I think this is the second year in a row we didn't do them. I'd really like to see them come back because there were some really funny pics and moments in the selections that only a blogger could come up with. And if no one wants to do them would it be okay if I tried to start them up with Nunesers nominating and voting on their favorites? How would you feel about that?

Well, looking at the results from this weekend, things are still pretty miffy. It's mathematically possible I believe for five (!!) teams to finish with a 14-4 conference record. In order for this to happen, we'd have to lose out, Georgetown and South Florida would have to win out, and ND and Marquette would both have their only remaining loss vs Georgetown. I don't even want to know what would happen in that case, so we're going to assume that doesn't happen. Here's how the conference picture looks right now:

Syracuse - Has clinched a first round bye. We MAY have clinched a double bye as well, only way we lose it is if the scenario I described above happens, and we end up at the short end of the stick after all the mathing out. Either way, we clinch a double bye for sure with:

-A win OR

-A Georgetown loss OR

-A Marquette loss.

In addition, Syracuse can clinch the regular season title with:

-A win AND a Notre Dame loss.

Notre Dame - Has clinched a first round bye. I don't think they can do anything else this week.

Marquette - Has clinched a first round bye. They can't do anything else this week.

Georgetown - Can clinch a first round bye with:

-A win AND a West Virginia loss.

South Florida - Can clinch a first round bye with

-A win AND a West Virginia loss (hopefully not this way), OR

-Losses by West Virginia AND UConn

Louisville/Cincinnati - Can clinch a first round bye with

-A win OR

-Losses by both UConn AND Seton Hall

As this very competative Big East season winds down, it's hard to believe there are still plenty of byes left available. But only a few teams can clinch things.

Syracuse - Has already clinched a first round bye in the BET. Syracuse can clinch a double bye with:

A South Florida loss, AND

A win OR losses by Georgetown AND Louisville

Notre Dame - Can clinch a first round bye with a win

Marquette - Can clinch a first round bye with:

A win, AND

A West Virginia loss OR a Seton Hall loss

I remember a few years back seeing ads for a Syracuse-themed Monopoly board. It looked something like this. Of course, it has the names of campus buildings and student life stuff.

That wasn't what I hoped to see.

When I was a kid, we had (and I think we still have) a Mets-themed Monopoly board. This, however, had the names of famous Mets. THAT is what a college sports themed Monopoly board should look like. So I decided to do a long overdue description of what I think a Syracuse monopoly board looked like (I was inspired to act now by this excelent fanpost). Here's what itshould look like in my eyes.

Go would just say "Let's go Orange!" and have the block S logo.

Mediterranean Avenue - Mike Levelle

Baltic Avenue - Leo Rautins

Income Tax - #22

Reading Railroad - 1983 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament

Oriental Avenue - Floyd Little

Vermont Avenue - John Desko

Connecticut Avenue - Roy Danforth

Jail - Georgetown University

St. Charles Place - Casey Powell

Electric Company - Otto

States Avenue - Jason Hart

Virginia Avenue - Donovan McNabb

Pennsylvania Railroad - 2008 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament

St. James Place - Mike Powell

Tennessee Avenue - Gerry McNamara

New York Avenue - Paul Pasqualoni

Free Parking - Your number was retired!

Kentucky Avenue - Pearl Washington

Indiana Avenue - Dwight Freeney

Illinois Avenue - Dave Bing

B&O Railroad - 1959 Cotton Bowl

Atlantic Avenue - Gary Gait

Ventnor Avenue - Jim Brown

Water Works - Carrier Dome

Marvin Gardens - Derrick Coleman

Go to Jail - Transfer to Georgetown

Pacific Avenue - Carmelo Anthony

North Carolina Avenue - Ernie Davis

Pennsylvania Avenue - Roy Simmons Jr.

Short Line - 2003 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

Park Place - Ben Schwartzwalder

Luxury Tax - #44

Boardwalk - Jim Boeheim

Community Chest - Otto's Army

Chance - Tip-off

If you have any better ideas or want to make a photoshop of this (because I can't) let me know.

Okay, first I have a confession to make: an apology for leaving the USC game at the end of the first half; I went out with a friend to a bar and watched the Miami-Ohio State game with him (he's a Miami fan), and I did have them put on the rest of the SU-USC game so I could watch with whatever little remaining faith I had that we could come back and win.  Then I remembered we were playing our second and third-string defense because our starters were all hurt.  So I was watching the game; just not at a computer.

And for today's game I was out with family but I did catch the end....and saw more of what I saw wrong with us against USC.

And obviously during the week I was focused on the ACC hubbub as a distraction from the USC game that I really wasn't thinking as much about football as I should have, and this is why I'm making this post: to share my observations about the football team so we don't need to point fingers at each other or flip out and just say "we suck, we don't deserve to win, we're never going to win" and so I can try and restore faith in HCDM and this football team.

Our offense actually seems to be clicking somewhat now, and to be honest I'm not really upset with how the offense is playing, even against USC. The offensive line is still a little shaky though.

That being said, our pass defense sucks and it's why we're allowing so many damn points to teams we shouldn't be.  Somebody obviously needs to teach people how to tackle because we're not doing it properly.  This is probably a bigger concern than the coverage; that play at the end of today's game with the facemask call really made me feel like we need to get better tacklers.  Our only sure tackler, Shamarko, is out with an injury.

Rick Pitino

c/o University of Louisville Basketball

KFC Yum Arena

Louisville, KY, 40208

Dear Mr. Pitino,

This letter is regarding this blog post by Andy Katz.  Here, we see that when you are not wasting time in sexual harassment lawsuits, you're wasting time whining about how the Big East should create basketball divisions.  Katz correctly notes that we've done this twice....to the tune of abysmal failure.  But it also seems that you have no sense of conference history....nor geography.

You basically stuck all the non-football schools in an "east" division and the football schools in a "west" division.  This is a pretty broad assumption to make, buddy.  Never mind that there's no reason UConn, Syracuse, and Rutgers should be placed west of DePaul or Marquette.  No wonder you wound up coaching at second-rate academic institutions in the state of Kentucky and then somehow thought you'd be a good NBA coach.  Even people who can't put Mexico on a map can figure this one out.

But that's not even your worst flub.  You joined the Big East in 2005 and somehow think you know what's best for the conference.  And this is surprising considering you had previous coaching experience within the conference.  Did you kiss up to John Marinatto recently?  Because you have committed the cardinal sin of college basketball (but then again isn't that what Louisville sports teams are known for doing?  Cardinal sins?  BWAHAHAHAHA!).  You put Syracuse and Georgetown in opposite divisions, meaning there is a chance that they would never even meet once.  College basketball needs three important rivalries to survive: Duke-UNC, Kentucky-Louisville, and SYRACUSE-GEORGETOWN.  We've already sent our collective hatred to the Big East commisioners' offices in Providence.  Don't make us bite at you.  Because the whole reason the Big East isn't collapsing right now is because of the existence of Syracuse and Georgetown and our collective malicious, hatred for each other.

Clearly, as someone who got his start at Syracuse, either you're too stupid to remember your roots or people from Kentucky have corrupted you.  Now, I'm going to assume good faith and blame the state of Kentucky for corrupting you.  But don't prove me wrong.

Looking forward to kicking your ass twice next season,

-Your friendly neighborhood Syracuse fans.

(Editor's note: this was originally posted on College Crosse but has been posted here per my request. Solid piece of writing here from a reader, enjoy).

I've been doing some thinking lately since Michigan made the official jump.  And of course this is setting off a storm of reactions across Lacrosse Nation as to "who's gonna be next?"  And of course we would all like to see more programs make the jump and then compete at the top level (it makes winning the NC that much more meaningful, especially for schools like Syracuse, Hopkins, Princeton, and Virginia, who have been very dominant on the NC circuit as of late). But as much as I hate to say this, Michigan is in somewhat of a unique situation that can't be said for virtually any other big name school. There are three big tests that Michigan has passed with flying colors that I can't see any other school passing consistently.

The first major test (and probably the most important) is how can you fund the sport.  I remember several years ago reading an article on USAToday that focused on Villanova baseball, which was not fully funded, but partially funded, thus some people who could qualify for scholarships could not get one.  As a result, the team suffers.  The same is true for lacrosse; in order to compete at the highest level you have to fully fund the sport, something only a handful of schools do.  From what I understand Michigan's policy (which I'm sure a lot of the other big football schools have) is to only fund a sport if it can be fully funded, and most schools just don't have that kind of budget due to national name branding AND a VERY active alumni booster program.  In fact, of the schools that don't have lacrosse, I would think only Texas, Florida, and MAYBE USC or UCLA have that ability.   While the other schools certainly have active alumni bases, they are only familiar to those who follow college sports regularly (example: Kansas; if you don't know college basketball you probably aren't even aware Kansas exists, thus lack of marketability).

The second is the dreaded Title IX test.  We can all agree that Title IX is hindering progress, and I've heard a lot of clamor for its elimination.  I'm not going to call for that, but I certainly will call for its reform (after all, we all do want to keep supporting women's sports even if we don't watch them (we really ought to)).  The problem is schools are adding the womens' side without the mens' side (and I probably would enjoy the womens' game more if they had an out-of-bounds rule) and that makes it that much more difficult to add men's lacrosse.  Examples include Florida, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Louisville, and Stanford.  All of these schools ought to have men's teams now except maybe for Louisville.  Title IX should focus more on what women want to study or play (remember, something like Title IX was needed for its time because it was actually made to focus on academics, not athletics).  Again, Michigan passes this test easily, especially since its football program is actually not as well funded as one would think.

The third is success at the lower levels.  Michigan has had that success.  Not many other teams have this.  Only Colorado State, BYU (which, I repeat, is too stupid to field a D1 team and they admit this), and more recently Arizona State could be candidates for this.  All three could also pass the Title IX test but I doubt they have the branding to  fully fund the sport.  And Michigan isn't just going to field a team.  They're moving an entire program from a club level sport, playing other school's club teams, to a place where they now have to compete with Syracuse, Hopkins, Virginia, Cornell, Princeton, and Duke year in and year out.  Michigan probably would at least be able to get to the level of Delaware or Hofstra or possibly Navy within a few years.  Not many other schools would be able to because their tradition isn't as firmly established.

I've been doing some thinking lately since Michigan made the official jump.  And of course this is setting off a storm of reactions across Lacrosse Nation as to "who's gonna be next?"  And of course we would all like to see more programs make the jump and then compete at the top level (it makes winning the NC that much more meaningful, especially for schools like Syracuse, Hopkins, Princeton, and Virginia, who have been very dominant on the NC circuit as of late). But as much as I hate to say this, Michigan is in somewhat of a unique situation that can't be said for virtually any other big name school. There are three big tests that Michigan has passed with flying colors that I can't see any other school passing consistently.

The first major test (and probably the most important) is how can you fund the sport.  I remember several years ago reading an article on USAToday that focused on Villanova baseball, which was not fully funded, but partially funded, thus some people who could qualify for scholarships could not get one.  As a result, the team suffers.  The same is true for lacrosse; in order to compete at the highest level you have to fully fund the sport, something only a handful of schools do.  From what I understand Michigan's policy (which I'm sure a lot of the other big football schools have) is to only fund a sport if it can be fully funded, and most schools just don't have that kind of budget due to national name branding AND a VERY active alumni booster program.  In fact, of the schools that don't have lacrosse, I would think only Texas, Florida, and MAYBE USC or UCLA have that ability.   While the other schools certainly have active alumni bases, they are only familiar to those who follow college sports regularly (example: Kansas; if you don't know college basketball you probably aren't even aware Kansas exists, thus lack of marketability).

The second is the dreaded Title IX test.  We can all agree that Title IX is hindering progress, and I've heard a lot of clamor for its elimination.  I'm not going to call for that, but I certainly will call for its reform (after all, we all do want to keep supporting women's sports even if we don't watch them (we really ought to)).  The problem is schools are adding the womens' side without the mens' side (and I probably would enjoy the womens' game more if they had an out-of-bounds rule) and that makes it that much more difficult to add men's lacrosse.  Examples include Florida, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Louisville, and Stanford.  All of these schools ought to have men's teams now except maybe for Louisville.  Title IX should focus more on what women want to study or play (remember, something like Title IX was needed for its time because it was actually made to focus on academics, not athletics).  Again, Michigan passes this test easily, especially since its football program is actually not as well funded as one would think.

The third is success at the lower levels.  Michigan has had that success.  Not many other teams have this.  Only Colorado State, BYU (which, I repeat, is too stupid to field a D1 team and they admit this), and more recently Arizona State could be candidates for this.  All three could also pass the Title IX test but I doubt they have the branding to  fully fund the sport.  And Michigan isn't just going to field a team.  They're moving an entire program from a club level sport, playing other school's club teams, to a place where they now have to compete with Syracuse, Hopkins, Virginia, Cornell, Princeton, and Duke year in and year out.  Michigan probably would at least be able to get to the level of Delaware or Hofstra or possibly Navy within a few years.  Not many other schools would be able to because their tradition isn't as firmly established.

(Cross-posted on In Lax We Trust by request).

I can't believe it took so long for me to figure this out.

If you didn't notice during this year's tournament, there was a new remix of the NCAA on CBS theme that was used.  UConn won the tournament.

The last time they changed the remix?  That was in 2004, when UConn won the title.

Should we propose a ban on new NCAA remixes?  This way we can keep Calhoun away from the titles forever.