Recent Comments
Reg season champ gets the invite. If tied at end of season, a one game playoff. Win and you're in!
This may be the most comprehensive presentation of a reasonable approach to expanding the NCAA brackets that I've seen. It would be interesting to see a visual mock-up of this approach using last years field (plus the missing regular season conference champs). Definitely more well thought out than the "just go to 128" crowd that bubbles up now and again. Have a leg.
Yup.... Part of the reason (ok, the main part) Clemson got so good was because they went all in on stockpiling the program with coaches who could recruit. Suddenly, they were getting annual Top 10 classes overnight despite fielding a team who was a perennial .500 record at best, led by a head coach who's was a position coach the previous year.
Recruit... then win... its how you turn a program around in this era. You want to see a much closer-to-home example, look at what Buzz is doing. He comes in and we're immediately getting Top 20 classes despite being the definition of basement dweller in the ACC. 2 years later, and all of the sudden, hey we might actually be a good team next year. But that wasn't going to happen if we didn't recruit our asses off up front.
I'm sure Fuente is going to have some success here, but if he wants to have any long term success, we need to recruit, and we need to start landing some big time recruits sooner rather than later.
Michigan
33
2001-2005
I went to the last two sugar bowls. So, really both popped into my mind. But, maybe the recency of the Michigan heartbreak over a very good Hokie team, but better Auburn team pops out first. A lot more emotion from the Michigan game.
In HS and MS for the other two, but I'll always think of the FSU game more as the Nat'l championship than an ordinary Sugar Bowl.
Yeah, but we don't have 3 of them, 2 completely different. There is only one Hokie Bird, which is assumed to be a turkey like bird, and thus a Fighting Gobbler.
I'm sorry but I expect a US Team to beat the shit out of Guatemala no matter where they play. And that's the point I'm making, we set average expectations for our soccer team because we don't allocate resources to it to warrant it being an elite national team. Just like I expect our basketball and football teams to win world events all the time, because we allocate our best teams to it.
Our group is hard. Making it out of the group is just as likely of us falling flat. I guess I'm just more pessimistic about our chances. Who cares.
We don't have much room to talk when it comes to confusing mascots
86 responses so far. I was hoping to get to an even hundy so I'll wait a few more days to publish results.
Yeah I think we got some kind of reduced price ourselves when we went and played it. Also when you are playing in the summer all those places are a little bit cheaper. We usually try to play in the early morning when the heat isnt too bad and we can also hit the beach after.
VT_Warthog
Everyone struggles on the road in CONCACAF. It's most teams are happy with a draw. Horrible field conditions. Hot, humid, muggy weather. Raucous fans. Draws on the road in CONCACAF are good results.
And what are you're "average expectations?" For a country whose best athletes don't play soccer? Whose domestic system is different than every other major power in the footballing world. Whose leagues best players are mostly foreign. Other than the size of the country, there is really no expectation for the US to be "good." China isn't good. Russia isn't that great. India is awful. Population = soccer success. It has to be the grassroots game. It isn't in the US and until it is, expectations shouldn't be high simply because we're the US.
What were your expectations in the World Cup? Yes, we struggled in the Gold Cup last year but that was a one off and you have to go back to 2006 debacle in Germany where we laid eggs in a big tournament, unless you count 2010 when we were the better team than Ghana, but a Round of 16 World Cup performance is the expectation that the US should have. They got it in Brazil. Got played off the pitch by Belgium, but still had the chance there at the end to win it and almost clawed back down 2-0 in extra time.
Hats off to ya CLThokie. My first golf teacher went from the Nike Tour (yeah, that was a while ago) to driving range pro where I worked, to a course pro. I used to drop by but he NEVER had time to play a round. He used to hook me up with cool stuff like demo balls though.
If I had to weigh in on the equipment discussion (which this golf thread will eventually turn into) I'd say go with anything labelled "game improvement" until you get to scoring in the 70's often. My wife got me some senior-flex irons with high-MOI (Wilsons btw) on closeout a few years back and they became my go-to's right away. And I've got a typical 90 mph swing speed and shoot in the 80's. I've got golf buddies with similar games (one played college golf way back in the day) and they can't break 90 with blades and Titleist woods.
One more piece of golf equipment advice; go with low-bounce (or no-bounce) wedges. Hardly any weekend golfer knows how to use the bounce correctly from the fairway, and nothing ruins a score more than skulling it over a green from 50 yds.
Come in the offseason, give me a few weeks notice and we can get a round for reduced price.
Man I'd love to play TPC there. I can't drop but so much on a round of golf right now. Wife is in law school but in a few years that'll change.
We have played all over actually. I have played Arcadian shores before. It was nice. My folks live there in Market Commons. Just moved there in April for retirement. I have played TPC as well. It was a nice course, but the day I played it was wet and rainy. My favorites have to be Pawley's Plantation (Nicklaus), Myrtle Beach National-Kings North (Palmer), and any of the Barefoot Courses. But I have played a ton of course down there. We used to vacation every year down there and the last several years My dad, Brother, and I play four times over the course of the week. Have our own little tournament. Unfortunately it will just be my dad and I this year as my brother is currently deployed.
I am anxious to go play Caledonia and TruBlu. Those are next on my hitlist, but we will wait until we are all there before we play them.
The Cavs ball movement was pretty bad and Irving tends to over dribble when it breaks down. LeBron passing out of the post seems to be when they're at their best. That said, both teams played pretty good defense, but the Warriors bench just went HAM with Barbosa and Livingston hitting amazing shots.
The kind of irritation that never quite goes away, like in-laws
I am admittedly no expert on basketball and have watched very little of it this season until the last round of the playoffs. This is the first Cleveland game that I have watched this year. Having said all of that, my reaction to Game 1 was, "I thought Kyrie Irving was a good basketball player." Last night he was terrible! Does he usually play like this? He looked like a clumsy little kid out there. Just bad decisions and bad shot selection all over the place. Dribbling right into his own player who is setting a screen to try to get him some space is not smart basketball. I kept watching and thinking, "Who is that dude and what is he thinking. He sucks. Oh, that's Irving? Really?"
The Warriors can not stop LeBron down low, but there is no way he can score if Irving won't pass him the ball. Game 2 should feature nothing but LeBron taking it to the rim. Unfortunately, GS is perfectly happy trading twos for threes.
Last night really solidified the importance of a competent supporting cast. Golden State has one that, at best, can pick up the slack when Curry and Thompson are cold and at worst, can keep the game close. Cleveland on the other hand has players that will actively lose the game if given too much responsibility.
I read a theory yesterday and I can't find it again, but it seems to bring a few things together for me. The theory is that Littlefinger wrote the Pink Letter to start the Battle of the Bastards. Why this makes sense to me:
- LF knows what Ramsey is, we all should appreciate that is true. We should assume LF knows all.
- LF set Sansa up with Ramsey knowing what he is, maybe as a way to harden her resolve (I watched some season 1 recently, I forgot how weak she used to be).
- LF is the brains behind the Umber/Rickon plan. This makes sense because there was doubt that the Umbers/Rickon has the gumption to make this move on their own. Besides, having Rickon in Ramsey's possession is the critical element that drives Jon into the battle. He may have even told Osha to try to kill Ramsey, because if it works, great, Ramsey is dead. If it doesn't work, which LF would have anticipated, then maybe Ramsey thinks that the entire plan was just about Osha.
- LF's visit to MoleTown to see Sansa seemed so unnecessary, he knew how she would react, why even put yourself in that position to be chewed out? It could be that he made himself available again so she would decline his help and he could bring the Knights of the Vale in to save her later in the BotB. The heroic LF.
- LF's final goal is the throne and what better way to gain the throne than on the arm of Sansa? Who else is going to marry Sansa? She's kinda short on suitors currently.
- The Pink Letter seems just slightly out of context for Ramsey. Sure, it was written like a psycho ("Come and See.....come and see....and come and see....). I can't quite put my finger on it, but I can buy that it was written by someone trying to seem like a nutcase.
- Finally, LF has just been too quiet. This is the guy who killed Jon Arryn and Joffrey Baratheon.
Thoughts?
Yeah...minor......"irritation".
I've never understood the dog. They're called the Volunteers. They have a man dressed as Davy Crockett as a mascot. Then they have a real live dog named Smoky with a person in a furry costume that patrols the stadium. So do they have 3 mascots? Do they have a mascot and a team pet with accompanying furry costume? Do they have 2 mascots and a team pet?
The best answer I've ever gotten is "Rocky Top! WOOOO!"
Point was it doesn't take winning to recruit. That's an excuse that people use. New coaches should be able to come in and sell a vision without even playing a game.
Just got a set of Ping G irons and really like them
I don't want this to be taken the wrong way but the difference between Lewis/Peterson and Vick in my opinion is their communication skills. Lewis and Peterson are easy to comprehend and project themselves in a lot better image (even during the trouble) than Vick did in his younger days.
Living part-time in LA (USC law student), I am not surprised. I hate LA, and would never live there full-time. But SoCal is pretty crazy nice, at least San Diego and southern OC. I won't leave, but I get wanting to be in Appalachia. If the jobs were in in SWVA, I would definitely move back, if not just so I could have season tickets to the Hokies.