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The first weekend of March Madness was full of crazy upsets. Villanova (last year’s champs) lost to Wisconsin, and in another huge upset, South Carolina defeated #2 ranked Duke. If your bracket is already busted, don’t feel bad. According to ESPN, in their pool of 18 million submissions, only 18 brackets have correctly picked the teams in the Sweet 16.

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Spike Lee posted on Instagram his disappointment that his New York Jets haven’t hired former SF 49er Colin Kaepernick as their new quarterback. His rant took on political tones implying many teams, including the Jets, aren’t hiring Kaep because of his social media national anthem controversy this season. Spike said, “Smells MAD Fishy To Me, Stinks To The High Heavens” that Kaepernick, who opted out of his San Francisco 49ers contract, still doesn’t have a job.”

Former 49er great, wide receiver Dwight Clark, announced he was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Clark is best known for “The Catch” from QB Joe Montana to secure the Niners win over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC Championship Game. Clark stated,  “I’ve been asked if playing football caused this. I don’t know for sure. But I certainly suspect it did. And I encourage the NFLPA and the NFL to continue working together in their efforts to make the game of football safer, especially as it relates to head trauma.”

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Northwestern grabbed the spotlight on day 1 of the NCAA tournament. With just seconds left and Vanderbilt ahead 66-65, Vanderbilt’s Matthew Fisher-Davis thought Vanderbilt was one point behind so fouled Northwestern’s best shooter, Bryant McIntosh who easily made his next two foul shots leading to a 68-66. Not only was this Northwestern’s first tournament appearance, but now it’s first ever tournament win. Not much excitement th

HOCKEY

The US Women’s Hockey Team has decided to boycott the World Championships taking place March 31st-April 7th in Michigan due to a wage dispute over compensation and support equal to the mens’ team. The women currently make $1000 per month for 6 months leading up to the Olympic Games, so esssentially just $6000 for 4 years, as they need to train during the 4 years between Olympic Games. USA Hockey responded to the boycott and issued a statement expressing their commitment to the team and an increase in pay, however the players expressed through their lawyers that the USA Hockey statement was “dishonest” and they are still in dispute.

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March Madness officially kicks off today, which means if you haven’t filled out your bracket yet, you have until around noon ET today. It’s easy to fill out. Just go on any sports site and pick your own teams or have them auto fill for you. The next few weeks will be all NCAA basketball all day.

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The undergrads at the University of Northern Kentucky (ranked #15 in the NCAA tournament) have an extra incentive to beat #2 ranked Kentucky. The owner of a number of restaurants offered up free steak dinners to the NKU undergrads if the team beats Kentucky in the first round.  “Yes, this could get very expensive,” Ruby said,  “But it’s important to me to show support to our hometown organizations. NKU is a real asset to the community as they continue to produce extraordinary talented leaders for our region and beyond.”

In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors snapped their losing streak with a late-game surge against the Philadelphia 76ers. Draymond Green pulled out all the stops with some impressive defense, and Steph Curry found his rhythm scoring 29 points on his 29th birthday.

GOLF

The World’s oldest golf club (after 273 years) voted to admit women. Last year Muirfield voted to keep the Club women free, but voted again this year and the measure passed. Now the Scottish Club will again be eligible to host the British Open. After last year’s vote, the Club was taken off the rotation.

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March Madness officially begins tomorrow. The field for the tournament (which is a single elimination tournament featuring the best college basketball teams) was decided on Sunday with 68 teams competing in the men’s tournament and 64 in the women’s. 32 teams automatically got bids to the tournament based on their conference wins, and the rest were selected on Sunday. Team seeds were also announced. In the men’s bracket, Villanova, Kansas, Gonzaga, North Carolina, are ranked #1 in the East, Midwest, West and South respectively. The best way to embrace the tournament hype, which will dominate the next three weeks until the championship on April 3rd, is to fill in a bracket and enjoy the competition. Here’s a printable bracket. There’s always a “cinderella” team, so don’t just pick the highest ranked teams to win.

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It’s been an up and down season for the Duke Blue Devils and their controversial star Grayson Allen, but Thursday night’s win over their cross-town rivals, North Carolina, gave the team a much needed boost. Allen has been on fire lately helping the team to win their last 4 games by averaging 21.5 points per game (scored 25 against North Carolina Thursday). To refresh your memory, Allen has been in hot water for tripping three opponents over the course of the season. He was suspended for one game (critics thought it should have been more) and made to give up his leadership role as captain of the team. Duke 86, North Carolina 78.

The NBA needed to remind their players to refrain from social media abuse of other players/teams/officials so as not to diminish the reputation of the League or further heighten misunderstandings. The Deputy Commissioner wrote,”Teams may use social media for fun and lighthearted banter that does not reflect poorly on any team, player, other team or League personnel, or the League as a whole. However, such activity cannot become inappropriate or offensive. As such, we encourage teams to properly and extensively train their social media staff members to ensure that they know what kind of postings are appropriate and what kind are not.” Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone adhered to social media appropriateness!

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The Ball brothers are all aptly named. Sophomore LaMelo Ball (younger brother to UCLA freshman Lonzo Ball) scored 92 points in his high school game (41 of those points in the 4th quarter) on Tuesday evening. He’s currently a sophomore at Chino Hills High School and has already committed to play at UCLA when he graduates. There’s also middle brother LiAngelo Ball (a Senior at Chino Hills High School), who is also committed to UCLA and who also went on a 72 point scoring streak earlier in the season.

In the NBA, New York Knicks President Phil Jackson took to twitter to criticize his star player Carmelo Anthony. Many are wondering why Jackson is publicly escalating his feud with Anthony. Carmelo has a no-trade clause and claims he wants to stay in New York, but Jackson has “shopped” him around to a few teams. In order to leave, Anthony would need to waive his no-trade clause, so there’s speculation Jackson is trying to get under Carmelo’s skin.

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Steve Sarkisian is certainly having an exciting year professionally. Six months ago he was an offensive analyst for Alabama. Then before Alabama’s championship game against Clemson, he was promoted to offensive coordinator. And now that the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is taking the reins as head coach of the SF 49ers, Sarkisian will head to the NFL as the new offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons.

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Oklahoma City Thunder’s Enes Kanter broke his arm after punching a chair on the team bench because he was frustrated with his play. You can imagine how frustrated he is (and the team is) now, as he’ll be out 6-8 weeks. The Thunder could really suffer without Kanter.  He records 14.6 points per game, the third highest scorer on the team.

The Chicago Bulls seem to have some bad blood in the locker room. Dwayne Wade and Jimmy Butler publicly admonished the young guys on the team for not bringing their “A” game. Veteran Rajan Rondo then posted a long tirade on instagram criticizing Wade and Butler for not acting like leaders.  It is always amazing to me why any player would share disfunction between players on social media for the public to see. Some things should just stay in the locker room.

And, speaking of locker rooms, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is home recovering from back surgery, but is still making his presence known. After the team recently lost to North Carolina State (for the first time in 22 years), Coach K banned them from entering their locker room and from wearing school apparel. Apparently the punishments will last until the team starts “living up to the standards of the Duke program”.

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QB Eli Manning threw for three picks in the New York Giants disappointing loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday Night Football. With 14 seconds left, Manning could have won the game with a completion to Odell Beckham Jr,  but the pass was incomplete. Manning blamed himself for the overthrown pass,  while Odell said it was all his fault. After the game he said, ” I just didn’t have enough gas to go get it. It wasn’t really overthrown. I need to do a better job. …. I just didn’t do it for some reason. I thought I could go get it. That weighs heavy on me. I want to be able to make those plays.” With the loss, the Giants missed an opportunity to secure their spot in the playoffs. The Giants loss, was the Dallas Cowboys gain with the team clinching the NFC East and home field advantage. Eagles 24, Giants 19.

In an update to the Duke story, coach Mike Krzyzewski suspended Grayson Allen indefinitely. He said, “As a program, we needed to take further steps regarding his actions that do not meet the standards of Duke Basketball. To that end, we have determined that Grayson will be suspended from competition for an indefinite amount of time.”

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Duke University basketball player Grayson Allen received a technical foul for tripping a player from Elon University. What’s so newsworthy about this incident is it’s his third time tripping an opponent.  If you watch the video it’s abundantly clear Allen tripped the player on purpose. Many are upset with Blue Devils Coach, Mike Krzyzewski for not suspending Allen for his unsportsmanlike actions.  He called the incident “unacceptable” but so far hasn’t taken any further disciplinary action.

Many are excited by the resurgence of the Dallas Cowboys this season, but in a very bizarre, sick and sad story, the exuberance went too far. On Sunday, a mom in Dallas was celebrating the Cowboys win over Tampa Bay when her stepson became upset over her “gloating” and fatally stabbed her.

New York Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr feels there’s a double standard in how the NFL fines players. He was assessed a $18K fine for wearing colorful cleats (later auctioned for charity) honoring legendary Craig Sager. Odell claims he wasn’t asked to take the cleats off, he just got hit with the fine without warning.