This past weekend was an almost perfect weekend for the Seattle sports scene. It started with the Seattle Seahawks beat down of Santa Clara on Thanksgiving night. Then, on Friday, Gonzaga won the N.I.T. Season Tip-off Championship against St. John’s in the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden. Saturday was the Apple Cup which the University of Washington Huskies dominated Washington State on a frigid night over in Pullman, Washington. This next one wasn’t a Seattle sporting event but did impact the Seahawks. The Arizona Cardinals went to Atlanta and had their butts handed to them by the Falcons, 18-29. This result helps Seattle because now they are only 1 game out of the division lead. On Sunday, the UW basketball team won the Wooden Legacy tournament down in Anaheim, California. The only negative came in a win for Sounders FC. They ended up winning their match 2-1 but they didn’t advance to the MLS cup because LA Galaxy scored the all-important away goal. The Portland Trail Blazers are one of the hottest teams in the NBA winning 11 out of 12 games. Technically they aren’t a Seattle based team but there is no way in hell I would ever root for OKC. Finally to cap off the weekend the Seattle Mariners agreed to a 4 year deal worth $57 million dollars with last season’s home run leader Nelson Cruz, plus they extended All-Star 3B Kyle Seager 7 years $100 million dollars all but guaranteeing he will be a Mariner for life. Overall it was a pretty damn good weekend for Seattle.

Going into their matchup with the Santa Clara 49ers I was nervous for the Seahawks because they have gotten close but have never won on the Niners home turf under current head coach Pete Carroll. Surprisingly the Seahawks came out and absolutely dominated. Colin Kaepernick looked shaky all game and Frank Gore was shut down by Bobby Wagner and the Seattle D. Richard Sherman didn’t even have to move for his 2 INT’s they were thrown so poorly. Once again Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch led the offense, who still had some red-zone woes but managed to score when they needed to. This game was an indicator for how the rest of the season will go for both franchises. Seattle is getting hot at the right time and will be in the playoff conversation. Santa Clara is on the outside looking in and does not look like a playoff contender.

Both UW and Gonzaga had disappointing season last year, UW missed the NCAA tourney all-together and the Zags lost in the round of 32 to Arizona. Early this season both teams are off to 6-0 starts and look like tournament type teams. I’ve been most impressed by UW’s Robert Upshaw and GU’s Domantas Sabonis, son of Trail Blazer great Arvydas Sabonis. Upshaw played his freshman year at Fresno State but transferred to UW after the 12/13 season and red-shirted in 13/14. So far this season he has been the rebounding beast and rim protector Lorenzo Romar has desperately needed. Domantas Sabonis played professionally in the ACB league, before coming to the United States, which is largely considered the best pro league besides the NBA. The only reason he is allowed to play college ball is because he never signed a contract to play professionally which I take as he never played for money in Spain thus keeping his amateur status. Sabonis has an advanced post game for a college freshman with all sorts of nifty moves, he also has a high basketball I.Q. with some of the passes and cuts he makes. I’m disappointed they don’t have a yearly series anymore but that will be coming back in the next couple of season but for now I hope they both make it to March Madness.

Chris Petersen’s 1st season as Head Coach of the University of Washington Huskies has been tumultuous at best. He had to deal with the situation involving Cyler Miles and Damore’ea Stringfellow, who beat up a Seahawks fan after the Super Bowl, then he had to kick the best secondary player off the team, Marcus Peters, next he had to switch his best defensive player, Shaq Thompson, to running back midseason (and later back to LB) due to injuries and finally he could not lead the Huskies to a win against a ranked opponent. I’ll have a full season review up soon but I have to hand it to Coach Pete, this program looks like it is heading in the right direction and should be a contender in a couple seasons.

The Seattle Sounders won 2-1 against the Los Angeles Galaxy but did not make it to the MLS cup final because they lost on aggregate. This means both clubs scored 2 goals against each other during their 2 game series but LA scored the all-important away goal which serves as the main tie-breaker if the teams score the same amount of goals. The Rave Green have been around for 6 years now, have made the playoffs 6 times but have never been in the MLS cup final. It’s a little bit disappointing because this should have been their breakthrough year.

I’m not sure how many people still care about the NBA in these parts since our Sonics were ripped away so viciously by Clay Bennett and David Stern but I’m still a huge NBA fan. I knew I could never root for the Oklahoma City Thunder aka Zombie Sonics so I hopped on the Trail Blazers bandwagon. I started following them back in 2006 when they selected UW product Brandon Roy. He had an almost meteoric rise and fall during his injury riddled career but when he was healthy he was one of the best SG’s in the league, plus I’ll never forget this shot. The past couple of seasons have been great for the Blazers with the partnership of Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge. Even though they haven’t made it to the Western Conference Finals they are one of the most enjoyable teams to watch because they have star players and play well together as a team. Early in the 2014/2015 campaign they are playing much better team defense and not taking so many 3-pointers which has led them to a 14-4 record. I’m expecting a deep run in the playoffs this year as long as Lillard and Aldridge stay healthy.

It’s been a tough decade for the Seattle Mariners. They haven’t won more than 90 games since 2003 but after spending a quarter of a billion dollars on Robinson Cano and winning 87 games in 2014 I truly believe they will breakthrough and make the playoffs in 2015. The contract extension for Kyle Seager was huge because before the Mariners weren’t willing to open their checkbook and they kept losing homegrown talent to the bigger clubs. The addition of Nelson Cruz is an even bigger deal for the M’s. His arrival will provide some much need protection for Cano, break up the mostly lefty lineup and provide some home run’s. With the owners in Japan deciding to win now and spending some revenue on resigning key players as well as bringing in free agents I feel they are signaling to Mariners fans the time is now and a new era of M’s baseball is happening.