AROUND THE HORN

***YAKKITY-YAK-YAK-YAK***
Phil Sims is supposed to be the best color man on television right now, and I thought he was okay. He seemed to know what he was talking about had some interesting insights. But last Sunday... he talked way too much, repeated himself constantly and his 'excitement' seemed contrived to me. Luckily, it was a good game anyway.

***SYRACUSE ROLLS...AGAIN***
Are teams intimidated coming into the dome? Is the large crowd too much for visiting teams to handle? Or is Syracuse just too good? Rautins was right when he said, "Everything flows from our defense." There were times when the Orange looked like they were part of the Georgetown offense, they caught so many of their passes. And nobody looks for their shot: they always look for that one last pass which leads to what Bill Russell used to call, "high percentage shots." Look out Villanova, here comes Syracuse.

***IS SOMETHING GOING ON HERE?***
One of the writers on ESPN.com suggested that maybe there was a 'situation' with the fact that both Johnny Damon & Xavier Nady are both represented by Scott Boras. The Yanks are reportedly looking for a right-handed hitting outfielder to platoon with Gardner and there is still talk of a Damon return to NY. Nady would be a good fit and the price is right, but there has been little movement. The question becomes, is Boras playing one client against the other, trying to up the ante on either or both? With Boras, anything is possible, especially since there no longer seems to be the Boras Mystery Team in play.

***IS HE REALLY A THOMPSON?***
Behind 20 points with 90 seconds to play, John Thompson III implored his team to stop fouling, especially to stop fouling Andy Rautins. It didn't help, they still kept fouling. John Thompson I teams would have kept on fouling, even into the tunnel after the game. I applaud that bit of sportsmanship from JT III.

Only 19 days to pitchers and catchers.

CP-