Cool Hand Lucroy

Marquette a slight favorite today, and I'd probably take them, but looking forward to it either way. This reminds me of the vintage Badger teams (pre-Dekker and Big Frank). A lead guard who will take late-clock situation, a couple of good footwork big guys, and a bunch of role players that are going to need to defend and rebound. Good team basketball.

Agree. Looked pretty bad at times, but that should be a quality win.

Really sloppy first half from the Badgers. Defending well but a bunch of bad offensive possessions. On the bright side, with Wisconsin in this tourney and Marquette v. KU tonight, it is a great day for Wisconsin hoops

Yeah, a really nice win. At some point King or Reuvers are going to have to score, but the former is still figuring out this level, I think. Trice and Davison will be a really nice backcourt. Pritzl seems like a guy that just won't materialize, but maybe I'll be wrong.

Well, our first real look at the Badgers comes Tuesday. Xavier (and the BE as a conference--Marquette and Nova and maybe Saint John's excepted) should be a bit down this year, so I think this is a nice chance to pick up a road win. A loss would likely mean tamping down some of the "much-imprroved" talk, even though the Cintas is a tough place to play. Didn't see the Coppin State game, but that's about what should happen against a MEAC school. Other than Savannah State, that should be the easiest W on the schedule.

I agree on the G League. You're right in terms of proof, but I don't think you can read Self's texts and not see him as basically asking Adidas to help him "get guys." Is that a smoking gun? Nope. But I don't think it's a big secret that the coaches and universities benefit from what is happening. Given the amount of money spent on those programs and what's at stake, I have a hard time believing these programs are in the dark about this, which would make them at least enablers and maybe even accomplices.

One of the weird things about the recent guilty verdicts is that two of the guys were found guilty of defrauding the universities (Kansas and Louisville). I don't have much sympathy for those three guys, but the idea that the universities were defrauded is pretty illogical. This happens A LOT and the universities benefit. There is more to come for sure, and the NCAA may act too, but I don't know that it's enough to go after the sneaker companies. Until the coaches and schools are held accountable, I am not optimistic for change. I really think the coaches, ADs, and university administrators are barriers to change as much as anyone else. The G League idea makes perfect sense, but for most of the top guys, it is probably still more worth it to build the brand associated with college hoops than take the money to play in the G League.

I could be wrong, but my understanding was that the objection to the pitch clock was coming from the player's union. The league proper is all for it, to the point of wanting to institute it over the players' objections. At least IIRC.

You may be right. It's just, given what we know now, it sure seems to me like the decision to play high-level football puts one at A LOT of risk for cognitive impairment down the road. If I were GB, I wouldn't want to put myself in a position where I'm basically asking folks to make a short-sighted decision. As you say, people who sign these waivers will do so in the hopes of overcoming long odds (1) or for a really shallow reason (2). It might not be a legal liability, but it sure seems like ethically shaky ground for a university to ask young men to risk their long-term mental health. You've just got to do a whole lot of compartmentalization to square the mission of a university with football. Just IMO, of course, but I wouldn't personally be able to square that circle if I were a university administrator. The numbers on CTE are alarmingly high for college-aged players, 48 of 53 brains according to the JAMA study. I don't think the risk is really 91 percent for college players, but even if it's down to ten or fifteen percent, that's still an unacceptable risk for me given what the mission of a university is supposed to be.

I really wonder if the Olympic model isn't the best solution to all this. I would hesitate to pay the athletes, simply because that's going to negatively impact non-revenue and women's sports in a way that I think would be unfair. Plenty of people will disagree, and that's fine, but I just think letting athletes sell their image/brand is a kind of no harm solution here. After all, wouldn't Adidas rather cut out the middle man and just pay a kid to endorse Adidas directly instead of paying him to go to an Adidas school? The problem seems to me that the coaches and programs wouldn't go for it. Seems like they see these endorsement deals as a cash cow for them, and they'd probably have to give that up if good players are endorsing competing brands. I don't think "Adidas schools" or "Nike schools" would be a thing if players could put their endorsements for sale on the open market. Because what if two guys going to Kentucky sign deals with different shoe companies? The whole model seems designed to give coaches and ADs negotiating power rather than the actual athletes, and I think a lot of these guys (Cal, Self, Coach K, etc.) love being in complete control of these kids while also being able to play dumb if the poop hits the fan. At least the feds can hold people responsible, unlike the NCAA with its weird, loophole-y, generally toothless enforcement model.

Do you suspect there will come a day when American Football will no longer exist, given these things you mention? You know, I really don't know. I watched football for a long time and still watch a lot of D3 and a little FBS, but I haven't watched a pro game in 3 years. At a certain point, I couldn't deal with the cognitive dissonance. D3 seems to have a little bit different mentality overall (and my alma mater was run by John Gagliardi, the recently-deceased, winningest coach in NCAA history and the guy who outlawed tackling in practice and refused to use words like "hit" or "kill"), but even that still doesn't feel completely right. Again, that's just me, and I really don't want to seem (and certainly not be) preachy here. It just got to a point where I couldn't avoid thinking about the NFL's active role in covering up the game's contributions to CTE. When I first stopped watching, my sense is friends and family thought I was a little nuts. In the last few years, that perception seems to have changed, though. I guess my gut tells me that there will be always be an audience for football. It's so deeply ingrained in the culture, and it is literally the highest rated thing on American television (forget highest rated sport; it's the highest rated anything--the Super Bowl gets ratings rivaled only by the freakin' moon landing, and it happens once a year). There's just too far to fall for it to disappear completely anytime soon. But I do feel like we're going to be coming to a point in the coming decades where football is more of a niche sport, something with a big regional following in some places but without the national cache of every day, every week, year-round sports media headlines. I'd be pretty surprised if football was still the nation's most popular sport in 2038.

Yeah, the trial is showing some of the ugly practices that have long been part of the sport. So far, UW and Marquette have stayed out of the fray, which is nice (especially since Creighton's caught up in it, and you have to consider them at the same level as MU), but it's hard to feel confident about anyone's integrity at this point. My only hope is that this kind of exposure will help create a system that isn't dominated by shady dealings and shoe companies. Whether that means enforcing the rules more strongly and uniformly or re-evaluating the amateurism model or something else, I'm open to pretty much anything that doesn't let bribery run rampant.

This is interesting, but I wouldn't do it if I were UWGB. A few reasons: 1) It's really hard for programs like this to succeed. Even really good FCS schools (like App. State) have recently jumped to FBS because of how tough it is financially. 2) I think the health concerns about football and CTE are inherent in the game. I don't think rules or new equipment or tackling programs are going to fix the problem. I'm with Chris Borland here. Given that, I don't know that I would, as the leader of an institution supposed to be about education, volunteer to run a program very likely to have such serious mental and physical health risks. 3) Schools like UWGB seem to me to be best served by investing their athletic dollars in basketball. You're just much more likely to earn your money and application pool increases by winning one game in March than by advancing in the FCS playoffs. Plus, the ratio of investment to revenue is a little easier to maintain. This is the Gonzaga model, the Creighton model, the Marquette model. I think it would be easier for GB to become Gonzaga than to become Alabama or even Wisconsin. Certainly, football would bring some Saturday excitement to GB, but I would just worry it would be coming on the wrong side of the trendline for the sport, not to mention the health risks and financial commitment it would take to get the thing going.

Yeah, I thought he might want to try for 3/25 or more, but maybe guys like him are changing mindsets. This gives him 20 mil guaranteed through his age 33 season. Bad news is he's off the board. Good news is this might mean FAs will be more affordable for us.

Wow. That looks like a bargain. Good signing for them. Must have liked playing in AZ.

Looking forward to Badger hoops (and all hoops, really!) starting up again. I think the Badgers will be improved. We will see how much. Get an early test at Xavier in a few weeks.

Eduardo Escobar is a really nice bat. I would much rather have him than LeMahieu or Schoop. Not sure what the cost will be, but my hunch is quite a bit. Entering his age 30 season, he is going to want 3-4 years. I think the question is whether the versatility plays once Hiura gets here. I mean, he would basically become a super sub after next year, playing OF on off days for Braun, Yelich, Cain, 2B for Hiura, or 3B for Shaw. Will that give him enough PT to be worth at least 25 mil over a few years? He can switch hit, and we have no one on the roster that does that...

Part of the deal here is that, with the options we have, the Brewers don't NEED Hader to be a starter. They have a ton of talent and depth, lots of which is very well-controlled. That, plus the just immense value of a shiut down guy you can extend for multiple innings, means there's just very little marginal gain to be made. Maybe that changes if some of these guys don't pan out. Way it looks, though, I am not thinking about anything other than what Josh has done so far.

No need to apologize for anything. This was an absolute blast. Not to mention, we owe a thank you for sharing your thoughts on JJ and baseball in general. Hope to see you around here in the future. Hope JJ keeps his head up. What a year he had.

I have to say, 2018 accomplished everything I wanted, or at least everything I feel reasonable about expecting. Winning the division was the one thing I REALLY wanted, and though every playoff win raised expectations, I still feel awfully good about the season we just saw. The celebrations in St. Louis and Chicago are major highlights for me, not to mention having the MVP and winning 12 in a row. The future is bright in the starting rotation, and if we can find some more quality contact guys in the offseason, or have a prospect or two develop/surprise us, 2019 will be awfully fun too! When I think about what it means to be a baseball fan of the Brewers, I have to remind myself constantly that pinning a season on a World Series is just setting you up for disappointment. It's so hard to do from our position, and even for the big market clubs, the playoffs are so random. The combination of luck and talent you need to marshal to win the whole thing, or even a pennant, is just, well, it's crazy. This team squeezed every single win out of its roster and came up just a little short. They gave us nearly seven months of enjoyment and lots of great memories. It was my favorite Brewer team of my lifetime (born in the late 80s, started following very closely in '97), and I think it will have competition for that spot in the very near future. Even if it doesn't, and I don't say this in order to dictate how anyone feels because all of this is deeply personal, but even if we don't get back to this spot, I hope we don't let the narrative become about not winning the big one. This team won plenty of big ones. And the exhilaration of winning Game 163 is right up there, maybe even above, all the magical victories this franchise has had in the past. Thanks to CC and DS. Thanks to Yelich. Thanks to Lo Cain. Thanks to a pitching staff that really bought in. Thanks to Broxton and Suter and Vogt and all the great clubhouse guys. Thanks to Thames for beating the Rockies with a 3-run walk-off. Thanks to Kratz for one of the better late-bloomer stories I think baseball has ever given us. Thanks to Arcia and Santana for sticking with it. Thanks to BA (and Rock) and Levering and Lane and, of course, the legend, Mr. Baseball. Most of all, thanks to all of you for making this place a huge part of nearly every day of the baseball season (and lots of days in the offseason). Here's to another Central Division title in 2019. Here's to unveiling the NL Central banner on Friday, April 5th, 2019, the first day the Cubs come to Milwaukee. Goooooo Brewers!

Agreed! Great year, Brewers! Don't get too down!

Well, the Royals did it. I think if the only thing that makes being a Brewer fan worth it is a World Series, then baseball will be an unsatisfying pursuit. This is a really good point. Enjoy when they do this well, because it won't happen consistently. This is the furthest they've made it in my lifetime and I've loved it. It's hard. So incredibly hard to appreciate seasons that end in losses. I don't pretend to have it figured out. But I am going to keep trying. A team like us has to be so smart and so lucky that I almost draw more joy from winning the division than the randomness of the playoffs.

Well, the Royals did it. I think if the only thing that makes being a Brewer fan worth it is a World Series, then baseball will be an unsatisfying pursuit.

I am most disappointed in the offense's inability to string together good ABs. Give the Dodgers pitching credit, but boy this team has gone down quietly.

I don't know if I buy that. If Arcia and Santana have figured something out, that will help. I think Schoop sticks around, but even if not, there ar some FA possibilities in the MI that we could put his 10 mil toward. We will have depth. Get some contributions from Hiura or Ray or Nottingham, and that roster looks really competitive.