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Saturday’s six-pack
— Titans covered twice in last 10 games as a home favorite.
— Seahawks are 13-6 vs spread in their last 19 games.
— Carolina is 4-10-1 vs spread in their last 15 games.
— Lions are 6-1-1 in last 8 games as an NFC North home favorite.
— Surprising fact: the Prime Minister of Japan went to college at USC.
— Hartford 65, Boston College 63— BC is in same league as Duke, UNC, Louisville and they’ve already lost to Nicholls St and Hartford. Yikes.
Saturday’s List of 13: Random thoughts on a cold day
Catching up on some stuff from during the week…….
13) First of all, a football-related weather forecast; supposed to snow heavily in Green Bay all day Sunday; 6-8 inches in all. Could be Packers’ snowiest home game since 1985, so if you’re wagering or have fantasy players in that game, act accordingly.
12) Houston Rockets’ Sam Dekker is a good example of a guy working his butt off to improve his body and therefore his game, making himself a serviceable NBA player. Dekker played in only three games LY, hurt his back; he is averaging 16+ minutes a game this year.
11) College football coaching moves: Willie Taggart goes from South Florida to Oregon, Purdue hires Western Kentucky coach Jeff Brohm and Houston promotes OC Major Applewhite to replace the departed Tom Herman.
10) Taggart was making $1.8M at South Florida, will make $3.2M now. Brohm was making $800K at WKU, will make $3.3M now- interesting. Good luck competing against Harbaugh and Urban Meyer, by the way.
Brohm’s first game at Purdue will be against his old boss Bobby Petrino and Louisville.
9) Gonzaga 98, Washington 71— If you’re coaching in the Pac-12 and one of your better players transfers to Gonzaga, what does it say about your program? Spokane is way out of the way, dangerously close to Idaho, but they win a lot and kids like to win.
What Gonzaga did to Washington in this game was flat embarrassing— Lorenzo Romar’s team has fallen into the trap of recruiting one-and-done kids, meaning his team is always very young but with very little chance to develop team chemistry, since their better guys have at least one eye on the NBA already.
8) Tex-Arlington 66, Saint Mary’s 51— We like Arlington, but were still surprised that this game wasn’t close at all. UTA was quicker all over the court and dominated the game. In no way did the Gaels look like a top 15 team.
7) Iowa 78, Iowa State 64— People get impatient with me for not picking games in pre-conference play anymore, and I point to games like this, scores that make zero sense. Iowa isn’t a good team; Cyclones are one of the most experienced teams in America and they got waxed in this game, against an in-state rival. Go figure.
6) If Chiefs’ speedster Tyreek Hill played for the Giants, Showtime would’ve already done one (or more) movies about him and he’d have 6-7 commercials on TV every day. He’s very good and still underrated.
5) Louisiana Tech’s football team is 8-5; in only two of their 13 games was the Las Vegas pointspread single digits- Tech was favored by 10+ points eight times, an underdog of 10+ three times. That is very unusual.
4) ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy is a great basketball analyst; he was explaining Friday night how Houston’s Clint Capela is actually an upgrade over Dwight Howard for the Rockets, because it allows Houston to easily define what they want to do on offense (pick/roll). As soon as he explained it, Rockets scored an easy basket, with Capela getting the layup.
3) CF Dexter Fowler signed with St Louis, the Cubs’ arch-rival; move allows Matt Carpenter to drop down into the middle of the Cardinals’ lineup.
2) I really like Florida State’s Darvin Cook as a running back; think he’ll be an excellent NFL player. Not sure why he’s not getting more of a push for postseason awards but he’ll get paid next year and for years to come.
1— Long time ago, I put myself thru college as a student manager of the school’s basketball team; it was mostly great fun, learned a lot plus our team was really good so that helped too.
For a year, our JV basketball coach shared an office with the school’s swimming coach. One day, a kid on the JV hoop team calls in to say he can’t come to practice that day- the swimming coach takes the call, and asks the kid for his number, so the JV coach can call him back.
“Coach already knows my number; I’m number 45.” And he hangs up.
— Titans covered twice in last 10 games as a home favorite.
— Seahawks are 13-6 vs spread in their last 19 games.
— Carolina is 4-10-1 vs spread in their last 15 games.
— Lions are 6-1-1 in last 8 games as an NFC North home favorite.
— Surprising fact: the Prime Minister of Japan went to college at USC.
— Hartford 65, Boston College 63— BC is in same league as Duke, UNC, Louisville and they’ve already lost to Nicholls St and Hartford. Yikes.
Saturday’s List of 13: Random thoughts on a cold day
Catching up on some stuff from during the week…….
13) First of all, a football-related weather forecast; supposed to snow heavily in Green Bay all day Sunday; 6-8 inches in all. Could be Packers’ snowiest home game since 1985, so if you’re wagering or have fantasy players in that game, act accordingly.
12) Houston Rockets’ Sam Dekker is a good example of a guy working his butt off to improve his body and therefore his game, making himself a serviceable NBA player. Dekker played in only three games LY, hurt his back; he is averaging 16+ minutes a game this year.
11) College football coaching moves: Willie Taggart goes from South Florida to Oregon, Purdue hires Western Kentucky coach Jeff Brohm and Houston promotes OC Major Applewhite to replace the departed Tom Herman.
10) Taggart was making $1.8M at South Florida, will make $3.2M now. Brohm was making $800K at WKU, will make $3.3M now- interesting. Good luck competing against Harbaugh and Urban Meyer, by the way.
Brohm’s first game at Purdue will be against his old boss Bobby Petrino and Louisville.
9) Gonzaga 98, Washington 71— If you’re coaching in the Pac-12 and one of your better players transfers to Gonzaga, what does it say about your program? Spokane is way out of the way, dangerously close to Idaho, but they win a lot and kids like to win.
What Gonzaga did to Washington in this game was flat embarrassing— Lorenzo Romar’s team has fallen into the trap of recruiting one-and-done kids, meaning his team is always very young but with very little chance to develop team chemistry, since their better guys have at least one eye on the NBA already.
8) Tex-Arlington 66, Saint Mary’s 51— We like Arlington, but were still surprised that this game wasn’t close at all. UTA was quicker all over the court and dominated the game. In no way did the Gaels look like a top 15 team.
7) Iowa 78, Iowa State 64— People get impatient with me for not picking games in pre-conference play anymore, and I point to games like this, scores that make zero sense. Iowa isn’t a good team; Cyclones are one of the most experienced teams in America and they got waxed in this game, against an in-state rival. Go figure.
6) If Chiefs’ speedster Tyreek Hill played for the Giants, Showtime would’ve already done one (or more) movies about him and he’d have 6-7 commercials on TV every day. He’s very good and still underrated.
5) Louisiana Tech’s football team is 8-5; in only two of their 13 games was the Las Vegas pointspread single digits- Tech was favored by 10+ points eight times, an underdog of 10+ three times. That is very unusual.
4) ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy is a great basketball analyst; he was explaining Friday night how Houston’s Clint Capela is actually an upgrade over Dwight Howard for the Rockets, because it allows Houston to easily define what they want to do on offense (pick/roll). As soon as he explained it, Rockets scored an easy basket, with Capela getting the layup.
3) CF Dexter Fowler signed with St Louis, the Cubs’ arch-rival; move allows Matt Carpenter to drop down into the middle of the Cardinals’ lineup.
2) I really like Florida State’s Darvin Cook as a running back; think he’ll be an excellent NFL player. Not sure why he’s not getting more of a push for postseason awards but he’ll get paid next year and for years to come.
1— Long time ago, I put myself thru college as a student manager of the school’s basketball team; it was mostly great fun, learned a lot plus our team was really good so that helped too.
For a year, our JV basketball coach shared an office with the school’s swimming coach. One day, a kid on the JV hoop team calls in to say he can’t come to practice that day- the swimming coach takes the call, and asks the kid for his number, so the JV coach can call him back.
“Coach already knows my number; I’m number 45.” And he hangs up.
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