Category: Sports

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Sports

Go Big Or Go Home

Villanova men's basketball program lifts the NCAA trophy after winning the national championship in 2018
Infographic on March Madness cool facts and statistics.

March Madness is one of the biggest sporting events in America year after year. With the 63 games played in 3 weeks, the buzzer-beaters, the upsets that bust people’s bracket, the Cinderella run that we all fall in love with, the one shining moment montage at the end of every tournament, and last and definitely not least, the amount of money made in betting. In 2018 the Supreme Court legalized sports betting. Since then over 27 states have legalized sports gambling as of April 2021. Since 2018 over $49 trillion has been waged on across the nation according to Legal Sports Report with Nevada and New Jersey as the top two states with each having almost $14 trillion waged on since 2018. With almost every state either having sports gambling legalized or have a bill being voted on to pass it. Sports gambling is the future and Joe Buck in an interview with Pardon My Take said it best with sports gambling, “I don’t even think the surface is being scratched.” Sports gambling has been on the rise since 2018, but it will only keep getting bigger especially with March Madness with the amount of money that could be made.

Sports Bettors watching sports games in a casino in Nevada in 2017.
UVA Wins 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship

In 2021 March Madness returned for the first time in 710 days since we last saw Virginia hoist the trophy when they beat Texas Tech in the National Championship. In that 2019 tournament over $8.5 billion was wagered on according to American Gaming Association (AGA). The AGA also found that the $8.5 billion waged on that led to over 47 million Americans to be betting on the 2019 tournament. I would expect these numbers to just keep getting bigger and bigger just simply due to more states being in the process of legalizing sports betting.

When the 2021 March Madness was just around the corner for the first time in almost two years some bettors were very excited to bet on what some call their favorite day in sports every year. According to David Purdum with ESPN in Las Vegas bettors were lined up at 6:30 a.m. to start placing their bets. All of these bettors just wanted to get back to what they know best and get away from work for the weekend. It was also found from TheBestSchools that during March Madness over $1.9 billion is estimated to be lost from companies with their worker’s productivity being down due to March Madness being on. So if it’s waiting for the casino doors to open just like the morning of Black Friday or calling in sick, to work so you can watch March Madness, people were very excited for March Madness to be back and also to be betting on the games.

Bettors watching their bets on the wide screen in a casino.

When It comes to betting some bettors take it a lot more seriously than others. In this year’s tournament, a man named “Mattress Mack” who is a 70-year-old businessman and gambling expert or addict depending on who you ask decided to place a $1 million bet on the 2 seeded Houston Cougars to win this years tournament at +900 odds. If the Cougars won Mattress Mack Would have won $9 million. The Houston Cougars lost in the Final Four to eventually championships Baylor Bears. Mattress Mack is just one example of the amount of money that is put into this tournament every single year.

Mattress Mack holding up his phone after placing the $1 million bet on the Houston Cougars to win the 2021 NCAA men's basketball tournament.

With bettors having March Madness back for the first time in almost two years we can expect numbers to reach over $10 billion compared to the $8.5 billion that was reached in the 2019 tournament. Sports betting will continue to get bigger and so will the attraction to March Madness with sports betting. So it raises the question: Go big or go home?

Sources:

https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sports-betting/revenue/

2019 March Madness Betting Estimates

https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/31116078/notable-bets-sportsbooks-win-big-fans-action-return-march-madness

https://thebestschools.org/magazine/25-fun-facts-about-march-madness/

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Rankings Sports

PGA Tour Top 5 and their Masters Performance

Golf is a game where everyone can play, but it is hard to be good at

These are some the games best golfers we have seen in a long time. In this group of guys someone has the longest drive distance average, to somebody that just has everything it takes to win a masters. These are the games greatest golfers today.

Dustin Johnson: 11.067 avg points

While expected to perform really well in the masters this weekend as the former winner, he couldn’t even make the cut as he got cut and couldn’t even make it in the top 50 and finished with a score of five over for the weekend.

Justin Thomas : 9.310 avg points

The second-best player in all of the PGA fell short this weekend in the Masters tournament and finished tied for 21st.

John Rham: 8.528 avg points

John Rham had a rough start to the masters but when he was in the 4th and final round of the masters. Before he started the day, he was even overall and then came back to finish six-under for the day and finish in 5th place which is a good finish after a rocky start.

Collin Morikawa: 7.380 avg points

As the fourth-best golfer in the world, Collin was projected to have a great tournament in the masters, as he didn’t play absolute terrible and finished tied for 18th he came away with a great decent payout and finished two-under for the tournament.

Bryson DeChambeau : 7.305 avg points

DeChambeau was predicted to at least have a top 10 finish in the tournament. As the play went on, he kind of fell off. He was sitting in the top 15 and on days 3 and 4 his score plummeted as he finished tied for 46th on the tournament. He will not be playing in the next tournament and hopefully will be finding a way to prove his game in the irons. A well-respected golfer with demolishing drives. He will be back soon.

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Sports

Top 5 NBA players of All-Time

This was a very difficult list to come up with considering all of the legends who’ve stepped onto the hardwood since basketball was a sport. But with the help of ESPN Top 10, I was able to narrow the list down to just 5 players. no disrespect to those who just missed out on the top 5. This list crowns the top 5 exceptional performers who have their own cases to be the greatest ever.

  1. Michael Jordan
The greatest player of all time. Jordan led the Bulls to six NBA championships, winning six Finals MVP awards and five regular-season MVP honors while becoming a global icon on and off the floor. Jordan’s brilliance on both ends of the court defined a generation of basketball and set a new standard for players following in his footsteps. His game transcended the sport.
— Friedell

2. LeBron James

Standing 6-9 and weighing north of 250 pounds with a 40-inch vertical, James’ game is built on power, but his passing ability might be his strongest skill. The four-time MVP and three-time champion has reinvented how an athlete’s prime should be viewed; he had the Lakers in the thick of a title hunt as a 35-year-old playing in his 17th season. His chase-down block in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals to help complete a 3-1 comeback against a Warriors team that won 73 games will forever encapsulate his will to win.
— McMenamin

3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

No one in NBA history can match Abdul-Jabbar’s lengthy list of achievements. He won a record six MVP awards and was a 19-time All-Star. He won six championships — with the first and last coming 17 years apart — and was named to 15 All-NBA teams, with 10 first-team selections. His unstoppable skyhook allowed him to score more points than anyone in league history, and while he wasn’t flashy, there has arguably never been anyone better.
— Bontemps

4. Bill Russell

The greatest winner in basketball history, Russell claimed 11 titles in 13 years by turning the Celtics into a defensive juggernaut. Russell’s defensive acumen and determination made him the perfect foil for Wilt Chamberlain, as well as one of the players from his era who wouldn’t have looked out of place in later generations. Those qualities also helped him earn five MVP awards and 11 All-NBA selections.
— Bontemps

5. Magic Johnson

Johnson revolutionized the game, entering the league as the tallest point guard in league history at 6-foot-9. He was a legendary winner, a transcendent passer, an instant highlight and a triple-double waiting to happen. Without Johnson and his rivalry for the ages with Bird and the Celtics, the NBA may not be where it is today. The charismatic Johnson took the “Showtime” Lakers to nine NBA Finals, and they won five titles. His fast breaks and no-look passes catapulted the NBA from an era when Finals games weren’t televised live to the global game it is today.
— Ohm Youngmisuk
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Sports

Top 10 March Madness Upset

With March Madness just ending this week we saw a lot of upsets happen which we didn’t see last year due to COVID-19. With the tournament being done now it’s a good time to look back on some of the biggest upsets in March Madness History.

10. Georgia State (14) vs. Baylor (3) (2015

This game is going to be remembered for a long time with R.J. Hunter’s three to win the game. When he hit the three we all remember watching his dad who was the head coach falling off his stool.

9. Wisconsin (1) vs. Kentucky (1) (2015)

This game doesn’t seem like an upset, but with the team Kentucky had to be undefeated going into the Final Four being talked about as one of the best college basketball teams ever. This Kentucky team had Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns just to name a couple of players off their team. So for Wisconsin to upset them and end their perfect season was a big shock.

8. VCU (11) vs. Kansas (1) (2011)

With this being the first year of the new format of the first four no one knew what was going to happen with VCU as they entered the tournament having to beat USC. VCU managed to upset the one-seeded Jayhawks and become the first-ever first four-team to Final Four until UCLA did it this year in 2021.

7. Mercer (14) vs. Duke (3) (2014

Plain and simple Mercer was the better team this day and wanted to win as Duke on the other hand didn’t want to win. This definitely was an upset no one saw coming to say the least.

6. Middle Tennessee State (15) vs. Michigan St. (4) (2016)

Now onto the good upsets. This Michigan St. team was picked to go the Final Four by a lot of people that year and for them to lose by 9 to a 15 seed was an upset and shocked a lot of people, to say the least.

5. Oral Roberts (15) vs Ohio State (2) (2021)

Ohio St. was coming into the tournament with a conference tournament championship lost to Illinois after beating 4th ranked Michigan in the semifinals. Everyone knew this Oral Roberts team could shoot the 3 really well but no one expected them to beat Ohio St.

4. Lehigh (15) vs. Duke (2) (2012)

If you are a Duke fan reading this I’m sorry. This was an upset that no one saw coming as all of these all but for a Blueblood like Duke to lose in the first round as a 2 seed was something never heard of before. Lehigh just played this game very well and was the better team that day.

3. Norfolk St. (15) vs. Missouri (2) (2012)

Writing this as a Missouri fan still hurts me to this day. Even President Obama had Missouri in his Final Four so I don’t think I need to go into depth about this one.

2. Florida Gulf Coast (15) vs. Georgetown (2) (2013)

While this Georgetown team wasn’t the best 2 seed of all time it is still incredible for this FGCU team to upset a 2 seed and then go all the way to a sweet 16 appearance. We will never forget Dunk City.

1. UMBC (16) vs. Virginia (1) (2018)

This was the first time we have ever seen a 16 seed upset a 1 seed in March Madness history. Virginia was picked as one of the favorites in this tournament and to lose in the first round had America shocked for 2 days. This will be one of the if not the greatest upset in March Madness history.

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Sports

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo mid game while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks

Standing at 6’ 11” and weighting in at 242, Giannis Antetokounmpo is known well in the sports world as the Greek Freak. With his freakish build and exceptional talents, he has risen to be one of the biggest stars in the National Basketball Association, the NBA. Although Antetokounmpo’s life has become a great luxury, his childhood and path to the NBA was more of a feat than his freakish build and dominance in the NBA. Being born in Athens, Greece, Giannis lived with his four brothers and Mother in a country that did not want him. Struggling with poverty, Giannis would spend his time selling CD’s and Sunglasses in the streets, with the single pair of shoes shared between him and his brothers, trying to make enough money for him and his family to eat and survive. At the age of 13, Giannis was given a chance by a basketball coach by the name of Spiros Velliniatis who had played basketball in Florida as a foreign exchange student. Although Giannis had never touched a basketball in his life, Velliniatis still had hope that he would become a great player. Given this chance, Giannis did not waste it. Spending most nights in the gym, Giannis would stay until midnight practicing his craft as by the time he turned 16 he would become one of the top basketball players in Greece. Three years later in the 2013 NBA draft, a 19-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo would get the chance of a lifetime by being selected number 15 by the Milwaukee Bucks. Giannis’s path to the NBA is an inspiring story that shows the triumph of racism, poverty and inexperience.

Struggles With Racism

Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo playing for Greece’s national basketball team

Although Giannis’s birth country is Greece, he faced a lot of racism for being the son of Nigerian immigrants. Throughout all of the racism and struggles of a homeland that did not even except him, Giannis never gave up.

From the moment he was born, Giannis and his family face racism and struggles on a daily basis. From the threat of deposition to Nigeria to random acts of racist violence, Giannis endured it all. Even when he joined his first basketball team at the age of 13, many of Giannis’s teammates degraded him and made fun of him for being different and not skilled at basketball. Giannis and his family were even denied citizenship all until he turned 19 and was preparing to go to New York for the 2013 NBA Draft.

Giannis’s Career

Before draft night, Giannis was compared to NBA athlete Nicholas Batum. Only standing at 6′ 9″ and weighting 196 lbs, many scouts knew Giannis had an all around solid game but were concerned with the level of competition he faced. No one knew he would turn into the Athlete he is today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r4boRy8Vkk
Clip of the 2013 NBA Draft when Giannis Antetokounmpo was drafted by Milwaukee Bucks.

Over Giannis’s career he grew to 6′ 11″ and weighted in at 242 lbs. Since his rookie year, Giannis’s stats have increased very year. His points per game, assist per game and rebounds per game have all gone up since his rookie year. Giannis has also impacted the team as the Bucks wins have steadily gone up since he was drafted.

More About Giannis

This video is a more in-depth dive into the inspiring story of how Giannis Antetokounmpo went from barely having somewhere to sleep to becoming an NBA superstar.
This is a video of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s highlights from the 2019-20 NBA season. This shows the type of player he has grown into from before he was drafted.

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Sports

Top 5 Disc Golf Players in 2021

Disc golf has exploded since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S. A lot of people have developed Disc Golf as a hobby so let’s take a look at the best players in the world

At #1 is Paul McBeth. He is a 5x World Champion and holds the record for the highest rating in disc golf history at 1057. His game is nothing fancy but can be labeled as “smooth as butter” as he always takes the right shots and throws a perfect line almost every time. He is also known for his putting game as he consistently hits 30+ feet puts to the point where it is expected for him to make it. “McBeast” also has the best round ever played shooting 18 down in 2018 at the Great Lakes Open on Toboggan.

At #2 is Ricky Wysocki. Wysocki won the PDGA Rookie of the Year Award in 2011 and the Male Player of the Year Award in 2012, the only male player to win the two back-to-back. Wysocki won the PDGA-World Championship two times (2016-2017), defeating 5x World Champ Paul McBeth both times. He is an electric player on any disc golf course and once he catches fire, watch out.

At #3 is Calvin Heimburg. He had a breakout year in 2020 which set him up for a huge appearance in the 2021 season fighting for every tournament placement on tour this year. From 2018 Breakout Player of the Year to 2019 NT champ to 2020 POTY, Heimburg continues his ascent in the sport. Now it’s time to win a big one.

At #4 is Eagle McMahon. Eagle started racking up his wins after 2014. He won seven events during the 2015 season. During this period McMahon was starting to build up his name, and by winning his first national tour in 2018, he no longer could only be seen as a young prodigy, but rather a force to be reckoned with among the top elite. This win in the Las Vegas Challenge showcased his huge talents in both driving and putting in the Las Vegas wind gusts. Eagle is a fun player to watch especially when he pulled out his infamous Upside down Tilt throw in the 2021 Las Vegas Challenge to win it all.

Rounding out the top 5 is Chris Dickerson. With his 2020 triumph at the United States Disc Golf Championship, a career tournament win rate over 50%, he has quickly risen to the top echelon of the sport. Whenever Dickerson makes it onto filmed tournament footage, it’s almost certain that a commentator will call him “Robot Chicken” at some point. He got that nickname from Big Jeremy Koling. He called him that on Jomez and it just stuck. It comes from him saying he’s very robotic in his routine – that it always looks the same.

An honorable mention for the Women’s division is Paige Pierce. From Plano, Texas, she is the number one ranked and rated female professional disc golfer in the world. She is a five-time World Champion, and has been consistently ranked in the top four professional women between 2011 and 2019. In addition to Pierce’s five World Championships, she also holds two Mixed Doubles World Championships, both with Jeremy Koling.

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Northwest Missouri State Sports

Bearcat Basketball 2020-2021! Get Ready!

You ever just hear a satisfying pair of words that when said together just roll off the tongue so well no matter who says them?

Well, that is exactly the case for Bearcat Basketball! Bearcat Basketball is the name of the organization that is our college basketball team here at Northwest Missouri State University. Our team is Arguably one of the best division 2 basketball teams in the country and has placed in many MIAA, and have had 3 consecutive NCAA appearances as of recently!

We would have had more appearances but due to Covid, the NCAA got canceled last season, however many good things were happening for Northwest that would prove they would’ve won the next title.

Northwest was ranked the number 1 seed in the NCAA for the 4th year straight. They were 31-1 in the 2019-2020 regular season with their only loss being to the University of Central Missouri. This team wasn’t even in the NCAA bracket for that season! Making our chances of winning that much higher!

Not to mention that we had two top op 25 watch list for the 2020 Bevo Francis Award.

This list consists of some of the top players from NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, NAIA Division I, NAIA Division II, USCAA, and NCCAA. Both Trevor Hudgins and Ryan Hawkins were apart of this list and right next to each other.

Both of these players are exciting to watch, with last season they were both averaging almost 20 points per game!

To give you a better understanding of the team, you should know that they are not just known for their offensive game. Coach Ben McCollum has been known for preaching about how defense wins championships and has emphasized good team and individual defense. These players know how to defend and score including Ryan Hawkins who not only is a great scorer but also a great individual defender making him one of the best 2-way players in the conference. Trevor has all the talent to be a great defender as well with his quick speed and hands he can make other teams point guards troubled with his abilities.

This next season is bound to be something spectacular with both of our star players entering their primes along with an uprising Diego, new teammates, new plays, and the same amazing Bearcat plays this 2020-2021 Season!

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Northwest Missouri State Sports

Northwest Bearcat Baseball 2021

The Northwest baseball teams looks to repeat its efforts from the 2018 where they finished atop of their conference.

-Tanner Smith

The Bearcats hope to have a season in 2021 despite being in a global pandemic where conferences around the country have already started to cancel their spring sports. The 2020 season was canceled for before it was even half way through for the Bearcats and they did not get to show how strong they were of a team in conference. The Bearcats look to repeat the efforts made by the team of 2018 where they were able to win conference for the first time in 35 years and bring a strong culture back to the program. The team has a few guys from that 2018 roster returning this season and a Graduate Assistant who was the top player on the 2018 team Hudson Bilodeau. Also returning as Head Skipper will be Darin Loe, with his Assistant Coach Mike Creason. The Bearcats feel this team can do bigger things than the 2018 team because of the team chemistry and family atmosphere they have on and off of the field. Also, they brought in a few transfers that will help this team to stand out around the country. As of now the Cats’ are scheduled to start their seas on in late February, but with a Global Pandemic still lingering, all will be known in due time if they play. This is important for the team to be able to play this year because this is what they came to college to do and it is being taken away from them. I think they will end up playing this upcoming season, but it will be different because of what is going on right now. Hopefully the Bearcats will be able to start this season.

Infographic about Bearcat Baseball in 2018

https://bearcatsports.com/news/2020/10/19/baseball-bilodeaus-squad-earns-home-field-for-fall-ball-world-series.aspx

https://bearcatsports.com/news/2020/6/18/bearcat-baseball-locks-in-2021-spring-slate.aspx?path=baseball

A bearcat tradition to listen to this song on the way to games.