'Blake Griffin Day' Today

If you’re an Oklahoma City resident, you might want to take the day off and play some basketball, or watch some basketball, or maybe even just ponder the meaning of basketball.

Why? Well, today is Blake Griffin Day of course.

Blake Griffin, a former OU basketball player and current top NBA prospect, has been honored with a proclamation from the Oklahoma City Council naming today in his honor.

Griffin is the AP player of the year and the only unanimous All-American of 2009.

Griffin, a sophomore, is the first Oklahoma City resident to win the Naismith Trophy for the Men’s College Basketball Player of the Year, the most prestigious national honor awarded in college basketball.

He announced his plans to conclude his college career and enter the NBA draft two weeks ago.“Blake’s achievements are a true testament to the tenacity and determination that define Oklahoma City and its citizens,” said Mayor Mick Cornett, in a release a week ago. “We wish him continued success and are proud to call him one of our own.”

As well as the AP Player of the year and All-American awards Griffin has also garnered the Wooden Award,the NABC Player of the Year Award, the Rupp Trophy, the Oscar Robertson Trophy, the Chevrolet Player of the Year and the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award.

Griffin was born and raised in Oklahoma City and graduated from Oklahoma Christian School.

Mayor Mick Cornett presented Griffin with his resolution during the April 21 City Council meeting.

OU quarterback Sam Bradford was similarly presented his own day in January, also by Mayor Mick Cornett.

Mere Formality, Griffin Goes Pro

Sophomore standout Blake Griffin, who absolutely ran away with the national player of the year race, has decided to turn pro.

"This past week I have been going over in my mind what I should do," Griffin said.  "I sat down with Coach Capel and my family and I think it is time for me to move on and take my game to the next level." 

Griffin, who at times has looked other-worldly and was famously compared to the terminator by Texas Tech coach Pat Knight, averaged 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds a game this year.

"It was tough.  I love playing here, this is my home state," Griffin said.  "It is tough to walk away from something like this, but at the same time this is a big opportunity.  I felt like I was ready for it this year as opposed to last year."

As a freshman, Griffin shocked many by returning for his sophomore year, despite being named first team All-Big 12 and averaging 14.7 points and 9.1 rebounds per game.

"This is the right decision.  In my mind, it was a no-brainer," said head coach Jeff Capel. "It wasn't a decision to really debate because it is the right one.  It is the best thing for Blake, it is the best thing for the University of Oklahoma and the best thing for our program."

Capel also was not shy to heap praise on Griffin.

"He is the best player I have ever been around and coached, and he is probably one of the top two people I have ever been around and coached," Capel said.  "That is why I know he is going to be incredibly successful."

Many speculate that Griffin will be the top pick in this year's draft, which is scheduled for June 25 at Madison Square Garden.

"It is a great day -- a really, really great day -- when you have a chance to know that a kid has worked his butt off in something that he has wanted to do his whole life and he is going to have a chance to pursue it," Capel said.  "And not only pursue it, but to be very successful."

Inches Away, Sooners Season Ends

Nyeshia Stevenson's 3-pointer rimmed out at the buzzer, and Louisville advanced to its first national championship game ever with a 61-59 win over Oklahoma, despite trailing by 12 at halftime.

The Sooners leaped out to a 16-2 lead after only seven and half minutes of play, behind the presence of Whitney Hand.

Hand's matchup with Louisville All-American Angel McCoughtry would define the game, with Hand dominating the first half, but paling in the second as McCoughtry simply took over.

"I thought she really made some things happen defensively, not just containing Angel, but made some plays happen, deflections, steals, that sort of thing.  And then obviously knock down the open 3s," Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale said.  "But in the second half, you know, Angel McCoughtry is going to be rabid.  You know she's going to do that and go after everything off the rim, and she did.  And we had a hard time containing her when she did that."

McCoughtry was 0-8 from the field in the first half, only scoring 4 points, but came out in the second period and simply had her way shooting 6-9 from the field, with 14 points.

"I just felt like they came out with a lot more energy than we did.  And we were relaxed," Courtney Paris said.  "We just didn't execute as well as we should have."

Many of the Sooners problems seemed to stem from their inability to knock down easy shots inside and at the free throw line.

"We got some great passes from D-Rob and the other girls and some of them just didn't drop and we missed some chippies," Ashley Paris said.

As a team the Sooners were less than stellar at the line shooting 14-21, and only shot 26 percent in the second half.

As for the guarantee made by Courtney Paris to her soon-to-be alma mater in February, well she says she won't welch.

"I do make good on the guarantee," said Paris. "Not today, though. Obviously, I don't have $64,000 waiting, but I do make good on it."

Paced by strong performances from Russell Czeschin, Jason Laughton and Steven Legendre, the #2 ranked OU men's gymnastics squad dominated #9 Nebraska for the third time this season, Saturday, in an easy 358.300-342.400 win.

 "I actually thought we put things together better today," head coach Mark Williams said.  "The errors that we had earlier in the season, made some nice fixes."

 Legendre and Czeschin jump started the Sooners with impressive performances on the floor exercise while Laughton kept the solidity in place with a team, season high score of 15.000 on the pommel horse.

Czeschin and Legendre starred again two events later on the vault with Czeschin scoring a 16.100 and Legendre breaking the school record with a 16.500.

"Me and Chris Brooks always talk garbage to each other, and he had the previous record from a few weeks ago so I one-upped him so you know that was pretty fun," Legendre said.

 The Sooners who haven't lost at a meet in more than a year, will travel to Minneapolis Saturday  March 7 to face-off with #6 Minnesota as well as the last team to defeat the Sooners, #3 Stanford. 

"This oughtta be a great test for us to go up there and be on the road and handle a great team like Stanford," Williams said.

Blake Griffin scored 40 points and pulled down 23 rebounds, breaking the school record in career double-doubles, and tying the arena record for most rebounds in a single game, as he lead OU to a 95-74 victory at the Lloyd Noble Center, Saturday.

Saturday's performance made Griffin only the third OU player to record at least 40 points and 20 rebounds in a game, joining fellow Sooner greats Wayman Tisdale and Alvan Adams, both of whom have already had their jerseys retired at OU.  To further lenghten his historical footnotes, Griffin's performance was also the first 40-point, 20-rebound game in Big 12 history.

"Have you guys ever seen the movie, 'The Terminator?' That's what that kid is like," exasperated Texas Tech coach Pat Knight said after the game.  "That kid has no facial expressions.  He just plays and it's like every kid out there on him is like Sarah Connor, and he's just going to take his time and kill them."

Griffin's performance also gave OU its best start in league play, at 11-0, since 1985 when they charged out to an identical record in Big 8 play that year.  The Sooners will look to break that record next Saturday when they travel to Texas.

But at practice Thursday, Griffin talked about taking it one game at a time, not worrying about the team's best start in school history or his own individual statistics.

"You know, it's not how you start it's how you finish, so it is special to be a part of something like that," Griffin said.  "But at the same time I'd much rather be known for the best finish in school history."

The one game at a time approach seemed to work well for Griffin who scored 19 of OU's first 31 points in route to a game which made him the school's all-time leader in career double-doubles with 22, as well as tying the school record for single game rebounds with 23.  

He did all of it before leaving the game with 4:35 left to go.

After the game, Griffin echoed the same sentiments he lamented at practice on Thursday.

"We can't get complacent.  We've got to keep being hungry, keep playing hard and not stop until we get our final goal," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/world/asia/09australia.html?_r=1&hp

Death Toll in Australian Fires Climbs to 128
By MERAIAH FOLEY

SYDNEY, Australia — A series of wildfires that tore across the southern state of Victoria over the weekend killed at least 128 people, the state police said Monday, making it the country’s deadliest firestorm.
Two entire towns were destroyed and at least 750 homes were leveled, along with more than 770 square miles of forest and farmland. Hot winds of more than 62 miles per hour and temperatures that peaked at 117 degrees in Melbourne on Saturday fanned the blazes, some of which the police suspected were set deliberately.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters on Sunday after meeting with emergency relief workers in Melbourne. “This is an appalling tragedy.”
On Monday, forensic crews began the grim task of searching for more bodies amid the tangled wreckage while roughly 3,000 firefighters, aided by cooler temperatures, continued to battle three main wildfires and dozens of smaller ones.
The police in Victoria said they were setting up crime scenes around large tracts of land northeast of Melbourne, where all of the deaths occurred, to try to determine how the fires started.
The deadliest previous blazes were the “Ash Wednesday” fires of 1983, when 75 people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed across southern Australia.
“They’re in very early stages of that investigation at the moment,” Sarah Campbell, a police spokeswoman, said Monday. “A lot of the fire sites are now too hot to go into.”
The police said at least two children were among the dead, and warned that the toll could rise as emergency crews searched for bodies in the hardest hit towns.
Several victims died trying to escape by car; others were caught up trying to protect their homes. Photographs from the fire zone showed chaotic scenes of vehicles that had smashed into embankments or trees, some charred and smoldering, others with the doors flung open.
More than 80 people were hospitalized across the fire zone, in southern Australia. The victims included at least 20 burn patients, some of whom were unlikely to survive, hospital officials said.
Fires are common during Australia’s hot, dry summers, when the oil-rich eucalyptus forests become especially vulnerable during lightning strikes or sparks thrown from farm equipment. But a prolonged drought and the weekend’s searing temperatures made recent conditions particularly bad.
Witnesses described seeing trees and houses explode into flames as ash and soot rained down. Many people were stranded at their homes, with no firefighters in sight and no time to escape.
John Ryan watched in horror as the sky above his farm turned from blue to black. Ten minutes later, the forest around his house was engulfed in flames.
“You couldn’t see anything, you couldn’t do anything and you couldn’t get out,” Mr. Ryan told a radio station on Sunday. “You just have to hope that the house wouldn’t burn down.”
He and a neighbor huddled in his house while the worst of the blaze passed through the mountains nearby. His home in Glenburn, 60 miles northeast of Melbourne, was spared, but his neighbor was not so fortunate.
“It burned everything as far as you can see,” Mr. Ryan said. “There’s nothing left, dead animals everywhere.”
In Kinglake, where at least 24 people died and more than 500 houses were burned to the ground, the police said they found several charred bodies in cars along the highway. Six people were found dead in one car, according to news media reports.
The police found eight bodies and were searching for more in nearby Marysville, an alpine village of about 600 people that was razed. Aerial images showed rows of buildings reduced to piles of rubble along neat streets lined with scorched trees.
About 30 residents who had not evacuated before Saturday spent the night huddled on a grassy field near town while the blaze engulfed Marysville, according to news media reports. Two bodies were discovered in the town on Sunday, and emergency crews continued to search the wreckage.
The government set up a $6.5 million relief fund, including immediate payments of $650 to victims of the blaze. Mr. Rudd also sent the army to the region to help fight the fires and provide other emergency help.
Choking back tears, John Brumby, the Victoria State premier, warned residents to prepare for more casualties and property damage as the fires continued to burn.