Here's my 3-peat

By: Kye Johnson

Posted: 5/30/08

Oregon State baseball got screwed this week. Point blank. There's no other way to cut it. The NCAA just "dude"-slapped OSU, if you will, and it really disappoints me.

I'm not aggravated by the fact that an Oregon State team that barely mustered up a winning record didn't make it into the postseason for another shot at a College World Series title. No, it's not that at all, because OSU really dug its own grave this year by losing more than one game in key situations to inferior opponents.

It's the fact that the NCAA selection committee (or whatever Duck alum was on that selection board) picked Western Kentucky and Oklahoma - teams that just barely had better records than OSU - over the two-time defending national champions to play in the post-season.

Yes, OSU would have had the worst record out of any non-automatic bid in the tournament, but would anyone question it? The Beavers are the two-time defending champions - the sheer idea of having the two-time champ in the tournament gives it life, does it not? I guess we won't find out, because the Beavers will be sitting at home watching other okay teams who haven't done squat the past few years play for a bid at the crown instead.

Forget picking the "best" teams; pick the teams who deserve it.

OSU has been the face of college baseball for nearly the past three years, and the Beavers get shunned out of a bid because they lost a few too many games? Give me a break, NCAA. You never cease to amaze me.

Speaking of things that never cease to amaze me, NBA league officials apparently met this week to discuss rule changes for next year. According to espn.com, NBA vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson essentially said, "Look, we know Hack-a-Shaq is a pretty ridiculous tactic that opponents use, but we feel like if we changed the rule, we would be rewarding players that are poor free-throw shooters."

Dude. Stu. Let me remind you of one thing: When a player is mugged at half court, before his team can even get the ball a third of the way up the floor, that is called intentionally going out of your way to foul someone.

The Spurs players were literally hugging Shaq and turning the NBA first-round playoffs into a game of hide-and-go-seek, where Shaq wouldn't even bother setting up an offense but instead looked like a 7-year-old on a playground with his head on a swivel, searching for the next kid to come tag him.

That's not basketball.

So let's change the rule so we can actually play basketball again. The Spurs, and any other team that has taken advantage of this loophole have made a complete mockery of the game, and the NBA is going to continue to let it happen? How bad do these guys hate Shaq? In my mind, an intentional foul or a foul that deliberately stops the natural flow of the basketball game should mean one free-throw plus the ball. It's a joke that the Spurs won their first-round series by playing a game of huggy-bear instead of playing basketball.

No one thought to make a rule against Hack-a-Shaq to begin with because nobody thought a team would be moronic or cowardly enough to pull something like that.

The NBA seriously dropped the ball on this one and will regret not changing this rule sometime next year.

Ah, yes. Dropping. Please tell me you saw those hockey players who were celebrating some victory (because no one really knows what team it was, let's be honest) when the trophy broke right in half as one celebrating player went to hand the thing off to one of his ecstatic teammates. How embarrassing.

But probably not quite as embarrassing as it is to play for the Boston Red Sox right now, because despite the Mariners players' best efforts, they actually won two games in a row this week against the Sox, bringing their record to... so far in last place early in the season that I already don't care anymore.

And since we're back on the baseball note again, I just pray that Major League Baseball doesn't implement a home-run official to review controversial homers from a TV booth upstairs. Baseball is the only pure and sacred game we have left in this world, and as soon as it gives in and allows replays to be a part of it, I might actually quit watching.

Think about it: Replays? In baseball? That actually is the most counterintuitive thing I've ever heard. An umpire screwing up is one of the top four greatest things in baseball - not to be outdone by the guy who catches a foul ball with a beer in his other hand, bench-clearing brawls and walk-off home runs. Wait, was that a home run? Better check the replay. Sit tight, and I'll get back to you on that one.

Kye Johnson, sports columnist

sports@dailybarometer.com