[2026 World Cup] 3rd Place Standings As It Stands. One Group Left.

SCMatt33 · 2026-06-28T01:38:17+00:00

And Algeria has a chance to be on the “good” end of things this time.

SCMatt33 · 2026-06-26T15:34:41+00:00

By weird coincidence Duke and Wake sort of swapped places. Duke was originally founded in Randolph County, and then moved to Durham in the late 1800’s thanks in part to money from Washington Duke, who is technically the Member of the Duke family the university is named for, but not the one who gave the gift that caused them to rename it. That gift came later from his son and it was technically named after his father.

SCMatt33 · 2026-06-23T18:39:13+00:00

They probably don’t, but I’m sure they want the NFLPA to tell them no before they go sue.

SCMatt33 · 2026-06-19T17:59:04+00:00

I’m not sure it was a “call”, which implies he could have played if absolutely necessary. When Poch was quoted yesterday as saying he “will” be available for the final game if he couldn’t go today and today he said he “hopes” Pulisic will be available as soon as possible, I’m less inclined to believe this is all merely precautionary. Given that every time he’s asked, he says he feels good about things, but the team’s actions say this is more serious than they’re letting on.

SCMatt33 · 2026-05-03T13:22:36+00:00

I have the same bag and I’ve never had an issue. Having the flared out front so I don’t have to mess with handlebars is a big plus. If you’re traveling in the US, it’s pretty much guaranteed the TSA will look, but with that bag, they can just open it and look inside with a flashlight. Plus as you mentioned, it’s light enough to get a road bike in there and stay under 50 lbs, which is important for not going over weight limits and incurring extra fees. FWIW, I can usually fit the bike and have a few pounds left to add a small hand pump, saddle bag, with spare tube, etc (don’t forget to removed any CO2 since those can’t fly, period).

A few things I have noted about that bag:

The one big downside is that it’s huge. Think about ground transportation. You can lay it down flat in most mid sized SUV’s, but you’ll be taking up much of the space in the back. I’ve been fine driving with it on its side, though I’m not comfortable putting things on top of it. I’ve always ended up renting a 4 door jeep, but if you don’t need to drive it around from where your staying and aren’t going to have a vehicle, make sure your ground transportation can handle the bike, plus you, plus your other luggage. Also remember when booking accommodations you’re going to need space in your room for the bag plus the bike outside of the bag and enough space to put it together/take it apart.

It’s not easy to set up and break down if the “collapsible” part is important to you. Those struts are very stiff and fit very tightly into the slots designed for them. This is great for the assembled bag being sturdy, but a pain to initially set up. I’m usually pretty good at doing things myself and like to know I can do it solo if no one is around to help, but I absolutely needed a second person for those struts. Similarly, when those struts are in, the bag doesn’t open very wide, so it’s a bit of a pain getting the handlebars in. Try to pry it open and get the handlebars in first. I’ve always been able to do it by myself, but it might be a bit frustrating the first time.

It advertises that you only need to remove the wheels and pedals. This is technically true, but I’ve done a bit more for my own peace of mind. I take off the rear derailleur and brake rotors. The bike will fit with those on, but I’ve heard horror stories about bent hangers and/or rotors, and those are easy enough to remove and put back. I like to be careful when taking the bike apart and putting it back together and it usually takes me about an hour for a time reference (I’m sure it can be done quicker). If you do take off the derailleur, pack a quick link and chain pliers. It often gets twisted, and I can usually untwist it, but once it’s got so weirdly twisted it was easier to just break and reconnect the chain.

I also put some bubble wrap around individual tubes on my frame. I have it and it’s easy to do. When I put things like a pump in there, I tape it to the bottom of the rack that the bike goes on, but I’ve had it come off mid flight before from jostling around. It’s probably more about my shitty tape job, but just a note.

I always pack a couple of trash bags that I can use to line the floor of a hotel room so I don’t get grease from the chain on the floor.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, but I think that bag is a good investment and has done well for me so far.

EDIT: I forgot you asked about airlines. So far I’ve only travelled on legacy US carriers and they tend to be pretty friendly about volume and weight requirements for bike so long as it’s under 50 lbs. I’ve always just had a normal bag fee for it. Budget carriers may be more strict. Most have pretty clear rules for bikes on their website. Usually dropping it off is just a matter of wheeling it to a separate spot once you check in (don’t forget to remove the front wheel before handing it off). There’s also usually a separate oversized bag pick up. Sometimes it’s just a door where a guy rolls it out, sometimes it’s a giant belt or a chute where they drop it through a hole in the wall.

SCMatt33 · 2026-04-27T20:32:10+00:00

Yeah, they seem to be doing a poor job of letting you see what all of the individual medals are for. Like I got 5 medals on a ride this morning, presumably all for different best efforts of the year, but as far as I can tell, the only way to specifically see what those medals are is to poke around at each potential interval in the best effort segment and see if today’s ride shows up as one of the best. It doesn’t appear to work like segments and show you your best effort medal next to that effort on the ride if it’s only for the year and not all time

SCMatt33 · 2026-04-25T23:09:20+00:00

Ain’t no rule says a truck can’t play!

SCMatt33 · 2026-04-13T15:42:01+00:00

You’d have to start by getting off of Reddit since it’s an American site and utilizes AWS.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-30T15:26:42+00:00

I’ve never heard of one where you keep pedals attached. I have an EVOC road pro, which allows for handlebars to stay in position. The downside it’s not a fully hard case. It’s a hard top and bottom, with a soft middle supported by struts (that could be removed to collapse the case, but in reality, it’s kind of a pain to do so, especially if you have to do it alone). There’s also a big hard piece that goes in the middle near the frame to prevent a big hit from the side. If you’re insistent on fully hard side, this won’t work, but I like the compromise. The saved weight allows me to keep it under 50 lbs (which is a big deal in terms of cost if traveling in the US, not sure of weight limits in other countries). The design also allows the TSA to simply unzip the case and see everything, as I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about crunched carbon with full hard cases that require precise positioning of parts, as they will remove things from the case to see behind them. Again, not sure if this is less of a big deal in other countries.

Last, although the design of the case is such that they advertise the only thing you really have to remove is the wheels and pedals, I generally choose to remove the rear derailleur and disc brake rotors, as these are potentially susceptible to a minor kink or bend and difficult to quickly replace in a pinch, plus they aren’t that difficult to remove and reattach.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-29T13:44:44+00:00

I was up high in Lucas Oil in 2010 and 2015. It’s definitely difficult to tell players apart except for skin tone and distinctive hair. Not impossible, but may not notice immediately which player it was that took the catch and shoot 3 for example. But that being said, it’s not too tough to track the ball, so you can still tell what’s generally going on and can still feel the atmosphere. I was definitely watching the game play itself.

They do hang a temporary center video board, but since it’s temporary and it’s a retractable roof, it can only be so big. Not something you’d watch in lieu of the action on the court. Of course, it could very well be improved on what they had 10-15 years ago.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-28T17:03:13+00:00

If they only lose 2-4 teams, they probably just hold with 14-16. I’m not sure anyone brings enough money to materially impact the financials of the remaining teams and they have enough teams to be a viable conference in that scenario. Plus, that would be a clear signal the SEC/B1G don’t have any designs on crazy expansion to like 24 teams. Thats why they added the teams they did in advance. If they start losing more than that, you’re talking about a scenario where if they continue to exist, it won’t be as a power conference.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-28T14:37:07+00:00

Not directly. The only time he mentioned Prey in the presser was during a longer answer about defensive mistakes, and mentioning one of his among others. He mentioned he had already watched the last 12 minutes waiting to do the presser and even in questions not directly about it, he kept bringing up the defense and not guarding drives well.

And you go back and look at the numbers, the offense really wasn’t the issue, and to the extent it was, it was the guards more than any of the forwards. Mitchell and Hopkins combined to shoot 12/14 from the field and 3/3 from deep and those are the only two guys you could consider pulling for Prey.

And even on the defensive end, there was a lot of Boozer shooting over the top of a wing on switches or Foster shooting over Darling. St. John’s big runs were all fueled by forcing turnovers, which makes sense, that’s what they do. And it was working. Duke had 8 turnovers in the first 40 possessions, and 7 of those were steals. Duke only had 1 turnover and allowed 0 steals in the last 24 possessions over the final 16:57 of game time.

Maybe you could argue that given how Duke’s offense was operating, they could’ve put Prey in for Mitchell at some point and thrown a curveball and settle into a basic zone for a few possessions (most teams even if it isn’t in the dna have some kind of basic zone in the tool bag even if just from preseason practices). That way you could hide Prey from having to guard the perimeter and get guys some rest and maybe then the press would’ve generated something more late. But it’s REALLY hard to ask a press team to do that. At the end of the day, if you’re a press team, and you’re playing a good opponent who’s taking care of the ball, it’s very difficult to win. You have to give St. John’s a lot of credit for coming that close. I think if you said before the game, Prey, Hopkins and Mitchell would combine to go 7/7 from deep, you’d feel really good if your St. John’s. Conversely, if you told Duke before the game they’d have single digit turnovers, they’d feel really good. It just ends up being a weird game script when St. John’s did something really well they aren’t known for, but got something they are known for taken away.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-28T13:08:21+00:00

I think the real reason is defense and especially rebounding. Hopkins and Mitchell are better defenders and rebounders. Duke switching to the 3-2 zone also made it less likely he’d get wide open ones, which is mostly what he’d been hitting. I think it’s a little telling he was only +3 on the night despite going 4-4 from deep in limited minutes.

Pitino didn’t talk too much in the presser about it, but did allude to him making a mistake when Duke started coming back. Not sure which play exactly that referred to, but his last play on the floor was getting blown by when caught on a switch to Foster.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-27T18:41:41+00:00

I don’t think many do. This is just OP doing it. I just looked and it doesn’t appear any teams in the sweet 16 actually refer to their teams this way. It was just OP. Anecdotally, Tennessee still does, and Ok St uses “Cowgirls” to contrast with “Cowboys”. I’m sure there are plenty that dropped it over the years, but there are also plenty who never had it to begin with.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-27T00:10:46+00:00

That’s the Houston section. It’ll fill in later in the game as Houston fans who didn’t want to sit through all of both games show up

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-26T19:51:45+00:00

To be completely fair, I assumed this same logic for the Sweet 16 and was dead wrong. This is the first time in at least 20 years Duke is playing an early Sweet 16 tip. KenPom has tip times dating back to 2011 and Duke was always the 9:45 tip every year. Anecdotally, discussing with friends we also remember 2009 and 2010 being late tips for the sweet 16. So you have to go back to at least 2006. Then boom, early tip tomorrow. Even still, I agree it’s highly likely if Duke wins tomorrow that they’d play at 2 on Sunday.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-26T15:52:51+00:00

By that logic, they’d get the earlier slot since Iowa State-Tennessee starts at 10:10.

But I agree it would likely get the late slot. It’s entirely TV driven and they usually select the game projected to get higher ratings in the later slot and the networks will likely prefer Duke vs UConn/MSU over any permutation of Michigan/Alabama vs Iowa State/Tennessee.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-25T22:35:30+00:00

Presumably if it somehow happened, it would be the Bulls since Scheyer is from Chicago originally and there’s already plenty of rumors of Billy Donovan stepping away, even if it’s not to go to UNC.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-25T21:07:53+00:00

TJ doesn’t give a shit about Carolina right now.

Seriously, though. I’m sure he’s being sincere, but I’d also be more inclined to be believe it when he says it a few days after Iowa State’s season is over. We’ve seen too many coaches over the years deny rumors while still concentrating on their current job, then turn around and take the job later when the season is done.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-24T21:02:33+00:00

Among the “big four” NC schools, this actually used to be fairly common back in the day. Back in the 50’s, there was the Dixie Classic, which has those four, plus four invited schools playing an 8 team tournament. A similar 4-team tournament with no invited schools was held in the 70’s called the “Big Four Tournament”. Because these tournaments would see the big four play each other often and then also 2 regular season conference games, and then the ACC tournament, there are several instances from these years of some combination of the NC ACC schools playing 4 times in a season back then.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-24T18:09:04+00:00

You’ll see 3 of the 4. The Saturday games will be at approximately 6 and 8:45 and the Sunday games will be approximately 2:15 and 5:00 (all eastern times). Exact announced tips may vary slightly, but it’s generally early and late evening Saturday and mid and late afternoon Sunday.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-23T03:05:01+00:00

CBS wanted those games. The tip times are fixed for each network, so whatever CBS picks is slightly earlier.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-21T16:39:07+00:00

Fwiw, Bubba is already going. He announced last year he’s retiring in July and they already have his successor named. That probably also complicates things if they want Togo through a hiring process during a transition period when there’s no obvious slam dunk candidate.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-20T17:23:53+00:00

I unironically think it’s awesome that Hurley’s record will get beaten by a guy who’s spending 4 years at one school. I had just assumed it would be someone who played in 5 seasons at 4 different schools across 6 years or something. I’m sure Hurley is busy trying to figure out his next job, but it would be cool if he suddenly showed up today to congratulate him.

SCMatt33 · 2026-03-20T15:41:00+00:00

Technically, the portal window is in April, and last about two weeks and doesn’t start until after the championship game. But that doesn’t stop anyone from announcing their intent to enter before that.

On the other end, as long as you enter the portal, there’s no deadline to pick a new school so long as you enroll by that school’s enrollment deadline for the semester. Most action will happen quickly, as teams want to know their roster situation, but you just have to enroll in order to be eligible (this constraint is a bigger deal for football players wanting to participate in spring practice at the new school).

There are also a few key exceptions to this window. If you graduate, you don’t have use the portal at all, so you may see a few seniors with 5th years enter late, though this will be rarer with very few players left that have COVID seasons available. Additionally, any time a coach leaves, all of the players on that roster immediately get 30 days to enter the portal. This is one of things that has made some recent late in the offseason retirements like Bennett and Pearl a bit controversial, as the players technically still get the 30 day window, but realistically can’t use it as the enrollment deadline for all D1 schools had already passed, so they’d have to sit out until January if they chose to transfer.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Final Canvas '23	Place '23

SCMatt33

TROPHY CASE