bukie

They shot 36% in the first half, not exactly gangbusters.

Hey, Trent Meacham is alive.

Does the sound keep kicking out for everybody, or is it just me?

Is is possible to set keepers early and still modify them before Friday, or is it a one shot deal? I have my keepers in mind for now, but I'm still looking at a couple trade possibilities that may change that this week.

I think my roster's all straightened out: Majors: D Haren - 582.0 J Bay - 562.8 I Suzuki - 475.8 R Furcal - 146.8 R Theriot - Exempt S Marcum - Exempt F Carmona - Exempt H Bailey - Exempt K Johjima - Exempt M Cabrera - Exempt Minors: Alcides Escobar Beau Mills Bryan Anderson Eric Hurley Jordan Zimmerman Jeff Niemann Brett Sinkbeil Casey Weathers Wade LeBlanc Kei Igawa

they must be bad if they're worse than whoever wins the patriot league this year. though they do have us (since we're leading the PL) playing uconn in the first round. bend over. To give a general idea how bad the SWAC is, their second place team, Jackson St., is 7-2 in the conference. They're 8-13 overall, with their one OOC win coming against provisional D-1 2-23 UNC Central.

Jeff Sagarin keeps a daily updated conference rating for college basketball, both rating simple average (so each team counts equally) and central mean (so the middle teams count for more than the best or worst). Look it up here. In both ratings, for today, the ACC is on top, followed by the Big Ten and the Big East. However, the top 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, Big 12) are all fairly close, with the difference between 1 and 5 less than the difference between 5 and 6 (SEC). If you were grouping sets of conferences by similar rating, it would look something like this: High: ACC, Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, Big 12 Mid-high: SEC, MWC Mid: Conference USA, MVC, A-10, Horizon Mid-low: WCC, WAC, CAA, MAAC Low: Most everything else Should be in the play-in game every year, because they're worse than the independents: MEAC, SWAC

Which, of course, isn't to say he's not worth Tyrus Thomas in a trade.

I hate to use the old cliche, but the check is in the mail. Today, because I apparently forgot to mention it to the wife when she was writing out checks last week.

This can only work in my favor. New rosters all around!

If we were to put together a collaborative "top 50" of teams that had decent at-large chances, I'd say only really the top 10 of that list is a "lock" at this point. In the Big East, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Louisville are in for sure unless they completely fall apart. Marquette is in unless they can't beat any of the top teams at the end of the year (really, their schedule has been pretty easy to this point, and the last 6 games for them could determine whether they're a 1 seed or a 10 seed) In the ACC, all of the top 4 of UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson are in barring disaster. In the Big Ten, Purdue (getting a likely discount for games played without Hummel) and MSU (getting a likely discount for games played without Suton and/or Morgan) are in barring disaster. In the Big 12, Oklahoma is for sure in. Next team in line, believe it or not, is probably Kansas. In the Pac-10, I have a hard time saying for sure that any team is in, as nobody's played well enough in the league to warrant that. UCLA is probably closest, more on name than anything. In the SEC, nobody's in for sure except the team that wins the conference tournament. Outside the "Big 6", Xavier is a lock. Memphis and Butler are right there (Butler lost a game in league, but the Horizon is arguably tougher than CUSA this year). So, I guess if I had to break it down, my locks are: UConn UNC Duke Pitt Oklahoma Wake Forest MSU Louisville Xavier Clemson Purdue Marquette ...in that order.

Well, at least DePaul hasn't beaten themselves to this point.

Warning: Illini-related post... The Illini have struggled on offense over the past month (relative to earlier in the year). The biggest problem on offense would appear to be Alex Legion, who is the most inefficient offensive player on the team while he's on the floor, and yet ends the highest % of offensive sets (%Poss, a measure of possessions ended by missed/made shots). He's shooting 31% from the field overall, and 23% from 3-point range, and only 50% from the foul line. What's up with him?

Yeah, Davidson doesn't even have as good a profile as they did last year, and last year they got a 10 seed despite sweeping the SoCon regular season + tourney. If they lose a conference game in that awful conference, they very well may need to win the conference tourney to get into the NCAAs.

So I suppose I should start gearing up to hold a mock tournament selection committee again this year...

I think what most Big Ten fans are missing is that the gap between the best team (say, MSU or Purdue) and the 10th best team (say, Iowa) is small enough that any team can beat any other team on even a slight off-night by the other team. Cases in point: MSU at home vs. NU and PSU, Illinois and PSU at home vs. Iowa (although both ended up being wins, both were tight games throughout). And really, at the halfway point of the conference season, any of the ten teams can still make a run for the tournament (ok, except maybe Iowa...but if they somehow won out, they'd still make it).

I can make it work pretty much whenever, as long as I can plan on it.

Would be nice if the Illini could get back to actually running their motion offense, instead of their "stand around for 35 seconds and take a fallaway jumper" offense.

I can't believe the Illini have won 20 straight against Minnesota, including sweeping 3 games last year.

Manny Harris is the short list. EDIT: Kevin Coble, Talor Battle, Evan Turner, Jamelle Cornley, Lawrence Westbrook, Kalin Lucas, Robbie Hummel, Demetri McCamey and Matt Gatens are probably also on the list for conference honors, but nobody's close to Harris.

Oh, I'm not saying either team should necessarily be "in", right now, I was just somewhat amused by how strikingly similar the profiles were, and how nobody is saying Team B should be in or ranked, and somehow Team A is ranked and largely assumed in.

Let's play a game...who has the better tournament resume? Team A: 11-7, RPI: 73, 5-5 in the last 10, 2-5 vs. top 50, 3-6 vs. top 100, 4-5 road/neutral record, non-con schedule rated 311, one loss outside top 100 Team B: 10-7, RPI: 41, 4-6 in the last 10, 1-5 vs. top 50, 3-7 vs. top 100, 2-5 road/neutral record, non-con schedule rated 234, no losses outside top 100

They're at least as likely to make the tournament as the other team I talk about, so why not? Oh my God, no they don't. Ball St. has like a 1% chance of making the tourney. The MAC West is terrible. Well, the MAC is definitely a one-bid league this year, so maybe he just thinks there's just as much chance Ball State wins the MAC tourney as the 8th best team as ND has winning the Big East tourney as the 9th best team. Ball State is 4-1 in the MAC currently tied for the best record in conference and they already beat one of the other 4-1 teams on the road. Not sure where you get the 8th best team in the MAC from. As statistical measures go, they are worse than the entire MAC East and Western Michigan. They have played better since conference play started, yes, but overall they're the 8th best team. EDIT: And if by "on the road", you mean "at home by 6", then what you said is true. Yes, they're better than the rest of the MAC West. The MAC West is terrible.

They're at least as likely to make the tournament as the other team I talk about, so why not? Oh my God, no they don't. Ball St. has like a 1% chance of making the tourney. The MAC West is terrible. Well, the MAC is definitely a one-bid league this year, so maybe he just thinks there's just as much chance Ball State wins the MAC tourney as the 8th best team as ND has winning the Big East tourney as the 9th best team.

BP's John Gasaway posted an article on conference analysis (still early edition). On Illinois: