Hola from Los Angeles!

That means "The Angels" in Spanish.  You're welcome.  I've written from LA many, many, many times and I got to say, it's still a weird place.  The people all wear weird hats and everyone has sunglasses and fancy shoes and their clothes look weird.  The hotel bar has like, The Big Bang Theory on instead of the Monday Night Football game, most of the cars cost more than my house, and there's more movie billboards than you could shake a stick at and they're all bigger than my house.  Then when I first got here we went for a light breakfast and I ordered two eggs (over easy) and bacon (NOT extra crispy) and when they brought it out they brought it out with a ramekin of ketchup.  Ketchup.  Why on earth would I need ketchup for that meal?  It's probably some proto-hipster thing that is just on the coast right now and will make its way to the midwest in a year or two.  Weird place, but not in that charming way Portland is weird.

-  I'm not sure how long I'll be with you tonight, it's been a long day.  I had to get up at 5am to head to the airport, followed by a 3.5 hour flight into LAX.  Got to the hotel at 10 (12 your time) and of course my room wasn't ready, which I expected, but they said they'd rush it so I could get in the room before I had to head over to the HQ for meetings because I'm a high roller like that.  After my breakfast which should have been ketchup free I got up to the room for an entire 15 minutes.  Then came 4 hours of meetings.  We did get a 2 hour break after that but I used a good chunk of it walking to the grocery store to get booze for the room (actually grabbed a bottle of wine to go with the beer because I'm classy that way) which was about 6 blocks away in 95 degree heat (and what the fuck LA?  You're supposed to be good for three things:  making movies and tv shows, awesome sushi, and being 80 degrees everyday).

Then came dinner at Pink Taco which was fabulous.  Endless pitchers of margaritas, family style food consisting of some weird avocado salad, some kind of excellent chicken skewers, corn tamales, cheese quesadillas, pork burritos, carne asada tacos, churros, and topped off with a shot of some very good tequila.  I'm still not sure why I did that shot but whatevs.  Also pretty solid cleavage on the waitress.  All in all an A+ meal.  So anyway it's 9:18 out here which means it's 11:18 back there which means I'm sitting at about an 18 hour day right now.  I'll try to cram in a bit more, but only because I love you.

-  College basketball magazines are starting to come out, and of course I didn't wait for the good one (Athlon) or the decent one (Lindy's) but instead grabbed the first one that was available from the Sporting News.  Big mistake.  First thing I did was flip to the Gophers, and what do I find:

Omg Sporting News is stealing my bit! pic.twitter.com/0MiFHXXXlh
— Down with Goldy (@DownwithGoldy) September 10, 2014

And it just gets worse.  Well actually not worse because that's impossible but just bad.  The team previews are terribly written and don't go into any kind of depth.  Then they have this thing where they give you the "difference maker" for each team which is a good idea, but then they name the team's best player nearly every time.  Sure, sometimes it makes sense as Andre Hollins (Austin's bro) and Branden Dawson for MSU are probably their team's best player and both probably will make a huge difference to their team's success depending on how they play.

But for Penn State they have D.J. Newbill.  For Nebraksa is Terran Petteway.  Indiana is Yogi Ferrell.  I mean, you pretty much know what you're going to get here.  The difference maker should be somebody like Ross Travis for PSU (if he can learn to give them another scorer), Tai Webster for Nebraska (they need someone to become a good point guard to make another leap forward), and basically anyone else for Indiana since Ferrell is the only known quantity.  Seriously this probably is really whiny but it just feels like they made no real effort.  And before you say anything I'm allowed to make very little effort since I'm just a poor crappy blogger living in his mom's basement.

-  Also, and I know this kills you since I've called the college basketball champ both of the last two years, but I don't have a call yet.  I was all over the SMU train, and loaded up on them at 33-1 to win the whole thing, and then that son of a bitch Emmanuel Mudiay decides to go play over seas.  What a jerk.  SMU was set up perfectly:  tons of returning talent from a good but not great team, good experience, returning starters in the front and back court, and getting a big time scorer transfer in Justin Martin.  With Mudiay they were getting that big time talent who could put them over the top and carry the team when needed.  But now he's gone and SMU is just another team hoping to make the Sweet 16.

-  I know you've all been waiting to hear what I have to say about the whole Adrian Peterson situation.  Here it is:  just kidding.  Seriously I didn't start this blog a million years ago to talk about icky things that are actually controversial and you have to have real feelings about.  I started it to talk about who sucks and who is awesome.  So that's what I'm going to do instead.

The one guy who has really popped for me this NFL season so far is Le'Veon Bell.  There is no doubt in my mind he's the next great running back in the league.  He's like a new version of LeSean McCoy.  He's got that same elusiveness and quickness with the ball, good speed, and can catch which makes him that much better.  If you're in a fantasy keeper league, go get him.  Do it now.

Also awesome is Gio Bernard (just a step below Bell), Darren Sproles (just thriving in that role), Frank Gore (does this guy ever age?), Carlos Hyde (just biding his time), Matt Ryan (he's back), Philip Rivers (just keeps humming along), Derek Carr (going to be a good one), Calvin Johnson (duh), Dez Bryant (also duh), Andrew Hawkins (haven't actually seen him since he's on the Browns but I hear good things), Brandon Marshall (still unstoppable), Steve Smith (Flacco has complete radar lock), Markus Wheaton (could be a star in a year or two), and Julian Edelman (he's boring, but he's being Wes Welker and doing it quite well).

The people who suck are Matt Cassell (duh, #freeteddy), Brian Quick (no, he's not a thing), James Jones (just no), DeAndre Hopkins (if Andre Johnson would just stop we could see what we have here), all Tennessee WRs (who knows who is good there from week to week?), Dwayne Bowe (it's over), all New York Giants (that offense is so gross), DeMarco Murray (hot start won't last), Chris Ivory (no idea how he has so many yards), Zac Stacy (going to lose that job by week 8), Bernard Pierce (what a terrible back-up plan), Bishop Sankey (when you can't beat out an old Shonn Greene oof), Steven Jackson (just waiting for one of those two donkeys to grab the reins), Tony Romo (should be better for the 20th year in a row), Ryan Tannehill (perhaps that leap isn't coming), Josh McCown (if you didn't see this coming you're stupid), and Jason Witten (is he suddenly too old?)

-  So how about that Big Ten football?  Oof.  If you're the kind of person who follows college football you already know this, but it's been a brutal year for the Big Ten football player guys.  Just this weekend alone Maryland lost to West Virginia, Indiana lost to Bowling Green, Iowa lost to Iowa State, your Gophers got rolled by TCU in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the 23-point margin, and Illinois got crushed by Washington.  The week prior Purdue got beat by Central Michigan, Northwestern was dropped by Northern Illinois, Michigan and Michigan State were non-competitive against Notre Dame and Oregon, and Ohio State got dropped by Virginia Tech.  I'm not a big college football guy, but I know the Big Ten has a terrible reputation in relation to the other major conferences lately, and this ain't helping.

-  I was going to do that fun thing where I look at the NBDL draft this year and laugh at who all got drafted, but it turns out the draft hasn't happened yet.  So instead I looked back and the 2013 draft and I think it's getting worse or something because I've barely heard of any of these guys and I pay way too much attention to college basketball.  Out of the 17 first round picks (what kind of league has 17 teams?) I could only tell you about 8 of the guys without cheating - James Johnson (wake), Quincy Douby (rutgers but hasn't he been out of school for like 5 years? What are the rules of this draft?), Pierre Jackson (baylor), C.J. Aiken (st joe), DeAndre Liggins (kentucky), William Buford (osu), Bo Spencer (nebraska), and Dario Hunt (nevada, not as good as his name sounds).  The second round is even worse.  Ryan Evans (wisconsin) got drafted (not joking), plus two guys with busted knees (Reggie Jackson, miami and Abdul Gaddy, washington who should have been the next circus ball captain), and a guy who couldn't crack the lineup at Arizona in four years (Kevin Parrom) plus a whole mess of guys I've never heard of.

I swear this thing used to be more fun and full of guys where you'd say "yeah, I could see him cracking an NBA rotation."  Now it's a bunch of guys I've barely heard of with no shot and guys like Salim Stoudamire and Ricky Davis (yes that Ricky Davis) are getting drafted and yes I'm serious.  And suddenly it goes from 17 picks per round to 8 picks in the 7th and then 4 picks in the 8th.  This draft makes as much sense as ketchup with eggs and bacon and it's making me cranky and tired.  I'm leaving.

New Mexico, Day 2

Oh my god you guys I am so full I can barely drink all this beer.  For dinner we went to this little Mexican dive called El Patio and wow was it good.  I got the tacos and ordered a bowl of the green chile stew since that's like the #1 specialty of New Mexico and it did not disappoint.  Green chiles, pork, pinto beans, and potatoes in a broth that was insanely flavorful.  So, so, so good.  You really need to travel to New Mexico to try it.  If you don't you're kind of a failure as a human.

-  Some weird things I saw in New Mexico today:

1. An entire aisle of pinatas in Walmart
2. An electronics/movies store with a complete section dedicated to VHS
3. A flyer taped to a pole advertising "Mechanical Bull for Rent" with a phone number
4. A vending machine for nothing but beef jerky

All of that was awesome.  Not awesome is the cell service in this town.  You will just lose service for like an hour or two randomly, then all of a sudden your phone will blow up with texts and you'll think you're all popular but it turns out those texts are from a two hour period.  My co-worker thinks it's because of all the military bases around here and they have cell phone jammers.  I'm not sure if that's true or how much he actually believes it, but we're running with it.  So hey, there are a lot of military bases in Albuquerque that send out cell phone jamming frequencies.  Be warned when you come here to get that sweet green chile stew.

-  Basically everybody I told I was going to New Mexico made a Breaking Bad joke, which makes sense since Breaking Bad is better than anything else you watch and what else are you going to joke about when New Mexico comes up?  One of my co-workers asked our shuttle driver about the Breaking Bad houses and I actually thought he might be all annoyed but he was super proud of the show being shot there and told us how it was such a big thing for the city.  So he told us where a bunch of them were.  Tonight we checked out Jesse and Jane's place.

Sup, bitch?

-  I finally watched Dawger's favorite movie Snatch and $nake's favorite movie Super Troopers last week.  I enjoyed them both, but I suspect both get better upon multiple viewings.  Snatch because you aren't missing half the joke's trying to figure out what the previous line was, and Super Troopers because it's just one of those movies that gets funnier over time.  I'd recommend them both to people, but I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to see either of them.

-  Somebody recently asked me for my opinion of Wichita State, sorry I can't remember who because I generally don't pay attention when people talk, and I think they're definitely a good team no doubt, but it's obviously tough to figure out how good.  30-0 is 30-0, and I tend to think they're better than that St. Joe's team (Jameer Nelson/Delonte West) from a while back who went undefeated through the A-10, and they made the Elite 8 (might have been Sweet 16, not 100% and don't want to bother to look it up).  Saying I think Wichita State is better than that team, and they already have a handful of guys with Final Four experience, it saying quite a bit.

But Snacks made a great point to me today.  Let's say the latest bracketology on ESPN is at least a close approximation of what actually gets pulled in the tournament and Wichita State is a one seed.  In the second round then they'd face either Stanford or Kansas State (or similar team), both of whom would be the best team the Shockers have faced since DECEMBER 14, and the second or third best team they've seen the entire season depending on your opinion of BYU.  And then the next round, and the next round, and the next round and all the way through they'll be facing teams so much better than anything they've seen with much more pressure and less time to prepare.  Wichita's strength of schedule is awful and their non-conference wasn't anything special either.  Man that is a ton of pressure.  I don't think I can take them any further than the Sweet 16.  Not like New Mexico, who is clear Final Four material.

-  Just went down to the bar to get a double Maker's because I'm too full for beer.  These two dopes get on the elevator with me and start laughing about how they're so wasted and they need to email each others' boss to cover their ass.  Guess what?  They don't remember they have to hit the button for the floor.  I'm on the top floor because I'm awesome and then they realize they never hit their buttons so they hit the five and seven and ended up spending like, 30 extra seconds in the elevator.  Way to go, amateurs.

-  One of the main reasons I'm out here is to look at this entertainment store called Hastings and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan we need to get one in Minnesota.  It's like a Best Buy/Barnes and Noble/Shinders/Spencer's/Toys R Us all in one.  It's awesome.  Plus they buy and sell used stuff and even rent movies for 49 cents a day.  I could probably spend all day in one.  I have to find a way to make this happen.

-  You know that thing called the Peter Principle which says that as people excel in their roles they keep getting promoted until all of a sudden you have a bunch of people in roles they aren't qualified for?  Just google it I don't want to explain.  Well it generally applies to the working world but it exists in college basketball too.  I mean to do a whole big post on this (I'm currently reading Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper which is excellent and you should read it so my advanced stats brain is like a hamster on blue meth) but exhibit A is the terrible Glenn Robinson III.  He was amazingly efficient last year playing his role and using a small amount of possessions for the Wolverines.  This year he's using way more possessions but every single metric and is still a terrible rebounder.  His raw numbers are in line with what he did last year, but he's really regressed if you look deeper.  Definitely not ready for/capable of the more increased role. 

I actually thought this same thing would apply to Austin Hollins, but really it doesn't.  His overall offensive rating is down a bit, but not all that much, and his rebounding numbers are far better this season.  Everything else is right around the same but with assist rate a tick down and turnover rate a tick up.  And here's a fun fact I never realized, he's shooting a career high 55% on two-pointers this year, which is a career high and a huge improvement from last year (48%).  Yeah he's struggling from three but that's amplified because the team lacks quality shooters, and he's actually taking fewer of them this year (percentage wise).  Really, I guess, for those that keep saying he's having a horrible year or is a disappointing senior shouldn't play so much (gopherhole -> hi!), you're wrong.

- One thing I forgot to mention about the Pit is how the people don't get up for you.  Like they'll stand on damn near every possession (no joke) but if you get up to go to the bathroom or go get a souvenir or food or anything during a timeout they don't stand up to let you out.  Every other arena I've ever been to the people get up to give you room to walk, but at the Pit they just do that thing where they turn their legs to the side and it sucks for everyone.  And this wasn't just one group of people, it was everywhere.  It struck me as very odd, especially because these people seemed to live for standing up.

-  I think that'll do it.  So tired and full of delicious green chile stew.   I kind of want some more.

There's a New Mexico now?

This was a long day.  I flew to New Mexico today, which included a 4-hour layover in Denver.  I finally get to my room, and see the Gophers are actually leading at halftime and have scored 50 points, which was weird.  Then I look and see Charles Buggs had 11 of them.  Even weirder.  I tried to watch some of the game on the btn2go thing but the internet here sucks.  Then I had tickets to the New Mexico/Utah State game at The Pit and we had to leave, and since the Pit is underground there's no cell service really and last I saw the Gophers were up 6 with 2:30 or so left, a perfect place to blow a game.  Not until after we left did I get to find out they actually won.  Shocker.

Thoughts on the game, looking only at the box score since I barely saw any of it:

-  Obviously the Buggs thing is like WTF.  More important than the 13 points is he didn't turn it over.  This Buggs thing is something I'm going to have to go back and watch the first half.  I also see Oto didn't see the floor, and I have no clue if this was expected or an injury or if he was just straight benched (twitter tells me it was a knee injury), but it sounds like Buggs looked great so that's pretty odd but excellent news.

-  Obviously it's great to see the much maligned Austin Hollins have a breakout game (and not just because he's on my Big 10 Fantasy team and we're in the playoffs).  8-10 from the floor overall and 4-6 from three are great, and maybe even better was the 7-7 from the line.  The offense must have been clicking like crazy looking at their shooting numbers of 61%/58%/83%.  The 1.32 points per possession have to be a season high for this team, and with assists on 63% of their made buckets it must have looked awfully good.  Bummed to have missed it.

-  The defense, of course, was brutal again, allowing 1.24 points per possession.  Iowa is at 1.21 for the season, so even playing a great offense like the Hawkeyes the Gophers still managed to make them look better than normal.  Turnovers were ugly again as well at 19.4% of possessions, but you know what?  In the end, it only really matters if you outscore your opponent, and the Gophers did, so I'm happy.  I haven't stopped to think what this means for their NCAA hopes, but it most certainly is a nice boost.

-  So anyway I got to see The Pit today and it was awesome.  It goes straight down from street level to where the playing surface is actually way underground, thus the nickname.  It's about as loud as I've ever heard any place.  The Barn can certainly get there at its peak, but the New Mexico fans are just loud the entire game.  If things are going well, they're loud.  If things are going poorly, they're louder.  The only place I can remember watching a game that kept that constant level of noise was Iowa State's Hilton Coliseum and that was back when I went when they were playing #1 Kansas, this was just against Utah State.  The seats are really packed low to the ground and it has a really low ceiling so it just amplifies the noise.  The other noticeable thing was everybody, I mean everybdoy, was in Lobo gear.  Every old person, every kid, and I think every little girl was in a Lobo cheerleader outfit.  It was pretty neat.  The only place I remember seeing it like that was when I went to a game at Utah State.  Really, really cool place to see a game and I'm glad I got to go in my lifetime.

-  As for the team, New Mexico won by 9 and I was impressed by them.  They won 67-58 despite shooting just 11-21 from the free throw line and they're going to be tough in March.  They have this inside combo of Cameron Bairstow (6-9, 250 lbs) and Alex Kirk (7-0, 245 lbs) who just dominate their offense.  Both can step out and hit a mid-range jumper and both are really good passers from the high post and they just play really well together.  They are also both exceptionally good at screening off their man when a guard drives.  Like if they're being fronted in the post and a guard drives baseline they'll just box their man out to give the guard an easy lay-up.  Really underrated skill.   Oh, and they also have Kendall Williams who averages 17pts and 5 assists per game, plus a bunch of shooters to surround those guys with.  They can't defend the three for shit and Preston Medlin went 4-5 tonight because those bigs don't come out far enough on a pick and roll, but I'm a Lobo fan.  Probably because it was so fun and they actually aren't very good but whatevs.

-  So yeah I had a four hour layover at the Denver airport today.  You know what they have in Denver?  A shit load of really great beer.  My favorites were the Upslope Brown Ale and the Oskar Blues Imperial Red, but really they were all good.  They were also really strong, so yada yada yada, I slept the entire flight into Albuquerque.

-  There was this one lady having lunch with her friend and they were sitting next to me at the airport bar and I couldn't help but notice how much I wanted to murder her.  First she wanted to order one of their fancy cocktails, but didn't want any alcohol.  So the server said they could use coke or something and she turned that down and then something else and she turned that down until finally they agreed on Sprite.  Then she wanted a small.  They only come in one size, but she haggled and begged and harassed until she got a smaller one.  Then she ordered the veggie burger with nothing on it and wanted a plain bun instead of a pretzel bun, which she asked her friend, "what's a pretzel bun."  Everything about her enraged me.  Then when she got up to leave, of course she had brought a pillow for the plane.  Oof.  Good luck with all that some guy probably.

-  Shabazz Muhammad had 20 points tonight?  I told you dorks he was awesome.

-  Since the hotel is so close to the University of New Mexico they had a free shuttle to go to the game.  The guy started talking basketball with me and mentioned how The Mountain West had the son of the first NBA dunk contest winner.  I said, "Yeah Larry Nance right?"  And he said "yes" and then I said, "he just blew out his knee didn't he" and the guy was like "wow you much really watch a lot of college basketball" and I was both embarrassed and proud.  But it made him like me so on the way back from the game I was able to get him to stop at a store for me so I could grab a six pack (went with Bud Light Platinum - don't judge me I've had a lot of heavy beer today and don't have a bottle opener - not all that bad, actually) so that was cool.  Pretty sure they aren't supposed to do that or at least that's what I'm telling myself so I feel cool. 

-  Dinner tonight sucked.  We got back to the hotel so late and it was such a long day I just went with room service.  Decided to go with the New York strip encrusted with red chile since that's supposed to be a New Mexico specialty, and also because their best known for their Mexican and I'm pretty sure we'll be eating a lot of that the next two days and I don't want to overload because of my tum tum.  Anyway it was horrible.  Fatty steak, over cooked, and the chile sauce was pretty tasteless with very little spice.  The herbed fingerling potatoes were mushy and I think the only herb they used was butter, and the spinach was just blech.  I know I shouldn't expect much at a hotel, but I didn't expect total crap.  Looking forward to crushing some good meals the next two days - you know I'll tell you about it.

-  One thing that never ceases to baffle me is how guys who were terrible shooters/scorers in college can suddenly thrive in the NBA.  Kendall Marshall is averaging 10.1ppg this year for the Lakers and shooting 47% from three.  He never broke 9ppg or 40% shooting in his two years at North Carolina.  It's not like he's been around forever either, it's just his second year in the NBA.  Michael Carter-Williams is averaging 17ppg for the Sixers this year, and he was a terrible scorer for Syracuse.  I guess he's actually a terrible shooter still as his percentages still suck, but it's just weird to see him scoring that much.  I just saw Kendall Marshall on ESPN doing a fancy swoopy woopy lay-up thing and there's no way he could have pulled that off at UNC and that's why I wrote this part.  Thank you for asking. 

-   I really need some sort of locking device on my computer that keeps me from playing online craps.  Anyway, I'm pretty wiped out from the long day so I'm done here now.  Hopefully I get really drunk at least once in the next two days and write some stupid crap.

Same story?

Let me tell you a story.  There was once a point guard out of Massachusetts named Naadir Tharpe.  Now young Naadir was a really good point guard.  In fact, ESPN ranked him as the 17th best PG in his class and the 86th overall player in the class of 2011.  Naadir at one point had narrowed his list to Minnesota and Rutgers.  Then Rutgers signed a different point guard (Myles Mack, maybe) and Tharpe canceled his official visit to see the Scarlet Knights.  He took an official to Minnesota and it was reported that he enjoyed his time in Minneapolis and really liked Tubby and everything seemed great and Gopher fans were counting the days until he signed on.  And yet there was no commitment.

Some time passed, and suddenly Mr. Tharpe was a little more in demand.  There was an offer from NC State.  There was an offer from Oklahoma.  But we weren't worried.  His only official visit to any school was still Minnesota and confidence was still high.  Then Josiah Turner committed to Arizona and Anthony Wroten signed on with Washington and it turned out that those were the two PG targets of a little school I like to call Kansas.  The Jayhawks were suddenly late in the signing period without a PG on their radar and they needed one.  So they called Tharpe.

He schedule a visit to Lawrence, but it turned out he really didn't need to see anything because after Bill Self called with an official offer to become a Jayhawk it took Tharpe less than 48 hours to accept and like that, he was gone.  He redshirted and then was a back up last year, averaging 20 minutes per game and scoring 5.5 pts and tallying 3.1 assists, and to Self's credit he hasn't recruited over him and now Tharpe is in line to run the offense for one of the best college basketball programs in the country.

Here is what I wrote back then:

So basically the Gophers are the nice, safe, mildy attractive chick while Kansas is the super hot chick with the killer rack who puts out.  I'd like to make some kind of pro-Gopher joke here, but I can't.  Why wouldn't you pick the hot chick with the sweet ass?  The only thing the dumpy girl has to offer is you know she won't upgrade to a better guy in a year.

 Why is the relevant now?  Because do you remember way back on Tuesday when I wrote about how Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn was the most important recruit for the Gophers after J.P. Macura turned traitor?  Well, Mr. Nairn just got a call from Michigan State and you'll never guess what happened.  Despite having trimmed his list to Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Indiana and saying those were his only 3 official visits he has now already scheduled a visit to East Lansing.

The Spartans were after 3 point guards:  Tyus Jones, Tyler Ullis, and Quentin Snider (all but Ullis were/are also Gopher targets).  Snider committed to Illinois today (F that guy) and it sounds like Izzo is conceding Jones to Duke and Ullis to Kentucky, so he needed somebody since Keith Appling is gone after this season and their only other PG is that shitbox Travis Trice.  So enter Sparty into the Tum Tum sweepstakes and they have told him he'll be the guy at PG from Day 1, which I think was the Gophers #1 pitch.

This is another reminder of how important your brand is in college basketball, and the Gophers just can't compete with Kansas or Michigan State.  I'm not saying it's a lock that Tum Tum is heading to East Lansing, but the parallels between this situation and the Tharpe thing are too similar to be ignored.  And it just sucks because Izzo is a whiny little leprecaun man who reminds me of the Lucky Charms guy on cocaine.

There is some good news in that a bunch of recruiting analysts much smarter than me have switched their projections on Isaiah Whitehead to the Gophers, but I just don't know.  It seems like once one guy makes a prediction everybody suddenly switches to the same prediction and Whitehead isn't really giving any clues. I'd feel a lot better if Robert Johnson, another highly regarding wing, would just commit to Indiana already and I think I read he's going to make his decision soon so just hurry up already dick.  It just sucks.  I just checked the predictions thing and 50% of the analysts at 247sports.com have him going to Michigan State and they just fucking contacted him.  Ugh.  I quit.

A couple quick comments while I finish my last few beers while sitting on my balcony looking out over Hollywood because I'm awesome:

-  We went to this Mexican/Sushi joint right on Venice Beach for dinner tonight and it was pretty hilarious (to me) because there were a few people there who just would not eat sushi.  I'm not even a sushi fan really, and especially not in Minnesota (and seriously what's with you people who get a sushi tray out of the deli, I mean really) but why would you not get it from a place that is right on the ocean when that's their specialty?  I mean there were just trays and trays of sushi coming out (final bill was over $1,500) so these few people were just sitting there watching everybody eat and then they finally ordered and got either ribs or a burger.  Ribs or a burger.  At a sushi joint right on the Pacific.  Like I said I'm not really a big sushi guy but I'm not some weirdo who is grossed out by it and won't try it I just never have found anything I loved (I do love a nice ceviche).  Then the yellowtail sashimi came around and my life was changed.  I ate as much of the appetizer as I could and then ordered it for a meal.  I may have to try some back in Minnesota.  Unless they have ribs.

-  Speaking of seafood, I'm a huge fan of calamari.  Love it.  Made sure we always had at least two orders for an appetizer at each dinner this week just so I could get enough.  Also a huge fan of buffalo sauce.  Yet, somehow I had never had them together.  At our dinner Wednesday night the calamari came with buffalo sauce. So.  Freaking.  Good.  It's the perfect combination.  I mean calamari is usually served with a spicy sauce so why not buffalo?  I wish I had some right now.  I would eat it.

-  Man I really wish I could just pee off this balcony.  Turns out that's frowned upon.

-  I'm pretty sure I passed a porn star on the street today.  I was walking to the market to get some beer when we had a break from meetings and there was this blondie with super short shorts and a top that was both revealing on the top and bottom and she was with some dude and when I passed he was saying, and I shit you not, "Yeah it can be rough, even if you don't feel like having sex you have to perform" so I guess that's something.

-  I had a chance to try both Fatburger and The Stand out here, as far as regional burger joints.  I still think In-and-Out is the best, but I'd put The Stand second, mostly because their pickles are outstanding (and readily available - seriously they have a place to just go and fill up a cup with pickle slices and they're so good).  Fatburger is basically the same as Whataburger that I had in Texas, just a big ass burger freshly cooked with any toppings you want.  Both are definitely better than Sonic.  I've had Five Guys and I'd put it above Fatburger/Whataburger right now, but I need to have it again to double check.  I still think Dairy Queen has an underrated burger, by the way.  Not as good as most of these but way better than any other fast food and I'd even put it against Sonic.  I remember when they put a Sonic right by my house and I was like man we gotta try that but the line was crazy for a like a month and finally we had it and it was like lol what.  I almost had Umami Burger one day out of a food truck but the line was really long and I was hungover so I just went back to the hotel and ordered a really terrible steak from room service instead.

-  We went to the California Science Museum, which is really terrible, and they had Endeavour which is a space shuttle.  This paragraph is now over.

-  I mentioned last time how this hotel was crazy expensive and the beers, like a Coors Light, are $9 at the bar.  We ended up at this bar two of the nights I was here and I just ended up going back to the room and grabbing my beer out of the fridge and carrying them down in my pockets and drinking them at the bar.  Classy, right?  Yes, my company will pay for a $1,500 dinner but not a $9 Bud Light.  Say la Vee.

Greetings from the City of Angels

That would be Los Angeles, just so you know.  I know back in the day when I used to travel all the time I would just fill up the hotel room sink with a bunch of beer and ice, drink it all, and just blog like crazy.  I would like you to know that I've grown up from those days - the beer is in the fridge. 

-  I was at the Dodger game tonight (more on that later) and I opened up Twitter on my phone to tell everyone how cool I am for being at Dodger Stadium and what do I see?  J.P. Macura committed to Xavier.  Shit.  Everything Pitino has been doing with recruiting has been impressive so far with getting on so many top 5 and top 3 lists for a whole bunch of really good prospects, but none of that matters if nobody actually, you know, signs on to become a Gopher.  Right or wrong (actually obviously wrong) Macura was the one everybody just kind of assumed would be a Gopher.

He was a Minnesota kid, and although he was highly regarded (#104 according to Rivals) he wasn't so highly regarded that the big time programs would be after like with Rashad Vaughn, Tyus Jones, and Reid Travis (recently offered by Duke by the way - FML) and so the Gophers would have an edge despite the late start for Pitino in chasing him.  There was also the perception, for some reason, that the other two schools in the hunt (Xavier and Creighton) were lesser programs and that also gave the Gophers a real good shot.  Well, oops.

The new Big East is a pretty damn good hoops conference (Xavier, Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Butler, and Villanova) with some pretty good history among those individual programs, not to mention between each other in the old Big East, so you can certainly see why Macura would be interested.  Minnesota's enrollment is north of 50,000, while Xavier is just shy of 5,000, so if the kid wants smaller class sizes and student body (I have no idea if this was a factor) there's a dramatic difference.  And it's not like J.P. didn't do his due dilligence, he unoffically visited the U like 5 times, but Xavier showed up to visit with him today and left with his verbal, so good on them. 

There's no doubt that this sucks.  Even though Macura wasn't the highest rated player Pitino has worked to have a shot with, he was the most likely to become a Gopher, or so we thought.  Those who are talking themselves into the fact that Macura didn't commit to Minnesota because he's worried Pitino will recruit over him with a higher rated wing (hi gopherhole) are just chasing unicorns (along with those thinking oh well he wasn't a program changer anyway or Pitino is after bigger fish anyway).  Although I remain confident, there is nothing really to be confident about and that's the honest truth. 

Some fans are panicking.  Some are almost absurdly confident.  The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.  There's no doubt Pitino has made some serious recruiting inroads, and the Gophers remain very much in the game for some very good players.  The most important right now is probably Lourawls Nairn, ranked #61 by Rivals who has narrowed his list to the Gophers, Oklahoma, and Indiana.  If Pitino can ink him we can all throw a party with sombreros and pie and move on with confidence.  There are still a handful of others who could make us all feel warm and happy (Isaiah Whitehead, Paul White, Josh Martin) as well as the remaining three Minnesota kids, but recruits are committing all over the place right now and I would feel much, much better if the Gophers could sign one of them.  Any one.

-  We went to the Dodger game tonight which was cool.  It was supposed to be the whole group of 20 or so who are out here for this work thing, but everything fell apart and it was just me and one co-worker.  We cabbed it out there (nearly an hour, stupid LA traffic) and as we're getting out of the cab I say, "You brought your ticket right?" because I had purchased them (corporate card, of course) and printed his out and gave it to him before we left Minnesota.  He says, "oh shit no, it's in my laptop bag."  I chuckled because of course I assume he's kidding.  He wasn't, and he's like, what do we do now?

Luckily I'm like Jason Bourne and quick on my feet, so I'm like "boom smartphone" and pull up the ticket and we should be good to go.  Well the 100-year old man at the gate is like, "no, you have to have a printed ticket" and I ask if there's anywhere to print them here assuming he'll say no and we're shit out of luck.  Fortunately, however, he says we can go to Lot G where they actually have Stubhub ticket booths to print tickets.  Nice.  We walk halfway around the stadium and get the ticket printed and we're good to go.

Then we get in and I look where we are and we are walking in by section 52.  Our tickets are section 53.  This is working out well.  We look around, however, and can't find 53.  So we ask the usher dude who kind of chuckles and says, "you're on the wrong side of the stadium guys."  Turns out the even sections are on one side of the stadium and the odd are on the other.  We walked in by the right field foul pole and our seats are by the left field foul pole only we can't get there going through the outfield sections and have to pretty much walk all the way around the stadium.  So at least we got to see pretty much all of it, which was nice.

-  Dodger Stadium was really nice, and you'd never know it was built in 1962 and is the third oldest major league ballpark still in use behind Fenway, which is a dump, and Wrigley, which I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't been to.  It's got that thing all the newer ballparks have where you can see the game from the concourse no matter where you are (which came in handy tonight) and was just a real nice, pleasant field.  We had seats right by the Dodger bullpen in the third row in left field and I never had a ball hit anywhere near me.  Still have never caught a ball at a major league game which seems ridiculous considering how many games I've been to in my life.  Stupid probability.

-  Juan Uribe hit 3 home runs which was pretty cool because I can't recall ever being at a game where somebody hit 3 home runs.  You know how many homers he hit last season?  Two.  The year before that?  Four.  So this was the rarest of rare occurrences and I think it makes me pretty awesome.

-  There were way more non-white people there than at Target Field.  Like way more.

-  Carlos Marmol throws really, really hard.  That's not breaking news, but we were right next to the Dodger bullpen and a bunch of guys warmed up and you could hear the catcher's mitt pop but when Marmol got up it was a whole different sound - like when he first aired it out everyone in the section's head just jerked in that direction to see what was going on.  Of course, he has no idea where he's throwing it, but he has no idea where he's throwing it pretty fast.

-  Dodger Stadium is pretty spendy.  I got what they're famous for - a Dodger Dog (good as advertised) and garlic fries (not nearly as good as I expected) plus a domestic light beer and the total was $24.  I guess it's pretty stupid to continue to get surprised by stadium/airport/movie theater/hotel prices, but I've never said I'm not stupid. 

-  Speaking of that, this hotel I'm at might be the fanciest I've ever stayed in, and I've stayed at the Cornhusker Inn in Lincoln, NE.  And a water costs $4.  I'm not talking some fancy water from the mini-bar either, just regular old bottled water.  The mini-bar water is $7.50, as is a bag of chips that would normally cost 99 cents.  Snickers?  $5.  I know, I know, I sound like a cranky old man.  I kind of want to kick my own ass right now.  Let's just move on.

-  This cars.com commercial with James van der Beek is easily the greatest commercial ever.  In case you haven't seen it:



Awesome.

-  I finally started watching Breaking Bad, and let me tell you that the hype is totally valid.  It's so awesome.  I think I've been watching for two weeks and I'm already up to Season 5, Episode 6.  I can't describe it, it's seriously amazing.  Every time you think you know where they're going, they go somewhere else and every episode is good.  My favorite shows have been the first 3 seasons of Lost and Game of Thrones, and I think Breaking Bad might be better than either.  We'll see how they wrap it up here in a couple of weeks, but if you can get to it, start watching it.  DO IT.

-  That's all I guess.  See you tomorrow.

Wednesday Wonderings

I was going to do a statistic-laced post about the candidates for the Twins' rotation next year, but my computer kept shutting itself down due to depression so instead I'll just do that thing where I type whatever I think about.  I'll eventually get to the Twins' rotation because I've already put in too much time to just let it die, but man, looking at Cole Devries and P.J. Walters in the same night is a nightmare not even Poe could have come up with.

-  So Stephen Strasburg is officially shut-down now after 159 innings because he had a rough last outing, which really hurts the Nationals chances in the playoffs and is just, weird.  I understand the thinking behind the move, I just don't think it's the right plan.  Simply getting to the playoffs is damn hard, so when you have a chance at a special year I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to jeopardize that when you don't even know if there's any actual benefit to doing so.

In the playoffs everybody will bump up one spot, which means the extra starts - assuming four starters - will go to Ross Detwiler instead of Strasburg.  Detwiler's a nice little pitcher - 3.23 ERA, 1.19 WHIP - nice.  But he strikes out half as many batters as Stras while walking the same amount, he's gotten a little bit lucky this year while Strasburg has gotten a tiny bit unlucky (BABIP-wise), and Detwiler throws three average pitches while Strasburg has three above average ones.  I suppose when you end up replacing your ace with your #4 you could a lot worse than Detwiler, but man, Strasburg.  Strasburg, man, Strasburg.

Honestly, is this the worst possible way they could have handled this?  If you're firmly committed to that 160-180 innings limit, however misguided, why wouldn't you at least make an attempt to maximize your value out of it?  Don't just keep running him out there every fifth day because you know come early September you've just run out of your best bullets (armor piercing, exploding, acid tipped, whatever).  Why not skip a few starts?  Why not go with a six-man rotation?  You could even go with a four man rotation and then slot him in just when you need another arm.  Or hell, spot start him part of the time and then use him in relief here and there.  Manage him so you have innings left for him in the playoffs, even if they're just bullpen innings.  Game 7, World Series:  would you rather start Strasburg or Detwiler?  Or how about Game 7, leading 3-2, 8th inning and your opponent has a man on second with zero outs - Strasburg or Craig Stammen?  Ugh.  I'd be so frustrated if I were a Nats fan, but then again I heard from some dude on the radio today that everybody in Washington is buying into this crap, so I guess they deserve what they get.  I hope Detwiler gets completely rocked.

-  I'm not generally one to make excuses for the University of Minnesota because it's more fun to just rip on stuff, but I had a conversation with some co-workers today that kind of made me think a little bit.  Think about all the cities that have all four major sports, like we do:  Boston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, New York, Philly, Phoenix, San Fran, and D.C.  And look at the most successful college sports program in that same city:  Boston College, Northwestern, U of Denver, Southern Methodist, Detroit-Mercy, U of Miami, St. John's, Villanova/Temple, Arizona State, Cal-Berkeley, Georgetown.  Now looking at that list, and considering success in ALL college sports, who'd you rather be than the University of Minnesota?  Miami and Cal, right?  Maybe B.C.?  Obviously St. John's and Georgetown are better in hoops, but they don't even have football teams I don't think.

So maybe, just maybe, I'm a little too hard on the teams.  After all, most college powers are located in some butthole town in the middle of nowhere so the population has really no choice but to spend all it's money and fan points on the college.  It's also how mini-cults like State College and the like happen, so I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it certainly gives you an idea of why the Gophers struggle at times.  Oh god, I don't even know who I am anymore.  Look away, I'm hideous.

This is me.

-  I'm watching this show Suburgatory for the first time and there's this chick on there named Jane Levy who is an absolute dead-ringer for Emma Stone, both appearance and line delivery-wise, which is totally awesome because I'm madly in love with Emma Stone and now there are two of her which doubles my odds.  Actually, two of her makes that pairing a contender for my dream threesome.  It's either those two, Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley, or Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake.

It's like a slice of heaven.  Red-headed, smart, sarcastic, sexy heaven

-  I'm sure I had lots of important stuff to say but then I got distracted by Real World and booze and so here we are.

Tuesday Talkings

I know you're wondering if this blog is dead.  It's not, I promise.  I've just been really busy.  What with work, heading to the cabin, kids' stuff, and my wife currently reading 50 Shades of Grey, I just am having trouble finding time to blog anything.  And there isn't exactly any motivation either.  Look at the Twins.  They're terrible, and the Gophers don't play for like, 100 years.  I don't know.  But I haven't been following any sports too closely the last few days/weeks, so let me look around and see if I see anything interesting. And I better hurry too, because it looks like Mrs. W is cracking the book open again.

- Because right now I can't possibly summon the will to blog about the Twins but I know I should at least try to start with something local I suppose we could discuss the Vikings' NFL draft.  Obviously everyone knew Kalil was the guy the whole time and the Vikings did quite well to get three extra picks to move down a spot and still get their guy, especially because it turns out nobody else was remotely interested in moving down to that spot so suck it Cleveland.  That safety they moved up to get at the end of the second round sounds pretty cool too since I heard somebody say there were really only two good safeties and they moved up to get one of them.

As far as the draft after that I am willing to admit I don't have a clue and if you know a whole lot about the rest of who they picked you should be embarrassed.  Seriously, anybody who watched more than the first round of that garbage should be forced to take a class on not being a moron.  I bet you're the kind of guy who watched the 3-hour show on ESPN the day the NFL schedule was released.  Seriously you people and your football.  As Jessie Spano once said, "who wants to watch a bunch of barbarians kicking each other's butts"?  Ok I'm not quite there because I enjoy watching football, but the obsession in this country makes me realize why Nickelback and Olive Garden are so popular.  Oh, and blood sausage.  People like blood sausage.

Seriously, people are morons.  Why do you think they end up making money at the end of Field of Dreams?  Because people get in their cars and drive to Iowa without knowing why to pay money to stare at a ball field full of players they can't see?  Everyone always says the ending of that movie (wanna have a catch?) is so great but it just pisses me off.

-  NBA Playoffs are up and running and since that's the best time to watch the NBA I might as well comment, even though we're only a couple games into round 1.  And obviously it's super lame with the Dwight Howard fake back injury and the Derrick Rose ACL because the Heat are going to just waltz into the Finals.  You can try to talk yourself into the Celtics, especially if you're Bill Simmons, but it's looking like they're going to struggle to even get past the Hawks and I just don't see them mounting any serious challenge to the Heat, nor anyone else in the East.  Which I guess is good in a way, because what's better than rooting against a villain?  There's something very satisfying about watching LeBron make it to the finals again and lose.

Who will he be playing is the question?  Going into the playoffs I'd have said Oklahoma City and I don't see any reason to change that prediction.  I'm not ready to say they're ready to be the champs quite yet but going against the defending champs and winning a couple of close games is the way to get there, even if the defending champs don't have Tyson Chandler anymore who is a complete stud pimp.  But really I can see any team other than the Jazz ending up coming out of the West.

The Nuggets would probably be the least likely and it'll be tough for them to get past the Lakers, but Ty Lawson is all crazy good now all of a sudden and this late season emergence of Kenneth Faried make them interesting (and am I the only one who finds "Manimal" a little bit racist?  Anyone?  No?  Let me guess you think the gorillas in the barnyard weren't racist either.)   Every other team at least has a shot, and the Spurs have the #1 seed, a collection of second round picks, and are supposedly the favorite but that just seems weird because Tim Duncan is a hundred years old and kind of a poofer.  I almost feel like I'm going to have to root for the Lakers because I don't know who else can beat the Heat.  But what if the Heat played the Lakers?  Who would I root for?  It would be like choosing between my two kids.  Actually, do you have two kids under the age of 4?  Because I'm totally lying, it would be almost exactly like picking between my two kids.

-  I just did 36 push-ups.  Suck it.

-  Who grounds out to second base more than Mauer?  Nobody, that's who.  Is there a way to look this up?  I'd do it but I'm running out of time.

-  Seriously question though, do you think when Marky Mark goes home for like, Thanksgiving dinner he just teases the shit out of Donnie?  I mean really?  Rizzoli and Isles? Blue Bloods?  Zookeeper for fucks sake?  Those are the last three things on his imdb list.  When Marky makes a bad flick it's something like  Contrabrand (made $66 million) or Date Night ($98m) which at least makes money, and he's getting nominated for awards along the way.  Donnie was just in a TV movie with Brian Dennehy who I'm pretty sure is dead.  Really, I bet when they get together for Christmas everybody gets drunk and Mark starts wadding up and throwing hundred dollar bills at Donnie's head and at first Donnie wants to fight but then he realizes if he keeps sitting there and taking it eventually he's going to get his rent paid so he just takes it and then he ends up making Marky Mark a sandwich.

-  Gotta go

Wednesday Wonderings

Finally managed a little time to get some thoughts down on paper or whatever you want to call it cybernerd, so I better get to typing before it's too late.  Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but work has really been kicking the ever-loving shit out of me the last two weeks.  Hopefully things will calm down after this weekend

-  The biggest news is that Trevor Mbakwe is officially back.



Obviously this is huge as he was the team's best player a year ago before going down to injury, and with Sampson (thankfully) gone he gives the team another inside presence besides Elliott Elliason and takes a lot of pressure off of Mo Walker's return (what's up with him anyway?).  Hopefully Mbakwe (and Walker) will be back at full strength for the season, which gives the team three capable big men along with Rodney Williams who can clearly play the four when need be.  Rodney is also the biggest driver of how far this team can go.  Mbakwe's return will push him back out to the perimeter for stretches, and with him thriving this year more in the post than on the wing how what will that do to his development?

If Williams can develop a reliable jumper (how many years have we been saying this) and keeps the confidence he gained this season in going to the rim this team can be a monster.  I feel confident in saying Andre Hollins is a rising star, and him, Mbakwe, and the good Williams give this team three legitimate threats to dominate a game at any one time, whether for stretches or in total.  Add in the late season improvement of Elliason, Austin Hollins, and Joe Coleman and the Gophers should by all rights be a top 4 Big 10 team with Indiana, Ohio State, and Michigan.  Even without Mbakwe back they could have reached those heights with continued improvement, so expectations are high this year.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Williams still can't shoot and falls back into his old disappearing routine when Mbakwe is on the post.  I'd like to think any player capable of putting together the stretch of games Rodney did to finish out the year is incapable of completely regressing back to a full year ago's form, but I'm certainly not going to completely rule it out.  I have to say, without exaggeration, this looks to me like it could be the best Gopher team we've seen since Clem was framed and railroaded out of town.  I'm very interested to see how they break my heart into a million pieces this year.

-  Looking like Morneau is back, eh?  This Twins team keeps showing me just enough to keep me interested, which I guess I can't complain about since last year I was checked out by like June.  And yeah, maybe it's sad that locking up a guaranteed split is enough to get us all tingly in our nether parts and yeah, Matt Capps continues to be the worst pitcher in history (but at least he mixed in a couple non-fastballs this time), and yeah, there's no way this team can win without some kind of major shocker or something coming from the starting pitching, but you know what, I'm entertained so far.  No, I still can't tell you anything about the bullpen guys beyond Capps and Duensing, but I do at least know now that they have some guy named Burton, and that's a victory for the good guys.

-  If you've been reading this blog too long and have been keeping track of all the times I've been right (which shouldn't be too hard) you may remember this piece I posted on Zack Greinke back in May of 2010.  Greinke was coming off his historically awesome 2009 year and had gotten off to a slow start and, thanks to digging into some advanced metrics it was clear to me he wasn't the same pitcher and I traded him immediately in our fantasy league, which turned out to be the right move because he was basically a slightly above average pitcher in 2010.  Since I'm a genius, I will briefly look at Tim Lincecum since he's sucked this year and figure out if this is real or a mirage (I promise I'll be brief, this is a random thoughts post after all, not a Tim Lincecum post)

Red flag #1 is he stopped throwing his slider, I assume for arm health reasons but I tried to look it up and after 1 link that didn't say anything meaningful I was bored.  It's not always bad to give up a pitch if it's not working, but that slider was Timmy's second best pitch behind his change-up last year (although to be fair it's been mediocre through his career).  This can be fixed simply by throwing the slider again (he threw it 15% of the time last season), which I read he was going to start doing again.

Red flag #2 is an alarming drop in fastball velocity, from 92.3mph to 90.3mph.  This has resulted in fewer missed bats, particularly in the strike zone (batters make contact 93% of the time on balls in the zone this year compared to 84% last year).  This is resulting in a lot of line drives (29% compared to 19% in his career) and a greater number of fly balls going out of the park (17% of flyballs have been HRs this year compared to 8% in his career).

Unlike Greinke, however, I think Lincecum will be just fine.  Despite the above he's actually increased his strikeout rate while decreasing his walk rate, always a positive move for a pitcher.  He's also suffering from line drive rates and HR/flyball rates that would be historically bad, along with a BABIP of over .400 which would be the highest ever and is unsustainable.  Basically, unlike Greinke who had just faded a bit, you either believe Lincecum will right the ship and be just fine or you believe he's fallen off a cliff and is done.  I believe the former, and actually I think I'm going to go try to trade for him right now, brb.

-  Here are my thoughts on the NHL playoffs so far:

-  I find it interesting that although I like cheeseburgers, I find the very thought of cheeseburger pizza disgusting, while at the same time I love tacos and absolutely adore taco pizza.  Man I'm whacky. 

-  Finally, happy birthday to Wonderbaby^TM, four years old today and an awesome kid who loves gymnastics, baseball, The Legend of Zelda, and a whole bunch of girlie crap.  Hard to believe that when I started this blog I didn't even have a kid yet.  Wow, I've been doing this for a long time.  You'd think I would have gotten better at it at some point.

Friday Stuff

I realize it makes more sense to have this post up Friday morning rather than Friday night because I can't imagine anyone other than the deranged and the incredibly lonely read this blog on the weekend, particularly Super Bowl weekend, but I really didn't feel like writing before now.  I passes several very fun offers of things to do tonight to write this for you, so you better read it.  Also I lied just now.  My Friday plans are pretty much set in stone every week and it's called put the kids to bed, have a drink while watching some stupid tv show, and go to bed early.  I'M A DYNAMO!

First order of business would be a preview for Sunday's game against Nebraska, but I don't really feel like making an entire post about the crap factory that is Tubby Smith's squad.  According to Loretta8 from Sippin' on Purple, whose Northwesterners just beat them by 10, their big men didn't do anything against David freaking Curletti, they have a couple of ok guards who can get hot from three, and they play terrible defense.  Sounds great.  Kenpom.com confirms they aren't a very good defensive team, Bo Spencer is a guy who can get way hot and possible win a game on his own, and even though Jorge Brian Diaz is their center who was supposed to take the leap in his third season he's actually regressed to the point where he's averaging a career low in minutes and only played 18 against Northwestern.

Sounds like a game the Gophers should win, but after that debacle against Iowa I don't see how you can possibly trust this team.  You could just say they're completely terrible, but then again they won at Indiana so you can't just write them off on the road.  The Gophers are officially your crazy cousin who lives in New York and once showed up at Thanksgiving in a Misfits t-shirt with those weird plug things in her ears and pink hair and a boyfriend with a face tattoo with news she dropped out of college to play the harmonica for an underground thrash band, but then showed up for Christmas in a prim and proper button up pink sweater driving a Honda Civic and announced she had just enrolled at Moody Bible College and then stayed up all night playing cribbage with your mom and drinking green tea.  I have no idea what to expect.  Still, Wikipedia tells me Nebraska is a terrible program and I can't quite bring myself to quit on this season even though Tubby probably has.  Gophers 65, Huskers 61.

-  I suppose the other big news is that there's the Super Bowl this weekend and everybody keeps bugging me to know my pick.  Well fine, my bet to win the Super Bowl at TopBet is the Giants, although the smart money is on Giants +3.  New York's offense isn't that much worse than New England's, but their defense is infinitely better.  Of course, I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is not to be trusted because the only thing I hate more than Boston/New England fans are people who wear stupid hats and listen to Coldplay.  Honestly if somebody told me that I could choose who wins this Super Bowl and if I choose New England all hunger and poverty in the world would be wiped out I'd need like 48 hours to decide.  So yes, my opinion is slightly skewed but I think it's a legit thought.

Of course, on the other side is that everyone, and I mean everyone, loves the Giants +3 and usually when something like that happens you're wrong because people are idiots.  And they have Gronkowski, who is probably not even hurt and even if he is like it will matter.  They'll give him some of that Bud Kilmer magic juice and he'll rack up 3 TDs in the first half.  Gronky for MVP.  You heard it hear first.

Thanks, Comcast

I was going to post last night but unfortunately for everyone, or fortunately, whatever, Comcast is a dick and my internet was down from 8:15 until 12:15.  I know the exact timing it was out because I was doing an internet fantasy football draft and was unable to log in to the draft room or log in anywhere really since, you know, I had no internet.  I considered going to a bar somewhere like a BW3 that would have free wi-fi so I could be the weirdo with the laptop drinking beer by himself, but then a generous soul offered to email me every single pick so I could follow long on my phone and then email him my picks whenever it was my turn.  It actually went rather smoothly.

Anyway, you guys remember how two years ago I told you how Hakeem Nicks was going to be awesome and then he was?  And last year how I was pimping Dez Bryant and now he's looking like he's going to be special?  Well I got a third guy.  I don't think his upside is on the Nicks/Bryant level, but he has a chance to reach the next tier and right now nobody is paying any attention to him or even knows who he is, and in a lot of drafts he isn't even getting drafted.  I really wish I could tell you who I'm talking about, but I have my big keeper league draft this weekend and then an auction on Labor Day.  Since too many people in those leagues read this crap, I'm going to have to keep it under wraps until after then.  Sorry.

And speaking of keeping things under wraps, over labor day weekend Snacks and I are taking our dad on an awesome trip.  It's a surprise and he sometimes reads this and I'm sure is super proud, so I can't spill the info here, but I plan to take a computer with me and update from the place that we're going.  Stay tuned.  On to the sporty sports:

-  So I guess we might as well start with the Twins, and we'll specifically go with the fact that Kubel and Thome were put on waivers, a fact which for some reason seems to have a lot of people spazzing out even though it's basically standard operating procedure and if they're smart the Twins will throw almost everybody out there at some point.  It's pretty simple, at some point some team will claim each of them - and they will both get claimed - and then the Twins will try to work out a trade.  In Thome's case they'll probably take whatever they can get because there's zero reason to hold on to him, but in Kubel's case they'll probably ask for quite a bit more.

That's good because Kubel has real value to a contender, now and in the future, but also not good because they're probably under some misguided notion that not trading him will help them sign him.  If they want to.  I don't know.  I don't even know if they should, but I'm pretty sure I'd take him over Cuddyer.  Maybe trade Kubel for a second-tier prospect, then sign either him or Cuddy, whoever offers the bigger discount.  And if you can't sign either of them who gives a crap, right?  And speaking of that why isn't Cuddy on waivers yet?  And Pavano?  And every reliever on the roster?

Seriously, this team as currently constructed has no shot to do anything ever.  Might as well move everything that has value and isn't part of your long term plans while you can.  Kubel, Cuddyer, Thome, Pavano, Blackburn, Nathan, Capps, basically every other reliever and possibly Danny Valencia are clearly not part of the future.  I see no reason why not to ship 'em all out of here.  You could get a decent return for everybody except Blackburn.  Start over.  Move on.  It's over.  This team sucks forever.  They can't even win a series against Baltimore for god's sake.

Which reminds me of a fun little nugget I heard on the radio today, and you'll never believe this but it illustrates once again how much of a complete moron P.A. is.  Since every Twins fan just watched J.J. Hardy homer against the team Monday night and then hear about how he has more home runs than every other Twin and basically a better HR rate than the entire team combined and P.A. is a giant homerdouche he had to down play Hardy, and act like the retard that he is.  So he went with, "Everyone who is saying the Twins should have kept Hardy is just saying that in retrospect, I don't remember anybody caring when they traded him" which is super bizarre because I remember everyone hating that trade - I know I did and I put it on paper.

Oh look.  I decided to check the first three Twins blogs I could think of to see what they had to say.  Aaron Gleeman called the move "questionable", Twinkie Town said, "Do I think it's a bad deal?  Definitely.", and Nick's Twins blog used the headline, "Hardy Trade Cripples Infield Depth." And those were the only three places I checked, that's not exactly nobody.  I think the only people who liked this trade were Bill Smith, P.A., Bert Blyleven, and Sid Hartman since Hardy wasn't a gritty gamer who hustled and gritted his way around the field because he was a pussy unlike captain gritty mchustlepants Nick Punto.

Oh, and then even better he started going on and on about how obviously Hardy didn't have much worth because no teams wanted him and Baltimore was the only team who would make a deal.  I'm not kidding he honestly said this.  Then, with the least research anybody has ever done ever, I find this link.  In case you are too lazy or don't know how to click on links, it is an article by Lavelle Neal which quotes Bill Smith as saying there were "at least a half dozen teams" interested in Hardy.  So I guess my point is that P.A. is still incredibly dumb and anybody who listens to his show and thinks he knows anything about anything is so dumb they probably like Olive Garden.

-  In the entertainment world I recently watched Trespass.  Not a recent movie by any means, but I'm not sure I've seen it.  To refresh you, it's the one where Bill Paxton and that guy from Shawshank are hunting for gold in an abandoned factory and end up in a shoot-out with Ice-T, Ice Cube, Argyle from Die Hard, and Deebo from when he was still skinny.  It was mind-blowing to see the two Ices in the same movie, and even worse to see how terrible their acting was, especially because this movie actually came after Boyz N the Hood, which I thought Cube was pretty solid in, although two years before his mini-breakout in Higher Learning and 3 before his total breakout in Friday.  It's really a shame he died in 1998 after Player's Club,  I wonder how far his career could have gone, maybe a more "street" Denzel.  Shame we'll never know.

Ice-T, on the other hand, was terrible in this and has always been terrible, outside of being tolerable in Law & Order:  SVU (although to be fair I haven't seen Leprechaun in the Hood, which seems like a glaring weakness in my movie watching history).  There is, of course, the one notable exception of Surviving the Game, which is an awesome awesome awesome movie and I will fucking fight anyone who says otherwise.  Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey, Ice-T in his best ever role ever, the black dude from Rudy, and Dr. Cox in a movie about hunting homeless people for sport?  Hell.  Yes.  God I want to watch this now.  Ask Snacks, he'll tell you how good this was.  Ice-T should have just quit acting after this and he'd be a legend.  "Hey Burns, always check the barrell."

Seriously, this movie is so good dude.  I can sum it up in three pictures:

Holy crap this movie is so awesome.  I have no idea why you are sitting there watching something stupid when you could be watching this. 

-  Apparently Rick Adelman interviewed with the Timberwolves which leads me to believe he either really likes hookers, really likes drugs, has a serious gambling debt, or perhaps collects Faberge eggs because the only reason I can figure a guy like Adelman would want the Wolves job is a desperate need for immediate money.   Why join this mess instead of waiting a year and waiting for a more attractive job to turn up?  He's made the playoffs like, 20 times, so why go to a trainwreck?  Maybe he likes a challenge I guess, but why not go for the Sunday crossword instead of the one billion piece puzzle of the sky?  Weird.

-  Finally, we got us a new blog to check out,Still Got Hope, which focuses on gopher football for some reason.  I actually sort of  know one of the guys (from the internet) and even though he's kind of a doofus and looks like Shrek his first post made me laugh even though it was about Tutu Atwell which I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't lived it, and their intro post was nice as well.  I recommend you give them a read.  They're known as a poor man's Down with Goldy according to me.

Tuesday Talkings - 4/28/2011

Do you guys have any idea how  hard it is to come up with things to write for a Twins/Gopher basketball blog when there's nothing going on with Gopher basketball and the Twins suck worse than your life does?   Seriously, before long most of the blog entries here are going to be like, "Hey, have I told you about my bunions? Oh, you're gonna love this story! So, I line up my cold cuts on the couch next to me, but as I'm stacking them up, they keep falling into my foot bath!"


You just watch, it's going to happen.  Although, once again due to the  Twins' ineptitude, I don't think anybody is reading anyway.  Yes, it must be due to the Twins' ineptitude.


Anyway, I'm just going to sit here and type things as I think of them.  You monkeys will read anything.


-  Speaking of reading anything, have you been checking out Grantland.com, Bill Simmons new sports and pop culture site? I like it overall so far, mainly because it gives you 4-5 new articles every day to choose from.  It's certainly been a mixed bag, with great stuff like Klosterman's great piece about a JuCo basketball game in North Dakota from 1988 (I know it sounds weird, just read it) mixed in with some complete garbage like this (hatchet job on stats using basketball as an example), this (brutally bad and rambling article that states it's point and then never comes close to touching on it again), and this (weird attack on Blake Lively that doesn't belong on this site - or anywhere, really) as well as some weird homer shit from Simmons about the Bruins.  Overall though, there are 3 or so pretty entertaining pieces per day and more good than bad, so I'd recommend making it part of your daily internet routine.  Or not, whatever.  Like I care.


-  Twins are winning 3-1 right now in the fourth.  Kind of a weird feeling.


-  Maybe we should talk some Big 10 hoops, eh?  Since that's kind of the whole reason I started this blog - well, that and boredom....maybe a little egotism.  Going to be kind of an odd year since there's so much talent leaving.   Of the three all Big Ten teams only Jared Sullinger, Jordan Taylor, Trevor Mbakwe, William Buford, Draymond Green, and John Shurna are back.   Only 3 of the 6 honorable mentions are back as well (wait, Lewis Jackson was honorable mention all Big Ten?  How is this possible?  Is there some sort of degree of difficulty modifier added due to being 5-foot-6?)

One of the players I'm most intrigued with this year is Illinois freshman point guard Tracy Abrams, who ranks as the #13 point guard  and #58 overall recruit according to Rivals.  As you probably are aware of, for some reason when Chester Frazier graduated Bruce Weber decided Demetri McNuggets was going to be there point guard and never bothered to get another one.  This led to McCamey putting up good stats (although he couldn't put up a single rep on the bench press at the NBA Combine) and constantly unraveling at the end of games because, as anybody could tell, he wasn't a god damn point guard.  Now, still thanks to Weber's complete inattentiveness to the position (Tubby -> Hi) they are giving the job to Abrams because he's the only PG on the roster.  Illinois has plenty of talent back so basically their entire season hinges on if Abrams can handle the PG position.  Always good to have your season's success hanging on whether an 18-year old kid can play the most important position on the court in his first year jumping from High School to major College ball.


The other player who I think will have the biggest impact on a team's success or failure this year is Brandon Wood of Michigan State.  Wood was a lightly recruited combo guard out of high school who signed with Southern Illinois and then transferred to Valpo.  He blossomed with the Crusaders, averaging 17 points, 4.5 rebs, and 3 assists in his last two years and lighting up North Carolina for 30, Michigan State for 24, and Purdue for over 20 twice in those two years.  He's eligible immediately since he's already graduated, and with the Spartans losing Kalin Lucas (expected) and Korie Lucious (unexpected) they're thin in the back court (unlike Draymond Green).  I fully expect Wood to end up being their primary ball-handler.  If he's a disaster Michigan State's season will likely be as well, unless Green can run full-time point forward duties.


Finally, I am curious to see how Jordan Taylor does with nothing around him.   He obviously had a monster season last year but he had Jon Leuer to help take a lot of the defensive attention off of him, and even Keaton Nankivil to help.  Now they're both gone and I know Bo Ryan and the gay Badgers always find ways to win and somebody always steps up but I really don't see anyone on this roster capable of becoming a viable second scorer.  It's all going to be up to Taylor, and he's either going to average 24 pts/8 rebs/7 assists per game or he's going to end up shooting in the low 30s percentage-wise.  Maybe both.  


-  For the record I am VERY unhappy with Emma Stone's new blonde hair.  Very unhappy.  I'm super glad I broke up with her now.  She's 10 times hotter with red hair, and that might be a low number.


-  Russell freaking Martin leads the AL in voting at catcher?  Jesus it's almost all Yankees.  Something needs to be done about this process.  Maybe it should be like having a baby should be and you have to pass some kind of competency exam first.   First, Martin doesn't even have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title.  Second, he's hitting just .230, 8th among AL catchers with at least 100 PAs.  He ranks 6th in HRs and RBI amongst AL catchers and 5th in OPS.  I'm guessing this is simply a case of being a Yankee and having a name people recognize as having been really really good in the NL a few years ago.  Poor Alex Avila.  He's having a monster season so far (note:  I had no idea) and he'll have to catch a break to make the All-Star game.   Derek Jeter (who is actually having a worse season at the plate than Alexi Casilla) garnering more votes than Asdrubel Cabrera is actually a bigger travesty, but writing about Jeter being overrated is like telling jokes about airplane food at this point.


-  You can go ahead and put me squarely in the camp of "Josh Selby won't get it figured out."  Guy's got AND 1 All-Star written all over him.  Skip to My Lou 2 - The Reversoning.


-  Cliff Lee shut out the Red Sox tonight and allowed just two hits, which wouldn't really be all that surprising since it is Cliff Lee after all, but I was doing some digging into this game for gambling purposes (I ended up not wagering on the game) and it's actually amazing considering how the current Sox have done in their careers against Lee.  Marco Scutaro has hit .302 against him, Pedroia has hit .364, Darnell McDonald .400, and Adrian Gonzalez an incredible .700.  Kevin Youkilis hasn't hit him that well, but he's drawn 4 walks to 2 strikeouts and has a .400 OBP against Lee.  He's dominated Ellsbury and Varitek, but really based on history the Sox should have had some success against Lee.  Which once again proves that nothing makes any sense ever. 


-  You know, Daenarys Targaryen is a dead-ringer for Claire from Lost.  Check it:

 

I speak truth.


Like always.

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:

1. Stand there
2. Clap his hands and call for the ball.
3. Run directly at his teammate with the ball and clap his hands while calling for the ball

That's it.  That's the entire repertoire.  My favorite though is any time he passes the ball and it doesn't directly lead to a shot for this teammate he immediately follows his own pass, naturally while clapping and calling for the ball.  There's a reason nobody on this team every gets an assist other than Jimmer, and that's because he either shoots, creates a shot for somebody else, or immediately demands the ball back.  Honestly I was pretty unimpressed, and I watched all four of his games in this tournament and they were all the same.  Add in a level of defense that would make Blake Hoffarber turn red with embarrassment and he might be the most overrated player since Adam Morrison.  If this guys wins National Player of the Year it'll be a travesty and, frankly, should probably spark off some race riots.  But that's pretty much my answer for everything."

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.