Author: lleonardbw

California teams dominate in battle for top spot in NHL Pacific

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

SAN JOSE–The Sharks played like a Stanley Cup Champion during this five game homestand in which they won all five games at SAP Center. The Sharks now head to the road to face Toronto, Pittsburgh, Carolina, and Minnesota for a four game road trip. The Sharks concluded their five game homestand with a overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday night 4-3. These were no doubt the two best teams in the Pacific in the NHL.

This was a very physical game there were five fights already in the first period. These two teams don’t like each other and these are two excellent teams as a matter of fact I was looking at the Western Conference there are three teams from California that occupy the top three spots in the Pacific San Jose, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. One of those teams is going to win the conference those are the best three teams right now and they have the best chances to stay all the way through.

I like the Sharks chances their playing very tough and one other team in the Western Conference that is tough is the Chicago Blackhawks and watching the NHL this last month the western teams are much more physical and they dominate the Eastern Conference which is interesting and for many years it was the east but now the west rules they seem to have bigger players, faster players more physical and the Sharks have a very good mixture of players so it’s going to be a good season for the Sharks.

 

Sharks play by play announcer Dan Rusanowsky before the game on Saturday night the voice of the Sharks for radio told me to keep my fingers crossed he thinks this might be the year but we said that last year too. The Sharks are very aggressive and their aggressive again on Saturday night as they fought the Ducks from a 3-3 tie to win in overtime 4-3. There is still a lot of game left and they have lost only one game in San Jose this year and the Ducks are undefeated at home.

The Sharks are now 18-3-5 with 41 points and the Ducks are 18-7-4 with 40 points, this is a real good homestand that the Sharks put on with wins over Tampa Bay, New Jersey, L.A., St. Louis, and Anaheim. The game on Saturday night was a big game for the Sharks because right after Saturday’s win they flew to Toronto to begin a four game road trip which starts on Tuesday night. The Sharks will be playing seven games in nine days which includes a brief return to San Jose for two games before heading back out again for another three games on the road.

The Sharks delivered on Saturday night and it was a good rivalry and it’s not a like the Dodgers and the Giants because that’s baseball since their days in New York. This is a very good rivalry, if the Sharks ever had a rival they have to look at the Ducks and the Kings. The Ducks are a very good team and organization they play in a beautiful place the Honda Center and a few years ago it was known as the Arrowhead Duck Pond just across from Anaheim Stadium from Highway 57.

The Ducks have a good thing down there and they get the crowds down there and a population of 354,000 people live in Anaheim almost like the size of Oakland. San Jose has over a million but it’s a good rivalry and we like to see these three teams in the Pacific Conference and the three teams I like their odds are the Kings of Los Angeles, the Ducks of Anaheim and the Sharks of San Jose. Like I said before one of those three teams from California is going to win the Pacific and the Western Conference.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio

Raiders Report: Raiders good enough to hang but can’t finish

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Cowboys Raiders Football

by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The Raiders had a good start and were actually leading at the half 21-14 but the Cowboys kicked into gear and the Raiders weren’t able to stop them on the other side of the ball and the Raiders offense couldn’t get anything going in the second half. It was a tale of two halves in this one the Raiders looked pretty solid in the first half in fact one of the drives in the second quarter.

One of the Raiders scoring drives they basically held the ball for 12 minutes out of 15 minutes the entire second quarter. They didn’t even let Dallas get the ball but Dallas marched down the field really quickly at the end of the half to score a touchdown with ten seconds left from that point on Dallas seemed to get their second wind and the Cowboys dominated the rest of the way.

The Raiders has some great plays on special teams to start this one out with the return as the Raiders recovered a fumble on the opening kick off and returned it for a touchdown and that set the tone early on it kind of stunned the Cowboys more than anything and for the next quarter and a half the Raiders were really playing really well. When the Cowboys scored at the end of the first half it just kind of rolled into the second half. The Raiders defense wasn’t able to stop them and the Raiders know that the Cowboys have a pretty solid offense.

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo threw for 220 yards, the Cowboys rushed for 140 yards and it was one of those situations where the Raiders defense wasn’t able to stop anybody and while Raider quarterback Matt McGloin looked pretty solid in the first half completing some really solid passes and making some plays here and there he just couldn’t do anything in the second half and McGloin just didn’t seem to be able to do anything in the second half.

So you look at McGloin’s stats and he was 18-30 for 255 yards with one interception and no touchdowns and it’s really tough to gage how he played in this one he really looked good in the first half and made some tough throws and in the second half he just wasn’t hitting any of those and it wasn’t just the receivers who were dropping passes though that did happen on occasion and he wasn’t as accurate in that second half and part of that were the adjustments on the part of Dallas.

Dallas is still a better team and the Raiders defense is okay this year but teams are starting to catch up and injuries are up and down with this team on offense and defense and their starting to take their toll and it was great that the Raiders were able to hand in this one especially on a short week on Thanksgiving day on the road but that’s a tough game to play. You kind of feel for the Raiders because that’s just a tough situation to be in and it’s unfortunate that they had to be the team that had to be the sacrificial lamb on Thanksgiving.

The simple fact is that you got to win those games and Dallas isn’t such a good team that the Raiders weren’t able to beat them and the Raiders certainly can hang with them the bottom line is they come away with a loss that just puts them further behind heading into next week’s game against the New York Jets and we’ll see how the Raiders can do in that one.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Pro Hockey Report by Mary Lisa Walsh

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as interviewed by Sports Radio Service

DALY CITY–The win by the San Francisco Bulls in Bakersfield on Tuesday night 5-1 was a badly needed win and the Bulls were shut out twice once each by Idaho and Utah at home during their six game losing streak. The Bulls really needed a score and Dean Ouellet delivered scoring his fourth goal of the season and they basically dismantled Bakersfield after that. Bulls head coach Pat Curcio made some very quick moves and adjustments to his roster he waved Riley Emerson and traded Damon Kipp defenseman to Idaho and that’s where Tyler Gron came from who scored two goals on Tuesday in Bakersfield and another on Wednesday night against Bakersfield at the Cow Palace.

Curcio picked up another defenseman signing a rookie Kalvin Sagert and he played pretty well in Bakersfield and the other forward he acquired and Gron was the big star he got an assist and two goals in the game in Bakersfield and it’s very impressive because he actually scored against San Francisco this season but he did a lot of damage last season so it’s reason to see why Curcio was happy to get him. So far this season he’s only got points against the top three teams in the west Alaska, Stockton and Ontario.He’s a great asset to have hope it doesn’t go the other way of the top scorers  for the team who have been injured at a relentless rate so it could happen.

Getting Gron should help San Francisco next time they face Idaho on Saturday March 29th the move to get forward Andrian Foster and everybody had a great game in Bakersfield and Bakersfield is not exactly the toughest competition in the west but the Bulls really needed that confidence because they were shooting like crazy in all of those loses before because nothing was going in the goal. It seems like that might have given him a boost we’ll have to see if that works out in the long run.

The Bulls are still ahead of where they were last season and everybody on the team hoped they’d be further ahead to where they were and the Bulls are still more competitive at this time than where they were last season. There’s still hope here and maybe they can have a playoff birth.

Bobblehead promotion for Pat Curcio: Wednesday nights tends to be the lowest nights for attendance for the Bulls at the Cow Palace and this was a great promotion idea to boost attendance and they will give away bobbleheads on two more home Wednesday night games this season. The bobblehead is a great collectors item and the other two bobbleheads coming up are for Dean Ouellet and Rawhide the mascot.

So Wednesday is a great time to come because hey you get a bobblehead this season.

San Jose Sharks update: The San Jose Sharks Brett Burns is tremendous asset but a lot of the other lines that were performing well before he came back are still performing well. It lifted the team up but Burns needs a little bit of time to really hit his stride because he is such a phenomenal player so it will be exciting to see that growth again it was a tough injury he was out for a long time and unsettling and it’s good to have him back but the rest of the team is holding up without him.

For the Sharks to win the division is like a dog fight and the new Pacific Division is just relentlessly tough this season the Sharks played Wednesday night against the Kings then have back to back games versus St. Louis and Anaheim on Friday and Saturday. There are a lot of good teams out there and they’ll be lucky to get into the playoffs at all so the Sharks have a shot. The Sharks play pretty well against the Kings and the Kings are the Sharks worst enemy.

The Sharks third line saw Matt Nieto who was demoted to Worcester on Monday, Nieto made the line up and continued to play and get time as much as he did but he’s green but of course Tomas Hertl is green too but it doesn’t show. Jaromir Jagr made an interesting comment before the Devils game that Hertl’s team had a rink in the Czech Republic that was NHL size although Hertl played on international ice and he had more experience than most European players on smaller ice so that gave him a leg up and of course he’s phenomenal as well.

The Sharks fourth liners: John McCarthy has been up and down for several seasons for the Sharks. Clearly McCarthy has the coaching staff trusting him he gets a lot of short handed time but he’s one of the guys who sits when Mike Brown sits. McCarthy played center in one game last week in place of Andrew Desjardins who has sat one game and hasn’t sat any others. Their performing quite well and it’s a mix and match for the coaches on the fourth line.

Mary Lisa Walsh is filling in for Larry Levitt for the Pro Hockey report this week

49ers Report: Kaepernick could very well be as good as Montana someday

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by David Zizmor

 SANTA CLARA–We were just talking about how bad the NFC East is and no team better exemplifies that than the Washington squad their really bad and they displayed that last Monday night against the 49ers. It’s kind of surprising to think they made the playoffs last year and were kind of the toast of the league and Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III displayed his skills as he injured his knee in that playoff game last year against Seattle and it’s been a tough road ever since.

Washington is just not a very good team this season and Griffin is having a lot of trouble on offense he really has had trouble passing he doesn’t look right in fact if you look in the past game comments from 49ers linebacker Ahmad Brooks “we respect Robert Griffin he’s a good player he’s a warrior he also shouldn’t be out there, it’s just not right there’s something wrong he’s not healthy and he should take a break before he gets back out there” but you know what the 49ers don’t care.

The 49ers had two tough games against Carolina and New Orleans and the way they lost those two games was pretty tough they lost by a total of four points by one point to Carolina and three points to New Orleans and in that New Orleans game if you don’t like that penalty for the personal foul called on Brooks for the clothesline hit on Drew Brees late in the game when he fumbled you would think the 49ers had the game stolen from them.

They lost their two games in a very tough manner and everybody was claiming the sky was falling “the Niners stink, their going to miss the playoffs, Colin Kaeppernick he’s not as good as we thought he was” the offense needs to pick up the pace for sure but the defense has been playing great football and the Niners still are 7-4 right now this isn’t a team that hasn’t completely fallen out of the playoffs race. They had a couple of tough games and they were right in  those games if a couple of breaks go their way they could have got the win and everybody would be happy and nobody would be complaining and moaning.

Fans and media would be saying that the Niners would need to be doing a couple more things and “hey their winning so who cares” this is a good team and Kaepernick has not been quite as dynamic as he was last year but lets’ remember this is a guy who started only 20 football games in his young career and after 20 games former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana was still struggling a little bit in fact if you look at Montana’s statistics for his first 20 games their almost identical to Kaepernick’s it’s almost scary how close they are in terms of their numbers.

 

Kaepernick and Montana were in different eras their not one to one comparable but Kaepernick still has a lot of room to grow and you won’t be surprised and you’ll see him grow and become a much better quarterback as time passes the offensive line has struggled a bit this season that’s played a part in Kaepernick’s struggles and we all know the problems of the 49ers with their wide receivers being unhealthy.

As the receivers get healthy and they get more weapons on offense back in the fold you see Kaepernick get better, also the coaching staff needs adjusting their realizing there are some things they need to help Kaepernick with so their doing their best to make things a little easier for him. The most important thing is the wide receivers. Mario Manningham is getting better each week you saw him in this week’s game against Washington catching several slant passes.

Which you might remember back in the 80s and 90s under former head coaches of the 49ers Bill Walsh and George Siefert those were the bread and butter of the 49ers offense with receivers like Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Freddie Solomon, Dwight Clark, and many others were catching slants left and right. You couldn’t stop them it’s a great play and if you catch it and you get tackled you get seven yards and if you catch and you break a tackle you could go for a long one.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk radio

Raiders report: Cowboys offense good but not balanced

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by David Zizmor
ALAMEDA–It’s going to be additionally challenging for Oakland on Thursday it’s Thanksgiving day it’s a whole host of issues here with this game if you look at the history of NFL football on Thanksgiving the home team has won on Thanksgiving and those games are held traditionally in Dallas and Detroit. Detroit has a nine game losing streak on Thanksgiving. The Cowboys for the time being have been pretty good at home. The Raiders have a tall order for them, what they do have going for them is the fact that Dallas is the mediocre team.
If you look at the standings Dallas is in the running in the NFC East their a shade behind the Philadelphia Eagles in that race and the Cowboys are certainly in the playoff run but if you pay attention to the NFC East you know that even though Dallas and Philadelphia are tied at 6-5 and Dallas is not a very good team their good their just an up and down squad. Dallas has a good offense but a really bad defense and to be honest their offense while it’s good and has some excellent players, Tony Romo is an excellent quarterback for Dallas and Dez Bryant has been a great wide receiver.
The simple fact remains that this is not a balanced offense the running game is mediocre and they are a very inconsistent team. Part of that is because Romo tends to will them under pressure late in the games we’ve seen that in his playoff performances and we’ve seen that in various games just this season where he’s had trouble in the fourth quarter. The other thing is they don’t have too many big time performers beyond Romo and Bryant. Their looking for supporting players and their just not that good.
The only reason their 6-5 is because their in one of the weakest divisions in all of football and they’ve been able to feast on other teams in their division that are not very good in their own right. The Raiders go into this one as underdogs but Dallas is not very good so the Raiders at least have a chance. This isn’t going to be a super lopsided affair where Dallas just blows them out. The Raiders can make some noise in this one. This Thanksgiving your going to be watching football one way or another so definitely watch this one this will be an interesting one.
The Raiders can do a little damage and hopefully come out and make you enjoy turkey day and not depress you.
David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Agnos ramps up anti SF arena support with grass roots campaign

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by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos who said that the Golden State Warriors new arena proposal for downtown San Francisco at piers 30-32 would be a real estate money grab and he is correct and in this world you really can’t criticize people for wanting to make money and you look at all the sports teams today and their in business to make money and I use sports teams as an example because most people root for a team passionately not realizing it’s a business.

So of course they want to make money like Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber, the question would be how much is the public going to have to contribute to make that money, that’s the big argument. They want to put that arena in that area that’s fine they want to foot the cost and they want tax payers to come in and supplement that. Agnos says that and also building on piers 30-32 is going to be a problem in terms of aesthetics and the environment, “they want the prettiest place in the city, I can’t blame them. But it’s the wrong site for a good team” said Agnos.

You can’t blame the Warriors for wanting that location and that’s a magnificent view looking onto the Bay and the bridge which the plan is to build a large window looking out onto the bay where basketball fans can see that wonderful view during the game. The development would come with two luxury hotel towers at least ten stories high, a 16 story luxury condominium complex across the Embarcadero, plus retail stores and a 500 space garage.

Agnos 70 who is campaigning to community groups at least two to three times a week is catching the attention of neighborhood groups around the city as the Warriors new arena proposal is the hottest San Francisco political issue. Agnos called the Warriors downtown arena the “perfect storm” for gridlock on the Embarcadero and that it’s being proposed by Warriors billionaire owners Lacob and Gruber who Agnos says don’t have the city’s best interest at heart but this is all about profit and affordable housing you can forget that.

“There’s no sense being in second, there’s no sense in doing something unless you’re going to do it right” said Lacob. The Warriors no doubt will be fronting their share of money for the build but there is little doubt that public tax payers funds would go into paying for the Warriors arena. The Sacramento Kings are using public funds for their new downtown arena set to break ground in downtown Sacramento next year the funds are reportedly coming out of the general fund and will be repaid with parking lot receipts and sales tax from tickets sold at Kings home games.

Warriors spokesman Nathan Ballard who is strategizing the project on the political side said “Art Agnos is a very smart guy and he knows that if the election were held tomorrow the Warriors would win it.” Agnos is running a grass roots campaign ran with a clipboard for notes and promises from the community that oppose the building at the waterfront they would support Agnos in stopping any kind of new development at piers 30-32. The proof is in the pudding after San Francisco propositions B and C lost in the October 2013 election last month to develop condominiums at the piers and the election wasn’t even close.

The San Francisco business community was out in full force behind the development effort with Mayor Ed Lee, former mayors Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown and the higher ups from the Chamber of Commerce. Although no one from that camp admits it Agnos played a huge part in getting the development proposal to get voted down and much can be said the same for the newest proposals for a new arena coming from the Warriors.

Ken Gimblin is covering the Warriors new arena proposal in San Francisco for Sportstalk Radio

A-Rod on Bud Selig for not showing at hearing “cowardly stance”

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

NEW YORK–Yankees star Alex Rodriguez has a high powered attorney Joe Tacopina and Tacopina is advising A-Rod and he’s a high price attorney whose advising A-Rod and he’s charging about $1000 an hour in a very high profile case. I can say in one sentence for A-Rod to win he would have to come back a and play as long as he’s not playing the commissioner is winning it’s as simple as that. A-Rod is not getting any younger and he needs to play. You can make a case that it was an injustice that he was suspended 211 games.

As comparing other players like Rays pitcher Joel Peralta or the A’s pitcher Bartolo Colon who were suspended 50 games and we can say that was a good argument that it was unreasonable but like I stated here before that baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to get rid of A-Rod completely and he doesn’t want A-Rod to play again and Rodriguez got advised by his attorney and he’s not dumb to run the case himself and has spent a lot of money on his lawyers he’s trying to portray the public relations game and saying the commissioner had to show up at his hearing.

The commissioner didn’t have to show up and he never shows up for the trail and the commissioner doesn’t have to and this is a P.R. campaign on the part of A-Rod and the pressure is on A-Rod the commissioner already made his case that the owners are happy with it. This week there have been rumblings that Peralta got a big deal and got millions of dollars from the Detroit Tigers and some executives said that looks kind of looks weird that we are rewarding people who were suspended for PEDs use and I use the word momentum and the momentum is against Rodriguez right now.

A’s will be at Coliseum until at least 2015: The main factor for going to see the A’s at the Coliseum if your an A’s fan you can still take BART to Oakland you don’t have to wonder “where are the A’s playing tonight?” basically we know that the A’s are going to play at the Coliseum for the next couple of years and we all knew that but it’s official they signed that lease. However after 2015 all bets are off this is the significant news and if you can read between the lines and I really believe this and we were talking about A-Rod not getting any younger and nobody is and nobody can stop the time clock and everybody has a birthday every year.

The A’s owner Lew Wolf is up there in age and this is it he won’t say this but if we can play devil’s advocate here Wolf is saying with this lease folks I’m going to play in Oakland two more years and after that if we don’t get a resolution to move to San Jose I’m going to sell this team and I really believe that’s what’s going to happen. So Wolf is basically buying two more years in Oakland that’s all he’s doing.

The A’s have a tremendous potential and it was 1968 when they moved to Oakland and the East Bay is huge now. The city of Fremont has 210,000 people and you add San Leandro and you got all the way up to Albany and Richmond and the East Bay has millions of people and a lot of them live here. As a matter of fact Silicon Valley has moved to parts of Fremont and Fremont is called Silicon Valley East. There are some companies that have moved into Fremont because there is more room there.

The point is that the East Bay has the money, the people, they can support the Oakland A’s.

Will Manny Pacquiao go broke? Boxing star Manny Pacquiao could be headed to the poor house according to reports saying the Pacquiao owes the Philippine government $50 million in back taxes from the tax year 2008-09. Pacquiao says he will pay it all back, Pacquiao says he’s ready to help typhoon victims by rolling up his sleeves and do the dirty work of the clean up. Pound for pound Pacquiao is the highest profile boxer in the world and the recent typhoon he’s trying to do as much as he can.

Pacquiao is at the point where he’s borrowing money he has to pay a lot of money $50 million in taxes but you make that type of money and he made lots of money and he’s wearing big shoes. He just won his crown defeating Brandon Rios a few days ago the Mexican challenger and he’s going to do what everybody else does and you know the old saying “nothing is for certain except death and taxes” we all die and we pay taxes. So Pacquiao he’s boxing and he’s making his money in dollars.

He has to pay I feel sorry for him but not financially he’s a millionaire many times over but he also has to realize that he has to pay taxes like everybody else.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio

Michael Duca on the NCAA

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by Michael Duca

LAHAINA, Hawaii–The Golden Bears came out a little edgey in their win over Arkansas 85-77 on Monday night at the Maui Invitational, maybe they were just nervous. The combined records of these two teams in that tournament on before Monday night 30-0. So it’s hard to decide who your favoring. They had a scuffle early on in the game in the sense the Bears were not hitting shots and not making the plays that they wanted to make and it had been rehearsed all week in practice.

It was rehearsed in practice which was a long week of practice and Cal head coach Mike Montgomery said that the team pretty much forget everything they practiced for all week in the first five minutes of the game. A couple of things happened first of all they did start playing the way they were coached to play and the other one that made a huge difference in the past forward Richard Solomon had managed to collect two fouls early in the game and then sit down here Solomon collected a third foul early in the second half.

Montgomery sat Solomon down and in came Roger Moute a Bidias at forward and said to the freshman “you know how to do this I have to trust you and get out there and play” and play he did he played with three fouls for much of the rest of the game and Moute a Bidas fouled out in the final 1:10 of the game collected 11 points and had more than a dozen and half rebounds after that point and began and basically to took over the floor.

The Bears faced Syracuse on Tuesday and their best known for their two-three zone defense and they play that two-three defense better than anyone else in the country. Cal faced them in the NCAA Tournament and did not do well at all and Monty is hoping that those players can carry over because one of the reasons they did not do well is they didn’t really attack the weaknesses of that two three zone.

There aren’t that many of them because the Orange have guys that are 6’8 and 6’9 out on the wings and they make it difficult but their are seams in a two three zone. There are places where you can take the outside it’s going to be up to Cal’s front court to really take advantage penetrating that zone and hit some higher percentage shots.

This was a closer game than the tournament was last year even though they don’t have Alan Crabbe and Crabbe was probably their best outside shooter threat they’re a more veteran club despite Crabbe’s departure and with the inside presence of both Crabbe had a tremendous game and Solomon had a terrific first half on Monday night that indicates that they could play competitive against this Syracuse team.

Michael Duca covers Cal basketball for Sportstalk each week

Michelle Richardson on the NCAA

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by Michelle Richardson

 

Cal’s dreadful 2013 season: I’ll be honest with Cal head coach Sonny Dykes is not suited to coach at Cal and he’s a very good coach and I think the jump from Louisiana Tech to the University of California Berkeley was too large for him he should have gone to a larger mid major conference maybe like the Mountain West Conference. Going to Cal was too big of a leap to go from the Sun Belt conference to the Pac 12 where it’s dog eat dog Dykes was just outmanned.

Fact is Dykes will have a tough time proving himself in the Pac 12 and this was just a horrible season finishing 1-11 and it’s going to take a lot for the Bears to rebound and who knows if they can to be honest with you. I honestly don’t know if the leadership is there and I was talking with Sportstalk’s Jeremy Kahn and this falls on Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour and honestly to an extent Sonny Dykes because of his play calling but more so because of the price tag that they don’t have to pay him as much as if they had to go after a larger name.

There’s money still left on Cal former head coach Jeff Tedford’s contract so it’s one of those, “well this is all we could afford” and it’s a shame because Cal could have been at least competitive in the Pac 12. Cal wasn’t even competitive they were just a doormat. They won one game against Portland State earlier in the season. It’s too horrible to talk about Cal and it’s kind of a sad day that Cal is dealing with all these new sporting facilities on campus and with the new football stadium and was doing it on a shoe string and Cal eventually is going to have to put butts in the seats. They need to win a few more games than this next season.

Louisville basketball with 21 straight wins: Louisville has something to prove and their trying to prove that their not a fluke but their also playing UNC in UNC. UNC is a basketball school that’s what they do they’ve got a football team the only other team that rivals them is their soccer and that’s women’s and men’s soccer but definitely women’s soccer. Louisville has a very good coach in Rick Pitino. I’m telling you it’s going to be closer than you think but I still give the win to UNC.

UNC will win because Louisville has lost so many players to the draft after their championship run last year.

Charleston Classic concludes: It’s always to go to Charleston and see my old alum the New Mexico Lobos and we live on the east coast so we don’t get to see them except for television so it was good to see them play and they played Daividson and Davidson is outmanned on this. Davidson what they lack in size they have in heart so I believe the Lobos will win but Davidson will give them all they have.

New Mexico they lost on Saturday to UMass 81-65 on Friday they came off a triple overtime loss to UAB that doesn’t take nothing away from UMass and UMass is a very good team and their in the tournament right now and their going to play Clemson and their going to hear it from UMass and their going to be a turning team to look out for.

So don’t take UMass lightly and UMass whose 4-0 will be dominating this tournament and please understand that the Lobos are playing a week late and the triple overtime they had against UAB is a tough one. Their playing Davidson and they got their legs back and they will definitely beat Davidson and not taking anything away from Davidson they lack a little shot against New Mexico but they’re all heart.

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

Consenus from pro and con voters SF arena traffic main concern

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by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–Even voters in San Francisco who are pulling for a new San Francisco downtown arena admit that traffic and not views or environmental issues will be the main issue of debate. San Francisco officials which includes the planning commission have come up with an idea to ease traffic and that’s to construct a light rail line that will run from McCovey Cove from AT&T Park to the Warriors new arena at piers 30-32 which would include  $1 billion new condos and hotel, and that is expected to help cover the traffic flow when both teams play on the same nights or if their are events being held at the same time.

While discussion had been focused on no development at the San Francisco waterfront and demonstrated in the October election when voters voted down propositions B and C that would start condo development at the piers 30-32 location. Even with a new transit lane that would run from the Giants park to the Warriors new arena and the traffic issue question resolved the waterfront neighborhood still opposes the Warriors building a new arena that could block the view of the bridge and the bay.

 Former San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne stated that she and San Francisco voters during the prop B and C election were against the development at that location. San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos said the Warriors and condo developers are not in it for basketball or entertainment but this is merely a land grab for pure profit.

The Sierra Club is one of the strong environmental non-profits who are demonstrating environmental issues with developing on the piers from not only the aesthetics but also animals and their protection to arguing the pier is fine just the way it is. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors or most of them are trying to make way for this development as this would surely be a profitable situation for the City.

Board of Supervisor Scott Weiner says the Muni improvements would cost $2.2 billion more than the new arena-condo project, “before there wasn’t nearly enough focus on transit impacts and transit needs, my sense that is shifting there’s a renewed focus. As negotiations move forward, it’s very important to have in mind the full transit impacts of the project to make sure those are being accounted for.” said Weiner

Ken Gimblin is covering the NBA arena projects for the Warriors and Kings for Sportstalk Radio