Greinke and Irving out, Niners get Boldin

1. Zack Greinke of the Dodgers will be out for several days following his diagnosis of elbow inflammation in his throwing arm. The Dodgers signed him to a deal worth over $147 million after a season Greinke spent with the Brewers and Angels which was also his first year outside of the Royals organization.
2. Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers will be out 3-4 weeks after injuring his left shoulder in Cavs' loss to the Raptors on Sunday night. Irving has been injury prone his whole career missing most of his one season at Duke, 14 games already this year and 15 last year. Shaun Livingston will start in place of Irving and rookie Dion Waiters is expected to get some minutes at the one-spot as well.
3. After the Seahawks traded for Percy Harvin, the 49ers became the second NFC West team to upgrade their receiving core by trading for Anquain Boldin. Boldin helped the Ravens beat the Niners in the Super Bowl and had 380 receiving yards during the post season. The Ravens will get a sixth round draft pick in return for Boldin; the team had earlier asked Boldin to take a paycut as the team was close to the cap.
4. The Big East aka "America 12" conference hace decided to let Notre Dame leave the conference early. All Notre Dame has to do is forfeit the rights to any money that the league will bring in due to exit and entrance fees. This weeks Big East tournament will be the last without Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Notre Dame, St. John's, DePaul, Georgetown, Marqette, Providence, Seton Hall, and Villanova.
WBC Recap
David Bergman allowed 7 runs in the first 1.2 innings for the Netherlands (2-2) as Japan defeated (3-0) the Kingdom 10-6. Shinnosuke Abe was 2-2 with 4 RBIs inclding a three run home run off of Bergman in the second. Hisayoshhi Chono got 5 of Japan's other 6 RBIs. Both teams will advance to the Championship round in San Francsico.
NBA Recap
Deron Williams' 27 points and 13 assists as the Nets fell to the 76ers 106-97. Spencer Hawes scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed 10 boards while his teammate Jrue Holiday dropped 15 points and dished out 11 dimes for the Sixers.

Curry

In a matchup between the "best in the west" the Spurs took care of the Thunder 105-93. Durant scored a game high 26 for the Thunder while his teammate Serge Ibaka had 13 points and an incredible 16 rebounds. Tiago Splitter was the star of the night for the Spurs with 21 points and 10 rebounds. (The best part of the Spurs is that you never know who is gonna kill you).
The Utah Jazz were led by Mo Williams' 20 points and 6 assists in their 103-90 win against the Pistons. Greg Monroe had 15 points and 13 rebounds for Detroit.
Kosta Kourfos (WTF?) scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Nuggets downed the Suns 108-93. Ty Lawson added another 19 points for the Nuggets while Wesley Williams led the Suns with 18.
Stephen Curry led the Warriors with 26 points as they destroyed the Knicks 92-63. Carmelo Anthony played at about 70% for the Knicks and only mustered 14 points and 10 rebounds.

All NBA 3/11/2013
Pos	Player	Note
G	BKN- Deron Williams	Shot 10-19 for 27 points and dished out a league high 13 assists.
F	OKC- Kevin Durant	Scored 25 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and had 7 assists.
F	SA- Tiago Splitter	Shot 9-11 from the field and 3-5 from the line for 21 points while getting 10 rebounds.
F	DEN- Kosta Koufos	10-11 from the field for 22 points and also had 10 rebounds.
C	PHI- Spencer Hawes	Scored 24 points, got 10 rebounds, and dished out 7 assists. Also blocked 2 shots.

NHL Recap

Brown

It took four rounds of shootout for the Bruins to defeat the Senators 3-2. Patrice Bergeron and David Kregci scored for the Bruins in the shootout while Kyle Turris scored the lone one for Ottawa. Turris also scored the Senators second goal which put them up 2-0. Shawn Thornton and Daniel Paille then scored for the Bruins to force overtime.
The Kings got off to a fast start as Jake Muzzin assisted on two first period goals by Dustin Brown and Jarret Stoll. After Mikael Backlund scored for the Flames to make it a 2-1 game with only 6 minutes left, Brown netted an empty netter to seal a 3-1 win.

All NHL 3/11/13
Pos	Player	Note
F	Kyle Turris- OTT	Scored a goal and played good defense picking up two hits, a block, and a takeaway.
F	Dustin Brown- LA	Scored twice for the Kings and finished at plus 1. Also had three hits.
F	Patrice Bergeron- BOS	Didn't record a point but scored in the shootout and forced two turnovers.
D	Drew Doughty- LA	Finished at +1 and had 7 hits.
D	Chris Phillips- OTT	Had two assists and finished at +2. Also had two blocks and a hit.
G	Tuukka Rask- BOS	Saved 30 of 32 shots for a .938 SV% in the 3-2 win.

NHLPA confirms Realignment; Big East becomes "America 12"; Flyers Heartbreak

1. The NHL's realignment that was discussed earlier on this blog has been approved by the NHL's Player Association. The PA's agreement comes under the terms that the system will be used until the 2015-2016 season and then their will be an evaluation period. The quickest change to another system would by 2017. All that is left to be done is for the Owners to have a final vote; the system should be in place next season.
2. The schools not leaving the Big East in the next few seasons are expected to call themselves the "America 12 Conference" which makes sense cause they have a team in pretty much every timezone (idk about western?).This is known because of the conference's law firm registering multiple URLs including the "America 12" wording.
3. Because of Wayne Rooney's recent time on the bench there has been speculation that the Man U was on the out in Manchester, but according to Sir Alex Ferguson, the Devil's manager if you didn't know, Rooney will be wearing red in Manchester next year and that he will be "involved" in the FA Cup match against Chelsea. I have no idea what "involved" means, it could be coming off the bench or starting, but since Rooney did eventually come in against Real Madrid I think it means starting.
4. For the second year in a row Mariano Rivera will be expected to retire at the end of the season. Last year the all-time save leader was not able to finish the season out due to an ACL tear. He is expected to make the announcement around 10am today.

WBC Recap

Schoop

There was a combined 26 hits in the Netherlands (1-0) and Cuba's (0-1) second round game. Netherlands won 6-2 thanks to Diegomar Markwell who through 6 innings allowing 9 hits and only on run which was a homer by Erisbel Arruebarruena. Jonathan Schoop was 3(single, double, homer) for 6 with 4 RBIs for the Netherlands Kingdom.
The Dominican Republic (1-0) defeated Venezuela (0-1) just a day after the death of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. The Dominicans got off to a fast start and never looked back winning 9-3. AL MVP Miguel Cabrera was 0-4 with 3 men left on base for Venezuela and Hanley Ramirez homered for the Dominicans. No pitcher threw more than 1.2 innings for DR and no more than 3.1 for Zuela.
Italy (1-0) defeated Mexico (0-1) 6-5 to begin play in Pool D. Adrian Gonzalez was 2-2 with 2 walks and Cub's first baseman Anthony Rizzo was 2-5 with a double and 2 RBIs.
It took extra innings to separate Japan (1-0) and Chinese Tapei (0-1). Sho Nakata scored Nobuhiro Matsuda with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th to give Japan the 4-3 lead. It is possible to say that Chien Ming Wang was robbed of a win as he threw 6 scoreless innings for Chinese Taipei.

NBA Recap
J.R. Smith missed a last second shot for the Knicks as they lost to the Thunder 95-94. Kevin Durant scored 34 points for the Thunder but his performance was outdone by J.R. Smith who scored 36.
The Nuggets surprisingly had an easy time with the Cippers winning 107-92 for their 7th straight win, this one without 'Melo. Ty Lawson had 21 points and 11 assists in the win.

All NBA 3/7/2013
Pos	Player	Injury Note
G	Ty Lawson- DEN	Scored 21 points and had 11 assists. Shot 9-15 from field.
G	Kevin Martin- OKC	Never heard of him but he scored 16 for the Thunder and had 10 assists.
F	Kevin Durant- OKC	Scored 24 on 9-20 from the field and 14-15 from the line.
F	Danilo Gallinari- DEN	Played decent scoring 20, dishing out 6 dimes, and getting 5 rebounds.
F	Kenneth Faried- DEN	Had 4 blocks along with 11 rebounds. Scored a decent 11 points
WTF	Some of these players suc	what do you expect there were only two games last night

Simple Idea #4: Give Certain Conferences two automatic bids to basketball tournament

With the system right now only the winner of each conference's post season tournament (excluding Ivy League that uses their regular season champion) gets an automatic bid for the NCAA Division Basketball Tournament. This means that except for the very few conferences that use the regular season to determine which teams qualify for their playoff, the regular season means nothing. The Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, and Mountain West should all have two AQ. The Pac-12 sucks at basketball so it makes sense that they shouldn't get an extra bid and the Mountain West is year in and year out a solid conference. Even though the winner of each of these conferences regular season already makes the tournament it would be a nice rule just in case a team has a bad non-conference season and a bad tournament. For league's that are divided between two divisions the winner of each one would play the other in a one off game before the tournament. In addition to this every other conference would have there AQ determined by their regular season. They would still be free to host a post season tournament as a way of helping teams make the national tournament.