— Do first round results in the NCAA Tournament indicate which teams are mostly likely to win the national championship?
Last 16 national champs went 13-3 ATS in their first round game.
Last 20 national champs went 17-3 ATS in their second round game.
— San Diego Padres’ 3B Manny Machado has a $30M a year contract thru 2028, but he can opt out after this season, which he says he will do. That’s his decision, but……..
Why announce it now? Why is that a good idea? How does that help HIM?
Padres have spent lot of $$$ to be contenders this season; why upstage that optimism by acting like a selfish jerk?
— Sounds like Padres/Angels are going to use 6-man starting pitching rotations, which would be unusual. Angels are probably doing it because Shohei Ohtani is used to that from Japan; no idea why San Diego is doing it.
— There have been eight times in NBA history where a player scored 40+ points while also grabbing 40+ rebounds. In one game.
All eight of those games belong to Wilt Chamberlain.
— Win/loss record for the Jets’ last 12 starting QB’s:
8-14— Zach Wilson
1-8— Joe Flacco
2-5— Mike White
13-25— Sam Darnold
0-2— Luke Falk
0-1— Trevor Siemian
5-11— Josh McCown
1-6— Bryce Petty
13-14— Ryan Fitzpatrick
1-2— Michael Vick
12-18— Geno Smith
33-29— Mark Sanchez
This helps explain why they’d like to add Aaron Rodgers; Jets haven’t made the playoffs since 2010.
— Colleges that had the most players in cited to this year’s NBA Combine:
13— Alabama
12— Georgia
9— Florida, LSU, Michigan, TCU
8— Clemson, Ohio State
7— Maryland, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee
— NFL coaching stuff:
Washington Commanders hired Eric Bieniemy as their new offensive coordinator.
Carolina Panthers hired Thomas Brown as their new offensive coordinator.
— Los Angeles Dodgers had a great year last year, they went 111-51, but they were only 16-15 in one-run games. Their record could’ve been a lot better.
Colorado Rockies went 23-24 in one-run games, but they finished 68-94. Could’ve been a lot worse.
— Angels signed P Matt Moore to a one-year deal worth $7.5M.
— It is interesting how leagues do things differently:
NBA has their trade deadline the week before their All-Star Game
NHL has their trade deadline several weeks after their All-Star Game
— Boston Celtics took the interim coach tag off of 34-year old Joe Mazzulla; he is now their permanent head coach. Celtics are 42-17 under Mazzulla.
— Looking at the #1-5 seeds in the NBA’s Western Conference, only one of them has ever won an NBA title and that was way back in 1951, when the Rochester Royals won a championship in the NBA’s third season.
Royals moved to Cincinnati in 1957.
Royals changed their name to the Kings, moved to Kansas City in 1972.
Kings moved to Sacramento in 1985.
— Longest winning streaks in college basketball:
16— Eastern Washington, Big Sky
11— Oral Roberts, Summit
10— Toledo, MAC
9— Hofstra CAA/Northwestern State Southland
— XFL starts this weekend, with four games, as football never rests.
— Get well soon to Richmond basketball coach Chris Mooney, who will have heart surgery soon and miss the rest of this season; Mooney will undergo a procedure to remove an aneurysm in his ascending aorta. Assistant coach Peter Thomas will be the Spiders’ interim head coach.
