They had a big win in New England on Sunday night, but the 49ers can’t step off the gas in Seattle this week.
Such is life in the NFL, where every game counts. The same can’t be said about the NBA, where a team like the Los Angeles Lakers can waffle through the first three months of the season and then turn it on for a title run in the spring. It’s even less true in the NHL (during the years it actually plays), where a team like the Los Angeles Kings can squeak into the playoffs as an eighth seed and then hoist the Stanley Cup two months later.
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Jorge Villagran is used to the sight of teal jerseys spilling out of his restaurant on December nights. Zapata’s is usually brimming with patrons who throw down beefy burritos, slam back frosty beverages and rock out to live music before heading across the street to HP Pavilion to watch their beloved Sharks.
But on a recent Saturday night, the place was nearly empty.
“It’s really depressing,” Villagran said. “You really think that something like this is never going to happen. You feel secure at this location, like there’s always going to be hockey.”
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Hockey finally returned to the Shark Tank this week, but the San Francisco Bulls couldn’t pull out a win for the home crowd.
The Stockton Thunder defeated the Bulls 6-4 in front of 12,881 hockey-starved fans in the first ECHL game played at HP Pavilion. The Bulls are currently holding sixth place in the Western Conference standings.
Despite the loss, coach Pat Curcio said the game provided an incredible experience for his team.
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If you like offensive football, you’re probably in Colin Kaepernick’s corner. Prefer to play it safe? Alex Smith is your man.
The 49ers’ 41-34 win over the New England Patriots on Sunday is an ink blot test for the Kaepernick-Smith quarterback controversy: you’re going to see what you want to see. While the win reaffirmed the 49ers’ status as a Super Bowl front-runner, this debate won’t be completely resolved until the ball is snapped in January.
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Andrew Crescenzi scored the game-tying goal with less than three minutes to play and Peter Sivak shelved the winner in overtime as the San Francisco Bulls knocked off the Stockton Thunder 4-3 at the Cow Palace on Thursday.
The win snapped a two game losing streak and moved the Bulls (10-14-1-2) into sixth place in the ECHL’s Western Conference.
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Jim Harbaugh picked up the “genius” tag faster than most geniuses, including “The Genius” himself.
Bill Walsh wasn’t considered a genius when the 49ers struggled through a 2-14 season in 1979. No one called Bill Parcells a genius after he benched Phil Simms for Scott Brunner during his first year at the helm in New York, a 3-12-1 campaign in 1983. And it’s easy to forget that New England Patriots boss Bill Belichick was canned from his first coaching gig in Cleveland 16 years ago.
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Cal men’s basketball fans will get a chance to watch two of the nation’s most prolific scorers go head-to-head when No. 16 Creighton (9-1) rolls into Haas Pavilion on Saturday.
Creighton’s Doug McDermott is the NCAA’s fifth-leading scorer, averaging 22.7 points per game and Cal’s Allen Crabbe is sixth, dropping 21.9 points per outing.
“You always want to play the best, you just want to beat the best,” Crabbe said.
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Does Colin Kaepernick still have the hot hand? Lukewarm might be a more accurate description.
Kaepernick put together another decent performance in the 49ers’ 27-13 win against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. But he didn’t have the type of game that makes you jump out of your seat and scream, “Yes! This guy is taking us to the Super Bowl.”
Unfortunately, that’s where the bar was set for him when he supplanted Alex Smith as the team’s starting quarterback three weeks ago.
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Before I sat down to watch the 49ers-Rams game on Sunday, I scrolled down to the Pac-12 Network to record the Cal-Duke women’s basketball game. The network prides itself on covering everything from soccer, to volleyball, to wrestling; surely they’d televise this compelling matchup between two Top 10 teams.
No luck.
This was particularly frustrating because it was the second time in less than three weeks that I’ve gone out of my way to watch college women’s basketball and I was stood up both times.
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Stanford’s Brittany Howard battled freshman anxiety as she stepped onto the court for her first college volleyball game in August. Sure enough, the first serve came her way and she steered it off to setter Karissa Cook with senior poise.
“I was really, really nervous, but somehow I managed to make it through the game,” Howard said.
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A special night for St. John’s coach Steve Lavin ended on a bitter note as the USF men’s basketball team knocked off the Red Storm 81-65 on the Hilltop on Tuesday night.
Lavin’s father, Cap Lavin, was honored at halftime as a member of USF’s 1949 NIT championship squad. But the Dons sprinkled rain — and 3-pointers — on Lavin’s parade by defeating his squad in his first game on the sideline at his father’s alma mater.
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Coach Pat Curcio plans to tweak his lines for this week’s homestand to get the San Francisco Bulls back on the winning track after an 0-2-1 road trip to Las Vegas and Utah last weekend.
The Bulls’ next two opponents, the Bakersfield Condors (tonight) and the Colorado Eagles (Friday and Saturday), are deep at forward and Curcio said he needs a true checking line to slow them down.
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Steve Lavin had every reason to pull for USF as a Marin County teenager in the 1970s. The Dons men’s basketball team played on national TV, made the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1977 and the gym was usually packed to capacity. He idolized Bill Cartwright, Chubby Cox and Winford Boynes, but he wasn’t around to watch the Don who’s left the biggest imprint on his life.
“No one can appreciate the history and tradition of USF basketball more than someone who’s the son of a Hall of Famer,” Lavin said.
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As much entertainment as the 49ers’ second overtime game with the St. Louis Rams provided Sunday, the real fun starts this afternoon when coach Jim Harbaugh faces the media at his weekly press conference.
In recent weeks, Harbaugh’s pressers have produced more gems than a Bill Clinton deposition. How much yarn will he spin this week to defend Colin Kaepernick’s management of a game that Alex Smith would have clearly won?
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As the City College of San Francisco men’s soccer team labored up and down the hill between the school’s gym and library on a soggy winter day in February, coach Adam Lucarelli reminded his players about why they conditioned themselves so hard.
“I said, ‘Guys, we’re not doing this for now, we’re doing this for the playoffs six months from now,’” Lucarelli said. After the Rams qualified for their second straight CCCAA Final Four last week, the team’s top goal scorer, Arnulfo Garcia, recalled those grueling runs.
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