Is there any doubt the Cavs are winning tonight? To me, there's none. The Cavaliers should refund all the tickets and require fans to post a BAC at least twice the legal limit before they enter.
DANG, WISCONSIN GOT FLATLINED. Billy Connelly of SBNation.com put out a graph-and-stats-stuffed 2015 Ohio State preview yesterday, and it's a glorious way to kill a few minutes while you ponder the Buckeyes stampeding over their enemies a few moon cycles hence.
It won't shock you that Connelly says the Buckeyes have a chance to be historically great next year, but some of his looks in the rear view mirror might be most interesting.
This shows why 80% of polled readers wouldn't trade Urban Meyer for Jim Tressel:
RIP to Wisconsin football, by the way.
The Wisconsin performance was truly incredible. Ohio State's performance in the Big Ten title game was one of the season's 10 100th-percentile performances, but that doesn't do it justice. Adjusted Scoring Margin is intended to tell us how a team would have fared in a given week against a perfectly average opponent with average breaks.
Top [3] performances of 2014 by Adj. Scoring Margin
1. Ohio State vs. Wisconsin (plus-86.5)
2. Alabama vs. Texas A&M (plus-72.8)
3. Arkansas vs. Nicholls State (plus-68.9)Even among the season's most perfect performances, that game stood out. It belongs in a museum
Ah, what the hell, since we're reminiscing on past victories:
McCALL DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE WAS WAITING FOR. North Ridgeville's DeMario McCall, one of the most electric running back prospects in the 2016 class, committed to Ohio State in late March. It was a decision McCall had decided long before, until Urban Meyer did what Urban Meyer does.
From Ari Wasserman of cleveland.com:
Meyer had a hunch that he was going to keep McCall, one of the best prospects in the state of Ohio, home for college.
So when McCall was at Ohio State during an unofficial visit March 28, Meyer looked at the 5-foot-11, 180-pound speedster and bluntly asked him: "What are you waiting for?"
"And I sat there thinking to myself, 'What am I waiting for? I know this is the place,' " McCall said. "So I went ahead and told the world what it was."
McCall was also recruited by Michigan State and West Virginia. The latter pitched him as the next Tavon Austin. I'd bet $50,000 (of a loan shark's money) Meyer countered with visions of "the next Percy Harvin."
I'll settle for the next Jalin Marshall (who could be on an NFL roster by this time next year [my gosh it seems like he was recruited yesterday]).
CENTRAL OHIO STAND UP. As a product of Marion's heroin fields, I will confess I maintain a bias towards the central plains of the state. Other parts are extremely good, but central Ohio is the heart of the Heart of it All.
That's why Josh Perry, Nick Vannett, and Darron Lee (even though he claims Tennessee affiliations) will always be "my guys."
From Blake Williams of Scout.com:
“I don’t think central Ohio guys get the love they deserve sometimes,” linebackerJoshua Perry said. “It’s a little biased, but whatever.”
[...]
“I feel like he didn’t get a ton of credit because he was one of those guys that although he performed well at some of the camps and stuff, he really wanted to come to Ohio State so he didn’t get a whole bunch of attention form the recruiting media,” Perry said after [Dublin's Nick] Conner starred in the spring game. “I also have a little bias about Central Ohio guys not getting the (publicity) they deserve, but that’s a different story. Nick’s going to be a great player here."
I wasn't born in Central Ohio, but Warren G. Harding willing, I will die somewhere in this blessed, yet almost-impossibly flat land.
I will say, however, as Urban Meyer has cast a more national net in recruiting than Tressel, I have a lot of appreciation for guys who come from places like DeSoto, Texas, to Columbus.
LEE TEACHES BABY KIDS. The one cool thing about English is that one generation's mangling is another generation's King's English. Here's Ohio State's mutant linebacker indoctrinating baby kids at OSU's youth camp yesterday:
Got the lil kids camp saying it's Lit
— Darron Lee (@DLeeMG8) June 8, 2015
Baby Kid: Mr. Lee is it Lit? Me: Yeah playa it's Lit
— Darron Lee (@DLeeMG8) June 8, 2015
You know what's going to be lit? When I'm 80-years-old and somewhat of an authority on the English language, a semi-dead language that was thrown to the scrapheap of history and replaced by a hieroglyphic-like system based on emojis.
Will it balance out the shame of regularly shitting myself in the nursing home to which I've been exiled by my estranged family? Probably not.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE. Mike Bennett said during his NFL draft slide that NFL teams were creating a monster. Bennett is now turning those words into action, and the Jaguars are the only team that's safe.
From Mike Kaye of FirstCoastNews.com:
"He caught on very fast and the speed of practice is not too fast for him. He fits right in," said fellow defensive lineman Ryan Davis.
[...]
"I was really shocked that he was still there," said defensive line coach Todd Wash earlier this month.
"I was in beating on the table a lot earlier than we got him. You really see him flashing out there. He missed rookie minicamp, so that hurt a little bit of his development and how we play some things, but just in the short amount of time you start to see, even today, he had a couple of really nice plays, so he's flashing."
I get that I'm biased and that NFL scouting is almost literally a crapshoot, but I still don't understand Bennett falling to the fifth round. (Think about how many games you could win with 53 Mike Bennetts?) That one seemed like an easy third-round layup.
THOSE WMDs. Social Media and Bullshit... VIin Scully, the Man, told three incredible D-Day stories on Saturday... Floating Fish Dome... Matthew Dellavedova's parents are incredible... GoT Fans Shocked After Some Little Goblin Or Something Killed Off In [Sunday's] Episode.
