The Diagnosis

Well, one thing that I finally figured out today at basketball was that I'm old. I need to get the knees loose before I can actually play. And once they're warmed up, they're okay. So, it was funny - I needed a few minutes on the exercise bike before we got going. I felt like TO out there. All I needed was a bicycle helmet and a Team Discovery jersey.

So, today's game was a lot like last week. Good play, overall. Very solid defense (against a pretty good player who played both inside and outside). Was able to move around. And I even hit a couple spot-up jumpers from the baseline, a couple long jumpers, and even one litle bank shot off the dribble. The downside - I've lost the pull-up. I need to get that back. The funny thing is that I was able to get open in the lane, from about 10 feet. And as I pulled up to shoot, I would get spooked by guys flying at me. Granted, they would fly into me some of the time, but that never used to really bother me. I think that I'm afraid that they're going to crash into my legs. I think that I can get over this in a couple weeks, though.

I was browsing through the Sports Guy's latest post. And I was reminded that Nick Curran was the name of the Michael Douglas character in Basic Instinct. That's hot. Also, Michael O'Donnell was the name of the alleged altar boy that was raped by a Catholic priest in Primal Fear. That's also hot. All I know is that if I ever write a movie, I'm writing all of your names in there as various seedy characters.

Actually, I've sort of done that already. In one of my journal submissions, we have a qualitative piece where we use interview transcripts from our research to tell a story (here, it's the retail shopping experience for low literate consumers). Now, we can't use the real names of our respondents. So, part of my job as the co-author is to clean up the interview transcripts, and to make up names. And that's where you fine folks come in. So people like George, Christian, and Michael have made it into my articles. And future articles will get more of you into the archives of academia. As functional illiterates. How awesome is that?

Now, I'm thinking that it's about time to jump ship on the ol' Reds. Now, a couple times earlier this season, they've swooned, but have bounced back. We'll see if they can do it one more time. They're on probation right now. Maybe things get better if Guardado comes back to close. If not, the Yanks are looking pretty darned good right now. If Mussina comes back healthy, and Unit keeps throwing like he has of late, this team should bring things home. They owned the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins in the second half. And they'll be too good for Oakland (though the A's are probably the 2nd best team in baseball right now).

To close - our Illini are 1-0, after owning... well, Eastern Illinois. I mean, they were ranked 16 in Division I-AA. But a W's a W. Only 5 more wins until bowl eligibility. Instinctively, I figured that we'd have 3 wins. But, if all the breaks fall our way, maybe we can sneak out a bowl bid. Hear me out. We got Eastern. Figure that we get Ohio, as well. We have Rutgers and Syracuse. If we can pull out both of these, we'll have 4 wins. I think that we can get Indiana for Homecoming. And if we don't get both of the Big East teams, maybe we can get a W when Purdue comes to town. Or maybe even at Michigan St. But the game that I figure that we can get Northwestern. Afterall, they've got a rookie coach, after Randy Walker died. I'd like to think that we have a shot against Northwestern, after their coach dies. Ideally, we beat them even with out their head coach dying (after all, it's friggin' Northwestern). But at this point, we take what we can get, right? So, if all the breaks go our way, we may be able to get that bowl game, after all.

Of ocurse, I'm calling the over-under at 3.5. I don't really like our schedule. We need to take a page out of Jim Boeheim's non-conference schedule. We need to get more of those directional MAC schools to come here. No more of these Big East teams that want home and homes. We need to bring in bad teams, pay them $500K, and send them home with a loss. If we set up our non-conference schedule right, we can get 4 W's before the Big Ten season starts, and then need to beat Indiana and Northwestern to get a bowl.

We'll see.

-Chairman

The Follow-Up

Hit the courts yesterday to ball with a bunch of guys from my previously mentioned flag football team. And for the first time in a while, I played ball. And I played pretty well. Good defense, decent rebounding, decent point skills and passing. The only thing that I sucked at? Shooting, oddly enough. It was funny - I had gotten used to being either a spot-up shooter or a post player for the past year and a half. And I was playing ball that was sort of loose, so I was running a lot of point. So, I didn't get any kick-out passes for jumpers. I was the one finding shooters. And if I wanted to score, it was going to be beating people off the dribble. So, I'd set up the little crossover dribble into a pull-up jumper. Only I hadn't shot a pull-up in a long time, so I looked like a special ed kid in gym class (and not the autistic kid that won an ESPY). That's alright. I moved well - the pull-up jumper will come back soon enough. But what was nice was that I was able to play some defense. I was actually tipping passes, making steals, and starting breaks. I guarded some big guys, and pretty much neutralized them.

Today, the legs are a little sore again. The knees are, too. But not in a crippling way that I've been used to. They're sore in a way that I'm used to them being the day after I play ball. This is good. I'll probably try to make it back to the courts some time in the middle of the week for another run.

Goals for next run? Improve defense. Get shooting under control. Dribble penetrate.

Should be obtainable.

Anyway, back to work... sort of.

-Chairman