Posted: D.A.
ESPN lacrosse analyst Mark Dixon chatted with the Baltimore Sun and of course the only thing anyone can talk about is Army’s dramatic upset over the Orange¬†(of which, our man Conroy is still on valium).
“Syracuse being knocked out is going to hurt the attendance of the championships in Baltimore. Syracuse always brings down a large and unique fan base, and I think attendance will probably be hurt at M&T Bank Stadium. I could be wrong, but any records that we were hoping to be broken this Memorial Day weekend have probably gone out the window. You‚Äôre still going to get a very good crowd and great games and tremendous competition.”
Oh, wait. There won’t be tens of thousands of Army fans streaming down to the Inner Harbor two weeks from now?
You know, for all the flack this guy takes, David Stern is the only one that has this right. Look who’s going to be in the NBA Finals this year: Lakers-Celtics. Again. For like the 98th time ever. He’s not futzing around and hoping a Magic-Suns finals does a good number. He’s locking in his meal tickets. He’ll threaten every referee on the floor with death by silent bullet via that Russian Nets billionaire owner unless Paul Pierce and Kobe gets to the line 45 times each.
Why didn’t the NCAA lacrosse big cheeses, in all their infinite wisdom, figure out a way to push the Orange past Army? Who cares if it’s a feel good story for our service academy? You know what else is a feel good story about Army? Beating Afghanistan. Let’s let them win those battles. On the lax field, make sure the top seeds move on.
And what the hell does “unique” fans mean? That the 315 contingent is not wearing Brooks Brothers sweaters around their necks during the game? They’re not tailgating with white wine and duck pate? Yeah, sorry. We like lacrosse for the beer and violence. Get a life.
“I think it‚Äôs better for the sport when you have some fresh blood in there. Now you‚Äôve got Army and Cornell. You‚Äôve got a service academy possibly getting into the national semifinals for the first time since Navy did it in 2004. But without (Syracuse) there, I don‚Äôt think it hurts the landscape. I think it makes the tournament a little wide open right now.”
Great, wide open. You know what else is wide-open? The market for cheese-and-bacon-stuffed, fried-chicken-as-buns sandwiches. But that doesn’t make KFC’s “Double Down” any smarter as a business model. I don’t care what quarterly profits say. Everyone’s gonna have a triple-bypass by October after eating this thing. Army winning is the Double Down of the lax world.
“The MAAC tournament can always be a wild card, and what I mean by that is the AQ from that conference typically gets placed based on geography. So you‚Äôve got Siena in the north and Mount St. Mary‚Äôs in the south. Had Siena won that game against Mount St. Mary‚Äôs in the MAAC championship, they would have gone to Syracuse. It would have completely changed the landscape of the tournament. Look, Army still had to go out on the field and beat Syracuse, but I think Mount St. Mary‚Äôs beating Siena, that gave Army the opportunity to do what they did on Sunday, and that was upset Syracuse.”
Screw you, Siena. Thanks for nothing. You’ve got a date with that Russian billionaire.
