Recap of Villanova Sports: 2010-2011

Started with a kickoff and an opening tip, coming back for revenge against those we dismiss. Defending as champions on and off our home turf, the competition was out to get us and we were in for the worst. A QB with experience and knowing about the game, however interceptions here and there it all seems to be the same. Tight wins, close losses, tension building in the air and to put the cherry on top, our superstar went down...then no one cared. So whose to blame for inconsistant play? But wait, we're in the semifinals, turn on ESPN and clearly say " How possibly did we get here we better tackle and block like shields, but what's the deal with their red turf, c'mon are there really red fields?" The travel out West hurt their chance and all their wishes and needs, but then again we came to play, beating #1 AND two seeds. So hats off to Nova football for a season well done, Talley's troops will come back firing for the trophy and to be number one (again).

Believing in a team takes passion and pride, with three seniors at the helm it seemed like we were in for a ride, and oh were we ever after being 16-1, the tough part of the season presented no fun. Win here, losses there little hope around school with brackets busting left and right, you didn't have to be a fool to know that the tourney was far out in sight, but somehow we made it on Selection Sunday that night. The team had proven they can play ball, but could they handle the pressure with their backs against the wall? A Patriot team like cinderella at the ball, surprising big schools and watching them fall. Would it happen again, a close game first round? Well let's just say we were like dogs in the pound, shut down throughout the game like a computer on lock, hit a few threes and they got a few blocks. One final shot at the end of the game, hit the upper window and hope was never the same. A tough season to say the least, but there's good times very near, hopefully 2011-2012 we'll be able to cheer even louder and more with little complaints to say, in order to get noticed and bring back Gameday. Yes, a season of ups and downs it was hard to conceive, but forget about the tough times and always believe.

NFL Draft Today

My three favorite days of the year: Christmas, the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft. With my inaugural post on "The Point After" I figure I'll get right to it and start with my mock for the first round.

1. Carolina Panthers- QB Cam Newton, Auburn

2. Denver Broncos- DT Marcell Dareus, Alabama

3. Buffalo Bills- OLB Von Miller, Texas A&M

4. Cincinnati Bengals- WR A.J. Green, Georgia

5. Arizona Cardinals- CB Patrick Peterson, LSU

6. Cleveland Browns- DE Robert Quinn, North Carolina

7. San Francisco 49ers- QB Blaine Gabbert, Missouri

8. Tennessee Titans- DT Nick Fairley, Auburn

9. Dallas Cowboys- CB Prince Amukamara, Nebraska

10. Washington Redskins- WR Julio Jones, Alabama

11. Houston Texans- DE J.J. Watt, Wisconsin

12. Minnesota Vikings- DE Da'Quan Bowers, Clemson

13. Detroit Lions- OT Tyron Smith, Detroit

14. St. Louis Rams- DT Corey Liuget, Illinois

15. Miami Dolphins- RB Mark Ingram, Alabama

16. Jacksonville Jaguars- DE Aldon Smith, Missouri

17. New England Patriots- DE Cameron Jordan, California

18. San Diego Chargers- DE Muhammad Wilkerson, Temple

19. New York Giants- OL Mike Pouncey, Florida

20. Tampa Bay Buccaneers- DE Ryan Kerrigan, Purdue

21. Kansas City Chiefs- OLB Akeem Ayers, UCLA

22. Indianapolis Colts- OT Anthony Castonzo, Boston College

23. Philadelphia Eagles- CB Jimmy Smith, Colorado

24. New Orleans Saints- DE Adrian Clayborn, Iowa

25. Seattle Seahawks- QB Jake Locker, Washington

26. Baltimore Ravens- CB Brandon Harris, Miami (FL)

27. Atlanta Falcons- TE Kyle Rudolph, Notre Dame

28. New England Patriots- OLB Justin Houston, Georgia

29. Chicago Bears- OT Nate Solder, Colorado

30. New York Jets- DT Phil Taylor, Baylor

31. Pittsburgh Steelers- OG Danny Watkins, Baylor

32. Green Bay Packers- RB Mikel Leshoure, Illinois

Champions League Semifinals

Barcelona vs. Real Madrid

It is amazing how much of a difference six months makes in the world of sports, especially soccer.

After a 5-0 embarrassment to Barcelona about half a year ago, the world was talking about how Real Madrid was out matched, out coached, and brutally out classed by the Catalans in El Clasico. The proclaimed best team in the world certainly showed signs of brilliance and nearly achieved football's version of perfection as David Villa scored twice in this game that saw 13 yellow cards and 1 red card (Sergio Ramos 90'). Would Real Madrid and manager Jose Mourinho be able to right the sinking ship?

Clearly they have...

Now, as we enter the Champions League Semifinal pairings, we see a team who drew 1-1 with Barcelona after going down a man six minutes into the second half. Goals by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the 53rd and 82nd minute respectively, both from the Penalty Spot, were the only goals in this Clasico. Madrid looked like a new team, and were infuriated after the straight red card to Raul Albiol, and focused this energy on attacking, earning them a well deserved draw. This was only the beginning though.

In the Copa del Rey (domestic cup) Final, Real Madrid carried this energy intensity into this game, attacking the Catalans. Most teams will sit back and wait until Barca loses the ball and then tries to build up an offense of their own. Madrid used Pepe to mark Messi as he did in the previous match, and for all intensive purposes, Pepe shut him down, save a few plays by Messi. Mourinho also used Mesut Özil, the German playmaker, to create a brilliant attack that found Ronaldo and Di Maria constantly wide open and in space. After 90 minutes of scoreless action in which Real had the upper hand, Ronaldo struck off a header in Overtime from a double pass between Marcelo and Di Maria. The 1-0 victory should give this Real squad incredible confidence going into the first leg of the CL Semifinals.

We will have to wait and see which Barcelona team shows up... They have the talent to beat any team, but we will see if the play making of Lionel Messi or the Einstein-like coaching of Mourinho prevails to win a trip to the Champions League Final.

Manchester United vs. Schalke

There is not a lot of history between these two teams... They play in different leagues and do not see each other except in the European Tournaments.

United has a six point lead in the Premier League, clearly showing the strength of their side.

Schalke meanwhile, is sitting in 10th in the Bundesliga, with a rocky domestic season, but a rock-solid Champions league so far.

United will be favored no doubt, but do not be surprised if Manuel Neuer, Raul and Co. steal the first leg which is being played in Germany. Neuer has the ability to blank any team, and Raul can be a scoring machine, but will it be enough to defeat the Red Devils?

We will find out shortly.

S04 vs MAN Tuesday April 26 at 2:45 EST

RMD vs BAR Wednesday April 27 at 2:45 EST

The Real NBA Season Begins

16 wins separate 16 teams from the NBA championship.  There is no such thing as an easy road to the title, with many teams dealing with injured players.  Some have been waiting for ages for this to begin, as a star-studded free agent class last season has put many teams in position to win the NBA Championship.  The Heat, Bulls, and Knicks would not have been in this position, if it weren't for the signing of franchise players.  The East is front-loaded, while the West is deep.  So who will come out as the NBA Champion? Here are my predictions.

East: 

Chicago over Pacers in 5

Miami over Philadelphia in 4

Boston over New York in 6

Orlando over Atlanta in 7

Chicago over Orlando in 6

Miami over Boston in 5

Chicago over Miami in 7 (Home court advantage is the key for the Bulls)

West:

Memphis over San Antonio in 6 

Los Angeles over New Orleans in 5

Dallas over Portland in 6

Denver over Oklahoma City in 6

Denver over Memphis in 6

Los Angeles over Dallas in 6

Los Angeles over Denver in 5

FINALS:

Los Angeles over Chicago in 6

This is a safe pick, but if Bynum is healthy, the Lakers are the best team in the league.  Kobe Bryant is a different player in the playoffs and with such a strong bench and Phil Jackson on the bench, the Lakers will three-peat once again.  Jackson will get his 12th ring and Kobe's 6th will bring up even more MJ comparisons, even though it's still not close.  

Whats wrong with the RBI?

Disclaimer: This will be the first of a series of posts in which I try to educate the masses on the perils of evaluating baseball players on statistics that really aren't that good at describing the impact a player has. If you have no interest in stats, move on. But if you are in the least bit curious of another world of baseball analysis, take the red pill and see how far the rabbit hole goes.

So I figured that if I was going to try to tackle something as large as the traditional way people have been evaluating baseball players for about 100 years, I might as well start with one of the ones that people are the most tantalized with. Now, I am not even close to the first person to think this way, nor will I be the last, and there are much better writers than I who have already written on the subject. I feel however, that in order to truly change the the paradigm of what makes a good (or a bad) baseball player, we need all hands on deck. The more people reaching out to those sports crazed, fantasy baseball playing, ESPN watching people across the country, the bigger impact we will have.

So like I said above, I'm gonna try to knock down the Goliath of stats: The RBI. Ah yes, the one hitting stat to rule them all. It's the stat that people look at at the end of the year and say, man, look at all those runs he batted in, what a great year he had. And yet, it is an incredibly misleading statistic that is heavily reliant on context. Most people don't realize this, so they judge players based on the amount of players they batted in. So in order to help people realize this, lets look at a formula to help us get the most RBI's possible in a season.

So first what we need is a guy with tons of power. Does he have to hit homeruns? Nope. He can be a gap hitter too. But he needs to hit the ball far, and he needs to do it consistently. Ok now that we have a guy who can hit the ball incredibly far, are we done? Nope. Because now we have to position him in the lineup that is conducive to batting runners in. Let's put our batter, oh say, in the fourth spot. Are we done? You'd think so, but you'd also be wrong. The last part of our equation has nothing to do with our hitter. We have to make sure that the people that hit before him can actually get on base in the first place. So I'm going to put the guy who has the highest On Base Percentage (OBP) in the first two spots, and another very good hitter third. Congratulations, we just made an RBI hitting machine!

So we have a guy who can hit the ball far, is in the right part of the order to bat runners over, and he has players hitting ahead of him that get on base a lot. So my question is. Why do we value the RBI over almost everything else? It's not like our hitter has a special skill that allows him to hit with runners on base. Let me restate that point, with emphasis. COMING TO BAT WITH RUNNERS ON BASE IS NOT A SKILL. If you put our same power hitting player 8th in the lineup, or put him at leadoff, the result is that his RBI total will plummet, because he isn't in a position to maximize his at bats with runners in scoring position.

And please don't come at me with this whole, "but the player who hits runners in is clutch, that's why he gets a lot of RBI's" act. Jayson Werth is not going to get as many RBI's this year as last year, and it's not because he's worse, or less clutch, or anything like that. It's because he's on the Washington Nationals. And Ryan Howard will get over 100 RBI's again, because he's on the Phillies. Ryan Howard will have many, many more opportunities to hit runners in, and because of this, he will get more RBI's. It has nothing to do with his clutchness, or lack of clutchness, or any other intangible characteristic.

There are much better ways of evaluating players. Can we please put an end to the incredibly misguided perception of the importance of the RBI?

No Need to Panic

The human brain is dumb. I don't mean to insult anybody, it just is. It tries to find patterns and things when there isn't one. It's helped us stay alive as we evolved, but it doesn't really help us understand the game of baseball. People put so much emphasis on the difference between hitting .280 and .300, and say that the latter is a much better hitter then the former. But of course the real difference between these hitters is a couple of hits spread out across the season, which could be the result of a ball hitting a rock funny, a gust of wind taking the ball away from the fielder, etc. I talk about this because people argue until they are blue in the face about batting average, and RBI's, and pitchers' wins, and all of those types of stats.

I'll get into my problem with some of those stats in later posts, but I want to lay to rest all of the outrage and confusion and gnashing of teeth about the start of the season, specifically the Red Sox. There was a lot of hype about the quality of the Red Sox team. Their hitting is fantastic, their pitching, while not the stuff of legend as ESPN would like you to believe, is pretty good, and their defense is outstanding. So let's get this out of the way, before any of you have the idea to jump on the "Boston is overrated" bandwagon. They arn't. Sure baseball isn't played on paper, but they are a good team.

Now to address this 0-6 business to start the season. Teams go on 6 game losing streaks all the time. Teams that win the World Series go on 6 game losing streaks, teams that finish 30 games below .500 go on 6 game losing streaks. It happens. It's a long season, and maybe the team is in a funk for a week and bam, 6 game losing streak. It hurts while it's happening, but eventually teams get out of it, and maybe they go on 6 game winning streaks to just appease the fans and show them that things will be alright.

Remember the whole question of whether or not the human brain is dumb? You do? Great. Well, an 0-6 start to the season seems like the worst thing in the world. I heard, from many, many, sources that no team that started the season 0-4 has gone on to win the World Series. Wow, that's incredible. But you know what? WHO CARES. There are so many stats that we try to show the pattern behind it. They go a little something like this: "Nobody on the third Sunday of April has hit a single while the moon's been in a waning crescent phase". See how dumb that is? Now I'm not saying that the idea of an 0-4 team never winning the world series is dumb, but most teams that go 0-4 to start the season are just....well they are bad. And believe me, the Red Sox are not a bad team.

The Red Sox are going to win a game. And then maybe they will win another game. And another. And perhaps they will win so many games that they finish with 95 wins and make the playoffs. And when they do make the playoffs, nobody is going to go through their schedule and find a time they lost 4 in a row in July. Because even the best teams lose multiple games in a row.

And when October comes around, and the playoff matchups are set, the beginning to the season will be a distant memory.

What's the Point: Kickoffs and Hypocrisy in the NFL

One of the most exhilarating plays in the game of football is the kickoff. There is nothing more amazing then watching a player break a kickoff for a touchdown. One of the most exciting plays in NFL history was when Devin Hester ran the opening kickoff back in Super Bowl XLI for a touchdown to start the game. I can still feel the adrenaline rush as i watch the play on youtube for the 50th time. Due to recent rule changes, however, the NFL is moving kickoffs up to 35 yard line from the 30.

The result of moving the kickoffs up five yards is that many more touchbacks will occur on kickoffs. The NFL says touchbacks could increase by 15% over last season with the new rules. This means that less kicks will be run out of the end zone. It also means that kick returners will start farther back, and consequently, less kicks will be returned for touchdowns. Before the NFL moved kickoffs back to the 30 from the 35 in recent years, .29% of kicks came back for touchdowns. This number shot up to .49% when they moved the spot to the 30. So, when they return the ball back to its original spot at the 35, the .29% number should return. Returns for touchdowns will be cut by nearly half!

This new rule partially neutralizes the effect of the top returners in the game such as Joshua Cribbs and Devin Hester, who have both come out against the move.
The rule does not just partly diminish the role of elite returners, it also somewhat neutralizes the effect of special teams. Deep clubs usually have good special teams, since most of the players on special teams consist of the back half of NFL rosters. Under the new rule, special teams become less of a factor, as does the depth of a team. Many teams rely on their special teams to give them good field position. If a unit has a decent kicker, they will be able to kick it to the back of the end zone most times, and not have to worry about covering kicks. Devin Hester put it best in a recent interview: "to be honest they might as well put up the arena nets, man, cause it's going to be a lot of balls going in the endzone, man."

Over and over, the NFL has stated that the move to the 35 yard line is about player safety. It is true that the kickoff is one of the most dangerous plays in the game. But, how can the NFL say they are concerned about player safety when they want to move to an 18 game season, which will increase overall injuries to players, thereby putting player safety in jeopardy? The hypocrisy of the league shines through here. They supposedly care about concussions and injuries on kickoffs, but at the same time want to add two more regular season games to put players in these dangerous situations more often! The league is dulling the most exciting play of the game in an attempt to make a few extra bucks.

It will be a common sight next year: An elite returner stomps his foot in frustration as the ball flies over his head, as the fans wonder when their favorite athlete is going to get a chance to make magic once again. The players and fans are united in wanting more kick returns, while the league alters the game so more money flows into their coffers. And people wonder why there is a lockout.

What's the Point is a weekly column written by David Straple. Feel free to comment.

705 for number 1

After 705 at bats, and dating back to September 2 2009. Elvis Andrus finally hit another homerun. The 7th of his career, and the first in the last two seasons. At the young age of 22, Andrus should be hitting the ball with more authority this year. Is this going to be a break out power year? I think not, but he is always a solid fantasy option for stolen bases and runs scored. Look for him to hit about 7-10 long balls this season, and still bag 40+ bases.