Month: February 2014

Michelle Richardson on the NCAA: Wichita State the fairest of them all at 29-0

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by Michelle Richardson

Michigan 79 Michigan State 70: This is always a great game when these two schools play each other they played at Michigain this time. The Spartans are ranked number 13 in the nation and Michigan is at number 20 and they both are at number one and two opponents respectfully in the Big Ten.

Michigan State is 22-6 and Michigan is 19-7 it might come down to these two teams meeting in the Big Ten finals. You really want to keep an eye on both of these teams and both of these teams are playing really well. This was a close, close game that was back and forth. I picked the Spartans to win this game and that might have upset my broadcast partner Jeremy Kahn but Jeremy is not to be too upset as the Wolves ended up winning this game by nine on Sunday.

Michigan State played better ball in the first half and Michigan was coming off a loss at Wisconsin but Michigan fought hard in the end of the game and got the points to win it at home. For Michigan top three scorers Nik Stauskas was the high scorer with 25, Chris LeVert finished with 23 and Glenn Robinson III had 15. For Michigan State Gary Harris 21, Denzel Valentine 13, and Adreian Payne with 12.

Wichita State 83 Drake 54: Wichita State are headed for some big records, I have been saying for the past month that people have not been giving Wichita State the respect they deserve. They are the number one team in the country. They have gone undefeated, Syracuse is the only team that’s standing in their way and they should have been a number two instead of a number three last week.

Florida happened to get in and jump above Syracuse which isn’t right, but Wichita State should be number one and if they don’t get selected to number one it would be a terrible travesty they are sitting on top of the mountain. Just because their playing in the Missuori Valley conference doesn’t mean their games are any less competitive.

Wichita State is blowing out their competition and they wupped up on Drake, Wichita State deserves to be number one and should be recognised as such. You got to get those AP voters from the big conferences like the SCC and thier going to do their best to keep Whicita State in their place.

New Mexico 58 San Diego State 44: The Lobos are not ranked right now and San Diego State are number six in the AP and New Mexico are not ranked but their up there in the Mountain West Conference with San Diego State and it most likely will come down to those two when it’s time for conference championships to come in.

New Mexico is a hard team to beat when your in the Pit and it’s just not the team, it’s that crowd at University Arena with 15,411 behind you screaming and supporting the Lobos. UNM fans get there and they cheer and they cheer loud. The Pit is loud and you have to laugh when the Lobos play a hard half of basketball.

At the Pit you have to run up the tunnel to get to the dressing room that takes more out of your legs. You have to give credit to New Mexico head coach Craig Neal he’s got these players playing hard and you have to expect them to get a large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Michelle Richardson does commentary on the NCAA each week for Sportstalk radio

Sharks commentary by Larry Leavitt: Olympians Marleau, Niemi, Vlasic, and Pavelski ready to return to Sharks in Philadelphia on Wednesday

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–Sharks head coach Todd McClellan has really pushed the Sharks practices back and he’s even given the team some strong practices in prepartion of this Thursday’s game in Philadelphia to start the second half of the season. The key player during the Olympic break Sharks goalie Antti Niemi who played in the Olympics will be back in camp with Joe Pavelski who played a lot during the first half had some time to rest during the break and it was well needed.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Patrick Marleau who were in the Sochi Olympics will be returning and they have been playing at a high level and they have this high of being at the Olympics and winning the gold so they’re the ones to be watching for. If there is one person to be concerned about is Marleau he seems to be playing the most minutes for most forwards for Canada.

Marleau’s age and experience we’ll have to see if that has any effect on him coming back into the NHL regular season. Marleau is coming back from Sochi after winning the gold and the championship for Canada and is in need to come back and recoup a little bit from the tough competition at the Olympics. Marleau like his other Shark teammates who were in the Olympics will need to come back from the emotional high as well as the tough physical work he performed.

For the Sharks Logan Couture he went home to Canada for the Olympic break and he did work hard in during the break and he was also at some of the Sharks practices towards the end of the break in San Jose. Couture said he liked the harder practices and pushing the team harder to another level.

The question is about the return of Raffi Torres, we haven’t seen him skate yet, we’ve heard a lot of reports and remember the last time he had ACL surgery it took him over a year to recover and this time it’s five months later and five months is a quick turn around for an ACL.

Torres gives a lot of credit to the medical staff, trainers and coaches for getting him back in shape and ready to go. Will Torres have the hand eye coordination coming back? Probably not because he hasn’t had a lot of practice time with that injury. He took a shot off the back foot and not many people at the Sharks are concerned with that and he’s back at practice ready to go back to work.

Larry Leavitt does weekly commentary on the Sharks for Sportstalk radio

Giants report: Babo returns as Giants hitting instructor;will press ask him about roids in camp?

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by Ken Gimblin

SCOTTSDALE–Reigning home run champ and former San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds is schedule to arrive at the Giants spring training camp on March 9th as a hitting instructor. Bonds stay in Arizona will be very brief he will leave camp on March 17th.

Bonds will don his old number 25 and will be assisting other instructors at camp former Giants infielders, Will Clark, J.T.Snow, and Jeff Kent. Bonds had been noted in the past to assist hitters at the Giants when the team is at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Bonds appearances for those instruction sessions were very few and it was a surprise when he would show up.

Bonds avoided talking to the media when he would come to instruct he would greet the press with a smile and a wave but would say very little for print. He would also greet some of the reporters who covered him when he was with the team before and during 2007.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy talked about his role with the club this spring, “he’s part of what we do here, he’s going to be part of the group of instructors like Clark, Snow, Kent. He’s going to be like the other guys and help where he can.” said Bochy

There is one thing this camp can turn into is a circus if reporters from around the country and locally want to cover Bonds short return to baseball since being released from the Giants after the 2007 season. You can almost rest assure that if that happens reporters won’t be there to talk to Bonds about his baseball instructions but the subject of his days in baseball and his steroid use.

Bonds will have none of that if he stays true to form and not take any steroid related questions, reporters who have not seen him since he left in 2007 are anxious to talk to him about where he’s been, what his plans in baseball are, and his obstruction of justice conviction.

This whole decision to come back in uniform might be a great success for Bonds who often used to talk about coaching and helping younger players just before he left San Francisco will do a little of that here. Whether he comes back to coach again beyond March 17 is not known.

Ken Gimblin is the SRS investigative reporters for Sportstalk

Warriors commentary: Warriors succeed in winning their last three games against Kings, Rockets and Nets

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Warriors who had three games this past week and they played the Kings, Rockets and Nets and won all three games. They played on back to back nights with the Kings and Rockets and a had a home victory against the New Jersey Nets on Saturday night and it shouldn’t have been a tough stretch for the Kings on the road and Houston at home but the thing is the Warriors have had trouble with both of those teams for whatever reasons it didn’t help that the Warriors Andrew Bogut was out in these games.

The Warriors weren’t guaranteed a victory by any stretch, against Sacramento the Warriors were playing a vastly inferior team. The Kings are having a lousy season yet again. As far as the game against the Kings is concerned the Warriors did exactly what they were suppose to do. They came through and they played great basketball.

Even without Bogut in the line up they were scoring left and right and when Sacramento made a run late in the game the Warriors shut it down and did a great job of winning that game. Against Houston that was a tougher game as the Rockets are a playoff caliber team their competing against the Warriors for one of those last playoff spots in the Western Conference.

Again in that game the W’s didn’t have Bogut when your playing Houston that’s a big deal because the Rockets have Dwight Howard in the middle and he can beat a guy like Bogut and slow him down. Bogut wasn’t there but the Warriors defensive unit did a great job of defending and harrassing Howard all the way, he had an awful night he was something like 4-13 which is bad in it’s own right.

When you consider Howard typically shooting well over 50 percent because he scores from inside so easily so that’s more impressive for the Warriors. It was a tough one as the Warriors put it into overtime with a great lay up by Stephen Curry with four seconds left and they pulled away in overtime but it was a really good game and the Warriors kind of proved that they weren’t going to play down to the competition.

Then this week the Warriors made a big trade before the trade deadline, they dealt away Ken Bazemore and Marshon Brooks to get Steve Blake. This is a great trade for the Warriors, one of the big problems that they have had is their second unit has not had a true point guard to direct the offense and Blake is a true point guard.

Blake isn’t a guy whose going to give you 20 points a night but he can dish the ball and he’s a great passer and a great floor leader and he has a decent outside shot as well, which always helps and what this is going to do is allow Blake can play 20 minutes a night, he can let Curry rest a little bit more and the Warriors will be comfortable with the knowledge that Blake can run the offense.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio

Jed York says Niners weren’t shopping Harbaugh

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–While it might be true that 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh might not be the easiest guy to work with he’s not someone whose explosive or awful but he’s kind of high maintenance. The simple fact of the matter is he is already making quiet a bit of money where his contract calls for $5 million a season and he’s been incredibly successful.

His contract is up in 2015 so it not until two years that his contract will be up, Harbaugh in his first three seasons as NFL head coach saw that his team has gone to the Championship game, has lost in the Championship game twice and then made it to the Super Bowl. This is a first and nobody has ever done that before and he’s a competitive guy.

Harbaugh wants to one of the highest paid if not the highest paid coaches in the NFL and again this is a guy whose a high maintenance coach to deal with he has a general manager Trent Baalke in his own right and you have an owner Jed York and what probably happened Cleveland is the team where Harbaugh was supposed to go to.

In Cleveland it’s an absolute mess, let’s kind of remember that Cleveland is a terrible situation for any coach let alone a general manager and the owner is kind of ridiculous. So if the Browns went through their own crazy head coaching search this off season and as a result of a lackluster effort or a lackluster result nothing has worked right there.

The general manager for the Cleveland Browns Mike Lombardi got fired not long after the head coach was fired so a lot of crazy stuff was going on in Cleveland. This is one of those things that was frustrating the Niners front office in negoiating with Harbaugh. Lombardi who was the general manager at the time of the Browns coaching search has a bit of an inside source in the 49ers in that his son is a 49ers assistant.

Their was some tension between Hargaugh and the front office and the Niners tossed around the idea of trading Harbaugh because he wasn’t super happy and the negotiations weren’t going as smoothly as everybody would like. They kind of explored the situation whenever it got to a high level.

The 49ers realized that this was stupid and Harbaugh who heard about it said “are you kidding me why would I ever want want to go to Cleveland, the team is awful right now, their management situation is awful, there’s no way I would ever go there” to the extent that was it ever discussed at one point? You could say the words were tossed around, but no one ever seriously considered making this trade and the 49ers are denying it in the sense that they had any intentions of trading Harbaugh.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Upset Over Bruins Bolsters Cardinal Case for Tournament Place

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By Matthew Harrington

The wait may finally be over for coach Johnny Dawkins and Stanford. With selection day looming, the Cardinal pieced together a statement win at the right time, beating 23rd-ranked University of California Los Angeles 83-74 at Maples Pavilion Saturday afternoon, the Cardinal’s third win over a ranked opponent this season. The upset, Stanford’s third-straight win and fifth in six games, presents the NCAA tournament selection committee with another reason to move Stanford off the bubble and into the big dance on an at-large bid for the first tournament appearance in six years under Dawkins.

The veterans have led the way of late for Stanford (18-8, 9-5 Pac-12), understanding the importance a strong finish has on their tournament hopes. One game after setting a career-high in rebounds while also moving into first place all-time in school history in blocks, senior Josh Huestis once again forged an amendment to his biography in the programs, netting 22 points to match his single-game best. His 22 points were second only to guard Chasson Randle’s 26 on the day. Randle, a junior, put on a three-point clinic with 7 treys on 10 attempts, the most he’s made in a single game. Fellow junior Anthony Brown pitched in 18 points for Stanford who clicked at an eye-popping 62.2 shooting percentage as a team. Starting guard Norman Powell matched freshman Zach LaVine’s 14 points off the bench to lead UCLA (21-6, 10-4) while Tony Parker chipped in 13 points for the Bruins.

The opening 10 minutes saw both teams refuse to cede an inch of the court, with no team leading by more than three points. Randle potted a shot from downtown with 9:46 left in the half to give Stanford the first five-point lead of the day for either team to make it 23-18 Cardinal before the home team closed the half out on a 15-12 for a 38-30 edge after 20 minutes of play.

The Bruins clawed back into the game, outscoring Stanford 35-33 over the first 15 minutes of the second half then proceeded to make it a two possession game on three LaVine free throws made with 2:48 left to play and Stanford leading 72-68. The Cardinal finished out the game with 11 points to UCLA’s 6 split the two regular season games with its Southern California foes. The Bruins previously routed a vastly Stanford squad vastly different than the one they faced Saturday afternoon 91-74 on January 23rd in Los Angeles. Stanford made 38.6 percent of shots that night and turned the ball over 19 times.

Continuing its march to a potential place in the Madness to come next month, Stanford moves on to the final road trip in Pac-12 play, a trip to Tempe that sees the Cardinal face Arizona State University Wednesday followed by a Sunday showdown in Tucson against fourth-ranked University of Arizona. After that, the Cardinal returns to Maples for one last home game against Colorado March 5th to wrap up Pac-12 play before the conference tournament tips off in Las Vegas.

Kings fight off the Celtics 105-98

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Image

 

Photo credit: Rocky Widner NBAE/Getty Images

By Charlie O. Mallonee

The Sacramento Kings defeated the Boston Celtics 105-98 Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 17,137 at Sleep Train Arena. There were no lead changes in the game and the contest was tied only once. That is not to say it was an easy win for the Kings.

The Celtics came in and played a very physical game and cut the Kings lead to just one point twice in the fourth quarter. After a slow start in the first quarter, Boston did not look like a team who had lost to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday. Even after shooting a horrible 34% in the first half, the Celtics would not give up.

The battle of the night was the match up of Kris Humphries and DeMarcus Cousins. Humphries just draped himself over Cousins, and the officials allowed him to do so until late in the game. Cousins scored just 13 points and grabbed just seven rebounds. The Kings center played the entire game in a state of controlled frustration with the lack of calls against Humphries.

Rudy Gay and Isaiah Thomas led the way for the Kings. Gay scored 22 points in the game after being held scoreless in the first quarter. Isaiah Thomas recorded a double-double scoring 21 points and dishing out 12 assists. But, the two Kings’ stars did not win the game on their own. Seven Kings scored in double figures versus Boston.

Jeff Green and Kris Humphries led the charge for the Celtics. Green led all scorers in the game with his 29 points. Humphries scored 19 shooting 9 for 15 from the field. Jerryd Bayless added 16 points for Boston off the bench.

The Kings shot very well versus the Celtics. Sacramento shot 52.1% (38 for 73) from the field. They shot 55.6% (5 for 9) from beyond the 3-point line. The Kings also helped themselves from the free throw line hitting 85.7% (24 for 28) of their opportunites. They were out rebounded 42-38 and turned the ball over 18 times to just 14 times for Boston.

The Kings played tough on defense as well. The Celtics shot just 39.1% (34 for 87) from the field. They shot just 28.6% (6 for 21) from 3-point land. Boston was a dismal 66.7% (24 for 36) from the free throw line.

“It was a weird game,” said Kings Head Coach Michael Malone. “We were trying to keep our composure out there. Obviously, we benefitted from Gerald Wallace and their coach thrown out at the end. It gave us a couple of extra free throws. It’s a physical game, and we can’t let people get under our skin and get in the way of what we’re trying to do. We defended at a fairly high level for most of the night, but we put them on the foul line way too many times. Once again, there were 18 turnovers for 19 points – that continues to be a problem for us. It was a great game for Isaiah Thomas – he tied his career high assists and only had four turnovers. We’ll take the win but we have to get a lot better.”

It was the new look Kings that won the game on Saturday night. Ben McLemore played 27 minutes and scored 11 points while shooting 44.4% from the field. Derrick Williams and Carl Landry each scored 10 points in their 24 minutes of playing time. Ray McCallum played 11 minutes as the second unit point guard. Expect to see more of the same over the next 27 games.

Newcomer Reggie Evans was on the bench but did not see any action.

Rajon Rondo was not with the Celtics in Sacramento. The team reported Rondo needed rest.

The Kings have no time to savor their victory. The have to play the second game of a back-to-back on Sunday afternoon in Denver  the against the Nuggets.

USA Men’s Hockey, Falters, Falls Short

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By Mary Walsh

USA hockey fans watched their women lose to Canada last Thursday, by one goal, in overtime, during a 5 on 3 penalty kill. It was disappointing, heartbreaking. The men followed that up on Saturday with a loss so stunning it left me more baffled than emotional.

In my short time here I’ve realized that there’s big momentum swings with this team and … we just got to stay calm… When other teams come back on us like that, we know we have the firepower to score off the rush. We have a pretty good offensive team when we get going.

Something like that would have been nice to hear from someone on USA’s men’s Olympic hockey team Saturday. They didn’t say that. Riley Brace said it, after what turned out to be the last game the SF Bulls played at the Cow Palace. The team was gone a week or so later.

There was no national audience watching that game.  There were no big contracts on the line. The players had good reason to suspect they might be on the move soon. They didn’t have their country’s pride to uphold. They were just playing one ECHL hockey game, one night in San Francisco. Still, they took pride in a lead, they came back after falling behind, they played the game to win. They believed they could score. It doesn’t matter what level you are at, belief is necessary for getting a job done.

“Stay calm… We know we have the firepower to score off the rush…” No one on team USA said anything like that on Saturday after they were blown out 5-0 by Finland. You could argue that it is harder to score in that company. You could also argue that if you are in that company you can probably score against them.

Zach Parise said he was embarrassed, Jonathan Quick said they weren’t good. Both are warranted and truthful understatements.

I read one column that eviscerated Patrick Kane for his performance. I thought he was one of the few players really fighting until the end. When you are outnumbered you tend to make mistakes, but at least he was making something. He was shooting, he was getting break aways, he was engaged. I didn’t see that from many on his team. So he missed the penalty shots. How many skaters score those? Besides, that he drew the calls is more proof that he was trying to do something while the rest of his team was… not.

Is it easier to score when there’s no pressure? Perhaps. Many questioned how young teenage girls would cope with the pressure of Olympic figure skating. I think they were too young to grasp the full scope of that pressure, they might have been partly unaware of it.

But NHL players? Grown men, professionals used to playoffs? Surely they have some coping tactics in their satchels. Surely they were not knocked off their feet by the bright lights of the world stage.

So did they just not care enough? Did they not face enough adversity leading up to the last two games? Did they enter the contest with a “gold or nothing” mindset? Did some of them spend too much time with the Austrians? Did they believe too much, have too much confidence, not worry until it really was too late?

In the end it was just one game. Not one of seven chances, but one lone chance to avoid coming home empty-handed. Someone was going to lose, but to lose like that has to sting. Perhaps some of those players will return to the NHL with something to prove. Or maybe it was just one game, badly played.

O’Neal, Green provide huge lift for Warriors win over Nets

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By Joe Hawkes

OAKLAND — With a six game road trip set to begin Monday in Detroit, the Warriors appear to be hitting their stride at the right time.

Playing without power forward David Lee (stomach flu) and center Andrew Bogut (shoulder inflammation), Jermaine O’Neal and Draymond Green filled in nicely, helping the Golden State Warriors  pick up their third straight victory after the All-Star break with a 93-86 victory over the Brooklyn Nets in front of a sellout crowd of 19,596 at Oracle Arena Saturday night.

“That’s what this game was all about, guys stepping up,” said Warriors head coach Mark Jackson after the game. “We needed that. Guys stepping up when needed and those guys stepped up tonight.”

O’Neal, who was caught in traffic due to the Monster Truck rally next door at O.co Coliseum, had a season-high 23 points and 13 rebounds while starting in place for Bogut, who missed his seventh straight game. O’Neal’s performance was vintage O’Neal. The kind of performance that made him a six-time All-Star in eight seasons with the Indiana Pacers.

“At this point of the year, you got to play hard and make every possession counts,” said the 18-year veteran O’Neal. “I don’t know what next year holds for me, but I know that my team will play hard each night. ”

Green poured in 18 points and 10 rebounds in 38 minutes of action tonight while starting for Lee. Green was all over the court and brought huge energy to the starting lineup seeing 38 minutes of action.

Stephen Curry scored 17 points with eight assists, and Andre Iguodala scored six points to go along with 11 rebounds logging a game-high 44 minutes.

Curry shot 7-for-13 from the field, including 3-for-4 from 3. With the Warriors clinging to a 88-86 lead with 1:02 left in the fourth quarter, Curry hit a 3-pointer off the glass giving Golden State a 91-86 lead with under a minute left in the game.

Golden State (34-22) dominated in many facets of the game including points in the paint (52-38), rebounds (50-39), assists (26-11), and steals (12-5), while holding Brooklyn to shooting 32-for-78 (41.0%) and 2-for-21 from 3 (9.5%).

Deron Williams led Brooklyn (25-28) with 20 points and dished out six assists.

Joe Johnson had 15 points, Andray Blatche had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Paul Pierce chipped in 11 points for Brooklyn, who have dropped eight of their last nine in Oakland.

Golden State improves to 18-10 at home this season, and were able to payback Brooklyn for snapping the Warriors’ 10-game winning streak with a 102-98 win in Brooklyn in January.

 

 

Kings downtown arena: Judge says too many errors will likely keep subsidy measure off the ballot

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by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–In what is viewed as probably the biggest victory since the NBA Board of Governors ruled in favor of Sacramento keeping the Kings and avoiding their move to Seattle, a Sacramento Superior Court Judge, Timothy Frawley has said that there were too many flaws in the petitions that were submitted to put an inititative on the ballot asking the voters if public subsidy funds should be used to pay for a new Kings arena.

The 22,938 more than qualified ballots for the initiative appear to be going down to defeat as Frawley said if there were some very minor worded errors he might be able to admit the petitions but there too many flaws and the subsidy measure appears it won’t make the June 2014 ballot, “these petitions are defective in a multitude of ways, collectively there are so many errors” said Frawley to a packed courtroom on Friday.

Frawley concluded the 90 minute hearing and returned to his chambers and will render a decision next week and maybe as soon as Monday or Tuesday. The pro arena groups, the city leaders and supporters of the Kings new arena are cautiously celebrating but are waiting for Frawley’s official decision coming next week.

Frawley said among the errors made the two key errors were that the campaign leaders left their names off the legal required notice which was published in the Sacramento Observer, the campaign letters in the Observer were letting the public know that the petitions were about to circulated and the second issue left out was an “enacting clause” which was suppose to be on the petition to allow the voters know this would become law.

Sacramento City Attorney James Sanchez said that the court statement was a near ruling for victory for the Kings and the city and such a subsidy question not appearing on the ballot would certainly allow the Kings and city to move forward with the new arena, “we appreciate (Judge Frawley’s) thoughtfulness, and that gives us a measure of confidence” said Sanchez

Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork or STOP attorney Brad Hertz said that although Frawley talked about a multitude of flaws and errors in the wording of the petitions Hertz plans to fight the case until a decision is made by the court, “It’s never over until it’s over, but we were disappointed with some of the priliminary findings, certainly there were no conclusive findings. There were preliminary adverse rulings on some of the mistakes.”

Hertz and STOP realize that if Frawley rules in favor of keeping the measure off the ballot then STOP would plan to appeal. Frawley needs to rule before March 3 so that the city and the Kings can place the new arena issue on the June 2014 election.

Ken Gimblin is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors arena developments for Sportstalk radio