Am I the only one who didn’t think last night’s national title game was that great? I’m not saying it was a bad game, but when you have a game with zero lead changes, how great can it be? I was impressed by Kansas’ comeback, but come on, this is Syracuse. Nobody plays a 37 minute basketball game like the Orangemen.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Jim Boehim managed to win a national title and still prove that he cannot coach–all at the same time. It’s a feat only duplicated in the annals of coaching by Dick Vermeil. Who knew?

It’s sad, but probably a little too telling of me that when I think back on this national title game, I won’t think of Gerry McNamara raining threes in the first half, or Carmelo Anthony dominating until his back went gimpy, or even of Nick Collison hauling in 20 rebounds. No, I’ll remember this:

Roy Williams: “I don’t give a shit about North Carolina!”

That’ll look good on the resume.

The look on Bonnie Bernstein’s face was precious. Remember how she looked at the Bears-Jags game in 2001 when she thanked Dick Jauron and “threw” it to Dick Enberg and then said, “Hey, two Dicks!”

I think we all need to give a shout out to the man Roy referred to as “the little man in your ear” to Bonnie. Bonnie has a little man living in her ear?

Really?

Is it:

The Cubs are going to give the home opener another go today. It really should be much nicer. Considering as I write this it’s THIRTY degrees. Thirty!

I’ll start the Dose with some links to the columns in the Chicago papers today about Jerry Krause. But I don’t get it. Why is it that nobody can give Krause any credit? They all cop this “any moron could have built a championship team around Michael Jordan” attitude. No they couldn’t. And on top of that, Krause built two championship teams around him. He traded for Scottie Pippen and only Pippen was on all six title teams with MJ. Otherwise it was two distinct teams that won the first three and the second three titles.

The Hamster has always been an easy target. When I got into this “business” in 1995 I practically made a living off the stupid things he, and Red Kerr, said. In fact, I’ll have Jerry Krause jokes that live on long after he’s gone. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

But you can’t say he’s not good at his job.

Awkward? You bet.

Paranoid? Of course.

Has the social graces of an incontinent camel? Yes, indeed.

But is he bad general manager? He’s only the best general manager in any sport in Chicago sports history. Who was better? Bob Kennedy? Rod Graves? Larry Himes?

Short of Jim Finks’ work to build the Super Bowl Bears nobody else even comes close.

Basically, Jerry catches crap for reasons that simply aren’t true.

1) He ran off Michael Jordan. Shut up. Jordan left because he wanted to. Even if MJ wanted a front office job with the Bulls, why would the Bulls want him? So we could field a team with young players on the bench and Christian Laettner and Charles Oakley kicking the ball out of bounds at crunch time? In fact, Krause had enough sense to realize his own Charles Oakley experiment was failing, just in time for MJ to try it his own damn self.

2) Free agents won’t sign with the Bulls because of him. Krause wooed three top-tier free agents and Tracy McGrady signed with Orlando because they had just as much money and a much better latitude, Grant Hill took his broken foot to Orlando and Eddie Jones had a contract agreed to with the Bulls before Pat Riley sweet talked him into a Florida relocation as well. Short of moving the Bulls to Florida, what exactly did Krause not do?

3) He botched drafts and look at what the Bulls are stuck with. He got the number one overall pick in a year when there was no number one overall talent. So he took Elton Brand and ended up with a very good player. He then traded Elton to the Clippers for a guy with number one overall talent in Tyson Chandler. He drafted Eddy Curry, the most talented center in the East and easily the NBA’s most improved player this year. Oh, and Tyson and Eddy are TWENTY YEARS OLD! He drafted two point guards in an era when most teams don’t have any. He signed middling free agents like Brad Miller and Ron Mercer and turned them into Jalen Rose at a time when the Bulls needed anybody who could actually score. Now the new GM gets to trade Jalen, since the Bulls have guys who can score now, and patch whatever hole seems necessary.

The saddest thing is that because of his strange, troubling lack of a personality, Krause has few loyal soldiers. The one guy who should get down on his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance knees and start kissing is Phil Jackson. Phil was coaching the world-famous Albany Patroons when Krause brought him to Chicago to be an assistant coach under Doug Collins. Why does Jerry get zero credit for any of that?

What Jerry did was he pissed off lots of reporters. He’s paranoid. He’s weird. He’s fat. Michael Jordan made fun of him, and so to be cool everybody else did too. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making fun of Jerry, I’ve done it myself on thousands of occasions on six different Web sites. But give the man the credit that’s due him.

That’s the least we can do.

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Mariotti puts down the doughnut to get it all completely wrong. Even at his best Jay sucks, but this one is almost unreadable. Anybody who thinks bringing Michael Jordan into this franchise in any decision making role at all, is a complete moron. Period. We love MJ, but that doesn’t mean we want him running our team.

Long-time friend of Desipio Andrew Lawrence chimes in with this: “How about this line: ‘West has turned the woeful Memphis Grizzlies into a respectable outfit.’

Guess there isn’t much money in that Sun-Times budget for a dish…

For the record: Memphis 26-51
Chicago 27-50

Groucho opines that the Bulls will have a three-headed GM. If one of the heads is Pete Myers, it’s too damn many heads.

Rick Morrissey at least gives Jerry some due.

Mike Downey says…uh, I have no idea what he says here.

Bill Cartwright ought to be worried. His coaching days are numbered.

Groucho says it’s not like Krause to quit.

Lacy J. Banks says the league is stunned.

Mitch Kupchak? Oh shut up.

Rick Telander is still mad at Krause for something in a Sports Illustrated story a long time ago. How long ago? Back when Rick could still write things worth reading.

The Sackman’s coming to the Bears coaching staff. Big whup.

The Cubs didn’t play yesterday? Really?

Why do the Bears keep scouting guys we know they aren’t going to have the stones to actually draft?

The Cubs hitters are disciplined now. Yeah, I can’t even type that with a straight face.

The Expos are giddy about the Bart Colon trade so far. Yeah, that’ll last. Sure.

The Wizard of Roz says Reinsdorf should consider Jordan as a GM, if only to mock him when he fails. I don’t like this idea.

Marc Stein says the Bulls are morons if they hire MJ.

Is Eric Neel supposed to be funny? Insightful? What the hell is this?

John Donovan says Ken Griffey, Jr. isn’t very lucky. That’s pretty deep.

Marty Burns thinks MJ should be in Chicago. Marty is not a Bulls fan, is he?

They dropped four tons of bombs on Saddam last night. Four tons.

What, real priests don’t swear?

Some of the troops enjoyed putting their hands in “unmentionable places” and then shaking Geraldo’s hand.

The world’s greatest newspaper has this story about a flying car.

And…the Web site they mention is real. Even if the flying car isn’t.