UConn Huskies center Hasheem Thabeet graces the latest cover of ESPN The Magazine.
Price, Thabeet Named To Wooden Award List
UConn Huskies men’s basketball players A.J. Price and Hasheem Thabeet were among to the 50 people named to the Wooden Award watch list for the 2008-09 season.
Including Price and Thabeet, the Big East Conference placed 12 members on the list:
Luke Harangody from Notre Dame, DeJuan Blair and Sam Young from Pittsburgh, Earl Clark and Terrence Williams from Louisville, Marquette’s tandem of Dominic James and Jerel McNeal, Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn, Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds and Georgetown’s DaJuan Summers.
The list will be paired down to a top-30 list in January and then the national ballot will come out in March. The Wooden Award All-American Team will be announced the week of the Elite Eight round in the NCAA tournament. The Wooden Award ceremony will be held in April of 2009 in Los Angeles.
A full look at the team after the jump.
Boston Red Sox News & Notes – 11/7
For some people this is a stressful time of year as they start to hear the names of their favorite players thrown around in trade talks or maybe their favorite player is a free agent and could be heading somewhere else for greener pastures.
The Boston Red Sox have a couple of those players in Coco Crisp and Jason Varitek (I’d include Julio Lugo in there but seriously come on. Is he really one of your favorite players). As we know Varitek is a free agent right now and the window of exclusive negoitations is closing quickly as the Red Sox have just a week to try and get a deal done before dealing with the 29 other teams as well.
For Coco the stakes are a little different. He doesn’t necessarily have to be traded but he’s a commodity right now given the fact that Mark Kotsay is probably the best available center fielder on the free agent market. Coco’s stuck in a platoon with Jacoby Ellsbury and at some point the Red Sox will have to make a decision on this. With Coco having a good run during the playoffs, his value is at his highest right now and he could help bring the Red Sox a catcher or some bullpen help.
Unfortunately, baseball is a business. Yeah it sucks but what can we do. Things happen that we may or may not like but in the end you can only hope those business decisions help your team in the end.
As you have already heard, Dustin Pedroia won his first Gold Glove yesterday. Here’s a list of the 17 members of the Red Sox to have won Gold Gloves.
I’m pretty sure we’ve all figured this out by now, but Manny Ramirez won’t be coming back to the Red Sox next season.
Alex Speier of WEEI.com has some notes from the final day of the GM meetings.
The Red Sox will induct 8 members into the Red Sox Hall of Fame tonight and one of those to be inducted is former first baseman Mo Vaughn.
The Red Sox have asked MLB to host the 2012 All-Star Game.
And last but certainly not least, Fenway Park is once again undergoing some renovations this offseason.
In The Red Zone – Bills (5-3) at Patriots (5-3) Preview – Week 10
This Week
The New England Patriots entertain their AFC East rival Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro MA on Sunday at 1 p .m.
The Patriots (5-3) are 3-1 at home, 1-1 against the AFC East and 3-2 in the conference. The Bills (5-3) are 2-2 on the road, 0-1 in the division and 3-1 against the AFC. The teams are tied for first in the AFC East along with the New York Jets.
Here are the rosters for the Bills and Patriots.
Here are the projected starting lineups for the game.
The Line/Prediction
As of Thursday the line on the game from Yahoo! Sports is Patriots -3.5. The over/under is 41.5.
My prediction is Patriots 23, Bills, 17 . Give the points (Bills) and take the under. I am 2-5-1 against the spread and 4 for 8 on calling the over/under in 2008.
Tickets
The Patriots are reporting the game as a sell out. It is the 156th consecutive sellout dating back to the 1994 season opener. The record includes preseason, regular season and playoff games.
Tickets to the game, if available, may be purchased through Ticketmaster. You can check the availability here. Many times tickets are released in the last 48 hours prior to the game.
Getting To The Game
If you’re lucky enough to be going to the game at the Razor make sure you check out the links.
Here is the up to date weather forecast for the game from The Weather Channel.
Click for stadium directions, parking information, parking map, specific MBTA train times for this game and a Gillette Stadium seating chart.
Tailgating
Here’s a bunch of different tailgating recipes from Tailgaiting America. There’s something there for everyone and every type of meal or snack. I’ve tried some of the recipes and they’re very good and for good measure here is one of my own.
And with tailgating many people enjoy some adult beverages. With that in mind check out Drink Nation for how to make all sorts of great drinks. You can look things up by name, ingredient(s) or by theme.
Whether it’s at the game, a bar or someone’s house moderation is always the key to a great time. Please don’t drink and drive and designate a sober driver. Remember You Drink, You Drive, You Lose.
BROADCAST INFORMATION
Television
CBS is televising the game to a regional audience, check to see if you’re getting the game and look for your local affiliate. Dick Enberg will call the play-by-play while Randy Cross will provide the analysis.
The Direct TV feed of the game is Channel 707.
For those of you overseas here is some general information on NFL Broadcasts for the 2008 season.
Patriots All-Access airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on WCVB TV 5 in Boston. It will also be simulcast on the team website at the same time. Make sure you check out the Patriots Football Network for information on when you can see Patriots All-Access in your market.
Radio
The Patriots Rock Radio Network broadcasts the game from flagship station WBCN-FM 104.1 in Boston. Gil Santos handles the play-by-play and former Patriot Gino Cappelletti does the color.
It all starts with Gary Tanguay, Scott Zolak and Andy Gresh and the pregame show at 10 a.m. along the network.
The post game starts after the final gun and continues for three hours.
If you are outside of the broadcast area of the stations on the Patriots Rock Radio Network you can purchase NFL Field Pass which allows you to listen to any NFL game live. You can also pick which teams broadcasters you want to listen to.
All NFL games are also available on Sirius Satellite Radio. The Patriots Rock Radio Network call is available on Channel 122, the Bills Radio Network has John Murphy calling the game while former Bills DB Mark Kelso provide the game analysis. Their call is available on Channel 113.
Since the satellite merger XM Satellite Radio also carries all the NFL games and in most cases has just the radio call of the home team. You can catch the Patriots radio call (home feed) of game on XM Channel 108.
Sports USA Radio will broadcast the game nationally with Larry Kahn and Dan Fouts on the call.
Paw Prints – The Daily Roundup – 11/7
Tina Charles led the way for the UConn Huskies with a great effort on both ends of the floor.
Caroline Doty showed great confidence in her first time out as a member of the Huskies.
Some members of the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team were moved by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.
“Geno’s Cancer Team” is continuing to recruit new members to the cause.
Here’s a look in pictures at the last 10 years of UConn women’s basketball.
ESPN analyst Robert Smith gives his thoughts about UConn running back Donald Brown.
UConn men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun would like to see his team run more like they did in the early ’90s.
Freshman Kemba Walker had some advice for Jerome Dyson after Dyson’s poor performance the other night.
Kemba Walker received rave reviews from his effort in the first exhibition game the other night.
Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant has some more thoughts from Wednesday night’s men’s game.
The UConn women’s soccer team picked up 5 postseason awards at the Big East Women’s Soccer Banquet.
- Stephanie Labbe, Big East First Team and Big East Goalkeeper of the Year
- Brittany Tegeler, Big East Second Team
- Kacey Richards, Big East Second Team
- Annie Yi, Big East Third Team
The UConn men’s soccer team has some questions that need answering before they start play in the Big East Tournament.
Papa, Collinsworth Worth A Listen
If you were the NFL Network you couldn’t do much worse than having Bryant Gumbel call your football games the last few seasons. He was awful. I’d have rather been probed anally by a hot curling iron than to have listened to Gumbel call football.
Fast forward to 2008, Gumbel stepped down from the NFLN coverage and was replaced by New York Giants play-by-play man Bob Papa who was paired with Gumbel’s former partner Cris Collinsworth. Tonight the duo made their 2008 debut calling the Denver Broncos-Cleveland Browns game. While I don’t get NFLN on my cable tier (it is available for added fee that I refuse to pay) I did get a chance through the NFL.com site to get live look ins through out the game online of the game coverage. I have come away impressed and a fan of Papa and Collinsworth.
The pair were truly very good. First off there is no better football guy on TV than Collinsworth, other than possibly Ron Jaworski of ESPN. Poor Collinsworth was dragged down by Gumbel like he had a ton of cinder blocks tied to his leg and he was perched on the edge of the Tobin Bridge just waiting for someone to push him off. He is much better as an in game analyst than a studio guy and I am surprised one of the major networks covering the NFL hasn’t made a move to get him in the booth.
Papa, who I’ve never really heard call a game before, was better than I could have imagined. Granted he wasn’t being compared to much in Gumbel but if this is how he goes about calling a game he is a rising star. Well prepared, knowledgeable he called the game efficiently and allowed Collinsworth to shine. The Joe Buck’s, Mike Tirico’s, Al Michaels’ and Jim Nantz’s of the world have nothing on Papa and if I were given a choice at this point in time I’d Papa over any of them.
If this was a preview of next week’s New York Jets-New England Patriots game fans of both teams won’t have anything to bitch about when it comes to the call of the game.
UConn Women Dominate Stonehill In 100-49 Win
The UConn Huskies women’s basketball team kicked off their 2-game exhibition schedule with a complete domination of the Stonehill College Skyhawks (No.8 in Div II) in a 100-49 win at Gampel Pavilion.
For the No. 1 Huskies, the Skyhawks were no match for their superior skills and size. But since the rules don’t allow exhibition games against Division I schools, this is the best the Huskies can do during the preseason. It did give the Huskies a chance to work on some things new and old and get the freshman acclimated to the speed that UConn tends to play at during the season.
Tina Charles led the Huskies in scoring with 19 points with 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocked shots. Renee Montgomery added 17 points, 4 assists and 6 steals while Maya Moore had a double-double with 14 points, 11 rebounds and she also had 3 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocks. Newcomers Caroline Doty and Tiffany Hayes added 14 and 10 respectively. Kalana Greene returned to action with 7 points, 3 rebounds and 5 assists.
The Skyhawks were led by Kelsey Simonds who had 12 points. Megan Methven added 8 points and Kristen McWhirter added 7 points while Tania Williams had a team-high 6 rebounds.
This game was pretty much over right from the start as the Huskies got out to an 11-0 lead in the first 2 minutes of the game. They never looked back from there as they went into the half with a 56-30 lead although it did take them 2 minutes to start scoring in the second half.
Defensively the Huskies tightened up in the second half allowing just 19 second half points.
We all know that Geno Auriemma will find something wrong when they watch the film but this was the first time he gets to see his team in action and come up with a battle plan for the season.
The Huskies return to action next Wednesday night at the XL Center when they take on Team Resource Sports Program at 7 PM in their final exhibition game.
UConn, Texas To Meet In Men’s Basketball
The UConn Huskies and Texas Longhorns have agreed to a 4-year deal starting next season. The two teams will play 4 games over 6 years.
- 2009-2010: at UConn (Gampel or XL Center)
- 2010-2011: at Texas (Erwin Center)
- 2011-2012/2012-2013: No games
- 2013-2014 – at UConn (Gampel or XL Center)
- 2014-2015 – at Texas (Erwin Center)
The two teams have met 5 times with the Huskies holding a 3-2 advantage.
Boston Red Sox Ask To Host 2012 MLB All-Star Game
The 2012 season in Major League Baseball will bring us the 100th anniversary of the Boston Red Sox and to celebrate it, they have asked MLB to host the 2012 MLB All-Star Game.
“We have made a request to have another All-Star Game at Fenway Park in light of the upcoming 100th anniversary and the changes that have taken place,” Larry Lucchino said.
The Red Sox last hosted the All-Star Game in 1999 when the team was under the previous ownership group.
Pedroia Is Golden
As Steve told you earlier this afternoon, Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia has won his first Gold Glove Award which is presented annually by Rawlings. Kevin Youkilis, who won the Gold Glove last year at first base, did not repeat at first base this season.
I really didn’t think about it,” he said of winning the award. “I take pride in my defense, it’s a huge part of my game. In fact, my biggest (priority) is defense. I need to be extremely important to our pitching staff. I put in a ton of time with Luis Alicea and Alex Cora from Day One. It’s only my second year playing second base. I took extra ground balls every single day and it definitely paid off.”
“I got a lot faster in the offseason,” he said. “I put in the time, did all the cardio workouts, speed work, and agility. That really paid off where my range got a lot better and my arm strength got better. I’m not the biggest guy in the world but I can make up with effort in the offseason.”
As for his thoughts on the Red Sox deciding not renew the contract of Alicea, Pedroia would only say, “He’s helped me out a ton. I definitely wouldn’t be a Gold Glove winner if he wasn’t part of it.”
Here’s the full list of Gold Glove winners in the American League:
- Catcher – Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins (1st Gold Glove)
- First Base – Carlos Peña, Tampa Bay Rays (1st Gold Glove)
- Second Base – Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox (1st Gold Glove)
- Shortstop – Michael Young, Texas Rangers (1st Gold Glove)
- Third Base – Adrian Beltre, Seattle Mariners (2nd Gold Glove)
- Outfield – Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners (8th Gold Glove)
- Outfield – Torii Hunter, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (8th Gold Glove)
- Outfield – Grady Sizemore, Cleveland Indians (2nd Gold Glove)
- Pitcher – Mike Mussina, New York Yankees (7th Gold Glove)
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