ZoomSlowik

Damn, they like the AL West this year. I don't know if they Angels or A's have enough punch in their offense to win the whole thing. Their pitching will have to carry their respective teams, so we'll see how that works out.

I agree with your reasons, but I'd like to throw out a couple more... -That Virginia team was a lot more dominant than this UConn team. They had just taken down a couple of really good teams (pretty sure they torched Phi-Slamma-Jamma), while this UConn team sleep-walked through the season. -This George Mason team is a lot better than that Chaminade team. George Mason was one of the best mid-major teams all year, and already had several good wins under their belt. You may be able to argue that it's the biggest upset in tournament history, but I wouldn't even say that because this UConn team doesn't have the same level of hype that some of these other teams had, like 84 Georgetown or 83 Houston. Hell, I'd still say that Rhode Island beating Kansas a couple of years ago was bigger because everyone thought that team was going to roll through the bracket.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 27, 2006 -> 05:28 PM) I'd say they are a pretty dangerous team this year considering they are in the final four. Okay, I worded that poorly. Obviously I don't think they're one of the 10 best teams in the country right now, regardless of the tournament results. Next year they probably will be.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 27, 2006 -> 05:23 PM) I don't like the UCLA/Illini comparison. If Illinois had as good a true point guard as Farmar this season, the offense would have been near the top of the Big 10. Defensively UCLA is a lot better than the Illini and more consistent as well, since their players don't take stupid fouls all game. I disagree. I don't think Farmar is really that much better at distributing the ball, and he turns it over a lot more. Their numbers are virtually identical, only Farmar shoots a higher percentage from the field and Dee doesn't turn it over as much. He plays virtually the same style as Brown, with a little more penetrating, and probably not quite as good in transition. Considering UCLA lost to Washington twice during the season, I don't really see it making that big a difference in the final result. I really don't think they're any more consistent than the Illini. Their anemic offensive performances in the tournament show that. They're more athletic which gives them a slight edge, but Illinois is a bit more physical. Granted that came back to haunt them in the tourney, but it's generally been an asset.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Mar 27, 2006 -> 05:02 PM) Good point. The one thing i really like about UCLA is that Collison guy. I like his penetration skills a lot. The guards seem really good at taking care of the ball, they have Afflalo and Farmer, where as we really had a Dee brown hold it offense a lot of the time. I think UCLA has some better depth as far as the other players go, they do more things where as some of the Illini guys are really good at one thing or another. I like Collison and Mbah a Moute. With a little more experience they should be solid. Bozeman is a fairly solid defender, but doesn't offer much else at this point. Afflalo is also pretty solid, but he seems to disappear for long stretches. Of their other guys only Hollins seems productive when he comes in. I'm not all that impressed with Farmar at this point in his career. For a guy that plays in a fairly low risk offense, he turns the ball over a lot (3.7 average). Plus he shoots from outside quite a bit for a guy that isn't really a good shooter. At times he takes it to the basket, but he doesn't do it enough considering that's when he's at his best (Afflalo does this too, although he is a better shooter). His shooting percentage is also pretty low considering that very few teams in the Pac 10 play decent defense. That said, this should be a very dangerous team next year. They've got a lot of young guys that should be better, and Josh Shipp should be back. He's an athletic wing player that gives them another solid option.

UCLA is basically the Pac-10 version of the Illini. It's ridiculous how similar they are, especially offensively. I guess their big men are a bit more athletic, but no one has the production that Augustine does.

Honestly, I won't really care unless the dumbasses come to the Cell wearing their Cubs' s*** and talking about that team they're passing off as a major league club. As long as the morons aren't ripping the Sox, I'll live with it. We've got season tickets now, so that's not an issue. We also do a lot of the stuff that Critic said. If you're driving, put a cooler in the car with some drinks and maybe a sub, that way you can sit in the parking lot for a while without going nuts.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 27, 2006 -> 04:32 PM) Ha, still not sold on ucla obviously? Not when they need a massive late run to beat a Gonzaga team that we've been ripping for months, and when they let a Memphis team that barely shot 30% with no 3's hang around for the entire game. They play some pretty good D, but so does LSU, and they've got a much better inside game.

I picked LSU. I think it's going to be either them or Florida. I don't think UCLA can hang with LSU. Frankly, they were fortunate to get through a very weak bracket.

Keep Hermida. The speed is a major factor, and he's probably going to have more homers too. Zimmerman will probably hit for a solid average and do okay in RBI, but he hasn't shown much of a power stroke yet, which is even worse considering the park he's playing in.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 05:31 PM) Cruz reportedly has strong feelings about being a starter. He was terrible last season as a MLB reliever, then went down to the minors and excelled as a starter. I have some worries that he just half-asses it when he's put in relief. Any thoughts on this? Still, he'd clearly be better than Thornton. But I wonder if he might be worth more to another team as a prospective starter. If that's true, than it's an issue. It's also not very smart on Cruz's part, since he's a fringe major leaguer. Clearly we have no use for him if he's adamant about starting.

I'm definitely a lot more worried about the pen now then I was when I wrote my article. All this news on Jenks isn't exactly helping matters.

I'm not going to be confident about our bullpen until I see Jenks getting people out with regularity during the regular season. Ever since Hermanson's back became an issue, we didn't have a whole lot of margin for error. Now if Jenks starts screwing up too, we're in trouble. If Jenks is okay though, I'm a lot less worried because I have faith that Cotts and Politte will be at least decent. It still wouldn't be a good pen unless B-Mac or one of the other guys we have becomes a solid option, but we might be able to live with it considering out starting pitching strength. I wouldn't depend on being able to acquire a quality bullpen arm at the deadline though. There will probably be more guys available, but the price will also be pretty high. Just remember the level of prospects traded for guys that weren't exactly elite relievers last year.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 02:00 PM) A look back: http://espn.go.com/recruiting/s/2001/1003/1258909.html 4 years, 1 Final Four, 0 championship games for the "best recruiting class ever." I salute you JJ Redick, Sheldon Williams, Sean Dockery, Shavlick Randolph, Mike Thompson and Lee Melchioni. 4 McDonald's All-Americans. 0 title shots. Thompson was a bust at Northwestern too, so you know he was bad. While I wouldn't call it the best class ever (or even close), you certainly would expect more than 1 Final Four and no titles.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 03:00 PM) I posted this in the other thread too so here goes. Thoughts on LSU/Texas? I think this will be a great battle between 2 very evenly matched teams. The key is which teams guards can hit some perimeter shots, whoever does that IMO wins because I think the great front lines of these 2 teams will cancel each other out. I'm going to say Daniel Gibson and the senior Paulino come up big and Texas wins a close one. I definitely think it will a really good game, and I agree that Texas has a slight edge because of Gibson and Paulino. LSU's guards can often struggle, especially if Darrell Mitchell has an off game. Temple is only okay, and Voogd is bad. Because of that they can often struggle to get the ball to their elite big men in the right spots. I think Texas is a bit more efficient at doing that, although both would be a lot more effective with some efficient pass-first guards.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 01:12 PM) To be honest, I've been a big college hoops fan going back to the Arkansas team that won it all in the mid 90's, and just about all the best teams I've seen didn't win the national title. I'd agree with the exception of the 2005 UNC team, the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats and the 92 Duke Blue Devils. There were a few solid UNC teams that lost, obviously about 5 different Roy Williams-led Kansas teams that lost, 1999 Duke, 1991 UNLV, plus at least 2 Arizona teams.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 01:43 PM) I don't think you'll see that type of athleticism from Amare anymore. He had the same surgery that Penny and McDyess had. I'm pretty sure that Chris Webber and Jason Kidd also had the same injury. The difference is that 3 of these 4 also had several other injury problems that may have contributed to thier loss of athleticism. Granted Amare probably won't recover 100%, but he could conceivably get to over 80% recovery, which still puts him among the elite.

Cruz would be a nice addition since he'd at least give us another power arm, but I'd be interested to see what the real price is. Anderson clearly won't happen, but would we give up Fields, Sweeney, or Broadway? Those seem to be our few remaining bargaining chips in the minors.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Mar 23, 2006 -> 11:32 PM) By the way, Amare Stoudemire played in his first game of the season tonight. He had 20 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 19 minutes. That is just ridiculous productivity. The Bulls typically struggle to get that much from 2 guys in 40 minutes.

Considering you've started ignoring about half of my points and have started applying what I've said in ways that I never used, fine.

Oh man, I watched it twice and I still have a hard time fathoming what happened. They sure figured things out at the end. Great comeback.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 12:04 AM) Oops, guess not! :rolly And you have a really bad habit of making statements without any statistical data to back it up. Sorry, but some of us have jobs. I've been at work for almost 13 hours today and don't feel like compiling more stats for you. But unlike you, I at least cite some statistical data to back up my assertions. Of course not, but they're typically not miles apart, either. But it's a moot point anyway, since you define starters with a 4.50 ERA or higher as "bad". They may be bad in YOUR mind, but the fact remains that only the Top 31 starting pitchers in the AL did better than that. If I were to fill in the remaining 49 roster spots with the best pitchers available (skewing the data to fit your argument in the process), 61% of AL starting pitching is still "bad" by your definition. Statitically, that's just ridiculous. Do the words "average" or "mediocre" mean anything to you? Wouldn't you be a bit pissed if your professors gave 61% of your class failing grades? Again, pure speculation on your part, rather than actual data. :headshake Then I guess the Astros must've had some major issues with their starting pitching last year, especially considering that they're in the NL. Oh, wait... :rolly So citing poor statistics that are only partial, have numerous flaws, and don't support your argument is better? Besides, I used them where applicable. One year's worth of stats suddenly proves that a 4.50 ERA is suddenly a good total? Using the same logic I could argue that Jim Thome is a rather useless player that we drastically overpaid for. Plus you're continuing to cite your numbers in this post even though I already told you that you messed up on the NL staters. You need to add another 7 NL starters to make it accurate, which throws off you percentage that is useless anyways because of the reasons I listed in my previous post. You're also trying to make it seem like they're two entirely different pools of talent that are mutually exclusive, which isn't the case. Another major issue is that many of the players that you're throwing in the "bad" pool aren't there because of performance, but durability in this particular year. Is Roy Halladay bad? or Ben Sheets? Or Rich Harden? Curt Schilling? I'd say that's pretty far from the truth. Is there really any difference between the words average, mediocre, and bad? They're all subjective anyways. If you're guys are putting up a 4.50 ERA, then you could replace them pretty easily with someone that is putting up similar numbers. Those guys aren't exactly an asset to your roster. Way to make a comparison that makes no sense as well. They're entirely different fields that don't apply to each other in any way. In one case you're a really good hitter if you succeed 3 out of 10 times, in the other 60% is a failing grade. Would you consider a C a good grade? I sure wouldn't, at least not in my academic career. So there are different degrees of sucking, big deal. When did I say that having a 4th starter with an ERA above 4.50 necessarily meant that your pitching sucks? So now my previous comments that you don't necessarily need 4 good starters if your other ones are really good doesn't matter? You're going to start picking and choosing which statements matter when? One pitcher isn't going to turn a generally good staff into a poor one, or a poor one into a good one. Once you get up to a couple of guys, that's another story. I said it's a concern, and it definitely was for the Astros because they didn't get much production out of the back-end of their rotation. Combined with an often anemic offense, that's why they just barely snuck into the playoffs despite their 3 dominant starters and a solid bullpen. I keep trying to let this thing die, but obviously I have a hard time letting poorly conceived attacks against many of my points go without comment. If you've got so many better things to do, why are you still on here arguing with me? I'm only half of the reason this thing is still going. I'm more than happy to let this thing die right here. Feel free to keep using your precious time on this argument though, you're clearly getting close to changing my mind. Can one of the admins please do me a favor and lock this? It's the only way that I'm going to stop. Plus nothing in the last 3 pages deals with the original topic.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 23, 2006 -> 07:58 PM) :rolly The last time I checked, "post-season success" wasn't limited to WS victories. Since 1990... Braves 6 Division Series wins 4 NL Pennants 1 WS title Sox 1 Division Series win 1 AL Pennant 1 WS title They've failed to win it all with much better teams that had much better rotations and much better bullpens. They've also lost in the first round in their last 6 tries. As soon as they can get back Maddux and Glavine in the prime and locate a bullpen, I worry about their chances of even getting to the playoffs, much less winning the series.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Mar 23, 2006 -> 11:55 PM) A lot of NBA scouts disagree with you. That doesn't really bother me for two reasons: 1) They liked Shane Battier quite a bit and took him higher in the draft than his talent would suggest. 2) A lot of NBA scouts make some really bad calls every year.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 23, 2006 -> 11:24 PM) I still think in a half court offense, Morrison could be alright, which is why the Magic will probably be all over him if they can't get Rudy Gay. Just shows how weak the draft is this year though. I really think that'd be a mistake if they did. Morrison is a bit more polished, but he as a very low ceiling. From everything I've seen so far, Morrison and Shane Battier will have roughly the same career. Morrison is better offensively, but Battier actually plays some defense.