Wednesday, October 15, 2008

How do you say "Hair of the Dog" in Mandarin? 10/15/08

Maybe Joe Alexander can tell us. The Bucks are currently playing the Golden State Warriors in China. As I write this, they're down by 4 at the end of the third quarter, Redd isn't playing, Charlie Villanueva left the game clutching his neck, and they barely look like an NBA basketball team. Well, Bogut has 12 points and is starting to look better. If Skiles really is big on fundamentals, defense, free throws and that sort of thing, I question his methods. That's the stuff they appear to suck at.

Update: Bucks win 97-94! They came back for their first pre-season win in the Hammond/Skiles era.

I went to the last home game against the Pistons on Saturday too. The Bucks lost 111-99, and at least those numbers have some sort of attractive symmetry. Although there were a few brief spurts when the Bucks looked tough, and even brought the game within 2 in the third quarter, this game was even more troubling than their previous ass-kickings. They were basically at "full strength" starting Bogut, Redd, Jefferson, Villanueva and somebody's little brother. They all played for a big chunk of the game too. At least until Jefferson got ejected for some BS technical. The other highlight came from the most recent in a long line of mediocre big white guys playing over their head for the Bucks, Matt Freije, who added 11 points of the bench and appeared to be trying hard.

The JS is reporting that Badgers' back-up Dustin Sherer will be replacing the very bad Allan Evridge against Iowa on Saturday. No word on who the Badgers' back-up head coach is.

If you were planning on going to the Brewers' Winter Warm-up in three months, too late. It's sold out. I think that's a good sign. Despite an early exit from the play-offs and the likely departure of Sabathia and Sheets, the Crew still has a lot of fan support in Milwaukee.

In other baseball news, it's looking more and more like the World Series will feature Geoff Jenkins and the Phillies vs. Gabe Gross and the Rays. Both teams pulled ahead 3-1 in their respective league championship series. Short of the Brewers being involved, this is about all we could ask for. It would be great to see Jenkins there, it'd be the team that knocked us out against a low payroll powerhouse, and it would spare us all of the Manny vs. Red Sox nonsense.

10 comments:

PaulNoonan said...

Evridge really is bad. I can see why he was attractive as he does have a big arm and throws a nice looking ball, but man is he dumb. I don't know if the backup is any better, but it's tough to imagine him being worse. I wonder how much rope Bret gets.

That's great Brewer news too.

PaulNoonan said...

The Bucks Win! Maybe they should play all of their games in China.

Anonymous said...

Joe alexander looked good.

E.S.K. said...

Phils-Rays is what I want as well.

I thought it was pretty interesting that Manuel went with Stairs and not Jenkins on Monday night.

Benjamin said...

Phils v. Rays is good in my book for the reasons above, plus it is probably the least preferred matchup scenario from the LCS teams.

As for the Buck's redevelopment, I would say that the goal was the same as for the Brewers five years ago, if you can field a team that is going to give you an even chance of winning when you go to see them, there will be fans to watch them play.

DannyNoonan said...

I hope so. It was pretty empty for the first two preseason games and it was kind of depressing. How was attendence the last two years? I don't think I went to any games.

E.S.K. said...

I haven't been since they traded my boy Ray

DannyNoonan said...

Like those people who gave up on the Pack when they traded Favre?

PaulNoonan said...

Oh, snap!

Benjamin said...

That marks the second time that I saw sports news regarding a team from Wisconsin reported on CNN International. The first was earlier this summer while I was on my honeymoon and they reported Corey Hart making the All-Star team. The quote was something to the effect of "Cory Hart is being showered with beer by his team after being named to the All-Star team - now thats what mates are for."