The Rookies

(Editor’s note: The US Open gets underway tomorrow at Bethpage Black on Long Island, New York. Resident Rookies golf nerds 310ToJoba and Chilltown, both avid players, took it upon themselves to preview the Open for you, the reader)

The Dark Horse

310ToJoba - Dustin Johnson. While Anthony Kim may have gotten all the attention for making 11 birdies in the second round of The Masters this year, it is important to note that the “other” Johnson put together quite a nice tournament himself. Consider that Johnson made nine less birdies than Kim but still finished only a stroke behind him on the final leader board. Even more striking is the fact that Johnson made 3 less bogeys and the same number of double bogeys as his counterpart. In short, he can be his own sort of scoring machine, as is evidenced by his four eagles in this year’s first major. Read the rest of this entry →

If you are like me (or anyone of The Rookies, really), you are slowly coming down off your high from the 72 hours of pure black tar heroin that is known as the NCAA Tournament first two rounds. I must preface this by saying that I’m not complaining, but just noticing, as regardless of upsets or not, these are the best four days of the sports year. That said, where are the upsets? As I perused my smoldering wreck of a bracket, I noticed that by simply picking the team with the lower seed number in every game, I could’ve picked 14 of the Sweet 16 games correctly. Of course, I didn’t, and only got 12 right.

Of course, one might say that this year is an aberration. However, over the past 10 years, there has never been a Sweet 16 with less than four teams seeded above 5. This year there is one. Add this to four number 1 seeds making the Final Four last year and the paucity of higher-seeded teams making runs in 2007 (only Winthrop made the 16 as a double-digit seed), and you have what John Gasaway, who knows a lot more about this than I, has termed the beginning of “The Era Of Chalk”.

Some would argue that this is not a bad thing, as the games next weekend in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 are sure to be amazing basketball games. This argument, however, misses the point of March Madness. We get plenty of chances to see Top 10 and even Top 5 teams squaring off against each other during the regular season; what we don’t get to see are the best Mid-Majors taking on the titans of the game on a neutral floor, with all the pressure of March bearing down. Why don’t we see these? The best teams won’t schedule games against the best mid-majors (and if they do, they are surely home games). The tournament is about Cinderellas, like George Mason, Davidson, and Western Kentucky, and the Final Four. This year, there’s no Cinderella-sorry Arizona, you don’t count. March Madness is still the best sporting event, but if The Era of Chalk persists, the fun will be severely devalued.

The brackets are out, and there is only one major travesty: Arizona got in as the last at-large. When you think about it, however, Arizona must have been the 4th last at large, because three bids got stolen (by USC, Mississippi St, and Temple). That fact is absolutely ridiculous. Arizona has won 2 games all year outside the state of Arizona, and they were over Oregon and Oregon State, both sub-100 RPI teams! 2-9 in true road games! St. Mary’s won 13 road games, Creighton won 8.

Arizona lost 5 of its last 6 games, the definition of stumbling to the finish. Creighton won 11 of its last 12 in the MVC, a top-10 conference in the country. Arizona also has the worst rated defense of any at-large team. Arizona was .500 in the Pac-10, while Creighton tied for the lead in the MVC and St. Mary’s was second in the WCC.

This is a complete departure from what the Selection Committee has done recently. They rewarded mediocrity over winning, the big guy over the little guy (again), two big home wins over 9 and 13 road wins, stumbling to the finish over finishing strong. It’s the biggest bracket travesty in recent memory.

Here are four blind resumes for NCAA teams currently on the bubble.  Make your own conclusions on their resumes, and then check after the jump for analysis and the big reveal.

Team                                   Team A:        Team B:        Team C:        Team D:

Record                                 21-10               26-7               19-13               21-8

Conference Record          12-4               14-4                10-8                10-6

RPI                                           58                     41                    70                   48

SOS                                           79                   106                   55                    93

Vs RPI Top 100                 3-5                   8-5                   4-8                  7-4

Road W-L                             6-6                   8-4                   4-6                  5-6

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As we reach March and Conference Championship Week (the best time of the year, really), the hoops nation gets its often first looks at the teams that become darlings in the tournament, the Cinderellas. Thanks to the ubiquity of ESPN, every conference championship game and most semi-finals, even for the small conferences, are broadcast to the nation. The trick is to pick out which of those teams will pull an upset (like San Diego last year), or even which team will make a Davidson-like run. After the jump, I’ll break down four potential Cinderellas that could help you win your office pool (provided they make the tournament, of course) Read the rest of this entry →