Check out this furious finish between Real Madrid and Unicaja Malaga.
Category: External Sports (Page 217 of 821)
Did you know that Barry Bonds’ trial begins today? Better yet, do you even care?
Oh, you care that he took steroids and tarnished baseball’s record books (or at least you act like you care because everyone else does). But do you really care whether or not this man goes to jail for four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice?
I can tell you one thing: Giants fans don’t care. Dude is nothing but a distant memory now that their G-Men are defending World Series champions. Ask 10 SF fans if they’re at least somewhat glad that the Bonds-led ’02 Giants lost because it made the victory in 2010 that much sweeter, I’d be willing to bet that at least eight of them would answer “yes.” Fans have fully embraced the Bearded Panda Freaks and hardly mutter Bonds’ name these days.
But what about non-Giant fans – do they care if Bonds goes to jail for lying under oath about steroids? Will they follow the story on a daily basis and keep up with the latest news? Do they know that the case has started and that close to 40 jurors have already been dismissed? Will bloggers follow this case as extensively as they did Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee’s trial?
Because I hardly doubt it. Again, fans care that Bonds tarnished the game by ballooning to the size of the Incredible Hulk in order to hit a bunch of home runs. But I find it hard to believe that the majority of people want to see “justice served” here (key word is “majority,” I realize that some, even many people want to see him go to prison but does the majority?). When you take Hammerin’ Hank’s fallen record and baseball out of the equation, Bonds took steroids. He didn’t kill anybody, he didn’t set a school on fire and he didn’t steal anyone’s money. He injected himself with steroids so that he could play long enough to break Hammerin’ Hank’s home run record and hopefully be remembered as one of the best ever.
Hey, wrong is wrong. If you lie under oath, you pay the consequences like everyone else. But the ironic part is that he’s not remembered like he had hoped he would. To me, that’s his true punishment. At this point, I couldn’t care less if he’s hauled off to prison and maybe I’m wrong but something tells me that the majority of fans don’t either. He simply isn’t news anymore.
If you’ve read my annual March Madness bracket column or if you are a stathead in general, you’ll know what the title of this post means. If you don’t, check out my column and come back.
Here are the next eight matchups representing Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The Sagarin advantage represents the spread in Jeff Sagarin’s predictor ratings. If the number is positive, it means that Team A is the Sagarin favorite. If the number is negative, then it means Team B (and the lower seed) is actually the favorite.
The Pomeroy % represents the chances that Team A will win the game according to Ken Pomeroy’s Pythagorean calculation.
Over the last four years, teams with a 2+ point advantage in Sagarin’s “predictor” rating have won 156 of 198 games (78.7%). Over the last two years, if a team had at least a 65% expected win rate according to Pomeroy’s Pythagorean calculation, they won 61 of 76 games (80.2%).
I’ve also included the spread for each game at the World Sports Exchange. Oftentimes the spread is very close to the Sagarin spread.
| Team A | Team B | Sag Adv | Pom % | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Diego State | Connecticut | 1.4 | 59.4% | +1 |
| Florida | BYU | -2.5 | 43.7% | -2.5 |
| Duke | Arizona | 8.9 | 83.8% | -9 |
| Wisconsin | Butler | 7.4 | 80.0% | -4 |
| North Carolina | Marquette | 3.0 | 63.6% | -5 |
| Kansas | Richmond | 9.7 | 82.0% | -10.5 |
| Ohio State | Kentucky | 6.2 | 76.0% | -5 |
| Florida State | VCU | 3.9 | 64.7% | -4 |
It’s interesting that Florida is a 2.5-point favorite according to the sportsbook even though they are a 2.5-point underdog according to Sagarin. That probably has to do with the sportsbook trying to take into account the loss of Brandon Davies, but his absence sure didn’t hurt BYU against Gonzaga.
Conversely, SDSU is a 1.0-point underdog despite being a Sagarin favorite.
Here’s a look back at the first two rounds (or three rounds if you want to buy into the NCAA’s terminology) of March Madness.
[nggallery id=33 template=carousel images=15]
Quarterback Matt Ryan doesn’t do much tweeting (which the Falcons are probably thankful for given how much trouble athletes seem to find on Twitter), so it was somewhat surprising to see what he said on Monday about friend Carson Palmer.
Carson Palmer and I are really good friends, I wonder which team he’ll be playing for next year, certainly won’t be the Bengals
Ryan certainly isn’t breaking news here. Since requesting a trade in late January, Palmer has been steadfast in his desire not to return to the Bengals next season, even going as far as to say that he’ll retire then play another down for Cincinnati. President Mike Brown insists that he won’t trade the eight-year veteran, but even his coach Marvin Lewis believes that Palmer will play elsewhere in 2011.
Still, it’s interesting to see a “really good friend” and someone (I assume) with knowledge of the situation say that Palmer won’t be back with the Bengals next year. Again, Ryan doesn’t tweet much so for him to write something with so much certainty is interesting. (Of course, Ryan could just be basing his assumptions on what everyone else has been reporting about Palmer over the past two months.)
The Panthers, Bills, Titans, 49ers, Redskins, Vikings and Seahawks are all in the market for a quarterback and might pursue Palmer if the owners and players can ever agree on a CBA. Seattle would seem like a logical fit given Palmer’s connection to his former USC head coach Pete Carroll.
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑