John Pudner wrote his first statistical analysis for the New York Post more than 20 years ago, ranking pitchers on opposite Sundays from when Bill James ranked batters, and he was named as the top sports news writer in his newspaper class in Virginia by the Virginia Press Association.
Since then he has run more than 200 political campaigns for candidates or ballot issues while continuing to write statistical analysis for sports and developing a database of thousands of basketball players at www.valueaddbasketball.com and writing for www.crackedsidewalks.com. He met with and advised several NBA teams to advice on the future performance of potential draft picks this year. His work for the Alabama Farmers Federation in 2010 included helping to coordinating door-to-door efforts that reached the homes of 170,000 voters, and his more recent statistical work was featured by CNN/Sports Illustrated.
With Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell clad in red in the Louisville section and his almost opponent Ashley Judd apparently cheering somewhere, the Cardinals became the third Big East team to lead by double digits for most of the game and make the Elite 8. The eliminated the last Pac12 team, Oregon, but not until a great rally in the final six minutes that was hampered by an Arsalan Kazemi’s injuring his calf just as the Ducks were on the verge of challenging.
29 Mar 2013
The rest of the Elite 8 will be set tonight as the games move from DC and LA to to Indianapolis and Dallas. The tournament favorite Louisville opens the action against Oregon, which has made the case that the Pac12 was underrated. The best game of Friday according to the ratings follows 22 minutes later when two of the highest rated teams - Kansas and Michigan - tip off. One note is that four teams are in the Sweet 16 for the third straight year and the first two - Marquette and Ohio State - won Thursday so the other two (Florida and Kansas) may have an edge.
29 Mar 2013
WASHINGTON - Breitbart Sports made Marquette a slight favorite in Thursday’s game against Miami, while ESPN ranked Marquette as the worst team in the Sweet 16. Marquette lead by double digits for the final 27 minutes and 52 seconds of the game, and led by 22 points until Miami hit four of five three-pointers and some dunks in the final 2:19 to make the final score look respectable at 71-61. Miami led for a total of 56 seconds in this game.
28 Mar 2013
In the debut section of Breitbart Sports at the beginning of 2013, we listed the Minnesota women's hockey team as the best college team in any sport. They were 20-0 at the time, and this week improved to 41-0 to claim the NCAA title. Combined with their eight wins to close out last season, the team now has the 47th longest known win streak in pro or Division I college sports. Here are the top 20 of all time we can identify from sources ranging from Wikipedia listings to the New York Times.
28 Mar 2013
The Sweet 16 kicks off from Coast-to-Coast Thursday – with Indiana being the favorite to emerge from four teams playing in the political center of the country (Washington) and Ohio State the favorite to emerge from the entertainment center (Los Angeles). However, the favorite in one game has dropped since the initial Breitbart Alphabetical Ratings due to an injury, meaning they are no longer the favorite. The table below shows each team's ranking and their start time Thursday. While Indiana and Ohio State are favorites for the Final Four, they both must survive Thursday in a bit of a road game.
28 Mar 2013
During the NFL playoffs Breitbart Sports was one of the first to note a possible Superbowl matchup between brothers Jim and John Harbaugh, and the fact that brother-in-law Tom Crean simultaneously had the Indiana Hoosiers contending for a title. With Crean in Washington for Indiana’s Sweet 16 match-up with Syracuse Thursday, John Harbaugh came in to give a pep talk, much as Jim Harbaugh did five years ago when Crean took his last Marquette team to Anaheim for the tournament.
27 Mar 2013
Major League Baseball and the Players Association frustrated baseball fans years ago when they began requiring licensing that forced board games like Statis-Pro Baseball to stop producing player cards. I even invented my own game of 36 historic teams, and was told by one official, “Your game is the one with the huge brown and green dice, yeah I loved that,” before being rejected. As much as we missed our board games, the hard-lined approach has paid off as we approach Opening Day with the value of baseball teams increasing a record 23 percent in one year.
27 Mar 2013
As the women’s Sweet 16 was set Tuesday, it was great to see how far women’s basketball has come in the 40 years since Title IX. Young girls and their parents now know from an early age that if they have exceptional talent and decide to stick with a sport, they have the same chance to eventually earn a college scholarship as the boys. However, the foundation of Title IX will be undermined if transgender athletes like 6-foot-6 college basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig (pictured) or MMA fighter Fallon Fox are allowed to take scholarships from women athletes in the future.
27 Mar 2013
Women's opening week March Madness games are played at schools in the tournament. That gave George W. Bush and the rest of Baylor's home crowd the chance to cheer Brittney Griner's three dunks in Baylor, and the LSU home crowd the chance to rally 6-seed LSU to a come-from-behind win over 3-seed Penn State in the final three minutes. As shown in the scores below, all of Tuesday's games were decided by nine points or more, except for a back-and-forth battle between 3-seed Penn State and the host 6-seed LSU.
26 Mar 2013
This year the Connecticut women lost four more games than they did during their record streak from 2008 to 2010, but Monday they crushed Vanderbilt 77-44 to advance to the Regional Semifinals for the 20th straight season. Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (left in photo with coach Geno Auriemma and teammate Kelly Faris) led the Huskies with 22 points.
25 Mar 2013