The Picks!

Well, a possible timing error helped me break even for the week. Apparently it was a good week for the Techs, as I missed both of those games to drop to 0-2 on the week before the Illini and the Blue Devils(that I really don't like picking) pulled off wins to even me out for the week.

I kept at .500 with a 6-6 record in these picks so far, but I like to look at more recent trends. Just as people look at the Dallas Mavericks and say "Since their 0-4 start, they've been near unbeatable at 35-5," I'm going to say since my bad week of 0-4 I've been 6-2!!

Do I smell a ring in my future?

Alright, time for the picks!

We've got a lot of great games this week, and because of that, I'm expanding the normal four picks to six! It's a 50% bonus week! (Kinda like occasionally when you buy shampoo or deodorant and they give you the bigger bottle/container for the same price you're used to paying for.)

The games:

All on Saturday
#4 North Carolina @ #19 Arizona
George Mason @ James Madison
Western Illinois @ Missouri-Kansas City

Monday: Illinois-Chicago @ #11 Butler
Tuesday: Michigan State @ Illinois
Wednesday: #3 Wisconsin @ #24 Indiana

The picks!

North Carolina is the #1 team in the nation in Sagarin's rankings, #4 in the RPI, Coaches' poll and AP poll. Arizona is very good as well, but only outranks UNC in the RPI right now, where they are impressively ranked #2 behind only UCLA. Arizona does return their top scorer to this game though after he sat out last game(amazing how Lute Olson suspends him for a game against Arizona State, who they beat 71-47 WITHOUT Williams, but lets him come back for UNC) for a rules violation.

Overall, despite Williams coming back and the fact that Arizona has the home court, I'm going with the team I love to hate. Roy Williams and those damn North Carolina Tarheels are my projected winner.

Next is the battle of founding fathers! The amazing Fightin' George Masons who beat UConn last year in the regional final to advance to the Final Four vs. The Fightin' James Madisons, whose biggest win is completely unknown to everyone except themselves. Regardless, what we have here is a battle of the founder of the Bill of Rights vs. the writer of the Constitution(Never thought you'd get a history lesson from this site, did you?). Gotta go with the more important and bigger work. The Bill of Rights, as important as it is, is an addition onto the Constitution, so despite the stats that say otherwise(such as Sagarin's rankings that have GMU 94th overall compared to Madison's 291st), I'm going with the Fighting James Madisons to pull the upset at home.

The following is a game that only matters a small sector of the population, but I'm among it. As a graduate of the fine institution of Western Illinois University, this game matters. Western Illinois is competing to be the worst team in college hoops this year, and we HAVE to have this loss if we have a shot. We're currently 335th in the RPI out of 336 teams and are projected to move up a few spots to 331. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN! The Kangaroos of Kansas City MUST win in order to keep us in the running for that coveted #336 spot. So out of necessity, I'm picking UMKC to defend their home court

Monday and Tuesday's chosen games are rematches of previous picks, where I went 1-1. UIC defeated Butler last time they played, in overtime at home. Well, it's revenge time. Butler, who is by far the superior team and still ranked #11th in the nation and 23rd in the RPI, will win this time. If not, I vow to never pick another Butler game this season until I have to turn in brackets for the NCAA Tourney, which unless I REALLY curse them, they should be part of. I am also picking Illinois to defend its home court against Michigan State. These two are basically each other's biggest rivals in the Big 10, even though not for geographic reasons, but because they seem to be about equally good or bad over the Self and Weber years at Illinois. MSU won at home, now I expect so will the Illini.

Finally, Wednesday's game. This will make one friend of mine who is a Wisconsin alum very nervous, as I've picked another Wisconsin game. Last time it worked out for him as I chose Ohio State over Wisconsin in my terrible, to be forgotten, 0-4 week. But this time, on the road against #24 Indiana, I'm siding with the Wisconsin Badgers. I'd love to say it's because WIsconsin is the better team, but I'm really going to say it because in my office at work, there is a stuffed badger on the file cabinet not too far from me, which is apparently the office mascot/thing to scare people with. There's no stuffed Hoosier(but man THAT would actually scare some people.)

The recap!

The home teams go 4-2 with top ranked teams North Carolina and Wisconsin being strong enough to win on the road.

North Carolina over Arizona
James Madison over George Mason(yeah, this is probably stupid)
UMKC over WIU
Butler over UIC
Illinois over MSU
Wisconsin over Indiana

Anyone ballsy enough, make some picks in my comments. If you're willing to post picks fairly regularly, I'll post your results against mine. No picking games after they've been tipped though.

Break's over

Well, after a nice 2 week hiatus from teaching and from blogging, I'm back. Classes start tomorrow, which means I've got a WHOLE lot to do today, but here's a post anyway.

Not gonna strain myself with a big post today, but here's some random notes:

Cardinals Notes

Mark Mulder is still considered his options, which according to the Star-Telegram out of Texas currently include the Rangers, Cardinals and the Indians. Most of the other reports have stated the competition is down to Texas and St. Louis. I'd like to see him back, especially now that our options are dwindling. Mulder's offers appear to be around 2 years/8M guaranteed with a boatload of incentives.

Other options for the rotation include Ohka and Piniero. Ugh. Please Walt! Sign Mulder and/or Weaver! On the Weaver front, there appears to be absolutely no news to speak of. That does seem to be Jocketty's way though, keeping things as quiet as possible.

Bulls Notes

Good news on a scary story: Bulls NBDL prospect Martynas Andriuskevicius attended practice with the Bulls recently after suffering major health complications stemming from a fight in practice with his NBDL team, the Dakota Wizards. Andriuskevicius was basically cold-cocked and dropped to the floor unconscious, hitting his head again rather harshly on the floor. He lost all verbal communications skills for a time and his hearing and speech are still not 100%. He says he does not intend to press charges against the player, Awvee Storey, but his agent does not rule out this possibility.

Other good news: At 19-12, the Bulls are percentage points behind Detroit for 1st in the CEntral and would start the playoffs today as the #2 seed. Their point differential of +5.2 ppg is the best in the Eastern Conference and 5th best in the NBA. As John Hollinger of ESPN.com(Sorry, you have to have Insider to actually view this article) states, "Believe it or not, victory margin is a stronger indicator of future win-loss record than a team's win-loss record, and normally a team with Chicago's victory margin would be 20-8, not 16-12." Currently, by the NBA RPI, the Bulls are playing three games better than their record indicates they are, as their expected W-L at this point is 22-9.

College Hoops Notes

This is not a proud time to claim my alma mater. Despite my fanship of the Illini, I am actually a graduate of Western Illinois University, a school that usually puts out a strong D1-AA football team, but that pretty much puts out a real stinker in basketball every year. Currently, they are 329th in RPI and 305th in Jeff Sagarin's rankings. When you consider there are 336 teams in Division 1, this is downright pathetic.

Props to the Big 10! Right now, in those same Jeff Sagarin ratings, they would likely have 6 teams in the dance. The conference is currently ranked 4th overall, and Wisconsin(6th), Ohio State(24th), Indiana(25th), Purdue(30th), MSU(33rd) and Illinois(41th) would all likely make the dance. Not that this is hugely unusual, but this looked to be a down year for the Big 10, with Illinois taking a big step downward, and only Wisconsin and Ohio State looking like they really had the pedigree to do ANYTHING in March. Time to knock on wood though, because there's still conference season, and I could see Purdue putting up a 5-11 record and falling out of the tourney.

That's all for now. I'll probably be writing more on college hoops and some on the Bulls as we go into the early months where baseball news is really hard to find.

70 days until first round action begins!

College Basketball!!

It's on my ESPN! WOOHOO!

On that note, time to put the baseball hot stove talk on the back burner(ha ha, real punny, right?).

Tonight: Maryland vs. Michigan State was a very fun game to watch. MSU kept it close the whole time and got screwed out of a real chance to tie the game late by the referees.

It's one thing to complain when the referees make a call and stick with it on a judgement call like a charge/block. This was a situation where first off, Gary Williams called an absurd timeout that actually put his team in a bad situation. His team was killing clock with under a minute left and with about an eight second differential between game clock and shot clock, he called a timeout when one of his players was stepping into an open jump shot with 4 seconds left on the shot clock. So he passed up an open jumper to set up a shot off of an inbounds pass from the sideline. So, on the inbounds, the Maryland player who got the ball shot an off-balance contested three-pointer that bounced off the backboard, completely missing the rim as the shot clock expired. The buzzer went about a half second before the ball went into the hands of a Michigan State player.

Now, the controversial part is that the referees did NOT call the shot clock violation. The most likely explanation is that they saw the ball went to a Michigan State player and made a judgement to not blow the whistle. The problem with that is: THEY'RE NOT PAID TO INTERPRET THE RULES, BUT TO ENFORCE THEM. The game moves too fast, it's a ridiculous idea for a referee to think they have the time to make split-second judgements in the best interest of the game concerning how and when to apply the rules. Just apply them as consistently as possible and the game will take care of itself.

Now, with 8 seconds left, the MSU player who had the ball turned and was called for an offensive foul for elbowing the defender. Now, the offensive foul was legitimate, but the circumstances under which it happened should never have come to be. Eventually, MSU still had their shot to tie, as the Maryland player missed both free throws, BUT, MSU's shot was significantly poorer than one they could have set up with 8 seconds rather than only 4 to get up the court and get a shot.

MSU ended up losing by 2, and I think they definitely have a beef with the referees of tonight's game.

And on a separate note: Western Illinois University(my alma mater) is 2-0!! Now, granted, they have the most cupcake schedule. However, they do play Indiana and Saint Louis both on the road. Both are major conference players, even though SLU(in Conference USA) is now probably actually considered a mid-major again, since it's basically just Memphis left of any real importance.

The other date to remember: 12-29. Brown University visits Macomb, IL to play the Leathernecks in Western Hall, which will mark the most intelligent group of people probably ever to enter Macomb, IL(Don't any other WIU people take this too personally, I went there too). They'd kick our team's butt on the ACT, but Coach Thomas can get his boys to take them on the court.

On late notes: Scott Spiezio resigned with the Cardinals for 2 years/4.5M, which does indicate they might see him as more than just a bench player next year(2nd base?)