Category: Uncategorized

By Jeremy Kahn

Jack Del Rio played his high school football at Hayward High School before heading to the University of Southern California, and then to a career in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns.

After retiring, Del Rio moved into the coaching ranks, including a stint as the Head Coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

More recently, Del Rio was the Defensive Coordinator for the Denver Broncos; however that all changed with the dismissal of the entire Broncos coaching staff after the Broncos lost to the Indianapolis Colts 24-13 on Sunday afternoon.

Del Rio was not out of work long, as on Wednesday afternoon, he was named the Head Coach of the Oakland Raiders, the teams’12th Head Coach since returning to Oakland in 1995.

While with the Jaguars, Del Rio went 68-71 between 2003-2011 and the team qualified for the playoffs twice under his tenure.

Ironically, Del Rio replaced Dennis Allen as the Defensive Coordinator of the Broncos when Allen was named Head Coach of the Raiders and here it is, Del Rio in replacing Allen in Oakland.

Tony Sparano, who replaced Allen after just four games into the season was the other finalist for the job.

By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Tuesday, January 13, 2015

GLENDALE, Arizona – Defenseman Brenden Dillon was getting all kinds of advice on how to handle his postgame interview from his San Jose teammates following the Sharks’ 3-2 victory Tuesday at Gila River Arena.

“Take your shirt off!”

“Do some pushups!”

Dillon chose instead to remain seated in front of his locker to describe his first goal of the season; a game-winning shot that came five minutes into the third period, snapping a 2-2 deadlock.

From near the left point, Dillon spun around and sent a low shot through the 5-hole of Coyotes’ goaltender Devan Dubnyk.

“I really wanted to contribute, and to get the game-winner really made me happy,” Dillon said. “I’ve been working on shooting and I’ve had a couple of pucks like that go against us this season. So to get one to go in for us and for me personally, and to get the win more importantly, I’m pretty excited.

“Dubnyk’s been good for (Arizona) this year, so we tried to put more pucks on the net, battle a little more near the crease. (The Coyotes) are a good faceoff team and a good shot blocking team. We knew we weren’t going to get many looks, and when we did, we had to make the most of them.”

The Sharks improved to 51 points (23-16-5) on the season, vaulting into second place in the NHL Pacific Division. Arizona, meanwhile, continues to struggle at 36 points (16-22-4) while an announced crowd of 10,631 watched the divisional matchup.

“It was a pretty evenly played game,” Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said. “We talked about that between the second and third periods and told them to elevate their play just a little bit. It comes down to which team gets the breaks and we’ll take the bounces that came our way.

“Any win is a good win, any way you can at this point. Points you can put in the bank is essential at this time of the year. It gets to the point where when you keep winning, the other teams will run out of time. But we have to do our work right now to make sure we’re taking care of our own games.”

The Coyotes opened the scoring at 14:19 of the first period when Mikkel Boedker took a feed from Oliver Ekman-Larsson and fired a low shot through traffic and past a screened Antti Niemi, putting Arizona up 1-0. The goal was Boedker’s team-leading 13th of the season.

San Jose tied the game on a power play goal by Joe Pavelski, his 22nd of the season, just 30 seconds into the second period. Pavelski redirected Joe Thornton’s shot from the right point while Arizona’s Shane Doan was serving a slashing penalty that carried over from the first period.

During the first intermission, McLellan said he told his team it needed to play better “around our net, not so much around their net.”

“It wasn’t a big motivating speech or anything like that, we just stayed steady on the rudder and we knew we were starting the second period on the power play. So we wanted to get some momentum from that and it turned out that way.”

Nearly one minute later, Tomas Hertl’s eighth goal of the season gave the Sharks their first lead of the night at 2-1. But Doan converted a rebound at 11:00 of the second, tucking the puck under Niemi’s right leg pad, tying the game at 2-2.

“I thought Tomas had a nice game in the middle,” McLellan said. “He was around the puck more, he skated more, and maybe we’ll continue to look at him there.

“Our fourth line gave us some valuable minutes, and all four lines participated in the win. That’s the way you like to do it.”

The Sharks nearly had a go-ahead goal at 19:23 of the second period, but replay showed that the net was knocked off of its moorings prior to the shot.

Arizona pulled Dubnyk in favor of a sixth attacker with one minute to play in the third period, but never mounted much of an offensive threat. Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi stopped 29 of 31 shots.

Logan Couture assisted on the first and third San Jose goals.

Dubnyk, who got the start in place of the struggling Mike Smith, stopped 25 of 28 shots on goal for Arizona.

Just as excited as the Sharks players were about the win were their fathers, who were on the annual fathers’ trip.

“They’re a pretty happy group right now, and it’s fun to have them around. It’s really a good reward for them to see their sons win and I know they’ll enjoy the flight back,” McLellan said. “They think they’re staying for the rest of the season, but I don’t think any of us would survive that!”

By Daniel Dullum
Sports Radio Service
Sunday, January 11, 2015

Stanford survived a cold shooting spell in the final five minutes Sunday night, hanging on to upend Southern California 78-76 in Pac-12 men’s basketball in Los Angeles.

Though the Trojans (9-7 overall, 1-3 Pac-12) trailed for most of the game, they forged a 10-1 run in the final five minutes before coming up short, erasing most of a 13-point Stanford lead. The Cardinal 11-4 overall, 3-1 Pac-12) had eight straight empty possessions during that stretch, missing five 3-point attempts in the process.

Earlier, Stanford made 10 3-pointers before the Cardinal’s second-half cold spell.

USC’s Jordan McLaughlin pulled the Trojans to within 77-76 with 41 seconds to play before the Cardinal’s Stefan Nastic sank 1 of 2 free throws with one second remaining to account for the final two-point margin.

Anthony Brown led Stanford with 21 points and 10 rebounds, with Rosco Allen contributing career highs of 18 points and four 3-pointers. Nastic finished with 15 points and Chasson Randle added 12 points for the Cardinal. Stanford also had 14 turnovers. Going into the game, Randle was leading the Pac-12 with a 19.8 scoring average.

It was the third consecutive win over USC by Stanford.

Julian Jacobs topped the Trojan scoring column with 16 points, followed by McLaughlin with 14 and Nikola Jovanovic with 13.

The Cardinal returns home on Wednesday night to host California.

TAGS: Stanford men’s basketball

By Daniel Dullum
Sports Radio Service
Thursday, January 8, 2015

Behind the solid one-two punch of Kevon Looney and Tony Parker, UCLA outscored Stanford 10-5 in the second overtime and held on for a 86-81 Pac-12 men’s basketball win at Pauley Pavilion.

The victory was also No. 500 in the collegiate coaching career of UCLA mentor Steve Alford.

Looney scored 27 points and grabbed 19 rebounds – both career highs – and Parker added 22 points and 12 boards for the victorious Bruins (9-7 overall, 1-2 Pac-12).

Bryce Alford scored 15 points, Norman Powell had 12 points and Isaac Hamilton for UCLA, which held a 49-37 rebounding edge.

Chasson Randle led the Cardinal (10-4 overall, 2-1 conference) with 32 points (including seven 3-pointers) along with five rebounds. Anthony Brown tossed in 21 points to go with eight rebounds and four assists. Rosco Allen added 14 points and seven rebounds for Stanford, which was 14 of 21 at the free throw line.

The loss snapped a four-game Cardinal winning streak. Stanford has lost 10 games in a row at UCLA, their last win at Pauley coming in 2005.

The Bruins overcame a 14-point Stanford lead midway through the second half, when Looney and Parker sparked a 19-4 run that put UCLA ahead by one before a free throw by Randle tied the game and sent it into overtime.

In the first overtime, Randle hit a pair of 3-pointers, the second one giving Stanford a 75-72 lead after a trey by Looney tied the game at 72-all. Alford hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with six seconds left to put the Bruins up 76-75, and fouled out on Stanford’s next possession, sending Randle to the free throw line. But Randle hit 1 of 2 to tie the game at 76-all and force the second OT.

The Cardinal finish their Los Angeles road trip against Southern California on Sunday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. PST.

by Tony Renteria

The Sacramento Kings (14-20) looking to get back into the playoff race hosted the Oklahoma City Thunder (17-18) tonight with 104-83 impressive win.  The Kings took an early 28-16 lead in first quarter carried it though for the entire game.

The Kings were led by forward Rudy Gay who took his 9 for 19 shooting and turned into to 28 points and chipped in a balanced nine rebounds with four coming from the offense glass.

Point Guard Darren Collison match the shooting of Gay but only managed a very respectful 24 points while adding a solid seven assists.

Center and perhaps one of the most powerful players in the league DeMarcus Cousins added in 23 points but he took 23 shots and 13 times to the line to come up to that total.

The Thunder were led by All World and still recovering Kevin Durant who paced the team with 24 points, the other half of the offense duo Russell Westbrook only added 10 points on a horrible shooting night going 3 for 19.

The Kings who are looking to get back to the basketball that was played under former Coach Malone head to Denver on Friday as the Thunder heads East as well to play the Jazz.

By: Joe Lami

Stanford earned their fourth straight victory on Monday night as they defeated Utah 55-44 in a poor outing from both squads. The Cardinal outlasted the Utes, as they finished 36% from the field in one of their worst shooting performances of the season. Luckily, they held the injury plagued Utes to 28% from the field, including 19% from beyond the arc.

For the second straight game, Amber Orrange, led the Cardinal in scoring. As the senior finished the game with 17 points to finish the opening weekend of Pac-12 play with 43 points. She finished the night shooting 35%. “I’m just looking to shoot more. I don’t think I’ve ever shot this many times in a game before,” commented the senior point guard.

Lili Thompson followed Orrange in scoring with 14 points, as she was the only other Cardinal to get into double digits in scoring. Three separate players finished with seven rebounds helping Stanford own Utah on the boards 44-34.

Only eight Utes saw playing time, with seven of them seeing over 15 minutes of playing time. Taryn Wicijowski led Utah in scoring with 14 points, 12 of which came in the second half, while she finished 46% from the field. However, the other Utes greatly struggled with shooting, as they contributed to only ten more field goals bringing Utah their second loss of the Pac-12 schedule.

Stanford takes their first road trip of the Pac-12 season, as they take their annual trip up to Washington.   The first stop will be in Seattle, where they take on Washington on Friday night.

By Jeremy Harness

Stanford is quickly showing college basketball that last year’s NCAA Tournament run may not have been a fluke.

The Cardinal are quickly emerging as a threat in the Pac-12, and that grew even more after they downed No. 21 Washington in overtime, 68-60, at Maples Pavilion. With the win, Stanford is off to a 2-0 start in the Pac-12 and have two quality wins on their resume, which could prove crucial should their name come up for possible seeding in the big dance.

Prior to opening conference play, the Cardinal was coming off a huge win on the road over No. 9 Texas, so the confidence of this team is obviously very high.

This was a far cry from a month ago, when they were struggling to beat teams such as Loyola Marymount, and the thought was that the Cardinal, fresh off a Sweet Sixteen appearance in last year’s NCAA tourney, would return to the middle-of-the-road team that has been all too familiar in the Johnny Dawkins era.

To keep the momentum going, Chasson Randle scored 24 points on 9-of-21 shooting, to go along with five assists and three rebounds.

Neither team shot the ball very well overall, as the Cardinal squeaked by with a 39 percent performance while the Huskies shot 38 percent from the field.

The game was knotted at 28-28 at halftime, but Stanford emerged from the locker room and opened up a seven-point lead in the first four minutes of the second half. However, it took just as much time for Washington to tie the game back up, as two free throws by Shawn Kemp, Jr. evened things up at 37-37.

From there, it was a back-to-back affair, as the game saw a total of five lead changes in the final 10 minutes of regulation. Stanford trailed for the final two minutes but was able to battle back and send the game into overtime on Chasson Randle’s layup with two seconds left.

In the overtime period, it was all Stanford, as Washington could not find the bucket at all during the extra period – the Huskies were 0-for-3 from the field, as all of their four overtime points came from the free-throw line.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal only missed one shot in overtime, and that proved to be the difference.