w00t

I thought he was as good as Bassett (and bigger)... if he doesn't return I don't see them as the favorite.

The bookstore has the jerseys!!!! They are about $55 Confirmed! They have a ton of them in stock... #6, #10, or no number. Well done merchandising team, now everybody go buy one.

UPDATE: The UA Equipment Manager (Kevin O'Connor) returned my call and gave me another angle to try... I'll keep everybody posted.

I would think Tulsa and Creighton would be more challenging than UM or UC. But, never take any opponent for granted. I agree that Tulsa and Creighton will be the best two (regular season) visitors to the newly renovated Jack this year.

The bookstore thing is news to me... which bookstore would that be? I'll definitely give that a try.

Anybody have any ideas for how we can get our hands on some #*@( soccer jerseys?

I went with GP1... ratings baby, ratings!

Just a guess... GK - Meves RB - Sarkodie CB - Barson CB - Valentin LB - Korb DMF - Kitchen AMF - Ampaipitakwong RW - Speas LW - Nanchoff F - Nagbe F - Mattocks First three off the bench... Caldwell, Balogun, and Tulloch. Two more weeks until we get a closer look!!!

I think Ohio State is probably our most natural soccer rival over NIU and Hartwick even though they're in our conference. Indiana's right up there too, not sure why we're not playing them this year.

Not a tough choice for me.

As much as I dislike the Flushes, I like to see them and Akron both competitive in the East...makes me hope that spanking them for the Wagon Wheel can also mean a trip to the MAC title game one of these years...doubly sweet. I hope K.e.n.t. loses every game by 50 points. I hope they draw under 9k, instead of their goal of 90k. I hope they continue to arrest their alumni who tailgate at homecoming. I hope they get busted for multiple major recruiting violations. I hope 45 K.e.n.t. players get arrested in an ugly, drunken street brawl that makes national news for 5 weeks. I hope Doug Martin gets another contract extension after a 2-10 season. F K.e.n.t. I hate K.e.n.t. Well done.

ZIP, where did you hear Zavaleta is going to Indiana? *Edit: Never mind, found it. Too bad, would have been nice to snipe another five-star recruit right out of the Hoosiers' backyard.

Want to take a guess why we scheduled that game? (hint: not ironic at all) Attempt to build on basketball rivalry?

I have a feeling there might still be a handful of roster changes before we kickoff our first exhibition match (ironically enough against VCU). Good luck to Yoram and Josh, they will be missed, even if in the "off the field" capacity. We are still three deep at GK with the arrival of McAdams (not that you ever really hope to have to see a backup keeper anyway). Up front is another story, but I have to confess that by the end of last season I groaned every time I saw Mwila warming up on the sidelines. He simply gave up the ball way too much... and didn't have blazing speed or clinical finishing to offset that fact. ~ 2 months until VCU match... ~2 hours until France vs. Uruguay.

Winner.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Rnk Team Conf W-L Pyth AdjO/Rnk AdjD/Rnk Cons/Rnk Luck/Rnk Pyth/Rnk OppO/Rnk OppD/Rnk Pyth/Rnk 1 Duke ACC 34-5 .9855 123.8/1 85.8/3 21.3/233 -.005/155 .8105/4 107.2/21 94.5/1 .7328/19 Guess who's going to win Monday night. *Hint* I don't need anyone's eyeball test from tonight's games to give me the answer... that "Adjusted O" number above very likely tells the story. Oh wait, I know, WVU's vaunted defense just didn't show up tonight, it's the only explanation for those who really know which side of the floor really makes NCAA champs.

He may be trying to elude a stalker. Has anyone seen nbs95? Wow that was uncalled for. Just goes to show what kind of people post here. Very dissapointing. Sports messageboards are the place to go for "unpolished" comments and opinions. Sometimes I feel bad knowing that players, coaches, and family members are reading them... but if you really want to know how people feel about something (not to speak of how accurate or properly directed those feelings are), this is the place to find it. I think Steve is very well liked, but he's three years into the program now and hasn't cracked a rotation that already probably goes deeper than it should. It's just not a good sign and I don't think facebook awareness is going to do much to change it.

Re-post from another thread. You go right ahead and agree to disagree, I'll do the same, difference is I'll have a good reason to. I fail to see what that has to do with the 2010 Final Four. But like I said, I'll agree to disagree. If you don't think this weekend's games were won on the defensive end, you need to watch some of the actual games instead of spending time looking up stats. I'm just dumbfounded at this point. I post the last six national champions, representing the results of 378 tournament games and god knows how many regular season matchups. You post the results of two individual games from this weekend and all of a sudden it's "offense wins regular season titles, defense is where it's at". My head hurts. Not to sound like a jerk, but I'm not going to waste my time researching stat after stat to prove you wrong. I guarantee I could find them. I just know that I saw some damn good defense being played throughout this tournament so I came on here to see if anyone else has. Apparently they were all looking at statsheet.com and kenpom the whole weekend instead of watching, and enjoying actual basketball. my bad! my point wasn't really to come on here to prove everyone wrong and start a (pointless) pissing contest. I just thought it was an odd stat they showed, and one that would surprise a lot of people on here. silly me. Your point judging by the thread title was to try and show up GP1 (something I'm sure all of us have wanted to do at one point or another LOL). As to your point, it does in fact surprise me, because that's not usually the way it is... but one year doesn't make a trend. Navigating KenPom and StatSheet doesn't require a metamorphic nuclear physics degree. Take 15 minutes, if you don't find it, it probably ain't there. KenPom's #1 offense is still alive and well in the tournament by the way.

Re-post from another thread. You go right ahead and agree to disagree, I'll do the same, difference is I'll have a good reason to. I fail to see what that has to do with the 2010 Final Four. But like I said, I'll agree to disagree. If you don't think this weekend's games were won on the defensive end, you need to watch some of the actual games instead of spending time looking up stats. I'm just dumbfounded at this point. I post the last six national champions, representing the results of 378 tournament games and god knows how many regular season matchups. You post the results of two individual games from this weekend and all of a sudden it's "offense wins regular season titles, defense is where it's at". My head hurts.

Re-post from another thread. You go right ahead and agree to disagree, I'll do the same, difference is I'll have a good reason to.

Really? That's "the DiG strategy" now? I'm the best example you can cite for doing that on ZN.O? Amazing. Haha, I'm sure it's not exclusive to you (I'm sure I've done it myself in fact)... just the most recent example of someone arguing the same point. My points are that you're using borderline useless data (I assume you're using averages from tournament games only?) and that this year's Final Four is not representative of the norm anyway. Averages from tournament games, to show success in the tournament? useless? their regular season stats have nothing to do with this tournament. Maybe there's a reason this year's final four isn't representative of the norm? Things change. This isn't 2009 anymore The data isn't even right anyway. Duke has given up 56.25 ppg in this tournament. You claim that they are one of the three teams giving up the least points in the tournament. However you do not realize that Notre Dame had a ppg against of 51 in the tournament. Guess how many games they won? Texas A&M gave up 56 ppg (adjusted for the OT game they played). I just did a quick glance at the bracket so there could be more. Might want to get your stats right next time. This. Next thing you know he'll be telling me that the teams with the most wins in the tournament are the ones still playing. LOL

What if the other team played terrible defense and you still couldn't make shots? Then said defense would look "artificially" good. But for every instance of that happening it's just as likely that a team played great defense and got torched anyway and look "artificially" poor. That's why looking at small sample sizes doesn't help much.

Really? That's "the DiG strategy" now? I'm the best example you can cite for doing that on ZN.O? Amazing. Haha, I'm sure it's not exclusive to you (I'm sure I've done it myself in fact)... just the most recent example of someone arguing the same point. My points are that you're using borderline useless data (I assume you're using averages from tournament games only?) and that this year's Final Four is not representative of the norm anyway.

You are correct, we played the best defense in the MAC last year... but guess what? We played the best offense too. Can you guess who had the best offense in the MAC this year? I'll bet you can. I'm gonna guess OU I think our decline this year was because our defense declined moreso than the offense. But I don't have any random stats to throw out there to defend that, so take it how you may. P.S. how are you measuring "offense?" PPG, effiency, pythagorean theorem? It was indeed OU... the best defense? Can't. I'm using efficiency as the measuring stick for both offense and defense. At the end of the day, how many points you scored per possession and how many points you gave up per possession is the most reliable measure of how well your offense and defense performed.