Razorbacks, Tigers and NASCAR, Oh My!

Long time no update – let’s hit a hundred things at once - or maybe, like, 4.

Hey Kentucky, listen to this! Tired of having a great coach that can’t recruit? I know somebody that can recruit like all get-out! He’s had 2 straight NCAA tournament appearances AND finished this season in the SEC Championship game! PLEASE take Stan Heath! He’s just not working out at Arkansas.

Congrats to the Memphis Tigers after repeating their Elite 8 appearance from year ago after losing 2 first-round NBA draft picks in Carney and Williams and a quality college player in D-Wash. If this is what they’re doing on a rebuilding year – next year should be Final Four or bust! Great Job, Coach Calipari. I’ve busted on you for quite some time for various things, but you’ve won games and had strong tournament runs playing in a crappy conference, and kept the program free of NCAA troubles. Fans of a program can’t ask for much more than that.

The Car of Tomorrow is now the Car of Yesterday since it’s first running at Bristol yesterday. First impressions were good. We saw J.J. Yeley’s 18 car get his back bumper bashed in before the green flag ever dropped, but no spontaneous explosion for either car. The wing didn’t go flying off the back, and the front splitter didn’t plunk off the front of the 41. I saw the splitter dragging the track like Junior was concerned about, but didn’t really see any ill-effects from that either. So all-in-all the fact that the race was about the race and not about the new car – regardless of what Kyle Busch thinks after winning the race and commenting that he still thinks it sucks – shows that racing will indeed go on. People were scared of Toyota coming in and the Camry’s can barely make the races. And now everybody hates the Car of Tomorrow. Well, like the Camrys, the COT’s are here to stay. Get used to it, or start watching something else. Besides, it’s about time that racing got back to crew chiefs and drivers and people actually AT the track started winning races again – not the guys at the fab shop who can monkey the body around to fit the templates (and the magic X measurement) but gain the advantage by being the most aerodynamic. You can teach a monkey to drive a Roush car at the Cookie Cutter tracks. That’s not racing.

And lastly, Gary Parrish needs to give up his title as expert. I figured I had a sure winner on the Sports 56 Basketball bracket challenge. I set up one bracket just as I thought it should be – and that bracket sucks. BUT THEN I set up one using Gary’s picks. Thought to myself, “I’m going to be Lazlo Holifeld in the Frito contest – walking away with everything including the motor home”…and my entry using CBSSportsline columnist Gary Parrish’s expertly analyzed picks sucks worse than the one I did for myself. So for being an expert and getting paid to go to all the games and lounge around the house in your underwear all day and screw up the bracket worse than I did…I’m hatin’ on you Gary.

Oh, and really lastly, seriously, why is Stan Heath still the Coach at Arkansas? Leave Calipari alone, Kentucky. The man you want is already in the SEC!