The "foul up 3" strategy at the end of close games is growing in popularity and controversy. With insight from coaches, executives, and lots of film study, I dove deep to answer two key questions: Is this tactic good for the sport? And does it even work?

What to make of an expansion sought by few except a strange alliance of rapacious elite conferences and long disadvantaged mid-majors. Well, and me. johngasaway.substack.com/p/one-whinin...

There's talk about how the NET incentivizes running up the score and so there's more of that these days, but great teams just run up the score naturally, whether there's incentive or not.

Look some people like Catskills ass bits paired with a Lynchian hypnagogic horror and others do not but I know where I stand.

My annual data deep dive on the NCAA Tournament is live. Just a heap of stats, trends, facts and need-to-knows about players, teams, seeds and more in this year's Big Dance. I hope you enjoy, and send to everyone you know who is geeking out over the bracket the way we are 🤓

I'm rooting for Idaho tonight

Georgia Southern cares not for the Sun Belt gauntlet, winning its fifth game in five days by knocking out second-seeded Marshall behind 31 from Spudd Webb. Go after Troy in its SIXTH game in as many days for the title tomorrow night.

Pete Hegseth has declared Boston University a supply chain risk

Remarkable analytical convergence

Major mea culpa on being Mad About Arch Madness. In their 25 games at full-ish strength this year, Northern Iowa's graded out at about 55th at Torvik. That's a really dangerous 12/13 seed to draw. My read is they'd match up really well with Vanderbilt.

I like these guys. #Badgers

Playing defense in the post is simply illegal at Mackey.

“New York State of Mind” would be better without the strings

Let's gooo

Wins Above Bubble will be one of the two/three most important metrics discussed in the NCAA Tournament selection committee room this year and in seasons to come. I hopped on CBS Sports HQ for a 13-minute primer on why WAB is important and what it measures. Keep this handy over the next three weeks.

For the 28th year in a row, Wisconsin will finish with more Big Ten wins than Minnesota.

Doing my own experiements and concluding it makes it feel good

Also the 5th highest Adjusted Offensive efficiency of any game this season.

Three Quad 1 wins in 7 days. Not bad.

Now that's what I call basketball. #Badgers

I like these guys #Badgers

Probably to most obvious goaltend ever, missed.

Getting some pressure from Chuck Schumer to change what the "T" in T-Rank stands for.

Jumping directly sideways into a defender to get a foul is something.

Braeden Carrington low key turning into John Tonje ;)

🤔

Miami (Ohio) survives Akron in a battle of MAC favorites to go to 15-0 on the season, which finally might allow them to break the top 100 in KenPom. (Akron was 56). The other five undefeated teams: Michigan (1), Arizona (2), Iowa St. (3), Vanderbilt (7), Nebraska (22). @norlander.bsky.social

Happened to notice that there's a page on my site called "eff_talent.php" that was last edited in 2018. Took a look; it still works and it produced this:

Watching this Counting Crows documentary and don’t really understand why Steve Kerr is here

It's the end of the year, which means it's Awards Season for us at T-Rank. Let's get it started with the most prestigious award of all. In a close but unanimous vote, the T-Rank International Peace Prize Award Trophy Medal is hereby awarded to President Donald J. Trump

Fickell’s like “aw shucks two guys tackled my quarterback 15 seconds after the whistle. Shoot”

If Dybantsa can just go right through primary defenders, pack it up. Ridiculous.

Every Wisconsin three from NBA range.

Turned on the broadcast to hear the words "Will we see Greg Gard go into a zone?" and I think I know the answer.

Undertime in Seattle

Most people know you can (sort of) filter out preseason bias at my site. But here's a power-user feature, EXCLUSIVE to my Blue Sky followers: you can can specify a partial amount of preseason juice by using the "prephase=X" URL parameter.

This game was 22-19 with about 7 minutes to go in first half

Gotta get this kid some more minutes

With Purdue passing Houston at Kenpom, the Cougars are back in their favorite spot

Campbell player literally kicked Boyd while in the air to get a foul call.

Fire Franklin

Big Ten opening night slate ...

It's a big day - 30th anniversary of the premiere of Mr. Show

The passing of Daniel Naroditsky hits hard. He was a sweet soul, a wonderful chess teacher, and he’s gone much too soon. www.joeposnanski.com/p/daniel-nar...

Mr. Show debuted 30 years ago

One of the things I like about Gemini is that, deep down, it's just as lazy as I am

I object to NCAA tourney expansion on biblical grounds

Can't wait for a Final Four like Texas/Indiana Xavier/Wake Forest Indiana/Boise St. North Carolina/SMU

@bfsesq.bsky.social WCCO’s got it