The college football season is close, and what better way to get in the mood than by picking up a copy of NCAA Football 09 to play.

One of the biggest new additions to the game has been the ability to transfer your online dynasty offline, or vice versa. It seems that playing in an online dynasty with friends is the cool things to do, so I decided to organize a league with whoever I knew that had to game to do the damn thang.

We limited our school selections the Big Ten Conference, based on the fact that one player actually goes to one of the schools. Plus there are quality teams, so it works.

Here’s who’s who and what’s what in the league:

Jack - Wisconsin Badgers - Dude actually goes to the school (or did - I stopped trying to keep track of people), so this is warranted. Thanks for making the quasi-executive decision and at least having a team preference to narrow down who we would play with.

Jason - Ohio State Buckeyes - He claims to have some sort of kin who attended the school, so we’ll let him have dibs on the best team in the conference. I dominated him online this past weekend, so I guess he deserves a bit of a handicap.

George - Illinois Fighting Illini - This one’s for Ryne. Plus, it’s gonna be amazing typing names like Juice Williams and Arrelious Benn over and over again as I recap games.

Tyler - Michigan Wolverines - I stuck him with whatever decent team was left. Clearly just in it for the love of the game. Welcome aboard.

I’m sure you will all be thrilled to read recaps of video game college football, so this is precisely what I will provide for you. Stay tuned!

Oh wait - if you have an Xbox 360 and wanna get in on the action with another Big Ten team, leave a comment with your gamertag and I’ll reach out to you on Xbox Live. Sigh - I’m a nerd.

Inspired by this excellent recollection of NHL 94, I felt basketball was equally deserving of such an honor with none other than the original NBA Jam.

Looking back at the rosters, some of these 2-player combinations seemed utterly ridiculous. Its also definitely entertaining to see all the names and realize what they’ve been through and where they’ve ended up since Jam’s release in 1993.

Time to boot up the ol’ SNES/Sega Genesis and see where we were 15 years ago in the West…

Western Conference

Dallas Mavericks - Derek Harper, Jim Jackson

Harper was a fixture on most consoles, and with a moustache like his, how could he not be? Kudos to Jim Jackson for still being on the active NBA radar. He actually originally replaced Mike Iuzzolino, a 2nd round draft pick that played a tidy 2 seasons in the NBA before bolting for Europe

Denver Nuggets - Dikembe Mutumbo, LaPhonso Ellis

After asking the coeds of Georgetown who wanted to sex Mutumbo, the big man burst onto the NBA scene. He could have definitely used help in this game though from a quicker shooting guard, a la Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. C’mon - the big man/guard dunk/outside shooting combination is necessary for Jam success.

Golden States Warriors - Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullin

Too bad John Amaechi wasn’t in this game to potentially complete one of the most awkward pairings possible. Mullin made it rain and is still a Warrior, acting as their current GM, but you really needed a guy like Latrell Sprewell to throw it down here.

Houston Rockets - Hakeem Olajuwon, Vernon Maxwell

Bam - perfect combination right here. The Dream would stuff you on one end and then stuff it down your throat on the other, and Maxwell was the outside touch. They HAD to have given Mad Max some extra attributes for his turbo elbow throws based on the fact that he was, well, mad.

Los Angeles Clippers - Danny Manning, Ron Harper

Is it just me, or has Ron Harper always seemed old and cagey, even though he had only been in the league for like 7 years at this point? Also, does anyone realize that Elgin Baylor was an executive with the Clips even back then and was responsible for drafting Manning? Also part two: Loy Vaught. You were awesome.

Los Angeles Lakers - Vlade Divac, James Worthy

Post-Showtime rebuilding Lake Show. Magic-less and scared. Nick Van Exel probably would have been a better pick. Paired with a young Vlade, they presented the most tremendous upside potential to maybe squeak out wins.

Minnesota Timberwolves - Christian Laettner, Chuck Person

Surprising that Doug West wasn’t in this pairing, considering he was the team’s leading scorer the previous season. The wizards at Midway did the right thing in pairing Person with budding big man Laettner.

Phoenix Suns - Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson

Where’s Barkley, you ask? Oh he was busy teaming with Accolade on Shut Up And Jam, thus keeping his rights to himself and out of the hands of midway. KJ was the next clear choice, despite his prior injury-riddle campaign. For the sake of the outside/inside balance, Cedric Ceballos may have been better. Sigh… Sir Charles would’ve been a stud in this game given the use of glowing turbo sneakers.

Portland Trail Blazers - Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter

Before they were the Jail Blazers, Portland was a high caliber team that had been to the Finals 2 of the previous 3 years. But alas, Clyde was already gliding downhill and this franchise would turn ugly fast. Bold prediction: Terry Porter is fired as Suns head coach by the All-Star break.

Sacramento Kings - Wayman Tisdale, Mitch Richmond

One of them piggybacked his way to a championship, the other started cutting jazz records. Excellent omission of Spud Webb. Dude would’ve gotten KILLED by one of Vernon Maxwell’s turbo elbows.

San Antonio Spurs - David Robinson, Sean Elliott

The three-point prowess of a Dale Ellis or the speed of an Avery Johnson may have been better pairings next to the Admiral. Perhaps the powers that be were simply letting Elliott shine knowing that he would be suffering some hardships down the road. Additionally, Chuck Person was the starter in the Sega CD version, yet appears with the Timberwolves in this SNES/Genesis version were using as a template. Shenanigans!

Seattle Supersonics - Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf

Astute move by Midway adding Schrempf to the roster despite his existing as a Pacer the year prior. Everyone knows this should have been Gary Payton feeding the Reignman. Any guesses on how many kids Kemp had fathered at this point in his career? I’ll say 4.

Utah Jazz - Karl Malone, John Stockton

Of COURSE it was gonna be these two. Who did you think it was gonna be? A young Ike Austin? As good of a pair as these two were throughout their careers and in the game, did anyone ever even want to play with them?

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Do you remember playing the game as well? Got something to add to the post? Did I screw up anywhere (I’m sure I did)? Let me know!

Thanks to Basketball-Reference and Wikipedia for making this happen. Check back in the coming days for the Eastern Conference recap!

Hello all. The Tsar has given me a visa to post here, and I’m grateful that procuring this didn’t involve marrying a foreign bride (yet). I’m Mark, and I’ll be regaling you with my (mostly pedestrian) insights on various sports, my lousy fantasy teams, wacky terminology that George and I have come up with over the years, and so on and so forth. Anyway, for my first post, I’d like to reveal just why, from an extreme outsider’s perspective, the San Antonio Spurs find themselves in such a deep hole in their playoff series with the New Orleans Hornets.

You see, in my spare time my roommate and I play quite a bit of NBA 2K8. Probably too much, since we now play seven games series in order to get our fix. Anyway, whenever our friend Jeff comes over he also plays. Jeff, it turns out, is ridiculously good with the Hornets, namely because they fit his style of play to a T. Whenever Jeff plays as the Hornets, he employs a simple yet effective strategy: he clogs the middle and dares his opponent to shoot 3-pointers. And when I say “dare,” I mean that he sags off perimeter players by a least a couple feet. The natural inclination when seeing this is to think to yourself, “Damn, he’s really giving me a lot of space. I know I shouldn’t but…I’m so open…if I make this, it’ll be huge…SCREW IT.” Then you hoist up a three and (probably) clank it. Then Jeff gets the rebound, runs back before you can get in transition, and gets an easy 2. Fall victim to this a few times in a row, and suddenly you’re down by 10. Then you get freaked out that it’s seemingly impossible to get inside on offense, start to settle for more open 3s, missing more than you make, and before you know it you’ve lost by at least 15. And every single time, as the game ends and the awful NBA 2K8 music begins (”I GRIND I PUSH I WORK REAL HARD”), you smack yourself in the forehead. “Why did I fall into the trap?! Why did I take so many damned 3s?!” Around our apartment, playing against Jeff when he’s the Hornets is referred to as “taking the Hornet Challenge.” This strategy, of course, is not without its downsides. Namely, if you make your 3s, the strategy is fairly ineffective. I have beaten it before, but it took some ridiculous 3-point shooting (I made something like 60% and shot over 30) to do so. Also, getting to the line can overcome it as well (though counting on this in NBA 2K8 is like counting on Kevin Garnett to take the big shot).

I bring this up because this must be exactly what the Spurs and Gregg Popovich are thinking after the first 2 games in this series. There are obviously a number of reasons the Spurs are getting smacked around in this series (effective defense on Tim Duncan, Chris Paul having his way with a slow, aging Bruce Bowen, David West being an absolute terror even when he only scores 10 points), but this is one that has been mostly overlooked (Though ESPN’s TrueHoop blog made note of it today), and the numbers don’t lie. In the regular season, the Spurs attempted 19.6 3-pointers per game. In the playoffs, they’ve averaged about 16 3-point attempts. But if you look at these past couple games, the numbers tell a different story. In Game 1, the Spurs attempted a whopping 31 threes, connecting on just 12 of them (38.7%). They settled down (slightly) in Game 2, taking “only” 27, but making just 8 (a ghastly 29.6%). In Game 1, three Spurs attempted 8 or more 3-pointers, only one of them shooting 50% (Bruce Bowen, 5-10, most coming in the first half). This is in keeping with how the Hornets have played all year, as they allowed the most 3-point attempts per game of any team in the league.

Watching this series, whenever a Spurs player jacks up a 3, you can see the wheels turning in their heads, and I imagine them thinking the same things I do when I play Jeff. “Man, a 3 would be huge here. Why are they sagging off on me so much? I can totally make this!”

HOIST. CLANK. “DAMMIT!”

It happened 19 times in both Games 1 and 2. It doesn’t surprise me that the Hornets defend like this, because it is a good strategy…but it’s usually most effective against gunslingling teams like, say, the Nuggets or the Warriors. The obvious downside, like I said before, is that a team will suddenly make its 3-pointers in bunches, but in that case Byron Scott will live with getting burned by such low-percentage shots. After all, as a team the Spurs shot 37% from beyond the arc as a team this season. If I’m Byron Scott, I’ll live with them taking shots with that sort of success rate instead of banging to the basket or having Tony Parker or Ginobili penetrate for easy looks. But with all that said, I’m frankly pretty shocked the Spurs are falling into this trap instead of working to get better shots. Is it because they’re too old and lack the quickness to get around the defense? Are they that confident in their 3 point shooting (I hope not)? Are they just falling behind early and desperately gunning to get back into the game?

Beats me. I’m just a couch potato who plays way too much NBA.