Land-o-Links - 2/12/2007

As I sit here sulking over not winning my Grammy moment with Justin Timberlake last night, here are some links:

(1) Close Call Would Have Helped on Selection Sunday (Mark Tupper Weblog) - Putting aside my disdain for Satan’s Spawn, Illinois missed a golden opportunity to virtually lock up an NCAA Tournament bid by faltering in the final minute on the road against Indiana on Saturday. As Mark Tupper alludes to in the link, Illini fans are now going to be extremely nervous heading into Selection Sunday. I still believe that a 9-7 record in the Big Ten ought to be enough for a bid (which would require us to win 3 out of the last 4, but we’d better also win at least 1 game in the Big Ten Tournament on top of that to be sure.

(2) Bubble Watch (ESPN.com) - Speaking of the NCAA Tournament and Selection Sunday, ESPN is back with its overview of the bubble teams. What’s amazing is that UConn and LSU, who were simply dominant last year, are almost certainly not going to be invited to the dance unless they win their conference tournaments while Michigan State is pretty close to being in the same position.

(3) A New Chandler in Chicago (Zoner Sports) - In one more note on college basketball before getting onto other subjects, it should be reiterated that Wilson Chandler of DePaul simply rules. That being said, DePaul has been maddeningly inconsistent this season. With victories against Kansas, UConn, and, most recently, Notre Dame, the Blue Demons should have been a lock for the NCAA Tournament along with being at least a middle seed in the Big East Tournament. However, with 3 horrible losses to sub-100 teams in the RPI (including a dreary 49-39 early season loss to Northwestern that had George Mikan rolling in his grave), DePaul isn’t even considered to be a bubble team anymore and still could miss the conference tournament at Madison Square Garden for the second time in as many seasons as a Big East member. The remaining regular season schedule ought to play in DePaul’s favor (besides a home game versus Marquette and a return road game at Notre Dame, the Demons have 2 games against bottom-feeder USF plus a putrid Cincinnati team at home), but their game-to-game inconsistencies have made the Illini look stable in comparison.

(4) Obama Questions Rivals on Iraq (Washington Post) - The most prominent political story in Chicago and the nation from this past weekend was the inevitable announcement by Senator Barack Obama that he will be running for President. As I’ve said before, I never thought that his relative lack of experience in the Senate would matter much on the campaign trail (otherwise, the history books would be peppered with stories about Presidents Dole and Kerry).

However, the main disadavantage that Obama has against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary and, if he survives that, Rudy Giuliani or John McCain in the general election, is that the Presidential campaign will be the first time that the Senator from Illinois will ever experience the invasive and daily media scrutiny that comes with being on the national stage. While Obama has received almost universal fawning from the national media since his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention, the negative press is going to eventually come and we have no idea how he’s going to react to it. As John Kass pointed out in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, the national and international media has been ignorant with regard to (or at least ignoring) the Tony Rezko scandal so far - I’d be willing to bet on a lot more damaging stories surfacing as we go along. (I’m not saying Obama is by any means a nefarious person, but bad stories are simply going to come up no matter what.)

Meanwhile, is there anything that can be thrown at Hillary that could be any worse than the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals while her husband was in the White House? By the same token, what hasn’t Rudy Giuliani heard while having to deal with the rabid New York press on a daily basis for 8 years? If Barack Obama is going to win the Presidency, the key for him will be how he deals with his lack of experience of dealing with the negative, if not personally invasive, media stories that will eventually come to fruition as opposed to only having two years on the national stage in the Senate.

(5) Las Vegas Has Got the Game, but It Wants a Team (New York Times) - If you thought a Super Bowl in Miami was insane, just watch out when the highest-paid athletes in all of sports all get together this weekend in Las Vegas for the NBA All-Star Game. It takes a town with 124,000 hotel rooms to be able to hold that many entourages and posses. Honestly, I’d skip the game just to watch Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley take on the house in blackjack.

On another note, it’s simply criminal that none of the professional sports leagues have set up shop in Las Vegas yet. I can understand the NFL’s reservations since pro football is by far the most wagered on sport (followed by college football and a smattering of college basketball games), but the amount of dollars placed on Major League Baseball,NBA, and NHL games are minimal. As alluded to in the linked article, the best compromise would be for the casinos to take any games played by the Las Vegas franchises off of the board, which would eliminate the largest preceived (if not misguided) fear of illicit activity by the mere presence of teams in the city. With a town that is at the center of one of the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas, a magnet for tourists from across the world, and more than flush with potential customers with a ton of cash, it’s only a matter of time before one of the leagues makes the plunge.

And finally…

(6) Bow Wow Launches New Label, Crew (AllHipHop.com) - Anyone can launch a new record label. Launching a new crew, on the other hand…

Frank the Tank’s Slant 1st Anniversary Extravaganza: The Top 15 Posts of the Year

It’s difficult to believe, but the first two posts on Frank the Tank’s Slant were put up for posterity one year ago today. Since then, you’ve witnessed a steady stream of bloviations from me along with Land-o-Links (my device to comment on numerous items from around the web that don’t warrant full-fledged posts), classic music videos (with a heavy emphasis on old school hip-hop and monster arena rock), and maybe even a different take on the world of sports and news every once in awhile.

Despite becoming a fairly active blogger, I’m not one of those people that believes that blogs will completely turn the media landscape on its head. In my mind, there’s still an important role for “old media” such as newspapers and television to look at events and issues without the colored commentary that inherently accompanies blogs). However, I do think that blogs give the opportunity for yeomen such as myself to stake out places in this flattened world that were previously only the domain of an exclusive media elite while also finally providing exposure to some of the best writers anywhere, including those Slant readers out there that blog themselves.

So, in honor of the first anniversary of Frank the Tank’s Slant, here’s a look back at my 15 favorite posts from the past year, ranked in ascending order, that range from thoughts on the world of sports to political election strategies and television scheduling with some updated comments and observations:

(15) Football vs. Football: College or Pro? (August 16, 2006) - A point-by-point comparison of college football and the NFL, with me giving the college game a slight edge. Of course, I noted that this was a debate comparable to deciding “whether it was more shocking to find out that Liberace was gay versus Lance Bass - if there’s any answer at all, we’re definitely splitting hairs here.” At the same time, I have a zealous hatred of the current BCS system, which has been outlined on this blog a number of times.

(14) Demons Dog the Irish (January 9, 2006) - Regular readers can easily observe that I’m a devoted and frequent writer on the happenings at my undergraduate alma mater of the University of Illinois, but this post featured a rarer instance when I focused on the basketball program at my law school alma mater of DePaul in the wake of my attendance at its inaugural Big East game against rival Notre Dame.

(13) The Yellow Rose Bowl of Texas: My BCS Bowl Picks (December 26, 2005) - I absolutely nailed 3 out of the 4 games right down to a “Penn State will win but not cover” prediction while being comforted that no one that dates outside of his or her own family could have possibly bet money that West Virginia would have beaten Georgia straight-up in a virtual home game at the Georgia Dome. That initial success only a couple weeks after starting this blog emboldened me to make predictions on a regular basis in all of the major sports, which have turned out to be all completely wrong and boneheaded.

(12) Non-Stop TV Seasons Need to be Adopted Everywhere (April 24, 2006) - With ABC changing the scheduling of “Lost” this year, it seems as though the television networks are beginning to heed my calls to get out of its “sweeps feast vs. non-sweeps famine” cycle. They’re about a decade too late to stem the tide to alternative forms of entertainment, but it’s a start.

(11) No Need for an Apology from the Daily Illini (February 14, 2006), The Daily Illini Needs to Apologize for Something Else (February 15, 2006), More Thoughts From Minneapolis Red Sox and Frank the Tank on the Daily Illini (February 16, 2006) - A trilogy of posts on the controversy that surrounded the Daily Illini’s decision to print the Danish cartoons that were the impetus for deadly riots across the Muslim world. The “More Thoughts” post is one of my favorites as the product of a back-and-forth email discussion between my buddy Minneapolis Red Sox and me, particularly since it revealed some surprising views from the “Siberia, Minnesota” writer as a former newspaper reporter.

(10) Springtime for Kiper on Broadway (April 28, 2006) - My pre-NFL Draft thoughts that explained why I love the event so much and predicted the eventual decision of the Bears to trade out of the first round. The follow-up post after the draft had a scathing criticism of the Bears’ moves, but I have since admitted that I was completely wrong, particularly about special teams sage and my new man crush Devin Hester.

(9) Frank the Tank’s Great All-You-Can-Eat Buffets of Chicago (July 14, 2006) - All-you-can-eat is all-that-I-need.

( Big Ten from Eleven to Twelve? If There’s No Luck of the Irish, Bring in More Orange (March 5, 2006) - The types of posts that I enjoy writing the most are about wonky sports business and law subjects. At least from my perspective, while there are multitudes of people in the blogosphere that break down the games on the field on a daily basis (and do it very well), there’s a dearth of perspectives on the off-the-field matters, so I attempt to fill that gap from time-to-time. On the particular subject of big Ten expansion, I’m from the camp that the conference should only expand to 12 teams if it means that it’s maximizing its national footprint, which means the 2 real choices for the conference are either Notre Dame (unparalleled in terms of national exposure) or Syracuse (a strong East Coast counterpart for Penn State). As a result, I pass this post along everytime I hear suggestions for Pittsburgh (market already covered by Penn State), West Virginia (an even smaller market), or Missouri (besides the practical matter of whether it would worth it to secede from the Big 12, Illinois already covers the St. Louis market).

(7) The Bears Are Who They Thought They Were! (October 17, 2006) - This was written on only a couple of hours of sleep since I was completed wired after the Bears’ Monday Night comeback against the Cardinals. Regardless of my writing, the YouTube clip of the uncensored Dennis Green press conference is going to be the subject of mutiple NFL Films specials years from now.

(6) The Mason Midmajor Myth (April 6, 2006) - At the time that this post was written, my Billy Packer-esque sentiment was about as popular as, well, Billy Packer himself. However, I still believe that George Mason’s run to the Final Four was the peak of the midmajors as opposed to the start of any trend. We’ll see how this college basketball season will play out.

(5) The Lonely Libertarian: A View From a Disaffected Republican (November 10, 2006) - A rare post from me that was dedicated solely to politics (and I explained exactly why I haven’t written much about the political arena despite my deep interest in the subject). The output here was a bit long-winded yet long overdue as a result of a whole lot of pent-up frustration. Simply put, if the Republicans don’t pay attention to people such as myself, they’re going to lose even more ground in 2008 than they did in this year’s midterm elections.

(4) Chi-Town vs. Motown: Rivalries Across the Board (July 19, 2006) - After the sports business posts, my second favorite broad topic to write about is the nature of rivalries. The analysis of the Chicago-Detroit rivalries was something that I brewed over for months before I finally got down to writing it since there’s much more involved than just a single major rivalry between two particular teams such as the Bears vs. Packers.

(3) Hoosier Fleecing: A Q&A with Frank the Tank on the Eric Gordon Debacle (October 16, 2006) - The most widely read post that I’ve had on this blog to date due to links from Deadspin and numerous other sites from across the blogosphere along with continued interest in the story. As you can probably tell, the emotions were extremely raw at the time. Even though I’ve clamed down a bit, Satan’s Spawn, er, Kelvin Sampson, is going to need to wear some SWAT team gear if he wants to survive his visit the real Assembly Hall in Champaign on January 23rd.

(2) The Best of Both Worlds: A Modest Proposal for a College Football Playoff That Keeps the Bowls (July 28, 2006) - As long as the BCS school presidents continue to support the current bowl system, this post will stand the test of time. My college football playoff proposal wasn’t necessarily the most original idea (I’ve seen variations of the playoff/bowl hybrid before), but I did want to set forth a system that would give incentives for the BCS conferences to implement it as opposed to the standard calls for an NCAA Tournament-style format, which the powers that be will never go for. In the wake of this year’s Michigan-Florida debacle, it’s time to get this done.

(1) The Paranoia of Illini Nation (December 15, 2005) - This was the issue that spurred me to begin this blog and was my first real substantive post. Even though the Eric Gordon reference is obviously now dated, it’s still my favorite piece of writing as it combines my emotional love for the Illini with an attempt to step back from the proverbial chip on the shoulder that seems to plague our fan base.

I hope that you enjoyed this look back on the recent past and get ready for a sophomore year that hopefully won’t have a slump!

They Killed Kenny Williams and Land-o-Links for 12/8/2006

Due to time constraints, Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week will go on a brief hiatus until after the holidays. In the meantime, though, here are some links to warm you up:

(1) Thoughts on ‘07 and Beyond: Defending Kenny Williams (Chi-Sox Blog) - Jeeves has a spirited defense of the moves that Kenny Williams and the White Sox have been making or planning to make this offseason. It might very well turn out that the Freddy Garcia trade to the Phillies will work out in the long-term. However, what concerns me as a White Sox fan in general is that just when it seemed as though the organization was turning the corner to spend the resources that would befit a team that is located in the nation’s third-largest media market, Jerry Reinsdorf seems to be reverting back to the notion that his club is really the equivalent of a small-market franchise and must reign in spending accordingly. Not too long ago, I argued that Reinsdorf was one of the best owners in sports and couldn’t really have been blamed for not spending frivolously in the manner of George Steinbrenner or Tom Hicks. However, when the Sox ended up selling out a majority of their games in 2006 along with gaining increased income from its partial stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, it’s tough to justify the team pinching pennies again.

(2) At Rams’ Field, Two Sponsors For One Night Only (Wall Street Journal) - Naming rights are so nice, let’s do it twice!

(3) Rental Turf War Escalates (Chicagoist) - This is what passes for gang warfare in Lakeview.

(4) Valet Confidential (Chicago Tribune) - Where your car ends up when you hand the keys over to the valet in the city.

(5) Can Someone Put a Leash on Gumbel? (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) - As one of the five people in the country that actually receives the NFL Network, I have to agree with poker commentator extraordinaire Norman Chad on the terror known as Bryant Gumbel’s announcing skills.  It’s a shame that Cris Collinsworth, who I believe is the best football color man in the industry, has to be paired with such an abomination.  This is also disappointing since I’ve been a fan of pretty much everything else that the NFL Network has done this year, including Sunday highlight shows that are vastly superior to the offerings from ESPN and the other networks.  With the use of the guy that looks like Malcom X compared to Wayne Brady, I almost (heavy emphasis on the almost) want to hear Joe Buck’s voice again.

(6) The DePaul/Illini Connection (Fleece the Pig, Flog the Pony) - As an alum of both of these schools, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

(7) Rex Grossman Eats Tainted Pork? (Critical Sports Blog) - Rex might need to lay off of the Taco Bell.

And finally…

( What We Thought Was Cool… (Chronically Insane) - A true blast from the past from Chronically Insane about a film that I hadn’t thought about in years.

No More Time to Make the Doughnuts and Land-o-Links for 12/6/2006

New Yorkers better grab those Krispy Kremes quickly, as you’ll see when you take a look at today’s links:

(1) New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants (New York Times) - Horrifically, Chicago also has plans to ban all food that tastes good.

(2) Rex Grossman - Freakin’ Exhausting (Ron Karkovice Fan Club) - The following is my personal letter to Rex posted on my fantasy football league message board as I released him for (gulp) Jeff Garcia:

“Dear Rex,

You have broken me. I can’t take it anymore. Not only do you make me rack my brain while watching the Bears, my favorite team, but you’ve also tanked my fantasy team when I needed you most in the wake of Donovan McNabb’s season-ending injury. One can only take such a double emotional beating on a weekly basis. Therefore, I have to painfully say goodbye.”

(3) Fight Was Right, Even If The Result Wasn’t (Mark Tupper Weblog) - The undermanned Illini didn’t look too bad against my sleeper national championship pick of Arizona on Saturday, but there’s still a whole lot of work to do. After a relatively tough week, Illinois gets to come back to the Assembly Hall to play against one of the great pronounciations of an acronym in IUPUI.

(4) Sox’s Talks Center on Rays’ Baldelli (Chicago Tribune) - One thing for White Sox GM Kenny Williams to think about: Rocco Baldelli invariably breaks a limb within three weeks of every Opening Day. He’s the Italian baseball version of Grant Hill.

(5) On Notice: Fiasco Edition (mgoblog) - Pure Michigan anger (and it’s all justifiable).

(6) Perhaps She Has Chosen The Wrong Extracurricular Activity (Deadspin) - Well, Michigan will have at least one person cheering for them at the Rose Bowl. USC cheerleaders, bless their hearts, are so accomodating.

(7) The Perfect Storm (Siberian Baseball) - LaTroy Hawkins in Coors Field. Mull that thought over for a moment.

( Wham, Bam, Thank You, Sam (Chicago Sun-Times) - Sammy Mejia and my law school alma mater of DePaul proudly defended the honor of my undergraduate alma mater on Saturday by beating up Bill Self in his first return to the state of Illinois since leaving the Illini twisting in the wind.

(9) Great Games Make It Harder To Blog Since There’s Nothing To Bitch About (Blog-a-Bull) - Have the Bulls finally turned a corner in the wake of the Ben Wallace headband madness?

And finally…

(10) Rock Group Nice Peter Explains Song ‘50 Cent is a Pussy’ (AllHipHop.com) - Over/under on the number of days before the members of Nice Peter are found buried underneath the Meadowlands: 2.

Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Illini: Frank the Tank’s College Basketball Preview 2006-07

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, ( 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.

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, ( 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

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.)

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…

‘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)

Land-o-Links - 7/18/2006

Have the Mets stopped scoring on the Cubs yet? All jokes aside, my White Sox didn’t fare any better against the other New York team this weekend. The three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees makes the series beginning tonight against the Tigers a pivotal point in the season. I still don’t quite believe in Detroit because of their inexperience, but I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that the baseball world didn’t think the Sox were for real until the last out of the World Series last season. In fact, the 2004 Red Sox are the only World Series winners of the last five years that really had any “big game” experience prior to their championship season. Until tonight’s game, here are the links for the day:

1) The True Nature of Bo’s Tecmo Dominance (Deadspin) - The Big Three of Old School Nintendo: Mario in “Super Mario Bros.”, Link in “The Legend of Zelda”, and Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Bowl”.

(Update: Per TK, the Bo Jackson footage was from Tecmo Super Bowl as opposed to Tecmo Bowl. The original Tecmo Bowl didn’t use NFL teams or players.)

2) Oprah: I’m Not Gay (Washington Post) - Crisis averted for American males: there will not be an Oprah/Rosie love child.

3) The Deal-Breakers (Chicago Tribune) - Rationally, to paraphrase the former Hollywood magnate Samuel Goldwyn, I believe that verbal commitments aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on, so I can’t really be shocked by this or play the “unethical” card here. Emotionally, however, if Kelvin Sampson and Indiana somehow steal Eric Gordon from Illinois, my hatred for the Hoosiers would catapult them past Duke and the Packers on my personal list of the most evil teams in all of sports (and that’s akin to switching the order of the Ten Commandments for me). If you’re not up for a couple of rants per week on this blog for the next umpteen years about how Sampson is the Anti-Christ, you absolutely do not want this to happen.

4) DePaul Big East Basketball Opponents for 2006-07 (DePaul Blue Demons) - Having two games apiece against Notre Dame and St. John’s is a good thing. However, what’s up with South Florida (who I don’t believe should have ever been invited to the Big East) appearing twice on the schedule instead of traditional rival Marquette? That’s not very cool. All in all, I have some doubts as to whether DePaul is going to have enough to get to the NCAA Tournament next season since the tough Big East gauntlet is coupled with a brutal non-conference schedule with home games against Kansas (speaking of a school with a coach that is the Anti-Christ), Wake Forest, and California, along with a trip to the Maui Classic that will feature Kentucky, Memphis, UCLA, and Oklahoma.

5) Chicago Weighs New Prohibition: Bad-for-You Fats (New York Times) - If Ed Burke had read my list of Chicago buffets from last week, he never would have proposed such a clamp on the joys of humanity. Do we live in Russia or something?

6) Never Say Never (Chicagoist) - See, Naperville isn’t such a bad place to live! However, I do remember seeing the noted T-shirt being sold around the corner from my old apartment in the city right before my wife and I made the move out west.

And finally…

7) Snoop Dogg Planning West Cost Dominance (AllHipHop.com) - Tell us what you really think about non-West Coast rappers shooting videos in your ‘hood, Snoop.

A Modest Proposal for the Big East Tournament

When the Big East Conference announced that it was adding DePaul to its roster of schools, two primary thoughts came to my mind. First, I was excited to see DePaul reaffirm its long-standing Catholic university rivalries with Notre Dame and Marquette while adding on top notch eastern opponents such as UConn, Syracuse, and Georgetown. My next immediate thought was how great it would be to watch DePaul play in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden in March every year no matter how the team’s season went.

Well, the second thought is going to be held off until at least next year. The Big East decided to have only the top 12 teams out of the 16-team conference make it to New York for the tournament, which began yesterday. DePaul fell on the short-end this season.

A number of Big East coaches (and not just the ones who aren’t in New York this week) have complained that this format is going to put immense pressure on the coaches that don’t make it to the conference tourney. Plus, every school wants the opportunity to wine and dine its alums and supporters in Manhattan once a year. Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, however, didn’t want to have a 16-team tourney because he wanted to avoid forcing the top seeds to play 4 games to win the championship.

Tranghese is correct in his concern. The top seeds in the tournaments for the five other BCS conferences only need to play 3 games to win their respective championships. The last thing the Big East wants is for its top teams (who are usually Final Four contenders) to be exhausted heading into the NCAA Tournament.  Yet, there’s a way for the Big East to preserve an advantage for its top seeds and still invite all 16 teams to the Mecca of Basketball: make the conference tournament into a 5-round extravaganza.

Here’s how it would work. The bottom 8 seeds would play in the first round. The 5th through 8th seeds would receive a first round-bye and play the winners from the first round in the second round. The top 4 seeds would get byes for the first 2 rounds and meet the second round victors in the quarterfinals.

This format allows the top seeds to only have to play 3 games to win the championship. At the same time, it gives the bottom teams a chance to participate but they need to run the gauntlet of 5 games to win the tournament. That means that the chances of a fluke team getting the Big East automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament are slim, which is how it should be. Finally, as a fan, think of what the first 3 rounds would be like - 3 straight days of quadruple-headers of college basketball at the highest level!

Under this proposal, the fans get more meaningful games, the bottom-feeders get the opportunity to go to the Garden, the top teams still have the same advantage in terms of the number of games they need to play as they do in the present structure, and the Big East and its members get one more day of television and ticket revenue. What’s not to love?

Big Ben Wins the Beard Bowl and Other Weekend Sports Tidbits

Despite the worst two conference championship games in recent memory (although I at least didn’t repeat the debacle known as my divisional playoff predictions), there was a lot going on in the world of sports this past weekend, particularly on the basketball court:

1) AFC Championship Game: Beard Bowl is a Big Ben Beatdown - The Steelers are the gold standard of where the Bears want to be.  Pittsburgh has a stifling defense coupled with a powerful running game, much like the Bears did this past season.  However, as Rick Morrissey aptly pointed out in today’s Chicago Tribune, the biggest reason why the Steelers are heading to Motown while the Bears are staying home is that Ben Roethlisberger can do a whole lot more than just “manage” a game - he brings a ton to the quarterback position in terms of passing accuracy, mobility, and poise.  Plus, Bill Cowher has completely shocked everyone by turning his QB loose and stretching the field out with aggressive passing plays over the last two games.  The Steelers have been completely in rythm on offense.

At the same time, Jesus H. Unabomber, er, I mean Jake Plummer finally showed his true colors and imploded as predicted here and elsewhere.  The interception he threw five seconds after the Broncos got decent field position for the first time all day was about as predictable as Jason going on a killing spree in a Friday the 13th movie.  Plummer’s fantastic beard couldn’t hide the fact that he just isn’t a guy you can depend on in crunch time.

2) NFC Championship Game: Holmgren Climbs Hasselback Mountain - Watching this game was essentially 3 hours of “what if” questions going through my mind, as in, “What if the Bears had double-teamed Steve Smith?”  The Panthers offense was clueless yesterday with the Seahawks draping two or more defenders over Smith the entire game.  Troy Aikman appropriately called the Bears “arrogant” for believing that they could stick to single coverage on Smith last week.  The Seahawks weren’t stupid and cocky on defense regarding the Panther wide receiver and made the needed adjustments, which is why Seattle is headed to their first Super Bowl this season while we here in Chicago continue to buy books about the ‘85 Bears.

Meanwhile, Matt Hasselback has come a long way from his “We want the ball and we’re going to score” comment against the Packers after the overtime coinflip in a 2004 playoff game at Lambeau.  This guy looks like a Super Bowl quarterback.  Mike Holmgren has probably cemented his standing as the best teacher of quarterbacks in history, with Joe Montana, Steve Young, Brett Favre, and now Hasselback under his belt.

3) Two More Weeks??? - Other than the fact that the games themselves were terrible this year, the worst thing about conference championship weekend is that we all have to wait two friggin’ weeks until the Super Bowl.  The Super Bowl should actually feature a pretty good matchup this year, but I don’t know how many human-interest stories can be milked from the Pittsburgh - Seattle pairing for two whole weeks.

4) Here Comes McBride - Richard McBride, it’s a pleasure to see you again.  Hitting four three-pointers was a very good thing on Saturday.  It was an even better thing to see the Illini notch their first Big Ten road victory, even if it was against Northwestern.  In addition to McBride, Dee Brown and James Augustine got back on track in the victory.  The only thing that troubles me is that Illinois didn’t completely shut the door on the Wildcats in the second half.  Northwestern never really got back into the game, but it’s disheartening to see a 20-plus point lead dwindle to 10-points in a matter of minutes.  We still need to improve on closing out games if we want to win another Big Ten title and make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

5) DePaul is Done - Unfortunately, this is probably going to be the last time I write about DePaul in the near future since the Blue Demons have gone in the past week from an NCAA Tournament bubble team to a club that is unlikely to even make the Big East Conference Tournament.  After losing to Providence on Saturday, DePaul has dropped to 1-5 in Big East play and 8-9 overall.  With the toughest games of the season remaining on their schedule (i.e. Georgetown, Villanova, at St. John’s, at Louisville, and Syracuse) the Blue Demons are pretty much out of it when it comes to any type of postseason play.  DePaul freshman forward Wilson Chandler looks like a stud, but the team is at least a year away from making the NCAA Tournament.

6) Kobe’s 81 - On the one hand, Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance on Sunday evening might be the greatest individual performance in a regular season NBA game ever.  It is certainly a whole lot tougher for a perimeter player such as Kobe to drop that many points compared to a big man like Wilt Chamberlain (whose size compared to the rest of the league was even more of a factor in the NBA of the ’60s).

On the other hand, Kobe’s career seems to be the inverse of Michael Jordan’s and that’s a very bad thing for the Lakers.  The highest individual numbers for Jordan came in the first few seasons of his career - it wasn’t until he figured out that he needed to get the rest of his team involved that he started to win championships.  Kobe found great success as a team player at the beginning of his career in winning three rings with the Lakers.  Now, as Kobe gets older, he seems to be taking more shots and getting higher individual marks even though his team gets worse.

So, as amazing as Kobe’s non-Wilt record 81-point game was last night, the trajectory of his basketball career is headed in the completely wrong direction.

Land-o-Links - 1/13/2006

DePaul played a spirited game against Pittsburgh last night in their first “true” Big East game (the first two conference games were against long-time rivals Cincinnati and Notre Dame), but a fast start for the Blue Demons petered out in the second half and they ended up losing 73-65.  Still, DePaul actually looked pretty good on the road against one of the last three unbeaten teams in college basketball.

Also, Kobe Bryant ended up on the winning end in his matchup against LeBron James last night, but LeBron showed me why he gets paid $100 million by Nike.  With 5 seconds to go in the first half, Drew Gooden of the Cavs stole the ball from the Lakers and dribbled down the court to his own baseline.  At the last moment, he passed the ball back to LeBron, who seriously launched himself from the free throw line and posterized my poor fellow Illini brother Brian Cook with such a powerful tomahawk slam that I, at home in my pajamas beginning to doze off while channel surfing as my wife and cat were sleeping next to me on the couch, jumped out of my seat and yelled, “Wow!”  What makes LeBron special is that when Gooden stole that ball with 5 seconds left (remember, LeBron didn’t even have the ball in his hands at that point), everyone watching was anticipating something spectacular and Lebron subsequently delivered it on demand.  There’s only one other athlete I’ve ever seen deliver such combination of brilliance, tenacity, and power on demand every single day - Michael Jordan.

Anyway, here are the links for today:

1) Blackhawks Have Rare Televised Home Game - Unfrozen Caveman Hockey Team Owner: “I know nothing of your ‘television’ or the ‘fan base’ that you speak of.”

2) The Wu is Back - Following on the heels of the launch of his doll announced in Land-o-Links on Monday, Ghostface is now “smoke free” (just in time for Chicago’s new smoking ban), plus has a new album and a Wu-Tang Clan reunion tour lined up.

3) White Like Larry - Spin/Esquire/ESPN.com writer Chuck Klosterman writes a fantastic piece that brings up unique points on racial stereotyping of athletes, including the revealing of Malcom Gladwell’s (author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”) “White Gunner Theory.”  How many times do we all think the way that Klosterman and Gladwell describe here?

4) Maryland Senate Overrides Veto on ‘Wal-Mart Bill’ - I know a lot of my readership doesn’t have much love for Wal-Mart, but this is populism run amok.

And finally…

5) New Jersey Selects New Slogan (submitted by Matt) - In honor of my sister who’s attending grad school at Montclair State University.  Matt’s comment is appropriate: “Story is - eh, whatever.  Subhead is outstanding.”