Down with Goldy

Weekend Tournaments (and early next week)

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:05:00 +0000

When I said at the bottom of yesterday's post that there weren't really any games with bubble implications last night, I was counting Virginia as a lock. After blowing a home game to Florida State last night they're suddenly looking a wee bit shakier. They're probably still in good shape (losing to FSU isn't anywhere near a bad loss), but absolutely need to win at Maryland this weekend or the ACC Tournament is going to be nerve-wracking. Elsewhere Washington avoided a bad loss by smoking USC on the road and Oregon won a bubble elimination game by knocking of Colorado at home. Oregon is still not anywhere near in, but they are still in the conversation. And that's about it.

BIG SKY (saturday):
My third team I root for (behind Minnesota, then Iowa State) resides here in Weber State, and they look solid once again this year. Unfortunately it's a pretty down year in the mountains, with only Weber and Montana having anything resembling good seasons. Not that it really matters, I'm not sure if I can recall the Big Sky ever getting an at-large, and that's not likely to change any time soon.
Favorite: Montana. The Grizzlies win over Weber on Tuesday bumped them a game ahead of the Wildcats and into first place. Not that it really matters, because only six teams make the tournament and the 1 and 2 seeds get byes, so it's win one each and then Montana and Weber face off again.
Sleeper:   Eastern Washington. There's not really anything special about the Eagles, but they play at a fast pace and don't turn it over so they'll get plenty of shots. Unfortunately they can't shoot. But what if they could? Think about that.
W's Pick: Weber State. Of course I'm going to pick Weber, but in this case it makes sense. Their best player is point guard Damian Lillard who's second in the country in scoring at 24.5 per game, and he's good enough to take over and bring the Wildcats back to the tournament where we could have Harold Arceneaux part II: Shorter and Whiter.

MID-AMERICAN (monday):
Seems as if every year the MAC is almost a two-bid league. Like, every year either Akron or Kent State is close but they can't get over the hump, and by not over the hump I mean they can't even get themselves on the Bubble. But somehow they always seem to have a team that's close. I don't know, maybe I'm a weirdo.
Favorite: Akron. And, once again, the Zips would be that team this year. Coming into their bracket buster game against Oral Roberts they were 19-7 and 11-1 in league with no real bad losses, and a win over ORU would have probably moved them from off the bubble to the bottom of it. Instead they lost to the Golden Eagles and followed that up by losing two of the next three. They're still the class of the league at 12-3 (pending Friday night's regular season finale at Kent State) and the definite favorite.
Sleeper: Ohio. This was supposed to be a big year for the Bobcats who were returning six of their top 8 scorers plus adding a couple "impact" transfers and some good freshmen. It hasn't quite worked out to be their year, but Ohio is still the best defensive team in the MAC and D.J. Cooper is still around, the point man who was instrumental in leading Ohio to a MAC Tourney win as a freshman, not to mention scoring 23 with 8 assists in their first round upset over Georgetown.
W's Pick: Ohio. I remember Cooper and what he did as a freshman and it wouldn't shock me to see it happen again. Plus, if it wasn't for a couple of bizarre mid-season losses to Eastern Michigan and Toledo the Bobcats would be 12-3 and tied with Akron for first place, not to mention they just pasted the Zips by 24 a week ago.

MID-EASTERN ATLANTIC (monday):
One of the worst conferences, and always one of the worst conferences (never ranked better than 30th in the land according to kenpom.com), the MEAC nonetheless can produce some interesting stuff. Like Reggie Holmes. How could you forget Reggie Holmes? Simply put, the best chucker I've ever seen - and by best I don't mean most skilled, although he did nearly lead the nation in scoring. So that's why, no matter what, I will always partially love the MEAC. That and they have Bethune-Cookman, which is still my favorite name for a college ever.
Favorite: Savannah State. In 2005 Savannah State finished the year 0-28, the first winless D-I team since 1992. A few short years later they set the record for fewest points in a half after scoring just 4 against Kansas State on 1-23 shooting in the second half. Now they're the #1 seed in the MEAC Tournament after going 14-2 this year. Quite the turnaround. Also there's a chance they're not 100% D-I eligible yet so it's actually possible they might not be playing in this tournament in which case they're not really the #1 seed, obviously. I kind of tried to look it up but after searching for like, a minute I couldn't find anything so I quit.
Sleeper:   Coppin State. In a league that's just bad you end up with a whole ton of horrid offensive teams. Coppin State is the exception. They rank 53rd in the NCAA in points per game and 124th in offensive efficiency, which may not sound like much but it's the best in the conference by far and only Delaware State is even close.
W's Pick: Coppin State. I don't know, it seems like they always win. Plus they at least shoot the three-pointer well which means they might be a halfway interesting 16 seed, assuming they win their play-in game.

SUMMIT LEAGUE (saturday):
You know who loves the Summit League? All the dorky Gopher fans who have already bailed on the team and have decided to throw all their support behind South Dakota State and their little boyfriend Nate Wolters, just like all those same dorks were all behind NDSU that one year when they made the tournament. Well you know who hates teams like those? Yeah, I do. Screw those nerds. I hate all teams from all states that border this one except Iowa State.
Favorite: Oral Roberts. The Golden Eagles are actually not that far off of the bubble thanks to an RPI of 44 and a 26-5 overall record. It's very doubtful they get a bid even if they make the final but lose, but the Golden Eagles have wins over Xavier and Akron and held tough with Gonzaga and West Virginia. I very much hope they make it because they could give somebody a nice tussle in round one.
Sleeper:   Oakland. The Golden Grizzlies (really? Two "golden" teams in the same conference?) had a bit of a fall-off after losing Keith Benson from last year's super good team that somehow couldn't even beat Texas, but they still finished third in the league this year and have Reggie Hamilton back. Hamilton is the leading scorer in the nation while still managing to chip in 5.1 assists per game and he had an absolutely monster Summit tourney last year and had a great game against Texas. He's absolutely capable of carrying this team to a title.
W's Pick:   South Dakota State. I'd love to see ORU or Oakland have a chance to take a run at somebody, but because life loves irritating me I'm sure the stupid Jackrabbits will end up making it. At least my cousin will be happy since she's alumni. Unless she went to USD. I have to be honest, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe I'm not the best cousin.

SUN BELT (saturday):
For much of the year Middle Tennessee State was bringing back the memories of when the Sun Belt used to be good with Courtney Lee and Taco Hawk running around for Western Kentucky and whoever used to be on South Alabama doing good things and all that jazz. Then they lost to that same WKU team in the regular season finale, and since WKU's RPI is in the sub-200 range and MTSU had basically zero margin for error, they really better win this tournament.
Favorite: Middle Tennessee. I just said that, dummy, pay attention. The Blue Raiders might not have any "holy shit" type wins, but they did beat Ole Miss, Akron, Belmont, and Loyola Marymount and crushed UCLA (which sounded better earlier in the year, but still). They also rank in kenpom's top 100 for both offensive and defensive efficiency, and you know how many teams can say that? Well, a lot, actually, but not too many from conferences like the Sun Belt.
Sleeper:   Denver. If I remember correctly, Denver was the preseason favorite to win the Sun Belt, and after some early season issues they've won their last four to close out the year and finish 11-5, and also beat MTSU in their last meeting.
W's Pick: Denver. Check these stats: The Pioneers shoot 40.1% from three, 11th in the country, and compliment that by shooting 55.9% from two, which is second best in the nation (behind Missouri). They also play at a really slow pace (326th) so if they could just stop somebody they'd be money. I'd really like to see them get in because I think they'd be a fascinating first round match-up.

Plenty of bubble stuff going on this weekend, and that's without even counting the conference tournament stuff. Harvard has a big weekend starting tonight. If they can sweep Columbia and Cornell on the road they'll lock up at least a tie for the Ivy Title, and those two wins might be enough to get them in anyway. Texas has a huge chance to get the giant win they desperately need at Kansas, although that might be too tall an order. Teams like UCONN (vs. Pitt), Memphis (@ Tulsa), St. Louis (@ Duquesne), Kansas State (vs. Okla State), Washington (@ UCLA), Cincy (@ Nova), Miami (vs. BC), Miss State (vs Arkansas), Seton Hall (@DePaul), Oregon (vs. Utah), Virginia (@ Maryland), and Arizona (@ ASU) need to avoid a loss, while Southern Miss is probably fine either way but a win @ Marshall would go a long way. Perhaps the biggest bubble game of the weekend is WVU @ South Florida - the winner is probably in, the loser will need to make a decent run in the Big East tournament.

Also Mrs. W just got back from an early screening of Project X and told me it was like a combination of Superbad, Hangover, and Can't Hardly Wait. She then told me it was a terrible movie. lolwut? Those are like, three of the best movies of all-time, can't possibly see how this would be terrible. I think she might be a bit touched in the head, but don't tell her I said that.

Thursday - Friday Tourneys

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:47:00 +0000

There were some games with major bubble implications last night, and in most cases they've moved teams closer towards the good. Both Cincinnati (over Marquette) and South Florida (over Louisville) picked up major, major victories against top level RPI teams (Marquette = 7, L'Ville = 28) which, fortunately, is exactly what both teams needed. You can also add Colorado State to the "doin' good things" list, because by beating UNLV at home that gives them another huge win (UNLV RPI = 11). You can probably move all three teams to locks, or at least pretty close to it. Speaking of locks, Alabama and Purdue move into that territory, if the weren't already there, with wins over Auburn and Penn State (thus avoiding a late bad loss). Southern Miss also avoided a bad loss by taking down SMU. With just Marshall left the Eagles are in good shape as long as they don't drop one too early in the C-USA Tournament, and Mississippi State (win over South Carolina in OT) and Texas (win over Oklahoma) stayed alive.

It wasn't all sunshine and puppy dogs, however, with the biggest heartbreak coming from Evanston, where Northwestern made a furious comeback to tie the game only to have Ohio State score with 3 seconds left to steal back the victory. The loss doesn't crush the Wildcats NCAA bid hopes and hopefully doesn't crush their spirit, because getting that win would have all but guaranteed them a bid. Miami also picked up a hurtful loss, losing at NC State. It hurts more than the Wildcats loss to Ohio State, even if it doesn't feel like it

AMERICA EAST (Thurs):
One of the worst conferences in the country (kenpom.com ranks it 29th out of 32), but that's mainly due to the deadweight at the bottom (including 1-28 Binghampton). The top couple of teams are decent, and this conference has given us some memorable March moments over the years like Vermont's win over Syacuse in the first round and Albany's near upset of #1 seed UCONN.
Favorite: Stony Brook. The Seawolves ended Vermont's three-year run as regular season champions (which resulted in only one NCAA Tournament appearance). They rank as team #122 on kenpom, which puts them in the same class as Penn State, for whatever that's worth.
Sleeper: Albany. The Greyhounds (great nicknames in this conference, seriously) finished fourth and boast the leagues best offense, including two of the top-5 scorers in the league. Teams like that can get hot and light things up in a short tournament.
W's Pick: Vermont. It would be kind of poetic to see the 2nd place Catamounts beat Stony Brook for the bid, since the same scenario happened last year with the team's flip-flopped. Plus Vermont finished the season out

MISSOURI VALLEY (Thurs):
Remember back when the MVC was the darlings of the NCAA and then became incredibly overrated and then just plain sucked? Well they're back with a couple of sweet 16 caliber teams including one team I think could make a Final Four run, and a whole bunch of decent teams who could surprise. Wichita State and Creighton are both locks to get at-large bids if they fall, but everybody else is going to need to win in St. Louis to make the dance.
Favorite: Wichita State. I have to be honest, I've come to love this team and seriously think they have Final four potential. Super efficient on offense, great defensively, with a very balanced team featuring seven big-time contributors, all of whom are juniors or seniors. And look at their four losses this year: Alabama, Temple (in OT), Creighton, and Drake (3 OT). Not a bad loss among them even if Drake is a little iffy. Love this team.
Sleeper: Northern Iowa. There are a whole mess of teams at 9-9 and you could pick any one of them here, but since nobody beat both Wichita and Creighton I'm going to just pick Northern Iowa here, solely because they shoot a ton of threes and they shoot them well - always a good combo for a sleeper run.
W's Pick: Creighton. Even though I think Wichita is the better team I have a feeling about Creighton for this tournament. Doug McDermott is a beast and Antoine Young can change a game all by himself. Plus I'd rather see Wichita with a lower seed because then when I put them in the Elite 8 I'll be the only one in the country who does. Sucka MC!

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE (Thurs):
A bit of an up year for the NEC, due to some decent out of conference wins (not good wins as we define them for bubble teams, but good for the NEC) with Wagner beating Pitt, Princeton, and Penn, Long Island knocking off Vermont, and Robert Morris beating LaSalle, Duquesne, and Ohio. So, you know, good for them.
Favorite: LIU-Brooklyn. The Blackbirds, who are also Miles Tarver's favorite team, didn't have as good a non-conference schedule as fellow top of the leaguers Wagner and RMU, but they did roll through league play and finished 16-2. And they're doing it by getting to line, as they have taken 49.5% as many free throws as they have field goal attempts, which is surprising 2nd in the nation, and they make them at a 73% clip, good for 55th. Such a weird stat.
Sleeper: Central Connecticut State. I don't know if they're any good, but I wanted to talk about them here simply because they have three players in the top 4 in the league in scoring: Kyle Horton is second in the league at 18.7ppg, Kyle Vinales is third at 18.0, and Robby Ptacek is fourth at 17.6. So weird. Those three score 78% of their team's points. I've never seen anything like that before.
W's Pick: Central Connecticut State. I can't get over it. It's incredible. They're all guards and two of them are seniors so a run is possible, plus it's just so cool. The three of them have combined to take 1,211 shots this season. The rest of the team has taken just 419, which is less than the Vinales guy and slightly more than either of the other two. This is the coolest thing I've ever heard of.

COLONIAL (friday):
Super interesting conference this year, at least if you ask a nerd like me, because there are two teams here fighting for bids: Drexel and VCU. If either team makes it to the final and loses they'll probably make it in (or if they win it, of course) but if either loses prior to that they're probably out. And in a deep league like the CAA with five teams among kenpom's top 110, it's going to take a very good team to make it to the final.
Favorite: Drexel. The Dragons won the league thanks to a 17-game win streak. They win because of their defense, which is absolutely stifling and the 7th hardest in the country to make shots against (the rest of the top 7 are all tournament locks). They don't turn you over, but they don't give up many good looks and don't allow second chances.
Sleeper: Georgia State. Old Dominion, George Mason, and Delaware are all probably more likely to win than Georgia State, but the Panthers were the only team this year to beat both VCU and Drexel, and that's gotta count for something.
W's Pick: Drexel. I already talked about their defense, but in a league with a heavy emphasis on that side of the ball (five teams in the CAA rank in the top 40 toughest defenses to make shots against), the Dragons sport the most effective offense and can score against these other squads. In fact, only Drexel and VCU rank in kenpom's top 150 in offensive efficiency. So really the CAA is a lot like the Big 10.

METRO ATLANTIC (friday):
Iona is the new Manhattan, which instantly reminds me of how much fun it was to have Luis Flores leading the Jaspers around. There was a time not so long ago when the only conferences that played Friday nights were the MAAC and the Ivy, and since the Ivy was boring what were a couple of gambling degenerates supposed to do but play the MAAC games. Man, Bogart and I knew just about everything there was to know about that conference back then. The glory days, I like to call them.
Favorite: Iona. The Gaels are in pretty solid shape to grab an NCAA at-large bid even if they don't win the tournament, but they'd be better off getting to the final because a loss prior to that is a loss against a RPI sub-100 team, and that could put just enough doubt in the committee's mind that they'll screw it up and leave Iona out.
Sleeper: Fairfield. The Stags were supposed to be right with Iona at the top of the conference with a shot at securing at at-large. It hasn't quite worked out with Fairfield finishing fourth in the conference at 12-6 and an overall record of just 17-13, but they still have a good enough backcourt to be dangerous.
W's Pick: Iona. I have to pick the Gaels because it would just be a shame to have them not make the tournament. I mean, Scott Machado leads the country with 10.1 assists per game! You know the last time somebody finished the year with double-digit assists per game? Well I don't because ESPN's stat archive thing only goes back to 2001, but it's been at least that long.

SOUTHERN (friday):
This conference is pretty bad these days. Davidson is solid again after a few post-Curry down years, but teams like Charleston and Wofford are significantly worse than last year (losing Noah Dahlman and Andrew Goudelock will do that), and the bottom of the conference is the pits. Despite Wofford and Charleston's step backs, they're still the clear #2 and #3 in the league.
Favorite: Davidson. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, two losses in a league this down is bad, and one of those losses coming to Samford (RPI 266) is a killer, particularly with too many questionable losses and not enough good wins outside of that stunner at Kansas. Hard to believe a team that won in Kansas City needs to win their conference tournament to get into the NCAAs, but here we are.
Sleeper: UNC-Greensboro. Davidson is head and shoulders above everybody else so it's hard to pin down any other team with a chance to beat them, but how about the Spartans? After starting the season 2-14, they went on a 10-1 tear to win the North Division. Of course, they're now on a 3-game losing streak, but hey, I gotta pick somebody.
W's Pick: Davidson. Yep, another favorite. They're just so much better than everyone else. I mean, Kansas's losses this year are against Kentucky, Duke, Missouri, Iowa State, and Davidson.

In a really weird scenario I can never remember seeing before this close to selection Sunday there's almost nothing tonight that affects the bubble. The only two games that matter are Washington @ USC and Colorado @ Oregon, and that last one barely does. Every other game tonight involves teams that are already solidly in or are completely out. I guess you could toss the Michigan @ Illinois game in there and say if Illinois wins they still have a very outside shot, so I guess we'll do that and call it three games of note.

Here we Go! (Conference Tournament Previews)

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:08:00 +0000

I live blogged the second half of the Gopher/Badger game so it that's what you're here for you sicky just scroll down. But there's more important things to deal with. Yep, here we are, the most wonderful time of the year. I love the small conference tournaments that really kick-off March Madness, and they're getting started this week. Here's a quick look at the tournaments that start today, as well as a couple that have already gotten going. Yes, because I'm that kind of a nerd. I don't really care what you think, I love this crap.

ATLANTIC SUN:
Same story as the last several years, where Belmont is a legit sleeper to pull a first round upset, but due to conference strength as well as the Bruins inability to snag a big-time win, they'll need to win the conference tournament in order to gain a bid. Although I'm not really sure why they have such a good rep, in four tournament appearances they're 0-4 with only that one-point loss to Duke in 2008 being close. Of course, that'd be why they have that rep, because 99% of America loved them, if only for that brief window where they were in position to knock off the devil's team.
Favorite: Belmont, duh. They shoot the ball well and don't turn it over, two traits pretty unique to the Bruins within the A-Sun. Plus they're incredibly balanced with six players scoring at least 9.0 points per game, which means a rough night for one player won't screw them.
Sleeper: Mercer. Nobody is really close to as good as Belmont, but Mercer finished 13-5, Belmont swept them but merely by a combined 5 points, and the tournament is being held in Mercer's gym (where Belmont won by 1 after scoring the final 3 points in the last 31 seconds). Plus the Bears can at least kind of play defense.
W's Pick: Belmont. Not only are they more talented than the rest of the conference, they're loaded with upperclassmen who won't be intimidated by playing on the road.

BIG SOUTH (started Monday):
Nobody plays defense in this conference, which at least makes things entertaining. According to kenpom.com's defensive efficiency metric, only Winthrop at #189 even ranks in the top 200 in the country. That's at least fun, if not effective.
Favorite: UNC-Asheville. The Bulldogs rolled through the league with a 16-2 mark, and with stellar guards Matt Dickey and J.P. Primm they have the guard play you need to get through a tournament.
Sleeper: Coastal Carolina. A handful of team's in this conference have some surprising wins this year (CC over Clemson, Campbell over Iowa, Presbyterian over Cincy) but the Chanticleers are the only team who sustained any success following that win, finishing second in the league (plus Presbyterian isn't fully D-I eligible yet, and doesn't get to play. Sad).
W's Pick: Asheville. Primm and Dickey are seniors and, along with fellow senior and third best player Chris Stephenson, give the Bulldogs a great core back from last year's tournament championship team.

OHIO VALLEY:
Obviously the big story here is Murray State, a team that could lose in the first round of this tournament and still secure an NCAA at-large bid. What that means is that teams on the bubble need to be hoping and rooting for Murray to roll to the championship. Which also means this is all irrelevant to a Gopher fan. Kill me.
Favorite: Murray State. Maybe they don't have a string of super impressive non-conference wins (although Southern Miss, St. Mary's, and Memphis are a good string), but they've pretty much rolled through the OVC.
Sleeper: Morehead State. Yes, Tennessee State is the only team to beat the Racers this year, but I think in order for an OVC team to knock them off in this tournament it's going to be someone with some talent who gets hot from three and shoots a boatload of them. Morehead is the best candidate to do so.
W's Pick: Murray State. No other team is this far above it's conference mates in talent, ability, execution, and basically everything else. It would be a major upset for anybody else to win this.

PATRIOT LEAGUE:
I can't really think of a single semi-interesting thing to say about the Patriot League, but it is worth noting that the Patriot ranks as the 22nd best conference in the NCAA according to kenpom.com. The Ohio Valley, where your precious little Murray State squad plays, is ranked 24th. So there.
Favorite: Bucknell. You remember Bucknell, right? Slightly dangerous squad who the Minnesota beat to open the season and made everyone at least assume the Gophers wouldn't be terrible? Yeah, I hate them too.
Sleeper: Lehigh. Speaking of kenpom.com, his metrics actually rank the Mountain Hawks as the better offensive and defensive team (and overall as well, obviously). They also beat Bucknell at home and lost by just three on the road.
W's Pick: Lehigh. I want there to be as few NCAA Tournament teams the Gophers beat as possible because otherwise you're going to be dealing with dingleberries running around talking about how the Gophers beat this crappy small conference team who won a bid. No thanks.

WEST COAST CONFERENCE:
The biggest talking point when BYU moved over to the WCC was that adding the Cougars would help make the league stronger, and could even boost it to a three-bid league (with Gonzaga and St. Mary's). It might work. The Zags and Gaels are already in, but BYU still has work to do. They probably need to win a couple games in the tournament here, and if they can get past Gonzaga in the semis that might do it.
Favorite: St. Mary's. The Gaels won the conference regular season title by a game over Gonzaga, splitting the home-and-home with the Bulldogs in the process. The health of Stephen Holt, the team's third-leading scorer, who missed the final three regular season games is a big issue.
Sleeper: Loyola-Marymount. The Lions, who finished fourth in the WCC, can be very, very good (wins over St. Mary's, BYU, St. Louis, Valpo, and UCLA) and can be very, very bad (losses to Columbia, North Texas, Morgan State, and San Diego). You could say they're a bit of a two-face. If the coin comes up positive they have the ability to win this and steal a bid.
W's Pick: Gonzaga. They finished second in the league, but with seven wins in their last eight and no issues with pesky Loyola Marymount, the Bulldogs are the league's best, and with the league's staggered tournament format (Zaga and SMC get byes to the semifinals) they only have to win two games (for contrast, Loyola would have to win four).

HORIZON (started Tuesday):
League is wide open this year in sharp contrast to the last couple of years where Butler dominated. Also, for those college wonk idiots who are picking Butler to win this tournament you're idiots. Butler sucks this year. Other than winning 5 out of 6 to close the reg. season they've been terrible. The win over Purdue was their only good win this year (also winning @ Cleveland State is ok I guess) and they've lost to like everybody. Seriously if you read someone who picked Butler to win the Horizon you should track them down and stab them in the mouth with some sort of pointy stick. Also I'm writing this one after watching Gophers/Badgers whilst the rest were written early tonight, so you know, I'm pretty drunj.
Favorite: I don't know. I completely lost track of whatever window I had open that had the tournament seeds. I think it's Valpo. they used to have Bryce Drew and lost to Loyola Marymount in bracket busters. That's all I know.
Sleeper: Detroit. I think they did pretty ok this year but I like them because they have Ray Maccallum. And former Indiana guy Eli Holman. I think. That might have been last year.
W's Pick: Anybody but Butler cuz Eff those guys, am I right? They made last year's championship suck.

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Gophers vs. Badgers: Second Half Live Blog

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:16:00 +0000

Sure why not? Kids are gone and the wife and I hit the bar across the street for happy hour since the weather was so crappy, and well, it's 4 hours since then. So yeah. Let's go.

20:00 - Wisconsin couldn't shoot, and Ralph Sampson was super aggressive and assertive on the defensive end. I fully expect these things to continue. Also Andre Hollins is clearly a future star, and I do actually expect that to continue for two more years (because he'll go pro after his junior year, obviously).

20:00 - How long is this god damn half-time? I mean jesus, is this the super bowl?

19:46 - Jordan Taylor misses a wide open, and I mean wide open, three pointer. That seems to be the gophers' most effective defense tonight - just let Wisconsin suck. And the whole state does, amiright? I mean, if you put Wisconsin and Iowa into the Large Hadron Collider you'd just get this massive ball of drunken hick douchenss that you could then launch into outer space with some kind of giant water balloon sling shot, right? What?

18:58 - Gophers going clang clang clang like the little engine that could. The Nick Punto of trains, you know.

17:52 - Wide open three for Berggggrren, who misses (might have been Brewsewitz). It's working!!

17:38 - Announcer guy: "sometimes this Gopher team just doesn't think." Amen, brother man.

17:24 - Saul smith is yelling at someone on the Gopher bench. I assume that isn't good.

16:31 - Rodney Williams seems very upset with officials like, all the time lately. He might as well be a Gopher fan with all the bitching, particularly the dude who sits right next to us who has, almost literally, no idea what a foul is and isn't. And for the record, Williams fouled him with the body, even if the block was clean. Gophers 25, Wisconsin 22.

16:04 - 12-2 run by the Badgers to tie the game up. Never saw this one coming. Might just watch the Walking Dead. Yeah, the writing might be meh and the dialogue might be Lucas-esque and the actors might be woodenish, but you know, zombies and shit.

15:19 - Brusewitz misses an open three. Genius strategy by Tubby. Just let 'em shoot. Just like that dude at the Y who thinks he's all like whoa but really kind of sucks and you just let him shoot all game and he keeps missing and then he makes one and looks at you like "you can't lay off me son cuz I'm gonna hit it every time" and that's when you know you got 'em because he's going to just keep chucking and missing and you don't really have to expend any energy on defense anymore so you can save it for when you have the ball and light some chumps up. I love that guy.

14:20 - Sconnie misses a free throw but gets their own rebound. Lol. Doesn't matter though when Gasser misses an open three point shot. Still 25-25.

13:44 - Joe Coleman goes with the Rick Vaughn impression and throws it through the back of endzone at 99mph, looking for I assume a teammate.

12:53 - Now this play right here illustrates why Rodney Williams can be so frustrating. Gets the ball at the key, sees Berggren or some fat white guy on him so he takes it right past him, uses excellent body control to avoid the charge when Brust (might be Gasser) slides over, and makes the easy lay-up. Incredible quickness and athleticism. Just amazing. But three years in and no jumper? Might be easier to handle if he had the aggressiveness he showed on that play more than once a month.

12:43 - Has Julian Welch played tonight? I watched the pre-game and 1st half on the treadmill with no sound so if they said anything I didn't hear it, but I can't remember seeing him tonight.

11:57 - Andre Hollins goes up for a three and has it tipped and it heads straight out of bounds. Austin Hollins completely sells out and sacrifices his body to attempt to save it (even though it's going to be Gopher ball) and just tips it enough to make sure it's Wisconsin's ball. If I could sum up the season in one play I'm pretty sure that's it.

11:57 - By the way, shout out to Mrs. W who, besides being hot, put together our new treadmill all by herself yesterday. Good woman. Also a great cook. Second best in the house.

11:57 - Technical foul on Tubby, which is actually good to see. Actually turns out Hollins' didn't get his shot tipped, he actually got his arm smacked which caused the airball (and should have been a foul) so my bad to Austy. I shouldn't have doubted a kid whose cousin's dad is an NBA coach.

11:15 - It's now 32-27 Wisconsin. Sweet.

9:05 - This game is kind of putting me to sleep. Now 34-29. Also Josh Gasser is a girl.

8:53 - Ralphy!! Hammer dunk!! Doesn't count because he was fouled on the entry pass, but still. Deezam. Not sure on the spelling on that one. Do like this "getting back into the paint" stuff.

8:52 - Osenieks 1-2 from the line. Isn't he supposed to be a shooter but hits less than 50% from the line? Am I wrong here? I hope so, because that don't make no sense.

8:23 - Brust for 3. Huh. Maybe the whole "let 'em shoot" strategy isn't the best one. And that move by Andre Hollins was just ridiculous. Just went right by Jordan Taylor and then right at one of those fat Sconnie dues and made the lay-up. Hollins is going to be a star. Watching him kind of reminds me of watching LeSean McCoy. That either makes total sense to you or is really stupid. I vote for makes sense.

7:40 - Missed Badger free throw, Badger board, Taylor three-pointer, 41-32 Badgers. Any of you basketball nerds know where to find how often a team gives up an offensive board on a missed free throw? Pretty sure the Gophers lead the nation.

7:11 - Two made throws give Sampson 1,000 career points. I remain underwhelmed.

6:47 - Another made three for the Badgers and I'm pretty sure Andre Ingram just blew his knee out again. Poor dude. Actually he looks less knee-blowout-y now. Hopefully he's ok. Based on the nearly constant transfers out of this program you never know, he could be a starter next year.

6:01 - Oto probably just traveled on a fast break lay-up attempt, which he missed, and then tipped in his own miss. I'm trying to decide if that was pretty or ugly. Since I've had a couple beers let's go with the beer goggles and call it pretty.

5:08 - 44-36 Wisconsin. I wish I could just fast forward. This is the kind of game people make fun of nationally.

4:54 - I honestly have no idea which one is Bruskewitz and which one is Berggren. Also Brust vs. Gasser is a challenge. I can pick out Ryan Evans though, thanks to all that time misspent watching Kid N Play movies in my youth.

3:45 - Either an amazing touch pass by Williams or a fortunate bounce leads to a Sampson dunk. 46-40 Badgers. If this was any other B10 team I'd say they were at least in it.

2:42 - Andre Hollins takes a very aggressive, but not ill-advised, three pointer; Williams grabs the o-board by outjumping everyone, misses the putback, gets back up quicker than anyone else to grab another, gets fouled, and makes both free throws. That is exactly what Gopher fans need to concentrate on for next year. That hole sequence actually looked like a good, confident team. Also, if you're scoring at home, I'm now writing effusive praise for a sequence where the gophers shot 1-3 from the floor. Also they just showed a graphic that the Gophers have 3 assists tonight. Which, I suppose, isn't that bad when you consider I think they have about 8 field goals.

1:21 - Austin Hollins travels for no good reason whatsoever.

0:41 - Announcer guys aren't making much sense with their reasons, but the overall point is sound - the Gophers could really use an actual point guard. I love Andre Hollins, but, well, I don't know. I mean I guess he could be an actual point guard in the scoring point vein, but I think the team would be better if he could just be the scorer. They need a Darren Collison to his Russell Westbrook. Good thing they have both a good point guard on the current roster plus one of a quality pedigree coming in next year. The future is bright!

0:00 - Gophers lose 52-45. Sucks because the Gophers really needed this to land a top NIT seed. And thanks a bunch for not covering Badger asses.

Gophers vs. Badgers Preview

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:57:00 +0000

I have to be honest. I had no idea that Gophers vs. Badgers game was tonight until I logged into sportsbook.com this morning to check on all the lines for the night and saw it was up (Badgers -9.5, FYI). The whole time I spent writing the week in review post last night (below this one) I had no idea they were playing. So this is going to be short.

As it should be. The Badgers are peaking right now, as their win at Ohio State shows, while the Gophers have basically given up on the season. As I wrote, the body language of the players and of the coach against Indiana tells me they've all checked out, and just want the season to be over at this point. Sure, there were a few players who still seemed to have the fire and want to win, but in general the team was just sluggish and unemotional (how much does that sum up four years of Ralph Sampson) and I'm not sure Tubby moved more than a handful of times in the entire game. In order to win at Kohl you need to be fired up, and I don't think that's going to be the case.

At this point the "do or die" fire is an afterthought, because they should have had that same mindset against Indiana and at the end of the Spartan game and it didn't happen, so there's no reason to think it happens here, especially on the road. There's no point in going over individual players or matchups, not to mention you always know what you're getting from Wisconsin. They never look all that talented on paper, but no matter how evil Bo Ryan is he is pure genius when it comes to finding lightly recruited players who will fit his system and getting them to buy-in 100%, and that's what they have again this year. The Badgers are peaking, while the Gophers want to run and hide.

Wisconsin 66, Minnesota 50

Week in Review: 2-27/2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:25:00 +0000

I have no idea what to say or how to say it. We've been down this road again and again and written this same recap again and again. That was just an embarrassing loss, particularly when the season was on the line (as thin as that line may have been) and it was a home game against a team you've already beaten on the road. To get absolutely blown out in a must-win home game sends pretty much the loudest message possible to the committee that you don't belong in the NCAA Tournament. Even winning out the last two and making a run to the conference tournament final probably isn't enough anymore, but we don't really have to worry about it because there is zero chance this team can win at Wisconsin. They've checked out.

I don't think they've checked out on Tubby, but they've certainly checked out on this season. The body language says it all, and Ralph's 1-11 shooting performance on Sunday basically sums it up. This is a defeated team, and Tubby feels it as well. At this point these two games need to just end, then lose in the first round of the b10 tourney, and start planning for next year. It's clear the players just want this season to end, and I can't blame them because it's been miserable these last couple of weeks. But I'm not on the fire Tubby bandwagon, even if I've been critical of his game coaching abilities. I remain critical of those, but he deserves one more year, but it's a make or break year. If there's another season that goes similarly to this one, it's time to move on. The important thing is to build a program, and if he misses another NCAA Tournament, well, there's no building going on. One more year, Tubby. Show us why we were all excited when the hiring was initially announced. This is just sad.

I mean, look at Notre Dame this year. Both the Gophers and Notre Dame received exactly one 25th place vote in a poll to start the season (Gophers in the AP, Notre Dame in the coaches). Both teams lost their best player for the year, a senior power forward, early in the season (like Mbakwe for the Gophers, Tim Abromaitis led the team in both scoring and rebounding when he went down). Neither team had any kind of real impact freshman coming in, so post-injury both schools looked to be in trouble. But, where the Gophers have struggled and floundered and canceled out any flashes of brilliance with some terrible outings, Notre Dame has played together, executed well consistently, and completely bought in to Mike Brey's system and is 20-10 overall, 12-5 in the Big East, and a lock for the tournament. Look at these two teams. It's hard to say Notre Dame is significantly more talented, if at all, than the Gophers, and yet look at the results. Unsettling, at best.

We move on....

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Iowa State Cyclones. Well, for those of you out there who were complete idiots and were saying Fred Hoiberg was some kind of moron for collected talented yet troubled transfers (and you know who you are) how about you pour some Bacardi 151 in your butthole and chase it with a match? Because Iowa State just won at Kansas State - the same K-State who just beat both Baylor and Missouri on the road - to move to 11-5 in Big 12 play and 21-8 overall. They're now tied for 4th with Baylor in the Conference and have now 100% locked up an NCAA bid. While the Gophers need a miracle. I'm moving to Ames. Plus they got craps there.

2. Purdue Boilermakers. While every other Big 10 team who was chasing a bid goes down faster than your mom on prom night, Purdue is taking a stand and doing what needs to be done like full grown men. I'm just kidding about that sentence by the way, it's intentionally douchey (except for the mom joke, that's all me). Anyway, while everyone else is pooping on their heads, Purdue went into Ann Arbor and beat Michigan, a team that was undefeated at home this year, was ranked #11 in the polls, #10 in the RPI, and #21 in kenpom's ratings. That, my friends, is the definition of a signature win and puts Purdue firmly into tournament lock status. And you know how they won? Because Terone Johnson shot 9-12 for 22 points and carried the offense. You know the last time an unsung-y Gopher like Johnson stepped up to carry the team to a victory? Caddyshack. Cue rimshot.

3. Kansas Jayhawks. I kind of feel like I've been underrating the Jayhawks all year, mainly because they're a two-man show and also because I hate them and have hated them since that little wiener Jeff Boschee was running around being wienery. But they're about to win the Big 12 for the 9th straight year* after beating Missouri, and that win was a freaking ballsy ass win because they were down 19 and came back against an incredibly good team. And Thomas Robinson? Holy hell is this guy good. He's nearly flawless in the low post, and because Missouri only has one low-post kind of defender in Ricardo Ratliffe (who, by the way, is completely awesome in his own way) they chose to single cover Robinson all game and he put on a clinic. Now, this is hyperbole of the biggest fashion so don't jump down my throat, but watching him I actually was reminded of Hakeem Olajuwon. I know, I know, but I was. I can't help it. Guy's legit.

4. Miami Hurricanes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm always impressed with teams on the Bubble who go out and get that big home win that they need (mainly because I don't know if I've ever seen it from my favorite team), and Miami did just that this weekend, taking down the #16 Seminoles 78-62 to jump up and likely grab themselves and NCAA bid. Most impressive is that they did it without starting center and double-double guy Reggie Johnson, who was ruled ineligible by the NCAA due to some minor infractions that will hopefully be resolved quickly. Not to mention that even without him they managed to put up 78 points on the usually defensively studly Seminoles, the first time a team has scored that much on them since January 7th. Pretty sure Miami sucks and won't win a game in the tourney, but at least they're most likely going to make it.

5. South Florida Bulls. Speaking of college teams from the state of Florida who picked up huge wins with bubble ramifications over the weekend, USF knocked off fellow bubble team Cincinnati on Sunday and can pretty officially no longer be ignored. The game wasn't pretty with the Bulls winning 46-45, both teams having just one player score in double figures, and the two teams combined to shoot 6-30 from 3-point land, but USF did what they needed to do and got a big victory. South Florida is now 11-5 in the Big East, has bumped their RPI up to 45 (right behind K-State), and now has a 4-1 record against teams between 40-100 in the RPI. Of course, they are also 0-7 vs. the RPI top 40 and have three losses against sub-100 teams, but closing out the season at 11-4 is pretty solid. You'd have to think if they can finish out 1-1 (@Louisville, vs. WVU) and then win their Big East Tourny opener they'd be in - a far cry from the team that started the year 7-7 and lost to Penn State (among other craptastic squads).

WHO SUCKED

1. Seton Hall Pirates. Are you shitting me Seton Hall? So they beat Georgetown for one of the most meaningful bubble wins this year and it's all like oh hell yes sweet what a great win awesome to see a team actually step up when they have to. And how do they follow it up? By losing at home to freaking Rutgers. Rutgers of the four conference wins and #149 RPI. Seriously, I mean if this doesn't completely wipe out all the good they did by beating the Hoyas it's damn close. I swear to god this is exactly what I expect from the Gophers or Northwestern, not a real team from the Big East. Shaheen Holloway is probably rolling over in his sports grave.

2. West Virginia Mountaineers. Even though there are plenty of teams doing everything they can to avoid getting invited to the NCAA Tournament, I don't know if anybody is doing a better job of tanking than West Virginia. On January 21 they were 15-5 and 5-2 in the Big East after beating Cincinnati. Since then they've gone 2-7 (with one of the wins taking overtime to beat Providence). This week may have been the worst, first going to Notre Dame and getting beat by 30, then taking on a Marquette squad that suspended three starters for the first half, building an 11-point half-time lead, and then blowing it and losing by one. A team that looked like an easy lock for the NCAA Tournament a month ago is now completely floundering, and with just games vs. DePaul and @ South Florida left a 2-0 finish is now an absolute must, and they might need a win or two in the Big East Tournament to get in. Seriously, if Huggins is going to find a way to cheat he might as well get started pretty quick.

3. Florida Gators. Jeez this seems like a very Florida-y week in review, which I guess is kind of appropriate since I'm going to Florida for a family vacation starting next Tuesday and that's kind of on my mind, but it's been a very Florda-centric week for being awesome and sucking so here we are. Anyway, the Gators continue to show how vulnerable they are because of their reliance on the perimeter jumper, and Georgia took advantage taking them down 76-62 with the Gators shooting just 5-23 from three. 39% of Florida's points come from three-pointers, the 3rd most in the country, and 44.6% of their shot attempts come from behind the arc (6th in the nation). Even though they do shoot them well (39.4%, 16th in the country) relying on something that can disappear in any given game, combined with a pretty bad defense (94th in Defensive efficiency) is a recipe for any early March exit.

4. Ohio State Buckeyes. Obviously there are varying degrees of sucking because I would kill your mother if it meant the Gophers would even approach Ohio State's success, but for a team that was/is supposed to be a national title contender there are some major concerns right now, with Ohio State 2-3 in their last five games including two home losses (to Michigan State and Wisconsin, but still). The Buckeyes were supposed to cruise to a Big 10 title and even with Michigan State having a tremendous year they should still be the class of the conference, but all of a sudden they're showing a whole bunch of chinks in their armor (wait, are we allowed to say that?) Buford has just been plain off most of the year, Craft hasn't turned into anything on the offensive end, and suddenly Sullinger is disappearing in games (17 total points in the last two, plus 1-7 from the free throw line when he's a 74% shooter this season). Still plenty of talent here and they're probably still one of the 10 best teams in the country, but suddenly an early round loss in the tournament doesn't seem like the impossibility it once did.

5. Cal Golden Bears. I don't know why I obsess about the Pac-10's mediocrity so much, but it's just mind boggling that a conference with schools like UCLA, USC, Washington, Cal, etc. can be so bad at basketball for so long. Every year there's a point where it looks like the Pac-12 might only get one bid, and although I don't think it's actually happened yet it's amazing how close it gets every year. And once again this season just when it looks like both Cal and Washington are safe, Cal goes out and gets destroyed by Colorado 70-57. Both Washington and Cal will probably still get in and everything, but jeez man, it's just amazing how much they suck. Also, in a semi-related note, with all the conference realignment going on I think what makes the most sense is for the Gophers to move into the Pac-12. It's common sense, really.

With conference tournaments starting up this week I need to get to work on the small conference tournament previews, so you'll have to do without your pithy outro this week. You know, the outro nobody reads because they've usually bailed on my post halfway through or so because it's too long and/or boring? Yeah, that.

* = I made this up because I was too ~~drunk~~ tired to actually look it up

Bubble Watch 2-23-2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 04:09:00 +0000

You know what's weird? I'm incredibly relaxed now. I suppose I should thank Tubby for refusing to call a play for the final five minutes of the game and for the players to commit 5 turnovers without hitting the rim with a shot once down the stretch. Really though, coming down to the end didn't it seem like Michigan State's gameplan was "keep attacking the rim" while the Gophers game plan was "let's use the entire shot clock and hope we get enough stops so time runs out before the Spartans catch up to us"? But I've moved on. I feel good today. No Gopher tournament stress bugging me. Even the pinched nerve in my back feels better. Nice.

The sports world does move on, however, and these ads aren't going to click themselves to make me some bank, so I have to write about something. Luckily there are two awesome things right around the corner - The NCAA Tournament and the start of baseball season. I thought I would write about baseball, tearing apart Twins' strategies like this one (why why why why would you hamstring your bench by carrying a third catcher because you're worried about a situation that almost never happens and really isn't that big of a deal when it does happen? So Twinsthink here it's almost criminal) or discussing MLB Season Win Totals (Reds over 86.5 and Padres under 73.5 are locks), but it turns out my brain is only slowly moving over into baseball, so first we have to deal with the NCAA Tournament, and that means another Bubble Watch.

Yes, I realize this is far less meaningless now for any Gopher fan, but that also means it's that much more enjoyable to write/read because you don't have to stress out about it. Failure is relaxing.

Locks from my last bubble watch who stayed locks (rationale for some of the more questionable ones here is at that link) (34):

ACC (4): Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, Virginia
Big East (6): Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Louisville, UCONN, Notre Dame
Big 10 (5): Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, Wisconsin
Big 12 (4): Missouri, Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor
Pac 12 (1): Cal - although they close with three road games and a loss in any makes them shakier
SEC (3): Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt
Mountain West (3): UNLV, SDSU, New Mexico
Atlantic 10 (2): Temple, St. Louis
Others (6): St. Mary's, Wichita State, Creighton, Gonzaga, Murray State, Long Beach (both Memphis and Southern Miss are back on the bubble

Teams that have moved to lock status in the last week(4):

Big East (1): Seton Hall. Yes, that win over Georgetown was that big, much like a Gopher win over Michigan State would have been. An RPI of 30 and a SOS of 26 to go with an 8-8 record against the Top 100 is a solid resume. Plus, assuming they don't lose both of their last two (vs. Rutgers, @DePaul) the Pirates are a 20-win team.

Big 12 (1): Kansas State. Funny how I called K-State a terrible team in my last bubble watch and since then they've won at Baylor and at Missouri. That's two road wins against RPI Top 15 teams in the last week, which also gives them "how you finish the season cred" and you know those two victories are going to stick in the minds of the committee.

SEC (1): Alabama. More than the win over Tennessee, the announcement that JaMychal Green was being reinstated is what bumps Alabama back up to a lock (even better, they knocked off Arkansas on the road tonight without him). Without Green they were certainly capable of going on a 4-game slide to end the year and miss the tournament, but with him back I don't see it, especially with Auburn and Ole Miss still left on the slate.

Others (1): Harvard. It's time. The Crimson are now a game and a half ahead of Penn with an RPI in the mid-30s, a 6-2 record against the RPI Top 100 (thanks to a sweep of Yale who now ranks #100), and only one bad loss (to Fordham). Barring a monster collapse, I don't see them getting stiffed.

That gives us 38 "locks" according to me. With 37 at-large bids, assuming one of the lock teams wins the autobid for the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Mountain West, Big 10, SEC, Atlantic-10, Pac-12, Ivy, WCC, Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley, and Big West that means there are still 12 bids up for grabs. The contenders:

Strong Case:

Purdue - The Boilers are awfully, awfully close to wrapping up a bid, but I can't quite bring myself to put them all the way in yet but I'm not even sure why. They're basically in, but something's holding me back (mainly because I don't want to go back and delete/edit what I already wrote). Seriously, even if they lost at both Michigan and Indiana they're going to beat Penn State at home which gives them 9 conference wins and 19 overall wins. Hard to see any way they don't make it in.

Washington - The Huskies are lacking in top end wins (just 3 top 100, zero top 50) like every other Pac-10 team, but they've taken care of business in league play at 12-3, and although they don't have a shot at picking up a big win in their final 3 regular season games, all three are on the road (Wash State, USC, UCLA) and winning two of those three gets them not only to 14 league wins and 21 total wins, but a 6-5 road record. Take all that together, and Washington should be in solid shape.

Colorado State - The Rams are weird because their computer numbers are through the roof (RPI 25, SoS 5) because looking at the resume you wouldn't think they're that great, but they've dominated teams from RPI 70-100 (5-2 record), and after beating New Mexico this week that gives them two top 30 wins. They have two more chances for monster wins, @SDSU and vs. UNLV, and winning either basically locks them in. I'm as surprised as you are.

West Virginia - A 17-11 record when your SoS is #7 is outstanding, but they're fading with a 2-6 record in their last 8, even if none of those losses is particularly egregious (except maybe the loss at St. John's). Everything is still pretty copacetic here, particularly if they can manage a home win vs. Marquette Friday night, but even if they lose that win and manage to win their last two (DePaul, @South Florida) they're probably sitting pretty.

Memphis - Last week's loss to UTEP was enough to knock them off of lock status, but they bounced back with a destruction of ECU. Memphis's next two are @Marshall (RPI 51) and home vs. UCF (#60) and if they win both of those you can go ahead and mail them a bid. Even if they only win one and at least reach the C-USA Championship game they're probably ok, but they should probably consider winning both for kicks.

In the Middle:

Miami - The Canes didn't do themselves any favors by losing at Maryland this week, but they still control their own fate with a home game vs. Florida State this weekend. Beating the Seminoles would give them a second RPI Top 20 win to go with the big upset at Duke, and it's exactly the kind of game a bubble team needs to take care off to get themselves where they want to be (like Seton Hall). In Miami's case I don't think beating FSU would lock it up, but it'd be a big jump up.

Cincinnati - Shit I just realized I didn't type anything here because I was waiting for the results of their game against Louisville. With a really high RPI that doesn't put them in, and it might not even put them in the "Strong Case" category. That SoS is just terrible at 147 (and 325 in non-conference SoS) and the loss to Presbyterian (RPI 260) is a nightmare. The committee seems to hate teams who schedule like shit out of conference, so that's another hurdle for Nick Van Exel U. Better win out, including a home game against Marquette, to feel anywhere near safe.

South Florida - ESPN calls the Bulls one of the most interesting at-large cases ever, and it's hard to disagree. The RPI (49) and Sos (36) aren't great but aren't bad either, and the 10-5 league record is outstanding. USF, however, has only one good win (over Seton Hall RPI 30) and four losses to sub-100 RPIers, but none since December 14th. In fact, the worst team the Bulls have lost to since then is Notre Dame (RPI 33). With games remaining against Cincy, @Louisville, and West Virginia they have three shots to add Top 100 wins. I'm kind of excited to see how this works out.

Mississippi State - Up until Feb. 11 the Rebels were cruising: 19-5 record, 6-3 in conference, no losses outside the RPI Top 100, and a 7-5 record against the top 100. Good shape. Then a three game losing streak with losses to Georgia, LSU, and Auburn led to nearly a must win against Kentucky, where Mississippi State looked every bit an NCAA Tournament team but couldn't get the win. Now they badly need to win at Alabama this weekend and then close it out by beating South Carolina and Arkansas to take the pressure of having to make a run in the SEC tournament off.

Southern Miss - The Golden Eagles were basically a lock a week ago, but back-to-back losses to Houston (RPI 215) and UTEP (RPI 129) have made things much more questionable. Normally I'd put Southern Miss a level down from here based on a typically weak C-USA, but even after those losses somehow their RPI sits at #17 (a sparkling 9-3 record against the top 100 has a lot to do with that). They probably can't afford any more slip-ups until the C-USA Championship game, and the regular season finale at Marshall (RPI 51) looms large.

Middle Tennessee State -You don't hear much about them, but the Blue Raiders (what? lol) are running through the Sun Belt like a red hot scimitar through some tendons. Twenty-three total wins already, 4-3 vs. the Top 100, and a 10-3 road/neutral mark are all definite positive signs. No marquee wins (best win is over #59 Akron) and no real games scheduled against marquee teams (toughest opponent was Vandy with Akron #2) make things rough. MTSU needs to get to the Sun Belt Championship to make this interesting, but any loss prior to that probably does it, which is a shame because this is a good team.

VCU - The CAA is a bit tricky this year, because although VCU (and Drexel, see below) have gaudy records and the CAA is usually a pretty solid conference, the RPIs are a bit lacking (both in the 70s). You can't rule either of them out and both won their Bracket Busters match-ups, but neither has any remaining shot at a top end win either. If VCU (or Drexel) wins out and at makes the conf tournament championship they're definitely in contention, but both squads would do well to just win the whole thing instead.

Drexel - The Dragons are a bit different than VCU because while VCU has been consistently mediocre all year, Drexel started the year shitty and is now the greatest team in history. They started the year 2-4 and have now gone 22-1 including stomping Cleveland State in Bracket Busters. They have three bad losses but two came before December 4th and they're 4-0 vs. the RPI Top 100 since December. VCU And Drexel have nearly identical resumes, so the CAA Tournament looms huge for both.

Iona - Truth be told I'm not nearly enough of a bracketologist to know if Iona has a real shot here, but to me they should. The RPI is just fine at 44, they're 22-6 overall and rolled the conference at 13-3. They don't have any top 50 wins but they're a very nice 6-3 against the RPI Top 100, and they absolutely pass the eye test especially if you saw them roll Nevada in Bracket Busters. The real issue here is two RPI sub-200 losses (Hofstra, Siena) and admittedly that's a big black mark. Still, I'd consider Iona a tournament team who effed up twice rather than an imposter. I hope they make it.

In bad shape:

Minnesota - You know what's going on. The only reason you can't drop them off is because they still have opportunities to grab marquee wins that most bubble teams aren't lucky enough to have. If they can beat Indiana at home and win at Wisconsin (and not blow the finale against Nebraska) that may very well be enough to get them in. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Northwestern - Their loss this week to Michigan was a pretty big back-breaker. Like Minnesota, however, they still have a chance to boost their profile immensely with a home date vs. Ohio State coming up on Feb. 29. Win that and it should send them in, assuming they don't lose at Iowa or Penn State - a dangerous assumption indeed.

Texas - Similar to the teams above, the Longhorns have whiffed on chance after chance after chance to get that big win. They've played 11 games against the RPI Top 50 this year, which is really good, but have only won 3 of them. They also don't have any horrendous losses, which is pretty much what is keeping them alive, but they probably have to win at Kansas in about a week and a half in order to get in.

Oregon - The Pac-12 is horrible this year, which makes it a bad conference to be in when you have a mediocre profile, but Oregon is still hanging around due to having the second best RPI in the conference (52) and a 17-1 record against the RPI Top 100+ (ie only one bad loss). A win over Colorado next week would give them another Top 100 win which would really help.

Arizona - The Wildcats have a similar profile to Oregon, but with more Top 100 wins (5 vs.2). That would probably rank them above Oregon, but the Wildcats are basically done for marquee win chances with just games vs. USC (RPI 241), UCLA (134), and @Arizona State (238) left to go. Arizona's best bet is to not screw up, make it to the Pac-12 championship game, and hope enough other teams screw up. Of course, winning the Pac tourney is the actual best bet, but we're not assuming things here.

Oral Roberts -The Golden Eagles are an interesting case, because their RPI is decent (47), you can't argue with a 16-1 conference mark, and although they only have one bad loss (UTSA), they don't really have anything to balance it out with no Top 25 wins and just a 3-3 record against the Top 50. I don't think they'll get a bid, but after the win over Akron in Bracket Busters they're definitely interesting. If they make the Summit League Final and lose to South Dakota State (RPI 63) they have an outside shot if enough other team's falter down the stretch.

Belmont - I don't really think Belmont has much of a shot here, but the 21-7 record, and #68 RPI mean you can't completely rule it out, although it would take a whole lot of collapsing by others. The Bruins have two Top 51 wins (Middle Tennessee & Marshall) but weren't able to get any real marquee win despite a pretty decent schedule. They most likely better win the A-Sun Tournament, but if they win their last remaining regular season game and then get to the final before losing to say, Mercer (RPI 118) they'd probably get at least a little consideration.

It's Over (9):

NC State - blew a 20-point lead at Duke, got blown away at Florida State, and then couldn't hang with UNC at home. Three chances to get a big win and three whiffs.

Illinois - The blowout by Nebraska is enough to end their hopes, but with the tailspin they're in their could easily be three more losses tossed on pre-Big 10 tournament.

Xavier - If the Musketeers can manage to win at St. Louis next week and enough other team's falter they may be able to crawl back into consideration, but as it looks now their loss to UMass spells their doom.

St. Joe's - Similar computer numbers to Xavier, but St. Joe's now has four bad losses after dropping a home game to Richmond this week. Not even a win over Temple on Saturday can get them in now.

George Mason - The CAA teams, as noted above, are in perilous enough position, but GMU's loss to Northeastern on Wednesday is one bad loss too many and pushes their RPI to 91. No chance.

Weber State - I have no idea why I had them in the bubble watch initially, what with the RPI of 74 and SoS of 294 and zero wins over RPI top 90 teams. Probably because my wife and a some of her relatives attended the school. Despite that kind of pull, they have no at-large shot at all.

Davidson - The game against Wichita was their last gasp and they not only came up short but they didn't even come close. Kind of a shame because their win at Kansas is one of the best wins of anybody all season, but it's pretty much the only positive thing on this resume. Also not a shame because Davidson annoys the piss out of me.

Nevada - Pretty similar to Davidson but without the Kansas win. They may have had a little life if they could have squeaked out a win over Iona in Bracket Busters but alas, it was not to be. A weak WAC did them no favors this season.

Akron - The Zips have a great MAC record at 12-1 and no bad losses to speak of, but they also lack quality wins and needed to beat Oral Roberts in Bracket Busters to remain in consideration. They didn't.

So that's where things sit. As far as the Gophers go, they need to win out in the regular season. It's that simple. And I'm super confident that will happen. Can't wait. Awesome. Joy.

Preview: Gophers vs. Sparty

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Last night, a floundering team who had NCAA at-large aspirations at one point had a gigantic home game against an opponent ranked in the top 10, the type of game that can take a so-so tournament resume, or even a weakish one, and suddenly vault the team towards the top of the bubble. That team would be Seton Hall, who came out on fire and smoked Georgetown by 18, shooting a blistering 61% against a very good defensive Hoya team and showing that this is a team that gets it, and wants in.

Elsewhere, Colorado State, who was barely clinging to the bubble and whose only chance of getting in was grabbing some marquee wins as the season winds down, jumped up at home and took down one of the hottest teams in the entire NCAA by beating New Mexico behind inspired play by a back-up forced into heavy action due to injury, who responded with a double-double. Virginia won at rival Virginia Tech to lock-up their bid. Kansas State put up one of the best wins of any team this year by winning at Missouri to put them in great shape. So it is possible for a team to respond positively in these situations, despite what us Gopher fans have seen year-after-year.

Of course, there are also teams who go the other way. Northwestern lost what was pretty much a must-win home game (blowing the advantage gained after beating Minnesota, which I predicted on my twitter account), NC State couldn't handle UNC in a game they had to have, Xavier lost at UMass to end their at-large hopes, and Mississippi State came up just short of upsetting Kentucky in a game that would have put them into position for a bid. So it can go either way. So what about the Gophers against Michigan State tonight?

Sadly, I have a feeling they're going the wrong way. Michigan State is an elite team both offensively and defensively. They've won five straight, 7 of the last 8, and recently beat both Ohio State and Purdue on the road. Draymond Green is an elite big 10 star, despite some argument in the comments section of one of my posts a few days ago, and when you watch him you'll see a guy who completely controls the game. He's basically their point forward to start the offense, but gets involved in the paint once the ball starts moving. He's had 8+ boards in 13 straight games and notched a double-double in four of the last five. Unlike a lot of players who become the main guy for their team, he's actually having a better shooting year than last year, including career highs in 3-point and free throw percentage. He's a stud, and he's got plenty of help.

Keith Appling has settled into his combo guard role, scoring in double figures in 12 of the last 15 games (although it's worth noting he's 3-29 from 3-point land in the last 10 games). Freshman Branden Dawson has gone from slow-starter to supremely confident inside scorer, hitting 10+ points in 6 of the last 8 and he demolished Purdue. Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix are a terrific center combination, and Payne's defense is a difference maker now that he's figured out what the hell he's doing. And, along with Green, they have three other shooters in Brandon Wood (36% from 3), Travis Trice (41%), and Austin Thornton (42% and also he looks just like Bogart, FYI) who should all have a field day.

Simply put, this team is too big, too disciplined, too strong, and too athletic. They have enough talent to make the Final Four and, like usual with Izzo's teams, they're peaking at the right time and the Gophers are in their way. In order to pull this off, the Gophers will have to play a near flawless game with something approaching the 60% shooting Seton Hall threw up last night, and looking at this roster I just don't see how this can possibly happen here.

Michigan State 74, Minnesota 57.

Week in Review: 2-20-2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:12:00 +0000

Jesus what a completely pathetic defensive effort. You name it, the Gophers did or didn't do it. They didn't close out on shooters. They got confused on their defensive scheme which led to not switching when they were supposed to and open lay-ups for Northwestern. The continually went under screens instead of over the top and then made no real strong effort to get in a shooters face. They got lost on back cuts. They allowed offensive rebounds like candy, including on missed free throws which should be grounds for a lawsuit in some way I don't know I'm not a lawyer. A five foot nothin' lesbian ball boy was able to get to the rim at will. Just a completely putrid effort. Combine that with an offense that seemed confused in the second half and completely went away from what worked in the first game and the half (can anyone actually tell me why they completely quit going inside when it's the whole reason they won the first game?). Credit Northwestern with playing better defense and knocking down all those wide open shots, but this was a truly terrible game by the Gophers. Now they need to win 2 of the next three (Michigan State, Indiana, @Wisconsin). LOL. Can't wait for baseball!

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Murray State Racers. I've gone on record here as saying I'm not remotely a believer in Murray State, but after they waxed St. Mary's with ease in their Bracket Busters game on Saturday I've definitely seen a bit of a tick in the "I believe" direction on my "Do I believe in Murray State"-inator which I always wear on my wrist. They just completely dominated the game from beginning to end, and St. Mary's is a very good team. They did turn it over 15 times, but overcame that by shooting the lights out and winning by 14. I can't quite throw my support behind them yet as being for real and I'd love to see them play one more good team to get a real sense of how good they are, but sadly they won't play another good team until the tournament. The tournament which, by the way, they are an absolute lock for now no matter what else happens.

2. Other Bracket Buster winners. Besides Murray State some other teams picked up very big wins this weekend. Wichita State moves into lock territory after knocking off Davidson, while VCU (beat Northern Iowa), Drexel (crushed Cleveland State on the road), George Mason (over Lamar), Weber State (over UT-Arlington) and Iona (beat Nevada) all jump up from "probably not" to "we better take a look" status thanks to their wins. Their were some huge wins outside of Bracket Busters as well, and probably none bigger than Kansas State's win over Baylor which is absolutely a monster for their profile. Middle Tennessee State continued to roll through the the Sun Belt (they can afford zero losses prior to the Sun Belt Championship game), while South Florida has now moved to 10-4 in the Big East after an easy win at Pitt. The overall profile is still a bit lacking but you can't ignore them anymore. And finally, although they're not in consideration for an at-large, Loyola Marymount had a huge week, beating St. Mary's and then winning their Bracket Buster match-up against Valpo and that now gives them three wins over RPI Top 50 teams. Which is pretty much their entire resume, so yeah. Oh, and Harvard beat Yale, so that was good too.

3. Oakland A's. When I first saw the news that the A's had signed Yoenis Cespedes, the cuban defecting outfielder and supposed superstar, I was just stunned and was wondering what the hell Billy Beane was doing. I mean, a team that basically just gutted it's entire roster outbidding everyone else to get a Cuban dude who has never faced major league quality pitching? Bizarre. But when I really stopped to think, it actually makes a lot of sense and is a worthwhile gamble. They got him for 4 years/$36 million which is far less than it was originally thought he'd sign for ($50 mill+), and because of their situation they don't need him to come in a play right away and he can take some time in the minors to assimilate himself. The A's suck now, but are primed to be a contender in a couple of years thanks to a farm system Keith Law ranked as the 9th best in baseball (and that was before this signing) with five guys in Law's Top 100 including three pitchers who project as top of the rotation type guys. Add some hitters, like Cespedes, and Oakland becomes a contender. And seriously, would you rather have Cespedes and his potential at $9 million per year, or Cuddyer at $10+? Cespedes is basically a bargain - a gamble, but a bargain.

4. New Mexico. I'm not entirely certain if a team has EVER had as good a week as the Lobos just did. There are two teams considered as "elite" in the MWC - San Diego State and UNLV. New Mexico, due to a couple of shitty early season losses (to New Mex State and Santa Clara) and losses to both those teams, was considered a step below. Well no more, because this week alone the Lobos beat SDSU at their place by 10 and then stomped UNLV at home by 20 to lock up a bid to the NCAA Tournament and assure the Mountain West will be sending three teams (at least) once again. They're awfully good, and have a great point guard who can control the game in Kendall Williams, plus a star in Drew Gordon (finally) who put up 27 & 20 against the Rebels. Hopefully they don't run the table and then win the MWC Tournament, because I want them to have a lower seed for sleeper potential.

5. Tyus Jones. Jones scored 45 points in a game against some team earlier this week to go along with 7 assists, 7 steals, and 7 rebounds. He also received a scholarship offer from Duke. That now means the Gophers are competing against not only Ohio State and Michigan State but now the freakin' Blue Devils, and Jones has zero interest in staying home and the Gophers' continual mediocrity isn't going to win him over any time soon. If you still believe Jones may end up a Gopher, just remember Naadir Tharpe who looked like he was all set to join the Gophers before Kansas suddenly swooped in out of nowhere with an offer which Tharpe accepted within the week. The Gophers, at present, simply cannot compete for that type of player, and when that player is from here and they still can't get him it just reinforces how big of a wasteland the program is right now. Man do I miss Clem. Sure he cheated, but at least he made the team relevant. I'd kill for relevancy. I'm going to light matches and see how long I can hold my finger in the flame, just so I can feel something.

WHO SUCKED

1. Ralph Sampson. I truly believe this is the last time I'll ever write about Sampson because I think we're pretty much done here. Whether it's his fault or Tubby's (well, probably both) nothing has changed since Day 1 and I think even his most ardent supporters, yours truly, have realized that he's going to go down with Rick Rickert as the biggest disappointment in team history. His numbers are virtually unchanged from his freshman year. He wasn't progressing as much as anybody had hoped, but there was a bit of a progression so you could still hold out hope he would have a monster senior year, and when Mbakwe went down the door was wide open. Rather than going through, however, Ralph timidly shut it and, with a shrug of the shoulders, said "No thank you."

He's never shown any drive or any aggressiveness, and never improved in any way (in fact he's regressed in every possible way other than shooting percentage). He never refined his hook shot, nor added a second move in four years. Seriously he never added another move. And, for all his outside shot promise, he never delivered on that either. I suspect Ralph had the talent, but spent his off seasons not in the gym, but playing nintendo or dominoes or dungeons and dragons or whatever kids do these days. His downside should have been Sam Perkins, but he never even got there. This pretty much sums it up. I'm just pissed I didn't think of it first.

2. Illinois Fighting Illini. As disappointing as the Tubby era has been, at least he's not Bruce Weber. After a pretty rough home loss to Purdue on Wednesday that made four straight defeats and a record of 1-7 in their last 8, Weber gave interviews where he sounded alternately confused (bad look for a coach) and defeated (even worse) and his boss gave an interview where he pretty much went out of his way to say Weber was still his guy. So, naturally, rather than rallying around their coach and coming out all fired up against Nebraska the Illini did what you'd expect them to do and rolled over like a bunch of two-bit hookers. I mean they lost to Nebraska by 23 and it wasn't even that close. The Huskers had walk-ons in with like 3 minutes left in the game. Brandon Paul shot 1-7 and scored 2 points. Terrible game, and it's basically guaranteed that Weber is gone after this year. Illinois has a continual pipeline of talent in Chicago so they'll always be dangerous, so as a Gopher fan I'm very sorry to see Weber go, because with him at the helm you always knew you never had to worry about the Illini.

3. Conference USA. When I did my bubble watch I counted both Southern Miss and Memphis as IN along with a group of other teams with the caveat that none of those teams could handle more than 1 more loss. Well, C-USA, poised to possibly get more than one team in the dance for the first time since 1998*, just kicked itself square in the balls because both Southern Miss and Memphis - the only two teams in the conference with at-large chances - both lost to bad teams this weekend. So Miss lost to Houston and their RPI of 220, while Memphis got dropped by UTEP (RPI 149). If both teams manage to get to the C-USA championship game without another loss I'd expect both to still get in. But if either picks up another loss things are going to be very dicey. I was feel bad for C-USA. It was formed to compete with the big boys and was competitive for a bit, but then was completely raided, is now losing Memphis, and will dissolve and form with the leftovers from the Mountain West and is going to be just completely brutal. Don't forget, Cincinnati, Marquette, and Louisville all used to be C-USA schools, and now the jewel will be what, Marshall? UTEP? Gross. This is like being the black sheep of your family and then quitting your shitty job to join a cult. And not one of the good ones either, more like one that forbids group sex (which I assume is the only reason anyone joins a cult).

4. Mississippi State Tigers. Remember like, not all that long ago when Mississippi State was 6-3 in SEC play and had a non-conference win over West Virginia (RPI 37) and no bad (RPI sub-100) losses and everything was hunky dorey? Well a three game losing streak has included losses to Auburn (RPI 123) and Georgia (RPI 107) and they're now 6-3 and in a wee spot of trouble. They have four games left before the SEC Tournament and one is home against Kentucky and another is on the road at Alabama (which is a very tough game if their dudes are reinstated). And it's sad because any team with Dee Bost, Arnett Moultrie, Rodney Hood, and Renardo Sidney should coast to a bid - I mean there's a reason this team was ranked 15th at one point this year. Although Sidney is still way fat and his game has taken a pretty significant step backwards this year, so that doesn't help. Of course, beating Kentucky this week will solve all ills.

5. NC State Wolfpack. This week was a monster of the Wolfpack who were right on the cusp of the bubble and just needed a marquee win or two to push them towards the top, and the opportunities were there with a game at Duke and then a home contest against Florida State. Everything was looking good as NC State raced out to a 16-point lead at the half and were up 19 with 11 minutes left to play, but then they remembered they aren't supposed to win at Cameron and the refs also must have gotten a little jolt in their brain implanted microchips because Duke ended up winning thanks in part to 16 free throw attempts in the final 10 minutes compared to just seven for NC State and three NC Staters fouled out. So that sucked, but even worse they let that hangover drift into Saturday's game against FSU and got their doors blown off. They still have UNC at home this week, but that's their last chance to get a real good win prior to the ACC Tournament. They're looking like they're a year away, and I say that because their recruiting class next year contains Rivals recruits #6, #23, and #55 and ranks as the fourth best in the country for 2012. And yet Tubby's class for that year contains two 3-star guys. It's like impossible to follow college basketball as closely as I do and not get depressed at least three times about the Gophers.

Two additional quick points and then I'll shut-up:

1. The Gophers weren't the only team who took their NCAA bid hopes and pissed all over them this week. Other than Illinois, Miss State, NC State, and the C-USA teams mentioned above, you also had Davidson (loss to Wichita) who is now done along with Akron (loss to Oral Roberts), and Nevada (loss to Iona). Long Beach is still in pretty solid shape as long as there aren't any major slip-ups, but if they had won at Creighton (lost at the buzzer) they would have punched their ticket. And a few major conference teams, although not killing their chances, hurt them badly including Texas (got smoked by a shitty Oklahoma Stat team) and Arizona (lost to Washington). That win for Washington moves them to12-3 in the Pac-10, but the conference is so incredibly shitty that doesn't guarantee them a bid, not even a little. I read somewhere that the Pac-10 overall was something like 2-25 against the RPI Top 50 outside of conference. That's ridiculous. So bad it's like Tubby Smith's record against them since coming to the Gophers. lol.

2. I really like the A.J. Burnett trade for both sides. The Pirates add a veteran arm who undeniably has some talent to a rotation where almost nobody can name a single starter while not giving up any prospects of particular note while the Yankees pay for most of the contract. The Yankees get rid of a guy who clearly struggled with both the AL East and the NY spotlight and saved enough in the process to turn around and sign Raul Ibanez - a RH DH they desperately needed. And Burnett gets out of New York into a non-pressure and no lose situation, not to mention he gets out to the AL (and specifically the AL East) which can only help. win-win-win.

* = I completely made this up because I didn't feel like actually looking it up

A Look at the Bubble

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:18:00 +0000

With the Gophers somehow still tenuously clinging to a bid (or being right on the cusp) according to most projections, I thought it might make sense to look at the bubble with a more critical eye. ESPN does a very good Bubble Watch each Tuesday, and you can probably find one at any reasonably sized, sports-related website, but I'm going to take a harder, more project-y look than the cautious look most other sites take. To put it another way, rather than avoiding projecting where teams will end up at the end of the season, I'm going to go right ahead and project my ass off. So here we go. Joy.

ACC:
IN (4): Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, Virginia - FSU's loss to BC and Virginia's loss to Clemson hurt, but both teams should be ok in the end
BUBBLE TEAMS (2): NC State, Miami - Neither team is in very good shape right now, because between the two of them Miami's win over Duke is the only good win either team has. Plenty of chances coming up to grab a bid though.

BIG EAST:
IN (6): Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Louisville, UCONN, Notre Dame - Although both UCONN (late swoon) and Notre Dame (slow start) have some issues that make them less than true locks, both have enough on the board (UCONN computer numbers and a win over FSU; Notre Dame great play in the Big East including four wins over ranked teams) that it would be pretty stunning to see either miss out. The Irish are probably safer, but UCONN has five games left including Pitt, Nova, and @Providence. Even if they lose their other two (vs. Marquette and Syracuse) as long as they win those they get to .500 in the Big East which would be enough combined with the rest of the profile.
BUBBLE TEAMS (4): Seton Hall, West Virginia, Cincinnati, South Florida - The Hall and West Virginia are spiraling down, Cincy has to overcome a brutally bad non-conference schedule that included losses to Presbyterian and Marshall, and South Florida isn't even considered a bubble team by the ESPN guys (although with an RPI of 57 and a 9-4 Big East record, even with a thin resume other than that I have to include them). There's a very good chance none of these Bubble teams get in, although if SHU can go 3-1 to close out (@Cincy, G-Town, Rutgers, @DePaul) they're probably good.

BIG 10:
IN (5): Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana - although Wisconsin still sucks
BUBBLE TEAMS (4): Minnesota, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern - these four teams are bunched so tightly it's hard to even pick an order, although after beating Illinois on the road to get to 7-6 in the conference you'd probably have to put Purdue on top (and Illinois on the bottom). With so many locks, rpi-hogs, and ranked teams in the conference it's going to come down to who can grab those chances to knock off a top team and get a quality win. The only game left between two of these four bubble squads is Saturday with the Gophers going to Northwestern (huge game) so reaching up and taking down a giant when the opportunity presents itself is how these teams will have to make their mark. (mmmmm.....maker's mark)

BIG 12:
IN (4): Missouri, Kansas, Baylor, Iowa State - I might be being a bit optimistic with the Cyclones, but two guaranteed wins left (home vs. Tex Tech and Oklahoma) mean ISU will get to 20 wins and at worst a 10-8 conference record with a decent RPI and no truly bad losses. The other bubble teams in the Big 12 are pretty weak, and I can't see only three teams getting in so I'm giving the Clones the nod.
BUBBLE TEAMS (2): Kansas State, Texas - both of these teams are terrible and will lose in the first round if they sneak into the tournament. Other than K State's win over Missouri there's not much here. K-State also beat Alabama, while Texas has wins over Iowa State and Temple and the two teams split with each other. Just not much to work with. Both have two chances for big wins left (Texas: @Kansas, vs. Baylor, K-State: @Baylor, @Missouri) and if either wins one of those and the games they're supposed to win they'll probably be in, but the point remains - these teams stink.

PAC-12:
IN (1): Uh, nobody? I'll put Cal in here because their RPI is significantly better than everyone else in the conference (#38 vs. mid-60s), an easier schedule the rest of the way (only 1 game versus a bubble team and it's at home), and a 5-4 record vs. the RPI top 100. But really, nobody looks good here.
BUBBLE TEAMS (3): Washington, Arizona, Oregon - These teams all have terrible RPIs, very few (if any) good wins, and some bad losses, but you still have to consider them as possible tournament teams because if any of them win out you're looking at things like 15-3 or 14-4 conference record and even in a down Pac-12 (again) that's tough to ignore. Each team only has one tough game left with Washington and Arizona playing each other on Saturday, but there are enough road potholes here that it would be super easy for all three to slip and miss the tournament.

SEC:
IN (3): Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt - it would take a monumental collapse for Vandy not to make it in, and Kentucky and Florida are pretty much deadlocks
BUBBLE TEAMS (2): Alabama, Mississippi State - Bama would have been a lock but suspensions to like, the entire team led to a loss to LSU and a home loss to Florida (a win in that one would have sealed the deal). They're still in ok shape, but with their two best players still suspended indefinitely the bad losses could start piling up. Miss State's back-to-back OT losses (to LSU and Georgia) have them going in the wrong direction, but a win next week at home over Kentucky would cure everything, and they have the talent to do it.

MOUNTAIN WEST:
IN (3): San Diego State, New Mexico, UNLV - Rather than taking a step back from a very successful campaign last year, the MWC might be stronger than ever, at least at the top. All 3 of these teams are solid locks.
BUBBLE TEAMS (1): Colorado State - Although the overall profile doesn't scream tournament team, the computer numbers are weirdly strong #28 RPI, #5 SOS. But the main reason to consider the Rams on the bubble is they have games left against New Mexico (home), SDSU (road), and UNLV (home). If they can somehow manage to go 2-1 in those (and beat #66 Wyoming at home) and combined with those computer numbers they're suddenly a bid stealer. NOTE: This probably won't happen.

ATLANTIC 10:
IN (2): Temple, St. Louis - Temple is solidly in, and although St. Louis isn't quite as certain at this point the Billikens are almost guaranteed to win three of their final 4 (Fordham, @Rhode Island, Xavier, @Duquesne) which would get them to 12-4 in the league and 24-6 overall. With a current RPI of 22, that'll do it.
BUBBLE TEAMS (2): Xavier, St. Joseph's - The Musketeers season tanked hard after the brawl vs. Cincy and although everybody seemed to waiting for them to recover they just never did and pretty much have to win their last five (including @St. Louis). I'm including St. Joe's here because of the decent RPI (#48) and their win over Creighton, but they basically have to beat Temple on Feb 25th (and win everything else) to have a chance.

THE REST:
IN (8): St. Mary's, Wichita State, Creighton, Gonzaga, Murray State, Southern Miss, Memphis, Long Beach State - because of the terrible conferences these teams play in any one of them falls off with more than 1 more loss, but because I'm projecting forward I don't really see that happening to any of these teams (note: odds are it WILL actually happen to one of these teams, I just don't know which one but I have to bet I'd go with one of the C-USA squads). St. Mary's home loss to Loyola-Marymount this week was surprising, but that's three wins for Loy-Mary over RPI top 50 teams, so it's certainly not a bad enough loss to cause any panic.
BUBBLE TEAMS (12): Harvard, Middle Tennessee State, Drexel, VCU, George Mason, Iona, Belmont, Davidson, Weber State, Akron, Oral Roberts, Nevada - Most of these teams have gaudy records, but most also have some seriously major flaws in their profiles so they're really only included here for shits and giggles. Harvard and Middle Tennessee State probably have the best shot with Harvard nearly a lock. The Nevada/Iona bracketbuster game on Saturday is basically an elimination game as is Akron @ Oral Roberts, and the results in that event for Drexel (@Cleveland State), Davidson (vs. Wichita), George Mason (vs. Lamar), and VCU (vs. Northern Iowa) will go a long way towards bumping teams up or bumping them down and out.

So where does that leave things? Well, thanks to expansion, there are 37 at-large bids and I'm calling 36 of them locked up already. However, assuming a team with an at-large resume wins each of the conferences that puts several back in play. Say North Carolina, Syracuse, Ohio State, Missouri, Cal, Kentucky, UNLV, Temple, St. Mary's, Creighton, Murray State, Southern Miss, and Long Beach all win their conference tournament that means there are 14 bids up in the air right now and I currently have 32 teams on the bubble for those 14 bids. But if we go a step further and assume Harvard, Middle Tennessee, Drexel, Iona, Belmont, Davidson, Weber State, Akron, Oral Roberts, and Nevada all win their conference tournaments that puts them out of the running for a bid, so suddenly it's 22 teams for 14 bids.

So your direct competition, Gopher fans, are these 21 teams:

North Carolina State
Miami (FL)
Seton Hall
West Virginia
Cincinnati
South Florida
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Kansas State
Texas
Oregon
Washington
Arizona
Alabama
Mississippi State
Colorado State
Xavier
St. Joseph's
VCU
George Mason

The outlook is actually far more optimistic than I expected when I started doing this exercise, because some of these teams (St. Joe's, Colorado State, the Pac-10 teams, the Colonial teams, South Florida) are in far worse shape than the Gophers, so I can suddenly see why they seemed to still be in or on the cusp in most bubble watches. What this tells me is that despite everything the Gophers are still in control of their own destiny. Beat Northwestern, win one of the three middle games, and close it out with a win over Nebraska and get to 8-10 in this conference this year with a couple huge wins and good computer numbers and that's probably enough this year. Lose to Northwestern and it's a bit tougher, but on the flip side there's also an opportunity here to close out 4-1 and wrap up a bid pre-B10 tournament.

Seriously, just do it for once. Just one time. Take the chance at a bid, capitalize on it, and just run with it and be safe and relaxed on Selection Sunday because I'm going to be in Florida and I don't want to stress out. I just want to fish, watch the Twins a little bit and pretend they might be good, drink, read, and fish. That's it. There's no need to be dicks about this.

Ohio State

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:10:00 +0000

1. I'm not going to recap this right now because I'm kind of drrrruuunnnnnj.

2. I might not recap this later because meh but I promise I will try to remember to do it.

3. I know people have been saying this for years and years, but after tonight I am 100% on the Rodney Williams has a retarded amount of potential train. He was basically unguardable tonight. He needs to be in the gym this summer every day taking 1000 jump shots per day. Adding a jump shot to the rest of his skill set? And what if he added a left hand drive as well? Oh my god. I'm gonna think about that when I give my wife her valentine's day present. :wink:

Mini-Preview: Gophers vs. Buckeyes

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:18:00 +0000

I suppose I should write a preview here. Can't imagine why, so it'll be short.

Ohio State is one of the best teams in college ball, but as long as William Buford keeps playing with his head up his rectum and continues to not bring his jump shot to the games they are vulnerable. The problem is they aren't exactly vulnerable to a team like the Gophers. Even if Buford fell off the bus getting to the arena and broke his face off and couldn't play they'd still be a prohibitive favorite. They are one of the best defensive teams in the country, and for an offensively challenged Gopher squad every point is going to be a struggle. I did read somewhere yesterday that Ohio State's guards and big men struggle with ball screens (I think it was on Grantland.com), but unfortunately the Gophers don't really have the guards to take advantage of that. Something to keep an eye on, because if the Gophers manage to stay in this one it's going to take having at least one guard (Dre Westbrook?) and at least one forward/center (Rodney?) running the pick-and-roll to near perfection.

Offensively there is also a tiny bit of good news. The Gophers biggest weakness, as we all know for years and years, has been giving up too many open 3-pointers and Ohio State is a terrible shooting three-point team, especially with Buford apparently shooting left-handed or something. But that's it for good news. I have no idea how they're going to handle Sullinger with one guy who is too passive and one guy who is too clumsy and slow. I fully expect we'll see a large dose of Andre Ingram tonight because Ralph and/or Elliason will be on the shelf with foul trouble. I do hope Rodney Williams matches straight up with DeShaun Thomas, because I would actually love to see that matchup and see how Rodney fares.

So if the Gophers figure out a way to limit Sullinger, get some offense out of Ralph, Rodney can slow Thomas, and they can use ball screens to get in the lane and get good shots, they can hang. I'm not expecting any of those things to happen. I expect to see Aaron Craft and company be all over the Gopher guards in the half-court, causing a turnover-fest, and I expect them to feed Sullinger the ball where he will either score or find an open teammate for a shot when they double him. Whether or not those shots go down will decide if this is an easy Ohio State win or a complete blow-out.

Ohio State 68, Minnesota 52

Week in Review - 2/13/2011

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:00:00 +0000

There are no word about the Gophers, or at least nothing more than a throwaway line here and there, in the below post. Mainly because they didn't play this weekend. I ripped off about 1,200 words after the loss to the dirty dirtball Sconnies, and I don't really feel the need to do it again when nothing has changed. Plus there was only one comment left after that post where I poured out my heart and thoughts and so you asshole don't deserve any more. You're lucky I post at all.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Kentucky Wildcats. I'm now starting to think that worrying about Kentucky being a young team and/or having a less than elite in-game coach doesn't really matter because good god thee guys are just not fair. What did Kentucky do this week? Well, they demolished their top contender in the conference by 20 (Florida, more on them later) and then went into Vandy, a pretty tough place to play, and beat the Commodore, probably the third best team in the conference. They've got unstoppable inside scorers (Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones), three-point shooters (Doron Lamb, Darius Miller), slashers (Jones, Michael Gilchrist), shot blockers (Davis, Jones), and lock down perimeter defenders (Miller, Gilchrist). Their "weak link" is point guard Marquis Teague, and he'd be the best player on 90% of college teams. Just sick. I have no idea how they're going to lose in March.

2. Austin Rivers. He's still got too much of a tendency to go one man show, and when he has the ball on the break you know he's taking the shot 80% of the time, but holy crap was Rivers awesome against North Carolina. 29 points with 6 three-pointers and everyone was big, including the game winner right in Tyler Zeller's stupid face. Reading what some fans of both teams have written and this might be the "best" win by Duke in this rivalry, coming at Chapel Hill versus one of UNC's most talented squads, at least in recent memory. And they basically did it because Austin Rivers' decided to breakout. I think going pro after this season will be best for everyone involved because Rivers game is an NBA game and he's struggled trying to adjust playing within the constraints of a tight system rather than, "go get 40 Austin", but man, he is the real deal.

3. Wichita State Shockers. I don't usually like to talk about the Missouri Valley on account of it sucks so bad, but Wichita's win over Creighton this weekend was truly a thing of beauty. See, at the beginning of the year Wichita was supposed to be this year's MVC darling, a team with a shot to knock off some good squads, have a successful conference season, and roll to an easy at-large bid with a chance to make some noise. Then they lost to both Alabama and Temple in Puerto Rico and everybody was like, meh, while Creighton raced out to a 21-2 start and has everyone's darling Doug McDermott and was like Lindsay Lohan stealing everything Rachel McAdams had. But then Wichita went to Creighton and completely destroyed the Blue Jays and no Creighton has lost three straight while Wichita can put this win with their win over UNLV and good computer numbers and are probably more likely to make it at-large than Creighton. So suck on that, Lohan.

4. St. Louis Billikens. I'm guessing reading about St. Louis doesn't exactly rank in the top 5 of anybody's favorite things to do list, but it' rare you see a team take care of business like they have and have jumped from the lower-mid bubble to near the top of it. The Billikens won on the road this week at both St. Joe's and LaSalle, two teams in contention for the Atlantic 10 crown, and now sit at 8-3, just a half game behind Temple, and that followed up a week where they beat St. Bonaventure and Dayton, two other teams towards the top of the A-10. Their non-conference strength of schedule is awful (213 in the country) but they do have win over Washington, Oklahoma, Boston College, and Villanova - not exactly the 1927 Yankees but a better lineup than the Gophers' can show. And they're trending up. Fully expect Majerus to finally be back in the big dance.

5. Cal Bears. Ye, the Pac-10 is still horrible and yes, there's a good chance it's a one bid conference, but that's exactly what makes a team actually going out and doing something worthwhile notable because nobody ever does it in this league. The Bears went on their road trip through Southern California and won at both USC and UCLA (their RPIs are 228 and 121, but remember it's the Pac-10 so we're on a different curve here). This now brings them to 10-3 and 20-6 overall, and at least getting near the middle of the bubble. Oh, and in case you're wondering Justin Cobbs had 28 point and 10 assists in those two wins. (Also noteworthy: Oregon also was 2-0 this week. Devoe had 29 points and 7 assists.) It's so funny I'm going to stab myself in the ankle with the bayonet I have sitting next to the couch.

WHO SUCKED

1. Florida Gators. Bit of a rough one for the Gators and those who at one point listed the Gators as a sleeper Final Four team. First, on Tuesday, the had a big chance to make a statement going into Lexington to play the #1 Kentucky Wildcats and walked out 20-point losers, and then on Saturday they took a home gimme win vs. Tennessee and somehow ended up losing by five. Actually I shouldn't say somehow, because it's pretty obvious than when a team is as dependent on the three-pointer the way Florida is (6th in the country in % of points coming from behind the line) when the shots aren't falling they're screwed. The Gators 17-56 from behind the arc in those two games, significantly worse than their season mark of nearly 40%. And a special shout-out to Erving Walker and Bradley Beal, who, along with Kenny Boynton, are basically the entire team and were 1-11 from 3 against Kentucky and 2-11 against Tennessee. That reliance on the three makes them both a threat to make a run in March and an early upset candidate. Guess I'm going to have to guess right.

2. William Buford. Buford actually had a pretty good game earlier in the week against Purdue (29 points on 10-17 shooting) which hurt the narrative a bit but he's been absolutely awful lately other than that game, and saved one of his worst for their big loss against Sparty, shooting 2-12 with 3 turnover (to 1 assist) for a grand total of 4 points. Looking back, outside of that game against Purdue the last time Buford shot 50% or better in a game was the first game of 2012, and he's shot 29-104 in those games, and has had 29 turnover versus 21 assists. Ohio State is really good and are absolutely a title contender, but if Buford doesn't get it figured out there's no way they're getting past the sweet 16.

3. Baylor Bears. I still like these guys a lot, but after they lost to both Kansas (at home) and Missouri (on the road) this week it might be time to take a harder look. Because they've now been swept by both those teams, and considering there are only three really good teams in the Big 12 (with apologies to Iowa State) that means that Baylor hasn't had a good win in quite some time. There's no doubt they're still a very good team with the resume to prove it (wins over Kansas State, Miss State, West Virginia, St. Mary's, BYU, and San Diego State), but there are alarm bells ringing all over the place after those two sweeps. Worth noting that Perry Jones scored 5 points against Kansas on 1-8 shooting and 4 points on 2-12 shooting against Missouri, which means he's only broken double digit scoring once in four game against these two teams. I'm going to go ahead and not do anymore research and just assume he's a choker in big games. Join me, won't you?

4. The Grammys. I'm thrilled they chose to award the Foo Fighters with basically every award they were up for, but I can't forgive them for slighting Wiz Khalifa for best rap performance and song. You're seriously going to give the Grammy to Jay-Z and "Mail it in" Kanye for Otis over the masterpiece Black & Yellow from Wiz and give the other one to some collaboration with like six singer/rappers? Joke. I suppose I should just be happy it was nominated, but it should have won, but the politics of not giving a grammy to such a power collaboration probably made this inevitable. The grammys used to mean something and be about the music but, much like when they stopped eating the groundhog in Punxatawney, we live in a sissified society. Shame. Check it:

5. Murray State and Harvard. I'm going to lump these two schools together because they both have an outside chance at an at-large berth, both stumbled this weekend (Murray lost to Tennessee State or Tech I'm not sure but I'm not looking it up and Harvard lost to Princeton), and both should probably do everything they can to win their league. Harvard still looks pretty good with only one Ivy loss, and now that I look apparently Murray State is a lock to get an at-large according to ESPN so maybe I'm stupid. I'm sorry, but how exactly are they a lock? Even at 21-1 their RPI is 57 (Gophers are 54, FYI), Strength of schedule is 292, and non-conference strength of schedule is 132. They only have four wins over the RPI top 150, and the two best are over Memphis and Southern Miss whose RPIs are top 25 but everyone know they suck. One more conference loss and I say ship 'em to the NIT. Plus maybe then I'll get to see them live at Williams' Arena, score!

Oh, and in case you're wondering if you missed him, no, I didn't write about Jeremy Lin because oh my god will you people shut up.

Wisconsin is Hitler

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:19:00 +0000

Just got back from the game. I'm not even going to attempt to make this an organized post. Just a bunch of thoughts. So away we go for fun times.

1. I hate Wisconsin. I mean I really hate everything about Wisconsin. I hate their stupid team, and their stupid players, and their stupid evil coach, and their stupid fans, and their stupid cheese obsession. The only good things about Wisconsin are Spotted Cow Brewery and that you can play craps there. Honestly if the ground opened up and swallowed the entire state (sans Turtle Lake) in a giant fire of aids the world would be a better place. And the fans, oh my god. Yes, you're allowed to cheer for your team when you're visiting another arena, but you are not allowed to stand up and yell, "Yes Jordan Taylor!" after every made basket and draw attention to yourself in a way that would be obnoxious even if you were rooting for the home team, and especially not if you're going to where some gay tie-dyed t-shirt that apparently says Wisconsin on it like some kind of dirty hippy.

2. The last play. I completely agree that putting the ball in Andre Hollins's hands was the right call. He had been the best player for the Gophers the entire second half and deserved to have that chance. What I don't understand was the time out called in order to have him go 1-on-1 with four guys standing still. Give him a pick, or, when he first makes his move, run a screen away from the ball somewhere, because Hollins going against Taylor is rarely going to work. Taylor is one of the best defenders in the league (although Snacks disagreed with the rebuttal "nuh uh") so they're not going to double to help. The whole success of the isolation drive comes either from the dribbler beating his man and either getting to the rim or drawing the defense and finding and open man. Calling the timeout gave Wisconsin's evil coach a chance to drill into his players brains (literally? maybe) to not leave their men, and even though Sconnie's players are dumb, like all good Nazis they're great at following orders.

Hollins had a great game. He stood up to Jordan Taylor and several times got the better of him, especially on the defensive end. It was a breakout game for a possible future star and he was extremely fun to watch. But at this point in their respective careers he's not going to beat Taylor very often. He's just not, especially with nothing else going on away from the ball and the team being completely dependent on him to create the offense. Plus, why call a timeout to call that play when you could just as easily yell "Andre go 1-on-1 when the shot clock gets down to 8 seconds." Calling the timeout just gave the Dr. Robotnik a chance to remind his drones to stay home (note I haven't watched the last play because I'd rather have Jon Lovitz piss directly into my eyeballs, but if anybody doubled at all it came super late). That "play" was just never going to work.

The best chance they had was when they were stalling and running the clock and Taylor switched onto Rodney Williams. Someone has to recognize that, whether it's Rodney himself, Hollins, or Tubby (especially him) and get Williams's ass into the paint. At worst you end up with a slightly scrambling Wisconsin defense as they figure out who should be where, at best you end up with a mismatch and get Rodney the ball, in a game where he was practically unguardable because Wisconsin is slow and are assholes. But nobody saw it, there was no real play called, Dre did his best in a tough situation, and that was that.

3. It's easy to think about the bad, but there was some good at least, beyond even Hollins and Williams having really good games, and the big call-out for me was the defense. Yes, Wisconsin hit too many three pointers, but after their 3-3 start they went just 6-20 and that included a couple of prayers by Taylor and Gasser that really shouldn't have gone in. They played good, physical defense and against a physical team and got the better of them most of the time, especially Hollins. To use a stupid, annoying phrase that idiotic announcers overuse but fuck it I can't think of anything better right now, they punched the bully in the mouth and the bully well, didn't fall down because Sconnie still won, but they definitely held their own. This point would feel way better if the Gophers had managed to eek out the win.

Which brings me to another positive, which is the comeback - failed yes, but still, they did fight back. Also I just realized I'm talking about a moral victory and I really don't want to do that so let's move on from that part now. Instead I'll just mention that the Barn was rockin' and the crowd did a great job. It was funny because we were talking about Williams Arena before the game and wondering if a young kid who had never been there would be impressed. And after the game we realized the problem with the Barn isn't the Barn, it's that the product has been so stale and mediocre the atmosphere just wanes of it's own volition. Put a good product out there and the place rocks and there's no better place to be in college basketball except like Cameron and Phog Allen and you know, sweet places like that.

4. Speaking of volition, I heard both Spencer and whoever that other idiot is mention that the Gophers should have had momentum going into overtime but I disagree. When they blew their chance at the regulation I sure as shit didn't think, "they got this." It was more like, "that was their shot, now we're hosed."

5. And not to get back to the negative but what do you expect from me, but the Gophers were just awful in OT. The offense degraded into playground ball where whoever has it just puts their head down and heads to the basket consequences be damned, and I'm sorry but the Gophers seem to be missing a guy like Hot Sauce or Half Man Half Amazing or Skip to my Lou. The Gophers did a great job taking the ball to the rack in the flow of the offense all game, but lost their rhythm in OT.

6. Sobieski vodka is the goods. Nostrovia! Also Maverick Ahanmisi has no business being on the court in a Big 10 game. Chances I go to the game Tuesday: 10%.

7. Oh, and forgot to mention that Ralph's OVER/UNDER on sportsbook.com for points + rebounds tonight was 11.5. That is absolutely embarrassing for a senior 7-foot starter on a major college team. AND HE DIDN'T CLEAR THE OVER. If he had accepted my facebook friend request I'd totally defriend him right now.

Preview: Gophers vs. Badgers

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:39:00 +0000

So we watched Shark Night last night. I was going to live blog it but that fell through and it's probably good that it did because after a promising beginning the thing just went completely off the rails (as I suppose most of these movies do) and it wouldn't have been worth reading. Some of your high (and low) lights that I remember in the light of the cold dark day:

- I did not get any 3D glasses from the Redbox machine so I could not watch this in crisp cool 3D. False advertising.

- It had the dude in it from the O.C. You know, the guy who says, "Welcome to the O.C. bitch" to Ryan in the pilot? Unfortunately they did not work in any kind of sly O.C. reference which was a shame and SPOILER ALERT he ended up being the villain. Yes we had villains not just sharks. And by the way, I can't hear that Hallelujah song without thinking about Marissa dying. Is that the most effed up thing you've ever heard in your life or what? It's like my biggest shame or something. You know, other than my life.

- It had a whole bunch of different species of sharks in it, which was a nice touch. No goblin sharks though.

- The main characters were a mishmash of Breakfast Club stereotypes who would never hang out in real life.

- Apparently if you have your entire arm bitten off you can still live for like, ever (or until you get eaten by a shark) and even have the strength to use a makeshift spear to spear a hammerhead to death if a guy who is applying to med school applies a tourniquet. Good information to have.

- All sharks are blood-thirsty predators who will immediately chase down and eat any person who gets in the water. This includes normally more timid species such as the hammerhead and the thresher shark, which has never attacked a human other than one time when one of them was provoked so the person probably deserved it.

- Then my two favorite parts. First, O.C. Villain dude tells hero guy that he is going to feed him to a tiger shark. Truly terrifying creature. Tiger sharks are probably my favorite because they're so bad ass and just don't give a fuck and will eat anything that comes near their mouth. They have the second most recorded attacks on humans behind the great white. If you go surfing in Hawaii you will get eaten by a tiger shark. FACT. They rock. They look like this:

Then they cut to a shot of the "tiger shark" and it looks like this:

Scary looking? Yes. Scary? No. That's a sand tiger shark, and while the tiger shark has eaten 29 people in unprovoked attacks, the sand tiger's total is one. One person. Ever. Plus if you've ever been to an aquarium that shark should look familiar because they're such big pussies they can survive and thrive in aquariums. People always put them in aquariums because of that and that they look scary, but don't be fooled. Might as well be a dolphin. Nice science, movie jerks.

And then #2 is this:

Seriously that is so sweet it almost made up for the entire movie. But it didn't. Do not recommend.

Anyway I guess there's a game tomorrow. By now you pretty much know what you're going to get with Wisconsin - a bunch of dumb-ass hillbilly hicks who are at the same time both douchey and too dumb to be douchey who are going to play an insanely boring game in which if they ever run while dribbling the Grinch will pull them out of the game and stare at them in anger like they're roast beast because his heart is two sizes too small. You know the names - Sam Okey, Brian Butch, Kirk Penney, Mark Vershaw, Alando Tucker, Devin Harris, Joe Krabbenhoft, Kam Taylor, and, even though he was less annoying than the rest of these guys, Jon Leuer. Almost completely unlikable, and this year's version of this team might be the most boring and annoying of any yet.

You don't need to be some kind of clearly brilliant analytical mind like Rick Reilly to know that the best player on this team is Jordan Taylor, but he might not be the real key tomorrow night. You see, because as usual Wisconsin's offensive game plan is to walk the ball up as slowly as possible, pass it around the perimeter until someone falls asleep and then make a three-pointer. It's what they always do. But there's been a problem - they haven't shot well this year. The Badgers are hitting just 35.6% from three this year, their worst mark since 2007. They're also assisting on fewer made buckets than ever, with assists on just 50.9% of all made baskets, the lowest rate since 2003 (the oldest year I can find data for this). So what does that mean?

I'm not exactly sure, but Taylor is taking fewer shots, making fewer shots, and this is the second least efficient Wisconsin offense since 2003 (again, oldest year available) behind just 2006. Wisconsin's strengths on offense that have always led to a highly efficient team have been taking care of the basketball, crisp ball movement, and good outside shooting. Of those three, taking care of the basketball is the only one Wisconsin is as sharp on as usual, which has led to some rough games this season already - three home losses including one to Iowa.

The Gophers cannot let the Badger offense get going from outside. In the loss to Iowa they were 3-28 from three (with just 9 assists). In the loss to Michigan they shot just 7-20 and had only 6 assists for the game, Michigan State 5-22 with 5 assists, Ohio State 5-27 (10 assists), Marquette 5-19 (8 assists), and UNC 8-28 (6 assists). It's pretty clear. No open looks, no easy buckets, play tough defense and that's how you can beat this version of Wisconsin, because this is one of the best defensive teams in Bo Ryan's tenure.

No, really. Taylor is very good, Ryan Evans gives them an athletic, wing tweener type they don't really have, and they have more than the usual gaggle of goofy looking white dudes to throw out there, and as anyone who has ever played at an open gym will tell you those goofy looking white guys are freaking tough. They have extra long arms they use like Plastic Man, they go all out on every single possession even when their man doesn't have the ball, they're disciplined and don't take chances, and they freaking love to box out. The Gophers are going to have a ton of problems scoring tomorrow, but it can be done because Wisconsin doesn't force you to turn the ball over, they just force you to take bad shots. But Iowa of all teams was able to score 72 on them by being smart and WORKING THE BALL INSIDE (only 6 three point attempts for the Hawkeyes all game - yes the Hawkeyes). Sconnie plays so slowly you will get precious few possessions, so be smart and make the right choices with the ball.

Look, I'll be the first to tell you this Wisconsin team is overrated and has a very good chance to be an early out in the tournament. At the same time, their list of losses is at North Carolina, Marquette, Iowa, Michigan State (in OT), at Michigan, and at Ohio State - that's it. That is a damn nice looking list outside of Iowa. This is not a bad Wisconsin team by any means and this is going to be a very tough game for the Gophers and I fully expect a defensive struggle. Actually whatever the OVER/UNDER is tomorrow, take the UNDER. I don't care if it's 100, take the under.

It all comes down to this. Another must win, but this might be the last one. I'm hoping not.

Minnesota 51, Wisconsin 47

My look at the Top 25 (part I - with bonus book review)

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:33:00 +0000

Ok I admit it - that Gopher loss to Iowa has completely drained me of my caringnessitude about this season. I'll be back if they beat Wisconsin, but right now I don't see anything in this team that makes me believe they're going to snag an NCAA bid, and that's the whole point of the season. That's why I took a nap on Sunday instead of watching them play Nebraska - I couldn't bear to watch another road implosion. Luckily and happily for me, they ended up winning which is good. Now it's time to play an extremely overrated Wisconsin team and if they can't win this one, that'll pretty much do it for the season. I may write a preview and I may not, but you know what you're getting from the Badgers anyway. Instead, I'm going to focus on the National Picture a bit, and give my thoughts on the Top 25. I did this last year and it was a big hit with me and I don't really care about anyone else. These are the rankings in the ESPN/USA today poll, not my personal rankings.

1. Kentucky Wildcats. I think there are four teams this year that are head and shoulders above everybody else in terms of pure talent (Kentucky, Missouri, Baylor, and UNC) but Kentucky is head and shoulders above the other three who are head and shoulders above the rest and they're playing up to their talent this year. Only loss is that 1-pointer at Indiana, and they've won 8 of their last 10 by at least double digits. You're always at risk in the tournament with a young team and a coach who is 95% recruiter/5% game coach, but Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones, and Darius Miller have been there before and can give you some leadership where Calipari fails. They also only go 6.5 deep even with all the blowouts so that's a concern (and I have no idea why Cal isn't giving more run to some other guys in these big wins to help hedge against possible foul trouble in a tournament game when you need someone to step in). Plenty of worries here, but I'm going to have an awfully hard time picking anybody else as my national champion come bracket fill-out time.

2. Syracuse Orange. I didn't list the Cuse as one of those top-4 talented teams this year but that's no slight to them because I think they do the best job of playing as an overall "team" (along with Mizzou). Now that the Fab Melo situation has been figured out they've got a rare mix of players where they can dominate you in the paint, on the perimeter, or slashing to the hole and with their athlete's this year Boeheim's zone might be one of his best ever. Opponent's do kill them on the offensive boards which can spell doom in a tight one, and I'm having trouble buying them completely because they lack any single win you can point to and say "holy shit Cuse is the goods", but they aren't 23-1 by accident. Probably the one top team where I'm just not quite sure what to think.

3. Ohio State Buckeyes. Ohio State is a team I think is flying a little bit under the radar right now, as much as that's possible for a team ranked third in the country. They beat Wisconsin this weekend in a slow-it-down, plodding game and just a couple of weeks ago beat Indiana in a more uptempo game. Their ability to win without having to dictate the pace of the game is a huge positive, not to mention that in William Buford and Jared Sullinger they have what might be the best inside-outside scoring duo in the country right now. They're a bit suspect from a big man stand point outside of Sullinger and, as usual, don't have much depth, but unless DeShaun Thomas shoots them right out of a game they have a great chance at another Final Four berth.

4. Missouri Tigers. One of the only teams I consider both supremely talented and supremely "team-y" for lack of a better term, Mizzou would be my clear pick to take the whole thing in March if it wasn't for damn Kentucky. The Tigers have a reputation as a high-scoring, fast-paced team and they are high-scoring, but they score a ton of points not because they play so fast (105th in the country in tempo) but because they're so efficient (#1 in offensive efficiency). Simply put, they make a lot of shots (#2 in the country in effective FG%) and they take a lot of shots because they rarely turn the ball over (#4 in the country) - thus they score a ton of points and force you to keep up. They have the best back court in the nation and although they look a little weak on the front line since they only really have one true forward in Ricardo Ratliffe, their win going into Baylor and taking on maybe the best front court in college tells me everything I know - it's either going to be Missouri or Kentucky cutting down the nets at the end.

5. North Carolina Tar Heels. Probably the second most talented team in the NCAA behind Kentucky, but they seem to missing every single intangible quality possible - nothing new for a Roy Williams led team. There's no leadership, no hustle, no killer instinct, and no drive. I know they only have three losses, but in two of those they were absolutely crushed (by UNLV and Florida State). And really, outside of the season opening win against Michigan State on a boat do they have a really good win? Wisconsin is overrated, Texas is terrible, and although Long Beach is a very good mid-major that's still all they are. I can't really guarantee an early exit because there is so much talent here, but Harrison Barnes, Kendall Marshall, and Tyler Zeller are all quite types who are looking for someone to follow - one of them needs to become THE guy or we're looking at a non-sweet 16 team here.

6. Baylor Bears. I have a feeling this is going to be the trendy pick for the Final Four (say they're a two seed) to come out of whatever region they end up in and it's tough to argue with - their two losses have been to Missouri and Kansas and that's it. One underrated aspect of Baylor is they are one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country at 74.2% (35th in the nation) and that's helped them win a lot of close ones (six wins over major conference foes of 5 pts or fewer) and could be a difference maker in March. The big worry is although Pierre Jackson has helped them out with the ball-handling this year Baylor is still one of the worst teams in the country in turning the ball over, and as we know one bad game and you're done.

7. Florida Gators. I still think Florida is a Final Four contender because they have such a good back court, but neither Patric Young nor Erik Murphy has become a consistent inside force and that's what they'll need to make a run because despite being perimeter oriented they aren't very good defensively. Erving Walker has settled down and become less chucker and more distributor and he's really allowed Boynton and Beal to flourish. I would love to see a Florida/Missouri match-up - the over/under would be about 170.

8. Murray State Racers. Please. They've played nobody, and I mean nobody. Their strength of schedule is 251, and non-conference it's 119. The only teams they've played that are "real" teams are Memphis (won by 4), Southern Miss (won in double OT), and Dayton (won by 17) and there's a good chance non of them make the NCAA Tournament, which would make Murray State 0-0 against NCAA Tournament teams. It's a cute team and a cute story, but not only have they not played anyone they aren't even beating the bad teams all that convincingly. They shoot over 40% from three so you can't completely write them off, but I have a pretty strong feeling they're a first game loss.

9. Duke Blue Devils. Same year same basic soft Duke team where all you really need is a strong inside dude who can push their finesse big guys around and some guards who can get said big man the ball as well as defend the three. It's why they lost to Florida State and why they lost to Miami on Sunday. Mike Kryzkyzkewski loves pansies - it's true.

SIDE BAR: I just finished up reading this book - The Last Great Game by Gene Wojciechowski who, to the best of my knowledge, is not related to that little Duke wiener, and I rather enjoyed it despite half the book being about Duke. That might have been the best part, because it basically proved that Christian Laettner really was an asshole, Bobby Hurley really was a whiner, and that Duke team was one of the least likeable teams in the history of history. The Kentucky half of the book is even better, since I was young enough at that time I didn't really realize how crazy it was that UK was even in that position considering the massive sanctions they were under in the few years prior. To get Pitino from the NBA, keep several of their recruits from fleeing despite the team being banned from the postseason, and for Pitino to get a recruit the caliber of Jamal Mashburn despite him knowing he couldn't play in the tournament is all just crazy. And Wojo (this one, not the annoying little rat) either has really old notes or a lot of these guys have incredible memories, because he paints a very vivid and detailed picture. Really, if you dig on college hoops books - as I do - I put this right up there with Feinstein's best work.

10. Kansas Jayhawks. The Jayhawks are interesting because even though I'm not necessarily impressed with them so far this year, they are the only team other than Kentucky who ranks in the top 10 in Ken Pomeroy's both offensive and defensive efficiency ratings. Maybe I should be, but I always worry about team's that are so reliant on two players (Thomas Robinson and Tyshawn Taylor use a combined nearly 60% of KU's possessions). I know that those two are worthy of that kind of reliance - both are probably top 10 National Player of the Year candidates right now - but a bad game from either of them probably dooms them.

11. Georgetown Hoyas. Georgetown certainly wasn't supposed to be here after losing three starters from last year's team, but Henry Sims has really stepped up in his senior year (tripled his scoring and doubled or nearly doubled everything else) and they've gotten major contributions from some unheralded freshmen and have ridden their defense to a surprising 18-4 record. And that's really all I got, because watching a Georgetown game makes me sleepy.

12. Michigan State Spartans. I could be wrong, but I think this might be one of Izzo's best teams. Sure, they've lost a couple road games in the Big Ten but that's to be expected. Don't forget after they lost to UNC and Duke to open the season they went on a 15-game winning streak which included wins over Florida State and Gonzaga, as well as Indiana and Wisconsin if you're impressed by that sort of thing. The emergence in the second part of the season of Keith Appling has taken a lot of pressure off Draymond Green who is a lot better when he can concentrate on rebounding and facilitating the offense and let his points come naturally rather than having to carry the full offensive load. Looking at this group and with Izzo's March history they could be a Final Four team with the right draw.

13. St. Mary's Gaels. I didn't even realize St. Mary's was all that good this year, but the whitey whitersons are 11-0 in the WCC (and don't forget, BYU is here now too) and are 6-2 against the RPI Top 100. And Matthew Dellavedova doesn't just have one of the coolest names and sexiest hair in the NCAA, he's one of the best all-around guards as well. I really need to catch one of their games this year before the tournament (maybe the Bracket Busters game against Murray State) so I can really evaluate them but it's clear they can light it up, and that always makes 'em dangerous.

14. San Diego State Aztecs. Even more surprising than G-Town being ranked highly is SDSU being up here because they lost almost everything from last year's team and it was looking like it'd be another case of a mid-major having everything come together and then crashing down after graduations/early defections, but Jamaal Franklin has gone from bit player to superstar, while Chase Tapley has gone from afterthought to star and SDSU is 6-1 in a tough Mountain West and already has wins over the other two major players in UNLV and New Mexico. Next week is a monster because they play the Rebels Saturday and New Mexico the following Wednesday so if they handle that it may be time to start looking at them as a legit Final Four contender.

15. Creighton Blue Jays. These guys are really annoying because everyone is slobbering all over them, but what I see is a terrible defensive team playing in a way down Missouri Valley whose only significant non-conference win is over the aforementioned SDSU. They're going to be somewhere in that 4-7 range for a seed and I have a feeling they're going to end up being a pretty trendy Sweet 16 pick (or more). It could happen, because they do have a player of the year candidate who could carry them in Doug McDermott and they can really shoot the lights out, but if they end up going against a 13-10 seed who can score with them they could be a first round casualty - Iona or Oral Roberts would be a terrible matchup for them.

So that's part 1. I was going to do it all at once but then I got about 8 teams deep and I was all like oh god this is a lot of teams. So I'm cutting her off at 15 for now. I might do the next 10 (+ some notables who received votes) tomorrow night but I might go out to the bar instead. Hell, I might be do both because I'm just crazy like that.

Also on the numbers me, Snacks, and Old Man split we had 8-7 for the Super Bowl so if Bradshaw doesn't score and the Giants instead kick a field goal two win 18-17 we would have won BOATLOADS divided by three. But alas, I sit here. Still poor.

Friday Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:29:00 +0000

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.

Gophers vs. Iowa: Live Blog

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:50:00 +0000

Am I blogging the Gopher/Hawkeye game? Yes. Why, you ask? Not very sure. I think the best reason is that, on the very good chance that things go south, this and future generations can study what I type and come to conclusions about what happens to a rational man's brain when his favorite sports' team, a team made of 18-22 year old kids in this case, fails in a spectacular fashion after building said man's hopes up. A case study on a meltdown. Some people leave their bodies to science and/or donate their organs, I do this. Because, let's face it, I don't science would much want my body (just like my wife, hey-oh!).

20:00 - I wrote a short preview tonight because the way to win this game is simple - score points. Attack the zone, be aggressive in transition and in the half-court, and score points. Iowa is terrible defensively so all you have to do is go after them and score points. Their offense can be scary but it's not good enough to outscore you if you play well. Remember, it was just 64-62 when Iowa won in the Barn - Gophers need more points than that.

19:59 - Iowa starts in man, which is a good call by McCaffrey (the opposite of coming to Iowa in the first place) because you know the Gophers practiced against it over and over all week, so don't give them that zone right away, save it for when/if you need it. Man-to-man leads to an easy steal and a lay-up anyway, so it's 2-0 Iowa and Julian Welch now bricks a long jumper. Great.

18:24 - For the record, Dawger thinks Welch is/will be one of the best Gopher PGs ever, so his mistakes aren't really his fault.

18:05 - Two transition opportunities for Iowa and twice the Gophers haven't gotten back quickly. They're lucky it's only 2-0. I'm not a fan of Tubby's line change substitution patterns, but if you're ever going to do it that would have been the right time.

17:36 - Ralph 16-footer to tie it up. He could still end up the best center in gopher history, you just gotta believe.

16:50 - I bet Roy Marble is way prouder of his kid than Ralph Sampson is of his. Don't you picture the older Ralph just mentally abusing Ralph III? Like in high school Ralph III would be like, hey dad (who was probably never at the games) I had a triple-double last night and Ralph II would be all like, "triple-double? I used to get quadruple doubles in high school? Why were you slacking off? Now go mow the lawn."

16:01 - Another Welch turnover and he's out for Maverick instead of Andre Westbrook for some reason. I don't get this substitution. Also I want to clarify that I call Dre Hollins Andre Westbrook because he reminds me of Russell, not Lawrence. Let's not make that mistake.

15:09 - Well say this for Ralph, he's being aggressive. He's being terrible, but he's being aggressive. 7-2 Iowa at the first break as the Gophers look sloppier than Lindsay Lohan (that's not dated yet, right?)

14:24 - Out of the break Iowa goes to a half-court trap which scares Oto half to death so he just gives them the ball so they can score. 9-2 Iowa. It's over.

13:59 - Ahanmisi fouled on a 3-pointer. 1-3 on the FTs. What a dickwagon.

13:36 - Another Gopher turnover. Every time I watch this team play it makes me wish turnovers were the goal of the game. :championship:

12:33 - At what point does the Gophers' failure to get back to stop the Hawkeyes in transition stop being about lazy players and start becoming about the coach? I know he can't exactly run out there yet - he's not Pete Rose - but at some point it has to be the prep work, no?

11:34 - Eight and a half minutes, 1-8 shooting, 3 points, 8 turnovers. 13-3 Iowa. This is like Marcellus Wallace and Zed so far.

11:16 - Turnover against the press. I wish I was kidding. The good news is Iowa doesn't look like they have their world-beater pants on (they would probably be black Zubaz with like, corn on 'em) so I still think the Gophers can get back into this, as long as they play the rest of the game the exact opposite of how they have been playing.

9:56 - Two consecutive possessions with a shot by the Gophers, new record. They made one, now 15-5. Now 17-5.

9:30 - Ralphie with the hammer dunk and the foul. Seriously might be the most aggressive Sampson has been all year. I think he's got seven of the team's 8 points right now and has missed around 3 shots too. I like seeing him go after it, reminds me of what I saw way back when before I was stabbed in the nuts.

8:45 - Iowa is just awful. Seriously terrible. There is zero reason for the Gophers to lose this game. None. They've played one of the worst games in basketball history - the hoops equivalent of 41-donut, if you will - so far and yet are only down 18-11 after Welch's 3-point play.

7:49 - Iowa misses, Austy Hollins 3-ball. 18-14, and some dumb white guy just had his lay-up swatted by Sampson. On the ensuing possession Hollins misses a WIDE OPEN three, Rodney tips the board out and it leads to an Iowa lay-up on the break. That's a pretty rough swing, momentumally.

6:16 - 20-17 Iowa and here comes the zone. This is going to decide the game right here I type as Welch throws the ball right out of the back of the end zone.

5:40 - I'm not even sure Iowa has a rebound yet. Jesus these guys really fucking suck. How the hell do they have those semi-impressive wins they have? I'm pretty sure Penn State would beat these guys nine out of every 10 games.

4:25 - Despite all that, after a missed open three and a missed lay-up on the follow, the Gophers are still down to these assholes 20-19. The points are just like, right there for the taking. I've threatened this before, but if they don't win this game I'm done with this team. This is like watching a bad high school team and Matt Gatens just hit nothing but backboard on a wide open three-pointer. How can the Gophers possibly be losing? Oh. Right. They're the Gophers.

2:32 - So I've been watching a lot of the old Scooby-Doo's with Wonderbaby^TM these days, and holy crap was that show racist. Well racist isn't really the proper term because it's just the way the world was back then, I guess stereotypical is the right word. Tonight's episode took place in China Town and 80% of the chinese characters were basically Hong Kong Phooey and at one point Shaggy impersonated a Chinese dude and it included slits for eyes, buck teeth, and Ls and Rs pronounced as Ws. I'm not saying it wasn't hilarious, I'm just saying it was weird to see not only on TV but on a kids' show. And the Gophers are up 27-24 after a couple made threes.

0:00 - 27-24 is your halftime score. And this is why the preview I wrote for this game was so short and half-assed - Iowa completely sucks balls. Like, they're the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked. There's no fucking secret formula to winning this one, just don't play like assholes and the Gophers should walk. Well they played like assholes for most of the first half and Iowa was so bad that was completely wiped out by a good, solid four minutes of ball. So just do that the second half. Don't come out with this stupid shit where you look lost and confused and suck. Just attack Iowa and they'll crumble like the French - after all, Napoleon was defeated in Iowa.


Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo. Look it up, noob.

19:31 - Iowa with an offensive board off a missed free throw. Wonderful. Great way to start the half.

19:02 - Nice hooker by Ralph. Suck it, Ralph's dad. Mow your own damn lawn.

18:50 - Iowa with a terrible full-court press leads to a Sampson dunk. 31-28 Gophers.

18:34 - Iowa has to be the worst team in the country. Bryce Cartwright spins, completely out of control but puts up a terrible jump shot any way and then some big dumb white just crashes over the back of Joe Coleman as if he doesn't really even understand the rules and just thinks if you can get the ball, get it. Like letting some kind of animal loose.

18:10 - Iowa just missed a lay-up on a 2-on-1, but because the Gophers still aren't hustling back they got the o-board and another crack at a lay-up. Which they missed, leading to a transition 3-pointer for Austin Hollins.

17:02 - Six fouls on the Gophers already. Iowa seems to employing the "fat kid in sixth grade who put his head down and dribbled at the rim" offense, and the Gophers are obliging by fouling them. Of course, Iowa is fucking terrible so Basabe just missed both free throws.

16:30 - It's officialy, Austin Hollins can't shoot. He's like 2-5 on threes which sounds good but if you'd seen any of them he's been completely and totally wide open on all of them. I mean like, Magic Johnson just got AIDS but is playing in the all-star game and nobody wants to guard him open.

15:45 - You're never going to believe this, but the Gophers just had another unforced turnover which led to a Matt Gatens dunk and it's now 36-33 Gophers. In a related story, Matt Gatens can dunk.

15:09 - Iowa crowd all fired up but an Armelin three shuts 'em up. Suck on that, corn boys. Go home and fix one of the four cars sitting on your lawn and watch Dukes of Hazzard while drinking Schlitz. That actually describes all of my uncles on my mom's side, who grew up on a farm, when I was growing up, so I know what I'm talking about here.

14:30 - So who's excited for three more years of Aaron White after this? I can't decide what hurts my eyes more, his hair or his blindingly white skin. I know white guys always stand out on the court (even on Iowa) but this is like somebody suited up Powder. Although I guess that would be pretty helpful having Powder on your team because he could like, move the ball with is mind and shit. Way better than having that ball-hogging Teen Wolf.

12:49 - Also now that I wrote Teen Wolf I'm reminded I once compared Evan Turner to a werewolf on this blog, but I'll be damned if I can remember why.

12:29 - Rodney misses the jumper, the rebound goes through to Iowa dudes to the Gophers again, ball goes to Westbrook who takes it at Oglesby and crosses him over to where he has about 6 feet of room to knock down the 14-footer (and does). 45-35. Yes, 35. Jesus these guys suck.

11:35 - Iowa brings out the 3/4 court trap again and the Gophers make two horrible and wild passes. Somehow Iowa tracks down neither of them.

10:54 - Another foul on the perimeter, Iowa goes to the line again. That's four straight Iowa points and they're all at the line. I can't believe the Gophers are still in danger of losing.

10:24 - The cure for a struggling offense? Elliott Elliason 8-foot jumpers. I'm just kidding. He completely bricked it and then scores to cut it to 4 because their slow white guy is still quicker than Elliason.

9:20 - Let's play guess the Gophers offense out of a timeout: Did they A. Run a well-designed play that led to a good shot, or B. Didn't even have a play because Tubby neglected to call one and passed the ball around the perimeter until there was little left on the shot clock forcing Coleman to try a desperation shot that didn't hit the rim leading to a shot clock violation? If you chose A you are a liar.

8:56 - Remember the Joe Coleman from earlier in the year who was a terrible off the ball defender? He's back, Gatens 3 makes it 45-44 Gophers as Joe completely loses him on a fake cut.

8:30 - Welch answers!!! Probably one of the best point guards in Gophers history.

7:40 - Sampson's shot is slow, hesitant, and blocked and that reminds me that he's done nothing this half at all. Just like a woman, you start praising her and talking about how much you like her and she turns her back on you and starts banging the bartender at the bowling alley.

6:23 - If a tip counts as an o-board that's two offensive rebounds on one possession for Sampson leading to two made free throws for Ralph. I take it back. I take it all back. I still love this guy and I don't care who knows it except probably he shouldn't know because of the whole bartender thing.

5:27 - It's a 50-49 game and Rodney Williams misses two free throws. God this team is just retarded.

5:12 - Basabe makes two (SEE HOW FUCKING EASY THAT IS YOU DICKHEADS) and Iowa now leads 51-50.

4:45 - Welch with another huge three. Nobody hits more clutch shots on this team than Welch other than if it's to win or ice the game, but from about 8 minutes left to 2 minutes left he's just nails.

3:58 - Hollins hits a three somehow and Gophers lead 56-53. Keep up the inside-outside offense and things should be good, until Iowa starts fouling and the Gophers miss every free throw and let Iowa win. You know damn well it's coming.

3:43 - Powder pushes Oto down to the ground (probably with his mind) on a Gatens missed free throw. Big spot for Oto since it's 1-and-1. He missed. Board to Elliason. Leads to a three-pointer by Oto and a 59-54 Gopher lead. What a weird possession in a really weird game. Gophers are 10-16 from three, despite being a terrible shooting team and the only thing Iowa does fairly well defensively is defend the three. Just goes to show you that stats don't matter, nerd. Little computer men and numbers you feed into your calculator don't play basketball, people play basketball and heart and grit and hustle matter.

2:26 - By the way I got to do a fancy work dinner earlier this week. We went to Seven and went with the Spicy Salmon Roll and Calamri for appetizers and then grilled asparagus, truffle mac-and-cheese, and roasted corn for our sides. I went with the Picanha steak for my entree, which is a Brazillian cut of sirloin using the sirloin cap and served with a garlic oil infusion that is to die for. I've only had Picanha before at Fogo de Chao and it was easily my favorite cut, so to get it for an entree was an awesome treat. Seriously, if you can get to Seven and don't order this you are an asshole.

1:55 - Hollins (the bad one) misses another three, leading to a monster dunk right in Ralph's effeminate, tentative face to tie the game at 59. This blows ass.

1:09 - Gophers go to Sampson who is doubled and then turns it over leading to a fast break for Iowa where Welch fouls Cartwright. He makes both. Iowa up 2. I really wish I grew up something gay like dancing or hunting so I wouldn't even care about sports. Maybe snowmobiling. That seems pretty dumb.

0:42 - Do they ever even fucking run a god damn play? Ever? Nobody had a god damn clue what to do on that possession! Can anyone explain to me what exactly it is that Tubby does out there because he sure as fuck doesn't coach or recruit. He doesn't do shit. Honest to jesus baby santa christ he's fucking worthless.

0:00 - ballgame. Fuck you Tubby.

0:00 - Let's watch that possession again. Remember, Gophers are down two here, this is a huge possession and basically the game.

Shotclock time:

35 - ball into Welch, dribbles across half-court.

27 - to Hollins in the middle of the court, 35 feet from the rim.

25 - swing to Coleman on the wing, still 35 feet from the rim.

22 - Coleman dribbles to mid-court swings it back to Hollins on the left now 30 feet from the rim.

19 - Over to the right side to Coleman, still 30 feet from the rim. Coleman clearly looks confused.

17 - To Welch in the center, 26 feet from the rim

14 - Welch drives and puts up a contested, double-teamed, ill-advised 18 footer that misses and that's the game.

Guess how many timeouts they had? Two. Look I am all for letting your players play, but you've seen this group before and I don't think they qualify for Mensa even if you combined all their basketball IQs. Fine, give 'em a chance to look competent if you really want to, but when they spend 21 seconds outside of 26 feet from the rim it's time to call a timeout. This is just an embarrassment. I can no longer think of a single reason to believe in Tubby Smith as the coach. He's terrible and he only tries about once every three games. He was invisible tonight. Congrats on your National Championship with Kentucky, I'm glad Rick Pitino was such a good recruiter. What a fucking joke. Officially an Iowa State fan now.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Iowa

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:31:00 +0000

I assume at this point I don't need to tell you that this is pretty close to a must win game for the Gophers in order to avoid another bad loss on the ole NCAA Tournament resume (Iowa RPI is 121). I also shouldn't need to tell you that despite being a bad team Iowa is dangerous - along with their win at The Barn they also won at Wisconsin and beat Michigan at home, three very good wins. Of course for a dangerous team they are just as likely to completely lay an egg and are currently on a three-game losing skid that includes a home loss to Nebraska and allowing Indiana to break 100 on them. In short, you really have no idea what you're going to get with this year's edition of Iowa basketball.

Well actually you know you're going to get a really terrible defensive team that plays at a high tempo so the opportunity will be there for the Gophers to score a lot of points. One of the only things Iowa does defensively at even a mediocre level is defend the three-point shot, and the Gophers don't rely much on it so who really cares. The only real concern is when Iowa switches to that aggressive 1-3-1 (and they will because it basically swung the game in Minneapolis) will the Gophers be able to handle it? They shredded Northwestern's similar zone by attacking the gaps and getting inside the perimeter, and if they do that same thing against the Hawkeyes they'll score a ton of points. I fear they turn the ball over like crazy, because that's another trait of this team.

That's it. That's the whole thing, the whole preview. If the Gophers play good, smart offense, make the right decisions, move the ball, and attack the zone they'll probably end up scoring 90+ points and Iowa's offense isn't good enough to score any where near that many points against a Gopher team that's pretty good defensively. The tops Iowa can probably score here is in the low 70. Which means if the Gophers play like a bunch of scared little bunny rabbits against the zone they probably lose 72-65 or something. I choose to believe in this team for some reason. I probably should write a bunch more but I just got my ass kicked gambling-wise for like the 15th night in a row so I don't really feel like it.

Gophers 83, Iowa 70.

Week in Review - 1/30/2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:17:00 +0000

So I'm going no introduction. Suck it.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Gopher Basketball. The basketball gods giveth, and they taketh away but in this case in the reverse order of that. The Gophers lost a game they probably should have won when the played the Illini in Champaign and then made up for it by winning on Saturday when they should have lost, and would have if Meyers Leonard had just backed out of the way. In any case, the Gophers are now 4-5 in conference play and would probably sneak into the tournament if it started today, which means they're in good position assuming they don't screw things up, making this week a monster. They head to Iowa and then to Nebraska, two winnable road games that are more than just winnable, they're must wins. I've been hurt too many times by Gopher teams and women to be fooled again, which is why I'm not buying into this team until after this week. If they can win two road games they need to I'll go ahead and buy in. Until then consider me cautiously optimistic.

Two players who deserve extra praise following the Illinois win are Chip Armelin and Andre Hollins or Andre Westbrook as he is known when I talk. Armelin was the hero of the first half and basically the reason the Gophers went into half-time with a lead thanks to his energy, fearlessness, an accurate jumper, and a couple of great passes including a Magic-esque fake behind the back drop-off on a fastbreak. Armelin was awesome.

But Andre Hollins might have been even better in the second half and overtime. The Gophers had a pretty easy time of it in overtime and Andre Hollins was the biggest reason, and seriously how much does he remind you of Russell Westbrook? I can't be the only one who sees this. Not a great shooter but has the ability to get hot, with the strongest part of his game his ability to get to the rim, which is a strength because he's willing to take it in there against anybody. I suppose that could describe Joe Coleman as well, but Hollins kind of looks like Westbrook too. I don't know, but with Hollins and Coleman maybe this team has a future after all. Stay tuned.

2. Kevin Love. I figured he'd sign, I guessed he'd sign, but until it happens you can't ever relax, especially in a place that has seen all non-Twin beloved figures bolt and/or force their way out at some point, but now Love is ours. For at least three years, and I think that's the best part of this deal for both sides. Love is a smart dude who knows what he's doing, which is why it wasn't surprising when I read an article pre-lockout about him and how he and his agent were putting 90% of his income or something into an account not to be touched and he was just living off of 10%, which is really what everybody in pro sports should do but almost nobody does. He continued his smart behavior by going with the 3-year opt out clause in his deal, which basically says, "Yes, I want to play here and build a winner but if that's not happening and the team isn't doing what it's supposed to I want out" which, again is a smart way to go about things. Plus, now the Wolves absolutely have to work to build a team around him or he can just take off. Three more years of Love + Rubio + Williams. How good can they be? I have no clue yet, but I am damn glad we will get to find out.

3. Detroit Tigers. Well shit. Just when you think the Twins have a chance to be relevant (V-Martinez out for the year, White Sox trading everything away) the Tigers go and sign Prince Fielder. Part of me wants to point out that giving a 9-year contract to a guy who is in the kind of shape Fielder's in and who only has one real skill (hitting) who is 29 years old probably means the last couple of years of that contract, at a minimum, are going to be a burden. But I'm also smart enough to recognize that the part of me that wants to point that out is really nothing more than just a jealous asshole because this freaking sucks. Fielder and Cabrera give the Tigers two of what, the five best hitters in the game? And Avila and Peralta can hammer the ball as well. If Delmon Young's figured out or if Brennan Boesch or Austin Jackson ever do that lineup is going to be sick, as if it isn't already. And although there's plenty of questions behind Verlander, Fister-Scherzer-Porcello has a chance to be pretty solid. Detroit's not a runaway favorite in the Central or anything, but they're clearly a favorite. Just a great move that says, "F money, we're going for it" and the kind of thing the Twins would never, ever do in a million years. Is the Chili Davis signing the biggest FA move of our lifetime? Am I forgetting anything? I'm moving to Detroit.

Just kidding. I don't want to get shot. Unless I do it myself after the Gophers lose to both Iowa and Nebraska.

4. Lou Diamond Phillips. I'm guessing most people don't watch Celebrity Cook-Off but for me if it's a cooking competition I'm pretty much watching no matter what, and LDP beat out Coolio to take this one down, although both of them would have been worthy champions. Labamba was more refined, while Coolio had his own ideas and his own recipes which apparently worked well (mayo on cheesy bread?) but these two were definitely the two best cooks who took it seriously. Joey Fatone can knock out Italian food but has zero range and zero creative skill, and there wasn't another cook besides those three who seemed worthwhile (Aaron Carter was one and his big dish was a macaroni salad lolololololol). So nice work Lou for a good season where I actually learned stuff. I look forward to not hearing your name again for 10 years or so until you resurface playing an Indian Chief is some sort of fancy movie. Probably Sitting Bull or some shit. With Ashton Kutcher as Custer.

5. Iowa State Cyclones. One of the most enjoyable basketball experiences I've ever had was going down to Ames for the first time (Snacks is a graduate and I was visiting him) and going to Hilton Coliseum and watching a good but not great Cyclones team take down a Kansas team that I think was ranked #1 going into the game, including seeing Minnesota's own Jake Sullivan pull up from 35-feet on a 3-on-2 fast break and nail a 3 (no joke, that was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen on a basketball court in person). This weekend the Cyclones did it again, knocking off the Jayhawks 72-64, once again behind a native Minnesotan. This time it wasn't a under-recruited, short little whiteboy with a deadly jumper who is in range from anywhere on the court, but a tatted up, nationally recognized top recruit with some mental problems and the kind of well-rounded game where he leads the team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and is 0.2 behind in steals. Seriously I don't know if you've seen him yet this year but Royce White is really, really, really good. Really good. Put him on this Gopher team and they're an automatic NCAA team. Put him and Mbakwe on this team and you're talk Sweet 16 team with upside.

God dammit.

WHO SUCKED

1. Ralph Sampson. It's official, the Gophers are now actively winning games in spite of Sampson. 5 points and 5 fouls with only three rebounds and couldn't be bothered to block a shot. Not only was he crappy in measurable things, but he just got crushed by Meyers Leonard who had at least two and maybe three offensive boards on missed Illinois free throws that he got by just leaning on Ralph and moving him too far under the rim to do anything about it. And Sampson just let it happen again and again. Several times Sampson didn't even look interested, like the one time I specifically watched him and when Illinois took a jump shot he just stood there while Leonard went right around him and grabbed the o-board. The guy had six offensive rebounds for the game and I'm fairly certain all six came against Sampson. In a career full of disappointing games and poor effort, this one really took the cake. Elliason is a better option at this point. You may consider my heart-broken. Just like when Emma Stone dyed her hair blonde. Why Emma? Why?

2. San Diego State. The funny thing, and I guess it's not really funny but whatever shut up, is that I actually had SDSU teed up as WHO WAS AWESOME after they went into Wyoming and rolled an underrated Cowboy team that was starting to look sleeperiffic. I know beating Wyoming, even in Laramie, isn't usually impressive but trust me that was a really good win, not to mention SDSU was 18-2 in a year when they had lost four starters and the core of a sweet 16 team and weren't supposed to add up to much. Probably the biggest surprise (pleasant surprise) of the year. And then they roll into Fort Collins and just get smoked by the Colorado State and getting out-played in every way possible. Big deal? No, not really because the Aztecs are basically in the tournament no matter what, especially because collapse is nearly impossible since the Mountain West is meh this year, but just a hugely disappointing loss. Why I care so much, I couldn't begin to tell you.

3. Bruce Weber. I have no idea how this guy still has a job. He's one of the worst game coaches this side of Rick Barnes, and nobody does less with more than Weber. When is the last time he actually exceeded expectations? I know he did well at Southern Illinois (recruiting better than the rest of the conference, naturally, since that's the one thing he excels at) and he had a good start at Illinois with Self's players including that Final Four, but since then they've been garbage, right? I mean I know they've made the NCAA Tournament like 4 of the 6 years since then and as Gopher fans we'd kill for that level of success, but based on the recruits he's bringing in that's pathetic, especially since they've only won two tournament games in that span. I guess that's what happens when you hitch your wagon to fat non-point guard with no real point guard skills Demetri McCamey for four years and don't bother to, you know, recruit another point guard for four freaking years. See you probably thought I wouldn't ever be able to work in another dig at McCamey, but then BAM! there we are. Did you know he did 0 bench reps at the college hoops draft combine. Zero. Should have made it a donut eating contest.

4. Central Michigan Chippewas. Not that this week at 0-2 was particularly bad for Central Michigan because they plain old suck at 7-13 and have lost five straight, but it's time to call attention this because I thought they were supposed start getting more gooder. Remember two years ago when Trey Ziegler was the #28 recruit in the country and had offers from Arizona, Duke, Michigan State, Michigan, and UCLA amongst others? And then remember how he passed up all those opportunities in order to play for his dad at CMU? Yeah, apparently it didn't matter because 10 total games last year and might be worse this year. Ziegler leads the team in scoring, rebounding, and assists for the second straight year, but who cares because they're terrible. It's basically the same story from the same year as Ray McCallum who ended up going to Detroit to play for daddy, but at least they're showing some signs of improvement - this Ziegler thing is a nightmare.

5. Phil Mickelson. Lefty is a bonafide stud when it comes to Torrey Pines. He's won there three times in his career, he has 8 top-fives including a solo second here last year. He's played at Torrey Pines 22 times on the PGA Tour, grew up playing on this course, lives like 5 minutes away, and hasn't missed a cut there in 10 years. So how'd he do this weekend at the Farmers Insurance Open? Natually he shot a +5 on Thursday, the day when over 2/3rds of the field went under par, and then missed the cut. What an asshole.

Also I totally missed this which is why it's just getting mentioned here, but apparently Kyle Stanley didn't win the golf tournament today, despite having a 3-shot lead going into the last hole. I was watching the end, but after he laid up on his second shot on the par-5 eighteenth hole to about 75 yards I figured it was over and clicked off. According the words that other people typed, Stanley spun his approach shot right off the green, then on his second try put it 45 feet away and 3-putted (!!!) from there to end up going to a playoff with Brandt Snedeker who won after Stanley missed a five-foot par putt on the second playoff whole. Jesus. I'm damn glad I flipped the channel because if I had watched that I would have alternated laughing and feeling depressed to the point where I'd probably become the Joker. By the way, did you know in the comic books there's a whole subplot where Joker rapes Commissioner Gordon's daughter? Seriously, comic books are way fucked up. I'm scared of comic book fans, for realsies.

Also I really should have mentioned the Magic as a team who sucked. They're in the dumpster at this point. Zero chance Howard finishes out the year there. Howard for Beasley, Webster, Williams, and Wes Johnson works under the cap. Just sayin'.

Game Preview: Minnesota vs. Illinois

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:17:00 +0000

This afternoon for lunch we went to this really cool authentic Mexican deli-type place where you could order our tacos or burritos or whatever you wanted with any one of a whole bunch of different meat choices, and I noticed that among those choices were beef tripe, beef tongue, pork stomach, and beef head. Now, I really like trying new foods - not that long ago I had wild boar with escargot as an appetizer - and usually if there's a new type of meat (to me) on the menu I'll give it a shot. I've never had anything like those, and I figured I could handle tongue because I know a lot of people consider tongue to be quite tasty, so that's what I was going to have. Then I got to the counter and I ordered the adobo carnitas. I'm such a sissy.

I opened with that because I have very little reaction to the loss at Michigan State because as I said in my preview post I didn't really care because I expected them to lose and the game essentially meant nothing as far as their NCAA Tournament hopes since I knew there was no chance they could pull an upset. And also because I missed 90% of the game running around getting my car stuff figured out and then a torturous experience picking up dinner for the family at Zantigo that took nearly 40 minutes somehow. But now the real season begins. Now it's do or die time, starting with Saturday against Illinois.

Illinois is on a two-game losing skid after dropping a home game to Wisconsin and a roadie at Penn State, but are still in pretty good shape at 15-5 and 4-3 in conference thanks to big wins over Ohio State and Gonzaga and only the Penn State loss sitting in the "bad loss" column, even if it is understandable to lose a road conference game. They certainly are ahead of the Gophers in the conference pecking order, but they may need this game as badly as Minnesota does because their next game is against Michigan State, and if they don't beat the Gophers they may be looking at a 4-game losing streak and sub-500 league record.

And make no mistake, Illinois can absolutely win this game. If the Gophers' home losses to Iowa and Purdue don't tell you they can lose at any time, Illinois's wins at Maryland and Northwestern and neutral site victory of Richmond let you know the Illini don't shrivel up and die on the road. Both teams are extremely evenly matched which you'd realize if you subscribed to kenpom.com and looked them up, so this one is going to come down to execution and mistakes, but if you wanted to take one thing to look at and concentrate on to decide how this game was going to go down, I'd point you towards the Illini's three-point shooting. Actually the #1 deciding factor will probably be if Tubby decides to give a crap about this game or not, but the 3-point shooting thing is definitely #2.

The Gophers' issues with defending the three under Tubby Smith are as well known as they are perplexing, but as a refresher they allow opponents to shoot 35.8% from three, which ranks 218th in the nation - not good. Normally I would say that's ok against Illinois because they're not a particularly good shooting team, hitting just 32.9% on the year (ranks #222) and no real great shooters, but teams continually get more of their points from three against the Gophers than they normally would, simply because they're open more often.

Plus, Illinois does have a tendency to fall in love with the shot and they have just enough mediocre, high-volume shooters that they have a high likelihood of somebody getting hot, and sometimes thats all you need. Like in the Illini's win over Ohio State when Brandon Paul completely lost his mind and hit 8-10 from three (he's a 35% shooter this year and that includes that game) en route to 43 points and basically won that game for them. D.J. Richardson was 4-7 in their win over Gonzaga. Sam Maniscalco was 5-8 in their win over Maryland. And most of their losses have come when they shoot too many threes and nobody makes them: 7-25 vs. UNLV, 4-16 vs. Missouri, 5-21 vs. Purdue, 7-22 vs. Penn State, and 3-12 vs. Wisconsin.

So that's your real key here. Hope they shoot a lot of threes (given the Gophers' defense this is likely), miss a lot (less likely), and hope nobody gets hot (even less likely). I have, of course, not mentioned the Illini's best player, center Meyers Leonard, but that's because he's gonna do what he does. He's gonna go for 12-20 points and 6-10 rebounds and that's that. I also expect that, because he and Ralph are similar, finesse type players who both lack the ability to just take the other out of the game, those two will cancel each other out like last time.

Other than the 3-point thing the other big thing the Gophers need to do is force turnovers. Illinois still struggles with point guard (as they have since Chester Frazier graduated) and rely on an undersized shooting guard (Maniscalo) , a small forward (Paul), and a freshman (Tracy Abrams) to handle most of their ball-handling. Abrams playing time has really increased since conference play started and I'd assume he'll get most of the ball work (he he) on Saturday, but he can be a turnover machine at times and struggled against the Gophers in Champaign (5 TOs).

Pressure on the ball-handlers and shutting down the 3-pointer are your keys to the game. If they can continue with the attacking, aggressive, get-in-the-lane offense they've showcased the last 3 games they'll be able to score against Illinois, but if they let the Illini get off from 3 and play that shitty stand around crapfense they did against Iowa and Purdue Illinois will win this game. As Fred Durst once said, you gotta have faith.

Minnesota 62, Illinois 56.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Spartans

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:39:00 +0000

This game is non-interesting in an interesting way, and I mean that because it's the only game left on the schedule where I don't really care if the Gophers lose. Obviously I hope they win, but going into East Lansing to play one of the better Spartan teams of the last few years is not a real great recipe for success and I harbor no illusions about their chances of winning (I'd put this around 1.2% - Ken Pomeroy says 11%). Every other game the rest of the year is either a must win (every home game besides Mich State and Ohio State), a great chance to steal one on the road (@Nebraska (may be a must win), @Northwestern, @Iowa), or a good opportunity to grab a real quality victory (@ Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State). This is the only game left where a loss really doesn't represent any kind of negative hit or loss of a positive hit.

Draymond Green, Branden Dawson, and Keith Appling are all better than anybody the Gophers have. Michigan State ranks #8 in both offensive and defensive efficiency while the Gophers are outside the top 50 in both. Look at this link. Look at it. Green means good, red means bad, and neither means average. Do you see any red on there? No. It's like the United States in the 1800s after all the Indians had been wiped out or whatever happened. I don't know because I don't read books because I like to live life not read about it nerd, but I know that the Spartans rank higher than the Gophers in nearly every single metric you can think of. Especially couches set on fire.

I mean, I don't really want to oversell Michigan State here, but Draymond Green averages a double-double while still being in the top 10 in the Big 10 in assists. They go 8 deep (and I mean actually 8 guys not like Maverick or whatever) and even managed to get Austin Thornton to be a quality contributor (side note: this guy looks just like Bogart). I'm pretty sure Brandon Wood kind of sucks but he'd be the leading scorer on the Gophers. Sparty hasn't even come close to losing at home this year. The closest any team has managed to stick is Lehigh who lost by 9 (and I assume Sparty was all like meh for this game). They beat Florida State, who has since beat both Duke and UNC, by 16. They beat Indiana by 15 and both Iowa and Purdue by nearly 30. Yes 30. They're a force.

I was going to write a whole bunch more on this, but after I started this post we had to go car shopping because my piece of shit car has broken down 3 times in the last two weeks and now I'm the owner of a spoiler-less Honda Civic. Ballin'.

You jelly, brah?

Anyway, I can see the Gophs keeping this one semi-close and I don't think they'll get blown away like Nicole Eggert in that movie called Blown Away, but I don't think they ever seriously threaten either. I'd love to be wrong. Plus then I'd know what Dawger feels like all the time.

Michigan State 80, Minnesota 70.

Week in Review - 1/18/2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:26:00 +0000

So do you think we'll hear a little bit of talk about a rematch, revenge, redemption, etc. the next couple of weeks? Hey, at least David Tyree will probably get to be interviewed on TV again.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Joe Coleman. No, I'm not actually giving all the credit to Coleman for the 3-game winning streak, but it's easy to notice that the streak started when he was put in the lineup. Coleman has an aggressiveness and a fearless streak to him that's pretty unique on this team (although I think Andre Hollins has some of it too, but just doesn't have the skill level to pull it off just yet), and it seems to be rubbing off a bit, particularly on Austin Hollins, but on pretty much the entire back court - even Maverick, although I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I'm not sure if it was that more aggressive attitude or betting coaching by Tubby (who did, by the way, seem very engaged in the game for the first time in far too long), but when Northwestern went into that 1-3-1 I was ready for all kinds of collapse, but they handled it well. I'm not saying they carved it up like a Thanksgiving taco buffet, but they were definitely more aggressive going into the gaps than the last several hundred years (and seriously, it's not a "trap at half court" 1-3-1, so you don't need to treat it that way). Add in the defensive effort and this was one of the team's best games of the year. The latest bracketology is out on ESPN.com and they currently have the Gophers in as an 11 seed. I'm not sure they're there yet and there's plenty of work to do, but make no mistake, the Gophers are all set-up to disappoint. Prove me wrong. Please.

2. Timberwolves. I didn't even know I missed the Timberwolves. The wife and I watched the end of their big win against the Clippers, and when Kevin Love took that shot I put both arms in the air and when he hit it I turned to Mrs. W and said "Hell Yeah" or something similarly stupid, but the point isn't that I said something stupid, it's that I said anything at all (plus that arms in the air thing). When is the last time I reacted to anything the T-Wolves did with anything other than laughter or indifference? I have no idea. I can't even remember the last time I got irritated. Hell I can't really even remember the last time I watched an entire game and I've watched all or nearly all of three or four this year already. I hate to jump on the Rubio bandwagon and give all the credit to one guy, but he makes them fun to watch, even in a loss, and he's made them a much better team than last year. Even if the upside is an 8 seed an an early exit (and that might be pushing it), they're relevant, they're talked about, and they're entertaining. What more could you ask for after the hell that team has been?

3. Missouri Tigers. After Saturday's win over Baylor I have now narrowed my possible National Champ pick to Kentucky or Missouri (Ohio State and Baylor are my other 2 Final Four picks right now) because that win answered every possible question I could have about the Tigers. And really there weren't many questions, just two: could they win against a tough team on the road (only road wins this year are Iowa State and Old Dominion with neutral court wins over Illinois, Notre Dame, and Cal) and how would they handle a team that could match there athleticism but with more size like Baylor (Ratliffe is Mizzou's only contributor over 6-6). Just an awesome team. And I'm trying to think of anybody else, but Phil Pressey has to be the best point guard in the country right? I know you can get into the scoring point vs. pure point and Pressey probably isn't as good in either category as guys like Ashton Gibbs (scorer) or Kendall Marshall (pure), but combine the two and add in his elite level defense and I think he's gotta be the guy.

4. Florida State. Wow. So after a last second three knocked off Duke in Cameron on Saturday, Florida State's last four games are the win at Duke, a win over Maryland, a win over North Carolina, and a win on the road at Va Tech. All four impressive in their own way, but the win at Duke and the thrashing they gave UNC (remember they won 90-57) are two of the more impressive wins by anybody this year (although I'd give the nod to the Mizzou win referenced above). What's even better for the Noles is that they've always been a great defensive squad (top 5 in defensive efficiency the last 3 years), but in their last few games the offense has shown up. 90 points vs. UNC? 84 vs. Maryland? 75 vs. Duke? In all three cases that's a top 2 score against, put up by what was supposed to be a pretty crappy offense. And since I don't really watch many FSU games I can't really pin it down, but it seems like a different Seminole is stepping up offensively in each game. With that defense and there pretty good guards the Seminoles have March sleeper written all over them. With a sharpie. One of those cool glittery ones.

5. Victor Cruz. Yes, El Juegito finally gets a mention. See, I'm a huge Hakeem Nicks fan, so I could easily convince myself that everything Cruz did was fluky. Like when he burst onto the scene in Week 3 with 2 long touchdowns he only had one other catch and so obviously that was just a fluky lucky day. Then after an 8 catch, 161 yard day he followed it up with a 2 for 12 day, so yeah, no worries, clearly just a fluke. Then, and I'm just realizing this right now by looking at his game log, Cruz went the final 10 games of the season with at least five catches 9 times and at least 90 yards seven times with a 5-44 game in week 16 his only clunker. He ended up 5th amongst wideouts in receptions this year and third in yards, not to mention tied for fourth in touchdowns. Crazy. And after his 10 catch, 152 yard game this weekend against 49ers where he was basically their only offensive weapon I'm finally ready to admit that he's pretty damn good. He's no Hakeem Nicks, but he's a lot better than I've given him credit for.

WHO SUCKED

1. Billy Cundiff. So let's get this straight - your defense manages to keep one of the best offensive teams in the league under control, your much maligned QB keeps you in the game and then, miraculously, manages to drive your team all the way down the field and into chip shot field goal range to tie the game and you shank it worse than Dobby got shanked? It was practically an extra point and I think Cundiff missed it further to the left than how far away the spot he kicked from was. But, I guess that's what happens when you trust a kicker from the Missouri Valley Conference, because everyone knows that other than UNI's upset of Kansas a couple of years ago the MVC has never produced anything that didn't suck. Plus this guy was Dawger's kicker on his fantasy team, so between the curse of Dawger (which is a real thing, just ask Darren McFadden, Josh Freeman, Rodney Williams last year, or basically any Twin) and the Drake thing this guy was pretty much screwed.

2. UCONN Huskies. Add the Huskies to the list of team's in free fall. The warning signs were there after UCONN lost to both Seton Hall and Rutgers earlier in the month, but since Ryan Boatright was shut down by the NCAA they beat Notre Dame, but have now lost their last two - a home game vs. Cincy and on the road at Tennessee who is terrible. What's funny is Boatright, who I desperately wanted to be a Gopher, plays the fourth most minutes on the team while the two starting guards, Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier, play the most minutes. So basically this team is three guards + Andre Drummond and that's it (actually the rest of their guys would beat the Gophers, but you get my point). So what do you get if you take something with four legs and chop one off? A Def Leppard drummer, the guy who killed Indiana Jones's wife, or a really funny looking dog, that's what.

3. New York Knicks. Wow, what a shocker that Knicks are 6-9. See, getting two superstars (or more) on one team is definitely a good way to build a winner in a hurry, but you can't just slap any superstars together or you end up with a broccoli and poop sandwich. Lebron and Wade don't necessarily make sense, but Bosh does with either and those two are so good and so special it works. If Deron Williams and Dwight Howard end up together it makes sense, and if both end up with Nowitzki it makes even more sense. Outside of the ball-hogging, bitching, and raping Kobe and Shaq made a ton of sense. Pierce, Allen, and KG, the first of the superteams, made sense. But Amare and Carmelo? No. Chris Paul and Amare, yes. But not this. Two guys who need the ball at all times and are terrible defenders who also take up almost all your cap room and reduce you to using Landry Fields and Toney Douglas as your back court. I thought the Tyson Chandler signing was genius, but not even he can save this defensive wasteland. God the Knicks are just worthless. The only city in America who puts NBA as their #1 sport and this is the crap they get. It would be sad if so many New Yorkers weren't abrasive A-holes. Or at least that's what TV has led me to believe.

4. Michigan Wolverines. Thanks a lot, assholes. So all the talk about how the Big 10 is the best conference in the land and how it's not only good it's deep and that's why things like Indiana losing to the Gophers and Illinois losing to Penn State and Nebraska beating Indiana happen, and then one of the supposed better teams in the conference has a rare chance to prove how good they are in mid-season and the Wolverines lay and egg and lose to Arkansas, a bottom third SEC team with no chance at an NCAA bid. Actually, I was starting to kind of believe the hype so really this just did me a huge favor by reminding me that outside of Ohio State and Michigan State the big 10 always sucks in the tournament so now maybe I can win the bracket pool instead of tearing my stupid bracket up by 6pm Thursday night for the 10th straight year.

5. Northwestern Wildcats. Pardon my french, but what the deuce was that? I can't even decide the most perplexing part between John Shurna's suddenly inability to even come close to hitting a free throw, Luka Mirkovich only playing 10 minutes and most of it in garbage time, or why Dawger was terrified of Dave Sobolewski (as he wrote in the comments of my game preview) when they guy is some kind of cross between a ball boy and a lesbian with a game more on par with Maverick Ahanmisi than somebody anyone needs to be afraid of. Give the Gopher defense plenty of credit because they did a great job, particularly in taking Drew Crawford basically completely out of the game, but Northwestern surely didn't do themselves any favors. Not to mention that now gives them four losses in their last five games, and although they can't quite be counted out of getting their first ever NCAA bid, it's not looking super duper likely at this point.

Of course, all this pales in comparison to the real story of the game, which was that I was selected to do that thing where you pick between the four kinds of lotteries and then whichever one you pick has a certain amount of Gopher 5 tickets behind it and then you win them and stuff. So they come get me at half-time right after the alumni came out there for what I swear was the 4th time this year, and bring me over down by the baseline where we sit in the second row and they tell me we're going up on the floor at the first TV timeout of the half, which is the first clock stoppage under 16 minutes. Ok, fine.

Then, after explaining the bit, they bring over this hideous orange Gopher 5 shirt and tell me that I have to wear this because the sponsor is there and well, that's the bit. Ok, fine. So I look at it and it's a Large, which usually either means it will fit fine or be way too tight, depending on the brand. Of course, this doesn't stop somebody from behind me from yelling "better get that guy a double-XL!" and when I turn around it's some old dude who had to have been at least 90, and he's giving me this big smile and so I laugh and I'm like, "good one, old dude." So whatever, I put it on and it's super tight but I'll live.

I was at the game with Bear and Snake and they kept telling me I had to shtick it up and be funny and they kept saying that when it was my turn to talk I needed to say something like "I'll take the scratch-offs" which was ok I thought but I couldn't think of anything else until right before they called me up there I had an inspiration. So when it was my turn and they're like, "what's your choice?", I said, "In honor of my personal hero, Luka Mirkovich, I select Northstar Cash" and then I looked over and he was looking around so he definitely heard his name. It was awesome.

Look how loved this guy is. And now he knows for sure who his #1 fan is.

Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:52:00 +0000

First, drop whatever you're doing unless you're holding a baby or working with plutonium (1.21 JIGGAWATTS!!! - side note: I bet that's Jay-Z's favorite unit of measurement) and go here to read four awesome Gopher fans be realists. Matt from Fringe Bowl Team, FrothyGopher aka G'Swan from Still Got Hope (ha ha suck it TRE), and myself were invited by the From the Barn dudes to have a virtual roundtable type discussion about the Gopher hoop team. The results were predictably cynical, yet moody. Also predictable? It was more entertaining than anything I've ever written, so stop being such a douchebaby and go read it.

Now, onto the business on the table, and that's Sunday's game against Northwestern, and as depressing as it is to talk about this only 7 games into the Big Ten schedule, this is a must win game. Yes, it's a must win game. Of course, since Northwestern has followed the Gophers' plan of not beating, nor scheduling games against, any quality opponents and then starting the B10 season at 2-4, it's close to a must win game for the Wildcats as well (although in their defense the Iowa and Purdue losses by the Gophers are far worse than anything Northwestern has done so far). Since these two teams desperately need this one, you can expect an intense, well-played game with crisp execution and a maximum effort and focus on every possession.

I'm just kidding. These two programs are the most likely in the conference to play like dickheads in a big game and are equally likely to rise up and crush some poor fools (Minny over Indy, NW over Mich State) so basically anything could happen in this game and it wouldn't surprise me. But what could we see? Let's look. Join me on a magical adventure. Levar Burton is here too.

The first thing I have to tell you is I really don't know much about the Wildcats this year. Every time I sit down to watch one of their games it's at their place where that weird ass purple court (where the entire area betwixt the paint and 3-pt line is this weird purple but not quite a solid purple) eye rapes me and I can't really look at if for more than a few minutes at a time. So I'm only going to discuss three players who I know quite well and ignore guys like Dave Sobolewski and David Curletti and Alex Marcotullio because I have no idea who they are, even though Sobolewski spent a week on my fantasy squad.

First up are Drew Crawford and John Shurna, and honestly they're like, the only two who actually matter because they score over half Northwestern's points and are top 3 in everything else. They can both do basically anything and everything. Crawford does it in a smooth, suave, athletic way and is kind of a poor man's Ray Allen without an immortal jumper and Shurna does it in the nerdiest way ever that is reminiscent of the weird kid who was always at the park shooting at those chain nets and double rims with his rubber ball who never had an ounce of teaching but still managed to be pretty decent. There's no reason the Gophers shouldn't be able to shut down Shurna but let's be honest you could say that about every game he's played this year. the guy is just a nerdtastic machine who makes Kevin Coble look like Brad Pitt. But he gets it done. And Crawford is a straight up stud.

Normally if there's a team who relies on two dudes this much I'd say just do everything you possibly can to stop those two but I assume Northwestern has a shit ton of white dudes who can shoot based on some of those names and since the Gophers have little to no idea how to defend the three-pointer that would probably be a bad idea. Also Northwestern has that zone which sometimes gives the gophers fits and I'd totally go into it but there's something I really want to talk about and I can't think about anything else so let's just go: Luka vs. Ralph.

Luka Mirkovich is the least mobile person I've ever seen. His defense is very similar to this lamp I'm sitting next to. His best offensive move is somehow using his fat slowness to trick the guy guarding him into thinking he's not actually moving and then suddenly make a lay-up. If he and Stephen Hawking had a good ole fashioned athletic face-off the line would be Luka -120. If Ralph and Luka played one-on-one there is no good reason Ralph shouldn't win 11-1. And yet.

This what I want to see and it's my own fault for caring about Ralph so much when I've metaphorically fallen down the stairs so many times because of him, and yet I'm back for more like whatever Charlie Sheen's wife's name was. Please Ralph. I shouldn't even give you another chance but this is it. Line drawn in the sand. Must win game. At home. Crowd wants to get behind you. Going up against a tree with glasses. Please Ralph. Give it to me. Give it to me how I like it. Stop being such an asshole. This is your time.

Also I have no idea why I wrote that Levar Burton thing earlier. I'm not sure that made much sense. But really, not much about this post made sense. I'm very tired and you're annoying me.

Gophers 66, Wildcats 65.

Monday Musings

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:36:00 +0000

So dumb. I actually had a Week in Review about 90% done and all typed up. I saved it before bed last night with the intent of finishing it off this morning, except when I went there it was gone. Completely gone. So I'm just going to do this thing instead where I type stuff that you end up reading for some reason.

- Good win for the Gophers Sunday winning in Penn State. It's not so much a great win because Penn State is any good (spoiler: they aren't), but more because losing at PSU right after rescuing their season would be exactly the kind of thing the Gophers would do. Also I should say that when I say the Gophers "rescued" their season after beating Indiana all I mean by that is they shifted the season from a epic flameout to what will probably end up being a disappointing season, but they still have a chance to do something at least. So yeah, I'm not exactly throwing a party just yet but at least they managed to beat Penn State. God I was so convinced they were going to lose. Thank god I'm stupid.

Now the Gophers are 2-4 in Big 10 play, and at an absolute minimum they're going to need to get to 9 wins to even get within sniffing distance of an NCAA bid, especially because Virginia Tech - their one hope for a quality out of conference win - keeps sucking. With 12 games to go that means they need to win at least seven more. Here are the easy wins left on the schedule: Nebraska at home. That's it. Everything else is going to at least be a little tough; HOME: Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska. AWAY: Michigan State, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. Yikes. They're gonna be favored in what, 3 games? Maybe four? It's long ass road to those 9 wins, and I'm not even sure 9 would get there. Looking like another long year. I need a vacation.

- Elsewhere in a rare move the Twins made that I actually like they signed reliever Joel Zumaya to a one year deal for $800k (with incentives that can double that), but it's a non-guaranteed deal so if his elbow (which you may remember exploded in a game against the Twins) isn't all the way back they can just cut him easy peasy lemon squeezy. Good deal.

He's been hurt a lot since bursting on the scene in his rookie year of 2006 - he hasn't thrown more than 39 innings in a season since then - but if he can somehow stay healthy he could end up being a real bargain. Zumaya has always been a flamethrower (his average fastball for his career has been 98.5 mph, topping at an average of 99 his last two years and he's struck out a batter an inning for his career) and like many of that ilk he's struggled with his control. 2010, however, was different. Although he was still throwing hard and still striking people out he also had gotten the wildness under control, slicing his walk rate basically in half and was developing into a dominant reliever pre-injury. Big fan of the signing.

- Sticking with baseball, why the hell would you trade a 23-year old pitcher who already has one of the best fastballs in the league and has already proven himself to be a #2 type pitcher and if he ever fully developed a second pitch he could end up a full on ace. I know Jesus Montero is thought to be one of the best hitting prospects in baseball and he definitely hit well when he was up with the Yankees last season but it was just 69 plate appearances and how is that all the Mariners got for Michael Pineda?

If Seattle was dead set on trading Pineda and his 171 high quality innings Montero would have been a nice centerpiece to the deal, but there should have been at least a couple more prospects thrown in. Now Seattle has a nice middle of the order future with Dustin Ackley, Montero, and Justin Smoak but they're pitching is suddenly pretty thin again behind Felix. And the Yankee rotation just went from crazy shaky to Sabathia, Pineda, Hiroki Kuroda (who they signed like, 3 minutes after making this trade), Ivan Nova (who finished ahead of Pineda in the ROY voting last year), and their choice of Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, or A.J. Burnett. You know the worst part? And of those three pitchers the Yankees get to choose from as their #5 would be the Twins' ace. I'm going to go lick a car battery now.

- No matter how disappointing the Gophers' hoops season might be to you at least it's not as bad as what's going on with Pitt. The Panthers have been dominant in their own way over the last several seasons and were expecting more of the same this year, starting the year ranked #11, but things haven't exactly gone according to plan. An 0-3 week with a 20 point home loss to Rutgers leaves Pitt in dead last in the Big East at 0-6 and currently riding a 7-game losing streak that started with a home loss to Wagner. Wagner! There's no doubt the Gophers' season has been a bit of a disappointment but it's nothing like what Pitt fans are going through. This year Pitt is hands down the most disappointing team in the NCAA and it isn't remotely close. They're just like The Phantom Menace.

- What's more sweeter than a Packer season ending early? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Suck it, Packers.