book-ending your week with links

About last night's panicky post: slept on it. Feel a little better. And it's probably never a good idea to freak out about something that appears to be nothing. Also, I watched this video and felt better.



Anyway, some links to close out the first week of March ...
-- Gentry Estes has a look at Alabama's potential punishment for this, even though -- as we've all learned -- there's no reason to think the NCAA will do anything rational or fair, particularly where it concerns Alabama.
Assuming he's absolutely correct -- that 'Bama will receive what amounts to "double secret probation" in this case -- there's one rather large concern: in today's cutthroat, high-dollar recruiting world ... it's probably not good to be going to war with one hand tied behind your back. Then again, we do have Nick Saban.
-- While we're on the subject of recruiting devices, this week the rumors about ESPN televising A-Day were confirmed. Obviously, we all have our own anger to direct towards Bristol, but it's never a bad thing when your program gets that kind of exposure.
Of course, every time the subject of A-Day comes up, I usually turn into Allen Iverson.



-- One more link that's sort of related to football: Nick Saban says he won't be involved in search for new basketball coach. If it seems somewhat odd that he would even be posed that question in the first place, consider his salary (still the state's highest-paid employee) and the amount of power he wields (detailed famously by Forbes).
-- While we're on the subject of basketball, Mr. SEC has the story on the conference's terrible RPI. That isn't good news for Auburn, detailed here by Jerry at The JCCW.

[F]rankly, now that the talk has hit the kind of pitch that guys like Goldberg feel the need to get guys like Palm on the line, the talk bugs me. If the players are reading the chatter (and you know they are ... wouldn't you?), it's possible they'll get suckered into thinking--even if only in the very, very back of their minds--that it could happen. It can't. They've got to know that there's no hope past the automatic bid. They have to win Tampa. They have to win those three games. They have to focus on those games and those games alone--a win against LSU would be nice, but it wouldn't mean a thing other than NIT seeding. There is no other option. Auburn's good, but if their desperation loses even the slightest bit of its edge, they will not win three straight games against the kind of competition they're going to face in Tampa.

-- One more basketball-related link: ESPN.com's True Hoop has done an outstanding series this week about NBA traveling, basically detailing that a) nobody knows the rule and b) that's understandable, because the rule itself is pretty ambiguous. Here, he argues the NBA should re-write it.

-- On the subject of excellence in crimson, Alabama's softball team has a big tournament coming up this weekend.

-- Finally, Dr. Saturday gives us Barack Obama's luggage. We've come a long way, baby.