Chin up, Kenny Tate. That hideous uniform may be your program's ticket to relevance.

The Maryland Terrapins debuted the first of what will likely be many new uniforms on Monday night: Two-Face-style unis inspired by the bipolar Maryland state flag.

Maryland

It’s hard to tell which side of the uniform is Harvey Dent and which is his evil half; each is criminally ugly.

Hideous though they may be, Maryland’s new uniforms could be a big first step down a lightly trodden path to national relevance. In a story last week at Grantland.com, Michael Kruse described how an emerging program built itself on a long line of fashion faux-pas:

Oregon clearly is the beneficiary of its unique relationship with Nike boss Phil Knight, a 1959 alum who has used his fortune to give the Ducks every potential material advantage. But the most consistently conspicuous portion of Knight’s lavish contributions are the team’s much-discussed uniforms — the yellows and the greens, the blacks and the grays, the highlighter neons and the stormtrooper whites, the many different helmets and jerseys and pants and socks and shoes, the more than 500 possible combinations in all.

The football Ducks of Oregon are something new. They didn’t get people to watch because they got good. They got good because they got people to watch. They are college sports’ undisputed champions of the 21st century’s attention economy.

Now comes Maryland, the first true challenger to Oregon’s primacy in the “attention economy.” UnderArmor, based in Baltimore and founded by former Maryland football player Kevin Plank, has outfitted the Terps for several years. This season, however, is the first for which UnderArmor has rolled out an Oregon-style menu of designs.

Cowabunga, dude!

It’s not clear how many possible outfits Maryland can build. At a fashion show debuting the new looks, 16 players wore 16 different uniforms. Some feature a bizarre white helmet with gray squiggles, designed to look like a tortoise shell.

As Kruse notes, several other schools are adopting Oregon’s look: West Virginia, Boise State, Arizona State and fellow ACC teams Virginia Tech and Miami, among others.

But Maryland is the first to go beyond borrowing the Oregon aesthetic. The Terps are stealing the Ducks’ DNA by tapping a sportswear company helmed by an alum to create buzz with its garish uniform designs.

Will Maryland be able to replicate the Ducks’ results? Or will the on-field outcome be as unsightly as the uniforms themselves?

From a news release on UNC’s website (with the understated headline “Carolina Football Makes Coaching Change”):

University of North Carolina Chancellor Holden Thorp announced this evening that Butch Davis has been dismissed as head coach of the Carolina football program. Davis was informed by Thorp and Director of Athletics Dick Baddour of the decision.

“To restore confidence in the University of North Carolina and our football program, it’s time to make a change,” Thorp said in the release. “What started as a purely athletic issue has begun to chip away at this University’s reputation. I have been deliberate in my approach to understanding this situation fully, and I have worked to be fair to everyone involved. However, I have lost confidence in our ability to come through this without harming the way people think of this institution. Our academic integrity is paramount and we must work diligently to protect it.”

Two thoughts immediately sprung to mind when I saw this:

1) As an N.C. State fan, I’m sad to see Davis go. I was really looking forward to watching Tom O’Brien make it five straight over him this year.

2) What took so long for this to happen?

Over the last 12+ months, the following things occurred in Davis’ program:

• The NCAA began investigating some Tar Heels, including star defensive tackle Marvin Austin, for allegedly receiving improper benefits from sports agents.
• UNC started looking into accusations of academic fraud that centered on a former tutor who once worked privately for Davis’ family.
• More than a dozen players were suspended or benched for a nationally televised game against LSU because of those two investigations.
• The associated head coach/recruiting coordinator resigned for allegedly taking money to steer players to a sports agent.
• Austin was dismissed from the team without playing a down all season.
• The NCAA has charged UNC with nine major violations — which, given the logic of NCAA justice, is saying something.

What smoking gun were Baddour and Thorp waiting for?

It’s not even like this was a Jim Tressel situation. Tressel won a national championship for Ohio State and consistently led the Buckeyes to Big Ten titles. Davis went 28-23 in four years at Carolina, never won more than 8 games in a season and was winless in four tries against the rival Wolfpack. Up until today, UNC’s brass was standing behind a coach who was delivering mediocre results while embroiled in a scandal arguably worse than the one that brought down the coach of one of the most prestigious programs in the country.

Maybe the weirdest thing about all of this is the timing. The News & Observer‘s Luke DeCock called it “the right move, but at the wrong time” — about a week before the start of practice. Along those lines, ESPN’s Pat Forde wrote:

This could have and should have happened much earlier. North Carolina had a dozen compelling and reasonable occasions in its miserable, scandal-scarred past year to fire Davis, and it declined to do so.

I obviously don’t root for UNC’s sports teams, but I could respect the athletics department for running a seemingly clean program. Davis’ tenure has left a huge stain on that image.

(Then again, with all the revelations in collegiate sports over the last year or two, I have to wonder if there is any such thing as a “clean program.”)

By the way, did I mention Davis was 0-4 against N.C. State?

Say it ain't so, Wild Thing. Say it ain't so.

Forget the Mitchell Report. We have now discovered the true extent of performance enhancing drugs in baseball.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated on Wednesday, Charlie Sheen admitted to taking steroids during the filming of the all-time classic baseball movie Major League. From the interview:

SI: You never told me why you didn’t like the haircut.

Sheen: I didn’t like the haircut because it generated so many comments in bars. I’ve got enough of that already. Add that to the mix, and it’s a recipe for a fistfight. I was already bitchy because — let’s just say that I was enhancing my performance a little bit. It was the only time I ever did steroids. I did it for like six or eight weeks. You can print this, I don’t give a f—. My fastball went from 79 to like 85.

Now that I know that “Wild Thing” needed PEDs to strike out that Yankee in the ALCS (and that his fastball wasn’t really in triple digits), how can I possibly believe anything that’s happened in baseball over the last 22 years was real? What’s next — finding out that Pedro Cerrano didn’t really go on to become President of the United States?

LeBron James takes a break for a photo during a game this season at Philadelphia.

For the start of the NBA Finals, Instead of Texting has been lucky enough to host a couple of guest entries. Here’s the latest, from lifelong Cleveland sports fan Jeff Strowe.

So it has come to this. Of course it has.

As a Cleveland fan, you just knew that the nemesis would rise and make its presence known. Despite the trials and tribulations along the way, the posturing, the attempts at pushing their head coach aside, and the regular season setbacks, it is the truth that the Miami Heat, that stacked AAU-like band of brothers are in the NBA Finals. Having fairly simply dispatched of the Celtics and the Bulls, King James, D-Wade, and little cousin Bosh are on the big stage soaking up the fawning accolades that are coming hot and heavy from national pundits, primarily those in Bristol who at least can say that they were on the bandwagon from the beginning.

So, as the Finals tipped off last night and Dirk & Co. threw their arsenal at the “Heatles,” I took notice with deep disappointment that it could have and possibly should have been my Cavs in the Finals the past two seasons, with LeBron delivering on that long-sought-after championship he had promised Clevelanders back in ’06 after first tasting some playoff success. The fan part of me remains bitter, hoping that the Mavs rally behind their star and move quickly and fiercely towards a dismantling of the Heat, cementing Dirk’s and Kidd’s legacies and avenging their botched series in ’06. The other, more realistic part of me, though, watches with an air of inevitableness, waiting for James to hawk his way across the court and hit some key shots down the stretch, stifling Dallas’ momentum, delivering on a championship, hugging D-Wade and Darth Riley, and then smugly accepting his MVP trophy, reminding us again that he needed to go somewhere to play with players he could trust and “that wouldn’t hide when the lights got brightest.”

This admission has always been the toughest for me to handle. Sure, the Cavs weren’t filled with stars: Mo Williams and Anthony Parker are B-teamers at best, and of course Coach Brown fell in love with an aging Shaq at the expense of a more reliable Varejao and a more energetic Hickson, but I imagine his hand may have been a bit forced there. Stars aren’t coming to Cleveland, and no one else before Wade or Bosh came along ever expressed much public interest in playing with LeBron. He took no interest in recruiting others to town, and when the team brass offered potential trade options to LeBron, he shrugged his shoulders in indifference. Also, if his teammates were so “weak,” then why did he dance and preen with them throughout the season on the sidelines? Why did he bring them all to Akron to help accept his MVP trophy? If he wanted them to get better, why didn’t he push them in practice and demand more from them, ala Jordan and Bird?

LeBron willed that team to 66 and 61 regular season wins the past two seasons, but I guess the determination and drive we see in a lot of superstars is lacking in his case. Coming off a 29-point dismantling of the Celtics, they were sitting pretty, up 2-1 and backing them into a corner. Then, all hell broke loose, and we know the story. Three straight losses, a disinterested and passive Cavs team, Mike Brown fired, LeBron hosting recruitment parties in rented Cleveland offices with eager suitors and sycophants and then the debacle with Jim Gray. Off to Miami he goes and here he is proclaiming his trust and appreciation in his new compadres.

That’s all well and good, and I am past the point (well, almost) where I will berate LeBron and call him a coward for his actions. However, I’ve noticed something very striking about this year’s playoffs that people haven’t mentioned: he is basically doing it all on his own. Yes, Bosh has had some nifty games but I would venture to say opposing teams will live with that. Wade has been awful, and we all know the supporting cast is far inferior to that of even your average NBA bottom feeders. LeBron is motivated and is imposing his will on the opposition, which will make for interesting theater as he squares off against Dirk, a player doing the same on the other end of the bracket. However, why couldn’t he have done the same in Cleveland last year? He may say the elbow, others may say Delonte and Gloria. I say he was already checked out and was waiting on his buddies in Miami, a feeling shared by many of my fellow Cleveland fans.

We can live with Byner’s fumble, Tony Fernandez’s error, and the youthful Indians’ collapse against the Red Sox. We can appreciate Elway’s and Jordan’s greatness as they drive 98 yards and hit last-second jumpers over outstretched arms. However, in the long lines of Cleveland sports failures, mysteriously rolling over and shall I dare say … quitting … don’t fit into the narrative. For that, LeBron will always be a Cleveland villain.

Go Mavs!

LeBron James took his talents to South Beach. Now, Grant Jones is taking his talents to Instead of Texting to present his definitive retrospective on NBA fashion through the ages (with an assist from Jimmy).

The recent unveiling of the new Washington Wizards uniforms was further evidence of a growing trend among NBA franchises to re-brand themselves into the aesthetics of their own past. Golden State, Utah, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit and Minnesota have all rebuked the “upgrades” of the 1990s in favor of a return to the uniform styles of the 1970s and 80s. Looking back, this now seems only the inevitable conclusion of a decade-long obsession with throwback uniforms, which had begun as an occasional homage to a team’s history but quickly proved very popular with fans. Now those same teams that once rebuked these older styles as out-of-date are changing their minds. In fact, the only franchises which seem immune to this growing trend are those whose style have never (or seldom) deviated from their original incarnations. Teams such as Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, Chicago and San Antonio. It would appear that the same NBA marketing teams which, during the 1990s, ushered in one of the most comprehensive, unnecessary and unappealing style shifts in league history could finally realize what fans had long known: nostalgia sells.

Well, usually.

It seems odd that such a sweeping change in uniform styles would have taken place in the 1990s, when the league’s popularity was at an all-time high. Not only were logos updated but in many cases, entire color schemes—which had been associated with their respective teams for decades—were swapped out for new ones. Detroit went from blue and red to green and orange. Houston, which had always been red and gold, made navy blue its dominant color. Sacramento, Milwaukee and Utah each decided to drape themselves in purple despite no preceding association with that color. Cleveland ditched burgundy for sky blue and black. Denver, Philadelphia and Golden State all fell into the modernization trap, with Toronto, New Jersey and Dallas staggering into new designs by the early 2000s. In a few cases, these overhaul designs were met with positive critiques, while in most, such as Detroit’s odd choice, the changes were met by fan outrage. Undoubtedly, as The Gap recently realized, change for change’s sake is not always a good idea, especially if it uproots an identity fans came to regard as part of their own.

The mistake so many NBA brand managers seemed to make in the 1990s—and are only now willing to admit through the return to the designs of the 70s and 80s—was to so radically overhaul their team’s images. Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles (arguably the league’s four highest-profile franchises) each underwent just as many upgrades as their counterparts, but did so in small and digestible increments, making their teams look modern without losing the identity fans regarded with such affection.

With the benefit of hindsight, it has become clear that in their attempts to modernize the league’s look, the designs of the 1990s only served to highlight the worst eccentricities of their era. That said, I fully expect in another twenty years’ time we will see a sudden onslaught of 1990s designs begin their march back to prominence in the form of alternate throwbacks.

God save us.

Ranking the Franchises

There are very few teams that truly have done nothing to modernize their looks. Even the Knicks changed their colors for one year during the early 80s. Most teams have worn an abundance of different looks over the decades, so I thought it would be a fun exercise to look back at the different uniforms each franchise has worn over the past 30-40 years and grade them in terms of overall aesthetics. Helping me out in this endeavor will be Jimmy.

Bobcats 

Grant: 3/10 – Orange seemed a strange choice for this franchise, as it has no association with the city or the state other than a (reasonably close) proximity to Clemson University. The futuristic font is equally odd.

Jimmy: 2/10 – Those checkerboarded rib cages are dreadful. The Bobjohnsons have introduced some gray, pinstriped jerseys that I like. On the whole, they’re undistinguished.

Bucks

Grant: 6/10 – Loses points for that god awful deer uni as well as the pointless addition of purple during the ’90s.  Their recent return to red and green is long overdue.

Jimmy: 6/10 – The deerhead jerseys looked like knockoffs. Otherwise, the Bucks’ uni history is nothing to be embarrassed about.

Bulls

Grant:  9.5/10 – Classic in every sense. You know your uniforms are successful when you own your color in your sport. The Bulls own red.

Jimmy: 9/10 – They’ve never made a mistake, unlike this year’s MVP voters.

Cavs

Grant: 7/10 - Burgundy is back in Cleveland and none too soon. But the powder blue mistakes of the 80s and 90s cost them heavily.

Jimmy: 3/10 – If confined to those early 90s Mark Price unis, I’d give the Cavs a solid B. Major demerits, though, for those mid-90s abominations, and nothing else they’ve ever worn has made an impact with me.

Celtics

Grant: 10/10 - Other than increased bagginess, there has been virtually no change to Boston’s uniform since its inception. They own green the way Chicago owns red. The players come and go, the championships rack up, but the uniforms are always the same. Absolute perfection.

Jimmy: 10/10 – Distinctive color meets timeless design. If they ever change these, the NBA as we know it will have ended.

Clippers

Grant: 8/10 - Bad basketball does not equate to bad uniforms. The Clippers have sported the same colors and same cool nautical font since they moved from Buffalo to San Diego.  The only thing keeping these uniforms from being iconic is the lack of success associated with them.

Jimmy: 9/10 – Nothing beats red, white and blue. Even the misfires (top left and bottom right corners) are at least interesting.

Grizzlies

Grant: 3/10 – This is the first year of their existence the Grizzlies haven’t been a complete joke. And fortunately their new uniform designs reflect that newfound maturity. Because the old ones, the ones they wore even after their exodus from Canada when an overhaul would have been more than justified, looked like there were concocted by an 8-year-old.

Jimmy: 2/10 – I actually kind of like their current look, and the Gasol-era uniforms would have looked good if they weren’t so busy. Their first few years were just horrific.

Hawks

Grant: 4/10 – The Hawks are schizophrenic. As soon as they develop a good look, they ditch it for something else entirely. And of all the uniforms they’ve had over the years, none are actually truly good. The one worn during the ’80s by Dominique Wilkins and company has fond memories associated with it, but it wasn’t a good uniform in its own right. Atlanta was foolish to ditch the Red and Gold for the far darker scheme of Red and Navy. It’s the same mistake the Rockets had made a decade earlier.

Jimmy: 2/10 – Their only good uniforms were the ‘Nique-era ones. And those looked like cigarette packs.

Heat

Grant: 8/10 – I’m not quite sure how a franchise based in Miami escaped the fashion frenzy of the 1990s, but somehow these uniforms have been updated slowly and tastefully over the years. They look as good on Dwayne Wade as they did on Mitch Richmond.

Jimmy: 7/10 – There’s nothing wrong with the Heat uniforms, and they do get credit for consistency. But they don’t linger on the palate, either.

Hornets

Grant: 8/10 - Despite the opportunity to overhaul the team’s design following their move from Charlotte, the Hornets wisely chose to only make small, smart changes to the color scheme to reflect the culture of the new host city. In fact, I think the rather playful uniforms do a great job reflecting the city’s identity without coming across as goofy.

Jimmy: 10/10 – Those early Paul-era jerseys were the only misstep, and even they looked pretty good. The Hornets pull off pinstripes better than any other NBA team. Sorry, Magic.

Jazz

Grant: 6.5/10 – Here is a team that should have taken the opportunity to overhaul following their move from New Orleans. And yet they waited to do so only after several generations of Utah fans had grown accustomed to their idiosyncratic name and looks. Therefore, it seemed almost egregious to drop the jazz note in the 1990s in favor of a mountain-scape that made Karl Malone look like a Coors Light can. It was an error that took them two decades to overcome, given that they have had three new uniform sets over the past 6 years, only to come full circle again this year, going back to their New Orleans look.

Jimmy: 5/10 – Despite the incongruous mascot, I think the Jazz uniforms of the 1980s and early- to mid-1990s looked great. Kudos for echoing them with the latest design. But those late-1990s topographic jerseys were atrocious. Why were the 1990s so pointy?

Kings

Grant: 7/10 – Although it is tempting to put the Kings down as another franchise that needlessly adopted a purple color scheme, I will say that since the change they’ve both stuck with it and made it their own. When I think of purple in the NBA, I think of the Kings. Once upon a time I thought of the Jazz or Raptors, but then both those teams went haywire and lost their claim. But if the Kings move south to Anaheim as many predict, expect another name change. They would be only 35 miles from where the L.A. Kings, whose color scheme and logo bear a striking resemblance to Sacramento’s. It is a shame that the Kings, who were a founding member of the NBA as the Rochester Royals, have had to change cities and nicknames so many times.

Jimmy: 4/10 – I’m a sucker for script fonts, so the old Richmond-era jerseys are among my favorites. But I haven’t enjoyed a Kings uniform since Bobby Hurley drove into that ditch.

Knicks

Grant: 9.5/10 – Other than one minor blip during the Bernard King era, the Knicks have held as close to their classic uniform as any team in the league. The 1990s saw a dangerous flirtation with black trimming but fortunately they never went full black-for-black’s-sake as so many college and pro teams did.  Interestingly, their home unis are perhaps even more iconic than their road set. No team owns white in basketball, but the Knicks come the closest.

Jimmy: 10/10 – Nothing to add. Just some sweet unis.

Lakers

Grant: 10/10 – The Lakers have had three distinct looks throughout their history. Green in Minneapolis, sea blue when they first came to L.A., and of course the iconic Purple and Gold we all know today. All three looks are fantastic, and naturally the success associated with these uniforms doesn’t hurt their case. The Lakers uniforms have been so consistent over the years that even the sight of their newly adopted Sunday whites makes me bristle.

Jimmy: 10/10 – I was tempted to deduct a half-point for the shorts that violated Kobe Bryant four years ago. But these are perfect uniforms — as was the case with Boston, the Lakers found a palette and design that worked, and they haven’t strayed.

Magic

Grant: 6/10 – Consistent in color and design through their short tenure in the league, Orlando’s uniforms nonetheless border on the bland. Is it right that the city that brought you the flamboyance of Disney World should be represented in its only professional team by what could best be described as a basketball version of monochrome business suits? And yet when they did lose the pinstripes for a short spell, they appeared even more boring. Orlando played it safe, perhaps too safe.

Jimmy: 7/10 – I’m a sucker for pinstripes. Wish they hadn’t ditched the old Magic logo (see Ho Grant). Wish even more that they (and essentially everyone else) would drop those silly off-color side panels.

Mavs

Grant: 7/10 – The Mavericks have two loves in their life: Green and Blue (ignoring a regrettable mid-life crisis fling with ‘metallic sheen’). I can’t think of Dallas without summoning both these colors to mind. Their relationship with typeface, however, can best be describe as whorish. Seriously.

Jimmy: 5/10 – Surveyed 10 years ago, I would have graded the Mavs much higher. Loved the classic look of their jerseys through 2001, and I thought the royal blue/white/kelly (?) green were both handsome and distinctive. Everything they’ve done since ’01 looks more modern. And shitty.

Nets

Grant: 5/10 – Do you see that top row? Those are awesome uniforms. Not even the epic uncoolness of Mike Gminski can make that uniform look bad. Now look at the bottom row, which ranges from one of the league’s most atrocious uniforms (lower left), to perhaps the league’s most banal (lower right). Once a team known for its style, the Nets somehow became the NBA’s preeminent snoozer.

Jimmy: 3/10 – I have to disagree, and not just because the G-Man was my dad’s favorite basketball player. The Dr. J-era Nets looked like they had won second place in a livestock contest and worn their ribbons to work. The Drazen pic looks awful, but I kind of liked that logo on a solid royal blue jersey. As displayed here, though, that era of the Nets faintly recalls Kentucky’s flirtation with “denim.”

Nuggets

Grant: 4/10 – Nearly as notorious as the Houston Astros’ rainbow uniform, the Denver “Tetris” jersey is iconic for all the wrong reasons. But there’s hope; the new uniforms are actually really good. And the colors work, too. Stop while you are ahead, Mile High. I want to see you wearing those twenty years from now. This is one of the few teams that made the right decision by shedding its uniform history.

Jimmy: 3.5/10 – Everything they’ve done since ’94 has looked great. But it’s going to take a long time to expunge their previous record.

Pacers

Grant: 3/10 – The Pacers have no style. Their logo looks like it belongs to a CBA team. When they wear yellow, they look like a knockoff of the Lakers. They look halfway decent in white, but even there they look like a knockoff of the Lakers’ white alternates. Of course, having Rik Smits and Reggie Miller as your uniform models didn’t help the franchise in terms of style, even if they did find reasonable success on the court. Strange, too, that the Bobcats pay more homage to their host city’s car racing culture than an Indianapolis team that derives its very nickname from the world-renowned formula car race.

Jimmy: 3/10 – What he said.

Pistons

Grant: 7.5/10 – I hated the Bad Boys growing up, but I LOVED their look. There was no denying they had a strong identity as a franchise. And yet I can’t not punish them for what was easily the biggest uniform blunder of the 1990s. Can you believe they made Joe Dumars end his career in that green vomit-robe they called a uniform? At least they returned to form in time for their most recent title.

Jimmy: 6/10 – Everything before and after the Grant Hill era looks fantastic. But my God, those mid-’90s uniforms were fugly.

Raptors

Grant: 2.5/10 – Expansion teams in the 1990s had an unfair disadvantage. They made their debut in the midst of the league’s ugliest uniform trend. Most teams have their original uniforms to fall back on when their experiments fail. All the Raptors and Grizzlies can hope to do is continue to distance themselves from that era. Also, I can never quite shake from my mind the nagging reality that this team is named for one of Spielberg’s most ridiculous franchises. I’d feel more comfortable if the Pacers renamed themselves the Indiana Jones than I do rooting for a team named after the creature that ate Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight. That said, I think it was a mistake to drop the purple from their scheme. It was part of their identity. Now they look like baby Bulls.

Jimmy: 1/10 – This team’s uniforms have always looked like Wayne Knight designed them right after his meeting with the dilophosaurus.

Rockets

Grant: 7.5/10 – The Rockets looked good from the moment they moved to Houston from San Diego. They had just enough gold in their uniforms to separate them from the other red teams in the league. Then, after back-to-back world championships, they decided for no good reason at all to make Navy their dominant color. Did they see what the Pistons had done and thinkthat was a good idea? I have to assume so, given that just like Detroit, the Rockets also slapped an atrociously ugly flame-firing mascot on their uniform front. While the Rockets didn’t fully embrace their past (dropping the gold when they dropped the Navy), I can’t argue that they don’t look both good and unique now. Along with Denver, these are the best “new” uniforms to appear in the league in a long while.

Jimmy: 8/10 – Agree with Grant on the Rockets’ jersey history. Their current logo looks great — they suggest a rocket launch without explicitly showing one. Nice.

Sixers

Grant: 8/10 – The Sixers have had far too many variations to cover in a small collage (you can see them all here), but other than that blinding jersey you see on Barkley on the lower right, the Sixers haven’t had a bad look. Even the overhaul during the Iverson era, including the black-for-black’s-sake road set, seemed somehow to suit them. But if I had my choice, they’d go back to the 1965-66 uniforms you see above on Wilt. That’s one of the finest looks of all-time.

Jimmy: 6/10 – The Sixers unis have always been a bit blandto me, but the typeface on the Wilt jersey looks great.

Spurs

Grant: 9.5/10 – Silver & Black is a classic sports combination, and the Spurs have wisely never strayed from it. When the ’90s came knocking, they very smartly relegated experiments in color to their warm-ups. The incremental improvements they’ve made over the years, including integrating the spur logo into the word “Spurs” was the obvious and best route.

Jimmy: 8/10 – Nothing wrong with what the Spurs have done, but they just don’t move me. Pink and teal appeared as accent colors in their logo during the ’90s but (wisely) never reached the uniforms themselves.

Suns

Grant: 6.5/10 – Garish or not, there’s never been any mistaking a Suns uniform. While their finest set was way back in the Walter Davis years (top left), you can’t accuse them of settling for boring. Yes in the 1990s they went big and bold, but as we saw with Philadelphia, there’s something about Charles that makes you just want to smother him in streaking stars. The addition of gray in recent years reeks a little much of the eccentricities of our current era, but that’s something for another blogger of an as-yet-unborn generation to reflect upon.

Jimmy: 9/10 – Those Barkley jerseys are my madeleines, taking me back to 1993 and my first season as an NBA fan. The logo was dynamic, drawing on the best elements of the IN-YOUR-FACE sports design trend. These unis, with the slightly darkened purple and the black arm- and waistbands, also foretold the coming obsession with black uniforms. The ’92-’96 Suns uniforms are to all those late-90s abominations as Eddie Vedder is to the Scott Stapps and Chad Kroegers of the late 1990s. The Suns get a 10 for those and the Davis-era jerseys. Point deducted for replacing the city name with an airport code on the current uniforms.

Thunder

Grant: 1/10 – I did not include the franchise’s Supersonics history for purposes of this post since the franchise left those colors and their nickname to the city of Seattle for future use. But as to the Thunder, Oh Lord, where to begin? I could spend hours slagging off their logo, but fortunately this guy has already done that for me. Their road uniforms so closely resemble the Knicks that I sometimes am forced to do a double-take before I realize it’s the Thunder. I find the Suns’ “PHX” lettering to be a little silly, but if ever there was a team I’d approve of using an acronym, it’s this one. Their entire design is so generic I feel like whatever firm they hired to design their logo and uni just opened up the Photoshop default and changed the words.

Jimmy: (Declining comment, in memory of the Sonics. Despite some truly horrible Seattle uniform designs.)

Timberwolves

Grant: 7/10 – The Cavaliers had no chance to claim red as their own, so they went with wine red. It worked. That same strategy was applied in Minnesota. Tweaking blue and green just enough to not be confused with Dallas, the Timberwolves uniforms are distinct and reasonably constrained. Plus they finally corrected the unreadable uniform font of the Garnett years.

Jimmy: 6/10 – The Wolves started strongly, pairing a classic look with a slightly novel typeface during the Laettner years. Their logo looked great then, too. It’s all been downhill since. When Sam Cassell wears your uniform, you may as well give up on it looking good.

Trail Blazers

Grant: 8/10 – You certainly can’t fault the Trail Blazers for needless overhauls. While their style is still a little stuck in the 1970s, that seems to be in vogue these days. And with good reason.

Jimmy: 10/10 – Great color scheme, and the tweaks they’ve made over the years always seem of their time without becoming dated.

Warriors

Grant: 5/10 – Fortunately, the abhorrently named Golden State Warriors made a wise decision in returning to the Golden Gate Bridge inspired uniforms they originally wore during the 1960s. Unfortunately everything in between was an increasingly disastrous detour. Still “The City” is a true classic so I will raise their score half a point for every year they stick with it. And I’ll raise them several points if they finally come to their senses and rename themselves “The City.”

Jimmy: 7/10 – For all but a few years (the bottom left corner), the Warriors have looked great. That era aside, from “The City” to the prominent outline of the state of California to the Golden Gate Bridge, no NBA team uniform has better conveyed a sense of place. Odd, given that they don’t have a hometown.

Wizards

Grant: 7/10 – And here we are, full circle. The Bullets won the NBA’s first title, and won their second in 1978. They remained a competitive force throughout the 1980s, and their uniforms, as well as their unusual name, was a big part of their identity. Then in 1998, owner Abe Pollin, uncomfortable with the violent undertones of the team’s nickname, changed it to the Wizards. In the process he ditched the more-than-appropriate red, white, and blue color scheme in order to better match the colors of the Washington Capitals hockey club he also owned. He might as well have relocated. The lack of identity coupled with the team’s decline and the messy involvement and breakup with a late-era Michael Jordan only further soured fans to their new identity. This year the Wizards debuted uniforms that reflect both the design and color scheme of the Bullets, though unfortunately not their name. Still, compared to many other franchises, their time lost in the woods wasn’t that long in respect to their total history, even if it was recent. Now let’s just hope those in charge of NBA marketing remember the lessons of the 1990s in the decades to come.

Jimmy: 7/10 – In Pollin’s defense, the violent crime rate in D.C. has dropped by 16% since the Bullets became the Wizards. I can see no other reasonable explanation for the decline — kudos, (late) Abe!

]]> http://insteadoftexting.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/remembrance-of-things-past-the-nba-returns-to-its-roots/feed/ 0 G Jones Wizards all-star Lakers Knicks Bucks Monstrosity Bobcats Bucks Bulls Cavs Celtics Clippers Grizzlies Hawks Heat Hornets Jazz Kings Knicks Lakers Magic Mavs Nets Nuggets Pacers Pistons Raptors Rockets Sixers Spurs Suns Thunder Timberwolves Trail Blazers Warriors Wizards http://insteadoftexting.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/ocain-returns-to-run-pack-offense/ http://insteadoftexting.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/ocain-returns-to-run-pack-offense/#comments Tue, 31 May 2011 20:15:29 +0000 Jimmy Ryals http://insteadoftexting.wordpress.com/?p=1690 ]]> Mike O’Cain is back with the Pack!

Well, sort of.

Via Owen Good, fellow N.C. State/Technician alum and Kotaku.com columnist, we learn that the Wolfpack’s offensive coordinator on EA Sports’ NCAA Football 12 is an homage to the former Pack coach. Good lays it all out in a post on the game’s new “Coaching Carousel” feature:

That leads us back to Owen O’Cain. When you pick up NCAA Football 12, that’s the name of N.C. State’s offensive coordinator. (Game producer Ben) Haumiller himself put that in as a nod to Mike O’Cain (pictured at top), who was State’s head coach when I was the sports editor of Technician, the student newspaper. You can see the name in that screengrab. (Evidently he was hired from within after a surprise departure, the way O’Cain himself was when Dick Sheridan abruptly stepped down in 1993.)

O’Cain’s sort-of appearance in the game is a reminder of how odd his tenure at State was. As Good notes, O’Cain’s teams included some excellent players (led by Torry Holt) and had some astounding wins (FSU in ’98, Syracuse in ’97 and ’98, Texas in ’99). He also sandwiched the FSU and Syracuse ’98 wins around a horrific loss to Baylor and failed to beat North Carolina in seven tries, speeding him toward a cold-blooded, Thanksgiving-morning firing in 1999. Few were sorry to see him go, but O’Cain did oversee some of the program’s greatest victories.

O’Cain is now the OC at Virginia Tech.

In baseball terms, you might say our little blog has been in a self-imposed rain delay — one that wasn’t nearly as entertaining as this rain delay from Tuesday night’s Davidson-Clemson game:

My personal favorites are the Davidson players curling (2:54 mark) and Clemson’s tanning booth (5:24 mark, make sure to watch to the end).

And for some more rain delay fun, check out the jousting match (yes, jousting) between a couple of players from Radford and High Point over the weekend:

After signing a $2 million contract and getting only one hit before his abrupt retirement, Manny Ramirez has reason to laugh all the way to the bank. (US Presswire)

Take a good look at this RBI single by Manny Ramirez against the Baltimore Orioles.

That was Manny’s only hit in 17 at-bats this season as a Tampa Bay Ray before he abruptly retired Friday. Given the $2 million contract that he signed with the Rays in the offseason, I figure that makes this the most expensive single in Major League Baseball history.

From MLB.com, here’s why Manny is no longer being Manny on a baseball field:

Ramirez had “an issue” under MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program and informed the league he is hanging it up rather than “continue with the process under the program.”

The statement, in full, reads as follows: “Major League Baseball recently notified Manny Ramirez of an issue under Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program. Rather than continue with the process under the program, Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player. If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the drug program will be completed. MLB will not have any further comment on this matter.”

The New York Times, citing two sources, reported Ramirez tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during Spring Training.

If the issue involving Ramirez was a drug violation, he would be facing a suspension of 100 games.

In the wake of the news on Friday, SI.com’s Tom Verducci wrote that “a drug test is not a drug test at all. It’s an IQ test.” Manny failed miserably because he was too stupid, arrogant or selfish (or some combination of the three) not to put anything near his body that would get him suspended for 100 games.

Any chance Manny has of making the Hall of Fame is also done. Oh, sure, he’s got the numbers. Jeff Bagwell has the numbers, too, and he’s never failed a drug test or been directly linked to taking performance enhancing drugs. Bagwell barely cracked 40 percent of the vote in his first time on the ballot because a lot of voters merely suspected he used PEDs. Think Manny’s got any shot with three failed tests?

As the St. Petersburg Times’ Marc Topkin wrote today, the real losers in Manny’s PED-induced retirement are the Rays and their fans.

Tampa Bay is a team that operates with a thin margin for error in the toughest division in baseball. In the offseason, they were already facing a tall task after losing the franchise’s best player ever, a power-hitting first baseman and beloved team leader and most of their bullpen to free agency. When the Rays signed Manny (one of the best hitters of his generation) to a relatively cheap deal, it seemed like a low-risk way to generate some offense — until Friday.

I sure hope the Rays had a clause in Manny’s contract that lets them get a refund on that $2 million they committed to him. They certainly could have found a better way to spend it than on one hit.

The IoT team looks forward to the end-of-game Nantzism almost as much as "One Shining Moment."

The national title game can be a hit-or-miss affair.

The NCAA final can be as long on drama as any sporting event, but it’s often an anticlimax after two frantic weeks of March Madness. For every Duke-Butler, there are two or three Duke-Michigans. Or, even worse, Duke-UNLVs.

But there’s one thing you can always count on: the Nantzism. That’s Jim Nantz’s game-closing call, a cornball explosion that has attended the end of every title game since 1991, when Nantz joined Scooby Doo villain Billy Packer at the announcing table.

The Nantzism is a sacred event, even spawning its own aprocrypha. For instance, we’ve always remembered his 1999 call: “Just when you thought you can’t, UCONN! The Huskies win the national title!” This line has come up in IoT conversation many times over the years.

But when we watched the video for this feature, we found that he actually said something quite different: “Just when people say you can’t, you can! And UConn has won the national championship!”

That’s not much fun.

When Nantz is good, he’s bad. And when he’s bad, he’s spectacular. Here are our top Nantz calls of the last 20 years:

• 2004: Emeka Okafor was made for Jim Nantz: eloquent, intelligent and dominant. Man met moment with Nantz’s cheesiest call: “The mecca of college basketball is in Storrs, Connecticut!” Unfortunately, we can’t find audio or video of the call.
• 2005: a title-winning center was again Nantz’s muse. This time, it was pudgy UNC big man Sean May: “The Madness began in March, it ended in April, but it belongs to May.” Oddly, we couldn’t find audio or video of this one, either. If you know where we can, post it in the comments.
• 1997: (fast-forward to the last 10 or 15 seconds of the videos) Not only did we get a classic Nantzism (“A Milestone victory for Arizona!”), but Packer even joined in: “Simon says, championship.” I bet you haven’t thought of Miles Simon in a while.
• 1994: “Arkansas is in hog heaven! They’ve won the first-ever national championship!”
• 2000: “Leave it to Cleaves!”

In the spirit of the Nantzism, we came up with a few ideas of our own for tonight’s Butler-UConn game (with a special bonus Nantzism from Jimmy for good measure). And in an IoT first, we recorded them as MP3s so you can hear us do our best (or worst) Nantz impressions:

• Jeremy’s 1st Butler Nantzism
• Jeremy’s 2nd Butler Nantzism
• Jimmy’s Butler Nantzism
• Jimmy’s UConn Nantzism
• Jeremy’s UConn Nantzism
• Jeremy’s Houston Nantzism
• Jimmy’s Bonus Nantzism

Since Kentucky beat North Carolina to clinch a trip to Houston, there have been lots of jokes going around about John Calipari making his first Final Four. You might remember Calipari taking Massachusetts and Memphis that far in the Tournament, but according to the NCAA, those Final Four appearances were actually made by “Vacated.”

Calipari’s previous teams got caught for various … ahem … improprieties after he left for better jobs. In both cases, he managed to keep his own hands clean, but it’s kind of hard not to be suspicious of the guy.

All of which brings us to this story reported today by FoxSports.com:

[F]orgotten in Calipari’s quick turnaround of Kentucky is a native of this bustling metroplex who was instrumental in the Wildcats’ resurrection: Bilal Batley.

Batley abruptly resigned as assistant director of basketball operations/manager after he violated NCAA rules by rebounding for a player during a workout in July 2009. Kentucky self-reported the secondary violation and sent Batley a letter of admonishment.

Batley’s job did not allow him to have on-court interaction with players. When he resigned, a team spokesman said he did so to return home because of an illness in his family.

But a nearly two-year FOXSports.com investigation revealed that Batley also broke NCAA rules by making repeated impermissible telephone calls while at both Memphis and Kentucky to recruits, such as DeMarcus Cousins, and their parents.

When approached by a FOXSports.com reporter after his news conference on Friday, Calipari refused to address any questions concerning whether he was aware of Batley’s calls and whether or not Kentucky self-reported the violations.

NCAA rules state that all telephone calls made to or received from a recruit, his parents, legal guardians or coaches must be made and received by a team’s head coach or three countable assistant coaches.

The only thing surprising about this is that it didn’t come out two years from now after Calipari has suckered some NBA team into giving him another pro job.

And in case you didn’t already feel dirty about watching tonight’s Kentucky-Connecticut game, The New York Times reported this about UConn yesterday:

Connecticut and its longtime coach, Jim Calhoun, have already been punished for a variety of sins in their recruitment of [Nate] Miles. The N.C.A.A. has limited the number of scholarships Connecticut can award, has placed its basketball program on probation and suspended Calhoun for three games next season.

But the N.C.A.A., which issued its punishments in February and declared its investigation over, never interviewed Miles, who refused to take part in the investigation. He now says he is ready to tell the full story of his journey from cherished prospect to Connecticut recruit to leading man in a significant university scandal to homeless young father.

“I’d probably be open to talk to them, and, you know, get some things straight,” Miles said.

The N.C.A.A. is taking Miles seriously; a representative of the organization went to his grandmother’s house on Friday.

It’s hard to imagine anyone outside of Kentucky’s or UConn’s own fans cheering for the winner of this game against the Butler-VCU winner. Apparently, Calipari and Calhoun don’t even like each other, going all the way back to Calipari’s recruitment of Marcus Camby in 1993.

Any guess about who the NCAA might want to win on Monday night?