Happy Thanksgiving week! Let’s kick off a short week by welcoming Tony Romo back to the Cowboys.

QUIPS FOR THIS WEEK

NFL

In Sunday Night Football, the Cincinnati Bengals lost 31-34 to the Arizona Cardinals.

In other football news, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Atlanta Falcons 24-21, Tony Romo returned to the Dallas Cowboys who in turn defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-14, the Carolina Panthers looked dominant in a win  over the Washington Redskins 44-16 (which put them at 10-0 this season), and the Baltimore Ravens may have gotten the victory over the St. Louis Rams 16-13, but they’ve lost Joe Flacco for the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

Monday Night Football features the New England Patriots (who are now 9-0) v. the Buffalo Bills at 8:30pm EST on ESPN. And, Thursday Thanksgiving football includes three intriguing match-ups: Philadelphia Eagles v. Detroit Lions at 12:30pm on FOX, Dallas Cowboys v. Carolina Panthers at 4:30pm on CBS, and the Chicago Bears v. the Green Bay Packers at 8:30pm on NBC.

College Football

In college football-land, we had quite the weekend. #1 Clemson beat Wake Forest 33-13 and #2 Alabama defeated Charleston Southern 56-6 but #3 Ohio State was upset by #9 Michigan State 17-13. In other upset news, #10 Baylor got the win over #6 Oklahoma State 45-35 and UCLA took down #13 Utah 17-9.

So in terms of the rankings, this weekend adjusted things quite a bit. Clemson and Alabama stayed at their top spots respectively, but Iowa jumped up to the #3 spot followed by Notre Dame and Oklahoma.

Games to watch this week include:

• #3 Iowa v. Nebraska – Saturday at 3:30pm EST on ABC
  
• #8 Ohio State v.  #12 Michigan – Saturday at 12:00pm EST on ABC

College Basketball

Well hello, college hoops, welcome back to the quips! It’s still early but it was a fun week for some of the top ranked teams as #5 Duke bounced back from a loss to #2 Kentucky to defeat VCU 79-71 and Georgetown 86-84 to win the 2K classic on Sunday. Speaking of Kentucky, they looked pretty good in their big win against Duke this past week 74-63 and again against Wright State 78-63.

What about some of the other teams? #1 UNC suffered an early season upset, 71-67 to Northern Iowa while #3 Maryland continues to look tough after two solid wins this past week against Georgetown 75-71 and Rider 65-58.

What’s on deck this week? Lots of holiday hoops including the Battle For Atlantis,  Basketball Hall of Fame Classic, the Cancun Challenge and a number of other games.

NBA

Moving onto the professionals — let’s dive into the NBA. The Golden State Warriors went into Sunday night at an amazing 14-0 and after their 118-105 win against the Denver Nuggets made that record 15-0.

The number 1 team in the East to watch, the Cleveland Cavaliers, defeated the Atlanta Hawks 109-97 on Sunday afternoon after some interesting substitution issues resulting in a technical foul for Cleveland.

What’s it like to be in the top 50 of the NBA’s all-time scoring list? Ask DWade, who moved up the list after his Miami Heat defeated the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday.

On Saturday, Barcelona stunned Real Madrid 4-0 with the help of Neymar and Luis Suarez. Lionel Messi hadn’t quite recovered from his knee injury and although he returned to the roster, he remained on the bench for the Clasico match.

Leicester City moved to the top of the Premier League table after Jamie Vardy led the way to a 3-0 win against Newcastle United. Additionally on Saturday, Liverpool beat Manchester City 4-1 on Saturday. However, Arsenal was unable to take advantage of the City loss to ascend to the top of the table, due to a 1-2 loss to West Bromwich Albion. Manchester United also scored a 2-1 victory against Watford, and Chelsea won 1-0 against Norwich City. In Sunday’s matchup, Tottenham defeated West Ham United 4-1 to clinch a #5 position on the table heading into the grueling holiday fixtures.

On Sunday, we watched the first leg of the MLS Eastern and Western Conference Finals. Justin Meram put Columbus Crew on the scoreboard with a goal only 10 seconds into the game. Columbus never relinquished that lead, and won 2-0 against the New York Red Bulls. Later in the day, the Portland Timbers won 3-1 against FC Dallas. The second leg of the Eastern and Western Conference Finals is next Sunday, November 29th (times are still pending).

As the NHL season progresses, the Dallas Stars, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens head the top of the league standings.

In golf news, Rory McIlroy won both the DP World Tour Championship and the Race to Dubai on Sunday.

 

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