In case you were out demanding that Red Lobster serve you a never-ending pasta bowl, here’s what you missed in sports on Monday:
- In a thrilling conclusion to the NCAA tournament, the Louisville Cardinals beat the Michigan Wolverines, 82-76, to win their first NCAA title in 27 years. Reserve forward Luke Hancock was named the Final Four’s MOP after his 22-point performance in the title game. When asked if he saw his performance coming, Hancock responded, “I mean, how can you see a thing like this coming?” before Michigan’s Trey Burke came up from behind to congratulate him on the win. Unfortunately, Burke’s intentions were misinterpreted by a security guard, who immediately removed Burke from the stadium.
- Louisville head coach Rick Pitino’s good fortunes continued as he was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2013. Pitino, who’ll be inducted alongside Gary Payton, Bernard King, and Jerry Tarkanian, among others, also saw his horse Goldencents win the Santa Anita Derby over the weekend. Pitino’s great week didn’t end there, as he was invited to two separate parties at the Louisville Discovery Zone this coming weekend, both of which are rumored to be supplied with both Pizza Factory pizza and Carvel ice-cream cake.
- Justin Upton continued his torrid start, and Paul Maholm threw seven scoreless innings as the Atlanta Braves took out the Miami Marlins, 2-0. “Some days you got it,” Maholm said after the game, “and this was not one of those days. I just — I’m stunned by that team. I threw some of those underhand. I busted out a knuckler. I was gonna throw one righty just to see what it was like, but Skip took me out before I had the chance.”
- Roy Halladay had another rough outing as the New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2. The game was the third consecutive non-sellout at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, something Phillies superfan Gene Fallows attributed to “my sister being all like, ‘Get a job, Gene,’ and I’m all like, ‘The job market is garbage, and you know that, sis,’ and then she’s like, ‘You can’t stay on my couch anymore.’ So I go off, tell her that’s a load, and that Ma would never do something like that to me. And she’s like, ‘Well ma’s in a home, and you ain’t never slid out my cootch,’ which is a fair point, so I leave, and I go to watch the game at a bar with my guys Ricky and Gooter and Diesel. So, yeah, none of us made it down to the game. But Halladay blew chunks anyway, so who cares?”
- The Cincinnati Reds broke a close divisional game wide open with a nine-run ninth inning, beating the St. Louis Cardinals, 13-4. “Never should’ve come to that,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said after the game. “If you’re gonna score as many runs as the inning you’re in, why wait till the ninth? We should’ve had 36 runs already.”
- Manchester City got a late goal from Sergio Aguero to take down league-leading Manchester United, 2-1, at Old Trafford. Aguero’s goal was a stunner, as he dragged multiple United defenders along the path of his run, dummied three times, before getting the ball on his favored right foot and sending it into the roof of the net over the outstretched arms of David de Gea. Or as his former father-in-law Diego Maradona would call it, “a decent strike, you no good son of a bitch.”
- Phil Kessel had two goals as the host Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Rangers, 4-3. While Kessel’s performance was excellent, it would be inaccurate to say that Kessel made his run in fewer than 11 parsecs if you mean to refer to how much time elapsed between Kessel’s goals, as parsecs are a measure of distance and not time. That said, parsecs refer to a distance of over 19 trillion miles. So it actually would be accurate to say that Kessel made his run in fewer than 11 parsecs, as he covered far less distance than that on the ice. Finally, it would be accurate to say that Kessel shot first and second, making Kessel both hero and villain in this scenario.
- The IOC is assessing the expansion of existing events for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, including the addition of a three-on-three basketball tournament. The response to the potential of this tournament was overwhelmingly positive, which means that it will never happen, and all of your fantasizing about a three-on-three team of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and you representing America against Soviet Russia with everything on the line is for naught.
- Kevin Kolb said at his introductory press conference with the Buffalo Bills, “I’m here to win the Super Bowl. Period.” Kolb went on to say, “I know that such a task is highly unlikely. Period. But, comma, if I put my mind to a thing, I’m likely to accomplish it, semicolon. There have been so many times I have overcome the odds, comma, why would this not be one of them? Question mark. Think of it, colon, a Super Bowl in Buffalo. Period. Oh, dash, to be the man who brings it here, exclamation point. What a triumph that would be, ellipsis, but, no, comma, so much hard work first. Period.”