Old Dominion beat Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament.  You might notice I used the word “beat” and not “upset”.  Granted,  ODU was an 11 seed and Notre Dame a 6 seed in the South Region which is hands down the softest region in the tournament.  But Notre Dame is no Kansas, so to think they were a lock to beat the Monarchs shows the writers who use “upset” when writing about this game don’t have a good understanding about either team.

Notre Dame led by as many as nine points in the first half, but the Irish is not the same team today as they were in January before their All American Luke Harangody hurt his knee.  Harangody only scored four points today, not to say Old Dominion’s big man Gerald Lee was any better, he only made four shots.  Notre Dame as a team shot less than 36% a tribute to Old Dominion’s defense.

So Old Dominion wins its first NCAA Tournament game in 15 years, and the players might even get a chance to explore Bourbon Street tonight.

Next up for the Monarchs, a date against 3 seed Baylor, who beat 14 seed Sam Houston today.  Now, if Old Dominion were to beat Baylor, that we could call an upset.

Stay tuned.

Tiger Woods is coming back.

Now that he is apparently back with his wife and family, Tiger has decided to end his self proclaimed retirement by playing in next month’s Masters.  The two biggest winners in this is Tiger, who gets to played in one of the most controlled sporting events in the world.  And CBS which might find themselves televising one of the most watched sports event ever.

It shouldn’t take long for the America to forget the sex scandal that rocked one of the world’s biggest celebrities.  After all former President Bill Clinton admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky just 12 years ago earns nearly $10 million a year just in speaking fees.  Michael Jordon, who has been rumored to be involved in affairs for years, paid his wife $168 million in their divorce settlement.  He is now a popular owner of an NBA team and makes close to $50 million a year.  Kobe Bryant was on the verge of being prosecuted for sexual assault when a judge dismissed the charges because the accuser refused to testify.  Kobe then signed a $136 million contract with the Lakers, regained his endorsements from Nike, Spalding and Coca-Cola and is considered one of the biggest sports stars in the world.

And I’m not going to even start with movie stars.

So while we in the media milk this story as we can, and while tens of millions of viewers settle in to watch the Masters, years from now when the media jumps on another celebrity scandal we can remember back to “The Tiger Woods Affair”, and exclaim it didn’t bother his career a bit.

In case you haven’t heard, it looks like the University of Virginia has a new basketball coach.

His name is Tony Bennett, he is 39 years old and for the last three years he has been the coach at Washington State.

People say he is one of the top young coaches in the country, in fact a couple of years ago he was named the AP College of the Year.  In his first two years he took the Cougars to the NCAA basketball tournament twice.  This past year he only won 17 games.

He is expected to be introduced on Wednesday.  Hope he can do the job.

 

Fans that follow Old Dominion basketball know the name Anthony Grant.

           

The VCU coach has been a thorn in the Monarchs side since he came to Richmond three years ago from the University of Florida.

 

But now he is being wooed back to the Southeastern Conference by the University of Alabama, and it may be an offer Grant just can’t refuse.

 

An annual salary of 2-million dollars or more, which would be quite a raise from the 800 thousand he’s getting from Virginia Commonwealth.

 

The Birmingham News is reporting the Alabama job is Grant’s for the taking, but he has to make the decision soon.

 

If so, he would be the first African-American men’s basketball coach in Alabama history.

 

The 65 team NC-double A basketball tournament field is set, and it is a Big East Bonanza.

Three of the 4 top seeded teams are from that conference. The other is from the ACC

Louisville, Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Conn. are selected as the top seeds.

The tournament starts later this week, and wraps up with the national championship game April 6^th in Detroit.

A lot of folks say the Big East was the strongest conference in the country this year; some say this year’s conference is the strongest in college basketball history.

And I guess the selection committee agreed.

This is a record number of number one seeds for one conference.

Who do you think will make the final four?

Add it to the comments below.

 

            

 

 

           

Congratulations to the Kings Fork boys and the Princess Anne girls for winning the Virginia State AAA basketball championships.

WAVY-TV was the only station from Hampton Roads in Richmond for the exciting games.  So stay tuned to WAVY.com and our newscasts for the best coverage.

Let us not forget that the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees will be announced tomorrow afternoon.

 

One of the finalists is Bruce Smith, who grew up in Norfolk and has lived in Virginia Beach the past 20 years or so.

 

Bruce of course the all-time sack leader, he went to four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills before ending his career with the Redskins, and I think Bruce is a shoe in this his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

A team with a long standing tradition of winning championships will take on a team that some think may be one of the worst franchises in NFL history on Feb. 1^st when the AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers take on the NFC champion Arizona Cardinals down in Tampa in Super Bowl 43.

 

The Cardinals will be looking to win a league championship for the first time in 61 mainly woeful seasons. They hung on and defeated the favored Eagles, 32-25 yesterday in front of a packed house

 

And I have to tell you if anyone still thinks the Cardinals are a fluke, I’m not sure you know much about football.

 

Quarterback Kurt Warner is the perfect leader for this team. 

               

He wasn’t good enough to stick with the Rams or Giants, but yesterday threw four touchdown passes against a defense that hadn’t allowed a TD pass in its five previous games.

 

But it wasn’t easy by any means. The Eagles came back and scored 19 points in 8 and half minutes to take a one point lead.  But the Philadelphia defense couldn’t finish. 

 

Warner calmly led the Cardinals 72 yards in 14 plays including a 4^th and 1 conversion that the Giants could get against that Eagles defense last week.

 

Donovan McNabb had one last chance to drive the Eagles into overtime. But he misfired, as he often did in the first half, and the Eagles got no farther than the Arizona 47, where a fourth-and-10 pass to Kevin Curtis fell incomplete.

 

Wide Receiver Larry Fitzgerald was spectacular as he surpassed Jerry Rice’s single postseason yardage record by catching nine passes for 152. Three went for first-half touchdowns. 

 

The Eagles blitzed play after play and that put Fitzgerald in single coverage and he and Warner took advantage of it.

 

And my favorite play of the game, was that flee flicker that went for 62 yards, offensive coordinator Todd Haley called it “Philly Special,” because the same play had worked against the Eagles when he was on Bill Parcells’ staff in Dallas.

 

Now the question, can Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt go back for his second Super Bowl and beat his old team the Pittsburgh Steelers where was the offensive coordinator when they won the Super Bowl.

 

The Cardinals, are often called “Pittsburgh West” because of their many connections to the city and the Steelers, and of course Arizona will be playing in its first Super Bowl.

 

AFC Championship game

 

It was a cold and snowy night at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh last night, but the Pittsburgh Steelers once again relied on their outstanding defense to get them back into the Super Bowl again.

It was finally settled when Steelers Safety Troy Polamalu ended a rolling Baltimore comeback.

 

Polamalu intercepted rookie quarterback Joe Flacco and returned it 40 yards for a touchdown with 4 and a half minutes left in the game.

 

And that sealed the Steelers’ 23-14 victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

 

 

The victory lifted the Steelers into their seventh Super Bowl and a chance to become the first team to win six. Their seven championships are an AFC record.

 

The two big keys in this game, one of course the Steelers defense, which might be one of the best defensives we’ve seen in the NFL in a long time.

 

They really did a job on Ravens rookie quarterback Joe Flacco, forcing him to throw three interceptions he only hit on 13 of his 30 passes for less than 150 yards.

 

The other key was the play of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who threw for 255 yards and did not throw an interception, a very mature performance for a guy who has played in plenty of big games.

 

And this is going to be intriguing as we head to the Super Bowl, this quarterback match up between Rothlisberger and Warner. 

 

Obviously Warner has some years on Ben, Warner’s 37-years old and was a Super Bowl MVP almost a decade ago with the St. Louis Rams.

 

Rothlisberger won a Super Bowl in only his second year; both guys know how to play in the big game.

 

And you’ll hear plenty about the coaching match ups, Ken Wisenhunt wanted to be head coach of the Steelers after Bill Cowher left, but he was passed over for the job in favor of Mike Tomlin from Newport News. Russ Grim a former Steelers coach is in Arizona now

 

And remember, Cardinals receiver Larry Fitgerald played at Pitt when he was in college, so a big Pittsburgh connection there with the Cardinals.

 

               

               

 

               

 

 

 

 

Contact Sports Director Bruce.Rader@wavy.com

 

 I  don’t know what the rest of you did this weekend, but I spent the past two days watching four football games.

 

 As we all expected at the beginning of the season, it will be the Arizona Cardinals against the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC championship game next week.

 

 Is that unbelievable?  Either the Cardinals are the Eagles are going to be in the Super Bowl this year.

 

 Talk about how crazy the NFL is this season, the Redskins played the Cardinals once and the Eagles twice and the Redskins won all three games.

 

 But, both teams very deserving, but I was enormously impressed by Kurt Warner and the Cardinals, and very embarrassed that I even made note of the fact that the Cardinals did not play well when they came to the east coast, which they didn’t before Saturday night, but still that was ridiculous to even talk about that last week, because that doesn’t mean anything.            

 

The Carolina Panthers were certainly the biggest disappointment of the playoffs, although we’ll get to Eli Manning in a moment, and with four interceptions and a fumble recovery hats off to the Arizona defense, and an excellent Cardinals offense, with Larry Fitzgerald hauling in those Warner passes, I really think Larry Fitzgerald is one of the best receivers in football, I thought he was when he played in college.

 

The Cardinals crushed the Panthers 33 to 13, Carolina playing one of the worst playoff games I have seen in a long time.

 

I have to give the Cardinals the edge this weekend in the NFC championship game.

 

 Although I am sure the Eagles fans aren’t going to agree with me after their impressive 23 to 11 victory over the Giants yesterday.

 

Just 11 months ago the Giants shocked us all by winning the Super Bowl; yesterday they shocked us again, wasting a 12-4 season, home-field advantage and the No. 1 seed with a flat performance, to say the least.

 

The Giants defense played pretty well, but Eli Manning’s offense blew opportunity after opportunity.

 

 Eli threw two costly interceptions, while Donovan McNabb had another outstanding game he did throw two interceptions, but finished with 217 yards, a touchdown and a big throw on a third-and-20 conversion on a third-quarter field goal drive that gave the Eagles the lead for good.

               

By the way, I picked both the Panthers and Giants to win.

 

AFC

 

It will be the Baltimore Ravens against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game, I did pick these two teams, and I think this is going to be a great football game, I think the game they played in the regular season was one of the best games I saw all year.

 

Baltimore went on the road and beat the top seed Tennessee Titans 13 to 10.  Unlike the top seeded Giants, the Titans played a very good game in my opinion, but Baltimore’s great defense and the amazing play of their rookie quarterback Joe Flacco took the game down to the wire, where Matt Stover nailed a game winning field goal in the final minute.

 

Matt Stover’s 40 years old.

 

The Ravens defense forced 3 fumbles and picked off a pass, and their offense never turned the ball over once.

 

But, it is not going to be easy beating the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last night Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a 35-24 win over the Chargers at Heinz Field. The Steelers will remain at home for Sunday’s AFC Championship Game against the wild-card Ravens. (6:30) I know you Steelers fans were a little worried there down 7 nothing early, and then what 10-7, but the Steelers seemed to play better as the game went on, while the other teams in the playoffs that had byes last week did not seem to play well, did you notice that.

I thought Ben Rothlisberger had a good game, but I think was Willie Parker that for me put the Steelers offense over the top, it was certainly the best game Willie has played this year, and maybe it was the best game in his career considering the stage.  146 yards and two touchdowns.

The Steelers were the only home team to win this weekend. 

And it was the first playoff win for Coach Mike Tomlin who is from Newport News, and who is a great guy, and I am so happy for him, and I really want to see Mike Tomlin in the Super Bowl, so I am going to be rooting for the Steelers this weekend against the Ravens, but the Ravens are tough.

               

               

 

 

 

 

               

 

               

 

 

The two top teams in the country will square off in MiamiThursday night when the Florida Gators take on the Oklahoma Sooners in college football’s national championship game.

 

This is Florida’s 18^th straight bowl appearance, and 36^th bowl overall.

 

Oklahoma has won seven national titles since 1950, playing in it’s 10^th straight bowl game.

 

The keyword is speed.

 

And Florida has the advantage there.

 

Everybody wants to boil this game to the Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks, Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford, but it’s going to take more than a quarterback to win this one.

 

Tebow is dangerous because of his ability to run or pass depending the defense he’s facing. 

 

The Gators have a couple of underrated running backs in Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps, both with tremendous speed.

 

Oklahoma is going to have to come up with some big plays to keep the speedy Floridadefense off ballence.

 

And there is going to be a lot of pressure on Bradford to live up to his Heisman Trophy win over Tebow.

 

A big disadvantage for Oklahoma, running back DeMarco Murry is out.

 

The big advantage for Florida, Virginia Beachfootball star Percy Harvin is in.

 

And as Tim Tebow said, Harvin is the most dynamic player in college football.

 

So I’m going with the odds makers who have made Floridanow a 5 point favorite, and I’m pickin the Gators to win the national championship.