Today's Best - 11.12.07

5. eric gordon - continuing our coverage of noteworthy college basketball debuts by teenagers who only a year ago were in high school shoving nerds into lockers and attending my super sweet 16 parties, indiana's highly touted freshman guard eric gordon scored 33 points to lead the hoosiers over chattanooga 99-79. gordon's arrival in indiana was surrounded by controversy as he backed out of his committment to illinois after kelvin sampson, and his numerous recruiting violations, became head coach at indiana. regardless of what may or may not have happened, eric gordon is a hoosier and along with his 33 points, he added six rebounds, four assists, three steals, and seven three-pointers. though, "numbers didn't tell the whole story" because eric gordon "ignited indiana's second-half charge". apparently, the associated press doesn't think "second" is a number.

4. ron artest - last night, the kings lost to the jazz in blow out fashion, dropping their record to 2-5 on the season. it was more or less what we've come to expect from the new look kings. beno udrih played 29 minutes, even though statistics have proven that he's most effective for the kings when he plays 15 minutes a game for the other team, mikki moore started in place of an injured brad miller, and the kenny thomas and shareef abdur-rahim one-two punch combined for 30 minutes and zero points on 0-5 shooting. but the only stat that matters to the kings from last night's thriller is managing to push the number of games they've played to seven. because now ron artest is free to return from his suspension to try to prove that he's finally turned over a new leaf. his first game is this wednesday against the timberwolves. expect him to come out gunning as i'm sure in anticipation for this game he's spent the last few weeks hunting wolves.

3. jr smith - in the eighth head to head match up between carmelo and lebron, jr smith tried his best to steal the show by scoring 29 points in 24 minutes as the nuggets beat the cavs 122-100. he drained seven of his eight attempts from three, but hit only two of his six attempts from one. though to be fair, jr smith decided to shoot all of his free throws from the other teams' free throw line.

2. any television program that wasn't monday night football - as someone with no vested interest in either team and also as someone who had a comfortable lead in fantasy football coming into tonight, the seahawks-49ers game was painfully uninteresting. but as luck would have it, hbo family was showing galaxy quest. and though i've seen galaxy quest numerous times, i decided that i'd much rather watch tim allen defeat aliens in a farcical comedy for tenth time than watch how bad the nfc west is. consider that while sarris was trying to steal the omega 13 device from the thermians, alex smith was passing for 114 yards. and 45 of these yards came on a hail mary at the end of the 1st half that was ruled a catch despite the fact that arnaz battle clearly bumbled the ball out of bounds. this fake catch was one of only six niner first downs, which actually helped them narrowly avoid matching the meager five first downs the ravens managed last monday night. next monday hopefully will fare a little better when either the broncos host the titans or i host a party to watch dancing with the stars.

1. juanita jordan - news came out yesterday that michael jordan's divorce settlement was going to net his ex-wife juanita $168 million. hopefully she is either awarded this sum is in the form of a large novetly check or she has a press conference where she holds up a jersey with then name jordan crossed out as if she was a free agent. seriously though, how unbearable does someone have to be to be worth a $168 million check? couldn't michael jordan have spent far less money on things that would have helped him just put up with his wife? ear plugs can't cost much more than like $3 or $4 million. and if that's not enough, just keep setting her alarm clock forward so you two are never awake at the same time. or put a pillow under the covers with a taped recording of your snoring so she always thinks you're asleep when you've actually snuck out of the house. but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. and if i knew beforehand that my ex-wife would get $168 million from me if we got divorced, i'd just spend all that money on a house big enough that i could go weeks without seeing her.