ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 06:35 PM) I'm the same Zoom. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt rather bored by Red Dead Redemption. Honestly, I didn't make it past the beginning tutorial missions. I prefer GTA much much more. I can't wait until LA Noire though. I've been waiting for like 3 years. I think the pacing definitely turned off some people. It started and closed with some pretty slow/relatively uninteresting gameplay. I can see how some people might not have gotten past the first hour or two. However, the middle portion was pretty solid, even if it could have used some more variety. Maybe have some more outlaw-leaning missions like bank robberies, jail breaks, battles over land claims, stealing horses from military outposts, finding/stealing gold, ect., though I realize that didn't really fit the main character. I'd also have liked to see some more variety in the bounty hunter missions; maybe a few where they set up ambushes, or traps, or have a machine gun, or maybe make it so you have to find and interrogate an associate so you can catch them committing a robbery or something. I put in like 25 hours on Red Dead and the Undead Nightmare expansion is pretty awesome. I just prefer GTA.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 01:12 PM) I played about half way through and then had no motivation to finish. Every mission was one of three possible choices. I thought they did a much better job with RDR. Funny, that was how I felt about RDR. While it was more original and had a great atmosphere, like 60% of the missions were of the "kill all of the bad guys in this hideout" variety, another 20% were "get from point A to point B running from the bad guys" variety, a couple of protect/rob this train missions (those were my favorite) and the rest were rather mundane ranching/tutorial type missions. Sure, GTA has most of the same mechanics, but I felt like they mixed it up better. Instead of everything being "walk into this area and kill everyone," you might have to chase a guy to get to the main conflict, or maybe you have to escape from the bad guys/cops after it's over. It helped break up the cover, shoot, move forward, repeat pattern a bit more.

Just a reminder, draft in half an hour.

I got to Tru, replacing Buchholz with Ichiro. Will edit both the yahoo site and the list above.

Oh, and here is the list of keepers as entered (please double-check, and by the way, you can also look on the site): ZoomSlowik Hanley Ramirez Mark Teixeira Andrew McCutchen Dan Haren Brett Anderson Flairs Prince Fielder Buster Posey Yovanni Gallardo Tommy Hanson Ubaldo Jiminez Asshat Matt Holliday Joe Mauer Jimmy Rollins Chris Carpenter Josh Johnson Shiznit Ryan Howard Felix Hernandez Justin Verlander Jon Lester Ichiro Suzuki (edit) Time for Teahen David Wright Justin Upton Hunter Pence Roy Halladay Cole Hamels Drunk Chimps Joey Votto Josh Hamilton Matt Kemp Tim Lincecum Matt Cain Brian Simmons Alex Rodriguez Jason Heyward Cliff Lee Neftali Feliz Francisco Liriano Knightni Adrian Gonzalez Adam Dunn Alex Rios Matt Latos Ricky Romero Jason Heyward (the team) Albert Pujols Troy Tulowitzki Robinson Cano Clayton Kershaw David Price Sticky Steve Carlos Gonzalez Ryan Braun Miguel Cabrera CC Sabathia Matt Garza

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 21, 2011 -> 03:46 PM) Yeah, I don't want to sound like a whiny girl. But it's been clear for a while that it was 2 hitters, 2 pitchers, 1 whatever. If you're to allow 4 pitchers then you would have to allow 4 hitters, no? I don't make the trade with steve if I can keep 4 hitters and 1 pitcher. It's not really the same thing, you and I both know it. There are maybe 6 pitchers that should go in the first four rounds of a 10 team draft, which is why we set those rules to give them a bit more value. If he tried to keep four hitters, I'd probably manually change it. If he really wants to keep Buchholz over someone like Ichiro or Uggla, I don't have as big a problem with it as if I wanted to drop Brett Anderson for Andrew McCutcheon (who I'm keeping now anyways with Utley's knee issues, but it's just an example).

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 04:54 PM) You have to take at least two hitters. For now, I'm going to allow this since Buchholz is rated 159th anyways. The main point was because everyone wanted you to have to keep at least two pitchers so you can't just keep four awesome hitters. I'll still try to get a hold of Tru to try to get him to fix it.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 21, 2011 -> 03:22 PM) If it's no trouble, can you list all the keepers in one post so I/we know exactly the pool of talent that we have to choose from? When you get a chance, of course. Yeah, it'll be a while though.

Finalized the rosters, working on entering keepers.

I think the top was fairly legit, at least relative to the rest of the NCAA. I don't think they had any real championship contenders, but the top teams (and UConn) had some pretty legit wins out of conference. Obviously most of them stunk in the tournament, but that can happen in a one-and-done format, especially since like everyone else they had flaws. That said, I do think the middle tier was over-hyped. Teams like St. John's, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette weren't nearly as good as the hype. It helps when you constantly get shots at resume building teams in conference that you wouldn't get in any other league. The bottom of the league gives you some easy wins, win a few against the other teams on your tier, steal one against UConn when Kemba has a bad game, catch someone like Louisville or Syracuse at home and suddenly you have a pretty impressive resume in the eyes of most even if you didn't have a particularly good year.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Mar 20, 2011 -> 10:16 PM) lol at Notre Dame. It's been quite the epic fail. Going cold from outside is one thing, but Florida State is actually scoring against them too.

Classic Texas, all they have to do is get the ball in and they probably win, instead they get a 5 second call even though they still had a timeout.

Taylor with a couple of AWFUL plays down the stretch, brutal shot on their last possession and just fouled Pullen shooting a 3. They get bailed out on both though, Pullen with a turnover and a missed FT.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 19, 2011 -> 09:12 PM) The response of course to that is that Cleveland, for example, was screwed either way...because they let Lebron James decide all their trades for a couple years in an effort to keep him. Utah's coach resigned and that wasn't enough for Williams. The Nuggets built a legitimately solid team around Anthony and that wasn't enough for him. They actually traded Williams on their own, he didn't even know about the trade until it was announced on Sportscenter. He also showed serious doubts about signing an extension, that doesn't sound like a guy that forced a trade (or at least this particular one). As for the other two, it's called free agency, it's been around for years. Some guys are going to stay, some aren't. Frankly, they should be fairly happy they had those guys for 7 years. Both of those guys could have switched teams three years ago, but they signed extensions with opt-out clauses instead. You just can't force guys to stay somewhere forever, just like you can't legislate stupid contracts and stupid roster moves out of the league.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 19, 2011 -> 09:00 PM) It's going to be a different league in a couple years. 2/3 of the league doesn't want to be a minor league organization for the Lakers, Knicks, Heat, and Celtics. If Howard wants to be a Laker, he's going to have to deal with some sort of a franchise tag to get there. That may be true, but I'm going to steal a section from a Bill Simmons article because I agree with it entirely.

That last foul by Pitt ranks right up there with the Webber timeout for dumbest basketball plays I've ever seen, especially since Butler had just made a similarly stupid foul.

I see Soxfan420 hasn't joined yet, and I haven't gotten in touch with Slav. I'll nag these people to join, but if I can't do we just drop to 10 teams or try to find two more? The latter would be harder, especially if I don't push back the draft.

Picking the wrong Big East teams is killing me.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Mar 16, 2011 -> 08:08 AM) This is unfortunately the 1st round now. ESPN ran a stupid headline of the first #16 seed winning in the tournament yesterday when they beat the other #16 seed . However, if this format remains, it's always going to be the play-in games for me. Which is even dumber because it's not the first 16 seed to win a play-in game.

Just saw a blurb on the play-in halftime show that Kyrie Irving is practicing. I might have to change my bracket...

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 05:06 PM) So once again, you can point at the stats, or I can go by what I have seen. Slow pace helps defense, the slow pace Wisconsin plays is the equivalent of having a great run game in football. It does not count as a defensive statistic, but it changes how the other team plays. If they know that youll run 35 seconds off the clock or that if they give up a rebound its potentially a minute on defense, they play different on offense. Their pace is tricking your eyes, not the stats. Everyone has bad stretches, and it doesn't take a whole lot to go 4 minutes without scoring at Wisconsin's pace. They don't even get 6 possessions in 4 minutes, so all they have to do is miss a few jumpers. The same goes for the opponents, that's why they can have a pretty good offensive night and still only end up with 60-something points. Take the NU game at Madison as an example. NU shot 47%, hit 11 3's and only turned it over 6 times, yet they finished with only 63 points (Wisconsin was even better in that game, shooting 57% and scoring 78). They score 68 PPG and allow 58 per game on 57.6 possessions. 1 point per possession is a lot, hence the ratings. Wisconsin's D is fairly average. They don't force turnovers (322nd in opponent's turnover rate) and they allow their opponents to shoot 37.5% from the arc (315th). They're also middle of the pack in 2-point percentage allowed (45, 68th). They succeed because they don't beat themselves and they limit their opponent's possessions. Several stats point to that. Their pace, their low rate of offensive rebounds allowed (12th), their low turnover rate (1st) and high free throw percentage (1st). They also shoot a ton of 3's at a good clip (29th in 3's/FGA, 50th in percentage), which really boosts their efficiency. One 3 after two empty trips still leaves you with a serviceable offensive rating. On the downside, they're jumper-heavy so bad things can happen when the shots aren't falling (when you shoot as poorly as they did against Penn State, nothing is going to save you). They can make bad teams look worse with their style of play, and there are a lot of those out there. They do a lot with their possessions and limit their opponent's chances. And that's why I still have them in the final four because that bracket is BAD.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 05:17 PM) I love that Kentucky team too but if Harrellson gets in foul trouble against OSU they're just done. He's literally their only low block player and Sullinger is going to eat anyone else alive down there. That's why I changed it. I originally had Kentucky, but in my over-analysis of other things I somehow glossed over that fact. Sullinger is going to draw fouls, and if Jones or Miller has to guard him it's going to get ugly. Too bad the committee had to put OSU, UNC, Syracuse and Kentucky all in the same bracket. Put any of them in the southeast with Pitt and I'd have them in the Final Four.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 04:46 AM) Kentucky to the final game? I question that one because of a lack of depth. At some point foul trouble will catch up with them. I'm not a college hoops junkie by any means, so take that into consideration. I'm more of a fan that roots for the laundry. I wouldn't want anything to do with Kentucky in my bracket personally. They might only go 6 deep, but it's a solid 6. They have two lottery-type talents with Knight and Jones and they have a bunch of shooter. It's not like most teams go more than 8 deep, especially with quality, and OSU is similarly built. I keep switching back and forth between OSU and Kentucky. I think that'll be a REALLY good game and the winner goes to the Final Four.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 11:03 AM) Pretty sure essentially every 8 team since the inception of kenpom (except one when a bracket did place a qualifier) has had a top 40 offense and defense. ND doesn't qualify. Nope. Butler was 50th in offensive efficiency last year. Here's the way I look at it. Texas A&M might be 39 in defensive efficiency compared to ND's 62. But the difference in points per 100 possessions allowed (that is what the efficiency ratings are, right?) is about 2.5. On the other hand, the difference between ND's 3rd ranked offensive efficiency and A&M's 62nd ranked offensive efficiency is almost 14 points per 100. That still leaves ND with something like a 11.5 point edge, which is still pretty huge. Now against someone like Purdue is an entirely different story, but if Moore or Johnson has a bad game they can be beaten.

We'll see if my bracket trend regardin Kansas continues. For about 15 years running, every time I pick Kansas they choke and every year I don't they make the Final Four. Obviously I pick them to do well far too often given their history.