Armadillo: Wednesday's six-pack
-- Golden State is 52-7 when Andrew Bogut plays, 9-6 when he doesn't.
-- Average major league salary will be over $4M this year for first time.
-- On top of that, ballplayers get $100.50 a day in meal money on the road.
-- Serious question: why do college football teams practice in the spring?
-- Gregg Marshall has won nine league titles in 17 years as a head coach.
-- It is supposed to be 61 in Albany tomorrow; last time it was above 50 was December 27. This is not an April Fools' joke, at least I hope it isn't.
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Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Happy April Fools' Day!!!!
13) Cubs sent star prospect Kris Bryant to AAA, so they can keep him under team control for another year down the road; thats their choice, but don't tell me you're trying to win if you send one of your best guys to the minors, even if only for two or three weeks. How many pennant races come down to the last week or the last day of the season?
12) Mark McLemore played 19 years in the big leagues, hitting .259 with a .349 on-base percentage in 7,239 plate appearances, so he knows a lot and is now a TV analyst for the Rangers, but he claimed the Cubs sending Bryant down was "so he could work on some things", which is total BS. McLemore has kind of a condescending tone that a lot of former athletes have-- he should lose it if he wants to be good on television.
11) Does every NBA team visit the White House? The 76ers were there this week; think that practice will continue after the 2016 election?
10) Miami 60, Temple 57-- Teams combined to go 8-40 from arc in brickfest that Temple led by five at half. Miami played without PG Rodriguez for third game in a row, which will help their young players next season.
9) Stanford 67, Old Dominion 60-- Cardinal led 25-4, blew the lead, then pulled away late; ODU sub Ross was 7-7, rest of team was 14-54, with star Freeman a 6-24 disaster. Stanford-Miami is your NIT final Thursday night.
8) 7,183 fans at Madison Square Garden for that twinbill; it is funny that the media refers to MSG as the "mecca of basketball", when they had 5,583 fans in Flagstaff, Arizona for the NJIT-Northern Arizona game, and Dayton annually puts 10,000+ fans in their arena for the NCAA play-in games.
7) 35 of the 99 golfers at The Masters this week didn't go to college; of the 64 who did, six went to Georgia. No other school has more than three.
6) I'm not criticizing DePaul for re-hiring Dave Leitao, but it is ludicrous that the Blue Demons paid a search firm to find a new coach, then came back with the name of a guy who coached that same team ten years ago.
What exactly do athletic directors do? Go on the Interweb, look up names of some good teams and find out who the assistant coaches are-- its not hard!!!!
5) Turner Sports needs to promote play-by-play guy Kevin Calabro to a more prominent role; he is very, very good. Calabro was the Sonics' announcer when they played in Seattle- he does work on the Pac-12 Network and does stuff on ESPN Radio but he is so much better than most of the play-by-play guys that work hoops now.
4) Baltimore Ravens signed QB Matt Schaub to back up Joe Flacco, which is a sure sign of the QB shortage the NFL has right now.
3) San Diego hired alum Lamont Smith to replace the fired Bill Grier as its coach; Smith was a recruiter at New Mexico, won't be as good a tactician as Grier is, but he'll get better players. Toreros' brass must be tired of getting whacked by San Diego State every December, then being a middling team in a pretty good WCC. We'll see.
2) Seahawks are really going to let Russell Wilson play out his rookie contract, with chance he could eventually walk as a free agent? Why would you purposely tick off your starting QB? Wilson walked out on NC State once, he'll do it again. You don't want to go hunting for a new QB in this day and age.
1) Remember, its April Fools Day!!!! Don't believe everything you hear today, except in this space, of course.....
-- Golden State is 52-7 when Andrew Bogut plays, 9-6 when he doesn't.
-- Average major league salary will be over $4M this year for first time.
-- On top of that, ballplayers get $100.50 a day in meal money on the road.
-- Serious question: why do college football teams practice in the spring?
-- Gregg Marshall has won nine league titles in 17 years as a head coach.
-- It is supposed to be 61 in Albany tomorrow; last time it was above 50 was December 27. This is not an April Fools' joke, at least I hope it isn't.
**********
Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Happy April Fools' Day!!!!
13) Cubs sent star prospect Kris Bryant to AAA, so they can keep him under team control for another year down the road; thats their choice, but don't tell me you're trying to win if you send one of your best guys to the minors, even if only for two or three weeks. How many pennant races come down to the last week or the last day of the season?
12) Mark McLemore played 19 years in the big leagues, hitting .259 with a .349 on-base percentage in 7,239 plate appearances, so he knows a lot and is now a TV analyst for the Rangers, but he claimed the Cubs sending Bryant down was "so he could work on some things", which is total BS. McLemore has kind of a condescending tone that a lot of former athletes have-- he should lose it if he wants to be good on television.
11) Does every NBA team visit the White House? The 76ers were there this week; think that practice will continue after the 2016 election?
10) Miami 60, Temple 57-- Teams combined to go 8-40 from arc in brickfest that Temple led by five at half. Miami played without PG Rodriguez for third game in a row, which will help their young players next season.
9) Stanford 67, Old Dominion 60-- Cardinal led 25-4, blew the lead, then pulled away late; ODU sub Ross was 7-7, rest of team was 14-54, with star Freeman a 6-24 disaster. Stanford-Miami is your NIT final Thursday night.
8) 7,183 fans at Madison Square Garden for that twinbill; it is funny that the media refers to MSG as the "mecca of basketball", when they had 5,583 fans in Flagstaff, Arizona for the NJIT-Northern Arizona game, and Dayton annually puts 10,000+ fans in their arena for the NCAA play-in games.
7) 35 of the 99 golfers at The Masters this week didn't go to college; of the 64 who did, six went to Georgia. No other school has more than three.
6) I'm not criticizing DePaul for re-hiring Dave Leitao, but it is ludicrous that the Blue Demons paid a search firm to find a new coach, then came back with the name of a guy who coached that same team ten years ago.
What exactly do athletic directors do? Go on the Interweb, look up names of some good teams and find out who the assistant coaches are-- its not hard!!!!
5) Turner Sports needs to promote play-by-play guy Kevin Calabro to a more prominent role; he is very, very good. Calabro was the Sonics' announcer when they played in Seattle- he does work on the Pac-12 Network and does stuff on ESPN Radio but he is so much better than most of the play-by-play guys that work hoops now.
4) Baltimore Ravens signed QB Matt Schaub to back up Joe Flacco, which is a sure sign of the QB shortage the NFL has right now.
3) San Diego hired alum Lamont Smith to replace the fired Bill Grier as its coach; Smith was a recruiter at New Mexico, won't be as good a tactician as Grier is, but he'll get better players. Toreros' brass must be tired of getting whacked by San Diego State every December, then being a middling team in a pretty good WCC. We'll see.
2) Seahawks are really going to let Russell Wilson play out his rookie contract, with chance he could eventually walk as a free agent? Why would you purposely tick off your starting QB? Wilson walked out on NC State once, he'll do it again. You don't want to go hunting for a new QB in this day and age.
1) Remember, its April Fools Day!!!! Don't believe everything you hear today, except in this space, of course.....
