2012 January at LinesMaker

Spain Begins Davis Defense Without Nadal

SANTANDER, Spain — Spain will begin its Davis Cup defense againstKaza­khstan with­out Rafael Nadal. New cap­tain Alex Cor­retja included 11th-ranked Nico­las Alma­gro, Mar­celGra­nollers, for­mer No. 1 Juan Car­los Fer­rero and Marc Lopez in the team for theFeb. 10–12 series. Nadal, David Fer­rer, Feli­ciano Lopez and Fer­nando Ver­dasco all madethem­selves unavail­able for the first-round matchup in Oviedo after lead­ing Spainto its fifth title in Decem­ber, over Argentina. Alma­gro says he was “proud” to be included after ini­tially say­ing he wasuncer­tain whether... 

Vikings Now Considering Site Near Metrodome

Vikings now con­sid­er­ing site near Metrodome Posted by Mike Flo­rio on Jan­u­ary 30, 2012, 11:43 PM EST With the pro­posal to build a new Vikings sta­dium at the site of the Metrodome likely requir­ing the team to spend three sea­sons at TCF Bank Sta­dium on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota, a site close to the Metrodome is now being con­sid­ered, accord­ing to the Min­neapo­lis Star Tri­bune. This approach would allow the Vikings to stay in the Metrodome while the new sta­dium is built. But, like every other poten­tial solu­tion to the Vikings’ sta­dium... 

Report: Nerves in Manning’s Arm Not Healing Fast Enough to Play

Cit­ing two sources with knowl­edge of Pey­ton Manning’s reha­bil­i­ta­tion from neck surgery, Yahoo! Sports reported Mon­day night that the Colts quar­ter­back has hit a plateau in his recov­ery and might not be able to play foot­ball again. Accord­ing to the story, the ver­te­brae in Manning’s neck have healed as expected and he’s been throw­ing a foot­ball since Decem­ber, but the nerves in his arm aren’t pro­gress­ing enough to indi­cate that he will play again, as shown by the veloc­ity in his passes. The Yahoo! story also quoted two doc­tors with expe­ri­ence... 

LSU Reportedly Hires WR Coach

LSU report­edly hires WR coach Posted by Ben Kercheval on Jan­u­ary 30, 2012, 10:49 PM EST It took a few weeks, but it appears LSU has found a wide receivers coach to replace Billy Gon­za­les, who left ear­lier this month to become the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor for Illi­nois under new coach, Tim Beck­man. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Oak­land Raiders tight ends coach Adam Henry will take over the spot left open by Gon­za­les with an offi­cial announce­ment com­ing from the school later this week. Get­ting even assis­tant coach­ing spots filled in time for... 

Paternos to Sell Memorial Service DVDs

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno’s fam­ily says they’ll be sell­ing copies of the coach’s memo­r­ial ser­vice and donat­ing the pro­ceeds to charity. A state­ment Mon­day from son Scott Paterno says numer­ous media out­lets have expressed an inter­est in sell­ing copies of the emo­tional pub­lic memo­r­ial ser­vice that drew about 12,000 peo­ple to a cam­pus arena last week. The fam­ily says they’ll soon launch a web­site where copies can be pur­chased on DVD. The fam­ily says any money gen­er­ated by the sales would go to charity. Joe Paterno died Jan. 22 from... 

The Zig Zag Theory for NBA Betting

Bas­ket­ball is one such game that relies heav­ily on home advan­tage mostly dur­ing the NBA play­offs. This makes it suit­able for zig zag the­ory, which abides by the 2–2-1–1-1 for­mat. This the­ory used by many NBA bet­ting enthu­si­asts is called zig zag due to its ten­dency of going up and down. Accord­ing to this the­ory, every game that a bet­tor picks for NBA play­off bet­ting series is influ­enced by the out­come of pre­ced­ing game. This the­ory is not applic­a­ble on the NBA finals as they fol­low the 2–3-2 format. If sta­tis­tics are to be believed... 

Check Out Photos From UFC on Fox 2

Check out pic­tures from @mstracylee from #UFConFox2 http://t.co/wNHe6siMBetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more UFC news see: Check out pho­tos from UFC on Fox 2.  

Avs Excited About Potential Second-Half Run

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — The Col­orado Avalanche are about to begin what they hope will be a suc­cess­ful stretch run to the play­offs, start­ing with Tues­day night’s visit to Edmonton. The Avalanche won nine of 10 games from mid-December through the first week of Jan­u­ary to climb back into the West­ern Con­fer­ence play­off race, but went 3–5-1 in the final nine games before the NHL All-Star break to fall one point behind eighth-place Min­nesota with 31 games to play. “We had a real good month in Decem­ber,” Avalanche coach Joe Sacco said after prac­tice Mon­day. “We... 

Older Brother Says Predicting Future for Colts’ Manning Is Futile

INDIAN OLIS — Actor Rob Lowe caused a stir two weeks ago when, via Twit­ter, he passed along a rumor he heard that Colts quar­ter­back Pey­ton Man­ning was retiring. Those in the Man­ning fam­ily have responded with ques­tions over how Lowe would even know that infor­ma­tion. And, on Mon­day, the old­est Man­ning brother expressed his belief that the oppo­site is true, that his younger brother is indeed set on adding to an already illus­tri­ous career. When I asked Cooper Man­ning if Pey­ton is “deter­mined,” he responded quickly, say­ing, “I think that’s a great word... 

NCAA Prez: 4-Team Playoff Talks Active

By RACHEL COHEN, Sports Writer NEW YORK — Child sex abuse scan­dals at Penn State and Syra­cuse mayprompt the NCAA to revise its bylaws. The gov­ern­ing body already has a work­ing group con­sid­er­ing dif­fer­ent rulesto pre­vent vio­la­tions in what tra­di­tion­ally have been col­lege sports’ prob­lemareas, such as recruit­ing and amateurism. “This may– I’m under­scor­ing may– become a point of dis­cus­sion with them.If we’re going to do some­thing, the tim­ing would be pretty good,” NCAAPres­i­dent Mark Emmert said Wednes­day. “Right now there’s...