bukie

Iowa's resume has basically gone from Michigan State to Wisconsin in two weeks.

From the "no teams this year are really good" narrative, the top rated team on KP right now has a Pythagorean of .9465, the lowest Pyth by a top team since Pomeroy started doing his ratings 14 years ago. Six teams last year had a high Pythagorean.

Ineligible teams: SMU (American) UMass-Lowell (America East) Louisville (ACC) Sttetson (Atlantic Sun) Southern Miss (CUSA) Northern Kentucky (Horizon) Florida A&M (MEAC) Abilene Christian (Southland) Central Arkansas (Southland) Incarnate Word (Southland) Alcorn State (SWAC) Pacific (WCC) Grand Canyon (WAC)

Anyone can contribute what they can in the thread over the next two weeks.

I'm not sure I've watched a game that didn't include the Illini this year. To be fair, the Illini weren't really in those games either.

So far that's two comedians and zero committee members. :wink:

Gap from Cubs to top of the AL is about the same as the gap from the top of the AL to the bottom of the AL.

Over 50% to make the NLCS before the season starts.

One other thing, don't include ineligible teams in your lists. I know SMU and Louisville specifically are ineligible, and there's a bunch of teams ineligible for NCAA APR failures. I'll see if I can find a list somewhere.

Also, my team is Illinois, so I won't be putting them on any of my lists.

Also note, I didn't link anyone else's bracketology or selection, because we're not trying to mimic anyone else, we're picking our own teams.

Well it's that time of year again, time to watch college basketball for a month until baseball gets going. This is the 12th annual NCAA Mock Tourney selection committee. To participate, be prepared to send 3-4 lists of teams every day starting Tuesday next week until Sunday next week. It should take about an hour of time each day to do so, if that, and I'll collate all the information and we'll pick teams, seed them, and bracket them, just like the real selection committee does (though they do have software for selection...one day I'll get there). In order to participate in the committee, send me (or post in the thread) the following things by the end of Tuesday, March 8 (11:59 PM CST): 1. Your favorite team/representative team. In the normal committee, a committee member can't comment on any team they represent. The real committee represents conferences, but if I did that here, nobody would be able to talk about the Big Ten. 2. Your list of 36 at large worthy teams, assuming nobody wins their automatic bid. So in an apocalyptic conference tournament world, which 36 teams get at-large bids anyway? You could do this in order to skip step 4, or just toss the teams in there and rank the top 16 separately. 3. Your list of other teams that should be considered for at-large bids. 4. Your list of top 16 teams, in order. Feel free to discuss the process and teams freely in the thread, and I'll keep updating this post and other posts later with the progress of the committee, from the teams that win auto bids to the teams that are locked onto the board, to the teams that fall off the board, to the seed list, to the bracket. The official committee makes use of RPI to analyze the teams, which is a tool so old and obsolete it's long become a joke, so I don't like to use it. I'd like to think our task here is to select the teams that deserve it along side the committee, not so much try to predict what the actual committee will do. That said, here are some resources I like to use for analysis: KenPom ratings Sagarin ratings Massey Comparison Ratings (seriously there are about 30 different ratings there) Real Time RPI (hey just because it's obsolete and useless doesn't mean it doesn't exist) Automatic bids: 1. Austin Peay - Ohio Valley 2. Yale - Ivy 3. UNC Asheville - Big South 4. Florida-Gulf Coast - Atlantic Sun 5. Northern Iowa - Missouri Valley 6. UNC Wilmington - Colonial 7. Chattanooga - Southern 8. Iona - Metro Atlantic 9. Green Bay - Horizon 10. Fairleigh Dickinson - Northeast 11. South Dakota State - Summit 12. Gonzaga - West Coast 13. Patriot 14. America East 15. Mid American 16. ACC 17. Big East 18. Big 12 19. Big Sky 20. Big West 21. Conference USA 22. Mid-Eastern 23. Mountain West 24. Pac-12 25. Southland 26. SWAC 27. WAC 28. Sun Belt 29. SEC 30. Big Ten 31. American 32. Atlantic 10

Next year is here.

So you partially forgot about Murton?

Part of me wants to see an ending to this with Manfred announcing that the NL will incorporate a DH effective immediately, upon which Theo simply walks up and drops the mic and walks out.

Just when I think I read the stupidest argument in NSBB history, this thread continues to one up itself.

Create a thread and see who is interested, ill give it a go. I'll create the thread on Monday like with past years. Gives people 10 days to decide if they want to participate . Worse comes to worse I let my 8yo weigh in with his selections, and his criteria for selecting teams is a bit subjective.

I can run the selection committee again, but it would be good if we can get 8-10 different people weighing in. Otherwise it just turns into me being Joe Lunardi and nobody really wants that. I also haven't watched a single game since December, so it'll be like I'm on the actual committee.

Four MLS teams against four Mexican teams in the CCL quarters. How many advance? I say one, and the timing of the games sucks for the MLS teams.

My question is if his coaching tree is an actual oak log that his players use to swing at players going by?

It's ok, I'll get to the bottom of this. I sent a letter to Wrigley Field this morning, should hear back within six weeks.

There's really no such thing as a "group of death" in the Copa. Only thing that makes it slightly harder than any other group is having Costa Rica in it instead of Jamaica/Haiti/Panama (though, the US lost to Jamaca AND Panama just last year so it doesn't matter that much). They were always going to have a better CONMEBOL team and a worse CONMEBOL team in the group.

Which one of these "expert" opinions comes from a Cardinals writer? No. 1: Is this the Chicago Cubs' year? Jesse Rogers: Answering that question means answering it twice -- once for the regular season and once for the playoffs. Remarkably, the Cubs have gone to the postseason in back-to-back years only once since a three-year run from 1906 to 1908. Since then, almost every good Cubs season has been followed by disaster. Then came 2007 and 2008. The Cubs won the division each of those years but failed to win a playoff game in either. The Cubs will make the postseason in 2016. After that, it's anyone's guess, as the playoffs are a crapshoot. Considering the odds at that point are just 1 in 10, it would be hard to say this is the Cubs' year. But is this their best chance in decades? Probably. That's the most you can commit to when it comes to the Cubs. They have a horrible past to overcome. Mark Saxon: I'm not willing to ride the Chicago Cubs-to-the-World Series bandwagon as eagerly as some of my colleagues. Even with Jake Arrieta's magical Cy Young season, they finished third in their division in ERA in 2015, and I'm not convinced John Lackey can replicate his 2015 performance in his age 37 season. The St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers all have deeper starting rotations. The Cubs have served notice that they're a team to be feared -- probably for years to come -- but they haven't guaranteed themselves anything. Christina Kahrl: The question going in should be not whether this team is going to win the NL Central, but by how much they will do so. The Cubs have the best lineup in baseball and are ready to crank out massive amounts of run support, with the additional upside of Jorge Soler and Addison Russell being ready to add their names to the Cubs' burgeoning list of superstars. Adam Warren can make a huge difference if the team ends up giving him a high-leverage setup role. Anything can happen in a short series in October, but if Jake Arrieta isn't gassed by the time the Cubs reach the NLCS -- signing John Lackey certainly helps give the rotation the depth to be careful about that -- they can do it, even against the Giants in an even year or that Mets rotation.

I'll be the sixth person to sign up so I anticipate being ready to go after the all star break.

As for me: Rizzo Bryant Soler Baez Russell Schwarber Heyward Zobrist Montero