The Evolution of the Three-Point line

Hello everyone and welcome to the last edition of My Take. Yes, this will be my last take for this year. Over these few months I have given my opinions on many subjects in the world of sports. From covering my journey of my first Michigan football game, to NBA regular season predictions, to my NFL recaps of the games over the weekend. I have enjoyed it all. Now on to this week’s topic.

Since the beginning of the NBA season, everyone has been talking about the Golden State Warriors’ winning streak. Steph Curry and Draymond Green led the Warriors to a 24-game winning streak to start the regular season. They suffered their first loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night. But people are still talking about how they won so many games with 3-point shooting. The Warriors are the best team in the NBA in 3-point efficiency, making 42.5% of their 3-point shots. This has sparked a debate between the older more conservative basketball coaches who say defense first, physicality second, offense third – and the young hot shot coaches who want every shot taken outside the arc. I will do my best to give some insight to this basketball debate.

The other day, I was at my local community center working out, running on a treadmill. At the same time, I got a great view of a pick-up game going on at the basketball court. I watched these guys who were anywhere from 20 to 60 years old – all shooting 3s, multiple times during a short game. Even on my way out, I saw kids playing on the other court shooting 3s too, even though they mostly missed because they are still too small. It’s almost an epidemic, and this is only the beginning of more 3-point shooting at all levels of the game.

I understand why more people are shooting 3s in games, because that was who I was as a player too in high school. During my senior year, I concentrated on shooting only 3s because of my lack of speed to drive and score. If you practice shooting 3s long enough, you can be a threat and a major weapon in a game. My take on 3-point shooting is that in 10 years, every NBA team will have a Steph Curry type player on their team. There are millions of Steph Curry fans in the world right now, and maybe 20 or 30 of them will have a similar style to him. But I also think that every team will have a physical player as well. Because teams won’t be able to rely on just 3s for every score, NBA teams will always need a guy to do the dirty work of getting shots in the paint. So there is a place for both styles of the game in basketball, but 3-point specialists will not be as special any more. Nevertheless, it will always be interesting and fun to watch.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of My Take. Good bye!

College Playoff Predictions

Hello everyone and welcome back to My Take. This week I will be giving My Take on the College Football Playoff, giving my best prediction on who will win the title this year. First however, I want to take a look back at my predictions for the conference championship games. Looking back at last week’s picks, my SEC Championship Game was not too far off. I predicted Alabama to win 27 to 17 and they pulled out the victory with a 29 to 15 score. My second pick was right as well, with Michigan State winning the Big Ten. Now on to the playoff – the semi-final games and then the championship game.

Clemson vs. Oklahoma

Clemson is the number 1 team in the country going into this game with Oklahoma at number 4. Both of these teams have a Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback – Clemson with Deshaun Watson, and Oklahoma with Baker Mayfield. Who will win the Heisman? That’s for another blog post. Oklahoma has relied on Baker Mayfield and his ability to make plays happen to win games. It is scary how close his play is to Johnny Manziel when he was in college. On the other side, Clemson has a great offense with Deshaun Watson, but they are winning with great play from their defense as well. With all of this in mind, I don’t think Oklahoma’s flashy play alone can win. So I will go with Clemson to win that matchup.

Michigan State vs. Alabama

Alabama and Michigan State both won their conferences this past Saturday and will square off for the right to move on and play Clemson or Oklahoma for the championship. Michigan State has had a great year with the only exception being a last-minute close loss on the road to Nebraska. Yet Alabama didn’t have a perfect season either, losing to Ole Miss at home. I will pick Alabama to win this matchup because even though Michigan State has been winning all of their games, it hasn’t been by a wide margin. Most of their wins have been close. Also watching the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday, it was obvious that their quarterback Connor Cook has not fully recovered from his shoulder injury yet. So I will pick Alabama to win.

So I have Alabama and Clemson in the National Title game. I will have to go with Alabama, because they have a coach that has been in championship games before. And, they have a great defense to slow down Deshaun Watson. Thanks everyone for reading this week’s edition of My Take. I will have more to cover in the world of sports next week.

My Predictions for College Championships

Hello everyone, and welcome back to My Take. This week I will give my predictions on the two most important conference championship games that will determine College Football Playoff bids – the SEC championship game and the Big Ten championship game.

Alabama vs. Florida

Coming into this week’s championship game in the SEC are the Alabama Crimson Tide and The Florida Gators. Both teams had different paths of getting to this game, so I will dive in and give you a summary of both their seasons so far. Alabama has had almost a perfect year on paper, expect for losing to Ole Miss at home during week 3. Since that game, head coach Nick Saban has the team playing together to win all of their remaining season games with a strong defense, a great run game led by star running back Derrick Henry, and improved game management with quarterback Jake Coker. On the flip side, Florida has had a great first year with new coach Jim McElwain. Their only SEC loss is to LSU, which is why they won the SEC East. They also lost to rival Florida State on Saturday. This team is also known for their strong defense, but that is about their only strength. With all this in mind, here is my prediction. I believe Florida will start out strong in the first half, but by the second half Alabama’s offense lead by Derrick Henry will win over. I predict the final score will be Alabama 27 and Florida 17.

Michigan State vs. Iowa

In this particular game, there is a debate that one of these teams shouldn’t even be there. Michigan State definitely earned their way to the championship with the fantastic play of Connor Cook and the tremendous play of their defense. They have signature wins over Oregon, Michigan, and most recently Ohio State. On the other hand, the Iowa Hawkeyes haven’t had any signature wins over any Top Ten opponent this year. And, the way their schedule worked out this year, they didn’t have to play Michigan, Michigan State or Ohio State. This allowed Iowa to walk into the championship game. If Michigan, Michigan State or Ohio State were in that division of the conference, this would have evened out the competition between the divisions. My Take on this is that one of the Michigan teams or Ohio State should be moved into the West division because of the lack of competition there, and this championship game will expose that. I’m predicting Michigan State to win 51 to 20. Hopefully this will encourage the Big Ten to make some changes to the divisions in the near future.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of My Take. I will have more to cover in the world of sports next week.