By all rights, Thursday night’s UCLA-Arizona tilt in Tucson should have been one of the most unwatchable games on television all season: One team that just fired its head coach on the heels of its fifth consecutive defeat, hosting another that’s more than likely going to fire its head coach before the year is out. In fact, after watching his charges give up touchdowns on six consecutive first-half possessions en route to a 42-7 halftime deficit, UCLA boss Rick Neuheisel had to be contemplating whether he would even make it through the weekend or the final gun. Most of the viewing audience was contemplating switching to the World Series.

[Related: Who will win and lose in Week 8 matchups?]

Suddenly, with two seconds to play in the half and the novelty of the Bruins’ meltdown fading into a kind of dirge, into the scene jogged a scrawny interloper with a whistle, a pair of ill-fitting pants and a startling talent for chaos:

In case you need to watch that again, keep an eye on the top of the screen from the start of the video. That’s right: The streaker comes off the Arizona sideline dressed as a referee, blows the play dead before the snap, attempts to take the ball from an actual official, then proceeds to sprint toward one of the end zones while removing his costume. Meanwhile, with officials and security occupied with the streaker, a verbal sparring match between a group of players escalates into a shoving match, which quickly becomes a sideline-clearing melee involving virtually everyone on the field.

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Cooler heads prevailed before things escalated into Miami-Florida International or Southern-Arkansas-Pine Bluff territory, but not before two players — Arizona cornerback Shaquille Richardson and UCLA receiver Tyler Embree, the son of Colorado head coach Jon Embree — had been ejected from the game. (Usually, an ejection means a suspension for at least the first half of the following game, as well.) The fate of the streaker is unclear. Presumably, he was apprehended. If so, the new shrine in his honor back at the frat house will be worth it.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Arizona is 1-5, in last place in the Pac-12 South and as of tonight, it’s without a head coach: After seven-and-a-half years, Mike Stoops has been officially fired, per a university release. He’ll be replaced on an interim basis by defensive coordinator Tim Kish, and whatever sense of shame comes with exiling the man who led you out of the wilderness right back into it.

The negativity in Tucson — or, worse, the apathy — is no surprise: The Wildcats closed 2010 on a five-game losing streak, and have currently dropped five straight after an opening-day gimme against Northern Arizona, extending their losing streak against I-A/FBS opponents to ten games. That’s bad, and the attendance at Arizona Stadium is beginning to look even worse. But in the short term, it’s also more or less exactly what everyone expected: With a dozen new starters, an entirely new offensive line, a rash of preseason injuries and the most brutal early schedule in the country, they may as well have painted “REBUILDING YEAR, OK?” in the end zones.

Take the the current five-game losing streak. The first three of those losses came against teams currently ranked in the top ten (Oklahoma State, Oregon and Stanford) with a combined record of 14-1. The fourth was a seven-point road loss to the most talented team in the league, USC, which currently sits at 4-1. Literally everyone in America who follows college football expected this particular edition of Arizona to lose those four games.

Saturday’s 37-27 flop at previously winless Oregon State was not so foregone. The Beavers came into the game riding a six-game skid of their own that included September losses to Sacramento State and UCLA, and had Arizona in a 30-6 hole in the third quarter before a late Wildcat rally made the final score somewhat presentable. That’s a bad loss for Arizona, and a bad sign for the prospects of the team to pull a one-eighty when the schedule lightens a bit over the second half of the season. There is no conclusion to reach that doesn’t end with the fact that Arizona, in October of 2011, is a bad football team.

But regardless of the current record, there’s also no denying it’s a dramatically better football program than the one Stoops inherited in 2004 on the heels of four consecutive losing seasons, the last two of which featured a) a player mutiny against head coach John Mackovic in 2002 and b) Mackovic’s termination after a 1-4 start in 2003. That team finished 2-10. Stoops’ first two teams in 2004 and 2005 both finished 3-8.

From there, the Wildcats demonstrably improved four years in a row, falling just short of bowl bids in 2006 and 2007 before breaking through with back-to-back eight-win seasons in 2008-09. In ’09, they were in the thick of the Rose Bowl race in late November; last year, they spent eleven weeks in the top 25, climbing as high as No. 9 and holding in the top 20 through Thanksgiving. They won eight games against ranked opponents in six years. They went to three consecutive bowl games for the first time since 1992-94.

Then they didn’t even let him stick around long enough to see the streak end. The Wildcats have six games left after a bye week, all of them potentially winnable with the meat of the conference schedule in the rear-view, and a chance to build toward a solid rebound with a more veteran lineup returning in 2012. The foundation for a consistent winner is still in place; the coach who laid it is not.

Maybe the low expectations of a “rebuilding year” are part of the problem in and of themselves — after eight years, who’s still “building” on such a scale that justifies a regression below .500? The sense of stagnation is very real. Maybe new athletic director Greg Byrne took a look at the ashes-to-glory trajectory at Stanford over the last five years and thought, “Why not us?” Maybe he’s got the next Jim Harbaugh lined up to take the reins in 2012, and all of Stoops’ defenders are going to look like shortsighted sentimentalists in three or four years. Then again, maybe he has the next Walt Harris, or Tyrone Willingham, or John Mackovic, and Wildcat fans will be reminded in short order just why they were so patient with Stoops in the first place.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Certain recent developments probably rendered this a foregone conclusion, but just in case there was any doubt: The NCAA has officially upheld its original decision to suspend five Ohio State players — four of them senior offensive starters expected to form the core of another Big Ten and BCS championship run — for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling jerseys, rings and other tokens of Buckeye pride to a local tattoo parlor.

That much we expected. This, we didn’t: Coach Jim Tressel has decided to join them for the duration. The Senator has “voluntarily” extended his university-imposed suspension from two games to five games in atonement for sitting on information about potential violations for some eight months before the tattoo parlor case came to the university and NCAA’s attention last December, then remained silent for another month still. “Throughout this entire situation my players and I have committed ourselves to facing our mistakes and growing from them,” Tressel said in a statement. “We can only successfully do that together.” OK then. They’ll be on ice together — barred from the stadium or communicating with anyone in the stadium during games — until mid-October.

Ohio State had appealed to reduce the players’ suspensions, even by just one game, in hopes of getting quarterback Terrelle Pryor, running back Boom Herron, wide receiver DeVier Posey and offensive tackle Mike Adams back in time for the Big Ten opener against Michigan State on Oct. 1. Instead, the Buckeyes will be operating without their head coach, starting quarterback, starting tailback, most reliable deep threat and starting left tackle until Oct. 8, when they visit Nebraska. They’ll have to wait three more weeks to make their return to Ohio Stadium, when Wisconsin comes to Columbus on Oct. 29.

Whether the Buckeyes’ championship ambitions can survive that long is anyone’s guess. The interim quarterback in Pryor’s absence could very well be a true freshman, prized local signee Braxton Miller, or a redshirt freshman who’s never taken a college snap, Taylor Graham. That’s fine for the first two games, MAC-rificial visits from instate lambs Akron and Toledo; after that, though, there’s an ominous trip to Miami on Sept. 17, followed by home dates with Colorado and Michigan State that threaten to derail the season before it really begins. On the bright side, the decision to add a fifth game to the players’ suspensions (on top of the usual four) in exchange for keeping them eligible to play in the Sugar Bowl seem to work out exactly as Ohio State hoped.

In the meantime, OSU continues to brace itself for the verdict that could inflict a much deeper, more lasting wound, as the NCAA continues its probe into how, when and why Tressel kept his mouth shut for so long. Here, Ohio State’s initial response — a two-game suspension and $250,000 fine for Tressel — seemed woefully inadequate for a major, intentional violation of an NCAA bylaw (10.1) that has eventually cost almost every other coach who’s run afoul of it their jobs, in multiple sports. The sterner wrist-slapping today seems like a bare minimum penance in response to a week of steadily negative press from all corners. And frankly, the NCAA could very well buy that: It’s always tended to look favorably on programs’ efforts to police themselves, and typically upholds self-imposed penalties with only very minor adjustments.

On the other hand, the NCAA does not tend to look favorably on being essentially lied to and/or manipulated. In the long run, the next judgment still has the potential to make the first five games of 2011 look like a fleeting pinprick.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Filed under: Bobcats, Cavaliers, Celtics, Clippers, Grizzlies, Hawks, Jazz, Knicks, Lakers, Magic, Mavericks, Nets, Nuggets, Pacers, Rockets, Suns, Trail Blazers, NBA Rumors, Thunder, NBA Transactions

PLANET LOVETRON, NBA UNIVERSE — Woe to those NBA fans who own an authentic or replica jersey or T-shirt of one of the following players:

Gerald Wallace, Dante Cunningham, Joel Przybilla, Aaron Brooks, Goran Dragic, Nazr Mohammed, D.J. White, Morris Peterson, Shane Battier, Hasheem Thabeet, Semih Erden, Luke Harangody, Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, Baron Davis, Marquis Daniels, Jamario Moon and Mo Williams.

Those men, including draft picks and canvas sacks of cash were traded in copious amounts at one of the most active NBA trade deadlines in memory. Fans, meanwhile, will need to find cash to buy new merchandise or risk being ridiculed for being ironic in wearing an out-of-date jersey.

One day after the Utah Jazz and New Jersey Nets left jaws agape when the Jazz sent All-Star point guard Deron Williams to the Nets for point guard Devin Harris, rookie forward Derrick Favors, two first round picks and dough, the Celtics stunned many when they sent starting center Perkins and bench energizer Robinson to Oklahoma City for forward Green and center Kristic.
]]> http://www.flasports.net/2011/02/24/nba-trade-deadline-sees-flurry-of-deals/feed/ 0 http://www.flasports.net/2011/02/20/dwight-howard-eligible-now-to-sign-contract-extension-with-orlando/ http://www.flasports.net/2011/02/20/dwight-howard-eligible-now-to-sign-contract-extension-with-orlando/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 04:44:44 +0000 admin http://www.flasports.net/2011/02/20/dwight-howard-eligible-now-to-sign-contract-extension-with-orlando/ by Chris Tomasson

Filed under: Knicks, Lakers, Magic, NBA Rumors

LOS ANGELES — Orlando center Dwight Howard has been telling anybody who will listen lately there’s nothing he can do now about his contract situation.

That’s wrong. Howard is eligible now to sign a two-year extension with the Magic that would take him through the 2014-15 season.

Howard, who was drafted with the top pick in 2004, signed a five-year extension July 12, 2007 that kicked in for the 2008-09 season. He has the ability to opt out of that deal and become a free agent in the summer of 2012.

However, Howard has been eligible to sign an extension with the Magic since July 12, 2010. That was the first allowed day due to it being the three-year anniversary of when he had signed previously.

“Since the third anniversary of signing his extension has passed, he is eligible to extend,” an NBA official confirmed in an e-mail to FanHouse on Saturday night about Howard.
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