Sitting here watching a replay of the 1978 no-hitter thrown by Tom Seaver, it's difficult to figure out what went wrong with the Cincinnati Reds that season. Sure, Tony Perez was gone. But they still had Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Ken Griffey and George Foster. Seaver was back for a full season with the Reds and the rest of the staff looked to be solid with Freddy Norman returning and the addition of Bill Bonham. So what happened?

Well, by today's standards, nothing went wrong. The Reds finished with a record of 83-78, good enough for second in the NL West. But this was a team that was just a year removed from back-to-back World Championships. Expectations were high.

A simple look at the numbers may explain a lot. Start with the top of the order - Rose. He finished the year with a solid .302 averaged and scored 103 runs. But he slumped badly in the summer, batting just .236 in August. Griffey had a fine year, posting a .305 average. But he was leading the league the night of the no-hitter with a .322 average. He peaked a few days later at .325 and fell from there, batting only .266 in the second half including .220 in July.

Joe Morgan had one of the worst seasons of his career in 1978. He batted just .236 and scored only 68 times. In his previous six seasons in Cincinnati he never batted below .288 and scored at least 107 runs in each of them. Bench was plagued with back problems for much of the season - something that bothered him for the rest of his career. He still managed to hit 23 Home Runs in just 120 games but drove in just 73 runners, the second lowest total in his career at that point.

George Foster once again led the league in Home Runs and RBI with 40 and 120 respectively. However, that was 12 home runs and 29 RBI fewer than the previous year!

And what about Tom Terrific? Well he finished with 16 wins and a 2.88 ERA. And, of course, one no-hitter. But he also lost 14 games and went 3-8 in the months of July and August combined. (Note the above mentioned slumps of Rose and Griffey.)

The points is, that even though baseball games are often determined by individual efforts, it takes the entire team to put together a successful season. A team cannot afford to lose key players to injuries. Mini-slumps hurt everyone. And season-long slumps are deadly.

The 1979 Reds would rebound and once again make the playoffs. But they eventually lost to the Pirates and were not able to make their fifth World Series in ten years. That loss marked the end of Big Red Machine and while there have been a few successful seasons since then, including a great 1990 campaign, Reds fans are still looking for those glory days. Maybe everything will come together this year. Who knows?

Reports are that Bobby Knight has resigned as head coach of Texas Tech. His son Pat is allegedly taking over the reigns. No reason, as of now, was left to why Knight resigned.

I want to say that it will be sad to not have Coach Knight in college basketball. I don't blame the guy for leaving and I'm glad that he got to go out "his way", as he likes to put it. I was glad the disgraceful treatment he got at Indiana wasn't his final legacy.

Obviously, much can be said and written about Knight and many feel he's a cantacerous old curmudgeon. His bullying ways with his players and the media rubbed many the wrong way. But, I'll say this. Nobody was a better coach. Nobody built finer young men than Knight. Nobody put the emphasis on Students in student-athletes like Knight. He was flawed, for sure, but he always meant well. If I had ever had a son, I'd let him play for Bobby Knight in a heartbeat. Knight, to me, epitomizes college basketball. While the game had started to pass him by, it won't be the same without him.

Go hunting and fishing and spending time with your family Bobby. You've earned it! 

Former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin will take on "The Ultimate Fighter 4" winner, Travis Lutter at UFC 83: Serra vs. St-Pierre 2 in April in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Franklin (22-3) hasn't fought since October at UFC 77 where he lost by TKO to current middleweight champ, Anderson Silva. It was a rematch for the title that Silva won from Franklin back at UFC 64 in October of 2006. The Cincinnati native has been sidelined for the last four months with a torn meniscus he suffered to his right knee during that fight against Silva. He was supposed to be out until June but has made a quicker recovery than anticipated.

Lutter (9-4) last fought at UFC 67 in January of 2007 where he, like Franklin, lost to Silva in the main event that was supposed to be for the middleweight championship. He lost the title shot because he was unable to get under the 185-pound weight limit. The fight still went on but it was changed from a five-round shot at the title to a three-round non-title fight. Lutter would lose the fight in the second round when Silva made him submit after locking in a triangle choke.

The road for both of these guys back to a shot at the middleweight title starts here. Its going to take stringing together a few wins for either of these guys to get back into title contention. Unfortunately for them, Silva doesn't look like he's going to be letting go of his title anytime soon. If he is still the champ when one of these two guys make it back to the #1 contender spot, it could have been all for naught as Silva seems to have their numbers, especially Franklin's.

For those of you that have been tirelessly following Eddie Sutton's chase for 800 career wins, your prayers were answered Saturday night, when his San Francisco Dons eeked out an 85-82 victory over Pepperdine.  Clearly this will be remembered as one of Sutton's finest coaching jobs ever, and he'll be forever known as one of the elite coaches in college basketball history.

Or it could be remembered for what it really is, which is one of the most disgraceful, cynical, and selfish ploys in the history of competitive sports.  Wasn't it just great fortune for Eddie that, just two wins shy of 800 but having nowhere to coach, the head man at USF (Jessie Evans) just happened to need to take a leave of absence for the rest of the season?  And with no sort of explanation of why he needed to take some time off?  How convenient for coach Sutton!

Let's not kid ourselves; Sutton should have achieved this milestone while he was at Oklahoma State.  But his issues with alcoholism no doubt hastened his resignation from the school.  Retiring with 798 victories wasn't going to be shameful at all, and his personal issues just were what they were.  But no, he just had to try to find a way to wriggle back into college basketball.

No doubt USF athletic director Debra Gore-Mann thought that making this move to coach Sutton would draw media attention to the program and get them some recognition that it has sorely needed.  Instead, it's become nothing more than a national joke.  People aren't stupid; we've seen this for what it truly is. 

So here's what the school should do now that the milestone has been achieved: fire Eddie.  He's already said he doesn't plan to be there next year.  The players aren't going to play hard for him, he's done nothing more than use them for his own gains.  So get rid of him, and go back to coach Evans and see if he wants back in.  If he doesn't (and why should he), then take the top assistant to get through the rest of the regular season.  Once this is done, the school president then need to fire Ms. Mann for even contemplating this debacle.

There could be a worse legacy for Sutton than this though.  I mean, it's not like he took over one of the nation's most prestigious programs, broke NCAA rules to an almost unprecedented degree, got caught when an Emery Worldwide envelope from an assistant to a potential recruit burst open with $50 bills, resigned in shame before the NCAA nearly decided to give the program the death penalty, took another job and brought that team to the NCAA tournament while his old school was ineligible because of the violations he committed, and then had to watch the new coach at his old school rebuild the wreck he created and return it to its past glory.  See, it could always be worse.

There are many parallels to the Giants and the Bengals, at least in some key areas and hopefully Mike Brown was paying attention (although I bet Katie had to remind him that the Super Bowl was on yesterday).

Tom Coughlin was close to being fired. He was about to run out of town by the fans. He'd lost the team. Nobody wanted to listen to him. In many ways this is similar to what is going on right now with Marvin Lewis (although Coughlin and Lewis are polar opposite type coaches). Marvin can't coach any more and he's lost this team. He's on the hot seat.

Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey are selfish, larger than life players that were cancers on this team. They were holding the Giants back. Tiki retired and everyone doubted that he could be replaced. Shockey broke his leg and an unknown rookie Kevin Boss fills in and does a fantastic job for Shockey. Boss catches a 40+ catch in the Super Bowl. Shockey watches from a luxury box with his entourage (not his team mates) sipping beer. So the Giants win without their star RB and stud TE. Nobody thought that was possible and when the Giants were 0-2 everyone thought Coughlin was an idiot and Tiki was sorely missed and Eli Manning was a goofball.

So the lesson to be learned from the Giants season is that team chemistry is huge in this ultimate team sport. Those players, like Chad Johnson, that are me driven and hurting the team chemistry must be dealt with. Even if it looks like they're irreplaceable, they may not be missed at all. The other difference for the Giants is strong ownership. The Mara family is legendary in football (sort of like the Brown family is). Mike Brown won't eat the 8+ million cap hit it will take to trade Chad. He will expect Chad to honor a very fair contract (and in this regard I agree with him). But the Mara family stood by Tom Coughlin and made the right football decisions in the draft and regarding personnel. Can Mike Brown do the same thing? I don't think so, but if he and Marvin can, the blueprint for success has been established by the G-Men.

When you are paying $2.7 million for thirty seconds, the margin of error is slim to none when it comes to Super Bowl Ads. This year, like others before it, had its fair share of winners and losers.

The Giants did something no other team could do this year, beat the Patriots, and they did it to win Super Bowl XLII.  The Giants put pressure on Tom Brady all game long and sacked the two-time Super Bowl MVP five times to put the clamps down on one of the most prolific offenses in the history of the league. Eli Manning followed up his brother's lead last season, winning the MVP by throwing two fourth-quarter TD passes.

Lost in the Patriots' quest for perfection was the fact that New York entered this game with a 10-game road winning streak, including huge road playoff wins at Tampa, at Dallas, and in Green Bay. It was a case of playing your best football at the right time of the year. The Pats' best football was during the first half of the regular season to whereas the Giants' were on the top of their game in January and beyond.

The loss in the big game leaves Bill Belichick and company short of perfection. Sixteen regular season wins is impressive and even historic, but without the Super Bowl trophy to boot the accomplishment seems a bit hollow. Brady said earlier in the week it was the biggest game of his career and he lost it. Joe Montana never lost a Super Bowl.

The '72 Dolphins didn't play as many regular season games, but they won every game in front of them and in the end they were crowned champions. Their accomplishment still is superior and that means that Don Shula and company are going to keep popping their champagne bottles.

Much ado was made before the game about the Patriots' organization trademarking 19-0 so they could use the slogan to sell merchandise. Were the Giants smart enough to do the same for 18-1?