heresrobin

Good night for the Big 10. Bad night for the Pac 10. Nice victory for Illinois on the road at Vanderbilt. And Michigan knocks off UCLA on a neutral floor. The Wolverines played with a lot of confidence and toughness. Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims are a pretty talented nucleus. I was also impressed with freshman G Stu Douglass. It's still awfully early, but it doesn't look like there will be any gimme games against Michigan this year. Are we already starting to see dividends from John Beilein? UCLA lost and USC loses to Seton Hall. A ton of talent left the Pac 10 this past year and things aren't looking so good right now.

Good points JJHardy7 about guys sticking around. It's rare nowadays and it's nice to see. And yes, Hansbrough is a very hardworker and he deserves everything that he gets - when he graduates, it will conclude one of the most remarkable basketball careers in college history. You cannot argue with his stats. I agree with the adulation. I simply was trying to make some sort of lame comment about the college basketball media's love affair (and deservedly so) with Duke and North Carolina. No big deal. I have nothing against Hansbrough as a person. The only thing that sort of annoys me about his game is sometimes I think he just sort of throws himself at defenders down in the paint - he draws a ton of fouls though, so it works. By the end of this year, he has got to be the all-time leader in free throw attempts right? Me cheering against North Carolina? Being a "small market" fan, I typically cheer against the heavy favorite. No good reason. It's not going to bug me one way or the other, but if I feel like taking a side, I go against the favorite. Does that make me a bad person? Absolutely. My comment of "Somebody beat them" was meant to be kind of jokey like me wanting the 18-0 Patriots to lose or the Yankees/Red Sox to lose. Honestly, I'm probably just jealous that the teams I root for don't have the talent or the recruits to be like North Carolina. Plus, two of my best friends are North Carolina fans, so I always have to listen to them go on and on about how great the Tarheels are - and I can't really say anything back so it's sort of irritating for me thus creating an inborn desire to root against UNC. Tyler Hansbrough effectively defended by JJHardy7. Check. So you like the Tarheels this year...who else do you like?

The college basketball season is upon us and I thought I would get a thread fired up. If people want to start separate threads for the Badgers/Golden Eagles/Panthers, etc., go right ahead or else we can discuss those teams here as well. I'd also like to encourage people to post their thoughts on games they see from non-Wisconsin based teams. I'd love to hear firsthand observations from folks who watch a lot of Pac-10 games or SEC games, and so on. In addition to UW/Marquette/UWM basketball, here are some things I'm sort of interested in this year: 1. Who's going to challenge North Carolina? If you've read any magazines or looked at any sports websites, the NCAA championship is basically UNC's to lose right now. It's hard not to agree. They are insanely talented, experienced, and deep. Get ready for a year's worth of Psycho-T adulation - think JJ Redick's senior year times ten. Somebody please beat them. 2. The Big East is a ridiculously, amazing, silly tough conference this year. Villanova made the Sweet 16 last year, return pretty much everybody, and most people have them pegged as the 6th-8th best team in the Big East. .500 or better in this conference should be an automatic ticket to the field of 64. The conference should consistently have 3 teams in the top 10 all year long. 3. Indiana basketball. Good luck Tom. Yikes. 4. Stephen Curry. This kid is just flat out a pleasure to watch. It's astounding how a skinny kid who doesn't play above or even at the rim can dominate a game. The Davidson Wildcats knocked off Gonzaga, the Big East champs (Georgetown), the Big Ten champs (Wisconsin), and probably should have beaten the eventual national champs (Kansas) in the tournament last year. They may have been the 5th best team in the land toward the end of last year. Replacing PG Jason Richards is going to be near impossible, but Curry makes it worth keeping an eye on this team. 5. This year's one-and-doners. The general consensus is that USC's DeMar DeRozan and UCLA's Jrue Holiday are this year's biggest impact freshmen. I know there are some other ones but I don't follow recruiting all that closely so I'm looking forward to seeing some of these guys. What are some things you're interested in following this year?

DC Everest Evergreens in Schofield, WI Gold, green, and white NFL QB Dave Krieg is an alumni

I just saw Usain Bolt from Jamaica in a trials race for the 100m dash. He started visibly letting up around the 50m mark and began looking side to side for his competition. And he still ran a 9.92. Yikes.

What a massacre at Wrigley today. The Astros were up 4-1 with 2 outs and one on in the bottom of the 3rd for the Cubs. It is now 9-4 Cubs courtesy of a DeRosa grandslam and a Soriano 3-run shot. Still only two outs.

Adding to the misery of this past week for me is the fact that super-prospect Mat Gamel has been sort of bad for like a month now. His overall numbers are still very impressive, but he seems to have hit a bit of a wall. The home run totals have sure dried up. I think he has hit like 1 home run in the past 5 weeks. The point is that I can sometimes look to the minor leagues for a bit of a pick-me-up when the parent club is playing poorly. I couldn't even do that this past week.

Huntsville offers trade to the Green Bay Packers for Brett Favre Sort of odd.

Does anybody have a problem with it if it means he gets thrown at next time? I don't really have a problem with the cockiness. I just get a little nervous about him getting thrown at due to the incredibly small chance that it could lead to an injury. Or is that just unreasonable paranoia on my part?

Nice pictures SeriesFinale. If I were the pitching mound in that first picture, I would be scared of what's coming at me. Great work to get Hardy/Weeks/Fielder/Braun all in the same shot. And am I the only one who dislikes that Chevron sign on the left field wall? I find it a little distracting and incongruous.

I've been to a few now that has been a sort of "Bar Olympics," complete with tournament-style brackets and a small prize to be won. You just need to break into teams of two and decide what events you want to do. Although it does take a certain degree of planning and organization. Some "events" we've done: golfing, Madden, poker, ladder golf, bowling, boce ball, darts, pool, bean bag toss, etc. It's fun, but after about 3-4 hours it starts to get difficult to keep track of everything and everyone.

Komatsu signed for more than Watten who went 30 picks in front of him. Is it common to see that? What are the repercussions to an organization for signing a player above slot? Are there any?

I don't pay enough attention to MLB baseball except for the Brewers. So my question is: how many quality MLB starters in today's game consistently/effectively hit 96+ on the radar gun? The reason I ask is because I always see the "Jeffress hits 97-99 mph" whenever he makes a start. It always makes me wonder how many MLB starting pitchers can bring it like that. Maybe it's just me being pessimistic, but whenever I see "Jeffress hits 97-99 mph," I think there's no way that kid sticks as a starter (although him sticking as a closer would be fine with me too). However, I will say that the little bit of video of him I've seen shows that he has what looks to be a very fluid, effortless delivery. Am I underestimating him as a starter?

Unfortunately, I agree that they've been relatively lucky. Quick question that might have a little bit to do with their luck in 1 run games: Where do the Brewers rank in turning double plays this year? I'm not sure where to find that. They sure seem to have had some good timing with turning their double plays.

Santogold - Santogold

I was actually pretty impressed by Crisp's ability to dodge that initial punch. His father, Loyce 'Sugar' Crisp was an amateur boxer according to ESPN. He must have taught his son well. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/players/02/28/first.person0306/ (scroll down a bit - it mentions his father)

Is anybody really claiming that they know better than Jack Z? I don't believe one person on this site believes they do. I'm a big Jack fan and have been extremely happy with his drafts and scouting department. These scouts know so much more about baseball and are privy to so much more information that I realize it's probably a futile effort to even think about who the Brewers should pick and why. I simply do a little bit of research and try to form an opinion knowing full well that my opinions will likely be wrong and amount to jack squat. I think it's more fun though to have an opinion about the draft than it is to not have one. I actually enjoy reading up on these players before and after the draft.

I have no idea. But one of the ESPN guys speculated that maybe Youkilis said something like "Where were you?" in relation to the brawl. Manny, feeling his toughness/manhood being challenged, took a swing at him. Pure speculation though.

I don't know if any of you saw the postgame interview with Crisp either but he basically said (paraphrasing): "They were scratching at me like little girls. None of them hit me hard or hurt me." He sort of calls out Gomes in this as well. These two teams do not like each other. And to top it all off, Manny Ramirez took a swing at Kevin Youkilis in the dugout later in the game.

Clancy, do you mean "Carlos" Gutierrez? Because he was drafted 27th overall by the Twins.

I really like their first 2 picks. I also really like what I see from the video of Seth Lintz. None of the other guys excite me all that much yet. That could change though. I'll take a wait-n-see approach. Some guys they had a chance for who I was hoping they would take: Mike Montgomery, Brett DeVall, or Tanner Scheppers instead of Frederickson Tyler Ladendorf instead of Dykstra Aaron Weatherford instead of Schafer Definitely can't complain about the first 2 picks though considering I would have been OK with either one being the 16th overall.

Just watching Sportscenter. It looks like the reason Crisp made that late slide last night was because earlier in yesterday's game he slid into 2nd base and it was being blocked by a Tampa player. Crisp didn't like that.

The scouting video that the MLB tracker has of Lawrie shows 2 infield pop-outs and 3 ground-outs. I wish they could have found some footage of him driving the ball.

I guess if you do not like the current GM/Owner/Manager, you could organize a walk-out as well. That way, you are still supporting the team by buying the ticket but can still protest. I seem to recall a group of Orioles fans doing this a few years ago. I can't imagine this is a very common occurrence though.