Sunday Trends and Indexes 02/17

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Six-pack for Sunday

Our top six fantasy second basemen........

6) Sanchez, Pitt-- .344/.304 last two years with 166 RBI; had his shoulder cleaned out last fall, could actually improve.

5) Uggla, Fla-- 59 taters last two years, with 218 runs scored but slipped from .292 to .245. Trading Cabrera hurts.

4) Roberts, Balt-- Rumors have him getting traded to Cubs, but has 86 steals last two years, while hitting .286/.290.

3) Cano, NYY-- .342/.306 last two years with 175 RBI, 34 HR but only nine steals. Hit 41 doubles each of last two years.

2) Phillips, Cin-- 30 HR, 94 RBI LY; as long as he plays his home games in Cincinnati, he'll remain a big producer.

1) Utley, Phil-- In last two years, has 235 runs, 205 RBI, 88 doubles and 54 homers. And he missed time LY (hand).

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Sunday's List of 13: Wrapping a college hoop Saturday

13) College hoop seemed to revolve around Indiana Saturday, with the Kelvin Sampson situation the biggest mess- it seems doubtful Sampson will finish the season, or even next week.

12) Of course, Indiana's 32-0 team in '76 is last unbeaten team; for long time last night, looked like former Indiana coach Mike Davis's UAB team was going to beat Memphis, this season's last unbeaten team, but Tigers pulled out a 79-78 win, making next Saturday's game vs Tennessee a spotlight-type game.

11) Meanwhile, Pat Knight slipped to 1-3 as head coach after Godbolt kid from Oklahoma stuck a 30-footer from straight on with less than a second left, giving Oklahoma a 66-64 win in Lubbock, handing Tech its first Big 12 home loss.

10) Syracuse played with its hair on fire in first half Saturday; it was 30-12 before Georgetown woke up. More than half of ESPN's college hoop play-by-play guys went to Syracuse, so we'll hear a lot about their at-large chances in coming weeks.

9) Oregon State started game behind 1-0, as they screwed up their scorebook, of all things, before losing to Washington at home by 97-59 score. Beavers are a mess- their next coach is going to have a very difficult rebuilding job.

8) Vanderbilt had hell of a week, beating Kentucky/Florida at home; Commodores' big men are lumbering types, but guys on perimeter are pretty good and they play fast. Fun team to watch-- interesting team to observe in March.

7) Not only does Drake have its first winning season in MVC since 1986, they won first league title since '71-- they take lot of 3's, like to run, but have a Steve Nash-type PG, a kid that averaged 4 ppg in high school. Adam Emmenecker is just a tremendous leader, you can see that watching him on TV.

6) Michael Beasley had his second 40-15 game of season, as Kansas State avenged earlier loss to Missouri with a 100-63 waxing of the Tigers in the Little Apple.

5) Oklahoma State ended 19-game road losing streak with big upset at Texas A&M. Interesting to see if Sean Sutton keeps his job, with Coboys likely to miss NCAAs again.

4) BYU crushed UNLV 74-48, avenging earlier loss on strip to Rebels- Cougars have now won 44 home games in a row.

3) Rick Barnes is 22-0 against Baylor, but now, beating Bears isn't easy-- Baylor has bunch of terrific guards who shoot it from all over, but they're not so good inside. At 17-7, they're probably on outside looking in, as far as NCAAs go.

2) Cornell moved to 8-0 in Ivy League, so with only two road games left, it looks like Big Red will be going to NCAAs for first time in twenty years. One of their best players is Randy Wittman's son-- the former Indiana star now coaches in the NBA, with the Timberwolves.

1) Ultimate irony in the Indiana situation, I guess, is how Eric Gordon reneged on his commitment to Illinois so he could go to Indiana and play for Sampson. Gordon was probably going to be at Indiana for just this season anyway, but now it looks like Sampson will be leaving Bloomington before he does.

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