Weekend winners
* SEC women's basketball. Mississippi State pulled off the biggest upset in the sport's history on Friday night, toppling UConn and its 111-game winning streak on Morgan Williams' overtime buzzer-beater. MSU was spent in the title game and lost 67-55 to fellow SEC member South Carolina in the title game. In doing so, USC coach Dawn Staley became the first person to have a Final Four MOP award and win it all as a coach.
* Blake Parker. No not that mother scratcher, Blake Parker. If you do not know Blake Parker, well, you are not alone. Parker, a 31-year-old journeyman reliever made the Los Angeles Angels opening day roster with one of the best finishes to spring training imaginable. His last 17 outs have all come by strike out. Yes, 17 consecutive outs by K, with one hit mixed in. Crazy right?
* Speaking of crazy baseball stats - Happy Opening Day everyone - Madison Bumgarner is turning the big leagues into the local 9-and-10 kid pitch in which the best pitcher is also the best hitter. Bumgarner was his usually excellent self on the mound - seven innings, three runs and 11 Ks with no walks - and at the plate, well, he was Ruthian. He became the first pitcher to hit two homers on opening day since ever. And, right now, if he could pitch and hit in every game, he'd be on pace to record more than 1,700 strikeouts and hit 324 homers. He'd likely win the MVP, even if the Giants finished 0-162 with 324 blown saves.
* Russell Henley delivered an outstanding Sunday that meant, a) a Shell Open victory, b) more than a $1 million and c) an invite to play the Masters this week. That's a strong contender for winning the weekend. Also of note, local star making good Luke List continued to make this season a memorable one. List finished tied for third in Houston after a final-round 68 that included birdies on the final two holes. The birdie 3 on the long par-4 18th started with a 345-yard drive and ended with a putt of almost 50 feet. In the crazy world that is professional golf, that putt was the difference between tying for third with Rickie Fowler and finishing solo fourth. It also was worth a cool $70,000, considering fourth would have meant a check for $336K and List and Fowler each got $406,000. List is at $1,48,189 in earnings this year and is 17th in the FedEx Cup standings.
* College basketball. A tournament filled with tight games has produced a title game between no worse than two of the top four teams in the country, when Gonzaga and UNC play tonight. Count in the upset over UConn and the white-knuckle thrillers that were the Final Four showdowns Saturday, and the game has enjoyed a very entertaining month.
FILE - In this July 21, 2015, file photo, Baylor coach Art Briles addresses attendees at the NCAA college Big 12 Conference football media days in Dallas. Texas’ top law enforcement agency has opened a preliminary investigation into Baylor University and how it handled reports of sexual and physical assault over several years. The Texas Rangers confirmed Wednesday, March 1, 2017, they are working with the McLennan County prosecutor’s office to “determine if further action is warranted.” Baylor fired Briles in 2016 and demoted former President and Chancellor Ken Starr, who later resigned. Former athletic director Ian McCaw also resigned and is now at Liberty University in Virginia. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File) Weekend losers
* LPGA, in particular and golf in general. Here's the latest rules fiasco that cost Lexi Thompson the season's first major. Yes, rules are rules, and in truth the LPGA followed the letter of its law just fine, but we have to be to a place in which fans watching on TV are not involved in the action, especially 24 hours after the fact. The details of this are harsh, and credit to Thompson for fighting back to get into the playoff after being informed of the four penalty strokes she had to take. This should be a high time for the sport, considering the first LPGA major leads into Augusta, but another confusing ruling leaves everyone talking about the dated details of the game rather than its stars.
* Art Briles. Yes, we could just pencil in Briles here and cut-and-paste it every Monday from now through the end of time because he is Art Briles. But according to this story, Briles believes he'll be back coaching sooner rather than later and that there are "a lot of different opportunities."
* Alabama bar patrons. According to this story Deshaun Watson was kicked out of a Tuscaloosa watering hole because he's really good at tackle football. Wow, that's a bad look Johnny Tide Fans.
* Tiger Woods. Sadly, Woods announced that he will not play in the Masters. Here are a couple of thoughts that put an exclamation point on the fact that Woods may be closer to done than we thought. First, this is the 20th anniversary of his historic and sport-changing romp at Augusta National in 1997, so if he was in any way capable of playing, he would be, right? Secondly, for a comparison of durability, try this stat: Woods is only 42; Nicklaus played every major championship he was eligible to play for 42 consecutive years.
* Samuelson family. The well-documented star basketball siblings had a lot celebrate this year as Karlie's Stanford team and Katie Lou's UConn team were in the Final Four and could have potentially met in the title game. Alas, each lost Friday night.
Wisconsin assistant coach Lamont Paris sends directions to players on the court during the first half of a game against UW-Milwaukee at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis. Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. JOHN HART -- State JournalUTC moves fast
UTC has hired Lamont Paris as its next men's basketball coach.
By all measure - including this high praise from college hoops expert and TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer - the decision appears to be a very good one.
Paris' resume - the last several years on the bench with the Wisconsin Badgers - is strong. His references are assumed to be excellent. But the reason to be most high on Paris as of now is that UTC athletic director David Blackburn picked him.
Blackburn told media folks that Paris, who was on the short list when UTC hired Matt McCall two years ago, was among his first calls - within four or five hours - after McCall left.
Now Paris is the man, and the man that hired him at least looks to be continuing his home run additions.
This and that
* Saw this Tweet over the weekend from former No. 2 overall NFL pick Ryan Leaf. Five years ago today I went to my rock bottom, PRISON! Today I'm 5 years sober and have the life of my dreams. @TranscendSL #ThankYou Congrats Mr. Leaf for turning your life around.
* Adrian Peterson visiting with the Patriots for a second time. Side question: If you were a veteran who had all the money your grand kids could ever spend - according to this, Peterson has been paid more than any other NFL running back ever with more than $71 million in career earnings - and needed a title to cap your Hall of Fame resume, wouldn't you consider taking the league minimum and go to Foxboro?
* With the South Carolina women's title, the state has enjoyed a monster year in sports. Clemson won the football title, Coastal Carolina won the baseball title and native son Dustin Johnson is the best golfer on two feet. On the other side, Coastal Carolina has suspended its cheerleading squad a few weeks before the national championship event. According to this story and anonymous sources, the CCU cheerleaders were involved in a multitude of things, including paying people to complete their school work and allegedly running a prostitution ring. Yes, you read that right.
* Here's a scathing look at how the on-going - some would say dragging - investigation of the faux classes and academic cover-ups at UNC. Yes, the chase of another title by this team - a team that by no allegation is involved the with the academic scandals that lasted almost 20 years - is great. But this is staggering. In a 2014 investigation conducted by former U.S. assistant attorney general Kenneth Wainstein, more than 3,100 students had at least one semester of the gimme classes. "Beyond those university personnel who were aware of red flags," Wainstein wrote, "there were a large number among the Chapel Hill faculty, deans and athletics personnel, who knew that there were easy-grading classes with little rigor." He asked three outside experts to examine a sample of the class papers. They concluded that in 40 percent of essays 25 percent of the work was plagiarized and that the acreage grade on those plagiarized papers was an A-minus.
* Thought this was interesting. NFL teams making scheduling requests, including the Bengals asking to start the season at home, something they have not done since 2009.
* Russell Westbrook got a triple-double. Also of note, sun will rise in the East tomorrow. Westbrook has 40 triple-doubles this year, and in those games, the OKC Thunder are 31-9. In games in which Westbrook is merely great and not super human, the Thunder is 12-24. With six games left, Westbrook is just 11 rebounds and 29 assists short of mathematically clinching a triple-double average for the season.
Today's question
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
Thoughts on the UTC hire, Johnny Mocs Fans?
Also, if we need to celebrate the day, well, today is the 44th birthday of the first portable cell phone, which was made on this day in 1973 in New York City. Fair amount of big-name birthdays. Brando would have been 93. Alec Baldwin is 59. Wayne Newton is 75. Pervis Ellison is 50. Jennie Garth (aka Kelly Taylor on 90210) is 45 today.
And Eddie Murphy is 56 today.
Rushmore of Eddie Murphy movies. Go.