Mailbag, take one

Alright, sorry to my followers for the delay in posts, I'm sure both of you have been devastated during the hiatus.

To keep myself to some guaranteed regularity, I'm going to add a new feature starting right now. It'll be called the “Reader Mailbag,” questions can be submitted to henglehart@students.colgate.edu or to the comment box at the bottom of this page. And we've got some questions now, so I'll jump right into it:

Nothing on the Celtics? Come on, I have to know if this team's gonna be okay or not.

(Submitted by Greg from Newburyport, MA)

Sorry Greg, of course the Celtics are my top priority right now. I gave them a premature tweet where I declared I wasn't worried anymore, after seeing them play eight minutes of almost perfect basketball to finish off the Knicks game. They responded with an almost excusable loss to Memphis, who is at least going to have a winning record, and then a loss to Charlotte. Charlotte's starting Center that night: Kwame Brown, I'll leave it at that. I didn't get to see either of those games because I'm trapped outside of the television market, but I've heard they were just straight up awful basketball by the 'tics. Doc apparently tore into the team after the Charlotte game and they responded by playing a great first quarter against the T'Wolves tonight, which they then went on to almost blow after a very poor last three quarters. So I guess this mainly means we're going to have to wait until the playoffs to see if they can switch the “on-switch” again, because under all the mess I'm pretty sure there's still a good team down there. The slight upside I see is that the trade mainly broke up the D on paper, and so far the D has been allowing about the same amount of ppg as they were before the deal. So, if the D can keep it up, Krstic adds a new scoring option at Center and Green gives one off the bench. They haven't been the problem, but mainly the other four starters have been. If they can turn it on in the playoffs like they've done in the past, they could be in pretty good shape. But the bad news is they lost to the Bobcats at home, which I just can't see a championship team doing. The important thing is trying to somehow hold on to the two seed so that the Miami series won't be in the second round and because I think the Sixers are much scarier than the fading Knicks.

How about Butler and VCU in the final four?

(Submitted by Greg from Hamilton, NY)

I'll admit right now I was wrong about VCU. I was a firm believer they shouldn't have made the tournament after coming in fourth in the CAA. I'm still stubborn enough (and a big enough Buffs supporter) to say Colorado should have gotten in over them, but I still think they both should have gotten in over UAB. Anyways I think it's great for the tourney, hopefully we'll se a little more love for mid-majors from now on. All that said, I think that was an incredibly lucky game for VCU. They executed really well, and still the only reason they won was because Kansas was missing open shots. Kansas didn't shoot 11% from downtown because VCU covered the three so well, they shot 11% because they had multiple open looks rim out. VCU probably wins that game one out of twenty times, but that's probably better than a lot of teams, so props to VCU. Still, I don't see them getting by Butler. I have so much faith in Brad Stevens right now, even if he just lied on national TV an said he got out-coached by Billy Donovan. A) Billy Donovan did not out-coach him in that game. If he had out-coached him, his second ranked Gators with superior athletes, and recruits would have beaten the Bulldogs. His team also would've pounded the inside and dominated down there and the last shot of the game wouldn't have been a gross fade-away three pointer, but rather a decent look off of an actually well drawn up play. B) Even if Billy Donovan had out-coached him yesterday, Brad Stevens' coaching talents extend past single game preparation. He works year round to get his team working together and playing good basketball, and every time they get out on the court they show just how good a team they are.

Nothing on baseball yet? I thought you were a baseball guy, you slacking?

(Submitted by Greg from Mass.)

You're absolutely right, I am slacking. Maybe it's the fact that I've been stuck in the harshest winter of my life, maybe it's because I'm not playing this year for the first time since I was four, maybe it's because I'm actually a tiny bit excited about the Pirates young talent, or maybe it's because I'm still fired up from that awesome World Series last year, but this is maybe the most excited I've ever been about an MLB season starting. So expect my next post to be a preview, and expect it to be up within the next 24 hours, and finally I'll end with a baseball question/tribute:

Can I get a little love for my man Mike Hampton? Calling it quits after sixteen years.

(Submitted by Greg from NY)

Absolutely some love for Mike Hampton. I posted a little bit about it on my twitter yesterday, which I'll now put in a shameless plug for, follow me, @gregenglehart, for a very random assortment of mainly sports related tweets. Anyways, a lot of people, myself included, think of Mike Hampton as a great hitting pitcher, which he absolutely as. But let's not forget the dude could pitch. 22-4 with a 2.90 ERA in 1999. He also hit .311 that year with 3 doubles and 3 triples! Gotta love seeing a pitcher leg out a triple. So congrats on a great career Mike. I am officially making you the second member of both my 1998-2003 all underrated team, and my all underrated Mike's team, both which so far includes Mike Sweeney (.333, 29 HR's and 144 RBI's on the Royals for crying out loud! He must've hit 50% of their baserunners in that season!).

So keep the questions coming folks, and look for an MLB preview and maybe even the completion of those underrated teams coming soon.