Wade has skillzzz

Day two in Vegas at the NBA All-Star weekend was a great day for Marquette's Dwyane Wade. He came into the skills competition as the defending skills champion and no one had ever repeated before.

His competition was stiff. Lebron James, Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant. The competition was setup in a format where the top two players on time would advance to the finals. The task at hand to make a layup, dribble around 4 pylons, make a chest pass through a cylinder, make a bounce pass through a cylinder, hit a free throw, another chest pass, more dribbling, and then a layup.

James went first and posted a time of about 39 seconds. Chris Paul was next and posted a time of more than 43 seconds. The clear crowd favorite was Kobe Bryant who went next. A large Laker contingent (Vegas has always been a Lakers town plus many Angelinos drove in) chanting Ko-be, Ko-be, Ko-be. He did not disappoint as he put up a 29 second time and the lead. Last to go was Wade. He struggled with the dribbling and one of the passing cylinders, but still posted about 33 seconds to advance to the finals vs Kobe.

In the finals, the place was really buzzing for Kobe but Wade went first and he was perfect. He nailed everything, every pass perfect, fast dribbling....posted a great time. Kobe would need an exception effort to grab the title away from Dwyane. It was not to be. Kobe go to the first passing cylinder and missed 4 straight passes killing any shot he had.

Wade was champion again.

Highlights from Last Night

Dick Baveta vs Charles Barkley race

TNT party at the Palms...plenty of eye candy (WOW) and basketball famous folks. Jerry Tarkanian was there, Ernie Johnson, David Aldridge, Russ Granik, etc. The Goo Goo Dolls were the entertainment which is never a bad gig.

Lowlights from Last Night

MU's loss. I was at the Thomas & Mack Arena at the festivities with my Blackberry. NY Warrior was sending me emails and I had the ESPN tracker updating every few minutes. We were up 7 points late and I was feeling good. Then it kept getting closer with my blackberry saying missed ft, missed ft. It took the blackberry about 10 minutes to download the final score so I knew something crazy happened....sure enough it did.

I think one more win puts us in the Big Dance. But as we said last week, we could lose all of these final 6 games or we could win them all. Right now we're 0-3 and it doesn't get any easier tomorrow night. Need to win this game in the worst way.