Rutgers Isn’t Good, But…
I know this post is VERY late and the Rutgers
game seems like a month ago. And
don’t forget tonight is The Spoilers at 7:00!!!
And you’re really going to hate me because its
LONG.
Rutgers is one of those teams that’s stocked on
defense but can’t really score when they’re on offense. Meaning that they’ve got a chance win any
game on their schedule assuming the other team has an off-shooting day.
Just like Iowa did a week ago Wednesday. Iowa came out shooting miserably and didn’t
get any better as the game went on.
Rutgers was able to parlay that mess that is Iowa’s offense into a W. They might get a chance to do that a couple
more times.
Michigan came out cold, falling to a 10-2
deficit, but then finally got a little hot on the shooting end and got a 5-point
lead that it never relinquished. Rutgers
had little in the way of being able to pull a Nebraska and stop Michigan,
leaving Robinson and Wagner repeatedly open for 3-point looks. Rutgers needs better scouting and coaching
application when a team shows how to defend the Beilein offense.
Games
– Dates – Time – Result - Record
Illinois(H) January
6th Noon WON 79-69 14-3
Purdue
(H) January 9th 9:00 PM Lost 70-69 14-4
Sparty (A) January
13th Noon WON 82-72 15-4
Maryland (H) January
15th 6:30 PM WON 68-67 16-4
Nebraska (A) January 18th 8:00 PM LOST 72-52 16-5
Rutgers
(H) January 21st Noon WON
62-47 17-5
Purdue (A) January 25th 7:00 PM
Northwestern
(H) January 29th 7:00
PM
Minnesota
(H) February 3rd 2:30 PM
Northwestern (A) February 6th 6:00PM
Wiscy (A) February 11th Noon
Iowa (H) February
14th 6:30 PM
Suckeyes
(H) February 18th 1:00 PM
PSU (A) February 21st 7:00 PM
Maryland (A) February 24th Noon
Purdue at West Lafayette will be
a test, but Michigan get’s one of its rare 4 days off before the game tonight. Hopefully, fresh legs and motivation to get a
shot at revenge against the Boilers should make for a great game. After perusing the rest of the schedule, I’m
looking at a Michigan team that should finish with 6 more W’s with 2 L’s
sprinkled in there somewhere, because, Basketball. Still, with 23 wins, most of the wise guys
and Tourney Trackers have Michigan somewhere between a 7-10 seed. I guarantee you that whoever the 1 or 2-seed
is that has to play Michigan is going to be pissed…Lunardi has Michigan at 8 this
week. And I know he looks at the
BPI and that has Michigan ranked 25th, meaning that they are the
first 8-Seed in. A win Thursday isn’t
going to push them up to a 6 or a 5-Seed at this point. A season sweep could possibly get them up to
the 6 range, but wouldn’t bet on it…
Looking at the B1G Standings
gives me one more reason to bitch about scheduling:
So, the top 4 teams in the conference
won’t all play each other round robin, and
what’s worse is Michigan has the “Man’s Share” of the big boys:
Michigan plays Purdue and OSU twice, Sparty
only once.
Sparty already lost to the Suckeyes in their
only meeting this season
Purdue and Sparty only play once
Purdue and the Suckeyes only play once
Translated:
Michigan has 5 games against the top 4
in the conference
Purdue and the suckeyes have 4 games
against the top 4 in the conference
Sparty has 3 games in the top 4 of the
conference
I hate the B1G and Jim Delaney. There needs to be a way to not have one game
seasons and if it means not scheduling as many teams (or not scheduling someone
at all – Rutgers) then so be it. But the
home and home in hoops should be respected.
Unfortunately, it would appear
that either the suckeyes or Purdue will win the conference at this point as
there’s too many things that have to happen for anyone else to have a shot,
especially Michigan as the loss at Nebraska is looming large and the referee
debacle at home against the Boiler’s hurts too.
And yes, the 19-point comeback by the suckeyes…All games Michigan could
have won. Well, maybe not
Nebraska as the team just looked tired.
And with the middle weakness of the B1G this year (Minnesota had their
shot at the suckeyes at home and failed miserably) is only going to make any
late season run almost impossible.
Almost. I always like to give myself wiggle room in
case a collapse comes. But
the suckeyes have looked very impressive and Michigan will be lucky to beat
them at home. But that should be a great
game.
Hockey Sweep!!!
Michigan’s Icers swept
the PSU kitty kats over the weekend.
Michigan hasn’t faired well against the Purple Kitties since they put on
a team on the ice in B1G competition in the 2013-14 season. It seemed no matter how good Michigan was,
the Purple Kitty’s found a way to win.
Till now. Karma’s a bitch. While Michigan may not have knocked PSU out
of the Frozen 4, Michigan might – MIGHT – have solidified their chances of
making it into the tourney as an at large. Time will tell, but I’m cautiously optimistic
at this point. B1G Hockey Standings:
The Dynasties
I’m linking a post I did last
year on
the GOAT’s in each respective sport trying to compare who was the better
athlete in their sport. This kind of
goes hand in hand with that post in case you want to review it. (If you don’t want to read it, I’ll
save you the time with Brady coming out on top of my objective analysis when
looking at League size, Years Played, Teams in League, Total Chances at
Championships, Total Championships, and ratios of years /total chances and
Championships/total Chances)
So, everyone who loves the NFL
but hates TB12 and the Patriots has two weeks to loathe the up-coming Super
Bowl and listen to all the tripe that goes along with it. If you’re exclusively an NFL fan, you now
understand what the College Football world calls “Bama Fatigue”.
If you like Bama, no problem. Same with
the Patriots and Brady. If you hate
‘em…Well, there’s alcohol.
In what I think is the more
interesting conversation is the relevancy of the Dynasty that the
Patriots have built. I’ve been
listening to some of the sports talk shows and they’ve been trying to compare Dynasties
of Football, Basketball, Hockey and Baseball to figure out if there’s one great
dynasty that’s been better than the rest.
Obviously, the Patriots are part of the discussion. But can an argument be made for any of the
other Dynasties in any of the Big 4 sports that can compare to what the
Patriots have accomplished?
As always, the MMQ is here to objectively
lay out the facts to help us decide (and argue) why anyone dynasty should be
considered superior to another dynasty.
Some objective criteria:
Longevity of the Players in Any Given Sport: There needs to be an objective weighting that
considers the number of players you need on a team to be competitive
in the sport you’re playing, the average career length and the ability to
retain the talent or replace your talent as your dynasty moves through time.
So with that being said, let’s look at
the necessary roster requirements and average career length (average
career lengths taken from official pro sites):
MLB - Baseball
Roster Size: 25 Players Active – 40 Players total
Average Career Length: 5.6 years
NHL - Hockey
Roster Size: 23 Players
Average Career Length: 5 Years
NFL - Football
Roster Size: 53 Players
Average Career Length: 3.3 Years!!!!
NBA - Basketball
Roster Size: 14 Players
Average Career Length: 4.8 Years
Now, how do we rank the
roster/career length? I believe that a
ratio should exist that looks at Roster Size/Career Length. Meaning:
The larger the Roster Size when compared to the Career Length tells you
how many potential players you’re going to go through during the length of any
dynasty. Meaning: The toughest sport to maintain a dynasty would
appear to be the NFL with the Roster Size and the Career Length! I will
put that in my table once we’ve weeded through which dynasties from each sport
we should look at.
But, before that, I think it’s
important to rank the difficulty of winning any given championship in any one
sport. This is my own personal opinion, but I could be swayed on any of
this.
Weighting
the Championship Trophies – While it could be argued that winning any
Championship in any sport is an equally difficult task, I believe that ONCE
YOU HAVE A DYNASTY IN PLACE (meaning – the right team), it’s easier in
certain sports to win a Championship than it is in other sports. I’ll get into that in detail below.
Difficulty of Winning a Championship: From Most
Difficult to Easiest:
World Series – Commissioner’s Trophy.
Weighting:
MOST DIFFICULT (100% weighting for all objective criteria)
Reasons: Season length, player health, having 4-5
SOLID starters or middle Relievers and a Closing Ace are all critical, not
to mention having a solid 6 or 7 batters from either side of the plate. Plus, even though Baseball and numbers
usually bear themselves out over the entire season, Play-offs are a different story
and the Wild Card has made that even weirder. So, you could have a great dynasty and not have a lot
of World Series Rings to show for it.
I’m looking at you Atlanta Braves. The
New York Yankees and their payroll are another discussion.
Hockey - Stanley Cup.
WEIGHTING:
2nd Most
Difficult. (95% weighting for all
objective criteria)
Reasons: A lot of what I stated above, but
you also need a really good goalie and back-up goalie. Plus, Hockey is a weird and unpredictable
sport come play-off time. Teams
that have looked great all season can slump. I didn’t like when Hockey went to 4
divisions and 8-seeds in the Stanely Cup. 8-seeds have won the Stanley Cup and
favorites sometimes get knocked out in the 1st round. An argument could be made that this is the
hardest trophy to win, but you would need to explain or counter argue my
baseball comments above.
NFL - Lombardi Trophy
WEIGHTING:
3rd Most Difficult (90%)
Reasons: You have to have a great regular season and
hopefully get home field advantage, but that’s been worth less over the years. You have to keep players healthy but once you
make the play-offs, usually the better team win’s.
And you only have to win 3 or 4 games once you make the play-offs to win
the Lombardi. Some will argue
that’s a lot tougher to do, but I’m not sure.
I think this could be argued either way and I could be swayed to move
this up and place it right after Baseball and value it at 95%. I need to think about it some more, but right
now I’ll say it’s the 3rd toughest.
Larry Obrien NBA Championship Trophy: Easiest (85%)
Reasons: Once you have the right team
of only 5-7 guys, you’re going to be hard to beat. I think there’s only maybe 2-3 teams at the beginning
of any one NBA season that have a legitimate shot at the NBA Title. And those teams have the names James
or Curry on their roster with a lot of supporting characters. In the past it was Jordan, Johnson, Thomas,
Dumars, Bird, McHale, etc…
The nature of the NBA, 7 game
play-off rounds, long time between games makes it easier for the better teams
to take care of business. I
don’t think I can be swayed to move this one up at all.
I wanted to consider how Coaching
and GM fits into all of this, but that was starting to get into some esoteric
and hard to nail down criteria. Yes,
most of the dynasties were overseen by one coach, so that matters. I just didn’t know how to relate
the coaches from sport to sport and,
more importantly, what to measure. If I come up with anything, I’ll add later.
So, now that the criteria has
been established that will measure our dynasties on, which dynasties for each
sport should be considered?
NFL
Patriots from 2001 through 2018. I can only think of two other dynasties in the
NFL and they were San Fran from 1981 thru 1994 and the 1970’s Steelers. The 49er’s won 5 Super Bowls and
appeared in another Super Bowl in 2014 (Harbaugh Bowl) but lost that appearance
and is
too far away from the CORE Walsh Dynasty. While it’s debatable that the 49er’s could
be included, The Pats have done it for 3 additional years (under same Coach and
QB) and have a total of 8 Super Bowl Appearances.
Baseball
The Atlanta Braves managed to have a
dynasty in modern history that I don’t think can ever be matched. The Braves won the NL West/East Division
Title EVERY YEAR (with the exception of 1994 – players strike) from 1991 thru
2005 – that’s 14 years of winning their division. They also appeared 5 times in the World
Series. In addition, they won
the World Series only ONE TIME in 1995.
Also considered: New York Yankees from 1996 – 2003 that won 6
AL Pennants and 4 World Series Titles (1996 – 1998 – 1999 – 2000). Howeva’, my utter disdain for the Yankees and
Baseball’s somewhat unfair pay-roll set-up prevents me from putting the Yankees
into my analysis - maybe. In
other words: They piss me off.
Hockey
The Edmonton Oilers played 6 times
and won Lord Stanley’s Cup 5 times from 1983 thru 1990, which I
consider recent Hockey History. I know
there are other teams when the league was smaller that did great things
(Red Wings and the Canadiens in the 50’s) but I can’t include them, as
much as I’d like to. Edmonton’s
accomplishment is probably the most impressive run by a modern Hockey
Team.
NBA
I would love to be able to argue
AGAINST the Chicago Bulls and their 6 appearances and 6 NBA Titles that they
claimed from 1991 through 1998, but I can’t.
That has to be the best stretch of NBA basketball played in the modern
game, but I would have liked to see that team against better
competition (1980’s Lakers/Celtics) and IF the Pistons could have held it
together a little longer, there might have been one less Bulls title. Never the less, I’m going to use the Bulls.
Okay – Now to put all of that crap into
some sort of objective table that makes sense:
I think the best way to do it is two-fold:
1. Analysis of the Roster Size to Career Length –
Player
Turnover Ratio
2. Then analyze the number of Division
Championships, Championships Played for, Championships Won and correct raw
score of that analysis with the Championship Difficulty Ratio.
Here we go (Click to Enlarge):
SUMMARY:
I’m concluding that what the Patriots have done for the last 18 years
(and will ultimately seal with a win next Sunday) probably won’t be matched
ever again in any professional sport using the criteria I’m using. All the dynasties are impressive, and
frankly, I was a little disappointed that it would appear that the
Yankees, Oilers and Bulls came out better with shorter dynasties than the Braves,
but they deservedly won more titles.
Finally, the Dynasties Ranked in Order:
The Patriots
The Yankees (Tie)
Edmonton Oilers (Tie)
The Chicago Bulls
The Atlanta Braves
Anyway, now you’re armed
with objective data for the “Bar Arguments” next week!
ETC.
The Vikings Threw One Hell Of A
Party On Lake Minnetonka In 2005
Joel Furgeson Should Be The First
Trustee Forced Out After Lou Anna Simon Is Out
I can’t believe the stuff that comes out of
people’s mouths. In a radio interview,
Furgeson, the head Tool on the MSU Board of Trustees, stated that the board
spent about “10 minutes” on the Nassar issue, implying it was hardly worth
their time. Furgeson, on top of proving himself
repeatedly of being a tone deaf jerk, is the atypical, “Hey, it wasn’t her
fault!” when there’s plenty of evidence suggesting she wasn’t doing nearly
enough to figure out what the hell was going on.
Finally,
The Snowball Affect Seems To Be Happening For MSU
In what is probably a reaction to Idiot
Furgeson’s Comments, The NCAA is launching an investigation into MSU’s handling
of the Nassar case. About time? I guess.
Expect a resolution from the NCAA in 2024-25 timeframe, long after
everyone associated with the case has retired and is beyond NCAA punishment.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/01/23/joel-ferguson-larry-nassar/109738386/
Lynn
Henning NAILS The Lack Of “Spartan Will” In Nassar Case
Lynn Henning states what
everyone else (besides the Board of Trustees and President Simon) is thinking
should have happened or at least have been discussed.
Michigan
House Adopts Resolution Asking Simon To Step Down
Michgan house votes 96-11 in
passing the resolution asking Simon to step down. If goes even further in stating that the
Board of Trustees needs to dismiss her if she doesn’t leave
voluntarily.
“We have lost confidence in
the ability of President Lou Anna K. Simon to lead a transparent investigation,
to implement changes that will ensure it never happens again, to protect
students, and to lead Michigan State University forward,” the resolution said.
SIMON RESIGNS – Well, That Escalated Quickly
Attempting to keep up with the news coming
out of East Lansing isn’t easy right now.
But after the 96-11 house vote, Simon saw the writing on the wall, but
her letter shows here complete lack of understanding of the situation, lack of
leadership, and it simply reeks of “Look at me, the poor, poor martyr that has
to pay the price for this monster. She
would have been better off just announcing her resignation without the
letter….Sad.
As tragedies are politicized,
blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of
this anger. I understand, and that is why I have limited my personal
statements. Throughout my career, I have worked very hard to put Team MSU
first.
hroughout my career, I have
consistently and persistently spoken and worked on behalf of Team MSU. I have
tried to make it not about me. I urge those who have supported my work to
understand that I cannot make it about me now. Therefore, I am tendering my
resignation as president according to the terms of my employment agreement.
Wojo’s
Take – Even Though Simon Gone, MSU Woes Just Starting
Yep – MSU isn’t out of the woods yet. Dare I say, they haven’t even hit the darkest
part of the forest. It’s going to get
real for a lot of people fast.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/columnists/bob-wojnowski/2018/01/24/wojo-simon-msus-woes-just-starting/109790162/
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