Ozzie Guillen confirmed he had his interview with the White Sox for their vacant manager’s job this week. Like everyone else, he’s waiting to see what the Sox’ decision-makers do.

It’s possible the Sox, who are said to have made an extensive search since Tony La Russa stepped down at the end of the season, make a choice next week. The general managers meetings are the following week in Las Vegas, and they ideally would have someone in place by then.

Major League Baseball encourages teams to avoid major announcements during the World Series, which could be over as soon as Tuesday if the Phillies sweep the Astros or run through Saturday if it goes seven games. There are off days Sunday and Thursday.

Guillen, who managed the 2005 World Series champion Sox, is eager to find out what he’ll be doing in 2023. He wants to manage again but says he would be OK with continuing as studio analyst for the team’s telecasts on NBC Sports Chicago.

Because he has watched the team almost every day, interacts with players and has relationships with some, especially the Spanish speaking players, Guillen maintains “no one knows this club better than me.”

Guillen, who left the Sox under contentious terms at the end of the 2011 season, has since mended fences with the organization, although chairman Jerry Reinsdorf in 2017 said Guillen wouldn’t be able to return.

Guillen also had a turbulent relationship with then general manager Ken Williams, but Williams — the executive vice president now with Rick Hahn the GM — is known to be a fan of Guillen’s passion. Williams was dissatisfied with the Sox’ shortage of energy and fire last season, when they finished a disappointing 81-81.

The Sox have worked hard to keep their manager wish list relatively quiet. Astros bench coach Joe Espada, who is involved in the World Series, was interviewed two weeks ago.

Former broadcaster Ken Harrelson said this week that Guillen would be the best choice, because of his qualifications and because he would “reinvigorate the fan base.” Harrelson didn’t believe Guillen would get the job, but Guillen would be a fairly popular choice among some media and fans.

“It’s a big decision,” Harrelson said. “It’s more than hiring a manager, it’s getting our fans into it. Because a lot of our fans are really, really disappointed about last season.

“Ozzie wants to win, it’s that simple. He’s the best manager I’ve had in my career with the Sox, and he has a ring to prove it.”

Guillen, who turns 59 in January, still lives in Chicago and spends much of his time with his family, including grandchildren.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Jack Johnson’s ice time exceeded 20 minutes more often during the Blackhawks’ first seven games this season (six times) than it had over Johnson’s last two seasons combined (five times).

The 35-year-old veteran defenseman enjoyed that. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t getting stiff on the bench and feeling like he needed to “warm up” at the start of each shift.

But that workload and usage probably wasn’t sustainable for either Johnson, at this late stage of his career, or the Hawks. And with Jake McCabe having worked his way back to full fitness, coach Luke Richardson felt ready Saturday to promote McCabe to the first pairing alongside Seth Jones.

“He looks confident [and] he’s playing with a great gap,” Richardson said about McCabe. “It’s just time to progress his minutes and his responsibility. He’s been really good since he’s been back and he’s getting better every game.”

Johnson settled into the third pairing next to Caleb Jones — the spot McCabe had occupied since returning from back surgery in the Hawks’ fourth game — while the second pairing of Connor Murphy and Jarred Tinordi remained unchanged.

McCabe has played well so far this season — aside from one lowlight Thursday against Connor McDavid — and earned the bigger role. Entering Saturday, he led Hawks defensemen in terms of both expected-goals-against rate and expected-goals ratio at five-on-five.

“For the most part, I’ve liked my game,” McCabe said Thursday. “I’ve been pretty steady, defending well, making simple plays [and] trying to make my partner’s life easy.”

Lighter Stalock

Hawks goalie Alex Stalock sweats a lot.

Drops of liquid pour off his hair, forehead and chin after he leaves the ice as if he was just caught in a thunderstorm, requiring him to keep a towel on hand to regularly dry off his face. He has to drink “quite a bit” of water to stay hydrated.

But he has been pleased with how his conditioning and endurance have held up so far. He believes entering this fall at the lowest weight of his NHL career has helped.

“As anybody knows, when you’re not doing anything, you can’t get your heart rate up [and] stuff adds up,” he said. “All of a sudden, [when] you get thrown back into the mix, you’re not where you want to be physically.

“They gave me an opportunity here [and I] wanted to come in and give myself the best chance. I got into the best shape I could, and obviously it’s paying off. I feel great at 35 years old.”

Stalock will make his fifth start Sunday against the Wild after a day off Saturday during Arvid Soderblom’s start.

Katchouk debuts

Hawks forward Boris Katchouk will make his season debut Saturday after four weeks sidelined by a sprained ankle.

“Four weeks doesn’t sound too long, but when it actually happens, it’s pretty long,” he said pregame. “I’m pretty hungry to get back in there.”

The 24-year-old winger, acquired from the Lightning in the Brandon Hagel trade, hasn’t found his Hawks niche as quickly as counterpart Taylor Raddysh has. He tallied just one point in 21 games at the end of last season, although hits — of which he had 40 — might be a better way to quantify his playing style.

Richardson said he wants Katchouk to focus on crashing the crease, noting that “shots on the net and a big body going to the net” is usually a good combination.

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The Chicago Bulls look to avenge Friday’s loss, as they battle the Philadelphia 76ers at the United Center as betting underdogs.

Friday night’s finish ended in disappointment for the Chicago Bulls as they fell to the San Antonio Spurs 129-124. With Zach LaVine sidelined via load management, Demar Derozan became the 50th player in NBA history to cross the 20,000 career point mark, as he poured in a team-high 33 points.

Philly saw a different outcome on Friday night with their star also sidelined, as the 76ers took down Toronto 112-90 with Joel Embiid out of the lineup. Tyrese Maxey dropped an eye-opening 44 points in the win, hitting nine three-pointers. Both Zach LaVine and Joel Embiid should be expected to return to each lineup on Saturday night.

Friday night did have it’s silver linings, as the best bet of the day blog improved to 5-1 behind Demar Derozan’s point output! Let’s keep things on the winning track for our betslips and let’s get our Chicago Bulls following suit! Today’s play will be all or nothing for both, so strap your war helmets on because the Bulls are winning a big game tonight. Let’s see some red, and GO BULLS!!

2022 Bulls Best Bet Record: 5-1

Chicago Bulls ML (+115) (Sportsbook odds may vary)

If you have paid any attention to these Bulls-76ers matchups over the past couple of years, you may be surprised to see this pick tonight. If you have been following along with me at all, this play is all about buying into betting strategies, line pricing, and public overreactions.

The first thing to note is the public perception of this game and teams. Even if you have not paid close attention to the recent matchups between these teams, the general consensus is that Philly is a vastly superior team, and maybe on paper, or if you’re getting the best version of each team, that might be true. In tonight’s case, a line of two points or less in favor of Philly, is incredibly enticing to anybody that believes in this Philly team, or believes they are going to see a beatdown at the hands of Joel Embiid himself.

The general consensus on money splits for this game is a reflection of that public belief. At the time of writing, approximately 11:20am, DraftKings tracker shows 85% of money on Philly’s spread, and 60% of moneyline bets tilting to the 76ers as well. By no means is fading the public a strategy that can be played on every single game, but in certain spots can be very useful, especially if you can couple it with a, “why the hell is this line so short” situation.

Last night’s games for each team also piles onto the average person’s perception of these teams. Regardless of the absence of each team’s all-star player, a 76ers team beating a solid Raptors team convincingly and a Chicago Bulls team losing to a bad Spurs team, is going to fuel an even heavier recency bias, furthering the question, “why the hell is this line so short?”

The greater concern as far as individual matchups themselves is the Embiid-Nikola Vucevic battle. Over Vucevic’s time with Chicago, this matchup has been a nightmare for him, and the 76ers have found themselves in the win column because of it.

On one hand, I would argue Vucevic has looked like a more consistent and confident version of himself through the opening games, as compared to his first season and a half with the team. In addition, and potentially more importantly, the addition of Andre Drummond should prove to be immensely helpful for matchups such as this. Drummond was banged up a bit in last night’s loss, but with no current injury designation, his efforts will need to be seen tonight if the Bulls want to improve to 4-3.

To close things out, until last night’s outburst from Tyrese Maxey, this 76ers offense has been incredibly inconsistent, ranking 25th in points per game. This Chicago Bulls defense has of course shown its’ issues, but an out of sorts offense may be exactly what they need to finally take down this Philly squad.

Give me the Bulls outright tonight with a balanced scoring attack from start to finish. See Red, and GO BULLS!!

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The final primetime slate of at 7pm has a couple good games and a couple big rivalries to close out the day.

Here are the best college football games and best bets for the 7pm window that entail a couple games that have play-off implications.

Kentucky vs. Tennessee on ESPN

Kentucky is coming to Rocky Top where plenty of opponents this year in college football have faced its wrath. Kentucky is off a bye and it gave Will Levis another week to heal up. He missed the South Carolina game a few weeks ago which was a tough one to lose but he did bounce back and beat Mississippi State at home the next week. Kentucky’s offense stinks besides Levis and its not Levis’ fault they stink so bad it’s the system. Mark Stoop is a good coach but his offense is behind the times. They run the ball way too much especially when Will Levis is at QB who has one of the best arms in the country. The big issue is Tennessee stinks at pass coverage. Like they are really bad. But they can stop the run especially at home as they only allow 90 yards per game rushing.  Kentucky won’t get a better QB than Will Levis and the pro style offense isn’t going to do them any favors in the SEC. Kentucky to be successful will have to throw more on Saturday.

Tennessee is a different level this year in college football and it is fun to watch. Neyland Stadium is absolutely insane every home game and I have to believe it will be the same on Saturday. Hendon Hooker and Josh Heupel are starting to feel like robot with how methodical and stone faced they are when they are stomping opponents or it’s a close game. We haven’t seen a team besides Alabama or Georgia in a while that has absolute confidence that they will win the game and Tennessee has shown us that trait this year. Kentucky is pretty good at defense this year and like they have been under Stoops’ tenure. Being a good defense doesn’t mean too much when you head to Neyland Stadium especially this year.

The Bet: Tennessee seem to be on a mission and it’s starting to feel like it is their year to be dominant. Tennessee -12.

Michigan State vs. Michigan on ABC

Michigan State is bad this year and it has to do a lot with the loss of Kenneth Walker. I watched plenty of Michigan State last year as it was fun to watch a different team be good in the Big Ten in college football and Kenneth Walker was electric week in week out. The thing is I also watched a lot of Payton Thorne at QB for Michigan State and he was not very good. If it wasn’t for teams having to plan for Kenny so much Payton Thorne would have shown everyone last year what he is this year. Not good. The team hasn’t found a guy to take over for Kenneth and the defense is worse than last year and they were bad last year.

Michigan is rolling still and definitely on their way to a big time matchup against Ohio State in the coming weeks. I would say we need to see more from the young QB JJ McCarthy but they run the ball so well with Blake Corum it seems we won’t need to see great QB play until Ohio State. The defense is really good again even after losing Hutchinson and Ojabo. This is a big rivalry game in college football and Michigan has lost to Michigan State twice in a row and for how much people don’t think that affects Harbaugh I think this year he wants to dominate.

The Bet: Michigan at home at night, Payton Thorne is going to have a bad time and hopefully I’m right about Harbaugh wanting to dominate and run it up. Michigan -23.

Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M on SEC Network

Now the only reason I’m talking about this game is because both these teams are embarrassing to college football. Also the other game at this time aren’t that great either. Ole Miss I knew weren’t good because Jaxson Dart is their QB and Lane Kiffin has never had a good defense before but to lose to LSU like they did is embarrassing and annoying because I had Ole Miss ML and they were in the driver seat. I said Jaxson Dart wasn’t good and he showed it perfectly and now they go to A&M where things look even worse than at Ole Miss.

Texas A&M is truly embarrassing with the money they have in college football spent on recruits, facilities, coaches and more. Just like with Notre Dame I hated how they didn’t go and get a QB or at least recruit a stud and have him start to build the program up over the years. A&M got Max Johnson from LSU who isn’t bad but I know for a fact he’s better than Haynes King and Jimbo started the year with Haynes which was a huge mistake and then switched to Max when everything was already bad. Now he has switched back to Haynes at QB and its a real shame players like Devon Achane who is very very good have to play for a horrible system like Jimbo’s and play with QB’s that are not good.

The Bet: Miserable game in general but I’m taking Ole Miss -1.5 because A&M stinks more and they are more annoying.

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The final primetime slate of at 7pm has a couple good games and a couple big rivalries to close out the day.

Here are the best college football games and best bets for the 7pm window that entail a couple games that have play-off implications.

Kentucky vs. Tennessee on ESPN

Kentucky is coming to Rocky Top where plenty of opponents this year in college football have faced its wrath. Kentucky is off a bye and it gave Will Levis another week to heal up. He missed the South Carolina game a few weeks ago which was a tough one to lose but he did bounce back and beat Mississippi State at home the next week. Kentucky’s offense stinks besides Levis and its not Levis’ fault they stink so bad it’s the system. Mark Stoop is a good coach but his offense is behind the times. They run the ball way too much especially when Will Levis is at QB who has one of the best arms in the country. The big issue is Tennessee stinks at pass coverage. Like they are really bad. But they can stop the run especially at home as they only allow 90 yards per game rushing.  Kentucky won’t get a better QB than Will Levis and the pro style offense isn’t going to do them any favors in the SEC. Kentucky to be successful will have to throw more on Saturday.

Tennessee is a different level this year in college football and it is fun to watch. Neyland Stadium is absolutely insane every home game and I have to believe it will be the same on Saturday. Hendon Hooker and Josh Heupel are starting to feel like robot with how methodical and stone faced they are when they are stomping opponents or it’s a close game. We haven’t seen a team besides Alabama or Georgia in a while that has absolute confidence that they will win the game and Tennessee has shown us that trait this year. Kentucky is pretty good at defense this year and like they have been under Stoops’ tenure. Being a good defense doesn’t mean too much when you head to Neyland Stadium especially this year.

The Bet: Tennessee seem to be on a mission and it’s starting to feel like it is their year to be dominant. Tennessee -12.

Michigan State vs. Michigan on ABC

Michigan State is bad this year and it has to do a lot with the loss of Kenneth Walker. I watched plenty of Michigan State last year as it was fun to watch a different team be good in the Big Ten in college football and Kenneth Walker was electric week in week out. The thing is I also watched a lot of Payton Thorne at QB for Michigan State and he was not very good. If it wasn’t for teams having to plan for Kenny so much Payton Thorne would have shown everyone last year what he is this year. Not good. The team hasn’t found a guy to take over for Kenneth and the defense is worse than last year and they were bad last year.

Michigan is rolling still and definitely on their way to a big time matchup against Ohio State in the coming weeks. I would say we need to see more from the young QB JJ McCarthy but they run the ball so well with Blake Corum it seems we won’t need to see great QB play until Ohio State. The defense is really good again even after losing Hutchinson and Ojabo. This is a big rivalry game in college football and Michigan has lost to Michigan State twice in a row and for how much people don’t think that affects Harbaugh I think this year he wants to dominate.

The Bet: Michigan at home at night, Payton Thorne is going to have a bad time and hopefully I’m right about Harbaugh wanting to dominate and run it up. Michigan -23.

Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M on SEC Network

Now the only reason I’m talking about this game is because both these teams are embarrassing to college football. Also the other game at this time aren’t that great either. Ole Miss I knew weren’t good because Jaxson Dart is their QB and Lane Kiffin has never had a good defense before but to lose to LSU like they did is embarrassing and annoying because I had Ole Miss ML and they were in the driver seat. I said Jaxson Dart wasn’t good and he showed it perfectly and now they go to A&M where things look even worse than at Ole Miss.

Texas A&M is truly embarrassing with the money they have in college football spent on recruits, facilities, coaches and more. Just like with Notre Dame I hated how they didn’t go and get a QB or at least recruit a stud and have him start to build the program up over the years. A&M got Max Johnson from LSU who isn’t bad but I know for a fact he’s better than Haynes King and Jimbo started the year with Haynes which was a huge mistake and then switched to Max when everything was already bad. Now he has switched back to Haynes at QB and its a real shame players like Devon Achane who is very very good have to play for a horrible system like Jimbo’s and play with QB’s that are not good.

The Bet: Miserable game in general but I’m taking Ole Miss -1.5 because A&M stinks more and they are more annoying.

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