Doggy's Doghouse 1/16/2021

Yeah, remember the worry about playing five games in ten days?  We'd all probably sign up for that again, right now.  I'm betting the players and coaches would agree 

Nice write up of the Iowa State upset of Baylor. I kept thinking that there was going to say "enough of this nonsense", go on a run to take a big lead and not look back but it never happened.

I don't usually like to dump on the commentators, but there was one government that left me astounded. No, I'm not talking about the time the announcer said that Baylor took a timeout, and after the timeout was going to advance the ball to the other end. The other announcer said nothing, the first announcer repeated herself explaining that Baylor was going to advance the ball after the timeout and the other announcer had to point out that it was Iowa State ball (interestingly, they did not advance the ball). That's the type of error that I could see myself making in the context of live-action and not fully keeping track of everything. No, that one I thought was funny, not astounding.

The comment that surprised me was when the announcer explained, with eight minutes left in the game, that Iowa State to start taking time off the clock running the shot clock down closer to the end. Now I happen to be a fan of this approach, and probably advocated more than I should, but I could justify advising this with eight minutes left if you had a 15 point lead. If you had a 10 point lead I might support it but I can understand that many would not. However, Iowa State had a two-point lead, with eight minutes left in the announcer was advising changing their regular game plan to a slowdown game at that point. You know what can happen? You fail the score they take it back down the court and score and you have a tie game. And that's what happened, seconds after she gave that advice. I don't know what she was thinking.

Cal's chances at getting your when the season are looking slimmer and slimmer. Doggydaddy reported that the game against Utah has been postponed due to Covid issues. While Cal is a double-digit underdog to Utah, that's the weakest of the remaining opponents, and barring some miracle, an upset of Utah is about their only shot at winning a game this season.

Here's a thought. We need a bubble with several teams to get all the possible NCAA qualifiers up to 13 games, then a bubble for each conference tournament, then a bubble for the big dance.

Gather the teams who are not out of the running in up to three sites of 32 schools apiece.
Bubble, quarantine, and test for ten days. Then play round robin 8 to 10 games with 2 or 3 days between.

Wait at least week, then give conferences time to do the same for their tournaments

Schedule a gap for more quarantining, during which the selection committee does their thing, then bubble two regions (32 teams) each at two nearby sites. Winners of those two sites play for all the marbles.

This way minimizes the costs, maximizes the safety for the players and coaches, makes it possible to sell the media block, and ensures that every worthy team has the chance to prove it on the court. ... but there's not much time left to pull this off. Roughly a month for the first wave, a couple of weeks for the conferences gets us to March madness roughly on time.

Another very good day of DD! Yay!

David - that was RIGHT ON!!!

Great job DD, but reading the report does have unanticipated dangers. I am so glad I finished my doughnut BEFORE I started reading, cause if I came across the line "One, the number after 0 but before 2" with my mouthful two things could have happened. One, my keyboard would have been wearing it, or, and this may be worse, I could have choked to death. Still laughing, thanks again. PS That stat may explain the departure.

Have to disagree with you here. Both DD and David have made valid analyses of her playing style. That's fair.

Hey Bertie Boy, glad you are here, but we really try to keep it light. Makes for a better discussion.