was gonna say, old ass writer gonna have some baggage
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
O_o thought he was a dece liberal new england dude
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
well he is but he said something dumb on tv, whatcha gonna do
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:32 (thirteen years ago) link
i will h8 him 4 eternity, dont know bout u
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:36 (thirteen years ago) link
I dunno, I see the UConn thing as more along the lines of a story that ESPN has overhyped beyond its own importance (i.e. his previous "I wish ESPN.com users could block any beaten into the ground stories. I'd block "Sterger," "concussions," "lockout" + "cell phone dongs.", or "FYI: NOBODY cares how Minny's roof collapse affects Favre's streak. We care about fantasy/gambling/playoffs + if game will be shown on TV.").
I have been reading Simmons for so long that his schticky stuff rolls right off me now, though, so maybe I don't even notice the more "women be shoppin'/bad at sports" stuff anymore. The only time I really got annoyed was after the 2007 Patriots-Colts game when he wrote some insane diatribe about how the officiating was so clearly biased and that the world was out to get the Patriots. I guess I like him when he is calling out non-story stories, and dislike him when he is making his own non-story stories.
― C-L, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:38 (thirteen years ago) link
guarantee w/zero doubt that if it was a men's team and the hype was high, simmons would either be breaking down whatever team it was with references to the nicolas colasanto seasons of 'cheers' or saying nothing negative at all.
― omar little, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh no doubt, but I honestly think if a modern men's team was about to win 89 straight, it would really be a MUCH bigger achievement. Women's basketball is super top-heavy (right now #11 Kentucky is beating Arkansas-Pine Bluff 85-21, and #7 West Virginia already beat UNC-Charlotte 71-39), and three straight undefeated seasons while presumably multiple players would be bailing to the NBA every year would be a coaching miracle. UConn's streak really is just having much better players than almost everyone they play.
― C-L, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:47 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah but it's fucking 89 games
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:48 (thirteen years ago) link
its like saying, well wilt scoring 100 pts and averaging like 20 re wasnt as big a deal because competition back then was shit but then you have to think...fuck thats 100 goddamn points, how is there even time for that
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:49 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah for real, and let's not pretend simmons' inevitable clowning of this achievement comes from his rather shall we say interesting views on women.
― omar little, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:51 (thirteen years ago) link
comes from anything other than
ok yeah but game to game the streak is a complete bore. 2 of those games have been decided by < 10 points. 2!!!!
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:52 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^not a simmons defense, but the espn coverage is ridic
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:53 (thirteen years ago) link
It's probably gonna be like 100-150 or something by the end of it. Except for the 1 point win over Baylor they've beaten everybody by like 20 at least. (They also apparently beat Simmons's alma mater by 80!). I know nothing about WCBB, but aside from a few games away at ranked opponents (Stanford and West Virginia and some other Big East schools) they're probably clear until the tournament.
― C-L, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I think if Women's basketball had more exciting games he could gamble on, he'd shut up, also.
The solution is clearly to have Gus Johnson announce more Women's College Basketball games.
― C-L, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:56 (thirteen years ago) link
there are probably plenty of exciting wnba and wcbb games, he's just...well, the evidence speaks for itself imo.
― omar little, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:00 (thirteen years ago) link
women's basketball is great to watch, it's a lot more 'fundamental' and there's a lot less showboating. teams get by on teamwork
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:03 (thirteen years ago) link
when did you turn 60?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:05 (thirteen years ago) link
I'll watch a quality women's bball game over the fuckin bobcats vs. the nets any day
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:08 (thirteen years ago) link
ok sure, you are saying "i would rather watch a good game than a bad game"
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:09 (thirteen years ago) link
which is why i have no interest in watching uconn blow out yet another hapless opponent
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:10 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah but also saying that just cause it's women's bball doesn't mean it's by default a bad game
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:10 (thirteen years ago) link
no of course it doesn't--but uconn demonstrates that the competitive imbalance in women's bball is pretty wacky imo
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:13 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean full disclosure i think most men's college ball is pretty bad too; everyone just struggles so much to score
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:14 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah but I dunno good hoops isn't just about scoring
I think the overall lesson we can all take away from this is never pay attention to sports journalism
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:15 (thirteen years ago) link
womens basketball is horrible and in no way more fundamentally sound than mens, they really just dont play v well in comparison, clowning them a lil is reasonable, simmons vendetta is kinda strange tho
― ice cr?m, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:18 (thirteen years ago) link
xp you can't possibly think that everyone in college is just playing fabulous team defense
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:22 (thirteen years ago) link
nah but they bring way more hustle to the defense on every play than the pros
― dayo, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:23 (thirteen years ago) link
bleh
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:24 (thirteen years ago) link
I was gonna try to make a point about the generally superior athleticism of NBA basketball, but I am watching Dallas-Orlando and Hedo Turkoglu fell down awkwardly trying to dunk like five minutes ago. Dude ruins everything.
― C-L, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Dude got pushed in the back by Dirk. Not his fault. This time.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:39 (thirteen years ago) link
hedo dunk fail was a total lol
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 02:50 (thirteen years ago) link
On the subject of betting, I gotta think it's good fun to bet on women's basketball because there's so much less traffic. Probably easier to find bad lines.
― I Am Kurious Assange (polyphonic), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 06:45 (thirteen years ago) link
Everything feels like a cliché at this point: Friends overreacting in a crowded room every time CBS throws it to New York for a highlight; aging media guys awkwardly throwing out fantasy jokes to seem hip (so annoying, especially when the mainstream media treated fantasy with such contempt once upon a time); Hollywood typically botching the boom with FX's show about an eight-team league (seriously, do you know ANYONE in an eight-team league???); and, of course, more and more women playing fantasy football and, in some cases, integrating all-male leagues.
I hate the last trend for about 656 reasons, but mainly this one: If you asked any guy in 2000 what stereotypical things were unique to us -- things we had for ourselves, partly because we liked them and partly because guys just need to do things with other guys sometimes, and that's just the way it is -- they may have mentioned sports, fantasy, strip joints, Vegas, bad action movies, golf trips, urinals and/or long car trips in which one person keeps farting and bumming out everyone else in the car while laughing hysterically. That was the top-eight "Just F---ing Let Us Be Cavemen For Old Times' Sake" list in some order.
Well, this turned out to be the decade when we lost Vegas -- you're just as likely to see flocks of female friends moving in packs now, only they're drunker, louder and clumsier -- and lost exclusivity over the fantasy domain as well. Pretty soon, we're only going to have golf, farting and urinals. (Note: That easily could have been the title for Adam Carolla's upcoming book; he went with "In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks" instead.) I just wish we had better delineation. If women want to play fantasy football, fine. Just start your own leagues. Give us that one day or night when we sit around a table for five hours, fart, burp, drink, eat gross food, bust balls and say inappropriate things. Let us give our teams names like "Premature Pitinos" without wondering if we might offend you. Give us four months of e-mail chains in which we rip on each other -- and occasionally flip out and get pissed off -- without worrying about offending the opposite sex. I swear, we don't ask for much. And don't turn it into a freaking discrimination thing. This isn't discrimination. Not letting you play at Augusta -- that's discrimination. Nobody said you couldn't start your own league. Knock yourselves out. But let us breathe. Let us bond. Let us have our all-male leagues without giving us crap about it. For the love of God. Or else in 50 years we WILL all be chicks.
― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 24 December 2010 02:55 (thirteen years ago) link
lol sad dude
― ice cr?m, Friday, 24 December 2010 02:59 (thirteen years ago) link
man, are there any non-shitty sportswriters at all? like who write intersting and are not douche bags?
― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Tuesday, December 21, 2010 8:15 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark
ken davidoff's been writing his ass off lately
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMf0MTweXYc (Princess TamTam), Friday, 24 December 2010 03:00 (thirteen years ago) link
i dont even understand at ALL what hes talking about in that fantasy thing - is there some ruling body that's forcibly integrating male and female leagues???? its not like you need to be sanctioned to have a fantasy league!! and its not like you need to invite anybody who you dont want to be in it
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMf0MTweXYc (Princess TamTam), Friday, 24 December 2010 03:06 (thirteen years ago) link
Fantasy Title IX, iirc
― C-L, Friday, 24 December 2010 03:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Let us bond. Let us have our all-male leagues without giving us crap about it. For the love of God. Or else in 50 years we WILL all be chicks.
someone clearly needs to beat the shit out of him. it'll be masculine, like hockey, he'll love it
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 December 2010 03:54 (thirteen years ago) link
its funny because all this needy bro bonding is pretty you know feminine
― ice cr?m, Friday, 24 December 2010 03:57 (thirteen years ago) link
"we don't ask for much."
― lenonsense (Clay), Friday, 24 December 2010 04:00 (thirteen years ago) link
it also seems like bill simmons knows a bunch of lame women
― J0rdan S., Friday, 24 December 2010 04:02 (thirteen years ago) link
and while we're on the subject of misogyny and fantasy sports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSfDPkIq1oY
― J0rdan S., Friday, 24 December 2010 04:03 (thirteen years ago) link
it's just incredibly sad and pathetically in-character that the one thing that really steams this guy up is fucking women playing fantasy sports.
― lenonsense (Clay), Friday, 24 December 2010 04:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean, in what way is this not a good thing, dude! Now your wife and her friends might get less eye-rolly when you want to talk about it incessantly! Win-win IMO.
― lenonsense (Clay), Friday, 24 December 2010 04:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I just hate this guy more and more every day.
― lenonsense (Clay), Friday, 24 December 2010 04:09 (thirteen years ago) link
also, isn't a woman who shares your interests more attractive? no -- they're just for the other stuff, like bearing not-necessarily-wanted babies
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 December 2010 04:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah that's sorta what I was getting at but didn't phrase it correctly. Women aren't allowed to taint the purity of homosocial guy stuff or we will literally become women.
― lenonsense (Clay), Friday, 24 December 2010 04:12 (thirteen years ago) link
because guys just need to do things with other guys sometimes
*pause*
― dayo, Friday, 24 December 2010 12:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Gregg Easterbrook?
― once more Jagger faps the hivemind (symsymsym), Sunday, 26 December 2010 01:24 (thirteen years ago) link