall.

If I'm a recruit, this speaks volumes of Crean’s commitment to the team and tells me he will come to blows if he must in my defense.

He might be the new coach everyone loves to hate, but if I’m a Hoosier fan, that’s a black hat I’ll wear any day. College basketball could use more Tom Creans.

Kentucky's Struggles and Why College Basketball Might be Okay

On the eve of last year’s Final Four, Chuck Klosterman wrote one of my favorite articles of 2012, titled “Kentucky’s Death March”. It declared college basketball, as we know it, was ending because John Calipari’s evil genius empire of stud players who should have gone straight to the NBA meant the sport was now professionalized, that the traditional, power programs would adapt, and college basketball would become “a niche sport for people like me (Klosterman)- people who can’t get over the past.”

At the time, his fears seemed plausible, if not inevitable. Fast forward 12 months, however, and his fears seem a little overstated.

(I’m not bashing Klosterman in the least. Hindsight is the easiest way to troll a writer who puts out a bold statement. Years from now he could end up being right.)

Kentucky has struggled with a collection of freshmen who have, well... played like freshmen. The team has lacked leadership and looked downright sloppy in a mediocre at best SEC. So much so it may miss the tournament all together.

Kentucky in the NIT? Think of how shocking that is. Sports writers (like any other fan) tend to exaggerate, but UK forever dominating with one-and-dones seemed like such an inevitability. Today, they’re in the “First Four Out” with Southern Miss and Alabama.

So at least for the moment, the basketball purists can breathe easy. Gonzaga may finish the season number one, the Player of the Year and Defensive POY will likely be upperclassmen (Victor Oladipo and Jeff Withey), and only two freshmen have a remote shot at being a first team All-American (Ben McLemore and Marcus Smart). Kentucky will still turn its freshmen into first round picks (even if one has a torn ACL), and this lamenting might start all over again when Cal brings in his next round of superstars. But for now, this season is for the old school.

Unless the NBA becomes altruistic and decides to change its rules, the one and done player is as much a part of college hoops as irrationally hating Duke. But UK’s struggles have at least brought us back to reality that the sport isn’t on its death bed. As exciting as this season has been, it seems far from it.

Let’s Just Scrap the Top 25 in College Basketball

I'm serious. The best argument to get rid of it is to ask for a reason why we shouldn’t. The so called “number one team” has lost so many times that Gonzaga is about to claim the top spot going into the final week of the season.

Does anyone outside the Northwest believe the Zags are the best team in the country? Of course not, but they’ll be called “Number One Gonzaga” for the rest of the season by announcers and analysts who don’t for a second believe what they’re saying.

So why do we do this? Aside from “It’s always been done”, the only reason the college basketball world holds onto this obsolete tradition is the same reason the NCAA holds onto its obsolete “amateur” label: money.

If the NCAA and conference commissioners want to keep ESPN and CBS happy and shelling out millions, then they better provide every marketing tool possible. Can you imagine this commercial for the Duke/Miami rematch without a number attached to their names? Because it’s #3 vs #5, it validates why you should spend your Saturday evening in front of the TV.

But after this season especially, shouldn’t we as fans be smarter than this? Is it necessary for a bunch of AP sports writers to affirm my decision to watch Miami and Duke, or would it make a difference if they were ranked 13th and 15th? Are ratings for Gonzaga games going to go throw the roof because our arbitrary system says they're number one?

I’ll throw it out there again. The best argument to scrap it is to ask, “Why not”?