Chuck Taylor

One of the (many) problems with Lunardi is that you never know what his bracket is supposed to be. A forecast of where everybody ends up? A picture of where they are now? A mix of the two? I prefer Torvik bracketology at this point in the season: https://www.barttorvik.com/tranketology.php It plays out the remainder of the season (based on his ratings) and then ranks the resumes. He shows us 9th out, but we're carrying the weight of the MSU loss in our ranking, which can be overcome. Right now, Torvik has us finishing 16-13 and 9-11 in the BIG, which is setting the bar pretty low.

Is this his contract year? If so, excellent timing!

Torvik has it 1.2. I'm scratching my head too.

I assumed Bo Ryan. I don't miss him.

This is such a great thread @GhostOfJoeMcCray, many thanks for doing it.

Man, Penn State's offense is looking rough, to put it kindly. Surprised to see their offense is 25 in KenPom, higher than their defense.

Amen, brother.

Pitt's in the ACC.

Buzz is a defense-first guy and will probably only use CJ against zones. I agree that he should have stayed here.

Thanks for sharing that. The HHC community is remarkable.

Michelle was, uh, kind of attractive. This line in Creeque Alley is kind of cruel: "... and no one's getting fat except Mama Cass." I wonder how she felt when John Phillips wrote that and she had to sing it. I know she joked about her weight, but it's different when somebody else is joking about it. It didn't bother me when i was a kid because I was more focused on Michelle.

Didn't see it in the notes, but Augustas Marciulionis is the son of former Golden State star Sarunas Marciulionis.

I hope Bismark doesn't sink us.

Vegas thinks it's going to be Gory. (see above)

Need to update the insult, the tools are wearing quarter zips now. Here, punch this face:

I think we'll get things cleaned up and be able to play decent ball. The coaching better be elite this year, because the talent level isn't.

"There's a lot of parity this year in college basketball." -- Random television color man

The dance squad.

I still haven't recovered from finding out we were playing Grand Valley State and Rio Grande Valley back to back.

Do we know that our NIL money is subpar? I know everyone says that because they think we're getting outbid for kids, but I think recruits are more interested in relationships and team success than we want to acknowledge. We might not be able to compete with tOSU for money, but are we really at such a low level?

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/college-basketball-rankings-rotation-questions-for-the-top-25-and-1-teams/ 11. Texas A&M Can CJ Wilcher carve out a major role? Texas A&M shot just 29.3% from 3-point range last season, ranking 342nd nationally. To fix that, the Aggies targeted Nebraska transfer CJ Wilcher, who drilled nearly 40% of his 3-pointers. Wilcher is an excellent catch-and-shoot sniper, but his ability to come off pindowns and fire on the move makes him such a tougher cover. He's a moving target, so to speak. But his path to minutes is not clear. Wade Taylor IV, Zhuric Phelps and Manny Obaseki seem like safe bets to start, but Wilcher also has a strong case to be a piece of that starting 5, especially if Phelps can give Texas A&M's second unit more on-ball juice.

Of course it's too early to overreact but .... firing your coach midseason and then hiring his assistant who takes over interim coach and outperforms is not a good formula. Maybe Diebler will be OK, but the long history of basketball is littered with the carcasses of interim coaches who were hired in the aftermath of their boss' firing.

I've noticed that women athletes often say "Yeah" before they answer questions. Such as: "What are your favorite things do before a game?" "Yeah, I like to ..." "Yeah" seems to be used in place of "Well, ..." It doesn't really bother me, I just wonder how that got started. I haven't really noticed it in normal conversation, mostly just with female athletes talking to interviewers.

Was reading an SEC preview and saw CJ's name with Texas A&M. That was strange.

Genius!