ESPN.com - What's hot, not for the week

ESPN.com: Page 2

Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Updated: December 26, 11:32 AM ET
What's hot, not for the week

By Dan Shanoff
Page 2 columnist

NFL playoff scenarios are the brain-teaser of the holiday season. The AFC has 14 of 16 teams still playoff-eligible, and if you thought the BCS formula was complex, don't even try to unscramble the NFL tie-breaker calculus. The tidbit to keep your eye on? Try "strength of victory," which has replaced "points-scored" as a critical tie-breaking metric.

What exactly is "strength of victory?" It's the season-ending winning percentages of every team your team has beaten. It's like judging your work performance by the productivity of co-workers you've crushed on the way to the top. It's like judging your dating success by the attractiveness of the exes whom you broke up with. (Hmm ... no points for being dumped by a hottie -- aka a "quality loss?" Wait, that's college hoops.) Regardless, it's a statistic to watch -- and increases the importance of all games in the final two weeks, even between dud teams.

For more on what's hot and what's not hot this week, check out the list below:

What's Hot, What's Not this week
Category	Hot	Not
Coaching-change announcements	During a bowl game	Before a bowl game
Florida State's biggest problem	Is there gambling on campus?	Who starts at QB in the bowl game?
When Yao kills you	Second time around	First time you see him
Reborn career	James Posey on the Rockets	Kenny Thomas on the 76ers
Wrigley Field	Lawsuit City	Friendly Confines
MJ	Back to being a pure scorer	Do-it-all Mike
Top college players	Deciding about NFL draft status	Scrambling for Heisman consideration
Heisman clincher	West Coast bias	E-mail marketing
Sarah Hughes	Harvard-bound	Defending Olympic title
Arena League growth region	Vegas	Jersey
Rangers jersey to be seen in	Pavel Bure	Eric Lindros
NBA owner	Billionaires (such as Robert Johnson)	Ex-star players (such as Larry Bird)
NFL field surfaces	Techno-turf	Good ol' grass
Teenage hoops phenom	Darko Milicic	LeBron James
Allen Iverson	Olympic savior	International embarrassment
Hubie Brown	Getting the job done	They're hopeless with or without him
NFL game of the week	Raiders-Broncos	Bears-Panthers
Upcoming bowl games	Tangerine Bowl (The Kliff Kingsbury Show)	Las Vegas Bowl (UCLA in transition)
Rams guy with most juice	Marc Bulger	Mike Martz
NBA rookie worth paying to see	Amare Stoudemire	DaJuan Wagner
Laker-haters	Keep laughing	Hope Shaw doesn't inspire team
Hot free-agent commodity	Ivan Rodriguez	Greg Maddux
College hoops	Cincinnati	Oregon
Martha Burk tactic	Websites	TV appearances
Redskins strategy	Draft picks matter	Empty wins in losing season matter
Alabama	Greatest job in college football	A nice job, but A&M is better
Holiday-weekend flick	"Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"	"Two Weeks Notice"

Dan Shanoff is a columnist for Page 2. His "What's Hot, What's Not" trend-spotting list appears Thursdays. Got inside scoop on an up-and-coming trend? Want to declare something passé? Send this glimpse of your hipness to hotnotlist@yahoo.com.