By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
(NCAA)—It’s either the greatest comeback in NCAA men’s basketball championship history or the greatest collapse in the tournament’s history, depending on your perspective.
The Kansas Jayhawks, down by 16 late in the first half and trailing by 15 at halftime went on a 31-10 tear in the first ten minutes of the second half to turn a 40-25 halftime deficit into a 56-50 lead, then fought off repeated North Carolina comebacks to win the fourth national basketball championship in KU history, 72-69. The Jayhawks held North Carolina scoreless for the last 1:41 of the game.
The comeback is the biggest in NCAA title game history. Kentucky rallied from ten points down to beat Utah in 1998.
Kansas finishes the season at 34-6 including a 102-65 win over Missouri in December. North Carolina’s season ends at 29-10.
So ends a season for the young guys. Old Guys are part of the rest of our stories.
(BASEBALL)—The unofficial real end of winter will be Thursday—baseball’s opening day.
The Cardinals open at home against the Pirates. The Royals open at home against the newly-named Cleveland Guardians, a team named for some statues on a city bridge.
’22 will be 22 for Number 5 on Thursday—Albert Pujols’ 22nd straight opening day start. He’ll be the DH. Only Pete Rose had more season opener starts—23. Pujols will join Hank Aaron and Carl Yastrzemski for second-most. Pujols is one of three old guys who might be making their last opening day starts. He’s joined by battery mates Adam Wainwright and Yadier, Molina. Molina has said this is his last year. Wainwright has come back for one more after a 15-win year in 2021.
The Royals old guy is Zack Greinke, who makes his sixth opening day start, fourth most among active pitchers. His last opening day start for the Royals was in 2010. Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner and Justin Verlander are the only pitchers with more. He will start against an old franchise with a new name—the Cleveland Guardians.
(NASCAR)—Richmond was for the old guys of NASCAR. Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick ran down the young guns in the closing laps at the ¾ mile track at Richmond, passed leader William Byron with five laps to go and finished 1-2. A third veteran, Martin Truex Jr., finished fourth. It’s Hamlin’s 47th career victory. Hamlin, who is 41 is the seventh winner in seven Cup races this year, the first older than 30 to pick up a victory.
Kevin Harvick, 46, threatened to end his long winless streak but couldn’t get through lapped traffic at the end of challenge and came up just over a half-second short. But he said the race was the “first clean day” he’s run all year.
Both Hamlin and Harvick used a late-race two pit stop strategy to give them newer tires than Byron had. The strategy enabled Hamlin to come from 14 seconds back with 25 laps left to get past Byron, who admitted after the race that his older tires didn’t have enough traction to hold off Hamlin and Harvick.
Hamlin becomes the seventh different winner in the first seven races of the year. The record for most different winners at the start of a NASCAR season is nine, set in 2003 by Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarrett, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Ricky Craven, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Jeff Gordon. Only Kurt Busch is still racing.
Hamlin’s 47 wins ranks him 17th on the all-time list. Harvick, still looking for his first win since September, 2020, is tenth with 58 checkered flags.
Hamlin is still hoping to win a Cup Championship. Only one other driver with more wins that he has never won a driver’s title—Junior Johnson.
(INDYCAR)—Whether the Indianapolis 500 will see a full field of 33 cars this year remains a big question mark. Only 32 car/driver/financial combinations have come together for the May 29 race. RACER magazine says negotiations are continuing to put together a package that will provide the final entrant. The major teams have indicated their satisfied with their plans.
(FORMULA 1)—Mercedes, winner of eight straight F1 Constructor’s Championships, is still looking for solutions to a handling problem in its cars that has left them uncompetitive with Ferrari and Red Bull teams in the early going.
The problem is called “porpoising” and is the result of Formula 1 allowing curved, not flat, bottom surfaces of the car that allow for once-banned ground effects. The new chassis architecture allows air flow above the car to force it down closer to the track, thus creating greater traction. But when the bottom of the car gets too close to the ground, the underbody no longer funnels the air appropriately, causing the car to rise. The up and down motion is called porpoising.
Mercedes’ first chance to show it has solved the problem comes up next week when the series runs the first Grand Prix of Australia since 2019.
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F1 has announced it will run a street race in Las Vegas in 2023. The race will be held in November, hear the end of the Formula 1 season. The race will be the third Formula 1 race in the United States in 2023.
The new track will be 3.8 miles long with 14 corners and three long straights. The famed Strip will be part of the course.
(Photo credit: Bob Priddy)