Crazy: Predicting Sports is IMPOSSIBLE

[Charles Fischer]

Look, I've been humbled a ton over the years, but yesterday was another prime day of examples.

 

Oregon was going to romp in Baseball over Niagara, right?  I never even knew there was such a team...and we lose at home?

 

The Mens Basketball team playing without three starters, (stars) was going to get their butts-kicked by an Irvine team that already owned them in December....right?

 

Usually as I get older I get wiser, except for with sports.  Good luck with your March Madness Bracket!

 

[Jon Joseph]

On 3/16/2023 at 2:35 PM, Charles Fischer said:

Look, I've been humbled a ton over the years, but yesterday was another prime day of examples.

 

Oregon was going to romp in Baseball over Niagara, right?  I never even knew there was such a team...and we lose at home?

 

The Mens Basketball team playing without three starters, (stars) was going to get their butts-kicked by an Irvine team that already owned them in December....right?

 

Usually as I get older I get wiser, except for with sports.  Good luck with your March Madness Bracket!

 

That's why there are all of those big buildings in Las Vegas known as casinos.

 

In the long run, the house does not take an L.

[Steven A]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:35 AM, Charles Fischer said:

Oregon was going to romp in Baseball over Niagara, right?

Sorry Charles, you should have seen Niagara fall coming! (couldn't resist)

[GangGreen2]

Oh goodness yes . . . that's what makes March Madness so special . . . it's the crazy unpredictability.  I've just stopped hoping my bracket would mean anything in the end . . . year after year, it is COMPLETELY busted by day 1 or 2!  Then I just get to enjoy the ensuing mayhem 

[Jon Joseph]

On 3/17/2023 at 12:16 PM, GangGreen2 said:

Oh goodness yes . . . that's what makes March Madness so special . . . it's the crazy unpredictability.  I've just stopped hoping my bracket would mean anything in the end . . . year after year, it is COMPLETELY busted by day 1 or 2!  Then I just get to enjoy the ensuing mayhem 

2 seed Arizona lost to 15 seed Princeton but Pac-11 member San Diego State came through with a victory.

 

The odds of having a 100% accurate bracket prediction are about the same as me shooting par. 

[Haywarduck]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:49 AM, Jon Joseph said:

That's why there are all of those big buildings in Las Vegas known as casinos.

 

In the long run, the house does not take an L.

But how do they pay for all those lights?

 

Why I don't even spend a couple minutes trying to figure out who is going to win. Although I always think may Ducks are going to win.

 

Gambling is like wrestling with a pig in mud. You may think you are going to win and it will be fun, but you are left looking like a fool and you're going to lose.

[David Marsh]

On 3/17/2023 at 9:39 AM, Haywarduck said:

Why I don't even spend a couple minutes trying to figure out who is going to win. Although I always think may Ducks are going to win.

Even though I knew Oregon wasnt in the big dance, I still put Oregon winning it all. Needless to say my bracket was a bust before the first game. 

[duck023]

Really you didn't see a D1 team getting revenge over a pseudo D1 team in a game that didn't matter as much as the first coming? I remember a bad Oregon team took on UC Irvine in the 2nd round and even though Oregon wasn't that much better than this year I still picked them because I knew they wouldn't give up a golden opportunity to get to the sweet sixteen and the UC Irvine was already happy with their first-round upset. Also, baseball can be compared to basketball. Baseball is a very inconsistent sport. I know Oregon's wrestling team would have never lost to Niagra.

[duck023]

You guys have to start picking games off motivation and not talent. Alabama's talented in football but their motivation to not embarrass themselves is why you'll never see them lose 3 times in one season. I've seen people double down after an Alabama loss and it's always dumb. If Alabama loses you can bet that they will cover the spread the next game.

[Pennsylvania Duck]

Who had Farleigh Dickinson over Purdue? 

[Haywarduck]

On 3/18/2023 at 1:13 PM, Pennsylvania Duck said:

Who had Farleigh Dickinson over Purdue? 

Purdue losing to a team seeded lower than them isn't a bad bed historically. I wonder what the betting line was for the game with their history?

 

That dark cloud over Matt Painter's March resume just got darker as the Boilermakers fell 63-58 to FDU, becoming just the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed (UMBC beat Virginia in 2018).

 

This is the fifth time a Painter-led Boilermakers team has lost to a double-digit seed: No. 11 VCU (2011), No. 12 Little Rock (2016), No. 13 North Texas (2021), No. 15 St. Peter's (2002), No. 16 (Friday).

 

Purdue is the only team to lose to a 13-seed or higher in three straight NCAA tournaments.

 

If your having a bad day, be grateful you're not a boilermaker, or a real boilermaker, I suppose.

[Charles Fischer]

On 3/18/2023 at 1:30 PM, Haywarduck said:

If your having a bad day, be grateful you're not a boilermaker, or a real boilermaker, I suppose

Or a Beaver.  Ralph Miller lost to powerhouses such as Ball State and Lamar....

 

Not that Lamarr...

[Nevada Dawg]

I've become not at all reluctant to pick against higher seeded B1G teams over decent basketball programs from other conferences. While I did not pick Purdue over FDU, I've begun to shrug over the past 15 years at the large number of upsets of B1G teams.

 

I once had an opportunity to chat with B1G "homer" Clark Kellogg about the overrepresentation of B1G teams in the Men's NCAA BB tournament. He claimed it was warranted because of the competitive balance of the Big Ten. My reply was that with all those teams, wouldn't you expect to see more Final Four entrants and championships (the B!G has not had a men's champion since 2000) My comeback, only slightly overstated, was that what the B1G has in BB is competitive mediocracy. And the many upsets of such teams that I see in my brackets over the years seem to bear this out.

 

While I win few bracket contests that I enter, it is hardly because I underestimated the prowess of B1G teams.

 

 

[Jon Joseph]

On 3/18/2023 at 1:14 PM, duck023 said:

You guys have to start picking games off motivation and not talent. Alabama's talented in football but their motivation to not embarrass themselves is why you'll never see them lose 3 times in one season. I've seen people double down after an Alabama loss and it's always dumb. If Alabama loses you can bet that they will cover the spread the next game.

Terrific comment. However, in 2022 Bama came oh-so-close to dropping 4 games. Saved by the 2021 Heisman winner on a number of occasions.

 

One thing I really liked about Bama in 2022 was that the Tide showed up for the Sugar Bowl and its stars played in a 'meaningless' bowl game on the way to defeating K State.

 

BTW, Bama delivered a nice cover in this game.

[Jon Joseph]

On 3/19/2023 at 1:25 AM, Nevada Dawg said:

I've become not at all reluctant to pick against higher seeded B1G teams over decent basketball programs from other conferences. While I did not pick Purdue over FDU, I've begun to shrug over the past 15 years at the large number of upsets of B1G teams.

 

I once had an opportunity to chat with B1G "homer" Clark Kellogg about the overrepresentation of B1G teams in the Men's NCAA BB tournament. He claimed it was warranted because of the competitive balance of the Big Ten. My reply was that with all those teams, wouldn't you expect to see more Final Four entrants and championships (the B!G has not had a men's champion since 2000) My comeback, only slightly overstated, was that what the B1G has in BB is competitive mediocracy. And the many upsets of such teams that I see in my brackets over the years seem to bear this out.

 

While I win few bracket contests that I enter, it is hardly because I underestimated the prowess of B1G teams.

 

 

NDawg, great comment. I believe it was you that first posted on this board that the B1G has not won an NCAA CBB title since Michigan State defeated Florida in 2000. With the number of teams getting in the tourney year after year, this is a bad showing. More parody than parity.

 

2022 CFB regular season. Pac-12 had 6 teams ranked, the B1G 3. Yet 2 of the 3 B1G teams made the playoff. Michigan, a team that played 8 home games including 3 OOC stiffs in Ann Arbor and a one-loss Ohio State, yet again, that had already lost to Michigan. 

 

And Michigan played Purdue in the B1G title game. A Purdue team that LSU hung 60+ points on in the Boilermaker's bowl game.

 

The bias in favor of the B1G is obvious and makes my anger of SC and UCLA moving to the B1G simmer more than boil over. 

 

 

[Nevada Dawg]

IMHO opinion, you have every right Jon to be angry with the defections--I feel the same emotions. If you've followed my infrequent posts, you've seen me say that I consider the B1G the most overrated conference in both football and basketball, and the addition of the SoCal schools will only make it more so I am afraid. In fact, the only BB coach for whom I have a lot of respect is Tom Izzo at Michigan State, and it is his team that is coming closest to showing out in this year's Big Dance.

 

I've seen so many posters on this forum who want to bolt to the B1G--undoubtedly for the money. I hope that the Ducks and that school up North will stand firm in the PAC-10 (hopefully soon to be 12). The media money may not be as good, but if it is even close, I think the advantages of staying home outweigh is disadvantages in the long run.

 

 

 

 

[TheRunningDuck]

On 3/18/2023 at 2:03 PM, Charles Fischer said:

Or a Beaver.  Ralph Miller lost to powerhouses such as Ball State and Lamar....

 

Not that Lamarr...

We will always have Lamar...

[duck023]

On 3/19/2023 at 9:43 AM, Jon Joseph said:

Terrific comment. However, in 2022 Bama came oh-so-close to dropping 4 games. Saved by the 2021 Heisman winner on a number of occasions.

 

One thing I really liked about Bama in 2022 was that the Tide showed up for the Sugar Bowl and its stars played in a 'meaningless' bowl game on the way to defeating K State.

 

BTW, Bama delivered a nice cover in this game.

A situation that would be comparable for Oregon to me is in 2014. Oregon had this great team with Mariota but they had some injuries on the o-line so they played a bad game and lost to an unranked Arizona team at home.
 

Then they played a number 10 ranked UCLA at UCLA the next weekend and all logic seemed to be that if Oregon couldn't beat Arizona at home, then they were definitely not beating a good UCLA team on the road. However, that Oregon team was not going to lose 2 in a row and they destroyed UCLA the next game even on the road.