Want to cut your teeth in the exciting field of college basketball? Yearn for less nightlife and more wildlife? The University of Alaska-Fairbanks* has an opportunity for you!

That’s right - for the low low price of civilization, you can start your career as an assistant basketball coach for our own UAF Nanooks! (It’s not racist, because we’re honoring the Inupiaq people, and besides, look at the cute bear!)

Now, we can hear you thinking - why does this job opening exist? Why would someone leave such a unique location? Well, you’ll be excited to know that our most recent assistant, after only ONE YEAR with our program, was able to parlay that experience into an opportunity to coach high schoolers sell insurance get the hell back to the Lower 48 move up the coaching ladder! Next year, that could be you!

But what awaits you in Alaska - besides fast-paced, high quality Division II basketball? Just look at the vibrant student life on our campus of nearly 10,000 students!

Porch sitting! (Note: hazardous anytime but August.)

Silly string fights!

Toothless shrooming!

And don’t forget our favorable female:male ratio!

Yes, all this an more awaits you at UAF - where careers can begin (and sometimes end in tragic ways)! Come for the basketball, stay for the seasonal effective disorder!

* - We should note that we’ve been to Fairbanks, and to UAF specifically, and they are both lovely if very, very cold. So, prospective coaches, fear not - but pack a parka or twenty.

Whoa. Whoa. WHOA. We wouldn’t say that we are disappointed at learning that CBS dismissed Billy Packer, but we are surprised - only because we expected Packer to let go of his microphone CBS-logo’d spew stick when it was pried from his cold, dead hands.

Sure, it’s easy to think that Packer wrote his own pink slip earlier this year when he announced that the KU-UNC national semifinal game was “over”, encouraging viewers to change the channel with seven minutes to go until halftime.

But we know that the heads at CBS made this decision with the heaviest of hearts. After all, how could they get rid of a guy who displayed so much passion for his job?

Or someone who worked so hard to stay on top of the evolving nature of the sport and its coverage?

Or the sense of professionalism and objectivity he brought to every broadcast?

But there is one thing we can all agree on - Packer, uniquely, understood his place in the history of the game:

So, while Packer “pursues other opportunities” in basketball - like finding that damn bowl of tapioca he set down a few minutes ago - we say, goodnight, sweet prince. The Democratic Blogfrican Republic of College Basketball won’t be the same without you.

Brandon Jennings made the seemingly-inevitable announcement yesterday that, regardless of how his third round of testing turned out, he would be heading to Europe next year rather than honoring his commitment to play for Arizona. Jeff Goodman speculates that recent delays by Jennings may have been a little disingenuous, and Lute Olson seemed more than glad to throw yet another person under the bus in the process. (But, in this case, who could blame him?)

Regardless, Jennings’ decision, combined with Jerryd Bayless leaving for the NBA, leaves a point guard sized hole in the Wildcat lineup. We’d hope that the Wildcats would bounce back from this loss, but frankly, over the last couple of years, the Arizona squads have shown that they have a lot of quit in them. So, we wonder if the ‘Cats should save everyone the trouble and follow Jennings across the pond.

Lute Olson? Can chase more crazy tail in his homeland of Norway.

Listen, honey - it’s lutefisk or Lute’s fist, one or the other.

Chase Budinger? Pro ball in the Netherlands, natch.

Somebody get that kid some Visine.

“Michigan” plays “Indiana” in Mangalore, India as part of the NCAA’s pilot outsourcing program.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - In an announcement that shocked the world of college athletics and sent pundits scrambling for their keyboards, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) revealed today that it is considering outsourcing its sports programs to other countries, and has already started pilot programs in college basketball to test the move.

“Outsourcing has been on our agenda for over four years,” said Brand, noting that the NCAA undertook extensive studies of the topic before starting the pilot programs this year. “In the beginning, we were really just thinking about merchandise and information management, but the more we explored the issue, the more we thought: why not the sports themselves?”

(more…)

So, it’s still a few months from the start of any relevant college season - what’s that? College World Series? Blow me. - so Eirishis and Orson need something to keep themselves off the streets and off the junk ’til August. The results are sometimes frightening. Today - in honor of the Top Chef semifinals (don’t pretend you didn’t watch), we staff our hypothetical restaurant kitchens with figures from college football and basketball, past and present.

First pick goes to Orson. Add your own picks to the comments, natch.

1. Orson - Herschel Walker. A full kitchen staff embodied in a single person.

eirishis - What happens when his internal sous chef starts battling with his internal chef d’cuisine over menu direction?

2. Eirishis - Chris Webber. Willing to bring soul food to any occasion, any location - even purgatory in SacTown.

orson - Issue: may get the number of orders wrong.
eirishis - And may get the restaurant shut down for acceptance of improper gifts of chicken and waffles.

3. O - Jim Tressel. Just look at the wardrobe and tell me the man doesn’t have an innate talent for making phenomenal crêpe suzette.

eirishis - Disagree. You think that man has a bottle of Grandma in his house? Sweatervest can’t take anything stronger than a daiquiri.
orson - You may disagree. But the sweater alone is capable of making all the mother sauces blindfolded.

Apparently this model only makes mayonnaise.

(more…)

Well, dammit. I knew it would come to this. I’ll smile for the cameras and say a few nice things about you in just a second, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be happy about it.

Don’t think I don’t know about y’all plains riders. We hear about you down in Crawford. Yeah, you … with your tallness and your skills and your stuff. I’m talking to you, Danny. You and your new group of Miracles think you can get away with this, but I promise we will take you down Ranger style. I got all these guys in black suits to help me. Texas is gonna rain some pain down on you, brother!

What’s that? You beat Texas three times? Boool-shit. No, really?

Well, dammit, I don’t even know what to think anymore. If my boys down in Austin can’t take care of a few loopers from the North, I’m not sure I want to say in the world we live in.

Wait - is that a ball? BALL!!!! YAY!!!!!!!

Bouncy!

Alright - the ball was a nice touch. Y’all might be OK. Maybe we can work something out.

Wait - y’all are from Can-saw? Man, Johnny is gonna have my ass. I hope this doesn’t mean that Obama kid from Kansas is gonna win in November. He doesn’t play with y’all, does he? No? Ah, right, them Carolina kids. Right.

Y’all can stay - just don’t mess with the flowers. Laura gets upset with me. And don’t mess with Texas.

[/rides into sunset]

We mistakenly appended this to the end of the roundup this morning - early morning + lack of coffee = editing mistakes - but it’s front page level disgusting, so we’ll repost it without shame. While putzing around, we found this lovely mailbag by David James, the lead sports anchor for KUTV, Salt Lake’s CBS affiliate. Sure, it’s two months old, but it helpfully dispels some misconceptions about our friends from LDS country:

1) The evangelical South and the Mormon West find common earth on bad grammar, as evidenced by this fine writer, but moral celebratin’ is a whole other matter:

BYU new slogan (One & Done) As a Ute Alum I am tired of the BYU fans talking trash about the Utes basketball program just because they happen to be down at the moment and saying that the Utes just want to be them, not true, if anything it is the other way around. At least when the Utes go to the dance they do more than just have cookies and punch, they actually dance. The Utes do not want to be BYU they want to get back to where they were and they will.

Utes dance? Scandal! Next they’ll tell us the punch was spiked, and that there were finger sandwiches in addition to those cookies.

2) Proper church lurnin’ aside, the pure minds of these fine folks are challenged by the same sins as all sports fans: common wisdom, blind loyalty, uncontrolled expectations and a colloquial tongue:

People don’t give a rat’s ass about MWC championships. The only thing that matters are BCS wins and NCAA wins. Does anyone care that UTAH lost to UNLV in 98? No they remember going to the final four! Beating Wyoming is something you are supposed to do. Beat someone you are not supposed to beat.

Truer words have never been spoken. In fact, if all of you haven’t beaten Wyoming today, we must ask: why do you hate freedom?

3) Nightmare fuel knows no religion. That’s the only explanation for why Messr. James shared this photo in the mailbag, and why we pass it along to you now:

Just plausible enough to not be a PS job - just frightening enough to keep us up tonight.