I know, I know, I wrote about Kobe Bryant last week. But seriously, who saw this coming. I would be remiss if I did not talk about his 81 point explosion against Toronto this past Sunday. 81 is the second highest point total in NBA history. Wilt the Stilt scored 100 back in 1962 against the Knicks. The final score of that game was 169-47. The final score of Sunday's game, Lakers 122 Toronto 104. The score in the third quarter before the pillage, Toronto 66 Lakers 49. Kobe Bryant had seen enough. By the time the third quarter ended, the Lakers were leading by 6. Kobe scored 27 in the third and bested that total by 1 in the fourth for a total of 55 in the second half alone. I remember when Jordan hit the Knicks off with a double nickel in his first game back in the Garden after his first retirement.

In the press conference following Kobe's historical performance, he said he would have been "sick" if the Lakers would have loss that game. A game versus one of the worse teams in the league and a team with an 8-14 road record. That is what I like to hear from a star athlete trying to will an otherwise mediocre team to a playoff birth.

Bill Simmons refers to Kobe as Black Mamba. If you have seen Quentin Tarentino's Kill Bill movies then you know why. He is a cold blooded killer and not in the O.J. sense. Black Mamba is a good moniker, but I think I'm going to start calling him The Prophet. Kobe is seemingly the only person who truly knows how great he is. Before Sunday I thought he was the best player on the planet, now I am certain.

About a month ago, Kobe dropped 62 on the Dallas Mavericks in only three quarters. Since his team was leading by 34 at the time and since his 62 was more than the Mavs total of 61 he decided to gracefully bow out. He received alot of criticism for sitting out the rest of the game, which is baffling if you ask me. But only a prophet and someone as good as The Prophet could foresee another chance at an eighty plus performance. One might think 81 would be enough to appease the general public, but no. Maybe this number reminded everyone of Terrell Owens too much. Vince aka Wince Carter had the nerve to say that scoring 81 gives a bad impression to the kids. Wince is the same guy who admitted to underperforming so as to force a trade out of Toronto. Wince is the same guy who is featured in Nike's newest basketball ad in which he says, "My old coach used to say two points is two points. My old coach couldn't dunk." Hmmm...the dunk is probably the single most important reason half the NBA can't play worth a damn.

In other news, one of the best plays of the NCAA basketball season occurred in the West Virginia/UCLA game. Mike Gansey, who is touted as the best Mountaineer gaurd since Mr. Basketball Jerry West, stole the ball from UCLA gaurd Jordan Farmar on what should have been the last possession of regulation. With five seconds left and his team up by three Gansey got the steal that sealed the game. This was not a deflected pass. It was a one-on-one situation and he simply took the ball. Who makes that play? Maybe more importantly, who gets the ball stolen from them in that situation?

Speaking of who does that, on a commercial break during the Denver/Pittsburgh game I turned to ESPN. Bowling was on and what I saw was so captivating I did not turn back to football for at least ten minutes. I saw a bowler named Ritchie Allen wearing a head band and I knew I could not change the channel. Moments later with crowd buzzing from the fact that Ritchie failed to throw a strike at a crucial moment, he turned to them and told them to "Be Quiet!" so he could concentrate on the next throw. Dave Ryan(who only commentates obscure events like bowling, women's soccer, curling, and the spelling bee I suppose) and whoever does analysis for bowling say they had never seen that before in their lives. At this point I had a decision to make: Is this guy my favorite or least favorite bowler of all time. After careful deliberation I have decided that he might be my least favorite bowler of all time. His boisterousness may be entertaining at times, but the head band was too egregious of a fashion folly. It's almost analgous to wearing a head band in golf. Imagine Vijay Singh or Mark O'Meara wearing a head band. Sometimes the head band is not even a good look in a sport where the head band is the norm. A basketball player like Jason Kapono looks absolutely rediculous in a head band and yet he continues to wear one. Or the guy from the Cavs who looks like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. What that guy really needs to do is get a haircut or get some conrows or maybe a jheri curl. If you're going to wear your hair in such a rediculous manner you might as well get a jheri curl, which just barely edges out the mullet as the greatest hair do ever. And by greatest I mean the most hilarious to look at.