SouthSideRyan

For such a crappy conference schools sure do want their coaches. For such a good conference, coaches sure seem to be in a hurry to leave it (Nah, it's vastly improved, and I'd vote West Virginia #1 if I had a vote. It's the also-rans after WV taking the huge leap forward that has really improved things. Having Cincy, USF, and Rutgers get respectable in a hurry has been huge.(I ain't buying UConn) I don't agree with Meph that you're the #2 conference, but you're definitely not the weak sister anymore either.)

Iowa won't win 8 games this year. And that's with the bottom of the Big Ten being very very bad this year. Well, so's the middle of the Big 10. And the top. Big 10 seems to take crap every year for being down, and I think it's usually unfair. But we deserve all the hate we're gonna get this year. Penn St. might make the NIT just from beating up on the dregs. I'm starting to worry about Illinois's tourney chances, cause I could see a scenario where we only get 3 teams in the tourney. I do think it's possible for us to finish top 3, but there's a real mess of similar teams with us, Wisconsin, Ohio St., and Purdue, and if we're all fighting for 1 tourney spot, it's gonna be trouble. The one thing in our favor is some masterful OOC scheduling, not wasting a lot of time with bottom of the barrel teams, instead getting teams like Weber St., Hawaii, Northeastern, and Miami(OH)(along with BCS games against ASU, Duke, OK St., MD, Mizzou, and Arizona.) I thought by now the BCS schools would figure out thow to game the RPI like this. Especially after we heard so much griping when the Valley schools were rated so high in the RPI based on avoiding the Western Carolinas of the world and instead playing the top schools from the low majors. I understand wanting a few warm up games in there against some cupcakes you don't have to worry about, but to load up on these schools in non-con is going to kill you come tourney time, especially in a year when Iowa's looking at an RPI in the 200s, and Northwestern might be threatening to join them. UM and one of PSU or Minnesota could easily be 100+ RPI teams as well. For comparison's sake, U of I played 2 low major schools with (2007)200+ RPI(Tennessee St. and West Carolina) MSU: 5 (Jacksonville, Chicago St., Louisina-Monroe, IUPU-Fort Wayne, San Jose St.) IU: 7 (Chattanooga, Longwood, NC-Wilmington, Tennessee St., West Carolina, Coppin St., Chicago St.) Wisky: 5 (IUPU-FW, Savannah St., FL A&M, Wofford, UW-Milwaukee) OSU: 6 (Columbia, VMI, Coppin St., Presbyterian(1st year D1), Cleveland St., MD-Balt. County) Purdue: 5 (Bethune Cookman, Ball St., TX Southern, Wofford, FIU) Granted, these teams aren't guaranteed to finish with RPIs above 200, nor are some of the others guaranteed to be below it, but success is decently static when it comes to low-major schools. IU could wind up running roughshod over the Big 10(only playing MSU and Wisky once, though they're both roadies) and still wind up with a lower seed due to bad scheduling(and the awfulness of teams like Iowa/NU.) Missing MSU and Wisky at home will actually hurt them, taking away 2 likely wins over top 50 opponents.

Even Meph will think we'd win that one.

I want you all to leave Kirk alone. He's a dreamboat.

Defense. He's one of the best defensive catchers and baseball and can get on base at a decent rate. From 2004-07, Schneider had a total WARP3 of 17.6, while Barrett's was 13.4. Even if you take Barrett's disastrous 2007 out of the equation, Schneider had a better WARP3 each year from 2004 through 2006. Now one could certainly question why the Mets have taken on Brian Schneider and Johnny Estrada. That makes as little sense as Hendry's 2B infatuation. Estrada was just a means to dump Mota.

Colby Rasmus for Chris Capuano! I'm all for it. I don't want Rasmus on the Brew.

Cuse voted for the Big East guy?? =; :-# [-(

I wonder how many times it's even been tried. I remember reading something similar about not having a lefty in the rotation, and then I went back through the years, and saw there were rarely teams that didn't have a lefty in the rotation.

If Hendry wastes a damn cent on any of those remaining OFs not named Fukodome, I'm gonna be pissed.

Old fart Tom Osborne names himself interim coach. May he fail miserably.

Did anyone besides Flames even read my post? Mention of the loss to Iowa, but ignoring being a late pick away from beating the #1 team in the country? And I didn't even realize White was out the whole 2nd half. Jesu. And I'm not sure but are you implying Louisville and Syracuse are quality teams? Cause Syracuse is the worst BCS team this side of Minnesota, and Louisville lost to that Syracuse team. And for all the talk about Juice not being a good QB, how about the incompetent boob running the USF offense. And I really don't want to slag on USF, I agree that they're underrated and should be ranked top 20, but they're not better/more deserving than Illinois.

they should have hired neuheisel when they had the chance, it would have worked out better for both parties. He wasn't an option given that UCLA needed to and wanted to clean up the program. I'm not the biggest fan of his but Neuheisel certainly would have been better than Dorrell. What did Neuheisel do pick against UCLA in his tourney pool?

This was just a terrible year for Corey to go on the market. Too bad. Just don't go to the White Sox. Or Marlins.

Bud Selig is a believer in there's no such thing as bad publicity. Bud's more interested in keeping his billionaire buddies making money hand over fist than he is in the interest of the game of baseball. He's a monster.

There's also some people(and Prior may very well be one of them) who believe the Cubs(Dusty mainly, though others played their part) helped make Prior into what he is today. If Mark believed that, I see no reason why he'd want to stay here any longer than he has to.

WHOOOOOOOOOO

I already Fd things up by not starting Ryan Grant at my flex position. Now help me pick my 3 players for 2 WR and 1 RB/WR spot. Reggie Wayne Dwayne Bowe Roddy White Andre Johnson Kevin Curtis Javon Walker Laurence Maroney And yeah, with this as my WR/RB depth I need a win plus some help to make the playoffs.

Yeah I Fd this one up and left Grant on the bench.

My personal philosophy is who cares about first ballot/non-first ballot. If a guy's good enough on the 10th ballot, he's good enough on the 1st ballot. I'm fine with 15 years because people's minds change, cases can be made. But if you believe right now that he's deserving of being a HOFer, then vote for him now.

I don't wanna go too McGwire on here, but why is everyone so obsessed with talking about the past? How is this report gonna help anything? Serious about stopping PED use? go hardcore on the testing procedures. Take the management to task for allowing the usage to go on as they look the other way. But that's not what baseball cares about, they care about taking down Bonds and getting themselves off the chopping block.

I'll agree with you that the casual fan is probably pissed off because of records being broken in part because of PED's, but regardless of records, I still care. I don't want the Cubs to lose or win in part because of a criminal act, which abusing steroids IS. So...presumably you don't want the New Orleans Saints to win because Reggie Bush illegally accepted money and benefits while at USC? Do the Saints win or lose because of that, or even in part of that? Terrible example. I would bet my entire tiny bank account that somebody on the Saints uses steroids.

Cookie Crisp.

Sure would be risky, but what if you get creative and offer something like 3/16? All we'd be out by doing this is Kaz Matsui anyway, so who cares?

Raines is Rickey light. Rickey is slam dunk, no doubter. Therefore Raines is an easy HOF.