Thoughts on the Current Day in Sports

I haven't been able to get on here often enough lately, so I'm just going to write a post on whatever crosses my mind. And I promise more frequent posts ahead.

1. That rookie QB Colin Kaepernick on the 49ers looks like the real deal, if only through the first quarter and a half I've seen him play. With him behind center they still appear to be Super Bowl contenders, as they are simply dissecting the Bears as of this moment. (My original Super Bowl pick was the Philadelphia Eagles. Uhh, yeah.)

2. Fantasy playoffs start soon! Hope you haven't lost all hope yet.

3. Not too excited about Rob Gronkowski going down. He was a cog on one of my fantasy teams. The Patriots will be okay though; as if they don't have enough weapons already, Gronk's fellow tight end Aaron Hernandez could return this week.

4. About that Marlins-Jays trade. I understand Jose Reyes was overpaid. But even as a Phillies supporter, in my mind it is simply disappointing for baseball. It also leads to large-market owners around the league questioning revenue sharing, with good reason. And it makes the AL East just that much more fun: with the exception of the Red Sox, everyone there is a contender. First time probably ever that could be said.

5. I'm still not much of a college football fan right now. It disgusts me for many reasons. But what's going to be a real pain is listening to the, for whatever reason, condescending Notre Dame fans brag about their team's first relevant squad since before I was born.

6. Georgetown's handing it to UCLA in college hoops. At the current rate, Georgetown's going to be the only Big East team left in the next few years. Heralded freshman Shabazz Muhammad came off the bench in his UCLA debut.

7. How the heck did the usually top-notch Houston Texans' D allow Chad Henne, of all people, to pass for 354 and 4 TDs? It didn't take more than a game for Henne to win the starting job over the woeful Blaine Gabbert in Jacksonville. The bust has eclipsed the other bust for a shot a redemption.

8. I wish Tim Tebow would just go play in NFL Europe or something so the media hops off his jockstrap. Actually they still wouldn't. And NFL Europe doesn't exist anymore, but oh well.

9. For those of you still wondering, hockey is still locked out.

10. David Beckham will play his last game for the L.A. Galaxy, the MLS Cup, on December 1. I know the MLS has its diehard fans, but of all the places he could've played as his career winds down, why did he pick the U.S.A.?

11. Woah. I don't care who they've beaten. The Charlotte Bobcats are 5-4.

Friendship Games Anything But

Ugliness prevailed yesterday when the Georgetown Hoyas visited China's Bayi Rockets. The exhibition game never finished due to the brawl shown in the above video, which happened with nine and a half minutes remaining.

Not to sound biased, but this is likely the Chinese team's fault. Yes, the Hoyas ignored the diplomacy meetings they attended before the visit, but this probably was not mostly on them. There was an instance in the game during a timeout when a Chinese player yelled from a foot away at Georgetown coach John Thompson III as he was addressing his team. It also must be noted that this same group of Chinese players has been fined tens of thousands of dollars for previous unruly behavior during games.

The intentions of the U.S. State Department for this trip that Georgetown, Duke, and Hawaii universities are making to China is to strengthen the ties between the two countries through sports diplomacy. While this has been an overall positive trip, this was not an instance of diplomacy in any way.

The basketball game had been rough from the start. The refereeing had been unfair and the men in stripes had lost all control of the game early. They awarded 57 free throws to the Rockets and just 15 to Georgetown. Perhaps they were afraid of the wrath of the wild crowd. Nonetheless, the game ended in quite the unexpected fashion.