Bored

You know you got to question the referees when five guys from a single team foul out.

Williams a 84.5% free throw shooter so I doubt that. I think he was just being a pussy. Damn and I was getting all excited about two Pac-10 teams with shots at the Final Four. Jensen's idiotic foul near the end of regulation was the killer.

Wow...now this is a finish. Gonzaga has to feel like complete shit as they pretty much dominated this game. Although not quite over yet.

The finish was bizarre from the standpoint of that it was a buzzer beater without a buzzer due to the malfunction during the LSU/Duke game.

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/NASApp/ml...xt=.jsp&c_id=kc So Bud Selig announced that Kansas City will get the All-Star Game possibly as early as 2010. Hey nice gesture for a struggling franchise and Kauffman Stadium by all accounts is a very nice ballpark. But as always there is a catch when your dealing with Blackmail Bud. Oooo Selig, you wascally wabbit!

The more I think about the Packer/Nanz classless display on the selection show the more I feel it was a bit staged to drum up some controversy before the tournament.

Soriano should agree to play the outfield on Opening Day and once a ball is first hit to him pull a Kelly Leak, just hold on to the ball and refuse to throw it back to the infield. Seeing the other Nats players trying get the ball from him while the hitter rounds the bases would be mighty entertaining.

Aww you just wanted me to comment on your blog, didn't you? Speaking of A-Rod, here's a real brief blog entry on The Dallas Morning News website saying it's essentially his fault the U.S. played so shitty in the WBC. Bitter, bitter. http://sportssay.beloblog.com/archives/200...ade_for_ar.html

Willie T Ribbs is one of the best names in sports history ("sports" in the very loose definition that would include NASCAR). I rarely ever watch SportsCenter anymore and thus I hadn't even heard of this story before reading your entry. But it's odd ESPN would make such a big deal about it considering they and ABC don't currently televise NASCAR so they monetarily have nothing to gain from it. I mean when they hyped to death Danica Patrick last year you knew they were doing it so maybe someone would actually watch an Indy car race on outside the Indy 500. Of course this is the same network that three years ago took it upon themselves to try to make Dontrelle Willis into the savior of baseball for blacks as if they were needing one in the first place. It's like the network is scared to death that black people will stop watching SportsCenter even though there is no real alternative out there. How else can you explain Stuart Scott still having a job?

Pretty much all my upset picks have blown up but I did actually pick Bradley to make it to the Sweet 16. Yay me.

It can't just be me, but isn't Duke's 2nd round game always nationally televised? On Demand can't even save me from being stuck with this game. Another annoying thing is Duke never has to leave the state for the first two rounds every year as a North Carolina site always gets one of the "pods." This is another glorified home game.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS CAL LOSES!!!!!!!

I live in the East Bay too and I pay $1005/month for a one bedroom and my friends and family think I'm getting a great deal. I do have a fireplace and a shared garage, plus I live just two blocks from my job so I go home for lunch most days and I save a shit load on gas money. But rent is pretty fucked up out here.

Okay enough with the "Juniper Network Shot of the Day" commercial. Pac-10 with three blow out wins. Now if Cal loses I'll be incredibly happy with the 1st round.

Hey look a reader request, Culloden Hastings writes: Hey take away something from Kirk Gibson? No complaints from me. Gibson winning the MVP in 1988 always seemed like an odd choice. It always appeared on the surface just to be your typical writer vote where the guy who is SCRAPPY~ or TOUGH~ or a LEADER~ gets more support than he deserves. Gibson's Dodgers have been romanticized by the L.A. media to the point that you'd think they were some dynasty rather than the complete fluke they actually were. It's likely Bill Plaschke pleasures himself every night to Game 1 of the '88 World Series. Without looking that closely into it before I figured Will Clark or Darryl Strawberry should have won the award. Strawberry finished 2nd in the voting but split some votes with his 3rd place teammate Kevin McReynolds who had quite the good season himself. Clark finished 5th without any first place votes as the Giants hovered just above .500. Also someone of possible consideration was Gibson's teammate Orel Hershiser who went on a record scoreless inning streak at the end of the season. So was Gibson a bad pick? Is there anyway it couldn't have been Clark or Strawberry? Will I discover time travel and kill Gibson and Hershisher before the '88 World Series? Actual Results 1) Kirk Gibson 2) Darryl Strawberry 3) Kevin McReynolds 4) Andy Van Slyke 5) Will Clark 6) Orel Hershiser 7) Andres Galarraga 8) Glenn Davis 9) Danny Jackson 10) David Cone 11) Tony Gwynn 12) John Franco 13) Eric Davis 14) Bobby Bonilla 15) Andre Dawson 16) Randy Myers 17) Brett Butler 18) Steve Sax #10 .273/.363/.489, 83 RC, 139 OPS+, .314 EQA, 48.9 VORP, 27 Win Shares #9 .296/.347/.429, 86 RC, 119 OPS+, .294 EQA, 55.7 VORP, 28 Win Shares #8 .274/.366/.476, 102 RC, 142 OPS+, .310 EQA, 50.5 VORP, 31 Win Shares #7 .302/.352/.540, 113 RC, 149 OPS+, .314 EQA, 58.7 VORP, 25 Win Shares #6 .288/.336/.496, 91 RC, 142 OPS+, .312 EQA, 48.3 VORP, 31 Win Shares #5 .288/.345/.506, 104 RC, 143 OPS+, .312 EQA, 56.6 VORP, 28 Win Shares #4 148 ERA+, 2.44 K/BB, 1.05 WHIP, 64.8 VORP, 25 Win Shares #3 .269/.366/.545, 109 RC, 165 OPS+, .327 EQA, 54.4 VORP, 30 Win Shares #2 .290/.377/.483, 98 RC, 149 OPS+, .324 EQA, 56.4 VORP, 31 Win Shares #1 .282/.386/.508, 113 RC, 160 OPS+, .332 EQA, 63.1 VORP, 37 Win Shares As much as it pains me Gibson wasn't a bad choice for MVP although Clark would have been a much, much better pick. So the biggest mistake by the writers wasn't Gibson winning but the lack of support for Clark. Maybe it had to do that the guy was a dick to the media or because his middle name was Nuschler...NUSCHLER! Is that even a name?

'88 was definently not a good year for offense but we were still several years away from the offensive explosion. N.L. teams averaged 3.88 runs/game in 1988 and then averaged that same number again 1992. Puckett had an MVP calibar season but it's hard to aruge anyone over Canseco that year.

So four teams left and only one of them is made up of mostly Major Leaguers. I think it does indicate that this probably isn't the best time to hold such a tournament.

So potentially there could be a final between Korea and Cuba. Just a hunch that's not what Selig had in mind when he came up with this idea. According to ESPN the U.S. is almost virtually a lock to advance by tiebreak even if they lose to Mexico. Woo hoo back in and advance!

You know the last time no double digit seeds made it to the Sweet 16? 1995. Hardly a dumb move. In fact you have to go back to 1996 to find the last time a #10 seed didn't make it to the Sweet 16. Now it's a bit of a crapshoot picking which one will get there. Besides playing close to the vest is boring.

-So Monmouth blew out Hampton 71-49 in the play in game tonight. Hampton had the worst RPI of any team with a winning record in the entire country and you can thank those conference tournaments for that. Now every year after this game ends the ESPN analyst has to talk about the school getting it's first ever NCAA tournament win, which always annoys me, and tonight was no different. Did Monmouth really win a tournamnet game? After all it is the "play in" game which by the wording of it seems to indicate that the winner of the game gets into the tournament. In my view Monmouth has now qualified for the tournament while Hampton has failed to do so. Monmouth will win its first real tournament game if it were to beat Villanova, which we know won't happen. -The other postseason tournament started tonight, the NIT. I normally never pay attention to it but after a lackluster year Stanford finds themself in it, snapping their 11 year NCAA tournament streak. They beat Virginia 65-49 in their Opening Round game as UVA looked like a team that traveled 3000 miles for a game they didn't want to play which tends to happen in the NIT as motivation plays a big factor in how long a team lasts in it. Cardinal travel to play the biggest snub of the NCAA Tournament, Missouri State for their next game where they'll probably get slaughtered but hey for one night at least Stanford didn't look like mediocre team they are. -Due to Stanford's lack of success they didn't have as many t.v. games as past years when they were a Top 10 team thus I paid a lot less attention to college basketball this year. This of course creates a problem filling out a bracket but sometimes less knowledge is a good thing. My typical formula is to look a trends for past tournaments. Things such as usually one 13, one 12, and one 11 seed will pull off a 1st round upset and at least one double digit seed will get into the Sweet 16. Of course this strategy is very hit and miss as it can really be a guessing game when it comes to picking true upset (#9 over #8, #10 over #7 aren't upsets). But I prefer doing this as I rarely play for money, including this year, so it makes it more interesting to try to have some low seed teams picked out that I can root for on the first couple of days. So here's my true upsets for the first round with very little actual research going into it: Southern Illinois over West Virginia Bradley over Kansas Utah State over Washington I then have Bradley beating Pittsburgh to become the 3rd #13 seed ever to get to the Sweet 16. Ya I've really lost it on that one. Northern Iowa is my #10 seed getting to the Sweet 16 after upsetting Ohio State. Other things of note is I having Syracuse beating Duke in the Sweet 16 which may just be my disgust for Duke but a #1 seed getting bumped for the Elite Eight is usually a strong bet. Everyone seems to be picking Tennessee to be an early exit so I put them into the Elite Eight before losing to UConn. I have Oklahoma reaching the Elite Eight which again I've probably lost it on that one. Then to finish it off I have Iowa getting all the way to the national championship game before losing to UConn. -Annnnnnnnnnnd time to finish this off with some useless facts. Here's the biggest first round upset of every tournament since they expanded to 64 teams in 1985. 1985: #13 Navy 78, #4 LSU 55 1986: #14 Cleveland State 83, #3 Indiana 79 1987: #14 Austin Peay 68, #3 Illinois 67 1988: #14 Murray State 78, #3 N.C. State 75 1989: #14 Siena 80, #3 Stanford 78 1990: #14 Northern Iowa 74, #3 Missouri 71 1991: #15 Richmond 73, #2 Syracuse 69 1992: #14 East Tennessee State 87, #3 Arizona 80 1993: #15 Santa Clara 64, #2 Arizona 61 1994: #12 Wisconsin-Green Bay 61, #5 California 57 1995: #14 Weber State 79, #3 Michigan State 72 1996: #13 Princeton 43, #4 UCLA 41 1997: #15 Coppin State 78, #2 South Carolina 65 1998: #14 Richmond 62, #3 South Carolina 61 1999: #14 Weber State 76, #3 North Carolina 74 2000: #11 Pepperdine 77, #6 Indiana 57 2001: #15 Hampton 58, #2 Iowa State 57 2002: #13 UNC-Wilmington 93, #4 USC 89 OT 2003: #13 Tulsa 84, #4 Dayton 71 2004: #12 Manhattan 75, #5 Florida 60 2005: #14 Bucknell 64, # Kansas 63

I thought about running an NIT pool on the board as kind of a joke but the turn around from when the bracket comes out and two when the tournament starts was just too quick for me set it up. The seeding thing is a pretty good idea as at least now you know how the tournament is set up as in the past it always seemed so random how the match-ups were set up.

So what games is everyone getting locally as the featured games on Thursday and Friday? Here's what I'm getting. Thursday Pacific vs. Boston College Montana vs. Nevada Belmont vs. UCLA Xavier vs. Gonzaga Utah State vs. Washington Friday Wisconsin vs. Arizona Southern Illinois vs. West Virginia N.C. State vs. California (this will be my online On Demand viewing part of the day unless the State is killing Cal) UAB vs. Kentucky After having both days originally scheduled off I end up having to work Thusrday so I'm gonna miss the first half of the day but I ain't getting off the couch most of Friday.

From the performance American MLB players and American NBA players in international competition they obviously just don't care about it as much as the other countries athletes. So when does the bidding war for Seung Yeop-Lee begin?

The t.v. scheduling of this tournament is so bizarre. Tommorrow the U.S./Korea game will only be available on ESPN Deportes (and who has this channel?). So they are going to have a game between Americans and Koreans only available in Spanish. Ya.

The region naming thing is pretty pointless and I don't know why they care either way. Next year when they go to another modified version they can essentially just have it as the old format. East - East Rutherford South - San Antonio Midwest - St. Louis West - San Jose Final Four is in Atlanta. Surprised the Bay Area is getting a regional final two years in a row. And if anyone cares here's the "pods" for next year. Buffalo Winston-Salem New Orleans Lexington Chicago Columbus Sacramento Spokane