CMJ

They don't take whether you matched Vegas's spread into consideration, but our efficiency numbers likely took a big hit.

When teams start getting long bowl losing streaks, it's always brought up. Remember when Notre Dame lost like a dozen bowl games in a row? It was constantly mentioned in the press. I mean it sucks, but it's fair to say.

The NCAA Tournament hasn't been less than 16 teams since 1951. In '53 it went to 22 and depending on the year was between 22 and 25 (some years they had more and then less play-in games) until the 1975 expansion to 32. That was followed quickly by expansions to 40 ('79), then 48('80), 52(' 83), 53 ('84), and then finally 64 ('85), 65 ('01), 68 (2011). I doubt many remember a time of less than 22 teams in the field. Given how routine upsets in the NCAA Tournament, I don't one can say the overall quality of the product is that poor. Besides, since all the league champions get in (and always have - it's just there are more conferences recognized now), the vast majority of the blowouts are of champions, not of also rans from conferences.

I gotta totally disagree on this...October baseball is the best pro-post season. I'd watch every game if we weren't on vacation (my wife usually gets a vacation in late September/early October, so I tend to miss at least a round of October baseball).

NT 62 -------- HCU 46 Final

NT 56 -------- HCU 40 3:58 to go Sorta struggling, but so are they.

NT 51 -------- HCU 36 7:31 to go Cruising right now.

NT 46 -------- HCU 34 11:27 to go Definitely have the advantage, but it's not put away yet. Another four or five solid minutes puts the Huskies on ice IMHO.

NT 44 -------- HCU 32 13:03 to go Sissoko taking advantage of his size advantage today. Wright starting to hit some shot after zero in the first.

NT 30 -------- HCU 23 Halftime Nice close after they'd crept to within one.

NT 22 -------- HCU 21 3:52 to go Bad guys on a 7-0 run.

NT 18 -------- HCU 12 7:40 to go Huskies crawling back into it.

NT 18 -------- HCU 7 9:15 to go Over the last seven minutes we're on a 13-3 run.

NT 7 -------- HCU 4 15:24 to go They're undersized, but doing a decent job of protecting the interior against us so far.

I guess Tennessee didn't deserve to be in the tournament either. Maybe the SEC was only top heavy with Georgia and Texas. I'm obviously being facetious. What I said earlier is true...you can't give too many hot takes or give reasonable judgements about teams being deserving or not because of one game. Sometimes blowouts happen in big games even when teams are well matched on paper.

Blowouts can happen, even when both teams obviously deserve to be there. Just a few years ago Clemson annihilated Alabama in the national title game. I'm not saying SMU was super worthy, but you can't just go by rankings....league champions deserve a shot (yeah SMU wasn't a champ, but this same line of thinking has been used against Boise State and others for years).

Sure, the AD could do better, but also put blame on our fanbase.

Even into the late 90s it was fairly reasonable. The 1998-1999 Bowl season had 22 games. By the 2008-2009 Bowl season there were 34.

I'm in my mid 40s and I feel similarly. When I was a kid there were maybe 20 total bowl games max, so you usually had really quality matchups in all of them. You'd also go into New Year's Day with maybe 6 or 7 teams thinking if things fell right they could be national champs. Even the earliest forms of playoff discussion I remember back in the mid to late 80s usually just involved a game after the bowls (as then constituted) between whoever ended up as 1 and 2.

Two home games in a row...two wins....two to go.

I'd like to think we're still finding each other and by season's end our offense will be a bit more dependable.

NT 68 -------- ASU 64 Final

NT 66 -------- ASU 64 11.5 seconds to go Gonna have to hit some free throws.

NT 62 -------- ASU 59 1:06 to go Can't kill them.

NT 58 -------- ASU 54 3:29 to go Pushed the lead back to nine, but they're reeling us back in again.