January/February Game of The Month

   January and February are being combined into this one post. I became complacent over the past month and did not blog at all. Those actively checking back to see if I had posted a new post, I thank you. This month of March will be filled with over ten posts. The two main topics of this month will be Major League Baseball team and division previews along with covering the madness of March and the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
January
   January's game of the month is fairly easy in my estimation. The game has to be the Seattle Seahawks-New Orleans Saints Wild Card playoff game. The reason why it is the G.O.M. is because nobody expected the Seahawks to do absolutely jack squat in the game.  However, New Orleans was also trying to break a streak of Super Bowl Champions to win a playoff games.  New Orleans was trying to become the first team in five years to win a playoff game after winning the Super Bowl.  Seattle came into the game having to win its last game to even get into the playoffs. Then, they came in with a losing record, 7-9 to be exact and won the pathetic NFC West with it. Everyone and their mother expected New Orleans to win, as they were the defending Super Bowl Champions, and with the amount of talent they had over Seattle.  Two early Seahawks mistakes were turning the game into one that everyone expected and New Orleans came out to an early 10-0 lead.  But, after the early 10-0 lead, Seattle quickly came back into the game with a touchdown to cut the lead down to three.  After that, the teams went back and forth until the half with the score Seattle 24-20.  Seattle then quickly went and scored 10 unanswered points in the second half.  New Orleans managed to come back and come close at 34-30 in the fourth quarter.  Finally, the indelible play in the game occurs, with Marshawn Lynch barreling over seemingly ever Saints defender on his way to put the game away and give Seattle the lead of 41-30 with less than four minutes to go.
   There were other candidates for the January game of the month including the following NFL playoff games: New York Jets-Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay-Philadelphia, New York Jets-New England, Pittsburgh-Baltimore, New York Jets-Pittsburgh.  Then, there were also several bowl games to choose from, including: Wisconsin-TCU, Ohio State-Arkansas, and the BCS National Title game, Oregon-Auburn. If you disagree, please let me know on here in the comments or via facebook.
February 
   Arizona-Cal in triple overtime.  Normally I wouldn't care for a basketball game. I wouldn't even care for a regular season hockey game, but when a game goes into triple overtime, it begs for your attention.  Cal is a very mediocre team in the Pac-10 conference.  Arizona was on a tear coming into this game.  But, when a team is ranked, you always want to beat that team, especially when it's on your own home floor.  Cal definitely rose up to play this game, but ultimately lost in triple overtime, 107-105.
Another basketball related thing is happening here in this column. That would be the NBA Slam Dunk contest. Granted this is not a game, or a race, or what have you, but this dunk contest was very nice, as it featured the most exciting player in the NBA today, Blake Griffin. Plus, it featured some other good dunkers with Demar Derozan, Javale McGee, and Serge Ibaka.
   Everyone pulled out a pretty nice dunk. Griffin won the contest by jumping over the hood of a car. That is very impressive, no matter how you slice it. Derozan did a dunk he called "East Bay Dunk Remix".  Essentially, he had a teammate bounce the ball off the support of the backboard, then Derozan went underneath the backboard put the ball through his legs and then dunked it.  McGee I thought had the most impressive dunk of the night by dunking two balls into two separate hoops. He did it by throwing a ball off the backboard and used his momentum to dunk the two balls. Finally, Ibaka brought a kid out and put a doll on a pole then grabbed the doll with his mouth while dunking the ball. Ibaka's dunk is kind of disgusting, yet also pretty cool when you think about the amount of height needed to grab the doll with his mouth.
   However, my game of the month is actually a race, that would be the 53rd Daytona 500. The "Great American Race" was a historic race as it crowned the youngest champion in its history. Trevor Bayne won the race at the ripe old age of 20 years, one day old. Bayne not only beat the previous record, he shattered it, as he was more than five years younger than the previous record holder, Jeff Gordon.  Bayne also won the biggest race in NASCAR in only his second ever Sprint Cup start, which is pretty remarkable, to control the nerves racing in that race.  This running of the Daytona 500 was historic in a few other areas as well.  The race had 74 lead changes among 22 drivers, and it had 16 cautions. This race was a lot more exciting than the 2010 version which was filled and marred with delays due to potholes. The 2011 version was also nice in the fact that the track received a repaving for the first time in a long time.
Again, if you disagree with my picks, please let me know via facebook or in the comments section.  Or, if you'd like, you can lavish praise upon my picks. Either way, I would love to hear from you, the most important people of this column.
Stay tuned for more blogs coming up!