Sports weekend look back

Sunday was a great day of sports, no? Men's b-ball, golf, hockey, NASCAR, winter sports, girl's b-ball, USA soccer. I was looking for Federer but his final will be next weekend.

Landon Donovan's hat trick (holy crap! That 3rd goal was pure nastiness!), just goes to underscore what a frustrating player he's been over the years. Donovan may be the best (non-goalie) player USA has ever produced but he just isn't enough to get USA over the hump. In friendlies and against sub-standard competition, he shines and we see what a great player he can be. I liked pairing him with Feilhaber behind him, that could be an outstanding duo in the midfield for USA. Tough to put that kind of pressure on the guy but he's the best we got and he's got to be better for USA ton win anything.

Personally the UCLA-Kansas game got on my nerves. Some made a big deal about the defense but frankly I thought it was the bullheaded offensive play that led to a lot of those steals and blocks. Both teams played wild and selfish and neither built any kind of effective attack. The Bruins survive but I wasn't impressed. It looked like Oregon was gonna give Florida a game but it just never materialized. Memphis, too, just sorta melted away under the Buckeye free throw shooting. North Carolina went ice cold at the wrong time against the Hoyas.

In hockey lately fighting has emerged as the controversy du j'our--or perhaps it's simply the only thing that will generate any interest in talking about hockey. Removing fighting from hockey would be a mistake. I'm not a fan of the fighting myself but it is part of the game and it is when the powers-that-be tamper with the unwritten rules that a game loses its character. Look at baseball: when I was a kid if a pitcher plunked a guy, then one of his teammates would get plunked back. Everyone knew how it worked and frankly it was fair. It might occasionally lead to a blood-letting but as long as everyone has equal input then a blood-letting ain't the worst thing that ever happened. But now the umpires dole out warnings and the guy who strikes first effectively gets away with unpunished violence. Hockey could not survive some arrangement like this, with the refs controlling who instigates what to whom. Let the players play the game and quit complaining about the effect on the children--jeez! American children grew up for many generations watching this stuff and the effect is they don't want anyone else to see it. Apparently watching violence makes you hate violence--is that really such a dangerous outcome?

Tiger is rolling again but 5 bogeys in the final round? Not really worthy of the red shirt. The Masters will not be the cake walk everyone's been getting ready for, I think. Vijay's back to his putter experiments, Mickelson is his usual bi-polar self, so who will step up and challenge the maestro? I'm playing the field here, I think the Masters goes to none of the above. I'm going with Nick O'hearn, he looks like he's get his act under control and I think he flies in under the radar. (Feel free to forget what you just read--if O'hearn wins, I'll remind you)

Always a pleasure to see Duke lose, even the girls--hey, I'm an equal opportunity hater. Missing the 2 winning free throws with no time on the clock--man, that's soul crushing. Especially since they'd been drubbing people all year long. Oh well, good riddance.

I was digging the half-pipe skiing free-style too. Good stuff, like to catch more winter games tour stuff.