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.
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
As the Miami Heat dismantled the Orlando Magic for their 27th straight win, 108-94 over Orlando, I could only remember what an NBA executive told me after breakfast last year. When I mentioned having attended Dwyane Wade’s alma mater of Marquette, he caught me off guard when he told me, “We are worried that they are close to putting together a team of players that can all switch between positions, and if they finish getting that they could be unbeatable.”
25 Mar 2013
The 2009 Big East had three No. 1 seeds and put five teams in the Sweet 16, a mark that looked like it would not be threatened until Sunday. After four Big Ten teams had made it, both Minnesota and then Illinois had a shot to match the mark. Minnesota lost by double digits, but Illinois stormed back from a 46-39 deficit to take a 54-52 lead when Brandon Paul pumped twice in the air to avoid a rejection and slammed it home with 3:23 to play.
24 Mar 2013
The following table is the schedule of starting times and team ratings as March Madness wraps up today in Philadelphia (PA), Kansas City (MO), Austin (TX) and Dayton (OH). The second tables lists the ratings in the Breitbart Sports Alphabetical Guide of the eight teams who have already made the Sweet 16 in Indianapolis (IN), Washington (DC), Arlington (TX) and Los Angeles (CA). The teams with a rating of 30 or higher in the alphabetical guide are now 16-5, as on Saturday Gonzaga being the fifth such team to lose. At least three more will lose today as some play each other.
24 Mar 2013
Road wins have been hard to come by this college basketball season, but Syracuse basically won on the road Saturday 2800 miles away from home when they beat Cal in San Jose to give the Big East three teams in their final Sweet 16 before realigning. The Big East improved to 6-5 in the tournament after a tough start that included Pitt and Notre Dame looking very slow when being upset. The Pac12 has had a great tournament that included Arizona and Oregon making the Sweet 16 earlier in the day, but could not get another 12-seed into Sweet 16.
23 Mar 2013
The Big East hopes to see this every year – Marquette and Butler playing two games a year down to the wire. Butler will be the only non-Catholic member of the new 10-team Big East, and after Rotnei Clarke won the earlier game on a last second 23-foot hook, Marquette won tonight to go to its third straight Sweet 16 on a last second defensive stand to win 74-72 behind 29 points by Vander Blue (pictured). Butler was 11-2 in the NCAA tournament in the last three games coming into Saturday, having lost only to UConn and Duke in national title games.
23 Mar 2013
Except for a lone section of green Colorado State fans and the ushers in Kentucky blue, virtually every fan in Rupp arena was clad in red and on their feet, cheering for Wildcats’ rival Louisville as they defeated the Rams 82-56
23 Mar 2013
The NCAA tournament wraps up in Auburn Hills, MI, Lexington, KY, Salt Lake City and San Jose. Below are the start times and ratings of each team going into the tournament, and 14 of the 17 teams with a rating of 30 or higher are still alive. However, we have also noted each Big 10 and Atlantic 10 (A10) school, since those are the two conferences that have played well above their ratings. The day starts with a showdown between the two with Michigan a slight favorite over VCU. If VCU pulls that upset, St. Louis is a very slight favorite and Butler is only a slight underdog against Marquette as the conference tries to build on the 6-0 tournament start.
23 Mar 2013
The Big Ten has been the top conference all year, and Minnesota's blowout of UCLA to close out the second round Friday kept them on top. The following is the list of all 32 schools still alive by conference, and the only two conferences with more than three teams are the Big Ten (6) and the Atlantic 10 (5). In ranking the conferences by teams in the field of 32 with tournament winning percentage as the tie-breaker, the standings so far are; 1) Big Ten, 2) A10, 3) ACC, 4) Pac12, 5) Big East, 6) SEC, 7) Big 12, and 8) Mountain West.
22 Mar 2013