Well, one out of four ain’t bad. Losing your champion pick in the first round, however, is.
Category / Basketball
The Sweet Sixteen
We enter the Sweet 16 with upsets galore. leaving me without my champion pick, An Ohio State University, who lost to a 15 seed in the opening round. My Boilermakers also crapped out in the first round, making my trip to Indianapolis last weekend a questionable decision.
Gonzaga, the overall #1 seed, has to be even more of a favorite to win the whole thing at this point.
The Big Ten did me wrong in this region, as both Purdue and Ohio State were upset in the first round. Continue reading →
Socially Distanced Dancing
Because money is more important than the health of their so-called student athletes, the NCAA tournament returns after a year break caused by the outbreak of the corona virus. For reasons that I’m sure make some sort of sense, games this year will be Friday through Monday instead of Thursday through Sunday. As the nation’s attention is grabbed for the next few weeks, let’s take a look at my picks for this year’s tournament.
A few minor upsets, but the overall #1 seed, Gonzaga, makes it out on their way to the Final Four.
Purdue finds themselves the #4 seed, playing tomorrow night at Lucas Oil Stadium. Again, there’s a few minor upsets early in the going, but I have things chalk in the Elite Eight, where Ohio State, the #2 seed, gets through. Continue reading →
College Basketball Tipoff
The Purdue Boilermakers kick of the 2020-2021 season today, meaning it’s time to take our third ever look at the results of the now whopping 16 college basketball games I have attended in my lifetime. You’d think it would be more, since I was a big fan and we had a great team while I was in school, but for some reason I only made it to 2 games while enrolled in college. The other 14 have been post-graduation, including two new games last season at Illinois and Northwestern. Anyway, without further ado, here are the standings for those 16 games.
| Team | Won | Loss | Winning Pctg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia Commonwealth Rams | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Butler Bulldogs | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Purdue Boilermakers | 10 | 5 | 0.667 |
| Northwestern Wildcats | 2 | 3 | 0.400 |
| Illinois Fighting Illini | 2 | 3 | 0.400 |
| Vermont Catamounts | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Long Beach State 49ers | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Iowa State Cyclones | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Houston Cougars | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
200 Things To Do In Illinois – United Center
Illinois celebrated its bicentennial as a state in December of 2018. To celebrate, the Chicago Tribune published the Bicentennial Bucket List: 200 Things To Do In Illinois, celebrating the best the state has to offer in history, food, architecture, culture, sports, nature, drink, and oddities. Now that the state is starting to open back up following the corona virus outbreak, I figured this was the second-best time to look through this collection and cover the ones I’ve done/eaten/seen.
We kick things off with one of the entries from the Sports category: United Center, from Chicago, IL.
Seeing the stars of the Bulls and the Blackhawks go to battle in the Madhouse on Madison is thrilling – or infuriating, depending on how the teams are doing.
But no trip to the Near West Side stadium is complete without genuflecting at a trio of statues commemorating former Chicago hockey and basketball greats Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Michael Jordan. You’ll find Hull and Mikita outside, while His Airness is enshrined in an atrium that opened last year.
I’ve been to the United Center 10 times, for 4 Bulls games, 4 Blackhawks games, a 2011 NCAA tournament game, and a concert by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. My first two Bulls games came in 1997, a month or two prior to Michael Jordan’s return to the team. My only game during the championship years came in November of 1997, when I saw Jordan and Bulls defeat the Hornets. 3 of the Blackhawk games came during their lean years, with just one coming during their championship runs. The NCAA tournament game saw the Purdue Boilermakers fall to VCU in a surprising upset.
200 Things To Do In Illinois – Fighting Illini Basketball
Illinois celebrated its bicentennial as a state in December of 2018. To celebrate, the Chicago Tribune published the Bicentennial Bucket List: 200 Things To Do In Illinois, celebrating the best the state has to offer in history, food, architecture, culture, sports, nature, drink, and oddities. With the state still shut down due to the corona virus outbreak, I figured this was the second-best time to look through this collection and cover the ones I’ve done/eaten/seen.
We kick things off with one of the entries from the Sports category: Fighting Illini Basketball, from Champaign, IL.
Get swept up in Big 10 school spirit at the University of Illinois’ recently renovated State Farm Center. The space-shiplike dome contains an intense student section, the Orange Krush, created at the urging of former coach Lou Henson in the mid-1970s.
Decades later, the Krush conyinues to put the squeeze on opposing teams with an intimidating sea of orange and trademark cheers.
I’ve attended 2 Fighting Illini home basketball games, one in 2016 and the second this past January. In both cases, I’ve left the State Farm Center disappointed as the Illini managed to defeat my beloved Purdue Boilermakers. With Danny now committed to Purdue, there probably isn’t a reason why I’d need to go back to Champaign to see another game.
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
Earlier this afternoon, Major League Baseball suspended the remainder of spring training and delayed the start of the season by at least two weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of the March 26th openers, the earliest the season would kick off would be April 9. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said he had talked with owners of Chicago’s major sports teams and asked them to cancel games until May 1 or play without spectators.
This follows the suspension of the NBA season last night following Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert testing positive for the virus prior to the team’s game in Oklahoma City against the Thunder. On the college scene, the Big Ten Tournament was cancelled earlier this morning, followed by the entire NCAA Tournament.
Personally, this means I won’t be going to opening day for the White Sox in two weeks or the Cubs home opener the following Monday. It also puts my trip to Boston the following weekend in doubt, as the White Sox v Red Sox tilt at Fenway Park will not be taking place and Angelina may not be back at school.
The Decade In College Sports
The 2010s have drawn to a close and its time to take a look back at the previous decade. Today, we are wrapping things up with college athletics, specifically football and basketball. On the gridiron, this was not a particularly successful ten years for the boys in gold and black, with only 4 bowl games, none of which were particularly prestigious. Things were considerably brighter on the hardwood, with 8 appearances in the NCAA tournament, including 2 losses in the Sweet Sixteen and 1 Elite Eight appearance. Not to mention 2 Big Ten regular season titles.
I only managed to take in 3 football game over the past 10 years, all at Ross-Ade Stadium. The home team managed to win only the first of those, and were frankly somewhat embarrassed in the other two.
| Team | Won | Loss | Winning Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Illinois Huskies | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Illinois Fighting Illini | 1 | 1 | 0.500 |
| Purdue Boilermakers | 1 | 2 | 0.333 |
Things were a little better on the basketball side. I made it to 9 different contests over the course of the decade, at 5 different arenas. Of those 9, 4 were tournament games. Purdue was involved in 8 of the 9 games, mostly against the Illini.
| Team | Won | Loss | Winning Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia Commonwealth Rams | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Northwestern Wildcats | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Butler Bulldogs | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Purdue Boilermakers | 5 | 3 | 0.625 |
| Illinois Fighting Illini | 1 | 3 | 0.250 |
| Vermont Catamounts | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
| Iowa State Cyclones | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
The Final Four
Not really my best effort.
16 Left Standing
We enter the Sweet 16 without the major upsets of last year, but also without the Cinderella team for the nation to rally around. My Boilermakers are still alive, thanks to their thrashing of defending champion Villanova last weekend, which makes me cautiously optimistic about their chances this weekend.
Things look pretty good in the East, with only one of my Sweet Sixteen picks already out of the running.
Things aren’t looking so hot here, where I only have 2 picks still alive and none of them picked to pass through to the Elite 8. On the plus side, this may mean an easier road to the Final Four for the old alma mater.