Monday Morning Five-Pack

Another Monday, another brain-dump. Hope this helps your week get off to a good start

• The Sounders traveled to San Jose without Fredy Montero and actually scored two goals. Unfortunately they also gave up two goals and had to settle for a tie. Of their first four games this season, I consider this one to have been their worst...and of course we got on the scoreboard twice. Sometimes it just happens like that. So now after four games we have two ties and two losses. Some people might be ready to sound the alarm, but consider this. if we beat Chicago at home next week, we will be undefeated (1-0-2) in our last three after starting the season with two losses. Obviously if we lose then our winless streak is at 5 games, but again, it's not time to panic. I don't like to make excuses, but it's not like MLS gave us Vancouver, Portland and Chivas to start the year like they did for Toronto. We will be fine.
• So what exactly did I like about the same on saturday night? Simple answer - Mauro Rosales. I am quickly becoming a bug fan of the guy. Last week he didn't contribute a goal or an assist, but his work rate was really high. This week he was making making passes and runs that no one else on the team can make. The only problem was that he was on the ground all the time - it wasn't that he was rolling around, he just got knocked off the ball a lot. I also really like Eric Friberg and Steve Zakuani and Brad Evans - hell, the entire midfield (don't need to mention my man crush Alonso who again was all over the place). I feel like something is a bit off with the defense - could it be that the depth at center back is actualy weighing on the guys? I don't know, but I just didn't feel comfortable with Ianni or Parke this weekend. I swore I felt a PK coming late in the game. Luckily it didn't happen and we escaped San Jose with a tie.
• I want to take a second to talk about Butler, specifically their 34-year old coach coach Brad Stevens. Now I don't want to take anything away from them - what they did last year was impressive. What they have done this year is simply amazing. They lost their best player to the NBA and after struggling a little during the regular season, they had to win their conference tournament to make the NCAA's. They had to play the #1 seed in the second round and NO ONE expected them to make it back to the final. No one. In making it this far, Stevens is going to get major attendance from other schools. It will be up to him to decide whether he wants to move to greener pastures or stay at Butler where he is already the most beloved person on campus. My advice to him - if you want to move on, do it now. Classes like this come along once every few decades. This isn't UNC, Duke or Kentucky where the classes reload every year. Butler has no HS All-Americans and they won't have any coming in. It takes a special bunch of kids to make it back to back. I don't compare Bucknell to Butler, but after their magical two year stretch in 2004-2006, they sucked. It wasn't until this year that they made it back to the tournament. Bottom line is that while certain mid-majors can be competitive (Gonzaga, Xavier) year in year out, the Radford's, Norther Iowa's, George Mason's of the world are going to have ups and downs. If people expect Butler to make it back next year they are sorely mistaken.
• The Notre Dame women's bball coaches name is Muffet McGraw. She was wearing a leopard skin skirt against UConn. Are you kidding me? Muffet? That is terrible.
• The Mets started off 2011 by being no-hit through 6 innings. It was obviously only one game, but given the recent state of the team, I know it had all Mets fans ready to jump. I mean, what an ominous sign of things to come, right? Well, two games later and here we sit at 2-1 in what is hopefully not the only time we have a winning record this year. On Saturday they fought back and won in extra innings and then on Sunday, they rolled the Marlins thanks to the offense and Nashville's favorite son RA Dickey. This is what we all had in mind when we told ourselves that we could compete. A balanced offense led by Wright and Davis, small contributions from the likes of Willie Harris and Josh Thole and some stellar pitching form underrated starters Niese and Dickey. Now if Beltran, Reyes, Bay and Pagan can get on a roll, we can win some games....right? Their is no such thing as a must win series in April, but we will certainly see what kind of fight we have in us when we travel to Philly on Tuesday.

I won't get to watch the championship game tonight, but I know I speak for the rest of the nation when I say Go Butler! I mean, seriously, does anyone not in Connecticut actually want Calhoun and the Huskies to win? I have no problem with Kemba but Calhoun is just so unlikable. However, if they do win, then I can say that my Bison lost to the Champs which is never a bad consolation prize (of course I honestly though they could win, so it shows you what I know).