Joe’s Notes: A Tom Brady Rumor, the MLB Clock, and Plenty of College Basketball

We’ve received a request to blog about the Packers from someone who knows we’re Packers fans. Unfortunately, we were late to today’s party, but for those wondering, we totally knew Aaron Rodgers wasn’t going to say anything meaningful on the McAfee Show. In other news, we got a hint yesterday that Tom Brady is going to come out of retirement and play for the Dolphins. So if that happens, please credit us.

College Basketball: Last Night

Baylor survived in Stillwater, Indiana missed what would’ve been a huge win in Columbus, TCU kept their bubble chances afloat at home against West Virginia, and…that was pretty much it, right? I guess North Carolina and San Francisco also dodged disaster, with the former making it more uncertain than the latter. No big excitement out of the UCLA-Arizona State rematch. UCLA handled it better this time around, and Johnny Juzang returned for the Bruins, confirming expectations his injury is mostly insignificant.

It’s a sort of lull right now, with few blockbuster games lined up but Selection Sunday still too far out to be honed in fully on the bubble picture. The calm before the storm, I guess.

College Basketball: Tonight

Iowa’s got one of the biggest discrepancies in the country between ability and résumé, largely because they’ve only lost by double digits twice, and one of those was by exactly ten points. They’re a solid team that, before Saturday, was lacking a good win. They got that good win over the Buckeyes on the road, and now they’re looking for an encore, hosting Michigan State at 7:00 PM EST on ESPN. The Hawkeyes aren’t a national contender by any stretch—the thought of what Arizona or Kentucky or Gonzaga would do to the Hawkeye “defense” brings a tear to the eye—but they’re strong enough offensively that they could create some wildly exciting March action, especially in the Big Ten Tournament. Might be a team to get to know.

Also flying under the radar is UConn, not because their résumé is lacking so much as because the Big East is a little boring this year and plays too many games on CBSSN (please, Sling and CBS, work out a deal on this). Were Providence not doing ungodly things to the laws of math and reason, that league would be grading out almost as poorly as the ACC, and the effect of that is that UConn’s most impressive results, to date, are a double-overtime win over Auburn on Thanksgiving Eve I always forget about and the road win at Marquette. Hosting Villanova tonight (8:00 PM EST, FS1), they have a chance to make a statement, while Villanova, for its part, tries to stamp out any embers opposing its Big East crown and make a case for itself as a national factor.

San Diego State and Boise State are, by current estimates, the two best teams in the Mountain West Conference, and if that leads to another 42-37 game tonight, like we saw in their first matchup, so be it. This one’s in Boise. A win by the Aztecs would really rip open the regular season conference title picture. A win by the Broncos wouldn’t put it away, but would keep it a two-horse race (one horse and one rider, rather). 9:00 PM EST. CBSSN.

Florida tries to move back onto the peak of the bubble, or perhaps even the right side, hosting Arkansas at home (7:00 PM EST, ESPN2). Vanderbilt tries to put its umbrella in Alabama’s bike wheels in Nashville (9:00 PM EST, SEC Network). Tennessee and Missouri attempt to pull off the world’s ugliest game of basketball (7:00 PM EST, SEC Network), which is an ambitious undertaking on the same night San Diego State’s going to Boise.

In the world of Contenders and Possibilities, Texas Tech (just kidding, still not a Possibility, but we can’t help ourselves) hosts an increasingly desperate Oklahoma (8:00 PM EST, ESPN+) while Kansas and Kansas State play out the Lawrence edition of this year’s rivalry (9:00 PM EST, ESPN).

Good slate, when you look at it with some patience. Just nothing outright enormous. That’ll come.

MLB Countdown: Six Days Left?

The lockout negotiations are, per Major League Baseball, working on a six-day clock. February 28^th is the day, according to MLB recently. It doesn’t appear to be all that close right now, but we’re far enough away to still hold out a little hope. We’ll see. Regardless, we’re probably looking at something in the realm of a 31-day gap between the lockout ending and Opening Day happening, which is helpful to know. Those 31 days will, as many have pointed out, likely be frantic in the world of free agency, which could actually be pretty fun. The Cubs, you may remember, have plenty of potential roster spots left to fill. At present, though, the risk is that as the deadline approaches, things will blow up. A season delayed by two weeks is much better than a season delayed by a month. This is not a binary situation.

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The best viewing tonight is probably Michigan State/Iowa followed by Boise State/San Diego State, with Villanova/UConn in the middle depending on the closeness of all games involved. Late-night, UNLV does play Nevada on CBSSN, and there’s a faint NIT shot for the non-flagship of those two, so if you’re up and you’re looking for something, there’s your something.

See you tomorrow. Good luck out there. Especially to MLB and MLBPA negotiators.