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http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2012-04-19/wisconsins-bo-ryan-seeks-answers-not-disdain-in-attempt-to-block-jarrod-uthoffs- Per the above report, all non-Big Ten restrictions on Uthoff's transfer have been lifted, following his appeal.

It's as if Block is relaying the play-by-play via teleprompter. All the words are there, and in the right places, but there's no sense of attachment to the events on the field. (Not sure it's a perfect analogy, but the best one I can think of while listening to today's game.)

Hart has never been my favorite defender; I've seen him struggle with plays just like the one from last night in the past (trying to remember if it was '08 or '10 ASG when he butchered a ball in RF). I don't exactly think he's a liability in the outfield - I'd say average-to-just below average - but I think that is another sign that points away from signing him to a long-term deal.

I'd be surprised if Game Show Network doesn't have that marathon on by the end of the night, honestly. Too young for Bandstand, so my memory of Clark came mainly from New Year's Rockin' Eve, Pyramid, and TV Bloopers & Practical Jokes. (Selfishly, I wish I hadn't seen New Year's Eve 2012; I would have much rather that my last memories been happy ones, rather than finally seeing proof that the man did age.)

If you want to make the differentiation between Aaron and Molitor, I think this thread spells it out pretty well. - No one blames either player for leaving the city when they did. - At the end of their careers, when given the opportunity, Aaron returned to Milwaukee. Molitor went to the Twins. I grew up during the Molitor-Yount era, and was always a Molitor first guy (too young to really know about the off-the-field stuff I've heard about since). I didn't hold his time with the Blue Jays against him, cheered him on when they won the WS, and was glad to hear he was retiring as a Brewer. Always tried to get to County when the Twins were coming through after that; wish I could have been cheering for him in the home uniform, though (those were some lean years, if memory serves).

I don't think we have to look any further than Carlos Gomez for that one. The fear with every LHP is that things will eventually fall into place for them, especially if they have a 90+ fastball. JDLR comes to mind almost immediately, albeit the Royals gave up on him after the Brewers did.

George Kottaras is on pace for 162 HRs. (It's good to have baseball back.)

George Kottaras is on pace for 162 HRs. (It's good to have baseball back.)

Not tearing up; it must just be really humid in my office all of a sudden. (Thank you for sharing, and Go Brewers!)

Except you left out the best part: the 6 Bucks games in conflict with baseball are all on the alt-channel.

I've never been to opening day at Miller Park (once at County Stadium was enough for me), but there are gates in the RF and LF corners. They're usually where I enter the stadium on bobblehead days.

I think keeping Ishikawa to start the year is a way to give Gamel a day off about once a week. The organization feels (for reasons I'd only be speculating on) that Mat needs to be protected a bit this year, which is why there was talk of Corey Hart getting time at 1B vs. LHP. Obviously, Corey's ST injury means he'll be taking additional days off himself during the month of April. I think the team sees Ishikawa as the best available option (right now) to face LHP when they want to give Gamel a day off. [EDIT: For some reason, I thought Ishikawa was a right-handed hitter. This move makes less sense to me now that I know he's a lefty himself.] I hope that most days, he'll be the first bat off the bench when the Brewers need a PH; I much prefer that possibility to bringing him in via double-switches.

I don't know that Kevin Barker was ever that highly-touted in terms of prospect ratings, but he's the name from the 90s that I haven't seen in the thread. About the best thing you can say from his time in Milwaukee is that it brought about the (first) Richie Sexson trade.

Once or twice a year, my TiVo strongly hints to me that I ought to like Mad Men, and I will watch the episodes it records. Last night happened to be one of those times. Saying this as cautiously as I can (so as not to troll - I don't expect to post in the thread again unless called upon to do so), I just don't see what people get out of this show. I understand passionate fans (I love Community on NBC, so we at least have Alison Brie in common), so I look at this show with a curiosity that I don't have for a lot of other networks' offerings (e.g., if you're on Bravo & don't have "Top Chef" in your show title....I'm turning the channel). This is one of those rare shows where the fawning coverage it gets from media and fans leave me far more interested than the show itself ever seems to. I'm sure that my watching pattern does the show a disservice, but can someone explain to me what it is I'm not seeing?

You could tell on the last possession that no one other than Taylor wanted to take the shot. Next year, I'm guessing they start Gasser, Brust, Evans, Bruiser, and Berggren....with George Marshall (redshirt freshman PG) coming off the bench to either spell Gasser or move him to the 2.

UW's been pretty good against zone this year. Northwestern, Montana games come to mind. Which is precisely why it stuck out to me to the extent that it did. On Thursday, they were working the ball in to one of the bigs on the free throw line, forcing the zone to collapse on the ball, and creating opportunities and open shots. Late against Vandy, they kept swinging the ball back and forth on the perimeter; no movement off-the-ball, and they couldn't get the ball in to their big guys on the FT line. Some of that must have been fatigue, but it was a night-and-day difference in how the Badgers attacked the zone.

Badgers shot selection was not good, and they looked as though they had never seen a zone defense before when Vandy switched to it (which I'm sure will be a point of emphasis preparing for Syracuse next), but the defense and hustle made the difference.

I'm more worried about BA leaving Brewers TV to do national level baseball (TBS, Fox, ESPN, or MLB Network) than I am about college basketball - which has virtually no overlap with his Brewers duties. Knowing this makes me more likely to check out the Portland venue when local teams aren't playing.

The 2011-2012 Badgers led the nation in 3pt FG defense (27.6% allowed) during the regular season. I'm not going to dissuade you from looking to previous seasons, since I fully expect the Badgers to lose when they don't hit their 3's and they run into someone who does hit theirs. That's pretty much applies across-the-board when facing double-digit seeds, it just seems to happen to the Badgers more often than to most. On the other hand, this year's team swung the pendulum quite a bit from being one of the most efficient offensive teams to being one of the most efficient on defense. (It's also part of swapping Leuer, Jarmusz, and Nankevil with Ryan Evans, Mike Bruesewitz and Jared Berggren.) The Badgers gave up surprisingly few 3pt attempts for a good defensive team, which shouldn't get lost in the analysis either.

This is the Rob Wilson we got flashes of as a Freshman. Happy to see (hear) it, and I hope he can keep it going for the rest of the month.

That's not the argument as I understand it. Those people who want a change to the NCAA formula want to see the winner of the regular season title for the smaller conferences receive the conference's automatic bid, rather than the winner of the post-season tournament. Their rationale being that the "last teams in" under the current formula aren't the 14-16 seeds....which is why the play-in game winners don't always go against the 1 seeds in the first round anymore. VCU is the poster child for this argument, since they beat USC to become the 11 seed in that bracket, after Old Dominion won the CAA Tournament. From First Four to Final Four, largely because of one loss in the post-season tournament. The flip-side of that would be a team that wins the regular season title with a key player who got injured late in the year. While they would still get the automatic bid, the argument would be that they're not as good as when they were in the regular season, such that the team playing better at the time would make for a better tournament matchup. 2009-2010 Purdue finished in a 3-way tie for the Big Ten lead (with Ohio State & Michigan State), but lost Robbie Hummel. Ignoring that thie BT is a power conference, and that all 3 teams were able to get at-large bids, if Purdue were the only team getting the bid....they were not the best team in the conference when the NCAA Tournament was taking place. Additionally, the magic of early March is that -- no matter how bad your season was -- you've still got a shot to make the big dance. Giving the Automatic Bid to the conference leader takes away a lot of the interest from the conference tournaments. (Not to mention, I believe it's up to the individual conferences. Looking at last year's field, the Ivy League sent their regular-season winner in Princeton; everyone else sent their Tournament Champ. I know that the Big Ten winner used to get the automatic bid before they instituted a conference tournament....which meant more tickets sold, and more nationally-televised games. Conferences prefer the tournament winner method, because they get more money that way.)

After the MLB statement trashing the ruling, I can't wait to finally hear Braun's side of the story.

Since realizing that we've missed the opportunity for a plush T-Plush, the Nyjer Morgan bobblehead feels like a bit of consolation prize.

Deep down, I don't care about him being a blocked prospect, the concerns about his defense at 3b or his work ethic generally. I care a little bit about his career OPS in the majors is under .700 (but only a little, since we're looking at less than 200 plate appearances spread across four seasons). If he hits, I'll like him. If not, I won't. Anything north of an .800 OPS in his first full season of regular playing time in the bigs, and we're good.

Out of curiosity, is there any player on the market that Detroit could sign that would leave us Sabbathia'd out of first-round compensation? Happy for Prince that he's getting paid, and happy as a Brewers fan he's getting paid in the AL (and not in Chicago). I just hope he wins a ring (in a year when the Brewers aren't in the series, of course). In hindsight, it makes complete sense that Detroit would be able to justify the largest contract to get Fielder, given the fanbase's ties to his father. He will keep fans in the seats.