If I were in charge of high school sports in Nevada, I would ...
• Make football one league. I would move Hug down to Division 1A or 3A as it will be known as next fall. The top six would make the playoffs, and the top two finishers would get first-round byes.
• Abolish Saturday games in baseball and softball. In baseball, I would play Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Saturday would be a make-up day. Also, once the time changes, there’s no reason why you can’t play a softball double-header starting at 3 p.m. If people are against that, play the same days as the boys. Doubleheader make for long days, even in softball.
• I would allow teams, if they have lights, to schedule home baseball games at whatever time they want. Carson shouldn’t have to ask other schools permission to do this. Coaches, when asked, always say the lights give Carson an unfair advantage. Poppycock. If kids play summer baseball, they have played under the lights at Carson.
I know for a fact baseball coach Bryan Manoukian would let opposing teams practice at night on Ron McNutt Field if they wanted. I also know Carson never practices under the lights on their own field. Besides schools should be in favor of later start times because kids would be in school for a full day. Schools, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t complain about letting kids out of class early for games when there’s an alternative.
• I would start the basketball season after the Christmas break, and if that meant playing a couple of Saturdays, so be it. Administrators don’t want to work on Saturdays. That’s what it comes down to. Heck if you played Fridays and Saturdays kids would miss just one class a week. That’s too obvious of a solution because we all know Nevada is one of the most backward thinking states when it comes to athletics. School districts tend to do the easiest thing and not the best thing.
• I would start a state wrestling tournament that includes all divisions. Wrestlers would go from their regional meets to state. I would have a 16-person bracket with the top six from Division I and Division 1A and the top four from Divisions 3-4. Again, it’s a simple solution. I would also go to four-way meets during the season and go to one wrestling league.
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March Madness really gets going in the next week, and for the first time I can remember, there’s no clear-cut favorite to win the championship.
Parity is the best word to describe college basketball this season. Several teams have been at the top of the Top 25 weekly poll, and this year more than any other, the tournament hinges on who gets the best match-ups. There’s no power team like the 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats this season, and I think you are going to see more upsets this year than ever before. It will be interesting to see who the selection committee picks as the four No. 1 seeds.
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I laughed when I heard Mark Cuban wanted to see the 3-point line moved back. There was also talk about making the court wider.
Why change? The NBA game is fine the way it is. I’m not a big NBA fan, but growing up in the Bay Area I’m an avid Warriors fan. Is Cuban proposing this because of Steph Curry? The 3-point field goal brings excitement to the game, It makes any lead unsafe, and that’s a good thing.
Heck, maybe the NBA should have a 4-point line at 35-feet away. Curry would be good for a couple of those type of shots every game. Curry is the best thing to happen to the NBA ... ever. He’s the best pure shooter I’ve seen since the legendary Jerry West of the Lakers. There doesn’t seem to be a way of containing him for an entire game. If he’s having an off night from the outside, he still finds ways to hurt you by driving to the basket as he did against the Thunder.
The way the Warriors play the game is refreshing. It’s an extremely unselfish group, and I hope management can keep this group together for many years to come.
