Washington
If you want to see the Wizards play some rested and meaningful home games, your only choices are January and February. Every other month has more road trips than home games while April, the only other month with more home than away games, comes too late in the season to likely be meaningful.
November has seven road games and only five home games. December has both eight road games and eight home games.
Fortunately, January has just six road games and nine home games, including a five-game, ten-day homestand from a divisional matchup against Atlanta on January 2 through a cross-conference game against Portland on January 12.
Similarly, February has just five road games and seven home games, highlighted by a four-game, six-day homestand from Milwaukee on February 5 through the Clippers on February 11. (The Wizards play their Valentine's day game in New Orleans.)
March has an incredible 10 road games and just five road games. Good luck catching the Wizards then.
April, usually useless April, features just five road games and seven home games, though none of the home games are against division rivals.
TEAM NOTES
The Washington Wizards have released their complete 2004-2005 regular season schedule.
You can shop at the Wizards team storewhere you can personalized jerseys with your name and number.
Denis Barnes ofThe Washington Timeswrites: D.C. officials and literacy advocates yesterday kicked off a program to improve the low adult literacy rate in the District, where one in three residents reads at or below a third-grade level. Officials will spend $20 million on the three-year program called the "Lifelong Learning Initiative" that will offer classes to teach reading and writing, computer skills and other job training. The goal is to help improve the lives of at least 10,000 city residents... The initiative is a collaborative effort among the D.C. mayor's office, the State Education Office and a group of corporate and philanthropic organizations. Washington Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan also attended the event.
Randy Jones ofThe New Bern Sun Journalwrites: Anyway, it's hard for me to get too excited when the world's best get together and it seems the U.S. basketball players just can't be bothered to make it as well. Maybe these guys would relish the opportunity a little more if the pot was sweetened, say if you play and win gold, you don't have to ever be on the Washington Wizards -- for life.Or maybe you get to be the next Sprite spokesman.
Steve Wyche ofThe Atlanta Journal-Constitutionwrites: Georgia was placed on four years' probation for violations stemming from wrongdoing in the men's basketball program. Part of the reason for the severity of the punishment, which included the loss of basketball scholarships, was that Georgia was considered a repeat offender. It violated NCAA rules while still under watch for infractions incurred by the football program in 1997... Some of those upset by Thursday's rulings were former Georgia basketball standouts Jarvis and Jonas Hayes.Neither twin was pleased that the NCAA wiped out the 30 victories and the co-SEC East titles they won while at Georgia. Both also were bitter about the university's decision to pull the team out of the SEC and NCAA tournaments in 2003, as it barely played a role in defraying sanctions, they said. "When everything went down [former athletics director] Vince Dooley and [university President] Michael Adams pulled us out of the tournament, and they punished us anyway," said Jarvis Hayes, now entering his second season with the NBA Washington Wizards. "They should have at least let us go to the tournament. I feel like the university quit on the basketball team, pulled the plug too early. It was a tough situation, and I'm not knocking Mr. Adams or Mr. Dooley. I'm just talking from a player's standpoint." As for the stripped victories, Jonas said: "My opinion is that those games count. They may not count in the record books at Georgia or other places, but in my mind and heart, they count. We were there, we played them, they can't ever take those away."