Not sure if this was listed a couple of weeks ago when we listed Wordle alternatives, but this one was mentioned on the Dodgers blog. It's basically 4 Wordles at the same time. Your guesses are applied to each Wordle and you have 9 guesses to get all 4 words. It definitely changes your strategy.
There is also Octordle (https://octordle.com/) and Sedecordle (http://www.sedecordle.com/) which are solving 8 words simultaneously in 13 tries and solving 16 words simultaneously in 21 tries. I have been playing them for the past 4-5 days and sometimes you do get some interesting end game situations where you have to think hard to come up with a word that fits all the criteria (so word puzzle plus a logic puzzle).
I basically used 3 words that test 15 letters and go from there. It's not even worth it to try a word if there are multiple letters plausible. I have been able to beat the daily games but also played a few practice games (on the first day when I spent too much time on this while refining strategy) to know that I might run out of tries.
For Quordle and Dordle, I used my first two (rather than three) words to figure out all of the vowels before trying to solve the words. I give a preference to words with Y on the third guess to figure out if it's Y or a repeat vowel.
6/3/7/5 in Quordle and 4/3 in Dordle for me today. The Quordle and above are not going to go viral just because it's too much characters to embed the results on Twitter.
Is it on just the Apple store or both Apple and Android? If the former, that's ammunition for me to resist switching to Apple. If the latter, then its a wash.
It says it is just available for download from the apple store at the moment. I imagine that it will eventually be available for android users eventually, especially since, if I had to guess, MAGA supporters are probably more than likely to own an android phone than an iPhone.
I'm going to experiment with sofrito. There are a lot of different varieties, but they mostly have onions, garlic, bell peppers, and tomatoes in common. Some are sauteed, like a Latin mirepoix -- others are slowly cooked into more of a sauce. I'm going with anaheim peppers, green & red bell peppers, yellow onion, a leek, garlic, and fire-roasted tomatoes on a low-and-slow simmer until it turns into a sauce. Then I'm going to start adding it to veggies to see if I can't sex them up a bit. First up: steamed green beans + sofrito.
Since my wife is in LA, I've been watching movies & the Olympics
Already rated Harakiri 19/19 - great movie
Death of Stalin 14/19-WB, pretty funny black comedy, Steve Buscemi is quite good in it
The Picture of Dorian Grey 17/19-WB, man I had forgotten just how dark this movie is. I kinda remembered the witty bits by George Sanders as being more of the movie than it actually is.
The Wild Bunch 19/19-WBB Such a great movie, easily one of the top ten best westerns.
Would have The Wild Bunch among my top ten westerns as well. Right up there with the likes of The Searchers, Red River, Heaven's Gate, Stagecoach, Little Big Man McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Westward the Women.
Rick & Morty (S4-E1). Rick has died, which has activated a sentient hologram of himself to try to convince Morty to activate a back-up clone. In one scene, the hologram has multiplied himself to create a protest, including chants and signs. After the Morty threatens to destroy Rick's DNA sample to get the protest to stop, the lead hologram rejoins with all the others except the one bewildered one holding a sign with a marijuana leaf outline on it that says "Make it legal". Hologram Rick says "You too, Berkeley. Snap out of it."
Medina Spirit is stripped of 2021 Kentucky Derby victory. Trainer Bob Baffert was fined his afternoon candy money and told to sit in the corner for 90 days.
Cheaters gonna cheat. This isn't the first time he's was caught last year. And the penalties he was given isn't going to dissuade him from cheating again. See Assterisks players.
[WSOC] USA beats New Zealand 5-0 after Meikayla Moore got the scoring started with a hat-trick within 36 minutes. The catch is that Moore plays for New Zealand.
No Alex Morgan on the USA roster for this (kind of annoying that she won't get to pad her international goal stat) but two Cal Bears on the New Zealand team (Betsy Hassett and Daisy Cleverly who are also Olympians and Women's World Cup vets)
Rookie Austin Cindric wins the Daytona 500 over Bubba Wallace by .036 seconds. My driver gets taken out early and finishes 38th thanks to Brad Keselowski being a menace all day. Also Michael Jordan stayed for the race and showed up to Cleveland late for the ASG which is boss level stuff considering his driver finished 2nd and NASCAR > NBA.
Was Cole Trickle the man on the move? Was he driving Rowdy Burns’ car? Is Russ Wheeler still an a$$hat? Did Cole ever let Dr Lewicki out of the ‘cah’ like she repeatedly asked him to? ;-) ;-)
Classic movie...can’t believe it’s 32 years old!!
I'm fine with it, mostly because I don't see how it's different than any other dugout signals. The utility would probably be limited at higher levels where defensive talent and flexibility in pitch calling exceed any coordination advantage.
Took my daughter to MA Saturday & Sunday for some flying college visits. Net result was Smith > Amherst >>>>>>>>>>> Mt Holyoke. I’d never been to Northampton MA before, really nice little downtown area. It was interesting as a sociological exercise to see who was wearing masks - at our budget hotel in Chicopee MA, it was us and the Naval Academy team who were staying there and nobody else, since mask mandates were ended last week. In Northampton, there were still a significant number of folks wearing them outside, although it was fucking freezing so there was definitely some advantage.
Ducks can still work themselves onto the right side of the bubble with a strong home weekend v. the LA schools....sweep, and they're back in. 1-1, then they probably gotta sweep the Washingtons on the road to feel comfortable.
3-1 the final 4 puts them in decent enough shape, provided they win at least a game in the P12 Tourney...tho this Ducks team is so inconsistent, you could argue a home sweep of the LA's is more likely than a road sweep of the Washingtons....
Well, it's definitely an awful loss, as is getting swept by ASU. That's 3 bad ones. But road wins over SC and UCLA, and another v SMU are good ones.
Classic bubble profile...but they've got a shot. 2 more wins over the LAs give them some wins most other bubble teams don't have. It can be done, but they've definitely got work to do.
Of course, you have to account for potential "bid thieves" in other conference tourneys (say if Murray St or Loyola Chicago don't win their auto-bids), so being about third in line on the bubble is still very precarious even if you start winning.
Oh, those pesky bid thieves are always such a nuisance. Ducks did themselves no favors losing to Cal, and then to ASU for 2nd time.
I like Lunardi's ESPN spin - he's usually pretty close to predicting the participants, year in and year out. Ducks definitely face an uphill battle, tho if they get hot the next 2 weeks, which they're capable of, they can pass plenty of teams and probably feel safer.
For a flawed team like Oregon, having a chance with 3 weeks left is as good as you can probably hope for....
Doe Library was evacuated on Friday night after an active-shooter alarm. It was students horsing around with balloons tied to their ankles trying to pop their opponents balloons. There were reported injuries as students broke second floor windows trying to escape.
[MGYM]. Bears set a single-day record of 401.150. Then again, their next opponent - Stanfurd - scored 415.35 when they last met, which was 8 days ago - so they have their hands full. The next competition will be the third at Stanfurd in five weeks because there aren't a lot of teams.
[BASE] Cal beat Houston on Friday 4-2 in 10 innings, beat #17 TCU on Saturday 7-6, and came from behind to beat SDSU 6-3 to sweep the MLB4 Tournament in Scottsdale and start the season 3-0.
#4 Cal Rugby (19-0). Despite their record, they have not been as dominant as past years and had many closer matches. They should handle #15 Grand Canyon before playing #6 BYU - which is a pick'em. Then they should beat #16 UCLA, #7 Central Washington and #20 Utah before playing #1 St. Mary's at home on March 26th, where the Bears are likely underdogs.
In interviews with some rugby outlets, Coach Clark was annoyed to lose the UBC match because those are great game experiences (for the A-team at home and B-team on the road), but this was just not plausible due to COVID.
I think the other top contenders have beat one another so far. Lindenwood, last year's champ in a depleted field that did not include Cal, lost to Army in the fall but beat Life recently. SMC only got the No.1 ranking recently after beating Life.
SMC beat Cal last year in a sloppy and close match that showed clearly how the Cal team did not have enough practices together last year. That should not be the case this year. With the fewer international ex-pro players on some of the other teams (thanks to COVID restrictions?), I think Cal is in its best position to win another national title since a few years ago.
Hope you enjoyed it. Cal is only ranked No.7 (and not higher) because the gymnastics ranking are based mostly on team scores and Cal had been short handed early. Cal is in the driver's seat to win the Pac-12 for the first time after beating Utah last weekend. Of course, ASU and UCLA on the road are tough meets, particularly UCLA IF they are on (UCLA has been kind of schizophrenic this year...not to mention the whole fiasco of them kicking out a highly heralded freshman for allegedly using a racial slur).
I went to a women's meet back in '97 because one of my floormates was on the team. I don't think we were ranked but the athleticism was still very impressive.
(The men's team won the championship that year and their performances were, as expected, outstanding.)
Went to Saturday's game at the last minute. Despite the loss, we really enjoyed ourselves. Defensively, this team is actually pretty OK. My biggest complaint about this team from my unsophisticated eye is that they don't have the players or playbook to generate shots from everywhere on the court. I thought that each offensive possession milked the shot clock until they were forced to shoot, often leading to bad shots. Also, our guys just couldn't make lots of very makable shots. I also saw late in the first half that Utah's bench outscored Cal's 13-0. That won't get it done.
Hadn't been to Haas in a while, and it felt good. Glad I went, even though it was a loss.
That's been Fox's O since he's been here. Run the motion around the outside until you get an advantage, which rarely happens given the players we have, or whoever has the ball with around 8 seconds left, go 1 on 1. Usually that was Matt Bradley. At least this year they tried to run some offense through Kelly, until he got hurt. Then back to the good ole motion around the perimeter.
On Sat there were plenty of times Lars had position where we couldn't get the ball down into him. We're not very good at feeding the post. But we did feed it inside, mostly on PnRs.
I mean who does Cal have that can score. I mean Lars was the leading scorer. Anticevich struggled, as did Shepard.
I was at the game and Lars definitely looks much better this year. I haven't watched any games since Kelly went out but Lars looks slimmed down. He moves so much better this year when compared to his first 2 years. He made quite a few plays in the PnR that he would not have had a chance to make last couple of years. He still has hands of stone, but he is no longer an O black hole.
If Kelly doesn't come back (I believe he has his Covid year and if he graduates he'll most likely grad transfer) they're hurting for O. Grant, Shepard, Foreman are done. Who is going to score next year?
My friend's parents got two extra tickets from their seat neighbors and Jim Knowlton came by to talk with them after the game. At dinner my friend's dad seems to think Fox will get one more year. We all agreed that next year may be the toughest of them all. No one that has proven they can score, but they will still play fairly good D since there are quite a few athletic wings.
Next year, a better HC with a friendlier scheme could absolutely build a decent offense around wings Jalen Celestine, Sam Alajiki & Kuany Kuany. All three have flashed a little this year.
Fox and his hideous, inefficient Norman Dale at Hickory High offense is so not that guy. He’ll absolutely get another year because nobody f-ing cares, and it will be another season of mostly competitive losses that end with a 10th or 11th place finish and like a 5-14 conference record, with the P12 Network commentators repeatedly praising Fox’s defense.
Then Knowlton will fire him, hire a search firm that selects another mediocre white retread. There will be a mass exodus of players, and then the process will start again. Mike Williams & Wyking Jones killed the f-ing program. Killed it.
I told my friend's dad that the blog had said we wanted Dennis Gates back before Fox was hired. Since he knows Knowlton and has worked with him on things in the athletic department maybe he can suggest Gates as an option. It's probably too late since his coaching reputation at Cleveland State is much higher now than 3 years ago.
Gates also didn't have the experience, so he probably had to really impressed to be considered. He's obviously a much different head coach candidate now.
. . . and a more expensive one. Cal would have to negotiate two buyouts, so this will probably never happen even though it would actually make sense despite all.
Ya. If we keep Fox around another season, it'll be just another wasted year.
Then when we fire him, Celestine, Alajiki, Okafor will join Kuany in the portal, and we'll be starting from scratch, and given the snails pace that the Cal athletic department works at, we'll have missed the transfer window.
It didn't have to be a 10 year rebuild, but it's going to be.
There's just zero excitement around the program...none.
I remember when they hired Braun, coming off his Eastern Michigan run, I was legitimately excited. Same with Monty. Even Cuonzo, after his Tennessee run, was a buzz worthy hire.
That utter buffoon Mike Williams killed all of that, and Knowlton compounded it with the thoroughly unimaginative Fox hiring.
A better coach could definitely do something in '22 with Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany, Okafor, Obinna, Roberson...while they're not Mickey D's AA's, they're not complete boobs either. But under Fox, it's just so blah.
The only businessman I want running the Cal program is George Russell from the Gilded Age....that dude would get schitt done.
I remember being so thoroughly unimpressed with Williams the moment I heard him speak. He may have been a whiz with the portfolio, but he did not command respect or inspire confidence.
It is no coincidence that the revenue sports became a disaster under his tenure.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone higher up to hold Knowlton's feet to the fire like Wilton did with Barbour (who was a very good AD despite botching the Sonny hire).
Gates was a tough hire back then bc you’d just brought in a guy with zero HC experience & it was awful. I understood wanting a guy with a track record...just not Fox. Guy has built an entire, incredibly mediocre career out of 1-2 solid seasons at Nevada with Trent Johnson’s f-ing guys like 20 years ago. Then he got 10 completely blah years at Georgia. 10!! Are you kidding me?
If you moved on from him now, Gates would probably be in the mix, having now had some seasons of success, but if they give Fox a 4th year, then it’s yet another hiring cycle removed.
My fear is they stay West Coast and hire Shantay Legans from Portland. Want no part of that Sam Cassell looking dude...F him.
What's your beef on Legans? Just because he transferred from Cal to Fresno State? I remember the UCLA game where he got a concussion from a hard foul from Matt Barnes. I was with a friend who was friends with Shantay and wanted to check on him; because my friend was in a wheelchair, security just let us go all the way to the outside of the Cal locker room (that was a bit weird).
Absolutely, 100% because he transferred from Cal...now, not all transfers are equal...I was happy for Matt Bradley when he headed to SDSU after giving a lot to this team...wished him well, hope he makes the Dance...he stuck it out at Cal when everyone else transferred following the Wyking dismissal.
Legans, OTOH, bailed on the squad in August, right before school started for his senior season...that totally left Cal scrambling at PG. And that 2002 team was f-ing loaded, making the Dance and beating NC State in the 8/9 game on the Midge 3 before losing to #1 seed Oklahoma IN Ok City.
What could've been, tho....senior leaders in Shipp (20.4 ppg) & Wethers (15.1); Tamir pumping in 15 a night as a stretch 4; Midge as a FR providing outside shooting...Diggs would've been a solid backup PG off the bench...Erik Bond another shooter on the wing; Conor Famulener, Gabe Hughes, David Paris, Rod Benson giving you minutes down low in the post. Imagine a senior, 4-year starter at PG with 3-point range leading that crew...a couple more wins on the year, we're out of the 8/9 game...
Ben gets a bad rap...he had some quality teams that caught some real bad breaks. That '97 team he inherited from Bozeman was so solid, but he built some real quality squads that always managed to draw the short stick in the Dance....having to play Pitt in Pittsburgh, Oklahoma in Ok City, etc. Montgomery won the Conference with Ben's guys.
He could just never get over the hump to build a consistent, 20-game winner year in, year out....he attracted some NBA level players tho, which Fox doesn't do.
Just once, it'd be nice if Cal hired a dynamic offensive mind instead of some defense-first guy that ran some weak motion O that required players to basically go 1-on-1 at the end of the shot clock....Braun, Cuonzo, Fox....all the same.
Listen. . . Ben sounds positively dreamy right now. Like I'd hang a poster on the wall of that dreamboat. I agree that Ben was a good coach and I'll admit I probably took him for granted in the context of what we're seeing now. But it's fair to say the program hit a ceiling maybe halfway through his tenure and then it got stale. It's just the often natural order of things. And I guess at that point the administration and fans had higher expectations. The arc of Braun and Fox's careers are fairly similar--we just got the later after his expiration date.
I would take Braun over Fox any day of the week. Braun coached up that 97 team. Yes he took over what Bozeman left, but if I remember players improved. He made Yogi an NBA player which I don't think would've happened had he played like he did in 96.
Maybe it's because he surrounded himself with good coaches, but I remember he had a relatively good offense and defense. Was able to recruit good players. Some of that may have been piggybacking on the success Bozeman had. But still, gotta get them to sign.
Totally. Don't disagree. Bozeman wouldn't have been able to anything close to the same with that '97 team, which was supposed to be something of a down year for us. But I do think Braun got a little more complacent halfway through his tenure, once he sort of established himself in the role. He didn't really develop a second pitch and I never sensed any urgency to try to take the program up a step. I remember that Ryan Anderson team running the same offense we were running in my adult D league, which was a bunch of old guys passing back in forth on the perimeter and then taking a bad shot as the clock wore down. Still I'd take even late era Braun in a heartbeat.
Braun absolutely coached that squad up...he built the team around P10 POY Ed Gray, but then pivoted and made our last Sweet 16 after losing Ed to a broken foot at Wazzu.
He recruited Lamps and turned him into another P10POY and NBA player. Leon Powe, too (that 2nd knee injury was a dagger). Ryan Anderson, NBA player. Joe Shipp, solid.
Braun at least had assistant coaches that went on to coach other schools....Fox's guys don't. He and his cronies recruit mediocre players that graduate, but don't do much winning. Something's gotta change.
I looked up Fox's Nevada stats, and after he inherited that dynamite Trent Johnson team in Reno, he did have about 3 years of success where he made the Dance and actually won a game a couple of seasons.
But he was already starting to trend in the wrong direction at Nevada when Georgia hired him, with back to back CBI appearances after losing in the conference championship. He then made 2 March Madnesses in 9 years in Athens (9 f-ing years!!)...that terrifies me, as he is exactly the kind of HC that an administration that doesn't care about winning is looking for.
Gotta cut ties with him immediately...if I won the lottery, my first order of business would be to set a lunch with Knowlton and arrange to pay the buyout. First thing....
Thank you for the history lesson. Sad to see that his career options were limited despite having the deserved respect of chemistry legends but glad he achieved despite discrimination.
Also appreciate any mention of the chemistry dept that doesn't include mention of Vollhardt.
gr8 article. Links to interesting oral histories.............................
Give the DBD a recently released song that you like
"Visitor" by Of Monsters And Men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq1lpEC70Hg
"Invisible" by GGGOLDDD
https://youtu.be/FtvSC3nZjbw
"Sorrow" by Firebreather
https://youtu.be/Hn4yUTtBnjc
also really digging the new albums from Zeal & Ardor, and the new Rolo Tomassi
Quordle
Not sure if this was listed a couple of weeks ago when we listed Wordle alternatives, but this one was mentioned on the Dodgers blog. It's basically 4 Wordles at the same time. Your guesses are applied to each Wordle and you have 9 guesses to get all 4 words. It definitely changes your strategy.
There is also Octordle (https://octordle.com/) and Sedecordle (http://www.sedecordle.com/) which are solving 8 words simultaneously in 13 tries and solving 16 words simultaneously in 21 tries. I have been playing them for the past 4-5 days and sometimes you do get some interesting end game situations where you have to think hard to come up with a word that fits all the criteria (so word puzzle plus a logic puzzle).
I basically used 3 words that test 15 letters and go from there. It's not even worth it to try a word if there are multiple letters plausible. I have been able to beat the daily games but also played a few practice games (on the first day when I spent too much time on this while refining strategy) to know that I might run out of tries.
I just basically randomly choose a starting word that has at least 2-3 vowels and a couple of more commonly used consonants.
For Quordle my first 2 days were done in 8.
For Quordle and Dordle, I used my first two (rather than three) words to figure out all of the vowels before trying to solve the words. I give a preference to words with Y on the third guess to figure out if it's Y or a repeat vowel.
6/3/7/5 in Quordle and 4/3 in Dordle for me today. The Quordle and above are not going to go viral just because it's too much characters to embed the results on Twitter.
Today in COVID
HK study indicates that hamster pelotas were damaged by Covid. Hide yo hamsters.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmb97/covid-19-testicles-damage
Crumbling Democracies
Looks like Putin is about to annex more of Ukraine.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-boris-johnson-europe-emmanuel-macron-2b7c2949ae3168effce9d0cb2584bb32
Oof. This is it... a slow motion invasion.
It's happening.
Sending Russian peacekeepers to Ukraine in the annexed territories
Trump's Twitter rip-off app "Truth" goes live today.
https://twitter.com/z3dster/status/1495633651698221058
Is it on just the Apple store or both Apple and Android? If the former, that's ammunition for me to resist switching to Apple. If the latter, then its a wash.
It says it is just available for download from the apple store at the moment. I imagine that it will eventually be available for android users eventually, especially since, if I had to guess, MAGA supporters are probably more than likely to own an android phone than an iPhone.
Oh, the irony...
pqtm
https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1495753911545827334
Opinion | How Donald Trump Played Himself
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/21/how-donald-trump-played-himself-00010409
DBD Kitchen
I'm going to experiment with sofrito. There are a lot of different varieties, but they mostly have onions, garlic, bell peppers, and tomatoes in common. Some are sauteed, like a Latin mirepoix -- others are slowly cooked into more of a sauce. I'm going with anaheim peppers, green & red bell peppers, yellow onion, a leek, garlic, and fire-roasted tomatoes on a low-and-slow simmer until it turns into a sauce. Then I'm going to start adding it to veggies to see if I can't sex them up a bit. First up: steamed green beans + sofrito.
DBD AV
Since my wife is in LA, I've been watching movies & the Olympics
Already rated Harakiri 19/19 - great movie
Death of Stalin 14/19-WB, pretty funny black comedy, Steve Buscemi is quite good in it
The Picture of Dorian Grey 17/19-WB, man I had forgotten just how dark this movie is. I kinda remembered the witty bits by George Sanders as being more of the movie than it actually is.
The Wild Bunch 19/19-WBB Such a great movie, easily one of the top ten best westerns.
Would have The Wild Bunch among my top ten westerns as well. Right up there with the likes of The Searchers, Red River, Heaven's Gate, Stagecoach, Little Big Man McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Westward the Women.
Rick & Morty (S4-E1). Rick has died, which has activated a sentient hologram of himself to try to convince Morty to activate a back-up clone. In one scene, the hologram has multiplied himself to create a protest, including chants and signs. After the Morty threatens to destroy Rick's DNA sample to get the protest to stop, the lead hologram rejoins with all the others except the one bewildered one holding a sign with a marijuana leaf outline on it that says "Make it legal". Hologram Rick says "You too, Berkeley. Snap out of it."
Pro
Medina Spirit is stripped of 2021 Kentucky Derby victory. Trainer Bob Baffert was fined his afternoon candy money and told to sit in the corner for 90 days.
https://twitter.com/LEX18News/status/1495830695775809539
Cheaters gonna cheat. This isn't the first time he's was caught last year. And the penalties he was given isn't going to dissuade him from cheating again. See Assterisks players.
https://www.nj.com/sports/2021/05/why-no-one-believes-bob-baffert-it-seems-cheating-is-in-the-blood-izenberg.html
[WSOC] USA beats New Zealand 5-0 after Meikayla Moore got the scoring started with a hat-trick within 36 minutes. The catch is that Moore plays for New Zealand.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/report?gameId=626986
No Alex Morgan on the USA roster for this (kind of annoying that she won't get to pad her international goal stat) but two Cal Bears on the New Zealand team (Betsy Hassett and Daisy Cleverly who are also Olympians and Women's World Cup vets)
Not just a hat trick, but a perfect one -- header, right foot, left foot.
3 own goals?
Yup the first 3 US goals were own goals by the US leading scorer, New Zealand's Moore.
RIP Andrés Escobar
James Bouknight was ejected in the second half of the UConn game. The catch is that he plays for the Charlotte Hornets.
https://twitter.com/__haleys/status/1495105937287233541
Steph shows everyone he is still the best shooter ever. The Harden stepback from 40 at 2:16 was ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3QcrvqxhK4
Even during practice the day before when Team LeBron had a half court contest, he made somewhere around 40-48% of his attempts.
Rookie Austin Cindric wins the Daytona 500 over Bubba Wallace by .036 seconds. My driver gets taken out early and finishes 38th thanks to Brad Keselowski being a menace all day. Also Michael Jordan stayed for the race and showed up to Cleveland late for the ASG which is boss level stuff considering his driver finished 2nd and NASCAR > NBA.
Fox News putting people in physical danger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZDvBth9aAY
Keselowski caused three different wreck incidents. His bump on Ricky Stenhouse seemed egregious.
https://twitter.com/NASCAR/status/1495543430629543939
Was Cole Trickle the man on the move? Was he driving Rowdy Burns’ car? Is Russ Wheeler still an a$$hat? Did Cole ever let Dr Lewicki out of the ‘cah’ like she repeatedly asked him to? ;-) ;-)
Classic movie...can’t believe it’s 32 years old!!
Other College
Not a fan of this.
https://twitter.com/JomboyMedia/status/1495467222730514448
It's meant to speed up the game since most team already use laser for defensive field positioning anyhow. This is easier and faster than hand signals.
I'm fine with it, mostly because I don't see how it's different than any other dugout signals. The utility would probably be limited at higher levels where defensive talent and flexibility in pitch calling exceed any coordination advantage.
And the Asstrisks can't cheat.
Their sabermetrics guys will pivot to black hat hacking.
Not sure if you recall this, but the baseball cheating scandal pre-Astros was a St. Louis Cardinals guy hacking the Astros' computer.
https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/chicago-cubs/cardinals-slapped-heavy-penalties-mlb-hacking-scandal
Completely forgot about that.
Took my daughter to MA Saturday & Sunday for some flying college visits. Net result was Smith > Amherst >>>>>>>>>>> Mt Holyoke. I’d never been to Northampton MA before, really nice little downtown area. It was interesting as a sociological exercise to see who was wearing masks - at our budget hotel in Chicopee MA, it was us and the Naval Academy team who were staying there and nobody else, since mask mandates were ended last week. In Northampton, there were still a significant number of folks wearing them outside, although it was fucking freezing so there was definitely some advantage.
Juwan Howard and Greg Gard have an 8th grade fight at the end of Michigan vs Wisconsin
Link for the lazy: https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1495546209079119873
March Madness bids: Looking like Arizona, UCLA, USC with Wazzu and Oregon trending out
For the WCC: Gonzaga, St.Mary's, USF with BYU and Santa Clara trending out
MW: Boise State, Wyoming, Colorado State, San Diego State with UNLV and Fresno State trending out
Oregon was right in line for a bid, then they started losing to bad teams (including Cal).
Ducks can still work themselves onto the right side of the bubble with a strong home weekend v. the LA schools....sweep, and they're back in. 1-1, then they probably gotta sweep the Washingtons on the road to feel comfortable.
3-1 the final 4 puts them in decent enough shape, provided they win at least a game in the P12 Tourney...tho this Ducks team is so inconsistent, you could argue a home sweep of the LA's is more likely than a road sweep of the Washingtons....
If you lose by a lot to Cal at home you don't deserve to play in MM.
Well, it's definitely an awful loss, as is getting swept by ASU. That's 3 bad ones. But road wins over SC and UCLA, and another v SMU are good ones.
Classic bubble profile...but they've got a shot. 2 more wins over the LAs give them some wins most other bubble teams don't have. It can be done, but they've definitely got work to do.
Bracket Matrix would put them among the first four out, so that does indicate they have a chance to get back in.
http://www.bracketmatrix.com/
Of course, you have to account for potential "bid thieves" in other conference tourneys (say if Murray St or Loyola Chicago don't win their auto-bids), so being about third in line on the bubble is still very precarious even if you start winning.
Oh, those pesky bid thieves are always such a nuisance. Ducks did themselves no favors losing to Cal, and then to ASU for 2nd time.
I like Lunardi's ESPN spin - he's usually pretty close to predicting the participants, year in and year out. Ducks definitely face an uphill battle, tho if they get hot the next 2 weeks, which they're capable of, they can pass plenty of teams and probably feel safer.
For a flawed team like Oregon, having a chance with 3 weeks left is as good as you can probably hope for....
That home loss to USF was a dagger. Needed that W.
Picked a bad time for the worst performance of the season
Cal
Doe Library was evacuated on Friday night after an active-shooter alarm. It was students horsing around with balloons tied to their ankles trying to pop their opponents balloons. There were reported injuries as students broke second floor windows trying to escape.
https://www.dailycal.org/2022/02/18/false-alarm-panic-at-doe-library-allegedly-caused-by-balloons/
Go Bears!!!
[WLAX] Cal is not a LAX powerhouse. They are winless (0-4) and have been outscored by an average of 10 goals per game.
https://calbears.com/news/2022/2/20/lacrosse-cal-falls-15-5-to-no-15-denver.aspx
Are they OAK powerhouse?
[MGYM]. Bears set a single-day record of 401.150. Then again, their next opponent - Stanfurd - scored 415.35 when they last met, which was 8 days ago - so they have their hands full. The next competition will be the third at Stanfurd in five weeks because there aren't a lot of teams.
https://calbears.com/news/2022/2/20/mens-gymnastics-bears-post-historic-scores-in-big-win.aspx
[BASE] Cal beat Houston on Friday 4-2 in 10 innings, beat #17 TCU on Saturday 7-6, and came from behind to beat SDSU 6-3 to sweep the MLB4 Tournament in Scottsdale and start the season 3-0.
https://calbears.com/news/2022/2/20/baseball-cal-sweeps-mlb4-tournament.aspx
Strong start by the Bears there.
Yay!!!
#4 Cal Rugby (19-0). Despite their record, they have not been as dominant as past years and had many closer matches. They should handle #15 Grand Canyon before playing #6 BYU - which is a pick'em. Then they should beat #16 UCLA, #7 Central Washington and #20 Utah before playing #1 St. Mary's at home on March 26th, where the Bears are likely underdogs.
In interviews with some rugby outlets, Coach Clark was annoyed to lose the UBC match because those are great game experiences (for the A-team at home and B-team on the road), but this was just not plausible due to COVID.
I think the other top contenders have beat one another so far. Lindenwood, last year's champ in a depleted field that did not include Cal, lost to Army in the fall but beat Life recently. SMC only got the No.1 ranking recently after beating Life.
SMC beat Cal last year in a sloppy and close match that showed clearly how the Cal team did not have enough practices together last year. That should not be the case this year. With the fewer international ex-pro players on some of the other teams (thanks to COVID restrictions?), I think Cal is in its best position to win another national title since a few years ago.
How about Life University? That oddball college...
Going to my first gymnastics meet today, Cal women vs. UofA. Cal ranked ninth in the nation. Looking forward to a new experience.
Hope you enjoyed it. Cal is only ranked No.7 (and not higher) because the gymnastics ranking are based mostly on team scores and Cal had been short handed early. Cal is in the driver's seat to win the Pac-12 for the first time after beating Utah last weekend. Of course, ASU and UCLA on the road are tough meets, particularly UCLA IF they are on (UCLA has been kind of schizophrenic this year...not to mention the whole fiasco of them kicking out a highly heralded freshman for allegedly using a racial slur).
say hi to Twist. He'll be there today
COMPETING???
Will have to lure him with an official W4C Lawyer Day.
I went to a women's meet back in '97 because one of my floormates was on the team. I don't think we were ranked but the athleticism was still very impressive.
(The men's team won the championship that year and their performances were, as expected, outstanding.)
Nice. Closest I’ve come to a real life gymnastics meet was watching American Anthem with Mitch Gaylord & Janet Jones (Gretzky).
Oh, and YouTubes of Katelyn Ohashi’s floor routines from her UCLA days...which are amazing!
Have fun, OD! Enjoy & Go Bears.
Thanks. I'll post some impressions here after.
Cal loses to Colorado...fine. Cal loses to Utah...Really?????????
Cal WBB loses to Oregon who made 0 3's...bleh. Cal WBB loses to OSU...oh well.
Went to Saturday's game at the last minute. Despite the loss, we really enjoyed ourselves. Defensively, this team is actually pretty OK. My biggest complaint about this team from my unsophisticated eye is that they don't have the players or playbook to generate shots from everywhere on the court. I thought that each offensive possession milked the shot clock until they were forced to shoot, often leading to bad shots. Also, our guys just couldn't make lots of very makable shots. I also saw late in the first half that Utah's bench outscored Cal's 13-0. That won't get it done.
Hadn't been to Haas in a while, and it felt good. Glad I went, even though it was a loss.
That's been Fox's O since he's been here. Run the motion around the outside until you get an advantage, which rarely happens given the players we have, or whoever has the ball with around 8 seconds left, go 1 on 1. Usually that was Matt Bradley. At least this year they tried to run some offense through Kelly, until he got hurt. Then back to the good ole motion around the perimeter.
Some good inside passes to Lars in that game, it wasn't all around the perimeter.
Were you at the game? I looked sometime after the game started but didn't see you there.
No
But the way attendance is you could've easily moved down to the bottom of your section.
On Sat there were plenty of times Lars had position where we couldn't get the ball down into him. We're not very good at feeding the post. But we did feed it inside, mostly on PnRs.
Give up on all Cal basketball. It will enhance your life dramatically
It might help me life longer, but life would not be as exciting. Same with Cal football.
I mean who does Cal have that can score. I mean Lars was the leading scorer. Anticevich struggled, as did Shepard.
I was at the game and Lars definitely looks much better this year. I haven't watched any games since Kelly went out but Lars looks slimmed down. He moves so much better this year when compared to his first 2 years. He made quite a few plays in the PnR that he would not have had a chance to make last couple of years. He still has hands of stone, but he is no longer an O black hole.
If Kelly doesn't come back (I believe he has his Covid year and if he graduates he'll most likely grad transfer) they're hurting for O. Grant, Shepard, Foreman are done. Who is going to score next year?
My friend's parents got two extra tickets from their seat neighbors and Jim Knowlton came by to talk with them after the game. At dinner my friend's dad seems to think Fox will get one more year. We all agreed that next year may be the toughest of them all. No one that has proven they can score, but they will still play fairly good D since there are quite a few athletic wings.
Next year, a better HC with a friendlier scheme could absolutely build a decent offense around wings Jalen Celestine, Sam Alajiki & Kuany Kuany. All three have flashed a little this year.
Fox and his hideous, inefficient Norman Dale at Hickory High offense is so not that guy. He’ll absolutely get another year because nobody f-ing cares, and it will be another season of mostly competitive losses that end with a 10th or 11th place finish and like a 5-14 conference record, with the P12 Network commentators repeatedly praising Fox’s defense.
Then Knowlton will fire him, hire a search firm that selects another mediocre white retread. There will be a mass exodus of players, and then the process will start again. Mike Williams & Wyking Jones killed the f-ing program. Killed it.
I told my friend's dad that the blog had said we wanted Dennis Gates back before Fox was hired. Since he knows Knowlton and has worked with him on things in the athletic department maybe he can suggest Gates as an option. It's probably too late since his coaching reputation at Cleveland State is much higher now than 3 years ago.
the knock on Gates last time around was he didn't interview well.
Gates also didn't have the experience, so he probably had to really impressed to be considered. He's obviously a much different head coach candidate now.
. . . and a more expensive one. Cal would have to negotiate two buyouts, so this will probably never happen even though it would actually make sense despite all.
I don't that they so much as interviewed him or even approached him. Did they?
yes
I guess savants can be awkward.
I wonder if he didn't interview well because he wasn't interested so he didn't try, or they just didn't like what he said.
Cal Twitter speculated that the "didn't interview well" was code for the Administration thinking they couldn't control him...FWIW.
moreso boosters than admin
oh no...he might think out of the box!!
If we want Gates (and we absolutely should) and we're not already too late, our only chance is this offseason.
Ya. If we keep Fox around another season, it'll be just another wasted year.
Then when we fire him, Celestine, Alajiki, Okafor will join Kuany in the portal, and we'll be starting from scratch, and given the snails pace that the Cal athletic department works at, we'll have missed the transfer window.
It didn't have to be a 10 year rebuild, but it's going to be.
10 years if we're lucky and act quickly.
There's just zero excitement around the program...none.
I remember when they hired Braun, coming off his Eastern Michigan run, I was legitimately excited. Same with Monty. Even Cuonzo, after his Tennessee run, was a buzz worthy hire.
That utter buffoon Mike Williams killed all of that, and Knowlton compounded it with the thoroughly unimaginative Fox hiring.
A better coach could definitely do something in '22 with Celestine, Alajiki, Kuany, Okafor, Obinna, Roberson...while they're not Mickey D's AA's, they're not complete boobs either. But under Fox, it's just so blah.
I remember some chatter on CGB about Williams being such a great choice cause he managed an incredibly massive portfolio.
The only businessman I want running the Cal program is George Russell from the Gilded Age....that dude would get schitt done.
I remember being so thoroughly unimpressed with Williams the moment I heard him speak. He may have been a whiz with the portfolio, but he did not command respect or inspire confidence.
It is no coincidence that the revenue sports became a disaster under his tenure.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone higher up to hold Knowlton's feet to the fire like Wilton did with Barbour (who was a very good AD despite botching the Sonny hire).
Botching? You mean she didn't do the hire right?
Gates was a tough hire back then bc you’d just brought in a guy with zero HC experience & it was awful. I understood wanting a guy with a track record...just not Fox. Guy has built an entire, incredibly mediocre career out of 1-2 solid seasons at Nevada with Trent Johnson’s f-ing guys like 20 years ago. Then he got 10 completely blah years at Georgia. 10!! Are you kidding me?
If you moved on from him now, Gates would probably be in the mix, having now had some seasons of success, but if they give Fox a 4th year, then it’s yet another hiring cycle removed.
My fear is they stay West Coast and hire Shantay Legans from Portland. Want no part of that Sam Cassell looking dude...F him.
What's your beef on Legans? Just because he transferred from Cal to Fresno State? I remember the UCLA game where he got a concussion from a hard foul from Matt Barnes. I was with a friend who was friends with Shantay and wanted to check on him; because my friend was in a wheelchair, security just let us go all the way to the outside of the Cal locker room (that was a bit weird).
Absolutely, 100% because he transferred from Cal...now, not all transfers are equal...I was happy for Matt Bradley when he headed to SDSU after giving a lot to this team...wished him well, hope he makes the Dance...he stuck it out at Cal when everyone else transferred following the Wyking dismissal.
Legans, OTOH, bailed on the squad in August, right before school started for his senior season...that totally left Cal scrambling at PG. And that 2002 team was f-ing loaded, making the Dance and beating NC State in the 8/9 game on the Midge 3 before losing to #1 seed Oklahoma IN Ok City.
What could've been, tho....senior leaders in Shipp (20.4 ppg) & Wethers (15.1); Tamir pumping in 15 a night as a stretch 4; Midge as a FR providing outside shooting...Diggs would've been a solid backup PG off the bench...Erik Bond another shooter on the wing; Conor Famulener, Gabe Hughes, David Paris, Rod Benson giving you minutes down low in the post. Imagine a senior, 4-year starter at PG with 3-point range leading that crew...a couple more wins on the year, we're out of the 8/9 game...
Definitely am still creased at Shantay...
We should've been able to get Shipp and P-Chris's younger brothers. Instead they go to fUCLA.
Hiring Fox was essentially like hiring late career Braun.
Nah, Braun was a much better recruiter, sure not a great coach, but recruiting = 80% of the job.
I don't disagree. I mostly was referring to their career arcs. Fox's Cal years equal Braun's Rice years.
Yup...those Rice years were awful...he didn't attract the same level of player he did at Cal...
Ben gets a bad rap...he had some quality teams that caught some real bad breaks. That '97 team he inherited from Bozeman was so solid, but he built some real quality squads that always managed to draw the short stick in the Dance....having to play Pitt in Pittsburgh, Oklahoma in Ok City, etc. Montgomery won the Conference with Ben's guys.
He could just never get over the hump to build a consistent, 20-game winner year in, year out....he attracted some NBA level players tho, which Fox doesn't do.
Just once, it'd be nice if Cal hired a dynamic offensive mind instead of some defense-first guy that ran some weak motion O that required players to basically go 1-on-1 at the end of the shot clock....Braun, Cuonzo, Fox....all the same.
Listen. . . Ben sounds positively dreamy right now. Like I'd hang a poster on the wall of that dreamboat. I agree that Ben was a good coach and I'll admit I probably took him for granted in the context of what we're seeing now. But it's fair to say the program hit a ceiling maybe halfway through his tenure and then it got stale. It's just the often natural order of things. And I guess at that point the administration and fans had higher expectations. The arc of Braun and Fox's careers are fairly similar--we just got the later after his expiration date.
I would take Braun over Fox any day of the week. Braun coached up that 97 team. Yes he took over what Bozeman left, but if I remember players improved. He made Yogi an NBA player which I don't think would've happened had he played like he did in 96.
Maybe it's because he surrounded himself with good coaches, but I remember he had a relatively good offense and defense. Was able to recruit good players. Some of that may have been piggybacking on the success Bozeman had. But still, gotta get them to sign.
Totally. Don't disagree. Bozeman wouldn't have been able to anything close to the same with that '97 team, which was supposed to be something of a down year for us. But I do think Braun got a little more complacent halfway through his tenure, once he sort of established himself in the role. He didn't really develop a second pitch and I never sensed any urgency to try to take the program up a step. I remember that Ryan Anderson team running the same offense we were running in my adult D league, which was a bunch of old guys passing back in forth on the perimeter and then taking a bad shot as the clock wore down. Still I'd take even late era Braun in a heartbeat.
Braun absolutely coached that squad up...he built the team around P10 POY Ed Gray, but then pivoted and made our last Sweet 16 after losing Ed to a broken foot at Wazzu.
He recruited Lamps and turned him into another P10POY and NBA player. Leon Powe, too (that 2nd knee injury was a dagger). Ryan Anderson, NBA player. Joe Shipp, solid.
Braun at least had assistant coaches that went on to coach other schools....Fox's guys don't. He and his cronies recruit mediocre players that graduate, but don't do much winning. Something's gotta change.
Way past.
I looked up Fox's Nevada stats, and after he inherited that dynamite Trent Johnson team in Reno, he did have about 3 years of success where he made the Dance and actually won a game a couple of seasons.
But he was already starting to trend in the wrong direction at Nevada when Georgia hired him, with back to back CBI appearances after losing in the conference championship. He then made 2 March Madnesses in 9 years in Athens (9 f-ing years!!)...that terrifies me, as he is exactly the kind of HC that an administration that doesn't care about winning is looking for.
Gotta cut ties with him immediately...if I won the lottery, my first order of business would be to set a lunch with Knowlton and arrange to pay the buyout. First thing....
His best skill set seems to be cuddling up to low esteem programs and ADs.
Lloyd Noel Ferguson
Thank you for the history lesson. Sad to see that his career options were limited despite having the deserved respect of chemistry legends but glad he achieved despite discrimination.
Also appreciate any mention of the chemistry dept that doesn't include mention of Vollhardt.
Thank him for ensuring the lack of Stanfurdium.
I assume he was born in 1916? Impressive guy who had to struggle with institutional (and probably overt) racism.