{"id":90,"date":"2008-01-15T18:06:11","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T23:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=90"},"modified":"2008-01-15T18:14:30","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T23:14:30","slug":"random-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=90","title":{"rendered":"Random Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

NFL:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phil Sheridan writes in today’s Inquirer<\/a> that the success of the Giants and the\u00a0Packers shows that the Eagles may not be that far off from getting ‘back to the top’.\u00a0 He argues that coming into the season, no one would have put either team in the NFC Championship Game and that if the Giants can do it with Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin, then surely the Birds have a\"eagle\" chance with Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid.\u00a0 In one sense, I think he’s right.\u00a0 I don’t think the Giants were substantially better than the Eagles this season.\u00a0 But I think Sheridan is ignoring one key aspect of this discussion: the weakness of the NFC.\u00a0 Sure, the Eagles may be close, as currently assembled, to getting back to the NFC Championship Game or even the Super Bowl, but are they close to competing with the likes of New England, Indy, or San Diego?\u00a0 As far as I know, the ‘top’ means winning a championship.\u00a0 The Eagles have plenty of needs to fill if they’re going to get there.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, Cal WR DeSean Jackson declared for the draft today.\u00a0 I wonder if Reid noticed?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>College Hoops:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week it was argued on this site that the Atlantic-1o\u00a0is not a ‘mid-major’<\/a>.\u00a0 That debate hit the mainstream this week, when Xavier turned down Rivals.com’s award<\/a> to guard Drew Lavender for ‘Mid-Major Player of the Week’,\u00a0contending that\u00a0there\u00a0is nothing ‘mid’ about their program.\u00a0\u00a0In support of the decision, A-10 commissioner Linda Bruno suggested that Rivals.com not\u00a0give the award to any A-10\u00a0players in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"lavender\"As a long time A-10 fan, I’ve never considered the conference a ‘mid-major’, but it\u00a0definitely isn’t on the level of the Big 6 confernces either, so it’s a tricky debate.\u00a0 Sometimes there’s a desire to put a\u00a0label on\u00a0everything and have concrete categories, but it’s not always that simple.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0Xavier AD makes a convincing argument for\u00a0his program, but if\u00a0Xavier is truly a ‘major’, then why did former coaches Skip Prosser and Thad Matta jump to basically mid-level ACC and Big Ten jobs?\u00a0 Xavier deserves tons\u00a0of credit\u00a0for pumping resources into their basketball program and\u00a0hiring numerous outstanding head coaches, but in the end they’re not quite a major\u00a0and not\u00a0quite ‘mid’, just somewhere in between.\u00a0 The A-10 as a whole is right there with them.<\/p>\n

As for the big boys of the sport, it’s looking right now like the NCAA Tourey Selection Commitee may have a very easy time of placing the four #1-seeds when Selection Sunday rolls around.\u00a0 North Carolina, Memphis, and Kansas are all undefeated and UCLA, with one loss, proved they are still a definite title contender with their rather easy win over previously undefeated Washington St. this past weekend.\u00a0 It even shapes up easily for the committee as far as which bracket to put each in, with UNC in the East, Memphis in the Southeast, Kansas in the Midwest, and UCLA in the West.\u00a0 Of course, there’s still a lot of games to be played.<\/p>\n

NBA:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sixers lost their seventh straight game last night, with an 89-82 loss in San Antonio.\u00a0 Rumors continue to circulate \"aabout if or when Ed Stefanski will move Andre Miller.\u00a0 I think Miller will get traded but probably not until next month.\u00a0 Obviously, they’re going to trade him to free up salary for the off-season, but there’s no point in trading him until they have to, which would be by the February 22 trade deadline.\u00a0 Until then, it’s nice to have an experienced point guard to run the offense while all the young kids learn the ropes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NFL: Phil Sheridan writes in today’s Inquirer that the success of the Giants and the\u00a0Packers shows that the Eagles may not be that far off from getting ‘back to the top’.\u00a0 He argues that coming into the season, no one … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,65,3],"tags":[172,154,125,4,93,120],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-hoops","category-nba","category-nfl","tag-andre-miller","tag-atlantic-10","tag-drew-lavender","tag-eagles","tag-sixers","tag-xavier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}