My prediction from last week came to be for the Philadelphia 76ers, and they looked great, beating the Washington Wizards in five games. Now it's on to play the Atlanta Hawks in the second round of the NBA playoffs. This will be a much more difficult task because of the very disappointing injury to Joel Embiid. In Game 4, he suffered a meniscus tear to one of his knees. He is supposed to be able to play, but I think that's a big risk to take and hope he doesn't do more damage and end up being out for the rest of the season. This means that the team has to depend on Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris to play great to keep the team going further into the playoffs.
In college basketball, Coach K (who will turn 75 next year) announced that this will be his last year coaching at Duke University. He has the most men’s Division I college basketball victories at the crazy number of 1,170! He's been coaching for over 40 years for Duke, so I guess you could say this isn't that surprising, but it is one hell of an accomplishment!
When I started watching college basketball in the late ’90s, Duke was already one of the best programs and just continued to get better and better. This team is much like the New York Yankees of college basketball. Coach K also has Olympic Gold medals to add to his victory count. Pretty impressive! I truly hope that he gets to enjoy his retirement and maybe write a book. I know I would read it for sure.
The Philadelphia Phillies have been a huge disappointment until this week. I can finally report the first shed of good light on them with their performance against the Cincinnati Reds in their final game of that series. Surprisingly, they scored 17 runs and seven home runs. Let’s hope that this new streak continues or they will be hopelessly out of the playoff race.
I hope everyone has a good weekend.
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A 2002 Cape grad and 2007 UD grad, Lewes resident Sumner Spence is one of the Cape area's biggest sports fans. Although he’s used a wheelchair his entire life, he has lived vicariously through his sports-playing father, brother, and friends, who gave him his love of sports. He hopes to provide new and interesting perspectives on the sports stories and issues of the day. Email Sumner at sumspence@gmail.com.
