The Goat Pen

I'm on a plane to Dallas Friday.

a month ago I would have given those tickets away if someone had asked.

crazy tournament

a 1 2 7 and 8 seed make it

and the 8 seed might be the favorite

Didn't Florida play Wiscy and UConne in the regular season - and lose?

Yep

For those that care, my people have told me that Jabari Parker is coming back for another season at Duke. I think it's stupid, but that's what's happening.

Your people?

Parker might want to stay because all those UK players will go first now.

Saint wrote:Your people?

Yes. Occasionally, I decide to break news from the sports world...the news predominately comes from people I know, who know.

Wish I had put a C-note on UK at 50:1 to win it all before the tourny started...

just the name kentucky would seem top decrease the odds

I'm in a contest on cbs for 25 bucks 395 people in it. of course brackets got destroyed this weekend--I took florida to win it all and am in 6th place overall

of those 395 5 people took kentucky to win it all, 5 people took wisconcin so at least five get knocked out the next round. nobody took uconn--bout 130 took florida

pays top 15--3K plus to winner. I think if florida beats uconn i'm in the money.

after week the thursday night sweet 16 games I was 65th in the country among more then 2 million who submitted cbs brackets. I fell to 220th friday night and plummetted to 16000th place after zona went down

anybody interested next year I'll post the link--its called the ron spiegal march madness invitational

For Calipari, getting to the Final 4 is like hitting a grand slam in the 9th & walking the bases w/ his middle finger extended toward crowd

— Jason King (@JasonKingBR)

a la Kenny Powers

This UK run just goes to show you, though, that's it's not about having the clearly strongest team in the tourny, which I think if you're relying on OAD's is only going to happen rarely, if ever (and even in the case of UK's recent championship squad, I don't think they were really better, certainly not clearly so, than Carolina was if everybody had been healthy for us). The point is to have enough talent to at least be capable of a run. Look at the nature of UK's last 3 wins. Never clearly in control of the game, outside a brief 8 or 9 point lead against Michigan. And in most cases, actually down most of the game and then pull it out at the end. Great games, great drama, but not dominating performances by any stretch of the imagination. But so what? Survive and advance is the name of the game. Just think if UK had lost to Wichita St or even Louisville, which could've very easily happened in either case. Everybody would be down on Cal and the OAD model as if losses in either of those games was some kind of proof that it's a bad model. But it's really not about winning or losing, it's about does the OAD model give you as good a chance to win vs. having mostly veterans with maybe one or two stud freshmen.

I think the real area of uncertainty is how good the incoming freshmen really are. Clearly the other year when UK got knocked out in the first round of the NIT, that class just wasn't as talented, even if the kid that hurt his knee hadn't gone down. That's the thing you can't really ever be sure of. Even Wiggins nor Parker could carry their teams very far in the tourny. But UK's guys have gotten it fired up at the right time. Clearly nobody is ever going to say this team is one of the greatest ever, or even close to one of the greatest UK teams ever. But they appear to be good enough, which is all that matters...

I wonder how many people had UConne in the FF?

somewhere along the way I lost that Tarheeldog rabid support of my team regardless of logic or context.

I used to have it.

I wasn't really saying I would've been rabidly confident of our chances this year if we had UK's players and the season had unfolded in Chapel Hill in more or less the same way as it did in Lex, but I certainly would've had a decent level of confidence knowing that we at least had the raw talent to make a run. Certainly looking at it from the outside, I thought everything lined up perfectly for UK to at least make a good run, and they have. At the same time, I wouldn't have been shocked or even surprised if they had lost any of their past 3 games (and maybe even their first round game)...

I think seeing Crow consistently make an ass of himself boasting about UK made me start sandbagging.

Although when Pitino was coach - when we were full court pressing and bombing 3 pointers, I didn't think a team in the country could hang with us - even after a loss.

Kentucky loses assistant coach Antigua to USF. He's been a major recruiter/babysitter for Cal