Sunday’s 6-pack
Teams who play the fastest tempo (shortest possessions on offense)
14.9 seconds— Marshall (24-8)
15.0— Long Beach State (17-16)
15.1— Cornell (17-11)
15.2— Alabama (28-5)
15.2— Portland State (12-19)
15.3— St John’s (18-15)
Quote of the Day
“How do you know when you run out of invisible ink?”
Steven Wright
Sunday’s quiz
Steve Martin played a traveling preacher in the movie
Leap of Faith; what famous musician played the keyboard during the preacher’s shows?
Saturday’s quiz
Charlotte Hornets drafted Kobe Bryant with the 13th pick of the 1996 NBA Draft, then traded him to the Lakers, for Vlade Divac.
Friday’s quiz
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr played his college basketball at Arizona.
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Sunday’s Den: Wrapping up a sports Saturday…….
— Brackets come out at 6:00 tonight; all the speculation ends and we can handicap the actual matchups. Champ Week has been fun, but it is time to move on to the main event.
— There were five conference tournaments in Las Vegas this week; must be tough living in a place where there are legitimately fun things to do every day.
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Marquette 65, Xavier 51— Surprisingly easy win for Marquette, which has won 14 of its last 15 games. This was Marquette’s conference tournament title since 1997, when they won the C-USA tournament.
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Texas 76, Kansas 56— Longhorns allowed 54.3 ppg in their three wins this weekend. This game had two interim coaches leading the teams, with Rodney Terry taking over for the fired Chris Beard, while Norm Roberts is replacing Kansas coach Bill Self, who has been ill.
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Cal-Santa Barbara 72, Cal-Fullerton 62— Gauchos get to the NCAA’s for second time in three years; before that, they hadn’t been there since 2011.
I was on the UCSB campus a long time ago, 1990 if I remember right. They should have no trouble recruiting ballplayers; what a beautiful area. More than half the cars in the parking lot had a surfboard on the roof. Had I gone to school there, would’ve taken me about a month to flunk out. Who wants to study when you can go for a walk on the beach?
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San Diego State 62, Utah State 57— Aggies led 26-15 early on, but San Diego State wins this tournament for third time in last six years. Bracketology says Utah State is in the Field of 68, but they’ll be tossing and turning tonight, waiting for tomorrow’s verdict.
ESPN”s bracket guy has Arizona State in; the CBS bracket guy has the Sun Devils out; CBS has Utah State going to Dayton for a play-in game. ESPN has the Aggies ranked higher than that.
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Arizona 61, UCLA 59— UCLA hasn’t won the Pac-12 tournament since 2014; Arizona won it for fourth time in last six tries. Bruins are banged up; how much does the Selection Committee weigh their injuries into the seedings?
— Purdue guard David Jenkins should write a book about his experience playing college ball; he’s played all over the place:
2017-19— South Dakota State
2020-21— UNLV
2021-22— Utah
2022-23— Purdue
— New Mexico star Jaelen House is the grandson of former UCLA star Henry Bibby, who also played nine years in the NBA.
— Unfortunately, this time of year schools fire coaches who didn’t win as much as people hoped:
Buffalo fired Jim Whitesell (45-27 in MAC games in four years)
Georgia Tech fired Josh Pastner (11-29 in ACC games the last two years)
South Florida fired Brian Gregory (32-72 in AAC games)
Wichita State fired Isaac Brown (48-34 in three years).
Wichita fired Gregg Marshall three years ago, because Marshall hurt people’s feelings— he also went 331-121 with the Shockers, 233-53 his last eight years, with a Final Four in 2013.
Missouri gave hoop coach Dennis Gates a $1.5M/year raise, extended his contract thru 2029; Tigers are 24-9 in Gates’ first season in Columbia.
You fire a guy who was 331-121, you understand why they fired a guy who was 48-34.
— St John’s hasn’t played in the semi-finals of the Big East tournament since 2014, even though they play the tournament in Madison Square Garden, the Red Storm’s second home.
— Bronx baseball team put P Carlos Rodon on the IL with a strained forearm; Rodon signed a six-year, $162M contract this past winter.
— Teams that won the first four World Baseball Classics:
Japan, Japan, Dominican Republic, United States
— Arizona Diamondbacks gave OF Corbin Carroll an 8-year, $111M contract; Carroll has played in only 32 big league games, hitting .260 with 4 homers as a 21-year old last year.
— Washington Nationals signed C Keibert Ruiz to an 8-year, $50M contract; Ruiz hit .251 with seven homers last season, in his first season as a starter.
— Houston Texans were fined $175K, lost a 5th-round draft pick this year because of a salary cap reporting violation involving Deshaun Watson back in 2020.
Texans also signed WR Robert Woods to a 2-year contract, a smart move. Woods caught 53 passes for 527 yards with AFC South rival Tennessee last year.
— Minnesota Vikings cut WR Adam Thielen for salary cap reasons; Thielen caught 534 passes for 12.5 yards/catch in nine years for Minnesota, 55 of them for touchdowns.
— San Francisco QB Brock Purdy finally had his elbow operation this week; they said it was a six-month rehab for his elbow, so he figures to miss the start of the regular season.
— Random stat: Golden State Warriors are 4-13 as a road favorite this season.
— Remember to turn your clocks ahead an hour!!!
