Congratulations to the Florida Gators as the National Champions of college basketball for 2025 with an exciting and entertaining victory over Houston in the Final Game of March Madness. I don’t know what more one might ask of the three games that led from the Final Four to Florida’s championship status; all three games featured dramatic come-from-behind rallies by the winners and all three games were seriously in doubt in the final two minutes of the contests. In the three games this weekend, the team that had the lead at halftime wound up losing the game. On the “Entertainment Scale” those Final Four Games pegged the needle on the “Wow Meter”.
Until I checked my email yesterday afternoon, it had not registered with me that “Mattress Mack” had not been in the news for making a large wager on the Houston Cougars to win the National Championship; he is the “Ultimate Houston/Texas Sports Fan”. The email I received from the “reader in Houston” explained the situation. Here is the scoop:
“Mack lost a lot of money recently to casinos regarding his promotions to return money to those who spent more than $4,000 on mattresses, so he sat out the annual NCAA promotion where he would refund money if a team from Texas won the tourney.
“For the baseball season, he has a new gimmick though. If the Astros win 10 straight (they’ve done it seven times over the last decade), he will give full refunds to those who spend over $4,000 on mattresses.
“If the Astros win 9 straight, he can hedge his potential refund to customers by going against the Astros in their next game, if he so wishes. However, with the Astros team this season, winning seven straight is a longshot, let alone ten straight.”
The Astros indeed lost some quality players in the last offseason; Kyle Tucker went to the Cubs; Justin Verlander went to the Giants and Alex Bregman signed with the Red Sox. Those are serious losses. However, the Astros also added Isaac Parades and Christian Walker to the roster, so the team is not exactly bereft of talent. Jose Altuve, Yanier Diaz and Yordan Alvarez are a solid core for the Astros’ lineup.
Switching gears … The NBA regular season is just about over. There is minimal tension left in the schedule; the playoff teams are set in the Eastern Conference and only one playoff slot is uncertain in the West where the Mavs lead the Suns by 3 games with four games left to play for both teams. This year, there is no late-season “excitement” in the late season NBA games unless you are looking at the tanking teams to see which ones will get how many ping-pong balls in the Draft Hopper.
- The Jazz will finish last in the West. They have 16 wins as of today with 3 games left to play.
- The Wizards lead the race to the bottom in the East. They have 17 wins as of today with 4 games left on the schedule.
- The Hornets could catch the Wizards and become the Ignominy of the East. The Hornets have 19 wins with four games left to play.
The other NBA stat I want to give you this morning has to do with a complaint that I have had about NBA games for the last several years. With a few games left to play, the NBA has set a new record for the number of three-point field goals made in a season. Here is a line from yesterday’s Washington Post – – The Day In Sports:
“The NBA record for three-pointers in a season fell again. Boston’s Sam Hauser connected with 6:55 left in the fourth quarter of the Celtics’ game against Washington Sunday night – – the 31,580th made three-pointer of the season in the NBA.”
In round numbers, an average NBA game sees 27 made three-point shots out of 68 three-point attempts. There are approximately 60 regular season games left on the NBA schedule; at this rate the previous league record for three-point shots made will be surpassed by around 4,000 successful three-pointers. Sorry, that is a large part of the reason why I prefer college basketball to the professional variety.
Finally, since I began today with the national championship game last night, let me close with these words from Duffy Daugherty, former head football coach at Michigan State, on the importance of championship games:
“When you are playing for the national championship, it’s not a matter of life or death. It’s more important than that.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
One looks at a three-point shot in the NBA. There is nobody on the shooting team under the rim. They’re all running after a train in the opposite direction.