Monday, August 31, 2009

U.C. Football, Bengals Over-Hyped Draft Picks, and More

Why is there such little respect for U.C.'s football team? In Vegas last week, the Bearcats odds of winning the Big East were as high as 8 to 1, most had it 7 to 1.
Here's essentially what I found:
Pittsburgh 5/2
South Florida 5/2
West Virginia 5/2
Rutgers 9/2
U.C. 7/1
Connecticut 8/1
Louisville 15/1
Syracuse 50/1

So the defending champs are the best bet on the board in my book. If U.C. can get past Rutgers, look out! But the scary thing for U.C. fans, the boys out west get it right a lot more often that they get it wrong. I'm betting they're a little off on this one.

While on the subject, it's inexcusable that Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musberger (aka Burnt Cheeseburger) didn't mention U.C. in their short video preview of the Big East. Herbstreit has given the Bearcats a lot of love over the past couple of seasons so I won't club him for this. But fellas, the defending champs, and they don't even get a mention? Even if you would say Cincinnati is the defending champ but needs to rebuild that defense, I would say fair enough. But not even a mention? A special hat-tip to the posters at the fine web site, bearcatlair.com

Click here to watch Herbstreit and Musberger forget all about the defending champs of the conference they are previewing!


Now that Andre Smith has signed with the Bengals, what do you expect? Despite all of the comments that he looks fat, he's way behind, he's this, he's that, no one will know until the guy gets a few games under his belt. (should anything else fit under his belt) I remember Anthony Munoz driving a defender all the way to the bench on one of his first plays in a preseason game. We knew right then and there Munoz was a stud. But it's rare that a first round pick shows that kind of stuff right away. Some never show much at all. The most over-hyped thing in sports is a first round draft pick in the NFL. We look for twitter tweets, rumors, anything that updates negotiations with your favorite team's top pick. Then the player turns out
to be okay, but not a major impact player. Rarely are they worth the large rookie contracts they receive. That's been the norm around here. Since Carson in 2003, the Bengals top picks have been Chris Perry (gone, bust), David Pollack (gone, injury), Johnathan Joseph (was on his way, has to beat injury bug), Leon Hall (improving, might get there in his third season), Keith Rivers (showed tremendous promise before Hines Ward gave him the cold shoulder), and Andre Smith (we shall see). No wonder commissioner Roger Goodell is looking into the NBA rookie salary scale.

Apparently L.A. Dodger Manny Ramirez had a lot of fun in Cincinnati, at least on Saturday evening. My friend at WLWT sent me this in an email:
Manny-would? Manny did.
Manny-wood was everywhere in downtown Cincinnati this weekend. After polishing off an offering from Reds pitcher Matt Maloney in the first inning Saturday, he was seen demolishing a pork chop at a hip 6th Street restaurant. Through a series of circumstances, Maloney, a rookie, decided to dine at the same restaurant at the same time, and was, by chance, seated at the table next to the dread-locked, satchel carrying superstar Ramirez’s table of five. Inside sources said that that not only did Manny pick up the check for Maloney, who was recalled from the minors to make the start, but he thanked him for the tasty pitch.-- Michael D. Altman

I'm thinking Manny said it with a smile and good natured tone because all of the major league types say Manny is really a cool guy. If not, Maloney should have thrown some croutons in that salad Manny's wearing on his head.

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