danzig6767

Yea, it sucks when some Friday or Saturday night's the Bucks are off and instead of FSN televising the Badgers hockey game, they'll have on some random garbage that really would be of no interest to sports fans here in Wisconsin.

Part of their problem though is that teams know that Taylor and Leuer are really the only two guys who can consistently score and it's even worse almost anytime they play away from the Kohl Center. Yesterday, Taylor and Leuer combined to take 38 of the Badgers 51 shots. Wisconsin kept running nearly 30 seconds off the shot clock on many possessions and Taylor was left trying to create something out of nothing, but PSU knew this an regularly doubled him in those last few seconds of the shot clock. It lead to him taking some very contested and ugly shots which he missed. To show just how slow of a pace the game was played at yesterday, Penn St. only took 39 total shots along with only shooting 8 free throws. That's incredible. On the same night, Jimmer Fredette look 37 shots just by himself in the BYU win over New Mexico. Speaking of pace, i saw this elsewhere

Yesterday's game is what i've feared and been saying about this Badgers team, they are so incredibly reliant on the jump shot. It's 80 percent of their offense and when it's not falling, they really have nowhere else to turn to score points. Taylor is the only guard or wing player that can create a shot off the dribble and he's often forced to try and do this with about 5 seconds left on the shot clock after UW has passed the ball around the perimeter 10 times for the first 30 seconds of the shot clock. When Taylor though is having an off game and thus isn't able to continually bail out a largely useless offense set late in the shot clock, it's an empty possession. The sad thing is the Badgers played great defense and held Penn St. to 33% shooting, yet never once, not a single time did UW try and turn one of those missed shots into some easy transition points. It's so frustrating to watch. I understand that Bo has a half court belief system, but come on, can't he allow his players to get out and turn a defensive stop into transition points at least once in awhile? Does the team have to slowly walk the ball up the court every single possession?

Marquette is 240th in college ball at three point defense this year, yesterday wasn't an aberration due to being tired. They suffer badly first with on ball defense at stopping penetration and then their awareness as help defenders is atrocious.

Marquette is so bad at defending the three point shot. All year long has been a no mans land type of help defense which leads to open three point shooters. Guys continually "help" on dribble penetration, but in reality they often don't really even get that close to the offensive player penetrating. Instead they just end up sagging off the guy standing behind the three point line. In effect, they are guarding nobody. Then of course the guy penetrating kicks the ball out to the perimeter shooter for a wide open three. It's even more frustrating when playing a team like Louisville who loves to shoot a ton of threes. Everyone knows this. Pitino coached teams have always shot tons of threes. Yet, over and over a guy on their team would drive with the intention of kicking the ball out to a three point shooter and our "help" defenders would continually fall for this. Sag off the shooter he was guarding even though he likely wouldn't have been able to help much on the penetration anyways. Very frustrating. Stay at home on the shooter and let the big guy help. Lastly, if you're going to help on penetration, have a clue if you can actually effect the guy penetrating instead of sagging off your man for no reason at all besides to give up an open three.

Stuff like that is why i no longer gamble a lot on sports beyond making 10-50 dollar bets with friends on certain games to make them more fun to watch or say on a NHL/NBA playoff series so i have a team to cheer for. In my younger days before the internet was huge with all it's ways to bet online now, my cousin had a bookie and i'd bet a lot on various sports. For awhile it was fun, but not only did any losing streaks take a big toll mentally, losing bets where a spread was involved and crazy nonsense happened like in this game were just torture on me. I'd find myself not being able to get losses out of my head when refs or some fluky play cost me cash. Sports and enjoying just the outcomes kinda stopped being fun besides how it affected me financially. Teams winning or losing didn't matter anymore, just did they cover the spread or not.

I'm not sure it is subjective as much as it is impossible to prove one way or another. That's pretty much the definition of subjective. An opinion that really can't be consistently proven factually while it's not subjective to say that any team who finishes last in runs scored had a bad offense assuming they weren't devastated by injuries. I'm not saying that there never are certain situations where a team really and clearly seems to have over or under performed expectations, but more often than not i don't buy blanket observations that a team over/under performed just because preseason number analysts say team A, B, C, and D should win close to X number of games. Besides the obvious major factor of health on teams, players aren't and have never been robots. Some are quite consistent and some are often more erratic. Some perform better or worse in a given season for a variety of potential reasons. So yea, if say the Phillies stay relatively healthy and yet only wins 80 games, i'll agree they clearly under performed realistic expectations. If though any number of teams win or lose around 10-13 more games than their supposed projections say they should have, assuming reasonably neutral health issues, i'm just generally not quick to chalk it up to those teams supposedly under or over performing to finish with the record they did.

Saying a team under or over performed their talent can sometimes be subjective though. What i was more trying to say is that in a sport like the NFL which only has a 16 game season, a handful of fluky type of plays can influence more whether a team makes the playoffs or not. Say a missed last second field goal in a 17-16 that bounces off the uprights causing a loss and a deflected pass just off the finger tips of a defender on a late game winning or losing drive resulting in another loss, that can literally dictate that team missing the playoffs. On the flip side, another team in your NFL division can catch a few more late game changing plays to win the division. Granted, some bad luck can influence a playoff berth in baseball also, but the 162 game schedule doesn't make each individual fluky bad break as devastating as a sport with a much shorter schedule. Sure, some guys on your team may over/under perform what you'd have hoped for, but in the end over the course of that season, how they actually performed will have had more impact in whether your team made the playoffs vs an abnormal amount of bad breaks on the field doing your team in. Football on the other hand with it's short 16 game schedule can allow for a pretty average team who caught a lot of breaks on the field to sneak into the playoffs.

No question xisxisxis that health is a major factor in baseball and in most sports really. That's why at the end of my post i said, "that long 162 game schedule tends to award the best and most healthy teams when it comes to who gets into the playoffs." It's tough enough to try and replace slightly above average starting players, but when it comes to the best players on your team, particularly high quality starting pitchers, it's nearly impossible. The only positive from this early rash of injuries that you pointed out is that none look to be overly serious and thus it should limit the amount of games lost. Also, thankfully they aren't happening only a few days before breaking camp. Going forward all we can do as fans is hope the injury gods treat to Brewers decently this year because on paper at least, it looks to be the best team Milwaukee has had in awhile to start a season. Bad luck with injuries though can derail most teams chances of reaching the playoffs, particularly when injuries hit the better pitchers in a starting rotation.

Bummer for Jeter, he seems like a great guy. It would have been nice to see him win a NCAA Tournament bid, but i see no chance that they get in now. For whatever reason, i can't get into following UWM close even though i live in the area. Tonight was the first time i watched them this year and as soon as the Marquette game started, i only tuned into the UWM game during commercials of the MU game. It was ugly to watch when i did watch. I am curious to see what will end up being the career of Jeter going forward? He's been at UWM for 5 years now and while his teams have generally been really solid, he's 101-88 and will have just one NIT berth on his resume. Going forward it won't be easy to for Jeter to build the program to where they win consistently enough and get to the NCAA Tournament a couple of times to where he'll be attractive to a team in a major conference, especially with Butler in the Horizon conference. Plus, it's not like there is a ton of fan support for the Panther program. As for Marquette, good to see them lock up a tourney bid tonight even though i can't see them winning more than one game in the NCAA Tournament. They just have to many problems at PG and defense, especially at defending the three point shot.

I agree this injury may have huge repercussions. I was just telling some friends over the weekend how I thought the division may come down to who gets off to a better start. Advantage Reds.I would agree with everyone who thinks that the odds are pretty high that the division could come down to 1-3 games and thus even if his injury only cost the Brewers one game, that one game could be significant. That said, why do you think that the division may come down to whoever gets off to a hotter start? A myriad of reasons can play a factor as to why one team has a better first 20-30 games, but baseball is an incredibly long 162 game season. Because of that long grinding schedule, we see on a yearly basis that multiple teams start off good or bad, but come 75-100 games in, things have changed fairly significantly, much less come 162 games in. Obviously i'd prefer the Brewers start off well, but just as easily as a team can start out 20-10, they can go say 10-20 or 12-18 in their next 30 games. Schedules can also play as sizable factor. One team can start out with a significantly tougher schedule early on, but that reverses itself at a different point in the season. One thing about a baseball season compared to a sport like the NFL, teams don't often fluke their way to a playoff berth. That long 162 game schedule tends to award the best and most healthy teams when it comes to who gets into the playoffs. The teams with glaring weaknesses just will struggle badly to avoid having those weaknesses being exposed.

I would never bat Gomez in the two hole barring a near miraculous improvement by him for two reasons 1. The key job of the guy batting in front of Braun and Fielder is simply to get on base. Braun and Fielder can only drive in runners that are on base, not a guy sitting in the dugout who makes to many outs. Gomez has a long history of being an out machine. 2. The higher a batter is up on the batting order, the more at bats he'll get. A likely best case scenario for Gomez is an OPS in the .700-.720 range and that's trying to be optimistic. That kind of bat is best served getting fewer at bats than your better hitters. Plus, batting Gomez at the bottom of the order would allow him to use his speed asset the most. If he can get a single or rare walk while batting 8th, the option is there to have him try to steal second before the pitcher tries bunting him over. If he can steal in that situation and the pitcher bunts him over, now Gomez is on third base. Or a simple stolen base gets him to 2nd base and given our likely above average hitting pitching staff, it allows the potential to steal a run if the manager lets the pitcher swing away vs a bunt. Roenicke could also bat Gomez 9th in some games, there he could be a quasi-leadoff hitter with Weeks following him. Lastly, having him bat 2nd in the order makes trying to steal bases more risky because you don't want guys making an out on the bases with Braun and Fielder due up.

Gomez shouldn't be hitting anywhere near the top of the order. The 8th or 9th spot in the order is where he belongs, even if he improves some at the plate.

The Brewers aren't going to ask their new prized player to forfeit a few game checks over this situation, regardless if it was a dumb thing by Greinke to do.

I don't think anyone is expecting Gomez to suddenly start taking a bunch more walks this season, but at least if he's somewhat more selective in the pitches he swings at, maybe it will lead to a higher batting average and a few more walks even if that meant his walk rate was still poor.

First off, it's always about matchups. Secondly, the Badgers don't really defend all that well. They will probably lose in the tourney while having an average offensive performance and a terrible defensive performance yet everyone will harp on the O. For some reason the team's very average defense is being ignored this year. It's not a bad defense but compared to what we're used to at UW it is just not very good. No it's not always about the matchups. I'm not saying that matchups are irrelevant, just that i think many fans put that overly high on their list of importance when it comes to winning or losing in the NCAA Tournament. Look at quite a few of the teams that the Badgers ended up losing to over the years in the tournament since Bo took over. It's not like nearly each year the Badgers have been eliminated by really high seeds with vastly superior talent. It's also true that their defense has failed them in some of those NCAA Tournament losses, but in my opinion the UW offense overall in big dance games have had to many struggles, even in wins. Part of that i think just comes from that the Badgers get almost zero points at all from easy baskets transition offense. It's one thing to consistently out-execute in half court offense vs the lower/middle tier Big Ten teams in conference play for tons of wins, and then generally split with the upper tier conference teams. Come big dance time though, there really are no easy wins unless you're a one seed playing a 16 seed. Badgers can't play at home. Then i factor in how perimeter heavy the offense is based on, it's just hard to win 3-4 straight tournament games to reach the Elite 8/Final Four when if the jumpers aren't falling in a given game, there really aren't many other avenues to score a suitable enough points to pull out a win. They aren't going to turn some turnovers into easy basket transition points as most other teams can do. They can score some points in the paint via Taylor and Leuer, but not take over a game in there. Nobody on the guard/wing positions besides Taylor can create shots off dribble penetration if their jumper is off that day. That all said, i'm a little more optimistic that this year's Badger team can at worst make it to the Sweet 16. Both Taylor and Leuer are big time players and consistently good. Nakivil has always had a nice jump shot for a PF, but he's been more consistent with it this year. He's a deadly three point shooter on most nights. So even though i get worried about Badger teams that are so perimeter based offensively, this year's team i'm less worried about that because Taylor, Leuer, and Nakivil are all such really good shooters. Less inconsistent shooters than some previous Ryan coached teams. Plus, their insanely good free throw shooting can't be overlooked. Missed free throws are lost points that often come back to haunt losers in the tournament, especially the front end of a bonus. Then at the end of games if UW has a lead, there really is nobody on the court to foul given all shoot above 80 percent. On the flip side, we'll see numerous other teams get eliminated who had a lead inside the last minute, but missed free throws.

I want to believe this so bad. Every year I believe that UW will make it further than everyone else seems to think. If the consensus is knocked out in the second round, I think they'll get to the Sweet 16. If people pick them to the Sweet 16, I think they're making the Elite 8. I'm just so sick of them overachieving in the regular season and then underachieving in the postseason, that I'm going to try very hard to temper my expectations this year. It will probably be impossible cause I honestly believe this team might be better than their '07 team that won 30 some odd games. Then again they had Jason 'J-Cheezy' Chappel so that gives that team the slight edge. All kidding aside, matchups are obviously the key. Has Wisconsin been unlucky in their matchups all these years they've lost to lower-seeded teams? Or do they just not perform as well in the tourney? Probably more of the former. I just know that whatever 13/14/15 seeded team they draw, I'll be paranoid of a Cornell-like 3 point barrage. I may be in the minority with my thinking here, but i don't think matchups will be the biggest key in how far Wisconsin advances in the NCAA Tournament this year. We know the Badgers will defend and take care of the ball. They also do have a post option in Leuer. That said, this Wisconsin team is so heavily reliant on the jump shot for a high percentage of their points. They shoot a ton of threes. Granted, they have three very good shooters in Taylor, Nakivil, and Leuer in the starting lineup along with a few other guys who can stick jumpers/threes. It makes them tough defend. The flip side to that though is i question if they can beat a quality team in the NCAA Tournament if they are cold from the perimeter. Obviously being cold from the perimeter would hurt any team, but i think it will hurt UW more than most other teams. Their offense isn't diverse enough to score say 60 plus points when their jumpers are off. When they are shooting well from the perimeter though, the Badgers can pretty much beat anyone given how well they are in other facets of the game, especially at the line. If they have a lead late, their fabulous free throw shooting is a huge factor. So my guess is that in whatever round they end up losing in, the matchup in retrospect won't be viewed as a major factor why. Instead, we'll look at the boxscore and see that the Badgers shot something like 3-17 or 4-20 from three point land and simply were unable to find other ways to muster up a suitable amount of offense to win.

Precisely. This year's draft is shaping up to be very weak. It's true that this draft is projected to be weaker than usual, but it doesn't always end up working out that way. For example, going into the 2007 and 2008 drafts, the 2007 draft was projected to be much stronger. Well, looking back at the two drafts in the lottery. 2007-- Durant, Horford, and Noah have turned into upper tier players. Green and Conley are solid starters at their positions. 2008-- Rose, Westbrook, and Love have turned into upper tier players. Gordon i'd take over Green or Conley. Lopez is a quality center. Mayo, Gallinari, and Augustin are very solid NBA players. So even though this coming draft doesn't look particularly strong, i'd much prefer seeing the Buck drafting as high as possible over seeing them likely fail in a bid to win the 8th seed where even if they got in, a four game butt whipping in the first round of the playoffs likely would await. Can you imagine the Bucks and their utterly pathetic offense having to face say Boston and their great defense in the first round of the playoffs? It likely would be embarrassing to watch as the Bucks struggled to score 80 points in 2-3 of those games. They have only scored 100 points in a game three separate times more than they've scored in the 70's. Think about that. In 1/3 of their games, they've scored 85 points or less. That's why i want the Bucks to end up with the highest possible draft pick. In 2007 before the draft, it was reported multiple times that the Bucks liked Westbrook, but people weren't sure if he'd make it to our 8th pick. Come draft night, it surprised some when OKC took Westbrook at the 3rd pick and bummed me out because that's who i wanted for the Bucks. Well, Westbrook has developed into an elite PG who should only get better, has fabulous size for the position, is a great defender, and has ridiculous athletic ability. The Bucks ended up with Joe (at least i banged some Energee dancers) Alexander. So yea, i understand this coming draft could be weak, but odds are that at least 1-3 of those kids picked in the lottery will end up developing into really good players. Odds also are high that those kids will be picked among the first 5-6 picks. As that 2007 draft showed, it can matter big time when you pick 8th instead of top 3-5.

Not sure, but if they lose that game and the first game of the Big East Tournament, they may have to sweat out selection Sunday. Watching the game tonight, two things came to mind for me 1. Cincinnati impressed me with their athletic ability, defense, and just flat out relentless effort. They kinda reminded me a bit of the old Bearcats teams under Huggins. 2. Marquette had struggles with the same things that have hurt them in most of their losses. Lack of a great ball handling PG and preventing offensive rebounds. Part of the loss simply was via missing jumpers that they normally make at a higher percentage. The 3-15 from three really hurt, but in the first half, the Cinci press forced numerous turnovers that they then turned into easy transition points. I had hoped that Cadougan may have turned a corner and could become a guy that could be a reliable 30mpg PG, but he struggled vs the press. Plus, overall during the game, the Cincinnati pressure defense just disrupted Marquette from both getting the ball past half court and once past half court, to run smooth sets. Marquette only finished with 11 turnovers, but it sure felt like more given the way Cincinnati at least got their hands on so many MU passes.

What am i missing here? By your numbers, you seem to believe that McGehee would earn around 9-10 million over the next three years if the team went year to year with him, so you think we'd be better served to just give him a 3/yr 10 million dollar deal instead. Where is the benefit to the Brewers in that by guaranteeing those three years with very little discount, if any for guaranteeing those three years? Unless a team gets a noticeable discount for guaranteeing years that they don't have to guarantee by just going year to year instead, i don't see the point of it for the team? Sure it's possible that Casey will play even better over the next three years than he has the last two years and thus, his arbitration amounts could get pretty high, but it's just as possible or more likely that his numbers remain roughly the same, are worse, or he suffers from an injury or two.

Gooden didn't get a lot of money? Look through the NBA since the CBA put in the rules allowing for MLE contracts. In the vast majority of cases when teams give out these 5/yr 30-35 million dollar contracts to mediocre at best players like Gooden, Travis Outlaw, Gadzuric, Al Harrington, Trevor Ariza, Tyrus Thomas, Morris Peterson, Josh Childress, etc, not long after the ink is dry on the contract the teams end up look for someone else to take the contract off their hands. This is especially the case for teams caught in no mans land of no legit chance to contend and not being bad enough to get a top 3 pick in the draft where most of the league's star were chosen. Teams giving out these moronic 5/yr 30 plus million dollar MLE contracts often may as well have lit that money on fire instead. It blows me away how many NBA GM's make the same silly mistake every offseason even though history has proven that in the vast majority of instances, giving very mediocre NBA vagabonds a 5/yr contract is a terrible decision that they'll quickly come to badly regret. The handful of really smart/savvy GM's though are smart enough to not dive head first into a pile of steaming garbage that is full MLE contracts to very mediocre NBA vagabonds.

The more i think about it, if i was Marquette, i'd almost rather be a 10th or 11th seed over a 8-9 seed. If you're a 8-9 seed and win your first game, odds are very high that you have to face a number one seed in the next game. If though you're a 10-11 seed and win your first game, then you likely face a 2 or 3 seed in the next round. Given how little seems to separate teams this year after say the top 6 teams or so, being an 11 or 10 seed likely wouldn't make your first round matchup much tougher than if you were instead a 9 seed facing a 8 seed in the first round. It would allow MU though to avoid having to face a one seed in the second round if they won their first game.

I don't think it really matters much if Marquette ends up say a 9th seed or a 11th seed. This year is probably the weakest crop of upper tier college basketball teams that i've seen in awhile. That said, once you get out of the top 8 teams or so, there are about 30 teams that are separated by not very much. So i tend to think we'll see an abnormal amount of socalled upsets this year even though the word upset really might not fit. One bright spot i see for Marquette is that Cadougan and Otule are both playing their best ball of the year, improving on MU's biggest weaknesses, pont guard play and size inside. Buycks tries hard and can play some PG in limited minutes, but he was miscast as the main PG. He's to turnover prone and just lacks PG instincts. As for Otule, the kid is light years better now than early in the season. He actually has some form of a low post skill set and has developed into a pretty good shot blocker. If Marquette can get past it's first round game in the NCAA Tournament, any 2 or 3 seed that would face them next will likely be in for a very tough game.

I love tailgaiting and do it before every Brewers game i attend. In fact, i often enjoy the pre-game activities as much ore more than the actual game, especially on a nice hot summer day. That said, i've skipped going to opening day over the last few years, to many amateur drinkers that can get belligerent for my tastes. As for the original post, i love to make it easy when tailgaiting on the food front. Go say to Famous Dave's and pick up some racks of ribs and put them on the grill when it's time to eat along with my delicious potatoes in foil mixture including bacon and fresh green beans. Can't stand bloody mary's though, i honestly think that just might be the worst drink ever concocted. I hate vodka and hate tomato juice though, so it was nearly impossible that i be liking a bloody mary. One drink i used to like when i did attend opening day games and it was cold outside is this hot apple cider and whiskey concoction that this bar owner's wife always made. I'd go with a bunch of other folks on your typical bar/yellow bus grouping and she's make this fabulous hot apple cider, whiskey, and lemon drink that was nice if it was only in the 30's outside. I'm to much of a wuss for that now though, being outside for hours in the cold ruins any fun for me now. I wait to start attending games when the weather gets warm and the sun is nice and hot blazing on my body. Now that's bliss.

I still think we could support an NHL team. The Admirals draw pretty well for a minor-league team and the Badgers have a long history of success. It just makes more sense to me to have teams in hockey cities, not west-coast or southern cities. That may be why Phoenix and Atlanta have both had their problems. I still don't understand the need for 2 teams in Florida and all the teams on the west coast, in addition to PHX and ATL. I really like hockey, especially the Badgers college hockey. I used to attend a few Admirals games a year, but haven't attended any this season. Generally in the past though when i've attended Admirals games, the crowds were pretty tiny, even for a few playoff games i've attended and with the cheap ticket prices. While i'd love to see the NHL come to Milwaukee, i have real doubts that the city would draw enough attendance to support a team over an extended length of time. There just aren't aren't enough hockey fans in Milwaukee/Milwaukee County that i've sensed to consistently draw suitable attendance numbers. Mix in that NHL tickets aren't cheap, i think that would be a deterrent to drawing sizable numbers of curious people to give hockey a try or attend multiple games a year.