A Minneapolis Red Sox post on the incomprehensible scoring system of figure skating the other day foreshadowed Sasha Cohen winning an Olympic silver medal despite falling twice yesterday.  That’s whack.  Anyway, here are some links to prep for the weekend:

1) Autistic Teen’s Hoop Dreams Come True – An autistic team manager gets to suit up for the final minutes of the last high school basketball game of the season in a blowout – sounds like another Rudy-type story, right?  The twist here is that he ended up dropping six 3-pointers and 20 points in three minutes of play!  There’s video here, too – this is what sports is all about.

2) Izzone Punk’d into Spelling Out “Go Blue” – I can’t stand Michigan, but I’ll give credit to a couple of their fans for making a valiant effort at a prank on their rival’s fans (even if it didn’t work out perfectly).  The Big Ten Wonk post links to even more successful feats in the past by students from Yale, MIT, and Caltech.

3) Cracker’s Old Label’s ‘Greatest Hits’ CD vs. One of its Own – Virgin decided to release a collection of Cracker’s greatest hits against the band’s wishes.  Check out what Cracker did to get back at their old record label.

4) No Joke! Blagojevich Took ‘Daily Show’ Seriously – Chicago doesn’t just produce the most corrupt politicians; it also breeds the stupidest.

And finally…

5) Banding Together for the Whole Ride – As inconsistent as this season has been, Dee Brown and James Augustine have presided over arguably the greatest stretch in the history of University of Illinois basketball.  Emotions are going to be sky-high for their last home game in Champaign tomorrow night.

Have a great weekend and go Illini!