Is "Baller" Trademarked Yet?

The NCAA Tournament starts on Thursday, so I have my brackets.  I typically do research and run some numbers related to each.  I have typically had more success with the women’s brackets than the men’s brackets, but last year I got both winners right (though I also had the matchup and margin of victory correct in the women’s Championship Game). The numbers I deem most important for the Men’s tournament are number of prospects who have a chance of being drafted (especially upper classmen), three-point percent, defensive rating, and free throw percent (to a lesser extend).   The numbers I deem most important for predicting Women’s tournament winners are record against top-25 teams, three-point percent, defensive rating, and pace (to a lesser extent).     Men’s Final Four Houston In my opinion, Houston should have been the overall number one seed even without winning their conference tournament; they’re that good.   Despite being a smaller team...

Every year, there are some teams that are intriguing to watch in the tournament that might not be 1 seeds or make the Final Four, both of which tend to be the focus.  In this post, I am focusing on 10 teams that are not 1 seeds and that I don’t have making it to the Final Four, with 5 from the Men’s Tournament and 5 from the Women’s Tournament.   Men’s Marquette (2) Something I’ve noticed is that there are several situations in which a higher seeded team that doesn’t have a ton of much older top-heavy talent yet has a smart and tactical coach doesn’t make it far in the tournament.   On the other hand, teams that are deep with multiple upperclassmen who could garner some draft attention tend to fair well in the tournament.   What about a team with upperclassmen depth and a tactical coach?   This will be a great test case for that.   I consider Shaka Smart to be one of the best tactical coaches in college basketball, and he especially thrives at non-P...

On February 5 th , The Athletic reported that, after a Pacers-Grizzlies game which included an altercation involving some Pacers players and multiple associates of Ja Morant, a laser pointer was pointed at some players from a car (that Morant was believed to be in), which the players believed was attached to a gun.  Morant denied the allegations and the NBA investigated, though they didn’t punish any players (it is worth noting that one of Morant’s associates, Davonte Pack, was banned from Memphis’ arena, FedEx Forum, for a year, according to Morant).  Further, on March 1 st , the Washington Post reported two instances, one already reported and another new information.  The first was a little more information about a previous report that Morant was sued for punching a 17-year-old during a pickup game (which Morant has countersued arguing self-defense).  Both sides alleged that guns were involved, with Morant alleging the teen threatened to light the place up and the ...

In the weeks leading up to the NCAA tournament and conference tournaments, there have been several stories in college basketball not necessarily associated with on-court activity.  These stories include Texas Tech men’s head coach being suspended for racially insensitive comments made towards a player, Minnesota women’s head coach Lindsay Whalen (a former WNBA star herself) abruptly announcing her resignation after 5 underwhelming seasons, Iowa State announcing that senior guard Caleb Grill was booted from the men’s team prior to the Big 12 tournament, Illinois men’s player Matthew Mayer missing some time due to over-caffeination, a Quinnipiac University athletics Twitter account tweeting an offensive image prior to a men’s basketball game, and Rutgers-Northwestern men’s game being briefly delayed due to a speaker catching fire above the scoreboard.  That said, there are two stories that I would like to focus on in this post:  situations surrounding Alabama and New Mexico...