San Diego players charged with point-shaving, begin Blue Chips references

The only Division I conferences who don't award basketball scholarships are the Ivy League and a portion of the Patriot League.

 

And, apparently, the entire SEC West.

 

Ah, USD. Home of the only arena in the country that is never allowed to be expanded, only downsized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Craig_Pavilion

 

No joke but I have an acquaintance who makes his living in Las Vegas betting on MAC football and basketball. He went to Akron and, for whatever reason, knows everything going on.

He will see lines in September that are way off and jump on them, with bets all over town.

 

"Coach, I gotta ask this question, or I wouldn't be doing my job ..."

Quite possibly the lowest point in cinematic sports journalism history. As if a real reporter would work for weeks, if not months, on a story about corruption in a major college basketball program, and then blow his exclusive at a press conference in front of two dozen other reporters and a half-dozen television cameras ...

 

Also known as the "Slim Gym."

I shit you not.

 

Little-known fact: George Dohrmann's idol is Ed O'Neill's character in that movie.

That could be a good thread: Lowest moments for sports reporters in movies. how about Max Mercy basically being the bag man for The Judge, or even going on a cross-country tour as the Whammer's right-hand man? I'm picturing Albom traveling cross-country with Bonds, eating cotton candy with him at county fairs.

 

Mentioned this on some other threads, but Chad Millman (ESPN's Vegas/gambling reporter) has talked about these guys on Bill Simmons' podcast. Some of the wiseguys will dive into, say, the Patriot League. Learn everything they can about the teams, players, coaches, etc. Then they bet the hell out of the league's games and make a killing because Vegas doesn't know much about the teams and the lines are way off. Do that for 100 or so college basketball games over the course of the season and I imagine you can make a nice chunk of change.

 

This is true: I actually picked San Diego in that upset over UCONN in my bracket that year.

/Got nuttin.

 

As a fan of a MAC program (stop laughing), I can honestly say I believe I'd have a fighting chance against the spread betting the MAC. The lines are waaaaay out of whack. They just pick the home team and use some really baseline statistics. They really don't study how the team is actually playing going into the game.

However, I am poor and tighter than a cumberbund on Louie Anderson.

And despite my confidence, I'd probably get cleaned out by Vegas.

 

A friend and I joke about this all of the time. "Coach, I've been saving the scoop of my career so I can ask you about it on opening night with all the competing newspapers here...."

Look closely in the newsroom scene, (you know, when the letters of intent come over the teletype, like that happens all of the time) and you'll see a Chicago Sting pennant in the background.

 

Not cinematic sports journalism, but the press conference scene from "One Fine Day" is along these same lines. George Clooney's character spends an entire day chasing down a scoop (of course under the "Get the scoop or you're fired!" threat), then walks into the mayor's press conference with his main source and heroically confronts the mayor and his aide.
At least in that one, within seconds, every reporter in the room is swarming to the mayor's ex-wife (Clooney's source) to steal the scoop. God willing, Clooney was still shitcanned when he got back to the office for blowing the paper's exclusive eight hours in front of deadline.

On the sports side, the TV clown dressed up in full Indian headdress near the end of "Major League" gets a vote. Although, since he's a TV guy, that's to be expected.
Speaking of "Major League," where the hell were the Indians beat writers in that movie? How do you not get wind of Rachel Phelps' plan and run with it, with as many disgruntled players as they had and the damn cardboard cutout sitting in the middle of the locker room for all to see?