Final Four, Danica Patrick, Brittini Paiva

This weeks trio is in no way related in any way, but it's the stuff I saw that caught my attention the most this week....

So Louisville is in the Championship game.  While that may not be a surprise, the fact that Wichita State almost sent them home is.  I'm guessing that more than a few columnist out there were trying to figure out a "Shockers Shock the World" headline before Louisville mounted that late game comeback.

You have to start believing in faith when stuff happens the way it does.  Louisville's Kevin Ware horribly breaks a leg against Duke.  Ware's injury gives a walk-on like Tim Henderson a chance to play in a Final Four game.  Henderson's stat line this season:  3.8 min/game, .348 FG%, .300 3P%, 0 FTs attempted, 0.1 Assists, 0 Blks, 0.8 pts/game.  It also gave Luke Hancock a chance to be a star.  Hancock averaged 7.7 pts/game.

With Louisville down 47-25, Henderson knocks down back-to-back threes to start Louisville's comeback, but it was Hancock who saved the game scoring 20, 11 coming during the comeback.  He hit the go head three that gave the Cardinals a 56-55 lead with 6:18 to play and another three to put Louisville up by 5 with 2:08 left.  Hancock was also responsible for the two assists on Henderson's threes.

Getting some made for TV movie basketball performances by Henderson and Hancock makes me think that Louisville is destined to win the National Title....that and the fact that they were considered the best team coming into the tournament.
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 Yea, Danica Patrick came in 12th...not even a top ten, but she made as many, if not more, passes than anyone on the track. 

Patrick started the race at Martinsville 43rd...last on the grid due to a motor swap after qualifying.  Many of the drivers, including her boss Tony Stewart, felt Patrick's first ever race at Martinsville was going to be "a long day."  Dale Earnharht Jr. recalled his first race at Martinsville, saying that he ran into every car including the pace car and ambulance on the way to a 36th place finish.  Even her crew chief Tony Gibson said, "I figured we could finish top 25 and be a couple laps down..."  Needless to say, all the drivers feel it's a tough track to race.

Patrick started passing cars from lap one, getting down to 27th before she was spun by Ken Schrader which put her 2 laps down.  She kept picking off cars and after a couple white flags got back on the lead lap.  She got down to 11th, but got bump passed by Brian Vickers on the final lap.  She even passed her boss, Stewart, on the way to her best driving performance in a Sprint Cup car (yea, she had a higher finish at Daytona, but this was a better performance of driving skill).

Remember that this is a lady who supposedly doesn't know how to drive.
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Who the heck is Brittini Paiva?

Paiva is a ukelele player from Hilo, Hawaii.  On one of her early albums she did a rendition of Santana's "Samba Pa Ti," one of my favorites when I was a kid.  In February Santana played in Honolulu's Blaisdell Arena.  During the concert, Carlos Santana called Brittini onto the stage.  I saw the video for the first time this weekend.  They start off a little rough, not quite in sync, but got it together to make musical magic.  The video starts blurry but clears up around the 1:19 mark.

Paiva and Santana, Samba Pa Ti Duet.
 

March Madneess, Final Four, and MLB Opening Day,

My bracket is busted…completely, utterly destroyed.  In retrospect I should have believed in Louisville.  I should have listened to those people talking about Wichita State…including one of my coworkers.  I shouldn’t have dismissed Michigan.   I shouldn’t have gone the homer pick with Kansas (although they should have beaten Michigan if they could have taken care of the ball at the end of game or hit one more free throw).   

Hindsight might be 20/20, but it also wants to make you kick yourself in the butt for looking at things with your heart and not your head. 

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Of the Final Four teams, Louisville has been the team that has looked the best...which is obviously why they where the overall #1 and guys like me shouldn't have picked against them. If that wasn't enough, now they have the incentive to "Win it for Kevin."

A co-worker and I were talking about Syracuse today and wondering why teams where having so much trouble with their defense.  After all it's just a 2-3 zone, a defense that you learned to play when you first played organized ball.  Just goes to show you that if you have athletic players that know how to play together as a unit they can make a coach look like a genius.  Not to take anything away from Boheim, he's a great coach, but you're not doing anything special playing 2-3 zone. 

The team that has surprised me the most is Michigan (thought I was going to say Wichita State didn't you).  Coming into the tournament they weren't playing good basketball and didn't play tough defense.  They've got some streaky guys (Tim Hardaway Jr. & Trey Burke) that can light it up from the outside though.  Can they come through for an entire 6 game tournament?  I would bet not.  Despite playing zone, Syracuse closes out well against 3-point shooters and because of that zone, I believe this is the game that Hardaway and Burke struggle to find a way to get it done offensively.

Wichita State is a very solid team.  They look very balanced on offense with a disciplined, good rebounding defense.  I think they would beat Syracuse or Michigan...unfortunately they're playing Louisville.  They'll give Louisville a game, but in the end I think the talent on Louisville gives them the edge.  

So I have Louisville vs Syracuse in the Championship game with the Cardinals solving the Orange 2-3 zone and win it all.  I just don't see a 2-3 zone beating a talented club coached by Rick Pitino. 

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My favorite MLB, the Angels, open the season today against the Cincinnati Reds.  It’s  an odd coincidence that Josh Hamilton, the Angels big offseason signing, started his MLB career in Cincy (he was originally drafted #1 overall by Tampa Bay in 1999, but had several off field issues which eventually got Hamilton suspended.  He was picked up in the 2006 Rule 5 draft by the Cubs, who traded him to the Reds for cash).   Acquiring Hamilton in the off season, just like picking up Pujols last season, has made the Angels a preseason favorite to win the World Series…of course we all know how that turned out last season.  Both Texas and Oakland finished ahead of the Angels, who missed the Playoffs for the 3^rd straight year.  The combination of Pujols-Hamilton gives the Angels one of, if not the best, 3-4 combo of hitters in the league.  With Trout leading off the Angels shouldn’t have problems scoring runs  (unless Hamilton repeats Pujols start last year).

Speaking of Trout, a lot of sports media folks are wondering if he will have a down season.  How can he not have a down season?   Trout didn’t get called up to the big leagues until the end of April and still did something no other major leaguer has done (steal 45 bases, score 125 runs, and hit 30 homers in the same season).   If you projected his stats to a full 162 games it would look like this:  .326 BA, 150 Rs, 97 RBI, 35 HR, 57 SB.  He also had a .564 slugging % and .963 OB % (that’s with a slump at the end of the year, hitting just .257 in September).    Yea sure, like he’s going to be able to surpass that this year.    I’ll take 80% of that and call it a good season.

My concern is with the starting pitching. 

Jeff Weaver had another good year (20-5, 2.81 ERA), but faded towards the end of the season (6.14 ERA in his last five starts). Weaver and C.J. Wilson are the only two returning from last season's starting rotating. I thought Zack Greinke might stay, but he signed with the Dodgers.  Dan Haren is in Washington and Ervin Santana is in Kansas City. Greinke was a late season pickup, Haren lost it last year, and Santana was always inconsistent.  Their replacements are Tommy Hanson, Joe Blanton, and Jason Vargas.  Don't know if those are upgrades or not. 

In the end, Mark Trumbo may determine the Angels' destiny.  Hitting 5th behind Pujols & Hamilton he should see more people on the bases when he comes up to bat.  Last season, Trumbo was outstanding before the All-star break (.306, 22 HR, 57 RBI), then faded in the 2nd half (.227, 88 SO).  Trumbo is the wildcard of the Angels offense, potentially turning them from good to great if he swings the bat well.  With Torii Hunter and Kendrys Morales gone, I don't see anyone else in the lineup that can give the Angels extra offense outside of Pujols and Hamilton. 

It's March

And that means the big dance starts on Thursday (technically it starts on Tuesday with the play in games, but does anyone not involved in those schools care?).  This weekend is when all the craziness happens and this year a lot of sportscasters are predicting the tourney to be crazier than most.

Recently, we've had three have been the craziest ever (in terms of lower seeds making the Final Four.  2011 when Uconn (3), Kentucky (4), Butler (8), and VCU (11) made the Final Four and 2006 when the Final Four was UCLA (2), Florida (3), LSU (4), and George Mason (11).  If you add up the totals of the ranks of the 4 teams, 2011 (26) and 2006 (20) are the #1 and #3 highest (1980 had Louisville (2), Iowa (5), Purdue (6) and UCLA (8), a total of 21). The lowest ever?  2008, the one and only time all four #1s made the Final Four (Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, UCLA).  If I had my old sports blog up I could have pointed you to the article where I predicted that Final Four...you're just going to have to take my word for it.  I also took Kansas to win it all, but that was a homer pick...one that just happened to be right.

I like Kansas again this year.  Yea, I know two weeks ago I was going crazy over how inconsistent the Jayhawks have been, but they've gone out and won the Big 12 tourney since then.  They are also returning four seniors from a team that lost the championship game to Kentucky last year.  The lone freshman, SG Ben McLemore leads the Jayhawks in scoring. The big loss from last season was PF Thomas Robinson, but his backup from last season, Kevin Young has stepped in nicely.  Young and C Whithey aren't as adept as scoring one-on-one as Robinson was, but the two post players have a nice inside game between them.  There were several pretty feeds from Young to Whithey in the Big 12 Finals game.  In winning the Big 12 tourney they had to go through Kansas State and Iowa State, both teams making the big dance (4 and 10 in the West).  I like K-state's chances of making the Sweet 16, but both teams are likely to fall to Ohio State. 

While this has been one of the crazier seasons I can remember, after looking at things I still believe the cream will rise to the top.  While I think the #1s may be vulnerable, the #2s have a great shot.