Armadillo Sports
Wednesday’s 6-pack
Highest paid college basketball coaches:
$8.1M— John Calipari, Kentucky
$6M— Bill Self, Kansas
$5.7M— Tom Izzo, Michigan State
$5.45M— Rick Barnes, Tennessee
$5.4M— Bruce Pearl, Auburn
$4.83M— Tony Bennett, Virgnia
Quote of the Day
“I’m so underpaid right now as far as my contract and what I contribute to the team, it’s like, I am relentlessly pursuing this. I want to get something long-term done. I want a team that wants me long term. I’m at the peak of my game, right? As long as I’m healthy, I’m gonna score you another 20 touchdowns. I’m gonna have, you know, another 1,600 all-purpose yards. I’m getting half my value of what I could be getting. I am relentlessly pursuing someone who wants me for the long term.”
Chargers’ RB Austin Ekeler
Wednesday’s quiz
What semi-famous actor played Richard Gere’s assistant in the movie, Pretty Woman?
Tuesday’s quiz
Andrew Luck in 2015-2016 was the last quarterback to start consecutive season openers for the Indianapolis Colts.
Monday’s quiz
When Santa Clara upset Arizona in the 1993 NCAA’s, Steve Nash was playing for the Broncos.
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Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings………
— Thanks to everyone who reached out last week during my absence; things are slowly getting back to normal. Appreciate your thoughts.
— Japan 3, USA 2— Ohtani got a save; Japan used seven pitchers and they win the WBC.
From looks of things, the WBC was really lucrative; games were packed, fans were enthused, am guessing they made a boatload of $$$ selling merchandise.
Now, can we get on with the baseball season? Regular season games start in eight days.
— So you own the LA Angels; you pay Mike Trout $37M a year, Sandoval pitched really well for Mexico in the semi-finals and Ohtani is all anyone ever talks about. Pretty good nucleus right there.
So how come they haven’t been in the playoffs since 2014, haven’t won a playoff game since 2009? Ohtani is a free agent after this season; he’s going to get the biggest contract ever— it seems doubtful it’ll be in Anaheim.
So……..do the Angels trade him during the season, and if they do, what do they get back? Do they keep him this season and try to make the playoffs? Thing is, if they let him walk, they get bupkis in return— that is stuff cheap teams like the A’s usually do.
Other than the pennant races, this is going to be the #1 story this baseball season.
— North Texas 65, Oklahoma State 59 OT— Cowboys went 15-25 on foul line at home, losing to a North Texas team that plays the slowest tempo games in America. Mean Green moves on to the NIT semi-finals in Las Vegas next week.
— Wisconsin 61, Oregon 58— Badgers ended game on a 15-6 run, also move on to Las Vegas; a Wisconsin-North Texas semi-final game? Tempo #341 vs tempo #363, the total is going to be very low.
— Eastern Kentucky 108, Southern Utah 106, 2OT— Quite a week for the Colonels, who’ve won three games in a row, all in overtime, and in this case, two overtimes. EKU was down 12 with 9:11 left in this game; they forced 22 turnovers (+13).
— Charlotte 63, Radford 56— Maybe Conference USA needs better TV exposure; Charlotte is still playing, so are UAB and North Texas. Good teams and that is without mentioning the best of the group, Florida Atlantic.
— Wichita State hired Oral Roberts coach Paul Mills, who went 67-28 the last three years, making the Sweet 16 two years ago.
— Arizona State gave Bobby Hurley a 2-year contract extension, bad news for Pac-12 referees. Hurley is the whiniest coach I’ve ever seen; his Sun Devils went 23-13 this year, losing 72-70 to TCU after winning a First Four game.
— FDU coach Tobin Anderson is the new coach at Iona, replacing Rick Pitino; tough act to follow. Iona has been in eight of last 11 NCAA Tournaments.
— Former Notre Dame coach Mike Brey interviewed for the South Florida job, but said he’s going to take a year off and try his hand at TV instead.
— A union representing 30,000 Los Angeles school custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and support staff started a 3-day strike with support from the district’s teachers, effectively stopping classes for more than 500,000 students in the nation’s 2nd-largest school system.
Long time ago, September 1975, when I was a junior in high school, three schools around here had their teachers go on strike at the same time, three of the biggest schools.
First week or two of school, we would pass the teachers picketing by the school, we would wave to them from our bus, then we would go into school, go into class, and have a different teacher in every class every day. Teachers from the other two schools were the subs in our classes, trying to earn back some of the $$$ they were losing by being on strike. It was organized chaos.
Some of the kids we knew organized a walk-out in support of the teachers; they would storm out of school, march to the district offices in protest. Those were the kids who lived near the district offices; they were just skipping school, then walking home. My neighborhood was in the other direction, and it was hot out. No thanks.
Hopefully the situation in LA will get fixed; kids are trying to get ready for college, they need to get smarter. That year our teachers were on strike was a Regents’ year, an important year for grades and all that— the delay put us behind all the other kids that year.
— RIP to former Knicks’ great Willis Reed, who passed away Tuesday at age 80; Reed was an under-sized center with a terrific mid-range lefty jumper. He was the heart of the Knicks’ team that won NBA titles in 1970, 1973.
I was a little kid back then; my dad loved those Knicks, it was fun watching him watch the games. Few years ago in Las Vegas I got to meet Walt Frazier at the NBA Summer League, nicest guy you could meet.
Look up Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals on YouTube; Willis Reed was hurt pretty bad, but he hobbled onto the court, hit two jumpers early in the game and the Knicks pounded the Lakers— they were gods in the Big Apple back then. Willis Reed was the heart of that team. RIP, sir.
