Month: March 2016

Aga Leads NCAA Division III in Kills Per Set & Points Per Set

Sebastjano Aga leads the NCAA Division III for men’s volleyball in both kills per set and points per set. Aga has led in kills per set 11 times this season, while he has led in points per set six times.

Aga averages 4.55 kills per set and 5.31 points per set. He has been CUNYAC Rookie of the Week four times and ECAC Rookie of the week three times. He had a career-best 41 kills against Brooklyn College on March 26.

Besides leading the team in kills per set and points per set, Aga is first on the team in kills (373), points (435.5), digs (225), digs per set (2.74), service aces (46), service aces per set (0.56). He is second on the team in total blocks (27) and blocks per set (0.33), while he is third on the team in assists (20) and assists per set (0.24).

Miguel’s Friday Thoughts

Happy Friday Everyone! Welcome to another edition of Miguel’s Friday Thoughts. I’m going to touch on Adam LaRoche’s unexpected retirement and the NCAA tournament.

One of the top stories of this week is Adam LaRoche’s immediate retirement after the Chicago White Sox VP told him that he can no longer allow his son in the clubhouse. LaRoche, 36, could be walking away from a $19 mil contract. Let me say this. I highly appreciate his level of a great father to his son. I admire him taking a stand and coming to his son’s defense. Here is where I disagree about this situation. I disagree that LoRoche went into extreme measure to retire from the game of baseball due to this situation. It is profoundly ridiculous and insanity. Like come on, I have never seen a job that allows you to bring your kid to work every single day.

It just doesn’t make sense. Could LaRoche reconsider and come back from retirement or could he be remembered from retiring from baseball because his son is not welcomed in the clubhouse anymore? He’s getting mixed reactions from everyone from the sports world. You have some players in the MLB that didn’t have a problem for how Adam handle the situation. Regardless, it was a silly decision to make on Adam’s part.

The 2016 NCAA tournament just recently began. We all love when March Madness arrives. It is one of the most exciting times in college basketball. We have seen some impressive starts lately. For example, Yale Bulldogs. They made their first trip to the NCAA tournament with a victory over Columbia Lions for the first time in 54 years. Yesterday, they picked up their win of the tournament by beating Baylor, 79-75.

They will now square off against the Duke Blue Devils. If the Bulldogs somehow pull an upset over Duke, then they will get notoriously amount of attention. Defeating Duke is a very big deal and it’s not easy to pull off, but anything can happen in this NCAA tournament. It’s only one game. It’s not the best of five or the best of seven games. It’s win or go home.

Yale Ends Long NCAA Tournament Drought

Yale finally ended its long NCAA Tournament drought with a 71-55 victory over the Columbia men’s basketball team Saturday night.

Maodo Lo scored 21 points to lead Columbia (21-10, 10-4). The Lions are in the midst of one of the most successful seasons in school history. They already have the most regular season wins in program history since the 1950-51 season when Columbia won 23 games. The Lions were trying to win 11 league games for the first time since 1978.

The Lions are in strong position to qualify for a postseason tournament. More details will follow next weekend.

They honored seniors Lo, Alex Rosenburg, Issac Cohen and Grant Mullins before the game. The quartet is the winningest class for Columbia since 1953.

Makai Mason scored 22 and Brandon Sherrod added 13 to lead Yale to a 71-55 victory over Columbia on Saturday night, clinching the Bulldogs’ first NCAA bid since 1962.

The Bulldogs shared the Ivy championship last year with Harvard, but lost the playoff game with the Crimson.

The Ivy League remains the only conference not to have a postseason tournament so the regular season champion goes to the NCAAs.

The Bulldogs (22-6, 13-1 Ivy) jumped out to a 17-3 lead as Columbia missed nine of its first 10 shots. Consecutive 3-pointers by Anthony Dallier capped the opening run 6:38 into the game.

Yale extended the advantage to 27-10 before Lo scored 10 straight points for the Lions, who used a 15-4 burst to close to within six with 4:31 left in the half. But that’s as close as they’d get. Mason scored seven straight points during a 10-2 spurt to close the half and give the Bulldogs a 41-27 lead at the break.

Columbia rallied within 49-45 with 9:12 left, but consecutive 3-pointers by Mason and Khaliq Ghani restored the double-digit lead with 7:17 left. Columbia could only get within six the rest of the way.

Miguel’s Friday Thoughts

You know what time it is. It’s time for Miguel’s Friday Thoughts. Today, I will talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s big losses in the last week against both times to the Warriors and one to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are one of the best teams in the NBA led by the best duo in the game, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. This team is too talented. Sometimes we just question ourselves if they can compete for a title contender. We also ask ourselves if they can be unselfish as a team and show up night in and out on both ends of the floor. That’s not been the case so far during the second half of the season for the Thunder.

Thunder lost a heartbreaker at home against the defending champions Golden State Warriors last Saturday. Stephen Curry’s 3-pointer from beyond 30 feet with 0.6 seconds left in overtime gave the Warriors a 121-118 win over the Thunder. Oklahoma City led by 12 in the fourth quarter, but the Warriors rallied. Thompson made a 3 from the left corner to cut Oklahoma City’s lead to 100-99. It was the first 3 of the game for any Warriors player other than Curry. The key moment in the fourth quarter came when Kevin Durant fouled Andre Iguodala with 0.7 seconds left. Iguodala made both free throws to tie the score at 103 and force the extra period. Durant fouled out in overtime. This is just the fourth time in 621 career regular-season games that Durant fouls out.

The mess didn’t stop there. It was the same thing but different circumstances against the Clippers. The Thunder squandered a 22-point lead in a 103-98 loss to the Clippers. Los Angeles ended the game with a 26-5 run after trailing by 16 with 7:30 left. Oklahoma City had only one field goal during that stretch, a 17-foot jumper by Kevin Durant.

Thunder had a chance to get revenge against the Warriors last night. They failed to do so. They lost to the Warriors, 121-106. The Thunder have lost 10 games when leading after three quarters, tied with Philadelphia for most in the league. Durant had nine turnovers, his second-most this season.

Closing out games have been a huge problem for the Thunder this season. This team needs to realize that you cannot play selfish and turn the ball over. They need to find a way to get Serge Ibaka more involved. They need to find a way to improve their defense. I just don’t see this Thunder team be able to hang on in a seven game series against the Warriors or even the Spurs. Yes, we know the cliché of regular season and playoffs are totally different. I’m just not seeing this Thunder team capable of making a run to a championship with all of these flaws. I just don’t know if they will be able to fix this down the stretch of the season.

Thunder have lost six of eight since the All-Star break.