Sideline Chatter
In soccer circles, this is what you call obstruction.
Germany’s MSV Duisburg has moved its winter training-camp headquarters away from the Turkish resort of Antalya Lara after learning that 400 Russian models were booked into the same hotel for a beauty pageant there.
As the team’s website explained it: “We want to calmly prepare for the second half of the season :)”
Most Read Sports Stories
Headlines
• At Fark.com: “ESPN cancels NCAA Playoff Championship, citing lack of participation by the SEC Master Race.”
• At SportsPickle.com: “Playoff picks: Our experts who blew the regular season try again.”
Take Two Dept.
Florida basketball player Jacob Kurtz inadvertently tipped in the game-winning shot at the buzzer for rival Florida State last week.
When Gators coach Billy Donovan said “we beat ourselves,” he wasn’t kidding.
Just call him I Hit Me
At least Kurtz has a kindred spirit in Sabres forward Patrick Kaleta, who — while trying to land a left to the head of the Senators’ Jared Cowen during an NHL scrum — inadvertently punched himself in the head.
Ducks & Bucks II
Oregon 46, Ohio State 33?
That would be a fitting score for the first-ever College Football Playoff championship game, considering that was the score when these same two schools met in 1939 — in the first-ever NCAA basketball final.
Low on oil
What, you think it was easy for James Castleman, Oklahoma State’s 300-pound defensive tackle, to lumber 48 yards down the sideline with a pass reception in Friday’s Cactus Bowl?
“Honestly, I’m like, ‘Why hasn’t somebody hit me yet?’ ” Castleman told The Times. “… Once he hit me, the check-engine light came on.”
Just do it anyway
The town of Oregon, Ohio, is temporarily changing its name this week, for obvious reasons.
Michigan and Niketown, we assume, aren’t among the finalists.
Talko time
• Brad Dickson of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, after Big Ten basketball teams lost nonconference games to Texas Southern, Incarnate Word and the New Jersey Institute of Technology: “The only thing left is to lose to a driving school.”
• Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim, to RayComSports.com, on his competitiveness: “I never let my daughter beat me in Candyland, and I never would, and she knows that.”
• Wakefield (England) Wildcats coach Shane McNally, to the BBC, after his rugby team lost 72-8: “Trying to explain this performance is like trying to row upstream in a barbed-wire canoe.”
• Ravens receiver Steve Smith, to AP, on why he loves playing in prime-time games: “Family members get to see you play, ex-girlfriends that wished they wouldn’t have dumped you, they’re questioning themselves right now.”
Make vroom for Mommy
Texans star J.J. Watt bought his mother a new car for her birthday.
Needless to say, it has a big motor.
Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com