The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: The Kobalt Tools 500 from Atlanta
The Good: A dominate day by Kurt Busch. It was nice to see the Blue Deuce run up front like it did in the days it was driven by Rusty Wallace. Given how strong Kurt has been to start this season, look for the other Dodge teams to be switching to the new Dodge engine sooner than later. Another great run from Jeff Gordon, look for him in the winners circle at a track near you in the not so distant future. Also, great runs from the Childress duo of Harvick and Bowyer. Clint is now second in the standing, and may be the best driver in the RCR stables.
The Bad: A terrible day for Kyle Busch, but it also showed his maturity, hanging in for an 18th place finish. In the past he would have just wrecked. Also, more problems for Mark Martin keeps him in the Top-35 danger zone. This isn’t the type of season we were looking for from Hendrick’s 5 bunch.
The Ugly: Not only did a tire get loose on pit road, but the crewman tried to chase it down, putting himself in danger and completely changing the tone of the race. The resulting caution, in the middle of green flag stops, left only nine cars on the lead lap early in the race and left many contending cars one or two laps down.
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Temple Men’s BBall vs. St. Joe
The Good: A great team game played by the Owls, with 16 assist on 21 made field
The Owls and Hawks Tip-off
goals. The Owls consistanly looked for each other and made a lot of easy shots as a result. This continued on the defensive end as well, highlighted by senior Sergio Olmos, who held St. Joe’s leading scorer Ahmad Nivins to a 6 for 16 shooting night, 27 points lower than his season shooting average. Sergio also showed great spurts on the offensive end. Dionte Christmas also seemed to end his shooting funk, hitting several large shots when St. Joe’s pulled to withing two late in the game.
The Bad: Really, is there anything bad when Temple beats St. Joe?
The Ugly: The game was real chippy late, and Sergio Olmos took exception late in the game shoving Tasheed Carr after after an extra hard foul that should have been called flagrant. If a guys winds up, it’s usually intentional. Another ugly spot in the second half when the referees allowed a St. Joe’s basket on a shot the was clearly taken after the shot clock had expired. Even if it hadn’t, it was close enough that replay should have been used, a request made by the Temple bench that was ignored by the officials. (Overall, it was a well officiated game, at least compared to the typical horrible officiated in many TU-SJU games.)
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: The Shelby 427 at Las Vegas
The Good: Kyle Busch wins the pole, starts dead last because of an engine change, takes his time and works his way to the win. The driver a lot people love to hate (I’m sure Jeff Gordon loves not having the title anymore) is maturing into on of, if not the best driver on the circuit. He has already won at least one event in each of the three major touring series (Truck, N’wide and Cup), but is also showing the smarts that many have questioned. Kyle is establishing himself as the early favorite to win the cup, showing that he has learned from last years miserable chase.
It’s also great to see Bobby Lebonte run up front again, finishing fifth on Sunday and moving up to tenth in points. Bobby is a class act and was a great champion in his years at Gibbs. I hope he continues his strong runs.
The Bad: Cautions galore, in fact, a record 14 cautions, mostly caused by one car wrecks. Drivers were loosing it big time coming out of the turns.
The Ugly: Blown engines galore. Matt Kenseth’s shot at history never got off the ground, blowing up on lap six. Teammate David Ragan’s engine blew soon there after. Teammates Carl Edwards engine blew on the white flag lap. Mark Martin’s engine blew for the second week in a row, dropping him to 34th in points. These are two of, if not the two, best teams in racing. What’s going on if they’re blowin’ up like that?
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Temple Men’s Basketball vs. LaSalle
The Good: Nothing good if you’re a Temple fan. Temple was outplayed from the onset. LaSalle played great defense, clogged all the passing lanes, got up and down the floor and attacked the basket. The Owls were spectators.
The Bad: Another terrible game from Dionte Christmas, as well as the rest of the team. The lowlight was Semaj Inge getting called for a technical. You need to keep your head!!!
The Ugly: As a result of this lose, the Owls have gone from a chance to win the A-10 regular seasing to fourth place. The only way for the Owls to now make the NCAA tournament is to win the A-10 tournament, which given the tallent among the top teams in the league will not be easy.
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, Temple Men’s Basketball vs. Richmond
The Good: Another home victory in front of a decent crowd. A double – double from F/C Lavoy Allen despite the fact that his teammates, in my opinion, didn’t give him the ball in good places to score. Getting to the foul line early and often, shooting almost 80% from the foul line , going 38 of 48 from the line, with most of the misses coming in the first half (see The Ugly). Ryan Brooks making some key shops.
The Bad: Another slow start with Sergio Olmos starting for an injured Craig Williams. Williams later entered the game and the offense immediately rose in intensity. A terrible shooting night, shooting 36% from the field and 23% from 3-point range.
The Ugly: The entire first half, which ended with Temple holding a 16-13 edge.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Temple Men’s Basketball vs. St. Louis
The Good: LaVoy Allen’s quick start. It was obvious that LaVoy had a big advantage over the player defending him and that the game plan was to get it inside early. Not only did they do this, LaVoy continued to convert and, most importanly, the team stayed with the offensive game plan.
The Bad: Second half turnovers. Because of the score, this became a very ugly schoolyard game where Temple’s players tried to force fancy plays instead of just moving the ball, killing the clock and playing sound, fundemental basketball like good teams do when in similar situations.
The Ugly: Injuries. Two major injuries in the game, the first to Dionte Christmas who had a cut over his eye. According to the post game report he needed a couple of sticthes. Worse was the injury to St. Louis guard Kwamain Mitchell collided with a teammate and appeared to have a head or neck injury. My thoughts are with him for a speedy recovery. He was playing hard the entire game despite the score and looks to be a heck of a ball player.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: President Obama’s Inaugeral
The Good: President Obama’s Inaugeral address. It was a good speech, not a great speech, not a bad speech. Given the President’s tallent as an orator, I’m not sure he could have met all of the expectations. Overall, a B+.
Also, President Obama’s executive order preventing anyone leaving his White House from becoming a lobbyist.
The Bad: The invocation, people placing the speech on a pedistal it didn’t deserve (one media person stated that the speech should be etched in granite). Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
The Ugly: A tax cheat running the IRS. (Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner).
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