May 2011
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Hipster Hooligans →
I was just reading something by Chuck Klosterman in which he writes that soccer fans are more about fandom than sports.This delightful look into the nascent “rivalry” between Major League Soccer’s Seattle and Portland teams seems to support that argument. About halfway through I started to think I was reading The Onion.
Is it too much to ask for a team in Austin? The...
April 2011
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It's okay, Rors. Life is an epic fail. →
March 2011
22 posts
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Joe P: The Biggest Winner →
I may have to rename this blog Read Joe P. Today’s subject: Olympic champion and NBC’s Biggest Loser contestant Rulon Gardner.
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Don't blame the game, blame the players
Joe P (a Scoring at Home favorite) got frustrated with the TV coverage of March Madness last weekend, because all anyone wanted to talk about was the officiating. To paraphrase, shouldn’t we be talking about the action between the whistles? It’s not the five-second call, or the no-call at the buzzer that won or lost the game. It’s the things the players on the court did.* And it...
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The sound of one club hitting →
Apparently golf club companies spend time and money engineering the sound of clubs. Who knew?
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When 15th is better than 8th →
More bracketology goodness from Nate Silver. The bottom line is that #10 seeds (or lower) have a better chance for tournament success than #8 or #9 seeds. Two factors come into play: #1 and #2 seeds are substantially better than everybody else, and the teams from #5 to #12 are roughly equivalent (the difference between #1 and #2 is about the same as #5 to #12). The #8 and #9 seeds are at a...
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Bracketless bracket →
Developed by Bill James, in a bracketless bracket office pool you pick one team per seed (so one #1, one #2, etc.) and you get points for each game your teams win. Points per win go up as seed goes down (10 points per seed): wins by your #1 seed pick are worth 100 points, but wins by your #16 seed pick are worth 250 points.
Sounds awesome.
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“A study of NCAA basketball games during the 2004-05 season found that when games...”
– The most frightening thing I’ve read all week regarding the Buckeyes’ chances in the NCAA tournament. I’m terrified that they’ll get tripped up by foul trouble more than anything else, and not fouling is a key part of their defensive strategy. Furthermore, OSU has a rare...
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Blindfold brackets →
From the WSJ. Pick your bracket on resume only- no names.
It’s too much work. Thinking is hard. Using biases and heuristics is what makes bracketology fun!
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Dr. Saturday's 10-team college football playoff →
As if the Tressel bombshell wasn’t enough to derail March Madness for me, today Dr. Saturday drops his playoff proposal for college football. My initial reaction is that it looks great. Once upon a time I was convinced that 12 teams was the way to go, but this proposal for 10 is pretty elegant (even if it can’t handle the Oklahoma-Texas-Texas Tech one-loss unholy trinity from a few...
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The hedge-fund approach to tourney pools →
Step 1: Pick good teams that everybody hates.
Step 2: Profit.
Good thing nobody reads this blog, so I can use this info for my own advantage.
(Edited: Here is 538’s projection, taking into account a bunch of different factors. The explanation of the rationale is here.)
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In NCAA Tournament, regular season overachievers... →
An interesting analysis by Nate Silver of regular-season overachievers (relative to their pre-season rankings) in the NCAA tournament. Bad news for Notre Dame: teams that rise from being unranked preseason to the top 10 by the end of the year often disappoint in the tournament.
I’m as fascinated by the accuracy of the preseason polls as anything else in the piece. In the tourney, the team...
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The NCAA is a joke, part 156 →
Yeesh.
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Ohio State doesn't much give a damn about your... →
Pretty much.
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14 of 15
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3bler
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February 2011
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September 2010
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August 2010
37 posts
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One (the only?) reason to split OSU and UM
I’m guessing that if the Big Ten gets two BCS bids, it’s likely they’ll be the winner and loser of the B10 championship game (although obviously many possible scenarios exist). That’s a pretty good reason for administrators and coaches to support the rematch option.
There's one thing Michigan and Ohio State fans can... →
Brian at MGoBlog agrees.
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What he said →
Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday, Matt Hinton, on OSU vs. Michigan. We agree.
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It matters when Ohio State and Michigan play
To paraphrase an old joke, the Big Ten never needed to create a championship game because it already had one: the Ohio State v. Michigan game. Thing is, that’s not a joke. And it’s also the biggest reason to keep The Big Game the way it always has been- once a year, at the end of the regular season.
While Big Ten officials decide how to configure the new-era Big Ten, rumors have...
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Snitchin', fairness, and honor in golf
[First, some quick background. In the past couple of weeks, two pro golfers have paid dearly for infractions caught by TV cameras. First, Dustin Johnson famously missed out on a playoff at the PGA Championship after a video replay showed him grounding his club in a bunker (two shot penalty). Then, this week, Juli Inkster was DQ’d from an LPGA event because (reportedly) someone watching saw...
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Columnist: Tebow is too manly for the NFL →
Riiiiiiight. Shoot me now.
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OSU/Michigan game moving to October? →
Makes sense. The way Michigan’s headed, OSU could just make it their Homecoming game.
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College Football Reference website →
Oh sweet baby Jesus, this is awesome (and new- just went live).
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Slate's look at golf and statistics
Slate’s Michael Agger is running a week-long series (with the awful name “Moneygolf”) on new statistical approaches to golf. Here’s the link to Monday’s intro and Tuesday’s piece on how traditional statistics are lacking (and what new statistics might be useful). Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here trying to figure out how to get a job for myself...
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Sideways was about golf and wine (in that order) →
A good read: a piece from 2006 by Rex Pickett, the author of Sideways, on his love of golf in California’s Santa Ynez valley, and how the book (and movie) changed him and the area.
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“Lee Westwood is the most consistent player in the world. Phil is playing the...”
– Padraig Harrington (via Wei Under Par), on the difficult task of trying to figure out who’s the #1 golfer in the world right now. (I could quote Paddy all day, every day, by the way. Now I’m gonna go eat some hay. OK.)
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Monday's Starting Five: #5 →
Football’s right around the corner. So while we’re all waiting for our Jordan Shipley jerseys to arrive (he’s so SCRAPPY!), here’s Football Outsider’s Basics to get our brains warmed up (our livers are on their own).
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Monday's Starting Five: #4 →
Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press says the rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State has devolved into “watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob.” OK, so he doesn’t quite say that. But he does say this: “Ohio State is Big Daddy.” Oh yeah, that’s the spot. Just a little bit to the left. Yeah, that’s perfect.