IT'S BILL JAMES' WORLD ...

Some will sink, but we will float / grab your coat / and let's get out of here...

• It figures that Bill James' formula for when a NCAA basketball game is out of reach would come into a play during a final in which his beloved Kansas Jayhawks made an improbable comeback to beat Memphis.
  
  A nine-point lead with 2:12 left in the game is 23% safe if the trailing team has the ball, 32% safe if the leading team has the ball, according to James' calculator. Let's say this was about 70-30 in favour of Kansas rallying -- Darrell Arthur made a couple big shots -- and Memphis spitting the bit.
  
  Those on the Fundamentals side of basketball's culture war will crow for a long time about Memphis' missed free throws in the endgame.
• Does anyone have a good idea what to call the nightly Stanley Cup playoffs posts that I'll be writing for Epic Carnival?
  
  The front-runner, at this writing, is "Playoff Beard."
• A hearty best wishes goes out to former Ottawa Lynx PR man Riley Denver, who's taken a job with the Canadian Olympic Committee based in Toronto. Carl Kiiffner has details.
• Making a running joke out of the struggles of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (né Ottawa Lynx) is tempting -- easy, too -- although it's not fair. Ottawa gave the team a Viking funeral, so it's sporting to wish Allentown, Pa., all the joy of Triple-A baseball.
  
  Nevertheless ... anyone who picked up a morning paper that runs the International League standings might notice that the recast IronPigs are 0-5. The batting averages for seven of the nine players who started last night in Pawtucket were .167, .154, .158, .143, .143 again, .077 and .067.
  
  It will get better. Hey, the IronPigs are playing a day game today; now that someone's snarked off, they'll probably get their first win; here's hoping they do.