Across All Sports

Oregon knocked off the Pac 10's only ranked team, Washington.

With Alabama capturing the BCS National Championship, the basketball season hits top speed. Today is packed full of marquee matchups in the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10, and SEC. There is one major conference I left out of that group: the Pac 10. Washington is the only team ranked in the polls right now, but that will only last until Monday. The Huskies lost to Arizona State this week which will drop them out of the Top 25. 

Arizona State is 11-5 on the season and is 1-2 in conference. I don’t see them entering the polls on Monday. The only other teams that would have any chance of entering into the Top 25 on Monday are USC and Oregon. Those were the only two teams to receive any votes in the polls this past week (not many either). Oregon received just four votes in the AP Poll last week and did not play a game this week. The Ducks were blown out by Missouri and have bad losses to Portland, Montana, and St. Mary’s. They are entering the Top 25 any time soon. 

The Trojans received 46 votes in the AP Poll and 7 votes in the ESPN/USA Today Poll. Well USC has already lost to Stanford this week and faces California later tonight. As with Oregon, the Trojans won’t be breaking the Top 25 this week. 

So that leaves no one. The Pac 10 won’t have a team ranked in the Top 25. Even worse, since Pac 10 teams will almost exclusively be facing each other in the upcoming weeks, there won’t be many opportunities for a team to enter the Top 25. Only Oregon is undefeated in conference so it will have to win for a couple weeks in a row to prove that it deserves inclusion in the Top 25. 

The Big East is strong. The Big 12 has two of the remaining undefeated teams in the country while the other sits in the SEC. The Big 10 and ACC are both having down years, but each has a contingent of strong teams with Purdue, Michigan State, and Wisconsin in the Big 10 and Duke, North Carolina, and Georgia Tech in the ACC. 

When Selection Sunday comes around, I don’t expect to see many Pac 10 teams taking part in March Madness and for good reason.

Photo Courtesy of KSL.com

While the rest of the sports world goes along at full steam, MLS in the midst of one of its most important offseason’s in the League’s history. That’s because the CBA between the owners nad the players expires on January 31. With 22 days before that date, there still isn’t a new agreement.

The players want three main things:

1. The ability to sign with a team and not the league
2. Guaranteed contracts
3. Higher Salary Cap

Right now, the League is a single-entity which means that teams do not have the ability to sign players. The player must first sign with the league and the league then assigns a player to a team. The reasons that allocations exist in MLS is to create a system for assigning players that more than one team have interest in. The single-entity effectively limits a player’s ability to gain his market value since teams are not forced to bid against each other for the player’s services. Instead, the player receives one contract offer from the league and is then assigned to one of those interested teams based on allocation order.

The players want this system removed. As a fan, I’m on the players’ side here. The allocation process is confusing and mysterious to outsiders while the “assignment of players” makes the league seem rigged. Now, this isn’t true, but allowing teams to sign their own players will create a more open, fair system. Teams will have more control of their rosters since they control whether a player is actually signed. not the league. However, teams would be forced to bid against each other which would drive contracts up so owners would certainly angered by that. However, nearly every other sports league in the world allows teams to sign their own players. MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL, EPL, La Liga, Serie A, and etc. all have teams sign contracts. For MLS to become an upper echelon league, this single-entity system must go. Read more…

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

Wild Card Weekend is upon us and it’s time to give some predictions for those games and more. This year’s wild card games are particularly interesting because three of the four games are rematches from games in Week 17. With that, let’s look at the games: 

New York Jets at Cincinnati Bengals – Saturday 4:30 

The Jets had a big victory last week when they beat Cincinnati in New York to secure their playoff spot. The Jets were dominant last week, but Cincinnati didn’t exactly put out its top players. Cedric Benson will be back this weekend after missing last week and he is the main component of the Bengals’ offense. Carson Palmer had an abysmal week in New York, but a lot of that was due to the injury to Chad Ochocinco which occurred during warmups. A combination of exceptional coverage by Jets’ cornerback Darrelle Revis and the injury made Ochocinco useless. He got open rarely and when he did, dropped the passes. Jets QB Mark Sanchez will be making his playoff debut, which could prove costly if his inexperience shows. I think Revis will be the difference in the game. He shutdown the opponent’s top receiver week in and week out and the playoffs will be no different. This will allow the Jets to focus on stopping Benson and packing the line. The Jets offense won’t light up the board, but RB Laveranues Coles will push the Jets to a 21-10 victory. 

Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots – Sunday 1:00 

This is the only matchup that isn’t a rematch from Week 17. New England has a lot of injuries to deal with after losing Wes Welker for the season in a loss to the Houston Texans last week. The Ravens on the other hand held the Raiders to just 13 points last week in an eight point victory. Tom Brady has three broken ribs, a hand injury, and a shoulder injury, but will certainly be on the field come game time Sunday. The Pats are expected to get nose tackle Vince Wilfork back which will significantly upgrade their run defense. While QB Joe Flacco has struggled throwing the ball this year, RB Ray Rice has lead the offense on the ground. With Wilfork back, I expect Rice to struggle and Flacco doesn’t have the arm to carry his team to victory. New England also possesses homefield advantage which will lead the Pats to a 24-17 victory. Read more…