There’s always one surprise on Selection Sunday, and I’m going to roll the dice that it will be Minnesota’s exclusion. Then I’ll take it one step further, get on my soapbox and argue that any system that has the Gophers in the Dance is a system that needs changing. My reasons are twofold…
The Chicago Blackhawks are all the rage in the NHL in this shortened season. Don’t look now tough, but the Anaheim Mighty Ducks are lurking in second place in the Western Conference. Anaheim’s only four points behind Chicago and has played one fewer game. Are the Ducks the real deal, or are they a pretender in the West? That’s the question TheSportsNotebook’s NHL analysis will try and answer today.
he St. Louis Cardinals came within one game of getting to the World Series for the second straight year in 2012, and the way the Fall Classic unfolded, there’s no reason to think the Cards couldn’t have won their second straight, and third since 2006. Can the National League’s proudest franchise do it this year? The SportsNotebook’s MLB coverage today focuses on St. Louis, and then brings in their I-94 rivals in the National League Central, the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs.
The bubble has been interesting all year in SEC basketball, and it’s no different in the conference tournaments. The SEC is one of four major conferences with semifinal action going, and they continue to have the most intrigue. 10th-seeded Vanderbilt knocked off Kentucky yesterday, perhaps pushing the Wildcats into the NIT. Ole Miss beat Missouri and kept their own hopes alive. Now ABC has to be kicking itself, because instead of a Kentucky-Missouri semifinal, they can show Vandy-Ole Miss to the nation at 3 PM EST. It’s anyone’s guess whether the Rebs are in or if they need to keep advancing. There’ s no doubt about the Commodores—it’s cut down the nets Sunday or go home.
The fourth race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season goes Sunday, with the running of the Food City 500 (1 PM ET, Fox) and the presence of Kyle Busch overshadows this race. It’s not because Busch is off to a blazing start—he’s only 17th in the point standings. Nor is it because he’s a dominant figure in racing—he’s missed the Top 10 each of the last two years and never come close to a championship. But Busch owns Bristol Motor Speedway, and now he’s got the pole for Sunday.
There are four major conference tournaments pared down to the semifinals, and of the 16 teams playing, 15 are already safely in the NCAA Tournament. The outlier is Utah. The Utes, seeded 10th in the Pac-12 have won consecutive upsets against USC and Cal to reach the semis and now stand as the team all the bubble contenders have to watch and keep and eye on. And they’ll have an exclusive TV audience. The Utah-Oregon game is the final one of Friday night, tipping at 11:30 PM ET on ESPN. As we did yesterday, TheSportsNotebook will break down the rest of the daily sports docket, looking at it by TV timeslot, so you can decide which games to watch or sneak a peek at from the office.
When you think of college basketball in the Midwest you think of the Big Ten. That’s understandable, especially this year, when the conference has multiple teams capable of making Final Four runs. But when it comes to individual honors, the brightest stars in the Midwest—indeed the entire nation—are outside the Big Ten and in places off the national spotlight. TheSportsNotebook is picking Creighton’s Doug McDermott as national Player of the Year and St. Louis’ Jim Crews as Coach of the Year.
Three conferences send their best teams onto the floor in college basketball’s tournament action. The Big East, Pac-12 and Big 12, all gearing for Saturday championship games are into the quarterfinals. It’s also all-day action in the Big Ten, ACC, SEC and Atlantic 10, which are in the preliminary rounds. So meaning no disrespect to some interesting NBA & NHL games, its college basketball that drives the daily sports docket right now. TheSportsNotebook will break it down by time slot, so you can pick the best games to watch tonight, or to cut away from work to check in on…
It’s been the spring of Yankee discontent, with Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira hitting the disabled list and even general manager Brian Cashman breaking his leg. This comes on top of a winter where the loss of Alex Rodriguez for the first half of the season and an autumn where A-Rod’s sudden inability to hit was the hot topic of conversation. What does it all add up to in the Bronx? TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage today will focus in on the Yankees, touch base elsewhere in the Big Apple with the Mets and look at how both teams are likely to measure up against their projected win totals in Las Vegas.
If you define March Madness by college basketball being on TV all day during the week, that today is when it all kicks off. The Big East tournament tipped off the first of four games a few minutes ago, the Mountain West goes wall-to-wall, to go with the assortment of power conference preliminary rounds and small conference championships today. It’s sorting out and prioritizing the college hoops docket that will the daily sports focus of TheSportsNotebook today.
The power conference tournaments start to warm up tonight, with preliminary games in the Big East and Mountain West. The action picks up tomorrow and hits full stride by Friday when the best team in each league will have played at least one game. In today’s college basketball coverage, our question is going to be a philosophical one—what do these games actually mean?
For all the Championship Week hype going on, I would call Tuesday a pretty quiet night in sports. There are three small-conference championship games with no implications for anyone on the NCAA Tournament bubble. The power conferences start slowly with some preliminary round games in the Big East and Mountain West—if South Florida-Seton Hall or DePaul-Rutgers turn you on, then go to ESPNU for the doubleheader that starts at 7 PM ET. But what tonight’s daily sports docket really adds up to is an evening where hockey deserves to be on center stage.