The Tuesday Ten

1) How dumb do you have to be to become ineligible as a senior basketball player at a big-time university? Chris McCray is in a unique position to answer that question, becoming the first senior starter from a BCS-conference to lose his final semester of eligibility due to academics since the adoption of stricter grading rules from the NCAA three years ago. His loss is a devastating blow to Maryland's season and, with more possible suspensions on the horizon, could lead to the Terps watching the NCAA Tournament from home for the second straight season.
McCray's failure to get a 2.0 last semester is mind-boggling in many respects, but it's absurdity is compounded when you think of all the morons from Maryland's basketball program who have managed to pass classes in the past. John Gilchrist somehow stayed eligible for three years and he'll be lucky to be homeless by the end of the decade. Steve Blake, for as much as I love him, can barely string two sentences together. Nik Caner-Medley is lucky if he can get one out that doesn't refer to where he's from and how unbeatable he is. I'm not sure if Steve Francis even realized Maryland offered classes. Yet all those guys stayed eligible. Conversely, Chris McCray, in his second-to-last semester couldn't even keep a C average despite all the resources in the world to guarantee he would do just that.
With all the help and assistance athletes at big schools get, it would seem nearly impossible to fail out. These guys get help from professors, access to tutors and have coaches breathing down their necks to make sure they keep afloat academically.
Some tutors do all the work for their students. The more conscientious ones will sit down and work through every question or problem with their athlete until an assignment is done. When it's time to study for a test, the tutor usually knows exactly what to review.
For McCray to fail out, he must have not gone to any class and skipped appointments with tutors. Becoming ineligible was probably as much work for him as staying eligible.
This is nearly all McCray's fault, but Gary Williams has to share in some of the blame too. How did he, or any of his assistants, not know McCray was in academic trouble? And if they did, why didn't they do anything about it? Don't they get progress reports? Don't they talk to professors? Don't they make sure the players attend class or meet with tutors? Failing out just doesn't happen, it's a process. These days at Maryland it's apparently an ignored one.
My cousin George attributes the problems in College Park (rumors continue to swirl that McCray won't be the last Terp to become ineligible) to the departures of long-time Terp assistants Jimmy Patsos and Dave Dickerson. Those coaches, Patsos in particular, were all over the players, sometimes even walking them to class to make sure they would attend. When they left, Patsos to Loyola (MD) and Dickerson to Tulane, Williams had to hire inexperienced guys like Michael Adams and Keith Booth to join him on the bench. The results speak for themselves.
Maryland is likely done in the ACC now. McCray, while far from a star, was their most consistent player of both ends of the floor. Fan favorite Mike Jones will step in, but he's as inconsistent as he is spectacular, and the former will lead to more losses.
Maybe McCray should have had an easier major but I suppose criminal justice will serve him well when he inevitably has to defend himself at some criminal trial in the future. Remember, McCray was arrested back in August after refusing to leave the scene of a fight and then fleeing. That doesn't even make sense. Why would you refuse to leave the scene, then flee it? And at what point did the fleeing turn from a recommendation into a felony?
Officer - Mr. McCray, we're going to need you to leave the scene now.
McCray - F*** no, pig! I do like Puffy said, "can't nobody take my pride, can't nobody hold me down! Oh no. We GOTSTA keep on movin. Uh-huh, uh! Take that, take that, take that." (Mike Jones does the Mase dance in the background.)
Officer - Mr. McCray, please leave or I'm going to arrest you. I'm not asking for much, just walk away and we won't have a problem.
McCray - YOU walk away, fascist. I know my rights. I pay taxes. (Mike Jones whispers in McCray's ear.) I COULD pay taxes.
Officer - This is your last warning Mr. McCray, if you don't begin walking away, I will be forced to arrest you. I don't want to do this because it involves paperwork. You don't want to do this because it involves me arresting you for simply not taking 50 steps to the left.
McCray - Lock me up then. What, you think I can't take it? I'm a man, I ain't no boy. I'll do twenty standing on my head. You wanna give me the chair? Strap me up boss!
Officer - (Sighs as he reaches for handcuffs. Clearly put out, he slowly begins...) You have the right to remain -
McCray - Peace out, bitch! (McCray takes off, top speed, down Route 1.)

2) Wake Forest has an absolute must-win game tonight in Winston-Salem against a feisty FSU team that barely lost to North Carolina two nights ago. (That FSU has to play two games in three days is the result of poor scheduling brought on by expansion and a terrible (for the schools and fans) Sunday night TV deal with Fox. If a team is forced to play the Sunday night game on Fox Sports Net, they should have off at least until Wednesday. I mean, there's nothing we can do about John Swofford's greediness, it's already ruined the ACC forever. But at least give some breaks to teams that are forced to play the horrible TV deals you negotiate, jerk.)
The Deacs are in must-win mode after blowing a big lead at N.C. State on Saturday. Up 13 at the under-four TV timeout in the first half, soon-to-be ex-Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser pulled most of his starters so they wouldn't pick up any cheap fouls. In theory, it was an alright idea. But in execution... That's another story. Prosser's lineup was: Harvey Hale (freshman), Shamaine Dukes (freshman), Kevin Swinton (freshman), Cameron Stanley (sophomore, might as well be a freshman) and Eric Williams (senior). After it was clear Prosser's lineup would be ineffective (which, to any rational person was the moment they stepped on the floor. For Prosser, it should have been after the missed Wake dunk, three-point NCSU play, five-second call on Wake, NSCU three-pointer progression), he should have called timeout and put his starters back on the floor. Instead, he watched State end the half on a 12-4 run, cutting Wake's lead to five. After that, the game was, for all intents and purposes, over.
Of course, all of Trent Strickland's contested three-pointers shot with 29 seconds on the shot clock on huge Wake second-half possessions didn't help either. How Strickland continues to get minutes is mind-boggling. But so is Skip Prosser's existence.
(If you want to be sick (or amused, depending on your rooting interests) look at the assist-to-turnover ratios of Wake players. Seven guys have even or negative ratios, while Justin Gray has a stellar 1.1:1. Ouch.)

3) My hatred of Duke is well-documented. I think they're easily beatable this season, are getting no help from their heralded recruiting class and have the single-most overrated player in college basketball playing center for them. However, that doesn't mean they should have fallen to #2 after a hard-fought loss at Georgetown.
My hatred of college basketball polls is second only to my hatred of Duke. How, may I ask, is Boston College ahead of Maryland in the coaches poll when Maryland beat Boston College? In the same poll, how is four-loss Georgetown unranked after beating the #1 team in the nation, but five-loss Louisville is up there despite having exactly zero wins against the RPI top 75??? Are they really trying to say Louisville is the 22nd best team in the nation? Hell, they aren't even the 22nd best team in the Big East!
Anyway, Duke lost a tough one to a good Georgetown team in the last seconds. Connecticut lost to a mediocre Marquette team in the first minutes. UConn has nice wins over Gonzaga and LSU while Duke has great wins over Texas, Memphis, Indiana, Maryland and N.C. State. It kills me to say this but, at the moment, Duke is still the #1 team in the country.

4) That doesn't mean they're going to win the whole thing though. Georgetown provided the blueprint for how to beat Duke: Let J.J. Redick get his shots and points and make sure guys like Lee Melchionni and Sean Dockery don't beat you. When teams focus too much on Redick, they inevitably leave much less talented guys open on the perimeter. Even a scrub like Lee Melchionni can hit open shots, so put a body on him and force him to miss. Redick can get his 35, and he will. But concentrating too much on him makes everyone else better. Treat Redick like Melchionni and Melchionni won't turn into Redick.
Duke's other four starters are, simply put, not very good. Greg Paulus is playing like a freshman, and a mediocre one at that. Josh McRoberts has been putting in solid minutes, but is getting banged around when matched-up with bigger bodies. The combination of Melchionni, Dockery and DeMarcus Nelson can be easily handled, as Georgetown demonstrated.
Let Redick shoot and stop everyone else. It's a recipe for victory against Duke.

5) You'll notice I didn't mention Shelden Williams anywhere in the description of how to beat Duke. There's a reason for that: The most overrated player in Duke history is simply a non-factor in big games. Marco Killingsworth, Eric Williams, Cedric Simmons and the combination of Brandon Bowman, Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green all abused The Slumlord in their respective match-ups, and held Shelden to mediocre offensive numbers as well. Williams is a defensive sieve and deserves a defensive player of the year award about as much as Shaun Alexander deserved his MVP.

6) Speaking of that Georgetown-Duke game, did anyone see that dude in the wheelchair rush the court when the final buzzer sounded? The Hoya students were quick to get on the MCI Center floor after Greg Paulus turned the ball over in the final seconds of the game (so much so that two guys totally ate it on their way out) and about three seconds after the mass of students congregated at the center circle, some guy in a wheelchair came tearing down the sideline and rolled, top-speed, to mid-court where he stopped on a dime and began waving his arms madly in the air. One or two people came over to him to exchange high-fives, including one who also attempted to give him an awkward man-hug. I watched this over and over again thanks to the magic of DVR. Man, it was so awesome. Too bad he didn't run over J.J. Redick on his way out though.

7) I enjoy watching women's tennis more than most, so I tend to be a little ahead of the trends when it comes to discovering the hot new player before the MSM jumps on it. Back in 1997, when most people thought Anna Kournikova was a Tolstoy novel, I got up early to watch her play a 4th-round match at Wimbledon and called at least five people to tell them to turn on their sets to see the bouncy blonde with the cherubic face. A few years ago I did the same when Maria Sharapova was advancing at the U.S. Open. Last week I made my first "turn on the TV and check out this hot, Russian blonde" call since then; for my new tennis muse Maria Kirilenko (right). In the words of Falkow's man-crush Matthew McConaughey, "alright, alright!"

8) I really want to care about the World Baseball Classic. I really do. But if everybody is dropping out because they're afraid of getting hurt and rules are changed that compromise the integrity of the games, isn't this just a grander version of the NFL's Pro Bowl?

9) I mentioned this yesterday, but Kobe Bryant's 81 point explosion was such a much bigger story than the NFL Championship games, yet for some reason the media relegated Kobe to second banana status behind Shaun Alexander and Jerome Bettis. One more time; boring Championship games happen every year; 81 points in an NBA game happens once every 50 years. Sports Illustrated gave Shaun Alexander the cover this week and put Kobe above the banner. It should have been the other way around.

10) In his MMQB Fine 15, SI.com's Peter King ranks the New England Patriots at #4, one spot ahead of the Denver Broncos, the team that eliminated New England from the playoffs. I guess that's to be expected though... King has Louisville at #3.