When Hoiberg pulls a Tonya Harding

Imagine for a second that Kevin McHale didn't exist, or that Mchale wasn't Glen Taylor's secret lover. That Mchale was expendable within the Wolves franchise and said franchise had finally become willing to terminate his handshake agreement. It was blissful, wasn't it?

The reason for this mental exercise is simple- no McHale mean no Randy Whittman. No career .333 win percentage. Between Cleveland and Minnesota Wittman has won 96 games, lost 192 and never sniffed the playoffs. Whittman never should have risen above assistant coach in the NBA. I'd be fine with him being the head coach of Tulsa University or Coppin State, but a high profile gig does not suit a man of his basketball prowess.

You wanna know who has been to the playoffs 47 times and doesn't have a job? Avery Johnson... former undrafted role player who hit the championship clinching shot against the Knicks in 1999. Johnson has a career .735 win percentage and has won 23 of those playoff games he has coached in. The "Little General" would be the perfect man for the job... I can see him barking orders at our young lineup in his raspy voice, whipping them into shape. He wouldn't be taking orders from the vice president of who gives a fuck at this point. He'd listen, but he wouldn't play the puppet.

Wanna know who else may or may not be free next season? Mike D'antoni and his career .608 win percentage and has won 26 of the 51 playoff games he has coached in. The man who brought the European style of basketball stateside and had his teams drop bucket after bucket on the opposing team until they said enough and just gave up. His teams never really bothered with defense and that seems to be one of our weaknesses. We lack size, we're young enough to build up conditioning to function at a fast pace, don't we kind of sound like the Suns when D'antoni took over?

I know that this team does not possess the skill of either team that these two coaches previously ran, but either would most definitely be a step up from Whittman. Minnesota is used to getting the short end of the stick, win that 23rd game and we'll be happy. There will be no firings after the front office trades away a quality young player and team cohesion for a monster veteran contract that backfires. Chili's problem in his first year was that his team took a step back, I don't really have so much of a problem now that I see the team is headed in the right direction. I still can't believe that Tubby accepted his position and somehow hasn't bolted for a better opportunity. Bring in one of these two and I just might start watching the games again... hell, I might even go to one or two.

I almost forgot... no McHale would also mean a proper draft selection. Can't wait to figure out how he'll muck this one up.

My Penny Bracket

I've got a good 6 or so brackets floating around the internets and the outerntets, but I won't be talking about any of them except for "Abe Says" because I don't believe I'm in any position to be giving out advise on this subject, though I may gloat if I actually win one as that would be a first.

There are two rules I feel confident about giving and they are 1) Try to pick no more than 8 upsets (2 per region) in the first round* and 2) Don't trust one seeds as they have too much pressure to win the whole thing... I try not to put more than 2 in the final four.

Now onto Abe.

I decided to fill out an entire bracket decided by coin flips. Abe was the higher seed, his memorial the lower seed. I joined a large Yahoo group by the name of TUBBY SMITH in hopes of beating at least one of the other 500 people. I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating anybody.

Both Portland State and Texas Arlington immediately took out Memphis and Kansas. Amazingly in the east region North Carolina and Tennessee play in the elite 8 with Tennessee winning that game, but in the first round I have 4 upsets: South Alabama, Boise State, St. Joes and shifty fellows from George Mason who basically ripped everyone's bracket to pieces last year.

In the Midwest Siena and Nova join Portland state as the upsets. Wisconsin falls to Portland State in the elite 8 game.(Stupid coin)

In the South Temple, Cornell and Kentucky join Texas Arlington as the upsets. Pitt falls to Miami in the elite 8. Somewhere outside of Chicago Aaron Gray says, "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

In the west Baylor, Georgia and Belmont are the upsets and BYU takes UCLA out in the second round. West Virginia takes out BYU to make the final 4. I am left with one of the shittiest final fours ever. Tennessee is the only team with a legit shot to make it for real and West Virginia has a very, very outside shot but Portland State and Miami have no business being there. Luckily, they fall to their counterparts and I'm left with a game I would actually like to watch a game won by West Virginia. Somewhere Kevin Pittsnoggle goes, "Dude, I just got a map of Morgantown tattooed on my ass!"

Some anal retentive bastard out there is probably going, "wait both Miami and West Virginia were 7 seeds, how did he flip the coin?" I gave West Virginia heads because I like the Big East better than the ACC.

*I don't consider a 9 over an 8 an upset

Blake Hoffarber's (2nd) miracle shot

Blake Hoffarber must spend entirely too much time in the gym thinking up ridiculous shots to attempt in order to have presence of mind, timing and aim to to make this sort of shot. The shot was amazing and almost an exact duplicate of Christian Laettner's shot against Kentucky in 1992.

That shot allowed Tubby Smith's record of seasons with at least 20 wins to continue for a 15th year. It also kept the gophers dreams of an NCAA birth alive for another day... Unfortunately The Gophers lost today to Illinois and have about a snowball's chance in hell of making it.

This shot along with his Minnesota state tourney shot may have put Hoffarber on the radar for the NBA. The kid is pretty good for a freshman who was not Tubby's recruit and after 3 more years of playing with the guys Tubby convinced to play in Minnesota he just might end up being drafted in the second round or maybe even at the end of the first.

Amazing. Indiana had so many chances to win this game.