Category: Illinois Fighting Illini

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)

Land-o-Links – 10/27/2006

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

The long Bears bye week is finally over. Until Sunday’s game, there’s a smorgasbord of links to start your weekend off right, so let’s get to it:

1) The Marques Colston Travesty (Manning Family Reunion) – I make no apologies for noticing this glitch after Week 1 and immediately picking up Colston for my Yahoo fantasy football team to exploit it. You snooze, you lose.

2) We Have Ways Of Making Your Mascot Talk (Deadspin) – A warning for all of my family members that attended or are attending Penn: this video is a bit disturbing.

3) “The Running of the Brides” (Linda) – My sister was caught on TV this past weekend (it’s one her friends that’s the future bride).

4) Portland Trail Blazers Get Hint After Being Left Off 2006-07 NBA Schedule (The Onion) – Last year, I saw a bunch of Trail Blazers walk into the Las Vegas casino I was staying in at the time. Let’s just say that it was like Grand Theft Auto, only in real life with really tall guys.

5) Slabs Are Joining Scoops in Ice Cream Retailing (New York Times) – Cold Stone Creamery rules.

6) Tom Skilling Gets Out of Jury Duty (Chicagoist) – His brother knows a thing or two about criminal courtrooms.

7) Fire Jay Mariotti (Petition Spot) – Sign me up.

8) That’s Where The Money Is (Free Darko) – Here’s a big reason why I’m excited for the upcoming Bulls season that’s starting on Halloween night.

9) Ray-Ban Hopes to Party Like It’s 1983 By Relaunching Its Wayfarer Shades (Wall Street Journal) – Remember when this fashion trend was cemented by this commentary on the University of Illinois by our favorite Scientologist?

10) Harold Ford Jr. On His Playboy Party (YouTube) – Even by today’s lowlife standards, the Tennessee Senate race has been particularly ugly. Fortunately, Harold Ford Jr. perfectly summed up his reasons for attending a Playboy Party at the Super Bowl last year. Amen, brother!

11) The Cubs Might Kill This Man (Siberian Baseball) – Take it from someone that’s a White Sox fan: hiring Lou Piniella as manager was the right move for the Cubs. I know that there was a sentiment out there to bring in hometown hero Joe Girardi, but savvy baseball fans know that you don’t get much better than Piniella at the helm. The franchise has been putzing around since 1908, so the least that it could have done for its tortured fan base was get the top manager on the market, which it certainly did here.

12) Outside of Michigan and Missouri, Series Taking Hits (MLive.com) – Mike and Mike had some ominous words this morning stating that the game of baseball is in real trouble if the only time people tune into the playoffs are when the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, or Dodgers are involved. For what it’s worth, I’m trying to figure out exactly what deal Tony LaRussa made with the devil to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead over the Tigers in the World Series heading into tonight.

And speaking of the World Series…

13) Indelible Soxtober Snapshots (Chicago Tribune) – One year ago yesterday, I was basking in the glow of the first White Sox World Series Championship since 1917 in the comfort of my home with my wife. What made that Sox season magical was that, unlike the ’85 Bears, the Bulls dynasty of the ’90s, or the ’05 Illinois Final Four run, it truly came out of the blue: I had no expectations for the team whatsoever at the beginning of last year. In fact, I was pretty convinced that I would never see the White Sox win it all in my lifetime. Fortunately, the magic of Ozzie Guillen’s signaling for the fat man from the bullpen, Paul Konerko’s grand slam, Scott Podsednik finding his power stroke twice in the postseason after not hitting a single homerun during the regular season, Geoff Blum coming off of the bench to hit a game-winning RBI after 14 innings, El Duque punching out three straight batters with the bases loaded against the Red Sox, the White Sox starting rotation pitching four straight complete games in the ALCS, A.J. Pierzynksi’s decision to run to first with a phantom ball in the dirt, and Bobby Jenks routinely making that annoying “fire” graphic come up on the Fox radar gun to close the games out made last October one of those months that I’ll be telling my kids about years from now. As for today, though, there’s always next year.

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)

Land-o-Links – 10/10/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

Prediction for next Monday Night’s game: Bears 423, Cardinals -7.

On to today’s links:

1) A Message From Chad and Steve (YouTube) – With hundreds of millions of Google stock in his pocket at age 28, it looks like Steve Chen has leapfrogged me as the most successful member of the Class of 2000 from the University of Illinois.

2) Rocky Horror Football Show (Chicago Tribune) – Eric Zorn’s history of the “There’s a Timeout… Where?… On the Field” ritual between the Soldier Field PA announcer and Bears fans. (Question for the Illini faithful out there: didn’t we do this long before 2000 or is my memory colored? Help me out here!)

3) Zook Defends Decision To Go For Two Early (Chicago Sun-Times) – Initially, I thought Florida fans would have eaten even Bill Belichick alive if he were the first Gator coach to follow Steve Spurrier, but now I’m starting to realize why Ron Zook didn’t last very long in Gainesville.

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4) Most Overexposed Celebrities (Forbes) – No surprise at #1 here, although K-Fed can never be too high for my tastes.

5) Steve Irwin Memorial Meast of the Week – Week 5 (Kissing Suzy Kolber) – A fitting honor for our beloved Bears defense.

And finally…

6) IHEARTBACON.COM – I want to eat my computer right now.

(Image from Deadspin)

Drunk Off Bears Kool-Aid and Illini Juice (Plus Other Random Thoughts)

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

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Alright, I’m excited now. The Bears just mauled the defending NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks on all facets of the game. Rex Grossman is leading a balanced offensive attack brilliantly (with Bernard Berrian turning into a Willie Gault-esque deep threat), while Tommie Harris is blossoming into a star on defense. With the Bears’ next four opponents having only a combined four wins total so far, we’re in excellent shape. I’d still like to have a little more confidence in the running game in the first half, which is going to become more important as the weather starts turning colder, but considering this is pretty much the first time Chicago has had a legitimate passing threat at the quarterback position since the days of Erik Kramer, I’m ecstatic about the offense overall. The most difficult thing for me now is to avoid getting too wrapped up in the Super Bowl Shuffle Redux hype that’s going to blanket the city for the next few months (let’s hope Ricky Manning Jr.’s community service doesn’t include a suspension from the NFL). However, I’ve definitely put the Bears Kool-Aid on ice.

Some other random thoughts:

1) Juice Digs John L. Smith’s Grave – The Bears and Illini winning in the same weekend?! Next thing you know, Screech Powers is going to star in a porno video. Not only did Illinois ruin Michigan State’s homecoming by securing an upset as 25 1/2 point underdogs, but the Illini did it in clutch fashion with Juice Williams leading a charge downfield in with less than three minutes to go in the game to set up the game-winning field goal by Jason Reda. Obviously, there are going to be a lot more growing pains with a freshman quarterback being thrust into Big Ten play, but seeing the potential of what Juice can do is making the future of our program appear a whole lot more positive. (What was up with our team trying to plant a flag on the field after the game, though? That was completely unnecessary and Ron Zook rightly apologized in his postgame press conference.) Needless to say, after the Spartans’ debacles against Notre Dame and Illinois in consecutive weeks, firejohnlsmith.net is extremely fired up. With the next two games on the Illinois schedule being at home against Indiana and Ohio (as opposed to Ohio State), this season could end up looking a whole lot better than what we expected just a week ago.

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2) College Football Potpourri – If all goes according to plan, the Michigan-Ohio State game is going to determine who gets into the national championship game as opposed to “just” a Rose Bowl bid… Troy Smith rules. I still don’t know how the national media got so wrapped up in the Brady Quinn bukkake in the preseason that Smith wasn’t the Heisman Trophy favorite from the get-go. Now they know… After a spanking by Notre Dame (and Darius Walker in particular), Purdue’s defense might very well prove to be the worst in the Big Ten. If the Illini want to make a glorious comeback to vindicate my greenie-induced preseason prediction of the team making a bowl, it’s going to hinge on the Purdue game on November 11th.

3) NFL Football Potpourri – How is it that my one fantasy team that lost Shaun Alexander to the Madden Jinx is taking no prisoners with a perfect record so far, while my other fantasy team with Drew Brees, Edgerrin James, and other solid players is winless? I’ve never had such a dichotomy between my two franchises… When Peyton Manning does what he did against the Jets on Sunday in the playoffs against a top-tier defense, then I’ll take notice of the Colts. Until then, they’re always going to be suspect… As much as the nation might be going through a Terrell Owens hype overload, I’ll admit that I’m extremely excited for T.O.’s return to Philadelphia next week. As someone that has spent more time in Philly than any place other than Chicago since I have so much family that lives there, I’m forecasting a downpour of pill bottles raining onto the Cowboys’ sideline on Sunday. I love Philly fans!

4) Baseball Hangover and Postseason Predictions – You know that feeling where your team has been competitive all year but there’s a sudden point where it’s all over for that team and you lose sight of the fact that the season is still going on? While this happens to Cubs fans every year around the middle of June, the White Sox kept my full attention up until about two weeks ago. Since that time, I’ve been in such a baseball funk that I didn’t realize that the Tigers had blown the AL Central on the last day of the season until last night. The best comparison that I can think of are of the times immediately following Illinois getting eliminated in the NCAA Tournament – I kind of have a hangover for a bit where it’s tough for me to get into the other games. I’ve just about gotten over the malaise where I can watch the baseball playoffs with interest again, so here are my predictions (which you should immediately bet against):

a) AL Division Series: Twins over A’s in 5 (even without Francisco Liriano, Minnesota has the best pitching staff out of the postseason participants and the team has simply been playing out of its mind), Yankees over Tigers in 4 (Detroit has been wheezing for the last couple of months)

b) NL Division Series: Dodgers over Mets in 5 (I’ve been saying all along that the Mets are overrated and with Pedro Martinez being out, they’re bowing out in the first round), Cardinals over Padres (just a gut feeling even though St. Louis has looked awful lately)

c) AL Championship Series – Twins over Yankees in 6 (You can talk about you want about the Yankees’ reincarnation of Murderers’ Row at the plate, but their number one starter is Chien-Ming Wang. Even as a fellow Asian, a 19-game winner with only 76 strikeouts in 218 innings pitched is fool’s gold.)

d) NL Championship Series – Dodgers over Cardinals in 7 (Should turn out to be a great series. There’s some type of magic with L.A. this season.)

e) World Series – Twins over Dodgers in 6 (It doesn’t matter which AL you put into this slot. Whoever comes out of the Junior Circuit side of the bracket is going to smoke the NL champs.)

And finally…

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5) Bull Market Around the Corner – It’s hard to believe, but Bulls training camp has already opened with Ben Wallace at the helm. I just secured tickets to the first meeting of the year between the Bulls and Pistons, so I’m one of the handful of people on Earth ready to get the NBA season started. Let’s just hope our Big Ben sinks just a few more free throws this season.

(Images from Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Tribune again)

I Doubted the Madden Jinx and Got Punk’d (Plus Other Random Thoughts)

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports6 Comments

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I’ve tried to avoid much fantasy sports talk on this blog, but I need to vent here. I heard all of the calls prior to the season about the Madden Jinx and that I should avoid drafting Shaun Alexander for my fantasy football team. However, I’m way too left-brained to believe in such theories, so I ignored all of such talk and grabbed the Seahawks running back when I got the number three pick in one of my drafts (although I would have taken my main man LaDainian Tomlinson if he had been available). Needless to say, we’re not even a month into the season and Shaun Alexander went ahead and broke his foot, meaning that he will be out indefinitely. With the long list of marquee players (compiled nicely by the SportsColumn Blog) either having injuries or numbers drop off drastically immediately after being on the cover of Madden, I’m now a full believer in the jinx. Some other random thoughts:

1) Bears Escape the Hump Dome – Without Tommie Harris, the Bears would have lost Sunday’s game against the Vikings. That being said, Rex Grossman showed that he could rebound from a Favre-esque aggressive mistake with a clutch play at the end. At the same time, it was jarring to no longer see Mike Tice prowl the sidelines in Minnesota after he was hired away in a bidding war by Isiah Thomas to be an assistant coach with the Knicks.

2) Juice Needs Some More Fermenting – Ron Zook finally decided to start Juice Williams at quarterback on Saturday for the Illini, which resulted in the freshman not completing his first 450 passes of the game. I’ve come to the point where I was actually ecstatic when the game was still scoreless near the end of first half for Illinois (although Iowa promptly scoring three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the second quarter snapped me out of my semi-joy). What kind of crack/smack/crank hybrid was I smoking when I said the Illini were going to make a bowl this season?! I’m sure all of you have learned by now to never take me seriously on anything.

3) Sparty Crying in His Irish Coffee – I’ve watched countless Bears and Illini games in my lifetime, which means that I’m a certified expert in pathetic football performances. Therefore, I can unequivocally tell you that Michigan State played the worst fourth quarter I have ever seen in my life against Notre Dame on Saturday. I don’t think anyone watching that game on Saturday thought there was any way that the Irish would come back against the Spartans. In fact, the Chicago Tribune that arrived on my doorstep on Sunday morning, which was published before the game ended, had headlines and a page-long article proclaiming MSU’s dominance along with ripping the lackluster performance of Notre Dame. With the new college rules in place that make the clock run faster than even the NFL and the way that Michigan State was running the ball, even the worst coach could avoid giving up three touchdowns in the final quarter, right? Well, the flurry of turnovers, botched play calls, and the continued insistence of the Spartans to run the option even though they kept getting stuffed as opposed to using their 260-pound running back to pound the ball downhill (it should be noted that ABC announcer and former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie said on multiple occasions that MSU ought to keep using the option to keep the Irish off-balance, which is empirical evidence of why he is no longer coaching anywhere). Congratulations, Michigan State – your 2006 team picture is now next to the definition of “fugly” in the dictionary. I’m not even a Spartan fan and I was mortified by that performance, so you can only imagine how the Enlightened Spartan feels. I think I just saw John L. Smith’s head roll by my desk.

A post-mortem on the disappointing White Sox season will come at some point. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday!

(Image from Wikipedia)

Random Predictions and Land-o-Links for 9/22/2006

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

Predictions for the day: Bears over the Vikings on Sunday, Iowa continues my Illinois misery, Michigan State over Notre Dame in a close one, Alex will hook up with Dr. Addison Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy within the next few episodes (I’ve been convinced of this since the middle of last season), and an angry Tiger Woods will avenge his wife’s honor to lead the U.S. to victory in the Ryder Cup. On to today’s links…

1) The Links of Death (Fleece the Pig, Flog the Pony) – A comprehensive around-the-web roundup on the death of the Chicago White Sox, including a reference to yours truly.

2) Star Wars Lego Orchestra (Linda) – An animated Stormtrooper Lego orchestra performs the Imperial March with Darth Vader as the conductor. ‘Nuff said.

3) ‘Spaceballs’ to Become TV Cartoon (CNN.com) (from Kenny) – Tangentially, I’m really hoping that Pizza the Hut is going to be resurrected.

4) Tribune to Consider Sale of Some Media Assets (New York Times) – For the Cubs fans out there that have been craving for new ownership, it might be around the corner.

5) My Dreams Aren’t All Wet (Chronically Insane) – Despite the classy title of this post, this all has to do with the popularity of soccer in the United States. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Zidane’s World Cup head butt has made him a bigger endorsement commodity than ever.

6) Chief Update Plus the QB Decision (Illinitalk) – I completely agree that it’s time for the Illini to free the Juice.

7) Oh, I’ve Had Those Days (Minneapolis Red Sox) – Heh…

And finally…

8) Toasting Benefits of Social Drinking (Los Angeles Times) – A scientific study shows that drinkers make more money than non-drinkers. Taking into account all of my previous “studying” in college and law school, I should soon be a billionaire.

Have a great weekend and HOORAY BEARS!

13 Hours of Me, My Couch, and College Football

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

I love my house, but when it comes down to it, if I’ve got a couch, a big screen television, and a remote control, I’d be happy living back in a tiny Illinois dorm room again (with TK again, of course). This past Saturday, I finally got an entire day where I didn’t have to be anywhere, so I chose to spend 13 straight hours watching college football, including a record 7 games featuring two ranked teams. Here’s my recap of that glorious day with a handful of links to fan blogs across the nation:

1) Syracuse 31, Illinois 21 (Illinitalk) – Fuck me.

2) Iowa 27, Iowa 17 – It looks like Kirk Ferentz has the Hawkeyes back on track as the Cy-Hawk Trophy returns to Iowa City. Iowa’s secret: easy chicks from Homewood-Flossmoor.

3) Michigan State 38, Pittsburgh 23 (Pitt Blather) – Constant television shots of a furry raccoon-like mustache gazing blankly out onto the field as his team gets reamed. Where have I seen this before? Oh right – it was my personal hell as a Chicago Bears fan during the Clinton Administration. I was reminded again how much I don’t miss Dave Wannstedt in my life. Dare I suggest a Pitt alum that would be perfect as a new head coach… Hurricane Ditka?

4) Boston College 30, BYU 23 (2 OT) – A denominational war between the Catholics and Mormans. Wives on compounds across the Rocky Mountain region are still trying to figure out how BYU could lose when BC’s kicker managed to miss two extra points in the same game. Not even the Pope can explain that one.

5) Michigan 47, Notre Dame 21 (mgoblog) – Speaking of Catholics, I’ve gotten a ton of prognostications wrong on this blog, but knowing that Notre Dame was completely overrated this year wasn’t one of them. Michigan’s defense smashed the Irish to grab some honor back for the Big Ten in the wake of Notre Dame waxing Penn State last week. As much as it pains me to say this, it was nice to see the Wolverines expose the flaws of the Irish with so many people convinced that Charlie Weis is a genius. My Notre Dame fan friends have still failed to give me any compelling reason as to why Weis is already next in line for the papacy when he had the exact same record (9-3) in his first season as Tyrone Willingham. However, it’s going to take three or four bottles of Febreeze for me to get rid of the filthy stench of spending three hours cheering for Michigan.

5) Auburn 7, LSU 3 – With the Notre Dame-Michigan game out of hand by the end of the first quarter, this SEC West matchup was fortunately an instant classic that went down to the wire. I picked Auburn to make it to the national championship game and as long as the defense plays like they did on Saturday, the Tigers (the Auburn ones as opposed to the LSU ones – you know you’re a redneck if you put two teams with the same nicknames in the same division in the same conference) are on their way to fulfilling that prediction.

6) Oregon 34, Oklahoma 33 – There needs to be some kind of fashion rule about Oregon not being able to wear its uniforms after Labor Day.

(UPDATE: By now, you’ve probably heard of the messed up call on an onside kick by the instant replay official that resulted in Oregon scoring to win the game (you can see footage of it here), which has subsequently caused the Pac-10 suspending the game’s entire officiating crew and the obligatory death threats from Sooner fans. It’s like Illinois-Michigan in 2000 all over again.)

7) A’s 7, White Sox 4 (Chi-Sox Blog) (baseball break) – Fuck me twice.

8) Southern Illinois 35, Indiana 28 – I saw this score on ESPN’s bottom line and chortled heartily. The Pillow Fight of the Century is set for October 7th in Champaign.

9) Texas 52, Rice 7 – A preview of the Illinois-Ohio State game on November 4th.

10) Northern Illinois 31, Buffalo 13 – Whenever some random person has claimed that NIU would beat the Illini head-to-head, which is something I’ve heard virtually everyday for a couple of years now, I scoffed since no matter what the teams’ records might have been, I always believed that the gap between the talent levels of athletes that are in the Big Ten as opposed to the MAC was too huge. Now, however, I realize that I’m an idiot.

11) Arizona State 21, Colorado 3 – All is right with the world as the stars of Girls Gone Wild beat the snowboarding stoners.

12) Clemson 27, Florida State 20 – I thought Mike Patrick was buried underneath the end zone at the Meadowlands after ESPN decided to use Mike Tirico as its announcer for Monday Night Football, but the “Are you kidding me?!” calls for running backs barely getting back to the line of scrimmage ended up returning for the Bowden Bowl. As a result, my speakers were blown out during Clemson’s stunning march downfield to end the game. All of this occurred after the Tigers (yet another southern team named the Tigers, albeit in the ACC) had 2 blocked kicks that were returned by FSU for scores, which led to Tommy Bowden, in the best sideline interview since Joe Namath tried to kiss Suzy Kolber, proclaiming that he’s never kicking the ball again. This marks the first time that a major college football coach has chosen to employ Frank the Tank’s No Kicking in Madden Strategy. Seeing that I have taken several putrid Bears teams to the Super Bowl with this gameplan (when I say “putrid”, I mean “Moses Moreno is the highest rated quarterback on the team putrid”), I knew that it would catch on at some point.

13) USC 28, Nebraska 10 (Conquest Chronicles) – Matt Leinart’s replacement as the USC quarterback is named Booty. Heh-heh, Beavis.

14) Florida 21, Tennessee 20 – Unlike the Notre Dame-Michigan and USC-Nebraska games, this matchup lived up to the hype with a back-and-forth thriller. Judging by how closely matched this game and the Auburn-LSU tilt were, the claims that the SEC is the top conference in the nation this year are well founded – all four of the participants in the big conference games of the day ought to be in the top ten.

15) Texas A&M 28, Army 24 – What was supposed to be an after-dinner mint to the huge rivalry games ended up being the most exciting contest of the day. When Army stuffed A&M on a misguided decision to go for it on fourth down while still in Aggie territory instead of punting it with less than 3 minutes to go, I thought destiny was on the service academy’s side. It certainly looked to be that way when A&M committed a pass interference penalty in the end zone and Army got the ball on the 2-yard line with only seconds left to go in the game. Alas, the Aggies’ strength and athleticism prevented Army from punching a touchdown in and scoring the biggest upset of the week. While it was a bummer to see an underdog, especially one with our nation’s future military leaders, come so close and not make it, the game summed up the beauty of college football: kids giving it all with heart and passion for the name on the front of the jersey instead of the one on the back. I can’t wait to watch it all again next week.