Mountain Song

Dear Gregg Doyel,

As if it wasn't enough of an outrage that a team ranked #27 in the RPI gets an 11 seed (and subsequent date with the best 6 seed in the field) while two middling Big Ten teams pull 10 seeds, you've now taken my crushing despair and transformed it into a sea of pure bewilderment. You may be a national columnist for CBS Sports, but you are also out of your damn mind.

Exhibit A:

Dark-horse pick: I came dadgum close to putting Dayton into the Final Four. Yes, I did. As it is, I've got Dayton beating West Virginia, Kansas and Michigan State to get into the region final, but I didn't have the guts to pick the Flyers over Louisville.

Most likely upset: Clearly Dayton over West Virginia, and not just because I'm picking the Flyers. West Virginia shoots a ton of 3-pointers, and if it's missing ... well, game over. Dayton has great athletes who score close to the basket, and they will do that against the Mountaineers.

I'm only assuming that he's not including Dayton's starting center, who shoots 40% from the floor (while never taking a shot from further away then 6 feet) when he references those "who score close to the basket."

The Last Shining Moment

Conference tournaments are in full swing, and March Madness is right around the corner. Of course, tragedy gets in the way, and today we receive the sad news that Doug Towey has died.

Who is Doug Towey, you ask? Well, he was the creative director at CBS that chose to create a montage of the NCAA Tournament during the closing credits of the final game. And the song he chose to soundtrack the clips? Everyone together......"One Shining Moment."

Now, my love (obsession) for this yearly tradition has been well documented on this site. So it's no surprise that I'm taking this news rather harshly (almost as bad as I'm taking this news).

And so, to honor Towey, I've taken the liberty of jotting down some highlights from his very 1st montage in 1987 (the clips begin around 1:50).

• First, I love that even in its first year, they chose a literal approach to the clip organization (show a ball being tipped when he sings "the ball is tipped"!). It was a precursor to all of those literal music videos we're seeing on youtube today.
• Is that Kevin Durant at the 2:20 mark? Did Doug Towey create LOST? Is Kevin Durant a time-traveling smoke monster?
• What school is APSU?
• Don't miss the Santa Clara "almost kiss" at 2:53
• Boeheim gets a Gatorade shower! I thought the Celtics were the first to do that on a basketball court. I need to go change that wikipedia entry.
• I love the juxtaposition of how Bob Knight gets pissed and Dean Smith gets pissy at 3:05

I'm sure this won't be the last you hear from me on this topic, so I'll end with an interesting tidbit regarding the song's writer, David Barrett.....he wrote, trying to explain to a girl how awesome Larry Bird is. That sounds about right.

Bubble of Sanity

Well look what have we here in the newest edition of Bracketology:


While it might be borderline presumptuous to look ahead to a classic 9 vs 4 match-up in the 3rd round, the mere prospect of Dayton facing Syracuse in the first round intrigues me for a couple reasons.

The first reason is that aside from a huge neutral court win over 8th ranked Marquette and an impressive win vs St. Joe's yesterday, you could make an argument that UD is the most baffling 20-win team in the country. Consider the circumstances of some of these victories:

• A 60-59 win over Auburn where Dayton sets an NCAA record by going 0-24 on 3-point attempts, getting the win thanks to Auburn making only 12 of 26 free throws.
• Blowing a 6-point lead to a 2-13 Fordham team by allowing 8 points in the final 24 seconds of the game, only to win 72-71 on a Rob Lowery runner with 2 seconds left.
• Trailing George Washington by a point with 20 seconds left, only to take the lead (and get the win) because GW picked up a technical for playing with SIX MEN ON THE COURT! This is simply amazing - watch the kid racing off the court here when he realizes there's an extra white jersey out there.
• Defeating St. Louis 47-46 in a rough watch where the only Flyer points in the last seven minutes of the game were scored on the game-winning alley-oop! They also went 0-11 from long-range in this game.

So yes, the Flyers have been spotty, but are also an NCAA best 8-0 in games decided by 5 points or less. The second reason a Syracuse matchup intrigues me is the ESPN factor. It's easy for people to understand how my hatred of all east coast sports teams flourished during my time in Bristol based on the rooting interests of my colleagues. To this day, when the Yankees play the Sox, I root for brawls and that's about it. But like the proliferation of Patriots fans, the contingent of Syracuse alumni walking the corridors of ESPN (and virtually every other broadcast outlet in the country) is just too overwhelming to ignore, try as one might. As is often the case, the meathead pride swells with success. This was the case during Cuse's '03 title run, where seemingly every day of work revolved around an 18-year-old kid named Carmelo turning grown professionals into slackjawed fanboys, obsessed with his every move long past the point of awkwardness. The prospect of an entire newsroom full of Orange alumni being forced to watch Boeheim exit at the hands of UD is an image that would leave me babbling like Ned Beatty.

Life on the Bubble: The Wait

"The waiting is the hardest part." - Tom Petty

After today's 63-52 loss to Ohio State, the Purdue Boilermakers find themselves at the end of the greatest turnaround season in school history. They've moved from the abysmal 9-19 to 21-11 and are straddling the cusp of the NCAA tournament.

It could all be for naught if the late season surge doesn't land the Boilermakers in the field of 65 tomorrow evening. The team, the school and the fans will be roundly disappointed in anything beyond an 11-ish seed.

We were treated to a lopsided effort today where the Buckeyes grabbed 18 more rebounds, negated the play of Gordon Watt and Keaton Grant, and each of the 10 turnovers seemed to be compounded into mighty heaps of bad luck and misfortune.

It was tough to see Purdue beaten so soundly after yesterday's dismantling of Iowa, but the worst part was having to listen to the bat-shit crazy ramblings of Billy Packer. Some lowlights:

• Early in the game OSU's Mike Conley comes streaking into the lane and collides mid-air with a stationary Chris Kramer. Charge or blocking foul. Call something. Packer chimes in with, "Good non-call."
• In searching for an heir to George Mason, Packer notes the "excellent success" of Winthrop. As opposed to the soul-crushing success Winthrop endured when it won a conference game only by stabbing orphans in the throat at each timeout.
• At one stretch Packer continually called Greg Oden, "Odom." Nit picky? Yes. But, Billy Packer can cram it with walnuts.
• Purdue's Keaton Grant strips an OSU player of the ball with a little skin involved. Packer shits himself and cries, "If that's not a foul, I don't know what is." I thought Packer's confusion on the nature of fouls was settled last week.
• Commenting on Purdue's lack of a free throw attempt in the first half, Packer noted that Purdue was "Zero for zero. 1,000%." For starters, all percentages are fractions and any fraction with zero in the denominator is by definition undefined. In essence, it doesn't exist. Secondly, I'm unaware of any rule that dictates a school's score be multiplied by ten if they've missed nary a free throw. While Wayne Larrivee is still working on that rule, welcome to 7th grade math, Billy.
• The worst display and the one that hit closest to home was Packer's revisionist hack job recounting the origin of Purdue's nickname. He correctly cited Purdue President James Smart as the catalyst behind the Big Ten conference (nee Western Conference) in 1895. Packer then rambles on loosely hitting the apocryphal story of Purdue using boilermakers from the Monon Shops as ringers on their athletic teams. In truth, a Crawfordsville newspaperman coined the nickname as a slur after Purdue beat the crap out of Wabash in 1891 four years before the Monon Shops existed in Lafayette.

Let the experts have their say. I have half a nerve to drive down Capitol avenue and shout my pleas to the 15th floor of the Westin hotel where sits the all-knowing, all-powerful Selection Committee. I've done worse. Imagine Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire screaming, "10 Seed!"

In a few short hours the Boilermaker "ever faithful, ever true" will at last know the fate of our cagers. Our time astride the bubble will end, and we'll see if Neil Young was just singing about heroin.

"I've seen the needle and the damage done."

What Price Fashion?

That is a very airy view of Ohio State's Ivan Harris going to the hole in what must have been a quite breezy United Center. Actually, Harris is sporting OSU's brand, spakin' new uniforms.

The new duds sport jerseys that are extremely tighter than anything DeShaun Wood is wearing, which I would assume is an advantage over anyone flapping in the wind. Greg Oden even said that when opponents grab these new snugger shirts he'll definitely get more calls. So the new tops are quite the step up.

It's these shorts that I can't get past.

Now, don't think I'm some stick-in-the-mud fuddy duddy rambling on about these here kids today. There is no way these pants offer anything to help your play, they could only potentially hinder it. I'm not thinking the Buckeyes will suffer a spate of their new shorts/ longs/ pantaloons getting snagged on the rim. No, I'm worried about their public persona when they continually show up to basketball games dressed like my wife heading to a wedding reception.

OSU, Florida, Syracuse and Arizona are all wearing gaucho pants. Hell, throw some knee-high leather boots on the Buckeyes and they'll be confused for a Delta Zeta pledge class.

You know them. Your mom already has a pair, and I defy you to sneak into a baby shower and not find a young lass sipping mimosas while enjoying a less than fitting feeling about the thighs. They're ubiquity has now stretched to March Madness.

Supposedly Nike's athletic version of the gaucho allows the addition of padding for banging in the lane or if you're stuck with a gum-popping, handsy head coach.

The gauchos - backed with Phil Knight money, the same guy who brought you this assault on your eyes - are here to stay at least for the Madness before us. Just don't call this haute couture the "wave of the future," because it most certainly is not. Take a look at this school marm turned power forward.Seems like Nike dipped way back to the primordial basketball ooze in search of inspiration to further distract us from the court. Just don't come crying to me when Purdue's Carl Landry asks if you always let your mama dress you.

Who am I kidding? Greg Oden could get 20 & 12 wearing a pair of corduroys and a cape.

Selection Committee On the Town

As noted in my previous post, I was on a mission Wednesday evening to dine at the same establishment as the NCAA Selection Committee who opened up their deliberations tonight. All I had to go on was a blurb from an Indianapolis Star article and my MidWestern intuition.

Here again was my rundown on the possible destinations:

There's really just four options for Italian that would give the committee decent food and keep them a stone's throw from the Downtown Westin, but only one option that would be tradition worthy.

• We can throw out Buca di Beppo because I doubt these guys are chain restaurant material and Buca's non-conference schedule sucks no matter how many pictures of Sinatra you throw on the wall.
  NCAA equivalent: UCONN
• The Milano Inn has pretty good fare, but it's head-to-head with the two remaining joints quickly relegate it to supplying take-out for the NIT folks.
  NCAA equivalent: Michigan
• Amici's was my sentimental choice. Small, out of the way. A place most people drive past not even realizing what's there. But the great food can't overcome it's lack of seating (unless they committee gets the private room upstairs).
  NCAA equivalent: George Mason.
• The odds-on favorite has got to be Iaria's. The history is rich in this place. Not only is the dining room primed for guests of this caliber, they also have bitchin' pizza, and a former owner who once pulled a gun on his own family in an attempt to sell the restaurant. Oh, and Rick Majerus loves this place, and if anyone is going to hold sway over NCAA basketball dining it has to be Majerus.
  NCAA equivalent: Kansas/UCLA.

My hunches were correct, and I made a spot-on call. The NCAA Selection Committee were dining - privately (note the above sign) - at Iaria's in downtown Indianapolis. The committee was in its glory and joined by NCAA president Myles Brand and a few administration/family members. They were largely unreachable, and nobody seemed to be making any attempts to approach them even though their presense was openly known in the dining room.

I did grab one quite meager photo. It was difficult to shoot from the dark hallway, through a glass door and around a large poster supporting Jerry's Kids. The guy with the arrow is last year's committee chair and Billy Packer nemesis Craig Littlepage, AD at Virginia.

The place was jumping and it took us about 40 minutes to get a seat. The meal was delectable and the spumoni to die for. Somewhere between my salad and the lasagne, the Selection Committee slipped to their limo-bus, well-sated and ready to be locked in a hotel.

Life on the Bubble: Patience

The NCAA Tournament Selection committee gets their annual shebang underway tonight. The 10 member committee will begin the process of winnowing a field of 65 that will hopefully piss off Billy Packer so much that he'll choose self-immolation over broadcasting.

With each passing night, more and more teams lock themselves into one of the 31 automatic slots sometimes inadvertantly locking the teams they defeat into at-large berths. All the while the Purdue Boilermakers sit on the sidelines, push through daily practice, and deflect every question they can about their tournament possibilities. Coach Matt Painter has made it quite clear that," We're not going to talk ourselves into this. We have to play our way in."

The Boiler faithful may be wearing out their refresh buttons bouncing back and forth between ESPN.com, CBS Sportsline and collegerpi.com, but it's purely academic at this point. There's no reason to think the selection committee will even begin to mention Purdue until their game with Iowa Friday afternoon. Until then we'll try to distract ourselves with the Big East tournament and stalking the committee...

As noted in the IndyStar.com article, "Dinner tonight at an Italian restaruant, a place that's become a selection committee tradition (but one it would rather not divulge)."

So the wife and I are going to attempt to dine at the same establishment and hone our ears for light banter of RPI, road records, and whether or not Tyler Hansbrough's readjusted nose has any effect on UNC's seeding. The trouble of course is pin-pointing the non-divulgeable restaurant. So I've popped on my own selection hat and hereby give you

SELECTION WEDNESDAY: THE DRIVE TO MARINARA.

There's really only four options for Italian for the committee that would give them decent food and keep them a stone's throw from the Downtown Westin, but only one option that would be tradition worthy.

• We can throw out Buca di Beppo because I doubt these guys are chain restaurant material and Buca's non-conference schedule sucks no matter how many pictures of Sinatra you throw on the wall.
  NCAA equivalent: UCONN
• The Milano Inn has pretty good fare, but it's head-to-head with the two remaining joints quickly relegate it to supplying take-out for the NIT folks.
  NCAA equivalent: Michigan
• Amici's was my sentimental choice. Small, out of the way. A place most people drive past not even realizing what's there. But the great food can't overcome it's lack of seating (unless they committee gets the private room upstairs).
  NCAA equivalent: George Mason.
• The odds-on favorite has got to be Iaria's. The history is rich in this place. Not only is the dining room primed for guests of this caliber, they also have bitchin' pizza, and a former owner who once pulled a gun on his own family in an attempt to sell the restaurant. Oh, and Rick Majerus loves this place, and if anyone is going to hold sway over NCAA basketball dining it has to be Majerus.
  NCAA equivalent: Kansas/UCLA.

Dinner is between 7:00 and 7:30 and I'll have the digital camera in tow. If I'm lucky I'll get to ask Craig Littlepage about Purdue's victory over Virginia (his school) while sipping a nice chianti.

Life on the Bubble: Potential

Purdue enters today 19-10 and 8-7 in the Big Ten, a game away from the second best home record ever. A 20 win season lies in the offing, a feat unrealized in seven seasons. Yet, these numbers add up to one more week on the bubble.

Despite the Boilers' recent heroics - winning 5 of the last 7 including a dismantling of Michigan St. and win over rival Indiana - Purdue rests squarely on the surface of the bubble but now they're on the outside peering inward.

Lucky enough, Purdue knows exactly what the they must accomplish. Win one more game at home over underwhelming Northwestern and punch a ticket to the five seed in the Big Ten Tournament on Friday. From there it's not much more than hope and potentially a matchup with Illinois or Iowa. The Big Ten tournament game is purely academic at this point: do what you've done for 30 games. The rest is a stomach churning exercise of numbers and opinions.

While Purdue is tipping in West Lafayette this afternoon, 27-4 Winthrop will hopefully be throttling 14-18 VMI. If Winthrop takes the Big South tourney they also take up one of the 31 automatic bids and leave open one of the precious 34 at-large bids that Purdue desperately needs. A Winthrop victory may move Purdue uncomfortably inside the bubble, but pitfalls abound nonetheless. Leagues like the Horizon, Conference USA and the A-10 can still have some upstart win their tournaments and push the odds on favorites - Butler, Memphis, Xavier - into one of the valuable at-large positions.

Long story short, Purdue will need a win in Chicago to remove some doubt, but what's new? That will only solidify their potential while most of the determining factors remain out of reach on distant courts. That's the problem with potential: it isn't tangible, nor can you point to it in the RPI, road wins, or records versus the top 65.

Purdue is full of potential, but potential isn't worth too much these days.

Life on the Bubble: Desperation

It's all come to this. Could be's and should be's are definites. Must-win games are the reality. Backs are to the wall, yada, yada, yada.

Purdue shit the bed against Iowa on Wednesday night turning in one of the sorriest efforts of a game compoundedly sorrier by the fact that their NCAA tournament hopes were resting in the balance. To go into Iowa City and lay an egg with poor defense, ridiculous turnovers, and effortless play will not do much to calm the fears of the faithful.

No one - I mean no one - will be delighted with hosting a first round NIT game.

Here they sit. The Boilers square off with Northwestern today in Evanston. This game has all of the hallmarks of the desperation game you love to hate. Not only does Purdue need to win, games such as these always tend to be the ones that teams never win. It's late in the season, the opponent is 2-11 in the conference and fighting to get above .500. They play a zone defense that most other conference teams eschewed eons ago, and their mind-numbing Princeton style offense will certainly give one fits and possibly hold the score to 22-19. (Take the under.)

All is not lost though, and hope still fizzles in the offing. Most projections still put the Boilers in the Dance despite the Hawkeye beat-down. Lucky enough, Purdue wasn't the only tournament caliber team to suck it up this week. Yet, that only solidifies their spot in the cesspool of mediocrity that this bubble is turning out to be.

Purdue should win this game but not by much; Vegas says 4.5. If they were to lose, some will predict implosion culminating in a Thursday loss in the 8-9 Big Ten Tournament game. Yet if they win, they'll pretty much be right where they are this morning. Safely on the bubble. Backs to the wall. Desperately wanting one more game.

Life on the Bubble: Legacy

"It was a bad time."

So reads the opening line of one of the 20th century's greatest novels, Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien. In recent years the Purdue Boilermakers and their faith-filled fans would have given O'Brien a solid thumbs up. Luckily, things have taken a turn for the better and with it a turn toward the tournament.

The Purdue Boilermakers have played themselves into the upper echelon of the storied NCAA tournament bubble. Currently 17-9 and 6-6 in the Big Ten, the Boilers have eked into more than one bracket projection and are seemingly controlling their 10-seed destiny.

Joe Lunardi at ESPN.com has them at an 11.
Jerry Palm at collegerpi.com says 10.
David Mihm at bracketography.com says 10 as well.

God be praised, the Boilers are back in the dance. But are they ready to punch their card for more than a mere appearance? Can they get down to business and give fans more hope than a trip to the Champs Sports Bowl ever could?

Purdue hasn't been to the tournament since the 2002-2003 season when the 9th seeded Boilers dismantled LSU 80-56 only to go on and lose in a dog fight with 1 seed Texas and player of the year T.J. Ford. They've not seen post-season play since the following season when they limped into the NIT and lost at Notre Dame in an ill-fated realization of years of attempts to get the Irish permanently onto the schedule.

Since then fans have endured a 7-21 farewell to Gene Keady and a 9-19 debut for Matt Painter. Yet, last season saw the happiest fans ever supporting a pitiful team. Injuries robbed the team of its top scorers, a hit-and-run took away a dizzying prospect, and bad luck intervened to remove all hopes of success, but the fans saw glimmers of hope. Chickens have roosted and the Boilers are champing at the bit to enter the realm of 65.

However, in this world of short memories, fans are going to be looking for Sweet 16 success or otherwise crying foul. It wasn't that long ago that I was a senior and the Cardinal-led Boilers were knocking on the door of the Final Four only to be unseated for the fourth f*cking time by Wisconsin. Inevitably, some fans will hold a George Mason-esque run to Atlanta up against their season ticket order. I'm not saying 'Be happy with an invitation' but you can't expect this team to be merely voted a champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation.

Should my beloved Boilermakers make the tourney I pray they'll play a late game on Thurs/Fri so the faithful can tune in with authority. Hopefully we'll have a reason to cheer beyond the first weekend, but until then, let's beat Iowa.