Baylor Basketball Drinking Game

We all know that Baptists don't drink but hypothetically.....

• Baylor takes a contested 3 with more than 20 seconds on the shot clock- take 1 shot
• Ball ricochets off Lomers/Diene hands out of bounds- take 1 shot
• Retaliatory foul by Lomers- 1 shot
• Opponent gets in the bonus before the halfway mark of a half- 2 shots
• Opponent drives to the basket with no one helping on the way to a layup out of the half court- 2 shots
• Baylor players with a size advantage on defender opts for a fade-away jumper- 2 shots
• Baylor guard gets a rebound on defense, walks the ball up the court, doesn't pass, and takes a highly contested shot with over 12 seconds on the shot clock- finish the bottle

This should get you started. Of course there could be more and I encourage all two of you to leave your ideas in the comment section.

-Murph

Bitching About Referees is the Mating Call of Losers

As I was watching the "game" on Saturday, I wandered over to Baylorfans to get multiple perspectives on what was happening.  I came across one thread where the driving force behind our ineptitude was apparently the officiating. The zebras were "taking us out of our game" and "making sure we are in our place." 

Let me say this. I have followed and watched sports since before I actually knew what I was watching. There are bad calls in virtually every game. Sometimes, the bad calls CAN change a game. This is not what happened on Saturday in Norman. 

What happened was a total and complete ass kicking. We played scared. Outside of CJ, our team wet their collective pants anytime they came down the lane and a Griffin brother was standing there. Did the referees play horrible defense for us? Did the referees alter our shots when we drove the lane? Did the refs make us take bad shot? 

We are better than what we showed yesterday.  When we let a team shoot 67% in a half then I don't know how anyone could possibly think that the game was "stolen" in any way. When you whine about officiating in a game like that it basically screams that our fanbase isn't used to winning. I guess we'll have to wait till that happens. 

Later kids, quit whining.

Murph

Kansas State Post Game Thoughts

• Lace was the big star of the game obviously but I'll say it again: Quincy Acy makes a huge difference when he's out there vs the two 7 footers. Teams actually have to guard Quincy and not leave him to help on our guards because he can catch the ball and score.
• During commercials, I switched over to the OU-Nebraska game. OU, like a&m is going to be a match up nightmare for us. It's not that they are that much better than us either. The problem is thier inside game has more of an advantage over our inside than we have an advantage over their perimeter players.
• K-State needs to learn a box and 1 defense and use the 1 to just stand on the wind Dunn was. It was unbelievable how Lace would come down the court and just stand in the same place waiting for the ball. He could have had his mail forwarded there.
• Dugat is getting due for a huge game, wish it is going to happen on Saturday
• Did anyone notice how we drove to the basket consistently and that opened up Dunn on the wing as well as got us in the bonus early in the half? The moral of the story is that much, much more often than not, the aggressor will get calls and will control the game in general. We have to remember this when the Griffin brothers are standing in the lane and we revert to our "25 feet from the basket" offense.

A site note: My computer is having issues making posting on here a herculean effort. I've been working diligently to upgrade so all will be well in the world again. I don't know if I'll get the chance to comment on the OU game. My fascist wife is having me attend a wedding shower in Waco on Saturday. Perhaps I can at least get her to tour the new practice facility or something.

Later peeps,

Murph

Post OSU Game Thoughts

• Quincy Acy was the difference. With Lomers and Dou on the court, we essentially play with 4 people on offense. This means that our opponent can use their center to help when our guards drive. How many times have you seen one of our guards penetrate and then dish to one of our 7 footers only to see the ball fly through their hands out of bounds? He also brought some rebounding to the game. For some perspective, the Lomers/Diene combo is averaging 5.2 points and 2.8 rebounds combined counting our sta-puff non-conference schedule. Acy delivered 17 and 12 against OSU.
• Does the OSU coaching staff offer Byron Eaton a cheeseburger every time he scores a basket? He sure looks/plays like it.
• Speaking of Eaton, the game was effectively over when he fouled out and we went to overtime. I was more worried at the end when any random player can make a shot. During a sustained period of time, they weren't going to be able to score with us without Eaton.
• We need to be 3-1 in conference going into the game in Norman. Can't look past KSU on Wednesday night.
• Shot selection was much better on Saturday compared to the aggie game.
• Is it too much to ask to get out to a lead early and keep it throughout the game?

On a site news note, I'll try to bring in a little more football stuff this week as well as recaps of the KSU basketball game. Later kids.

Murph.

Blogging Baylor vs. Aggy 2nd Half

19:45- Dou starts the half continuing his quest of having 5 fouls and nothing else in the stat book. 

17:42- Defense Optional Wednesday!

16:00- Two Bears fight for a rebound, falls into the hands of an Aggie. (Sigh)

14:00- Basically trading baskets for the last two minutes. Waiting for a run.....

13:55- Just kidding, we'd rather given up offensive rebounds and scores.

11:15- Can't seem to get it under 11. 

8:47- Phantom elbow. Good Lord.

7:39- We absolutely need some defense right now. Our offense is finally starting to get going. We needs stops!!

6:42- Aggies aren't missing. One part being hot, the other is the paper mache defense. 

5:15- Getting a little late to start a run....

4:09- We're going to try one anyway following the missed dunk and Dugat 3. 

1:50- You have to make shots....

1:16- Looks like too little, too late

0:25- It's over baby. No Defense, no winning. Of course, if this team doesn't know that now they never will. 

Blogging Baylor vs. Aggy

Pregame- Crowd shot showing aggie students looking at newspapers while Baylor players are being introduced. Not as effective when everyone knows they can't read. 

18:50- Baylor defense forces a shot clock violation. I'll take a three day lift pass in hell please. 

17:45- Looks like the zebras are going to let 'em play tonight. 

17:11- Dou gets tied up with Davis. Old official gets knocked to the deck. 

16:20- Tweety with the answer!

15:57- Lomers! Flagrant Foul Watch 2009 is on!

15:10- No hustle on the botched in-bound play. I would think they would be up for this game. 

13:04- Acy forgets to dribble. Don't sweat it kid, you're only a division 1 athlete. 

12:23- Dunn with the tried and true method of going to the basket. Good things happen.

11:58- Are we aware it's ok to get the ball after a missed shot? My head hurts watching this. 

10:26- Dugat with a great move to draw the and 1. It looks like we might have a game plan. 

10:15- Game plan doesn't include defense. 

8:45- Lace with 2 turnovers in consecutive trips down the floor. Ugh. 

8:00- Apparently Alanu has more rebounds than the entire Baylor team. That's just terrible. 

5:48- TV Timeout with aggies up by 6. Our defense has been ok but our rebounding has been horrible. We fix that and we win. The absolutely cannot shoot with us. 

4:26- Aggies want this game more than we do and it's blatantly obvious. Aggies up by 7.  (Looking for a bucket to puke in). 

3:28- Aggies have taken 12 more shots than us. That's the difference at this point. 

1:58- Stripes miss an obvious goal tending. We end up turning it over and letting them scores. It's weird how that always happens. 

1:24- AnM on a mini-run. We need to keep it under 6 till halftime. 

Halftime- Aggies finish on a 9-2 run to finish up 11. Our rebounding is terrible. We need to find some rebounding and energy or we'll get run out of the building. The good news is that we haven't gone on a run yet. We usually have one or two a game. We'll see what happens. 

Pre a&m Thoughts

I'll be blogging during the game tonight so all 6 of you (Thanks Sitemeters.com!) can hear Murph's wit and wisdom when it comes to the game. This game is a big deal because with aggy's schedule, if we win, could send our friends to the south on their way to a possible 0-5 conference record. Anytime you get the chance to start shoveling dirt on the enemy, you do it.

I don't think Josh Carter is going to lay another egg for us tonight so the defense is going to have to remember to get off the bus in College Station tonight. We also must absolutely get some kind of production from from our center position. No, I'm not talking about 15 fouls either.

See you kids tonight.

Live Blogging the Baylor-Tech Game 2nd Half

Pre-Tip- Bryndon Manzer analysis. Manzer is one of only 4 former OK State players who can speak in complete sentences. 

19:40- Lomers with a move and a score. Someone is skiing in hell as I type this. 

18:35- Lomers, obviously in the zone, tries another shot. Misses and then retaliates against the world with a foul.

15:57- TV Timeout. Bears can't separate from the Red Raiders. Lead still 4. 

14:47- Tech takes lead with a 3. I've seen this game before. Baylor takes a time out so Coach Drew can remind his players that the game didn't end with the 1st half. 

13:45- Jerrells for 3 and the Bears take a 1 point lead. It looks like he might have to take over for us to have a chance. 

13:35- Tech in the bonus 6 minutes and change into the half. Someday we're going to get an opponent in the bonus before the 15 minute mark. 

11:05- We're trading leads with Tech now. Dunn hits another 3. 

10:36- Baylor always seems to make Alan Voskul look like an NBA prospect.

9:25- Dunn is on fire. You'd think after the South Carolina game, a coach would figure out how to guard him. 

8:30- Pace picks up and announcers say: "This is the style of play we expected to see today" in consecutive sentences. 

Commercial Break- If I see the fat guy try to shoot free throws again, my head will explode. 

5:42- Jerrells dribble penetration  creates a shot attempt/foul for Rogers. Why we don't do this for an entire game I'll never know. 

4:50- Tech bunches around the 3 point line and dares us to take a long shot. Tweety obliges and misses. 

4:12- Rogers with a huge offensive rebound and put back drawing a foul. 

2:38- Alley Oop to Rogers to go up by 11. Finally some separation on the scoreboard. If we could play like this the whole game we would be a force in the conference. 

1:42- In the understatement of the year, announcer describes Dunn as "not an assist guy." 

0:45- Garbage time as we've finally put this one away. It was great to see the defense step up a little bit but they need to take it to another level to beat the better teams in this conference. 

Live Blogging the Baylor-Tech Game 1st Half

PreGame- Not to be outdone by FOX's treatment of Tim Tebow on Thursday, Big 12 Network has declared Blake Griffin our new Lord and Savior. 

Tip Off- Ego booster for Dou with the announcer saying he's only in there to win the tip

18:51- Two Offensive rebounds for Tech before drawing a foul. Never seen this before (sigh). Baylor down 4-0.

18:14- Timeout Baylor after a 3 by Tech. This followed a 5 second call on KR. 

17:55- Dugat with a nice dribble drive basket.

17:32- Baylor finally gets off the bus and scores 4 straight. Time out Tech.

16:50- Announcers call the officiating crew "excellent." I'm waiting for someone to call a crew terrible. 

14:13- Lomers checks in. I'm predicting 2 fouls in the next three minutes.

13:17- Fantastic move by Tweety to draw a foul in transition. Has anyone not heard about him playing 6 years of high school basketball. 

12:51- Lomers draws a foul and looks like he needs oxygen just to get to the foul line. 

12:33- Vlade Divac's illegitimate son apparently plays for Tech. Nice neck beard.

12:14- Dunn makes a 3 point shot from Bellmead.

11:04- Pat Knight uses the "Motion Offense." Drew counters with his own "Stand around offense."

10:22- Dunn hits a 3 off an inbound play. Bears up by 5. Tech timeout. 

10:01- Baylor opponent in the bonus halfway through the half? Surely you're joking. 

7:56- Bears somehow botch a 3 on 1 break. Bears still up by 8. 

Commercial Break- Are insurance companies the only ones that can afford commercial time these days? 

5:32- We can't handle prosperity, Tech gets  an easy bucket off an offensive rebound. Baylor up by 5.

5:18- We finally go down to Rogers and he draws a foul. I'm glad we finally discovered this strategy. 

Back from the Break- Spotlight on the Bear Pit, Baylor admissions inquiries decline simultaneously. 

2:15- Lomers finds a wide open person in the first row.

1:23- Has Alan Voskl played for Tech the past 9 seasons? 

Halftime- Baylor leads by 4 at halftime. I feel like we played better than that but we really need to beat this team by like 15. We'll see if the Bears step up some. 

Big 12 Coaches Meeting Episode I: Where to go for lunch?

Briles: Thanks for having me here guys. Man, I am starving. How do we decide where to go for lunch?

Stoops: The coach who's team comes in last during the season typically gets to pick. Your predesessor always chose Hooters because he thought it would be funny to have that place on his expense report. However, it looks like Coach Sherman is going to be choosing restaurants this season and for the foreseable future. What do you think Mike?

Sherman: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Stoops: Not again. Somebody wake him up.

Gundy: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE UUUUUUUUUUUPPP!

Sherman: Huh? Who's that? What's going on?

Leach (hung over): Stop Yelling! Some of us do not spend all our time thinking about football and would rather enjoy the exploits of alcohol. This is expecially true when you realize you are destined to be Pirate Captain in the middle of the damn West Texas desert. (Pulls out flask) God I hate Lubbock.

Briles: Ok. Ok. We're not getting anywhere. Mack, do you have a preference?

Brown: I don't know. I don't do decisions very well.

Stoops: I knew we should have invited Muschamp instead.

Brown: Shut up! 45-35 Bitch!

Stoops: Does Vince ever let you look at his National Championship Trophy?

Gundy: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Briles: Why are you yelling?

Gundy: THAT'S ALL I KNOW HOW TO DO!

Leach: Stop yelling! (stumbles)

Briles: Forget it, I'm ordering a pizza.

Prophet?

Question: Who said in a previous post that if Florida scores 24 they win the game? Answer: me. This blog is free to all of those who find their way here. For stock tips, career training, and relationship advice, that will cost you.

On a totally different note, ever Google "prophet"? When trying to find a picture for this post, all I got was a bunch of portrayals of the prophet Muhammad. I had to use some more google-fu to find this random, nameless prophet that you folks who paid attention in Old Testament can think of as either Elijah or Elisha.

Site News of the Day: Since conference basketball starts Saturday, I'll finally get into that some for those of you who keep e-mailing me asking for it.

My Peace Plan

You think Palestinians and Jews hate each other? Put college football fans of different views on the post-season in a room and it will take four coats of paint to cover the blood stains on the wall. The crux of the problem is that Universities/Conferences/Media/Sponsors make more money than anyone can conceivably count on the bowls and don't want to change it. The bowls of course, do not provide the finality and closure that we as fans want at the end of a sports season. Both sides have legitimate gripes on why their way is best. Before I get into how I will make both sides happy and bring a time of peace and prosperity, let's look at who and why fall into each category.

Pro Bowl System
The people who like the system the way it is are the same people who profit greatly from it. The conferences make a ton of money with their sponsors off of this. Also included in this are media members. What? you might ask. It's true. Do you not think media talking heads enjoy having a ready made controversy to bitch about from Mid-November through early January? There's hundreds of hours on TV and an infinite amount of print that gets filled every year off of this. Also, fans of schools that win 6 games but are not in the championship picture want some kind of post-season experience. As Baylor fans, we have been waiting for this for longer than I care to say.

Playoff System
These people are purists who think the NCAA Basketball tournament is the end all be all in sports (It's not, unless you really believe that the best 64 teams are really in the bracket). The real backers of this system are fan bases of teams that get screwed by the BCS system (Texas, Utah, USC). They typically don't say anything if they're on the other side (you get a head coach that says: "Well, it's the system we have so we just have to go with it").

Other peace plans have been offered and rejected. Let's look at a couple and explain why they don't make the cut:

Plus One Plan
This one is stupid because it doesn't really fix anything. Take this season for example. Who plays the OU-Florida winner? USC? Texas? You are just creating more controversy.

Bowl involved in the Playoff Plan
This plan has each bowl as a different round in the playoffs. For example: the winners of the Peach and Cotton Bowl play in the Orange Bowl and the winner of that game plays the winner of the Sugar Bowl. This is dumb and would never happen because Bowl Committees would never allow their bowls to be diminished like that. This would also drive down attendance due to the frequent travel. This also leaves the teams that don't make the tournament but won 6-7 games with nothing.

My Plan
My plan calls for the season to be over the Saturday after Thanksgiving. All conference title games must be played before this date. Then, the top 8 teams are selected by the BCS or whatever else would govern this stuff. The teams play each other the first weekend in December and the winners play the week after, leaving the final two teams. These teams will meet in the designated championship bowl game (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Rose) that is rotated every year. The two losing teams in the second round play in another bowl, and the four teams that lost in the first round of the playoffs fill out the last two bowls. All other bowls would pick teams and play their games as normal.

This gives teams that are out of the tournament a post-season and gives the legit contenders a shot at the title. My plan is not without controversy. There will always be issues with who fills out the 6-8 seeds. Hopefully, there won't be any undefeated teams that get left out. If this plan is adopted with my previous BCS conditions outlined in a prior post, this won't happen. Another issue might be that it would be 4 months between knowing who was in the championship game and the game actually being played. To me, this is what happens every year so it shouldn't be a big deal.

That's my plan people. If we can make this work, we can stop any war on the planet. Who's with me?

BCS Suggestions for the Future

I know everyone hates the BCS and that's fine. I'm not that enamoured with it either. I've heard Collin Cowherd compare the BCS to flying commercial airlines. Is it perfect? No. Does it get it wrong sometimes (losing a bag)? Yes. But for the most part does it do the job? Yes. The BCS was created to get what should be the overwhelmingly two best teams on the same field for a championship game. If you look back in the past decade or so its been used, that's what it has done with a couple of obvious exceptions.

I think part of the problem is that there are seasons when we never really get an idea of how good a team really is until the end of the season. This is because teams have figured out that the way to play the game is to get victories and that means scheduling cupcakes the first four weeks of the season. Going hand in hand with this is scheduling said cupcakes at home so some teams get 8-9 home games a season. Some people justify this by saying that the conference is so strong, a lighter schedule in pre-conference should be accepted.

The problem with this line of thinking is that some teams can absolutely get to a 10-11 win season without being the kind of great team you would expect to be in a championship game. You schedule 4 patsies to start the season, you'll have probably 2 games against teams in conference that will not even get to 5 wins, 4 games against teams that will win 6-9 wins, and then 2 really tough games against conference opponents. If you've got a team that has championship hopes, all you have to do is eat the cupcakes, put up 50 on the cellar dwellers, win at least 3 of the games against teams that will be playing in Alamo and Holiday Bowl type games, and then split your two tough ones and you will at least be in the conversation at the end of the year.

What I would propose is to for teams to qualify to be in a BCS bowl, they must:

• Play at least one BCS conference school in their out of conference schedule
• To be considered for the championship game, they must play a BCS conference school on the road in non-conference play
• No wins may come from a Championship Subdivision (Formerly I-AA)
• Non-BCS teams must play 2 BCS conference schools (1 on the road)

This is a preliminary list. I think this would result in more losses but we'd expose the pretenders easily. Not everyone can schedule Washington, Washington State, and Texas A&M (snickering) every season so we'd get some good match ups early in the sometimes unwatchable first month of the season.

Like I said, this is just to get started. I'd love to hear some comments and ideas about this. Later, I'll unveil my playoff plan for major college football (everyone else has one).

Overrated?

For all the talk this year about how good the Big 12 South was, the bowl games have shown that the strength may have been a myth. OK State got it handed to them by a PAC-10 team (we were sold all year that the PAC-10 was USC and 9 other random teams), Tech completed their end of season collapse that OU put them on, and Texas had to score with 16 seconds left to beat an Ohio State team that could not throw the ball. The Texas game was interesting because even though they won, it seemed like a struggle for their offense to move the ball except for maybe a couple of series.

So what does this mean for OU? This will be the best defense they've seen this season. I wonder what will happened when they play in a game where they have to trade blows with their opponent. The Sooners seem to score more than 60 every game and that's not happening. The key to this game will be Florida O versus Oklahoma D. I think the magic number is 24. Florida scores more than this and they win, otherwise it's the Sooners' title (which should be shared with Utah).

To make this Baylor related, I don't know how you could look at what has happened to the Big 12 South teams and not immediately do what you can to upgrade your defense. While I think our defense in 2009 will be better than this past season, it will probably be only about 6-8 points better. Let's hope that the Offense can increase their output in 2009 and turn some of those close losses into wins.

New Bracketology

Lunardi has us a an 8 seed facing Michigan with the winner playing North Carolina. Whoo Hooo!

Basketball Loses to South Carolina

I know I said earlier that I don't really get into basketball until conference play begins but the most amazing thing happened on Friday.  My office closed at 2:30 since nobody was there anyways.  So I found myself at the house and my options on TV were watching Tech finish off its end of season collapse or the Baylor Basketball team play what should have been a "semi-test." 

As all you (again, the 2 of you) know by now, another quality opponent found a way to schedule us on defense optional day, which we all know is Monday through Saturday.  Tell me if you've heard this before: we don't drive to the basket, opponent is in the bonus early in both halves, paper thin defense, and no production at all from our 5 position. What? You think you see that in virtually every game? 

If the game wasn't bad enough, I had to go onto Baylorfans and read this idiot's opinion on how he was glad we lost because this will cause our team to regroup and learn from this game what it is going to take to win in conference. When the core of this team (Jerrells, Dugat, Rogers, Dou) are seniors and have played close to 100 games for Baylor, the time to "learn how to win" is over. If they haven't gotten it by now, they never will. You would think that by now they would have lost in the same manner so many times they might start considering changing the way they play just a little. Doesn't look like they will. 

So what do we have to look forward to this season? We'll beat bad to average teams and may upset one team if we get hot from beyond they arc. Any team with a warm body at the 4 and 5 positions will give us fits. 2009 will be a carbon copy of the end of 2008. Virtually nothing has changed.  We might actually win a game in the conference tourney and make the dance only to get run out of the gym by a complete team. 

Put the Kool Aid down and tell me I'm wrong. 

Vince Young or Brad Smith?

Like many other Baylor fans, I've had the problem of explaining Robert Griffin to people who don't watch much Baylor sports. The two players that I think get brought up the most when trying to find a reference to compare Griffin to are Vince Young and Brad Smith. Both were athletic college quarterbacks who had very different career paths both in college and now in the NFL. Smith, broke onto the scene his freshman year and was the face of the program only to start to share time with Chase Daniel his senior year. Smith is now a WR for the NY Jets. Young, as most of us know, split time with Chance Mock in the beginning before leading Texas to a national championship his junior year.

Below are some stats comparing Griffin's freshman year with the other two's yearly averages. These stats are slightly skewed due to Young splitting time early and Smith late in his career. While Young was the unquestioned reason the Longhorns won the title that year, it's not a stretch to say that he had an enormous advantage with his surrounding talent compared to Smith and Griffin.

Griffin 2008 Season
59.9% Completions on 267 attempts. 15 TD 3 INT
4.9 YPC on 173 attempts, 13 TD

Young 2003-2005
61% Completions on 288 attempts. 15 TD 7 INT
6.8 YPC on 152 attempts, 12.3 TD

Smith
56.3% Completions on 200 attempts. 14 TD 8 INT
5.4 YPC on 200 attempts, 11.3 TD

When looking at passing stats, Griffin is closer to Vince with the completion percentage and attempts. This tells me that Griffin and Young were on the whole asked to do about the same thing. Young had an established running back and the usual Texas offensive line. Both offenses used safe, 1-2 read passes to keep interceptions at a minimum. On the rushing side, Smith was asked to do much more. I remember Smith running a QB draw on almost every 3rd and between 6-10 play. I think this season Griffin had a similar role. He was by far the most explosive player Baylor had and thus was used more than Briles would probably like.

I would say that right now Griffin plays more like Brad Smith but will eventually evolve into more of a Vince Young type of player. Of course all of this depends on his development as well as the talent around him. I think Briles would like Griffin's carries to go down but his yards per carry to increase. This will keep defenses honest and force them to key on him which will open up other players like Kendall Wright and Jay Finley.

Would love your comments or thoughts on this. All two of you.

Random Stuff

It's been a while so I thought I'd dump some links to keep people up to date on what is happening in the Baylor Athletic universe.

Lunardi has us as a 6 seed as of about a week and a half ago.

Tim Griffin usual Big 12 Blog

It's been about 3 weeks since my last post so I thought I'd throw this stuff out. When basketball gets into conference play and on TV more I'm sure I'll get into that some more.