Saturday’s 6-pack:
Teams with best roster continuity in country:
— Towson State (21-10)
— American (20-12)
— Fort Wayne (19-13)
— Gonzaga (23-8)
— Santa Clara (20-11)
— Texas A&M (21-9)
Quote of the Day
“We are trying to take it as far as we can as soon as we possibly can. I’m not looking for a grace period. … I don’t think that way at all.”
Raiders coach Pete Carroll
Saturday’s quiz
Where did Geno Smith play his college football?
Friday’s quiz
In the history of the Seattle Mariners, Edgar Martinez has scored the most runs (1,219)
Thursday’s quiz
Of the 32 teams in the NFL, three teams have never had the first pick in the draft- Ravens, Broncos and Seahawks.
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— Seattle Seahawks traded QB 34-year old QB Geno Smith to the Raiders, getting a 3rd-round draft pick in return. The trade re-unites Smith with Raiders coach Pete Carroll, who coached Smith in Seattle from 2020-23.
Smith is 40-44 as an NFL starter, 0-1 in playoff games; he was 28-25 with the Seahawks.
Right now, Sam Howell would be Seattle’s new QB, but there is speculation that the Seahawks will go after free agent QB Sam Darnold, who played briefly for Seahawks’ OC Klint Kubiak with the 49ers.
— Sacramento/Las Vegas A’s signed OF Lawrence Butler to a 7-year contract extension worth $66.5M; Butler hit .262 with an .807 OPS last year- he hit 22 home runs.
— Speaking of the A’s, watched the movie
Moneyball again the other night; they made such a big deal about how the A’s didn’t want to start 1B Carlos Pena, like he was Jason Giambi or Mark Teixeira. At that time, he wasn’t close to that.
When the A’s traded dealt Pena to Detroit, he was hitting .218, which isn’t said in the movie; 5-6 years later, Pena did have a couple of huge seasons playing for Tampa Bay.
— Weird fact: Luis Arraez has won a batting title in each of the last three years, while playing for three different teams:
2022- hit .316 for Minnesota
2023- hit .354 for the Marlins
2024- hit .314 for Marlins/San Diego.
— Watched another one of my favorite movies late Thursday night,
The Rookie, the real-life story of a high school teacher in Texas who tries out for major league team in his 30’s, and makes it to the big leagues for the first time, when he was 35 years old.
Dennis Quaid plays Jim Morris, the pitcher; the best two scenes in the movie and when his AAA manager tells Morris that he got called up to the big leagues, and then when he comes into his first major league, with a lot of friends/family in attendance in Arlington, TX.
In that first game, Tampa Bay’s starting pitcher was Bobby Witt Sr, whose son is a big star for Kansas City these days. The Rays’ only run in that game came on a home run by John Flaherty, who is now a TV analyst for the YES Network. Jose Canseco was Tampa Bay’s DH in that game.
— Sacramento Kings are 33-29 this year, which would be the Kings’ third season in a row over .500; despite that, Sacramento has had 10 different head coaches since 2011- they fired Mike Brown this season, when they were 13-18. Doug Christie has gone 19-11 as his replacement.
— Philadelphia 76ers are 21-39-2 against the spread this season, worst record in the NBA; last time the 76ers were this bad ATS was 1996, when they were 32-49-1.
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Famous birthdays, March 8th:
Susan Clark, 82
Jim Rice, 72
Buck Williams, 65
Camryn Manheim, 64
Kenny Smith, 6o
Jason Elam, 55
Lance McCullers Sr, 51
Hines Ward, 49
James Van Der Beek, 48
Marcus Spears, 42
Tommy Pham, 37
Kyle Allen, 29
— Dayton 79, VCU 76
Dayton has won 10 of its last 13 games.
Loss snaps VCU’s nine-game winning streak.
VCU was 25-31 on foul line, only 5-30 on the arc.
— Illinois 88, Purdue 80
Illini outscored Purdue 16-3 over the final 2:52 of this game.
Illinois shot 63% inside the arc.
Boilermakers lost five of their last seven games.
— WCC Tournament
Pepperdine 86, Portland 73
Waves outscored Portland 46-19 over the last 12:17 of game.
6-1 G Odum scored 31 points, had 11 assists.
Pepperdine advances to play Oregon State Saturday.
— Summit Tournament
Both underdogs won Friday’s games.
North Dakota 85, South Dakota State 69
Treysen Eaglestaff scored 51 points for the 12-20 Hawks.
Two games ago, he didn’t score against St Thomas.
Jackrabbits were 3-29 on arc, North Dakota was 13-32
— MVC Tournament
Valparaiso 64, Northern Iowa 63
11-seed upsets the #3-seed, shooting 11-21 on the arc.
Northern Iowa was only 6-11 on the foul line.
Cinderella Crusaders play #2-seed Bradley Saturday.
— Sun Belt Tournament
Old Dominion 61, Appalachian State 56
Monarchs win for third day in row; they were 8-10 in conference play.
ODU allowed 55.3 points/game the last three nights.
App State led this game 36-30 at halftime.
— Colorado State 83, Boise State 73
Boise State led by 9 with 10:14 left in game.
Rams post upset, clinch #2-seed in Mountain West tournament.
Colorado State has won seven in a row, winds up 16-4 in MW play.