iggymcfly

He wasn't obviously. He was all ready to help them until President Palmer pulled him aside and told him that he still valued his opinion. Now he's just trying to be stoic for god knows what reason, maybe to keep from admitting to himself that he aided the plot.

Just for the hell of it, I decided to fill out the rest of my bracket by assuming that the Top 25 represents the 1-6 seed lines and that Air Force is a 7. I put more effort into comparing individual profiles this time, especially as we got near the bubble. Here's what I came up with Other 7 seeds: Oregon, Virginia, Louisville 8 seeds: Georgia Tech, Winthrop, Stanford, Tennessee 9 seeds: UNLV, Texas, BYU, Villanova 10 seeds: Marquette, Vanderbilt, Missouri State, Illinois 11 seeds: West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Clemson 12 seeds: Davidson, VCU, Florida State, Georgia Last four out: Purdue, San Diego State, Alabama, Creighton

As for U of L, (now #36 in the Sagarin ratings), they lost to that same Kentucky team that "just sucks and should not be ranked" by 12 points at home. They also lost to Arizona at home by 7 who you also couldn't understand how I had ranked. Those were the only two challenging games that Louisville had on their non-conference slate, but yet they still managed to pick up four non-conference losses by choking against UMass (again at home) and Dayton. As such, their conference record isn't a magic bullet and doesn't automatically qualify them to get a good ranking or seed. The fact is that Louisville's picked up 8 losses on the year with a much, much less difficult overall schedule (#63) than Kentucky (#2) who also has eight losses. The only possible reason I can see to put Louisville ahead of Kentucky is the recency factor, but I think that's overblown and when a team plays well is as much the result of luck as anything. Indiana's pretty similar to Louisville in that they have two bad losses (at Iowa and at Michigan) although their losses aren't quite as bad as Louisville's. Also, Indiana's outplayed Louisville against good competition as they are 5-7 vs. the Top 50 whereas Louisville's 2-6. Yes, Louisville had one really good win at Pittsburgh and they've played very well the last five games. Looking at their resume over the course of the entire season though, it's hard to put them as anything but a mid-level tournament team, along the lines of a Virginia or Stanford. If the season ended today, I'd give Louisville a 7 seed, so they'd be somewhere in the 26-28 range and are indeed very close to being ranked, but I can't see putting them ahead of Kentucky, Indiana, or Arizona at this point.

Why would it be a bad loss for UK to lose on the road to someone with the exact same record as them? I'd think that's pretty much expected. I dropped them a couple spots, but I don't see the need to move them out of the Top 25. Also, Kentucky has the #2 SOS in the country this year. Indiana lost to Michigan State by 8 on the road after beating them by 22 at home. Michigan State has the same conference record as Indiana. Again, I'd think that's pretty standard. As for Arizona, they have the #1 ranked schedule in the country. That should count for something. They were a 5.5 point favorite over Arizona State and won by 3. OMG, underperforming expectations by 2.5 points! I fail to see how this means they should drop below Butler who lost to Loyola-Chicago this week or Virginia Tech who's got more bad losses than any team in the Top 25. Or perhaps you have some magic teams somewhere that I failed to rank that never play close road games against their rivals and never lose road games against Top 50 teams. By all means, point them out to me so that they can be included in my rankings.

But they beat the #1 team in the Sagarin ratings! Yeah, they probably shouldn't have rushed the court, but it's at least reasonable. The Ohio State fans should absolutely be ashamed of themselves though. Anyway, I decided to do a Top 25 today, and put a little more thought into each individual spot than I did when I did my seeding projections the other day. Here's what I came up with: 1. Ohio State 26-3 2. UCLA 25-3 3. North Carolina 24-3 4. Florida 25-4 5. Wisconsin 26-4 6. Kansas 25-4 7. Texas A&M 24-4 8. Georgetown 22-5 9. Southern Illinois 25-5 10. Pittsburgh 24-5 11. Memphis 25-3 12. Duke 22-7 13. Maryland 22-7 14. Washington State 23-5 15. Nevada 25-2 16. Arizona 18-9 17. Butler 26-5 18. Virginia Tech 20-8 19. Indiana 18-9 20. Michigan State 21-8 21. Notre Dame 22-6 22. Kentucky 19-8 23. Boston College 19-9 24. USC 21-8 25. Air Force 22-6

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there a reason that Austin can't just be Trump's choice to face Umaga? I know about his injury problems, but you'd think that for an entertainment match like that, he really wouldn't need to bump at all. Just a five minute match finished by a Stunner, and it would make way more sense storyline wise, would draw a much bigger buzz to Mania, and would generally just be a much more interesting angle. Really, if Trump's going to have "his guy" fight Vince's guy, it shouldn't be someone that's on the current roster anyway.

Yeah, I figure even if he plays like he did the last couple years, his production will be about even with the other players available in the middle infield right now, and there's always the chance something will click and he'll go back to how he was playing a few years ago, making his upside pretty big. Also, since you posted in the thread, even though you didn't explicitly state that it was the next round, I'm going to assume I can make my next pick now. Jeff Francoeur, OF, Atlanta

Just because he has the same cool beard as me (at least in this picture). Well, and because he's the best middle infielder on the board.

http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?...;hl=gift+givers

Yeah, I did that before tonight's results. Butler should probably drop to a 5, but I have no idea who you'd replace them with. Oregon's win over Washington State's pretty huge and would probably move them up a couple seed lines, especially when recent performance was the main reason I had them as low as I did. I'd still have to put Clemson in the field for now, but the loss definitely hurt them and will probably drop them to an 11 seed. Also, the main factor here is that these are not my predictions for what the seeds will be after the committee deliberates. It's where I feel the seeds should be and how I'd seed the teams if it was my personal responsibility to do so. I know Georgia Tech has no chance of being a 7 seed unless they make a huge late-season rush, and I know that Maryland's probably not a 4 seed right now either. I just think that's where they belong based on their resumes. BTW, Winthrop's 24-4 on the season with the losses all coming on the road against the likes of North Carolina, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Texas A&M. When your worst loss is on the road to (IMO) the #15 team in the country, I think you deserve better than an 11 seed. They don't have any wins over Top 25-caliber teams, but they did beat Mississippi State, Old Dominion, and Missouri State all on the road. It's hard to imagine someone like Virginia or Marquette doing any better than 24-4 with that schedule.

Just saw this movie tonight. Maybe my expectations were too high or something, but I really was kinda disappointed. It was just the basic good snitch/bad snitch story and that was about it. The whole crew was pretty stupid not to figure out DiCaprio was the rat in the first place as he screwed up in about ten different places. And then the ending was terrible. Ooh, everybody kills everybody including two characters who just seemed to be thrown in at random. Just seemed more like a basic by-the-numbers action flick with a good cast than it did some kind of masterpiece. This movie isn't even remotely near the quality of Goodfellas or Casino.

All right, I made a rough outline for how I'd do the top 12 seed lines. Towards the top of the bracket, they're in order of how good they are within the seed line, but it's less exact as it goes down. Also, some of the 12 seeds are automatic bids. 1 Florida, Ohio State, North Carolina, UCLA 2 Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas A&M, Georgetown 3 Pittsburgh, Washington State, S. Illinois, Memphis 4 Duke, Butler, Maryland, Nevada 5 Arizona, Indiana, Air Force, Kentucky 6 Virginia Tech, Boston College, Michigan State, Stanford 7 Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Louisville, BYU 8 Virginia, Winthrop, Marquette, USC 9 Villanova, Tennessee, UNLV, Missouri State 10 Clemson, Texas, Vanderbilt, Oregon 11 Alabama, Creighton, Illinois, West Virginia 12 Davidson, Santa Clara, VCU, Oklahoma State

No, Clemson's not just "coasting on their pre-conference effort". The point is that the ACC's so tough right now that 5-7's really not a bad mark. Why should a team that goes 14-0 against the easy part of their schedule and then 5-7 against the tough part be put behind a team that goes 10-4 against the easy part and then 10-3 against the other easy part. The point is that Clemson's overall schedule was much tougher than Texas's schedule and they have pretty much the same record. Therefore, Clemson's resume is better. What's so hard about that? Put another way, I think that comparing teams between games that are equivalent in difficulty is more important than comparing their conference records, especially when the quality of their respective conferences is radically different. Against the Top 50, Clemson's 6-6 and Texas is 1-4. Looks like Clemson's better there. Against teams outside the Top 50, Clemson's 13-1 and Texas is 19-3. Looks like Clemson's better there too. It's not there are worlds of difference between the ACC and Big XII, but the difference is significant and with Texas not having played Kansas or their second game vs. Texas A&M this year, it becomes even more pronounced.

I don't get why everyone's counting out Cleveland so easily. So, LeBron finally discovered that you don't have to play hard during the regular season. Big deal. Come playoff time, he'll be ready to go.

We're talking about how the ACC should get 8 teams and how every one of them should be seeded higher than Texas who really isn't that good. That's about it. Give Texas an 11 seed or something and I won't complain.

This is kind of my whole point. Based on reputation (mainly due to how impressive one player is), everybody thinks that Texas is a very good team, and gives them lots of credit. They've got the Top 25 ranking and will likely get a good seed due to aesthetics and reputation. However, if you look at their overall resume, it's vastly inferior to that of Maryland, Clemson, or Georgia Tech. Put them in the ACC and they're about like Florida State: An NIT team. When your best games of the year are losses to mediocre teams like Tennessee and Oklahoma State, that really says something about your program. The only Top 50 team Texas has beaten this year is #49 Arkansas and they beat them by four at home. The ACC teams are getting punished due to the fact that they play much, much tougher schedules in conference than the rest of the country. If you look at non-conference schedules, you'd see that these teams are deserving. (Note: Key games are not subjective, they're defined specifically as games against Top 50 teams from the Sagarin ratings.) Clemson Non-conference record: 14-0 Key games: Def. UGA 75-60 Georgia Tech Non-conference record: 12-2 Key games: Def Purdue 79-61, Def. Memphis 92-85, Lost to UCLA 88-73, Lost to Vandy 73-64, Def. UGA 78-69 Maryland Non-conference record: 14-1 Key games: Def. Mich State 62-60, Def. Illinois 72-66, Lost to Notre Dame 81-74 Those are some pretty impressive resumes for "bubble teams". 40-3 out of conference including 6-3 against the Top 50. Compare those non-conference resumes to those of teams presumed in from weaker "power conferences". (Didn't spend a lot of effort searching here, just took the team with the third best record in some overrated conferences.) Texas Non-conference record: 10-4 Key games: Lost to Michigan State 63-61, Def. Arkansas 80-76, Lost to Tennessee 111-105, Lost to Villanova 76-69 Louisville Non-conference record: 10-4 Key games: Lost to Arizona 72-65, Lost to Kentucky 61-49 Indiana Non-conference record: 10-3 Key games: Lost to Butler 60-55, Lost to Duke 54-51, Lost to Kentucky 59-54 So here we're looking at 30-11 OOC with a record of 1-8 against the Top 50. Again, it's not a perfect comparison, I'm sure you could find some teams from the Big East, Big XII and Big Ten that had better non-conference records. I'm just saying that it's unfair to penalize the ACC teams for playing what is obviously a tougher conference slate. Look at their overall resume and see what they accomplished (as detailed a few posts above) instead of just saying "oh, they have a losing conference record and this other team's got an offensive player that's fun to watch". Evaluate each team on their merits; if the ACC has 8 teams that are better than the 3rd place teams in other power conferences, then let all 8 teams in and give them all decent seeds.

Guess I might as well come out with it since two of the teams have been guessed straight up, one more has with spoiler text, and the projections will probably change tomorrow anyway with all the basketball that was played tonight. Team A is Texas who is currently projected to be a 7 seed in the tournament despite a poor SOS. Team B is Maryland who is currently projected as a 9 seed, despite having the exact same record as Texas going into the night and a much tougher schedule. Team C is Clemson who is currently projected to miss the tournament altogether despite being only a half game worse than the previous two teams listed and having a tougher SOS than either. Team D is Creighton who's schedule is somehow "so tough" that they're projected as an 8 seed despite having double digit losses.

Just for fun, I'm going to do one of those blind comparisons that doesn't involve Georgia Tech. One of these teams is projected as a 7 seed, one is projected as an 8, one is projected as a 9, and one is projected to miss the tournament altogether. Team A Record: 20-7 Sagarin rating: 32 SOS: 88 Record vs. Top 50: 1-4 Team B Record: 20-7 Sagarin rating: 15 SOS: 49 Record vs. Top 50: 7-6 Team C Record: 19-7 Sagarin rating: 19 SOS: 32 Record vs. Top 50: 6-6 Team D Record: 18-10 Sagarin rating: 42 SOS: 16 Record vs. Top 50: 3-2 How should these teams be ranked? Guesses for which teams they are are welcome too as long as no one cheats and just looks at the Sagarin ratings.

Personally, I think it's OK to storm the court for a huge win. If you're unranked and you beat the #1 team in the country, and you didn't win a title in the last two years or something, by all means, live it up. If Michigan State hadn't stormed the court, there would be something wrong. What gets to me is when some poor major conference team beats a borderline ranked team or even a good unranked team and thinks they should storm the court just because they won. I remember when I was at WSU a few years ago (before they got ridiculously good), we were playing UCLA, and I think we were actually a 2 point favorite. They were something like 3rd or 4th in the conference and were maybe getting some votes in one of the polls. At the end of the game, the fans were all lined up to storm the court just because it was UCLA and I was so embarrassed by the whole thing that I was almost happy that we blew the game.

In addition to Memphis (#8 Sagarin) and Duke (#11 Sagarin), Georgia Tech has also beaten Clemson (#19), Purdue (#31), Georgia (#37), and Florida State (#39) twice. That's a pretty solid resume. Yeah, they're young and they had a couple of road hiccups early in the year, but they're capable of beating anyone in the country when they're playing well. If they can get three wins down the stretch (including the ACC tournament), at least one of which would have to be over another Top 30 team, I don't see how you could possibly hold them out.

I think rape's more just "what you would do if you had a seven hour period where there would be absolutely no consequences for any of your actions". If there was actually going to be an inescapable nuclear holocaust, I'd be way too depressed for any of that shit. I'd probably cry with my family and possibly make a really half-hearted attempt at becoming religious.

Yeah, I don't put much stock in the RPI. Sagarin ratings and SOS/record vs. Top 50 by those ratings are a lot more important as far as I'm concerned.

This was a tough pick as there were a lot of middle infielders close in ability and potential, but I'm taking Felipe Lopez.

Kind of a risky pick here given his age, but I think he'll be getting a lot more at-bats DHing in Oakland.

Hey MJ. I'd say go ahead and set up the league on Yahoo now. All the specs look fine, and it's going to be a lot easier to figure out who's available when you can just use the "players" thing on Yahoo to sort by position. I'm sure I could find the same thing somewhere else, but it would be a pain and they won't let you use the Yahoo one until you're in a league.