The Basement View

College basketball season is back! Thanksgiving Tournament schedules have come and gone, the Champions Classic has come and gone, and the official start of college ball season is underway.   The start of the new year is here and with it, there is a few buffer weeks to figure out what teams are going to compete this year and who the X-Factor will be. Something that has been extremely evident so far, this year, the Duke Blue Devils are going to you on a roller coaster throughout every game that they play. Duke has been in nail-bitters the last three games against Portland State, Texas, and Florida. This Duke team is a young team with eight freshman on roster. This Duke team is not the same as the old teams. The Blue Devils will have to grind out each and every game until they finally figure out their identity (and this might be it). After the first round of tournaments the Top 25 looks like this: 1.       Duke 2.       Kansas 3.       Michigan State 4.       Villanova

It’s not every Monday that you get a snoozefest on Monday Night Football… oh wait; this is nothing new. This Raven-Texan game would have been interesting if Deshaun Watson was under center but since he went down the hype around the Texans went to bed as Watson went under the knife. The Ravens now are in the playoff picture and with a middle of the road remaining schedule with Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. With the way Baltimore has played on either end of their spectrum; you don’t know what you’ll get from them on a week to week basis. It also shows how bad the quarterback play has been in the AFC this year. We may see Blake Bortles, Marcus Mariota, and Joe Flacco starting in the playoffs this year. 2017 is crazy. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t catch much of this game, and for good reason. The parts of the game I did watch it wasn’t entertaining. But, the special teams play was actually not that bad. And, it’s not every week that I get to pitch

Yesterday, I fell in love with football again. Even though the Jets lost and the overall excitement about Thanksgiving was wrapping up I really enjoyed watching football yesterday. I think it was the fact that the football played yesterday actually looked like football that I recognized. The games where close (for the most part) and the drama was engaging. Sunday Night Football was the most entertaining it has been all year and it showed why the Sunday Night game has been the game of the week for some time now. An incredible performance by Brett Hundley against the high-powered Pittsburgh Steelers—along with some incredible plays by Antonio Brown, made for some great television. From the Jet performance, to a bounce back by Buffalo, a close win by Tennessee, an upset in the desert by the Cardinals, and of course the great game in Los Angeles between the Rams and Saints. But, the game of the week was the Sunday Night Game in Pittsburgh. That game was what football should be

There seems to be a general consensus around the National Football League that Austin Seferian-Jenkins does not know how to catch a football. Due to that, the Jets now have two losses on their schedule that could have easily been wins. Week 6 against the Patriots Seferian-Jenkins was a part of one of the most controversial calls in NFL history and today adds another highlight in the “is that a catch?” vault. This time it came at the start of the 4 th quarter on the one-yard-line. Josh McCown threw a fade route to Seferian-Jenkins, which was “caught” and brought to the ground. It was called incomplete due to slight movement that occurred when Seferian-Jenkins was on the ground after he had made the catch and was downed in the endzone. Seferian-Jenkins never lost control of the pass or drop the ball at any point during going to the ground, yet after the played was reviewed the officials called it back. Two plays Chandler Catanzaro would knock home his second field goal of the game

19-63… that was the Cleveland Cavaliers record the year following the departure of Lebron James. This was the team that set the NBA record for most losses in a row with 25. The following year after that miserable season Cleveland drafted Kyrie Irving with the first overall pick. Three years later Anthony Bennett would be walking across the stage when he was selected first overall by the same Cleveland Cavaliers. The unexplainable luck that has to happen for a team to get the first overall pick three times in a decade is incredible (I’m not counting the “Trust the Process” Sixers that deliberately tanked for the highest chance in the lottery). The only reason that one of the three first overall selections is still on the Cavs is because of divine intervention that comes in the form of Lebron James. If Lebron didn’t care so much about the city of Cleveland the Cavaliers would let three number one overall selections come and go in a matter of a decade. Now, the chances of that happen

This past weekend of football was the most important week of football that we have had from the play on the field perspective. Like last week, this week has been one of the best Sunday’s to watch the redzone channel. The ending of the Saints-Redskin game was great, the Giants took the Chiefs to OT and won, the beginning of the end for Nathan Peterman, and of course, the very beginning of the Raiders-Patriots game in Mexico City. Play implications have risen to another level because of the Chargers, the Chiefs loss, and the Lions win in Chicago put a new pressure on teams like the Seahawks, Falcons, Chiefs, and Chargers. Getting to the Sunday and Monday game balls. For Sunday, the MVP race gets closer because of the man who continues to defy the test of time, Tom Brady. In a year, where he has taken the Lebron James route to the MVP award because it is just assumed that Brady is always going to be great. The seasons that Carson Wentz and Alex Smith have had are now dissipat

The MVP is an award that sports fans hold highly year in and year out, and this year in Major League Baseball it is no different. The compelling differences in the American League MVP race is something that is driving me crazy. Now, comparing my picks from early September to now as the Major Baseball Awards were given out for 2017, they really don’t look any different. I picked Kershaw and Kluber for the Cy Youngs, Bellinger and Judge for the Rookies of the Year, Torey Lovullo and A.J. Hinch for the Coaches of the Year, and I couldn’t pick between Giancarlo Stanton and Nolan Arenado (Arenado didn’t even get considered in the Top Three), but picked Jose Altuve for the AL MVP. I officially settled on Stanton for the NL MVP so that would give me six out of the eight correct for awards. Looking at the two I got wrong, I looked at the numbers and couldn’t argue with the baseball writers for why they went the way they went. The writers went with the same storyline with Coach of the Year

Week 11 Picks The Madden camera needs to stay! The overhead “coaches camera” or “Madden camera” was put on display last night in Pittsburgh for the first quarter of the Steelers-Titans game. You know, just to another gimmick place on Thursday Night Football to try to get viewership. One thing good about last night (besides the overhead camera) was that we didn’t get the snooze-fest between the Titans and Jaguars (or the mustard-smurf game), we actually got a decent football game for about a quarter and a half. The Steelers must have been pissed off after the sports media road them off and put them aside following a win where they BARELY edged out the Indianapolis Colts last week. Against Tennessee last night, the old Pittsburgh Steelers blew the doors off the Titans. The Steelers showed why they are one of the Top Four teams in the league right now—and the Chiefs might do the same thing on Sunday when they face the artist formally known as the New York football Giants. T

What an odd week of football that Week 10 was. There was a lot of moving parts, a ton of close finishes at the end of the 1 o’clock games, just a perfect day if you had the redzone channel. In a very 2017ish way, the playoff teams seemed to raise just in time to get a win. In all the craziness, the ineptitude, and sadness that Week 10 brought NFL fans, something still remains. Tom Brady is still the greatest quarterback, Bill Belichick will continue to be the coach to outcoach a team, and the Patriots will continue to find new ways to win. Everything makes sense as far as football in New England, the Evil Empire still reigns over the National Football League. With the Thursday Night Game (which seems like a month ago with all the stuff that has happened in the world) the campaign for ending Thursday Night Football excluding Thanksgiving stirred up again. With the Richard Sherman season ending injury the serious talk of what to do about all of these injuries is brought back up.

Honest Review #2.10: Fitztragic If this game didn’t validate my article earlier today, then I don’t know what will. The Jets offensive line gave up six sacks in Tampa Bay. The Jets ruined an opportunity to get a good road win before the bye week. The Jets ruin a chance to get to .500 before the bye and give the organization and fan base an opportunity to re-evaluate the season. The Jets are now 4-6 heading into the bye week and frankly just took a nap until it was too late. The Jets didn’t show up on offense or special teams today. Lac Edwards after having a great week last week against the Buffalo Bills, punted the ball seven times and had a key 30-yard shank to lead to the field goal for the Bucs. The offensive was just anemic. The Jets converted just two third downs in 15 tries. John Morton did a terrible job of play calling, by calling way too many short passes instead of going down the field and trying to push the envelope against a struggling Buccaneer defense. Instead

Nobody saw this season from the Jets (except for maybe my dad), like I said on my podcast, if you told me that the Jets would be 4-5 going into Week 10 and the Giants would be 1-7, I would’ve thought you were insane. But, that’s where we are in the season, and a possible 8-8 playoff run is in play for gang green. With that being the case the Jets would find themselves currently picking at 13 in the upcoming draft. Clearly, that’s way too late to get one of the high valued quarterbacks coming out of the draft, but maybe that’s okay… I promise I’m not insane and I haven’t gone off my rocker, it may be okay to give up on the dream of Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson, Sam Darnold, or whomever you thought the Jets would draft this coming April. I say, look at the option of drafting offensive line help before you draft a quarterback. In the 2012-13 season the top two quarterbacks taken in the draft were Andrew Luck (1 st overall to the Colts) and Robert Griffin III (2 nd overall to t

Week 10 Picks Another positive week for me (8-5). This week to me is the week where Vegas pulls that old Dave Chappelle bit (you know how it goes, nice car, and on and on). Vegas will be showing beating people nice lines all this week and entice them to put them in teasers, parlays, or money lines. I’m telling you to not fall for it. There are key home dogs that should be favored, and there are road teams that shouldn’t be getting points. It could be just me and the air head that I’ve gotten from going positive the past two weeks, but I’m going with my gut this week.  

Aliens have officially landed on earth and played football last night. The Lions and Packers game didn’t make sense last night. From the start of the game, the Lions didn’t play like they were going to win the game. The play calling by Jim Bob Cooter was just nonsensical, yet the Lions had the advantage all night long. I watched the first half of this game and didn’t understand what kind of football that I was watching. The first three drives the Lions just didn’t call good plays on first or second down. If Aaron Rodgers wasn’t sitting on the sidelines and was under center, the Packers would have blown Detroit out of the water. The Packers defense played well enough to keep the Packers in the game. Except for the fact that Brett Hundley is the quarterback of the Packers. 14-3 at half is a score that the Packers could handle, if Aaron Rodgers was playing. I picked the Lions as a dark horse playoff candidate and after watching Detroit last night I was dead wrong. Part of it is t

On a week where the Jets played on Thursday, the Patriots and Steelers had a bye week, and the product on the grid iron looking like it did last year—it was a tough Sunday to watch for a casual football fan. On a Sunday after the game lost the newest young star, Deshaun Watson, to a season ending non-contact ACL injury; the NFL needed a good week. The week that we got was instead a week where we saw two teams put up 50 points, a week where probable playoff teams lost games they shouldn’t have lost, and three fights on the field. I cannot remember a week of football where three fights broke out on a specific Sunday. So far as I am writing this, Mike Evans has got suspended for one game, A.J. Green and Jalen Ramsey will not be suspended, and there has been no word on who will be suspended in the incident in San Francisco. For me, this is just another example of the ineptitude of the NFL league office. How do you not suspend both A.J. Green and Jalen Ramsey? This was the worst fi

Honest Review #2.9: A confusing 4-5 start 4-5. One game under .500 and I don’t know where to go from here. With everything going on with the trade deadline and all the chips that fell in place for the Jets to capitalize on one of the best quarterback classes in the last few years—what do the Jets do? The way that every Jet defender swarmed the ball is something that just confuses me. Why did the Jets take this long to get all the players to buy into the culture? Why did it take the 4 th time entering the 4 th quarter to actually close a game. If the Jets flipped the past three games from losses to wins the Jets would be a 7-2 team. The Jets would be leading the division and looking at a possible playoff run. Instead, the Jets are stuck in the mud, not really having a plan for the rest of the season. There is no question that the Jets need a quarterback. There will be a quarterback sitting within the top five in the draft this coming April and they need to go get him. Josh

You could have told me that this game would play out I wouldn’t believe you. This wasn’t the same Jets team that blew three consecutive leads. This wasn’t the same Bills team that ran all over the Raiders last week. Perhaps the biggest reason for that is the Bills were penalized 11 times for 99 yards tonight. Tyrod Taylor was sacked five times and LeSean McCoy only had 25 rushing yards. The Jets defense played extremely tonight and that is the reason they won. The way every Jet defender competed tonight makes me wonder why it took eight games for them to play this way? What changed in just three days? I have no idea. Getting to the game ball—it’s only fitting that I give it to a defender. Tonight’s game ball goes to New York Jets Line Backer Demario Davis. Davis has been the leader on defense all year and he had another great game having a game high six tackles, having a sack, a tackle for loss, and recovering the clinching fumble that put the Bills to bed. Now, I guess I

Almost a year to the day, another long-awaited World Series Championship finds its way to a franchise that has be longing for one. In Houston’s case, they have never won a World Series in their 56-year history, and well that ended tonight. Speaking of those 2016 Chicago Cubs, they did a completely different way than these 2017 Astros. The Cubbies of the Northside of Chicago outpitched the Indians last year and relied on timely hitting to get it down in stunning fashion. This Astros team will just out hit you. Houston’s top four of Springer, Bregman, Altuve, and Correa might be one of the best one through four in any order in all of baseball—and news flash—they will be here for a long time. The 2017 Astros were exactly what you wanted in the 2017 version of baseball. They could slug you out of the game, they had good enough pitching, and they played good defense. And, 2017 may be familiar to Astro fans be, that’s because 2017 is the year Astro General Manager Jeff Luhnow hi