Quick Hits 12/16

NCAA F

Charles Barkley is right to be ashamed of his Alma Mater and Auburn fans are right to be outraged. Hiring Gene Chizik over Turner Gill is inexcusable. It’s a bad move that will probably blow up in Auburn’s face, just like firing Tommy Tubberville was a bad move in the first place.

However, this may be a blessing in disguise for Gill. With Florida, LSU, Alabama and Georgia seemingly poised to dominate the SEC for the next few years, Auburn would’ve been a bad job for Gill. Anything less than an SEC championship within two or three years would’ve had him on the hot seat by year four.

This is the biggest by product of the black head coach problem in college football: most black coaches are pushed to bad jobs, fail in bad situations and fade in to oblivion. Heck, Buffalo was a bad job, but Gill made it work.

At Auburn, he probably would’ve gotten about the same chance to fix their program as Ty Willingham had at Notre Dame. And while Auburn is a much better program than Mississippi State, Gill would’ve been in a similar position at Auburn as Sylvester Croom was with MSU as the first black coach in the SEC. Croom couldn’t compete with the bigger SEC schools for talent, and therefore his teams couldn’t compete on the field. He just resigned after his first season, even though he’s won the conference’s Coach of the Year award during his tenure.

Gill will definitely get a shot to coach “big time” college football. For his sake, hopefully its at place where he’ll be in a position to really win.

NBA

The reason why the Celtics are even better than they were last year is definitely Rajon Rondo, which should go without saying. While he’s not a pure point guard, he’s developed into the player the Celtics need him to be: a consistent scoring threat, good rebounder, serviceable passer and tenacious defender.

And really, he wasn’t that bad last year and the Celtics had no need to waste the time and money they did on Sam Cassell. Check out what Rondo is doing this year though:

10.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 7.4 apg, 2.3 spg, 51.3 fg%.

Those are solid numbers across the board.

While I’m definitely enjoying the regular season so far, the inevitable Eastern Conference finals between Cleveland and Boston will certainly be something to watch.

NCAA B

Stephen Curry continues to dazzle. In case you missed it, over the weekend Curry dropped 41 pts, 4 rebs, 6 asts and a steal on Chattanooga over the weekend in a 100-95 Davidson victory. Curry hit 11-22 shots, 5-11 from downtown and added another 14 from the line (on 18 attempts).

At the point, with apologies to James Harden from Arizona State, the Wooden Award is a two horse race between Curry and Blake Griffin. Here’s the tale of the tape as of 12/15

Curry – 9 games, 31.9 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 6.8 apg, 2.9 spg, 48% fg, 39% 3p5, 85% ft – remember he had a 0 point game where he was 0-3.
Griffin – 10 games, 23.1 ppg, 15.1 rpg, 2.5 apg, 1.9 spg, 1.1 bpg, 68% fg, 62% ft

** Bonus Seth Curry Watch ** 22 pts, 1 reb on 8-13 shooting (4-8 3pt) and 2-2 from the line in a December 15th victory against Anderson (SC), whoever they are.

NFL

Kudos to ESPN for blowing the T.O/Dallas/Romo/Witten situation out of proportion. You ever notice that whenever Dallas loses, T.O. is mad? Anybody at the Worldwide leader ever think that maybe this guy just wants to win and maybe he thinks the best way for Dallas to win is for him to always have the ball?

The biggest difference between this situation and the Philly and San Fran situations involving Owens and QB’s is that he’s not questioning Romo’s character, ability or physical condition. This time, he was just politicking for the ball more and wondering if there’s a reason why he’s not getting the rock all the time. (Of course, its probably because he’s always among the lead leaders in drops, which he will fail to recognize).

Regardless, the two best teams in the league are Pittsburgh and Carolina, who both have chances to exert themselves as the true top dogs in the conference this week, with games against Tennessee and Carolina.