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What an unbelievable call!

Nice easy groundout to end the inning. Let's get that one back Cubs, and a few more wouldn't hurt!

Let's go Butler! They are playing really well right now-this is how they win even without being athletic at all. They can put points up in bunches if they need to, but when they are not playing well they can keep the game close with their defense and lack of turnovers and slow style until they hit a run.

Even if Arroyo is the starter, Murton should be on the field. Matt's 3 of 13 in his career against him and has put the ball in play every time. So it's not like he's God-awful or anything. I have an unrelated question. I haven't paid attention to the starting lineups much this spring; how similar is today's to other games? Has this lineup been put out there on a consistent basis? No, the starters haven't played consistently but that will be changing soon. Well yeah. Let me rephrase. When Murton has been playing, how much of his time has been spent batting second? Same for Izturis... when he's started, how often has he hit 8th? When the major league lineup has played together, Murton has almost always hit 2nd and Izturis 8th. The only time that hasn't been the case lately when the major league lineup was all together was the day they were using the DH and Jones hit 2nd, Floyd 5th, and Murton 6th. Izturis seems pretty much set in the 8 spot now-Murton will likely be in the 2 spot most days that he plays.

No idea why they didn't. The ref right there didn't call it. It looked like the one that ran in wanted to call it, but got shot down. Doesn't get much more obvious than that. I actually think it was a makeup call to not call the intentional-they didn't call some obvious foul calls on Xavier during the scramble in order to try not to influence the game too much, and they didn't want to change the game too much by calling an intentional either. I don't like it, but they were being consistent.

After a terrible first two days, the tournament has officially started :D

There should have been a foul on Xavier there-one of the Xavier guys fell down and he swung his legs around and that is what tripped the Ohio State guy who went up for the second shot attempt. It wasn't intentional, but it definitely was a foul.

Sorry about that Laura-my laziness was a big contributer to the quote problems. Here's an article I posted in the Prior thread as well-on page 3 there is a little nugget about the 5th starter race (talking about Prior in the he of the first sentence): He's a national writer, but he just was in camp yesterday, so he does have some idea of what's going on recently. http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/10064632/3

I don't think this article is very good for most of it-it's worth a skim though because it has some good quotes from Prior and others (in fact, I'd probably skip towards the end of page 2 and page 3-that's where some of the good parts are)-it does talk about Prior's outing yesterday a tad which this guy was there for and also his future: http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/10064632/3

Well, the Colts lose the last of their unrestricted free agents-Tampa Bay signs Cato June-no idea on years or money yet. http://www.buccaneers.com/news/newsdetail.aspx?newsid=5706

It would mine too, but for some strange reason I'm not too concerned about that today :D You know if we're getting the IU game down here? I don't have any proof (my guide hasn't updated any of that) but I'm almost sure that we're getting North Carolina-Michigan State for most of that game. I'll be watching Indiana again online.

I would agree. Both have been very hittable this spring-Miller has been able to get much higher amounts of K's than Guzman has (Guzman-2 K's in 9.2 IP, Miller-9 K's in 9 IP). Guzman is still learning to trust some of his pitches again-let him do that in Triple A for a while and get his confidence up.

There's no doubt that he didn't finish some guys off (0-2 counts). He will have to show that he can change speeds too. However, bad defense extended his pitch count and made him pitch under more pressure than necessary. The ball hit to Floyd probably should have been caught or resulted in no more than a single--playing it into a 2 run triple was ridiculous. Pie trying to throw a runner out at third helped a runner move into 2B (he eventually scored), and Theriot let two balls get by him that a regular third baseman sucks up. Defense is important. Guzman's line would have looked a lot better had some plays been made behind him. I think you're overstating a little bit the defensive ineffectiveness. The Floyd ball was going to be a single regardless IMO-turning it into a triple was ridiculous, but even if you take that one and the Pie mistake together you only get a savings of 1 run-1 would have scored regardless in that inning. Theriot did let at least one get by him that Aramis would have had, maybe two. Also, the defense helped Guzman at times. In the 1st, they were really good to him-after Guzman let Posednik on, Blanco gunned him down with a great throw, and then Lee made a great play or else Erstad would have gotten on as well. Guzman could have easily given up a run for the 1st if not for some better than normal defense behind him that inning.

It would mine too, but for some strange reason I'm not too concerned about that today :D

Once the games start today, I'm sure that the discussion will turn back to the 2nd round. Can somebody give me a detailed breakdown on UCLA before tonight's game please? Thanks in advance. They guard the heck out of you. They have three strong guards. Two good post defenders. They can struggle at times to score if you can pressure their guards. If you guys shoot the ball well it should be a good game. If DJ White no-shows a half like he did against Gonzaga you could be in real trouble. Thanks-I figured that Calloway should be able to slow Collison down (I think he's our best perimeter defender) and then Wilmont/Ratliff should be able to do a decent job on Afflalo. Are they great on the boards? That's where I could definitely see IU getting in some trouble if they give up a lot of offensive rebounds. IU will definitely have to have Wilmont and Ratliff both shooting the 3 ball well though to win. Well Matta and Mtouh(sp?) are decent rebounders. I think if you guys beat them you will have to really ugly the game up, the bad thing is they tend to play that way some too. Howand's teams guard and get after it. I think you could win this game, but I wouldn't be that way. If you had Gordon on your team now I would like your chances a lot more. I'm not expecting IU to win-I think they have a shot, but I'm not that optimistic about it. I do agree that with Gordon I'd be a lot more hopeful-IU goes in some droughts against opponents with good defenses because they have nobody who can create their own shot off the dribble. Gordon will give us that extra dimension next year (and from what I've heard, White will likely be back to team up with him as well).

I agree but I don't see Cotts being sent down. It would be like the Cubs admitting that the Sox got the better of the trade (although, Aardsma is in jeopardy of not making their team as well)--I heard Paul Sullivan make this point on the radio-- Cotts may be in the bullpen whether we like it or not. Hendry may force Lou's hand on this one. That would sorta go against the grain of everything Lou has been saying during Spring Training. He said he was going to take the best guys with him to Chicago. Cotts is not one of those guys right now. The problem is that he also said that he's not looking at Guzman as a reliever whatsoever-which if Guzman is sent to Iowa just so he can start, Cotts may slide into a bullpen role almost by default as the only long man.

Once the games start today, I'm sure that the discussion will turn back to the 2nd round. Can somebody give me a detailed breakdown on UCLA before tonight's game please? Thanks in advance. They guard the heck out of you. They have three strong guards. Two good post defenders. They can struggle at times to score if you can pressure their guards. If you guys shoot the ball well it should be a good game. If DJ White no-shows a half like he did against Gonzaga you could be in real trouble. Thanks-I figured that Calloway should be able to slow Collison down (I think he's our best perimeter defender) and then Wilmont/Ratliff should be able to do a decent job on Afflalo. Are they great on the boards? That's where I could definitely see IU getting in some trouble if they give up a lot of offensive rebounds. IU will definitely have to have Wilmont and Ratliff both shooting the 3 ball well though to win.

I just checked-Miller faced the entire Diamondbacks starting lineup (all 8 of them) last time out, and the time before that he faced about half the Padres hitters with the rest of them being their major league backups, not their minor leaguers (for example, Walker in for M. Giles).

I would also agree with this-as long as he is behind Theriot on the depth chart, I have no problem with him being the second backup middle infielder. I'm sure there are preferable options out there, but I'm not going to be upset if he's brought back after Detroit releases him. Also remember that the main time that the second backup might even get to pinch-hit is when DeRosa and Theriot are both playing in the field against left-handed pitchers, and Neifi is at least somewhat better against left-handed pitching.

Once the games start today, I'm sure that the discussion will turn back to the 2nd round. Can somebody give me a detailed breakdown on UCLA before tonight's game please? Thanks in advance.

http://www.sportsline.com/columns/story/10058201 Here some more of Doyel's work. He thinks a lot of your coach too. And even if this article is true we still beat IU 2 of 3 times this year. So what does that say about your caoch who was outcoached by ours twice? Yeah, I wouldn't read any of Doyel's columns and put too much into them. He loves to spew hatred to anybody and everything, from most of his columns to his readers in his mailbags. I did hear that his column about Oklahoma is coming from a biased perspective though (some connection with Oklahoma-I think alum)-so when bad things started happening there, he started to spew hate to anybody and everybody that had done wrong to their program. Plus I love people like Bruno. Yes we know there are problems in place at our school. But, what can we do? We can't fire him he has won 80% of his games. Who would take a job where they fired the previous guys who won at that high of a clip? He still has two years left. I think he is in way over his head. Agreed-I think you have to give him at least one more year. If he struggles next year, then with 1 year left is the typical time where you either fire a coach or give him an extension, and you can just fire him then. Sadly he will have done real damage at that point. We need a big recruiting year in here somewhere. 2010 will be it since all hte big Illiniois players are locks for us. Crandle Head, DeAndre McCammey, and Jereme Richmond. Richmond the best player has already verballed to us. The other two have brothers who play or played here. That said I think Weber can X and O us to this point each year, I just hope we don't accept that. I agree he will already have done damage at that point, but like you said there's really nothing you can do right now. I understand completely what you're going through-IU was going through the same thing a couple of years ago. A coach with success early, then strarted getting 2nd place on every big recruit (Villenueva, Humphries, the list goes on and on). When we finally did get a recruit that was great in Josh Smith, he waited until May and then suddenly changed his mind and went to the NBA. The administration couldn't fire him because of the recent success until serious damage had been done to the program. The situations are not quite analogous, but they are very, very close.

http://www.sportsline.com/columns/story/10058201 Here some more of Doyel's work. He thinks a lot of your coach too. And even if this article is true we still beat IU 2 of 3 times this year. So what does that say about your caoch who was outcoached by ours twice? Yeah, I wouldn't read any of Doyel's columns and put too much into them. He loves to spew hatred to anybody and everything, from most of his columns to his readers in his mailbags. I did hear that his column about Oklahoma is coming from a biased perspective though (some connection with Oklahoma-I think alum)-so when bad things started happening there, he started to spew hate to anybody and everybody that had done wrong to their program. Plus I love people like Bruno. Yes we know there are problems in place at our school. But, what can we do? We can't fire him he has won 80% of his games. Who would take a job where they fired the previous guys who won at that high of a clip? He still has two years left. I think he is in way over his head. Agreed-I think you have to give him at least one more year. If he struggles next year, then with 1 year left is the typical time where you either fire a coach or give him an extension, and you can just fire him then.

http://www.sportsline.com/columns/story/10058201 Here some more of Doyel's work. He thinks a lot of your coach too. And even if this article is true we still beat IU 2 of 3 times this year. So what does that say about your caoch who was outcoached by ours twice? Yeah, I wouldn't read any of Doyel's columns and put too much into them. He loves to spew hatred to anybody and everything, from most of his columns to his readers in his mailbags. I did hear that his column about Oklahoma is coming from a biased perspective though (some connection with Oklahoma-I think alum)-so when bad things started happening there, he started to spew hate to anybody and everybody that had done wrong to their program.

Ok-I'm actually surprised an NBA Bill Belicheck type of coach hasn't tried to use that rule to their advantage yet and have a player fake an injury to get a great free throw shooter on the line during a crucial situation.

Injury? I thought maybe so, but then I thought I saw McBride in the game on the next defensive possession-I'm not watching the TV currently though so they may be explaining it right now though-so if they do, I haven't heard it yet. :D