Recent Comments

It never was based on a full season of team accomplishment, though. Prior to the current, AllStar winner gets home field, system, home field simply alternated between AL and NL. I think the absence of interleague at was the rationale.

Or working in his brother's chop shop

They haven't been elite, but they've been consistently good. And they're likely going to remain that way given their schedule and division, and a good coaching hire. 

The real question is how Penn State continues to be considered this elite program. Counting the championships vacated after the Sandusky thing, they're tied with Northwestern for conference titles since joining the Big 10, and they're going to be at best the fourth best team in the East for the next decade with the scholarship limits.

They've been the third most successful program in the conference since Alvarez took over, far outpacing Penn State (and they have more conference championships since Alvarez won his first in 1993 than Michigan).

Now, maybe the Anderson hire leads to a downward trend, but it's silly to pretend that Wisconsin's success is some kind of short term anomoly. It's been 20 years.

OSU pretty much schedules the same way we did when ND was on the schedule. One game that will likely be a quality non-conference game. One middling Big Eastish team, two MAC snacks. 

The Cal series that makes their schedule look so bad this year was scheduled when Aaron Rodgers was their QB and they were a top 15ish team. The next four years, they take on Va Tech and Oklahoma, which will make for far tougher non-conference games than we face those years.

I have a theory that Oregon and Boise have risen as Washington collapsed in the wake of the Don James scandal. I'm pretty sure they used to compete with USC/UCLA as the dominant school in the Pac 10 by getting the highly ranked kids from SoCal that USC/UCLA didn't have room for and filling in from the PacNW.

It does seem pretty clear that the rise of Oregon and the decline of Washington are pretty closely linked. Boise may be a different story.

Wasn't his quote "toe meets leather at 1"?

I did read them. I just don't agree that they constitute proof that he's going to take on a bigger role with the Pistons, particularly one involving day-to-day stuff.

1. The attractiveness of the job. The Piston's pieces are pretty good and they've got some picks and cap room to work with. They don't have a superstar, though, and they're not getting one unless they luck out in the lottery, as the Pistons have never been successful in attracting free agents. The Pistons' promise is not so exceptional, in short, to outweigh the costs of the job, mainly relocating to Detroit from the places where he and his longterm girlfriend live (and where he enjoys being). Add in his reported request to skip road trips when he was negotiating with the Lakers this year, recent hip and knee replacements, and I don't get the sense that he's wanting to try to do a semi-transcontinental commuting thing that the job would likely entail. A fulltime gig in Detroit is just not that attractive for a guy at his point in life.

2. His ego. Phil's ego may be large (and for good reason), but he can essentially choose his job (other than the Lakers, apparently, due to Jimmy/Jenny issues) if he wants to get back into the NBA.

3. The money. Don't see this as exceptional in Detroit versus what he can get elsewhere if he wants this type of job.

4. Relationship with the Gores. This is likely why he's doing this limited consulting thing in the first place.

On Martin's writing...

I totally agree with the accusations of laziness. Someone counted up the number of times that Tyrion "waddles" in the series and its in the high triple digits. He's also been allowed to be incredibly self-indulgent in the way he's allowed his story to sprawl.

By saying that he's "been allowed to be self-indulgent," I think a lot of this has to do with the economics of the publishing industry. On the one hand, there have been broad cut backs in editorial staff, so material just does not get edited as carefully as it once did. On the other, the search for sales has made his publisher, I imagine, amenable to splitting what was planned as one 800-page book into two 1000 page+ volumes, despite the fact that the 4th volume brought what had been a fairly relentlessly plot-driven series grinding to a halt as Martin sent his characters all over the place without much payoff (Arya's and Brandt's stories are particularly self-indulgent) while introducing numerous new characters. There is seemingly no editor at his press that will say "no" or "shorter."

I think HBO's show runners have done a lot to smooth Martin's issues. The point about Theon is one case. I also feel that Rob's dilemmas are far more clear on screen than in print. It's one of the few examples where a show is better than a book, and I think this is largely because of the constraints that television imposes in the way that publishing no longer does. I do wonder what they're going to do after this, and the subsequent season, where the books really get into plot sprawl.

From observing my kids, it seems that obsolescence and obsession with the new is an attribute of teens and adults far more than young kids, who tend to continue to use and play with things they like even as they incorporate new things into their world.

I think the NFL would be far more hostile. To venture a huge stereotype, NFL players are disproportionately rural and southern and come from a culture where the denunciation of homosexuality, and the sense of a homosexual threat, is an important part of the religious culture of many churches. There are also many more people in an NFL locker room, meaning that not everyone has personal relationships, something much more difficult to maintain in the smaller locker rooms of the NBA. 

To venture another huge stereogype, openly gay people have been part of urban black culture for a long time to a far greater extent than in southern culture, white and black alike. Perhaps not "accepted members" but present and acknowledged nonetheless. George Chauncey's awesome book, Gay New York, has stories of drag balls in Harlem that would attract thousands of spectators, gay and stratight alike in the 1920s and 1930s.  

Sure, but in Chicago, there's still the option to drive to Ann Arbor for a game. It's kind of a long haul, sure, particularly if you're trying to do there and back, but it's completely doable (and preferable to seeing a game anywhere else) and other than Northwestern, it's not that much further than going to Illinois or Wisconsin.

I really don't know that it will be.

I may be exaggerating the limits of Nix's game, but most players big enough to plausibly play the 4 or 5 are going to approach his production just as a function of being large men on the floor. Even if Izzo's not offensively innovative, Nix's absense frees up the offense from having a big blob on the low post clogging things up every position and potentially add something as a pick and pop player and in the open court, two things Nix could never do. 

He did give them a good post option when their offense got stagnant, but I think a lot of their offensive stagnancy (is that even a word) owed to his presence on the floor.

You're an advocate for ass cheeks, then.

The recent history of college football rivalries suggests that your position is simply incorrect. The SEC championship game has done nothing to dull the passion of the Iron Bowl. Not playing annually killed the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry, even though they eventually met for the Big 12 title. 

Playing annually at the end of the year is the essence of the Game's rivalry. It represents one final hurdle for the more successful team, a last chance to redeem a season for a struggling team, and an unbearable game when both teams are equally successful. It's not only about championships, it is the single measure that most defines a particular team and that creates its most enduring memory. 

The old system could have killed that, since it devalued the rivalry, as both teams could plausibly progress to the championship game. Now that's not possible. The Game might be the single biggest winner in this realignment, as it protects it as the single most important game in the Big 10 every year.

People seem to like OSU more than that. I don't entirely buy it. They'll be, perhaps, the best defensive team in the nation but you still have to put the ball in the hoop. They don't have anyone who's proven to be able to hit even a 15-foot jumper. But I expect them to be the 3rd favorite. The rest looks good.

They'll probably be 3, after Kentucky and Louisville, maybe 4 after UNC if Wiggins goes there.

It was never a protected rivalry under the old 11-team set up. The series took a couple breaks in the 1990s and 2000s.

Nice, they figured out that you can align the 5-4 home/road splits along divisional lines to eliminate competitive advantage within the divisions in the unbalanced schedule.

Are they releasing the revised schedules for 2014-2015 today too? 

Why do people care about people showing up late? I get the sentiment about no-shows, those are tickets that someone else could use. But showing up mid-first quarter, particularly with the huge bottlenecks to enter the stadium, why is that a big deal?

The sense I've gotten from all these threads is that there are two sentiments at work here in the people bothered by this:

1. It makes Michigan look bad to others. This is generally expressed either as looking bad on TV or creating opportunity for other fans (mainly from OSU or MSU) to make fun of Michigan. As for the TV presentation, I'd think that only people looking for empty seats are going to notice them. If they fill in by the end of the first quarter, 1% of viewers are going to remember that. (What does look bad and gets remembered is when there's red all over the stadium, as in 2009). And OSU and MSU fans are going to write scUM (hur, dur) and talk about Walverines no matter what happens. Why get upset about donuts? They're going to make fun of Michigan because it's in the nature of being a rival, the same way people pull out Ufer's truck driver quote or the cooler pooper story at any opportune moment.

2. It strikes people as not the proper behavior for Michigan fans. This comes out through  both reminiscences of one's own experiences in the student section (though that photo of huge amounts of empty seats in the mid 2000s earlier in the thread makes it seem like the memories are particularly hazy here). And if your reminiscences of your own time in the student section are about empty upper sections, that's sad. And it also comes out of a set of practices that a proper Michigan fan should follow: in seat by the time the band takes the field being the most prominent. But there are lots of different kinds of fans in all the sections. There are people rabid about football, there are people there to socialize, there are people who go because their husband/wife likes to go, there are band people, there are people on bucket list trips, there are people new to the area. Trying to dictate a standard set of practices, beyond perhaps singing the victors, particularly one based on being at a certain place at a particular moment, is totally futile. Moreover, the nature of this objection seems to be about the offense people take to their own personal sensibilities. I don't get why a section that largely fills in by the end of the first quarter becomes the particular target of this offense-taking.

The no-shows, I totally get, because there's an experience gone wanting. People late to the game? Not worth the agita.

*Note: I graduated in 2003 and have been to maybe 5 games since then, so this is far from a defense by a current student.

Illinois?

Sad to see Nash like this. He can barely move.

And sadly, I think this is likely Morris's last season in the NBA. He just doesn't do any one thing quite well enough. Can't really guard. Isn't quite able to break down the D and distribute. Doesn't shoot that well.

That brutal defensive play at the end of the first half, where he let Ginobli easily get off an open 3, can't help his cause

I'm pretty sure he already has the green light.

As others have said, this is an impressive and fun video, but has little to do with the areas he needs to improve (or even the shots he gets, I'll bet he had single digit top of the key 3's all year). This is a guy hanging out with his buddies. It's nice. But it doesn't have that much to do with the type of work he needs to do in order to improve (which are mainly defense, ball-handling, and understanding game situation). 

If they do GA like Wisconsin, which has general admission but ticketed seats that are distributed as students arrive at the stadium, it's only going to slow those section lines down further, as the ushers count out the specific number of tickets each group wants.

It will be interesting to see how they do this logistically. I have a hard time believing that public safety officials are going to sign off on a system that has no seating assignments for 25,000 people, which would seem to invite a crush at the lower portion of the stands as people try to push there way in there.

If he wants to do it, it's pretty much now or never. He flirted with running against Stabenow in 2006. In this election, he wouldn't have to face an incumbent with their huge built-in advantages. He'd have at least a puncher's chance. Really comes down to whether he sees the AD as his terminal job.

They're going to need to significantly up security outside the gates to prevent potential crush situations when they start taking tickets and at the tunnel entrances, which will be the other dangerous location.

Syracuse is in the ACC next year, right? I'll bet we see a final 4 rematch or Duke at Crisler. 

I think the show is able to counteract one of the books' major shortcomings, which is the difficulty understanding the simultenaity of all of the plots that Martin has going on, because the show is not obligated to the chapter form that Martin kind of has to use. In the books, certain characters disappear for hundreds of pages, creating a sense of "what was Arya doing again" for me everytime a long silent storyline popped up again. In the show, they can intercut short scenes to keep characters "alive" for viewers, even in episodes where they don't feature prominently.

The expansiveness of Martin's plot is going to pose the biggest issue for the showrunners in upcoming seasons. I'm expecting they're going to have to engage a pretty significant smashing together of books 4 and 5, which seemed to overlap temporally (as well as hopefully editing out some storylines).

Trey may not have Lawson's athleticism, but he's got way more than Jameer Nelson ever had. Jameer Nelson had a killer crossover and stepback, but he never had Trey's court vision and he could never have blocked a ball a foot above the rim.

I think the guy ordered to strip and the older brother were two different people.

Older brother was either run over by the car or had multiple gunshot wounds (depending on the report) and died fairly quickly. Doesn't seem like someone who's going to be able to strip down. 

Knocking over the 7/11, carjacking someone, all this suggests to me that they had no plan beyond the initial bombing. If this seems like an action movie, it may be because that's the main influence on their strategy (note: this is not a "violent movies caused this" argument.) 

Big thing they'll have to figure out early on is who the late clock scorer is. This year they knew they could throw it to Burke with 5 seconds left and he'd get a shot or set someone up. That's a nice security blanket.

Great news. 

The big questions facing each:

Can GRIII start to create his own offense and be a late shot clock option? That's one big hole created by both Hardaway and Burke leaving. Those were the guys who we could throw it to with 5 seconds left on the clock and know they would get a shot.  Or will it have to be Irvin or Walton?

Can McGary develop either a back to the basket game or extend his range? If he can do either, he'll be devastating, and I think he's capable of either. He showed some post-up moves in the tournament and his shot is structurally sound. If he became a pick and pop option, I don't know how you'd defend the pick and roll against him.

The good thing about those questions are that they're exactly the things they'll need to develop for the next level, and they probably know that after getting their draft evals. There's potentially a very nice synergy between player development and team needs. 

#8 is the huge problem with the elbowing flagrant. Big men are now scared to clear space by pivoting with their elbows out, for fear of catching a guard above the shoulders and getting a flagrant. If the refs allow teams to be as handsy as Louisville after a rebound is secured, then the only recourse is really to flop. You never used to see the level of reaching in on rebounds that you saw in this game, because guards rightly feared catching the point of an elbow in the teeth. 

Hadn't seen that view. The clip of the play on the broadcast, taken from the back, definitely showed Hardaway holding Christmas off (that's funny to write) with his left arm as he went up and Christmas getting ball initially. Obviously, here, a lot of contact on the follow through. On the replay, I thought the call was ok. This makes it look like he got hit on the face and certainly the jersy after Christmas hit ball. Wish I could see a clip of the footage from the opposite angle again.

That was a marginal call, I thought Carter-Williams exaggerated the contact though. He was really lucky to avoid a technical there, though, with his breakdancing move after he didn't get the call. That would have been an automatic T in the NBA for showing up the ref.

I've been really critical about how the charge gets called, particularly when the help defender slides over, but I was ok with this call for a few reasons.

1. Morgan's actually contesting the shot. He's got his arms up, he's playing defense, he's doing more than just trying to slide over and fall down. That his arms are up also means that he was in position early enough to  contest. (It also meant that his arms caught Trishe as he went down). In short, he wasn't just undercutting a driving player.

2. There was significant contact and it was clearly initiated by the offensive player, and, as Brian mentioned, was square in the chest. This was no flop.

3. Trishe mentioned he saw him and had options (said he should have jumpstopped). My main critique of the leniency of the charge call is that the offensive player is often penalized for contact that he has no possibility to avoid.

And I think given the way it's called in college, charge was probably the right call (though who knows what  a charge is).

I think the key to this game is whether Michigan hits run stopping shots. L'ville's danger comes from their ability put together quick 6-0, 8-0 runs. If we can stop them from hitting 3 straight shots more than a couple times, I like our chances. But looking at their last couple games, they can erase leads and create gaps quickly. Hopefully, our responsibility with the ball continues (knock on wood). If so, we'll get shots up, it's a matter of making them.

The only people said media circus would bother are people caught up in the Fab 5: good or evil? storyline. It won't have any impact on the game, unless you think THJ's going to be plaintively looking into the stands to see if CWebb came to see him play. 

If he does come, though, we may not see any of the game, with the broadcast switching back and forth between reaction shots from Kevin Ware and CWebb.

That team is going to have a hard time scoring next year unless they have someone coming in. Ross is really talented but super inconsistent. And other than him, they don't have anyone who can make a shot from the perimeter. It'll be really tough to score on them, but it may not matter unless some lights go on over the summer.

And this was all happening when the suspension went down. I'll bet Barchi may have gotten a memo about it, but this merger had to be consuming almost all of his time.

I'd be really surprised if Craft left. I think he's the case for a guy who could spend a summer working intensively with a shooting coach to  push his stock up. Thomas is kind of in Hardaway's situation, probably going to get drafted as high this year as they'll ever get drafted. Ross remains their big wildcard. He's really talented but super inconsistent. If they don't get scoring from him, I just don't know how they score the basketball if Thomas leaves. They will be a huge pain defensively, though.

I'm shocked the have Ferrell rated that high. I just did not see much from him at all. He looked like a dime a dozen point guard. Indiana's going to lose a ton of scoring, but they have good players, if poorly coached.

I'll bet Harris comes back. I think Z-Bo has been their only one and done during the Izzo years. That draft slot has to be tempting but I'll bet that's inflated because of his shoulder, which has to worry NBA teams. I think most people at MSU think Payne's gone. If both those guys stay, I think they're the clear favorite. They only lose Nix, which at this point is probably addition by subtraction.

Good call on Iowa. I think FRAN! is a really good coach and they have some talent. I'm happy about that because Iowa plays attractive basketball and likes to push the pace, which god knows this league needs. I think Purdue can be dangerous if Hammonds gets on the same page as Painter.

Right now, assuming that Zeller, Oladipo, Burke and Thomas go pro, I'd put it at something like this:

MSU (if Payne stays)

UM/IU

Iowa/Wisconsin (who will clearly be 4th, because they always finish top 4)

Purdue/OSU (Thomas back bumps them up by Michigan and Indiana)

-----

Illinois/Minnesota/Penn State (if Frazier's healthy)/Northwestern (if they keep Crawford)

Nebraska

That's fair and I was thinking that immediately as I posted it.

The main point is that he has better information and better connections into current NBA evaluations of his status than anyone here, so all the "he's not ready" comments are really pretty silly. If this is the decision he's made, it's almost certainly not coming from a misunderstanding of what scouts think of his game.

If they didn't want to get hit in the head with basketballs, they shouldn't have worn those tank tops.

I think tone deaf defenses of rapists was Alford's main problem at Iowa

I do wonder if this is one of those cases where a good tourney run is overweighing everything that went before. Looking at those numbers from the Big East, they're not terrifically impressive, but they have faced teams that their defense is well designed to stop -- a 13 seed, two bad 3 point teams and a team with two small guards (of course, it's totally fair and probably appropriate to turn this argument around on Michigan, save the Kansas game). 

We're moving Willie Henry to QB???

Absolutely correct on the Heath Bar blizzard. Clearly the best thing on DQ's menu.

I also think that Minnesota's AD wants to replace the Barn with the kind of multi-sport arena that Wisconsin has (which sucks, the Barn is awesome, one of the last old school gyms left) but that Tubby was decidedly uninterested in doing the promotional work around the state to make it happen. He apparently basically disappears for the summer.

Just endlessly reversing the ball doesn't do much, but moving the ball side to side quickly can open up the seams for players to penetrate or for the post to flash to the center. That's why Syracuse tries to deny ball reversal. I think Indiana had trouble moving the ball because of the wing denial, and therefore they kept trying to enter the ball to the flashing post with a 6' point who had to lob the ball over the tall top players in the zone. The first place they went wrong was in failing to force the zone to shift and adjust because they couldn't move the ball on the perimeter. 

That's the real strength of this Syracuse zone. The top players are long enough to deny the wing and the high post entry at the same time unless you force them to move.

There's a no reentry policy. Good way to pick up championship game tix, though.

I think that line's probably about right, with the caveat that Florida has only been tested a couple times against teams with an equal level of talent that they have, where that's occurred regularly for Michigan over the last two months . But these are really similar drive and kick, perimeter-oriented teams that generally play at a middling pace. (63.3 possessions/gm for UM, 62.6 for UF) and shoot the 3 well. They take even more 3s than we do, at 40%.

The one big statistical difference that stands out between the two is the defensive eFG%, where they're excellent and we're middling. But we've got the best player on the court. 

That's a good point. We have experience playing teams that are as or more talented.The best team they've played is ... Arizona?

He did a good job at New Mexico, but that should be one of the top 2-3 programs in the Mountain West now that Utah's gone. Great facilities, great fan support, and a history of putting guys into the NBA. He also cratered a solid Iowa program. Maybe he's learned, but no one at Iowa has anything good to say about him.

How about this: 

You don't know why the pipe broke, so shut up about unions.

May want to take " No Politics" action to prevent the class war from breaking out in this thread.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/north-quad-floods-big-time#comment-1988971

Man MCW is just blowing by Oladipo on the dribble.

Yeah, it's amazing. MSU and OSU are still alive and the only Big Ten team I'm really rooting against is Indiana. They just have so many unlikeable guys. Crean, Sheehy, Zeller, Oladipo (pretty much only for that dunk, but still).

I think he's arguing that you shouldn't have a 3-4 from a conference in the same bracket when you have a 7-8 in another (ND - Pitt). He's saying that the top 4 highest seeded Big East teams should have each been located in separate regionals

Bad ass shot.

Yep. Great finish though. 

Dumb foul by craft.

Ross is really their key. If he plays well, they're tough with that extra scorer.

How does Thomas not touch the ball on that last possession? Atrocious. At least when Burke goes end of half iso he's our best player.

I think they're planning a pretty dramatic upgrade of Welsh-Ryan once they move the football practice facilities to a new building that's going to be located near the lake. I think they're seeing Crisler as a model for doing a total gut renovation. Now, that's probably limited due to the building's shell, but NU's dumping $250 million into new athletic facilities.

And in basketball, you can really turn a team's culture around from getting 2 or 3 really good recruits. It's a lot harder to turn a football team. This will show just how good a recruiter Collins is. Duke certainly recruits itself to a major degree, but he's pulled in some big names.

Did we ever get a look at the second one they were claiming? I thought Edu's was a stone penalty, he's about the only guy who stood out to me as having a subpar game.

Gutsy, gutsy performance. 

Heros:

Gonzalez, strong all night and had a great save stopping a cross.

Zusi with that amazing recovery run to stop a free header.

Guzan for keeping an inexperienced defense organized all night.

Dempsey for playing 180 minutes in rough conditions ... heavy snow then high altitude ... when coming back from injury and not being fully match fit.

Beasley for fighting through an ankle injury and playing out of position.

And Besler for surviving his first international game at the Azteca.

Edu needs to stop giving the ball away cheaply just beyond the 18

Survived. 45 minutes to go. Mexico had chances, but they've all been half chances. And we may have had the best chance of the half in that header off the corner that Altidore couldn't quite tuck in.

At least it makes sense why he's starting and is not a crazy, "hey, why play the same backline two games in a row?" move by Klinnsy. Which was my first guess.

I checked. Besler has one start. In a friendly this January against Canada. Not good.

Yeah, you may think you can't call Boca in and have him ride pine because he's the captain, but our centerbacks tonight have two competitive caps between them. Maybe it'll work. But it's not giving me a bunch of confidence.

This. Exactly this. Everyone is praising McGary to high heaven, and he had a great game, but VCU was the absolute ideal matchup for him. Small so he could grab rebounds, aggressive defensively so they opened up the backcut and clear runs to the rim on the P&R, pressing so they opened up running lanes for him. Add in that their only post was in continual foul trouble and it couldn't have been any better.

Kansas is not going to provide those opportunities in nearly the same amount. Withey also seems to run well, though not as well as McGary, so it's doubtful he's going to get the same kind of fast break points and Withey's really good at helping and recovering, so the free runs to the rim are likely not going to happen. 

To me, Timmy's the key. If he hits those 22 foot jumpers and can attack the way he did this past weekend, we're very, very tough because it opens the lane even more for Burke. If he doesn't, Burke may just start feeling the need to try to carry us and that's usually when we get offensively stagnant.

It's easier for you. It's far less easy than the Meadowlands for people who live in New York (I don't know from Foxboro, I've heard that's a mess even if you live in Boston). But in general, a lot of people wish this game was played at either of those places because a lot of people live a lot closer to those places than East Hartford.

I'd prefer to fight my way to the Meadowlands. Of course, it's like 7 miles away from where I'm sitting right now vs. 120 miles to East Hartford. 

That said, I think UConn should do what it wants to do to accomodate its fans and its own political needs, which is to play it in East Hartford.

And petanque

Iowa was two weeks later. There was a home game against Indiana in between that I was at but can't remember any part of. Did Breaston run a punt back?

Thanks for the thoughtful post. A couple comments

The 65% number is from the NCAA Director of Officiating based on last year's tournament. Some percentage of that was plays that were so close that he couldnt tell what the right call was. But that number is getting so close to 50/50 that it IMO hurts the game. I can live with refs getting 10% of the calls wrong. I've refereed and know that sometimes you just don't see things that well and call something based on what you think likely happened. But at 65%, it seems to me, you're getting to a point where it's totally unclear what the correct call actually is. That's not good.

I would be totally on board with a "when in doubt, it's a block" mandate. Right now, it seems like its the opposite. I will also freely admit being biased toward offense. I think basketball's at its most beautiful when players and the ball can flow freely and, as Clyde Frasier would say, 'express themselves.' 

Finally, I'd like to focus on something in your last paragraph, where you say your defensive goal is to "force that player attacking the basket to settle for a pull-up jump shot or more ideally, kick the ball back out of the lane or abandon his attack on goal all together."

That sounds like a great defensive philosophy and a useful one for thinking about how charging is called. It emphasizes being in position early enough that the offensive player is forced to make a decision. The way the charge is now called, it seems that players are establishing position after that "takeoff point," which is not when the offensive player leaves the ground but when they begin the act of jumping. Maybe the rule needs to change from defenders needing to establish position before the offensive player leaves the ground to when he begins to jump. That's a small fragment of time but still allows the offensive player the conscious recognition that a defensive player is there and he can make choices to avoid

But they consistently miss the call. What do you do when an evaluation by the head of officiating shows refs missing 35% of the block/charge calls? It cheapens the game because it creates important swings in score and possession on essentially a coin flip.

You coach youth basketball, right? Do you think all the guys trying to rotate over and fall down is good defense?

Consider it an homage. 

I like my title better though, particularly when rendered as an url, the end of which is "death-charge" 

That AD better get Shaka Smart.

As a preface: I don't think this protest will succeed, nor should it, given the rules governing protests.

But I do think there's a qualitative difference between playing in extreme temperatures and playing on a field where an accumulation of snow or rainfall impedes the ability of the ball to move and the referee to determine the boundary markers. By the end of the game, I think the snow was doing both. But it is, in the end, the referee's decision and Costa Rica didn't apparently pursue a protest in the manner laid out by FIFA

They'll proabably put the court in one corner of the football field and use temporary seating {insert Jerryworld temporary seating jokes here] around the other two sides. I'd imagine they won't sell seats in the upper decks on the sides with temporary seating. 

Usually, these venues tend to hurt outside shooting at the end of the court with the temporary seating at least initially, because there's so much visual space behind the hoop. Look for runs early in the half by the teams shooting at the opposite end. And best to drive the ball initially on the open end.

I think this is a theory vs practice issue. In theory, having out of control players plow over well positioned help defenders would be a problem. But can anyone say they actually see that happening that much? What I see far more often is the late slide over and collapse in an effort to stop an aggressive offensive play.

The NCAA has pretty much told officials as explicitly as they ever say anything to officials to not call as many charges as they do. They haven't followed. It's time to change the interpretation of the rule itself.

Yeah, that looks like a total flop to me. The tell is the way he throws his head back when the bump is in the middle of the chest.

Thanks for that. Here's the essence of the issue:

To improve the accuracy rate on those calls, men’s officials are being asked to apply the following guidelines, which the Men’s Basketball Rules Committee approved in May:

• Before the offensive player (with the ball) becomes airborne, the defender must have two feet on the floor, be facing the opponent and be stationary to draw a charge. Otherwise, it should be a blocking foul.

• Secondary defenders (help defenders) moving forward or to the side are also in violation and those should be blocking fouls.

• Contact that is “through the chest” is not de facto proof of a charge. The rule in its entirety must be considered before determining a foul.

• In some cases, it appears a defender is being rewarded solely for being outside the restricted-area arc, without considering the other aspects of the rules.

I'm fine with those kinds of charging calls. Primary defenders who are in position and receive aggressive contact from an offensive player (particularly a lowered shoulder or a push with the off arm) should be protected. The problem is that so many players are flopping because of the way refereeing is privileging the charge that the referees can no longer determine what contact is initiated by offensive players and what is flopping that they simply guess.

Not to mention that it would be tough to see UCLA going back to the Pitt for another coach right after firing Howland.

"Hi, I'm a young, hip coach and we're going to play an up tempo, pressing style that will get you a lot of chances to finish at the rim on the break and a ton of shots in the half court while preparing you to play hardnosed defense like they want in the NBA. I got freaking VCU to the Final Four. If you come on board, what do you think we can do at UCLA?"

Yeah, I don't think he'd have much trouble recruiting at UCLA.

This is an interview of a guy who knows he's getting a bigger job.

Needed more "dadgums."

Kansas has insane difficulties scoring right at the rim.

I think the VCU game is going to be sui generis. There's not going to be another team that's going to invite us into the open court in the way they did. Even in that game, our decision making was great but most players (other than Hardaway) didn't shoot the ball that well.

This is how Kansas lost to TCU. They just couldnt make any shots.

Never underestimate the ability of Nantz to overdramatize the mundane.

Man, I don't know about Temple holding the ball for most of the shotclock there and then calling TO. Don't you want something quicker there to lengthen the game?

I don't like Hulls, but it was gutsy to dive on the floor with his shoulder the way it is.

Refreshing honesty from Temple coach Fran Dunphy in the halftime interview, "We're not running a lot of offense." It's all Khalif Wyatt.

Scenesters ride the L. Hipsters now ride the J.

It wasn't the right call, though. He wasn't established when the guy went up. Refs spend so much time focusing on the feet in the circle, now, that they no longer get the timing of position right. It's awful.

Bilas tweets after the game... On the charge call, college basketball refs repeatedly call charges on clear blocks. It is an epidemic, and a failure. We can do better.

Terrible offensive set with a great result. 

LaQuinton Ross is OSU's key. They know what they'll get from most everyone else, but if he plays well, he gives them a second scoring option that they otherwise don't have.