Getting in touch is simple!  You can comment on this blog post, email Podcast@BaltimoreSportsReport.com or leave a voicemail at 443-379-4BSR (4377).

Here are the topics being discussed tonight:

The first game, slated to start at . . . → Read More: High School Basketball: I-95 Elite Showcase Preview]]> BSR will be at the I-95 Elite High School Showcase in full force tonight, with live updates, stats, pictures, and video highlights. The event, presented by Under Armour and taking place at Towson University, pits two of Baltimore’s best high school basketball teams against two out-of-state juggernauts. 

The first game, slated to start at 6 p.m, features MIAA power St. Frances against Quality Education Academy, a top-notch program out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The 8 p.m. nightcap will be a showdown between two of the top public school teams in the nation, as point guard sensation Aquille Carr leads Patterson against New York City’s top team, Lincoln High. You may know Lincoln as the Coney Island school that has produced NBA stars Stephon Marbury, Sebastian Telfair, and Lance Stephenson in recent years.

The event should be exciting, with some of the top high school talent in the country hitting the hardwood.

Preview: Patterson vs. Lincoln

While both games in this event are poised to be great ones, this one should probably be considered the marquee matchup. Patterson, our preseason top-ranked team in Baltimore, is led by Aquille Carr, their pint-sized (height listings range from 5’6″ to 5’8″) point guard who was the consensus top player in Baltimore last season. Carr, just a junior, has already graced the cover of Dime Magazine and been the focus of a GQ profile. The Clippers standout has been dubbed “The Crime Stopper,” as his jaw-dropping performances have drawn massive crowds to Patterson basketball games, and in turn reduced the amount of crime in East Baltimore while his team is playing. Carr has a plethora of top programs recruiting him, including UConn, Memphis, and Louisville, among others. Take a look at this highlight reel if you don’t understand all of the hype surrounding Baltimore’s hottest basketball commodity:

It’s not all Carr for Patterson, however. Myrek Fowlkes was an All-Metro performer last year as a sophomore, and key transfers Devin Hebron (a lights-out shooter) and Shakir Brown (a tough inside presence) give the Clippers a well-rounded and deep squad.

Sophomore Isaiah Whitehead will lead Lincoln (NY) against Patterson.

The competition for Carr and Co. will be extremely stiff. Lincoln is led by sophomore sensation Isaiah Whitehead, a 6’4″ guard who is a pure scorer and an athletic defender. A consensus top-20 talent in his sophomore class, tonight’s game will be Whitehead’s first of the season, as he returns from a short stint on academic probation. Lincoln is similar to Patterson, in that they feature a strong supporting cast to their star, complete with a few impact transfers. Shaquille Davis and Ethan Telfair (Sebastian’s younger brother) are gifted guards who have formed a strong partnership with 6’7″ forward transfer Tafari Whittingham while Whitehead has been out.

Preview: St. Frances vs. Quality Education Academy

While the Patterson game should be considered the main event, neither one of these teams should be taken lightly. St. Frances is a strong squad and started out as the second-ranked team in our high school preview. After two close losses to MIAA rivals Mount St. Joe’s and John Carroll over the past eight days, the Panthers are hungry for a win against a tough QEA team.

St. Frances is led by point guard transfer and UNLV commit Daquan Cook, a state title winner last year with Digital Harbor. Another transfer, junior swingman Tevon Saddler is a scoring threat every time he touches the ball, and is being actively recruited by several mid-major schools. Possibly the most important player for the Panthers in tonight’s game will be 6’9″ center Josh Forney, who is headed to Loyola (MD) next Fall. He’ll have his hands full with a tall, talented Quality Education frontcourt.

Brandon Bolden, a 6’11″ center who is headed to Georgetown next season leads Quality Education, and Dayton point guard commit Jevon Thomas plays a great Robin to Bolden’s Batman. QEA is considered North Carolina’s top team by most, and their only loss to this point was to Oak Hill (VA), widely considered the best high school team in the country.

BSR’s Coverage

We will create two posts for live updates as we approach tip-off later tonight, and feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I will be posting score updates and stats during the game.

Either between the two games or after both have ended, I will post several pictures and video highlights from the event. If you kept up with my coverage of the high school state football championships two weeks ago, it will be very similar.

See BSR’s full archive of high school sports coverage.

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Edgar Walker is a staff writer for Baltimore Sports Report, focusing on high school sports and the Ravens. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email at <ewalker795@gmail.com>.

Keep an eye out for his game coverage, and follow his Twitter account for scoring updates throughout the four title games.

If you haven’t checked it out already, take a glance at BSR’s . . . → Read More: Follow BSR’s Coverage of the Maryland High School State Football Championships]]> BSR’s Edgar Walker will be at M&T Bank Stadium on Friday night and all day Saturday covering the MPSSAA state football championships.

Keep an eye out for his game coverage, and follow his Twitter account for scoring updates throughout the four title games.

If you haven’t checked it out already, take a glance at BSR’s state championship previews posted earlier this week, which includes game previews, along with TV and ticket information.

Welcome to what will become known as the “Saturday Special,” a weekly event where I use this space to share any knowledge or opinions I have on anything related to (and in some cases, unrelated to) Baltimore sports.

Mostly, the “column” (as we’ll so graciously call it), will be put together like today’s. . . . → Read More: Saturday Special: 11/19/11]]>

Welcome to what will become known as the “Saturday Special,” a weekly event where I use this space to share any knowledge or opinions I have on anything related to (and in some cases, unrelated to) Baltimore sports.

Mostly, the “column” (as we’ll so graciously call it), will be put together like today’s. It will have bits and pieces of information, spanning multiple sports and considering several different perspectives. I’ll break it down, make it look nice, and refer you to some cool things to check out around the internet. Basically, it will be something fun to read and rely on each week.

However, on occasion I may get the urge to summon my inner Hemingway and construct a 1,000 word masterpiece detailing why I believe Ed Reed would make a perfect head football coach at any level, or discuss some outlandish issue pertaining to Peter Angelos’ sorry excuse of ownership of the Baltimore Orioles. These installments would be less glamourous, but they’d deliver the goods like a canned food drive on steroids (or like a good Chinese delivery guy, it’s really your choice).

Ray Lewis Injured, Might Miss Sunday. Don’t Freak Out.

Now that Purple Friday is done and gone, and that creep in the Elvis Grbac jersey isn’t spouting out unsubstantiated rumors about the situation, we can take a step back and consider the Ray Lewis injury situation.

Ray Lewis, seen here with owner Steve Bisciotti, could miss Sunday's game against the Bengals.

Basically, he’s listed as “Questionable.” In many cases, this means that a player will play. In Lewis’ case, it could be different. Having Lewis go out and play on Sunday could set him up for long-term injury, or could keep him out of a tough Thanksgiving night game against the 49ers coming off of a short week. With this in mind, I think it is likely that Harbaugh and Co. will keep Lewis out on Sunday, or at least limit the amount of time he sees on the field. A short week would make it difficult enough for a healthy Ray Lewis to be effective on Thursday night. Being that he’s injured, it may be in the linebacker’s best interest to take a seat on Sunday.

New GM, New Uniforms, Same Old Orioles.

Yes, there are actually a couple things to be excited about as an Orioles fan this off-season. A new general manager brings a welcome change to the front office and the way the organization tries to go about putting together a competitive team. If you’re a more casual fan, you probably are head-over-heels excited about the reincarnation of the retro bird logo, and the new alternate orange jerseys!

While I won’t say the new uniforms and personnel changes are smokescreens per se, the two moves are not worth the hype. A new general manager will hardly fix much. The fact of the matter is that Peter Angelos’ meddling ways and poor hiring decisions have ruined the Orioles organization over the last decade and a half, and Baltimore has become a last resort for most players. As is nearly always the case with the O’s, the club has signed a somewhat young but mostly washed-up player who was at one point among the top prospects in baseball. The newest member of the Felix Pie club (see what I did just there?) is Matt Antonelli, a classic 4A player who is trying to build off a solid season at the Triple-A level in Syracuse last season (Nationals).

The Antonelli move doesn’t reek of desperation, but I can assure you that some moves later on in this off-season certainly will. Antonelli is a player who should not have been signed to major league contract, and his signing is simply furthering the reputation the Orioles have around the MLB, where they are considered the dumping ground for those who can not land anywhere else.

College Football Saturday

I love college football, and this is the point at which I start to drift away from Baltimore. Here is a list of all the college football games worth keeping an eye on today. If you’re sitting at home all day watching football, I recommend watching the three bolded games in a row, with short breaks between games.

• (21) Penn State vs. Ohio State, 3:30: This is a must-watch game, for obvious reasons. One is that the Penn State story keeps getting weirder and weirder, and it’s riveting to see how these players will respond. More importantly, it will be massive in deciding the Big Ten championship race.
• (5) Oklahoma vs. (22) Baylor, 8: Oklahoma should win, but Robert Griffin III is a stud for Baylor, and if you haven’t watched him play yet this season, you really need to.
• USC vs. (4) Oregon, 8
• (13) Kansas State vs. (23) Texas, 8
• SMU vs. (11) Houston, 3:30
• (16) Nebraska vs. (18) Michigan, 12: Another Big Ten matchup, this one is suggested because it should be entertaining, and it starts at 12, a time without many entertaining games. Denard Robinson and Taylor Martinez facing off should be fun, and I love watching Rex Burkhead play. With all that said, both of these teams have looked pretty bad at time, so this game is either hit-or-miss.
• Virginia vs. (25) Florida State, 7:30
• Cincinnati vs. Rutgers, 12

The Ripkens: Baltimore Baseball’s First Family

Ryan Ripken will play his college baseball at South Carolina.

The Ripken family baseball legacy will continue to live on, as Cal’s son Ryan has committed to play baseball at University of South Carolina. The Gamecocks are one of the top teams in the nation, having won back-to-back NCAA championships in the last two seasons.

Ryan is a first baseman for Gilman School in Baltimore, and has been selected as an Under Armour All-American prior to this year, his senior season. With this commitment, it seems like Ryan is fully committed to following in his father’s footsteps, as most players out of the South Carolina program will get serious professional consideration. Obviously a fine player who will deserve whatever comes to him, Ryan does get an extra bonus because of his prestigious last name. In the end, it seems that Cal has not put a lot of pressure on his son to pursue a baseball career, but rather that Ryan has wanted it all along.

There are tons of things that we come across in the sports universe every day that aren’t quite “wordy” enough for this . . . → Read More: Introducing Baltimore Sports Reportr, Our Official Tumblr]]> Please join us in welcoming Lindsey to the BSR team as the lead writer for our newly launched Baltimore Sports Report tumblog. If you haven’t seen it yet, she’s already killing it.

There are tons of things that we come across in the sports universe every day that aren’t quite “wordy” enough for this space, or maybe deserve more than a mention on Twitter.

Our Tumblr is where Lindsey will be cultivating these items into a visual stream of what you’re talking about in the sports world. If you’re already on Tumblr, consider giving us a follow.

We’ll be featuring some “best of Tumblr” content here on the main site as well, but you can always find the Baltimore Sports Reportr at baltimoresportsreport.tumblr.com

It took us a week to settle in here at Baltimore Sports Report, but from this week onwards, the staff will present their weekly picks for the NFL’s full slate of games. We’ll keep track of the “records” for each picker, and by the end of the season, we’ll all truly know which . . . → Read More: BSR Week 2 Staff Predictions]]>  

It took us a week to settle in here at Baltimore Sports Report, but from this week onwards, the staff will present their weekly picks for the NFL’s full slate of games. We’ll keep track of the “records” for each picker, and by the end of the season, we’ll all truly know which of the staff writers know their stuff, and which one should just stick to talking about baseball.

As a reader/commenter, you can be involved too! Each week, we’ll ask the commenters to predict the score of the Ravens game for that week. The commenter with the guess closest to the final score will win the right to be our guest picker for the next week. Also, feel free to make your own picks in the comment section for the full week’s schedule. If you manage to get all your picks right in a week, you could win some cool prizes, courtesy of BSR! (Picks must be in before first game of week to be eligible.)

Week 2 predictions after the jump.

BSR STAFF NFL PREDICTION POOL: WEEK 2

So, let’s hear your picks! Remember to guess the score of the Ravens vs. Titans game to be next week’s guest picker!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Joanna, Michael and Amy!  Your flags are in the mail.  Thanks to all who participated.  If you missed out on the prize check out the Maryland’s Team online store!

NFL kickoff is so close that you can almost taste it!  What better way to start the season than against the Ravens . . . → Read More: Win a Fan Flag from Maryland’s Team!]]>

UPDATE: Congratulations to Joanna, Michael and Amy!  Your flags are in the mail.  Thanks to all who participated.  If you missed out on the prize check out the Maryland’s Team online store!

NFL kickoff is so close that you can almost taste it!  What better way to start the season than against the Ravens archival, the Pittsburgh Steelers?  If you’re headed out to The Bank for week one, then we want you to show your Ravens pride against the towel waving fans of Pittsburgh with a Fan Flag from the guys at Maryland’s Team.

If you aren’t familiar with their Fan Flag, then you’re in for a real treat.  Ravens fans have tried for years to find ways to wash out those terrible yellow towels, but this year the Fan Flag from Maryland’s Team is finally the solution.

Here’s what the guys at Maryland’s Team had to say about their Fan Flag in its debut during week one.

What can we do to unify Ravens fans and give them a visual identity on gameday? Well, the Ravens were born in Baltimore, Marlyand. Reason enough to believe that most of the fans would be from Maryland (that’s how I became a fan). Also, the Ravens’ uniforms sport a shield on the sleeve with portions of the Maryland flag, as do the Orioles. Suddenly, it all becomes clear. Marylander’s have great PRIDE and RESPECT for their flag. It’s an awesome flag and is easily the most identifiable in the country. Of course, we had to make it purple!

So, Ravens fans, let’s show our pride and raise our flags to this great Baltimore born team. Be respectful and show all those who challenge us why we are the greatest fans – we are Maryland’s Team!

If that doesn’t get you geared up for the game then nothing will.

We have three Fan Flags to give away to random lucky commenters to this post. Just leave a comment below and you’re eligible to win the Fan Flag.

If you aren’t one of the lucky three, check out the Maryland’s Team online store or visit their gameday location near the stadium to buy one and combat the Steelers fans!

This weekend’s question: Which new Ravens player (rookie or new acquisition) have you been most impressed with thus far in the preseason?

This question will be up all weekend, so while you’re stuck inside . . . → Read More: The BSR Weekend Discussion]]> Welcome to this weekend’s discussion. As always, comment with your opinions, but try to keep it fairly clean and friendly.

This weekend’s question: Which new Ravens player (rookie or new acquisition) have you been most impressed with thus far in the preseason?

This question will be up all weekend, so while you’re stuck inside waiting out Hurricane Irene, comment with your thoughts!

Go here to sign up and assert your dominance over people like Zach Wilt, Ross Gore, and myself.

Our online draft is Tuesday, September 6th, at 10 p.m. eastern.  Before joining consider if you can make the draft.  Entry is free . . . → Read More: BSR Fantasy Football: Few Spots Remaining]]> Between two and four spots for readers remain in the BSR Fantasy Football league!

Go here to sign up and assert your dominance over people like Zach Wilt, Ross Gore, and myself.

Our online draft is Tuesday, September 6th, at 10 p.m. eastern.  Before joining consider if you can make the draft.  Entry is free and the top finishing reader gets a BSR Prize Pack.  If a reader wins the league outright, the Prize Pack will be extra-special.

This is a great opportunity to use what The Fantasy God has taught you against us.  In the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“Are you ready for some fooootbaalllll?!”