College is a time of learning, but not all of that learning comes from a lecture or in a lab. As we leave home and start fending for ourselves, we are forced to learn how to meet our basic needs.
Familiar flaws for Vikings basketball
Portland State’s cold streak continued this weekend as two more defeats extended the Vikings losing streak to eight games, the longest winless streak in a decade for the men’s basketball team. After dropping their latest games on the road against Northern Arizona University and California State University, Sacramento, head coach Tyler Geving’s crew is now 0-12 on the road in 2012–13 and has gone a full calendar year since their last win away from the Stott Center. With two road games remaining, the Vikings are at risk of becoming just the second team in school history to go winless on the road for an entire season.
Basement Notes: The fix is in
The details read like pulp fiction, filled with tales of deception and extortion and corruption. Europol’s recent revelation—that 680 soccer matches over the past four seasons were fixed by Asian crime syndicates—sounds like a story from an alternate universe. Even as we learn that everything from exhibitions to UEFA Champions League showdowns to World Cup qualifiers were supposedly predetermined by payoffs, the thought of such widespread corruption is difficult to come to terms with.
Basement Notes: Fanhood
“You know, I used to hate Parkman when he was with the A’s. It’s amazing how a new uniform can change your attitude about a guy.” When legendary movie play-by-play announcer Harry Doyle (played by real-life announcing legend Bob Uecker) uttered these words in Major League II, he put a voice to the feelings espoused by many sports fans. Our greatest rivals become fan favorites as soon as they don our home team’s colors, and our sports heroes become persona, non grata, as soon as they take their talents to another city.
No comfort at home for men’s basketball
The men’s basketball team returned to the Stott Center this week to face both Montana schools in the Big Sky conference, hoping that the familiarity of home might spark a Viking revival. Considering the Vikings are 0-10 on the road this season and haven’t won away from Portland in 12 months, this was the best chance for head coach Tyler Geving’s squad to turn their 2012–13 season around. After losing to the University of Montana Grizzlies 81-68 on Thursday, Portland State let a close game against the Montana State University Bobcats slip away on Saturday to extend their losing streak to six games.
Basement Notes: Sacramento and the Sonics
For all the 11th-hour scrambling for an investor-savior by the city of Sacramento, it is a near-inevitability that the Kings will soon be relocating to Seattle and reviving the SuperSonics franchise. Fans in California’s capital now know the pain that residents of the Emerald City understand all too well—no matter how much supporters might stand behind their local team, fan loyalty is nothing when profit is paramount.
Burke blanks Tri-City
After snapping a four-game losing streak against the Spokane Chiefs on Friday, the Portland Winterhawks notched their second straight shutout with a 7-0 road win over the Tri-City Americans on Saturday. The victory keeps the Winterhawks four points ahead of the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL Western Conference standings.
A decade of dominance
We watch sports because we love rooting for our favorite teams and athletes to win. As Vince Lombardi once famously quipped, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
Basement Notes: McIlroy cashes in
Fans tend to equate achievement in sports with direct success on the field, celebrating athletes for their victories and titles and transcendent performances. Athletes, on the other hand, rarely share those idealistic notions of what it means to be the best in their sport over the course of a career. Lured more by a bump into a new tax bracket than the chance at a championship, players will often make every effort to capitalize on their name in the pursuit of cross-promotional fortune, endorsing a slew of products, making film cameos and releasing ghostwritten bestsellers.
Vikings outgunned in Grand Forks
This was the stretch that men’s basketball coach Tyler Geving dreaded most when the schedule was released before the season. “The road trip from Greeley, [Colo.] to North Dakota is going to be a long one,” Geving said in September during a preseason interview. “I have a feeling North Dakota’s going to be pretty good at home.”
The lockout, part 2: missed opportunities
Eight years after the lockout that stole the 2004–05 season, NHL players offered the league’s owners an extension of the collective bargaining agreement as it came up for renewal this summer. Despite suffering a 24 percent salary rollback (after losing the battle on the salary cap issue in 2005), members of the NHL Players’ Association were more than happy to continue playing under the same terms that had been hammered out after that lost season.