MARISSA MILLER > JEROME SIMPSON
Marissa played flag football over the weekend at the Super Bowl. By the looks of things, she played some wideout, and presumably ran routes far better than 2008's second round pick. Of course I can only make that assumption because more photograpic evidence exists of Marissa playing football than Jerome.

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THIS IS WHAT TOO MUCH TIME STARING AT WEATHER MAPS DOES TO PEOPLE.

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THE RUNDOWN
Not sure who votes on who gets into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, but if they're listening today they'll be thoroughly impressed.

-Super Bowl 44. The Colts...are they colassal underachievers or franchise of stability and consistency. Or both?
-Peyton Manning. The greatest ever debate gets tabled for a while, no?
-UC. The NCAA Tournament talk gets tabled for a while, no? Especially while we wonder why the better players sat so much?
-XU. Is it worth looking too deep into a blowout loss on the road against a desperate team?
-Lessons the NFL can learn from baseball.
-Reacting to the overreaction to a Super Bowl halftime show.
-Why fourth grade lessons don't apply to the NFL. (Re: Peyton Manning didn't shake hands. Boo-freaking-hoo)
-Does Keri Hilson need more run?
-Why Google should've gone with this ad yesterday.

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THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN AN NFL QUARTERBACK.
This is a video, taken at some Super Bowl party, of Lions QB Matthew Stafford getting his hair played with by Marissa Miller.

Three thoughts on this..

1) Matthew Stafford is an ok looking guy I guess, but if this dude works at a cell phone store, or sells carpet or something, Marissa Miller is not rubbing her hands through his hair. Nor is anyone close to resembling Marissa Miller.

2) You can tell he is clearly rattled by Miller. If I'm the Lions, this worries me. There has to be a clear connection between one's ability to stay cool when Marissa Miller is touching you and when Ray Lewis is trying to kill you.

3) If I arrive at a station in life where I'm able to have Marissa Miller rubbing her hands through my hair, I'm going for it. In a situation like this, you either manage it like Sean Payton or Jim Caldwell. You go for it. The absolute worse thing that can happen to you is you get turned down by Marissa Miller. If someone's gonna give you a hard time for getting shot down by this woman, that's their problem, not yours. Not our man Matt. He kinda blows her off. I actually think the dude had a chance. This kills me. Brady goes in for the kill. Not only Tom, but Quinn. So do Brees, Favre, Manning, Warner, Sanchez, Roethlisberger, and just about every other name quarterback in the leauge. Not Carson though, he'd hit on her too late, then listen to everyone make excuses for him by blaming his wingman or something.

Disappointing effort by Matt. You're a starting quarterback in the National Football League. Act like it.

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WHY DIDN'T MATT ASK HIM WHO HE THOUGHT WILL WIN THE NL CENTRAL?
Steve Phillips is out of sexual rehab. He decided to go on the Today Show and talk about his experience. Would've been an interesting test for him had they asked Natalie Morales or Amy Robach conduct the interview.

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IF A LETTERMAN PROMO IS THE BEST SUPER BOWL SPOT, THAT AIN'T GOOD.
It was a down year for Super Bowl ads, though Ellen Griswold still looked mildly respectable. This was the best.

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THE ANNUAL OVERREACTION: THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW
The Monday after the Super Bowl has seen an annual tradition emerge: griping about the Super Bowl halftime show.

It's simple. If you like The Who, you thought the halftime show was phenomenal. If you don't like The Who, you thought it sucked. It's a free 12 minute concert, and in recent years, the NFL has run out some bona fide legends...McCartnety, The Stones, Prince, Petty, The Who, and The Boss. What else do you want?

I hate sounding like Grumpy Old Man, but my generation had a chance with the halftime show and blew out. I'm closer to Justin Timberlake's age than Roger Daltrey, but Timberlake and company didn't know how to act and got CBS in serious trouble with the FCC. So the league and the networks went with acts with broad appeal, that appealed to men (maybe not Prince as much) and would keep the FCC off their back. If you're a parent, and you leave your kid home alone when you go out, and he destoys the place, you'll call a grown-up to watch him the next time you go out. That's what CBS has done.

You want it to go back to what is used to be? Take a look at who played halftime during the first Bengals/Niners Super Bowl and you tell me what you'd rather see, what Townsend and company offered up or this.

I keep hearing how they could've gone with something more contemporary. The big winners at last week's Grammys were Beyonce and Taylor Swift. Keep in mind the NFL has to go with something with broad appeal, so your favorite college radio band ain't making the cut. Now I like looking at Beyonce as much as anyone, but if given the choise between "Baba O'Riley" and "Single Ladies," give me Daltrey and crew any day.

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MIKE BROWN, PAY ATTENTION
Let's see, a complimentary back, a guy with return skills, plus the potential of Kardashian at PBS? Sign me up. From ESPN....

Reggie Bush's continued employment with the Saints was a subject of debate all season long by pundits and fans. We don't have anything concrete from anyone inside the organization, but it was thought earlier that there was no way that the team would bring him back for the $8 million he's owed in 2010.

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IS XTHUMB NEXT?
This is, I guess, extreme arm wrestling. Doesn't look fun. If they had extreme thumb wrestling, I'd dominate though.

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REWARD DISSENT.
Citybeat is doing their "Best-of Cincinnati" thing again. Carve out about seven hours and vote for something in each of their categories. You can vote for me if you'd be up for it, but that's not why I'm writing about this. Instead, I'm puimping my boys at Who Dey Revolution. I'm a huge fan of these guys, and while I don't agree with everything they say and do, I believe in their ultimate cause and love the passion they have for the Bengals. These guys are the rare fans that instead of griping the team's problems for three hours on their radio show, put their money where their is. They've flown banners over Bengals training camp, bought billboards asking Mike Brown to hire a GM, and even got into the urinal cake distribution business.

These guys are troublemakers. I love troublemakers. They're up for the "Best Troublemaker" award in CityBeat. Go to CityBeat's site, click on the dropdown menu next to "Best Troublemaker" and vote for Who Dey Revolution. Then vote for the other crap if you have an entire week to kill.

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A FEW MO' THINGS, 2/8/10 EDITION
The word to describe Carrie Underwood's attractiveness has not yet been invented.

-XLIV: The ballsy coaching decision of the century award goes to Sean Payton. How much are we hammering him if the onsides kick blows up in his face? What if Indy, already up 10-6, recovers it, and Peyton Manning takes advantage of a short field and marches the Colts into the end zone? Sean Peyton is getting destroyed this morning. But they didn't, he didn't, and he isn't. Single ballsiest coaching decision in Super Bowl history. Loved it then, love it even more now.

-I think the "If Manning wins the Super Bowl is he the greatest quarterback ever?" angle was a little overplayed, but the greatest quarterback ever does not throw a pick in the waning minutes of a championship game. The greatest quarterback ever doesn't have a career postseason record on 10-9. The greatest quarterback ever approaches his team's final drive with some urgency, and with the power he wields with that offense, checks out of a brutally bad inside handoff call on third and goal with his team short on time and desperate for a touchdown.

Most statistically accomplished quarterback in a passing-friendly era? Yup. Incredibly fun to watch when he's on his game? No doubt? Best ever? Nope.

-Jim Caldwell was brutal. His team gets a stop on fourth and one, right before half, on a similarly brutal play call by New Orleans, and he more or less hands the ball right back to New Orleans, running three straight times, then punting, more or less handing New Orleans three points. Then, the decision to ask his 87 year-old kicker to boot a 51 yarder, a kick that he had no chance of making. Punt it away Jim. Hell, go for it on fourth and 11. Anything but a long kick by a fossil.

-Here we go again....gotta pretend it's sixth grade again and make sure everyone sticks around for a postgame handshake.

-Man, that Tim Tebow ad was controversial huh? More or less thrust the game into the background and started a conversation about abortion at your Super Bowl party, didn't it? No? Mine either. Of the 10-15 people I watched the game with, I think maybe two even noticed the spot.

Speaking of commercials...weak batch. I did like this one.

And I think you've always gotta like Betty White.

-I give The Who credit for playing their hits, but if you're Pete Townsend, you've gotta destroy a guitar. Still, a solid set. No Springsteen, but by Super Bowl halftime standards, not bad. Better than what we were graced with the last time our men played in one.

OK, I've procrastinated long enough. Let's touch on the latest Bearcat debacle.

Is there anything to be ashamed of in losing to the third ranked team in the country? No. Did anyone really think UC was beating Syracuse? No. But help me with the following...

*After UC jumps out to a 13-4 lead, the following four players are taken out of the game: Vaughn, Bishop, Gates, Stephenson. Does any scenario exist where two of those players, much less four of them, should be out at the same time? Please explain to me why these players were removed.

*At the eight minute mark of the first half, Mick Cronin had played 12 players. 12 men had played in the game's first 12 minutes. That's staggering. I'm all for giving guys a blow, but Syracuse plays zone for 40 minutes, nothing else, no press, no trapping, nothing. The guys weren't going to get winded running up and down the floor. Why are guys like Anthony McClain and Darnell Wilks getting crucial minutes in critical situations against good teams?

(One Syracuse assistant coach was overheard wondering aloud after the game why UC plays so many players)

*With UC leading by two with 10:24 to go, both Gates and Stephenson are taken out. Lance to that point, was playing pretty well, running the offense, leading fast breaks, grabbing some rebounds. Gates, to that point, was relatively effective. He had 11 points, was five for five from the field, and had grabbed five offensive boards. Plus, he had no fouls. Was either guy wowing NBA scouts? No. But both were sufficiently better than their replacements, are badly needed down the stretch in any close game against good competition. Stephenson wasn't on the bench long, but Gates was, not returning until 4:04 remained, and when the Orange led by ten. Please, for the love of God, explain how this happens, especially when after the game, Mick talks about the shots they missed and rebounds they didn't grab.

I could go on, and talk about how "encouraged" Mick was after the game. (For the record, I'm not) I could talk about how Mick said after the game that when Stephenson "gets into the lane, we're at our best" after having him operate 25 feet from the hoop all day. I could talk about a lot of things, but I won't, because I've run out of patience and frankly, have run out of ways to adequately express my frustration.

I know, you're getting set to send me the email where you tell me how bare the cupboard was five years ago, or how it's the fans fault for not going to games (you'd be surprised how often I get that one) or how my expectations are unrealistic, but I want answers to simple questions game management, basic substitution patterns, and overall coaching philosophy that I simply don't understand. It's becoming increasingly hard to understand, much less defend, what's going on with my favorite basketball team.

-One other thing, with 1:34 left yesterday and UC down by 16, Mick called a timeout. The Cats came out of it and committed a shot clock violation. You can't make this stuff up.

-Anne Hathaway. GQ. Yup.

-My other favorite team (and yes in college hoops, you're allowed two) was incredible on Saturday. Yes, the tone was set early by refs who seemed set on officiating a three hour game, and XU isn't coming close to outrebounding Dayton with Love either on the bench or in early foul trouble. The most troubling part of the game for Xavier though was the inability to stop UD's dribble penetration, and with Kenny Frease's inability to find UD Arena. The early foul calls on Love are a legit gripe, but you've gotta get something from Kenny. Xavier got nothing. He was awful on Saturday. Redford, for as good a shooter as he is, is a liability on defense against guards with any amount of quickness. And it's gotta be troubling when Xavier's point guards were severely outplayed by the dynamic duo of London Warren and Rob Lowery.

-I felt bad for Jordan Crawford Saturday...he was, as usual, playing his heart out, single-handedly keeping the Muskies in the game in the second half. He looked like he wanted to murder his teammates.

-As bad as XU played, and as much as things snowballed late, I'm not sure I'd have been too comfortable if Holloway's three with the Muskies down ten goes down.

-For UD....crucial win. The RPI is now 34 and they've got Charlotte on Wednesday with a chance to put themselves in the A-10 race. Still though, incredibly tough games at Richmond and Temple lie ahead.

-UK watch party benefitting Kicks for Kids tomorrow. Barleycorns, Cold Spring. Starts at 7. Game's at 9. I'll be there. So should you.

-Me and some buddies hit up a Columbus Blue Jackets game Saturday night. Even if you're not a hockey fan, you owe it to yourself to head up. Novel idea, places to grab a cold one right next to the arena, 24 oz. beers at the game, and nothing beats NHL hockey in person. One drawback....the worst hot dog on the planet. Don't eat it unless you want to die.

-Sean Payton, you're a grown man, take off the sun visor. The sun visor shouldn't be worn by anyone over the age of 19. It's the wife-beater of headwear....either wear a hat or don't.

-That's what I've got for now....Cindy Crawford is still getting it done.

A FEW MO' THINGS, 2/5/10 EDITION
Late, and brief. A 4:30am arrival in Sharonville + 10am doctor's appointment (I'm fine, thank you for asking) have me running behind. Here's Beyonce with her hand in her pockets.

Since I'm way short on time....quick rundown of the show....

-Super Bowl XLIV. I'm rooting for Indy. I like greatness. I like sustained success. I like exceptionally well run organizations headed by class coaches, incredible on-field leaders, and that can sustain success despite personnel losses. I also think the Colts win, something like 31-20. New Orleans hit Favre a lot two weeks ago, but never sacked him, and still allowed him to have a productive game. Manning makes them pay for not getting to him.

-Last night's UC debacle, which I drove four and a half hours each way to see. That was a team playing for it's NCAA Tournament life? In addition to continuing to have a low basketball IQ, two things stuck out to me last night (actually a lot did, but again, way behind)...our broadcats location was directly across from the bench. I watched the body language of that team all night. They were disinterested in the game, and disinterested in each other. Something telling for me, from a toughness perspective and chemistry perspective...Harangody takes a cheap shot at Thomas...not one of his teammates responds. Do you think Eric Hicks lets that slide?

You have no idea how frustrated I am with my favorite basketball team.

-UD/XU tomorrow....important game for both...UD needs a quality win, Xavier could use a higher profile road win that what they have. I like the Flyers at home with a week to prepare.

-How does ESPN report Michael Irvin's civil suit when they sat on a similar Roethlisberger story last summer?

-You might want this for your Super Bowl party.

-Chad OchoCinco wants the Bengals to sign a 37 year-old wideout with a history of destroying teams. Great idea. I also want Clear Channel to hire my friend Dave, who has lost three jobs, and has even fewer bona fide radio skills than me. But he is a fun guy to hang out with.

There's other stuff, some Bengals, some Mick Cronin speculation, projecting how many teams the NBA would have to expand to for Lance Stephenson to play in it next eyar, and Dave Lapham joins me to talk Super Bowl at 3:20. The lameness of today's blog is not lost on me. Sometimes life gets in the way. Enjoy the ten sexiest Super Bowl ads ever, and whatever the hell this is...

A FEW MO' THINGS, 2/4/10 EDITION
Doutzen Kroes.

-I'm off this afternoon. Nick Brunker is filling in. My buddy Travis and I are headed to South Bend for UC/Notre Dame. Back at it tomorrow afternoon. Notre Dame fans might be surprised to hear their school has a basketball team. Here's something for them.

-Crucial game for the Bearcats, and a winnable one. Notre Dame has lost four of five, and while Luke Harangody is as productive as ever, the supporting cast has been a huge letdown. Luke's probably not shooting 5-20 like he did here a few weeks ago, and the Cats won't win if they duplicate their 32% performance from that first game, but tonight is winnable, and as close to a must-win as you can have on February 4th.

Win tonight....they're 15-7, 6-4 in the league. The remaining schedule will include games against the second, third, sixth, and seventh rated teams in the country. (Though G'Town will plummet after losing to South Florida). They've got to play a hit or miss UConn team on the road, and another hit-or-miss team in Marquette here, plus suddenly surging USF on the road, and DePaul. If you assume that a 9-9 Big East team will have some work to do in New York (three of four .500 Big East teams in the current structure of the league have not gotten bids), you've got to find four more wins. That's plausible. I'm not sure findng five is.

The Cats need a breakthrough on the road tonight, against a team just as desperate.

-I'd like to see Yancy Gates once, just once, play with wreckless abandon.

-The backstory of UC's stretch drive shouldn't be the Bearcats trying to get to the NCAA's to save Mick's job. It should be the Bearcats trying to get to the NCAA's so Deonta Vaughn can get a chance to play in one. I hope one day we appreciate that dude.

-He will take shots that will make you shake your head. He'll fall in love with the three, and he'll turn it over too much. But when you absolutely have to have a bucket, you want Jordan Crawford shooting the ball...two huge threes last night then a driving bucket to put Xavier up eight, helping the Muskies overcome a brutal second half that saw them screw around with the ball and play some of the worst defense they have all season. Great players bail out their teams, take ballsy shots on the road, and make them. Jordan Crawford isn't a great player...yet, but he's as good a closer as you'll find in college basketball today.

-Ever been on a long drive where you're listening to someone or something you hear so often you start to take them for granted, and then for some reason one day you're listening to them and you just stop and say to yourself, "damn, this guy is really good?" I said that to myself last night on a Burlington to Sharonville haul listening to Joe Sunderman.

-Find me a player in college basketball who does more for his team than Evan Turner. Last night, he plays 40 minutes, drops 27 (22 in the second half), he grabs ten rebounds, hands out six assists, and makes three steals in a win over Penn State. He is carrying a very pedestrian roster. Thad Matta has asked him to play 40 minutes five times this season, and three of those games came after he returned from his back injury, which isn't close to being totally healed. If Evan plays football for the Buckeyes, there is a full-on, in-your-face hype machine in effect. I bet Evan Turner could walk into a sports bar in this city and no one would know who he is, which isn't right.

-Class folks at West Virginia. They week they start getting heat for student behavior at basketball games, it came to this...

Didn't work. Minutes later, a Pitt assistant coach was hit by a coin. Can't wait to go there on February 27th.

-I'm tired of Boomer Esiason griping about Chad. I would like to hear Boomer's thoughts on where the Bengals would've been without Chad in 2009.

-Would a win on Sunday make Peyton Manning the best quarterback ever? He'd have an argument...two Super Bowls plus the fact that he either holds or will hold all the major passing records. But comparing quarterbacks is like comparing home run hitters. It's been easier to hit homers the last 25 years for a number of reasons (smaller parks, expansion, tighter strike zone, increased emphasis on the long ball, steroids, etc.) just as it's been easier for passers to thrive the last 20 years in the NFL (rules are very pass-friendly, more domed stadiums, more emphasis on the pass, etc.). I'd like to see what the older guys could do in today's NFL.

-This is one of my favorite Springsteen songs. Eddie Vedder covered it, and did it more justice than maybe even the Boss could. Download it.

-Here's why a 96-team NCAA Tournament won't work, among other reasons.

-World Cup soccer just got a little cooler.

-John Mayer took some time from writing horrific vag-garbbing ballads to make some sense...

"Tiger Woods' problems come from him being married. The end," Mayer said to the U.K.'s The Independent newspaper. "If Tiger Woods was single and he texted a girl and said 'I wanna wear your ****** like a hat', why would that ever hit the news?"

"I write a lot of dirty text messages to girls, and you've never seen any of them," said Mayer, whose famous past girlfriends include Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson and Minka Kellly.
"Why? Because if a girl brought a dirty text message from me to the newspapers, they'd say 'I don't have an angle here. Someone wants to wear your ****** like a hat? Big deal. He's 32 years old. He's a single guy. If John Mayer has a wife and sends dirty texts, then we got a story,? he explained.

-Pretty piece on Kobe Bryant's piece in Laker history.

-Jared from Subway is the world's most famous Colts fan?

-I have a buddy named Kell who I fear will copy this Star Wars wedding.

-Mel Gibson acts like a douche toward some TV guy.

And I'm off to South Bend. I'll send along your best to Brian Kelly. Enjoy some Katrina Stella.

KRISTA ALLEN. PRETTY.
This woman is very, very,underrated. When Brunker does his stupid Battle of the Babes bracket in March and he's already picked 50 them and there's like 14 spots left, Krista will be listed under the "best hottie remaining" on his big board, which sadly, he probably has.

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THE RUNDOWN

4:35 - Butch Jones. The man responsible for giving UC the Munchies.
5:35 - Some guy explaining to us what this is.

-Signing Day! Yeah.
-Schools either opening late or closing the day after the Super Bowl. Yea or Nay?
-Isn't it time for the Super Bowl to be held on a Saturday?
-Hoops...big fish/small pond or little fish swimming upstream against a tidal wave? You know where I'm going with this.
-Student sections crossing the line. WVU is getting some heat for what's happened each of the last two weekends. The quick solution: stop glorifying student sections.
-Why are people getting all worked up about a quote from the Saints' Defensive Coordinator?
-Can we appreciate good? Are we getting good? And is tomorrow a must-win for my Bearcats?
-Seriously, what the f**K?

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UC'S PARKING NAZI'S ARE HURTING FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Anyone who's ever tried to park at UC can relate to this Michigan recruit...

Your most memorable story from the recruiting process?

Courtney Avery: Getting his car towed during a basketball game while on an unofficial visit to Cincinnati. "I guess we would have been fine any other day, but since it was a gameday they had reserved spots, so I guess we were parked in someone else's spot. So we went back in there and talked to one of the assistant coaches and he called around and helped us find our car. It was like three buildings away on top of a roof somewhere. It was pouring down rain and I had my little (1-year-old) nephew with me."
Avery didn't have to pay to get his car out of impound, but he did get a ticket. "They said it was like a campus ticket so you only have to pay if you come back to campus. We said we wouldn?t be back."

(Thanks to Jason for the link)

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QUALITY VETERAN OF THE WEEK: NINEL CONDE
She's Mexican. She's an actress. And she turns 40 this year.

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Here are the eight people you want to avoid at a Super Bowl party.

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IS TIGER WOODS' RETURN TO GOLF IMMINENT?
This piece says so. Also, I'm going to start using "fortnight" on a regular basis.

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If anyone working in area newsroom gets my blog on TV like this dude, I'm buying them beers.

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Not that it has (or will have) an applications here, but this is a good piece by Gary Parrish of CBS Sports on midseason college basketball coaching firings.

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THIS WILL BE LIKE WATCHING MY PARENTS FIGHT
Except it'll only last two hours. UC and UD will play at US Bank Arena next year.

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Here's ten reasons not to expand the NCAA Tournament.

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A FEW MO' THINGS, 2/3/10 EDITION
Charlize Theron is now single. Sadly for her, I'm not, so she'll have to rebound elsewhere.

-After last night's UK win, John Calipari claimed the DeMarcus Cousins is the best big man he's ever coached. I'm not sure about that. Marcus Camby was pretty good. So was Lou Roe. And he coached Joey Dorsey too. (That sentence is a joke). But there's not a big man in college basketball playing better than Cousins...18/13 last night, with no one on Ole Miss' team who could come close to stopping him. Perhaps the most impressive part of Cousins' game....the three charges he took.

I don't think many people doubted that they'd beat Vandy and Ole Miss at home, but you've gotta hand it to the Wildcats for the way they've played against two ranked teams after the South Carolina loss. Now if they could just not let teams back in games so often when they jump out to early leads....

Here's what was key...Darnell Dodson. Convention wisdom says you zone the Wildcats and make them beat you from outside. Ole Miss did that. Darnell Dodson made them pay. UK shoots 9-19 from three. If the outside shooting is there, they're not losing.

-A chance to avoid a bad loss tonight on the road for XU...the RPI will take a hit even with a win. Tonight is about minimizing the damage and also about kicking off a long stretch away from home with a win. Five of the next six are on the road. UMass might be the easiest of the bunch.

-Citing a lack of Xavier blogs, listener Nick has started one of his own.

-Signing Day is today. recognize it's importance. I know how hard coaches work on this stuff. I know how important recruiting is. I just can't get into it. I'm sorry. I know I'm supposed to care. I know I'm supposed to have a reaction, but I don't. I know I'm supposed to rely on rankings, but if these rankings from 2005 were so accurate, why have Tennessee and Michigan sucked recently? I want UC to do well, but really, I'm supposed to look at the players they signed and form an opinion of guys I've never seen and who for the most part won't help much in the immediate future? Ain't happening.

-Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason both know a little bit more about quarterbacking than I do, but I'm not seeing what they're seeing.

...They are also quick to say they believe that Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer still physically belongs in the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks as his team and philosophy change around him after a season he literally finished smack in the middle of the pack (16th) among NFL passers....

-I'm a big LeBron James guy, and I like Dwight Howard too, but this....

Isn't going to be as good as this (with the possibile exception that neither LeBron or Dwight will be wearing that hideous getup MJ has on)...

Thank you, Dick Vitale....

To mess with something that is so good is absurd. What they should be doing is concentrating on the integrity of the game and doing something about the current student-athlete. For example it is an absolute disgrace to the term 'student athlete' in the manual of the NCAA guide when we look at the one-and-done scenario.

The one-and-done is simply a situation of players playing to put their skills in front of NBA people and hoping to go to the next level and could care less about academics, could care less about the value of an education. They should be concentrating on that.

They should be concentrating on violations and things happening within our system that have led to the embarrassment and humiliation at Southern Cal, what happened in the Memphis situation. All of that should be in consideration not spending time trying to ramrod 96 teams and to blow up something that has been so fantastic to so many people. It is the greatest three weeks in all of sports. Why don't we just go to all 300 and let everybody in?"

-Here's how former Bearcat Haruki Nakamura is rehabbing from his injury.

-They're learning in St. Louis what a lot of people already know...Rick Majerus is a ******.

-This is for college hoops geeks like myself...a look at the current whereabouts of every NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player since the event began.

-Here's the Ocho Cinco News Network coverage of Super Bowl Media Day.

-You know the drill by now. Hit play, turn up, and walk away. This is wretched.

-Jessica Stroup. Mildly attractive.

-Some links are just for me. This would be one of them....an interview with John Starks.

-From my buddy Tommy G...the Bearcats got a letter of intent from a quarterback named Munchie Legeaux. My favorite college football team is gonna have a player named Munchie. I love signing day.

-Good NBA piece here on whether it makes sense to make the playoffs and get soundly hammered or play for the lottery.

-Wes Welker remains scrappy.

More later. I have an appointment with the vet, which should be miserable. We replaced the $2000 cat with a new one. We added Mookie the Cat to the Egger household this week. I'd put up a pic, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about a guy putting up pictures of his wife's cat on his blog, so I won't. Instead, here's Amber Forrester.

THE RUNDOWN
Short show today...we have UK v. Ole Miss at 5:30.

3:45 - Tommy G, GoBearcats.com is covering signing day like this.
4:35 - Bill Elias, Miami Football Recruiting. MURedhawks.com is covering signing day like this.

-Tomorrow is signing day. Is the average fan into signing day? Rankings are silly. Just look at these from 2005.
-If you didn't like what the Reds did, why shouldn't they have done made the moves they made?
-The overreaction to John Wall v. John Calipari.
-The Pitt-to-Big Ten rumors, while being shot down, still are intriguing.
-More on the awful idea to expand the NCAAs to 96 teams.
-The glory and goodness that was the pitchback net.

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TO BE FAIR, NO ONE WEARS NUMBER 97 ON THE BENGALS
Fewer things are as uncomfortable as watching someone take a field sobriety test. Here's more of Rey Maualuga's (BTW, he plead guilty today and issued an apology) where he has to count backward from 98 to 72. He skips number 97. Also, no part of the sobriety test is more unfair that the part where you have to stand on one leg. I couldn't be more sober as I type this and I can't execute that move. Careful for the language.

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Left with nothing else to write about, this guy thinks baseball teams should ban beer from clubhouses.

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HOOKERS CONTINUE TO BEAT THE BAD ECONOMY
100,000 of them are gathering in the Miami area this week for the Super Bowl, meaning the pickings are gonna be slimmer than usual in Newport this weekend.

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WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOOK AT SOME DAYANA MENDOZA PICTURES?
No? Then uh, why'd you come here?

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Hal McCoy's comparison between Orlando Cabrera and Alex Gonzalez is a little unfair. I don't recall the Reds maneuvering to make the Gonzalez deal work financially the way they have with Orlando, and this is a one year investment, compared the the three years they threw at Alex.

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If NBA players were claiming that they wanted a bigger piece of the action, they'd be getting hammered. But they're not, so no one will say anything.

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Pittsburgh-area high school basketball games look fun. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw Ashlie Hardway work with Peter North once.

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A FEW MO' THINGS, 2/2/10 EDITION
In honor of Groundhog Day, here's Senior Tour member Andie McDowell.

-I've warmed up a little more to the Cabrera signing. In three days I've gone from indifferent, to mildly intrigued, to acceptance. That also describes how my wife felt about me the first three days we knew each other. Given the Taveras deal, and how both Miles' and Cabrera's deals are structured, the Reds have essentially traded Taveras/Rosales for Miles/Cabrera. It's an upgrade. Upgrades are good, no?

-UK plays Ole Miss at Rupp tonight. I was going to make the Lexington cabbie/Andy Kennedy joke, but Ryan Clark beat me to it. There's been a lot of focus on some of John Wall's frustrations. I don't really think it's a huge deal....super talented guy who's never really been criticized playing for a coach who's pushing the player's buttons to help him improve, and a predictable reaction for a 19 year-old. Not really a big deal

-I have a hard time caring about whether "Who Dey" came before "Who Dat."

-I never get the point of leagues admitting when their officials screwed up. I can't imagine this makes Rick Pitino feel all that better. Speaking of....his Cardinals got a much-needed win last night in may have amounted to an elimination game v. UConn.

-I don't have a kid, so I have no idea what kind of parent I'd be, probably not one of those ninny over-protective parents who fights their kids' battles for them. Still though, if my kid is on the receiving end of this ball, I am giving this coach a severe beatdown.

-I'm stealing the phrase "going to bone to bone."

-This person says rooting against Duke isn't fun anymore. I would disagree. Funny how my friends who are Duke fans (a surprising large number of them, even though msot have never even been to North Carolina) ALWAYS go AWOL after a loss like the one they suffered Saturday.

-Ohio State honored their 1960 National Championship team this weekend. (You know, the one who's not bitter about losing to UC in '61 and '62?) and they got a little out of hand, which when I get together with my college buddies 50 years after I graduate will happen as well. Also worth nothing: the '60 Buckeyes had a guy named Dick Furry.

-Underrated: Keri Hilson.

-I took some TV classes at UD. One was taught by a creepy dude who kept trying to set me up on dates with girls in the class. The other was taught by some guy who still thought Cronkite was doing the news. Anyway, they both would've been well-served to put this together. It shows you how to do a generic news report. Be careful...the language might offend you, or get you fired.

-The iPad has limitless potential for bad comedians.

-I'm a big Alison Brie guy. Chicks with cheese names for last names tend to be smokin'.

-Here's Rey Maualuga being popped for DUI. What kind of question is "without looking at your watch, what time would you say it is right now?" I'm stone cold sober right now and if you asked me that I couldn't come within a half hour. There's also more here....as I post this, channel 5's streams aren't working so you can read Deaspin's account.

-This dude wonders if John Wall should stay in school.

-It's been a while since someone paid homage to Paul Brown.

-Relatively short blog today...more later. Remember, we're all in the same gang.