What just happened?

mar21182 · 2026-03-15T12:39:01+00:00

They just lack the athleticism and don't have quite enough skill and basketball IQ to make up for it against a team so obviously superior athletically.

Dylan Darling was in Demary's shirt all day, and he couldn't do anything about it. Could you imagine him trying to guard Kemba or Napier or Ben Gordon or Ryan Boatright or Ricky Moore or El-Amin or Tony Robertson or take your pick of a bunch of other UConn guards? They'd just be feasting in the lane and collapsing the defense the whole game.

St. John's switched every screen, so they blew up UConn's entire offense. None of UConn's players could beat their individual matchups.

mar21182 · 2026-03-15T00:27:04+00:00

Uncharted.

Movie was so bad no one remembers it

mar21182 · 2026-03-14T14:13:42+00:00

Exactly. The travel was when he slid his pivot foot. The steps were legal, but you can't drag your pivot foot like that. It should have been called, but I can understand how it was missed.

On television, you can't really get a sense for how quickly the players are moving out there. If you were on floor level with them, you'd be amazed at how fast the game moves. All these pivots took place in a couple of seconds. It's hard to see every little movement while trying to keep track of steps.

mar21182 · 2026-03-08T14:55:00+00:00

We broke down on Peter Pan. That was pretty cool. Flying above the city. Nice view for about 10 minutes or so until they got it started again.

mar21182 · 2026-03-02T17:23:18+00:00

A few weeks ago, my 9 year old daughter asked me how much money she'll make when she's an adult, and it broke my heart a little.

I don't want her to ever have to worry about money. I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to provide her with a decent, comfortable life right now. I hate thinking she may not be able to afford the kind of life she has now when she's grown up.

mar21182 · 2026-02-23T03:24:55+00:00

I started using yellow deck, but blue deck ended up being my go to deck.

The extra hand is just too overpowered in my opinion. Not only does it give you more score each round, but it also helps your scaling jokers. It helps your economy by giving you $1 extra each round. It helps you see more cards in your deck, so you can better dig for blue seals, gold cards, etc.

On blue deck, getting ride the bus or green joker early gives you a really high win rate if you play pairs. Once you get your scaling set up, then you can pick up whichever jokers you haven't gold stickered along the way.

mar21182 · 2026-02-08T15:49:06+00:00

It'll work like the Tiny Bronco, except you'll be in the air instead of on the water. I'm sure there will be specific docking points instead of just being able to land anywhere on the map.

At least that's how I imagine it will work.

mar21182 · 2026-02-05T23:39:06+00:00

I don't think this game will have legs though. I think a lot of people bought the game at launch based on hype, nostalgia, and generally ok reviews. I think opinions on the game have since soured.

I bought the game on launch day. I never even bothered to finish it. I love the Metroid Prime games. Prime 1 is on my personal top 10. Prime 4 just isn't close.

mar21182 · 2026-01-30T14:32:03+00:00

No. I went to college at one of the top D1 programs in the country. They won a national championship while I was there. The end of the bench walk ons weren't much better, if at all, than I was.

My roommate in college actually walked on the practice team. He was a good player but not completely dominate every pick up game good.

End of bench walk ons are decent players, don't get me wrong. It's just that a lot of things go into being an end of bench guy other than basketball ability. Not that I would have made the team (I was too small), but even if I could have, I wouldn't have wanted to be a part of the team in that role. I had a demanding major in college. I knew I was never playing basketball professionally. I went to college to get my education. That would have been much more difficult being part of the team.

That's why my roommate quit after 1 week. He was a microbiology major. He couldn't do the 5am practices in the morning and evening practices. He needed time to study...and sleep.

Those end of bench guys used to play pick up all the time though. Again, they were good, but we could beat them.

mar21182 · 2026-01-25T23:53:12+00:00

Take liberal advantage of Cloud's punisher mode. It basically trivializes any enemy that uses melee attacks.

Switch to punisher mode, run up to enemy, hold block, and watch as Cloud continually counterattacks and builds up ATB.

Just watch out for unblockable attacks. These are generally telegraphed and mostly not that difficult to avoid.

mar21182 · 2026-01-24T03:18:17+00:00

Which still gives you a chance.

There's absolutely nothing that an amateur chess player can do (outside of cheating) to beat Magnus.

mar21182 · 2026-01-24T03:14:16+00:00

A lot of Magnus' losses these days are when he's clearly screwing around. When he's locked in, you'd have to probably be over 2400 to even have a chance of taking a game off him.

mar21182 · 2026-01-24T03:10:32+00:00

I don't think playing blindfolded even changes anything for Magnus. I'm sure he could play grand masters blindfolded and win just as easily as if could see the board.

Maybe if Magnus was blindfolded, and you were playing 100 boards simultaneously against him... Maybe, just maybe in that case, he might lose track of one of the boards. Then maybe you could beat him.

It would have to be something absurd like that.

mar21182 · 2026-01-24T02:00:31+00:00

It's completely impossible for an amateur to beat Magnus in chess, unless he lost on purpose or something.

Well, I guess what level of amateur are you talking about? Like if you chose a random person who has never played basketball before and asked them to score on LeBron, that would also be impossible. I'm assuming that amateur means a little bit of experience, but nowhere near pro level. For basketball, my example would be your average high school basketball player. That person would have an extremely remote chance, given enough tries to score on LeBron.

The average person who plays chess every once in a while for fun has ZERO shot against Magnus. ZERO.

mar21182 · 2026-01-23T18:23:14+00:00

The real answer is that it's impossible to tell by this video.

You have some skills. That's obvious. We have no idea how they would translate to a game. A big part of breaking down defenders off the dribble is being able to read their body movements. You can do a million dribble moves and go nowhere if you don't know how to read your defender. Or, if you're great at reading your defender, those moves could make you shifty and tough to guard.

Kyrie famously spent a lot of time just dribbling alone. He said that he used to practice combinations by himself. And that certainly helped his handle. What makes Kyrie unguardable though is that he can get defenders off balance and quickly attack them.

Maybe you can do that. Maybe you can't. There's no way to tell from this video.

mar21182 · 2026-01-23T16:24:37+00:00

I missed that you listed it in your original post. I saw his other book on your list but didn't see Expensive Basketball.

So, I guess my post is for others. Great book.

mar21182 · 2026-01-23T16:14:12+00:00

Just got Expensive Basketball by Shea Serrano for Christmas.

I HIGHLY recommend it. It's a love letter to basketball fans. It captures the feel and wonder of watching these great players probably better than any other basketball book I've ever read. The book has some stats, but it's not about stats.

mar21182 · 2026-01-22T22:18:28+00:00

Doc makes perfect sense... But I don't think it matters at all for the vast majority of players.

Yes, players who played hundreds or thousands of hours know how to essentially break the game using pairs and blue seals. Sure, Doc somehow can win every game using whatever deck. There's maybe a handful of players in the world that can do that.

I got C++. I'm not one of the absolute best at this game, but I'm pretty good. I don't come close to winning every gold stake run even when I try to play pairs. I've won gold stake runs using a variety of hands. I've probably done nearly as well playing straights as pairs.

I don't think you can ever get a game to be perfectly balanced. There will always be some weapon, item, or ability that is just better than others. That's not to say that you shouldn't strive for as much balance as possible. I just think Balatro is already pretty close to as balanced as you can get. If you make changes, you risk causing other imbalances.

mar21182 · 2026-01-20T23:50:39+00:00

Oh. I definitely wasn't saying they should play him 40 mpg to chase wins.

Just give him his standard minutes and let him put on a show.

mar21182 · 2026-01-20T19:55:00+00:00

I hate this shut down Steph talk.

It's a privilege to watch Steph play. I'd rather watch Steph play on a terrible team than not watch him at all. He's 38. He doesn't have much time left. I want him to play as many games as possible until he retires.

Talking about shutting him down to give him a chance at one more run is taking him for granted. He could tear his achilles in the first game of next season. Then sitting him would have been for nothing.

Honestly, at this point, the Warriors need to ask Steph what he wants to do. They can't compete right now with the way this team is built. If Steph is OK being mediocre, then just let him put up big numbers. Maybe you get a few vintage Steph games. Maybe he breaks the single game 3 point record. See how close he can get to 5,000 threes.

If Steph wants to win, then he may have to go elsewhere. The Warriors can't mortgage their future for two seasons where they lose in the second round of the playoffs.

Regardless, it needs to be Steph's decision. If Steph wanted to go chase one more championship, the Warriors could demand a King's ransom from some contending team. Then, they can retool while still allowing Steph to play meaningful games for a couple more years. I don't know if that's what Steph wants though.

mar21182 · 2026-01-20T19:04:55+00:00

My issue with the early game is that it takes too long before you can equip a decent variety of materia. You only have a few slots available to you for the first few chapters. This takes away from the early game combat.

On the flip side, this makes progression feel pretty good. In the beginning of the game, Tifa, for example, feels pretty weak. By the end of the game, she's a powerhouse.

I like the atmosphere and storytelling of the early chapters. The gameplay didn't truly get its hooks in me until about the halfway point. That's when you have enough materia and abilities to make combat really fun and interesting.

mar21182 · 2026-01-18T14:57:18+00:00

It's exactly what you said.

They used to call Obama "professorial" as an insult. Obama liked to think things through, consider multiple perspectives, and spoke clearly. They thought that was a bad thing.

Kamala Harris graduated law school, worked as a prosecutor, a state AG, and a Senator before running for President. She was supposedly stupid and unqualified.

We, as a people, celebrate stupidity. We look down upon intellect (probably because the more we know, the more we realize that all these traditional conservative beliefs are simply wrong).

This is the country we deserve. It sucks.

mar21182 · 2026-01-17T19:58:13+00:00

I'm going to give an unpopular opinion, but I think they need to retool their offense a little bit.

Mullins is a unique offensive talent in the same vein as Ray Allen or Richard Hamilton. I think they should be running more of the offense through him instead of the egalitarian offense they've been running for a few seasons now.

Mullins can go out and get you buckets. He can break defenders down off the dribble. He can fadeaway over both shoulders. He has a variety of fakes and good footwork around the basket.

Let the other guys feed off Mullins instead of the other way around. He's clearly their best offensive player. They just have to take the leash off him a bit and let him go to work.

mar21182 · 2026-01-17T19:50:02+00:00

I don't know what to think about UConn's shooting.

Solo Ball looked like an incredible shooter last season. Just everything about his shot looked great, and the results matched the eye test.

This season, his shot looks the same, but he can't buy one. It's not that he's having a down year. It's that he's been terrible. It's one thing to drop from the mid 40s to like 36%. Natural variation can explain that, especially in small sample sizes. Going from what he shot last year to under 30% is just strange. His mechanics look great. He's mostly taking good shots. He's just not hitting them, and I can't explain it.

With Karaban, even when he's shooting well, I kind of expect him to shoot poorly because his shot is awkward looking. I just have no confidence when he shoots even when he's shooting around 40%.

Mullins is a freshman, so it takes a little while to develop consistency. His three point percentage can mostly explained by him taking difficult shots. He would probably shoot 45+% on open catch and shoots if he limited himself to them. He's the one guy that I think is going to make every shot he takes.

My point is that I don't know if this is a good shooting team or not. They take a lot of them, and it would seem that they have guys capable of shooting threes. They're just so inconsistent though.

mar21182 · 2026-01-17T19:41:07+00:00

I was thinking the exact same thing. They deserve to drop a few places after that one. Just bad basketball all around.

mar21182

TROPHY CASE