Saturday, March 28, 2009
UFC Fight Night 18 Picks
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
First Weekend Review/Sweet 16 Predictions
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Mega March Madness Preview
Well I'll start with saying the committee did a pretty good job as far as getting teams in there, the only one I didn't like was Creighton being left out over Arizona (which let's be honest, was a BCS like decision of putting the team who will sell more tickets in over the better team) But I think Arizona is better on the court but Creighton is better by the bracketology stuff, but Arizona is better on court so the money and the better play won that. I also think teams like St. Mary's and Penn State got screwed by teams like Cleveland State, USC, and Mississippi State who snuck in because of there conference tournament.
Upset Picks
Here are my upset picks:
Midwest Region
12 Arizona over 5 Utah - The fact that Utah is a 5 seed is just insane to me and I already said that Arizona is a good on court team who underachieved in the second half of the year. I saw this stat last night that Mountain West at-larges are terrible in round 1. So Arizona will win take this game in Miami because they are just a better team than Utah. So I like Arizona.
13 Cleveland State over 4 Wake Forrest - Wake Forest got off to their hot start where they were the number 1 team in the nation but ever since they upset Duke and then got knocked off by Virginia Tech and it's been all down hill since then. Wake kind of lives and dies by it's guard play, Cleveland State shut down Butler who is the king of just being a perimeter team, I think Cleveland State is very dangerous and will take this game and could be a threat to Arizona in the next round.
West Region
11 Utah State over 6 Marquette - Marquette got bitten by the injury bug and it poisoned them and kill them when Dominic James got put out for the year, otherwise I thought they could've made a run but now nope they are just mid range Big East team, that combined with Utah State who is terribly underseeded, they and Siena were my Cinderella picks who I thought would be wrecked because they got overrated at 9s Siena was but Utah State isn't and I think they will cruise past Marquette who has to travel cross country to Portland that is like a two hour drive for Utah State, so Utah State will win this one
East Region
11 VCU over 6 UCLA - UCLA has gone cold as of late, they have two guys with tourney experience, Darren Collison and Josh Shipp, but that won't be enough, UCLA doesn't score a lot, VCU does. UCLA usually got by on there defense, they don't even play that good of defense this year, VCU will score on them. Just make matters worse for UCLA they are traveling cross country to Philly, VCU just has to climb up north a little bit. VCU will take this one, book it!
South Region
12 Western Kentucky over 5 Illinois - Being around the Big Ten and watching it as much as I have, I know Illinois isn't good enough to be a 5 seed, they are ok, but they can' win on the road and they can't beat elite teams. Portland is far from home for Illinois and though I don't think Western Kentucky is an elite team but with Chester Frazier Western Kentucky's guards can just go off on the Illinois and Western Kentucky will win.
I also like Arizona and Utah State to advance on to the the Sweet after they win their first round game.
Arizona
Not much to say about this because as I already said they will draw Cleveland State who they are just better than them. It's like last year when Western Kentucky got to the Sweet 16 because they were lined up with San Diego who upset UConn, so Arizona will get in there because they are playing a team who they are just better than, plain and simple.
Utah State
Now Utah State is really a Cinderella type team, everyone thinks they are going to beat Marquette but if (and when they knock off Missouri it will be an upset and a major upset, but I think they can beat Missouri I heard about how good Utah State was when they snuck into the back end of the Top 25, Missouri was number 10 before I noticed them, so I figured they were killing bad teams then they started to lose and was like who's right. I tell you who's right: ME! I think Utah State knocks them off I really do.
Both teams will lose in the Sweet 16 according to my genius bracket.
5 Games you can't Miss (All games on CBS)
5. West Region: 4 Washington vs. 13 Mississippi State (Thursday 4:55 Eastern)
4. Midwest Region: 4 Wake Forrest vs. 13 Cleveland State (Friday 9:40 PM Eastern)
3. West Region: 5 Purdue vs. 12 Northern Iowa (Thursday 2:30 PM Eastern)
2. South Region: 8 LSU vs. 9 Butler (Thursday 12:20 PM Eastern)
1. Midwest Region: 8 Ohio State vs. 9 Siena (Friday 9:40 PM Eastern)
No real reason for all those games, just I think they are the best too bad I will miss a few of them because I have classes them ugh! But my friend will be texting me scores so I life, but if nothing comes after this you'll know why.
Other Tourney Ramblings
The Ty Lawson Injury
This maybe why Carolina doesn't win, Greg Anthony of CBS said this is like a four month injury that Lawson is coming back from in three weeks, that's not good. He's probably out the first weekend but they won't need him against Radford Thursday and odds are they won't need against Butler or LSU in round 2, so they are probably safe. But then come next weekend will he hurt them when he's going at 60% against Gonzaga and Oklahoma (according to the awesome Bears' bracket) I think it catches up to them when they face a solid point guard like Lavance Fields in the Final Four. So it won't hurt right away, but then it could be costly.
The Tyreke Evans coming out party?
It's won't be as big as the Derrick Rose coming out party last year, that was a Playboy Mansion Party, this will be more of a Celebrity Birthday at a Night Club Party. Evans has been beasting threw Conference USA ever since they moved to point guard. He's been really the only star Freshman this year even though DeMar DeRozan came on for USC in the Pac-10 tourney but this will be Tyreke Evans' run until Memphis gets booted in the Elite 8 at the hands of Purdue
Jerome Dyson will finally be missed by UConn
UConn hasn't really lost any games because of not having their star guard Jerome Dyson but they have played worse, much worse A.J. Pryce is good but he looked helpless against teams like Marquette and Pitt late in the year. UConn can get past Chattanooga and probably BYU (according to me) without him, pretty easily. But once they get to the Sweet 16 against Purdue or Washington who both have very physical guards and that is where UConn goes down on my Bracket.
My Picks: The Sweet 16 and on
Midwest Region
1. Louisville over 12 Arizona
6. West Virginia over 2 Michigan State
West Region
5. Purdue over 1 UConn
2. Memphis over 11 Utah State
East Region
1. Pitt over 4. Xavier
3. Villanova over 2 Duke
South Region
1. North Carolina over 4 Gonzaga
2. Oklahoma over 6. Arizona State
Elite 8
Midwest Final: 1. Louisville over 6 West Virginia
West Final: 5. Purdue over 2 Memphis
East Final: 1 Pittsburgh over 3 Villanova
South Final: 1 North Carolina over 2 Oklahoma
Before I go on to my Final Four, I bet your all thinking wow that was totally chalk, well it wasn't I had lower seeds in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 then most people. I just picked the best teams, Cinderellas don't win titles (or Bracket Pools) so I picked who I felt was the best team out of every region or the ones with the best match ups (I'm talking about you Purdue) So here's my Final Four
Final Four
Louisville over Purdue
Pittsburgh over North Carolina
National Championship: Pittsburgh over Louisville
I picked Pittsburgh because simply I think they're the best team with Lawson's injury, If Lawson was healthy I would probably have picked Carolina over Pitt but he's not so Pitt is going to beat them and then they are going to take apart Louisville and get their revenge to become National Champs, hopefully Petino will wear the White Suit in that game so I can laugh, that is all I got enjoy the tourney!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Why the T.O. Signing makes Perfect Sense for the Bills
Play Fantasy Baseball with Me
So if you want to play fantasy baseball with me sign up for the league it's Cubs vs. Cards, League ID is 190150, the draft is next Friday, March 20th at 9:30 PM Eastern, 8:30 PM my time, central time.
So I hope you sign up it's at Yahoo Sports, Cubs vs. Cards in the Head-to-Head section if your looking threw leagues
Friday, March 6, 2009
UFC 96 Picks
- Charge less for the Pay-Per-Views with no title fights or bad title fights (Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites, uhh) If a Frank Mir-Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre-B.J. Penn PPV is $45 than, than a Quinton Jackson-Keith Jardine PPV should be $25-30, an Anderson Silva-Thales Leites PPV should be $35. They could change the price of a the Pay-Per-View depending on the strength of the card. Don't tell me you wouldn't love that UFC fans
- Option number two, put crappy PPVs on Spike, they do it with crappy PPVs that are in the UK, why can't they do it for a bad a PPV in Columbus or a bad PPV in Vegas, which there actually aren't very many of but there are some that you could put on Spike.
Those are your choices UFC, well and there's staying put and making no money because casual fans won't pay for cards like this one.
Now on to my picks, nothing special on the other undercard so I'm just going to pick them, no breakdowns.
Lightweight bout: Shane Nelson over Aaron Riley via decision
Light Heavyweight Bout: Brandon Vera over Mike Patt via TKO in Round 2
Light Heavyweight Bout: Tim Boetsch over Jason Brtiz via KO in Round 1
Middleweight Bout: Kendall Grove over Jason Day via TKO in Round 3
Welterweight Bout: Ryan Madigan over Tandam McCrory via submission (triangle) in Round 2
On to the main card which should be better than the undercard
Lightweight Bout: Jim Miller (13-1-0) vs. Gray Maynard (7-0-1)
This could be fight of the night, I really like both of these two guys. Gray Maynard is a big lightweight, he's a wrestler, solid boxing likes to use his side and strength to his advantage and has his nickname says "Bully" people. Jim Miller, decent stand-up, great wrestler, good submissions. I'm looking for this to be primarily a stand-up fight because Jim Miller can't take Gray Maynard down, I don't know if Gray Maynard can take Jim Miller down, so it's probably to be a stand-up fight and that would be advantage Gray Maynard. If it would go to the ground Gray Maynard would have the advantage because he would be on top and there's no chance in hell he'd submitted. So I'm really just expecting an all out brawl with Gray Maynard coming out on top.
Gary Maynard will beat Jim Miller via decision
Light Heavyweight Bout: Matt Hamill (7-2-0) vs. Mark Munoz (5-0-0)
This is an interesting fight that is going to make for a very boring fight. Both fighters have great wrestling, which is great and all but it's going to kill this fight because neither of them will be able to take the other one down. Which means this fight is going come down to who has a better clinch game, which I believe who will be Hamill and who has better boxing. Munoz hits harder but Hamill has better technical boxing, I'm think that Hamill will just kind of dodge Munoz's crazy punch and pick him apart with a punch but it won't be pretty, this maybe one of those fights, where I change the channel at about 1 minute left of the 2nd round come back for the decision, then watch the last round on Youtube to come and realize I didn't miss much. But Matt Hamill will take a decision here.
Matt Hamill will beat Mark Munoz via decision
Welterweight Bout: Matt Brown (11-7-0) vs. Pete Sell (8-5-0)
I'm hardly going to get into this fight, I'm just going to complain about why this is on the main card, I know why it is, Brown is a Cincinnati based fighter and an Ohio native. Why the UFC puts fighters hire up on cards than they should because just because they are from where the show is I don't know. There about 300,000 buying this who don't really care if Matt Brown is from Ohio and would much rather see Kendall Grove, who I believe should be on the main card.
Now a quick breakdown, Pete Sell is a BJJ Black Belt, Matt Brown is a kickboxer who overrates his ground game and gets caught in submissions a lot. I'm looking for Pete Sell to take Matt Brown down pound him, then catch him in a submission, it will be a boring fight, which is why it shouldn't be on the main card, I would much rather Kendall Grove vs. Jason Day or Brandon Vera.
Pete Sell will beat Matt Brown via submission (rear naked choke) in Round 2
Heavyweight Bout: Gabriel Gonzaga (10-3-0) vs. Shane Carwin (10-0-0)
This is also going to be a fight of the night contender with the winner climbing really high up the heavyweight title rankings, they could even get a title shot, there is no real top contender after Frank Mir.
Shane Carwin is gigantic he's one of those guys like Brock Lensar who is just a freak of nature and has to cut to get to 265 but actually fights around 280. He wrestled at Arizona State, also hits very hard but giant hands help with that, some guy Youtube who's picks I watched said he wore like 5XL gloves or something like that, he's just a beast.Gabe Gonzaga is a BJJ Black Belt, he submission almost anyone at heavyweight other than Big Nog and Frank Mir, he also great kicks, he's famous for head kick KO of Mikro Cro Cop and he has solid hands. The only thing about Gonzaga is his commitment, he usually loses if he doesn't after the first round expect for like two fights against no names, he has awful cardio and usually gases after a round. I expect Carwin to survive the first round and then just start taking down Gonzaga and hitting him with those canned hams attached to his wrists, fight of a few submissions and eventually get a TKO or he could not finish him on the ground and catch Gabe with his hands down in 3rd when he has absolutely no gas left. But I like the GnP one better
Shane Carwin will beat Gabriel Gonzaga via TKO in Round 2
Main Event, Light Heavyweight Bout: Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (29-7-0) vs. Keith Jardine (14-5-1)
Here's your main event, not a great one I know. But it does have huge title implications. If Rampage wins he gets a title shot, if Jardine wins, Lyoto Machida gets the title shot.
Rampage lately has just been a boxer, which may be fine he hits really hard and is very good at it. He was a wrestler in junior college, he used to use his wrestling a lot in Pride but now he doesn't really, no submission game what so ever. Keith Jardine is known for his incredibly awkward stand up, he loves kicks, which Rampage tends not to check, Forrest Griffin took his title with nothing but kicks. I'm just going to assume Rampage Jackson has a brain and after a round of getting confused he will got back where he got his start, the mat and look for takedowns and slams and he'll use some ground-and-pound to do some damage and kick probably finish the fight, but who knows maybe Rampage will be a dumbass (which isn't unheard-of) and try to stand with him and get desicioned like Chuck Liddell because of that style.
Quinton Jackson will beat Keith Jardine via TKO in Round 3
Ok those are my fight picks here are my post show picks.
Fight of the Night: Gray Maynard vs. Jim Miller
KO of the Night: Tim Boetsch
Submission of the Night: Ryan Madigan
That is all I have once again sorry about my sickness, I'll have an actual article next week but there is no MMA for me to pick so I don't know what I'll do. I don't think there is any MMA until April with that UFC Fight Night leading into the Ultimate Fighter then the WEC card that weekend. But I'll find stuff to write about, peace out enjoy your weekend, I'm head to Iowa City to watch the Iowa-Penn State basketball game, Peace Out
Sunday, March 1, 2009
WEC 39 Picks
Welterweight Bout: Justin Haskins over Mike Pierce via decision
Lightweight Bout: Mike Budnik over John Franchi via submission (rear naked choke) in Round 2
Lightweight Bout: Alex Karalexis over Greg McIntrye via TKO in Round 1
Bantamweight Bout: Rafael Robello over Kenji Osawa via submission (arm bar) in Round 1
Welterweight Bout: John Hendricks over Alex Serdyukou via TKO in Round 3
Bantamweight Bout: Damacio Page over Marcos Galvao via KO in Round 1
Lightweight Bout: Danny Castillo over Phil Cardella via decision
Lightweight Bout: Marcus Hicks over Rob McCullough via decision
Featherweight Bout: Jose Aldo over Chris Mickle via KO in Round 1
Lightweight Bout: Bart Palaszewski over Ricardo Lamas via decision
Main Event, Featherweight Title Bout: Leonard Garcia over Mike Thomas Brown via TKO in Round 2 to become new WEC Featherweight Champion.
Fight of the Night: Bart Palaszewski vs. Ricardo Lamas
Knockout of the Night: Jose Aldo
Submission of the Night: Rafael Robello
Like I said sorry for no breakdowns or anything but I've like crap all weekend but I'm getting better and I'll be back next week with some kind of article and my UFC 96 picks. Have a good Sunday