Monday Mundy's

Did you know that Mundy was an all-American wide receiver at Woodland Hills, where his quarterback was current Arizona Cardinal Steve Breaston? What a ridiculous pairing. As bad as Mundy looked this year, he's still relatively young (going into his age 25 season) and could act as a good place holder for Ryan Clark's spot until another option can be groomed for the position. That is, as long as Troy stays healthy. After this year, I truly believe that Polamalu could make me look good opposite him at safety.

A lot happened this weekend, with the highlight obviously being the Pitt game against Louisville, one for the ages. As I said on my quick weekend post, Pitt was pretty lucky due to Louisville missing it's FT toward the end of regulation. But after reading up on the game and thinking about it a little more, Pitt played a pretty good game, as they dominated the boards, shot pretty well from the floor and the line, and did a decent job on defense. Louisville played a hell of a game as well, so I'll give Pitt a bit more credit now than I did immediately after the game.

Another huge game against Georgetown on Wednesday. The only time I've seen the Hoyas in action was when they had that huge comeback win against UConn at home (by the way, thanks to UConn for losing this weekend to a mediocre Big Ten team in Michigan and weakening the Big East's reputation, way to go). Austin Freeman can really shoot, and they play the Princeton-style offense where it's a free flowing motion with a a lot of back door cuts. Monroe really did not impress me in that game; he looked lazy and uninterested, although he still has all the physical gifts to dominate a game. The McGhee-Monroe match-up will be an interesting one, as the two sit on opposite ends of the big man spectrum.

The Pens lost 6-2 on Saturday night, and it was all John Curry's fault (9 saves on 14 shots). Actually, no one played all that well. The two highlights as I remembered them were Geno finally scoring a goal, and 19-year old Alexander Pechurski coming out of nowhere (actually, he comes from Geno's hometown in Russia) and providing some unintentional comedy. His goalie helmet consisted of just a few Penguins stickers that anyone might get at the Pens' Station store in the Igloo, and the fact that he looks like he is 14. All in all, not a bad road trip for the 'Guins considering where they were when they left Pittsburgh. Next game is on Tuesday against the up and coming Isles, a team that beat Detroit 6-0 last week, and just beat the Devils today 5-0. This isn't your typical Islanders team.

The PensBlog looks at Rob Rossi's newest article and raises the question of whether Pittsburgh journalists hold it against European players for their broken English. Their answer is yes, and they back it up quite convincingly. As someone who has interviewed foreign speaking athletes before, it's definitely not easy and tougher to get interesting content. But that's part of the job, deal with it.

If it were not for the late game yesterday, that could have been the most boring round of playoff games in years. Three blowouts, and then finally an awesome game from the Chargers and Jets. Out of this final four, I would most like to see the Jets play against the Saints in the Super Bowl, but we'll see where the lines are come Friday. I don't know what to think of this Jets team. They are very similar to the Steelers in '04, but Sanchez doesn't even come close to BB as a rookie, and I'm afraid that if the Colts take a decent lead (10+ points) against them, Sanchez will not have the ability to make the plays necessary to come back. But I don't want to bet against this Jets defense either; and how good is Derrelle Revis?

I just hope both games next Sunday are more competitive, because it's hard to justify spending three and a half hours (per game) this weekend when you're only really watching about thirty minutes of action.

This is quite scary. Clint Dempsey may not always play as well for the US as he does for Fulham, but he's playing the best soccer right now (including an amazing bicycle kick that hit the cross-bar on Saturday) out of any US player. I really hope the injury isn't long-term, because his skill would be tough to replace at the World Cup this summer.

The Pirates ended a fairly insignificant mini-camp, and the PBC Blog has all the coverage you need to get your Bucco's fix. The biggest thing that caught my eye was Lastings Milledge showing up in excellent shape. Every team has these types of stories, and it doesn't always translate into that player having a great year. But as for Milledge, with way he ended last season, this is really a pivotal up coming year in which he establishes himself as either an average player (2 WAR), or an above average caliber guy (3+ WAR). I'm of course hoping for the latter, but he is on my shortlist of breakout candidates (along with Andy LaRoche). In other parts, Titletahn takes apart another terrible national article written on the Pirates.

This is a nice little recap on Everton's dismantling of Manchester City this past Saturday. It was really a dominating effort, with Donovan playing well again. I'll have a longer post later on this subject, especially considering his thoughts on a permanent move, but in the meantime, check out these extended highlights which include most of LD's touches.

And how can I not mention the Steelers at least once. For all of you Tomlin haters out there, just stop. And Cotter over at OFTOT looks at the Steelers' coaching carousel.