A few odds and ends after recovering from another busy sports weekend.

Wizards' woes

The Dakota Wizards were expected to contend for another D-League championship, but are off to a 1-4 start. Even more surprising, they are 0-3 at home.

That has only happened once before, during the Wizards' miserable 1998-99 campaign - in other words before Duane Ticknor arrived to turn around the team's fortunes.

For a little perspective, in their first 13 seasons, the Wizards lost an average of five home games per season. They've had three years in which they've gone the entire season without losing more than three home games. In fact, they had a five-year stretch where they averaged fewer than three home losses per season.

Nobody's pushing the panic button yet - three of the four losses were decided in the final minute.

But Ticknor expressed some frustration after Sunday's game.

"I don't know what's wrong. I wish I did know," Ticknor said. "We're struggling to get a rotation - that's one thing - because we're not getting consistent play from people."

Sioux Falls coach Nate Tibbetts offered up his assessment of the Wizards after scoring a victory in the Battle of the Dakotas.

The only way they're struggling right now is with their record.

"This is the best team we've played so far," Tibbetts said. "Coach Ticknor's a great coach, and they've got talented guys. They're going to be all right."

CBA hanging on

The CBA has survived bad times before, but the league is hanging by a thread heading into the 2008-09 campaign.

With the Pittsburgh Xplosion recently folding, the league is down to four teams. There was serious discussion given to shutting things down, but the decision was made to move forward.

The CBA is in a hopeless bind geographically, with teams in Minot, Fort Sill-Lawton, Okla., Pikeville, Ky., and Albany, N.Y. They're going to try to get by with scheduling games against teams from the notoriously shaky ABA. The same ABA that has had many dozens of teams fold in its brief existence.

It's sad to see the shape the CBA is in. But when the NBA threw its full weight behind the D-League a few years ago - formalizing affiliates - the CBA never stood a chance of remaining what it had been for so long, the second-best basketball league in the world.

The CBA's legacy lives on in teams like the Wizards, the Skyforce and the Idaho Stampede, which have had great success in the D-League, and in its former coaches.

Who knows - if the CBA could bounce back from Isiah Thomas, maybe it can survive this.

Showtime Shelby

Shelby Pudwill might not have lived up to his nickname Saturday night, but he put in a solid performance in his victory over Anthony Osbourne.

Pudwill clearly had some ring rust after going more than 2½ years between fights, and Osbourne wasn't the stiffest competition.

But Pudwill won all eight rounds easily and his punches were crisp and accurate. In short, it was a good first step.

Fearless Forecast

With the last area football teams getting eliminated a couple of weeks back, it was a time to call an end to the Fearless Forecast - and just in the nick of time.

Thanks to the New York Jets' upset of the then-unbeaten Tennessee Titans, I eked out a one-game victory over Cindy Peterson. That's two years in a row and six out of the last eight for me.

I went 8-2 in the final week, to finish 95-45. Cindy was 5-5 to go 94-46. Mike Weber and Steve Thomas tied for third at 89-51. Guest picker Scott Schroeder of the Minot Skyrockets went 4-6, giving the guests an 81-59 mark. Eric Hammond was last at 77-63.

(LouBabiarz is the Tribune sports editor.)