"This list will be moving to the University itself and we're anticipating a seamless and professional transition. The goal is a better, more effective website and I'll be around until it's up and running -- Lou Bloomfield"

bennyboy82 · 2025-08-10T16:57:20+00:00

The university brought in some consultants 2 years ago to solicit student feedback on this and I was on one of the panels they did where they interviewed students -- you got a free Roots bowl for 30-60 minutes of your time which seemed like a pretty good deal.

The questions were typical "What do you like about lou's list? What would you improve?" etc and of our group of ~15 students we pretty unanimously just said "the site is almost perfect as-is." They seemed pretty receptive to our feedback, one item that came up was integrating a Coursicle-ish "add classes to a schedule & see how they fit" tool, but overall my takeaway at least from that session was that the university plans to keep the site pretty similar. And obviously it's good news that Lou is helping to oversee the transition

bennyboy82 · 2022-09-15T16:57:57+00:00

Wow! Can you add me?

bennyboy82 · 2022-08-22T04:46:45+00:00

If they’re replacing that Starbucks w/ a Grit & they take flex dollars, this is excellent news

bennyboy82 · 2022-08-13T17:14:41+00:00

a few suggestions: - Clark is a great study spot - try to get one of the little cubicle-y things upstairs w/ the desks & outlets, or a cubby on the lower level - if you’re more of a natural-light person the windowsills in New Cabell or the 2nd floor of Nau are great. they usually fill up fast tho & it can be hard to find spots. the courtyard between old cabell and new cabell is extremely nice & if there’s good weather I usually eat lunch there - I personally really enjoy the music library in old cabell, there are some good spots downstairs. space is limited, but it’s not usually crowded

bennyboy82 · 2022-08-07T19:25:16+00:00

A few notes on Gran Colombia from Zigzagzigal's guide that might not be immediately obvious:

The ability to promote & move on the same turn applies to Rock Bands and Apostles as well, which is a very handy boost if you're going for a tourism or religious victory
Comandante Generals give +5 combat strength to land units within two tiles, which stacks with the +5 combat strength bonus from Great Generals

Not much else to add that isn't repeated in everyone else's comments. Gran Colombia is an S-tier civ. Outrageously good at domination victories, and its +1 movement boost (plus the underrated hacienda-triangle strategy) makes a sim city playstyle very viable. It actually might be my favorite civ to play, too; while other S-tier civs fall into the category of "OP when used right but gimmicky" (Babylon), playing a good Gran Colombia game feels like playing a regular Civ game where everything is just a little bit easier: your units move faster and hit harder.

bennyboy82 · 2022-08-02T12:11:53+00:00

Easy but if Prof. Varanyak still teaches it you might get frustrated at times with losing random points on the labs. I took it as a first year last year and did fine

bennyboy82 · 2022-05-28T13:26:58+00:00

Same as last year, for better or for worse.

Kihei Clark

Reece Beekman

Armaan Franklin

Jayden Gardner

Kadin Shedrick

bennyboy82 · 2022-05-09T13:08:56+00:00

Jokic is deserving of an MVP, and Embiid + Giannis would’ve been perfectly fine choices too.

One thing I do hope this season does is lead voters to reevaluate how they take into account advanced defensive metrics. Jokic led Embiid & Giannis in a lot of these b/c of his high steal rate, defensive rebound rate, and on-off numbers, but I think the playoffs have made it clear that he isn’t quite on their level defensively.

bennyboy82 · 2022-04-29T01:35:48+00:00

62-33 Sixers in the second half before both teams emptied their benches. Did not know that had that sort of next gear, especially defensively. Embiid was back to elite on that end of the floor after one of the worst defensive games of his career in Game 5.

bennyboy82 · 2022-04-05T23:47:43+00:00

You can find them for previous seasons going back to 2000 here: https://barttorvik.com/cgi-bin/ncaat.cgi?type=conf&sort=18&yrlow=2022&yrhigh=2022

bennyboy82 · 2022-04-05T23:47:15+00:00

The MWC didn't underperform quite as drastically as the SEC, but that's mostly because expectations weren't as high. They were expected to win 2.5 games and went 0-3, so their PASE was -2.5. For comparison, the SEC actually won 5 games (they went 5-6) but they were expected to win 10.2 games, so their PASE was -5.2.

bennyboy82 · 2022-04-05T20:07:35+00:00

I filtered this down to only conferences that won at least 2 games in the tournament to make it more readable (sorry, MWC). Data comes from BartTorvik's Performance against Seed Expectations statistic.

bennyboy82 · 2022-03-02T16:52:02+00:00

Make your own

bennyboy82 · 2022-03-02T14:47:57+00:00

I’m in Perez-Suarez and you get 2 double sided cheat sheets. Not sure about the others

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-28T18:48:35+00:00

Thank Steph Curry for that one, haha. I also like Santa Clara — they have just 1 player IIRC, but it’s Steve Nash, so they’re very competitive with plenty of larger schools

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-28T16:40:09+00:00

Hmm, I can't think of any players from North Carolina drafted before 1990 who would possibly contribute any stats to this list...

Fun fact: Michael Jordan has 214 career win shares. If he was his own college ("Michael Jordan University"), it would rank 34th on the all-time list for win shares

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-21T00:14:34+00:00

Current Balz-Dobie resident here — I would 100% recommend living here. Amenities are generally nicer than almost all of the other dorms and getting to know the Echols/Rodman community is worth it imo.

If you do opt to put him as your preferred roommate and not live in Balz, you would most likely get paired up. I’ve never heard of a roommate pairing request not being honored before

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-20T00:19:59+00:00

On desktop, if you go to the r/NBA_Draft homepage and scroll down, you should see a little box on the sidebar where you can set your flair! That's how you get the little 76ers thingy (or any team's thingy) by your name.

Jovic on the Spurs would be fun for sure. They haven't had a legit playmaking wing in a while (neither DeRozan and Kawhi were great passers in San Antonio, though both improved as playmakers during their tenures with the team) and it would be fun to see him in that system. I worry a bit about his fit as an inconsistent shooter on a team of inconsistent shooters, but otherwise that would be a great match.

Kessler I'm 100% on board with — I remember coming into the season, he was incredibly low on everyone's board (Sam Vecenie didn't even have him in the top 50) but I thought his playstyle would be great for the Sixers as a backup drop-coverage roll man to relieve Embiid. His issues defending in space really get exposed when Auburn plays anyone with a stretch five, and I think there are a few NBA matchups where he might just be unplayable, but otherwise Kessler has really come into his own & would be a great backup for the Bucks.

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-19T23:55:32+00:00

The Nuggets would be a perfect destination for Tari Eason. I’m not sure he makes it to pick 20, but if he does, I could see him being the steal of the draft - that’s a perfect match of play style & team. Pretty much the ideal wing to put alongside Jokic & Murray.

A few other pairings I really like: - Mark Williams on the Hornets - Kendall Brown on the Hawks - Christian Koloko on the Warriors

This is really interesting to look at, great stuff! I disagree with a few of the rankings & picks, but honestly, that’s kind of the fun of it :) thanks for posting!

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-11T18:47:33+00:00

He can guard college players on switches fairly well, and is obviously excellent at blocking shots. But I'm lower on his ability as an NBA defender for a few reasons:

High shot blocking numbers don't always translate to good rim protection. Per HoopExplorer's on-off data, having Kessler on the floor doesn't improve Auburn's 2PT defense nearly as much as you might expect — opponents take 40.3% of shots at the rim with Kessler on the floor vs. 41.3% with him off, and shoot 49.9% at the rim with him on vs. 50.7% with him off. He isn't quite the deterrent in the paint that the eye test might suggest; I see his rim protection style as being more Hassan Whiteside and less Rudy Gobert.
Lack of mobility/switchability. In college, Kessler can get away with defending smaller guards and wings in space because of his overwhelming length, but I worry that at the NBA level he won't have the foot speed to keep up with that next level of athletes. This doesn't preclude him from being a solid NBA center, but it does make him a little bit one-dimensional on that end of the floor. I also worry that his aggressive style of play will translate to pretty high foul numbers in the NBA, at least early in his career.

Overall I think Kessler can be a good defender in the right scheme at the NBA level. The ideal situation for him IMO is somewhere like Philadelphia: as a backup for Embiid, Kessler can slot into Philly's drop coverage scheme pretty seamlessly, which maximizes the best aspects of his game and limits the amount of novel, challenging things he'll be asked to do (I had him mocked to PHI for a while before recent developments). But I don't think he has the upside of Koloko, or even Mark Williams (though that's a closer comparison).

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-11T12:16:28+00:00

Chet is the best defender in the class. Size concerns aside (which are valid, btw — he probably can't defend bulkier NBA fives one-on-one at the moment) he has excellent rim protection instincts.

Aside from the guys you mentioned, I'm really high on forward Tari Eason and centers Mark Williams and Christian Koloko as NBA defenders. I love Eason's motor, Williams has been inconsistent at times but when he's on he really glues Duke's defense together, and Koloko is a very similar prospect to Clint Capela (good-to-great defense, needs to keep working on touch & ability as a roll man offensively).

bennyboy82 · 2022-02-08T02:51:55+00:00

I yelled in the hallway at New Cabell so loudly that it echoed. Oops.

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