In the wake of last week's debacle of a column, I feel like I should make some revisions to my "USC rules, and the Gators suck" premise.
No. 1: The Trojans are a bunch of choking softies. They represent the mediocrity of even the "elite" teams of the Pac-10, and I'm not sure who was gagging worse against UCLA: the players or me watching them.
No. 2: Florida is much better than I gave them credit for. They shut down Arkansas' rushing attack en route to a 38-28 SEC Championship win only the week after the Razorbacks shredded LSU's nation-best run D for 298 yards. And until future notice, the SEC is miles better than the Pac-10.
Ouch.
So since my confidence is shot for this week, there will be no bold predictions about Ohio State and Florida. Instead, I'm going to talk about an NBA player that 99 percent of Americans have never heard of: a guy named Ime Udoka.
Udoka is a 6'5" small forward who, after a cup of coffee with the Lakers in 2003-04 and an eight-game stint in New York in 05-06, finally caught on with the Portland Trail Blazers this season. This is no small irony, considering that he is not only a born-and-raised Portlander - he attended Jefferson High in northeast Portland and graduated from Portland State in 1999 - but the Blazers were his favorite team growing up.
There wasn't any interest in Udoka after his collegiate career ended, so he bounced around the NBDL for a few years, earning a reputation as a savvy, intelligent player who steadied his team at both ends of the floor. Last season, after being waived by the Knicks, Udoka earned First-Team All-NBDL honors - an award that, combined with former Kansas Jayhawk Aaron Miles's failed physical, intrigued Blazers head coach Nate McMillan enough to make Udoka the team's final training-camp invitee.
The Blazers have a plethora of young wing talent: Martell Webster, Travis Outlaw, Darius Miles, and Juan Dixon. McMillan initially just saw Udoka as a warm body to run around with those guys in training camp and pulled no punches with the 29-year-old Nigerian, telling him that if he wanted to avoid being cut, he would have to play so well that McMillan would have no choice but to keep him on the roster.
On Oct. 17, Udoka's father Vitalis died suddenly of a heart attack. It was the date of the Blazers' first home exhibition game, and it would have been the first time that Vitalis had seen in person his son play in an NBA uniform.
Udoka responded by channeling his grief into his play, averaging 13.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists in his first four preseason games and playing what the Blazers coaching staff called the best perimeter defense on the team.
When Udoka learned that he had earned a spot on the roster, he wasn't traveling with the team, but was in Portland for his father's funeral.
He said in an interview with The Oregonian that, "Being the day of the funeral, and hearing the word on the same day, it's kind of like a blessing. My dad was a big reason I was doing this - I wanted to play in front of my family - so to get this result would have made him proud."
After being an afterthought invitee and suffering through the death of his father during his tryout, Udoka is now the starting small forward for the Blazers, averaging 8.5 points and nearly four rebounds a game. He is, as one might imagine, a huge fan favorite in Portland.
I'm clearly no sports guru, but you don't need to be to have a heart. You can keep your outrage about the BCS shafting Michigan or Rutgers or Wisconsin or whoever; give me stories about Ime Udoka and his brethren any day of the week.
Matthew Mertens is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
