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#Humblebrag Haha, I figured it might get taken that way. In this case, there's little to brag about...Indiana's question marks are still going to be question marks whether they're #1 or #10 to start. I'm just surprised. I wasn't for sure that they would be considered the favorite in the Big 10, let alone the favorite in the country. I guess most of the top teams from this year are losing significant pieces.

I'm surprised that so many places are setting IU as their early #1 team in the country for 2012 or at least top 3 (I'm guessing they're assuming Watford is coming back). Is there really nobody better on paper out there? I figured IU would start in the top 10 and maybe top 5, but I really didn't think they'd go right to the top. Of course which person ends up leaving IU to make room for the recruiting class might change that number.

This is sort of a compilation of previous posts, but this deal is bad on several levels. 1) There was no need to do this now. The Reds just took on more risk for maybe 25 million savings? That doesn't make much sense. There aren't many seasons Votto would put up that would significantly increase his price, and there are things that could happen that would make the Reds regret the contract quickly. 2) This deal averages 27.5% of the Reds payroll for 2012. The payroll will likely rise a little over time, but that's still a huge percentage to give to any one player, especially when you have little flexibility to get out of it if things go poorly. 3) The contract is already highly questionable to begin with if the Reds only options were to extend him or let him go to free agency. When you consider how much they could have gotten if they traded him, it becomes crazy. The pieces they would get and the payroll flexibility they would have would have a very high chance of being worth more than Votto alone. The big positive in this deal is PR. If the Reds can build their fanbase by showing how they're committed to keeping their elite players, then revenues go up and his contract isn't that big of a deal. But I'm not sure how much of a realistic possibility that is.

They are only in front of Milwaukee by 4 games. Missing the playoffs wouldn't be impossible for them at all. I would be surprised if they fell below Milwaukee only because 4 games is a lot to make up over a 15 game span, and I really don't think Milwaukee is good enough to win 10-12 of their final 15, which is what it will probably take. The second to last game of the season is Philly at Milwaukee and that game also decides the tiebreaker, so that could be an interesting one if the race tightens between now and then. Philly struggling now is not a surprise. They had a ridiculously easy schedule the first 25-30 games, and since then they have been paying for it. They still have a crazy good point differential because they are 24-8 in games decided by 10 points or more and 4-15 in single digit games. The Atlantic division race should still be interesting as well. Boston is playing the best, but their schedule down the stretch is brutal. Philly has easier opponents but a lot of road games left, and New York has a mix of both. Philly has the tiebreaker over Boston but not the Knicks. Then of course you have Indiana and Atlanta fighting over who gets to likely get homecourt advantage over the Atlantic winner with the loser having to go to Orlando. I'd have to imagine that Atlanta would be ok with either scenario since they match up well with Orlando, while the Pacers really don't want to play the Magic.

They're one Zeller away from a bottom third finish. Hopefully he wises up and cashes in. I doubt even losing Zeller would send IU to bottom 3rd. Probably 6th or 7th (which is still a steep drop from the 1st-3rd that they'll be likely be predicted to finish otherwise). The 2012 team without Zeller or Watford would be young, talented, and would severely lack size. How many minutes Perea and Jurkin were ready to contribute as freshman would go a long way in figuring out how good they could be. They'd still be very talented at the 1-3 positions, but they'd probably have to play a lot of 3 guard and 4 guard lineups in that scenario. Of course, that's all hypothetical because I don't think Zeller is leaving.

I mean, things are pointed in the right direction. But has he really exceeded your expectations? He's exceeded mine. Crean is returning IU to a place it hasn't been in 20 years. This year was only the 2nd time in the last 15 years or so that IU had a 4 seed or better in the NCAA tournament. Next year should be even better. 2013 and 2014 look very bright as well with the recruits that have already been lined up. He took a program that had been in decline for some time that was currently in shambles and made it relevant again. Was I hoping that year 3 might have been a little better? Sure, but I didn't expect that one of his best players would actually be a liability because of injuries either that year. And year 4 was wildly above my expectations. I wasn't sure Crean was the coach that could get Indiana top 10 recruiting classes and competing for national championships again other than the Mike Davis 2002 way. And now the first part has been done, and the 2nd part looks very hopeful.

The scary thing is that you are right about how bad his 2011 was (though the .280 BABIP didn't help), but it was still probably the second-best 2011 of anyone in the current lineup. Stewart and Barney were the only ones that were clearly worse though (and of course LaHair is an incomplete). Castro was the only one that was clearly better. DeJesus should have been better than Soto last year even though his results didn't show it. Soriano probably had better peripherals than Soto as well. Byrd was around the same as Soto. And Soto earned that BABIP last year. It is a little under what you would expect from his LD percentage, but his putrid 14.2% IFFB percentage is a big reason why for that, and he actually had more infield hits than his average is. Plus his line drive percentage and BABIP are only slightly less than .1 apart for his career, which makes sense since he's pretty slow.

Soto's numbers were pretty bad across the board last year (nothing like 2009 when he was an obvious bounceback candidate going into 2010). I wouldn't be hitting him 8th, because even with last year's numbers he isn't the worst hitter on the team. But it is very concerning to have that bad of a season without at least some sort of reason for it.

Unless they trade Garza, I don't see selling being that big of a damper on the win total. They may trade Byrd to make room for Jackson, but unless Byrd is having a big year that isn't much of a downgrade if at all. Rizzo will likely come up midseason and probably be as good or an improvement. Wood or Wells can come up and provide decent production and be close to just about anybody in the rotation besides Garza. The parts they're going to want to sell are for the most part just won't be all that valuable to the club this year.

He had one more option. He had to go through optional waivers because of how much service time he had. So if he gets to the minor leagues, no one claimed him (although it is a courtesy not to claim players in that situation since the Cubs could pull him back).

LOL I'm stretching a bit lol. Although I don't get what those two are waiting for? I was pretty surprised by Smart, I thought he'd take the Illinois job. I don't think he'll end up getting a better job from VCU than Illinois. Stevens I wasn't surprised by; he's perfectly content and will only leave for a few specific jobs (and not even necessarily "better" jobs than Illinois, I think he'd likely leave for Notre Dame, if that became available). I know who should hire him in a few years, though they'll surely mistakenly hire a disciple. I agree, hell go back and look. I said Stevens wasn't coming here. He needs to be careful though. One more sub .500 year and he doesn't look as good. I get the sense from all I've heard/read that Stevens doesn't care much. If he stays his entire career at Butler, he'll be satisfied. If a situation comes up that is comfortable for him, then he'll strongly consider that as well. I don't think he's making his decisions based on what will get him to the top. And it sounds more and more that schools like Butler and VCU will be stepping up soon. Lots of rumors that they'll be joining the A-10 along with George Mason. That will make that conference either the best mid-major or a low major (although the loss of Temple hurts).

This Indiana fan doesn't think Illinois will be bad. They do have maybe the highest variability in the conference until we see how Groce handles all the talent he'll have back. I'd be shocked if they won the conference, and very surprised if they were better than IU, but they could easily finish anywhere between 3rd and 8th in the Big 10. My guess is that it will go relatively well but not perfectly and they'll finish 4th-6th. That's assuming no Leonard-with him, they could easily be better than that.

Well, the Colts say they haven't decided yet, but I don't think anybody believes them. With that in mind and at the risk of speaking for Exile here, I'll just move this along and say the Colts pick Andrew Luck, QB from Stanford. I'll PM dew for the next pick.

It's uncertain whether Watford will be a small forward or a power forward next year. Really depends on how advanced Perea is when he shows up. I do think losing Watford would hurt though because he is so versatile. A forward that can guard PG's and is capable of putting up 20/10. That's a valuable player to have, even if some games he just disappears. Having Watford on the floor makes Indiana's lineup combinations easier because he can shift positions and be a matchup problem at either one (to a lesser extent Oladipo and Sheehey can do this as well). Hollowell reminds me a lot of Watford coming out of high school, but Watford wasn't nearly the player he is now as a freshman, so I don't think you can expect Hollowell to come close to filling his shoes. And btw SSR, of the players you're referencing, Indiana will only have 1 of them left for next year, and he is projected to be at best 9th on the depth chart (before figuring out whoever leaves, obviously if Watford leaves he jumps up to 6th or 7th). If Watford doesn't leave there's a chance he'll be out of the rotation altogether.

IIRC, there is no testing the waters anymore. If he declares, he's gone. He does get to get some advice before he officially declares, but that's it. It would hurt 2012 if Watford left, but it would help 2013 so I'm not too concerned about it. It might not even make that big of a difference next year if some of the freshmen play well.

I've always wondered why this never came up as a solution myself. I guess the NFL thinks there would be too many ties that way, and the players definitely don't seem to want to play multiple OT's like there are in other sports. But it makes sense, and it would almost completely ensure that both teams would get the ball (if you let a team control the ball for 8 minutes even with say 2 timeouts, you have less of a case for saying you didn't get a chance).

I have my doubts that Maine is making it. Sveum in a quote recently when talking about how many left-handers will make it only mentioned Russell as throwing the ball well, and downplayed the necessity of specifically having left-handed relievers at all.

The Cubs have no track record. "The Cubs" track record has to be differentiated by who was running them. You can't look at the Cubs organization right now and say "they have a history of developing some pitchers but no hitters" just because that is was the Andy MacPhail era Cubs did. OK. Like I said, I'm cautiously optimistic. I suppose my main problem is that the change in leadership is significant of nothing until they show they can produce players like they did in the past. I don't think changing leadership automatically means the Cubs system is that much better than it was a year ago. It seems to me that a lot of people are giving really rosy prognostications simply because Theo/Hoyer are now running the show. Theo/Hoyer is just one factor why the system is better than a year ago. The large amount of money they spent on the draft last year helped. The trades they made this offseason and the international signings they made this year helped. The amount of raw talent has been greatly increased since just one year ago. Adding in the player development skills that Theo/Hoyer bring just add to the movement going on in the system right now.

The Cubs have no track record. "The Cubs" track record has to be differentiated by who was running them. You can't look at the Cubs organization right now and say "they have a history of developing some pitchers but no hitters" just because that is was the Andy MacPhail era Cubs did. Not to mention that while the Cubs have been bad overall lately at bringing up talent, they've been better at bringing up hitters than pitchers in recent years. Soto and Castro are great hitters for their positions. Barney is ok. And Jackson is on the way. That's been much better than the pitching they've been developing recently. And then there are bunches of hitters at the lower levels.

Happened to us vs ucla in 2007. San Jose != home game for UCLA. It's 350 miles away from Westwood. C'mon, dude. You don't think a location in california--even Norcal--isn't a home court advantage for UCLA over a team from Kansas? Sure, UCLA had an advantage but it wasn't a "home game." It was a similar distance for Kansas in this game. 287 miles from Lawrence to St. Louis. As for how something like this could happen, it's not easy to make the bracket totally immune from these things. In this case, Duke was ineligible from being in this bracket because North Carolina was the 1, and obviously Missouri would have even been worse than Kansas in this spot. Ohio State was the only real option, and they are only 140 miles further than Kansas is from St. Louis. It's possible Ohio State would have been a better choice, but I don't know if all the bracket rules could have been followed if they moved there (obviously Purdue would have to go to another bracket, and I don't know how many chains of events that would set off).

I think they're a possible contender even if he leaves, but it would take a couple of the elite freshman taking on major roles and/or Oladipo developing a jump shot. The biggest issue with Watford leaving isn't his offense (which is great when it's on like tonight, but very inconsistent) but the fact that they've been hiding Hulls by having Watford guard point guards the last half of the season.

Oh well. To beat the better team, Indiana was going to have to either get really hot from the 3 point line or have Kentucky make a decent amount of mistakes. Neither happened tonight. It was a good effort hanging in there when Kentucky played so efficiently. Only bad thing from tonight is that Watford played so well, which might help him to try to leave. Regardless of who leaves though, it should be a fun season next year. Looking forward to it.

No, but the best over anybody anywhere near the caliber of Kentucky. They scored 54 in the first half against Iowa, 52 against Howard, and 51 against Evansville.

It was raining all day. So he was drawing in chalk during the rain? He's not going to Illinois though. It was nice in Indy this afternoon after the rain this morning.

2011 tournament-4 seed, lost to 8 seed Butler 2010-4 seed, lost to 12 seed Cornell 2009-12 seed, lost to 4 seed Xavier 2008-3 seed, lost to 10 seed Davidson 2007-2 seed, lost to 7 seed UNLV 2006-9 seed, lost to 8 seed Arizona 2005-6 seed, lost to 1 seed North Carolina 2004-6 seed, lost to 3 seed Pittsburgh 2003-5 seed, lost to 1 seed Kentucky 2002-8 seed, lost to 1 seed Maryland In Bo's 10 years including this one, he has 3 total wins over top 8 seeds. All of those were over 5 seeds. And as TT said, only 1 win over a higher seed. They have 4 losses against teams seeded worse than them, and all of those teams were substantially worse than they were. It's not an awful tournament resume, but it's not good. The main reason for their success over that time period is because they've had 4 different seasons where they got to play multiple double digit seeds, and two of those seasons they got to play 3 different double digit seeds.