The Return of Royster Links

In case you haven't heard, Penn State junior running back Evan Royster is coming back for his senior season. Not a big surprise, seeing as he didn't exactly have a great season — a good season, yes, but not great — and isn't exactly making scouts foam at the mouth. After all, Royster isn't the fastest guy in the world, and at 6'1", 213 lbs, he's not the biggest guy either.



But, Royster is a very, very good running back. Like first team All-Big Ten good, joining Wisconsin's John Clay in the backfield for that honor. And while Royster may not be great any one single thing, he is very, very good at pretty much anything you can ask a running back to do. He's an excellent runner between the tackles. He sets up his blockers incredibly well. He has great vision and patience. And while he's not the fastest player in the world, he has more than enough speed to get to the edge and outrun you if he gets behind you. He also blocks very well, reading blitzes the way NFL teams expect. And he can catch out of the backfield with the best of them. Hell, he even lined up out wide a few times this season and caused some nightmare match-ups. I think he has the capabilities to be a backup running back in the NFL, especially with so many teams going to two-, three- and even four-back rotations.

With Penn State starting a true sophomore at quarterback who took very few snaps in this his freshman season next year, teams will be loading up the box on Penn State every week until Kevin Newsome can prove he can beat them with his arm. This will make things even tougher on Royster, who saw his production decline a bit in 2009 thanks to a subpar offensive line. No one would have blamed him if he decided he'd rather get paid, whatever round he was drafted in, than to try to up his stock by facing the daunting challenge of 8, 9 and 10 defenders in the box. Luckily for Penn State, who has an absolutely brutal road schedule next year (Alabama, Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota and Indiana), Royster decided ultimately that coming back to earn his degree and get one more season of college football was worth it.

Glad to have him back.

Link time …

-Sadly, Jerome Hayes will not return for a sixth season.



A classic case of what could have been. Damn you, ACLs. Damn you right to hell! You will be missed Jerome. Best of luck.

-Talk about bad defense at the end of the game:



-World, don't sleep on these Owls, even after the shellacking at the hands of Kansas.

-Jalen Robison, meet Jerry Dixon:



-His name is DeShaun Thomas:



-That's impressive:



-A history of Gilbert's practical jokes.

In non-sports news, comedian/Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lang stabbed himself 9 times in an apparent suicide. Listen, I have no problems whatsoever with Artie Lang. In fact, I think "Dirty Work" is a vastly underrated movie.



But let me tell you something, if you can't even commit suicide right, you suck. Think about it, you failed at killing yourself. That's the ultimate in sucking at life. Killing yourself is so incredibly easy. If you fuck it up, I can understand why you're trying to kill yourself in the first place — you are horrible at living. Seriously, stick a gun in your mouth. Drink a whole bottle of cyanide. Hang yourself. It's not that hard. Really, it isn't. Anyone who "tried" do kill themselves didn't really try at all. You either kill yourself or you don't. Those who "attempt" to but don't simply didn't try hard enough. Seriously, it's not rocket science.

Flyers at PIttsburgh tonight and of course, Alabama and Texas for all the marbles.

Sixers Gunned Down by Wizards

What, too soon?



I don't know what else to tell you about this team besides they suck. There are no two ways around it. Yes, the team has some talent in the likes of Allen Iverson, Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Louis Williams, Marreese Speight and Jrue Holiday, and yes, the corpse of Elton Brand is a former all-star, and yes, Samuel Dalembert has all the athletic ability in the world. But as a team, these guys stink. They play no defense, can't rebound, have no coach, and generally have no clue. They're terrible. And their record shows exactly what this team has shown on the court: 10-24, 14th in the East, aka fucking terrible.

With the Sixers up 14 at half, I turned the game off and focused on the Orange Bowl, along with Texas-Arkansas. When I checked the score before bed, I saw the Sixers had lost. I was pretty stunned, but not completely surprised, for all the reasons mentioned above. Turns out, the Sixers were leading 90-86 with less than 6 minutes to play when the Wizards went on a 10-0 run to essentially ice the game. Nothing like letting the Wizards out on a 10-0 run late in the game.

Seeing as I didn't watch the second half, when the Sixers turned a 58-44 lead into a 104-97 loss, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, but I'll take a hunch from looking over the box score. Gilbert Arenas came out guns 'a blazing, putting up 19 points and dishing out 14 assists. Checking out Lou Will's stats, I can only assume he continued to use all his energy on offense and take every possession off on defense: 8-13 from the field, 19 points, and 0 serious attempts to stop Arenas. That looks about right.


Image courtesy of uncle jellyfish

Hmmm, what else do I see? Antawn Jamison putting up player of the game numbers: 32 points, 13-20 from the field, 5-5 from the line, 14 boards. Let's see, Elton Brand/Marreese Speights combined: 14 points, 5-11 from the field, 4-10 from the line, 6 rebounds. Throw in starting "power forward" Thaddeus Young and you get some even more impressive stats: 19 points, 6-17 from the field, 7-16 from the line, 8 rebounds. If my math is correct, Jamison outscored all three players who play power forward for the Sixers combined by 13 points and outrebounded them by six. Combined. I'll say that again, combined. Thad shot 1-6 and grabbed two measly boards. Plus, he missed half his free throws. Brand was even more pussy-ish, grabbing a grand total of one rebound in 23-plus minutes. One. You gonna call yourself out for being a worthless piece of shit against a horrible team, Elton? Of course you aren't, because you're an asshole. Die. Oh, my bad, you did contribute … by scoring 9 points and missing 5 of your 8 free throw attempts. I can make more than three of eight from the line lefthanded and with my eyes closed (and I'm righthanded)! You suck. And Speights gave the Sixers a fantastic 5 points on 2-6 shooting, though he did outrebound Brand and Young combined, with his 5 in 12 minutes. Awesome.

It seems Andre Iguodala (20 points, 8-12 fg, 3-4 ft, 6 boards, 8 assists, 4 steals) and Samuel Dalembert (20 points, 8-13 fg, 4-4 ft, 20 rebounds) did all they could, but not a single other Sixer gave them any help. Yes, Lou Will had 19 points, but he also had five turnovers and "guarded" Arenas. Allen Iverson was awful, shooting 2-6 and turning the ball over 7 times. And not a single bench player did much of anything. Though to be fair, Speights was a +10 and only got 12 minutes despite committing just one foul because Eddie Jordan is a fucking retard. And Rodney Carney was a +5 in his 8 minutes, but it was 8 minutes and it's Rodney Carney. Oh, and the Sixers shot 14-24 from the line. That's 58.3 percent. I'm not even making that up. Pathetic.

What we learned from this game is that the Sixers are worse than a team that has two players who pull guns on each other, and that Nick Young (21 points, 9-14 from the field, 2-2 from three) is better than Thad Young, at least when they play each other.

And Eddie Jordan sucks at life. After all, he's the one who guided the Wizards into the ground. It's only a matter of time before Jason Kapono and Jason Smith are drawing firearms on each other for betting on who'd see more playing time. Watching this team makes my eyes bleed.

Bogged Down with Links

I know the Eagles first preseason game was last Thursday, which in Internet-land is an eternity ago, but there's something I wanted to address that the Michael Vick bombshell distracted me from at the time. That would be Jason Peters.



Now, Peters comes in with a reputation as one of the better left tackles in football who was hindered by sitting out training camp last season and having a down year. By all accounts, two years ago he was one of the very best in the league. Last year, he was not, and struggled the entire season.

Well, in his first action as an Eagle, he looked like a fat piece of crap to me. Maybe it was just the first-game jitters, but for a left tackle tasked with protecting Donovan McNabb's blind side, he looked like he couldn't pass protect worth a shit.



Now, he did only give up two sacks, and one of those was clearly miscommunication with Nick Cole, but to me, Peters routinely looked entirely too slow and seemed to get beat off the snap routinely on passing downs. Maybe my eyes were deceiving me, but I don't think so.

On a bright note, he did look very good in run blocking, so there's that. Too bad the Eagles pass about 3,000 times a game. I certainly hope that changes, especially with Westbrook getting healthy and Leonard Wever and LeSean McCoy looking all sorts of awesome Thursday. But I have my doubts. This is still Andy Reid's team after all.

Either way, Peters better shape up here before the season starts, or the Birds just may need all four quarterbacks they have in camp.

Links …

-As you would expect, Big Daddy Drew is just thrilled with the Vikings' signing of Brett Favre:

YOU MASSIVE SHITBURGLAR. NOW I HAVE TO SPEND A WHOLE GODDAMN YEAR PRETENDING TO WISH YOU WELL WHEN, IN FACT, I HOPE YOU FALL OFF YOUR PORCH AND HAVE YOUR THROAT SLASHED BY A BEER BOTTLE. I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU FUCK.

-With his hopes and dreams shattered by the Mets, RomanWarHelmet overcompensates by practically declaring the Giants the best team ever after beating, of all people, Jake Delhomme.



In all honesty, the Giants' defensive line scares the bejesus out of me, and Jake Delhomme, for those of you wondering, still sucks horribly.

-Shawn Andrews is goin back to Cali to see a back specialist.



Great.

-Allen Iverson is waiting on either the Knicks, Heat or Bobcats. I wish the Sixers were on there.

-Greg Paulus is is starting at quarterback for Syracuse this season. No, not this guy:



This guy:



You know, the one who hasn't played football since high school and is in his fifth year of college. Yes, expect Syracuse to continue to suck complete and utter balls.

-Gilbert Arenas still plays basketball, at least until he gets hurt again.



-Incredibly brilliant piece on Philadelphia native Eddie Griffin and his tragic ending.



Sad tale.

-Who doesn't like sick dunks?



-More Drew on Favre:

Obviously, I'd be elated to see my favorite team win it all (not that they will with Favre at the helm). I've waited my whole life for that. But for them to win it thanks to THAT ASSHOLE? I'm sorry, but that's just fucking weird. Nothing anyone says will change that fact. If there are Viking fans who can put aside history and welcome Favre with open arms, more power to them. I don't know how they can do it, because I can't. It would be like hugging your rapist, and I'm no Jezebel writer.

-My favorite catcher of all time is headed home.



That's right, Pudge is a Ranger once again.

-Not sports-related, but if you haven't noticed the new addition in the Stuff and Stuff links, check out Snacks and Shit if you like hip-hop and hilarity. It's brilliant.

Oh, and Pedro makes his first home start as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies. Sounds like a good thing to watch tonight.

And Then There Were Four … Links

The Final Four is tomorrow. Villanova, North Carolina, UConn, Michigan State. Nothing more really needs to be added to that. Oh, and the Phillies start Sunday, so there's that too, and the Bears decide to mortgage their future to get Jay Cutler. Seriously, the Broncos received two first round picks, a third rounder and Kyle Orton. Wow. Now the links.

-Classic, the Norm MacDonald ESPY monologue:



-The Phillies prop bets.

-USC linebackers love the roids.

-Some love for Dante Cunningham.



He'll definitely be a big key, but all of the Wildcats are going to have to play a near perfect game to beat UNC.

-Shoals offers his five non-stories from this year's NBA season. Guess who's mentioned first:

Brand on the Run: Baron Davis' relocation was an unquestioned disaster; Jermaine O'Neal's, a little less cataclysmic, but a major failure that proved he had forever dropped a tier or two. On the bright side, Ron Artest has been absolutely crucial to Houston's late season resurrection, and Corey Maggette has played quite well for a team from outer space.

But perhaps no offseason acquisition was a bigger deal than Elton Brand to the Sixers. Here, a young, uptempo team was getting one of the league's most steady, productive post players. But this ideal pairing never came to fruition. Brand struggled, the Sixers struggled, Brand was hurt, the Sixers went back to their old ways without him, and it was a mercy killing when in February Elton decided to undergo surgery and sit for the year. Now the Sixers are the fifth seed in the East, and Brand is a distant memory who might as well have never happened.

-Joe Juliano talks about Scottie Reynolds' difficulty adjusting to life at Villanova.

-Dick Jerardi had a great piece on Jay Wright earlier in the week.



The best line in the article, however, is delivered by Rick Pitino:

I will never forget Rick Pitino saying at the 1997 Final Four: "If it's not broken, break it," not the old cliché "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

This line came from a man who had won the 1996 title and would lose the 1997 title game in overtime. Stand still, he was saying, and you will get passed.

-NBA scouts should not only be looking at the players on the floor at the Final Four, says Kevin Arnovitz, they should be looking at Jay Wright:

Jay Wright, 47 years old, Head Coach, Villanova
On a team full of marginal pros, the one name from Villanova that NBA fans should be aware of is actually that of their head coach, Jay Wright. Watch the difference in his offense this weekend-chock full of NBA friendly isolation plays, heavily focused on outstanding spacing-compared with that of Michigan State, UConn or North Carolina, and notice the difference. His team doesn't shoot particularly well, and they aren't very big, long or athletic. They lack a true point guard, a real center, any kind of depth at all in the frontcourt, and may not have even a single future NBA player on their roster.

So what are they even doing on this stage?

The answer to that is their head coach: Jay Wright. When NBA GMs go to scout the Final Four this weekend, they'll obviously be taking notes on their star players, Dante Cunningham and Scottie Reynolds. But they should also be keeping tabs on the man running the show from Villanova's bench.

Wright looks like the most likely head coach in the NCAA right now to be able to successfully make the transition to coaching in the NBA. Even though his team runs a traditional 4-out 1-in motion offense, he gives his players an unbelievable amount of freedom to go out and make plays on their own if they feel like they have an advantage. Even if they aren't the most talented group of players, Wright has made them into an extremely disciplined, unselfish bunch who are about as well-prepared a team as you'll find.

Everyone who has been around Wright mentions his charisma and ability to build and maintain relationships as the key to his success. Even if he obviously looks the part, he's much more than just a smooth talker. He knows how to manage his players and get the absolute most out of them, often by making quick changes on the fly, and is not a control freak, an ego-maniac or a disciplinarian, like many other failed college-to-pro experiments. When he asks his team to go out and spit blood in order to get him stops on the defensive end-a huge key to their success-- they do it, because they have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Would NBA players respect his authority in a similar way? There's only one way to figure that out.

-Johan Frazen is Superman:



-Just an absolutely incredible trick shot:



-Here's another one, via MLJ:


EMBED-Amazing Off-the-Wall Bball Swish - Watch more free videos

-It has to be fun having Fred Smoot and Gilbert Arenas in the same town. Check out some brilliant quotes by Smoot and Gilbert from the Bog:

"Fat boys wins my game," he said. "I know football, and in December, in the playoffs, fat boys win. Whoever's got the best fat boys is gonna win, so I'm gonna collect fat boys. I can find Fred Smoots--not a dime a dozen, but I can find cornerbacks that can make plays. I can find that. I can't find a big boy that can push this line for four quarters."

Fred Smoot, if you haven't noticed, is actually pretty smart, underneath all the jibba jabba. So is Gilbert Arenas; his "a broke clock's right twice" line, concerning the sorry Wizards recording two wins this year against the dominant Cavs, was probably the smartest five words anyone uttered about last night's game, and he delivered it spontaneously, without a second's thought.

-Finally, someone is is talking some sense:

Since we're both picking the Phillies to win this division for a third season in a row, can we safely say that we're employing a "fool me once ..." stance toward those Mets?

David Brown: The Mets just ain't that good, 'Duk! Daniel Murphy might be OK in left field. Ryan Church is OK in right. Luis Castillo is barely OK at second. Brian Schneider is OK behind the plate. The starting pitching is OK after Johan Santana. The bullpen will light you on fire just as soon as they pitch, and that includes Francisco Rodriguez. Just start the count 2-1, because K-Rod usually gets there anyway. The Mets have great players at third, at short, in center and on the mound every fifth day. The rest of them make me shrug my shoulders. Heck, can I put the Marlins second?

Exactly.

-Just please, go over to Big Five Post and read all the great work Dom is doing, for instance, a look back at '85, Dante, Dionte and Ahmad receiving All American Honorable Mention honors, and an exhaustive list of Villanova links from the week.

Oh, and it would be nice if the Flyers came out and won 6-0 or something tonight, seeing as they completely shit the bed against Toronto on Wednesday.

Sounds Like Someone Has a Case of the Mondays Links

The older I get, the more I hate Mondays. They are more worthless than Adam Eaton. Oh wait, no they aren't. There is Monday Night Football in the fall after all. But still, Mondays suck.



What doesn't suck, however, is the Flyers reuniting their top two lines. It worked in the third period for Saturday, allowing the Flyers to erase a 2-0 deficit for the shootout victory, and again last night, even though they lost 4-3 to Boston, the Flyers generated 48 shots on Tim Thomas. The only tweak I might add is to put Powe with Giroux and Briere, but I wouldn't mess with Knuble-Richards-Gagne and Hartnell-Carter-Lupul the rest of the year. Oh, but seriously, even more than a defenseman, the Flyers desperately need to find a guy who can win face-offs next year. They suck horribly at them.

And now the links …

-Meech would like to let you all know that Ryan Howard is both dangerous and a beast:





-Seth Curry, going from one school I hate to the school I hate above all others.

-Calipari to Kentucky?

-Chris Paul is crafty:



-Evidently, Andre Iguodala is one of the best players in the NBA at making shots at the end of quarters.



According to Mr. Abbott's research, he's ranked 4th in the league. Although, he suggests that Iguodala falls in the category of a guy who plays alongside a superstar. Um, who exactly is the Sixers' superstar?

-Greg Paulus' "big shots" of the tournament:

Binghamton — Paulus scored five points on a SUNY school that has been Division I for seven years.

* His first bucket — a jumper — came with 12:00 left in the second half, putting the Blue Bloods on top by 20 points, 64-42.
* His second bucket came from behind the arc, giving Dook a 30-point lead, 83-53, with 3:35 left in regulation.

…

Texas — Paulus played a total of two minutes, failing to notch a single statistic.

…

Villanova — Paulus had quite the swan song effort, registering one more foul (4) than points (3).

* Greg’s final basket in a white collar uniform came with 15:45 left in regulation. He knocked down a 3-pointer off an assist from closet meth addict Greg Scheyer, cutting Nova’s lead to 38-29.

If Duke had stormed back behind their formerly proud leader, it would have been classified as a “big shot.”

Instead, Nova went on an 11-4 run and stretched their lead to 16 points. The surge — which lasted a little over four minutes — was aided by two Paulus turnovers and a personal foul.

At the tail end of the game, Paulus was subbed out. As he walked off the court, there was a noticeable emotional hum crooning from my TV set. It was apparent that the collective Duke fan base had transplanted the hearts of a million soccer moms into their chests. Teammates stood up and clapped, engulfing Paulus as he walked off.

The senior point guard, who had played 39 minutes in a win over Indiana a mere seven games into his freshman year, returned to the bench after playing a combined 41 minutes in the last seven games of his career.

-Who you got: Metallica or the coaches?



My money's on Bobby Knight and company.

-The Angry T provides the 10 girliest fights in sports history, topped by former Sixer Rick Mahorn, and the 11 worst sports-related video games, with Charles Barkley making an appearance:





-Nice little brawl between the Canucks and Blackhawks:



-He's back:



-The McDonald's All-American Jam Fest is tonight.

Seriously, this week needs to get over with fast.

Moonshine and Links

As you know, Friday was my birthday, and I have to say, it was quite a good time. After watching Temple lose because no one but Dionte decided to show up on offense, Toonces headed toward my house bearing gifts:





Yeah, tequila and moonshine. Well, we decided to leave the tequila alone and focus on the moonshine and some beers. Let me tell you something, if you've never had moonshine before, it's fantastic. You get plastered drunk and don't even realize it. After killing the jar of toxic moonshine and downing quite a few beers, we headed out to the bars, where we took more shots, drank more beers and watched the thrilling tournament games. Also, apparently I was causing quite a few problems in my drunken state. Blame it on the moonshine.

Anyway, it was a grand old night, and not a bad weekend. Nova looked great. Temple not so much. The Flyers beat the Penguins. The Sixers won. Things went well all in all, especially the save by Marty Biron about 2:06 in:



Since you all saw all the games, I don't have much more to say. So I link ...

-It's almost baseball season, which means The Fightins is in full swing: Sarge Matthews has his own hat line coming out, and Jimmy does a Charlie impression:



-Kendrick and Marson were optioned to the minors.

-Shawn Bradley "highlight" reels, via Deadspin:







-Take that, Ohio State:



-People should get off Iverson's back, like Shoals says.



If the man says he's hurt, he's hurt.

-Wide receivers are dumb, quarterbacks smart.

-Ricky Rubio may or may not be entering the NBA draft.

-Les Bowen has a very nice article on Eagles cornerback and former Wisconsin star Jack Ikegwuonu, and it sounds like Ikegwuonu is handling his situation well.

"I feel like it wouldn't be fair to the coaches to say that I'm a rookie,'' he said. "Just going through those meetings, listening, breaking down film - you've got to learn something. If you're not learning something, you're not paying attention and you're not doing your job. I definitely learned a lot. I learned a lot about the defense, and about the complexity of the defense. I know what [defensive coordinator] Jim Johnson expects."

The biggest thing Ikegwuonu learned had nothing to do with coverages, though, he said.

"Just learning about how to be a professional - what it means to be in the National Football League . . . You have to completely change the way you act, from what you put into your mouth to how you spend every minute of the day, whether you're at the facility or not," Ikegwuonu said. "I think the biggest thing that separates people who play this game in the National Football League is what you do when you're not at the complex, when the coaches aren't watching. That's really what a true professional is judged on."

As a Penn State fan, I got to watch Ikegwuonu in college, and the guy was a stud. If he is recovered fully from his ACL injury and can play anywhere up to his pre-injury potential, he'll become a really good corner in this league.

-Remember Danny Briere? Well, for his role in the Flyers' 6-4 Friday, he was named Puck Daddy's first star:

No. 1 Star: Danny Briere, Philadelphia Flyers

Mocked all year for an ineffective and injury-plagued season -- and booed mercilessly by Buffalo Sabres fans -- Danny Briere was the difference for the Flyers in their 6-4 victory. Elevated from a fourth line assignment to a line with Jeff Carter and Scott Hartnell, Briere scored two second-period goals to spark a Philly rally: a rebound slap shot past Patrick Lalime (25 saves) to tie the game and then a slapper from the slot to give the Flyers the lead and the momentum.

-Gilbert Arenas may or may not be returning Saturday.

-Is Ben Woodside an NBA player? I don't know, but he sure as shit looked like one against Kansas.

Oh, and I hear Curt Schilling retired. That guy was all right with me. I always wanted to wear a towel over my head when Mitch Williams was pitching too.

Gilbert Will Have Plenty of Time for Blogging

This can't make the Washington Wizards, who signed Gilbert Arenas to a 6-year, $111 million contract this offseason, all too happy.



Everyone's favorite NBA athlete blogger had a surgical procedure to clean out his knee, and Agent Zero will miss the first month or so of the 2009-10 season.

In case you're counting, that's two "point guards" who signed huge deals this offseason that will be starting the season in street clothes, Monta Ellis being the other. This will surely open up the questions was to whether Wiz Wit or Wiz Witout Gilbert is better. Here's a hint, Wiz Wit is always better.



Now I'm hungry.