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Poll suggests hockey is boring
I have never been a huge fan of polls, mostly because they can be manipulated to the users liking. Too many times, logical choices are left out and replaced by one meant for humor, or as an insult.
The poll that got the gears grinding today comes from www.cbssports.com and is in reference to the Stanley Cup finals.
The question was simple: Did you watch the Stanley Cup Finals? A simple yes or no here could gather all of the information needed to see where their visitors stand on hockey. Instead they give us this gem.
A: Absolutely: It was great!
B: No: It was boring.
Can anyone possibly explain “boring” being a selection there. Was the back-and-forth Game 1 that featured 11 goals boring? Was Game 3 which featured overtime boring?
How about Game Six which featured a Cup clinching overtime goal — equivalent to winning the World Series on a walk-off home run. Was that boring?
I could live with one of the choices being: “No, not a fan.” That is simple and direct.
But boring?
Before CBS pulls out a poll like this again maybe they should take a look at the ratings. When the ratings came out today it was discovered that Game 6 had the highest rating for the NHL since 1974.
I guess all those people tuned in to see a boring sport.
CBS makes a habit of having polls with dumb choices. I have e-mailed them in the past about them and truthfully they have e-mailed me back with responses each time. It brings a little joy to my life knowing that someone has to take the time to read my complaint and then think up a response. I feel that if I have wasted even a minute of someone over there’s day, I have accomplished something.
They can plan on hearing from me again soon, as I know a poor taste soccer joke is sure to follow the next couple of days about the World Cup. If they think hockey is boring I can only imagine what waits for the world’s most popular sport.
Soft Hamels lets down team again
If Charmin ever needs a new spokesperson to talk about the how soft its brand of toilet tissue is, they need to look no further than the Cole Hamels.
The lanky left-hander showed once again Tuesday Night that no one knows more about being soft than him.
Hamels allowed a three run homer to Troy Gloss in the first inning then went back into the dugout during a rain delay that lasted all of one hour and four minutes.
When the game restarted, Hamels didn’t. His day was over, leaving 7-plus innings to be pitched by the Phillies bullpen. Nothing like burning up your bullpen with a day game on deck. Meanwhile, Braves starter Tim Hudson came back on the field and continued mowing down Phillies hitters.
Apparently those 64 minutes weren’t too long to make him call it a night. Instead Hudson went on to throw six strong innings and over 100 pitches.
If Orel Hershiser was a Bulldog, then Hamels is a poodle.
It’s not breaking news that Hamels is soft. He has been perceived that way by Phillies fans throughout his career. He has refused to pitch on three days rest when asked and his personality makes him seem like a better fit for a Los Angeles than Philadelphia.
Of coarse the announcers made sure to cover Hamels backside. Wheels said “Usually it’s the managers who decide if the pitcher is going to go back out there, the player doesn’t usually tell the manager.”
I’m sure there’s some truth to that. But can anyone tell me that Roy Halladay would not have come back out?
Of coarse he would have came out, because that’s the type of pitcher he is.
And time and time again Hamels shows what kind of pitcher he is.
Specter, Tebow, Mark Jackson and Ole Ole …
With the Flyers seemingly destined to return to the Stanley Cup Finals, its hard to be too down on the sport scene these days, but there are still plenty of things going on that need to be called out. Bellow is a brief recap of what has been Grinding My Gears, even in these great sporting times.
- Arlen Specter’s campaign. I won’t claim to know anything more about Specter and his politics than the fact he changes political parties more than NBC changes its Prime Time programming. What I do know is that his commercials, or more accurately commercial, drove me nuts. I couldn’t watch one baseball or hockey game without seeing the ad with him and Obama standing next to each other and Obama saying “I love Pennsylvania and I love Arlen Specter” about five times.
As it turned out, after 80 years the voters didn’t love Specter.
- Tebow hits baseballs. There were reports that Tebow picked up a bat and took a few swings at a Memphis high school. Word is that he hit 12 home runs in 15 swings. And I should care because? A great athlete hit a baseball far, gee I’m shocked.
I for one hope Tebow proves his doubters wrong and has a successful NFL career, but is it any wonder why so many people are routing against him? The media is turning the guy into the athletic version of Chuck Norris. Next thing you know there will be T-shirts saying “Tim Tebow doesn’t churn butter. He roundhouse kicks the cows and butter comes straight out.”
Let me know when he completes some passes at the NFL level. I don’t need to know about his next game of H-O-R-S-E.
- Mark Jackson on the mic. While Jackson was great point guard in his day his work for ESPN is deplorable. The guys is to intelligent commentary what Lou Holtz is to clear speech.
Yesterday he dropped this gem during the Celtics-Magic game: “There should be a debate about who is the best QB in Boston, Rondo or Brady!”
Yes Mark, Rondo is clearly in the same category as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. The scary part is some team may one day hire this guy as a head coach.
- Check out ESPN’s baseball schedule this week. We had Yankees-Red Sox Monday; Yankees-Rays today; Yankees-Mets Sunday. Are you kidding me? I understand the network gets high ratings with the Yankees, but three times in a week is absurd. People who want to see the Yankees on a daily basis can dish out a few extra bucks and order YES. As for me, I will be saying NO to ESPN this week.
- Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole: This one is intended for the Canadiens fan base, not the Flyers, who echoed the chant as a taunt to Montreal. This is a soccer chant and its use in any other format is unacceptable to me. With the World Cup a month away we will be hearing this chant in all it’s glory for full month. I will bask in it then. I hate it now.
The people of Montreal need to learn something a little more original. Maybe they can work on that next year. Their season won’t last long enough for them to find a new one..
Mariners point finger at wrong place
Ken Griffey Jr. took a nap — and somehow that is a reporter’s fault.
At least that’s the way the Seattle Mariners see it.
On Monday the News Tribune ran an article with two unidentified players stating that Griffey went down to the locker room during the fifth inning and preceded to take a nap.
Griffey has denied the report, without actually denying the snooze, but that is hardly the end of the story.
After picking up a win on Tuesday our old friend Cliff Lee started talking during his postgame press conference, then stopped and said he wouldn’t continue until the reporter from the Tribune left the room. Several Mariners players followed suit at their lockers.
Real class there Seattle. As if somehow it is the reporter’s fault that two players spoke up about Griffey — who it can be argued has done nothing but nap all season, batting .200 with zero home runs and five RBIs.
Yeah, punish a paper for you know, actually reporting something.
As if that isn’t enough, we have these great words from Mike Sweeney, designated clubhouse leader, or something like that.
“We will support and fight and take a bullet for Ken Griffey Jr. if we have to. He’s our teammate,” Sweeney said, according to FOXSports.com. “Nothing is going to divide this clubhouse, especially a makeshift article made up of lies.”
OK, nothing wrong with that. But he followed with this: “We don’t think there are two players who said that (about Griffey sleeping),” Sweeney added, according to the report. “I challenged everyone in that room — if they said that to stand up and fight me. No one stood up.”
So in one breath Sweeney says nothing can divide the team then in the next he challenges his teammates to a fight?
I guess that’s a reporters fault to.
Seattle is a team going nowhere fast and not even the pitching of Lee can change that. It’s time for Griffey to retire, so he doesn’t do any more damage to his reputation. Known for having one of the sweetest swings in the game, Griffey has a better chance of hitting a lottery than he does a curveball these days.
In fact, Griffey probably did his team a favor by being unavailable to pinch hit.
There are plenty of people in the wrong on this one: Griffey, if he did indeed nap, and the players who broke clubhouse rules about keeping things like that away from the media head the list.
The reporter who did his job? He gets no blame from me.
Time to rage against the machines
I have never been a reader of Business Week. I am not a businessman, thus see little need in reading the magazine. There is however an article published in late April that was recently brought to my attention.
The article is titled: Are Sportswriters really necessary? I didn’t even have to get to the body copy to know this article was going to grind my gears.
The basis of the story is that technology has gotten to the point that it can take statistics and generate functional sentences.Read the article and judge for yourself. It may work for a sentence or two but as far as hard hitting stuff I doubt it could ever deliver.
What the machine can really do is give you factual, but dry material. No thoughts, or emotion, simply copy.
And the sickening thought?
Three companies have already bought in, replacing its writers with this new technology to save a few bucks. The Big 10 Network is one with the other two unnamed. They probably didn’t want to be named in fear of the backlash that would come their way.
At the end of the article Bachman posts this as his bottom line: Narrative Science can make some writing by humans obsolete. After tackling sports, it will move on to medical, financial, and survey data.
So as the system improves, more and more workers may be in jeopardy of losing their jobs.
If you ask me it may be time to form La Resistance and fight back.
In fact I’ll start it.
Hey sports writing machine, if you can find this I am calling you out. Me and you one-on-one in an old fashion write-off. You can pick the time, place and sport.
Good luck getting those interviews buddy! You’re just a stupid machine!
Birthday, Christmas, Draft Day? No more thanks to greedy Goodell
A little over a month ago the idea for “Grinding My Gears” came to light. At the time of its creation I had several things that I felt fit in with the format.
- Philadelphia sports talk was stuck in a rut with the McNabb-Reid blame game.
- ESPN’s coverage had become stale and barely palatable.
- Word of a 96-team NCAA Tournament had just broke.
Then there’s the new format given to the NFL draft. This was old news by the time “Grinding My Gears” was created but it was none the less in the forefront of my mind.
If you have been a frequent visitor of this space you know my standpoint on the draft moving from a Saturday-Sunday event to a Thursday-Friday-Saturday event. If you are visiting this blog for the first time, let me catch you up.
I hate it.
And when I say hate I mean, getting up for breakfast ready for you favorite bowl of cereal, only to realize someone left you with nothing more than a spoonful, hate.
The NFL draft has been one of my true joys over the years. As soon as the Super Bowl is over I seek out a schedule to find out when the draft will be taking place. No, I am not one of those people who live and die with football season. I miss the NFL when it is off but I am more than happy with the NHL, NCAA and the start of baseball season.
I circle the date of the draft for the traditions that come with it.
I should say, the traditions that used to come with it.
Lets face it: The Saturday of the NFL draft was the single greatest drinking day of the spring.
I should be preparing for a great day of drinking right now. Instead I get to enjoy the first round of the draft on Thursday night, by myself. Then when it’s done I get to go to bed and head to work the next day.
That’s just the way I want to celebrate my team getting a star for the future, at least a guy I hopes becomes a star.
I have heard endless excuses about the new format from the NFL. It gives teams more time between rounds to decide on their picks. It will lead to more trades. The experience will be even better for the fans.
If you believe that than you likely also think Kate Gosselin is a good mother. And that professional wrestling is real. And that if a girl tells you “it’s not you it’s me,” she is telling the truth.
In other words, you are a sucker.
This move is all about money. As if the NFL didn’t have enough of it they needed more with two prime time draft days to sell more advertising.
Screw you and your advertising Goodell. What about all of the local pubs that will be losing the sales on beer and wings on Saturday? Sure some will still celebrate Saturday, maybe with a little washers, horse shoes, or for the extreme some slip-n-slide action.
And maybe they will even glance at the TV to find out who got picked with the 132,092 pick of the draft.
The United States Government wouldn’t suddenly cancel the 4th of July or Labor Day. People don’t cancel their birthday’s.
But you Roger Goodell cancelled one of the greatest days on the calendar. You took the joy away, the passion, the debauchery.
Thanks Roger.
And worst of all you will win.
NFL teams will love the new format. As stated above there is more time decide on picks and make trades. The advertisers will be all over the new format filling the NFL’s pockets.
But what about the common man? Some of us can’t afford to take off a couple extra days of work, just so the rich (the NFL) can get richer. The Saturday of the NFL draft was an event that the true fan appreciated.
Will I watch the new version of the draft? Sure, a little. Will I be watching a lot more of Game 5 of the Flyers-Devils series on Thursday? Damn right.
I will close with a brief story.
A while back I heard a story of a group of friends who were so angered by the draft’s new format that they refused to adhere to it. This group of gentlemen set out a plan to isolate themselves from all of civilization for Thursday and take off from work on Friday. Their goal was to tape the first round, watch it Friday afternoon, and then tune back in for the second round. It still wouldn’t be the same as the Saturday tradition used to be, but it was the best they could do.
As the draft arrives today I think of that group and wonder what they will ultimately do.
Goodell won’t wonder. He will just count the dollar signs in front of him.
These people must be high
The date 4/20 is associated with — by some — as national marijuana day. While we here at Philly Sports Blogs are not endorsing such activity it has been brought to my attention that many of our current athletes are high all the time. Maybe not in the literal sense (well, yes, in the NBA it is the literal sense), but in the sense that they must be high to do some of the things they have been doing. So here is a list of a few people and organizations that are acting so dumb it must be as a result of narcotics.
NASCAR: Look at Denny Hamlin in the photo. After winning the Samsung 500 he came out in this getup. Does he think he’s is, Yosemite Sam?
Gilbert Arenas was looking at jail time after bringing a gun into a locker room. I know the guns Hamlin showed off were not real and the situation is quite different, but what type of message is NASCAR sending.
Its crap like that that will keep the sport’s reputation as hick entertainment.
Roger Goodell: This three-day draft idea is pure garbage. Clearly he has never hear of the “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” saying. Much more on this in Thursday’s Grinding my Gears.
Donovan McNabb: Now you want T.O. to be your teammate. Did you see him in Buffalo last year. He’s not the same guy that caught bombs from you in 2001. He is still the guy, who drops a pass a game though. I get the whole fresh start idea, but asking to reunite with T.O. sounds like asking for trouble.
Ed Stefanski: Time and time again since the firing of Eddie Jordan he has insisted that he did not overestimate the talent of the roster and that he believes the roster he has can get it done with a few tweaks. Only major drugs can make someone believe that.
Joakim Noah: It was clear in his days with Florida that this guy wasn’t all there. Now he’s just making an ass of himself. Noah continues to throw jabs at the Cavaliers and the city of Cleveland. Meanwhile he team is on its way to being swept out of the playoffs.
He said that he chooses to stay in his hotel room because there is nothing to do in the city. He then calls Kevin Garnett a dirty player. Keep in mind that the Bulls will have a ton of cap room this offseason and are looking to lure LeBron James or Dwayne Wade to town.
But what superstar in their right mind would want to play next to this fool?
Hope your team steers clear of Washington
The new NFL draft format grinds my gears so much that I can’t even begin to get into it right now. Before the draft I will explain why I hate the new format – which ruins one of the greatest Saturday’s on the sports calendar – to such an extreme.
But first I will ease my way in talking about another draft related subject.
Fans of all 32 teams have opinions on the type of player their team needs. Some are begging for a quarterback, others a safety. Holes will be filled next weekend, that much we know.
It is also a near certainty that someone will draft Tony Washington. Maybe it will be in the third round or maybe in the fifth. But someone will take him.
Soon after Washington is selected the PR department of the squad that drafted him will quickly go to work.
They will tell their fans base that Washington has regretted his decision for eight years. They will tell them that no real crime was committed. They will tell the fans that the scrutiny and shame that Washington has experienced since his action has far outweighed the mistake he made.
And I will buy none of it.
If you’re not familiar with the story of Washington consider yourself lucky. In fact now may be the best time to stop reading. I wish I could forget the story.
Washington, an oline prospect from Division II Abilene Christian, has a big red flag attached to his name.
What did Washington do? He had sex with sister.
As a 16-year old, he slept with his then 15-year old sister. He was convicted of having consensual sex with his sister at 2003.
The excuses have already flowed out – he was from a dysfunctional home and emotionally he was in a bad place.
One scout certainly doesn’t give Washington a pass and his words have to give pause to anyone willing to draft the lineman.
This comes from sportsbybrooks.com
But sticking to Washington, would anyone really want this guy on your squad? I know I wouldn’t. No way I cheer for this guy.
Roger Goodell thinks he has his hands full with Ben Roethlisberger right now. Wait until he meets Washington.
Good God. NBA fans get to vote for MVP
Maybe it was the spring weather or the fact that baseball season has started up.
Or maybe it was the rush that the Flyers provided me with when they snuck in the playoffs.
Either way the gears just hadn’t been grinding that much lately. We’ll today that changed today and once again it is the NBA that has me steamed.
I like the NBA, I swear I do, but no other professional organization is flawed in so many ways. I don’t think David Stern is the worst commissioner in professional sports, though with the likes on Bud Selig and Gary Bettman around that isn’t saying much.
But Stern and his boys have made another bad decision involving fan participation — and this time the MVP trophy is involved.
This year fans will have a vote for the League’s Most Valuable Player. All of the votes cast will be combined and will count as just one vote in the final tally.
You may be saying to yourself, “It’s only one vote, why does it matter?” You may also be thinking. “Hey the fans no more than most of the sports writers anyway.”
Let me tell you, they don’t.
The fans that will vote for an MVP are the same ones who put Allen Iverson in as a starting All-Star. They are the same ones that vote for Tracy McGrady every year, even though he hasn’t been any good, or played close to a full season since gas was $2 a gallon.
These are the people you want having a say in the MVP?
Not much will be made of the new change this year as LeBron James will win the fan vote and will easily win the trophy as he should.
But what if Kevin Durant (NBA’s scoring leader) had done enough to become more deserving of the vote than James? Do you think for one second the fans would have cast a vote for Durant?
Heck no. King James will win the fan vote for the next 10 years. As long as he deserves it, that’s fine. When he doesn’t the system may finally be called out.
It’s not that I blame the NBA for trying to keep their fan base more involved. Heaven knows they need to keep as many fans engaged as possible.
I just don’t think people who think Iverson, McGrady and Yao Ming dominated the league this season need to have a say in the MVP voting.
Carcillo punished for being Carcillo
Driving to work today I got a flashback to 2004. Stopped at a red light I noticed a bumper sticker on the Honda Accord directly in front of me.
That bumper sticker read: “Vote Kerry/Edwards.”
Do people even check what they put on the back of their cars these days? How can I vote Kerry/Edwards, when the election has been over for more than five years?
These people need to get with the times. Heck, they’ve won now as a democrat is in office. The great dream team (sarcasm on) of Kerry/Edwars will never be together again.
Get over it Accord driver.
Now on to what is really grinding my gears.
A couple of weeks ago my PSB colleague Jason Weisbecker posted a blog about the inconsistencies coming from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s office. His points were dead on — except in one case it seems.
When it comes to the Flyers’ Dan Carcillo, Bettman and his axman are always handing out the same thing: A bunch of crap.
For the fourth time in two seasons the NHL’s disciplinarian Colin Campbell has suspended Carcillo, this time for two days after a cross check made during the team’s win over the Devils.
For the cross check Carcillo received a match penalty and a game misconduct. A match penalty — which is given for intent to injure — comes with a mandatory hearing with the NHL’s discipline committee.
Carcillo said it was an accident and replays lead me to believe him. But he has been a bully in the past and that alone is enough for the NHL to make it’s move.
For his part, Carcillo saw it coming.
“I didn’t mean to do it. But knowing me, I’ll probably be suspended,” Carcillo said to Philly.com.
Carcillo is not being penalized for the check; he is being penalized for being Dan Carcillo.
This is the way the NHL has always done things and it needs to stop.
Just once I wish the league would dish out punishment for the plays on the ice and not the names on the jerseys.
We now cut away to a terrible view
I can recall many times during my younger years, getting a new sports video game and checking it out for the first time. One of my favorite things to do was check out all of the different camera angles that the game had to offer. I would typically flip through the seven or eight options (or two or three back in the Sega days) and try each out for about 10 or 15 seconds. That’s all it took for me to realize that the original angle was set as the default for the game for a reason. The other angles either cut out part of the game or made me dizzy. In other words, they stunk.
Either way it was a lesson I learned early: There is no need to change a camera view when the one you got gets the job done.
I only wish the major networks would pick up on that clue.
If you have caught much of the NCAA Tournament you have surely seen some of the camera angles in question. For ninety-nine percent of the time they give you the same view, the one your eyes are used to and have come to admire. Then for one or two possessions each half we get a special view, one flipped around from what we have been looking at the whole time, and quite frankly distracting. I don’t need an aerial view, I really don’t.
The NCAA is not the only sport hurt by production. Flip on CSN and check out a Flyers game and you will surely see what I have dubbed “The Goal Cam.” They go to this behind the net view during power plays. To be fair the angle isn’t as bad as the result. I swear every time they flip to that view the other team scores a goal. Check it out. I’m not lying.
For what it’s worth I do believe there is a place for new camera angles. The NFL gets it right. A few years ago they introduced cameras that glided on a wire over the center of the field. However, they introduced it the right way. The vast majority of the time this view is used simply for replays. It gives the fan a different angle of a play that they saw from the original viewpoint.
By doing this they add to the viewers experience, rather than take away. I would applaud them for their use of their cameras but this is “Grinding My Gears” not “Making My Day.”
So get with it NCAA and NHL production directors. Sometimes the simplest view, is the right one.
Loud writer has lost touch with city
To be quite honest I’m surprised it took this long to bring my next guest into the woodshed.
He’s loud, obnoxious, and quite often out of touch with the Philadelphia fans he writes for.
Welcome Stephen A. Smith.
Smith made a name for himself nationally once he joined ESPN but has been known for his hate-spewed ramblings in Philadelphia for much longer.
Today Smith offered this observation on the whole Donovan McNabb trade drama:
McNabb should have demanded a trade by now. Who cares if it’s to the Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, or one of 13 other teams, by my count, that could desperately use McNabb’s services this season? With the Eagles having adopted their new and improved turncoat mentality, the biggest mistake McNabb appears to have made does not involve interceptions or NFC championship/Super Bowl losses.
His biggest mistake was not demanding a trade years ago.
The treatment McNabb has received year after year has been disgraceful. What has taken place this off-season has surpassed betrayal. And for what, exactly? One quarterback (Michael Vick) who’s still shaking off the rust of prison, and the other (Kolb) a bit rusty from riding the pine for three seasons.
You can read the story in it entirety here: Just be warned, you might have a headache before you are done.
He references the Eagles likely future quarterback as Kevin (Corn on the) Kolb. Really Smith? What are you seven?
He then goes back into the well about McNabb only having two quality receivers in his whole career of any quality in T.O. and DeSeasn Jackson. Seriously, how does that well have any water left?
It’s fine to argue that the Eagles would be making a mistake by trading McNabb, some people still feel that way. But in typical Smith fashion he offers nothing to explain why trading McNabb would hurt the franchise.
Of course when the trade does go down and if Kolb becomes a star overnight Smith will be the first one in line to tell you how he saw this coming a mile away.
He will do it in a loud, brash manner. That’s just his style.
Hey any chance that when McNabb gets traded, Smith can be thrown in the deal?
Time to censor the Cencus
Maybe you saw their commercial in the Super Bowl. Maybe you saw it during the Olympics. Or maybe it was during the NCAA Tournament.
Or on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, in the newspaper or on the radio.
Heck, you might have even seen it on Nascar Driver Greg Biffle’s No. 16 Ford Fusion.
One way or another everyone has seen it. And I for one am sick of it.
I’m talking about the census.
Yes that little form with 10 questions. We have been reminded to fill that form out at every turn.
And all it has cost for that advertising is $340 million. Wait the government is wasting money? Never.
Of course before anyone even got the census, they got a warning letter one week in advance. That’s a letter to every person above 18 in the United States saying that a letter is coming. Talk about throwing away money.
Naturally the government doesn’t care about the waste of dollars, because it’s not their money, it’s ours. The census budget is taken directly out of American tax dollars. That’s $340 million (on advertising alone) that could have been spent on things like education or the military. Instead the powers that be felt a $2.5 million Super Bowl ad was the way to go.
That got people talking for the wrong reasons.
“What an absolute colossal waste of money,” said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, a government watchdog group based in Washington, in an interview with the Associated Press.
“That’s a lot of money to spend on a glorified public service announcement. While they’re counting people, we’re going to be counting the dollars that they’re spending.”
At least during the Super Bowl I was only reminded to fill out the form once. During this past weekend of March Madness I got more about 10 times more reminders than Philadelphia team’s got victories.
Now I have nothing against the census and understand its important. Before anyone accuses me of not doing my duty as an American citizen, I should note that I did fill the form out. It took about 45 seconds.
The census isn’t the problem. The constant annoying advertisements that racked up a giant bill are. Ten years ago the census had an advertising budget $100 million. Now that has more than tripled. It’s ridiculous.
Since the Government has been all about rebate checks lately, I have an idea: How about a rebate to every person in the country for wasting their hard earned money on unnecessary advertising.
On second thought that would just lead to more waste. The government would just send out a postcard telling you that a check is coming first.
There is only one winner from this giant waste of money and it’s not the country, it’s the Post Office.
Mail hasn’t been viewed as this important since the Pony Express was around.
Get your science out of my brackets!
When I go to fill out my brackets later today I will be picking No. 11 San Diego State over No. 6 Tennessee and No 11 Minnesota’s over No. 6 Xavier. Now there are a couple reasons I will be picking these upsets, but really it boils down to one simple thing — my gut.
Sadly, it looks like the gut has taken a back seat to science and math.
I hate math. Math means work and there is no time for work during March Madness.
But it appears I am in the minority. No longer is picking upsets something that is to be done on a whim.
Check out this piece by cbssports.com’s Peter Tierman. It breaks down upsets in scientific formulas that give you an exact percentage of a seed’s chances of moving on. He then have three follow-up articles on what to do to have a high-risk, medium risk, and low-risk bracket.
Tierman and others have done great work and research to break the tournament down into a series of numbers. But I don’t want numbers. I want basketball. Here’s a crazy thought: Maybe the gorup of 18-21 year-olds will decide the outcomes of a couple of these games.
Numerous experts tell you that you absolutely must pick a No. 12 to upset a No. 5 because it happens every year. Well maybe I don’t think it will this year. Does that mean I making some kind of NCAA taboo?
Watching the Tournament — particularly the first two weekends — is one of the highlights of my Spring. I’m not about to ruin that and pick upsets I don’t agree with because a computer system tells me so.
Nope. Won’t do it.
Maybe I will win one of my pools and maybe I won’t. But at least I wont have a headache the rest of the day from crunching numbers.
Get this dance of my TV screen
If you haven’t watched the Kentucky men’s basketball team this year consider yourself lucky.
Not because of the style the Wildcats play or anything else related to the game of basketball. It’s because of the stupid dance that television stations feel they must show every time John Wall takes the court.
I don’t blame Wall for this. Hell, it’s not even a dance as much as it is a flex and he certainly couldn’t have known that media outlets would run with it the way they have.
If you haven’t seen it, you can check out the clip bellow. … Or you can wait to see it 1,000 times during the NCAA Tournament.
Just by typing John Wall’s name on youtube you will get filled with these videos. Hunters do the move after killing a deer, 3-years olds trying it out, even Ashley Judd — who the networks feel the need to consistently remind us is a Kentucky fan 10 times a game — breaks out the flex.
It’s ridiculous. My only hope is that once Wall takes his game to the NBA next year the whole thing goes away. Our eyes will be better for it.
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