The juice in the Mountain West Conference basketball race is provided by San Diego State, who has beaten Kansas and is getting some media love as perhaps the best team on the West Coast (a designation that eliminates top-ranked Arizona). That’s certainly true, but the Aztecs have surprise early company atop the MWC standings. Nevada basketball is off to a 4-0 league start. Can the Wolfpack hang with the Aztecs for the long haul?
The establishment has prevailed in the world of the NFL. Whomever wins the Super Bowl in New York on February 2 will be one of the consensus preseason favorites, and TheSportsNotebook’s season-long campaign against that establishment crashed and burned in the divisional playoff round this past weekend.
The Denver Broncos are on their way to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since 2005 after a 24-17 win over the San Diego Chargers where the Broncos grabbed an early lead, seemed in command and then survived a couple nervous moments at the end to close it out. Here’s the Notebook Nine points that we take away from the Denver-San Diego game that concluded the divisional round of the NFL playoffs…
It seems we can’t have an NFC Championship Game without the San Francisco 49ers these days. With a 23-10 win in Carolina, San Fran made it for the third straight year under Jim Harbaugh, and for the twelfth time since 1981. This year’s 49er team did it as the only road team to win in the second round. Let’s run through the Notebook Nine points to takeaway from the San Francisco-Carolina game…
The rain pounded New England on Saturday night, just as it had on the opposite coast earlier in the day in the New Orleans-Seattle NFL playoff game. And the Patriots showed they could bring some muscle, running over the Indianapolis Colts and pulling away to a 43-22 win. Here’s the Notebook Nine takeaways on the Indianapolis-New England divisional playoff game…
The Seattle Seahawks reached the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 2005, with a hard-fought 23-15 win over the New Orleans Saints in the gusts and rain of the Pacific Northwest. Here’s the Notebook Nine takeaways from the New Orleans-Seattle game…
The final spot in the conference championship round of the NFL playoffs will be filled late Sunday afternoon when the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos renew their AFC West rivalry in the last game of the second round (4:40 PM ET, CBS). Here’s our nine points of preparation, the Notebook Nine, to take into the San Diego-Denver game…
The San Francisco-Carolina game is, at least according to the oddsmakers, the best matchup of the four games going in this second round of the NFL playoffs. The kickoff is Sunday at 1 PM ET, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call for Fox, and here’s the Notebook Nine points to take into the game, drawn from history, Las Vegas and the personnel matchups…
A rivalry that has defined the NFL for a younger generation of sports fans enters a new era on Saturday night, as the Indianapolis Colts visit the New England Patriots for a second-round game (8:15 PM ET, NBC). Here’s our Notebook Nine points of preparation, for the Indianapolis-New England divisional playoff battle…
The second round of the NFL playoffs starts late Saturday afternoon when the New Orleans Saints visit the Seattle Seahawks (4:35 PM ET, Fox). Here’s our Notebook Nine points of preparation for the New Orleans-Seattle game…
The Super Bowl betting odds as we approach the second round of the NFL playoffs amount to a 4-on-4 battle that’s been brewing all the way since August. Four of the five teams that were the preseason Super Bowl favorites are left, and all are in separate games, going against four darkhorses. Whether you believed in the favorites or thought that 2013 would be the year of the darkhorse, the decisive hour has arrived.
In no college conference is the change from the first Monday of January to the first Tuesday more stark. The SEC usually has its football champion playing for a national title on Monday, and last night’s Auburn-Florida State game was no different. Then on Tuesday it’s the beginning of conference play on basketball, one of the later starts on the college hoops calendar. Here’s our look at SEC basketball, what each of the league’s 14 teams have accomplished thus far, and who they’re doing it with.