The Cheat SheetBy Kevin McGuire on

The Olympics may be over, but the sports world is heating up for you

If nothing else, the Olympics in Rio was a nice way to kill a couple of weeks before the start of the football season. Don’t forget, there will be a college football game played this week with Cal and Hawaii kicking things off in Australia. Say what you will about the Olympics and the coverage of it and the concerns that were shared heading in, but the Olympics once again offered a good dose of the best the sports world has to offer in terms of talent, emotions and special moments that can be shared around the globe. I enjoyed them, and I hope you did as well. But now it’s back to business as usual with the baseball pennant races about to hit their home stretch, the NFL and college football kicking off and the Premier League fresh into a new season. Sports never hits the pause button for you.

Carmelo Anthony captures third Olympic gold

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 12.25.48 AM
He may not have been the star of this year’s team in the box score, but Carmelo Anthony was a team leader in every way possible.

Carmelo Anthony may not have an NBA championship to add to his bio, but he did become the first player to win three Olympic gold medals. That is nothing to simply skip over. Anthony’s third Olympic gold came in blowout fashion, with the United States cruising to a 30-point victory over Serbia in the gold medal game on the final day of the Olympics. After the game, Anthony was noticeably emotional about the journey, which started for him with the 2004 bronze medal winning team.

Some people like to suggest a  gold medal means more than winning an NBA trophy. That is really only a judgement and opinion that can be made by those who actually get to compete for either. Would Anthony trade in a gold medal or two for an NBA championship? Who knows, but we know for darn sure Anthony takes great pride in being a part of the United States basketball team, and it’s pretty cool to see a multi-millionaire basketball player get all emotional talking about representing the country.

Meanwhile, some of the NBA’s other big names not in Rio made sure to check in and offer their congrats to their friends from the NBA.

United States wins the Summer Olympics

The United States won, like, a lot of medals. Screen shot via Simone Biles.
The United States won, like, a lot of medals. Screen shot via Simone Biles.

I find it humorous how much pride we seem to take in the medal count at the summer Olympics. Considering the USA tends to have the largest or one of the largest delegations at the summer games and competes in more sports than just about every other nation that attends the games, it would be a shock to see the USA finish out of first place in the overall medal count, right? Going by total medals, the 2016 Rio Games was no exception. We dominated. Heck, we even took the gold medal in the gold medal count, if such a thing exists.

Cool, cool. Next comes the breakdown by college athletes, with the Pac-12, SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten making some noise…

Texans, meanwhile, are focused on their own medal count…

Some athletes won more medals than others, of course. Simone Biles took a lesson from Michael Phelps…

At this point it seems like the United States counting medals is like McDonald’s advertising how many burgers they have sold. To borrow a joke from Jerry Seinfeld, we get it. We’re doing very well.

The winter Olympics tend to be a much more competitive field in the medal count, but we’ll have to wait two more years to see how that all goes down in South Korea.

Alabama lands top spot in AP preseason poll

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This was totally expected and not at all surprising. Defending national champion Alabama was labeled the No. 1 team in the preseason AP Top 25, followed by Clemson. Our pals over at The Student Section have been counting down their own preseason top 25, which features Clemson at No.3. Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, Florida State, LSU, Ohio State and Michigan each received first-place consideration from the AP voters, and Stanford, Tennessee and Notre Dame rounded out your preseason top 10 in the AP poll. Let this be another reminder, however, preseason polls are dumb and not going to be retired any time soon, so deal with it.

Quick Hits

Looks like the prime minister of Japan warped into Level 4 of Super Mario Bros. 3.
Looks like the prime minister of Japan warped into Level 4 of Super Mario Bros. 3.

– The final day of the Olympics saved some wackiness to hold us over for a while. Mongolian wrestling coaches staged quite the protest by stripping on the mat.

– Simone Biles carried the United States flag in for the closing ceremony, and everybody wanted to get their picture taken with her.

– Not sure if Olympic closing ceremony or a Katy Perry Super Bowl halftime show…

– The world’s favorite Tongan judo star was once again catching looks at the closing ceremony…

– With the summer games heading to Tokyo, the prime minister of Japan tapped into his inner princess-saving-plumber to make his appearance in Rio. Seems like a missed opportunity to advertise the NX.

– In related news, Rio residents are saying good riddance to tourists.

– American wrestler Frank Molinaro was bitten by Andriy Kvyatkovskyy during a heated match to advance to the bronze medal match. Despite attempting to show where he was bitten, nothing was called.

– Billy Butler and Dany Valencia reportedly exchanged words, and Butler got the worst of it.

– The things some people do just to grab a souvenir baseball at a Cubs game.

– David Ortiz taking a selfie with a fan before hitting a home run is 100 percent why we’re going to miss Ortiz next season.

– Sometimes when you miss the bus, you have to improvise. That’s what this woman did with an ambulance.

– This may come as a shock, but Jerry Jones spared no expense on the Dallas Cowboys’ training facility.

– I think it would be funny if nobody informed this NFL ref the Rams moved to Los Angeles this season.

– Guardians of the Galaxy in the next Avengers movie, confirmed?

– What if the Montreal Expos came back as an NBA franchise? This NBA 2k16 fan cooked it up.

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One last gratuitous moment of procrastination

If you have been watching the Olympics on BBC, then you have been treated to a fun animation sequence seeing jungle animals pick up and start competing in various activities reminiscent of Olympic events. But if you felt the soundtrack could use a little sprucing up…

https://vimeo.com/179445271

About Kevin McGuire

Contributor to Athlon Sports and The Comeback. Previously contributed to NBCSports.com. Host of the Locked On Nittany Lions Podcast. FWAA member and Philadelphia-area resident.

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