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- Sightless and scoreless: The U.S. Women’s national soccer team played a surprising 0-0 tie against Iceland yesterday in the third group game of the Algarve Cup. It wasn’t televised because the stadium was not set up for television — I think it wasn’t lit well enough. A 0-0 tie doesn’t hurt the U.S. team in this tournament, they will still advance to Wednesday’s final game against France, but it is a little disturbing. The U.S. should be able to beat Iceland relatively easily — a fact that Iceland’s coach was quick to rub in our faces during his post-game news conference.
Line: Iceland? How did we not beat Iceland?
- Arsenal advances: Arsenal beat Manchester United 2-1 in yesterday’s FA Cup quarterfinal. They’ll move on to play… well, actually, we don’t know who they’ll play next because the FA cup does a random draw in each round to decide who plays who! That’s funky!
Line: The FA cup is really interesting. It’s like the radical liberal at the dinner table of tournaments.
- Younger brother beats older brother: It’s always a riot when brothers play against each other in professional sports. It brings things back to simple childhood sports when your siblings are the ones most available to play against. Marc Gasol and his Memphis Grizzlies beat Pau Gasol and the Chicago Bulls 101-91. Of course, basketball is a team game and shouldn’t be reduced to just a matchup between two people but it’s fun to do it anyway. Marc scored 23 points and grabbed four rebounds while Pau had a more balanced game — 13 points and 11 rebounds. More importantly, perhaps, when Marc was on the court, his team scored 24 more points than their opponents. While Pau was on the floor, his team scored 17 fewer points than the Grizzlies.
Line: Can you imagine what their tussles in the back seat of the family station wagon must have been like?
- Westbrook can do it all, but he can’t do it ALL: Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder has been on a roll lately. Last night, he continued that roll by scoring 43 points against the Chicago Bulls but his team still lost 108-105. Westbrook is playing Super Man while his co-star, Kevin Durant, heals from minor foot surgery. It’s fun to see how much Westbrook can do by himself but I’m sure the team would love to get Durant back.
Line: Westbrook is Super Man but I guess the Bulls had some kryptonite.
- Nothing to see here, just two good teams: It’s time to stop being surprised that the New York Islanders and Nashville Predators are good at hockey. They’re good! They just haven’t been over the past few decades, so it still feels funny to hockey fans, but no more! The Islanders beat the Predators last night in a tight, 4-3 game in Nashville.
Line: I know it’s hard to believe, but believe it. They’re good!
- Trail Blazers win but lose: The Portland Trailblazers handled their game against the Dallas Mavericks like it was nothing, winning 94-75 but the victory had an enormous cost. One of their best players, Wesley Matthews tore his Achilles tendon. That’s a big blow for a team that was expecting to make a deep run into the playoffs.
Line: Ugh. Injuries are the worst part of sports.
- U.S. Women challenged but come through: The United States Women’s National soccer team played their first game of the Algarve Cup, an international tournament in Portugal, yesterday against Norway. Despite dominating play in the first half, the United States went into halftime down 1-0. They regrouped and scored twice in the second half to beat Norway 2-1. This tournament doesn’t, in and of itself, mean that much, but it’s the best warm-up the world’s top-flight teams have before this summer’s World Cup.
Line: The team looked good, but I’d be more comfortable with a 4-1 or 5-1 win than a 2-1 score.
- Russell Westbrook is unstoppable: Playing with a clear plastic mask to protect a broken bone in his face, Oklahoma City Thunder player, Russell Westbrook, scored 49 points, 16 rebounds, and 10 assists for his fourth triple-double (double digits in three major statistics) in a row. That’s an amazing feat, extremely rare in the modern game.
Line: Westbrook is a force of nature.
- Hockey ramps up: More than any other sport, ice hockey transforms from the regular season to the playoffs. It’s almost like two entirely different games. As we approach the start of the playoffs in mid-April, the games are starting to get more and more intense. The Detroit Red Wings’ 2-1 overtime win over the New York Rangers fit that bill with tough defense and great goaltending.
Line: The Red Wings look like they’re going to make the playoffs again… did you know that will be 23 years in a row?! By far the longest streak in American men’s professional sports.
- Aston Villa escapes relegation, for now: Aston Villa is one of the handful of teams at the bottom of the English Premier League standings that’s desperately trying to scratch their way up to avoid being relegated (sent down to a lower league) at the end of the year. Their 2-1 victory over West Bromwich Albion yesterday was a big help.
Line: Relegation makes games involving the worst teams almost as exciting as those involving the best.
- Vancouver embarrassed: The Vancouver Canucks are not having the elite kind of year they’re used to but they’re not a bad hockey team either. That’s why it was surprising that they lost 6-2 against the San Jose Sharks last night. They can chalk this defeat up, in part, to a goalie who had not played at all this year before last night. Jacob Markstrom let in three goals on the first four shots against him before getting pulled out of the game for good.
Line: What a terrible way to make your season debut.
- One upset, one content in college basketball: Last night’s college basketball slate featured two games between teams in fifth place of their conference and teams in first place. Fifth place, Big East team Georgetown beat first place Butler 60-54, bolstering their case to make the NCAA tournament. Fifth place Big Twelve team, West Virginia, was on their way to doing the same thing in a convincing way against Kansas. Up 14 points at half-time, West Virginia still somehow managed to let Kansas catch up and eventually beat them in overtime. I guess “let” is the wrong verb. Kansas is really good at basketball.
Line: Butler, Georgetown, and Kansas, West Virginia were a good sneak preview of how great March Madness is going to be this year. I can’t wait!
- LeBron James is (still) the best player in the NBA: The much ballyhood matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers turned into a showcase for LeBron James to remind us all how much better he is at basketball than everyone else when he wants to be. James scored 42 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists as his team beat the league leading Warriors with relative ease, 110-99.
Line: There’s a reason people call LeBron the King.
- When only needing a tie goes wrong: Liverpool went into their match against Besiktas yesterday knowing that it only needed a draw to advance to the next round of the Europa League. So, it played for the tie, keeping possession of the ball and being pretty conservative all around. When Besiktas scored in the second half, Liverpool could never quite turn the attack mode back on and they eventually lost in a penalty kick shootout.
Line: A more positive (soccer term for aggressive) approach might have been better for Liverpool and for those of us who watched the game.
- A wild Wild win: The Minnesota Wild went into Nashville and beat the first place Predators 4-2. This win puts the Wild just inside the playoffs. If they were to start today, the Wild would be the last team to qualify. They’ll need to keep their winning ways up for another month or so.
Line: Nino Niederreiter (who scored two goals) sounds like the main character of a children’s book or a fun video game.
- Brutal end for Arsenal: Arsenal felt like they had clawed their way back into contention in their game against Monaco when they scored a goal in the 91st minute to bring the score from 2-0 to 2-1. Then, even later into stoppage time, they made a silly blunder on defense and gave that goal right back. Monaco won 3-1 which will make it virtually impossible for Arsenal to advance to the next round of the Champions League.
Line: You work so hard to get that goal back and then you give it right back. Brutal.
- Rivalry indeed: NBC Network features one “rivalry” game each week on Wednesday nights. These “rivalries” are often pretty arbitrary and somewhat imaginary. Last night’s game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals, however, lived up to its billing. There were seven goals and 34 penalty minutes! The Penguins came out on top, 4-3.
Line: That almost looked like a playoff game. I can’t wait for playoff hockey.
- Fireworks for the Rockets: The Houston Rockets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 110-105 last night thanks to a big performance off the bench from Corey Brewer. He scored his 20 points while wearing (as did all the Rockets) jerseys celebrating the Chinese New Year. The Rockets, thanks to the fact that the most famous Chinese basketball player ever, Yao Ming, used to play for their team, have enjoyed enormous popularity in China and clearly want to continue in that lucrative vein. Plus, they look really cool. I bet they’ll sell a lot of those jerseys in the United States too.
Line: I know it’s just a coincidence but there’s something nice about the most popular NBA team in China being called the Rockets since fireworks are a big part of the Chinese New Year celebration.
- Home teams win the first leg 2-1: That was the result of both the Champions League games yesterday. Barcelona beat Manchester City 2-1 and Juventus beat Borussia Dortmund by the same score. What that means is that in the second half of the two game series, all Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund have to do to advance is win 1-0. That way the series will be even at 2 goals apiece but Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund would have scored one goal away from their home arena and their opposition would not have.
Line: Losing 2-1 away from home in the first of a two game series is not the worst thing in the world.
- The Blues have the blues: The St. Louis Blues lost their game against the Montreal Canadiens last night by an uncomfortably wide margin, 5-2. They’ve only won four of their last nine games and are starting to slide down in the standings. The Canadiens, on the other hand, are now in first place in the Eastern Conference.
Line: There’s still time to turn it around but I wonder if the Blues peaked too early this year.
- Wizards in trouble: Where are the elves? Where are the hobbits? The Wizards are in dire need of some help after dropping their sixth game in the last eight to the Golden State Warriors last night. The score was 114-107, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t try to outscore the Warriors. Of course, the Warriors are so good at offense, it’s hard to force them into a slower-paced, lower scoring game that you might have a chance to win.
Line: Time for the Wizards to fire their coach?
- It’s almost March: And we all know what that means… it’s time for the Wisconsin men’s basketball team to start disappointing their fans! Last night they came out very slow in their game against Maryland and were down by 11 points at halftime. The Wisconsin Badgers chewed their way back into the game in the second half but were only able to outscore Maryland by five points in the second half — not enough to catch up — and they ended up losing 59-53.
Line: Remind me not to pick Wisconsin to go far in my March Madness bracket this year.
- Ducks win the battle of the birds: If you look in the newspaper today (or more likely the internet) you’ll see that the Anaheim Ducks beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 last night. If you look more closely, you’ll see that the game went to a shootout and in the shootout the Ducks scored two goals while the Red Wings scored only one. When two teams are tied going into a shootout, the team with more goals in the shootout gets one goal added to their total for the game. It’s not particularly accurate but it’s the easiest way to quickly show who won.
Line: There were only two games on the NHL schedule last night. Luckily one of them was good!
- NBA TV chose two close games to show: Last night NBA TV had a relatively rare double-header of games. I noted in my sports forecast that because NBA TV is a smaller brand than TNT or ESPN, the channels that usually televise NBA games nationally, they seem to be free to pick teams from smaller or less traditional markets. Lucky for them, both games they chose last night were decided by three points. The New Orleans Pelicans beat the Toronto Raptors 100-97 and the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Los Angeles Clippers 90-87.
Line: Pelicans, Grizzlies, Clippers, Raptors — who the heck names these teams??!
- Rankings hold true in Women’s College Basketball: There were two big-time matchups of top ten teams last night in women’s college basketball. In both games, the team with the better ranking beat the team with the worse ranking. Fourth ranked Notre Dame had little trouble with eighth ranked Louisville, beating them by 16 points. The game between second ranged South Carolina and sixth ranked Tennessee was a little closer — 71-66 — but the team that was expected to win, still won.
Line: Upsets are more rare in the women’s game but neither of these matchups really had much of an underdog.
- Kansas State surprises Kansas: I was going to write “shocks” but settled for “surprises” because in an in-state rivalry like the one Kansas has with Kansas State, it’s not actually incredibly unexpected for the underdog to win. Rivalry games often seem like they are governed by a different set of rules than other games. Emotion plays a bigger role vis-a-vis skill than in in non-rivalry games and sometimes that’s enough to upset the normal order of things. After Kansas State beat Kansas 70-63, the crowd stormed the court and there were some altercations between Kansas State fans and Kansas players and coaches.
Line: I love watching underdogs win and seeing a few thousand happy students run onto the court is special, but I wish there was a way to get the visiting team off the floor before it happened.
- NBA Trade Madness: The NBA trade deadline was yesterday at 3 p.m. Proving the rule that if you leave it to the last minute, it only takes a minute, something like a dozen trades involving 25-30 players and draft picks happened in the hour or two before the deadline. Lots of NBA teams were broken up and reformed. The biggest move was Phoenix’s Goran Dragic going to the Miami Heat.
Line: And people thought this was going to be a quiet trade deadline… nope!
- Thunder thunder in first game after All-Star break: The Oklahoma City Thunder know what’s expected of them — to make the playoffs — and what they need to do to get there — win two thirds of their remaining games. They started of the last third of their season with a bang, dominating the Dallas Mavericks 104-89.
Line: It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the Thunder’s year, but don’t tell that to them, they’re killing themselves to make it happen.
- Frustration growing in Pittsburgh: The Pittsburgh Penguins lost 2-1 to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blue Jackets scored the winning goal late in the third period while the Penguins were on a power play. Giving up a short handed goal is always frustrating, giving up a game-winning short handed goal near the end of the game is almost unforgivable. Also of note was a fight that Penguins star, Sidney Crosby got into in the second period with Blue Jacket pest, Brandon Dubinsky. Good for Dubinsky for annoying Crosby to the point that he would risk his talented hands and oft-concussed head just to exchange punches.
Line: Not very smart for Crosby to get into a fight.
- A rivalry renewed: Duke and North Carolina have one of the best rivalries in all of men’s college basketball. That doesn’t mean that games between those teams are always good but it does mean that when they are good, they are even more exciting than a good game between any other teams. Last night’s game wasn’t just good, it was great. Duke ended up winning 92-90 in overtime. North Carolina will surely wake up this morning feeling like they blew the game but from my perspective, Duke just grabbed it from them.
Line: College basketball doesn’t get any better than that!
- The calm before the storm: The NBA trade deadline is today and although there were lots of rumors yesterday, there were no deals to speak of.
Line: This year’s trade deadline might be much ado about nothing.
- Better than last year but still not good enough for Schalke: The German soccer club, Schalke 04 was embarrassed 6-1 last year by Real Madrid in the first leg of a Champions League playoff. They had their chance at revenge yesterday but were only able to come up with a 2-0 loss. It likely won’t be good enough, because it’s hard to imagine Real Madrid losing by more than two goals at home in a couple weeks when the two teams play again.
Line: Imagine waiting all year for revenge and coming up short. Ouch!
- Beware of Kings in low seeds: The Los Angeles Kings seem to make a habit of sneaking into the playoffs as one of the last seeds and then winning the Stanley Cup. They’re on the outside of the playoffs now but they beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-1 last night. That makes six wins in a row and there’s still plenty of time for the Kings to make the playoffs. They’ll be dangerous if they get in.
Line: You’d almost rather play the Kings as an underdog than an overdog. They always seem to upset people in the playoffs.
