Weekend winners
LeBron. Dude is 35 and delivered a statement this weekend with a dynamic all-around performance Friday night against the Bucks and a crunch-time clinic Sunday against the Clippers. Against Milwaukee, James guarded Giannis and dropped 37 as the Lakers beat league-leading Milwaukee. Against the cross-town Clippers, James went 28-7-9 and scored or assisted on 19 of the Lakers' 27 fourth-quarter points. He was directly involved in the last 13 Lakers points of the 112-103 win.
Geno Auriemma. Yes, his UConn women's team continued the most unbreakable dominance in the history of modern major team sports. UConn beat South Florida 79-38 in the AAC semifinal. UConn is now 137-0 all time in AAC play, regular season and tournament. The average margin of victory is more than 40 points. They play Cincinnati in the AAC title game. All of this is fine, well and good. But the outspoken Auriemma perfectly captures the insanity that is sweeping over the country with the overblown coronavirus. The AAC, as a precaution, told teams not to shake hands after tournament games. What? They have been banging and sweating and up-close-and-personal for two hours, but the handshake is where we're drawing the line? Perfect.
XFL. Yeah, I'm higher on the spring football league than most. So it goes. But man, the process and off-the-field pieces of the league continue to impress. After an officiating miscue at the end of Houston-Seattle did not allow Seattle one final play, the league acted quickly, admitted its mistake and reassigned the lead referee who made the miscue. Wow. Transparency and immediacy and ramifications for bad officiating? Who could have guessed it?
College basketball fans. The season is long and at times feels close to meaningless. But with the wonderful highlights from the weekend as teams punch their dance tickets, these next eight days make March magical. And full of Madness.
And the front-runner Justin Robinson. Yes, the Duke-UNC rivalry is the best in college basketball. (Please hush that "best rivalry in sports" nonsense. I can name at least four college football rivalries - Iron Bowl, THE OSU-Michigan, OU-Texas and Army-Navy - that are better, and that's not even counting pro sports.) Still Robinson, the son of NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson, made the most of his final game at Cameron. The walk-on set or matched career highs in minutes (25), points (13), 3-pointers (4), assists (3), rebounds (6) and blocks (4) in a win over the Heels.
Weekend losers
The Bucks. Losing back-to-back for the first time in roughly two years is one thing. Losing Giannis Antetokounmpo for an extended stretch with a knee injury is another thing entirely. Giannis, the reigning NBA MVP and clear frontrunner for the award this year, too, hurt his knee in the loss to the Lakers and missed Sunday's loss to lowly Phoenix.
The Spurs. No, this is not "Inside the NBA," but man, what's up San Antonio? You see "Spurs" and you expect more than getting swept in the season series to 19-win Cleveland. So this is what the end of a decades-long dynasty looks like.
Rory McIlroy. Dude has made well into nine figures in golf. Dude is a surefire Golf Hall of Famer when he turns 45. But dude, not unlike Jordan Spieth in some ways, is developing some Sunday shortcomings. The front nine on Sunday was unhinged and after surging to the first-round lead in the Arnold Palmer, Rory was over par in each of the next three rounds and faded. (Yes, we're in a tough place where a guy can finish fifth in a tough tournament and make more than $330K and be among the weekend losers, right?)
My hate mailers, who included someone wanting me to catch the coronavirus, so then "maybe you'll take it seriously." Good times.
The Dak and Tom storyline. Yawn. Nothing new, friends. It feels like every time anyone speaks on either quarterback, all I can picture is that animatronic character at the start of the Monster Plantation at Six Flags, with the sheriff saying, "this way out," and at the end saying, "Stupid humans, you never listen." That said, it's a big couple of weeks for the NFL considering the labor news and the start of the new calendar year next week - which actually allows teams to, you know, actually make offers to free agents - as well as all the pro days. Giddy up.
Tua's big moment
Tua Tagovailoa, by all accounts, is a first-class young man.
We all know that before he was hurt Tua, by all accounts, was a first-class young quarterback.
Well, after a scary and serious hip injury, Tua's still a monster piece of the looming NFL draft.
He will meet with doctors today and the details of his progress and healing from that hip surgery will be front-page news. (For youngsters, that's an old newspaper term. Kind of how you'd say, "It's trending," if that makes sense.)
With as many fans as Tua has gained in his high-quality and high-character play at Alabama, NFL teams are even more interested and anxious for the news.
Other than Cincinnati, which appears hard-set on drafting LSU Heisman-winning-QB Joe Burrow, the rest of the draft hinges on Tua. (I love the draft; you know this.)
Teams 2-thru-4 - Washington, Detroit and the New York Giants - have quarterbacks who are either long-time starters or first-rounders last year, but could be interested in deals and adding picks for any number of teams looking to move up.
And the teams looking for QBs have to be salivating for any of those picks, since the conventional wisdom is clear: If Tua falls to 5, the Dolphins will for sure select him.
So while everyone is talking about Dak and Tom, the first real news will be announced today by Tua's doctors.
And does anyone else think that Bill Belichick will be as interested as anyone about the news?
First-class indeed.
This and that
- Speaking of the XFL, our XFL picks went 2-2, so we are 18-12 on the season against the number, which is 60 percent. That's great overall but considering our torrid start - we started something like 9-4 - it's kind of meh. (We missed Houston minus-13 over Seattle and St. Louis minus-3 at D.C. We hit N.Y. Guardians plus-8 over Dallas and L.A. Wildcats minus-2 over Tampa Bay. So it goes.)
- Speaking of golf, the Baylor School grad duo of Harris English and Keith Mitchell grabbed top-10 finishes at the Arnold Palmer. Mitchell was in the group with Rory tied for fifth at even par and made $330,731. It was his first top 10 of the season. Harris was tied for ninth a shot back and pocketed $244,125. It continues a great start to 2020 for English, who has played 11 PGA events this season, made 10 cuts with seven top-25s and five top-10s. In his 42 rounds this season, his scoring average is 69.76, which is 13th on the Tour and allowed him to make him more than $1.66 million. In 11 events, friends. He is 25th in earnings this season and 24th in Fed Ex points.
- Max Von Sydow died over the weekend. He was 90. He had an iconic career that covered a lot of bases, from Father Merrin in "The Exorcist" to the three-eyed raven in "Game of Thrones."
- The runoff between Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat will be March 31.
- You know the drill, Paschall writes college football, we read and link Paschall on college football. Here's TFP college football guru David Paschall on the shifting focus of Kirby and Co.'s recruiting vision toward the state of Georgia.
- You know the drill, Weeds writes college hoops, we read and link Weeds on college hoops. Here's TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer on Auburn after the Tigers crushed UT on Saturday in Knoxville. (Our man Weeds is great with a phrase, 'tis no doubt. But Auburn has a better chance to get bounced on the first weekend than to make it back to the third weekend of the NCAA tournament.)
Today's question
Who won the weekend? Discuss. Same on the other side.
Shall we continue our first-out, last-in college hoops contest from recent years? Ideas and suggestions welcomed.
As for today, March 9, let's review.
Barbie debuted on this day in 1959. More than a billion Barbies have been sold.
Today is International Women's Day. Since we are a family oriented, interweb-based sports conversation, in honor of International Women's Day, who would be on the female sports Rushmore?
Go.