Category: College Basketball

No More Time to Make the Doughnuts and Land-o-Links for 12/6/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Music, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

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New Yorkers better grab those Krispy Kremes quickly, as you’ll see when you take a look at today’s links:

(1) New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants (New York Times) – Horrifically, Chicago also has plans to ban all food that tastes good.

(2) Rex Grossman – Freakin’ Exhausting (Ron Karkovice Fan Club) – The following is my personal letter to Rex posted on my fantasy football league message board as I released him for (gulp) Jeff Garcia:

“Dear Rex,

You have broken me. I can’t take it anymore. Not only do you make me rack my brain while watching the Bears, my favorite team, but you’ve also tanked my fantasy team when I needed you most in the wake of Donovan McNabb’s season-ending injury. One can only take such a double emotional beating on a weekly basis. Therefore, I have to painfully say goodbye.”

(3) Fight Was Right, Even If The Result Wasn’t (Mark Tupper Weblog) – The undermanned Illini didn’t look too bad against my sleeper national championship pick of Arizona on Saturday, but there’s still a whole lot of work to do. After a relatively tough week, Illinois gets to come back to the Assembly Hall to play against one of the great pronounciations of an acronym in IUPUI.

(4) Sox’s Talks Center on Rays’ Baldelli (Chicago Tribune) – One thing for White Sox GM Kenny Williams to think about: Rocco Baldelli invariably breaks a limb within three weeks of every Opening Day. He’s the Italian baseball version of Grant Hill.

(5) On Notice: Fiasco Edition (mgoblog) – Pure Michigan anger (and it’s all justifiable).

(6) Perhaps She Has Chosen The Wrong Extracurricular Activity (Deadspin) – Well, Michigan will have at least one person cheering for them at the Rose Bowl. USC cheerleaders, bless their hearts, are so accomodating.

(7) The Perfect Storm (Siberian Baseball) – LaTroy Hawkins in Coors Field. Mull that thought over for a moment.

(8) Wham, Bam, Thank You, Sam (Chicago Sun-Times) – Sammy Mejia and my law school alma mater of DePaul proudly defended the honor of my undergraduate alma mater on Saturday by beating up Bill Self in his first return to the state of Illinois since leaving the Illini twisting in the wind.

(9) Great Games Make It Harder To Blog Since There’s Nothing To Bitch About (Blog-a-Bull) – Have the Bulls finally turned a corner in the wake of the Ben Wallace headband madness?

And finally…

(10) Rock Group Nice Peter Explains Song ’50 Cent is a Pussy’ (AllHipHop.com) – Over/under on the number of days before the members of Nice Peter are found buried underneath the Meadowlands: 2.

Land-o-Links – 11/29/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, TelevisionLeave a comment

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I’ll eventually get back to writing some full-fledged substantive posts once I have some time, but you’ll at least see a return of Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week tomorrow. Until then, enjoy these links:

(1) Does Cubs’ New Star Have a Message from the Tribune? (New York Times) – With daily speculation about the Tribune Company breaking up its media conglomeration, a lot of people seem to believe that the recent spending spree by the Cubs is an indicator that the corporation wants to sell off the team since the club has had a reputation of being tightwads relative to its wealth. However, as Andrew Ross Sorkin (no relation to the TV producer Aaron, who I’ll be addressing separately on a completely different subject below) notes, this is completely counterintuitive in the business world and, specifically, the private equity world that the Tribune is probably heading into, where cutting expenses is paramount. If anything, the increased spending by the Cubs makes it less likely that the Tribune is going to part ways with the franchise (at least in terms of selling it off by itself without coupling it with other assets). My feeling is that while the newspaper operations of the Tribune, which are the source of the earnings pressure, will be split off in some fashion, the synergy of the Cubs, WGN Television, WGN Radio, and the partial stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago is too lucrative and valuable as a whole to break apart into separate pieces.

(2) Critic Loses Giddiness for NBC’s Show ‘Studio 60’ (Chicago Tribune) – This article encapsulates my love-hate relationship with Aaron Sorkin. When “The West Wing” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” have been focused on the insider baseball workings of the respective subjects of politics and the entertainment industry, they have been among the most well-written and fascinating pieces of dramatic television anywhere. However, it seems as though Sorkin just can’t resist the opportunity to hammer the viewers over the head with his personal political views, which regardless of whether one agrees with him, are delivered in such a heavy-handed and preachy manner that he destroys the quality of his shows. Case in point is the example that Maureen Ryan refers to in her article, where Sorkin intimated in a recent “Studio 60” episode that there are people who can live for 50 or more years in that supposed “backwater town” of Columbus, Ohio (despite the fact that it is home to the largest university in the United States, the state capital of the 7th largest state in the country, and a burgeoning “creative class”, the city’s mere location in the Midwest clearly indicates to Sorkin that its population must be full of rubes) and never hear of Laurel and Hardy. (Note: This could very well be the only time that I will ever defend anything from Ohio on this blog, but it’s deserved on this point.) I’ve gone over before how much I oppose the social conservative agenda, yet comments such as these continue to give credence to the charges that Hollywood is full of liberal elites.

(3) Guard Play Awful; Work To Be Done (Mark Tupper Weblog) – Two years ago, the embarrassment of riches in the Illini backcourt with current NBA-ballers Deron Williams (who’s playing incredibly well this season for the Jazz so far), Luther Head, and Dee Brown catapulted the team to the national championship game. Now, it appears as if though Illinois is going to be shuffling around guards until Demetri McCamey arrives in Champaign next season. Granted, I knew there would be a number of painful evenings with the departures of Dee and James Augustine this year, but being able to watch the new team last night for the first time made me realize that we have a huge deficit in terms of being able to produce on the offensive end of the floor. It’s going to be even tougher this weekend on the road in Phoenix against an Arizona team that I believe can go the distance.

(4) Miracle Drug (Ron Karkovice Fan Club) – The Bulls’ back-to-back games against the Knicks couldn’t have come soon enough with all of the Ben Wallace headband wackiness. Once again, I give thanks to Isiah Thomas, the greatest GM in Bulls history.

(5) Crede Tale All About Cash and Dash (Chicago Tribune) – If the White Sox want to move its pillar at third base in Joe Crede as part of blockbuster package to bail Alex Rodriguez out of New York, that’s one thing. However, Crede for Chone Figgins isn’t going to make my heart flutter.

(6) Bears Road to the Playoffs (Windy City Gridiron) – As the Chicago media has commenced the inevitable frothing at the mouth to yank Rex Grossman for Brian Griese, the larger picture is that the Bears are still in command to secure homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. On a related note, notwithstanding the excellent play so far of Eastern Illinois alum and Jessica Simpson boy-toy Tony Romo (let’s not forget that Rex got off to a similarly hot start this year before NFL teams got enough video of him to pick him apart), my feeling is that the Cowboys are paper tigers on a hot streak that they cannot maintain and aren’t a long-term threat. The one real NFC challenger in my eyes is Seattle with a healthy tandem of Matt Hasselback and Shaun Alexander back in the fold. I don’t want a Seahawks version of last season when the Bears destroyed the Panthers during the regular season only to get subsequently smoked by Steve Smith at Soldier Field in the postseason.

And finally…

(7) Snoop Dogg Arrested, Again (Washington Post) – I thought it was standard operating procedure to carry your piece onto the Tonight Show.

(Image from Fall TV Preview)

Turkey Coma and Land-o-Links for 11/27/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

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Some links as you recover from your turkey coma, getting back to work, and watching Rex Grossman turn Asante Samuel into his go-to receiver:

(1) Prep Freshman Commits to Illini (Chicago Tribune) – [Insert Kelvin Sampson comment/joke/insult here]

(2) Ohio State Will Play in the National Championship Game (In Basketball) (Big Ten Wonk) – As the ACC-Big Ten Challenge gets underway tonight (with Illinois having its first real test of the season tomorrow against Maryland), here’s Big Ten Wonk’s argument regarding the Buckeyes’ chances of winning it all in basketball this year. Couple that with dominance on the football field and you see that the rich are getting richer.

(3) Shorthand for a Holiday: Ralphie, the BB Gun and the Flagpole (New York Times) – Bumpeses!

(4) Peaceful Swiss Army Tries to Give Lessons In Corporate Warfare (Wall Street Journal) – Free pocket knife included with tuition.

(5) What Was He Thinking? (Chicagoist) – I’m a diehard Bears fan that also currently has Rex Grossman starting on my fantasy team. I really need to find a healthier Sunday afternoon hobby, such as developing a crystal meth habit. Re-commence the quarterback controversy.

(6) I Refuse to Over-Dramatize Headbands With an Over-Dramatic Headline (Blog-a-Bull) – Even with Bad Rex rearing his ugly head yesterday, the Chicago Tribune still managed to devote two full pages and multiple columns in today’s sports section to the Ben Wallace – Scott Skiles “feud” over the Bulls’ headband ban. It’s pretty unbelievable how such a petty rift has been blown up in the media over the past couple of days (for the record, my view is that if a 4-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year needs to wear a headband to grab a rebound, just let him wear the stupid thing, for Pete’s sake), so it’s nice that Blog-a-Bull has taken a step back to put this all into perspective.

(7) The Best of Both Worlds: A Modest Proposal for a College Football Playoff That Keeps the Bowls (Frank the Tank’s Slant) – Okay, so this is just a rerun of one of my old posts, but I’m going to keep bringing this up until the college football world comes up with a more equitable solution of crowning a national champion than figuring out BCS percentage points between USC, Michigan, and Florida.

And finally…

(8) Pharrell Williams In Negotiation To Perform At Princess Diana Tribute (AllHipHop.com) – I’ll just let you chew this one over by yourself.

(UPDATE: Here’s a nice message from Rex on his performance against New England.)

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Thankful For This Wacky Week and Land-o-Links for 11/22/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports4 Comments

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It’s been a wacky week leading up to Turkey Day, with Rupert Murdoch and Fox, of all people, coming to their collective senses for once by deciding that a special and corresponding book where O.J. Simpson goes through a “hypothetical” rendering of how he would have killed Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman is a bad idea, Michael Richards of Cosmo Kramer fame spewing out the N-word on stage over the past weekend and then gets laughed at in the middle of his apology on David Letterman, the Cubs organization opening up its wallet to sign Alfonso Soriano until he’s eligible for Social Security, the Jets attempting an onside kick at the opening of the 2nd half that didn’t work against the Bears, Northwestern attempting an onside kick at the opening of the 2nd half that worked perfectly against Illinois, an Ohio State-Michigan rematch for the national championship being a distinct possibility after a classic game on Saturday (although USC needs to lose one of its last two games, forcing the Wolverines to switch gears and having to cheer for Notre Dame this weekend), and Suri Cruise no longer has parents out of wedlock. Despite of all that, there are still plenty of links out there for your Thanksgiving weekend:

(1) Steve Milton: The Rubber Industry’s New Best Friend (Chicagoist) – At some point in my lifetime, the Guiness Book of World Records went from being a collection of outstanding human achievements such as getting to the top of Mount Everest the fastest or the having the longest long jump in international competition to morph into a freak show that honors the carnie that can cram the most piercings into his belly button. That being said, this rubber band ball is pretty sweet.

(2) Macy’s Brands the Holidays (Wall Street Journal) – The only thing that could be worse than the feeling that I had walking by the old Marshall Field’s on State Street the other day to see a bunch of red Macy’s banners all over the place is the thought of someone putting a huge spaceship in the middle of Soldier Field. Oh wait…

(3) Q and A with Will Carroll (Siberian Baseball) – Minneapolis Red Sox had a great session on the gyroball with a contributor to Baseball Prospectus.

(4) White Sox Top 10 Prospects (South Side Sox) – Speaking of baseball, here’s a summary of the top 10 prospects in the White Sox farm system.

(5) Time To Bring On Tougher Challenges (Mark Tupper Weblog) – The schedule has been pretty easy for Illini basketball so far, but it’s going to kick into high gear with games against Maryland and Arizona last week. Rich McBride looked sharp last night coming off of his suspension for impersonating a Portland Trailblazer.

(6) You’re Beautiful (Linda) – My talented sister had a show at the MFA Gallery at Montclair State (I’m not sure which exit that is in Jersey) this week. In case you were wondering, I received absolutely NONE of the artist genes that run in the family.

(7) Don’t Blame Me If You Freeze Your Ass (Chronically Insane) – Tips from Chronically Insane to keep warm during this holiday season.

(8) Bowing Down to the Golden Calf (Fleece the Pig, Flog the Pony) – Another year, another disasterous Circus Trip for the Bulls. I will never understand why Jerry Reinsdorf and Bill Wirtz don’t use their pull to get Ringling Bros. to come to the United Center during the summer when the building is empty as opposed to the very beginning of both the basketball and hockey seasons.

(9) Bush’s Daughter Robbed in Argentina (Washington Post) – A theft that’s pulled off right in front of a bunch of Secret Service agents? Now that’s something that truly deserves an entry into the Guiness Book of World Records.

Go Bears, Go Illini, Go Bulls, and Happy Thanksgiving!

(UPDATE: For even more entertainment, via a Deadspin tip, Gilbert Arenas has his own blog now and it’s highly recommended reading.)

(Image from New York Times)

The Conference Pride Paradox

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports3 Comments

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In case you haven’t heard, there’s an important college football game tomorrow other than the Battle for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk Trophy. Having a #1 vs. #2 matchup in the regular season is rare enough, much less when it involves the greatest rivalry in sports in Michigan-Ohio State. Duke vs. UNC is the only other rivalry that comes close, although since college basketball regular season games don’t carry that much weight, their head-to-head tilts are really more for bragging rights. I’ll grant that the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is exciting when they meet in the ALCS, but when they’re playing close to 30 times per year when you include spring training games, it’s overkill to make the case that it’s Armageddon everytime that they meet on the field. In contrast, Michigan and Ohio State only play each other once a year on the gridiron in front of stadiums holding over 100,000 specatators with, more often than not, a berth in the Rose Bowl or, in this year’s case, the national championship game on the line. Pound for pound, there’s nothing else better in sports. My favorite moment in history from this rivalry is captured on this YouTube video where the Ohio State players rip down the Michigan banner prior to the legendary 1973 game where the two undefeated teams played to – what else – a 10-10 tie. It was a glorious trash-talking moment decades before such actions became passe.

As an Illinois alum and fan, it’s my duty to hate both the Wolverines and Buckeyes. Between Anthony Thomas’ obvious-fumble-that-wasn’t-called-a-fumble in 2000 and Matt Sylvester’s freak shooting day to spoil the Illini’s perfect basketball regular season in 2005, those two teams have certainly caused me a lot of personal pain in recent years. I’ve said many times before that college rivalries are several steps higher in passion and intensity than any of the pro rivalries. Anyone can wake up one day and proclaim himself or herself to be a Yankee or Red Sox fan, but college fan ranks are usually devoid of substantial numbers of posers. (Key exceptions: the Duke and Notre Dame “subway alums”.)

Despite all of this internal vitriol during the regular season which can’t be duplicated at the pro level, however, there’s also the countervailing notion of conference pride. For instance, there are few things I enjoy more than watching Michigan lose in football, basketball, volleyball, moot court tournaments, electrical engineering challenges, business school case study competitions, etc. Yet, when it comes down to a BCS or NCAA Tournament berth, as long as they aren’t taking a spot away from Illinois, I’d much rather have the Wolverines grab it as opposed to a team from another conference. Part of this, as the late and great Milton Friedman would say, purely due to self-interest. While it behooves the Bears to have all of its NFC North rivals go 0-16 for the year, the perception of your college team is intricately tied to the strength of that team’s conference. Witness what’s happening to Rutgers this year where, if they finish the season undefeated, they probably will not make the national championship game due to the perceived weakness of the Big East. On the other side, Florida will get every benefit of doubt if it comes out as the SEC champion. Whether you’re talking about BCS or RPI rankings, recruiting wars, or the sports punditry, your college team directly benefits from the success of your college rivals. Thus, while there’s no reason for me to ever consider wanting the Packers to win unless a Bears playoff spot would result from it, there are a whole lot of reasons why I would want the all of the Big Ten teams to sweep their non-conference schedules regardless of where the Illini are in the standings.

At a more amorphous level, there’s also this notion of conference pride. The fact that Illinois is a member of the Big Ten is an integral part of the school’s identity and isn’t taken lightly. For me, this has personally become a larger deal since leaving the bubble of Champaign, where the superiority of the Big Ten is never questioned, to come back to Chicago where I work side-by-side with yahoos who swear by SEC football or ACC basketball. It’s nice to counter their quaint misguided biases with the fact that, in terms of fan intensity, the Big Ten always leads the nation in attendance for both basketball and football, and in terms of excellence in competition, our conference is the only one other than the SEC (which has the benefit of having 12 teams as opposed to 11) that regularly places multiple teams in both the BCS bowls and the Final Four. Plus, on the academic side, one only needs to look at the U.S. News rankings to see that the Big Ten from top-to-bottom is whole lot stronger than any of the other BCS conferences.

I might hate Michigan and Ohio State as an everyday matter, but as a celebration of what it means to be a Big Ten alum, I absolutely love their rivalry. No matter who wins tomorrow, the Big Ten is going to come out on top.

(Image from Ohio State University Archives)

(UPDATE: An unbelievably sad turn of events today with the news of the passing of Michigan coaching legend Bo Schembechler.  R.I.P., Bo.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Warm It Up – Kriss Kross

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Classic Music Videos, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Music, Sports1 Comment

Although most people remember “Jump” as the preeminent Kriss Kross tune, the “Warm It Up” video is significant on a few levels. First, this particular video was the genesis of the fad of kids wearing their clothes backwards. This trend became so pervasive when I was in junior high that the school district actually had to enact a written policy to ban people from wearing their clothes backwards, which is bona fide proof that I grew up in the ‘hood. However, I’ll have to admit that my old Blackhawks Starter jacket looked pretty bad-ass turned around.

This leads into my second point, which is that this video encapsulates how important it was during those first couple of years of the 1990s to have the right Starter jackets and jerseys. (For more insight on this, Peter Schrager of Fox Sports wrote an fantastic post a couple of months ago on Deadspin regarding his purchase of a New York Giants Starter jacket as a youngster.) The type of Starter wear that you had directly correlated with your social status in school. It would have been simple enough if everyone could just buy a Bulls or Raiders Starter jacket (the coolest teams to have at the time), but at least at Brookwood Junior High School, having the same Starter jacket as someone else was a fashion faux paus on the same level as two girls wearing the exact same dress to prom. My Blackhawks Starter jacket ended up being a solid choice since it represented a hometown team that wasn’t overexposed (or, in today’s case, not exposed at all) while having same color scheme as the Bulls. Plus, the logo supposedly gave me street cred since, as I was informed after my purchase, the markings on the Native American’s forehead look like the Folks gang sign (there really ought to be warning labels for these types of things for ignorant half-Asian/half-white guys such as myself).

Finally, as anyone that remembers this video understands, this was also the first time much of America’s youth was exposed to Chief Illiniwek. The Illini need more recruiting tools like this one.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Illini: Frank the Tank’s College Basketball Preview 2006-07

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports8 Comments

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After watching the Illinois football team turn the ball over in 4 straight possesions in their own territory to lead to 4 consecutive Purdue touchdowns on Saturday, the opening of the Illini basketball season couldn’t get here soon enough. As Illinois seeks to avenge the 1987 NCAA Tournament loss to Austin Peay (Dick Vitale famously said prior to that game that he’d stand on his head if Illinois lost, which I believe is one of the sources of his present Dookie bias) tonight at the Assembly Hall, let’s preview the college basketball season.

(1) Illinois – This past offseason hasn’t exactly been a positive one for Illinois basketball fans. Satan’s Spawn, er, Kelvin Sampson stole away Eric Gordon, the nation’s top shooting guard from this year’s high school graduating class. (On another note, Ron Zook just got a commitment from the nation’s top high school wide receiver, so I’m pretty sure Sampson won’t go after him seeing that football is a different sport than basketball, but you never know.) Senior leader Rich McBride was named an honorary member of the Cincinnati Bengals by having some run-ins with the law and will be suspended for the first 4 games of the year. There aren’t any obvious fixes to the gaping holes left by the simultaneous departures of Dee Brown and James Augustine.

Nonetheless, I believe that Illinois is going to have a solid season where the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament is a reasonable goal. There are three main reasons for my confidence. First of all, Bruce Weber, for all of the questioning of his recruiting skills, is still pound-for-pound one of the top in-game coaches in the country. He’s proven time and time again that he can maximize the talent that he has to work with and then some. The second reason is that Brian Randle is going to turn into a more valuable weapon than ever. The power forward has ridiculous athleticism and the success of The Illini will depend upon him stepping up on offense to fill in the gaps left by the absences of Brown and Augustine. Finally, Jamar Smith was already arguably the best shooter in the Big Ten last year as a true freshman. He’s going to get even more opportunities to light it up from behind the arc this season.

Of course, the thought of either Chester Frazier or transfer Trent Meacham taking over the point guard position isn’t exactly comforting at this time while the Illini might need to develop freshman Brian Carlwell quickly as a presence in the post if Shaun Pruitt can’t handle an increased workload. These unknowns make Illinois an extremely difficult team to pin down this season – this club could reasonably range from winning the Big Ten conference to not even making the NCAA Tournament. So, let’s take a look at how Illinois stacks up with the rest of the Big Ten…

(2) Big Ten – Ohio State’s monster incoming freshmen recruiting class led by the guaranteed #1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft in Greg Oden is the talk of the entire basketball world and is the favorite to top the Big Ten on a lot of boards. However, I’m putting my money on Wisconsin winning the conference this year with the combination of the senior leadership of Alando Tucker and the ability of Bo Ryan to implement a system that seems to be successful every year no matter who is there. The Buckeyes are certainly on the same tier as the Badgers just because of the sheer influx of talent in Columbus, while the Illini and Indiana Hoosiers are on the next tier. Michigan State is in a similar situation as Illinois with some large losses, such as Dee’s old high school teammate Shannon Brown, due to departures for graduation and/or turning pro, but Tom Izzo is as good of a coach as there is in the business. His cross-state rival in Ann Arbor, on the other hand, is due for another year of unmet expectations as a result of the general ineptitude of Tommy Amaker, so be sure to sell Michigan short. Everyone else in the Big Ten ought to be ecstatic for an NIT bid this year.

Big Ten Conference Final Standings Prediction: (1) Wisconsin, (2) Ohio State, (3) Illinois, (4) Indiana, (5) Michigan State, (6) Michigan, (7) Iowa, (8) Minnesota, (9) Penn State, (10) Purdue, (11) Northwestern

(3) DePaul and the Big East – Wilson Chandler. If you didn’t know that name already, you’ll know it for sure if you pay attention to college basketball at all this season. Chandler was one of those young players that jumped out at me last year with his beyond-his-years presence in the post and is going to give the Blue Demons a chance to get back to the NCAA Tournament once again (or at least the Big East Tournament). The real obstacle for DePaul is the rough schedule with a non-conference tilt that includes Kansas, Wake Forest and an appearance in the Maui Classic against Kentucky for sure, not to mention the tough Big East Conference slate and the fact that they just got clobbered by Bradley on Saturday. There’s no doubt that Jerry Wainwright is challenging his relatively young team from the get-go.

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On another note, the new DePaul uniforms are an improvement over the old ones, but I’ll repeat my call for the Blue Demons to go back to their late ’70s/early ’80s-style threads. That would be a perfect way to honor the late Ray Meyer. Anyway, here’s my prediction for the entire Big East, which is still strong but not the top-to-bottom monster that it was last year…

Big East Conference Final Standings Prediction: (1) Pittsburgh, (2) Georgetown, (3) Marquette, (4) UConn, (5) Villanova, (6) DePaul, (7) Syracuse, (8) Louisville, (9) West Virginia, (10) Rutgers, (11) Cincinnati, (12) Notre Dame, (13) Seton Hall, (14) St. John’s, (15) Providence, (16) South Florida

(4) The Rest of the Nation – The conventional wisdom is that Florida, which is returning the entire core of its national championship team from last season, is the favorite to do it all again. However, there is so much stacked against a college team repeating that I’m going to have to go in a different direction. North Carolina has as much talent as anyone, yet I’m just not getting the championship vibe from the Tar Heels and the reinvigorated ACC is going to exhaust that still young team. Kansas is another favorite with my Homewood-Flossmoor brother superstar Julian Wright, but until Bill Self can get out of the first round with James Naismith’s old school, I’m not betting on them.

So, I’m coming out of leftfield and going with Arizona to win it all. They have a high talent level with Marcus Williams and Mustafa Shakur and a coach in Lute Olsen that has won it all before.

As for a Cinderella story, I stand by my statement from last spring that we won’t see another midmajor such as George Mason reach the Final Four for an extremely long time. With the new NBA age minimum now being 19, the power schools are going to be more loaded than they ever. There will surely be some obscure team from nowhere that makes the Sweet Sixteen, but George Mason was the culmination of a trend of parity as opposed to the start of it.

Other BCS Conference Champion Predictions: SEC – Florida, ACC – North Carolina, Big 12 – Kansas, Pac 10 – Arizona

(5) Final Four Predictions – Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pittsburgh

(6) National Championship Game Prediction – Arizona over North Carolina

(Images from FightingIllini.com, DePaulBlueDemons.com)

(UPDATE: As soon as I stated that Brian Randle and Jamar Smith were the keys to the Illini season, they both went down with injuries that could keep them out for 6 weeks.  I apologize to Illinois fans everywhere for this awful hex.)

WTF Rex???!!! and Land-o-Links for 11/6/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Basketball, College Football, DePaul Blue Demons, Golf, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Music, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

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There are times when superior football teams play down to their opponents’ levels, such as Ohio State letting Illinois hang around on Saturday. The Bears performance yesterday against the Dolphins, however, qualified as an unmitigated disaster where we just got pummeled. (Kudos to TK for predicting both the Illini thriller and a Bears letdown on Friday. You can see in the comment section that I was a doubter at the time, but now I’m in awe of his Karnak-like prognasticative abilities.) Rex Grossman is showing that he’s either throwing for a 130 QB rating or a 30 with nothing in between. The Bears offensive line was shredded by Jason Taylor and company, which just shouldn’t happen when a five-time Pro Bowler is your anchor at center. Devin Hester, for all of his electricity on kickoff and punt returns, continues to have a nasty habit of starting to run before the ball is in his hands. The vaunted Bears defense looked hapless against Ronnie Brown and Joey Freaking Harrington out of all people. I just didn’t understand what was happening.

Not only that, long bomb threat Bernard Berrian is going to be out for 2 to 4 weeks with a rib injury, which means that the Bears’ vertical passing game might end up looking like what we had yesterday for the next month – as in non-existant. Even potentially worse, Brian Urlacher is going in for an MRI today after getting his foot rolled up near the end of Sunday’s game, so who knows what we’re going to do if he’s out for an extended period of time when Mike Brown is already on the shelf. It’s hard to say that the Bears are going to tank when they still have a 7-1 record (as Mike Downey seems to believe), but getting demolished by a straight-up piece of shit Dolphins team at Soldier Field just before two straight games at Jimmy Hoffa’s final resting place against the Giants and Jets and then another road game at Foxboro versus the continuously dangerous Patriots isn’t the way to inspire confidence with your hyper-analytic fan base.

At the end of the day, Rex needs to figure out at some point that if he’s feeling that his timing is off, he needs to simmer down and not chuck the ball thirty yards downfield into the hands of the opposing defense. I don’t agree with Rick Morrissey’s sentiment today in the Chicago Tribune that Rex should have been yanked for Brian Griese when it was evident that the younger quarterback was going to struggle all day (similar rumblings were made at a lower level in the wake of the Arizona “They Were Who We Thought They Were” game but subsided when the Bears put up 41 points in the first half against San Francisco last week). Switching out the starting QB is not the same as taking out your starting pitcher for a reliever in baseball – the ramifications from a QB change have a much greater long-term impact than just one game. If you live or have lived in Chicago, you know that the coverage of the Bears during the week can be all-consuming when they are in last place, much less contending for a berth in the Super Bowl, so a potential QB controversy ought to be the last thing anyone wants here. The Bears, so far, have won a lot more than they have lost with Rex and his gunner’s mentality at the helm, so it would be foolish to jump off the badnwagon so quickly. That being said, until Grossman can calm down on those days when everything’s not there for him, the Bears are going to be at a severe risk of losing more games to inferior teams.

Enough of the Bears rant… here are today’s links:

1) Illini Give Gritty Effort vs. Ohio State (Mark Tupper Weblog) – As mentioned before, one of my football teams gave a great effort in a losing cause this past weekend, but it wasn’t the Bears. (Okay, I’ll seriously stop with the Bears rant.)

2) Top 50 Basketball Player Finds DePaul (Chicago Tribune) – In other news, one of my alma maters is going to sign great college basketball recruiting class this week, but it won’t be Illinois. (The Eric Gordon-to-Indiana rant, however, will continue for the foreseeable future. If you thought T.O. returning to Philly was ugly, just wait until the Hoosiers visit Champaign on January 23rd.)

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3) Kenny G Blows Away All Musical Golfers (Yahoo! News) – I enjoyed Alice Cooper’s comment that golf is “The Crack of Sports”.

4) When Being a Fake Rock Star Is Better Than the Reality (Wall Street Journal) – Speaking of musicians, real rock stars seem to love Guitar Hero.

5) Einstein, Hawking… Manning? (Minneapolis Red Sox) – I agree with Minneapolis Red Sox here – there’s no real reason why I should dislike Peyton Manning and Colts, yet they always seem to rub me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I grew up on smash-mouth Bears and Big Ten football and cannot stand it when the national media slobs the knob of sexy offensive teams that can’t play a lick of defense. As a result, I get a perverse joy out of watching those types of teams get demolished in the playoffs.

6) I Am a Fairy (Chronically Insane) – Parental advice on how to tell your kids that everything that they’ve known and loved has been a sham.

7) Assessing Bob Barker (Slate) – The price is wrong, bitch!

And finally…

8) ‘Wedgie’ Gets Principal 6-Day Suspension (San Francisco Chronicle) – The principal was sent to the principal’s office!

As the late Richard J. Daley would say, vote early and vote often tomorrow.

(Images from Chicago Tribune and Rolling Stone)

You Mess With The Bulls, You Get The Horns: NBA Preview 2006-07

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, Sports10 Comments

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Big Ben Wallace has brought the championship feeling back to Chicago, Isiah Thomas is about to get torn a new one by the tabloids in New York, and Ron Artest is continuing his rap act in Sacramento. That’s right, ladies and gentleman… it’s the start of another NBA season (cue the John Tesch music). Here’s my preview of the Bulls and the rest of the NBA:

1) A New Bull Market – From the moment that I can first remember ever watching sports until my college years, the Chicago Bulls were my favorite team. My bedroom was a shrine to Michael Jordan with posters, basketball cards, and books. At the same time, I shot hoops on a daily basis at the playground with my MJ-endorsed Wilson basketball while wearing my #23 jersey and shorts. While the Bears and White Sox continuously found ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory during my childhood, MJ, Scottie Pippen, and the rest of the Bulls came through to give me the most vivid sports memories of my lifetime.

That obviously all changed after MJ’s schooling of Byron Russell for his real final shot in 1998 to clinch the 6th Bulls championship. (Wizards? I don’t know what you’re talking about.) Virtually overnight, the Bulls went from being the ultimate standard of excellance in the world of sports to the laughing stock of the NBA.

It has taken eight long and stomach-churning seasons with an astounding number of setbacks that I don’t want to rehash here, but the Bulls have finally climbed back to the position where they are legitmate contenders to reach the pinnacle of the NBA once again. Let’s give kudos to John Paxson for making some incredible personnel moves through the draft and free agency to bring the Bulls back to life.

As you probably know, the Bulls’ most signicant change from the offseason is the addition of Ben Wallace, which finally gives the team a defensive presence down on the block as well as some big-time veteran leadership. This move was augmented by the acquisition of P.J. Brown from Charlotte in exchange for Tyson Chandler (the last vestige of the Jerry Krause Era) and the draft night additions of Tyrus Thomas, Viktor Khryapa, and Thabo Sefalosha. All of these guys fit the mold of what John Paxson and coach Scott Skiles are looking for: long, fast, and athletic defensive players. It’s clear that the Bulls will be the top defensive team in the league this season.

Of course, the common question posed by nearly everyone is whether the Bulls will have enough offensive firepower to go along with the stifling defense. The conventional wisdom is that the balance of power in the league is with the run-and-gun offenses, such as the Phoenix Suns, as opposed to the defensive-oriented teams like the Bulls and Pistons. To me, however, this is a load of propoganda advanced by those that want to bring back the 140-135 regulation scores from the early ’80s. As evidenced by the meltdown by the Mavericks in the NBA Finals last year and the failure of the Suns to even advance to the Finals despite scoring at will over the past couple of seasons, a top flight defense is an absolute necessity to win a championship. That’s been the common thread between the Bad Boy Pistons, the MJ-led Bulls dynasty, the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, and every other championship squad from the past two decades. I’ll take a great defensive team over a sexy scoring unit every single time.

That being said, I believe that the Bulls will be able to get quite a few points for a two big reasons. First, the Bulls can score fast break points in transition as well as anyone. While most defensive-oriented teams have the reputation of slowing down the game to limit scoring, the Bulls instead have a deep athletic team that loves to run and keep the tempo of the game high. Second, the nucleus of Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, and Luol Deng are all poised to make the proverbial leap to the next level. Many would argue Hinrich is already there, although his shooting percentage still needs to come up a bit to match his superior ball handling skills. Gordon has always been an electrifying scorer, but we’re still looking for a little more consistency from him. The real X-factor is how much Luol Deng improves this season. If he stays injury-free, he could very well become the top all around player on the team that’s the go-to guy that the Bulls have been lacking. In my opinion, how well the Bulls will do this season will depend upon the progress of Luol Deng more than anyone else.

Which brings us to where I believe the Bulls will end up…

2) Eastern Conference Projections – The Eastern Conference is as competitive as ever, but this might finally be Chicago’s turn to shine again. (The Chicago Tribune has a nice summation of the team’s strengths and weaknesses in today’s paper.)  I still have a man crush for Dwyane Wade, yet Shaq’s decline is going to be a lot more pronounced this year for Miami. Unless Wade can start scoring over 30 points a game without any injuries or burning out from having played more games than any other player in the NBA over the past year (a result of going to the NBA Finals plus playing for Team USA), the Heat aren’t going to put Pat Riley in a position to cash in on his Three-Peat trademark in 2007-08. At the same time, I believe that the Pistons are going to miss Ben Wallace a whole lot more than they care to admit. Detroit fans can squawk about Nazr Mohammed giving them similar production in the low post, but they know in their hearts that the soul and leadership of that team laid in the big afro.

As a Bulls fan, there is one team from the East that would really scare me in a playoff situation: the Cleveland Cavaliers. I get the feeling that LeBron James’ presence in Cleveland is karmic payback for all of those years that MJ made Craig Ehlo his bitch. Sure, the team around LeBron makes the first few Jordan Bulls clubs look extremely balanced by comparison, but he has simply killed the Bulls since he’s come into the league like no one else. As a basketball fan in general, I can’t get enough of watching Bron-Bron, but I want no part of him going up against the Bulls in the postseason.

On the bottom end of the spectrum, despite the well-documented ineptitude of Isiah Thomas with the Knicks, he has somehow fleeced the majority of the national and New York media into believing that his team will actually improve this season with him taking the coaching reins as opposed to Hall of Fame Xs-and-Os man Larry Brown. I call bullshit. Isiah had underwhelming coaching performances with the Indiana Pacers when they were absolutely loaded with talent while competing in the vacuum immediately following MJ’s real retirement after the ’98 season, so it’s incredulous to believe that he’s going to turn around a bunch of overpaid babies this time around. There are still better than even odds that Greg Oden is going to end up in a Bulls uniform next to Ben Wallace next season (this is the hope that’s going to massage the fact that Oden is going to tear through the Illini and the rest of the Big Ten with Ohio State this year), which only Atlanta or Charlotte can prevent. Regardless, with the proverbial athletic freak in Tyrus Thomas already on the roster (it took less than four quarters of play in the NBA for him to break his nose) as a result of the Eddy Curry trade, Isiah Thomas is already in contention for being the best GM in Bulls history.

All in all, I’m drinking the Bulls kool-aid this season. As long as they can avoid the Cavs in the postseason, I foresee them winning the East and heading toward their first NBA Finals since the Jordan era.

Eastern Conference Final Standings Prediction: (1) Chicago Bulls, (2) Cleveland Cavaliers, (3) New Jersey Nets, (4) Detroit Pistons, (5) Washington Wizards, (6) Miami Heat, (7) Indiana Pacers, (8) Orlando Magic, (9) Boston Celtics, (10) Milwaukee Bucks, (11) Philadelphia 76ers, (12) Toronto Raptors, (13) Atlanta Hawks, (14) New York Knicks, (15) Charlotte Bobcats

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3) Western Conference Projections – Somehow, Texas, the world’s hotbed of football, now boasts arguably the three best basketball teams in the world. It’s a boring pick, but it’s difficult to pick anyone other than the San Antonio Spurs to come out of the West as long as Tim Duncan is at full strength. The Dallas Mavericks are still going to be in the mix, yet my feeling is that they squandered their best chance for a championship with their collapse in the 4th quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals last year – that was as close as you could get to a Buckner/Bartman type of performance in pro basketball (for the college basketball version, please see the Arizona Wildcats vs. the Illinois Fighting Illini in the 2005 NCAA Chicago Regional Final). There’s a lot of bad chi around Mark Cuban’s team IMHO. The real wild card for me is Houston, with the Tracy McGrady/Yao Ming combo poised to finally fulfill its potential plus Bonzi Wells, Shane Battier, and my main Illini man Luther Head. From my perspective, the Rockets are going to vault past the Mavs and become the new challenger to the Spurs this year. (If you have access to the Wall Street Journal, there’s an insightful piece today about how Houston is beginning to apply “Moneyball”-style quantitative analysis to basketball.)

As for the rest of the West, as long as the Phoenix Suns continue to refuse to play defense, whether or not Amare Stoudemire is healthy, they aren’t getting very far. As I alluded to before, I’m personally sick of how we’ve had several years of talk about how open floor offensive-oriented teams such as the Suns and Mavs are going to take over the NBA and how every league rule change has been made to aid them (for other sports, see also Peyton Manning’s Colts and the lineup for the Yankees), yet when it comes to the playoffs, the teams with the better defensive units always prevail in the end. We’re also heading into year 2 of bizarro world where the Clippers are considered to be a step ahead of the cross-the-hallway Lakers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Kobe Bryant, with him chucking up 50 shots a game, is doing the reverse-MJ career arc. The Lakers at least rewarded Illinois great Brian Cook with a nice new contract extension the other day. On another note, if Sam Smith has anything to do with it, Kevin Garnett will be involved in about 20 personnel moves by the trade deadline in February (15 of which will be with the Bulls). We won’t even get into the fact that Don Nelson is back on the sidelines with Golden State. (I long for the days of Run-TMC and the Killer Crossover.)

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Meanwhile, the Utah Jazz have become my second favorite NBA team for an obvious reason: Jerry Sloan’s club boasts three members of the 2005 Illini Final Four team on its roster with Deron Williams, Dee Brown, and Roger Powell Jr. When taking into the consideration of Head’s presence in Houston and James Augustine initiating his pro career with the Magic this year, that means that the entire starting lineup from that Illinois team has made it to the NBA, which IlliniBoard points out might be the first for any college program since the “Fab Five” Michigan team.  (Let me know if you can think of any other college squad since the early ’90s that has accomplished this – I don’t have time to research this subject right now.) I held out the hope that the Jazz-Rockets matchup last night would yield a moment where Williams, Brown, Powell, and Head would all be on the floor at the same time (FYI – if you have DirecTV, NBA League Pass is free for everyone this week), but it looks like Dee and Roger are going to be relegated to mostly garbage time minutes. Still, I got a huge kick out of watching Deron and Luther guard each other for awhile in the second quarter… it got a little misty in the Frank the Tank household there.

But I digress. As much fun as all of the West will be, the boring old Spurs still have too much. Plus, there seems to be a trend with them winning every other year.

Western Conference Final Standings Prediction: (1) San Antonio Spurs, (2) Houston Rockets, (3) Dallas Mavericks, (4) Los Angeles Clippers, (5) Phoenix Suns, (6) Los Angeles Lakers, (7) Denver Nuggets, (8) Utah Jazz, (9) Minnesota Timberwolves, (10) Sacramento Kings, (11) New Orleans Hornets, (12) Memphis Grizzlies, (13) Seattle Supersonics, (14) Golden State Warriors, (15) Portland Trailblazers

4) Over/Under on Number of Games Ron Artest Will Miss Due To Suspensions – 12

5) Over/Under on Number of Games Ron Artest Will Miss Due To Promotions For His Rap Album – 15

6) NBA Finals Projection – You know that I love the Bulls, but Tim Duncan and company are due again. The pick: San Antonio Spurs over Chicago Bulls in 6.

(Images from Bulls.com, Slam Online, Jim Bell Designs)

Hoosier Fleecing: A Q&A with Frank the Tank on the Eric Gordon Debacle

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports6 Comments

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When I heard the news on Friday that Eric Gordon, the top-rated shooting guard in the nation for the high school class of 2007, was backing out of his oral commitment to Illinois in order to attend Indiana, I was ready to rip into a Tourettes-induced rant that would have drawn multiple fines from the FCC. After letting this situation simmer for a couple days, however, I’ve decided to pare down the ranting (although just a little) and instead have a question and answer session on the fallout from this mess and where everyone goes from here:

Q1: Should anyone be suprised by Eric Gordon’s decision?

A1: No. Although I was keeping up hope through the summer that Gordon wasn’t serious about the overtures from Satan’s Spawn, er, Kelvin Sampson, the longer that he refused to affirmatively reject to Indiana, the worse and worse it looked for Bruce Weber and the Illini. Mark Tupper also noted in his blog that Gordon was feeling incredible pressure in his hometown of Indianapolis to be the savior of IU, which certainly must have had a large impact on his decision.

Q2: Was Kelvin Sampson breaking any rules with his actions?

A2: As much as it pains me to say this, I would answer no. An oral commitment is not binding, so Sampson was in his rights to bombard Gordon with text messages and other sweet nothings such as hiring Gordon’s father’s college coach as an assistant. This is also assuming that Sampson didn’t use the same phone calling tactics that got him sanctioned by the NCAA back in May.

Q3: Notwithstanding any judgment regarding compliance with NCAA rules, is Kelvin Sampson a douchebag that can be proven to be the Spawn of Satan?

A3: Unequivocally yes. You can be technically ethical and playing within the rules yet still be a douchebag. Sampson has single-handedly made the oral commitment worthless in college basketball, which is going to have an derelict effect on the recruiting process from this point forward. As a result, that proves that he’s Satan’s Spawn on top of being an old-fashioned douchebag. (I’m keeping true to my word from a few months ago.) I know that Indiana fans are on a high right now, but let’s revisit how they feel when Coach K eats one of their oral commits in the future.

Q4: How will this impact the Illini basketball team in 2007-08?

A4: With Gordon, Illinois would have been a legitimate national championship contender as long as he stayed in school. Without Gordon, the Illini still have a decent recruiting class coming out of the Class of 2007 led by point guard Demetri McCamey, but the expectations will have to be pared down considerably. I firmly believe that Bruce Weber is as good of an Xs-and-Os coach as anyone in college basketball today, so I have faith that he will the most out of each of his players and then some. The reality, however, is that you still need top tier recruits of you want to get past just being a tournament team to a perennial national championship contender. Even the Illinois team that made the championship game in 2005, which was the supposed superior “team” in contrast to North Carolina’s better “talent”, had its roots in a monster recruiting class from 2003, where Dee Brown was the top-rated point guard in the country coming out of high school. There’s no getting around the fact that you need both talent and hard work to reach the pinnacle.

Q5: Speaking of Bruce Weber, how much responsibility does he bear for losing Gordon?

A5: This is a situation where Weber can’t really be blamed per se for this happening, but every single question mark on his recruiting skills that were supposed to have been put to rest when he got Gordon to orally commit a year ago will now come back to the forefront with avengeance. While there were obviously a lot of factors in play in terms of Gordon backing out, it begs to question whether Satan’s Spawn, er, Sampson would have been able to lure the recruit away if Bill Self were the head coach instead. Even though I wish it weren’t true, I have a hard time believing that Self would have lost out to Sampson and maybe anyone other than possibly Coach K in this situation. More importantly, I doubt that Sampson would’ve even tried to do this against someone like Self in the first place. The perception right now is that Illinois is getting beaten in every single key recruiting battle. I don’t think Weber is a bad recruiter by any means, but the comparisons to his predecessor are going to be inevitable, particularly in light of the fact that a number of the top players that have come out of the Chicago area over the past few years that are playing in Lawrence rather than Champaign. Like I’ve said before, I’d put Weber in terms of pure basketball knowledge up against anyone. However, there needs to be a world-class recruiter at the helm of every top program, as well. There are definitely a lot of doubts as to whether Bruce Weber fits that mold and as long as that’s the case, Illinois is going to be vulnerable to this same situation again in the future.

Q6: Is there something wrong with obsessing over where some pimply-faced 17-year old high school kid goes to college?

A6: At a rational level, this answer should be yes. I certainly wasn’t ready to commit to anything at that age, so it’s tough for me to be angry at a child for not choosing the college that I attended. However, for better or for worse, those that follow college sports have a lot more pure emotions attached to their school as compared to pro teams. If one of your favorite baseball players ends up signing with the Yankees, you might feel jilted, but at some level you can rationalize it as a matter of the George Steinbrenner throwing wads of money around while eating his calzone for lunch. In the case of college recruiting, though, when a recruit chooses another school over yours, it’s as if though it’s a statement that your school is somehow inferior, which means that you take it a lot more personally. That’s why you see college message boards such as IlliniBoard buzzing with volumes of comments that dwarf equivalent pro team message boards. This isn’t a commentary of whether this is good or bad, but that’s the way it is. If you’ve been able to read this far in this post, you know that I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

Q7: What do Illini fans think of Indiana right now?

A7: Speaking for myself as an Illini fan, my disdain for Indiana before the Eric Gordon situation was rooted in a general hatred of Bobby Knight when he coached there. Since Mike Davis was such an awful coach and the Hoosiers took several steps back in recent years, the hate for Indiana had tapered off as of late.

After the events that just transpired with Eric Gordon, however, the Indiana Hoosiers have catapulted to a special pedestal: Frank the Tank’s most hated team in all of sports. Considering that the Green Bay Packers and Duke Blue Devils were at the top of the list before, that’s saying something. If there’s one silver lining in all of this, it’s that Illini fans can get off of our lame desire to make Michigan our rival and instead turn our hatred toward Indiana, a program that deserves it at a personal level and will also reciprocate it a bit. Make no mistake about it – I truly hate the Hoosiers now.

Q8: Where will Illinois basketball and Illini Nation go from here?

A8: Illinois is arguably the top basketball program in the nation that has never won a national championship. As a result, Illini Nation is essentially in the same state as Red Sox Nation before 2004, meaning that we’re neurotically obsessive about finally getting that championship for experiencing the glory while also shedding a century of baggage. That also entails us being hyper-hyper-hyper-sensitive about everything that happens with our program, ranging from huge events such as this Eric Gordon debacle to minor offhanded comments by Dick Vitale.

Nevertheless, Illinois basketball is a whole lot stronger than Eric Gordon or any other recruit. The very first substantive post that I ever wrote on this blog was entitled “The Paranoia of Illini Nation”, which was a call for Illinois fans to take a step back and try to become the classiest fans in college basketball as opposed to being the most petulant. While it’s fine for us to enhance our hatred of Indiana and refer to Kelvin Sampson as Satan’s Spawn as I described above in order to take care of the fresh open wounds of this spurning by Gordon for the time being because it is definitely a major deal, I hope that we’re still not harping on this same story five years from now. Illini basketball and Illini Nation are strong, so let’s reflect that from this point forward.

(Image from BadgerNation)