The 33 Year Old Rookie

Well, I just finished off another book in about a week, this time the read was The 33 Year Old Rookie, the autobiography of Phillies' catcher Chris Coste. It's somewhat interesting that the last book I read was by Mike Schmidt, whose baseball experience would basically have to be considered the polar opposite of Coste's.

In my review of Schmidt's book, I mentioned how interesting I found it that even a Hall of Fame talent like Schmidt had to have a break here and there for his career to unfold the way it did. Coste would be an example of what happens to a guy who never really has things break the right way for him. That's not to compare Coste to Schmidt in anyway in terms of talent, Coste isn't a Hall of Famer, but there's little doubt in my mind that he could have been a productive major league catcher years ago. Instead, rather than following a path like Schmidt's, which included being a high draft pick and a major league regular at age 22, Coste took a much longer and winding road to the big leagues. To sum up: Born and raised in Fargo, ND. Undrafted and without a college scholarship offer out of college. 1 miserable year at a local junior college, 3 All-American years at D-III Concordia, again undrafted, 1 year in a Canadian independent league, 4 years staring for independent league team in Fargo, 6 years bouncing around various major league organizations at the AA and AAA level, an absolutely blistering spring training with the Phillies in 2006, during which he had won a roster spot, only to lose it the day before the season due to a trade, and then his eventual call up and successful 2006 major league season, at the age of 33. To add to the story,despite having a wildly successful rookie season, the Phillies weren't sold on him as their backup catcher and brought in a veteran to take his place, and he started the year back at AAA. Eventually though, he made his return and re-established himself, leading to the release of the veteran. Coste actually caught the final pitch from Brett Myers that clinched the 2007 NL East title for the Phillies. And, finally, he had convinced the Phillies he belonged in the major leagues for good, so they did not acquire another catcher in the offseason and was able to start the 2008 season with the team.

Now, I knew going into reading this book that I was clearly biased in favor of the story. The Phillies are my favorite team, and Coste has been among my favorite players since he finally arrived in Philly in May of '06. I root for the guy, and if you're familiar with him and his story, it's hard not to. All of that being said, I loved this book on a number of levels. First of all, you've got a guy going all out to pursue his dream, even as that dream became more and more improbable. I think the most unsung hero in all of this was Coste's wife Marcia, who clearly endured a lot in allowing him to go for it, and not only didn't complain, but also actively encouraged him to keep on going at a couple points where he was ready to hang it up. Even though I knew the "ending", when he got the call to come to the big leagues, it was still exciting and compelling for me to read. And then, you couple that with the revelation that, upon receiving the news, his 6 year old daughter informed her mommy that she had wished for Daddy to make the big leagues when she blew out her candles at her birthday the previous week, well, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, I'll admit it. Of course, we later learn that part of her attachment to Daddy making the big leagues was that in the past, when she wanted a toy and they weren't going to get it for her, they'd often say "Maybe if Daddy makes it to the big leagues." That almost makes it better, in my mind.

And secondly, I was really fascinated by the whole process Coste went through in getting to the major leagues, and how even though we like to think that sports are the ultimate merit based event, the reality is that there are often labels and stigmas that are difficult to overcome, regardless of performance. By the time Coste even finally made a minor league roster, he was already 27, which is well above the age for a player to be considered a prospect. And, he had spent all those years in the independent league, so no matter how well he played, he always had organizations having questions and saying "There's got to be some reason no one wanted him before now." Additionally, despite deciding early in his independent league career that he wanted to focus on catching, and by all accounts becoming pretty darn good behind the plate, he was never able to find a gig as a full-time catcher, and was constantly being used at 1B and 3B, even some 2B. This created another perception problem, because when you look at a guy and he's being shuffled all over the diamond, it can present the perception that he's not great at any one spot. In this case, it seemed his versatility was often a negative. It seems though, that the bottom line was that he could just never get anyone to take an extended look at him, and he was never the kind of guy who was just going to wow you at first glance, especially given his age.

Anyhow, a very easy and enjoyable read, especially for a Phillies homer like myself. I'm actually coming to the end of my non-fiction pile, with the only thing currently remaining in my possession being Juicing the Game, by Howard Bryant, supposedly one of the better books on steroids in baseball. I'm unsure if I'm ready to get back into that issue in book form just yet, and I did just get a very nice coupon from Barnes and Noble, so I may wind up going in another direction.

A few birthday musings...

So, as I mentioned over the weekend, today is my 28th birthday, and I came to a big decision this morning. You know how people often do the thing where they jokingly don't acknowledge that they've hit 30 years old? They'll say, I'm 29 and holding, or I'm 29 with X years of experience. Well, I don't want to be a follower, so I've decided that I'm going to go into a holding pattern at 28, rather than waiting until 29. Based on past experience, it will be at least 5 years till anyone even questions that anyhow. Heck, it'll probably be that long before people stop saying "Really? You look much younger than 28."

But I digress.

Unfortunately, as of last year, my birthday will be forever linked with the tragic shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, in which 32 people were killed. Today was obviously the first anniversary of that event, and was as such marked with the appropriate ceremonies and opportunities for mourning. I honestly don't have much that can be said about that event, as it's terribly hard to get your head around sense senseless violence, and any efforts to explain that sort of thing have always rung pretty hollow to me. For me, all I can really say is that my thoughts and prayers go out to that community once again, as they continue the healing process.

I do have to move on from that to point out the delicious irony of last night's Phillies victory over the Houston Astros. As you might know, the Astros traded their much maligned closer Brad Lidge to the Phillies this offseason. Lidge has had some well documented struggles since giving up a monster home run to Albert Pujols in the 2005 postseason, but had for the most part started to round back into form last year. However, the Astros traded him, for a number of reasons. In his place, they signed Jose Valverde, who entered the game last night in the 9th with a 3-0 lead, and walked off the mound a 4-3 loser, having gotten only one out. You see, regardless of how Astros management viewed Lidge, Lidge had become a pariah among Astros fans. Well, Houston, it wasn't all his fault!

Laying in the bed you made

One of the biggest pet peeves I have regarding sports media types is when they create a situation, and then blame the self-created situation for how they are handling some related story.

A perfect example of this has been the coverage of Trevor Immelman's victory at the Masters over the weekend. Please note that I specific referred to it as Immelman's victory, rather than as Tiger Woods' defeat. If you've been paying attention to any mainstream sports media outlet in the last two days, you might have been confused on that point. And that's rather sad.

I could go into a massive diatribe about how the media has handled Woods and made it such that he is the story every time he tees up, regardless of whether he wins or loses, but I'm going to focus on a single entity in this, for simplicities sake. That entity is radio host Dan Patrick. As you may have heard if you follow golf, back earlier in the season Tiger Woods made some headlines by suggesting that winning the Grand Slam (all four majors in the same year) was realistic for him. Now, while before Woods came on the scenes, that kind of statement was an outlandish idea that would have probably merited ridicule. In Woods' case, however, it probably really shouldn't have even been headline material. Let's remember, for instance, that Woods did in fact win 4 majors in a row, it's just that only 3 of them were in the same calendar year.

Woods followed this up by continuing on a rather significant tear, prior to losing his last start before the Masters. Now, where Dan Patrick comes into this story is that, as Tiger was winning, virtually every time golf and Tiger came up on his show, he would say that he was going to be surprised if Tiger failed to win the Grand Slam this year. Now, as well as Tiger was playing, that's just an outlandish outlook (Woods didn't even go as far as to say that he thought he would win the Grand Slam), but Patrick repeated it rather frequently in the days leading up to the Masters.

So, come Monday morning, post-Masters discussion centered significantly more on Woods and his missed opportunities that it did on Immelman's wire to wire victory. As Patrick was chastised by various listeners for not giving Immelman enough due (now, to be fair, Patrick did have Immelman on his show and even waited until midway through the interview to ask him about anything Woods related), Patrick defended himself by saying "Hey, look, that's the way it's setup in golf now. Tiger's the story, whether he wins or loses." He furthermore went on to suggest that Tiger created this by throwing out the suggestion that he could win the Grand Slam.

To all of that I would say that yes, it's true, but only because you (and the larger media) chose to make it that way. If you spend weeks on your radio show saying that you'll be surprised if Tiger doesn't win the Grand Slam, then yes, Tiger losing the first major of the year is going to be the big story. You can't make Tiger the story, win or lose, prior to the event, and then use the fact that Tiger is the story, win or lose, to deflect criticism of your post-event coverage. Well, you obviously can, it just doesn't hold water. Tiger didn't say he was going to win the Grand Slam - Dan Patrick said Tiger was going to win the Grand Slam.

In this context, it consistently amazes me how many different ways the media finds to discredit a victory, whether done intentionally or not. Look at this tease for an article about the Masters that's currently on the front page of ESPN.com: "The Masters was there for Tiger Woods to take. And he couldn't, giving Trevor Immelman his green jacket." Really? Tiger gave Immelman the green jacket? I find that highly amusing, since it was Immelman's name at the top of the leaderboard throughout the tournament, and the final margin of 3 strokes was as close as Woods ever got.on the weekend. Did Tiger miss opportunities on Sunday, and throughout the tournament? Of course. Could he have won? Absolutely. Was Immelman given anything? No, and it's ridiculous to suggest so. We focus on Woods' missed opportunities, without even asking if there were opportunities that Immelman may have missed. Even the fact that Immelman shot a lackluster 75 on Sunday doesn't change that fact. Yeah, that's a lousy way to finish, but it's a 4 day tournament, and he won by a cozy 3 strokes. You don't back into a wire to wire victory at Augusta, no matter who finished behind you.

So, all that being said, for the last two days, Dan Patrick (along with most of the sports media) has been doing the equivalent of making the bed, laying in said bed, and then complaining about how the bed was made. Luckily for him, many people haven't noticed.

This is offensive. No, really, it is...

Okay, so I'm feeling very prolific today. Well, that, and I only left the house today to go to church, allowing myself time to recover from yesterday's long day. And, as I was returning from church this evening, something that had been bugging me on a recurring basis resurfaced again, so I said to myself "Why not make it a 3 post day?"

Anyhow, as you know if you've been a fan of this blog for very long, I mainly listen to sports talk radio during the day. However, I listen to country music for the first couple hours before Dan Patrick comes on, and country music is generally what I have on during the car. One of the songs that's currently hot on country playlists is "Picture to Burn", which is written/performed by Taylor Swift. Taylor, who is all of 4 1/2 months north of her 18th birthday, is one of the most popular artists out there at the moment.

You're probably aware of the fact that artists/labels very often end up releasing different versions of songs for radio play than are actually recorded for the album. Often, this is just for time considerations, but there are also times when the radio version contains alterations to content that is either not allowed by FCC rules, or might be deemed offensive. Country music is generally pretty tame in this regard. Usually if there's a modified version like that out there, it involves the word "ass", or something like "screw you", and generally you'll find that some stations will choose to play the original version anyhow.

So, anyhow, there's an alternate radio cut of "Picture to Burn" that some stations are using, and that was used for the video and any countdown shoes or other shoes that are syndicated nationally across a variety of stations. The Harrisburg station uses the actual version, and so the first time I heard the alternate cut, I was pretty well shocked at the lyrics that had been altered. Never once occured to me that there was anything offensive about the song.

So, it's pop quiz time. Here are the original lyrics to "Picture to Burn". One of the lines has been altered for a radio version of the song. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the offensive line. If you listen to country music or know the answer for some other reason, please refrain and let people guess. I shall post the answer at some point in the next 24 hours.

Traditionalism or stubborness?

Okay, I've got to admit upfront, I'm only about to rant on this topic because my team just got jammed, but I've been consistent on this position for years.

What might that position be? In this day and age, there is absolutely zero reason for baseball not to use instant replay to determine whether a ball that went out of the park just down the line was fair or foul. In some ways, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to baseball. But this is one situation where adherence to tradition just doesn't make sense anymore. (Just to clarify my opening statement, the Cubs were credited with a HR in this afternoon's game against the Phillies, when replays clearly showed the ball was foul)

I appreciate that we're probably always going to have to deal with imperfection in officiating. If humans are making the calls, humans will make mistakes from time to time. And I'm okay with that. And I'm also not in favor of any kind of widespread replay in baseball. Baseball games are slow enough as it is, I don't want to be introducing multiple stoppages for replay throughout the game. However, this one situation is where I have to make the exception, for a number of reasons.

First of all, with properly positioned cameras, you're able to a shot that will quickly and definitively tell you if the ball was fair or foul. You point the camera at the foul pole from an angle inside the foul line. If the ball disappears as it passes the foul pole, it's a foul ball, and if you can see it the whole way, it's fair. Very, very simple. One of the problems with replay in other sports is that sometimes you spend a significant amount time reviewing something, and the replay doesn't provide a definitive answer. That's not the case here. Furthermore, the reality is that on plays like this, directly down the line, which is where the 1B and 3B umpires are positioned, is one of the worst spots to try and make that call from. So, any delay resulting from this kind of review is going to be rather minimal.

Secondly, there's really not a disruption to the "flow" of the game at this point to do a review. On such a play, the batter is either going to be standing back at the plate ready for another pitch, or doing a simple home run trot. Furthermore, given the importance of the call, if it's close, there is invariably going to be an argument by one of the managers, which is going to disrupt the game anyhow. What happens when a manager questions one of those calls? The umpires conference to see if anyone else got a better look at the call. Wouldn't that time be much better spent making a quick call up to the booth to find out what the camera already knows?

Like I said (and this is true in all sports), human error is going to be a reality of officiating. I get it, I accept it. But what I don't get is why the baseball powers that be are so stubborn as to not embrace a non-invasive technological solution to what is a very, very difficult (and important) call to make.

Recaping my Saturday

Yesterday was a very long day, but a very good one. As I posted yesterday, I was running a Bible quizzing tournament, which I've done now for the last 8 years. The day involves getting up at 6, getting ready and heading over to the church by 7 to finish final setup, and then wait for teams and officials to begin arriving around 7:30. The opening meeting of the tournament is scheduled for 8 am, and probably more years than not, I'm having to start that meeting with at least a team or two and possibily an official or two having not arrived. They always show up during the meeting, except for that one fateful year when an e-mail got lost in cyberspace and I was waiting for a team that wasn't coming. This year matched the norm, and we had 2 teams and 2 officials roll in after I'd started the meeting 10 minutes late. I schedule 30 minutes for a 20 minute meeting for just this sort of occasion.

Anyhow, after that all got settled, we sent the teams off to start what was a very successful day. Some of the highlights included: The morning running so smoothly that I was able to post a blog entry, read a chapter in Chris Coste's book, read a few articles in my Sports Illustrated, and slip in to watch several quizzes; using the early portion of my lunch break to break a 5 way tie in which all 5 teams were 2-2 against each other. If you want to know how that's done, don't ask me, because I'm still not sure how it happened; Doing a number of running laps around the church trying (successfully, I might add) to get everyone organized to start up after lunch 15 minutes earlier than originally scheduled; both divisions of quizzing having the finals of the double elimination playoffs going the extra quiz (with the varsity having both quizzes go into overtime; me announcing a boy named Alex as Alexa during the award ceremony. There was an Alexa on his team who also won an award, which is what I'm blaming my typo on.

When the first quiz of the varsity finals went into overtime, it killed a dream of mine. Had the team that was undefeated going into the finals won that quiz in regulation, the varsity final would have ended before it was scheduled to start. What can I say? Tournament directors have weird dreams. We always run on-time/early at my tournament, and this would have taken that to a new level.

Anyhow, after teardown/cleanup, I headed back to spend a little more time with my folks, and then drove back to the West Shore. After spending some time with Chaser and getting my laundry done, I crashed into bed at about 9:45 pm. I was just exhausted. This always happens after the tournament no matter how well it goes. The only thing that's impacted by how well the tournament ran is whether that exhaustion is primarily physical (I have to be up/down/around all day even when things are going smoothly), or whether there's some serious mental exhaustion brought on by dealing with all the problems. This year, it was virtually all physical. And I've got to say, there are few feelings that are much better than climbing into bed at the end of the day when you're as wiped out as I was, and can couple that with a profound satisfaction and sense of accomplishment regarding the reasons for your fatigue.

Yesterday was a VERY good day.

Feeling my age...

So today I'm blogging on location from my post at the scoring table of the 2008 Allegheny Open Bible quizzing tournament, of which I am the tournament director. The church we have the tournament in put in wireless internet 3 years ago, which makes the idle time I spend waiting for people to bring me scores a bit more interesting. I also have this week's Sports Illustrated and Chris Coste's book with me for additional entertainment. If it sounds like I might be complaining about being bored, trust me, I'm not. As director of a one day tournament involving over 20 teams (okay, so it's 21, but over 20 sounds more impressive), boring is a VERY good thing. In the morning portion of the tournament, I'm either going to be bored for significant periods of time, or I'm going to be ridiculously stressed because things are going wrong. I spend a lot of time prior to today doing things to me sure I will have a lot of downtime.

Anyhow, I'm feeling kind of old today. The reason for this is rather simple - the material that the kids are quizzing on today (Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) is the last material I quizzed on back in my quizzing days. The material comes around on an 8 year cycle, so that means this year is my 8th year as a tournament director, and those 8 years immediately followed 8 years as a quizzer. All of that means that about 80% of the quizzers running around today were not born when I started quizzing back in 1992-93. Couple that with the fact that I went out with the family last night to celebrate my 28th birthday last night (my actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, but the folks are heading to Mexico for a few days starting tomorrow night), and I'm definitely "feeling my age".

That's not to say that I'm feeling depressed or bothered by my advancing years, even as 30 comes bearing down on me with more inevitablity than ever. It's just that there are certain things that serve as concrete markers of just how much time has past, and I hit two of them within a couple days of each other. I've never been one to subscribe to the idea that the younger years (particularly the high school and college years) are the best ones of your life. Let's really think about it, because if you take that view of life, it means I would be sitting here at almost 28 with nothing to do but look back. And that's just crazy. I don't think you have to be a crazy optimist (especially since I'm not one in general) to believe that each stage of life has it's own adventures, joys, and benefits, and that we should always have something to look ahead to. As we look back on our lives, we often tend to nostalgize the good things about the past, and forget the various pains, sorrows, and disappointments that those former stages presented. For me, the past is nothing something to look back upon and wish for a return to, but it's roadmap into my future - to learn from and use to make the years to come more special and wonderful. It's a perspective that I sometimes lose sight of, but am lately finding it easier to keep returning to.

Finally!

I am very excited right now. I mean, really excited. Perhaps obscene would even be an appropriate term for my current level of excitement.

Why am I so excited? Well, because on this day, April 10th, 2008, I sit here writing this blog, while wearing *gasp* shorts! This is the first time I've had shorts on while in Pennsylvania this year. Well, actually, that's not true. I did wear shorts on the plane back from Florida, and kept them on until I got back to my folks' house, which is in Pennsylvania. So, this is the first time I've warn shorts in Pennsylvania and would have been comfortable going outdoors in them...

It is a beautiful spring day in southcentral PA, with clear blue skies, and temperatures at/near 70. In fact, it's probably the first "true" spring day we've had. We've had beautiful sunny skies (combined with 50 degree weather and a 15 MPH breeze) and we've had a day or two of relatively warm weather (couple either with rain or lots of clouds), but today is the first day I can recall having them at the same time.

Spring is, without question, my favorite time of the year. And I know I'm not unique in that regard. So the fact that it's taken us 20 days from the "official" start of spring to get a day like this has been mildly depressing. I love being able to have the heat off and have the windows open, and let the screen doors do their magic, creating a wonderful moving air through the house. I love being able to walk my dog without a big hurry to get back into the house due to the uncomfortable temperatures. I love having the option of running out and walking 9 holes of golf, without the use of long pants and a jacket. There's just something fundamentally right about the world on a day like today!

I hope those reading this are being blessed with similar weather today, but if not, know that spring is indeed coming, for real this time!

Bringing Down the House

So, I just finished Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich. I just started the book last Thursday, so it took me less than a week to read it, which I believe makes it the quickest read I've had since I got serious about reading again. And it wasn't particularly short, nor was it a simple read. The book was just compelling enough that I had to keep reading it, going beyond the normal time I set aside to read on a given day. It was just a case of an incredible story meeting up with a gifted story teller.

The book (which is now a major movie that is currently out in theaters) tells the story of a group of MIT students who were made a killing as professional blackjack players (card counters) in the late 90s. The central figure of the story is Jeffrey Ma (in the book, he is referred to as Kevin Lewis). The book tracks him through his recruitment, training and testing, his widely successful play, the double life he led and the various complications of that, and the crackdown on his team that eventually led him to give up the life.

As I said, Ben Mezrich is clearly a gifted storyteller, and he did an excellent job of really getting into Ma's head and laying out his motivations, his various internal conflicts at times, and other things like that. And the story itself is just a thriller, that happens to be true, especially as the casinos begin to track the team and try to dissuade them. Card counter isn't illegal (it's not actually cheating), but obviously casinos aren't a big fan of people who can beat their games, and man, did these guys beat them. In an interview that was added to the end of the book in the movie tie-in release, Ma states that in his roughly 5 years of counting, his team never failed to return at least a 30 percent profit to their investors. Ridiculous.

Part of my attraction to the book was that, as a recovering "math geek" myself, it made being a "math geek" come off as very, very cool. Also, probably my favorite comedy of all time is Ocean's 11, and this story had very much the same feel - the brilliant heroes versus the "evil" casinos. This story also had the added advantages of the heroes not actually being criminals, so there was no reason at all not to root for them. And it was true, on top of everything.

So yeah, this was a best-seller almost 5 years ago, so many people haven't read it, but I'd highly recommend it to any holdouts. Mezrich has written 3 other books since then (only one other about Vegas), and I'm definitely going to plan to work through those books over time. Next up on my non-fiction list is much more a niche book, The 33 Year Old Rookie, by current Phillies backup catcher, Chris Coste. Coste's story probably doesn't hold a lot of inherent interest to someone who isn't Phillies fan, but I've been fascinated with the guy since he made his Phillies (and major league) debut in the spring of '06.

On comebacks and collapses

HavI have to start by saying how grateful I am for the quality of last night's NCAA basketball title game. On the whole, this was a rather lackluster tournament. This was not a result of all the favorites advancing to the Final Four, as some would have you to believe. It was the general way in which they, and virtually every other team that won games in this tournament, did so. Relatively speaking, there just weren't a lot of really competitive games this year, a pattern which continued with the Kansas and Memphis romps in the semis. And with Memphis seemingly running away down the stretch after what had been a close game most of the way, I was settling in for more of the same.

And, then, well, if you care, you know what happened, so I won't go into a ton of detail. Trailing by 9 with 2:12 to play, Kansas rallied to send the game into overtime. Pivotal moments included a Kansas steal and immediate 3 point shot to cut the lead to 4, Memphis going 1 for 5 in their last 3 trips to the free throw line, and Kansas' Mario Chalmers burying a contested 3 pointer to tie the game with 2.1 seconds left in regulation. Memphis, clearly deflated and without big man James Dorsey, who had fouled out a few minutes earlier, was unable to mount any kind of resistance in the OT, and Kansas is your 2008 NCAA basketball champions.

The ending of the game set off an interesting discussion within the media today, with people carefully walking the line between celebrating Kansas' comeback and criticizing Memphis' collapse. Dan Patrick even went as far as to ask his listeners which it was, implying that there was some exclusivity between the two, that it needed to be one or the other. And of course, most listeners were quick to label it a Memphis collapse, which is particularly easy to do given Memphis' free throw woes.

And yet, I find the whole discussion generally foolish. There's a simple fact at play here - in order for there to be a change in two teams fortunes in the course of a game noteworthy enough to be discussed the following day, the team in the lead HAS to present the trailing team with the opportunity to do so. You could perhaps make the argument a comeback was primarily the result of the trailing team's good play, but that ignores the fact the team with the lead does have an impact on their play. So, there is always a collapse, and always a comeback in these stories.

Yes, it is true that Memphis if Memphis makes 2 of 5 free throw instead of 1 of 5, they win the game. It's also true that there are few things Memphis could have done better on Kansas' last play of regulation. For the record, I'm not totally sold on the notion that Memphis should have fouled on that possession, though it is apparently what Memphis coach John Calipari wanted to do. I generally favor that option in similar situations, however, any foul would have probably left 5 seconds or more on the clock, and with Memphis not hitting their own free throws, I don't know that you give Kansas points with the clock stopped. I do think Memphis failed to fully sell out to defend the perimeter, and that it would have been best had Memphis called a timeout to figure out exactly what they wanted to do, since it was clear that they did not.

However, it is also true that were it not for a great steal off an inbounds and subsequent 3, Kansas likely never would have gotten the game close enough for the free throw misses to have been noteworthy. And it is also true that, despite all Memphis's mistakes, Kansas still needed a relatively long, contested 3 in order to send the game into overtime. Memphis certainly opened the door, but it wasn't as wide open as some media folk would have you believe. It's not like Memphis left the court. Kansas still had to make a number of excellent plays down the stretch. To suggest that the victory was a Memphis collapse, and not a Kansas comeback, is an insult to the terrific play Kansas laid out there down the stretch. They could easily have lost their cool and given up when most of us watching the game did.

Did Memphis collapse to some degree? Absolutely. However, did Kansas do some great things in coming back? Absolutely. So, I would ask the media, in their rush to crucify Calipari, and to say I told you so with regard to Memphis' well-documented free throw shooting woes, please make the appropriate effort to give Kansas their due. Spending all your time harping on Memphis is to imply that Kansas had something handed to them on a silver platter,and that's just not true.

Looking at the Final Four

So, I've been talking about what a great Final Four we're going to have, starting tonight, as for the first time ever, we have nothing but number 1 seeds left. UNC, Kansas, UCLA, and Memphis have been the best four teams in the country all season, and they have survived to battle for the ultimate prize. As I've announced before, my original bracket predictions had UCLA defeating UNC in the championship game, so I still hope that is what happens, but I'm unsure that I think that is what will happen.

As I break things down, I'm quite comfortable with UNC as the winner of their game against Kansas. Tyler Hansbrough (this week's SI cover, for the second time in a month) is one of the best players I've seen at the collegiate level, and his will is just tremendous, as has been documented over and over again. Unfortunately, the focus on his work ethic and determination often overshadows what a talent he truly is. I don't see Kansas having a match for him one on one. UNC has been exceedingly impressive throughout their tournament run, but never more so than in dispatching Louisville, Louisville may have been playing better than any team that didn't make the Final Four. Kansas, on the other hand, looked less than impressive in dispatching Davidson. Davidson is not your average 10 seed, but still, it leaves some doubts for me. The experts have suggested that Kansas played that game tight, thinking about some of their recent failures, and that the pressure will be off them in the Final Four. That may be true, but I really question it. I think the X factor for this game will be what UNC gets out of point guard Ty Lawson, who has been somewhat hit or miss since returning from an ankle injury that cost him 7 games towards the end of the regular season. If Lawson is playing well, I don't think Kansas can stay with the Tar Heels.

UCLA and Memphis is more interesting to me. Memphis was absolutely dominant last weekend in dispatching Michigan State and Texas, and they excelled in what has been their biggest area of weakness, free throw shooting. The Tigers are well coached and ridiculously athletic, and Derrick Rose may be the best guard playing in San Antonio this weekend. UCLA finally found a dominating performance against Xavier, after a lackluster first 3 games of the tournament. UCLA, of course, has been here before, as this is their 3rd straight Final Four appearance, and you know Coach Ben Howland will have them ready to go. UCLA also has the kind of special inside presence that you don't see that much at the college level anymore, in freshman Kevin Love. The big question here will be which team's style will be able to control the game - UCLA's controlled, defensive style, or Memphis' more open game. UCLA was my title pick, but I'm finding it hard to pick against Memphis right now. I think the bottom line will be that, if they hit their free throws like they did last weekend, they will advance. If they look more like they have all season from the line, they could be in trouble. All of that being said, I think I'm gonna have to go against my bracket, and pick Memphis in this one.

I'm not going to spend a ton of space breaking down a game that may not happen, so I'll just simply say if that matchup occurs, I'll take UNC over Memphis in an epic title game.

Oh yeah...

I hadn't mentioned it before now, but I guess it should be pretty obvious that my advice regarding finishing out your NCAA bracket was exceedingly sound, it just didn't go far enough to be dreadfully useful in this crazy historic year.

To review:
Pick a Final Four that consists of 4 teams whose seeds add up to 10 or less
Well, 4 is definitely less than than 10. Within this piece of advice, I also advised picking 2 1 seeds to go to the Final Four. If you followed this advice, you got at least 2 Final Four teams right, which is a pretty solid showing. Of course, if you only picked 2 1 seeds, you ONLY got two Final Four teams correct. Chances are good there was someone in your pool who took at least 3 of the 1 seeds.

Don't pick a team seeded worse than 4th to make the Final Four
Again, words to live by, but this year, you needed to not pick anyone seeded worse than 1st

Pick a #1 seed to win the title
Clearly a 1 seed will win the title, so the only question is if you picked the right one.

So, all in all, I'm very comfortable with the framework I laid out for picking your bracket. Next year's edition will likely include a bit more emphasis on picking the favorites through the 2nd round, and will have the benefit of a more complete analysis of past results.

Clearing the Bases

For a variety of reasons, some valid, some not so valid, my reading slowed down a good bit over the last month. However, I'm back in the groove again, and I just wrapped up legendary Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt's book, Clearing the Bases.

The book was essentially equal parts autobiography of Schmidt's life in baseball and commentary on the state of today's game. The autobiographical piece was very insightful to me. Schmidt was my favorite player growing up (and probably remains my all-time favorite, though Chase Utley stands a good chance of assuming that role if he continues his current level of play and spends most/all of his career with the Phillies), but the reality is that I really can't remember watching any baseball until around 1987, and Schmidt retired in early '89, so I really never knew a whole lot about his career. I think one of the major fascinations I had with his story was that, even for a guy with Hall of Fame talent like he had, he still needed a number of breaks to wind up where he did. Identifying baseball talent is, always has been, and probably always will be, a rather inexact science.

As for his commentary on the current game, I was rather impressed with it as well. While, like most players I would assume, he clearly shows favoritism to the era he played in (he referred to it more than once as the best era of baseball), he doesn't come at today's game with a "back in my day, we did it this way, and we liked it" mentality. While he does share a few concerns, for the most part he looks at the evolutions in the game (more fan friendly, but also hitter-friendly parks, lighter, harder bats, etc) over the last 30 years as positives that should be maintained. He even blew me out of the water by advocating expanding the DH to the NL. I guess even a Hall of Fame player can't be right about everything...

As you might expect, he did spend a significant amount of time on steroids. Interestingly enough, Schmidt came on the Dan Patrick show this morning, right after Dan had finished interviewing Jose Canseco. Schmidt basically said a significant reason for him to write his book was the kind of spotlight that Canseco's book had put on baseball and steroids when it came out in 2005. Schmidt's take on what to do about numbers from the steroid era pretty much matches mine, that you can't erase history, you just need to make sure you put it proper context. That's actually his take about baseball history across eras in general. One thing I will say is that I think Schmidt views himself as more of an authority on what actually went on in clubhouses during the steroids era than he actually is. While I'm sure as a former player, he's much more in touch with that sort of thing than say, me, the fact of the matter is that he left the clubhouse in '89, before steroids really invaded baseball. So, when he states as fact that most players in the steroid era didn't use, I have to take that with a grain of salt. I like Mike Schmidt a lot more than I like Jose Canseco, but unfortunately I think Canseco clearly has to be viewed as more credible on this issue.

Anyhow, another very good read. My next book will be Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of 6 MIT Students Who Took Vegas For Millions, by Ben Mezrich. If that sounds familiar to you, it's the book the movie 21, which just opened last weekend, is based on. I was aware of this story, and had heard of the book via a Mezrich appearance on The Jim Rome show a few months ago, so when I heard about the movie, I decided I needed to put the book on my reading list. Hopefully I'll have it finished in time to go catch the movie while it's still in theaters.

More on the demise of the Cinderella

While I would love to pontificate regarding baseball's real Opening Day, I feel as though I need to revisit my thoughts of last night, just to add some clarity.

First of all, I was at church during the Davidson/Kansas game last night, so I did not see. If I had, I would have, in all likelihood, been rooting for Davidson to pull off the upset. I totally get the urge to root for the underdog, and Davidson's run through the tournament was absolutely compelling and interesting. I was certainly sad to see it end. Secondly, I really believe that, had Davidson won, they would have stood a legitimate chance at making some noise in the Final Four. They may not have won a game, almost certainly would not have won the championship, but I don't think they would have been run off the floor by UNC. Though it's seed, size, and relative unknown status coming into the tournament fit the idea of Cinderella team pretty classically, in many ways Davidson was far from your traditional Cinderella. They played an absolutely brutal non-conference schedule, and fared quite well. In fact, after the loss to Kansas, Davidson has now played 3 of the 4 Final Four teams, faring extremely well, with a 12 point loss at UCLA, a 4 point loss at home against UNC, and the 2 point loss to Kansas yesterday. They also hung with Duke, who despite their end of season collapse was among the top 10 teams in the country for most of the year, falling by only 6. This team was battle tested and unafraid.

I'm not lashing out at the Cinderella story, nor would I suggest for a second that Davidson having made the Final Four wouldn't have been a terrific story. It absolutely would have, and it would have been exceedingly compelling, though possibly providing a lesser caliber of basketball at the Final Four. I get all that, and I even buy into it. If Davidson could have somehow finished the run and won the title, it would have been one of the greatest stories ever. What I found ridiculous was this idea that absent the underdog story, this Final Four would be somehow lackluster, and somehow lacking drama.

That couldn't be farther from the truth, in my opinion. What you lose by not having an underdog/Cinderella in the Final Four is not drama, or a compelling storyline, but rather the easy storyline. I think I've mentioned in my previous critiques of the media that I find the media to be lazy. This is a prime example of that. And to be honest, I have a hard time being too hard on them for that. Having run this blog for several months now, wanting to put something up everyday, and having days when I just don't find anything particularly interesting to write about, I understand the temptation to gravitate to the easy story. However, it creates problems. In effort to create mass appeal beyond hardcore sports fans, the sports media often emphasizes storylines much more strongly than the actual game itself. It's the phenomenon that's led to the constant shuffling of the Monday Night Football booth for a more entertaining combination - the idea that we need to find ways to get people to pay attention to sporting events who aren't terribly interested in the games themselves. That means that these easy storylines get beaten into our skulls as sports fans. As a result, they are the things that we expect and look for, and so when they are absent, it can be easy for the fan to feel like something is missing.

The real fallacy here is the idea that this lack of a Cinderella story at the Final Four is in any way new or different. Sure, this is the first time that all the 1 seeds have made the Final Four, but I could give you a number of years prior to this one where the Final Four didn't contain any teams that could be described as Cinderellas, or even underdogs. In fact, last year would be a perfect example, with 2 1 seeds and 2 2 seeds. Of course, there was the easy storyline of Florida's quest to repeat to keep anyone from noticing that. Honestly though, I think what some people, fan and media alike, are expressing is more about disappointment with the end of Davidson's run than the composition of the Final Four. And to be completely fair, I don't think it's a majority sentiment, or even that close to being one, but there is an undercurrent that is clearly there in both entities.

Despite my general criticism of the mainstream media, I have really been enjoying listening to Dan Patrick's radio show over the last several months since it came on the air in Harrisburg. I think he's a fair journalist, and a great entertainer. However, I have to admit to taking some perverse pleasure in listening to him seemingly grope around trying to get his head around the story of this year's Final Four. "Who do I root for? Who is the underdog? There isn't one." To which I say, exactly! And that's a great story in and of itself, one that will in all likelihood lead to incredible basketball, since we're left with 4 teams who are, and have been all season, championship caliber.

Fortunately for the media, they've quickly found another easy storyline, that being the matchup of UNC coach Roy Williams, with his former employer, Kansas, in the semi-finals. Quite frankly, I'd rather they had a Cinderella story to beat into the ground.

Isn't this exactly what we should be hoping for?

First of all, I would like to take a moment to congratulate my good friend, the trained chimp, who seems poised to win office pools around the country this year, with the historic advancement of all four #1 seeds to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. You were the better man, so to speak, this year.

Secondly, I'd like to comment on the sentiment I've already heard from a few people in the last couple hours, that having all the #1 seeds in the Final Four is somehow not compelling and/or uninteresting. I suppose that might be the case, if you don't have an appreciation if you don't find great basketball to be compelling or interesting. It would be one thing if this sentiment was coming from a casual fan, but a couple of these folks are serious college basketball fans.

It appears that, at least to some degree, we've been somehow brainwashed into thinking that there needs to some compelling back story in order to make a Final Four noteworthy. And that's sad. The reality, as I've pointed out in past posts, is that in most cases, a favorite ends up winning the championship, so any of these compelling stories come to an unpleasant end 9 out of 10 times. In fact, in a lot of years, the Final Four has ended up being anti-climatic relative to the rest of the tournament, because regardless of the story lines, you often wind up with matchups that just aren't particularly interesting as they play out on the court. As much fun as the Cinderella stories are, midnight comes inevitably, and generally with a level of authority. People like to talk about how wonderful George Mason's run in '06 was, and it was a great story, but we forget that it ended with them being dominated by Florida as part of what was a very blah Final Four. We talk about how wild the 2000 tournament was, when 1 seed Michigan State was the only team above a 5 to make the Final Four, but conveniently leave out that the Spartans ran roughshod through the weak Final Four field for their title.

Let's really think about what this year's Final Four represents. The 4 1 seeds are, at least in theory (and I believe in practice this year), the 4 teams that were the best in the country all season long. If that weren't enough, you also have 3 extremely storied programs in UCLA, UNC, and Kansas, along with an extremely exciting Memphis team crashing the party out of Conference USA. Almost invariably in other years, you have at least one semi-final that is a mis-match, or you have a feeling that one of the semi-finals is the real championship game. That is certainly not the case this year, as we are guaranteed 3 matchups that would all make very satisfying title game matchups. Of the Final Fours that I can remember, other than the ones that Duke emerged from as champion, my all-time favorite has to be 1993. Not coincidentally, that was the year when the Final Four had the lowest combined seeds in history, prior to this year. There were 3 1s (UNC, Kentucky, Michigan) and a 2 (Kansas). 3 truly great matchups, combined with a signature moment (Chris Webber's ill-fated call of a timeout Michigan did have) in the title game. Truly classic. I expect a similar feel to this year.

If you're a serious college hoops fan and are somehow turned off by this year's Final Four, I have to believe there's something wrong with you, because apparently you need something other than great basketball to pique your interest. Isn't this what we're all clamouring for in college football, having the best 4 teams playing for the title?

So, if you're a little down on this year's Final Four, I urge you to give it a chance, and appreciate it for what it is - the absolute highest level of basketball that the college game can offer you. I have a feeling you won't come away disappointed.

Update

Well, with UNC and UCLA's wins tonight, I went 2-0 and got my two championship game participants into the Final Four. Of course, so did the trained chimp, though it's not certain which teams the trained chimp would go with at the Final Four. This is really shaping up to be the year where the trained chimp method could easily produce an office pool champion, if the person using it picked correctly amongst the 1 seeds once they took them all to the Final Four. This is shaping up to be the 4th time that 3 1 seeds make the Final Four, and I think this is the best look we've had in quite some time at the elusive Final Four of all #1 seeds, which has never happened. We'll see. Given that this would be only the 4th time in the last 24 years that the trained chimp method would yield more than 2 Final Four picks, I stand by my earlier assessment of it as a solid strategy for avoiding a crash and burn, but not a winning strategy. I will be doing a full scale evaluation of past results to see how the method fares historically in the earlier rounds.

I just realized I can't do better than 2nd in my pool, but that I would definitely finish 2nd if I get the UCLA over UNC title game result. I came out of the 2nd round down 10 points to a guy who also has that scenario (I had one more than him in the first round, he had 3 more than me in the 2nd), and due to the somewhat unorthodox scoring of this bracket, I can't get ahead of him, even though if Texas beats Memphis, I'd have 3 Final Four picks to his 2.

Seriously, we get it already!

Okay, so my bracket took a significant step towards recovery last night, as I was 4-0 in the first night of Sweet 16 games, and moved up from a tie for 21st into a tie for 11th. Now, the best I can do tonight is 2-2, since 2 teams I had winning tonight were knocked out in the 2nd round. I could really use some help. A Davidson win would be nice, but a Michigan State win over Memphis would be huge. I need Memphis not to make the Final Four, because if they do, I don't think I can get ahead of at least one player who has UCLA over UNC in the final like I do.

But, that's not really why I'm writing this post. While I watching the late games wrap up last night, I flipped over to Spike and watched portions of the season finale of Pros vs. Joes. If you're unfamiliar with this show, the basic concept is that they have a bunch of amateur athletes (the Joes) compete in a variety of events against several former professional athletes (the Pros). The show is in it's 3rd season, and I found it as quite a novelty at first, but haven't really watched it much since the first season. Ultimately, the show centers around the banter between pros and joes, and around the pros generally making the joes look pretty silly in their events. It's not really about beating the pros in the various competitions, as much as it is about losing to them by less than the other joes.

They changed the format around this year, and one thing I noticed in the few times that I watched was that for the most part, the competition now centers on the pros beating the living crap out of the joes physically. One of the events invariably involved going up against a former football player and getting crushed, and on several occasions, the Joes were asked to get into the ring against a retired boxer.

The finale, however, took this to a whole new level, due to the participation of Bob Sapp, a 6' 5", 375 beast of a man who was briefly an offensive lineman in the NFL, before becoming a beast of an MMA fighter. The last chance for the Joes to qualify for the decisive "overtime' competition involved an attempt to survive 3 minutes in the ring with Sapp, who was about 200 pounds heavier than either Joe he faced, and obviously more skilled. One of the Joes stepped into the ring with Sapp having 9 stitches in his chin from a semi-final mishap, and a deeply bruised rib from an attempt to tackle former Pro Bowl RB Jamal Anderson earlier in the final. Needless to say, both Joes were quickly and mercilessly dispatched. For added measure, Sapp had donned football pads and blocked for Anderson in the first competition of the night.

I really have to ask what we've come to when this kind of thing seems like a good idea for TV. Please, don't get me wrong. While I'm not a big fan of boxing and MMA, I at least recognize the appeal of those sports, where well-trained athletes fight each other. But we're basically talking about guys who are/were world class athletes getting to use average guys who stand zero chance of defending themselves as punching bags, and in most cases really seeming to enjoy it. I don't think that one guy surviving 8-10 seconds longer than another against that kind of punishment is really any kind of worthwhile measure of their athletic ability. I watched the show, but I really did not enjoy that segment.

And, while I understand they are being paid, I have to question what kind of athlete signs up for this sort of assignment, and takes joy in it the way a lot of these pros clearly do. Not that they've gotten any real A-list athletes on the show, but my opinion of several of the athletes I've seen on the show has been significantly lowered by their conduct, whether they are mainly just playing for the cameras or not. I understand these guys are competitors of the highest level, but you'd think they could find a different way to exercise that competitive edge, and take a little less joy in embarrassing people who we all know have no real business being out there with them to begin with. I'd love to see the show return to it's earlier days, when it was much more about the actual skill of the competitors than it was about their ability to absorb a physical beating without actually dying.

Looking back

Okay, so after a massive post giving all kinds of advice for filling out your NCAA tournament brackets for your pool, my bracket is, predictably, in shambles. I got off to a great start by my standards, picking 25 out of the 32 first round games correctly, and sitting 2nd in my pool after the first round. The 2nd round did not go so well, however, as I finished 8-8, and lost a Final Four team (Georgetown) and another team I had going to the Elite 8 (Pitt). The end result, I'm now tied for 21st out of 34. The reality is that shambles is probably a bit of an overstatement. My championship game participants and champion teams are still there, and if I can get that and virtually everything else, I can probably put a solid run together.

The question is, did following my own advice get me burned? And I would say that, to date, the answer is no, and in fact, I believe it helped me to a much stronger setup than I would normally have had. There is a ton of latitude within the realm of the advice I laid out, and I never guaranteed a good showing for following it.

Anyhow, let's look back at the advice that pertained to the first 2 rounds, and see how following it panned out.

Pick the top 4 seeds in each bracket to win their first round game
All of the 1, 2, and 3 seeds won their first games, and two 4 seeds (Vandy and UConn) fell, leading me to a 14-2 record in those 16 games. Following this strategy strictly also kept me from picking the "trap" upset of 14 Georgia over 3 Xavier. Getting that right, I took Xavier out to the Elite 8, and they are in the Sweet 16, with a favorable matchup to get to the Elite 8.

Don't fall in love with those 11 and 12 seeded teams
My advice was not to pick more than 1 or 2 upsets in this range. There were actually 3, as two 5 seeds and a 6 seed lost. I wound up not picking any upsets in this range, so I netted a 5-3 record in those games. One of those upsets did hurt me, as I had 6 seed USC going to the Sweet 16. In retrospect, I should probably modify this piece of advice to suggest picking at least 1 upset in this range, as their are usually a couple.

The money games in the first round are those 7 v. 10 and 8 v. 9 matchups
As a group, these are basically a coin-flip, as I said. I went 6-2 in these games, which was a nice showing that was the difference between a solid 25 win first round, and a lackluster 22-23.

Advance all of the #1 seeds to the Sweet 16
It's very good that I followed this piece of advice, or my second round would have been even worse. All 4 1 seeds are still alive, so that was an easy 4-0 in those second round games. I didn't have the numbers at the time, but on the broadcast they showed that 1 seeds had only lost 12 second round games since the field went to 64, now 12 in 24, which means on average a 1 seed loses in the 2nd round once every year. Trying to find one is too high a risk. As my advice suggested but didn't command, I also took all the 2 seeds to the Sweet 16 as well, which stung a bit as 2 of them went down, including Final Four pick Georgetown. Still, that was 6-2 for those games, as I suggested was the worst you would do taking all of the 1s and 2s to the Sweet 16. The real issue was taking Georgetown onto the Final Four, not specifically picking them to win that game.

The rest of my advice was related to things that we won't know about for another week or more, and I'll evaluate it as the time comes. The bottom line here is that I think my advice served me pretty well. I didn't shoot myself in the foot with crazy early round picks, which was the objective here. And really, if Georgetown doesn't blow a 17 point second round lead, I'd be in excellent shape at this point. Those are the kinds of things that no set of guidelines are going to help you avoid.

Not quite enough. Falcons fall in title game.

Well, sadly, once again the Lady Falcons dream ended one win short of completion, as they fell to the HPU Yellowjackets by a score of 68-54. The Falcons finish their incredible season at 30-3, and as the national runners-up for the 2nd time in school history. I'm sure they are bitterly disappointed now, but as they step away, the Falcon seniors can reflect on an outstanding career and final season.

The story of the game from my perspective was the Howard Payne defense. Howard Payne's aggressive 2-3 zone had Messiah struggling all game, and they forced the Lady Falcons into a high number of turnovers. I admittedly didn't pay close enough attention to HPUs game yesterday to be sure that the 2-3 zone was HPUs standard defense, but I was very concerned when I saw them run it. For a team that has the kind of shooters that Messiah always does, this year being no exception, the Lady Falcons have traditionally struggled when attacking a zone. The Falcons also, as I feared, struggled on the defensive glass, given HPU way too many second chances in the way of offensive rebounds. All that being said, HPU was simply a better team, in my opinion. It was clear from the early going why they had rolled to their undefeated record.

Gotta say that, despite the result, getting to watch the game on TV was about the coolest thing ever. It was almost surreal.

I was also thinking today about what an incredible run Messiah athletics has been on over the last 8 years. At the beginning of 2000 (I was starting my 2nd semester of my sophomore year at the time), Messiah had no national champions, either from teams or individuals. The program had been to a combined 8 Final Fours (6 from the field hockey team, 2 from the soccer team), with only 2 runner up finishes to show for it (both field hockey).

Since 2000, Messiah has seen the following:
2 individual national champions (Mike Helm - wrestling 2000, Chris Boyles - decathalon 2002)
6 national champion teams (men's soccer - 2000, 2002, 2004-2006, women's soccer - 2005)
8 national runner up teams (field hockey - 2001,2002,2005,2006, women's soccer 2002, 2007, women's basketball - 2001, 2008)
19 Final Four teams (field hockey, 2001,2002,2004-2006, women's soccer 2002, 2004-2007, mens soccer 2000-2002,2004-2007, womens basketball 2001, 2008)

It's a pretty incredible time to be a fan of Messiah athletics, when you think about it all in that context. Let's hope it doesn't end anytime soon!

Sizing up the competition

Well, I watched most of the second semi-final, and I have to say, I was quite impressed with Messiah's opponent in the championship game, the Howard Payne Yellowjackets, who defeated UW-Whitewater by a score of 69-59. This was not unexpected, given that HPU came into the game undefeated, and having outscored their opponents by an average margin of 28 points.

The Yellowjackets are led by WBCA D-III National Player of the Year, G Meia Daniels. Daniels is extremely quick, probably more so than anyone the Falcons have to defend her. She struck me as the kind of guard that has given Messiah's defense fits in the past, and I'm most recently thinking back to Kean in January, and in last year's NCAA tournament. Also, unlike Oglethorpe, HPU will not be at a size disadvantage down low, as they have two very strong interior players in SR F Kimberly Hoffman, and SR C Stacey Blalock. I think Blalock in particular could cause Messiah some problems due to her size/strength combination, which I don't know that any of Messiah's defenders can match. Those three anchor the HPU offense. Defensively, HPU is extremely stout as well, as the fact that they are holding opponent's under 33% shooting for the year attests to. My biggest concern for the Falcons is that HPU is a dominant rebounding team, and Messiah tends to struggle on the boards against good competition, particularly in terms of giving up a number of offensive rebounds, due to the aggressive kind of man to man defense they play.

Okay, enough of the doom and gloom, I do see some areas where Messiah has the edge. As talented as Meia Daniels is, I don't think she's going to be able to deal with Nikki Lobach's offensive array, assuming she is guarding Lobach. I don't see anyone else on that team being able to do the job, so I expect this to be the matchup. Nikki has a slight height advantage, and I believe is also stronger, which favors her post up attack. HPU did play a fairly aggressive zone for at least part of the time I was watching, so perhaps it will be more of a collective responsbility. And, while I don't see anyone matching with Blalock of HPU in terms of size and strength, HPU doesn't seem to have anyone on the interior who is going to be able to deal with Sal Shani's size/speed/athleticism combination. As she has been throughout the tournament, Shani is going to be the X factor.

I haven't seen enough of HPU to even begin to predict an outcome with any expertise, especially given my obvious bias. The keys for the Falcons, as they have been pretty much all tournament long, will be to establish some sort of offensive presence in the paint, and to knock down the shots from the perimeter when they present themselves. They will also need to dig down deep and fight for every rebound and loose ball. I think HPU has to be favored, but if Messiah can do the things I just mentioned, they are certainly capable of bringing the walnut and bronze back to Grantham.

So, one more time for 2008, go Falcons!

Let's do it one more time! Messiah to the title game!

The Lady Falcon seniors have spent a lot of time this postseason talking about wanting to keep playing together as long as possible. Well, they've extended their season as long as they possibly can, and tomorrow they'll play their last game together, win or lose. Messiah held on to their halftime lead and defeated Oglethorpe by a score of 80-60 to advance to tomorrow's national title game, the 2nd title game appearance in program history.

Unlike Messiah's last trip to the title game in 2001, which came pretty much out of nowhere in what was only Messiah's 3rd ever appearance in the NCAAs, and which came after they had been absolutely torched in their conference title game against E-Town, Messiah opened the season as one of the favorites in D-III, and have been in the Top 10 in the rankings all season, spending a lot of time in the top 5. Also, unlike the 2001 trip, when Messiah ran into a dominant Washington University team that had won the last 3 championships, this time, Messiah boasts Mike Miller as the only coach with previous Final Four experience. I'll probably take a peak at the 2nd semi-final between undefeated Howard Payne and UW-Whitewater to get an idea about what the Falcons are up against, but I have very little doubt that the Falcons will have a much better look at the title this year.

As for the game itself, the second half was rather uneventful, with the Falcons content to slow the game down and maintain their lead. Oglethorpe was able to hold their own much better in the paint and on the boards in the second half, and was able to whittle down the Falcons lead to 14 at one point, but it didn't get any closer than that. Oglethorpe probably could have made a game out of it as the Falcons offense stalled, but they failed to capitalize on a number of very good opportunities.

I don't have precise stats, but what impressed me the most was the total team effort from the Falcons. All-American Nikki Lobach was a factor, but not the biggest factor, with only 11 points. Messiah had at least 2 (Schurr and Shani) and possibly 1 or 2 others (Kalb and Reed) in double figures. The performance clearly gave their potential opponents a lot to think about as they scouted the game.

So, Messiah will tip it off at 6:05 tomorrow evening for the championship. There's no online video feed, so if you don't have CSTV, you're out of luck as far as watching the game tomorrow. Messiah will have the radio feed available. As a reminder, I will not be able to watch the game live, so if you can follow it live, please refrain from calls or blog comments that would give away the result! I will post here when I'm done.

Bring it home, ladies!

Halftime update

Messiah 51, Oglethorpe 33

Very fast paced first half, as the score would indicate. Messiah started out slow, but opened the game up quickly with a 13-0 run after Oglethorpe had hit a 3 to go up 10-9. The Falcons have had the ultimate in inside/out attack, with Lauren Schurr bombing away, along with a little help from her friends, for 6 made 3 pointers, and Sal Shani dominating inside with 14 points off the bench.

Oglethorpe has a decided height disadvantage, and Messiah has exploited that to dominate the glass, particularly the offensive glass. Messiah's real strength is the perimeter, so if Oglethorpe can't hold their own in the paint, the story of this game won't change much in the 2nd half.

I love the internet!

If I haven't declared my undying love for the internet in this space before, it's long overdue.

What is spurring me to this praise? Well, as you know if you've been paying attention to this blog over the last couple weeks, Messiah's women's basketball team has advanced to the D-III Final Four. Their semi-final game is in about 40 minutes, in Holland, MI. I am in my normal New Cumberland, PA locale, and yet thanks to the internet, I should be able to actually watch the game live. How freakin' awesome is that? For those who might be interested in doing the same, go here. There's a free registration involved.

If the Lady Falcons get the job done, the title game will be at 6:00 PM tomorrow, and will be broadcast on TV by CSTV, so make plans to be somewhere that has that. Fortunately for me, my house happens to be one of those places. Unfortunately for me, I have church at 6:00 pm. But back on the fortunate side, this kind of situation is why God made DVRs :-)

Assuming the video streaming works out, you can expect a game report from me later tonight.

Go Falcons!

Overblown Non-Story of the Week Award

It's been far too long since I've done one of these, and the media thankfully gift-wrapped one for me. I mentioned in an entry a few weeks ago that I personally don't think that Barry Bonds' continuing unemployment is the result of him being blacklisted or some sort of collusion. That suggestion has been out there, but not getting a whole lot of run.

However, it has gotten a lot of run in the last 24 hours, because, if you're to believe a lot of the major media outlets, Donald Fehr announced yesterday that the union was going to launch an investigation into whether there was collusion specifically in Bonds' case. That would be something of a story, except that's not really what happened.

Here's a link to an article that details what actual went down. Fehr was talking to reporters, he was apparently asked about whether the union was going to look into Bonds' situation, and he responded that the union always looks into the free agent markets each year, and that if they found a situation with any player that's worth pursuing, they pursue it. He also went out of his way to say he wasn't suggesting or accusing anything, and that he hadn't even talked to Bonds or his agent. He basically said "Of course we're going to look into that, we always look into those matters."

So, Fehr's acknowledment that the union would do the same thing they always do somehow became front page link material on ESPN.com and other major websites, and had sports talk radio declaring that the union was launching an investigation into Bonds' case. To the media who managed to make a story appear out of thin air, I say bravo.

There is absolutely nothing newsworthy here, at all.

Fighting through the bracket mess

Okay, we have less than 24 hours to go until the start of the greatest sporting event in the world, the NCAA basketball tournament. (No, last night's "opening night game doesn't count, sorry Mt. St. Mary's) And that can only mean one thing for most people - you're busy agonizing over your bracket picks for your office pool or other contests. I've been there, and I'm here to help.

Now, this has to come with a disclaimer - I'm by no means an expert on picking the tournament, and my track record in bracket contests demonstrates that quite clearly. However, I've become much better over the years after learning from some of my own catastrophic mistakes, and I'm going to share my acquired wisdom in hopes that you might avoid some of my past fates.

First, some general guidelines:

Keep it simple, stupid
One of the biggest mistakes those of us who follow college basketball regularly make when filling out brackets is that we try to get too cute, and swing for the fences, trying to predict every single upset throughout the tournament. The end result of this strategy in most years is that you look smart for picking a couple of the big upsets, but you miss on a bunch of the others, and end up flaming out and finishing well behind that secretary whose system for picking games involves picking the team whose mascot they like the best. Look, if you're competing in ESPN's bracket challenge where there are only prizes for the top handful of finishers out of millions of entries, then yes, your best home run swing is required. You're going to need a near perfect bracket for it to be worth anything. However, in an office pool or a pool with your friends where you might be up against 25 people at most, a solid double in the gap is probably going to get the job done.

You can't win the pool on the first weekend, but you can definitely lose it
There are two ways that you can lose the pool on the first weekend of the tournament, one of which is obvious, and one of which is more subtle. The obvious way is that you can have a couple of Final Four picks go down in the first or second rounds, and maybe your champion. You'll realize immediately that your bracket is shot to hell, and it will probably reside in the garbage can by the end of the day Sunday. However, you can also lose the pool in that first weekend when a couple of your wild hunch upset picks go the wrong way, and teams you had going out in the first two rounds end up making deep runs. This results in a much more slow and painful death to your bracket, one which won't truly reveal itself until the end of the 2nd weekend, or maybe even Final Four weekend. Here's the simple truth: Unless your pool has some unusual rules, the first round is pretty much just for show, and you're much better off taking fewer first round risks in favor of keeping the big picture in mind.

Don't buy into the myth that you have go out on a limb to be successful
The average fan tends to focus on the upsets that often occur in the earlier rounds and portray the tournament as some crazy, unpredictable adventure. While there is the occassional year where all hell breaks lose, the simple reality is that by the end of the tournament, we're usually left with a fairly predictable results. There's nothing manly or sexy about picking a serious darkhorse team for a Final Four run, in fact, in most cases, it's suicidal.

And now, with those general principles in mind, here's some specific tips
Pick the top 4 seeds in each bracket to win their first round game
No number one seed has ever lost in the first round, and the first time one of them does, everyone else will miss it too. You're an idiot for picking against a 1 seed in the first round, even if one time it actually happens. You might see a #2 seed lose once every 5 or 6 tournaments. Again, there's just no need to try and be a hero picking against them. That 2 seed is way more likely to go the Final Four than to lose in the first round. It gets more tempting when you get to the 3 and 4 seeds. Invariably, 1 or 2 of these teams are going to get upset every year. So, if you have a REALLY good hunch on one of these matchups, you can play it, but no more than one. Following this tip is going to get you at least a 14-2 record in those games virtually every year, and you vastly decrease your chances of picking against an eventual Final Four team in the first round. Gunning for 16-0 in these games is too big a risk to your long term chances given the realities of the actual reward.

Don't fall in love with those 11 and 12 seeded teams
Once you get down below the 4 seeds, upsets are more common, but not as much as you might think. Generally, you're going to see maybe 2 or 3 5 and 6 seeds fall in the opening round, and so I wouldn't recommend picking more than 1 or 2 upsets in this range.

The money games in the first round are those 7 v. 10 and 8 v. 9 matchups
The 8 v. 9 matchups have always been coinflip games, and the 7 v. 10 matchups have become more so in the last few years. So, rather than spending a lot of energy trying to come up with the big upsets, you're better off trying to distinguish yourself in these matchups. The thing that makes these matchups particularly attractive is missing them probably isn't going to hurt you beyond the first round, since the winners will face #1 and #2 seeds in the second round, and generally bow out at this point.

Advance all of the #1 seeds to the Sweet 16
1 seeds do lose on occasion in the 2nd round, but unless there's some extreme extenuating circumstances, picking a 1 seed to go down before the Sweet 16 is a really bad play. Again, history says that #1 seed is much more likely to go the Final Four than to go down in the 2nd round, so you're setting yourself up for that slow, painful death I talked about earlier. 2 seeds are somewhat more vulnerable in 2nd round games, so if you want to play a hunch with one of them, go ahead. But the reality is that if you even go ahead and take all the #2 seeds to the Sweet 16 as well, you're probably going to go at least 6-2 in 2nd round games involving the 1s and 2s.

Pick a Final Four that consists of 4 teams whose seeds add up to 10 or less
As a more general guideline, I suggest taking 2 #1 seeds to the Final Four, because multiple #1s make the Final Four more often than they don't. Again, this is where the perception that the tournament is unpredictable as a rule just doesn't hold water. I've heard folks suggest that "this might be the year" that the seeds of the teams in the Final Four add up to single digits. The reality is that in 13 of the 23 tournaments since the field expanded to 64 teams, the total of the seeds of the Final Four teams added up to 9 or less, and there were 2 other tournaments where the total was 10, for 15 of 23 tournaments where this rule held true, or 2/3. If you REALLY want to get adventurous, you can go as high as 12, but there have only been 4 times when the number has been higher than that.

Don't pick a team seeded worse than 4th to make the Final Four
Yes, this will happen on occasion, but only on occasion, and you'll never really see it coming, nor will anyone else. A team seeded 5th or worse has made the Final Four 11 teams in 23 years, which accounts for about 12% of all Final Four teams. That 5 seed you like so much is much more likely to get bounced on the first weekend than to make it to the 3rd, so stay away. Really, I'd like to extend to the rule to include 4 seeds as well, because more than 75% of Final Four teams have been seeded 3rd or better, but I'm willing to let you hang yourself picking a 4.

Pick a #1 seed to win the title
Again, the reality that the tournament ends up holding form at the end more often than it doesn't comes back to play. #1 seeds have accounted for more championships (14) than every other seed combined (9) since the tournament expanded to 64 teams.

So, there you have it, the sum of my wisdom regarding picking the tournament. Do with it what you will. I certainly won't guarantee victory if you follow my road map (obviously you still have to pick the right teams within the constraints of my guidelines, and that's not easy), but 9 years out of 10, you'll stay alive late into the game and give yourself a good look at the prize. You'll also keep the spectacular flameouts to a minimum.

For my part, and for the public record, my Final Four is UCLA, Texas, UNC and Georgetown, with UCLA defeating UNC for the championship.