Clevelander17

Well they got nine runs...

I disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. I'm not going to argue that Ohio State (or Kansas, or anyone else) was THE best team in the country. I will, however, argue, that each of those teams are better than where they ended up being eliminated in the Dance. The tournament is not about giving the best teams the chance to advance far. The best team possibly, and likely, will not be playing this weekend. I don't care much about the tournament being "fun to watch." Sure that's what makes it money, but I would like a tournament that supposedly crowns the best team in the country to be more accurate in doing so. I won't argue with you about the MLB playoffs, in fact, professional baseball has far and away the absolute worst system of determining a true champion of all the most popular American sports. It's not even close. As for the NFL, again, given the nature of the sport, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. Clearly, though, the NBA and NHL have the truest systems.

There's a big subjective element to the NCAA Tournament as well. Think about team selection, seeding, etc. But each team that can make any plausible argument for having a great regular season is at least given a shot to win the title. Not true with football. For example, non of the teams in this years final four would have even made it to a bcs bowl, let alone the championship. I don't think that matters. All four teams in the Final Four had fairly mediocre regular seasons and have gotten hot over their past ~10 games or so. One of them will win the championship based on that. Have any of those teams been the best team in the country over the course of a full season's body of work? I don't think so. That's my issue with the NCAA Tournament in a nutshell, it's too easy for simply above average teams to ride a wave to the Final Four or even to a title. I would like to see a tournament format that rewards more overall success and looks to really determine the best team in the country. At the moment, I'm not at all convinced that we have that.

What makes you say that? In football there are limited possessions. A couple dropped passes and a few untimely turnovers can completely change the face of a game. In basketball, you have many more offensive opportunities, so you have to be more consistently bad to blow a game. You don't think my statement is true? Let me try another angle: In college football, do you think teams rated as low as Butler and Virginia Commonwealth could ever knock out the top 3-4 rated teams in the country, plus beat a few other highly-rated teams? Upsets happens in football, but they are much more rare. See what I'm saying?

There's a big subjective element to the NCAA Tournament as well. Think about team selection, seeding, etc.

I've been high on him for some time now. What worries me is the fact that he's a bit of a 'tweener and may have trouble guarding his position (either 3 or 4) at the next level. Kid is a baller, though. If they can grab him or Barnes and throw in a PG like Irving, Knight, or Walker, I'd be happy. Really all depends on how the ping pong balls bounce. Picking 1st and 7th or 8th would be nice. Two top ten picks...gotta be Irving and Barnes. They remind me of Rose and Durant. Look for Lighty and or Norris Cole in the second round. Barnes probably has more upside than Williams, but I don't see Barnes falling into the 7th-8th pick range. We take Irving with top pick no questions I believe.

I'll take that!

I've been high on him for some time now. What worries me is the fact that he's a bit of a 'tweener and may have trouble guarding his position (either 3 or 4) at the next level. Kid is a baller, though. If they can grab him or Barnes and throw in a PG like Irving, Knight, or Walker, I'd be happy. Really all depends on how the ping pong balls bounce. Picking 1st and 7th or 8th would be nice.

Awesome! Beachwood, UH, SH, and to a lesser degree SE all coming together to fund a SWAT team that will be mostly used in Euclid. Now why couldn't we get East Cleveland on board the gravy train, too? Why not? Crime doesn't always exactly respect municipal borders. Why shouldn't Beachwood, UH, etc. be on board with pooling their resources to fund a unit that it probably makes no economic sense for any one municipality (possibly even Euclid) to fund alone? Or do you think South Euclid and UH should simply build a modern-day Hadrian's Wall to the north of themselves and hope that that solves everything? As far as I can tell, the reality is that this unit isn't likely to see much action in any of these suburbs. UH actually used to have its own SWAT team, but that didn't make sense, either. I understand your point completely, however as a resident of UH, I'm not chomping at the bit to set up a situation where public safety services are being disproportionately shared between my city and others. I'm not against regionalism, per se, but I'm not ready to get on board with it until the residents in the outer-ring suburbs are ready. I don't see residents of Solon looking to team up with Bedford Heights on police projects or Kirtland Hills looking to get together with Willoughby on similar endeavors. I freely admit that this is provincial thinking, but the burden must be shared. Anyways, UH, Beachwood, and SH are actually some distance from Euclid. This is really an odd fit for the parties involved.

I agree, this is my problem with the NCAA Tournament. It's fun to see some new faces in the Final Four, but these aren't the four best teams in the country. Does the NCAA want to crown a true champion? Apparently not. Oh well, the Buckeyes will be loaded again next year, big difference being that they're going to seriously lack experience. Hopefully Sully, Buford, and Craft can step in and take on leadership roles. I'd much rather have a 64-team (genuinely 64 teams, not 68 ... the "First Four," as much as the commentators have clearly been instructed to glow with positivity for it, was completely lame) single-elimination tournament than a computer system picking the top two teams in college basketball, having them play for the title, and excluding everyone else. That's fine, but football is a sport in which one game can more accurately determine the better team. Basketball is not such a sport. Take nothing away from the Cinderellas, but we talking about teams that got hot or lucky at the right time and benefited from matchups they were given. It would never happen, but if we're going to allow in 64+ teams, there should be serious changes in how they're selected and the format should be changed. I won't argue against a playoff for football necessarily, but at the very least we can be fairly certain that the teams on the field in the BCS championship game are two of the best in the country, as proven by a whole season of play. For the second time in as many years, the NCAA basketball championship game will not be able to say the same.

I hope that AJ Green is available at #6 and that the Browns grab him. I know, I know, they have a ton of needs and might be better of trading down, but a playmaker like that...yeesh...

I agree, this is my problem with the NCAA Tournament. It's fun to see some new faces in the Final Four, but these aren't the four best teams in the country. Does the NCAA want to crown a true champion? Apparently not. Oh well, the Buckeyes will be loaded again next year, big difference being that they're going to seriously lack experience. Hopefully Sully, Buford, and Craft can step in and take on leadership roles.

Awesome! Beachwood, UH, SH, and to a lesser degree SE all coming together to fund a SWAT team that will be mostly used in Euclid. Now why couldn't we get East Cleveland on board the gravy train, too?

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Looks like David Stern's plan for the NBA. I'm pretty sick of the anti-small market bias that exists in most major professional sports and the way many people in those cities act like they're entitled to championships. Some of those cities listed don't even support an NFL team (Boston doesn't look at the Patriots as their team since they moved to Foxboro) and Atlanta teams aren't often any good. I disagree with you, I think most Bostonians definitely see the Pats as their team.

I was underwhelmed by Hoppus Maximus. Any other recommendations? By the way, I think they're an Akron brewery. ;)

Do the Yankees need outfield help? The MLB is a joke.

Yeah Cowherd Looks like David Stern's plan for the NBA. I'm pretty sick of the anti-small market bias that exists in most major professional sports and the way many people in those cities act like they're entitled to championships.

I like them, I just kind of wish they had gone with gold as the home uniform color instead of white. They should at least have a gold alternate uniform. The new floor design at the Q is also pretty cool.

Love those Buffalo rowhomes.

So the Mac cult is a figment of my imagination, and you're going to play the moderator card because I brought it up? :laugh: Speaking of pathetic... I'm glad that you bought a Mac for apparently good reasons. But a lot of people buy it because of the logo of the fruit prominently placed on the back of the hardware.

He should have been fired years ago IMO. I'll be curious to see what the local media says this week.

I have 2 PCs and a Mac, and I like all 3. The Mac is easily the slowest of the 3 computers, but was the most expensive. There is no way your statement is true. The only reason there is this perception is because people who really don't know too much about using a computer end up with spyware and crap installed all over the place on their PC slowing it down and then blame Windows for it instead of blaming themselves for being dumb. There are very few viruses that propogate themselves (I have never gotten one and have only seen a couple on the hundreds of PCs I've repaired). Most were installed thanks to a user clikcing an ad and downloading some program from the popup or installing something out of an email attachment. If you see a mass exodus from PCs to Macs, you will also see the hackers and spyware coders targetting those machines instead of PCs. In this modern day and age of software and OSs, there is not much difference between the two, and certainly no reason Macs can't get viruses, malware, or spyware. Mac OS X is a great OS, but so is Windows 7. So enjoy paying for your Mac as an "exclusive club" while you can, but you probably don't want it to become too popular, because that is the point when you'll start getting crap installed on your machine. Good post. I don't really understand the Mac cult.

Urban Cincy examined the data here- http://www.urbancincy.com/2010/10/over-the-rhine-is-not-one-of-the-nations-most-dangerous-neighborhoods/ Funny how the newspaper article wasn't spun to note that the #1 neighborhood last year had fallen completely off the list. That's some great police work. ;)

Does Vegas pull these numbers out of its butt? My understanding is that the line moves as people bet a one way or another, which means that technically SHS's statement is true. Think of the whole "wisdom of crowds" thing, with the crowds in this case underrating the Brownies.