Tuesday’s 6-pack
Odds to win the NCAA basketball tournament:
+$355— Gonzaga
+$465— Baylor
+$1100— Iowa, Michigan, Villanova
+$1900— Alabama, Illinois, Texas
+$2600— Tennessee, Virginia
+$2900— Houston, Kansas, Wisconsin
Americans who have died from COVID-19: 419,263
PLEASE wear a mask (over your nose/mouth) when you go out.
Quote of the Day
“If you’re turning the ball over five times in 16 minutes, that ain’t gonna cut it for me. If you’re doing that on the offensive end, you better be bringing something defensively.”
Charlotte Hornets’ coach James Borrego, talking about rookie LaMelo Ball
Tuesday’s quiz
In the movie The Fabulous Baker Boys, where Beau/Jeff Bridges are piano-playing brothers who hire a singer to join their act, what famous actress plays the singer?
Monday’s quiz
Romeo Crennel was the Chiefs’ coach before Andy Reid.
Sunday’s quiz
Matthew Stafford played his college football at Georgia.
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Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but…….
13) Football players are really tough; Buffalo Bills’ WR Cole Beasley played the last 3.5 games this season with a broken fibula in his leg.
In his last four games, Beasley caught 17 passes for 162 yards. With a broken leg.
12) Why some teams don’t win very much. This is the 2010 MLB Draft:
1st pick- Bryce Harper, Washington— Really good player, excellent pick
2nd— Jameson Taillon, Pittsburgh— Went 29-24 in 82 starts; has had two Tommy John surgeries. Got traded to Bronx last week.
3rd— Manny Machado, Baltimore— Hell of a player; Orioles made playoffs 3 times with him.
4th— Christian Colon, Kansas City— Hitting .249 in 418 career plate appearances.
Pirates passed up Manny Machado for a high school pitcher; no bueno.
By the way the 23rd pick that year? Christian Yelich; he’s pretty good, too.
11) Brooklyn 98, Miami 85:
— Nets are 4-2 since acquiring James Harden.
Harden gets lot of criticism, but in his 12-year NBA career, he’s never played on a losing team. Five years ago, Houston was 41-41, the only team Harden has been on that finished a season with less than a .549 winning percentage.
Harden led the NBA in assists four years ago, is leading again this year. He’s a winning player, even if some people don’t like the way he plays— he does have the ball a lot.
10) West Virginia 88, Texas Tech 87:
— Tech led by 12 with 7:11 left in game.
— West Virginia made 12-19 on arc, making up for going 16-27 on foul line.
— Tech had only two turnovers (+10)
— Both teams scored over 1.2 points/possession, which is unusually good offense.
9) This is Archie Miller’s 4th year coaching Indiana; when his Hoosiers lost 74-70 at home to Rutgers Sunday, it made Indiana’s record 2-9 in games that followed Indiana beating a top 25 team. Hoosiers are having a hard time handling success.
8) They’re announcing the Hall of Fame inductees tonight; how do you vote for someone to be inducted into Cooperstown, and not include Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens? I’d vote for them.
If you tell me that they used steroids, I’d ask you for a complete list of who did/did not cheat back in that era. That list does not exist, so who gets to be judge/jury? Not me.
7) Curt Schilling’s Hall of Fame credentials:
— 19 postseason starts, 11-2, 2.23 for three different teams.
— He went 3-0, 3.00 in four postseason starts in 2007, at age 40.
— Regular season record: 216-146 in 436 starts.
His politics may be alarming, he may be a terrible businessman, but that stuff isn’t supposed to be relevant. A 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason starts should carry a lot of weight tonight.
6) Remember Jimmer Fredette, the BYU sharpshooter? He is still playing pro ball over in China, and scored 70 points in a game last week, for the Shanghai Sharks. The man can shoot.
5) Last week, I stayed up all night one night watching four high school basketball games on ESPNU- they were played in Virginia somewhere, these basketball factory high schools that are still traveling all over the country, when most public high school teams aren’t even playing.
Juwan Howard’s son was on one team; all in all, 10 teams from nine states played in the event, with 30 players involved who are ranked by ESPN’s experts.
Was fun to watch the games, but kids moving away from their families when they’re still in high school seems like a bit much.
4) UNLV 59, Utah State 56:
— Rebels played only six guys more than 5:00- four starters played 34:00+.
— Hard to win road games in a league where lot of schools are in high altitude, when you don’t have any depth. But this game was in Las Vegas, and they held on.
— This is a really good win for the Rebels; was very surprised by this score.
3) Back in 2017, in my fantasy baseball league, I picked up a Padres’ utility guy named Jose Pirela— he hit .288 with 10 homers in 83 games, showed a lot of promise, especially if he wound up at second base, where it is harder to find guys who hit .288.
Well, that was the highlight; four years later, Jose Pirela is playing in Korea this year, for the Samsung Lions— he played in Japan last year. Spring training in the KBO starts Sunday.
2) Arizona 80, Arizona State 67:
— Sean Miller’s Wildcats are 12-3, 6-3 in Pac-12
— Arizona was 32-43 on foul line; ASU was 9-11.
1) Time flies; 33 years ago last night was the night that Pitt’s Jerome Lane dunked on a fast break and shattered the backboard, live on ESPN, inspiring Bill Raftery to yell into his mike, “Send it in Jerome!!!”
The guy who passed Jerome Lane the ball? A guard named Sean Miller.
