On Herr Jordan, And others

OK, so I'm in my dorm room reading up on Adolf Hitler so I can do a History Tutorial paper that's due tomorrow. I'm reading all of these things about how he loved to have everything his way within the Nazi state, when suddenly the Boston Globe sports page pops up from my bed into the corner of my eye.

I see Michael Jordan on the cover. Dressed in black.

I stop to read Dan Shaughnessy's column talking about him, and how he's lived on fastballs and curves for the past several weeks.

I pause for a brief moment of reflection.

Nah, I say. That said "Sox" on his baseball uniform, not "SS". Didn't it?

Mike, give us a break. Go Home, play some golf, get our in the sun and off of my sports page. You are retired, aren't you?

Wow--strange things going on in Briggs Cage, huh? Penn waltzes into town with a lord-knows-how-many-game Ivy winning streak, and Harvard comes within a hair's breadth of pulling off the biggest college basketball since Virginia-Chaminade, right?

Wrong--these guys seem to be legitimately improving. That Snowden Character, he seems pretty good. Maybe before he graduates he can help lift Harvard into the upper echelons of the Ancient Eight...heck, even into that NCAA spot that the Crimson has never entered.

Never. And I'm not going to stop mentioning that fact until Harvard finally does make it to the Big friggin' Dance. If this school is worth a national title in hockey, than it can at least aspire to be worth an appearance in basketball's final 64.

Speaking of college basketball, do you realize that the Big Eight actually stands to watch only three schools make it to the NCAA postseason tango?

Missouri (remarkably still unbeaten in league play), Kansas and Oklahoma state have tournament credentials. But without a conference tournament win from one of the Little Five, this perennial basketball power-house could wind up with fewer berths than the Great Midwest, the Atlantic Ten and the Big East.

Ouch.

Odds and ends: Still no sign of Monica Seles, two weeks after the conclusion of the Australian Open, the tournament that was supposed to mark her return to women's tennis. Maybe she's waiting for Nancy and Tonya to get out of her spotlight...Great to see Scott Hoch win another golf tournament last weekend in the Bob Hope Chryseler Classic. Hoch "as in choke, who blew a two-foot putt that would have won him the 1989 Masters, won for the first time since that fateful season, and in light of his top-six finish last year in the U.S. Open, it seems his return to form might be legit...And a show of hands, please. How many of you have attended a Harvard athletic event outside of Cambridge? Just curious.