#6 UNC opened up with a 48-24 halftime lead en route to beating #3 Duke to claim the ACC title on Saturday night. Duke shot an awful 41.3% from the field while UNC shot nearly 55%. All of the Tar Heel’s starters finished with double digits in points. Tyler Zeller dropped 19 and grabbed 10 boards while John Henson contributed 13 points, 10 rebounds. Sophomore Kendall Marshall scored a game-high 20 points while adding 10 assists. The Tar Heels out-rebounded the Blue Devils 42-22.
Other Games #2 Syracuse 58 #18 Lousiville 49 #4 Kansas 73 Texas 63 #7 Marquette 83 #12 Georgetown 69
#10 Baylor 72 Iowa State 80
#1 Kentucky easily handled #13 Florida to finish 16-0 in the Southeastern Conference. They finished at 30-1 during the regular season. Anthony Davis had an incredible night shooting (9-13) for 22 points while grabbing 12 boards and 6 blocks. Terrence Jones also played well for the Wildcats with 19 points. Florida shot a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line but only shot 38.2% from the field.
#11 Ohio State handed #5 Michigan State their second loss in the last 5 days with a 72-70 victory. Guard William Buford scored 25 points while Jarrod Sullinger scored 14 points and grabbed 10 boards. Michigan State star Draymond Green scored 19 points and grabbed 12 boards of his own.
Jermaine O’Neal injured his wrist in the game against the Mavericks and it was initially ruled as a sprained left wrist. He met with a hand specialist in Boston and the injury was ruled much more serious than expected. Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe reported that O’Neal has three options.
1.) Take a cortisone shot
2.) Minor wrist surgery
3.) Season-ending wrist surgery
O’Neal is currently deciding on which situation to choose. It should be noted that Jermaine has struggled with wrist injuries in the past.
Going forward, it looks like Garnett will get moved to center and it looks like Brandon Bass will start at power forward. Chris Wilcox and Jujuan Johnson will get more run off the bench as the Celtics will probably run more in transition.
If the Celtics end up losing Jermaine for the season, they will be losing what has been their best post defender this season. Jermaine O’Neal has been rated by synergy as one of the top-ten defensive players in the NBA this season. He has a unique ability to be able to block shots and take charges. But at this point in his career Jermaine is extremely weak offensively. He ranks 49th out of all centers offensively this season even 9 spots behind the steamer, Greg Stiemsma.
Hopefully Jermaine comes back this season and helps the Celtics. I was hoping that they would be able to use his contract to trade for some future assets or players (Michael Beasley’s contract matches up nicely). But I am trying to not to get too greedy.
The Bruins got a huge 4-3 OT victory vs. a solid New Jersey Devils team at the garden last night. David Krejci has three of the four Bruins goals last night after only two goals in his previous thirteen games. The sudden spark might have been a result of a Julien lineup switch that returned Krejci back to his center position and paired with Tyler Seguin. I’d say that worked out well. Krejci comes up with a hat trick on five shots and Seguin buried the other goal with a snipe and also added an assist. If this new pairing can generate some much-needed offense for the Bruins it will be huge as the team gets ready for the stretch run.
Krejci has had an up and down, boom or bust type of year. He has been working hard, but sometimes he just doesn’t play with the confidence that should play with and it affects his performance on the ice. When plays with swag, he makes dazzling passes and his linemates always benefit from that. Krejci does seem to come up big in important moments (like the playoffs) so maybe now that we are starting to approach the end of season he will improve his consistency, which is going to help Seguin’s production (assuming they stay together) and help the Bruin’s skill players put more crooked numbers on the scoreboard.
In case you didn’t already hear, this weekend is going to be huge for college basketball. It is coming down to the wire, with only 9 days left until selection Sunday. Some teams need a nice boost while others look to hold on to their number 1 seeds while playing other ranked teams.
*Click on any blue links below to see a small preview about their team!
#18 Louisville vs. #2 SyracusePick: Syracuse
#6 North Carolina vs. #3 DukePick: UNC (I hope they both lose) #12 Georgetown vs. #7 Marquette Pick: Georgetown #4 Kansasvs. Texas Pick: Kansas #10 Baylor vs. Iowa State Pick: Baylor (gonna be close)
Sunday
#1 Kentuckyvs. #13 Florida Pick: Kentucky #11 Ohio State vs. #5 Michigan StatePick: Michigan St
Now I usually don’t believe that the number 1 seed is always the best team, but in this case it’s hard to against Kentucky. Especially with the way they went off against Georgia during their senior night on Thursday. I really feel like they are the toughest team in the league and should run right over Florida.
UNC and Duke is going to be the game of the year. After their last game, which was like an NBA game, you can expect the very best from both teams.
Today, I will conclude my rankings of all the players in each teams’ starting batting lineups. This will be the easiest ranking for me to do in terms of evaluations, considering it will be solely based from an offensive production standpoint, rather than offense and defensive skills like the other positions. The Red Sox DH position was one of the question marks over the offseason. After David Ortiz’s contract was up at the end of the 2011 season, Big Papi made several remarks about how he’d like to join the Yankees to leave all the drama in Boston. During the offseason, he was constantly working with the Red Sox for a new contract and finally settled on a 1-year contract for $14.58 million to avoid arbitration. I’ll be the first to say the Sox paid too much for the greedy Ortiz here, who wanted $16.5 million, a significant bump up from the $12.5 he received in 2011. Despite paying too much, the Red Sox were basically forced into needing the 36 year old Ortiz in their lineup because they wouldn’t have been able to find anything close to a replacement in the free agent market this year.
Just as a quick update on Spring Training, Varitek is set to retire at 5:30 today and the Sox are getting prepared for their first “game” vs Northeastern at 2:35 in Fort Myers on Saturday. This game will be the first leg of a double header, with Boston College playing the night cap.
Anyways, here are the rankings:
(Once again, for previous positional rankings click here: C–1B–2B–3B–SS–LF–CF–RF)
1. David Ortiz, Red Sox
2. Raul Ibanez, Yankees
3. Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays
4. Luke Scott, Rays
5. Wilson Betemit, Orioles
Ortiz has surprised many fans in Red Sox Nation that were ready to kick him out of town in 2009. After struggling the two years after the Sox second championship in four years, Big Papi has revitalized his career. He has hit 61 Home Runs with 198 RBI’s in the last two years combined. The biggest turnaround was his .309 AVG last year. It looked like Papi had no idea how to hit against the shift, but last year was a great sign for him. Adrian Gonzalez was said to give Ortiz a lot of confidence in hitting the ball with power to the opposite field, instead of trying to pull it to the right field or finnessing it against the shift, as Ortiz had tried in years prior. I’m predicting another solid year from Papi, but a little bit of dropoff considering his age. I’m thinking a .285/27 HR/ 95 RBI line from Ortiz in possibly his last year in a Red Sox uniform.
Next up is the massive upgrade from the Yankees. Jorge Posada was a great catcher throughout his career for the Yankees, but they were hurting from the DH spot last year. When the Yankees dumped AJ Burnett’s salary a month ago, they were able to sign Raul Ibanez to be their Designated Hitter and backup outfielder. Although Ibanez at 39 years old is nearing the end of his career, he is a very big upgrade from Eduardo Nunez, the Yankees other apparent option for the DH spot. Assuming Ibanez can get his AVG back up to career norms (.270-.280) from last year’s .245 average, he should be able to provide consistent pop (20 HR, 84 RBI last year) in the back end of the Yankees lineup.
Edwin Encarnacion of the Blue Jays is the third ranked DH. Last year, Encarnacion made big strides at the plate, showing much more consistency with a .272 BA (.244 in 2010, .225 in 2009). Edwin will most likely hit around his usual 20 HR, but his main issue since 2007 has been his ability to hit with runners on base. Every year since 2007, he AVG has dropped significantly with runners on base, hovering around the Mendoza line (.200) each year. This has been the main reason for his low RBI totals and he needs to improve this AVG to contribute more to the Blue Jay lineup.
Luke Scott is known by many Sox fans for being an outfielder/DH for the Orioles, but he upgraded this year and switched over to the Rays. Scott had his season cut short last year and underwent shoulder surgery to fix a torn labrum. If Scott can return successfully to his numbers of 2010 (.284/27/72), he could end up ahead of Encarnacion and Ibanez in these rankings, but I don’t see that happening. That year was a career year for Scott and I see him returning to a .250 BA with around 15 HR and 60-70 RBI’s.
Last in the rankings is Wilson Betemit of the Orioles. Wilson’s now joining his 7th Major League team and is mostly remembered by Red Sox Nation for his forgettable years with the Yanks. Not much needs to be said about Betemit, although he was fairly successful in limited AB’s in the past two years. At 30 years old, Betemit has never had a season with more than 412 AB’s. If he can provide numbers similar to his .297 AVG of 2010 and .285 AVG of 2011, he should be able to get a full time shot for the Orioles this year.
Stay tuned for pitching analysis throughout the next two weeks.
For previous positional rankings click here: C–1B–2B–3B–SS–LF–CF–RF
Now that I have concluded all offensive output for the AL East teams, I want to leave the readers with this question:
As questionable as Chiarelli’s “depth” (rather than scoring) moves were I was glad to see Brian Rolston come back to Beantown. Back in the late 90s, early 00s Rolston was one of my favorite Bruins players. He was a great two-way forward, a leader, and was able to stay injury-free. However, my favorite part of his game was his short-handed skills. When he saw significant time on the penalty kill he had a knack for coming up with some shorties. From 2000-2004 (with the B’s) he had 16 short-handed goals, a pretty impressive number which included 9 SHG in the 2000-2001 season. (Enjoy the throwback pic: Rolston with former Bruin Eric Weinrich)
Rolston, 39, began his career with the New Jersey Devils during the 94-95 season where he was a member of that Stanley Cup team. He has also been a part of three U.S. Olympic teams which sort of explains why he was the captain of the Minnesota Wild after he left the Bruins. No doubt Rolston brings hardened veteran experience to the team. Hopefully he is a positive influence in the locker room during these inconsistent times for the Bruins. Given that he was just on the Islanders one of the cellar dwellers of the NHL, he can provide some perspective for these guys.
Just as I did the past few months, I am going to ask the tough question. Who should be crowned College Basketball Player of the Year? A few of the big preseason names have fallen off in the past few months. Therefore, the race is basically down to two people: Anthony Davis (See team preview here) and Thomas Robinson (See team preview here). Head to head, this pick is going to be a tough one. In fact, some ballots will be conducted next week on this subject, but we still won’t find out for a while. Here are some stats for ya:
Anthony Davis Freshman Kentucky Wildcats Team Rank: 1/1 PPG: 14.3 SPG: 1.5 FG%: .658
APG: 0.9 BPG: 4.8 FT%: .717
RPG: 9.8 TPG: 0.9 MPG: 31.4
They average the same exact minutes per game and their stats are very close. Even in the ballots conducted every week, they are within 3 points of each other (Davis is ahead). I feel like Anthony Davis has a better team around him but at the same time, that should make it even tougher to put up numbers like he has since they have more than one or two stars on their team. What do you guys think?
The USA came out with a 1-0 victory over the Italian side today for the first time in the United States history. Clint Dempsey scored the game winner in the 55th minute after Jozy Altidore took down a cross from Fabian Johnson and laid it off for Dempsey to slot it under two Italian players in the bottom left corner. The goal was Dempsey’s 25th career goal for the national team and one of his biggest all time. He is the 4th all team leading goal scorer for the United States. But while Dempsey is going to get all the praise, Tim Howard showed why he is one of the world’s most respected goalkeepers. He kept the United States in it in the first half with his big saves, and made a few more late as the Italian side never stopped pressing. He had seven saves overall.
The United States looked the best they have looked in the Jurgen Klinsman era. They were tight as a group defensively and put together passes better than they have in any other game thus far. A lot of credit goes out to Michael Bradley and Maurice Edu for holding down the middle of the field and controlling play. Andrea Pirlo is a master with the ball and found time to pick out his players, but Bradley and Edu played as well as you can expect. Bradley especially came up with big tackle after big tackle and proved his worth to Jürgen in the middle. Jonathan Spector also had a huge game after he came on as a substitute for Fabian Johnson in the 77th minute. He got in the way of shot after shot of the Italians and came up with a few more crucial tackles. Jozy played extremely well tonight as a hold up player and Terrance Boyd made the first appearance of what will hopefully be many more.
Italy has to be frustrated as they were caught offside 9 times by the referees. They also have to be kicking themselves because they also had 19 shots during the game, 8 corner kicks, and over 60% of time of possession. Sebastian Govinco was extremely dangerous to the United States when he wasn’t being caught offside as he kept using his quickness to get behind the defense.
Starting Lineups for the US (4-4-2)
G – Tim Howard
D –Steve Cherundolo, Carlos Bocanegra, Clarence Goodson, Fabian Johnson
M – Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, Brek Shea, Daniel Williams
F – Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore
Subs Used:
Jonathan Spector, Sasha Kljestan, Terrance Boyd, Edson Buddle
The United States next three games are all friendlies against Scotland (5/26), Brazil (5/30), and Canada (6/3).
In other soccer news, Spain beat Venezuela 4-0, Netherlands beat England 3-2, France beat Germany 2-1, and Argentina behind 3 goals from Lionel Messi beat the Swiss 3-1.
Leap Day. That magical day that disappears for three years before coming back. Besides the fact that most people don’t understand the point of it nor care to, it could mean good news for the Celtics’ second half of the season. Celtics Blog ran an article about this during the lockout, so I figured what better time to relive that article than on Leap Day itself. Introducing, the Leap Year Rule. This rule is strictly for Kevin Garnett. During his tenure in the NBA, KG’s career has followed an odd 4-year pattern of success, with the 4th year being a Leap Year. Let’s break it down.
1996 – Leap Year #1: Kevin Garnett Becomes KG – Drafted by a losing Timberwolves organization at the beginning of the 95-96 season, Garnett stepped into the NBA limelight. Coming off the bench during the first half of the season, Garnett began putting up all-star numbers and was inevitably put in a starting position during 1996. Oddly enough, his struggling Wolves started to win.
2000 – Leap Year #2: KG Reaches All-Star Status – With the turn of the millennium, Garnett led the Timberwolves to their first 50-win season in team history. He was named to his first career 1st Team All-Star position, as well as runner-up for the league MVP title. Oh, and just to put the icing on the cake, he went on to win a gold medal as a part of the 2000 US Olympic Team.
2004 – Leap Year #3: Garnett Continues to Rise – KG led the T-Wolves to their best season in team history, landing the #1 seed in the Western Conference. Despite his team getting knocked out in the Conference Finals, Garnett was the near unanimous vote for league MVP, with Shaq in 2000 being the only player to receive a higher percentage of votes for MVP.
2008 – Leap Year #4: KG Helps Raise Banner 17 – If I have to explain the year 2008 then you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog anyways. Joining Pierce and Allen, KG helped bring glory back to Boston for the first time since 1986, as the C’s trumped the Lakers to win the NBA Finals. Garnett was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year en route to reminding us that “Anything is Possible.”
2012…
I’m not making any promises, but the facts are laid out on the table. Something memorable is going to happen in KG’s career this season. I have two predictions and it’ll either be one or the other. My obvious prediction is that KG is going to help raise another banner in Boston this year. As unlikely as most would say that is, the underdog victory is no new feat in Boston (see New England Patriots circa 2001-02). On the other hand, as much as I want to say the C’s will win the championship, my second guess is that KG will retire. Another huge move in his career, although not exactly what we’ve had in mind. Now maybe both my predictions will come true and KG’s final Leap Year in the NBA will be his most memorable. It might sound crazy, but hey, it’s Leap Day!
The Celtics (16-17) are looking to start another winning streak as they take on the Milwaukee Bucks (14-20). The Celtics are now tied for seventh place in the eastern conference with the Knicks and are 2.5 games ahead of the Bucks in the race for the 8th spot. The Celtics are coming off of a 86-83 win against the pesky Cleveland Cavaliers where the Bucks are coming off the a 119-118 win over the Washington Wizards.
Brandon Bass came back from his injury and hit his first five shots for the Celtics last night. It was pretty promising as both he and Wilcox looked healthy. Wilcox grabbed 11 rebounds. The Celtics were led by Ray Allen who looked fresh after having the All-Star break off as he went for 22 points. Pietrus also had his biggest dunk of the season with that surgically repaired knee starting to look real good. Finally my man Avery Bradley played well again going 3-5 from the floor with 3 assists and no turnovers.
The Bucks are being led by Brandon Jennings as he is averaging 18.2 points per game and 5.3 assists per game. Last night Mike Dunleavy came off the bench to score 28 points. The Celtics have to be careful with the ball tonight because the Bucks scored 26 points off of 15 turnovers. The Celtics also have to watch out for Ersan Ilyasova who has been a beast on the boards this season. He has 4 double-doubles in his last five games including a 29-25 game against the New Jersey Nets 10 days ago.
Keys to the Game
Turnovers
As it has been all season the Celtics have to keep the turnovers down to a minimum. Pierce and Rondo had 11 turnovers. As the Bucks turn a lot of turnovers into points, the Celtics are going to need to take care of the ball if they’re going to want to get the winning streak to 2.
Rebounding
As I mentioned earlier Ilyasova is a beast. He has been killing teams on the boards this year. And the Celtics have been getting killed by everyone on the boards. They need to box out and go after rebounds defensively and offensively. It’s not a you-take-it kinda deal. I want to see them fight for rebounds and stop giving up easy second chance points.
Boston Sports Blog 