Armadillo: Friday's six-pack
-- Michigan State 75, Iowa 61-- Spartans were down 11 at the half.
-- SMU 73, Memphis 59-- Home side won eight of last nine series games.
-- UL-Lafayette 84, Georgia State 80-- Four Sun Belt games between these teams have all been decided by 4 or less points.
-- Louisiana Tech 58, UTEP 45-- Miners were held to 12 second half points.
-- UCLA 86, Stanford 81, 2OT-- Cardinal lost last ten visits to Westwood; they lost this game despite going 15-31 behind the arc.
-- Pepperdine 67, BYU 61-- Waves won as 15-point road underdogs
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Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Random stuff with weekend here.......
13) John Smoltz is first Hall of Fame pitcher who had Tommy John surgery, which reminds me that Dr Frank Jobe and Dr James Andrews should be in the Hall of Fame as contributors; not many people helped baseball more than those two surgeons.
12) Former NBA great Rick Barry will be 71 in two months; he was really a great player. The youngest of his five sons is named Canyon and is a sophomore guard at Charleston-- he had 21 against Hofstra last night. Just like his dad, young Barry takes his free throws underhanded-- he is 17-23 (73.9%) so far this season.
Rick Barry was a career 89.3% shooter from the foul line, scoring 25,279 points while averaging 24.8 ppg as a pro. In my mind, he was a very underrated player.
11) DePaul Blue Demons are 3-0 in the Big East, which doesn't sound like that much, until you realize that over last six seasons, they were 10-98. 10 and freakin' 98.
10) I walk into my living room Wednesday night; the Utah-Colorado game is on TV and Bill Walton is talking about dinosaur fossils; its always great fun listening to him doing Pac-12 games with Dave Pasch. Last night night they had Stanford-UCLA, a double OT game so we got ten extra minutes of Waltoin, never a bad thing.
9) So the Cavaliers traded Dion Waiters to Oklahoma City; Waiters asked to wear #13 for the Thunder (James Harden's old number) but for whatever reason, Thunder turned his request down, so he'll wear #23. Thats just a little strange- you'd think they want to make a new player feel comfortable, but not in today's micro-managed world.
8) Michigan State is 1-5 this year in games decided by 10 or less points; they were down 11 at the half in Iowa City last night, stormed back to win by 14, after Izzo got a technical just before halftime.
Spartans are 6-1 against Fran McCaffery, who once wouldn't let his Siena team shake hands with Manhattan after a game because the Jaspers "played too physically." Izzo teams occasionally practice in shoulder pads. Big 14 plays big boy basketball.
7) Five of eight QBs starting in the NFL playoffs this weekend have already won a Super Bowl and Cam Newton won a college champoionship.
6) Look beyond the records: Georgia Tech is 0-2 in the ACC, but lost in double OT at Notre Dame, lost by a point to Syracuse. Tech is an improved team.
Syracuse is 2-0 in the ACC, with road wins by 2 at Virginia Tech, at Georgia Tech by a point. Orangemen are shaky and thin, not as strong as usual- they're pretty good, but not a top 25 team or a lock for the NCAA tournament.
5) ESPN has an incredible amount of coverage of college football during the day this week; coaches are scrambling for precious TV air time, since this is also recruiting season, with Signing Day less than four weeks away.
Brian Kelly, James Franklin, Art Briles all made appearances during the short time I was watching Thursday afternoon. Jim Harbaugh will be on during the national title game on ESPNU's simulcast Monday night. It is recruiting season, people.
4) Lot of stuff on ESPN2 on weekdays suggests that they might as well be airing WWE matches; the trash talking that goes on is childish and embarrassing. Probably sound old complaining about this, but you don't learn anything listening to the crap program that Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless pollute every day-- they just spout trash at each other, then laugh all the way to the bank. It is worthless garbage.
3) I have lot of channels on DirecTV; one of the better ones is #693, Prime Ticket from Los Angeles, which shows lot of Big West/WCC games late at night. Articles in this space tend to be a little better if I'm being entertained while I'm writing.
In old UNLV/Tark days, lot of Big West games were on TV, but they've disappeared off of TV recently, except for Prime Ticket, so we're thankful to them for that.
2) Thursday would've been Elvis Presley's 80th birthday; happy birthday to the King!!! Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas still has one of his old cars in their lobby; I was looking at it in November. An old Lincoln Mark IV; must be worth a fortune now.
1) Six weeks before spring training starts and James Shields/Max Scherzer are still free agents; these two pitchers are game-changers for whomever signs them. I am told pitching is the most important part of baseball; these two guys are going to get some serious money, but from which teams?
Additional warm weather note: the PGA Tour starts today!!!
