90 Seconds: Thursday, April 14, 2011

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

+ Did you watch any of the first night of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on Wednesday? Hockey has the best postseason by far, so if you're not into it, you'd better start following along. Its regular season lacks the excitement of college and pro football and college basketball, but its tournament is outstanding. I say it every year around this time, but I'll say it again: no sport's players try harder in the postseason than hockey's. Sure everyone wants to win a championship, but you won't see NBA guys leave it on the floor the next two months the way NHL's skaters will. If you don't believe me, check any of the three series set to begin tonight ... if you can find them on your television.

+ Speaking of the NBA, its postseason begins with four first-round games on Saturday. Miami's road to the first of their expected seven NBA championships begins at home against Philadelphia. All eyes will be on LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh and every playoff loss or narrow victory will be analyzed and dissected. Watching Miami in the postseason will be almost as interesting as it will be to watch the coverage of Miami in the postseason. Expect the hyperbo-meter and panic-meter to be off the charts throughout April and May.

+ It's been a while since I listened to Jim Rome on the regular, but this time of year is usually when he drops the sarcastic ol' "Wait a minute, we're hearing reports that an NFL expert is going to predict the first round of the draft." There is seldom a larger waste of energy than the one we see from the February combine to what was once called Draft Day. Then, thanks to ESPN's curious NFL Draft boner, it became a two-day event, and last year it became a three-day draftasm. Stupid, though I will give the WWL credit for bringing in many current and former NFL players through its studios to try their hands at on-camera work. Trevor Pryce and another NFL player I wasn't familiar with made appearances on Wednesday.

+ Lastly on the 90 today, did anyone care about the Barry Bonds trial? I sure didn't. Way to be decisive, Bay Area jurors. They returned three deadlock decisions and a mostly harmless guilty verdict on an obstruction charge that yielded no official answer on whether Bonds used steroids. That dude needs to go away.

90 Seconds: Tuesday, April 12, 2011

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

+ Jenn Sterger, you are not an entertainer. You are little more than a hot young girl. Personality and fake boobs are not things to bullet-point on a resume; what is actually on yours? You told GMA today it was never your intention to play the role of the victim, but that's precisely how you came off in the interview you chose to grant. You claim that once this storm hit, folks called you a gold-digger and a home-wrecker. OGS buys that you're not those things, and also believes the pain you feel is very real. But if you're not either of those derogatory things, can you admit to being a slight attention-whore? From your outfits at Florida State games and Playboy shoots to being an ill-qualified television sports personality, welcome again to the world to which you so desperately sought entree.

+ Don't expect the point-shaving scandal at the University of San Diego to amount to much, unfortunately. This should be a huge story, but because it doesn't involve big-name stars or programs like Cam Newton or Ohio State, it won't get the coverage. But to me, the scumbags who step to players to ask them to fix games are dirtier than any street pimps, AAU thugs or dads named Cecil. Hundred-dollar postgame handshakes are one thing, but asking a broke-ass college athlete to influence the outcome of a game is far worse.

+ A full analysis on the Miami Heat's postseason chances is coming to the pages of OGS soon, but I have to make a quick point here. Too often we hear athletes talk about how they as individuals or their teams have overcome adversity. It's such a terrible cliche. But from the minute the Heat organized that embarrassing look-at-me circus last summer, they've grown and improved and developed some necessary chemistry. I won't be rooting for LeBron and Co., but it wouldn't surprise me to see the Heat come out of the East.