Blog Archives

The Portland Trailblazers have played well in spite of the absence of shooting guard Brandon Roy but they definitely can\’t wait to get him back in the lineup. Roy had arthroscopic surgery on both knees last Monday, but the three time All Star is expecting to return to action this season. Neither the team nor his doctors have put any sort of calendar on his return, however, and Roy says that he\’ll follow the opinion of his medical professionals and not rush things. Portland has won five straight and seven of the last 10 games.

Shocking news out of Salt Lake City where the longest tenured coach in US professional sports-Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz-is expected to resign effective immediately on Thursday afternoon. The team has scheduled a 2 PM Pacific press conference to address a flurry of media reports that Sloan, along with longtime assistant Phil Johnson, are calling it quits. Sloan agreed to a one year extension just a few days ago but since then confrontations with point guard Deron Williams and team president Kevin O\’Connor have apparently resulted in a change of heart.

The Washington Redskins are a mess right now. Head coach Jim Zorn has a tenuous hold on his job at best and after Sunday\’s—6 loss to Kansas City was stripped of his offensive play calling duties. Management installed newly hired \’offensive consultant\’ Sherman Lewis as the new offensive play caller and the team has set up an awkward arrangement for him to get the plays to the quarterbacks. For that reason, starting QB Jason Campbell has some serious misgivings about the efficacy of the setup.

The slumping Miami Heat had lost five straight games and desperately needed a big win. They got one on Thursday night, beating the defending NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Heat got strong performances from their \’Big Three\’ of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh to break open a close game with a 26-18 fourth quarter en route to a 94-88 victory in front of a boisterous crowd at American Airlines Arena. For the Lakers, the defeat ended an eight game winning streak and marked the second time this season they\’d lost to Miami.

Though it enjoyed solid fan support and was popular among sports betting enthusiasts, arena football fell off the map with the demise of the Arena Football League. The AFL suspended play under the weight of a poor business model in 2009 and later pulled the plug altogether. Since then, a new league has announced plans to take its place. Arena Football One (AF1 for short) will begin play in April and on Thursday secured a TV contract to broadcast games on the NFL Network in the United States. The TV deal should help the new arena football entrant to get off to a successful start as they attempt to revive the sport. Obviously, the long term goal is a higher profile outlet but this deal is a start.

After a start to the season during which they appeared to do everything write, many have dismissed BYU\’s chances to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament due to the suspension of forward Brandon Davies. Davies was booted from the team for the rest of the year due to an honor code violation, but the Cougars have kept winning. In their opening game of the Mountain West Conference tournament they did experience a tougher than expected challenge from seemingly overmatched TCU, but survived to post a 64-58 victory at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A pro fighter faces the most difficult decision of his life when contemplating the prospect of retirement. Unfortunately, too many hang on well past the time when they can compete at the highest level only serving to diminish their legacy and damage their health. MMA is no different than boxing in this respect, and following his brutal knockout loss to Melvin Manhoef at DREAM 4 Japan\’s legendary Kazushi Sakuraba appears to fit the description of a fighter who needs to call it quits but is unwilling to do so.

The University of North Carolina used a 21 yard field goal on the final play of the game to pull a big college football upset over #13 Virginia Tech on Thursday night, winning by a final score of 20-17. The Tar Heels\’ #8 ranked defense proved as tenacious as their high national status would suggest, and gave the Hokies fits throughout. North Carolina led for most of the game, but withstood a late game Virginia Tech comeback bid to take the win.

The New England Patriots looked nothing like a team that had gone undefeated at home all season, let alone one of the dominant teams of the past few years. The Baltimore Ravens took advantage of a weak New England rushing defense and some untimely mistakes by QB Tom Brady to lead 14-0 just five minutes. They would end the first quarter up 24-0 and would never be seriously threatened as they coasted to a 33-14 victory in Sunday\’s NFL Wildcard game.

When the University of Connecticut lost their last game of the period to Notre Dame-and with it a first round bye in the Big East Tournament-most supposed that the path the Huskies faced to win a championship was just too arduous. It was a tough road, demanding five wins in five days, but that\’s exactly what the UConn Huskies did-they finished the match gauntlet on Saturday with a 69-66 win over Louisville in the championship game.