This will be the end of the NBA

So no one over the age of 23 can advance in the NBA playoffs this year. That's no fun. It's still possible you know...David Stern will do anything he can to prevent it, but what if it happens? Can you imagine how boring that split screen head thing they're doing...Billips and Duncan...that's right...your 2008 NBA Finals...

The Spurs vs. The Pistons! I would go 0-7 on watching this series as would the rest of the country. My first positive thought after the Cavs lost was "At least I don't have to hear De-Troit-basket-ball!" a hundred effing times a game. I'd rather watch the Bill Engval Show

Should this nightmare series happen ratings could be as low as NHL or something women like. Unless we get a Lakers vs. Celtics match up, the NBA will continue to slide in popularity.

Nothing has changed in the NBA

Yes an NBA ref was busted for fixing a game but nothing has changed. Watching the NBA playoffs reminds me of a reality show. If you win the first challenge of the episode than you get some sort of advantage for the next competition. Like on Biggest Loser, the winner of the first challenge gets to deduct 2 lbs. off their weigh in for the week. This concept is almost understood and accepted in the NBA. You have to be at least 15 points better than a team that night to win on the road. I only watch the NBA during the playoffs for the most part but I'm in disbelief at how bad the officiating is...for example, that foul on West when Garnett had that breakaway. He wasn't even near him but the ref knew it would get the crowd pumped so he called a foul.

LeBron gives us flashback

2-18? Wow King James, thanks. Way to match a stat from the 2007 NCAA game (ours were 3's).

Mark my word, he will come back and score about 31 in another close loss this weekend! A bold stance, I know, but last year may have been a fluke.

I really don't have much else to report, I just wanted to take that dead horse article off of the top.

Oh, we're ranked #1 on cbssportsline.com because 18 of 22 starters are back. Beating USC would be sweet. Sweeter than a song girl's ass.

Big Brown wins

...and some other horse fell...that usually means they have to shoot it right? I look forward to hearing cocky comments until The Preakness. 8 Bells got 2nd and then collapsed..typical female. ha-HA!

Congrats to Big Brown, the first African-American horse to win the Derby.

It was either this or womens golf

Kentucky Derby day and I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma doing shows. My friend, Bob Costas, is covering the event on NBC. As I start this entry it's about 40 minutes until race time. I wasn't going to write anything but something unbelievable happened a few minutes ago. As they were walking Big Brown from a stable to probably some other stable, a grown man could be heard in the background singing, "Overrrr-raaated!" Yeah, take that horse! You and your 5-2 odds can suck it! Sure none of these horses even give a shit about winning (even the intellectual Big Brown). I can't decide if I like Big Brown's trainer/owner/whatever the hell he is. He's very cocky and with an hour of pregame coverage for 2 minutes of action we almost need it.

Other notes:
-Ahh, a promo about the Olympics. They're sure to be an awesome disaster.

-I've got Visionare at 23-1 (I promise I typed this well before race time)

-There's a voting contest for favorite hat. Why?

-Turns out Visionare's owner owned Barbaro...they just asked him if Visionaire belongs in the race...not a good sign.

-No one is going to read this until late August

-Big Brown is not handling the environment very well--uh oh! He couldn't handle the overrated chants afterall.

-"Much the best? Why do they keep saying that?" Exacto 20-19 by one dumbass announcer.

-How does one pronounce "Gayego?"

-My friend Jim AND Reader Wise have picked Pyro. Jim is the luckiest person I know, Reader Wise...the opposite.

Let's see what happens...

Champions! A second rate writing effort for a 2nd rate tournament

Yes! Suck it UMass, Florida, and every other mediocre team that entered this redheaded stepchild of a tournament!
I started to blog the game but kept throwing my notebook so the notes end early. At the beginning I had so many questions like, Will this be over by the time The Office reruns begin? Will the game score higher ratings than the LA Galaxy's Beckem-fest on later tonight? Can they be anymore pro-UMass in their announcing? The answer to all 3 is "no."

This game was important to Koufos as his last chance to impress scouts. He started with a turnover, a missed shot, a foul, and then giving up a basket. Isaah Thomas was salivating.
On the flip side, Terwilliger hit a 3. Sideshow Matt played so well that Thad thought it best to reward him with pretty much no playing time in his final half of basketball EVER (though I've heard a league in Antarctica has been scouting him).

After the first few opening runs by both teams it was obvious that physically our team was going to dominate. They were running and gunning on us, but missing quite a few perimeter shots. That's the thing I enjoyed about this game, UMass kinda sucked. It's weird watching a big game against us where the other team isn't shooting our lights out. Didn't Florida go like 33-35 on 3's last year? UMass made some here and there but overall they couldn't get many good shots off on us in the set half court situations. I praise Thad for using the zones and traps for slowing the game down. I knew we weren't going to make any huge runs because the fast pace favored UMass, but we built up just enough of a lead to hang on.

3 stats stick out in this game though they contradict each other. We had the better inside presence and blocked 12 of their shots. Howevah...we gave up 24 offensive boards! 2 dozen. That'll happen in a zone but still, it would have cost us provided UMass could actually shoot.
Both teams made 32 field goals during the game. We shot 57, UMass fired off 87. Diebler would have been perfect for their offense. Any team that gives up over 90 to us simply cannot play defense.

Overall I'm happy. They did as well as they possibly could in the situation. Our young guys got more experience and Butler got a little more of a spotlight. We'll probably lose Koufos, but other than that and a lack of point guard (Remember those Carlos Davis years?) next year should be promising. It'll be like that girl you haven't seen in awhile, and you heard she lost weight and got hotter while staying at her aunt's in Kentucky all summer.

Scroll down a few entries and see who I predicted to win this tournament...when is the banner ceremony?

(So at the top of the hour with a minute left in the game I flip over to check on The Office...my NBC affiliate has decided to not show it, but instead put on a 30 minute promo for The Jersey Boys coming to town.)

Where did this annoying term come from?

That's CHALK man! Up until this year I had never heard of a bracket referred to as chalk. I thought maybe it was one of those things that other people knew like who The Supreme Court Justice is, but it turns out a few of my friends hadn't heard of it either. Chalk...picking all of the higher seeds to advance. In other words, not picking upsets, i.e. the women's bracket year after year.
Or the N.I.T. when the Buckeyes are the #1 seed! Hells yeah! Unfortunately my bracket was only 2-4 on the NIT final four...wait what? I'm not allowed to refer to it as that? Final Few? Fucked out of the NCAA Four?

All I know is that our season lasted the longest out of anyone in the Big Ten and that means Wisconsin and Michigan State can suck it.

Perhaps I'll blog the game tomorrow night...is that allowed?

By the way I blame Mike and Mike for popularizing the term chalk.

I Kan Haz Mishugen playerz

Before I get to the NIT game I suggest you click on the title for the link to the latest news about Justin Boren leaving Michigan and possibly becoming a Buckeye (after sitting this year out). Two other linemen have also left the program along with their only quarterback left with game experience. This team is going to be as talented as the 1971 Marshall team. I can't wait for that sequel... "We Are Michigan!"

Could this program collapse that bad and parallel their basketball teams of the last decade? We can only hope.

Now onto the N.I.T. game. I was doing a show last night so I didn't get to catch most of it, however one of my friends sent me a text that said, "DEEBS!" I hurried home to the Internets to see that he hit a pair of 3's...whoa, a pair? You mean like a real scholarship players? Awesome, good job, super! He ended up with 10 points. You know what it was, Dayton guarded him. Yep, if you'll recall back to the exclusive interview all he needed was a hand in his face.

I would also like to note that when all of the seniors came out of the game for their final home game none of those cheers were for Terwilliger.

So is the season a success? We've been to two N.I.T. Final Four's in a matter of months. I suppose it's good to have experience, very fresh N.I.T. experience.

My bracket took a beating when UMass kept winning, but my final matchup is still intact. I'll go calculate my percentage after I ponder why Brady Quinn is already doing endorsement deals for another ten minutes.

Standings take a long time

So all we need to know is that I'm tied for first and in the lower part of the standings Reader Wise is tied with my girlfriend. In the National Standings due to yesterday's magic in Tampa no one is perfect...in fact everyone has missed at least 2 games. Still, this doesn't feel like a big upset tournament. I don't find myself screaming, "I can't believe Drake AND Vanderbilt both lost!"
Bob Knight made a good point about how talent will get you through one round, but you need a solid team to advance any further. I think this point will ring true for teams like Tennessee who were able to dick around because they're "more athletic." Then Bob Knight went back to raving about Pittsburgh.
With the Pac-10 losing so many games people are wondering if UCLA is the real deal. We won't find out until the Final Four because the only "good team" left in their bracket is Xavier (though I think Duke might turn things around and somehow advance in that piss-ant region). The Quack Attack cost me big, but that's what I get for picking a team who was 5 games over .500 (now 4 games over .500) to beat a team with 1 loss. Hopefully Pitt is as good as Knight says and will recover that section for me.
Don't forget to fill out your women's bracket if you haven't already...here's how you do it...Take the 4 teams who have dominated women's basketball for the last 20 years into the Final Four and you too can be a women's bracketologist. (haha, I said women's -somethingologist, see what I did there?)

Exclusive Interview with Diebler...kinda

We got Terrelle Pryor, suck it Michigan. What will this do for our program? I don't care...I'm more concerned about what it doesn't do, give Michigan a quarterback. They'll be starting fresh this year with someone who wasn't good enough to be mentioned last year so I'm confident that they'll suck again. It also says something about our recruiting power, not that we didn't know this already.

OK back to hoops. The team looked slightly motivated last night against THE GIANT!

Really Dur, that's the best you can do is "THE GIANT?!" Yes, yes it is. My efforts in this blog will parallel the efforts of our NIT performance. Uncreative, and just enough to get the job done. I spent all of my creativity thinking of an entry name for this year's bracket challenge (Oh what has Joel done now?). I've decided to place my yearly jinx on North Carolina (I don't think I've ever picked a winner right) because when they advance, it's boring. I don't want a guy named Tyler taking up half of "One Shining Moment" either. I filled out so many brackets on so many websites that I don't remember the picks I made for this one. In a few I have Oregon beating Memphis in the 2nd round...Oregon is 5 games over .500. Five.

I should include one interesting piece of information. My Dad (The Bull), who coaches high school ball in somewhere in Ohio, ran into Diebler's father at the State Tournament last week. From the conversation with my old man I'm going to call it a Midwesternbias exclusive interview.

Bull: How did Jon handle the season this year?
Mr. Diebler: It was rough on him. He said he's not used to being so wide open on 3's from the corner.


There you have it fans...Jon couldn't make a shot to save his life because he was
TOO OPEN!

(Yes, I've now changed the font twice in one entry)
So next year, all we need is teams to provide better defense on Jon and he'll finally make a 3. I guess he needs the defender up in his face so he can yell "boo-ya" as the ball goes through.

Reader Wise has threatened not to fill out a bracket this year. Should he boycott this tradition I will fill the void with more FAIL pictures.