— If you want to bet on next year’s Super Bowl, the AFC team is -1, with a total of 48.5.
Next year’s Super Bowl is in New Orleans, the 11th Super Bowl on Bourbon Street.
— Patrick Mahomes is 3-1 in Super Bowls; Chiefs trailed by 10+ points in all four games.
— San Francisco 49ers have now been in the postseason six times since 2012; all six times, 49ers went WWL in the playoffs.
Was little surprised to read that the 49ers’ players didn’t know the new overtime rules for the playoffs; Kansas City’s players had gone thru the new rules during training camp.
— Dallas Cowboys are hiring Mike Zimmer as their new (old?) defensive coordinator; Zimmer was the Cowboys’ DC from 2000-06. He was the Vikings’ head coach from 2014-21.
— Pittsburgh Steelers told QB Mitch Trubisky to take a hike, saving them $3M on next year’s salary cap, leaving Kenny Pickett as the only QB on their roster, fueling speculation that they might trade with Chicago for Justin Fields.
— UCLA hired Deshaun Foster as its new football coach; he had just taken a job as running backs coach for the Las Vegas Raiders. Foster played at UCLA, then played seven years in the NFL, before working the last 10 years as an assistant with the Bruins; he’ll help as far as keeping the current roster intact.
— Baseball Note of the Day: Pittsburgh Pirates signed C Yasmani Grandal for one year, $2.5M.
— Word of the Day: Prescient- having knowledge of things or events before they exist or happen. A good handicapper needs to be prescient.
— Tennessee Vols are 17-6 this season, 7-3 in the SEC; last 3.5 years, Tennessee is 87-34, 42-21 in SEC games.
Rick Barnes has been a college head coach since 1987. Here is some of his March resume:
15-12 SU in first round games, 8-18-1 ATS. 8-18-1 es no bueno.
8-7 SU in second round (7-8 ATS)
3-5 in Sweet 16 games (3-5 ATS)
1-2 in Elite 8 games, 0-1 in national semifinals (2003, with Texas)
Breaking down his first round record, Barnes is 7-0 SU if a #3-seed or better, 8-12 if he isn’t.
Overall, he is 15-28-1 ATS as an NCAA Tournament favorite, 4-6 as an underdog.
— Indiana State is in the top 25 this week, for the first time since 1979, when Larry Bird played there.
— Duke 77, Wake Forest 69
Duke shot 63.3% inside the arc.
Teams combined to shoot 13-51 on the arc.
Duke has won 14 of its last 16 games.
— Texas Tech 79, Kansas 50
Tech was 10-26 on the arc, Kansas 3-16.
Jayhawks are 1-5 in Big X road games.
Kansas coach Self got ejected with about 6:00 left.
— Charlotte 49ers named Aaron Fearne their full-time basketball coach, taking the interim tag off his title. Fearne was hired as interim coach last June, when Ron Sanchez quit as head coach to become an assistant at Virginia.
Charlotte is 15-8 this year, 9-2 in the AAC. Fearne has been at Charlotte for five years, after spending 17 years with the Cairns Taipans of the Australian Basketball League.
— A basketball hoop is exactly two basketballs wide.
— Only three weeks until the first college basketball conference tournament gets started.
— Spring training starts this week; never a bad thing.
— There are two outdoor hockey games at Giants Stadium in New Jersey this weekend; Devils play Philadelphia Saturday night, Rangers-Islanders play Sunday afternoon.
— Monday was Abraham Lincoln’s 214th birthday; always enjoyed February 12 when I was working, since it was a day off. Happy birthday, sir.
