Seth Allen had tons of trouble playing point guard against Duke. But when he got to be the shooter, well, that was another story altogether. For his part, Alex Len has listened all season long as so-called experts described Duke's Mason Plumlee as the best big man in the ACC. On Saturday, Len forever ended that silly comparison by humiliating his much ballyhooed rival as Maryland beat No. 2 Duke, 83-81, before a crazed sellout crowd in College Park and a national television audience.
Len poured in 19 points and hauled down nine rebounds to lead the Terps. Allen, committed an unsightly seven turnovers (Maryland as a team committed 26), but redeemed himself with 14 critical points, including two free throws with 2.8 seconds left to give Maryland the win. Plumlee, on the otherhand, was stifled by Len and fouled out with only 4 points and a paltry three rebounds. Even more ignominious for Plumlee was the many second half minutes he rode the bench even before getting into foul trouble. Plumlee was briefly spared his fifth foul after a truly terrible call by the game officials tagged the Terps' Dez Wells with a charge even though replays showed Plumlee never came close to getting position as Wells drove to the rim in a transition play. Other calls also favored Plumlee when he didn't deserve it, but Maryland persevered and won. Maryland is now 18-7 overall and 6-6 in the ACC. They have six games remaining before the ACC tournament, four of them away from College Park. The first of these road games is Tuesday night at Boston College. The game begins at 9 pm. Maryland returns home Saturday to play Clemson in a game beginning at noon. The only other home game left for Maryland is March 6 against North Carolina. Besides Boston College, the Terps have road games left at Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Virginia. The ACC tournament is March 14-17 in Greensboro, North Carolina, with the NCAA tournament beginning the following week. As most fans can tell, the conference and national tournaments are starting several weeks later than normal this season.
Even as the Orioles and other major league clubs reported to spring training, the College Baseball season got under way for real on Friday. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana the LSU Tigers, ranked at No. 10 nationally, made a single run in the third inning stand up in a 1-0 victory over Maryland. The Tiger's Aaron Nola pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit baseball to earn the win. Maryland's Jimmy Reed was the very hard luck loser. Reed went five innings, striking out three and walking only one. He was charged with the only run of the game, which scored when Alex Bregnian grounded a single up the middle with two outs in the third, scoring a runner from third. Maryland relief pitchers Jaime Pashuck, a junior, and freshman Kevin Mooney combined for three innings of scoreless baseball. For the game, Maryland pitchers gave up nine hits to the hard-hitting Tigers, but minimized the consequences by surrendering only two walks. On Saturday afternoon, LSU defeated the Terps, 5-1. The two teams close out the weekend series Sunday afternoon in Baton Rouge.
obama's state of the union was anything but. Sorry, I suppose, to have to keep griping about the man in charge, but he does nothing worthy of even slight praise. For instance, unemployment is rampant, the entire economy actually shrunk in the last quarter of 2012, and a huge awful dose of more imbecilic obama laws are upon us, ramping up the tax bite for those Americans who do things like working, employing and producing.
We learn that a family of four will pay between $16,000 and $20,000 per year for the mandatory health insurance we will be forced to have under his - as I say - imbecilic health program. If you don't believe this thing he rammed down our throat was created by uber leftists like him and his functionaries, tell me when he has ever rubbed elbows long enough with any other political group to spawn a - no, I won't say it - to spawn a real awful nightmare like the thing he rammed down our throat. With the bill we can't pay comes the death panels we aren't supposed to call death panels. What will happen the first time some taxpaying American is told by some elitist panel of bureaucrats that their mom or dad can't get a pacemaker because, well, because they're too old. Mind you, the mom or dad is healthy and the doctor who wants the pacemaker put in knows his patient can handle the procedure, but obama's death panel says it's just not in the cards. So we can provide health care to illegal aliens but not tax paying citizens. Mind you, this is one liberal democrat who likes the current system where everybody gets health care whether they can pay for it or not.
There is a growing body of thinking that is trying to make sense out of a lot of conflicting data. On the one hand are national polls that show that a clear majority of Americans believe the United States is headed in the wrong direction economically and socially. Then there are other polls that show obama with an approval rating worthy of a leader who is effective, moral and honest. Yet obama is neither effective, moral or honest. So how can a failed leader - and, please, don't you dare embarass yourself and argue that point to the contrary - put a powerful nation on a downbound train that is racing into the abyss at record speed and not pay a price for that in the approval ratings polls?
You know that the answer is going to make you sick because someone who is doing what obama is doing; that is, someone who is decimating a decent nation, should be the subject of a nationwide manhunt, not the smiling heart-throb of a bunch of slobbering functionary pseudo-journalists. (Do you know that I heard a sound bite from some New York Playwrite who still talked about obama in messianic terms? Talk about living in La-La Land!
Anyway, a new theory is emerging on this conflict in the opinion polls. It centers around obama's proclivity for campaigning even when, as now, his last national race is over. Take as a given that obama's policies and legislative enactments are at the route of the current economic morass. Take as a second given that there exists: (a) a national media composed of little more than are nothing more thansslap dog functionaries for the uber left and its hero, obama; (b) a voting public that is composed of somewhere between 48% and 56% of so-called "low information" or, more candidly, stupid people, people who have no idea what is going on, or why. This reality permits obama to push ahead with far left legislation and far left dictate's - the latter clearly outside of the boundaries of the law - and then, even as his legislative initiatives and dictates decimate the national economy, he takes to the microphone and harangues and ridicules the illusory evils said to be causing the current economic and moral disasters.
Here's how it actually works: obama enacts legislation like obamamess (i.e. obamacare), cap and trade, stimulus and other debt-causing spending outrages, and executive orders such as those causing gasoline prices to skyrocket (preventing the completion of the oil pipeline to Canada, preventing and delaying oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, etc.). As a direct and forseeable result of these obama initiatives, the economy spins downward, unemployment remains higher, by far, than ever before, and virtually every economic indicator spits out dismal and downright scary numbers. But obama, directly because the national media won't pin these inevitabilities to him, goes to various national locations and criticizes the national demon of the day, be it rich folk, oil companies, senior citizens seeking tax relief (i.e., the Teaparty), small business folk, etc. These are the causes of the problems we are having, obama tells us, and I (obama) and leading the fight against them. We (obama and the voters) will get the evil ones and bring them to justice, just you wait and see.
Sadly, there are enough stupid people and the requisite bootlicking news media, to enable obama to bring these outrageous realities to our living rooms and board rooms. These are the life and times of these United States under obama. God help us all!
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