Better Griping Through Science

At the moment, I've got only one team blog in the links section, and it's dedicated to the folks down I-40, or in my case down the 101, the 210, the 15, and then I-40. I'd like to say it's for balanced journalistic practices, but it's my schadenfraudic guilty pleasure.

I've never seen more statistics, coupled with the occasional anecdote compiled on a blog for the sole purpose of firing a man, and that includes the members of the last two presidential administrations. I'm agnostic on the subject myself, but when the weekend is more notablle for the fact that Gary Williams said something nice about your coach than the fact you beat Virginia Tech, it pretty much spells comedy for your opponent.

Lots of interesting numbers, though. I'm sure there's an engineer joke about in there somewhere, but as an engineer, I'm incapable of humor. It'll be interesting to see what they make of the NCAA Grade report this afternoon.

I'll Ignore the BMOC Pun

It's good to see Sean May get a bit of media spotlight after the win against Maryland. It had seemed the double-double streak (6 games and counting) was being overlooked with all the other goings-on with the team at the moment. It's also worth noting that May has more blocks and is on pace to have more rebounds in ACC play than Antawn Jamison did in 1998.

May brings me to another point that's been in the back of mind, lately. There's been a dearth of true centers in the league in recent years -- everyone's moved to a faster, smaller type of offense, and the days of the three seven-footer 1993 championship seem almost like a pre-shot clock era now. In fact, I can only think of four true centers getting significant playing time this year: Sheldon Williams, Sean May, Eric Williams, and Luke Schenscher, the latter of whose playing as dropped off a bit this year.

For those of you not keeping up, at the top of the conference standings we find Carolina, Duke, Wake, and Georgia Tech, the latter of whose playing as dropped off a bit this year.

Now obviously, the big man isn't the sole determination of a team's fate. May's improvement has largely come from being able to run with the new offense, and Tech's woes stem more from Elder being more key to the team's fortunes than many of us had thought than Schenscher's play. But it's an interesting correlation, and a big part of the games between the big three have hinged around which of Williams, Williams & May have controlled the other on the defensive end. So maybe small and agile isn't the all important key to the championship people make it out to be.

And yes, Williams, Williams & May sounds like an excellent personal injury law firm.

This Is an Experiment

I've been meaning to do this blog thing for awhile now.

That's not exactly true. I'm been meaning to not do this blog thing for awhile now, and have succeeded admirably in that regard. I've been filling laboratory time reading these things for a couple of years, bouncing from science blogs to political blogs to music blogs to lately basketball blogs with only occasionally thinking that this is something I need to pick up. A quick lie down and those thoughts usually go away quite nicely, though.

Now, however, we're in the high holy days of college basketball season, and I find myself in front of a microscope far more often than in front of ESPN. (Pluses -- less Dick Vitale. Minuses -- everything else.) And this particular basketball season shows significantly more promise than the last couple for Carolina fans.

The other impetus that's pushed me out here is the realization that although I've been ACC blog hopping for a couple of months now, I'm not reading any ones about UNC. It's not that they don't exist -- they're just... uncomfortable. It's the same unease I had upon first stumbling across rec.sport.basketball.college -- the internet makes people stupid. Perfectly intelligent people (they have degrees from UNC, after all) suddenly forget the vowels of their rivals, can no longer spell Polish names, and spend more time worrying about the folks down the road than remaining on the high road. There's quality ranting, and there's the well-turned quip, and both are in short supply lately.

So here's the policy going forward:

• 31 days of blogging, from the week of the Duke game to the national championship.
  
• Leaving the Duke-referee complaints to Seth Greenberg. Yes, the Immaculate J.J. Redick thing is pretty weird, but it's the job of the scrappy upstarts to point that out. We just deal. And Seth, I hereby retract my claim that Virginia Tech will be in all sports, in all ways, for all time, known as Worse Than Clemson.
  
• Actual basketball commentary -- the stuff that's already being done much better by folks much smarter than I -- which will necessitate the watching of basketball. It will also require frosty beverages of an alcoholic nature. The sacrifices one makes for art.
  

I'm rather interested to see how this all turns out.