Seven-Year-Old Jack Hoffman Scores Touchdown During Nebraska Spring Game

This is so cool.

Seven-year-old Jack Hoffman suffered through weeks of seizures and medical procedures in 2011 just to come out of the battle with a pediatric brain cancer diagnosis.  He has been fighting ever since, even through two brain surgeries, proving he's one of the toughest kids around.

How tough?  Tough enough to break off a 69-yard run in Nebraska's spring football game against guys who are at least 11 years older than him.  He brought 60,000 fans at the stadium to their feet, and was mobbed by the entire Nebraska squad in the end zone after the score.

What a cool moment and an awesome story this is.

Why I Love Sports - Opening Day

The Houston Astros beat the Texas Rangers last night in Houston as the baseball season officially got underway, but Monday is the day we've all been waiting for.

Red Sox - Yankees, Dodgers - Giants and Phillies - Braves are just a few of the games on tap for another amazing Opening Day.  Jon Lester will be facing C.C. Sabathia, two of the best left-handers in the game, in Yankee Stadium Monday afternoon.

I have been slowly getting more and more optimistic for this season of Red Sox baseball, and after seeing the lineup and hearing from some of the players, I'm pumped for things to get underway.  A few additions to the pitching staff and a few additions to the offense seemed like trivial things months ago, but when you put everything together and look at the lineup card for today, the Sox are looking good.

Sure, this blog might turn into your typical Boston blog if the team tanks, blasting pitchers for not trying or hitters for going into inexcusable slumps, but right now, its all systems go.  I'm excited to see how this pitching staff can perform, and if they can carry the success they had this spring.  I'm more excited to see how players like Will Middlebrooks and Jackie Bradley Jr. will play right out of the gate for this 113th Opening Day game for the Red Sox.

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If you call yourself a sports fan, then this past weekend, and including Monday, have been jam-packed with awesome sports moments.  Two Connecticut schools have made the Frozen Four in the NCAA men's hockey tournament (Yale and Quinnipiac) and Michigan and Louisville solidified their spots with Wichita State and Syracuse in the NCAA men's basketball Final Four -- Louisville doing so after losing their emotional leader Kevin Ware to an absolutely horrific leg injury.

In the world of NCAA women's basketball, Louisville made waves by knocking off Brittney Griner and the defending champions Baylor to reach the Elite Eight.

The Bruins got back on track, shutting out the Sabres 2-0 in Buffalo, and the Blackhawks exploded for a 7-1 victory in Detroit.  Andy Murray was forced into a tiebreaker by David Ferrer during a nearly three hour three-set match under the hot Miami sun, but came out victorious.  D.A. Points won the Shell Houston Open, his second career victory after failing to make the cut in seven of nine tournaments he started this year, and earned a spot in the field for The Masters.

Here's to another great day of sports, Happy Opening Day, everyone.

Marshall Henderson Throws Tantrum Walking Off Court After Loss

Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson is such a loser.  He shot over 400 three-pointers, averaged less than two assists a game and he sucks.

If you don't know him by name, maybe you know him as the clown who was gator clapping at the Florida Gators bench with just a four point lead in the SEC Tournament, or as an extra from "American History X."  The video above is of Henderson when he was leaving the court after a third round loss to another underdog in number 13 seed La Salle.  He reacted surprisingly well to the loss as soon as the game was over, but once he was out of the view of TV cameras, his winning personality really took over.

Either way, Ole Miss and Henderson are out of the tournament, so now we can focus all our attention on Dunk City a.k.a. Florida Gulf Coast University.

March Madness - How To Pick 'Em

The first rule of picking teams for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament?  There are no rules.

Knowing the game and knowing the teams certainly can help, but it doesn't necessarily have to.  My mom has been picking the Gonzaga Bulldogs any time I have seen her fill out a bracket, so could this be the year it pays off?  Could we finally see a 16 seed beat a one seed?  Will this be the second time in history all four number one seeds make it to the Final Four?

I don't know.  You don't know.  The quarter you've been flipping and the strangers you've been asking don't know either.  But with the odds of picking a perfect bracket at 9.2 quintillion to 1, you gotta try something, right?

With those odds and with every American filling out a bracket, there is the potential to see a perfect bracket just once every 400 years.

So let's say you're staring at a blank bracket.  Let me start by saying I am no expert, nor do I claim to be, and I have never even picked a perfect round to date.  But whether you fancy yourself an expert, know nothing about the tournament or just want to try something knew, here are some directions you can go.

The first one is the easiest, and should make the most sense -- should.  The "chalk" picks, as they're known.  Just pick whatever team has the highest seed all the way through.  You'll end up with Louisville, Kansas, Gonzaga and Indiana in the Final Four.

If you love the underdogs, pretty easy one here, just pick upsets all the way through.  Good luck with that one, though. NC A&T, Western Kentucky, LIU-Brooklyn/James Madison (play-in game Wednesday night) and Southern is a rough Final Four, though, fair warning.

No one likes to root for someone they don't like, so try picking schools that a friend goes to, or that you've heard of...or just pick against teams -- like against Duke if you're a UConn fan -- if you hate their colors or their mascot or their fans.

Along those lines, say you know nothing about the teams, picking mascots is a pretty solid strategy.  Take the size or ferocity of the animal, or the historical significance of the person or group, and stack the two sides up.  Easily the most fun way to look at a bracket, and some match-ups provide more fun than the actual games (like the Michigan State Spartans versus the Valparaiso Crusaders) if you're not into it that much.

The most important strategy is just to go with your gut, no matter what.  Like the picks you're making.  It'll make the tournament more fun, and when you pick a winner that your friends don't have, gloat like crazy, because it may never happen again.  Have fun out there.

President's Picks for the Tourney

President Barack Obama has locked in his picks for March Madness.  He has wisely went teams from the Big Ten in his early picks, while still picking a few minor upsets including Belmont over Arizona and Minnesota over UCLA. 

The Commander-In-Chief went 1-for-4 on championship picks in his first term, and to kick off the next four years, he has picked the Indiana Hoosiers.  Overall, some very safe and smart picks from our President, so we'll see how he does starting Thursday afternoon.

Duke Fans Are Scum

Thursday night, Duke beat NC State in a barn burner to tie the season series at 1-1 with a score of 98-85.  The Cameron Crazies were the ones making headlines this time instead of anyone on the court.

5'11' freshman Tyler Lewis was at the free throw line with just under 14 minutes to go in the second half when a couple of chants broke out from the student section.  During his first free throw, you can clearly hear them say "past your bedtime!"  Alright, no harm done there, right?

But it is during the second free throw that has Duke fans in hot water.  Lewis' grandmother recently passed away, and if you listen carefully, it sounds like they are chanting "how's your grandma?"

"It was mostly 'past your bedtime,' but there was an instant when a brief number of students chanted about Tyler's grandmother," Rick Lewis, Tyler's father said. "It wasn't the entire student section, I think a few tried to outdo themselves."

Regardless, the Cameron Crazies have been known to do some pretty unorthodox things, but this is inexcusable and unacceptable.  I don't know what can be done about this, but the NCAA should absolutely look into this and there should be action taken against Duke and quickly.

Boston vs. Goliath - The Current State of College Basketball in Boston

Just a heads up here, the spacing is really strange and fixing it would be next to impossible, so for that I apologize.

More so than any other sport, college basketball is a sport of perennial powerhouses.  Establishing an institution to be synonymous with a sport itself takes years, and only a select few have been able to earn the right within the basketball community including Duke, Indiana, UConn, North Carolina and Kansas.  In arguably the greatest sports city on the planet, why do Boston-area college basketball teams seem to fall by the wayside?  Is there something standing in their way or could it be something the team is lacking?

The 2012-13 season in underway, and Boston schools are experiencing mixed results.  Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern are a combined 5-8 so far, and they each have their fair share of hurdles to jump before season’s end.

The Boston College Eagles have stumbled out to a 1-3 start.  The beginning of their season is really their time to shine, because once they get into the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule, the odds are stacked against them.  Teams like Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State prowl atop this premier conference, and the Eagles will need to steal games against the likes of Maryland, Virginia and Virginia Tech to be a player in the conference tournament.

The Terriers of Boston University are sharing the same misfortune as the Eagles, starting 0-3.  The America East conference is not on anyone’s radar, but games against Vermont, Stony Brook and out-of-conference Harvard will be necessary to give their run a boost come tournament time.
And speaking of Harvard, amidst the cheating scandal implicating co-captains Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry, the back-to-back Ivy League winners appear to still have what it takes for a third consecutive title.  Their biggest tests will come against Princeton and Cornell, but their schedule is tailored for a deep Ivy League run.
Finally, the black sheep of the Boston college basketball family, the Northeastern Huskies may have the most reasons to cheer this season.  With a 2-1 start in a weak Colonial Athletic Association now that Virginia Commonwealth University split for the Atlantic-10, bringing their ‘A’ games for Hofstra and conference-favorite Drexel will be paramount if they want to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991.

These four teams have had very little success over the past decade.  Despite BU winning their conference in 2011 and Harvard making the NCAA Tournament the past two years, these teams cannot seem to make the leap to perennial players.

When you look at historically great college teams, you are looking at a few things, the most obvious of which being past success.  But what makes these teams great is their basketball tradition – the names that have gone through the program, the courts they play on and whether or not basketball has been and will continue to be the institution’s number one sport.

For example, Duke plays under one of the greatest coaches to ever hold a clipboard in Mike Krzyzewski and inside Cameron Indoor Stadium.  In Kansas’ 114 years of men’s basketball, they have had just seven head coaches.  These schools define tradition.  The Kentucky Wildcats sent six players to the NBA last season, including the top two picks in the draft.  And when you think of the UNC, you picture the Tar Heel baby blue uniforms atop a basketball court.

There is no draw for a big name high school player to come to Boston.  Many of the players currently on the four rosters are from the northeast area already, because without tradition, the draw to come in from another part of the country is minimal.  There are no big coaches, no real success with players at the professional level (save Jeremy Lin, a ’10 graduate of Harvard) and when most people think of these schools, they aren’t thinking basketball.  BC has been known as a football school and BU is a hockey juggernaut.  Playing on the basketball teams at these schools is like being an extra in the other sports’ movie.

Harvard has the greatest chance for future success in college basketball, having already declared themselves a force in the Ivy League for the past five seasons.  Their head coach, Tommy Amaker, is a former Duke Blue Devil star who has coached at his alma mater, Seton Hall and Michigan before coming to Harvard in 2007.  His name is known and respected in the basketball world, a major key to a school’s success.

One miracle will not save a team.  It takes years of success and the right pieces of the puzzle to make up a college basketball powerhouse.  The teams that first come to mind have a deep-seeded tradition of success and a rich history to carry them from season to season, even though a given player is only around for just four or five years.

Boston schools have an immense amount of work ahead if they want to sit among the sport’s elite, but essentially starting from scratch in a field of already-established titans will bound them to a life of the mid-level opponent to the other 343 Division-I schools.

College Basketball is Back

 

The most exciting game on hardwood is back tonight, tipping off at 5 p.m., officially marking the countdown to March Madness.  Tom Izzo's no. 14 Michigan State will battle Kevin Ollie's new look UConn team.  Last season, UConn lost players to the NBA and to transfers after the NCAA has suspended them from both the Big East and NCAA Championships for academic violations. 

Michigan State is favored in the game tonight, coming from across the pond at Ramstein Airbase in Germany.  This game marks the first regular season college basketball game in history to be played overseas, but it won't be the first to be played in an out-of-the-ordinary location. 

Ohio State and Marquette will face off aboard the USS Yorktown in Charleston, S.C., Florida and Georgetown will be aboard the USS Bataan in Jacksonville, Fla., and Syracuse will take on San Diego State from the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, Calif.  The 'Cuse-SDSU game will tip-off Sunday because of the strong chance of wind and rain Friday evening.

Each team will be sporting custom uniforms for each game, consisting of their team colors as a camouflage design.  Normally, gimmicky uniforms fall flat on their face, but these uniforms aren't just about the look.  Last year, when Michigan State took on North Carolina in the first Carrier Classic, every player wore the same name on their backs -- "U.S.A."

Now, for the picks.  The losing streak has to end eventually right?  I'm gonna go for the upset -- with a side of bias -- and take UConn over State in the opening game.  Ohio State should take down Marquette in a solid game, with the best game coming from Jacksonville, where Florida will take down Georgetown.  On Sunday, Syracuse will handle San Diego State, no matter the weather.

Alabama Lineman Channels His Inner-WWE

This is the closest thing you'll find to a DDT outside of Monday Night RAW.

Defensive lineman LaMichael Fanning was making a tackle on Missouri running back Russel Hansbrough, but when Hansbrough attempted to spin out of it, apparently Fanning's only move was to flip Hansbrough over onto this head.

I hate Alabama as it is, but this guy should absolutely be suspended.  Oh, cool, you're strong enough to lift the running back up.  And you're dumb enough to realize how dangerous flipping a guy onto his neck is.