ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Mar 31, 2006 -> 08:45 PM) Quick question on LSU...do they have any guards coming in next year? This year it seems Darrel Mitchell is really the only long range shooting threat they have. Minor coming back will be a big boost, but I'm just curious as to what they might find in the shooting department. Dameon Mason is eligible as a transfer from Marquette. He's a 6'5" 190 pound SG that will be eligible as a junior. He was a starter there for two years, averaging 9 points as a freshmen and 11.9 as a sophomore.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Mar 31, 2006 -> 04:47 PM) LSU won't even be top 25 after Thomas and Davis declare for the draft. I wouldn't bet one Davis staying in the draft. Even if he does declare, he has virtually no draft buzz, so he's probably a second round pick, meaning he'd pull out. Even if they did both go, Tasmin Mitchell is solid, Minor and Mason are decent starters, Rolle is about as athletic as Thomas, and Lazare and Temple are pretty good role players.

Like everyone else, I'm a bit worried about the pen, but it isn't exactly a team-killer. Boston's pen was horrendous for most of last year and they still made the playoffs, and they did that with a much weaker rotation. As others have said, teams have been able to get by without a whole lot of bullpen depth, especially with strong starting pitching. Honestly, if Jenks straightens things out a bit, I'm not really worried. If he's pitching reasonably well, Politte and Cotts give us some decent late inning options, and McCarthy has the potential to give us a lot of solid innings. Even Logan looks decent so far. As long as he throws strikes, he can be fairly useful, although I don't want him in high-pressure situations in a close game. I think we can get by for quite a while, and if we don't we can always try to pick up a reliever at the deadline, even though that will definitely cost us.

UConn and Duke are probably a stretch in the last two spots. Gay is almost certainly gone, and Williams could be too. If they lose both of those guys, they'll really struggle. They'll still be good if somehow Gay, Williams, and Boone are all back, but not only is that unlikely, I still think some of the teams on that list will be better. Duke needs some guys to step up big time to avoid a drop into the teens. Even if McRoberts stays, either Nelson or Henderson is going to have to turn in a big time performance, and that's already assuming that Paulus and McRoberts play pretty well. They don't have as much talent on the roster as they have in the past. I already posted my list in the recruiting thread. Personally, I think OSU and UNC have to prove themselves a bit before anyone puts them 1 or 2 in the pre-season polls, since so many of their key players are going to be freshmen and sophmores. Either that or many of the other teams on that list have to lose some talent.

Ali was untouchable before he was suspended for refusing to go to war.

I'll admit I'm being more conservative than most with UNC and OSU. They can still move into my top 5 with ease once some of these guys declare. I'd just like to see them play a bit before I move them that far up. I'm sure Cook and/or Lighty will be fairly solid on the wing, and that UNC will get decent production from a Lawson/Ellington/Frazier/Green/Ginyard backcourt (I personally doubt Miller sees as much time this year with the increased talent level), and that Wright will help up front, but I don't want to give them too much credit just yet.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:56 AM) The team had 3 NBA players that scored over 18,000 points in their career, combined with a distributing PG in Black and a perfect role player in Doherty. There wasn't much of a bench, but back in those days there really didn't need to be, especially with the 4 corners being run. UNC only scored 67 ppg, but their defense only allowed 55 ppg. They had a dominant SG defender in Jordan, a good defender at SF in Worthy, and a dominant post defender in Sam Perkins. They obviously had some talent, but as I said, their key players were really young at the time, and as you said they barely had a bench. If you look at what their players eventually did, then yeah, their roster is pretty impressive. But I don't think Michael as a freshmen, Perkins as a soph and Worthy as a soph or junior (can't remember which) trumps teams like Houston with Elvin Hayes as a senior, Phi-Slamma-Jamma, or Georgetown with Ewing as a junior. They were good, but I don't think they were even in the top 5 (maybe even top 10) for best college team ever. Honestly, I thought the 83 and 84 teams were better. I think they were kind of like UNLV in the early 90's: their best team didn't win it all. The competition was pretty stiff in 83 and 84 though.

Obviously a lot of the poll depends on who stays and who goes. Here's how I see it: I think Texas is definitely the pre-season #1 if Aldridge comes back. Adding Durant to that group almost doesn't seem fair. If Aldridge goes, they drop quite a bit, probably to a borderline top 10 team in my book. I'd put LSU next. Besides the fact that virtually everyone on this team in an underclassmen, Tack Minor, who would have been their starting PG, should be back from injury, and Dameon Mason, a transfer from Marquette, will be eligible. They'll be very big and very deep, even at the guard spots. Even if Thomas goes I think they're a top 5 team. I'd put Florida next, although they drop to about the same spot as Texas if one of their frontcourt players goes. I'd actually put them below Texas if that were to happen because there's a major dropoff from their starters and they don't get as much help from their recruits. If everyone comes back, they'll be very good. Kansas comes in next in my poll. They seem to be less vulnerable to the pros right now. I like the post options better on the teams above them though. UCLA rounds out my current top 5. Everyone should be back, and a healthy Josh Shipp gives them another pretty solid wing player. I've got UNC and OSU just below those teams. The major reason for that is they're depending pretty heavily on freshmen, and it's a little hard to guage their impact. Oden will definitely be good, but it's hard to say if one of their other guys will be an impact player or not. They probably need one of the other guys to step up to really kick ass, although Butler, Lewis, and Oden should definitely be enough to win the Big Ten. UNC has better depth than them, but again, they need one of the freshmen or sophmores to step up and be a big time player. Terry and Hansbrough are solid, but I don't think they can do it alone. Obviously those two teams have the potential to do better, but they're depending on some unknowns, so I personally feel I have to dock them a little.

Well, the balloting is done. The Final Four was 96 Kentucky versus 82 UNC and 76 Indiana versus 69 UCLA. The Heels beat Indiana in the final. Personally, I think that's a load of crap. The 82 Heels weren't THAT good. Their stars were all pretty young, and I think the fans were a little swayed by the fact that Michael was on the team, even though he wasn't quite his old self back then.

Sunday night.

Actually I'd say they're about even on the money doing this, because they're giving up 2 or 3 years of having them at like $500,000 in exchange for saving some money down the line. I don't really think they're even saving that much money in the later years because the $ amounts get higher and they probably would negoiate somewhat reasonable deals instead of letting them go to aribitration anyways. I guess it helps not having to negotiate in the future though.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 29, 2006 -> 03:52 PM) He had no recruiting restrictions on him from the time Cincy canned him until K-State hired him. God only knows what he was doing during that time. I understand that's a major reason, but you'd still think it'd take some recruiting ability to get guys that good to go to a school with as little prestige as K-State. It's scary, this group looks like it might rival the Fab Five by the time he's done.

Definitely don't worry right now. That offense is a monster, even for a 10 team league. Don't even think about tinkering with that. I'd keep an eye out for any decent pitchers that slip into FA though, you could use another starter or reliever. A lot of those guys are fairly high risk. I'd drop Harang first, then probably Wood since he never seems to be healthy.

I just joined, and man are you guys in trouble. I put together a monster.

That said, we did get $125 a piece for our extra Opening Day seats in the upper deck on Ebay.

Are they really extending the amount of time they can retain these guys at all? Didn't they already have like 5 more years before Sizemore could become a FA? It seems to me that they're basically paying these guys more than they have to now to get an extra year on the end and hope they return the favor when they hit free agency.

I think it's interesting that Huggins is in such good position with so many top players all of the sudden. He was never that good a high school recruiter at Cinci. Most of his major additions were from the JuCo ranks, and his most highly touted recruit was probably James White, a transfer.

QUOTE(Steff @ Mar 29, 2006 -> 02:11 PM) Face value. At the park on the day of the game, I'd agree with that. But there are people dumb enough to pay a lot more than that online.

To add to what False Alarm was saying, Silva also missed about 8 starts, and Jeff Baker and Francisco Liriano are going to be on the major league roster all year in some role. Silva pitched well last year, and Baker and Liriano are both pretty talented. Their pitching has some serious potential, but Mauer and Morneau are going to have to be better (Mauer needs more power, and Morneau needs to just step up in general) to keep pace in this division. Their offense is quite a bit behind Cleveland's and ours, and I don't think their pitching is dominant enough to make up for that unless one of the rookies pitches like a #2 starter.

QUOTE(Cerbaho-WG @ Mar 28, 2006 -> 03:59 PM) Have you ever seen the student population here at IU? Any drooling imbecile is accepted here, and athletes basically have all of their work done for them. There are plenty of mentally challenged people down at Illinois too (although they can typically control the drooling ), that doesn't mean they didn't somehow get decent grades in high school.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2006 -> 02:15 PM) I guess the groundhog must have saw his shadow, because its looking like 6 more months of attendance threads here...

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2006 -> 01:54 PM) On the other hand, I half agree with you here. The Indians offense isn't quite elite yet, but it certainly has the potential to be elite. It was the #4 offense in the AL Last year, but was only like 60 runs or so ahead of us (a healthy Thome replacing Everett would more than have done that for us last year.) Running up and down the list you have a ton of left handed power in Hafner (who should hit 40 this year), Martinez who gives you good production from the catcher's spot, you've got Sizemore in the outfield, Peralta in the infield...all of whom give good production at spots that are sometimes less productive. A couple of their key guys struggled out of the gate last year (Martinez, Boone). If Sizemore, Peralta, and Hafner keep improving, and they're able to bring up either Garko or Marte and get good production out of them whenever they do show up...that team could really be raking. I never said they didn't have some guys that can hit. Things went really well for most of their lineup last year though, and I'm not sure how much better some of those guys can get. Hafner and Sizemore can definitely get better, but I'm not sold on Peralta yet, and I don't think Martinez can do that much better. His slow start is countered a bit by his incredibly good second half. I'd be very surprised if he hits much over .300 or 20 homers. Belliard and Michaels are their only other decent hitters, and I think I'm being a bit generous on the latter since he hasn't really proven anything. Blake, Broussard, and Boone don't really impress me, their numbers are an awful lot like Joe Crede's numbers. I wouldn't count on them getting too much help from the minors either, their guys probably need a little more polish. I'd personally rather have our Frank-Mags-Paulie-Carlos group. I don't think it'll be much better than our offense, if it's even that good.

That one definitely surprised me. He's put together some decent teams, so I don't think it's that bad of a hire. He relied on JuCo's quite a bit though, which might not work out as well at Indiana.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2006 -> 01:16 PM) Here is where I think you're very much wrong. Their Pitching was good last year, not great. Their bullpen was great. But their starting pitching has almost certainly taken a step backwards this year with the loss of Millwood and Elarton, and it's hard for me to say that the guys they got as replacements (Johnson from Detroit, who we kill IIRC, and old crafty vet Paul Byrd) simply aren't at the same level. On top of that, they lost Howry from their bullpen, and don't have an obvious contender to back up Wickman if his health issues, which held him to 66 appearances in 2002, 2003, and 2004 combined crop back up. The Indians Pitching staff will only take a step forward if everyone does the same as they did last year, but Lee and Sabathia take big steps forwards, and that looks very doubtful to me. I agree with everything you said there. Besides injury concerns with Wickman, there's the fact that he just isn't all that good. He's been a pretty mediocre reliever for most of his career, and his last healthy season before last year wasn't very good (ERA over 4). Plus, he allowed a fairly high number of baserunners despite a low ERA. He's not exactly a dependable option. Plus while their offense is good, it's not quite elite. I wouldn't even say that it was as good as the Sox's offense for most of this decade back when we had Maggs, C Lee, and a healthy Frank. Considering that their starting pitching isn't much better than ours was (arguably it's worse), that's not a good thing. Their pen is a bit better, but if Wickman goes down or sucks, that's a serious problem for them.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 27, 2006 -> 10:05 PM) That's fair but you said LSU is just too good so it kind of came across like you were saying LSU is better then Memphis. Memphis definitely has more talent, but I think LSU is the better team. For all their depth and athleticism, Memphis doesn't really have any low post players and has few players that can create their own shot (even Carney and Williams struggle with that at times). They rely on the 3-pointer a lot more than they should. LSU might be a little thin on guards, but they've got a huge advantage over pretty much every team in the country inside, and Darrell Mitchell gives them one pretty good perimeter player. They also play solid defense more consistently than Memphis (who seems to have lapses similar to UConn), and they don't have as many stupid turnovers.