Cool Hand Lucroy

That's a theft, but you sort of feel like the Padres stole game 1 with that weird big inning. Give Uribe a lot of credit, not just for finding the strikeout stuff after a rude greeting, but for that really great play to end the top of the 8th. I thought the April schedule was really difficult. Still got that Yankees-Rays week to navigate, but 11-6 is a great, great start. Let's hope the more solid part of the rotation can win us a series in STL.

The Padres have had a lot of batted ball luck this series. The Brewers have also been sloppy defensively. The bullpen is my biggest worry with this team right now. Seems like there's regression from a lot of guys. Hopefully a lot of it is just April and variance, but you've gotta have two of Peguero, Payamps, and Uribe really firing.

Except he might have been our best offensive player in the 2011 playoffs. Just a tribute to the randomness of baseball, Yuni B being an October monster.

I think it's a little too early to put Hall in the "glorified long man" camp. I'll grant that he's looked like it so far, but he needs more starts. Uribe really needs to make an adjustment. Not missing bats at all early on.

I actually feel like the Brewers have 3/5 of a good rotation. It's just that it takes about 7 guys to get there. The injuries haven't helped. I'm more worried about some of the bullpen stuff so far. Schedule's been tough out of the gate, so the hot start is important.

Well, we know Yelich was having some neck issues and that he's had the back thing before. Probably (hopefully) something they can manage with a few days off or the minimum IL-stint.

Definitely one of those GAB games. Definitely can't give extra outs in that ballpark. Good battle from the offense, which has looked great lately. This is going to be a difficult part of the rotation all year.

I mean, you can call it "babying" if you want, but it's really just enacting basic communitarian principles. You try to properly minmax the interests of athletes, large institutions, and small ones. This isn't actually that hard. By agreeing to play COLLEGE sports, the athletes agree not to prioritize making as much money as possible, the schools agree to the same, and you allow for players of the highest interest sports to share in the overages they help create through a sound negotiating process. Look, men's basketball and football have highly developed professional systems, and tons of money flows into college sports because the market wants as much of that content as possible. Players should get some stake in that. If they think they deserve more, fine. Negotiate for it, or go pro (and the NBA and the NFL need to be better about allowing for that choice, especially the NBA). The idea that only sports that can pay for themselves should exist (which it sounds like you're saying) is bunk. If you think it's valuable and important to allow for more athletes to play high-level tennis or track or women's crew (and to earn scholarships through those endeavors), you subsidize a system that allows for that because the societal goals are more important than allowing the men's basketball players to keep ALL the revenue they generate. There's no reason you can't effectively and fairly tie together higher education and athletics. It's just that the institutions and interest groups in charge have royally messed it up. Schools want revenue growth at all costs and athletes want to be treated like all-star professionals. It's what happens when self-interest is the only guiding principle at play. It's possible to make this work, just as it's possible to fix all kinds of societal problems (health insurance, climate change, etc.), but we won't because the entrenched interests aren't equipped (and are mostly run by people who aren't very thoughtful) and most fans aren't that interested in nuance and lack the patience for difficult trade-offs..

I do actually wonder if there's some coordinated thinking to this? Like, you have a more contact-oriented offense, and you don't want to be taking chances with less than 2 outs?

I think, like most things, this is a case of an inept organization being unable to adequately see the future. The NCAA waited until it was absolutely shoved in order to even try to correct the serious systemic problems facing college sports. The players produced a bunch of revenue that they didn't get to share in, the NCAA made sham "student-athlete" arguments in order to keep the status quo, and now there's a genuine belief that college sports are just a lower level of pro sports, even though that really shouldn't be the case. And it will become the case if we keep this up. 60 or 70 schools will field full athletic rosters, and we'll have the football model, which I think is horrible for basketball, hockey, volleyball, baseball, and every sport that isn't football. The NCAA failed the vast majority of its member schools. It's sad. And they've done such a great job of making themselves villains that it's going to be hard for courts and the government to buy the legitimate arguments they are now making about roster turnover, a "free market" for student athletes that's not free at all (because it's totally unregulated and full of bad actors like self-interested agents and also completely top-heavy), and the need to redistribute a lot of revenue to support, say, the Division III softball championship (and I don't that I'd trust the NCAA to enact good corrective policy anyway). The biggest thing I think college sports needs is a credible commissioner. I've seen others make this argument. You need somebody actually interested in crafting a good policy compromise that enables freedom, labor protection, and access to revenue for the players and preserves the collective interests of non-revenue sports. I think those policies exist, and I actually don't think they'd be that difficult to enact. But if we can't get a credible voice to craft and enforce them, I'm not that optimistic about the future of college sports. EDIT: One concrete example is that, by failing to anticipate or care about the growth of women's athletics (especially volleyball and basketball), the NCAA cost itself maybe 100 million dollars. They bundle the rights to those tournaments (and like a couple dozen others) and sell the whole package for like 35 mil. You have to think the women's tournament in hoops is worth at least twice that. And volleyball is worth a big number too. If the NCAA was better at managing its revenue, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Ha. I wish. We're blackout territory for the Cards, Cubs, White Sox, and Brewers, for no reason I can fathom.

Alright, so I'm in western Illinois and without TV access probably forever (if anyone has any hints or tips on how to get that--Bally Sports Plus only gives me access to the Cards for some inane reason--fire away) and following on Gameday. There's this new feature where you can watch the players name cards move. It's pretty cool. Kind of a neat way to watch the game, even though I'd rather have Levering and streaming video. Apologies if this has been brought up in another game thread. Just watching and feeling nostalgic for the 8-bit graphing calculator baseball game we used to mess around with in calc.

No shooting happening here! I am interested in where this comes from, though. I have read the rule a few times and seen that the count can be "suspended" if the player attempts to leave the lane or begins the shooting motion. I have seen nothing about lifting a foot starting the count over? It's also a little tough for me to believe that officials are consciously watching for that, given all the million other things at play. In other words, if that is the rule, it seems like it essentially just means we shouldn't have three-seconds at all (which would be fine, I guess) since players lift their feet constantly and in small, impossible to notice ways. I know the NCAA has emphasized 3 seconds in the past, though I almost never see it called either. I'd love to know where this info is coming from because I'm interested in it in the same way I'm interested in baseball's "the batter must make an attempt to get out of the way of the incoming pitch" rule. If we're not going to enforce it (even though it's there for a good, philosophical reason, namely preventing players with physical advantages from asserting them constantly and in impossible-to-stop ways), then let's get rid of it.

Rosiak says right shoulder sublaxation for Quero. If I'm reading the Google machine right, that is basically a less severe version of a shoulder dislocation. Might still require surgery if it's bad enough. Sounds like recovery time is around 12 to 16 weeks for a full recovery. Obviously that depends on the severity of the initial injury, which we still don't know. Good news is probably (though not certainly) avoids surgery, Bad news is will still probably miss at least a couple of months best case. I'd expect the Brewers to be very careful, of course.

I still think the way to beat Purdue is to single cover Edey. He might get 50, he might foul out your entire frontline, but you can't let those guards get open threes. Speed them up, and trust your bigs. Both UCONN and Bama would likely do that, at least in terms of trying to speed them up. Tennessee basically played it right, I thought. They just needed Ziegler to get a few more buckets, to shoot better from the line, or to just grab a few more boards. I have seen Purdue lose that game before (to Wisconsin, Northwestern, and even FDU last year). They just didn't lose it today. The matchup with NC State will be fun, but I have a hard time seeing how the Woflpack get past 65, and they'll probably need 70 or 80 to win. I do wish Edey got whistled for more 3-second calls. I get that that rule isn't enforced, but like, it is sometimes a 10-second rule, and that is absurd. Edey is great--but that's one advantage no one should have.

UCONN is the best college basketball team I have ever seen. Maybe that 2021 Baylor team comes closest. Or 2009 North Carolina. 2013 Louisville and 2018 Villanova as sleepers. Started watching closely in the late 90s. Maybe UCONN won't win the title, and I'll have to take them off this list. I think this UCONN team handles the 2015 Kentucky team that Kaminsky and Co sent packing. I am rooting for Tennessee tomorrow, but UCONN-Purdue has to be the matchup everyone wants at this point. In other news, the D2 final was awesome.

So.... McGee, Klesmit, Chuckie, Crowl, Winter, Blackwell, Ilver seem like the core of next year's roster as it stands. That could be okay. Danny Wolfe (7-footer from Yale) entered the portal and might be a fit given UW's pedigree with rangy bigs. Could really use a dynamic 3, as losing Storr will hurt quite a bit. Some talent coming in too. Rosters change so quickly in this sport these days, so who knows? Purdue and Illinois are going to lose a ton. I'd expect Michigan St. to reload, Michigan to make a lot of moves, and the rest of the B1G to be wide open.

UCONN and Purdue clearly look like the class of this bracket. Houston was banged up a little, and losing Shead totally crushed them. Purdue-Tennessee is a gem of a game, as is UCONN-Illinois. The other two will be fun too. Clemson and Alabama trying to play totally different games and a great, underrated rivalry in Duke-NC State.

Enjoyed watching Marquette this year. They missed tons of open shots tonight. Jones and Kolek are really good, but they needed a third scorer. I don't know if Duke or Houston will win, but both those teams would've been very tough matchups. Program's in a good place, though!

Hope we get Ueck on the mic on a lot of weekends, maybe? Or weekday afternoons? I love the Brewers radio crew, so glad we have a lot of talent. Maybe this year we can start to get used to baseball without Bob, while still getting us some Bob.

There's a great 30 for 30 short about the MLB scheduling process (called "the Schedule Makers," I tĥink), and the gist is basically that MLB is really a difficult logistical sport. There are lots of rules about scheduling, and every team is allowed to submit preferences too. Building in the extra day is the solution because it still tends to allow Opening Day to be special without creating logistical issues elsewhere. I am bummed to not get baseball tomorrow. But, in a weird way, I prefer getting three game days in a row, especially with the M and TH off days next week. I always hate playing on OD and then having a whole, baseball-less desert of a day right after.

I really like Perkins as a 4th outfielder. This roster seems decent. I think the Crew are going to surprise people.

Sucks. But also happens. Honestly, I have been surprised that we haven't lost more players to injury this spring. Lots of outfield depth. Speedy recovery, and let's go get hot to start the year.

I think the Badgers have only been "average" relative to themselves this century. Men's CBB has the most competitive postseason in all of sports. Sure, there are are about 150 programs that aren't good. But you've got to be in the top like 13 percent of the other 200 to make the tourney. You should not throw that away without really thinking about it. Gard's probably got what? 5-10 years left in him? And I fel like you're going to be expected to make the tournament in most of those years. Let me be clear, I don't think Gard's a great coach. He seems like he's trying to be "new school" while actually being totally not that. It's a little awkward, and he doesn't have Bo's offensive efficiency genius. Still. His teams play hard. They care. They win a lot. Penn State hired a highly regarded coach last year. Rutgers and Northwestern probably have the best coaches they've ever had. I am in no hurry to trade places with either of them. Edit: or, my Lord, look at Maryland! If I were a MBB coach, no way I'd bolt the BE for the stress and pressure of a B1G job, save for maybe 1 or 2 historically great ones (and UW is not on that list). The truth, for me, is just that UW cares a lot about football. There's a clear plan to succeed in men's hoops, and it basically involves caring about it more than football. This is what UCONN does. Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, and Carolina too. I am all for becoming bad at football to support hoops (and hockey and volleyball and a baseball team), but the university will never make that bargain. You could make the case that it's actually better to just be mediocre at everything than to give up on football, and I get that. It's not how I'd do things, but I understand it. So, given that, yeah. Gard is about the best bet men's basketball can make.

All true enough. I just love the Big East and think it has the right idea, but they do lose coaches to Power Five schools. My thing is I think UW is going to be about the 8th best job in the new B1G. And football's going to take everything it can. I'd rather be getting the biggest piece (by far) of a smaller pie. That's just me, but, man, I hate conference realignment.