Cowherd Gives Us Reason To Root For Mountain West

The recent exile of starting forward Brandon Davies makes BYU look like a long shot to make the Final Four. Without Davies, the Cougars have a much less formidable front court and will rely even more on their outside shooting. But here’s one reason why you shouldn’t rule out them getting to Houston: ESPN’s Colin Cowherd gives them no chance. – Barry Rothbard

Cowherd makes a living off of being both consistently wrong and consistently confident in his missiles. “Frequently wrong, never uncertain” is the mantra he seems to live by.

Cowherd’s tomfoolery has been well chronicled. Of recent memory, Deadspin exposed his borderline racist remarks, explaining just how low Cowherd will stoop for the outcry of the nation. Then there was the slap in the face from one of the more stand-up guys in sports, the Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers, who, laid the smack down on Cowherd on his own radio show. In the past, America’s favorite sports columnist even reportedly had enough of Cowherd’s stuff.

Stay connected with LostLettermen.com via Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail & RSS
	Follow @lostlettermen

To be fair, Cowherd appears to know this and not care, so props to him for suckering the general public and me right now into bashing him.

But his latest words about BYU really show his biggest faults: Hypocrisy and laziness.

Two days ago (prior to Davies’ suspension), Cowherd responded to SportsNation’s belief that BYU deserves a number one seed with incredulity, taking to task the entire Mountain West as a joke of a conference. We’ll get more into that later.

First, your appetite needs to be whet about Cowherd’s recent uninformed Mountain West-crusade and history (and coming from someone on the East Coast, you can bet there’s more where this came from than I’m even aware of).

Cowherd has been bashing Brigham Young all year long on the Herd, as we’d expect. If you tuned into the “shock-jock’s” station today, you’d  hear him lighting into the BYU honor code incessantly. He’s been crapping on the Mountain West’s brand of basketball (from Jimmer’s height to the anonymity of the conference’s players) throughout the season, and it’s both repulsive and hypocritical.

It’s funny then that Cowherd loved BYU’s football team so much just a short time ago. In 2009, Cowherd proclaimed that Brigham Young University’s football team was a BCS title contender after beating Oklahoma by one point in its second game of the season even though Sam Bradford was knocked out of the game.

Quothed Cowherd after the big win: “The non-BCS schools are catching up to the BCS schools.” He also claimed that the Mountain West Conference had three teams on par with the Big Ten’s premier teams. He then predicted the Cougars would beat Florida State. Instead, they got crushed by FSU and later lost to TCU that season. BYU ended that season 11-2, a good season by all measures, but they certainly didn’t come close to the BCS title game between undefeated Texas and Alabama.

Common Sense 1, Colin Cowherd 0.

Fast forward to this year. In January after first BYU’s basketball home victory over San Diego State, Cowherd said that he’s not a fan of Jimmer Mania, doesn’t get it, and doesn’t see pro potential in him. He also admitted he hadn’t even watched the game because he “couldn’t find it on TV.” Naturally, as I’m sure you know, this is Cowherd’s schtick: Take the contrarian point of view in hopes of pissing people off.

So he makes comments like this, with regard to Jimmer and college hoops: “Yeah that guy could work for the Lakers… in group sales.” And this: “My job is to talk about the most interesting stuff and I find college basketball to be this giant apartment complex of people who can’t wait to get out and buy a house.”

Well, that’s not funny or the least bit accurate. Fredette is a likely lottery pick according to every single draft expert in the country. There’s a difference between being bold and being downright lazy. Cowherd or one of his research cronies couldn’t manage to check out Jimmer’s projection in the draft? And if college basketball is so uninteresting, then why does he bother talking about it?

Now flash forward to this week. He was not at all impressed by BYU’s second win over No. 6 San Diego State this season, either. Cowherd made a remark about how he can’t respect a conference with the word “Mountain” in it and that BYU doesn’t deserve a No. 1 seed.

Cowherd admitted to not knowing a single player on San Diego State or BYU other than Jimmer (he’s an NBA guy). It’s bothersome because, if this is true, it’s, again, pathetic research by Cowherd and his team. Kawhi Leonard is a first round lock in next year’s draft, and D.J. Gay is somewhat of a household name for college hoops fans. And, of course, BYU won the recent game with a poor performance by Jimmer standards (8-23 from the field) and a stellar effort by his supporting cast (particularly Jackson Emery).

Cowherd claims that because the conference has the word “Mountain” in it, that they must not be very good at basketball. That because Jimmer is 6’2″ and white, he must not be a superstar. But if he simply had one of his employees (or took the liberty himself) research the conference, he’d see they have the 4th highest RPI in the country and had two teams (BYU included) win NCAA tournament games last year. The Mountain West is not to be trifled with, and Cowherd–someone who’s career started in Las Vegas–cannot not know this.

So let’s make this clear: The man who believed a BYU squad coming off a loss in the Las Vegas Bowl and had played exactly one game in the 2009 season was a contender for the BCS National Championship. But a team with arguably the nation’s best player in the country and currently 27-2 in a season with no dominant college basketball team absolutely does not deserve a No. 1 seed (granted, they might not get one with Davies now off the team for the rest of the year).

Again, it’s no secret that Colin Cowherd makes ridiculous, off-the-wall statements to draw attention to himself. He’s a character that wishes he were as well-spoken and inflammatory as Howard Stern or, say, Charlie Sheen.

I feel bad that Michelle Beadle, a lovely, well-spoken host with a bright future, has to stand by Cowherd’s side smiling, knowing she’s listening to the ravings of a mad man with equal conviction but even less logic than, yes, Charlie Sheen – who Cowherd incidentally called a raving lunatic today.

That’s what we call a warlock claiming to be a Vatican assassin.