Three years ago, when Tulane hired its new men’s basketball coach, Riverside Academy head coach Tim Byrd sounded prescient. “Lots of question marks,” Byrd said of Mike Dunleavy. “You need someone who is high energy, hungry and understands Louisiana players. You need a coach with a college work ethic. This (college) is a totally different game than the NBA.”

One of the toughest jobs in college basketball is open again, for the fifth time since Perry Clark left Tulane for Miami in 2000. If you don’t think the job is daunting, history tells you otherwise. Tulane’s last double-digit winning seasons in conference play were under Clark in 1996-97 and under Cliff Wells in 1953-54.

When it comes to hitting the reset button, the Pelicans may never get a better chance. A summer trade of Anthony Davis could yield a harvest in young talent and draft choices.

Minor league baseball in New Orleans will soon be long gone, and it may be gone longer than any home run ever hit at Zephyr Field. The Baby Cakes are headed for Wichita, Kansas, likely at the end of the 2019 season, and there appears to be no replacement club warming up in the bullpen.

It is shaping up as a banner year for LSU sports. Men’s basketball is poised for a long run in the NCAA Tournament; the baseball team is expected to reach Omaha and compete for a College World Series title; and the football team won 10 games for the first time since 2013, including a New Year’s Six bowl.

Southern League President Lori Webb quickly threw water on the notion that a Double-A team from that league would be headed to Zephyr Field to take the place of the Triple-A New Orleans Baby Cakes.

Since the retirement of Archbishop Rummel athletic director Phil Greco and the subsequent resignation of head football coach Jay Roth to become the school’s AD on a full-time basis, the athletic department has become an office of musical chairs.

Will the road in the NFC to Super Bowl LIV in Miami go through New Orleans or Los Angeles? The oddsmakers at the Westgate Las Vegas sports book say the Kansas City Chiefs are the favorites to win next year’s Super Bowl at 6-1, with three teams right behind them at 8-1: the Super Bowl champion Patriots, the Saints and the Los Angeles Rams.

Before we go any further, some full disclosure. I will watch Super Bowl LIII. It is my job, and even if it wasn’t, I would still watch. Let’s quickly, while we are at it, address a few items regarding the infamous no-call of pass interference in the NFC Championship Game.

I wonder if there was a party Friday in Baton Rouge at the LHSAA convention? After all, Friday marked the six-year anniversary of the vote to split the football playoffs into private and public championships. Was there a cake and candles? Party favors? Jocularity for all? Six years later, high school sports in Louisiana is broken, and one of the sports most injured by it is not football but basketball. That is why the ears of several private-school principals perked up when they read the proposals by Teurlings Catholic principal Mike Boyer to hold separate championships in the sports currently split. It makes sense – and cents.

It was the pass that eventually changed two seasons.    The Rams, trailing, 28-14, in the second quarter at the Superdome, were playing a first-and-10 at their own 25 yard-line. Quarterback Jared Goff threw a pass intended for Robert Woods, but it was intercepted by Saints linebacker Alex Anzalone. The Saints took over at the Rams’ 34-yard line. The drive ended with a 1-yard TD run by Alvin Kamara. The Saints, who scored two touchdowns in the space of 43 seconds late in the second quarter, led, 35-14. New Orleans won, 45-35. The Saints and Rams would each win 13 games. But, that game and that pass would help determine homefield advantage in the playoffs.

Can one quarterback from the same Texas high school outplay the other? Can Nick Foles, one of the greatest relief pitchers in recent NFL history, out-perform Drew Brees in the Superdome? If so, it would be one of the great items on an already sterling resumé compiled by the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback. Others have tried and failed. On Nov. 4 at the Superdome, L.A. Rams quarterback Jared Goff completed 12 of 16 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown in the first half. But, he was bested by Brees, who completed 17 of 22 first-half throws for 211 yards and three touchdowns.

There are bad ideas, and then there are really bad ideas. And, the idea of the college football playoffs expanding from four to eight teams, is well, a very bad idea.

When the head coach has won almost 600 games and 26 state championships, to say that any single win in program history might be one of the best ever is, well, a lot. But, the score and the domination was hard to ignore.

Did he live up to his moniker? When LSU cornerback Greedy Williams declared for the NFL draft, he also said he would skip LSU’s Fiesta Bowl game against Central Florida.

If your purple-and-gold eye balls still feel like they are about to pop out over LSU’s seven-overtime loss at Texas A&M, that’s understandable. Still replaying it, over and over, one week later? I get it.

It is a smash hire by the University of Kansas football team. Getting one Leslie Miles to coach the Jayhawks football team gives the school instant credibility and instant exposure. The networks can trot out all the video of the former LSU coach eating grass and denying his interest in the Michigan job.

After the first Friday night of the state football playoffs, I did a deep exhale. Thank goodness the top seed in Class 2A, the Many Tigers, had advanced to the second round. The Tigers struggled to win, 76-0.

It is a case of Louisiana fatalism at its best, and it didn’t even take four quarters of football against Alabama for it to rear its ugly head, again. Will LSU ever beat Alabama again with Nick Saban as head coach?

Welcome to one of the biggest Sundays in recent Saints’ regular-season history. The Saints, unbeaten at home in the playoffs in the Sean Payton era, have a chance to be the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a win over the unbeaten (8-0) Los Angeles Rams.