Thread watched CNOTES 2025-206 NBA TRENDS, NEWS, BEST BETS AND OPINIONS THRU THE PLAYOFFS !

[Cnotes53]

Sunday’s 6-pack
Teams who won the last six Southern Conference tournaments:
2025— Wofford
2024— Samford
2023— Furman
2022— Chattanooga
2021— NC-Greensboro
2020— No tournament, because of COVID
2019— Wofford

Quote of the Day
“You’re not supposed to come off the bench, but you can’t let your players get beat up. You can’t fight. Back when I was the Kentucky coach we fought almost every SEC game, and it was not a big deal. But you can’t fight any more, so toughness has to come between the lines.”
Rick Pitino

Sunday’s quiz
New York Nets won two of the last three ABA titles; who was their coach?
(Hint: He became better known coaching another team 8-9 years later)

Saturday’s quiz
Pat Boone is the singer/actor who was part owner of the ABA’s Oakland Oaks.

Friday’s quiz
Patrick Mahomes played his college football at Texas Tech.

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Sunday’s Den: Wrapping up a college basketball Saturday…….​

— Texas Tech 78, Arizona 75 OT
Arizona loses second game in row, after a 23-0 start.
Arizona led by 7 with 3:29 left in regulation.
JT Toppin had 31 points, 13 rebounds for Tech.

— Gonzaga 94, Santa Clara 86
Misleading score; this was a highly competitive game.
Santa Clara led by 5 with 12:10 left in the game.
Gonzaga shot 71.7% inside the arc.
Loss snaps Santa Clara’s nine-game winning streak.

— Miami 77, NC State 76
Miami outscored Wolfpack 7-0 in last 1:07 of the game.
Hurricanes won despite shooting 10-20 on the foul line.
Miami has won 5 of last 6 games, is a surprising 20-5, 9-3 in ACC.

— Iowa State 74, Kansas 56
Kansas shot 37.3% from floor; Darryn Peterson scored 10 points in 23:00.
Iowa State won six of last seven games, is 22-3, 9-3 in Big X.
Cyclones are #8 team in country at forcing turnovers.

— St John’s 79, Providence 69
Seven players got tossed after a fight caused by a cheap shot foul by Providence.
Red Storm wins their 11th game in a row.
PG Darling had 23 points, 8 rebounds off the bench.

— Upsets of the Day:
Texas Tech (+9) 78, Arizona 75
Southern Utah (+8.5) 78, Tex-Arlington 73
South Alabama (+7.5) 92, Arkansas State 88 OT
Western Michigan (+7.5) 76, Eastern Michigan 62
Delaware (+7.5) 76, Missouri State 67
Elon (+7.5) 81, Wm & Mary 78
Florida State (+6.5) 92, Virginia Tech 69
Samford (+6.5) 82, East Tennessee 72, OT

— Cal-Northridge 84, Hawaii 60
Loss drops Rainbows into a first place tie with Cal-Irvine.
Matadors have won five in a row, after an 11-10 start.
Larry Hughes Jr scored 27 points for Northridge.

— Liberty 73, UTEP 64
UTEP led by 10 late in first half.
Liberty has won 16 games in row, leads C-USA by five games.
Flames have #4 eFG% in country; they’ll need to win C-USA tourney to make NCAA’s.

— VCU 78, Richmond 67
VCU has won nine games in a row, is 11-2 in A-14.
Rams led 47-27 at halftime.
Richmond has lost seven of its last eight games.

— Michigan 86, UCLA 56
This was Michigan’s 10th win this year by 30+ points.
Wolverines led by 2 at the half, outscored UCLA 46-18 in second half.
Michigan shot 77.4% inside the arc.

— Famous birthdays, February 15th:
Steve Preece, 79
Ron Cey, 78
Ken Anderson, 77
Jane Seymour, 75
Christopher McDonald, 71
Marc Wilson, 69
Irv Pankey, 68
Darrell Green, 66
Russell Martin, 43
Johnny Cueto, 40
Mark Canha, 37
Kyle Teel, 24
Cesar Romero, the Joker on the Batman TV series, was born on this day in 1907.

— South Alabama 92, Arkansas State 88 OT
Jaguars were down 18 with 6:37 left in regulation.
South Alabama shot 16-36 on arc, only 33.3% inside arc.
Jaguars won six of last seven games, are 9-4 in Sun Belt.

— Virginia 70, Ohio State 66
Virginia was 22-32 on foul line, Buckeyes 6-9.
Cavaliers had a 40-26 edge on the boards.
Virginia won 11 of its last 12 games.

— Yale 76, Harvard 75 OT
Harvard led by 11 late in the first half.
Jordan Brathwaite was 5-9 on arc, scored 17 points in 26:00 off bench.
With the win, Yale now leads the Ivy League by a game.

— Northern Colorado 77, Portland State 65
Just second loss in last 13 games for Portland State.
Vikings still lead Big Sky by two games over Montana State.
6-3 senior Denker had 23 points, 7 assists for Northern Colorado

— Samford 82, East Tennessee State 72, OT
Samford was 31-40 on foul line, ETSU 17-22.
Loss snaps ETSU’s 4-game win streak; they lead SoCon by two games.
Last six years, six different teams have won the SoCon Conference Tournament.

 

[Udog]

 

[Cnotes53]

Monday’s 6-pack
Teams who get the highest %age of their points on foul shots:
— Dayton (16-9)
— Tulane (15-10)
— Sacramento State (9-16)
— Nevada (17-8)
— Oregon State (14-14)
— Cal-Bakersfield (8-18)

Quote of the Day
“These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform. There will be very few of them in it next year. I’m embarrassed for the university, I’m embarrassed for our fans, our student section. It is ridiculous … I have no answer. No words.”
Jerome Tang; this rant helped get him fired this weekend

Monday’s quiz
Who led the major leagues in hits last season?

Sunday’s quiz
New York Nets won two of the last three ABA titles; Kevin Loughery was their coach.

Saturday’s quiz
Pat Boone is the singer/actor who was part owner of the ABA’s Oakland Oaks.

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Monday’s Den: Wrapping up a sports weekend…….​

— This will be the 22nd year of the fantasy baseball league I’m in; it is a keeper league, you have mostly the same roster every year.
Woke up Sunday morning to a text saying that the CBS website that hosts our league eliminated all the rosters; 30 players on 14 teams went bye-bye. For the next six or seven hours, I managed to get 378 of those 420 players back on the correct team, but there is still work to do.
Not the best way to start the day.

— NBA star Cade Cunningham will make $52M a year for the next four years; that $1M a week, if you’re scoring at home, and he’s only 24 years old.

Cade Cunningham is from Arlington, TX; couple weeks ago, he bought a minority ownership stake in the Texas Rangers. He threw out a first pitch before a Rangers home game last summer.

Cunningham is among the athlete investors in Sportsology Capital Partners, which recently completed the minority investment in the Rangers. Must be pretty cool to be 24 years old and be a part-owner of a major league team.

— Friend of mine’s son plays baseball for Mississippi State; was watching their game on TV Friday- they had a crowd of 12,824 for Opening Night in Starkville.

— This winter, players went 8-4 against the owners in arbitration cases; since abritration started in 1974, owners have a 362-278 advantage in arbitration.

— P Zac Gallen agreed to a one-year, $22M contract to stay with the Arizona Diamondbacks; $14M of that money is deferred; Gallen had a rough season last year, going 13-15, 4.83, but he was 6-3, 3.00 in 11 August/September starts.

— San Diego Padres signed OF/DH Nick Castellanos and P Griffin Canning. Castellanos might platoon at first base with Gavin Sheets; he hit .250 with a .694 OPS for the Phillies last year. Canning was 1-3, 3.77 in 16 starts for the Mets last year.

— Blue Jays/Astros traded outfielders; Toronto acquired Jesús Sánchez, dealt Joey Loperfido back to Houston.
Sanchez hit .237 with 14 homers for the Marlins/Astros last year; his career OPS is .727.
Astros traded Loperfido to Toronto during the ’24 season; he hit .333 in 41 games for the Blue Jays last year.

— Famous birthdays, February 16th:
Tim Cullen, 84
Glenn Abbott, 75
Tracy Marrow, 68 (Ice-T)
Kelly Tripucka, 67
Craig Neal, 62
Jerome Bettis, 54
Tommy Milone, 39

— Prime Video has an interesting four-hour program on the history of the ABA; the basketball parts of it are tremendous, lot of excellent history. The ABA lasted nine years, changed the way a lot of us watched basketball.

— Kevin Loughery played 11 years in the NBA, for three different teams; he scored 15.3 in his career, pretty good player. Then he became a coach. He won two ABA titles with the Nets, with Julius Erving as their star, but things went south after the Nets traded Erving to the 76ers with the Nets having $$$ problems.

Loughery then coached the Atlanta Hawks for two years, including Dominique Wilkins’ rookie season. From there he coached the Chicago Bulls, where he coached Michael Jordan when he was a rookie.
Pretty interesting career; he coached Dr J, Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan, and got fired in all three places. He was replaced in Chicago by Stan Albeck, who was fired after one year, replaced by Doug Collins. Phil Jackson didn’t become Chicago’s coach until Jordan’s sixth season in the NBA.

— Nevada Wolf Pack lost to San Diego State Saturday night; they are now 0-14 at Viejas Arena.

— BYU retired Jimmer Fredette’s number 32 over the weekend; he was Player of the Year during the 2010-11 college season, was the 10th pick in the first round of the 2011 Draft. Fredette grew up in Glens Falls, NY, an hour north of where I live. He was a hell of a scorer.

— Kansas State fired basketball coach Jerome Tang; Wildcats are 10-15 this year, 1-11 in the Big X, after going 18-32 in conference games the last three years. Tang led K-State to the Elite 8 in his first season coaching the Wildcats.
K-State will try to fire Tang for cause. Tang has a buyout of more than $18M, per the terms of his contract, but Taylor believes Tang’s recent public criticisms of the players and the response a press conference spurred in the national media violated the terms of his contract.

— Caden Pierce, the 2024 Ivy League Player of the Year, will transfer to Purdue and play for the Boilermakers next season. Pierce is sitting out this season to finish his degree at Princeton; he is a 6-7 forward whose brother is a receiver for the Indianapolis Colts.
Pierce was hobbled by an ankle injury last year, but still scored 11 ppg, grabbed seven rebounds a game. He scored 16.6 ppg, grabbed 9.2 rebounds/game two years ago.

— Bracketology gives us the top 16 seeds, as of Sunday:
#1 seeds- Michigan, UConn, Duke, Arizona
#2 seeds- Iowa State, Houston, Illinois, Purdue
#3 seeds- Florida, Nebraska, Kansas, Gonzaga
#4 seeds- Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Michigan State

 

[Cnotes53]

Tuesday’s 6-pack
How much $$$ Nevada sports books banked on last six Super Bowls:
2026— $9,892,055
2025— $22,134,104
2024— $11,182,973
2023— $4,361,646
2022— $11,063,412
2021— $12,574,125

Quote of the Day
“We haven’t won. I really want to win. Each year that goes by, I get a little more annoyed.”
Mets’ owner Steve Cohen

Tuesday’s quiz
Which major league team used to be owned by the same guy who owned the McDonald’s fast food franchise?

Monday’s quiz
Bobby Witt Jr led the major leagues in hits last season.

Sunday’s quiz
New York Nets won two of the last three ABA titles; Kevin Loughery was their coach.

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Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but…….​

— We lost one of our greatest actors Monday; Robert Duvall, who has 388 acting credits on IMDB, passed away at age 95. What an epic career he had, from the sportswriter in The Natural, to Frank Burns in M*A*S*H (the movie), the race car pit boss in Days of Thunder, a musician in Tender Mercies, and the father of a great poker player in Lucky You.
Just a great career. RIP, sir.

— Memo to ESPN: Your Monday night college basketball schedules suck; Syracuse isn’t good anymore, stop putting them in stand alone games.
Back in the day, ESPN had Big Mondays, which were good
7:30- Big East game
9:30- Big 10 game
midnight- Big West game

The smaller leagues out west would be good with a national TV game on Mondays.

— Big West conference tournament will be fun to watch; they are the 11th-ranked league right now, their highest rank in the last 30 years.
Here are the last few tourney champs:
2025- Cal-San Diego
2024- Long Beach State
2023- Cal-Santa Barbara
2022- Cal State-Fullerton
2021- Cal-Santa Barbara
2019- Cal-Irvine
2018- Cal State-Fullerton
2017- Cal-Davis
2016- Hawaii
Last nine tournaments, seven different champs. Competitive league.

— Michigan Wolverines’ basketball team has six student managers, guys who help out the team by doing lot of the little things that make life easier for coaches/players.

Back in the day, I was a student manager in college, but I was our team’s only manager, being a Division III team. Big-time coaches who were student managers:

Will Wade, NC State
Mark Daigneault, Thunder
Frank Vogel, head coach of four NBA teams
Buzz Williams, Maryland

— World Series of Poker will be in Las Vegas, from May 26-July 15; I went to this once, watched people play cards for about a half hour, then realized it isn’t that much fun to watch if you can’t see their hole cards, and watch the decisions they’re making.
Picture a big gym jammed with card tables; the only sound is chips clicking together, unless one of the players goes all-in on a hand, then they called a hand-held camera over to film the hand.

— Dodgers’ utility guy Tommy Edman (ankle) will start the season on the IL; he’s played for the Dodgers for two years, and they won the World Series both years.

— San Diego Padres signed GM AJ Preller to a multi-year contract extension; Padres made the playoffs four of the last six years. Preller has run the San Diego organization since late 2014; this year Craig Stammen will the Padres’ 6th full-time manager in 12 years, which seems like a lot for a team that has been winning.

— Famous birthdays, February 17th:
Dick Bosman, 82
Jamie Easterly, 73
Rene Russo, 72
Neil Lomax, 67
Lou Diamond Phillips, 64
Michael Jordan, 63
Jerry O’Connell, 52
Kelly Carlson, 50
Case Keenum, 38
Sony Michel, 31

— NBA All-Star Game was good to watch; the players actually tried. Not sure if the new format helped, or the fact that President Obama was sitting in the front row, but when players who are that good are competitive, it is fun to watch.

— Baseball needs to market itself better; MLB Network should host a 12-team fantasy league, with celebrities/former players the team managers, and the league could have a weekly show, featuring a different celebrity every week.
The show where they draft the team would be great TV.