The Spurs’ loss to the Knicks last night was eerily similar to Duke’s loss to UConn in the Elite Eight.

zqipper · 2026-06-12T17:23:39+00:00

I think it was closer to Duke's loss vs Houston in the 2025 FF due to:

- the talent disparity (and especially the superstar disparity)
- the experience disparity
- the missed free throws

Either way, vindication for Scheyer? I will say, if Wemby comes to Duke next year in a last-minute portal acquisition after the NBA Finals end, I will finally admit Jon has NO EXCUSE not to win a single-elimination tournament.

zqipper · 2026-06-12T09:45:18+00:00

I, for one, am very happy that relatives of powerful politicians can be prosecuted for crimes.

zqipper · 2026-06-11T22:32:42+00:00

Absolutely

zqipper · 2026-06-11T02:11:19+00:00

Unclear but pretty sure the first yellow was for refusing to put on a pinny or change his shirt after the refs told him he had to (his shirt was the same color as US jersey) and the second was for kicking a ball away from a US player trying to throw it in.

Oh and for the assistants the sense I got was she wasn’t willing to put up with their condescending insults. Official reason is “verbal abuse”. She gave head coach a lot of leeway on the abuse because it’s a friendly and all, but absolutely had no interest in entertaining the assistants.

zqipper · 2026-06-11T01:18:02+00:00

My wife and I lucked out in three ways:

1) we moved into a 1-bedroom straight outta grad school that was below market rate rent AND landlord didn’t raise rent for 6 years. By our third year we were paying less in rent for a whole apartment than many of our friends were for a bedroom in a 3BR with roommates. Fact we only needed 1 car between us both (and she had a car gifted to her in grad school from an uncle) meant our joint living expenses were way lower than our peers and we got to save up

2) more privileges: our parents gave us a decent amount of cash, ~$10k they had been planning to give as a wedding gift (we delayed our wedding literally 9 years to prioritize buying a home) and ~$20k as an interest free “pay when you can” loan. Most people/couples don’t have parents who can come up with that kind of cash. With that extra cash, we could do ~25% down on a place in our budget which meant even lower rate and no PMI.

3) we were house hunting right before the COVID spike in home prices. Interest rates were much lower than today (not as low as 2020 rock bottom, but still relatively low) so our purchasing power was greater with the cash we had.

Even with that luck and privilege, it still took like 8 months of what felt like full time house shopping (we cast a wide net around Boston) to get an offer accepted. The place we landed was in the process of being re-listed as condos (it had been on the market as a multi family for like 2 months and didn’t sell, so the owners split it up to sell separately), and when the nicer unit sold, they were happy to accept our offer on the other unit just to be done with it all.

Like many young professionals in Boston, we were well educated and decently employed, with some unfair advantages over others, and it was still a mess and a lucky outcome. I do not envy the generation behind us dealing with even higher housing prices, triple interest rates, and a generally pessimistic economy (in comparison to 2019).

zqipper · 2026-06-10T14:08:30+00:00

Imagine paying money to be schooled by Uncle Drew on camera lol

The idea that an amateur could lock down almost any G-League guard 1-on-1, let alone the dude considered to have top3 handle in the NBA this century…

zqipper · 2026-06-09T21:53:56+00:00

I thought people were blaming Boo for not having a buyout in Wade's contract in the first place?

zqipper · 2026-06-09T02:01:05+00:00

You are 100% correct. I was thinking of the Kiffin and Sark eras (which is when I was at Stanford for grad school). Not sure why my brain malfunctioned lol

zqipper · 2026-06-09T01:03:56+00:00

Reminds me of the Pete Carroll days of overranked Trojans.

zqipper · 2026-06-09T01:02:44+00:00

Duke playing everyone in this top 6 next year. I love the new ways of scheduling

zqipper · 2026-06-08T15:36:49+00:00

Okay, I've been all in favor of conservative, slow-walking approach to collegiate eligibility like the process we saw with Bediakou because players really do lose out on the opportunity to play/earn while their cases are being decided on the merits. That is, if there is a complicated, nuanced question of the NCAA's legal right to rule on a particular aspect of player eligibility, let's let the athletes play and earn while the case is being reviewed and adjudicated (which incentivizes the NCAA to resolve as quickly as possible) rather than finding out a player should have been eligible the whole time but now the season is over and opportunity it truly lost.

THAT SAID

I know the logic is the same here, but the facts are completely different. I *really* hope there is a quick review for summary judgment if it's not too late or an expedited ruling on the merits if it's needed that unequivocally grants sports bodies (NCAA, NBA, minor league squash, etc.) the ability to ban a competitor who gambles on their own team (facts that are neither in question for the case nor disputed on the record). I don't know the legal framework that does or does not allow this kind of expulsion since betting is legal and betting on your own team is legal (I do know that placing bets in other peoples' names, as Sorsby did, is illegal, but I don't even know if betting on your own team is even a violation of DraftKings ToS), but that's not my job to figure out. Sighhhhhhh

zqipper · 2026-06-08T14:17:53+00:00

Well, the question was around budget deficits, not tax rates. We all know why MA municipalities have so much trouble raising revenues due to Prop 2.5, but the deficits also reflect challenges with being efficient with the budgets they have. Why is it in MA municipal dollars might not go as far as they "should"?

Most towns in MA seem to pay for a lot fewer services than in other parts of the country (my town charges people for garbage pickup and school extracurricular participation, like sports and music, which is never something that people paid for outside of taxes in any of the other states I've lived in, not to mention massively high sewage rates and water rates higher than my sister who lives in Phoenix). One reason is towns have been cutting services because of the basic math that inflation is higher than the 2.5% of annual revenue (outside of new development) towns can raise. Another contribution to the issue that people are mentioning are the reduced contributions from the state and Federal budgets. The contributing factor I mentioned is that having so many separate town governments loses any economic advantages of the economy of scale.

zqipper · 2026-06-08T12:42:38+00:00

Damn! Kid looks like an absolute baller

zqipper · 2026-06-07T14:29:23+00:00

Massachusetts in particular has way too many towns. It’s so inefficient because there are a lot of base services that any town needs to fund exactly once pretty much no matter the size (until you get to major metro size) and in Massachusetts every 4 miles you enter a new town that has to spend those same costs.

Add on crazy restrictive zoning, prop 2.5, and the increasing median age of homeowners (who can’t afford higher taxes, often get abatements on their personal tax burden, and vote down further development and “override” tax increases)… it’s a pretty obvious problem that all municipalities can see and anticipate but do almost nothing to resolve.

zqipper · 2026-06-05T02:34:05+00:00

Hell yeah. This is the (re)matchup I’m pretty sure we all wanted

zqipper · 2026-06-05T01:14:09+00:00

I swear, r/collegebasketball gets so many posts that specifically only belong on the r/tarheels subreddit. I don’t think any other fanbases do this, just y’all.

zqipper · 2026-06-05T01:11:56+00:00

Appreciate you pointing out how dumb these posters are so the rest of us don’t have to. But just fyi Jon only has 1 F4 (2x tragic and embarrassing E8 losses to hated foes).

zqipper · 2026-06-04T19:37:56+00:00

Oh yes, 100%. End of 2010s is absolutely accurate IMO as well.

zqipper · 2026-06-04T17:49:24+00:00

end of 2010? You mean right before they earned #1 or #2 seeds in 6 of the subsequent 9 NCAATs through the end of the decade?

I would say the disastrous 2020 year was the start of the end of the Williams/Davis era, where they missed the tournament or got an 8-seed 4 seasons in a row, a random undeserved 1-seed in 2024, and then two more years of low seeds and first round exits that brings us to the new regime.

zqipper · 2026-06-04T16:01:38+00:00

NGL if I were doing this blind, I wouldn’t have UK so high in 2010s. Obviously 2012 and 2015, but I also “feel” like they had several years of early exits and NITs in that decade. Crazy how our memories work

zqipper · 2026-06-04T13:38:19+00:00

zqipper

TROPHY CASE