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I have a 1, 2, 3 and 4 seed in my Final Four, so I'm all good. So far. Not very confident though.
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First time Tennessee has lost in the 1st round. Fire Pat Summit!! |
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After this season they may not have to, any sane person in her situation would give serious consideration to retirement. Only thing I can really put on Pat this year is some recruiting that didn't turn out as expected. The injury problems made a very tough situation even harder but I'd be shocked if all 7 of this year's freshmen were still in Knoxville next season, would be surprised if more than 4 of them were still around actually. Tonight would have been closer if UT's only big, Kelley Cain, hadn't gone down with a knee injury in the first half after scoring 10 points early but I really don't know if having her would have made up the difference. Ball State wanted to play and win, something sorely lacking far too often in the orange jerseys this year. This crop of players seemed to think having the name across the front of the jersey was a substitute for effort and several of them seemed to never really get past that notion even in the face of evidence to the contrary. |
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It seemed very Marquette biased.. I'm like you though.. watching in HD, everything else is ahead of the game. I can't talk to my dad because his feed is behind mine and he yells before I know what has happened. |
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Thank you. I'm glad someone else dislikes this guy. I literally muted the game when he was announcing the other day. He is so worried about his catchphrases that he takes over the telecast. The best announcers are the ones that you really don't know are there. |
In other women's tournament news, South Dakota State made the tourney for the first time and put a beating on TCU in the 1st round. (TCU vs. South Dakota State - Recap - March 22, 2009 - ESPN)
If the Mountain West was smart, it'd invite South Dakota State and North Dakota State to the conference as basketball-only members, coupled with an invitation for Boise State to join outright. Call their bluff, knowing good and well that they won't turn the invite down, because of what it'd do for all of the other sports in their program. In any case...this program is well developed and plays like a well-oiled machine. If Baylor plays them like they did their first round game which they barely escaped against UT-San Antonio, they're going to be heading home much like Tennessee did today. Now whether SD State will be able to go on a George Mason-like run is anyone's guess..but I'm telling you now not to be surprised if they go on a run, because their well-coached, are effective shooters and execute better than most of the teams in the country. |
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woohoo Ball State! went to grad school there so I was cheering for them and actually picked them to win in the woman's bracket I did. Not really expecting them to win, but hey it's a 5/12 matchup against the weakest Tennessee team ever probably, so what the heck. Still pretty stunned they won. |
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Well yeah Tennessee has been struggling this season, but a struggling Tennessee is still a pretty good team. I can understand the announcers going on at length about it. First time Ball State is in the tourney, Tennessee has never lost in the first two rounds, won what like 7 national championships? Most would still expect Tennessee to win in a game like this. |
One of the more interesting NIT matchups in a while with St. Mary's facing Davidson.
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Yep, out of plain view..just as the NCAA wanted. ;) |
Here's a piece on Eric Devendorf on being a dad and a student-athlete.
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CBI Quarter-finals
Charleston v. Richmond Stanford v. Wichita State Northeastern v. UTEP Vermont v. Oregon State CollegeInsider.com Tournament Quarter-Finals (CIT) ========= James Madison (20-14) @ Liberty (22-11) Belmont (20-12) @ Old Dominion (22-10) Oakland (23-12) @ Bradley (19-14) Idaho (17-15) @ Pacific (20-11) Unlike the CBI tournament, teams in this tournament get their road expenses paid and the home teams get their take above $2850. And in this tournament, they barred losing teams unlike the CBI. No TV deal for this tournament until the championship game. collegeinsider.com does a mid-major Top 25 poll during the year. So...they just fashioned this tournament to be like a mid-major NIT, whereas the CBI was losing records and teams with "names" playing. |
First batch of preliminary TV ratings for the tournament are in, up 9% over last season nationally
The first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament may have been light on upsets, with virtually all the high seeds prevailing easily, but it was heavy on viewers. Thursday’s opening-round coverage on CBS was up 9 percent compared to last year, according to Nielsen overnights, from an average 4.3 household rating and 10 share to a 4.7/10. All but one of the day’s four windows of games saw improvement versus 2008, with the second afternoon telecast up 0.4, to a 3.7, the second-highest rating in the past four years, and the two primetime windows both up 0.5. That wasn’t the only area where CBS saw year-to-year improvements. Its March Madness on Demand online platform recorded its best-ever opening-day traffic as well. The site’s video player drew 2.7 million unique visitors, up 56 percent versus last year. Those visitors watched 2.8 million hours of live video and audio streaming, 65 percent better than last year. Media Life Magazine - Solid early bounce for March Madness I was curious to see those because just a little while ago I got the weekend numbers in detail for Atlanta which were very different, down game to game across the board in 25-54, significantly by Sunday (game 2 Sunday down 3.8 to 2.4, last game down from 4.2 to 3.5). Curious thing I noticed too, all of the CBS lineup from 60 Minutes through Cold Case up in Atlanta by more than double vs last year, with 60 Minutes posting a 5.5 vs a 3.5 for the game while last year the game had a 4.2 that dropped to a 2.6. Downright peculiar looking stuff, even for a market that frequently runs contrary to the national numbers. I imagine the games themselves probably account for the drop here, last year on Sunday you had Tennessee in the middle game, UNC in the finale while this year was Pittsburgh followed by Louisville. |
Just saw Dick Vitale say that the best matchup of the weekend was Duke-Villanova. Seriously? Good God.
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Duke vs anybody would be his best matchup of the weekend |
JIMGA- How's tv viewership in general this year? I thought cheap (or free) entertainment always got a boost in viewers/participants from a bad economy.
SI |
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The latest study was released in late February, shows viewing up to 151 hours per month for the average viewer which is an all-time high. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/...4q08_final.pdf Several interesting tidbits in that study btw, including 31 percent of Internet activity occurs when consumers are also watching television. At 7 hours, 11 minutes per month, “timeshifted TV” is watched at double the pace as video online. But young viewers (18-24) watch video on the Internet and on a DVR at the same rate: about 5 hours per month. Men continue to watch video on mobile phones more than women, and women continue to watch video on the Internet and television more than men. |
Noticed an article in the Memphis newspaper where the writers and Memphis players were drawing the conclusion that their performance yesterday against the Maryland press in the second half will somehow equate to them breaking the Mizzou press. The fans on the fan boards seem to be following that lead.
This just in.......there's a big difference between a press run by a 10th seeded Williams-coached team and a press run by the 3rd seeded Anderson-coached team. No guarantees that Mizzou will win, but there's a huge difference between those two presses. I'm concerned about the prep time that Calipari has in this matchup. It's a lot easier to get ready for Mizzou with 5 days of preparation than it is to do it in 24 hours, which is what the next team will have if Mizzou wins. Anderson's going to need to throw some wrinkles into the system just to keep Calipari guessing. |
anybody know where I can find out what game is going to be televised in my area on Thur/Fri.?
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The timeshifting numbers have to be a bit weird to really get value from. Is an all-out "average" really telling us that much? Because an average for someone that owns a DVR is clearly different from someone that doesn't own one. If you're in advertising, wouldn't you rather just know how many of them have a DVR and how often they use it? |
Interesting stat to chew on. These are the records of the Sweet 16 teams against the other Sweet 16 participants.........
North Carolina: 3-0 Arizona: 2-0 Louisville: 5-1 Xavier: 2-1 Pittsburgh: 3-2 Connecticut: 4-3 Villanova: 3-3 Duke: 2-2 Michigan State: 2-2 Missouri: 2-2 Syracuse: 3-6 Kansas: 2-4 Memphis: 1-2 Oklahoma: 1-2 Purdue: 1-3 Gonzaga: 0-3 |
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He was not comparing the two presses. He was simply stating Mike Anderson might want to think twice about pressing after Memphis literally shredded the Maryland press. Memphis has the athletes and length that will tear almost any press apart. Very few people are successful at running with Memphis and winning. Memphis is something like 93-2 the past three years when scoring at least 75 points. |
I don't watch much basketball, but of course I enjoy March Madness - at least the first 4 days, anyway - but I have to say that at this point, I'm desperately pleading for 2 phrases to go away or a moratorium be placed on their usage for the next 3 weeks - "chalk" and "long."
/rant on It seems like since last year's tournament, where all 4 #1 seeds made the Final Four, the term "chalk" has been increasingly thrown around, And right now, it's being overused so much I want to fucking kill somebody. ESPN.com has a headline "Sweet Chalkers." Every moment I turn on a game or sports radio, I hear someone telling me the tournament is chalk right now. Fuck you and your chalk. I hope the Trite Expressions guy is taking notes right now. And same goes for long. For some reason, I associate this one with Jay Bilas, although I have no clue who started it. What was wrong with "dude is tall"? Why are basketball players "long"? If you're over 6 feet, chances are you're tall and have a long wingspan - that pretty much goes without saying. Why is a special term needed to describe that? It fucking annoys me to no end. OK, I'm done for now. /rant off |
I had never heard the term "chalk" applied in this manner until this post and reading articles today. And I still have no clue what the heck it's supposed to mean. I think I'm better off for that.
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Have you not been watching the tournament? It's like every third word out of their mouths. As I understand it, it refers to all the games going the way of Vegas' favored betting lines - "taking the chalk" means picking the favorite to win. Perhaps the bettors here can vouch for that. But that's what I take it to mean. ESPN.com's Sweet Chalkers article is about how no Cinderella's have made the Sweet Sixteen. it's beyond fucking annoying to me for some reason. Maybe it's because EVERYBODY and their mother is using the term all of a sudden.
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I tend to think of "long" as different than someone who plays "wide" (which you rarely, if ever, hear) although the two players are the same height. Their reach or wingspan is part of the equation but I think it often gets applied with consideration to physical style as well. Big men who block your shot when you come to them aren't generally long. Bigs who get blocks and/or rebounds that require them coming to you/the ball are the ones I think of as "long". From the tournament, just going with examples I'm familiar with, Tennessee's Wayne Chism at 6'9 242 sometimes plays long. UT's Brian Williams at 6'10" 267 (generously) does not. 6'7's Tyler Smith & J.P. Prince also appear "long" at times while 6'8 Renaldo Woolridge definitely doesn't. |
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I thought it simply meant the higher seed consistently advancing, nothing to do with the betting lines. As in the "chalk" lines of the bracket. |
I cringe every time a player is on the bench "getting a blow."
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In the old days of sports betting in Vegas, the favorite in each matchup would be written on the board in chalk. So if you took the favorite, you were 'betting the chalk'. I have no clue why its use is suddenly so prevelant given that it's a relatively old term. |
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Here's what happened the last time that Memphis faced a Mike Anderson-led team....... Tigers Fall On The Road To UAB - MEMPHIS OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE As far as stats go, it's hard to take them seriously when we're talking about Conference USA. Any one of the top 4 seeds in this tournament would have had little trouble putting up huge numbers if they were in Conference USA instead of Memphis. Memphis struggled against the 15 seed and beat a 10 seed. They really still haven't faced anyone in this tournament. |
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A similar discussion elsewhere on the interwebs narrows it down to horse racing. Might be right, might be wrong, but makes a certain amount of sense. http://boards.ign.com/college_basket.../161289032/p1/ edit to add: Same conclusion tentatively offered here as well, narrowing it even further to British horse racing http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1251 |
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That's correct. It's the same concept. Just betting on horses instead of teams. Chalkboards were used for all of that stuff because the odds were being changed pretty often. |
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I giggle |
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During the Pitt-Ok State game, Bill Raftery must have said "he took a bang from the rear" about a dozen times. |
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I've been in-and-out watching the games, but with my parents in town I didn't get to watch many of the Saturday / Sunday games, so didn't watch much as the trend built. I've certainly been reading the term enough today though. I'm with you. |
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That is incorrect. The last time Memphis played a Mike Anderson coached team, they won 57-46 in the CUSA tournament. You really should do a little more fact checking before posting, but can we ever expect that out of you? Your argument of them not facing anyone in this tournament applies to almost every team in the sweet 16. That is one of the benefits of getting a high seed, you know? |
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Obviously, I checked the regular season, hence the reason for the oversight. Actually 11 of the Sweet 16 teams have beat a single digit seed at this point. So most of the survivors have already played a tough team at this point. The teams that have not faced anyone better than a 10 seed are....... Kansas Michigan State Memphis Xavier Oklahoma Xavier and Memphis are the obvious teams that have something to prove at this point because they were in much weaker conferences than the other teams and haven't faced much competition in the first two rounds. We'll see how they fare in the next two games. |
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Duke had a lot of problems with their ball squirting out. |
Let's go revisit some of what I posted early in the thread as predictions:
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This was a basic skeleton and pretty much was right except for the Midwest. Still, with a rough sketch, everything should be pretty much correct since I was only writing in things I was "sure" about. The other post I had won't have much clarification until after the next pair of rounds so I'll check that out this time next week. SI |
A few observations of mine from this past weekend (apologies if any of this has already been discussed, but I don't have time to read the whole thread up to this point):
1. I do have to toot my own horn just a little bit. For the first time in my life, I went 16-for-16 after the first weekend (and that's on just 1 bracket...I'm not one of those people who fills out 374 brackets and then claims genius when one of them turns out good). 2. Is it just me, or is Gus Johnson less annoying than in years past? Has Captain Overreaction toned things down a bit this year? Perhaps Len Elmore (one of my favorite broadcasters) is having a good influence. 3. I was pretty impressed with the video quality of MMOD. 4. I found it funny that for 3-days straight, drama seemed to build over the course of the day, so the last games of the day were the closest and most exciting. On Friday night, at one point, two different games were in OT at the same time. At one point Sunday night, the three games going on simultaneously had a combined point differential of five. 5. Overall, a very good opening weekend to the tournament. I enjoyed it (as always). 6. This was probably pointed out yesterday, but I do have to point out the monster performance by Cole Aldrich against Dayton. Granted, Dayton doesn't have a legit low-post player, but still: 13 points, 20 boards, 10 BLOCKS!!! :eek: Cole is the first guy since Shaq to have a blocks triple-double in the tournament. |
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This was also pointed out yesterday. Quote:
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You are really grasping for straws here. Memphis demolished a team from the ACC. Your argument is that North Carolina and Duke really have not played anyone in the first two rounds, but because they played in the ACC they are battle tested. :confused: |
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Funny. |
I'd like to propose that no one but Mizzou B-Ball fan and GoldenEagle be allowed to post in this thread between now and Thursday, unless it is to incite/egg on one of the two of them.
Its possible that the next 3 days between these two in this thread could be the best thing to ever happen on a messageboard ever. |
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I dunno, the Flasch BF/GF/1R thread that introduced flere diagrams and the Maximum Football threads are pretty high bars to attain, but I'm willing to go along for the ride to see where this one goes... |
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lol :popcorn: |
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:D SI |
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Don't forget Calipari had what, 2 games a year for 4/5 years against Anderson at UAB? Its not so much that Maryland success = Mizzou success as it is that they know Anderson's system. If they could adapt to Maryland's press on the fly, they should be able to beat the Mizzou press if they know it is coming and have time to prep for it. That said, the team in CUSA that has given Memphis the most trouble over the last 10 years were those Anderson coached UAB teams. |
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Uh... This means what? Maryland beat Cal which was a #7 seed. So if they played a team that lost they would have proven something? Memphis came out of the gate poorly this year. They went 6-3, losing to Xavier (neutral site), Syracuse (home), and a Georgetown (road) team that fell apart a month after they played Memphis. After those three losses, Calipari changed the lineup and Evans moved to PG. Since then, they have won every game, including going on the road and demolishing Gonzaga. Have they had an easier road than other teams in their conference? Sure. But they have won those games. They won every single one of them. How many times do top teams stumble at some point in the season? They have not, that counts for something. Is this team the best Memphis team in the last 4 years? No, they are probably the third best, but unlike previous seasons, there are probably 10 teams that could win this thing, and Memphis is one of them. |
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The Cal loss was an unfortunate one. With their outside shooting, they definitely had a much better opportunity to beat Memphis as I mentioned before that game when I said Memphis should root for Maryland to win. Memphis is a good team and Calipari has been playing the 'no one respects us' card in the meetings and pep talks. It almost resulted in a first round loss, but hopefully for Memphis, they've learned from that situation. The key will obviously be Mizzou's defense by Tiller and Taylor. If they rattle Evans early, Memphis is in big trouble. If Evans only gives up 1-2 turnovers, it's good for Memphis. For Mizzou, if Lawrence or English gets hot, it's going to be a rough night for Memphis. |
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