Wisconsin Better Prepare for a Long Day

Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News has some advice for Wisconsin, Stanford’s opponent in the Rose Bowl game Jan. 1:

“Put down your cheese plates, stop bowing down to that velvet painting of Ron Dayne, and pay close attention. Here are the five key items you should know about Stanford’s football team:

“1. They score points. 2. A lot. 3. They also give up points. 4. A lot. 5. But they somehow, some way, end up winning most of the time. . . .

“So here is my final cautionary advice: Did you see the look on the faces of Notre Dame players at the finish Saturday night when they realized they had scored 37 points, had gained 443 yards--and had still lost?”

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Trivia time: Many players share the Kings’ record for most goals in one game with four. Who was the last to do it?

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Sounds exciting: Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw described the NFC East race as “not the tortoise against the hare but the tortoise against a bunch of tortoises.”

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No easy Rider: Former Nevada Las Vegas basketball standout Isaiah Rider, now with the Atlanta Hawks, says he wants out of Atlanta unless he can be “the man.”

Said Scott Ostler of MSNBC, “Maybe he should take up ballroom dancing where there would be less room for debate on that issue.”

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Unlikely: Ray Allen, after Milwaukee Buck ownership decided to put in a row of high-dollar “celebrity seats” at the Bradley Center: “Do we have any celebrities in Milwaukee?”

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Who do you like? Laura Vecsey in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “People or things we wish would fall off the radar screen:

“Ryan Leaf. Latrell Sprewell. The Knicks. Lawrence Phillips. Any NFL team that signs Lawrence Phillips. Don King and the alphabet soup of boxing.

“The Jacksonville Jaguars. Bill the Beer Man. The Clippers. The Sun Bowl. The Rolling Stones’ ‘Start Me Up’ before every NFL kickoff. Dan Marino. Martina Hingis.”

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Forgotten already? Bud Geracie in the San Jose Mercury News: “If Barry Sanders is on your box of Wheaties, dear reader, you just bought some old cereal.”

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How about the timekeeper? Comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “Holiday shopping got off to a rousing start over the Thanksgiving weekend. There were some incredible bargains. Boxing promoter Don King bought himself two referees and a scorekeeper.”

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Trivia answer: Luc Robitaille, Jan. 25, 1993, against the Quebec Nordiques.

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And finally: Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle: “During a recent NBA game at Washington’s MCI Center, Wizard employees fired T-shirts into the home crowd, but the team’s play inspired most of the fans to throw them back.”