VolenteHawk

Fuck a remake, but Cusack is hosting a viewing with Q&A at Bass Concert Hall on Friday night, and I'm all in.

I'll be the only person to possibly mention them, so let me tell you this story.... Lawrence, Kansas circa 1998. An up and coming hip hop group was coming to the Granada (for you Austin types...think La Zona Rosa). The DJ that was supposed to open was sick, so the Mercury rep called me in a panic to fill in for his set. The group was touring in support of their 2nd album, which I liked pretty well after loving their first album. They were mix of A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5, maybe a little Fugees...live instruments, break dancing. Fun shows and pretty good music. As a thank you, the Mercury rep and me hung out on the tour bus after the show where the front man could not stop talking about how much money the guy that wrote the music to Super Mario Brothers made. He was obviously ready to writes hits instead of good music, but I didn't know how that would go at the time. That group was The Black Eyed Peas, and the front man was Will.I.Am. They soon after added Fergie and immediately started recording terrible fucking pop music. But they've sold millions of records and played the Super Bowl, so joke's on me.

At Troon North, Pinnacle is significantly better than Monument, in my opinion. I'll take heat for it, but I'd rather play either 18 at Grayhawk over Monument...felt a little bit tricked up to me. TPC Scottsdale is fine, but I didn't think it was great for the money, and we even played it right after the Waste Management (stands were still up including all the way around #16). TPC Scottsdate will prove to you how good the pros are. It's pretty dang hard and they're routinely throwing 64s on it. Insane.

Subcontious zone squeeze due to 4 consecutive mound visits?

It’s a Bloody Mary bar. They give you a glass of vodka and ice, and you handle the rest buffet style.

That's one of the few spots on the field that the pitcher should play defense for his damned self on a pop up.

Cover 3 is pretty damn solid. The ribeye tacos are legitimately great (though like $23 so they should be), and you could make an argument they have the best wings in Austin even though they only have a couple flavors. They'll also close during a World Series game, because it's closing time...which makes them not a sports bar even though they market themselves as one.

I’m Gen X, grew up with the shoes, and idolized Jordan. I think LeBron is better at basketball.

Stood in there and took another hard fastball from a 10U AAA pitcher on Saturday, then refused to back down on Sunday and got hit again. #wearit

Heading down this afternoon for a long fishing/golf weekend. Already looking forward to Cancun in the morning to fight back hangover #1 for the trip.

On West Virginia, I actually think Konate is such a game-changing shot blocker that it might make sense for them to play a little less hectic defensive style. Not sure Huggins shares that opinion with me, though.

Oh, they'll play a substantially different style, because the strength of the team will be on the interior again, which it hasn't been in the last couple of years with POY level guards and playing 4 out, 1 in. That will also make the defense and rebounding better, so this will be a team that plays more like the way Self wants to play. Still, you're not wrong about the shooting question marks. Jhawk is right that the style will yield more wide open perimeter shots, because the defense will want to play KU inside out, but we have no reliable, proven jump shooting at all. I think the most likely answer is a couple of guys figure it out enough (coupled with the style) to ensure that this is a very good team. I'm not yet ready to get on board with Jhawk on declaring them sure fire great. They lost too many pieces to confidently say that. Self's track record is ridiculous, though.

The 2011 team itself wouldn’t get through this schedule with 2-4 losses. That team played in a shit league (outside of Texas) and played a bad non-con...not just “bad for Self” actually bad. This KU team could be a Final Four FAVORITE and lose 7 games. And with the youth and shooting question marks on the perimeter, while they’re likely to be damn good, Final Four favorite is a pretty high bar.

Easily. I beat off with some spray tanner once in a pinch, and it took weeks to get back to normal.

When I was umpiring, I always had a smaller zone for breaking pitches. In hindsight, I think it was subconscious because I knew it was bad for the kid’s arms.

That's the scariest thing about the new potential legislation. The people that are now in charge of writing new laws don't understand the difference between handle and hold, they just want their hands in the cookie jar, because OMG!!!BILLIONS!!!! And the leagues, after fighting this for 6 years, now need an "integrity fee", and they're cool. Ultimately, it can be legal as hell, but if dime lines or better are hard to find my situation won't change...I'll still use a local and offshore.

Out of pure circumstance, I ate at the Salt Lick by Dell Diamond for lunch on Saturday after kids baseball in the morning. It actually wasn't terrible. I feel dirty.

Self doesn't want him back. If KU wasn't so razor thin last year, he'd have been benched early and often. The depth issue is solved now (at least on paper).

Vick will not be back at Kansas.

Leaving the bench a few seconds early to go to the locker room or shake hands isn’t a suspension, right? The rule wording is specifically around leaving the bench during a fight.

The pace stats have been startlingly consistent since Shaka has been at Texas...the 2017 team played a little faster on offense but that's arguably attributable to turning the ball over all the time, so I'm not sure that was the intent.

I don’t have a dog in the fight, but Texas played slooooooow last year...316th nationally in tempo. So, evaluating the defense with raw PPG is a pretty poor way to do it. i do think the defense was good last year and think it will be again.

The backcourt is young and the best perimeter defender with the only real game experience at Kansas can't shoot. So there are question marks. Lot of talent, though.

How much does it change the odds for the Wynn rules of “you’ll get 6/5 and like it”?

Yeah, that's crazy. Last year the Warriors were a 3/1 favorite to win the Finals series, this year they're 10/1 and climbing.