Matt Butler

DFS nerd --

Talent Stats & Official Stats --

Created @Longhorn_Blitz w/@rodbabers @jeffhoweOTF
#SouthAustinite #Austin #ATX #LonghornBlitz

IG butlerinaustin

[Dan Falkenheim @thefalkon]

Point being: It’s best to read the labels as estimates, useful ones at that.

Enough about the methodology, though! With the predicted labels in hand, it’s easy to calculate context-based stats.

Here’s the defensive variant of the first table in the original tweet:

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

@thefalkon Great work. Awesome to see.

[Dan Falkenheim @thefalkon]

Cleaning the Glass splits plays into half-court, transition and putback contexts. Those same easy-to-understand numbers haven't been publicly available in the same way for the WNBA.

So, let's fix that.

Introducing Cleaning the Glass-style contextual stats for the WNBA!

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

I guess this is what you do when your team/school has never won it all.

I'd also never think to frame a stat this way because I love watching the Texas Women's sports play as much as I enjoy watching Texas Men's sports

[Sidelines - Texas A&M @SSN_TAMU]

Days since playing for a Division 1 national title in football, men's basketball, or baseball:

Houston: 435
Texas A&M: 722
TCU: 1254
Sam Houston: 1857
Baylor: 1898
Texas Tech: 2626
Texas: 6004

[Underdog @Underdog]

We do this

[Chris Suchan @ChrisSuchanWOAI]

This Thursday will be the hottest day of the year so far. Given recent rain, it will feel much hotter w/ thick humidity. These are heat index temperatures in the shade from our in-house computer model. We typically do this every year in June after spring rains

[Chad Johnson @ochocinco]

I told someone “I Love You” yesterday & they called me a weirdo when it’s just who i am. ❤️

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

@ShipMyMoneyDFS Hell, my mind remembers that trophy proclaiming something like "World Champion"

[David McKenzie @mckenzielaw]

The Big 12 has gone to federal court to ask permission to have a conviction. There was a time when a conference could simply disapprove of a player who bet on his own team's games. Now it needs a declaratory judgment first.

The Texas AG's threatening letter to the Big 12 was an unforced error of the first order. Strip it out and there's no lawsuit— because there's no justiciable controversy. A conference privately mulling a sanctions vote isn't a "case"; it's a meeting. The AG's 200M per se antitrust threat is what manufactured the ripeness, handed the Big 12 its MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc hook, and let Sidley walk into federal court in Dallas with a complaint instead of a press release. Paxton's office didn't just pick a fight— it wrote the other side's standing argument for them, then signed it. Now TTU and the AG get to defend a theory the Oklahoma AG already called "facially absurd," in a real courtroom, against a national firm on its home turf. The letter was meant to intimidate. It functioned as service of process.

The complaint itself is well made, and its strongest section is also its most dangerous. Paragraphs 32 through 36 are devastating on TTU's hypocrisy: TTU voted for the Baylor sanctions in 2017 and now insists the conference has no power to sanction anyone. That is good lawyering, and it should sting.

But it cuts both ways. Baylor was sanctioned after findings, through process, for institutional conduct. The Big 12 wants to sanction TTU preemptively, for fielding a player a Texas court has enjoined the NCAA from declaring ineligible.

The state court injunction is the elephant in the room, and paragraph 62 works very hard not to look at it— "this isn't about the injunction." But it is. The District Court of Lubbock County enjoined the NCAA from barring Brendan Sorsby from practicing or playing for Texas Tech, on a 5K bond, through a trial not set until February 2027. The practical effect is that Sorsby plays the entire 2026 season. The Big 12 now asks a federal court to declare that it may bar Texas Tech from competing for letting him. Strip away the labels, and the conference is asking one sovereign's courts to restore the very exclusion another sovereign's court just lifted—relabeled, from "NCAA eligibility" to "conference governance," but identical in result.

That's a real trap, and it is structural. Federal and state courts keep a wary distance from one another's orders; neither likes to be handed the other's ruling to undo. A federal court will rarely enjoin a state proceeding, and it is nearly as reluctant to grant relief that achieves the same end through the back. The Big 12 was shrewd to choose a declaratory judgment over an injunction— a softer vehicle that does not, on its face, touch the state order. But that shrewdness cuts both ways: declaratory relief is discretionary, and a federal judge may simply decline to issue a declaration whose only real function is to neutralize a state court's ruling. The conference says it is exercising independent governance authority. A skeptical judge may see a conference trying to do through the side door what a state court has barred the NCAA from doing through the front— and may decline to hold the door.

The Big 12 should win this, and it should win because the law is not actually close: a private association enforcing its own bylaws against a member who bet on his own games is ordinary self-governance. The Texas AG has managed the rare feat of threatening a lawsuit so weak that he walked his adversary into court, drew a public rebuke from a fellow attorney general within 24 hours, and turned a meeting the Big 12 might never have held into a federal complaint with his own letter stapled to the back as an Exhibit. Crazy times.

Thanks to @TomMarsLaw for making the complaint available.

[Tampa Bay Buccaneers @Buccaneers]

Baker's dougie transcends all generations 🤣

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

@Nate_Tice and Dennis Rodman's daughter.

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

I love there's no further details here. Just "Japan fans"

(that's Jameis Winston)

Good job @Jaboowins

[Dallas Texas TV @DallasTexasTV]

Japan fans are cleaning up after themselves at AT&T Stadium

[Peyton Yager @peytonyager]

I’ve decided….this is the best interview of the day.

so incredible @TisiaMuzinga !!!

[Tomer Azarly @TomerAzarly]

According to ESPN Analytics, in the 4 games the Spurs lost in the NBA Finals, they had a...

— 91.6% chance of winning Game 1 up 13 points midway thru the 3rd
— 72.8% chance of winning Game 2 up 2 points with 1 minute left in the 4th
— 99.6% chance of winning Game 4 up 20 points with 9:33 left in the 4th
— 95.4% chance of winning Game 5 up 10 points with 7:54 left in the 4th

[Jason Timpf @_JasonLT]

Wemby’s first playoff run:

24-11 on 61% TS with 5 stocks per game. 26 ppg in the Finals.

The team was 16.5 points better with him on vs off in the playoffs. In the Finals they were +8 with him on and -20 with him off.

For a 22 year old, that’s going to get an A+++++ from me.

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

I haven't had the effort to try to explain these details & nuances to the masses.

Despite having the label of playing the same position, what they did on the court for the Spurs was drastically different.

Basketball is way more complex than people think.

And Harper is a beast

[Nate Jones @JonesOnTheNBA]

Indeed. I believe in Harper more as a talent. But if we’re being honest, he’s not good at running an offense/setting the table yet. It’s why I’m not sure the Spurs rush to trade Fox yet. But we’ll see. Twitter seems to think it’s a done deal lol

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

@inpredict I responded "Wiggins" to your follow-up comment. To be more specific, Wiggins' Game 4 clutchtime putback after GS fell down 2-1 vs Boston helped flip GM4 which led to 3 wins in a row (GP2 being able to return for GM2 from Dillon Brooks breaking his arm was biggest turning point).

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

@inpredict Wiggins

[Matt Butler @ButlerinAustin]

Reese getting the better of Canady again

[BACK 2️⃣ BACK NATIONAL CHAMPS🤘🏼🥎🏆 @HookEmLacixoxo]

NIGHTMARE FUEL 😩

[BACK 2️⃣ BACK NATIONAL CHAMPS🤘🏼🥎🏆 @HookEmLacixoxo]

NIGHTMARE FUEL 😩