bierce

Announcers are still trying to talk up SMU as a team that proved all year that it deserved to be in the playoffs but just had a bad first half. Bwahahahahahahahahahah

Only second one made since the NFL moved the goal posts back. Breaks a streak of 9 consecutive misses by teams.

In the spirit of this thread, let me comment on the fact that predicted SEC bottom dweller South Carolina just beat ranked Clemson tonight.

If he can't play because of injury, he can get a medical hardship. But F that. He is needed BADLY this year.

Talking about canning Terry now is silly. We lost to tOSU when we didn't have a projected starter. We lost to two time defending champ and consensus top 3 team UConn when we didn't have our sixth man, who should have been a starter before we added Kaluma. So are we really that far behind projections? No. We didn't beat Syracuse, St. Joe's, and NC State by big margins, but we won all of those games away from Moody, and we won them despite Kent being out of action. Let the season play out, then decide.

I suggested Oats as a candidate a couple of years before we canned Smart, but since then he whitewashed one of his players taking a firearm to former teammate who then murdered someone. Texas will never hire him now, nor should it. Mark Few is never leaving his fishing grounds in the Pacific Northwest.

That is nonsense. Pomeroy is one of the most accurate ranking systems precisely because is so concerned with the strength of a team's opponents. A team moves up and down in the rankings only when it wins or loses a game against an opponent by a significant margin greater than a team of its relative strength was expected to have against that opponent. Pomeroy looks at Texas's non-conference schedule and recognizes it is one of the crappiest, 347th out of 364 teams. And it will get worse after we play UNO. You know what really favors wins and losses over strength of schedule? The polls.

Pomeroy has Texas 10th in the conference, just ahead of OU, Georgia, and Arkansas, but with very little difference among the four teams. Missouris is a step back, LSU another step back, Vandy another tiny step back, and So Car bringing up the rear. However, the P5 team just above So Car in the overall rankings is predicted to finish 10-10 in the ACC. That is how good the conference is this year.

God awful State Farm commercials. F those mother f'ers. And Snoop Dogg, you have earned a special place in hell for your T-Mobile crap. Right up there with people who talk in the theatre.

Here's hoping he's not in a feedback loop of thinking he should get more pt, pouting for not getting more pt, being denied pt because of pouting, pouting more for getting even less pt, etc.

We're actually favored in only 6 conference games, but as Pomeroy explains it: "Projected record is based on cumulative probabilities of winning each game and may not equal the sum of individual game predictions."

Conference went 7-1 against P5 teams yesterday, LSU being the only loser (by 10 to SMU in Frisco). A&M beat Purdue in Indianapolis, thanks to Pharrel Payne (someone we tried to land) scoring 16 and grabbing 9 boards. Pomeroy now projects us to finish with a losing record in conference. APB, UNO, and even Northwestern State present worthless wins, assuming we win them all. You have to win games like that by 50 to not lose ground in the NET rankings, so all we are doing is reducing our SOS. 19-12 without any OOC q1 wins (@NC State is currently a q2 win) but with a q1 record of 2-10 won't do anything for us. We have to play better than projected in conference or we're NIT bound this year.

Arky PB is 362 in Pomeroy. It is 330th or worse in 5 of the eight factors (four factors times 2 for offense and defense). It has played 4 P5 teams this year, lost them by an average of 46 points, and never came closer than 34. This is Solomon Bozeman's fourth season as APB coach. During his tenure, APB has beaten one other D1 program in a non-conference game (335 Central Arkansas), but it managed to beat CA in back to back years, so . . . Ah, the hell with it. Joke game. SEC+ if you dare.

I again think you are being unfair to Singletary by blaming her for the lack of team blocking today, but you are also being unfair to her by comparing her to 6th year senior Asjia O'Neal, who actually didn't do much blocking in the finals against Nebraska (3 assists I think it was). When Asjia O'Neal was a redshirt sophomore like Singletary was today, she hit. 211 and had no solo blocks in our loss to Kentucky. She hit .143 in our last match against Nebraska in her redshirt junior year. Had 5 block assists, but no solos, once again proving blocking is generally a group sport, not a solo endeavor. Singletary hasn't done it in big matches? How about 9 blocks against Kentucky or 10 blocks and 2 solo blocks against Florida? How about her 8 blocks against Wisconsin? Or her 11 kills, second on the team, and best hitting % for anyone who took at least 15 swings today? She didn't get a bunch of blocks today, but most of that was because the Creighton setter was a witch sending the ball to wherever she wasn't.

Yes and no. O'Neal was a superb talent as a middle blocker both as a blocker and as a hitter, and none of us will ever forget her 5 ace performance against Nebraska. But Singletary was terrific this year. When she had a strong blocker next to her (like Kahahawai, who played very little all year), the lid was on. Singletary unfortunately was not often paired with strong blockers on the front line. As a result, she had 18 solo blocks this year to O'Neal's ten in her final season, but O'Neal had slightly more total blocks per set, because she often had strong blockers beside her in Phillips and Swindle. Singletary didn't have much help in blocking when she was on the floor because Kahahawai played so little. I think we'll be fine next year despite losing a plethora of hitters. Singletary and Ames should be a great duo of middle blockers. Kahahawai hit much more strongly this year than in years past. We'll find a plug in immediately gem in the incoming class of hitters (Spears, Vander Wal, Gaido). Lauenstein may be ready to function again. Byrd should have something to say about who plays. We may not be natty chasing fine, but we'll undoubtedly have a good team again.