Bubble Watch

ND Women

Despite the upsetting loss to Rutgers at the Big East tourney, the women currently have the 23rd toughest schedule and an RPI of 29.

ND Men

The ND men have an RPI of 47 heading into the Big east tournament. Here's a breakdown of the teams above them: 2 have already won their conference tournaments (Gonzaga and Manhattan), 1 has lost in its conference tourney (Southern Illinois), and the remaining 43 are divided among 11 conferences. The magic number is therefore 47-2-11=34, which is just good enough in theory. But, that's assuming that each of the winners of those conferences has an RPI higher than ND's - if a conference winner has a lower RPI than ND's, that means more at large spots taken up. Therefore, here's a list of teams to root for - the more of these teams that win their respective conferences, the better shot ND has at making the Big Dance.
ACC: Duke, NC St, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Maryland
A10: St Joseph's, Dayton, Richmond
Big 10: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan St
Big 12: OK St, Texas, Kansas, Texas Tech, Missouri
Big East: ND, Pittsburgh, UCONN, Syracuse, Providence, Seton Hall, BC
Big West: Utah State
CUSA: Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, Charlotte, UAB, DePaul
MAAC: Manhatton - won tournament
Mountain West: BYU, Utah
MVC: Southern Illinois - at large (UNI won tournament)
Pac 10: Stanford, Arizona
SEC: Kentucky, Miss St, Florida, Alabama, Vanderbilt, LSU, South Carolina
WAC: Nevada, UTEP
WCC: Gonzaga - won tournament

ND Men win a pair on national TV

Beat Georgetown 61-48 on Senior Night, St John's 89-62 in Big East warmup

A few years ago, three straight wins against UCLA, Georgetown, and St John's would have put anyone in the tournament. Unfortunately for the Irish, that doesn't hold true this year. Abbreviated ramblings on these two games:

• Tom Timmermans was introduced with his girlfriend. For the record, I was turned down by his girlfriend while on my one quest to find an SYR date in the dining hall on the day of the dance (she had a boyfriend at the time - no word if it was Timmermans).
• At the beginning of the Georgetown game, Torrian Jones was missing so many off balanced layups, I thought he has going to pull an Erika Haney. Haney had a performance similar to Jones's on her senior night, costing the Irish their home winning streak of 30+ games.
• As the saying goes, "God, Country, Notre Dame." This means that I missed the St John's game because I was scheduled to be a Eucharistic Minister at Saturday evening mass. It didn't help that CBS had switched to the Oregon game by the time I got back. I did see that the team set a new record for threes with 17, partially lead by 3-4 from Timmermans (wait, is this a good thing? shouldn't he be under the basket?)

ND Women fall to Rutgers again

19-2 lead becomes 51-45 loss

I scrambled to find an Internet radio broadcast of this game. But, by the time I found Rutgers's athletic site (UND.com has Internet radio as a pay service) and downloaded Real Player on the laptop my uncle recently donated to us, a 19-2 Irish lead had been cut to 21-15. From there, the team seemed to play rushed and scared, and once again feel to the Scarlet Knights. Here's hoping for better luck in the Big Dance.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

• I was watching an interview with Terrell Owens where he said his agent would be filing a grievance about Owens's trade to Baltimore. Now, Terrell, do you really trust him to get it in on time? Shouldn't you have learned your lesson?
• Apparently, KankaNation HOF finalist Elizabeth Hasselbeck has her own show on the Style Network - another wardrobe makeover show. I wasn't actually watching (except maybe to check her out), I was just in the room while my mom was watching. What was I doing? Reading an article in the USA Weekly supplement of our Sunday paper about Jameer Nelson and a U of Minnesota womens' basketball player whose favorite movie is Old School and favorite video game is Madden. Female basketball player? Old School? Madden? And she's only 5'9, so I won't have to strain my neck or stand on my toes! Wait a minute, where's that magazine, I need to look this girl up!
• The saying around here is, "If you don't like the weather, stick around, it'll change." Friday's high: 72 degrees. Half of 72 is 36. Today's high: 36.
• The UConn women are out of the Big East tournament, largely thanks to a spat betweem Gino Auriemma and Diani Taurasi. Auriemma finally got sick of Taurasi's "I never foul, the refs must be wrong" attitude and benched her. This isn't the first time this has happened, apparently, as Taurasi was also benched in a mid February game. Both times, Auriemma blasted Taurasi in front of the press, including comments about him being glad she's not out with him in the press room so she could "mumble her way out of it." Wow. I don't know which is better: this, or the Brian Cashman face.
• My sibling enjoy watching the Disney channel, and one of the shows they watch is "Sister, Sister." The latest episode of this show (currently in reruns) should have been called "A Very Special Episode," due to the important message it gave. The mom got the idea of setting up a popcorn stand outside her dress shop in the mall, hoping the gimmick (she actually called it a gimmick) would help to attract customers. When the two girls announced they were going out for the cheerleading squad, the mom decided that they too needed a gimmick to help them make the squad. She told them to play up the "twin gimmick" (being as they are twins). Well, playing up the twin gimmick only hurt the girls' chances of making the squad even more, and all the mom ended up with was a plethora of uneaten popcorn. The moral of this very special episode? Gimmicks don't pull the train, power pulls the train.

I'm going to try to go with up to 4 rounds a day for KankaMatic baseball, 2 morning and 2 afternoon. I know some of you may be busy, so I'll relax the deadlines if need be. If this doesn't work, we'll go back to 2-3 rounds a day. Just keep heads up on the draft board to see who's on the clock.

Transaction Wire later this week (looks like it'll be interesting), and of course the AL Central preview some time before next week. Go Irish beat Mountaineers.