bukie

Super Bowl?

Trading for Carson Wentz when Deshaun Watson is available is a lot like trading up for Mitchell Trubisky when Deshaun Watson is available.

I still think fouling out of a game is the worst rule in basketball, and I wish there was a better way to handle players getting excess fouls.

The Big Ten better get a game on the schedule for Illinois... That'll be 3 games cancelled all because of issues on the opponents' side (though I know UM's team itself didn't have any cases) Technically that date is open for MSU, though they have home games scheduled on the 9th and 13th. However, it's on them to catch up anyway, and this would be one way to do it.

Illinois-Michigan game has been postponed now because Michigan didn't think it'd be ready to play Illinois after one day of practice after quarantine.

I had forgotten Yahoo sports existed, which could be related.

I know T&T is terrible and this isn't exactly a USMNT A team, but I hope they bury them 15-0.

Now that it's the end of January, and the regular season is effectively half over (considering it started in mid-December), it's worth an early look at what the tournament field might look like. Records are going to look weird overall, since basically all the major conference teams are missing 5-6 gimme games from the preseason being shortened. So a team that would normally be, like, 20-12 could very well be 14-12 and still easily in to the tournament. That would put them at 7-6 at this point in the year, so it's almost necessary to disregard overall record when considering a team's tournament resume. Also, the Ivy League isn't playing this year, so if the tournament still will have 68 teams as planned, that means only 31 auto bids and 37 at large bids. Starting at the top: 1 and 2 are definitely Gonzaga and Baylor, in some order. If Baylor does finish the season undefeated, they'll undoubtedly take the #1 overall spot, but as of right now, Baylor has 6 T1 and T2 wins and Gonzaga has 7, so Gonzaga gets the nod at this point for #1 overall with Baylor #2. In reality, it doesn't matter a whole lot, they're the top 2 teams. The other 1 seeds right now will be chosen between the next tier, which consists of Michigan, Houston, Virginia, Villanova and Alabama. Villanova is currently short games which makes it difficult, and Michigan will be short games here over the next couple weeks. Alabama is the only one with a bad loss against a non-tourney level team, and Michigan gets the nod by playing in by far the toughest conference this year, so they're #3. Villanova has 5 T1 and T2 wins and just the 1 loss against T1, with Houston having 6 T1 and T2 wins with a T2 loss. I'll give Houston the nod at #4 with the last 1 seed, and Villanova slots in at #5 overall. Virginia with the nod at #6 with 6 quality wins. After that, it's Alabama, Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio State, Wisconsin for consideration. Illinois did just beat Iowa and has 8 quality wins to 9 for Alabama, but Bama has the bad loss, and Iowa/Texas have effectively identical resumes, so for right now let's go Illinois #7, Texas #8, Iowa #9, Alabama #10. Ohio State is 7-4 against tourney teams, Wisconsin is 8-4 against tourney teams, Tennessee is 3-3 against tourney teams. Ohio State won at Wisconsin, so give them the slight nod overall with Ohio State #11, Wisconsin #12. For the rest of the protected seeds, it's a choice between Tennessee, Texas Tech, Florida State, West Virginia, Creighton, Kansas, and Colorado. Tennessee has the 3-3 vs quality teams, Texas Tech 3-5, Florida State 6-1 with 1 bad loss, Colorado 5-3 with a bad loss, West Virginia 6-4, Creighton 7-3 with a bad loss, Kansas 6-5. I'll give WV the nod at #13, Tennessee #14, Creighton #15, Florida State #16, Kansas #17, Colorado #18, Texas Tech #19. Past that I'll skip the detailed analysis, but there are 2 MVC teams with high raw NET values (Drake, Loyola), but only Loyola has a win against a tourney team, and Drake has played absolutely nobody. They'll play each other twice at Drake coming up, with the victor of the conference the only feasible at-large team from outside the usual suspects. So here are my rankings for the top 50 teams at this point based on NET resumes 1. Gonzaga 2. Baylor 3. Michigan 4. Houston 5. Villanova 6. Virginia 7. Illinois 8. Texas 9. Iowa 10. Alabama 11. Ohio State 12. Wisconsin 13. West Virginia 14. Tennessee 15. Creighton 16. Florida State 17. Kansas 18, Colorado 19. Texas Tech 20. Missouri 21. Purdue 22. Oklahoma 23. Florida 24. USC 25. Rutgers 26. Boise State 27. UCLA 28. Arkansas 29. Minnesota 30. Oklahoma State 31. San Diego State 32. Connecticut 33. Oregon 34. North Carolina 35. Indiana 36. Arizona 37. LSU 38. Loyola-IL 39. Virginia Tech 40. Louisville 41. Maryland 42. Saint Louis 43. Utah State 44. Duke 45. Stanford 46. Penn State(?) (I mean, their entire schedule save 2 games has been tournament teams and they have 3 wins, so...) 47. Syracuse 48. Clemson 49. BYU 50. Drake It gets...dire after about 35 this season with such fewer gimme games. If you think of the rankings like seeds, 1-32 are seeds 1 to 8 in the tournament, so 33-36 is 9 seeds, 37-40 are 10 seeds, 41-44 are 11 seeds, and 45-48 are basically last four in at this point. There's not a lot to pick from this season.

The threat title should be "Cubs have Kohl's Cash"

Oh, right, the Red Wings are also terrible.

After two opening blowouts, the Bulls have gone 7-6, scoring the most points per game in the NBA (and allowing 118 points per game, which is a problem), outscoring their opponents overall despite being blown out in Milwaukee, played the Lakers and Clippers within a basket, and are...fun to watch? That was a quick turnaround.

Blackhawks take a lead for 45 seconds, get a point, lose anyway.

Yeah I'll be happy to look back on this as an overreaction, but I don't think people have caught on to just how historically bad this season is going to be. Crawford and Lehner covered up a ton of flaws the last couple years, and even then all that got us was a 12th place finish in the conference. With Dach out for the season, Toews out indefinitely (and mysteriously), and Kane/Keith very likely totally checked out, especially in light of Colliton's extension, it's going to be very, very ugly. I'm usually not one to dwell on the meatball, 'play with passion' aspects of sports, but going to need to see even a semblance of a spark before I stop betting the other team puck line every game. Nah, you're right. This team is not just ordinary levels of bad. I'm not super familiar with every team in the league, but they have to be the worst, right? This is an AHL team plus Kane. Detroit was bad bad last year, but they've already won a game. Meanwhile, the Hawks just tied tonight's game at 19:10 of the 2nd period and it's still tied at the end of the 2nd period, which is the longest stint of the year they haven't trailed aside from starting games at 0-0 (they were tied 2-2 against Florida in the last game for 20 seconds).

I've been so uninvested in the Hawks this season that I didn't even realize they realigned divisions, and the Hawks are somehow in the same division as Detroit and Columbus again, but not with St. Louis or Minnesota. Blackhawks divisional opponents this year: Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, Dallas, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida

The Bills did not have a single rushing play in the first quarter tonight.

Tough is right. It's tough to lose when you out-shoot, out-rebound, out-assist and out-steal the opponent. Just one of those games where Maryland made just enough contested jumpers to keep close enough and beat Illinois at the free throw line. Tough loss, but that kind of thing can happen in a relentless conference schedule.

I know almost nothing about Hoppe, and here the USMNT is devoid of striker depth while he puts in a hat trick in the Bundesliga. Should be at least worth a look in Gold CUp play, no?

Michigan's schedule broke so favorably. Illinois and Iowa once apiece and both in Ann Arbor, and don't have to go to Rutgers, which is funny to write. ETA: Though because of the depth, barttorvik still has you with the 2nd hardest schedule the rest of the way. Another edit: I guess Illinois only plays Iowa once (in Champaign) too. Yeah and we haven't played a team ranked better than 36 so far so we had a really soft cushion to start the year before it gets tougher. I was expecting a borderline tourney season and maybe it would have trended that way with a tougher start to the schedule, but we've been able to gain confidence, figure out rotations and determine Dickinson is a star. I'm sure we'll get batted around in February though. None of the top 4 have played each other yet, allowing them all to get a 2 game cushion on the rest of the league. Meanwhile, poor Minnesota is 3-3 with losses to Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois and victories over Iowa, Ohio State and Michigan State, and their next 2 games are Iowa and Michigan again.

This pretty much says it all about that game:

53-13 second half makes up for the sleepwalking through the first half, but this is just unreal the difference.

The entire NCAA tournament this year will take place in the state of Indiana, making use of 4 facilities in Indianapolis (Lucas Oil stadium, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indiana Farmers Coliseum) as well as IU's and Purdue's gyms in Bloomington and West Lafayette. Still projecting to have 67 games for 68 teams as of today.

Would the Packers bench the starters for next week to guarantee everyone is healthy for the playoffs? They have nothing to play for. EDIT: Ahh, they would lose the 3 way tie scenario with Seattle and New Orleans. So GB would have something to play for if both won.

Here's what's at stake for the Giants next week: - If the GIants lose, and PHI-CIN-ATL-HOU all win, the Giants at 5-11 would get the 3rd pick in the NFL draft. - If the Giants win and WAS loses, the Giants win the NFC East at 6-10. The NFC East, folks.

In the current 4 way tie at 10-5 for the 3 AFC Wildcard spots, the current odd team out is Indianapolis, as they lost to the Browns and Ravens and have a worse conference record than the Dolphins. So if all 4 teams win next week, Indy is out.

CCL final late tonight (10pm EST) between LAFC and Tigres. LAFC looking to become the first US CCL winner in over a decade.