I have begun a new segment at StrikeDownAlley called "It's Like Being The World's Fastest Snail". I have compiled the stats for the best of the worst teams or worst statistical performance for players on teams that performed the poorest in the named department in their respective leagues.
1. There are two winless teams remaining in Division I men's basketball; Alcorn State and Bryant College. I have chosen to reveal the leading scorers for each team respectively.
Bryant College: Cecil Gresham, 14.5 PPG thru Feb. 2, 2010
Alcorn State: Jonathan Boyd, 12.1 PPG thru Feb. 2, 2010
2. Two NCAA Division I football teams finished winless this past season; Eastern Michigan and Western Kentucky. I have chosen to highlight their leading rushers.
Eastern Michigan: Dwayne Priest, 145 carries, 633 yds, 3.6 YPC, 7 TD's
Western Kentucky: Bobby Rainey, 144 carries, 939 yds, 6.5 YPC, 6 TD's
3. John Lannan was the best pitcher of the losingest team in Major League Baseball last year, the Washington Nationals. He led the team in wins with 9, in ERA with a 3.88 with 89 strikeouts and a workmanlike 206.1 IP. Talk about spending a lot of time suffering through your work.
4. I hate to divulge this seeing as they are my team, but Daniel Murphy led my New York Mets in home runs thus making him the player with the lowest team leading home run total wih a non-Ruthian 12 whole dingers.
5. The Edmonton Oilers have the least amount of wins (17) and points (40) in the NHL, so I have chosen to highlight their leading scorer, Dustin Penner with 22 goals and 22 assists thru Feb. 2, 2010. Makes them yearn for the glory days of Messier and Gretzky.
6. The Orlando Magic were in the NBA Finals this year, and despite the recent struggles of Vince Carter, they are primed for a strong playoff push again this season. The area they channel their inner New Jersy Net in is free throw percentage, trailing everyone else by shooting a woeful 71.4% as a team. The brightest spot with a minimum of 60 attempts is J.J. Redick, who has made 107 out of 127 attempts, for a percentage of 84.3%. Good to see Redick is making his mark in the NBA.
7. There was one team in NCAA Division I baseball that failed to win even one single game, and that team was the Coppin State Eagles. Turns out pitching was a big problem for Coppin State with Jonathan Reynolds "leading" the team in ERA with a Hideki Irabu-like 10.56 ERA in his 8 starts. Hey, the Mets need pitching.
8. Portsmouth is deeply buried in the relegation zone with no hope of getting ou this season in the English Premier League. They have scored a total of 5 goals on the road up until now, and are tied for worst in the leage with 19 goals thru Feb. 2. However, their leading scorer is Ivory Coast National Team player Aruna Dindane with 4. That's right, 4. Carlos Tevez had 3 goals... in ONE game recently.
9. The next battle of ineptitude I cooked up was the Battle of the Collins twins, Jason and Jarron. I compared their career stats, and Jason is outshining Jarron to the tune of 4.2 PPG and 4.3 RPG, while Jarron has scored 4.3 PPG and 3.1 RPG. The huge difference comes in money time with Jason getting 3.7 PPG and 4.4 RPG in the playoffs. Jarron wilts on the big stage averaging a Greg Kite-like 1.8 points and 1.7 rebounds per game.
10. The professional sports franchise I give the lifetime achievement award to for complete incompetence from top to bottom is the Los Angeles Clippers; which is why I was a little bit diappointed when I decided to use the franchise's all time leader in scoring average as the coup de grace. I was shocked to learn when I saw the Clippers' record book on NBA.com and read that World B. Free leads the franchise with a very impressive 29.4 PPG with a minimum of 200 games played and 4,000 points scored for the juggernaut San Diego Clippers. So, what was supposed to be a comedic ending turns out to be more of a shout out to one of the better players of his era, Mr. World B. Free.
I want to thank NBA.com, Yahoo Sports, MLB.com, and the Coppin State website for providing my nuggets of information that I was able to share, and thank you for coming to StrikeDownAlley.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Watched the Pro Bowl.. To See Something that Never Happened
Hi there, welcome to the inaugural version of StrikeDownAlley. I was very interested in making my first blog about the kicking prowess or lack thereof of Chad Ochocinco at the Pro Bowl. For me, that was maybe one of the only reasons to watch. I watched the entire game, and saw no kicks, so that leaves me to go into a simple recap with my own take on it.
The MVP of the game was decided by the midway point of the first quarter, and I knew that it was already decided after watching the Houston Texans trio of Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, and Mario Williams dominate their parts of the game. Brandon Marshall enjoyed his vacation away from Josh McDaniels by catching the other beautiful long bomb that Schaub dropped into his hands for the second, and MVP clinching, touchdown pass. Schaub went on to lead another very pedestrian touchdown drive that was unmemorable like much of the rest of the game.
After Schaub, the good performers were Mario Williams with his two sacks, Aaron Rodgers with two touchdown passes of his own, one to my Giant Steve Smith, DeSean Jackson from my nemesis Eagles had two touchdown catches, one on an impressive Dallas-like bubble screen, and Roddy White had himself a nice little day with eight catches for eighty four yards. On the AFC side, Vincent Jackson put up a very nice one twenty two and a sweet crack back block on Clay Matthews, and MJD and Chris Johnson had a TD run apiece.
The bad performances began before kickoff with that horrendous rendition of the National Anthem by Honor Society. I wish that Disney owned ESPN could've ventured outside the company for better talent. This is after all, the third tier All-Star Game watched only by sports junkies like me. Sports junkies don't want to see Honor Society. Once the game did start, however, Donovan McNabb stunk the joint up by having as many passes almost intercepted as he actually completed. As bad as he was, one of my favorites, Vince Young was worse. He short hopped Ochocinco on a short pattern, and threw a pick of his own to Asante Samuel, which had to happen eventually since he kept throwing it to him.
The ugly was more of what I see as over strategizing the game by having Dan Carpenter kick the whole game. ESPN whetted my appetite for seeing a kicking performance of some sort by Chad Ochocinco. I saw clips of his performance against New England, the clips from Pro Bowl practice, and the interview of Bob Holtzman. I waited for him to boot at least an extra point, and Norv didn't deliver. Chad was asking when he caught a pass that was short of a first down, and Norvelle ran Carpenter out there to shank it anyway. I watched the game to see Chad kick, and I got Honor Society, McNabb trying to convince teams not to trade for him, and a bright spot in the Texans showing they are on their way. I drove my wife crazy by pausing the game on the DVR so I could make dinner, take notes, and watch Chad kick. Oh well, like the Stones say, "You can't always get what you want". Unfortunately, I didn't even get what I needed.
-Steven Jr.
The MVP of the game was decided by the midway point of the first quarter, and I knew that it was already decided after watching the Houston Texans trio of Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, and Mario Williams dominate their parts of the game. Brandon Marshall enjoyed his vacation away from Josh McDaniels by catching the other beautiful long bomb that Schaub dropped into his hands for the second, and MVP clinching, touchdown pass. Schaub went on to lead another very pedestrian touchdown drive that was unmemorable like much of the rest of the game.
After Schaub, the good performers were Mario Williams with his two sacks, Aaron Rodgers with two touchdown passes of his own, one to my Giant Steve Smith, DeSean Jackson from my nemesis Eagles had two touchdown catches, one on an impressive Dallas-like bubble screen, and Roddy White had himself a nice little day with eight catches for eighty four yards. On the AFC side, Vincent Jackson put up a very nice one twenty two and a sweet crack back block on Clay Matthews, and MJD and Chris Johnson had a TD run apiece.
The bad performances began before kickoff with that horrendous rendition of the National Anthem by Honor Society. I wish that Disney owned ESPN could've ventured outside the company for better talent. This is after all, the third tier All-Star Game watched only by sports junkies like me. Sports junkies don't want to see Honor Society. Once the game did start, however, Donovan McNabb stunk the joint up by having as many passes almost intercepted as he actually completed. As bad as he was, one of my favorites, Vince Young was worse. He short hopped Ochocinco on a short pattern, and threw a pick of his own to Asante Samuel, which had to happen eventually since he kept throwing it to him.
The ugly was more of what I see as over strategizing the game by having Dan Carpenter kick the whole game. ESPN whetted my appetite for seeing a kicking performance of some sort by Chad Ochocinco. I saw clips of his performance against New England, the clips from Pro Bowl practice, and the interview of Bob Holtzman. I waited for him to boot at least an extra point, and Norv didn't deliver. Chad was asking when he caught a pass that was short of a first down, and Norvelle ran Carpenter out there to shank it anyway. I watched the game to see Chad kick, and I got Honor Society, McNabb trying to convince teams not to trade for him, and a bright spot in the Texans showing they are on their way. I drove my wife crazy by pausing the game on the DVR so I could make dinner, take notes, and watch Chad kick. Oh well, like the Stones say, "You can't always get what you want". Unfortunately, I didn't even get what I needed.
-Steven Jr.
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