D's Notebook

Tag: college sports (Page 5 of 41)

Jayhawk Talk: Champions Classic

November 15, 2023 /

Without going back and reading a bunch of them, I’m assuming my Champions Classic posts have a similar theme every year: that wasn’t pretty basketball. Most years it is at least competitive, but despite the big-time matchup, it rarely has the same juice as a March tournament game.

Chalk that up for another year, with #1 KU outlasting Kentucky by five last night.

It was a game of swings.

KU opened up ahead 8–0 then 11–3. Some of us were cautiously thinking this could, finally, be payback for the Cats’ destruction of the Jayhawks back in 2014.

As always, such thoughts were noticed by the Hoops Gods, and Kentucky started hitting just about every three they threw up, disrupting KU’s offense, and charged back, leading by double digits before Hunter Dickinson swished a three at the halftime buzzer to cut UK’s lead to seven at the break.

I was pretty chill during the first half. Yes, KU was out of sorts and had totally abandoned looking inside. But Kentucky was a bunch of (super-talented) freshman, Bill Self >>> John Calipari when it comes to actual coaching, and the second half would be much different.

Thus it made total sense that UK doubled their led in about three minutes because what the hell do I know about basketball?

To say I was not enthused was an understatement. I was dreading how a team that couldn’t hang with a bunch of kids playing their first marquee college game would matchup with Marquette/UCLA/Tennessee/Purdue next week in Hawaii.

Then Self did some of that coaching shit, though, and the game flipped.

The KU offense inverted, sending Dickinson out high with KJ Adams low or DaJuan Harris in the mid-post, and KU started getting shots at the rim and slicing into the deficit.

The last 10 minutes were straight fun. KU comes all the way back, and even takes a brief lead, before falling behind by six with around four minutes. KJ Adams had just fouled out, Kevin McCullar had four fouls, and several of the KU players looked frightened to shoot. This did not bode well for my Jayhawks’ hopes.

Then something crazy happened: Harris scored eight points in one minute of game time, draining consecutive 3’s then hitting two free throws. KU never trailed again as their defense pretty much shut down everything UK tried to do, closing the game on a 14–3 run.

Worth noting this comeback, while with lower stakes, came on the same court, and going the same direction on that court, as KU’s massive second half against Miami that propelled them to the Final Four two years ago.

Cool shit.

Also cool was Dickinson absolutely dominating without trying very hard. 27 points, 21 rebounds. Yes, UK was missing all three of their biggest players. Even so, this game was a sign of what Dickinson can do.

Kevin McCullar had a bad game in some ways, shooting horrifically from outside and with a few bad turnovers. Yet it will go down in history as the third recorded triple double in KU history as he scored 12, had 10 assists, and grabbing the final UK miss right before the game ended for his 10th rebound. He’s going to be a feast-or-famine player offensively all season. This game shows how good he can be even when the shots aren’t falling.

DaJuan Harris told the world a week ago, after taking just one shot in KU’s first two games, he was saving his shots for when the team needed them. I guess we should have listened to him. He cashed a 3 on the game’s first possession, and hit five-in-a-row before a desperation heave at the end of the shot clock missed badly. I don’t think going 5-for–5 will be normal, but as always, if he can take and hit a few every night, that will open up so much for the offense.

The bench was trash. Just straight, hot garbage. Four combined points in 37 player minutes, and two of those were free throws by freshman Jamari McDowell in the final 10 seconds. A lot to work on here. Johnny Furphy will get better. Hopefully the other guys can, too.

Play of the game? Had to be McCullar throwing a half-court lob to Adams, who jammed it home from a near-impossible angle. KJ is low-key one of the best dunkers in KU history, combining Udoka Azubuike’s power with Andrew Wiggins’ leaping ability.

Another theme for these annual posts is that I’m not sure what you take from these games. Kentucky was far from full strength. This win will still look really good in March when seeding time comes around. Cal might still fuck it up, but seems like he finally had a class of outstanding freshman who can actually play together. We’ll see if he can keep them on the same page when their bigs come back.

KU took some punches and responded as they should against a team filled with first-year players. The shooting and depth will be issues all year, but it feels like most of the Jayhawks other struggles Tuesday were things that will be cleared up with more time together. The offense, which has more pro-sets than ever to play to Dickinson’s strengths, was often very slow to develop. The defense was solid much of the game, but I would expect them to have forced more than eight turnovers from a team playing almost all freshmen.

The Jayhawks have now won four-in-a-row in the Champions Classic, tied with Duke at 8–5 overall in the series. KU has now won six of the last eight versus Kentucky. More importantly, after the NCAA sanctions knocked KU back behind UK in the all time wins ledger, this was a huge game in re-claiming that title, something Bill Self mentioned early in his postgame comments.

It was a big night. But there are plenty more big nights to come this year.

Weekend Travel Notes

November 13, 2023 /

It was Adult Fall Break time for S and me, the first time we’ve done this in a couple years. This was for a medical conference, the first time we’ve done that since before Covid. We spent Thursday through Sunday in Clearwater Beach, FL, staying right on the beach. Like in a hotel, not in a tent or something.


The weather was perfect, low 80s each day. Someone told us it was a little warmer than usual for this time of year. I did not complain. Being off the beach we always had a nice breeze so it never felt too hot. We go back to the Tampa area in four months for spring break. Really hoping we get weather as good as we had this weekend.

Our trip was pretty casual. S did the morning education sessions. I took a couple long walks, read a lot, and generally killed time until she was done. Then we’d head down to the pool where we met up with friends and had a few drinks, followed by an early dinner each night, then we were old people and usually asleep by 10 and awake around our normal time well before 7. Kind of lame but also pretty relaxing.

A few assorted highlights from our stay.

There is a Hulk Hogan store and museum in the main drag where a lot of shops and restaurants are. Sadly I walked by before it was open, brother.


For breakfast Saturday we went to this cute little place I had found ahead of time. We walked in and the hostess/waitress was wearing a KU shirt. We Rock Chalked each other – I was wearing a KU shirt as well – and later learned that she grew up not too far from where I went to high school, although probably a few years ahead of me. I was hoping that meant good things for the football game that day. Alas…

There was also a big CrossFit competition in a little park right north of our hotel. I hung out and watched a bit of it on my walk Saturday morning. That stuff is intense. And the competitors are insanely fit, but in all body types. Made me feel real good about the three-egg omelette and three pieces of toast I had pounded for breakfast.

I ate a lot of shrimp and grouper over our three days.

We watched three gorgeous sunsets, but just missed sunrise each day.


Our travel was easy both ways, other than some two year old kicking the shit out of the chair next to me in the Tampa airport and his parents just sitting there and watching him. Finally after half an hour the dad said, “Ok, buddy. That’s enough.” Not sure what their deal was, they decided to come sit next to me, but more evidence that people are the worst.

I decided I really like taking trips in November, especially if we go someplace warm. In recent years we’ve done Tampa, Italy, Hawaii, San Antonio, and Phoenix after November 1.[1] They are nice breaks from the growing midwestern chill – although it was 78 in Indy last Wednesday – plus as Christmas decorations start to appear it feels like an informal start to the holiday season.

Some sports happened while we were away. Let’s bullet point them

  • In high school hoops, JV and varsity both got crushed Thursday by a really good program. JV lost by 17, varsity by 19. L said she played pretty much the entire JV game and was shooting a lot, but not hitting. She scored four. Rudely no other parent kept complete stats for me and shared them. She’s been frustrated by some of her teammates’ focus and dedication in practice. I told her to keep her head down, keep working hard, and it will pay off. Not coming out of the game is a sign her coaches trust her. Her next game is this Friday.
  • In high school football, CHS played an amazing regional final against Ben Davis, losing 27–24 on a late field goal. CHS gave up a pick-six in the first half and fumbled at the BD one in the second half, which was kind of the ballgame.. They came back from 10 down twice to tie it. Might have been better they lost since their quarterback got hurt late in the game. He played through it but not sure he would have been ready for Center Grove this week, and CHS did not need to play the three-time defending champs with a 5’7”, 140 lb backup running the offense.
  • Speaking of backup quarterbacks, I was able to watch the first half of the KU-Texas Tech game Saturday. We discovered why Jason Bean avoids contact, and that third-string quarterback Cole Ballard, a walk-on freshman from the Indy area, is actually kind of decent. Hell, he played amazing for someone in his situation. KU played better once he came into the game, but that was more about adjustments on both sides of the ball than anything he did. The Jayhawks really should have won, which is amazing when the third stringer plays three quarters of the game and KU was getting run over in the first quarter. Another sign of how far the program has come that fans were upset losing this game under those circumstances. Bad time for the injury, with K-State coming to Lawrence next week. That’s not a team you want a walk-on freshman facing. But maybe you play Ballard anyway then hope Bean is healthy for Cincinnati and try to get win #8 there?
  • I was able to watch a good chunk of KU’s manhandling of Manhattan Friday night. Not sure KU fans should get too up after two blowout wins over weaker opponents last week. Just as we shouldn’t have been too down about how the Jayhawks looked in the scrimmage against Illinois. Tuesday night against Kentucky will tell us more than any of those earlier games.
  • M went to her first UC basketball game Friday. She got good seats and they won, which was cool.

As mentioned, I read a lot over our trip, finishing one book and knocking a ton of stuff out of my Instapaper queue. Be looking for a links post sharing some of those articles soon.

  1. We also did Chicago one year in December. Although the holiday decorations were in full force, that wasn’t enough to make up for the wind chill in the teens.  ↩

Weekend Notes

November 6, 2023 /

Not a bad weekend at all. The weather was wonderful, and looks to remain that way for a few more days, then seasonably warm after that. Changing the clocks always sucks. And plenty of football, of course.

HS Football

The Cathedral game was on TV so we were able to watch them get a relatively easy 20–3 sectional championship win over Lawrence North. Their defense was great and their running back went for over 260 yards.

On to regionals, where they will play Ben Davis, ranked #3 in the media poll but #1 in the computer poll. (CHS is #7 and #4 respectively.)

The win also clinched CHS staying in Class 6A for two more years. Which should be really interesting since, as of now, they don’t have a quarterback on the roster who is on the level of the three guys who have held that spot down for the past six years. I would imagine they will find a way to remedy that situation.

College Football

What a day! Well, that’s what I hear. We spent much of the beautiful day outside trimming plants for the winter and putting away the last of the outdoor furniture that was still on the pool deck. Then I took a nap. And in the evening I watched the KU game, so missed much of the other many great games that took place.

Hey, how about them Jayhawks??? 7–2, bitches, after a tough win on the road at Iowa State. A couple huge plays, a handful of long drives, and one of the better defensive performances of the year keyed a start-to-finish win. That was just a good, well-played, evenly-matched game.

Here’s a fun stat: from 2008, when KU won in Ames,[1] until 2020, the Jayhawks had one Big 12 road win. They now have three in three years. That doesn’t sound like much, but winning on the road is hard even for decent teams. If you can grab one or two a year, that is generally the difference in making a bowl for mid-tier teams.

Jason Bean was actually quite solid. He didn’t do anything spectacular, other than run a couple well-designed plays to perfection in key moments. It still feels like he’s not taking full advantage of his speed, and I’m not convinced he ever looks at anyone other than his primary receiver. But, fuck it, he’s responsible for four of KU’s seven wins and deserves all the props. Great job by the coaching staff to tweak the offense to account for the differences between what he can do and what Daniels can do.

Someone on Twitter called him Football David McCormack, which is hilarious, if unfair. McCormack was a high school All American who exuded potential and drove KU fans crazy for four years with his uneven play. Bean was a transfer KU took very late in the process who only started his first year on campus because Jalon Daniels was, stop me if you’ve heard this before, injured. Bean was going to transfer last summer but I don’t think anyone wanted him other than KU, so he came back for his sixth year. He’s been a wild-mood swing of a player his three years on campus. Like McCormack, it seems like he’s saving his best games for the end of his career. Which will likely wrap up with him starting in a bowl game.

I’m not sure what to say about Daniels anymore. There are so many rumors and idle speculation that I’ve tried to tune it all out. He is KU’s first experience with the negative side of NIL, with random KU “fans” suggesting he owes the school and supporters to play no matter what his injury is since he’s getting paid. There are lots of people who claim he’s just sitting out so he can transfer, which doesn’t make much sense. These people don’t know shit about what is really going on, but that doesn’t stop them from posting online.

I’ve reached the point where I don’t expect him back this season and am absolutely fine continuing with Bean at QB. I just wish KU and/or Daniels would share more about what’s going on. We don’t need to know the entire story. But tell us if there’s a legit chance that he’ll play again this year, or even next, or if it will take a miracle for that to happen and we should stop asking about it/hoping for it. Or say, “We have tried everything and his back isn’t getting better and we are flummoxed at what to try next. We have no idea.” Stop with the “Well, he practiced Tuesday and seemed better,” only for him not to travel for the game on Saturday.

For all the good around the KU program, it sucks that we still have a mediocre kicker. Or kickers, I should say, since two guys have got chances in recent games. During the Iowa State game some of my text buddies and I were trying to remember when the last good KU kicker was. I’m sure there were a few over the years, but I jokingly said Dan Eichloff, who played when we were in school. Turns out he still owns pretty much every KU kicking record. He even punted, which was pretty sweet. Anyway, might be time to put a priority on finding a decent place kicker. The kicking game was a factor in the Oklahoma State loss, and was damn close to being a factor Saturday.

The Jayhawks won. The Hoosiers got their first Big 10 win of the year. Only the poor Bearcats amongst our household’s schools lost, falling to UCF on homecoming weekend. M was at the game. I heard a lot of boos on TV when I had it on. Not sure if she knows enough about football to understand why the UC fans were jeering their own team. I wonder if she joined in anyway.

NFL

I watched most of the Colts game. Awesome day for Kenny Moore II, becoming the first Colt to ever have two pick-sixes in one game. In front of four of his sisters, no less. Their celebrations were fantastic.

It struck me yesterday, as CJ Stroud was tearing up the Tampa Bay defense, that the AFC South could be on the verge of a terrific set of quarterback rivalries. Jacksonville has Trevor Lawrence, who seems on the way to being an above average QB. Stroud has ranged from solid to exceptional through his first eight games. Will Levis elevating to starter should give the Titans hope. And if Anthony Richardson can get healthy, he’ll have the Colts in the mix.

Since I have lived in Indy the division has almost always been a Two Good, Two Bad group, often based on who had the best quarterbacks at the time. If those four guys continue to develop and the teams are smart in how they build around them, the next decade could be incredible to watch for AFC South fans.

  1. The day after L was born, by the way.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 30, 2023 /

What a weekend, filled with swings of mood and weather.

KANSAS FOOTBALL!!!!!!!

Kansas 38, Oklahoma 33. LET’S GOOOOOO!!!!!

One of the biggest wins in program history. That alone would make Saturday’s win over the #6 Sooners memorable. It just had so much of…everything, I guess, that no KU fan who watched it will ever forget it.

This feels like a game that could easily turn into a 5000 word account. So I’ll try to keep it brief(-ish) by just bullet-pointing how bizarre it was.

  • KU jumps out to a quick lead with a pick six on OU’s first possession. Apparently my cable feed was working on a 20 second delay because I saw four tweets about Mello Dotson putting KU up 7–0 before I saw the play. At first I thought it was a joke because my TV was lagging so much.
  • KU went up 14–0 and then were the victims of the worst personal foul penalty in the history of college football, Craig Young flagged for a late hit when he neither shoved nor tackled Drake Stoops, and Stoops head butted him TWICE after the play was over. KU fans were quick with “Dollar Signs” memes.
  • After Oklahoma scored and got the ball back, the game was stopped for an hour because of lightning. On a day when the temps were in the 30s. Midwest weather remains undefeated.
  • After the delay Oklahoma took approximately nine seconds to tie the game. Then KU fumbled the kickoff and OU immediately took the lead. I started having vibes of the 1991 Nebraska game when KU lead 17–0 after the first quarter and we were all losing our minds then we still managed to lose 59–23. Calvin fucking Jones.
  • Much maligned quarterback Jason Bean missed WIDE OPEN receivers in the end zone on two straight plays and KU settled for a field goal before halftime. You can’t miss opportunities like that and hope to beat OU.
  • KU forced a fumble and then Bean ran it in from 39 yards out on the next play. Only for him to short hop a ball to an uncovered receiver on the two-point attempt. KU was 0–3 on two point attempts for the day.
  • On third and goal early in the fourth quarter Bean scrambled and rather than diving into the end zone, slid, his knee touching just short of the goal line. Just a horrible, horrible mistake. KU Twitter was in full meltdown mode until we noticed the flag on the field. Fortunately Bean was bailed out by a personal foul on OU and Daniel Hishaw gave KU the lead on the next play.
  • On the ensuing kick, KU booted it short, OU fumbled, and the Jayhawks recovered. Hishaw went 20 yards on the first snap to extend the lead, literally high-stepping the last five yards. It was this game’s Monte Cozzens moment. Somewhere in the student section a kid who shares my name was nearly passing out like I did on that day in 1992. Only KU was called for holding. Three plays later came a badly missed field goal. Instead of being up 12, it was still just a five-point game, and OU seemed to have snatched back the momentum.
  • Literally seconds after Fox’s Jason Benetti said that Bean had avoided the mistakes that plagued him in big moments, he threw an interception deep in KU territory. It wasn’t entirely his fault – the ball went through a receiver’s hands – but it was a poor throw. OU took the lead a couple plays later.
  • On the next possession Bean threw a terrible ball for another pick. The game was over, as OU was inside the KU 40 with 2:52 left. I was literally throwing things and cussing. Luckily C and L were gone and S was upstairs getting ready for the party we were going to so I was the only witness.
  • Only in what may be the biggest upset of the day, the Jayhawks had all three timeouts. KANSAS FOOTBALL, which has been taking timeouts at all the wrong times for 15 years, had all three time outs late in a close game. Unbelievable. The defense got two-straight tackles for losses and held on third down. When OU lined up to go for it, a wide receiver – A WIDE RECEIVER – got called for a false start. OU punted.
  • KU had about 2:00 to go 80 yards.
  • After getting two first downs the Jayhawks faced a 4th and 6. Lawrence Arnold got open, hauled in a perfect strike from Bean, and raced 37 yards for the first down. Again, KANSAS FOOTBALL got 37 yards on a fourth down that meant the game against a Top 10 Oklahoma team. Wacky, wild shit.
  • One play later Devon Neal nearly fumbled behind the line but scampered in for the go-ahead score with 52 seconds remaining.
  • Dillon Gabriel had done this shit against Texas earlier in October. I doubt any KU fans were super confident he wouldn’t do it again. I feared the worst. Gabriel completed a 40 yard pass to get in range to take a shot at the end zone on the game’s final play. KU broke up the pass and mayhem ensued. Although even that play was a mess. Instead of knocking the ball down, Kwinton Lassiter tried to pick it off. Which he did out of bounds, but he also gave the OU receivers a shot at the ball. Never easy with this program.
  • Finally, the field was rushed and the goalposts came down.

Whew! What a fucking game. Not sure it was healthy for my heart but the result made it all worth it.

The first KU win over a Top 10 team since the 2008 Orange Bowl.
The first win over Oklahoma since 1997.
The first win at home over a Top 10 team since 1984.
Lance Leipold became the first KU coach to beat both Oklahoma and Texas since the 1930s. Granted, KU and Texas didn’t play for a long, long time. Still he did in three seasons what about 100 other KU coaches couldn’t do in nearly a century.

And the added bonus that the Fox crew was in town for their pregame show. Although no one really watches that, but, still. Urban Meyer said nice things about Kansas, Lawrence, and the program. I know most Americans find him to be of the highest character and his opinions to be unassailable, so you can’t put a dollar value on how much that helps KU going forward.

Oh, and KU will go to a bowl game in consecutive years for the second time in program history.

Pretty fucking cool way to spend four and a half hours of my Saturday.

So, where does this win rank all time?

It is certainly one of the three biggest wins of my life, right up there with winning the Orange Bowl in 2008 and beating Nebraska by 1000 points in 2007.

Honestly, if the team lays a big, fat turd in the last month of the season, much of the luster of this win gets wiped away. But grab two, three, even four more wins and this has a legitimate claim to the #1 spot on that list.

Rock Chalk, bitches.

KU Hoops

Yuck.

A seven-point loss at Illinois in an exhibition game. Illinois controlled most of the game on both ends. KU’s offense was pretty bad. I’ll chalk some of that up to not running anything super complex. But the absolute lack of outside shooting is a major concern because it confirms the biggest fear about this team.

You can’t overreact to an exhibition game, so I won’t. But my go-to complaint all year is going to be wasting a scholarship on a player who arrived with a domestic assault charge and was kicked off the team when he was charged with rape, instead of filling the clear hole that the team had. You can never, ever have too much shooting.

In super exciting news for all college hoops fans, there are now apparently more plays that can be reviewed. Which is awesome! We need to make games last longer because all action stops while the referees stare at a TV screen and try to decide if they want to overrule themselves or not. Based on the reviews in the KU game, referees still can’t figure out how to not spend three minutes reviewing a play that takes the announcers and TV audience no longer than five seconds to see a clear decision. Either go to limited coach’s challenges or just get rid of replay. It is literally the worst.

Did I mention that we beat Oklahoma in football?

NFL

Looks like the Colts are shitty again.

And I guess the Ravens are indeed the best team in the NFL for the moment. Or maybe the Bengals? But probably the Eagles. Sorry for the jinx last week, Chiefs fans.

Other Shit

Cathedral won their football sectional opener 42–2 Friday night. They will have a tougher game this week.

S and I went to dinner Friday with the families we hung out with most over spring break, the first time we had all been together since graduation party season. It was a gorgeous night and we were able to sit outside.

Meanwhile I wore a coat this morning when I took L to school.

The Cathedral boys lost in the state soccer final Saturday, 2–0 to the, now, three-time defending champs.

L’s team had a scrimmage Thursday night. She played about 19 minutes, all in the second half, against a varsity team. She didn’t do much. 0–3 from the field. A rebound and a turnover. Offense was pretty ragged. Not sure she was on the court very much with the girls she’ll play with when the real games start. They have another week of practice to get ready for that.

We went to S’s sister’s house Saturday for their annual Halloween party. It was very odd going without any of our kids. S spent a lot of time on Pinterest coming up with our contribution to the spread.

Weekend Notes

October 16, 2023 /

Another very good weekend that was focused on travel, football, and friends.

For the second time in three weeks I left Indianapolis to attend a Big 12 football game. This trip was to Cincinnati to watch M’s Bearcats take on Iowa State. Making the trip even better, I would be hanging with my buddy, Super Clone Fan #1 Sean, and we would get to spend some time before the game with our old pal O-Dog.

I drove down Friday evening, just ahead of the storms that were blowing through and wiping our very late summer warmup away. While I drove L was at the Center Grove – Cathedral game getting soaked. CG generally pounded the Irish, or at least until CHS scored two touchdowns in about a minute to turn a 21-point deficit into a seven-point gap very late in the game. They could not corral a second-straight onside kick, though, and ended the regular season with their third loss, 45–38. This is a bye week for 6A teams in Indiana, so CHS will begin the state playoffs in a week against 0–9 North Central.

I was fortunate to be invited to stay with Sean at his sister’s home. We hung out and had a few beers after my arrival, something we regretted a little the next day. The beer part, not the catching up.

The Iowa State-UC game was at noon, thus we were up pretty early to head to campus for tailgating. His sister works right across the street from campus and her employer has a private parking lot. She graciously gave us her pass so we could park very close for free in an almost completely empty garage. I think actual parking on campus for games is a true nightmare so this was a huge bonus to our day.

We strolled over and grabbed a spot on the edge of the main tailgating area to meet up with O-Dog. I hadn’t seen him in 16 years, give or take. Many of my readers know O-Dog and probably haven’t seen him in longer. I’m happy to report he’s exactly the same dude. It was like he picked up our conversation right where he left off the last time we saw each other. We fought a dicey cell connection to FaceTime with the central point in our respective friendships, John N back in KC.

We hung with O-Dog awhile, ran up to where his family was tailgating to say hello, and then hooked up with M. I had been checking her location all morning and it seemed like she was hopping from fraternity house to fraternity house. She finally found us right before the game and we headed in. It had been gray, dreary, and cool all morning but just as we got to our seats, the clouds disappeared to reveal a gorgeous blue sky and bright sun. We all muttered that we shouldn’t have brought our jackets (Foreshadowing!).

Sean got our seats from Iowa State so we were around plenty of other Clones fans, tucked into the corner near one endzone, 13 rows behind the ISU bench. This became more significant later.


That sunshine lasted about 10 minutes until thick, low clouds rolled in. Right before halftime it began sprinkling. Then misting more steadily. Most of the fans departed for cover under the upper deck at half. M and I walked around to find food and it was hard to move. The second half was filled with intermittent light showers, never heavy enough to soak you but still wet enough to make everyone kind of miserable. M took off in the fourth quarter. Her roommate had run a half marathon that morning and she wanted to find and congratulate her. I think she also wanted to get out of the rain. Sean, being the good Clone fan he is, wanted to hang around and see every minute of ISU’s impressive win, which I totally understood. By late in the fourth quarter the stadium was basically empty except for every ISU fan who had crammed into our area. I was glad no one tried to high five me. My Bearcats sweatshirt was a pretty similar color to a lot of the Clones fans gear.

As for the game, it wasn’t the most exciting contest I’ve ever been to. UC was a five-point favorite coming in. They missed an easy touchdown on their first possession and never recovered. Like every time I’ve watched them this year, their offense struggled to put positive plays together. In fact, their offense really seems to have regressed since Big 12 play started. And their defense, which was supposed to be a strength, fell apart as the Cyclones had more time to adjust their attack. Iowa State won 30–10 and it felt like a bigger beatdown than that. ISU seemed like a mess about a month ago but they look like they’ve figured some stuff out. I had them chalked up as a win for the Jayhawks but that is now in big-time doubt. Although UC might be so bad it’s hard to make any inferences based on Saturday. There was a lot of booing by the Bearcat faithful as the offense looked progressively more inept over the day.

After the game Sean and I walked around campus a bit, stopped at M’s dorm to say hello again, then headed to the main drag right off campus. We ended up ducking into Buffalo Wild Wings to get a bite and watch some other football, including the KU game. I’m glad I didn’t get to see that entire game, because I think I would still be upset about it. I did see three KU touchdowns. But I also saw a blocked PAT, a failed two-point conversion, and dropped interception that would have been a sure-thing pick six. All important since they lost to Oklahoma State by seven. And now KU fans are back to wondering where win number six is. I hate football. And sports. Again, glad I didn’t see the entire game otherwise I would be really mad about the result.

But, again, I guess that’s progress, right?

While we were in B-Dubs, this super drunk UC student came up to our table and pointed to one of our chairs. Thinking he was just asking to borrow it, Sean nodded. Instead the kid sat down right next to me and stared at the TV with the Oregon-Washington game on it.

“You guys watching football?” he asked, with slurred words.

Sure, we were watching football.

“You watching the Washington game?”

“Kind of,” I responded. “But I’m paying more attention to the Kansas game.”

“KANSAS GAME? WHY ARE YOU WATCHING THAT?” he said, as he looked at my UC shirt.

“That’s where I went to school.”

“You went to Kansas?” he asked, not in disgust but as if he had never realized someone could go to school at KU.

“Yep, I’m from there.”

“You’re from there?” Again, like he didn’t realize people lived in Kansas.

“Yep.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but the Bearcats are going to beat Kansas.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep, I guarantee it.”

“Well, from what I saw today, I’m don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I guarantee it. I’ll bet you anything.”

“The Bearcats were terrible today. You know Iowa State isn’t even that good,” I looked at Sean and grinned as he protested, “and they pounded UC”

“I’ll bet you anything they beat Kansas though!”

We stared at each other for a minute, then I turned back to my game and Sean. After a few more awkward moments the kid shook our hands, wished us well, and went back to his friends two tables away. I hope he felt ok Sunday morning.

I headed back to Indy that evening. When you drive at night it’s only about 1:45 city-to-city, which is nice. I made it home in time to see a decent chunk of Notre Dame’s beat down of USC. I called the Irish frauds last week. I should apologize because USC are clearly the bigger frauds. I guess Lincoln Riley just doesn’t care about defense, figuring they can out-score everyone, even with their sloppy ass offense that sure seems to get in its own way a lot. I enjoyed the Twitter poster who called USC an “unserious team.”

Sunday was another dreary day. I watched some football but never really committed myself to any games. The Colts were entirely too sloppy to deserve my full attention. I saw someone on Twitter respond to the Indy Star Colts writer this week that they were happy Gardner Minshew was starting over the injured Anthony Richardson because Minshew “isn’t selfish.” I’m not sure what a rookie quarterback, who by all accounts is a great kid willing to listen and learn, and just runs the plays that are called, did to deserve being called selfish. Then I looked at this person’s Twitter bio. They do not like our current president, or vaccines, or masks. They do like our former president who faces multiple indictments and they really like guns. I wondered if their quarterback preference was based on some other factor than whether a player is selfish or now. Anyway, I was secretly glad that Minshew had a terrible day – four turnovers – and that Richardson signed autographs with his non-dominant hand for half an hour before the game. Although I guess sharing the ball with Jacksonville does prove that Minshew is not selfish.

S and I took a walk after the Colts game, and L came along with us. She’s officially cleared to start basketball again today, which is good since it is the first day of the winter sports practice calendar in Indiana. Her coach is still going to hold her out of scrimmaging but she’ll be back on the court for the first time in over a week. Wednesday we find out what team(s) she will be on.

We also started breaking down and storing the pool furniture. I kept the pool open longer than I ever have, since I figured I would keep swimming as long as I could. But it’s been so cool the last two weeks that I should have had it closed when we normally do. My last swim was 12 days ago. The crew will be here on Thursday to shut it down for us.

This is a short week at CHS, with fall break beginning Wednesday. We will head back to Cincinnati Saturday for family weekend. We won’t go to the football game but are spending the night downtown. This will be our first chance to explore the city.

“Six Years And All We Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt?”

October 12, 2023 /

Obviously I’m reaching a bit with my subject line. For it to work you have to imagine it is one of the geniuses at the NCAA asking the question when they realize that after six years of investigation and invective and irritation the biggest outcome of their inquiry into the Kansas basketball program is that the second half of the Jayhawks’ 2018 season, when Silvio de Sousa played, gets wiped from the record books. NCAA officials will soon arrive at homes of KU fans to confiscate our 2018 Final Four t-shirts, because Malik Newman never dropped 32 on Duke in the Elite Eight.[1]

All things considered, I’m fine removing a Final Four banner in exchange for closing this chapter and moving on. Pretty much everything about this case went KU’s way. Well, other than taking six years and wrecking multiple recruiting classes. All KU did with those “subpar” recruiting classes was be the pre-Covid favorite to win the title in 2020 and win a national championship in 2022.

This case came down to overreach by the NCAA, simple and plain. Was there evidence that Bill Self and his staff were aware that Adidas was funneling money to players? Yes, but not nearly as compelling evidence as other schools that were involved in this round of investigations. But KU also turned in Billy Preston before he ever played a game at Kansas, Zion Williamson went to Duke, and DeAndre Ayton went to Arizona.[2] Silvio de Sousa was the only player involved in the investigation that actually played for the Jayhawks. And, as some salty KU fans pointed out, the NCAA had vetted his eligibility not once but twice, each time ruling him fit to play.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that these sham NCAA “investigations” into player eligibility are as bogus as when schools say they’ve done a “thorough review” of a player’s status and cleared them to play. Very odd that despite, again, TWO different NCAA reviews of de Sousa’s status, they gave him the green light to play each time yet he’s the basis of the most significant penalties against the Jayhawks. Seems like some of those investigators should go on probation.

We knew this was coming, though. The NCAA’s IARP group had already let Arizona, LSU, Louisville, and North Carolina State off with minimal penalties. There was no way Kansas, with far less concrete evidence against them, would get hammered.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried. The NCAA has taken a lot of fire in the press for this entire process. I did fear that with KU being last on the list, the NCAA might put its thumb on the scales and overrule what the independent investigation group presented to them. Those worries were fueled by multiple rumors that at different times over the past two years KU and the IARP had presented the NCAA with what amounted to plea deals, and the NCAA had rejected them. This was the NCAA’s final chance to save face in a moment when every aspect of their authority over college sports is being questioned.

Fortunately sanity ruled the day.

The penalties added to what KU had already implemented are not insignificant. In addition to KU’s 2018 Final Four, the school loses 15 wins, knocking them back behind Kentucky in the all-time wins list.[3] Plus they lose their 14th consecutive Big 12 title, a Big 12 tournament title, and their all-time best NCAA appearance streak actually ended in 2017. That may not satisfy the haters, but in a sport that is hyper aware of all the history it is built upon, those are clear media guide touch points that KU can no longer claim.

Sorry, I can’t say that with a straight face. None of that history book shit matters. We all saw KU beat Duke in the ’18 Elite Eight (and Villanova destroy KU a week later in the Final Four). We saw Devonté Graham’s crazy shot crawl in during the final minute against Texas Tech to clinch the Big 12 title. We all saw Graham and Newman hit shot after shot in the second half of the Big 12 tournament championship game against West Virginia. All those games might be removed from the official record, or stamped with an asterisk, but that doesn’t erase the memories of what we watched.

We Jayhawk fans should be counting our blessings and thanking the Hoops Gods today that the NCAA is too incompetent to run an investigation properly. There was plenty of evidence to hammer KU. As I’ve said many times over the past six years, I have zero doubt that Self (and the other head coaches involved in the investigation) was well aware of what Adidas was doing. Just as all the Nike coaches knew how Nike was assisting their recruiting efforts, no matter how much they insist otherwise. From all accounts that don’t come from mouthpieces of the NCAA, though, the organization handled every aspect of these investigations terribly. They overreached. They moved the goalposts throughout the process. Their initial charges were based on cherry picked evidence from the federal cases against Adidas employees, which each school could easily counter with other evidence both presented in those federal trials and accepted by the juries and judges as fact. The IARP being run by attorneys rather than NCAA employees made bringing a half-assed case a losing bet.

After six years we’re finally done. KU is still eligible to play in this year’s tournament, and every tournament going forward. Bill Self gets to keep his job. Other than a few recruiting restrictions over the next couple years, the worst penalties are all in the past. Seems like a pretty good deal for the Jayhawks.

I might have to wear my 2018 Final Four shirt to the gym today.

  1. Will official highlights like the one I linked to disappear, too?  ↩

  2. I believe it was national writer Gary Parrish who suggested, something like three years ago, that Duke was KU’s Get Out of Jail card. There was no way the NCAA was going to do a deep dive into Zion’s recruitment, despite there being multiple examples of coaches from other schools talking about what his father was asking for on the FBI wiretaps, because to do so would mean actually taking a long look at the relationship between Nike and Duke.  ↩

  3. Also very strange that KU has to forfeit games de Sousa played in during the 2018 season, but not the following season.  ↩

Lone Star Weekend

October 2, 2023 /

With a notable exception, I enjoyed a very good weekend down in Austin, Texas.

There were a couple motivations for going. One of my best buddies from college, E-bro, has lived there for something like 15 years. Another KU buddy, Billy Sweets, lives in Dallas. The three of us text pretty much every day, so much so that our wives and kids refer to the other two not as friends or buddies or pals, but as “your girlfriends.”

Also this was the final time KU will go to Austin to play football before the Longhorns leave for the SEC. I’ve been wanting to go down for a basketball game for years, but I could never work that into my calendar properly, mostly thanks to kid sports and those games often taking place on Monday nights. Once the Big 12 football schedule came out I started keeping my eye on flights for deal and nabbed a $100 roundtrip ticket during Southwest’s anniversary sale.[1]

I flew down super early Friday morning, leaving our house about 5:40. I got a couple Rock Chalks from fellow KU folks on my flight. We must have arrived the same time as a flight from Kansas City, as there were a ton of Jayhawks walking around the Austin airport.

E-bro picked me up and we headed directly to Franklin Barbecue to get in line. Despite arriving about 90 minutes before opening, there were already tons of people lined up in their lounge chairs passing time. We spent about an hour sitting in the rapidly warming sun before the doors opened and we could shuffle into some shade. It was another two hours before we got to the front of the line and placed our order. The only good thing about that was that initial rush had cleared and the tables weren’t completely packed. Even though E and I text every day, we hadn’t seen each other in person in seven years, so there was plenty to catch up on as we waited.

I ordered a Tipsy Texan sandwich, which featured chopped brisket and sausage along with slaw. It was very good, although the slaw was not my favorite style, dry and vinegary instead of creamy. Weird to have barbecue without fries, which Texans apparently don’t do. The food was definitely worth the wait, although I would not say it’s the very best barbecue I’ve ever had. I promise I was eating with an open mind, not reflexively knocking it below KC ‘cue.

The lady who was taking and building orders chatted everyone up as she worked. When she saw our KU shirts she told us she was from Wichita and hoped to move back and open her own restaurant there some day. Our little five minute interaction must have gone well from her perspective, because she gave us a couple big-ass beef ribs for free.

E showed me around Austin a little before we headed to his home in the hills of Westlake. I got to see one of his kids I hadn’t seen since he was a baby, meet another for the first time, and see his wife for the first time in over 20 years. We chilled out for a bit, I took a short nap, then we headed out to grab some appetizers and beer in a fancy suburban area.

Billy Sweets was driving down after work and didn’t arrive until around 9:30. I hadn’t seen him since my wedding, the last time the three of us were together. It was great fun both catching up and doing the obligatory telling 30-year-old stories that still make you laugh until you cry. We went to school with some wackos.

Saturday we kept it low key, just getting breakfast tacos before the game. I’ve been hearing them complain about the Texas heat for four months so was not looking forward to a 2:30 PM game in the sun. We wanted to minimize any time away from AC before we were obligated to sit outside.

We sunscreened- and hatted-up before heading downtown to the stadium. I was trying to think of what the biggest sporting event I’ve ever been to was, and I guess it’s been Chiefs games where there are 80,000 people. So pretty crazy to go to a stadium where there are twenty thousand more people than that, almost all dressed in burnt orange. There were quite a few KU people, but the orange was so overwhelming and we were so scattered you couldn’t really pick out the KU folks in the stands, only see them when you walked around the concourses. Random UT fans came over and greeted/welcomed us, asking where we were from, and wishing us luck while insisting that we enjoy our time in Austin. That was kind of great. One very nice older woman also directed us to a tent where a hospital was giving out free towels that had been dunked in ice. These might literally have been life savers.

It was in the mid–90s all day, with the sun either directly above us or moving so it was in our faces. It really makes you appreciate what the players are going through when you are suffering just standing around.

We wandered about a bit before the game. The concourses were totally packed with people hanging out in the shade as long as possible. As we walked through the crowds E suddenly shouted “DTae!” 2018 Big 12 player of the year and first team All American Devonté Graham was walking towards us. As he passed I shouted “DEVONTÉ!” and he came to a complete stop and looked at me. I reached out and yelled, “WHAT’S UP?” He slapped my hand back, saying, “Hey man,” and moved on to another group of KU people. Good of him to drive up from San Antonio for the game.

You all know I don’t do well with celebrity encounters so I felt like this was a big moment for me. Now I’ve accosted two former KU guards in public, Mario Chalmers being the other.


So we get to our seats – eighth row inside the 20 yard line behind the KU bench, pretty good! – and I get a text from one of my KU buddies in KC saying that Jalon Daniels was out for the game.

Fucking great.

Now we’re going to sit in the brutal heat for four hours against maybe the best team in the country without our starting quarterback.

We had been counting “wins” all morning, from getting a good parking spot to the cold towel tip to running into DTae. So much for any good karma we had been trying to find in the day. It would be an understatement to say we lost most of our enthusiasm for the day.

We weren’t feeling any better after KU got one first down then punted and Texas scored quickly after.

It was a weird game, though. KU couldn’t do much on offense, running pretty basic sets to account for the absence of Daniels. But we kept hanging in there. The defense would give up a big play, then hold. Texas missed a field goal late in the first half, and another in the third quarter. KU scored a touchdown on a bizarre play and it was just 13–7 Texas at halftime. We dropped some balls, Jason Bean made some bad decisions, but we were still right in it. When Bean threw a 58-yard touchdown to Trevor Wilson to cut it to 20–14, we went nuts.

Then it all came apart when we had third and inches late in the third quarter and called consecutive bad plays, fumbling on the fourth down attempt. I was 100% fine with going for it. It was going to take a lot of crazy stuff for us to win, and I thought it was worth the risk. But Bean made awful reads each time and you should never run the shotgun when you need inches to get a first down. Liked the gamble but hated the play call and execution. Texas scored seconds later and the fourth quarter turned into a rout. E, Sweets, and I watched a lot of KU football losses together back in the Nineties, so it was like old times.[2]

Even if Jalon had been healthy and played well, beating Texas in Austin was going to be very, very difficult. It was a big bummer to get the news early that JD wasn’t playing, and the fourth quarter sucked, but in between KU showed how far the program has come. A couple drunk students/recent students tried to talk some shit as we walked out, which we took as another sign of how far KU football has come.

One funny/frustrating story from the stands. The guy standing behind us was some “football expert” and broke down each play to the people around him before the snap. “OK, see how the safeties are up? This is going to be a run play.” Or, “They’re bringing pressure, we have to go outside here.” We’re not sure if the people sitting with him were listening or he was just talking to himself. The funny part was that he was wrong like 75% of the time when he predicted the play. I wanted to turn around and ask him what high school team he coaches, what their record is, and if he’d ever sent his resumé into UT. But it was too hot to turn around so I kept my sarcastic comments to myself.

It was, of course, a nightmare getting out of the stadium area. That’s a lot of freaking people in a true, big city downtown. It was probably an hour all together from when we left the stadium until we got to where we could drive the speed limit.

We landed at a restaurant for pizza and beers, then back to E’s for more beer, football, and BSing on the couch.

I was supposed to fly back early Sunday but changed my flight to the evening non-stop so that we could do a leisurely breakfast before Sweets headed back to Dallas. After he left, E and I did some more driving around, this time going through campus, his old neighborhood, some of the quirky and fun Austin areas, and the park where they were setting up for the Austin City Limits festival. We even drove by the restaurant one of my sisters-in-law helped open about 10 years ago. It was, again, like 96, so we did all our exploring by car. The Texas guys give me grief about Indiana winters all the time. Not sure how you live somewhere where it’s been in the 90s and 100s and 110s just about every day since early May.

Travel was easy, no real stories from that other than the guy in front of me in the TSA line in Austin attempting to get through security without any form of government ID. He did have a prescription bottle. Not sure how that was going to work out for him.

It was great to get away and have a dudes weekend with two pretty good dudes. They both have kids at Baylor,[3] so maybe the next KU trip to Waco should be our excuse to get together again before another 20 years pass.

  1. I paid almost as much for parking as for my plane ticket.  ↩

  2. Sweets and I even watched KU lose to SMU in Dallas in 2001 together.  ↩

  3. E’s youngest son is a freshman at Baylor and came home for the weekend. He’s actually a bigger KU fan, and went with us to the game wearing KU gear.  ↩

Weekend Notes

September 25, 2023 /

HS Football

Cathedral went down to Lexington, KY to play last year’s Kentucky 5A state champs. The Irish got an early lead, weathered their normal letdown, built the lead again, then held on for a nine-point win. Probably their best, most complete win of the season, from what I could judge by listening. They travel to Cincinnati next week.

The big news of the week was that the season finale against Center Grove has been moved to Butler’s stadium. CG fans are still bitching about having to play on natural grass two years ago, so this may have been purely a move to shut them up rather than play in a bigger stadium on a better field.

College Football

I had a very good day Saturday. I watched college football for at least 11.5 hours, almost uninterrupted.

I started with a little of Fox’s pregame show, something I never do, just because they were at UC for the Oklahoma-Cincinnati game. I talked to M Thursday and she told me some of her guy friends were going to go to bed mid-afternoon Friday, sleep until about midnight, then get up, go to bars until they closed at 2:00, hang out and drink until the official line for seats started at 5:00, then find a way to power through until the show started at 11:00. I haven’t heard how successful they were.

OU-UC was my first game of the day. Because it was another perfect day here, I watched on the outside TV. The Bearcats hung in all day, but are just dreadful in the red zone and couldn’t capitalize on multiple scoring chances. Oklahoma looks super talented, especially on defense, but something feels off about them still. They are good but don’t seem like a great team. Or at least not right now. I probably just jinxed KU into a 56–17 loss next month. The Sooners were good enough to earn a 20–6 win.

Then it was over to the BYU-KU game. The Jayhawks had been favored by between 8.5 and 10 points all week, which seemed crazy. They had struggled against a bad team last week while BYU won at Arkansas. I listened to a couple preview pods and both insisted that KU was a bad matchup across the field for BYU, and expected a comfortable Kansas win. I still didn’t trust them.

Naturally KU covered, winning by 11.

Not that it was that easy. Sure, KU got a scoop-and-score on BYU’s second snap of the game. But the Cougars led by one at halftime and KU’s offense seemed to be struggling. KU dropped a sure pick-six on the first snap of the second half, which seemed ominous. Until Kenny Logan snatched a pick-six two plays later. Then the offense took over. It wasn’t spectacular. Just solid, physical, ball-control offense with a couple beautiful touchdown passes to Luke Grimm mixed in.

Take out a couple bad, untimely penalties and this game is a blowout, so lots to feel good about.

As much as last week’s winning ugly game at Nevada, I think this game really showed the improvement of the program. They won a game by dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. KU rushed for 221 yards while holding BYU to nine yards on the ground. For years that was the biggest personnel issue with the Kansas roster: both lines sucked so they couldn’t protect their quarterback or control the game on defense. That once or twice a year things came together and the team was still in the game late, it was inevitable failure on the lines that sealed their fate. There’s a long way to go, and the competition gets much tougher this week. But as much of the credit as Jalon Daniels, Devin Neal, Daniel Hishaw, Logan, and Cobee Bryant get, it is the two lines that truly demonstrate how much KU has improved.

Being 4–0 in consecutive seasons for the first time in over 100 years is pretty dope.

Oh, and the bigger deal is that I am traveling to Austin to watch the #24 Jayhawks take on the #3 Longhorns next Saturday. Really looking forward to standing in the 90+ degree heat for four hours. No, really, I am. It will be my first KU football game in 13 years, plus I’m seeing guys I haven’t seen in six and 20 years. I’ll take potential heatstroke and sunburn in exchange.

Seconds after the KU game ended S walked in the house with the dinner she had picked up for us. I scarfed down my burger then headed back outside for the evening games.

I watched half an hour of Oregon State-Washington State before flipping to the night’s marquee game, Ohio State-Notre Dame. That was quite a contest. I’m not really sure why Ryan Day was so worried about what Lou Holtz said about his team. No one cares what that crazy old man says. And I’m not sure how the Notre Dame coaching staff can let their team play the final two plays of the game with only ten men on the field. If they struggle through a very rough stretch in their schedule the next three weeks, that decision may become even more significant.

It was getting a little chilly so I moved back inside during the fourth quarter of OSU-ND. Being back on cable meant I could happily rotate between games. I watched a little of everything that was on, without really settling anywhere. Penn State looked pretty impressive. When I was watching USC they were doing usual dumb USC stuff, although it seems like they figured things out late. I ended the night by watching the overtime periods between Akron and Indiana. Akron should have won in regulation, but missed a short field goal as time expired. Eventually the Hoosiers pulled it out in the fourth OT. Inspiring stuff from the Hoosiers.

NFL Sunday

I did not watch nearly as much football on Sunday. I would truly be a sicko if I had tried to sit through another full day.

I flipped on the Colts-Ravens game midway through the second quarter and was surprised that the Colts were only down seven. Anthony Richardson was the most notable of several key players who were sitting out the visit to Baltimore.

The Colts carved out a 10–7 lead at the break and trailed by just one when they set up to receive a punt with under three minutes remaining in the game.

That’s when all hell broke loose. The next 45 minutes of real time covered about 11 minutes of football time. And it was all gloriously stupid. The Colts would make a terrible play, then the Ravens would match it. Then the Colts would say, “OK, we REALLY don’t want to win,” and do something dumber. Only for the Ravens to say, “Not so fast!” and top them again. But then the Colts would make an amazing play and seem to have the game in hand, only for the Ravens to step up with their own amazing play. The CBS announcers were incredulous, shouting about the crazy things each team was doing.

This went on for the last 2:30 of regulation and almost all of overtime until Matt Gay hit his fourth field goal greater than 50 yards in the game to steal the win for the Colts.

Just an amazing, gloriously idiotic stretch of football. I literally laughed out loud multiple times.

This is the freedom that comes with not really caring whether the home team wins or loses. I’m just looking to be entertained. This game – or at least those last 11 minutes – were about as entertaining of a game as I’ve watched recently.

Three weeks in the Colts are in first place, their only loss being a game they pissed away late. Zach Moss (WHO?!?!) ran for 122 yards and had another 23 yards receiving. If only Jonathan Taylor had come to his senses and was playing in this offense.

The AFC South sucks.

Kid Hoops

L had her final travel team tryout Sunday. There were a lot fewer girls there than the first one she went to, as I think many of the locals had already put in their two recommended appearances. When I walked in she looked wiped out since she had played a lot more than two weeks ago.

It’s all kind of a mystery how this high school travel thing works, so we’re hoping we hear in the next couple weeks that she’s landed on a decent team.

She was excited that the director of training and recruiting who runs the workouts knew her name. Doesn’t hurt that her high school coach has worked in this program the past couple years.

Weekend Notes

September 18, 2023 /

HS Football

Two games again this weekend.

Friday night Cathedral played at the public school down the street. Both girls had some friends over before the game and we walked to the stadium. First play of the night CHS snapped the ball over the quarterback’s head, he chased but could not cover, and North Central took over in Irish territory. Not a promising start.

North Central was winless and it showed, as they went nowhere and gave the ball back to CHS, who methodically ran up a 49–0 lead before halftime. A penalty on the final play of the game gave NC an untimed snap, and they got the ball into the end zone to lose 49–6.

I’ve gone to four of the first five games this season (L has been to all five) and each of them has been on a perfect evening for football. CHS is out of state the next two weeks. We’ll see if the weather holds when we return to games in October.

Saturday I took L to the freshman game so she could take pictures. NC took the lead twice on huge kickoff returns that set up short possessions. Each time Cathedral answered with a 70+ yard TD run. The Irish pulled away in the second half to win 34–21. Very entertaining.

I stood near the dads of a couple of the players, who had a game-long commentary going. I’m thinking I should just live blog what they say some week as it is hilarious.

Oh, and L handed her phone to a friend to take a picture of her with some football player after the game. Then she saw the kid twice more over the weekend. Good grief…

College Football

Surely it is a sign of how far KU football has come that Jayhawk fans were pissed off about Saturday’s result. I mean, the program went something like a decade without winning a road game once. So even if needlessly close and nervous, getting out of Reno 3–0 should be what we’re focusing on, right? When you struggle with a team that got blasted by an FCS team the previous week, it’s going to mess with your head.

The worst part of the game wasn’t that KU played poorly, or that I don’t have CBS Sports Network and had to listen to the game, or that I’m not crazy about KU’s radio announcers. No, the worst part was that it began at 10:30 Eastern, and since victory wasn’t assured until there was under a minute to play, that meant I went to bed after 2:00 AM Sunday. Several of my buddies checked out at halftime, which was probably the smart move. I was wiped out on Sunday. I had Colorado State-Colorado muted on the TV so I was entertained. Just wish the game had started at a more reasonable time.

Saturday was also M’s first game in the stands for UC, as they played Miami (OH). The schools have the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, and I was amazed to learn that despite winning 16-straight in the series, UC only led by one win.

M got fantastic seats and I was constantly looking for her in the crowd shots. Never saw her though.

Miami played great and held a lead into the fourth quarter until the Bearcats jumped ahead. Miami tied it and then UC had a makable field goal to win the game late that Miami blocked to send the game to overtime.

In OT Miami scored first, then picked off a pass in the end zone to get the W. Now the series is tied 60–60–7. Two of M’s best friends go to Miami. I bet those girls were way nicer about breaking a long losing streak than I would have been in the same situation. We talked to M Sunday and she said it was a lot of fun, until the very end.

Colts

Another Sunday of doing work for relatives meant I missed most of the Colts game. I was tracking the score and saw the Colts were up 14–3, then 21–3. I also noticed that Gardner Minshew was playing. That was strange.

When I got home and looked up what happened I learned that Anthony Richardson had gone nuts early, smacked his head on the turf, played two more series, and then reported concussion symptoms and sat out the rest of the game. Hmmmm.

You can’t get too excited about beating up on the Texans – who tried their hardest to come back in the fourth quarter – yet it’s still promising that the Colts apparently looked really good with Richardson in. Now comes the worry of when he’ll play again and if he’s now in the “every big hit might cause a new concussion” zone. Which is a bad place to be.

KU Hoops

This is not good. Very not good. There were some rumbles of displeasure/disbelief when Bill Self took on Arterio Morris, given he played last year with a domestic abuse charge pending in Texas, but no general outcry. I would expect even Teflon Bill is going to get some serious heat about Morris as more comes out about this case.

Assorted Other Notes

We got the girls’ car back from the repair shop on Wednesday, about a week earlier than expected, which was awesome. It looks nearly perfect, so no complaints.

One of our senate seats is opening up here in Indiana next year, so the rats are scrambling to get their names out there early. The last two Sundays NFL games have been flooded with ads from all the “self-made outsiders” who will be in the Republican primary next spring. Throw in a very nasty Indianapolis mayoral race in this fall’s election, and I’m already having to mute commercial breaks. Really looking forward to 2024.

Speaking of commercials, I saw my first Christmas ad on Saturday. That was September 16 for those of you who don’t own calendars.

While on the subject of getting an early start on the holidays, S and I were at Target on Thursday and bought two full-size, posable skeletons for the front porch. We got a lot of looks as we wheeled them through the store and parking lot. We’ve given them some accessories and have a couple more things coming. Once we get everything situated the way we like I’ll share a picture.

Weekend Notes

September 11, 2023 /

A lot of sports and stuff to get through from the past weekend.

HS Football

Weirdest game of the season for Cathedral, against rival Bishop Chatard. It was CYO Night + Homecoming + Chatard, so the stadium was packed. We got there an hour early and still had to park in the overflow section a couple blocks away.

The Irish started hot, jumping out to a 21–0 lead in the first quarter, and it looked like it would be a repeat of the past three years, all blowout CHS wins.

But Chatard steadied themselves and controlled the second quarter, cutting the deficit to 21–10 at the break.

The weird thing was the lights on the visiting side of the field were not working. As CHS went through the halftime homecoming festivities, we noticed the Chatard side was completely clearing out. As soon as the homecoming king and queen were announced, official word came that the game was being postponed until Saturday morning, and would move to Chatard.

(Reminder for you non-Indy folks, CHS does not have their own football stadium. In recent years they’ve stuck to Arlington Middle School, which is about a mile from campus. The stadium is old, isn’t well maintained, and most fans have to park in a very sketchy strip mall. The other option is to drive 20 minutes downtown to play at Tech High School, which has a much nicer field but it is, again, 20 minutes away. Something is always going wrong at the Arlington stadium. This time it was the power not working for half of the lights.)

L wanted to go to the freshman game Saturday so we did not return to the varsity game. Good choice. On Cathedral’s four second half possessions, they threw two interceptions and turned the ball over on downs twice, while Chatard scored on their first possession after resuming and then threw a 39-yard TD pass with a minute left to break their four-game losing streak in the series. The kid who caught the winning pass did not play Friday night because he was in the concussion protocol, but Saturday was the first day he was eligible to return. Pretty good timing. My girls all thought I was joking when I told them the final score. By the computer rankings, CHS was a 19-point favorite.

Familiar issues for CHS. Their offensive line can’t block. They have a D1 quarterback, four really good receivers, and a junior running back who has the potential to be great. But they can’t give the QB time to throw or open holes for running plays. The D-line struggles as well, and the secondary is the weakest I can recall in my five years of going to games. Since schools don’t hand out rosters anymore I don’t know if CHS is young or just not very good. Whatever it is, they’re wasting the skill players.

Next week they play hapless North Central, right up the block from our house. Unless they get their shit together, that might be their last winnable game of the regular season.

KU Football

I again missed the first half of the KU game while watching CHS. Allow me to reiterate that playing college football on Friday nights is dumb. Although it you have to do it, it better be on ESPN/ESPN2 so you at least get the benefit of people being able to watch it easily along with guaranteed coverage on Sportscenter.

Apparently I missed the best part of the game. As we were leaving Arlington I couldn’t find the KU feed on Sirius, so listened to the Illinois halftime show and they were raving about Jason Daniels. 28–7 seemed like a good start.

By the time I got home the second half had just begun and I had to watch nervously as Illinois tried to come back and the referees tried to steal the game.

OK, it wasn’t the field refs so much as the replay official. The targeting call on Austin Booker was terrible. There was no way you could definitively determine if he hit the Illinois QB with the crown of his helmet, especially when making such a call leads to an ejection and suspension for Booker. Then the same person somehow confirmed a spot that was clearly wrong by two yards as KU was trying to clinch the game late in the fourth quarter. When the impartial ESPN announcers are incredulous about calls you have to assume it was an Illinois alum doing the reviews.[1]

I’m obviously kidding but since I didn’t see the best part of the game I can’t dive into those details and am left to overreact about those two calls.

Bottom line was JD looked great, the offense was crisp in the first half, the defense was doing some nice things before they lost focus/got tired in the second half, and KU won a game everyone was worried about fairly easily. I saw that KU is now something like 42–117 all time against the Big 10. Maybe this was the win that turns all that history around!

I did not like the uniforms. I have it when schools that don’t have black as a primary color decide to bust out black uniforms. This isn’t 1995. Now make those same uniforms blue and I would have been totally onboard. I guess the players loved them, which is all that matters. The uniform gurus agree with me.

NFL

I was only able to watch isolated portions of opening weekend of the NFL. The Colts looked competent for stretches of their game against Jacksonville before things fell apart in the fourth quarter. Anthony Richardson getting blasted and having to leave the game was not good, although he claimed afterwards that he was fine. He was terrific in the first half – 16–20 passing including two drops, 30+ yards rushing – but was largely ineffective in the second until his final drive. That will be the story of the year so no need to get worked up about either aspect of it.

Props to the Colts for keeping the Lucas Oil stadium roof closed on an absolutely perfect day. It’s a running joke around here how much we paid for a retractable roof for how rarely it actually gets opened for a Colts game. I guess 78 and sunny was too oppressive for the fans and players.

The Cowboys looked awesome Sunday night. I apologize to Lions fans for not taking them seriously. Green Bay fans need to calm down and save it for after the play a real NFL team. I’m officially declining my honorary homer status for the Bengals, but reserve the right to reclaim it when they play better. My Niners pick is looking good after 60 minutes of football.

US Open

We watched almost every one of Coco Gauff’s matches, from her opener against the frustrating German Laura Siegemund, to the final when she captured her first Grand Slam title. What a delightful two weeks. Not only is she a terrific tennis player, she is more composed and thoughtful than I’ve ever been. And she’s only 19!

There were so many great moments over her run, but my favorite may have been how she was sobbing after she hit the winner that clinched the championship match. Most players cry tears of some kind when they win a Grand Slam. Something about hers seemed different. Teen tennis prodigies are always a dicey long-term bet. Coco sure seems like the real deal.

One of my other favorite recurring moments of the tournament was all these divas (of both genders) who for some reason scream at their coaches and support teams when they lose a point. You’re the one with the racquet and on the court, asshole. Take some responsibility.

FIBA World Cup

Speaking of assholes, I didn’t get too worked up about the US losing the third-place game to Canada. I did get worked up about them letting Dillon Brooks score 39 points. DILLON BROOKS. No one on the US roster should be allowed to play international ball again. Although he probably thinks he’s an All NBA caliber player now, which could lead to all kinds of hilarious bad play this coming year. Kind of a shame he’ll be wasted in Houston and not torpedoing some actual contender when he goes 3–27 in a playoff game.

I didn’t get up to watch the third-place game and it was over before I woke up Sunday. I did watch most of the other US games during the tournament that were on at more decent times. The real goal was to qualify for the Olympics, which they accomplished. With a flawed roster. Now roll out the A team next year to grab the gold medal.

It was super interesting to watch how the US struggled with the format of FIBA basketball. The court is slightly smaller. The ball a touch different. There are no illegal defense rules. Refs call some fouls very differently than in the NBA. The games also move quicker.[2] Combine all that and the US never seemed comfortable.

It’s not just that the rest of the world has gotten a lot better. The international teams generally have a core that has been together for years, where the US throws a different lineup out there each time they play in the World Cup or Olympics. When you have a LeBron or KD or Kobe anchoring things you can paper over a lot of those little issues. When you have a bunch of nice but not great players there is not much room for error. It’s also interesting that of the top five players in the world right now, only one is an American, and he wasn’t playing in this tournament.[3]

One thing about the US team did bother me. It seemed like they were always looking to throw the toughest pass possible rather than the easiest. I blame it on them wanting to try to match the 1992 Dream Team’s flair. They need to understand that Germany in 2023 is way better than it was in 1992. Just do the simple things and win the game. If you’re up by 20 in the closing minutes, then you can start throwing behind-the-back passes. Oh, and maybe pick someone for the team capable of getting a rebound.

BREAKING NEWS: This morning LeBron said he’s in for next summer’s Olympics. That’s great and all but not sure he’s what the US needs.

PJ

It was an utterly amazing night for an outdoor concert Sunday evening. Warm as the sun set, cool but not yet chilly as darkness descended.

Sadly Pearl Jam postponed their Indianapolis show because of an illness in the band. They say they will reschedule and tickets will be honored at that show. There are only four more nights on this tour and Eddie Vedder starts a solo tour on September 30, so it seems like it will be in the next couple weeks, maybe? I hope whenever it is that the weather is as great as it was Sunday.

  1. Cobee Bryant’s targeting foul? Yeah, that was 100% a legit penalty.  ↩
  2. One minute time outs are the best invention ever. The NBA and NCAA would never go to those – too much lost ad revenue – but they sure speed up the pace of the game.  ↩
  3. I would say that’s Steph Curry, although Jayson Tatum was All NBA first team last year.  ↩
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