The Chicago Cubs might not be having the best of seasons, but Wrigley Field always draws both a crowd and the TV cameras, and it’s one of the National League’s great rivalries—Cardinals-Cubbies—that will highlight daily sports throughout this weekend.
Sometimes the attraction of the daily sports schedule lies in its quantity—a Saturday afternoon of college football or basketball being a good example. And sometimes it’s about the quality of one big game. For example, a Game 7 where a heavy favorite has been pushed the limit by a team that might be an
Major league baseball is in the midst of a run of interleague rivalry games that began yesterday, and ESPN has a bi-coastal doubleheader tonight, starting with Mets-Yankees at 7 PM ET, and then showing Angels-Dodgers at 10 PM ET.
In this space, we’ll have closing thoughts on regional finals action, then see what’s on tap in the daily sports TV action throughout the week, as we build to the big night of college hoops on Saturday.
The rapid-fire process of paring the NCAA Tournament field to the Sweet 16 concludes on Sunday. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports focus will be, as it has been all week, to look at the TV agenda for today’s games, and then look back on the eight games from Saturday.
The NCAA Tournament rolls on with the latter part of the true first round here on Friday. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports look will break down today’s games by TV time slot, so you can make your viewing plans, and then we’ll close out with some thoughts on Thursday.
We can’t completely lose sight of the NBA. By the time the sports world comes up for air when the NCAAs conclude on April 8, the NBA season will have just nine days left and all the races that are compelling right now might be mostly settled. As such, today’s daily sports look will double as NBA commentary, and we’ll summarize the key races within each conference and look ahead at the entire week of pro basketball.
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.
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.
If you’re just getting caught up with college basketball now, in preparation for March Madness, there’s something you need to be extremely aware of—Butler is in serious trouble. Maybe you caught highlights of their November win over Indiana and their last-second buzzer-beater against Gonzaga. Great wins, to be sure, but within Atlantic 10 play, the Bulldogs have been reeling. They’re 9-5 in the conference, just lost by 32 to Virginia Commonwealth and suddenly face a key game tonight against Massachusetts (7, NBC Sports Network) that I would consider the most compelling on the Thursday daily sports docket.
Whether it’s the bubble of the NCAA Tournament or that in the playoff races of the NBA and NHL, the marginal teams are in the spotlight tonight. TheSportsNotebook’s daily sports talk will run through all three, starting with action in the NBA.
The battle on the NCAA Tournament bubble enters the final week of the regular season for the power conferences, and for a lot of the smaller conferences—including a couple notable mid-majors—tournament play starts up later this week. Two teams in must-win spots are Cincinnati and Baylor and with both teams on ESPN they lead up our daily sports talk.