— Four years ago this week, the retina in my right eye detached while I was in Las Vegas; not good. 10 days later, Dr Mallick fixed my eye here in Albany, and for that I thank him.
Four years and two more procedures later, my eye is just fine, thanks to Dr Lemanski, who did two cataract procedures on that eye.
Just wanted to thank those two great doctors for fixing my eye; it is appreciated.
— Chiefs 19, Broncos 8
Chiefs have now won their last 16 games against Denver.
Chiefs won last five games overall, by 8-31-3-7-11 points (4-1 ATS).
Chiefs have outscored opponents 101-28 in first half.
Butker’s 52-yard FG with 2:00 left covered the spread.
Broncos are 1-5 SU/0-6 ATS this season.
Chiefs outgained Denver, 389-197
In their only win this year, Denver trailed 28-7 late in third quarter.
Denver is 7-14-1 ATS in last 22 AFC West road games.
— Houston 41, West Virginia 39
Houston led 35-24 with 4:00 left in game.
West Virginia threw a 50-yard TD pass with 0:12 left to go up 39-35.
Houston connected on a 49-yard Hail Mary on the last play for the win.
WVU was 13-19 on third down, Houston was 3-9.
— SMU 31, East Carolina 10
SMU led 14-0 after the first quarter.
Mustangs broke game open with 34-yard pick-6 in 4th quarter.
ECU completed only 18-39 passes, averaged 4.9 yards/attempt.
— Phillies 3, Braves 1
Nick Castellanos is first player ever with multiple HR’s in consecutive playoff games.
Ranger Suarez allowed three baserunners in 5 IP.
Five Philly relievers got the last 12 outs.
Phillies-Diamondbacks is an unlikely NLCS.
— Last week we shredded Miami coach Mario Cristobal for not having his team take a knee in the last minute, with his team safely ahead and Georgia Tech out of timeouts. Miami fumbled and Tech won the game, which was coaching malpractice, but we found another example of this, maybe a worse one.
September 11, 1999, UNLV is at Baylor; same situation, Baylor is safely ahead, they have the ball on UNLV’s 10-yard line or so, Rebels are out of timeouts, but Baylor runs a play, trying to score another TD, but the kid fumbles and a UNLV defensive back runs the ball back for a TD that won the game, and extended Baylor’s losing streak to seven games.
The reason I bring this up is that Baylor’s coach that night was Kevin Steele, who is now the defensive coordinator at Alabama. This was Steele’s first home game coaching Baylor, and it wound up being a disaster— he went 9-36 with the Bears, 1-31 in Big 12 games.
— Only one college basketball team has been in the Elite 8 the last two NCAA Tournaments; the Miami Hurricanes.
— Word of the Day: Alliance— An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose.
— Kansas Jayhawks are 3-point favorites at Oklahoma State Saturday; it is only the second time in the last 11 seasons that Kansas is a road favorite. Earlier this year, Jayhawks were favored at Nevada; they won 31-24, but didn’t cover the 28-point spread.
— With the Orioles getting swept by Texas, AL East teams went 0-7 in the playoffs this year.
— Dallas Mavericks played couple of exhibitions in Abu Dhabi, then played a game in Spain on the way home— they have only one exhibition game in this country, next week against Detroit.
Not sure how all that travel gets you ready for the regular season, but Mark Cuban is way smarter than I am, so we’ll see how it goes. Dallas opens the season October 25, against the San Antonio Spurs.
— Was surprised to see that Saint Mary’s is the coaches’ choice to win the WCC basketball title this winter, with perennial champ Gonzaga the #2 pick. Don’t think that clipping won’t wind up on a bulletin board in Spokane.
— There is a pro basketball team from Israel, Maccabi Ra’Anana, that is playing three games against NBA teams in the coming week; they lost 135-103 to the Brooklyn Nets Thursday night.
Imagine what the security must be like at those games, given the events of the past week? We just hope things go smoothly and that everyone gets home safely.
— NBA All-Star Game is in Indiana this year; they should honor the old ABA and play the game with a red, white and blue basketball, the one they used in the ABA, where the Pacers played.
NBA absorbed four ABA teams into the league in 1976; Pacers, Nets, Spurs, Nuggets. The ABA was an outstanding league, lot of fun to watch. Would be great if the NBA acknowledged that.
