Funketown

Sagarin has the ACC 4th in his conference strength ratings, which sounds about right. In terms of overall team quality when you look at the ACC, right now you have of the best five programs in the country (not this year -- big picture), but after that I'm not sure any of the others are even in the top 25 programs. Adding Syracuse, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame helps a great deal, but right now the conference just isn't what it used to be. Well shoot, now that Duke won I have to consider cheering for Ohio State to beat Wichita State. I expect Louisville to knock out Duke, but I don't want to risk them drawing Wichita State in the final four.

It sounds like Shane Larkin had a nasty virus the night before the game, so perhaps that was part of it. I had a very skewed picture of Miami this season, as I watched all of their games vs. Carolina and Duke, where they were drilling everything and absolutely dominant. Their only loss in those five games was at Cameron with Ryan Kelly having by far the best night of his career. I'm not sure how much analysis yesterday's loss for Miami even needs. Marquette looked to have a decent game, and Miami played miserably in the first half. Sometimes shots just don't go down. Those open kick-out threes are usually their bread and butter, but I think they started off something like 1-12 on threes, which were largely decent to good looks.

It's probably more accurate to say it's very low risk. I think I read that the average return on MLB teams is something like 12-14% per year since the 50's. If I had the capital to invest in an MLB team I would absolutely do it. Unfortunately it's an investment that requires both a fairly large time commitment from the investor and a few hundred million dollars. Of course, if brewerfan pooled together our little piggybanks and then put it all on a roulette wheel and won on 00 about five times in a row, we could be proud owners!

Jim - remember that owners have a history of crying poor. With so many assets to depreciate, etc., you have to expect much of that low figure is driven by creative accounting.

Well hot dog! We have a Weiner!

I suspect the match would not have been a "disgrace" in his eyes had they managed a point.

I'm only okay with adding the DH as long as we can have pitchers' amnesty day so we can all still laugh at pitchers flailing a large wooden object at some small spherical object at least a few times a year. Part of me loves watching these exceptional athletes fail so hard at something. I'd also make an executive order to move the St. Louis Cardinals to Svaalbard.

http://deadspin.com/dunk-city-here-are-all-of-fgcus-postseason-slams-com-458654269 Looks like Comer was the #52 PG in 2011 on ESPN, and he looks to be their most highly regarded recruit they ever signed. In reality these guys probably aren't one of the top 40-50 teams in the country, but they've looked downright dominant in the last couple games. It's amazing that this team lost to Lipscomb twice. They're just a blast to watch. They're amazingly athletic for such an unheralded team. I would really like to see them scheduled on UNC's schedule next year in Chapel Hill.

Hopefully Costa Rica's protest doesn't go through. While I understand their complaint, the US really needs the three points right now and even just risking a draw in the replay would be very unfortunate. I doubt they replay the match, but I really have no idea how often this kind of stuff happens and how often the matches are replayed. Logistically with players all over the world and all international game days pretty much being packed with other world cup qualifiers, I'm not sure I see how it could be easily rescheduled. Mexico tomorrow starts half an hour after my bedtime. I'm going to be thrilled with a draw; I just don't see it going well.

To me this seems like a slight to moderate overpay. If I were Mark A. I wouldn't want to hand this check out, but as a fan I'm okay with this deal. The team was in desperate need of another pitcher; I'm not comfortable with Peralta in the rotation yet (though if Narveson struggles I'm open to inserting him into the 5-spot), and this gives the team at least a near-average SP. Lohse is a solid pitcher and a rotation of Gallardo-Lohse-Fiers-Estrada-Narveson could be very dependable this season. Meh. It's an overpay and I hate the draft pick loss. But it does make the team better this season, so hopefully this turns out well.

Bah. That was an ugly game all around from UNC on the offensive end. I can't believe they managed to miss 51 shots in a 40 minute game. Could that be close to some kind of record? Oh well, overall a good season given the loss of four first rounders. If Bullock and Hairston return they're easily a top 20 team, and maybe a title contender if Wiggins commits. I'm cheering for FCGU from here on out, as well as Miami.

You have to love being a 7/10 seed when the 2 goes down in the first round. I didn't see much of the game because I was just flipping from the Carolina game during breaks, but FGC looked like a very athletic team, and boy could a couple of those guys elevate! They did beat Miami earlier this season and stayed very competitive with Duke for about 30 minutes before giving up something like a 30-1 run. They are by all means a solid #15 seed (around 125 in Kenpom -- he gave them a 10.4% shot at winning) so I guess this isn't a completely shocking result. Also, Shabazz Muhammad may have a career in baseball: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9086435/shabazz-muhammad-ucla-20-not-19.

Yeah I don't think many people are going to be happy with what they fill out. Davidson is a really tough 14 seed for Marquette to draw. They came within 5 of UNM, hung tight with Duke for a half, and played Gonzaga competitively. The Midwest and South are both really strong. Kansas could have to beat UNC, Michigan, and UF/Georgetown to advance. I could easily see Wisconsin advancing the the final four in this bracket. I'll probably take Gonzaga out of that region, but it's a tough one. I can't wait until Thursday. This is going to be a great tourney.

So...Danny Valencia went to this place and proceeded to get on base less than 20% of the time last season. That's not good press for the clinic!

It's yadier Molina. They forgot to capitalize his first name. (That's more evidence the media had for the Adam Dunn - Matt Wise trade, so let them run with it!)

Calipari and Pitino both just seem like somewhat questionable fellows to me. I didn't mind seeing Kentucky struggle this season. You have to figure their 1&Done model ought to lead to a ton of variance in their season-to-season success, and while it worked incredibly well in 2011-12 (though I'll contest until the day I die that had Kendall Marshall not broken his wrist, UNC would have been just as formidable), seasons like this one are not going to be terribly uncommon for Kentucky if they keep recruiting this way. Honestly I think you're typically better off with 3-4 seasons of a good recruit than 1-2 seasons of a good one. I spent about five hours waiting for tickets to the eventual UNC drubbing against Duke (it was a fun game for literally thirty seconds, felt really bad for UNC's senior walk-on who started only to get a 3-ball drilled over him about a minute in). I knew Kryscheifksysksysi to be a bit of a hothead, but it was really interesting watching him during the TV timeouts. He probably spent at least 3-4 of them badgering the referees after calls which weren't even questionable upon seeing the replays on the monitors. If he were a first year coach at Eastern Carolina University of Agriculture and Technology State, he would be T'd up fairly often. Despite his hotheadedness and foul mouth, he seems like a decent guy; just not quite the angel he is portrayed as by ESPN. I'm about ready for Thursday so championship week can start. I do love these small conference championship games though. Small gyms, lots of noise, and college kids just trying to get their chance on the national stage. While the conference regular season winner is usually the best team, this is a lot more fun!

We all clicked the link, didn't we? Some of us assumed TLDR --> look for important quotes. I've largely given up caring about PED's these days, but the odds of a Braun suspension seem to be pretty low at this point, which I do care about .

The ACC has been pretty clear that they have no interest in UCONN and Cincy. Louisville has a huge athletic budget and is probably one of the top 10 basketball programs and top 30 or so football programs. If I could set up the conferences myself, I'd make just five or six conferences of just eight teams, all solid from top to bottom. I'd love to see an ACC with just UNC, Duke, NCSU, Wake, Clemson, UVA, VaTech, GaTech, FSU, and Maryland. Home and homes with every team every season, all of these teams would be within about a five hour drive of the epicenter of the conference (with the exception of FSU). Oh well, bah humbug, so it is. The Catholic 7's new conference should be a very good one, and could easily be the third best conference in the near future after the new look ACC and the BIG.

It's definitely not a reliever. Every fan base can pick some reliever to rail on after a few bad outings. What makes brewerfan so special is our general disdain for some replacement level veteran who annoyingly gets about 100 more plate appearances than he should. No, Yuniesky was not a true brewerfan whipping boy. 2012: Cesar Izturis 2011: Mark Kotsay Okay, that's really just been the last two seasons, but let's get Crosby on the roster so we can keep the tradition alive!

Duke and Miami just played an incredible game. Ryan Kelly returned for Duke after missing two months and dropped 36. Duke lead 75-65 with just over a minute left but Miami surged back and rimmed a three pointer out at the last second to lose 78-75. I'm usually wary of putting "out of nowhere" teams like Miami in my final four, but they just went to a very hostile environment and almost came away with the game despite Ryan Kelly shooting the lights out. This year's tournament is building up to be an incredible one, so let's hope it doesn't disappoint. It's been a pretty long time since a serious long shot won the tourney (Kansas as a #6 in 1988, Arizona as a #4 in 1997), so maybe this is the year.

It obviously depends on who makes the roster, but Crosby is definitely my pick if he can make the roster.

Record: 85-77 Division: 3rd (Reds-Cardinals-Brewers-Pirates-Cubs) All Stars: Braun, Ramirez Disappointments: Rogers, Peralta Series: Angels over Nationals

Saw that on the local news and I honestly had no idea he played for the Brewers. Glad to see he'll be fine.

UNC-NC State started at 4:00. A NASCAR race ended at 4:03. ESPN is playing the NASCAR race post-race coverage. I'm going to break something.

Well, it's getting to be that time of year. Aoki Aoki Lucroy Lucroy Braun Braun Ramirez Ramirez Weeks Hart Gamel Weeks Gomez Gomez Segura Segura vs. LHP until Hart gets back I'd drop Gamel down behind Gomez. He has hit LHP competently in his limited MLB experience, but I'm not sure what his MiLB splits look like.