Marketing idiocy

No offense to marketing people, because hey, that's what they pay you to do, right?

The Big Ten named its divisions. Legends and Leaders.

Yeah.

Dumbest change ever. MGoBlog suggests that we call them East and West. I'm with Brian.

East	West
Illinois	Iowa
Indiana	Michigan
Ohio State	Michigan State
Penn State	Minnesota
Purdue	Nebraska
Wisconsin	Northwestern

Sports links

Missouri is definitely not uninterested in the Big 10.
Well, to be more precise, they're tired of being screwed in the Big Texas Conference. (Profit-sharing in the Big 12 is 50% to everyone and 50% based on TV appearances, which means Texas gets more money and likes it that way. The Big 10 splits everything evenly.) Texas, naturally, doesn't want anything to change, and with a supermajority required to make changes (9 of 12 schools), Missouri and similar schools must sit by and watch as the Big 10 and SEC steam ahead. (Nice interview with Missouri's AD in this link: he is asked several direct questions and does not flat-out deny anything.)

Mark Shapiro is one of the dumbest men in television sports history.
No, not the Cleveland Indians GM. The guy that ESPN hired in the early 2000s, the one who decided to turn the network into MTV Sports. He failed miserably, leaving in 2005 to pal around with Dan Snyder. (The jokes write themselves sometimes.) 10 of the 11 shows on this list are ESPN-family shows (11 because the two "reality" shows on ESPN are combined), and Shapiro was involved in all but one. This was the problem with Disney's involvement: more people who have no clue about sports. (See Ducks, Anaheim.)

Fortunately most of the damage has been repaired, although for some reason Around the Horn is still on the air. If you can explain to me how this survived and Stump the Schwab didn't ...

By the way, the one show that wasn't a Shapiro failure? McEnroe, on CNBC. One week, the only show it beat was "How to Boil Water". No, really. (At least that's what the link says.)

Even gamers know that playoffs are better.
And not just because we remember the version of Bill Walsh College Football that let you choose between bowls and playoffs. (As soon as the NCAA name appeared, the playoffs disappeared.) Anyway, Kotaku gives you its take on a playoff for the 2009 season. Hint: Alabama doesn't win.

5th isn't bad.
Purdue's holding steady at 4th in the polls and 5th in Sagarin's ratings after knocking off Ball State on Saturday. SIU-Edwardsville and Iowa are next; the Boilers should be 12-0 when they host undefeated West Virginia in the Game of the Year a week from Friday. (That's a joke, sort of: a week from Friday is New Year's Day, so at that point, yeah, it'll be the game of the year.)

When is a win not necessarily a win?
Wow. So I guess they can't even correct it properly ... sorry, there weren't actually 1.8 seconds left when you scored. You should be watching the clock at all times because the clock may be wrong.

Oops, sorry. Background: Butler ball, down by 1, shot clock off. Xavier knocks the ball free, goes into backcourt, Butler recovers as clock stops briefly and restarts. Bulldogs lose ball twice, recover, put up a shot, score with 1.2 seconds left. Officials review sequence interminably (15-20 minutes, never mind that 10-15 they claim in the article) and decide that because of the stoppage, there would actually be no time left, so game over, Xavier loses.

Of course, the fair things to do would be a) give Xavier the ball with 1.2 seconds left because that's what the clock said or b) give Butler the ball in the backcourt with 14.7 seconds left and play from there. Wiping out time because the clock was run improperly is crap; in fact, at least in the NBA, you can go back to a point in time and replay if the clock is not run properly, at least if it's the shot clock. (1988 NBA Finals, Game 6, I think. John Salley has a breakaway dunk called back because a Lakers shot was ruled not to have touched the rim; the shot clock should not have reset, so the steal did not count. Lakers get the ball with 3 seconds left on the shot clock, I think, score, win the game, win the series. But don't worry, the NBA isn't fixed.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm far from a Xavier fan, but this is just wrong, and given that the NCAA director of officials is quoted in the article as saying there's nothing else they can do, then it needs to be addressed in the offseason.

wow

Not sure how to describe today. All I know is that a) I need to save some money so I can experience more of this tournament and b) if I went to the doctor, he'd say no way, not going to happen. (I think I'd rather have a female doctor, actually, not for that reason, but I'd rather not have a man checking out my parts. Anyway.)

Wisconsin has officially set the sport of basketball back 10 years. Good God. And yeah, Beilein has some work to do. Michigan looked awful. A decent team would have beaten Wisconsin. I'm glad MSU won, because the rest of the day sucked ...

until just now. I should have left the radio on. Hearing Don Fischer announce the end would have been priceless, but I was angry at the refs and I switched it off.

Anyway again, we watched the first two games, ducked out early and got a table at the Claddagh 15 minutes before everyone got there, headed back to watch Purdue lose a heartbreaker, and then saw Minnesota show IU why Dan Dakich is not the right man for the job. (Of course, it could also be that IU has too many players who don't realize maybe D.J. White should get the ball from time to time.)

Also, I got a free grande frappuccino at Starbucks, because they made the wrong one, which makes up for their stupid system where they have only three baristas anyway and they serve cold and hot drinks on opposite sides, so you can't ever find out if yours is ready.

One of my good friends, who is totally awesome, got tickets to a suite for the evening session. If I didn't mention this before, she's awesome. Anyway, the seats were great, and on top of that, one of the people there knows Landon Turner, so he invited Turner to the suite. (If you don't know who he is, check out his site. He was one of the key players on Indiana's 1981 national champs; he was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, ending his collegiate career. Most people who saw him play would say he had definite NBA talent. From everything I'd heard, he's a great guy, and I'd definitely agree.)

As a bonus, Wayne Duke stopped by as well. If you don't know him, look him up. (Big Ten history.)

I did kind of have a little too much caffeine, so that didn't help. But it was a great day. (I recommend the General's Meatloaf at the Claddagh.)

Totally worth it. Bring on the dance!

P.S. Portland State won its conference. Did your school?

Oh yeah, I forgot. Some drunk jackasses from Ohio State (shocker) sat behind us, thankfully on a level up, and every other word out of their mouths was a word I will not repeat on this blog. Suffice it to say that "earmuffs" doesn't quite cover it. Probably Yankee fans too. Anyway, to them I say ha ha, your team lost, and no one cares that you stole beer from suites. (Big Ten tournament = no beer sales.)

Also, I had the worst back spasms I've ever had. Ever. I thought at one point I would have to fold myself in half to make them stop. It's possible that sitting in an arena seat for four hours and then sitting on a short stool for two hours set it off. I think it's because I drank about seven Diet Cokes at the Claddagh and didn't go to the bathroom. Why do I say that? When I got to Conseco and excused myself, after reprising the scene from A League of Their Own, the back pain was gone. If that's anything like what pregnant women can go through, wow, I never want two X chromosomes as long as I live.

Congratulations, cheaters

Good luck with that fouling press and those moving screens in the tournament. I hope you make it myself. I'll be betting heavily on your first-round opponent.

If betting were legal, of course.

Cheater

I just came up with a great analogy. I think it's great, anyway. If you don't, too bad, you'll notice I didn't add a poll to this post.

Here's the deal. It's like Sampson has a white-collar job with this big company, and he's stealing mechanical pencils. Cheap ones, you know, 89 cents or something like that. Maybe the first couple were accidental: you have one in your hand near the end of the day, you get a phone call or run into the boss' office or something, you put it in your pocket and forget you did that, and you get home and there it is. It's just one pencil, why take it back?

But eventually he realizes that no one's really bugging him about the pencils, so he starts taking a few of them home a day. Just a few. No big deal yet. And as he doesn't get caught, he takes more, and more, until he's taking home a couple of boxes at a time.

What he doesn't realize is that all the pencils have RFID tags, and so his company knows he's doing it, so HR calls him in.

"Dude, you can't be taking pencils home with you like that. It's getting out of control."
"What do you mean? I'm not taking pencils home."
"Um, yes you are. Hundreds of them. You've been doing it for weeks."
"No I'm not."
"Alright, here's the deal. You've been stealing pencils. A lot of them. However, it's not like you're stealing computers. Yet. So, no more vacation time for you. Actually, it might be better if we relocate you to another part of the company, so you can kind of get a fresh start.
"But here's the thing: no matter what, DON'T STEAL ANY MORE PENCILS. I don't want to see you breaking any rule or law, but definitely don't steal any more pencils."
"Um, okay."

So yeah, his coworkers are saying "Dude, you got transferred because you were stealing pencils? That's weak!" Well, no, it was because he stole a bunch of them over a period of time and wasn't really forthcoming about it.

Well, time goes on, and what do you know? All of a sudden, pencils are disappearing again. So they call him in.

"What did I tell you? No more stealing pencils! And now you're doing it again!"
"Um, no I'm not."
"The hell you aren't! We track them, you know. We can tell you every single pencil you've taken."
"Those weren't stolen. See, one of my coworkers, Rick, he was doing this project, and he needed a lot of pencils, and I told him that if it was work-related, then he could use some from work if he took them back when he was done, and so he did, but he got busy at home, and he couldn't take them back, so he asked me if I would take them back for him, and before I could answer, he drove up in his truck, dumped them in my yard and took off. And I couldn't just leave them there, so I brought them inside, and I was just getting ready to take them back when you called."

See, it's not the pencils themselves. I realize that's not a major issue itself. (I also realize that the NCAA isn't limited to pursuing a single coach at a time, which seems to be a main point of that "argument." See, they can bust Sampson for pencils and someone else for manslaughter AT THE SAME TIME. Very clever, they are.)

It's that he stole HUNDREDS of them. MORE THAN ONCE. And LIED about it. BADLY. Now, I've never done this myself, but I know people who have ... when you are on probation for something, don't get caught doing it again. Just a tip.

But it's okay. He can always get a job announcing. Hell, Valvano did it, Packer does it, anyone with basketball experience can. Clean ethical background not required.

I heart BTN

Yep, first they fixed the problem they had with me logging in to their site, and now I've been able to watch Louisiana-Monroe knock off Iowa in Iowa City during the Hawkeye Whateveritis, you know, the tournament where you invite two patsies to visit so you can get some cheap non-conference wins.

Ha ha. Apparently Iowa's lost only one other time in their tournament, to Arkansas State. The connection? Both teams are/were the Indians. (ULM, formerly Northeast Louisiana, is now the Warhawks. Much more geographically correct.)

(Side note: the Big Ten Network is hosting a contest where you pick the bowls to which Big Ten teams will be invited. The contest closes at 2 AM Saturday morning. If you're watching right now, you'll get two bowls right.)

Can't Broadcast for S---

Among other things, the most recent NFL season showed us that some of CBS' broadcast teams are awful. Apparently that extends to its NCAA coverage as well.

I'm watching the Michigan-Ohio State game, Tommy Amaker's last regular-season game at Michigan, and Thad Matta must be thrilled to know that CBS brought its #10 announcing team to Ann Arbor to announce his #1 team's game with the Wolverines.

Enberg is tolerable. I suppose he gets a pass, somewhat, because he's about 90, but Dan Bonner is an idiot. The first reference to Michigan State instead of Michigan is a freebie: in two and a half hours, you can make one egregious mistake, sure. Three in one half indicates a poorly-prepared announcer, an unintelligent announcer, or both. There was also a reference to someone named Odom, I think. If I recall correctly, a) Lamar Odom went to Rhode Island b) several seasons ago. The young man staying in Columbus temporarily is Oden. O-d-e-n.

Naturally, the producer is reminding Enberg to point out that Michigan is on the bubble about once every five minutes.

I doubt that all the broadcast teams went to hell all of a sudden. I must not have noticed as much when I was younger.

Let the lunacy begin

While the rest of the fantasy football world eagerly anticipates September 7 (well, unless your season started on August 19 or June 16), some of us are looking forward to Saturday.

Yep, I joined an NCAA fantasy league. I have no idea how this is legal, or how much they had to pay to license the teams and such, but I don't care. It's intriguing.

Why? Well, it's an all-Big Ten league. (sorry about the popup ad) With 10 teams. Yeah, we're going pretty deep, and yeah, if your starter gets hurt, it's curtains for you. But it'll be fun.

I missed most of the RBs, so I'm going with a wide-open offense, either 5 WR or 4 WR and a TE (you can use pretty much any RL college formation). I hope Michigan State and Purdue have strong passing games this year.

One interesting note is that you only get 75% credit for points obtained in games against non-I-A teams. This is unfortunate, because pretty much everyone in the Big Ten plays a I-AA opponent this weekend. At least everyone on my team does. (Except for Penn State, and this weekend, We Aren't. Penn State.)

We'll see how it goes. For now, I may start a local chapter of the Drew Stanton fan club.

No bye weeks this season. I like the 12-game schedule. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money.