— “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller
If you had told me two months ago that on National Signing Day for college football, Nick Saban would be playing in the pro-am at the Phoenix Open golf tournament, I would’ve scoffed at you, but here we are, with Saban hacking away in Arizona, the same day it is announced that he is now part of ESPN’s GameDay, the Saturday morning pre-game show for college football.
I’d rather hear him do analysis on games, but Lee Corso will be 89 in August, so Saban figures to take that spot, eventually.
— Blind resumes for two QB’s who aren’t in the Hall of Fame:
Player A: 72-72 in regular season, 8-2 in playoffs, won two Super Bowls.
Player B: 117-117 in regular season, 8-4 in playoffs, won two Super Bowls.
Which guy are you putting in Hall of Fame? Both? Neither?
— 34 of 57 Super Bowls have been decided by 10+ points.
Over the last 22 Super Bowls, #1-seeds are 2-9 when playing an opponent who wasn’t a #1-seed.
— Eliot Wolf is going to be the mew personnel guru in New England; he was the Patriots’ director of scouting the last two years. Wolf has spent most of his career with the Packers.
— Philadelphia Eagles are only NFL team ever to start out 10-1 two years in a row, and not win a championship in either season.
— I’m looking forward to next April’s NFL Draft; the Rams will actually have a first round pick. Last time they had a first round pick was 2016, when they drafted Jared Goff.
— In case you were wondering, Riddler was the villain on the first episode of the old Batman TV series, back when I was a little kid. Frank Gorshin was great in that role.
— Before Thursday’s game in New York, Dallas Maverick star Luka Doncic had played 42+ minutes in five of his last six games; no player in the last six seasons has played that many minutes, without playing in an overtime.
Doncic played 40:00 Thursday, scored 39 points (with 11 assists) in a 122-108 win against the Knicks. Dallas was +18 with Doncic on the floor, minus-4 with him on the bench.
— Utah Jazz outscored Milwaukee 40-13 in the 4th quarter of Sunday’s 123-108 win; they’re the only team in the last 25 years to outscore an opponent by 25+ points in a quarter, while using the same five guys for the entire quarter.
— Baseball Note of the Day: Dodgers re-signed lefty P Clayton Kershaw, bringing him back for his 17th major league season. Kershaw won’t be available until sometime next summer; he had surgery on his left shoulder after last year’s playoffs.
— Famous people who were born on February 9:
Joe Pesci
Carole King
Vince Papale
Bill Veeck
Mookie Wilson
— Arizona 105, Utah 99, 3OT’s
Arizona led by 16 with 17:21 left to play.
Utah was only 10-21 on the foul line.
— UAB 76, Florida Atlantic 73, OT
FAU shot only 33.8% from the floor.
Blazer big guy Lendeborg had 17 points, 21 rebounds.
— Samford 78, NC-Greensboro 69
Greensboro led by 7 points at halftime.
Samford made 12 of 25 3-pointers.
Samford is quietest 21-3 team in the country; they started out 0-2.
— Oregon 85, Washington 80
Ducks led by 20 at one point; Washington cut the lead to one.
Huskies lost four of last six games; they’re 4-8 in Pac-12.
— Horizon League
Three of the four Horizon games Thursday went to overtime.
Wright State 92, Detroit 85- Titans are now 0-25, 0-14 in Horizon games (4-10 ATS)
— NJIT 63, Vermont 61
Loss ends Vermont’s 9-game winning streak- they’re 8-1 in America East now.
NJIT had only 4 turnovers; they didn’t have any offensive rebounds. None.
— Blind resume QB’s: a) Jim Plunkett b) Eli Manning
— Lamar Jackson won his second MVP award Thursday night; problem is, he also has two playoff wins (2-4).
