Here are some notes from last night’s tournament games:
- Maryland – – my “Sleeper Team” – – hung with Florida for half the game trailing by only 2 points at halftime. Then the roof caved in and the Terps lost by 15 points, and it could have been worse.
- BYU scored 88 points last night; Arizona scored 93 points last night; both teams lost last night, and both gave up more than 100 points.
- Alabama made 75% of their 3-point attempts last night. That is an amazing stat for a practice session where no one is guarding anyone.
- I stopped flipping back and forth between the Duke/Arizona game and the Arkansas/Teas Tech game when Arkansas led by 13 points with under ten minutes to play. During an ad, I went over to see what the damage was only to find Texas Tech down by only 4 points. When the game went to OT, I stayed there and watched it all.
There is a promo that has been running throughout the tournament games from the NCAA. It says that NCAA athletes should not suffer abuse by people who bet on college sports and lose those bets. For the record, harassment and abuse are never appropriate in contexts far beyond college sports and wagering on college sports; there is no justification for that kind of behavior.
Having said that, perhaps this is yet one more unintended consequence of the completely unregulated “NIL-world” that exists today. College athletes are no longer the idealized “scholar-athletes” who compete simply for the joy of the competition. At best, many are semi-pros, and no one complains if a pro athlete is scorned on the Internet because someone lost a wager and the way the athlete played that night.
Moving on … Here are some notable events from MLB’s Opening Day yesterday:
- The Orioles hit 6 home runs on their way to a 12-2 win over the Blue Jays. Adley Rutschman did the most damage, going 3 for 5 with 2 home runs, three RBIs and 3 runs scored. Not bad …
- The Mets project to be an offensive juggernaut this year with pitching as their possible weakness. However, yesterday, the Mets only scored 1 run in a loss to the Astros and only gave up 3 runs in the loss. Baseball can be funny that way.
- The White Sox lost 121 games in 2024, and the futures bet for this year has them losing about 109 games; the White Sox are probably an excellent Triple-A team but not nearly a good MLB team. Nonetheless, yesterday they embarrassed the Angels winning by a score of 8-1. In case you don’t think losing 8-1 to the White Sox is embarrassing, add to that the fact that the Angels finished off the White Sox 8th inning by having utility infielder Nicky Lopez get the final out. The Angels waved the “White Flag” against the “White Sox” on Opening Day.
- The Pirates and Marlins game featured Paul Skenes and Sandy Alcantara as the starting pitchers. If I were going to bet on that game – – which I did not – – I would have taken the game UNDER the run total because I would have figured that each starter would leave the game after 6 or 7 innings with the score about 1-0 in either direction. Wrong! The final score was Marlins 5 and Pirates 4. Baseball can be funny that way.
- Adley Rutschman was not the only player to hit two home runs on Opening Day; the A’s first baseman, Tyler Soderstrom also hit two home runs. However, Rutschman’s blasts – – along with other teammates’ contributions – – led to a convincing win. Soderstrom’s two home runs were both solo shots; they represented two of the three hits accumulated by the A’s as a team in the game; notwithstanding those two home runs, the A’s lost to the Mariners by a score of 4-2.
- The Padres beat the Braves yesterday 7-4. It was a 9-inning game. The Padres used 7 pitchers in the game. Starter, Michael King went 2 2/3 innings. None of the Padres’ relievers went longer than 1 2/3 innings.
Switching gears … Kent St. was a bad college football team in 2024; they hit the Devil’s Exacta for the season finishing dead last in Total Offense and also dead last in Total Defense nationally. Amazingly, the coach was not fired even though the team record for his two seasons at Kent St. is a less than laudatory 1-23. Spring practice for Kent St. football is about to start and yesterday the announcement came that Kent St. has put Head Coach Kenni Burns on “administrative leave with pay”. Here is part of the school’s statement:
“Kent State has placed head football coach Kenni Burns on administrative leave with pay. Greg Glaus, executive deputy athletics director, will continue to oversee the administrative responsibilities related to the program. Offensive coordinator Mark Carney will direct on-field activities at this time. No further comments on this personnel matter will be provided.”
Two points here:
- This discombobulation of Spring Practice cannot be advantageous for a team that needs dramatic improvement.
- Carrying a 1-23 record into any sort of “investigation” into a “personnel matter” is not much of an asset.
Finally, here is a thought from humorist, Brad Dickson:
“You know that guy in the tux who always snatches Punxsutawney Phil out of the hole? Just once I’d like to see someone grab that [Bleep] by the nape of his neck & swing him around to see if his fat ass makes a shadow.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………