Sports

Good Lord, no -- shut up about this before it puts an idea in somebody's head:

ATLANTA (AP) -Embattled New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas sidestepped whether he's interested in talking with Indiana University about its head coaching position.

No matter what Dan Dakich brings to the table -- he knows the IU culture and system -- his 3-4 record since taking over for Kelvin Sampson is probably enough to get him passed over:

Now IU has a 10-person search committee, which some call excessive when they're not ripping the Hoosiers' timing in announcing it a few days before last week's one-and-done NCAA tourney debacle.

If your basketball team is behind, it's obviously because the refs are incompetent or crooked. And if you get a lousy slot in the tournament, something is fishy, too:

Shock and surprise were the initial reactions. Stemler said he thought the Hoosiers would probably be around a No. 6 seed. ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi in his final bracketology report Sunday afternoon had Indiana as a No. 5 seed.

Gadzooks, what a game! Indiana vs. Purdue, both in the top 15 nationally, the leadership of the Big 10 on the line, Purdue staying close but finally getting beaten 77-68 by Indiana. Easily the biggest game (for us here) of the season, and because it was on ESPN instead of the Big 10 Network, I actually got to watch it.

Why was Mark Souder so mad? 

Not everyone picked sides. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) was ticked at everyone. He condemned the sport's owners and players.

"The wall of silence coming out of baseball is disgusting," he said, adding it couldn't be trusted to do its own testing.

Kelvin Sampson is in big trouble and, if there's any justice, so is Indiana University:

Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson and his staff violated telephone recruiting restrictions imposed because of his previous violations at Oklahoma, then lied about it to the school and NCAA investigators, according to an NCAA report released Wednesday.

Did anybody really expect him to just quietly fade away?

Resigned, not retired. Resigned, not retired.

I like The San Francisco Chronicle's Ray Ratto's take on the departure of Bobby Knight:

But as he leaves, at least for the moment, let's forget the argument and consider what Knight takes with him - the notion of the coach as the pre-eminent figure in athletics.

OK, I'm not the greatest sports fan in the world, but does anybody disagree that this was the biggest upset in Super Bowl history? Granted, Eli did not go on "The Tonight Show" and correctly predict the victory the way Joe Namath did. But the Giants prevented the Patriots from having only the second perfect record in NFL history. The 1972 record is still good, Mr. Shula.

And it was back-to-back Manning victories -- that's the real story. Gonna be a heck of a Thanksgiving dinner at Archie's house.

For a change, the game was more interesting than the commercials.

I used to be a fairly regular bowler, but it's something I no longer pursue. I don't think I've been in a bowling alley for 10 years, and I haven't kept up with the game. So I found this intriguing:

Brad Bowman now owns 51 perfect games. Yet this one was different.