Maddux Sports Blog

Very interesting result last night with Maryland beating Duke by a solid margin at home. The number one seed was Duke’s to lose, and a win in this game would have come close to clinching it for them. Now it is back in play – though the Blue Devils are still in decent position to grab it. More significant than the fact that Duke couldn’t clinch that, though, is the fact that they were unable to rise up in a game like this and come out on top. Maryland is a decent team, and the game was further proof of just how special Greivis Vasquez is, but the clear fact is that Duke is the better team, and should have been able to win this one. There have been some toughness issues raised around Duke this year, and this game did nothing to dispel those. They will have a bracket position soft enough t advance a few games, but this win does nothing to ease my questions about whether this is a team built to go deep.

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Great, great story out of Pittsburgh today – I love this one. Buffalo was in town to play the Penguins. Before the game began the returning Olympians were introduced to the crowd. Ryan Miller, the tournament MVP and star goalie of the American team was given a very loud standing ovation – even though he plays for the visiting team. Sidney Crosby, the biggest hockey hero in the league, and the biggest Pittsburgh has had since Mario, got an ovation that was clearly less rousing. It gets even better – when the replay of Sid’s goal was shown, the one that won the gold medal and made certain that Crosby will be a hero in Canada for eternity, he was booed. In his own house. Awesome. Just awesome.

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Olympic Bet of the Day – Yesterday didn’t go particularly well – the biathlon favorite limped to a pathetic 17th place finish. Unimpressed. That means that I am down $25 after two days based on betting $100 per day. Today we are going to go with the most powerful sprint of the games – the men’s 500m long track speedskating. These guys are beasts. This is a wide open field with eight or more guys that are potential winners. I’m going to split my $100 evenly between two racers this team. Canada’s Jeremy Wotherspoon is the home field hero, and he presents decent value as the favorite at 7/2. Two Koreans named Lee are the second choice at 4/1, but I’m going to look past them and take a Japanese skater as my second choice – Keiichiro Nagashima is at 11/2. A win from either would pay off nicely.

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There are some funny stories in the news today if you are a sports geek – and if you read sites like this then you are a sports geek.

1. Hue Jackson, Baltimore’s quarterback coach last year, has skipped an interview to become the offensive coordinator of the Bears to instead take the job with the Raiders. Why is this funny? Well, when Jay Cutler joined the Bears last year it was talked about like automatic Super Bowls had been given to the Bears. Now, just one disastrous year later, a coach would rather work with the worst drafted quarterback in recent memory on a team that is an absolute disaster in every way with a head coach who punches out his assistants than take over the job of guiding Cutler and his offense. Ouch. The funniest part is that it really isn’t a bad decision. Sucks to be a Bears fan right now.

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Big Ten – ACC update – The Challenge is at 3-3 after six games, so things are looking decent for my Big Ten. The bad news is that Michigan State lost the coin flip game. The good news is that Northwestern won one of the games I had penciled in for the ACC. If everything else went according to expectations, then, Big Ten would win 6-5 and finally break the ACC curse. Here’s hoping.

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1. The baseball playoffs aren’t starting off any more interesting than the regular season finished. Three sweeps in the LCS round?!?!?!?! How painfully dull. Baseball has never been in more need of excitement than it is right now. That play-in game was brilliant, but very little since then has been even remotely compelling.

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I’m deeply impressed by the Giants. They needed to come through in a big way this weekend to avoid letting the Rockies run away and hide in the wild card race, and they did that in a big way. They were three games back in the wild card race heading into this series, and now thanks to a sweep of Colorado at home they are tied. The Giants showed what kind of grit they have as well – they were down 4-1 to the Rockies on Sunday, but they fought back to win 9-5. There are still 31 games to play so anything could happen, but this race starts from scratch today, and I would certainly bet on the Giants to be the ones to go to the playoffs in the end. The Rockies have been flying higher than they should be lately, so I fully expect them to fall back to earth – they peaked too soon.

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Haven’t yet figured out why the Vikings signed Brett Favre? I haven’t really, either, but here’s a big part of it – in the 24 hours following the signing they sold 3,000 season tickets and 10,000 individual game tickets. They have 7,000 season tickets left, and you can only go to the Green Bay game with a season ticket, so they will certainly sell even more. The extra ticket sales and jersey sales alone will pay for the contract, and now the team won’t have to struggle with blackouts like they have in recent years.

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I this blog, I consider three guys who are totally committed to their sport and who have set high standards for their sport. Here’s a look at Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, the PGA’s Tiger Woods and NHL center Jeremy Roenick. 

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Probably the only people not rooting for Tom Watson to win the British Open were Stewart Cink’s wife and immediate family. Then again, you never know. It was tough to root against the 59-year-old Watson. Everybody wanted him to win, including everyone in the press, because it was such a great story!

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