NCAA Tournament
Shamsky is still Mets ambassador, 55 years after miracle ’69 season
Eighth-seeded Florida Atlantic has the opportunity to make another postseason splash in this year's NCAA Tournament. The Owls' first shot will be a first-round matchup against No. 9 Northwestern on Friday in Brooklyn.
After playing with house money last March amid low expectations and reaching the Final Four, the expectations being laid upon the Owls (25-8) have risen. But
First round, Florida Atlantic (8) vs. Northwestern (9)
Friday, 12:15 p.m., CBS
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
for head coach Dusty May and his players, the standard of excellence within the program have stayed the same all season.
“Our group, after last year's run, expected this,” May said. “But the expectations didn't include entitlement. They worked extremely hard, played a very difficult schedule. One where they were forced to perform at a high, high level on a
Benito Jones wore number 94 with the Detroit Lions last season.
Recently, Jones signed with the Dolphins, where you-know-who has just taken his talents to Vegas.
OK, so, yeah, it was Christian Wilkins who wore number 94 with Miami, and wore it well.
"Those are some pretty big shoes because he's leaving," Jones said in a meeting with Miami reporters. "You just got to come in and set the bar how he had it. Christian is a heck of a player. When I first came in, he kind of took me under his wing as a young guy. I never saw myself kind of replacing him on the field. People always want to play with him or play beside him."
To be clear, Miami hopes Jones will take on some night-in, night-out basis. And so this is well deserved for our guys.”
FAU guard Nick Boyd said he and his teammates are well aware of the expectations and pressure that follows them a year after falling short of the finals on a last-second shot by San Diego State.
“We think about that all the time,” Boyd said. “You felt it all this year. We had a lot of ups and downs, highs, lows. And this is a new season, and a new opportunity to have fun and play the game we love . ... I'd say [we're] desperate, we're hungry. Even though we're the eightseed, I feel like we're the underdogs.” of the defensive snaps Wilkins played along the defensive line last season. They hope he'll be effective. But of course, he's not Wilkins.
The Dolphins have a staggering eight players listed as a defensive tackle on their roster now.
Some of those players can play nose tackle and end in the 3-4 formation.
But it's telling that Miami has signed six defensive tackles this offseason.
Six!
Wilkins played 894 snaps for the Dolphins last season, a whopping 81 percent.
No one man can replace.
Thus, it appears Miami is constructing a committee.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Has it been 55 years since Art Shamsky and the New York Mets performed a baseball miracle in Queens?
Yes it has, and Shamsky's job is to make sure it feels like yesterday.
Shamsky, a snowbird living much of the year in Deerfield Beach, was at the Mets' spring training complex at Port St. Lucie Sunday, serving his role as longtime Mets ambassador.
Shamsky signed baseballs on the field, reminiscing with fans and showing 9-year-old Noah Herndon, coming off a brain aneurysm, his 1969 World Series ring.
“I played 13 years and nobody talks about the other 12,'' Shamsky said before the Mets hosted the Miami Marlins in a spring-training game.
It's why Shamsky still is asked to do myriad appearances, at synagogues, rotary clubs and YMCAs in Palm Beach County. In December, Shamsky was part of a panel, along with Larry Berra and Gil Hodges Jr., who discussed the '69 Mets and their famous dads at the Cascades Men's Club breakfast in Boynton Beach.