Eric The Blue

Buckeye brief

As a Gopher fan, it would be a waste of time to study the occult science underlying the selection of teams that get to compete in the mini-tournament that crowns a national champion. The shouted criticisms and recriminations reach my ear nevertheless: Georgia and Florida State were snubbed, if Washington had any decency their coach would call them in sick with Imposter Syndrome, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe someone who follows it more closely than I can explain why, among the uninvited, Ohio State seems to have no one pleading their case. I say this as someone whose hatred of Ohio State goes back to the days of Woody Hayes. I've never perceived a reason to repent, but the brief on behalf of the Buckeyes seems to me straightforward: they lost just once, and that was on the road, by 6 points, to Michigan, the consensus #1 seed. 

Put undefeated Washington off to the side. Two teams with one loss are in, and Ohio State is out?

6-3, 215

After watching my Twins rally for a win, I switched over to cable news: Trump being booked, ho-hum, it happens twice a month. I did get a kick out of the booking paperwork, however—the part where the defendant's height and weight are given as 6-3, 215. According to the Tale of the Tape, Cassius Clay was 6-3, 215, on the night he knocked out Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight championship. This is a useful metric insofar as it allows one to gauge what a little rounding off can look like to the naked eye. 

 

Low energy

What do people who don't like to read do when they're sick? Watch TV I suppose. I did some of that yesterday, too—the Timberwolves' game against the inaptly named Jazz of Utah. (The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City from New Orleans, like the "Lakers" from Minneapolis to LA.)

I follow the T-wolves just closely enough to have formed the impression that they've been winning more games since Karl Anthony Towns, supposedly their best player, was sidelined with an injury. Checking now to see to what degree my impression conforms with reality, I see that Towns was injured in a game the Wolves lost on Nov. 28, which dropped their record for the season to 10-11. Since then, they've won 3 of 4. I know, not much of a sample size, and it might be that I'm not a KAT guy. He's always whining to the officials—seems to think he's never committed a foul, and that all his missed shots should be attributed to a swallowed whistle. Just play! When Anthony Edwards thinks he's been screwed, he looks at the ref and laughs. 

Also, my sentiments to the side, it might be that the things KAT's good at, mainly scoring, the T-wolves can get from other sources. What they really need is rebounding and a defensive presence near the basket. The guy they acquired in the off season, Rudy Gobert, gives them more of that than KAT does.  Last night, Gobert scored 22 points (despite trying just 11 shots) and led the team with 13 rebounds. D-Lo put on a 3-point shooting exhibition in the fourth quarter, when he scored 20 points without missing a shot, but who is this Kyle Anderson (pictured above) guy? He's taken KAT's place in the starting lineup and last night he had 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 12 [sic] assists. He made 4 of 5 field goal attempts and 7 of 9 foul shots. I'm taking this from the box score, obviously. Wouldn't mind watching the game again to try and figure out how a guy who shoots just 5 times is awarded 9 foul shots. The box scores at ESPN.com now have a +/- column indicating the team's net points when each player is in the game. While Anderson was playing, the Wolves were +12; they won by 10, so they were -2 when he was out. Watching on TV, I hardly noticed him: some good passes, and one defensive play when he denied a would-be dunker at the rim. D-Lo scored 30 points but was just +4. The NBA has a lot of bedazzlers but that ain't necessarily what wins games. 

According to my at-home covid test kit, I'm negative. Still possible to get sick in the boring old 2019 way, I guess. 

Mesmerized by Rich Strike

 

I'm not ordinarily a fan of "the sport of kings" but I've watched this video, which keeps an arrow on Rich Strike through the second half of the Kentucky Derby, maybe forty times now. Just mesmerizing. And you keep noticing new things. At first, I was obsessed with the ground made up: if a movie showed an 80-to-1 underdog coming on like this to win, I'd say, probably with everyone else, "Hollywood!"

And then there's the call. I think the guy was maybe looking through binoculars? He never mentions Rich Strike till he's screamed out that Epicenter and Zandon, "these two," are "coming to the wire!" He plainly thought only one of them could win, last time he'd checked no other horse was within range, but then with around 100 yards to go Rich Strike suddenly invaded his binoculared field of vision. That's a theory, anyway. I give him credit for immediately recognizing that it was the longest shot in the race who had come out of nowhere, seemingly, though the video shows that he came from somewhere—far back, before weaving through most of the field in the last quarter mile to win. 

When the video starts, Rich Strike is in 17th place in the 20-horse field. When the leading horse comes out of the last turn, there's just less than a quarter mile to go, and Rich Strike appears to have moved up to 13th place. When the lead horse Epicenter has one furlong to go, Rich Strike has moved up to sixth. He passes them all in the last 200 yards. 

Is it weird that this horse race reminds me of nothing so much as the 800 meter final in the 1972 Olympics? But Dave Wottle wasn't 80-to-1.

 

 

What sportzy parents need to know

 

If you're a parent and consider yourself a sportzer, you really have to be able to explain to your kids:

1. the infield fly rule; and
2. the NBA play-in tournament.

I've got the infield fly rule down. Pro tip: judgment is aided, and confusion allayed, if you bear in mind that the rule's only purpose is to prevent the team in the field from making a chintzy double play by allowing an infield fly to drop to the ground. So there can't be two outs, and first and second bases must both be occupied (the bases may be loaded). 

I've waited till the last possible moment to study up on the play-in tournament, which begins tonight. The Timberwolves are in one of tonight's games, and I know questions will be asked. Here goes:

There are 30 teams in the NBA, 15 in the Western Conference and 15 in the Eastern Conference. When the long regular season is ended, the top six finishers in each conference advance to the playoffs, and the bottom five are eliminated. The teams that finish in places 7 through 10 of their respective conferences are in Playoff Purgatory. The play-in tournament is for them. 

In the first round of the play-in tournament, the 7th place teams play the 8th place teams, and the 9th place teams play the 10th place teams. The losers of the latter games are eliminated, and the winners of the former games advance to the playoffs. In the second round, the losers of the former games play the winners of the latter games. The losers of that game are eliminated, and the winners advance to the playoffs. That's the whole play-in tournament. Each conference has an 8-team tournament played among the top six plus the two teams, from places 7 through 10, that prevail in this mini-tournament that precedes the real one. 

In a more straightforward arrangement, the top eight teams from each conference would qualify for the playoffs, and the bottom seven would be out. With the play-in tournament, however, the NBA can gin up interest and, of course, revenue. The long regular season doesn't end up counting for much, but, if you've been following me, you see that finishing in 7th or 8th place means you have to win just one play-in game to advance to the "real playoffs," whereas the 9th and 10th place teams need to go 2-0 in the mini-tournament to advance. Also, all games in the play-in tournament are played on the home court of the team with the better record. 

The Timberwolves finished in 7th place of the Western Conference, which is why tonight they are playing the L.A. Clippers, the Western Conference's 8th place team, here in Minneapolis. If the T-wolves win, they're in the playoffs as the West's #7 seed. If they lose, they'll host whoever wins the game between 9th place New Orleans and 10th place San Antonio, and the winner of that game would be in the playoffs as the West's #8 seed. This business of seeding isn't trivial, because in the first round of the playoffs the #1 seed (first place team) plays the #8 seed, the #2 seed (second place team) plays the #7 seed, and so on. The T-wolves really want to win tonight, because they want to avoid having to play first-place Phoenix in the first round of the "real playoffs." I don't think I'm alone in feeling that Phoenix is clearly the best team in the Western Conference, and that the Timberwolves are competitive with every other team that finished above them.