Bob Knight Retires

Just as I am having an emotional high from the Super Bowl, I hear on XL 950 Radio that Bobby Knight has stepped down as the coach of Texas Tech. His son, Pat will step in and take over. I have seen about three Texas Tech games this year. All of them on CW4 locally. I do appreciate them putting on some games. They have been showing a lot of Big East games the past weekends. I am thankful for that because I don't have cable/satellite TV, which inevitably means no Big Ten network or ESPN. So I do have withdrawals occasionally, but I do know that I need to treasure the games that I do get to see. Anyhow, I am really surprised about the decision because it's a mid-season decision in the middle of the conference schedule. While I was watching the TT games earlier this year all I saw was Coach Knight sitting down an awful lot and Pat being in his ear the entire game. So based on that right there, I am not surprised, I just didn't expect it at this time in the season.
For all the negative things that Coach Knight gets publicized for (I just did a Google image search for Bob Knight and the 4th pic was the chair toss, and the fifth was the choke), there is no one that can deny the impact that Knight had on the game of basketball. His motion offense is second to none. His players always understood the game. His man defense was always stifling. Another thing that always stood out to me was the fact that the ones who graduated from IU and went on to play in the NBA never had amazing stand out careers. I know Allen Henderson has been around forever and Calbert Cheaney bounced around for a while, but really Isiah Thomas is really the only one who was head and shoulders a real good NBA player. To me this stood out that his players knew how to "play" basketball the way that it was supposed to play. I am not knocking the NBA but the NBA is a different brand of basketball and typically lends itself to athleticism and finding matchup problems. Players who played for Knight understood how to be successful at life. He might have gone about it a different way than I would like, but his players knew what it took to be successful. His players had respect for him, their opponents, and the game itself. Today the winningest coach in history has stepped down and the coaching world has lost one of the game's biggest influences.

Giants Pull the Upset!, Patriots Choke?

Right before the game started I made my prediction that New York would pull the upset and beat the Patriots 24-21. I made my prediction based on a few things -
1. The Giants play great on the road.
2. They lost to the Pats the first time by 3.
3. They had guys who were capable of putting pressure on Brady.
4. Eli was playing great ball.
5. Brandon Jacobs is bigger than 3 of the 4 New England Linebackers.
6. The Pats are older and playing 18 games might take a toll.
6. Karma might have been on their side.

Okay, the last one was just a plain stretch but to go undefeated all year, including the Super Bowl, well, it's only been done once before. So, basically, it had a 1/41 chance of pulling that off. I just think that the Giants had the perfect personnel to be able to beat New England. All year it has been Brady standing in the pocket for an amazing amount of time just waiting for Welker and Moss to get open, beating the coverage downfield or underneath. But when he gets pressured, and oh boy did the front four of the Giants put pressure on Brady tonight, he seems out of Sync. There was no, "Moss, Open Deep" or "Play Artist - Pats Running Game." The front four played amazingly, and when that rookie had that last sack for the Patriots when Brady was on his back calling for a timeout, I knew that it was over. Maybe it was Brady's ankle, but I doubt it. He didn't look as if he was having trouble pushing off of it, although he had a lot of balls that were underthrown. All week I kept seeing Belichick saying to his players "Just do your job." I could not have agreed with him more. If the Pats would just have done their job, then everything would have probably wound up a win for the Pats. I don't think the Pats didn't do their jobs, I just credit the Giants for not letting them. The front 4 for New York just flat out dominated their offensive counterparts. New England couldn't even incorporate any of the screens that Brady usually gets to Faulk. He did use Welker and Gaffney on a few WR screens but you usually see the RB screens from New England. During the game, I just kept wondering if Vrabel, Seau, Bruschi, and Thomas where in the game. Thomas had that sack/fumble on Manning, but I don't remember even seeing Vrabel, Seau, or Bruschi even making a tackle. Maybe I have a bad memory, but nothing really steps out in my mind, you know, there is always that play that one of them makes in every game that turns out to be huge. I just checked the stats Bruschi - 8 tackles, Vrabel & Seau - 2 each, and Thomas had 5. More than I expected, they must have in the first half, because I don't remember much of them.

I thought when the Pats had that drive when they were rolling that the game was shifting sails and the Pats were going to pull it out. Brady got in a groove and just marched right down the field and set up the Moss TD. What happened to Webster on that play? I mean seriously, I think I could have fell down like that and tripped over my own feet just as well. With that being said, he did an excellent job on Moss the other 75 plays of the game. (Except that same series when Moss was on the left side and Brady missed him, but no one will remember that blunder either).

Offensive Impact Player of the Game -
David Tyree - 3 Catches - 1 TD (his first of the season) - 1 helmet catch (after Manning made an amazing escape on 3 and 5 for 32 yards)

Defensive Impact Player of the Game -
New York D Lineman - 4 Sacks (Kawika Mitchell had the 5th on a blitz) and countles knock downs and hurries
Antonio Pierce - 11 Tackles - he always seemed to make a big stop. And for some reason was always in the area where Moss was being tackled. I was perplexed as some of this because Moss was so open on those little routes he was running.

So I am wondering if that the Giants have pulled the biggest upset ever, or is the biggest choke ever? Leave a comment about this I would love to have some conversation. Since I am usually a very positive guy I would consider this to lean in favor of the Giants as pulling the upset. I just think the Patriots didn't play their best ball and New York played the best that they could and a little bit more. They were definitely the aggressors. And I guess Karma does come back to haunt you. Maybe the Patriots won't challenge the integrity of the game by running up the scores the way they did this year. I would hope that they will respect the game and the unwritten laws of sportsmanship a little more from now on.