March 30, 2000
While you were sleeping
In
a series that featured such heavyweights as Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza,
minor league straggler Benny Agbayani wasn't the best bet to hit the first
grand slam of the season. Of course, you wouldn't figure Ray Ordonez would
make his first error in 101 games, either. Strange things happen at 4 in
the morning, and Agbayani may not need that ticket to Triple-A Norfolk
after giving the Mets an extra innings win to split the opening series
with the Cubs.
WBBL.com's
Baseball 2000 Preview
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baseball at our forum
Change is bad
Don't
ask the Hoops how they like
the CBA's new playoff format
that replaces series with single-elimination. The Hoops are headed home
for the year after falling 98-96 to 3rd seed Yakima, left to wonder what
they could have accomplished in a five game series. Sean Colson led the
Hoops with 30 points, but after making a run at the upset, Grand Rapids'
first chance is its last.
CBA
Playoffs bracket
GRHoops.com
Talk
basketball at our forum
Finally Four
The
winding, bumpy road to the Final Four arrives at an odd ultimate quartet.
One of these teams is not like the others - that would be the Spartans,
the only logical Indy entrant, who wrapped up a Final Four berth with a
win over Iowa State, likely their toughest test of the tournament. That's
exactly the kind of presumptive talk the implausibly remaining Wisconsin
Badgers, who twice lost to the Spartans by single digits these season,
want to hear.
Wolverine
Kim's letter to MSU and U-M fans
ESPN.com
Tournament Home
View
updated brackets
Talk
March Madness at our Forum
The Coin Toss
By Nathan Bierma
There
are still those, including Jay Forstner in this week's The Paper, who say
women's basketball is being forced down our throats - that the media's
coverage and promotion are efforts to create demand or just duck the PC
police. This is true. But it's incomplete to stop there. First of all,
for years the sports media complex lagged even behind society in acknowledging
females in the sports arena as anything but sexy sideline distractions.
So even if the balance has swung too much the other way, I think it's healthy.
Second, for all those crying about how inferior a product women's basketball
is, what are you doing watching any men's high school or college ball?
Why not just the pros, or just the NBA All-Star Game? Anything else is
an inferior product. We all know better: that there is something that draws
us to lower, purer levels of play. Could be that ever-burgeoning women's
basketball, with an emphasis on teamwork and passing, could someday turn
out better than men's.
• Respond
at our Forum
• Throw
your own Toss |
Today on
the Web
• Dan LeBetard of
the Miami Herald says Anna Kournikova is one of the most overrated
athletes in sports, a petulant star whose achievements have yet to match
up to her anatomy - click
here
• George Vescey of
the New York Times, following the Mets in Japan, says baseball overseas
follows the financial patterns that plague us in the States - click
here
• John Madden talking
NBA? You have to read it to believe it, at FoxSports.com - click
here
• Steven Brunt of
the Canada Globe and Mail wonders where Gary Bettman is hiding during
miserable PR times for the NHL - click
here
Respond
at our Forum |
this week:
• Monday
Red Wings at Rangers, 7:10p
• Tuesday
Tigers vs Yankees (exb.),
1p
• Wednesday
Canucks at Red Wings, 7:10p
• Friday
Suns at Pistons, 7p
• Saturday
Red Wingss at Blues, 12:40p
NCAA Final Four, 5p
• View our complete
daily
lineup and more special programming
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