So MLB in their infinite wisdom has decided to add a second wild card team beginning this season whereby the first round of the playoffs will consist on one game in each league between the two wild card teams, in an attempt to cash in on the excitement the Game 163s have generated the last few years in a move that was almost certainly driven by the almighty dollar.
That being said, I like it. Not only does it give more teams a chance to be relevant late into the season (which, face it, as a Twins fan is a big selling point) but it finally gives a meaningful advantage to the teams that win their division over the Wildcard winner. Before the only difference was home field advantage, now winning a wild card means you play one game for your playoff life while the division winners know they have a full series coming up. I'm 100% on board, thanks for asking.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Chip Armelin. I know the clearest sign of a terrible college season for a team is to start evaluating players in terms of their futures before the year is even over, but here we are, and Armelin played a great game against Nebraska. It was nice to see a player actually attempt to score, not to mention that scoring seemed to be the #1 thing on his mind - a true rarity on the Gopher teams of the Tubby Smith era. He even took a heat check after he made those three treys, and as a huge fan of the heat check it was nice to see because nobody else ever does it on this team. I'm not exactly sure how to project him going forward (assuming he stays with Minnesota) but with him, Dre Hollins, and Joe Coleman the team at least has three guard types who are aggressive with the ball and aren't afraid to attack the rim and attempt to score. For now, at least, until Tubby beats them into submission and they start being afraid to drive.
2. Colonial Conference. Well, the Colonial teams did what they were supposed to do. The CAA had two teams in the mix for an at-large bid in VCU and Drexel, and both made it through to the CAA Final this week. Obviously whichever team wins gets the auto-bid and the other will have to wait for Sunday and hope they get called, but they've done what the both needed to at this point. Both are so on the bubble that it's really tough to say if they'd get in with a loss and might need to catch a few breaks but with Murray State and Creighton getting autobids that's two at-larges that are safe. I'm hoping the committee does the right thing and let's them both in over crappy big 6 teams like Arizona, Seton Hall, or Miami, but that big conference bias has reared it's head in the past, so I'm skeptical at best. [NOTE: VCU ended up winning, and even though it was a close game that pretty much went down to the wire I came away less impressed with Drexel than I was the last time I watched them. I still think they're a good, tough mid-major but I no longer think it'll be a travesty if they don't get a bid. They'll probably just beat the Gophers in NIT round 1.]
3. Indiana Hoosiers. When Indiana started out the year hot I wasn't buying it. Then they beat Kentucky and Ohio State and I was like ok maybe. Then they lost three straight including a home loss to the Gophers and on the road at Nebraska and I was like ha ha I knew it. Then they just kind of did what decent big ten teams always do (win at home, lose on the road, beat who you should, don't get upset, blah blah) and it was boring, but this week might have won me over. The beat both Michigan State and Purdue handily and as everyone who was talking about anything about basketball last week made sure to let you know that's three top-five teams they've now beaten this year. What really won me over was in watching good size chunks of both of those games they're more athletic than I thought. They still won't be confused for Kentucky, but guys like Sheehey and Oladipo are really good athletes, and Hulls and Watford move around better than I remembered. I still don't think they can get any further than the Sweet 16, but not long ago I was penciling them in as being upset in round 1, so they've made me rethink things a bit.
4. Cincinnati Bearcats. Well that's certainly how you make a run when you're stuck on the bubble come late February. The Bearcats beat Marquette and Villanova this week (at Nova) to finish the regular season with five wins in the last six including wins over three teams in the top 56 RPI and the only loss to South Florida on the road (RPI 45). You still can't quite guarantee they're in because that horrendous strength of schedule (#321 non-conference SOS with 9 games against sub-200 RPI teams) and the ugly loss against Presbyterian (RPI 246) which has a good chance to be the worst loss by any tournament team this year, but they're now up to 5-4 against the RPI Top 50 and 7-5 road/neutral and they simply just belong. Their RPI is held back by that SOS and is shaky at 66 right now, but a few weeks ago they were in the mid-80s, so this is a solid run that's kind of inspiring in the same way the Gophers falling from solidly in to no shot in one short month is inspiring but the opposite.
5. North Carolina Tar Heels. Ruh roh. I think everybody has known all year the Heels were behind only Kentucky in pure talent, but for whatever reason seemed to not quite be able to put it together and kind of drifted along, as double digit losses to UNLV and Florida State attest to. I mean sure, they won lots of games and all, but they were definitely not living up to their talent level. And then Duke won in Chapel Hill. And something snapped. The Heels have won their last seven, including absolutely crushing Duke's soul in Durham and easy road wins against three possible tournament teams in Virginia (lock), Miami (likely), NC State (very unlikely). I was hoping they wouldn't figure it out so I could trust them to lose early, but looks like no such luck, and Kendall Marshall was just snubbed for ACC first team so, well, yeah, there's that. And keep in mind that Roy Williams has no interest in conference tournaments so if/when UNC flames out early in the ACC tourney don't let that affect your NCAA picks. Or let it. More sweet sweet delicious sexy money for me sex.
WHO SUCKED
1. St. Louis Cardinals. Lemme get this straight. First, you lose your best player, maybe the best player of his generation and the face of your franchise because you can't afford to pay him. Then you turn around and give your catcher $15mm per year? So let's see. Pujols got 10 years, $240 million from the Angels for an average salary of $24 million each season. From what I can find, the biggest offer the Cardinals put on the table was 9 years, $205 million - or $22.78 million per. You're telling me you couldn't take a few extra million you offered Molina and use it to re-sign Pujols and then offer Molina $13 per instead of $15? You're telling me he wouldn't take that? Seems like knee jerk reaction to make sure you don't lose your second most beloved player after botching it on the first. Then again, my favorite team gave their catcher 800 bajillion dollars to sit on the bench, so who am I to talk.
2. Wichita State. Losing in the semis of a middle tier conference tournament to a non-descript Illinois State team is never a good thing, but in this case it doesn't really bother me nor my love for the Shockers (the team, not the act). First of all and most importantly they're already guaranteed an at-large bid thanks to a very good resume, so this loss doesn't knock them out. Some people will say they'll be more rested but I don't really care about that because a couple of days doesn't make much difference to a 20-year old college athlete, but what I really like is this will knock their seed down a peg. If they're a 5 or 6 instead of a 3 or 4 fewer people will pick them to make the sweet 16 and even fewer will pick them to make the Elite 8 so when I do and they do I will be the winner and the money will be mine all mine oh sweet money yes I want the money oh yes.
3. The Pac-12. I'm starting to think they should just go ahead and not invite anyone from the Pac-10, including the conference winner. Arizona starts to look like they're in decent shape and they lose to atrocious Arizona State (RPI 248) to knock them out of the running for a bid. Washington starts to look like they could maybe get comfortable and they lose to UCLA (RPI 112). Cal nearly has a bid completely sewn up, but they lose to Stanford (RPI 95), and suddenly nobody is anywhere near a lock. If Cal and/or Washington get to the Pac-12 final they're probably ok, especially with all the chalk winning the conference tourneys so far, but if they come up short this might really be a one bid league. At this point the right move might be to just give it to Oregon, because they at least seem like they want to make it and have won four straight. Don't be shocked if the Ducks end up taking this tournament and the only Pac-12 bid this year.
4. Iona Gaels. Well shit. I couldn't be more bummed about the Gaels losing in the quarters of the MAAC Tournament, because this is a really good, fun, dangerous team and suddenly they're probably not going to get a bid to the NCAAs. That loss (to Fairfield) gives Iona they're fourth loss to a sub-100 RPI team with two of those teams being sub-200, and that's not going to help, especially considering there's only one win over a top 50 team (Nevada). They 5-3 record over the Top 100 is fine and the RPI is ok at 46, but there's an awful lot of questions about the profile here. If they had made the conference final and lost to Loyola (RPI 85) they'd be in a lot better shape, but if ifs and buts were candy and nuts every day would be Erntedankfest.
5. Seton Hall Pirates. As much as Cincinnati might be the poster team for doing things the right way to get a bid, Seton Hall might be your classic team that does something awesome to make their fans think they're going to do it and then fuck it all up, or as I like to call it, "pulling a Gopher." Really though, since beating Georgetown and making everybody say "well shit this Seton Hall team might be the goods" the Pirates have lost to Rutgers (RPI 153) and DePaul (RPI 193) which is like LOL. They play Providence tomorrow (today, if you're reading this instead of doing work) and although the Friars aren't exactly good or anything like that, they do own wins this year over Louisville and UCONN so it's not like they're a piece of crap. Plus I'd rather have Providence win so we can forget all about this shitty team who sucks and maybe they can get Iona in there instead. Do it for the children.
And with that I'm out of here. Off to the great state of Florida with the family to be closely followed by a trip to Chicago to watch the NCAA Tournament with Bogart, Dawger, and Snake. Probably drink some beer, some vodka, some redbull, and eat a few wings, too. So I have no idea if/when I'll be posting again. I'll try to get something up when I'm in Florida, but god willing I'll be too busy. Then again, the whole family will be there so maybe I'll have to pretend to "work" and blog it up. You hope.
Lastly I want to mention that I won our Big 10 Fantasy League, beating Bogart in a thriller in the championship and a big thank you to Drew Crawford. Dawger finished dead last.
Showing posts with label Fantasy College Hoops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fantasy College Hoops. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
World Series Game 6 (plus Tyus Jones and fantasy college basketball updates!!)
Watching Game 6. Typing stuff. Let's go.
- Game update - It's 2-2 in the 3rd. Nick Punto recently tried to kill Chris Carpenter by throwing his bat at him. No big deal though, he threw it in a gritty way.
- So the big news in Gopher hoop news is that Tyus Jones, the all-world 10th grader who is ranked as the 5th best sophomore and #1 point guard in the country according to ESPN, came out in an interview and didn't mention the Gophers. This is, of course, big news because keeping instate recruits, especially at this level, and raising the level of talent coming to Minnesota was supposed to be one of the reasons Tubby Smith was hired, and because Jones would likely be the most important commit in Gopher history if Tubby was able to secure it. A few points, if I may:
- Dropped pop-up by Holliday after a miscommunication with Furcal. You know who doesn't miscommunicate there? Nick Punto.
- Napoli knocks him in. Of course he does. I never realized how good a hitter that guy was. He snuck up on me, just like that little sister of the girl you went to high school with and knew really well and she was always your little buddy and then all of a sudden it's the summer before your senior year and she's going into 10th grade and she comes into Blockbuster where you work and it's all BAM! boobs and the hotness and it's weird and sweaty. I've heard.
- Throwing error on St. Lou's pitcher. Looking like we might be witnessing the implosion to end the season. Stay tuned.
- Or not. 3-2 Rangers.
- Oh, right. You wanted to know how my Fantasy College Basketball Draft was going. Well here she is:
- A 4-pitch walk, and then Andrus throws the ball about 200 feet too high trying to turn the double-play. What an ugly game. It's like watching the Twins play the Twins.
- Top 5, now a 3-3 game and David Freese drops a pop-up. He drops a pop-up. He. drops. a. pop-up. So bizarre right now. Nobody wants to win.
- Aaaand I just missed a shitload of the game because my daughter is a psychopath. It's now the bottom of the sixth, we're tied 4-4 with the bases loaded and one out, and Nick Punto is up. I'm not going to lie to you, I totally have an erection right now.
- Matt Holliday picked off third. Wow. And according to the inning summary Michael Young made another error as well. Pretty good chance this is the worst played world series game in history. Of course Nick Punto was involved.
- Alexi Ogando just walked Punto to re-load the bases, which means if Matt Holliday didn't have his head up his ass (note: that is valid for this entire series) the Cardinals take the lead. Instead the bases are loaded for Jon Jay. If I'm the Rangers I like my chances here. Of course, Nick Punto just walked for like the 8th time this series, so whatevs.
- Jay grounds out to the pitcher. Colored me shocked. Which would probably be some shade of blue.
- Beltre goes yard to lead off the 7th, giving Texas teh lead and winning a bet for me. Nice.
- Cruz home run, which probably loses a bet for me. The lord giveth and he taketh away. But at least he digs gambling.
- Nice work Lance Lynn, by the way. I'm just stunned someone with your name is a terrible pitcher. It's such a manly name you'd think you'd be throwing gas in the upper 90s and mixing in some filthy breaking stuff. Instead it's like watching Jamie Moyer but if he never changed speeds. I'm pretty sure Lance Lynn is the worst pitcher and person ever. I heard he likes to torture kittens and kick babies.
- Jesus christ there are five minutes left in this Houston/Rice football and Case Keenum has 483 yards passing with 8 TD passes. Yes 8. Houston is just ridiculous. I don't know that it's even football they play, but they've perfected it. Sure, there are wannabes like Texas Tech, but nobody has been able to perfectly copy whatever Houston's system is. Both Andre Ware and David Klingler? And now this Keenum cat? Not to mention Kevin Kolb who is heading in that direction. Just brilliant. And all this with Donnie Avery being the only WR of note there ever, and I'm not even sure he's of note but I've heard of him because of my unhealthy love of Sam "Six Killer" Bradford. Also this is way too long of a paragraph talking about a Houston QB. I miss Rodney Peete. Who has nothing to do with anything. I really don't know where that came from.
- I got to see the new Muppet movie last night as a sneak preview (comes out in a month). WonderbabyTM liked it and so did I. It was weird because the whole message of the movie was pretty much "Hey you've forgotten about the Muppets but they were a huge part of you life and guess what they're still awesome" and that's pretty much exactly how I felt. I didn't really even realize how big they were in my own life, but watching this movie I remember every character, every bit, and every joke and when Kermit and the gang sang "Rainbow Connection" it was, no kidding, totally awesome. Especially when Animal rocks out. It was just so much fun.
- AAAAAH Derek Holland's mustache is back! Also is Mike Adams dead?
- Allen Craig goes yard here in the bottom of the 8th to make it a 7-5 ball game, filling in for the "injured" Matt Holliday. Injured? Well considering how lost he's looked at the plate, in the field, and on the base paths he better be injured and hopefully for him it's some sort of brain injury. He's been absolutely terrible.
- Tivo'd the new Beavis and Butthead tonight. Gotta at least give it a shot, right? For old, awesome times, sake?
- Weird play, but I guess it's fitting with tonight's theme of sucky plays. Daniel LaRusso hits a routine grounder to Andrus who looks at second (runner on 1st) despite it being a pretty easy out, double pumps, throws it in the dirt to first and even though it's cleanly picked LaRusso beats it out like he beat up Johnny Lawrence. Runner safe. So weird.
- Base knock for Jay, bases loaded. Molina, of course, couldn't score because he's slower than dirt and he's still on the base paths because LaRussa will never, ever, take him out because of his defense. Also the music guy at Busch is playing a little House of Pain here so I'm pretty sure Furcal's clearing the bases here.
- Groundout to the pitcher. Might as well have played a little Dido.
- My favorite part of this World Series is now when Tim McCarver said, "A home run doesn't tie it" when there was nobody on base and the Cardinals were down by two. You can't pay for that kind of insight. And Pujols just doubled with one out, so now a home run does tie it. I think. McCarver hasn't weighed in yet. He's pretty much a slightly younger, more well-paid Sid Hartman, right?
- Walk. Things are interesting.
- Feliz just froze Craig for strike 3. And that pitch was a hanging slider. Should have smoked that one. Now just one out to go.
- I have a feeling Freese wants to walk here. Looks like he has a giant Louisville Slugger in his rectum. Also I hardly knew 'em.
- Shows what I know because Freese just smoked one to the wall to tie the game and now he's sitting on third - the winning run. Luckily Nelson Cruz's athleticism is approaching Manny from Modern Family levels.
- We're going to extras. And I'm supposed to go watch Parks and Rec. Hold on, brb.
- That is definitely the best show on tv. And now I get to watch the rest of the game in speeded up time.
- With one out Andrus singles, and McCarver can't hold himself back from talking about stealing bases. Honest to god it's some sick sort of obsession. It's all he ever talks about. If we could find stats on this I bet 70% of the sentences he's said in this series have revolved around stolen bases or "sending the runner" which is extra creepy when you think about how often there has been nobody on base when he talks about it.
- Hamilton with a moon shot and the Rangers are up 2. Again. Did that HR hit a fan in the head and kill him? Seems likely.
- He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts.
- LaRusso leads off with a knock for the Cards. They certainly aren't going away. Although Jon Jay is up, so that's pretty much an automatic out. The Cards should consider this a win if this isn't a double play.
- Texas-Leaguer, base hit for Jay. 2-on, nobody out, and we have a pitcher pinch-hitting for I assume a pitcher but I can't look it up because I'm on tivo and looking it up means I see a box score which means I learn stuff I don't want to. And the pinch-hitter edwin jackson is pulled and now it's Kyle Lohse. Former twin. Up in a huge spot and being asked to bunt. And since he's a pitcher the corners are going to be way in and if he gets the bunt down they'll get the out at third. Same thing happened to Colby Lewis earlier.
- Well he gets the runners over but only by making an absolutely horrendous bunt, which just happened to find an open area and was actually closer to a hit than an out. Now Ryan theriot is up with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. I think they should walk him and pitch to Pujols.
- Ground out to score a run by Theriot (best case scenario if you're st. louis). Tying run on second, Pujols up. Do you walk him and put the winning run on base? Tough call, but the Rangers are going to do it. Single by Berkman ties it, double wins it, out ends it. It ain't game 7, but there's some high drama here tonight.
- Jesus christ. Berkman singles to center to tie the game. Winning run now on third. I'm so tired and excited.
- We're going to 11 folks.
- I fast forwarded through the top of the 11th to get live. Nothing happened.
- Home run David Freese, and of course Buck steals the "we'll see you tomorrow night" line. Great series. Calling it now: Pujols at least 3 hits tomorrow, and probably 2 home runs. Book it.
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- Game update - It's 2-2 in the 3rd. Nick Punto recently tried to kill Chris Carpenter by throwing his bat at him. No big deal though, he threw it in a gritty way.
- So the big news in Gopher hoop news is that Tyus Jones, the all-world 10th grader who is ranked as the 5th best sophomore and #1 point guard in the country according to ESPN, came out in an interview and didn't mention the Gophers. This is, of course, big news because keeping instate recruits, especially at this level, and raising the level of talent coming to Minnesota was supposed to be one of the reasons Tubby Smith was hired, and because Jones would likely be the most important commit in Gopher history if Tubby was able to secure it. A few points, if I may:
- First thing, ignore the sensationalist headline and keep in mind that when he mentions "Arizona, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Duke" as the schools he's seriously considering he's not just talking about himself. He is talking about the schools where he and fellow sophomore Jahlil Okafor, a center from Chicago who is ranked #3 by ESPN, are looking at attending together. It isn't his "official" list.
- There have been a lot of these "we're going to play together" deals, especially when kids are younger like Tyus and Jahlil. Rarely do they end up happening. I'd give you an example but I can't think of one. In any case, Tyus could certainly still consider the Gophers as a strong possibility for himself if he goes his own way from Okafor.
- All that being said, Jones has never come out and said Minnesota is a leader and he's never given me the feeling that he's even seriously considering the U, so it shouldn't exactly be a surprise that the Gophers aren't high on his radar. Once teams like Kansas, Duke, Michigan State, etc. come calling, the Gophers don't look all that attractive even to many home town kids. It's a sad reality, but it's a reality. Remember Naadir Tharpe? Not a hometown kid, but a kid who had narrowed his choices to Minnesota or Rutgers. When Rutgers secured a commitment from a different point guard and it seemed inevitable he was going to be a Gopher. At the last minute Kansas got involved, and like 2 days later he committed to the Jayhawks. The power programs are power programs for a reason.
- Tubby HAS reversed the trend of the best Minnesota kids leaving the state. Going back to 2006 the biggest recruits in the state were Isaiah Dahlman, Cole Aldrich, Jon Leuer, Jared Berggren, and Jordan Taylor, and to the best of my knowledge none of them even considered Minnesota. Since 2008 the top kids have been Royce White, Rodney Williams, and Joe Coleman - all Gophers. One miss does not mean he's not doing his job. By all accounts Tubby has been after Tyus hard.
- But no matter what you do, once a kid hits that level of accomplishment, that level of stardom, and starts receiving those kinds of accolades and has his pick of schools, he will nearly always go to a premier program rather than stay home to try to revive his home town school. Looking at the Rivals top 10 from 2007-2011 , the only kids I found who actually stayed home were kids whose home town school was a national powerhouse and/or "premier" programs (Sullinger to Ohio State, Bullock to UNC, Holliday to UCLA, Mullens to Ohio State, and Gordon to Indiana), There were only three exceptions - Perry Jones to Baylor (although technically he lived closer to SMU), Derrick Favors to G-Tech, and Demar DeRozan to USC. So out of five years and 50 kids, only 3 stayed home to help their hometown school - this was a long shot to begin with.
- A lot can change in the next couple of years, and maybe Tubby will re-energize the program, finally, and maybe Tyus will catch the fever and decide he wants to be a Gopher (and bring his buddy with him). But I wouldn't consider it likely. No matter who the coach is, Minnesota isn't the kind of school that gets these kids. It just is what it is. Tubby needs to get good, talented kids he can coach up, freaking keep them, and hope that every few years lightning hits and the Gophers are a Sweet 16 team with possible upside. That's the reality folks. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
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| This is GOLDEN. GOPHER. BASKETBALL. (Get it. You want it to be really good but it's just mediocre but you keep watching because you really hope it's going to get better and maybe they'll be a sweet dinosaur that shows up. |
- Dropped pop-up by Holliday after a miscommunication with Furcal. You know who doesn't miscommunicate there? Nick Punto.
- Napoli knocks him in. Of course he does. I never realized how good a hitter that guy was. He snuck up on me, just like that little sister of the girl you went to high school with and knew really well and she was always your little buddy and then all of a sudden it's the summer before your senior year and she's going into 10th grade and she comes into Blockbuster where you work and it's all BAM! boobs and the hotness and it's weird and sweaty. I've heard.
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| Like this, only if instead of it being school it was Blockbuster and if the girl was way hotter |
- Or not. 3-2 Rangers.
- Oh, right. You wanted to know how my Fantasy College Basketball Draft was going. Well here she is:
- ROUND 1 - TREVOR MBAKWE, F, MINNESOTA: When you're in a college basketball draft with bunches of players who you might not even see on TV this year and a hometown boy should go somewhere near where you're picking, you take him. I picked 9th, and after what I thought was a clear top 5 (Tu Holloway, Jared Sullinger, Harrison Barnes, Terrence Jones, and Jordan Taylor) it's pretty wide open after that. Mbakwe is somewhere on that second tier, and with a legit chance to put up 18-12-2-1-2 with 60% shooting this year, I had to take him.
- ROUND 2 - DEE BOST, G, MISS STATE: Bost managed to average north of 6 assists per game last year while scoring 15 points per contest. His shooting percentage is a atrocious, but he's going to dominate the ball and put up some serious numbers.
- ROUND 3 - DREW GORDON, F, NEW MEXICO: I love this pick. He was the Mountain West newcomer of the year last season and is the front-runner for player of the year this year. He could easily put up the same numbers as Mbakwe, but I got him three rounds later.
- ROUND 4 - JOSH SMITH, C, UCLA: He slimmed down a bit and he's also had the talent, hopefully he's a little more motivated this year - and that weight loss is a good sign. I'm a little bit nervous because the Wear twins are there now and he could end up losing playing time, but he was good last year with the talent to be great, and we start 3 centers so they're at a premium with 13 teams in the league.
- ROUND 5 - ALLEN CRABBE, G, CAL: Team was looking a little bit too front-court heavy, so I went with an all-around guard who can help out in most categories. I regret this one a bit and am thinking I should have gone with Ramone Moore from Temple, but they're pretty similar statistically.
- ROUND 6 - ANDREW SMITH, C, BUTLER: I considered Smith a nice sleeper at C, but a huge run on the position caused me to move earlier than I wanted to. Remember we start 3 centers, and in the last 10 picks prior to me going here Augustus Gilchrist (So Fl), Ralph Sampson (lol), Kenny Frease (Xavier), Reggie Johnson (Miami), and Greg Echenique (Creighton) - all centers - were taken. I expect Smith to see a nice jump in production with Howard gone, and it was either get my 2nd center here or just forget about it altogether. I still have some nice sleepers I can't mention here because stupid TRE reads this blog and is in the league, but I feel much better with 2 solid centers on board.
- A 4-pitch walk, and then Andrus throws the ball about 200 feet too high trying to turn the double-play. What an ugly game. It's like watching the Twins play the Twins.
- Top 5, now a 3-3 game and David Freese drops a pop-up. He drops a pop-up. He. drops. a. pop-up. So bizarre right now. Nobody wants to win.
- Aaaand I just missed a shitload of the game because my daughter is a psychopath. It's now the bottom of the sixth, we're tied 4-4 with the bases loaded and one out, and Nick Punto is up. I'm not going to lie to you, I totally have an erection right now.
- Matt Holliday picked off third. Wow. And according to the inning summary Michael Young made another error as well. Pretty good chance this is the worst played world series game in history. Of course Nick Punto was involved.
- Alexi Ogando just walked Punto to re-load the bases, which means if Matt Holliday didn't have his head up his ass (note: that is valid for this entire series) the Cardinals take the lead. Instead the bases are loaded for Jon Jay. If I'm the Rangers I like my chances here. Of course, Nick Punto just walked for like the 8th time this series, so whatevs.
- Jay grounds out to the pitcher. Colored me shocked. Which would probably be some shade of blue.
- Beltre goes yard to lead off the 7th, giving Texas teh lead and winning a bet for me. Nice.
- Cruz home run, which probably loses a bet for me. The lord giveth and he taketh away. But at least he digs gambling.
- Nice work Lance Lynn, by the way. I'm just stunned someone with your name is a terrible pitcher. It's such a manly name you'd think you'd be throwing gas in the upper 90s and mixing in some filthy breaking stuff. Instead it's like watching Jamie Moyer but if he never changed speeds. I'm pretty sure Lance Lynn is the worst pitcher and person ever. I heard he likes to torture kittens and kick babies.
- Jesus christ there are five minutes left in this Houston/Rice football and Case Keenum has 483 yards passing with 8 TD passes. Yes 8. Houston is just ridiculous. I don't know that it's even football they play, but they've perfected it. Sure, there are wannabes like Texas Tech, but nobody has been able to perfectly copy whatever Houston's system is. Both Andre Ware and David Klingler? And now this Keenum cat? Not to mention Kevin Kolb who is heading in that direction. Just brilliant. And all this with Donnie Avery being the only WR of note there ever, and I'm not even sure he's of note but I've heard of him because of my unhealthy love of Sam "Six Killer" Bradford. Also this is way too long of a paragraph talking about a Houston QB. I miss Rodney Peete. Who has nothing to do with anything. I really don't know where that came from.
- I got to see the new Muppet movie last night as a sneak preview (comes out in a month). WonderbabyTM liked it and so did I. It was weird because the whole message of the movie was pretty much "Hey you've forgotten about the Muppets but they were a huge part of you life and guess what they're still awesome" and that's pretty much exactly how I felt. I didn't really even realize how big they were in my own life, but watching this movie I remember every character, every bit, and every joke and when Kermit and the gang sang "Rainbow Connection" it was, no kidding, totally awesome. Especially when Animal rocks out. It was just so much fun.
- AAAAAH Derek Holland's mustache is back! Also is Mike Adams dead?
- Allen Craig goes yard here in the bottom of the 8th to make it a 7-5 ball game, filling in for the "injured" Matt Holliday. Injured? Well considering how lost he's looked at the plate, in the field, and on the base paths he better be injured and hopefully for him it's some sort of brain injury. He's been absolutely terrible.
- Tivo'd the new Beavis and Butthead tonight. Gotta at least give it a shot, right? For old, awesome times, sake?
- Weird play, but I guess it's fitting with tonight's theme of sucky plays. Daniel LaRusso hits a routine grounder to Andrus who looks at second (runner on 1st) despite it being a pretty easy out, double pumps, throws it in the dirt to first and even though it's cleanly picked LaRusso beats it out like he beat up Johnny Lawrence. Runner safe. So weird.
- Base knock for Jay, bases loaded. Molina, of course, couldn't score because he's slower than dirt and he's still on the base paths because LaRussa will never, ever, take him out because of his defense. Also the music guy at Busch is playing a little House of Pain here so I'm pretty sure Furcal's clearing the bases here.
- Groundout to the pitcher. Might as well have played a little Dido.
 |
| My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why-y-y, we traded for Fur-cal. |
- Walk. Things are interesting.
- Feliz just froze Craig for strike 3. And that pitch was a hanging slider. Should have smoked that one. Now just one out to go.
- I have a feeling Freese wants to walk here. Looks like he has a giant Louisville Slugger in his rectum. Also I hardly knew 'em.
- Shows what I know because Freese just smoked one to the wall to tie the game and now he's sitting on third - the winning run. Luckily Nelson Cruz's athleticism is approaching Manny from Modern Family levels.
- We're going to extras. And I'm supposed to go watch Parks and Rec. Hold on, brb.
- That is definitely the best show on tv. And now I get to watch the rest of the game in speeded up time.
- With one out Andrus singles, and McCarver can't hold himself back from talking about stealing bases. Honest to god it's some sick sort of obsession. It's all he ever talks about. If we could find stats on this I bet 70% of the sentences he's said in this series have revolved around stolen bases or "sending the runner" which is extra creepy when you think about how often there has been nobody on base when he talks about it.
- Hamilton with a moon shot and the Rangers are up 2. Again. Did that HR hit a fan in the head and kill him? Seems likely.
- He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts.
- LaRusso leads off with a knock for the Cards. They certainly aren't going away. Although Jon Jay is up, so that's pretty much an automatic out. The Cards should consider this a win if this isn't a double play.
- Texas-Leaguer, base hit for Jay. 2-on, nobody out, and we have a pitcher pinch-hitting for I assume a pitcher but I can't look it up because I'm on tivo and looking it up means I see a box score which means I learn stuff I don't want to. And the pinch-hitter edwin jackson is pulled and now it's Kyle Lohse. Former twin. Up in a huge spot and being asked to bunt. And since he's a pitcher the corners are going to be way in and if he gets the bunt down they'll get the out at third. Same thing happened to Colby Lewis earlier.
- Well he gets the runners over but only by making an absolutely horrendous bunt, which just happened to find an open area and was actually closer to a hit than an out. Now Ryan theriot is up with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. I think they should walk him and pitch to Pujols.
- Ground out to score a run by Theriot (best case scenario if you're st. louis). Tying run on second, Pujols up. Do you walk him and put the winning run on base? Tough call, but the Rangers are going to do it. Single by Berkman ties it, double wins it, out ends it. It ain't game 7, but there's some high drama here tonight.
- Jesus christ. Berkman singles to center to tie the game. Winning run now on third. I'm so tired and excited.
- We're going to 11 folks.
- I fast forwarded through the top of the 11th to get live. Nothing happened.
- Home run David Freese, and of course Buck steals the "we'll see you tomorrow night" line. Great series. Calling it now: Pujols at least 3 hits tomorrow, and probably 2 home runs. Book it.
-
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday Musings (World Series, Vikings, Billy Beane, Racism in football, etc.)
I'm watching the World Series right now (currently 2-0 St. Louis in the 3rd) and watching the Rangers work on imploding, which is exactly what Detroit did to hand the Cards their last World Championship, when they were once again a substantial underdog. So far C.J. Wilson has walked Lance Berkman after being ahead 0-2, and Berkman then advanced to third on David or Daniel Murphy's error on a single to left (which scored Holliday), and then scored when Keith Moreland's kid booted a ground ball. C.J. Wilson also threw a Furcal bunt away, but was able to pitch out of it. And now Moreland just hit a Thome-sized home run. Looks like a ball game. I'm not going to live blog it like, but I'll just do that thing where I type whatever comes into my head about whatever. I guess that's what I usually do. Whatever. Shut your big fat face.
- So I suppose, for the first time in two years, there's something worthwhile to talk about with the Vikings. Of course, this is only because they have clearly jumped into rebuilding mold and Ponder gave everyone hope, but despite being impressed with Ponder I'm not exactly looking forward to the next couple of years.
Here's your problem - too old and/or too bad. What do you have? Well you have a good start because you have one bona fide superstar on each side of the ball (AP and Jared Allen), both of whom will probably be able to give you 3-5 more years at a high level. That's an excellent start, and far better than a lot of teams can build around. But from there it's tough.
Ponder looked very good for it being his first start. He made his mistakes, misjudged just how fast even an old cornerback is in the NFL, and made some interesting decisions, but he also made a lot of good throws, showed a lot of poise for a rookie, and never seemed rattled. I don't know what exactly his upside is, but, at the very least, he looks like a young QB the team can build around. It's been a long time since this team has had that (Culpepper), and I'd say Ponder's downside is as a middle of the pack type starter. That's very, very good.
But what else do you have? Nothing. On offense the only other person who has big-time potential is Percy Harvin, but it's hard for me to see him as anything more than a kick returner slot receiver type. I think his absolute upside is the kind of guy who can have a 5 catch-180 yd-2 td day and then follow it up the next week with 1 catch for 8 yards. Who else is there? Kyle Rudolph I guess, but I'm pretty sure everybody loves him because he's white and he's best friends with Ponder who, it turns out, is also white and everybody loves. We'll see.
The real problem here is that there is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, on that offensive line. There is not one single player who starts on that line who would start for any other team in the league with the possible exception of Steve Hutchinson, but that doesn't matter because he's too old to matter when this team is 2-3 years away at a minimum. Loadholt I suppose has some potential and I wouldn't exactly give up on him, but he's not nearly as good as I had hoped and the rest of these guys are fuckin' clown shoes.
And the defense? Who, outside of Allen is remotely interesting? Greenway is alright and Robison is fine as long as you're ok with a mediocre DE2, but that's it. E.J. Henderson? Please. Guy is so overrated and still can't move around correctly. Maybe after another year of healing he'll be ok but I'm not betting on it. Kevin Williams is done, I have no idea who the other DT or LB is, and the only half-way decent defensive backs are a guy who has had 2 knee surgeries and a guy who is currently in jail. Antoine Winfield is one of my favorite players ever but he's pretty much done unless he can move to safety which they should definitely try because Hussain Abdullah's one skill seems to be allowing the big play and also because he's probably a terrorist.
The good news is there are some legitimately nice players here - AP, Allen, Harvin, Ponder, and Greenway are all quality players. The bad news is this isn't baseball or basketball and you can't just trade veterans from prospects and/or picks. It's unfortunate, because guys like Winfield and Hutchinson would be perfect trade bait in other sports, but not the NFL so their kind of stuck. So I guess my point is that the Vikings will be bad for a while but should at least be fun to watch. So I guess that's something. The Gophers are going to be terrible and no fun to watch, so I guess point NFL.
- You know what I'd rather watch than that Captain America movie that's coming out on DVD tomorrow? Anything.
- You know what I do like though? Walking Dead. Very good show so far. Not exactly the most realistic, but if you're looking for realism in a show about zombies I contend you're kind of lost already.
- Last time Pujols came up there as a runner on third with 1 out and they walked him. Holliday grounded into a double play. Now there are runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. They're walking him again. The intrigue is so thick you could cut it with a spoon.
- Ground out to short. Holliday is terrible. Billy Beane was right again.
- Know who the A's got for Holliday? Shane Peterson, Clay Mortensen, and Brett Wallace. Mortensen was then traded to the Rockies for Ethan Hollingsworth, Wallace was shipped to the Jays for Michael Taylor, and Peterson is still in the minors (along with Hollingsworth and Taylor). And Beane originally had to give up Carlos Gonzalez, Huston Street, and Greg Smith to get Holliday. So essentially he flipped a superstar outfielder (down year notwithstanding), a still capable closer, and a young starter who is already in the majors for three minor leaguers, only one of which (Taylor) is considered a top 20 prospect in their system. I guess Joe Morgan was right, moneyball schmoneyball.
- So not only am I playing in the fantasy Big 10 hoops league with my friends (Snacks, Dawger, Snake, Bogart, Optimator, Elk, and Grandslam), but I'm playing in a bigger college hoops league as well, similar to the won I played in - and won - 2 years ago. We've got 13 teams and we're using the Big Six leagues plus the meaningful outliers (UNLV, BYU, New Mexico, Memphis, Gonzaga, etc.). It's a lot harder, and I wish I could talk about it more in depth but unfortunately TRE from Still got Hope? (which if you don't read you should) is also in the league, so I can't divulge my secrets. We fire up the draft tomorrow and it's slowish style so I might get like 2 picks per day. I pick 9th, and I'll give you a hint (and also TRE picks after me) - if he's there I'm going to go with a guy whose name rhymes with Shumbakwe and probably has a huge crank.
- That "huge crank" talk is probably inappropriate but I'm going to leave it in there because it's just going to help the google search results. Also megan fox lesbian kiss midget vagina fart ass sex nick punto.
- Speaking of Nick Punto vagina farts, he just struck out with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 2 outs. Big spot there. Punto's definitely the guy I'd want up in that situation.
- Adrian Beltre just hit a home run on a lollipop curve ball from his knees. No lie. That was pretty weird and impressive. Now 2-2. This has been a great series.
- So this morning before work one of our Direct TV remotes stopped working. It had been going and even when we switched batteries it didn't get any better and today it was just done. So I looked it up on their website and I can get a replacement remote for $15. I figured cool, that's a reasonable price and I'll swing by the nearest retailer to my house and see how much more it is, thinking I'd be willing to pay $5-$10 to have it tonight rather than waiting for it to ship. So I get home from work, grab my damn wiener kids so Mrs. W can do her Tae Bo or yoga or whatever it is tonight, and run up to said retailer. Almost immediately find the remote. It's priced at $44.99. Forty. Five. Fucking. Dollars. Naturally I walked out without it and am now watching the game with no ability to flip channels on the commercials or mute Tim McCarver, but I'm sure as shit not paying 200% more than I have to. I'll wait a couple days, thanks.
- Top 7, tie game. Allen Craig or someone with a name like that, walks with one out and then tries to steal second and is out by two billion feet. And now they're walking Pujols. And guess what they would have done if that steal would have been successful? Yep. Walked him. Since he's nearly as likely to hit an XBH as get a single, maybe you just stay put on first, ok? I get the stolen base and it certainly has it's place, but these two managers both seem to be way to obsessed with it and have both screwed their teams over in this series. Also let's see if Holliday can go 0-3 after getting slapped in the mouth.
- Hey a base hit! Way to go little buddy! And thanks to a whole bunch of thrown the ball around-itis, we're at 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. 20 bucks says Berkman strikes out for the 3rd time tonight.
- I missed what happened with Berkman but the bases were loaded when David Freese struck out so I assume they walked him.
- By the way you should probably ignore everything I wrote about the Vikings above. I made most of that up.
- Bottom 7, 1 out, Kinsler on first. 20 bucks says they send him here.
- Nope, but Elvis Andrus struck out on 3 pitches. God they'd be so much better if they hit Napoli or Cruz or even Beltre second. But of course, Ron Washington can't do that. You gotta have a guy there who can handle the bat, right Gardy and every other manager in the stupid world. And Dawger.
- Ever want to combine racism with football? Go nuts.
- After a leadoff hit by Yadier Molina I'm pretty sure the Cardinals just pinch hit for Skip Schumaker with Ryan Theriot just so he could sac bunt. You're telling me a dude named Skip can't bunt? You might as well tell me that sliding into first doesn't get you there faster. I can't believe it. I won't.
- Punto blows it again, striking out in a still tied game with a runner on 2nd and 1 out. Takes a special kind of guy to constantly disappoint two franchises.
- In one fantasy league I'm in today I was offered Cam Newton and James Starks in exchange for Hakeem Nicks and LaSean McCoy. So that was pretty fun.
- Bases loaded. One out. Bottom of the 8th. 2-2 game. Mike Napoli up. A hit, and particularly an extra-base hit, would help my bank account tremendously. Na-Po-Li. Na-Po-Li. Na-Po-Li.
- Double, scores 2. Damn dude, shit never works out like this for me.
- That message board I posted earlier really thinks Peyton Hillis is being held down because he's white. Why can't they just accept that he's terrible at football? Probably a good blocker though.
- I couldn't tell you one thing about Lance Lynn. Well, other than he's a pitcher for St. Louis who is about to come into a high leverage situation in the World Series.
- Your name is Lance Lynn and you're gonna roll out the perm? Interesting choice. Also he just intentionally walked Ian Kinsler and then got yanked. Looks like LaRussa has his overmanaging pants on again.
- Feliz now in for the ninth and he gets 2 strikes on Craig and then plunks him right in the back shoulder on a pitch that was so zeroed in on him that there was no way Craig could've gotten out of the way even if his life was on the line. Pujols up. Tying run, can't walk him. Nice.
- Jesus Pujols has a great eye. Now at 3-2. Laid off three close ones but were clearly balls. He's really good at hitting stuff. Not unlike Chris Cook, I suppose.
- Strike 'em out throw 'em out. Pujols whiffs on a pitch that was ball four and Craig is tossed easily and I have no clue why they sent him. I know Albert doesn't strike out a ton, but you just took a runner out who, really, didn't matter. If he gets to second and scores on a single who fucking cares, you're still down by a run. Stupid play. Tony LaRussa outsmarted himself here tonight. I hope Holliday hits a home run here.
- Holliday walks. Will probably get thrown out stealing. Stay tuned.
- Berkman whiffs. Texas wins. Pretty sure we're going 7 folks. Adios and good night.
- So I suppose, for the first time in two years, there's something worthwhile to talk about with the Vikings. Of course, this is only because they have clearly jumped into rebuilding mold and Ponder gave everyone hope, but despite being impressed with Ponder I'm not exactly looking forward to the next couple of years.
Here's your problem - too old and/or too bad. What do you have? Well you have a good start because you have one bona fide superstar on each side of the ball (AP and Jared Allen), both of whom will probably be able to give you 3-5 more years at a high level. That's an excellent start, and far better than a lot of teams can build around. But from there it's tough.
Ponder looked very good for it being his first start. He made his mistakes, misjudged just how fast even an old cornerback is in the NFL, and made some interesting decisions, but he also made a lot of good throws, showed a lot of poise for a rookie, and never seemed rattled. I don't know what exactly his upside is, but, at the very least, he looks like a young QB the team can build around. It's been a long time since this team has had that (Culpepper), and I'd say Ponder's downside is as a middle of the pack type starter. That's very, very good.
But what else do you have? Nothing. On offense the only other person who has big-time potential is Percy Harvin, but it's hard for me to see him as anything more than a kick returner slot receiver type. I think his absolute upside is the kind of guy who can have a 5 catch-180 yd-2 td day and then follow it up the next week with 1 catch for 8 yards. Who else is there? Kyle Rudolph I guess, but I'm pretty sure everybody loves him because he's white and he's best friends with Ponder who, it turns out, is also white and everybody loves. We'll see.
The real problem here is that there is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, on that offensive line. There is not one single player who starts on that line who would start for any other team in the league with the possible exception of Steve Hutchinson, but that doesn't matter because he's too old to matter when this team is 2-3 years away at a minimum. Loadholt I suppose has some potential and I wouldn't exactly give up on him, but he's not nearly as good as I had hoped and the rest of these guys are fuckin' clown shoes.
And the defense? Who, outside of Allen is remotely interesting? Greenway is alright and Robison is fine as long as you're ok with a mediocre DE2, but that's it. E.J. Henderson? Please. Guy is so overrated and still can't move around correctly. Maybe after another year of healing he'll be ok but I'm not betting on it. Kevin Williams is done, I have no idea who the other DT or LB is, and the only half-way decent defensive backs are a guy who has had 2 knee surgeries and a guy who is currently in jail. Antoine Winfield is one of my favorite players ever but he's pretty much done unless he can move to safety which they should definitely try because Hussain Abdullah's one skill seems to be allowing the big play and also because he's probably a terrorist.
The good news is there are some legitimately nice players here - AP, Allen, Harvin, Ponder, and Greenway are all quality players. The bad news is this isn't baseball or basketball and you can't just trade veterans from prospects and/or picks. It's unfortunate, because guys like Winfield and Hutchinson would be perfect trade bait in other sports, but not the NFL so their kind of stuck. So I guess my point is that the Vikings will be bad for a while but should at least be fun to watch. So I guess that's something. The Gophers are going to be terrible and no fun to watch, so I guess point NFL.
- You know what I'd rather watch than that Captain America movie that's coming out on DVD tomorrow? Anything.
- You know what I do like though? Walking Dead. Very good show so far. Not exactly the most realistic, but if you're looking for realism in a show about zombies I contend you're kind of lost already.
- Last time Pujols came up there as a runner on third with 1 out and they walked him. Holliday grounded into a double play. Now there are runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. They're walking him again. The intrigue is so thick you could cut it with a spoon.
- Ground out to short. Holliday is terrible. Billy Beane was right again.
- Know who the A's got for Holliday? Shane Peterson, Clay Mortensen, and Brett Wallace. Mortensen was then traded to the Rockies for Ethan Hollingsworth, Wallace was shipped to the Jays for Michael Taylor, and Peterson is still in the minors (along with Hollingsworth and Taylor). And Beane originally had to give up Carlos Gonzalez, Huston Street, and Greg Smith to get Holliday. So essentially he flipped a superstar outfielder (down year notwithstanding), a still capable closer, and a young starter who is already in the majors for three minor leaguers, only one of which (Taylor) is considered a top 20 prospect in their system. I guess Joe Morgan was right, moneyball schmoneyball.
- So not only am I playing in the fantasy Big 10 hoops league with my friends (Snacks, Dawger, Snake, Bogart, Optimator, Elk, and Grandslam), but I'm playing in a bigger college hoops league as well, similar to the won I played in - and won - 2 years ago. We've got 13 teams and we're using the Big Six leagues plus the meaningful outliers (UNLV, BYU, New Mexico, Memphis, Gonzaga, etc.). It's a lot harder, and I wish I could talk about it more in depth but unfortunately TRE from Still got Hope? (which if you don't read you should) is also in the league, so I can't divulge my secrets. We fire up the draft tomorrow and it's slowish style so I might get like 2 picks per day. I pick 9th, and I'll give you a hint (and also TRE picks after me) - if he's there I'm going to go with a guy whose name rhymes with Shumbakwe and probably has a huge crank.
- That "huge crank" talk is probably inappropriate but I'm going to leave it in there because it's just going to help the google search results. Also megan fox lesbian kiss midget vagina fart ass sex nick punto.
- Speaking of Nick Punto vagina farts, he just struck out with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 2 outs. Big spot there. Punto's definitely the guy I'd want up in that situation.
- Adrian Beltre just hit a home run on a lollipop curve ball from his knees. No lie. That was pretty weird and impressive. Now 2-2. This has been a great series.
 |
| Big fuckin' deal, Beltre. I could've done that do if that dickhead Veeck would've let me swing. |
- Top 7, tie game. Allen Craig or someone with a name like that, walks with one out and then tries to steal second and is out by two billion feet. And now they're walking Pujols. And guess what they would have done if that steal would have been successful? Yep. Walked him. Since he's nearly as likely to hit an XBH as get a single, maybe you just stay put on first, ok? I get the stolen base and it certainly has it's place, but these two managers both seem to be way to obsessed with it and have both screwed their teams over in this series. Also let's see if Holliday can go 0-3 after getting slapped in the mouth.
- Hey a base hit! Way to go little buddy! And thanks to a whole bunch of thrown the ball around-itis, we're at 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. 20 bucks says Berkman strikes out for the 3rd time tonight.
- I missed what happened with Berkman but the bases were loaded when David Freese struck out so I assume they walked him.
 | |
| Let me guess, you were expecting a picture of Arnold as Mr. Freeze? You probably don't even know who this is, do you you unoriginal bastard? |
- By the way you should probably ignore everything I wrote about the Vikings above. I made most of that up.
- Bottom 7, 1 out, Kinsler on first. 20 bucks says they send him here.
- Nope, but Elvis Andrus struck out on 3 pitches. God they'd be so much better if they hit Napoli or Cruz or even Beltre second. But of course, Ron Washington can't do that. You gotta have a guy there who can handle the bat, right Gardy and every other manager in the stupid world. And Dawger.
- Ever want to combine racism with football? Go nuts.
- After a leadoff hit by Yadier Molina I'm pretty sure the Cardinals just pinch hit for Skip Schumaker with Ryan Theriot just so he could sac bunt. You're telling me a dude named Skip can't bunt? You might as well tell me that sliding into first doesn't get you there faster. I can't believe it. I won't.
- Punto blows it again, striking out in a still tied game with a runner on 2nd and 1 out. Takes a special kind of guy to constantly disappoint two franchises.
- In one fantasy league I'm in today I was offered Cam Newton and James Starks in exchange for Hakeem Nicks and LaSean McCoy. So that was pretty fun.
- Bases loaded. One out. Bottom of the 8th. 2-2 game. Mike Napoli up. A hit, and particularly an extra-base hit, would help my bank account tremendously. Na-Po-Li. Na-Po-Li. Na-Po-Li.
- Double, scores 2. Damn dude, shit never works out like this for me.
- That message board I posted earlier really thinks Peyton Hillis is being held down because he's white. Why can't they just accept that he's terrible at football? Probably a good blocker though.
- I couldn't tell you one thing about Lance Lynn. Well, other than he's a pitcher for St. Louis who is about to come into a high leverage situation in the World Series.
- Your name is Lance Lynn and you're gonna roll out the perm? Interesting choice. Also he just intentionally walked Ian Kinsler and then got yanked. Looks like LaRussa has his overmanaging pants on again.
 |
| Oh hello. I pitch for the Cardinals. |
- Jesus Pujols has a great eye. Now at 3-2. Laid off three close ones but were clearly balls. He's really good at hitting stuff. Not unlike Chris Cook, I suppose.
- Strike 'em out throw 'em out. Pujols whiffs on a pitch that was ball four and Craig is tossed easily and I have no clue why they sent him. I know Albert doesn't strike out a ton, but you just took a runner out who, really, didn't matter. If he gets to second and scores on a single who fucking cares, you're still down by a run. Stupid play. Tony LaRussa outsmarted himself here tonight. I hope Holliday hits a home run here.
- Holliday walks. Will probably get thrown out stealing. Stay tuned.
- Berkman whiffs. Texas wins. Pretty sure we're going 7 folks. Adios and good night.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Week in Review - 03.07.2011
I can't think of a single relevant thing to say about Gopher basketball right now, other than this is easily the most disappointing season I can recall - period. Injuries played a part and so did a couple big defections, no doubt, but even with what was left and based on the start to the year this team should have been able to get a bid into the NCAA Tournament. At this point the NIT even looks shaky. What's more prestigious, the CBI or the CIT? Let's just move on. Lots of good basketball going on.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Belmont Bruins. Yes! I know Coastal Carolina lost to Asheville so they won't be in the tournament, but they were just the second most interesting small college in play - Belmont was #1. I mentioned it in my conference tournament preview, but I don't think anyone actually reads those so I'll mention it here - Belmont is ranked as the 20th best team in the country by kenpom.com. It's all math and there's no eye test involved here so Belmont jumps up because of it's complete domination of the Atlantic Sun (30-4, average margin of victory around 25 points), but it's intriguing just because of how bizarre it is. For reference, last year's top non-major or mid-major team was Murray State who was ranked at #50. The year prior it was Siena at #59. Teams like Belmont are never ranked that high, and I'm intrigued. They played three good teams this year (Vandy - lost by 9 and Tennessee twice - lost by 9 and by 1) so they don't have any real great wins, but I'm very, very excited to see what they can do in the first round.
2. Jon Diebler. As much as I hate to give credit to a guy with one skill, Deibler had a hell of a week shooting the basketball. He was 10-12 from three in the Buckeyes 82-61 win over Penn State and then followed that up this weekend going 7-8 as they dismantled Wisconsin. Ohio State is a dangerous team no matter what - maybe the best team in the nation - but when Diebler is on they're basically unstoppable. Obviously nobody can keep up that level of shooting accuracy, but he won't need to. If he can hit even 50% in the tournament they're going to be almost impossible to beat. Can a team with only six players really win the national title? I guess we'll find out.
3. Virginia Commonwealth Rams. I believe from what I've seen of VCU that they belong in the NCAA Tournament, even if their resume maybe disagrees. That's why it's awesome they beat George Mason in the Colonial semi-finals (the Patriots are in regardless), not only do they get a chance to play Old Dominion tonight for an auto bid, but even a loss might put them in thanks to the quality victory they picked up. They're 22-10 and 13-6 in a very good CAA, with an RPI of 56 and a SoS of 99. They have wins over UCLA, Wichita State, ODU, and now George Mason. They do have a couple bad losses (Georgia State, South Florida) but in a year with a whole bunch of weak bubble teams they stick out to me. It would serve them better, of course, just to beat the Monarchs again and get the auto bid, but I think they deserve to be regardless.
4. North Carolina Tar Heels. Guess who is suddenly the hottest team in college ball? Two hugely impressive wins this week (@ Florida State, vs. Duke) run their win streak to seven, and they're now 26-4 overall with an ACC record of 14-2, and are in line for a two seed. Basically Harrison Barnes has figured it out (averaging 17 and 6 during the streak) and Kendall Marshall has really blossomed since Larry Drew departed (10 pts, 7.5 assists per game the last seven). The Heels are suddenly looking really, really tough. Makes me cry with anger that the Gophers beat them. Why separate knob?! Why separate knob?!!??!
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish. I'm going to help you out with your bracket. This is a guaranteed Elite 8 team. I'd say Final Four, because I think they are, but I can't guarantee a win over Ohio State, Pitt, or Kansas. Here's the important thing to remember though - they're upset proof. Too smart, too good, too disciplined, and too balanced. They aren't going to lose to a bad/mediocre team - they're just not. And they just finished up the season on an 11-1 run through the Big East. They very well might be the best team in the nation. Go ahead and put them into your Elite 8 - in ink. Guaranteed.
WHO SUCKED
1. Virginia Tech Hokies. Has any team every pissed away a huge win quicker than the Hokies did to their big victory over Duke? That win gave them the signature win they needed desperately, and with just two games to play they looked to suddenly be in solid shape. They had BC at home and then traveled to Clemson, two fellow bubble teams, needing to win just one in order to feel pretty confident in their chances to get a bid. Of course because it's Va Tech, they couldn't just take care of business and lost both. And they weren't close with BC beating them by 15 and Clemson by 9. They lost to a mediocre BC at home by 15 in a must win game. Yuck. Now they likely have to win two in the ACC tournament to avoid just missing the NCAAs again. But really, who cares? If they get in over VCU I'm going to burn the whole system to the ground.
2. Maryland Terrapins. The Terps were sort of supposed to be a bit of an ACC sleeper this year, but that clearly never happened, and they couldn't have put more of an upside down exclamation point on their season than they did this week dropping games to both Miami and Virginia (both by 14) to drop to 7-9 in the conference and making damn sure nobody put them anywhere near any bubbles of any kind. Just ugly. Apparently Jordan Williams (16.9 points, 11.6 rebs per game) can't do it all, and you actually need guards of some kind in order to win. I guess we maybe kind of saw some of that this year at Williams Arena.
3. Baylor Bears. There are a lot of disappointing teams out there this year: Maryland, as mentioned. The Gophers, who make me cry. Michigan State, who might sneak into the tournament anyway, and plenty of others with NCAA bid aspirations who are going to fall short. No team, however, was as bad as Baylor this year - a team with National Championship aspirations who isn't even going to make the tournament. An elite 8 team last year losing just one key player but gaining a consensus top-5 in the nation freshman? How could they lose? Well, in every possible way, culminated by losing four of their final five including two this week, @ Oklahoma State and Texas at home. One they couldn't lose and the other they needed to win, but of course neither happened. The only good news about all this is that maybe we'll get a chance to see them in person at the Barn. That's anNIT CBI game I would actually show up for.
4. Klay Thompson. Let me see if I have this right. You've just won a huge game over one of the better teams in your conference on the road, a big enough win that it takes your team from "no way is this an NCAA Tournament team" to "maybe this is an NCAA tournament team." You have one game left against UCLA, one of the two best teams in your conference and a good enough team that if you beat them on the road you suddenly jump to "this is probably an NCAA tournament team." Huge game. Monster game. You're also the best player on your team and it isn't even close. So what do you do? Get busted for marijuana possession ON YOUR WAY HOME FROM THE USC GAME. Seriously? Jesus Smokey, wait until you get to your hotel. Suspended for the game, which Washington State lost in overtime. Do you think Thompson, who averages 21-5-4 per game, would have made a difference in a tight one? Nice work, Marley.
5. Gopher basketball. Just because I want to put them in here one last time. Unfortunately there's nothing left to say. I was impressed by Blake's transformation from one-trick pony to do it all everything guy, and nobody gave more to the team than him. I loved watching Mbakwe's terror show in the paint, not since Courtney James have the Gophers had a power forward like him, and Trevor's even better. I hope he's back for another year. I liked what I saw from Chip Armelin - an incredible athlete with a drive to score. On a team full of guys who wait for the game to come to them, he goes out and grabs it - a little over enthusiastically at times, but at least he does it. And I though Maverick Ahanmisi showed he could end up being a decent back-up PG some day, which is far greater praise than I expected to be giving him. And that's pretty much it. I can't come up with any other positive words to say. So I'll just stop. For now.
Finally, a shout-out to the Optimator, who won our first ever Big Ten Fantasy College Basketball League, smoking Snacks in the Championship game. His team of Jordan Taylor, Verdell Jones, Aaron Craft, JaJuan Johnson, and Jeff Brooks took it home. Nice work, nerd.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Belmont Bruins. Yes! I know Coastal Carolina lost to Asheville so they won't be in the tournament, but they were just the second most interesting small college in play - Belmont was #1. I mentioned it in my conference tournament preview, but I don't think anyone actually reads those so I'll mention it here - Belmont is ranked as the 20th best team in the country by kenpom.com. It's all math and there's no eye test involved here so Belmont jumps up because of it's complete domination of the Atlantic Sun (30-4, average margin of victory around 25 points), but it's intriguing just because of how bizarre it is. For reference, last year's top non-major or mid-major team was Murray State who was ranked at #50. The year prior it was Siena at #59. Teams like Belmont are never ranked that high, and I'm intrigued. They played three good teams this year (Vandy - lost by 9 and Tennessee twice - lost by 9 and by 1) so they don't have any real great wins, but I'm very, very excited to see what they can do in the first round.
2. Jon Diebler. As much as I hate to give credit to a guy with one skill, Deibler had a hell of a week shooting the basketball. He was 10-12 from three in the Buckeyes 82-61 win over Penn State and then followed that up this weekend going 7-8 as they dismantled Wisconsin. Ohio State is a dangerous team no matter what - maybe the best team in the nation - but when Diebler is on they're basically unstoppable. Obviously nobody can keep up that level of shooting accuracy, but he won't need to. If he can hit even 50% in the tournament they're going to be almost impossible to beat. Can a team with only six players really win the national title? I guess we'll find out.
3. Virginia Commonwealth Rams. I believe from what I've seen of VCU that they belong in the NCAA Tournament, even if their resume maybe disagrees. That's why it's awesome they beat George Mason in the Colonial semi-finals (the Patriots are in regardless), not only do they get a chance to play Old Dominion tonight for an auto bid, but even a loss might put them in thanks to the quality victory they picked up. They're 22-10 and 13-6 in a very good CAA, with an RPI of 56 and a SoS of 99. They have wins over UCLA, Wichita State, ODU, and now George Mason. They do have a couple bad losses (Georgia State, South Florida) but in a year with a whole bunch of weak bubble teams they stick out to me. It would serve them better, of course, just to beat the Monarchs again and get the auto bid, but I think they deserve to be regardless.
4. North Carolina Tar Heels. Guess who is suddenly the hottest team in college ball? Two hugely impressive wins this week (@ Florida State, vs. Duke) run their win streak to seven, and they're now 26-4 overall with an ACC record of 14-2, and are in line for a two seed. Basically Harrison Barnes has figured it out (averaging 17 and 6 during the streak) and Kendall Marshall has really blossomed since Larry Drew departed (10 pts, 7.5 assists per game the last seven). The Heels are suddenly looking really, really tough. Makes me cry with anger that the Gophers beat them. Why separate knob?! Why separate knob?!!??!
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish. I'm going to help you out with your bracket. This is a guaranteed Elite 8 team. I'd say Final Four, because I think they are, but I can't guarantee a win over Ohio State, Pitt, or Kansas. Here's the important thing to remember though - they're upset proof. Too smart, too good, too disciplined, and too balanced. They aren't going to lose to a bad/mediocre team - they're just not. And they just finished up the season on an 11-1 run through the Big East. They very well might be the best team in the nation. Go ahead and put them into your Elite 8 - in ink. Guaranteed.
WHO SUCKED
1. Virginia Tech Hokies. Has any team every pissed away a huge win quicker than the Hokies did to their big victory over Duke? That win gave them the signature win they needed desperately, and with just two games to play they looked to suddenly be in solid shape. They had BC at home and then traveled to Clemson, two fellow bubble teams, needing to win just one in order to feel pretty confident in their chances to get a bid. Of course because it's Va Tech, they couldn't just take care of business and lost both. And they weren't close with BC beating them by 15 and Clemson by 9. They lost to a mediocre BC at home by 15 in a must win game. Yuck. Now they likely have to win two in the ACC tournament to avoid just missing the NCAAs again. But really, who cares? If they get in over VCU I'm going to burn the whole system to the ground.
2. Maryland Terrapins. The Terps were sort of supposed to be a bit of an ACC sleeper this year, but that clearly never happened, and they couldn't have put more of an upside down exclamation point on their season than they did this week dropping games to both Miami and Virginia (both by 14) to drop to 7-9 in the conference and making damn sure nobody put them anywhere near any bubbles of any kind. Just ugly. Apparently Jordan Williams (16.9 points, 11.6 rebs per game) can't do it all, and you actually need guards of some kind in order to win. I guess we maybe kind of saw some of that this year at Williams Arena.
3. Baylor Bears. There are a lot of disappointing teams out there this year: Maryland, as mentioned. The Gophers, who make me cry. Michigan State, who might sneak into the tournament anyway, and plenty of others with NCAA bid aspirations who are going to fall short. No team, however, was as bad as Baylor this year - a team with National Championship aspirations who isn't even going to make the tournament. An elite 8 team last year losing just one key player but gaining a consensus top-5 in the nation freshman? How could they lose? Well, in every possible way, culminated by losing four of their final five including two this week, @ Oklahoma State and Texas at home. One they couldn't lose and the other they needed to win, but of course neither happened. The only good news about all this is that maybe we'll get a chance to see them in person at the Barn. That's an
4. Klay Thompson. Let me see if I have this right. You've just won a huge game over one of the better teams in your conference on the road, a big enough win that it takes your team from "no way is this an NCAA Tournament team" to "maybe this is an NCAA tournament team." You have one game left against UCLA, one of the two best teams in your conference and a good enough team that if you beat them on the road you suddenly jump to "this is probably an NCAA tournament team." Huge game. Monster game. You're also the best player on your team and it isn't even close. So what do you do? Get busted for marijuana possession ON YOUR WAY HOME FROM THE USC GAME. Seriously? Jesus Smokey, wait until you get to your hotel. Suspended for the game, which Washington State lost in overtime. Do you think Thompson, who averages 21-5-4 per game, would have made a difference in a tight one? Nice work, Marley.
5. Gopher basketball. Just because I want to put them in here one last time. Unfortunately there's nothing left to say. I was impressed by Blake's transformation from one-trick pony to do it all everything guy, and nobody gave more to the team than him. I loved watching Mbakwe's terror show in the paint, not since Courtney James have the Gophers had a power forward like him, and Trevor's even better. I hope he's back for another year. I liked what I saw from Chip Armelin - an incredible athlete with a drive to score. On a team full of guys who wait for the game to come to them, he goes out and grabs it - a little over enthusiastically at times, but at least he does it. And I though Maverick Ahanmisi showed he could end up being a decent back-up PG some day, which is far greater praise than I expected to be giving him. And that's pretty much it. I can't come up with any other positive words to say. So I'll just stop. For now.
Finally, a shout-out to the Optimator, who won our first ever Big Ten Fantasy College Basketball League, smoking Snacks in the Championship game. His team of Jordan Taylor, Verdell Jones, Aaron Craft, JaJuan Johnson, and Jeff Brooks took it home. Nice work, nerd.
Friday, December 17, 2010
California Love
Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west, a state that's untouchable like Elliot Ness
The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest, pack a vest for your jimmy in the city of sex.
By the way, that means I'm in Los Angeles for work. Which also means I couldn't attend nor watch the Gopher game last night, but it looks like the Gophers went with their standard operating procedure of sucking for the majority of the game and falling behind to a far inferior opponent, and then turning it on in the second half to cruise to a win that looks a lot easier than it really was. That's all well and good, but if they are still doing that crap once the Big Ten season gets underway it's going to get ugly in a hurry. Maybe Nolen can fix all that, maybe not. We're going to find out.
- No real exciting meals to report. Well, actually I had one of the best burgers in the history of burgerdom last night at a place in Hollywood called Lucky Devils. Kobe Beef burger (medium) with lettuce, onions, and some kind of home made secret sauce. Outstanding. And the rosemary garlic fries were out of this world. Although I think Elk, who I am out here with, made the best call of the night (besides the restaurant) going with the Diablo burger, which was a spicy version of what I had. I had a chance to try their hot sauce and it was really, really good. I should have ordered that.
Later in the evening we hit up an establishment called the Pig and Whistle for a couple after-dinner drinks and ended up having one with a Michael Jackson impersonator - unless it was really him and the whole "death" thing was a sham. Stranger things have happened. Or not really, I guess. That would be pretty strange. In any case it was a bit of an unusual occurrence. But now I'm in the room with nothing but a few Coors Light silos to keep me company, so let's see what things are going on.
- Jesse Crain to the White Sox, huh? And Guerrier to the Dodgers, but that doesn't interest me nearly as much since Crain is going to the most hated rival in the world. They pretty clearly overpaid, but Crain showed just enough in the second half of last year when he started using that slider all the time where I'm pretty nervous to be facing him in the division. Will he give up tap measure home runs? Of course. But the first time they bring him in to face the Twins in the 8th and he shuts them down 1-2-3 I'm going to die a little inside.
- And speaking of free agents, this Cliff Lee to the Phillies thing is really unfair. I know the Giants won the series this year with a combination of insane pitching and Buster Posey and that's it, but the Phillies actually have an offense. Howard is going to hit 40 bombs, Victorino has developed into one hell of a hitter, and Utley and Rollins are great hitters for their positions, even if they were a bit off last year. I know Werth is gone, but it doesn't really matter who plays left or center or third or whoever the hell their catcher is. And their only going to have score 2-3 runs a game to win most of the time, and they won't even need a bullpen because Halladay and Lee are just going to pitch complete games every time out anyway. Halladay, Lee, and Oswalt are all in the top 14 in active complete game leaders, and that includes ancients like Tim Wakefield and Jamie Moyer. Actually, Halladay is 33, and amongst pitchers 33 or younger they rank 1, 5, and 6. Ridiculous and basically just unfair. The over/under for their season wins is going to be like 110.
- Oh, and if the Twins trade for Joe freaking Blanton and his Nick Blackburn-like career 1.34 WHIP I'm going to drive down there and maim somebody. Why make a trade for a fifth starter when he's worse than whoever you call up from triple A? Come on geniuses, don't be stupid.
- Of course, this is not my first time in Los Angeles for work. Prior to this I was introduced to the weirdness of everybody in the city trying to get a movie produced, and before that I was lucky enough to become good friends with Larry David and learned a little about women. L.A. is weird, but I always have a good time. Plus, I was in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that time with my good friend Larry. You can actually see my bald spot in the scene. I'm famous.
- Interesting week in college hoops so far. Three teams who I don't think anybody was super sure what to make of (Louisville, Tennessee, and UNLV) all went on big runs early, picked up huge wins (Louisville over UNLV, Tennessee over Pitt, and UNLV over Wisconsin and Va Tech), got themselves highly ranked (Tenn #7, UNLV #20 , L'Ville #20) and then all crashed and burned this week. Louisville got beat at home by Drexel, Tennessee got beat at home by Oakland, and UNLV by Santa Barbara. But no real worries, because they're all still better than Gonzaga who is an absolute nightmare right now. They're going to end up scrambling to even sniff an at-large bid.
- In case you're wondering what's going with the world's worst shooting guard, Scottie Reynolds was picked 13th in the first round of the NBDL draft by Tulsa, who then immediately shipped him off in a trade to get of his stink. Since play began he ranks 19th in scoring (behind guys like Pat Ewing Jr. and Roderick Wilmont), and 19th in assists (behind guys like Curtis Stinson and Luke Jackson). Nicely done.
- Speaking of the NBDL draft, other picks of interest:
First Round: Alan Anderson (Mich State like 100 years ago), Robert Vaden (UAB), Magnum Rolle (LA Tech - love this guy).
Third Round: Lawrence Westbrook (averaging 7 pts, 2 rebs, 2 asts per game with Maine)
Fourth Round: Derek Raivio (Gonzaga, the living clone of the Professor)
Fifth Round: Daniel Horton (Michigan, this guy sucked)
And that's it. Every year I think there's going to be a bunch of funny in this draft, and every year it turns out I've only heard of a handful of guys. And I know way too much about college ball to not know who this many guys are. So where are these guys coming from? Some secret basketball concentration camp? This is bullshit.
- John Shurna tonight: 28 pts, 4 rebs, 2 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks, 1 turnover. That's 64 fantasy points, baby. And guess whose got 'em?
- Shelden Williams is still in the NBA? What the hell? The guy's offensive game rivals Miles Tarver and his defensive game is what I imagine Blake Hoffarber would look like if he was taller and blacker.
- You ever just sit around wondering who the top scoring Big Ten college basketball players would be in a Bi g Ten fantasy league (pt = 1pt, reb = 2 pt, assist = 3 pt, block or steal = 4 pt, turnover = -2 pts)? Well wonder no more. The top ten in our league:
1. Jon Leuer, Wisconsin
2. Darius Morris, Michigan
3. Trevor Mbakwe, Minnesota
4. Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin
5. Blake Hoffarber, Minnesota
6. Draymond Green, Michigan State
7. Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
8. JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
9. Demetri McCamey, Illinois
10. E'Twaun Moore, Purdue
It's worth noting I have none of those people, and also - not coincidentally - I'm the only team that's 0-2 thus far. Also props to Snacks, Bogart, Snake, Dawger, Elk, Grandslam, and Optimator. I sent an email one random morning asking if anybody wanted to do fantasy Big 10 hoops, and by that afternoon we were in round 3 of the draft. Nice work, gentleman.
- By the way, yes, that's Blake Hoffarber at #5. He's having a hell of a year. 14.8 points per game (13th in the B10), 4.9 assists (3rd. THIRD!!), 3.5 rebounds (39th), and 1.7 steals (5th, and wow) all while shooting 40% from three (leading the conference in both makes and attempts) and turning it over just 1.6 times per game despite being the defacto main ball handler. Actually, he's been efficient enough on offense to rank #63 in kenpom.com's offensive efficiency ranking, which may not sound that great but keep in mind there are 340-some teams and this ranking includes all those dudes from smaller conferences who dominate. In terms of Big Ten players, he ranks behind just Jon Diebler, John Shurna, Jordan Hulls of Indiana, and Jordan Taylor. Combine fantasy points, which shows he's putting up numbers, and efficiency rating, which shows he's, well, efficient, and you could make a case for him to be behind just Taylor as the most valuable player in the Big Ten this year. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. I'm now going to pull my fingers off with bolt cutters. Which I just happen to have here in the hotel room.
The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest, pack a vest for your jimmy in the city of sex.
By the way, that means I'm in Los Angeles for work. Which also means I couldn't attend nor watch the Gopher game last night, but it looks like the Gophers went with their standard operating procedure of sucking for the majority of the game and falling behind to a far inferior opponent, and then turning it on in the second half to cruise to a win that looks a lot easier than it really was. That's all well and good, but if they are still doing that crap once the Big Ten season gets underway it's going to get ugly in a hurry. Maybe Nolen can fix all that, maybe not. We're going to find out.
- No real exciting meals to report. Well, actually I had one of the best burgers in the history of burgerdom last night at a place in Hollywood called Lucky Devils. Kobe Beef burger (medium) with lettuce, onions, and some kind of home made secret sauce. Outstanding. And the rosemary garlic fries were out of this world. Although I think Elk, who I am out here with, made the best call of the night (besides the restaurant) going with the Diablo burger, which was a spicy version of what I had. I had a chance to try their hot sauce and it was really, really good. I should have ordered that.
Later in the evening we hit up an establishment called the Pig and Whistle for a couple after-dinner drinks and ended up having one with a Michael Jackson impersonator - unless it was really him and the whole "death" thing was a sham. Stranger things have happened. Or not really, I guess. That would be pretty strange. In any case it was a bit of an unusual occurrence. But now I'm in the room with nothing but a few Coors Light silos to keep me company, so let's see what things are going on.
- Jesse Crain to the White Sox, huh? And Guerrier to the Dodgers, but that doesn't interest me nearly as much since Crain is going to the most hated rival in the world. They pretty clearly overpaid, but Crain showed just enough in the second half of last year when he started using that slider all the time where I'm pretty nervous to be facing him in the division. Will he give up tap measure home runs? Of course. But the first time they bring him in to face the Twins in the 8th and he shuts them down 1-2-3 I'm going to die a little inside.
- And speaking of free agents, this Cliff Lee to the Phillies thing is really unfair. I know the Giants won the series this year with a combination of insane pitching and Buster Posey and that's it, but the Phillies actually have an offense. Howard is going to hit 40 bombs, Victorino has developed into one hell of a hitter, and Utley and Rollins are great hitters for their positions, even if they were a bit off last year. I know Werth is gone, but it doesn't really matter who plays left or center or third or whoever the hell their catcher is. And their only going to have score 2-3 runs a game to win most of the time, and they won't even need a bullpen because Halladay and Lee are just going to pitch complete games every time out anyway. Halladay, Lee, and Oswalt are all in the top 14 in active complete game leaders, and that includes ancients like Tim Wakefield and Jamie Moyer. Actually, Halladay is 33, and amongst pitchers 33 or younger they rank 1, 5, and 6. Ridiculous and basically just unfair. The over/under for their season wins is going to be like 110.
- Oh, and if the Twins trade for Joe freaking Blanton and his Nick Blackburn-like career 1.34 WHIP I'm going to drive down there and maim somebody. Why make a trade for a fifth starter when he's worse than whoever you call up from triple A? Come on geniuses, don't be stupid.
- Of course, this is not my first time in Los Angeles for work. Prior to this I was introduced to the weirdness of everybody in the city trying to get a movie produced, and before that I was lucky enough to become good friends with Larry David and learned a little about women. L.A. is weird, but I always have a good time. Plus, I was in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that time with my good friend Larry. You can actually see my bald spot in the scene. I'm famous.
- Interesting week in college hoops so far. Three teams who I don't think anybody was super sure what to make of (Louisville, Tennessee, and UNLV) all went on big runs early, picked up huge wins (Louisville over UNLV, Tennessee over Pitt, and UNLV over Wisconsin and Va Tech), got themselves highly ranked (Tenn #7, UNLV #20 , L'Ville #20) and then all crashed and burned this week. Louisville got beat at home by Drexel, Tennessee got beat at home by Oakland, and UNLV by Santa Barbara. But no real worries, because they're all still better than Gonzaga who is an absolute nightmare right now. They're going to end up scrambling to even sniff an at-large bid.
- In case you're wondering what's going with the world's worst shooting guard, Scottie Reynolds was picked 13th in the first round of the NBDL draft by Tulsa, who then immediately shipped him off in a trade to get of his stink. Since play began he ranks 19th in scoring (behind guys like Pat Ewing Jr. and Roderick Wilmont), and 19th in assists (behind guys like Curtis Stinson and Luke Jackson). Nicely done.
- Speaking of the NBDL draft, other picks of interest:
First Round: Alan Anderson (Mich State like 100 years ago), Robert Vaden (UAB), Magnum Rolle (LA Tech - love this guy).
Third Round: Lawrence Westbrook (averaging 7 pts, 2 rebs, 2 asts per game with Maine)
Fourth Round: Derek Raivio (Gonzaga, the living clone of the Professor)
Fifth Round: Daniel Horton (Michigan, this guy sucked)
And that's it. Every year I think there's going to be a bunch of funny in this draft, and every year it turns out I've only heard of a handful of guys. And I know way too much about college ball to not know who this many guys are. So where are these guys coming from? Some secret basketball concentration camp? This is bullshit.
- John Shurna tonight: 28 pts, 4 rebs, 2 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks, 1 turnover. That's 64 fantasy points, baby. And guess whose got 'em?
- Shelden Williams is still in the NBA? What the hell? The guy's offensive game rivals Miles Tarver and his defensive game is what I imagine Blake Hoffarber would look like if he was taller and blacker.
- You ever just sit around wondering who the top scoring Big Ten college basketball players would be in a Bi g Ten fantasy league (pt = 1pt, reb = 2 pt, assist = 3 pt, block or steal = 4 pt, turnover = -2 pts)? Well wonder no more. The top ten in our league:
1. Jon Leuer, Wisconsin
2. Darius Morris, Michigan
3. Trevor Mbakwe, Minnesota
4. Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin
5. Blake Hoffarber, Minnesota
6. Draymond Green, Michigan State
7. Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
8. JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
9. Demetri McCamey, Illinois
10. E'Twaun Moore, Purdue
It's worth noting I have none of those people, and also - not coincidentally - I'm the only team that's 0-2 thus far. Also props to Snacks, Bogart, Snake, Dawger, Elk, Grandslam, and Optimator. I sent an email one random morning asking if anybody wanted to do fantasy Big 10 hoops, and by that afternoon we were in round 3 of the draft. Nice work, gentleman.
- By the way, yes, that's Blake Hoffarber at #5. He's having a hell of a year. 14.8 points per game (13th in the B10), 4.9 assists (3rd. THIRD!!), 3.5 rebounds (39th), and 1.7 steals (5th, and wow) all while shooting 40% from three (leading the conference in both makes and attempts) and turning it over just 1.6 times per game despite being the defacto main ball handler. Actually, he's been efficient enough on offense to rank #63 in kenpom.com's offensive efficiency ranking, which may not sound that great but keep in mind there are 340-some teams and this ranking includes all those dudes from smaller conferences who dominate. In terms of Big Ten players, he ranks behind just Jon Diebler, John Shurna, Jordan Hulls of Indiana, and Jordan Taylor. Combine fantasy points, which shows he's putting up numbers, and efficiency rating, which shows he's, well, efficient, and you could make a case for him to be behind just Taylor as the most valuable player in the Big Ten this year. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. I'm now going to pull my fingers off with bolt cutters. Which I just happen to have here in the hotel room.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Minnesota Gophers vs. North Carolina Tar Heels Game Diary
Your Minnesota Gophers taking on the #8 North Carolina Tar Heels in Puerto Rico. What's more fun that this? So of course I'm gonna write some stuff.
19:36 - Good Gopher defense leads to a UNC turnover. That needs to happen a lot for the Gophers to have a chance here.
19:00 - Another UNC turnover, an airball by Rodney, a missed UNC layup, and a charge on Nolen. This is ugly. Fast-paced, but ugly.
18:03 - Interesting to note that the Heels struggled a bit with Hofstra's zone yesterday - well, as much as you can struggle when you win by 40 - yet the Gophers are going man-to-man here. If it's to negate the size of the Heels it isn't working. Zeller has a jumper and UNC's other bucket is off an offensive board. 4-1 Heels.
17:22 - Ralph hits that 16 footer. I love when he hits that when it's given to him. As long as he doesn't fall in love with it and turn into a Rickert - which was a problem last year - I love his versatility.
16:30 - Heels go with a half-court trap, which leads to a wide open three for Hoff, which he, of course, nails. Bring it, Carolina. Now Justin Knox picks up his second foul, and Zeller has two as well. Excellent. 7-4 Gophers as we go to the under 16 timeout.
15:50 - Tubby goes with an entire second five here, which causes me to ask, "Is Tubby Smith functionally retarded?" Four freshman, including Maverick, and Iverson against North Carolina? This is basically free reign for Carolina to take back the lead.
15:14 - Maverick travels.
15:02 - Henson blows right past Walker and draws a foul. Makes 1 of 2. 7-5 Gophers.
14:47 - Good pass goes right through Iverson's hands to Carolina.
14:14 - Travel on Armelin. This is going swimmingly.
13:19 - Terrible pass by Hollins leads to a dunk by the Heels. 7-7.
13:01 - Walker hookshot hits nothing but back board. Layup by Zeller. 9-7 Carolina. You know what is so retarded? You can actually take one or two starters out and leave three others in the game. You don't actually have to take all five out at a time. So stupid. Does he think he's playing South Dakota? You can't put that lineup out there against Carolina. Luckily most of the starters are now back in.
11:42 - I think Strickland can actually stick with Nolen off the dribble. You don't see that very often.
11:26 - Clear goal tend on a layup by Nolen. No call. Looks like the refs are wearing their Carolina blue t-shirts under their stripes tonight. Announcers don't even mention the goal tend. This is a conspiracy. Just like in that movie Conspiracy Theory.
10:27 - Mbakwe goes over everybody for an offensive board, and is fouled and sent to the line. That should be one of two.
10:27 - Nope, 2-of-2, no rims hit. 13-12 Heels.
9:57 - Ralph from 14 after an o-board. Looking like he's legit
9:13 - Waaaaaaaaay too many offensive rebounds for Carolina. They missed three three-pointers on that possession, and must have nearly double-digit offensive rebounds already. That's gotta stop.
7:38 - Iverson showing his value, and he seems to be the only one who can keep Carolina from getting any offensive rebounds. Still a brick wall on offense. And that 5-second call on Mbakwe is the Gophers' ninth turnover already. Turnovers and allowing offensive rebounds. That's like the arsenic and cyanide of a successful basketball team.
6:03 - Another turnover leads to a Carolina dunk, and it's suddenly 21-16 UNC. Tubby wisely calls timeout, and it's time, right now, to do something good before this turns into a rout.
5:37 - Hollins fouled on a three-pointer. Makes 1. If turnovers and o-boards are arsenic and cyanide, missing free throws is like swallowing a nuclear warhead.
5:24 - Armelin airballs a free throw. Jesus jumped on christ on a broken bar stool. He then clangs the next one. It's a free throw, geniuses. Nobody is even playing defense. That would be like hitting a baseball off a tee with nobody playing defense and not being able to get a single (NOTE: Nick Punto doesn't count).
4:00 - North Carolina is on a whole different level of athletic.
3:38 - Harrison Barnes just made two free throws for his first two points of the night. If nothing else they are doing a great job on him. Both Rodney when he's matched up individually and as a team, helping out when he drives or posts. Of course, he's not doing himself any favors by immediately passing it off when he's got Hoffarber on him one-on-one. Might want to start recognizing that kind of thing, Harry.
2:52 - Hoffarber is like 1-50 from three tonight. Also Barnes is faking an injury since he's playing so poorly.
1:46 - Now 2 for 51. 23-22 Carolina.
0:42 - Wow, another terrible call on a backcourt violation that was called on the Gophers but was clearly tipped by Carolina. I mean clearly and obviously. Once again, the announcers don't say a god damn word. I can't decide if these guys are biased or just completely fucking incompetent. Seriously, how do you get an announcing job? 95% of these guys are dumb as hell and I think half of them don't even understand the game.
0:02 - Blake now 3 for 52. 27-24 Gophers.
HALF - Wow, hell of a half. Blake, Ralph, and Mbakwe all carried the offense at times, but Iverson might have been the MVP of the half. The only times Carolina didn't completely own the offensive glass was when Colt was in. Gophers are right there, man. Keep them off the boards and stop freaking turning it over every other possession and they could end up with a huge win.
19:36 - Mbakwe wide open for an alley oop and Ralph overthrows him by about 10 feet. Damn.
19:04 - Hoff with another one. My Hoffboner is growing.
18:24 - Ralph for three. My hoffboner is only surpassed by my Ralphrection.
17:28 - Barnes is brutal right now. He's 0-7 on the game, and he's had some decent looks. How he was named a preseason All-American and Ralph wasn't is a completely mystery. Well, not really. Damn east coast bias.
16:38 - Alley oop to Henson. 100% Ralph's fault. He's in the middle of the zone and he let himself get sealed off away from the basket. Can't do that.
15:56 - Just saw Corey Joseph be a huge jackass in their game. Ha ha. Also got two texts (from Snacks and Grandslam) to that affect.
15:21 - Some genius just fouled Iverson 28 feet from the basket. Right where he's most dangerous.
15:04 - Hoffarber on Barnes again. Barnes gets the ball on the wing, one-on-one position. Rather than doing anything intelligent he takes a three-pointer, which he clangs off. Huge break for the Gophers that his basketball IQ is right around a six.
12:55 - Mbakwe just abused Henson. God he's so awesome. He's like Randy Carter if Carter wasn't such a little girl in the lane. Gophers up 41-36. Still waiting for the inevitable meltdown.
11:34 - Nolen airballs a three, then Rodney airballs the follow. Feels like this could be it right here. Jesus.
11:09 - Tie game.
10:46 - HOFFDADDY!!!
9:46 - Oh my god Mbakwe. He just dunked on everybody's face from a standing position. I don't believe the Gophers have EVER had a player who could do that.
8:42 - Hoff for 2. I feel like he let me down. 50-43 Gophers. I feel some excitement starting to build. Luckily I have a lot of experience quashing optimism being a Minnesota fan my whole life.
8:42 - I'm going to see Harry Potter tomorrow morning. Stoked.
8:11 - Rodney with a very nice drive. Suck it Harrison.
7:52 - Tyler Zeller has the second best hook shot in all of the NCAA. Ralph is first of course. And you now damn well this game is going to come down to if the Gophers can make their free throws. How does that make you feel?
7:03 - I just said "Oh my god" out loud after Rodney's offensive rebound tip dunk like I was a black dude in a movie theater.
6:40 - So I started up a Fantasy Big Ten Hoops League with some of the all-stars from this blog: Snacks, Bogart, Dawger, Snake, Optimator, Grand Slam, and Elk. My team is Shurna, Buford, Nolen, Roe, Gatens, and Novak. I'm definitely winning. Although I think Dawger's pick of Hoff in the third round, a pick we all kind of giggled about being too early, might actually end up being the steal of the draft. I know Snacks is already trying to work a trade.
5:00 - A few free-throws and a lay-up and it's now 58-55 Minnesota. They withstood one UNC run, can they withstand another?
4:38 - NOLEN FOR THREE!!!
4:02 - Nolen now to the line for a one-and-one. These are huge.
4:02 - Makes just one. Gophers up 62-55.
3:46 - Feel free to get Mo Walker out of the game any time.
3:15 - Nolen just rips the rebound away from Zeller. God I love good Al Nolen.
3:00 - Can anybody explain to me why Walker shot a three-pointer just then? And then he fouls Zeller who can now make a three-point play. That's a six point swing in the negative direction all by himself. God fuckin' dammit.
2:39 - Heels foul Hoffarber, the only guy who can make free throws. Hits both, 64-59 Gophers.
2:15 - When the Gophers have their starters out there their 2-3 zone is pretty incredible. They might not be as fast or athletic as some other teams, but they are definitely quick, and in that 2-3 that's all you need. And as I type, steal by Nolen. Ends up with Colton at the line for two. Come on, bricklayer. One time.
1:47 - Hits both. Holy shit. WTF?
1:16 - Rodney with a nearly insane dunk over Zeller where he hung in the air for something like 17 seconds. Now at the line. Makes both 68-59.
0:56 - Barnes now 0-12 for the game. Foul sends Hoff to the line. Guess who told all you dickholes the Gophers were going to win? Yep. Me. I'm a god damn basketball Einstein.
0:42 - Carolina hits a jumper to make it 69-61. I am now terrified I opened my mouth too soon and they're going to find a way to blow this.
0:37 - Somehow Iverson falls down. Ball back to Carolina. Oh god. It's happening.
0:32 - Sampson fouls Barnes, which means he's fouled out and also that Carolina can put up two points with only five seconds coming off the clock.
0:28 - Iverson dunk. I'm actually kind of surprised he didn't miss. Carolina hits a triple on the other end, and it's a 71-65 game with 20 seconds left. They can't lose this, right? Right?
0:12 - Somehow Carolina lets 8 seconds run off before fouling Nolen. At this point just make one and that's ballgame. And there it is. Sweet.
0:00 - Ballgame. 72-67 Gophers.
Now it's on to West Virginia for the championship, and honestly it doesn't really matter what happens this trip was now definitely a success. Huge win, and basically guarantees the Gophers are about to be ranked. I'm stoked, kids. Full on stoked.
19:36 - Good Gopher defense leads to a UNC turnover. That needs to happen a lot for the Gophers to have a chance here.
19:00 - Another UNC turnover, an airball by Rodney, a missed UNC layup, and a charge on Nolen. This is ugly. Fast-paced, but ugly.
18:03 - Interesting to note that the Heels struggled a bit with Hofstra's zone yesterday - well, as much as you can struggle when you win by 40 - yet the Gophers are going man-to-man here. If it's to negate the size of the Heels it isn't working. Zeller has a jumper and UNC's other bucket is off an offensive board. 4-1 Heels.
17:22 - Ralph hits that 16 footer. I love when he hits that when it's given to him. As long as he doesn't fall in love with it and turn into a Rickert - which was a problem last year - I love his versatility.
16:30 - Heels go with a half-court trap, which leads to a wide open three for Hoff, which he, of course, nails. Bring it, Carolina. Now Justin Knox picks up his second foul, and Zeller has two as well. Excellent. 7-4 Gophers as we go to the under 16 timeout.
15:50 - Tubby goes with an entire second five here, which causes me to ask, "Is Tubby Smith functionally retarded?" Four freshman, including Maverick, and Iverson against North Carolina? This is basically free reign for Carolina to take back the lead.
15:14 - Maverick travels.
15:02 - Henson blows right past Walker and draws a foul. Makes 1 of 2. 7-5 Gophers.
14:47 - Good pass goes right through Iverson's hands to Carolina.
14:14 - Travel on Armelin. This is going swimmingly.
13:19 - Terrible pass by Hollins leads to a dunk by the Heels. 7-7.
13:01 - Walker hookshot hits nothing but back board. Layup by Zeller. 9-7 Carolina. You know what is so retarded? You can actually take one or two starters out and leave three others in the game. You don't actually have to take all five out at a time. So stupid. Does he think he's playing South Dakota? You can't put that lineup out there against Carolina. Luckily most of the starters are now back in.
11:42 - I think Strickland can actually stick with Nolen off the dribble. You don't see that very often.
11:26 - Clear goal tend on a layup by Nolen. No call. Looks like the refs are wearing their Carolina blue t-shirts under their stripes tonight. Announcers don't even mention the goal tend. This is a conspiracy. Just like in that movie Conspiracy Theory.
10:27 - Mbakwe goes over everybody for an offensive board, and is fouled and sent to the line. That should be one of two.
10:27 - Nope, 2-of-2, no rims hit. 13-12 Heels.
9:57 - Ralph from 14 after an o-board. Looking like he's legit
9:13 - Waaaaaaaaay too many offensive rebounds for Carolina. They missed three three-pointers on that possession, and must have nearly double-digit offensive rebounds already. That's gotta stop.
7:38 - Iverson showing his value, and he seems to be the only one who can keep Carolina from getting any offensive rebounds. Still a brick wall on offense. And that 5-second call on Mbakwe is the Gophers' ninth turnover already. Turnovers and allowing offensive rebounds. That's like the arsenic and cyanide of a successful basketball team.
6:03 - Another turnover leads to a Carolina dunk, and it's suddenly 21-16 UNC. Tubby wisely calls timeout, and it's time, right now, to do something good before this turns into a rout.
5:37 - Hollins fouled on a three-pointer. Makes 1. If turnovers and o-boards are arsenic and cyanide, missing free throws is like swallowing a nuclear warhead.
5:24 - Armelin airballs a free throw. Jesus jumped on christ on a broken bar stool. He then clangs the next one. It's a free throw, geniuses. Nobody is even playing defense. That would be like hitting a baseball off a tee with nobody playing defense and not being able to get a single (NOTE: Nick Punto doesn't count).
4:00 - North Carolina is on a whole different level of athletic.
3:38 - Harrison Barnes just made two free throws for his first two points of the night. If nothing else they are doing a great job on him. Both Rodney when he's matched up individually and as a team, helping out when he drives or posts. Of course, he's not doing himself any favors by immediately passing it off when he's got Hoffarber on him one-on-one. Might want to start recognizing that kind of thing, Harry.
2:52 - Hoffarber is like 1-50 from three tonight. Also Barnes is faking an injury since he's playing so poorly.
1:46 - Now 2 for 51. 23-22 Carolina.
0:42 - Wow, another terrible call on a backcourt violation that was called on the Gophers but was clearly tipped by Carolina. I mean clearly and obviously. Once again, the announcers don't say a god damn word. I can't decide if these guys are biased or just completely fucking incompetent. Seriously, how do you get an announcing job? 95% of these guys are dumb as hell and I think half of them don't even understand the game.
0:02 - Blake now 3 for 52. 27-24 Gophers.
HALF - Wow, hell of a half. Blake, Ralph, and Mbakwe all carried the offense at times, but Iverson might have been the MVP of the half. The only times Carolina didn't completely own the offensive glass was when Colt was in. Gophers are right there, man. Keep them off the boards and stop freaking turning it over every other possession and they could end up with a huge win.
19:36 - Mbakwe wide open for an alley oop and Ralph overthrows him by about 10 feet. Damn.
19:04 - Hoff with another one. My Hoffboner is growing.
18:24 - Ralph for three. My hoffboner is only surpassed by my Ralphrection.
17:28 - Barnes is brutal right now. He's 0-7 on the game, and he's had some decent looks. How he was named a preseason All-American and Ralph wasn't is a completely mystery. Well, not really. Damn east coast bias.
16:38 - Alley oop to Henson. 100% Ralph's fault. He's in the middle of the zone and he let himself get sealed off away from the basket. Can't do that.
15:56 - Just saw Corey Joseph be a huge jackass in their game. Ha ha. Also got two texts (from Snacks and Grandslam) to that affect.
15:21 - Some genius just fouled Iverson 28 feet from the basket. Right where he's most dangerous.
15:04 - Hoffarber on Barnes again. Barnes gets the ball on the wing, one-on-one position. Rather than doing anything intelligent he takes a three-pointer, which he clangs off. Huge break for the Gophers that his basketball IQ is right around a six.
12:55 - Mbakwe just abused Henson. God he's so awesome. He's like Randy Carter if Carter wasn't such a little girl in the lane. Gophers up 41-36. Still waiting for the inevitable meltdown.
11:34 - Nolen airballs a three, then Rodney airballs the follow. Feels like this could be it right here. Jesus.
11:09 - Tie game.
10:46 - HOFFDADDY!!!
9:46 - Oh my god Mbakwe. He just dunked on everybody's face from a standing position. I don't believe the Gophers have EVER had a player who could do that.
8:42 - Hoff for 2. I feel like he let me down. 50-43 Gophers. I feel some excitement starting to build. Luckily I have a lot of experience quashing optimism being a Minnesota fan my whole life.
8:42 - I'm going to see Harry Potter tomorrow morning. Stoked.
8:11 - Rodney with a very nice drive. Suck it Harrison.
7:52 - Tyler Zeller has the second best hook shot in all of the NCAA. Ralph is first of course. And you now damn well this game is going to come down to if the Gophers can make their free throws. How does that make you feel?
7:03 - I just said "Oh my god" out loud after Rodney's offensive rebound tip dunk like I was a black dude in a movie theater.
6:40 - So I started up a Fantasy Big Ten Hoops League with some of the all-stars from this blog: Snacks, Bogart, Dawger, Snake, Optimator, Grand Slam, and Elk. My team is Shurna, Buford, Nolen, Roe, Gatens, and Novak. I'm definitely winning. Although I think Dawger's pick of Hoff in the third round, a pick we all kind of giggled about being too early, might actually end up being the steal of the draft. I know Snacks is already trying to work a trade.
5:00 - A few free-throws and a lay-up and it's now 58-55 Minnesota. They withstood one UNC run, can they withstand another?
4:38 - NOLEN FOR THREE!!!
4:02 - Nolen now to the line for a one-and-one. These are huge.
4:02 - Makes just one. Gophers up 62-55.
3:46 - Feel free to get Mo Walker out of the game any time.
3:15 - Nolen just rips the rebound away from Zeller. God I love good Al Nolen.
3:00 - Can anybody explain to me why Walker shot a three-pointer just then? And then he fouls Zeller who can now make a three-point play. That's a six point swing in the negative direction all by himself. God fuckin' dammit.
2:39 - Heels foul Hoffarber, the only guy who can make free throws. Hits both, 64-59 Gophers.
2:15 - When the Gophers have their starters out there their 2-3 zone is pretty incredible. They might not be as fast or athletic as some other teams, but they are definitely quick, and in that 2-3 that's all you need. And as I type, steal by Nolen. Ends up with Colton at the line for two. Come on, bricklayer. One time.
1:47 - Hits both. Holy shit. WTF?
1:16 - Rodney with a nearly insane dunk over Zeller where he hung in the air for something like 17 seconds. Now at the line. Makes both 68-59.
0:56 - Barnes now 0-12 for the game. Foul sends Hoff to the line. Guess who told all you dickholes the Gophers were going to win? Yep. Me. I'm a god damn basketball Einstein.
0:42 - Carolina hits a jumper to make it 69-61. I am now terrified I opened my mouth too soon and they're going to find a way to blow this.
0:37 - Somehow Iverson falls down. Ball back to Carolina. Oh god. It's happening.
0:32 - Sampson fouls Barnes, which means he's fouled out and also that Carolina can put up two points with only five seconds coming off the clock.
0:28 - Iverson dunk. I'm actually kind of surprised he didn't miss. Carolina hits a triple on the other end, and it's a 71-65 game with 20 seconds left. They can't lose this, right? Right?
0:12 - Somehow Carolina lets 8 seconds run off before fouling Nolen. At this point just make one and that's ballgame. And there it is. Sweet.
0:00 - Ballgame. 72-67 Gophers.
Now it's on to West Virginia for the championship, and honestly it doesn't really matter what happens this trip was now definitely a success. Huge win, and basically guarantees the Gophers are about to be ranked. I'm stoked, kids. Full on stoked.
Monday, March 8, 2010
California is weird, dude
God I have so much to say/write about. Unfortunately, I won't be getting my new computer until Wednesday, so for now this computer in the businnes area of the hotel will have to do, and there is a line behind me so I'll have to keep this short. This place is weird as crap. I'm in Burbank/Hollywood for the new job orientation, and the people here are bizarre. I once called Dayton fans hipster doofuses, which set off a bit of an email firestorm, but I need to apologize to Dayton fans - the true hipster doofuses are out here. Every single person is wearing one of those stupid hats Kevin from the Office wears when he's playing with his band or does something equally douchey by wearing a tie, but wearing it completely untied and just hanging around his neck like a scarf or something. And everyone in the hotel bar just sits and talks about their "scripts" or their "productions." Yeah, I'm sure successfull people just get done with a long day of working and still want to talk about it. I even heard one guy mention the name "Sandler." First, you're a dork. Second, are you really sure you want to proud of attaching Sandler to a project these days? He hasn't been good since that movie with Damon Wayans.
I really have mentally catalogued about a billion things to write about, including this Nick Blackburn signing and everything, but I have no time. This sucks. No computer, stuck in a hotel in an area code where sports are over by 8pm? Seriously it's just after nine here and sports have been over for an hour. I've been stuck playing Texas Hold 'Em on my new phone. And I haven't even seen a celebrity yet. How can I seduce Natalie Portman back up to my room if I don't even see her? Actually I think I might have been in the same line at the rent-a-car place as some PGA golfer. He had nothing but golf clothes on and had some placard around his neck that said "PGA TOUR" and they are in California this week, but I didn't recognize him so at best he's somebody like Marc Leishman. Joy. Or he was just some poser, and I'm starting to think this is the Poser capital of the world.
Oh, and sorry for no Week in Review this week, but what am I gonna do? Believe me it is killing me to not be able to write. I can only assume it's much worse for you since you have nothing good to read while trying to kill time at your shitty job. Here's you short Week in Review:
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. All the teams who won bids. Except Wofford. Good lord the SoCon sucks. That Wofford/App State game tonight was an affront to everyone who likes basketball. No chance they win or cover in the tournament.
2. Those teams who did what they needed to. This would include St. Mary's, Seton Hall, Wake Forest, etc. The teams who needed who win to get in or stay in consideration. It's always nice when a team rises to the occassion. I wouldn't know what that is like.
3. My fantasy college hoops team. I won. Yes, I won the championship. Special thanks to John Shurna, who had a monster week for me, and also to Ralph Sampson, who my opponent had and who did nothing. Congratulations to me, the World Champion of the World.
WHO SUCKED
1. California. You people are weird.
2. All the teams who choked. This would include teams like Dayton, Illinois, and Minnesota. You had your chances and you've ruined them all at several different times. It saddens me that someone like Illionis is probably going to get in. If not them, someone with a simiarly shitty profile. But it's ok, because I have a real good handle on the tournament this year. If I don't win my pool, I'll be shocked.
3. Anyone who didn't watch that Siena/Fairfield game for the MAAC championship. That was a classic. Siena down 15, roars back, we get OT - just a great game to watch, completely different than the WCC final (and the WCC will be going 0-2 in the tournament, guaranteed). Siena is going to be a damn tough team to figure out. They really beat nobody this year and were behind in every MAAC tourny game, but they won every MAAC tourny game, and if you remember the NCAAs last year the same thing happened and they ended up beating Ohio State. I thought their zero big wins profile meant they weren't going to be able to do anything, but maybe that's just their MO. Very weird team.
4. Women's Basketball. I don't give a crap what UCONN women's basketball is doing unless we have some full contact nudity. Don't cut away from the last four minutes of the CAA championship to show me that crap. Title IV be damned.
Ok, I wrote all this in about 8 minutes so you can stuff your sorrys in a sack if there's a typo or a mistake. Captain Weirdo is his bowler hat and Trader Joe's sweatshirt is sweating me to get on a computer so he can email his mom about how somebody halfway looked at his script but he'll still be home in time for dinner. And he's like 40.
California is weird, dude. I see why Zack and Slater ruled this town.
I really have mentally catalogued about a billion things to write about, including this Nick Blackburn signing and everything, but I have no time. This sucks. No computer, stuck in a hotel in an area code where sports are over by 8pm? Seriously it's just after nine here and sports have been over for an hour. I've been stuck playing Texas Hold 'Em on my new phone. And I haven't even seen a celebrity yet. How can I seduce Natalie Portman back up to my room if I don't even see her? Actually I think I might have been in the same line at the rent-a-car place as some PGA golfer. He had nothing but golf clothes on and had some placard around his neck that said "PGA TOUR" and they are in California this week, but I didn't recognize him so at best he's somebody like Marc Leishman. Joy. Or he was just some poser, and I'm starting to think this is the Poser capital of the world.
Oh, and sorry for no Week in Review this week, but what am I gonna do? Believe me it is killing me to not be able to write. I can only assume it's much worse for you since you have nothing good to read while trying to kill time at your shitty job. Here's you short Week in Review:
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. All the teams who won bids. Except Wofford. Good lord the SoCon sucks. That Wofford/App State game tonight was an affront to everyone who likes basketball. No chance they win or cover in the tournament.
2. Those teams who did what they needed to. This would include St. Mary's, Seton Hall, Wake Forest, etc. The teams who needed who win to get in or stay in consideration. It's always nice when a team rises to the occassion. I wouldn't know what that is like.
3. My fantasy college hoops team. I won. Yes, I won the championship. Special thanks to John Shurna, who had a monster week for me, and also to Ralph Sampson, who my opponent had and who did nothing. Congratulations to me, the World Champion of the World.
WHO SUCKED
1. California. You people are weird.
2. All the teams who choked. This would include teams like Dayton, Illinois, and Minnesota. You had your chances and you've ruined them all at several different times. It saddens me that someone like Illionis is probably going to get in. If not them, someone with a simiarly shitty profile. But it's ok, because I have a real good handle on the tournament this year. If I don't win my pool, I'll be shocked.
3. Anyone who didn't watch that Siena/Fairfield game for the MAAC championship. That was a classic. Siena down 15, roars back, we get OT - just a great game to watch, completely different than the WCC final (and the WCC will be going 0-2 in the tournament, guaranteed). Siena is going to be a damn tough team to figure out. They really beat nobody this year and were behind in every MAAC tourny game, but they won every MAAC tourny game, and if you remember the NCAAs last year the same thing happened and they ended up beating Ohio State. I thought their zero big wins profile meant they weren't going to be able to do anything, but maybe that's just their MO. Very weird team.
4. Women's Basketball. I don't give a crap what UCONN women's basketball is doing unless we have some full contact nudity. Don't cut away from the last four minutes of the CAA championship to show me that crap. Title IV be damned.
Ok, I wrote all this in about 8 minutes so you can stuff your sorrys in a sack if there's a typo or a mistake. Captain Weirdo is his bowler hat and Trader Joe's sweatshirt is sweating me to get on a computer so he can email his mom about how somebody halfway looked at his script but he'll still be home in time for dinner. And he's like 40.
California is weird, dude. I see why Zack and Slater ruled this town.
Friday, March 5, 2010
More Conference Tournaments - 3/5
If you pay attention to my fantasy college hoops team and/or the comments when I sometimes write them, you know that I'm in a huge battle for the the world championship of fantasy college hoops and I needed Draymond Green to score 33 points last night to even the score with my opponent with ten games to go each. Well, he picked up exactly 33 (14 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal), so we are tied with exactly ten games left to go. Barn freaking burner here folks. Saturday is going to be a huge day. Eight of my ten remaining games are Saturday, but he has only five of his dudes going, so I need to have a huge, huge Saturday. Root for me folks. You owe me that much.
In real basketball news, Seton Hall kept their dream alive with a win over Rutgers on the road, while Dayton couldn't do the same thing despite leading Richmond the whole game until there were five minutes left. The Hall still has work to do, while Dayton can now kick back and wait to see if they get a a one or a two seed in the NIT. Ole Miss also kept the dream alive, and with a quickly weakening bubble they are looking better by the day, as is Washington who knocked off Oregon on the road and is starting to look like they will give the Pac-10 two teams instead of just one.
In conference tournament news, Drake began their March towards a MVC tournament crown and surprise NCAA bid by knocking off Southern Illinois, and today will probably beat Northern Iowa and put them back on the bubble. And speaking of conference tournaments, these tournaments kick-off either today or this weekend:
COLONIAL: Similar to the Missouri Valley, the Colonial was the mid-major darling not long ago, highlighted by George Mason's improbable Final Four run, but has fallen off a bit. Also similar to the Missouri Valley the CAA has just one team in play for an at-large - Old Dominion.
FAVORITE: Old Dominion. The Monarchs are a legitimate threat thanks to their stingy defense (21st in D-efficiency), deliberate pace (299th in tempo), and balanced attack (six guys average between 7 and 15 ppg). They have already beaten Georgetown and Charlotte this year and hung right with Richmond and Missouri.
SLEEPER: William & Mary. There are a lot of good, not great, teams to choose from here, and VCU is probably better overall, but W&M is the type of team that is extremely dangerous if they get hot. The rely on the three a ton (5th most reliant on it in the NCAA) and if they get hot they can put teams down in a hurry, just ask Wake and Richmond who they beat this year.
W's PICK: Old Dominion. They are the best team, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them, W&M, VCU, or George Mason win this. The one upper division team you don't have to worry about is Northeastern - they're terrible.
MID-ATLANTIC: The real MAAC hasn't been as fun since Luis Flores graduated, but they do always seem to have one pretty good team whether it's been Manhattan, Niagara, or Siena over the past years. This year it is Siena once again, but this time the Saints haven't done enough for at-large consideration and will need to win the tournament if they're going to notch a first-round upset for the third season in a row.
FAVORITE: Siena. The Saints ran through the conference at 17-1 and with four scorers averaging 14-16 points per game to go with national assist leader Ronald Moore (7.7pg), this team is legit.
SLEEPER: Fairfield. The Stags weren't the team to give Siena their only MAAC loss (that was Niagara), but they were the only team to lose by less than 10 in both meetings with the Saints. That's pretty much the only positive I can find.
W's PICK: Siena. If they had shown they can beat a good team this year, I'd be thinking Sweet 16 for these guys. As it stands they were 0-4 this year against the RPI Top 50, which is why they need to win this thing to get to the dance as well as a pretty good reason to doubt them.
WEST COAST CONFERENCE: Blah blah blah Gonzaga blah blah blah.
FAVORITE: Gonzaga. Again. I loved their team last year and thought they had enough juice to knock out North Carolina, which they clearly didn't. I don't like them as much this year, but this is still a Sweet 16 type team.
SLEEPER: St. Marys. I don't know how much of a sleeper they are since I think everyone who falls college hoops to this level of detail is aware that they have been the Saliere to Gonzaga's Mozart for like fifty years. Of course, this year Gonzaga beat them in both matchups by an average of 15, so I don't know if they're really a threat.
W's PICK: Gonzaga. Outside of St. Mary's there isn't anyone else here who can even challenge them, and I don't think the Gaels pose much of a challenge. More like a puff of wind, really.
SUN BELT: Remember when South Alabama and Western Kentucky were both awesome? Well Courtney Lee and Taco Hawk have both graduated, so you can forget all about it.
FAVORITE: Troy. The Trojans grabbed the number one seed despite a tie atop the conference standings with North Texas and Middle Tennessee. I also don't know jack crap about them. They did beat Auburn earlier and their leading scorer, Brandon Hazzard, has a pretty cool name.
SLEEPER: Western Kentucky. It's not like the fell completely off the face of the earth, finishing fourth behind those other three clowns, and A.J. Slaughter is still here and was part of the Hilltopper teams that won three NCAA Tournament games the past two years. And his name is even cooler than Hazzard.
W's PICK: Western Kentucky. It just won't quite feel like an NCAA Tournament without the Hilltoppers. Plus they beat Vanderbilt earlier this year, so why not?
SUMMIT LEAGUE: Thankfully all those white little weiners from North Dakota State graduated so we don't have to hear about them as a sleeper and read 8 billion stories and be told we should root for them since they reside next door to Minnesota. The downside of course, is that I know almost nothing about the Summit League.
FAVORITE: Oakland. About the only thing I do know is that Oakland is good, and they have a pretty good player and probable future NBAer in junior center Keith Benson who is averaging a double/double this season. Although I really don't like how this Oakland is in Michigan. Too confusing.
SLEEPER: IUPUI. The second place team and only Summit team to beat Oakland this year.
W's PICK: South Dakota State. They finished fourth, hung with Oakland in both games, and the tournament is in South Dakota this year. The main reason to expect them to win, however, is because the media in Minnesota would pick up on it and beat it to death, thus killing my soul once again.
SOUTHERN: Davidson has fallen back into obscurity now that your favorite overrated player has graduated, but there's still a little intrigue here - just no at-large possibility or supremely overrated guard.
FAVORITE: Wofford. Not just because they have Minnesota boy and better brother Noah Dahlman. They are actually a pretty decent team who went 13-3 in the SoCon and beat both Georgia and South Carolina, and held their own against Michigan State and Pitt.
SLEEPER: College of Charleston. They snagged the headlines with their win over North Carolina, although that's looking less impressive by the day, and finished just a game back of Wofford. Plus they still have Bobby Cremins as coach so you can never count them out.
W's PICK: Wofford. They are battle tested after taking on some pretty good teams outside of conference play, they've won ten straight, and actually have an RPI just one spot behind your beloved Gophers. Kill me.
MID-AMERICAN: Doesn't it seem like the MAC should be better? I remember Kent State was pretty good a few years back, and Akron was a good team for the last few years, but when is the last time the MAC snagged an at-large bid?
FAVORITE: Kent State/Akron. Whichever team gets the number one seed would be the favorite since it's up for grabs. That's because these two teams play tonight and are tied atop the standings. The top seeds don't play until next Thursday, even though the opening rounds get going on Sunday.
SLEEPER: Western Michigan. The loser of tonight's game would be your most likely winner if it's not the favorite, but I'm going to give the Sleeper nod to WMU. They have David Kool, who not only has an awesome name but has also led the MAC in scoring for each of the past two years and was 4th the year before that. Sure, they were just 8-8 and they lost to both Akron and Kent State, but they hung tough in both those games, and they're just such a Kool team.
W's PICK: Akron. No matter what happens tonight, I'm picking the Zips. They got hosed big-time back in the Dru Joyce III/Romeo Travis days when they should have snagged at least one at-large bid, and then finally made it last season only to lose to Gonzaga. Four starters are back from that team, and I have a good feeling about this team. Because I know so much about them. Not making that up at all.
BIG SKY: I've always been a fan of the Big Sky, mainly because most of Mama W's family went to that school (as did she for a semester) and because I've been to a game at their arena. I also like this group because of Northern Colorado, because it's fun to say NoCo and also because one time in Chicago me, Bogart, Snake, and Dawger met some guy who played safety for them and he told us about how Colt Brennan shredded them for like 600 yards. Cool story, brah.
FAVORITE: Weber State. For what seems like the 20th year in a row the Wildcats won the regular season crown, which means if they lose in this tournament they get an auto-bid in the NIT, setting up a potential Minnesota vs. Weber State matchup. WORLD'S ARE COLLIDING!!
SLEEPER: NoCo. And not just for the reasons laid out above. The Bears finished one game behind Weber, beat them once, and also took out some mid-tier teams in San Jose State and TCU, and lost to Oklahoma by just one.
W's PICK: Weber. They are actually a pretty decent team who knocked off Utah and has an RPI in the top 100. Good a reason as any, I suppose.
In site news, I am starting a new job on Monday. What that means is that I have to give this laptop back and the end of the day, and I won't be getting my new one until Tuesday when I'm in California, so I won't be posting again until probably Tuesday evening. That also means you won't get a game recap from me for the Iowa/Gopher game. But you probably wouldn't get one anyway because I can't really come up with a reason to watch it. And if you really want a preview here it is:
These teams both suck. Prediction: Gophers 33, Iowa 14.
In real basketball news, Seton Hall kept their dream alive with a win over Rutgers on the road, while Dayton couldn't do the same thing despite leading Richmond the whole game until there were five minutes left. The Hall still has work to do, while Dayton can now kick back and wait to see if they get a a one or a two seed in the NIT. Ole Miss also kept the dream alive, and with a quickly weakening bubble they are looking better by the day, as is Washington who knocked off Oregon on the road and is starting to look like they will give the Pac-10 two teams instead of just one.
In conference tournament news, Drake began their March towards a MVC tournament crown and surprise NCAA bid by knocking off Southern Illinois, and today will probably beat Northern Iowa and put them back on the bubble. And speaking of conference tournaments, these tournaments kick-off either today or this weekend:
COLONIAL: Similar to the Missouri Valley, the Colonial was the mid-major darling not long ago, highlighted by George Mason's improbable Final Four run, but has fallen off a bit. Also similar to the Missouri Valley the CAA has just one team in play for an at-large - Old Dominion.
FAVORITE: Old Dominion. The Monarchs are a legitimate threat thanks to their stingy defense (21st in D-efficiency), deliberate pace (299th in tempo), and balanced attack (six guys average between 7 and 15 ppg). They have already beaten Georgetown and Charlotte this year and hung right with Richmond and Missouri.
SLEEPER: William & Mary. There are a lot of good, not great, teams to choose from here, and VCU is probably better overall, but W&M is the type of team that is extremely dangerous if they get hot. The rely on the three a ton (5th most reliant on it in the NCAA) and if they get hot they can put teams down in a hurry, just ask Wake and Richmond who they beat this year.
W's PICK: Old Dominion. They are the best team, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them, W&M, VCU, or George Mason win this. The one upper division team you don't have to worry about is Northeastern - they're terrible.
MID-ATLANTIC: The real MAAC hasn't been as fun since Luis Flores graduated, but they do always seem to have one pretty good team whether it's been Manhattan, Niagara, or Siena over the past years. This year it is Siena once again, but this time the Saints haven't done enough for at-large consideration and will need to win the tournament if they're going to notch a first-round upset for the third season in a row.
FAVORITE: Siena. The Saints ran through the conference at 17-1 and with four scorers averaging 14-16 points per game to go with national assist leader Ronald Moore (7.7pg), this team is legit.
SLEEPER: Fairfield. The Stags weren't the team to give Siena their only MAAC loss (that was Niagara), but they were the only team to lose by less than 10 in both meetings with the Saints. That's pretty much the only positive I can find.
W's PICK: Siena. If they had shown they can beat a good team this year, I'd be thinking Sweet 16 for these guys. As it stands they were 0-4 this year against the RPI Top 50, which is why they need to win this thing to get to the dance as well as a pretty good reason to doubt them.
WEST COAST CONFERENCE: Blah blah blah Gonzaga blah blah blah.
FAVORITE: Gonzaga. Again. I loved their team last year and thought they had enough juice to knock out North Carolina, which they clearly didn't. I don't like them as much this year, but this is still a Sweet 16 type team.
SLEEPER: St. Marys. I don't know how much of a sleeper they are since I think everyone who falls college hoops to this level of detail is aware that they have been the Saliere to Gonzaga's Mozart for like fifty years. Of course, this year Gonzaga beat them in both matchups by an average of 15, so I don't know if they're really a threat.
W's PICK: Gonzaga. Outside of St. Mary's there isn't anyone else here who can even challenge them, and I don't think the Gaels pose much of a challenge. More like a puff of wind, really.
SUN BELT: Remember when South Alabama and Western Kentucky were both awesome? Well Courtney Lee and Taco Hawk have both graduated, so you can forget all about it.
FAVORITE: Troy. The Trojans grabbed the number one seed despite a tie atop the conference standings with North Texas and Middle Tennessee. I also don't know jack crap about them. They did beat Auburn earlier and their leading scorer, Brandon Hazzard, has a pretty cool name.
SLEEPER: Western Kentucky. It's not like the fell completely off the face of the earth, finishing fourth behind those other three clowns, and A.J. Slaughter is still here and was part of the Hilltopper teams that won three NCAA Tournament games the past two years. And his name is even cooler than Hazzard.
W's PICK: Western Kentucky. It just won't quite feel like an NCAA Tournament without the Hilltoppers. Plus they beat Vanderbilt earlier this year, so why not?
SUMMIT LEAGUE: Thankfully all those white little weiners from North Dakota State graduated so we don't have to hear about them as a sleeper and read 8 billion stories and be told we should root for them since they reside next door to Minnesota. The downside of course, is that I know almost nothing about the Summit League.
FAVORITE: Oakland. About the only thing I do know is that Oakland is good, and they have a pretty good player and probable future NBAer in junior center Keith Benson who is averaging a double/double this season. Although I really don't like how this Oakland is in Michigan. Too confusing.
SLEEPER: IUPUI. The second place team and only Summit team to beat Oakland this year.
W's PICK: South Dakota State. They finished fourth, hung with Oakland in both games, and the tournament is in South Dakota this year. The main reason to expect them to win, however, is because the media in Minnesota would pick up on it and beat it to death, thus killing my soul once again.
SOUTHERN: Davidson has fallen back into obscurity now that your favorite overrated player has graduated, but there's still a little intrigue here - just no at-large possibility or supremely overrated guard.
FAVORITE: Wofford. Not just because they have Minnesota boy and better brother Noah Dahlman. They are actually a pretty decent team who went 13-3 in the SoCon and beat both Georgia and South Carolina, and held their own against Michigan State and Pitt.
SLEEPER: College of Charleston. They snagged the headlines with their win over North Carolina, although that's looking less impressive by the day, and finished just a game back of Wofford. Plus they still have Bobby Cremins as coach so you can never count them out.
W's PICK: Wofford. They are battle tested after taking on some pretty good teams outside of conference play, they've won ten straight, and actually have an RPI just one spot behind your beloved Gophers. Kill me.
MID-AMERICAN: Doesn't it seem like the MAC should be better? I remember Kent State was pretty good a few years back, and Akron was a good team for the last few years, but when is the last time the MAC snagged an at-large bid?
FAVORITE: Kent State/Akron. Whichever team gets the number one seed would be the favorite since it's up for grabs. That's because these two teams play tonight and are tied atop the standings. The top seeds don't play until next Thursday, even though the opening rounds get going on Sunday.
SLEEPER: Western Michigan. The loser of tonight's game would be your most likely winner if it's not the favorite, but I'm going to give the Sleeper nod to WMU. They have David Kool, who not only has an awesome name but has also led the MAC in scoring for each of the past two years and was 4th the year before that. Sure, they were just 8-8 and they lost to both Akron and Kent State, but they hung tough in both those games, and they're just such a Kool team.
W's PICK: Akron. No matter what happens tonight, I'm picking the Zips. They got hosed big-time back in the Dru Joyce III/Romeo Travis days when they should have snagged at least one at-large bid, and then finally made it last season only to lose to Gonzaga. Four starters are back from that team, and I have a good feeling about this team. Because I know so much about them. Not making that up at all.
BIG SKY: I've always been a fan of the Big Sky, mainly because most of Mama W's family went to that school (as did she for a semester) and because I've been to a game at their arena. I also like this group because of Northern Colorado, because it's fun to say NoCo and also because one time in Chicago me, Bogart, Snake, and Dawger met some guy who played safety for them and he told us about how Colt Brennan shredded them for like 600 yards. Cool story, brah.
FAVORITE: Weber State. For what seems like the 20th year in a row the Wildcats won the regular season crown, which means if they lose in this tournament they get an auto-bid in the NIT, setting up a potential Minnesota vs. Weber State matchup. WORLD'S ARE COLLIDING!!
SLEEPER: NoCo. And not just for the reasons laid out above. The Bears finished one game behind Weber, beat them once, and also took out some mid-tier teams in San Jose State and TCU, and lost to Oklahoma by just one.
W's PICK: Weber. They are actually a pretty decent team who knocked off Utah and has an RPI in the top 100. Good a reason as any, I suppose.
In site news, I am starting a new job on Monday. What that means is that I have to give this laptop back and the end of the day, and I won't be getting my new one until Tuesday when I'm in California, so I won't be posting again until probably Tuesday evening. That also means you won't get a game recap from me for the Iowa/Gopher game. But you probably wouldn't get one anyway because I can't really come up with a reason to watch it. And if you really want a preview here it is:
These teams both suck. Prediction: Gophers 33, Iowa 14.
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