Category: Sports

That’s an odd story to begin with, but what makes it really strange to me is that it is my high school.

It’s quite a story. When I was in that school with my fellow early baby boomers, there were about 2,000 students and it was just a typical Catholic prep school. Today the average graduating class is between 50 and 60 kids, yet they have managed to survive and retain the immense old facility.

How could that happen? Well, they expanded to a “high and middle” school, with grades 6-12, and they charge a fortune to go there, but that still only got them to 315 total students, not enough to pay the bills. Then they had a brainstorm. They saw the high schools in Florida that are basically training programs for elite athletes and realized that there was nothing comparable for (of all things) women’s hockey. They converted some apartments, where the nuns and brothers used to live, into dorms, and created a hockey boarding school. (It’s still a regular high school as well. The hockey players attend regular classes with all the commuter kids.) It was really a radical idea, and not many people thought it would have broad enough appeal to succeed. I never would have thought of it. But it turned out to be genius. That high school is still in business, while our identical sister school, faced with an identical situation and lacking a creative solution, has been closed for decades, as have so many high schools in an era of declining birth rates and increased home schooling.

So, it turns out that I went to a hockey factory, and have never even skated in my life. As ol’ Casey Stengel used to say, “Amazin’!”

Approximately 13 seconds into the race, with her entire body airborne after coming off a turn into a jump, Vonn clipped a gate. With no way to stabilize herself, her body twisted and she hit the ground in a cloud of snow. Vonn tumbled down the slope, coming to rest in a tangle of skis and limbs. “Oh my goodness! No!” cried the NBC announcers, speaking for everyone watching, at home and on site.

In the end, it seemed, there would be no poetic, storybook ending to Vonn’s comeback story: just a medevac helicopter carrying the skier’s prone body into the sky.

These are the 1903 NY Highlanders, a team that would later be called the Yankees. They were not an especially good team, barely cracking the .500 mark, but the three circled men are baseball legends and Hall of Famers.

On the top is John “Happy Jack” Chesbro. He won 21 games that year as the ace of the staff, but it was the following season that got him into the Hall of Fame. He posted an unreal record of 41-12, with 48 complete games. That remains, and probably always will remain, the most games ever won in one season at the modern pitching distance. It may be the most unbreakable single-season record.

Third from the left in the lower row is Clark Griffith. He was then at the tail end of an excellent pitching career, but was in his first year as the team manager. Two years earlier, he had managed the first pennant winner in the history of the American league. That turned out to be his only pennant as a manager, but he would later manage the Washington Senators for many years in the Walter Johnson era. After his playing and managing careers, he had a third baseball life as the team president and owner of the Washington club, where he won three more pennants and a World Series. The Senators’ ballpark was named after him.

Next to Griffith is “Wee” Willie Keeler, the 5’4″ bat-control specialist who coined the phrase “hit ’em where they ain’t.” He had eight consecutive years with 200 or more hits. Through the 1903 season, his first with the Highlanders, his lifetime batting average was .366, which would have been the highest of all time had he retired then. He continued to play when he was no longer effective, and his lifetime mark dropped to a “mere” .341.

As of now, Indiana has the last undefeated college football team and the last undefeated college basketball team.

Helluva second half. There’s no doubt that we got the two best teams into the finals. The stats match up perfectly. The difference between the teams was a blocked punt and that heart-stopping last-minute interception.

Here is how ESPN summed it up:

A 27-21 win over Miami that closed out an undefeated season and brought an improbable national championship to a program that had known nothing but losing and indifference for almost 140 years. Coach Curt Cignetti, who took over a program with a nation-leading 713 losses and turned it into the game’s biggest winner in the span of two years.

The three key plays:

Mendoza’s epic run:

The blocked punt:

The INT:

The vaunted SEC will have no finalist this year.

I can’t ever seem to get a rooting interest in the college football finals. Last year, I wanted them both to lose. This year, I want them both to win.

Indiana has the horsepower, and it would be fun to watch an once-unheralded football school have an undefeated season for the ages.

On the other hand, Miami had to scratch and claw their way here after finishing 3rd in their own conference, and having half of fandom saying they didn’t even belong in the tournament. They are single-handedly defending the honor of the ACC against the Big Two. Plus Carson Beck could become a national champion with two different universities, which is kind of a cool oddity precipitated by the new free-transfer world.

As I type this, Indiana is a 7.5 point favorite. That’s not surprising. The Miami game wasn’t decided until the final play, in a battle between evenly matched teams, while Indiana totally made mincemeat out of Oregon.

You might be surprised to read that Oregon actually produced more yards from scrimmage in that game, 378-362. That’s a pretty amazing stat for a game that Indiana won by five touchdowns, but an offense doesn’t need to amass a lot of yardage when the defense hands them the ball on the three-yard line. Indiana had one scoring drive of three yards, one of four, and another of nineteen.

THE Ohio State University was defending a national championship and spent most of this year looking invulnerable at #1, a place they held from week two through week fifteen.

Many people felt that Miami shouldn’t have been in the tournament at all. They didn’t even qualify to play in the championship game in their own conference, and came into this game as 9.5 point underdogs.

None of that matters now.

Miami has made the final four by knocking off an SEC team and a Big Ten team. They have made it to that point with little offense. They scored only ten against A&M in round one, with 278 yards from scrimmage. Their offense scored only 17 against Ohio State in round two, and they again failed to reach 300 yards from scrimmage.

But, oh, that defense!

They gave a Heisman finalist QB the worst day of his sporting career. They sacked him five times and picked him off twice, including a pick-six. The Hurricanes caused the worst performance by an elite quarterback since 1998, when the Farrelly Brothers cast Brett Favre in There’s Something About Mary.

Weird trivia:

The top four seeds are 1-7 in the new format.

Last year, the top four seeds, coming off their first-round byes, all lost in the New Year’s Eve/Day round. Then the two best remaining teams, seeds 5 and 6, lost in the next round. Then the next best remaining team, seed 7, lost in the championship, leaving the eighth seed as the national champion.

This year, the 2, 3 and 4 seeds all lost. Only Indiana prevailed.

Next up: Indiana vs Oregon; Mississippi vs Miami

A group of Indiana loggers has felled the mightiest redwood in the forest, THE Ohio State University.

And my other wish also came true: lowly, unranked, five-loss Duke won the ACC championship, clearing the way for my sentimental rooting favorite, James Madison, to get the 12th seed. Of course I don’t expect them to beat Oregon, but stranger things have happened. I hope they at least make a good showing. Oregon is favored by 22!

So here is how things fall out for the tournament seeds:

1 Indiana.
2 Ohio State
3 Georgia

If it were my call, I would have dropped Ohio State to 3, because Georgia has now defeated every opponent they faced. (Their one loss was to Alabama, and they got their revenge with a three-touchdown victory.) That said, the difference between 2 and 3 is not really meaningful. There is a big difference between 4 and 5 (only one gets a first-round bye)

4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon

This year, the difference between 6 and 7 is aiso very important, because #6 Ole Miss is a 17-point favorite against Tulane (and they already beat them by 35 earlier this year), but #7 A&M has a tough opponent in Miami. (The Aggies are favored by just four in the opening line.)

6. Mississippi
7. Texas A&M
8. Oklahoma

Major controversy: the committee leapfrogged Miami over Notre Dame! Tough call. That’s hard to justify because the Irish were rated higher by the same committee last week – and both teams were idle, so nothing could have changed.

9. Alabama
10. Miami

Well, nothing objective.

I’ll take a guess: Duke’s victory left the ACC without a team in the tournament, so the committee promoted Miami to remedy that. If that is the rationale, and I can’t see any other possible justification, that makes it more of a political decision than an objective evaluation. That’s a tough beat for the Irish. Notre Dame is rated #3 in the nation by the computers, but will watch the tournament on TV like the rest of us, as the best team excluded from the tournament.

For what it’s worth, the AP poll kept both Notre Dame and Miami, and booted Alabama.

Meanwhile, the 11 and 12 seeds allow some weaker conference champions into the tournament.

11. Tulane
12. James Madison

They could just take the top twelve teams, but holding at least one place for the Group of Five teams is something that the executives feel to be a necessary compromise. Is it ideal that Tulane and James Madison are in while teams like Texas and Notre Dame are out? Nah. If Notre Dame played Tulane on neutral turf, they would be favored by three touchdowns. It would be more if they played at home.

But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

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Computer ratings

Committee and AP rankings

The commmittee’s latest rankings are now public.

The conference championship games have been set.

In the most unlikely match-up, Virginia and Duke will play for the ACC championship. Duke needed about a zillion different things to happen in the last three weeks in order to crack the safe, and all the tumblers somehow fell into place.

If Virginia wins that game, they would be the fourth-best champion, and would therefore get the 11th seed. Duke, with five losses, is unlikely to make the playoff even with a conference championship. Only five conference champions get automatic bids, and they would likely be the sixth-best conference champion, assuming a James Madison win in the Sun Belt

A Duke win is not that unlikely. Virginia is only favored by 3.5.

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In the Big 12, Texas Tech will play BYU. Each team has something important to play for. Tech’s spot in the playoff seems secure, win or lose, but a Tech win is the difference between a first-round bye and a lower spot in the pecking order. A BYU win will guarantee them the tenth seed, but a loss will eliminate them from the playoff.

The game will be played in Arlington (Texas Tech is 300 miles away, in Lubbock), so I suppose neither team has a home field advantage, but Tech has the home state advantage. Tech is favored by 12.5.

WEIRDEST SCENARIO: A BYU win could give the Big Ten three of the first-round byes!

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The loss by Texas A&M means that Georgia and Alabama will play for the SEC championship. Georgia will make the playoff, win or lose, but a win will secure a first-round bye. An Alabama win would guarantee them at least the ninth seed if BYU wins, or at least the tenth seed if BYU loses. Alabama will be one of the bubble boys if they lose.

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Tulane and North Texas will battle for the American Conference title. Based on the committee’s rankings, the winner of that game is guaranteed a playoff spot. In the case of a Duke win in the ACC, the American champ would get the 11th seed. If Virginia wins the ACC, the American champ would get the twelfth seed.

The committee ranks Tulane higher than North Texas, but the bookies disagree. NT is favored by 2.5, even though they are on the road.

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James Madison will battle Troy for the Sun Belt crown. Madison is favored by more than three touchdowns. If they win, and Duke wins the ACC, Madison should get the twelfth seed, promoting the American Conference champion to the eleventh seed.

If Virginia wins the ACC. Madison can’t make the playoff unless the the committee vaults them over the American Conference winner into the twelfth seed. Such a leapfrog seems unlikely, but it’s not impossible because North Texas is only rated one slot higher than Madison in the national rankings, and they are the likely winner in their game against Tulane.

So the kids at James Madison need to steamroll Troy by about a zillion points and root North Texas to look bad in a win. That gives them a hope.

And even with that in the bag on Friday, they’ll also be rooting hard for Duke on Saturday night, because that one gives them a guarantee rather than a hope. This may mark the first time in history that someone other than a Duke student or alum ever rooted for them.

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In the Big Ten, Indiana and Ohio State are playing with house money. They will both make the playoff, the winner will get the top seed, and the loser will still get a first-round bye. (I assume. It’s unlikely that a loss would drop the loser to the fifth slot since that is currently occupied by idle Oregon, which finished below both of them in the same conference.)

The bubble boys

These eight teams seem completely safe for a playoff spot:

Ohio State
Indiana
Georgia
Texas Tech
Oregon
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
Oklahoma

The 11th and 12th seeds will go to the fourth and fifth best conference champions.

A. With a BYU win and an Alabama win, all twelve spots will be filled, leaving these two teams out of the playoff.

Notre Dame
Miami

B. With a BYU win and Alabama loss, there will be eleven secure spots, leaving only one for these three teams:

losing Alabama
Notre Dame
Miami

The committee has ranked Notre Dame over Miami, and they are both idle, so Miami is out in this scenario, and the committee would have to choose between losing Alabama and idle Notre Dame. That’s a tough call, likely to spur a lively debate between two of the most passionate fan bases in America.

C. If both BYU and Alabama lose, there will be only ten secure spots, meaning that two of these teams will make it

losing Alabama
Notre Dame
Miami

In this case, no matter the final ranking of Alabama, Notre Dame is in, and the committee would have to choose between losing Alabama and idle Miami. Another tough one.

Therefore, in order for Miami to make the playoff, three things must happen:

1. BYU must lose (likelihood high; they are 13-point dogs).
2. Alabama must lose (likelihood moderate; they are 3-point dogs).
3. The committee must vault idle Miami over losing Alabama. (likelihood unknown).

The Miami kids need to root for Georgia and Texas Tech.

Yes, I know it would be silly and unjust to leave Notre Dame and Miami out in the cold, while the weaker conference champions make it. The computer rankings list Notre Dame #2 in the nation, and Miami #6. Notre Dame would be nearly a three-touchdown favorite over North Texas or Tulane, approximately a two-touchdown favorite over James Madison, and about a ten-point favorite over BYU.

And Miami is just as good as Notre Dame. In fact, they already beat them earlier this year, thanks to two key Irish turnovers.

Yes, it would be unjust.

But the cookie may crumble that way.

Scoreboard

New rankings

New computer ratings