Super Tuesday
As our man John McClane famously said, "Welcome to the party, pal!" when he threw one of Hans' boys out the window and onto Al's patrol car.
Joe Biden, welcome to the party, pal.
Biden's super long weekend that included a South Carolina runaway on Saturday and his two chief rivals for the moderate wing of his party dropping from the Democratic race continued on Super Tuesday.
Biden won nine of the 14 states that held elections Tuesday. It was an eye-popping result from a guy who a week ago was lost amid a half-dozen candidates, all of them chasing Bernie Sanders.
Now, the race to run against Donald Trump is really a two-man heat, with Biden and Bernie leaving everyone else in their wake.
Elizabeth Warren finished a gut-punching third in her home state of Massachusetts and Mini-Mike Bloomberg has spent $500 million and his only win was American Samoa, which means Mike gets all the Girl Scout cookies of that name he wants.
(Mike has spent more than $11.3 million for each of the 44 delegates he has on the scoreboard. Warren has all of 50 total. It's hard to see either of them in the race by the end of the week.)
So that leaves us with Biden and Bernie, and Joe has a 453-382 delegate lead over Bernie.
Game on.
Super upset
Tennessee's NCAA hopes depend entirely on winning the SEC tournament next week.
But has a sliver of hope been found by a Vols team that beat Florida soundly on Saturday and went to Rupp and rallied from a 17-point, second-half hole to topple red-hot Kentucky 81-73?
(Side note: We missed the pick on this one but got "over-70" on Kentucky's team total. So there's that. We also missed on Maryland-Rutgers, so the 1-2 Tuesday was anything but Super and was our first sub-.500 college hoops slate in about three weeks. So it goes.)
John Fulkerson continued his ascent into the SEC's most unlikely go-to-scorer since Gerald Glass or Bill McCaffrey with 27 points and an array of offensive mid-range moves that make you actually wonder, "Has Fulky turned himself into an NBA player for Pete Maravich's sake?"
But as well as Tennessee played in a 29-9 run over a 10-plus minus stretch that turned a 51-34 hole into a 63-60 lead, the Big Blue collapse was just as eye-popping.
UK coach John Calipari said the team and he got manhandled by their UT counterparts. He's not wrong, and among the head-scratching numbers was the fact that it was the first time in a decade that UK lost at home after holding a double-digit halftime edge. (ESPN Stats and Info reported that UK had been 129-0 over the last 10 years when leading by 10 or more at halftime.)
But the big picture of each is distinct.
For Tennessee, if the Vols could beat Auburn at home on Saturday, and cap the season with three straight wins over the SEC's three best teams (or three of the best four, depending where you put LSU), the Vols could make a case for an NCAA tournament spot if they get to the SEC tournament title game, too.
For UK, which was pondering whether it had positioned itself in the conversation for a 1 seed, well, expect no favors from the committee. (Which Chas will tell you, no UK fan did anyway.)
Super indeed.
Super senior night
We all-too-often cover the ills of NCAA sports. Hi, Mark Emmert. Who loves you, baby?
Well, sometimes, the true spirit of sports and the love of the game unite us all.
Meet Josh Speidel, the Vermont senior basketball player who ended his basketball career 1-for-1 from the field.
Speidel was a high-valued high school basketball player out of Indiana - "I thought he was the best player I had ever recruited here," Vermont coach John Becker told CBS Sports - before a car crash five years ago ended his career.
The car wreck left him in a coma with an early prognosis of being in a vegetative state for life. The night before the accident that changed his life, Speidel had 33 points and 18 rebounds as a 6-foot-8 senior.
Vermont and Becker honored Speidel's scholarship - the NCAA gave Vermont a waiver which, yes, seems like the most decent thing the NCAA has done in a decade - and Josh will graduate later this year.
His improvement has been aided by the entire program, and the crowning moment last night was example number 12,764 of why sports are so great.
I'm not crying; you're crying. Shut up, Spy.
This and that
- Super petty becomes super silly becomes super stupid. This off-the-court fight between Spike Lee and Knicks ownership is quite possibly the dumbest single storyline in the history of ESPN, which is a huge testament all things considered. Lee got his director's chair in a cinch because he had to take a different route to his courtside seat. The Knicks issued statements because Lee went on "First Take" and bemoaned the most first-world problem any of us can ever imagine. Then Charles Oakley, another millionaire feuding with the billionaire owner of the Knicks James Dolan, went on ESPN this morning saying the NBA should force Dolan to sell the Knicks. Dear Lord of rich people issues, this is utterly ridiculous. On every side and from every angle.
- Super finish. Caris LeVert, holy buckets of buckets, my man. LeVert scored 37 of his 51 points in the fourth quarter and overtime as Brooklyn rallied from a double-digit, fourth-quarter hole - and forced overtime despite trailing by five with seven seconds to play - to win 129-120.
- Super-large price tag. The school system here in Hamilton County has dropped its facilities report, and the three-part plan comes in at $891 million. (And that's on the low end, friends.)
- Super gesture. Brandon Mathews made headlines for his grace toward a fan after a crippling missed putt last year. Because of that, the Arnold Palmer Invitational invited the journeyman golfer to play this week in Florida. Kudos all around.
- Super result. Marty Haynes prevailed in the county assessor race against Randy Fairbanks in an election that turned downright salty.
- Super contract. Christian Yelich is close to signing a big-time deal with an extension in the neighborhood of $200 million, and we all know that's a really nice neighborhood.
- Super backlash. Former actor Antonio Sabato Jr. claims that backing Donald Trump got him blacklisted in Hollywood and cost him any chance to land a role in acting.
- Super five-head. Shaq lost a bet and Dwyane Wade took Shaq's hairline way, Way, WAY back. Man, you can't script fun, but if you could bottle the chemist that the cats on TNT have with "Inside the NBA" pre- and postgame, you could sell that anywhere.
- Super raise. Here's an interesting look at Derrick Henry's projected landing spots and value in his upcoming free agency. The No. 2 spot on this list behind resigning with the Titans, who may well tag Henry, is Tampa Bay, and if that happens, Henry paired with Evans, Godwin, OJ Howard and Cameron Brate would give Bruce Arians' Bucs the best collection of skilled players in the league. Period.
- Super college football reporter. You know the drill. TFP college football wizard David Paschall writes about SEC football, we read and link Paschall's thoughts on college football. It's in the books, friends. Here's some details on the SEC whip-around coverage of spring football games.
Today's questions
Which way Wednesday starts this way:
Which of these had the most Super of Super Tuesdays: Joe Biden, Tennessee basketball or Vermont senior Josh Speidel?
Which team outside the top four SEC seeds has the best chance to win the tournament in Nashville next week?
On this day in 1924, "Happy Birthday to You" was published. Which is the most famous song ever, because Happy Birthday has to be in that discussion?
Elsewhere for today, let's review for March 4.
It's National Hug a G.I. Day. I support that notion, and it makes sense considering that today is actually march forth. Pretty slick, huh?
Three of the most famous U.S. presidents were inaugurated on this day: Tommy Jefferson in 1801, Abe Lincoln in 1861 and FDR in 1933. Wow.
John Candy died on this day in 1994. Kudos to Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, who celebrate their 31st wedding anniversary today. (Thanks Phoebe. for that scene in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Guys my age will never say a bad word about you, ma'am.)
Rushmore of Super Hollywood marriages. Go.