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Saturday, March 22, 2003
NCAA Tournament - First Round, Day Two, Summary
If you stayed up until the end or don't live in the Eastern Time Zone, then you saw some great endings in an otherwise bland day. Actually, that isn't entirely fair. The problem is with the way CBS does its regional coverage, and their refusal to leave blowouts. The Cleveland area was treated to two lousy day games. Kentucky running roughshod over IUPUI, then Purdue having a surprisingly easy time over LSU. That meant, I only saw the last minute or so plus the overtime of the St. Joseph's-Auburn game. I was completely shut out of seeing the down to the wire finishes of Utah-Oregon and Wake Forest-East Tennessee St. The night games were only marginally better. Xavier beating Troy State -- Troy State tried, but could never quite make a game of it; and Indiana-Alabama -- Indiana, to its credit did stage a great second half comeback to make this a decent game. Still, I didn't get to see any of the Butler-Mississippi St. nail-biter, and only the last 3 minutes of the Maryland-UNC Wilmington game.
Blowouts. Plenty to see. Kentucky, Florida, Louisville, Michigan St., Purdue, Texas, and Pitt all had easy times over their opponents. There isn't much to say about them, except to note that this happened in 7 of the 16 games played.
The reasonably close, to "the score is deceptive to the actual game." There were a couple. Syracuse struggled with a tougher than expected Manhattan team, before pulling away down the stretch. The same thing for Oklahoma State overcoming UPenn. Penn was one of the "sexy" upset picks, but it didn't happen.
Down to the wire and the upsets. Maryland spared a lot of brackets (including mine) by getting a buzzer-beater to prevent the upset. Butler pulled off the 5-12 upset over Mississippi St, in the closing seconds. Every year, a 12 seed beats a 5 seed, and Butler keeps it going. Wake Forest nearly became part of the short list of 2 seeds to lose the opening round game (the last time was in 2001, in fact the 4 times it has happened has been in odd-numbered years -- meaningless but amusing). Still, they got by and get to play Auburn which upset St. Joe's. Auburn probably shouldn't have been in the tournament, but they got in and drew an Atlantic 10 opponent that was at best an 8 seed itself. Utah held on to beat Oregon, and as a reward gets to play Kentucky on Sunday. Finally, Indiana came back from an 11 point halftime deficit to beat Alabama.
How my bracket picks did. Not bad. I went 13-3 for the day, and none of my losses reached my Sweet 16 picks. I called the Butler upset, but was wrong about Penn. LSU and St. Joe's let me down. Overall, 23-9 for Round 1, with 1 Sweet 16 team eliminated. There were only 5 "upsets" in the first round (not including 9 seeds beating 8 seeds), so most brackets are probably in good shape so far.
Friday, March 21, 2003
NCAA Tournament - First Round, Day One, Summary
Well, in the daytime not a lot of shocks, but close games with plenty of almosts. The night session, though was a little different. There were no surprises for the #1 seeded Oklahoma Sooners and Arizona Wildcats. Kansas continued its tradition of giving its fans a heart attack in the first round. Last year, as a #1 seed they went down to the wire with Holy Cross. This year, the #2 seed went to the end with Utah State, before hanging on to a 64-61 win. Speaking of the Holy Cross Crusaders, they gave Marquette more of a fight than expected before wearing out at the end.
Like Marquette, the other #3 seed, Duke, struggled before pulling away from Colorado St. Stanford and Illinois (#4 seeds) also struggled to wins that the final scores look better than their play. Other high seeds that struggled to win included Notre Dame over University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Missouri over Southern Illinois, UConn beating back BYU (to the relief of everyone because of the fear of them moving to another region in the Sweet 16 to avoid Sunday play). Wisconsin had a surprisingly easy win over Weber State, who I expected to play better and win in an upset.
Now the upsets. The big upset as far as seeding difference, was Dayton (#4) getting absolutely drilled by Tulsa (#13). Tulsa was unbelievable in the first half, shooting close to 58% overall and 67% from 3-point range.
The other upsets are not so big, because (in my opinion) there isn't a large difference between teams seeded 6th to 11th. Central Michigan completely blew out Creighton in the first half then hung on to win the game -- guess I should heeded the MACphiles in the area. Memphis was surprised by Arizona State who I didn't even think deserved a bid.
How my bracket picks did. Not great, but not horrible. I did lose one of my Sweet 16 teams when Dayton choked -- that should teach me to pick an Ohio team. The other teams I picked to win, but lost -- Weber State, Southern Illinois, Western Kentucky, Creighton, and Memphis -- I had losing in the Second Round.
Thanks for the tip
Dave Copeland seems to be having the same problems with Blogger that I've been having. Thanks for the advice Dave.
Does anyone know if you can use Moveable Type on a blogspot site?
Reads for the Day
Lileks is better than usual today with his pseudo-blog of his day. My favorite:
7:30 PM Gnat is watching her “Colors, Shapes and Numbers” video. I always commit the credits to memory in case I run across its creators, in which case I will pull out the length of piano wire I keep for just that moment. I will work quickly; the element of surprise will be on my side. I will say: this is for that Rollie Rectangle character who raps in a posh English accent. He’ll go limp. I think in a way he expected it to end this way.
Then go to Matt Welch for a good look at who are the Saudi apologists. Welch has been writing about this for a while, but this is still very interesting. Plus check out the comments on this post for more discussion.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Not the right time for this
Looks like Blogger is acting up again. I sent out a post and a error screen showed. The edit page finally returned, and it reads as if it was posted, but my site isn't listing it.
My Bracket Picks
I meant to blog this before the NCAA Tournament started, but never quite made it. This is a truncated summary of my picks. I was going to explain more of them, but I haven't had the time. Here's the "official" bracket in PDF and HTML, if you want a visual guide.
South
Round 1 - No upset picks. Texas, LSU, UConn, Stanford, Maryland, Xavier, Michigan State, and Florida.
Round 2 - Texas continues, as does UConn over Stanford; Maryland beats Xavier; and Michigan State upsets Florida.
Sweet 16 - UConn knocks off Texas, making Texas the first #1 seed eliminated (some of my Big East biases may be showing at this point, but...); Maryland beats Michigan State.
Elite 8 - UConn edges Maryland.
East
Round 1- Oklahoma, California, Butler upsets Mississippi St. (at least one #12 seed upsets a #5 seed, and I'm picking two this year), Louisville, UPenn knocks out Oklahoma St. (another upset, that wouldn't really surprise many people), Syracuse, St. Joe's, and Wake Forest.
Round 2 - Oklahoma, Butler in a huge upset over Louisville (this is a bit of bias because of my dislike of Pitino, but they're my "Cinderella" pick to make the Sweet 16), Syracuse and Wake
Sweet 16 - Oklahoma ends Butler's dreams; and Syracuse beats an overrated Wake Forest.
Elite 8 - Big East bias can only go so far, Oklahoma over Syracuse.
West
Round 1 - Arizona, Gonzaga (8 vs. 9 is never a real upset), Notre Dame, Western Kentucky upsets Illinois (WKU is underrated and the Illini are overrated), Creighton survives against Central Michigan (I waffled on this one, as there is a lot of local MAC bias towards CMU, but I'll stick with Creighton), Duke, Memphis, and Kansas.
Round 2 - Arizona, Notre Dame over WKU, Duke beats Creighton (it would screw up my bracket, but it wouldn't upset me to be wrong here), and Kansas manhandles Memphis.
Sweet 16 - Arizona in a walk over Notre Dame; and Duke scrapes by Kansas (Kansas is a hot pick, so it's time for a Roy Williams team to gak).
Elite 8 - Arizona.
Midwest
or where my biases come home to roost
Round 1 - Kentucky, Utah, Weber St. upsets Wisconsin (have I mentioned that I really don't think that highly of the Big 11?), Dayton, Southern Illinois upsetting Missouri (I really waffled on this one, and in some online pools I picked Missouri, but I realli wanted SIU. Sadly, they lost by 1 point on a questionable blocking call.), Marquette (though if Holy Cross could have won and then beaten Missouri, it would have set up to have the Crusaders head coach, Ralph Willard, face his former team in the Sweet 16), Indiana, and Pitt.
Round 2- Kentucky demolishes Utah, Dayton gets past Weber St., Marquette advances past SIU, and Pitt beats the crap out of Indiana.
Sweet 16 - Kentucky beats Dayton, Pitt beats Marquette.
Elite 8 - Pitt shocks the world and defeats Kentucky (Hey, I'm a Pitt alum, I have to believe my school will get to the Final Four. It's just bad form not to back your school).
Final Four
UConn falls to Oklahoma
Pitt battles valiantly but loses to Arizona (I'm biased, but not completely insane).
Championship
Oklahoma wins the National Championship.
Go Somewhere Else
If you are coming here to read updates on the war with Iraq, I have one question. Why? I haven't posted a lot on it because I don't think I have much to add. I support the war, and many others have made far better arguments than me in support of it. One quick aside, this LA Times article on the US's Arab "allies" trying to hush their tacit support for the war (Via Hit & Run)
For more warblogging go to InstaPundit, Steven Den Beste, VodkaPundit, Nick Denton, Dave Winer, Sgt. Stryker or someone else.
My daughter reaches 9 months tomorrow. I would rather spend the day with her playing and making futile attempts to explain the basketball and NCAA Tournament on TV to her than spend the day on the computer or watching news broadcasts saying nothing that new and making other futile attempts to explain the concepts of geopolitics and war. Sorry if that seems selfish or such.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Unloading
Finally, the Yankees get rid of Rondell White. He was a foolish signing, at best, last year. The only thing worse than signing him would have been to have signed Moises Alou. Injury riddled outfielders are a dime a dozen. What's interesting to me, is that the Yankees get a minor league pitcher (who still has potential) and Bubba Trammell. I don't think much of Trammell, but he isn't hideous. It's the payroll that surprises me. White is due to get $5 million this year, while Trammell is only $2.5 million (plus another $250,000 buyout to avoid picking up an additional year at $4.75 million); yet there was no mention as to the Yankees having to cover some of the salary.
Next up, Raul Mondesi and/or Sterling Hitchcock.
CORRECTION: I misread the portion about the salary. Bubba Trammell's contract has him receiving $4.75 million next year, and the option with the buyout clause is for 2005. That explains why there was no give back on the salary and why the Yanks also got a prospect. Now, I'm not so thrilled with the deal.
EU Wire Tapped
Damn Americans:
Telephone tapping systems have been found at offices used by France and Germany in the building where European Union leaders are due to hold a summit from Thursday, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday.
He said other delegations were also affected at the EU Council Justus Lipsius building and it was not known who was behind the espionage.
"I can confirm that in the course of regular inspections, interception devices have been found...which do not only affect France and Germany," Dominique-Georges Marro, head of the EU Council press service, told reporters.
The French newspaper Le Figaro accused the United States of being behind the wiretapping, but Marro said: "We do not know who is behind it. I don't know who was on the other end of the line."
Bwah-ha-ha!!!
Convention Center Details
Sometime on Monday the Cleveland City Planning Commission (it's a shame that it isn't the City of Cleveland Commission on Planning -- CCCP), the CCPC, finally posted the Convention Center information. All of the information is from the presentations at Public Meeting 1 and 2.
The information includes a map of where the proposed sites are in Cleveland; the presentations for each of the five sites; and bullet point reports.
I think it is safe to say that there is no fear of information overload. These reports are all, essentially, summaries. There is no new information, and the economic impact report that claims that a new CCC will provide 5500 to 6500 jobs is not in the mix.
Still, it is good to be able to have all of this in one spot, here for example is the butt-ugly airplane hanger design proposed for the Galleria/Erieview CCC site. Yeesh.
Plenty of Irony, but no Rationale
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will be speaking today at the City Club in Cleveland. At the City Club, he will also receive its Citadel of Free Speech Award. Now, here's the fun part, as a precondition for him speaking, there could be no radio or tv broadcast coverage of his speech. Usually, the City Club speakers are broadcast live on the radio and shown on public television over the weekend.
No rationale was given other than the claim that Scalia, " "usually prefers not to have camera coverage" in other settings, said Kathleen Arberg, spokeswoman for the court."
The media isn't banned. There will be photographers and journalists (presumably with tape recorders), so a record of what he says will be out there. Strange.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Brackets, Brackets, Brackets
I've been working on my NCAA brackets most of the evening. Tomorrow, I'll attempt to explain my alleged methodology
Monday, March 17, 2003
No, No, No.
Contrary to popular rumor, I haven't been on a bender since Pitt started playing then finally won the Big East Tournament. The family packed up and went to visit the Rich side in Lebanon, PA this weekend. We got back last night, and spent the day relaxing and enjoying a rare nice day in the Cleveland area.
Coming Soon
Been busy. Posting will resume soon.
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