mul21

Is the Barnes family still confirming the check from KU is good? :grin:

Where's loukycub? His absence is conspicuous after all of his bragging about Louisville and the Big east. I must say that the last couple days of the tournament have been fantastic with Pitino, Calipari, and Rat face all getting eliminated. Now if UNC goes down it would make my weekend complete.

How much does he drink though? You don't have to be drunk to be over the legal limit. If he's going out and getting plastered every single night, sure, he's probably got a drinking problem. But if he's having a few beers per night, might be over the legal limit and doesn't want to risk a DUI, I don't think that's a drinking problem. Actually being responsible enough to not put yourself in a position where you are going to drink and drive suggests the opposite of a drinking problem. Seems almost commendable. Most drunks would likely continue driving regardless. They drive better with a few in 'em. Difference being between what you're talking about and what is going on here is that the driver is assigned to him by the university at their request from what I understand. This wasn't Billy's idea, it was something the university decided would be a good idea to keep everybody out of hot water. And it's just another contributing factor to what dew is talking about. I've heard exactly what he said, he just didn't play well with others when it came to fitting in to the Kentucky culture. And trust me, I can understand how he feels based on what I have to deal with because my company's corporate office is in Kentucky. It's just a little bit of a different culture if you're not from there and you don't quite get treated the same or trusted quite as much as those who aren't outsiders.

He has a driver take him everywhere he goes at night because of his drinking and the university not wanting to deal with a DUI. I'd say he has a bit of a drinking issue.

From what I've heard, it's almost as much based on off the floor stuff than actual performance. Though missing the tourney for the first time in forever certainly doesn't help. They knew about the drinking before they hired him. Is there something else? The tail chasing. He apparently also hasn't fostered very good relationships with the powers that be in the area according to some of my co-workers who are from the area.

Holy kool aid drinking Batman!!! They beat them because they played within an eyelash of the game of their lives, Memphis' defense wasn't that good to begin with (they play scrubs the entire year and aren't challenged, which explains their defensive numbers), and neither team made their free throws. Plus they were going against an inexperienced back court. Evans played very well, but made a lot of mistakes a more veteran guy or a real PG wouldn't make. Mizzou is a good team and is certainly playing their best basketball right now, but I don't think they have a chance against UConn, or whoever comes out of the MSU/Louisville game (assuming they both win).

Memphis has no idea what's going on right now. That's what happens when you play a veteran team who presses and you don't have a good set of guards. On the other hand, I don't think Mizzou could play a better game than they have tonight and I have a much higher opinion of Mike Anderson's coaching ability after tonight. I don't think I've seen them run that curl as many times or as hard as they have tonight in the times I've seen them play.. Apparently I shouldn't be complimenting them because they're sucking now. Ugh.

And you have to take into account that a 5 seeded UI without Frazier is not a legit 5 seed. It was obvious that they were sorely lacking intensity and leadership on the court with as many wide open looks as WKU got. Plus, they were unconscious from three for about a 15 minute stretch of the game. I think Illinois would have won the game by ~10 with Frazier available. And yes, the B10 is awful. It's obvious. Just ask Digger. He'll tell you that nobody in the conference can score points. Granted yesterday the only team to shoot better than 42% was UI, but the only opponents to shoot better than that against a B10 team were Texas and WKU. I really hope somebody kicks him in the face, he deserves it.

I'm not sure if this is just my UI bias coming through, but I think that may have been the most tightly officiated game in the tourney thus far. So many touch fouls that just haven't been getting called in other games it seemed to me. Regardless, they didn't deserve to win with the lack of energy showed in the 1st half especially. Definitely a better season than I expected, but still frustrating because they do so many dumb things on a regular basis that cost them games.

Is Minnesota down by 3 or 13 right now? The TV in my hotel room is awful.

In my opinion, he's been a huge part of their problem the last couple of years because he'll throw it up from anywhere and can be really streaky. He doesn't care if he's cold, he just keeps chucking it up there.

Clemson is schizo. They can play so well and then just look so bad sometimes. Kind of a fitting match up with Michigan.

It's so much better than past years. This game encapsulates why I didn't trust either Michigan or Clemson enough to beat Oklahoma. Wow, these teams look terrible. if clemson wins, they'll give OU a run Oh, I agree. Clemson has all the tools to give OU fits. I just don't trust Clemson enough to pick them to win twice (actually, I didn't trust enough to pick them once). I'm starting to think Purnell is a good teacher of the game, but horrible at making changes throughout the season. This is about the 5th season in a row where they've been great out of the gate and faded terribly down the stretch. They even did well the 1st half of the ACC season this year before they started crapping the bed again.

Yeah, the conference commissioner must have kicked him in the nuts or something the way he hates on the B10. And the awesome part of it is how he just ignores facts to try to get his point across. It's hard to make Vitale sound like the most rational guy in the room, but Digger just pulled it off. are we going to get UI or oklahoma for the nightcap down here? Everything I've seen has Channel 4 showing UI for the late game. I'm in Peoria right now so I should get it here. I just have to decide if I want to watch it a a bar or Big Al's.

Yeah, the conference commissioner must have kicked him in the nuts or something the way he hates on the B10. And the awesome part of it is how he just ignores facts to try to get his point across. It's hard to make Vitale sound like the most rational guy in the room, but Digger just pulled it off.

The scheduling of the B10 teams kind of blows. Unless I go to a bar I'll only be able to watch 3 games total in the 1st round. Minnesota/Minnesota, MSU/OSU/Wisky play at the same time and Purdue is on during the day. BOO! At least I get to watch the UI game uninterrupted (hopefully, you never know with CBS).

Would the opening games for the non-conference tourney winning high seeds really be that tough? The way this is laid out, you still have the SWAC regular season champ in and playing a highly seeded team (UNC for instance this year). That 1st game would have at least 8-10 teams from minor conferences who just aren't that good compared to the high level teams. You could have those games on Tuesday just like the play in game is now and then just schedule all those teams to play Friday so they have adequate time to travel/prepare.

I think it's rather ridiculous to dismiss the inordinately heavy workload and mistreatment of Prior simply because the evidence isn't conclusive. At his age, the amount of high pitch count games, back to back, and going back in after a shoulder injury, was bound to contribute to injury. It's not just three random games. It was something like a 20-game stretch of just ridiculous treatment. Ask yourself this: Why is a 120 pitch count a high pitch count? Because physiologists who know a whole lot more about physiology and pitching mechanics than anybody here have noted that when you reach somewhere in that neighborhood, your mechanics start to break down due to fatigue and that increases your chances of injury. It's the same as over training or overworking in any other sport. You become more injury prone. I'm training for a marathon right now and the general rule of thumb is that it's better to arrive at the starting line a little under trained than it is to not get there at all because you over trained and got injured. The human body can only handle so much work load before it starts to break down. Some are equipped to handle it better than others.

I was going to post a question about why the hell PSU was still pressing when they'll have to play 4 in 4 days when they're up by almost 20. But then they took the press off.

I realized that after I posted it. It's fixed now.

List of 16 Wake Forest Villanova Kansas Clemson Washington UCLA Arizona State LSU Illinois Xavier Missouri Purdue Gonzaga Marquette Syracuse Utah West Virginia List of 8 Arizona South Carolina Wisconsin Penn State Tennessee St. Mary's Texas A&M Boston College That's probably a terrible order but they all just blend together after that top 8.

Why did we trade him again? Yeah, yeah, I know. Money blah blah blah.

Vikings Who's gonna throw him the ball? I mean Orton is no superstar but at least he can get the ball to his receivers and who knows if he'd be better if he actually had some quality talent to throw to. Is Rosenfels that much of an upgrade over Jackson that TO would make a difference and be happy?

The officiating was dog crap both ways all night. The out of bounds where Davis kicked it and UI got the ball, the traveling calls on Tisdale when he was getting mugged, and just generally very inconsistent on calling fouls all night. I thought the tending call was ok, UI got nailed for a worse one against MSU last Sunday. I just hope MSU beats Purdue this weekend so we don't have to play Sparty before the finals if we can get that far. A trip to the finals will help seeding, although I never really think getting a 4 or 5 seed is that great of a deal. I'd almost rather be a 6 because all the teams after about the top 6-7 are pretty equal and don't really scare me all that much.

OU's case for a #1 seed rests entirely on how the committee treats the losses @Texas and to KU without Blake Griffin. But on your list I like MSU over both Louisville and Memphis. I'd probably favor MSU resume more than UConn's too. Not that the committee looks at it, but Pomeroy has Memphis as the #1 team in the country right now. It's a crime that they play their cupcake C-USA schedule and then get highly ranked and highly seeded in the tourney. I don't think they're any better than about 12-15 in the country right now but they haven't lost since the 1st Bush administration in conference so they keep climbing the rankings. If they played in the Big East, ACC, B10, or even the SEC as weak as it is this year, they'd have another 3-4 losses easily. Tough to get up for big games twice a week in those conferences where Memphis has like 3-4 decently tough games the entire conference schedule. I may be biased by my irrational hate of Calipari, but whatever.