Final Four a Tale of Four Teams

he idea behind the NCAA Basketball tournament is what keeps people tuned in every single game for years and years, and its a very simple yet powerful idea - surprise factor. Movies try so very hard to have a plot-twist or climax that leaves people blown away, shocked, saddened, or frightened upon coming across it in a film, thus being a huge factor in what makes a movie a great movie. Yet, most times, a movie still needs good content surrounding the climax or plot-twist, or the movie will fail.

College basketball has a long and proud history, which serves as the content for its surprise factor or plot-twist. Every generation has had great memories of college tournament games, and the idea that there are millions upon trillions upon God knows how many possibilities we could see during a three week span of tournament play, people are attracted to it. The sole reason college basketball is so big come tournament time is that people want to see a genuine story of one team making it amongst a field of 64. Deep inside, we all want to see another George Mason. We want to see something that is unique and inspiring - because life elsewhere is not always so delivering.

Each of the four teams in this tournament have a story that is different than the other three. Each have had doubts they would make it this far, and some certainly more doubts that others. The stories are not always positive, but there is always inspiration to be found.

The University of Connecticut, by far the hottest team of the tournament in regards to media coverage and face time, has not exactly made their chapter of the story respectable this past week. Allegations suggest that the basketball program recruited a former player
, and the rest of the story is known by now. They also came into the tournament as the fourth number one seed, with few wondering if teams like Duke or Memphis would steal the top seed from them. Yet, they are back again, with another dominant big man and stout defense. Calhoun is possibly the best coach in the tournament this year, behind the likes of Roy Williams if anyone. The Huskies can win, and they have done well during this tournament, enough to make a naysayer second guess.

Villanova is the definite team of the tournament. After a surprising close match with American. They have blasted the likes of storied programs, UCLA and Duke, then upset the Pitt Panthers on a last second, Scottie Reynolds, hook-and-ladder type play, which ended with the go-ahead bucket with half a second left. Outside of UConn, they have been the most dominant team throughout the tourney, and Jay Wright has his team running and pushing harder than any team left. After Saturday's Elite 8 victory over Pitt, it is very hard to bet against the Wildcats of Villanova at this point.

Michigan State, another storied program dating back to Magic's run, has also impressed me, probably more than Villanova. They defeated the defending national champions and the top seeded team of the tournament, and looked great doing it. Tom Izzo, who I never had a hint of liking for, since my Big Ten favor is toward the Wolverines, has produced a great team when it wasn't expected to be. There is no Drew Neitzel or Maurice Ager, but they do have dominant big-man Goran Suton, who worked over Louisville in the Elite 8 win. MSU as a two-seed probably stands a better chance at UNC than Louisville would have had, granted that Lawson continues to heal and produce like he has. There is little talk, still, about this team, rather the focus has been on the success of Izzo during his tenure in East Lansing, and maybe a national championship will bring more face time for the Spartans.

Finally, North Carolina, the team that everyone predicts to win every year, because they are just that good every year. This year, they have reaped the benefits of Ty Lawson more than that of Tyler Hansbrough, but together, they have brought UNC to a second consecutive Final Four as a one-seed. Roy Williams is looking to bring another championship to Chapel Hill, and as strong a team they defeated in Oklahoma, it would be hard to count them out after making it to the Final Four, yet again. To defeat Michigan State would be a large task, and facing UConn or Villanova would be just as challenging - but the best coach in the country knows just what to do, I am assured.

East vs West

The NBA regular season ends in a little more than a month, and there seems to be a shift of power and depth between the Eastern and Western conferences. Mathematically, there are absolutely no teams from the Eastern Conference eliminated as of yet, although the magic number for the Wizards lies at three. On the other hand, the playoff race realistically only extends out to the ninth place team, which is Phoenix, who is trailed by Golden State - by 13 games. Although the West has better records from one to eight (at this point, Philadelphia and Chicago are in with sub-.500 records), the East is far more competitive with their own. This does not mean that we will have a back-to-back champion in the Eastern Conference for the first time since the Bulls won three straight from 1995 - 1998. We have seen the Lakers take beatings from and deliver them to the East, as well as San Antonio, Utah, and Denver. LeBron was run out of L.A. and Boston has not repeated their magic against the Lakers in this regular season, so both sides seem to be even. The three best teams in the NBA consist of two Eastern Conference teams, however, with Boston and Cleveland. Lakers may be the best, but if they are outed in the Western Conference Playoffs, the Spurs, Nuggets and Jazz, all virtually out of reach of a number 1 seed, will likely be candidates to play in the Finals, against three likely teams that all look better than the rest of the West, the aformentioned Cavs and Celtics, and the Orlando Magic. The scenarios are many, but unless the Lakers do not find a way back to the Finals, it could be a beginning of the Eastern Empire rebuilding itself.

Scenario 1: Lakers vs any team in the East - more than likely will end in a Laker championship, considering the way they played against Boston and Cleveland, although they have dropped both games against Orlando, the loss of Jameer Nelson would help the Lakers if it came down to these two teams

Scenario 2: Lakers are ousted by the Spurs, Nuggets, or Jazz - The series between the Lakers and Spurs are split, with an upcoming game on March 12, and the Lakers have done well against the Spurs in the playoffs the past ten years, so hoping for such is a stretch. Same situation with the Jazz, although it has been quite some time since the Jazz and Lakers played in the postseason against each other since last year's meeting. The Jazz have had some success against the Lakers, although there is no Mail-man or Stockton. The Nuggets have become quite the team this year with Billups, and would need a big lift from players like J.R. Smith and Nene to even win a game, much less an entire series. Part two of the scenario, any of the top three teams of the East (ORL, BOS, or CLE) make it to the Finals, the East is sure to win, although a few matchups would be interesting (Timmy vs Dwight, Melo vs LeBron, Deron vs Rondo).

Scenario 3: The final scenario I would see possible is that the Lakers and the Big Three of the East (again, CLE, ORL, and BOS) are all out of the picture. That leaves nothing in the East, except the Hawks, at any chance of winning the Finals against the likes of San Antonio, Utah, Denver, or even Houston and Portland. The everyone-but-Lakers tier in the West is much better than the anyone-who-didn't-win-the-division tier in the East, but considering the one really good team in the West against three really good teams in the East, it seems probable that the East will win again.

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NBA Round 2: Do or Die

The home team in the first round of the playoffs were 30-14, no thanks to the Celtics not winning in Atlanta. In the second round, home teams are 19-1, Orlando being the only team to lose at home to Detroit. Boston's home record is perfect: 7-0. Imperfect is their away record, at a playoff worst 0-5, which includes three losses to 8th seed, sub-.500 Atlanta in the first round and back to back losses in Cleveland. Detroit and Utah are the only teams still alive to have given up an first round home loss. With this year's wacky playoffs, its hard to tell who will crack the egg and win on the road. Boston is under the heaviest pressure cooker, being the #1 seed without a road win, after posting only 10 losses in 41 road games in the regular season. Losing the first 5 playoff games on the road is not a formula for a championship. Andrew Siciliano stated on Fox Sports Radio that the last team in the past 12 years to win a championship with the fewest road wins was the 2000 Los Angeles Lakers, who went 6-5 including the finals on the road. The Celtics have already met the loss total, and not even one game won on the road. Good luck, because there is obviously none to be had for the Celtics.

Three teams will require a victory on the road, on top of securing their own court, in order to move into the conference finals. The Spurs, who tonight play host to New Orleans, have been getting smeared in New Orleans, and will need to play with the same tenacity they play with in the first half on the road and their Spurs showing in San Antonio. Utah, who only lost one game on the road in the opening round against Houston, will need a game 7 win in LA, which never happens. Cleveland should be able to beat Boston at the Garden, as much as a flop they have been on the road, that should transition to a game 7 loss for Boston in Boston. Detroit won on the road, slamming the door to Orlando's bid to tie the series 2-2, and finished the job at home to win 4-1.

The Spurs are in the greatest trouble of being tossed. Their play has been shaky, and even with a big game 4 win in San Antonio, they will need double that to win in game 6 tonight against a Hornets team looking to let everyone know they are legit, too legit, for that matter, to quit.

But let's get real:
Hornets in 7
Lakers in 7
Cavaliers in 7

Remembering what LeBron did to Detroit last year, I can't see him not doing it again when it counted. Lakers will get edged in Utah, but will deliver their ever so mighty knock-out punch in game 7, barring any further injury to Kobe.

How does one retire from golf? Or at the age of 25?

Yesterday, story broke that women's golf legend Annika Sorenstam was retiring from golf, at the age of 38. One can understand the time put into playing and training for golf, because the weekend casual player isn't on the PGA or LPGA tour last I saw, but how does one actually never play on tour again before they turn 80? Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Lee Travino may not be kicking it with these young guns on tour, but they never formally retired from the game. So, does Sorenstam go play croquet or badminton if golf was too much for her to play?

And Justin Henin retires from tennis, as the number one player in the world, at the age of 25. Tomorrow, Eli Manning will call it a career. You heard it here first.

Annika will retire golf for her family time. So, does this mean we won't see her at the local country club on Saturday mornings? My guess, she is going into rec league bowling.

Cell Phone Trends

Everyone remembers when the RAZR came out. Motorolla pimped that phone as much is it could, making sure everyone who saw the commercials knew this was the best cell phone you could buy. That was also the most expensive phone I have ever seen, with a $700 price tag (without contracts). Soon enough, the entire world was making sleek and slim flip phones with full color external displays, Bluetooth capabilities, etc. Then we had the first attempt at the ROKR, the first phone with iTunes. Combining music and mobile voice was revolutionary, considering most phones only had internal memory, which didn't amount to much. Then we see a rise is smart phones, although they have existed for quite sometime, it was much more of a reasonable price for an early Motorola Q or even the Nokia communicator series. With more and more smart phones emerging, it is quite safe to assume the industry is shifting to a PDA/smart phone based device base. With the release of Apple's iPhone last year, we are now seeing more and more touch screen phones (LG Venus, HTC Touch), as well as phones integrated with music services (Samsung SLM) and Wi-Fi built-in (Nokia N95).

With the setting of trends in the cell phone, I was curious to see where the trends started that have made today's phones multi-capable devices.


Back in 1992, there was this little device called Simon, developed by none other than IBM. It was not only the world's first "smartphone" but it also featured a touch screen, email, world clock, calculator, address book, notepad, and games, with included functionality of a pager, fax machine, PDA, and of course cell phone. Every smartphone today has these features, most have more, with video sharing, MMS, GPS, etc. Heck, most cell phones, not smartphones, have all of these features. Your simple $20 go phone has all or most of those features, save the touch screen. Although this was a little out of hand, in price, $899, and availability, release in 1994 in only in 190 U.S. cities in 15 states, this set the standard for what a smartphone should be - loaded with everything but the kitchen sink.


The Nokia Communicator line was the next huge step in smartphone, offering a QWERY keyboard, which is hidden behind t
he face of the phone, which flipped vertically along the phone to offer a screen and keyboard, while still preserving the generic numeric pad on the front of the phone, with usual call/drop buttons, menu and navigation buttons, with a small screen on the front as well. There are plenty of cell phones using the Communicator's design to this day, including the later versions of the Communicator, the LG enV, and U740 from Samsung, which offered a dual-flipping phone (pictured below):

The enV from LG

The U740 from Samsung

Most smartphones out today take some mold to the Simon or Communicator. AT&T/Cingular introduced their line of branded smartphones which combine a touch screen along with a slide-out keyboard, which few companies have used on standard mobiles, such as Motorola's new ROKR E6, which integrated iTunes in the original release of the ROKR.

Cellphones usually take one of three forms: candybar, clamshell, or slider. There have been a few who have tried to integrate a new style such as the "swivel", pictured below with the popular T-Mobile Sidekick 3, or a more proprietary form, such as the Nokia pictured below, which rotates.

Nokia 3250
T-Mobile Sidekick 3

What influence has the RAZR had? Well, they practically started the Slimmest Cell Phone War of the 21st Century. Also, the RAZR's unique keypad design, which they claim is laser etched, has branched over into the landline phones as well, with design of keypad and sleekness, compared to bulky cordless phones.

VTech DECT 6.0

Oh, and remember when it was a commodity to own a cell phone, kind of like it was to own a TV, two cars, satellite TV, etc.? Well, with the growing number of plans available for families to share, the entire family is mobilized, from the white collar father, the soccer mom, and the actual soccer

sons and daughters. I've seen 10 and 12 year olds with better phones than me! Thankfully, we still have age limits for drivers' licenses, else pre-teens could be seen on the streets with Blackberries AND Hummer H2s.