Underdogs As Usual The Bulldogs Will Be Top-Dogs On Monday

It’s David VS Goliath all over again, two teams, near opposites in every way battling it out to be national champions. For Butler, another chance avenge their loss in last years national championship game, for UConn, a chance to ride their star player all the way to the top. The grizzled coaching veteran with violations hanging over his head vs. the baby faced 33 year old coaching his second Final Four. Kemba vs. the physical Butler defense. It’s no easy decision picking a winner in this one, but here’s why Butler will be cutting down the nets on Monday Night.

Butler Wins Close Games

There average margin of victory if only 4.2 points and this Butler team knows how to get it done in the closing seconds. Their 2 point win over Old Dominion, 1 point win over Pitt, and 3 point win over Florida make last nights 8 point win over VCU look like a blowout. The Bulldogs keep their cool late in games and can get quick buckets from Howard and Mack if necessary. The Bulldogs have a ton of experience in late game situations in the tourney, which helps prevent them from making boneheaded plays a la Texas in late game situations. The Huskies have only been involved in two real close games, against Arizona and Kentucky, while the Bulldogs have multiple options down the stretch that should help them out late in Monday’s game.

Their Physical Team D Can Stop The Huskies

Tom Izzo said last year after the national semi-final that Butler was the most physical team the Spartans had played and that style has been on display throughout the tournament. Brad Stevens’s intense defense has played a huge role in getting Butler to the national championship game. Their rotations at the end of the VCU game were things of beauty, as the guards clamped down on Joey Rodriguez in the paint and won the game convincingly. While Kemba is certainly is a step up, Butlers team D can contain Walker. Their man defense is strong and you can bet Brad Stevens won’t be playing a lot of zone and letting Walker stroll around the three point line. Butler can force Walker to take tough long jump shots, which he isn’t as strong at as his running drives to the lane. If they can keep Walker on the perimeter Butler should be able to win on Monday.

They Too Have A Star

While he’s no Kemba, Matt Howard is also a dominant offensive player, and his physicality on the defensive end has made him one of the best players in the tournament. Howard leads the team in points and rebounds, and gives Butler a great chance in beating the Huskies. He can make big shots (Old Dominion) and timely buckets (The rebound put back that helped seal the deal against VCU). He’ll probably be guarded early on by Roscoe Smith, who is 6-8 but certainly lacks the speed to keep up with Howard. Howard gets rebounds and scores, and butler should win if he goes off for a big game.

Brad Stevens Will Lead The Way

While Jim Calhoun has the luxury of having Kemba Walker, Butler relies way more on strategy and set plays to win which should bode well for them in the championship game. If Walker is contained Calhoun doesn’t have a lot of options while Butler is well prepared for basically any scenario. Stevens is certainly a big game coach, and Monday should be a shining moment for one of the games best coaches.

NYaT Roundtable: Belated 2011 American League Picks

I know, I know, we're behind schedule, but on the first Saturday of the season, I felt it was a good time to make sure that I got up all of our baseball picks. I mean with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver back to ruining my baseball experience, I thought there would be no better time to distract me. We'll start with the American League with the National League hopefully coming tomorrow. Here's the NYaT picks, which come with a no-money-back guarantee (these were all done before Thursday):

NYaT bloggers think that A-Gone is the key for the Sox (CBS)

AL East

Ben W: Baseball's toughest division got tougher. No one team in the division can be taken lightly. Toronto has a young, but talented rotation. The Orioles should continue to improve as they did during the second-half of last year. The Rays also sport a young, but talented pitching staff. And then there are the Yankees and the Red Sox. The Red Sox clearly improved their offense and it is more than on par with the Yankees. I give the Red Sox the edge for the division because they are more established with their #2 starter. Red Sox.

Ben P: Maybe I'm a homer, but I think the Yankees are just as good as Boston. Both rotations have question marks, but I think the yanks have a deeper offense and a better bullpen, so I'll pick them to take it. The Sox will take the wild card. The Rays lost too much to compete at the same level but they still have a lot of youth and talent and will be hard to beat if their young pitching comes through. The Blue Jays and Orioles are also improved teams. It will be very hard for any team in this division to get 95 wins. Yankees.

Jay: Let's face it - Boston has a deeper starting rotation than New York. And they significantly upgraded their offense and defense by acquiring Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Meanwhile, the Rays lost too many weapons in the offseason and the Yankees have too many holes in their starting rotation -- Nova/Garcia/Colon aren't going to get it done in the Bronx. The Red Sox smell like division champs with a shot at 100 wins. Red Sox.

Alex O: Gotta start here. Boston improved and is getting healthy but they also have an older Papi, and their starters are no more of a sure thing than the Yankees. Yanks have some good young blood in Montero and Banuelos to keep the old guard energized. I think Jeter will have a year closer to 2009 than 2010, but still hope Girardi has the stones to bat him second and lead off Gardner. Comparing Yankees and Red Sox I think starters (slight edge to Sox) and bullpen (slight edge to Yanks with Soriano addition and Paps not what he once was) are a wash. I give the line-up edge to the Yankees since I think their 3-4-5 of Tex, Arod, and Cano are best in mlb. Defense is not enough of a factor to change my mind that my very biased opinion is that the Yankees will win the AL East. An interesting side show will be watching Manny and Damon deal with Tampa---- I root for the rays since my folks live in that neck of the Earth, and wish TB all the best. Yankees.

Andrew: This is the Red Sox division to lose. They still need to be healthy and to get their starting pitching in order, but they acquired two of the best players in baseball this off-season and bolstered an already very good bullpen. But fortunately for the Yankees and Rays, divisions aren't won in the off-season. Unfortunately for the Yankees and Rays, they both have huge question marks on their teams--the Yankees in the back of their rotation and the Rays in the middle of their lineup. The Orioles pitching stinks but their hitting should be just as good as anyone in the AL East (I love Adam Jones to have a huge year) and the Blue Jays have a good young nucleus (H/T G-C). Since they almost won it last year even with all their injuries, I still think that this is the Red Sox division. Red Sox.

AL Central

Read more>>

Almost Opening Day...

The weather outside in New York doesn't show it but we're really, really close to opening day. I love this time of year when rosters are finalized, teams leave Florida and the anticipation of the season is right around the corner. The greatest part about opening day is that every team starts with the same chance to win the World Series. Sure, I don't think the Pirates or the Royals really have any shot, but as the Giants proved last year, you never really know. So here's to hope, optimism, Spring and Opening Day!

And now a baseball joke for you (H/T Lauren): A Yankees fan, a Mets fan, and a Red Sox fan are climbing a mountain and arguing about who loves his team more. The Mets fan insists he is the most loyal. ''This is for the Mets'', he yells, and jumps off the mountain. Not to be outdone, the Yankees fan is next to profess his love for his team. He yells "This is for the Yankees!!!"...and pushes the Red Sox fan off the mountain.

Join NYaT's Fantasy Baseball league

		Hey NYaT Readers, You have been invited to join NYaT's custom league in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball. In order to join the league, follow the link above or go to game front page, click the "Sign Up Now" or "Get Another Team" button and follow the links to "Join a Custom League". When prompted, enter the League ID# and password below. League ID#: 148297 Password: Mo We will send you a confirmation with further details once you have completed the registration process. Note from Andrew: We have a few spots open on the annual NYaT fantasy baseball blog league. Sign up to join and play for the ultimate blog bragging rights! --Fantasy Baseball Commissioner http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

UConn Marches Past Arizona For 2nd Final Four Berth in 3 Years

Jim Calhoun and the West regional champs. (credit: Hartford Courant)

In what was essentially a road game at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Saturday night, the UConn Huskies marched past the Arizona Wildcats to earn their second Final Four berth in three years.  Much to Charles Barkley's dismay, the 2011 Final Four features No. 4 Kentucky, No. 8 Butler, and No. 11 VCU, making third-seeded Connecticut the lowest seed left in the tournament, and the only Big East squad still standing.

File those last two sentences under "things I never thought I'd say five months ago when most of the college basketball world considered these same Huskies strictly NIT-bound."

Shabazz Napier
(credit: Hartford Courant)

Apparently the players never got the memo back in November.  Instead, they locked in and became one of the greatest tournament teams in college basketball history.  Seriously.  It doesn't even matter whether they win the NCAA tournament.  They've already sealed their place in NCAA lore by winning the Maui Invitational (3-0), the Big East tournament (5-0), and advancing to the Final Four (4-0 so far).  Yes sir, the UConn Huskies are undefeated in tournament play with a 12-0 record (and counting).  So can Connecticut keep its amazing streak going for two more games and close out this remarkable season by winning their 3rd NCAA championship?

Putting aside my obvious bias, I say yes -- and a plurality of Americans agree with me.  (ESPN's latest poll has UConn at 38%, Kentucky at 24%, Butler at 22%, and VCU at 11%.)  Speaking of ESPN, here is an unbelievable stat.  Out of the 5.9 million brackets submitted to the WWL's Tournament Challenge, only two brackets got the Final Four correct.  Two!  In related news, Jay Bilas and Jay Williams were the only two ESPN experts who picked UConn to reach the Final Four.  Perhaps you should listen to people named Jay; we know what we're talking about.

Read more>>

A Standing O: The Madness March-es On

Like Russell, I am mourning the death of my bracket. First it was Louisville dealing me a nice shot in the family jewels before an uppercut from the most awful foul ever killed Pittsburgh--and my bracket. So now that the Madness has settled, I'm left without a ton to root for. But Alex O gives me some hope in his latest post:

-------------------
At the bottom of this post are the odds for the next 2 evenings of madness. This is what one resorts to when their bracket has blown up----- Texas, Purdue, and Pitt not good picks. At least I am ahead of Rochelle Rochelle in the NYaT pool!

I am sure I am not alone in rooting for the dogs--- and I don’t mean the Huskies---- they are either a pick ‘em or a favorite. I mean the underdogs: VCU, Richmond, and Butler. I’ll even throw in BYU, why not. I’ll root for Jimmer, who was graced with a name that somehow reminds me of the famous Johnny Cash song “A boy named Sue” --- worth a download.

Interesting side note is that VCU and Richmond make Richmond the first city to have 2 sweet 16 teams since LA in 2007. More on that go here.

Estimates place the total dollar amount of American office pools in excess of $3 billion, with the total cost in lost productivity in the neighborhood of $1.8 billion. Wow, how about them apples.

It was nice to see that Yahoo in their matchup breakdown includes the spreads. To me it is essential in doing any analysis, the oddsmakers in Vegas--- or I guess in the Caymans for the on-line bookies, do their hard work and tell us what the spread is. Sometimes I think there are wrinkles. VCU has blown out its last 3 opponents after barely getting in---- how much is that a factor in the spread vs. Florida State?

Read more>>

Hot Stove Coal: Retreads Are Never the Answer

I'm sorry that my blogging has been so sporadic. I started a new day job and its duties have had me neglecting my blogging duties. And I was going to be okay with that until I heard this clip of Mike Francesca blowing up at a caller and then saw Michael Kay sitting in full Rangers gear at Madison Square Garden last night. If there was ever a signal that I needed to get back into the blogging game it would be seeing the two New York sports talk blowhards back in my life.

Colon shouldn't be more than a stop-gap for the Yanks(LoHud)

I also wanted to talk about the 2011 Yankees--a rag-tag bunch of characters if I ever saw one. Sure there's the Core Three and A-Rod and CC. But as Spring has gone on, I've seen Yankee fans get excited by the likes of Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and Mark Prior. It's as American as apple pie to root for comeback stories. We love the guy who rises out of the ashes for one more shot at glory. It's why we go to the theaters to see so many Rocky movies. It's why we the best sports stories always seems to be ones of redemption.

The problem is that we try too hard at times to make something out of nothing, especially when it has to do with baseball retreads (AKA has-beens, washed up, and finished). Sure, there's the odd guy who can have a huge rebound and find his way back to his glory days. But with steroid testing in place, those guys seem to be one in a million. I'm not talking about guys who just needed a change of venue to realize their true potential like David Ortiz, Paul O'Neill, Tim Wakefield or Shane Victorino. And I'm not talking about guys who had a down year or an injury and found a way back the next year. I'm talking about guys whose careers were shot only to find success again. It's just not happening as much as people think.

To prove my point, the Yankees have to look no further than Boston where the Red Sox draw optimisim each Spring from their fans on the retreads they try to revive the careers of. Yankee fans bemoan that their General Manager is no Theo Epstein only to find out that there was a reason these guys were available for so cheap. How much did we hear about Jeremy Hermida, Rocco Baldelli, Brad Penny, John Smoltz, Paul Byrd, Eric Gagne and Wade Miller and how much did they produce? Did you remember that the Red Sox had Bartolo Colon in 2008 or that Freddy Garcia was on the Mets Spring roster before being released? David Wells and David Cone both wore the Red Sox jerseys at some point towards the end of their careers.

Read more>>

View from the Seats: Rangers vs Panthers

It's been a while since we had one of these and I'm at Madison Square Garden tonight for the Rangers vs the Panthers. 1-0 so far with about 10 minutes left to go in the 3rd period.

The Rangers have not fared well this season at The World's Most Famous Arena but they desperately need two points tonight. Brandon Dubinsky scored for the Rangers who were so close so many times but finally broke through with a score.

Now they have to hold it (and hope for no 3-point games among the close teams). This is a team that should be able to smell the playoffs and need to put away Florida here.

-Andrew

Russell's Bracket Dead At 4 Days

Russell's bracket died tragically yesterday at the relatively young age of 4 days. It was clear on Saturday that the bracket was in serious peril thanks to the Butler Bulldogs, but it became apparent that the end was near as Notre Dame was getting slaughtered, while Kansas State lost to Wisconsin, and Gonzaga fell to BYU. A grieving Simon said to reporters "A ray of hope shone through as Gilbert Brown went to the foul line, but the bracket then experienced a major heart attack, that proved the end was near."

Russell's bracket adopted the radical strategy of picking a lot of upsets, but naturally picked all of the wrong one's, which led to the bracket being in critical condition before the events of Saturday night. Among the notable losses that had a play in the brackets death were, Gonzaga loosing to BYU, UCLA beating Michigan State, Washington loosing to North Carolina, Butler loosing to ODU, and Marquette loosing to Xavier. This radical strategy had a chance at growth, but the bracket quickly became ill again: "We tried everything we could" said Doctor Vitale, who oversaw his care in the intensive care unit, "But VCU was to much for him."

However many other brackets currently in critical condition talked of Russell's bracket quite fondly. They recall his sunny optimism that he would be saved, said hospital roommate Adam's Bracket "He always believed I mean he had faith in Notre Dame and Pitt, and always believed they would come out on top." Others looked fondly at some of the highlights of his bracket, including George Mason,and Richmond that will always cause people to remember him fondly.

Russell's bracket is survived by Ohio State and UConn, his final resting place will be the kitchen garbage.

With Stevens and Seniors, Butler WIns Playing The Right Way

In looking back at this year in college sports, it was scandal filled and very ugly. We had Cam Newton being auctioned off like a Picasso, the Ohio State tats for team gear scandal, and Big East refs simultaneously going blind in order to give the Red Storm a win. But despite all of this ugliness the NCAA tournament has given us a diamond in the rough, something to take our mind of the troubles in college athletics, the diamond that is Butler basketball. Back in the sweet 16 again, the tourney darlings are making a run at the title they nearly won last year. But Butler is more then a sweet Cinderella story, they're more then a team with a couple of great wins, they represent everything that is right with college sports.

Butler tells us that "Hey you don't need 5 guys who dominated in the AAU circuit, or committed crimes, and are leaving for NBA riches after one year to win," in short they tell us college basketball can be saved. And how do they do it. How does a team in the Horizon League, make it to the NCAA championship game, nearly beat Duke, then beat a number one seed the next year to return to the Elite Eight, and maybe even win the final this time? They do it the old school way, with great coaching and great defense and yes a little bit of luck. Butler does it behind a coach who looks like he still should be playing college intramural. But Brad Stevens is clearly showing that you don't necessarily get smarter with age. He builds his teams around solid fundamentals and good teamwork, you know, the way it should be. He's a basketball wizard, building a team around a core 5 not one John Wall or the next one-and-done. Imagine the things he could do if he went to a major school! But no, just like his players Stevens won't be leaving early. Stevens is signed under contract until 2022, which means when he finally grows a beard, he will still be the coach of Butler.

But it isn't all the Stevens of course. Matt Howard, a senior of course who wouldn't consider leaving early, the scrappy, tough forward with the game-winner against Old Dominion, dominates on the boards and can score. Point Guard Shelvin Mack plays the game the right way, and has lead the Butler offensive attack to put up 71 on Pitt. It's beautiful to watch them play, and one can only appreciate how they play the game. Even the basketball God's love Butler. Consider Gilbert Brown going to the line on Saturday and barely missing the last free-throw in the exact position for Matt Howard to get it and, throw up the prayer that helped convince the ref that he was blatantly fouled. That's the kind of smart play that wins games, behind the smart coach this smart team could very well not only go to the ball this year, but marry the prince, and take home the trophy.