November 16th update

NCAA Hoops kicks off

• On Veterans Day, a number of NCAA games marked the beginning of the 2011-2012 college basketball season, none receiving more publicity than the North Carolina-Michigan State matchup, the first ever to be played aboard an active aircraft carrier (or any other type of boat I'd imagine) and a rematch of the 2009 NCAA Title game.
• North Carolina won 67-55 to improve to 6-0 against Michigan State under coach Roy Williams. The Tarheels return nearly their entire team from a squad that won the ACC's regular season championship and begin the year as the consensus #1 pick. As always, they may face some competition from #6 Duke, who we'll mention more on later, although Duke is now without their trio of scorers from last season (Nolan Smith, Kyrie Irving and Kyle Singler).
• Kentucky may be the biggest threat to the Tarheels this season as the #2 Wildcats return some talent in the form of Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones and have also added superstar recruits Anthony Davis and Michael Gilchrist. The Wildcats may be the most athletic team in the NCAA's and will get another chance to defeat the Tarheels at home on December 3rd as they did in the Elite 8 last season.
• #3 Ohio State returns Jared Sullinger (who was probably the best player in basketball last year not named "Jimmer") and the defending champion UConn Huskies has plenty of talent to replace dynamic scorer Kemba Walker and starts at #4, in good shape to make a repeat title run. Vanderbilt started the year ranked #7, but suffered the first big upset of the young season, losing 71-58 to Cleveland State.


New Leader atop the Winners Board

• On Tuesday night the Duke Blue Devils defeated the Michigan State Spartans 74-69 at Madison Square Garden in New York. This was the 903rd win in the illustrious career of Blue Devil’s Coach Mike Krzyzewski and puts Coach K (as he is commonly known) ahead of his mentor Bobby Knight at the top of the list of winningest men's college basketball coaches.
• Krzyzewski (pronounced sha-shef-ski) began his career as a player at the US Military Acadamy. After serving in the military, Coach K returned to Army where he soon took over as head coach. After five years he went to Duke University in 1980. He has won 830 of his games during his 31 years at Duke.
• In addition to the litany of professional players that have come out of Duke during his tenure (Grant Hill, Carlos Boozer and JJ Redick), Coach K has also had many assistants go on to be head coaches at other schools, and has been the head coach of the US Mens Basketball team since 2006, winning a Gold Medal in the 2008 Beijing summer games.
• Coach K has also been one of the most hated people in all of sports, as the face of a university that has always been disliked for a number of reasons. As two UNC grads, this post has been hard to write but we have to admit that Coach K has been unarguably one of the best coaches of all-time. A four time National Champion in addition to the all time winningest coach, it’s hard to argue with Coach K’s pedigree, but much easier for us to continue disliking him on a non-personal level.


NFL Update

• Green Bay continues to roll. Monday Night, the Green Bay Packers crushed the Minnesota Vikings 45-7, completely demolishing the Vikings in all facets of the game, even though Jared Allen moved closer to the single season sack record and now only needs 9 more to tie Michael Strahan's record of 22.5. But the real story was not Allen, but the Packers, who have continued to prove they are the best team in the NFL. Lead by quarterback Aaron Rogers the Packers seem unstoppable and have not lost in nearly a full year. Rogers is on pace to have one of the best seasons for a quarterback in the history of the NFL.
• The Second Thursday Night game of the 2011 season features some early trash talk. The New York Jets travel to the Mile High City to take on the Denver Broncos. Unconventional Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow (who won last weeks game while only completing two passes) came under fire this week from Jets All-Pro cornerback Darrell Revis. Revis questioned Tebow’s ability to play quarterback and called him more of a running back than a quarterback. Additionally, he said that the Jets were not worried about Tebows ability (or lack thereof) to throw the football, worrying more about his ability to run.