After going 2-1 on Thanksgiving, I’m back with the rest of the NFL picks for Week 13. Onto the games:

Miami @ St. Louis (+9) - The Dolphins can suddenly lay near double digits on the road? No thanks.

New Orleans @ Tampa Bay (-4) - The NFC South is a home field division, and Tampa defends home turf better than most.

NY Giants (-3) @ Washington - With Plaxico Burress’ gunshot injury, the line has fallen a 1/2 pt. already at most books. I liked the line at 3.5 but like it more at -3. G-Men roll.

San Francisco @ Buffalo (-6) - 49ers aren’t ready to go win a game in Buffalo yet.

Baltimore (-7) @ Cincinnati - Bengals might not score in this one, as Ravens need to keep winning to keep pace with the suddenly surging Colts and Pats.

Indianapolis (-4) @ Cleveland - I’m siding with the public in this game, as I don’t see Anderson’s re-emergence as anything the Colts should worry about.

Carolina @ Green Bay (-3) - Packers are a different team at home and Rodgers should bounce back from his 3 INT performance on MNF.

Atlanta @ San Diego (-4) - As bad as the Chargers have looked, they’re 2 back and have the Broncos in their building Week 17, so in reality are only 1 game back if they win that one. Not as bad as everyone thinks huh. Chargers need to win each week to have a shot, but their shot is legit, and I think they can win this one at home.

Pittsburgh (+1) @ New England - Cassell plays better at home, but the Steelers are finally getting healthy and he hasn’t seen a D like this one in a long long time, if at all, all season. Steelers in a close one.

Kansas City (+3) @ Oakland - Herman Edwards’ squad gets their 2nd win this week in the Black Hole.

Denver (+9) @ NY Jets - I love the Jets, but this is too many points for them to be laying to a potent Bronco offense.

Chicago (+3.5) @ Minnesota - Bears are the better all around D and with Orton at the helm have actually looked good on offense as well.

Jacksonville (+3) @ Houston - As bad as the Jaguars have looked all season, they’re still a physical team and I think they can out-rush and out-physical the Texans.

Those are the picks for this week, so check back next week for more NCAAF and NFL picks. Good luck, and as always bet with your head and not over it.

The scoring is at a career low - 2o.8 PPG.

So is the shooting percentage - 40.3%.

But believe it or not, Carmelo Anthony could be having the best season of his career.

How?  Melo has finally accepted that to be a truly great player in the NBA, he has to affect the game with more than just his scoring.  And there is still no doubt that he can score.

After spending a summer as a complementary player on the Gold Medal winning Olympic team, Melo has embraced doing more to impact the Nuggets wins and losses.

His per-game average 8.6 rebounds is a career high; so are his 4.2 assists.

The biggest difference, though, can’t be measured with statistics.  His commitment to playing defense and becoming the vocal leader on the team are measured in how much better he makes his other teammates.

Attitude - positive or negative - is infectious.  And it starts with the team’s leader.

The results are already showing. Despite Melo’s scoring troubles, the Nuggets are 10-6 and sit just a half game back of first place in the Midwest Division.

Maybe more impressive is the fact that they’re holding opponents to 98 points per game - the first time they’ve yielded fewer than 100 per game since 2005 - and down 9 points from last year’s embarrassing 107.

Melo’s scoring and shooting will likely return to career norms as the year progresses.  But even on the off chance they don’t, the Nuggets are getting a better Carmelo Anthony this year than they’ve ever gotten before.

First of all, let me say this.  All the talk of the summer of 2010 and where LBJ will end up is really ridiculous.

Let the GMs and team owners worry about it. Can’t we just focus on, hmm I don’t know, maybe the games for the next 2 years?  What a novel idea.

But the point I want to make is that all the talk that King James needing to be in New York or LA to fully capitalize on his marketing potential - clothing lines, movies, etc. - is absurd.

How much bigger can he possibly get?  Really.

He has sponsorships galore including a bagillion dollar deal as the face of Nike Basketball complete with a signature shoe; he just had a documentary about his life released at a Film Festival in Canada; he has his own logo for chrissakes.

What doors are going to be opened by moving to one of the coasts?

What is completely being ignored is that the world’s most famous athlete - complete with his own major motion picture, shoe line, clothing line, 2 colognes and millions in other endorsements - played in… Chicago.

Or has everyone already forgotten about a guy named Jordan?

Last Week: 0-3 (YTD: 42-34-1)

Well, I can’t get much worse than last week’s 0-3 performance, so I’ll keep it short this week and hope to rebound nicely:

Bowling Green (+1) @ Toledo - BG is the better team, and hopefully they play like it as Toledo has been relatively awful all season.

Virginia @ Virginia Tech (-8) - VT has been a pretty potent team all season while Virginia is a very hit or miss squad. I’m thinking they come up small this weekend.

Oklahoma (-7) @ Oklahoma St. - Sooners are looking to solidify a bid for a great bowl game and maybe even a National Championship if things break right, so look for them to hit State hard tomorrow.

Georgia Tech (+7.5) @ Georgia - Georgia Tech has played good football in their 1st year with a new offense, and the Bulldogs have played under their talent level all season. This game shapes up to be lower scoring and points will be hard to come by, so I’ll take the 7.5 free ones.

South Carolina (+1) @ Clemson - Clemson is the worse team and are only favored because they’re at home. The Gamecocks have played stout defense all season and should limit Clemson’s offense to an inept total by the end.

That’s it for NCAAF picks this week, but be back tomorrow for NFL picks. Good luck and as always, bet with your head and not over it.

Last Week: 11-4-1 (YTD: 104-67-5)

Best week of the season in the pros last week, and I’m excited to follow it up with the games this week. Short column today, being Thanksgiving and all, so here goes the 3 picks:

Tennessee @ Detroit (+12) - Lions showed guts last week, and they still want their 1st win of the season. They won’t get it today, but the Titans showed chinks in their pass defense last week and that’s the one thing Detroit will try to do.

Seattle @ Dallas (-11) - Seahawks just aren’t ready for a healthy Dallas squad at home on turkeyday.

Arizona @ Philadelphia (-3) - There’s a reason the Eagles are favored, and it’s because Vegas is smarter than you. 70% of public on Cardinals, who are a West coast team coming East. By the way, West coast squads haven’t won on the East coast yet. Food for thought.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of the NFL Week 13 picks. Have a happy thanksgiving, and as always, bet with your head and not over it.

OT With the Cuse is back for another season.  We’re going with a new pic of Jimmy B this year, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find an image that better captures Jimmy on the sidelines than this one.

The only better Boeheim mannerism that comes close is when his arms are fully stretched out.  Of course, the facial expression never changes.

Ever.

And that’s why we love him. He’s our coach.

Anyway, after 2 straight years of NIT trips, the Orangemen are looking forward to getting healthy and back into The Big Dance.  Tonight’s 89-83 win over #18 Florida was a good start.

So here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from tonight’s performance:

THE GOOD

THE OFFENSE - Onuaku is a beast, a man amongst school children

PAUL HARRIS - Sure, his 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting and 11 rebounds were impressive, but what stood out was that he didn’t have a classic Paul Harris WTF moment.

You know, the one play a game where you’re left shaking your head wondering what the hell he was thinking. Non-existent tonight.

KRIS JOSEPH - not as highly touted as fellow frosh Mookie Jones, but Joseph impressed with 10 points, 3 reb and 3 assists in some quality minutes

JONNY FLYNN - played under control the whole game.  Didn’t force shots and let the game come to him.  Scored 18 points on just 7 shots and hit big free throws down the stretch.

BALL MOVEMENT - 6 guys finished with more than 8 shots, and no one took more than 11.  In the second half especially, they moved the ball around patiently and waited for the right shot.

RESERVES - This team has a number of role players that can contribute on a nightly basis.  Tonight it was Kris Joseph and Andy Rautins, but Kristof “The Belgian Minister” Ongenaet and even Rick Jackson are also capable of contributing as well.

ANDY RAUTINS 1ST HALF - 5-for-7 from 3-point land, 15 points and one killer faux hawk

THE BAD

ANDY RAUTINS 2ND HALF - Where’s Waldo?

DEFENSIVE REBOUNDING - Especially in the first half.  Florida got way too many garbage buckets off of rebounds they shouldn’t have gotten.  A big reason was poor defensive positioning, but we’ll get to that later.

ZONE OFFENSE - Way too much standing around.  The ball moved well, but the players didn’t.  The result was a lot of 3 point attempts.  Luckily for us, Andy Rautins was on fire.

RICK JACKSON - he was largely ineffective tonight.  He looks like he gets too anxious once he gets the ball, and it’s not obvious to me that his game has progressed a lot since last year.  Reminds me a young Terrence Roberts.

THE UGLY

PAUL HARRIS’ BRAIDS - Someone needs to take him to Melo’s barber.

THE 2-3 ZONE - Wow.  Never could I have imagined that a Jim Boeheim coached team could play the zone any worse than they did tonight.

Calling it porous would be a severe understatement.

Unlike last year though, it’s not for a lack of effort.  This team just isn’t built to play it.  We don’t have any forwards that are long and lanky that can cover a lot of space on the floor - the hallmark of any great 2-3 zone.  We are athletic enough to play man-to-man well, and my guess is you’ll see more of it this year.

The rotations were awful; there wasn’t a possession where at least one player wasn’t horribly out of position, compromising the entire team and leading to a ton of easy buckets.

We let no-name forward Alex Tyus (whose previous career high for points was 13) score 24 while hitting 11 of his 14 shots.

I could go on, but reading my notes just made me nauseous.

FREE THROW SHOOTING - Poor free throw shooting is almost as much a part of Syracuse basketball as the 2-3 matchup zone.  Just abominable tonight (19-32, 59%), and it could have ended up costing us the game.

The worst part about is that we only have 2 players that we can count on at all to make any down the stretch - Rautins and Flynn.  Devendorf is next on the list, but even he was under 75% last season.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with the performance.  I think as the year goes on and we move into Big East play, we’ll fix the defense (probably by playing a lot of man-to-man) and continue to get better.

It’s nice to be 4-0.

Wow. Was that huge statement by Oklahoma or what?

I’m not sure what I’m more impressed with - the margin of the win or the fact that the Sooners held Texas Tech to just 21 points.

So the big Sooners win bumps them up a spot.  Tech drops a few, but I refuse to drop them out of the Top 5 because I think they’d beat both Alabama and Penn State.

Without further ado, here are this week’s Top 5:

1. 2. 3. 45.

FLORIDA - The Gators basically took this week off playing Citadel.  Nice how that scheduling worked out.  Tebow played less than 2 quarters and Florida still put up 70.

OKLAHOMA - I watched the entire first half with my jaw touching dropped on my bar stool. 42-7 at half?  This was certainly a statement game for Oklahoma who many think are the better than Texas despite the head-to-head loss.

USC - Not that a win over the Irish would mean much anyway, but USC’s slim title hopes were shot with Notre Dame’s loss to Syracuse.  In case you missed it, and if you live outside LA you probably did, the Trojans smoked Stanford this weekend.

TEXAS - Let the griping begin. I’ve covered the Big 12 mess before, but Horns fans are fuming that Oklahoma jumped them in the polls despite the head-to-head win.

TEXAS TECH - Let’s just hope the embarrassing loss at Oklahoma doesn’t ruin the rest of the year for the Red Raiders.  They belong in a BCS Bowl game.

On the cusp (in no particular order): Alabama, Penn State

Don’t mention Utah to me. Please.  Let’s get serious.

Unless you’re a huge Ryan Dempster or Jeremy Affeldt fan, this year’s free agency period has started out quite slowly.

It’s no surprise though.  The big fish need to be signed in order to establish the market for all the others.

Dempster’s 4 year, $52M deal should be a little disconcerting for everyone. $13M a year for a guy who had 6 starts in the 4 years prior to this season? Who’s ONLY good season  as a starter before ‘08 came in 2000 with the Florida Marlins? Sign me up.

This contract has all the makings of an albatross for a Cubs franchise that is already stuck with Alfonso Soriano’s horrible deal.

Anyway, here’s my thoughts on the big boys:

CC SABATHIA - If someone offered you $140M, how long do you think it would take you to say “Yes”?  I was already nervous about offering a 300lb pitcher with 1,600+ innings on his arm a 6-year deal, but now it’s clear that Carsten Charles doesn’t want to pitch in New York.

And if that’s the case, I’m not so sure I’d want him.  Okay, I’d still want him because I think there’s a great chance he’ll be very very good, but I’d still be uneasy.

AJ BURNETT - If anyone wants to offer this 32 year-old guy a five year deal, more power to you.  That’s insanity for a guy that has started 30 games in a season 3 times in 8 years - with the last 2 times coming in contract years.

DEREK LOWE - He’ll wait until the other 2 guys sign and make a lot of money.  I still think he’d be a great fit for a National League team.

His last year in the AL East wasn’t pretty, but you can bet that if the Yankees lose out on Sabathia (and I think they will), they’ll offer Lowe too much money for him to pass up.

MARK TEIXEIRA - At the end of the season I was almost certain he’d re-sign with the Angels.  But his agent is Scott Boras, who loves to drag things along slowly, and the Angels have said they’re not going to wait around forever.  Right now, I think he could end up anywhere.

FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ - If people thought the Mets would jump at the chance to over pay K-Rod, think again. The market for closers isn’t a good one this year.  There are a lot on the market and not a lot of teams that need them.

And with his stuff in decline, I’d be shocked if anyone offered him more than 3 years.