D's Notebook

Month: February 2019 (Page 2 of 2)

An Evening of Hoops

February 12, 2019 /

A pretty solid Monday evening of hoops.

It began with S and I trekking down to Banker’s Life Fieldhouse to watch the Pacers take on the Charlotte Hornets. We were lucky enough to be invited by the CEO of her hospital, and were sitting in the company suite. We took along one of S’s med school pals and his wife, who are great company but who we sadly do not see often enough. There were only a handful of other people in the suite, so it was kind of like having it to ourselves.

(A quick aside, this game was a makeup for the game we were supposed to go to: the Colts-Cowboys game back in November. We were offered and accepted tickets to that, but then were told the hospital “Forgot” they owed some kids charity the seats. I think it’s more likely some other exec wanted to come to that game and we got bounced. Oh well…)

Anyway, the game was good. The Pacers came in having won five in a row and had new signing Wesley Matthews in uniform for the first time. While we were doing the obligatory conversation with the CEO, they ran up a 20-point lead and all looked good. We had chicken fingers, some tasty mac and cheese, and free beer. And then the Pacers proceeded to play like garbage. Charlotte got the lead down to one before a final Pacers run put the game away.

Our suite was right behind the Charlotte bench. We walked in just as the players were lining up for the national anthem. I scanned their team, looking for distinctive hair, but could not find the one I was searching for. When the anthem ended, I checked my phone and saw that Devonté Graham was out for the night with an illness. Bummer! Later in the evening I saw a couple wearing KU gear sitting right behind the Hornets’ bench. They were no doubt more disappointed than I was since they were within shouting distance of DTae.

The beauty of NBA games is they generally move quickly. When we walked out of the suite, I glanced at the TV and saw that KU was up on TCU 14–12. By the time we got home, the game was three minutes into the second half. I was able to sit down and enjoy KU looking really good…until they didn’t. Hey, a theme for the night!

When KU pissed away a late, 11-point lead and trailed by four with about 90 seconds to play, I muted the TV. I was going to watch one more possession then kill it so the sight of TCU fans rushing the court didn’t lead to me tossing and turning for hours. Only KU scored, got a stop, and scored again to send it to overtime.

If you’ve read any of my sports posts over the years, you know what happened next: I kept the TV muted until there were 10 seconds left in overtime and KU was assured of the win. I know, I know… But it worked!

A very large road win in very difficult circumstances for a team that has looked like garbage on the road this year and has also had trouble closing out any tight game. I think they should take some heat for blowing that lead, and playing so, so poorly for about three minutes. But they also get credit for getting the game to OT and then putting it away. All while losing three players to DQs. Seriously, the guys sitting at the end of the KU bench last night would be a top 10 team.[1] KJ Lawson hit two massive shots. KJ Lawson! David McCormack hit a couple shots, a couple free throws, grabbed some huge boards, and played solid D. Hell, Charlie Moore played the back half of OT and Bill Self generally keeps him as far away from crunch time as he can. And Devon Dotson and Ochai Agbaji both had massive games.

Somehow they pulled that win out and kept their Big 12 title hopes alive.

I still don’t think it’s going to happen. The Streak is over. Seriously.

But I like seeing them going down swinging instead of giving in and meandering to a 10–8 finish.

  1. Udoka Azubuike, Silvio De Sousa, and Marcus Garrett all out to start the night. Dedric Lawson, Mitch Lightfoot, and Quentin Grimes all fouled out. Oh, and LaGerald Vick was back in Memphis getting his stuff together, possibly.  ↩

On the Skiing

February 11, 2019 /

This time of year I enjoy rolling through the sports channels and stopping at NBCSN or one of the Fox channels to watch some winter sport for 15–20 minutes. If I find downhill skiing, I’ll watch for an hour. It’s such a badass sport and I’m thrilled I get a chance to see it more than just during the Olympics.

Saturday I caught the men’s World Cup race. Sunday I caught the women’s, which just happened to by Lindsey Vonn’s last race before she retires.

I read the piece linked below this morning and loved how it summed up and put into perspective both Vonn’s career and the sport itself. It’s seriously crazy how fast these athletes go, how literally on the edge they are, and the ridiculous angle of some of these mountains. At yesterday’s race there was actually a great camera angle that showed the 65-degree decent out of the starter’s gate. That looked stupid. As this article points out, there is a race that begins with an 85-percent grade. For those of you who have forgotten your middle school geometry, that’s basically skiing straight down the side of a building.

Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed Vonn’s career, or even just like to watch Olympic skiing every four years, I think this is a good read. The comparison of her 2010 Olympic downhill run to silver medalist Julia Mancuso’s is great. Mancuso skied a technically perfect race, but went home with silver because Vonn was/is insane.

Lindsey Vonn Went Big And Now She’s Going Home A Legend

Friday Playlist

February 8, 2019 /

Our era of good music continues.

“Cosmic Cave” – Ex Hex. This is a hell of a fun rave-up that really should make everyone who hears it jump around like a maniac.

“Harmony Hall” – Vampire Weekend. Everything has a backlash, especially in music. If you’re too smart, too clever, or too-anything, there will be a backlash. VW’s last two albums have been two of the best reviewed disks of their respective years. But there was something about their aesthetic that turned people off. I’ll admit, that got to me. I really enjoyed those albums, but barely listen to them or their songs anymore. So I thoroughly expected to not like VW’s new music. Surprise, this song is really, really excellent.

“We Are in the Wild and We Are Home” – John Davis and Matthew Caws. Two alt-rock geezers – relatively speaking – came together to give us this lovely, late-stage Beatles-esque, jam. Davis was in the classic band Superdrag. Caws remains a member of Nada Surf. 

“A Little More Love” – Juliana Hatfield. Ms. Hatfield returns with an album that is all covers of one of her musical heroes: Olivia Newton John. I’ve listened to most of the album, and while most of the songs are ok, many don’t quite work. Hatfield’s voice just doesn’t match Newton John’s, and the songs thus come off as lightweight imitations rather than loving homages. But this one, she gets just right. Which is kind of perfect, as it is not one of the ONJ songs that most of us would probably think of first. 

“I Hate Alternative Rock” – Beach Slang. The new Bob Mould album is out today. I’ve only heard a few songs so far, but I am digging it. So appropriate to share this brand-new cover of this 1996 Mould classic.

“Trailer Park” – Matthew Logan Vasquez. An ode to the part of Texas MLV grew up in, where there is a mix of people that contains a little of everything, and those folks learn how to come together and form a community. 

Some of That Jayhawk Talk

February 5, 2019 /

It is the first kid sick day of the calendar year; C is home with a stomach issue.

Adding to the fun is my back continues to trouble me. It’s not all the way out the way it was on New Year’s Day, but something I’ve done to it has got me on a heavy regimen of ibuprofen and heating pads. Getting old sucks.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the Jayhawks…

Silvio

I’ve been on record all season that Silvio De Sousa would not play for KU again. By that I meant the NCAA would never clear him for this season, he would leave to go pro, end of college career.

Still, a part of me wanted to buy into these rumors that he was on the verge of gaining eligibility over the past few weeks. I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But with KU in desperate need of another big man, you might as well put some hope into the long shot bet.

That said, I was shocked that the NCAA decided to declare him ineligible for the rest of this season and all of next. Well, kind of shocked. I figured Silvio would be the fall guy for the entire FBI investigation. He was the most high-profile player that still had eligibility at the most high-profile program that has gotten sucked into this mess. And with the coaches affiliated with Nike slowly pleading guilty and avoiding trial, and thus more on-the-record proof of cheating, Silvio was the NCAA’s one shot to take a stand.

But, Good Lord, basically ending the college career of someone who never saw a penny of the money that was allegedly provided by Adidas to get him to Kansas? That seems a little harsh.

Truth: I would 100% support the NCAA saying, “You can never play at Kansas, or any other Adidas school. But you can have full, immediate eligibility at any other D1 school.” This is an Adidas and Kansas problem, not a Silvio De Sousa problem.

But, as always, the NCAA, despite all its talk about protecting “student athletes,” finds a way to punish the kid more than anyone else. KU could eventually go on probation, vacate wins from last year, and lose scholarships. But KU will be fine in the long run. Jesus, Louisville was where this all started and they have one of the top three recruiting classes for next fall. Kansas will bounce back if they get hammered.

De Sousa, though? The NCAA is ruining his college career because a guardian he trusted, but had no relation to, got greedy and Adidas got sloppy.

KU and the NCAA

So things got weird Saturday. There was athletic director Jeff Long’s angry press conference just before the KU – Texas Tech game Saturday, where he accused the NCAA of bad faith negotiating, meddling with the relationship between KU’s administrators and coaches, and straight up lying, among other things.

I have no idea what the truth is and how to process this. Did the NCAA really go back on a promise and hammer KU for something they viewed as a “hypothetical”? Did KU totally fuck this up, through misunderstanding or incompetence, and are trying to cover that up? Is something else going on? I have zero idea.

At the core of this the NCAA insisting they would not consider De Sousa’s eligibility until KU declared Adidas rep TJ Gassnola as a booster of the program. Forget about the KU angle for a second. If the NCAA is going to begin considering employees of shoe companies as “boosters” of programs, that is a game changer for every program that has a shoe contract. I.E. every program in the country. That definition opens about a million cans of worms, and seems like a flurry of lawsuits waiting to happen.

Another angle: the University of Missouri got slapped with probation last Friday for the actions of, I believe, one academic advisor or tutor or something like that. Mizzou cooperated with the NCAA: they self-reported the issue, took actions to eliminate the issue, prevent it from happening again, etc. And they got hammered pretty good. KU cooperated with the NCAA in trying to get De Sousa eligible. They proactively took him off the court and kept him off, waited for the NCAA to give them guidance, and then worked the process to restore his eligibility. Their reward was losing De Sousa and potentially giving the NCAA a big, fat hole to drive their investigatory truck into the program.

Now think back a few years, to the biggest academic scandal in college sports history, which took place at North Carolina. UNC lawyered up, delayed and delayed and delayed some more, and generally did as little as they could to assist the NCAA. The NCAA eventually threw their hands up, said it was out of their jurisdiction, and UNC got away without losing a game, a scholarship, a recruiting visit. Well, their football and men’s basketball programs did; somehow their women’s basketball program was the only one to get punished.

So we’re back to the mid–1980s, where it’s clear that if you work with the NCAA to resolve eligibility, academic, or other potential violations, you’re going to get punished, but if you stonewall and drag things out long enough, nothing is going to happen.

Gosh, I wonder how schools will behave going forward?

Anyways, I was hopeful that KU would somehow manage to dodge any serious repercussions from the FBI trial. Based on what we know from Gassnola’s trial – he stated although De Sousa’s guardian asked for money, he never paid it; Billy Preston never played at KU; etc – I think KU can probably spend a fortune and manage to avoid any major penalties going forward. Last year’s Final Four will, officially, disappear at some point.[1]We’ll see if the Big 12 decides to take away last year’s regular and postseason titles, too.

But I admit I’m more worried than I was before. You never know what the FBI found out that did not get submitted into the trial, or was slatted to be shared in the other trials that have been avoided by guilty pleas. I’m hopeful that word I got from someone who has worked with the FBI in the past will be true. H said, “Fuck that, there is no way the FBI is sharing anything with the NCAA.”

The Team

Some week for the actual KU basketball team. Lose to Kentucky on Saturday. Lose to Texas on Tuesday. Lose De Sousa for two years on Friday. And about 15 minutes after the De Sousa news broke we learned that Marcus Garrett hurt his ankle in practice and is out indefinitely. Oh, and Texas Tech was coming to town the next day.

Perfect!

Naturally KU played their best game of the year and the result was never in doubt over the last 35 minutes.

Sports are weird, my friends.

Which sets up a huge game tonight at K-State. Nothing about this K-State excites me. But, you know what, this year that might be the perfect way to win the Big 12. Just steadily win out. Protect your home court, steal a few on the road, and watch everyone else beat each other up.

But there is a loooot of basketball to be played. I still think Iowa State is the best team in the conference. But they lost at home to K-State by one, which right now is the best, and biggest, win in the conference this season. I really don’t understand how Baylor is playing so well. You figure Texas Tech is going to be a factor. And if KU can even play at 75% of the level they played at last Saturday they will be in it until the end.

  1. Grayson Allen still missed that shot and Malik Newman still dropped 13 on Duke in OT.  ↩

Poop

February 4, 2019 /

Good grief that was a garbage Super Bowl. The game sucked. The result sucked. Most of the commercials sucked. The halftime show sucked.[1] Just a garbage night all around.

It made me feel bad for being so neutral in the AFC title game. Then again, rooting hard for the Chiefs two weeks ago just would have pissed me off when they blew it then. And surely Sean Payton and Drew Brees could have handled the Patriots bullshit better than Sean McVay and Jared Goff did.

And now we have to deal with an off season of an extra heaping helping of the Patriots bullshit. “No one believed in us; everybody counted us out.”

Fuck all of you in every possible way.

Listen, I get how pro athletes have to find bizarre forms of motivation to get through the rigors of the season, the weekly poundings that football players suffer from, the mental and emotional exhaustion. But if even one person inside that organization genuinely believes that no one believed in them and everybody had counted them out, they are dumber than even Gronk appears to be.

Oh, and Julian Fucking Edelman, the poster boy for how meaningless the NFL’s PED policy is, winning the goddamn MVP with his massive, testosterone-booster fueled beard is just the cherry on top. Remember, this is a guy who was suspended for four games at the start of the season for PED use, but was then used prominently in an NFL commercial. There are columnists all over New England slobbering all over their keyboards to write peans to Edelman’s will to win, his heroic fight back who also think that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons, and Alex Rodriguez should never get close to the baseball hall of fame.[2] I guaran-fucking-tee you Edelman and his veins that are as thick as ropes, his calves as big as large children’s heads, gets tested way less that players who are outspoken politically, like Eric Reid, despite somehow managing to slip up and get popped last summer.

Like I said, a garbage day. I’m glad football is done, although ESPN will still find a way to cram the NFL into the first 15 minutes of every Sportscenter between now and the draft.

  1. I think the females in my house enjoyed it, but they all like Maroon 5. S did predict Adam Levine would take his shirt off three songs before he did it. I bet we could have found that as a prop bet if we tried.  ↩
  2. They’ll vote for Big Papi, though.  ↩

Friday Playlist

February 1, 2019 /

This was our winteriest week of the season. Two days with sub-zero temperatures and windchills 20-30 degrees colder than that. Today is supposed to be the beginning of a major warm-up, but we woke to 4” of snow and a two-hour school delay. (Update: School was cancelled for the day about five minutes after I posted this.) So I thought the Spotify tunes should stick to a weather theme, with two new songs and two classics. And as a bonus, two videos this week. Happy February!

“The Sun Keeps on Shining” – rogov. When in doubt, keep this in mind and spring will get a little closer each day.

“Cold In The Summer” – Dan Mangan. This song is about getting older and getting soft, according to Mangan. But, still, there’s weather in the title.

“Fuck I Hate the Cold” –  Cowboy Junkies. I always wonder how many people I annoy on Facebook by posting that I’m listening to this song. “Please don’t use the “F-word” on Facebook. Sometimes my kids are looking at it with me…” You know you’re helping them win when you do that, right?

“Listen, The Snow Is Falling” – Galaxie 500. Kind of like waiting for the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas music, I always look forward to snowy days when I can rattle the windows with this epic track.

“Dylan Thomas” – Better Oblivion Community Center. Phoebe Bridgers has done it again. Last year’s boygenius release, her collaboration with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, was one of the finest of the year. Now she’s teamed up with Conor Oberst to make the first great album of 2019. And this track…oh, it is just so damn good.

“Yah Mo B There” – James Ingram and Michael McDonald. When news broke of Ingram’s death earlier this week, this song immediately began running through my head. “Well it’s a doggone shame, but never too late for change.” Words to live by, my friends. In James’ honor, I give you the 12” remix version of this classic. Appropriately this features a lot more shots of James than Michael. RIP.

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