PSU

Penn State University is pretty well known in the NCAA for its football program but in the past few years they have been getting better and better on the basketball court.  This year has been one of the best for the Nittany Lions mens basketball squad.  They completed a few decently big upsets during the regular season and are now making a run in the Big Ten Championship Tournament.  In the past few days PSU has beaten conference opponents Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan State. Tomorrow the team is in the championship game of the tournament against top ranked Ohio State.  It is certainly a big task but I am hoping that Penn State can feed off the momentum from this tournament run and earn the Big Ten Championship and a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Miami Heat

After all the big trades made in Miami this NBA offseason everyone was expecting them to come out and dominate. Unfortunately for the big three that is not what has happened. The Heat have come out strong and they have a great record so far but if you look at it closely they haven't consistently beaten any teams with a record above .500.  Just this week the Heat took a few close losses in big time games against the Knicks and Magic. With so many good players on their side it doesn't seem like they know which one to choose to take that final buzzer beater to win the game. They have tried multiple different options but have not had good luck. I personally hope the Heat can figure this problem out and make a big playoff run because they are easily among the most entertaining teams to watch in all of sports.

NBA trade deadline

Yesterday was the NBA trade deadline and it was an exciting one. A lot of big name players were traded by teams that are contenders for this year's championship. The most surprising to me was the trade between the Celtics and the Thunder that sent Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City. Certainly the biggest, most talked about trade was the trade of Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks. Everyone knows that the Knicks are trying to compete with the big 3 in Miami, but this team that New York put together is not nearly as good.

NBA All-Star Weekend

The 2011 NBA All-Star Weekend was held this past weekend in Las Angeles.  It was a pretty exciting and entertaining weekend all around.  James Jones of the Miami Heat won the three point contest over some highly favored shooters like Kevin Durant, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen (who just became the all time leading three point scorer in the NBA).  In the slam dunk competition it was no surprise that Blake Griffin took the gold by jumping over a car, catching a pass thrown through the sunroof from his point guard, Baron Davis, and slamming it through the hoop.
As far as the actual All-Star game, it was a great one.  The West won the high scoring game over the East by a score of 148-143.  That was probably one of the highest scoring All-Star games in history, and certainly the highest scoring game I have seen, outside of videogames.  It was a very competitive game though.  Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were going at each other pretty hard, each trying to show that they are the best player in the league.  Kobe won the battle despite LeBron's impressive triple double (29 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists).  In the end Kobe's team got the win and he was named the game MVP with 37 points and 14 rebounds.

Ray Allen: 3 Point King

In last night's NBA matchup between the Lakers and Celtics, arguably the two most historied franchises in the association, even more history was made.  Ray Allen, the starting shooting guard for the Celtics, sunk his 2,561st three point field goal.  This may seem like a random number but Allen's late first quarter shot was much more than just a shot from behind the arch.  This three pointer made Ray Allen the NBA's all-time leading three point shooter.  He surpassed one of the greats of the game in Reggie Miller for the title, and he did it a lot quicker too. It took Allen three fewer seasons than Miller to hit that many three point field goals.  With the rest of this season left to play, and most likley a few more, you can bet that Ray Allen will keep shooting the three ball and the record will be even tougher to reach for whoever contends it next. Until that day though we can just call Ray Allen the best three point shooter to play the game.

Negotiation Time

The NFL season is finally over and the Green Bay Packers are the champions of Super Bowl XLV.  It was a great end to a great season, and with Aaron Rodgers winning the Super Bowl MVP award it proved that this year truly was the year of the quarterback.  Now that the season is over however, it is time for the NFL to get right to work on the ongoing negotiations with the NFLPA.  The possibility of a year without professional football is a scary thing to think about for a lot of fans, businesses and even cities.  I am pretty confident that a deal will get done and they will be playing next year, but I am sort of nervous about the timing of it all. I think that the longer these negotiations go on the worse it is for next year's season.  I just hope that both sides will realize what is at stake and make some sacrifices to finally get a deal done.  After all, who could possibly benefit from a lockout?  I am sure there will be a lot of coverage in the news this offseason, so I for one will be paying close attention to find out whether the 2011 season will happen or not.

New Technologies

I just read a few internet articles about some new technologies being used in sports.  Some of the things they talked about were really interesting and seem like they could really improve gameplay and the fan experience.  A lot of the articles were about new camera technologies used to deliver the games in HD, 3D, just about and kind of D you can imagine they are trying it.  I think those are all great ideas but there was one article that I found more interesting than any of the others.  It talked about the NFL trying to find a new way of getting all those close calls correct.  They are considering using a chip inside the ball that would be able to give the location of the ball to tell if it had travelled out of bounds, over the goal line for a touchdown, or if the ball really did go through the goal posts or not.  I think that this is a great idea.  If they can do something to make the game more fair and more accurate, I think they should do it as soon as they can.  It would also help to speed the game up by eliminating long, boring reviews when the referee can't quite see what happened because of all the big bodies in the way.  Who knows if the NFL will actually take advantage of this opportunity to improve the sport, but I am certainly hoping it happens next season.