December 2005 in sports

See also: 2005 in sports and Portal:Sports

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Deaths

Main article: Deaths in December 2005

Ongoing events

31 December 2005 (Saturday)
  • NFL Week 17
    • Denver Broncos 23, San Diego Chargers 7: Tatum Bell scored three touchdowns for the Broncos, but could muster only 52 yards, leaving him short of a 1,000 yard season, missing out on joining teammate Mike Anderson.
    • New York Giants 30, Oakland Raiders 21: Tiki Barber had a 95-yard touchdown run, the longest in Giant history; Plaxico Burress caught a 78-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning; and the Giants won the NFC East title, ending the four-year reign of the Philadelphia Eagles, and also clinched a playoff berth for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the process.
  • NCAA College Football
    • Meineke Car Care Bowl: NC State 14, South Florida 0: The ACC's Wolfpack shuts out the Big East's Bulls for the first time since the USF program began in 1997.
    • AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Tulsa 31, Fresno State 24: Golden Hurricane QB Paul Smith scored the winning touchdown for the C-USA champions over the WAC Bulldogs.
    • EV1.net Houston Bowl: TCU 27, Iowa State 24: Peter LoCoco's 44-yard field goal was the margin of victory for the MWC Champion Horned Frogs in their win over the Cyclones, who were the Big 12 representatives. On January 3, 2006, three days after their triumph in Houston, TCU's freshman kicker, Kasey Davis, is found shot to death in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
  • NCAA College Basketball
    • (21) Ohio State 78, LSU 76: In, what is called by same, the best comeback of the year thus far, the Buckeyes keeps their perfect record intact going to 10–0. The disappointing loss for the Tigers sends them to 7–4. The winning shot was taken by Matt Sylvester, who also made the shot in March of last year that ended Illinois' bid for a perfect season. Ohio State trailed by 15 points with just over 5½ minutes left and was down by 10 with 2½ minutes to go, but managed to come back and get the win. They are one of eight undefeated teams left.
    • Arizona 96, (7) Washington 95 (2 OT): Unranked traditional powerhouse Arizona pulls off a gutsy win in a Pac-10 thriller that lasted 50 minutes, two overtimes. With 5.1 seconds to go Kirk Walters made a free throw to give Arizona the lead. It ended Washington's best start to a season since 1975 and also ended the longest current home-winning streak, at 32 games. The new leader is Gonzaga at 30. Washington is another undefeated team to fall, as they go to 11–1. Arizona improves to 9–3, and 2–0 in the Pac-10.
    • (14) Oklahoma 68, Alabama 56: The Crimson Tide lose yet another chance to beat a ranked team as they fall to the Sooners and Kevin Bookout's 18 points and 8 rebounds. They were bouncing back from an upset loss to West Virginia the previous week, and now move to 8–2, likely holding on to their top 15 spot, if not moving up. Alabama's season has been disappointing, as they now move to 6–5.
    • (1) Duke 102, UNC-Greensboro 69
    • (10) Louisville 58, Miami (FL) 43
    • California 68, (11) UCLA 61
    • (3) Villanova 75, Temple 53
    • (8) Gonzaga 102, St. Joseph's 94
    • Pittsburgh 73, (24) Wisconsin 64

30 December 2005 (Friday)
  • NFL
  • NCAA College Football
    • Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl presented by Bridgestone: Virginia 34, Minnesota 31: The ACC Cavaliers, the replacement for the SEC who didn't field enough teams who had six wins, needed a 39-yard field goal by Connor Hughes with 1:08 left to beat the Big Ten's Golden Gophers at The Coliseum in Nashville.
    • Vitalis Sun Bowl: UCLA 50, Northwestern 38: In the sole Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup this bowl season, the Bruins defeated the Wildcats thanks to two on-side kick returns for touchdowns by Brandon Breazell and three touchdown passes by Drew Olson after he had a bad first quarter, throwing three interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns in an anomaly, considering that Olson threw a total of three pickoffs in the regular season.
    • Independence Bowl: Missouri 38, South Carolina 31: The Big 12 Tigers roared back from a 28–7 deficit thanks to four Brad Smith touchdowns to beat the SEC Gamecocks in Shreveport, Louisiana.
    • Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl: LSU 40, Miami (FL) 3: The ACC's Hurricanes scored the first three points, but the SEC's Bayou Bengals scored the final forty points thanks to 282 yards rushing in the last game using the "Peach Bowl" name, as beginning next year, the game becomes the "Chick-fil-A Bowl." The post-game was marred by a fight between players from both sides.
  • Cricket

29 December 2005 (Thursday)
  • NHL: Wayne Gretzky returned behind the bench for the Phoenix Coyotes, and the team responded as they defeated the Los Angeles Kings, 6–5 in overtime.
  • NCAA College Football
    • Emerald Bowl: Utah 38, Georgia Tech 10: The MWC Utes, who shocked the world last year as an entry into the Bowl Championship Series, defeated an outmanned ACC Yellow Jackets squad thanks to Brett Ratliff's 30-for-41 performance for 381 yards and four touchdowns, all caught by wideout Travis LaTendresse. Quinton Genther added 120 rushing yards.
    • Pacific Life Holiday Bowl: Oklahoma 17, Oregon 14: The Sooners stunned the sixth-ranked Ducks in a typical Holiday Bowl finish, with Cliff Ingram intercepting Brady Leaf's pass deep in Sooner territory. It's the second straight year a high-ranked Pac-10 team was shocked by a Big 12 school.
  • Ski jumping:

28 December 2005 (Wednesday)
  • NCAA College Football
    • MPC Computers Bowl: Boston College 27, Boise State 21: After nearly blowing a 27–0 lead, the ACC's Eagles intercept a Jared Zabransky pass in the end zone with less than two minutes remaining to secure their sixth straight bowl win on the WAC host's hostile "Smurf Turf".
    • MasterCard Alamo Bowl: Nebraska 32, Michigan 28: The Husker Nation from the Big 12 was delighted to see their team back in post-season play after a one-year absence defeating the Big Ten's Wolverines after a wild play in the final seconds with an attempt to recreate the famed Band Play from the 1982 Cal-Stanford game, but both teams had players on the field other than the eleven legal players on each team winding up with offsetting penalties.

27 December 2005 (Tuesday)
  • NCAA College Football
    • Champs Sports Bowl: Clemson 19, Colorado 10: James Davis rushes for 148 yards and a touchdown as the ACC Tigers survived a game Big 12 Buffaloes comeback.
    • Insight Bowl: Arizona State 45, Rutgers 40: In the long-awaited rematch of the inaugural Garden State Bowl, the de facto host Sun Devils from the Pac-10 — behind Rudy Carpenter's four touchdown passes — rallied to defeat the Scarlet Knights from the Big East in what could very well be the last football game played at Chase Field. Next year's game will move to Sun Devil Stadium on the ASU campus. The teams combined for 1,211 yards total offense, a record for any bowl game.
  • NCAA Men's College Basketball
    • (4) Memphis 83, (8) Gonzaga 72: The Tigers win at home to go to 10–1, their best start since 1985–86. The nation's leading scorer, Gonzaga's Adam Morrison, scores 34 points, but goes cold at the wrong time, failing to score in the final 9:31 of the game.
  • Rugby Union

26 December 2005 (Monday)

25 December 2005 (Sunday)

24 December 2005 (Saturday)

23 December 2005 (Friday)
  • Rugby Union
    • Wales and Ospreys centre Gavin Henson is handed a 10-week and 2 day ban by the International Rugby Board after a disciplinary panel finds him guilty of elbowing Leicester prop Alex Moreno in the face; the assault left Moreno with a broken nose. The ban means that Henson, who was such a vital player in Wales' 2005 Grand Slam success, will be suspended for the first three rounds of the 2006 Six Nations Championship. BBC
  • NCAA College Football:
    • Fort Worth Bowl: Kansas 42, Houston 14: Jason Swanson threw for four touchdowns as the Big 12's Jayhawks blew out C-USA's Cougars.

22 December 2005 (Thursday)
  • Cricket:
  • NCAA College Football
    • Pioneer Pure Vision Las Vegas Bowl: California 35, BYU 28: Marshawn Lynch had 194 yards rushing and three touchdowns as the Bears of the Pac-10 edged the Cougars from the MWC.
    • San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: Navy 51, Colorado State 30: Reggie Campbell tied an NCAA bowl record with five touchdowns — three rushing, two receiving — as the independent Midshipmen sailed to victory in the inaugural game over the MWC's Rams.
  • NFL: Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy's son James, is found dead. The cause is apparently suicide
  • NCAA Men's College Basketball
    • (3) Villanova 98, La Salle 57: In the first matchup of undefeated teams in the Big 5 of Philadelphia since Temple and Villanova were both 6–0 in 1981, and the only Big 5 matchup that pitted two 7–0 (or better) undefeated teams against each other, Villanova's Allan Ray and Randy Foye combine for 41 points to crush La Salle. The Wildcats, not surprisingly, have gone to 8–0, while the surprisingly successful Explorers fall to 7–1.
    • West Virginia 92, (7) Oklahoma 68: In a game that was close until fairly deep into the 2nd half, the Mountaineers scored 19 of the game's final 22 points, to, in his words, "embarrass" coach Kelvin Sampson. The Sooners, ranked in the top 10 in the country, fall to 6–2, while currently unranked West Virginia improves to 7–3 behind Kevin Pittsnogle's 25 points.

21 December 2005 (Wednesday)
  • NCAA College Football
    • GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Alabama: Toledo 45, UTEP 13: Bruce Gradowski throws five touchdown passes and Trinity Dawson rushes for 132 yards to lead the MAC's Rockets in a rout of the C-USA Miners.
  • Men's College Basketball: (1) Duke 70, St. John's (NY) 57: In the now annual game between the two schools, the Blue Devils win fairly easily to claim their 4th 11–0 start in the last 5 years. The Red Storm, however, are on the slide, losing their last three in a row (making them 5–4). J. J. Redick led Duke with 18 points.

20 December 2005 (Tuesday)

19 December 2005 (Monday)

18 December 2005 (Sunday)

17 December 2005 (Saturday)
  • College Football: Mount Union defeated Wisconsin–Whitewater 35–28 to win the NCAA Division III Championship at the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in Salem, Virginia. It is the eighth championship for the Purple Raiders in thirteen seasons.
  • Boxing: In Berlin, Germany, Russian Nicolay Valuev became the tallest (7 feet; 2.13 meters tall) and largest (330 lb; 149.7 kg) to win a heavyweight championship in a controversial majority decision over John Ruiz to win the WBA version of the title.
  • NHL: Phoenix Coyotes coach and part owner Wayne Gretzky takes an indefinite leave of absence from his duties as coach of the team due to his mother suffering from lung cancer. Assistant coach Rick Tocchet will serve as interim coach.
  • NFL Week 15
  • NCAA Men's College Basketball
    • Tennessee 95, (6) Texas 78: After an embarrassing defeat at the hands of #1 Duke the previous week while #2 in the country, Texas is crushed by unranked, but unbeaten, Tennessee in Austin. It is assumed Texas will drop more ranks, possibly out of the Top 10, when the next poll is taken on Monday. Chris Lofton led Tennessee with 21 points, while P.J. Tucker had 20 for Texas.
    • (23) Kentucky 73, (4) Louisville 61: After a bad previous weekend (losing to Indiana 79–53), Tubby Smith and the Wildcats stifle Louisville's offense to go on to the 12-point win, behind Rajon Rondo's 21-point game. Kentucky improves to 7–3, while Louisville is no longer undefeated at 6–1. Louisville's six wins had all been against mid-major squads.
    • (14) UCLA 68, Michigan 61: The Wolverines became yet another team to suffer their first loss of the season. It comes at home to the hands of ranked rival UCLA. The Bruins improve to 8–1 with their only loss coming to 5th ranked Memphis (88–80). Michigan is now 7–1.

16 December 2005 (Friday)

15 December 2005 (Thursday)

14 December 2005 (Wednesday)

13 December 2005 (Tuesday)

12 December 2005 (Monday)

11 December 2005 (Sunday)

10 December 2005 (Saturday)
  • NCAA Men's College Basketball: (1) Duke 97, (2) Texas 66: The showdown at The Meadowlands was more of a lopsided affair as J. J. Redick led the Blue Devils with 41 points, including nine three-point baskets, outshooting the whole Longhorn team (who could only get three trifectas) by himself. LaMarcus Aldridge led Texas with 23 points.
  • College Football: Reggie Bush wins the 2005 Heisman Trophy as the best player in college football. The Heisman is probably the most-venerated individual honor in American sports.
  • Rugby union: All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu makes his first competitive appearance since undergoing a kidney transplant in 2004, playing 60 minutes for the Cardiff Blues in a 25–10 Heineken Cup win over Calvisano.

9 December 2005 (Friday)
  • Football: The draw for the groups of the 2006 World Cup takes place in Leipzig, Germany. Group E (Italy, Ghana, USA, Czech Republic) and Group C (Argentina, Côte d'Ivoire, Serbia & Montenegro, Netherlands) are widely regarded as the competition's Groups of Death. Hosts Germany will open play against Costa Rica in Group A while Brazil, the defending World Champions, head up Group F. (FIFAworldcup.com)

8 December 2005 (Thursday)
  • Baseball: The final remnants of Busch Stadium II, home of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1966–2005, were demolished in the early morning hours, as a special fireworks display that followed signaled the end of one era, and the beginning of another era, as Busch Stadium III is scheduled to officially open on April 10, 2006 as the Cardinals host the Milwaukee Brewers.

7 December 2005 (Wednesday)

6 December 2005 (Tuesday)

5 December 2005 (Monday)

4 December 2005 (Sunday)

3 December 2005 (Saturday)

2 December 2005 (Friday)
  • NCAA College Football AP Top 25
    • Louisiana Tech 40, (23) Fresno State 28: The Fresno State loss — their third straight — gives Nevada and Boise State shares of the WAC title. However, La Tech will not go to a bowl game as the WAC had only three slots available.

1 December 2005 (Thursday)

References
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