bierce

Why is ISU preserving clock and Miami's timeouts?

They just showed Arky's Liberty Bowl history. Isn't playing in so many of them in the last 20 years a blot?

Tech trickeration didn't fool anyone that time.

Does anybody rank bowl games by the % of seniors who opt out?

Let's hear it for a senior wr relegated to returning punts who calls for a fair catch at the 2.

I call a tie

Whatever one thinks of Tennessee's preformance today, my immediate reaction to today's games is to ask if maybe the top three of the B1G might be pretty damn good. While I think Clemson is better than SMU, PSU totally torched the Ponies, while we were in a hold our breath moment in the fourth quarter against Clemson. Meanwhile, tOSU completely torched a Tennessee team that is probably better than anyone we beat this year. The rest of the B1G might be junk, but Oregon, tOSU, and PSU seem real and deserving of quarterfinal slots.

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.

It's not that Carlson is a bad setter. She is a very good setter, and we got on rolls this year with her playing full time, it's just . . . why? Swindle was AVCA Southwest region freshman of the year. All region honorable mention. All conference rookie team. Final Four all-tournament team. Third on the team in blocks. Fourth on the team in aces. Second on the team in digs. Had 96 kills. And for that she got benched. That was truly bizarre roster management to me. Service error totals were kind of high, but so what when she brought so much else to our team? We just saw what can happen when the opposing setter is a good attacker. Our blockers were usually unprepared, and if the prepared for the setter attack, then they couldn't shift in time to close with our outside hitter to wall off their outside hitter, leaving us susceptible to cross court shots. We missed that in our offense this year. We missed that badly. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Elliott is a hall of fame coach, and I'm just a guy who still has hair on his head and has an internet connection. He knows 100x what I do about volleyball. But I will never understand the decision to bring someone in to take over from Swindle, no matter how good a player that someone was.

Singletary and Ames are a very good blocking duo, but they need more help from the outside hitters in blocking. Kahahawai was our only outside hitter who was a plus as a blocker. Wenaas, Skinner, and Rutherford aren't very strong at it. That is another area in which Swindle was hugely valuable last year. She had 92 blocks last year. This year she and Carlson combined for only 27. I just never understood Elliott's decision to bring in another setter instead of another great back line player.

How mechanical does my voice sound?