It’s actually a pretty straightforward affair. Brendan’s got the official ALDLAND NCAA tournament bracket challenge set up and ready to go. Click here to join us and fill out your bracket. The winner gets a prize, which may be extremely intangible and inconsequential.
After a short break, Monday updates are back to note that Michigan State and Vanderbilt both won their conference tournaments on Sunday, defeating Ohio State and Kentucky, respectively. For the Spartans, it was enough to earn them a one seed in the NCAA tournament and a first-round matchup against Long Island University. For the Commodores, the Harvard of the South finds itself a five seed, facing the Harvard of Cambridge, Massachusetts. More on the brackets later today.
In NFL news, the Colts released Peyton Manning last week, and he spent the weekend talking to the Broncos and Cardinals about joining their teams for this season. A decision is not expected until the end of this week at the earliest. Related to this was a trade between the Redskins and Rams that likely will result in Robert Griffin III going to Washington in the upcoming NFL draft. Out west, Randy Moss is trying to make a return to the NFL following a brief period of retirement, earning himself a tryout with the 49ers.
But you know this. What you may not know is that I have long called for an end to the moratorium on indoor umbrella usage. What I did not know was that MJ broke down that barrier (and did so much more) in the early 1980s. Witness:
(HT: Sleepz and Thinkz)
For the first time ever, rain delayed the Daytona 500 such that no laps were run yesterday. NASCAR announced that the race would resume at noon today, although early indications today are that it’s unlikely to start until tonight. (UPDATE: The race will start at 7:02 pm.) A thank you to those readers who joined the thrilling live blog of the rain delay yesterday.
In college basketball, Vanderbilt fell again to Kentucky, this time at Rupp Arena, which is the only place in the SEC where Vandy’s seniors have not won. Not too many visiting teams win at Rupp, though, and the game was a close one. On Saturday night, Michigan State got all over Nebraska, beating them 62-34 in a game in which Draymond Green became just the fourth Spartan ever to record 1,000 career rebounds. Elsewhere in the Big Ten, Wisconsin beat a free-falling Ohio State in Columbus, and Michigan’s Jon Horford is out for the season with injuries.
This past weekend was the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, something I find largely unwatchable. I saw a headline that said that Kobe Bryant broke his nose in the live-action slam dunk contestAll-Star game last night, and apparently LeBron James passed up a shot at the end, which surprised no one.
The NFL draft combine was this weekend as well, and Robert Griffin III ran the forty-yard dash very quickly.
After a rough opening period, Vanderbilt erased a thirteen-point halftime deficit to twice take the lead in the second half, but an inability to score any points for the final 4:09 of the game doomed the Commodores to defeat at the hands of the #1 Wildcats. Complete postgame coverage is available here, here, and here. My impressions of the game were 1) Kentucky is a very good team; 2) Vanderbilt showed it could overcome obstacles and come back in a game, playing the best team in the country better than anybody has since an early season ‘Cat loss to Indiana; and 3) UK and Vandy at Memorial Gym is one of the most exciting sports scenes out there.
After a late arrival into Music City Friday night, I couldn’t get myself to the gym for the early taping of ESPN’s Gameday program, but things got on track quickly with a lunch of the best fried chicken in all the land with with 2/5ths of the VSL Brain Trust, among many other notable persons. Follow that up with afternoon honky-tonking– the live sounds of Tootsie’s and Robert’s– and a fresh growler from Jackalope Brewery, and I was primed to enjoy a pregame treat in the form of watching Michigan State defeat Ohio State over some fresh brats. A Sunday morning visit to St. Augustine, and I was Northbound again. Traveling through Kentucky, picking up WKU Radio’s Barren River Breakdown program dulled the sting of the previous night’s loss just a little bit.
The ‘Dores get another regular-season chance against the Wildcats this weekend when they travel to Rupp Arena, where Kentucky has won forty-nine straight.
For more of my pictures, click here, here, here, and here.
Previous Live Coverage:
Beale Street recap: Vandy falls to Cincinnati in the Liberty Bowl, 31-24
Bpbrady’s Long Overdue Sugar Bowl Writeup
Windy City recap: Red Wings fall to Blackhawks 3-2
Michigan’s unfriendly welcoming of Nebraska
B1G Roadtrippin’: Michigan at Illinois
Nashville recap: Georgia escapes, 33-28
B1G Roadtrippin’: Michigan at Northwestern
The Little Brown Jug stays in Ann Arbor
Recap: Detroit Red Wings’ Red & White Game
Motor City recap: Tigers win, 2-1
Music City recap: Vanderbilt wins, 45-14
Concert report: Lyle Lovett and his Large Band
Concert report: An evening with Bruce Hornsby, Béla Fleck, the Noisemakers, and the Flecktones
This time of the year is a bit of a lull in the sports calendar, though college basketball continues its upward march toward March, and both Michigan State and Vanderbilt— two teams that have traveled in different directions a bit, mostly by virtue of their original positions this year– appear to be pulling it together when it counts.
After the Red Wings’ record-setting win on Valentine’s Day, they have extended their home winning streak to 23, now besting all such streaks (and not merely those within a single season).
Out East, the Linsanity rolls on. Out West, a rolling avalanche killed three skiiers, including the head judge of the Freeskiing World Tour, in Washington. (These, of course, are not the season’s first skiing deaths.)
Coming attractions here this week include my overdue report on the Kentucky-Vanderbilt game, bdoyk’s nod to Tim Wakefield, and a preview of the 2012 NASCAR season. Thanks to Jalen Rose and all the rest of you for dropping by.
Saturday night’s primetime college basketball matchups saw both visiting teams come away with victories. In the early game, Michigan State beat Ohio State, ending the Buckeyes’ thirty-nine game home winning streak with a comfortable ten-point victory. In the late game, Vanderbilt erased a thirteen-point halftime deficit but were unable to close in the final minutes, losing to #1 Kentucky 69-63. (More on this game later.)
We’ve so far resisted the seemingly linfinite opportunities to write about New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin– he isn’t even my favorite Lin brother— but his 38-point effort against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers deserves mention.
Finally, while MSU ended OSU’s home win streak, the cross-state Detroit Red Wings came from behind to beat the Flyers in Hockeytown for their twentieth consecutive home win, which tied the record set by the 1929-30 Bruins and matched by Philadelphia’s 1976 crew.
ESPN’s College Gameday returns to Nashville this Saturday, with the focus on an 8:00 pm Central game between Vanderbilt and top-ranked Kentucky, following a 6:00 Eastern game between Michigan State and Ohio State in Columbus. It’s a big night for college basketball– particularly ALDLAND’s brand of college basketball– and because I’ve been to Columbus once and have no immediate desire to return, we’re taking you live to Memorial Gym for the late game.
Both Kentucky and Vanderbilt had high expectations before the season started, ranked #2 and #7, respectively, and while the Wildcats currently are surpassing those expectations, the Commodores have faltered. There are two main donkeys on which the tails of their struggles can be pinned: 1) knee injuries to big-man Festus Ezeli, and 2) a lack of bench support. These two rationales also provide good (and mostly legitimate) smokescreens for what Vandy fans fear may be behind their team’s difficulties: the apparent mental weakness that has kept this group from rising to its physical potential in past years. One sign that this spectre is fading is the pleasantly aggressive and frequently commanding performance of Jeffrey Taylor.
UK comes into Saturday night on a tear. They are 11-0 in SEC play, and they generally have been demolishing their opponents. I saw their most recent game, which was a comfortable win over Florida, a team that itself had a mostly comfortable win over Vanderbilt just last weekend. Vandy, meanwhile, comes limping– literally, in Ezeli’s case– into this game, with Wednesday night’s home win over LSU lukewarm comfort after consecutive eight-point losses to Florida and Arkansas. (The Razorbacks’ 81-59 loss to Georgia on Wednesday doesn’t help either.)
Before handing this post over to more accomplished previewers, a note on one similarity and one difference between these two teams. First, many have cited the Wildcats’ size as a factor in their success this season, but Vanderbilt actually matches up well with them physically. Second, Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, is known for favoring young players, and this year’s starters– three freshman and two sophomores– track to that preference. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, starts a veteran crew: four seniors and one junior.
For an extended, thorough analysis of Saturday night’s game, read this preview at Open ‘Dores. For a Vandy pep talk, watch Jay Bilas’ video hit.
I’ve seen these two teams play twice before with mixed results. In 2008, the Commodores avenged a 79-73 double-overtime loss in Lexington by stunning the Wildcats 93-52 at Memorial Gym. I stunned myself with my own foolishness when I realized, after the game, that I’d locked my keys in my car and that, even in the Mid South, February is a cold month. Two years later, I saw these two again, when Vandy dropped a heartbreaker at home in 2010, losing by two points after missing multiple opportunites to seal a win or send the game into overtime. That was the most exciting game I’ve attended where the team I favored did not win.
Tomorrow’s game presents an even tougher test for Vanderbilt. I know Bilas is a Dookie of the first order, but if he says they can win, then it can be done. Plus, Vanderbilt has recent experience knocking of #1-ranked rival teams: they did it it to Tennessee in 2008.
Winner: The New York Giants. They scored first, with a technical safety on the Patriots’ opening drive, when Tom Brady stood in his own end zone and intentionally grounded the ball, and they scored last, when Ahmad Bradshaw carried a little more momentum than he probably expected on a largely undefended running play, to beat New England 21-17.
Loser: The New England Patriots. Despite going down 9-0 early in the game, they took a lead into halftime, thanks for a field-traversing drive on which Tom Brady was 10-10 in passing. The Pats suddenly looked like their old, domineering, mechanistic, enemy-vaporizing selves. And they got the ball to start the second half! I sent a text message to Bdoyk at halftime: “Tide has turned.” Her response: “Don’t say that.” To the hyperstitious greater Massachusetts sports community, I’m sorry if that in-game prediction of victory caused your players to develop stone hands on the final drive. Keep reading…
Last night was my first chance this season to watch a lot of college basketball, which was especially convenient because both Michigan State and Vanderbilt were playing in back-to-back nationally televised games. Both games were in-conference and on the road. In both cases, the visiting team was considered the better team, and in both cases, the visiting team lost in disappointing fashion. In Champaign, the Illini were barely able to take advantage of brutal shooting by the Spartans and extended absences by Draymond Green, stumbling into a 42-41 W. In Fayetteville, the Razorbacks out-rebounded the ‘Dores and largely played mistake-free basketball, which is a pretty solid formula for winning at home, which they did, 82-74. I also caught part of UT-UK and Clemson-Virginia. The message of the former was “youth,” and the message of the latter was “I did not watch enough to form any meaningful impression of either team.” 
If you think this post has been slim on analysis so far, consider the above graphic. (HT: Deadspin)
ALDLAND 
