Things are pretty awesome in North Carolina sports right now: the Panthers are 11-0, the Hornets are in 7th place in the East and sporting a top-10 offense, UNC football is 11-1 and has a matchup with No. 1 Clemson this Saturday in the ACC title game, and UNC hoops is fresh off their win over No. 2 Maryland Tuesday. And the Carolina Hurricanes are…eh, lets just leave that one alone. Here’s out weekly best in North Carolina sportswriting:
First and foremost, a tip of the cap to one of the best sportswriters in North Carolina: Tom Sorenson who, after 35 years with the Charlotte Observer, is retiring. Here’s his column on why he’s finally decided to take a break.
Over at WRALSportsFan — Joe Ovies on ESPN’s inability to retain television subscribers — a major problem for the network, and how that could impact TV money for college athletics (i.e. conference media rights).
On Wednesday night in Charlotte, the Charlotte Hornets honored the franchise’s all-time leading scorer: Dell Curry. However, as Ethan Strauss of ESPN writes, the real fireworks came when Dell’s son, Steph (heard of him?), took to the floor and rained manna from the heavens — 40 points (28 in the3rd quarter) on 14-18 shooting (Stat Boi’s eyes fall out of their respected sockets). He didn’t even play in the damn 4th quarter, and according to Strauss, he scored his last 14 points during the final 1:53 of the 3Q.
(Stat Boi note: You should watch as many Golden State games as possible — they are just immensely entertaining. Also, Charlotte, despite poor shooting, kept this sucker close for nearly 36 minutes…until Curry became engulfed in flames and ran away laughing.)
Scott Hamilton of the Winston-Salem Journal has the rare, yet necessary, #HotPunterTake on Wake Forest’s Alex Kinal not being named first team all-ACC, which, yeah, didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Good stuff in here from Scott.
Pro Football Focus number cruncher Nathan Jahnke has an update on Luke Kuechly’s season: Despite missing essentially 3.5 games, Kuechly is having, by some metrics, the best season for an inside 4-3 linebacker in the last ten years.
It was an uneasy first month of play for Duke’s stud freshman Brandon Ingram, but against Indiana, writes our buddy Stephen Schramm of the Fayetteville Observer, the 6-9 native of Kinston, North Carolina flashed the all-around game that made him one of the most-hyped rookies in college basketball this season. Also, since we’re talking freshman college basketball players, I’m required by law to mention the name Ben Simmons.
