GameAbove Sports Bowl: Northwestern 34, Central Michigan 7

Oh, Detroit! Once you were the proud host of the Motor City Bowl (1997-2008) until corporate sponsors acquired the naming rights (Jablonski Auto Body LLC, anyone?) and it became the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl (2009-2013). That, in turn became the Quick Lane Bowl (2014-2023) and since last year, it's been known as the GameAbove Sports Bowl. GameAbove is a shadowy cabal of enterprises that include GameAbove Sports, GameAbove Capital, GameAbove Entertainment, and GameAbove Giving. To me, "game above sports" sounds like a creed for cheating and gamesmanship over sportsmanship, which might very well be appropriate for the current state of collegiate football.

This years game had the Northwestern Wildcats (6-6) of the Big 10 as whopping 11½-point favorites over the Central Michigan Chippewas (7-5) of the MAC. Despite the large number of points, I picked the Big10 team as the favorite because of strength of schedule and it worked - the Wildcats covered the spread and then some. The Chippewas' only TD came late in the fourth when Northwestern was already starting to take it easy down the stretch.

One down, two more games to go today, and the next one's already started. 

    

6-10

Three bowl games today, all named for their corporate sponsors - Game Above, an investment firm, Guaranteed Rate, a mortgage company,  and Servpro, a licensor of fire and water cleanup and restoration franchises. Three games in three cities (Detroit, Phoenix, and Dallas) with three capitalist sponsors and played by six teams, not one of them ranked.

I'm 6-10 on my picks so far this season, and I went with the favorite, both from the Big10, in the first two games today. I didn't pick the favorite in the third game because that team is from Texas, and picking a Texas team is a bridge too far for me.

If I sweep the day with my three picks, I could rise to an almost-respectable 9 and 10 on the season before the whopping eight games tomorrow.  A loss of all three would doom be to 6 and 13.

Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, blessed Rohatsu, or whatever holiday you're celebrating or not celebrating. Saturnalia, Yule, Festivus, whatever - it's up to you and we don't care. 

We here at Sweat Dissolves Water want to take a brief moment to thank all of you for following along with us on these games and other diversions. Thank you to all the Georgia Bulldog fans, the college football fanatics, the followers of Boston sports teams, the BU Terrier hockey supporters, and whatever other weirdos are out there. Thank you to all the athletic supporters! And a shout-out and thank you to all the many Hong Kong and Singapore bots who hit this site up every day, scrapping data or god knows what  and keeping my viewer numbers artificially inflated.

This blog, of course, is an offshoot of the parent blog, Water Dissolves Water, which mainly covers politics, Buddhism, and my own dumb-ass life. There's also a music blog, Music Dissolves Water (although that has been strangely inactive as of late) and there could just as easily be a movie blog, a video-game blog, a book or even comic-book blog. But for some reason, my energy has gone into this sports blog, and it wouldn't have been as rewarding if not for you.  

Thank you, and I love you.

Hawaii Bowl: Hawaii 35, California 31

Dagnabbit, California! Can't you do ANYTHING right?

This year's Hawai'i Bowl featured unranked Hawaii (who else?) of the Mountain West at 8-4 and unranked California of (believe it or not) the Atlantic Coast Conference at 7-5. California, who was among the many teams this season to briefly hold the lineal championship belt and Georgia's 2021 and 2022 national championship rings, was a 2½-point favorite.

California took an early 21-point lead and then blew it like they were the Oklahoma Sooners playing Alabama or something. The Reading Rainbows or whatever they're calling their team tied it up, Cal responded with a field goal, and then Hawaii scored a fourth-quarter TD to take a 28-24 lead. 

Then with 1:52 left in the game, the Golden Beers, or whatever Cal's calling their team, scored a TD, their first since midway through the second quarter, and took a 31-28 lead. All they had to do to win was keep Hawaii from scoring for less that two minutes. But no, they couldn't even do that and they let the Warriors drive 82 yards down the field and score the game-winning TD - WITH THE BACKUP QB! It's almost like the Bears didn't want to win the game or something.

I had Cal as the 2½-point favorite so the final score pretty much ruined my Christmas. Thanks for nothing, California. See if I ever pick you again. Now I'm a Loserville 6-10 on my picks this season.

No games tomorrow, thank heavens, and then three on Friday and a staggering eight on Saturday like it's New Year's Day in the 1980s. Between those eight games, I should be able to pick up at least four wins and return to at least 50-50 mediocrity. 

I suck at this.

Canadiens 6, Bruins 2

 

What if they had a fight and a hockey game breaks out?

These two teams - Boston and Montreal - longtime rivals and NHL OGs - don't like each other. A fistfight broke out right at the opening faceoff between Tanner Jeannot and the Habs' Josh Anderson. Montreal drew first blood in the game but the Bruins were 2-1 by the end of the first. But Montreal's Lane Hutson - former BU Terrier and brother of Quinn Hutson who beat us with a game-winning goal with the Oilers back on December 18 - assisted with three goals, including two of the Habs' four in the third period. 

Montreal went on to win, 6-2. Merry fucking Christmas. We don't like the Montreal Canadiens. 

The Bruins enter the holiday break 20-17-1 with 41 points, and suddenly in sixth place in the NHL's Atlantic Division.   

Ohio 17, UNLV 10

If there was something familiar about this game, if you had a strange sense of deja vu, it's because there was a bowl game played in this very stadium just five nights ago - the Xbox Bowl. Arkansas State won that one over Missouri State, 34-28.

Meanwhile, this game in that same stadium, the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas, pitted the unranked Ohio Bobcats (8-4) of the MAC against the unranked UNLV Rebels (10-3) of the Mountain West. I had the Rebels as 4½-point favorite - they were favored by 6½ points at gametime (pick the favorite early in the week, etc.). I guess I was impressed by UNLV's win-loss record but in any event, I picked all favorites today. 

As it turns out, UNLV had nothing. They didn't score until the third down, and that was just a field goal, and they didn't score their sole TD until the fourth. The Bobcats, who weren't exactly overpowering themselves, won the game by a touchdown, 17-10.

And with that, I fall to 6-9 on my picks. I suck at this. 

Only one game tomorrow and then, mercifully, a day off for the Christmas holiday.  

New Orleans Bowl: Western Kentucky 27, Southern Miss 16

What? Another Sun Belt/CUSA bowl? How many of these teams are there, and is EVERY ONE of them in a bowl? I go a whole year without watching either conference and then in the past week, I've watched like a dozen of these teams. Sheesh.     

This time, we had the unranked Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (8-4) of CUSA against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles (7-5) of the Sun Belt. I usually pick southern teams over Yankees in these bowls, but for some reason I took WKU as four-point favorites (Southern Miss is more "deep south" than Western Kentucky, but it's only down here in Georgia that Bowling Green could be considered "Yankee"). 

In the game, the Hilltoppers did for me much like what Toledo did to me in the previous game. Specifically, they only scored a pair of field goals in the first half and fell behind 13-6 at the half. They finally scored a TD in the third, and then came roaring back (literally) with two more TDs in the fourth, won the game, and beat the spread. 

I won the bet and improve to a modest 6-8 on my picks. 

The third and final bowl of the day had already started - they're keeping these things on schedule - so I'll pick this up later.    

Boca Raton Bowl: Louisville 27, Toledo 22

Three bowl games today, all named after their home cities - Boca Raton, New Orleans, and Frisco (Texas). Three games, six teams, and not one of them ranked. 

In this first bowl, we at least have a team from a major conference - the Louisville Cardinals (8-4) of the ACC. Louisville has the further distinction of holding, at least for a couple weeks this season, the lineal championship belt and Georgia's 2021 and 2022 national championship rings. They won them back on October 17 when they beat Miami, who won them from South Florida, who won them from Florida. They lost the prizes on November 8 when they lost to California, who lost them to Stanford, who lost them to Notre Dame, who didn't get invited to the CFP and decided to sit out the post-season like the spoiled, privileged little bitches they are. 

In Boca, the Cardinals played the Toledo Red Rockets (8-4) of the MAC. I had Louisville as 8½-point favorites, although by game time they were 12½-point favorites (pick the favorites early in the week and the underdogs late in the week).  For the first three quarters of the game, Toledo only scored a single field goal, and Louisville had an 18-point lead after the first play of the fourth quarter, an 11-yard TD run by Isaac Brown. 

But then Toledo woke up and decided to start playing football. They scored two TDs and another FG in the fourth, and although Louisville still had one more TD left in them and won the game, they won by only five points, so underdog Toledo beat the spread and I lost the bet.

I'm now 5-8 on the season, but what, me worry? The next game, the New Orleans Bowl, has already started and I've moved on.     

Celtics 103, Pacers 95

 

The NBA gave a very special Christmas present to the Celtics this year: a December 22 game against the lowly Indiana Pacers (6-21). And what did the C's do with that generous gift? They fell behind in the game by 20 points, 63-43, early in the third quarter.

And then the holiday miracle showed up in the form of one Hugo González. He played for nearly the entire second half and logged over 36 minutes total, more than anyone else on the team. While he didn't score a lot of points (he finished the night with only six), his 11 rebounds and two blocked shots,  his steal and his assist, his presence all over the court, contributed to his +21 in the game and the Celtics' eventual comeback and eight-point win.

Mr. Brown had 31 points and Mr. White 19. Nobody was hot from outside - the Pacers had more threes in the game and also more rebounds. But we had González, and that made all the difference.

The Celtics are 18-11, 2½ back from the Knicks. They're off until the 26th, when the NBA will regift them with another Pacers game, and this time at home.

Potato Bowl: Utah State vs. Washington State

Ugh. that blue field again . . .

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl features the unremarkable matchup of the unranked Utah State Aggies (6-6) against the unranked Washington State Cougars (6-6). I'm going with the Cougars as 3½-point underdogs out of sympathy for what remains of the PAC-12. The Cougars and the Oregon State Beavers are currently the only teams left in the conference, although I do understand that a bunch of Mountain West teams, including the Aggies, will be moving over there in the next season or two. 

Utah State lost this bowl, 45-22, to Georgia State two years ago. That, and my deep-seated mistrust of Mormons, also compels me to pick the Cougars here. 

A tradition in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is to shower the winning coach with a basketful of French fries. That's a missed opportunity. I think the game would be so much more interesting if instead they poured a vat of the hot deep-frying oil used for the fries over the head of the losing coach. Imagine how hard each coach would push their team to avoid that fate, even taking the ball themselves or Woody Hayes-ing opposing players with punches to the neck. That would make the bowl an unmissable, must-see-TV spectacle, but instead we'll get this mediocrity on a blue field.

This is the only game today, but we have three tomorrow.

UPDATE: Washington State won easily, 34-21, and the game was even more lopsided than the final score suggests. Since I had the Cougars as underdogs, I improve to 5-7 on my picks. 

Patriots 26, Ravens 24

 

We're in the playoffs, baby!

Last night, the New England Patriots, one of the worst teams in the NFL last season, finishing 4-13 for the second straight year, came back from a double-digit, fourth quarter deficit to beat the Baltimore Ravens 28-24, improve to 12-3 on the season, and clinched a spot in the NFL playoffs.  

The Ravens scored two unanswered touchdown at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarters to turn a 13-10 New England lead to a 24-13 score favoring Baltimore. It didn't look good for New England. But then Drake Maye drove the Patriots 73 yards down the field to score a TD and the two-point conversion brought New England back to within two points. The D held the Ravens to 13 yards and six plays on their next drive, and then Maye drove the team 89 yards down the field, including a completed fourth-and-two pass to keep the drive alive, and the Pats scored again. On Baltimore's final possession of the game, New England's K'Lavon Chaisson forced the Ravens' Zay Flowers to fumble, Marcus Jones recovered, and New England won the game, 28-24, clinching their first playoff spot since 2021. 

It was a game of contrasting styles - the Ravens rushed for 171 yards to New England's 79, while New England got 374 yards in the air to the Ravens' 159. Drake "MVP" Maye finished the game with 380 passing yards for two TDs, and leads the NFL in percent completions (70.9); Mac Jones is second with 69.6. Maye also leads the league in yards per attempt (8.7 yards). 

The win wasn't without its costs. TreVeyon Henderson sustained a head injury early in the first half when the back of his head hit the turf at the end of a run, and he had to leave the field. The Patriots ruled him out of the game at halftime and a timetable for his return has not yet been announced. In addition to Henderson, wide receivers DeMario Douglas (hamstring) and Kayshon Boutte (head injury) both left the game, defensive tackles Joshua Farmer (hamstring) and Khyiris Tonga (foot injury) both had to leave, and cornerback Charles Woods left with an ankle injury. Offensive tackles Morgan Moses and Thayer Munford Jr. both sustained knee injuries but were able to return to the game.  

Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson left the game early, too. After sliding late in the second quarter with 1:03 remaining in the half, he left the field in obvious pain and was ruled out for the second half. Best wishes to Jackson and hope that he returns soon healed and healthy.

The Pats have two games left - the woeful Jets (3-12) in New York next week, and then the Dolphins (6-9) in Foxborough. Their rivals for the AFC title, the Denver Broncos, have to face the disappointing but vengeful Chiefs (6-9) in Kansas City and the playoff-hopeful Chargers (11-4) back home.    

Exciting times we're living in, kiddo, Exciting times.

I'm 4-7!

 

Yes, yes, yes, I know - I suck at this.

My picks in the college football bowls and the CFP so far have been seven wrong and only four correct. So much for my prognostication. 

I won two in a row last night - Miami over ATM and Ole Miss over Tulane. Easy picks, and I thought I was going to run the table and go three-for-three after Oregon ran up a 35-point, 48-13, lead over James Madison. But nobody told James Madison that they were out of it and they went and scored three more second-half touchdowns to pull within 17 points - still a decisive loss, but they managed to beat the 21½-points spread. I had the Ducks and points and wound up losing the pick even though the Ducks blew the Dukes out of the water.

Damn.

No college games today, thank goodness, but the madness starts again on Monday afternoon with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and Washington State versus Utah State..