danzig6767

I saw this elsewhere of Greinke quotes. If it's already been posted here, feel free for a mod to delete Quotes. "I could hit me if someone were on base. It wouldn't be easy, but I could do it. If no one were on base, I wouldn't care as much, so I could get me out." Upon hearing then-GM Allard Baird was going to watch him throw: "And you're gonna be impressed," "I'd say the average person wouldn't eat a Chipotle burrito and still do his running, full speed, like me. That's why they call me special." "I was giving Brian Bannister all the credit for being the best-hitting pitcher on the team, until today. Now, I've got my confidence back. They're throwing me sliders, and it doesn't matter." "For the first month of the season, (Billy Butler) has definitely been an above-average first baseman. That's hard for me to say because I never thought anyone would say that but him and his family." Two years ago, with Alex Gordon struggling, Greinke pulled him into the video room to show him a clip of Greinke hitting his home run. "In case you forgot," Greinke said, "this is what a home run looks like." "Nice effort by the defense. They didn't get tired of running after balls to the wall. I was pretty impressed by that." To Jeremy Affeldt after Affeldt gave up a homer on what he thought was a good pitch. "Really, I went back to the clubhouse and looked at the pitch on video. It was a really bad pitch. Right over the middle of the plate, and you got it up. I mean it was a bad pitch." Affeldt: "Thanks, Zack." Zack: "Right down the middle. I could have hit it out." Affeldt: "Thanks, Zack." Zack: "Yeah." On making the Sports Illustrated cover: "There's a lot more interesting stuff going on right now. They should have something else on the cover. Playoff basketball or something else. So it's a mistake. They'll probably sell their least amount of magazines in a long time -- except when NASCAR was on the cover." On hoping President Obama would cuss him out at the All-Star game: "Because none of the White Sox guys like me. So I was hoping that he'd recognize me and be like, 'You punk, I hate you.' But he didn't do that." “I cried in bed, moaning ‘why, why did this have to happen?’” — when asked how he reacted to the news of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston breaking up. “No. She’s way more big time than me. She’s pretty old too.” — when asked if he thought Jennifer Aniston would date him after the break-up. “I’d say the average person wouldn’t eat a Chipotle burrito and still do his running.. full speed.. like me. That’s why they call me special” “I don’t know if we really want to talk about this anymore…it’s kind of stupid” — after talking about golf for about 5 straight minutes in an interview. “It gives me more time to think or not think, which is a problem.” — when asked what he thought about having an extra day off. Restaurant customer:”Hey, you’re Zack Greinke, right?” Greinke: looks at him for a second, points at a short, fat Hispanic man next to him, and says, “No. That’s Zack Greinke.” “You don’t faze me, Gobble.” - From one of his mic’d up segment on RSTN, when he’s shagging fly balls in the outfield and Gobble runs past right as he’s about to catch one. “I was looking at colleges for me to go to, schools in vacation places like Hawaii, just to get away from everyone I knew, so I could start over. I also thought about mowing lawns for a living because I like to be outdoors. ” — after breaking out of the depression funk he said sometimes he thought about quitting baseball and mowing lawns.. "I’m not going pro" — when asked by a reporter why he had given up the game of golf, even though Greinke was, by most accounts, the best golfer on the Royals at Spring Training in 2008 “If I lived in Kansas City, I probably wouldn’t go to a lot of games, but I’d definitely go to that one.” — on a pitching matchup where Greinke was facing Daisuke Matsuzaka the second or third game of the year. Reporter: “Hey Zack, would you mind doing an interview before or after your start tomorrow night?” Zack: “After is better. Uh, what time does the game start?” Reporter: “I think it starts at 7:10.” Zack: (With a sly grin across his face) “OK, thanks, now I know.” “Soria, you runnin’ today? You’re goin’ down then. I’m gonna run so much faster than you, you’re going to be eating my dust.” — talking to Joakim Soria during pre-game warmups. “I really want to rob a homer today. Really bad. It’s all up to the hitters.” “No. Anyone can sign one player.” — when asked if signing Gil Meche to a $55 million deal showed him that the Royals were willing to go out and get free agents to make this team better. “Well, Davies thinks he’s good at everything but he’s not really good at anything. He thinks he’s good at golf. He thinks he’s good at ping-pong. He thinks he’s good at basketball. He thinks he’s good at tennis. And probably everything else he thinks he’s good at. He thinks he’s good at cards. But he really is very average at all of them.” — when asked if he knew any surprising facts about his teammates “Yesterday I saw a good one. I was going to eat, and the person I was with wasn’t there yet, so I thought, okay, I’ll just watch the sun go down, and it was nice.” — when asked if he had seen any good sunsets in Arizona during Spring Training. “No. She, like, has a special mouth . . . so that her breath is usually pretty good, but she complains about mine a lot.” — when asked if his girlfriend liked to eat at Chipotle with him. “It’s got to help some other guys, seeing someone as old as he is and playing as long as he has, playing as hard as he is.” — on second baseman Mark Grudzielanek “Well, one thing is, when you’re warming up in the bullpen, they’ll spray you sometimes and get you wet.” — when asked what he thought about the fountains at Kauffman Stadium “There definitely will be flying cars, but whether there’ll be flying cars for most people to use, it’ll probably take a long time to straighten everything out, all the rules and hassles. It’ll take a while to figure out how to keep people from crashing into each other.” — when asked if he thought there would be flying cars in the future. “No, I’m not a fan of them. We could try to think of someone else we could do it with. But not them.” — when asked if he and his girlfriend would double date with Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson. “If I hit a guy, I want him to be hurt.” “Things can go either really bad in two innings or go really good in two innings. You really don’t get the whole story.” — on spring training pitching outings. “I just wanted to make this clear: I can’t live without baseball…It’s to the point where it caused problems with my girlfriend because she knows baseball is more important than her. I say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I love the game that much. You’re not even close to being No. 1 — that’s how much I love baseball. I couldn’t live without it.” Everybody was mad at me for only throwing fastballs and change-ups. So I threw some first-pitch strikes with curveballs. It?s an easy way to get a strike. It?s not like it?s a real hard pitch to throw. You just throw it for a strike.” “Seriously, that was the best pitch I’ve ever made that got hit over the fence. That was probably the only pitch today that I did exactly what I wanted to do.” — after giving up a home run to Prince Fielder in a spring training game. “Nice effort by the defense. They didn’t get tired of running after balls to the wall. I was pretty impressed by that.” “Me. I’m a better hitter.” — when Greinke was asked by a National League scout, “Should we draft you or Scott Kazmir?”

Each sport is unique, copying football would be a disaster for baseball. My point though was that the NFL is nowhere near as healthy as people seem to think it is, they have their fair share of big problems too. Sure the NFL is extremely healthy when you look at it from the most important aspects, incoming revenues and popularity with the public. The NFL brings in incredible sums of money, especially when you consider they only play a 16 game schedule instead of 162/82 for MLB/NBA. Ratings are through the roof. We've seen more than once a Monday Night Football game, even involving two mediocre to bad teams draw in a higher rating number than a World Series game on the same night. Hell, even the NFL Draft draws in ridiculously high ratings. As for team profits being down, it may be thew case, but call me skeptical. Even if they are, that eventually can be addressed in this CBA. Plus, look at the values of NFL franchises compared to what most owners paid for them. The Packers play in the smallest market in all of professional sports, yet are valued at around a whopping 750 million dollars. That's significantly more than the Boston Red Sox are valued at. Only the Yankees are valued higher than the lowest valued NFL team. The public simply can't get enough of the NFL. How to split a goldmine between players/owner is a minor problem that eventually will get solved. Fan apathy, anger, and low revenues are what make a sports league unhealthy. Baseball is doing well also and the sports are different in multiple ways, so anyone making blanket statements like just put the NFL system in baseball are trying to simplify something much more complicated. That said, NFL fans like myself greatly appreciate that smarts of a GM are better rewarded than in baseball. The ultra small market Packer fans never had to worry about losing key cogs for financial reasons like Rodgers, Jennings, Collins, Tramon, or Woodson. I don't have to sit and stress when Clay Matthews or Finley get near the end of their contracts like Brewer fans and many other small market fan often have to start worrying about as a Fielder type of guy on their team gets say two years from free agency. Their are no Yankees or Red Sox type of teams that can't simply open their checkbooks each offseason and buy elite talents that the less fortunate teams can't afford. How much smarts did it take Theo to open his bank vault to sign Crawford and basically buy Gonzalez? They also bought Lackey, Beckett, Matsuzaka, and Drew. Thankfully, that doesn't happen in the NFL, it takes much more than a checkbook to build an upper tier team and small market NFL teams can generally afford to keep their best players if the team is run well. It's a significant factor in why the NFL is so incredibly popular.

I don't know exactly what medication Greinke is on or what exactly his social anxiety symptoms are, but i've known someone for a long time that suffers from social anxiety and has to be medicated. He's the son of my mothers long time good friend, i've known him since we were little kids. When he wasn't on medication, he was kind of a mess. Now that he's on medication, he can function and hold a job, but he's extremely quiet like Geinke is, especially around strangers or people he isn't close to. When people are around him that don't know him like i do, i've had two people ask me what's wrong with him and why is he so odd? I've seen him sit in a chair at gatherings for quite long stretches of time not talking to anyone unless they go up and initiate a conversation. The term "uncomfortable silence" doesn't exist in his mind. Also like Geinke, my friend tends to be very blunt when asked a question and many people aren't used to that kind of honesty. The human brain is very very complex and some folks have disorders. They have to handle them in the best ways they know how so as to try and function well like everyone else. For Greinke, he's blunt in the answering of questions, so be it, especially for a guy with a social anxiety disorder that has a job where he's the center of attention. Attention he doesn't want at all, but has to tolerate.

When i watch Wisconsin, more and more it seems to me that Keaton Nakivil is the wildcard in determining if they can have a nice run in the NCAA Tournament. The guy has a fabulous jumper for a big man, especially from three point land, but he's very inconsistent with that jumper when away from the Kohl Center. When he is hitting though, the Badgers are so much tougher to defend. Not only aren't big men typically used to defending out to the three point line, when Nakivil is hitting, he make defenses pay for helping on Leuer or when Taylor penetrates. That leaves an opposing coach into a tough decision. Say Nakivil hits a few early jumpers/threes, does that coach continue to double Leuer if he catches in the post and Nakivil is standing outside the three point line on the same side? BTW, that Josh Gasser kid has developed into a nice player as only a freshman. I'm sure it had to be a kick in the gut when Vander Blue decommitted, but given the struggles of Vander this year which opened the door for Gasser, my guess is UW wouldn't trade Gasser for Blue.

I don't have a 3D TV, but except for a select few movies, it seems like watching anything else in 3D would be more distracting than enjoyable.

Go to Cousin's instead, their subs taste much better and are worth the extra 50 cents to a dollar they might cost.

As for a first round exit, that sounds like another one of those familiar Wisconsin comments that comes up every year but never happens. Bo Ryan is 8-1 in the round of 64. The Badgers will be a 3-5 seed and are unlikely to lose. How far they can conceivable go really depends on their bracket draw, which has been bad the last few years by most standards. The Sweet 16 is probably a reasonable expectation but you never know if Taylor gets hot (or conversely if they have a cold shooting night against a team that rebounds well). I think Marquette still has a good chance at the tourney--they have an easy schedule going out and 4 more wins should get them in. I'm not expecting a first round exit either, but i wouldn't be surprised by a first round exit. Bo's teams have for the most part have been more perimeter based on offense than other good teams around college ball, but this year's team is more reliant than normal on the three ball and thus, i think it makes them more unpredictable in the NCAA Tournament. With them shooting so many threes per game on average, when they are hitting them at a good clip, they are very tough to beat regardless of the opponent. On the flip side, when they are mostly bricking their threes, they can be prone to getting upset IMO, even if say they were a 3-4 seed facing an 11-12 seed in the first round. So even though i'd bet against it, i think this squad has better odds to advance to the Sweet 16 or Elite 8 than other Ryan teams simply based on if they have a 2-3 game stretch of hot shooting in the tournament. I think there is a chance for that only because unlike some other Badgers teams, this one does have three really good perimeter shooters in the starting five between Taylor, Leuer, and Nakivil. Besides those three, all of Gasser, Bruesewitz, and Jarmusz are capable three point shooters, they just are more inconsistent. This means there are six guys that a defense legitimately has to guard out to the three point line. That said, the adage of live by the three, die by the three has truth to it. In college ball today, all teams are reliant on the three to a degree, but it's generally the teams who are more diverse that manage to advance to the Elite 8 or Final Four because teams will just have games where the jumper isn't falling and really good teams can find other ways to score enough points to win. As for Marquette, unfortunately i don't see them making it, that loss to St. John's was a killer. They probably need to win out now and win at least one game in the Big East Tournament. Marquette has talent, but i just don't think they have the leadership on the court to run off five straight wins. They'll lose at least one of those five games and maybe even two. Next year though, i like their chances to have a much better season, especially if Buzz can get the PG situation settled better.

Sheffield may be a jerk and he was linked to PED's, but strictly as a player, i think he deserves consideration for the Hall in my opinion. Over a roughly 10 year stretch from 1992 to 2002, i think Sheffield was on of the top 5-7 hitters in the game.

So losing close is a good thing? I have never heard the committee use this as a criteria before so I doubt they do this year. Marquette has played some tough top 25 teams but they are like 2-9 in those games. You are right Wisconsin does not have an awesome resume and that is why they will be a 4 seed, but considering they knocked Marquette off in Milwaukee I think their resume is a little better. Wisconsin's wins over Illinois, Michigan St., Minnesota and even Michigan will look about as good as the West Virginia win once WVU plays decent BE competition. WVU is 1-5 vs ranked Big East teams and still has 4 more games to go. They are likely to be around 19-11 come Big East tourney time. The Badgers have a pretty good record against the rpi top 100 10-6, Marquette is 5-11. Marquette is 3-10 vs RPI top 50. Wisconsin is 6-5. Wisconsins SOS is 34 to Marquettes 31. Not really comparable resumes. I know RPI is not the greatest ranking but it gets the point across clearly. Marquette has lost far more than they have won against potential tourney teams. Wisconsin has been just above .500. I just dont see a good resume for Marquette because close loses dont mean anything other than you will lose by less in your first round game. I think Marquette will get in bc they are right on the bubble right now. Palm had them as one of the last 4 teams in. It's not even remotely debatable that Wisconsin has a much superior resume and they simply are a better team. I didn't think the Badgers would be this good this season. I expected them to make the big dance as Bo always does, but be more of an 8-9 seed type of team, not the 3-5 seed i see them ending up as. The development of Taylor has been amazing though, to the point i think he's Wisconsin's best and most important player, even over Leuer. Where i'm very concerned about them in regards to the NCAA Tournament is that they are so reliant on the perimeter jumper, especially the three ball and while most teams shoot better at home, their splits are pretty extreme. Home: 14 games FG: 348/720 (48.3%) 3's: 132/301 (43.9%) Road/Neutral: 11 games FG: 236/579 (40.8%) 3's: 77/246 (31.3%) Wisconsin will have a tough time winning any game in the tournament if their threes aren't dropping, they take (over 20 per game). Unless they can buck this trend of shooting great at home, but tending to shoot much worse from the perimeter away from the Kohl Center, i'm not sure how they can win multiple games vs good teams because so much of their offense is based on shooting jumpers/threes, with few to no easy baskets in transition.

I'd agree with you Ely that Marquette is probably a little better than their record, but in the end, that doesn't really matter much because they are 15-11. The NCAA Tournament committee can only give a team so much credit for hanging tough in nearly every loss because the bottom line is they are still losses. This Marquette team has talent, but i think they badly miss the senior leadership that was on the squad last year. While Lazar deserved all the credit he got, a guy like Acker is also sorely missed. He was undersized and wasn't a great talent, but he was very smart, took great care of the ball, and could drill a three when it was badly needed late in a close game. For example, no way does MU collapse and lose that Louisville game if Acker was still running the point. Late in games, this team also lacks a go to type of guy when things are falling apart and they badly need a basket to calm things down. Butler strikes me as a great great kid, but i think he's almost to unselfish.

I disagree (sort of) Ever since the final 4 run, Marquette has continued to have the same basic team, producing little results. In 2002-2003, Marquette had Wade, Jackson, Diener, and not much else. Thats a pretty good PG who can shoot the 3 and run the team, a top 10 NBA talent (wing player), and a big, bulky, down low guy who can rebound, has a decent post-game, and makes his FTs. That's really it when you think about it. Since the Final 4 run, they continue to recruit the same kind of players: undersized perimeter-type players who are streaky shooters and don't play good enough Defense. ala: James, McNeal, Heyward, Crowder, Butler, DJO, Buyckes, Cubillan, etc. The only real exception to this was Wes Matthews, IMO Anyways, these guys I jsut mentioned are all kind of the same, with some being better than others, and each brings something slightly different. But what's missing (besides a Wade-caliber player)? The answer is a BIG GUY! Yea Marquette could use a big man that can consistently score in the post and that's a good rebounder, but so could a lot of other college teams. The reality is though that every year during a recruiting season, the number of highly rated big men are pretty limited. The really good 6'10-7' big men that can score and rebound generally go to the traditionally good powers or a kid's home state school. The other schools then have to try and find underrated 2-3 star bigs and hope to develop them. Bo Ryan has done a good job of this, except he tends to recruit bigs that are more perimeter shooters than low post scorers. Marquette for whatever reason has just struggled overall to recruit quality big men for awhile now. That said, plenty of teams over the years have proven that you can quite a few college games even if you lack low post type of big men so long as they have really good guard/wing players along with a number of long armed athletic 6'6-6'9 guys to help defend and rebound. Villanova has been an example of that for awhile. On teams like those, but for most college teams in general, it's so important to have a quality point guard. Put say Jordan Taylor on Marquette and i have no doubt that they'd finish top 5 in the Big East this year even with their defensive and rebounding issues. They've been in so many close games this year and they've ended up losing the majority of them. No question that a major factor in those close losses have been subpar defense and rebounding. MU is actually ranked pretty well in offensive efficiency on the season. A big problem though late in tight games is that Marquette doesn't really have a PG they can count on to run a good set and be certain to not turn it over. Cadougan is decent at running the team, but he can't shoot at all from the perimeter, isn't that skilled penetrating the paint, and he's a bad free throw shooter. Buycks on the other hand is a pretty good jump shooter and can penetrate really well, but he's way to prone to turning the ball over, especially when a defense applies heavy on ball pressure.

Marquette desperately needs a quality point guard, Junior Cadougan hasn't lived up to his high recruiting ranking.

It's not just the lack of home runs, he allows so few hits. In the last three years covering 243 innings, Marmol has only allowed 123 hits. So yea, he does walk to many hitters, but he mitigates that by such a fabulous BAA every year. Batters just rarely make good contact with his pitches. That slider he throws is flat out filthy. It looks more like a wiffle ball being thrown than a real baseball.

From what i've read, Taylor is a good student, so that won't be a factor. I'd be surprised if he declared after this season, but i definitely could see Taylor at some point being able to make it in the NBA, even if just as a backup. Watching him as a freshman, i never would have envisioned Taylor developing into the kind of scorer he's become. He deserves a ton of credit because he had to have worked on his shooting in the offseason each year. With his quality PG instincts and how well he avoids turnovers, if Taylor can continue making his jump shot a strength, i see no reason that he won't be able to make an NBA roster once he leaves Wisconsin unless his listed height of 6'1 is really more in the 5'11 range.

That looks disgusting. My kid used to like eating the chicken nuggets from McDonald's and to this day i'm not convinced that it's really chicken in those nasty things. Their burgers are by far the worst of any fast food place. If any company on the planet is a testament to the proof that marketing works it's McDonald's. Their food for the most part is terrible, yet they rake in massive profits. They smartly have targeted much of their marketing towards children who don't really care much about food tasting all that good, they just see McDonald's in the commercials and love the play areas inside many McDonald's.

Why do you seem to have a problem acknowledging that both can be serious issues? There are tons of irresponsible parents out there who constantly feed their children junk food snacks and fast food for dinner, the end result being kids ranging from being just fat to flat out obese. It sickens me when i'm places with lots of kids and i see how many of them at young ages are already fat and the odds are very high that they'll continue getting fatter as the years go by. No surprise either that these fat kids usually have fat parents also. I have a cousin who is very overweight and so are her kids. One is only 6 or 7 years old and he's a friggin obese tank already. Whenever i see him at a family gathering, he's stuffing his face the whole time with junk food and my cousin does nothing. If someone has a really fat kid, that parent is failing in their job as a parent. As for child hunger, while obesity i think is a bigger problem, there are kids out there who just don't get enough food to eat on a daily basis for a variety of reasons whether it be irresponsible parenting or a parent struggling badly financially to support their children. Many children have high metabolisms and thus burn calories fast. Kids in homes without an adequate supply of food on a daily basis will be kids more likely to struggle in school and other endeavors. In both cases, i generally blame parents, especially when it comes to child obesity. That said, in a country as wealthy as America, no child should ever have to live in a situation where he/she regularly doesn't have enough to eat.

I wasn't at the game, but even on TV, that seemed to be the loudest i've ever heard to the Kohl Center. It was so loud, i couldn't barely even heard Dickie V. babbling.

...interesting choice of words (if you didn't already know). Did not know they made it "official", but they've been on and off again for a while now, it seemed. Jack White always has some project going so maybe something in the future with him might be possible. The Dead Weather and it's good stuff

Why? The Black Keys are a fabulous band and i think it would have been great to see them doing the halftime show last Sunday. Not only would it have been nice to see them get huge attention like they deserve, it also would be refreshing to me at least to simply see high quality music win out during a massive spectacle like the Super Bowl instead of flash and no substance as was the case with that crap put on involving the Black Eyed Peas. One thing that bothers me sometimes is bands that may have started out as a socalled "underground band" and then if that band gets pretty popular, suddenly a bunch of their fans will start calling that band sellouts and/or criticize the band if they use that higher appeal to cash in some financially. In the mid/later 80's, i got pretty into the punk scene and bands would often get called sellouts if they got any level of popularity beyond playing in clubs holding 1000 or less people even though those bands often had to live dogs just to keep together. I remember reading Get In the Van by Henry Rollins along with reading interviews where he said few thing bugged him more than supposed fans of Black Flag or fans of him throwing out the sellot word when fans weren't the ones who lived life for years and traveled everywhere in a hunk of crap van. Plus, it also bugs me that so many stations play crappy packaged music, while a great group like the Black Keys can have a tough time getting their music out exposed to the masses. Playing the Super Bowl would be huge for their career, but of course it never would happen.

I'd prefer a southern California or the southwest to the deep south because i don't care for extreme humidity either. That said, with my growing hatred for winter especially, i've no longer complained when it gets hot here in Milwaukee, even if it's 90 and humid. I'll turn on a fan and feel happier than if it's 8 degrees and/or snowing like crazy. When my mother lived in Arizona for about 8-9 years, man did i love visiting her around October and November. To wake up and have it be 85-90 each day, sun shining, and with no humidity instead of in the 20's here and dreary gray, it was bliss for me. It was then painful to come back home to no warm sun, knowing that the hell of a long freezing winter is right around the corner, and also knowing that it will be another 6-7 months before hot sunny weather arrived here in Wisconsin. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif

For the most part I lack that killer competitive instinct that makes Americans Americans...but when Bo owns Izzo I make an exception. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gifThat was a great way to start a great sports day! Loved watching Izzo look like he had no answers as to why his team was getting pounded.This year's MSU team is the worst one i've seen in awhile, but i agree that it's always great to watch Izzo get frustrated by losing to Bo so often. I will say though, the Badgers were making some silly shots on Sunday. Whenever the shot clock would run down close to zero, one of Taylor, Leuer, or Naikivil would drill a demoralizing three even if a defender had a hand in their face. Keaton has been scorching hot this year from the perimeter, it's pretty amazing. The guy is a PF shooting near 55 percent from three this year and he takes a lot of them. He has to be the best jump shooting big man in the country. Come to the NCAA Tournament, he'll be so key to the Badgers chances to have any sort of run. Taylor and Leuer are top tier guys at their positions, but when Nakivil is drilling that three, he makes UW so much more productive offensively because defenses so often double Leuer and Taylor is able to draw in help defenders when he drives the paint. Nobody else is a consistent shooter like Keaton is.

That said a team like Wisconsin is a break here or there from slipping into a final four. Butler's team last year was not more athletic. They got hot and a good draw. Even Michigan State got pretty lucky last year to make the final four - that said Izzo gets his team ready at the right time. In the tournament Bo's teams come out flat and I am not sure why that is. I dont think it is our style but maybe it is. No doubt. Even though in most seasons i think Bo's teams lack of multiple diverse scorers, lack of great athletes to be shut down defenders, and the style of play causing them to almost never get any easy baskets in transition have all factored in to varying degrees for no Final Four berths and just overall disappointing results in the big dance, luck is certainly also some factor. There are simply times where a team in the NCAA Tournament will say face another team who is on fire from the perimeter and/or your team is unusually frigid. So even though i believe that Bo's overall recruiting is the biggest reason that he hasn't had more success in the NCAA Tournament, i do agree that if say they had been given a few different matchups or maybe had a hotter stretch of perimeter shooting, they could have made the FF in a previous season. This year Leuer and Taylor have developed into very good college players, but i just think their supporting cast offensively isn't good enough to make a deep run and they'll end up losing on one of those nights where they only score 48-55 points because the jumpers don't fall and they don't have anyway else to score enough points.

No question Al that once you get past about the top dozen teams/1-2-3 seeds each year, a higher seed losing in a game a stops being much of an upset. Once you get into the 5 seed area, losses aren't really upsets at all. That said, Bo has been in the NCAA Tournament 10 times now and this year will be 11. I hope he and the team can advance to the Sweet 16 or further, but i see Sweet 16 being their ceiling unless they shoot really good from three for a long stretch of games because i don't think they can beat other good teams in the big dance without good three point shooting. They aren't diverse enough offensively to win much against good teams without the jumpers falling, but there are a sizable number of teams who are skilled enough to win in multiple different ways because they have better and more diverse athletes. People can blame ESPN or kids today who want to be on highlights running the fast break, but either way, one of Bo's biggest strengths does also hurt him a bit. His very disciplined half court system which Ryan teaches his kids each year fabulously has resulted in lots of wins, but for a lot of high school kids deciding on where to play college ball, that style of play generally isn't attractive to them, especially very athletic/skilled wing players and in turn i think it hurts Bo's ability to recruit and sign some of them that he'd have liked to have.

I agree Al that there is some crapshoot aspect to the NCAA Tournament, all the socalled upsets each year are evidence to back it up. That said, it's not a total crapshoot. It's not just luck that say Tom Izzo has reached so many Final Fours during the time Bo has coached the Badgers while Ryan hasn't reached the FF a single time even though both teams have often been seeded fairly close to each other and have finished close to each other in the Big Ten standings. Izzo recruits and signs higher level players and athletes, thus when he gets into the tournament, his teams are still able to find ways to win games if say the jumper isn't falling much for his team. Izzo will often have multiple kids that can create their own shots off the dribble, they can get some easy baskets in transition offense, and they usually have the athletes to compete defensively once they advance to the Sweet 16 and have to start facing the upper tier teams with big time players/athletes. A guy like Tim Jarmusz can hold his own defensively most nights in the Big Ten when facing the likes of Penn St., Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, and even some of the upper tier conference teams by being very fundamentally sound and adhering strictly to what Bo wants. The Badgers start advancing though in the NCAA Tournament, they can be facing upper tier teams and some big time athletes/players. Suddenly, the lack of quickness for Jarmusz gets exposed more. Bo might have Jarmusz, Gasser, and Bruesewitz on the court at the same time. Well, if your in the Sweet 16 and now facing a Kentucky, Duke, or Texas, those three will be trying to guard a whole different type of athlete/player that they won't be facing vs middle tier Big Ten teams. They also will have a tougher time trying to get their shots off and already they aren't good at creating their own shots. That's why in most cases for Bo, i think his teams have stalled out before or at the Sweet 16. I'm not trying to diminish at all what he's accomplished overall at Wisconsin, it's been incredible and some bad mojo in one or two of the years might explain not advancing further. I just would like it more so for him to reach a Final Four than for me as a fan of the team, but i have my doubts because i think in general how he recruits makes it tougher to make deep runs in the tournament.

I love Rodgers doing the belt routine, but that song was hideous. This is a sweet piece about the belt