Month: January 2005 (Page 2 of 2)

It certainly felt like the first day of a spring semester when the clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up just as I was getting to campus yesterday. Ten years ago, such weather would have ensured that I didn’t go to class for four weeks. Things are different in the new millennium, however, and I persevered. Since I’ve done most of the research about grad school on my own, I’ve had no formal tours of campus, etc. Thus, outside of where my class was, I had little idea where to pick up a parking pass, get an ID photo taken, or where to buy books. So I spent a lot of time before class walking back and forth across campus trying to find the appropriate building for each need. Add in the traditional early semester long lines everywhere, and I didn’t get much accomplished.

Class went well. I was definitely the oldest person present, outside the professor, but there were a couple people who looked like they were closer to 26 than 18, so I didn’t look terribly out of place. There weren’t any gasps when I took out my ancient pen and notebook to take notes, rather than a shiny new laptop. In fact, class meets in a computer room so I had to remind myself what the Windows shortcuts were so I could navigate around. The workload for class looks reasonable. No tests, no final. Just regular quizzes, daily in-class assignments, and a final project. I talked to the professor after class and he said to get my graduate credit, he’ll just ask that I write longer pieces than the other students. Like that’s a problem for me. Our first assignment was to write an article, in third person, about ourselves so he had some background on each of us. I thought about just submitting my infamous “article” about an alleged incident at The Peanut a few years ago, but thought better and submitted something legit.

The biggest change I saw immediately was how computers have exploded in the academic world. When I ended my undergraduate career, most students still didn’t take advantage of school e-mail accounts, and you certainly couldn’t rely on e-mail to exchange information with your instructors. There are terminals all over campus with long lines of kids waiting to check their e-mail. There are systems for submitting your course work on-line. In fact, we’ll print nothing out for class. You’ll do everything on a computer and submit it via e-mail or the school system. I’m not surprised by any of this; I’ve certainly done almost all my work on-line during my professional career. I remember a woman pulling out a laptop in class in ’95, though, and everyone just staring at her while she typed her notes in. Was she from the future???

A couple other early observations:

IUPUI’s “Union” is actually in what appears to be an old dorm. And the main bookstore is a tiny facility in the basement of a different academic building. It was so packed I think the Fire Marshall would have shut it down if he walked through.

I killed some time by walking around the med school side of campus. I imagined seeing my wife there five years ago when she was still in med school. I’m sure she was running around, pinching people’s asses all the time.

When you’re 20, you hope there are a lot of hot girls in your classes. When you’re 33, you hope you can get a seat close to the front and the professor is good.

One of the mid-20s people in my class came to school in sweatpants. Not the cool sweatpants that are ok (I guess) for wearing in public. I’m talking about the old school, grey sweatpants with the elastic in each leg. Fortunately, they were sized appropriately so we weren’t getting entirely too much information from him on the first day of class.

I’ve got my book bag full of notebooks and pens. One of my new Christmas shirts laid out to wear today. And an apple for my professor. I’m off to school in a few hours to start the in-class portion of my efforts to get into grad school. I’m taking the basic editing and reporting class all undergrads who want to get into the J-school have to take, but as a grad student, so I’ll have some extra assignments to justify the grad credit, I suppose.

For the past few days, S. and I have been making jokes about what I should expect when I walk into class the first time. IUPUI does have a strong commuter school element, so there could be plenty of people in their early 30s both starting grad school and even working on the bachelor’s degrees in class. There are also going to be a lot of 18-19 year olds. My running joke has been that I’ll not wear my wedding ring in class and casually mention that I have enough cash to buy a cute classmate a coffee or bottled water. No need for a debit card here, I’ve been in the real world! Fortunately for me, S. thinks jokes like these are funny. I wondered about being the only parent in the class, then I remembered this is 2005 so having just one kid may put me in the minority. There’s bound to be at least one single mom with three kids, two jobs, and one big dream in class, isn’t there? If I become friendly with some smart-ass 19 year old guys who admire my KU gear, will they take to calling me Pops? Will the fact I read the syllabus and know when quizzes are turn me into the class savant? (True story, when I returned to school in ’95 after taking a year off, I took Italian. There were a ton of Fine Arts majors in the class – because of the use of Italian in classic music, I think – and most of them were freshmen just learning about college. There were two guys I loved, because they were stereotypical freshmen full of energy and enthusiasm, but not much work ethic. One day we had a quiz and one kid says, “WHOA! We have a quiz?!?!? How’d you know that???” I told him it was in the syllabus. “Oh, really?” I knew I’d come a long way when I was both going to class and reading the syllabus.)

Anyway, it should be fun and I’m excited to get things started. I’ll be spending some extra time on campus today to pay some bills, pick up books, etc. so I’ll be sharing news of my first day tonight, M. cooperating of course.

Years ago, in the times before AOL’s e-mail program had spell checker, I made several typos a few friends found extremely funny and we then adopted into our day-to-day language. One of those typos was putting bug in the place of big, as in “That was a bug win for you guys last weekend.” Taking it global, Oklahoma sure had a bug win tonight. UConn is struggling to find themselves a bit, but OU needed a quality win. By my count, the Big 12 now has wins over UConn, Syracuse, Gonzaga, Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Kentucky. If only Texas could have helped the cause a little. The national pundits keep saying that the Big 12 is three teams deep this year. I don’t disagree in the big picture, but from what I’ve seen of the other nine over the past week, I’m not sure there are any gimmes anymore. The conference title could truly come down to what top teams can get wins in Manhattan, Waco, and College Station.

(I promise, something about my first day of school tomorrow. M’s had a fussy evening and I’m going to try to get to bed while she’s asleep.)

(Compiled shortly after KU’s win over UK. If you don’t know which is which, please move along.)

12) Gonzaga. Hang on just because so many other teams got beat this week.
11) Texas. Rick Barnes, as always, is an ass, but his team is good. Baylor stayed curiously close to them Sunday, though.
10) Kentucky. This week’s Lexington Lament: Why, oh why, don’t the ‘Cats pound the ball inside until KU’s meager frontline is sitting on the bench? Surprising Billy pACCker never mentioned this.
9) Boston College. Who are these guys and what are they doing here?
8) Duke. They don’t play Wake, Tech, or UNC until February. Look for the Dukies to keep piling up gaudy points for a few more weeks.
7) Syracuse. Cruising. Not going to lose for awhile (jinx!).
6) Georgia Tech. Pounded UVa to get back on track.
5) Oklahoma State. Nice comeback against Texas Tech Saturday. One week from their first marquee matchup with Texas.
4) Wake Forest. Humming along nicely again.
3) Kansas. Another week, another monster win without Wayne. Now for the road in conference.
2) North Carolina. Holy crap, they’re good. Wake me when it’s March. Tech comes to town Wednesday.
1) Illinois. Still better than UNC, but just barely. Right now that’s the best game in the country, if you could take any two teams and put them on a court.

A couple thoughts while I down my post-game Guinness. Tomorrow is a Mr. Mom day and if I don’t post now, I’ll never get them done.

Billy Gillespe is doing good things at A&M. They’ve always had one good player who could score 30. Now they’ve got that one player (Wright), some talent to go with it, and what appears to be a system that works. Hell, they ran the high-low better than KU has run it since Self arrived (Too much Roy still in the brain). I dismissed their record because of who they had played so far, but they were fearless in Lawrence tonight. They’re going to win a few Big 12 games this year, and be a force within a year. Gillespe is a fabulous recruiter and apparently he can coach a little, too. And he’s got all that wonderful A&M (ATM) money behind him, too. Watch out Texas Tech!

There were moments tonight when KU looked as fluid and comfortable on offense as they have all year. Only problem was no one wanted to shoot. They’d zip the ball around like the Globetrotters, only to realize there was no one on the court capable of scoring. The next three games are going to be very interesting, going to Lexington, Ames, and Boulder. They’ve got to find a way to get Keith Langford shots early in the game so he stops disappearing for 20 minutes at a time. I’ve talked to some friends who are Kentucky fans, and they’re not pleased with their team either. Still, they’ve got a frontline and KU doesn’t. UK by 12.

Anyone else hear Antoine Wright tell Christian Moody that his foot was on the line before C Mood clanked a free throw? I think Wright is a nice player, but not nearly as good as he thinks. But I thought that was a funny line, especially since it worked. Of course, one possession later, Wright called a referee a pussy, so I think he’s got negative karma after this game.

My man Doug Bell must have taken some Quaaludes before the game, because he was exceptionally mellow. I did enjoy him butchering the story about Billy Gillespe watching a game of the “real” Hoosiers game between Milan and Muncie Central. Long before I moved to Indiana, I knew that Hickory High was a fictional school based on Milan. Bell, however, was insistent there really was a Hickory High that won the Indiana high school basketball championship and that they beat “Indianapolis High”. Whatever. Jackass. I’ll be tuning in early Saturday to watch his antics in the studio, you can be sure.

I seriously need some games that are over early. Once again the baby is next to me sleeping in the late minutes of a close game. So was the wife tonight. I may perfect the silent yell this year at this pace.

It appears as though the NFL has taken over the BCS championship game. The game was played in an NFL stadium. It featured 25 minutes of mega-hype between air-time and kick off. Celebrity coin tossers. U2 at halftime. Oh, and the game sucked too. Sounds like a Super Bowl to me. So much for the potential greatest championship game ever, as so many critics described last night’s USC-OU game in their previews. What were the odds that Texas would look better than OU when the bowl season came to an end? The Big 12 must have really sucked this year, because OU looked awesome for four months. I was really hoping for an Auburn blowout in the Sugar Bowl then a close, ugly game last night so there was a decent shot at a split championship again. USC putting 55 points up kind of clears things up, no? Is Bob Stoops a reverse Tom Osborne? Where it took a decade of blowing title games for Tom to finally get his rings, did Stoops get his early and is now destined to always lose on January 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5 or whenever they have the game)?

I watched fewer minutes of bowl games this year than any year in recent memory. I just couldn’t get excited about any of the games for some reason. Perhaps it’s because the bowl season is entirely too long and includes far too many teams. When I was a kid, I knew exactly when every game was played and what the conference match-ups were. Part of the excitement of Christmas break was knowing the Liberty Bowl was on one night, the Holiday Bowl the next, and don’t forget the Bluebonnet Bowl. Forgive me for being elitist, but I don’t think 50+ teams need to go to bowl games. And of course, the BCS has ruined New Year’s Day. You used to have the Fiesta Bowl, which was often the best match-up since it got teams that lost early in the year but were arguably playing as well as anyone in the country at the end of the season, the Rose and Cotton Bowls midday, then the Orange and Sugar Bowls to end the night. It was exciting to watch the day unfold and know that if team A won the Rose Bowl, suddenly the Sugar Bowl was meaningless. Or if the Big 8 team fell behind in the Orange Bowl, that meant the SEC team in the Sugar Bowl was back in the National Championship hunt. Now New Year’s Day features fewer bowls that have any bearing on the championship than those that don’t. Then you wait two days for another bowl, then another day for the national championship game.

One of the regular arguments from the hard-liners who control the sport against a playoff is protecting the sanctity of the bowl system. Let me see: New Year’s Day is largely meaningless; conference affiliations in the major bowls are moot; the schedule has been destroyed for TV purposes; the national title game is a four hour commercial; and most importantly, there’s no guarantee we’ll have a clearer choice for national champion than under the old system. I’m not sure how the sanctity and tradition of the bowl season has been protected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some traditional-bound fogey who can’t take innovation in sports. I’m all for some playoff system and am generally open to other well-reasoned changes to the structure of sports. I just don’t understand why an imperfect system has been made worse and the powers that be are more interested in plugging their heads into the sand rather than examine legitimate ways of improving things. A crappy system means it’s more likely that big sports fans like me find other things to watch (like college basketball on Saturday and the NBA last night) than their precious bowl games. I don’t think that’s what they’re looking for.

Yes, I did watch more of the Pacers’ game last night than the Orange Bowl. That’s because Jermaine O’Neal was getting busy and dropping 55 points on Milwaukee. It was a sweet 55, too. His points came within the offense all night. He was hot early, he kept getting the ball, and he kept hitting the shots. When people like Iverson go for 50+, you know they’re going to shoot 35-40 times. JO was 18-28 and 19-25 from the line. It was an easy 55, if there is such a thing. Having ten games removed from his suspension (an excellent move I totally agree with) could have a dramatic effect on the Eastern Conference playoff picture, since Detroit can’t seem to get their act together. If the Pacers can grab the #2 seed, they have an outstanding shot to get to the Finals. I have a feeling Shaq is going to be injured come late May, early June.

When we did switch back to the Orange Bowl, I caught a classic line from Bob Griese. Late in the first quarter, before the game got out of hand, he noticed the USC defense was really crushing the OU players. “Watch for balls to start popping out soon.” S. and I were both on the floor laughing at that one. I’m not sure if there were any balls popping out, but OU did have five turnovers, so that was an astute observation from Griese.

One final point about the Orange Bowl. I know the Orange Bowl stadium is supposed to be a decrepit dump, but I wish the game was still played there. Pro Player Stadium is such an austere, generic setting for games. The Orange Bowl has the classic feel stadiums should have. It’s always a little too dark in the corners of the end zones. The closed end of the stadium is deafening when full of supporters of one team. I’m sure it lacks all the amenities the organizers need to entertain the corporate sponsors they care about more than the fans, though. As a Big 8 guy who always stayed up to watch as much of the Orange Bowl as possible, I wish there was a way to get the game back where it belongs. Someone remind me what stadiums the Rose and Cotton Bowls are played in?

Here is my first weekly look at the state of college basketball, the 12 teams I think are playing the best right now. A few ground-rules:

A – This is a weekly look at the game. Therefore, there can be wild changes in rankings from week-to-week based on results from only a few games.

B – When at all possible, I’ll try to rank teams higher than teams they’ve beat. For example, I’ve got Gonzaga ahead of Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State this week. I do not, however, have Missouri above Gonzaga. If I thought Mizzou was one of the 12 best teams in the country right now, though, they would be higher than Gonzaga. Make sense? These head-to-head games have a shelf life of 2-3 weeks, but if Gonzaga and Oklahoma State are in pretty similar situations six weeks from now, their game last week may still be a tie-breaker.

3 – As always, I’m right and you’re wrong if you disagree.

This week’s rankings:

12: Washington. I have my doubts about their long-term abilities, but they’ve been impressive to this point.
11: Syracuse. I needed a Big East team I guess.
10: Duke. I laughed out loud when Dick Vitale casually mentioned that no one was talking about Duke this year. Two reasons. One, everyone else knows you’ll do all the talking for them, Dick. Two, compared to many other top teams, they’ve played an easier schedule (In the 50-60 range in most ratings). It’s not like they’ve been waxing Illinois and Kentucky. Good, but not great.
9: Arizona. They can’t totally fall apart two years in a row, can they?
8: Georgia Tech. Nothing to be ashamed of in losing to Gonzaga and at Kansas. Still a good team, although they need more inside presence.
7: Oklahoma State. Realistically, they’re higher than this. But my head-to-head rules drop them to seven for now. Ranked above Tech since GT has two losses.
6: Gonzaga. I was ready to hop on the bandwagon until the loss to Mizzou. Some atrocious shooting numbers in the box score from Columbia, so perhaps that night was an aberration.
5: Kansas. The performance Saturday kept them from dropping to the bottom of the list due to Wayne Simien’s absence. Still a threat. Replace Kentucky with Baylor on Sunday, and I would drop the ‘Hawks next week. A win in Lexington gives them a chance to remain this high.
4: Wake Forest. Impressive against Virginia yesterday. No shame in losing to Illinois, either, although they could have at least made it a game.
3: Kentucky. Better than I expected. UK fans may not be in love with Tubby, but there’s no doubt he knows how to coach big men. If they get consistent perimeter play, they’re as dangerous as anyone in the country.
2: North Carolina. Aside from the shock loss to Santa Clara, they’ve been almost as impressive as Illinois so far. Of course, it’s early and their coach is Roy Williams.
1: Illinois. No question. They’ve destroyed two very good teams, beaten another good team, and three decent teams. Amazing their cupcakes have been weak enough to pull their SOS down to the 50s too. It will be interesting to see if Wisconsin, Michigan State, or Iowa can give them a run for the Big 10 title.

What an unbelievable game. I went in thinking that Georgia Tech would get a fairly easy win. KU hadn’t been playing all that well with Wayne Simien; I certainly didn’t expect them to perform well in his absence. Even with a perfect performance, the best I saw was a narrow, character building loss. With about 2:00 left in regulation, I would have been more than happy to take that after being down by 16 twice. With apologies to the fans of Iowa, LSU, Michigan, and the rich kids from Texas, the game in Allen Fieldhouse was the most compelling sports event of the day. Random thoughts after 24 hours of reflection:

Jarrett Jack is a total stud. Hits gutsy shot after gutsy shot, and never does so at the expense of the rest of his team. His efforts aren’t always pretty, but the results are gorgeous. It’s truly rare that in a close game I can appreciate the performance of an opposing player. I’m normally too distracted by the drama of the game, and spend my time cursing the Anthony Peelers and Randy Rutherfords of the world. I was in awe of Jack throughout the game. He very much reminds me of Kirk Hinrich: a perimeter player who will do absolutely anything to will his team to victory.

This was a big game for Bill Self. For all the love he’s gotten since arriving in Lawrence, he had yet to have a signature win that will be looked back upon for years. This will be the first entry in his library. There are a lot of coaches, probably most coaches, who when faced with a short-term loss of their best player, are willing to sacrifice a few games in order to keep practicing and playing the same sets they would normally use. Self smartly implemented a whole new offense in order to maximize the talent he has and minimize the loss of Wayne Simien. It took 15 minutes for the team to figure out what the hell they were supposed to be doing, but thank goodness it did click. There are a lot of coaches who would have let their ego get in the way of making wholesale changes. Perhaps this is how Self’s ego manifests itself, but kudos for the moves. Having two base offenses will just make KU that much more dangerous if Wayne can stay healthy after his return.

In addition to being a signature game for Self, this has to have been one of the great games in the history of Allen Fieldhouse. A national audience, a marquee opponent, tremendous drama, unreal involvement by the crowd. In the modern era (i.e. most games televised), I think this joins the following as the truly great games at Allen:

Oklahoma, Louisville, 1986
Duke 1988
Kentucky 1989
Indiana 1993
Oklahoma State 1994
UCLA 1995
Missouri 2002
Arizona, Texas 2003
(My KU readers can let me know if I’ve missed anything.)

While I was totally thrilled with the comeback, there was a bittersweet element to the game for me. I realized this isn’t my team anymore. Yes, I’m still a huge fan and proud alum. But I think I’ve finally reached the age where I’m too far removed from school and Lawrence to have true ownership of the experience. That doesn’t mean I enjoy the games any less or watch them with less devotion. When I look at the list of games above, I think of most of them being in “my era”, even if I wasn’t at the games. I was lucky enough to go to quite a few games for several years after I graduated, which extended that window further. Years from now, I’ll still talk about the Georgia Tech game as one of the truly great moments in the program’s history. However, now I’m just another fan. This game belonged to all the kids from 18-28 who were in the stands or cheering from bars and living rooms around the country.

While we’re on the topic of my experience, worth noting that M. slept on S. next to me for almost the entire game. Which meant once the comeback began, I had to keep my yelling to a minimum. I muttered a lot of blasphemous language, but never really cut lose. I did get up and march around the couch when Keith Langford got tied up my Muhammed in the last minute. If the kid was awake, the pillows would have flown. And when KL knocked down the game winner, I could only jump and offer a silent shout. We’ve got to get this kid past the screaming when upset stage so daddy can avoid ulcers. S. did take her traditional nap that turned a deficit into a close game, so I gave her some props.

The national press made the story-line following Simien’s injury that the 4-6 weeks without him would be an opportunity for one of the freshmen big men to assert themselves and eventually take over the starting spot from Christian Moody. I have argued, however, that the more important development over the coming weeks would be that of Alex Galindo. In order to win in March, KU has to have a second, consistent, outside threat. Getting one will stretch the defense, open up the inside for Wayne, and create open looks for the other perimeter players. So far so good. I believe Galindo is the true wild-card in this season for KU. If he continues to perform well, whether he’s playing 10 or 25 minutes a night, he changes the complexion of the team. For all of JR Giddens’ pub, I think Alex had a better all-around game right now. He’s as good of a shooter, and probably more of a pure shooter than JR, he’s not afraid to crash the boards on every play, and he has a nose for being in the right spot at the right time. The ‘Hawks do need a big men to mature, but it’s not imperative that one of them become a star this year for the team to play late into the tournament.

Coming Monday, a new weekly feature called D’s Dozen. My list of the top 12 teams in college hoops as of the moment.