Cobra Commander

Sunday conference title games shaping up right now.. Penn State vs Purdue in a chaotic Big 10 tournament Alabama vs Texas A&M in the SEC VCU vs Dayton in the A10 and Houston plays the winner of Tulane/Memphis So it's time to decide 11 autobids in the next 8 hours or so.

Pitino rumor mill: If St. John's doesn't get Pitino, well.. a Duke guy just got Howard into the tourney (Kenny Blakeney, who was an assistant for 24 years [JMU/La Salle/Delaware/Seton Hall/Delaware again/Marshall/Harvard/Columbia] before finally getting a HC job) but idk if the Duke/St. John's ties are deeper than Duke playing games there regularly. Also, Fordham's HC won 25+ games in his first year there and I suspect that St. John's is higher in the CBB food chain than Fordham? but Fordham just lost their HC a year ago when he came back to Villanova to replace Jay Wright. I type this without knowing how much of a clean break that St. John's would want to make from Mike Anderson. Some school is gonna have to be told "Jay Wright isn't coming out of retirement for you", right?

excited to hear that

Vermont and Howard are in. The Ivy League Conference title game is Yale vs Princeton at Princeton's gym so prepare to pick Princeton to beat some 5/6 seed in the tournament. Two bits of drama in the semifinal games being played today: Fordham angling for their first bid in 30+ years, facing Dayton right now and if they win, they play VCU tomorrow. Also Vandy probably has to win their tourney to make it unless you think a 20-14 or 21-14 SEC team is being picked as an at-large. Vandy just has to beat A&M and Alabama on back to back days.

Konnan finally returns to the WWE to induct Rey.

Panama beat Italy, Italy beat Cuba, Cuba beat Panama, Panama beat Taiwan, Taiwan beat Italy

Would be fun if Dominic tried going after a person or two who he thought could give the Rey induction speech, in the spirit of striking back against his dad once more before Wrestlemania

Championship Saturday lineup: UMass Lowell at Vermont - American East (Burlington, VT) - 10am Central, ESPN2 Howard vs Norfolk State - MEAC (Norfolk, VA) - Noon CDT, ESPN2 Texas Southern vs Grambling State - SWAC (Birmingham, AL) - 4:30 CDT, ESPNU San Diego State vs Utah State - Mountain West (Las Vegas, NV) - 5pm CDT, CBS Kansas vs Texas - Big 12 (Kansas City, MO) - 5pm CDT, ESPN Marquette vs Xavier - Big East (MSG) - 5:30 CDT, FOX Toledo vs Kent State - MAC (Cleveland, OH) - 6:30 CDT, ESPN2 Iona vs Marist - MAAC (Atlantic City, NJ) - 6:30 CDT, ESPNU Duke vs Virginia - ACC (Greensboro, NC) - 7:30 CDT, ESPN Florida Atlantic vs UAB - C-USA (Frisco, TX) - 7:30 CDT, CBS Sports Network Cal State Fullerton vs UC Santa Barbara - Big West (Henderson, NV) - 8:30 CDT, ESPN2 UCLA vs Arizona - Pac-12 (Las Vegas, NV) - 9:30 CDT, ESPN Grand Canyon vs Southern Utah - WAC (Las Vegas, NV) - 10:30 CDT, ESPN2 UMass Lowell and Grambling State are playing for their first tourney bids ever. Howard is playing for their first tourney bid since 1992. Marist is playing for their first bid since 1987. Toledo is playing for their first bid since 1980. On one hand, Norfolk State is playing for the autobid in Norfolk. On the other hand, 1pm Saturday local tip after playing on a Friday Night. The Sunday title games are Ivy League, SEC, A10, AAC, and Big Ten.

checking the standings to see if we could get a game between Team Italy and Team Australia (only making this connection since Aussie Peter Moylan was also an Espresso machine aficionado)

And then the Cuban team decided to not suck anymore at least for one night

After Yoan Moncada made an error in a 4 run Panamanian inning, he doubled, got to third, and was out in-between third and home on a ground ball. Then Panama stole a base because Erisbel Arruebarrena, who was exiled from the Dodgers for breaking their rules, couldn't lay down a tag. Then their first baseman blew through a stop sign to get gunned down at the plate. The Cuban team looked to the Mets as a model.. unfortunately it has turned out to be the 1992 Mets. If this program was being run like the dictatorship that some South Florida residents believe they are, then people would be going to jail over this. I don't think they'll do that. Instead they'll make decisions like a sports talk radio caller and scapegoat the fuck out of the defectors (some of which have been awful).

If there was anybody in the Cuban system openly opposing letting defectors onto the Cuban team, they’re gonna just keep reminding people that they were right about the defectors until everybody else gets sick of hearing it. In other words, Cuba might go 0-4 in the WBC

Marlins getting some late Cuban signees today. Signing Yuli Gurriel and also signing Jose Iglesias as a non-roster invitee

and Patrick Ewing is out at Georgetown

Erisbel Arreubarrena just returning to Cuba and getting to play again after washing out with the Dodgers was something I didn’t know about until a few days ago. I only found out about it because I forgot if he was the guy that Miguel Olivo bit (Miguel Olivo bit Alex Guerrero, who is also a Cuban) Meanwhile in WBC exhibitions, the Kansas City Royals defeated Great Britain 8-1.

FTR is a balanced tag team. Dax never stops posting and Cash is a reply-guy.

The Cuban team this time seems like a half-ass dream team where most of the best Cuban players have legitimate reasons to stay away. Also doesn’t help that they’re playing their games so far away from Cuba due to the obvious reasons of why they wouldn’t play in the US. Panama beating Taiwan easily was a surprise to me since I thought that Taiwan might have some wind in the sails playing on their home turf.

Is this offense too serious for the community service to involve putting his name on a one day youth basketball seminar?

Colgate and Montana State win their conference tourneys. The next autobids come on Saturday when 13 conference tournament finals are played

Vince Russo might have come the closest to that sort of gimmick with the late 1999 Johnny Marinara/Disco Inferno feud.. and then Johnny quickly went to ECW and cracked his head open once (I think I got that timeline right)

Australia vs South Korea is the baseball clash we didn't know that we needed

if DiBiase is Vince, would Face Million Dollar Man have started feuding with a fake Ted Turner?

a shame that Ted DiBiase was unable to invent the Bumfights video genre but 1980s WWF jobbers were pretty putrid feels like "person who escaped from Ted DiBiase's overseas diamond-mine" would have been a better character than having Nailz emerge as a heel to feud with the Bossman. But they did hint at "Ted DiBiase is keeping Virgil because of something he did for the family" early in 1991.

we "missed out" on late 80s DiBiase opting out of squash matches in order to persuade two jobguys to wrestle each other for a chance of making some extra money