In case you were busy making a fool of yourself mixing up the accomplishments of Franklin Pierce and James K. Polk, here’s what you missed in sports last weekend.

• The NBA All-Star Game pitted the best players in the game against each other in Houston this weekend, with the West coming out on top, 143-138. L.A. Clippers guard Chris Paul, who was named the game’s MVP after getting 20 points and 15 assists, said, “I’m just so excited to help secure home court in the Finals for the West, because this time it counts!” When told that the game in no way counted, Paul went on to say, “Really? Is that why no one else was passing or playing defense until the end? Damn, I could have scored so many more points if I had known that.”
• Toronto Raptors rookie Terrence Ross won this year’s NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest with his throwback tribute to former Raptor Vince Carter. First, he amazed the crowd with a display of world-class dunks. Then he limped off the court, petulantly burning bridges with his teammates and the people of Toronto. He plans on returning to next year’s competition to complete his performance by not competing at all. “I can’t believe it,” said runner-up Jeremy Evans, who dunked over a painting of himself dunking over a painting of himself. “How the hell did I got out-meta-ed?”
• Maryland put together a throwback performance of its own this weekend, as the Terps upset the Duke Blue Devils, 83-81, in College Park. Maryland center Alex Len led his team with 19 points while holding Duke center Mason Plumlee to just four points and three rebounds. “Well, we can go back to calling our pledges ‘Plumblebums,'” announced Duke junior Chester Blumenfield III to his fraternity brother Clayton Brentford VI upon reading the box score. Brentford was left with the awkward task of informing Blumenfield that the name that they had been calling pledges during Mason Plumlee’s period of success meant they had no active pledges remaining, and they would have to start recruiting pledges again from scratch.
• The Kansas Jayhawks topped the Texas Longhorns, 73-47, in a game notable only for the ease with which Kansas was able to suffocate Texas’ offense. The Longhorns shot 21.8 percent from the field, and no player had more than three field goals in the game. This may seem like an offensive aberration to those unfamiliar with Rick Barnes’s work, which is why it’s time for another installment of everyone’s second favorite About Last Night feature, in which we remind America that Rick Barnes did not make the Sweet 16 when he had Kevin Durant on his team, “America, Rick Barnes Did Not Make the Sweet 16 With Kevin Durant on His Team.” America, Rick Barnes did not make the Sweet 16 with Kevin Durant on his team. This mercifully concludes another installment of “America, Rick Barnes Did Not Make the Sweet 16 With Kevin Durant on His Team.”
• The Pittsburgh Penguins squandered a 2-0 lead before getting a late winner at Buffalo to top the Sabres, 4-3. Sidney Crosby, who provided the game-winning assist after mishandling the puck, explained after the game, “That was no accident. It’s like there was some sort of spirit guiding my stick. It’s like their own stadium wanted them to lose. If it were up to me — and I know it’s not, but if it were — I’d burn the whole arena to the ground. Maybe the football stadium, too. Get a clean start.” Crosby then shivered all the way to his core, before quickly dressing and hurrying the rest of his team to the bus.
• Arsenal is again facing the threat of a season without a trophy as they were bounced from the FA Cup by Championship side Blackburn Rovers, 1-0, at Emirates Stadium. Arsenal manager, Frenchman Arsene Wenger, pulled out a pack of Gauloises after the match and explained, “Our supporters wish for trophies like the infantile island dwellers they are. Do they not understand that the absence of a goal, the absence of a victory, the absence of a trophy provides the rawness to carry on in the face of the godless maw that is reality? A shiny bauble will only distract from their pitiful march toward death, much as a cat is distracted from her prey by a bowl of milk left out by a devil dressed in the false wings of a dove.” Wenger then left London with a naive young woman named Claudettine, wise only in the ways of youth, driving her in his Peugeot toward a beach house he rented for the weekend, so that the two of them might learn together the true meaning of regret.
• John Merrick topped Charlie Beljan in a playoff to win the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club. Merrick, a Southern California native who attended college at nearby UCLA, chalked up his win to a strong hometown advantage as he knew not to take the 405 to Sunset to get to the course, instead taking Sepulveda, jogging over on Wilshire, then taking the back way up San Vicente through Brentwood, so as to avoid the 405 altogether.
• Danica Patrick became the first woman to secure pole position in a NASCAR Sprint Cup race, recording the fastest lap at Daytona 500 qualifying Sunday. “I’m just excited to get one step closer to earning my freedom from making those GoDaddy.com commercials,” Patrick said after the race. When asked to comment, the redheaded GoDaddy logo laughed maniacally and said, “Freedom? Danica longs for freedom, does she? Has she forgotten the agreement we made? She wished to be the fastest woman ever, and I promised her all that and more, so long as she helped me provide people with freedom from low, low domain-name registration prices forever! Ha ha ha! There shall be no freedom! There shall only be left turns and one-stop shopping for all of your Web-hosting needs until time itself has ended!”
• Future Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion Charles Woodson was released by the Green Bay Packers on Friday, as the team frees up cap space to sign some of its younger stars to long-term contracts. Woodson announced that he’d go out like a true Packers legend and play one more season before retiring. Then he plans to unretire, play another season, retire again, unretire, play another season, this time with a direct rival of the Packers, get caught up in a tawdry scandal, retire, threaten to unretire, not unretire, threaten to unretire, not unretire, then spend the rest of his life subtly maligning the efforts of the players who came after him while looking really good in a pair of relaxed-fit jeans.