Ominous skies here in Indy today. We’ve had a couple of small snow events already, nothing that accumulated, but tonight we may get as much as an inch. And then the temperatures are expected to to tumble for most of the week. I guess Mother Nature still has some bitchiness left after the (seemingly) endless winter of 2012-13. We have a clear view of those skies, too, now that most of our leaves have fallen. I do hate that about fall. Suddenly seeing our neighbors behind us after being hidden for five or six months is always a shock.

Those skies match how sports went over the weekend. KU got trounced again in football, Big 12 loss #27 in a row. I’m beginning to think that Charlie’s not going to get things turned around this year. Then the Colts shocked the world by coming out as flat as they possibly could against the Rams yesterday. I haven’t gone back and looked yet, but setting the 2011 season aside, when Peyton was injured, I do not recall a loss like that to a bottom feeder team during our decade in Indy. The Colts have generally been pretty good about not losing to bad teams, and certainly never in that kind of fashion. Exception that proves the rule, I hope, rather than an alarming sign of how important Reggie Wayne was and how over-rated Trent Richardson is.

Adding to the gloom is the prospect of tomorrow night’s KU-Duke game. Friday’s KU season-opener was predictably sloppy.1 But with Duke hanging 111 on a decent Davidson team, I’m pretty sure tomorrow night will be ugly for the Jayhawks. The Champions Classic comes to Indy next year, and KU will play Kentucky. I’d love it if KU could enter one of these things without working four or five new starters in.

There was good sports news, though. The Pacers ran their record to 7-0 with two more wins over the weekend. I missed Friday’s win over Toronto while watching the KU game, but it’s worth mentioning the Pacers lost a November home game to the Raptors a year ago. And then Saturday they went to Brooklyn, took the Nets’ best shot and made some huge defensive plays late to remain undefeated.

Paul George appears to have filled some of the holes in his game. The upgraded bench is performing as expected. Lance Stephenson seems poised to take another step in his development. The Pacers blew open a tight game against Chicago a week ago with a huge run by the second squad early in the fourth quarter. Perhaps I sold the Pacers a little short when I said they weren’t quite elite. I know, I know, it’s still early. But so far, they look like the best team in the league.

  1. This two-and-a-half hours for a college basketball game shit has to end soon. I understand referees are charged with calling the rules as written, in an effort to clean up the game. And I expect teams to adjust as the season goes on, and referees will likely loosen up a bit as well. But games that last that long because of endless stoppages is what the NCAA was trying to get away from, not turn every game into. ↩