Rebounds & Putbacks | December 20th, 2009

By Paul Gotham

Time to cruise through the sports world and get a grab bag of stories.  Here are items of interest that could spur on some discussion.

Dude looks like a lady.

Props to Andrew Bogut. After one season in the NBA, the native of Australia found himself a little disappointed with the turnout for his Milwaukee Buck games. He missed the raucous crowds of his homeland, and the seven footer decided to do something about it. Bogut bought 100 season tickets and distributed the ducats to willing fans.   The center outlined a few basic requirements for fans to maintain their privileges. The result has been exactly what Bogut hoped.  Check out how Bogut’s 100 responded to Chicago’s Joakim Noah.

Congrats all around

If not for our friendly 24 hour sports station, we might not know about the accomplishments of the Penn State women’s volleyball team, Villanova football, and the Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks.  These three teams deserve cheers.

The last time the Penn State women’s volleyball team lost, GW claimed the oval office as his residence. Megan Hodge led the Nittany Lions back from a two-set deficit to win their third straight national title. Penn State has won 103 consecutive matches.  I have read and heard how others find female sports unwatchable. I wonder how these people would respond to yesterday’s match. What a fantastic display of athleticism, intensity, and grace.

Good things come to those who wait, and no one knows that better than Villanova’s Andy Talley. After 25 years Talley reached a pinnacle.

Junior wide receiver, Matt Szczur, notched 270 all-purpose yards as the Wildcats defeated Montana, 23-21 to take the 1AA national championship.

Montana entered the game undefeated (14-0) and number one in the country.

The championship was the first football title for Talley and for the university. How does those 1AA teams play so many games?

Wisconsin-Whitewater scored 10 points in the final 1:10 to defeat reigning champ, Mount Union, 38-28. Levell Coppage scored three touchdowns and Jeff Donovan threw for two to lead the Warhawks to the D3 title.

W-W and Mount Union have met each of the last five years for the title. Mount Union winning three times. Mount Union entered with a 29-game winning streak.

Twitter me this; twitter me that.

If nothing else, Twitter can provide some amusement.

SI provides a weekly sampling of humorous tweets from a variety of sports personalities. This week has Chad Ochocinco distancing himself from Tiger. Ron Artest getting Tiger’s back. And, Denny Hamlin is taking Tiger’s place. Oh yeah, there is also something about Serena and beans, and Shaq being A-Rod.

The General on integrity

Thank you Bob Knight for saying what the rest of us want to say. It’s about time someone with some relevance in the college basketball world took John Calipari to task.

Talking Smack

Bart Scott has made smack an art form. The New York Times ran a piece outlining the Jets linebacker and his non-stop mouth.

Another close call

ESPN is reporting that USC’s Joe McKnight did nothing wrong. The SUV he drives around is paid for by his girlfriend. Yeah,  and OJ is innocent. Let’s see Randy Bush, Matt Leinart, OJ Mayo, and now McKnight. Who is the compliance officer at USC?