Author: lleonardbw

Warriors arena in SF: Opposition too tough for W’s to move to piers 30-32

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by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–Opponents who argue against any kind of development at Piers 30-32 are close to succeeding in stopping any kind of oversized arena, condo or hotel construction. The Golden State Warriors who are trying to move from Oakland to the city have not officially ruled out going to the piers but they realize their odds are not too good with the Waterfront Embarcadero and city voters prepared to vote down any kind of high rise buildings there that would block city views and most are opposed to the cost of rebuilding the piers at $180 million double the original cost.

After numerous discussions the Warriors are prepared to look at their options of leaving Oakland and getting on the waterfront nieghborhood in the city at either AT&T Park in parking lot A on property leased by the San Francisco Giants from the city or a Mission Bay site that is located by UCSF, the latter site is owned by Salesforce who might drive a hard bargain as the property value there is worth $248 million.

The third option is considered the strongest of the three site choices to build a new arena from the financial and least amount of red tape at the Mission Bay site.There would be very little opposition by San Francisco voters in constructing a new arena, new condos and a hotel in this neighborhood. The Warriors would not have to come up against a nieghborhood of opponents who would object to their views being blocked, the team would not have to sell this idea to such organizations like the Regional Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the State Lands Commission, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The reviews for the Mission Bay site would only have to be overseen by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and two city commissions. City Hall is very supportive of bringing the Warriors to San Francisco in light of losing the San Francisco 49ers to the Southbay this year. A Mission Bay site would sweepingly be voted in to allow the construction of the Warriors new buildings in terms of less hoops to jump through like Piers 30-32. The $248 million Mission Bay price tag is the property price and parking rights at a cost of $23.3 million at a nearby Mission Bay garage and costs and interest on property taxes after the purchase would be additional.

The Warriors would pay the $248 million for the property rights for the Mission Bay site and the city would cover the $23.3 million on the garage costs which would be much less than the $180 million foudation rebuild just on the 13 acre lot at Piers 30-32. Salesforce spokesperson Dane Valley said that the Mission Bay site is just based on rumors and that the sale of the property has never been discussed with the NBA team, “we don’t comment on rumors or speculation” said Valley.

Warriors spokesman P.J. Johnston said the total focus of the club right now is only at Piers 30-32 and that the Warriors are not speculating on any other property either AT&T Park or Mission Bay, “We’re just not going to discuss other sites. Our focus remains on Piers 30-32, which we believe is spectacular, transit rich and a logical place of the event pavilion and eight acres of new public parks” said Johnston.

A source says that the Warriors are not that excited about Mission Bay anyway because of the proximity that it is outside of downtown’s transit centers, that the site lies south of the San Francisco Cal Train station and only the T light rail train comes to the UCSF site. The strongest thumbs down to the Mission Bay site is BART doesn’t run anywhere near the UCSF location. While there is lots of room to develop for what the Warriors are looking for in their customer demographic Mission Bay would not work because the Warriors want that foot traffic from the Embarcadero center crowd and the BART and Muni Metro traffic which is walking distance.

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

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: No need to fear the beard in the ninth Wilson set to middle relieve

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

PHOENIX–Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brian Wilson will not be the Dodgers closer this season he’s coming off that surgery from last season and is now working with throwing the knuckle ball. Wilson won’t be pitching in the ninth he’s not that power guy he was when he was with the Giants when they won that first World Series in 2010.

Wilson is still a good pitcher he throws strikes, he’s a character, the fans love him in L.A. with his beard and haircut. He’s working with a change up and the knuckle ball and Wilson is reinventing himself and he’s coming out with a new pitch where he can develop a change up he could be a very useful pitcher for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers are loaded the oddsmakers are picking the Dodgers to make the World Series this season forget the division and the league championship. They do have a great team and their free of injuries and their bullpen is a great bullpen and for Wilson the plan is for him to pitch in the eighth inning.

Maybe he would spend sometime in the seventh depending on the game situaton but he’s not a power pitcher or the workhorse that he was when he was with the Giants, he’s not a closer. He might close a game here and there but not like he did when he was in San Francisco.

It’s always good to develop and reinvent yourself especially for a reliever because most relievers have one or two pitches and I always refer to the greatest relief pitcher of all time which is former Yankee closer Mariano Rivera. Rivera retired last year and has more than one World Series ring.

Rivera has over 600 saves he cornered the fast ball and stayed with it for his career but that is a freak of nature, that doesn’t happen to relief pitchers forever, and they talk about the Giants Tim Lincecum being the Freak, how about Rivera, he’s a real freak. He was in baseball for 20 years and had one pitch and he was in over 600 games.

Besides Rivera most relievers try to be a closer and have at least two or three pitches, a change up, a slider, but Rivera was the exception. Wilson has the change up and now he’s adding a knuckle ball to his repertoire. He wants to prolong his career and he wants to help himself.

Former Giant pitcher Guillmerio Mota retired this week: Mota did well during his career, he had 14 years in the big leagues. That sounds like a very nice pension and good for him. That’s important, it’s tough to retire in baseball. With all respects to the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL, there are contracts in baseball this is a fact that guys have signed for $200 million.

The Seattle Mariners Robinson Cano signed for $240 million, no quarterback in football, no one in basketball or hockey has signed for that much yet. Baseball pays the largest salaries and that’s my point a lot of these guys get the big bucks. Former Yankee Jorge Posada the catcher in the glory days and former Yankee manager Joe Torre who got the team to the World Series asked Posada if he was going to retire and Posada said “I don’t know I have to talk to my agent”

Posada admitted to me “if I played another two years I could have made another $20 million” I would do the same if I could have two more years and make $20 million why not. My point is this is what happens to baseball players the money now is so large in baseball. Players are thinking they can stay another season and make another $10 million.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk radio

Warriors SF Arena: Basketball team could move down the street next to AT&T Park

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by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–San Francisco Giants presdient Larry Baer once proposed to the Warriors a space for a new arena at AT&T Park’s parking lot at Lot A the current VIP lot for Giants customers during the baseball season. Baer actually proposed this idea to the Warriors before any announced idea by the Warriors to build at Piers 30-32.

The Warriors had big dreams for the Pier 30-32 location and according to Warriors spokesman P.J. Johnston they still do, the Warriors would like to build a ten story hotel, a 17 story luxury condo across the street from Piers 30-32 and of course the 12 story new arena on the pylons of piers 30-32.

Johnston and the team realize that the neighborhood opposition is immense and the team has discussed a back up plan to build the arena next to AT&T Park on the parking lot next to the ball park if the Warriros can’t move to piers 30-32, “It’s still full steam ahead on Piers 30-32, but we have always and will always consider backup plans” said Johnston

With that full steam ahead idea in mind the opposition once again are gearing up for a fight, the opponents just recently delivered ballots to city hall proposing to put a ballot measure asking voters if there should be any development that exceeeds over 40 feet at piers 30-32, the Warrios are proposing a 125 foot arena which would block waterfront views of the bridge and the east bay at the Embarcadero. In a poll taken the development idea was shot down because of the objections in height size.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee who said in light of the San Francisco 49ers leaving the city that a Warriors downtown arena would be a “legacy” to his administration. At first it appeared that the mayor would back off and let the voters decide how they would like this measure to go but has said recently that he wants to see this project move forward according to his press secretary Christine Falvey, “(the mayor) looks forward to sitting down again very soon with the Warriors’ownership to discuss steps for the arena and Piers 30-32 site” said Falvey.

The AT&T Park idea is being taken under consideration by the Warriors as a backup plan if there is a vote that goes against development at the waterfront. There are also plans by the Giants to develop retail, hotel and condo space near AT&T and owned by the team. The Giants are looking to build two apartment towers standing 30 stories and a 2,100 parking garage to make up for the loss of lot A.

The residents might find compromise in that for not losing the views and having development in that part of the waterfront of Piers 30-32. The way it stands right now if the Warriors push for Piers 30-32 development the neighborhood would push right back and oppose any development along the waterfront that goes over 40 stories that would include at AT&T Park or Pier 70 owned by Forest Cities properties who also is considering condo and retail developemnt at the Dog Patch loacation off of Third Street.

Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos sees compromise to the idea by building a new arena next to AT&T Park that way the Warriors get to move into the waterfront neighborhood and the neighbors keep the views at Piers 30-32 and minus more Embarcadero traffic on game days, “I am very open to Lot A for a Warriors arena, the leadership of the city should get the Warriors and Giants together to work out a mutually satisfactory business agreement and the sooner they do it, the better” said Agnos.

Baer was not available to talk to Sportstalk radio and declined to discuss this matter, Baer in previous years did propose the idea to the Warriors about an arena on the Giants grounds but the Warriors wanted their own property and building but the team is realizing that this dream is not as easy as they thought it would be. Former San Francisco Board of Supervisor President Aaron Peskin who was a staunch opponent of any development at the piers says he would support a new Warriors arena at Lot A “without hesitation or reservation, it would be perfect” said Peskin.

If the city leadership, Lee, Agnos, the Giants, Baer, the Warriors owners of Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber, and most importantly the neighborhood and the voters of San Francisco find favor for AT&T Park for the arena than the Warriors could be looking at a shot at coming to the waterfront. The measure could get on the ballot for the AT&T arena location as soon as November of this year or as late as 2015.

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

Michael Duca and Morris Phillips on the NCAA: Bears striving to end regular season on positive note with two home games left

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by Michael Duca and Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The Cal Bears have lost three of their last four games going into the final two home games this season, Cal is just not playing well, and then there’s the three loses all of them by double digits. The Bears lost in Arizona on Wednesday by 25 points. Cal is just not playing well and of all of the final eight games they had Arizona State on Saturday night had to be the one that stuck out.

The Sun Devils resume to the NCAA Tournament is so similar to what Cal did, Saturday night was a game to win and Cal came up by 18 points. It’s frustrating for Cal and the NCAA Tournament is obviously looking and most people are expecting that Cal will be in but they could easily slip right back out.

The other issue is that Cal’s Justin Cobbs hasn’t been winning his indvidual match ups, Wednesday was a great game for Arizona’s Nick Johnson who scored 22 points to lead the Wild Cats and then on Saturday with Arizona State’s Jahii Carson the point guard who is being declared for the NBA draft and is a really good player. Make no mistake Justin Cobbs is just as good as those guys are but right now he has to play up to par.

It’s been a frustrating season for Cal in as such that it will be up and down, there’s just so much youth on the roster with six freshman, a couple of sophomores, and the team doesn’t score consistently. At times they struggle with their offense, and other times they’ve been incredible in terms of scoring and winning big games.

Overall this has been a wonderful season for Cal given who they have coming back and who they brought in, that could change a lot if they don’t come home next week and win both of their remaining home games left against Utah and Colorado.

The Arizona Wild Cats for the last three weeks have been playing great basketball and after they lost that one point game to Cal they’ve stepped right back into it, the Wild Cats just worked their way to the rim offensively so that was not a bad loss per se for the Bears. The fact they lost by 26 points is frustrating they should have been more competitive and at some point your in the game. When they played at ASU on Saturday they lost by 18 points and the reason why they did is because their just not playing well.

So when Cal faces Utah and Colorado for the last two games of the season at Haas they should be beatable, Colorado is still playing without their key player Spencer Dinwiddie who was lost on January 20th. Meanwhile the Utah Utes have really had Cal’s number over the last couple of seasons. You would imagine that they would not be showing up Cal at Haas and it would be a surprise if they did although Utah is an emerging team.

Morris Phillips and Michael Duca are filling in for Michelle Richardson this week for the NCAA report

Warriors commentary: W’s win in New York should carry over to Toronto Sunday

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by David Zizmor

TORONTO–The Golden State Warriors are in Toronto Sunday afternoon to battle the Raptors for a 1:00 PM PST tip off and the Raptors are a first place club who are holding a four game lead in the Atlantic. The Warriors Stephen Curry who played one of his worst games of the season agianst the Bulls in Chicago last Wednesday in the Warriors 103-83 loss scored only five points going 2-10 as the Bulls contained him on defense.

Then it was onto New York at Maidison Square Garden on Friday night, where Curry was no longer playing doormat as he exploded with 27 points leading the Warriors to a 126-103 win over the Knicks. The Knicks are a mediocre team at best and if they were in the Western Conference they wouldn’t be a playoff team.

In the Eastern Conference their a playoff team but that’s because the Eastern Conference is so much worse than the Western. The Knicks do have Carmelo Anthony who lead the team with 23 on Wednesday who is still one of the best players in the NBA. That definitely gives them a slight edge over the other teams in the east. As far as every single player from number one to number 15 on the Knicks they can’t compete.

The Knicks can’t compete with the top teams in the east and they can’t compete with most of the teams in the west. Their an also ran, their going to tread water so other than that their not very good. There a team that the Warriors should beat and you can’t say that about most eastern conference teams.

Curry going into New York had a triple double which is not as notable or flashy as the 54 points he dropped on the Knicks last year but boy Curry certainly rises to the occasion during a big game when he’s in a notable environment like New York. MSG is one of those places even when the Knicks aren’t very good it still is a great place to play there’s just a certain atmosphere you get there that you don’t get in too many arenas.

Curry dropped 54 points last season at MSG, this time he dropped a triple double and just kind of controlled this game, remember he hit a triple double in essentially three quarters of basketball because he barley played in the fourth, had he been given another ten minutes to play his numbers would have been more impressive.

The Warriors face the Raptors with Toronto’s high scorers DeMar DeRozan (22.7), Rudy Gay (19.4), and Ken Lowry (16.9) the Raptors have got some good offense winning seven of their last ten games. The Raptors have had recent success against Cleveland twice, Orlando, Washington and Atlanta. The Warriors coming into Sunday have won seven of their last eight games.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio

Kings arena update: Mayor ecstatic over judge ruling on subsidy ballots

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by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–On Thursday’s ruling by Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley to throw out some 22,000 petiiton ballots that would have had forced a public vote on a new Kings arena, Frawley ruled that the ballots had flawed wording. This ruling was consistent with Sacramento City Clerk Shirley Concolino’s assesment that the legal wording for the petitions were flawed and the ballots invalid.

Anti arena group Voters for a Fair Arena Deal chose not to appeal the Frawley decision due to cost and said although they disagree with the ruling they will have to live with the decision, “We concluded that in the final ruling went against us, we would not appeal, we disagree with the lower courts decision, but appeals are expensive and typically it is a difficult matter overturning a factual ruling by the lower court.” said Craig Powell spokesman for Fair Arena.

Also it was Fair Arena who filed a lawsuit suing Concolino and the City Clerk’s office for saying the petitions were invalid, Frawley dismissed that suit on Wednesday. Meanwhile non union contract workers who had sided wtih Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork or STOP and Fair Arena the two anti arena groups, the non union contractors withdrew their financing of the lawsuit after Frawley’s decision. The non union contractors filed the suit after the city wanted to hire only union contractors to work on the arena leaving the non union group out.

“It’s unfortunate that the will of the poeple had to be thwarted because the T’s weren’t crossed and the I’s weren’t dotted” Said Eric Christen spokesman for the non-union contractors. STOP spokesman Julian Camacho has not made a final decision against an appeal but acknowledged that going forward would be expensive and timely, “the final, final decision by our group hasn’t been made” said Camacho

STOP has until the end the business day on Friday to decide if they want to pursue the appeal because the deadline is on Monday to get an appellate decision to get the issue on the June ballot. With the deadline closing in the odds are not very good that STOP will get an appeal in by that time, “I think the issue is the timing and financing, it’s pretty tight” said Camacho.

STOP and Camacho released their own written appeal to the voters of Sacramento urging them for the right of the people to be heard on these 22,000 petitions, “we call on the Scaramento’s disenfranchised voters to express their outrage to their City Council; and we call on our elected representatives to begin listening to their contstituents, it is not too late for the city’s arena deal to receieve the public scruntiny and debate that it deserves.”

Meanwhile Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson who said earlier that the petitions had the smell of stench, said that he his jubilant over the judge’s decision, “time and time again, outsiders have tried to undermine the right of Sacramento to control the destiny of our Kings, our downtown and our future, time and time again, we have stepped up to the challenge and stood tall. Today is no exception” said Johnson.

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

Michael Duca & Morris Phillips on Cal basketball: Arizona may have a lock with the favorites but Cal can turn it into a game again

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by Michael Duca and Morris Phillips

TUCSON AZ–The Arizona Wild Cats are going to be looking to stay ahead of UCLA in their meeting with the Cal Bears tonight Arizona University in the conference race. That situation is still open to possible outcomes there so we’ll see how it goes. Arizona lost to Cal in their last meeting at Haas Pavilion that’s the only team that’s beaten them in the Pac 12 or anywhere for that matter.

The Wild Cats will have to reasert and reestablish for this game in Arizona tonight in order to get that number one seed. Meanwhile for Cal the goal is very simple between now and the end of the season they need to finish somewhere in the top four. The Bears really want to avoid adding two extra games in the conference tournament.

Arizona just doesn’t lose at home and let’s be honest about that, the last time Cal won a game at Arizona Hubert Hoover was in the White House 1929-1933 and it feels like that long ago anyway. The Wild Cats don’t lose at home, this is a very good team and they were missing a key player when they were in Berkeley.

The Bears came within one Justin Cobbs step back shot at the buzzer of winning that game. The Wild Cats aren’t terribly worried about their chances in this game, they feel their in pretty good shape. As far as Justin Cobbs is concerned he’s one of those rare people in college basketball we call them “seniors.”

You don’t get a lot of guys who stay and play for four years and the majority of the experience show at crunch time. If it weren’t for the fact that Cal had the top player in the conference in the last four years you would think that you could end the discussion for that so is Richard Solomon.

The truth is politics gets involved, your just not going to see having player of the year four out of five years it’s not going to happen. Arizona State is coming up next for Saturday night and ASU is a real interesting team they’ve spent most the time above or around Cal in the standings.

They were we’re very spotty and Cal was a very up and down team, they’ve lost to Stanford and Utah so Cal has a chance to do alright on the road and they have a chance of splitting these two games tonight and Saturday.

Morris Phillips and Michael Duca cover the Cal Bears for Sportstalk radio each week

Sharks commentary: What players did on their time away from the game

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–Some members of the San Jose Sharks got away during the Olympic break and went to Cabo San Lucas in the warm sunshine of Mexico and they had a wonderful time there. It was a lot fun they actually went fishing and caught a shark. So the Sharks caught a shark and they ate it.

Some of the other interesting things that they did was goaltender Alex Stalock actually went home to Minnesota and went ice fishing. He had the chance to go anywhere in the world and he went to the freezing cold of Minnesota of his hometown to go ice fishing and he caught quiet a few fish.

Also there were fans who watched the Olympic hockey games from some of the strangest places and the strangest place was in Bally where Sharks broadcaster Randy Hahn went all the way to Bally. He was in Bally and he did not hear a thing about Olympics the whole time he was there until he found out that Canada was playing for the gold.

Hahn searched out and found a small sportsbar in Bally, and when he walked in at one in the morning for the game, he found four or five Canadians there and they all huddled up together and watched the game and in Bally of all places. He was in Hong Kong and then Hahn went to Bally.

On Monday night members of the Sharks did a fundraiser at Club Auto Sports a wine tasting in San Jose, it’s part of the Sharks foundation big fundraising and they do many good fund raisers throughout the year but the wine tasting is one of the better events.

It’s classier, dress up, no autographs, plenty of pictures taken, really good food, and they had a silent auction and then they had a live auction and some of the live auction was very interesting and one of the best ones was going wine tasting with Jim Johnson and head coach Todd McClellan up in Napa.

Very happy to say that went for $10,000 and two people bid on it and it got up to $10,000 and instead of four people going with Johnson and McClellan it’s going to be eight people going with Johnson and McClellan. The winner of the whole thing is the Sharks Foundation.

Which the foundation is a very good cause, something that I believe in, and it was a great event, very classy, and it was a beautiful time to be had by all.

Larry Leavitt does San Jose Sharks commentary each week for Sportstalk radio

That’s Amaurys News and Commentary: Expect a media circus with the return of Bonds

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

SCOTTSDALE AZ–The Giants who hired Barry Bonds for a week as a hitting instructor and as we know he has a record for obstruction of justice and has a dark cloud over his head and yes you can expect a media frenzy when he arrives in camp on March 9th.

The stay is expected to be brief he will depart the Giants training camp on March 17th. Bonds is going to teach a little more paitence and he might have to have some with Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval who just recently lost 40 pounds where everybody thinks Pablo is going to be Ted Williams all of a sudden.

Baseball is a funny sport, look at guys like Tony Gwynn who won eight batting titles in the National League for the Padres. Baseball doesn’t go by your physic, it goes by your endurance and your abilities. Bonds is going to work on guys hitting with the young players and the guys in the line up and that’s fine.

It will be a circus with Bonds returning the media will follow him and ask him about his new job with the Giants as hitting instructor, he might get asked about his chances to get into the Hall of Fame. This is the first step of rehabilitation for Bonds. He wants to rehabilitate his image, the only place in this country where Bonds might get an ovation is at AT&T Park.

Any other park in this country he would get booed out of the buidling, here’s the dangerous thing Bonds is the home run king and yes technically we can add an asterisk there, frankly former home run king Hank Aaron does more as an ambassador for baseball and he’s not the home run king although he’s the legitimate home run king with no scandals.

Bonds you would think is the home run king but would baseball commissioner Bud Selig invite him to throw the first pitch a few years ago at the All-Star game? He never gets invited to any of these games and what that tells you is that MLB doesn’t want anything to do with Bonds and now the Giants have hired him back for spring training and he’s back in uniform.

Probably this is the Giants opening the door, the Giants have not embraced Bonds like they did back in his home run hitting years. This is a big step towards to rehabilitate Bonds, change his image with the public that’s really the whole deal here.

The biggest insult and keep in mind I got to travel with Bonds and the Giants in those years with the team during the time when the Giants were at Candlestick and then AT&T, the Dusty Baker teams and the World Series team of 2002, we know from experience that he’s not going to answer anything about steroids we know that.

It will be interesting to see how he reacts when he will get asked and it might even turn out to be too much again and he might go back into retirement after about a month of this we’ll see.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk radio

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