You probably saw it hoisted on high during the parade on Broad Street, but tomorrow is your chance to see the World Series Trophy up close. The festivities begin at 2 p.m., with the trophy arriving at 3 p.m. Bring your Penncard because the event is apparently not open to the public
For those of you looking for a break from the NCAA tournament monotony, one of my colleagues got a great interview with Penn engineering alum and nine-year MLB player Doug Glanville.
The Phillies fans out there probably remember his two stints with the team, while Cubs fans undoubtedly recall his game-winning triple in the 11th inning of Game 3 of the 2003 NLCS.
The full transcript couldn't fit into the paper, so make sure to read the whole thing online because it's a very interesting read.
I'll admit I didn't watch too much of the games today, though I caught the finish of most games. So my thoughts will be short.
What I liked
For those of you looking to pass the three days until the Sweet Sixteen, Jack Curry wrote a nice profile of our favorite Penn two-sport athlete, Mark DeRosa, in today's New York Times.
DeRosa, of course, played baseball and football with the Quakers before embarking on a major league baseball career. He is now with the Cleveland Indians and Team USA, and in late 2007 gave an exclusive interview to the DP.
Curry has more on DeRosa at The Bats blog, too.
1) Dartmouth played in the opening round of the NCAA Women's Tournament, and it wasn't pretty. No. 1 Maryland destroyed them, winning 83-52. Not helping the Big Green, the game was played at Maryland's Comcast Center. Here's a more humorous look at the game.
2) The women's basketball team participated in the "Pink Zone" campaign to raise money/awareness for breast cancer research this season. Today Penn athletics announced that the team raised over $8,000 this year from "Pink Zone" t-shirts, individual contributions and ticket sales from the game against Yale which was designated the "Pink Zone" game of the year for Penn.
3) Alex Grendi, who was a key contributor to the men's soccer team's Ivy League Championship, was signed to a developmental contract by the Columbus Crew earlier this month after being drafted in January. Well last night the Crew tied the Houston Dyanmo, and Grendi got an assist -- according to Penn Athletics. However, ESPN didn't give him the assist. I guess the world wide leader only counts the pass immediately preceding the goal.
Sorry this is a little late, but I wasn't by my computer last night. And just a disclaimer: as you can see from my Day 1 and Day 2 entries, these thoughts are my opinions. As such they're inherently biased, which I realize isn't exactly in line with journalism objectivity. So if any Duke fans are reading this, sorry.
Continue after the jump.
What I liked
Yesterday, my colleague Andrew Scurria questioned why, politically, President Obama would fill out a bracket. Stats guru Nate Silver offers one answer: Obama's picks -- which, as of this writing, have the Leader of the Free World ranked at No. 3,337,106 on ESPN.com -- tend to favor schools in swing states.
Jay Leno asked Obama about this 36-plus minutes into his Tonight Show appearance:
MR. LENO: Like, do you look at the whole picture when you do that? For example, isn’t that a swing state? (Laughter and applause.) I'm just saying, are you looking at the whole picture when you pick?
MR. OBAMA: I mean, the fact that teams from North Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, all seem to do well in my bracket –- (laughter) –- I think is a complete coincidence. Absolutely.
Silver's findings were statistically significant (at the 90% level), but probably not significant in any real sense, with 2012 still three years away.
Yet there have been some more meaningful studies to get you through March Madness, and Penn has been at the forefront. In last Sunday's New York Times, two Wharton professors wrote that NCAA hoops teams trailing by one at half are actually more likely to win than teams up by one. More after the jump.
Take a look:
The authors explain the results, which control for factors like home-court advantage, respective winning percentages and which team started with the ball: "The reason is motivation. Being behind by a little leads to victory because it increases effort. Not only do teams down by a point at the break score more than their opponents in the second half, they do so in a particular way. They come out of the locker room fired up and make up for most of the point deficit in the first few minutes of the second half."
Meanwhile, wondering when to give up on your favorite teams? Bill James has a formula: "Take the number of points one team is ahead. Subtract three. Add a half-point if the team that is ahead has the ball, and subtract a half-point if the other team has the ball. (Numbers less than zero become zero.) Square that. If the result is greater than the number of seconds left in the game, the lead is safe."
So fans, hang in there -- even a 20-point lead with five minutes remaining isn't safe yet.
From a political perspective, I don't see why President Obama's advisers thought it was smart for him to fill out an NCAA bracket. If he does poorly, he looks like a sports dunce. If he does well, he looks like a man who should be spending less time filling out brackets and more time saving Citigroup or crucifying A.I.G. And no matter how well Obama does, someone who wasn't happy with a Presidential snub was bound to mouth off at some point.
For Penn president Amy Gutmann, on the other hand, making picks in public is a good move. She has nothing to lose in the court of public opinion. If her bracket gets busted, who will notice?
Wouldn't you know it, Obama's picks are falterning already, while Gutmann's are doing quite well. Penn's fearless leader gue- I mean, picked the correct team in 23 of 32 first-round games. Obama's bracket — the one issue he's been conservative on — was right on just 19 of 32 games, and he lost two of his Sweet Sixteen teams (Florida State and Wake Forest), while Gutmann lost one (also Wake Forest).
Continuing on what I did yesterday here are my thoughts on the second day of the tournament after the jump.
What I liked
Not much worth talking about here. The box score of a basketball game doesn't always tell the whole story, but this one comes darn close. Here are recaps from The Cornell Daily Sun, The New York Times, The Kansas City Star , The St. Louis Post-Dispatch , The Sporting Network and The Missourian.
And here's some insult to go along with that injury.
Welcome to Session IV of the 2009 NCAA Wrestling Championships at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis! Soon up for the Quakers will be their final competing wrestler, No. 8 seed Rollie Peterkin at 125 pounds. A recap of earlier rounds will follow an account of his consolation quarterfinal bout.
Here's a quick recap of everyone's results: 125: No. 8 Peterkin def. Olanowski (Michigan St.), 21-1 No. 8 Peterkin def. No. 9 Clark (Iowa St.), 6-3 No. 1 Donahoe (Edinboro) def. No. 8 Peterkin, 7-3 No. 10 Sentes (Central Michigan) def. No. 8 Peterkin, 4-0 Peterkin's record: 2-2
141: No. 5 Hoehn (Missouri) def. Rappo, 3-2 TB1 Fish (Boise St.) def. Rappo, 7-0 Rappo's record: 0-2
149: No. 3 Caldwell (NC State) def. Grajales, pin Grajales def. Hickman (Bloomsburg), 10-5 Grajales def. Kyler (Army), 3-2 Barnes (Oregon St.) def. Grajales, 11-3 Grajales' record: 2-2
157: No. 8 Hall (Boise St.) def. Dragon, 8-5 Johnstone (Ohio St.) def. Dragon, 11-8 Dragon's record: 2-2
174: Giffin def. No. 10 Brenner (West Virginia), 6-3 No. 7 Miller (Central Michigan) def. Giffin, 4-1 Onufer (Wyoming) def. Giffin, 5-3 Giffin's record: 1-2
HWT: Everhart (Indiana) def. McLean, 11-5 Hammond (Cornell) def. McLean, 3-1 McLean's record: 0-2
Here we are, two hours away from Cornell's chance to do something truly great.
Coach Steve Donahue has seemed awfully optimistic about the 14-seeded Big Red's matchup with third-seeded Missouri. On a conference call with reporters earlier this week, Donahue emphasized several times that a second postseason is far different from -- and easier than -- the first, and that this Cornell team is far more experienced than the Tigers. (And on paper, that's true.) He added that his players have been more composed and focused than they were during last year's Tournament preparations. Take those claims for whatever you think they're worth, but Donahue is not normally one to throw around stuff like that for the heck of it. He better be right, because Vegas has pegged the Tigers as a 12-1/2 point favorite.
If you have time to kill before the game starts, here are previews from The Cornell Daily Sun, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Sporting News, The Ithaca Journal, The Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, The Kirksville (Mo.) Daily Express, The Elmira (N.Y.) Star-Gazette, The Kansas City Star, The Missourian, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Orlando Sentinel, USA Today, MSNBC and Jon Jacques, a forward for the Big Red. And here are profiles of forward Ryan Wittman, guard Louis Dale, center Jeff Foote and Donahue of Cornell, as well as forward DeMare Carroll, former coach Norm Stewart and current coach Mike Anderson of Missouri. The Journal also has an interesting story on how Donahue is trying to exploit Cornell's moment in the spotlight to recruit prospective Big Red ballers.
Enjoy the game.
Hello and welcome back to the 2009 NCAA Wrestling Championships. Penn 125-pounder Rollie Peterkin is about to begin his quarterfinal match against No. 1 seed Paul Donahoe of Edinboro, so a recap of last two sessions will follow an account of Peterkin's match. Thank you and keep reading!
Here's a quick recap of the tournament so far for each Penn wrestler.
125: No. 8 seed Rollie Peterkin started strong, beating unseeded Evan Olanowski of Michigan State by technical fall, 21-1. He followed that up with an equally impressive win, outlasting No. 9 seed Tyler Clark of Iowa State, 6-3, to make it to the quarterfinals. Peterkin just lost his quarterfinal match to No. 1 seed Paul Donahoe of Edinboro, 7-3. A full account of that match can be found below.
141: In his final NCAA tournament, senior Rick Rappo had a disappointing performance, going 0-2 and being eliminated on the first day. He looked good in his first match, taking No. 5 seed Marcus Hoehn of Missouri to double overtime before losing 3-2. But he couldn't follow up that strong performance and lost his first consolation match to Cory Fish of Boise State, 7-0.
149: Senior Cesar Grajales started off his tournament with a tough draw, having to wrestle No. 3 seed Darrion Caldwell of NC State. Caldwell proved too fast and explosive for Grajales, notching a pin in the first period. But Grajales was able to bounce back, notching two consolation wins, over George Hickman of Bloomsburg and Mitchell Polkowske of Northern Colorado, to make it to the second day.
157: Like Rappo, 157-pounder Matt Dragon had a dissapointing first day. He went 0-2, losing to No. 8 seed Adam Hall of Boise State and Jason Johnstone of Ohio State. Despite being a senior, Dragon has one more year of eligibility, so he may well be able to make All-American next year.
174: One of the more impressive performances of the first day came from redshirt sophomore Scott Giffin. He started off with a big upset of No. 10 seed Kurt Brenner of West Virginia, 6-3. He then followed that up with a narrow loss to No. 7 seed Mike Miller of Central Michigan, falling 4-1. He will wrestle unseeded Shane Onufer of Wyoming in his first consolation match.
HWT: Senior Trey McLean wrestled one of the first matches of the day, and thus knew he was relegated to the consolations very early after losing, 11-5, to Nathan Everhart of Indiana. He followed that up with a 3-1 loss to Zach Hammond of Cornell to end his Penn wrestling career.
Continuing with the March Madness, I thought I'd post my thoughts on Day 1. So continue after the jump to read what I liked and disliked from Day 1. What I liked
But as described above, that was not to be. I don't blame him at all. Instead it was perfect defense by UCLA. In fact, the Rams took about five of the 11.9 seconds left in the game on their last possession to cross midcourt thanks to tough full-court man-to-man by UCLA.
Welcome back to second session of the 2009 NCAA Wrestling Championships, held at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Mo. Before I get started, here is a quick recap of last session and the matches that Penn wrestlers have already wrestled this session.
Last session, the six Quakers wrestlers were only able to produce a total of two wins. Rollie Peterkin, seeded eighth at 125 pounds, won his opening round match over Michigan State's Evan Olanowski, 21-1. Scott Giffin scored a big upset over No. 10 seed Kurt Brenner of West Virginia at 174, outlasting the Mountaineer 6-3.
Aside from those two impressive wins, the Quakers had a lackluster first session. Heavyweight Trey McLean and 157-pounder Matt Dragon both lost in pigtail matches, and Cesar Grajales and Rick Rappo, at 149 and 141, respectively, each lost in the first round.
At the end of session one, Penn was in 31st place with 5.5 points.
Thus far, the second round has been more of the same for Penn. The Quakers had two good matches, a 6-3 win by Peterkin over No. 9 seed Tyler Clark of Iowa State and a 10-5 triumph by Grajales over George Hickman of Bloomsburg. But, just like in the first round, the Red and Blue had to deal with some dissappointment. Both Dragon and McLean ended their Penn wrestling careers on down notes. Dragon lost 11-8 to Ohio State's Jason Johnstone and McLean fell to Cornell's Zach Hammond, 3-1. Both are eliminated from the tournament.
Rick Rappo is still waiting to wrestle his first consolation match.
This is Eli Cohen coming to you live from the Scottrade center in St. Louis, Missouri. I'll be posting live updates on the Quakers wrestlers' performances at the NCAA Championships through Saturday. Six Penn grapplers qualified for the tournament, but only one, #8 Rollie Peterkin at 125 pounds, is seeded.
Follow along as I use Cover it Live below.
These four next days are the best four days in sports.
No question.
Whether or not my bracket gets completely shot by Sunday, I always enjoy this first weekend of the tournament. However, I agree to some extent with this Micahel Wilbon column. With fewer and fewer Mid-Major teams receiving at-large bids, some degree of the magic of this weekend has disappeared. Let's say either 12 seed Arizona or Wisconsin beats Utah or Florida State, respectively. Would it even feel like an upset since it'd just be a power conference team winning? (I mean it's Arizona, for crying out loud. They've made the tournament for 24 straight years.)
Mid-Major snubs or not, we still have some local interest in the tournament. Penn played four tournament teams this year: North Carolina, Villanova, Temple and Cornell, with the first two playing today and the second two starting tomorrow. UNC's going to coast against Radford, but No. 14 American might give Villanova a tougher game than you might think.
However, I still believe that Villanova will beat them. In fact, I have Villanova going really far. Like really, really far.
As you can see on the DP website by scrolling over "See DP editors' brackets" in the lower right-hand corner and then choosing my name, I've picked Villanova to go to the Final Four. I also have Connecticut, Louisville and Oklahoma, with the Huskies beating the Cardinals in the National Championship game. So yeah, I basically have 1985 all over again, with three Big East teams, but I don't have the Wildcats pulling off the upset. I just think Blake Griffin would be too much for Daunte Cunningham.
And I have Fran Dunphy getting not just his first tournament win since 1994, but his first two tournament wins. I can't wait for Christmas to have a career night against the Orange in the second round. But again, if I think Griffin would best Cunningham, he certainly is besting Olmos.
Finally Cornell. Yeah you're not beating Missouri. I see Missouri's athletic guards causing numerous first-half turnovers (let's say 12) against the Big Red using their "40 minutes of hell" press. Cornell might hang around for the first couple of media timeouts, but this game should be over by halftime.
Other notable upsets: No. 12 Northern Iowa beating No. 5 Purdue and No. 4 Washington (both overrated teams in my opinion). No. 4 Gonzaga beating UNC in the Sweet 16 (Ty Lawson's injury scares me). And I have three 11 seeds winning (VCU over UCLA, Utah State over Marquette and the aforementioned Temple upset).
Backtracking for a second, I strongly encourage you to check out the DP link above since it has all of us sports editors' picks, as well as stats for every tournament team.
I'll admit I had a lot of trouble choosing my bracket this year (and to be honest I have a few other entries in various pools). So how badly do you guys disagree with me?
Last year I did extremely well in my various March Madness pools, as I guessed 3/4 of the Final Four correctly, including eventual champion Kansas. But unlike last year when I just had this feeling Kansas was going to pull through, this year I have zero confidence in my bracket.
Eventually I'll post my bracket on here once I finalize it. But in the meantime, here are a few interesting brackets I've found on the internet.
ESPN's Andy Katz interviewed President Obama and had the Commander-in-Chief create his own bracket. He eventually picked UNC to beat Louisville with Memphis and Pitt the other Final Four teams. He actually had a TON of chalk, as the top eight seeds made the Elite Eight except No. 3 Syracuse over No. 2 Oklahoma. Similarly, except for five seeds Florida State and Purdue, the entire Sweet 16 was chalk. His biggest upsets were 11 seeds Temple and VCU winning in the first round.
Dan Steinberg, of The Washington Post's "D.C. Sports Bog" fame, loves Vegas rankings (he uses them for the college football). So he posted one Vegas consulting firm's picks for this year. They actually have similar results to Obama (same UNC over Louisville final) and a lot of chalk (30 of 32 favorites in the first round). But these numbers are based on 1,000 simulations, so it makes sense that the better team will win over such a large sample.
I have very little time, but let me quickly weigh in on the Harrison Gaines situation. First, read the very strong column in today's paper by my colleague Matt Flegenheimer. Then, after the jump, read my brief lengthy thoughts.
Throughout the season, I have been able to rationalize -- at least in my mind -- most of the issues that have plagued this basketball team. I firmly believed, and still believe, that Glen Miller has had incredibly bad luck throughout his tenure, to go along with the fact that this team was simply too young and inexperienced to win consistently over the past two years.
That said, the Harrison Gaines story is very troubling to me for a few reasons, some of which reflect poorly on Miller. While I don't fully know all of the circumstances surrounding Gaines' decision to transfer, here is what I can offer based on my conversations with Harrison over the past two years and my general knowledge of his role on the team.
1. Gaines was part of Miller's very first recruiting class -- and a player that Miller expected to play a very big role in this program. There is a reason why Gaines started last season, and why even with Zack Rosen taking over the starting point guard role this season, Miller still tried to get Gaines into the starting lineup, especially down the stretch. Any time a highly-sought after recruit (Remy Cofield cannot be categorized as such) chooses to bail on the coach that recruited him, for whatever reason, it is a serious problem.
2. Given his father's comments, which stated that Gaines had been thinking about leaving as early as last year, Gaines likely chose to leave for the obvious reason that he was brought in to the be the point guard of the future, and just as he was learning the ropes, his coach brought in another point guard. This is a dicey situation -- Rosen is a more skilled pure point guard than Gaines, but Gaines came to Penn to run the point, or so he was told, before Rosen got here. I have a tough time faulting Miller for trying to grab the best recruits he could get, but Gaines' desire to leave as a result of this situation is perfectly understandable.
3. His decision to transfer raises questions about Miller's management of this situation. However, it is hardly an uncommon occurrence to have a player change his role or position on a team as new players come in. Throughout the Ivy stretch, Miller made an effort to get Gaines involved in the starting lineup and get him touches. Gaines responded by becoming the one of the team's most reliable scorers. I wrote on numerous occasions that, while I once thought Gaines' career was essentially doomed the second Rosen signed on with the Quakers, it now appeared that Rosen's arrival was the best thing that could have happened for Gaines. It seemed that by taking Gaines out of the point guard role and letting him focus on scoring, everyone benefited. As such, I really do question what Gaines is thinking when he claims he wants to better utilize his full set of skills. It seemed to me that Miller was casting him in a role that maximized his strengths and minimized his weaknesses. Evidently, Gaines disagreed. He's not tall enough to play anything other than point guard in a more competitive conference than the Ivy League, but at Penn with Rosen in the backcourt, Gaines' ideal role was the one he was playing at season's end. If he simply wants to run the point and be a scorer and can find a program that can accommodate him, then more power to him.
4. Regardless of Gaines' judgment or assessment of his own skill set, the one thing that I will say is that he has been a true class act in his two years here. As a reporter, I can tell you that he has provided the best, most entertaining, most candid, and most articulate interviews of anyone on the basketball team over the past two years. To that end, the manner in which he announced his departure is rather suspicious. Especially given all of the controversy surrounding Miller this season and the other departures, Gaines could have easily made a statement about how this was a personal decision and had nothing to do with the coach, or something to that effect. I would have expected as much from him if that were truly the case. Instead, he made no effort to save Miller from the vultures. I can only infer that he was not pleased with the state of affairs, and that is a direct reflection on the coach.
Still, it is vital to keep in mind that while he might not publicly admit it, Gaines could have felt personally affronted by Miller's pursuit and signing of Rosen. From the press release, it clearly bothered him last year, and perhaps he just never got over it. And I can't blame him for that -- it's too bad that he and Miller couldn't work it all out. Miller is responsible for this situation and can fairly be blamed for the loss of Gaines, for better or for worse. It is a bad reflection on him and the program, regardless of the circumstances. At the end of the day, if Rosen blossoms into the superstar many expect him to become, then Miller doesn't look quite as bad. But if the situation with Gaines could have been managed differently, and both players continued to work together in the backcourt, the future prospects for this team might have been brighter. Sadly, we will never know for sure.
Your comments are welcome as always, though I apologize in advance if I do not respond to them and follow up in the next week with new posts as I usually do. I'm swamped with thesis work right now -- I am now even regretting this 30-minute Buzz diversion...
In honor of America's favorite ethnic holiday (sorry Cinco de Mayo), here's Random Ivy notes, in green font.
1) Want to know how the City Six coaches are filling out their brackets? Well Soft Pretzel Logic has you covered. I personally was intrigued by the John Calipari/Bruiser Flint versus Jim Calhoun/Glen Miller rivalry.
2) A favorite takeoff of the NCAA bracket of mine is "Salary Madness" which simulates the NCAA tournament results based on median salaries of the 65 institutions. As normal, the Ivy League representative did extremely well, as Cornell finished second to Duke
The Big Red actually got hosed last year, as they faced powerhouse Stanford in the first round. In fact, the Cardinal won last year's bracket so Cornell, despite the fourth highest median, lost in the first round.
3) The women's bracket was announced today. As has been the case in recent years, the Ivy League representative has gotten a 16 seed. That won't change this year, as Dartmouth faces Maryland at the Comcast Center (no not that one) in College Park, Md.
In terms of other Penn-related schools, Big 5 foes Temple and Villanova got bids, as did Drexel. Those teams will face No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Utah and No. 5 Kansas State, respectively.
4) Moving away form March Madness, the University announced "firm plans" for Penn Park, the 24-acre parcel of land that the University will turn into athletic and recreational fields. The article doesn't give an intended date of completion, but it does quote from the DP.
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