ISUCubsFan

OK I have to do a TV daily update on the sports headlines for the day tonight and need to say who holds the tiebreaker between Western Michigan and Ball State as they have each beaten each other once. This is the what the MAC has ... http://www.mac-sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9400&ATCLID=3651224 Anyone care to weigh in on what the F they mean because it is not explained well enough. Andy if you remember what it is from covering them last year then chime in. I'm assuming it means starting at the top ranked team you go down and look at the tied teams record versus that team until one has a better record versus them. However if that is what it means then where do you start? With the third place team in the West or the the overall best team in the MAC which would be the East this year? And No. 3 is just down right shameful. What the heck does that mean. "Sport specific component (if applicable)," is all that No. 3 says. I'm pretty sure record vs the best team across all divisions, so Ball State would have it via their win vs Buffalo. I can't imagine the MAC could make it any less clear though. If you use the women's tiebreakers WMU would be ahead.

20-9 while playing one of the hardest schedules in the country should be a lock. What if they're 21-11 after a first game loss to Providence in the tournament next week? Or worse, they drop that game to DePaul? They'll likely be 1-7 against the Top 25 and 4-8 against the Top 50 going into the Big East tournament. I'm probably just more conservative than most, but to me a lock has to be able to lose the rest of their games and still get in. I don't think WVU can do that, or even be 100% safe at 21-11 considering they have 2 wins to hang their hat on for the whole season. If they lose to DePaul at home tonight it might be another story, but barring that I don't see WVU falling out at 21-11. Their worst loss would be Davidson on a neutral floor, which isn't terrible at all, and they'd still have wins @Ohio State, @Gtown, and vs Providence, Villanova, and Notre Dame. They also have a bunch of OOC wins against above average teams. If they lose right away in the tourney they'd still be 9-8 in road/neutral games. I could see them falling to a 10 seed in that scenario, but I can't see them falling out if they have 9 to 11 wins against the top 100 and no losses outside of it. As for the other teams SSR mentioned, Xavier has neutral court wins vs Missouri, VT, and Memphis, and won at LSU, Rhode Island, and Cincy. Home wins vs Auburn and Temple don't hurt either. They still have time to damage their seed, but I don't see them falling out with those wins. Butler has a worse resume, but I think they're solidly in as of right now. They're already in their tourney, so if you don't think a home loss vs Milwaukee (worst case) puts them out you can lock them. Utah could go either way for me as far as being a lock.

Nomar to Oakland according to an ESPN report. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3949116

In. PM was sent yesterday, though I should've waited a little while to thin the bubble out. Responding to some discussion earlier in the thread: I really like ND State, but they can't get an at large. Davidson probably can't survive another SoCon loss. That would give them 3 losses to bad teams (2 with Curry) and only one good win to fall back on (WVU). Niagara is out barring something insane happening (or a MAAC title obviously), Siena probably should be too. Have to have some quality wins at some point. Creighton is a long shot to me but I could see it if they go to the MVC title game. UNI not so much. St. Mary's has a chance, but they can only win one more game without getting an auto bid, so there's not much room for improvement. Dayton looks decent if they beat all non-Xavier teams from here on out. URI probably needs another good win to have a good chance, meaning Dayton or maybe Temple. Temple is out. 2009 Utah St. is a slightly worse version than 2004 Utah St., and that didn't work out well then. Looks like they need to win the WAC. I agree that the Horizon is Butler+1. CUSA is probably Memphis+1 as well. UAB doesn't have any terrible losses, but their only good win is Arizona (awesome ending) and they've had their chances. They need some bubble chaos to make it. MWC is interesting. Utah and BYU are locks or very close. After that it's close between UNLV and SDSU, and both are squarely on the bubble right now. It would take a lot of convincing to get me to put New Mexico in with their non-conference performance, but it isn't impossible. Today's win vs Utah helps, but they really needed a few road wins at some point.

Yeah, about that... The Big East is doing a great job of limiting their number of bids tonight.

Interesting, my first reaction when I saw it was that Missouri's pod was stacked. WVU doesn't have an impressive resume, but both Pomeroy and Sagarin Predictor have them ranked 6th. I'm not sure if they're that good, but I'd put them over the other 6 seeds. North Dakota State would also be pretty scary for a 14th seed if they end up that low.

Good read. It seems they like to go overboard with the conference tournament upsets in these though. When Cornell is getting an 11 seed this year you've probably gone too far.

If he's only with the team for the spring, why would the geography matter? I missed the "Spring" part. Yeah, that wouldn't matter then.

So, Greg chose working with the Padres over the Cubs.... I'm pretty sure I remember hearing something about him wanting to stay on the West Coast during his last few years as a player.

This please. Brackins-Colvin-Barnes in 2010-2011 would be great, though I'm not getting my hopes up that Brackins will stay four years or Barnes will come to ISU. Do you think Brackins is coming back next year? He should stay and you know more about the situation than I do but it wouldn't surprise me if he left this year. I think we all need to just forget about Barnes unless Mac or Lick decide to get really dirty. He went to the Duke/UNC game tonight and I just hope he doesn't go to to Duke. I don't know about Brackins at this point. At the beginning of this year and all of last year he was an inefficient scorer and good rebounder. He could create a shot well enough if you got it to him in the block, but he couldn't finish and had a habit of taking 12-15 foot jumpers that he couldn't make. The Iowa game is a prime example of this. Now, in the past 12 or so games his percentages have gone way up, and those mid-range jumpers that he'll need at the next level are falling. There's still some stuff he can improve on, mainly passing, defense, and gaining muscle, but him going pro after this year wouldn't surprise me either with how good is offense is right now. FWIW DraftExpress has him as the 20th pick in their latest mock. And yeah, Barnes is probably gone.

This please. Brackins-Colvin-Barnes in 2010-2011 would be great, though I'm not getting my hopes up that Brackins will stay four years or Barnes will come to ISU.

same colorado that pushed us to the buzzer i don't trust OU at all this year The same Colorado ISU lost to a few weeks ago. Hopefully this carries over and they can steal a few more conference wins. It was nice not having to worry in the 2nd half for once.

I guess the Phillies thought they were going to lose their arbitration case ($14M vs $18M I think). I think $18M/year is way too much for Howard. The career .279/.380/.590 line looks good, but he's declined significantly over each of the past two years and he's already going to be 29. His OPS+ was only 124 last year, which is the same as Joey Votto, and 7 points less than Mike Fontenot. Add in his poor fielding and I don't think he should get close to $18M until he proves he can produce at his 2006/2007 levels, which I doubt.

Little known MWC fact: New Mexico has actually been the best team in the Mountain West this year. By far. Of course, their non-conference was pretty bad. Yeah, I don't see any way they can pull an at-large this year with their resume. Far too many bad losses to make up for unless they run the table to the MWC championship game, and even then it would probably be iffy.

Crappy weekend to be a mid-major team. Just about everyone in contention for a bid lost. Dayton loses to Charlotte, Xavier lost to Duquesne, St. Mary's lost to Santa Clara, Gonzaga got killed by Memphis, Siena lost to Rider, and Davidson lost to College of Charleston. The MWC is the only one that looks good for multiple bids right now, and New Mexico beating UNLV doesn't help either. BCS conferences could take up 30 of the 34 at-large bids this year.

What drives me nuts about it more than anything else is how baseball is treated differently from football and basketball. This will ruin A-Rod's reputation. This will only add more ammunition to the people who argue that everyone in baseball is on steroids and is a cheater. It will hurt baseball. However, nobody talks about basketball and football in the same way. Cripes, Shawne Merriman testing positive got very little attention. When the Williams DTs tested positive for a banned substance, everyone automatically believed them when they said it was for a weight loss drug. No one seems to notice when guys in both sports look like they belong in professional wrestling. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the NFL and NBA were just as tainted by the PEDs scandal. Yet, nobody says a freaking thing about it. However, this will lead to another Congressional hearing with another player's career destroyed. It'll be sickening and a waste of money. I just dont get this thought process. I definitely agree that the NFL gets a pass. Is it fair? No, but it doesnt have to be. Who cares if it hurts baseball? Baseball hurt itself by ignoring the problem and then trying to act like the problem was never really that big of a problem. Who cares if it destroys a players career? Anyone who cheats should have their career destroyed. What drove me nuts about Merriman was that when he won defensive player of the year everybody thought it was great because he missed four games. He didn't end up winning DPOY, but yeah it was pretty funny seeing ESPN discuss if he should win and then talk about Bonds, Clemens, etc. in the same show.

Bracketbuster matchups are out. The only two of actual bracket importance are probably Butler @ Davidson and Utah St. @ St. Mary's. Maybe you can include UNI @ Siena, since I could see the Saints sneaking in as an at-large. Butler is playing for seeding, and Davidson would probably lock up a bid with a win. Even if they lose I think they're in if they avoid two conference losses, and there's about a 4% chance of that happening looking at Pomeroy right now. Utah St. @ St. Mary's is huge for both teams if they don't plan on winning their conference tourneys. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3880198

I should be happy that ISU played well most of the game and had an offense today, but I'm just tired of losing at this point. Refs weren't biased, just awful. I'm not really not sure what to think about this team anymore.

Yeah, Colorado isn't going winless in the Big12 this year. I believe two players scored points in the 2nd half for ISU. That's 4 losses in a row @CU. Awesome.

Just looking at this I'd call it a toss up, maybe a slight lean towards A, but neither team looks very good. The committee would take B over A, because they hate teams with a 70+ RPI. After figuring out who each team was and looking at their schedules...

I mostly agree with Meph that they could be in the 80's next year, but finding the "2009 Rays" is like trying to find the next George Mason. It's not going to happen every year. The Rays also had a lot more talent coming up than the Royals do now.

Correct. A few other conferences already use an eight or nine team version of this where the top two get byes. The Horizon, WCC, and maybe someone else.

Wait, Oregon State beat Stanford on the road by 15? Am I reading that right? Here's the thread (i think) it came from. There's some gold in there. Obviously NSFW. http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=172&f=2481&t=1884620&sto=pagestart

Do you think McDermott is the guy for ISU? I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass right now because he's had a ridiculous amount of player turnover since he's been here, but I haven't been impressed with his in game coaching ability. He just doesn't seem to make adjustments when they're needed. He's done well on the recruiting trail, but if they don't show results soon it won't matter.

It's a shame Brackins had to waste his performance today because no one else showed up on offense. Not that the rest of the team is that good, but 22% from the floor and 14% from 3 isn't going to get it done. The B12 North is pretty bad right now, but a 22 game schedule isn't happening, and I don't see a logical realignment idea. Even if there was, it's a long term solution to a short term problem. Only recently has the North become so bad that a difference is apparent. Once they find some quality coaches the gap will narrow.