Ali Farokhmanesh was 0 for 7 in the second half, but with his Panthers clinging to a one-point lead with under 0:40 to play, he caught the ball on the wing against the Kansas press, spotted up and drained the game-deciding three-pointer. A half-minute later, he buried two free throws to seal the game.
Northern Iowa 69, Kansas 67.
My bracket is toast!
Update: Here’s a look at Farokhmanesh’s big shot…
After a wild and wacky opening day, things settled down quite a bit on Friday, with the higher seeds winning 13 of 16 games. The only upsets — #10-seeded Georgia Tech and Missouri, and #12-seed Cornell — didn’t seem like upsets at all. Georgia Tech and MIZZOU were both “live dogs,” while that Temple/Cornell matchup was hyped as an upset special as soon as the bracket was announced. If the Big Red hadn’t won, it would have been a disappointment (like the Siena Saints).
Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin are both 25-7 in picking games by all margins, but Pomeroy is faring better with the big favorites, going 15-2 over the first two days in games where the favorite has a 70%+ chance of winning. Sagarin is just 16-5 in games where one team has a 3+ point advantage. He’s actually doing better overall with games in the 0 to 3-point range (9-2).
Bracket-wise, it was a bloody first two days, but I think I made it through all right. Fifteen of my Sweet 16 teams are still alive (G-Town the only goner) and I still have all of my Elite 8 teams. I’m sure there are more than a few people who had Temple, Vanderbilt, Marquette and Notre Dame winning two games. It’s nice to win a lot of first round matchups, but it won’t matter much if you lose a Final Four team or two in the first couple of days. Still, it hurts to go 9-11 in games seeded 5/12 through 8/9. I picked a lot of upsets — SDSU, Minnesota, Siena, Florida St. — and didn’t pick the ones that came in — Old Dominion, Washington, Cornell, Ohio or Northern Iowa. But I’m still alive, and that’s all that matters.
My first three bets went 2-1, with St. Mary’s and Georgia Tech winning and Utah St. getting worked over pretty well by Texas A&M. I like St. Mary’s +4.5 and Ohio +8.5 today.
Today’s action starts with three potential upsets — Nova/SMC, Butler/Murray St. and Tennessee/Ohio — but I’m also looking forward to seeing if BYU can hang with Kansas State. If the Cougars can pull the upset, they’ll be heading back to Salt Lake City to potentially play two games 45 minutes from campus.
The Cardinals knew what they had to do in order to retain linebacker Karlos Dansby at the start of free agency. Whichever team came hardest with the most cash was the one that would acquire Dansby’s services for the next however many seasons.
Yet when it came time to pony up, the Cards couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) match the five-year, $43 million contract that the Dolphins were offering. Thus the reason Dansby will be playing in South Beach next year with the Dolphins.
With Dansby gone, Arizona had to fill the void that was created at linebacker. So they recently signed aging loudmouth Joey Porter to a three-year, $17.5 million contract, with a max value of $24.5 million. If he reaches the max value of the contract, Porter will make just over $8 million a year from the Cardinals. Considering they could have had Dansby (a younger, more versatile and more productive linebacker) for $8.6 million a year, it’s a little bothersome that Arizona didn’t make a harder pitch to the 28-year-old.
Of course, Dansby will get $22 million in guaranteed money and the only way Porter gets $24.5 million is through incentives. That’s a big difference between the two contracts. Arizona could cut Porter in a year and save money on the back end, while Miami is stuck paying $22 million regardless of whether or not Dansby turns out to be a bust.
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cardinals fans are a little peeved that their team just overpaid for Porter and couldn’t convince Dansby to stay. I realize Dansby may have had his hopes set on leaving Arizona no matter what, but money appeared to be the root of his motivation to sign and even though the Cardinals knew that, they still couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) pony up.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Hank Gola of the New York Daily News writes that Augusta National is being a tad hypocritical when it comes to Tiger Woods and allowing him to play at this year’s Masters.
As a past Masters champion and honorary Augusta member, Woods can play each April until his golf game grows cobwebs. Unlike with the PGA Tour, there is no precedent for the Masters to rescind an invite of any participant because of behavior off the course and the tournament does not have a “conduct unbecoming” clause.
In reality, however, Augusta National can do anything it wants to do with the Masters and while we’re not suggesting it pull the welcome mat out from under Woods, the club does look hypocritical.
After all, these are the same high-minded people who banned Gary McCord from the CBS broadcast booth because he dared to suggest the slick greens were “bikini-waxed.” By comparison, Woods’ alleged texts make McCord’s wisecrack suitable for a kindergarten class. They were, in short, pornographic.
McCord was a quasi-representative of the tournament and whatever Woods sent on his cell phone was meant to stay private. There is a difference there, but the hypocrisy remains.
I’m a little confused by the direction Gola took to get his point across. In the article, he specifically mentions porn star Josyln James’ decision to recently post alleged X-rated text messages between her and Woods. Then, Gola insinuates that Augusta National should ban Tiger the same way they did McCord because of said text messages.
But Gola could have cited the entire sex scandal to get his point across that Augusta National is being a tad hypocritical here. Why just mention the text messages when they’re just a small part of everything that happened? It’s like Gola just wanted to share the details of the text messages, had an axe to grind about Augusta National and just decided to combine the two things into one semi-meaningless article.
But I digress. I get Gola’s overall point but whether it’s fair or not, Tiger holds more clout than McCord when it comes to marketing the Masters to viewers. So of course Augusta National is going to allow Woods to play and not worry about being hypocritical when it comes to their ban on McCord. Millions of people don’t tune in to the Masters to listen to what McCord has to say. They mainly watch to see how Woods performs – whether he’s in the midst of scandal or not. That’s just the reality of the situation.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
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