Notent Notables

• I'm still shocked that England failed to qualify for Euro 2008. It wasn't until they drew the groups for the finals the other day that it hit me the three lions wouldn't be participating. I haven't seen a game since I left, and I'm still upset. I can't imagine what the nation is going through. If I were Steve McClaren, I'd go hide in Florida somewhere for the rest of my days. Good heavens, what a disaster.

• I think we can all agree that the NFL is the biggest sport in America. But that doesn't mean it necessarily has to stay that way. Thinking the NFL will always be king is like thinking the US economy will always stay strong or that America will always be the strongest nation in the world. Baseball used to be the biggest sport in the country. In the 80s, as I understand it, the NBA was bigger. Personally, even though I followed Michael Jordan religiously and liked college football more than the NFL when I was a kid, I've always admitted the NFL was on top. But now I'm sensing a change. I'm finally seeing Chris's point, that the parity in the NFL might have gone too far. Sunday Ticket isn't quite as appealing as it was 5 years ago because the number of worthwhile teams has dropped. I still like tuning in when all the games are ending, in case it gets exciting, but most of the afternoon the games don't have my attention. Don't get me wrong, I think the playoffs are going to be amazing this year. But I think the overall quality of the product has slipped...

• ...while the NBA is looking better. I think the number of worthwhile teams is growing this year. I also think that with the Big Three in Boston and Dwight Howard's emergence as an all-time superstar in Orlando, the East has legitimate contenders this year. In fact, I think more teams can realistically win the NBA championship than the Super Bowl. Count 'em yourself. The NBA is coming back, folks. I'm intrigued.

• College Football will always have its base with the Solid South, but the lack of a tournament is really killing it. This season has been the most exciting one that I can ever remember. It is true that the significance of the upsets would have been lessened slightly by a post-season playoff. But ask yourself this: how many of the huge upset games have been "appointment viewing" for the casual college football fan? For me, the only appointment viewing games have been the Ohio State-Michigan game, and the Missouri-Kansas game, both of which would have been on my list of games to watch even if there was a playoff system. (Think of it this way: if #1 plays #2 in college basketball during the regular season, are you going to watch?) My point is the exciting storyline of the season isn't making me actually sit down and watch more games. And I'm not really interested in any bowl game other than the national title. But an 8-team playoff, that included the 6 major conference winners plus two at-large teams...I'd watch every game that stayed close, and I'm sure other casual college football fans like me would, too.

• I have Jim Valvano's ESPY speech on our downstairs TiVo tagged with "Save until I delete" status. If you're in town and need a pick-me-up, feel free to drop by.

• On SU's loss to UMass. That was a wildly entertaining game. Well into the 2nd half I was still watching with glee. But about halfway through the 2nd half (which was, I realized later, when Donte Greene cooled off), I got one of those bad feelings that you get when you really know your team is going to lose. You know what I mean? Sometimes it can work in the opposite direction, and you'll just know your team is going to pull it out. The problem, I decided, was that we weren't playing Big East basketball, or Syracuse basketball for that matter. Syracuse basketball wins with defense. As spectacular an offensive team as we are this year, our defense needs to be a lot better. We're not going to win too many games in the Big East playing shootout basketball. I didn't see the Tulane game, but it sounded like we took a step in the right direction. I think we're going to learn a lot more about this team on Wednesday, in Virginia.