Flint Township View

College basketball update, a look at Detroit sports and golf’s best players compete this weekend

Fat Guy Corner


 

 

The college basketball weekend is in the books, and the NCAA Tournament has some tickets punched. Who is in with the automatic qualifier from their conference? Let’s find out.

The Atlantic Sun: Liberty, The Ohio Valley: Morehead State, The Big South: Winthrop and Missouri Valley: Loyola Chicago. Yes, the Loyola Chicago Ramblers are back and who could forget that Final Four run in 2018? It was a Cinderella story and ended with a loss to Michigan.

This week will have many more automatic spots filled out by conference champions. The selection show is Sunday night, so tune in and see how the brackets will shape up.

The Michigan Wolverines and Michigan State Spartans split the two basketball games last week. The Wolverines routed the Spartans on the Wolverines’ home turf. The Spartans then returned the favor on their home floor with a victory over the Wolverines. I believe, the Michigan State victory secured a spot in the NCAA Tournament. I thought Michigan State played a very nice basketball game against the Wolverines. The Spartans needed the split against Michigan and mission accomplished. The Big Ten Tournament sets up this way for the two schools: The Spartans are the nine seed playing the eight seeded Maryland Terrapins. The winner gets Michigan next as the No. 1 seed. I can see these two teams playing each other one more time in the rubber match. I say, wouldn’t that be nice to watch these two teams play again!

The Pistons Blake Griffin has cleared waivers and has agreed to sign with the New Jersey Nets. Blake agreed to a buyout with the Pistons and gave back $13 million to the team. The Pistons made a good move here as Blake is an aging star with career lows in points and shooting percentage. When an athlete is on the backend of a career, they want to win a ring before they retire.

The Pistons are in total rebuild mode and are a terrible team on the basketball court. I hated the trade the Pistons made for Blake on day one. I say, I was right when I look back at the deal and how things played out with Blake as a Piston. I see Blake as not much help to the Nets either. I guess we will see if I am right.

The spring training season seems to be status quo in Lakeland, Fla. I have not heard much news, good or bad to be truthful. I’m pretty sure there have been no serious injuries, which is good news. I know like many of you Tiger fans this season I will need a program to figure out who some of these players are. The start of the season is really sneaking up on us baseball fans. I love baseball, it just stinks that the Tigers will stink again here in 2021.

The Red Wings are still awful and stuck in last place. The power play is a joke and flat out a pitiful unit when on the ice. The Wings have given up 87 goals and only lit the lamp 54 times. I mean, 26 games played and 54 goals scored equals simple math of two goals a game. I say OUUCHHIEEE especially in today’s style of hockey. The bottom-line is, you need offense in the NHL to put wins in the standings.

The Players Championship is this weekend at TPC Sawgrass at Ponte Vedra, Fla. The purse for the golfers is a cool, calm $15 million. That is a large chunk of “cabbage!” The defending champion is Rory McIlroy. The Players Championship draws the best golfers in the world. The best hole in golf is the 17th par-3 “Island Green.” I love watching the golfers play this hole. This should be a real good tournament to watch on the ole television.

I can be reached at thefatguy@mihomepaper.com.