SH Omnibus Sports Megathread

[SuperHornet]

Topic 40A: A "Done Deal?"

AOL is reporting that the Cobb-to-GB trade is a "done deal."

https://www.aol.com/report-packers-wide ... 35727.html

[SuperHornet]

Topic 40B: Rodgers Arriving at Camp

[CAA Flagship]

THEY'RE BA-ACK!!!!!!

Well, getting close.
That lovable town in the middle of the Jersey Shore is flexing its Little League muscles again. This year's group of All-Stars went undefeated in the District and State Sectional tournaments. They are now playing in the NJ State Tournament (4 teams) and won their first game. Toms River, NJ is home to two Little League organizations in the baseball-crazy town. This year's run is coming from the Toms River East Little League, which is the organization that sent a team to Williamsport in 95, 98, and 99 (winning it all in 1998). The other organization, Toms River Little League, advanced to the Regional in 05, 10, and 14 and advanced to Williamsport in 2010.

I'll post the annual LLWS poll/thread when the field is set.

[SuperHornet]

THEY'RE BA-ACK!!!!!!

Well, getting close.
That lovable town in the middle of the Jersey Shore is flexing its Little League muscles again. This year's group of All-Stars went undefeated in the District and State Sectional tournaments. They are now playing in the NJ State Tournament (4 teams) and won their first game. Toms River, NJ is home to two Little League organizations in the baseball-crazy town. This year's run is coming from the Toms River East Little League, which is the organization that sent a team to Williamsport in 95, 98, and 99 (winning it all in 1998). The other organization, Toms River Little League, advanced to the Regional in 05, 10, and 14 and advanced to Williamsport in 2010.

I'll post the annual LLWS poll/thread when the field is set.

That kinda sounds like what it must have been like in New York when you had the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants all battling it out for city-wide pride....

[SuperHornet]

Topic 42: Wentz Out Again

Former NDSU QB Carson Wentz injured his foot during Thursday's practice. The Dolts say he is out indefinitely, and are considering surgery. They are also considering whether soph QB Jacob Eason (his father IS named Tony Eason, but is NOT the Tony Eason who played for the Patsies) is the answer, or if they'll pick up another free agent....

https://sports.yahoo.com/colts-consider ... p_catchall

[CAA Flagship]

THEY'RE BA-ACK!!!!!!

Well, getting close.
That lovable town in the middle of the Jersey Shore is flexing its Little League muscles again. This year's group of All-Stars went undefeated in the District and State Sectional tournaments. They are now playing in the NJ State Tournament (4 teams) and won their first game. Toms River, NJ is home to two Little League organizations in the baseball-crazy town. This year's run is coming from the Toms River East Little League, which is the organization that sent a team to Williamsport in 95, 98, and 99 (winning it all in 1998). The other organization, Toms River Little League, advanced to the Regional in 05, 10, and 14 and advanced to Williamsport in 2010.

I'll post the annual LLWS poll/thread when the field is set.

Toms River wins the NJ State Championship. Carson Frazier, nephew of Todd (star of the 1998 LLWS Championship team, former MLB All-Star and HR Derby Champion, and current US Olympic team member), hit a 3-run HR and was the winning pitcher in the State Championship game.
I believe they face Delaware in the first game of the Mid-Atlantic Regional. It's on, 93 and Ivy.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 43: PFHOF Did Manning Dirty With His Bust

Just look at his forehead.

One responder to the post one of my shipmates posted to FB said someone should stencil OMAHA across the forehead in big, bold letters. ROFL....

[Ivytalk]

Topic 43: PFHOF Did Manning Dirty With His Bust

Just look at his forehead.

One responder to the post one of my shipmates posted to FB said someone should stencil OMAHA across the forehead in big, bold letters. ROFL....

Beldar Conehead made the HOF?

[SuperHornet]

Topic 44: NHL #1 Pick Disses Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres had the #1 pick in the draft, and chose Michigan D Owen Power, a world champion with Canada. Unfortunately for Buffalo, Power has chosen to return to Michigan for his sophomore season. Speculation is that Buffalo's bleak outlook combined with hockey's struggle with COVID is behind this decision.

I didn't know a guy could do this. In football and hoops, aren't people gone once they declare for the draft? If it's OK in hockey, but not in other sports, I don't think that's fair. Personally, though, I'd like to revert to you can't go until you or your class graduate, but court decisions block that....

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-1-pick ... 41654.html

[GannonFan]

Topic 44: NHL #1 Pick Disses Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres had the #1 pick in the draft, and chose Michigan D Owen Power, a world champion with Canada. Unfortunately for Buffalo, Power has chosen to return to Michigan for his sophomore season. Speculation is that Buffalo's bleak outlook combined with hockey's struggle with COVID is behind this decision.

I didn't know a guy could do this. In football and hoops, aren't people gone once they declare for the draft? If it's OK in hockey, but not in other sports, I don't think that's fair. Personally, though, I'd like to revert to you can't go until you or your class graduate, but court decisions block that....

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-1-pick ... 41654.html

Baseball players routinely get drafted and then choose to go to college and/or stay in college instead. I don't see the worry about what's fair in one sport versus another, every sport is different.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 45: LA Pre-Season Football

The Pineville (LA) Rebels started their pre-season off with a bang with a 7-6 scrimmage victory over Natchitoches. The PAT was scored by senior kicker Jackson Bridges, a star on the Rebels' girls soccer team. Another unnamed girl also took part in the festivities for Pineville.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 46: Matsuyama Hits CRAZY Shot

Hideki Matsuyama hit a ball off a spectator's leg and up his shirt. The article called it a "million-to-one" shot, but I'm thinking less likely than that. Apparently, the interaction may well have saved Matsuyama a stroke or two. Instead of going out of bounds, he took the cart path free drop and continued to march, ending up with a mere bogey on this 10th hole at the Northern Trust tournament.

http://sports.yahoo.com/hideki-matsuyam ... 38438.html

[Winterborn]

Everytime I open this thread and see this picture I have to laugh and think that maybe I should get a pair of those sunglasses.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 47: Centenarian World Record Holder

One hundred year old Diane "Flash" Friedman broke several records at a recent Senior Olympics in Michigan. First, she broke the world record in the 100 by THREE SECONDS, posting a 36.71. Friedman then followed that with a world record in the 220 at 1:29.78. She topped all of that with an American record in the javelin. Apparently, she holds age group world records both indoors and outdoors for the 100, 220, and 440.

Wow. Just wow....

[SuperHornet]

Topic 48: Barnstorming Football

All over NorCal this weekend, high school football games were called off due to smoke emanating from the Dixie and Caldor Fires. Some schools opted to reschedule between Saturday and Monday, while others are cancelling outright.

My own Lodi High is emblematic of this. We were scheduled to host Stockton-McNair Friday night, but it was called off for poor air quality. Lodi offered to reschedule, but McNair declined. Therefore, Lodi, desperately needing a game because last week's tilt against state power Sacramento-Grant was postponed due to COVID, was able to scramble to get Stockton-Edison to come to town Monday night at 1915. We will follow that up with next Friday's regularly-scheduled home game against Stockton-Chavez.

Our cross-town rival Tokay Tigers were able to reschedule their game at Stockton-Bear Creek Monday at 1915. State powers Stockton-St. Mary's and #9 Concord-De La Salle chose to move their game from Stockton on Friday to De La Salle on Saturday. De La Salle won 52-16. (This is typically what happens with St. Mary's. They have state championship aspirations, but they can't beat state-wide OOC competition, even as they destroy the rest of us in the Tri-City Athletic League. SMH....)

[SuperHornet]

Topic 49: Surprising Potential Holdup to Watson Trade

According to NBC trade guru Mike Florio, there's a potential trade for Deshaun Watson from HOU to MIA. But there's a potential hangup: Bill Bellichik. The Houston GM came this off-season from NE, and Florio has this crazy idea that Bellichik somehow has control over people who have left. Under this idea, Bellichik doesn't want a guy as talented as Watson in the same division.

Whether or not this factor is viable, MIA itself seems to be balking over the pricetag....

https://www.aol.com/might-1-surprising- ... 53200.html

[SuperHornet]

Topic 48A: Monday Night Football Experiment a FAILURE

Oh, I COULD claim that the officiating was horrible (and it was). But that wouldn't even be CLOSE to the whole story, because even with pristine work from the zebras, we'd have gotten beat. Edison won 28-0, but most of that came late after my Flames essentially quit. Sad because Edison was an undisciplined lot who jumped offside almost every other play (they had problems dealing with a hard count...which I thought odd because we were running a double wing pistol formation the entire night). The zebras were calling back huge Edison plays for holding, but both teams were getting away with clear targeting calls. Oh, they DID call Lodi for a helmet-to-helmet hit on the Edison punter (snap over his head) while he was on the ground, but no targeting call.

Actually, I would be more inclined to look at coaching here. In the JV game, Lodi coaches were so into forcing the team into doing everything the varsity team is doing (yes, I understand that they want to make the transition easier next year), but it doesn't make any sense to me to force a pistol formation when the center is completely incapable of delivering a well-placed Shotgun snap; every snap was high, and I lost track of how many went over the quarterback's head. (As background, when I was coaching the JV team at Sacramento-Capital Christian, the head varsity coach understood when the JV coach mentioned that the JV team didn't understand the varsity playbook, particularly after the team star went down with a broken arm on the opening kickoff of an early-season game, so he allowed the JV to switch to a four-wide concept, which they took to like a duck takes to water.) For all intents and purposes, we were running a run-centric Single Wing concept (minus the spinners, oddly) out of a double wing pistol. The one time where we took a shot downfield, the throw was nowhere near the receiver, and we never went back to it. I've never been a fan of gun-type formations when you have less than two yards for the first down, yet we kept going to the pistol and kept getting stuffed.

As a side note, would it be completely offensive to ask a cheer captain to learn a modicum of football and to pay attention to current game situations when calling for cheers? They were constantly calling for cheers like "If you like it, say Go Big Red" immediately after we got smeared for a loss. They called for "This is Lodi Territory" after Edison scored and their fans were running wild. For me, that sort of thing just looks bad. Am I wrong?

What a way to open the season. I hope it's better on Friday as we host Stockton-Chavez. What I wouldn't give to dump the pistol and go to the West Coast, though....

[SuperHornet]

Topic 50: ESPN Duped in HS Scheduling

Someone tricked ESPN into showing a 58-0 HS mulit-state blowout involving athlete factory Bradenton (FL)-IMG Academy, which has produced several NFL players. Apparently, Paragon Marketing Group had IMG playing Columbus (OH) Bishop Sycamore. This is one of the murkiest "conspiracy theory" stories I've ever seen. Bishop Sycamore told Paragon they had multiple top NCAA recruits, yet they laid THIS egg. A bit of "fact checking," however, reveals that Bishop Sycamore is an online-only charter school that only registered a football team with the OH NFHS body two years ago, and was 0-6 last year, not even putting up 50 points for the season and giving up well over 200, including a 56-6 loss to IMG. They were already 0-1 this year. Additionally, a team claiming to be Bishop Sycamore had played Friday, two days before their ESPN tilt against IMG. Someone at Bishop Sycamore had better get their head examined, because they lied about a LOT of things just to get a team on ESPN, despite the fact that this is a dangerous way to deal with kids' lives.

This is really cray-cray....

https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-high-scho ... 31265.html

[UNI88]

Topic 50: ESPN Duped in HS Scheduling

Someone tricked ESPN into showing a 58-0 HS mulit-state blowout involving athlete factory Bradenton (FL)-IMG Academy, which has produced several NFL players. Apparently, Paragon Marketing Group had IMG playing Columbus (OH) Bishop Sycamore. This is one of the murkiest "conspiracy theory" stories I've ever seen. Bishop Sycamore told Paragon they had multiple top NCAA recruits, yet they laid THIS egg. A bit of "fact checking," however, reveals that Bishop Sycamore is an online-only charter school that only registered a football team with the OH NFHS body two years ago, and was 0-6 last year, not even putting up 50 points for the season and giving up well over 200, including a 56-6 loss to IMG. They were already 0-1 this year. Additionally, a team claiming to be Bishop Sycamore had played Friday, two days before their ESPN tilt against IMG. Someone at Bishop Sycamore had better get their head examined, because they lied about a LOT of things just to get a team on ESPN, despite the fact that this is a dangerous way to deal with kids' lives.

This is really cray-cray....

https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-high-scho ... 31265.html

I'm pretty sure most high school athletic associations limit the number of quarters a player can play in a week. If they played two days prior and the same players played then the Bishop Sycamore AD and Coach are going to be in some deep doo-doo.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 50A: Bishop Sycamore EXPOSED!

A former Sycamore player comments on his experience in an interview. It reads like a court deposition with cultural expletives sprinkled throughout.

https://www.complex.com/sports/bishop-s ... n2-jlsvm2I

[Gil Dobie]

Everytime I open this thread and see this picture I have to laugh and think that maybe I should get a pair of those sunglasses.

I expect to see you wearing them at the game this weekend, and yes indoors.

[SuperHornet]

Not me, Gil. ROFL....

[Winterborn]

Everytime I open this thread and see this picture I have to laugh and think that maybe I should get a pair of those sunglasses.

I expect to see you wearing them at the game this weekend, and yes indoors.

I will be tailgating but not going to the game (never got around to getting a ticket).

At $65 a pop, those glasses are a bit expensive, no matter how much I like them.

[SuperHornet]

Topic 51: FIBA World Cup Qualification Tournaments

The qualification tournaments start with a double-round robin in groups of four nations in three windows: 20-30 NOV 21, 21 FEB-01 MAR 22, and 27 JUN-05 JUL 22. Second round games will happen AUG 22-FEB 23 with different qualification rules in each region. Ultimately, the World Cup itself will go 25 AUG-10 SEP 23.

Americas

Sixteen teams start the qualification round. Twelve will qualify for the second round in two groups of six. The top three in each group plus the best fourth-place finisher in Round Two (a total of seven teams) advance to the World Cup.

Group A

ARG
VEN
PAN
PAR

Group B

BRA
URU
COL
CHI

Group C

CAN
DOM
USV
BAH

Group D

USA
PUR
MEX
CUB

Europe

Europe is double the size of the other regions. Eight four-team groups open play. The top three in each group advance to Round Two, for a total of 24 teams grouped in sixes. The top three teams from each group in Round Two (12 teams) advance to the World Cup.

Group A

SRB
LAT
BEL
SVK

Group B

GRE
TUR
GBR
BLR

Group C

SLO
CRO
FIN
SWE

Group D

GER
POL
ISR
EST

Group E

FRA
MNE
HUN
POR

Group F

LTU
CZE
BUL
BIH

Group G

ESP
UKR
GEO
MKD

Group H

ITA
URS
NED
ISL

Africa

Sixteen nations in the First Round. The top three (12 teams) advance to Round Two. Five teams will advance to the World Cup.

Group A

NGR
MLI
UGA
CPV

Group B

TUN
CMR
SSD
RWA

Group C

ANG
CIV
CAF
GUI

Group D

SEN
EGY
CGO
KEN

Asia

Sixteen teams enter the First Round in four-team groups. The top three advance to Round Two (12 teams). The composition of Round Two isn't really specified, but it sounds like two groups of six as in the other regions. The top six not named Philippenes and Japan will advance to the World Cup. As host nations, PHI and JPN advance automatically, but are taking part in the qualification process anyway. Group B is considered one of the most competitive opening round groups in the entire qualification tournament.

Group A

NZL
KOR
PHI
IND

Group B

AUS
CHN
JPN
TPE

Group C

JOR
LBN
INA
KSA

Group D

IRI
KAZ
SYR
BRN

[Gil Dobie]

I expect to see you wearing them at the game this weekend, and yes indoors.

I will be tailgating but not going to the game (never got around to getting a ticket).

At $65 a pop, those glasses are a bit expensive, no matter how much I like them.

I just got an email, that tickets are available. Maybe I'll see you when I'm walking around.