By Staff
Jan. 25, 2002
Frantically fumbling through the files on a Friday while wondering how good Michael Jordan will be when he's 60 …
The weekend of March 2-3 will likely be a big one when it comes to men's basketball in the Southeastern Conference.
Especially where the Western Division is concerned.
On that final Saturday Arkansas hosts Vanderbilt, LSU travels to Auburn and Mississippi State is at South Carolina.
Only the LSU-Auburn game will be of little or no consequence when it comes to deciding the title.
The biggest game will be on Sunday, when the Crimson Tide of Alabama travels to Oxford to take on Ole Miss in a game to be televised on CBS.
Going into this weekend's games, Alabama holds the West lead with a 4-1 conference record.
But it must be noted that the Tide washes up on the shore of Rupp Arena to take on the Wildcats of Kentucky on Saturday.
Ole Miss is next at 4-2, while LSU and Mississippi State are both 2-3. Then comes 2-4 Arkansas and 1-5 Auburn.
While Bama and Ole Miss are the clear favorites, MSU cannot be counted out.
The next few games are big ones for the Bulldogs.
Beating LSU at home and Auburn on the road is not only a must for State to have a shot at winning the west, but to finish in the top two and get a better seeding for the SEC Tournament and a first round bye.
After those two games State visits Florida on Feb. 2, then hosts Georgia and Alabama.
In order to keep pace with league-leading Alabama, Ole Miss needs to beat South Carolina in Tad Smith Coliseum on Saturday, then down Vanderbilt the following Wednesday.
Those two home games are followed by road trips to Georgia and Alabama.
While a sweep there doesn't seem likely, a split would be nice.
There are probably three games remaining on the Rebels' schedule that are the most crucial a Feb. 16 home game with Florida, a Feb. 23 road trip to Starkville to take on the Bulldogs and the March 3 contest in Oxford with Alabama.
While the Rebels can't afford to take unexpected losses in the other games remaining on the schedule, a sweep of those three games would likely put Ole Miss among the top two in the West and possibly hand the Rebels the division championship.
Saints tickets getting cheaper
Before you get all excited about the New Orleans Saints going down on their ticket prices, it should be noted that they are going up on the seats you might actually want to sit in.
I have sat in just about every section of the Louisiana Superdome and I cannot imagine where in the world the new $8.75 seats would be located probably either in the bathroom or under a lamp post on Bourbon Street.
While it may sound good that there will be 1,000 seats at the new $8.75 price and another 9,000 season tickets at $25 a game (that is still $250 a year when you figure in the two preseason tickets you will be forced to buy), don't get too excited.
Most of the good seats on the sidelines and in the club seating area are going up.
Probably the real reason those tickets are going down is to make it easier to have sellouts. When a team sells out, it means the games can be televised locally.
While the Saints did sell out all of their home games this season, several times local businesses had to buy the tickets up in order to lift the blackout.
About that Tyson comment
For you regular readers of my column (all six of you who obviously have some sort of mental deficiency), I must clarify something I wrote about Mike Tyson in my column on Wednesday.
For some reason I took it upon myself to call the former heavyweight champion of the world an uncontrollable idiot.
I even went as far as to term his behavior at a Tuesday press conference with Lennox Lewis as childish and suggested that his career was over.
Well, I've had time to think about it. And do you want to know what I think?
I think I was right, that's what I think. Mike Tyson is an idiot, only to be surpassed by anyone who would pay money to watch him fight.