June 8th update

Pryor to drop out of Ohio State
- Terrelle Pryor, the highly touted Ohio State Quarterback, has declared he will not return to school for his senior season as fallout over an NCAA investigation (and to a lesser extent badly timed traffic violations) continues to ravage one of the top collegiate football programs in the country

- The scandal, in which several OSU players used their popularity to get cheap or free goods and services from area businesses, has already led to the resignation of popular and successful coach Jim Tressel, who lied about knowledge of these incidents. Additionally, Pryor and 4 other teammates were already suspended for the first 5 games of the 2011-12 season.

- Pryor is expected to try and enter the NFL through its supplemental draft, a rarely-used secondary player selection process where players with sketchy histories have historically made their way into the professional football ranks.

- Despite being the quarterback at a major college program, a lot of NFL scouts feel that he will be a Wide Receiver in the NFL due to his athleticism and size.


Mavs tie NBA Finals 2-2 in another thriller
- The Dallas Mavericks tied the NBA Finals 2-2 with an 86-83 victory in what has become one of the most tightly contested series in recent memory.

- Dirk Nowitzki scored 21 points including 10 in the 4th quarter despite having a high fever. He's drawing comparisons to Michael Jordan, who scored 37 points and led the Bulls to a win in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals despite playing with a 103 degree fever.

- Dwayne Wade came through with another big game but missed a potential game tying free throw with under a minute left and fumbled the inbounds pass on the final play of the game which led to a wild, missed 3 pointer by Mike Miller.

- Lebron James only scored 8 points, the first time he has failed to score in double digits in his playoff career.

- The last 26 times the NBA Finals has been tied at 2-2, the winner of game 5 has won the series 19 times.


Bruins crush Canucks to get on the board in Stanley Cup
- The Boston Bruins finally broke through the Vancouver Canucks defense and continued to pound the back of the net, winning game 3 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, 8-1, but in the process, they lost one of their best players for the rest of the series.

- A vicious, blindside hit on Bruins right wing Nathan Horton, the Bruins 4th leading scorer in the regular season, left him with a concussion and out of the rest of the Finals. Vancouver's Aaron Rome, who laid the hit, was suspended for 4 games which would cover the extent of the Finals as well. It's the first time a player has been suspended for more than 1 Stanley Cup Finals game.

- The Bruins finally broke through the Vancouver defense and continued to pound the back of the net, winning game 3 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, 8-1. Vancouver still holds a series lead of 2-1, but this win was desperately needed by the Bruins as 3-0 series deficits are rarely overcome.

- In their past 5 Stanley Cup appearances, the Bruins have only won a total of 5 games, never winning more than 2 games in any one series.

June 6th update

Na, Nadal victorious in French Open
- The French Open concluded over the weekend with Rafael Nadal defeating Roger Federer 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1 and Li Na (pictured) beating Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6.

- Na is the first Chinese athlete, male or female, to win one of the four tennis majors (The Australian Open, Wimbledon, The French Open and the U.S. Open).

- According to a CBS news story, she received over 300'000 messages on her website within 4 minutes of her victory.

- With his victory, Nadal became the 7th man to win 10 majors, including 4 of the past 5. Federer has the most all-time with 16.

- Novak Djokovic lost in the semifinals to Federer ending his 43 match win streak. He had not lost since November of last year, also to Federer.


Heat beat Mavs behind Bosh's late shot
- The Miami Heat barely survived another late rally by the Dallas Mavericks to win game 3 of the NBA Finals, 88-86. They now have a 2-1 lead in the best of seven series.

- Chris Bosh made the game-winning shot with 39.6 seconds left and Dirk Nowitzki had 2 chances to tie it, but threw a bad pass out of bounds the first time and missed a jump shot the second time as time expired.

- Dirk Nowitzki finished with 34 points and Dwayne Wade had 29, but Lebron James had an off night, only scoring 17 points.

- Under the current scheduling format, the team that wins game 3 when the NBA Finals are tied 1-1 has gone on to win the championship 11 out of 11 times.


Pujols rounding into form
Albert Pujols hit a game winning home run for the second straight game as the Cardinals beat the Cubs 3-2 on Sunday. Pujols now has 4 home runs in his last 3 games and looks to be getting back into form after a shaky first 2 months of the season.

- After his game on May 29th, the exact 1/3 point of the season, Pujols had only 8 home runs, 28 RBI's and a .257 batting average. All would be career lows by a significant amount.

- Rebounding is even more important than usual as Pujols is in his contract year, meaning that his contract expires after this season and he can become a free agent if he does not sign an extension before then. He has reportedly been asking for a new 10 year-$300 million dollar contract, but the Cardinals have balked and some have theorized that his poor start is due to distractions caused by the contract issues.

June 3rd update

Rubio to play in NBA
- Ricky Rubio (pictured), the highly touted pass-first point guard from Spain has announced that he will be joining the NBA next season. Despite being drafted in 2009 by the Minnesota Timberwolves, Rubio has been playing in Spain until now.

- Current Wolves superstar Kevin Love seems skeptical though, as he posted via Twitter: @kevinlove - Ricky Rubio huh? I'll believe it when I see it...

- His skepticism could be geared towards the fact that Rubio seemed not to want to play in Minnesota, and it's possible that he could change his mind or be traded to another team before the 2011 season begins.


Mavs come back to even Finals
- In the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat seemed to be on their way to a comfortable 2-0 lead against the Dallas Mavericks when disaster struck and they fell victim to the resilient Dallas Mavericks 95-93.

- The Heat were winning 88-73 with a little over 7 minutes left but managed to lose after Dirk Nowitzki made a layup with 3 seconds remaining.

- The Mavericks had a similar comeback in the Western Conference Finals against Oklahoma City, when they trailed 99-84 late in the 4th quarter yet came back to win.