iggymcfly

Wow, that's funny. All the top 10 contestants picked BC, while all the "bad" pickers took Boise State. I wonder if that's some sort of sign as to who's going to win.

Actually, I'm not sure on Florida. Something seems a little fishy about them, like you could totally see them falling apart in SEC play and ending up with 10 or 12 losses, but their resume's solid. They've got road wins over Wake, Syracuse, and Miami, home wins over Syracuse and Florida State, and the vast majority of their wins have come by double digits.

Yeah, doing the college basketball rankings wasn't exactly a priority on Christmas day, but it's not Christmas anymore so here they are. Kind of a slow week anyway, with Oklahoma the only Top Ten team that picked up a loss. (previous week's ranking in parenthesis) 1. Duke 11-0 (1) 2. Connecticut 9-0 (2) 3. Villanova 8-0 (3) 4. Florida 11-0 (4) 5. Illinois 12-0 (5) 6. Memphis 9-1 (6) 7. Washington 10-0 (7) 8. UCLA 10-1 (8) 9. Gonzaga 9-2 (10) 10. George Washington 8-0 (11) 11. Michigan State 10-2 (12) 12. Ohio State 8-0 (15) 13. Maryland 8-2 (16) 14. Nevada 8-1 (17) 15. Boston College 8-2 (18) 16. Indiana 7-2 (19) 17. Louisville 9-1 (20) 18. Tennessee 6-1 (13) 19. Texas 9-2 (21) 20. Oklahoma 6-2 (9) 21. Indiana State 8-0 (22) 22. Kentucky 8-3 (NR) 23. Bucknell 8-1 (23) 24. Michigan 8-1 (24) 25. NC State 9-1 (NR) Dropped out this week: North Carolina (14), Iona (25) Feel like I'm being kind of harsh toward the Tar Heels considering the USC loss isn't all that bad, but they haven't really done anything outside of the Kentucky win and I think NC State looks to be just a hair better right now.

I almost always engage in conversation. Last week, there weren't any real comments on the rankings except for your one comment on Wisconsin which I'd talked about the previous week. As far as Wisconsin goes, I don't think they deserve to be ahead of teams like NC State or Michigan because they haven't beaten anyone. The only thing on their schedule that could possibly be considered a good win is Marquette, and even that's not very impressive. I'd say Iona's road win over Iowa State was better than a home win over Marquette, and I'd also say that a road loss to Kentucky is better than a road loss to Wake Forest at this point. So while the Badgers are one of the teams under consideration, I'd still put them behind N. Carolina, Iona, and maybe even West Virginia as far as being an actual Top 25 team. If you have any other issues about where the teams are ranked, I'd be more than happy to discuss them. The actual weekly college basketball thread gets too caught up with what everyone's local teams are doing, so I figure it's good to do something to renew the national focus. Believe me, generating discussion is what this thread's all about. (I could have taken the post as an insult, and gotten indignant, but I'm just not in the mood today. Consider it a free pass.)

I like ESPN's comparison today between 1994 Penn State and USC. It's a really good, fair comparison since neither team won the national championship. Honestly, though, all this talk from everybody about how USC's the best team of all time has me really leery of them, especially given the fact that there defense is below average at best. I'm starting to think Texas could take this one down.

Just tell me this. Where do you go with Smackdown next spring if Batista retains against Taker. I mean honestly, there's no one that could be a legitimate challenger. Do you really want Taker's job boy (Orton) to take over as Batista's spring feud after Taker couldn't even beat Batista himself? Do you really want to hotshot Lashley into the main event less than eight months after his debut? The thing I like about Taker beating Batista is that there's reason to continue the feud afterward and it gives you a chance to build up the midcarders a little bit before they have to headline a PPV. I guess they could always bring over someone from Raw, but they're already moving Kane, and I don't really see who else there is on the heel side that would be a good challenger for Batista. On the other hand, I am kind of sick of the idea that the belt has to switch hands at WrestleMania every year. In theory, it's probably a more intriguing idea to let Batista just keep the title and see where they go from there, but I just don't know how they'd work it logisitically.

I agree. The MAC's just terrible this year, and even a mid-level level C-USA team like Memphis should be superior. I say Memphis 30 Akron 16

That's what you were looking for. There's two spots up for grabs in the NFC right now. Carolina's a game ahead of Washington and Dallas, so if they win, they're automatically the 5 seed (unless of course they win the division). Meanwhile, Washington has tiebreakers with both Dallas and Carolina, so if they win and Carolina loses, they're the 5 seed, and if they win, they get at least the 6 seed no matter what. Dallas, meanwhile has the tiebreaker with Carolina, so if the Panthers lose, the tiebreaker gets them in and if the Redskins lose, they get the 6 seed by virtue of better record. If somehow the Panthers and Redskins both lose, then Dallas would get the 5 seed and Carolina would get the 6 seed. The only really tricky situation is if Washington, Carolina, and Dallas win while New York and Tampa lose. In that situation, Carolina wins the division and gets the 3 seed while Washington wins their division and gets the 4 seed. In this case, tiebreakers are first done within the division and the Giants have the tiebreaker with Dallas. Then between New York and Tampa, they'd be even on conference record and common opponents, so it goes down to "strength of victory" which means that if the Giants lose by less than about 30, they're the 5 seed. From there, the same criteria would be applied to Tampa and Dallas. They would also be tied on conference record and common opponents and would go down to strength of victory. Dallas is already ahead in that category now, so they would have the tiebreaker over the Bucs. Note that if the Giants win the division, the Bucs are automatically in, as they have the tiebreaker with Washington, and thus would get the five seed. So to recap: Seattle, Chicago, NY Giants: clinched Tampa Bay: In with a win or tie or a Dallas loss or tie or a Washington loss or tie or a Carolina loss or a Giants win, tie or loss by 26 points more than Tampa. Carolina: In with a win or tie or a Washington loss or tie or a Dallas loss or tie. Washington: In with a win or a Dallas loss or a tie and a Dallas tie. Dallas: In with a win or tie and a Washington loss or a win and a Washington tie or a win and a Carolina loss or a win, a Tampa loss, and a Giants loss by no more than 24 points more than Tampa. If Dallas, Washington, and Carolina win and the Giants lose by exactly 25 more than Tampa, then I'm not sure who gets in. It gets into more complicated tiebreakers at that point. I guess there must be something wrong with me, because writing that out was surprisingly fun.

I'll dance that jig with you... as a Jets fan. I hate to be a broken record here, but Leinart's going to make Ryan Leaf look like Joe Montana.

I just remembered somebody comparing Grossman's stats through three games to Orton's for this season, but I guess those were Grossman's stats from last year. Anyway, the point still stands. He's not a very experienced QB to be winning playoff games. And you can't just say "X team beat Y team" and expect it to hold much water. The Browns beat the Bears earlier in the season, but I wouldn't expect them to do it again. I'm just saying that I think there's a pretty good chance that a young inexperienced QB would choke in the playoffs in this situation. Roethlisberger last year was worlds better than Grossman or Orton this year, and he didn't get the job done his first year in the postseason either.

Cena's the kind of champion where you should pull the plug on his reign even if he'd just won the belt a month ago. Batista's still somewhat over and I certainly wouldn't call his reign a failure, but he's not enough of a success to warrant over a year as champion. Who's the last WWF/E Champion to hold the title for over a year? I don't even know.

Look at it from this perspective. By Wrestlemania, Batista will have held the title for an entire year. He's getting quite stale, and someone new needs to be champ. The list of people on Smackdown that are credible enough to be champ is basically as follows: Undertaker That's it. So why not have an epic, hyped match, and then move the belt, so that they're at least doing something different with the show. They could even have Batista turn heel on Taker after losing the face/face match, and then extend the program for a few months if they wanted to. At the very least, it would be more interesting than Batista/JBL and Undertaker/Orton part XLVIII. Basically, from a booking perspective, they decided who was going to man event WM in the HIAC match at Armageddon. If they were going with Orton, he needed the win for credibility, and if they tried to use him now, they'd basically be telling their audience that they won't get to see the top guys face each other on the "biggest show of the year". Unless they somehow work a deal to get Lesnar in real fast, (which doesn't seem to be happening), I don't see any Smackdown ME they could run for Mania other than Taker/Batista.

I definitely agree with the Pistons winning a blowout today. They've been playing great basketball all year, and with the team they narrowly lost to in the Finals last year coming to Detroit, you know they're going to give the game playoff-level intensity. If there was ever a lock in a regular season NBA game, I think Detroit would be it. (-6 for you gamblers out there; get it while it's hot)

Is it just me or do the Panthers still seem like the team to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl? You just know that the Seahawks are going to choke at some point; it's too ingrained in their history for them not to. I say they get through their first game fine, but lose against whoever they face in the conference championship. The 2 and 3 seeds will be the Bucs and Bears, quarterbacked by Chris Simms and Rex Grossman respectively. Now anyone who ever watched Simms play at Texas, knows that he's the worst big-game choker in football history. No way in hell he leads a team to the Super Bowl. I guess the Bears have a shot, but I'd still take an experienced Carolina team over them, especially since Grossman has only started like five games this year. Thoughts? I think Indy's pretty solid on the AFC side, but the NFC's so muddled, that I think a 5 or 6 seed could easily represent them in the Super Bowl. If the Panthers don't do it, then Washington's got a good shot as well. I'm intentionally ignoring the Giants as a Manning/Manning Super Bowl would be so vomit-inducing that I'd have to hide in the hills of Malaysia until a month after it was over.

A Texas team that also plays in a tougher conference and had a tougher non-conference schedule? Seriously, when was the last time USC played a team anywhere near the caliber of Ohio State in non-conference play? Come on. At least try to be a little bit objective. If you want to say that the Big XII is as tough as the Pac-Ten, you could almost have an argument, but there's no way they were better this year. Their second best team was Texas Tech who beat absolutely no one and doesn't even deserve to be in the Top 15. Meanwhile, Oregon had a good win over Fresno State (before they tanked), and didn't lose to anyone all year except for SC. The third best team in the Big XII, OU played the third best Pac-Ten team, UCLA, and lost 41-24 giving UCLA their second most lopsided win of the year against a BCS opponent. So who else is so "tough" in the Big XII? Colorado? Iowa State? I really don't see how they're any better than Arizona State or Cal, especially considering how well ASU was playing when they played the Trojans, coming off a close loss to LSU and a blowout win over Northwestern. The second italicized quote is even worse. "When was the last time USC played a team anywhere near the caliber of Ohio State in non-conference play?" I mean, are you serious here? The Notre Dame game wasn't that long ago, was it? The road win at Notre Dame was the second most impressive win by any team all season long. I really don't see how the #5 team in the country could be classified as "not anywhere near the caliber" of the #4 team.

Actually, they only played poorly on the road. They were undefeated at home including the big win over Iowa State at the end of the season. Apparently being in a bowl game with a lot of their fans down there visiting pumped them up the same way that playing a home game did.

Yeah, lots of people cheer for their conference during Bowl season. Quit being such a fucking troll. If you really want to get on Dama, then just wait a couple pages until he says something that's actually worthy of being flamed. Flaming Dama for noting that Kansas won is just lazy.

I guess sarcasm's just lost on some people.

I remember Lou Holtz talking about this on Gameday a couple months ago (although in reference to the college game, not the NFL). He was saying that when he ran the option at Notre Dame, he only had three or four QBs get injured, and that they all got injured when they were passing the ball. The reason QBs get hurt more than RBs is that they're vulnerable when they're standing still looking for a receiver. As long as they're running away from the defender and in a postion where they can protect themselves, they're relatively safe. Besides, Michael Vick's only real strength is his running ability. If you're going to neuter him by keeping him cooped up in the pocket, it doesn't matter if he gets hurt, because he's not any better than Matt Schaub anyway. Finally, you can't tell me that Navy's QB and RBs have that much of a speed advantage over a team like Colorado State. They just run the option well, and make sure that the DE is committed to the QB before pitching the ball basically neutralizig an extra defender. I'd think Vick, Dunn, and Duckett would have at least as much of a speed advantage over the average NFL team as Navy does over a college team. Furthermore, since they'd be the only pro team running the option, it would make them tremendously difficult to prepare for, especially to seasoned veterans who haven't had to defend an option play in 15 years.

I still don't quite buy the argument that defenses have "just gotten too athletic" for the option. Ten years ago, Nebraska was the most dominant team in the nation, running the option. In 2001, Eric Crouch led Nebraska to the BCS title game and won the Heisman winning the option. If you recruit good linemen and backs, it's an effective offense no matter what year it is. Tell me USC wouldn't be undefeated if they had a running QB instead of Leinart, and had LenDale White and Reggie Bush running the Wishbone. I think they might be even more dominant than they are right now. I can kind of see the argument at the NFL level, but even then I'm not sure. If the Falcons were running the option instead of having Vick sit in the pocket and throw picks, would they really be worse? They could be, but they could just as easily be 10-4 and in the driver's seat in the NFC South.

Watching the Pointsettia Bowl reminds me how much I love the option. Honestly, it's too bad all the homogenized pussies at the major schools have decided it's passe, because it's still an extremely effective offense. Now that Nebraska's all about the passing game, I'm afraid we might never again see an option team reach a BCS game.

Oh come on now, what's wrong with it? RVD and Lesnar are both current stars. Even if Brock's not on the roster right now, he's only 28, so it's not like his career's ready to be over. Judging by the numbers ONS did last year, I'd say the ECW brand name's still pretty over, so if they built a faction and had RVD wrestling hardcore matches every night, I think it would get over fine. As long as we're using wrestlers who can still go, I think the people want a little bit of nostalgia right now. The fact is that the current product sucks. If people hear about something that they actually remember, they're a lot more likely to start tuning in again. I mean when Foley and Austin are on Raw, it's an embarrassment because they look like a couple of fat old men; but if Heyman leads a small ECW faction of current wrestlers, I don't see what the problem is. As far as the "ECW" title goes, it's just an excuse to unify the belts because I hate not having one real champion when both brands are the same goddamn company. It's just annoying. As soon as Lesnar loses the belt, then you can make it the WWF Title again or whatever, but I think that burning the belts would be a hot enough angle to get people talking. It would certainly be more interesting than Angle knocking Cena over and then smirking for the 100th time.

Tennessee's looking like a fluke against Oklahoma State right now. They're down 42-26 at the half. Of course it makes sense for OSU to be pumped up in the first half taking on a ranked team at home, but it's still going to be tough for the Vols to come back from this kind of a deficit.

Hm, I don't know how much I like that idea since a "heel" RVD will make all the faces he goes against look like chumps for not getting a reaction. Hey, it's a match I'd like to see, not a plan to protect all of Raw's stale boring babyfaces. Although I'm confident that if I was given the book, I could make Raw entertaining and get the ratings up near 5.0 by mid-summer. I haven't though much about wrestling lately, but I still think I have some ideas that could rejuvenate the product. I really like the idea of Heyman negotiating RVD and Lesnar's contracts when they enter, and then starting an ECW faction with them when they win the belts. They could say that RVD's contract has a stipulation where outside of one guaranteed rematch, he can choose the stips of all his title defenses. They could make big deal about how no one in the WWE can beat him in an "ECW rules" match, and then make everybody work hard to get the one shot in a straight up wrestling match. I'd have Vince institute an 8-man round robin tournament, with the two wrestlers with the best records facing off in a 2/3 falls match on PPV, and the winner getting the straight up shot at RVD the next month. If they wanted to copy the round robin idea on Smackdown for a shot at Lesnar, that would work too. Then after RVD defeated HHH and Lesnar defeated Benoit, Lesnar could come out on Raw for a mock confrontation with RVD where they're both asking Heyman who the real champion is. They both talk trash about each other's belts before finally Heyman says that there's only one real championship, the ECW championship. With that, both men throw their belts down, and Heyman pulls out a lighter and lights them both on fire before announcing that at Summerslam, RVD will face Brock Lesnar for the ECW Title. Since ECW would just be a small faction and not a competing federation, it wouldn't fall into the same pitfalls that killed the Invasion. Ideally, it would be like the original nWo, in that some people saw them as heels and some as faces, and they could choose between the two. They wouldn't have to dredge up old wrestlers, but at the same time, they wouldn't just randomly take people off of Raw and Smackdown. For instance, when Jericho comes back, he could talk about how the WWE misused him, and Heyman made sure he got what he needed.