Category: Big Ten

Preseason Blues and Land-o-Links for 8/5/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports5 Comments

I love football. It doesn’t matter whether it’s pro football or college football – I’ll watch it all. I run multiple fantasy football teams every year. There have to be monstrous extraneous factors for me to miss watching a Bears or Illini game. However, for all of this love for the pigskin, there’s one thing that doesn’t excite me at all: preseason football.

Even though my heart flutters a little bit when NFL training camps open, preseason football just doesn’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll most likely end up watching the Hall of Fame Game this weekend along with all of the Bears preseason games (not to mention that a number of professional gamblers believe that the preseason presents great betting opportunities). Yet, as opposed to whetting my appetite for the upcoming regular season, which is what spring training does for me with baseball, the NFL preseason is an excruciatingly long month that puts me on edge.

The reason is that the NFL preseason has absolutely no correlation with what occurs during the regular season. (Random Factoid for Use in a Bar Bet – Question: What was the Bears’ preseason record before their 15-1 Super Bowl season in 1985? Answer: 1 win, 3 losses.) While the third game of the preseason is usually when teams leave their starters in for the most amount of time, the ultimate goal for most head coaches is to make sure they don’t have too many injuries going into the season opener. That means the average preseason game might see the starting units on the field for the first quarter, at most (I doubt we’ll see Rex Grossman take snaps for more than a series or two per game). After that, it’s a cacophony of scrubs trying to grab a third-string spot or a place on the practice squad. That’s not real football. At least in spring training baseball games, there is a feeling that the game of baseball is actually being played with the players that are going to be out there everyday.

There is nothing better in sports than a football game where both teams are playing at the highest level. However, preseason football is a bastardized version of this great sport. That being said, I’ll still watch it, though. On to today’s links:

1) Best Sports Cities 2006: Welcome Back, Chicago (Sporting News) – It’s no contest.

2) Zook’s Latest Coup Gives Hope (Mark Tupper Weblog) – How many “risks” are going to be acceptable for Ron Zook to take in order to get the Illini football program back on the map? Illinois just enrolled Melvin Alaeze, who was the number one rated defensive end in the nation out of the high school Class of 2005 but had his scholarship to Maryland rescinded because he (a) failed to qualify academically (which concerns me since Illinois is considerably more difficult to get into than Maryland) and (b) has some problems with the reefer. Of course, something tells me that if he really is the faster and stronger version of Simeon Rice that the scouts claim and Illinois turns into a perennial bowl game participant that we believe it should be, we’re going to end up forgetting these details within the next couple years. It’s somewhat sad, but it’s true everywhere in big-time college athletics.

3) Wee, Wee, Wee – Half the Way Home (Siberia, Minnesota) – Some of my Illini brethren have been foiled again. It’s probably a good thing that Facebook didn’t exist when I was in college (and an extremely good thing for Minneapolis Red Sox).

4) Whoa, Wait – You Meant That? (Chicagoist) – This is what happens when the Chicago City Council fails high school economics.

5) Bears Need Offense to Help Defense (ESPN.com) – The Bears training camp report filed by John Clayton AKA Bill Gates’ Dorkier Little Brother. Interesting tidbit: only one Bears team over the past 10 seasons has averaged more than 21 points a game, which was the 2001 club that averaged a huge 21.1. Bleh!

6) Top Ten Will Farrell SNL Skits of All Time (TK) – For anyone that has ever wondered, I seriously have had the nickname of Frank the Tank since my tenure at Brookwood Junior High at the beginning of the 1990s, which was long before Will Farrell’s character of the same name ever appeared in Old School.

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And finally…

7) Write Your Very Own Sports Guy Column (The Chicago Sports Review) (from Deadspin) – Bill Simmons AKA The Sports Guy on ESPN’s Page 2 is one of my favorite columnists on any subject, whether it’s inside or outside of the sports arena. Over time, he has developed a distinct writing style which has influenced plenty of writers out there (including myself), where a column on a sports topic is heavily interspersed with reality TV show and ’80s pop culture references. In fact, Simmons’ writing style has become so pervasive that it was only a matter of time that someone put up a “Mad Libs”-style form to create your own Sports Guy column. You can take a look at my end product, which is on the next page, but you really need to try it out yourself first before reading anyone else’s versions in order to get the full effect.

(UPDATE: The real Sports Guy has new mailbag column today, where he provides an apt description of the cab line at the Las Vegas airport.)

Continue reading “Preseason Blues and Land-o-Links for 8/5/2006” →

Yankee Doodle Dealings and Land-o-Links for 8/2/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

Pitching and defense win championships in baseball. It’s a concept that’s constantly beaten into our heads, right? Yet, almost every baseball prognosticator alive is convinced that the Yankees have taken control of the American League by adding Bobby Abreu and Craig Wilson to the lineup along with fifth starter Cory Lidle. (Mercifully, the great Gregg Doyel is an exception.)

Now, considering that the Yankees were able to obtain these players for very little in exchange, these were certainly great deals when examining them on paper. However, even with the injuries to Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, the Yankees weren’t having any trouble scoring runs before the trade deadline. Their biggest concern, as with many other teams, was and still is starting pitching. Lidle’s stats need to be taken with a monster grain of salt since he’s coming from the National League. If Bronson Arroyo all of the sudden becomes an ace by switching leagues, you know that there’s a serious gap in quality.

The upshot here is that the Yankees could very well bash in enough runs to make it to the postseason, but there’s no way that they’re winning the World Series this year with that pitching staff. For all of those that get a little too excited about sexy offensive stats, remember how the Indianpolis Colts and the Dallas Mavericks ended their respective seasons in 2006. The adage about pitching and defense winning championships is old and tired, but it bears repeating since people seem to forget it every single year. On to today’s links:

1) Parsing Mel’s Meltdown (Washington Post) – Let’s see… Steven Spielberg… Jeffrey Katzenberg… the Weinstein brothers… it seems to me that Hollywood isn’t the greatest town in the world to have a beef with Jewish people. (By the way, I hope I will look half as good as this if I ever have to get a mugshot taken in a drunken stupor.)

2) Bulls Announce 2006-07 Regular Season (Bulls.com) – Call me crazy, but the last time that I’ve been this excited about an upcoming season for any of my rooting interests was with the 2004-05 Illini basketball team. There’s nothing quite like watching a team on the ascent after improving significantly during the offseason. The coverage of the Bulls is getting back up to the numbers of the Jordan Era, with 30 of their games being broadcast on national television (which doesn’t even include the games on Superstation WGN). If anything, it could be a banner October with the Bulls (tipping off on Halloween), White Sox (as long as our pitchers stop giving up run totals in the double-digits), Bears, and better-than-even odds for a Big Ten win for Illinois football since we have Indiana at home this year.

3) Defending Conference Co-Champion Ohio State Named Big Ten Football Preseason Favorite (Big Ten.com) – In case you missed the blanket ESPNEWS coverage of Big Ten Media Day yesterday, the media members voted for the obvious preseason choice for conference football champs. With these high gridiron expectations being coupled with one of the greatest basketball recruiting classes in history coming into Columbus this year, it’s a great time to be a Buckeye. As for the Illini, did I mention the fact that Illinois gets to play Indiana at home this year?

4) Move Over, Napa (Chicago Tribune) – My wife and I were up in the Saugatuck-Douglas area over the Fourth of July weekend, and I’ll have to say that I’m a fan of the Michigan vino.

And finally…

5) Man Has Erection For 10 Years and Wins $400k in Lawsuit (San Francisco Chronicle) – Chuck Norris doesn’t understand why you should consult your doctor if your erection lasts more than four hours. As seen in this article, his erections have been known to last up to ten years.

(UPDATE: Deadspin is reporting that the Latino sensation Miller Park Chorizo, which began racing last week, won’t be back until next season because Major League Baseball needs to “vet all new mascots.”  This finally answers my question as to what Bud Selig does all day.)

Chi-Town vs. Motown: Rivalries Across the Board

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports8 Comments

Dennis Rodman. Ben Wallace. John Salley. Magglio Ordonez. Al Simmons. Chris Chelios. Erik Kramer. Bobby Layne. All of these prominent sports figures from past and present have one thing in common: they have played for teams in both Chicago and Detroit during their careers. Chicago sports teams might have individual rivals from cities other than Detroit such as the Green Bay Packers and St. Louis Cardinals that are more pronounced. However, Chicago and Detroit are linked by having geographically defined and historic rivalries in every sport across the board whether it’s in the professional or college (when taking into account the Big Ten plus Notre Dame) ranks. Not even New York vs. Boston (they have the pro sports covered, but you couldn’t pay enough money to the average person on the street to watch Rutgers play Boston College in anything on the college front) or Los Angeles vs. San Francisco (L.A. doesn’t have an NFL team while the Bay Area only has a quasi-NBA franchise in the Warriors) have sets of sports rivalries that run as wide and deep as Chicago vs. Detroit. With the important series between the White Sox and Tigers (the Sox took game 1 last night after a marvelous performance by Jon Garland) occurring this week, here’s my ranking of the top Chicago vs. Detroit rivalries taking into account history and present fervor:

1) Bulls vs. Pistons – As I’ve stated before, the Bad Boy Pistons were the first team I ever had pure hatred for during my childhood. During the late-1980s and early-1990s, this was the most heated rivalry in all of sports with annual nationally televised Christmas Day matchups at the old Chicago Stadium and inevitable meetings in the NBA Playoffs, coming to a peak when the Pistons walked off of the court after being eliminated by the Bulls in 1991 without even acknowledging Michael Jordan and his team. The rivalry subsided when the Bulls, during their 1990s dynasty, eventually found new foils in the Knicks and Pacers and then the Pistons rose back to dominance after the start of the new millennium right when Chicago went into the cellar. However, with Ben Wallace defecting from a Motown fan base that loved him to go to Chicago out of all places (the basketball equivalent of Johnny Damon spurning the Red Sox for the Yankees), these two franchises are going to be rekindling that old hatred this season and beyond.

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2) Notre Dame vs. Michigan – Michigan fans will tell you that while Ohio State, without question, is their biggest rival, they save their harshest vitriol for the Irish. At the same time, even though Domers count USC as their most important game of the season, there’s a certain respect for the Trojans in contrast to the pure hatred for the Wolverines. Notre Dame and Michigan are the two winningest programs in college football history with fight songs that are beaten into everyone’s heads, whether or not they care one iota about these teams, from birth. When you add in the pompous fans on both sides, the only thing comparable to this game is watching the Yankees play themselves in an intrasquad game: you hope there’s a way that both teams can lose. Regardless of how much I might hate these teams, the college football season really doesn’t start until Notre Dame plays Michigan in September.

(Sidenote: I really wish I could put Illinois vs. Michigan on this list, but I’ve learned over time that the “rivalry” is completely one-sided with my Illini brethren. Now, the most emotionally scarring sports moment that I have ever witnessed at an event that I actually attended was the 2000 Illinois – Michigan football game, where the Illini had the game stolen by the Big Ten referees who, with less than four minutes left in the game with Illinois ahead, incorrectly called a fumble by Illinois’ Rocky Harvey when he was actually down and then seconds later inexplicably didn’t call a fumble on Michigan’s Anthony Thomas when he dropped the ball when his knees weren’t anywhere near close to the ground. Michigan would go on to score the winning touchdown on that drive. The errors were so egregious that the Big Ten issued an unprecedented apology to Illinois a couple of days later and spurred the conference to begin using instant replay. What happened in Champaign that Saturday evening wasn’t a case of heartbreak a la Illinois losing in the 2005 NCAA Championship Game. Instead, it was probably the only time I’ve ever felt completely violated after watching a sporting event. To say the least, my disdain for Michigan peaked at that point.

However, when I went to law school at DePaul, the two undergraduate schools that matriculated the most students there by a substantial margin were Illinois and Michigan. Everytime I spewed my anger toward the Maize and Blue, my Michigan alum classmates were sincerely and genuinely perplexed. They had absolutely no feelings toward playing us whatsoever. In fact, a number of them upon moving to Chicago even started cheering for Illinois when they weren’t playing Michigan. They simply didn’t think about us at all as any sort of rival – we might as well have been Northern Illinois. While learning about this apathy was initially even more enraging from a personal standpoint, it also made me realize that Illinois vs. Michigan was a fictional rivalry and we, as Illini fans, look pretty petty into making the matchup into something more than what it actually is. This is now so apparent across the Big Ten that the Michigan Daily even had an article a couple of years ago examining how much we hate them in contrast to their ambivalence toward us. From that point on, I decided that if I was going to hate a team that really wasn’t a true rival of the Illini, I’d redirect more of my sports rage toward someone outside of the Big Ten: Duke. Of course, that’s not to say that I won’t continue to drop “Muck Fichigan” lines at every opportunity.)

3) Bears vs. Lions – In 1934, the Detroit Lions began their tradition of playing on every Thanksgiving Day by matching up against the Chicago Bears. When examining longevity and frequency, only the Packers are bigger rivals to the Bears than the Lions. While in terms of sporting excellence this rivalry has seen better days, the Bears and Lions are, year-in and year-out regardless of records, the most important franchises in their respective cities. So, as we wait for Matt Millen to put together an offensive formation that features one quarterback and ten wide receivers, we can appreciate the history between these two NFL teams along with the passionate fan bases that they bring to the table.

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4) Blackhawks vs. Red Wings – As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this rivalry once would have been the clear and undisputed #1 on this list. However, this matchup is looking more like Illinois vs. Michigan as opposed to Bulls vs. Pistons with every inept team that the Blackhawks trot out on the ice. Still, there’s incredible history here, from their mutual status as Original Six franchises to the Bobby Hull vs. Gordie Howe boxing matches.

5) Illinois vs. Michigan State – A continually growing college basketball rivalry that is based more on excellence as opposed to bad blood. When looking at the Big Ten over the past decade, these two programs have perennially been at the top of the conference, which makes their annual matchups that much more important. For the record, if I had to pick the one head coach in college basketball other than Bruce Weber that I respect and admire over everyone else, it would definitely be the Spartans’ Tom Izzo.

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6) White Sox vs. Tigers – This season, these two teams are battling for supremacy in the American League. I’ve got to rank this rivalry at #6, however, because they have spent the last one hundred seasons as pretty lackluster franchises. It wasn’t very long ago that the Tigers were battling to avoid losing 120 games in a season, while the White Sox finally broke an 88-year World Series championship drought in 2005. If these two clubs can sustain some success over multiple seasons after this year, then we’ll have another true rivalry on our hands.

And finally…

7) Cubs vs. Tigers – This isn’t a real rivalry at all, but it serves me with an opportunity to remind my readers that are Cubs fans that your team (a) hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, when they defeated none other than the Detroit Tigers in five games and (b) hasn’t won a National League pennant since 1945, when they then lost to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series in the maximum seven games. The Circle of Life continues (as well as the Curse of the Billy Goat).

(Images from Pistons.com, Beckett.com, Beckett.com, FightingIllini.com)

Land-o-Links – 7/18/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

Have the Mets stopped scoring on the Cubs yet? All jokes aside, my White Sox didn’t fare any better against the other New York team this weekend. The three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees makes the series beginning tonight against the Tigers a pivotal point in the season. I still don’t quite believe in Detroit because of their inexperience, but I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that the baseball world didn’t think the Sox were for real until the last out of the World Series last season. In fact, the 2004 Red Sox are the only World Series winners of the last five years that really had any “big game” experience prior to their championship season. Until tonight’s game, here are the links for the day:

1) The True Nature of Bo’s Tecmo Dominance (Deadspin) – The Big Three of Old School Nintendo: Mario in “Super Mario Bros.”, Link in “The Legend of Zelda”, and Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Bowl”.

(Update: Per TK, the Bo Jackson footage was from Tecmo Super Bowl as opposed to Tecmo Bowl. The original Tecmo Bowl didn’t use NFL teams or players.)

2) Oprah: I’m Not Gay (Washington Post) – Crisis averted for American males: there will not be an Oprah/Rosie love child.

3) The Deal-Breakers (Chicago Tribune) – Rationally, to paraphrase the former Hollywood magnate Samuel Goldwyn, I believe that verbal commitments aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on, so I can’t really be shocked by this or play the “unethical” card here. Emotionally, however, if Kelvin Sampson and Indiana somehow steal Eric Gordon from Illinois, my hatred for the Hoosiers would catapult them past Duke and the Packers on my personal list of the most evil teams in all of sports (and that’s akin to switching the order of the Ten Commandments for me). If you’re not up for a couple of rants per week on this blog for the next umpteen years about how Sampson is the Anti-Christ, you absolutely do not want this to happen.

4) DePaul Big East Basketball Opponents for 2006-07 (DePaul Blue Demons) – Having two games apiece against Notre Dame and St. John’s is a good thing. However, what’s up with South Florida (who I don’t believe should have ever been invited to the Big East) appearing twice on the schedule instead of traditional rival Marquette? That’s not very cool. All in all, I have some doubts as to whether DePaul is going to have enough to get to the NCAA Tournament next season since the tough Big East gauntlet is coupled with a brutal non-conference schedule with home games against Kansas (speaking of a school with a coach that is the Anti-Christ), Wake Forest, and California, along with a trip to the Maui Classic that will feature Kentucky, Memphis, UCLA, and Oklahoma.

5) Chicago Weighs New Prohibition: Bad-for-You Fats (New York Times) – If Ed Burke had read my list of Chicago buffets from last week, he never would have proposed such a clamp on the joys of humanity. Do we live in Russia or something?

6) Never Say Never (Chicagoist) – See, Naperville isn’t such a bad place to live! However, I do remember seeing the noted T-shirt being sold around the corner from my old apartment in the city right before my wife and I made the move out west.

And finally…

7) Snoop Dogg Planning West Cost Dominance (AllHipHop.com) – Tell us what you really think about non-West Coast rappers shooting videos in your ‘hood, Snoop.

Fine Explosions in Naperville and Land-o-Links for 7/5/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

When my wife and I decided to buy a house in Naperville and leave our apartment in Roscoe Village on the North Side of Chicago a couple of years ago, most of my friends thought it was more sane for us to move to a space station using a shuttle that had pieces of foam falling off of it. The majority of the comments were along the lines of, “You’re moving to Yuppie-ville?” and “Enjoy the beige houses.” Of course, these friends at the time were all (a) not married and (b) looking at things from the perspective of renting for the next year as opposed to emptying out a bank account to buy a place to prospectively raise a family for the next ten to twenty years.

Granted, there are plenty of things that I miss about living in the city. In particular, I loved our neighborhood of Roscoe Village, which was lined with classic Chicago brownstones and close enough to Wrigleyville to walk to Clark and Addison within twnety minutes yet far enough away that we didn’t have idiot Cubs fans pissing on our lawn after games. (As a Sox fan that lived that close to Wrigley Field during the all-consuming Cubs playoff run in 2003, I have little patience for Cubs fans claiming that South Siders have been too obnoxious since we won last year. The only thing worse than being a White Sox fan living on the North Side during that time in ’03 was being a Red Sox fan stuck in the Bronx at that same time.) There’s no place in the world that I love more than Chicago and I still get a small adrenaline rush when my commuter train pulls into view of the city’s skyline every morning.

That being said, moving to Naperville was a terrific decision. Forget about the stellar public schools or the accolades that it is the best place to live in the nation. Here’s what it all comes down to, which I learned about last night: Best. Fireworks. Ever.

They were so good that I actually felt compelled enough to dedicate an entire post to such an inane subject. Let me note that I’m not throwing these positive proclamations around very lightly. My parents to this day are certified fireworks fanatics, which means that I spent my Fourth of July weekends as a child hitting the South Suburban fireworks trifecta of shows in Hazel Crest, Chicago Heights, and our hometown of Glenwood on consecutive evenings. They seriously go out of their way to catch as many fireworks performances as they can not only during the Independence Day season, but for the rest of the year, as well (i.e. Chicago’s Venetian Night, the twice-weekly Navy Pier shows, etc.). At the same time, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness fireworks displays in Chicago’s Grant Park, the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Lahaina Harbor in Maui, and at Walt Disney World in Florida (for a view on Philadelphia’s fireworks, check out my sister’s blog). (The Most Disappointing Fourth of July Fireworks Ever: Las Vegas. Last year when I was there, instead of the city having the fireworks shoot off of the rooftops of the hotels on the Strip as it had in the past, the show was shuffled off into a largely inaccessible area someplace north of the Hilton. I was upset for a moment until I realized that I was still in Vegas, which made me happy again.)

Honestly, when it comes down to pure pyrotechnics (obviously, the locale of, say, the nation’s capitol adds to the overall experience), the Naperville Ribfest fireworks beat them all. Considering the inordinate number of fireworks shows that I’ve watched, the fact that probably over half of the the fireworks there were shot off were types that I had never seen before, ranging from ones that dropped down looking like unbroken streamers falling from the sky and a number that exploded to form smiley faces. At the same time, I have never seen a fireworks display that was as perfectly synchronized to music as this one. The soundtrack wasn’t there for background filler; each song sample had its own separate types of fireworks and the explosions were timed right in line with the proper beats – simply phenomenal. If you’re in the Chicago area next year during the Fourth of July weekend, I’d highly recommend the Naperville Ribfest fireworks over the Third of July fireworks at the Taste of Chicago based purely on the overall quality of the show.

Anyway, I know a few of you are dying for my take on Ben Wallace signing with the Bulls (WOW!!!), which will be forthcoming, but I’ll also be spinning some baseball thoughts into that analysis for those that are weary of my NBA focus lately (you’ll see how). Until then, here are the links for the day:

1) Keith Richards to Be in ‘Pirates’ Movie (Washington Post) – Disney is going to save a ton of money on makeup costs with this move.

2) ‘Punch A.J.’ Campaign Under Way (whitesox.com) – I’m sure Minneapolis Red Sox is going to push for his man Francisco Liriano (and I’ll grant the argument that the Twins phenom is more deserving of an All-Star spot), but you’ve got to give credit to the White Sox marketing staff for having a great sense of humor. I can’t wait to see what the Maloof brothers are going to do to get out the vote for Ron Artest next year.

3) NBA Draft: The Illini Spin (Illini Board) – A look from John Brumbaugh about the next destinations for James Augustine and Dee Brown.

4) Lil’ Kim Leaves Prison in Style (AllHipHop.com) – This is really going to hurt her reality TV show career.

5) Benny the Bull Charged With Attacking a Police Officer (CBS Sportsline) – This is when we really need those mugshots from The Smoking Gun.

And finally…

6) Kobayashi Stands Triumphant Again (Deadspin.com) – The only time he has ever failed was against a bear in “Man vs. Beast” (a great reality show better known for then-unknown but eventual Olympic gold medalist Shawn Crawford seriously coming close to accusing the zebra that he lost to in a race of taking injections in the behind from Jose Canseco in an Oakland A’s lockeroom stall). Regardless, statues need to be erected for Kobayashi on Coney Island.

(Update:  This link couldn’t wait…

7) Hot Dog – Moo & Oink Jingle Gets Some Flavor (Chicago Tribune) – If you ever watched Soul Train back in the day on WGN with any regularity (I know I’m not the only half-Chinese/half-Polish guy out there that did), you understand that this is a travesty.) 

Bulls Get Freakish Athletes With Tons of Upside

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, Sports1 Comment

The best answer any fan ought to give when asked how his or her team performed on draft day is, “Ask me in a couple of years.” I was excited about the drafting of Cade McNown by the Bears and thought the Bulls’ draft day trade of Elton Brand for Tyson Chandler would be great in the long run. Meanwhile, I thought Brian Urlacher was a decent yet unsexy pick and Kirk Hinrich would be a permanent NBA sixth man at best when they were drafted. It goes to show you that (1) draft day conventional wisdom turns into regular season and postseason bunk pretty quickly and (2) I’m an idiot. With that, here’s my knee-jerk reaction to last night’s NBA Draft that will be worthless by the end of this Fourth of July weekend.

A couple of days ago, I made the argument for the Bulls to take Brandon Roy (who I still believe will be the Rookie of the Year even while being stuck with the dysfunctional Trailblazers) while acknowledging that I’d be fine with either LaMarcus Aldridge or Tyrus Thomas. The Bulls ended up picking Aldridge with the #2 pick and then going through a convoluted trade with Portland where the Bulls gave him plus a future second rounder up for Thomas and Viktor Khryapa, who I had never heard of before last night. Considering that most teams had both Aldridge and Thomas rated pretty equally, John Paxson made a slick move since he was able to get the guy he obviously wanted along with another asset off of the bench. That trade made absolutely no sense from Portland’s standpoint – Aldridge would have fallen to them at #4 since Adam Morrison was practically guaranteed to go to Michael Jordan’s new regime in Charlotte, yet the Blazers ended up giving away their first round draft pick from 2004. Great fleece job here by Paxson.

Even though I pushed for Roy, the Thomas pick makes a lot more sense when coupled with the trade with the Sixers for their pick at #13, Thabo Sefolosha. Granted, the only footage I have ever seen of this guy was the reel ESPN put up last night after his name was called up and I don’t know any more about his game than what Stephen A. Smith had screamed into his microphone. Still, Sefolosha’s physical attributes certainly fit into what the Bulls need at shooting guard (assuming that this guy can play at 2), so if he’s as good as the international scouts say he is, particularly as a perimeter defender, he’s going to part of a great guard rotation with Hinrich and Ben Gordon. The only thing I’m frightened of is that he is supposedly the best basketball player ever to come out of Switzerland, which means we’re guaranteed Chris “YWML” Berman will be cracking jokes about Sefolosha’s neutrality for years. At the very least, the Bulls are now going to be an extremely deep team from the 1 through 4 spots.

That leaves Bulls to address the opening at center through either free agency or a trade. Joel Przybilla, Nene, and Nazr Mohammed are the reasonable free agent prospects with a small hope for Ben Wallace (although as great of a defensive player as he is, watching brick 3 out of every 4 free throws in the playoffs this year was disheartening). With such an important hole to fill, the offseason is nowhere near over for the Bulls front office.

The one thing that is for certain after last night’s NBA Draft is that John Paxson will no longer receive the backhanded compliment that he always makes the smart pick that’s a sure thing (translation: he didn’t have the cajones to select a “risky” player that might turn into a huge star). Thomas was unquestionably the riskiest of the consensus top six players heading into last night and Sefolosha is someone few people have seen in person, so it’s clear that Paxson made his picks based on the high ceiling as opposed to the floor. Ask me in a couple years about how the Bulls did in the 2006 draft.

Other NBA Draft Thoughts:

1) Where’s My TNT? – Add my name to the list of the multitudes of NBA fans that really want to see the NBA Draft telecast head back to TNT from ESPN. Jay Bilas and Greg Anthony are fine commentators (and I did enjoy Dan Patrick and David Stern exchanging good-natured insults with each in other in the middle of the first round, culminating with Patrick announcing to viewers and the crowd at Madison Square Garden that he always liked NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue better), but all of the dogs in my neighborhood starting barking simultaneously when ESPN went to a split-screen with Stephen A. Smith and Dick Vitale. I need my Charles Barkley analysis of the Knicks draft picks (we’ll just have to settle for the New York Post view, where Isiah Thomas’ level of ineptitude continues to amaze the masses by picking a projected second round pick at #20). I’ve said it before that the TNT NBA studio crew is the best in all of sports and with the ridiculous suits, entourages, and trades that occur on draft night, they are the perfect match for this event.

2) Illini Pride – I know I’m completely biased here, but James Augustine and Dee Brown should have both been drafted a bit higher than #41 and #46, respectively. This year certainly didn’t match the school pride Illini Nation had last summer when Deron Williams went at #3 and Luther Head jumped into the first round. The consolation here is that both James and Dee went to teams that they’ll fit in with well (what I mean is that neither of them ended up with the Knicks). Augustine will be playing along side emerging superstar Dwight Howard to provide an imposing frontline. At the same time, Brown is going to be paired up with Williams again in Utah, which means Illinois fans can party like it’s 2005 everytime the Jazz step on the floor. James and Dee are the two winningest players in the history of the University of Illinois, yet it was Patrick O’Bryant (about as Irish as Shaquille O’Neal), a Bradley center no one had heard of before the Braves’ Sweet Sixteen run, that ended up being a lottery pick. Such is life in the NBA Draft.

(UPDATE: Deadspin, which is edited by Illinois alum Will Leitch, has a nice take on the reunion of Dee and Deron.)

Beaming Up the Big Ten Channel

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Sports, Television5 Comments

As I noted yesterday, the Big Ten has entered into a deal with Fox and DirecTV to launch the Big Ten Channel in August 2007. After reviewing the details of this network coupled with the conference's new agreement with ABC/ESPN (which in and of itself also improved the conference's exposure), I believe the Big Ten has made a great deal both financially for its member institutions and in terms of exposure for its fans across the nation.The key element of this deal, from my perspective, is that DirecTV is going to be carrying the channel nationally on its Total Choice tier (the equivalent of basic cable) as opposed to the premium sports tier (which subscribers need to pay extra for a la HBO or Showtime). That means every DirecTV subscriber in the country will receive the network. Considering that NBA TV, ESPNU, and CSTV are all on the premium sports tier, this new deal is indicative of how powerful the Big Ten Conference is on its own.

How does this change things for the average Big Ten fan? The largest item is that there will no longer be the syndicated ESPN Plus package for football and basketball games on local television stations – all of those games will be moved to the new Big Ten Channel. There are some pluses and minuses to this. On the positive end, all of those previously locally televised games will become national telecasts with, at the very least, respect to DirecTV.

The potential problems stem from the prospect of the Big Ten Channel first, not having those games available to those that do not have cable and second, for those without DirecTV, not being able to get onto basic cable in, at minimum, its home team markets in the Midwest and Northeast. For instance, if the Big Ten Channel isn't able to get onto the basic tier of service on Comcast Cable in Chicago, Illinois fans and other Big Ten alums in the Windy City will be shut out from a significant portion of their teams' telecasts. I'm a DirecTV subscriber (and I absolutely recommend it 110% over Comcast – if at all possible, get the dish) so it won't affect me personally, but it will not be a positive change if the average Big Ten fan either has no access or has to pay extra for access to games that were previously provided for free over-the-air. Getting onto the basic cable systems in the Big Ten home media markets is essential (any carriage outside of that would be gravy).

The network is a significantly positive development for the fans living outside of their favorite team's home market since those that are DirecTV subscribers will get access to games that they previously had to pay extra for on ESPN Full Court. Thus, this won't only benefit the Illini fan living in Florida, but also the Ohio State fan living in the heart of Big Ten Country in Chicago or Indianapolis. This also means that I'll be able to watch every single Big Ten football and basketball game from the comforts of my leather sofa, which means that I'm probably not going to be moving away from my television much from September through March. (Note: my appetite for Big Ten sports is so insatiable that I end up watching most Northwestern games, who play something that vaguely resembles basketball, just to tide me over between Illini games and other big conference matchups).

With all of the hub-bub regarding the new network, it's easy to forget that the Big Ten also significantly improved their deal with ABC/ESPN, with every ABC regional football game being broadcast nationally on one of the ESPN networks in the markets where the ABC affiliate isn't showing the Big Ten game along with more basketball telecasts on ESPN with a new nationally televised Thursday night game that's in addition to Super Tuesday (hooray for more games not involving Duke or UNC). That means that the Big Ten has increased the number of nationally televised football and basketball games on both ABC and, most importantly, the worldwide leader of ESPN.

On top of all that, there's the monetary aspect of the deal. Sources from Iowa and Michigan State report that each school is expected to receive an additional $7.5 million in revenue in the first year for the Big Ten Channel alone. Keep in mind that this figure doesn't even include the Big Ten's separate contracts with ABC/ESPN and CBS for men's basketball games (the old television contracts are expected to give the Big Ten $6.4 million in 2006, which is a number that should go up with the new ABC/ESPN contract). That means the Big Ten is looking at upwards of $14 million per year in television revenue for each school. To put this in perspective, Notre Dame, which is the standard-bearer when it comes to money and college sports, made $6.43 million per year in its deal that ended in 2004 with NBC (figures for the current Notre Dame/NBC deal are unavailable, but the annual rights fees in the contract ending in 2004 were actually lower than the first deal signed between the two entities in the 1990s). (Update: Other reports pegged the amount of the Notre Dame/NBC deal at $9 million per year).

These numbers mean two things: (1) the Big Ten has put itself into position to be the most financially dominant conference in the country, if it wasn't already and (2) expansion of the conference will almost certainly not happen unless that new member is named Notre Dame. I suggested a few months ago that if the Irish continued to balk at the prospect of joining the Big Ten, the conference ought to look at Syracuse as a potential 12th member. With this new deal, however, it will take a new member to provide upwards of $14 million per year in additional revenue just for the current schools to make the same amount of money with 12 teams as they had with 11 teams. Even with additional money from the creation of a Big Ten football championship game, I doubt that anyone other than Notre Dame could possibly provide the additional revenue that would make expansion worth it for the conference.

There are certainly risks from taking content that networks would surely pay a lot of money for in-house, but the Big Ten is the one conference that overcome such negative prospects. The Big Ten's home base of markets that includes Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia is the largest and strongest out of any other conference while its alums are spread widely from the Michigan and Penn State grads on the East Coast to the Illinois and Wisconsin expats in the Sun Belt and West Coast. All in all, this looks to be a great deal for the Big Ten and reaffirms it as the preeminent conference in college sports.

Other thoughts from across the nation on the Big Ten Channel:

1) A Look at the Big Ten Channel (IlliniBoard)

2) Big Ten Network is Set Up with Fox (New York Times)

3) Big Ten Gambles on TV Channel (Chicago Tribune)

4) A Big Ten Channel Would Be A Big Boon (Sporting News)

5) Will Cable Outlets View Big Ten Channel as Must-Carry TV? (Capital Times)

6) Big Ten Creates its Own Network (SportsBiz)

And finally…

7) Big Ten Network Unfortunately to Include Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota Games (Sports Pickle)

Land-o-Links – 6/21/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

What an evening! Mark Cuban got fined $250,000, Dwyane Wade lived up to the Michael Corleone analogy Shaq dropped a few months ago (where Kobe Bryant is Sonny and Penny Hardaway is Fredo), the White Sox hammered in 20 runs on the Cardinals, and Ozzie Guillen turned a new rookie into a sacrificial lamb in yet another beanball war. On top of that, there was such a plethora of fantastic news that I just had to post some more links for today:

1) Guillen Has Choice Words for Mariotti (Chicago Tribune) – How those in professional sports feel about Jay Mariotti.

2) Jay the Joke – How all of the rest of us feel about Jay Mariotti (actually, Ozzie summed it up pretty well above, but the detail on this blog is a public service to society as a whole).

3) YWML Suddenly Huge With 13-Year-Olds (Deadspin) – Frequent Deadspin readers will understand why this is such a ridiculously hilarious development. For those that need a refresher course, just consult your friendly Wikipedia.

4) Nine Lives, Still Intact (Hartford Courant) – The life of Lewis the Cat was spared by a Connecticut judge yesterday, although he'll be on house arrest for the rest of eternity. We in the legal field call this "The Martha Stewart Treatment" (celebrities get all of the breaks).

5) Big Ten Creates Another Revenue Channel (The Wizard of Odds) – All Big Ten, all the time. You had me at hello.

And finally…

6) Career Suicide (Siberia, Minnesota) – There are some things that you see and you can't unsee them.

Big Loss for the Windy City and a Bigger Loss for the Big Ten

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Sports2 Comments

Groucho Marx once said, “I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member.” If sports leagues and conferences had any brains, they would apply Groucho's skeptical train of thought to cities that throw an overwhelming number of incentives to woo them. However, despite being a conference that generally makes solid and grounded decisions for its members (i.e. standing firm on not taking bastardized television time slots for conference football games), the Big Ten just made a huge mistake by choosing Indianapolis over Chicago as the permanent home of its annual conference basketball tournament (and this has nothing to do with my loyalty to the Illini, where I admit that I love our complete homecourt advantage at the United Center).

In this case, Indy was willing to throw a multitude of incentives that Chicago wasn't going to match. The Big Ten's move here smacks of the short-term decision by the NFL to put a team in Jacksonville as opposed having a club in the nation's second-largest television market of Los Angeles. From an immediate dollars and cents standpoint, I can understand the Big Ten's reasoning for choosing Indy, but this is not a positive long-term business move for the conference (in addition to this post, I went through a number of other reasons for this back in March).

The Big East used the locale of its tournament at Madison Square Garden to propel its entire conference to national prominence. That association with New York City provides extra intangible value to the perception of the league across the country. Using the Big Ten's recent logic, however, the Big East should move its tournament to Hartford, a town that's rabid for college basketball compared to New York and where the event would take over the entire city for the weekend. Something tells me that Mike Tranghese would seriously (and correctly) question the sanity of anyone who would suggest such a thing.

Yet, the Big Ten is essentially doing what pretty much any other conference would consider to be ludicrous. Now, is Indy proportionally a bigger college sports town than Chicago? Sure. Does Big Ten Tournament completely dominate Indy while it's treated as just another event on the full sports calendar in Chicago? Of course. However, we could say the same so-called advantages for Indianapolis about Hartford, Tucson, and Birmingham. The entire allure of holding an event in a large and sophisticated city is that people actually would want to visit that location even if there wasn't a tournament going on. It's the reason why the Big East chose NYC for its tournament, the Pac-10 planted itself in LA, and the SEC and ACC fight over turf in Atlanta as opposed to picking "intimate" cities where their respective events would be much bigger deals.

This isn't meant to slight Indianapolis, which is a fine town and by every account that I've heard and read has a fantastic basketball facility in Conseco Fieldhouse. However, just as the NFL was short-sighted in putting a team in Jacksonville as opposed to one in LA, the Big Ten not trying to do everything to tie itself to the nation's third largest media market (not to mention being a major base for alums from EVERY school in the conference as opposed to the Hoosier-Boilermaker oligopoly in Indy) is a failure in basic logic. I have previously argued that the Big Ten ought to try to become the beneficiaries of large market biases as opposed to being the victim of them. The Big East has New York, the Pac-10 has Los Angeles, and the Big Ten should have Chicago. Unfortunately, the Big Ten took a step backwards toward provincialism as opposed to solidifying the link the greatest conference in the nation to the greatest city in the world.

Land-o-Links – 5/16/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

I hope all of you got your helpings of "Grey's Anatomy" and "24" last night without any delays caused by Dubya. Anyway, on to today's links:

1) What Happened to Michael Jackson's Fortune? – This ought to be the first installment of a new E! or VH1 series about how celebrities have blown their fortunes, such as "What Happened to Hammer's Fortune?" or "What Happened to Gary Coleman's Fortune?" That's got to be better than another installment of some stupid list show that invariably concludes with a story about a Brad-Angelina-Tom-Katie cyborg baby.

2) Lost on Thursdays? – ABC might have finally figured it out regarding non-stop seasons. (Update: ABC has made it official that it will run "Lost" continuously and without repeats next season, but it's staying on Wednesday nights.  Instead, "Grey's Anatomy" is moving to Thursday.)

3) NU Probes Alleged Hazing – I'm proud to say that the representatives of my alma mater's athletic department actually have some class and dignity, unlike those Dookies and Wildcats.

And finally…

4) Ron Zook Rocks It, Dude, Totally (submitted by Minneapolis Red Sox) – Um, let's scratch what I just stated above.