• MBB: Long Beach State vs. UC Davis, Saturday, 1 pm
    Yeah, if teams are close, you could do some sort of common opponents ranking standings tiebreaker. So we don't get penalized for not getting to play 1-11 Fullerton twice but LBSt doesn't get penalized for having to play us and Irvine while UCD and UCI don't play. This year, as of now, you could group the top three, the middle four and the bottom three and sort that way.

    It does look like it matters less this year though since the tourney is similar to the men's - everyone has to play three games to win it (except the 8 and 9 seeds) as opposed to having single byes and double byes. So from that aspect, if we did drop to, say, the three seed (this is almost impossible since Irvine and LBSt play each other), it wouldn't force us to play an extra game. I know the team wants to win the regular season tile but ultimately, they want the tourney berth. I'd be much more annoyed if we had to play the extra game because we got losses tacked on due to missed games.
  • MBB: Long Beach State vs. UC Davis, Saturday, 1 pm
    Assuming I’m interpreting the rules right, as long as the women play their remaining 4 games and win them, they’ll win the title. Assuming no other game for any other teams get cancelled (which would make the average games played the highest), the conference average would be exactly 15 games played. UCD’s adjusted record would be 10-1. Beach could get to 16-2 and Irvine to 13-2. Winning percentage would determine the order and we’d get that.

    If we have one game cancelled and win the other three games, our adjusted record would be 9-2. Then it would come down to what LBSt and Irvine do in their games. A three loss LB would have a better winning percentage with no cancellations but not a four loss. Irvine would have to win out because we’d have a slightly higher winning percentage than a 12-3 UCI team.

    If we get two games cancelled, winning the conference is probably not happening without some upsets. Adjusted record would be 8-4. A five loss LBSt has a better winning percentage as would a 4 loss UCI.

    As for H2H to matter, that only matters if we end up with the same winning percentage, which is unlikely. I think the only way that would happen is if we end up at 8-4, LB would be 12-6 and UCI would go 10-5. That would take us either having games cancelled and/or losing a game, plus some upsets of LB/UCI (those two playing each other means two losses but it also means two wins as well).

    So basically we just need to hope the four games get played. I like our odds of at least going 3-1 which would make it hard for either LB or UCI to pass us.
  • WBB: Aggies 5-1 (4-0) at Long Beach 11-1 (10-0) ESPN3 4:00 2/12 and 2/13
    Jen Gross has put together a machine. It's pretty impressive.

    61-9 in conference the last five years (and four of those losses were in 2019-20) and 102-35 overall. Four straight regular season titles. Only blemish is the two BW tourney losses.

    The biggest thing is replacing players who have graduated. We're now on year 5 of controlling the conference so this isn't a "we had one or two great recruiting classes" situation.

    Would be nice for competitive reasons if they could have gotten Irvine to cancel their Fullerton series this weekend and have them come up here and play Davis as was originally scheduled. Or have us go down there and play them. Record-wise, UCD, LBST and UCI are the top three teams in the conference. LBST and UCI still play, we just played LBST. Would make sense to have us play UCI also for a true round robin. At least give UCI a shot. They get nothing by playing a horrible Fullerton team and we've got an open date. I would think that UCI would prefer the chance to knock us off themselves rather than hope we lose twice to .500 teams.
  • Super Bowl
    Everything went wrong for the Chiefs yesterday.

    -They had a makeshift OL that couldn't block for Mahomes. I think I saw the Bucs pressured Mahomes 29 times and only two of those they sent more than four rushers. If you're getting home with only four guys, nobody's going to be open.
    -The Chiefs dropped some passes. I think there were two instances of Chiefs receivers who had balls hit them in the facemask. Kelce dropped an easy one early also on a 3rd down.
    -Chiefs made dumb mistakes. Lining up offsides on 4th and 5 FG attempt? Inexcusable. That led to 7 instead of 3. Calling a timeout down 8 when the Bucs seem content to let the clock run out and you get the ball to start the second half? Horrible coaching decision. That led to 7 instead of 0. Take those two out and it's 10-6 at half instead of 21-6.
    -Refs didn't help. The PI call on Evans in the end zone was bogus. That was uncatchable. The earlier one on the same drive was soft but a 50-50 call. Soft unnecessary roughness on KC for a light shove when the TB player shoved first. And regardless of that, if were calling that a penalty, you're going to have 20 penalties a game for shoving. I don't see how you can call 4-5 PI/defensive holding penalties on KC in the first half but none on TB. You're telling me nobody held Kelce or Hill to keep them in check?
    Mahomes was off a bit also. Even early in the game, he missed a wide open Hardman on what would have been a huge gain. Wasn't a tough throw, wasn't pressured. Just missed him.

    I think KC was the better team on the season - they went 14-1 when they played their starters in the better conference. But it's not like Tampa was a bad team. So when you have a great team matched up with a good team and the great team plays about as poorly as possible while the good team plays flawlessly, a result like this happens. I mean, the Raiders were mediocre but went to Arrowhead and beat KC this year.
  • COVID-19
    Occam’s Razor would be better applied here.

    Either...

    It was right wing lunatics who stormed the Capitol with the intention of doing harm to member of the House and Senate and to attempt to overthrow the election, something that a vast majority of people on both sides of the aisle agree on.

    Or

    There’s a vast conspiracy by Antifa and the MSM media to make it seem like it was right wing lunatics when it was actually Antifa and only super lawyer Rudy Giuliani has the proof (the like the countless number of election fraud lawsuits that he filed and we’re swiftly thrown out by Obama and Trump appointed judges alike).
  • COVID-19


    Spoiler alert. He either won't have any or they'll be right wing lunatics.

    I mean, saying "Rudy Giuliani posted multiple videos..." is code for "just ignore my entire post because it's complete BS".

    If Twitter/YouTube existed in the 40’s - “Guys, Hitler’s lawyer posted some videos that showed that it was actually infighting amongst the Jewish people that led to millions of them being killed in the gas chambers. Hitler didn’t do it. The Jews did it to themselves! But YouTube took down the videos. SUSPICIOUS!”
  • COVID-19
    Rolling 7 day average for US Daily cases have dropped from 246K cases on Jan 12 to 143K cases yesterday. Total hospitalizations have dropped from 131K on Jan 12 to 94K yesterday.

    California has gone from 42.6K cases on Jan 14 to 17.5K yesterday and hospitalizations have dropped from 22.7K on Jan 12 to 15.2K yesterday.

    Unfortunately deaths haven't dropped much at all yet but I'd expect those to start soon considering there's the delay from cases to deaths and we've been vaccinating the most vulnerable.

    Of course, the caveat is that as good as it's trending right now and should continue, our second peak highs were only a rolling average of 66.5K new cases and just under 60K total hospitalizations. So while things are obviously trending in the right direction, we're still in a tough spot.

    More positives: 26.6M people have already gotten one dose and another 6.2M have gotten both. We're averaging 1.34M doses handed out per day. I believe another vaccine will be coming soon as well.
  • COVID-19


    What would cause the difference in the reactions between the two shots? Does getting the second just amplify the reaction (for lack of a better phrasing)?

    That all tracks with what I've heard. First shot is mostly just arm soreness (I've frequently heard it described as being punched in the arm). Second one is exactly as you described. Possible fever, chills and or just feeling lousy for 24 hours. But I've heard from a handful of people and everyone has said 24 hrs at most. Obviously there will be some exceptions I'm sure.

    I won't hesitate to get mine when I'm able to.

    One thing I have heard is the needle is bigger than the normal needle for getting a shot. Any truth to that?
  • COVID-19
    7 day rolling average for new cases has dropped for about 10 days straight. Total hospitalizations have dropped each day over the last 10 days also. Almost 5% of the population (16.2M people) have gotten their first dose and we’re up to almost 1M vaccinations per day (so over 2% each week at that pace). I think that’s going to increase as we start allowing younger people to get vaccinated.

    I don’t think it will be completely normal by then but I think we’re going to be relatively normal by June. There won’t be 20K people in an indoor basketball arena by then. But we’re rounding the corner on this thing.

    One note, I’ve read that even if you get the vaccine, you probably won’t get sick but you could still get the virus and transmit it to others. So even if you get your vaccine, still wear a mask for a while until more of the population gets their shots.
  • COVID-19
    No big deal on the vaccine rollout. The virus pretty much disappeared in April or May last year just like Trump said it would!
  • COVID-19
    CDC says over 6.6M first doses have been administered already. In the last 24 hours, they've administered almost 750K. Keep that rate up (though it's been increasing) and it's 5.2M per week which is 1.5% of the population. For reference, about 250K people were infected today (official reporting).

    The rates of infection are still going to be high for the next few weeks and the deaths will be high for a couple weeks after that (due to lag). I wouldn't be surprised if deaths drop off quicker since they're prioritizing getting the vaccine to the elderly and who are most at risk of dying. But we're rounding the corner on this thing.
  • COVID-19
    Yeah, a big part of it is how much advance warning do they need to cancel the season. Would be nice if they could push it back even a couple weeks. But that might not be feasible. I'm pretty optimistic that by April or May things will be getting close to being back to normal. Football is much more likely to have fans since it's outdoors. Obviously wouldn't be full seating but they could get a couple thousand fans in there.

    Official numbers are at 21M official cases. Best estimates are actually at least double that if not triple. Officially we're at 6.3% of people having contracted it, but tripling it makes it nearly 20%. People are getting the vaccine now. They're starting with hospitals and nursing homes. The latter alone is going to make deaths drop quickly in a few weeks. I believe I read even the first dose is 50% effective in preventing the virus so we're going to see significant gains pretty quickly, even before people start getting the second does.

    The next month is going to be rough. But the seven day rolling average, even accounting for the Christmas reporting lag, shows cases as having plateaued. Hopefully we don't see a Christmas bump just like we didn't see a Thanksgiving bump. Now we just need to see a downturn.
  • COVID-19
    Nobody wants to eat outside now when it's cold, rainy and windy. If you enclose these outdoor seating areas enough to make people comfortable, they'll no longer be outside since you'll have enclosures on all four sides, or at least three. I'm guessing its not financially viable for many restaurants to have outdoor seating now anyway.

    What actually needs to happen is the government needs to provide help to small businesses and people that actually need it rather than let big companies in on the grift. Keep as much as possible closed for a few more weeks and reevaluate.
  • COVID-19
    4-6 months is very extreme and it won't be that long. They've rolled out one vaccine already, with others coming quickly. Officially, we're at around 17M having caught the virus but the general thought is at best, we've only caught half the cases with the more likely estimate being only 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 due to tests not being available early, people not getting tested, people not having symptoms severe enough to get tested or being asymptomatic. So realistically, at least 10% of the US has caught it, and we're probably looking at 15-20%. We're still at 200K per day officially, which is 1.4M per week. That's 0.5% of the population per week. Double that, and we're probably at 1% of the population getting it each week. So by the end of January, we'll be at 20-25% having caught it. And that's before people getting vaccinated.

    The next major hurdle is Christmas. We didn't see as much of a Thanksgiving bump as expected. It was more of a continuation of the trend of cases skyrocketing. All of the trackers show the daily case 7 day average having leveled off. The last day or two has actually seen a slight downturn (we'll see if that's just a blip or a trend). Hopefully Christmas follows Thanksgiving in not having a noticeable bump, though we won't know until mid-January.

    As more people get infected and people start getting the vaccine, there will be fewer and fewer people to catch and spread the virus. If I could bet on it, I'd bet on restaurants being open way sooner than 6 months. If you made that 4 months, I'd still bet the under and wouldn't think twice.
  • COVID-19


    Maybe the overall numbers, but don't act like this isn't blowing up everywhere. Most cases per 1M people are North Dakota and South Dakota (those two are 4 and 9 in deaths per 1M people). We're at 16 states where over 1 in 1000 people have died from Covid.
  • COVID-19


    This might be a foreign concept to you, but it's generally a good idea to get a complete count before finalizing it rather than stopping partway through.
  • COVID-19
    July 1:
    Deaths and hospitalizations consistently down in most areas.movielover
    LOL.

    July 4:
    New Covid19 graphs, now under 500 deaths per day (down from 2,000).movielover
    LOL

    July 6:
    Fantastic News.

    Alleged Covid19 deaths per day drop from 2701 (May 6th) to 212 (yesterday). An over 90% drop.
    movielover
    LOL

    July 20:
    Covid mortality update (daily)

    July 20 - 390
    May 6 - 2701
    movielover
    LOL
  • COVID-19
    Not sure why Musk is getting a Covid test. He said it would be gone by the end of April.
  • No Big Sky football this fall
    I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this situation. No need discussing it further.

    Condolences to you on your losses. To lose either a brother or your wife in a year is bad enough, let along both. Hope you're coping as best as possible under the circumstances.
  • No Big Sky football this fall
    I agree that the case numbers aren't super accurate. There's no way for them to be without literally testing everyone who hasn't gotten it yet every day.

    I also agree that without a vaccine, there's no way to completely stamp this thing out unless people just stayed in their home everyday for like 3 weeks, which also isn't the least bit realistic. But there are ways to limit it and to contain it. Germany sure seemed to be able to contain it well. As did South Korea. But you need buy in from the people to do it and we don't have it here for a number of reasons.

    It's tough to compare countries and even cities within the countries. Like you said, so many factors go into how quickly the virus spreads and how serious the consequences are when it spreads (not just deaths but hospitalizations as well). Maybe Sweden had the hospital capacity to withstand just letting the virus run its course. Or maybe they didn't and were just willing to take the risk. I have no idea. But at least some places in the US, we didn't/don't have that capacity.

    There isn't and shouldn't be a one size fits all solution to this. Some small town in California shouldn't be forced into complete lockdown just because the virus is blowing up in SF or LA. But we do need people to be careful and not necessarily go about their daily lives like normal. Socially distance. Wear a mask. Avoid big gatherings. You can do these things and still have a relatively normal life. But too many people aren't doing this. They don't think it's bad. They're not worried about getting it or spreading it. They think "oh, this won't happen to me". They think it's dumb to socially distance or it's dumb to wear a mask. That's what's causing this thing to be as bad as it has been for this long. We saw the infection rates and death rates drop dramatically following the lockdowns. Then we eased up and people got tired of staying home, they saw deaths continuing to decrease and thought they wouldn't go back up, and big surprise, infections/deaths went right back up again.

    There are also lasting health issues that won't show up in the death numbers. And these are happening in people who don't necessarily have severe symptoms or need hospital stays to recover from Covid. They're happening to young healthy people. That's something that can't be ignored either.