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Magic bought the Dodgers.
Media really loves this story,
forgets The Magic Hour.
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Previously:
Hollywood Nights: Z-Bo and Bishop Don The Magic Juan
It’s time for the Final Four in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. A whole lot of moving and shaking went down in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight.
Looking at the current standings in ALDLAND’s Mad as a March Hare March Madness Challenge, North Carolina’s loss in the Midwest Regional final to Kansas appeared to shake up the standings the most. Out of our twenty-onetwo entries, here’s the current top ten:
Click here to see the full standings.
While Bingo_Bango managed to avoid heartache by persevering in the top spot since our last update, the Tarheels’ loss kicked WrckMTech 2 from a tie for third out of the top ten and dropped FBDOCameron 1 and lranthony1 1 from that position into a tie for eighth. Perhaps even more notable and as the secret formula predicted last week, SemiNOLA’s leveraged bracket collapsed, falling from sole possession of second place to a tie for seventeenth. Ditto for Can we Have Kemba Back?. Vpresben 1 also slipped, going from a tie for eighth to tenth.
All of this provided opportunities for lower entries– picking Kentucky to win it all appears to be the common feature amongst this group– to climb toward the top. Mjpascha 1 hopped from a tie for third into second place. Best-entry-name category nominees Goldbourne Supremacy (T-8 to T-4) and Escaped from a Tchiengang (T-10 to T-6) were two of the beneficiaries as well, and Ifartblackandgold 1 moved in concert with the latter. (Cf. Twombly v. Bell Atlantic.)
The big award of the week goes to Austin_Payne 1 who jumped from nowhere into a tie for fourth. Additional mention is due to our late-arriving, twenty-second entry, AndyGlossner 1, submitted by a frequent commenter on the site and stepping into an outright hold on third place.
Heading into the final two rounds, things look pretty locked up, although an Ohio State win over Kansas could allow AndyGlossner 1 and Austin_Payne 1 to unseat Bingo_Bango and mjpascha 1.
Finally, a nod to Bingo_Bango and Austin_Payne 1 for unorthodox picks (from the state of Kentucky) to come out of the West, although the former’s selection of Louisville now looks better than the latter’s selection of Murray State.
Enjoy the final two rounds.
Apparently we’re just posting pictures now. This one’s a little less self-evident than the last one, so here’s the accompanying explanation from Chris Ryan, writing about Sunday night’s Grizzlies-Lakers game in L.A.:
Staples Center celeb sightings were pretty fun, if random, last night, with Ashton Kutcher, John McEnroe, David Beckham, and Gerard Butler (gone blond) lighting up courtside with their wattage. But the best appearance of the evening went to a man who seemed to be cheering for the Grizz: Snoop Dogg compatriot Don Magic Juan. Don’t know if there’s ever been a better union of team and fan. Oh, and he seemed to have a preexisting relationship with Zach Randolph, because of course he did.
(via Deadspin)
(HT: @MitchOConnor)
Today excepted, things have been a little sparse around here lately– maybe it’s the grip of March Madness, or maybe we’re all a little busier working to keep the lights on around here. To make up for it, here’s a double scoop of Friday Jams, again posted from the road, though this week at a much lower elevation:
Chris Siriano wants to get the hell out of Michigan. Even on a gorgeous fall day in Addison (population 627), with the leaves turning and the sun bright, Siriano—middle-aged, sporting a gray goatee and ball cap—can’t stop dreaming about the beach. “I raised my daughter by myself and everybody knew that when I got the kid to college, they could reach me in the Caribbean by email,” he says. “I’m done with Michigan winters, basically.”
Two barriers stand between the Benton Harbor native and moving south. The first is not unusual: A few years ago, Siriano married the love of his life, a fellow Michigander who didn’t share his interest in fleeing south. The second is more distinct. Since the mid-1990s, Siriano has owned and curated the House of David Museum, a 4,000-square-foot archive that tells the weird, hirsute story of the most popular barnstorming team in baseball history.
To describe the House of David in such forceful terms is warranted. For two decades in the early 20th century, a band of religious eccentrics from Southwest Michigan was one of the biggest draws in sports, selling out ballparks in big cities and small towns across the country. Baseball fans adored their aggressive style of play, vaudeville flair, and flowing beards—House of David players were forbidden to shave because of an obscure rule in the strict doctrine to which they adhered. More than any franchise of its day, the House of David skillfully exploited the American love of spectacle. Siriano, who has spent much of his own energy and money preserving their largely forgotten story, is convinced the fascinating artifacts he has recovered belong in the Wolverine State. … Read More
(via The Classical)
[Note: Brendan emailed the screenshot below with this comment: “I didn’t have time to do a [full] preview of the NCAA hockey tournament . . . . Huzzah bracket transparency!” Click the image to expand it. -AD]
The prequel and pretension past, along with the run-of-the-mill fodder, we found ourselves– thanks to a reader tip– staring down the barrel of epiloguist Jen Floyd Engel’s perspective-granting long lens in the form of her piece for Fox Sports, “Blaming Saints is height of hypocrisy.” Looking back on the NFL bounty story, Engel seeks to contextualize the thematic strands of that story with those of another and mix in a bit of stern-faced judgment for total effect. Standard-issue English 110.
I can’t specifically recall reading anything of Engel’s before, although I surely have, but the first stumbling point for me came before I even made it to the text. Maybe I still am crotchety after Charles P. Pierce’s bit on this matter, but as someone slightly out of the mold in the nomenclature realm, I have to wonder why Engel goes (presumably) nickname, middle name, last name. If she wants distinction, isn’t Jennifer Floyd Engel the way to do it? For example, Pierce doesn’t use Chuck P. Pierce (although Google suggests he sometimes uses Charlie, but where he does, he drops the middle initial (Google doesn’t know Pierce’s full middle name)). But ok, enough.
After “soak[ing] in all of the moral outrage and denunciations” of NOLA football, Engel shares with us her “first thought”: “Who will play Barry Bonds in this ‘sports tragedy’”?
Huh? Hopefully no one! Why would anyone bring Barry Bonds into this? Watch out sophomore seminar in comparative literature, here comes one now.
We’re up to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which means that you’ve probably figured out by now that your approach to predicting this thing has– to be generous– a few imperfections. It also means that we’re one-third of the way through the tournament, and we’ve whittled a field of sixty-eight down to sixteen.
Before the action resumes on Thursday, let’s take a gander at the current standings in ALDLAND’s Mad as a March Hare March Madness Challenge. We had twenty-one entries, and the top ten looks like this:
Click here to see the full standings.
My initial observations upon surveying the field are that the first and second place entries, Bingo Bango and SemiNOLA are a cut above the rest. Even though a 70.5 accuracy rate suggests that SemiNOLA should be pretty good through the rest of the tournament, the fact that s/he already picked FSU to win it all and has a miniscule 520 possible points remaining means that those of you who picked SemiNOLA in the derivative brackets bracket probably are in some trouble. Along those lines, the entries with the best odds, based on past performance and PPR are Bingo Bango (secret formula predicts a first-place finish, currently in first); mjpascha 1 (T-2/T-3); WrckMTech 2 (T-2/T-3); lranthony1 1 (4/T-3); and FBDOCameron 1 (5/T-3). Careful readers will note that ALDLAND writers Brendan and I are not in the top ten, predicting games at astoundingly poor accuracy rates of 19.5% and 25.6%, respectively.
Finally, early leaders in the best-entry-name category go to Golbourne Supremacy and Escaped from a Tchiengang.
Enjoy the games this week.
Last Friday marked the draw for the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League. The initial sixteen teams in the knockout rounds became eight after last Tuesday and Wednesday’s games, and the survivors were randomly drawn against each other. From here on out there are no redraws, and the bracket will now look like this:
Apoel Nicosia v. Real Madrid
Apoel Nicosia were surprise winners over Olympique Lyonnais in the first stage of the knockout rounds, advancing by virtue of winning the penalty shootout after the teams were tied 1-1 at the end of the second leg. Meanwhile, Real Madrid saw off CSKA Moscow to the tune of 5-2. Real Madrid has all the horses, and could probably beat Apoel handily without star Cristiano Ronaldo in the lineup. Apoel is going to have to channel its inner VCU circa 2011 to advance.
Prediction: Real Madrid advances, 2-0 at Apoel, 4-0 at Real Madrid.
Marseille v. Bayern Munich
Marseille advanced over Italian side Internazionale in the first leg, while Bayern overcame a surprise 1-0 deficit in the first leg against FC Basel to triumph 7-1 when all was said and done. Bayern has been in good form lately, notching a whopping 20 goals in its last three matches. Marseille, meanwhile, has been languishing at the middle of the Ligue One table.
Prediction: Bayern advances in another lopsided series, 3-1 at Marseille and 3-0 at Bayern.
Benfica v. Chelsea
Benfica dispatched Zenit St. Petersburg in the first round by a margin of one goal. Chelsea overcame a 3-1 first leg deficit to move on over Napoli. Chelsea has looked better in recent games since firing manager Andre Villas-Boas. Benfica has secured a spot near the top of the Portuguese Liga table. Neither team is a world beater, but Benfica seem to be the better bet here given Chelsea’s recent change in direction. Watch out for Chelsea’s Fernando Torres though, who notched a brace in his last game out, breaking a seemingly endless goalless drought. Will his fortunes change now that he has some confidence behind him? Probably not, but Chelsea fans can certainly hope.
Prediction: Benfica advances 2-1 at Benfica, 1-1 at Chelsea.
AC Milan v. Barcelona
I reacted like the famous rage guy when I found out that Barcelona had drawn AC Milan in the last eight. Other than Real Madrid, this was probably the hardest team for Barca to face. AC Milan drew 2-2 at Barcelona in the group stage before falling 2-3 at home to the Blaugrana. AC Milan forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic will be looking to show up his old coach, Pep Guardiola, while Barcelona’s Lionel Messi seeks to set a record for goals scored in one Champions League campaign. Barcelona is also looking to become the only team to win back to back Champions League titles. Both teams have quality all over the pitch, and this promises to be the best matchup of the last eight.
Prediction: Barcelona advances 1-2 at Milan, 3-1 at Barcelona.
Here’s how I think the bracket will play out after the quarterfinals:
Semifinals
Barcelona over Benfica: 2-1 at Benfica, 3-0 at Barcelona.
Real Madrid over Bayern Munich: 2-3 at Bayern, 3-1 at Real Madrid.
Champions League Final
Barcelona over Real Madrid: 3-2.
ALDLAND 