NHL Quiz: So the other day I mentioned “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky, career leader at 2,857 points. Mark Messier is second all-time on the list. How many points behind Gretzky is he? Answer below.
College Basketball…AP Poll
1. Florida 27-2 (46)
2. Wichita State 31-0 (14)
3. Arizona 27-2 (5)
4. Duke 23-6
5. Virginia 25-5
6. Villanova 26-3
7. Syracuse 26-3*
8. Kansas 22-7
9. Wisconsin 24-5
10. San Diego State 25-3…tough road game at UNLV, then big rematch with New Mexico at home
14. North Carolina 22-7
17. Saint Louis 25-4…surprised this high…No. 21 CBSSports.com
18. SMU 23-6…what a job by Larry Brown
19. UConn 23-6
21. New Mexico 23-5
And if you carried out the votes, VCU would be No. 27.
*On Tuesday, Syracuse fell to 26-4, 13-4, with another stunning loss, 67-62 to Georgia Tech (14-16, 5-12) at the Carrier Dome. So after starting out 25-0, the Cuse have lost four of five, including to lowly Boston College.
–The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Cohen asked Vegas oddsmaker Bovada to calculate point spreads for matchups between Wichita State and highly ranked teams from top conferences at a neutral site, since that is where they will be playing such opponents in the NCAA tournament.
While the No. 2 Shockers finished the regular season 31-0, they would be 4-point underdogs to both Florida and Arizona, and 3- and 3 ½-point underdogs to Duke and Virginia, respectively.
The Shockers would be 1 ½-point favorites over both Villanova and Syracuse.
–CBSSports.com’s Gregg Doyel takes issue with the likes of Doug Gottlieb, who don’t believe Wichita State is worthy of No. 1 seed. [Assuming they win the MVC tournament, of course they are.] As Doyel writes:
“Gottlieb went so far as to say ‘many’ teams would be undefeated if they had the luxury of playing Wichita State’s schedule.
“If by ‘many’ he means ‘probably zero,’ he’s dead-on accurate. Because the last team to finish the regular season undefeated was Saint Joseph’s in 2003-04. That was 10 years ago. Do the math for a second, or allow me: Ten years have passed. There have been roughly 330 schools playing Division I basketball. That means roughly 3,300 seasons had happened before Wichita State matched Saint Joseph’s with a perfect regular season.
“Because this doesn’t happen, going undefeated in the regular season. But its perfect record, by itself, isn’t the sole reason why Wichita State deserves a No. 1 seed. Another reason – the other reason – is what happened last season.
“Listen, I know. The NCAA Tournament selection committee isn’t supposed to consider anything but this season when evaluating teams. Terrific. The committee also isn’t supposed to consider a team’s last 12 games, which wasn’t a perfect tool to analyze any given school but was damn sure a good piece of evidence to consider when comparing two teams with similar resumes for a spot on a seed line or one of the final at-large spots in the 68-team field….
“Same goes for last season. It happened. We all know it happened, and we all know the Shockers had a ton of victories (30 last year) against a weak schedule (No. 91 last year) and parlayed that easy schedule and fraudulent resume into…
“The Final Four….
“Don’t be silly. Ignoring last year is one of those rules meant to be broken, like the one that says professional writers shouldn’t use sentence fragments. Like this. Sometimes you break a rule not because you can, but because you should. Because rules were written to encounter most situations, not every single one.
“This situation is unique. Wichita State circa 2014 isn’t Saint Joseph’s 2004, Alcorn State in 1979 or any other apple you might want to compare to this orange. Wichita State’s 2014 season started like all others do – with one game – and then veered off the tracks, outside the box, into a world all its own. See it for what it is, and to do that, you have to see last season for what it was.”
–Norman Chad of the Washington Post commented on the $1 billion NCAA Tourney bracket contest, sponsored by Quicken Loans and insured by Berkshire Hathaway. Yes, if you pick all 63 games in the bracket you win $1 billion, paid out in an immediate $500 million lump-sum or 40 annual installments of $25 million.
“Simply put, $500 million up front beats $1 billion later. And who wants to deal with bank lines 40 times just to endorse a check?
“Besides, there’s a good chance I won’t live 40 more years. Plus, what am I going to do with $25 million a year when I’m 90 – clear Costco’s shelves of all the Metamucil, Flomax and Life Alert medical alert systems in stock? So I prefer to get one fat check and then start livin’ la vida loca….
“Now, for actually achieving perfection here, I am told there are 9,223,372,036,864,775,808 ways to fill out an NCAA bracket. That’s a large number. To put it in perspective, there are only 9,223,372,036,864,775,769 varieties of Snapple. On the other hand, a New York Times article – using a different statistical model, I guess – estimated that the odds of a perfect bracket were 1 in 128 billion. Frankly, that seems somewhat obtainable, compared to 1 in 9.2 quintillion.
“(To settle this, I was going to ask Nate Silver to run the numbers, but he’s too busy projecting tribal council elections in southern Sudan.)…
“It is free to enter, so I believe the optimal strategy would be to get as many households as possible to submit different brackets under your name. My plan is to go door-to-door to millions of homes and offer each household a cut of the winnings; this is logistically difficult but definitely doable.
“There are an estimated 1.4 billion households worldwide. Southwest Airlines flies to more than 90 destinations – I have a Rapid Rewards card – so that’s a start. I can use Amtrak, ferries and regional transport to make my way to other locales.
“On the downside, it is a statistical improbability that I can put together a perfect NCAA tournament bracket, considering that in every bracket I’ve ever filled out, Duke doesn’t win a game.”
–John Feinstein of the Washington Post had another story on former North Carolina coach Dean Smith, who recently turned 83 but is suffering from dementia.
“No one deserves such a fate, but anyone who has ever known Smith finds it especially galling that this disease would befall him.
“ ‘Of all people, for it to happen to him is beyond cruel,’ Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said recently. ‘You’re talking about the person who had the sharpest mind and the most remarkable memory of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s just not fair.’….
“No coach ever genuinely cared about his players – from Michael Jordan to walk-ons who never scored a point – more than Smith. He had one firm rule that Linda Woods, his longtime assistant, knew had to be followed to the letter: If any player – any player – showed up in his office needing to see him, she was to interrupt whatever he was doing, regardless of who he might be talking to. No one came before the players. It wasn’t a credo or a motto; it was a way of life.
“He was also as competitive a human being as has ever lived. It wasn’t just in basketball. He was almost ruthlessly competitive on the golf course, even when playing with close friends. He might have despised losing an argument even more than he despised losing a basketball game. As with basketball, he won a lot more than he lost.
“There’s one story that – to me – defines him. I’ve told it in the past, but it bears re-telling. In 1981, Smith very grudgingly agreed to cooperate with me on a profile for this newspaper. He kept insisting I should write about his players, but I said I had written about them. I wanted to write about him. He finally agreed.
“One of the people I interviewed for the story was Rev. Robert Seymour, who had been Smith’s pastor at the Binkley Baptist Church since 1958, when he first arrived in Chapel Hill. Seymour told me a story about how upset Smith was to learn that Chapel Hill’s restaurants were still segregated. He and Seymour came up with an idea: Smith would walk into a restaurant with a black member of the church.
“ ‘You have to remember,’ Reverend Seymour said. ‘back then, he wasn’t Dean Smith. He was an assistant coach. Nothing more.’
“Smith agreed and went to a restaurant where management knew him. He and his companion sat down and were served. That was the beginning of desegregation in Chapel Hill.
“When I circled back to Smith and asked him to tell me more about that night, he shot me an angry look.
“ ‘Why? You should be proud of doing something like that.’
“He leaned forward in his chair and in a very quiet voice said something I’ve never forgotten: ‘You should never be proud of doing what’s right. You should just do what’s right.’”
–Monday night, LeBron James went off for 61 points, a career and Miami Heat franchise best, making 22 of 33 shots from the field and 8 of 10 from downtown (including his first eight in a row), as the Heat beat the visiting Bobcats, 124-107.
James had 24 points at halftime, then added 25 in the third quarter. Coach Erik Spoelstra said, “There was an efficiency to what he was doing. The rim looked like an ocean for him.”
[But then on Tuesday, LeBron missed the last shot of the game in a 106-103 loss to the Rockets as he had just 22 points and one rebound.]
–Monday saw another terrific performance, that of Detroit 20-year-old center Andre Drummond, who had 17 points and a league-tying season high of 26 rebounds (Dwight Howard also had 26). Talk about a talent. Drummond is averaging 13 points, 13 rebounds this season and hitting 62% of his field goal attempts (though he needs to figure out the charity stripe…just .409 from there).
I think all of us thought he had potential when he was at UConn, but I’m shocked how quickly he is developing. What a find for the Pistons. [Selected ninth in the first round of the 2012 draft.] Heck, he doesn’t turn 21 until August.
Oh, Drummond’s effort was against the Knicks, who lost their seventh straight to fall to 21-40. The backcourt of Felton, JR Smith, Shumpert and Hardaway was 8 of 39 from the field. Cue Tom Petty… “Free Fallin’…” The Garden will be a morgue the final weeks of the season.
–Tuesday, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook had a rather extraordinary performance of his own, with 13 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists in just 20 minutes. [Another story says 21 min., but the official box score I’m looking at has 20.] He also had 3 steals and 6 turnovers. The Thunder beat the dreadful 76ers 125-92, Philadelphia’s 15th straight loss. The Sixers started the year 3-0 and are now 15-46. Kevin Durant had 42 points, and didn’t play in the fourth quarter.
–My “Pick to Click” Brooklyn Nets are back to .500 (29-29) after defeating the Bulls on Monday. Both shot 46% from the field, but the Nets were just 7-25 from downtown and were outrebounded 43-28. So how did they win 96-80? The Bulls had 28 turnovers.
–Former Wake Forest star Jeff Teague is on a nice roll, Deacon fans…28, 26, 26 and 29 points his last four games for the Hawks, but Atlanta is 1-3 over that stretch and is now down to 26-32, though it’s been decimated by major injuries this season.
Ball Bits
—Johan Santana signed an incentive-laden minor league deal with the Orioles that pays him $3 million if he makes the 40-man roster and then additional bonuses if he is on the active 25-man roster. What the heck. Supposedly, his fastball is only 81mph, but he’s just 34.
–Happy 75th birthday to “Fat Jack” Fisher, one of my favorite all-time Mets. From 1964-67, he went just 38-73, but was a workhorse, throwing 220+ innings each year, though going 10-17, 8-24, 11-14, and 9-18. Overall in his career, including with Baltimore and the White Sox, among others, he was 86-139, though with a 4.06 ERA. These days he’d have a multi-year, $10 million per contract.
But I have to note Jeanette N.’s husband’s favorite Fat Jack moment. [Mr. N. being the proud owner of a Jack Fisher tumbler from the same year as my Ed Kranepool one. I’m very jealous.]
It was Aug. 31, 1966. The San Francisco Giants were in town to play the Mets at Shea. Back in those days, throughout the 60s, anytime the Giants or Dodgers were in New York they were huge draws (think both bolting for California and leaving loyal fan bases high and dry in the Big Apple). This night, 50,508 were in attendance, one being Mr. N., to see Juan Marichal square off against Fisher.
The Giants won it 2-1, Marichal going all the way, allowing one run on four hits; Fisher going all the way for the Mets as well, giving up one earned run on four hits and fanning 8. Classic Fat Jack. Gave the Mets a great effort but lost again.
“Throughout the offices and film rooms of NFL teams, the whispers are building: This may be the deepest NFL draft ever.
“It also may be the one that ruins college football.
“A minor change in the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players, which was signed in 2011, is being blamed for a shift so dramatic, some within the game are fearful that college football’s talent base and recruiting system may never be the same. Put simply: Players are rushing to leave school early and go pro like never before.
“This year, there will be at least 98 underclassmen available in May’s draft, a 34% increase from 2013 and an 85% increase from 2010, the year before the latest collective bargaining agreement. The average age of an NFL player last season was 26 years 308 days, the youngest since 1987.”
Bottom line, the last CBA reformed the rookie contract process whereby you no longer have a Sam Bradford receiving a six-year, $78 million deal before throwing a single pass. Instead the money is more evenly spread out throughout the draft and the incentive to stay in school and improve one’s draft position is gone.
“ ‘It opens the floodgates,’ said former agent Joel Corry. ‘Agents are telling the kids that you need to start the clock early on getting the real money, which they say will come on your second contract.’”
Greg Gabriel, a former longtime NFL college-scouting director, told the Journal’s Clark:
“It’s absurd. You figure on losing a couple of top players going into their senior year. But when you’re losing some redshirt sophomore? There’s a spiral that’s coming that we haven’t seen because it’s just starting.”
–Denver quarterback Peyton Manning passed a physical on his surgically repaired neck which not only means he is cleared to play in 2014, his contract becomes guaranteed for the season, $20 million. Under the terms of the deal, had doctors discovered new damage, the contract could have been voided.
–The NFL’s Competition Committee is contemplating moving the ball to the 25-yard line for point-after-touchdown attempts; creating a 42-yard kick for the one point.
The reason is that kickers converted 99.6 percent of their 19-yard conversions this past season, missing only five of 1,267 attempts. The conversion rate from 40 to 49 yards for field-goal tries was 83 percent.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recently said, “You want to add excitement with every play so there have been some proposals.”
The league is also looking into doing away with the PAT altogether, awarding teams seven points for a touchdown, and then giving them the option to run or pass for an eighth point. If they fail, the score is reduced to six.
Needless to say, kickers aren’t real happy about these plans.
–The New Jersey Devils’ 41-year-old future Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur was in the net for a 4-3 win over the Red Wings on Tuesday, with the home crowd chanting “Mar-ty…Mar-ty” throughout. The NHL’s trade deadline is 3:00 pm today, Wednesday, and Brodeur appears to be headed elsewhere, despite spending his entire career with the Devils, racking up more wins and shutouts than any goalie in NHL history.
–As I go to post, it’s not known if Tiger Woods will play at Doral for the WGC event. He was to have his back examined this morning prior to making an announcement.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/8/75: #1 “Have You Never Been Mellow” (Olivia Newton-John) #2 “Black Water” (The Doobie Brothers) #3 “My Eyes Adored You” (Frankie Valli)…and…#4 “Lady Marmalade” (LaBelle) #5 “Lonely People” (America) #6 “Lady” (Styx) #7 “Best Of My Love” (The Eagles) #8 “Lovin’ You” (Minnie Riperton…tweet tweet…chirp chirp…) #9 “Pick Up The Pieces” (AWB) #10 “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” (Electric Light Orchestra)
NHL Quiz Answer: So Wayne Gretzky had 2,857 points in his career and Mark Messier is second at 1,887…a staggering 970 behind “The Great One.” 970!!! Or exactly 66% of Gretzky’s total. To put this in perspective, take Hank Aaron’s 755 home runs, then 66% of that. You’d have the No. 2 home run hitter at 498. [Yes, I just omitted a certain someone on purpose.]
Years ago I did the stat sheet below and it bears repeating. During Gretzky’s main stretch, some of the gaps between his league-leading point total and the runner-up are amazing. And a few of the years he had more assists than the next guy had total points!
1979-80…51 goals – 86 assists…137 points
1980-81…55 – 109…164…Marcel Dionne, 135
1981-82…92 – 120…212…Mike Bossy, 147
1982-83…71 – 125…196…Peter Stasny, 124
1983-84…87 – 118…205…Paul Coffey, 126*
1984-85…73 – 135…208…Jari Kurri, 135
1985-86…52 – 163…215…Mario Lemieux, 141
1986-87…62 – 121…183…Jari Kurri, 108
1987-88…40 – 109…149
1988-89…54 – 114…168
1989-90…40 – 102…142
1990-91…41 – 122…163
[1987-88 and 1988-89 were the only two in the above run that Gretzky did not lead the league, Mario Lemieux being his own bad ‘self during part of this time as well.]
A lot has been made of Gretzky’s potential influence on golfer Dustin Johnson, who is engaged to Gretzky’s daughter. There is no doubt Johnson will benefit, as he says he already has. The advice Gretzky can give on being a winner is obviously invaluable and no one should be surprised to see Johnson finally bust out for a major or two.
