SU is back from a very fun weekend with long-time subscriber, B. Levine, up at Mohegan Sun to check out the Michigan hoops team for an early season tournament. I am telling you college sports is the best. Not only were we 3rd row mid-court for the championship game but the Michigan players were staying next door to our room in the hotel. Recommendation from SU: college basketball gives you the chance to really see things up close and personal – almost like high school. You can hear the coaches yell, players talk on defense and the effort is there on every possession.
John Beilein is such a great ambassador for Michigan and goes about his business without the fanfare of Tom Izzo (the troll) and the “one and dones” at Duke and Kentucky. His teams play the right way. SU is all in on college hoops this year.
SU is also looking ahead to the Michigan- Ohio State game this weekend where the Wolverines are actually favored in Columbus. They are the better team but Ohio State has under-performed all year despite having a superior roster of players. You wonder if they have not played their best game as of yet. SU actually believes that if Ohio State ran the table and won the Big Ten Championship game, they would not get into the final 4 BCS championship with the bad loss to Purdue and the embarrassing performance vs. Maryland this weekend.
Brian Cashman is putting out all kinds of misdirection with the free agents. SU is getting more nervous that they may actually sign either Machado or Harper thereby clogging up the roster with over-priced hitters for the next 10 years and allowing guys like Sanchez and Didi to walk. Surely cooler heads will prevail and they will focus on pitching through the trade market but just not sure. I think if they re-sign Hicks, then no Harper but if they let Hicks go, then they will be all in on signing Harper. Rumors also have the Mets in the market for Machado which is interesting. As always, baseball has the best off-season assuming the owners are looking to spend.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I was always a bigger college fan in basketball than what the NBA entertains us with. Watching the Celtic-Toronto game down the stretch and in OT each team’s superstars held the ball 90% of the time. The only difference which lead to a Celtic victory is that Kyrie Irving actually passed the ball a couple to times to a wide open teammate. If Michigan loses and Alabama takes care of Georgia then Oklahoma probably gets in. Too bad the undefeated team from Florida who hasn’t lost a game since 2016 doesn’t get a chance. It would have been fun if the playoffs included 8 teams. It would be interesting if Michigan had to play Northwestern again for the Big Ten Championship.
With Didi out for half the season and who knows if he will be the same player… as well as how long it might take him to get his timing back I have no problem going after Machado. We could use some late 70’s controversy here. I would hope the team could influence Machado enough where he has a better attitude…. or structure a contract where the yanks could get out if he becomes a real distraction… probably an unrealistic wish. He is a damn good hitter and hits for average too. If Sanchez can bounce back and have a 250 batting average that will be a big time help in obtaining more consistency. I wonder what the record is in total team strikeouts. I’m guessing we had the most strikeouts for a team who had won 100 games.