NCAA Regional Finals: Sunday Recaps
The Final Four is set in New Orleans with Kentucky and Kansas joining Louisville and Ohio State in New Orleans next Saturday. TheSportsNotebook recaps the final games in the South & Midwest brackets…
Uncategorized
NCAA Regional Final Previews: Sunday
We fill out the Final Four card for New Orleans with two more games today. The finals of the South and Midwest Regionals are underway and it’s heavyweights in action—two #1 seeds, a #2 seed and a #3 seed. TheSportsNotebook previews both games, each televised on CBS…
NCAA Regional Finals: Saturday Recaps
The regional finals of the NCAA Tournament got off to a good start on Saturday, with one thriller and another good game. Louisville and Ohio State are on their way to the Final Four. TheSportsNotebook looks back at both games…
NCAA Regional Final Previews: Saturday
The first two spots in the Final Four get claimed today, with Florida-Louisville and Syracuse-Ohio State set to go. Note that the winners of these games go to opposite national semifinals in New Orleans next Saturday and that all remaining NCAA games are televised by CBS. TheSportsNotebook previews both of today’s games…
Sweet 16 Recaps: Friday Night
The card for this weekend’s regional finals was filled out yesterday, as the South and Midwest brackets moved forward. TheSportsNotebook runs down the four games from Friday night…
Road To The Triple Crown: Sunday Showdown At Sunland
The $800,000 purse at Sunday’s Sunland Derby is the biggest thus far on The Road To The Triple Crown, so it’s no surprise that top-caliber racing will come to the outpost of El Paso, TX for a showdown stakes race at 7:45 PM ET.
NASCAR Heads To Hollywood On Sunday
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to SoCal on Sunday with a race in the Fontana suburb of Los Angeles (2:30 PM ET, Fox) and the race took its second major twist this week when the penalties on driver Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus were lifted.
It was in the aftermath of the Daytona 500 that Knaus was suspended for doing the NASCAR equivalent of putting his car on steroids, and according TheSportsNotebook’s Sprint Cup consultant, my brother Bill, this is not the first time that Knaus has ridden past the boundaries outlined in the rulebook. Furthermore, the 25-point penalty given to Johnson has been reversed, and with the restoration, JJ is now back to 12th in the overall standings
Two Weeks Notice: NHL Regular Season Hits Final Crunch Point
The NHL’s regular season only has two weeks left, ending on Saturday April 7, and the Pacific Division is nowhere closer to being settled, with four teams stacked within two points of each other, and current playoff standings allowing only three of them to survive. The Pacific Division race is just the biggest highlight, as TheSportsNotebook seeks to make sure readers don’t lose sight of hockey amidst the Madness that is March.
The NBA’s Playoff Bubble Teams Heat Up
The NBA doesn’t offer the same hopes for Cinderella darkhorse postseason runs that college basketball does—unless you want to count Dallas winning it last year as the #3 seed in the West, which is about as big as a shock as you usually get. But the last time a compressed schedule was played was in 1999 and that was a year when everything blew up in the playoffs, and the 8th-seeded New York Knicks made the Finals. So perhaps we should pay attention to those races at the bottom for the last playoff berths and the jousting in the middle for homecourt advantage in the opening round.
Sweet 16 Previews: Friday Night
Tonight’s the last night in college hoops where you have to keep the remote control at the ready, with more than one game at a time. It’s Sweet 16 action in the Midwest and South brackets, with the games in St. Louis and Atlanta. TheSportsNotebook looks at all four regional semis on Friday night…
Sweet 16 Recaps: Thursday Night
Four teams moved on to the regional finals in Saturday’s NCAA Tournament. The Big East got the drop on the Big Ten, winning two out of three, the first #1 seed fell, a mentor-protégé matchup is set, and a 1-2 battle in another bracket is lineup. TheSportsNotebook rehashes Thursday’s games…
MLB March Report: Washington Nationals
The nation’s capital is where TheSportsNotebook stops today in its March run of major league baseball. The Washington Nationals have never had a winning season moving from Montreal in 2004. They have never made the playoffs in D.C. (even in Montreal they only made it in 1981). Expectations are high among Nationals’ fans to at least end the first streak and to give a real run at ending the second. TheSportsNotebook evaluates the personnel of a team that went 80-81 a year ago (c’mon MLB, let them play a makeup a game and try and get to .500!) to see if incremental improvement is in the cards. We’ll use our usual measuring sticks of the ability to get on base, hit for power, starting pitching and relief pitching.