Aaron Feldstein - AccuScore Analyst

This Saturday is the final week of regular season football for the Division I-A college ranks. Two games will determine who will play for the BCS Championship in Florida on January 8^th.

As the Weekend Forecast Sampler goes, I am not going to waist your time and tell you to watch Alabama Crimson Tide and Florida Gators, or Oklahoma Sooners and Missouri Tigers – watching those games on Saturday is a given.

But those games and more will only encompass Saturday’s viewing. What about Friday night and Sunday? The other four leagues are putting their best on display this weekend.

NBA – Portland Trailblazers vs. Boston Celtics

The Greg Oden show continues to parade the east. It’s first three stops in Detroit, New York and Washington was successful and added to the Trailblazers impressive start to the season. Oden and Portland take their six game winning streak into Boston to face the champs.

Don’t look now, but the Boston Celtics haven’t missed a beat after coming off that spectacular worst-to-first championship run last year. Two losses to Indiana and Denver are the only blemishes on their record and they don’t look like they are stopping anytime soon.

But it’s not just the big three propelling Boston to their own win streak of 10 games. Rajon Rondo just earned his first career triple-double (16 points, 17 assists and 13 rebounds) and is currently averaging career highs in assists, rebounds and steals. But what is more impressive is Rondo’s ability to manage the court, especially with three big time players like Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. At this rate, he will surely have a career high in minutes per game (currently averaging 31.2) which will help him in other career numbers. AccuScore projects the Celtics point guard to finish with 333 rebounds and 435 assists, both would be single season highs for the Kentucky alum.

Watch for Portland to put up quite a fight against the champions. Brandon Roy is quickly becoming one of the best shooting guards in the game, with a 46.5 field goal percentage. The 24-year-old guard recently earned a double-double against New Orleans and is the leader of a young team that AccuScore projects has a 94 percent chance of making the playoffs for the first time since the 2002-2003 season. If you don’t believe me, check out this week’s NBA Rundown by Jonathan Lee.

This is a game where Portland shows the nation they are for real – right now!

Friday night showcases a battle for first in the Northwest Division. The Minnesota Wild current hold a one point lead over the Vancouver Canucks, but it’s the Canucks who have been able to tame the Wild.

In two games this season, the Canucks have outscored the Wild five to two and won both battles. Daniel Sedin scored the game winning goal in the third period last time these two teams hooked up, and in the first game he hit the back of the net to give Vancouver a 2-0 victory.

Sedin has been the life blood of the Canucks, tied for the team-lead in points (23) while being the Canucks frontrunner in goals with 11. The left wing has been a constant in the Canucks lineup since he was drafted 2^nd overall in 1999. Thanks in part to Sedin, Vancouver is averaging nearly three goals per game (2.96) and, along with his brother Henrik, are the major reason AccuScore projects the Canucks to finish ahead of Minnesota in the standings this season.

But Minnesota is a quality team. Although they don’t have a player with double digits in goals, they have a tremendous defense that has only allowed 2.21 goals per game, second in the NHL behind Boston. Niklas Backstrom is one of the best goalies in the league, with a 14-7-1 record, allowing 2.27 goals per start and a 92.4 save percentage. With defenders like Marc-Andre Bergeron and Kim Johnsson, the Canucks are going to need to score against a team that avenged an embarrassing 6-5 loss to Colorado by shutting out St. Louis.

In the end, Friday’s game will come down to the goalies. Minnesota will have Backstrom in the net, but Vancouver will be missing their star net man in Roberto Luongo who is out with a groin injury. Luongo was 11-5-2 with a goals against average of 2.17 before going down. Curtis Sanford is stepping in, but he too is injured and doesn’t quite have the save percentage as his counterpart from Montreal.

College Basketball – No. 21 Florida vs. FloridaState

A low ranked team versus a non-ranked team doesn’t seem like it would spark a ton of attention. Especially when you have a few Big East/Big Ten games on Saturday. But as I stated before, Saturday is saved for Championship football, so I had to look to Friday and Sunday for my college basketball fix.

And sitting there was an in state rivalry with an interesting player on the non-ranked team.

Florida State has a guard that goes by the name of Toney Douglas. In eight games this season, he has scored double digits in six of them. In fact, the 6’2” guard out of Georgia has put up more than 20 in four games, including the last two against California and Northwestern. It’s easy for a 7-1 Florida State team to get lost in the ACC mix when there are teams like Duke, Wake Forest and of course North Carolina. But this team is showing flashes of greatness, and will be looking for blood after an upset loss to Northwestern on Wednesday.

Florida on the other hand is looking to get back to greatness and show coach Billy Donovan that it wasn’t a mistake to stay with the Gators and forgo a chance to coach Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic. The Gators have an upset loss of their own on their record, dropping a close game to the Syracuse Orange 89-83. However, the Orange play it was is arguably the toughest conference in college basketball and they are currently ranked 20^th and undefeated at 8-0.

Florida is led by their gambling crazy point guard Nick Calathas. The sophomore poker gambler/guard/forward is averaging 16 points per game, and dropped 21 points and 8 assists in the Gators close victory over Washington just three games ago. Along with forwards Alex Tyus and Dan Werner, this trio can go into Tallahassee and take away the Seminoles modest undefeated home record (3-0).

Watching rivalry games is what college basketball/football is about and this should be a good one on Sunday.

Sunday’s are reserved for the NFL for the next four weeks, but the most intriguing game next to Monday Night’s Tampa Bay versus Carolina match up is an in state rivalry (sort of). And no, I am not trying to get people to watch because it’s on Sunday Night Football and I happen to do a little side work for Football Night in America on NBC, this is the first primetime chance to take a look at the player who has turned the Baltimore offense around.

For years Baltimore has been searching for a quarterback. The Ravens defense was able to take them to a Super Bowl in 2000, but most football fans giggle when they think Trent Dilfer was their Super Bowl winning quarterback. Since Dilfer, they had the likes of Kyle Boller, Anthony Wright, Jeff Blake, Elvis Grbac and Chris Redman. They’ve been looking for an identity at the most important position in football, and finally Joe Flacco has brought that to the Ravens.

Flacco, who teammates call him Shane Falco from Keanu Reeves’ film The Replacements, has thrown a touchdown in seven straight games. In fact, with seven more passing touchdowns, the Delaware grad could have the second highest passing touchdown season in the Ravens history (Vinny Testeverde had 33 in 1996). AccuScore projects Flacco to throw for just under 200 yards and a touchdown against Washington’s Top 10 defense.

Washington comes to Baltimore desperate for a win, as they are losers of three out of four games after being considered one of the favorites to make the playoffs. Running back Clinton Portis has been banged up for most of the season, but is still second in the league in rushing with 1,228 yards. In order for the Redskins to win, they will need to use their passing game as Baltimore is third in the NFL against the rush.

That means Jason Campbell will need to find Antwaan Randle El, Santana Moss and Chris Cooley in order for the Redskins to prevail. The Auburn alum has thrown more interceptions (4) than touchdowns (2) in his last four games and hasn’t seen a 300 yard passing game since facing the Detroit Lions in Week 8. AccuScore forecasts Campbell to throw for at least 218 yards, along with one touchdown and one interception. He has only a 49 percent chance of throwing for more than 220 yards against Baltimore’s No. 2 defense and is projected to be sacked three times.

AccuScore simulates Baltimore to win Sunday’s game by an average score of 20.9 to 15.3, good enough to cover the 5 point spread. Baltimore will finally get to show the nation they are for real, while the Redskins continue to look for that magic that had them at 6-2 and on the fast track to the playoffs.

A good weekend surrounds Championship Saturday. But don’t take my word for it – check it out yourself.

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