March 5th Update

Monster day for East PG's

• Deron Williams set an all-time New Jersey Nets record on Sunday, scoring 57 points in a surprisingly close 104-101 win over the hapless Charlotte Bobcats. Williams, who also had 6 rebounds and 7 assists to go with his scoring outburst, shot a perfect 21-21 from the free throw line, missing the all-time NBA record for free throws made without missing one by 2. (23 by Dominique Wilkins in 1992). The Nets were actually losing for a good portion of the game but when Williams realized no one else was going to win the game for them, he decided to do it himself. Charlotte is now an abysmal 4-31.
• While Williams led his team to victory by scoring, Boston Celtics PG Rajon Rondo had one of the most impressive triple doubles of all-time, putting up a mind-boggling line of 18 points, 17 rebounds and 20 assists in a 115-111 win over the New York Knicks. The 17 rebounds were a career high and Rondo became just the third person ever to record more than 15/15/20 (PTS/REB/ASSTS) with the other two being Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain back in the 1960's.
• By comparison, Ty Lawson's near triple double (22 points, 9 rebounds and 11 assists), Derrick Rose's 35 points and 8 assists and Chris Paul's 28 points and 10 assists are not even in the same neighborhood but they do deserve an honorable mention as solid performances, all in winning efforts.


Rory proving he belongs

• Rory McIlroy held off a charging Tiger Woods to win the Honda Classic. Woods, who finished tied for second, shot a 62 which was the lowest final round score in his career, but it wasn’t enough. McIlroy, knowing Woods was closing in on him, was able to eek out a number of clutch shots to give himself a two stroke victory.
• McIlroy’s victory catapults him passed Luke Donald to become #1 in the world. He is the second youngest person in the world to be #1 (behind Woods). McIlroy's ascension seems like the next logical thing as the young Irishman has taken the world by storm since winning the US Open last year.


ACC’s big 2 get a new competitor

• For years UNC and Duke have passed the ACC crown between one another. This year has been partially the same, as UNC finished the regular season #1 and Duke #2, except it seems like there is a newcomer who can play. Florida State defeated UNC by a boatload at home, and then beat Duke on a last second shot a few days later. All this being said, UNC and Duke (both top 10 teams) are still the class of the ACC and represent the conference’s best chance of winning a National Championship.
• Duke (ranked #4 last week) has been playing very well this year. Lead by a trio of NBA progeny (Austin Rivers, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins) as well as a trio of brothers (Miles, Mason and Marshal Plumlee), the Blue Devils were 26-4 and 13-3 in the ACC coming into this weekend including a last second victory over the Tar Heels in February.
• UNC, lead by Forwards Tyler Zeller, John Henson and Harrison Barnes, (ranked 7 in the country last week) came into the weekend 26-4 and 14-2 in the ACC including the last second loss to the Blue Devils and the beat down to FSU. This weekend, however, the Tar Heels went into Cameron Indoor Stadium and destroyed the Blue Devils. An 18-point beat down avenged the heart breaking loss and gave them the regular season ACC Championship.

February 8th update

Tobacco Road Rivalry Renewed Tonight at 9:00

• Some of you may be aware that the University of North Carolina and Duke have a bit of a basketball rivalry. And by a bit, I mean the way there was a bit of an international conflict between 1941 and 1945 and the way Coca-Cola sells a bit of product every year. Carolina, the best rebounding team in the nation is predictably led by the three headed frontcourt monster of formidable post presence Tyler Zeller, shotblocking/rebounding phenom John Henson and Harrison Barnes, who's drawn comparisons to a young Kobe Bryant due to his size, agility and scoring ability.
• Duke on the other hand, features two sons of former NBA players in the backcourt; super-agile Austin Rivers (Son of Celtics coach Doc) and the long range shooting Seth Curry (Son of Dell, brother of Stephon). They also feature 3 Plumlee brothers, although only Mason and Miles have contributed much this season, their younger brother Marshall still being a freshman.
• The Heels are ranked #5 and the Blue Devils are ranked #9, both teams being ranked in the top 10 seeming almost like a forgone conclusion. Duke has lost 2 of its last 3 at their homecourt, Cameron Indoor Stadium and will hope to fare better in Chapel Hill. North Carolina is tied for the lead in the ACC with Florida State and leads the all time series with Duke 131-101.


NBA Injuries taking toll

• There have been a pretty decent amount of injuries in the NBA lately and many teams are being adversely affected. Just to name a few:
- Manu Ginobili of the Spurs broke his hand a month ago and hasn't returned.
- Andrew Bogut of the Bucks is probably out for the year with a leg injury.
- Chauncey Billups tore his Achilles tendon this week and will probably be out for the year.
- Eric Gordon (the main piece of the Chris Paul trade) has only played parts of 2 games this year because of a variety of injuries, the main one dealing with his knee).
- Al Horford of the Hawks is probably done for the season with a torn pectoral.
- Zach Randolph experienced a career resurgence last year but has been out for a while this year with a knee injury.
- Brook Lopez of the Nets has missed the whole season and is still a little while from returning because of a knee injury.
- Carmelo Anthony is out for a few weeks with a groin injury.
- Former #1 pick Andrea Bargnani has been among the NBA top's scorers this season but is out for about another month.
- Another #1 pick, Greg Oden, is out for the season... again... but at least the guy drafted after him isn't possibly the best player in the NBA right now. Oh wait...
- Kevin Love isn't hurt but will be suspended for two games after kicking Luis Scola in the face during a game. Just call him this decade's Christian Laettner.

November 28th update

NBA Lockout Ends

• You can't put the NBA under a tree but if all you wanted for Christmas was professional basketball than:
A. You're an extremely dedicated fan and
B. You'll get your wish... the 2011-2012 NBA season will not be completely canceled as so many were predicting and will most likely begin on Christmas Day.
• The schedule will be 66 games long instead of 82 and will have teams averaging about 2 extra games per month as they try to squeeze the season in despite nearly a 2 month late start. Every team will not visit every city, as has been the case in the past.
• As for the lockout, the main point of contention was how BRI or Basketball Related Income would be split between the players and owners. They finally settled on 51.2% going to the players, which is way down from the 57% that had been previously awarded to the players. There is also a much stricter luxury tax which will most likely keep the big market teams from outspending the smaller teams to such a large degree. For all the other details of the CBA, click here.
• Additionally, the stars we mentioned last week who were planning their 4 city "Homecoming Tour" have canceled the event and tour organizers have said that tickets will be refunded fully. It would have been interesting to see but I'm sure everyone is satisfied that the tour will not have to take the place of actual NBA games and a real season.


Tebow Headlines NFL Weekend

• The San Diego Chargers are the latest team to get Tebow’d. The Denver Broncos defeated San Diego in overtime, using a punishing running attack to defeat the underachieving Chargers. Tim Tebow had another below average game as a quarterback, completing 9 of his 18 pass attempts with one touchdown. However, he played well enough as running back, as he also added 67 yards rushing on 22 attempts which were the most rushing attempts by a QB in the modern era. Willis McGahee added 117 yards rushing to assist the Denver to their fifth win in Tebow’s six starts.
• The New England Patriots crushed the Philadelphia Eagles 38-20, dropping the disappointing Eagles to 4-7. The Patriots proved their offensive prowess, while the Eagles proved they need some more time (probably next season at the soonest) to gel. The Patriots went down 10-0 7 minutes into the game, before running off a 38-3 stretch to put the game out of reach. The Eagles, led by backup quarterback Vince Young, started strong but faded quickly and could not keep up with the high octane Patriots
• Houston Texans down to a third quarterback, defeat the Jacksonville Jaguars. Texans star quarterback Matt Schaub was injured for the year last weekend. Backup Matt Leinart, who was the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner as the best college football player, was in line to finish the season but he got injured with less than two minutes left in the first half. His injured collarbone (which knocked him out a few years ago as well when he was in Arizona) is expected to end his season. The Texans then turned to rookie TJ Yates. Yates was victorious on Sunday, but the Texans will have their work cut out for them to continue.


College Basketball Preseason Tournaments completed

• Duke University wins Maui Invitational. The preseason tournament in Hawaii featured 8 of the biggest names in college basketball. Duke, the highest ranked team of the 8, won the championship on Wednesday. They defeated the Kansas Jayhawks in a highly entertaining basketball game that was tightly contested until the final minute.
• Syracuse wins season tip-off NIT title despite child abuse allegations hanging over the team. This preseason tournament, hosted at Madison Square Garden, is a favorite for the Orange, and they won the tournament defeating Virginia Tech and Stanford en route to the championship. Two days later the University officially fired long time associate head coach Bernie Fine after a third person came forward alleging Fine molested them and a tape was recovered that showed Fine's wife admitting that she believed the allegations were true.
• University of Connecticut and North Carolina, both preseason top 5 teams, fell in tournaments in exotic locations. UConn fell to the University of Central Florida in the Bahamas while UNC was defeated by UNLV in Las Vegas. Both teams are still expected to have good seasons, but will have to go on this season without a preseason championship title.

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.