Month: March 2006

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

Although Ohio State took care of its business yesterday against Purdue to win the Big Ten championship outright, I’m pretty happy with how the Illini have been playing.  Dee Brown looked great against Michigan State on Saturday and we look like we’re peaking heading into the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments.  Heck, even Frank the Tank nemesis Dick Vitale took some time during ESPN’s fifty-network coverage of the Duke-UNC game (I completely understand the need to televise this game, but was it really necessary to show it on every single ESPN outlet using different camera angles?) to say that Illinois was the team to watch out for in the NCAA Tournament.  Plus, the Illini represented at the Academy Awards last night: University of Illinois graduate Ang Lee won the Oscar for Best Director for “Brokeback Mountain.”  That’s got to be a good sign.

Anyway, my favorite stretch of the sports year starts this week.  The Big Ten Tournament, the NCAA Tournament, Opening Day for baseball, and the Masters all come right after the other in rapid succession.  Some Illini success on top of all of that would make it even sweeter.

Big Ten from Eleven to Twelve? If There’s No Luck of the Irish, Bring in More Orange

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Sports17 Comments

A Big Ten Wonk post from a couple of weeks ago explored some views from conference fans about adding a 12th team to the Big Ten. The primary advantage to this is that a conference with 12 teams can split into two divisions and hold a football championship game at the end of the season. That was the main impetus of the ACC grabbing Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech from the Big East a couple of years ago.

The obvious twelfth team for the Big Ten would of course be Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish have the one football program that consistently draws national attention every year regardless of whether they are good or bad and have long-standing rivalries with a number of Big Ten teams, including Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, and Penn State. The problem is that there's no program in the nation that has less of an incentive to join a conference than Notre Dame. The Irish recently renewed their TV contract with NBC and the new BCS rules essentially guarantee that the team will receive a major bowl berth if they can get through the regular season with only two losses.

I do believe that Notre Dame will eventually want to join a conference for football and when that time comes, there's no question that they would choose the Big Ten over the Big East. Paraphrasing Groucho Marx, Notre Dame doesn't want to be a member of any club that would have it as a member. That is, the Big Ten is already arguably the most powerful conference in the nation – it would be great if the Irish joined, but the conference is more than strong enough to stand on its own and doesn't need Notre Dame. The Big East, while having a monster basketball conference, is simply awful in football and is desperate to add any decent football program out there. Is Notre Dame, a school that is obsessed with its national profile, going to choose a conference where the best opposing programs are Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State or one with Pittsburgh and West Virginia as the dominant teams? When thinking along these lines, there's no way that Notre Dame is ever going to join the Big East for football. I wouldn't say the same for the Big Ten.

Still, if there was a 110% guarantee that Notre Dame will never, ever join any conference for football (the Irish rejected a formal invitation from the Big Ten in 1999), the Big Ten ought to move on and add a different 12th team. There's been banter about taking Missouri from the Big 12 or adding Pittsburgh or West Virginia. However, one of the emails printed in the aforementioned Big Ten Wonk post nailed exactly who I believe ought to be that 12th team if there's no shot at Notre Dame: the Syracuse Orange.

To me, Syracuse is the only school other than Notre Dame that would make sense for the Big Ten. The most predominant reason is that the ACC/Big East shakeup has essentially made the Northeastern portion of the United States up for grabs in college football. If the Big Ten has Syracuse paired with Penn State, the conference will have the two schools with the largest fan bases on the East Coast to go along with its dominance in the Midwest.

There are some Big Ten fans that have bemoaned the lack of geographic purity of the conference since we added Penn State. To put it nicely, I think those fans are inward looking people who have no concept whatsoever of the big picture. In this ESPN World where it's critical for college sports leagues to present matchups that have implications at a national level rather than a regional level, it's incredulous to me that we would want to limit the reach of the greatest conference in the country to the Midwestern states.

Let's look at the other candidates mentioned most often. Pittsburgh would be a natural rival for Penn State, but the problem with Pitt is that Penn State already covers the Pittsburgh media market itself better than the Panthers. West Virginia is an even worse choice: the Mountaineer fan base doesn't extend very far past Morgantown – and Morgantown or even the entire state of West Virginia is certainly not big enough in terms of population that the powers that be in the Big Ten would care to grab that market. Missouri is one of the biggest rivals for Illinois, but the Illini also already provide coverage for the Big Ten in St. Louis. The Tigers do open up Kansas City for the Big Ten, but even then, Mizzou has little reason to move when it's already in the financially and competitively strong Big 12 conference. Moving to the Big Ten would be a step up in academic prestige for them, yet that wouldn't be enough to pay for a messy and expensive divorce with the Big 12.

That leaves Syracuse. It's the team that the ACC originally wanted instead of Virginia Tech and for good reason. Syracuse, while down last year, has traditionally had a strong football program. At the same time, the Orange basketball program is consistently one of the best in the country. With Penn State already a member of the Big Ten, Syracuse would have a natural East Coast traveling partner and would not be physically isolated the way Boston College is with the other ACC teams. Since the Big East has been emaciated in football, Syracuse has a strong incentive to switch conferences. Last, and certainly not least, Syracuse has one of the biggest college fan bases in New York City and is considered one of the "home teams" there.

If the Big Ten is going to expand, it should expand its geographic footprint instead of looking within its present boundaries. It's pretty simple to me – New York City and the rest of New York State becoming Big Ten country is a whole lot more valuable than duplicating coverage in Pittsburgh and St. Louis or adding Morgantown. As I said before, Syracuse would make the Big Ten the top football conference on the East Coast as well as keeping its title as the predominant place for college sports in the Midwest. Other than the obvious choice of Notre Dame, I can't think of another school other than Syracuse that could add as much value to the Big Ten.

Chicago vs. Indy for the Home of the Big Ten Tournament

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, SportsLeave a comment

The Big Ten is looking for a permanent home for the conference’s men’s basketball tournament after having alternated between Chicago and Indianapolis since 2001.  From my biased perspective, I’d like to see the United Center in Chicago become the home of the Big Ten Tournament since: (1) I’m a Chicagoan and (2) the Illini are the beneficiaries of a huge home court advantage here.

John Brumbaugh of of Illini Board wrote a more balanced point-by-point comparison of Chicago versus Indianapolis being the permanent home of the tournament a few months ago.  In the end, he believes Chicago will be chosen because of its financial advantages (United Center has over 3,000 more seats than Conseco Fieldhouse and the Windy City has access to substantially more corporate sponsorships) and logistics (while most people I spoken with that have gone to the tourney in both cities believe Indy is more convenient as a fan once you get there since the venue, hotels, and bars are all in a centralized location, Chicago is still the transportation capital of the nation and has more than enough hotel space).

An interesting and, I believe, extremely important point that Brumbaugh notes is that the Big Ten could be looking at securing Chicago as “their city.”  Particularly with both DePaul and Notre Dame in the Big East at this time, the Big Ten wants to make sure that it stays as the predominant conference in the nation’s third largest media market.

The Big East is firmly associated with Madison Square Garden in New York while the Pac-10 has made the Staples Center in Los Angeles its home.  Chicago is certainly a better college sports town than New York (St. John’s? Rugters???) and arguably better than L.A. (even with the presence of USC and UCLA, people on the West Coast just don’t have the same passion about sports as those in other parts of the country).  There’s a lot more value in terms of national perception if the Big Ten is automatically associated with the major market of Chicago as opposed to being the sterotyped product of small Midwestern towns.  The Big Ten can either continue to complain about being the victim of major media market bias or it can become the beneficiary of major media market bias.  I’d rather have the latter, which means choosing Chicago as the permanent home for the Big Ten Tournament is a good place to start.

Land-o-Links – 3/2/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Land-o-Links, Random ThoughtsLeave a comment

Links for your Thursday:

1) The Jumpman in Us All – The new Air Jordan XXI commercial from Nike seriously freezes me in my tracks everytime I see it on TV.  When I was younger, I was just like every one of those kids imitating Michael Jordan’s signature moves on the playground.  Here’s how Nike filmed the ad.

2) Brokeback Spoofs: Tough Guys Unmasked – It looks like that “The Empire Brokeback” send-up I linked to the other day was just one of a multitude of Brokeback Mountain parodies.

3) Chappelle Said Unhappy With Network Plans – Dave Chappelle and Comedy Central are having a spat over what the network wants to do with the material he recorded for the never-aired thrid season of Chappelle’s Show.  By the way, be sure to catch his 2-hour appearance on Inside the Actor’s Studio if you haven’t already – it’s good stuff.

4) Honor This: Allen Yes, Balbo No – The latest political controversy in Chicago: an alderman wants to eliminate the city’s practice of granting honorary street signs (i.e. Jack Brickhouse Way and Hugh Hefner Way) in the wake of the proposed honoring of former Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.  Eric Zorn takes this one step further with pointing out that the city has a real street named after a fascist who was once suspected of murder.  Hooray Chicago!

And finally in one of the greatest developments ever…

5) Snoop Dogg Unveils New Video Gaming League for Hip Hop Stars – If ESPN can make “Madden Nation” into a show, there is absolutely no reason why this league should not have its own entire network.  For the official league site, click here.

The Madness Has Started Early

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

Great sports and TV day yesterday – spring training baseball games began, new episodes of American Idol and Lost were on, and most importantly, there were three great college basketball games with important implications that all came down to the final seconds with wacky and bizarre endings.  A quick recap of the early start of March Madness:

1) Ohio State 56, Northwestern 53 – This was the game that all of Illini Nation was watching last night.  The Wildcats blew the game in the last minute, which in turn eradicated their chances for an NIT bid along with all but shutting the door on Illinois grabbing its third straight Big Ten title.  That last sequence by Northwestern at the conclusion where they took about ten minutes worth of timeouts to set up a play with 1.3 seconds left, only to throw the ball out of bounds on the inbounding pass, was maddening.  Illinois can just forget about the Big Ten regular season championship and set its sights on the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament since there’s no way that Ohio State is going to lose to Purdue on Sunday.  Lesson learned: never trust your rival to ever help you in any shape or form.

2) Florida State 79, Duke 74 – There’s no team I hate in all of sports more than Duke.  I absolutely love seeing them lose.  However, last night’s game in Tallahassee was one of the most bizarre endings to a game I’ve seen in a while.  The “Free Shoe U” students rushed the floor prematurely with 1.7 seconds left in the game.  The officials had to clear all of the people off the floor and awarded two technical foul shots to Duke.  Luckily for the Seminoles, those technical foul shots didn’t change the outcome of the game.  After the game officially ended, the FSU students of course rushed the floor again.  This wasn’t just a game against the #1 team in America for FSU; the Seminoles were also playing for their NCAA Tournament lives.  They were fortunate that they weren’t screwed because of their idiot fans. 

3) Texas A&M 46, Texas 43 – P.J. Tucker of Texas dribbled around at the end of regulation intending to allow the tied game to go into overtime.  The problem was that there was a 5.9 second difference between the game clock and the shot clock and he didn’t realize it for some reason.  As a result of the Longhorns’ shot-clock violation, the Aggies got the ball and subsequently nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer to win a game over its arch-rivals and possibly clinch an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament.  Acie Law, the A&M player that hit the game-winner, is going to remember that shot for the rest of his life.

What’s even better is that this was just an appetizer for college hoops fans.  I seriously cannot wait for Selection Sunday to get here.

Illini Avoid the Gopher Hole

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, SportsLeave a comment

A few thoughts on Illinois and the state of the Big Ten after the 71-65 Illini victory over Minnesota:

1) The Inside Game Has Improved Dramatically – Last season, Illinois rode its perimeter players to the national championship game and that emphasis on outside shooting continued into the first part of this season.  In the last few weeks, however, the Illini have shifted to getting more points in the paint, which I personally think is great.  James Augustine, who had a fabulous performance last night with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists (leading the team in all of those categories), has become more consistent on a game-to-game basis.  Just as important has been the development of Shaun Pruitt, who is really becoming a force inside.  He still has some problems handling quick interior passes, but when he is able to catch the ball in the post, he’s been able to use his size to power in for points.

2) A Dickie V Reprieve – If my memory serves me correctly, the only Illini game that Dick Vitale called this season on ESPN was our tilt with North Carolina.  While Steve Lavin wasn’t exactly sparkling (must he make the Road Runner “beep beep” sound every time Dee Brown touches the ball?), I was enthralled to see the great Brent Musburger and the even greater Erin Andrews work most of the Big Ten Super Tuesday games this year.  Thank you, Bristol!

3) We Need to Root for Northwestern Tonight – Illinois now needs Ohio State to lose one of its last 2 games in order to have a shot at bringing a third straight Big Ten title back to Champaign.  Tonight, the Buckeyes travel to Evanston to face Northwestern, which puts me in the semi-awkward position of cheering for the Wildcats.  Here’s my Illini/Bears fan analogy to this situation: having to cheer for Indiana or Michigan is the equivalent of rooting for the Packers (which is about as pleasant as a root canal, cleaning a port-a-potty, or watching the Blackhawks), while having to cheer for Northwestern is like needing to root for the Detroit Lions.  The Lions are a rival of the Bears on paper due to history and proximity but are pretty harmless on the field, so there’s not quite as much animosity and makes the situation, while not ideal, a little more palatable.

So, Go U Northwestern (just for today)!