With the Los Angeles Clippers playing something that resembles respectable basketball — Winner of three games in a row. Shocking, isn’t it? — and all of the accolades going to Blake Griffin’s assault on NBA rims, there are some other youngsters who are contributing for the Clip-Joint as well. Names like DeAndre Jordan, Al-Farouq Aminu and Eric Gordon come to mind, but after last night’s block party against the Miami Heat, if you haven’t heard of Eric Bledsoe, you might want to familiarize yourself.
Blake Griffin’s mission in life is to dunk on every living being on the planet. Well, maybe not, but he certainly plays like it. Granted, he’s only been in the league for five official games, but he’s already got a list of “I just crushed your face” victims. The latest being Nenad Krstic of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
I guess you could say Krstic got thunder-struck. Yeah, I went there.
Bad puns aside, Griffin had two highlight-worthy dunks against the Thunder, and as a bonus, they came in the Clippers’ first win of the season:
Now that your bracket has been busted all to hell, let’s relive some of the moments that caused such wreckage. It was perhaps one of the best opening weekends of tournament basketball I’ve witnessed, especially with the Thursday/Saturday games. The Big Dance started out with a bang as BYU and Florida needed double overtime to decide things, all while Old Dominion and Notre Dame game was being decided by one point. This was followed by two more great games, one also needing extra time with the other finishing with a last second, game-winning shot, courtesy of Danero Thomas.
And that, folks, was just the first four games of the tournament.
The rest of the weekend gave us more of the same: Great games, surprising upsets, game-winning “Onions” shots, and perhaps one of the best basketball names ever, Ali Farokhmanesh. Overall, it wast the kind of chaos one hopes for when the tournament starts.
Coming up, I’m featuring some of the weekend’s most outstanding plays, including the uncontainable onions of the aforementioned Farokhmanesh. Continue reading >>
Much to my delight, Kentucky looked like a juggernaut during the first weekend of the Big Dance. While names like John Wall, Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins gets lots of love, it was perhaps Bledsoe who had the most impact for the Wildcats, especially with his 3-point barrage against East Tennessee State.
Now, Bledsoe can also add the “Best Dunk of the Tournament So Far” award to his growing collection thanks to an absolute filthy one-hander against Wake Forest.
Eric Bledsoe, John Wall and Patrick Patterson pulled out the always-coveted double alley oop play against the Austin Peay Governors on Saturday. And they made it look easy. Of course, when you have two of the most explosive freshmen guards in the nation leading the break with All-American Patrick Patterson trailing the play, pulling off such stunts is a little easier. While this particular double oop wasn’t quite the set play others have raved about, it did fill the bill for anyone needing a double alley oop fix.
Considering the way such a play inspires basketball writers to reevaluate the way the game is played, I’d say double oops are always a welcome in the roundball community.
While we are all getting ready for the phenomenon known as college football, other college sports are getting ready for their upcoming seasons as well. Like the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team, for one. Yesterday, photos of the John Calipari’s highly-heralded classhit the intertubes, and man, Cat fans are incredibly excited. This one included. What we have in the lead image is John Wall, Darnell Dodson, Daniel Orton, Jon Hood, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe. For bragging purposes, these kids represent Kentucky’s version of the Fab Five, plus one. We all know about John Wall and the expectations surrounding him — some have him pegged as the number one draft pick in next year’s NBA Draft — but Wall is far from being the only stud in Kentucky’s class.
In fact, the other point guard signed by Calipari, Eric Bledsoe, is considered an equal to Wall by some. Whatever the case, Bledsoe is a freaking beast. After the jump, we’ve added a little something to the group photo for celebratory purposes.
