Armadillo: Wednesday's six-pack
The six most expensive colleges in America, and tuitions:
6) Northwestern, Evanston, IL $40,223
5) Washington U, St Louis, $41,892
4) Chicago U, Chicago $42,041
3) Wesleyan, Middletown, CT $42,084
2) Sarah Lawrence, Bronxville, NY $45,212
1) Columbia, New York City, $45,290
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Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Random mid-week thoughts.......
13) If you’re not from upstate New York, allow me a minute to digress; an era has ended in Albany broadcasting. John Graney, as fine a talkshow host as there is in this country, hung up his mike last week after 40 years in the business.
Its too bad he never got to work on a national stage, because he’s every bit as good as anyone who is or has been on that stage. He’s a good guy, too, unlike some of the egotistical nitwits who man the airwaves. John’s show will be missed, for sure. Enjoy your retirement, sir.
12) Staying local for one last bit, Siena’s basketball game at Iona will be played at Madison Square Garden January 3rd.
11) What is TCU basketball coach Jim Christian telling his recruits? First of all, the Horned Frogs aren’t any good in Mountain West, then they were moving to deep waters of the faraway Big East, but now, without coming within a year of their first Big East game, they’ve already jumped to the Big 12, whose waters are equally deep but the travel is way easier. Christian is going to have a hard time keeping his job for long in that league, unless he suddenly becomes a bigtime recruiter.
10) For my handicapping purposes, it’s be great if every league was ten teams and played a home/home series like the Big X is doing this year. Pac-12 isn’t doing it anymore; looks like 12 teams is going to wind up more the norm. Anything is better than 16-team leagues.
9) When the NBA re-appears, they should re-engineer the whole league. Cut the schedule to 64 teams to create a better product so teams can occasionally practice. Make the playoffs best-of-3 or best-of-5, to create some drama. Cut ticket prices. Make league more middle class friendly, or at least somewhat so. Awful lot of empty seats at these games the last few years. I know, this has zero chance of ever happening.
8) This will sound silly coming from someone who gets tired driving 26 miles, but do people realize that running a marathon is unhealthy? Its bad for you to run that far all at once- the guy in Greek mythology, who ran the original 26 miles to save the Athenian Army in Battle of Marathon? He dropped dead after finishing his run. A 35-year old fireman in Chicago died running a marathon Sunday. He freakin' died. ‘nuff said.
7) Since 2001, NFL favorites of more than 7 points are 89-90 vs spread in Games 1-5, 161-200-3 in Games 6-14, 47-49-1 in Games 15-16.
6) If I managed a big league baseball team, I’d want a staff member monitoring the game on TV, just in case they could pick something up from TV that you couldn’t see from the dugout. Never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes.
5) Buffalo Bills are already +11 in turnovers; they’ve had a positive ratio in every game so far this season. Want to see how they do in a game when they don’t win the turnover battle.
4) NFL red flags: Lions have 21 penalties for 169 yards in their last two games……..Texans have been outscored in the second half of every game this season.
3) Very surprised to read that baseball teams are going to be more vigilant on monitoring the conditioning of their players during the offseason. Guess my surprise is that its necessary- you’d think with the big money these guys make, they’d keep themselves in shape year-round.
2) If you use trends to handicap the NFL, one of the big obstacles to success is deciding when a team has broken through and rendered their past useless. Looks like the Lions are doing that this season, and the Bills might be too, though still not 100% sold on Buffalo. Detroit is a nasty team with some good offensive weapons. They’re legitimately good.
1) As always, the real loser in the NBA debacle is the little guy, the beer vendor, waiter, bus driver, limo driver, ticket seller who needs his job to make ends meet, but might lose it because millionaires can’t agree on how to split the pie. Just terrific.
The six most expensive colleges in America, and tuitions:
6) Northwestern, Evanston, IL $40,223
5) Washington U, St Louis, $41,892
4) Chicago U, Chicago $42,041
3) Wesleyan, Middletown, CT $42,084
2) Sarah Lawrence, Bronxville, NY $45,212
1) Columbia, New York City, $45,290
***********************
Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Random mid-week thoughts.......
13) If you’re not from upstate New York, allow me a minute to digress; an era has ended in Albany broadcasting. John Graney, as fine a talkshow host as there is in this country, hung up his mike last week after 40 years in the business.
Its too bad he never got to work on a national stage, because he’s every bit as good as anyone who is or has been on that stage. He’s a good guy, too, unlike some of the egotistical nitwits who man the airwaves. John’s show will be missed, for sure. Enjoy your retirement, sir.
12) Staying local for one last bit, Siena’s basketball game at Iona will be played at Madison Square Garden January 3rd.
11) What is TCU basketball coach Jim Christian telling his recruits? First of all, the Horned Frogs aren’t any good in Mountain West, then they were moving to deep waters of the faraway Big East, but now, without coming within a year of their first Big East game, they’ve already jumped to the Big 12, whose waters are equally deep but the travel is way easier. Christian is going to have a hard time keeping his job for long in that league, unless he suddenly becomes a bigtime recruiter.
10) For my handicapping purposes, it’s be great if every league was ten teams and played a home/home series like the Big X is doing this year. Pac-12 isn’t doing it anymore; looks like 12 teams is going to wind up more the norm. Anything is better than 16-team leagues.
9) When the NBA re-appears, they should re-engineer the whole league. Cut the schedule to 64 teams to create a better product so teams can occasionally practice. Make the playoffs best-of-3 or best-of-5, to create some drama. Cut ticket prices. Make league more middle class friendly, or at least somewhat so. Awful lot of empty seats at these games the last few years. I know, this has zero chance of ever happening.
8) This will sound silly coming from someone who gets tired driving 26 miles, but do people realize that running a marathon is unhealthy? Its bad for you to run that far all at once- the guy in Greek mythology, who ran the original 26 miles to save the Athenian Army in Battle of Marathon? He dropped dead after finishing his run. A 35-year old fireman in Chicago died running a marathon Sunday. He freakin' died. ‘nuff said.
7) Since 2001, NFL favorites of more than 7 points are 89-90 vs spread in Games 1-5, 161-200-3 in Games 6-14, 47-49-1 in Games 15-16.
6) If I managed a big league baseball team, I’d want a staff member monitoring the game on TV, just in case they could pick something up from TV that you couldn’t see from the dugout. Never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes.
5) Buffalo Bills are already +11 in turnovers; they’ve had a positive ratio in every game so far this season. Want to see how they do in a game when they don’t win the turnover battle.
4) NFL red flags: Lions have 21 penalties for 169 yards in their last two games……..Texans have been outscored in the second half of every game this season.
3) Very surprised to read that baseball teams are going to be more vigilant on monitoring the conditioning of their players during the offseason. Guess my surprise is that its necessary- you’d think with the big money these guys make, they’d keep themselves in shape year-round.
2) If you use trends to handicap the NFL, one of the big obstacles to success is deciding when a team has broken through and rendered their past useless. Looks like the Lions are doing that this season, and the Bills might be too, though still not 100% sold on Buffalo. Detroit is a nasty team with some good offensive weapons. They’re legitimately good.
1) As always, the real loser in the NBA debacle is the little guy, the beer vendor, waiter, bus driver, limo driver, ticket seller who needs his job to make ends meet, but might lose it because millionaires can’t agree on how to split the pie. Just terrific.
