Missing Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler, the Washington Wizards were facing a ridiculously steep climb in their first round series with the Cavaliers. They’ve gotten some outstanding individual efforts and kept a few of the games interesting, including a night in-night out effort through three games from Antonio Daniels. AD put up 20 and 13 tonight, pushing his average above 13 points a game, and pushing 12 assists an outing. In fact, he’s one Game Two point away from posting double-doubles in all three games thus far. Even more impressive when you look at his season averages of 7.1/3.6. Their backs are against the wall now, we’ll see if Tone can keep up the outstanding play as long as the Wizards can stay alive.

Unfortunately, things aren’t so hot for the lone former Falcon left on the ice. Apparently, Kevin Bieksa couldn’t finish Game 7 of the Canucks’ first round series with Dallas, and has been scratched for the first two games of the second round matchup with Anaheim. They’re calling it fatigue-related, which makes perfect sense when you look at the workhorse effort he put in early in the Dallas series. Injuries during the NHL playoffs are discussed about as openly as mob secrets, but one note of encouragment has to be Kevin’s upgrade to “questionable” for last night’s double-OT win over the Ducks. Here’s to good Falcon health!

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Former Falcon Bob Hill was fired tonight as the head coach of the Seattle Supersonics.

Hill lettered in basketball from 1969-71, and was later an assistant coach at BG. He has coached four NBA teams and three years in the college ranks, at Fordham. What makes Hill’s coaching career interesting may not be anything he’s done on the floor. His successors at each stop are a virtual “Who’s Who” of basketball, including Rick Pitino, Larry Brown and 3-time NBA champion Gregg Popovich following him in the pro ranks, and Dereck Whittenburg, author of the most famous airball in NCAA Tournament history, taking over the program at Fordham.

I wonder if Coach Orr is still looking for assistants? (Though reading the last line of the latest from Ray Mernagh at Hoopwise claims one spot will remain filled, which is very good news.)

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Game Seven tonight in the Stanley Cup playoffs, Vancouver and Dallas for all the first-round marbles. If playoff hockey is like a never-ending fudge brownie, Game 7’s are like the vat of ice cream that comes with it. It’s just that good.

Of course, for those of you paying attention, it means Canucks defenseman and former Falcon Kevin Bieksa is again sharing part of the spotlight. He has no points in the series, and probably a few more minutes in the box than he’d care for, but he’s getting plenty of ice time. And with Greg de Vries and the Thrashers exiting quickly at the hands of the NY Rangers (though de Vries did find the net in Game 4), Bieksa is the lone brown and orange hope to lift the Cup at the end of this ride.

Meanwhile, the NBA playoffs are firing up, and while it might be a short stay for the Arenas-less Wizards against Cleveland, Antonio Daniels contributed nicely in their Game 1 loss. AD put up nine points, 11 assists, 7 boards and a steal with just two turnovers. Game Two is Wednesday night in Cleveland.

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I’m not usually one to go too far on sentiment, but college memories hit too close to home. Thanks to O&B’s site for the ribbon idea up top.

Here’s the link to Virginia Tech’s memorial fund, if anyone is so inclined.

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I’m pretty much just enough of an NBA fan to watch games as a sports fan, see how the Cavs are doing, and maybe the occasional playoff game.

But man do I love being able to turn on a Wizards game (or highlights) and pick out Antonio Daniels’ stride instantly.

Incidentally, Daniels and Keith McLeod are doing battle tonight in Indy, McLeod has 11 and was just named “Player of the Game” by the Pacers’ announcers, and Daniels just hit a free throw to push the Wizards up one late.

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Coach Brandon held a presser today, and dropped some bon mots to those following our football team.

• Loren Hargrove is now at MLB.
• Eric Ransom is #1 at RB.
• Tyler Sheehan is making a good impression.
• Erique Dozier has moved “inside,” whatever that means.
• The losers will serve steak to the winners.
• We’re not going to try and block punts, though that doesn’t mean we won’t block one anyway.
• PJ Mahone moved to LB.

More here.  

You want my uninformed opinion, the offense appears to be coming around but all the moving around on defense cannot be a good sign.  See everybody Saturday!

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It appears that a horde of unruly gremlins got into the inner workings of AZZ.com and gummed it up pretty good. Though I don’t know how I’m going to stay busy at work, sometimes there are a lot more important things in life than Brian Guerin’s scholarship status, and we should all remember that patience is a pretty damn good virtue to have sometimes.

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The Spring Game is Saturday. We know this. The extended winter known as “April” looks to have subsided somewhat (at least here to the south), and if BG’s forecast is anything like Indy’s, the 70’s and maybe even a dip into the 80’s is possible for Saturday. Sounds like a great time for those that can make it.

In the spirit of the unofficial “start” (for one afternoon) of football season, I’d like to unveil the finished, but nowhere near complete pet project I’ve been hammering at for the past couple months. The BG Football Results Database has some kinks to work out and I’m sure there are many more features I can add (suggestions and help are always welcomed), but for now, you can search the database by year, opponent and/or head coach and view the result from every game in BG history. There’s also a couple of miscellaneous pages with scoring records and “milestone” wins.

I’ve cross-referenced the database with the College Football Data Warehouse, which cleared up a couple errors that appear in the media guide (which, unfortunately, I think I forgot to write down before I passed them along to folks that could make the appropriate fix), and one error in data entry on my behalf. All the scores should now be correct. One caveat is that “Michigan Normal” and “Eastern Michigan” are listed as two separate opponents, even though they’re the same school.

I’d like to thank Noel for his help with the layout design (which is also still evolving around always busy schedules), Brian at MGoBlog for his help pushing my database skills in the right direction, and the folks at the SitePoint forums for helping keep those growing database skills in line. And to the few folks that got an early peek at the database and offered tips and corrections along the way. Thanks!

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With the talk this week about Coach Miller being highest paid at BGSU, I was reminded that I had never blogged on Coach Brandon’s contract, a .pdf of which was run on USA Today last year.  It is interesting reading–including buyout amounts (for both parties), and what exactly are the bonuses in Coach’s deal.  Note:  if we made the Fiesta Bowl, he gets $20,000!

Anyway, more on the Falcon Nation.

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Congratulations to coach Curt Miller on his contract extension, and kudos to Greg Christopher for the work that went into making it happen. I’m THRILLED with this news, and even more thrilled with the fact that special effort was made to ensure coach Miller was the highest paid coach at BGSU. (if only by 124 bucks)

Let’s put that in perspective a little bit… how many other NCAA Division I schools can say that their women’s basketball coach is the highest paid coach on campus?? Not your Division IA football coach who’s been to bowl games…. NOT your new Division I MEN’S basketball coach who was a Big East COY and who has been to the dance more times than I have fingers on one hand… but your women’s basketball coach. THAT is noteworthy!

Women’s hoops has long been a bottom dweller in terms of revenue at many schools. I still don’t think they pull in the dollars as the other programs at BG, but they pulled in more attendance than men’s hoops and garnered the school more national attention than any other sport in the past 4 or 5 years (with the possible exception of J5 and O4). More importantly though, they’ve represented BGSU and the Bowling Green community with a class, an attitude and an outlook that we can all be proud of and that SHOULD be rewarded.

Coach Miller and his staff are the architects responsible this amazing structure that is BGSU women’s basketball. I’m proud to say BGSU’s women’s basketball coach is our highest paid coach and I hope his staff is bumped up appropriately as well.

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