On The Move Again…This Time, To RiddickAndReynolds.com
In the constant evolution of this blog, the latest iteration can now be found at www.riddickandreynolds.com.
That’s right…R&R’s gone “.com”
It’s an easier site name to remember, will give me more flexibility and the capability for richer content. The look and feel of the site will stay the same; hopefully just more improved.
As always, thanks for reading!
Article On State’s Drought Issues At ACCSports.com
ACCSports.com examines State’s drought issues.
Read the piece first, than consider this counter-argument:
I think it largely overlooks the #1 reason WHY State has suffered through extended droughts this year: No Tracy Smith.
There are two HUGE things Tracy brings to the table that helps negate the likelihood of extended droughts: senior leadership and high-percentage scoring.
The leadership component is key for any team, but on a team that relies so heavily on its young core of Brown, Leslie, Harrow, Wood and Painter—none of whom are upperclassmen—having ANY leadership on the floor is even more critical when things go awry.
But perhaps more importantly, Tracy gives State reliable scoring. Droughts are infectious, self-serving poisons that grow the longer they persist. The easiest way to end a drought is simply to put the ball in the basket. Just one easy layup underneath can be enough to loosen up a team who tightens up with each missed jumper. And Tracy Smith, who makes his living hitting high-percentage shots close to the basket, is the most reliable player on the roster to turn to when you need that key basket to end the schneid.
He should be back by the Arizona game, and in the biggest game of the season to this point, I don’t think we’ll see State suffer any droughts as long as he’s in the lineup.
Nate Irving Named SI.com First-Team All-America
Yet another award for Nate Irving, further stocking Nate’s trophy case and further devaluing the validity of The Butkus Award.
WhatIfSports.com’s Simulator Predicts West Virginia Over State
As always, let me apologize for the sparse posting. One of these days, very soon, there will be some changes to the site that will (hopefully) allow me to do more posting and have more freedom to add richer content to the site. But more on that later…
This post concerns a pretty interesting site, www.whatifsports.com, that simulates sporting events using existing metrics on the opposing teams and some super-secret formula, I’m sure.
Every year they do a College Football Bowl simluation spectacular, where they simulate every bowl game 1,001 times and share their results. They boast a 75% prediction success rate straight-up for every game this year (sorry degenerates), which is pretty good.
The bad news for State this year, though, is they are predicting State to lose their matchup against the Mountaineers 30-23. If their 75% win ratio holds true for the bowl season, we better hope State falls into their 25% window of incorrect picks.
For those bummed by that prediction, take heart in this: the site also offers you, the reader, the ability to run your own simulations where you can tweak some of the parameters. And when I set the offensive playbooks of State at “heavy pass” and WVU as “heavy run” (which seems like a much more accurate description of both teams rather than having their playbooks set at “balanced”), and with the game played at a neutral location with clear weather, State won four out of the five games I simulated.
For what that’s worth.
Oh, and in typo news, seems like State’s not the only team that suffers the sting of unfortunate typos:
ACC Roundtable: Bowl Season Edition
- The ACC Roundtable (shown actual size)
It’s ACC Roundtable time again! Football season is winding down so this post centers primarily on end-of-season activities–the ACC Title Game and bowl season.
This time, the fellas from BCInterruption are hosting. They’ll have a roundup of everyone’s answers over at their site sometime tomorrow.
On with the questions and my answers:
1. Virginia Tech and Florida State seemed to acquit the ACC Championship Game well this year, turning in an entertaining 44-33 game in front of a crowd of 72,379 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Assess the success of the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte in year one. How much of the success can be attributed to the host city, and how much can be attributed to the matchup? A little of A, a little of B?
I think it was a smashing success, and would’ve been even more so had a team from North Carolina (cough cough, NC State) been one of the two representatives. If Greensboro is the heart of the ACC, Charlotte is probably the next best thing, and its central location put it within easy driving distance of both Blacksburg and Tallahassee.
Certainly having two recent football powers with large alumni bases playing the game versus, say, Georgia Tech versus Boston College (no offense, guys) made for a very appealing matchup even if you weren’t a fan of either team.
