Weekly Replay 04.13

NBA HORSE Challenge – 

No NBA Playoffs, but the NBA is giving us our basketball fix with the NBA HORSE Challenge Presented by State Farm. In this tournament, players have to describe what kind of shot they are going to make (no dunking allowed) and the opposing player has to follow.  If they miss the shot, they get a letter in the word “horse,” starting with the letter H.  The player who gets all of the letters to spell horse is eliminated.

The Challenge tipped off yesterday with four matchups and here are the results:

Opening round results

Chauncey Billups def. Trae Young

Mike Conley def. Tamika Catchings

Zach LaVine def. Paul Pierce

Allie Quigley def. Chris Paul

Watch the semifinals and championship this Thursday.

When: April 16, 9 p.m. ET

TV: ESPN

Live Stream: ESPN app

Semifinal matchups

Chauncey Billups vs. Mike Conley

Zach LaVine vs. Allie Quigley

MLB Division Shuffle –

Major League Baseball is considering rearranging their divisions this year for an abbreviated season.  To reduce travel for teams during the COVID-19 pandemic, they plan would have all 30 teams return to their training sites in Arizona and Florida, train for three weeks and then start the regular season.  Games would only be played in Arizona and Florida.  Here is what the divisions would look like if MLB restructures its divisions.

ARIZONA LEAGUE

• NORTHEAST: Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Oakland Athletics.
• WEST: Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Angels.
• NORTHWEST: Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals.

FLORIDA LEAGUE

• NORTH: New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates.
• SOUTH: Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles.
• EAST: Washington Nationals, Houston Astros, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins.

College Football Season 20  – 

A survey by Stadium showed that almost 20 percent of the athletic directors in the Football Bowl Subdivision believe there is a 50/50 chance that a full college football season will not be played this year.  112 out 130 athletic directors participated in the survey.

Football is the heart of college athletics.  Without the revenue from football programs, many universities will have to downsize and cut its non-revenue generating sports programs.  Stadium reports that one athletic director described the impact as “we will be f*#%ed.”

The college football season is scheduled to kickoff on August 29

Mississippi State Loses Lovett – 

Defensive Tackle Fabien Lovett is transferring from Mississippi State University after the team’s new head coach, Mike Leach, posted a photo featuring a hangman’s noose on Twitter. He responded “wtf” when he saw his now former coach’s tweet.

Lovett’s father, Abdul Lovett, was also upset about the tweet.  He doesn’t think that Leach has the credibility and leadership skills to be head coach telling the Clarion Ledger, “I didn’t feel comfortable with my son being down there with a guy like that from a leadership standpoint — that you can just throw anything out there I feel if he can do it, the kids are going to feel like they can do it.” 

Florida, Florida State, Houston, Oregon, Ole Miss, Michigan and Tennessee are recruiting Lovett.  He will have three years left of eligibility after transferring.

Game On,
Shavannia