Weekend Review

Well, what a wild weekend in the sports land. The conference championship games were entertaining, college basketball had a couple of upsets, the Australian Open was on for you night owls and there was also some good English soccer this weekend for those of you care (so, .001 percent of the American population).

I'll start off with the title games. Did it bother anyone else that the field in Chicago looked like they just held a NASCAR race on it? That aside, the Bears defense really stepped it up. Throw away the minute before halftime and the first five minutes of the second half and that's a shutout. Grossman didn't do anything to ridiculous either. He made just enough good throws and good decisions to keep the ball away from the potent Saints offense (which today wouldn't have been a bad thing today, I guess). One last note, how sick was that Reggie Bush catch and subsequent run? It's gonna be fun to watch this dude play for the next 10 years.

Now to the Super Bowl, er, AFC Championship Game. Let's just say I was thinking it might've been video game time once Manning threw that pick to Asante Samuel to go down 21-3. Judging on past history I thought Belichick and Brady were going to put that baby to rest. Props to Dungy and Manning for making the right halftime adjustments and dropping 32 in the second half for the win. This was definitely a top 5 playoff game in recent memory.

Being as there is now a week off from football (I recommend we put the football hype machine to rest until next week), it's a good time to start getting pumped about college basketball, otherwise known as real basketball. There were some good games this weekend with Texas Tech upsetting #5 Kansas (sorry Fetch) and Marquette won at #6 Pitt, which is not an easy place to play at. Also, the big boys are starting to get into stride. Florida is starting to roll, Carolina is also looking sharp right now and proving why I think they might be the best team in the country. Finally, there are a plethora of surprise teams out there this season, the biggest surprises would have to include Oregon, Butler, Air Force, and Virginia Tech who has won at Duke and beat Carolina at home. All of these teams are in the top 25 and look poised to make a run in March, which truly is the best time of the year

Lastly, the Aussie Open has been capturing my attention this past week. Andy Roddick seems to have gotten it together and is looking sharp and will face surprise quarterfinalist, American Mardy Fish on Monday night/Tuesday morning. That being said Roger Federer is still alive and has to be favored to take the cake. On the women's side it's a lot more wide open. Top seed Maria Sharapova survived a first round scare and has been rolling ever since. If she takes care of business late tonight she will have a very intriguing semifinal match with Martina Hingis or Kim Clijsters. It's also good to see Serena Williams playing well again, she's more talented than anyone in her half of the bracket which gives her a good shot at making the finals. In other international news, it was a big weekend for English soccer as the top four teams all squared off. Second place Chelsea took a tough defeat at Liverpool, 2-0. However, this didn't hurt them as leaders Manchester United snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in a 2-1 defeat at Arsenal. United allowed two goals in the last ten minutes of the games to blow the lead, and the tie. United still holds a 6 point lead over Chelsea and 11 and 12 point leads over Liverpool and Arsenal respectively. Hopefully the upcoming week is full of action, just like this past weekend.