Armadillo Sports
Saturday’s 6-pack
— UNLV 88, Colorado State 74— Bryce Hamilton exploded for 45 points.
— Dayton 53, Rhode Island 51— Flyers outscored URI 13-5 on foul line.
— Ohio 74, Buffalo 53— Bobcats improve to 7-1 in the MAC.
— Saint Peter’s 77, Manhattan 51— Peacocks are in 2nd place in MAAC.
— Toledo 84, Akron 76— Rockets won their 8th game in a row.
— Boise State 68, Fresno State 63 OT— Boise tied game on a 3 with 0:02 left.
Quote of the Day
“I promise I will do better than Michael Jordan in baseball.”
Tennessee Titans WR AJ Brown, campaigning for a tryout with the San Diego Padres
Saturday’s quiz
Which starting QB in the NFL was a WR his first two years in college?
Friday’s quiz
In the baseball movie Summer Catch, Brian Dennehy plays the manager of the Chatham A’s.
Thursday’s quiz
UMBC is the only #16-seed to beat a #1-seed in the NCAA basketball tournament; they upset Virginia 74-54 in the first round of the 2018 tournament.
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Saturday’s Den: Clearing out a cluttered mind……..
13) Earlier this week, there were nine openings for NFL head coaches; now there are six:
— Chicago Bears named Colts’ DC Matt Eberflus head coach
— Denver Broncos named Packers’ OC Nathaniel Hackett head coach
— New Jersey Giants named Bills’ OC Brian Daboll head coach
12) Curious to see who the Bears hire as offensive coordinator, seeing how they have young QB Justin Fields to develop.
11) I am told that quarterback is an important position in football; here are some of the terrific young QB’s on AFC teams right now:
Burrow, Mahomes, Allen, Jackson, Herbert, all AFC starting QB’s. AFC is going to be a minefield for defenses the next few years- lot of good QB’s.
NFC has Murray, Prescott, Goff as quality younger QB’s- they have several older guys who are really good- Rodgers, Stafford, Wilson, Ryan.
These coaching hires happening now will decide if some of the lesser/suspect QB’s can be developed into stars- Tagovailoa, Daniel Jones, Fields, Hurts.
10) Pittsburgh Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969; they’ve been very stable, but next year, Steelers will have:
— a new QB
— a new general manager
— a new defensive coordinator
— a new offensive line coach.
This is, for them, a big re-boot. Will be curious how it goes for them- they desperately need a quality quarterback.
9) First 16 days New York State had a mobile sports betting app, the state did $1.176B in handle, that’s billion, with a B. State cost themselves lot of money by being so slow to get mobile sports betting up, but at least they have it now.
8) Looking at college basketball teams as we roll towards March Madness, what is the most important factor to judge?
— Experience?
— Continuity?
— Offense? Defense?
UNLV 88, Colorado State 74
— Rebels made 12-29 on the arc, led by 18 at halftime.
— Bryce Hamilton exploded for 45 points.
— UNLV scored 1.29 points per possession.
UNLV has been struggling this season at 12-9 overall, 4-4 in league. Five of the Rebels’ top seven scorers are transfers, so while they’re experience team #45, they’re continuity team #331- they’re not used to playing together, but they looked great Friday night.
Too bad there is no metric for talent; a team like Marquette (#350 experience, #337 continuity) is on a roll because they identified Darryl Morsell as a talented player who could be a key player, which he wasn’t at Maryland. Morsell is scoring 13.4 ppg for a team where five of their eight rotation guys are freshmen.
7) Arizona Wildcats are doing really well, but they’re experience team #355, continuity team #199- they don’t have any player who has ever played in an NCAA Tournament game. Arizona started four freshmen and a sophomore at UCLA Thursday, lot of foreign kids. Will be fun to see if they can keep winning as post-season play approaches.
6) Illinois-Chicago is bolting the Horizon League for the Missouri Valley, where they’ll replace Loyola, which is moving to the Atlantic 15. Lot of shuffling between conferences in mid-major college basketball.
5) USFL re-boots in mid-April. Eight teams, the whole league will happen in Birmingham. Here are the eight head coaches:
— Michigan Panthers— Jeff Fisher- Panthers will play good defense
— New Jersey Generals— Mike Riley- Generals will have a good offense
— Pittsburgh Maulers— Kirby Wilson- RB coach for 8 different NFL teams
— Birmingham Stallions— Skip Holtz- was a college head coach for 16 years (160-125)
— Houston Gamblers— Kevin Sumlin- was a college head coach for 13 years (108-87)
— Tampa Bay Bandits- Todd Haley- former head coach/OC in the NFL.
— New Orleans Breakers- Larry Fedora- went 79-62 as coach at Southern Miss/UNC
— Philadelphia Stars— Bart Andrus- Was head coach in the CFL and NFL Europe.
If the baseball labor dispute delays the start of the season, the USFL will be very popular.
4) Few years ago in July, I went to a Boys Club in Las Vegas on a Saturday afternoon to see the Junior College showcase, 50 kids trying very hard to impress the college coaches there so they could get a scholarship. Very interesting afternoon.
— The high school showcases are way more glamorous; several games going at once, the big names in college coaches sitting courtside. This event had one court, and the coaches were mostly from the Sun Belt/Southland leagues, which take a lot more JC kids than most.
— Kid blew out his knee, was laying on the floor for several minutes, which put the whole day behind schedule, since there was only one court. Felt terrible for the kid; this was his last shot at a scholarship and he left the gym on a stretcher.
— Games were VERY competitive, so it was more fun to watch.
That day, it was 108 degrees in Las Vegas and the Boys’ Club had a tiny parking lot; had to park at a strip mall down the street, and walk a block or so in the scorching heat. Good news; no one made me pay go get in, so saved few bucks there. Wish they had a list of players who played that day; would be good to look back and see how many turned out to be D-I players.
More good news; on the way home, stopped at a bar in the strip mall, had some lunch and won $100 playing video poker. All in all, not a bad day.
6) Weird TV game Thursday night; UAB is playing at Western Kentucky. Blazers are wearing their dark green road uniforms and for some reason, WKU is wearing black uniforms at home, which made the game hard to watch.
Would it kill someone to wear white unis, or could WKU at least have worn red, so you could tell one team from another?
3) Sundance TV channel is having a 48-hour marathon of Gilligan’s Island this weekend; have not seen that show in years. Spent lot of time watching it as a kid; the Professor could make batteries out of pineapples, but could never fix the hole in the boat.
Go figure.
2) I’m looking forward to baseball season, so I can see how my fantasy team will do (pretty sure the A’s are going into a salary dump/downturn, not looking forward to that). We’ve had our fantasy league going since 2005; still haven’t won a championship, though I did win the regular season title once, which means very little.
Anyway, going back to 2009, I’m at my desk at work, around 2pm (I worked 8-4) reading a Peter Gammons baseball column on espn.com. Gammons is touting this outfielder in the Marlins farm system, raving about the guy, but he is in Class A ball. Long way from the majors.
But the more I read about this guy, the more intrigued I am; our league didn’t have a phone app yet, so I go to my boss’s desk, fill out a leave slip, and take the rest of the day off, so I can get to my apartment and pick this guy off the scrap heap.
Turned out pretty well; Giancarlo Stanton has been on my team ever since then (he got to the majors the next year) and except for lot of injuries, he’s been very productive. Thanks to Peter Gammons; I miss reading his stuff on the Interweb.
1) Happy 86th birthday to the great actor Alan Alda, best known as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H. He was so good as Hawkeye that it probably cost him chances to get lot of other roles, since he was so identified with his M*A*S*H character.
Alda appeared on the Showtime series Ray Donovan the last couple years. Happy birthday, sir!!!
