As a good Marylander, I'll post the Field of 16 for the NCAA lacrosse tournament. Now, I don't expect you'll care, but actually, that's one of the things that's so cool about this. This is a huge story locally. the local radio stations are going wall-to-wall with the coverage and the Sun gave this the front of the sports page. This is not a back page story around here, it's bigger than anything else in town.
And outside of Maryland? Nothing. I'm willing to bet most sports fans didn't even know it was Selection Monday (?!). We have a nationalized sports calender, it's neat that there is still some regional flair. It keeps it from being a cookie cutter nation.
Yes, we are planning on doing some ridiculous Tour de France coverage again. But although we won't give the Giro wall-to-wall coverage, we should at least tell you it's going on. This is the chance for someone other than Lance to win a major race, though it'll probably be either Simoni or Garzelli. The sprinting should be interesting, but we're still just biding time until the big race in France. Unless you're Italian, in which case, this is the biggest race of the year.
Valencia made the most of slip-ups by Real Madrid and Barcelona to win the Primera Liga with a typically slick 2-0 victory over Sevilla on Sunday.
"Unlike Madrid, Valencia are a complete team," said daily El Mundo. "With fewer stars and less glitter, Valencia have more resources and a greater ability to prevent themselves being exposed than Real."
Rival daily El Pais highlighted Valencia's impressive trajectory in recent seasons saying that they had entered a "golden age" of success in the last five years.
"Cup winners in 1999, finalists in the Champions League in 2000 and 2001, winners of the league in 2002 and this season, Valencia have responded with enormous efficiency to the challenges presented by modern football."
Valencia trailed Real Madrid by eight points at the beginning of March, but fought back strongly in the run-in while their illustrious rivals folded under the pressure.
A few months ago, I predicted Real would win the triple, as they were the best team money could by. I told whiny baseball fans to see what buying a title really looked like.
Whoops.
Real has lost the Spanish title to Valencia and they also failed to even make the semi-finals of the Champions League. In short, maybe you can't buy a title.
I'm angry with the Los Angeles Lakers today, and you should be, too, for withholding their excellence until the eighth game of the NBA playoffs. How dare they finally come to play three games into the second round? I'd forgotten they could play with such passion and purpose because they've done it so infrequently the last month, if they've done it at all. Through their victorious five-game series against the Houston Rockets and two unimpressive efforts in San Antonio, the Lakers looked like a good playoff team but certainly nothing special. There was nothing in the way they went about their business that suggested they have a roster stocked with four likely Hall of Fame players.
Blah blah blah.
The problem is with the chattering classes who went apopletic as the Lakers lost two games on the road. Look, teams are supposed to lose on the road, so it's not a dire situation until you start losing at home. If the Lakers (and the Nets) hold serve at home, the supposedly over and done with series are tied at two.
Sheesh, neither team is in real trouble until they lose at home. Until then, the series is going according to form. Now, if the T-Wolves had lost two home games to the Kings, now that would have been very bad. The mantra is WIN YOUR HOME GAMES. The Lakers just need to steal one in San Antonio, no small feat, and they can win the series. So chill out everybody.
The only reason Wilbon's upset is because he's realized he's completely overreacted to the first two games.
