No losing allowed

College basketball rankings should be one of the terms in the thesaurus that is synonymous with the word “joke.” Throw Buckeye loyalties out the window for a moment and just think about what has happened with the Ohio State team that is now number 1 or 2 in the country depending on which poll you look at.
Eleven games ago, the scarlet and gray fell to Wisconsin in Madison, making that their third loss, all three of them to teams that at the time were ranked in the top-5 nationally. After that loss to Wisconsin, the Buckeyes were ranked 7th in the nation.
In the following weeks, they crept up the rankings board to the four spot. Who were the teams ahead of them? They were Florida, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the only three teams that have beaten them this season. That seemed to make sense, because Ohio State shouldn’t be ranked ahead of teams that beat them.
Oh, the beauty of losses by the top three teams in the nation. First, Wisconsin fell off to Indiana on the road, a place where the Bucks don’t need to play this season. Then, North Carolina put together two losses. The capper was this week, when the long-haired ugly son of a tennis star and his Gator teammates fell to a dark horse Vanderbilt team on the road.
After all that, the Buckeyes have reached the pinnacle as the #1 ranked team in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll. Worthless. As Sean Salisbury once said, “Are you kiddin’ me?”
Let’s compare, shall we? Florida and Ohio State are both 24-3 overall on the season, with one conference loss apiece. Wisconsin is 26-2 on the year, with one conference loss. In a system of rankings, it would be an absolutely brilliant and mind-numbing idea if they actually ranked teams based on which team is better than another.
Florida and Wisconsin have very similar records to Ohio State, and both have beaten the Buckeyes. So, both the coaches and writers are basically trying to say that if Ohio State met Florida today, the Gators would be the underdog despite beating the Buckeyes by 30,000 points back in December and embarrassing twelve generations of Ohioans in the BCS National Title Game in football to boot.
The polls shouldn’t automatically punish a team for losing a game, if it is clear that they are still the team to beat in the country as Florida is. The rankings shouldn’t be based on who won or lost this week; they should be an accurate depiction of who the best team is. Right now, the Buckeyes are not the #1 team in the country, especially after almost embarrassing five more generations of Ohioans in a near-loss at Penn State.
The Buckeyes will hold the 1 or 2 spot by default for now, but a huge game looms with Wisconsin as long as neither team gets trapped in their mid-week games. As of right now, it looks like Sunday will pit the #1 team in America against…the #1 team in America. Maybe, for once, a team will earn its ranking on the court.

All-Star Game

Hey folks,
It's that time in the year where 48 minutes of garbage time somehow draws the attention of the world. So not to rip off Bill Simmons, here are some typical notes that I paid attention to with a 2 minute delay.

1. Eddie Jordan, the east coach, pretty much is trying to destroy LeBron by playing him MAJOR minutes in an All-Star Game. Hey Eddie, if you play LeBron for the next two quarters, you're going home.

2. The Fraud and A Joke Award goes to: Wayne Newton. Seriously, how the heck does this guy make millions of dollars a year? He can't sing, can't dance, can't entertain, but yet he makes Oprah style money. I really noticed this during his pre-game song routine, where his lip-singing was off, his voice over voice sucked, and he was stuck in the mud. One thing came up when I saw him in an interview: If there was a Disney-World on another planet, and they had a human mascot, they would just employ Wayne Newton, because he is the fakest human being I HAVE EVER SEEN.

3. Marv Albert spent the whole game wondering if he was invited to Tony Parker and Eva Longoria's wedding. Hey Marv, remember the last time you were with any women?


4. Doug Collins aka "I couldn't win with Michael Jordan" proving why he sucked as a coach. He takes All-Star games like game 7 and regular games like All-Star games. For example, here's a quote when Mehmet Okur commited a foul on the inside "If you come in the lane, he is going to hit you hard, no EASY BUCKETS TONIGHT." You're a blind man Collins, blind man.

5. Carlos Boozer sat out tonight's game. GOOD. CLEVELAND WANTS YOU IN 4 WEEKS BOOZER IN CLEVELAND. God I can't wait!

6. The "Second Comming" Nike commerical has been shown around 100 times tonight. Every time I see that, I run under my bed because I think Rasheed Wallace is outside my room with a knife.

7. Guess who Dave Chappelle came to the game with. Prince. WHAAT? What a great couple and what a fitting situation. No rumor that Prince and the Revolution were invited to play. Shoot the J, SHOOT IT.

8. Kevin Garnett is chillin on the bench wondering if he will ever escape the doom in Minnesota. He really needs to get traded or he will be the greatest talent to go to waste.

9. Elvis impersonators were doing dunks off of trampolines in the fourth quarter and Gilbert Arenas felt like he needed to join in on the action. Again adding evidence to my theory that he really has no shooting conscious.

10. LeBron decided to scare every Cavaliers fan by trying to throw the ball off the backboard and dunk it. Instead he went 20 feet in the air, landed on Amare and realized what he did. Just doing that made some people in Cleveland jump off the Bob Hope bridge into souvenir city.

Snowing Snow

Hey Guys,

What a game Thursday night in Los Angeles. The Cavaliers stuck it to the Lakers in the last minutes to pull out a nice 114-108 victory. There were some very encouraging signs provided by the Cavaliers last night which really caught the eyes of me and many other Cavaliers fans.

1. How about Eric Snow? Everyone has been on his case because of his offensive inabilities, but since his move to the bench, he has provided quality play that any coach would want comming off the bench. Offensively, he is creating more, by that I mean attacking the bucket when he is left open and finding open guys. I can't count how many times last night when the Lakers triple teamed LeBron, and Snow either got fouled going strong to the hole or set up the the likes of Verajao for open layups. Defensively, he shut down Kobe in the fourth quarter, making him give up the ball to their really overrated supporting cast.

2. LeBron finally learned that nobody in this league can gaurd him when he attacks the hole constantly. Some rumor around the league is that LeBron has settled for jumpers because of his free throw troubles. But last night, he made a good effort to go to the bucket, which either lead to him being fouled (which he went 18-22!), made the shot, or his missed shot was cleaned up by Verajao. Also, he changed his free throw style. He has stopped kissing his wrists and finally has decided to look at the target before shooting (I have been saying that for months!).

Random Notes: The Cavs shot 41-55 from the line, showing they were more aggressive...Cavs pushed the ball more off of turnovers...Just because the Lakers supporting cast plays in LA, the media treats them like they are god sends (Same thing happens in New York, remember Steve Francis?) which highly overrates their abilities....Larry Hughes wanted to kill the refs about 10 times during the game....Mike Brown and the Cavs have seemed to found a balance in a faster offensive but still shut down defense by using the defense to create the fast offense.

Cava-downer

Hopefully the Cavalier Girls make everyone feel better, but here are some thoughts on the Cavs loss:
-The Jazz are a great team who are very tough to beat at home, and we had no Z, so going in we knew it was gonna be a tough one.

-What can you honestly do about a guy like Deron Williams going off on us like he did? There is no answer for a guy that white-hot.

-LeBron wasted a lot of possessions playing "LeBron ball" and just standing around while others watched.

-That said, we played a good overall game, defense was pretty good except on Williams, we challenged shots and rebounded well without Z.

-Boozer has roids pimples-Larry Hughes showed up, which was shocking.

-Great job in the final sequence to pull within one, only problem is we seemed to get a great sense of urgency that came too late in the game.

-Fouling/not fouling is a tough call down one with a four second differential, but we made the stop, problem was the rebound was tipped.

-Sasha got fouled. Normally, they do not call a foul like that in the waning seconds. But, the officials called TOUCH fouls the entire game, and not calling something on that is not being consistent. Can't be too upset about our effort, but we gotta get tomorrow's game.

Be My Valentine...again?

Hey Folks,

Happy Valentine's Day for all, and I continue my streak of being valentine-less since elementary school when they forced valentine's day on everyone. I was always the one who tried to draw the Cavs logo on my Valentine's day shoe box which really could explain a lot. Anyway, the Cavaliers hit the road before the all-star break as they head to Utah tonight and the Lakers tomorrow night. The best aspect about this game is that the Cavs had a chance to re-unite with some of their favorite valentines in Greg Ostertag (Z's little buddy) and Carlos Boozer (Yes we are still waiting for him to come to Cleveland).

However, Z won't be playing tonight due to some person issues, and we hope everything works out positively. So no Z/Ostertag fight a la Ali/Frazier. Also, OF COURSE, Boozer gets hurt before he has to play the CAVS, AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN. Since he bolted the then owner and world's richest blind man Gordon Gund, Boozer has only played the Cavaliers once and has never played the Cavs in Cleveland so he can get what he deserves. So get healthy Boozer, we need someone to unleash on.

Here is some Cavs-Jazz love. (Notice who's breaking up the Z/Ostertag love fest).

MMM Good.

Hey folks,

The Cavaliers (or Pavaliers as some people have put it) have looked good the last three games, and everybody here at Nosebleeds has figured out the solution. No, it hasn't been Eric Snow's productivity off the bench, of Sasha's stellar play. It has been the luck of superstition.

Last year, when the Cavaliers started out the second half of the season on a 5 game losing streak, I, with the rest of Cleveland, was jumping off the Bob Hope bridge into the Cuyahoga River anticipating another Cavaliers/Cleveland collapse. Thus, when the team was in trouble, the members of Nosebleeds.blogspot.com and other fans turned to a tasty treat. After consuming this treat, the Cavaliers turned their season around and made it sweet for us fans (don't mind the pun). Solution:



I started chewing LeBron gum the day of the Clippers game, and the Cavaliers haven't lost since! Hopefully, the rest of the Cavs stretch run will be as tasty as the gum.

Cleveland PAValiers

Ladies and gentlemen: WITNESS Sasha Pavlovic.

The bench player that the Cavs have been waiting for to pop off the bench a la Flip Murray and provide a much-needed offensive spark while LeBron is on the bench MAY have arrived.

This is Cleveland, so I'll be damned if I'm just going to start hailing Sasha Pavlovic as the next Manu Ginobli, because we all know how quickly he can turn into Reuben Boumtje-Boumtje. Remember him? That has got to be the best name in the 30,000 episode run of SportsCenter.

But, 21 points against the Lakers cannot be ignored. He even outscored the other Sasha on the floor, the Lakers' Sasha Vujacic. What a feat.

Not only did Sasha show that his offensive attack can come from anywhere--three-pointers, drives to the bucket, slam dunks, mid-range game, and free throw line--he showed that he can now do it more consistently and do it in the clutch.

Of his 21 points, 13 of those came in the fourth quarter, and he never sat in the fourth. His and-one layup with 1:24 left served as the capper to a big Cavs W. All of this came while LeBron chewed on his nails and did...not much else the entire second half until his grand finale Boomshakalaka dunk.

Coach Brown, give Pavs consistent playing time, and he could be that scorer off the bench with us. Of course, if the Cavs make a trade, Sasha has turned into a hot trade item. Either way, his play will benefit our team.

Long Time.

It's been almost a month since the Cavaliers won two games in a row, and that's not good for a team with high expectations. However, the Cavs seemed to return to prior form as they beat the Heat (no pun intended)103-79 at the Q. Here are some of the things I noticed from the game:

1. LeBron finally looked normal, as did the rest of the Cavs. They attacked the rim more, drew more fouls, and pushed off of defensive stops. I have been yelling at the TV screen the last month telling the Cavs to do those things, and they finally did. When Daniel Gibson took on Shaq at the rim and scored, I went INSANO.

2. The ESPN broadcasters really hate the Cavs, especially the rest of the crew. While Jason Kapono of all people draws massive raves from the ESPN staff, players like Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson (I'm going Brazilian on his name) are said to be nobodies. Just watching the Heat's supporting staff makes me want to cringe, which is why I don't understand why everyone on their team other than Wade and Shaq are hyped. This is why nobody in the east scares me, the Pistons will tire out, the Heat are just flat out OLD, and Washington has no concious as Kobe would say.

3. During the game, it seemed like it turned into the Toronto Raptors show. Now everyone is on their bandwagon just like Washington one week ago. They are 3 games over .500 and Michael Wilbon is calling them the "3rd best team in the east." Once that team crosses the boarder with that pressure on them and stops beating up on the Celtics, expect them to melt like snow in Jamaica.

4. No Damon Jones last night until garbage time. Good call by Mike Brown, because he needed people with speed to stop Wade's penetration into the lane, and it sure did work. I don't think Jones cares too much, because he's got 450 SUITS TO DRY CLEAN. MAN. I'll give the man some props though, he's got a pretty good style went it comes to suits. Almost as good as your's truly.

Cavaliers could use some Heat

Tonight should be an exciting one with DWAAAAAAAAAAAAyne WAAAAAAAAde and the Heat traveling to Cleveland to take on Bron Bron and the rest of the crew. In all honesty, the Cavs need this more than the Heat mainly because the media doesn't expect anything from the Cavs anymore. Hopefully the Cavs realize how to stop the Heat, put five people on Wade and make the senior citizens on their team beat them. So here is how the teams match up:

Best Players:







Washed Up Centers:






Annoying Players/Leaders of the Senior Citizens:





Mascot Battle



Enjoy the game everyone.

Everyone flip out

It's that time of year again, where college football teams make their signings, pay their players and then have a team of dorks tell them where they rank.

This is followed by the rabid fans of those respective teams going nuts over some superficial ranking that some wannabe jocks with videotape and time on their hands came up with. The rankings that they come up with are not straight from God's crystal ball of college football prospects. They are just some rankings that are arrived at through videotape, statistics, and hype.

Ohio State ranked 16th this year in the recruting ranks, and everyone in Columbus, who expects so much better, tries to make a big deal about it. Here is an example that can be applied at any big football program and should make everyone calm down, and realize the rankings do not matter.

In Ohio State's 2002 recruting class, there was a guy who had the word "Athlete" next to his name. He was probably a negative 3 star recruit or whatever, nobody thought he would amount to anything, and they didn't know what position he would play.

That same recruting class involved one of the top-rated recruits in the country at Quarterback. He was the most hyped pickup in the class, and was expected to come in and become a Buckeye legend, maybe even a Heisman trophy winner.

The "Athlete" just finished his senior season as starting QB for the Buckeyes, and he won something called the Heisman Trophy.

The QB sat on the bench behind him for the last two years, thought about transferring, and is widely considered a major Ohio State bust.

Athlete Troy Smith, meet Quarterback Justin Zwick.

Lazer Rocket Arm

It's a slow sports day around these parts other than the Cavs winning (thank God), and ESPN overhyping every high school football player. So we found this funny story from the Chicago Sun Times:

How do you spell Scott Wiese?

In a few weeks, that would be P-e-y-t-o-n M-a-n-n-i-n-g.

Bears fan Scott Wiese, holding a name-change petition Tuesday, will have his name changed to Peyton Manning.
(AP)
Wiese, a die-hard Bears fan from Decatur, signed a pledge in front of a crowd at a bar in the central Illinois city last Friday promising that if the Bears lost the Super Bowl, he'd change his name to that of the man who led the Indianapolis Colts to victory.
Final score: Colts 29, Bears 17.

So, on Tuesday, Wiese went to the Macon County courts facility and started the process of changing his name.

''I made the bet, and now I've got to keep it,'' said Wiese, 26, who lives in Forsyth, just north of Decatur.

Wiese will have to advertise his intention in the local newspaper for several weeks, then have a judge give him the OK to become Peyton Manning.

The men have little in common, Wiese acknowledged. Manning, the quarterback, is 30 years old, stands 6-foot-5 and has a contract with the Colts worth more than $100 million. Wiese is 5-foot-11 and works at a Staples office supply store for somewhat less.

''I think I kind of represent all Bears fans,'' he said. ''Not that I'm saying they're all idiots like me, but I represent their passion because I really care about my team, you know?''



Was that him?

Not a game...PRACTICE

Hey readers, and welcome to the Nosebleeds. Your regular contributors are Steven A. and yours truly, Juice.
Both born near Cleveland, we grew up together in the green lawns and burning Taco Bells of Westlake. Both of us have been lifelong Cavaliers, Indians and Browns fans. Even though Steve hates the Tribe, which is a story for a different day.
The main difference: college sports. Where as Steven A. was born into a family of Blue-bloods (that's M*ch*g*n for those of you who do not know), Matt has been a lifelong Buckeye, and currently attends Ohio State. Steven A. attends the ivy-like Miami University.
We will bring our unique perspective on Cleveland sports, the trials and tribulations of waiting for a team that doesn't blow their chance at a championship. We live and die with these teams, and it makes for a sad existence sometimes. Most of the times. It must be some sort of disease.
In college sports, we will have very different views, with Steve's Blue-based propaganda, and Juice's Buckeye Pride.
On that note, I am a broadcaster for Ohio State men's and women's basketball this winter, so check out our site and you can listen to me broadcast live. The website is www.ohiostatesports.com I also host a Cleveland sports show on that site, C-Town Throwdown, which airs on the website on Thursday's from 6-7:30 PM.

Alright, we got a Cavs game to catch. Peace I'm out of here.

No, Seriously

We here at Nosebleeds are a simple group composed of people who think we are the next Michael Wilbon, but we are not bald, we swear. We'll get into more details about what we are and who we are all about as time wears on, but we can't breathe at the moment. The Cavs, one of our favorite squads has a HUGE game against the Clippers tonight. By huge, we hope you Clevelanders get it. So to get us ready for tonight's game we have some simple words for LeBron.

Just take over and attack the rim.

We'll have more later. Watch for some other folks to get you more details.

So, for you Cavaliers fans out there, here's a little teaser.