Pope Update

Another bad day for the Administration and the press, as UK blows a golden chance to win at Auburn.  Instead, the Tigers break a five-game losing streak with a 75-74 win over the Cats, who are now 8-6 in the SEC, 17-10 overall, and 30 on Ken Pom.  After three losses in a row, the Cats are down to 250 in luck, so they may be due for another close win.

Meanwhile, the cream has risen to the top of the SEC.  The top four teams are all coached by men who have taken teams to the Final Four:

Florida:  12-2

Tennessee:  10-4

Arkansas:  10-4

Alabama:  10-4

Texas A & M:  9-5

Vanderbilt:  8-6

Kentucky:  8-6

Texas:  8-6

Missouri:  8-6

The Cats' next game is at South Carolina (3-11).  If they lose that one, they will be in grave danger of missing the NCAA's altogether.  While that may be inconvenient for UK fans, at least we have the comfort of knowing that Mitch Barnhart has the coach he wanted.  And isn't that what really matters?

Here's the Classic SEC ranking, according to Ken Pom:

5.  Florida:  21-6

13.  Vanderbilt:  21-6

14.  Tennessee:  20-7

20.  Alabama:  20-7

30.  Kentucky:  17-10

34.  Auburn:  15-12

37.  Georgia:  19-8

53.  Louisiana St:  14-13

82.  Mississippi:  11-16

90.  Mississippi St:  13-14

John Wooden in a Box

Many years ago, Bill James wrote a wonderful book about baseball managers.  My favorite part of the book was when he would insert a detailed analysis of a particular manager such as Whitey Herzog.  I'm not going to try the exact same format, but I do have a lot to say about college basketball coaches, so I'm going to try something similar with John Wooden and see how it goes.

JOHN WOODEN IN A BOX:

Where did he coach?  Indiana St., 1946-47 to 1947-48; U.C.L.A., 1948-49 to 1974-75

What was his record?  44-15 at Indiana St.; 620-147 at U.C.L.A.; total of 664-162 (.804)

What was his greatest accomplishment?  Between 1964 and 1975, John Wooden won the NCAA Basketball Tournament 10 times in 12 seasons.  It's the single greatest accomplishment in the history of men's college basketball, and one of the greatest coaching jobs in the history of American sports.

How was he as a recruiter?  During U.C.L.A.'s glory years, Wooden enjoyed a flood of talent unlike anything any other college basketball coach has ever seen.  He had Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton for three seasons each, and they are easily two of the greatest American basketball players of all time.  He also had a constant supply of other highly talented players.  In every game that he coached during those last twelve seasons, he had more talent than the team he was coaching against.

Of course, Wooden's methods are now controversial because it is widely believed that his players were obtaining illegal benefits from a local businessman named Sam Gilbert.  But I think two points should be made here.  First, at no point during Wooden's career was he seriously in trouble with the NCAA, nor was he ever regarded by the cynical reporters of his era as a "bad guy."  Second, it is extraordinarily difficult to run a dirty program and also get your players to play with discipline and heart -- and Wooden's teams consistently played harder than anyone else in college basketball.  It's not fair to hold Wooden now to standards that did not exist at the time.

One other point should be made here:  Wooden undoubtedly benefited, probably more than any other coach who ever lived, from the evils of segregation.  There was an enormous flood of African-American talent in college basketball during the Wooden era, but until the early 1970's, schools like UNC, Duke, and Kentucky were in no position to take advantage of that fact.  What if UK had supplemented its 1970 team with some of the talent that took Western to the Final Four in 1971?  What if Duke's 1964 team had access to African-American players?  What if UNC's great teams of the late 1960's and early 1970's had included players like Bob Lanier or Artis Gilmore?  By 1974, when U.C.L.A. lost to N. Carolina St., it was clear that the demographics of college basketball were changing.  But there were dozens of other coaches on the West Coast and in the Midwest who had similar opportunities to build a powerhouse in the 1960's and early 1970's, and none of them came close to Wooden's level of success.

How did he treat the referees?  Terrible.  Wooden is seen as a great gentleman, and in many ways he was, but he practiced that sort of Midwestern Christianity that encourages competition and winning -- and he was pretty much willing to do whatever it took to win within the rules.  He didn't have to bait the officials all that much -- usually his team was up by double digits.  But he wouldn't hesitate if he thought it would help.

Did players get better under his coaching?  Not only did they get better; most of them remained extremely loyal to Wooden for decades after they left U.C.L.A.  Bill Walton never stopped pushing the notion that the type of basketball he was taught by Wooden was the way basketball should be played.  Wooden's various books on how to coach basketball were bestsellers for decades -- there is no telling how many coaches used his drills and coaching plans.

Was he a system guy, or did he coach you up for a specific game?  Wooden was very much a system guy.  Every season, he would begin practice by teaching the players how to put on their socks.  His coaching books display a love of organization and order.  And he generally took the same approach to practice and preparation year after year.  He famously described himself as a teacher, and the games as exams, and said that his preference was to do as little as possible during the game, so that the players would be tested on what they could do on their own.

Still, his approach showed some fascinating differences from what we think of as the typical system approach.  In one of his books, for example, he specifically states that one of the reasons he prefers a fast-break style is because he thinks it is more popular with fans -- it's hard to imagine Bobby Knight caring what the fans thought of his offense.  Wooden was also extraordinarily good at developing and implementing a scheme that was designed to take advantage of the specific players he had on the roster.  In 1964 and 1965, he won back-to-back titles with one of the most usual great college basketball teams ever -- they were basically teams of guards who played at an extremely fast pace and used full court pressure to break down the other team.  Then he implemented a big-man system to take advantage of Lew Alcindor's unique talents.  Then he went back to pressing and defense once Alcindor graduated.  In 1970, when Artis Gilmore was a dominant player for Jacksonville, Wooden used the 6' 8" Sidney Wicks to guard Gilmore.  Wicks's jumping threw off Gilmore's game, Gilmore went 9-29 (!) from the field, and U.C.L.A. cruised to an 80-69 victory.  Wooden could do pretty much anything a coach is supposed to do.

Would he be successful today?  Absolutely.  I don't think anyone can dominate college basketball the way Wooden did -- talent is too disbursed.  And, of course, you couldn't keep players like Alcindor and Walton for three years in a row.  But Wooden was a genius, and he also had an obstinacy and determination to succeed that would come in handy now.  Imagine someone like Mark Few, but with NBA-quality talent and better talent in making in-game adjustments.

One of the most interesting things about Wooden is that he went from 1949 to 1963 without ever winning a title.  He was still very good -- his teams went to the NCAA's five times during that period, and made the Final Four in 1962.  But the lessons he learned during those 15 seasons undoubtedly made him a stronger coach in the dynasty years, and coaches don't always get that type of opportunity today.  On the other hand, guys like Matt Painter and Rick Barnes have very long and successful careers without winning it all, so I believe Wooden would get his chance now.  And the notion that he'd be unhappy with transfers and the like doesn't strike me as credible -- he was always very good at working within whatever restraints existed.  For a long time, U.C.L.A. didn't have a dedicated home gym.  At one point, the N.C.A.A. banned dunks an in effort to stop Alcindor.  Walton was politically outspoken.  Wooden did what he had to do and kept winning.  He'd do the same now.  He really loved to win, and he really hated to lose.

What would he have done without basketball?  He'd have found some other way to succeed.  Wooden was part of that great 20th century wave of Midwesterners who turned California into a showplace, and who made the United States the richest and most powerful country in the world.  They were a formidable group who knew almost everything there is to know about winning.  Wooden was also a first-class athlete -- he's in the Hall of Fame as a player -- and his Pyramid of Success (which he developed before he ever led U.C.L.A. to a single national title) is brilliant.  If there had been no basketball, I think he would have been the greatest football coach or baseball manager of all time.  If there had been no sports, he would have been one of those successful businesspeople who also write books about salesmanship and Jesus Christ.

Game Six

As we get closer to baseball season, we still need to work on our coverage of the 2025 World Series -- the best World Series in the last fifty years.

After the Dodgers won Game Three in 18 innings to take a 2-1 lead in the Series, the Blue Jays bounced back with two dominating performances in Dodger Stadium.  In Game Four, Toronto rolled to an easy 6-2 win.  And in Game Five, a dominating pitching performance by Trey Yesavage led the Jays an even easier 6-1 victory.  And so, after five games, the Blue Jays led three games to two, and Toronto only needed to win one more game at home to take the title.

However, all was not lost for the Dodgers, because they had Yoshinobu Yamamoto ready to go.  Yamamoto had pitched a complete game in Game Two to give L.A. a 5-1 victory, and now he was rested for Game Six.  In the regular season, Yamamoto had gone 12-8 with an ERA of 2.49 in 30 starts, and he had been even better in the playoffs.  Toronto responded with Kevin Gausman, who went 10-11 in the regular season with an ERA of 3.59.  Furthermore, George Springer -- the Blue Jay leadoff hitter -- was again healthy and back in the lineup.  A booming, boisterous crowd of 44,710 showed up in Toronto to see if the World Title was returning to Canada for the first time since 1993.

No one reached base in the first two innings, and one realized that the Dodgers had scored only four runs in the last 29 innings of play.  But then, in the top of the third, the Dodger bats finally showed some life.  Tommy Edman whacked a one-out double to right, and the Blue Jays walked Ohtani with two outs to put Dodgers on second and third.  Mookie Betts normally bats behind Ohtani, but Manager Dave Roberts had scrambled the lineup in the hopes of generating more runs, so the next batter was Will Smith, who doubled to left, bringing home Edman and sending Ohtani to third.  Freddy Freeman was up next, and Gausman walked him, loading the bases with two outs for Betts.  Mookie is no longer the hitter he used to be, which is why the Dodgers now play him at shortstop.  In fact, he would go only 4-29 in the World Series, for an average of .138.  But now he came through, pulling a single into left and scoring two huge runs, giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead after 2 1/2 innings.

Now it was up to Yamamoto to defend that lead.  He immediately gave back one run in the bottom of the third on a double by Addison Barger and a two-out single by Springer.  But that was it.  He retired the Jays in order in the 4th.  He stranded one runner in the 5th.  In the bottom of the 6th, he gave up a two-out double to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., walked Bo Bichette, and then struck out Daulton Varsho to end the inning.

It was all magnificent, but it was also clear that Yamamoto was finished.  He'd thrown 96 pitches in six innings, allowing only five hits and one run, but he couldn't go any further.  So now the troubled Dodger bullpen had to make that 3-1 lead stand up for three more innings.

First up was Justin Wrobleski, who went 5-5 with a 4.32 ERA in 2025.  He gave up a two out double to Ernie Clement, who was on fire, but struck out Andres Gimenez to end the inning.  Still 3-1 for the Dodgers.

But the Dodgers' offense is in a deep freeze, so the pressure remains on their pitchers.  It's now the bottom of the eighth, the Blue Jays have had runners in scoring position in each of the last two innings, and the Toronto fans are baying for runs.  The Dodgers now turn to Roki Sasaki, who has been their best relief pitcher in the playoffs, to face the top of Toronto's order.  Springer promptly greets him with a single to left.  Nathan Lukes, who is in a horrific slump, flies out to center, and Sasaki walks the dangerous Guerrero, putting Blue Jays on first and second with one out.  But Sasaki gets Bichette to foul out on a pop up, and he gets Varsho on a grounder to second.  Three outs to go.

Still leading 3-1, the Dodgers sent out Sasaki in the hopes that he could get the last three outs -- but he couldn't do it.  Plainly exhausted, he started the inning by hitting Alejandro Kirk.  And then Barger hit a tremendous drive to left.  At first, it looked like a home run, then it looked like it would surely score Myles Straw, who was running for Kirk.  But then the ball wedged itself between the padding on the left field wall and the ground, and just stuck there.  I've never seen that happen before in my life.  It was a ground rule double.  So, Straw was at third, and Barger was at second, with no one out.  The tying runs were on base, and the Series-winning run was coming to the plate.

That was all for Sasaki.  Pretty much out of good pitchers, Dave Roberts turned to Tyler Glasnow, who had been expected to be the Game Seven starter for L.A.  Obviously, without some excellent pitching, the Dodgers were never going to make it to Game Seven.  So Glasnow entered the game.  He quickly retired Clement on a pop up to Freeman.  One pitch.  One out.

The next batter was Andres Gimenez, the number-nine hitter.  But even if he was retired, Springer -- who had already gone 2-4 in this game, was on deck.  Here's what happened:

Glasnow v. Gimenez:

Pitch 1:  Ball high (1-0)

Pitch 2:  Gimenez hits a sinking line drive to left.  At first, the crowd thinks it's a game-tying single, and there's a huge roar from the crowd.  But the ball is hit just a shade too hard, and it's not sinking fast enough.  Kike Hernandez, the Dodger left fielder, is charging, and he makes the catch on the dead run.  Two outs.  But Hernandez isn't finished, because Barger -- who thought the ball would drop in -- has wandered toward third base.  Now Barger is trying desperately to get back to the bag, but Hernandez never stops -- while still running toward second from his position in left, he immediately pulls the ball from his glove and throws to Miguel Rojas, the Dodger second baseman.  Rojas has a foot on the bag, just like a first baseman, while Barger is now flying back toward second in a head first slide, trying to beat the ball.  Rojas fields the ball on a tricky hop, loses his balance, and falls over backward, holding the ball up in his glove to show the second base umpire that he held on.  Barger is kneeling on the bag, helmet off, watching the umpire -- who immediately signals OUT!  The replay shows that Barger's outstretched fingers were about six inches from the bag when the ball bounced into Rojas's glove.  By the tiniest of margins, the ball has beaten Barger, and the GAME IS OVER.  It's a game ending 7-4 double play, and the Series is TIED at three games apiece.

It had been an amazingly close game.  According to the stats gurus, the Dodgers had a 55 percent chance of winning after the ground rule double put runners on second and third with no out.  In other words, at that point both teams had almost equal chances of victory.  Even after the popup, with one out and men on second and third, Toronto still had a 29 percent chance to win.  Instead, they had lost on a spectacular defensive play.  Yamamoto got his second victory of the Series.

This game was one of the best Game Sixes ever played, and it set up the first Game Seven of the World Series in six years.  And that game would be even better.

Huge Day for College Basketball

Two huge games today (AP rankings in parentheses):

2 P.M. Central:  (2) Houston v. (4) Arizona

5:30 P.M. Central:  (3) Duke v. (1) Michigan (in Washington, D.C.)

I can't remember another day where the four teams in the AP Top Four were all playing each other.

In Houston, the Cougars lead Arizona 44 to 42 with 14:04 left in the second half.

Meanwhile, in Nashville, Tennessee picked up a huge road win over Vanderbilt, beating the Commodores 69 to 65.  UT now leads the all-time series 133-77.  Rick Barnes owns Vandy:  the Vols have won 15 of the last 17 in the series.

After its January 10 win over LSU, Vandy was 3-0 in the SEC and 16-0 overall.  They were also up to Number 5 on Ken Pom.  But since that time, they have gone 5-6, with heartbreaking losses at home to Florida (98-94), Oklahoma (92-91), and now UT (69-65).  The Dores are now down to 13 on Ken Pom, and 199 in luck.  But more importantly, they are only 8-6 in the SEC, and they still have to play Kentucky, Ole Miss, and Tennessee on the road.  Ken Pom thinks they will finish 10-8 in the SEC, and 23-8 overall.  That probably means that they will need to pull a big upset to reach the semi-final of the SEC Tournament, or the Regional Semi-Finals of the NCAA Tournament.  At the end of the day, Vandy has some really good guards, but their front line just isn't physical enough to play at a high level against Top 20 teams.  Going forward, Coach Byington -- who has still had a great year -- will need to go out and get some bigger dudes.

Meanwhile, Kansas got thumped at home by Cincinnati, 84 to 68.  We've always said you don't want to leave it late and close in the Phog, and the Bearcats did not.  Cincinnati has suddenly won four straight in the Big XII.  They are 7-7 in conference and 15-12 overall, and up to 46 on Ken Pom.  KU falls to 10-4 in conference, 20-7 overall, and 19 on Ken Pom.  Their next two games are home to Houston, and on the road at Arizona.

Florida goes to Oxford and hammers Ole Miss, 94 to 75.  The Gators are now 12-2 in the SEC, 21-6 overall.  They are on a massive roll, and they will be very tough to beat in both the SEC tournament and the NCAA Tournament.  Their next two games are at a very hot Texas team, and then home to Arkansas.

St. John's won its 13th game in a row, beating Creighton 81-52 in the Garden.  The Johnnies are now 15-1 in the Big East and 22-5 overall.  They have a huge game at UConn on Wednesday night.

It's shaping up to be another great Tournament -- just like last year.  College basketball looks the best I can remember since the 1990's.

We are not going to have a fluke champion this year.  The winner will be one of these teams:  Michigan, Arizona, Duke, Houston, Florida, or UConn.

XXV Olympic Winter Games, Milan Cortina 2026 (More Again)

Ski mountaineering is the only new Winter Olympics sport, and the first medals are being hashed out today. 

Wikipedia casts ski mountaineering as another offshoot of the military-patrol tree which also yielded the biathlon branch. (All-time medals leaders in military patrol, which was officially competed only once, at Chamonix 1924: 1, Switzerland 1 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze; 2 Finland 0 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze; 3, France 0 gold, 0 silver, 1 bronze.)

At least in the events they are showing on USA Network this morning, this is a three-minute deal of skiing uphill and then downhill. You start out in front of a big grandstand of fans like they throw up at a fancy country club for a golf major. First, you navigate the "diamond section" by filing into one of two lanes through a maze of obstacles. Then you go up some stairs, and then you go down a twisty, rampy path back down toward the grandstand. The whole deal has the feel of something that rich kids would figure out on the fly for one last competitive rush after their moms texted them to get back to the clubhouse for $40 chicken strips (i.e. Bro, you've gotta go through the landscaping on the way up and tag the fountain at the top, and you've got to do at least one jump on the way down ... Ready! ... Go!).

I don't envy the TV people who are tasked with both introducing me to a curious sport like this and emotionally investing me in the competitive landscape basically all in the same breath. There has been a good bit of talk about the precision required in equipment changes, even when heart rates are very elevated, and just how treacherous the course really is ("It never looks as steep as it actually is!"). It doesn't help NBC, of course, that Team USA isn't much a medal threat in today's events. But rest assured, they said, that the American dude is actually more of a distance guy, which better positions him for some other, presumably longer event Saturday. The juice they are really trying to squeeze is ski-mountaineering juggernaut Spain, which has won only five Winter Olympics all time, none at Milan Cortina and only one gold ever, at Sapporo 1972.

For me, though, the star of today's show is the snow. It is thick and beautiful over Bormio this (my) morning (their afternoon). Milan Cortina 2026 is down to three days and change of competition. I've enjoyed so much of it so far, and I'm going to enjoy every last second of it that I can--ski mountaineering and whatever else--through Sunday night. 

Spoiler alerts in the comments ...