Wednesday Notes

A few more randoms to clear out of the notebook and brain.

Weather

Well, we got through the snow. The roads here in Indy were still anywhere from fair to terrible yesterday when I was out and about. CHS did eLearning the first two days of the week then began on a two-hour delay today. I drove L in partially because I wasn’t sure of the roads but mostly because they have a game tonight and this way she can ride home with us rather than take the bus back to school to get her car. There was significant improvement but still a lot of major roads that have stretches that are awful.

Last night is when the real cold hit. It was –7 when I got up today. No real wind but that will kick up soon and really drive the windchills down for the next few days. We are supposed to stay below zero at night through Sunday, and the extended forecast shows zero days where we get above freezing. The snow is a pain in the ass but the cold is the real motherfucker.

Kid Health/HS Hoops

Well, L was still having minor headaches yesterday when we went to sports medicine so we have to go back in a week before she can, potentially, be cleared. She will miss three games this week, then the beginning of sectionals are likely in doubt as it will take several days of Return To Play activities before she can actually suit up for a game.

I’m not sure if the timing works out exactly right but her first game back could be the sectional championship game against…BC, the team that gave her the concussion. Or rather the team with the girl who gave her the concussion.

The random sectional draw was less maddening than last year, when we got matched with BC in the opening round. This year CHS and BC, the clear two best teams in the sectional, are on opposite sides of the bracket. But we both play in the opening round with teams lower than both of us in the computer rankings getting byes. Indiana always gonna Indiana.

We open Tuesday against a team that hasn’t won a game this year, has scored more than 30 points just one time, and is averaging 14 points per game. They are ranked 394th out of 400 schools in the state. Yeesh.

Game Announcers/Music

I’ve watched a lot of high school basketball the past three years.

I’ve come to a rather definitive conclusion: there are three kinds of game announcers, at least in Indiana. Your first kind will play Van Halen’s “Jump” before the opening tip off. Your second kind will play Kriss Kross’ “Jump.” And your third kind will play no music at all.

I’m almost positive this covers 98% of the games I’ve watched during L’s career.

Super Bowl

I can’t believe I made no mention of Sunday’s NFL conference championship games in my Weekend Notes post. I blame spending too much time out shoveling.

The AFC game was both terrible and awesome. Pretty terrible football. Pretty awesome weather, at least after halftime. It was a celebration of teams that still play outdoors, and in Denver’s case, still play on real grass. I don’t care if the snow made the game sloppy and disjointed. It was fun to watch!

It was shocking that the Football Gods have jumped back on the Patriots’ side after taking a few years off. What has that franchise done to deserve this treatment?

The NFC game was a lot better. All season it has felt like whoever came out of the NFC would be the heavy favorite in the Super Bowl. I still stand by that, but do we really trust Sam Darnold to perform well in that big of a moment? But, also, Drake Maye has been kind of stinky in the playoffs. I saw an early line of Seattle –3, I think, and that feels right to me. Regardless of QB play, it seems like a game that the defenses will dominate.

I just reverse jinxed us into a 45–42 shootout. You’re welcome.

Belichick

News dropped yesterday that Bill Belichick was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Come one, man.

I know he’s weird and surly and has done real damage to his reputation during his first year at North Carolina. But he’s the arguably greatest coach the pro game has ever seen. Certainly the best coach of his generation and this century. How does anyone vote against him?

There were rumors former Bills and Colts GM Bill Polian led a group against Belichick, arguing that he needed to wait a year because of his involvement in the spygate and deflategate scandals in New England. Polian is close with Patriots owner Bob Kraft, who is also, stupidly, not in the Hall of Fame yet. There was thought that Polian and others would not vote for Belichick until Kraft gets in. Which is dumb all around.[1]

When I was a young sports fan Halls of Fame were important to me, and it mattered who got in and who did not. As I aged, though, I realized there were a lot of arbitrary rules, some not even written down, that determined who was elected. The statistics revolution in baseball has shown us that some “legends” who got in easily in the old days had pretty flimsy cases, while others are sitting on the outside when the stats show they were much more valuable and productive than considered when they played. So I don’t get too fired up about the annual news cycle when another HoF vote comes up.

Still, it’s ridiculous that Belichick did not get in (and that Kraft isn’t already in).

College Sports Meltdown

College sports gets a little closer to destroying what makes it special every day.

A couple weeks ago football coaches voted to allow players to appear in up to nine games and still be eligible to redshirt. NINE. The NCAA still has to approve but whether this rule goes into effect this year or in a couple, it’s pretty clear it will happen.

This is insane. Especially when there’s always been the different rules for football and basketball where you could play in up to four football games, out of an 11+ game season, and still get a redshirt while playing a single minute in a single game of a 30+ game basketball schedule made you ineligible to redshirt.

We’re at the point where redshirts need to go away. There needs to be a strict rule where you have six years after you graduate from high school to play five years of college sports. It doesn’t matter if you go to a junior college or D1 school first. It doesn’t matter if you take a year off because of an injury, or because your coaches want to hide you behind a better player while you develop. The clock starts and expires at the same time for each graduating class. No more 27 year old college athletes. No more temporary restraining orders. No more waivers from the NCAA.

Oh, and then there’s this fucking nonsense where a judge cleared the way for Charles Bediako to play basketball for Alabama. Unlike the kid that Baylor signed a few weeks back, Bediako had signed an NBA two-way contract. While he never got called up to the NBA, he did sign that contract. And somehow he’s eligible to return to college nearly THREE YEARS after he left???

Bediako and his attorneys argued that had he known that NIL would explode like it has, he would not have left Alabama. When what really happened was he was not prepared and/or good enough to play in the NBA.

So much for making a choice and living with the consequences, I guess.

There are just no rules anymore, and there’s no organization with the power to institute them. So like everything else in life at the moment, policy comes down to filing a lawsuit and hoping you chose your court district properly and get a favorable ruling. Eventually the rules will be determined by a bunch of billionaires who can get the attention of the ADHD monster in the White House to sign an executive order that both clamps down on how much athletes can earn and protects the alma maters of these mega-donors.[2]

Again, a simple rule: if you sign any pro contract in the US, your college eligibility is gone. If you play in the NBA summer league, you are a pro. If you play in the G-League, you are a pro. It’s not hard.[3]

I think the UConn athletic director had a great idea when he said the NCAA should not count any of these games Bediako plays for Alabama when making the NCAA tournament field. I remember a time when colleges would not play an athlete if there was even a hint they might be ineligible, even for the tiniest of reasons. There was always the fear they would have to forfeit games and face future penalties if they played a kid who took $100 at an AAU tournament or flunked a history class when he was a freshman in high school. Now schools just don’t care and don’t fear the NCAA punishing them after the fact.