MLB News: Indians recall Scott Barnes; designate David Huff for assignment
May 23, 2013Indians 12 Red Sox 3: Tito’s Revenge Tastes So Sweet
May 24, 2013
While Weâre Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com
“But there are some clear divisions among the good coaches, and then tend to fall down lines of offense and defense. Every coach worries about and has ideas on both sides of the ball, but it’s very obvious that some coaches (and schemes) do a better job on one side or the other. Thibodeau, for instance, might be able to turn any club into a defensively-stout one. I’m not convinced he can do the same on offense. The same applies to the sporadically maligned Lionel Hollins: he can get a squad playing defense, but designing an efficient offense? Probably not. Adelman’s knock has always been that he struggles to put together a strong defense, though he’s had a few excellent units (particularly with Portland and Sacramento). Mike Brown can’t put together a good offense. Mike D’Antoni can’t coach a lick of defense. Sloan, if you demote him down here, is too obsessed with the bygone punch-em-in-the-mouth era to the detriment of his team. Nate McMillan can’t run a team that doesn’t crawl up the court because he perennially lacks trust in his point guards. And so on, and so on.” [Ziller/SB Nation]
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“Who is the most overrated prospect? Fran Fraschilla: Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel. It is not his fault that right now he is the consensus No.1 pick. Given his injury and his lithe frame (6-foot-10, 228 pounds), it will be hard for Noel to succeed early. Ultimately, because of his age and athleticism, he will eventually impact the game defensively, but the burden of being the top pick will weigh on him for a while.
Amin Elhassan: Noel. The mantle of being No. 1 brings the burden of expectation of being a franchise-altering pick, and I don’t know that Noel is that. He’s a superb shot-blocker, but not strong enough to bang with NBA bigs (even when healthy). Additionally, he’s not an elite rebounder and his offensive game is very raw. He’s a good prospect, but not a great one.” [ESPN Insider]
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Pretty good list. Which depressed fan are you? “As the situation deteriorates, the Superstitious Fan will come up with increasingly complicated ways to turn the fortunes around. This could involve group meditation, ritualistic chanting, or setting something on fire. Just go with it. Look, do you want to win or not?
An important note: Do not question Superstitious Fans. They have a lot on their mind, and they certainly donât need to be bothered with a lot of silly queries like âWhy are we doing this?â and âHave you lost your mind?â and âDidnât you have a beard five minutes ago?â and âWait, why does my spouse have to watch the rest of the game from the fire escape?â” [McIndoe/Grantland]
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“The limitation of the one-back offense should be apparent to anyone that has been a fan of a bottom-dwelling NFL team. It puts a lot of pressure on a quarterback. A team must be able to throw the football, otherwise those unblocked defenders will crowd the line of scrimmage and the offense will quickly stall. And there are only so many guys that can stand in the pocket, read coverages, go through a 5-receiver progression across the field within 3-5 seconds, all while defenders are rushing you with a full head of steam.
Enter the spread-to-run. Offenses such as Urban Meyer or Chip Kelly’s are still conceptually the one-back offense. Their offenses use the same base plays and constraint approach.
The spread’s benefit, however, is that it is an additional method to constrain the defense’s unblocked defenders beyond reliance upon the passing game. It does so by forcing the defense to also account for the quarterback as a run threat, thereby reducing the defense’s numeric advantage by one. As Meyer states, he turned to the spread because he wanted to make it easier to run the one-back run plays. Meyer was in one-back and pro-style systems as an assistant coach, but the complexity of defenses (namely developing ways to put 8 and 9 men in the box while defending the pass) made it harder to move the football.” [Fulton/Eleven Warriors]
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Finally, well done UC baseball. These photobombs are hilarious. [Big League Stew]
42 Comments
Some of the best photobombs I have seen… congrats UC!
the Ziller article is a bit of a conundrum. “stars” for offense, coaching for defense still only works if you have the defensive talent (and intensity counts towards some of that talent). it’s just that the “stars” of the NBA happen to primarily be the players with the most offensive talent because they are more marketable.
then again, for one series, Mike Brown got Wally Sczerbiak to play decent defense on Ray Allen, so maybe I’m the one over-blowing things here.
no, they are having fun. we must end their fun now. how dare they! OUTRAGE!
(and the “bringing home the kill” 4th one from the top is the best)
Oh man, you better be careful… about to stoke that fire again!
I laughed pretty hard at that one you mentioned, but my favorite one was the king being carried by his loyal subjects… excellent use of props with the rakes being fans.
that one also had the princess wave
They disgraced and embarassed the university. Nay, the entire city of Cincinnati. Nay, all of the great state of Kentuckiana.
Makes you wish they had won more games so that there would be more.
We want more. We want more.
the one thing they do have going for them is that it takes an awful lot to embarrass a city like Cincinnati.
Sam Wyche (dis)respectfully disagrees.
That’s the thing about when you really like something… you ultimately want more (paraphrasing here).
You don’t want more less, you want more more. (Or something like that.)
I haven’t had anything yet, so how can I have s’more of nothing?
(By the way, mg. You’re nearing 10,000 comments. It’s time you got an avatar. It makes it so much easier to find the comments I want to read. If not for yourself, do it for the rest of us.)
you don’t know what s’mores are?
et tu G.O.?
Sorry. Me, too. I know your reasons, but it’s time to put the greater good in front of your principles. I also know you’re a Texan now, and don’t like yankees (or Red Sox, for that matter) impinging on your fierce indivuality, but it’s 2013, and that’s how things are done. I know because I’ve been watching TV.
I’d like to make it easy on you, though. May I suggest the following avatar option?
You’re killin’ me Smalls.
“I’ve been watching TV”
people still have TVs? I thought it was all on phones and tablets now.
wow, this pushiness hurts the cause, making him feel proudly incorruptible. You almost had him. Our better pressure options: only refer to him by an alternate name that shames him (difficult: seems rather shameless); The Shun (cannot: he’s one of us and yet rather likeable); um, actually forgot my third … may edit later, thought it was pretty good but it’s now residing somewhere near the errand I was supposed to run after work and the first name of my grade school buddy’s brother. But trust me, it wasn’t half bad.
Mark! (Marc?)
(1) shameless – almost Cincinnatianly
(2) incorruptible – not at all, though I prefer to be the instigator of corruption
(3) shunning – impossible as I can always hear myself speak and I’m my own best friend đ
But, as you have all gathered in solidarity amongst the brethren, I shall submit to the wishes of the whole. Please refresh the browsers to see the outcome of your desires.
Nice.
Beautiful.
thanks. it is a portrait done unbeknownst to my family who is pictured at Muni during an Indians game (watching the last of an inning before descending to the restrooms). they happened to run across the painting years later hanging in the Cleveland Clinic and chased down the artist who was kind enough to give them a copied version that he had in storage, which now hangs above my parents’ fireplace.
Marque.
Can’t believe you withheld this from us for all of these thousands of snippets. That’s really a cool story.
My formative stadium experiences were at Muni, wild ones (held in its auxillary police station as a 12 year old) and cool ones (sitting in a star’s convertible when his one-man posse drove it up to the gate to pick him up post-game). But the ubiquitous one was banging the empty seat next to you for noise during a rally, under the peeling paint on the rafters. That was the essence of Muni, at least to me.
I think I’ve mentioned it at some point while waxing poetically about Sundays at the Muni in the bleachers with family and friends.
complete agreement from me. the same noise just isn’t possible with the newer seats.
Sublime.
For me, it was sneaking into Browns games; getting the finger – close up – from a famous opposing player; those nasty troughs; the “lite brite” Indians animations of the Chief doing crazy stuff; that beam that always seemed to block your view of a third of the field; and the banging of the empty seats. Good stuff (well, maybe not the troughs).
I lost a “quality” glove to those troughs. Put it in my pocket and only to have someone bump into me knocked it loose causing thoughts of terror as it splashed down into the abyss.
I forgot: 80,000 people singing/chanting “We will, we will, rock you!”
perfect. Wait, didn’t one of the Alous make his mitt tougher that way? Or maybe that was his bat, or shoes. Or maybe his jersey. Who can remember.
it was his hands.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/040511
yeah, sometimes I think it’s Freddie Mercury’s posthumous revenge to have millions who would have shunned him in life singing with him since.
Oh, I’ve done that. Maybe that’s why I’ll never be a hand model like George Costanza.
Mr. Costanza would never have done something to give him callouses to alleviate.
and speaking of empty seats….I remember going to games and sitting in General Admission (ha! remember GA?!?!) amidst a sea of empty yellow seats. When foul balls would land there – with an echo – you would look at your buddy and say, “you want this one or should i get it?”
You must have been doing stats huh? đ
you know, I surprisingly rarely kept a scorecard. I don’t know why.