News came out yesterday about the university of San Diego having an assistant coach and a couple former players caught up in a point shaving ring. San Diego plays in a relatively major conference, the WCC, which holds Gonzaga, and St Mary’s. Not only was there a shaving system, but one of the players that was caught in it was star Brandon Johnson. Johnson is the leader in points and assists for the San Diego program. The allegations say that Johnson was asked to throw a game in February of last season. My sleuth work about which game it would have been isn’t working, because stat sheet is down at the moment. Johnson was still caught up in the ring this season, when he allegedly asked one of his former teammates to throw a game. I did some research on this yesterday, and saw 3 instances of very close spreads SD lost. They were 3.5 dogs and lost by 10, I think 6 point dogs and lost by 8, and they were 24 point dogs to Gonzaga, before losing by 26. Even if none of those games were thrown, all look very shady under the microscope. I swear there will be a sentence without a comma in it in this article.
I find point shaving to be a very interesting topic. Paulie D, everyone’s favorite writer on GoBearcats, wrote his thesis at OU about point shaving. He said there was at least one full blown scandal a decade. Things like that really make you think. I’m not so sure how much things like point shaving affect higher levels of basketball. I don’t think it’s too much to say that lower levels of basketball suffer from this greatly. I don’t mean division 2 or anything, I mean lower division 1 teams that have point spreads on their games. Just because Vegas doesn’t list it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a spread. People bet on high school ball, and AAU hoops all the time I’m guessing, so betting on Grambling v. Alabama State shouldn’t be too hard. Especially where there is money to be made. To a kid that needs money, or just is a greedy sum bitch, doing small things to win closer or to lose by more aren’t the end of the world. What’s the difference between winning by 5 or winning by 7? To you or I, nothing. To a degenerate, that’s thousands of dollars. Note, I’m not calling all gamblers degenerates, I’m calling the people who arrange rings like this degenerates. After all, I won a fake gambling contest on Voodoo 5. I’m a bit surprised that things like this don’t run more rampant. Obviously once a decade is a lot, but it seems like this could happen a lot more. Rule one of being a small time criminal is that you never think you are going to get caught. I’m sure someone out there thinks they can beat the system. Winning 75-69 is something to take second look at.
Like many of you, I’m looking forward to the spring game this weekend. Like many of you, I haven’t really followed what’s happened in the offseason. I plan on a crash course article later in the week to catch myself and everyone up. So if you are wondering why Bearcats Blog isn’t writing about all the spring happenings, it’s because I haven’t. That leads me to the next paragraph.
We’ve hit the post season wall at Bearcats Blog. If you followed along last year, good for you, you might have noticed that things cooled down a lot, and eventually stopped when this moved to Bloguin, and I moved. Both of those moves were not very fun. Both were exciting, and I like where things are now. Moving is a hassle. I would rather not move again. Paying a mover seems like a good idea, but you still have to pack up all your shit, and packing is one of the worst things in the world. I’m the same person that will not fold laundry for a couple days, so maybe I’m not the best judge of packings positive points. Anyway, about the blog. I’m batting around a couple of ideas for things. Memorable Bearcats and Memorable Games are making a return. If you have any suggestions for either one of those, feel free to send them in, Jerome. I think I might do something like this once a week, a collection of thoughts type of deal. I have a couple of ideas in mind for pieces that I think would be cool, but don’t know how to execute them just yet. I’m going to steal some of the Rock’s steam here, but this isn’t my blog, this is our blog. If you have anything that you think needs to be written about, tweet it, comment, email, I’ll do something about it. Hell, the Mick article that resulted in the busiest day in site history was from a tweet by someone that doesn’t show up on my @ replies anymore. I’m just one person, I could use your help. This is our site. Don’t be shy.
There is no smooth way to transition to what I’m about to transition to, so I’ll dive right in. For reasons I won’t get into, I saw Charlie St Cloud last night. It was actually decent, but it was a very weird movie. Charlie flatlined after a car accident that killed his brother, and when he came back to life, Charlie could see ghosts. Then a girl that he totally would have hooked up with in high school but didn’t because it’s a movie and not real life, somehow came back into his life, even though she lived in the same town as him. She ended up being ship wrecked somewhere, and Charlie had sex with her ghost. But, she wasn’t actually dead, but in a coma or something, and Charlie saved her. She must have gone insane because she said she felt the relationship ghost her had with CSC, and then got together with him. Kind of weird. It was basically Charlie and a bunch of ghosts the whole movie. That’s rather weird. There was also one more weird part, where one of his long lost friends was back in town for some reason, and everyone was at a bar. The dude said, “Take a shot, it’s not like anyone wants you to be the designated driver.” Charlie punched him in the face, of course he did, yet, everyone got mad at Charlie. Why no one was mad at the dude who made a dick comment about the dead brother I don’t understand. This is the most discussion this movie has ever gotten on a Bearcats blog. You just witnessed history.
Speaking of history, last night one of the best wrestlers of the modern era retired. The Rated R Superstar Edge called it quits after a great career, due to a neck injury. Edge had the same type of surgery Stone Cold Steve Austin had. Like Austin, doctors told Edge that he wouldn’t be cleared, and that he had to hang up the boots. As a fan, this really sucks. Edge has long been one of my favorite wrestlers. He was awesome as he redefined tag team wrestling with Christian. He and Christian took things to new heights with the Hardys and the Dudleys in the amazing ladder and TLC matches. TLC at WrestleMania 17 is still one of the best matches in WWE history. Edge spearing Jeff Hardy from the ladder is an image that will live forever. Edge took some time growing as a singles star, but he eventually won Money in the Bank, earning a title shot. Edge cashed in on John Cena, to the delight of millions. From then on, Edge won the title 10 times, and was a main event mainstay. But more importantly, Edge was one of my favorites. He was a lot of people’s favorite, which makes it suck so much that he has to hang it up now. Retiring because your body won’t let you do what you do anymore has to be the worst thing for an athlete. At least Edge left a legacy that will be remembered for a long time.
That about does it for this one. Have a nice Tuesday, everybody.
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