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The battle between red and blue kicked up again at the Palace last Saturday night with East Rutherford men’s basketball team pulling away in the second half to defeat R-S Central, 75-60.
Surprisingly, Shelby fell to a hot shooting Freedom last week and now the Golden Lions and Cavaliers are tied for first in the South Mountain Athletic Conference. East Rutherford is now 13-4, 6-1 overall and host Veritas on Friday.
On the girls side, it took overtime before R-S Central (12-7, 6-1) prevailed. However, East led by 17 until Rachel Camp fouled out and then the Lady Hilltoppers mounted a miraculous fourth quarter comeback. They scored on an inbounds play at the buzzer to send it to overtime and then scored the first eight points in the extra frame to earn the win.
R-S Central holds a key game at home on Friday as Freedom comes to town. Should Central win, the two will be tied at the top of the conference again. East Rutherford and Patton find themselves in a tight fight for third place.
As for the Super Bowl on Sunday, it’s Baltimore versus San Francisco in New Orleans. I feel like there are only five key components to winning.
1) Who’s more physical, 2) who plays better defense, 3) successfully run first oriented, 4) least amount of turnovers, 5) time of possession.
Other than the coaching from John and Jim Harbaugh, these five things have won both teams a ton of games this year. I don’t believe either quarterback will be the shining star. However, if Joe Flacco or Colin Kapernick make the best decisions and backup solid play without costing his team should be the winner. That all correlates in 3,4 and 5 of what I just said.
Unlike most Super Bowls, we are used to high powered offenses. This is one of those games where we could see a lot of scoring, but both defenses have the ability to be stingy.
Baltimore has the experience in Flacco, Ray Lewis, Anquan Boldin, etc. The Ravens also the better field goal kicker, but the 49ers a better punter, just for thought.
San Francisco may have the most complete team and is definitely younger. Frank Gore is probably the better back than Rice and Vernon Davis has to catch passes if the 49ers are going to be successful in the Super Bowl.
So, here is my thinking. San Francisco can handle Baltimore and for the simple fact of youth alone, I want to take the 49ers. However, Baltimore has caught fire this postseason and has been remarkable in the postseason when in comes to turning the ball over. For that alone, I am taking Baltimore 23-20 to win the Super Bowl.
One thought about ACC basketball this season. Three teams standout in my mind, but at times, they all three show vulnerability. Miami, Duke and N.C. State all look like NCAA tourney teams and the rest is very much undetermined in conference play at this point. There is a factor into that and it’s the youth movement. Seven teams in the conference have at least nine or more guys that roster as freshman or sophomores this season.
