Hi my name is Jesse, I like all sports but my favorite has to be baseball. My favorite teams are the Yankees, Knicks, Devils, and I'm probably the only Arizona Cardinals fan in the state of New Jersey. I look forward to sharing my views and opinions on sports with you here at Storps.com.
With March Madness a little more than a month away teams are getting down to the nitty-gritty of conference play. This is make or break time for a lot of teams on the bubble and for the teams with auto-bids into the field of 65. As the picture of who is in and who is not becomes clearer, I feel that now is a good time to make some predictions for this year’s NCAA tourney.
The Ones?- The four teams that I think at this point in the season make the best cases for number 1 seeds this year are Kansas as the overall one with Syracuse, Kentucky, and Villanova taking top spots in their respected regions. However, a crucial Big East match up a week before selection Sunday when (5) West Virginia meets at (4) Villanova could throw the number ones off, but I think Nova will pull out the W.
Which Conference will have the most teams in the tourney?
Big East…hands down the best conference right now sporting 5 of the top 25 teams in the country, and 4 of them in the top 10, which are Syracuse, Villanova, West Virginia, Georgetown, and Pittsburgh. Also, if Notre Dame and Louisville each make good runs in this last month of the season they could find themselves in the tourney as well. Cincinnati also has an outside shot.
Who will be the biggest bracket buster?
Cornell…that’s right, Cornell,coming out of the Ivy League: 20-3 on the year and 6-0 in conference play…their only losses come to Seton Hall and the two top teams in the country Syracuse and Kansas…and they only lost to Kansas by 5. I expect them to come in at a 12 seed and they could be an 11 if they win out in conference play. I like their chances to move past the first two rounds and turn some heads in the process.
Who is going to be in the Final Four?
So far this season there have been many upsets and surprise teams and the tourney will most likely be the same. That being said the four teams I predict will be there in the end unless they end up in the same bracket would be Syracuse, West Virginia, who by my accounts will take out number 1 Kansas in the Elite 8, Michigan State, and Villanova.
Who is going to take home the title?
In the end the only team left standing will be the…Orangemen of Syracuse. Syracuse in my opinion is the best team of the field. I also believe they will be given a favorable bracket due to all of the great teams in the Big East. You might ask why it is favorable for Syracuse to have so many good teams from their conference in the tourney. It’s because the NCAA has a selection rule that states that the top 3 teams selected from the same conference cannot be in the same region of the tournament. That means that out of the other 9 teams in the top 10 with Syracuse, they potentially will only be in the same bracket as 6 of them and most likely less than that because of the seeding.
February 12, 2010 · Filed under NCAA
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As many of you have already heard the New Jersey Nets set the record last night for worst start to a season. Their loss last night to the Dallas Mavericks was their 18th in a streak full of disappointment, and shame. I was actually in attendance for the record breaking game and from the looks of it, it doesn’t look like the Nets are going to win one soon. My friends and I naturally donned paper bags over our heads to hide the shame on our faces. Hopefully pictures will be up soon for all of you to enjoy. Now one might think that the Nets losing streak is just bad luck or injured players, but actually it’s worse than that. The problem is that there is not enough talent on the team to compete with the rest of the NBA. Their two star players are Devin Harris and Brooke Lopez; both would not even rank in the top 10 at their positions respectively. Besides Lopez and Harris there isn’t much after that, yes, Chris Douglas-Roberts is having a good rookie season, but it really doesn’t mean much if your team can not get it together to win one.
The real reason why the nets are doing so poorly comes down to one thing, scoring. Coming into last night’s game against the Mavs the Nets were averaging 85.7 points per game, that is dead last in the NBA. Lets do some comparing so you really get how bad that is. The Dallas Mavericks the team that put the Nets over the mark in losses was averaging 103.38 points per game. That average of course went up after they scored 117 points of those losing wonders. The best part about this is that the Mavericks only have the 7th best points per game, the Phoenix Suns who lead that category average 111.27 ppg, that’s 25.5 more points a game than the Nets average. You cannot win many games when your team is unable to put the ball in the hoop.
Another dismal point that needs to be made, and should never have to be made in professional sports is that from my point of view it looked like half the team had already given up on the season. Even from the two guys sitting behind us could obviously tell how little the players cared. Such relaxed attitude on the court, and on the faces of some of the players is sad and embarrassing as well. After the Mavericks took a semi-large lead of more than 10 in the first half all the hope on the Nets bench seemed to disappear. It was not until the start of the second half and the lead had jumped out to 77-50 in favor of Dallas that the Nets showed a little bit of life. They had their best run of the night knocking that 27-point lead down 19 at one point. However, it was way to little and way to late for there to be a chance in the game. My prediction for the Nets in the upcoming weeks is as follows, their next game is on Friday against the Charlotte Bobcats, this game is probably their best shot at getting their first win. After Charlotte the Nets face the Knicks, Bulls, Warriors, Pacers, and if they lose all of those games as well they will face the Atlanta Hawks with a chance of breaking one more even more embarrassing record. That record is for longest losing streak, which is currently 23 games, held by both the 95-96 Grizzlies and the 97-98 Nuggets. I don’t know about you but I am ready to see some more history in the next few weeks.
December 3, 2009 · Filed under NBA
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In all of sports whether it be baseball, basketball, football, or hockey there is one common thing that unites all players, coaches, and most importantly fans and that is hope. The hope to win drives everyone involved in the sports world to do ridiculous and superstitious things with the hope that their miniscule actions are the deciding factor in the outcome of sporting events. Everyone in the sports world is guilty of this.
I have even succumbed to those outrageous behaviors in the hope that the outcome is in my favor. I first noticed these behaviors in my father and his relentless love for the Arizona Cardinals. Yes, that is right the Arizona Cardinals; I too am a fan of the beloved Cards. Last year, when the Cardinals made their magnificent run in the playoffs only to lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers with 35 seconds left in the Superbowl, I really started to notice my Dad’s superstitious beliefs. It all started in the first game against the Atlanta Falcons. My father and I were watching the game in my dad’s bedroom, my dad lying in bed and me sitting on the floor just like every other time we have watched sports together. On the opening drive the Cardinals were shut down and went 4 and out. On the punt, Harry Douglas of the Falcons returned it to the Cardinal 48 yard line. Since Arizona usually had a history of losing, I mean it was the first home playoff game since 1947; my dad being the less optimistic of the two of us was already relinquishing defeat. On the off chance, my dad had to go to the bathroom, at the time thinking it was not going matter if he missed one or two plays of the game if he got up and did his business. What made this the mother of all urinations was that during the one play my dad was in the bathroom Ralph Brown intercepted Matt Ryan’s pass and stopped the Falcons drive before it could even start. As that happened I yelled to my dad, “INTERCEPTION!!!!!!!!”, my dad ran out of the bathroom before he could even flush and we gave each other probably one of the hardest, happiest, and dirtiest high fives of my entire life. We both washed our hands right after of course. Now I do not know when the thought popped into my dad’s head but sometime before the next commercial in the game my dad brought up the notion that him being in the bathroom meant the Cardinals were going to win the game. Yes, that is right he actually thought that if he went into the bathroom the Cardinals would win. Looking at the situation from the outside in, there is no way that Ralph Brown being in the right spot at the right time to make an incredible play had anything to do with my dad being in the bathroom, but being superstitious as well, I wholeheartedly agreed with him. From that point on all the way up to Santonio Holmes catching Big Ben’s 6-yard touchdown pass every time any game went to commercial, or if the tide was changing in poor favor of the Cardinals my dad would go into the bathroom. He would stay in there with the hope that he was making the difference between a Cardinal win and a loss.
Thinking back on the ridiculous antics of my father I hate to say it, but I truly realized how stupid some fans are, myself included. Did it matter that my dad stayed in the bathroom and missed some great football just because in his mind he thought he was making the difference? Probably not. Does it matter if a player does not change their socks, or shave their beard during a playoff run? I highly doubt it. Even though what players, coaches, and fans try to do to earn a W sometimes seems outrageous and moronic they still do them with the purest of intentions. That is why I love sports; it is that even though we all do stupid things like staying in the bathroom we all do it for that one common thing, hope.
November 30, 2009 · Filed under NFL
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