Category: DePaul Blue Demons

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)

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.

A Modest Proposal for the Big East Tournament

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, SportsLeave a comment

When the Big East Conference announced that it was adding DePaul to its roster of schools, two primary thoughts came to my mind. First, I was excited to see DePaul reaffirm its long-standing Catholic university rivalries with Notre Dame and Marquette while adding on top notch eastern opponents such as UConn, Syracuse, and Georgetown. My next immediate thought was how great it would be to watch DePaul play in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden in March every year no matter how the team’s season went.

Well, the second thought is going to be held off until at least next year. The Big East decided to have only the top 12 teams out of the 16-team conference make it to New York for the tournament, which began yesterday. DePaul fell on the short-end this season.

A number of Big East coaches (and not just the ones who aren’t in New York this week) have complained that this format is going to put immense pressure on the coaches that don’t make it to the conference tourney. Plus, every school wants the opportunity to wine and dine its alums and supporters in Manhattan once a year. Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, however, didn’t want to have a 16-team tourney because he wanted to avoid forcing the top seeds to play 4 games to win the championship.

Tranghese is correct in his concern. The top seeds in the tournaments for the five other BCS conferences only need to play 3 games to win their respective championships. The last thing the Big East wants is for its top teams (who are usually Final Four contenders) to be exhausted heading into the NCAA Tournament.  Yet, there’s a way for the Big East to preserve an advantage for its top seeds and still invite all 16 teams to the Mecca of Basketball: make the conference tournament into a 5-round extravaganza.

Here’s how it would work. The bottom 8 seeds would play in the first round. The 5th through 8th seeds would receive a first round-bye and play the winners from the first round in the second round. The top 4 seeds would get byes for the first 2 rounds and meet the second round victors in the quarterfinals.

This format allows the top seeds to only have to play 3 games to win the championship. At the same time, it gives the bottom teams a chance to participate but they need to run the gauntlet of 5 games to win the tournament. That means that the chances of a fluke team getting the Big East automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament are slim, which is how it should be. Finally, as a fan, think of what the first 3 rounds would be like – 3 straight days of quadruple-headers of college basketball at the highest level!

Under this proposal, the fans get more meaningful games, the bottom-feeders get the opportunity to go to the Garden, the top teams still have the same advantage in terms of the number of games they need to play as they do in the present structure, and the Big East and its members get one more day of television and ticket revenue. What’s not to love?

Big Ben Wins the Beard Bowl and Other Weekend Sports Tidbits

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

Despite the worst two conference championship games in recent memory (although I at least didn’t repeat the debacle known as my divisional playoff predictions), there was a lot going on in the world of sports this past weekend, particularly on the basketball court:

1) AFC Championship Game: Beard Bowl is a Big Ben Beatdown – The Steelers are the gold standard of where the Bears want to be.  Pittsburgh has a stifling defense coupled with a powerful running game, much like the Bears did this past season.  However, as Rick Morrissey aptly pointed out in today’s Chicago Tribune, the biggest reason why the Steelers are heading to Motown while the Bears are staying home is that Ben Roethlisberger can do a whole lot more than just “manage” a game – he brings a ton to the quarterback position in terms of passing accuracy, mobility, and poise.  Plus, Bill Cowher has completely shocked everyone by turning his QB loose and stretching the field out with aggressive passing plays over the last two games.  The Steelers have been completely in rythm on offense.

At the same time, Jesus H. Unabomber, er, I mean Jake Plummer finally showed his true colors and imploded as predicted here and elsewhere.  The interception he threw five seconds after the Broncos got decent field position for the first time all day was about as predictable as Jason going on a killing spree in a Friday the 13th movie.  Plummer’s fantastic beard couldn’t hide the fact that he just isn’t a guy you can depend on in crunch time.

2) NFC Championship Game: Holmgren Climbs Hasselback Mountain – Watching this game was essentially 3 hours of “what if” questions going through my mind, as in, “What if the Bears had double-teamed Steve Smith?”  The Panthers offense was clueless yesterday with the Seahawks draping two or more defenders over Smith the entire game.  Troy Aikman appropriately called the Bears “arrogant” for believing that they could stick to single coverage on Smith last week.  The Seahawks weren’t stupid and cocky on defense regarding the Panther wide receiver and made the needed adjustments, which is why Seattle is headed to their first Super Bowl this season while we here in Chicago continue to buy books about the ’85 Bears.

Meanwhile, Matt Hasselback has come a long way from his “We want the ball and we’re going to score” comment against the Packers after the overtime coinflip in a 2004 playoff game at Lambeau.  This guy looks like a Super Bowl quarterback.  Mike Holmgren has probably cemented his standing as the best teacher of quarterbacks in history, with Joe Montana, Steve Young, Brett Favre, and now Hasselback under his belt.

3) Two More Weeks??? – Other than the fact that the games themselves were terrible this year, the worst thing about conference championship weekend is that we all have to wait two friggin’ weeks until the Super Bowl.  The Super Bowl should actually feature a pretty good matchup this year, but I don’t know how many human-interest stories can be milked from the Pittsburgh – Seattle pairing for two whole weeks.

4) Here Comes McBride – Richard McBride, it’s a pleasure to see you again.  Hitting four three-pointers was a very good thing on Saturday.  It was an even better thing to see the Illini notch their first Big Ten road victory, even if it was against Northwestern.  In addition to McBride, Dee Brown and James Augustine got back on track in the victory.  The only thing that troubles me is that Illinois didn’t completely shut the door on the Wildcats in the second half.  Northwestern never really got back into the game, but it’s disheartening to see a 20-plus point lead dwindle to 10-points in a matter of minutes.  We still need to improve on closing out games if we want to win another Big Ten title and make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

5) DePaul is Done – Unfortunately, this is probably going to be the last time I write about DePaul in the near future since the Blue Demons have gone in the past week from an NCAA Tournament bubble team to a club that is unlikely to even make the Big East Conference Tournament.  After losing to Providence on Saturday, DePaul has dropped to 1-5 in Big East play and 8-9 overall.  With the toughest games of the season remaining on their schedule (i.e. Georgetown, Villanova, at St. John’s, at Louisville, and Syracuse) the Blue Demons are pretty much out of it when it comes to any type of postseason play.  DePaul freshman forward Wilson Chandler looks like a stud, but the team is at least a year away from making the NCAA Tournament.

6) Kobe’s 81 – On the one hand, Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance on Sunday evening might be the greatest individual performance in a regular season NBA game ever.  It is certainly a whole lot tougher for a perimeter player such as Kobe to drop that many points compared to a big man like Wilt Chamberlain (whose size compared to the rest of the league was even more of a factor in the NBA of the ’60s).

On the other hand, Kobe’s career seems to be the inverse of Michael Jordan’s and that’s a very bad thing for the Lakers.  The highest individual numbers for Jordan came in the first few seasons of his career – it wasn’t until he figured out that he needed to get the rest of his team involved that he started to win championships.  Kobe found great success as a team player at the beginning of his career in winning three rings with the Lakers.  Now, as Kobe gets older, he seems to be taking more shots and getting higher individual marks even though his team gets worse.

So, as amazing as Kobe’s non-Wilt record 81-point game was last night, the trajectory of his basketball career is headed in the completely wrong direction.

Land-o-Links – 1/13/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Land-o-Links, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

DePaul played a spirited game against Pittsburgh last night in their first “true” Big East game (the first two conference games were against long-time rivals Cincinnati and Notre Dame), but a fast start for the Blue Demons petered out in the second half and they ended up losing 73-65.  Still, DePaul actually looked pretty good on the road against one of the last three unbeaten teams in college basketball.

Also, Kobe Bryant ended up on the winning end in his matchup against LeBron James last night, but LeBron showed me why he gets paid $100 million by Nike.  With 5 seconds to go in the first half, Drew Gooden of the Cavs stole the ball from the Lakers and dribbled down the court to his own baseline.  At the last moment, he passed the ball back to LeBron, who seriously launched himself from the free throw line and posterized my poor fellow Illini brother Brian Cook with such a powerful tomahawk slam that I, at home in my pajamas beginning to doze off while channel surfing as my wife and cat were sleeping next to me on the couch, jumped out of my seat and yelled, “Wow!”  What makes LeBron special is that when Gooden stole that ball with 5 seconds left (remember, LeBron didn’t even have the ball in his hands at that point), everyone watching was anticipating something spectacular and Lebron subsequently delivered it on demand.  There’s only one other athlete I’ve ever seen deliver such combination of brilliance, tenacity, and power on demand every single day – Michael Jordan.

Anyway, here are the links for today:

1) Blackhawks Have Rare Televised Home Game – Unfrozen Caveman Hockey Team Owner: “I know nothing of your ‘television’ or the ‘fan base’ that you speak of.”

2) The Wu is Back – Following on the heels of the launch of his doll announced in Land-o-Links on Monday, Ghostface is now “smoke free” (just in time for Chicago’s new smoking ban), plus has a new album and a Wu-Tang Clan reunion tour lined up.

3) White Like Larry – Spin/Esquire/ESPN.com writer Chuck Klosterman writes a fantastic piece that brings up unique points on racial stereotyping of athletes, including the revealing of Malcom Gladwell’s (author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”) “White Gunner Theory.”  How many times do we all think the way that Klosterman and Gladwell describe here?

4) Maryland Senate Overrides Veto on ‘Wal-Mart Bill’ – I know a lot of my readership doesn’t have much love for Wal-Mart, but this is populism run amok.

And finally…

5) New Jersey Selects New Slogan (submitted by Matt) – In honor of my sister who’s attending grad school at Montclair State University.  Matt’s comment is appropriate: “Story is – eh, whatever.  Subhead is outstanding.”

 

Demons Dog the Irish

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Sports3 Comments

When it comes to college sports, I’m an Illini fanatic first and foremost, which is reflected in my blog.  However, in the wake of my attending DePaul’s solid 73-67 victory over old Catholic school/new Big East Conference rival Notre Dame on Saturday, let’s take a moment to examine the state of my law school alma mater’s basketball program.

DePaul has been extremely inconsistent so far in its inaugural season with Jerry Wainwright at the coaching helm.  The Demons have had solid wins against Wake Forest, Northwestern, and Notre Dame, but were handled by smaller schools such as Ol’ Dirty University and Northern Illinois.  At this point, DePaul is a bubble team for this year’s NCAA Tournament at best, particularly with the team facing its first season in the brutal and bloated Big East.  With the development of junior guard Sammy Mejia and promising freshman forward Wilson Chandler (21 points and 12 rebounds against the Irish on Saturday), however, look for the Blue Demons to compete in the upper echelon of the Big East in the 2006-07.

DePaul Victorious Over Notre Dame       DePaul - ND #2

As for the long-term state of the DePaul program, there are two major issues – the first is positive and the second is negative.  First, Big East membership will result in an initial boon to DePaul in terms local interest in the Chicago media market.  DePaul gets to cement its long-standing rivalries with Midwestern Catholic universities Notre Dame and Marquette while establishing new ties East Coast spiritual cousins such as St. John’s and Georgetown.

At the same time, being able to play Big East heavyweights like Syracuse and UConn on a regular basis gives DePaul the chance to recapture some of the media attention that the school used to receive up until the end of the 1980s.  Before the arrival of Michael Jordan, DePaul was the biggest sports story in Chicago every winter.  Today, though, the Illini and the Big Ten clearly receive the lion’s share of college sports coverage in Chicago (those who might disagree should check the front of the sports sections of the Chicago Tribune from this past Friday and Sunday – blanket coverage of the Illini games against MSU and Iowa relegated the Bulls, Blackhawks, the DePaul-Notre Dame game, and the NFL playoffs to spots deep inside the paper).

Still, it’s not just enough for DePaul to simply join the Big East – the Demons need to establish a winning program within that conference.  Otherwise, DePaul is going to be to the Big East what Northwestern basketball is to the Big Ten: a Chicago outpost whose arena is filled up every game with fans of the opponents.

Speaking of the arena, DePaul’s other major issue is that the team’s home gym is going to be an albatross on the program for the foreseeable future.  DePaul is blessed with arguably the best campus location of any urban college in the nation in Lincoln Park (Greenwich Village is funky but NYU really doesn’t have a true campus like DePaul, while Lincoln Park has a lot more going on both day and night than Georgetown), which is a huge reason why the school consistently has the happiest student body anywhere.

Yet, instead of having students and alums take in college basketball in a fantastic city neighborhood setting that would rival the experience of going to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, DePaul fans need to schlep up to an arena 30 minutes from campus where you need to duck the airplanes flying over the parking lot and pay $5 for a Polish sausage that isn’t half as tasty as the old $2 Polish-and-fries combo at the now-defunct Demon Dogs under the Fullerton El tracks (by the way, not being able stumble into Demon Dogs after a long evening of, er, studying in Lincoln Park is one of the top ten things I miss about living in the city – how dare the CTA take it all away).

Demon Dogs' Last Day

The university wants an on-campus arena, the students want an on-campus arena, the alums want an on-campus arena, and recruits want an on-campus arena.  However, there’s a realization by all parties that this probably will never happen.  Even if there were enough land available in Lincoln Park to build a facility, the cost to buy such land would be so astronomical that a 10,000 to 15,000-seat basketball arena would be more expensive to construct than the United Center or the new Soldier Field.  DePaul’s Big East affiliation will only go so far in attracting talent when recruits see the school’s Big Ten competitors with first-class on-campus facilities that teem with rabid students and fans every game.  If St. John’s is having trouble getting recruits to come because of the lack of an on-campus arena and the Red Storm play in the Mecca of Basketball A.K.A. Madison Square Garden, think of the disadvantage DePaul faces when its arena is the aging Allstate Arena next to a bunch of O’Hare runways.

The only way I can see the stadium situation being mitigated is if DePaul can move its home games to the United Center.  At least the games would be a lot closer for students and playing in the House that Jordan Built would be a bit better of a selling point for recruits.  Unfortunately, this isn’t even a possibility for several years since the City of Rosemont agreed to remodel Allstate Arena in exchange for DePaul committing to playing its home schedule there for the foreseeable future (this was the reason why Allstate Arena was able to snag last year’s NCAA Chicago Regional Final A.K.A. the greatest game I have ever seen in any sport at any level – you Illini fans don’t need any explanation).

So, DePaul’s basketball program is looking upward as a new Big East member, but the Blue Demons will also be constantly fighting an uphill battle in recruiting as long as they play in Rosemont.  Of course, there are few programs that can lay claim to having everything perfect, so here’s to hoping that Jerry Wainwright can bring back the buzz and add to the tradition of DePaul basketball that was advanced by another attendee of Saturday’s game: the great Ray Meyer.

Rex in Effect

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

Well, there’s no longer a quarterback controversy in Chicago.  The Bears mauled the Frozen Dirty Birds 16-3 at Soldier Field last night as Kyle Orton got yanked for Rex Grossman in the second half.  Like a cowboy gunslinging back into town (by cowboy, I mean the Clint Eastwood-type as opposed to the Jake Gyllenhaal-type), Grossman’s return to action showed the potential of the Bears having some semblance of a passing game.  Kudos to Lovie Smith and Ron Turner for calling the long pass play from Grossman to Mushin Muhammad right out of the gate – the bold move to change the QB midstream would not have meant anything if wasn’t backed up with aggressive play-calling.  Of course, Grossman still had to channel the spirit of A.J. Pierzynski after throwing a goal line pick that was fumbled right back by the Falcons on the same play.  The Bears offense did look like it changed attitudes after the QB change, but as excited as I am with these developments, this was only one half of a football game and Grossman still threw a pretty bad interception.  We should hold off drinking the Kool-Aid of how great this offense is going to be for the rest of the season and postseason.  Let’s just call it a positive step for now.

For all of the headlines Rex is receiving in today’s papers (Rick Morrissey, Mike Downey, and Jay Mariotti are all predictably gushing), the Bears defense once again won the game last night in what was probably their best performance of the season to date.  In addition to 2 interceptions, they held Michael Vick to 122 yards passing, 35 yards rushing, and, most amazingly, ZERO “Are you kidding me?!” calls from Mike Patrick.  When the average NFL QB, much less Vick, receives about 5 “Are you kidding me?!” calls from Mike Patrick for routine passing plays on any given Sunday night game and your defense holds the opposing QB to zero, that defense has done its job not only for your team but also the ears of every ESPN viewer in the country.

We should also take a moment to reflect on Kyle Orton since it seems that a lot of Bears fans are just piling on him right now.  This guy was drafted in the 4th round this year with the intent of him being #3 on the Bears depth chart.  After Rex broke his ankle in the preseason and the Bears finally figured out that Chad Hutchinson is a much better surfer than passer, the team, without any other viable alternative, threw Orton in there.

At the beginning of the year, most sane Bears fans thought we would be lucky to do a repeat of the 5-11 record from the 2004 season with a rookie QB at the helm.  Instead, we’re now looking at the Bears possibly clinching the NFC North division title on Christmas Day against, of all teams, the Packers on the Frozen Tundra (I can’t tell you how beautiful that sounds).  While Orton may never be a player that an NFL team could build an offense around, he largely has played mistake-free football for 13 weeks, which can’t be said of guys like Brett Favre.  Let’s all thank him for making a huge contribution for what’s been an incredible season so far.

Other Weekend Sports Tidbits:

1) The Vikings Not Currently Incarcerated Finally Lose – The Steelers continued their romp through the NFC North by pasting the Vikings in the Hump Dome.  This thankfully gives the Bears a 2-game cushion in the division with 2 games to go.  At the same time, the Vikings’ inexplicable 6-game winning streak before yesterday practically guarantees us to see another year of the coaching train wreck formerly known as Mike Tice.  Man, this season has gone so well for the Bears on so many levels.

2) Don’t Be Fooled Again: Pats Will Win the AFC – After witnessing the Patriots’ deconstruction of the Bucs on Saturday, I became convinced that New England is heading to the Super Bowl yet again (and this was before the Colts’ quest for perfection was stomped out by San Diego).  I don’t care how the Colts spanked the Pats in Foxboro a few Monday nights ago or if the AFC Championship will be played on the carpet of the RCA/Hoosier/firemikedavis.com Dome – Bill Belicheck has adjusted his defense to compensate for that unit’s rash of injuries and the offense is humming along.  I’m calling it right now – the Patriots will beat the Colts in the playoffs.

3) Illini Sloppily Roll Over the City of Coppin (State) – From all accounts I’ve seen of this game, the 19-point margin of victory by the Illini last night over Coppin State was illusory.  16 turnovers and trouble against yet another zone defense doesn’t sound very pleasing.  Maybe our guys were, uh, a little groggy from studying for finals all week.  Still, for all of the game-to-game inconsistencies in terms of quality of play, the Illini continue to be extremely consistent in grabbing victories by pushing their record to 11-0 and have vaulted to #6 in the latest AP and Coaches’ Polls.

4) Ol’ Dirty Wants DePaul’s Money – Jeez, any complaints about the inconsistency of the Illini are quashed by the bipolar performances of DePaul.  Literally moments after a triumphant upset of #16 Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, the Blue Demons suffered the worst defeat in their program’s entire history on Saturday in a road game against Colonial Athletic Association power Ol’ Dirty University.  ODU more than doubled up on DePaul in a ridiculous 87-43 game.  I really have no clue on what to expect from the Demons when they get initiated into the Big East in a couple of weeks.

5) Detroit Roadblock Part II and a Coach Dale Whuppin’ – It’s starting to feel like the world prior to 1991 again, when a young Bulls team kept making strides until getting slapped back to Earth by the Detroit Pistons.  The only difference is that the old Bad Boy Pistons teams were dirty and evil thugs (I have never hated nor will I ever hate an athlete more than Bill Laimbeer.  Larry Bird once said “God was disguised as Michael Jordan” when His Airness was on the basketball court.  By that same token, Satan’s Spawn was disguised as Bill Laimbeer) while the current Pistons play brilliant lock-down defense while passing the ball on offense as well as any team in the NBA.  So, it wasn’t a shock that the Bulls were pulverised by the Detroit by 28 points on Friday evening.  Fortunately, Scott Skiles went Norman Dale on the team by running them through a full 2-hour practice right before their Saturday evening game against the Celtics.  Coach Skiles might need to do this more often – the Bulls went out and trounced Boston by 32 points while hitting 14 out of 17 from the 3-point arc.

Anyway, any weekend with victories by the Bears, Illini, and Bulls is a great sports weekend.  I’ll have much more on the Illini following Wednesday night’s Braggin’ Rights Game against Mizzou.  Plus, I’ll reveal the celebrity that Mizzou coach Quin Snyder spookily reminds me of.