BASKETBALL

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost again Thursday night against the Chicago Bulls, their 5th loss in 7 games. The Team is now 1/2 game behind the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference. Kyrie Irving wasn’t shy in expressing his opinion of the Team’s mental state after the game, “To be perfectly honest, we’re probably all over the place. It’s no time to kind of back up into the wall and panic. I’m not panicking and I don’t think anyone in this locker room should panic. We’re going to be just fine. It’s ugly right now. It’s real, real ugly. But we’ll get out of this, we’ll be fine.”

Big weekend of college basketball. The NCAA Women’s Final Four begins at 7:30 pm Friday night featuring South Carolina vs Stanford then at 10:00 pm Connecticut vs Mississippi State.

On Saturday night, the men’s Final Four features South Carolina vs Gonzaga at 6:09 pm followed by Oregon vs North Carolina at 8:49 pm.

NASCAR

Nascar season is underway and the talk so far has been of the “Monster Energy Girls” inappropriate outfits. Critics of the girls called their outfits inappropriate for a family event and took to social media calling them “hookers”.  Monster Energy put together a video in order to give the girls a platform to explain their presence at the track.  Not sure if the video hurt or helped the girls, but Monster Energy (the title sponsor of the NASCAR series) is sure getting a lot of play from all the attention.

HOCKEY

Just days before the World Championship, the US women’s national hockey team reached an agreement with USA Hockey. Among the changes in the agreement, USA Hockey agreed to an increase in salary to $70,000 per player with bonuses for winning medals. The Women’s Team has won 6 of the last 8 World Titles and will compete on Friday to defend their legacy in the first round of the World Championship against the Canadians.

It’s the end of an era for the Detroit Red Wings. With their loss on Tuesday, they will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 25 years.

BASKETBALL

In a win over the Houston Rockets, the Golden State Warriors recorded their 60th win for the 3rd straight season, becoming only the 5th franchise in history to do this. The win was also a milestone for coach Steve Kerr as it notched his 200th victory.

FOOTBALL

It’s official. The Raiders will move to Las Vegas. They received 31 of 32 votes in yesterday’s meeting. The only owner voting against the move was the Miami Dolphins’ Stephen Ross. He said, “My position today was that we as owners and as a league owe it to the fans to do everything we can to stay in the communities that have supported us until all options have been exhausted. I want to wish Mark Davis and the Raiders organization the best in Las Vegas.” The Raiders are expected to move into the new stadium in 2020 and will stay in Oakland until the stadium is ready.

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To no one’s surprise, the University of Connecticut Huskies cruised into the Final Four of the Women’s Championship. UConn has now won 111 consecutive games and is heading to its 10th straight Final Four appearance. Up next, UConn takes on Mississippi State and South Carolina and Stanford face off.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have fallen into a losing spiral and are now 1/2 game behind the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference.

BASKETBALL

The odds of predicting the Final Four Teams in the NCAA Championship was almost impossible, particularly when factoring in that Gonzaga and South Carolina have never made it this far, and Oregon hasn’t gotten to this point since 1939 when they won the tournament. We don’t  just have Cinderella teams however. North Carolina rounds out the group with 22 appearances in the Final Four and 5 championships. On April 1st Gonzaga and South Carolina will square off, and later in the night, North Carolina and Oregon will compete for the National Championship on April 3rd.

Devin Booker made history draining  70 points on Friday night against the Boston Celtics to record the highest scoring game in Phoenix Suns’ history. Shockingly it wasn’t enough to give the Suns a win, but he did secure his place in history becoming the third youngest player in history (at 20 years and 145 days old) to score at least 50 points in a game. He shares this honor with LeBron James and Brandon Jennings.

FOOTBALL

As of this afternoon, it appears the Oakland Raiders will get enough votes from NFL owners to approve its relocation to Las Vegas. City and State officials came up with a pledge of $750 million dollars to fund a new stadium.

BASKETBALL

March madness continued last night with a stunner of an upset. Xavier shocked everyone with a win over #2 ranked Arizona. Ranked #11, Xavier was the lowest ranked seed to make it to the Sweet 16. After a February losing streak, where the team almost didn’t make it in to the NCAA tournament at all, the players bought a calendar, wrote in their losing February games, then burned the calendar and kept the ashes in a jar (giving the impression of an urn) for motivation moving forward.  As their coach said, “We wanted our urn to go with us. So our players were forward-thinking and not worried about what happened.” Xavier will play Gonzaga (who beat West Virginia Thursday night) on Saturday with the winner heading to the Final Four.

In other games Thursday night, the Oregon Ducks took down Michigan in a 69-68 nail-biter, while Kansas blew past Purdue with a 98-66 rout. Check out the updated bracket for how your favorite teams fared.

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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.

FOOTBALL

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.”

BASKETBALL

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.

BASKETBALL

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.