Nice Guys Can Finish First

I just saw Jamie McMurray's emotional response to winning the Daytona 500 and it was a great moment. First of all, you don't see that from hard scrabble race car drivers. Second, Jamie is truly one of the great guys I've had the pleasure of dealing with. We used to run into him doing a lot of testing down at the Kentucky Speedway. He was always joking, smiling, and asking us about as many questions as we would ask him. He recently teamed up with the Haiti Earthquake Fund, and that didn't surprise me in the least. He is genuinely good people, and I'm thrilled he won the Great American Race. Nice guys can finish first. But why the heck didn't I start him on my fantasy Nascar team?????

Did anyone hear the NBC analyst on the Nordic Combined event? I didn't think so, but it's worth a good laugh. The guy was coming out of his skin as they were coming to the finish line. He made the guys on those carpet outlet commercials sound like they are speaking slowly and in hushed tones. To see a bunch of dudes on cross country skis while some guy is screeching at the top of his lungs had me rolling. But congrats to John Spillane for winning a silver medal, the first medal ever for the USA in the Nordic Combined. The announcer gets a gold.

U.C. is back in the game. UConn coach Jim Calhoun had some good points about the game. Uconn was awful, UC was just as bad, but only in the first half. The second half UC played a solid game, where the players seemed to play within themselves. I don't know how Mick Cronin kick-started them at the half (he told me he told them to start shooting layups), but it worked. For all the detractors of Mick, he has ROAD wins over Calhoun, Pitino and Huggins during his tenure. That's a hall of fame trifecta.

Xavier stuck it to Florida early and often. The inside game really set the tone, and when they are getting that kind of production down low, this is a team you don't want to play, because we know how damaging the Muskies can be from the perimeter. Tops in the A-10 in three point percentage.