Archive for November, 2008
New College Football BCS Rankings
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Yes, the season is already 12 weeks old, THAT means every win from this point is huge considering how ridiculous the BCS ranking system is.
And after 12 weeks into the 2008 NCAA college football season, the top teams coming to this weekend’s games took care of business to keep their respective spots on top of the rankings.
You read it, No.1 Alabama Crimson Tide and No.2 Texas Tech Red Raiders stayed atop the BCS standings, thanks to a huge win by Alabama over the weekend while 
Texas Tech’s pursuers failed to take advantage of the Red Raiders’ bye week to keep their campaign for a national championship strong heading to the final stretch.
The Alabama Crimson Tide breezed past Mississippi State in the second half of a 32-7 win to keep them on top. Texas Tech (.9698) on the other hand remained second in the polls during the week off. The Texas Tech Red Raiders head into their fourth straight game against a ranked opponent, this time at Oklahoma, in control of their national title and Big 12 championship hopes.
On the other hand, teams like the Florida Gators, the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners are poised to move up. Florida and Texas both have blowout victories Saturday making the idle Oklahoma Sooners take the fifth spot.
Both the Florida Gators and the Alabama Crimson Tide will play for the Southeastern Conference title on Dec.6, and if they can avoid losing before they get there, the game will probably turn out to be a national semifinal with the winner advancing to play for the BCS national championship.
The USC Trojans, also a big winner Saturday, is still…
UNC just fine without Tyler Hansbrough
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
Yes, they’re still winning even without the reigning national player of the year.
One week into the 2008-09 NCAA college basketball season and the North Carolina Tar Heels are still reigning supreme. The Heels passed their first big test without Tyler Hansbrough as their front line stepped up big with Tyler Zeller scoring a team-high 18 points while fellow freshman Ed Davis came up with a double-double Saturday to help North Carolina beat Pennsylvania 86-71.
This is definitely an impressive season-opening performance that indicates that the North Carolina Tar Heels can weather the uncertainty of playing without the national player of the year.
Deon Thompson added 17 points for the Tar Heels, who led by double figures much of the day yet had some trouble putting together a game-sealing run. North Carolina was also without fellow senior Marcus Ginyard, injuries that forced North Carolina to thrust Zeller and Davis into the lineup.
Taking the second spot after week 1 are the Connecticut Huskies, led by Hasheem Thabeet, the 7-foot-3 junior from Tanzania, who scored 23 points and had a career-high 17 rebounds to lead No.2 Connecticut to a season-opening 81-55 win Friday over Western Carolina.
Thabeet, who towers 7 inches over any defender, also blocked five shots. He was 7-of-11 from the field, with most of his attempts from inside five feet. After two years as the Huskies’ defensive stopper, Thabeet says he ready to step it up on offense as well.
Following at third are the Louisville Cardinals, at fourth spot is UCLA and rounding up the fifth spot is Pittsburgh. Levance Fields and DeJuan Blair had 15 and 17 points respectively as they breezed past Fairleigh Dickinson 86-63 Friday night.
Michigan State is at sixth, the Texas Longhorns are at seventh spot, while the Duke Blue Devils, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and…
2008 NFL Week 11 Betting Tips
Friday, November 14th, 2008
It’s Week 11 in the NFL and in case you haven’t felt it yet, the playoffs are just around the corner.
Week 11 of the 2008-09 NFL football season stared this Thursday night as teams continue to jockey for position with the playoffs only less than two months away. And after ten weeks into the season, we learned that the Titans continue to surprise themselves, the Bills continue to disappoint their fans, the Giants like to toy with their prey and an old fart like Kurt Warner could be the MVP at the end of the year.
Crazy huh? Guess what, it only gets crazier because Week 11 stared with the 
New England Patriots. What has been crazy about this team is the fact that they have been able to stay on top of their division playing without starting quarterback Tom Brady and starting running back Laurence Maroney. They played Brett Favre and the surging New York Jets last Thursday night and since the Jets are tied with the Pats for the AFC East lead, it sure was nice to relive this Eric Mangini – Bill Belichick rivalry.
The 5-4 Miami Dolphins look for their fourth win in a row when they face the struggling 2-7 Oakland Raiders this Sunday. The Dolphins are ranked 31st in defensive punt-return average, last in opponent’s field position on kickoffs and last in net punting average but somehow still managed to put up a solid win-loss mark above .500. We don’t expect the struggling Raiders to be able to take advantage of Miami’s problems on special teams because while the Dolphins don’t have that strong of a group on special teams, the Raiders have literally not been a team this season yet.
Miami Dolphins by seven.
The winless Detroit Lions, just like last week, the week before that, and…
Dallas to correct mistake vs Redskins?
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
It all started against the Redskins. At least that’s what Cowboys wideout Terrell Owens claims.
After all the hype that has surrounded the Cowboys before the start of the 2008-09 NFL football season, America’s team has lost two of their last three games and are sitting at the very bottom of the NFC East.
That probably has something to do with the absence of franchise quarterback Tony Romo, who sat out the team’s last three games with a broken pinkie. Veteran Brad Johnson tried to fill in but only managed to give the Cowboys a single win in the three games that he started behind center.
Was Romo’s injury the reason why the Dallas Cowboys have been losing lately? From a casual fan’s standpoint, that’s probably stating the obvious. But as far as T.O. is concerned, the Cowboys’ troubles didn’t start with a broken pinkie on a hotshot quarterback.
And while Terrell Owens probably still continues to complain about the limited touches he’s been having on the field, the controversial wideout said that their team’s troubles didn’t start with Romo’s injury but as early as the first month of the season, when the Washington Redskins handed them their very first loss. They went on to lose three of their next four games afterwards.
‘’I think the loss to Washington made a lot of people raise a lot of eyebrows,’’ Terrell Owens said. ‘’I think those two games alone kind of let everybody in this locker room know you got to have sort of a self check like, ‘OK, we’re probably not as good as we think we are, or probably not as good as hyped.”’
Owens probably has a point. Although it is already well documented that the Cowboys are 1-3 without Tony Romo, they have gone 1-2 WITH him after losing to their NFC East rivals from Washington. Did the Redskins do something to this Cowboys team that all of a sudden…
Crimson Tide still on top of the BCS
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
A team remained on top after last weekend’s battles on the college gridiron.
You read it, the Alabama Crimson Tide, led by Nick Saban, is still at the top of the BCS rankings after 11 weeks into the 2008 NCAA college football season. Although they have an identical record with Texas Tech, the Crimson Tide was still chosen at No.1 in both the Harris and USA Today coaches’ polls.
Can the Alabama Crimson Tide stay on top of the BCS rankings? We still have more than a month of college pigskin left and until January arrives, the Crimson Tide will be hoping not to skip a beat.
And as stated, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, after beating Oklahoma State 56-20, are ranked No.2 with the same perfect 10-0 stand as Alabama’s. Right now, Alabama and Texas Tech have the final two spots for the BCS national championship game, can they keep it? Only time can tell for sure.
The (.879) Texas Longhorns are third, followed closely by the (.864) Florida Gators and the (.844) Oklahoma Sooners. The Longhorns, the Gators and the Sooners, all with one loss, are lurking and ready to take advantage as soon as the two front-runners slip.
Penn State’s loss to Iowa left the Crimson Tide and the Red Raiders as the only unbeaten teams in the 2008 BCS rankings. So, sorting out the all-important first two places in the BCS standings was easy this week.
The USC Trojans are sixth, followed by Utah at seventh then Penn State, Boise State and Ohio State completes the top 10.
Alabama and Texas Tech are still on course to…
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