John Feinstein: Most recent columns

Washington Capitals, after missing another opportunity, have issues to settle

John Feinstein — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:05:30 EST

Let’s begin with all the hearts and flowers stuff:

The Washington Capitals made the 2012 playoffs more compelling than in any year since their run to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998. For the second time in four years, they pushed a conference semifinal series to seven games.

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Seth Greenberg fired: ‘Beamer in sneakers’ may have just gotten the boot

John Feinstein — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:26:16 EST

There is only one thing that is absolutely certain about Virginia Tech’s dismissal of men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg on Monday: It could not possibly have been handled worse.

When was the last time that someone scheduled a news conference to fire a coach — trumpeting it all over the Internet to make sure the entire world knew about it — without first bothering to tell the coach being fired? How about never?

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NHL playoffs 2012: Boston Bruins were fortunate to force Game 7 against the Washington Capitals

John Feinstein — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:07:00 EST

The Boston Bruins’ equipment staff was in a big hurry Sunday evening to load up and get out of Verizon Center as fast as possible. The logic behind the rush was simple: The team has another critical game to play on Wednesday night.

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NHL playoffs: Capitals may have Bruins right where they want them

John Feinstein — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:21:00 EST

It just might be that the Washington Capitals have the Boston Bruins right where they want them. After the Caps somehow beat the defending Stanley Cup champions, 2-1, Thursday night in a nearly hysterical Verizon Center, the Bruins find themselves in a daunting position.

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2012 Stanley Cup playoffs: Capitals-Bruins series predictably gets chippy

John Feinstein — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:31:00 EST

It was Brooks Laich who pointed out late Monday night that one never knows when a Stanley Cup playoff series will turn chippy — or worse — but that it is almost inevitable. “Sometimes it happens right away in the first game, sometimes it takes two or three games,” he said in the quiet of a losing locker room. “Things start to happen. They’re trying to get you off your game, you’re trying to get them off theirs.”

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NCAA basketball: National championship rightly goes to Kentucky and John Calipari

John Feinstein — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 06:00:00 EST

AUGUSTA, Ga. — There was no doubt that the best team won the NCAA basketball championship on Monday night. There was also no doubt that Kentucky’s 67-59 victory over Kansas was almost preordained this season, even if a tough-minded group of Kansas players and a timid-seeming Kentucky coach conspired to make the game closer than it should have been.

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Tap-dancing trees, elephants behind the wheel and the NCAA final

John Feinstein — Sun, 1 Apr 2012 16:25:00 EST

NEW ORLEANS — Kansas hadn’t even left the Superdome floor Saturday night after coming from behind to stun Ohio State and reach Monday’s NCAA tournament final when the talk began.

No chance. No way. No how.

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Sun, 1 Apr 2012 16:25:00 EST

NCAA basketball Final Four: Kentucky rises to the occasion

John Feinstein — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:40:12 EST

NEW ORLEANS — Any team that wins a national championship has a moment — at least one — when it finds out about itself. The moment can come in the first round, when a low seed suddenly makes a game close. It can come in the final seconds of the national championship game.

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NCAA Final Four: The once and current kings of Kentucky meet in New Orleans

John Feinstein — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:32:28 EST

NEW ORLEANS — All week long in the run-up to the Final Four, the focal point for most people not from Ohio or Kansas has been Pitino-Calipari. Or Calipari-Pitino. Regardless of how you say it or write it, the notion that Rick Pitino and John Calipari, the former king of Kentucky and the current king of Kentucky, would be facing each other at the Final Four has turned Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville game into a coaching soap opera.

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NCAA tournament 2012: For coaches, Final Four is time to lobby

John Feinstein — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:37:11 EST

NEW ORLEANS — John Thompson Jr. sat in a comfortable chair in the lobby of the New Orleans Hilton on Thursday afternoon, looking a little bit like a monarch receiving visitors. His son, John Thompson III, was buzzing around greeting people, as were dozens of others who were just arriving for the National Association of Basketball Coaches convention — which is interrupted by the final three college basketball games of the season each year on Saturday and Monday.

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NCAA tournament 2012: Ohio State and Syracuse played a great game, despite constant interruption

John Feinstein — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:21:00 EST

BOSTON — Dean Smith was a man of many sayings during his remarkable coaching career at North Carolina. One of them was this: “You can always win one big game without a key player.”

Syracuse came into the NCAA tournament hoping to somehow win six big games without a key player. It almost didn’t get through one game without center Fab Melo, who was the Big East’s defensive player of the year but not, apparently, the student of the year because he was declared ineligible for the second time this season just before the tournament began.

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NCAA tournament 2012: Higher pay, fewer games for refs is right call

John Feinstein — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:52:35 EST

BOSTON — Bo Ryan was speaking in measured, calm tones on Thursday night after his Wisconsin team had come up just short against top-seeded Syracuse in the East Region semifinals at TD Garden. He’s been coaching too long and been through too many games to take a wild verbal swing at anyone, even after one of the most difficult losses of his career.

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NCAA tournament 2012: Wisconsin comes up just short after great effort

John Feinstein — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:22:41 EST

BOSTON —Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan went through the handshake line, a shocked look on his face, the same shocked look that all his players wore. After he had shaken the last hand he walked to the edge of the court and stopped. His players were walking slowly toward the tunnel at TD Garden, many of them in tears, all of them with their heads down.

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NCAA tournament 2012: The road to the Final Four is littered with rest stops

John Feinstein — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:28:56 EST

With 15 minutes 51 seconds left in his NCAA tournament game against Syracuse on Saturday afternoon, Kansas State Coach Frank Martin called a timeout with his team trailing the Orange, 36-32, sensing correctly that Syracuse was beginning to gather momentum.

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NCAA tournament 2012: Jim Boeheim doesn’t enjoy coaching; he enjoys winning

John Feinstein — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:32:09 EST

PITTSBURGH — As Jim Boeheim walked across the court Saturday afternoon at Consol Energy Center to do his obligatory postgame TV interview, he let out a deep breath, stuck his hands in his pockets and looked for all the world like someone who had just spent most of the day in a dentist’s chair.

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Selection Sunday: Because of NCAA tournament expansion, mediocre teams will be rewarded

John Feinstein — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:43:23 EST

ATLANTA — Two years ago, moments after Maryland had lost an ACC tournament quarterfinal game to Georgia Tech, Gary Williams sat in a small room at Greensboro Coliseum killing time while his players fulfilled their media obligations across the hall in the Terrapins’ locker room.

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ACC tournament: Despite loss, Maryland appears headed in right direction

John Feinstein — Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:26:41 EST

ATLANTA — After the handshakes and the congratulatory hugs, the Maryland basketball team headed off the court on Friday afternoon for what will almost certainly be the last time this season. The looks on the players’ faces betrayed little, other than exhaustion, having given all they had to give against a North Carolina team that was simply too big, too deep, too talented and too experienced.

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ACC tournament: Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg wins, but doesn’t help his feeling bad about his brother

John Feinstein — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 23:02:29 EST

ATLANTA — Seth Greenberg finally had something to celebrate. After enduring a regular season filled with one close loss after another, his Virginia Tech team hung on for dear life on Thursday night at Philips Arena to beat Clemson, 68-63, and advance to the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament.

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Tommy Amaker has finally found a home at Harvard

John Feinstein — Sat, 3 Mar 2012 20:44:38 EST

On April 11, 2007, Tommy Amaker was introduced as Harvard’s new men’s basketball coach. As he was wrapping up his news conference, someone pointed out to Amaker that no Crimson basketball coach had ever been a head coach again after coaching in Cambridge.

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NHL trade deadline: For Capitals, no news might mean bad news

John Feinstein — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:30:45 EST

General Manager George McPhee has never been shy about making moves to try to improve the Washington Capitals at the trade deadline. In fact, he considers it part of the process in trying to put together a team that will play its best hockey in the spring.

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