ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

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I am a luck SOB. This is what the Bears are telling me this morning. For a paltry $8k I can buy a single sux seat, err...LUX seat at the spaceship. If I buy 2, I get a free parking spot. They failed to mention it will be in Gary, and that I will have to take a shuttle to the stadium, but these are minor details. What a bargain! The real news before the draft came in a small release this past weekend. I honestly just missed it. The Bears signed Roberto Garza from the Falcons. Actually, we got him off the scrap heap. He has no ACL in one of his legs. He was shocked to learn of this. I'm shocked it took 2 team doctors to figure it out. (he was interviewing for jobs this offseason, and during a stop in Green Bay -- the story of the missing ACL began.)

A quick call to our local orthopod tells us that you don't need an ACL to play. Actually the doc said it's unstable at best and John Elway played without an ACL so it happens. I think I'll just wait and see if this one legged man can beat out any of our other 2 legged guys before getting excited.

Draft day is upon us..we need a poll here to see how many of you think the Bears will trade away the first round pick...

 

The tournament is the greatest sports event of the year. This is the only time of year that everyone gets really into sport. Everyone. The wife, the girlfriend, even the geek who hasn't touched a woman in 10 years. We have some great match ups go through today. I'll list the rest of my picks for the second round now. The underlined teams are the ones I had winning out of the first round. As you can see, Syracuse and Bama hurt me. So did my own conference (thanks UW Milwaukee)

2 rules for bracketology I will pass on to you guys: First, the Big Ten is not capable of producing that many first round wins. I made this mistake this year -- thus violating the first rule. No more than 1 team from the Big Ten can come out of their first round match up. In a good year, maybe two. This year we got 3. Wow.

The second rule is never doubt the Horizon League. Especially if they get the 12 seed like UW Milwaukee did this year. And with that, let's head into my picks:

 Chicago Bracket

Illinois v. Nevada --> Illinois

UW-Milwaukee v. Boston College --> got both of these wrong!

UAB v. Arizona --> Arizona

SIU v. Oki St. --> Oki St.

Albuquerque Bracket

Washington   v.  Pacific --> Pacific

Ga Tech  v.  Louisville --> Louisville

Texas Tech v. Gonzaga --> Gonzaga

West Virgina  v. Wake Forest --> Wake Forest

Syracuse Bracket

UNC  v.  Iowa St. --> UNC

Villanova  v.  Florida --> Florida

Wisconsin  v.  Bucknell --> Wisconsin

NC State  v.  Connecticut --> UCONN

Austin Bracket

Duke  v.  Mississippi St. --> Duke

Michigan St. v.  Vermont --> (had Cuse winning here!)

Utah v. Oklahoma  --> Oklahoma

Cincinnati  v.  Kentucky --> Kentucky

 

 

We have a new RSS feed for those of you who want to just read about my tourney picks. It will basically be daily coverage of the games. I'll write about why I picked the way I did, and perhaps a little crying over how many I got wrong.

So here are my picks for all to see: (i'll try to finish this before the end of the night)

Chicago Bracket

(1)Illinois v (16)FDU --> Illinois

(8)Texas v (9)Nevada --> Nevada

(5) Bama v (12) UW-Milwaukee --> 'Bama

(4) Boston College v (13) Penn --> Penn

(6) LSU v (11) UAB --> UAB

(3) Arizona v (14) Utah St. --> Arizona

(7) Southern Illinois v (10) St. Mary's --> SIU

(2) Oki St. v (15) SE Louisiana --> Oki St

Albuquerque Bracket

(1) Washington v (16) Montana --> Washington

(8) Pacific v (9) Pittsburgh --> Pacific

(5) G Tech v (12) Geo Wash --> G Tech

(4) Louiville v (13) LA-Lafayette --> Louiville

(6) Texas Tech v (11) UCLA --> UCLA

(3) Zags v (14) Winthrop --> Zags

(7) West Virginia v (10) Creighton --> West Virginia

(2) Wake Forest v (15) Chattanooga --> Wake

Syracuse Bracket

(1) UNC v (16) Oakland --> UNC

(8) Minn v (9) Iowa St. --> Minn

(5) Villanova v (12) New Mexico --> Villanova

(4) Florida v (13) Ohio --> Florida

(6) Wisc v (11) N. Iowa --> Wisc

(3) Kansas v (14) Bucknell --> Kansas

(7) Charlotte v (10) NC State --> NC State

(2) UCONN v (15) Central Fla --> UCONN

Austin Bracket

(1) Duke v (16) Delaware St. --> Duke

(8) Stanford v (9) Miss St. --> Miss St.

(5) Michigan St.v (12) Old Domininion --> Mich St.

(4) 'Cuse v (13) Vermont --> 'Cuse

(6) Utah v (11) UTEP --> Utah

(3) Oki v (14) Niagra --> Oki

(7) Cinci v (10) Iowa --> Iowa

(2) Kentucky v (15) E Kentucky --> Kentucky

That's it for Round One -- I'll get the rest in later today. Notice how I think all the Big Ten teams are going to win their first round games -- THIS NEVER HAPPENS. I know I will regret that. I also was waivering on UTEP. I think they can take the Utes, but I didnt have the courage to pick it...ah well. Good luck to all!

 

 

Warning: I am geeking it out on this post. If you want some average, not very detailed, but classy coverage of the Chicago Sports landscape, find it in this feed, or this one.

 

I wanted to mention a few sites that I have been visiting a lot lately. The first is, the new maps site by Google. There has been a lot of discussion (it was even in the WSJ yesterday) about async web requests. The handful of Google developers out there, NOT working on the search engine, seem to be working on DOM objects, Javascript, and XMLHTTP(thanks to Microsoft). It is kind of disturbing. I swore off writing for the client, or front end, for web-stuff years ago. Javascript sucked. I wasn't a big fan. Then again, not many people were. We used to have 2 browsers to support when we did crazy Javascript tricks, nevermind the CSS zealots who wanted to design without tables. Talk about forward thinking, right? The front end revolution is here. I can't lie, some of these Google apps that use XMLHTTP and Javascript are clever. The interfaces are beautiful and the usability is amazing(thanks to async transfers -- no more whole page redraws). Clearly, they are onto something. I will pretend to ignore the fact that none of this stuff will ever work on my PDA, CellPhone or in my car. Yes, my car. I want Google to be my nav system. Where is that Honda deal when you need it...

The second site I've been frequenting is Flickr. It's another site that uses the asyn HTTPXML transfer methods. I haven't really noticed where they actually use them, but the site is pretty cool. I know there is a media war (not that kind) taking place online. The next versions of our favorite OS's are going to be fighting over how to manage all my movies, torrents, RSS content, pictures, MP3 files, whatever. Flickr and the rest of these image management apps are cool as hell and easy to use. I have family all over the place and this site helps bring us together. I have heard rumblings that Google's recent acquisition of Picasa (hello.com) is pretty powerful as well. I need to test this one out too...but for the time being Flickr is my goto guy.

Finally, I found this in my RSS feeds earlier last week. Start. I have no idea what its purpose in life is. All I know is that its interface is clean, lean and easy to use. It aggregates all my favorite RSS feeds. It's just a fun little expirement brought to you by the folks in Redmond. Its potential is immense since I think Google is pretty aweful at searching and indexing blogs....perhaps MSN will take the ball on this one....

that is all from the geek front. Anything I missed?

When I first sat down to start this year's 2005 NCAA Men's Tourney article, I had something clever to write. Then I lost the article as I was going back and forth between tabs in FireFox. I swear, it was better than this version. I had some long winded paragraphs dedicated to why teams like DePaul didn't deserve making it to the dance this year. I also commented on the sheer outrage that the Louiville fans have felt with the crap ranking they got in their initial seeding. What can I say? It was poetic. Since I don't have that much time to cover the best event outside of the SuperBowl (come on, its football!) I will cut to the case in this version: The only team folks around here care about is the Fighting Illini. Much has been written of Dee Brown's shooting slump since he made the cover of SI. Even more was written about Coach Weber's recent loss of his mother. I won't bore you with anything more on those subjects. (our condolences to the Weber family) What I will say is that I think the Illini has a tough path to the Final Four. Not the toughest, but it won't be a cake walk. I haven't decided if I have them going to the final four yet. I still haven't filled out my bracket. When I do, I will post it here for all to either mock or marvel at me. For the record, I did win the braggin rights last year. For now, I will leave you with some dark horses: 'Bama The 'Cuse Southern Illinois and....wait for it....Florida. I don't know if I can ride the Bynum(ChiTown's own) wagon to the final four like I did last year...but we'll see. I think we need a new RSS feed/category for this stuff...what do you guys think?

The hits keep coming Bears fans! The beloved Bear has gone out and signed an offensive tackle.  Welcome to Chicago, Freddie Miller. His addition to the team means that Tait is moving to the opposite side. It also means that this is the second major addition to the offensive line in the past two years. All the pieces are in place! Besides professing his love for the ownership and the organization as a whole, Miller comes to Chicago with a solid history. Starting 102 straight games as a lineman is nothing to sneeze at. Neither is the $22.5 million he just signed for. We have made efforts on the offensive side of the ball this off season. Efforts that should erase the horrible season we had last year. We were the WORST team in the NFL on the offensive side of the ball. While there are no guarantees that next years Bears team will fare any better, it stands to reason that these additions will make an impact regardless.

Let's not forget that the NFC North is a much different division. Jerry Angello knows this. The rumors of Brett Favre's retirement can't be that exaggerated. Randy Moss has been run out of the garbage they call a stadium in Minnesota. Who do we have to be afraid of? The Lions? Let's keep the moves coming, so that I don't eat those words come fall.