— Was sleeping around 9:30am last week, heard a weird sound outside; was worried the plumbing under our street was having more problems, so I went to see what was going on.
Instead, some guy was hammering a “For Sale” sign into my next door neighbor’s lawn; this was Wednesday, they were having an Open House on Saturday.
But the Open House never happened; apparently the house was sold on Friday, so I‘ll be getting new neighbors soon.
— When you fill out your brackets, don’t advance Alabama very far; Aden Holloway, their #2 scorer was thrown off the team after he was charged with first-degree possession of marijuana-not for personal use, which is a Class C felony, and failure to affix a tax stamp, also a felony.
Distractions are a huge red flag this time of year; Alabama plays tempo #4; over half the shots they take are 3’s, and Holloway was shooting 43.8% on the arc. Not good.
— Hofstra-Alabama is Friday in Tampa; Hofstra is 24-10, with no losses by more than 8 points. Crimson Tide is favored by 11.5 points.
— Saint Louis-Georgia is a matchup of teams who both like to run; Billikens play tempo #21, Georgia tempo #16. Total on this game Thursday night is a hefty 169.5.
— Nebraska is favored by 13 points in its first round game vs Troy; in its history, Cornhuskers are 0-8 in NCAA Tournament games, though they did win the Crown Tournament in Las Vegas last year.
— Seton Hall went 21-12 this year but missed out on the NCAA’s; they turned down a bid to the NIT, after winning the NIT two years ago.
— Butler coach Thad Matta retired this week, ending a 21-year career as a head coach. Matta was 502-223 in his career, making the Final Four twice with Ohio State.
— Famous birthdays, March 17th:
Cito Gaston, 82
Kurt Russell, 75
Gary Sinise, 71
Danny Ainge, 67
Sam Bowie, 65
Rob Lowe, 62
John Smiley, 61
Juan Lagares, 37
Cordarrelle Patterson, 35
Rhys Hoskins, 33
— Team USA 2, Dominican Republic 1
Gunnar Henderson, Roman Anthony homered for Team USA.
Five relievers got the last 14 outs, didn’t allow a run.
Junior Caminero homered for the Dominican Republic
— Venezuela 4, Italy 2
Venezuela scored three runs in 7th inning to advance to Tuesday’s final.
Venezuela’s bullpen got 23 outs, allowed only five baserunners, no runs.
Team USA-Venezuela play for the championship Tuesday night.
— The way the US-Dominican Republic game ended Sunday night will influence how teams deal with the ABS ball/strike challenge system. Game ended on an awful called strike 3 when the DR had men on base. Had the challenge system existed in the WBC, this called would’ve definitely been overturned.
Teams have to save one of their challenges for the late innings, just for stuff like this; if you lose a challenge early in the game, then you bite the bullet until the late innings, just so you don’t get hosed like Geraldo Perdomo did to end Sunday’s game.
— New Jersey Jets traded QB Justin Fields to Kansas City; in exchange they’re getting a 6th round pick in the 2027 draft. Star QB Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL in Week 15 last year; it is unclear whether he’ll be ready to go when training camp starts.
Fields is 16-37 as an NFL starter, playing for three teams in his five seasons. Gardner Minshew was the Chiefs’ backup QB, but he recently bolted to the Cardinals.
— Sounds like the NBA is going to expand in a couple years, with Seattle/Las Vegas the leading candidates to be where the expansion teams land. Heard a few years ago that when they put a team in Las Vegas, Lebron James will be part of the ownership group.
— Warriors 125, Wizards 117
Steve Kerr won his 600th game as a coach in his 943rd game, the 4th-fastest of any coach who has won 600+ games.
— I think the Selection Committee did an excellent job of picking the right 68 teams for the NCAA Tournament, but these are the four highest-rated teams that got left out.
Auburn, Cincinnati, Indiana, Oklahoma.
— NIT starts tonight; I would advise against wagering on first round NIT games, since it is tough to tell which teams are invested in extending their seasons. If you watch the first round games, you can get a better idea of who cares/who doesn’t.
