NBA

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat a franchise mark last night against The New Jersey Nets, earning their franchise-high 58th win.  Wow!  For a team that’s been pretty terrible for the better part of the last 15 years, this is really saying something.  LeBron James even said that he felt a magical type of team chemistry from this team at season’s outset.  And boy was he right.  They are jellin’ — and just at the right time.  LeBron had 22 points and 11 assists, as the Cavs cruised past New Jersey.   Cleveland 98, New Jersey 87.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

The Sweet Sixteen kicks off tonight, and it should be a thriller.  Sure, there are no Cinderella teams involved this year, but the teams that do remain are excellent, and you can expect to see some fantastic basketball.  However, as of late, UCONN has been under fire for possibly violating some of the NCAA recruiting rules.  Supposedly, they may have made a few too many phone calls.  Recruiting is a foreign world to most people, but those actively involved with it know that visits and phone calls are extremely regulated.  And if you ignore the rules, you can pay a serious penalty.  Sometimes they even ban you from the tournament for a season.  So… will all this public scrutiny get in UCONN’s heads tomorrow night when they take on Purdue.  It’s definitely possible.  Purdue might just pull the upset.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

The Florida Gators have decided to immortalize quarterback Tim Tebow’s mid-season speech from last year.  The Gators were playing pretty well, but then they lost to Mississippi State at home.  After the game, Tebow was the face of the loss, and he publicly apologized.  He followed up this apology with a vow — that no one would, in the nation, work harder than him and his teammates the rest of the year.  He definitely fulfilled this promise, as Florida crushed teams from that point on, went undefeated the rest of the year, and beat Oklahoma in the BCS Championship.  Now that speech is forever a part of Florida football history, as it’s on a plaque outside the stadium.  And many agree that if Tebow wins it all again next year, he will go down as the greatest college football player in history.

Finally, in some more news from the college football world, the Senate will hold anti-trust hearings on the BCS System.  Last season, Utah went undefeated and even beat former #1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.  Well, they still didn’t get respected as a National Champion, but more importantly, they never had a chance to even earn that type of money.  That’s… unfair.  Sure, we all want a playoff system, but if there is a legal reason for one (i.e. all teams at least deserve a chance to earn the big cash prize of a National Champion), then this tournament idea might really have legs.  As of now, more than half of the teams in college football don’t even have a literal “opportunity” to get to the title game.  Something really needs to be done about this, and now that the government is involved… we could be seeing some seed numbers in the next few years.