Armadillo Sports
Wednesday’s 6-pack
College hoops teams who take the highest %age of 3-point shots:
51.8% of their shots are 3’s— Chattanooga
48.9%— San Francisco
48.2%— Penn State
48.1%— Villanova
47.5%— Cornell
47.5%— Southern Illinois
Quote of the Day
“I believe creativity is an inherent part of everyone, so never worry about failure. It’s going to happen, but that’s OK. Go ahead, take chances, and you might just find that what feels like failure isn’t failure at all, it’s what inspires you to dream even bigger.”
Kermit the Frog
Wednesday’s quiz
Before they moved to Oakland in 1968, Oakland A’s called two other cities home; which two cities?
Tuesday’s quiz
The NBA absorbed four teams from the ABA when the ABA folded after the 1975-76 season; Spurs, Nuggets, Pacers, Nets.
Monday’s quiz
Donovan McNabb was the Eagles’ QB the first time Andy Reid coached in a Super Bowl.
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Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings……..
— While writing this tonight, I’ve been watching the movie Uncut Gems; I’ve been waiting to see this movie for three years, finally found it. Not sure why I wanted to see it; I’ve never been a big Adam Sandler fan, but this one looked good. Unfortunately for me, it was not.
Incredible amount of yelling in this movie, lot of yelling. I have a headache right now. Kevin Garnett/Mike Francesa are in the movie; they do pretty well, for non-actors. Eric Bogosian and Judd Hirsch are in the movie; both very good actors. It didn’t help.
The story is about a guy who sells jewelry who has a gambling problem and owes lot of money to the wrong people. They yell at him, beat him up; he yells back, scrambles to win the money he needs with one big wager, kind of like Mark Wahlberg in The Gambler.
I’m glad I finally found the movie, I’m glad I have Showtime Anytime on my TV now, but damn, that was a disappointing movie.
— Less than 36 hours after losing a close Super Bowl, the Eagles lost both their coordinators; Indianapolis hired OC Shane Steichen as its new head coach. Arizona hired Jonathan Gannon as its new head coach; he was the Eagles’ defensive coordinator.
— Super Bowl Sunday night got the 3rd-highest rating of any Super Bowl, ranking behind the Seattle-New England game from several years ago, and the Rams-Bengals game last year (did I mention the Rams won that game??)
— Utah Utes’ offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig turned down a lateral move to Notre Dame; apparently, it would’ve cost $2M to buy out his contract with Utah. Notre Dame’s last OC bolted to Alabama last week, and he is an alumnus; they’re in a bit of a bind to hire a new OC.
Ludwig is 58 years old; he’s been at Utah for four years, which is a long time for an assistant football coach to be in the same place. College football coaches are nomads; Ludwig has also worked at Oregon, Vanderbilt, San Diego State, Wisconsin, USC.
— Baltimore Ravens hired Todd Monken as their new offensive coordinator; he comes from the Georgia Bulldogs. Monken has previously worked in the NFL, for Tampa Bay/Cleveland.
Georgia replaced Monken with former Georgia QB Mike Bobo.
— Last baseball season, there were only 122 balks called the whole season, the fewest in any season since 1973, but Major League Baseball really, really wants there to be more stolen bases going forward, so there are going to be bigger bases this season, and there is going to be an “emphasis on enforcement of the balk rule”
Less throws to first base, bigger bases, tighter balk rule; sounds like pitchers will have to throw more fastballs with men on base, which could result in more offense this season.
— Michael Wacha signed with the Padres this week; San Diego will be his fifth team in five years:
2019— 6-7, 4.76 in 24 starts with St Louis
2020— 1-4, 6.62 in seven starts with the Mets
2021— 3-5, 5.05 in 23 starts with Tampa Bay
2022— 11-2, 3.32 in 23 starts with the Red Sox
— Providence 94, Creighton 86, 2OT— Quite a night; Creighton’s subs played a total of 15:00 in a 50:00 game- Bluejays got outscored 10-2 in the second overtime. Loss snaps a 7-game win streak for Creighton.
— Oklahoma 79, Kansas State 65— K-State lost its last five road games; they’re 2-5 in their last seven games overall. Wildcats are 19-7, but they’re #327 in bench minutes; they getting tired?
Penn State 93, Illinois 81— Jalen Pickett scored 41 points for Penn State; he scored 49 points for Siena a few years ago. Not many players have scored 40+ points for two different teams.
— Auburn 89, Missouri 56— Total wipeout; Auburn had lost five of six games coming in, but they led 26-6 right off the bat, 45-18 at halftime.
— Alabama is #1 in the college basketball poll for the first time in 20 years.
— Wyoming 70, New Mexico 56— Lobos were 18-2 few weeks ago; now they’ve lost five of their last six games, giving up 80 ppg in last four, and have fallen off the bubble.
— Syracuse 75, NC State 72— Syracuse outscored the Wolfpack 16-3 on the foul line.
— St John’s 92, DePaul 83, 2OT— Blue Demons led 69-56 with 6:49 left to play, but they lost, their 7th consecutive loss.
— No preseason #1 team in college basketball has ever missed the NCAA Tournament, but North Carolina is headed that way; Tar Heels has lost four of its last five games; they’re 16-10, with one top 50 win (over #42 NC State). Bracketology has the Tar Heels among the last four teams in, a very tenuous place to be on February 15th.
— New Mexico State ended its basketball season, for off-court reasons; they fired first-year coach Greg Heiar Tuesday- this is a program that has been in the NCAA Tournament eight times the last 11 years. Will be interesting to see who they hire to rebuild the program.
— Our update on college basketball referee John Higgins:
January 24— Penn State @ Rutgers
January 25— Utah State @ San Diego State— Long plane ride for a back/back
January 26— Utah @ Oregon State
January 28— California @ Stanford
January 29— Michigan State @ Purdue— Day game after long plane ride.
January 30— Baylor @ Texas
January 31— Kansas State @ Kansas
February 1— Northern Iowa @ Drake- A double overtime game!!! Eight games in nine nights, and a double overtime game on the 9th night.
February 2— Wisconsin @ Ohio State
February 4— Oklahoma @ West Virginia
February 5— Penn State @ Nebraska
February 7— Nevada @ New Mexico
February 8— San Diego State @ Utah State
February 9— USC at Oregon
February 11— Wyoming @ Boise State
February 13— Texas @ Texas Tech
February 14— Kansas State @ Oklahoma
He’s worked 17 games in 22 days, 72 games since November 7, which is 72 games in 101 days. He is 54-years old; why don’t NBA players play on back/back nights?
— Spring training starts today, which is never a bad thing.