Sports, continued

Last time I talked about football. Today it's basketball.

Locally, the Dallas Mavericks are close to not making it in the playoffs. They're one of the bubble teams that has to not only win, but depend on the other bubble teams to lose. Not only that, they are without Dirk Nowitski for maybe a few more games - games in which he is desperately needed. The Mavs started slipping after the Jason Kidd trade, and while it's easy to just blame Kidd, it's not necessarily his fault. Someone like Kidd is different from what the Mavs are used to, and his entry into the team is disruptive to team chemistry. Adjusting accordingly is going to take a while - maybe more than the games we have left in the season. Come post season - if we are in it - perhaps the Mavs are going to have to learn very quickly, or they're going to get bounced out faster than Eliot Spitzer was as governor of New York.

In the meantime, the college basketball playoffs are going on, and I couldn't care less this season. No more of my teams are in, so I don't care anymore, other than to show the BCS how a playoff series should go. For that reason alone, I hope that the Final Four is as exciting as this year's Super Bowl. In local sports news, TCU's men's basketball team recently let go of Neil Dougherty after six seasons. In those six seasons, he had only one 20+ wins season. He's a decent guy, but he wasn't cutting it as a coach. It was time to try someone else.

I miss Billy Tubbs, though, and his high-speed and high-scoring style of basketball. It wasn't Billy Tubbs that TCU hired, though, but Jim Christian from Kent State. During his six years, he's been winning, and I hope that he carries that over to here. In the last month of the basketball season, former coach Dougherty had encouraged fans to come to the games, and some did. But it's not enough to cite school pride to bring fans to the game, the home team also needs to win games, and that they didn't do enough of. Here's hoping that Christian will make a difference.