So much for my theory that Matt Kenseth’s Daytona 500 win was a fluke. After not winning a race all of last year, and mostly looking pretty useless, Kenseth has two wins in two races this year. Last week he won thanks to some bizarre circumstances, but this week he was just plain faster than anyone else. He’s driving with a new aggressiveness, and is benefiting significantly from a new crew that brings a much more positive attitude to his operation. Kenseth was particularly strong in the pits. It will be very interesting to watch how long he can maintain this momentum. Kyle Busch also had a very good weekend. A historic one, in fact. On Saturday he became the first driver ever to win two NASCAR events on the same day when he won both the truck and the Nationwide event on the same day.
Dwyane Wade had 50 points at Orlando, yet his team lost by 23. The future might be bright for the Heat in the long term, but the glory days are not here again yet. Part of the problem is that the two newest team members – O’Neal and Moon – have not settled in enough to be useful. O’Neal started but was essentially irrelevant. Moon played 26 minutes off the bench and had seven points, but he’s still a long way from comfortable. Until he is the team has a gaping hole at small forward. I don’t know about you, but this team won’t be getting any money from me until they start to show some form.
Watching Duke beat Wake Forest today was watching two teams that aren’t going to make it past the sweet sixteen. The more ACC ball I watch, the less convinced I become about the league. Three months ago I would have said they would have had two (or more) final four teams. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if they had none.
It was a terrible, horrible day to be a Michigan fan. A couple of incomprehensible calls by the refs in the last minute gave Iowa new life in the form of overtime that they really didn’t deserve. Michigan didn’t handle that with any grace at all. They absolutely self-destructed in overtime, losing by 10 and looking terrible doing it. Strangest of all, Manny Harris – the best player on the team and probably in the league – found himself in the doghouse and glued to the bench for all of the overtime period. Neither coach nor player is talking about what happened, but something obviously did. Michigan desperately needed this win. They probably need two conference wins to make the tournament, and this was by far their easiest. Now they host Purdue and go to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Hard to see two wins there. I don’t know what it is doing where you are, but here the sky is falling.
