Pot Shots '17: Volume 1

English: University of North Carolina Tarheels Interlocking NC logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tar Heels The Final One

North Carolina won the NCAA men's basketball title Monday night with a 71-65 victory over Gonzaga at Glendale, AZ.  This is the Tar Heels' sixth championship and third for coach Roy Williams, with the last one coming in 2009.  Gonzaga, who finally made it to the Final Four after being tournament regulars for decades, got to prove they could play with the big boys.  The game was no classic, what with ragged play and the officials making every call they could possibly make.  But it was still close before UNC put things away in the final seconds.  Now it's time to see whether Carolina's success holds up in the face of alleged academic fraud.

South Carolina Wins UConn's Title

South Carolina defeated Mississippi State 67-55 to win the NCAA women's basketball title at Dallas Sunday, giving coach Dawn Staley the championship she never had as a player.  But all anyone will remember from this Women's Final Four is how MSU ended the University of Connecticut's 111-game winning streak, when Morgan William's overtime buzzer-beater struck down the Huskies 66-64.  It was, by most accounts, the greatest women's basketball game ever played.  had this not happened, coach Geno Auriemma's team would have gone for a fifth straight national championship, and Staley would not have had the chance to cut down the net.

NHL Says No More Olympic Rings

After months of hemming and hawing, the National Hockey League has decided not to send its players to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea.  The owners and commissioner Gary Bettman, it seems, no longer want to suspend the league's schedule for a couple of weeks in February every four years,  just so its players could go halfway around the world to help promote the game.  They also don't care much for the chintzy manner in which the International Olympic Committee is treating them.  Instead, the NHL would rather promote its World Cup of Hockey, which got off to a rip-roaring start in Toronto last fall.  The players are not happy about this, and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has said he'd go anyway to play for his Russian countrymen.  NBC isn't happy either, because its telecasts of Olympic hockey draws better numbers than most NHL games outside of the Stanley Cup playoffs.  So thanks to this short-sighted decision, we are about to turn the clock back to 1994, which was the last time Olympic hockey teams consisted of college kids and alleged amateurs.  Any chance of a "Miracle On Ice" here?

The Boycott That Wasn't

The U.S. women's hockey team is currently playing in the world championships in Michigan.  But they almost didn't go due to a pay dispute with USA Hockey, the sport's governing body.  See, the players were being paid next to nothing outside of the Olympics, so they threatened a boycott.  This would have given the world championships more publicity than they normally would get, and for the wrong reasons.  Both sides did come to an agreement with the players getting most of what they asked for.  That's a big victory for women's hockey in America, but the struggle for acceptance goes on.  The University of North Dakota recently announced that it is dropping its women's hockey program.