Hole Punch Sports

Well, I'm glad I watched that . The Denver Nuggets just lost to the Phoenix Suns 132-117. What's weird is I'm not even sure how they did it. The Nuggets absolutely blew the Suns out in the first half, leading by fourteen after one quarter and nineteen at the half. And it looked easy for them, in an up-and-down game that gave Denver plenty of wide-open shots. The Suns won by fifteen, so I guess however good Denver's run was in the first half, theirs was that much better. But they didn't seem that impressive, which I suppose they'll take with a 15-point victory. My thoughts on the game: 1. My favorite part of the game had to be the complete contempt in which the Altitude accouncers (Chris Marlowe and Scott Hastings) held Suns point guard Steve Nash. At one point late in the first half, Nash was on Iverson, one of them pointed out how Iverson knows he can score on Nash whenever he wants. While that's true, don't they know they're supposed to couch wh...

Holy cow, it's opening day. How did I not know that? Anyway, the Rockies begin their season today with a game against the Cardinals in St. Louis. I haven't studied the National League much, but I thought the Rockies were legitimately the best team in it last year. Since they kept their young roster together, I expect them to be very good again. (Sounds good, right?) I think the playoffs are mostly a crapshoot, so I won't make any predictions there. But I do expect the Rockies to win the N.L. West.

With victories by Kansas and Memphis today, this is officially the worst NCAA tournament of all-time, as every single No. 1 seed has made the Final Four. It could just be a statistical blip, but I think there are two reasons the tournament has played out this way. First, I think that despite the age limit enforced by the NBA in recent years, pro basketball continues to take most of the best players. And as the talent pool gets smaller and smaller, the talent gap between the haves and have-nots gets wider and wider. It's like Reaganomics, but for basketball. And the second reason is that Davidson can't pick an end-of-game play to save its life. What the FREAK was that? Let's throw the ball to Curry, give him no help (screens, cutters, whatever), and see what kind of shot the one scorer on our team can saunter up the court and create for himself. Come on! What did they think he was gonna do?

I didn't see the UCLA game, though, so no words on it. (No one's going to see this post until Monday, but what the heck: how wrong would it be if all the No. 1 seeds make the Final Four?) I did see the fourth quarter (last ten minutes or so) of North Carolina's win over Louisville, and saw both encouraging and worrisome signs, but mostly encouraging. (UNC is my favorite team and my pick to win it all.) I was worried because at around the ten-minute mark, the game was tied and the Cardinals seemed to be out-hustling the Tar Heels. Indeed, Louisville's defense appeared to force a few travels, though they weren't called. But North Carolina slowly pulled away, figured out the pressure, and hit the shots down the stretch. The Tar Heels took complete control of the game and won. Also, the game reminded me why I can't stand watching college basketball on TV. Because apparently Tyler Hansbrough is not only the hardest-working AND best player in college basketball, but d...

Okay, I think this is really cool, though I don't know if anyone else will care: Sports Illustrated has made its archives available online , and as far as I can tell they're complete. The site was up last week, technically, but I couldn't actually get to very many articles. They seem to have ironed out whatever problems they were having and if you have some free time, I recommend you check it out. Two articles have already caught my eye: this one , about Michael Jordan's struggles in professional baseball, and Rick Reilly's fantastic tour-de-force he wrote on John Elway late in Elway's career. If I recall correctly, the Jordan piece led to his not speaking with the magazine for several years, which SI must have regretted when he returned to the NBA. I'm not sure I blame him, either: the article is chock-full of cheap shots, and the writer and several people quoted find a shameless glee in his struggles, which is kind of hilarious, considering how their ...

I don't like to brag much, but at one point this weekend in my family's bracket challenge on ESPN, my five bracket entires held the bottom five spots in the lineup of fourteen, which I assume is why no one reads this blog. While I missed a ton of basketball this weekend, I did get to see much of my favorite game: West Virginia over Duke. I hate Duke and it's always fun to see them fail, though perhaps it would have been more fun had Preakness University done the honors in the first round. I don't really care for Bob Huggins, either, except that now I think he deserves a 200-foot statue and a place in the Hall of Fame. To be fair, these program schools are a little odd. Beating Duke this year isn't like beating Jason Williams/Shane Battier Duke, and it's nothing like beating Trajan Langdon/Elton Brand Duke. In retrospect the Blue Devils were a pretty good team, but not really championship material. The odd thing about watching the West Virginia game was that I ...

This weekend brought sad news for Denver Broncos fans: Jason Elam, the team's long-time kicker and one of the few remaining links to the franchise's Super Bowl championship teams, has signed a four-year, $9 million deal with the Atlanta Falcons. The article at the link points out one cool fact I'd either missed or forgotten: as of last season, Elam has played in more games than any other player in Broncos history. Two of Elam's performances stand out in my mind. The first, of course, was his 63-yard field goal during the Broncos' dominant 1998 season. The Broncos were playing the Jacksonville Jaguars, their hated rivals who'd ended their season prematurely in 1996. Yes, the Broncos got sweet revenge in the playoffs in 1997 with a 25-point victory, but the Jaguars were still despised in Denver, and the game was almost Raiders week-like in its buildup, at least for me. Man, that was one of the most memorable regular season games ever. It was the seventh of the...

When the Houston Rockets lost Yao Ming for the rest of the season due to injury, I was relieved. The Rockets were on a 12-game winning streak at the time, but I figured they weren't really championship contenders, and if someone has to get hurt, I'd rather it was someone who wasn't going to win it all anyway. Since then, the Rockets have extended their streak to 22 wins in a row, a remarkable feat by anyone's standards. Should I be changing my tune? There are some reasons to say yes, and some to say no. In the positive column: the Rockets' win streak has finally moved them to the top of the Western Conference standings, where they're one game ahead of the New Orleans Hornets and Los Angeles Lakers. (Not the trio I would have guessed at the start of the season.) Second, they've...well, I guess that's it, unless you count their winning 22 freaking games in a row . However, I still think there are more reasons to be pessimistic. First, Houston is barely ...

1. The Nuggets scored 168 points Sunday night, the fourth-highest total in regulation in NBA history, in beating the Sonics by 52. I didn't see the game (some fan), but the box score paints an interesting picture. No one had a breakout game (Carmelo Anthony led all scorers with 26 points), but almost everyone shot well: J.R. Smith (7-for-15) and Eduardo Najera (0-for-3) were the only Nuggets who shot under 50%. (And if you look closer, Smith was 4-for-10 on threes and 3-for-5 on two-point attempts, both of which are very good percentages.) Even weirder, the Nuggets only out-rebounded the Sonics by six, and attempted just three more free throws. Denver even took six fewer field goals than Seattle. And bizarrely, four of Seattle's five starters shot over 50%. I don't know what conclusions you can draw from this game, other than that it would have been sweet to watch. 2. March Madness starts this week, technically on Tuesday night but really on Thursday. (The play-in gam...

Ted Sundquist, who's been the Denver Broncos' general manager since 2002, no longer holds that title . (It's not clear what the circumstances of his departure are yet.) From the linked AP article: In a brief statement Wednesday, head coach Mike Shanahan said the organization needed to fresh ideas. 'I am grateful to Ted for all his hard work and efforts on behalf of the Broncos for the past 16 years,' Shanahan said. 'Now is the time for our organization to move forward and look at new directions. We are prepared to do so, starting with our ongoing draft planning, and along with continuing preparations for our mini-camps and training camp.' This is a surprising move, at least to me. (Did anyone else see this coming?) There's no question the Broncos could do much better acquiring new players through the draft and free agency. However, and I mean no offense to Mr. Sundquist or his family, but I don't think I'm alone in seeing him as something of ...

That's what we say, isn't it, whenever some soul-crushing free agent deal comes to pass? Sports is business. It might be true, but it usually sucks. Sometimes it's good. (It's probably good exactly as often as it's bad, but sports fans are by nature pessimists.) For example, some recent good: the Rockies signing anybody and everybody to long-term deals, the most recent being Brad Hawpe. They've also reached four-year agreements with pitchers Aaron Cook and Manny Corpas. Matt Holliday got two more years. My favorite deal, of course, was the one with Troy Tulowitzki, who the Rockies ripped off to the tune of six years and $31 million. Of course, if Tulo had signed for 1 year and $150 million, I'd still defend the signing. Unfortunately, Denver just got a big taste of the bad, too, as former Broncos wide receiver Javon Walker  has reached a six-year deal with the Oakland Raiders. It's even worse because he wasn't a normal free agent; the Broncos had...

Three-time NFL MVP and Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre is retiring . Favre retires as the NFL's all-time leader in touchdown passes, passing yards, and wins by a starting quarterback. Most famously, he started 275 regular season and playoff games in a row, which is one of the most amazing streaks of my lifetime. And Favre is the league's career record holder for interceptions. Favre's been one of my favorite players in the league for a long time, though I've always regretted not watching him more during his MVP years. Not only was he clearly a fantastic talent, he played with the style I love. There are a lot of different ways to be a great quarterback. Some guys, like Dan Marino and Peyton Manning, can throw the ball with absolute precision and are deadly from the pocket. I usually don't find it quite as exciting watching these guys, though for some reason I loved Kurt Warner in 1999. There's another style, quarterbacks who are a little more athletic,...