Jon_Campbell's Blog
Posted Saturday, April 05, 2008 01:35 PM
What do you do when the Final Four is 24 hours away and you’ve read everything you possibly can jam into your head on the Final Four?
Watch tennis, of course.
OK, so you watch baseball and tennis, flipping to tennis during commercials, but on Friday night I was treated to a great match. I ended up missing two Blue Jays home runs while I flipped to the Sony Ericsson Open semifinals between Andy Roddick and Nikolai Davydenko, but the tennis was so good I forgot I was watching the home opener for Toronto against the Red Sox.
Davydenko ended up winning in two sets and if you didn’t watch the match, it would be easy to assume Roddick had a letdown after beating Roger Federer the day before. Not the case.
Roddick played a solid match and the Russian best known for his betting controversy just played better. Davydenko mixed up his shots, coming to the net for quick volleys at the right times, while he worked Roddick throughout the court on rallies.
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Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:49 AM
From Ice picks on Thursday, March 20.
Colorado vs. Calgary (-125, 5 ½)
I was at the game in Minneapolis on Monday night to see the Avs take on the Wild. A few things stuck out to me about Colorado in its 3-1 defeat.
One: Jose Shut-de-door is playing great between the pipes. He kicked out 26 saves, making all the ones he should have and even a few he shouldn’t have.
Minnesota scored one on the power play in the first period and a beauty on a tipped shot in the second period by Stephane Veillieux. The third goal was an empty netter. In short, the Avs aren’t losing any games because of Theodore right now.
Two: Colorado’s power play stinks. Man, it stinks.
The Avs had a 5-on-3 early on in the game and they didn’t generate a decent scoring chance on it. They looked totall... [More]
Posted Sunday, March 09, 2008 03:47 PM
Drake has a lot of things worth talking about.
A league MVP with four majors in Adam Emmenecker. The brother of an NBAer who can hit three-pointers from the concession stand, Klayton Korver. And a speedy team leading scorer who also happens to be a freshman, Josh Young.
The guy who is one of the easiest to overlook but also one of the most crucial to the Bulldogs’ success is Jonathan Cox. The 6-foot-8 forward had a huge weekend for Drake and was quietly their most consistent performer.
Cox hauls in a lot of the key rebounds for Drake at the defensive end and he’ll usually bring down a couple of offensive boards too. He leads the team with 8.4 on the glass per game and it’s because he rarely gets out-positioned under the basket.
He won’t show you any flashy dunks or swat away blocks into the crowd, he just seems to do everything fundamentally you want out of a low post guy.
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Posted Friday, March 07, 2008 09:25 PM
Things I learned while watching Arch Madness, the Missouri Conference Tournament held at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis:
Can everybody in this conference hit the three? It seems that way. I don’t think I’ve seen so many threes attempted in one afternoon like I did Friday. There were 99 three-point attempts in total through the first two games on Friday.
Judging by the ads on FSN, the Midwestern basketball fan is an overweight NASCAR fan in desperate need of insurance. Apparently, you can’t even go into a general store (Casey’s) in the Central time zone without buying a pizza.
It makes me very nervous when I go to make my halftime wagers that the intermission show is brought to us by Poor Richard’s.
Overall I love the way the officials are calling these games. They are letting the players play, limiting the fingernail fouls and it’s making for some great hoops for the fans. Creighton seemd to get the benefit of a few calls but I guess that’s what coach Dana Altman’s 14 years in the league ... [More]
Posted Friday, March 07, 2008 02:21 PM
The
Missouri Valley Conference tourney is the best of the mid-majors and sold out
crowds have flocked to St. Louis in recent years to cheer their teams on into
March Madness.
This year
the conference will get at least one berth - probably at least two - for the
NCAA Tournament. So we thought it would be a good idea to watch this tourney
closely and fill you in on what it’s all about so you can lay your money down
with confidence.
This
weekend I’ll be firmly planted on my couch, watching every minute of the action.
I won’t even miss a second during my washroom breaks because I can tilt the
mirror on the back of my bathroom door just
so, so that I can still see the television from there if a commercial break
ends abruptly.
Maybe too
much info, but you get my drift.
I’ll be
tuned in and filling you in with all my analysis and picks and I’ll be updating
my blog here regularly.
I have the
Red Bulls chilling, the laptop charged and my typing fingers ready.
I started
the coverage by listening to the web casts last night of the two play-in games
and giving you my analysis and picks for the Missouri State/Illinois State game
and the Indiana State/Drake games today once I knew Missou State and Indy State had moved on.
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Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 10:55 AM
"Running backs jumping, next."
That was the segue the NFL Network used to lead into a commercial during yesterday's coverage of the NFL combine. I had to give my head a shake and wonder just how hard up I was for some live sports at that point.
Running backs jumping.
This confirms the combine is one of the most ridiculous processes in all of sports and we should all feel a little sporting shame for having watched even a few minutes of it.
This is an institution, after all, that deemed Wes Welker wasn't good enough for an invite, let alone a spot on an NFL roster.
In any event, Darren McFadden comes out looking more golden than when he went in because of his 40-yard dash time of like, super fast. News flash: anyone who'd bothered to watch college football this season already knew that.
The fact is, nobody turned the corner better than D-Mac last year in college football and he often left defensive ends and linebackers eating cleat mud. Does that make him the best running back to come out of college this year?
I say no freaking way. The biggest adjustment rookie NFL running backs have is discovering they can't beat those DEs and LBs wide in the NFL anymore. They're simply too fast.
I'd take Ray Rice out of Rutgers for one ahead of him, Jonathan Stewart out of Oregon for another.&n... [More]
Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008 04:15 PM
If you’ve ever seen the movie Bambi, then you know what a baby deer looks like when trying to stand up on a sheet of ice. When it’s an NHL player going through that routine, it’s not quite as cute.
That’s a little what Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom looked like in a slightly disturbing scene when he was hit by the Avs’ Ian Laperiere Monday night in the first period.
As you may have guessed, Detroit didn’t much like it.
Motor City tough guy Aaron Downey stepped up and pounded Lapierriere later on in the first period. He was on his way to doing it again in the third when Colorado’s Cody McLeod jumped in and saved his hide and picked up 24 minutes and a couple of misconducts for being the awkward third man to the party.
"We can't be running the superstars of our game,” Downey said after the game. “If you want to have a good, clean hit, go out there and have a good, clean hit. I have no problem with that. But when the elbows are up, when you hit a five-time Norris winner, probably one of... [More]