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02/18/2007 - Las Vegas, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Boston's Gerald Green soared over last year's slam dunk champion and then a table to win the 2007 slam dunk title as part of All-Star Saturday night.
Green received a perfect 50 score from a distinguished panel of judges for his final dunk to beat New York's Nate Robinson, the 2006 winner, on a night with interesting twists.
A pair of Miami Heat players were winners Saturday. Jason Kapono outlasted Washington's Gilbert Arenas to win the three-point shootout, while Dwyane Wade repeated as the Skills Challenge title victor.
Also, Detroit won the Shooting Stars challenge by default when the Chicago team took its shots out of turn in the final round.
However, the night belonged to Green, who compiled 91 points on a pair of dunks in the final round to beat Robinson.
Chicago's Tyrus Thomas and Orlando's Dwight Howard were eliminated before the finals, during the early rounds. However, Howard wooed the crowd by placing a sticker of himself on the backboard with his left hand while dunking with his right for his final dunk in the opening round. However, the dunk only added up to 42 points after the scores were posted by Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins.
During the dunk competition, Green changed his uniform and then his sneakers before walking away with the title. First, he put on the jersey No. 7 of former Boston dunk champion Dee Brown in 1991 for his final dunk of the opening round and leaped over a still Robinson for a jam, drawing a score of 47 to advance to the finals.
Robinson had trouble with both of his dunks in the final round, scoring a 39 on his first attempt and a 41 on the 10th attempt of his second dunk. Green netted a 41 on his first try and then came up with a perfect score by soaring over a table put in the lane, bringing the ball to his knees while in the air before hammering it through the basket.
Kapono tied Mark Price's final-round record with 24 points to win the three- point shootout. Arenas scored 17 in the final round, while Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki, last year's champion, had nine.
Memphis' Mike Miller, Cleveland's Damon Jones and Dallas' Jason Terry were eliminated in the opening round.
Wade posted a final-round time of 26.4 seconds to beat Bryant to win the skills event. Wade's first-round time of 31.3 seconds was second only to Bryant (29.8) and eliminated Cleveland's LeBron James (35.4) and New Orleans/Oklahoma City's Chris Paul (39.6).
Detroit's team of Chauncey Billups, Swin Cash and Bill Laimbeer won the shooting stars portion, made up of NBA, WNBA and former NBA stars. Scottie Pippen thought he led Chicago to a victory after hitting a half-court shot, but Ben Gordon and Candice Dupree didn't shoot in turn.
In the lightest moment Saturday night, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley backpedaled down the stretch to beat 67-year-old NBA referee Dick Bavetta in a relay race. Bavetta dove to the finish line, while Barkley jogged backward before falling to the floor in an event for charity.
The festivities were a prelude to the NBA All-Star game, scheduled to take place Sunday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
<< Repeat road: Murray ousts Roddick again
San Jose, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In a repeat-type performance, Andy Murray beat
American Andy Roddick for a second consecutive time in the semifinals at the
SAP Open.
The third-seeded Murray surpassed the top-seeded Roddick, 7-6 (10-8), 6
<< Smith's three-pointer lifts Louisville over Marquette
Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It was a happy homecoming for Jerry Smith,
as the freshman guard nailed the winning three-pointer at the buzzer,
lifting Louisville to a 61-59 win over No. 12 Marquette.
Dominic James hit a free
<< 19th-ranked Cornhuskers fall to Missouri
Lincoln, NE (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlynn Savant scored 17 points and pulled
down 13 rebounds, leading Missouri over 19th-ranked Nebraska, 65-53, at the
Bob Devaney Sports Center.
Eetisha Riddle chipped in with 16 points for the Tiger
<< Stanford routs No. 15 Oregon
Stanford, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brook Lopez scored a career-high 26 points and
pulled down nine rebounds, leading Stanford over 15th-ranked Oregon, 88-69, at
Maples Pavilion.
Lawrence Hill added 15 points and four blocks shots for the Car
Flames burn Avalanche >>
Calgary, AB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kristian Huselius had a pair of goals and added
an assist to lead the Calgary Flames to a 5-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche
in the second of three meetings between the teams in a six-day span.
Jarome Iginla
Perry scores in shootout to lift Ducks over Kings >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Corey Perry scored in the fifth-round of
the shootout to lift Anaheim past Los Angeles, 3-2, in the opener of a home-
and-home set at the Staples Center.
Teemu Selanne had a goal and an assist while
Sterling wins Jacob's Creek Open >>
Lockleys, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Unheralded American Scott Sterling only
managed a one-under 71 on Sunday, but it was enough to collect his first
Nationwide Tour victory at the Jacob's Creek Open Championship.
Sterling got to t
Ilonen takes the title in Indonesia >>
Jakarta, Indonesia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Despite a bogey on the final hole,
Finland's Mikko Ilonen shot a one-under 70 on Sunday to earn his first
European Tour victory at the Indonesia Open. He finished at nine-under-par 275
and won by a single s
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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