Hitting the Hoops, Striking the Goals, Running All The Bases Weekend

*****Final Four And Counting

You'd have been hard-pressed to come up with a more exciting match than Illinois' impossible comeback victory over Arizona on Saturday. With four minutes to go the team that had lost only one game all season was down by a fantastic 15 point margin to the 3rd seeded Wildcats and yet, in a season that has gone well beyond the dreams of Illini fans, they staged a stunning, improbable comeback and finally won the game in overtime, 90-89.

Meanwhile, the Louisville Cardinals staged their own overtime thrilling victory against the West Virginia Mountaineers by a 93-85 margin, overcoming a 20 point deficit of their own and winning despite WVA's mind-bending feat of making 18 of 24 (75%) three-pointers during regulation.

And that was only the first day of what some are already calling the greatest weekend in regionals finals history.

Yesterday, attempting to top the cardiac events of the day before, the Kentucky Wildcats executed the greatest shot in Kentucky basketball history, a double-pump, off-balance, four-bounces-on-the-rim, 3- pointer from Patrick Sparks with no time remaining in regulation that sent the KY-Michigan State match into overtime which then went into double, secret overtime before Michigan State prevailed.

Comparatively, North Carolina's not-so-shocking 88-82 win over Wisconsin in regulation, was a snoozefest.

So, onward to the FINAL FOUR where, in a shocking turn of events, NONE of the teams I selected in my Washington-Syracuse final bracket advanced. Four teams are left playing their 2004/2005 season and they are Illinois, Louisville, N Carolina and Michigan State, two number one seeded teams, a number four seed and a fifth seed. If you had them in your final four well, you're a better guesser than I.

The early guess on this Final Four is that both Michigan State and Louisville are going to be too drained from their double-overtime victories to get in to the finals. That leaves an Illinois-North Carolina Final. How about UNC 88 Illinois 85.

*****FOOTBALL*****

If you weren't exhausted or were in a different time zone from Saturday's regional finals, what you got in addition to NCAA tournament excitement was a wide range of 2006 World Cup qualifying matches.

What we saw was a temporarily dominating English side toy with their Northern Irish opponents in a 4-0 thrashing that saw Joe Cole come of age and perhaps finally resolves England's endless question on the left side attack.

But not all is well. Strachan thinks we still need a striker:

"England's passing was good enough to see off Northern Ireland but there wasn't much variety. They played a lot into the strikers' feet, with one-twos and so on, and there were few crosses from either flank.

Against the top sides you need greater variety. Teams like Italy, Spain, Brazil and Argentina are used to defending that type of play through the middle and you have to be on really top form to pass your way through them.

That is where it helps to have a big striker on hand who can get on to crosses and get headers or scruffy goals. A lot of the top teams have them: Brazil have Adriano, Argentina have Hernan Crespo, Italy have Christian Vieri, Holland have Ruud van Nistelrooy, France have David Trezeguet.

Those teams play some great football but they also have that option of putting in crosses. This is probably England's only weakness at the moment. Variety is really useful because otherwise defenders know what's coming and prepare for that if you always play the same way. I think Arsenal have had that problem in Europe."

David Beckham, playing in from the right and whose star appears to be gradually waning, is rumoured to be headed back to England out of Spain and more likely to the Tottenham Spurs.

Wonder if that leaves Owen for Newcastle (oh, how we can dream!)

But as for Beckham,

"While it is unreasonable to expect heroics from the captain every time, anyone unfamiliar with Beckham's story - you never know, there might be someone, somewhere - would find it hard to work out what he does to deserve the armband. Certainly Beckham is no longer the most important component of the England team and no eyebrows were raised or protests registered when he departed 18 minutes from the end.

Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard are now the ones spraying passes over extravagant distances, Wayne Rooney is the attacker who brings the crowd to their feet and even Joe Cole on the left wing managed to be more influential than the captain on the right. Beckham made a point of enthusiastically joining all the goal celebrations, as a good captain should, but with Lampard taking some of the direct free-kicks in the second half he must be wondering whether England still need him at all.

With Lampard, Gerrard, Michael Owen, Gary Neville and John Terry around, England are not short of captaincy material. Although the injured Wright-Phillips did not advance his cause with a nervous performance when finally granted a start in the recent friendly against Holland at Villa Park, a pacy wide player with the energy and ability to take on defenders would add something to the present line-up. Kieron Dyer almost proved the point within seconds of replacing Beckham, only to see Lampard crash a shot against the bar from his perfect square pass."

Would love to see John Terry replace Becks as the captain.

In any event, England's Qualifying Group is looking a little lopsided these days and is bound to get more so with time. The Poles, England's only real opponent in the Group, slashed and burned through Azerbijan by a 8-0 margin and Azerbijan of course, are England's next opponents on Wednesday.

Of note, Holland and the Czech Republic continued on in style, Italy defeated Scotland to no one's surprise, the gutty Swiss battled the complacent and uninspired France in France to a 0-0 draw and Wales lost to Austria whilst Ireland had a disappointing draw against Israel.

Wednesday will see another toss of matches.

Lastly for football, we were able to watch the entirety of a poorly broadcast Mexico-US WC qualifying match played in the smog and altitude of Estadio Azteca where the US has never won and Mexico have lost only once in their history in WC qualifying matches. The outcome?

The Mexicans won by the skin of their teeth in a 2-1 victory that wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the score might suggest. By and large this was an even battle but for a five minute window where the American defence fell asleep and let two easy goals in to fall behind 2-0.

"I believe our players shut down in the last 15 minutes of the first half, and that cost us the game," Manager Bruce Arena said.

The American defense missed the steadiness of Eddie Pope, who is regaining his form after injury. In his absence, the backline of Steve Cherundolo, Oguchi Onyewu, Gregg Berhalter and Carlos Bocanegra was stretched to the breaking point by Mexico's clever three-forward attack.

Later in the second half, the Americans finally began to look alive, scoring 14 minutes in and despite several very big opportunities for the Mexicans in counterattacks that left the American's wide open, the score remained the same for the rest of the match.

The Americans will play Guatemala at home on Wednesday and the Mexicans are to face surprising Panama.

*****Baseball*****

AL Central April Preview

The White Sox should be nobody's favourites coming into this season. They've lost four straight and gave up 53 runs over 5 games in a recent stretch that has seen them lose seven of their last eight exhibition games.

Better news though, was ace Mark Buerhle throwing without pain after a 10 minute bullpen session. Buerhle nearly saw his season crash before him last Sunday when his left foot was nearly broken shagging fly balls.

If Buerhle isn't ready to pitch opening day, Freddy Garcia will take his place and the buzz around camp these days seems to be 6'7" righty Brandon McCarthy, who went 17-4 with a 3.14 ERA for 3 White Sox farm teams and struck out a minor league high 202 batters.

However, McCarthy may need more seasoning if the game he pitched against the Rangers is any indication. McCarthy gave up 7 runs in 3 2/3 innings.

If their starters can keep them in the game better than they have been lately, the Sox can be encouraged by the development of lefties Neal Cotts and Damaso Marte coming out of the bullpen.

They open 6 of their first 9 games of the season against the Cleveland Indians, who just announced that Juan Gone won their RF spot somehow, despite his .243 spring batting average and three home runs in 37 at-bats.

Lately, the Indians have been moving in the opposite direction as the ChiSox, winning their last five games in a row.

In addition to naming Juan Gone a starter (until his back goes out five minutes in the first game of the season), they have also named the aptly named Jhonny Peralta as their starting shortstop over Brandon Phillips. Peralta has been hitting .395 with 11 RBIs whilst Phillips was hitting under .200. TKO.

Evidently, manager Eric Wedge thinks the Tribe Are Ready To Burst Offensively after scoring the fifth most runs in the AL last season.

Catcher Victor Martinez (He hit .285 (127-for-445) with 35 doubles, 18 homers and 97 RBI in 114 starts in the cleanup spot) joins Juan Gone and Travis Hafner (who hit .311 with 41 doubles, 28 homers and 109 RBI last season) - to form a potent middle of the order nucleus although you've got to wonder about someone named Coco Crisp batting leadoff for the Indians.

Then again, Crisp is hitting .429 (18-for-42) with seven doubles, three RBI and 11 runs this spring. Not to mention that Aaron Boone appears to be back following a year off with injury and is hitting .395 with 2 homers and 12 RBIs this spring.

Lots of depth and versatility might have them making their move for the AL Central title a year sooner than planned.

Of course, no discussion of the AL Central could go on without mentioning the cagey three-time defending champion Minnesota Twins, who will open at Seattle but will open the Metrodome against the ChiSox, making this troika of ChiSox, Tribe and Twins a tough competition straight away.

They appear to be everyone's favourite to repeat but you've got to wonder how a guy with a surname of Balfour is anyone's bullpen help. Batting cleanup, Coach K.

That reminds me: I know it's a bit early on in the season and a bit early in the morning over here in England, but damn, doesn't beer battered fried chicken sound like something you want to spend the summer crunching on during late summer night games?

The most interesting Twins story of Spring Training, as far as I'm concerned, is Justin Morneau, who has had appendicitis, chicken pox, pleurisy and pneumonia and also has had a lymph node removed since last season.

And if you run out of information, it appear the AL Central is becoming so hip it's even got its own roundup.

Are they blogging or blagging?

Lastly, at the lower end of the spectrum of expectation are the Tigers and the Royals. The Tigers are still trying to sort out their starting rotation which can't be a good sign this late in the spring, even if you open the season against the Royals for whom my prediction is: Pain.

But with four teams (if you count the 2005 All Star Game host Detroit Tigers) arguably capable of winning the division, this shapes up to be one of the more exciting races in baseball and Sports Amnesia aims to keep and eye on it.

Predicted April finish:

Twins 17-7 ----
Indians 14-10 3
White Sox 12-12 5
Detroit 10-14 7
Royals 7-17 10

******

Tomorrow, in the ever-expanding world of previews, Sports Amnesia will see off the AL West.