Strap on your helmets. Grab your box of cracker jacks. Super sports sunday starts now. We do have some new guys, but the guys that are returning, they dont really need much message of anything. They go about their business in a very professional manner and show up to play every night. I dont care what Punxsutawney Phil says, spring has spring. The rays pitchers and catchers officially reported to spring training in Port Charlotte this morning. Welcome to super sports sunday. Im your host paul ryan. Before we take in the sights and sounds of spring training we take in some exhaust fumes. Since 1982 the daytona 500 has been the first race on nascars cup series calendar. If auto racing was scripted, i would argue wwe could never create a better ending. Snout out to all the wrestling fans. Lets go to the daytona the 58th edition of the Great American race. Pole sitter Chase Elliott won the Xfinity Series event last night but ran out of luck today. Elliott tours the infield on lap 19 and finished their 7th. Then 37th. Then dale earnhardt, jr. Meets my favorite pink floyd album, thats the wall. Look at his wife, poor lady. A little later greg biffle gets a front row seat for Danica Patrick taking a shortcut through the grass. Thats not allowed. Fast forward to the final lap, matt kenseth leading the pack, but here comes denny hamlin on the high side. They make contact. Kenseth falls back, finishes 13th. Hamlin pulls nose to nose with martin truex, jr. Down the stretch. Who gets to the line first . Go to the photo finish. There it is. Hamlin wins by. 11 of a second. I swear thats a real measure of time. Thats about 4 inches, the history. Toyotas take four of the top five spots. Hamlin earns his first daytona victory, the first in 23 years for joe gibbs racing. I didnt know that we had won. I knew it was close and so i saw the pylon change and blink at the last second with the 11 and so i just measured on the radio people were all crazy excite heard on the radio people were all crazy excited, so i assumed we won when that happened, but if not, i was going to be [ bleep ]. Its such a proud moment for me to win for the gibbs family and you talk about how upset matt was that he didnt win for joe. We all want to win for the gibbs family because this is what they do. Wish we could have won obviously, but just going to have to watch that on the highlight reel for the rest of my career, i speech, rest of my life because we i suppose, rest of my life because i remember when it happened to mark martin, poor guys, been so they still show that highlight. The picture of that race is in the tunnel when you come in and turn it on. I have a feeling im going to have to see that same thing for a long time, so it hurts a little bit, but a lot to be proud of. If ice is more your speed, there was plenty today, hockey day in america on nbc. Six nhl games on the docket including the lightning and hurricanes. Like most matchups this time of year, it was important, tampa bay clinging to a playoff spot while carolina tried to make up ground in the congested metropolitan division. Ben bishop and Company Playing the second game of patroled back to backs. Tampa bays power play is the second worst in the nhl away from home. Heres an example. Jordan staal to joaquin nordstrom. Thanks for shopping at nordstroms. The receipt says 10. Follow the pinball puck. Andre shuster fires and right to jt brown on the doorstep. His dad ted brown former nc state running back pretty pleased, despite what his fans in North Carolina might think. Later in the 2nd Steven Stamkos finds ryan callahan, he gives the lightning the lead. 22 in the 3rd when tampa bays maligned power play redeems itself. Tyler johnson to stamkos in front, stammers 25 goal of the year is the game winner. Callahan would add an empty netter to lock it up. Lightning take back to backs on the road and win their third in the row, tampa bay now tied for second place with boston. Elsewhere in the playoff bubble here on nbc the penguins trying to pick up a couple points against the sabres tied 11 in the 2nd. Check out the Puck Movement here. Sabres take the cheese on the fake. Scott wilson snaps the trap. 21 pittsburgh. A little later kris letang finds phil kessel all along. Buffalo made it interesting by the sabres come up one short. Pittsburgh wins 43. The penguins have 68 points and retain their wildcard spot. The red wings visited the rangers this evening, another team in need of every possible point. This was scoreless through regulation thanks to outstanding performances by jimmy howard and henrik lundqvist, but in overtime the shot is stopped. He cant find the rebel. His teammate can. A two rebel. His teammate can. A the rebound. His teammate can. New york beats detroit 10. Finally lets take this outside. Blackhawks and wild meeting up in the great state of minnesota. In the nhl stadium series tcf bank looking different than when the bucked played there this preseason. The wild pumped six past patrick kane got the hawks on the board, too little too late. Minnesota continued its playoff push with a 61 win. If youre sick and tired of sticks and pucks, the best i can offer you is bats and balls. The rays open spring training in Port Charlotte this morning and we were there. Thats because in news gig is kind of like a 24 hour operation most of the time. We previewed tampa bays starting pitching staff checking in with alex cobb and chris archer, plus an exclusive interview withdrew smiley. Now is a good time to lose the remote in the couch. Super sports sunday is back in cobb is throwing now. He is on schedule. I would say hes ahead of schedule simply because no setbacks. Hes feeling really good, but as far as, you know, when well see him in a big league game, thats going to be probably how is this sight for sore eyes . 10 months after tommy johns surgery rays starting pitcher alex cobb is running around in Port Charlotte, albeit throwing the ball underhand for now, but you heard manager kevin cash. Cobb is playing catch and on pace for a midseason return. Casual admits hes not much of a big speech cash admits hes not much of a big speech kind of guy. He didnt have one for his pitchers and catchers on spring training. Hed rather wait for the whole team on friday. Theres a lot to talk about after sundays workout starting with the ace, chris archer, getting in some extra throws for a good reason. Reporter the air horn signaled it was time to move on to the next station. Chris archer was not finished and beneath the gusts in Port Charlotte you could hear a foundation being built. Do that again. Do that again. Reporter do it again and again. In the middle, though. Group waited and watched until finally there we go. Reporter this is why pitchers and catchers report to spring training early. Archer worked with veteran catcher hank conger this day and you Better Believe the conversation went both wales. How much of that is on him and you also living up to what you just said to him . Well, every pitcher is different. Some people like for the catchers glove to be where they want the ball to finish. Some people want the catchers glove where they want to start the ball. Reporter thats what makes these conversations in spring training so important. A little chat out here in the practice bullpen can mean a huge out later in the season. Just so when we do get into games, theres no questioning. Theres no doubt. He already knows kind of the game plan and then we just work within that. Im sure if youre a catcher like hake is, youve got a good memory and track record of remembering those things. I could tell as we got into already kind of anticipating where the ball was going to go. Reporter no detail ignored, no fundamental skimmed at practice. Archer has assume skipped at practice. Archer has assumed a leadership role and if hes not ready, everyone will just have to wait. Of course, chris archer is just one of the arms kevin cash is going to call upon to start games this season. Archer will be the ace, but another guy might steal the headlines. Drew smyly enters the 2016 campaign with plenty to smile about. Dan lucas has a oneonone interview with the lefty next on sports sunday. Stick around. You know theres nothing else worth watching on tv. He strikes out wieters with a fastball. Last year rays pitcher drew smyly dodged a shoulder shaped bullet by rehabbing his torn labrum without surgery. Fast forward a few months. Now smiley is all smiles beginning spring training pain free and ready to bolster what could be a dominant starting rotation. Last year smiley made nine starts and picked up wins in five. Some guys who make a career writing about baseball predict drew could be a breakout pitcher in the 2016 campaign. We checked out the labrum and got drews thoughts on topping the achievements of one of his former college teammates. Reporter the first day out here and seeing all the guys, young guys and now old guys like yourself, give me your kind of critique of the first day. Feels weird to say. I mean its great, great being back out here. This is an exciting time, everyone back together getting ready for the season. Everyone is in the bullpens, healthy, excited for the year, so good start. Reporter youre the arbitration slayer, man. The business of baseball behind you, how comfortable is that to get through and now worry about just playing ball . I mean im just here to play baseball, man. Thats part of the business. I dont handle that. Thats what agencies are for and player associations. Im just ready to play. Reporter how does the shoulder feel . Shoulder feels great. Put in the work this offseason, did everything i need to do to put myself in the position to be healthy. Im excited for it, excited to Start Playing games and take that next step. Reporter how frustrating was it as an individual and unit . You had matt battling to come back, aleck goes down and you start feeling alex goes down and you start feeling that soreness. I thought our team overcame it really well to be. 500 with offensive side and on our pitching staff was pretty awesome. I think that ever goes us a lot of optimism this year. Reporter do you that gives us a lot of optimism this year. Reporter do you recall a point in the summer where you decided im not having surgery and started to feel better, do you remember a point where you really wanted to start pitching again and had to hold yourself back . Yeah, for sure. When the game is taken away from you and youre sitting at home seeing your teammates playing, its hard. It makes you want to dig deep and do whatever it takes to be back on the field. Its a tough pill to swallow, but it just pushes you with the determination factor to put in the work and know that youll be healthy and back on the field. I was really happy coming back in august, september and put in the work in the offseason. Now its a new year and fresh start. Everyone is pumped. Reporter it was a 10 strikeout game in september. Its almost like finishing a you cant wait to get back out there. Is that kind of the feeling you had . For sure. I missed most of the year recall on. Its almost like you lost the season there. Youre just getting started. Thats the way it goes. Im looking forward to starting this year off on the right note. Reporter finally give me one arkansas story because you had an Interesting Group of teammates there and a lot of side bets when you guys got into the major. Did dallas have the beard back then . What was it like playing on that team . It was a great team. He didnt have the beard, coach wouldnt have allowed that, no facial player, clean shaven. Might not recognize him. Hes a character. We were roommates and get along great, still stay in touch. What an amazing year he had. Now im trying to get on that level, one up him. Reporter what would coach say about his beard today . I dont know what he would say. I think hes glad he doesnt have that at university of arkansas. Anything to him after he won the cy young award. Dont feel bad, drew. My boss doesnt let me have a beard either. Well have much more from Port Charlotte coming up on news channel 8. And coming up next the bulls, the usf women get back to full strength closing in on a tournament run. Bulls highlights are next on super sports sunday. I do everything on the internet. But, its kind of slow. My friends say i should get fios because its the fastest. I just downloaded 600 photos in 60 seconds. husband were out of 2 i wonder what else could be better around here . husband i heard that. Switching to Better Internet is now easier than ever. Only fios has the Fastest Internet available, with uploads up to 5x faster than cable. Get 100 meg upload and download speeds. Plus tv and phone for just 69. 99 a month online with no annual contract. Switch to better. And that will do it from here at the sun dome, Orlando Antigua meeting josh casner, former staff mates at memphis five years ago. South florida hands memphis another blow. All bad things must come to an end. The south florida Mens Basketball Team picked up its first home conference win on runs to top memphis 8071. Jamaal mcmurray led the way with 17 points. The bulls moved to 411 in the american. You could have picked a worse weekend to be a fan of usf hoops really. The men showed a glimpse of their potential against the tigers and the women nearly put triple digits on those cats this afternoon. The bulls with a chance to jump back into the second place in the ncaa. We got ourselves a ballgame in the 4th, usf complining to a 74 70 lead clinging to a 7470 clinger. Courtney williams led the way with 23 points. Next williams finds kitija laksa on the break. Alisia jenkins, check her, 20 points, 17 boards, safe to say shes healthy again. South florida goes on to beat memphis 9782 improving to 19 7 overall. Next up a road trip to tulsa wednesday night. Fall from the top 25 after an upset loss to georgia. The gators came up short in athens 7463. Ronnie william led florida with 18 points. The gators lost three of their last four with just two games remaining before the sec tournament. Lets step out of the gym and get fresh air on the links. Final round of the Northern Trust open, leaderboard loaded at the top, watson, rose, johnson and scott in the mix, so is rory mcill provide. Thats the mcilroy. Thats the big board there. 23 putt for eagle. Moments later rorys partner adam scott same hole from 36 feet. Anything you can do, i can do better. An eagle for scott. Hes at 12under, too. Later in the day scott finishes his round with back to back birdies and takes the clubhouse lead at 14under, but bubba watson taps in for bird on 17 to get to 15under and thats the winning score. Watson wins his second northern years taking home 1. 2 million for his trouble. We got to take one more break before the conclusion of this lovely program, but fret not. In a moment two of the weirdest things youll ever see on the ice, the play of the week and the not play of the week next unable to force one towards the empty net. Now he shoots and what a save what . Take another gander at this video courtesy of the american hockey leagues binghamton senators beating the st. Johns ice caps 41 saturday night, but the only highlight worth a mirror a miraculous stick save, a for effort. Thats our super sports sunday play of the week. Of course, not everyone can be as graceful as mr. Holloway supermanning his way into the highlights. You might say he was lucky. If, so this next guy is unlucky. The flames bring us the not play of the week. Reporter into the minnesota zone, timbers score. That went off of dubnyks face into the net believe it or not. I believe it. Ive seen the replay. While defenseman matt dubnyk is knocking pucks into his own net with his face, david jones shot is deflected off dumbas dome. The good news for dumba is 3 and dumba scored the first outdoor goal this week. Thanks as always for staying up and checking out super sports sunday. If you just cant wait for next week to get your fix, we do news in the studio seven days a week. You can follow us on twitter. Until next time good night, announcer the following is a paid commercial program proudly brought to you be prosvent. Do you make frequent trips to the bathroom. Suffer from urgency. Hesitancy . Do you get up more than once a night . Can you even sit through a movie . Or, worse, have a diminished sex drive . If so, chances are you have an enlarged prostate. Fact 30 million men now suffer from an enlarged