When you asked how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?

I haven’t written much about basketball lately.

I’ve written about the fans, elbows, Buffy, Stripes, expectations, but very little about actual basketball.

I’m not sure my mom ever told me, “if you can’t find anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But enough mom’s on TV have said it, so I think that counts. But it’s not really that I don’t have anything nice to say, because there are definitely some if not good, then less-bad aspects to our play recently, it’s more that it takes a lot longer to find those nice things to say than it does to find the flaws in our play and to this point I’ve been reticent to criticize this team too severely.

I’ve held back because I didn’t really think it was productive to kick them when they were down, but as George Wallace once said,

“segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?”

Not THAT George Wallace. George Wallace, the comedian. As he once said, “Can you tell me a better time to kick a man? Your foot is just that much closer to their head.”

I also held back because, despite my belief prior to the season that we could be a team that was fighting to be close to .500, I had come to realize just how far this team had to come to get back to where we would like them to be and we weren’t going to get there this year. So, in effect, why bother taking a shit on this team.

But after they quit against Northwestern, I’m kind of done holding back.

I have been a glass half full type of IU fan this season. Giving credit for effort and trying very hard to mark our improvement on a separate sheet from the one I use for our wins and losses. And, as I view this entire season as part one of a much longer season, I’m still pretty optimistic, but I’m just tired.

I can’t take any more basketball like this. I thought we had a very good chance to beat Northwestern. I thought we had a decent chance of beating Wisconsin. But since we beat Iowa we’ve averaged 54 points per game while giving up 71 points per game. Our second halves have been terrible. And we still turn the ball over with roughly the same frequency that the Dude and Walter drop F-bombs.

We have five games left in this season and I, for one, will be happy to see it go. I am anxious to begin looking forward to next season with a fresh group of guys. I haven’t gone to watch IU recruits play since I was a little kid, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that this summer. I need to see that there is hope for us, because right now, for these last five games, hope is in short supply.

This is my theme song right now for IU basketball because

And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Are we who you thought we were?

Well, it’s been a year. Happy Anniversary everyone! I hope you can forgive the lateness of my card, coming as it does, two after our actual anniversary.

It was on February 22nd 2008 that Kelvin Sampson was finally no longer a going concern as IU basketball coach.

So, since it is our anniversary, it seems like a good time to take stock of where we are now, to look back over the last year and inch the door just that much closer to closed.

I’d rather not rehash everything that has happened over the last year. If you’re reading this, I’m working under the assumption that you know all of it. What I’d like to do is ask a question.

Are we where you thought we’d be? After one year of rebuilding, are we where you thought we’d be at this point in the season? Now’s a good time to be honest. If you are disappointed, pissed, hopeful, comforted, pleased shout it out. There are no wrong answers.

I’ll tell you what I think in a later post. I’d hate to skew the results one way or another. I do have an opinion, though I don’t guess that’s hard for you to imagine.

But, I’m curious about yours.

Are we where you thought we’d be? Why or why not? What did you expect? Better? Worse? More Kip Schutz?

Blown Up, Sir!

I’m pretty sure I saw my uncle in the stands at the IU game against Wisconsin. It was right before the half and he was sitting on the left-hand side of the screen. He was on screen for a good five seconds, wearing this hideous yellow sweater and clapping.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t actually at the game. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever been to an IU game. The closest he’s ever come to an IU game was Fort Knox, KY.

Let me explain. In 1980, my uncle took his wife and three daughters with him to Fort Knox to watch a movie being filmed. They sat in the stands for three days, I think, and watched as a rag-tag group of Army misfits struggled their way through the graduation ceremony of their basic training course.

He ended up in the final cut of the film. You can’t miss him. Hideous yellow sweater, clapping.

Go ahead, check it out. It’s at the 1:13:36 mark of Stripes. It’s about halfway through the movie, and roughly one minute before the movie stops being good.

That’s why I’m fairly certain I saw him at the IU game just before halftime, wearing his yellow sweater and clapping. It was roughly one minute before we stopped being any good as well.

We are the Stripes of basketball teams. We start out strong and fun to watch, then about halfway through, we are put in charge of the EM50 project, Uncle Hulka returns, some of the team ends up imprisoned in Czecheslovakia and needs to be rescued by the rest of the team driving a heavily armed recreational vehicle.

The second half just doesn’t make sense.

Do you realize that we scored a field goal at the 19:41 mark of the 2nd half, then didn’t score another one until the 9:34 mark, then didn’t score another one until the 2:31 mark. That’s three field goals in 17 minutes of play after we shot a Packer Method 61% in the first half.

We might as well be going on a top secret mission to Italy with Ox and Francis.

I’ll go you one further. I think Tom Crean is our Big Toe. Our Unlce Hulka. He is a consummate professional and he’s charge of a group of guys who can’t seem to get it right no matter what they do. He looks like he’s been blown up in the middle of practice sometimes, and if you listened to any of his recent press conferences he sounds just as pissed at this team as Uncle Hulka was at his team.

And lastly, and I’m not sure I even need to point this out, it’s so obvious, but Devan Dumas, is a lot like Ox, he’s swallowed a lot of aggression, along with a lot of pizza.

I was able to find proof on-line. Please enjoy my Uncle Joe and his sweater.

The Weight of the World

Late in season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after Dawn had been taken by Glory for the purpose of bleeding her to open the gateway between all dimensions, so that she, Glory, could return to her own dimension and return to her full-godly state, Buffy slipped into a catatonic state. Willow had to use her powers are a Wicca to penetrate Buffy’s dream-state and coax her back to reality so they could go fight, Glory, save Dawn and finish the season already.

I’m sorry if this spoils parts of season five for you, or if don’t watch Buffy, but I’m coming to my point, never you fret.

Willow follows Buffy around through a number of memories, a series of repeating memories. Its clear that these memories hold some meaning and they were the key to unlocking this catatonic state. The memory that seemed to stand out from the rest as being plainly ordinary was one of Buffy returning a book to a shelf in the Magic Box.

Willows says, “Right here, it happened. I know it’s something small, but it’s something. . . What happened here?”
Buffy says, “This is when I quit, Will. Just for a second. . . I put a book back for Giles. . .and then it hit me. . . I can’t beat Glory. Glory is going to win. . .And in that second of knowing it, Will, I wanted it to happen. . . I wanted it over. This is, all of this, is too much for me. I just wanted it over. . . I would grieve. People would feel sorry for me, but it would be over and I imagined what a relief it would be.”

Somewhere in the middle of the second half against Minnesota the other night, I knew exactly what Buffy was talking about. While watching the second half of that game, I gave up. Just for a second. But I thought, I just want this to be over. All the pain of this season. It’s just too much for me to deal with. Let’s get to the end of this season so we can start looking forward to better times ahead and not be stuck where we are right now. What a relief that would be.

By the end of that game I was so ashamed of myself for that brief second of defeatism, because here I sit, in my living room watching IU play, giving up. And those kids on the court never did. Not for one second. They fought all the way to the end of the game. Long past the point where I knew they weren’t going to be able to overcome their obstacles. They fought.

This team continues to fight, regardless of the odds of success or the repeated proof that no matter how hard they fight, it’s just not going to be enough. They fight.

So, shame on me. Shame on me for that one brief second of giving in to the despair of this season.

If these kids can continue to fight, then I can suck it up and continue to cheer for them.

I can’t. We can’t allow ourselves to start looking forward when there is still now to focus on. This season isn’t over. The chances to learn, improve, and yes, even win, are not gone.

After such self-indulgence, there’s no easy way out.

Try not to be a moron

I have been following the ongoing drama of the possible Sirius XM bankruptcy/take over/whatever is going on with great interest. I have also been reading the comment threads following these articles and I am so annoyed by most of these people I’m about to scream. So, instead of going crazy there, I’m going to spread some common sense here.

1.) To all the people who point to the Howard Stern contract as the reason the company is in trouble. You are morons. Most of these comments come from people who don’t like Stern, and that’s fine. He’s certainly not for everyone, but he has been worth every penny the invested in him. When they signed him, Sirius had roughly 700,000 subscribers and XM had somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 million. That was in January of 2006. By the middle of 2007 Sirius had around 7 million subscribers to XM’s 9 or so million. That type of growth is insane and there’s no way they get there without Stern. Like him or not, he has a following. Because of him, Sirius went from no name recognition and very few listeners to forcing a merger with XM.

2.) I bought Sirius for both my dad and brother last Christmas, 2007. They both love it. Their musical tastes could not be more divergent. When one product can completely satisfy two sets of tastes so far apart, it is a product with a HUGE upside. This company will be worth a lot in the long run.

3.) This is a brand new industry with insane start up costs. Not only the R&D to develop all the technology from the radios to the antennas to the satellites, but they had to launch satellites into space. Ive never done that, but I feel pretty confident in saying, “That ain’t cheap.” Plus, they have to provide content and talent. They have probably overpaid for some of their talent, but to lure people away from their current gigs and get some high profile people they needed to pay for it.

4.) Anyone who says people aren’t willing to pay for radio is also a moron. I don’t know anyone who has tried satellite radio and said, “no thanks, terrestrial is better. I prefer 30 minutes of commercials per hour.” They have 20 Million subscribers and their problem is not that they are losing subscribers. They’re still adding subscribers, just not as fast as they had been/would be if the economy wasn’t in the tank.

5.) The government dragged their feet on the merger for 18 months. It was a ridiculous waist of time and it hurt both companies. They needed to merge for cost purposes and because of the long merger process they spent 18 months spending money at a much higher rate than they would have if they had been allowed to merge earlier. The debt situation right now would not be this bad if they hadn’t been obstructed by this.

6.) If the economy wasn’t in such bad shape they wouldn’t have any trouble restructuring this debt.

Finally, the problem isn’t the product, or the willingness of people to pay for it. It’s basically timing. Whether they end up restructuring through Chapter 11, or whether there is some sort of deal worked out with Directv or Echostar, Sirius XM isn’t going anywhere.

Meatheads.

I don’t think they teach sarcasm to 4th graders

This morning, as the fourth graders in charge of raising and lowering the flag reentered the building, I complimented them on the job they did and thought back to the condition the flag was in after school yesterday, which was, well, wet is not a strong enough word to describe it.

I said to one of them, sarcastically, as they passed, “How much fun was it to take the flag down yesterday?” Thinking what a pain in the ass it must have been to perform that task in a downpour.

The answer I received was, “OH MY GOD SO MUCH FUN!!!!”

She then went on to tell me all about holding the umbrella while the other two girls tried to fold the flag in the rain. It sounded like more fun than I’ve had in a long time, even though I know I would have been annoyed.

In some ways, fourth graders and I are very different people.

Gentlemen, You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!

I was reading Bob Kravitz’s column in the Indianapolis Star this morning about Devan Dumes and his special off the court situation. It seems that Devan has an 8-month old baby that was sick this last week and this was weighing on him. He decided to take out his frustrations with his elbows on cheeks, backs and groins.

Kravitz wasn’t making an excuse for him and neither am I, but I will say this. He’s not alone. What I learned from my semester as an Abnormal Psych major at California University and wikipedia is that there’s this thing called transference. It’s basically taking out your feelings for one person on another.

There have been many examples of this throughout recorded history.

This is perhaps the worst case scenario. Brig. General Jack D. Ripper, who after feeling a sense of exhaustion and emptiness following the physical act of love, came to a startling realization. His precious bodily fluids were being depleted through the most insidious of all communist plots, the fluoridation of our water supply. Not only did begin to deny women his essence, but he also began an elaborate plan to send nuclear war codes and attack orders to all of the fighters near the Soviet Union. Fortunately all of the fighters were called back. Unfortunately, one of them wasn’t. And then there was the issue of the secret Soviet Doomsday machine.

The similarities between these stories and Dumas’s do not end there. Prior to the game this past weekend, Tom Crean had to call up Tom Izzo and tell him about everything that was about to happened. This is a transcript of Coach Crean’s side of that call. Tom Izzo had apparently been drinking at the time this call was made.

Tom Crean: [to Izzo] Hello?… Uh… Hello T- uh hello Tom? Listen uh uh I can’t hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?… Oh-ho, that’s much better… yeah… huh… yes… Fine, I can hear you now, Tom… Clear and plain and coming through fine… I’m coming through fine, too, eh?… Good, then… well, then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine… Good… Well, it’s good that you’re fine and… and I’m fine… I agree with you, it’s great to be fine… a-ha-ha-ha-ha… Now then, Tom, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the elbow… The Elbow, Tom… The thrown elbow … Well now, what happened is… ahm… one of our players, he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head… you know… just a little… funny. And, ah… he went and did a silly thing… Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his elbows… to attack your players… Ah… Well, let me finish, Tom… Let me finish, Tom… Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?… Can you imagine how I feel about it, Tom?… Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello?… Of course I like to speak to you!… Of course I like to say hello!… Not now, but anytime, Tom. I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened… It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call… Listen, if it wasn’t friendly… you probably wouldn’t have even got it… They are not likely to reach their targets.. I am… I am positive, Tom… Listen, I’ve been all over this with your Athletic Director. It is not a trick… Well, I’ll tell you. We’d like to give you a complete run-down on the targets, the body parts targeted, and the pointiness of the elbows… Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we’re unable to recall the elbows, then… I’d say that, ah… well, ah… we’re just gonna have to help you destroy them, Tom… I know he’s our boy… All right, well listen now. Who should we call?… Who should we call, Tom? The… wha-whe, the People… you, sorry, you faded away there… The People’s Central Groin Defense Headquarters… Where is that, Tom?… In Lansing?… Right… Yes… Oh, you’ll call them first, will you?… Uh-huh… Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Tom?… Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Lansing information… Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm… I’m sorry, too, Tom… I’m very sorry… All right, you’re sorrier than I am, but I am sorry as well… I am as sorry as you are, Tom! Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am, because I’m capable of being just as sorry as you are… So we’re both sorry, all right?… All right.

Sadly, not all of the elbows were able to recalled, but none of them reached their exact target. And Goran Suton’s groin didn’t have a Doomsday device attached to it, so tragedy averted.

So, Devan clearly has some work to do on himself so he doesn’t go around blaming Spartan body parts for his own misfortunes.

Let’s all hope he is able to get it while he’s not playing tonight against Minnesota.

No theme song for today, just the video clip of the greatest one sided phone call this side of Bob Newhart. (This whole thing is going to make me skew much older)

I think I’ll run through the sprinkler with my gym shorts on

It’s 50° in Chicago today, after a month where there were only 3 days above freezing a number of days in single digits, and a few below zero. There has been about a foot of snow on the ground since Christmas.

And today it is 50°.

It’s almost impossible to explain what that has done to my mood. I left the house this morning wearing one of my IU sweatshirts and no jacket. I drove with my window down. I was in such a good mood I almost sang along to Elton John. It is a joyous moment when, after a long winter you get a glimpse of spring.

It’s actually easier to explain how I feel today than I thought at first. It’s how I felt after we beat Iowa on Wednesday night.

After struggling through a month’s worth of losses, some of them close, some of them not at all, when it felt like the sun my never shine again on IU basketball, even though logic said that it would, finding a win on Wednesday was like waking up to a 50° Ferbruary day in Chicago.

Now, I know it’s only February. And thanks to the predictive powers of Punxsutawney Phil I know there are at least six more weeks of winter ahead. 50° today does not mean that there are nothing but warm days and pleasant nights ahead. Just as one Iowa win doesn’t mean we’re going on a winning streak that will take us to the NCAA tournament.

But joy, even if it is fleeting, is still worth embracing. Celebrating.

Spring won’t officially be here in Chicago until the restaurants put their sidewalk cafe tables out. If you don’t now, or never did, live in a big city this may not mean much to you, but trust me when I say that seeing those tables and chairs outside is the happiest day of the year. It means that businesses have decided that it is financially viable to provide outdoor seating. The market has decided it is spring, and there’s no stopping the market.

Spring won’t be here for IU basketball until next season at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t have some unseasonably warm days here and there.

Let’s all enjoy them. I think we’ve earned them.

Today’s theme song looks back and forward to warmer days.

I saw the lights of the Goodyear blimp…

and they read, “Matt Roth’s a pimp.”

Watching Matt Roth’s shooting performance against Ohio State taught me a really important lesson. Namely, If I have an opinion about something, I need to say it here, otherwise I can’t say “I’ve been saying this for months” cause there’s no proof.
Here’s where I have been on Matt Roth for well over a month now and it’s going to seem like hindsight. He needs to play more and here’s why. If you’ve watched us play over this 11 game losing streak, and even before that I think you’d have to agree that all too often our offense gets down to the final seconds of the shot clock and needs someone to chuck up a shot. Matt Roth, if nothing else, is a tremendous release valve as he can shoot from anywhere.

I couldn’t realy find a place to insert that thought, largely because I knew he wasn’t getting more minutes because there are holes in his game in other areas, but I still thought he gave us more than he would cost us.

I’m not sure he should start, but he should be in the game a lot more. It’s very early in his career but where do you think he ranks as a pure shooter with the likes of Kyle Hornsby, Todd Leary, Brian Evans, Steve Alford and anyone else I’m not thinking of right now.

Now, let’s backtrack to the Northwestern game.

Do you remember Dakich’s debut last year in Evanston? I know I’m going to hear cries of extenuating circumstances here, but our game against NU in Bloomington last year wasn’t much better than the trip there, so I discount that claim. We played better on Wednesday that we did when we won there last year. Last year we got our ass handed to us by backdoor cuts and lay ups. We couldn’t slow them down, much less stop them. This year, we bumped their cutters, played much better defense, and gave up fewer lay ups. We don’t have the talent or experience that we had last year, but the preparation for this game showed more this year than any prep we did to play NU last year.

Tom Crean is the right man for this job. Want proof? Go back and watch the way he handled our players and that game in Evanston. He was calm when everyone else was getting wound up. He got worked up when they got quiet. His demeanor really guides this team and he’s almost always giving them exactly what they need. Remember when Verdell dribbled the ball off his knee and it went out of bounds in the second half? Verdell started to get all worked up and was complaining about the call. They took a shot of Crean and he was telling Verdell to let it go and go play defense. He said it twice, did not get the repsonse he needed and immediately pulled Verdell. He didn’t sit him because of the mistake. He sat him because he wasn’t putting it behind him. That was a great move.

More proof? This team believes they can win. Despite being in the midst of a tough losing streak, the guys on the bench, with 4:00 left in the game were excited, involved and into this game like it was the final possession. It wasn’t the body language of a group of kids who are just waiting to see how they were going to lose this game. That is 100% the coach.

OK, Ohio State.

I’ve turned the corner on this team. For the last three games I’ve felt pretty good about our chances going into the games and I haven’t been wrong. This is no longer a group of kids trying to find reverse on a soviet tank. These guys are now worthy adversaries.

Go back and watch our ball movement during the first five minutes of the Ohio State game. It was crisp. It had direction and intent. They knew where they wanted to go with the ball. They expected their teammates to be there, and they were. It was like watching an entirely different team. These guys finally have some idea of what it takes to compete at this level and they are.

Now, we clearly have issues. Allowing 78% shooting in the second half can only lead to defeat, but against a team that took us out of the game in the first three minutes in Columbus we were winning at the half and were within two with 8 miutes to go. It’s not a win, but it’s a HUGE improvement.

We’re going to beat Iowa on Wednesday. And it won’t be out last win of the season. I think we’re very close to being the team that people should be uncomfortable playing. We’re going to win a couple game we aren’t supposed to win this month.

The last point I’d like to make about the Ohio State game is once again in regards to Tom Crean. At times against Ohio State, he got worked up about the officiating (rightfully so), but as he well knows, he can’t do that. When he got all riled up, so did the players. They got chippy about calls, got distracted from what they were supposed to be doing by what the refs were doing. During our sloppiest periods, if you go back and look, you’ll find Tom Crean’s most emotional moments. The goal tending that wasn’t called. The foul on the three-point shot that wasn’t called against Ohio State and one after the blocked three-pointer that WAS called against us all got Crean worked up past the point that was helpful to his team.

I also recommend that you go back and listen to his post-game press conference. He was asked about the officiating on three separate occassions. In the silence that followed each of those questions you can replay every single coaching rant against bad officiating in your head. He was PISSED OFF! And he should have been, though, and I’m sure he’d be the first to agree with this statement, the refs didn’t cost us this game. They were uneven and missed a number of calls, but Ted Valentine wasn’t out there Saturday.

So, see me after we beat Iowa. Like I said, I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t want to come off as Mr. Hindsight, so I’m putting my expectations out there in advance. We’ve turned the corner. The Big Ten has stepped to us in the middle of the street and danced at us. We have put down the boom box and line danced right back at them.

It’s on, Randy. It’s On!