Upon Further Review

This week is one of the better sports weeks of the year in terms of the span of significant sporting events. It starts with the National Championship in men's basketball and opening day and baseball, and ends with Championship Sunday at the Master's. Toss in a one-time event in Tiger Woods' press conference at Augusta, and yesterday was quite an eventful day. If Monday was any indication for the week, it should be a good one.

I'll start with the most significant event, the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Duke, playing the role of Goliath in this modern day replay of an ancient days duel, stumbled but did not fall to the stone of Butler. But Butler put up a great fight and provided one of the better National Championship games in recent history. The difference in this game though was quite simply the length of Duke, which comes from being able to recruit that length. Their length caused them problems as they went to the hoop, and you could see it when they went into the paint. Shots were blocked (Duke had 7, Butler none) and altered all night, resulting in a 34.5% shooting night for Butler. Though the rebounding margin wasn't as significant as I would have thought, the real difference came from the way in which Butler had to rebound. They sent four or five guys to the boards every time on the defensive end which essentially eliminated fast break opportunities, which meant that they were stuck in a half court offense that had to deal with Duke's length. That difference though, was only two points. Great game plan by Butler coach Brad Stevens, they belonged.

On a related note, I can't help but think that Duke just stole a National Championship. Not to discount their achievement, they were consistent and won six games in a row, but this was far from Coach K's best team. This group was easily his least talented championship team, and there are probably a number of teams he has coached that didn't win a championship that were better, but things just seemed to fall their way. They were put into a bracket widely regarded as the easiest region of the four (selection committee conspiracy?), played a Hummel-less Purdue team, a PG-less West Virginia team, and were able to avoid the giants (Kentucky, Syracuse, Kansas, Ohio State, etc.) to get to Monday's final where they faced a 5-seed. They took advantage of the opportunity put in front of them, but something just feels wrong about this one.

In regards to Major League Baseball's opening day, it could not have gone worse as a Cubs fan. Zambrano was able to raise his 5.88 opening day ERA by allowing eight runs while recording only four outs. The Cubs are now 1-5 on opening days with Zambrano as the starter, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what should have been done here prior to yesterday's debacle. Soriano looked as good as he did most of last year in going 0 for 4 with two strikeouts, Smardzija continues to look clueless on the mound, and the defense looks to be poor again this year. The "encouraging" items from the game are that Aramis Ramirez is back and still hitting, the lefties in the bullpen (Marshall, Russell, and Grabow) looked solid, and Zambrano didn't throw a temper-tantrum after sucking. I know it's VERY early, but signs point to a long year. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Other opening day notes: True aces are easy to identify (see Halladay, Santana, Lincecum, and Carpenter), there is a reason these guys pitch in big games and have won Cy Youngs and are always in contention to win another. Albert Pujols is still the best player in baseball - he now has four home runs in his last two opening days. Jason Heyward is legit - having watched his entire game against the Cubs, this kid is gonna hit a lot. His swing and the way the ball jumps off his bat is just a thing of beauty. The Phillies showed why they are the favorite in the NL, winning in dominating fashion (granted, they played the Nationals). Red Sox v. Yankees is still the best rivalry in all of sports, already two four hour games in the books with seventeen games to go in this season's series. And finally, if you didn't see the Mark Buehrle play from yesterday - youtube it.

Lastly, I just want to say that Tiger Woods' interviews at least seem to be getting a little more real and bearable. He continues to look more comfortable and genuine in talking with the media. Sure, he still shies away from the questions the reporters really want him to answer, but he did answer most questions that were fired his way. This was clearly more of his type of interview situation. Now it will be interesting to see if he can find his game on the golf course. I wouldn't say I expect him to win it, but I wouldn't be surprised.