Sports News Thursday (3/14/13)

NFL:

• some big time trades and releases for teams
• CAL alumni, Tony Gonzalez is staying with the Falcons (Woo! Still want him to get a ring!)
• Anquan Boldin goes to the 49ers — after beating them in the SuperBowl, he’s joining them, isn’t it usually the other way around? Regardless, he’s gonna be a great fit for Kaepernick and the niners.
• Percy Harvin is going to Seattle — I can see him becoming a big target for Russell Wilson, and will definitely make a difference on the Seahawk offense
• Wes Welker is going to Denver — HOLY COW! I never thought he would leave the Patriots, especially as one of Tom Brady’s favorite targets. He always annoyed me when he was on the Pats because he was SO GOOD. And now he’s going to another team with a killer quarterback in Peyton Manning. Peyton is going to have a lot of fun having Welker on the team now. The Broncos are eyeing that Lombardi trophy for sure.
• Mike Wallace going to the Miami Dolphins — another big-time wide receiver changing teams, it’s going to be weird seeing all these guys in different uniforms next season
• As for the Chargers, all I’ve heard is that they’ve re-signed Nick Novak, and cut a bunch of people (merrr) — I’m kind of pissed about cutting Randy Mcmichael since he was like the only other tight end who made some big plays besides Antonio Gates — but we’ll see what this new coaching staff has in store…

NBA:

• Miami Heat — with a win over the Sixers, the Heat extend their winning streak to 20!!! Holy Smokes! No one is playing better than the Heat right now. Lebron is on point. D-Wade is doing work. Everything is clicking right now for this team.
• Lakers — their 8th in the western conference right now, been playing pretty good lately with Dwight Howard, Kobe, and Nash starting to figure things out on the court — but there’s a very small margin for error — they can’t really afford to lose to teams that aren’t in the top of the conference
• Uh-Oh! Kobe is hurt. This could be the beginning of the Lakers’ demise. If they can find a way to win without Kobe — that would be very very very impressive.
• Houston Rockets — Hopefully they can start clicking with the new players that were acquired recently (T-Rob, Beverley, Aaron Brooks, etc.)

Soccer:

• USWNT — Congrats to the US Women’s National Soccer Team on winning the Algarve Cup with a 2–0 win over the #2 team in the world, Germany. Alex Morgan scored both goals (way to go Baby Horse!) Coach Sermanni gave caps to a good number of new/young players, and it’s a good sign that they were still able to pull through with a win, and a championship.
• Lots of injuries on the team — Hope Solo, Jill Loyden, Carli Lloyd, A-Rod is preggo… merr
• Sad side note — Heather Mitts (Mittsy) announced her retirement from the sport today :( She always had a great attitude and a smile on her face. The renown prankster will be missed dearly. Hopefully she’ll commentate some games or something in the future though!
• Barca pulled out a win over AC Milan Tuesday, Lionel Messi is a BEAST.

College Basketball:
March Madness is getting closer and closer!!!! I can’t wait!

• Cal Basketball
• Women’s basketball — a loss to UCLA in the Pac-12 tournament came as a surprise to many on-lookers, but the Bruins played one helluva game, and they even gave Stanford a run for their money in the championship. But the Golden Bears are not to be shaken by this, Coach Gottlieb has made it clear that they will be ready for the Dance! (Despite the loss, Cal is still projected to be a 2 seed.
• Cal Men’s basketball — coming off of a loss to Stanford to end the regular season, the Bears are a 2 seed in the Pac12 tournament and will begin play Thursday against Utah. Hopefully, they can gain some momentum and can get an at-large bid once March 19th comes.
• Other NCAAW news: Notre Dame defeats UCONN in the Big East tournament for the first time!!! The past three meetings between these two teams have been decided by 1 point, triple overtime, and 2 points. WOW! Although Skylar Diggins didn’t have her best game offensively, she provided the intangibles that ND needed to pull out with the win. Congrats to the Fighting Irish! And who knows, we might see these two play again once the big tournament.
• *Conference tournament play has begun for the men’s teams, we’ll see how everything turns out this week. Hopefully we can get some upsets to make things interesting.
• *Can’t wait for Selection Sunday to come! Every year I believe that I will win the prize money for either the Yahoo, CBS, or ESPN bracket challenge — but it never happens. Maybe this year is the year! We’ll see!