bmags

It really feels kinda impossible to build just a steady top 25 program nowadays. There's the blue bloods, and then everyone else just seems to rely on finding and holding onto extraordinary coaches, which then get stolen away. I'm sure if you break it down there will be exceptions. But it just feels like you shift around hoping to find your Mark Few or Jay Wright or Bo Ryan (actually wisconsin is probably a good example of just a good basketball program since they had bennett before ryan). But even michigan and ohio state and texas, all have had these huge ebbs in basketball in ways that seem less common in football (I know i'll get texas snorts). Like, yeah you need good facilities. And yeah you need boosters. But there always seems to be a richer school than you, with better recruiting base than you, that will poach whatever short term success you just enjoyed. And everyone just searching for someone that views that school as a dream job and is a good coach. It's like a lottery ticket. Like as a mizzou fan I don't even need to be kansas, I just wish we were purdue again.

That's such a bad tweet.

Still going to post news on the biggest offseason story ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well it's also that nobody would bother reporting on it if it was in chicago or san fran or la either.

Buster Olney just retweeted some baseball espn podcast saying they'd be stunned if Harper isn't a philly. East coast stars definitely aligning behind phillies and yankees being the winners (which is probably the correct odds).

No, I'm defining them by how well they are recognized and liked to casual audiences.

Yes. My mother has heard of david ross. I don't think she knows who mike trout is.

Yeah I think, as chisoxfn pointed out, sox pitch will definitely include how they plan to market a harper or machado, and that effort will far surpass anything they've done since I've been alive. But baseball has just been impossible to create stars in. Freakin david ross has been baseballs biggest success story recently to be honest, though Aaron Judge certainly had his moments.

Yeah they could get a local car dealership commercial. In new york he'd end up on late night couches and cameo appearances in national morning shows. I know more about new york city upcoming weather than chicago. It's not even close, through sheer proximity the marketabiity of new york ball players surpasses any other. As dick said, this isn't the nba, there is no national brand, so being near the media capital and seen during red sox/yankees rivalries goes really far. I also don't think it matters. But if Sox try to claim he'd be more marketable in chicago than new york it's just lying through their teeth.

I don't believe this for a second. There are probably 10 or more yankees that are more famous than Jose Abreu right now.

Last night was pretty terrible. Bulls have some talented offense-only players, but they are just iso players that don’t even try to run the offense and are just black holes. This isn’t even about Lavine.

Hate saying this before conference play or even tournaments but this Duke team looks impossibly good.

WGN and ABC taking the choppers to watch him practice was hilarious

The reality is it's incredibly difficult to be a consistent top 15 winning program nowadays without big shoe companies and the ncaa sweeping clear violations exposed by fbi investigations under the rug for your program.

I found it interesting Jose is working with a different hitting instructor this offseason.

While Izzo really does own michigan recruits, the whole "shut down the border" seems to be so outdated. There aren't many programs you can point to that just live off of nearby talent. You certainly recruit your backyard, but a good basketball program should be recruiting nationally. Probably most helpful is to have a loaded AAU circuit near you, but all of the talent concentrates with those teams and it's relatively easy to scout a bunch of them.

This is the most Illini post I've ever read.

Also how many times have we heard "so and so is untradeable with that contract" only for them to be traded and a decent return hauled back. If the team is stuck and can't improve, they can get out of these contracts, even with a NTC.

Information on lincoln yards: https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/5/25/17394824/lincoln-yards-development-north-branch Information on south roosevelt ("The 78") https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/10/19/16503028/discovery-partners-institute-the-78-development-amazon-hq

You just need a franchise QB injured on thursday night and then it will change.

Population growth in cities is much preferable to depopulation, trust me. Just wait until you need to pay for the same services with a smaller tax base, that gets expensive too.

Aga Radwanska retired. She was fun to watch for how volatile she was. Sometimes a complete dud, others she could put together some incredible series. Wish she could have gotten a major.

It is really hard to gauge. I've seen pointed out a few times, but if you only read twitter or ny pols you would assume cuomo is the least popular governor in america and yet he has incredibly high approvals (i do not like cuomo). NY media can be skewed.

It was no doubt unseemly on amazon's part, I just don't blame the cities for trying.

It is such a disaster and an outlier that it isn't a very helpful lens for amazon. I think it's such a ruse that Amazon acted like there was a national hunt when candidates were obvious from start. They needed talent and went to the zones of the country that don't have to create a new talent stream but already have it. There is risk in going to Denver or ATL and being tapped out immediately. But had they gone to a midwest city, if managed well which is possible, I think it would have been a big boost to the talent drain there. In NYC/NoVa? It's a logistical pain in the butt that may not even show up as positive to local residents who have some of the worlds biggest economies in their backyard (queens). That is a bit what happened in seattle in the first place.