D's Notebook

Month: February 2022 (Page 1 of 2)

Weekend Sports Notes

February 28, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

A large game in Waco Saturday. KU looked fantastic for the first 15 minutes against Baylor, then, other than a brief spurt in the second half, pretty pedestrian.

I was as low-key about this game as any late-season, Big 12 contender matchup in years. I listen to three different KU-focused podcasts and all of them insisted last week that Baylor was a great matchup for KU. I think that was putting too much into the teams’ first matchup, which was as dominant as KU has looked all year. That sentiment must have gotten into my head, though, because I didn’t have the usual nervousness going into this game.

I also thought all the pressure was on Baylor because of that first game and the margin between the teams. If KU lost they would still be in first place. Texas Tech losing to TCU earlier took some more pressure off.

For awhile it looked like that was all true. KU looked great early, hit their usual lull before halftime, and struggled to match Baylor’s adjustments through the second half. Or at least that’s what the general narrative of the game is.

In truth, KU missed a ton of open shots. Especially Ochai Agbaji, who despite scoring 27, missed a handful of, for him, relatively easy shots. Jalen Wilson was back to December Jalen Wilson. The bench was non-existent, although Remy Martin did score five, balanced by his typical terrible defense.

I’m not throwing those details out there to diminish Baylor’s performance or poo-poo the loss. It’s just to say I wasn’t all that worked up about it. It’s not like Baylor made KU look silly, like KU pissed it away as they had the game in Austin a few weeks back, etc. KU lost to a really good team on the road while having their worst offensive game, efficiency wise, in some time. Not a loss to lose sleep over.

Of course it helped pretty much everyone else in the Top 10 dropped a game last week.

It’s almost March. I’m more concerned with how the team is playing than the result. KU lost because the missed shots they normally hit and struggled to guard Baylor’s athletic bigs. That’s pretty much the blueprint for a KU loss this season.

Youth Hoops

L’s winter team had their final regular season game yesterday. As has been usual, they were missing four players and had to recruit a replacement from the C team just to have a sub.

Comparing scores, the team they played had lost by seven to the team we beat a week ago. So I was hoping for good things.

Not sure what went on in that other game, but our result showed why using playground logic is bad. We took a 2–0 lead, gave up an 13–0 run, and never got it under nine again, losing by 20. This team had good, little guards that could handle the ball and shoot 3’s. They had two big girls who looked awkward but could post and score, move their feet a little on D, and rebounded the hell out of the ball.

L scored eight and had three assists. She was aggressive but did not have the distance dialed-in on her jumpers and had a bunch of airballs. She also had her best, and smartest, play of the year. She had the ball at the top of the key and one of the big girls on her. She recognized the mismatch, got the girl leaning left, blew by her on the right and laid it in. A simple play, but a smart one. She hasn’t had the results she’s wanted, but I think her hoops IQ continues to improve. She’s been frustrated by this season. I keep telling her that things are going to get better, and more fun, once he AAU season begins.

Her AAU coach was in the building and watched the first half. He told me he was excited to have her and her St P’s buddy on his team. They start their practices tonight and are supposed to play in a shootout on Sunday, pending enough teams registering. Meanwhile the winter league team plays a tournament game tomorrow and a championship game on Saturday, should they win their first game. The “tournament” is kind of whack, but I’ll share more about that later.

Winter Olympics

I realized I never wrote anything about the Winter Olympics. Which should be like a mortal sin to the blogging gods: the Olympics have been one of my go-to content sources over the last 18 years.

It’s not that I didn’t watch. I did watch quite a bit in the first week, but tailed off significantly in the second week.

I guess it was fatigue from a third-straight Olympics being held with a 12–13 hour time difference and how that affects how us Americans can watch the events. There was the prime time evening window, which is probably way more convenient in the Pacific time zone than the Eastern. I don’t think I watched past 11:00 PM more than two nights. I often caught a few minutes of live events in the morning before I took L to school. That was pretty much it, though. And, as I said, in week two I lost some interest.

The lack of crowds sucked, especially since here in the States we’ve been back to full crowds for quite a while.

There was also the fact they were holding the Winter Olympics in an area that gets like 10 inches of snow a year. The starkness of the ski slopes covered in artificial snow while all the surrounding hills were a dull brown kind of cut into the vibe you want from the winter games. Naturally there was a nasty snow/wind storm that affected some of the ski events. Those were the sports gods letting the IOC know you need to stop chasing Chinese money and put the games where they belong. Seriously, I think the Winter Olympics should always be in the Alps, Scandinavia, or Canada. Fuck China. And fuck Russia, too, while we’re at it.

I laughed out loud at the ski broadcasters discussing how the snow in these games was so different than what the competitors were used to skiing on in Europe. One of them said the snow was “very sensitive.” Snowflakes on two levels!

Once again I found I enjoyed the newer events that grew out of the X-Games more than anything. The halfpipe snowboard events, especially, are crazy fun to watch. Ayumu Hirano winning the men’s gold was an insanely impressive performance, even with the judges trying to screw him. I loved the analyst getting noticeably pissed as the judges refused to reward runs that included elements that had never been done in competition before.

Also fun to hear the cross country analyst again, who screamed like someone is dying anytime there was a close race.

I suppose my favorite thing about the games was Instagram stalking the competitors. I spent too much time looking at Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami’s page. Please don’t tell my wife.

Baseball

Rob Manfred and the owners suck. For the first time in at least 15 years I turned off auto-renewal for my MLB subscription. I doubt losing my $120 will bring them to their senses, but I also don’t feel obligated to sign back up right away when an agreement is reached. There are a lot of problems with baseball, and the owners seem intent on making every one of those issues worse while adding more to the pile.

Friday Playlist

February 25, 2022 /

“A Real Thing” – The Beths
This lovely track from New Zealand sets up a run of poppier tracks that make up the bulk of this week’s PL.

“Bad Love” – Dehd
In the write-ups for this song, I saw it compared to the blog rock of the ’00s. I certainly hear that, but I also hear a nice dollop of ’60s-influenced pop.

“Kissing Lessons” – Lucy Dacus
More good shit from Ms. Dacus.

“AB Bride” – The Rural Alberta Advantage
This is the B-side of the latest TRAA single, and I like it more than the featured track.

“Five Years” – Cowboy Junkies
A wonderful cover of a David Bowie original. This was the advance single off the Junkies’ new album, Songs of the Recollection, which is an all-covers disk. Margo Timmins can sing just about anything and make it magical.


“Nearly Lost You” – Screaming Trees
Guessing I am like most of you, and all I knew of Mark Lanegan’s music was this, his unlikely hit with his band Screaming Trees thanks to its placement on the 1992 Singles soundtrack, and the theme song he co-wrote for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. I’m sure I listened to some of his music of the years – notably his appearances in Mad Season and Queens of the Stone Age – but I found his solo work generally did not fit my ear. Lanegan died this past Tuesday. His memory will live on with us Gen Xers who had that Singles CD in our collections.

Jayhawk Talk: Some Notes

February 23, 2022 /

One last breather before the biggest and toughest stretch of the year, via a good, old-fashioned thumping of Kansas State.

I’m not sure why K-State decided to force the tempo Tuesday night. They damn near beat KU a month ago playing their normal style of ball. Why they thought they could come to Lawrence and win a track meet is baffling, and perhaps the final nail in Bruce Webber’s coaching coffin.

(A quick aside about Bruce: as a KU fan I love making fun of him and his insecurities. But he is a good coach and K-State is a solid team. If not for Covid blowing through their team early in the Big 12 schedule, they could easily be in the conference title mix. I’m interested to see whether the K-State AD thinks he can get someone who coaches as well as Bruce but is more PR friendly and, thus, plays better to the public, or if he’ll give Bruce a chance to coach this young roster one more time.)

To be fair, it wasn’t a total disaster until the last ten minutes. Twice the Wildcats cut big leads down to single digits. I wonder if their pace on offense took away from their defensive effort, because KU got a lot of great looks and knocked most of them down.

We aren’t here to talk about K-State, though.

I don’t have any big observations from last night; you can’t take much from a game like that because, as good as KU is on offense, they aren’t going to shoot 64% very often.

So a few tidbits.

As tends to happen this time of year with seniors, I’m trying to enjoy what is left of Ochai Agbaji’s KU career. He is having one of the most remarkable offensive seasons of any KU player in recent memory. Ochai is deadly from behind the arc, in transition, in the mid-range, attacking the hoop, and in set plays designed to free him up for lobs. He is as well-rounded offensively as any KU perimeter player of the modern era.

Ben McLemore and Brandon Rush are the closest comps for Ochai, and both his usage and efficiency numbers are beyond what those guys put up. He and Bill Self have made adjustments to get him better looks after his mini “slump” that came as teams clamped down on him.

It has been an amazing season, made even better by how unexpected it has been. I thought he’d be good this year. But 20+ ppg, conference player of the year, and likely All-American status? Never saw that coming.

Jalen Wilson’s comeback this year has been great to watch. Going into such a funk just because he got a DUI on the eve of the season was weird.[1] His emergence has given KU a three-headed monster on offense.

I think it’s weird that he can’t jump, though. It makes it more amazing that he’s grabbing over seven rebounds per game. There have been multiple times this year when he is wide open and you would expect him the throw down a big dunk. Instead he lays it up. Or, knowing he can’t jump over an approaching defender, makes some crazy Euro-step that forces him into a tougher shot. I think he needs to get some of those weird shoes with the platform soles under the toes that are supposed to increase your vertical.

It has also been fun to watch Joe Yesufu figuring it out. He still plays about 10% too fast in half court sets, but he also looks more comfortable and is providing good minutes.

As it has been all season, the topic of choice on KU Twitter is Remy Martin. The current debate is whether he will play again or not. There is also lots of speculation about what is really going on, some suggesting he is healthy and has either bailed or he and Self can’t agree to work together so they’ve agreed for him to be “injured.” I have no idea, no inside dope from people in the locker room, so I’m not going to hazard any guesses as to Remy is really hurt or not.

I will, though, make a guess about whether he returns.

Since KU has been playing well, I can see Remy and Self coming to an agreement that he’s going to take his time and target next week, when KU plays four times in seven days, for his next comeback. Ease him in for the two TCU games to give DaJuan Harris and Yesufu some relief. See how he feels/recovers and if he has any chemistry with his teammates. If it works you roll him out for the season finale against Texas and go from there, hoping he can provide 10–15 minutes off the bench in the postseason.

But if he doesn’t play next week, he’s done. And it is about more than his knee.

A weird ending to a brief Jayhawk career.

Last night’s uniforms? I hated them upon their Twitter reveal. But, to be fair, similar ones Nebraska revealed a few weeks back had already affected my opinion.

I thought they looked better on TV, at least in the wide shots. Up close, when you saw the sunflowers across the chest and on the side stripes, I did not like them. Another miss for Adidas and whoever at KU came up with these.

As a uniform guy, I did love one element in them that I think KU should use going forward.

First off, Adidas needs to scrap these random one-off uniforms. It’s fine to wear a throw-back uniform occasionally to celebrate a specific team. But I hate these over-designed ones that we see once before they are forgotten. They can’t generate enough sales revenue to make them worth it.

Red uniforms are always a hot-button issue with KU fans. I used to be a big proponent, but have softened in recent years as KU has expanded its uniform options.

My big idea takes an element of last night’s set and KU’s history: have a home alternative uniform that has red letters, numbers, and accents. KU used to wear uniforms with red details rather than blue as their standard uniforms. That’s what Clyde Lovellette wore when he led KU to its first NCAA title, and KU has honored those a few times. Jo Jo White wore red letters. Blue is KU’s brand, so the Jayhawks should generally have more blue than red in their uniforms. But pulling out throwbacks with red detailing say four times a year would be both historically accurate and pretty dope.

Or just bring this style back and solve all the uniform problems.

Now it’s on to Baylor in Waco, the two-fer with TCU, and hosting Texas. All in a calendar week. 2–2 gets the Jayhawks no worse than a shared Big 12 championship.

  1. Also, call Uber/Lyft!  ↩

Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 70

February 22, 2022 /

Chart Week: February 16, 1980
Song: “We Don’t Talk Anymore” – Cliff Richard
Chart Position: #32, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in January.

I’m guessing most, if not all, of my readers have no memory of Cliff Richard.

That’s kind of crazy, because he was one of the most popular singers in the world for a long, long time. He’s sold over 250 million records around the world in his prolific career. In the UK he had 14 number ones and a staggering 69 top 10 hits; only Elvis and the Beatles sold more records in Richard’s homeland.[1] While his success was more modest in the US, Richard still racked up nine Top 40 hits here.

He spread out his American success pretty efficiently. As Casey noted in this countdown, Richard was the first artist to hit the US Top 40 in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. That came via one Top 40 hit in both the ‘50s and ’60s, two in the ‘70s – including this track which first hit in late 1979 – and then five more in 1980 and 1981 before he basically disappeared from American radio.[2]

While his highest charting track in the US was 1975’s “Devil Woman,” which hit #6, this was his biggest international hit. It cracked the top ten on pretty much every pop chart around the world, and hit #1 in at least nine counties.[3]

I’ve always loved it, from way back when I (likely) first heard it on KJAS in Jackson, MO. It has a groovy bass line. The synthesizers have a proto-New Wave quality to them. The chorus is catchy-as-hell. It’s hard not to get swept away by the track’s pleasant bounce.

When I was a kid, I mostly paid attention to the chorus and thought it was about a couple that were still together but had grown apart. Thus, I assumed was Richard singing about the realization that a relationship had changed. Maybe the couple was still traveling in the same direction, but they were doing so on different paths.

As I got older, I realized the entire song is more about him bemoaning the loss of a love that came about because of the choice of his lover.

Even with those two different views of the song, I’ve never completely understood what the title line means, “It’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore.” I can’t decide if it’s a sarcastic statement, an incredulous statement, or a “Huh, that’s kind of weird,” statement.

I don’t think it helps that the song sounds so damn happy. Can Richard really be singing about heartbreak when the song makes you smile and want to bounce around?

I’m probably overanalyzing a song that was meant to be more pleasing to the ear than profound.

Besides, I’ve always been a melody-first guy, and this song is loaded with melody. Which is more than enough to make up for any lyrical inconsistencies or questions. This is pop music in its purest, most pleasing form. If Leo Sayer got a 7, this has to be an 8/10.

I will again share two videos for this track, because, as with Kansas, they are both amazing. The first is the official video, which for some strange reason was the sixth video aired on MTV. It is certainly something.

I’ll follow that up with a lip-synced performance from November 10, 1979 on the (West) German show Starparade. His outfit! His moves! The spinning with the camera! And the absolute stones to stand there, holding his index finger in the air over the intro as he prepares to sing. It’s as if he’s saying, “Yes, this is my song and it is number one!” For some reason I imagine him saying that with a German accent since he was on a German show, which makes it even more fun.

  1. For comparison, Mariah Carey has had 19 number ones and only 28 Top 10 tracks in the US.  ↩

  2. His first UK number one came in 1959, his last in 1999. He hit #2 in 2006 and his final (as of now) Top 40 hit in the UK was in 2009.  ↩

  3. UK, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Switzerland.  ↩

Weekend Hoops Notes

February 21, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

Ah, the trip to Morgantown, where so many good/great KU teams have gone and dropped total turds. It didn’t matter that this year’s WVU team is kind of bad and sitting in 10th place in the Big 12: this game should have frightened KU fans because of our past experiences there.

(You could tell this West Virginia team kind of sucks by the way Bob Huggins coached. That was as docile as I’ve ever seen him. He knows he has some good kids and they’re trying hard, but they just aren’t good enough. He understands there’s not need to berate them when he’s already getting all he can out of them.)

There were some scary moments Saturday night, but KU rallied and actually closed out a game strong for the first time in weeks to get a nice road win. Sadly, it was just matching Texas Tech and Baylor, who had both already won there. But it still felt big.

We’re at the point in the season where every team pretty much knows what they have. I think we know what we have in KU: a very talented team on offense that throws the ball away too much, can rebound the hell out of the ball against all but the most athletic opponents, and plays pretty middling defense.

Those turnovers and defense plus the team’s struggles to be poised late in halves say that this isn’t a Final Four team. They have too many weaknesses that will get exposed when March rolls around. It’s a really good team, but I don’t think they have greatness in them.

Which is fine.

They are still really fun to watch at times. Ochai Agbaji seems to have re-found his mojo. David McCormack is playing really well. Jalen Wilson’s transformation has been spectacular. Christian Braun always finds a way to affect the game.

It just doesn’t feel like they have the right mix to hang a banner of their own.

Thus the focus is on adding their own notch to the Big 12 banner. With five games remaining, going 3–2 guarantees at least a share of the title. Go 4–1 and neither Baylor nor Tech can catch them. It’s right there in front of them.

It’s not a done deal, and KU could certainly slip up and turn 3–2 into 2–3. But I’ve decided to enjoy the next five games and the Big 12 tournament, and then figure this team won’t play to their seed and end the season on a disappointing note. Maybe they’ll win a couple so their loss can come in the second weekend of the tournament while I’m on spring break and have distractions. I’m hoping the end will be easier to take since I’m already accepting it a month in advance.

NCAA Tournament Preview

I think it’s kind of weird that the NCAA started releasing these bracket previews a few years back. Partially because there are seemingly hundreds of bracket previews out there, why do we need another, even if it is the officially-sanctioned one? I guess it dominated college hoops news for an entire day, so it serves a purpose.

I don’t know that there’s a good time to release it that doesn’t render it temporary, but a Saturday morning seems like an especially fluid time. Nearly every ranked team plays most Saturdays. Within an hour-or-so of the preview’s release Auburn and Kentucky were both trailing. Kentucky came back to win, but Auburn came up short in their comeback. Immediately non-NCAA bracketologists were sliding Auburn down in their overall seedings.

More annoying to me are people who argue about these projected brackets. They literally do not matter because the season does not end on February 19 or whatever. The teams that are fighting for the top seeds will all play anywhere from 6–9 more games before the final brackets are posted. A LOT can happen in that time. A team that looks like Final Four material now can have a big injury or just go cold on offense. A team that is struggling to find themselves can get an injured player back, or the coaches can make an adjustment that suddenly helps them cover up some warts.

Drew Magary said on Twitter last week that Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir needed to stop acting like the Olympics figure skating controversy was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which I thought was amazing. Same goes for people who take these early brackets way too seriously.

Along those lines, bitching about rankings is dumb. There’s a KU podcaster I follow who rips rankings from various writers each week. His issue isn’t always with where they have KU, but it often is. None of it matters. Now it is whack to have a team that everyone else has in, say, the top seven, #18 or whatever on your list. But in the era of NET and Quadrants and all the other advanced rankings, the media poll is a meaningless artifact of a bygone era.

Youth Hoops

L’s team hasn’t really had a close game this season. They lost one game by four, but trailed by close to ten most of the game. Just about every other game has been 10+ points either way. They finally had a tight one Saturday.

We were up 16–10 midway through the first half then gave up a 6–0 run to tie it. Our best player was on fire, though, and we went into halftime up two thanks to her 10 first-half points.

The second half was a bit of a slog. Neither team hit a shot from the field until eight minutes into the half. By then we were down because they had hit six free throws to our two. As usual they were running way better offense than we were, so it felt like the game would get away from us. It didn’t help that we had just six players, and our only sub was a girl called up from the B team (which is really a C team).

But our girls hung in there. We tied it up, took a brief lead, then fell behind by 3 with about 3:00 to play. We have a girl who has the craziest shot you’ve ever seen. She’s about as big around as your pinky finger and shoots the ball from below her hip, twisting her body as she heaves it toward the hoop. But she somehow makes a lot of them. She kept getting fouled Saturday. She missed her first two free throws, then hit seven straight, four of those in the closing minutes.

We had a one-point lead, playing defense, with about 15 seconds left. Their best player had fouled out so another girl tried to drive and dribbled it off her foot. We were inbounding with five seconds left. They stole a long inbounds pass in their backcourt, pitched it ahead to a girl who fumbled the ball twice near midcourt, then recovered and threw a perfect, cross-court pass to a teammate who was wide-open from about eight feet. She turned, flung the ball, and it banked in. I was keeping score and it looked good to me. One ref didn’t make a call, typical for the general quality of refs. I don’t think he was even watching. The other ref casually waved the basket off. The other team’s entire bench went nuts, coaches and players. Our girls sheepishly celebrated.

One of our parents was recording the game for grandparents. We looked at the tape and the ball was still in the shooter’s hands when she shot, so it was a legit call by the ref. But it was damn close.

Whew!

L scored a season-high 10 points, hitting four shots, including a break-away layup that gave us a 3-point lead with under a minute to play. She was also 2–4 from the line, hitting one of two when their coach got T’ed up. After the game I jokingly told her she should go thank him. Her response, “No way! He’s crazy!”

It was nice to get a win, nicer to do so in a close game. One more game next weekend followed by the tournament and then she’ll be all-in on travel ball for four months.

Friday Playlist

February 18, 2022 /

“Invincible” – Eddie Vedder
I included EV’s “Brother the Cloud” in last week’s playlist. That was also the release day of Ed’s solo album Earthing. Shortly after posting that PL, I virtually spun the album for the first time. And I almost haven’t stopped since. As with the first two singles, I was blown away by how unexpectedly great the album is. There are a few Pearl Jam-y tracks, but it is more indebted to Ed’s childhood love of pop and is filled with references to his musical heroes. There are guest appearances by Stevie Wonder (in a truly mind-blowing song that may show up here down the road), Elton John, and Ringo Starr.

And then there are the vocal references to a couple other heroes that pop up on this track. So much of this song reminds me of Joe Strummer’s solo work. Both Ed’s voice and cadence, the structure of the song, and the way Ed puts his thoughts together sound like they could easily have been on Strummer’s album Streetcore. Ed even includes the phrase “The Excitement Gang,” a line that appears on the single “Coma Girl.” And about 2:40 into the song, Ed suddenly sounds like So-era Peter Gabriel.

“Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave” – Gregor Barnett
Barnett, the lead singer of Menzingers, sounds very Brian Fallon on this terrific track from his first solo album.

“I Could Be A Real Winner” – Superfamily
Last week I knocked out episode two of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast about the career of Daryl Hall and John Oates. It was the best. At the end, Chris Molanphy noted some modern acts that have been heavily influenced by H&O. I had never heard of this band, made up of extremely well-educated Norwegians. It’s great, and certainly has a lot of H&O in its DNA. Especially the singer, who sounds a hell of a lot like Daryl Hall.

“Do You Still Wanna Make Out?” – Swami John Reis
I defy you to play this and not bounce around the room. Or at least rock in your office chair a little.

“Pure Love” – Flock of Dimes
Roughly 95% of everything that Jenn Wasner does is absolutely brilliant.

“Porta” – Sharon Van Etten
Another intensely personal song from badass SVE, laid over amazing synthpop. The video is of her doing pilates with her friend and trainer who helped pull her from the depression this song is about.

Hoops Notes

February 15, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

Two more wins, one entirely too stressful, the other had too much sloppiness but 15 of the better minutes of the year to balance.

Saturday against Oklahoma, KU looked slow and uninterested for much of the game. Like they saw the line was KU –10.5 and figured they would just walk onto the court and the game would be over.

They got their shit together in time to turn it into a comfortable win…until they started missing free throws and turning the ball over. It was a needlessly close, too stressful, two-point win.

After the game KU sat at 9–2 in the Big 12, a game ahead of Baylor, two ahead of Texas Tech. This was the second last-minute win over Oklahoma. There were late wins over Iowa State and Kansas State. It took two overtimes to beat Texas Tech. They blew the game in Austin in the final minute.

I sense a trend.

As a fan you can’t help but wonder what this means. Is this a team that can’t put people away, or a team that is tough as nails and unfazed by late-game stress? Are you concerned that they are playing so many close games that can turn on a single basket? Or is this team finding its identity and developing confidence that will help them weather tight games in March?

Fans love these debates, and the over-analysis that comes with them. Which is silly because the winning argument will be determined by how KU plays in March. The 1996–97 team had at least four huge comebacks to get wins over the course of the season. When they couldn’t complete their comeback against Arizona in the Sweet 16, we decided those games from November to February were all signs that something was wrong. Had they come all the way back and continued on to the Final Four and perhaps a title, that Arizona game would have been the ultimate sign of how tough that team was, how you couldn’t stop them on offense, how they were destined for greatness.

And that team had five NBA players on it. This year’s has, likely, just one. Doesn’t bode well for what’s coming.

After shaking off a very sluggish start Monday, KU played about 15 great minutes and had Oklahoma State down 26 before they decided to miss 16 of their last 17 shots. Not quite the 19-straight misses KU had in Stillwater last month, and a bunch of these were by the bench, but still an ugly end to a satisfying win.

The big takeaways were getting Ochai Agbaji back on track after two sub-par scoring games, a complete effort by the starting five, and more good minutes from Zach Clemence, who returned Saturday after missing a month with a foot injury.

Clemence is raw, fouls on every rebound, and apparently can’t hit a free throw if his life depended on it. But he battles and doesn’t appear to be afraid of the moment. He was the only KU big who had any idea what to do against Tanner Groves on Saturday, changing the game with his defense as much as his three that gave KU a lead they never relinquished. I’m not sure how much you can expect from/trust a kid who missed a month and wasn’t exactly getting big minutes before his injury. But having a 6’10” guy who is versatile and confident could be a nice bonus, especially on the nights when David McCormack is a mess and Mitch Lightfoot can’t do anything other than hack people.

Oh, the other takeaway from Monday’s game was the uniforms. Egad, man! I had not heard a good explanation for them before the game, just that KU was honoring the 1922 national championship squad. As they were white/gray, I assumed this was some dumb Adidas thing where they were overthinking how the only pictures of that ’22 team were black and white, so why not have black and white uniforms? ESPN’s Boog Sciambi finally gave a better explanation late in the game: the ’22 team did, in fact, wear gray and white, but with gray jerseys and white shorts. KU flipped that look so the jerseys would be home whites.

OK, that makes a little sense.

Still I hated them.

I hated it because if a random viewer turned on the TV, their first comment would probably be either “Who is Oklahoma State playing?” or “Why is Kansas wearing black?”

And why in the hell do you bust these out against Oklahoma State, a team that actually has black as a primary jersey color? Granted, they would have looked weird against anyone. And I think I would have hated them against anyone. But wearing them against OSU, Texas Tech, or any other school that features black in their own uniforms was super dumb.

I get what Adidas/KU was trying to do, and they get some points for intent. But the execution was terrible. KU might have worn gray 100 years ago, but there was no reason to wear it in 2022, especially against a team wearing all black. They could have made the lettering and shorts blue. Or wore the all whites the ’22 and ’23 teams wore.

Rumor has it Adidas has another alternate uniform lined up for sometime in the next month. Based on what some other Adidas teams have already unveiled I fear I may hate them, too.

Adidas has made some decent alternate uniforms for KU over the years, notably the Chalks and Phogs. But they keep messing up the regular uniforms then throwing out at least one bad alt set each year.

They really should let me design the uniforms. I would do a better job.

Pacers

Man, Kevin Pritchard came strong before the trade deadline! Three deals made some major changes to the Pacers’ roster going forward.

He shipped out Caris Levert, who in a nice player but dominates the ball too much and got an expiring contract and some draft picks in return. He sent his best player, Domantis Sabonis, and others, to Sacramento for Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson. Then he sent Torey Craig to Phoenix for Jalen Smith.

The trade with the Kings got the most attention, with a lot of the Internet freaking out over it. Haliburton is a darling of the NBA analytics movement, while a lot of people struggle with their thoughts about Sabonis. Sabonis is the better player right now. But he doesn’t play defense, isn’t a great shooter outside the paint, and I’m not sure he has much more upside. Haliburton is younger, under team control for a lot longer, already shows a lot of promise and seems to have a lot of upside. Plus he seems like a great dude.

Whether this series of trades would have been made if Myles Turner was healthy is an interesting question. Regardless, seems like the Pacers are going with him after trying to force him and Sabonis to work together for four years.

So the Pacers got some draft picks, a potentially great young player, cap space next summer, and some other pieces that can either be moved or fill the gaps until new players can be brought in. It seems like the new talent matches what Rick Carlisle wants to do better than the old. And there’s the familiar mantra of “When Turner, Malcolm Brogdon, and TJ Warren get healthy, this team is pretty solid.” I would not be surprised if the Pacers trade some of their draft capital and returning players to move up in this year’s draft, or find a better match for their younger guys. It’s not a full rebuild, but probably as close as owner Herb Simon is willing to come to one.

The Pacers have blown leads in their first two games with their new lineup. But at least they are interesting again. Those were the first games I had watched since the holidays.

Youth Ball

L’s CYO team has had a rough couple of games.

A week ago they got hammered by a really good sixth grade team. I think they lost by 24. It’s crazy watching these year-round teams run offense like high schoolers and have 12 year olds that can hit pull-up 3’s on the break. I keep telling L if she works hard, that’s the kind of game she can have by the end of this summer after three months on a travel team.

Saturday they played another seventh grade team. Strangely they hadn’t beaten a sixth grade team but were undefeated against seventh graders. We jumped out 4–0 then gave up 15 straight points until early in the second half. We cut it to 17–16 with about four minutes to play, but threw a bunch of bad passes and airballs and lost 24–20.

Other than her first CYO game of the calendar year, when she went scoreless, she had scored six or seven points in every game she had played in 2022, whether for her CYO or travel team. A week ago she broke that string by only scoring four. Saturday she scored just two. She missed a ton of shots Saturday. She was angry and didn’t talk all the way.

I know she’s frustrated by the CYO team. They don’t really do anything on offense, so they’re easy to guard. There are two girls who are always in the wrong spot on defense, so they give up easy shots. They don’t rebound. I told her to keep her head up and try to have fun. When travel ball starts next month, with more frequent practices and better coaching, things will get better.

We got her travel schedule last week. They will start practicing in early March then playing shortly after, continuing through the end of June. Most of it is local, although they will go to tournaments in Louisville and Knoxville.

Super Bowl Notes

February 14, 2022 /

A pretty decent game, unless you live in Cincinnati. And even then, it was solid until the last five minutes or so. It had a game-winning score in the final 2:00, which always elevates a game. Only one traditionally spectacular play – Tee Higgins’ 75-yard touchdown catch to open the second half – and that came because of a pretty egregious officiating error. I think my generation still expects Super Bowls to be terrible because so many of them in the 80s and 90s were, so any time a game is close still feels like a win even if it wasn’t a classic game.

I was leaning Bengals for a variety of reasons, but fine with the Rams winning. It is easy to make fun of the Rams for having no real fan base, or LA fans in general for being the ultimate front-runners. But I have no real hate for the team itself.

I’m even ok with how the Rams won this title. They made an organization-wide decision to throw everything at winning a Super Bowl this year. They sacrificed pretty much every meaningful draft pick for the next 25 years (give-or-take) to load up their roster for this run. Isn’t that what a team is supposed to do, use whatever capital they have to maximize their championship odds? They made a decision and will pay a price down the road for it. Although it’s easier to turn a franchise around than it used to be – look at the Bengals – the Rams probably have a long stretch coming up quick where their fancy new stadium will be dominated by visiting fans because the home team is going 4–13. Flags fly forever.

One reason I was pro-Bengals was because of the KU connection. Hakeem Adeniji started. He got manhandled by Aaron Donald much of the night, so I was just glad it wasn’t him that gave up the game-clinching sack. Pooka Williams is on the practice squad. Darrin Simmons, who played for KU when I lived in Lawrence, has been a Bengals coach for nearly 20 years. And, of course, Ja’Marr Chase was committed to KU for five days, so I could him as a Jayhawk!

I’m sure Bengals fans are stewing about how the Rams last drive was aided by multiple penalties on the Bengals after a largely penalty-free game. I get it, but, come on. The Bengals took the lead because of a horrible missed call. You can’t complain too much. But it was disappointing that a game that was called differently than pretty much every other NFL game this year suddenly changed in the last 2:00. If you’re going to swallow the whistle all night, don’t suddenly start blowing it at the end.

The win cements the Rams move to get Matthew Stafford lat year, and provides a measure of redemption for him after spending his whole career in the pit of despair that is the Detroit Lions franchise. He was nails on the final possession. But I found it interesting that the Rams won largely because the Bengals defense took away the big play, and Stafford had to be patient and manage the game. That eliminated his propensity for making mistakes in big moments. His only interception was a flukey one. I kept waiting for him to throw a bad pick, but by taking away the deep ball, the Bengals also reduced the odds that Stafford would do something dumb to help them. The Bengals played really good defense the entire game. And in doing so they reduced the chances that their defense could help them win. Sports are strange.

Commercials. I didn’t do much tracking of them this year. I guess the Larry David crypto one was my favorite. I think celebs doing cryptocurrency ads is dumb; I guarantee most of the people in these commercials don’t understand the concept any better than the average person. David’s ad seemed like kind of a send-up of that concept. Plus his line about even letting “the stupid people” vote was brilliant.

I laughed a few times. I was confused a few times. But other than the QR code ad, not sure we’ll be talking about many of these six months from now.

The halftime performance? Really good. But it missed out on being great. For starters, neither Dre, Snoop, nor Mary J. Blige performed their best songs. There were radio versions of “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang,” “Who Am I? (What’s My Name?),” and “Gin and Juice” 30 years ago, so I know they could have been performed at the Super Bowl in 2022. And for Mary J not to sing “Real Love” was a travesty.

All-in-all, though, an entertaining performance. And as the first-ever, all hip hop halftime, it will go down in history. It wasn’t Prince, but I’m not sure anyone ever will be.

My question as I watched was will this be the last Super Bowl halftime show where the featured artists are all roughly my age? Dre is 56, Mary 51, Snoop 50, Fiddy is fiddy, and Eminem 49.

I was trying to think of artists either in their 50s or approaching 50 who have not done the halftime show yet and are still culturally relevant. Foo Fighters is the most obvious, and they were doing an alternate halftime show last night so they might be blacklisted by the NFL. Pearl Jam would be another big get, but as well-known as they are, they don’t really move the national needle anymore.

With the show being focused primarily on danceable pop music, and now moving into straight hip hop, the future focus will likely be on younger artists, and more shows like last night that feature a collection of acts to fill the 20 minutes rather than a single, greatest hits-style performance. Which means last night might have been Generation X’s last night as the featured act(s).

Friday Playlist

February 11, 2022 /

“Brother Cloud” – Eddie Vedder
I wasn’t sure about this whole “EdVed solo album” thing. And then “Long Way” was one of my favorite songs of last year. Still, I held off listening to any of the other advance singles, figuring I would wait until today when the album finally dropped to check them out. Then I heard this last week on Sirius and was, again, pleasantly surprised. This track was inspired both by Ed’s friendship with Chris Cornell and the death of his biological brother. It’s pretty good.

“Static” – Gold Tongue
This band, from London, Ontario, has a cool, mid-90s, post-grunge sound.

“Outlaw Love” – The Districts
The Districts landed on my Favorite Songs of 2020 list with their terrific “Cheap Regrets,” which was apparently a departure from their traditional sound. I’m not sure if this song is going back to that older sound, but I like it, too. There’s a strong hint of Depeche Mode in the song’s opening, but transitions into something much brighter than anything DM ever did, though.

“The Fires” – Blushing
Some very nice Shoegaze from Austin.

“The Freshman” – Mustard Plug
Brother-in-music Sir David V hipped me to this. I thought it might be a cover; I was not expecting it to sound like this.

“Take On Me” – A Ha
I was in the midst of a random music conversation with another brother-in-music, E-bro, last week when he mentioned how he had seen a live performance of this and Morten Harket could still sing. I went searching and found this, a different performance from 2017. Which is absolutely insanely good. I figured Harket was probably a decent singer, but also had some studio help hitting those high notes back in the day. Yet here he is, pushing 40 years later, still nailing them. And still looking fabulous. And making Cougars cry. Something tells me if he’s single, he gets it as often as he wants/needs it. You can read more about this version, and how the original came to be, in this article.

Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 69

February 10, 2022 /

Chart Week: February 5, 1977
Song: “Carry On Wayward Son” – Kansas
Chart Position: #36, 7th week on the chart, debut week on Top 40. Peaked at #11 for two weeks in April.

The world is a much smaller place today than when my generation was growing up. Thanks to cable/satellite TV, the Internet, and social media networks, trends spread to the hinterlands almost as soon as they pop up in the cultural centers of the world. Hell, the next dumb-but-invasive, week-long TikTok trend is as likely to come from an unknown person in the middle of nowhere as an influencer in New York or LA.

But when we were kids, things moved to the center much slower. Punk, Rap and Hip Hop, New Wave, and other new sounds got their American starts on the coasts and gradually trickled into the Midwest and South.

Because of this, bands from the flyover states had to battle preconceived notions held by not only the listening public, but also by record labels.

Take Kansas, for example. They were from Topeka. Their music fit squarely into the progressive, arena rock sound that was big in the mid/late 1970s. But because of where they were from, people struggled to believe they should be categorized with bands like Boston, Styx, and Journey.

As Casey related in this countdown, when people heard the name “Kansas,” they expected a “Bluegrass band that wore overalls and chewed on a piece of straw.”

As a native Kansan, this offends me. Bluegrass was Appalachian music, made by and for Hillbillys. Kansas is not Hillbilly territory; its flatlands are the home of dirt farming Hicks. These are important distinctions.

Kansas’ label wasn’t immune to these harmful stereotypes. Kirshner Records tried to push the band as an “All-American, Bicentennial band,” according to Casey. I’m not really sure what that meant. Maybe closer to the Beach Boys than Led Zeppelin? I’m not sure you can get more American than this song, though, which sounds like it should be played in a big, 100% steel car made in Michigan that gets about 10 miles per gallon with the windows cranked down and the 8-track player cranked up.

Anyway, Kansas overcame that awful prejudice and were one of the biggest bands in the world for a brief spell. While this was not their biggest hit – “Dust In The Wind” peaked at #6 – it is their most enduring. Twice in the 1990s “Carry On Wayward Son” ended a calendar year as the most-played song on US classic rock stations. I hear it pretty regularly on SiriusXM, and if my daughters are in the car with me, I get a lot of eye rolls when I turn the volume up and start playing drums or keyboards on the steering wheel.

I do that because this is a kick ass song. Everything about it is amazing.

It has a perfect blend of vocals. In each verse, Steve Walsh sounds like he’s singing a ballad. But on the chorus, when Robby Steinhardt joins him, they transform it into a howling rocker. Walsh absolutely soars on the big notes. He’s not quite Brad Delp, but he’d certainly Delp-adjacent. He could fucking sing, and he sings the absolute hell out of this song.

Opening with an a cappella chorus then going straight into a breakdown and guitar solo was brilliant, and very prog-rock. Including solos by two different guitarists plus an organ solo also screams 1970s. It doesn’t quite have the “movement” feel that, say, Boston’s “Foreplay/Longtime” has, but the distinct sections give the song a majesty that sets it aside from standard radio fare.[1] Those parts keep pushing and pushing and pushing until the sudden wind down and closing riff. Every element makes you want to sing along while playing the air instrument of your choice.

The lyrics are pretty great, too. Guitarist Kerry Livgren wrote them as a note of encouragement to himself as he drifted in his search for a spiritual home. They are exactly how I would expect someone of his age, in that time, to speak about their journey. I always think of the people my parents hung out with in their grad school/post-graduate years when we lived in small college towns. While some of the lyrics seem overtly religious, they are never preachy nor pretentious. It never sounds like a Christian rock song – Livgren did not intend it to be – so even if that kind of thing normally grates on you, I can’t imagine this song would bother you.[2] Above any spiritual references, it is a song about never letting obstacles keep you from your goals. Or Ad astra per aspera, as some might say.

Not all the songs that were big hits in the late 1970s arena rock era hold up well. This one does. 10/10

I’ll include two videos for the song. First, the official video, so you get the entire song in all its glory. And can check out some of the looks the band rocked. Second is their magnificent 1978 Canada Jam performance. There is A LOT going on in that video.

  1. Styx’s “Come Sail Away” is probably a closer match than “Foreplay/Longtime.”  ↩
  2. Livgren later became a born-again Christian. In some interviews he has said the song is more about his search than where he ended up. In others, he’s said the song is about his excitement over the success of the band, the fear that it wouldn’t last, and hope that he could enjoy the moment regardless of the future. That’s some cool shit.  ↩
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