Sports Today: Reds Opening Day spin, UNC national championship fallout, spring football

Shall we obsess over the fact the Reds had so many chances to break through but didn’t? About the defensive miscue that allowed the winning run to score? About how the starter with the sub.-500 career record got rocked to start the game?

Or is it a matter of being THIS CLOSE to winning?

“Hey, hey, the bullpen was actually pretty good today!”

On April 4, you can take any of those stances and not be wrong. At least as far as we know.

Only time will tell if the Reds are as bad as many expect or they can take some big steps forward in the rebuilding process.

Might as well be positive for now, eh?

RELATED: Feldman hangs in after disastrous beginning

A clutch hit here, one less mistake pitch, a smarter attempt at that ball in right field and — voila! — a close victory over one of the worst teams in baseball instead of a loss…

Bryan Price is choosing to take the optimistic outlook, though can you really blame the Reds manager? Six months is way too long to look on the downside of things all the time.

He had a great anecdote as the writers' scrum in his office was breaking up yesterday:

Baker, the former Reds manager, might be bad at making lineups and managing pitching staffs, but he sure can philosophize.

Here are five things to know about the game from David Jablonski…

Scooter Gennett held court in the clubhouse before and after the game. 

He was happy to talk about his early years as a kid in Lebanon, including giving himself his nickname as a youngster when his mother enlisted a police officer to try to break him of the habit of unbuckling his seatbelt in the backseat of the car.

Afterward, he was the man of the hour because he provided one of the few offensive sparks of the day, an opposite field, two-run homer that brought the Reds within a run with two outs in the ninth inning.

Maybe that’s an indication of how the season is going to go in Cincinnati — talk about what used to be and what almost was sandwiched around a lot of losses.

I guess one could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Time will tell, but Gennett is an intriguing option on a roster that seems to have a lot of OK pieces but maybe few great ones.

Who makes it for the long term and who gets overtaken by more talented prospects down the road should be interesting…

Also: The national anthem by Marlana VanHoose was totally awesome.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, Edwin Encarnacion went 2 for 5 with a home run in his debut for the Indians.

The defending AL champions beat the Rangers 8-5...

North Carolina beat Gonzaga for the national championship last night in a game pretty much no one outside the Tar Heel fan base seemed to enjoy.

I missed most of it because I was on my way back from Opening Day in Cincinnati, but the numbers tell enough of a story: A foul-fest in which neither team shot well.

But at least the refs blew a call late that along with the ridiculous alternating possession rule on held balls helped decide the game.

Also of course there are the ongoing questions about the academic scandal in Chapel Hill that could ultimately lead to some of Roy Williams’ impressive accomplishments no longer counting in the future.

For now, Williams has more championships (three) than his mentor, Dean Smith.

As a bonus, Williams won his despite not having the best player in history on his team or the opponent’s star player cripple his team’s chances to win by calling a timeout it didn’t have.

Now it’s on to the offseason. Then the interminably long regular season and hopefully a more entertaining tournament than we got this year.

At least a non-Power 5 team made it to the title game again.

Here’s the 2017 edition of “One Shining Moment” in case you couldn’t stay up:

With the NBA and NHL playoffs not quite here, it’s a good time to catch up on spring football. 

Urban Meyer will give an update on Ohio State later today, but one of the big thorns in his side since he got to Columbus held its spring game already: Michigan State.

And among the surprise players this spring in East Lansing was Josiah Scott, a true freshman defensive back early enrollee from Fairfield who was among the first-teamers in the Spartans’ spring game.

He even reminded head coach Mark Dantonio of a former Michigan State standout who is now a Cincinnati Bengal.

Scott, who was a three-star recruit, surely has a long way to go before he is a first-round pick in the NFL draft, but that’s a pretty nice way to kick off a college career.