Hell no

Hell, no.”Belliard, speaking diagonally across the same cramped locker room from L?, countered with: “I’m not going to get upset Whatever they decide is good with me.”Good Ron. Ron who is the better hitter (.332/.427/.759) is toiling at the relatively meager price of $3.5M over two years, has been hot in Grapefruit League play hitting with power and a .400+ batting average. His defense has not been great but then neither has Flop’s.Yes I realize the Nats middle infield will be made up by often injured Cristian Guzman and a replacement level 2B in Ronny B.I hear food is gonna be good in the new Ballyard. It had better be… link  This article is also featured on OpenSourceBaseball . In less than 24 hours the world got to see how different the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are. The season hasn't started yet and already the comparisons and fire that go along with this rivalry are brought to light.Yesterday, the Yankees played a game against the Virginia Tech Hokies at English Field on Va. Tech's campus thanks to a promise made by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner last year. This article is also featured on On The Block.

What team will make the cross over into San Antonio? Will it be the heralded UCLA Bruins?They have the No. 1 seed and a record of 14-2 against tournament teams.The Bruins have been to the Final Four the last two years.They play stiff defense, have an experienced point guard, and a deadly combination of inside and outside threats. Will injuries to Love and Moute slow the Bruins' chase? Can No.     Indiana an eighth seed?  Not only is this unfair to the Hoosiers, but to North Carolina, their likely second-round opponent. Sure, they are 1-3 in their last four games.  Sure, it looks like they gave up and stopped playing defense.

  Sure, they unwillingly lost their coach halfway through the season.  But don't count them out, Indiana is going far in the NCAA tournament.    The Hoosiers weren't just moping about Kelvin Sampson leaving in the middle of the year, they gave up after being eliminated from the chance at a Big Ten Championship.      In the tourney, Big Ten player of the year D.J. White will bring his senior leadership to the table.  He will also bring his 17.3 points and 10.4 rebounds per game averages.      Don't forget Eric Gordon either.  College basketball analysts seemed to have forgotten this year's most electrifying guard.  When Gordon gets started, he is unstoppable.  Hopefully he has learned to deal with the pressure of big time college basketball and will bring his top performance.      Eric Gordon is dominant behind the arc, while Jordan Crawford and Armon Bassett are deadly.  When the Hoosiers get their 3-point game going they are unstoppable.  On top of that is the presence of White in the post and ability of Gordon to bring it to the basket.  Opposing teams are going to have a lot of problems with this offense.  Indiana can also play defense. Especially Gordon, who has some of the best on-ball defense in college basketball.    Indiana should be able to beat Arkansas handily.  The test game is North Carolina, with the most interesting match being Tyler Hansbrough and D.J. White.  The game will likely be a race for who can hit more three-pointers.  As for the Tar Heels pseudo home court advantage?  Please     Indiana plays in the Big Ten.. When one looks at this team they might not think much, with the team leader in scoring only averaging 12.7 ppg and only three players on the whole team averaging 10+ppg they might not consider that to be a team that will go far in the NCAA Tournament.However, the Purdue Boilermakers are a team that I think can go far and will go deep in this tournament.While they may not have a huge star they do have a good player in Robbie Hummel as well as a good core of role players, Purdue has nine players that average 15 min or more per game.

That is a lot of playing time for a big rotation like that.With wins over tournament teams like, Louisville, Wisconsin twice and Michigan St.That is four quality wins there. They also boast a 15-3 conference record this season in the Big 10. As well as having 11 straight wins at one point during the season.Although they may have lost to Illinois in the first round of the Big 10 tournament I beliece that might actually help them out more then it would have if they were on a big winning streak. I have always had the mindset that teams on a huge winning streak heading into the tournament always have a higher chance of having a bad game and getting upset,that's why I like to see a team come into the tournament with a loss, unless you are Clemson which looked absolutely let down after their ACC Tournament loss.Purdue starts off with what I feel is an overrated Baylor, if they win there they move onto face what I project is Xavier. When they get past Xavier its on to face what I think will be Duke. I believe they match up extremely well with Duke, not only in size but in speed.

Six players on the team are 6'6" and above while they also boast an extremely quick group of guards.Purdue is definitely a team that can and will surprise teams in this tournament ultimately reaching the host city for the West Region;  Phoenix, Arizona and a meeting with No. 1 seed UCLA Bruins.Time will only tell if Robbie Hummel and the Boilermakers can make a run but being a quality team as well as an underrated team that is currently ranked in the top 20 teams in the nation I think they will surprise some people. I on the other hand, will not be one of those people that will be surprised by this quiet but lethal team.. By now, you're probably laughing I mean, if I weren't an Alex Smith fan (a.k.a. a normal football fan) I'd be laughing pretty damn hard, but unfortunately, as you can see from my previous two articles, I'm quite the fan.Here's why...When Alex Smith played great, he played great.