6 OTs, UNC and the Buckeyes Start Soon

Mr. Pibb and Red Vines equals CRAZY DELICIOUS! Today equals Lazy Friday. No classes, not heading to Milwaukee for the Women's Semi-final but plenty of basketball to watch.

And it starts with a game that didn't end until today. Syracuse/UConn, this game obviously had big time ramifications for the irrational CSU fans like me, who think that we can move up to an 11 seed. If The 'Cuse wins the Big East tourney, their RPI would skyrocket (they went from 18 to 14 with the victory over UConn). Meanwhile, West Virginia's (a team that CSU held to 53 points) domination of Pitt shot them from 26 RPI to 19. Obviously the more that CSU opponents win the better. So when Syracuse and WVU meet tonight, either way it's going to help the Vikes in terms of RPI, whether it will help their seed is up to the committee.

As the Michigan St/Minnesota game just didn't peak my interest I had to watch the Hokies take on UNC, which of course stand for University of No Calls. Obviously the ACC did not want Va Tech to win this game. I may be a bit biased, because I really don't like Tyler Hansborough, Roy Williams or any ACC team in North Carolina, but Hansborough gets to do whatever he wants, and never gets called. He didn't foul out twice like Hasheem Thabeet did last night (at least 7 fouls were not called at the Garden in that OT fest). But like I mentioned before there has never been a basketball game in which one team has committed 9 fouls and another team has committed 3 fouls. That might be the way it gets called, but that does not happen. The Hokies could not overcome the foul disparity, unlike the Vikings who overcame the Horizon League's three best officials, Tim Donaghy, Graham Poll and Brad Stevens.

Another Post???

I know what your thinking, I'm posting something every few minutes it seems. Well as we all know this is the most exciting week in sports. The World Baseball Classic is on!!!

Anyway Baylor just upset Kansas in the Big 12 Tourney. I have decided I am cheering for teams that should not be in the tourney to win unless it is a team that we played. Baylor is not an at-large, so if they run the table they might bump CSU up to an 11 seed. The same goes for a team like Iowa or Georgia. Teams that would not be in otherwise. It's all conjecture but here is what I want in a few high-profile conferences.

Big Ten: Iowa or Ohio State wins
Big 12: Baylor or Kansas State wins
Big East: Syracuse or West Virginia wins
C-USA: anyone but Memphis
A-10: Temple or Dukwesnee

***Let's add Georgia Tech to that list. How about a team that went 2-14 in the ACC, with a loss to UIC, Virginia, Alabama and twice to NC State, in the tournament? No way they are a 12 seed.

The Dream Tourney Run

Ah yes the speculation of where teams will be placed and what is going to happen. The following is not in anyway really going to happen, unless something crazy happens like the selection committee reads this blog and thinks it is really good. If they did read it they would probably find the ideas strong, the writer good looking, and all the content above average. Obscure reference alerts in case you are lost.

So anyway it looks to me that Cleveland State, who enters their first NCAA Tourney in 23 years, will be a 12 seed or a 13 seed. There is a little speculation that they could jump up to an 11 seed. And I am going to run with that for a few minutes.

Why? Well it appears that the game locations are already determined, but the teams that will be there are not. The 12s and the 13s play at Boise, Portland or Miami. As a college student fighting his way through these tough economic times, none of those are really legitimate destinations for a fan trip. (Italics are used for sarcasm, because I have always found money to burn holes in my pocket and always seem to be on tough economic times.)

However one 11 seed will find itself in the Wachovia Center home of the Philadelphia 76ers, Flyers and the now-defunct-Kixx. That is a makable bus trip and/or carpooling road trip. I don't think that we can get their but if we did it would mean heading to Boston for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, before driving up to possibly the worst place to watch a basketball game Ford Field. I say this because the difference between a football field and a basketball court sums up to this; 12 players, approximately 23,000 square feet, and stuff actually happens more than every other minute.

Realistically that is probably not likely so here is my ultimate CSU Vikings journey.
As a 12 seed in the South (Memphis) Bracket the team would head to Miami, for their first round game against a 5 seed. Different predictions lead to very different ideas so some predict Gonzaga as a 5 other predict Gonzaga as an 8. Gonzaga having to come all the way to Miami, unfair as it may be fits perfectly into the 2 hour-rule (team traveling to a city more than 2 hours time difference of their home lose and Gonzaga is 3 hours). CSU would have the time zone advantage and the Jewish retiree advantage (how many Jews do you know in Spokane?) and the fact that they actually play defense working for them against The Bulldogs.
They would advance to the Round of 32. Some would argue a 4 seed Syracuse team is a great option here, but not in my books. A team like Syracuse isn't going to get caught sleeping against us again, and I don't think we can pull off that upset twice. Here we look to a Big Ten team like Illinois. CSU LOVES playing defense and Illinois lost in a game that was 38-33. That benefits a great defensive team that scores in bunches. So after we beat them, it's on to Memphis, a flight to Nashville is pretty cheap on Southwest, and I might ask my Uncle for a ride to Memphis in exchange for some quality time with his eldest nephew. In Nashville we take a #1 seed. I don't care who it is because the important part is we beat them. It will be a huge upset no matter who it is so I don't really care what team, though I do think J'Nathan can handle Tyler Hasbeenbroken. So a UNC #1 would be cool, but unlikely as they would get to play in Greensboro if they are a #1 seed. Anyway after that.
We stick around for the Elite 8 game against arch-rival Butler who got shafted into a 7 seed. They take out the 10 and the 2, Dayton and Kansas respectively. If Kansas doesn't choke against #15 seed Kent State in the first round. We beat Butler on a buzzer beater, evening the season series at 2-2, and 2-0 in favor of the Vikes in games that actually mean anything. It doesn't have to be a buzzer beater but it would be OH SO SWEET. Though the Horizon League might have to move their offices to Cleveland if we start winning games at neutral sites and not Hinkle Fieldhouse
We go to the Final Four in Detroit and I could not care less what happens next. We could lose 100-0 and I would still have had a dream season, that is unless the team doesn't put in their reserves until the third quarter.

Whats the Diff?

This includes conference tournament results, but what separates these two teams so much in the mind of bracketologists?

TEAM A: 22-10 (12-6 in 12th RPI Conference)/ RPI 55/ SOS 111/ RPI Top 100 Wins: RPI 18, RPI 24, RPI 91, RPI 73 (2x)/Record Against RPI Top 100 5-7 Bad Losses: RPI 132 RPI 160 RPI 243

TEAM B: 23-6 (11-5 in 15th RPI Conference)/ RPI 46/ SOS 146/ RPI Top 100 Wins: RPI 72, RPI 43, RPI 23/Record Against RPI Top 100: 2-4/ Bad Losses: RPI 118, RPI 193

All I can see is the loss to the 243 RPI Team. And maybe the winning percentage.

I didn't put names because I'd like to see if anyone can guess. I'll give a hint. One of these teams was supposedly a strong at-large candidate, the other was definitely not.

CSU is Team A and St. Mary's is Team B. When you put the numbers together there is no explanation for why one week ago, St. Mary's was a possible 9 or 10 seed, while CSU was likely an 8 seed in the Not Invited Tournament (NIT).

Interesting to me, but maybe not to you.

Letter to the Commissioner

Dear Mr. LeCrone

Let me first begin by saying, I hope this letter finds you. I wasn't sure where exactly to send it, 201 S. Capitol Avenue or 510 W 49th Street. Then I realized if someone over at Hinkle receives it, that probably doesn't matter since Butler sets the rules, gets all the calls and runs the league anyway.
Saturday night, I understand that you witnessed something you had hoped would never happened. It's clear to me that you were disappointed from the comments your cronies made to the students sections of Cleveland State University and Milwaukee, both whom were cheering against the #2 seed Green Bay.
I am a firm believer that the Horizon League is an Equal Opportunity League, however it is the worst league to be a student-fan as you can only speak if you are being fair to both teams and the officials.
But if you are a Butler fan it is completely OK to whine about everything. Yes that's right. Butler fans can BOO or yell swear words at the officials when they first enter the building, when they make a good call, when they make a bad call, when Matt Howard does a Cristiano Ronaldo impression, when Gordon Hayward finally turns 14. They even BOO when they win, which doesn't make sense since the Hinkle officials are hand-picked by a fan-ballot. I am worried that if they lose, someone might get seriously hurt.
When I read that you felt the current tournament set up was working perfectly, I was fairly disappointed. Ever since the league offices moved to Brad Stevens' secretary's desk, no team had ever made the final without the double-bye. And then you had to watch the Vikings go screw up your brilliant system. Guess the system doesn't work as well as you thought it did. Hopefully this didn't affect the Horizon's favorable partnership with Playground Chalk, because its clear that nobody wants to see upsets in March.
You said "It gives kids a chance to play in front of bigger crowds," clearly your analysis was proven correct, as each student athlete got a chance to "play" in front of 9,870 people leaving before the game even started. And by "play" I mean they each got to see them all leave as they did start to warm-up.
Though I disagree with you on the above aspect, I must say though that charging $5 for people to watch online was a great idea. The fact that almost nobody actually got to see Friday night's games unless they wanted to donate money to the Bulldog Scholarship Fund was marketing brilliance.
I look forward to seeing some more of your ideas in the coming future. Here are a few I would like to propose...

1. Change the logo from the weird person shaped like a star to a blue and white bulldog.
2. Give Butler a bye into the trophy presentation and let everyone else play for a shot in the NIT or the Insider.com Tourney.
3. Give tazers to all security guards, any person in the facility not wearing Butler apparel, and talking should be tazed.
4. Since you want big crowds, play every game at the home of whichever team is eliminated first. The Detroit-Mercy fans will come out in droves to watch a team from Dayton play a team from Northwest Indiana.
5. Put every game on the Horizon League website and charge $10 for a live feed with a $5 fee for the gamecast.

The GISSER

Your wondering what kind of title that is. Well I'll explain, now for those of you who are not Fantasy Sports fans you will probably feel reading this is a waste of time. And I might agree with you. However you can still learn some interesting stuff by reading, even if it doesn't help you in your next Auction Draft.
Earlier today I was looking at two different baseball websites. A few of the guys and one lady from Church of the Saviour organized a Fantasy Baseball league last year, Major League Churchball. Clever eh?
So I was doing some research on ESPN.com as well as baseballdocs.com. I realized that the two websites had players ranked differently. (I didn't really realize this, it's common knowledge, but for the purpose of wording I realized it). Every site is going to have players ranked differently, the question is why? Not only why? but which players do I need to know why and which players are not ranked all that differently in the grand scheme of things. Alex Rodriguez is #1 on ESPN and #2 on BaseballDocs, that really doesn't matter, if you have pick No. 1 you are taking the guy that you want (most likely Rodriguez, Pujols, or Hanler Ramirez). The guys that matter are guys like James Shields who is #85 on BaseballDocs and #54 on ESPN or Rafael Furcal who is #114 on BaseballDocs and 72 on ESPN. So I present you the GISSER (Gauging Indications of Statistical Standing and Estimated Rating). It can also stand for Garbagy Idiotic Stupid Suggestions Estimated Randomly, but I prefer the first one as it is more truthful.
I know! Your anxious! What is this magical device!
I have to tell you that it is not so much magical as an exact science, and if it were magical I would not be able to tell you. This takes time to do, you can't just subtract and figure it out. You need a graphing calculator as well as FOUR hilighters.
Oh yeah what does it do, maybe I should explain that first. Basically you can take any two groups of rankings and find out what players have major discrepancies in the rankings. I would suggest using the site that your league is hosted on as well as a site you find searching in Google. Olaf's Oakland Athletics Blog is probably not a good one, because Eric Chavez and Jason Giambi have not been good for Fantasy owners for at least 5 years. For example in performing the GISSER I learned that while AJ Burnett is ranked 99 Overall by BaseballDocs and 125 Overall by ESPN (20th Best SP by BaseballDocs ad 28th Best SP by ESPN) The 26 player differential is really not as big as it looks.
Why that might be depends. For example BaseballDocs and ESPN had the first 9 pitchers ranked exactly the same in terms of position, but ESPNs first 9 were all rated significantly higher than BaseballDocs in terms of overall (no less than difference of 5, which is half a round in a Fantasy draft). What this means is that ESPN values a Top 10 pitcher more than BaseballDocs, but they agree on which pitchers should go in what order. What you must decide when drafting is how much you value a Top 10 pitcher and whether you agree with these so-called experts. After performing the GISSER I found that the rankings for the First 12 Pitchers by both websites were close enough that the only real discrepancy is value vs other positions, not the stats they will give you. When you get deeper down you find much more difference (Gavin Floyd has a positional difference of 30+, that is a red flag).
Step 1: You now have your two websites, write down the O-Ranks (overall ranking) and the P-Ranks (positional rank) for the amount of players you think will actually be drafted one position at a time for now(In a 10 team league 70 pitchers is resourceful enough in most cases, 20 catchers is more tha enough, and your probably looking at 60 outfielders). With pitchers I used BaseballDocs top 63 and then threw in a handful I've guys I like.
Step 2: You are now going to subtract the difference between the websites for each player (overall-overall and positonal-positional). Burnett has a O-Rank Diff of 26 (that's absolute value, depends on which one you wrote down first).
Step 3: If you are using a graphing calculator add all your values into a list. There are two ways to do this, you can include negatives or you can use absolute value. I used absolute value for pitchers and JUST REALIZED I DID IT DIFFERENTLY FOR CATCHERS AND SHORTSTOPS. Good thing I'm writing this to you guys.
Step 4: After performing an outlier test that tells me that players who have a differential of 55 or more are outliers, and getting rid of their values from the list. I perform the 1-Variable Stats function. This tells me that the mean, that's average in laymens terms, is 21.3. The standard deviation is 13.9. I decided that any time a player's Rank Diff is more than one standard deviation away from the mean, I will check to find out what the reason is. This is also a player I want to go check a third website for information on, and see which one is closer.
Step 5: Get out your hilighters. I used 4 because I had four different things to look for.

1. ESPN O-Rank is lower than BaseballDocs O-Rank (pink)
   
2. ESPN O-Rank is higher than BaseballDocs O-Rank (orange)
   
3. ESPN P-Rank is lower than BaseballDocs P-Rank (blue)
   
4. ESPN P-Rank is higher than BaseballDocs P-Rank (yellow)
   

• BY THE WAY, HIGHER MEANS BETTER... 1, 2, 3 IS HIGHER THAN 46, 47, 58. IT DOES NOT REFER TO THE NUMBER, BUT THE RANKING.

Step 6: Now take your hilighters and hilight the players that fit each of those terms. I learned that Justin Verlander's Overall Rank is (not <> = x +/- sx), but it is when it comes to Positional Rank. That equation should read ... not less than or greater than the equation mean plus or minus standard deviation, in case you wondered, and/or don't understand my computer skills of determining equations. Basically it means that Verlander's 125 BasbeallDocs O-Rank vs his 157 (32 was inside the range of -22.12-37.47) ESPN O-Rank is not something to worry about, but his 25 BaseballDoc P-Rank vs 38 ESPN P-Rank is (13 was not inside the range of -7.17-9.83).
Conclusion: Now you are sitting doing one of two things... Wondering why on earth you spent your time reading this, you have not come out any more knowledgeable about Fantasy Baseball and you don't think this equation really means anything. Or you are getting your 2B rankings out and preparing to do some fancy math. I have succeeded. You have read this and you are going to try it and use my advice, or you won't use it and I will be a better Fantasy Player than you.

The Beverage Section

As some of you know today is my 21st birthday. Hip Hip Hooray. Since I'm not at a college where I can go crazy, or really into that kind of thing, one might say it's been uneventful. However I am going to disagree. The great thing about turning 21 is not that you can get drunk, it is that you can drink. I plan to take the next few weeks or so to take in the great beverages that my elders have experience for longer than I have.
Last night I served up a few Mango Mojitos for the family, which leads me to my first lesson about drinking. Never follow the instructions on the back of the cocktail mix bottle. I should have probably realized this but, because of course they want you to buy more of the mix. So 3 oz of mix and 1 oz of light rum. We happened to have some of the stuff with the bat on it (find out why there is a bat on it here). Here is how that conversation went;
Family: Cheers!
Keith: Umm
Kyle: yeah it's kind of sour, I followed the directions on the bottle
Keith: kind of sour? all I can taste is the mix
Becki: are you sure you did it right?
Kyle: yeah, (laughing and spitting at the same time)
Becki and Keith : (nearly spit it out)
Kyle: next time I'll use a little more rum.

Even before that had happened I went to CVS so I could buy my first legal beer. With limited choices that I had not already tasted (I had tasted Heineken, Corona, Miller Hi-Life etc.) I chose The Great American Lager, Budweiser. If Budweiser is the King of Beers apparently Barqs is the Queen and IBC is the Court Jester. Maybe the Clydesdales somehow got into the brewery, because it was terrible (use your inference skills here). I can't imagine how weak a Bud Light would be if when the real thing taste like dish water. Leads me to Lesson #2 if you have had beer in a foreign country, you probably are not going to like anything that you find in a drugstore. American beer is WEAKER than a Friedberg and Seltzer movie at Cannes.

That is where we stand at appx. 1:58 PM, the rest fo the day hold in store a "Create Your Own Six Pack" that I got from World Market. That includes the six and I will be letting you know what i think as the day goes on.
The Short Stubby Ugly Bottle I was a little disappointing, to me this was just another beer. It was good, but nothing special. Hey, You can't win 'em all. Just goes to show you that great ad campaigns don't necessarily mean great product.
Eine Königin unter den Bieren which literally translates to "A Queen Among the Beers," can't wait to compare it against "the King" The one I've been waiting for, I saved this for last because I knew how good it was. This was easily my favorite mass-produced beer in Deutschland when I went in 2004 (Drinking age 16 BTW) so I knew I would still like it. And I did. Though my parents questioned my decision to finish it in about 15 minutes. I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
The Chosen Beer no not LeBron's favorite beer, but a Kosher beer. I really liked this one, I have been drinking out of the bottle mostly, but I decided to pour this one into a glass to see the color (though for some reason all of our frozen beer mugs, have bits of frozen peppers, or ceiling plaster in them so I just poured it into a regular glass). A deep reddish brown, and it was delish. If it Kosher for Passover I could see myself having Matzoh Ball Soup, Fruit Gels and He'Brew a couple times during those 8 days.
Chocolate Beer I have heard this called "a mouth orgasm," sounds like fun. I think. Maybe Not, when you really think about it. took a sip at about 7:30pm, ended up giving the rest to my Dad, not feeling it. Kind of tasted like someone spilled beer in your morning coffee, not my cup of tea (no pun intended)
HofBrau Munchen Original a Bavarian classic finished around 3:15 pm Ah yes that is what a real beer should taste like. You can actually taste it.
HopDevil it had a cool label, and sounded like an American beer that might actually have flavor. Finished at about 8:45. It had hops alright. Definitely 'menacingly delicious.' Victory Brewing Co has another one that looks like fun called "Golden Monkey" a Belgian style ale, with Asian spices.

I still have to go on the official Beer and Football Sponsorship Tour where I do Newcastle Brown, Guinness, Strongbow, Krombacher, T-Mobile etc.

Tonight for dinner is Don Tequila's Mexican Restaraunt, so I have to decided between a Dos Equis or a Modelo Negro.
Lesson 3 when you start to reach for your wallet to pull out your ID before the guy even asks you what you want, they are not likely to ask for your ID. This was the instance in my Mexican Restaraunt escapade. I ended up getting Modelo Negro, and I was feeling it. Not completely sure what to do with the awkwardness of the lime; do you squeeze it; take it out and watch it sit there; try to drink with it there; drop it in the drink. It's a debatable subject for many. Mine fell in anyway so I didn't have much choice.