Fired Up Friday

Storming the Court

As I watched in awe as Jimmer Fredette hit ridiculous shot after shot against San Diego State Wednesday night, my jaw dropped to the floor.  Not because of Jimmer (though he is extremely impressive), but because of the fans that decided to rush the floor after the game.  BYU is currently the 9th ranked team in the nation.  They were favored in the game by five and a half points.  They didn't do anything impressive.  They did what they were supposed to do.  Why would you rush the floor?

BYU is not the only place where this is happening.  After Indiana's win against #19 Illinois last night, what did the students decide to do?  Of course, they decided to storm the floor.  I don't care how terrible you have been since Tom Crean has taken over the program, it doesn't mean you can storm the court when you beat the nineteenth best team in the country.  You are storming the court after beating the 5th best team in the Big Ten?  Really?  You're better than that.  If Bobby Knight wasn't the most self-confident person in the world, he would be embarrassed to be associated with Indiana basketball.

Then we come to Providence.  Providence beat Villanova this past week and decided to storm the court.  This was the second time in a week that Providence had beat a ranked Big East opponent, which means Providence had just accomplished the exact same feat less than a week before their game against Villanova.  This game wasn't special.  There was nothing great about this game. 

Students need to understand when it is appropriate to storm a court. If you're team is in the Top 10, you can NOT storm the court unless it is the last game of your conference season and the victory seals a conference championship.  Otherwise, if you are in the Top 10, get off the floor.  After that, you should really only be on the floor if you beat the #1 team in the nation or if you beat your rival while you have been struggling and they are playing great.  All in all, there are very few reasons to storm a basketball court.

The Tennessee Titans

I'm confused.  Why did the Titans publicly state that they are going to trade or release Vince Young?  I, along with most of the sports world, was under the impression that the Titans were going to trade or release Young because they were planning on extending Jeff Fisher's contract.  Now they're getting rid of Jeff Fisher.  It seems as though they don't really have much of a plan for this offseason.  I just don't understand how an NFL organization could be run so badly.

The only thing I can think of is that the Titans organization is really starting to lean toward drafting Cam Newton with the 8th pick.  Cam Newton seems like the exact type of player that would drive Fisher absolutely crazy.  He doesn't necessarily have the best skill set or work ethic and seems eerily similar to a certain quarterback that just ran Jeff Fisher out of town.

The NHL All-Star Game

Calm down.  I know there is typically no reason to talk about the NHL, but the NHL All-Star Game this year has possibly the coolest concept of all-time.  Instead of allowing voters to pick the starting line-up of each conference, the NHL took the two highest vote-getters from each conference and allowed them to pick their team.  Maybe I'm the only person that thinks that is really cool, but I think it is amazing.  What is cooler than essentially playing a pick-up game and having all-stars pick their own team?  Tell me that this idea would not be absolutely amazing at the NBA All-Star game. 

Who gets picked first?  Who takes Kobe?  Who gets picked last? And how pissed off is the guy that gets picked last?  How did the NHL (arguably the worst profressional sports organization) come up with such a genius idea?  Why am I asking so many questions?  All I know is that the 48 minutes that would ensue would be the most entertaining NBA All-Star Game ever because each player would be playing with a passion that we've never seen before because each player would actually care about the game.