the shrewdness of apes

i'm still not 100% sold on the Olympics in general (the IOC is a travesty, etc.), and I still think that China is getting off way too easy on a lot of issues (lip synching? age scandals? doesn't anyone care that there are still well over 100 Tiananmen Square protestors in jail 19 years later? didn't thousands of children die when substandard schools collapsed in an earthquake while other buildings held up fine?), but i'm not ready to start ranting in earnest yet, and i've been watching more than i thought i would be, so let's take a look at something totally mindless: medal biting.

Slate did a short piece about this back in 2006, with the explanation that this tradition serves to test whether the medals are real, but gives no history. the practice has become so prevalent that the Olympian Blog has gone so far as to create a "medal biting" label for its entries, while apparently journalists will request that winner bite their medals for photo ops. as the pictures above show, this is not a new phenomenon, and appears to transcend race, gender and national borders (and possibly sexual orientation as well). some people seem serious, while others seem to be joshing around. there are plenty more examples to study. so i guess my question comes down to, is the authenticity of the medals really in any sort of doubt? has anyone ever received a fake medal? has anyone ever chipped a tooth? is this like the kidnappee who is forced to pose with that day's newspaper to prove he is still alive? is it really so interesting to see athletes biting their medals that they need to be asked to do so? does it make me some sort of killjoy that i think this tradition is wholly lame?

OK, back to the gymnastics and the debate over how on earth anyone can believe this girl is 16.

Posted by Jamie at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Up way too early to watch the U.S. and Nigeria battle to reach the knockout stage of the Olympic soccer tournament. Despite the lack of adequate sleep, I decided to dust off my analysis hat and put some thoughts together. Here we go.

What a disappointment, but what a wild last 20 minutes. Just when it looked like the U.S.'s goose was cooked, they came alive and were within one shot off the crossbar from advancing (thanks for nothing, Japan). Of course, they almost gave up 4 more goals at the end, but that's what happens when desperation forces such a single-minded push forward for a goal. And that desperation was the result of a careless, stupid foul early on that had the U.S. playing short-handed for virtually the entire game. That put them in a defensive mindset early as they packed everyone back and hoped they could withstand the assault. But like the Branch Davidians at Waco, it was only a matter of time before the assailing forces would break through and torch the place, as the Nigerians scored late in the first half and looked to have put it away with a second goal about 80 minutes in (that came on the heels of the kick-in-the-teeth news that the Netherlands had scored on a penalty kick). I seriously considered turning the TV off and going back to bed at that point, but I'm glad that I stuck it out, even if the end result wasn't what I had hoped. If you decided to sleep in, the full video and highlight packages should be up on NBCOlympics.com sometime this morning.

Overall, I am heartened about the prospects for the U.S. team going forward. Yes, there are some deficiencies, but it seems that many of the lapses are more mental than physical and those should be easier to correct. If Adu and Bradley had been in there it may have been a different story today, but playing the "what if" game will only make you crazy (or make me crazy at least). That doesn't mean some of Novak's decisions shouldn't be questioned, or that the players get a pass on bad play. To that end, a player-by-player breakdown follows.

STARTERS

Orozco - The goat for a mindless elbow that had him sent off early (must have gotten that from playing in Mexico). I thought he had played well in the first two games and I hope he will continue to develop for the future.

Guzan - Hung out to dry on both goals, but made some nice saves and looks to continue the strong tradition of U.S. goalkeepers. He'll even get to learn on the job with Brad Friedel at Aston Villa this year.

Parkhurst - Had been rock solid for 2+ games until he got beat along the end line on the first Nigerian goal. Fell down on the second goal as well and didn't get the necessary help from Wynne in time.

Wynne - Strong in defense and some good forays into the offensive zone, including a great run past 2 defenders that resulted in the U.S.'s best scoring chance of the first half. If only he had a little more touch with the ball at his foot, he might have picked out McBride who was wide open for a few seconds. Complicit in the second goal, which came from his side of the field.

Edu - Made the most of his opportunity during the tournament and played well again today. Moves forward well (he drew the foul that led to Kljestan's penalty goal)and becomes a target on some set pieces. I will need to watch some Toronto FC games to see how he plays in MLS.

Rogers - I can't sugarcoat it - he was awful during the first two games - giving away balls all day long and providing no crosses from the left side whatsoever. Even with the U.S. team shorthanded, I thought he should have been benched. Orozco' sending off forced him to play at left back and he had his best game of the tournament as a result. You could tell he was out of his element back there occasionally, but I thought he held his own and when he did move forward, he looked more confident and was able to do better with his possession. He's playing well in MLS and is only 21, so if he can continue to make some incremental gains, he might be a factor for the national team down the road.

Holden - Delivered some nice balls on set pieces and provided needed defensive help before subbing off. If he could have corraled that cross in the 2nd half, the game would have been tied. (If ifs and buts, were candy and nuts, etc. etc.).

Kljestan - Needed to bring it today in Adu's absence and definitely did not. Too many bad touches and giveaways that led to Nigeria moving the other way. I was not impressed with him overall with the exception of the last 30 minutes of the Netherlands game. My pessimistic side thought he would miss the penalty today as well, but he nailed it and set the stage for the exciting finish.

Szetela - I have been wanting to see more of him since the U20 world cup last year and he got a chance today with the absence of Adu and Bradley. Unfortunately, he didn't do much with it, providing no pressure on the defense and no service from the right side. He didn't do anything obviously wrong, he was just sort of there. He's playing in Italy's Serie B, which could be a stepping-stone to a larger stage at some point.

Altidore - Says his ankle is still bothering him, and was asekd to play out of position on the left flank once Orozco was sent off and Rogers moved to the back. Came out at halftime without having made much of an impression in these games (his goal was a lucky deflection). Will be interesting to see how he does in Spain in the upcoming season. He has shown he has a nose for the goal but doesn't create opportunities himself.

McBride - Must have been exhausted after being the only one forward most of the game, chasing the defense. Did not have a good tournament due to a complete lack of service. I can't remember one decent cross into the box from the run of play during the 3 games until the one in the 2nd half today that McBride missed and Holden couldn't control when it fell to his feet. Without that, McBride can't really help you. For reason I'm willing to second guess putting him out there for all 3 games, especially once Davies came on and showed something.

SUBS

Feilhaber - Seemed more interested in bitching to the refs than trying to make something happen, but the U.S. definitely played better with him out there (an effect I've noticed previously). I like him and he's got loads of potential and if he can find his way to some regular playing time with a club team after Derby County soured on him - and it looks like that might happen - then he could become a midfield force in time for the next World Cup. That's hardly a given, however.

Davies - Hat tip to JDB for mentioning Davies to me and saying he would like to see him in there. He plays in Sweden, so I've never really seen him play, but his limited time on field was an eye opener. He created all sorts of problems for the Nigerian defense and his potentially equalizing header off the crossbar was one of those jump-up-off-the-couch-and-then-cover-your-head-with-your-hands moments. So where was he the rest of the tournament?

McCarty - He's like The Little Engine That Could. He doesn't look like much (in fact, he looks like he just came from his junior prom), but he's always moving and thus forcing the opponents to pay attention to him. Given how tired both sides were by the end, his energy could have been the difference. Didn't happen but he's a great option to keep around for situations like this one.

So the U.S. will not be moving on, which is a shame. On the bright side, it means not seeing them possibly get decimated by Argentina in the quarterfinals. And more sleep for me. That's probably a good thing.

Posted by Jamie at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

say what you will about Barry Bonds, the record, steroids or whatever. i'm still not sure how i feel about the whole thing. but there's one thing that cannot be denied: that Hank Aaron is one goddamn classy dude. oh, and Bud Selig is a turd.

Related: Listmaker attempts to parse his feelings about the whole affair.

Posted by Jamie at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

with baseball on the All-Star break, i've been watching a lot of soccer. both the Copa America and the Under-20 World Cup have been well worth tuning in to, even when the only option has been a Spanish language broadcast (ESPN picked up the U.S. vs. Brazil U-20 match, but left tonight's U.S.-Uruguay quarterfinal on ESPNU, which ain't available on Time Warner here). the U.S. beat Uruguay in extra time, while Argentina destroyed Mexico in the Copa America semifinal. and right now Brazil is about to take on Spain in another U-20 quarterfinal. and the U.S.-Brazil match - won in fascinating fashion by the U.S. - might be the best game i've seen in a year.

but my real point in posting tonight was baseball related because i was incredulous at the news that the Mariners are considering giving Ichiro! a 5-year, $100-million contract extension. i mean, are they on crack? are they that wowed by his performance in an exhibition game? sure, right now he's having his best season (as measured by OPS+), but he's a 33-year old, singles hitting outfielder and there is almost no chance of his being worth $20 million a year at age 35, let alone at age 38. i understand that he's the face of the franchise, but it's unbelievable that some owners in baseball are still willing to ignore all common sense and logic as they piss away money on idiotic contracts.

Posted by Jamie at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

while the Yankees and Angels play today i was thinking that the Angels have a high number of non-Hispanic black players with guys like Chone Figgins, Garret Anderson, Howie Kendrick, Gary Matthews, Jr and Reggie Willits. then they show Reggie Willits and he's white. this isn't the first time i've made this mistake with him, and it might not be the last. "Reggie Willits" just sounds like a black guy - can that be considered racial profiling? i think he definitely qualifies as one of the "Reggie Cleveland All-Stars". Brandon Larson is another guy that i thought was black for a long time as well, and if i had been cognizant during the 70s, then Cecil Upshaw probably would have been right there as well. of course it works both ways with guys like Troy O'Leary (or Howie Kendrick for that matter).

this reminds me of a fun game that Listmaker, Balgavy, ec and i played on the way to our fantasy baseball draft in March. Listmaker would call out a name at random from the Baseball America Prospect Handbook and then we had to guess whether they were black or white. it was pretty hard, though i think Balgavy only missed 1 or 2 total. but we were all thrown off when Joba Chamberlain came up. he's a recent Yankees draftee from the University of Nebraska. and he's a Native American. we didn't see that one coming (and in all honesty, he looks white).

Posted by Jamie at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

here's Steve Levy on SportsCenter tonight as they show "highlights" of a fight between a Maple Leafs player and a Devils player which he described gleefully as "lasting about 3 times as long as your average hockey fight":

"this is how hockey polices itself."

now apparently this fight took place in response to a rough hit that had been made in a previous game between the teams. but do you think it would have been described in such casual terms if it had taken place in an NBA game? or if it was a black baseball player charging the mound (think Milton Bradley)? could the racism be any more obvious? white NHL players are "police" while NBA players are thugs. i suppose it might go without saying that the (mostly) white audience was cheering the whole thing.

i'm not opposed to fighting in hockey, though i don't find it hugely entertaining. nor am i trying to condone something like Ron Artest going after fans in the stands (as much as those fans might have had it coming). i just think it's distasteful that the same people who tsk tsk when black players fight become cheerleaders when it's white guys involved. this is the same mindset that puts "scrappy" white guys like David Eckstein and Darin Erstad on a pedestal despite the fact that they're simply not very good players.

Posted by Jamie at 02:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

i'm a bit behind here after spending a few days taking in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, but this came from Harvey Araton in last week's NYTimes:

Come on now, who but 30-something, Buffalo-wing-eating geeks still camping out in their parents’ basement have the time or inclination to select the tournament field before they pick the winner? The rest of America will be perfectly content to wake up Monday morning with the brackets filled in for them as they prepare to do the office-pool thing.

i think Harvey has been reading my blog because that's pretty spot on except for the living with my parents part. and also the fact that i didn't quite get to finish picking the field. for the record, i think it ended up being pretty even-handed. personally, i would have taken Drexel and Appalachian State over Stanford and Arkansas for variety's sake, but overall i'm just looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

meanwhile Bill Simmons and I were writing in similar fashion. i'm not sure if that's a good thing. here's Simmons on Monday:

"I mean, did you SEE the first half of Saturday's Texas-Kansas game? Did you see him [Kevin Durant] drop 25 in the first half against the deepest team in college hoops?"

and me on Monday:

"i mean, did you see Eric Maynor completely will VCU to victory over George Mason?"

looks like bringing back this blog may be my ticket to the big time! i mean, hell the NFL Pudding Strike guy is now a writer for CBS Sportsline, so why not?

Posted by Jamie at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

bubble business is shaking itself out as i type this. George Mason has lost, Oklahoma State completed their collapse by losing to Nebraska and Gonzaga is up on Santa Clara in the 2nd half [update: the 'Zags win]. let's finish this out!

Big XII
This league could get only 3 bids and not really have much to complain about, because the 3 teams they're sending could all win a championship
You Don't Even Get a Copy of our Home Game: Colorado, Baylor, Iowa State, Nebraska
If you're Baylor, you're just happy when your coach isn't implicated in the cover up of a player's murder. If you're Iowa State, you're just happy when your coach isn't spotted partying with coeds after a loss. If you're Nebraska, you're just killing time until football season. If you're Colorado, you just plain suck.
Something Was Lacking...Let's Call it Heart: Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Missouri
I like Ken Pomeroy's rankings for the simple fact that he's working to improve on the RPI by rating things like efficiency. But there's still some kinks to be worked out, because Oklahoma just refuses to fall out of the top 30. They're 15-14, 6-10 in conference, they've lost 6 in a row and their only road wins are over Chaminade (non D-I) and Baylor. And it's not like they beat anyone of note. Just baffling. Equally baffling is the aforementioned collapse of Oklahoma St. Sitting at 15-1 in early January with wins over Pittsburgh, Missouri St. and Syracuse, they lost to Kansas then beat Texas in a 3OT thriller. And then it was like the eruption of Thera, as they went 4-9 the rest of the way losing to the clean and unclean alike. Missouri is one of those ho-hum teams who ends up at 19-12 or so without having beat anyone of note. They'll get to host an NIT game.
But I'm a BCS School!: Texas Tech, Kansas St.
Both teams are flawed, and not just because they have the execrable Bobby Knight and the slimetastic Bob Huggins as their respective coaches. They both have to hope that their good conference wins will outweigh a few questionable losses, though Tech is in much better shape for an at-large bid. I'm putting them in and Kansas St. out for now pending the conference tournament results.
Heavyweight Division: Kansas, Texas A&M, Texas
There's plenty of places to read drooling commentary about any of these teams: the depth and talent of Kansas, the court leadership of Acie Law IV, the Kevin Durant dreams of NBA lottery teams everywhere. They're all quite good and if any of them lose before the Sweet 16, it will be a major upset.

SEC
Wow, what a clusterf*ck this conference has shaped up to be. Anyone else want to take a shot at sorting out all the half-assed teams in the middle here? Because I'm going to bore even myself if I have to do it.
Kissing The Lipless: LSU, South Carolina, Auburn
Anyone else want to see LSU and George Mason play a "Faded Final Four" matchup in the NIT? That could be fun.
Lake Wobegon Division: Alabama, Mississippi, Mississippi St., Georgia, Arkansas
At least one of these teams will be probably make the field of 65, and no matter which one it is, I'm going to be annoyed.
The Quasi-Fantastic Four: Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
People worried when Florida lost 3 of 4, and rightly so - they seem to be playing from behind a lot and that won't work in March. Kentucky fans are becoming despondent and calling for Tubby Smith's head because they didn't beat a ranked team this year (poor 'Cats fans!). Tennessee was another fast starter that faded a lot faster than the image of a shirtless Bruce Pearl has faded from my memory, but they've turned it around to win 7 of 8. Is Vanderbilt the team that lost to Furman, Wake Forest and Appalachian St. before January or the team that beat Kentucky and Florida in February (while also losing to Mississippi St. and Arkansas)?

Tomorrow we'll put it all together and see what sort of pie we've baked.

Posted by Jamie at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

i mean, did you see Eric Maynor completely will VCU to victory over George Mason? the last 3 minutes of the game belonged to him. he drove to the basket at every opportunity and got swarmed. one miss turned into an alley-oop. a few others got blocked or missed badly. but every time he gave up the ball, one of his teammates would lose it, and they weren't hitting shit for jump shots anyway. so he knew what he had to do. after a turnover with the Rams already down 5, he steals the ball, hits a twisting layup and draws the foul. after making the free throw, he steals the ball again and takes it for another layup to tie the game. then Mason misses and he grabs the rebound, takes it up the court, pauses, drives and hits a floater to give his team the lead. then, he pulls down a long defensive rebound, gets intentionally fouled and hits the free throws that seal the victory. just, wow.

Posted by Jamie at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Georgia Tech is making me look good, and a few other picks have come through (thanks, Belmont!), while others aren't working out (Loyola (Md.)). I'm going to try to wrap up my field of 65 here, so to start, a couple more one-bid conferences became apparent upon closer inspection:

Horizon: Butler; They're fading a bit at the end of the season, but they're in regardless, and if they lose their rubber match to Wright St. on Tuesday there are going to be some angry teams in the SEC and Big XII.
WAC: Nevada; For a few minutes I was searching for a case for New Mexco St., but they missed their chance to sweep Nevada and their best out-of-confernce win is against Ohio. I'll also be watching for Utah St. to make a run in their conference tourney.

Mountain West
This conference gets consideration along with the Missouri Valley as best non-BCS conference. They're looking at 3 bids right now.
Mediocre Western State Universities: Colorado St., Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, TCU
OK, TCU isn't a state university, and mediocre is a generous way to describe a team that lost 11 in a row from mid-January to mid-February. The rest of these teams barely warrant a sentence, though I want to take a second to consider the strange season that Utah had. They started off the season with 3 losses, including to terrible Southern Utah and Colorado teams. They followed that up with 3 wins capped off by beating Washington State. A few weeks later they pummeled a lost Virginia team in Puerto Rico by 24 points to get to 5-6 on the season, then promptly went out and lost 6 in a row to teams like Northwestern and Albany. They broke out of that with a win over Air Force (ranked in the Top 15 at the time). They finished at 11-18, but with victories over 3 Top 25 teams that could all make the Sweet 16.
Bubble Boys: San Diego St.
The Aztecs just lost to Utah and were swept by Wyoming. If they win those 3 games instead, they're 24-6 and looking strong right now, though they have no good non-conference wins to speak of.
Mormons Soliders March on Las Vegas: BYU, Air Force, UNLV
Conventional widsom has these 3 teams in the field of 65, they're all ranked in the Top 30 of the AP and Coaches polls, and they all split the season series with each other. But when you look beyond the gaudy records, there's certainly some question that could be raised. The best non-conference wins of the group are against Texas Tech (UNLV, Air Force) and Stanford (Air Force) both of whom are questionable tournament cases, and there are some bas losses to Lamar (BYU), TCU (Air Force) and UC-Santa Barbara (UNLV). Air Force has now dropped 3 in a row heading into the conference tournament. If any of these teams loses a bad game early this week, they will be sweating it out into Sunday.

Missouri Valley
They've already crowned their champion (Creighton), so there's not much to predict here other than whether a 3rd team will get in. It's getting pretty tight and you have to figure there may be at least one or two surprises this week that will throw things into a tizzy. Some people - [cough] Matt [cough] - complained that this league gets press simply for beating up on each other, but there's no question that even the worst teams here are capable of giving good teams a run.
The Never Weres: Evansville, Indiana St., Drake, Illinois St.
Actually, Indiana St. beat Butler and started 4-1 in conference before losing 13 of their last 14 games. Drake swept the Iowa sweepstakes, beating Iowa, Iowa St. and Northern Iowa twice and was 9-2 going into MVC play. Evansville's coach just resigned.
The Used to Bes:Wichita St., Northern Iowa
After making the Sweet 16 last year and starting 9-0, the Shockers were ranked in the top 10. Then they went out and lost 8 of 11. Northern Iowa started of 13-2 (4-0) before finishing 5-10 and falling to Bradley in the MVC tournament.
A-Wishin': Bradley, Missouri St.
Bradley took care of business against the bottom of the conference, but got swept by Missouri St. and missed their opportunities to beat good teams until they won at Virginia Commonwealth. It probably won't be enough. Missouri St. has a win over Wisconsin, but lost to Winthrop at home during Bracketbusters. Their season may hinge on whether they end up at #65 or #66.
A-Dancin': Creighton, Southern Illinois
These two teams are almost yearly invitees and both stand to receive pretty high seeds - there was even some talk of Southern Illinois getting a #2 seed, but they're probably looking at a #4 now.

Pac 10
For a while in the early winter, the Pac 10 was getting some play as possibly the best conference in the country. UCLA was #1, Arizona was in the top 10, Washington was highly thought of, Oregon was one of the last undefeated teams and Washington St. was playing well out of the gate. The bloom is off that rose a bit, but they're still likely to get at least 5 bids.
Dregs Ahoy!: Arizona St., Oregon St., California
Yeah, so there's these guys.
What To Do About Them?:Washington, Stanford, USC
Washington was a highly-touted Top 20 team to start the year but spit the bit by losing 6 of their first 7 conference games. Their end of the year win over UCLA won't be enough to get them in unless they can use that mojo to win the Pac 10 tourney. Stanford keeps cropping up in bubble talk, but they lost 8 conference games to 7 different teams and wins over Virginia and Texas Tech are tempered by losses to Santa Clara and Cal. USC has a profile that bores me, but they're probably in barring a disastrous showing in mid-week.
Fighting West Coast Bias: UCLA, Oregon, Washington St., Arizona
Would you feel good picking any of these teams to go far in your bracket? Not that there's a ton of better choices out there - things are really wide open - but each of these teams strikes me as unreliable in some way. UCLA's probably looking at a #1 seed and the others could all be #4s give or take.

OK, I'm tired and out of anything interesting to say, and this leaves me with 55 spots claimed and the Big XII and SEC still to go.

Posted by Jamie at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

since the first tickets to the Big Dance get handed out tomorrow, i'll first do a quick run-through of all the 1-bid conferences and my picks to win each. i've actually managed to find my way into a pool that is picking every game of every conference tournament, plus the NIT, plus the NCAAs. total overload, but i love having a rooting interest in the Ohio Valley and all these other piddling conferences.

quick update: Appalachian State loses to College of Charleston in OT, meaning that the SoCon is probably down to one bid now too. too bad because i thought the Mountaineers had a chance at an at-large bid with wins over Virginia, Vanderbilt and VCU. as an aside, i've found recently that everytime i see or hear College of Charleston, i start singing it to myself like the "City of Compton" part of Straight Outta Compton (do not under any circumstances subject yourself to the video of the Nina Gordon cover version).

America East: Vermont
Atlantic Sun: Belmont
Big Sky: Weber State; Those who know me, know that i harbor a soft spot for the Utah teams after having lived there for 4 years early in life. I used to ride my bike to the Weber State campus in fact. Plus they have my undying love ever since they upset UNC in the first round of the 1999 NCAA tournament behind Harold "The Show" Arceneaux (now playing with the Utah Eagles of the CBA). I had even picked them in my bracket pool that year and ended up winning the pot by 1 point when UConn beat Duke. in 1998, I picked Utah to win it all and would have won the pot had they managed to knock off Kentucky in the finals.
Big West: Long Beach St.
Conference USA: Memphis; How bad is this league? 2nd place: Central Florida.
Ivy: Penn
MAAC: Loyola; I've gotta be loyal (yeesh) to my brother's alma mater, even though he could give a shit about basketball. The other choice would be Marist since they won the regular season title and because the wife and I shared a plane with them on the way to Ohio back in November. They lost their game to the Bobcats, but had a pretty nice season after that, including a win over likely at-largers ODU.
MAC: Akron
MEAC: Delaware St.
Mid-Continent: Oakland
Northeast: Central Connecticut St.
Ohio Valley: Tennessee Tech
Patriot: Holy Cross
Southern: Davidson
Southland: Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Sun Belt: South Alabama
SWAC: Arkansas Pine Bluff; Random pick for the league that usually gets the play-in game.
West Coast: Gonzaga; They're becoming the Atlanta Braves of college basketball - a great story at first but then kinda boring, and finally just get off the stage already. We've seen it. But you can't pick against them until they lose, just like the Braves kept winning for like 5 more years after everyone thought the Mets or Phillies would finally take them down. If they lose in the WCC tournmament this year, however, they're could be looking at the NIT, though they do have wins over UNC and Texas (pre-Heytvelt suspension; isn't Heytvelt a Dutch name? Shouldn't there be some leniency there if that's the case?).

That's actually 17 18 conferences, so I will have to update my numbers at the bottom of the page.

Colonial Athletic Association
There's been a lot of attention lavished in this conference this year, relative to the past due to George Mason's tripping the light fantastic in 2006. But I'm fresh out of Mason jokes at this point, and they were thoroughly average this year.
The Punching Bags: Delaware, UNC-Wilmington, JMU, Georgia St.
Delaware was a truly terrible team; they gave Iona one of their 2 wins of the season. UNC-Wilmington has fallen from a #9 seed in last year's NCAA tournament to a team capable of losing to Campbell not to mention Delaware and Georgia St. (twice). My poor alma mater of JMU can at least take solace in the performance of the women's team (25-4 and occasionally ranked in the top 25). Georgia St. can just ended William & Mary's season earlier today, so they got that going for them. Like JMU, Georgia St. was coached by Lefty Driesell, who, according to this terribly outdated webpage, can be hired as a speaker at your event for somewhere between $10,001 and $20,000.
Hoping to Make the CAA Final Four: William & Mary, Towson, Northeastern, George Mason
Mason finished behind Northeastern in the standings after losing to the Huskies by 23 to end the regular season. They at least managed to beat JMU tonight. As mentioned, W&M done bowed out already, but there was a shining moment in January when they had a bit of buzz about them after winning 7 in a row over such luminaries and North Florida, UMBC and Hampton before dropping 7 of their next 9. They're hanging around the bottom of the Bog Poll, though. Northeastern played whipping boy to the Big East early on with losses to Syracuse, Pitt, UConn and Lousiville but finished strong (sic) to end up at 12-18. They get Drexel tomorrow. Towson was the ultimate one-man team as Gary Neal lead them with over 25 points a game, and somehow was also 2nd in assists. He'll probably be gunning for some team in Europe next year.
Soon To Be Sick of Answering George Mason Questions:Drexel, Hofstra, ODU, VCU
Hofstra has the weakest claim to an at-large bid of the group, though they beat VCU in their only meeting. VCU won the conference regular season, but has no big wins out of conference and missed their big chance by losing to Bradley two weeks ago. ODU and Drexel have at-large profile. The Monarchs have a win over Georgetown and have won 11 in a row including over all three of their compatriots. Bruiser Flint's boys have 13 road wins, including at Villanova, Syracuse, St. Joseph's and Vermont (check out Bruiser's website that brags about taking "Mid American Conference runner-up Buffalo to overtime on its home court in the opening round of the NIT" and lets us in on the secret that "there is such a fine line between winning and losing."

I think Drexel and ODU can both get in at-large, and they might carry VCU with them since the Rams were the regular season winner, provided they don't lose to Georgia St. tomorrow. What would we be without wishful thinking?

TSOA's picks thus far:
ACC: UNC, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Duke, BC, Ga. Tech
A10: Xavier
Big South: Winthrop, High Point, VMI?
Big East: Georgetown, Pitt, Marquette, Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame, Villanova
Big Ten: Ohio St., Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan St., Purdue
CAA: Drexel, ODU, VCU
Spots awarded: 43 out of 65 (including 18 conferences that will only get 1 bid)

Posted by Jamie at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

note 1: OK, High Point has gone down meaning that i need to hope for an upset of Winthrop to at least keep my numbers right. you'd think that might discourage me from continuing to make predictions, but you'd be wrong. on the positive side, Georgia Tech justified my love with their win over UNC tonight. i think that puts them in, but they should probably go ahead and beat BC Saturday just to be safe.

note 1a: sorry to those of you with no interest in College Basketball. this will be over in a few weeks.

note 2: does anyone else think the officiating in a lot of these games has been pretty shaky? OK, not exactly fresh territory, but while watching "Throwdown Thursday" (ugh) on ESPN, i was struck again by the number of seemingly ridiculous fouls: guys brushing against guys and getting called, defensive guys without their feet set drawing offensive foul calls, guys with their hands up in the air and standing perfectly still getting called when a guy jumps into them, players just flopping all over the place in general - the whole thing is starting to resemble a South American soccer game (see video of a terrible dive here). also, why don't they ever call traveling anymore? OK, that's enough. it's time to tackle....

The Big East
This league raided Conference USA after some of their teams defected to the ACC, giving them a ridiculous 16 teams. Now, some teams don't even play each other in the regular season and 4 teams get left out of the conference tourney. There are 4 teams tied for 7th place in the conference with 8-7 records. This gets me to another pet peeve: the unbalanced conference schedule. It used to be that all the teams in a conference played each other the same number of times, so it was easy to just look at the conference standings to get a general idea of team quality. Now you have to follow so closely to understand who played who, whether they played them at home, on the road or both and how that compares to the other teams in the league. Did one of those 8-7s come against a soft conference schedule (Providence)? Did someone have to play Pitt, Georgetown and Notre Dame on the road (West Virginia)? Can't we just break this into 2 conferences, or at least into an East/West thing like the SEC or Big XII? What a pain in the ass. But moving on....
The Chaff: Cincinnati, Rutgers, South Florida, Seton Hall, St. John's, UConn
It's been a tough season for New Jersey, and the NYC metro area in general (13-32 aggregate in the Big East). For a while I was contemplating doing a poll of the NYC-area teams along the lines of the DC Area Poll. Then I realized that Fordham would be the undisputed #2 team in such a poll (behind Hofstra) and quickly released the hounds on the idea. UConn's loss to George Mason last year carried over to this year in the form of a 6-12 record since an 11-0 start. All of their conference wins have come against this group except for a W over Syracuse. Cincinnati must have made their players start going to class or something.
How Many of These Guys Are Named Corey?: Providence, West Virginia, DePaul, Villanova
I could spend 45 minutes and 1,000 words trying to differentiate these guys, but nobody really wants that. Here's the thing: at least one of these teams will make the tournament. Right now, WVU (win over UCLA) and Villanova (wins over Oklahoma, Georgetown, Louisville and Notre Dame) have the best shot, but it could be whoever goes the deepest in the Big East tournament. If DePaul goes on a tear and makes the final they might sneak in.
Picking Out Their Dancing Shoes: Marquette, Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Pitt
Man this conference bores me. I really find nothing to get excited about here. I've been giving Goergetown short shrift all year, and even now that they've come around to tie for first place I remain unconvinced that they can win more than 2 tournament games. They have the highest Offensive Efficiency in the country, but I'm not convinced they have enough outside threats. Among players who average significant minutes, their leading 3-point shooter is Patrick Ewing, Jr.! Notre Dame has put up some real stinkers in an 18-point loss to Georgetown that wasn't that close, a loss to South Florida and another to St. John's. Marquette (who I'm partial to for name-related reasons) has lost 4 of 5 and gets Pitt on Saturday. Louisville has come on strong and doesn't have any bad losses but I've got Pitino issues. Syracuse will play only 9 total road games, 8 of which were in conference and the other of which was against Canisius, also in upstate New York. Pittsburgh has been the conference leader all season, so I guess they should be the favorite to go deep in to the NCAAs.

Big Ten
All right, another uninspiring conference with four 8-7 teams! Why am I doing this again?
At Least We Have Hockey/Football/Academics to Fall Back On: Minnesota, Penn State, Northwestern
I feel like I've seen highlights of Penn State losing about 15 close games this season. They're always in the verge of an upset, only to fade in the end. Then I looked and they do have a few close games, but not really very many. Maybe those were first half highlights I was seeing. Outside of their wins over Purdue, Penn St. and Northwestern, Minnesota has only one conference game decided by less than 10 points. Northwestern is 3-0 this year when scoring at least 70 points.
Mmmmmmm......Mediocrity: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St., Purdue, Illinois
These teams are all separated by one win in the standings, so again I'll try to keep this brief. Iowa's got 13 losses and can be safely ignored. People are getting excited about Michigan after they beat Michigan St., but let's talk about their 3-8 road record for a second. And Purdue's 2-8 road mark for that matter with the wins coming over N'western and Penn St. And then let's talk about the NIT. Michigan St. is only 2-6 on the road (could you imagine if these major conference teams actually had to play road games in November and December? Think the gap between them and the mid-majors might close a bit?) but their wins are a bit better than Purdue's. Illinois doesn't have as many good wins, but I think they're in at 10-6 in the conference if they beat Iowa on Saturday. Indiana should also get in at 10-6, and I credit them for at least scheduling a few road games against Duke, Butler and Kentucky, even if they lost them all. It might serve them well in March, but they're 5-5 record in their last 10 doesn't inspire much confidence.
El Jefes: Wisconsin, Ohio St.
Did anyone watch these two play on Sunday and think to themselves "Well I can't wait to see that again." I'd seriously rather watch a PBA skills competition. Have you ever seen those, where they're throwing balls over chairs and through their legs (warning: a bit loud)? Pretty great. If that game was the best they have to offer, I think it's very safe to say that I'll be skipping any Big Ten tournament games I flip past. Also, I think Greg Oden when he has his scraggly beard looks like Leonard Smalls from Raising Arizona.

Maybe sorta? I swear it made sense when I thought of it.

I'm giving them 5 bids for now and I'll use Purdue to cover for the probability that Winthrop out-and-out takes the Big South. Though it would be awesome to see VMI sneak in and freak out some #1 seed with their manic style for 30 minutes (Dave, I think this is the link you were looking for).

TSOA's picks thus far:
ACC: UNC, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Duke, BC, Ga. Tech
A10: Xavier
Big South: Winthrop, High Point, VMI?
Big East: Georgetown, Pitt, Marquette, Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame, Villanova
Big Ten: Ohio St., Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan St., Purdue
Spots awarded: 36 out of 65 (including 14 conferences that will definitely only get 1 bid)

Posted by Jamie at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

[quick ed. note: a change to my ACC entry is necessary because BC is now definitely in while Georgia Tech still has some work to do. i still think they beat BC to make it 7 from the ACC, but we'll see. Clemson or Florida St. could still overtake them with a strong showing in the conference tournament. these are the perils of doing these so early, but i would never finish them otherwise, so oh well.]

Atlantic 10
It was just a few years ago (2004, to be exact) that the A10 had 4 teams in the NCAAs, including St. Joseph's as a #1 seed (the other teams were Xavier, Dayton and RIchmond). Back in the 90s and early 00s, teams like UMass, Rhode Island, GW and Temple all had several good years to get the conference some respect and produce NBA-caliber players. Now they're looking like they might be a 1-bid conference with a chance to "steal" a bid from someone else if Xavier doesn't win the tournament this year. I even read something calling the A10 a mid-major which seems a better fit here than for the MVC or Mountain West. Even last year the conference got little respect, as GW went undefeated through the conference schedule, then got bounced from the A10 tournament and ended up with an 8 seed despite a 26-2 record. Of course, Duke housed them in the 2nd round.

The Hopeless: Richmond, St. Bonaventure, LaSalle, Temple, Charlotte, Duquesne
These teams are all terrible, but with the exception of Charlotte, they all return their best players next year which should improve the league as a whole. Duquesne had a 5K fun run mid-season with 5 straight victories including wins over Dayton and Xavier. LaSalle lost to UMBC, Coppin St. and Delaware, but did manage to beat the NJ Institute of Technology (motto: I Can't Believe They're Not D-III!).
The Dreamers: Fordham, Dayton, St. Louis, GW, St. Joseph's, Rhode Island
GW played well early, beating Virginia Tech and clobbering USC for a half (before folding in the 2nd half), but they don't have a real quality win or a consistent scorer. St. Joe's was on a bit of a run before a loss to rancid Richmond and another to Xavier tonight. Dayton beat Louisville and Creighton back in the fall, but even after winning at Temple tonight, they're 2-10 on the road. The most interesting thing about URI is that they have a player named "Parfait Bitee." Fordham is just happy not to be in the "Hopeless" category.
The Contenders: Xavier, UMass
One of these teams should win the conference tournament and UMass better hope it's them because an away win over Louisville will not be enough for an at-large bid. Xavier should be in with non-conference wins over VCU, Villanova, Illinois and Kansas St. (all of whom they could be battling for bubble spots). Both are veteran teams with a chance to sweep through Atlantic City (with TSOA in attendance! Reports to follow, I hope.), but I think UMass may fall victim to an upset by a hot team, leaving Xavier to collect the hardware and the bid.

I'm skipping the Big East for a second because there's 16 goddamn teams in that league to bring you....

The Big South
Hey, the Big South has an at-large contender! And a bunch of other teams I don't know much about. But since when has that ever stopped me?
Who The Hell Are These Guys?: Charleston Southern, Radford, VMI, Liberty, UNC-Asheville, Coastal Carolina
4 of these teams were eliminated from the conference tournament last night so they're sort of irrelevant, though I will mention that Coastal Carolina's nickname is the "Chanticleers" which I thought was some sort of pirate, but is actually a rooster named Chaucey. I think that's what the other knights on the jousting team called Geoffrey Chaucer. VMI's claim to fame is their #1 Tempo rating thanks to a full-court-press-and-hockey-style-substitution game plan that resulted in them losing 7 games in which they scored at least 100 points. Asheville is famous for being the only gay-friendly city north of Florida and south of the Mason-Dixon line (and also as the birthplace of Shirley Hemphill of What's Happening!! fame).
The Contenders: Winthrop, High Point
High Point really has no at-large shot with no quality wins and bad losses to the likes of Longwood, so they have to hope they can knock off Winthrop (or have someone else do their dirty work). I'll go ahead and predict that that will happen. But if Winthrop makes it to at least the conference final, they should be in (and I would put them iun regardless). Their 4 losses are to UNC, Wisconsin (in OT), Texas A&M and Maryland. That's 3 top-10 teams and another team in the top 20 (after tonight's sweep of Duke). Plus they beat Mississippi State, ODU and Missouri St. all on the road. That - plus they're undefeated conference record - should put them in at a #10 or so and give them a chance to win a game against someone.

TSOA's picks thus far:
ACC: UNC, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Duke, BC, Ga. Tech
A10: Xavier
Big South: Winthrop, High Point
Spots awarded: 24 out of 65 (including 14 conferences that will definitely only get 1 bid)

Posted by Jamie at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

sitting here watching Duke-Clemson, with the NCAA tournament a scant 3 weeks away (and with a full month or so before baseball really starts to matter), it seems like a good idea to start talking some college hoops.

over the past 3 months, i've been lucky enough to participate in an poll conducted Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, the author of the D.C. Sports Bog, to rank the top 11 teams in MD/DC/VA. and by lucky, i mean "Dan knows me and asked for volunteers for the poll with little regard to actual qualifications other than being willing to fill out a ballot every week and toss off some one liners." little did i know that some of my one liners would actually end up in the print edition of the Post on Tuesdays (the poll posts online on Mondays). you can find the most recent poll here and you can read a host of comments from poll voters here (including a pretty awful but amusing comment by me about a week before Barbaro died).

point being, i've been paying a lot of attention to college basketball this season and though there are probably 10,000 other blogs breaking things down, i'm going to do some analysis of my own of each conference that has a chance to get mutliple teams into the field of 65. first a couple of links:

Bubblewatch at ESPN.com
Ken Pomeroy's Rankings (which go way beyond RPI)

Atlantic Coast Conference
Even in this era of mid-major hoopla, the ACC is always a threat to send 8 teams to the NCAA tournament and this year is no different. Pomeroy, for instance, has 9 ACC teams in his top 48. But conference records are a zero sum game and the selection committee has always been loathe to let teams with sub-.500 conference records into the tourney. This is especially bad news for Clemson, who has now lost at home to Duke tonight, making them 5-8 in the ACC and just 2-8 in their last 10 games after starting 17-0. And they're not the only streaky team here. Virginia, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Duke, Georgia Tech and Florida St. have all had bad sreaks at various times.

No Shot in Hell: Miami (Fl.), N.C. State, Wake Forest
Dying On the Vine: Clemson, Florida St., Boston College
As mentioned above, the Tigers are fading faster than a newspaper left out in the sun. Losers of 5 in a row since a win at Duke during the Blue Devils flashback to 1995, Florida St. will have to use their win over Florida to comfort them during the NIT. B.C. was in first place in the conference at 9-2, but have lost three in a row and 5 out of 9 in conference, and their non-conference schedule wasn't exactly formidable (hello Sacred Heart, Yale, Hartford, Fairfield, and a loss to Vermont). They looked positively putrid last night against Virginia Tech.
The Creamy Middles: Virginia Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia Tech
Va. Tech has spent the season alternating between huge wins over Duke, UNC and Virginia with losses to the likes of N.C. State (twice), Marshall and Western Michigan. Virginia had a terrible trip to Puerto Rico in December, losing to Appalachain St (not a bad team, as it turns out), Utah, and barely holding off Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. After a win over Gonzaga, they lost 3 in a row to Stanford, UNC and BC, then won 7 in a row and have since been demolished by Va. Tech and lost to Miami in the past 2 weeks. Maryland was swept by Virginia and sitting at 3-6 in the ACC before reeling off 4 in a row and putting themselves in much better position since they only have 1 blemish loss to Miami. Georgia Tech is another streaky team with a sub .500 conference record but several good non-conference wins (Memphis, Purdue, Georgia). They need to finish strong.
Shoe-ins: North Carolina, Duke
UNC has been in the top 5 all season and is a contender for a 1 seed. Duke got written off during their 4-game losing streak, but they're Satan's spawn and every pundit's wet dream. OK, and they have plenty of good wins over solid opponents.
TSOA's Picks: This is somewhat obvious based on the categories, but i'll take UNC, Duke, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland and the winner of the BC/Ga. Tech game on March 4th (I'm picking the Yellow Jackets).

Up next: Atlantic 10, Big East, Big South

Posted by Jamie at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

a mini-thread in the comments of the previous entry had us coming up with fake Euro-style (aka Euro poseur) names for MLS clubs fictitious and real in the style of Houston 1836, FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake. then today, the NYTimes got into the act , wondering how long it will be until MLS gives us Dynamo Cleveland. i will grant that even these farcical names are better than the "Dallas Burn" and the "Metrostars", but how far can you take this? below are some suggestions i'm compiling. feel free to contribute your own. then we can sell them to MLS for $25,000 apiece.

Bayern Minneapolis
Boston Albion (thanks, Weasel)
Dynamo Cleveland
PSV Albuquerque
NAC Boise
Spartak Detroit
Inter Milwaukee
Atletico Miami

those with a stomach for more soccer/footie/futbol (i'm just not comfortable with any of those names) should check out Jon's musings on the state of the U.S. World Cup squad. those who are sick of this crap can get a laugh out of this old Forbes piece i stumbled across that includes this actual quote: "the XFL is already a huge success."

Posted by Jamie at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

i've been remiss in this space to discuss the almost unthinkably bad World Cup draw in which the USA was placed in Group E with Italy, the Czech Republic and Ghana. the dreaded Group of Death. OK, there's no easy groups but one look at Group A (Germany/Costa Rica/Poland/Ecuador), Group B (England/Paraguay/Trinidad and Tobago/Sweden), Group F (Brazil/Croatia/Australia/Japan), Group G (France/Switzerland/S. Korea/Togo) or Group H (Spain/Ukraine/Tunisia/Saudi Arabia) and it's not hard to think that having 3 of the top 12 teams in the world in one group is a bit unfair. and from all acocunts, Ghana are no slouches either. all the kvetching, however, obscures the fact that the U.S. will have to play well no matter who the opponent is. if they can pull off two draws and a win, they'll move on. anything less and they have to hope for some help. if the quaterfinal game with Germany in 2002 proved anything, it's that the Americans can hold their own with a top tier team while this statistical analysis shows that soccer provides a better chance of an upset in any given game than do any of the 4 major North American sports. the study was done by Americans, so i'd say there's no anti-American bias built in to the study, but 2 of them are from academia so that might not hold water. damn pinkos.

anyway, if there's one game that's going to cause some consternation among American observers, it will be the Iran-Mexico game. who to root for, the religious extremists who would love nothing more than to hold the threat of nuclear weapons over our heads (and who embarrassed us in 1998) or the southern neighbors who would love to watch us Yanqui bastards choke on our tacos? perhaps there's some significance in the game being played in Nuremberg (as is the USA-Ghana collision) and justice will find a way for both teams to lose.

meanwhile, the African Cup of Nations which started yesterday in Egypt and every group is a Group of Death with at least 1 World Cup qualifier and 1 runner-up. Group D with Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal has been christened the toughest, but Group B is no cakewalk with qualifiers Togo and Angola already having lost to Cameroon and Congo DR and Group A has hosts Egypt and surprises Ivory Coast who are doing their best to ingore the unrest at home by beating a tough Morocco 1-0. check the full standings here. none of these games are being broadcast here in the U.S. except on some channel called Telesud available only on the Dish Network; i'd like to see some of these teams play before the World Cup, but if the quality of the broadcast is anything like what is was during WC qualifying, you're probably better off just reading the recap. hopefully things will improve by the time 2010 rolls around, when the tournament is held in South Africa. according to this article, that tournament has already raked in more sponsorship dollars than this year's, and there may be an extra spot awarded to an African team in the interim.

in England, the run to the FA Cup continues next weekend with the 4th round of games. there are at least a few matchups of smaller teams (Stoke v. Walsall, Colchester v. Derby, Brentford v. Sunderland) that guarantee to keep some hope of major shocks alive into the round of 16. and if Chelsea can lose to Everton and Man U can fall to Wolverhampton, then all the better.

finally, those of you who were following the MLS draft live (i thought about skipping work, but decided not to) already know that with the first overall pick, the MetroStars selected former Padres outfielder Marvell Wynne who will be making his pro soccer debut at age 46, while the title of Mr. Really Really Irrelevant went to Aaron King of N.C State, chosen by Los Angeles with the 48th pick.

Posted by Jamie at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

there are just 5 spots left now as the home-and-home playoff series began on Saturday. my earlier predictions proved surprisingly cogent, as i went 4-for-5 in Asia, was mostly right in Europe, and correctly predicted Trinidad heading to a playoff. Uzbekistan let me down, as did Chile, but still not bad overall. so without further ado, your guide to Wednesday's games written by someone who will be unable to watch any of them (quick perusal turns up only reruns of Trinidad vs. Bahrain anyway).

Australia v. Uruguay - La Celeste won the first leg 1-0 at home, but now face an arduous trip to Sydney for a game 4 days later and 13 time zones away. the Socceroos tried to claim the mental edge by taking a charter flight back home replete with massage tables (but presumably no Foster's). apparently, Uruguay doesn't care about its team because they all had to fly coach. they didn't win a single road match during South American qualifiying going 0-6-3, but they only need a tie here. still, i like the Aussies to either win outright by scoring twice or by netting one and then taking the penalty kicks. i would have considered getting up at 4am for this one just to relive the fun of 2002, but i don't see it in the listings so i might actually be productive at work instead.

Bahrain v. Trinidad and Tobago - Trinidad payed a terribly lackluster match at home and needed an unreal strike from Christopher Birchall - who had never set foot in Trinidad before the Qualifying began, but who's mother is Trinidadian and who is Trinidad's first white player in something like 60 years - just to escape with a tie that means they likely will have to win to advance to the World Cup for the first time in their history. i don't know much about Bahrain, but i still think that Uzbekistan got hosed and i have numerous co-workers from Trinidad, so i'm rooting for the Soca Warriors.

Czech Republic v. Norway - the Czechs won on the road 1-0 in a game in which the losing goalie was given the "Man of the Match" award, meaning it should have been worse. can the Norwegians become the first team to overturn a deficit in a European home-and-home qualifiyer? seems highly unlikely.

Turkey vs. Switzerland - the Turks really hurt themselves by falling 0-2 in the first leg, including a late 2nd half goal. Switzerland allowed just 7 goals in 10 matches leading up to this, so expect them to pack it in on defense and hope to make the game as boring as possible.

Slovakia v. Spain - speaking of boring games, Slovakia will need to win this game 4-0 in order to advance. Spain allowed but 3 goals in going 5-5-0 during the first stage of qualifications, so i think i like my chances in Tuesday night's Mega Millions drawing better than i like Slovakia's.

after this, it's a long, cold winter until things kick off on Munich on June 9th. not to mention a long 4 years for those that get left behind. i'll be back with more analyses once the groupings are announced on December 9th.

Posted by Jamie at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In a group e-mail from my uncle, amid the usual stuff about new houses, jobs and the kids going to homecoming and getting driver's licenses, came this bit of info: "Someone asked if they [my cousins] played soccer, well I have a theory that soccer is an un-American sport brought to this country by a conspiring European underground movement to weaken the U.S. spirit and to diminish the U.S. dominance of real sports like baseball, football, hockey and basketball, but I maybe overthink that issue just a tad....Don't get me going, lets just leave it as a European plot to break the will of the American Youth."

hmm, the U.S. hasn't won a gold medal in hockey since 1980; we finished 6th in the 2002 basketball world championships and 3rd in the 2004 Olympics; and baseball is now 25% Latino and there's no guarantee of the U.S. winning the World Baseball Classic next year when teams like Japan, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Dominican Republic will all field strong teams. throw in the homoerotic undertones of football (which, perhaps not coincidentally, has been bringing games to Japan and now Mexico in recent years) and the steadily climbing US soccer ranking and you can see that he's clearly on to something. hell, we're even getting out butts handed to us by skinny Japanese guys and tiny Asian-American women when it comes to the all-American sport of Gluttony (of course we learned that one from the Romans sort of). then again, MLS attendance is still pretty dismal, so there may still be some hope yet.

Posted by Jamie at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

it's been quite some time since i've written about soccer on here (or anything for that matter - i'm not sure if and when that will be rectified), but it's getting down to it. with matches scheduled world-wide for Saturday and Wednesday, the field for Germany 2006 will be much clearer in the next week. with so many important games coming up, there's going to be a lot to cover, so if you don't care mcuh about the details, you can just skip to my predictions for each area so that you can ridicule me later when my half-assed analysis proves worthless.

North America

Currently: the U.S. is in! having clinched on Labor Day weekend with a 2-0 victory over Mexico. a tie to Guatemala a few days later coupled with a Mexico win put Mexico in and tied them with the U.S. at the top of the group (though i believe the U.S. hold the head-to-head tiebreaker). the winner of this group puts themselves in a very strong position for getting a top seeding in the World Cup draw, which is very important if you want to avoid the Argentinas and Germanys of the world in the opening round. The fight for the 3rd spot is just about wrapped up with Costa Rica ahead of Guatemala by 5 points and Trinidad and Tobago by 6 points with 2 matches to play. the big battle here is for the 4th spot, which earns the right to play the 5th place Asian team in a home-and-home playoff.

This Week: a point by the Ticos against the U.S. tomorrow would put them in unless Guatemala stunned Mexico and then beat Costa Rica on Wednesday. Mexico might be pressed by a Guatemalan team desperate for points as they try to say ahead of T&T who is away to last place Panama before finishing with Mexico at home. if the U.S. can tie Costa Rica and then dispatch Panama in Foxboro, they should take the group and be well positioned for the big show.

Predictions: the U.S. gets a tie and a win to lead the group. Mexico slips past the Guatemalans but ends up tying T&T who first beat Panama. Costa Rica gets two ties to qualify, and Trinidad finishes a point up on Guatemala.

Africa

Currently: if you thought the previous was convoluted, just wait. there are 5 groups in Africa and only the winner of each group will advance. with just one game left for each team (all played tomorrow), it's going to be a finish that is sure have some stunning results - all the moreso because 4 countries have a chance to qualify for the first time in their histories. group leaders Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, Angola and Tunisia have a simple agenda: win and they're in. but looming behind them are Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Nigeria and Morocco respectively. of the five, Ghana is closest to qualification needing only a tie to qualify. even with a loss, they can still get in, unless Congo DR completely whomps South Africa (unlikely given the importance to Bafana of finishing in the top 3 to earn a place in the African Nations Cup).

This week: starting from the top, Togo need to win at (the other) Congo because Senegal is unlikely to lose at home to Mali. i haven't seen them play, but i am an unabashed Togo supporter based on a report that i did in high school (one of those where an encyclopedia probably played a major role) and the fact that it's just a tiny sliver of a country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa. if i can get all Larry King here for a second, "Bight of Benin" would make a great pretentious band name. moving on, Ghana have a relatively easy go of it at the Cape Verde Islands. Cote D'Ivoire shot themselves in the foot with their home loss to Cameroon back in September, so if they're to make their inaugural trip to the World Cup, they'll have to win at a Sudanese team they previously beat 5-0 and hope for some help from Egypt against Cameroon. they could easily get it, as Egypt is the highest scoring team with 25 goals in 9 games though they have been fairly hapless on the road. major surprise Angola needs only to maintain their current tie with Nigeria to move one, as they hold the advantage head-to-head. if they can beat a weak Rwandan team or get help from a Zimbabwe side that lost badly at home to Nigeria last year, they will be dancing in the streets of Luanda. finally, and most excitingly comes the North African battle for Group 5 as Morocco travels to Tunisia (in a match to be refereed by an Egyptian) needing a win to advance in the last game of the day on Saturday.

Predictions: to make this quick, i predict the following qualifiers: Togo, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Angola and Morocco in a minor upset on the road. that would be make for 4 first-time qualifiers, which would be quite amazing.

Cool Nickname Watch: many of these teams have great nicknames such as South Africa's Bafana Bafana (roughly: "the best of the best"). others that i like are Togo's Les Eperviers (the Hawks), Ghana's Black Stars, Nigeria's Super Eagles, Cameroon's Indomitable Lions, Kenya's Harambee Stars (Harambee = "let's all pull together"), the opposite themed Liberia Lone Stars, Algeria's Desert Foxes, Benin's Ecureuils (Squirrels), Malawi's Flames and Rwanda's Wasps

Europe

Currently: if you thought Africa was unsettled, you haven't looked at the European standings, where 51 teams are fighting for 13 spots from 8 groups. and just to make things more convoluted, only 1 team - the surprising Ukraine - has so far qualified, other than host country Germany. but by Wednesday, we'll have 10 qualifiers and 3 home-and-home playoffs. if you were in Europe right now, you'd be hearing about nothing else, sporting-wise. to simplify this a bit, let's break this down into a few categories:

* Knocking on the Door: Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Poland
* Looking Good: England, Sweden, Croatia, France, Norway, Serbia and Montenegro, Spain, Turkey
* Hanging Around: Slovakia, Russia, Greece, Switzerland, Israel, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina
* Need Help: Scotland, Denmark, Romania, Ireland, Lithuania, Belgium

This Week: [deep breath] so in Group 1, the Czechs can make it easy by beating the Netherlands at home tomorrow. even if they do they're unlikely to win the group as Holland finishes up against doormats Macedonia. if they lose, then they would likely need a positive result at Finland to advance, provided that Romania wins in Helsinki first. and that's one of the easier groups. [inhale] Ukraine is in from Group 2 and Turkey has the edge on second place, but they have only one game left in a hostile Albania. Greece and Denmark lurk 2 and 4 points back respectively with 2 games to play each including tomorrow's game against each other in Denmark. whoever wins there might have an edge as they both have easier games against Georgia and Kazakhstan to finish out. [inhale] moving on to Group 3, Portugal need only crush puny Liechtenstein to punch their ticket. Slovakia and Russia are battling for 2nd place in a race likely to be decided by Wednesdays game against each other in Bratislava. first, Slovakia must avoid a loss to Estonia who might still be mathematically alive for 2nd, but it would probably require an advanced degree to figure out how. [inhale] Group 4....where to start? four teams are within 3 points of each other. Swtizerland and France are tied at the top with 16, Israel has 15 and Ireland has 13. Israel has only one game left versus two for the other, but theirs a is home date with the Faroe Islands for which the current odds are 1-25. Switzerland has the tough row to hoe, at home with France and away to Ireland. both Les Bleus and Les Mangers Pomme de Terre should have no problem taking 3 points from Cyprus in their other matches. assuming Israel finished at 18 points, the Swiss-Irish match on Wednesday will probably be do or die for both. [inhale] Italy leads Group 5 and will clinch during one of the their two remaining home contests, but that's where the simplicity ends. Norway and Slovenia are tied with 12 points, while Scotland has 10 and Belarus has 7. Belarus would need the intervention of St. Jude to move on to the next round, while Norway appears to have the inside track with an easy homer against Moldova before facing Belarus. Scotland has risen from the dead with 8 points in their last four games, including a big win at Norway, but they'll need wins against Belarus and Slovenia to have a shot. if Slovenia could somehow topple Italy in Palermo (almost 1 year after beating them at home) they could have hopes of moving on. [double inhale] Group 6 is blessedly easy. Poland and England will advance, and England can overtake Poland if they can first dispatch Austria before hosting and beating the Bialo-czerwoni. [another deep breath] but who wants easy, when there's Group 7 where only poor, pitiful San Marino (population 28,800) has been eliminated. Spain and Bosnia-Herzegovina are the countries lucky enough to still play the Marinos, but Serbia and Montenegro currently leads the group at 16 points: a 2 point lead on the Spaniards and 3 over the Bosnians, while the Belgians and Lithuanians are seeking to find a way to leapfrog their way to a playoff place. so which matches are important? how about all of them? seriously. the potential permutations - there are 729 of them, not accounting for different scores - are too many to process. neither Spain nor Serbia has lost a match yet during qualifying, so let's not complicate this any more and just call them the favorites. [inhale, shake it out] the cool down exercise brings us to Group 8 where the winner of tomorrow's Sweden-Croatia collision in Zagreb will grab control of the group with the other likely headed for qualification by bring one of the top two 2nd place teams, thereby escpaing from the playoff process.

Predictions: OK, let's take Ukraine, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Poland as given. France still has injury questions, but i like them to emerge from the morass of Group 4. i'll take Croatia in a minor upset in Group 8 and Bosnia-Herzegovina in a major coup in Group 7. England and Sweden will be the two 2nd place teams to automatically advance. for the 3 playoff series, the Czechs should be there along with Norway. i predict Greece slipping past Turkey in the Battle of the Aegean, Slovakia taking out Russia and Spain overcoming Serbia. that leaves Switzerland and Israel who i'm predicting will end up tied, in which case i think Switzerland advances based on goal differential (they tied 2:2 and 1:1 in their head-to-head matches). so there you have it. the draws for whichever 6 teams are headed for the playoffs take place on October 14, with the matches to be played on November 12 and 16.

South America

Currently: only one table for our friends to the South, but that doesn't mean that the analysis won't be a bit complex. every team here had two games left, and standard-bearers Argentina and Brazil are in. Ecuador and Paraguay have the inside track on the two remaining qualifying slots four points clear of the next tier, while the race for the fifth spot and a chance to play-off against Australia is still very up-for-grabs with Uruguay, Colombia, Chile and even Venezuela having a chance.

This Week: the schedule makers knew what they were doing when they mapped things out. Brazil and Argentina play also-rans Bolivia and Peru on Sunday, meaning that the 3 matches on Saturday all have serious implications. Venezuela - a team that is much improved in recent years - must win at home against Paraguay to cling to any hope. Colombia must not be kind hosts to the Chileans, with whom they are currently tied. Chile needs to reverse the away form that has seen them outscored 11-2 in four consecutive losses away from Santiago, although they will avoid the ignominy of finishing last as they did 4 years ago. finally, Uruguay needs to steal at least a point, and preferably three, on the road from Ecuador ahead of their final matchup with Argentina, but they will have to overcome the extreme elevation in Quito where Ecuador is undefeated in qualifying. things don't get any easier on Wednesday as Peru and Bolivia play each other, meaning tough games for everyone else. Venezuela will have to hope that the Brazilians aren't playing their best team, though it seems unlikely that they would lay down in front of the home crowd. meanwhile, Paraguay hosts Colombia and Chile hosts Ecuador in games that will settl the jumble in the middle of the table.

Predictions: it's hard to see Ecuador and Paraguay stumbling enough to be passed in the standings, so the main question is who emerges from the scramble for the 5th spot? one tantalizing scenario - with Venezuela defeating Paraguay, Uruguay losing to Ecuador and Chile and Colombia drawing - would have four teams tied with 1 game to go. Uruguay's tough schedule makes them unlikely to cling to their current 1-point lead, unless Chile and Colombia tie and then collapse in their final game. even then, Uruguay will need to find a point somewhere to avoid being done in by their unfavorable goal differential. i'm forecasting Chile to eke out a tie and then beat an already-qualified Ecuador to set up a playoff with the Socceroos.

Oceania

Currently: Australia is the lone representative from this region moving forward, having dispatched the unheralded and unexpected Solomon Islands by a 9:1 aggregate in their home-and-home during September. they await the 5th place team from South America for a playoff in November in the hopes that they can succeed where they have failed in 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002 when they fell one step short of the World Cup. this is also their last time representing the region before joining the Asian Confederation for all future competitions.

Prediction: Australia will finally take a playoff (against Chile, if my powers are more than mere guesswork) and qualify for Germany 2006.

Asia

Currently: Uzbekistan's incredible 2nd-half comeback against Kuwait in August catapulted them into a play-off with Bahrain for the right to take on the 4th place team from North America. the first leg was originally played in September with the Uzbeks winning 1-0. however, a controversial and incorrect refereeing decision led to the amazing consequence of FIFA voiding the result of the match entirely and rescheduling it. this, even though the call unfairly penalized Uzbekistan in a match that they went on to win. if the result from Saturday turns out differently, you can bet that some hell will be raised. already qualified from this region are South Korea, Japan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This Week: the home-and-home series plays on Saturday and Wednesday. the team with the most aggregate goals advances.

Prediction: i'm going with Uzbekistan, for justice's sake as well as to get a little representation from central Asia. they should fall to Trinidad & Tobago in the end however.

OK, so you've waded through all of this and now you find yourself wondering "how can i watch some of this hot ball-kicking action?" the news is a mixed bag. ESPN2 is showing the Costa Rica v. U.S. at 10pm ET. if you've got DirecTV and the Setanta Sports USA channel - they're showing Scotland v. Belarus at 10am, Czech Republic v. Holland at 2:30 pm and a tape-delayed Belgium v. Spain at 7pm. those of us with digital cable (at least in the Time Warner world) will have to settle for Fox Soccer Channel's showings of Russia v. Luxembourg at 11am (snooze) and Bulgaria v. Hungary at 1pm (meaningless). Spanish-language channel WNJU (Ch. 47) is showing Italy v. Slovenia an hour delayed at 4pm ET and Mexico v. Guatemala live at 9pm. the Italy match is live at 3pm on Italian channel RAI (Ch. 505), but that's a subscription service. other subscription only channels with games include Caracol (Ch. 815; Colombia v. Chile at 4pm) and TV5 French (Ch. 555; Tunisia v. Morocco at 3:35pm). you can also order the England v. Austria game on pay-per-view for $24.95. anyone paying for that, however, is either English or fanatical. but then, if you've just read almost 3000 words about this, that probably describes you.

Posted by Jamie at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

about a week ago, the Baltimore Orioles sent 40-year old relief pitcher Steve Reed to the minors which is the type of thing that happens without notice countless times per season. on the off chance that Reed never again pitches in the major leagues, i would like to take the time to commemorate him. Reed pitched for 7 different teams, putting up 870+ innings of solid middle relief. he doesn't have any gaudy numbers, never pitched in a World Series, racked up only 48 wins and 18 saves and never led the league in anything. in one of his biggest moments in the spotlight, he allowed 8 runs in just 1 and 1/3 innings against the Red Sox in Game 4 of the 1999 ALDS (there's a picture of me smiling in front of a TV showing the 23-7 final score of that game somewhere in a shoebox).

so what the hell is this all about? with little expected argument, i would like to proclaim Steve Reed to be the best pitcher in Colorado Rockies history. far from an oxymoron or a backhanded compliment, this is quite an accomplishment. the offense-augmenting effects of Colorado and Coors Field are well documented, and Reed is the only pitcher i'm aware of who consistently beat the odds there and put up numbers that would look pretty good in any park. for his career in the mountains, he had an ERA of 3.63 and a WHIP of 1.27 in 499 IP. his 466 hits allowed in those innings is superb considering and his 67 HR allowed is mitigated by the cirucmstances of his home stadium. and since Coors suppresses strikeouts, his 352 Ks is better than it looks too. he never made an All-Star team and isn't going to the Hall of Fame, but what he did in 7 seasons in Colorado is nothing short of spectacular. if he had 1 more IP, he would dominate the franchise leaderboard.

if you're still looking at those numbers and thinking "eh, he was OK", consider this: his ERA+* for his years in Colorado is 141 (with a career total that was 138 before he completely tanked this season in Baltimore). 100 would be a league average pitcher and the career leader - Pedro Martinez - sits at 167. where would 141 put him on the all time list, if he qualified? tied with Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens at number 12 all-time. his 138 career mark would put him in the 16th spot along with Tim Hudson, Cy Young and Three Finger Brown. he falls short of the 1000 career IP needed to qualify, but that's some pretty rarefied air. fans of recent Mets teams are advised to ignore the fact that John Franco is 14th all-time in ERA+, as well the fact that the Mets traded Jason Bay to the Padres for 26 innings of Reed at the trading deadline in 2002.

Reed combatted the altitude by starting low

i won't claim that Reed should be bound for Cooperstown, but he deserves some recognition for consistent success in a harsh environment. considering he went undrafted in over 80 rounds during the 1988 draft and didn't make the major leagues full-time until he was 28, the submariner had a very productive career for his position.

* ERA+ is a measure of the pitcher's ERA compared to the league ERA, adjusted for scoring environment and park factors. scores of >100 are above average.

Posted by Jamie at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

it dawned on me in about the 4th inning of today's softball game that one of the guys whocame out to play was Paul Lukas of Beer Frame and Uni Watch fame. then i noticed that he was the only person playing who was wearing stirrups. they were pulled up to his calves, which fits right in with his fetish for the more traditional style of uniform as opposed to the abomination that is the modern pajama-style, full-length pants. his shirt, however, was untucked so i have to deduct some points for that (the fact that no one else was tucked in is beside the point). he was on the opposing team, so i didn't get a good look at some of the smaller details of his outfit, but i'll try to sneak a glance next time to see whether he has any visible logos, patches or bad color combinations.

***UPDATE*** looks like i shoud have read to the end of his column before posting this, as he included a link to a picture of himself in his softball regalia.

Posted by Jamie at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

when we last left off, our intrepid men of the pitch had rebounded from a disheartening 2-1 loss to MExico to dispatch Guatemala by 2-0. like most other things around here, the two matches played in the past week did not get my full attention - i saw maybe 30 minutes of the two games combined. fortunately for the US team's chances, my presence in the television audience falls somewhere below a solid attack and Kasey Keller's brilliance on the scale of deciding factors.

first came a 3-0 victory over the Ticos of Costa Rica led by Landon Donovan's two goals (his first tallies in this final qualifying round) and polished off by Brian McBride's late goal to ice it. i caught the first goal, which came nicely off of a loose ball and also saw an equalizing goal that was waved off for offsides. Keller reportedly had a brilliant stretch to preserve the lead in the first half, and after witnessing more of his heroics in Wednesday night's 3-0 triumph at Panama, i can easily believe it. with the US up 1-0 early in the Panama match, he made a series of 3 saves in 5 seconds that were among the most inspired i've ever seen. and they inspired the American side as well, as they went on to score two more goals in the first half to avenge the ugly almost-loss from last year when they needed a very late goal in the rain to salvage a point from the Panamanians. now, with two months off before a match against Trinidad & Tobago in Connecticut, the team has all but clinched a spot in Germany 2006.

elsewhere, the field is starting to take shape. a quick rundown by continent:

South America (4.5 spots) - Argentina, Brazil, blah blah blah. the real excitement here is the battle for the other two qualifying places, currently occupied by Ecuador and Paraguay. Colombia and Chile are lurking but face tough games in September @ Uruguay anf @ Brazil repsectively. if Uruguay can win, they would put themselves into 5th place and in line to take on the Oceania winner for the right to go to Germany.

Asia (4.5 spots) - Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are all in while Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Bahrain are still alive for a playoff with a North American team. North Korea is eliminated, to which the world can only say "thank you" given the political climate there as well as the rioting that took place during a loss to Iran that forced the recent match with Japan to be played in an empty stadium in Thailand.

Africa (5 spots) - group leaders include the usual suspects of Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa as well as moderate surprise Ivory Coast who are currently in ahead of Cameroon and Egypt. other potential surprises lurking beghind the leaders are Togo (a personal favorite), Zambia, Tunisia and Angola. the series of games next weekend will help shake things out a bit.

Europe (13 spots + host) - virtually no surprises here whatsoever, with the exceptions of Ukraine who are on the verge of clinching a spot in their group over Turkey, Greece (the 2004 European champion) and Denmark and France, the 1998 World Cup champions who currently sit 4th in their group (behind Israel!). battles between Poland and England, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, Spain and Serbia, Ireland and Switzerland and Croatia and Sweden are mildly compelling but the real action here won't take flight until some teams other than Andorra and Liechtenstein start getting near elimination.

Oceania (0.5 spots) - this region has been quiet for over a year awaiting this September's 2-game playoff between Australia and the Solomon Islands for the right to play a South American team for possible entry into the World Cup. Solomon Islands qualified for the playoff after tying the Aussies in the final game of the previous round, leaving them 1 point ahead of New Zealand who had a loss to Vanuatu to blame for their downfall. and yes these are real places, and yes i had to look them up to find out where they were. at any rate, this is Australia's last hurrah as the big fish in the little pond as they join the Asian Football Confederation next time around.

host: Germany
in: Saudi Arabia, Japan, Iran, South Korea
virtually in: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine, United States
open spots: 22

Posted by Jamie at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

just when i thought today's game between the Royals and Devil Rays couldn't get any more lame than Kansas City having Tony Graffanino, Emil Brown and Matt Diaz hitting in the 3-4-5 slots, along comes an ad hyping the Devil Rays that ends with the tagline "Devil Rays baseball...Watch It Happen." literally not even an exclamation point on the end. my god, they could just as easily have said "paint drying....watch it happen" and achieved the same result in terms of raising excitement levels on Florida's Gulf Coast. just by sitting there in the stands or, more likely, on your couch, you're already watching it happen. what kind if call