Monday, April 05, 2010

04/05 Quickie: Butler, McNabb, Tiger, MLB

Wow: When MLB Opening Day is the FOURTH-biggest story of the day, it's a loaded day.

*Butler-Duke: Rooting for Butler, lamentably picking Duke. But in today's SN column, I argue that Butler will have historical resonance on its side, meaning: Even if Duke wins, we will remember this Butler team for its run to the title game.

(This is pretty rare in sports. In college hoops, I think Duke was involved in one of the other instances of this: 1992, when we remember the Fab Five -- national runners-up -- more than we do the Duke team that beat them. Obviously, we remember that Duke team won back-to-back titles, but the '92 season was defined by the Fab Five, even in ultimate defeat. UPDATE: Great comment that it was the '93 Michigan team that may have been better remembered than the '92 version, although I'm partial to the whole "freshmen" angle. But yes: '92 was Duke-Kentucky.)

*McNabb traded to the Redskins: Despite growing up in DC, I'm not a Skins fan. And while Philly sports fans are slightly more tolerable than Boston sports fans, that doesn't mean they engender my support. If you're like me, you can enjoy both fan bases not knowing HOW to react right now. (Ironically, I kind of like Donovan McNabb, going back to his days at Syracuse. Hope he finds success in DC -- best-case scenario, he has a Favrian renaissance.)

*Tiger meets media at the Masters: First, Augusta National -- and Team Tiger -- will ensure that he gets treated nicely by the media today. Not sure that's necessary, because -- second -- the mainstream sports media has always wanted to gush about Tiger and brush off his scandal. The media event will be a frenzy because it's Tiger, but I don't have high expectations. Augusta Nat'l is going to go back to the old blockade strategy for Tiger.

*MLB Opening Day: The 4th story of the day? Really? This deserves to have its own spot at the top -- maybe during the day, it will get all the attention because of the day games that are in play. I completely mis-timed doing my MLB preview in the SN column, so I'm going to post my MLB predictions and picks here at around 11:00 or 11:30 this morning.

I'll give a preview: The team I pick to win the World Series is the team that won last night. But among today's storylines, the debut of Halladay as a Phillie and the debut of Heyward as a Brave are the ones I have my eye on.

Oh, and the UConn women are about to finalize themselves as the greatest team in women's college basketball history -- and one of the great teams in sports history, period. They won their Final Four game by 20 -- and it felt close.

Complete SN column here. More later this morning.

-- D.S.

1 comment:

slaskaris said...

People dont remember the 92 Duke team?? I'll agree that the Fab Five were a huge deal but hello Duke played in the most famous NCAA game of all time (vs. UK) that year and won bacl-to-back titles. Now, if you had said the Fab Five in 93 were THE story of that year and that title game even in defeat.