It was nearly twenty years ago that Jim Leyland guided the wild card Florida Marlins to a World Series victory in 1997.
They were a wild card entrant. The same might be said of the United States team that Leyland just guided to the World Baseball Classic crown.
The U.S. team, do not get me wrong, a deserving winner did not win either of its groups but as stated here, were certainly wanted by the event organizers and had intangibles in rematches vs both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Tomorrow night in the Midwest Regional semis in Kansas City, a thoroughly unfair advantage for high powered Kansas, those Jayhawks are favored to beat Purdue.
In the opener, Michigan, which roared to 4 Big Ten Tournament wins and the required two in the so called “Big Dance,” is a slight favorite vs Oregon.
Out West (you do know the way) in San Jose, Pac 12 Tournie winner, Arizona is a solid favorite vs Xavier while Gonzaga, repeatedly a failure to gain Final Four entry is a decent “fave” vs West Virginia.
The great Dionne Warwick pictured above. There is association between Ms.Warwick and NCAA Regional play as in 1979, her nephew Gary Garland Houston, Cissy Houston’s son and Whitney Houston’s brother was on a Final Four entrant with DePaul University.
On Friday night in Madison Square Garden, two East Regional semi-final games will be contested.
In the first one, South Carolina, twice crowned the NIT champion at Madison Square Garden, will face Baylor.
Next, Florida takes on Wisconsin.
Both South Carolina which beat Duke and Wisconsin, which ousted defending champion, Villanova pulled pretty big upsets to reach the round of 16.
I had written here that the fact Duke won its conference tournament, was a negative in their bid to win a 6th title.
South Carolina made sure of the “no Duke title,” with a second round win, playing near home, an NCAA constant, which rightfully often drew the ire of the late Beano Cook.
The state of South Carolina houses national title winner, Clemson, which denied Alabama a title in a finals game. Now South Carolina University denies Duke early in the tournament.
Do not feel bad for the powers and their great coaches. Duke head man Mike Krzyzewski has 5 titles as does Bama coach Nick Saban, the latter has won 4 with current team Alabama while Krzyzewski won all 5 con Duke.
It means so little, but have I ever been accurate in recent post predictions/comments.
Northwestern made the tournament, won its first game and played well enough in defeat vs Gonzaga, the region’s top seed.
I stated Villanova would not repeat as NCAA Basketball champions and cited Wisconsin as a threat in the tournament. Wisconsin “second rounded” ‘Nova yesterday.
It was stated here that the United States World Baseball Classic team would have the intangibles vs The Dominican Republic when they met again. The United States team won and advanced to the semis.
In a splendid hour or so of conversation with The Hudson Union Society’s Joe Pascal, the great Phil Donahue entertained the audience with memories of his great career.
Phil was most informative, candid, gracious, humorous, all reasons that his talk show had such great success.
Mr. Donahue’s career start in Ohio, his time as a single father and references to his beloved wife, actress Marlo Thomas were all part of the talk.
Early in the evening Phil stated, “you are giving a talk show host free reign to talk” which combined with some good questions asked by Mr. Pascal, manifested in a truly great time with Phil Donahue.
Additionally, Phil Donahue was most gracious both before the presentation, citing he grew up in Cleveland, the city that houses the World Series opponent of Phil’s team, the Cubs and just after the interview, standing and talking about his two grandchildren, a girl and boy.
Some NCAA Tournament comments and predictions will follow.
In the South Region, ‘they’ will get the highly rated battle between UCLA and Kentucky, a ’75 finals redux but North Carolina will win the region.
I hope to be wrong but I do not see Villanova winning the title again. Duke would have been my choice, but their conference tournament victory leads me to pick elsewhere.
Kansas will make the national semis.
So Dean Smith related North Carolina and Kansas, as two to make the semis, no other picks, save Wisconsin as a threat, however, a team that easily could lose early.
After a surprising nice run, an easy victory today by Japan, eliminated the team from Israel in the second round of The World Baseball Classic.
The team from Israel won its first four games, the first three in and to advance out of the first round of the tournament.
However, teams from both The Netherlands and japan routed Israel and those two teams will be in semi-finals to be played at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Monday March 20th.
Last weekend in conference tournament play, both Duke and Michigan won 4 games on 4 consecutive days to win the ACC and Big Ten Tournaments respectively.
The link between Duke and Michigan could take me to Duke’s repeat title win vs Michigan in 1992 but instead takes me back to 1964 and 1965.
In those seasons, the great John Wooden won his first two titles winning finals games vs Duke in 1964 and vs Michigan in 1965.
Gail Goodrich, a great basketball player, led the 1965 title win vs Michigan, scoring 42 points. Later he teamed with # 44, the great Jerry West to form one of the great backcourt combinations in NBA history, with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The United States baseball team in the current world Baseball Classic finally played really well and easily defeated the team from Canada to advance to the final eight.
Surely the network and tournament organizers are happy with this result and the easy bracket certainly helped the U.S. team advance.
If and when they face the team from The Dominican Republic, the U.S. team will have the intangibles having already lost a close game to the team of Juan Marichal’s country.
