ESPN is totally not the Eastcoast Sports Propaganda Network

Anybody out there see what was on ESPN during primetime last night. Boston Celtics vs the Orlando Magic on ESPN and Boston Red Sox vs Texas Rangers. “

Don’t worry, we are biased, we are just showing two Boston games cause………”

I understand ESPN is in the Business of making money and these two Boston teams draw ratings, but come on. Thankfully Hockey was on my new favorite network, NBC Sports.

Monday Trivia. NBA MVPs

Welcome back to Monday Trivia. As always, the answers will be up in the comments on Thursday.


Since 1990, 4 NBA teams have had 2 different players win the MVP award. Name the 4 teams and the 8 players who won the awards.

MLB Preview and Predictions

Time to fire up the old Laptop and do some MLB predicting based on my extensive baseball knowledge.


Before we get into the predicting, let’s quickly discuss the biggest offseason news. The addition of a 2nd Wild Card team. I am not sure if I am a fan of this or not. I understand it keeps teams competitive longer, and can make for exciting races toward the end. But the MLB Playoffs already drag on so much which causes the games to be played differently than regular season. I think that adding additional games and days off will make this worse.

The story line that is being told over and over again is How the Blue Jays and Orioles now have a chance to make the playoffs since there’s two wild card spots! It’s impossible for the Yankees and Red Sox to take all three spots. First off, I don’t hear the Rays complaining about the old system. Even though they play in the same division as the Blue Jays and Orioles, they’ve still managed to make the playoffs 3 of the past 4 seasons. Secondly, Boston and New York have only both made the playoffs in the same season 1 time in the past 4 years. So just stop this stupid story line now.

As you know this is a very pro White Sox site and I believe we all predicted they would win the World Series last year. As amazing as this sounds, I am predicting the White Sox will have a losing season and finish 4th in the AL central.

There has been a lot of turnover on the south side with the departure of Ozzie, Mark Buehrle taking their talents to south beach, Carlos Quentin heading back to the NL among others. This season will be about whether there is any life left in Adam Dunn & Alex Rios and if the young guys, Viciedo and Flowers can become regulars in the lineup. I think Dunn has a bounce back year, not to his peak numbers but hits around 30 HR and that Viciedo becomes a ROY candidate.

The pitching staff will need Peavy to stay healthy as the White Sox really don’t have another pitcher ready to be an every day starter. Danks and Flloyd should have solid years and it should be interesting to see how Chris Sale works as an every day starter.

White Sox record: 74-88


The rest of the League with some commentary.


AL East: Tampa Bay Rays

Joe Madden just keeps his team going. How they got into the playoffs last year shows they will always keep fighting. Red Sox and Yankees will still have good seasons and will make it to the Wild Card game. I think the Blue Jays will have a good year as well, but ultimately finish somewhere around 500

AL Central: Detroit Tigers

Everyone is picking the Tigers to win the division. As Mike Greenberg said, “Is there a more overwhelming favorite then Detroit to win their division?” Because of this, part of me thinks something wacky might happen and the Twins will somehow find a way to win the Division. Maybe the Royals will be so excited by the All-Star game coming to KC that they’ll play awesome and win the Division. That’s only a half joke, the Royals have a lot of young talent, if that talent plays well and they mature early, they could make some noise this season.

AL West: Rangers

I think this race will be the best in baseball. The Angels made a lot of offseason moves included stealing CJ Wilson from the Rangers. This one will come down to the wire. Also, look for Josh Hamilton to have a monster year in a contract year.


Wild Card Game

Angels over Yankees

ALDS

Angels over Tigers
Rangers over Rays

ALCS

Rangers over Angels


MVP: Jose Bautista, Blue Jays
Cy Young: Jered Weaver, Angels
ROY: Matt Moore, Rays


NL East: Marlins

There’s too much excitement in Miami for the Marlins not to have a good year. New stadium that everyone is raving about with Fish Tanks, and Nightclubs inside. They brought in a ton of free agents and of course the always colorful Ozzie.

NL Central: Brewers

The BeerMakers did lose Prince Fielder, but return much of their playoff team from last year. I look for Zack Grienke to have a good year.

NL West: Giants

Big Time Timmy Jim and co. should have another good year, but the team’s success will be based of whether they can score any runs. The Diamandbacks have a good year, but only make the wild card. Dodgers are in too much limbo with the ownership situation to compete,

Wild Card Game

Diamondbacks over Phillies

NLDS

Marlins over Diamondbacks
Giants over Brewers

NLCS

Marlins over Giants


MVP: Joey Votto, Reds
Cy Young: Tim Lincecum, Giants
ROY: Bryce Harpe, Nationals


Finally

World Series Champion…………….Texas Rangers

Big Ten Bracket Challenge Winner!

After a great weekend of basketball it’s time to declare a winner for Mine and Fodor’s bracket challenge. To the surprise to no one who saw Fodor pick Indiana over Northwestern in the championship, I rolled to victory. I double his score and won 12-6.

Here is the break down.


Round 1 2 3 4 Total
Noffke 2 6 4 0 12
Fodor 2 4 0 0 6


Amazingly, there was only 1 time a lower ranked team defeated the higher ranked team which was when Ohio State beat Michigan in the semi-finals. I picked this right and got the lone bonus point for the tourney. According to CBS’ broadcast, this was the first time in Big Ten Tourney history that the 4 top teams all made it to the semi-finals.

Indianapolis Day One

Dearest Readers,

I write to you as a (partially) broken man. The Northwestern Wildcats could have punched their ticket to the schools' FIRST EVER NCAA Tournament today by beating Minnesota. Granted, Minnesota had the advantage of missing Ralph Sampson III (secretly, that dude is terrible), and getting Julian Welch back from injury (secretly, that dude is good). But this was the game for John Shurna to make himself a legend. This was the goddamned game for Northwestern to make The Leap.

Of course, it didn't happen. To quote some of my own text messages, being a Wildcats basketball fan is like being in an abusive relationship; every time the thing goes wrong, you know it's coming, you expect it, and yet you keep coming back for one more shot. You think this time, the f'ing thing will go right, everything will be okay, you'll get over the hump...

Northwestern made ONE field goal in the last NINE minutes of this game, including overtime. I don't blame Dave Sobelewski for missing his runner at the buzzer that would have won the game. It was a decent shot. I can't even really blame John Shurna for looking absolutely exhausted for the last twelve to fifteen minutes, because the whole game was on his shoulders and Rodney Williams is an extremely athletic defender who did a great job on the Big Ten's leading scorer today.

I don't even know what to do or say with this team. The NU part of my heart is broken tonight. Lucky for me, I'm a duplicitous bastard, and there are several other heart-parts to report on. So, enough Cat angst for the moment. To quote another text message: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

How 'bout them Hoosiers? I think the first and most important thing is Verdell Jones. VJ3 has been a touchy subject for a lot of IU fans, including myself. His tendency to turn it over has been well documented. But then again, so has his ability to be a calming influence on this young team. So has his tendency, down the stretch, to hit huge shots and salt away big games.

Tom Crean in tears says a lot. This is a big loss for Indiana and we all wish the best for Verdell. He deserves to experience the tournament. He's been a huge part of the rebuilding process.

That being said, Indiana played really well today. Huge games from Christian Watford and Cody Zeller, who combined for twenty rebounds and over thirty points. If they can do that with regularity, IU is going to go deep in both this conference tournament and the NCAA's.

Jordan Hulls absolutely carried IU through a bad dry spell in the first and matched Tim Frazier, who is first team All Big Ten, shot for shot. That's also awesome. Oh, and Vic played fine. And the bench played well.

Tomorrow's slate of games is looking good. We start out with Michigan State vs. Iowa at noon. I'm a huge Draymond Green fan, but I've also been impressed with Iowa's improvement over the course of the season. They lost to Campbell in November. Uh, who? Campbell? Northern Iowa beat Iowa by twenty in December. They're not even making the NIT.

Yet Iowa pulled themselves together down the stretch and beat Indiana and Wisconsin at home, adding to a win over Michigan. 8-10 isn't bad at all in the Big Ten. Ask Northwestern how hard it is to have that kind of record this year. I think MSU is going to win tomorrow, but I would not be shocked if Matt Gatens, Aaron White, and the Hawkeyes made things extremely interesting.

Indiana-Wisconsin is a matter of pacing. If Wisconsin dictates the pace, expect a boring game with Cody Zeller contained. If Indiana can do their thing, they absolutely outclass the Badgers at this point in the season. Better offense, better depth, almost a wash on D, and Indiana is way hotter. I'm obviously hoping for an Indiana win and will be doing my best to be just a small part of The Sixth Man. Go Hoosiers. This game will kind of make or break our Big Tens experience this year as fans.

Michigan-Minnesota shoulda been Michigan-NU Round III. Damn it. I don't even want to talk about this. I'll watch the game. These teams are well coached and have good players. Yeah.

Ohio State-Purdue will draw almost as big of a crowd as IU-Wisco. I expect Conseco to be rowdy for this one, with OSU also adding the advantage of a loud and possibly drunken IU fanbase rooting for them for once. We tried to will Nebraska to victory today. It was like adopting a crippled puppy. Bo Spencer made things cute, for a little bit. Ultimately it was hopeless.

I rather expect that Purdue will be in the hopeless puppy role tomorrow against a motivated Ohio State team. William Buford needs to act like a senior, because he IS a senior. Sullinger doesn't have a lot of challenges in the post against the Boilers.

Revised picks? MSU over Iowa in OT, Indiana over Wisconsin, Minnesota over Michigan (hell, why not?), and Ohio State over Purdue. Sorry for no pictures, thanks for reading. I love you all.

Signing off from Indianapolis,

MF

The Cubs Win the World Series.....via PS3

Amazing how good CGI is, you can now make the Cubs look like a good team and actually believe it.

Big Ten Tourney Picks

Okay, I'm going to do this very quickly, because I haven't read the below article yet and I don't want it to influence my picks.

ROUND ONE:

IOWA over Illinois

INDIANA over Penn State

NORTHWESTERN over Minnesota

NEBRASKA over Purdue

ROUND TWO:

MICHIGAN STATE over Iowa

INDIANA over Wisconsin

NORTHWESTERN over Michigan

OHIO STATE over Nebraska

SEMIFINALS:

INDIANA over Michigan State

NORTHWESTERN over Ohio State

FINALS:

INDIANA over Northwestern.

...ya know, they say not to gamble on the teams you love, but screw it, it's the Big Ten Tournament! So there you have it. Hell, Snuffles, I was goanna buy a bottle for that weekend anyway.