Game of the Century

[Posted 9:00 PM Sunday]

2000 Heisman Trophy Quiz: That year, Drew Brees finished 3rd in the balloting and LaDainian Tomlinson 4th. Who were first and second…both quarterbacks who faced each other in the BCS title game that year, the loser winning the Heisman with the winner of the game second. Answer below.

College Football…let the hype begin

No. 2 Alabama 32 No. 3 Georgia 28

Heckuva game. And now with a Notre Dame-‘Bama BCS title matchup, a potential game for the ages. At least the hype the next month will make it so. Heck, the buildup will be well-deserved. These are arguably the two most storied programs in the sport, after all.

Saturday, Alabama’s humongous offensive line cleared the way for the Crimson Tide’s running backs to accumulate 350 yards on the ground. Eddie Lacy (who is going to be a super NFL back and who the New York Times’ Greg Bishop wrote should be “listed as running back-slash-semitrailer truck”) had 181 yards and two touchdowns. Freshman T.J. Yeldon added 153 yards.

“The clock management by the Bulldogs (11-2) in the final minute was the only flaw in a riveting contest. A 23-yard pass from Aaron Murray to Tavarres King gave Georgia a first down and a dead ball at the Alabama 34 with 30 seconds left, but the Bulldogs, with no time outs left, weren’t ready to snap it and didn’t try to spike it. Nine precious seconds ticked off before a 26-yard pass to Arthur Lynch got the ball to the 8. Again, the Dawgs let the clock run, and when Murray’s final pass was tipped and caught by Chris Conley at the 3, the clock ran out.”

So will Notre Dame’s impressive defense be able to stop Alabama’s ground game? Jan. 7 we’ll find out.

In other games of import…

No. 6 Kansas State clinched its BCS bid with an impressive 42-24 win over No. 18 Texas.

Friday night, No. 8 Stanford defeated No. 16 UCLA 27-24 for the Pac-10 title as only 31,000 showed up at 50,000 seat Stanford Stadium. So the Cardinal heads to the Rose Bowl. Whatever.

No. 11 Oklahoma snuck by TCU 24-17 to keep its BCS hopes alive.

No. 12 Nebraska lost to Wisconsin 70-31 in the Big Ten title game. Eegads. Montee Ball rushed for 202 yards and three touchdowns, so Wisconsin heads to the Rose Bowl at 8-5. Terrific.

No. 13 Florida State defeated now 6-7 Georgia Tech in the ACC championship game 21-15. So FSU is Orange Bowl bound.

No. 15 Oregon State destroyed Nicholls State 77-3 in a makeup game originally slated for Sept. 1 but postponed due to Hurricane Isaac. The Beavers had a staggering 42 first downs.

So if you had Nicholls State and 73, you lost! You also lost if you had Nicholls State and 44 in a basketball game against Michigan State later Saturday as the No. 13 Spartans won 84-39.

No. 20 Boise State defeated Nevada 27-21.

But on Friday night, No. 21 Northern Illinois defeated No. 17 Kent State 44-37 in double overtime in an exciting, fascinating MAC championship contest in Detroit. NIU quarterback Jordan Lynch had a spectacular performance, 160 yards on the ground with three touchdowns and another TD through the air as he passed for an additional 212 yards. Lynch not only has 11 straight 100-yard rushing games, never done before by a FBS quarterback, but he set the all-time FBS single-season rushing record for a QB with 1,771 yards, thus surpassing Denard Robinson’s 1,702 yards from 2010.

Northern Illinois held Kent State’s superstar Dri Archer to just 15 yards rushing on 12 carries (including a 15-yard TD run early…so do the math on the balance), though Archer did catch five balls for 81 yards. [And I’d still use a third-round draft pick to get the guy on my team.]

Now I’m writing this before the AP and then the BCS polls come out but in the Sunday morning articles, everyone seems to be assuming Northern Illinois won’t capture the No. 16 slot.

“Yes, Northern Illinois, should they win, would jump up to 16 with UCLA and Texas losing, thus also passing Michigan and Boise State. It’s the Bar Chat Guarantee!”

Of course they’re getting to No. 16. The loss by Nebraska is the kicker…a devastating defeat for them.

On Thursday, Louisville, behind a superb effort by the banged up Teddy Bridgewater (20/28, 263, two touchdowns), came back to beat Rutgers in a de facto Big East title game and is now heading to the Orange or Sugar bowl.

And we just note that West Virginia’s Geno Smith completed 23 of 24 passes, 95.8%, matching the single-game FBS record set by Tennessee’s Tee Martin against South Carolina in 1998 as the Mountaineers (7-5) demolished visiting Kansas, 59-10. West Virginia is going to be a very entertaining minor bowl entrant.

Finally, for all the heat the Big East has taken, and deservedly so, suddenly they have five very legitimate bowl teams (in terms of how they’re likely to be slotted)…Louisville (10-2), Rutgers (9-3), Cincinnati (9-3), Syracuse (7-5 and on a roll) and the best 6-6 team in the nation right now, Pitt, who should have beaten Notre Dame.

Some of the minor bowls have the potential to be very entertaining compared to the recent past.

And now…the AP poll

1. Notre Dame 12-0
2. Alabama 12-1
3. Ohio State 12-0
4. Florida 11-1
5. Oregon 11-1
6. Georgia 11-2
7. Kansas State 11-1
8. Stanford 11-2
9. LSU 10-2
10. Texas A&M 10-2
11. South Carolina 10-2
12. Oklahoma 10-2
13. Florida State 11-2
14. Clemson 10-2
15. Oregon State 9-3
16.. Northern Illinois 12-1!
17. UCLA 9-4

See, with Ohio State being ineligible, NIU is really like No. 15. The BCS has to put them in there!

And here comes the BCS…

1. Notre Dame .998
2. Alabama .944
3. Florida .898
4. Oregon .862
5. Kansas State .823
6. Stanford .768
7. Georgia .758
8. LSU .751
9. Texas A&M .676
10. South Carolina .660
11. Oklahoma .650
12. Florida State .505
13. Oregon State .472
14. Clemson .469
15. Northern Illinois .328!!!

BCS…Notre Dame vs. Alabama
Rose Bowl…Wisconsin vs. Stanford
Fiesta…Kansas State vs. Oregon…must see…should be fun
Sugar…Florida vs. Louisville
Orange…Florida State vs. Northern Illinois

Wow…watching all the ESPN commentators bitch about Northern Illinois rather than Georgia, LSU or Oklahoma…I think it’s great!

I’ll have a comment or two on the other bowls next time; the official Bar Chat schedule…which games to get beer for…which ones to avoid.

–Back to NIU, their coach Dave Doeren signed on with North Carolina State the day after defeating Kent State and will not coach them in their bowl game.

—LSU’s Les Miles has a new seven-year contract at the school for a reported annual salary of $4.3 million. Miles is 85-20 at LSU since arriving in 2005 and won the national title in 2007. Miles said reports he had a five-year, $27.5 million offer to take over at Arkansas were “not true.”

–Nothing to say on the suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who shot his girlfriend and then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and put a gun to his head in front of his coach, Romeo Crennel, and GM Scott Pioli. It’s a tragedy on a number of levels. A 3-month old baby is without her mother for starters.

I watched the entire Jets-Cardinals contest on Sunday, perhaps the worst professional football game of the century, but in the end, Jets coach Rex Ryan finally pulled the trigger and removed quarterback Mark Sanchez, with the team down 3-0 late in the third quarter; replacing him with third-string quarterback Greg McElroy (Tim Tebow being hurt), who then led the Jets (5-7) to a 7-6 win.

Sanchez was 10/21, 97, with three interceptions….good for a 21.4 rating. McElroy, in his short stint, was 5/7 with a 118.3 rating.

Meanwhile, Cardinals QB Ryan Lindley had one of the worst performances since Napoleon at Waterloo…10/31, 72, 0-1, 28.0 rating.

Rookie Andrew Luck was only 24 of 54 through the air, with three interceptions, but he also threw for 391 yards and four touchdowns in leading the 8-4 Colts, the NFL’s best story of 2012, to a 35-33 comeback victory in Detroit over the Lions (4-8).

The Rams (5-6-1) defeated the 49ers (8-3-1) 16-13 in OT as Wake’s Chris Givens had a career best 11 receptions. It was the second overtime contest between the two this year.

The Packers (8-4) defeated the Vikings (6-6) 27-14 despite another astounding performance by Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson…21 carries, 210 yards.

Seattle (7-5) defeated the Bears (8-4) in Chicago 23-17 in OT as rookie Russell Wilson accumulated 364 yards of total offense. Your editor is very proud for tabbing Wilson as a big pickup in the draft. And your editor wishes he was a Jet!!!

–I’ll take the Baltimore Ravens’ blond cheerleader shown at the 9:00 mark of the fourth quarter for $20, Alex. [Err, let me rephrase that…]

–I’m not a big Drew Brees fan. No particular reason. I mean I know he’s supposed to be a good guy and all. I guess I just wasn’t real happy when he eclipsed Johnny Unitas’ consecutive game streak with a touchdown pass, 49, which Brees then stretched to 54.

But on Thursday, it all came crashing down. No touchdowns and a career worst five interceptions as the Falcons moved to 11-1 in defeating the Saints 23-13, with New Orleans dropping to 5-7.

–As you watch the Giants-Redskins on Monday night, the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Clegg had an interesting bit on Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw.

“During his six years with the Giants, Bradshaw has posted an average of 4.46 yards per carry on his first 14 rushes in a game, but that figure jumps by almost 15% to 5.1 yards on his next five carries, according to Stats LLC. Even more impressive, in games when he attempts 20 rushes or more, Bradshaw averages an eye-popping 5.33 yards on those additional carries.”

College Basketball

–We note the passing of coach Rick Majerus, age 64. Majerus died of heart failure, having dealt on and off with a heart condition dating back to 1989.

It was just Nov. 19 that he announced he wouldn’t return to his head coaching job at Saint Louis University because of his health issues. Last season, he took the school to its first NCAA tournament with a 26-win team that won its opening game and then took top regional seed Michigan State to the wire.

Majerus was one of a kind. A terrific sense of humor but, more importantly, in terms of his profession, simply a brilliant coach.

In five seasons at Saint Louis he was 95-69 and in 25 years had a record of 517-216.

It was at Utah, though, where he had his biggest success, going 323-95 from 1989-2004. Before then he coached at Marquette from 1983-86, and Ball State from 1987-89 (the ’88-’89 team went 29-3, including the school’s first NCAA tournament win).

Majerus took 12 teams to the NCAA tournament and four to the NIT, with the 1998 Utah edition  losing to Kentucky in the NCAA championship game.

“It is Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, there are basketballs bouncing all around me, sneakers squeaking and fans cheering. UCLA is playing San Diego State [Ed. SDSU won] in the Wooden Classic, and I don’t care.

“Being a basketball court, this is Rick Majerus’ living room and he won’t ever sit in it again. He is gone, dead at age 64.

“The man with the huge heart and similar body shape, the man who knew more about basketball than 99.6% of the human race and coached it every day of his adult life as if it were the Gospel, left us Saturday afternoon. The heart that was so gigantic, that gave so much of itself, in and out of the sport, could carry the load no more….

“It was a quiet ending. He had a world of friends…But few were allowed to see him in his final months. He was too proud.

“Scott Garson sits 10 yards away from me as I type. He is one of Ben Howland’s UCLA assistants. He was also a longtime Majerus assistant when Majerus was building one of the best programs in the country at Utah….

“Garson was among the few who got to visit Majerus in the final weeks.

“ ‘He couldn’t speak,’ Garson said. ‘There is no way to describe how much weight he lost. I held it together in the room, but then I just went to the cafeteria and cried like a baby.’

“The weight was his scourge. When Majerus was an assistant for Al McGuire at Marquette, including on McGuire’s 1977 national title team, McGwire was often merciless about the weight….

“Majerus loved hosting friends at dinner. He would often start by ordering a dozen entrees. If you liked something, he’d order three more.

“He single-handedly kept pizza stores in business. His life mantra was, ‘Never eat anything green.’…

“He made his big splash at Utah, where he coached the likes of Keith Van Horn and Andre Miller and got to the 1998 Final Four. On game day, he invited a friend to the pregame walk-through. When it ended, he called his players together and invited the friend to listen. Utah was about to play lightning-quick North Carolina in the national semifinals. Utah consisted of huge, slow guys and Miller, soon to be a superb pro guard. Majerus told his team the strategy was to rebound, make an outlet pass and go, because ‘we are quicker than they are.’ He said that, once they wore down North Carolina, Coach Bill Guthridge would have to call a timeout, go to a zone and then they had them.

“The big, tall, slow Runnin’ Utes looked at him as if he had finally lost his mind.

“That night, Utah got the ball off the boards and ran. Soon, Guthridge called timeout and went to a zone. Majerus had been right. He just hadn’t been specific. What he meant was that Miller, who took most of the outlet passes and dashed to the basket, was quicker than North Carolina.

“The next night, Utah stopped running with a lead and about seven minutes left in the game and lost to Kentucky. Most of Majerus’ important NCAA tournament losses came at the hands of Kentucky.

“ ‘They ought to just bury me at the finish line of the Kentucky Derby,’ he said after one particularly galling loss, ‘and let those horses just keep trampling me.’…

“Let’s be sentimental here and presume that there was meaning in Majerus’ dying on the day of the Wooden Classic. Let’s presume that, up there somewhere, two guys are off in a corner, talking zone traps.

Games of note the last five days or so.

Boise State 83 No. 11 Creighton 70
Miami 67 No. 13 Michigan State 59
Virginia 60 Wisconsin 54
No. 2 Duke 73 No. 4 Ohio State 68
Boston College 73 Penn State 61
Notre Dame 64 No. 8 Kentucky 50
Baylor 64 No. 8 Kentucky 55…ah, time to knock them out of top 25
Virginia Tech 81 No. 15 Oklahoma State 71
No. 20 Georgetown 37 Tennessee 36…for a full game…both teams a combined 31 of 90 from the field; 7 of 20 from the foul line
Richmond 62 Wake Forest 60…but we beat the spread! We beat the spread!

“When the Big East was formed in 1979, the westernmost school among the seven members was Syracuse. When the league expanded a couple of years later, it went way west – adding Pittsburgh (and also Villanova). That gave the league nine members, just three of which – Syracuse, Boston College and Pittsburgh – played in college football’s top division.

“As it turned out, it was the perfect basketball conference: built on major TV markets and Hall of Fame coaches.

“By 1985, the conference had won two national titles and had been represented in the Final Four five times, with three schools – Georgetown, St. John’s and eventual champion Villanova – in the 1985 semifinals….

“Then came football – and chaos.

“Wednesday’s announcement that Louisville will leave the Big East for the ACC in two years makes one thing crystal clear: It is time for the real Big East schools to return to their roots….

“Once all the dust settles, there will be seven former Big East schools calling themselves ACC schools: the aforementioned trio along with Miami, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame (sort of) and Louisville….

“So, what should happen? The remaining members from the group that made the conference famous – Georgetown, St. John’s, Villanova, Providence and Seton Hall – should join with Marquette and DePaul and try to lure Xavier, Dayton and Saint Joseph’s from the 16-team Atlantic 10 to form a new conference called ‘The Real Big East.’

“None of those nine schools plays top-level football. They are all great basketball schools that have had major success in the past and, in most cases, have strong programs today…They would get a big-time basketball-only TV contract from someone, and because none of them plays big-time football, their costs are a fraction of those fielding 85-scholarship teams.”

–What an embarrassment. Four Hofstra basketball players were arrested and charged with a series of burglaries that netted them laptops, iPads and other items taken from campus dormitory rooms. Two of the players were scoring in double figures. All four were suspended from the university and the team.

Ball Bits

–More Hall of Fame chat, as the ballots are being mailed in with any inductees to be announced on Jan. 9. This is truly an historic vote with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza among those on the ballot for the first time.

Bonds told MLB.com, “I do really care. I may say I don’t, but I do really care. I’ve been through a lot in my life, so not too many things bother me. Making the Hall of Fame, would it be something that’s gratifying because of what I’ve sacrificed? Sure.”

Bonds also expressed regret for how he treated the media. “One day, I’ll be able to say things the right way. But it’s tough when you have so many people out there who don’t want to turn the page and want to be angry at you forever. I don’t understand why it continues on. What am I doing wrong?”

“A ritual that is as much a part of modern-day Major League Baseball as the seventh-inning stretch, September pennant races and fastballs down the middle begins anew this week….

“The Baseball Writers’ Association of America once again has the distinct honor and pleasure of picking this cheater over that cheater, or no cheaters at all, for the most esteemed Hall of Fame in sports….

“Bonds, Clemens, Sosa. The Steroid Trio. The Three PED Amigos. The boys with the big records and even bigger muscles.

“This should be an easy call for the writers who vote for the Hall of Fame. No one should vote for these people. This is Mark McGwire times three. To make it to Cooperstown, a player needs to be listed on 75% of the ballots. Thankfully, McGwire has never received more than 24% of the vote in his six times on the ballot. Last year, it was 19.5%.

“That’s clearly nowhere near enough, which is fitting for the man who, with Sammy Sosa, perpetrated on the nation the Great Home Run Derby Fraud of 1998. But it leads to a question: Who are these 19.5% to 24% of baseball writers who voted for McGwire – and presumably will vote for the disgraced Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sosa as well? And what in the world are they thinking?….

“We’ve seen some of the writers’ excuses over the years, many of them along the lines of that stuffy old standby: ‘Everyone was doing it.’ Using that philosophy, these people probably would restore Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s gold medal from the men’s 100 meters at the 1988 Seoul Olympics because there are those who wonder just how tainted that eight-man field was. And let’s put Johnson in the Olympic Hall of Fame while we’re at it. Hey, everyone was doing it.

“One wonders if the writers who vote to honor some of the sports world’s all-time biggest frauds have ever tried to explain their decisions to a child. Perhaps they’ve never thought that it should be a privilege, not a right, to be in any Hall of Fame. Maybe they have misremembered, just as Andy Pettitte did….

“Bonds said he respects the Hall of Fame, but doesn’t get all the fuss about his possible entry into it. ‘I don’t understand all the controversy we’re having about it. For what reason?’

“Well, Barry, your head grew to be the size of Vermont. Now that you’ve been out of baseball for five years, so much of you has disappeared that you actually look like you could almost fit into your old Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. And you’re a convicted felon. Other than that, there are no reasons.

“Bonds took a rare stand on one issue that’s important to him: ‘I don’t want to be part of the kind of Hall of Fame that’s based on voters’ beliefs and assumptions.’

“Since that’s the only kind of Baseball Hall of Fame there is, here’s hoping he gets his wish.”

The Associated Press surveyed 112 writers who have a vote, about 20% of the total of around 650 who will cast one, and Bonds received just 45% support, Clemens 43% and Sosa 18%.

Bonds is baseball’s only seven-time MVP, and Clemens, the only seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

The Denver Post’s Troy Renck told the AP: “I understand that everyone has their opinion on this issue and I respect those. For me personally, having coached kids for the last decade and talked to them about doing things a certain way, I would feel very uncomfortable voting for anyone that is a known cheater.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins took the opposite view.

“The Hall of Fame’s ‘character’ clause should be stricken immediately, because it’s far too late to turn Cooperstown into a church. Whether it was gambling (rampant in the early 20th century), scuffing the baseballs, corking bats, amphetamines or steroids, players have been cheating like crazy forever. It’s an integral, if unsavory, part of the culture. I’ve always had the same criteria: which players were the best performers of their particular era – so absolutely, I’ll vote for Bonds, Clemens and Sosa.”

Pitcher Curt Schilling, also on the ballot for the first time, said this week: “I wouldn’t vote for them ever,” when asked about Bonds, Clemens and Sosa. “Here’s the thing, it generally goes this way with people who are caught doing stuff: You generally never catch someone on the first go-around. These guys to some degree or another in different cases cheated and in some cases cheated for a lengthy period of time.”

—On the contract front…

The Yankees signed 43-year-old Mariano Rivera to a one-year, $10 million deal plus incentives, Rivera coming back from a torn ACL.

But the Yankees lost free agent catcher Russell Martin to the Pirates, who are shelling out $17 million over two years for a guy who has done nothing but regress at the plate (though he did hit 21 homers last year), and doesn’t have a great reputation for handling a pitching staff.

The Atlanta Braves signed B.J. Upton to a five-year, $75 million contract. $15 million a year for a guy who, as Johnny Mac put it, had a stunningly bad .298 OBP last season, hasn’t hit over .246 his last four, and struck out a career high 169 times in 2012. Then again, 90% of today’s contracts make zero sense.

The Washington Nationals acquired a solid centerfielder in Denard Span from the Twins for a top pitching prospect, which allows the Nats to move Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth to corner spots. [I wish my Mets would get Michael Morse.]

And speaking of the Mets, they signed David Wright to an 8-year, $138 million extension; this for a guy who was incredibly mediocre after the All-Star break last year.

Granted, Wright is the face of the franchise, and he’s very good, but he’s far from great.

“Even when the Mets absolutely do the right thing by keeping David Wright here, paying him a lot more money than he could have gotten somewhere else, you heard this:

“What difference does it make?

“It happens to be the reaction that tells you the most about where the Mets are.

“It is why the Mets need to have a whole season in 2013 like the season they played in April and May and June of 2012, a season that actually seemed so full of promise.

“Mets fans don’t want to hear, after what they have seen for the past four years, about how things might start to turn around in 2014.

“You bet the Mets just spent a ton of dough on Wright, but they will have to spend more in this baseball winter, and if it isn’t on R.A. Dickey, it has to be on another outfielder who can hit behind Wright and Ike Davis.

“They have to spend more money, Sandy Alderson and Paul DePodesta have to show they are making the kinds of decisions that are made in places where teams don’t spend $150 million a year, don’t waste money the way the Red Sox have these past few years, places like Tampa Bay and Oakland.

If I were Wright, I would have gotten the hell out of Dodge. The Mets are going to continue to suck (unless you tell me Lucas Duda suddenly breaks out of his shell and turns into a 35-100 slugger) and Wright will bear a lot of the fans’ outrage.

So the big story of the week was the San Antonio Spurs being fined $250,000 by Commissioner David Stern for not bringing four of their players to Miami for a game against the Heat.

“Someone needs to buy David Stern an NBA team, perhaps as a retirement gift, so he can be justified in determining who plays, who doesn’t play and who on his bench can run drinks over to the national TV guys at their courtside table.

“For the outgoing NBA commissioner, it’s always about taking care of his network TV partners and that’s exactly what he was doing when he whacked the Spurs but good, a $250,000 hit to the saddlebags for the league’s long-standing model franchise.

“With his big fine, Stern reacted on Friday night as if the Spurs had committed an act of high treason when Gregg Popovich sent his best players home instead of having them play the Heat in Miami the other night at the end of another long road trip. He called it an ‘unacceptable decision’ that Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green were given the night off, and said, ‘the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.’….

“Stern is usually very good in determining what players should sit, when you look at his record on fighting and the league’s anti-drug laws. But he’s out of his element in determining what players should play, even if he tried to make the case that the Spurs’ actions were in violation of league policy, and not something he merely picked out of thin air.

“In fact, he never before had punished the Spurs in previous cases of Popovich holding out his aging stars to give them some rest. It’s been the Spurs’ MO for some time and happened late last season on several occasions in April. Once, he had his stars take off a game in Utah in preparation for a showdown with the Lakers. The Spurs still were mauled on the backboards against L.A., 60-33, with Andrew Bynum getting 30 rebounds to Duncan’s two.

“But Stern didn’t call out the Spurs or punish them, invoking the league’s anti-resting policy, when they did the same stuff to the fans in Utah, Phoenix and Oakland….

“But because it was a national TV game in Miami, a Holy Thursday game on TNT, Stern had to take care of his broadcast partners and punish the Spurs for ‘resting players in a manner contrary to the best interests of the NBA.’….

“No, it didn’t look good when Popovich told his best players they weren’t going to play in their fourth road game in five nights, and they were going to go home and rest up for a pivotal game against another Western Conference power, Memphis, on Saturday. But Pop should make that call and no one else.”

“In baseball, managers routinely give players days off during the season, and it is virtually expected that a catcher will not play in a day game if he played in a game the night before. To carry the parallel even further, Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, did not threaten the Washington Nationals with punishment when the team shut down the wunderkind pitcher Stephen Strasburg, not allowing him to pitch late in the season as a way to protect his arm.”

And so it was that the rested Duncan (27 points, 15 rebounds) and Parker (30 points) led the Spurs (14-4) to an overtime win over the Grizzlies (12-3), 99-95. They did lose the game in Miami, by the way, 105-100.

–The amazing Lindsey Vonn tied Vreni Schneider for second place on the all-time World Cup list with her 54th and 55th victories as she captured two downhills this weekend at Lake Louise, Canada. Just recently she was hospitalized with a severe stomach bug and she’s come roaring back. 

Vonn now trails Annemarie Moser-Proell by seven. [Ingemar Stenmark is the overall all-time leader with 86 victories.]

Woh! Make that six! Vonn won Sunday’s giant slalom at Lake Louise, making it the second straight year she swept all three races there!

[Understand, your editor hasn’t skied in 35 years…just respect the hell out of these guys and girls. That is not the case with snow boarders, by the way.]

Speaking of guys, just saw that American Ted Ligety won his second straight World Cup GS race at Beaver Creek.

—North Carolina won the Women’s Division I Soccer title, 4-1 over Penn State.

–The Men’s Final Four for soccer is Indiana vs. Creighton and Georgetown vs. Maryland.

–Give David Beckham credit. His six-year career with the Los Angeles Galaxy got off to a most rocky start, but as he hung it up on Saturday, Beckham helped lead the Galaxy to their second straight MLS championship.

Beckham, 37, seems to be leaning towards ending his career in the Premier League, if someone decent will have him. In the end, the MLS was definitely helped by his presence in America the last six years.

–New Jersey’s six-day bear hunt begins Monday. The estimate of bears living in the northwestern part of the state, where the hunt is conducted, is 2,800-3,000…down from 3,400 in 2010 when the first hunt took place. Bears were nonexistent in New Jersey as recently as the 1970s.

“A boy is feared dead after he was attacked by a crocodile while swimming in the Northern Territory.

“The 12-year-old boy was swimming with a group of people in waters at Port Bradshaw when he was grabbed by the crocodile about 12:30 p.m.

“It is believed the adults who were with the boy tried to save him by spearing the crocodile but it dragged him out to deeper water.”

Recall, just the other week, a seven-year-old girl was taken by a crocodile while swimming in the Northern Territory.

[Advice for avoiding being eaten by crocs…another free feature of Bar Chat.]

Top 3 songs for the week 12/3/77: #1 “You Light Up My Life” (Debby Boone…Who? Me? Really? But you don’t call…) #2 “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (Crystal Gayle…snip snip) #3 “How Deep Is Your Love” (Bee Gees…depends if my team is winning…)…and…#4 “Baby, What A Big Surprise” (Chicago) #5 “Blue Bayou” (Linda Ronstadt) #6 “Heaven On The 7th Floor” (Paul Nicholas…ughh….) #7 “We’re All Alone” (Rita Coolidge) #8 “Boogie Nights” (Heatwave) #9 “It’s So Easy” (Linda Ronstadt…this tune was like ‘Song by Numbers’…written by a third grader in North Korea…) #10 “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again” (L.T.D….the music scene was already falling apart in a big way…and your editor, wrapping up the fall semester of his sophomore year at Wake Forest, was on his way to a U.S. university record-low G.P.A….Some thought it couldn’t be done…Like I’ve said, I peaked in 6th grade)

* I liked what Jeff B. said of my comment the other day on the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Jeff has a great jukebox and was looking to mix things up when he stumbled across this one, “picked it up, looked at it for a second and tossed it back in the rack. Life is too short to piss away six minutes listening to such dreck.”

2000 Heisman Trophy Quiz Answer: Chris Weinke, senior QB, Florida State, edged out Josh Heupel, senior QB, Oklahoma, in the Heisman voting…1628 to 1552. [Brees and Tomlinson were way back at 619 and 566.] But Heupel’s Oklahoma defeated Weinke’s FSU for the national title in a dominating defensive performance, 13-2.