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March 27, 2004

When I was a kid, I used to always make fake baseball cards featuring myself. Lame, right? Well, one year I took this to the nth degree of dork and had my mom make me a baseball card costume. Ah, third grade. I was 4'7" and 72 pounds and these two huge pieces of foam core made it impossible to sit down or walk between narrowly-arranged shrubs (which when you're a suburban kid on Halloween, you do a lot of). You've already seen a number of things pulled out of my room during its cleaning, so here's another: me wearing the costume. Yes, that's me now, of course - the costume doesn't go over nearly as much of me as it used to (note my hands at the bottom of the card, holding it straight). The side view should show you how ridiculous it would look if I were going to wear it now. The back was, as baseball cards are, stats, which of course were all just made up. (Because I'm still a big loser, the stats as they appear on the back of the card, though in a more standard order, appear here. Note that I somehow knocked in 71 runs on just 48 hits in 1989. Also, I just noticed that I'm shown being drafted in August 1982 but somehow playing 145 games in the 1982 season, which clearly couldn't happen.) My mom did the artwork on the front of the card, of course, as I can't draw worth shit and could draw even less worth shit in 1990.

March 26, 2004

Just fifteen days ago, I posted a defense of St. Joe's being a #1 seed despite their loss to Xavier. Is it time to start bragging yet? I'll admit that I picked them to lose in the second round, and I clearly should have followed my own advice. But to all the haters of the Atlantic Ten, who insisted that it was too weak a conference to deserve a #1 seed (and they're out there, like this dope, with whom I had a long discussion in defense of St. Joe's, in which this had been his first post - if you want to read the whole debate, he says dumb stuff in posts #50, 52, 59, 61, 65, 69, and 71, and I kick his ass with actual evidence in posts #51, 58, 60, 62, 66, 68, 70, 72, and 73), all I can say is I. TOLD. YOU. SO. Not only has St. Joe's so far vindicated their #1 seed with three wins - including defeats of power conference teams Texas Tech and Wake Forest - but Xavier - the team whose blowout win made everyone think St. Joe's sucked all of a sudden - is also in the Elite Eight, with wins over power conference teams Mississippi State and Texas, plus a big comeback defeat of Louisville. Sure, Dayton and Richmond went out in the first round, but check it:

Records by Conference, 2004 NCAA Tournament (through Sweet 16)
Big Twelve: 9-2 (.818)
Atlantic Ten: 6-2 (.750)
ACC: 11-4 (.733)
Big East: 9-5 (.643)
SEC: 7-5 (.583)
Big Ten: 3-3 (.500)
Conference USA: 5-6 (.455)
Pac Ten: 1-3 (.250)

    To everyone who bitched about St. Joe's #1 seed but left Stanford alone, check out the last stat. Arizona and Washington both went out in Round One, and Stanford won a single game before bowing out well before the round expected by their seed. The ACC and the Big 12 are the only other conferences with two teams in the Elite Eight (the remaining two Elite Eight squads are the Big East's Connecticut and the SEC's Alabama) and they tend to be pretty well-respected.
    As my dad pointed out tonight, the A-10 flourished this year because it doesn't get the McDonald's All-American kids who are looking to go pro after a year or two in college to season them like so many french fries. It gets the kids who are going to stick around for four years, and so when that senior year rolls around, they have what's important in March: leadership and experience. Xavier is led by Romain Sato, Lionel Chalmers and Anthony Myles - their top three scorers this year, and all seniors. You know who else is a senior? Jameer Nelson of St. Joe's, averaging a mere 27 points per tournament game. So is Tyrone Barley, another guard and team leader for the Hawks. And second-leading scorer Delonte West and third-leading scorer Pat Carroll are both juniors. Dayton's three best players were seniors, and so were Richmond's best three.
    Now take a look at some of the teams St. Joe's and Xavier beat. Louisville's two key players, including their usual point guard, were sophomores. Wake Forest's leading scorer was a sophomore and their point guard (and second-leading scorer) a freshman. Texas Tech had a senior leader in Andre Emmett but a freshman running the point. Texas and Mississippi State, at least, had a reasonable amount of experience in their best players, though MSU was led in scoring and rebounding by Lawrence Roberts, a Baylor transfer in his first year with the team.
    So what did we learn this year? Never underestimate senior leadership in March, especially when it goes up against inexperience. Look at Duke - like 'em or not, Coach K keeps nearly everyone around for four years. There is a reason they win all the time besides just that everyone wants to go there. (Obviously that helps, but if everyone left after one year they would have some issues sooner or later.)

March 25, 2004

Review for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's a little spoilery, so if you're planning on seeing it as soon as you can, wait until after you see it to read it and then see if you agree with me. I'll tell you here what I said in there: it's a movie for people in love. If you're in love, see it. Even if you're not, see it anyway, because it's really good, but I think you'll feel a special connection to it if you are. I can't help but think that at least partially informs my reaction to it.

March 23, 2004

   Back in New Jersey. The Tournament Challenge page has been updated, and to make up for missing all weekend, I've even thrown in a new feature on the leaderboard, showing how many points can still be earned by a given entrant if all goes their way.
    Plane stories. The turbulence coming back into Newark lasted at least 20 minutes and was some of the worst I've ever experienced. My stomach still feels queasy, eleven hours later, and I barely even enjoyed the chips and salsa at Toro Loco (and you know that's not an easy thing for me to do). At least I have leftover enchiladas that can serve as lunch tomorrow.
    I sat next to a chatty but amiable Ethiopian gentleman who was accompanying his mother to Newark, from where she would catch a flight to Ethiopia. He asked me a lot of questions, such as what Newark's time zone was, and commented on how excited he was to be on a 757. Nice guy, though his grasp of geography was a bit weak. As we approached Newark, he asked if the city that could be seen in the background was Boston, and at one point wondered how far Washington, DC was from Newark, at first guessing "twelve miles."
    My stomach is complaining, so I guess it's bedtime. Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

March 18, 2004

The tournament is upon us, and so, officially, is the Tournament Challenge. Brackets for our 17 contestants are now up and ready to peruse.

March 14, 2004

Before I launch into my first impressions of this year's bracket, I'd just like to point out that there's still plenty of time to sign up for the BigFlax.com NCAA Tournament Challenge. Well, not plenty, but you still can. That said, let's turn to the brackets.

Things the Committee Did Right

* Made St. Joe's a #1 seed. For all Billy Packer's grumbling - by the way, shut up, Billy Packer, and put on some goddamn pancake because you look like a troll - I already explained why the Hawks still deserved the #1 seed. Of course, you could make the argument that St. Joe's wasn't a one seed even before the loss, which is the one Packer was making, but that's just stupid.
* Made Gonzaga a #2 seed. Joe Lunardi pussed out in the final Bracketology and said Gonzaga would be a #3, but the committee evidently felt Pitt's non-conference schedule wasn't good enough (or maybe it was when they beat that NAIA team by a whole five points).
* Ranked the top four seeds, then put the #1 and #4 on track to meet in the Final Four. Frequently people complain that one national semifinal features a matchup of what look to be the top two teams in the bracket (though this is if seeds hold, which they often don't). The committee finally decided to set it up so that if Duke and Kentucky are actually the best two teams in the field, there's no way they meet before the title game. Well done, committee, even if it's well overdue.
* Rewarded good mid-majors over mediocre BCS-conference teams. We all knew Southern Illinois was getting in anyway and Utah State was a surprise exclusion, but it was nice to see Richmond, Dayton, BYU, Air Force and UTEP in the field. The committee could easily have put teams like Missouri, Colorado, Notre Dame, and Michigan in those final at-large spots.

Things the Committee Did Wrong

* Named the regionals after their main sites, as a poor attempt at deflecting away from the failed subregional unbundling. Looks like I tipped my hand a bit early. Anyway, the point I'm making here is that I'm still calling them East, Midwest, South, and West. You can't stop me.
* The typical unbundled subregional fuckups. Honestly, can we just admit that this doesn't work already? Unbundling hasn't fixed any of the problems it was intended to alleviate and it was so much neater when a whole region just played on the same schedule, and in the same place. Used to be, if you had tickets for Kansas City on March 19 you'd see four Midwest games. Now you see two Midwest games and two East games. Why is this necessary? And of course, there are still all the usual problems, such as:
Four seeds getting overly protected. Check out the following teams and locations: Kansas and Providence in Kansas City, Wake Forest and Florida in Raleigh, Cincinnati and Illinois in Columbus. Do the former teams in each pair seem to be getting the better of the location? Well, they're all fours and the latter teams are all fives. These two seeds aren't that far apart - why are the fours getting such a big advantage?
Low seeds getting the biggest advantage. You know who probably isn't thrilled about playing in Denver? #4 Maryland and #5 Syracuse. You know who probably is? #12 BYU (and I bet #13 UTEP isn't terribly upset either). How about #6 North Carolina vs. #11 Air Force in the same location? Let's not forget two years ago, when #11 Southern Illinois got #6 Texas Tech and #3 Georgia in Chicago. It might have been coincidence that they went to the Sweet 16, of course - but I doubt the location hurt.
The Milwaukee subregional. A fuck-up of titanic proportions. In the half of the subregional in the Midwest, Northern Iowa, the #14, is the closest team, with higher seeds Georgia Tech and BC having no conceivable advantage whatsoever. (This and the West half of the Denver subregional are the only two in which neither of the higher seeds has any locational advantage to speak of.) Even worse is the half in the East, as it gives a mammoth edge to #6 Wisconsin - which is fine in the first round but seems a bit unfair to #3 Pittsburgh. Since we can put subregionals wherever, shouldn't this sort of thing not be happening? Frankly, a subregional that benefits no one - like the 2001 subregional in Boise that featured four teams from Maryland and Virginia, though it should be noted that that was one hell of a subregional for those of us who actually like to watch college basketball - is better than one that benefits the wrong team. Joe Lunardi addressed the committee's line on "protected seeds" in a column last week:

The term "protected seed" refers to stated committee policy to "protect" the top seeds in each region against a home crowd disadvantage in the first two rounds. Two years ago, when the regional pod system was instituted, said "protection" was extended to include the top five seeds in each region.

So, my reading of the rule is that Wisconsin (or any other team that is unusually close to a first weekend site, such as Duke and Raleigh this year) would have to be no worse than a No. 3 seed to be awarded the Milwaukee site. If the Badgers were a No. 4, clearly the No. 5 would face a probable "home crowd disadvantage" in its second-round game.

So, my reading of this rule is that the committee blew it, because Wisconsin isn't even the higher seed and they still got put in Milwaukee, to a distinct disadvantage for Pitt, a supposed protected seed. That's one to scratch your head over.

All in all, though, I think the committee put together a very interesting bracket, at least on matchups alone - even if it was hard not to considering how interesting this year has been. As I said to Drew tonight, it should be fun as hell to watch. Hard as hell to pick - but fun as hell to watch.

March 13, 2004

When I opened the refrigerator, Alma had Lift waiting for me, and I nearly hit the floor in surprise. I knew there was going to be lemon soda because she let it slip, but after I had convinced her that she could have lied and told me I was wrong when I guessed, she was able to pass it off that what she had gotten was Club Lemon. Turns out there's an Australian import store in Little Rock that sells the stuff, and one of Alma's classmates is from there and actually picked some up last time she was down there. An immense amount of trouble to go to on all parties' behalfs. Lift! As I had to explain to Alma, yes, all lemon sodas taste about the same, but Lift is the one that got me hooked on lemon soda and as such has nostalgic appeal. One day when I am rich, I will stock entire fridges full of Lift. Until then, a buck fifty a can plus shipping is a little more than I feel like paying as anything more than a sporadic treat. Talk about knowing the way to a guy's heart, though. All she needs now is a jar of Toro Loco salsa.

I also got pulled over after leaving the Cubby Bear North (I think Deerfield and Milwaukee does qualify as north of Wrigleyville, just a bit), because the cop thought I was weaving or something. This is evidently a boom area for cops - on the way in, there was a car that had been pulled over by three - three! - cops, and on the way out another car had been stopped by two. I guess I got the third. I suitably convinced him I wasn't drunk - which I wasn't, having had a grand total of zero drinks - by engaging him in small talk and following his finger back and forth. My first sobriety test! Our little Flax is all growns up.

March 11, 2004

I'm feeling mostly better though not perfect, and that's all you're getting before I launch into a discussion of basketball.

In Defense of St. Joe's Still Being a One Seed

    There are several points that need to be made here. We all know from college football that losses at the end of the season hurt you way more than losses at the beginning of the season. They should be equivalent, but here even more so than in football, the committee focuses on how hot you ended the season, and so a loss to Xavier in the conference tournament is worse than a loss to Xavier in January, whether you won 27 games in a row or not.
    The most common argument, having watched plenty of analysis since the loss happened, seems to be that "it wasn't just that St. Joe's lost, they got pounded." This is true. But let's be fair - Xavier shot 71 percent. 34 of 48. You show me a team that can beat a team shooting 34 of 48 - especially when they were having trouble shooting themselves - and I'll show you a team that doesn't exist.
    Now, it can be somewhat attributable to the Hawks' lack of size that they allowed Xavier to shoot like that, but they somehow managed to go 27-0 and I think at some previous point they played Xavier and won. Yes, they most certainly did. That game was in the Cintas Center, no less. Xavier shot pretty well in that game - 53 percent - but St. Joe's shot 60 percent. West and Nelson combined for 61 points. Today they combined for 32. A difference greater than the margin of this game.
    The point is this: the only way you could use this game as a serious excuse for St. Joe's not being a one seed is if it somehow proved that St. Joe's could not possibly beat Xavier. Since St. Joe's already won at Xavier - not an easy place to win, just ask Cincinnati - this is clearly not the case.
    Good teams can have bad games. Remember 1995-1996, when the Bulls went 72-10? One of those ten losses was a March 10, 1996 game against the Knicks in which the Bulls were just destroyed, 104-72. Did this mean they weren't the best team in the NBA? No. And in fact the Bulls beat that same Knicks team by 21 points just eleven days later.
    Now, yes, in the NBA you have to play everyone at some point, and St. Joe's does not. And I'm not saying St. Joe's is the best team in college basketball, because I don't think they are. But they've earned a #1 seed over 27 games this season and one does not take it away from them. They won't shoot 35% every game. And Xavier is a good, experienced team - it's not like St. Joe's just lost to St. Bonaventure.
    Give 'em a #1 seed. They may be one of the weaker one seeds we've seen, but this is a strange season, and they've played their way into it.

In brief Northwestern notes, if this team plays against Michigan State the way it did today against Penn State, they're going to lose by 30. They shot just 36% and looked just abysmal in the first half - I've never seen a team blow so many open layups or miss jumpers by that much. Sure, they had 22 steals for the game, but Michigan State isn't going to play as sloppy as Penn State did.

March 10, 2004

Reading/finals period is definitely a good time to get sick. Better today than last night, but still not good. I guess it is sort of a good time to get sick because you don't miss class, but it sort of puts a damper on study time.

March 8, 2004

Carleton results here. Justin and I did okay - we did lose to Colby again, but on the other hand we finished two games ahead of him. Meh. Funny story from the way up: this SUV passes us and we can see that they have a video screen playing something in the back. As I go to pass it, we see a woman's head making some curious motions and then a penetration shot: they were watching porn! It was a group of guys too, which is just a little weird.

March 4, 2004

   Alma on Monday's update: "It's the same as the last one!" So from now on, check Challenge field updates at the main Challenge page, which I've put the button for back on the main page, also, for easy access.
    Carleton Tournament this weekend. Here's an odd one - because it appears 27 teams will show up, they've decided to split the field into three divisions of nine, then play eight 15-tossup games (what?) and use those to seed into three divisions which would then play eight 20-tossup games. No playoffs this year, evidently, which at least means I can't lose the third-place game three years in a row. Though without Jan I'd really have to stop sitting on questions if I want that to happen.
    Frankly, it's a little annoying that the rounds will have staggered question numbers like that - it makes stats kind of worthless. CUT never publishes stats anyway, of course, but I mean my own, here.

March 1, 2004

    The BigFlax.com 2004 NCAA Tournament Challenge is up to nine entrants, what with the news that defending champion Nemo is back on board. In fact, all three past champions are in the hunt with Tyler, Nemo, and myself competing.
    Robert Flaxman, David Flaxman, Andrew Reinbold, Andrew Rudnik*, Justin Moles*, Tyler Johnson, Rich Ramberg, Dave Leonardis, Brian Nemerovski. That's the list, with those who have already paid with asterisks next to their names.
    Nine is a far cry from last year's 25, and I'd love to see way more people sign up for this thing. Let's get on it, people! Selection Sunday is now less than two weeks away (awesome).

There's more! View last month's updates.

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This page last updated: Sunday, March 28, 2004 07:45:46 AM