bukie

Committee's final proposed bracket: East Region - Charlotte, NC West Region - Phoenix, AZ 1 - North Carolina - Raleigh, NC Pod Anaheim, CA Pod - UCLA - 1 16 - Coppin State/Mississippi Valley State Mount St. Mary's - 16 8 - Oklahoma Arkansas - 8 9 - UNLV St. Mary's - 9 4 - Notre Dame - Tampa, FL Pod Tampa, FL Pod - Connecticut - 4 13 - George Mason Oral Roberts - 13 5 - Washington State Clemson - 5 12 - Temple Baylor - 12 2 - Georgetown - Birmingham, AL Pod Little Rock, AR Pod - Texas - 2 15 - Belmont UMBC - 15 7 - Gonzaga West Virginia - 7 10 - Kansas State St. Joseph's - 10 3 - Xavier - Washington DC Pod Omaha, NE Pod - Wisconsin - 3 14 - Winthrop CS Fullerton - 14 6 - Indiana Vanderbilt - 6 11 - Baylor Davidson - 11 1 - Tennessee - Birmingham, AL Pod Little Rock, AR Pod - Memphis - 1 16 - Portland State Texas-Arlington - 16 8 - BYU Mississippi State - 8 9 - Miami, FL Texas A&M - 9 4 - Drake - Denver, CO Pod Denver, CO Pod - Butler - 4 13 - Siena San Diego - 13 5 - Marquette Pittsburgh - 5 12 - Virginia Tech Western Kentucky - 12 2 - Kansas - Omaha, NE Pod Raleigh, NC Pod - Duke - 2 15 - American Austin Peay - 15 7 - USC Kent State - 7 10 - South Alabama Kentucky - 10 3 - Louisville - Washington DC Pod Anaheim, CA Pod - Stanford - 3 14 - Cornell Boise State - 14 6 - Michigan State Purdue - 6 11 - Illinois State Villanova - 11 Midwest Region - Detroit, MI South Region - Houston, TX

Reserved for results of Saturday, March 15: Results of 15-48 ranking: Voter Teams bukie Andy Flames ISU Total Connecticut 34 32 31 34 131 Notre Dame 31 34 27 32 124 Washington St. 33 26 29 33 121 Marquette 32 33 30 26 121 Pittsburgh 25 28 34 29 116 Vanderbilt 28 27 33 25 113 Michigan State 26 30 32 24 112 Clemson 30 25 28 27 110 Purdue 29 29 24 28 110 Indiana 23 31 26 30 110 USC 27 23 20 31 101 Gonzaga 22 24 18 23 87 Oklahoma 20 20 25 22 87 West Virginia 24 21 22 17 84 BYU 17 18 23 21 79 Kent State 19 15 21 13 68 Arkansas 18 17 15 18 68 Mississippi St. 21 9 17 19 66 St. Mary's 15 16 12 20 63 UNLV 16 22 11 12 61 Texas A&M 10 19 16 14 59 Miami-Florida 13 11 19 15 58 Kansas State 14 3 14 16 47 Kentucky 11 13 8 10 42 South Alabama 8 10 13 9 40 St. Joseph's 12 12 7 8 39 Baylor 4 6 9 11 30 Arizona 7 4 10 7 28 Davidson 9 14 2 2 27 Illinois State 6 7 4 3 20 Temple 3 5 3 6 17 Western Kentucky 2 8 1 1 12 Villanova 5 5 10 Virginia Tech 1 6 7 Oregon 2 4 6 Arizona State 5 5 VCU 1 1 If the fifth member wants to send me his ranking I will still add them in. So, 1-65: North Carolina Memphis UCLA Tennessee Kansas Duke Texas Georgetown Wisconsin Stanford Xavier Louisville Drake Butler Connecticut Notre Dame Washington St. Marquette Pittsburgh Vanderbilt Michigan State Clemson Purdue Indiana USC Gonzaga Oklahoma West Virginia BYU Kent State Arkansas Mississippi St. St. Mary's UNLV Texas A&M Miami-Florida Kansas State Kentucky South Alabama St. Joseph's Baylor Arizona Davidson Illinois State Temple Western Kentucky Villanova Virginia Tech George Mason Oral Roberts San Diego Siena Cornell Boise State CS Fullerton Winthrop Belmont UMBC Austin Peay American Portland State Southland (TX Arlington) Mount St. Mary's Coppin State Miss Valley State Last 4 out: Oregon Arizona State VCU Dayton (they had a vote, but the voter forgot to put Davidson and W. Kentucky in the field, so I just removed the last 2 from their list and added them) So, here's the S-curve (remember, it snakes): 1. North Carolina UCLA Memphis Tennessee 2. Georgetown Texas Duke Kansas 3. Wisconsin Stanford Xavier Louisville 4. Notre Dame Connecticut Butler Drake 5. Washington St. Marquette Pittsburgh Vanderbilt 6. Indiana Purdue Clemson Michigan State 7. USC Gonzaga Oklahoma West Virginia 8. Mississippi St. Arkansas Kent State BYU 9. St. Mary's UNLV Texas A&M Miami-Florida 10. St. Joseph's South Alabama Kentucky Kansas State 11. Baylor Arizona Davidson Illinois State 12. Virginia Tech Villanova Western Kentucky Temple 13. George Mason Oral Roberts San Diego Siena 14. Winthrop CS Fullerton Boise State Cornell 15. Belmont UMBC Austin Peay American 16. Coppin State Mt St. Mary's Southland (UTAR) Portland State 16b. Miss. Valley St.

Results of Friday, March 14: Voter results: Voter Teams bukie Flames SSR Andy ISU Total North Carolina 16 16 15 16 16 79 UCLA 15 13 16 12 13 69 Memphis 12 15 13 14 15 69 Tennessee 13 14 9 15 14 65 Kansas 14 10 14 11 10.5 59.5 Duke 9 11 12 11 12 55 Texas 11 12 8 11 10.5 52.5 Georgetown 10 9 11 10 9 49 Wisconsin 8 5 10 7 8 38 Stanford 6 6 7 8 6 33 Xavier 5 8 1 6 7 27 Louisville 7 4 2 5 5 23 Drake 4 3 6 4 1 18 Butler 3 2 4 2 2 13 Vanderbilt 7 7 Notre Dame 3 3 6 Connecticut 1 4 5 Washington State 5 5 Purdue 1 3 4 Marquette 2 1 3 So, rather than having a distinct 16, it appears we have a solid top 14 of 1. North Carolina 2. UCLA 3. Memphis 4. Tennessee 5. Kansas (for now) 6. Duke 7. Texas (for now) 8. Georgetown 9. Wisconsin 10. Stanford 11. Xavier 12. Louisville 13. Drake 14. Butler As for the bottom seeds (13-16...#49-65 overall): Teams Average Oral Roberts 15.25 George Mason 15.25 San Diego 14.5 Siena 12 Cornell 12 WAC (New Mexico St) 11 Big West (CS Fullerton) 9.75 Winthrop 9 Belmont 8.75 Austin Peay 8 AE (UMBC) 7.5 American 7.25 Portland State 6 MEAC (Morgan St) 3 Mount St. Mary's 2.75 Southland (TX-Ar) 2.5 SWAC (Miss Valley St) 1 So, seeds 49-65 (for the time being) are: 49. Oral Roberts 50. George Mason 51. San Diego 52. Siena 53. Cornell 54. WAC (New Mexico St.) 55. Big West (CS Fullerton) 56. Winthrop 57. Belmont 58. Austin Peay 59. America East (UMBC) 60. American 61. Portland State 62. MEAC (Morgan St.) 63. Mount St. Mary's 64. Southland (TX-Arlington) 65. SWAC (Miss. Valley St.)

Results of Thursday, March 13 (34 at-large teams). Here are the selections | Voter | Team | bukie | Flames | Andy | ISU | SSR | ------------------------------------------------------ Xavier | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Duke | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UNC | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Clemson | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Wisconsin | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Indiana | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Purdue | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Michigan State | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Kansas | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Texas | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Kansas State | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Pittsburgh | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Louisville | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Georgetown | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Marquette | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Connecticut | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Notre Dame | 1 | 1 | X | 1 | 1 | West Virginia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Memphis | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | UCLA | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Washington St. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Stanford | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Tennessee | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Vanderbilt | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Gonzaga | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | St. Mary's | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | BYU | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Mississippi St. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | South Alabama | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | Oklahoma | 1 | 1 | | 1 | 1 | USC | 1 | | 1 | 1 | 1 | Kent State | 1 | 1 | | 1 | | Miami (FL) | 1 | 1 | | 1 | | UNLV | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | Arizona | | 1 | 1 | | 1 | Oregon | | | 1 | | 1 | Dayton | | 1 | | | | Ohio State | | | 1 | | | Kentucky | | | 1 | | | Arkansas | | | | 1 | | Texas A&M | | | | | 1 | Arizona State | | | | | 1 | So, the following 30 teams are IN, no further discussion: Xavier Duke UNC Clemson Wisconsin Indiana Purdue Michigan State Kansas Texas Kansas State Pittsburgh Louisville Georgetown Marquette Connecticut Notre Dame West Virginia Memphis UCLA Washington St. Stanford Tennessee Vanderbilt Gonzaga St. Mary's BYU Mississippi St. South Alabama Oklahoma USC These 4 teams were close to in, needed one more vote: Kent State Miami (FL) UNLV Arizona Other available at-large possibilities: Oregon Dayton Ohio State Kentucky Arkansas Texas A&M Arizona State All other at-large candidates I have noted in the above post The following conference representatives are not in at-large discussion, and will thus be at the bottom of the bracket: America East (Maryland-BC) Belmont (ASun) Portland State (BSky) Winthrop (BSouth) Big West (UC Santa Barbara) George Mason (Colonial) Cornell (Ivy) Siena (MAAC) MEAC (Morgan State) Mount St. Mary's (NEC) Austin Peay (OVC) Patriot (American) Southland (Stephen F. Austin) SWAC (Alabama State) Oral Roberts (Summit) WAC (Utah State)

Current committee: Name Representing ------------------------------------------ bukie Illinois ISUCubsFan Iowa State Flames24Rulz Southern Illinois Andy Notre Dame SouthSideRyan Illinois Auto Bids: ----------------- America East - UMBC Atlantic 10 - Temple Atlantic Coast Atlantic Sun - Belmont Big 12 Big East - Pittsburgh Big Sky - Portland State Big South - Winthrop Big Ten Big West - Cal St. Fullerton Colonial - George Mason Conference USA - Memphis Horizon League - Butler Ivy League - Cornell Metro Atlantic - Siena Mid American - Kent State Mid Eastern - Coppin State Missouri Valley - Drake Mountain West - UNLV Northeast - Mount St. Mary's Ohio Valley - Austin Peay Pac 10 - UCLA Patriot League - American Southeastern Southern - Davidson Southland Southwestern - Mississippi Valley State Summit League - Oral Roberts Sun Belt - Western Kentucky West Coast - San Diego Western Athletic - Boise State Teams that deserve at-large consideration: ---------------------------------------------------- Arizona Arizona State Arkansas Baylor BYU California Clemson Connecticut Creighton Dayton Duke Florida Florida State Georgetown Gonzaga Houston Illinois State Indiana Kansas Kansas State Kent State Louisville Marquette Maryland Massachusetts Memphis Miami-Florida Michigan State Minnesota Mississippi Mississippi State Nebraska New Mexico North Carolina Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma Oregon Pittsburgh Purdue Rhode Island South Alabama Southern California Southern Illinois St. Joseph's St. Mary's Stanford Syracuse Tennessee Texas Texas A&M Texas Tech UAB UCLA UNLV Vanderbilt Villanova Virginia Commonwealth Wake Forest Washington State West Virginia Wisconsin Xavier

Here we go again, the fourth annual NSBB mock NCAA tournament selection committee. Whoever would like to participate is welcome to, but please, if you are going to participate, be willing and able to go through the entire process from March 13-16. My ultimate goal is to get 8-10 participants, but we've done it the last few years with 4-5, so things can be done either way. After each step of the process, I will post the results, so everyone can see the process, even if they don't/can't commit to participate in it. Here is the commitment/process: 1) Over the next 10 days: Anyone who wants to participate in the committee, please reply to this thread, listing your favorite team (you can be that team "rep"), and list any teams you think deserve consideration for an at-large bid, especially teams that you don't see anyone else listing. I'll make a general list, but I am more than capable of forgetting or neglecting deserving teams, especially teams that I don't see play regularly. 2) March 13 (Thursday): By midnight (CST), PM me a list of the 34 teams you believe deserve at-large bids, assuming no automatic bids. At this point, ranking is not an issue, just teams in the field. Some of your potential at-large teams, like Butler, may have already won their conference tournament by then and guaranteed themselves an auto bid, so ignore them for this list. Also, do not include your team on the list of 34. 3) From those lists, any team that shows up on 75% of the lists is IN (your team is not counted against your list), no further discussion. I will post the teams that are IN, along with other teams that have clinched automatic bids, and the remainder of teams in consideration. I will also then post a list of assumed "auto" bids from conference tournaments that have not yet completed (using the highest remaining RPI team still in the conference tournament). 4) March 14 (Friday): By midnight (CST), PM me your top 16, ranked in order. If you believe a team's ranking still depends on further conference games (say, whether Kansas or Texas gets a #1 depends on the future tournament results), indicate that somehow (like, BIG 12 TOURNAMENT WINNER here, BIG 12 TOURNAMENT RUNNER-UP here, etc) 5) Using the top 16 information, I'll set up a pod allocation to best protect the higher seeds. At this point, the top 16 seeds will be pretty much set, barring special circumstances specified (like a tie in aggregate ranking, or special conference tournament situations) 6) March 15 (Saturday): By midnight (CST), PM me a ranking from 17 to 65, including auto bids for teams and conferences not in at-large consideration. 7) Sunday morning, I'll post the 1-65 ranking, and fashion a possible bracket based on those rankings, made as balanced as possible. 8) If anyone has further discrepancies or arguments, discussion will remain open until the actual bracket is released. To participate in the committee, reply in this thread with "your team", and list any teams you think deserve at-large consideration that nobody else has mentioned, just so nobody forgets any teams when they make their lists of 34 at-large teams. Some helpful resources: Inside the Bunker, an interesting look-in on the committee from 3 years ago, and the process involved. Ken Pomeroy's RPI, Ratings, and Efficiency/Tempo stats. Basketball Prospectus - Yes, the statistics page is just the link to Pomeroy's site, but there's fantastic analysis within the articles, specifically John Gasaway's stats on Points per possession (PPP) CollegeRPI, by Jerry Palm Sagarin Ratings

They still can't play defense. Actually, they're quite efficient defensively, they just play at a high pace. http://www.kenpom.com/sr.php?team=North%20Carolina

Jack Ingrem was decent. As was Roger Powell. Powell was undersized, if I remember correctly. Ingram was surprisingly decent, yeah, but Augustine really needed to be a factor in that game. Even then, it always felt like they were one made 3 away at the end there.

I would argue UNC won because Illinois' only decent big man played 9 minutes before fouling out against Sean May.

I think an interesting discussion would be: who is the best Indiana tournament team? IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, Butler? They're practically interchangeable.

I hope you are wrong on the second part. Wisky went in and won at Texas, who might end up with a 1. They also swept IU. Just because they don't have any names, doesn't mean they aren't very good. If they win out they should be a 2. Wisconsin is the best of the lot, but the Big Ten is way down this year, non-conference RPI worse than the MVC, and there's been no "clear" best team. If Wisconsin had gone, say, 17-1 or 18-0 in the Big Ten, a 2 would have been a possibility, but the flaws in the other BT tourney teams (Indiana beat down by UConn, Purdue's bad early losses, Michigan State looking awful in conference) are going to end up reflecting on the quality of Wisconsin's team, IMO. If I had to seed 1-4 today, I'd probably go 1. Memphis, North Carolina, UCLA, Tennessee 2. Texas, Kansas, Louisville, Duke 3. Georgetown, Vandy, Xavier, Stanford 4. Connecticut, Wisconsin, Drake, Pick an Indiana Team/Marquette

I think Xavier gets a 3 seed, and no Big Ten team ends up higher than a 4. Still plenty of games to play, though. I'll start an NCAA tournament mock selection/discussion thread soon. Probably Monday.

I shudder to consider the spot the Cubs would have to be in for this lineup to happen in the regular season. :)

Maybe he wants someone to be on base a lot for Soriano. You know, since teams will intentionally walk Soto so frequently.

So, who'd be up for another mock tournament selection committee this year? Hoping to get interest from about 8 this year (ended up with 2-3 that completed the process last year). Selection would be 2 weeks from today, and would require a decent commitment over the 4-day weekend of the actual selection (Thursday-Sunday). If there's enough interest, I can post a lot more of the specifics.

Big Red Field would really stink, wouldn't it? Orbit Field, Eclipse Park, Big League Chew Stadium... Yeah, it could be bad.

I think what the great majority of the media doesn't understand is that it's largely not the fact that Gordon changed his mind that upset the Illinois fans, it was the fact that he denied he was doing so right up to signing day, leaving Illinois recruiting with absolutely nothing. If he had openly stated he was reconsidering his options when he actually started reconsidering his options, Illinois would have had time to recruit other players to fill the space if he left. Reneging on signing day meant Illinois had absolutely nothing there and nothing in the pipeline. Anyway, to lighten the mood, any time I get sick of this current squad, I just go back and watch this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTbE4eC-AIc.

They could rename the thing Wrigley Stadium for all I'd care if the Cubs could manage to win a championship.

Win Share totals (with Cubs): Grace: 293.4 Chance: 235.6 Cavaretta: 229.5 Lee: 87.1 Based on that, it looks like I'd have to go with Gracie.

I need a 3-sided coin to flip to decide between Cavaretta, Chance and Grace.

I could see this vote being the closest, as I consider Chance, Cavaretta and Grace's Cub careers to be very very similar. Lee could have a shot if he keeps going another 5 years with the club.

I would say it's odd that Chance isn't even an option, even though he's in the Hall of Fame (albeit one of the least deserving HOF-ers), and Cub first-basemen through the ages haven't exactly been first-balloters.

So, a few friends and I are looking to start up a fantasy league, but we wanted to do something different. We want to keep it 5x5 rotisserie, but completely avoid pointless counting stats, while keeping with a general theme of diversity in players. So, these were the stats we were thinking of at this time: Offense: OBP, SLG, BB Rate, K Rate, SB% Pitching: OBA, SLGA, WHIP, K/9, HR/9 Now, my biggest issue with this is certain stats will end up having some type of redundancy, like OBP and BB Rate, or OBA-WHIP and SLGA-HR/9. Could just use a single all-encompassing sabermetric stat, but that completely eliminates the diversity of players, which is the reason we want to separate it into 5 stats. Also, some of the sabermetric stats make it difficult to calculate an aggregate of all the players, unlike the stats we listed (which can be discerned rather easily from weekly box scores). The real trouble is finding 5 differentiating stats when players truly have complete control of basically 3 things offensively (patience, power, speed) and 3 things pitching (walks, strikeouts, HRs). Any better rate stats to use that don't get too all-encompassing?

If Soto hits 20 homers, he's already one of the top 10 catchers in fantasy league, unless those are his only 20 hits of the year.

As far as Midway goes, I know there are a bunch of decent-looking hotels just south of the airport, less than a mile. That hotel area is recently built up, but the surrounding area isn't exactly the most pleasant area. Never actually stayed at the hotels, though (seeing as I live about 10 miles south of the airport, it'd be a pointless exercise).