I know I had mentioned that I was going to try to do a retro live blog of the NBA draft since I couldn't watch it myself, but I just couldn't do it. I already knew what happened. It's kind of like tivoing a Gopher basketball game, finding out the lost by 10, and then watching it anyway. You just wouldn't do that, because the fun of watching sports is watching an event with an uncertain outcome in which you are emotionally invested in the result. Knowing what happens and then watching is stupid. I know there are people who would tivo a game and then watch it even if they know the end result already. Those people are psychopaths.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Minnesota Timberwolves. I think they'd have been better off using #20 by either keeping Motiejunas or grabbing Marshon Brooks (or trading it for a veteran SG or C - Brad Miller is retiring) but I can be talked into Kahn's madness because #1 - it's fun and #2 - they did get a future 1st. The real reason I'm going to praise the mad man here is because, despite himself, he did the right thing and picked Derrick Williams - and kept him (at least thus far). In my opinion Irving is the surest thing - his downside is probably a long-time starter - but I think Williams has the most upside in the draft. I suppose this belongs in the back-handed insult department, but kudos to Kahn for not outsmarting himself even though it became abundantly clear he wanted to. So hurray for competence, accidental or otherwise.
2. JaJuan Johnson. The awesome thing for him is that he managed to get himself drafted in the first round, so like, congrats. What I'm really fascinated about, however, is that the player Snake and I have been calling "College KG" for four years because his skill set was so similar to KG (and Hakim Warrick, FYI) will now be playing with the real KG. I'd say he couldn't find himself in a better situation with the perfect player to pattern himself after on the same team, but the word "mentor" doesn't exactly come to mind when you think about Garnett. How is he going to react to a young, new player showing up who has the same game KG himself had 15 years ago? Fights? Verbal assaults? Undermining his confidence? Or maybe he'll actually see an opportunity to sort of live on after he retires by doing everything he can do help Johnson. I doubt it, and I'm thinking more of the pushing and yelling is likely, but I'm totally fascinated here. I've never watched Hard Knocks or whatever, but if they did a show like that on the Celtics this year I would totally watch. And just fast forward to the KG/JJ parts.
3. Evan Longoria. Big sexy is back, in case you missed him. Longoria struggled so far this year after returning from injury, but he finally broke out this week. Well, maybe not a total breakout, but in his last four games he has two 2-HR games, including Sunday's game against the Astros where he went 4-6 and missed he cycle by a triple. Interestingly enough, this little hot streak has started ever since Longo dropped the batting gloves which reminds me of this dude I played amateur baseball with. See, I hit with no batting gloves because I like to feel the wood (insert your own joke here). Snacks played on the team too, and he liked to wear eye black because it was the most effective way for him to keep the sun out of his eyes in the outfield. We had another guy who used a ton of pine tar, another guy who wore two big wristbands around his forearms, and another guy who wore his hat slightly cocked to the left. All these things were done because they worked for people. But then we had this one little weiner dork on on our team who did all of them - no batting gloves, eye black, pine tar, wrist bands, and hat cocked. God he was such a little idiot, and he sucked too. This really has nothing to do with Evan Longoria any more.
4. J.J. Hardy. Well the Twins didn't need him now did they? While the revolving door of Tolbert/Casilla/Nishioka/Plouffe has put up a combined .225 batting average and a whopping .339 slugging, Hardy hit as many home runs this past week (3) as Twins' shortstop have all year. He also has multiple hits in 6 of his last 7 games, and for the season has the 4th highest average of all MLB shortstops (.304), the second-highest OBP (.369), the highest slugging (.538), the highest OPS (.907), and the fourth most homers despite only playing in slightly more than half the team's games. Basically he'd be the best hitter on the Twins: only Kubel has a a higher average and he'd lead the team in both on-base and slugging and be tied with Cuddy for the HR lead at 10. Meanwhile Jim Hoey's averaged more than 2 base-runners allowed per inning in his 17 shitty innings. I hate you, Bill Smith.
5. Justin Verlander. I think he's a cyborg of some kind, sent from the future to rescue major league baseball from crappy, wussy pitchers who both suck and are marshmallow soft. Him and Roy Halladay (and maybe a couple of others) are just a completely different species. I've always wondered what would happen if Gardy was managing Verlander. Say it's the bottom of the 7th and the Twins were up 2-0, Verlander is at 98 pitches and just gave up back-to-back singles with Mijares warm in the bullpen. When Gardy goes out there to try to get the ball from him do you think they would actually get in a fist fight? Is there any way we can make this happen?
WHO SUCKED
1. Minnesota Twins. Well it's over. I hope you didn't get sucked into believing this team actually had the ability to turn around that 13-29 start or whatever it was. I know the weak division and sliding Indians and everything made things look possible, but all you had to do was keep looking at that lineup. 50% of that lineup every game should be hitting ninth, which, based on the rules of baseball as set down by the great Abner Doubleday, is illegal. I know injuries have played a huge part of it - the team only has four guys who have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title for christ's sake - but there were some pretty bad decisions made this offseason. Specifically not looking for a viable back-up catcher when you know your starter is a china doll who only plays 2 out of every 3 games when he is healthy, deciding, "yeah, we'll go to war with Alexi Casilla as an everyday regular even though he's failed year after year after year" and not getting someone, anyone, to be insurance in case Morneau wasn't ready. The season was set-up to be a high-wire toward success, and the team tipped over and has gone splat on the city street below. When you dig yourself a hole you can't weather a 5-game losing streak. 2 or 3, yeah. Five? It's over.
2. Sacramento Kings. Let me get this straight. First, the Kings trade the only guy on their roster who ever considers passing for John Salmons, a gunning ballsink with an absolutely enormous contract and the right to move down in the draft. Then they usually their newly acquired 10th pick to draft Jimmer Fredette so they can team him up with Tyreke Evans in their back court. This means their two starting guards both need the ball in their hands at all times and are both shoot first kind of guys, and their first man of the bench shoots the ball every time he touches it. I think the two second round picks they made in Tyler Honeycutt and Captain Circus Ball himself were solid, but that can't over shadow this insane roster. Fredette, Evans, Salmons, and DeMarcus Cousins? Is anybody ever going to pass the ball? And how quickly do you think Jimmer asks for a trade, before or after he's threatened with bodily harm by Cousins and/or Evans?
3. Adam Dunn. I'm going to admit that I was terrified when the White Sox signed Dunn. Since he basically only hits homers, walks, or strikes out and the Twins' pitchers don't walk or strike out anyone I figured he basically just stand at home plate and hit tape measure home runs all day. Turns out, however, the he's decided to completely suck instead. This entire week he managed all of 2 hits (which both came in a game where he got 7 at-bats) and struck out 14 times. 14 times in one week! I'm not a guy who looks at strikeouts as a huge negative, especially when balanced out with power, but holy crap that's ridiculous, especially when he's now struck out in his last seven consecutive at-bats and is now hitting .179 on the year with an OPS nearly identical to Luke Hughes. Of course, it's still higher than Justin Morneau's so there's that. Plus Morneau is a huge girl.
4. Madison Bumgarner. It already feels like it happened 100 years ago, but you remember Captain Stripper Name's game against the Twins, don't you? Let me refresh you: single, double, single, double, single, double, single, double, strikeout, double, gone. 1/3 ip, 9 hits, 8 runs allowed. Now he did bounce back with a good game last night against Cleveland, but I feel like when you get shredded in such an epic way these things need to be mentioned whenever possible. Especially when the team that shredded you ranks in the bottom 7 of all of MLB in runs scored, batting average, OBP, slugging, and OPS. God what a fun year this has been. I'm going to become a Lynx fan.
Just kidding.
5. All the idiots who shouldn't have entered the NBA Draft. There are always plenty of idiots who get bad advice and/or have an overinflated ego who go into the NBA Draft despite everyone knowing they have no chance of getting drafted or maybe a slight prayer at getting snagged in the second round except for them. Some of those geniuses this year include Terrence Jennings of Louisville, who could have been a major player in the Big East next year, Jereme Richmond of Illinois who had a ton of potential but didn't bother to let it develop, Willie Reed of St. Louis who never had a prayer, Josh Selby of Kansas, who did get picked in the late second but probably could have been a lotto pick in a year or two, and Jordan Williams of Maryland, who was also picked in the late second but, like Selby, could have ended up a lottery pick in another year or two. Well done, gentlemen. Well done. All of you will be awarded an Anderson Hunt Memorial Award for terrible draft decisions.
I finally started watching Game of Thrones. Best show on TV, and it's not even close. If you don't have HBO do yourself a favor and order it, download all the Game of Thrones episodes on HBO on Demand, watch them, realize how good this show is and how you've been wasting your time, and then cancel HBO after a month. Brilliant.
Showing posts with label Jimmer Fredette. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jimmer Fredette. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday Musings
Why are weekends at the cabin always so exhausting? Seriously, I mostly just fished and drank, yet when I got home last night I was way too tired to even think of putting words down on a screen that about 13 people will probably read and are mostly stupid anyway. I suppose it's probably the drinking. Anyway, that's why there was no week in review post. I'll try to make it up to you by posting things right now instead.
- Might as well start with the obvious: the Twins are just ridiculous. Seven straight wins, 14-2 in their last 16, and now they're suddenly just 8 games out of first and in an actual position where the idea of them winning the division is no longer out of the question. And they're doing it with nobody. Kubel's on the DL. Morneau is on the DL. Thome is on the DL. Span is on the DL. Mauer just came off along with Nishioka. Valencia is banged up. Delmon Young is retarded. It's just amazing. I can't stand Gardy but maybe there's something to this "manager of the year" stuff.
Honestly I can't wrap my head around it. The team is being carried by Alexi Casilla and a bunch of other AAAA-types. Casilla is hitting .348 with 7 doubles over the last four weeks and even added a home run (which I thought had to have been a mis-speak when I heard it on the radio) over the weekend. Matt Tolbert has been a competent major league hitter. Danny Valencia is showing power. Cuddy is almost impossible to get out. Ben Revere has been a joy to watch, and even toothpick hitters like Jason Repko, Rene Tosoni, Hughesy, and those two dingleberry catchers are coming up with big hits. I completely understand why the White Sox and Ozzie are so terrified of the Twins. No matter how good the pitching has been (and it's been very, very good lately) a team regularly trotting out a lineup of Revere/Casilla/whoever is healthy and can hit/Cuddyer/Valencia/Hughes/Dinkleman/Butera/Tolbert should lose, approximately, 90% of their games. Instead the Twins have gotten hot. So stupid. Honest to god they're my favorite team but even I almost hate them for their ability to somehow constantly pull this shit off. But I don't. Go Twins. I'm starting to think we might even get to watch them get swept by the Yankees in the playoffs again.
- Couple quick U.S. Open notes, one good and one bad. First, how impressive was Rory McIlroy's win? (and no, I didn't have any money down on him to win). I really wish I would have had a chance to watch more of his play over the weekend, but unfortunately the cabin only gets channel 4, but man everything sounded good. He fired out with a 65 in the opener to take the lead, then followed that up with a 66 to give him the all-time best score to par through 36 holes at -11. Saturday he shot 68 and Sunday 69, which also gave him the all-time record for 54 and 72 holes, and an 8-shot US Open win (over Jason Day, who, incidentally, is going to win the PGA this year).
Now, clearly that's an incredibly stellar performance by McIlroy, either the most impressive or second most impressive major win every (along with Tiger's Masters), but I do think we need to ease back on the "where will McIlroy rank when it's all said and done" talk. It's still just one major. I know, it's very exciting that he's just 22 and has been on a roll that's had him in contention in every major lately but "the next Tiger Woods"? Really, Charch? I like McIlroy. Hell, he's one of my favorite golfers, but to get even halfway to Woods' major total - if he doesn't add to it - he'll need to win six more. If you had to lay money on him being more likely to win 0 more or 6 more in his career, which side would you take?
The 6 right, but it's a toughy. That's not the next Tiger. There probably isn't going to be one, so relax, nerd.
Secondly, I've gotten a couple of comments from people who read this shitty blog about how I always pick Hunter Mahan to win the U.S. Open, and it's true - I do. The reason is because his career was looking like it was built to win a US Open. His first three times playing in it, not counting 2003 - his rookie year, he finished 13th-18th-6th. When early in the 2010 season he broke through with his first win since 2007 at the Phoenix Open vs. a pretty good field, everything looked set for him to win his first major at the US Open at Pebble. So what's he do? Shoots 78-74 and misses the cut. I was heartbroken.
Then comes this year. He's been on fire: Seven top 10s this year, just one missed cut, and a run of 16th-6th-10th-13th in his last four starts which included the Players and the Memorial. Once again, looking like a good bet to win the U.S. Open. So what's he do? Fires a 74-73 and misses the cut again. Honest to god, this guy has gone from looking like an inevitable US Open winner to a complete US Open choker and I hate him like Super Sioux Fan hates delicious animals.
- Dustin Ackley. Look out folks, the starting second baseman for the American League All-Star Team for the next 12 years just arrived. Think Chase Utley without the chicken legs or weinerness. Guy can just flat out rake. As a freshman at North Carolina in 2007 he became just the fifth player in Tar Heel history to bat .400 for a season - and then went and did it again the next two years as well before being drafted #2 by Seattle. After a good 2-year run in the minors that included winning the MVP of the Arizona Fall League, Ackely made his Mariner debut over the weekend and collected his first major league hit, first major league triple, and first major league home run. He is going to be a star (and I think I'm officially in love with the Mariners right side of the infield). If you can, pick him up in your fantasy league and thank me later. Of course, if you're in my league you can't because I already have him. Neener neener neener.
- So I've been hearing lately that the Timberwolves might be considering trading the #2 pick now that Cleveland officially announced they were taking Kyrie Irving #1, which was frankly the most obvious thing in the world since that dude from Twilight announcing he's gay. The reason they are looking at trading the pick: Derrick Williams is the obvious pick and they have too many forwards? What. the. fuck. You won 17 games all of last season and now you're turning down best player available because of Michael Beasley and Wesley Johnson? I am not 100% against trading the pick or anything, but you better be getting a big haul - like 2 players and a top 10 pick, and that is exactly what I don't trust David Kahn to do. I suppose you never know what to expect from a team that once drafted four PGs in the same draft, but keep in mind this information comes from Paul Charchian so I'd say there's about a 20% chance it's true and a 98% chance it's douchey.
- Speaking of the draft, it looks like not only is Jimmer Fredette going to be a lottery pick but there are a handful of teams actively trying to trade up to get him. Again - what. the. fuck. Is the power of a white boy on the American wallet really that strong? The guy can score and is like a poor man's The Professor with the ball - I get it. But as I said after the NCAA Tournament, "Freaking amazing when he has the ball, right? Amazing shooter with unlimited range and a hair-trigger release, ability to get by a defender off the dribble and get into the lane, an excellent eye to find open teammates for easy hoops, and just amazing body control. Really an impressive player with the ball. But did you happen to notice him when he doesn't have the ball? I've never seen a lazier god damn player in my life. He does one of three things if he doesn't have the ball:
And I stand by that. Especially the race riot part.
- Wait. The NBA Draft is on Thursday? Holy shit. I got a lot of work to do. And I have stupid softball that night. DAMMIT.. I should just quit.
- Do you know who's closing for the Rays this year? Guess. Give up? It's Kyle freaking Farnsworth. Kyle Farnsworth. One one hand you could say he's been a quality set-up man who hasn't been given much of a shot at closing. On the other, more accurate, hand you could say he's inconsistent as hell and his career as a set-up man has as many god awful years as decent ones. I don't even care that he's been lights out this year there's almost no way this is going to continue. I'd say he's going to cost them a playoff spot, but my sexy boyfriend Evan Longoria is helping to do that too. I don't know, man, we're still going steady but with Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley breathing down his neck and old flame Cole Hamels back in the picture I'm just not sure how much longer we'll last. I'm tempted man, tempted. It's like co-ed softball, but with dudes. Hot dudes.
- Did you know the Marlins have lost like 38 straight games? That may seem pretty irrelevant to you, but some of us took the Marlins to win over 81.5 games this year and just a few short weeks ago when they were 29-19 we were practically counting our money. Now they're 32-41 and I'm scrambling to figure out how to pay our next mortgage bill. Oh well. There's always winning the lottery. Also food stamps. THANK YOU OBAMA!
- Finally, it seems like a lot of people are kind of bored by this but it's the first "serious" sports movie that hasn't made me roll my eyes since He Got Game and the first sports movie period since Varsity Blues that I'm actually interested in so fuck you, Chris N. Sports, nerd stats, and the hottest man alive (and Brad Pitt, too)? I'm all in. Which, since I have two kids and zero free-time, means I'll probably rent it 3 weeks after it's out on DVD. Hooray for my stupid life.
- Might as well start with the obvious: the Twins are just ridiculous. Seven straight wins, 14-2 in their last 16, and now they're suddenly just 8 games out of first and in an actual position where the idea of them winning the division is no longer out of the question. And they're doing it with nobody. Kubel's on the DL. Morneau is on the DL. Thome is on the DL. Span is on the DL. Mauer just came off along with Nishioka. Valencia is banged up. Delmon Young is retarded. It's just amazing. I can't stand Gardy but maybe there's something to this "manager of the year" stuff.
Honestly I can't wrap my head around it. The team is being carried by Alexi Casilla and a bunch of other AAAA-types. Casilla is hitting .348 with 7 doubles over the last four weeks and even added a home run (which I thought had to have been a mis-speak when I heard it on the radio) over the weekend. Matt Tolbert has been a competent major league hitter. Danny Valencia is showing power. Cuddy is almost impossible to get out. Ben Revere has been a joy to watch, and even toothpick hitters like Jason Repko, Rene Tosoni, Hughesy, and those two dingleberry catchers are coming up with big hits. I completely understand why the White Sox and Ozzie are so terrified of the Twins. No matter how good the pitching has been (and it's been very, very good lately) a team regularly trotting out a lineup of Revere/Casilla/whoever is healthy and can hit/Cuddyer/Valencia/Hughes/Dinkleman/Butera/Tolbert should lose, approximately, 90% of their games. Instead the Twins have gotten hot. So stupid. Honest to god they're my favorite team but even I almost hate them for their ability to somehow constantly pull this shit off. But I don't. Go Twins. I'm starting to think we might even get to watch them get swept by the Yankees in the playoffs again.
- Couple quick U.S. Open notes, one good and one bad. First, how impressive was Rory McIlroy's win? (and no, I didn't have any money down on him to win). I really wish I would have had a chance to watch more of his play over the weekend, but unfortunately the cabin only gets channel 4, but man everything sounded good. He fired out with a 65 in the opener to take the lead, then followed that up with a 66 to give him the all-time best score to par through 36 holes at -11. Saturday he shot 68 and Sunday 69, which also gave him the all-time record for 54 and 72 holes, and an 8-shot US Open win (over Jason Day, who, incidentally, is going to win the PGA this year).
Now, clearly that's an incredibly stellar performance by McIlroy, either the most impressive or second most impressive major win every (along with Tiger's Masters), but I do think we need to ease back on the "where will McIlroy rank when it's all said and done" talk. It's still just one major. I know, it's very exciting that he's just 22 and has been on a roll that's had him in contention in every major lately but "the next Tiger Woods"? Really, Charch? I like McIlroy. Hell, he's one of my favorite golfers, but to get even halfway to Woods' major total - if he doesn't add to it - he'll need to win six more. If you had to lay money on him being more likely to win 0 more or 6 more in his career, which side would you take?
The 6 right, but it's a toughy. That's not the next Tiger. There probably isn't going to be one, so relax, nerd.
Secondly, I've gotten a couple of comments from people who read this shitty blog about how I always pick Hunter Mahan to win the U.S. Open, and it's true - I do. The reason is because his career was looking like it was built to win a US Open. His first three times playing in it, not counting 2003 - his rookie year, he finished 13th-18th-6th. When early in the 2010 season he broke through with his first win since 2007 at the Phoenix Open vs. a pretty good field, everything looked set for him to win his first major at the US Open at Pebble. So what's he do? Shoots 78-74 and misses the cut. I was heartbroken.
Then comes this year. He's been on fire: Seven top 10s this year, just one missed cut, and a run of 16th-6th-10th-13th in his last four starts which included the Players and the Memorial. Once again, looking like a good bet to win the U.S. Open. So what's he do? Fires a 74-73 and misses the cut again. Honest to god, this guy has gone from looking like an inevitable US Open winner to a complete US Open choker and I hate him like Super Sioux Fan hates delicious animals.
- Dustin Ackley. Look out folks, the starting second baseman for the American League All-Star Team for the next 12 years just arrived. Think Chase Utley without the chicken legs or weinerness. Guy can just flat out rake. As a freshman at North Carolina in 2007 he became just the fifth player in Tar Heel history to bat .400 for a season - and then went and did it again the next two years as well before being drafted #2 by Seattle. After a good 2-year run in the minors that included winning the MVP of the Arizona Fall League, Ackely made his Mariner debut over the weekend and collected his first major league hit, first major league triple, and first major league home run. He is going to be a star (and I think I'm officially in love with the Mariners right side of the infield). If you can, pick him up in your fantasy league and thank me later. Of course, if you're in my league you can't because I already have him. Neener neener neener.
- So I've been hearing lately that the Timberwolves might be considering trading the #2 pick now that Cleveland officially announced they were taking Kyrie Irving #1, which was frankly the most obvious thing in the world since that dude from Twilight announcing he's gay. The reason they are looking at trading the pick: Derrick Williams is the obvious pick and they have too many forwards? What. the. fuck. You won 17 games all of last season and now you're turning down best player available because of Michael Beasley and Wesley Johnson? I am not 100% against trading the pick or anything, but you better be getting a big haul - like 2 players and a top 10 pick, and that is exactly what I don't trust David Kahn to do. I suppose you never know what to expect from a team that once drafted four PGs in the same draft, but keep in mind this information comes from Paul Charchian so I'd say there's about a 20% chance it's true and a 98% chance it's douchey.
- Speaking of the draft, it looks like not only is Jimmer Fredette going to be a lottery pick but there are a handful of teams actively trying to trade up to get him. Again - what. the. fuck. Is the power of a white boy on the American wallet really that strong? The guy can score and is like a poor man's The Professor with the ball - I get it. But as I said after the NCAA Tournament, "Freaking amazing when he has the ball, right? Amazing shooter with unlimited range and a hair-trigger release, ability to get by a defender off the dribble and get into the lane, an excellent eye to find open teammates for easy hoops, and just amazing body control. Really an impressive player with the ball. But did you happen to notice him when he doesn't have the ball? I've never seen a lazier god damn player in my life. He does one of three things if he doesn't have the ball:
- Stand there
- Clap his hands and call for the ball.
- Run directly at his teammate with the ball and clap his hands while calling for the ball
And I stand by that. Especially the race riot part.
- Wait. The NBA Draft is on Thursday? Holy shit. I got a lot of work to do. And I have stupid softball that night. DAMMIT.. I should just quit.
- Do you know who's closing for the Rays this year? Guess. Give up? It's Kyle freaking Farnsworth. Kyle Farnsworth. One one hand you could say he's been a quality set-up man who hasn't been given much of a shot at closing. On the other, more accurate, hand you could say he's inconsistent as hell and his career as a set-up man has as many god awful years as decent ones. I don't even care that he's been lights out this year there's almost no way this is going to continue. I'd say he's going to cost them a playoff spot, but my sexy boyfriend Evan Longoria is helping to do that too. I don't know, man, we're still going steady but with Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley breathing down his neck and old flame Cole Hamels back in the picture I'm just not sure how much longer we'll last. I'm tempted man, tempted. It's like co-ed softball, but with dudes. Hot dudes.
- Did you know the Marlins have lost like 38 straight games? That may seem pretty irrelevant to you, but some of us took the Marlins to win over 81.5 games this year and just a few short weeks ago when they were 29-19 we were practically counting our money. Now they're 32-41 and I'm scrambling to figure out how to pay our next mortgage bill. Oh well. There's always winning the lottery. Also food stamps. THANK YOU OBAMA!
- Finally, it seems like a lot of people are kind of bored by this but it's the first "serious" sports movie that hasn't made me roll my eyes since He Got Game and the first sports movie period since Varsity Blues that I'm actually interested in so fuck you, Chris N. Sports, nerd stats, and the hottest man alive (and Brad Pitt, too)? I'm all in. Which, since I have two kids and zero free-time, means I'll probably rent it 3 weeks after it's out on DVD. Hooray for my stupid life.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Weekend Review - 03.28.2011
What a retardedly stupid nonsensical and awesome tournament this has been. I can't remember ever having this much fun watching. Nearly every game close, and essentially completely impossible to predict. At this point I'd bet there are more people with zero final four teams correct (including your president - suck it, commie) than even have one, and although I'm sure there are a handful of people who have two correct I'd be pretty shocked if I know anyone who does. Every year it sucks when this tournament ends because it's always the most fun sporting event to watch, but this year it's going to be even worse. Doesn't help that the Twins are speeding towards mediocrity even faster than usual, but I won't dwell on that know. Plenty of time to talk hardball after next week.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Virginia Commonwealth Rams. Hard not to recognize a team that went from the First Four round to the Final Four, and a team that had the "experts" wringing their hands and bitching non-spot about how they shouldn't have gotten a bid (check the records and you'll see that I said they should be in multiple times - point me). Since you're about to get force fed more happy fun stories about VCU than you can handle I'm going to tell you a semi-funny story from Chicago instead. As most bars do at this time, the Dayton bar where we spent an inordinate amount of time had a bracket on the wall and an employee would hand write in each winner. This bar clearly had a female employee do it, because on the line where you would write the winner of the Georgetown/VCU game the chick wrote "VCU/USC." So now I'm picturing a bracket on the wall of the bar with four different winner lines with "VCU/USC" written down. I don't know, maybe you had to be there but it's pretty god damn funny.
2. Derrick Williams. Easily the most impressive player I saw this weekend and I don't even know if there was a second one. What an absolute monster. That dunk he threw down against UCONN in the second half where he basically powered through two dudes to throw down would have been the most impressive dunk of the entire tournament, except he eclipsed that one with the monster Shawn Kemp NBA Jam style slam he had against Duke. And it's not like he's a one-dimensional, Trevor Mbakwe dunking machine. He can shoot from the perimeter, rebound like a mofo, and he's excellent with the ball around the basket. I don't know what kind of NBA career he might have because I don't watch until the playoffs because I'm not retarded, but Williams is/was an absolute college beast. Probably has a huge crank, too.
3. Matt Howard. If Williams blew me away with his awesomeness, Howard blew me away with his improvement. Last year he was basically a chubby disaster against good teams and, although I don't want to say he single handedly lost the championship game against Duke, but he was so badly outplayed by Brian freaking Zoubek and looked so ridiculously out of place in that game that it's really just a testament to the brilliance of Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward that the championship went down to the wire.
Now, however, he's lost a bunch of that babyfat, added a jumper with 3-point range to his game, cut way way way down on his fouling, and is absolutely brimming with confidence. Which he should be because he's playing great. He's played some very good front courts so far this tournament in Old Dominion, Pitt, and Florida, and even the dainty Jon Leuer can be a challenge, and he's played well on both ends of the court against all of them. Last year's version of Howard would have gotten killed by Florida's super athletic dudes, but this year Howard scored 14, grabbed 5 boards, and most importantly only committed three fouls so he was able to play 40 minutes. His numbers might not jump out an grab you, but if you saw him this year and last you'd see what a massive improvement he's made, and he's a big, big reason Butler is heading to the Final Four.
4. Jeremy Lamb. All season long the one thing UCONN really needed was a second scorer to take pressure off of Kemba Walker who, despite being completely awesome, is not unstoppable despite what the media and announcers decided to make their running story (12-25 and 7-17 shooting in the two games this weekend doesn't make him unstoppable, it just makes him a high volume shooter and scorer). Lamb really stepped up, scoring 24 against San Diego State, tying a season high and was basically the whole reason UCONN won that game, and then following it up with 19 in the win over Zona. I still think he's a bit soft, but he's only a freshman so he can either take the good path and toughen up a bit and end up a pretty high level player and scorer, or he can go on about his business as he is, having games where he scores a ton and just as many games where he's nowhere to be found. I say that second thing like it's a bad thing, but I should point out that even that version of Lamb would be the best player on the Gophers, and it wouldn't even be close.
5. Kentucky Wildcats. Well I'm flabbergasted. It's rare of me to misjudge a team this badly. Actually strike that, because I think team's are better than they really are all the time, but it's rare that a team I think is terrible ends up doing something stupid like going to the Final Four. Calipari is a terrible game coach and a terrible game planner, generally winning games by having the most talent, almost in spite of himself. This year's Kentucky isn't all that talented, at least from a Calipari's most talented team perspective, so I figured an early exit was inevitable. Shocking that I got something wrong in this year's tournament I know, but apparently Brandon Knight is a lot better than I thought. Much, much better than Brandin Knight, who, of course, played for the world's most chokiest program in history in the Pitt Panthers, the same most chokiest program who I inexplicably chose as my national champion. Next year I'm not even filling out a bracket, it's getting too embarrassing. It's like if Stephen Hawking called you to hook up his tivo. From an understanding how to do it perspective, I mean. Not the whole "I have no movement in any of my limbs" thing.
WHO SUCKED
1. Wisconsin Badgers. As enjoyable as that loss was for Gopher fans and white people haters that had to be brutal for Badger fans. Really, I mean if you lose a buzzer beater game it sucks like getting punched in the stomach by a large black man who was just helping you find your glasses in a snowbank sucks - quick, painful, unexpected, but the pain subsides quickly. It sucks to lose that way, just like it sucks to lose to a team that just blows you away because they're so much better or playing so well at the time, but you can live with those losses. The way Wisconsin lost, however, has got to just gnaw away at you for a long, long time. Butler gets credit for shutting the Badgers down, but in reality they didn't do much. It was simply Wisconsin missing open shots. Over. And over. And over. And over. In the mid-first half Jordan Taylor was fouled on a three-pointer and missed the first two free-throws, and that basically summed up the night. And I loved every damn minute of it.
2. Jimmer Fredette. Did you get a chance to watch the Jimmer? Freaking amazing when he has the ball, right? Amazing shooter with unlimited range and a hair-trigger release, ability to get buy a defender off the dribble and get into the lane, an excellent eye to find open teammates for easy hoops, and just amazing body control. Really an impressive player with the ball. But did you happen to notice him when he doesn't have the ball? I've never seen a lazier god damn player in my life. He does one of three things if he doesn't have the ball:
3. Duke Blue Devils. hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha oh my god that was so awesome. It was like, all of a sudden Arizona realized, "hey, these guys are a bunch of nerds. More athletic nerds than the Northwestern dorks of course, but still nerds. And we aren't, so let's kill them" and then suddenly a dunk contest broke out and pasty white dorks and Jalen Rose's favorite type of brothers were their props. They could do the entire one shining moment montage just from dunks from this game. I think if Duke was playing a women's team that night those broads would have been running and jumping all over there heads. Or maybe a lay-up line would have broken out instead. I guess that's more realistic.
4. William Buford. Outside the Wisconsin duo of Jordan Taylor and Jon Leuer, I'm not sure anybody looked crappier than Buford. Here's my impression of his game against Kentucky: clang clang clang clang clang clang and so on and so forth. Like Billy Ho once said, "I'll tell you what. Why don't we take all these bricks and build a shelter for the homeless, so maybe your mother will have a place to stay. And your sister, too. I want your mother and sister out of my house." Damn Will, you just got played by a slow, white, geeky chump. What do you mean, black ball?
5. Colton Iverson's transfer. Of all the red flags jumping up around the program regarding player defections this one has to be the worst. The rest can all be rationalized away if you are looking for a reason to do so: Royce White was a bad egg, Justin Cobbs was homesick, Paul Carter's sister was sick (ok so that one was pretty legit), Devoe Joesph is a selfish player who only cares about himself, and on and on. If you want to have blind faith in Tubby you didn't have to try to hard. For me, however, this one is a stunner and, frankly, makes me more than a little concerned.
I mean, what exactly is the reasoning here? Iverson can't possibly believe Tubby is holding him back from a professional future playing ball, so what possible rationale could he have for leaving with only one year left to play? It's not like a playing time issue makes much sense either, because of his style of play, body type, and just overall gangliness he's not going to suddenly jump up to 36 minutes a night no matter where he goes. I just don't get this one. Colton would have been my last guess at a player who would be transferring out. I fear there are some real issues with this program, and I'm starting to think this year may not have been rock bottom. If Colton can leave, anybody could. What if both Mbakwe and Rodney end up leaving? Or hell, anybody else, I don't even know any more. I just know that I'm suddenly more fearful than ever that Tubby's style of coaching isn't just not winning as many games as we'd hoped but is now actively pushing players out. Let's just move on to baseball so a different team can let me down.
And since we're almost to baseball season (preview of some sort coming soon, maybe even this week), here's the team Snake and I put together in our fantasy baseball draft. I don't know about you, but looks like a championship to me.
C - Miguel Montero, Arizona (do you realize there are like 3 good catchers? And we weren't getting stuck with freaking Wieters again. I've done that dance twice).
1B - Billy Butler, KC (fat doubles machine)
2B - Rickie Weeks, MIL (counting on last year NOT being a career year)
3B - Evan Longoria, TB (so sexy he'll steal your girlfriend)
SS - Starlin Castro, CHC (please don't suck)
OF - Mike Stanton, FLA (not the middle reliever. We're buying the hype)
OF - Austin Jackson, DET (how about just a little plate discipline?)
OF - Delmon Young, MIN (no points for fielding)
Ut - Jason Kubel, MIN (got him very, very late. Decent upside)
SP - Jon Lester, BOS (could win 25)
SP - Justin Verlander, DET (looking even more unhittable this year)
SP - Clay Buchholz, BOS (I guess we're all in on Boston)
SP - Madison Bumgarner, SF (hoping his rough spring doesn't mean anything)
RP - Jonathan Papelbon, BOS (like I said)
RP - Joakim Soria, KC (Will probably end up saving 85% of KC's wins)
RP - Drew Storen, WAS (we can't have Strausberg, so we'll take his little buddy)
Bench - 1B Justin Smoak, SEA (Of course)
Bench - SP Michael Pineda, SEA (we hit it big with Leake last year, might as well try again)
Bench - RP Chris Sale, CHW (already unhittable, just needs to get the closer gig)
Bench - SP Carl Pavano, MIN (steady enough)
CHAMPIONSHIP!
RIP Paul.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Virginia Commonwealth Rams. Hard not to recognize a team that went from the First Four round to the Final Four, and a team that had the "experts" wringing their hands and bitching non-spot about how they shouldn't have gotten a bid (check the records and you'll see that I said they should be in multiple times - point me). Since you're about to get force fed more happy fun stories about VCU than you can handle I'm going to tell you a semi-funny story from Chicago instead. As most bars do at this time, the Dayton bar where we spent an inordinate amount of time had a bracket on the wall and an employee would hand write in each winner. This bar clearly had a female employee do it, because on the line where you would write the winner of the Georgetown/VCU game the chick wrote "VCU/USC." So now I'm picturing a bracket on the wall of the bar with four different winner lines with "VCU/USC" written down. I don't know, maybe you had to be there but it's pretty god damn funny.
2. Derrick Williams. Easily the most impressive player I saw this weekend and I don't even know if there was a second one. What an absolute monster. That dunk he threw down against UCONN in the second half where he basically powered through two dudes to throw down would have been the most impressive dunk of the entire tournament, except he eclipsed that one with the monster Shawn Kemp NBA Jam style slam he had against Duke. And it's not like he's a one-dimensional, Trevor Mbakwe dunking machine. He can shoot from the perimeter, rebound like a mofo, and he's excellent with the ball around the basket. I don't know what kind of NBA career he might have because I don't watch until the playoffs because I'm not retarded, but Williams is/was an absolute college beast. Probably has a huge crank, too.
3. Matt Howard. If Williams blew me away with his awesomeness, Howard blew me away with his improvement. Last year he was basically a chubby disaster against good teams and, although I don't want to say he single handedly lost the championship game against Duke, but he was so badly outplayed by Brian freaking Zoubek and looked so ridiculously out of place in that game that it's really just a testament to the brilliance of Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward that the championship went down to the wire.
Now, however, he's lost a bunch of that babyfat, added a jumper with 3-point range to his game, cut way way way down on his fouling, and is absolutely brimming with confidence. Which he should be because he's playing great. He's played some very good front courts so far this tournament in Old Dominion, Pitt, and Florida, and even the dainty Jon Leuer can be a challenge, and he's played well on both ends of the court against all of them. Last year's version of Howard would have gotten killed by Florida's super athletic dudes, but this year Howard scored 14, grabbed 5 boards, and most importantly only committed three fouls so he was able to play 40 minutes. His numbers might not jump out an grab you, but if you saw him this year and last you'd see what a massive improvement he's made, and he's a big, big reason Butler is heading to the Final Four.
4. Jeremy Lamb. All season long the one thing UCONN really needed was a second scorer to take pressure off of Kemba Walker who, despite being completely awesome, is not unstoppable despite what the media and announcers decided to make their running story (12-25 and 7-17 shooting in the two games this weekend doesn't make him unstoppable, it just makes him a high volume shooter and scorer). Lamb really stepped up, scoring 24 against San Diego State, tying a season high and was basically the whole reason UCONN won that game, and then following it up with 19 in the win over Zona. I still think he's a bit soft, but he's only a freshman so he can either take the good path and toughen up a bit and end up a pretty high level player and scorer, or he can go on about his business as he is, having games where he scores a ton and just as many games where he's nowhere to be found. I say that second thing like it's a bad thing, but I should point out that even that version of Lamb would be the best player on the Gophers, and it wouldn't even be close.
5. Kentucky Wildcats. Well I'm flabbergasted. It's rare of me to misjudge a team this badly. Actually strike that, because I think team's are better than they really are all the time, but it's rare that a team I think is terrible ends up doing something stupid like going to the Final Four. Calipari is a terrible game coach and a terrible game planner, generally winning games by having the most talent, almost in spite of himself. This year's Kentucky isn't all that talented, at least from a Calipari's most talented team perspective, so I figured an early exit was inevitable. Shocking that I got something wrong in this year's tournament I know, but apparently Brandon Knight is a lot better than I thought. Much, much better than Brandin Knight, who, of course, played for the world's most chokiest program in history in the Pitt Panthers, the same most chokiest program who I inexplicably chose as my national champion. Next year I'm not even filling out a bracket, it's getting too embarrassing. It's like if Stephen Hawking called you to hook up his tivo. From an understanding how to do it perspective, I mean. Not the whole "I have no movement in any of my limbs" thing.
WHO SUCKED
1. Wisconsin Badgers. As enjoyable as that loss was for Gopher fans and white people haters that had to be brutal for Badger fans. Really, I mean if you lose a buzzer beater game it sucks like getting punched in the stomach by a large black man who was just helping you find your glasses in a snowbank sucks - quick, painful, unexpected, but the pain subsides quickly. It sucks to lose that way, just like it sucks to lose to a team that just blows you away because they're so much better or playing so well at the time, but you can live with those losses. The way Wisconsin lost, however, has got to just gnaw away at you for a long, long time. Butler gets credit for shutting the Badgers down, but in reality they didn't do much. It was simply Wisconsin missing open shots. Over. And over. And over. And over. In the mid-first half Jordan Taylor was fouled on a three-pointer and missed the first two free-throws, and that basically summed up the night. And I loved every damn minute of it.
2. Jimmer Fredette. Did you get a chance to watch the Jimmer? Freaking amazing when he has the ball, right? Amazing shooter with unlimited range and a hair-trigger release, ability to get buy a defender off the dribble and get into the lane, an excellent eye to find open teammates for easy hoops, and just amazing body control. Really an impressive player with the ball. But did you happen to notice him when he doesn't have the ball? I've never seen a lazier god damn player in my life. He does one of three things if he doesn't have the ball:
- Stand there
- Clap his hands and call for the ball.
- Run directly at his teammate with the ball and clap his hands while calling for the ball
3. Duke Blue Devils. hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha oh my god that was so awesome. It was like, all of a sudden Arizona realized, "hey, these guys are a bunch of nerds. More athletic nerds than the Northwestern dorks of course, but still nerds. And we aren't, so let's kill them" and then suddenly a dunk contest broke out and pasty white dorks and Jalen Rose's favorite type of brothers were their props. They could do the entire one shining moment montage just from dunks from this game. I think if Duke was playing a women's team that night those broads would have been running and jumping all over there heads. Or maybe a lay-up line would have broken out instead. I guess that's more realistic.
4. William Buford. Outside the Wisconsin duo of Jordan Taylor and Jon Leuer, I'm not sure anybody looked crappier than Buford. Here's my impression of his game against Kentucky: clang clang clang clang clang clang and so on and so forth. Like Billy Ho once said, "I'll tell you what. Why don't we take all these bricks and build a shelter for the homeless, so maybe your mother will have a place to stay. And your sister, too. I want your mother and sister out of my house." Damn Will, you just got played by a slow, white, geeky chump. What do you mean, black ball?
5. Colton Iverson's transfer. Of all the red flags jumping up around the program regarding player defections this one has to be the worst. The rest can all be rationalized away if you are looking for a reason to do so: Royce White was a bad egg, Justin Cobbs was homesick, Paul Carter's sister was sick (ok so that one was pretty legit), Devoe Joesph is a selfish player who only cares about himself, and on and on. If you want to have blind faith in Tubby you didn't have to try to hard. For me, however, this one is a stunner and, frankly, makes me more than a little concerned.
I mean, what exactly is the reasoning here? Iverson can't possibly believe Tubby is holding him back from a professional future playing ball, so what possible rationale could he have for leaving with only one year left to play? It's not like a playing time issue makes much sense either, because of his style of play, body type, and just overall gangliness he's not going to suddenly jump up to 36 minutes a night no matter where he goes. I just don't get this one. Colton would have been my last guess at a player who would be transferring out. I fear there are some real issues with this program, and I'm starting to think this year may not have been rock bottom. If Colton can leave, anybody could. What if both Mbakwe and Rodney end up leaving? Or hell, anybody else, I don't even know any more. I just know that I'm suddenly more fearful than ever that Tubby's style of coaching isn't just not winning as many games as we'd hoped but is now actively pushing players out. Let's just move on to baseball so a different team can let me down.
And since we're almost to baseball season (preview of some sort coming soon, maybe even this week), here's the team Snake and I put together in our fantasy baseball draft. I don't know about you, but looks like a championship to me.
C - Miguel Montero, Arizona (do you realize there are like 3 good catchers? And we weren't getting stuck with freaking Wieters again. I've done that dance twice).
1B - Billy Butler, KC (fat doubles machine)
2B - Rickie Weeks, MIL (counting on last year NOT being a career year)
3B - Evan Longoria, TB (so sexy he'll steal your girlfriend)
SS - Starlin Castro, CHC (please don't suck)
OF - Mike Stanton, FLA (not the middle reliever. We're buying the hype)
OF - Austin Jackson, DET (how about just a little plate discipline?)
OF - Delmon Young, MIN (no points for fielding)
Ut - Jason Kubel, MIN (got him very, very late. Decent upside)
SP - Jon Lester, BOS (could win 25)
SP - Justin Verlander, DET (looking even more unhittable this year)
SP - Clay Buchholz, BOS (I guess we're all in on Boston)
SP - Madison Bumgarner, SF (hoping his rough spring doesn't mean anything)
RP - Jonathan Papelbon, BOS (like I said)
RP - Joakim Soria, KC (Will probably end up saving 85% of KC's wins)
RP - Drew Storen, WAS (we can't have Strausberg, so we'll take his little buddy)
Bench - 1B Justin Smoak, SEA (Of course)
Bench - SP Michael Pineda, SEA (we hit it big with Leake last year, might as well try again)
Bench - RP Chris Sale, CHW (already unhittable, just needs to get the closer gig)
Bench - SP Carl Pavano, MIN (steady enough)
CHAMPIONSHIP!
RIP Paul.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Week in Review - 02.28.2011
So I didn't watch the Gopher game. I would have, but circumstances conspired to keep me from witnessing that crime against basketball. We had a family bowling tournament that normally would have ended up with me watching the game with Snacks and Grandslam at a bar or at the alley, but one of my damn wiener kids got all barfy and we had to go home before after just one game (132 - holla). Then I had the game tivo'd and was going to watch it later, but I got a texted from Bogart referencing the NIT, one from Dawger that mentioned he hated the gophers and hated his life, and one from Snacks that just flat out said, "Don't bother watching. Gophers lose." So I didn't watch.
I mean, what's the point? I would just end up angry and probably hurt either a loved one or myself or a stranger who was walking past my house life before, so I didn't bother. Not sure if I'll watch another Gopher game this year outside of the Penn State game, and that's only because I'll be in attendance with WonderbabyTM who rocks way more than you do. There were years in the past when I really enjoyed the NIT, and enjoyed going to games at Williams and checking out teams I normally would never see in person. This is not that kind of year. This is more like, at the beginning of the year the NIT was a worst case scenario and the kind of thing that could only happen if there was a complete collapse. Nobody thought this would be the end result, even if there was always a little nervous laughter and whistling past the graveyard if it was brought up.
Kill me.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Syracuse Orange. Well here's a team that's impossible to figure out. They start 18-0 and look like they're on the road to a #1 seed, then lose six out of eight and appear to be unable to guard quick, penetrating guards, then they follow it up with a four game winning streak including two this week against Villanova and Georgetown - teams with excellent guard play (and even with Wright hurt the Hoyas have good guards), and win both of those on the road no less. I had a chance to watch decent chunks of both those games and all I can say is wow to Scoop Jardine. Kris Joseph is a dynamic scorer and Rick Jackson is a beast in the paint, but this team may go as Scoop goes, and this week he was on fire going for 20 pts and 6 assists against Nova and 17 and 5 against G-Town. I was convinced I would have the Cuse as an early out in March as soon as they faced a team with good guards, but watching the adjustments Boeheim has made to their 2-3 (less ball pressure, more gap help) and Scoop's resurgence now I just don't know. Just like everything else about this god damn stupid season.
2. BYU Cougars. If you're like me you're handsome, rich, and successful, but you also figured that San Diego State was the real threat out of the Mountain West while BYU was more of a one-man trick with Jimmer and weren't a "real" team. Well you couldn't have been more wrong and should hang your head in shame because the Cougars went to SDSU this weekend and smacked them right in the face, walking out with an 80-67 win, a season sweep of the Aztecs, and what is now looking quite likely like a 2-3 seed in March. That win followed up a trouncing of bubble hopeful Colorado State earlier in the week, and suddenly BYU's challenges prior to a MWC Tournament semi-final are pretty much done with. Will this finally be the year they breakthrough and make a run? Last year they beat Florida in overtime, their first NCAA victory since 1993, snapping an 0-7 streak. With most of the same team back that went first round-first round-second round, a bonafide star in Fredette, and at worst a 4-seed, I'd say the sweet 16 should be an absolute minimum goal right now.
3. Colorado Buffaloes. I realize as Gopher basketball fans we aren't really accustomed to this, but occasionally it happens where a team making a run towards an NCAA bid has the opportunity for a huge, almost status-changing win and actually, you know, wins. Colorado is just such a team this year, seizing their chance and knocking off the #5 Texas Longhorns 91-89. They did it in very impressive, "we're not going to let this season die yet dammit we're going to fight" fashion, storming back from a 22-point first half deficit to grab the marquee win they really needed, moving themselves from probably not in to squarely in the middle of the "maybe" tier. It's just so nice to see a team actually rise up and win a tough game they really need. I wish I knew what that was like.
4. Marquette Eagles. Another middle of the bubble team that took a huge step towards the good side, it now looks extremely likely the Big East is going to send 11 teams to the big dance. The Eagles snagged a huge marquee victory earlier this week by going into Storrs and beating UCONN. Not only was that a monster win for them in terms of beating a top flight team on the road, but it also got them above .500 in Big East play - a not insignificant milestone considering the strength of the league. They then managed to avoid falling into a lull and beat Providence this weekend. I guess that's not that big a deal since they've lost six straight, but anytime you got a guy who can go for 52, as the Friars' Marshon Brooks did against Notre Dame on Wednesday, you're dangerous. In any case, Marquette is now almost assuredly in - as long as they don't choke here in the last few games.
5. JaJuan Johnson. Man, as much as it's going to help the Gophers I'm really going to miss watching this guy - he's freaking unreal. When he was younger I compared him to Hakim Warrick, and Snake always refers to him as "The College KG", and he might be better than that. I loved Hakim Warrick, and compared Johnson to him because of their long arms and ability to shoot outside, but Johnson is so much more than Warrick ever was - and that's no slight to Hakim. His line in Purdue's 67-47 win over Michigan State was incredible: 20 points on 8-13 shooting, 17 rebounds, and 7 blocks. The amazing thing is that it's not really even that far off his normal night. He's shooting 50% on the year, and while that might not seem that great for a center, if you watched him play you know how many 18 footers and so on he takes, so that 50% is very, very good. [Side note: does anybody know of a site that keeps insane stats for college like shooting percentage on long 2s or other things like that you can find for NBA players?] The guy is absolutely in a class by himself and should be the runaway winner for Big 10 player of the year. I'm going to shed a tiny tear when Purdue gets bounced from the tournament and his career comes to a close. And I'll make sure to follow his pro career in Europe closely.
WHO SUCKED
1. Corey Fisher. Holy Scottie Reynolds, batman! Villanova lost two games this week, both at home, but both were to very good teams (Syracuse and St. Johns) so it's hard to rip on the Wildcats too much. Good thing for us though it's not too hard to rip on Corey Fisher, who had a truly Reynolds-esque run this week, shooting a combined 4-26 from the floor in the two games. That's not a joke or anything, he went 3-16 against 'Cuse and then went 1-10 against St Johns. And this is their leading scorer here. Is there some kind of law that Nova must always have a gunner with no conscience who sucks at shooting but loves shooting? Did Reynolds "will" his ability to Fisher in the school paper after he graduated? Seriously, anybody who has Villanova surviving the first weekend in their bracket should be committed.
2. Arizona Wildcats. Ah, the Pac-10, where good teams continually find ways to die. Washington looked like the class of the league but bombed out, leaving the top clear for Arizona. Until this week, that is, when the Wildcats took their LA trip and lost to both USC and UCLA, and although both losses are understandable the USC loss is a game a good team wins and the UCLA loss was an absolute shellacking by 22. Suddenly UCLA is looking like the class of the league, but in reality I still think Washington is the only Pac-10 team with a legit chance at making the sweet 16. Arizona would have to get a really good draw to do it and UCLA has no chance, so it's up to Washington, who recently got swept by the Oregon schools. Wow, the Pac-10 is awesome. Good thing for them they have all the hot chicks at least.
3. Nebraska Cornhuskers. On the completely opposite end of the spectrum from Colorado stepping up is Nebraska, who crashed on burned their NCAA chances to a level that could only be described as St. Marysian. First they got bounced at home by Kansas State, a fellow bubble team, and then followed it up by losing at Iowa State - a school/team I love but also a team that you absolutely, 100%, guaranteed cannot lose to if you want to get a bid to the NCAA Tournament. So that won't be happening, but you'll be very happy to know that Nebraska, after decades of ineptitude, has decided to become frisky just as they're about to enter the Big Ten. Yeah, another team the Gophers should beat but won't. Another crappy team that will beat them at home as the season winds down and the Gophers desperately need a win. Another shitty team they won't be able to beat on the road, even when they are supposed to have a good team. God dammit. All of it. Everything. I hate everyone. I hate you.
4. Boston College Eagles. Allegedly BC is still alive to get a bid, but after they lost to Miami - at home, I'm just not seeing it. They bounced back by beating Virginia over the weekend, but that brings them to just 7-7 in a very weak ACC this year. They do have a very good win with their victory over Texas A&M in Orlando, but they also have some brutal losses - Harvard, Yale, Rhode Island, and they got swept by the Hurricanes. They're just a thoroughly mediocre team, and if they get in the tournament this year that just goes to show just how weak the teams are and just how easy it is to get a bid this year. And yes, I'm aware that in a year where it's looking extremely easy to get in the Gophers won't make it in Tubby Smith's fourth year here. Yeah, I'd say we're right where we thought we'd be in Year Four.
5. Tennessee Volunteers. There are plenty of confusing teams this year, teams who you can't quite get a handle on, but Tennessee might be the worst of all. Just this week was a pretty good microcosm of their season - beating a very good, sweet-16 type team in Vanderbilt on the road, and then coming home and losing to mediocre at best, potential Gopher NIT opponent Mississippi State. As far as the entire season goes, here are some impressive games they've won: @ Kentucky, @ Vandy, Memphis, Pitt, Villanova, Vandy, VCU - that's a damn impressive list of wins. But here are some of their losses: Oakland, Charlotte, USC, @ Arkansas, Mississippi State - those are some bad teams. Just a mess of a confusing and weird team. They're so schizo I won't even bet on them come March.
Just kidding.
Take heart, Gopher fans. Not because of anything to do with the Gophers, but this week kicks off conference tournament week, which is followed by BCS conferences tournament week, which is then followed by the NCAA Tournament. So just go ahead and let go of this season and enjoy all the high quality ball that's coming in the next two weeks.
I mean, what's the point? I would just end up angry and probably hurt either a loved one or myself or a stranger who was walking past my house life before, so I didn't bother. Not sure if I'll watch another Gopher game this year outside of the Penn State game, and that's only because I'll be in attendance with WonderbabyTM who rocks way more than you do. There were years in the past when I really enjoyed the NIT, and enjoyed going to games at Williams and checking out teams I normally would never see in person. This is not that kind of year. This is more like, at the beginning of the year the NIT was a worst case scenario and the kind of thing that could only happen if there was a complete collapse. Nobody thought this would be the end result, even if there was always a little nervous laughter and whistling past the graveyard if it was brought up.
Kill me.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Syracuse Orange. Well here's a team that's impossible to figure out. They start 18-0 and look like they're on the road to a #1 seed, then lose six out of eight and appear to be unable to guard quick, penetrating guards, then they follow it up with a four game winning streak including two this week against Villanova and Georgetown - teams with excellent guard play (and even with Wright hurt the Hoyas have good guards), and win both of those on the road no less. I had a chance to watch decent chunks of both those games and all I can say is wow to Scoop Jardine. Kris Joseph is a dynamic scorer and Rick Jackson is a beast in the paint, but this team may go as Scoop goes, and this week he was on fire going for 20 pts and 6 assists against Nova and 17 and 5 against G-Town. I was convinced I would have the Cuse as an early out in March as soon as they faced a team with good guards, but watching the adjustments Boeheim has made to their 2-3 (less ball pressure, more gap help) and Scoop's resurgence now I just don't know. Just like everything else about this god damn stupid season.
2. BYU Cougars. If you're like me you're handsome, rich, and successful, but you also figured that San Diego State was the real threat out of the Mountain West while BYU was more of a one-man trick with Jimmer and weren't a "real" team. Well you couldn't have been more wrong and should hang your head in shame because the Cougars went to SDSU this weekend and smacked them right in the face, walking out with an 80-67 win, a season sweep of the Aztecs, and what is now looking quite likely like a 2-3 seed in March. That win followed up a trouncing of bubble hopeful Colorado State earlier in the week, and suddenly BYU's challenges prior to a MWC Tournament semi-final are pretty much done with. Will this finally be the year they breakthrough and make a run? Last year they beat Florida in overtime, their first NCAA victory since 1993, snapping an 0-7 streak. With most of the same team back that went first round-first round-second round, a bonafide star in Fredette, and at worst a 4-seed, I'd say the sweet 16 should be an absolute minimum goal right now.
3. Colorado Buffaloes. I realize as Gopher basketball fans we aren't really accustomed to this, but occasionally it happens where a team making a run towards an NCAA bid has the opportunity for a huge, almost status-changing win and actually, you know, wins. Colorado is just such a team this year, seizing their chance and knocking off the #5 Texas Longhorns 91-89. They did it in very impressive, "we're not going to let this season die yet dammit we're going to fight" fashion, storming back from a 22-point first half deficit to grab the marquee win they really needed, moving themselves from probably not in to squarely in the middle of the "maybe" tier. It's just so nice to see a team actually rise up and win a tough game they really need. I wish I knew what that was like.
4. Marquette Eagles. Another middle of the bubble team that took a huge step towards the good side, it now looks extremely likely the Big East is going to send 11 teams to the big dance. The Eagles snagged a huge marquee victory earlier this week by going into Storrs and beating UCONN. Not only was that a monster win for them in terms of beating a top flight team on the road, but it also got them above .500 in Big East play - a not insignificant milestone considering the strength of the league. They then managed to avoid falling into a lull and beat Providence this weekend. I guess that's not that big a deal since they've lost six straight, but anytime you got a guy who can go for 52, as the Friars' Marshon Brooks did against Notre Dame on Wednesday, you're dangerous. In any case, Marquette is now almost assuredly in - as long as they don't choke here in the last few games.
5. JaJuan Johnson. Man, as much as it's going to help the Gophers I'm really going to miss watching this guy - he's freaking unreal. When he was younger I compared him to Hakim Warrick, and Snake always refers to him as "The College KG", and he might be better than that. I loved Hakim Warrick, and compared Johnson to him because of their long arms and ability to shoot outside, but Johnson is so much more than Warrick ever was - and that's no slight to Hakim. His line in Purdue's 67-47 win over Michigan State was incredible: 20 points on 8-13 shooting, 17 rebounds, and 7 blocks. The amazing thing is that it's not really even that far off his normal night. He's shooting 50% on the year, and while that might not seem that great for a center, if you watched him play you know how many 18 footers and so on he takes, so that 50% is very, very good. [Side note: does anybody know of a site that keeps insane stats for college like shooting percentage on long 2s or other things like that you can find for NBA players?] The guy is absolutely in a class by himself and should be the runaway winner for Big 10 player of the year. I'm going to shed a tiny tear when Purdue gets bounced from the tournament and his career comes to a close. And I'll make sure to follow his pro career in Europe closely.
WHO SUCKED
1. Corey Fisher. Holy Scottie Reynolds, batman! Villanova lost two games this week, both at home, but both were to very good teams (Syracuse and St. Johns) so it's hard to rip on the Wildcats too much. Good thing for us though it's not too hard to rip on Corey Fisher, who had a truly Reynolds-esque run this week, shooting a combined 4-26 from the floor in the two games. That's not a joke or anything, he went 3-16 against 'Cuse and then went 1-10 against St Johns. And this is their leading scorer here. Is there some kind of law that Nova must always have a gunner with no conscience who sucks at shooting but loves shooting? Did Reynolds "will" his ability to Fisher in the school paper after he graduated? Seriously, anybody who has Villanova surviving the first weekend in their bracket should be committed.
2. Arizona Wildcats. Ah, the Pac-10, where good teams continually find ways to die. Washington looked like the class of the league but bombed out, leaving the top clear for Arizona. Until this week, that is, when the Wildcats took their LA trip and lost to both USC and UCLA, and although both losses are understandable the USC loss is a game a good team wins and the UCLA loss was an absolute shellacking by 22. Suddenly UCLA is looking like the class of the league, but in reality I still think Washington is the only Pac-10 team with a legit chance at making the sweet 16. Arizona would have to get a really good draw to do it and UCLA has no chance, so it's up to Washington, who recently got swept by the Oregon schools. Wow, the Pac-10 is awesome. Good thing for them they have all the hot chicks at least.
3. Nebraska Cornhuskers. On the completely opposite end of the spectrum from Colorado stepping up is Nebraska, who crashed on burned their NCAA chances to a level that could only be described as St. Marysian. First they got bounced at home by Kansas State, a fellow bubble team, and then followed it up by losing at Iowa State - a school/team I love but also a team that you absolutely, 100%, guaranteed cannot lose to if you want to get a bid to the NCAA Tournament. So that won't be happening, but you'll be very happy to know that Nebraska, after decades of ineptitude, has decided to become frisky just as they're about to enter the Big Ten. Yeah, another team the Gophers should beat but won't. Another crappy team that will beat them at home as the season winds down and the Gophers desperately need a win. Another shitty team they won't be able to beat on the road, even when they are supposed to have a good team. God dammit. All of it. Everything. I hate everyone. I hate you.
4. Boston College Eagles. Allegedly BC is still alive to get a bid, but after they lost to Miami - at home, I'm just not seeing it. They bounced back by beating Virginia over the weekend, but that brings them to just 7-7 in a very weak ACC this year. They do have a very good win with their victory over Texas A&M in Orlando, but they also have some brutal losses - Harvard, Yale, Rhode Island, and they got swept by the Hurricanes. They're just a thoroughly mediocre team, and if they get in the tournament this year that just goes to show just how weak the teams are and just how easy it is to get a bid this year. And yes, I'm aware that in a year where it's looking extremely easy to get in the Gophers won't make it in Tubby Smith's fourth year here. Yeah, I'd say we're right where we thought we'd be in Year Four.
5. Tennessee Volunteers. There are plenty of confusing teams this year, teams who you can't quite get a handle on, but Tennessee might be the worst of all. Just this week was a pretty good microcosm of their season - beating a very good, sweet-16 type team in Vanderbilt on the road, and then coming home and losing to mediocre at best, potential Gopher NIT opponent Mississippi State. As far as the entire season goes, here are some impressive games they've won: @ Kentucky, @ Vandy, Memphis, Pitt, Villanova, Vandy, VCU - that's a damn impressive list of wins. But here are some of their losses: Oakland, Charlotte, USC, @ Arkansas, Mississippi State - those are some bad teams. Just a mess of a confusing and weird team. They're so schizo I won't even bet on them come March.
Just kidding.
Take heart, Gopher fans. Not because of anything to do with the Gophers, but this week kicks off conference tournament week, which is followed by BCS conferences tournament week, which is then followed by the NCAA Tournament. So just go ahead and let go of this season and enjoy all the high quality ball that's coming in the next two weeks.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Week in Review - 01.24.2011
Well, it's now obvious how to fix the Vikings. Simply trade your second round pick over to Chicago for Caleb Hanie, give him the rock, and sit back and watch him destroy the league. The guy's like the second coming of Jonathan Moxon! Of course, if Chicago is smart they're going to demand your first round pick. Is Hanie worth #12 overall? I think it's pretty clear that he is.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Gopher basketball. Ok, awesome might be a bit strong here, but considering that at no point did I expect them to end up winning that game in Ann Arbor and they pulled it out semi-convincingly I can give credit where credit is due - particularly since Al Nolen was out for the entire second half. I'm not even sure which part was most impressive for the Gophers: Blake filling in at point guard and doing a great job (6 assists to 0 turnovers) including a couple of big baskets down the stretch, the absolute pounding they put on the boards (out-reobunded Michigan 37-11), or the quality shots they were getting that led to 63% shooting. Just an all around excellent game. Now let's hope Nolen isn't hurt for an significant period of time.
At this point the Gophers have to be considered a near lock to make the NCAA Tournament. An RPI of 24 with a Strength of Schedule of 41, 3 wins over RPI top 25 teams, and just one bad loss (Virginia, RPI 121). Absolute worst case scenario, will be an 7-11 Big 10 record, and that's if there only wins the rest of the year are home games against Northwestern, Michigan, and Penn State. Obviously in that case they wouldn't get in, but 9-9 should do it so all they need to do is win 2 games out of @ Purdue, @ Indiana, vs. Ohio State, vs. Illinois, @ Iowa, @ Penn State, vs. Michigan State, and @ Northwestern. That shouldn't be an issue, with or without Nolen. I can see an 11 or 12 win season as a definite possibility, in which case the Gophers are set up for a 5 or so seed. Perfectly placed for a first round loss to Old Dominion.
2. Texas Longhorns. Quite the nice little run by the Longhorns, starting the week off with a ho-hum 21-point win over #10 ranked and previously 1-loss Texas A&M, and then followed that up by going into Allen Fieldhouse and beating undefeated and 2nd ranked Kansas by 11, ending the Jayhawks 69-game home winning streak. I don't even think it's possible for a team to have a better week, and if you weren't totally sold on the Longhorns, and I wasn't, I don't think you can deny them any longer. Jordan Hamilton has decided to become a stud, Tristan Thompson is a force, Gary Johnson plays a quality role, and Corey Joseph seems to be figuring it out. They've got an outstanding inside/outside balance and could make a hell of a run in March. Of course, Rick Barnes is still involved, so it wouldn't be shocking in the least to see them lose 10 straight and miss the tournament. We'll see.
3. Alabama Crimson Tide. If you're going to make a run an your first NCAA tournament bid since 2006 you need to win some big games. Which is exactly what Alabama did with their 2-point victory over #12 Kentucky, giving them a much needed resume boost. They are just 11-7 overall, their losses to St. Peter's and Iowa are a bit tough to explain, and they have a pretty crappy strength of schedule so they still have a ton of work to do. That was the last game on their schedule against a currently ranked team and they play in the crappy SEC West so a big run isn't out of the question. They're 3-1 in conference now, so something like 12-4 isn't out of the question. That would be enough to get them in, no doubt. It would actually be pretty sweet to have them matched up against the Gophers, because I'd love to see a Mbakwe/JaMychal Green match-up.
4. Memphis Tigers. There was a lot of preseason talk about whether this was the year Memphis finally lost it's stranglehold on Conference USA (at least on the rare occasions when anybody talked about C-USA) after winning it each year since 2006. There was a lot of talk about Larry Eustacy's Southern Miss taking the crown, or maybe UTEP or UAB would finally take that next step up or perhaps Central Florida and their hot start signaled the changing times. Well you can shut your whore mouth about all that, because Memphis beat both UAB and Southern Miss this week, both on the road, and are now tied with UTEP at the top of the standings. Now, this Memphis team isn't anywhere near the class of Calipari's old teams, but for one week at least they made sure everybody knew they weren't done just yet. That sentence was stupid and something a hack writer for SI.com would write. My apologies. Smelly pirate hooker.
5. Jimmer Fredette. I've avoided talking about him so far this year, mainly because everybody else is and whenever people like something I automatically hate it (see: Brett Favre, Nickelback, or Olive Garden) but I can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer - he's really good and really mormon. He scored 42 points on Saturday on the road at a pesky Colorado State team, giving him two 40+ games in his last three times out and is currently leading the country in scoring at 26.7 points per game. He's also efficient, and his 48% shooting, including 41% from three, along with his 90% accuracy from the free throw stripe is a good reason why BYU is the 6th best team in the nation by offensive efficiency. Are they an actually good team? I'd say yes, probably, but let's wait to see what happens Wednesday against San Diego State. I know the Jimmer is bad ass though. Seriously, just watch this:
WHO SUCKED
1. Colorado Buffaloes. Waah wah! The DWG curse strikes again, and all the momentum and positivity and sleeper talk Colorado built up with their 3-0 start in Big 12 play has now come to a screeching halt after an epic crash and burn this week, losing both to Oklahoma and Nebraska, two of the worst teams in the Big 12 and both losses are resume killers. The conference is strong enough where they'll have plenty of opportunities to get marquee wins and build their profile back up, but this is a pretty massive setback. It would be like the Gophers losing to Michigan and Indiana, only if they didn't have those good wins from Puerto Rico. My bad Colorado fans, you can blame this one on me.
2. Gonzaga Bulldogs. Another team who absolutely god awful week and made huge strides in tanking their at-large chances. Gonzaga, whose overall record is now just 13-7, lost twice this week, to San Francisco and Santa Clara, both contenders in the West Coast Conference, but not the same kind of contender St. Mary's has been the last few years. In short, the kind of teams that the Gonzagas of the past would just roll right over, but clearly this year's Zags aren't quite the same type of team. Which is weird, because a nucleus of Steven Gray, Robert Sacre, and Elias Harris should be enough to carry them to a WCC title. Clearly, all those other dorks I've never heard of must really, really suck. Now, their strength of schedule was ridiculous and do have wins over Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Xavier so they'll still almost certainly get a bid, but this isn't he same kind of dangerous Gonzaga team, more like out in round 1.
3. Kenny Boynton. It didn't take long for me to find my most-hated player after Scottie Reynolds' graduation, so congratulations Kenny Boynton, a chucker of such epic proportions that he makes Chris Kingsbury cringe at his shot selection, Reynolds' himself chuckle at the volume of shots he puts up, and Al Nolen chuckle at his accuracy. Boynton has shot the rock 121 times this year from beyond the arc, and has hit a whopping 30.6% (and that's after going 4-7 on Saturday), after shooting 29% last year. This year is 81st in three-point attempts in the country, and out of those 81 players, only four have a worst shooting percentage than Boynton. Not dissimilar to last year, when he was 28th in the country in 3-point attempts, and had the worst shooting percentage out of the top 100 attempters. Seriously, you should watch this guy. He's completely insane.
4. Northwestern Wildcats. Did you freaking see that score yesterday? I guess we can cross off "Can Northwestern make it's first NCAA Tournament" from the list of storylines for 2011. You just can't lose at home by 32, especially to a good but not great Wisconsin team. As it stands Northwestern's record is now 13-6, and although none of those losses classify as "bad" (margin of loss not a factor), their RPI is a dismal 69, their strength of schedule is horrendous at #122, and their best win right now is over Michigan - their only win over a top 100 RPI team. It's just ugly, and it's exactly what they deserve for scheduling such a terrible non-conference slate in a year where they knew they were trying to make a run for an NCAA bid. Terrible. Just terrible.
5. Central Florida Knights. Hey, remember when UCF started out all hot and were 14-0 and beat Florida and Miami and everyone was "OMG Michael Jordan's kid is single-handedly making UCF into an awesome team" and nobody would ever shut up about it and it was just like John Madden/Brett Favre love-fest and everybody was giving out handjobs? Remember that? Well suck it, liberal media, because UCF sucks and Jordan's kid sucks, and you suck. They're now 1-4 in C-USA after losing to East Carolina and Rice, two of the absolute worst teams in the conference, this week and your boyfriend Marcus Jordan was a combined 3-14 shooting in the two games and probably got his ass beat by his dad because of his losing. So maybe we shouldn't all be so desperate to turn something into a cute little story when nothing has even happened yet. And speaking of cute, there are lots of good pictures of UCF fans out there:
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Gopher basketball. Ok, awesome might be a bit strong here, but considering that at no point did I expect them to end up winning that game in Ann Arbor and they pulled it out semi-convincingly I can give credit where credit is due - particularly since Al Nolen was out for the entire second half. I'm not even sure which part was most impressive for the Gophers: Blake filling in at point guard and doing a great job (6 assists to 0 turnovers) including a couple of big baskets down the stretch, the absolute pounding they put on the boards (out-reobunded Michigan 37-11), or the quality shots they were getting that led to 63% shooting. Just an all around excellent game. Now let's hope Nolen isn't hurt for an significant period of time.
At this point the Gophers have to be considered a near lock to make the NCAA Tournament. An RPI of 24 with a Strength of Schedule of 41, 3 wins over RPI top 25 teams, and just one bad loss (Virginia, RPI 121). Absolute worst case scenario, will be an 7-11 Big 10 record, and that's if there only wins the rest of the year are home games against Northwestern, Michigan, and Penn State. Obviously in that case they wouldn't get in, but 9-9 should do it so all they need to do is win 2 games out of @ Purdue, @ Indiana, vs. Ohio State, vs. Illinois, @ Iowa, @ Penn State, vs. Michigan State, and @ Northwestern. That shouldn't be an issue, with or without Nolen. I can see an 11 or 12 win season as a definite possibility, in which case the Gophers are set up for a 5 or so seed. Perfectly placed for a first round loss to Old Dominion.
2. Texas Longhorns. Quite the nice little run by the Longhorns, starting the week off with a ho-hum 21-point win over #10 ranked and previously 1-loss Texas A&M, and then followed that up by going into Allen Fieldhouse and beating undefeated and 2nd ranked Kansas by 11, ending the Jayhawks 69-game home winning streak. I don't even think it's possible for a team to have a better week, and if you weren't totally sold on the Longhorns, and I wasn't, I don't think you can deny them any longer. Jordan Hamilton has decided to become a stud, Tristan Thompson is a force, Gary Johnson plays a quality role, and Corey Joseph seems to be figuring it out. They've got an outstanding inside/outside balance and could make a hell of a run in March. Of course, Rick Barnes is still involved, so it wouldn't be shocking in the least to see them lose 10 straight and miss the tournament. We'll see.
3. Alabama Crimson Tide. If you're going to make a run an your first NCAA tournament bid since 2006 you need to win some big games. Which is exactly what Alabama did with their 2-point victory over #12 Kentucky, giving them a much needed resume boost. They are just 11-7 overall, their losses to St. Peter's and Iowa are a bit tough to explain, and they have a pretty crappy strength of schedule so they still have a ton of work to do. That was the last game on their schedule against a currently ranked team and they play in the crappy SEC West so a big run isn't out of the question. They're 3-1 in conference now, so something like 12-4 isn't out of the question. That would be enough to get them in, no doubt. It would actually be pretty sweet to have them matched up against the Gophers, because I'd love to see a Mbakwe/JaMychal Green match-up.
4. Memphis Tigers. There was a lot of preseason talk about whether this was the year Memphis finally lost it's stranglehold on Conference USA (at least on the rare occasions when anybody talked about C-USA) after winning it each year since 2006. There was a lot of talk about Larry Eustacy's Southern Miss taking the crown, or maybe UTEP or UAB would finally take that next step up or perhaps Central Florida and their hot start signaled the changing times. Well you can shut your whore mouth about all that, because Memphis beat both UAB and Southern Miss this week, both on the road, and are now tied with UTEP at the top of the standings. Now, this Memphis team isn't anywhere near the class of Calipari's old teams, but for one week at least they made sure everybody knew they weren't done just yet. That sentence was stupid and something a hack writer for SI.com would write. My apologies. Smelly pirate hooker.
5. Jimmer Fredette. I've avoided talking about him so far this year, mainly because everybody else is and whenever people like something I automatically hate it (see: Brett Favre, Nickelback, or Olive Garden) but I can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer - he's really good and really mormon. He scored 42 points on Saturday on the road at a pesky Colorado State team, giving him two 40+ games in his last three times out and is currently leading the country in scoring at 26.7 points per game. He's also efficient, and his 48% shooting, including 41% from three, along with his 90% accuracy from the free throw stripe is a good reason why BYU is the 6th best team in the nation by offensive efficiency. Are they an actually good team? I'd say yes, probably, but let's wait to see what happens Wednesday against San Diego State. I know the Jimmer is bad ass though. Seriously, just watch this:
WHO SUCKED
1. Colorado Buffaloes. Waah wah! The DWG curse strikes again, and all the momentum and positivity and sleeper talk Colorado built up with their 3-0 start in Big 12 play has now come to a screeching halt after an epic crash and burn this week, losing both to Oklahoma and Nebraska, two of the worst teams in the Big 12 and both losses are resume killers. The conference is strong enough where they'll have plenty of opportunities to get marquee wins and build their profile back up, but this is a pretty massive setback. It would be like the Gophers losing to Michigan and Indiana, only if they didn't have those good wins from Puerto Rico. My bad Colorado fans, you can blame this one on me.
2. Gonzaga Bulldogs. Another team who absolutely god awful week and made huge strides in tanking their at-large chances. Gonzaga, whose overall record is now just 13-7, lost twice this week, to San Francisco and Santa Clara, both contenders in the West Coast Conference, but not the same kind of contender St. Mary's has been the last few years. In short, the kind of teams that the Gonzagas of the past would just roll right over, but clearly this year's Zags aren't quite the same type of team. Which is weird, because a nucleus of Steven Gray, Robert Sacre, and Elias Harris should be enough to carry them to a WCC title. Clearly, all those other dorks I've never heard of must really, really suck. Now, their strength of schedule was ridiculous and do have wins over Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Xavier so they'll still almost certainly get a bid, but this isn't he same kind of dangerous Gonzaga team, more like out in round 1.
3. Kenny Boynton. It didn't take long for me to find my most-hated player after Scottie Reynolds' graduation, so congratulations Kenny Boynton, a chucker of such epic proportions that he makes Chris Kingsbury cringe at his shot selection, Reynolds' himself chuckle at the volume of shots he puts up, and Al Nolen chuckle at his accuracy. Boynton has shot the rock 121 times this year from beyond the arc, and has hit a whopping 30.6% (and that's after going 4-7 on Saturday), after shooting 29% last year. This year is 81st in three-point attempts in the country, and out of those 81 players, only four have a worst shooting percentage than Boynton. Not dissimilar to last year, when he was 28th in the country in 3-point attempts, and had the worst shooting percentage out of the top 100 attempters. Seriously, you should watch this guy. He's completely insane.
4. Northwestern Wildcats. Did you freaking see that score yesterday? I guess we can cross off "Can Northwestern make it's first NCAA Tournament" from the list of storylines for 2011. You just can't lose at home by 32, especially to a good but not great Wisconsin team. As it stands Northwestern's record is now 13-6, and although none of those losses classify as "bad" (margin of loss not a factor), their RPI is a dismal 69, their strength of schedule is horrendous at #122, and their best win right now is over Michigan - their only win over a top 100 RPI team. It's just ugly, and it's exactly what they deserve for scheduling such a terrible non-conference slate in a year where they knew they were trying to make a run for an NCAA bid. Terrible. Just terrible.
5. Central Florida Knights. Hey, remember when UCF started out all hot and were 14-0 and beat Florida and Miami and everyone was "OMG Michael Jordan's kid is single-handedly making UCF into an awesome team" and nobody would ever shut up about it and it was just like John Madden/Brett Favre love-fest and everybody was giving out handjobs? Remember that? Well suck it, liberal media, because UCF sucks and Jordan's kid sucks, and you suck. They're now 1-4 in C-USA after losing to East Carolina and Rice, two of the absolute worst teams in the conference, this week and your boyfriend Marcus Jordan was a combined 3-14 shooting in the two games and probably got his ass beat by his dad because of his losing. So maybe we shouldn't all be so desperate to turn something into a cute little story when nothing has even happened yet. And speaking of cute, there are lots of good pictures of UCF fans out there:
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