Shanoff’s Wake-Up Call: Roger, Duke, Shaq, More

By Dan Shanoff
Today’s Calls: Roger Clemens vs. Dirty Needles, Duke’s Super 6 vs. UNC’s Overmatched 4, Kevin Hart vs. Julio Jones, Terrelle Pryor vs. Sam McGuffie, Shaq vs. Matrix, Korver vs. AI, Pat Knight vs. Bob Knight, Roger Goodell vs. Matt Walsh, Pedro Martinez vs. Mike Vick and More!
The Opening Pitch: Roger Clemens has some explaining to do when he meets today with Congressional investigators, whose first question might be:
“Um, so about this dirty needle?”
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Though Clemens brought nothing more than denials to his deposition with Congress, Rocket nemesis Brian McNamee turned over hard evidence: Gauze pads, used needles ... all with the promise of being tainted by the mix of Clemens’ blood and steroids.
Clemens’ lawyers are naturally crying “Foul!” but public perception is driven by smoking guns, er gauze pads, not lawyers’ talk.
(Meme of the Day: Public perception is the least of Clemens’ problems; if McNamee’s evidence holds up, Clemens just lied in a Congressional deposition. No Hall of Fame? That’s nothing, compared to a place as the ace of the rotation of the “Cellblock D All-Stars.”)
Duke thumps UNC in Chapel Hill: I have been a skeptic, but I’m ready to believe: Duke is for real. Not only did they beat their biggest rival (ranked No. 3), but also they did it on the road, vastly undersized, by a double-digit margin, putting 6 players in double-figures. I’m no Duke fan, but I tip my cap to that effort.
(I look forward not just to the rematch in Durham, but the likely rematch in the ACC Tournament final, when perhaps UNC’s Ty Lawson, who didn’t play, will be healthy again.)
CFB Signing Day: The biggest story? The Hoax! Kevin Hart’s “recruitment” to Cal wasn’t a practical joke gone wrong; it was a hoax perpetrated by the player himself.
When it looked like a joke pulled on him, he was just a sad-sack loser; now, I have to stand up and applaud the kind of imagination and creativity needed to pull that off.
He’s a 2-star prospect, but a 5-star fabulist. Hart may not get a football scholarship, but there should be a college theater department willing to give this kid a full ride.
He single-handedly (and unintentionally) exposed the recruiting game as the shallow hysteria that it is; if he wasn’t so pathetically earnest, I would have called it brilliant performance art.
Meanwhile, who had the No. 1 recruiting class? If you listen to SN, Rivals.com or Scout.com, it was Alabama, put over the top by the commitment of the wildly talented in-state WR Julio Jones. If you prefer ESPN’s Scouts Inc., it’s Miami, back from the dead.
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Want to see some somewhat arbitrary difference of opinion?
SN’s Top 5: (1) Bama, (2) Notre Dame, (3) Florida, (4) Oklahoma, (5) Miami.
Scouts’ Top 5: (1) Miami, (2) Clemson, (3) Florida, (4) Bama, (5) Georgia.
Rival.com’s Top 5: (1) Bama, (2) Notre Dame, (3) Florida, (4) Miami, (5) Oklahoma.
Scout.com’s Top 5: (1) Bama, (2) Notre Dame, (3) Miami,
(4) Georgia, (5) FSU or LSU.
The biggest coup of the day: Colorado landed uber-RB Darrell Scott, who picked the Buffs over Texas and is the perfect complement to Dan Hawkins’ pass-happy, nepotism-driven offense.
The biggest drama of the day: YouTube sensation Sam McGuffie didn’t send his LOI to Michigan, where he committed months ago, driving Blue fans into a tizzy. He ultimately signed.
(The bad news for Michigan fans is that all signs point to Terrelle Pryor going to Ohio State, even if he didn’t officially commit there yesterday.)
Shaq O’Neal-Shawn Marion Trade, Cont’d: I’m trying to tell if the Suns players’ enthusiasm for this deal is fake or sincere. Shaq isn’t the dynamic all-around talent that Marion was, but -- then again -- it’s not like the Suns won the West with Marion as part of their Big Three. If Shaq is healthy (and, more importantly, energized) this might yet yield a compelling payoff in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, the two teams played without their new stars:
Without Shaq, the Suns lost in 2OT to the Hornets (Peja buzzer-beater, Chris Paul: 42!)
Without Marion, the Heat lost by 5 at Detroit. (Dwyane Wade: 30.)
You could make the argument that both players would have made the difference between winning and losing against their conference’s best.
More NBA last night: The Jazz won their 10th straight, and it was a biggie, beating their division rival Nuggets in Denver in OT, behind newly acquired Kyle Korver’s 27 (Fantasy alert!)
Pat Knight’s coaching debut a loser: Texas Tech lost at Baylor. Now, Baylor is pretty good this season, so there’s no shame in the loss, per se.
But it does beg the question of what kind of performance it would take from Pat Knight to ensure that his dad’s plan to circumvent the school’s right to pick its coach ends well for the Knight family, rather than with Pat joining Bobby watching games from the stands.
Roger Goodell hearts Matt Walsh: The word is that Goodell could grant Walsh some form of legal protection in exchange for talking with the league about what he knows about the Patriots’ spying techniques.
Presumably, if Goodell told the Pats that Walsh wasn’t to be touched, he wouldn’t secretly order the “Code Red” to keep the league from going through a brutal scandal involving its marquee team.
Are the Bills moving to Toronto? Ralph Wilson is hardly providing assurances when his response to a fairly direct question is: “Don’t worry right now.” Bills fans (among the best in all of sports) can feel free to freak out now.
Defensive coordinator coaching carousel: Super Bowl XLII mastermind Steve Spagnuolo spent a full day interviewing with the Redskins; I can’t believe the Giants are going to let their top coaching talent be lured away to a division rival; is their loyalty to Tom Coughlin for what he did last season so strong that they won’t think about the NEXT five seasons?
Meanwhile, the Jaguars hired ex-Redskins D.C. Gregg Williams to run THEIR defense, which is awesome but pestered by claims of underperformance under ex-D.C. (now Falcons H.C.) Mike Smith. Williams will inject a new enthusiasm. With the Pats looking mortal, if not entirely vulnerable, can the Jags make a move on New England and Indy in ‘08?
The Last Word: Is Pedro Martinez the new Michael Vick? Pedro had his “YouTube Moment,” taped at a cockfight in the D.R., paired with Juan Marichal as an honorary rooster owner.
No, it’s not the same as Vick: First of all, cockfighting is legal in the D.R. Second, Pedro was more like a guest-blogger than, say, an owner-financier of a massive animal-fighting operation that included the slaughter of dozens of animals.
Finally, I’m not quite sure that fans in the U.S. can find the same moral outrage about fighting chickens that we do about fighting dogs.
We don’t eat dogs for dinner on a nightly basis.
For the record, Pedro’s chicken lost.
Dan Shanoff writes The Wake-Up Call every weekday morning for SportingNews.com and blogs daily at DanShanoff.com. Got any comments, questions or feedback? Email Dan at shanofftsn-[at]-gmail-[dot]-com.↵