Weekend winners
Arike Ogunbowale. The Notre Dame basketball player delivered better at the buzzer than anyone since Ken Jenning’s record-run on Jeopardy. Wow. A buzzer-beater in overtime to beat mighty UConn in the semifinals and a perfectly true 3 with 0.1 seconds left to win Notre Dame its second women’s basketball national title. That was some amazing drama in the women’s Final Four friends.
Amber Worthy. The WDEF News 12 reporter posted an excellent video of some of Chattanooga’s finest breaking into some smooth dance moves during an Easter Egg hunt Sunday in East Lake. Thanks to everyone involved for the effort, the smiles and for making my Easter Sunday even better.
Shohei Ohtani. Yes, the experiment for baseball’s first true two-way player since the 1940s and first true two-way contributor since Babe Ruth continues. It was tapered somewhat with Ohtani’s limited success at the plate in spring training. Sunday, though, we got the glimpse of Ohtani’s unlimited potential on the mound. Against the A’s – and despite hanging a slider that became a three-run homer in the second – Ohtani touched 100 mph several times, hit 98 on the gun in his sixth and final inning, and averaged 97.8 on the ol’ No. 1. He caused 18 swings and misses despite his slider’s inconsistency with a the plus-plus fastball and a nasty split-finger pitch.
Ian Poulter. Dude came to Houston – he was not planning on playing in this event – ranked 51 in the world and needing a win to qualify for the Masters. He drained an 18-footer for birdie on the 72nd hole to force a playoff and won with ease as Beau Hossler unraveled in sudden death. It was high-quality sports theater.
Mike Greenberg. You forget how good Greenie was as a morning host because he’s been on the sideline for a long while. His new show “Get Up” with Jalen Rose, Michelle Beadle and Booger McFarland debuted on ESPN on Monday morning. It was good. It has a chance to succeed, but it’s a tough market against not only much more sport-specific venues like “Morning Drive” or “Good Morning Football” it also will challenge the “Today” and GMAs of the morning TV realm.
Bonus pick: Jay Wright. Dude is impeccably dressed. Dude’s team is playing offense like few other college basketball teams in recent memory. Dude is going to have his pick of NBA jobs. (Seriously, if you are Cleveland and Ty Lue and LeBron have clashed as well as Lue’s health issues, why not explore whether James would want Jay Wright?) And we’d be stunned if Wright does not cut down the nets tonight.
Weekend losers
Rick Pitino. What a petulant child. Count Rickula kept his promise not to return to to Kentucky after he was fired at Louisville. He and some of his business partners have a horse in the Kentucky Oaks but the former Louisville basketball coach/part-time vampire will not attend.
Miami Marlins. After the new ownership group dealt several of the Marlins’ top hitters in a slash, burn and hopefully rebuild model, the season-opening weekend series against the Cubs showed what will be a long and lonely 81 home games. Game 3 of the season Saturday drew 10,428 paying fans – or roughly 30 percent of capacity – and that number looked somewhat inflated. It was also against the very popular Cubs. What’s going to be the number of fannies in the seats come June 26 when the D-Backs come calling on a Tuesday night.
Mark Emmert. What a clown. Seriously. Emmert, the head of the NCAA who may have the worst approval rating of any president anywhere in this country, and that’s saying something, right, was sticking by his guns Saturday. In an interview with CBS during the men’s Final Four, Emmert said that to pay athletes would be “untenable” schools would have to pay female athletes as well as male athletes. This gets us back to the argument that Title IX must be overhauled for a slew of reasons, most importantly, now its because Emmert and the NCAA are using it as a crutch to not pay the players. There’s also this falsehood, Emmert saying that to pay football and basketball players athletic departments would have to eliminate other sports to do it. Crap. Look at the salaries paid coaches – heck Butch Jones is earning $100,000 a month to not coach one place and be an intern at that place’s bitter rival – and the money pocketed at the NCAA from March Madness. And if you want even more bull-schtick, Emmert opened his remarks with this sentence: “Well I think you’ve got to remember this is in the context of higher education.” Oh. My. Goodness. If that’s the case, then why are there Thursday night football games? Why are there tournament games spread over four days, including two school days? Why does basketball start in November? It’s impossible to start any serious conversation about a controversial topic with that big of a falsehood, Mark.
Gregg Popovich. Speaking of incontrollable blowhards, hey, Greg, why don’t you stop talking for a bit. First, this renowned “leader of men” obviously has mismanaged the Kawhi Leonard situation to a place of no return. (Maybe we gave Popovich a whole lot of undue credit for a locker room culture created by The Admiral and perpetuated and maintained by Timmy Duncan and Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Thoughts?) Anyhoo, we’ve thought Pop was a sideline bully for years who got a monster pass because he was kind to Craig Sager’s son that one time. (Think how much heat Leonard Hamilton got during this year’s NCAA tournament and that’s how Pop acts every time anyone puts a mic in his face.) And in the lines of Emmert, Popovich’s duplicitous commentary on the president is just as hollow. Hey, say what you want about the president, that’s your right. But to insult Trump to the length that Popovich has and then to say it’s all because you want to have an honest and open conversation about the issues is flawed and broken and clear to see for my fourth-grader.
Baseball’s impossible unwritten rules. Man, there are so many unwritten baseball rules, it’s almost impossible to keep up. Here’s one that it’s now considered improper to bunt against the shift in the ninth inning of a one-hitter when you are down seven? Really. That’s crap and devalues all of the other unwritten rules. You decided to put the shift on and that takes away roughly half the field for the hitter. And worse, yet, when you are down seven and can not hit a seven-run homer, so you need base runners. If you don’t want someone to bunt to a wide-open space, do not put the shift on.
Bonus pick: Gabe Kapler. Wow, the Phillies manager was in so far over his head, his nose is still bleeding.
Contests and net cutting
OK, we are wrapping up our tie-breaker on the NCAA tournament.
The scores are tight. (Side note: We only had a few non-tie-breaker players entered. Clearly not enough to have a separate contest.)
5-at-10 – We thick we put a Michigan player out there, but we can’t remember who it was. Man this is embarrassing.
James B. – Muhammed-Ali Abdur Rahkman
Scott C. – Jalen Brunson
Stacey C. – Eric Paschall
So there’s that.
That also leads us yo our Masterfully Mastering the Masters Masterpiece.
You know the drill.
Pick five golfers. Top four players count.
You get points for where they finish. And low score wins. (For example a perfect score is 10, with someone picking the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers and getting 1, 2, 3, and 4 points for each. Total = 10.)
Questions?
As with all 5-at-10 contests, there is no cost to enter.
We’ll start the contest with Bubba Watson, Jordan Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and some dude name Eldrick.
Whatcha’ got?
This and that
– Didn’t know which side to put this on, since well, any thoughts? The Giants started the season 2-2 with a four-game series at L.A. including a win over erstwhile Cy Young favorite Clayton Kershaw. That’s pretty good, since the Dodgers, were only 40 games ahead of the Giants in the standings last year. Also of note in this item is the Giants score 2 runs in 36 innings, both on solo homers from Joe Panik.
– Speaking of Shohei Ohtani earlier, want to know how big a star he is in Japan? The A’s issued 240 credentials to Japanese media members Sunday. Yes, 240. Take CBS and the Golf Channel out of the equation, and there won’t be a lot more than that this weekend at Augusta.
– Wow, what would the asking price be for the biggest non-quarterback offensive mismatch in the NFL? Well, we may be about ti find out, as, according to this story, the Patriots are becoming frustrated with one Rob Gronkowski and may look to trade him.
– Speaking of Gronkowski, did you see the story that a horse named “Gronkowski” has qualified for the Kentucky Derby? That is going to be awesome in its awesomeness. Wonder if Churchill will allow the horse to wear No. 69?
– Rarely does anything good come from the mass “April Fool’s Day” jokes, be them from news organizations or sports franchises. Here’s example, 12,054. The Jacksonville Jags trotted out some “April Fool’s Day” uniform changes. And they are better and have more fan approval than your current jerseys.
– This would ruin your weekend. A Florida man found an 11-foot alligator swimming in his pool. Wowser.
– Accurate and fun text from College Basketball guru Jay Bilas: If you watched any of the Women’s Final Four, you saw rules of the game that Men’s College Basketball should adopt. Quarters, team foul reset, advance the ball in last minute…the Women’s game is better administered, and the Men’s game should follow suit.
– Speaking of college basketball gurus, here’s our man Weeds on the Final Four and the prospects of tonight’s title game.
– And speaking of Emmert’s hollow argument that schools can’t afford paying the players, well, let’s note that Jeremy Pruitt has added an in-staff liaison so he does not meddle with the offense. I love the hire, to be honest. It’s self-aware and makes a statement to the importance of communication and letting coaches coach. But here’s betting that John Lilly is not working for free.
– Arguably two of the most powerful entities in sports could be headed to a day in court. LeBron James thinks the University of Alabama has If Tiger Woods could somehow get involved, then look out. Sports world colliding.
Today’s questions
Wow, what a weekend of hoops. For the women.
Are you of the mind that UConn’s dominance is good or bad for the women’s game? Personally, I found it compelling this weekend and was hooked on Notre Dame’s upset of UConn on Friday night.
Braves announcer and baseball Hall of Famer Don Sutton is 73.
Pete Incavillia is 53 today.
In honor of tonight’s big title game.
Let’s do a Rushmore of NCAA men’s basketball championship games. Go. (And yes, the Wolfpack-Houston game makes the cut.)