The Morning After

Thursday Night's "Nightcap" feature has been turned into a Morning After, thanks to the evil geniuses who made Gears of War and NBA2k7. As if I wasn't wasting enough of my life with sports, poker, surfing the net and the occasional cocktail, now I'm adding video games into the nightly routine? Has anyone's brain ever actually turned into soup and oozed out of a person's ears before?

For anyone that cares, Gears of War is rather addicting, although I seem to be more consumed by NBA2k7 now that I've created an all-UCLA team. I mean who wouldn't want to play hours and hours with a roster consisting of:
Starters:
G Baron Davis
G Dijon Thompson
SF Trevor Ariza
PF Matt Barnes
C Dan Gadzuric

Bench: Jordan Farmar, Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, Jerome Moiso, and Jelani McCoy.
The game doesn't come with Ryan Hollins or Cedric Bozeman. I think that's all that's missing from this being a championship team. Well that and some players that can actually shoot and rebound.

As for the diversional world with live humans...

Rutgers fans can thank me for flip flopping at the last moment and going with Louisville last night. Sure their defense in the second half had something to do with the win, but the deciding factor had to be the Lounge curse which clearly has no bounds. The victory by the Scarlet Knight opens the door for a myriad of teams to enter the national championship picture: Florida, Texas, Auburn, USC, Cal, and Notre Dame- everyone except undefeated Rutgers themselves. Of course real college fans know the true champion will be determined when Rutgers plays Boise State in a BCS game...

Nice job by New York of claiming another New Jersey sports' team by lighting up the Empire State building in scarlet red. The Giants and Jets apparently weren't enough so now they've annexed Rutgers too. Next thing you know, there will be talk of moving the Nets to Brooklyn...

While the contest was one of the great college football games of the season, if a Rutgers home game turns Erin Andrews into a Jersey Girl, I'll never forgive the NCAA, ESPN or the state of New Jersey...

For some reason, J.D. Drew opted out of the 3 years and $33 million remaining on his contract with the Dodgers. My only guess for his reasoning is that he's an upstanding guy and he just didn't feel right stealing from the Dodgers. If there is any GM out there that is willing to give JD Drew a contract that surpasses those terms, he should be relieved of his duties immediately...

Class move by Jay Wright to play at Northwood University for Rollie Massimino's home debut in his return to coaching. Sure, he gets to hang in West Palm Beach and he'll likely cruise to victory, but I still like the respect Wright shows his mentor in making the trip...

Doug Collins, who I'm a fan of, had some brilliant analysis in the Mavs/Suns game on TNT:
"You love to have a lot of guys on your team that know how to play." That's why Doug gets the big bucks...

Mike D'Antonio had his own analysis in the aftermath of the Suns' loss: "We're soft as friggin cupcakes out there!"

What D'Antonio didn't know is that his team was playing 5-on-6 for the entire game. In the postgame, Mavericks guard Jason Terry revealed to Craig Sager that in the locker room he "got on (his) knees and prayed for victory, and God came through again." This really added a new element to the postgame analysis, as pundits had to figure out if the Mavs won because:

1) God loves Dallas more than Phoenix (tho any visit to a strip club or Hooters in those areas will reveal he's blessed both cities amply.)

2) Steve Nash is Canadian, and God hates Canadians.

3) The Jews killed Jesus. The Germans killed Jews. Dirk Nowitski is German. (I hate myself for writing that, but not so much that I actually deleted it. The other Dirk connection was that Hasselhoff is actually Christ on earth and Dirk worships the Hoff.)

4) Jason Terry's God thought Amare was a Muslim name.

5) The last option- and I know this is going to sound crazy- is that maybe Dallas just made more shots at the end of the game.

Besides, I thought Jesus wore #23 and played for the Cavs. That's what I've learned in the gospel according to Nike.