RCS Blognetwork

I'm the guy who just yesterday posted about the possibility of Iverson making the All-Star team. I'm the guy who predicted every NBA's team record BEFORE the season started. I'm the guy who gets excited to check out Yahoo!'s "Absurdly Premature Playoff Picture" for the NFL. I'm the guy who loves ridiculously early predictions. If someone projected a medal count of the 2072 Olympics I'd read it word for word. Who saw Texas seceding and taking the bronze in pole vaulting?? And as far as absurdly early predictions, it's tough to beat predicting the 2010 NCAA Tournament seedings. The season began this past Tuesday so why not let the predictions begin? What else is Bracketologist Joe Lunardi going to do. But someone has upstaged Lunardi! Why just predict the brackets? Why not predict the outcomes as well. This is what Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports did.


Check out Joe Lunardi's first crack at Bracketology and Jeff Goodman's prediction of the entire 2010 bracket.

Keep up the good work boys!

Sweden's Robin Soderling maintained slim hopes of qualifying for the World Tour Finals in London by beating Nikolay Davydenko 63 36 64. Now, the Roland Garros finalist will face third seed Novak Djokovic  in the quarters. The Serb skated past Arnaud Clement, dispatching the Frenchman with a double 62 in front of Guy Forget. Easy victory also for Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, against a knee injured Simon, in the first French derby of the day.

Soderling-Davydenko 63 36 64
Robin Soderling comes through the do-or-die match against Nikolay Davydenko and maintains some hope to qualify for the World Tour Finals, while the Russian, blocked at 3630 points, could now be overtook by Verdasco (if he arrives to the semi), Gonzalez and Tsonga, but they have to win the tournament. The Russian started slowly, goint 0-30 down at 2-1 and then, hooked a backhand just wide of the tramline to give Soderling two break points that the Swede failed to convert  before breaking to deuce. Davydenko took a dose of medication at 2-5 down in the first and left the set 6-3 when Soderling held to 30 thanks to a return wide by the Moscow-born seeded player.

Although a bit lethargic, the world n.7 broke to 2-0. At 2-1 30 all Davydenko defended doggedly from a Soderling smash, and then sprinted to the net without clearing it following the Swede's drop shot: probably the point of the match. The Swede went on to serve and hold, bur the Russian was more consisten on his own serve and, serving for the set at 5-3, he started to stubbornly attack the net. He earned a et point via a successful challenge, and blocked at the net to force the decider.

Soderling remained impenetrable on his serve and came out with real intent in the third hammering a series of pile driver forehands. The two went on with serve until 5-4 Soderling. Then the serving Davydenko hit a loose forehand long and found himself 0-30 down; he superbly wrong-footed the Roland Garros finalist smelling blood. In the end he blitzed two points past the Russian to knock him out.
 

If you're like me you're going to Disney World on Thursday! you don't get the NFL Network. At this point it doesn't matter if it's the cable providers being stubborn or the NFL being greedy -- bottom line is that most people don't get the Network and they will be missing out on its slate of NFL Thursday/Saturday night games.

Their schedule begins tonight, with the Bears and 49ers. Both teams started out strong -- 3-1 -- but now the Bears have lost three of four and the 49ers have lost four in a row. It's almost a must-win for both of these teams to remain in the Wild Card picture. The 49ers still have a shot at the division if the Cardinals falter. What's especially promising for the 49ers is their last two games of the season are against the Lions and Rams. But what do I care, I actually AM going to Disney World tomorrow! Unfortunately, I won't be at the Happiest Place on Earth for the rest of the games slated for the NFL Network.

Here's a look at the other games you are probably going to miss this season:

11/19 - Dolphins @ Panthers - Two mediocre teams more likely fighting for draft position than playoff position.

11/26 - Giants @ Broncos - To this point they've lost a combined six games in a row. That's after both teams won their first five games. Maybe they will tie and continue choking away their hot starts.

12/3 - Jets @ Bills - In Week 6 the Jets rushed for 318 yards against the Bills and LOST. Now they'll be playing in Toronto where the Jets can gain 290 meters on the Bills and lose.

12/10 - Steelers @ Browns - It's cute when the Browns fans call this a rivalry.

12/17 - Colts @ Jaguars - It's a long way off but it's possible the Colts will be looking to improve to 14-0 on the season. But let's see if they get past the Patriots on November 15 before talking about all that.

12/19 - Cowboys @ Saints - It's a long way off but it's possible the Saints will be looking to improve to 14-0 on the season. But let's see if they get past the Patriots on November 30 before talking about all that. Whoa.

12/25 - Chargers @ Titans - Titans might be looking to play the spoiler. Can Vince Young's magic continue?

To think about revenge in November makes as much sense as checking your Christmas list in early May. For anybody whose name is on the list will have plenty of days left to show Santa if he's been naughty or nice. 

 

So LeBron James and the Cavaliers could dismiss the talk of revenge, giving it not a minute's thought last night in Orlando. Payback -- or revenge -- needed to wait until the games meant something more than a first-weeks-of-the-season win did.  To exact revenge, the Cavaliers must beat the Magic in May or June, not in November.

 

At this point, they were more than willing to settle for this 102-93 win -- a win in Orlando, too.

 

In that win, the Cavs showed what they weren't able to show when Orlando eliminated them in the Eastern Conference Finals last season. They proved they could handle Magic star Dwight Howard in the paint.

 

The music by the Sigur Ros celebrated the career-ending of Marat Safin. His friends and colleagues went into the Paris-Bercy central court after he was defeated by Juan Martin Del Potro to make honour to one of the best entertainers and the greatest waster of their own talent ever seen with a racquet in hand, given that winning two Slams with his potential is even a slightly disappointing result.

From now on, if we think about him, probably before his down the line backhand, the first image coming to our mind would be a Marat Safin half asleep on a bench in Melbourne after a brave night just before the Australian Open final he naturally lost, or better didn't effectively play, against a thanking Thomas Johansson.

 

Or, perhaps, we'll remember the 2004 Roland Garros. It was a gloomy day, Marat and Mantilla were incardinating into a battle forced to the fifth set. Then, suddenly, to celebrate a drop shot he hit for a winner, Marat pulled his shorts down. He hitched up his pants with a smile, soon disappearing when Carlos Bernardes, the chair umpire, assigned him a penalty point.

 

"Marat, what possessed you to pull your pants down?" they enquired him afterwards.

 

"It was a great point for me," Safin explained. "I felt like pulling my pants down. What's bad about it?"

 

In this schoolboy prank there's all Marat, the instinctive personality, the craziness, the good or bad frank genuineness, the not-reflexed mood, his acting before thinking to the consequences.

 

Roger out at the second round against the Frenchman ranked n.49. In the other top-matches of the day, Almagro knelt down to Rafa Nadal while Andy Murray sealed a win against James Blake showing one of his best form of the season, in a match finished at 1.45 am local time. Here's the match reports.

Benneteau-Federer 36 76 64
There was no sign of the shock to come when Federer breezed through the first set 63, but the Frenchman brought the home crowd into ruptures with a series of fantastic plays and, although he called the trainer during the change of ends at 5-6 he forced the second to a tiebreaker. Soon, he secures an early minibreak to 2-1 with an exquisite passing shot on the backhand before profitting of miscued backhand from the world n.1 to gain three set points at 6-3. Definitely, Benneteau gunned a backhand service return and it was too much for Federer who sent the ball into the net.

First real signals of what would have come, of the triumph of the unseeded Frenchman, ranked n.49, came in the third game of the final set. Federer saved three break points but not a fourth as the backhand broke down once again to hand Benneteau the upper hand. Before, the French guy at 3-4 0-30 displayed four outstanding point to held in front of an enthusiastic crowd. They went on with serve, Roger held to 4-5 but wasn't able to break against the solid-server ealing the victory with an ace.

Benneteau confirmed he can balance his technical limits with an atonishing tactical brightness prospecting himself like a potential great coach for his future. Roger definitely can't stand the last indoor Masters 1000 of the season (he has never reached the semifinals in Paris) and starting heading towards London while Rafa has the greedy chance to reduce the gap and close the year as the n.1.

The following is a Public Service Announcement.

It is not for those of you who sit by the computer waiting for football injury news so that you can pick up the flex player who will get the most playing time in the coming week.  Or those of you who scour the waiver wires looking for the best bet in the week ahead...or even two weeks down the road.

It's for people like me, who pop into their league on Saturday to make sure no one is on a bye.

 

 

The Hockey Hall of Fame welcomed, perhaps, its greatest class ever this past Monday night in Toronto. Between Brett Hull, Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille, and Steve Yzerman, you are talking about three of the Top Ten all-time leaders in goals, three of the 21 most prolific point-producers, and the 7th-highest scoring defenseman in NHL history.

Put them together and this fantastic foursome scored 2,348 goals, notched 3,220 assists, and recorded 5,568 points over their NHL careers that collectively spanned 5,419 games in 79 seasons in total.

Add Devils executive Lou Lamoriello---who was also inducted into the HHOF on Monday---to the mix and this group has totaled 10 Stanley Cup championships, as well.

Eye-popping numbers, for sure.

But it's not just the numbers that makes this group so special. Yzerman is regarded as one of the game's greatest captains ever. Hull was one of the sport's most colorful and outspoken ambassadors. Leetch and Lamoriello helped cement USA Hockey as a true force on the international scene. Robitaille---and Hull, too, for that matter---proved that through tremendous dedication and hard work, a player does not have to be a highly-regarded prospect or first-round pick to become a star, setting an outstanding example for youth players everywhere.

Their individual speeches all found a way to touch me during Monday's ceremony. Hull describing not what he brought to the game, but what the game of hockey gave to him, and explaining that he represented all of the beer-league players out there. Yzerman humbly explaining how he became the sport's pre-eminent leader by the good fortune of those great players and coaches he worked alongside for 22 years in Detroit. Lamoriello remembering to mention that we all should keep cancer-stricken former Devils coach Pat Burns in our prayers. Robitaille providing inspiration to those players who are not considered fast enough, strong enough, or talented enough to play the game of hockey. And Leetch pointing out that he played hockey because he loved the sport, not because he planned to be an NHLer one day, and then encouraging today's youth coaches to always remember to keep the game fun for the kids.

I have had the good fortune to work in the National Hockey League as a broadcaster and reporter while these five greats were in the primes of their careers. I remember Robitaille as one who was always quick with a genuine smile and a twinkle in his eye, just a really good guy. Hull's hearty laugh and sarcasm in locker-room conversations we had over the years stands out to me, too. Yzerman's grace, on and off the ice. That's what always struck me about him. Grace and class all the way. Lamoriello? Loyalty and intensity. Those are the two words that come to mind when I think of him.

As for Leetch, well, he is the one of this group I know the best. I was fortunate enough to cover his career, pretty much right from the start. It's funny, I remember a fellow reporter and good friend Bob Grochowski---Bobby G to you that remember SportsPhone---sitting next to me in the press box at Madison Square Garden during Leetch's early days, saying, "They have never drafted a player like this before. He is going to be the greatest Ranger ever."

You could argue that Bobby G was right on the mark, once Leetch's career was done.

There are so many memories I have of Leetch---end-to-end rushes, his amazing stamina and recuperative powers where he could play in every key situation, 35 minutes or so a night during the playoffs, his ability to play through brutal injuries, his elite-level skating and on-ice vision that were second to none---and I feel extremely fortunate to have covered his career so closely.

Of course, the spring of 1994 was his crowning achievement. Mark Messier was the Rangers captain. Adam Graves was the team's heartbeat. Mike Richter the impenatrable force in goal.

Brian Leetch was the soul of that Stanley Cup championship team that ended 54 years of misery on Broadway.

One other thing I'll always remember about Leetch. Though very soft-spoken, Leetch was a very intelligent and articulate athlete, and very respectful of me, the media, the fans, and the organization, no matter the circumstances---good or bad.

I thought Leetch really summed it up best on Monday night.

"If you look at the Hockey Hall of Fame as one big team, and everybody in one big locker room, even if I never get on the ice for one shift it's still the best team in the world to be on."

Jacksonville State quarterback Ryan Perrilloux

 

Throughout this college football season, the starting quarterbacks at Alabama and Auburn have come under increasing scrutiny and rightly so.

 

Crimson Tide junior Greg McElroy and Tigers senior Chris Todd play the marquee position at the state's two most high profile programs, so it's only natural that their sometimes sporadic play would be criticized.

 

But the fact of matter is neither McElroy, a first-year starter, nor Todd is regarded among the best college quarterbacks in the state.

 

NFL scouts prefer Jacksonville State's Ryan Perrilloux, UAB's Joseph Webb and Troy's Levi Brown.