It's Your Lucky Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

It's your lucky day as we're going to Rapid Fire through Sports on Sports on Sports. 

We're going to start this beautiful Sunday off with some college basketball conference Mayhem, then we'll go over some NBA scores, look at a great Saturday in the NHL, discuss some quick NFL news, and round out the day with some Sunday golf.

Conference Mayhem

 🏀Wisconsin upset #3 Purdue in the Big 10 semifinals yesterday in an overtime matchup. Zack Edey scored 28 points in the matchup, but Wisconsin got 22 points from Chucky Hepburn and 20 points from AJ Storr.  If I were Purdue, I would rather lose now than in the first round of NCAA's. Final score was 76-75

🏀  #7 Iowa State cruised by #1 Houston in the Big 12 championship. Iowa State won by 28 points. That's right; the final score was 69- 41. (I had to check my math multiple times because this did not seem right) and this is alarming to me. I’m okay with Purdue losing in OT, but is the #1 team in the nation falling this bad in their conference championship? Sound the 🚨 .

 🏀 #2 UConn played #10 Marquette in the Big East final at Madison Square Garden. UConn went into halftime leading by two with the score 26-24. The Huskies came out barking in the second half, outscoring Marquette 47-33 while playing some complete basketball. It was all Donovan Cligann, who had 22 points and 16 rebounds and got some help from Tristan Newton, who had some timely threes. UConn continues to play great team basketball and might be looking the best of any of the top 10 teams heading into the madness.

🏀 NC State bodied North Carolina yesterday as the 10th seed in the ACC beat the first seed in the ACC 84-76 in the nation's capital. NC State connected on 55% of the field goals, while  UNC only hit 37% of their field goals.  It was one of those off nights for North Carolina and an on night for NC State, but it was also a showing where UNC took its own medicine. NC State was running and gunning the entire game and seemingly had North Carolina gassed. This was the only way NC State was getting into the tournament, so the urgency was palpable. Similar to

📺️ We've got the SEC final today, with Florida taking on #12 Auburn at 1 pm on ESPN.

 📺️Wisconsin will face #13 Illinois at 3:30 pm in the Big 10 final on CBS.

 👀We're not too far away from brackets being released. Those will come out after 6 pm tonight, and ESPN will host their bracketology show at 7 pm. 

NBA Stats And Scores

🏀 LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Golden State Warriors last night and fell short even though LeBron had a great performance. James scored 40 points, had eight rebounds, and nine assists. LeBron became the third oldest player to score 40 points since Michael Jordan and Karl Malone had done it before him. The final score was 128 to 121, and Steph Curry finished with 31 points and got some help from Clay Thompson, who finished with 26.

👉️  Jalen Brunson put up 42 points last night for the Knicks in a low-scoring win against the Sacramento Kings, where the final score was 98-91.

🐺  Anthony Edwards had 31 points in a Minnesota Timberwolves 119-100 win over the Utah Jazz.

Saturday On Ice

We had some high scores in the NHL on a Saturday. Let's take a closer look

 🏒The Ottawa Senators be the newer Islanders 4 to 3:00 in overtime. Brady Tkachuk had a hat trick that included the game-winner for Ottawa. 

🏒 The Detroit Red Wings ended a seven-game losing streak as they beat the Buffalo Sabres 4-1.

 🏒 A whopping 11 goals were scored in a rivalry game between the New York Rangers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Artmei Panarin scored two goals and had three assists for the Rangers. Even though he gave up four goals, Jonathan Quick had some epic saves that kept New York in the game the entire night. Pittsburgh is in desperation mode as they fight for one of the last playoff spots with just 15 games left in the season. 

🏒 The Tampa Bay Lightning got a nice Interstate win with a big 5-3 win over the Florida Panthers. Steven Stamkos had two goals and two assists for the Lightning, while Sam Reinhart had two goals for the Panthers. 

🏒 The Boston Bruins battled the Philadelphia Flyers, and after the game was tied 2-2 at the end of the second period, seven goals were scored in the third period. The Bruins scored three goals in the first four minutes of the final period, and Philadelphia tried to come back but ultimately lost by one. 

 🏒The Toronto Maple Leafs seem like one of the best overtime teams in the League this year, but they fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in a shootout yesterday. 

🔗 That's a good summary of a Saturday on the ice. Check out the full scoreboard here

NFL News

Well, there's one thing we can all say about Russell Wilson, and while you may think it is that he makes everybody else uncomfortable, what he actually does is make everybody take action. What type of action? Well, the Steelers quickly traded Kenny Pickett after Wilson signed with the team. In a trade announced Saturday, the Steelers will receive a 2024 third-round pick, two 2025 seventh-round picks for Pickett, and a 2024 fourth-round pick. That ain’t real, right?

The Steelers made this trade, then they turned around and made a trade for Bears quarterback Justin Fields. The plan is to have Fields back up Russell Wilson. Of course, Wilson already reached out to Fields to deliver some cringy message about being great together, but we don't need to get into that.

 So, what did the Bears do after trading Fields? They went out and got Keenan Allen and are continuously adding talent around their first pick of the draft, Caleb Williams. The Bears now have DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and DeAndre Swift as their skill players. If this isn't a great situation for a rookie, I'm not sure what is.

Sundays On Tour

We're back on the PGA tour with a Sunday round in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.  we've got almost 7300 yards to decide the winner of The Players Championship. Who will get their $4.5 million of the $25 million pot?

Xander Schauffele is currently the leader at 17 under and is followed very closely by Wyndham Clark, who is 16 under. The two golfers will tee off together at 1:40 p.m. and will both try to stay ahead of the pack where you have Brian Harman at 15 under, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Maverick McNealy at 13 under, and Scottie Scheffler and Sahith Theegala in the mix at 12 under. It can be anyone’s day at TPC Sawgrass. Don’t miss the action. 

Lot’s Of Action On TV Today (all times EST)

NHL

🏒 NY Islanders @ NY Rangers, 1 pm on TNT

🏒 NJ Devils @ Vegas Golden Knights, 3:30 pm on TNT

NBA

🏀 Phoenix Suns @ Milwaukee Bucks, 1 pm on ABC

🏀 Denver Nuggets @ Dallas Mavericks, 1 pm on ABC

PGA Tour

⛳️ The Players Championship, Round 4, All Day on ESPN+ and 1 pm on NBC

Enjoy your Guinness, and remember, don’t let your Mondays ruin your Sundays!

Sláinte 🍻 

-The Daily Breakroom