[Posted Sunday PM…]
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tues.
NBA / Seattle Supersonics Quiz: The NBA’s Board of Governors took the first step to approve an exploration of adding two new franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle. There’s still a lengthy process, but this could mean the return of basketball to Seattle after the franchise left for Oklahoma City following the 2007-08 season.
The quiz is…how many of the seven-man rotation for the 1978-79 championship Supersonics can you name. Answer below.
March Madness
Thursday, 2 Purdue prevailed against 11 Texas, 79-77 on a Trey Kaufman-Renn tip-in of a Braden Smith miss at the bucket with 0.7 left on the clock.
1 Arizona defeated 4 Arkansas 109-88, the Wildcats hitting 37 of 58 (64%) from the field.
3 Illinois beat 2 Houston, 65-55, as the Cougars were the opposite of the Wildcats, 22 of 64 (34%).
And 9 Iowa moved to the Elite Eight with a 77-71 win over 4 Nebraska that will be long remembered for a screwup by Cornhuskers coach Fred Hoiberg, who only had four players on the court which allowed the Hawekeyes to score a crucial easy basket, giving Iowa a 6-point lead after a free throw, 58 seconds left.
Hoiberg called it a “miscommunication.”
Friday, 5 St. John’s gave its all but fell to No. 1 Duke, 80-75, as Isaiah Evans (to me, long the key if Duke is to win the title) had 25 points, and Cam Boozer had 22 and 10 rebounds.
But the story ended up being point guard Caleb Foster, who less than three weeks after breaking his foot, was suddenly on the court and contributed 11 points in the second half that gave the Blue Devils a huge emotional lift, acknowledged after the game by coach Jon Scheyer.
Rick Pitino’s boys have nothing to be ashamed of. It was a terrific season, as Pitino has delivered for the Johnnies.
But…St. John’s could have won this, and that’s what will eat at them, as well as the coach, for months.
No. 1-seed Michigan beat 4 Alabama, 90-77, as Yaxel Lendeborg had another outstanding game, 23 points on 8 of 12 shooting, 12 rebounds and 7 assists. His draft stock continues to rise.
2 UConn beat 3 Michigan State, 67-63; the Huskies in a dream game Sunday against Duke.
And 6 Tennessee is in its third straight Elite Eight, 76-62 over 2 Iowa State.
But the Vols still have never been to a Final Four in their history.
—Saturday, in the first Elite Eight matchup, 3 Illinois beat 9 Iowa, behind freshman Keaton Wagler’s 25 points; Wagler out of Shawnee, OK, where your editor sold books door-to-door during the summer of ’78. [My first sale was on the Shawnee Indian Reservation, a creepy experience.]
Coach Brad Underwood’s Illini thus advance to their first Final Four since 2005.
And 1 Arizona is heading to its first Final Four since 2001 (under legendary coach Lute Olsen back then), 79-64 over 2 Purdue.
The Boilermakers had a 38-31 lead at the half, but the Wildcats rolled in the second, 46-28, to move to 6-0 when trailing at the intermission.
Purdue’s senior tandem of Trey Kaufman-Renn, Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer was a combined 12 of 38 from the field.
[I must say, I was very unimpressed by Smith over the course of the tournament.]
Sunday, 1 Michigan had a very easy time of it over 6 Tennessee, 95-62, so the Vols still haven’t been to a Final Four.
It was 48-26 at the half, Tennessee 9 of 37 from the field, and it obviously didn’t get any better.
Lendeborg had another big game, 27 points, Elliot Cadeau 10 assists.
Let’s hope 2 UConn vs. 1 Duke offers something better….no doubt it will….
Well, I wrote that right after the Michigan game…and it was 44-29 Duke at the half, UConn 1 of 11 from three.
But the Huskies then cut it to 56-49 with 10:59 to play, though at 7:59, it was 62-51, UConn 1 of 18 from beyond the arc. Eegads.
And at the TV timeout with 3:42 to play, UConn cut the lead to 67-65, Silas Demary Jr. hitting two 3s for the Huskies.
Then…1:20 to play, 70-66….
Cam Boozer turns it over, and Alex Karaban, 1 of 9 from the field at this point, drains a long 3, 70-69, but Boozer answers with a bucket, 26.9 to play, 72-69.
Demary makes one of two free throws…72-70, 10.0 left, and Duke just has to get it over half court and Cayden Boozer muffs it, UConn recovers, gets it to freshman Braylon Mullins who fires a three from 35 feet…SWISH!
Down 19 at one point, UConn does it!!!
So it’s UConn vs. Illinois next Saturday, and in a battle for the ages, Michigan vs. Arizona.
—Boston College hired UConn assistant Luke Murray on Thursday to be its new head coach, hoping he’s the answer for a program that hasn’t gone to the NCAA Tournament in 17 years.
Luke Murray is the son of Bill Murray, who you’ve seen on the sidelines of many a UConn game. So now you’d expect him to be a fixture in Chestnut Hill. That’s not all bad for the Eagles.
Luke has been on the sidelines for UConn’s two national championship teams under Dan Hurley.
—N.C. State coach Will Wade lasted just one year in Raleigh and then decided he would return to LSU – where he went 105-51 from 2018 to 2022, rising to national prominence in the process.
It’s been rumored Wade was heading back. He was 20-14 with the Wolfpack, taking them to a First Four game, where they lost to Texas.
During his first go-round in Baton Rouge, LSU received multiple allegations of NCAA infractions on the eve of the 2022 NCAA Tournament and Wade was unceremoniously fired, eventually receiving a two-year show-cause penalty and 10-game suspension from the governing body. That was, in part, a result of the FBI’s investigation into corruption in college basketball, which included Wade infamously being caught on a federal wiretap lamenting one “strong-ass offer” he’d made a recruit – in the pre-NIL era – that didn’t yield a commitment.
But now all that stuff is legal.
Wade is highly unlikable. He can be a real jerk. But he knows how to coach.
—North Carolina parted ways with coach Hubert Davis, opening up one of the 2 or 3 high-profile jobs in college basketball, some would say numero uno.
The move came days after UNC’s stunning collapse against VCU, in which the Tar Heels blew the largest lead (19 points) in a first-round game in men’s tournament history.
In Davis’ tenure, he went 125-54 in five seasons, with a Final Four appearance in his first season. But they exited early the last two seasons, and that’s not good enough in Chapel Hill, Davis having replaced the great Roy Williams.
Davis released a statement Tuesday night on social media, saying he had wanted to continue to coach at UNC and that his goal is to coach again in the “very near future.”
The latest rumor is that Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan could be in line for the job.
MLB
–Going back to the pseudo Opening Day, Wed., the Yanks shut out the Giants in San Francisco 7-0, behind Max Fried’s 6 1/3 of shutout ball, even as Aaron Judge went 0-for-5 with 4 strikeouts…suffering a hangover from the WBC.
But on Friday, Cam Schlittler (5 1/3, 8 strikeouts) and the Yankee bullpen shut the Giants out again, 3-0, as Judge and Giancarlo Stanton went deep.
Saturday, the Yanks won their third straight in San Francisco, 3-1, Judge homering a second time.
—The Real Opening Day was Thursday, with most every team in action, and the Mets lit up Pirates starter Paul Skenes for 5 runs in the first (all earned), Skenes exiting after just 37 pitches, 2/3s of an inning, having allowed 4 hits and 2 walks. Granted, he was done in by some awful play in center field by Oneil Cruz, but Skenes is a guy who had a career ERA of 1.96 over his first 55 starts. After Thursday, it was 2.10.
For the Mets, starter Fredie Peralta did what he had to in the 11-7 win, five innings, 4 runs for the win in his Mets debut, while rookie Carson Benge, in his first big-league start, smashed a home run, while catcher Francisco Alvarez hit a bomb to left; Alvarez, to yours truly, being one of the three keys to Mets success this year (the others Nolan McLean proving last season’s brief but lights out pitching wasn’t a fluke and Luis Robert Jr. proving the last two seasons with the White Sox were an aberration).
Speaking of Robert Jr., he was terrific, working out an 10-pitch walk against Skenes in the first and then getting two hits and an RBI.
The Mets improved to 42-15 on Opening Day since 1970.
New York then won on Saturday in dramatic fashion, a 3-run walk-off homer by the aforementioned Luis Robert in the 11th inning, 4-2. What a first two games for him as a Met.
The Mets’ bullpen was superb, no earned runs the last 5 2/3, as former Yankees Luke Weaver and Devin Williams made their debuts and looked good.
But the Metropolitans lost in ten innings today, 4-3, Jorge Polanco’s bid for another walk-off homer caught at the wall for the third out.
Nolan McLean threw five innings of 2-run ball.
Bo Bichette, the best clutch-hitter in the game last season, and throughout his career, has started out his Mets stint 1-for-14, with eight strikeouts.
I don’t panic in Game Three…I begin to get very concerned in Game 20, and it’s full panic mode Game 40.
–Also on Thursday, we heard all spring that Mike Trout said he was finally healthy and looking forward to a renaissance in his Hall of Fame career at age 34. All he did in the opener in the Angels’ 3-0 win over the Astros is play center field, homer and reach base four times.
Then Friday, Trout went 3-for-4, homering again, in L.A.’s 6-2 win.
Saturday, in an 11-9 loss to Houston, Trout went 1-for-3, an RBI, and two walks.
The fact Trout has played center all three games is huge.
—The Dodgers got their World Series rings on Thursday and defeated the Diamondbacks 8-2 at Chavez Ravine, behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s six innings of 2-run ball; Will Smith and Andy Pages going yard for L.A.
Friday, the Dodgers won again, 5-4, as Mookie Betts hit a 3-run homer and Edwin Diaz got his first save in an L.A. uniform.
And L.A. made it 3-0, Saturday, beating the D’Backs 3-2, Diaz with another save.
—Friday, the Braves opened the season with a 6-0 win over the Royals, Chris Sale with six shutout innings.
—Andres Gimenez drove in all 3 runs for the Blue Jays in a 3-2 win over the visiting A’s, Kevin Gausman going 6 innings, 11 strikeouts for Toronto.
I mention this one because during the spring, I told Ken P. that Sacramento’s Shea Langeliers was going to be this year’s Cal Raleigh, and all Langeliers did was account for the A’s two runs with two solo home runs.
Alas, Nick Kurtz, whose box score I’ll look for every day, was 0-for-4, 3 strikeouts.
Saturday, Langeliers homered for a third time, Kurtz 0-for-2, but three walks and three runs scored, the A’s falling short, however, 8-7 in 11 to Toronto.
The Blue Jays completed the sweep Sunday, 5-2. [Kurtz singled and walked.]
—Detroit third baseman Kevin McGonigle had quite a start to his career, Thursday, in an 8-2 win over the Padres, going 4-for-5 with two doubles, and becoming just the fifth player to have 4+ hits and at least 2 extra-base hits in his MLB debut.
One of the five was Willie McCovey, who famously went 4-for-4 with two triples in his debut with the Giants, July 30, 1959, batting third between Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda.
McCovey would go on to win NL Rookie of the Year, despite only 192 at-bats, because he hit .354 with a 1.085 OPS.
He was called up after batting .372 with Phoenix of the PCL, an OPS of 1.219! Goodness gracious.
I’ve always said, as an old-time baseball fan, he’s the guy I feared most coming to the plate against my Mets.
–And heading into Sunday night’s game in Seattle, Cleveland rookie Chase DeLauter is just the second player in MLB history to hit four home runs in his first three games.
Bazooka Joe says: “Chase joins Trevor Story, who had four in his first three in 2016!”
—The Cubs signed budding superstar Pete Crow-Armstrong to a six-year, $115 million contract extension. He turned 24 on Wednesday.
–Very funny that umpire CB Bucknor had six pitch calls overturned by ABS on Saturday, including two straight overturned punch-outs of the Reds’ Eugenio Suarez.
–By the way, the cost for a family of four to go a Dodger game, four tickets, parking, two beers, two sodas, four hot dogs, sets you back $413.16, which is nearly $200 above the league average.
Average ticket prices sit at $78.11, the highest in the sport. Parking is $45.
The Red Sox are second at $372.00.
NBA
–Going back to Wed., the Celtics beat the Thunder, 119-109, ending OKC’s 12-game winning streak.
The Hawks beat the Pistons, 130-129.
Thursday, the Knicks (48-26) had a bad loss at the Hornets (39-34), 114-103, as rookie Kon Knueppel, who deserves the Rookie of the Year honors, had 26 points, 6 of 10 from three, plus 11 rebounds. What a great draft pick for Charlotte.
Friday, the Clippers (38-36) beat the Pacers (16-58) in Indy, 114-113, which I mention because, not for nuthin’, but L.A. started the season 6-21. Kawhi Leonard, now 34, is seemingly healthy and averaging 28.3 points per game, a career high. Good to see.
The Celtics (49-24) beat the Hawks (41-33) 109-102, to put more distance between themselves and the Knicks.
And the Cavaliers are 46-28 following a 149-128 win over the Heat (39-35).
So in the Eastern Conference, with the Knicks at the Thunder Sunday night, and the Celtics at the Hornets….
Detroit 54-20
Boston 49-24…4.5
Knicks 48-26…6
Cleveland 46-28…8
New York needs that 2-seed.
In the Western Conference….
Oklahoma City 58-16
San Antonio 56-18…2
And then there’s everyone else….
–The Lakers’ Luka Doncic was suspended a game without pay after picking up his 16th technical foul of the season. He’ll serve the suspension Monday, when L.A. is hosting the Wizards.
Golf Balls
At the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course, Houston, Texas, after two rounds….
Gary Woodland was the leader at -13.
Nicolai Hojgaard -10
Jackson Suber -10
Min Woo Lee -9
Jason Day -9
Will Zalatoris, Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka were among those missing the cut.
Scottie Scheffler withdrew early in the week from what would have been a ‘homefield’ event as his wife, Meredith, is expecting the couple’s second child.
After 54 holes….
Woodland -18
Hojgaard -17
And then it’s….
Lee -12
Michael Thorbjornsen -12
Go Gary Woodland!
And after the front nine on Sunday, Woodland had a six-shot lead, as he goes for win No. 5 of his career, first since the 2019 U.S. Open.
Woodland then cruises to a five-shot win over Hojgaard, an incredibly emotional one, 2 ½ years after brain surgery and a tough recovery, something he very publicly has said he struggles with every day.
He is a beloved player in the sport. On to Augusta, Gary.
—And then there is the story of Tiger Woods.
Early in the week, after his appearance at the TGL event, where he hit just nine shots, and missed a critical 2-foot putt, Woods was asked if he’s made a decision on the Masters.
“As I said, I’ve been trying. Just this body is – it doesn’t recover like it did when it was 24, 25,” Woods said. “It doesn’t mean I’m not trying. I’ve been trying for a while. I’ve had a couple bad injuries here over the past years that I’ve had to fight through and it’s taken some time. But I keep trying. I want to play. I love the tournament. I’ve loved being there since I was 19 years old. It’s meant a lot to me and my family over the years. I’m going to be there either way with The Loop that’s going up there [his new nine-hole design at the Augusta municipal course], as well as the Champions Dinner.”
Woods also noted that he doesn’t know when he’ll make an official decision about the Masters.
“I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll be practicing, playing at home this week and keep trying to make progress,” said Tiger.
He last played in the 2024 British Open before he underwent a back procedure to alleviate disk impingement. However, he then ruptured his Achilles and had surgery, keeping him out for the entire 2025 season. Then he had the disk replacement surgery in October, believed to be his seventh back surgery dating to 2014, for which he has said recovery has been slow.
So that was Tuesday.
Friday afternoon, we learned that for a fourth time in his career, Tiger had an incident involving a motor vehicle.
In Feb. 2021, he had that awful crash in Southern California that resulted in serious injuries. In May 2017, he passed out behind the wheel in Jupiter, FL, and later pleaded guilty to reckless driving. In 2009, Woods crashed into a fire hydrant in his neighbor’s yard in the private golf community of Isleworth near Orlando, the day after Thanksgiving.
And then this…Tiger in a rollover, uninjured, but arrested for refusing to submit to a lawful test.
The crash happened after Woods allegedly attempted to overtake a pressure cleaner truck at a “high rate of speed” in a residential part of Jupiter.
Woods was clean as to the breathalyzer, but apparently on drugs, which he tried to protect himself by not submitting to a urinalysis.
He was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and held in jail for the required minimum of eight hours before being bailed out. There were other charges.
There really isn’t too much to say. It’s all rather obvious. Tiger needs help. As USA Today’s Nancy Armour put it:
“Not a high-priced attorney who can make his latest DUI go away. Not a spin doctor who can make excuses for him. Not sycophants who will tell him how wonderful he is and minimize the recklessness of his actions.”
The guy needs to go to rehab for however long it takes. And he must take responsibility for his actions.
Incredibly, Tiger hasn’t hurt anyone else in all four incidents. He is so freakin’ lucky.
It’s real simple. He also can’t be allowed to ever drive again. We all know he could kill someone, or himself, and he must understand that changes his already damaged legacy forever.
But it’s a big blow to the PGA Tour, which is heavily relying on Tiger for his input on how to reconstruct the schedule and the tour’s future. Others have to step up…like Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, maybe Scheffler, but he doesn’t seem to be that involved in this stuff.
Tiger’s girlfriend, Vanessa Trump, posted on social media for the first time Saturday since the accident and said nothing about Tiger, just re-sharing daughter Kai Trump’s posts.
Premier League
—Mohamed Salah announced he was leaving Liverpool at the end of the 2025-26 season, bringing an end to an historic nine-year stay at the club.
He won two Premier League titles and a Champions League trophy in 2019, along with five other titles. And he is third on the club’s all-time leading goalscorer list, with 255 in 435 appearances. But he’s had a poor season.
Stuff
—No Premier League action this week (and next). Lots of international friendlies, and then FA Cup quarterfinals, as well as World Cup qualifying matches.
But after just 44 days and a disastrous seven games, Tottenham manager Igor Tudor left the team by mutual consent, the Spurs just one point above the relegation zone.
Tottenham doesn’t play until Sunday April 12 and will probably have a manager in place by Wednesday.
–Last Tuesday, at the World Cup Alpine finals, Mikaela Shiffrin set another record, setting the single-season mark for most World Cup wins in one discipline in winning her ninth slalom in 10 races.
Those nine don’t include her gold medal in the slalom at the Olympics.
Amazing. Shiffrin also won her sixth overall World Cup title, to go along with her now 110 career wins.
On the men’s side, Marco Odermatt won his fifth consecutive overall title. He has 54 individual wins, still just 28 years old.
Not a great campaign for U.S. men, who had only two podium finishes, both by Ryan Cochran-Siegle.
–Today, Italian 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes won his second consecutive Formula 1 race, taking the Japanese Grand Prix ahead of Oscar Piastri of McLaren.
Charles Leclerc of Ferrari was third.
Antonelli won the first F1 race of his career two weeks ago in China, the second-youngest winner in history, the youngest being Max Verstappen when he was only 18.
Antonelli is now the youngest, however, to ever lead the season drivers’ standings.
—The IOC is banning transgender women athletes from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with President Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.
The IOC published a 10-page policy document which also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.
Semenya, who was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has testosterone levels higher than the typical female range, won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her years-long challenge to track and field’s rules which did not overturn them.
She is now coaching.
—Two people have died of rattlesnake bites in Southern California in the past two months.
A 25-year-old Costa Mesa man died after being bitten by a rattler while biking on a trail in Irvine, Feb. 1, falling into a coma and then passing on March 4, according to his family.
And then a 46-year-old Ventura County woman died last week just five days after being bit a rattlesnake in a popular Thousand Oaks park frequented by hikers, officials confirmed to KTLA.
What’s even scarier is that both victims were quickly rushed to hospitals and still couldn’t be saved.
A teenage girl who fell off her bike near a trailhead in Thousand Oaks on March 20 and was bit, was administered anti-venom at a hospital and her life was saved.
–And lastly, my brother passed on a piece from foodrepublic.com on the late actor Paul Newman, who his fans like moi have long known loved his beer.
It turns out his favorite was St. Pauli Girl. Way back he told Town & Country magazine that St. Pauli’s was his drink du jour for Christmas 1968, and he said it was his favorite for every non-Yule-related day, too. In 1981, well into his 50s, he was photographed doing what looks to be quadruple-fisting bottles of St. Pauli’s. He was known to drink, by his own admission, at least 10 beers a day.
Why St. Pauli’s? Well, the brewery was built in the same location in Bremen, Germany, where once a monastery devoted to St. Paul stood, hence the first part of its name.
Since inception, St. Pauli’s has been brewed under rigid purity laws set forth by the German state in the 16th century, which limit the permitted ingredients to just three: water, hops, and barley malt, and that could very well have had something to do with Newman’s taste for it. It also has a relatively low alcohol content, which helps make it super drinkable.
And for all the above, yet another reason why Paul Newman is in the Bar Chat Hall of Fame.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/27/65: #1 “Stop! In The Name Of Love” (The Supremes) #2 “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” (Herman’s Hermits) #3 “The Birds And The Bees” (Jewel Akens)…and…#4 “Eight Days A Week” (The Beatles) #5 “King Of The Road” (Roger Miller) #6 “Ferry Cross The Mersey” (Gerry & The Pacemakers) #7 “Shotgun” (Jr. Walker & The All Stars) #8 “Goldfinger” (Shirley Bassey) #9 “My Girl” (The Temptations) #10 “This Diamond Ring” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys…A week…)
NBA / Seattle Supersonics Quiz Answer: Seven-man rotation for the 1978-79 champion Seattle squad coached by Lenny Wilkens.
Jack Sikma, 15.6 ppg, 12.4 reb.
Dennis Johnson, 15.9 ppg
Gus Williams, 19.2 ppg
John Johnson, 11.0 ppg
Lonnie Shelton, 13.5 ppg
Fred Brown, 14.0 ppg
Paul Silas, 5.6 ppg, 7.0 reb.
Wally Walker played some.
Seattle beat the Washington Bullets in five for the title, the Bullets led by Wes Unself, Bob Dandridge and Elvin Hayes.
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tues.
