I’d rather light a candle than curse your darkness

I’ve been having some doubts recently. As I watched this Indiana basketball season pass by at roughly the same pace as an economics lecture at Shermer High School, I had less and less interest in the college basketball season. I began to wonder whether I would care about the NCAA tournament without Indiana in it.

As I sit here, less than 24 hours away from the start of the tournamnet (it’s now 3:15 in the pm on Wednesday) I am happy to report that I am excited about the tournament. It’s going to be more fun to watch than last year, when I was just ready for the season to be over, that much is certain. If you are having trouble getting into the tournament this year, let me present to you, in no particular order some reasons to care.

1.) Kentucky isn’t in it either. I find this particularly gratifying as there are no extenuating circumstances. They have at least one REALLY good player. Their conference was particularly weak this year. They aren’t made up entirely of Freshmen, Juco Transfers and walk ons. They just failed.

2.) Illinois drew Western KY and I haven’t filled out a bracket yet that has them winning that game. If I’m right, big smiles.

3.) There is no stress this year. Of course I’d rather be in it and fighting for a championship, but as we’re clearly not good enough to be in that position, I’ll just enjoy not having to stress out over our performance.

4.) No Billy Packer. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the vacuum that has been created by the absence of a complete gas bag, but if you haven’t, I bet you will over the next three weeks. I hate Billy Packer and couldn’t be happier to watch a Final Four without his asinine comments. No wild statement completed unsupported by facts. No crazy predictions about what’s going to happen in the game that never turn out to be correct. No making up statistics to prove him points (Don’t worry, the Packet Method has been employed widely by others. It’s not going anywhere). And with Packer gone that only leave Bill Raftery to deal with and since there’s just one of him I think I can guard him MAN a MAN.

5.) Louisville is the #1 overall seed. I like this for a couple of reasons. 1.) While I hate UK I’ve never really had a problem with UofL, with the exception of hating Denny Crum’s chosen style of play and finding it nearly unwatchable. So, I’ll be pulling for the Cards. and 2.) And I’ll leave on this, most overly-optimistic of notes. The last two times Louisville won the national championship, we won the next year.

Pimp my database

Well, so much for the Packer Method. At least as it concerns IU basketball. The Indianapolis Star went live today with the adorable love child of an IU basketball fan and an actuary.

The Indianapolis Star has launched the IU Basketball Database. It’s not complete yet, as they don’t have individual box scores up yet, but that, apparently, is in the works.

I’m not usually in the business of pimping other people’s IU stuff, but this seemed worth passing on.

Who’s that little old man?

The following is an excerpt from a review of The Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience.

It was clear from the outset that “A Hard Day’s Night” “The Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience” was in a different category from the rock musicals that had starred Elvis and his imitators. It was smart, it was irreverent, it didn’t take itself seriously, and it was shot and edited by Richard Lester Bruce Hendricks in an electrifying black-and-white 3D, semi-documentary style that seemed to follow the boys during a day in their lives. And it was charged with the personalities of the Beatles Jonas Brothers, whose one-liners dismissed the very process of stardom they were undergoing. “Are you a mod or a rocker?” Ringo The cute Jonas Brother is asked at a press conference. “I’m a mocker,” he says.

I have spent much of this season trying to put a Beatles spin on a Jonas Brothers movie. That’s not very helpful. If you’re going to watch the Jonas Brothers movie, you should be prepared for it. It doesn’t help all that much, just like it doesn’t make it hurt less if you are told in advance about the groin shot you’re about to take, but it’s only right that you know what you’re in for.

But sitting back and saying, “This is pretty much the worst video ever made” doesn’t help either because as Kip points out, “like anyone can even know that.”

So, with a level head I will procede with the actual good. The actual bad is far too easy to point out, so I’m ignoring it for today.

It may not need to be said, but Verdell Jones III has made huge strides this season. A month ago I wouldn’t have given him much chance of serious playing time next year, but he has clearly gotten stronger and has a much better sense of what he needs to do with the ball. Shiney bright spot number one.

Nick Williams has had a quietly good season. He hasn’t made the visible strides that VJIII has made, but he’s definitely improved. I’m basing this off nothing more than my memory of the beginning of the year, but I don’t think he had as far to come. He wasn’t making the kind of mistakes VJIII was making and wasn’t getting tossed around quite as much. He is and will be a great asset to this team when he pulls up for mid range jump shots. 12-15 and he’s golden. Inside or outside of that and I’m not thrilled with his shot selection, but if we can get him the ball around the free throw line in the heart of a 2-3 he can really carve it up.

Tom Crean has done a remarkable job game planning this year. It seems like every move he’s made this year, from a strategic stand-point has been the right one. The switching defenses, the decision to go box and one or triangle and two have been hard to prepare for and have kept us in a lot of games. This kids didn’t know how to win at this level. They still don’t, but to have them in so many games against some very good teams, speaks volumes to Crean’s preparation and game planning. We played Michigan State down to the wire and they’re a very possible Final Four team this year.

Tom Crean has also done a tremendous job keeping the spirits of this team up, but even more amazing than that, he’s been able to put on a brave face in front of the cameras. He has never let it slip how hard this has been for him in public where the team could see it. This is killing him inside. How could it not? But he has sounded the right note to keep his team from hanging its collective head all season.

I’m not ready to start talking about next year yet. Give me a week and that’s all I’ll be thinking about, but for right now we’ve got Penn State on Thursday in a winnable game. If we can play MSU tight like that, there’s no reason we can’t beat Penn State. I don’t think we’re going to need anymore Inspire Indiana trivia questions than the ones that have already been written, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see us playing on Friday.

I assure I’ve never once listened to this song. Tell me how bad it is.

This on the other hand is great. I’ve been to Marlybone Station where this was filmed and as an aside, if you run down the street they ran down at the beginning and turn left as they did you will actually be running away from the station, not across the street towards it.

I’m about to go all Howard Beal up in this place.

Something important happened in the Big Ten Tournament game against Minnesota last year. When Hoffarber hit that shot at the buzzer it meant something. It wasn’t as important as a mountain sculpted out of a mashed potatoes, but it meant something none-the-less.

A part of me went to sleep. It was the part of me that expects us to win basketball games and I didn’t realize it was asleep until sometime this weekend when it woke up.

I read a story recently, or maybe it was a blog post, I looked but I can’t seem to find it, about how the students on campus have been really supportive of the players. Telling them how much the appreciate their effort and that they know the team is working really hard. The article said that Nick Williams had gotten to the point where he hated hearing that. He appreciated the support but was so sick of losing, the ata-boys for the effort kind of stung after a while.

I have gone through this season feeling, not exactly good about our losses, but understanding of them and trying to see progress and improvement. It has left me feeling, for lack of a better word, grey. I don’t have the fire and passion for IU basketball this year. I haven’t missed a game, but going into pretty every game ready for a loss has definitely dampened my fire.

I’ve been sleepwalking through this season to protect myself from how bad this should hurt, and to keep myself from being disproportionally harsh on these guys.

I think I’ve done us all a disservice.

I’m done being OK with incremental progress and close losses. We should have won some of these games. We have lost five games by fewer than five points. I want half of those to be wins. It’s not OK that we lost all of them.

It’s not OK that we keep turning the ball over 15+ times a game.

Winning the rebounding battle in almost every game while losing 17 out of 18 games is not good enough.

I’m not giving up on these guys, or piling on. I’m expecting them to start playing like Hoosiers. I know it’s what Coach Crean expects of them. I know it’s what they expect of themselves. We aren’t helping them by expecting less from them.

I haven’t yelled at any of these guys half as much as I yelled at Todd Lindeman, Jordan Crawford or Robert Vaden and they’ve certainly earned a few “Damn it, Verdell!”’s.

I had seats in the family section a few years ago at the Big Ten Tournament. I’m pretty sure this was 2001 as it was the year that Haston blocked that shot at the end of the Illinois game to put us in the finals. At one point Kyle Hornsby (my memory is fuzzy here, but I’m pretty sure it was Kyle) threw a bad pass for a turnover. I yelled something about it being a really dumb pass. Someone leaned over to me and said, “That’s his mom two rows in front of you.”

To which I replied, “I don’t care. She knows it was a dumb pass.”

That’s the kind of IU fan I am. I expect a certain level of play and when they aren’t giving it, I get annoyed and vocal.

“So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!’”

Demanding more of them will likely lead to greater upset when we do lose, but again, I don’t care. I can’t live this button down life anymore. I want it all. The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles.

I already feel better. Just changing my mindset from passive fatalist back to Indiana fan has awakened that part of me that Hoffarber put to sleep last March.