Basketball Fundamentals Matter

On Saturday, I took my annual trip to Royal Brougham Pavilion to watch Western Washington University take on Seattle Pacific University in men's basketball. As such, here is my near annual NCAA Division Two Men's Basketball blog post. The WWU-SPU game was a hard fought one, that came down to the wire, with SPU beating my WWU Vikings 91-88. Both teams showed strengths. One, a clear weakness.

SPU's David Downs was dominate. He scored 36 points on what felt like 90% shooting from the field (it was actually 52.6%). He was a three point machine. When Western players stepped up to guard him he just dribbled right past for an easy layup. When they sagged to stop the drive he drained the three. He was clearly the Falcon's best player.

Even with Downs' amazing performance, Western stayed in the game, mostly from  stellar performances from seniors Austin Bragg and Richard Woodworth. Freshman Jeffrey Parker also caught my eye, as he scored 14 points in 24 min and looked good doing it. The frosh is clearly a baller and will hopefully continue to improve and help the Vikings stay a GNAC power. Unfortunately these good performance's from the Western players were all for naught, as none of them could hit a free throw.

Super Bowl Champion Factoids

The Super Bowl has been over for a week now and I am still relishing what was the best professional sports victory in the history of Seattle. The good feelings hopefully wont leave for a really long time. To help you all keep the awesomeness flowing, I compiled a list of interesting Super Bowl XLVIII factoids.

• Russell Wilson is only the second black quarterback to ever win the Super Bowl. The first was Doug Williams.
• Pete Carroll is only the third football coach to ever win an NCAA national championship and an NFL championship.
• There has only been one repeat independent 12th man flag raiser in Seahawks history, team owner, Paul Allen (technically Warren Moon has done it twice, but he was part of a duo the first time). Both times Allen raised it the Seahawks won the NFC championship game and went to the Super Bowl.
• Approximately 700,000 fans showed up for the Seattle victory parade. Seattle has a population of 608,000.
• The Seahawks scored 36 unanswered points to start Super Bowl XLVIII, the most in Super Bowl history.
• The 43 points that the Seahawks scored in the Super Bowl was the second highest total of the season. The only time they scored more was against the Jaguars, when they scored 45.
• The 35 point part differential in the Super Bowl was the biggest blow out of the season for the Seahawks.
• The Super Bowl was the first time all season that the Broncos scored in the single digits.
• This season, at MetLife Stadium, in New Jersey the Seahawks were 2-0. They outscored their opponents 66-8.

Sources: Yahoo Sports, Wolfram Alpha, The Seattle Times, Seahawks.com

The Number 12

I am not a very superstitious person. I dont really believe in good luck charms or bad luck charms. My mind works very analytically. It is probably why I studied engineering in college. So, I am not your usual candidate for numerology. However, my favorite football team just won the Super Bowl and is now the NFL Champions. THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS ARE THE NFL CHAMPIONS! So, I decided to have a little fun with numbers.

The number 12 is especially important to Seahawks fans as it represents us as a group. The Seahawks even retired the number in 1984 to honor the best fans in the NFL. So, here is a list of all the places 12 shows up related to the epic Super Bowl win. If you think of others leave a comment.

• The sum of the two digits in the Super Bowl number gives you 4+8=12
• The safety happened 12 sec after the opening kickoff.
• Marshawn Lynch's TD was in the 12th minute of the 2nd quarter.
• The Percy Harvin kickoff return TD happened 12 sec after the second half kickoff.
• Percy Harvin's kick return TD was originally credited as 88 yards, which means it started from the 12 yard line (it was later changed to 87 yards).
• Multiplying the two digits in the Seahawks final score gives you 4x3=12.
• The Super Bowl victory was the 12th playoff win in Seahawks team history.
• The Super Bowl loss was Peyton Manning's 12th career playoff loss.