UMFan83

This is a disaster. Michigan can't hit a 3 to save their lives. And if you've watched any UM game over the last 4 years, you know if they can't hit a 3 they don't win. That and the fact that PFs are 8-3 in Tennessees favor and FTs are 6-1 but I won't go any further because I cannot have an emotional investment in the game and call out the refs with an unbiased assessment. It sure looked like our little white dudes are getting contact in the paint though. And on that last 3 pointer, the lunging Tennessee player sure look like he got pretty close. OK I'll stop

Am I the only one that can't get live video of the Michigan game to play? It just says "Please wait, your game will begin shortly"

Getting nervous for Michigan, but part of the nerves are the fact that I have to somehow watch the game with my boss walking around the office all afternoon.

Meh, I'd see why the Mets released him first. I mean if you look at the candidates for the Mets starting 2B job, none of them seem like they really even have any long term upside. We're talking about a Rule 5 pick, Daniel Murphy, and Luis Hernandez. He's also 35 and had a .604 OPS in 250 ABs last year. I'd rather let Jeff Baker and Blake DeWitt fight it out and see if either can give a career season.

Fixed for Chicago

pujols, carpenter, holliday, rasmus, molina (yeah seriously...not wainwright...molina)

Here...this is a breakdown of Rose's shots this year and last year (from hoopdata.com). The numbers in parenthses are his rank amongst qualified PGs (the qualifications were 25+ minutes per game, 30+ games play). LAST YEAR: At Rim: 55.1% (23rd/37) - 439 Attempts (4th/37) 3-9 Feet: 57.5% (2nd/37) - 167 Attempts (1st/37) 10-15 Feet: 50.0% (7th/37) - 164 Attempts (2nd/37) 16-23 Feet: 44.0% (5th/37) - 540 Attempts (1st/37) The 2nd place person had 365 attempts (Curry) 3 pointers: 40.1% (EFG) (30th/37) - 60 Attempts (34th/37) THIS YEAR: At Rim: 58.6% (23rd/34) - 394 Attempts (2nd/34) 3-9 feet: 40.4% (13th/34) - 166 Attempts (1st/34) 10-15 feet: 41.9% (11th/34) - 117 Attempts (3rd/34) 16-23 feet: 39.0% (16th/34) - 331 Attempts (1st/34) 3 pointers: 50.4% (EFG) 23rd/34 - 304 Attempts (2nd/34) So as you can see, his biggest drop off in terms of percentage comes from 3-9 feet out, as he's went from a 57.5% shooter to a 40.5% shooter. But this is only a small effect, as his 3-9 foot shots were only ~13% of his total shots. Other noticable changes are his % from 10-15 feet dropped 9%, but again this is his least chosen shot attempt. He has shot over 200 less attempts from 16-23, which he killed last year, and has pretty much given those attempts from behind the 3 point line, where he has shot around 33%, down from 44% from midrange. So has the decision to take less shots from 16-23 and instead take a majority behind the 3 point line been effective for him? Here is what I came up with: 10-11 - 635 shots to score 559 points (.880 points per shot) 09-10 - 600 shots to score 523 points (.872 points per shot) So Rose has gotten more points this year, but in more shots (and less games). But the efficiency is nearly identical). If you break down his PPS for the various shots, you'd see he is more efficient at the rim this year (1.17 PPS vs. 1.10 PPS last year), extremely less efficient from 3-9 feet (0.81 PPS vs. 1.15 PPS last year), and slightly less efficient from 10-15 feet (0.84 PPS vs. 1.00 PPS last year). I'm not sure what sort of groundbreaking conclusions one can draw from this data, but its interesting to look at nonetheless.

Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas (obviously) and Calgary all won. The only thing going our way is St. Louis is somehow beating LA 2-0 after 2. If things hold, this is how the race will look. 1. Vancouver 103 (72) 2. Detroit 94 (71) 3. San Jose 88 (72)*tied 2-2 with Minnesota 4. Phoenix 87 (72) 5. Los Angeles 85 (71)*down 2-0 against St. Louis 6. Dallas 84 (71) 7. Chicago 84 (71) 8. Calgary 83 (73) ----------------------- 9. Nashville 82 (71) 10.Anaheim 81 (70) 11.Minnesota 77 (71)*tied 2-2 with San Jose Probably the most damaging day for playoff chances/positioning in awhile.

Coyotes up 1-0, Flames now up 3-1. Worse case scenario odds are looking good.

So far Boston and Nashville are tied, Detroit is winning, Calgary is up 2-1 over hapless Colorado. So no help on that front either. Since the best case scenario is looking out of the question, here is what it would look like if everything went wrong tonight: 1. Vancouver 103 (72) 2. Detroit 94 (71) 3. San Jose 89 (72) 4. Los Angeles 87 (71) 5. Phoenix 87 (72) 6. Dallas 84 (71) 7. Chicago 84 (71) 8. Calgary 83 (73) ----------------------- 9. Nashville 82 (71) 10.Anaheim 81 (70) 11.Minnesota 79 (71)

No I am. Way to give up a goal in the last 3 minutes of the first and first minute of the 2nd. 3-0 now. This sucks..this was a really big night and were getting crushed.

I think in that situation, your odds of scoring are higher throwing it up for grabs at midcourt than throwing it to an open person 5 feet from where you are standing and shooting a 2/3rd court shot. I think people believe that getting off a shot, no matter where it is, is better than getting the ball to a position where you would have more than a 1% chance of making, should a shot be attempted there.

So far both the play-in winners who have played have gotten off to good starts. The first, Clemson, faded in the 2nd half. Hope UNC Asheville has a different fate. That would really turn the SE bracket unbelievably wacky.

Typical 1 seed start slow, close at half, then open 2nd half on 20-0 run and win by 30 like usual A 16 seed is bound to win one day. May as well be today. :D UK losing to Princeton would be so clutch. Probably won't happen though. I know there have been some 3-4 point wins for 1 seeds over 16, but the closest I feel like we've come to seeing a 16 seed win was UConn-Albany back in 2006. I think Albany had a 9 point lead with 7-8 minutes left before UConn went on a big run and won comfortably.

Yes but now Oliver Prunell is coaching at the one place where his inability to win an NCAA game his entire career won't hurt him. So it only seemed natural that Clemson would win the other night.

Vitters? yes in my fantasy world, Vitters will make it to the majors by next season and be the 29th best player in baseball with his amazing turnaround in plate discipline :)

Top 100 players of 2013 4. Pujols 11. Castro 29. Vitters 47. Cashner 68. Marmol 73. B. Jackson 91. Soto 99. Garza A man can dream can't he?

I don't really mind that he's out, but earlier in the week it was implied that he'd be back tonight. I remember Jazz fans warning me that Boozer would often be day to day for long periods of time, where he'd be expected to be back on a certain date, and then have it be 2-3 more games before he finally returned. At this point though, I am ok if he wants to wait until he is fully healthy to return.

Or maybe it would be fun to somehow have the same 8 teams, but have the last 4 at larges each play the last 4 automatic qualifiers. At least you could have some drama there with tiny schools playing major programs. It probably sucks for these schools to win their conference tournament and then have to play another crappy school no ones heard of before to really "get in" Texas-San Antonio vs. UNC Asheville really doesn't do it for me at all. Texas-SA vs. Clemson might get me to watch to see if the little guy can stay competitive against a major conference team. Just a thought...not my preferred way but another idea. The problem there is...where do you stick the winner? It's essentially a 12 seed vs. a 16 seed. A 1 seed has earned better than to play the 12 seed in their first game, and the 16 seeds chosen for the First Four haven't earned the right to play a lower seed. It would essentially make it so you'd want to be one of the worst four auto-bids so you could avoid the 1 seeds. I know...its not a well thought out plan. I'm just throwing ideas out there that would specifically make those play-in games slightly more interesting. I'm all for letting all automatic qualifiers into the tournament and letting the last 8 at large teams play for the four 12 seeds.

Damn sold on the Big Ten I guess? Nah, I always do a homer bracket every year for fun, just in case the Big Ten goes berserk. I think it actually worked a couple times. 05 with MSU and Illinois?

I've never had a more difficult region to fill out than the SE region this year. I kept wanting to pick St. Johns to go to the Final Four, but decided to say screw it and picked Pittsburgh vs. Florida in the Elite 8. They are both schools that I'm really not big on. Florida is horribly seeded at #2, but at the end of the day, you have BYU without Davies, Wisconsin and their recent tourament history, KState with a underseeded Utah State in the 1st round. Can't pick Utah State because I might as well burn my money if I think a 12 seed is going to the final 4. insane region.

Or maybe it would be fun to somehow have the same 8 teams, but have the last 4 at larges each play the last 4 automatic qualifiers. At least you could have some drama there with tiny schools playing major programs. It probably sucks for these schools to win their conference tournament and then have to play another crappy school no ones heard of before to really "get in" Texas-San Antonio vs. UNC Asheville really doesn't do it for me at all. Texas-SA vs. Clemson might get me to watch to see if the little guy can stay competitive against a major conference team. Just a thought...not my preferred way but another idea.

Anaheim won tonight, meaning that we are 3 points clear of a playoff spot. Actually the team that's 3 points behind us is Calgary who we have 2 full games in hand on, so its not even that bad. Also, Nashville is 4 points back of the Hawks. Detroit beat Washington tonight, lessening the already tiny chance we can catch up to Detroit before the end of the season. I feel like a broken record, but tomorrow's game is huge once again. That said, its not as big as a few others have been this year. Dallas is 2 points behind us right now for the 6th seed. We should probably win tomorrow though because a majority of our competition have favorable matchups (for them). Phoenix is playing hapless Edmonton, Calgary is playing equally hapless Colorado, Los Angeles is playing the slumping Blues, barely relevant at this point Minnesota is playing San Jose, and Nashville is playing Boston

What are your guys thoughts on these playin games? I have no interest in them. I keep trying to watch, but I get bored and turn on something else. All the games have been either awful, or between 2 teams that I don't care about and will get slaughtered in 2 days. If you are going to do this, you should consider them real play-in games, not the "First Round". When USC loses this, does anyone really consider them to have made the NCAA tourney? Technically yes but not really. I guess I just don't see the point in these games. Do these games make much money at all for the networks and NCAA? I say either make a 96 team bracket and have every team play a play-in game, or just go back to 64 teams. It just seems rather pointless that 4 teams in the "Second round" got in through a play-in game, while the other 64 didn't.

Richmond, Marquette, and Gonzaga winning in the first round is basically the entire list of upsets there, and two or all three are fashionable picks, right? I'm pretty sure he pulled the same crap last year. If I were him I would use "swing states" as a consideration when picking the teams. For instance, UConn, located in a solid blue state vs. Bucknell, located in PA, which is a bit more of a swing state, I'm picking Bucknell.