Happy Monday and time once again for our beginning-of-the-week game show here on our wildly popular Open Mike blog and interactive extravaganza. It’s called “Studs and Duds” and it’s your chance to sound off and identify the best and worst sports performances of the weekend and beyond.
By now, you know the drill. I’ll give you a couple of quick takes from the week in sports and then you vote in the polls at the end of this blog.
My favorite for Stud of Week is local politician Armando Gutierrez, who, according to WFTV, is trying to assemble investors to move a Major League Baseball team to Orlando. Although this is just in the exploratory stages and it is questionable whether Gutierrez can actually work out a privately financed stadium deal, it is certainly exciting to think of Orlando with another big-time sports franchise. Personally, I’d prefer building a domed stadium and trying to lure the NFL, but I certainly wouldn’t complain about getting a baseball team here.
My favorite for Dud of the Week is the UCF basketball team, which got absolutely annihilated 96-59 by UTEP Saturday night. How bad was it? It was the worst home loss in the history of the program.
By the way, your Stud of the Week last week was Matt Barnes, the feisty Magic forward who called out the team last week for having “no heart.” Since then, the Magic have won three straight and seem to be playing with much more energy and, yes, heart.
Your Dud of the Week was — who else? — Lane Kiffin for the sleazy way he left Tennessee and immediately began trying to convince UT recruits to come with him to Southern Cal.
Who will be honored and dishonored this week?
You tell me.
Happy voting.
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