12/21/24
March 24, 2015
SportsFilter: The Tuesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
What are the two lights in the lower left?
posted by yerfatma at 11:27 AM on March 24, 2015
I'm guessing the bails, although I've never seen lit ones either.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:48 AM on March 24, 2015
It's the fancy new sticks for this World Cup - the bails light up when they come off the stumps, (it looks cool in night games), and the stumps light up if they're hit by the ball.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 11:53 AM on March 24, 2015
grum's brief review of his visit to the NCAA Round 2/Round 3 games in Columbus, Ohio:
- Columbus, Ohio is a really nice city. They have a lot of nice touristy things to look at, some nice old buildings in the downtown core, and crazy-good shopping choices on the outskirts. My dad (who I went with) is probably going to plan a visit with my mom and sister as part of a shopping trip.
- The Nationwide Arena is great. It's a nice "new" building, with wide concourses, LOTS of food concession options with reasonable prices (including Tim Hortons, which my dad loved), and the sightlines for the upper areas are still great for basketball. The area around the arena has lots of "hip" eateries to enjoy if you come down for a game and make a night of it.
- The first half of the Dayton (11)/Providence (6) game was probably the worst half of basketball I've seen from two Division I teams in my life. At the 10 minute mark, the score was 9-5 (for Dayton). Both teams were just jacking up bricks from everywhere, or simply grabbing the ball and taking three big steps towards the basket and hoping for a foul call. After the first couple of times, the defenders simply let them pass. This created the ugly situation of a player who was completely out of control trying to make an off-balance layup/shot, leading to more bricks. This might have been the result of an insane start time for the game (10:53pm) and tired players taking the floor.
- Speaking of which, those "timeout on the floor" TV breaks (every four minutes of game time) are just awful and can really drag out a game. In the Dayton/Providence game (already starting late because of the previous evening game taking so long) there was a TV timeout 17 seconds after a full timeout. The worst sequence was late in the second half: in 51 seconds of game time, there were 4 team timeouts (two of which were "full" timeouts), a TV timeout, and a video review.
- Video reviews! Please, for the people that shelled out some big bucks to watch the games live, throw us a bone and tell us WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING REVIEWING! We sat there a few times over the two days in complete bewilderment as to the reason for the video review. Whether the review overturned something or not, they NEVER told the crowd what was happening. Just put something up on the board saying why the review is happening.
- Oklahoma had the best cheerleaders (both routine and looks), but the Dayton band was by far the most entertaining.
- Dayton may as well have been playing home games (like their First Four game against Boise St.) because 75% of the crowd was from Ohio for their games. When they had the lead (by 7) late against Oklahoma, the place was just rocking. Alas, they choked it away and lost (thus ruining my bracket a little more as I had them upsetting their way to the Sweet 16 like last year).
- Maryland player Melo Trimble suffered a head injury in the second half. He got kneed in the head by his own teammate after stumbling to the ground. He was on the ground for a long time, and was obviously in a lot of discomfort. The training staff did NOT come out to look at him until a couple of team mates called them over. Then, they simply stood him up and walked him back to the bench. He sat there for the rest of the game, alternating between holding his head in his hands, and leaning forward with a towel over his head. The training staff made NO effort to take him into the back for any sort of concussion exam, and instead kept talking to him...which must have been difficult since he was seated RIGHT NEXT TO THE UNIVERSITY BAND!. I can't think of many things worse for a head injury than having someone pound on a base drum only 10 feet away. It was appalling that there wasn't any attempt to get him some relief (or medical attention) until after the game was over.
posted by grum@work at 02:47 PM on March 24, 2015
We were at dinner (in Brisbane) last night and I was having a tough time not constantly updating my phone to see the score. Very happy to see the Kiwis pull it out, hope that the Aussies can do the business tomorrow to set a real local final.
posted by billsaysthis at 05:36 AM on March 25, 2015
It's the fancy new sticks for this World Cup - ...
They were used during last year's Twenty20 World Cup as well.
posted by NoMich at 03:32 PM on March 25, 2015
The first Cricket World Cup semi-final was played last night between New Zealand and South Africa and made for an exciting few hours.
A rain break in the middle of the South African innings meant the Duckworth-Lewis Method was invoked - something understood only by theoretical physicists and some members of Duckworth-Lewis.
New Zealand ended up chasing 298 to beat South Africa's 281 and the match went to the wire.