For the first time in three years we were home for Thanksgiving week. We packed a lot in, and it deserves a wide-ranging, extra-long breakdown.
College Visitor
I picked M up Tuesday around noon after her last scheduled class of the week. We grabbed lunch at Hangover Easy, a place just off campus I’ve wanted to try just because of their shirts. It was solid, but I couldn’t find any shirts for sale. I guess I’ll have to get one online.
That night she (and C) went with me to L’s game. M had a couple nights out with high school friends, but didn’t do anything too crazy. She thought about going to the IU-Purdue game with one of her best friends but they slept too late to make it to Lafayette in time. Seemed like she behaved herself. Unlike me during my freshman Thanksgiving break, when I may have consumed as much alcohol as I ever did before or have since.
S ran her back to school Sunday evening.
She will be back soon. UC has class this week then go straight into exams. She only has two true finals. One of them would normally be on the 9th, but all tests for that course are done outside class, so she’s hoping she can come home earlier in the week.
Oh, she was also elected as social chair of her house. Most of the new officers don’t take over their duties until January, but since she has to plan the formal this spring, she’s already pretty deep in finding a venue and getting all that arranged. Shocking she would be social chair, right?
Hawaii Basketball
Mixed results for KU out in Oahu. Smashed Chaminade in round one, as expected, with Kevin McCullar becoming the first KU player ever to record back-to-back triple doubles.
Then smashed by Marquette in the second round. That game never felt close, which was super annoying. There was the added bonus of Shaka Smart acting like a clown and then pretending he didn’t know why anyone was upset. It’s always a shame when someone acts like a punk then wins the game. Thanks to the Purdue-Tennessee game taking about five hours to play and this one starting after 11:00 PM eastern, I recorded it and watched first thing Wednesday morning. Good call, as I was able to fast forward through most of the second half. I would have been up until 4:00 AM pissed had I watched live.
Finally an encouraging win over a tough Tennessee team in the consolation final. Jamari McDowell stepping up might have been the best development of the week.
KU has some holes, but I think as a few players get more comfortable, those holes will get smaller. And Bill Self will figure out how to hide them better as the season continues. This is a good team that can get a lot better.
Jim Irsay
Oh boy…
In case you missed it, the Colts owner appeared on HBO’s Real Sports and, as is his general MO, was very candid about his life. Which in general is a good thing. Until he claimed that the only reason he was arrested a decade ago when he was pulled over for driving under the influence was because he is a “rich, white, billionaire.”
Please note he was pulled over and arrested in Carmel, IN, which isn’t exactly the most diverse suburb in our area, nor one that has ever been noted for its anti-capitalist views. Hell, the new mayor who was elected earlier this month refused to denounce a local mom’s group that used a quote from Hitler in their literature.
So, sure, the white cops in a super white, conservative suburb decided that they were going to stick it to the man by arresting the Colts owner.
It’s sad that someone who has done so much to both own up to his mistakes and help end the stigma around mental heath disease can’t take responsibility here and resorted to pretending that he, with endless resources and likely decades of people looking the other way at similar behavior, is the person oppressed by a racist police department.
Thanksgiving
Last year we were in Italy for Thanksgiving. Two years ago Hawaii. So it was nice to be back home again in Indiana for the holiday this year. We hosted, and had just 16 this year. We’ll be closer to 30 at Christmas so this felt super manageable.
I did the bird, Giada’s dressing, and potatoes. We delayed our meal until later in the day to allow for a sister-in-law and her kids to return from their trip to Denver. That made the day a lot easier than eating around 1–2 as we usually do. Although that last 45 minutes always gets crazy no matter what time you eat.
KU-UC
Several of you asked over the past week. No, I did not drive down to Cincinnati for the KU-UC game Saturday night. Had the game been played at noon, I could have made it work. However, the 7:30 kickoff was the exact moment that L’s game was scheduled to tip. As much as I love my Jayhawks, I love my daughters more, and chose to be a good dad.[1] Plus, M wasn’t interested in going back on Saturday and we really didn’t want to make the drive both Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and it was very cold.
Naturally I was annoyed that I missed it given the result. When we walked out of the CHS gym, KU had just taken a 21–10 lead into halftime. As we were pulling into our driveway Devin Neal was scoring his second touchdown of the night to extend the lead. Once I was seated in front of the TV I made M come down and watch with me. The next hour or so involved a lot of me waving the wheat and sending her bean emojis – 🫘 – with her flipping me off and telling me how much the Bearcats “freaking suck” in return.
Good times!
Sooooo happy for Jason Bean. Sure, the UC defense had basically given up by the fourth quarter, but it was fantastic for him to cap his regular season college career with two more long touchdown runs. His 340 total yards were both super-efficient and impressive. The guy has taken a lot of abuse, verbal and physical, over his career. He tried to leave KU last summer but no one wanted him. And, in the end, he is as responsible for KU’s turnaround as Jalon Daniels is. JD beat Texas two years ago. But Bean nearly beat OU that same year, did beat OU this year, and led the Jayhawks to two conference road wins this season. KU won eight total conference games from 2009 to 2021. Jason Bean has been the starter in six Big 12 wins over the past two years. When this season seemed to be on the verge of going down the toilet because Daniels could no longer play, Bean stepped in and KU barely missed a beat, winning eight regular season games for the first time since 2007.
There is a lot of praise to go around for the KU turnaround, from Lance Leipold and his staff, to Travis Goff and the athletic department, to players like Daniels, Neal, Kenny Logan, Cobee Bryant, etc. Bean’s name needs to be high on that list as well.
Eight wins! The Big 12 was a true adventure this year, with results often not making sense from week-to-week. KU was pretty damn steady, though, with the only real blip coming over the past two weeks because Bean was hurt and Cole Ballard had to drop his clipboard and fill in for 2½ games. KU was damn close to 11–1, and who knows, maybe they can stick with Texas longer if Bean had practiced as the QB1 all week instead of finding out about 30 minutes before the game that he was the starter.
Rock Chalk, bitches.
Other Football
As much as I hated all the hype that surrounded Ohio State – Michigan, that was a hell of a game. Incredibly entertaining.
M asked me if the weekend after Thanksgiving is when most rivalries play. I liked that she picked that up. I switched to Indiana-Purdue a few times during the OSU-UM game and that game felt very familiar. For a good chunk of my life the Kansas-Missouri game was at the end of the year,[2] and at least one team was usually pretty bad. Some years both sucked. There’s nothing quite like sitting in a cold-ass stadium in late November with 24,000 other people watching two shitty teams battle for bragging rights and not much else.
The Colts are 6–5? The Colts are 6–5! They would be playing in a Wild Card game if the season ended today. They have a pretty favorable schedule remaining, too. They – especially Gardner Minshew – do not make it easy each week, so I wouldn’t go printing playoff tickets up just yet.
Poor Detroit fans. It’s been since early in the Barry Sanders years that they had a good team to root for on Thanksgiving. When it finally happens again, they get curb-stomped by a mediocre Green Bay team. Just a cursed franchise.
Oh, and the Buffalo-Philadelphia game was straight-up awesome. Rain and a sloppy field. Josh Allen doing good Josh Allen things. Jalen Hurts doing Jalen Hurts things. Maybe the biggest and most clutch field goal in adverse conditions since Adam Vinatieri’s kick in the snow 21 years ago. And then a fun overtime to top it off. That was a fine way to end a terrific weekend of sports.
Pacers
The Pacers are a wild-ass team. Last Tuesday they clinched a spot in the quarterfinals of the NBA’s new In-Season Tournament with a 157–152 win over Atlanta. When we got home from L’s game, the Pacers were down by 20. I know everyone makes a run in the NBA, but coming back from 20 down to build a 12-point lead is kind of crazy. Even then the game came down to the final minute, and the Pacers just did not miss. Tyrese Haliburton had 37 points and 16 assists. Buddy Hield was 6-for–6 from deep. I don’t know that Bobby Knight purists love them, but I sure enjoy watching this year’s team.
They scored 131 the next night…and lost by one. Which was kind of incredible given what they did the night before. Then they dropped another 136 in a win on Friday. They are on pace to shatter the record the Sacramento Kings set last year as the most efficient offense in NBA history.