ZoomSlowik

Not exactly a contest here. US is up 10-0, and it's only the second inning.

Miami up 41-35 on Duke at the half. Duke looks pretty brutal, and Redick's poor shooting continues.

The problem with the tournament is that you can't really come up with a time that works well enough to get nearly all of the major league players in it. Obviously doing it now guys are rusty and some of them are hurt. If you do it after the season everyone is going to be exhausted, and you'll still have injury issues. If you do it during the season, the league would lose money from a lot of prime summer dates, and a lot of guys still would probably rather have the break. I'd be a lot more interested in this thing if you had the full rosters for everybody. You'd have guys like Roy Oswalt, Roy Halladay, B.J. Ryan, Barry Bonds, and Lance Berkman instead of Al Leiter, Gary Majewski, Jeff Francoer, and Matt Holliday.

I've got all kinds of stuff, but wall space is pretty short. I've already got virtually every bit of spare space in my room covered with other sports related stuff (mostly memorabilia). I've got a framed picture of the on field celebration (it also has a little container with infield dirt from Houston in it) that I could still hang somewhere, I have numerous magazines and newspapers that I could do something with, and a commerative card set that I still might try to frame. I've also got tons of apparell. The one thing I do have hanging is a framed, team signed 16x20 of the on-field celebration with a plaque under it that says "Chicago White Sox, 2005 World Series Champions". That thing looks awesome.

One of the weirdest things I've said occured over a meal with one of my friends. He was talking about some random stuff, bouncing from topic to topic, and I wasn't really paying attention. He asked me, "Did you hear what I said?" My response was," I don't know, something about the girl last night and a body." This one is better though. Apparently there was an inside joke involving that same friend and some of the people he worked with. Out of the blue one day, he asks me," How do you say "like monkeys f***ing flaming chickens" in Spanish?" Needless to say, I was quite confused. Eventually the best translation we came up with was "como manos chingando los pollos en fuego."

QUOTE(My Dixie Normus @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:47 PM) I don't see why the Bears shouldn't pay him an Urlacher type contract. They had numbers that were pretty close. If you figure in the that Urlacher is the ILB and Briggs is OLB, that is a pretty amazing thing for Briggs. Inside linebacker versus outside linebacker doesn't really mean anything. Both have plenty of opportunities to make plays. There are reasons that Urlacher is making all that money and Briggs probably won't get that close to it. First, Briggs has only played like this for 2 years, while Brian has for 5 (and I guess another half a year). Second, Briggs doesn't make as many big plays. In the last two years, he has 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, and 3 picks. Urlacher has 12 sacks, 3 forced fumbles and a pick, and he played in 7 fewer games. Briggs is good, but they're not on the same level.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:33 PM) The silly part is that of all sports, baseball is probably the one where the better team is least likely to win. Each pool should have at least had a home and home where each team could play six games and get a larger sample size. It might make for some "exciting" baseball down the stretch but could you imagine a single-elimination MLB playoff round? I guess there's the wildcard play-in game but I've always hated that too. A double round robin would definitely be better, that's the setup the use in the Champion's League. There'd almost certainly be more seperation that way. You can't really come up with a solid tie-breaker for only 3 games like this unless you only have a 2 team tie where you could use head to head results. Run differential might be a little better, but Canada would still be the odd team out. I think the only thing Canada would win would be runs scored, and that's probably the worst way to do it.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:12 PM) I wouldn't call UConn a lock just because they seem to fall asleep in some games. I highly doubt that would happen in the tourny but you never know. I didn't say lock, I said UConn and Nova are the safest bets to make it. I'm pretty confident that both of those teams will get by the 4-5 team, while I'm not so sure about the other teams. UConn played a horrendous game today, and Syracuse still needed a really deep 3 to send it to overtime. That's a major reason I don't think they'll lay an egg.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:25 PM) Yes. If we win tomorrow, we're in. Which is absolute bulls***, and it's a ridiculous way to deal with it, I think. If I were a Canadian tomorrow when Roger Clemens knocks South Africa to hell, I'd be furious at the Tournament's ridiculous rules. What would you propose be the tie-breaker in a 3-way tie? There isn't really an easy method of evaluation without relying on something like what they have. Even if you did something like run differential, Canada would still get screwed.

QUOTE(rangercal @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:19 PM) so, it's just a win and your in type of deal? In this situation, yes. In the case of a 3-way tie, earned runs allowed against the other teams involved in the tie is the tie-breaker. Mexico would advance with 3 earned runs, and so would the US at 8. Canada would be eliminated because they allowed 15 runs to Mexico and the US.

QUOTE(rangercal @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 10:57 PM) Canada W VS South Africa 11-8 W VS USA 8-6 L VS Mexico 1-9 Total Earned Runs = 23 Mexico L Vs USA 2-0 W VS South Africa 10-4 W VS Canada 9-1 Total Earned Runs = 5 USA W Vs Mexico 2-0 L VS Canada 6-8 South Africa ? So, mexico is in. The US needs to beat South Africa By allowing 14 runs or less and they are in. Canada will most likely get eliminated as cheat stated The runs allowed against South Africa don't matter. They only count the earned runs against the other teams involved in the tie.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:08 PM) I agree, but then again, there aren't many teams I would characterize as a shoe-in for the Elite 8. The only two I would call even moderately safe bets are Nova and UConn. I might throw OSU in there if they put up a good showing in the tourney.

I think it's unlikely that Gonzaga loses in the first two rounds, but I think the odds are fairly high that they will lose the next game. They need to get a soft 3/6 team to get by that game in my opinion.

Guess my ranting after the previous game is a bit pointless right now. The US losing to South Africa with Roger Clemens starting might be a bigger upset than the first time US basketball lost with the pros.

I'm not exactly a wing expert, but I personally like BWW. Their wings are actually hot, which is more than I can say for a lot of places. Most of their milder sauces are less than impressive, but I like the ones that are "hot" and higher. The regular wings are a little light on the meat, but the boneless wings are decent, and if you go on Wednesdays the legs are awesome. It's definitely better than Hooters. Even their hottest sauce is a little milder than I'd like.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 04:48 PM) Marquette is down seven with :50 seconds left. Really, really stupid play by Fitzgerald on the last possession. BTW -- is Marquette a lock for the tourney, even without this win? Will 20-10, 10-6 in conference, get them in? With a conference record like that in the Big East, they're pretty much a lock.

It would be better with Manny too.

QUOTE(MarlinFan84 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 04:01 PM) Louisiville will be BEast champs next year, mark my words. I wouldn't count on that. Losing Dean is a killer, and Padgett will be coming off an injury. He's an underacheiver anyways. Jenkins and Palacios are decent but not stellar, and Williams needs to work on his jumper. They also don't have really strong PG play. They have a good freshmen class, but I'm not sure how much production they will get out of them. UConn could still be very strong next year. Gay is almost certain to go, but it would be difficult for Williams to go because of all of the community service he is going to have to do during the pre-draft prep, and Boone going would probably be a bad call. Adrien and Austrie also get the chance to play bigger roles, A.J. Price should finally be able to play, and Stanley Robinson can fill in a lot of what they lose with Gay going pro. Watch out for Cuse too. Everyone but McNamara should be back, and Paul Harris is a very talented freshmen that can bolster their backcourt. Nova will be decent too if Sumpter gets close to 100%.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:54 PM) If Mexico wins by scoring less than three runs, however, the USA is eliminated before even playing their final game against RSA. How do you figure? That would mean that there is a 3-way tie at 2-1, and Canada has already allowed 14 runs. The US has only allowed 8, meaning they'd have to get knocked around by South Africa to allow more than that. Edit, nevermind, only games against the other tied teams count.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:40 PM) They have the most talent, but they're not the best team. Their defense is just awful. (Everyone talks up their blocked shots, but they don't guard well at all.) They can beat teams just on talent, but you can't just win a national title in this era of parody based off of pure talent. Like I said before, UNC just did last year, and this is a weaker field. They're not a lock, but they've got the best shot of anybody. Duke has played even more poorly of late and one of their two good players is playing poorly and looks gased. Nova is decent, but they're vulnerable to anyone with size, or just a bad shooting night. No one else is even close. Since when is their defense that brutal? They've had 3 bad defensive games that I've seen. They've won numerous games in the 60's, so it isn't all offense.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:31 PM) UCONN chokes big time. Was Rudy Gay even on the floor? Cause he didn't do s*** all game. Until they put together 40 minutes of D where they don't let people penetrate and get wide open shots, they are so beatable its not even funny. At this point they're not Final 4 on my bracket. Everyone is beatable, but who's better? Nova? Duke? Memphis? Gonzaga? I don't think so.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:19 PM) Gotta love walking right in from class to see that gmac shot. No kidding. I love March.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:12 PM) Carmelo Warrick McNamara will get a sniff Damn, how did I forget Warrick. He had the key block. You gotta go back a ways then, probably 1994 Arkansas.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:02 PM) Yes sir, I remember B & B talking about this either last year or in 2004. Not a surprising stat, but an interesting one. I'd be curious to look back and see who was the last team that had less than 3 future pros that won it. Maybe Cuse a few years back? I can't remember if that had anyone that already is in the pros besides Carmelo.

Damn, that shot almost dropped. Wrong guy taking it though.