NCAA BB: LSU, UConn Win Titles. Clark and Reese Steal Headlines.

 First the results.  On Sunday, the Louisiana State (Lady) Tigers demolished the Iowa Hawkeyes to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament 102-85 in Dallas.  This is the Tigers' first national championship, as well as being coach Kim Mulkey's fourth title, with the first three coming at Baylor.  The game was marked by questionable officiating, high scoring and a big to-do over who's zooming who (apologies to Aretha Franklin).  More on this in a moment.

On Monday, the men's college basketball tournament was won by Connecticut in convincing fashion, a 76-59 win over San Diego State in Houston.  In a tournament marked by upset upon upset, sending the top seeds home prematurely, the Huskies stuck around long enough to win its fifth NCAA title since the Millenium.  That, for some reason, qualifies them as a blueblood program to go along with Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas and UCLA.  In other news, Jim Nantz has called his last college basketball game for CBS, meaning he can spend more time covering golf and the NFL.  Ian Eagle takes over the Final Four mic next season.

But this is what people want to talk about:  An in-your-face gesture made at the end of the game by LSU's Angel Reese toward Iowa scoring machine Caitlin Clark, hiding her face while pointing to her ring finger in anticipation of the title she and her team was about to win.  Never mind that Clark had done the same thing in a previous game, this time a national TV audience saw what looked like a racial slap in the face.  It wasn't necessary, but then we're not used to seeing women athletes trash talking.

The thing is, Reese was in the right.  Her team had soundly defeated the Hawkeyes, she had won the Most Outstanding Player of the Women's Final Four, and certainly deserved that ring on her finger.  But we live in a time when the accomplishments of black athletes are overshadowed by more marketable white athletes of either gender. So they have to resort to things like this.

Clark, who's set a bunch of records on the court this past season to get her team into the Women's Final Four and defeating defending champion South Carolina, is certainly marketable  ESPN and ABC set viewing records for the tournament because people wanted to see her play, and because there was finally a reason to watch women's college basketball.  If she keeps this up, Clark could do the same for the WNBA.

But if Caitlin Clark needed a reminder that sportsmanship is a two-way street, she got one from Angel Reese.

Super Bowl 57: KC Wins Arizona Showdown

 Just like Wyatt Earp and his brothers and Doc Holliday had it out with the Clantons at Tombstone over a century ago, quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles had their own showdown at Super Bowl 57 in Glendale, Arizona.   Just like the Earps and Holliday, Mahomes and the Chiefs were left standing in a 38-35 win over the Eagles.

Trailing by ten points at the end of the first half and Mahomes hurting because of the same knee injury he had in a previous game, the Chiefs turned the second half around to tie the game at 35.  Then with time running out, a gift from the heavens--well OK, it was the officials--when a holding penalty was called on the Eagles.  This allowed Mahomes to take a knee three times near the Eagles end zone until,with only a few seconds left, the Chiefs' kicker could boot the winning field goal.  This tactic is as stupid as freezing the kicker, but sometimes cheating works--not that we condone it.

Mahomes won his second Super Bowl MVP for this performance, which helps explain why he is the NFL's top quarterback in the post-Tom Brady era.  This is the third championship for Kansas City, and the second for Mahomes and coach Andy Reid.  They were the number one seed in the American Football Conference, defeating the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals in the playoffs to get here.

Philadelphia was the top seed in the National Football Conference, defeating the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers in their playoffs.

This year's halftime show was done by Rihanna, a hit maker who hasn't been around much for the last few years, tending to her business interests and becoming a mother for the first time.  She ran through her list of tunes while walking through a series of platforms in midair with the greatest of ease.  The biggest headline came after the show, when it was announced that Rihanna was pregnant for the second time.  Unfortunately for her fans, this means less time making new music and preparing for a concert tour and more time tending to her family and her business interests.

Millions of dollars were spent on the commercials this year, and it seems they did more to confuse people than to sell its products.  Just how did the M&M Spokescandies take the power back from the clutches of Maya Rudolph? Companies sharing their ads to the point where you don't know who it's for? Jesus "gets" us? Are we supposed to believe Ben Stiller and Steve Martin like Pepsi Zero Sugar, or were they just acting?  Do we need another superhero movie?

According to estimates, 113 million of you watched all or part of Fox's telecast of the Super Bowl. It's the third highest number in TV history.  Kevin Burkhardt, who called the big game for the first time, was a nice change from the usual suspects--Joe Buck, Al Michaels and Jim Nantz.  But he needs work in bringing the drama.  Greg Olsen has been winning raves as a game analyst and should improve, at least as long as Tom Brady chooses to stay out of the Fox booth.

FIFA World Cup: Scars to the "Beautiful Game"

 Soccer (or football, as it's known in the rest of the world) has been called "the beautiful game" because of the way it's played, how goals are scored, and the unpredictability of it all.  Never was there a better demonstration of that than in Sunday's FIFA men's World Cup final in Qatar between Argentina and France.  For ninety minutes of regulation and thirty minutes of extra time, the two sides battled to a 3-3 draw, led by goal-scoring legends Lionel Messi of Argentina and Kylian Mbappe of France.  Then in the penalty shootout, Argentina outlasted France 4-2 to win its first Cup since 1986, setting off all sorts of celebrations in Buenos Aires and environs.  This is the best soccer has to offer, and most observers seemed to agree.

Croatia defeated Morocco to win third place, which is considered historic for the African country.  The little-regarded United States team got as far as the Round of 16 before Netherlands defeated them, which is quite a feat considering the Americans did not qualify for the 2018 Cup.

With apologies to Alessia Cara, the fact that this World Cup was held in Qatar exposed some scars to the "beautiful game" and who runs it.  This was a country that few know how to pronounce correctly, and is a little known Middle East fiefdom that saw no problem in limiting the rights of certain populations that resulted in bans on forms of clothing suggesting protest, or sacrificing the lives of migrant workers (allegedly against their will) to help build all those massive soccer stadiums in such a tiny country.  But they did show FIFA the money, and that's what counts.  Just like what it took for the Olympic Games to be held in Russia or China. Also, two journalists died while covering this World Cup:  Longtime American soccer correspondent Grant Wahl, and a photojournalist working for a Qatar TV channel.

Add to this the failure of a professional European soccer league, an American women's soccer league in crisis over allegations of various forms of harassment, and Major League Soccer's new TV deal with Apple TV + (home of "Ted Lasso") that lets Fox have some matches, but local telecasts go behind a paywall.

The next FIFA men's World Cup will be in North America in 2026, split between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  Unlike Qatar, it will be played in the normal summer months of June and July, where you're not competing with the NFL and disrupting other European leagues.  Here's another opportunity for soccer to prove it can be beautiful without showing its scars.

The 2022-23 Owljock Bowl Board

 Another year, another Owljock Bowl Board.  We once again bring you the college bowl season schedule and the sponsors (plus one TV personality) willing to take the leap from obscurity to--maybe more obscurity?

This season there's 43 NCAA-sanctioned bowls that span from coast to coast (and sometimes beyond), with not only teams' reputations on the line but also a national championship.  As far as we know, games have yet to be canceled due to outbreaks of COVID and its other variants like they have been in the last couple of years.

But first . . .

• The College Football Playoff's final four this year is defending champion Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and TCU (this year's Cincinnati).  What, no Alabama?  Something's not right here.  Well, after years of complaints that the same four schools get into the playoffs every year, the CFP has decided to extend its invitations to twelve teams beginning in 2024.  The number should really be eight, but ESPN would have two more years on its TV contract by then . . .
• The Big Ten has become a national conference to compete with the Southeastern Conference, adding Southern California and UCLA from the Pac-12 beginning in 2024.  And there may be more on the way if other conferences fail to keep its current members from leaving
• The TV landscape is also changing.  To match the SEC's move from CBS to ESPN, the Big Ten has partnered with Fox, CBS and NBC to televise games starting next season replacing the Worldwide Leader.

If you think the quality of the bowl games lack something, you may be right.  Not only are some players skipping games to save themselves for the NFL draft, but also for the transfer portal which allows them to change schools without penalty. 

So here it comes.  The bowl schedule includes who's playing, where's the game, where it's on TV (ESPN unless otherwise noted), along with a brief description of the game's main sponsor.  Know the drill?  Good.  Let's go.

FRIDAY, 12/16

Hometown Lenders Bahamas Bowl:  Miami-Ohio vs.  Alabama-Birmingham (Nassau, Bahamas) ESPN.

Hometown Lenders is a mortgage lending firm.

Duluth Trading Cure Bowl:  TX-San Antonio vs. Troy (Orlando, FL) ESPN

Duluth Trading sells work and outdoor apparel.  The "cure" is for breast cancer research.

SATURDAY, 12/17

Wasabi Fenway Bowl:  Cincinnati vs. Louisville (Boston, MA) ESPN

Wasabi is a cloud storage firm.  Game played at Fenway Park.

Cricket Celebration Bowl:  Jackson State vs. North Carolina Central (Atlanta, GA) ABC

Cricket is a wireless provider.

New Mexico Bowl: Southern Methodist vs. Brigham Young (Albuquerque, NM) ABC

Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl Presented by Stifel: Washington State vs. Fresno State (Inglewood, CA) ABC

Jimmy Kimmel is a late night TV and awards show host.  Stifel is a brokerage investment bank.

Lending Tree Bowl: Rice vs. Southern Mississippi (Mobile, AL) ESPN

Lending Tree is an online mortgage broker.

SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl:  Florida vs. Oregon State (Las Vegas, NV) ESPN

SRS is a building products distributor.

Frisco Bowl:  North Texas vs. Boise State (Frisco, TX) ESPN

MONDAY, 12/19

Myrtle Beach Bowl:  Marshall vs. Connecticut (Conway, SC) ESPN

TUESDAY, 12/20

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl:  Eastern Michigan vs. San Jose State (Boise, ID) ESPN

RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl:  Liberty vs. Toledo (Boca Raton, FL) ESPN

RoofClaim is in roofing repairs.

WEDNESDAY, 12/21

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl:  Western Kentucky vs. South Alabama (New Orleans, LA) ESPN

R+L Carriers is in the freight shipping and logistics business.

THURSDAY, 12/22

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl:  Baylor vs. Air Force (Fort Worth, TX) ESPN

Lockheed Martin is a defense contractor.

FRIDAY, 12/23

Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl:  Louisiana vs. Houston (Shreveport, LA) ESPN

Radiance Technologies is a defense contractor.

Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl:  Wake Forest vs. Missouri (Tampa, FL) ESPN

Union Home Mortgage is a mortgage lender.

SATURDAY. 12/24

EasyPost Hawaii Bowl:  Middle Tennessee State vs. San Diego State (Honolulu, HW) ESPN

EasyPost is an e-commerce online shipper.

MONDAY, 12/26

Quick Lane Bowl:  New Mexico State vs. Bowling Green (Detroit, MI) ESPN

Quick Lane is a chain of auto service shops.

TUESDAY, 12/27

Camellia Bowl:  Georgia Southern vs. Buffalo (Montgomery, AL) ESPN

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl:  Memphis vs. Utah State (Dallas, TX) ESPN

SERVPRO is in disaster reparation services.

TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl:  Coastal Carolina vs. East Carolina (Birmingham, AL) ESPN 

TicketSmarter is an online ticket broker.

Guaranteed Rate Bowl:  Wisconsin vs. Oklahoma State (Phoenix. AZ) ESPN

Guaranteed Rate is a home mortgage lender.  Game is at Chase Field.

WEDNESDAY, 12/28

Military Bowl Presented by Peraton:  Central Florida vs. Duke (Annapolis, MD) ESPN

Peraton is a government security contractor.

AutoZone Liberty Bowl:  Kansas vs. Arkansas (Memphis, TN) ESPN

AutoZone is a nationwide parts store chain.

San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl:  Oregon vs. North Carolina (San Diego, CA) Fox

SDCCU  is a Southern California-based financial services firm.  Game played at Petco Park.

TaxAct Texas Bowl:  Texas Tech vs. Mississippi (Houston, TX) ESPN

TaxAct is an online tax preparer.

THURSDAY, 12/29

Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl:  Syracuse vs. Minnesota (New York) ESPN

Bad Boy sells lawn mowers.  Game played at Yankee Stadium.

Cheez-It Bowl:  Oklahoma vs. Florida State (Orlando, FL) ESPN

Cheez-It is a cheese snack.

Valero Alamo Bowl:  Texas vs. Washington (San Antonio, TX) ESPN

Valero is an energy company.

FRIDAY, 12/30

Duke's Mayo Bowl:  Maryland vs. North Carolina State (Charlotte, NC) ESPN

Duke's Mayo is mayonnaise sold in the southeast.

Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl:  Pittsburgh vs. UCLA (El Paso, TX) CBS

Tony the Tiger represents Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.

TaxSlayer Gator Bowl:  Notre Dame vs. South Carolina (Jacksonville, FL) ESPN

TaxSlayer is an online tax preparer.

Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl:  Ohio vs. Wyoming (Tucson, AZ) 

Barstool Sports is a sports website.

Capital One Orange Bowl:  Tennessee vs. Clemson (Miami Gardens, FL) ESPN

Capital One is in banking and financial services.

SATURDAY, 12/31

TransPerfect Music City Bowl:  Iowa vs. Kentucky (Nashville. TN) ABC

TransPerfect is in translation services.

Allstate Sugar Bowl:  Alabama vs. Kansas State (New Orleans, LA) ESPN

Allstate provides insurance and financial services.

Vrbo Fiesta Bowl:  Michigan vs. Texas Christian (Glendale, AZ) ESPN.

National championship semifinal.  Vrbo handles vacation home rentals.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl:  Georgia vs. Ohio State (Atlanta, GA) ESPN

National championship semifinal.  Chick-fil-A is a chain of chicken restaurants.

MONDAY, 1/2/2023

ReliaQuest Bowl:  Mississippi State vs. Illinois (Tampa, FL) ESPN2

ReliaQuest is in the cybersecurity business.

Cheez-It Citrus Bowl:  Louisiana State vs. Purdue (Orlando, FL) ABC

Cheez-It is a cheese snack.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic:  Southern California vs. Tulane (Arlington, TX) ESPN

Goodyear makes tires and flies blimps.

Rose Bowl Game:  Utah vs. Penn State (Pasadena, CA) ESPN

MONDAY, 1/9/2023

CFP National Championship Presented by AT&T: Teams TBA (Inglewood, CA) ESPN

AT&T is a wireless provider and communications giant.

That is all.

 

 

 

 

Astros Ground Phillies in World Series

The World Series ended Saturday night with the Houston Astros taking down the Philadelphia Phillies in six games to win their second title since 2017.  No banging trash lids or taping signs, just solid pitching and timely hitting carried the day.

What stood out during the Series was the first-ever combined no-hitter in Game 4.  Cristiano Javier (who went six scoreless innings), Brian Abreu, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly combined to shut down the Phillies.  In this era of pitch counts and managers being afraid to leave their best arms in the game for too long, maybe this was inevitable.  It will probably be a long time before we ever see another Don Larsen, who threw the first individual World Series no-hitter for the Yankees to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1956.

Dusty Baker, who's had a quarter-century's experience in baseball managing, finally won the big one to general applause as the man who righted the Astros' ship after the events of 2017.  He's also the third Black manager to win a world championship behing Cito Gaston of the Toronto Blue Jays and Dave Roberts of the Dodgers.

What isn't so celebratory is that this was the first time since 1950 (when the Phillies played the Yankees) that white and Latino players were on the World Series rosters, but not American-born Black players.  Not a good look for Major League Baseball, which usually takes a day to celebrate the first Black man to cross the color line by making every player wear his Number 42 during a game.

The Astros got here by defeating the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees during the American League playoffs.  The Phillies as the National League wild card got through the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres.

Also in 2022, Aaron Judge became the third Yankee to hit over 60 home runs, banging 62 to win the American League home run title.  That's an impressive amount.  But Barry Bonds hit 73 for the San Francisco Giants in 2001 in spite of allegations of steroid use, and even Judge says Bonds' record is the true one.

Fox is still the main telecaster of the World Series, but Joe Buck split for ESPN to call Monday Night Football.  He was replaced by Joe Davis, who should be used to following legends.  Davis took over for Vin Scully, the longtime Dodgers and World Series voice who passed away this year.

No matter how baseball screws up, Scully might say it's always a great day to play a game.

Avalanche Rock The Stanley Cup

 Since the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver in the mid-1990s, the newly-renamed Colorado Avalanche won two NHL Stanley Cup titles in their first five seasons (1996, 2001).  Sunday in Tampa, Florida, they claimed the Cup for the third time in defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 to win their series in six games.  Arrturi Lehkonen and Nathan MacKinnon scored the game-winning goals for the Avs in the final game.  Cole Makar received the Conn Smythe trophy for playoff MVP.

The Avalanche had the most dominant team in hockey this past season, roaring through the regular season and into the playoffs with the efforts of Lehkonen, MacKinnon and Makar, not to mention the contributions of such players as Gabriel Landeskog and goaltender Darcy Kuemper.  They defeated the Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues and Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs to get here.

The Lightning, who were already the two-time Cup champions, tried to become the first team from the Salary Cap Era (dating from 2005, when a labor lockout put the kibosh on an entire NHL season) to win three in a row--something that hasn't been done since the New York Islanders of the early 1980s.  Unlike the Avs, the Lightning struggled through the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers (OK, they were swept) and New York Rangers to get to the final round.

In the Pandemic Era, the Lightning had to claim their championships inside a bubble in October at Edmonton (2020), and after a shortened but rapidly-paced schedule ending in the month of July (2021).  This season was extended to allow for NHL players to compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics, which they never did because of COVID postponements and misgivings about China's handling of the virus.  Tampa Bay lost the Cup a few days into summer.

Now it's the Colorado Avalanche's turn to hoist the Stanley Cup, then show it off to family and friends from around the world before starting the next season defending it.  They'll be the favorites to do so, but it won't come easy.  Just ask the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Golden State Wins Another NBA Title

 The 2022 NBA Playoffs were missing LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers for the first time in years.  But Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors picked up the slack in winning their fourth NBA championship in the last eight years (seventh overall, dating back to their origins in Philadelphia in the 1950s), and their first since moving from Oakland to San Francisco's Chase Center.

The Warriors beat the Celtics in Boston 103-90 Thursday night to clinch the title in six games, with Curry scoring 34 points to go with seven rebounds and seven assists.  For this and other exploits during the series, Curry is taking home the NBA Finals MVP trophy for the first time ever.

There were also contributions from players such as Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.  But Andrew Wiggins did not go unnoticed.  He also had a great series concluding with 18 points, six rebounds and five assists in Game 6.  In Minnesota, where the Timberwolves finally made it to the playoffs, Wiggins will be remembered as another disgruntled former Wolf making a name for himself someplace else.

The Warriors made their way to the championship through the Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies and Dallas Mavericks.  The Celtics got to the Finals by beating the Brooklyn Nets, Milwaukee Bucks (the defending champions) and Miami Heat.

This was not the most entertaining playoffs, with blowouts and one-sided games more the rule than the exception.  But watching the highlight video that is Stephen Curry certainly made up for it.  And for that, the Bay Area can celebrate another NBA championship.