"Get Over It!"

UW v. Ohio St.

Big game this afternoon. I believe the only thing on the line is seeding in the NCAAs, but it would be nice to get ANOTHER win over the number one team. And to hear Sullinger make up some other kind of assault when they lose. Like the ref pinched his left nut or something. If Jordan Taylor does anything close to what he did on Thursday, you can start carving his name into the B12 Ten Player of the Year trophy. It will be criminal if he doesn't win it. PREDICTION: OSU 72, UW 62

DUCK FOOK

I don't like Duke. I don't like UNC. But I like UNC better than Duke by default, so I'm happy they beat Duke yesterday. Also, for some reason Duke is already penciled in for a number one seed even though I don't think they are that good. The don't look like a number one seed to me, but someone has to get it I guess. Whatever.

NEXT WEEK

Next week is going to start to get pretty sweet. Big conference tourneys start Thursday, which means that I will have something to put up on my computer at work. I think the Big East's started like two weeks ago because they actually have more teams than the NCAA tournament itself. I LOVE March Madness possibly more than anything.

TWITTER

I joined the 21st century and got a Twitter account. I have not, and don't really plan to actually send a Tweet. If I did, I would go the way of Bear and never blog ever again. I'm convinced. Twitter is actually kind of a nice way to stalk crazy people (Charlie Sheen), Athletes (pretty much only Packers so far), and media people. It saves time sort of incredibly (and not really at all) by allowing you to know whether your favorite writers/bloggers have put up a new article and putting them all in one place without going to multiple sites. I'm sort of hooked.

Beatdowns, Hidden Messages and Fake Waterparks

WISCONSIN 78, INDIANA 46

Jesus. I need to start out with that embarrassment of the artist formerly known as IU in Bloomington last night. Indiana is really, really awful. I am SHOCKED that they have won any Big Ten games. They seem far worse to me than Penn St or Iowa. Not only are they not very talented, but they can't shoot, and consistently dribble off of their feet. I will give them credit for not quitting, they are at least a little scrappy, even when down by like 100.

Back in the not so distant past, a win at Indiana did not seem possible. There was a time where Bucky had lost like 40 in a row there or something. Bucky is pretty good this year, but still. That game was almost unfair. I heard on SportsCenter (who is always right) that it was the worst loss at home in NINETY SIX YEARS!!! When you do something to someone worse than it has been done to them in 96 years, you really kicked the shit out of them.

Two other things about last night: 1) The camera followed Tom Crean a little extra long after he got ejected last night, and you could see him shoulder check the locker room door into a wall. And screaming obscenities to himself in the tunnel. He was PISSED. Had it stayed about 10 more seconds, you may have seen him destroy the locker room through the crack in the door. It was pretty great. I still dislike Tom Crean. 2) I think Bo Ryan does too. I feel like he put a little extra hot sauce on this beat down. Is it a carry over from the days of shady backroom recruiting deals made by Crean to steal players from UW while he was at Marquette? Hard to say, but when you leave your starters in until 1:28 left in a 31 point game, I think it is pretty safe to say that Bo was trying to prove a point. That point? Don't fuck with a dude that literally looks like a Badger.

FAKE WATERPARKS

I'm being forced to go to a fake water park with my nieces and nephew (3 and 2 years old I think), and my in-laws. I say it is a fake waterpark because it is in Wisconsin, and it is the middle of winter. I'm envisioning one waterslide in a hotel. It is in a hotel, so I'm halfway there. I really like my in-laws as a general rule, but I dislike hanging out in disease infested hotel waterparks. Especially after working my ass off (surfing the Internets) all week. At least I can stuff my face with snack food and get drunk. Anyone know any good bars in Waupaca? Maybe I will get blacked out and drown some stranger's kid. That would be a tragedy.

BREWERS-CUBS

I got in on a "second chance" to buy Brewers-Cubs tickets yesterday. I got an email at like 8 a.m. that I could log on at 10. I didn't exclude anyone, but I was only allowed to buy 4 tickets, and I couldn't get more than two together. My brother and I are going in September, when the Brewers will be 10 games out of a playoff spot (assuming Soup makes the rotation because of his contract over about six other pitchers that are clearly better than him). I'm calling it the second annual Brother Trip to Miller Park Where One Brother Purchases Nosebleed Tickets In a Section With 98% FIBS and Sips Beer While Watching the Other Brother Try Not To Get Into a Fight for Three Plus Hours. Last year there were approximately 35 ejections in our section. We also saw a chick fight on the way out, and the lights went out at Miller Park.

It is a 6:10 first pitch, which gives FIBS plenty of time to get up at their usual 2 p.m., put in hair gel, pop their collars over the top of their $80 Cubs T-shirts, put on their $400 Yves St Laurent aviators, hop into the BMW SUV's that their parents bought them for high school graduation,
get to the stadium by 5, have two cosmos, and be belligerent fighting guy by 6.

Big Week for Bucky

This week is what ESPN or some other place would call "Judgment Week" or "Separation Week" or some such thing for the Wisconsin Badgers. I realize that it is the first week of January, but they have two MONSTER games in the next four days (seriously the Badgers got screwed in scheduling them back to back) that will go a long way in deciding if Bucky is a contender for a surprise Big Ten title or merely a pretty good team that will probably get to the tournament.

Tonight/late afternoon, the #13 Badgers head to East Lansing to take on #43 (but WAY more popular) Michigan St. I'm pretty excited for this as it is always a barn burner, and usually Michigan St. has some gigantic white center that gets into foul trouble early and cries on the bench (see Suton. I think he's gone). Also, I always find a way to dislike Izzo. The biggest problem I'm having is: why FIVE THIRTY??? I mean, c'mon Big Ten Network. How am I supposed to take you seriously when you are tipping games at 5:30? You are basically saying that not only do I not want anyone in the Central Time Zone without a DVR to see it, but that you don't care about the EST zone either. Everyone knows the standard tip time for a game in the Eastern Time Zone is 6:00. Just odd.

Saturday, Bucky hosts #5 and undefeated Purdue. This is a classic game for Bucky to win. Bo Ryan is something like 35-2 at home in games against teams he has no business beating. Talent-wise, Purdue is probably better, but so is just about every other team. This and the Creighton-Wichita St game are great appetizers for the beginning of Wild Card Bukkake (which I will get to later in the week).

The Feeling Is Mutual

Huge game today for Bucky. I would put the chances of a win at somewhere between slim and none. A win would probably lock up an NCAA bid, but a loss probably doesn't hurt them all that much. Turns out Michigan St. doesn't like Bucky very much either. Well, I don't think you're going to find much disagreement around these parts. Izzo cried? What a girl. Suton thinks Bucky is dirty? Well you are 37, so that must be against some kind of rule or something. Bo Ryan would eat Izzo's children, and Krabbenhoft is going to show Suton what dirty is.

Classic

I think I've finally figured it out. Bob Sanders must be an assistant coach for the Badgers. That is the only logical explanation for why the Badgers have begun to remind me so much of the Green Bay Packers in that they are incapable of holding a lead late, or winning a close game.

Like last year when the Packers were the best 6-10 team in the NFL. The Badgers are the best 12-8 team in the NCAA. They could be 18-2 right now if they won every close game they played.

I think the part that bothers me the most was THAT was the shot that Bo Ryan called a timeout to get? A left handed floater, in traffic, from a freshman? If you are going to have someone drive to the basket, why not just let Trevon Hughes finish what it appeared like he was going to do before Ryan called the time out? It sure looked like he was breaking his man down off the dribble. I'll take my chances with the 7th year junior taking that shot all day. But if you are calling the time out, couldn't there have been a play drawn up for Nankivil, who out of the blue turned into Brian Butch and was 5-5 on threes? Or Landry, who has a pretty decent mid-range? I don't have a problem with Taylor taking the shot necessarily. I thought he did a really good job running the offense, and has some explosiveness and athleticism that nobody else on Wisconsin has. He was probably a little too eager in the last minute or so on the trigger, and that is probably because he hasn't played many crunch time minutes. My big problem was the lack of a playcall, and the horrible shot selection.

I still think we'll be OK. Need to finish up 7-3, which is doable.

CU is a mere 11 game winning streak away from a possible at large as well after the win last night.

Witch's Titty

It is frigid as fuck outside right now. -17 degrees (not counting the wind chill). I realize that 90% of the people reading this (at least) are dealing with similar problems. It is getting to the point where my vehicle is being adversely affected even after it has been driven for 30 minutes. You want to know what else is cold? The fucking Wisconsin Badgers. That shit last night was an abomination on so many levels. The blueprint to beat Bucky was laid out last night: 1) use a trapping, full court press, 2) make circus shots for 15 straight minutes, 3) force the Badgers to shoot under 25%. Do all that and you can beat the Badgers in Madison. I really, really like Bo Ryan, and kills me to say what I'm about to say. I think he SUCKS at adjusting during the game. He relys on his "system", and thinks that if the Badgers just look down and run their swing, that eventually the other team will get frustrated and make mistakes. And it usually works. It worked for most of the game last night too. But sometimes you have to adjust your game a bit. Like when the other team is trapping your point guard full court. I'm no coach, but I've watched/played enough basketball to understand that the way to break a press is not to let your point guard get trapped 25 feet from mid court, and have the other 4 guys stand underneath the basket waiting for him to dribble by and start the offense. Fucking pass the ball before you get trapped, if they over pursue, beat them deep, it isn't fucking rocket science. We were able to break a press in 6th grade, with the worst team on planet earth. Fuck! That wasn't the only reason they lost. The other was that once they broke a press, their inability to not have every layup/dunk blocked in the last 5 minutes (at least 5 of them). Or when they could run offense, passing it around for 30 seconds, and then have Hughes try a driving layup through 4 defenders, or a contested 3. On top of that, the Goophs were possessed on offense, making every backwards layup they threw up, and every 3 they needed to make in the last minute. It was really a perfectly shitty storm, but that press break is not excusable. Minnesota is far more talented, but Wisconsin is a better "team". If UW doesn't figure this kind of stuff out, Michigan St. will win by 40 if they trap. This is the kind of loss that could completely destroy thier season, when they look back two months from now and are 5-10 in the Big Ten.

Wow, that was a long paragraph.

Friday Night Lights is BACK tonight!