Tuesday’s 6-pack:
Sweet 16 games this week:
— Alabama (-5.5) vs BYU
— Florida (-6.5) vs Maryland
— Duke (-8.5) vs Arizona
— Texas Tech (-5.5) vs Arkansas
— Michigan State (-2.5) vs Ole Miss
— Tennessee (-4.5) vs Kentucky
— Auburn (-8.5) vs Michigan
— Houston (-7.5) vs Purdue
Quote of the Day
“If God wanted me to walk, he would’ve made me a mailman.”
Former big league OF Willie Wilson, who walked 425 times in his 19-year career, but stole 668 bases, scored 1,169 runs. He was really fast.
Tuesday’s quiz
From 1954-1996, the Dodgers had only two managers, Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda; who replaced Lasorda as the Dodgers’ manager?
(Hint: he played for the Dodgers)
Monday’s quiz
In the history of the New York Mets, David Wright has scored the most runs.
Sunday’s quiz
Before Florida’s win Sunday, New Mexico State was the last team to beat Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament.
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— Tennessee-Kentucky are SEC rivals playing in the Sweet 16, only the fifth time in the last 20 years that conference rivals have met in the Sweet 16:
2015- 4- Louisville (-2.5) 75-65 over 8- NC State
2018- 2- Duke (-11) 69-65 0ver 11- Syracuse
2019- 1- Duke (-7) 75-73 over 4- Virginia Tech
2021- 7- USC (-2) 82-68 over 6- Oregon (favorites 4-0 SU/2-2 ATS)
2025- 2- Tennessee (-4.5) ??-?? vs 3- Kentucky
In the Elite 8, underdogs have fared better vs conference rivals, but we’ll get into that over the weekend.
— March Madness is down to 16 teams, the Sweet 16; this year, only four leagues will have teams playing this weekend, the fewest ever. 7 of 14 SEC teams are still alive.
Things go in cycles; Florida Atlantic was in the Final Four two years ago; in three of the last six tournaments, an 11-seed made it to the Final Four. This year, #10-seed Arkansas is the only team left that is seeded lower than 6th.
— Monday was the first day the college basketball transfer portal was open; at 3:30, there were already 500 names in the portal. Trying to keep up with what players are on what team, you wind up like Linda Blair in
The Exorcist, with your head spinning all over the place.
— Speaking of which, a 6-4 guard named Devin Askew is in the portal:
2021- Kentucky- scored 6.5 ppg in 28.9 minutes/game
2022- Texas- scored 2.1 ppg in 14.9 minutes/game
scored 3 points in 24:00 in his only two NCAA Tourney games
2023- California- scored 15.5 ppg in 31.8 minutes/game
2024- California- scored 6.2 ppg in 24.3 mpg, in only six games.
2025- Long Beach State- Long Beach lost their last fifteen games this season.
Will be interesting to see where he re-surfaces in the fall.
— College basketball coaching carousel:
Minnesota hired alum Niko Medved as its new coach; Medved was a student manager for the Gophers. He was 143-85/78-50 at Colorado State, making NCAAs three of the last four years in Fort Collins, after also coaching at Furman, Drake.
Iona hired NBA assistant coach Dan Geriot to replace Tobin Anderson; Geriot has worked the last nine years for the Cavaliers/Pelicans- he was also a head coach in the G League for a year.
Ryan Miller is the new coach at Murray State; he’s been an assistant coach at seven different schools, most recently Creighton.
Racers have gone 29-31 in their three years in the Missouri Valley Conference- they made the NCAA’s three of the last five years they played in the OVC.
— Iowa Hawkeyes signed up former Drake coach Ben McCollum as their new coach, after he led the Bulldogs 31-4 record this year. McCollum won four national titles in six years at the D2 level.
— Rick Pitino is a GREAT basketball coach, one of the best ever. St John’s was 31-5 this year, winning the Big East tournament and an NCAA tourney game, both for the first time since 2000, but they lost 75-66 to Arkansas Saturday, and we live in a fickle society.
Late in the game, down by 2 points, Pitino benched one of his best players, who was 3-17 from the floor in that game. Since then, certain media members have criticized the coach, because, well it was Monday and they had to have something to talk about.
But Jalen Rose did it on live TV Saturday night, then again Sunday night, over 24 hours after the game ended. Almost like Jalen Rose has a vendetta against Pitino.
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Famous birthdays, March 25th:
Bonnie Bedelia, 77
Lee Mazzilli, 70
Avery Johnson, 60
Sarah Jessica Parker, 60
Tom Glavine, 59
Dale Davis, 56
Travis Fryman, 56
Domenick Lombardozzi, 49
Kyle Lowry, 39
Mike White, 30
Hyun Jin Ryu, 28
Pete Crow-Armstrong, 23
— Long time ago, maybe ten years or so, I’m at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for the first week of the NCAA Tournament. The early games on Thursday tip off (really early, it was 9am in Las Vegas) and before the second TV timeout, a guy hits a 3-pointer from the right side, and his team is winning 15-9.
(MGM Sportsbook is excellent, by the way; good place to hang out and watch games, with good food options very close by)
Three young guys sitting to my left start yelling, hugging each other; I asked one of them “Was that your brother who made that shot??”
“No, man, they got to 15 first; that was our bet!!!”
I had no idea that was a thing, that you could bet on which team got to 15 points first. Every now and then, I still debate researching this and keeping track of it, but it seems kind of random to me, so I haven’t done it.
— When the San Francisco Giants play Thursday night, they’ll be starting their 19th different left fielder over the last 19 Opening Days, the longest-such streak by any team at one position in the last 120 years.
— Cleveland Guardians signed P Tanner Bibee for five years, $48M; he was 12-8, 3.47 in 31 starts last year, his second year in the majors.
— World Champion Dodgers used 17 starting pitchers last year; also-ran Angels used 18 starting pitchers. Takes a lot of quality depth in your organization to have a winning team.
— Kansas City Royals acquired 36-year old OF/1B Mark Canha from Milwaukee, in exchange for a player to be named later.
Canha has played for five teams in his 10-year career; he could see some time at 1B for Kansas City, with Vinnie Pasquantino out with a bad hamstring.
— Angels acquired P Ian Anderson from the Braves, in exchange for lefty reliever Jose Suarez.
Anderson 22-13, 3.97 in 52 starts for Atlanta, but he missed the last two years after he had his elbow operated on. He walked 18 batters in 17 IP this spring; he was out of options, so Halos had to trade him or risk losing him via waivers.
— Tigers ace Tarik Skubal was getting interviewed last week, and someone asked him how he dealt with analytics. Skubal gave analytics their due, then referred to the office the analytics guys for Detroit used as……..”the nerd room”