First off, an addition to the glossary from today’s earlier post.  Pace factor is going to be a key for the Bucks this year and I am going to be keeping my eye on it and bringing it up constantly.  Get to know it.

• The Sporting News has been counting backwards in a power poll to start the season.  The Bucks rank 24.  The always great Bethlehem Shoals is underwhelmed by the Bucks right now though.

• JSOnline reports that Ramon Sessions facing the Bucks was not exactly like Brett Favre facing the Packers.  A mildly intriguing Scott Skiles quote in the article though:

“There’s an art to figuring it out, and it’s a very iffy business,” Bucks coach Scott Skiles said. “Sometimes guys continue to grow and grow and grow; other guys don’t. It’s very hard to project that.

So it kind of seems like maybe Skiles and John Hammond have a hunch that Ramon will not be one of those guys who continues to grow.

• In a notes package, Andrew Bogut speaks about getting through 82 games this year.  If he can do that it will go a long way towards getting the Bucks back to respectable.  Of course, it was only a week or two ago that Bogut was saying he’ll have to deal with back problems for probably the rest of his career, so I say we take things a day at a time ‘Drew.

• Alex over at BrewHoop checked out the Bucks open practice on Saturday.  I was unable to attend (damn real job) but he does a terrific job breaking it down.  Judging from the picture it looked like at least 15 people attended, so things are looking strong for the Bucks early season attendance.

• At Bucks Diary, Ty does a great job of analyzing the Bucks as defenders using the actual numbers.  Some surprising numbers too.  Would you have guessed that Charlie Bell was the worst Bucks defender last year?

In 2009, seeing no evil and hearing no evil does not prevent us from speaking about evil.  Not with all of our fancy forms of media these days.

The evil?  The Bucks first (kind of) loss of the year, a 117-103 drubbing at the hands of Minnesota in their exhibition opener.  Just over four thousand attended and virtually no one listened or saw outside of the arena as there was no radio or television coverage.  Perhaps they don’t allow cameras in Mankato. Read more…