Armadillo Sports
Wednesday’s 6-pack
Six top prospects for the Baltimore Orioles:
1) Adley Rutschman, C
2) Grayson Rodriguez, P
3) DL Hall, P
4) Gunnar Henderson, SS
5) Colton Cowser, OF
6) Jordan Westburg, SS
Quote of the Day
“We all run our own race, whatever that may be. It’s part of the journey and this year obviously was a tough experience, winning three games and all that, but it’s all part of the journey. My time will come, whenever that may be, to get another crack at it.”
Jared Goff
Wednesday’s quiz
In the movie Draft Day, where Kevin Costner played the GM of the Cleveland Browns, who played the coach of the Browns?
Tuesday’s quiz
NCIS star Mark Harmon was a quarterback at UCLA.
Monday’s quiz
In last ten NCAA tournaments, Gonzaga has been a #1-seed four times.
******************************
Wednesday’s Den: mid-week musings……..
13) Arkansas 80, Auburn 76 OT:
— #1 team in country loses a tough game, ending their 19-game win streak.
— Auburn led by 5 with 2:40 left to play.
— Foul line: Arkansas 26-32, Auburn 8-17
— After this game ended, students stormed the court; Auburn’s team had very little protection as they tried to get to the locker room. This was a potentially dangerous thing; Arkansas needs to do better to protect its guests.
12) When the conference tournaments start in a few weeks, obviously teams have to win three or four days in a row to get into the NCAA Tournament. You need some depth to get thru games 3-4 days in a row.
Here are a few teams that lack depth, and may struggle to win their conference tournament because of that:
#358 in bench minutes- St Bonaventure
#357- Oakland
#356- Wright State
#353- Toledo
#351- North Texas
11) Why would anyone trade for Ben Simmons? Guy is very talented, one of the best passers I’ve ever seen, but your best players have to be good guys, team guys, not entitled, selfish people who care only about themselves.
Simmons hasn’t played a minute this year and he’s healthy; he’s offended because the 76ers’ coach didn’t fly cross-country to beg him to play this season. He’s opted out of $24M this year because his feelings got hurt (he still gets $8M this year for doing nothing)
Four years ago, Showtime aired a documentary about Simmons, which was filmed after his one college year, but before the NBA Draft; he didn’t come across well.
Four years with the 76ers, they won lot of regular season games, but went 19-19 in playoff games and never got the Eastern Conference finals. One year at LSU and they didn’t even get into the NCAA Tournament.
You pay someone $30M a year, you want a team leader and Simmons doesn’t seem to be one.
10) After the NCAA Tournament, we’ll get into this more, but there will be lot of conference shuffling next year. Conference USA will look almost totally different; CAA is adding three teams, lot of the mid-major leagues are juggling teams.
Loyola Chi is going to the A-14, which becomes the A-15 I guess.
9) Major league umpire Phil Cuzzi was on MLB Network the other day; he said he’s worked two no-hitters behind the plate and in both games, he wasn’t aware that the pitcher had a no-hitter until the last batter.
Not sure how that happens; these stadiums have very large scoreboards, but he concentrates on his job I guess, and wasn’t aware of it.
8) Purdue 84, Illinois 68:
— Boilers sweep Illinois; this was a pretty good beating.
— One of the newer things I try to do now is identify the legit NBA prospects who are still in college, and then lean on them in March. Purdue’s Jaden Ivey seems like one of those guys, but I’m not a big Matt Painter fan. Purdue has size and some diverse scorers, though, and that wins lot of games in March.
7) Wyoming 78, Utah State 76 OT:
— Cowboys won five games in row, four by 2 points or in OT.
— Last six years, Wyoming was 34-68 in conference games; now they’re 20-3, 9-1 in league and Jeff Linder deserves some mention for National Coach of the Year.
6) NFL coach stuff:
— Saints named Dennis Allen their new coach
— Texans named Lovie Smith their new coach
— Green Bay named Rich Bisaccia their special teams coach
— Giants named Don Martindale their defensive coordinator
5) It is amazing to me that there are still states where high school basketball doesn’t have a shot clock. Basketball without shot clocks can be strangled by stubborn coaches who won’t come out of zone defenses, and by coaches who refuse to play against zones (if they’re ahead).
In the late 70’s, there was a Duke-North Carolina game that was 7-0 at halftime. Seriously.
Putting the shot clock into college ball was a great move that helped make the game a lot more popular.
4) If you like to wager on pro golf, note that Patrick Cantlay is 97-under par in his last five tournaments, with a birdie-or-better % of 34.4%.
3) Washington Wizards’ star Bradley Beal is out for the year, with a left wrist injury.
2) Colorado Rockies extended manager Bud Black’s contract thru the 2023 season.
1) Dodgers’ P Trevor Bauer will not be criminally charged by Los Angeles prosecutors after a woman charged him with assault/other stuff, so now the big question is, what do the Dodgers do with him. Will they cut him? Trade him? Play him?
Bauer hasn’t committed a crime and the Dodgers owe him $64M over the next two seasons, but the baseball commissioner, who is currently involved with trying to screw up the sport with its labor dysfunction, has the autonomy to hand out suspensions under the domestic violence policy, so Bauer could still be suspended this season.
Wednesday’s 6-pack
Six top prospects for the Baltimore Orioles:
1) Adley Rutschman, C
2) Grayson Rodriguez, P
3) DL Hall, P
4) Gunnar Henderson, SS
5) Colton Cowser, OF
6) Jordan Westburg, SS
Quote of the Day
“We all run our own race, whatever that may be. It’s part of the journey and this year obviously was a tough experience, winning three games and all that, but it’s all part of the journey. My time will come, whenever that may be, to get another crack at it.”
Jared Goff
Wednesday’s quiz
In the movie Draft Day, where Kevin Costner played the GM of the Cleveland Browns, who played the coach of the Browns?
Tuesday’s quiz
NCIS star Mark Harmon was a quarterback at UCLA.
Monday’s quiz
In last ten NCAA tournaments, Gonzaga has been a #1-seed four times.
******************************
Wednesday’s Den: mid-week musings……..
13) Arkansas 80, Auburn 76 OT:
— #1 team in country loses a tough game, ending their 19-game win streak.
— Auburn led by 5 with 2:40 left to play.
— Foul line: Arkansas 26-32, Auburn 8-17
— After this game ended, students stormed the court; Auburn’s team had very little protection as they tried to get to the locker room. This was a potentially dangerous thing; Arkansas needs to do better to protect its guests.
12) When the conference tournaments start in a few weeks, obviously teams have to win three or four days in a row to get into the NCAA Tournament. You need some depth to get thru games 3-4 days in a row.
Here are a few teams that lack depth, and may struggle to win their conference tournament because of that:
#358 in bench minutes- St Bonaventure
#357- Oakland
#356- Wright State
#353- Toledo
#351- North Texas
11) Why would anyone trade for Ben Simmons? Guy is very talented, one of the best passers I’ve ever seen, but your best players have to be good guys, team guys, not entitled, selfish people who care only about themselves.
Simmons hasn’t played a minute this year and he’s healthy; he’s offended because the 76ers’ coach didn’t fly cross-country to beg him to play this season. He’s opted out of $24M this year because his feelings got hurt (he still gets $8M this year for doing nothing)
Four years ago, Showtime aired a documentary about Simmons, which was filmed after his one college year, but before the NBA Draft; he didn’t come across well.
Four years with the 76ers, they won lot of regular season games, but went 19-19 in playoff games and never got the Eastern Conference finals. One year at LSU and they didn’t even get into the NCAA Tournament.
You pay someone $30M a year, you want a team leader and Simmons doesn’t seem to be one.
10) After the NCAA Tournament, we’ll get into this more, but there will be lot of conference shuffling next year. Conference USA will look almost totally different; CAA is adding three teams, lot of the mid-major leagues are juggling teams.
Loyola Chi is going to the A-14, which becomes the A-15 I guess.
9) Major league umpire Phil Cuzzi was on MLB Network the other day; he said he’s worked two no-hitters behind the plate and in both games, he wasn’t aware that the pitcher had a no-hitter until the last batter.
Not sure how that happens; these stadiums have very large scoreboards, but he concentrates on his job I guess, and wasn’t aware of it.
8) Purdue 84, Illinois 68:
— Boilers sweep Illinois; this was a pretty good beating.
— One of the newer things I try to do now is identify the legit NBA prospects who are still in college, and then lean on them in March. Purdue’s Jaden Ivey seems like one of those guys, but I’m not a big Matt Painter fan. Purdue has size and some diverse scorers, though, and that wins lot of games in March.
7) Wyoming 78, Utah State 76 OT:
— Cowboys won five games in row, four by 2 points or in OT.
— Last six years, Wyoming was 34-68 in conference games; now they’re 20-3, 9-1 in league and Jeff Linder deserves some mention for National Coach of the Year.
6) NFL coach stuff:
— Saints named Dennis Allen their new coach
— Texans named Lovie Smith their new coach
— Green Bay named Rich Bisaccia their special teams coach
— Giants named Don Martindale their defensive coordinator
5) It is amazing to me that there are still states where high school basketball doesn’t have a shot clock. Basketball without shot clocks can be strangled by stubborn coaches who won’t come out of zone defenses, and by coaches who refuse to play against zones (if they’re ahead).
In the late 70’s, there was a Duke-North Carolina game that was 7-0 at halftime. Seriously.
Putting the shot clock into college ball was a great move that helped make the game a lot more popular.
4) If you like to wager on pro golf, note that Patrick Cantlay is 97-under par in his last five tournaments, with a birdie-or-better % of 34.4%.
3) Washington Wizards’ star Bradley Beal is out for the year, with a left wrist injury.
2) Colorado Rockies extended manager Bud Black’s contract thru the 2023 season.
1) Dodgers’ P Trevor Bauer will not be criminally charged by Los Angeles prosecutors after a woman charged him with assault/other stuff, so now the big question is, what do the Dodgers do with him. Will they cut him? Trade him? Play him?
Bauer hasn’t committed a crime and the Dodgers owe him $64M over the next two seasons, but the baseball commissioner, who is currently involved with trying to screw up the sport with its labor dysfunction, has the autonomy to hand out suspensions under the domestic violence policy, so Bauer could still be suspended this season.
