the tournament is totally nuts

i made several different final four picks in various pools, and at this point none of them are even close.  i was right about something though, back before this thing started i wrote a blog saying that nobody has any idea what will happen. http://lucidsportsfan.blogspot.com/2011/03/bracket-advice-nobody-knows-anything.html

here are the elite 8 matchups by seed:

2 vs 4

3 vs 5

2 vs 8

1 vs 11

and in most pools you could have picked USC to get this far and still gotten all the points, even though they lost the play in game the VCU.  the whole thing is an absolute crap shoot, and anybody who tells you otherwise is lying

yankees add millwood, i take back everything bad i said about their rotation

well it looks like the questions regarding the yankee's shaky starting pitching staff have been answered.  today they added veteran kevin millwood.  that guy is awesome.  in '99 with atlanta he won 18 games with an era of 2.68 and a whip of 1.00, pretty nasty numbers. 

although come to think of it, last year's stats in baltimore might be more relevant than 11 years ago: 4-16, 5.10 era, 1.51 whip.  hmm.  not quit as good.

this blog is huge in hungary

that's right, i have 37 hits this week from hungary, far and away the most of any country besides the US.  do i have friends there that i don't know about?  maybe a stalker?  or is hungary just full of spiders/celtics/90210 fans?

comment on this blog if you feel like it, i want to see if the comments are working better now.  and follow me on twitter @lucidsportsfan

glitch in the matrix saves goal

ok, so i first saw this on barstool sports last night.  and i didn't want to write about it because i'm trying to be original.  then it became the front page of yahoo (which is one of the all time top 3 things i hate, but that's another blog for another time), and i really didn't want to write about it.  but i have watched this clip like 4 million times, and it's one of the most unexplainable things i have ever seen.

it happened 3 days ago.  i'm kinda surprised it's not a bigger story.  the only explanation i can think of is that the puck hit a groove in the ice and changed direction.  but is that even possible?  i've never heard of that happening.  something is not right here.  this is scary.

celtics forget the score, lose game for no reason

ray allen - "i know we were down big early, but then we played well after that.  there was a time late in the second quarter when i hit two 3's in a row, and the crowd went nuts.  i assumed we had a huge lead at that point, but apparently we were still behind by 2." 

ok, so i made that quote up, and the headline too.  but it totally makes sense.  i was at this game, and i have no idea what happened.  it was weird.  freaking tony allen.  for the record, i'm officially giving up on the #1 seed.  and if it comes down to LA vs BOSTON round 3 in the finals, it looks like they'll have home court again.

does blogspot suck for trying to leave comments?

a few people have told me that they've had a lot of difficulty leaving comments on the blog.  so if you read this, try making a comment and see what happens.  if it doesn't work, write on my facebook link and let me know what happened.  or tweet me @lucidsportsfan.  i think i may have to switch to a new website, i get the feeling there are better more user friendly options out there.

ok, i am officially scared of the bulls

most of the season i paid no attention to them.  a few weeks ago i started wondering if they might be a legit contender.  now, i am seriously worried.  chicago DESTROYED atlanta last night.  on the road, in the second night of back to backs.  it was 72-43 at halftime.  i don't think it'll happen, but i really hope the celtics can edge out the bulls for the top seed in the east (it may well come down to who wins their last meeting april 7th in chicago).  not so much because i think boston needs home court advantage, but more so because i want the heat to play the bulls in the second round.  i can't believe i'm really about to say this, but i think i would actually root for miami in that series.  right now they don't scare me half as much as chicago does.

I need WUPHF!

so after recently starting this blog, and now entering the twitter universe, i'm a little confused.  what do i tweet?  what do i facebook status?  do i blog both?  I need WUPHF!

spike lee and ray's mom are buddies? and holy $#&%, what a game!

WOW. seriously, WOW.  the second epic game in a row for the celts at msg.  this one had everything.  chaunce big shot nailing big shots.  pierce taking over the game and hitting everything down the stretch.  ray and melo bleeding all over the place.  garnett and rondo making ridiculous hustle plays.  this was one of those games boston won because in the end, they just wanted it more.  there were several bad breaks late in the game that easily could have been excuses to mail it in the rest of the way, but instead they turned up their defense and kept fighting:

-the celtics closed the game on a 23-4 run

-neither melo or amare made a shot in the 4th qtr

-the knicks went scoreless for the last 3:28

-boston has now rallied from 15 pt deficits on

   the road in back to back games

the celts may not hold on to the number one seed in the east, but the team we saw tonight was the team that out worked orlando and cleveland on the road and was minutes away from the title in LA last year.

my take on the one legged wrestler

arizona state sun devil anthony robles just won the ncaa national wrestling championship in the 125 pound weight class.  it's a huge story right now because he was born with only one leg.  i think my mom might read this and get irritated, so i want to preemptively say that i am not discrediting his accomplishment, or making any judgments about what he may have had to overcome.  but from a strictly wrestling standpoint, i'm fairly certain he has a competitive advantage.  you could argue that his opponents might have a harder time grabbing hold of him, or that he might have a disproportionate amount of upper body strength and weight for someone who stands 5'8" and weighs only 125 pounds.  but no, i'm just going to go with simple logic and probability.  out of every wrestler in the country, if there is no one else like him, and he is the best, it just stands to reason that what makes him different plays a role in what makes him better.  i know this is inexact, but here's the best analogy i can come up with: if every driver in a race drove the same car, except for the champion who drove another, wouldn't we obviously credit the car?

ok, i'm ready for the future now

i just created a twitter account.  it's @lucidsportsfan.  i guess that means millions of people will now read this every day?  i have to admit, i'm a little afraid that my laptop and phone/mini super computer both just somehow know how to connect all my accounts; email, facebook, this blog, twitter, etc.  but i guess that is good, right?

spiders keep being awesome

Justin Harper dunks.

richmond has just made it to the sweet 16 for the second time ever as a 12 seed or lower.  they are the only school in the history of the tournament to win games as a 12, 13, 14, and 15 seed.  they have also now won 8 tournament games all time as a 12 seed or lower, the most of any school in the country.  and their current 9 game win streak is the school's longest in 20 years.  my favorite stat for this team right now is that in two games they have 32 assists and just 8 turnovers.

here's a couple of random notes from my post-work 4 am dvr viewing of the game:

1. leslie visser should NOT be on television anymore.

2. watching the tnt "inside the nba" crew of greg anthony, kenny the jet smith, and sir charles barkley talk about my little baby spiders on the halftime show is absolutely surreal.

oh, and the last time richmond played kansas was in 2004, i remember watching the game at my all time favorite sports bar, aussies bar and grill in austin, tx.  the final score was spiders 69, jayhawks 68.

yankees name a.j. burnett #2 starter. seriously.

this is real news, i didn't make it up.  http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=6237214  here's what he did last year:

STATS	W	L	ERA	SO	WHIP
2010 Season	10	15	5.26	145	1.51

the yankees rotation can't really be this bad, can it?  do they even have major league players to fill the 4th and 5th slots?  will we really see the resurrection of bartolo colon?http://lucidsportsfan.blogspot.com/2011/03/bartolo-colon-might-not-be-dead.html

i can't wait for baseball season.