Scattered Thoughts

To: Indiana University Athletics
From: Concerned Indiana University Basketball Fans
Subject: Basketball Head Coach at Indiana University

We feel that the direction that Indiana University Basketball is heading is not acceptable. It has us worried that a basketball program as storied as the one at our university is struggling through a tough season. We understand that the schedule in question included playing teams such as North Carolina and the University of Connecticut, defending national champions, but performance is not what it should be.

We are Indiana! Other teams should fear coming into the Assembly Hall to play the Hoosiers. Indiana is the team that will knock off top ranked teams in Bloomington and play hard and tough when they are away from home. The Indiana team of 2004-2005 is a team that tucks its tail between its legs and runs away from opponents. Going up seventeen points against Connecticut and Missouri and then losing the games in the second half is a prime example of horrible basketball.

“Why not blame the players?” you may ask.

It is hard for us to believe that a Mr. Basketball from Indiana, a player from Pike who transferred out of the state for his last year, one of the top ten recruits in the country, a backcourt rated among the top five just a couple years ago and multiple veteran players who have had their skills tested throughout their years in college are not capable of playing better basketball. As soon as they start building a rhythm, making shots, they are pulled from the lineup by a coach who would rather give them rest than have them keep up what they are doing.

Indiana Basketball is on the verge of a second straight losing season, a second straight no show for postseason play, and that is unacceptable. It is a long climb out of a two and six hole, especially when we have to play the likes of Illinois, top ranked in the country, Iowa, recently knocked off Bobby Knight’s Red Raiders, Michigan State, Tom Izzo, need we say more?, Ohio State, who also handed the Raiders an L, and Wisconsin, who knocked off then number twelve Maryland in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Indiana sits at the bottom…THE BOTTOM of the Big Ten standings. Not very many people alive can remember the last time this happened.

We are calling for change. If Coach Mike Davis cannot win the next four basketball games this season (Ball State, Oral Roberts, Furman, Northwestern) and does not clench a NCAA Tournament berth for the second straight year, he should either hand over the reigns of this program deep in tradition, or have them forcefully taken away and handed to someone more capable of leading this team. He does not do anything to develop his players and does not coach during the games. Mike Davis is a figurehead at the helm of Indiana Basketball letting his assistant coaches make decisions during the games. The only time that Davis leaves his seat to coach during the games is to argue with an official over a not-so-questionable call.

Mike Davis’ coaching style and attitude should have been left in the role of recruiter, a role that fit him like a glove. His ability to take a team coached by the legendary Bob Night to the final game in the NCAA tournament should not be grounds for a contract extension. The athletic department should have hired a real coach with real coaching talent rather than supplant a recruiter into the head coaching job.

The Mike Davis era of Indiana Basketball is a stain on an otherwise gleaming tradition; a tradition dating back to 1901 when Indiana formed a team. It needs to come to an end to allow a new era to bloom and bring Indiana Basketball back to the forefront of NCAA competition.

Signed,
Concerned Indiana Basketball Fans

Ok, so between the 17 inches of snow in Bloomington and the 20 inches of snow in Shelbyville, I've seen enough snow to last me the rest of my life.

I want to go back to Los Angeles!

Ok, seriously though. I wake up Thursday morning, check my e-mail (as per usual) and notice that my Meteorologist up in my menu bar has a little snow flake next to Bloomington. I peek out my window and am unpleasantly surprised by a good seven or eight inches of snow on the ground.

Since there was a basketball game that night, I decided to go get a new white shirt and black pants since the ones I had were from my freshman year of high school and definitely showed their age. I cleaned off my truck, drove to Kohl's, bought my pants, came home.

Tim and I went to the Women's BBall game (because I had to) and then, immediately after that, the Men's BBall game (which was yet another embarrassment).

After the Men's game, I was, yet again, unpleasantly surprised by three to four inches of snow that have piled up on my truck since the beginning of the Women's game. ::points at himself:: This guy wasn't very happy about that. It wasn't too bad because I got to help a guy from Evansville clean off his car before heading to Indianapolis. He wasn't about to travel to Evansville; at that point, they already had 18 inches of snow on the ground down there.

Tim and I got back to the house and decided to journey to Blockbuster to rent a DVD, they were closed. We then decided to go to Wal-Mart (on the other side of town, mind you) and purchase a DVD, some Candy, Popcorn, Cheetos and Cheese-Its. In the time I was in Wal-Mart, it snowed enough that I had to scrape my windshield before we drove back to the house.

Let's just say that the snow made my evening miserable.

…BUT…

The good thing to come out of the whole evening was that I got to see Will and DJ from Troop 119 at the Men's game. These two guys are possibly the best camper friends that I've made since I started working at Ransburg, and it's always good to see them and catch up on what's been happening in their lives.

That's all for now.

Tomorrow we head up to Hartford City for Christmas Eve, then to Alexandria for Christmas Day and then back here. I return to Bloomington Sunday by 4:00, since I have to work. So expect a post at the end of that adventure.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – News – Jack Johnson

Hero of the Day – Me! Only because I cleaned my room at home, AND our living room in the basement, AND assembled a 14-in-1 game table

Quote of the Day – "I was just petting the bunny… then it went into the soup can… and part of my hand went with it." – Red vs. Blue Episode 45

Current Mood – – Exhausted

Until the next post…

What an amazing weekend!

Not only did I get to travel to Los Angeles, but I got to see the IU Men's Soccer team take home their seventh NCAA Championship — their second straight, third time back-to-back. The two games I saw this weekend were the best games of soccer that I have ever seen, hands down.

If you want to read about the games, go here for IU vs. Maryland and here for IU vs. UCSB.

I'm not going to talk about the games here, but I am going to talk about what I spent my time doing in Los Angeles.

First of all, our hotel was in Long Beach, CA, right outside Los Angeles. If you went to the top floor of the hotel and looked south, you could see the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful.

The weekend started with an excursion around the streets of Long Beach at 11:00pm Long Beach time (2:00am Indiana time) looking for food. None of the restaurants in the area of our hotel were open after 10 or so. We got word of a 24-hour joint at Second and Ocean. We walked north until we found First St. and thought, "Second Street must be close" and kept walking.

The next street we came to was Broadway followed by Third. Clearly there was no Second Street in that sequence, so we searched for Ocean Blvd., found it and started walking east to see if Second Street connected to Ocean at another location.

After walking for what seemed like forever, we found a gas station. I asked the scratchy-voiced clerk if he knew where Second and Ocean was. He gave me directions and told me that we couldn't walk there.

It was a good thing we found the station because that's where dinner came from the first night. All because will wouldn't let us buy some Subway at the airport before getting on the bus.

Hey Will!
It's all your fault… It's all your fault… It's all your fault… It's all your fault…

Back to the wrap up…

The game vs. Maryland was a nail-biter. We scored the winning goal at the 48-second mark of the second over time.

After the game, we ended up eating at the Rock Bottom Brewery just north of our hotel on Pine St. It was good food, as all of the RBBs are that I've ever been to. There were also a lot of Maryland fans there; I was proud to be wearing an Indiana Soccer shirt.

Saturday, we spent the day lounging in the pool. We ate lunch at a great sports bar called Smooth's Sports Grille to watch IU Basketball get pounded by Kentucky. The owner, John Morris, chatted with us for quite a while about things we should do for the rest of the day. The only suggestion of his we took was to go to Belmont Beach to see the Boat Parade. It was really cool.

That night, we celebrated our victory and slept in preparation for the next IU victory.

Sunday's game was difficult from a fan's point of view. The UCSB fans were horrible sports about everything. They out numbered us 10 to 1 and were loud and annoying. But they shut up pretty quickly when Jay Nolley blocked the last penalty kick attempt for UCSB, securing the title for IU.

Then we went back to the hotel, ate dinner, and then caught a flight to get back to Indiana. That's the whole story of my trip. It was the best way to spend three days before finals, nice and relaxing.

Now it's time to buckle down and study for finals…

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Slither – Velvet Revolver

Heroes of the Trip – The IU Alumni Association, Jerry Yeagley, the Colonel, the Department of Bands, and the IU Athletic Department for paying our way to LA.

Quotes of the Trip

(during our pre-trip briefing)
Will: If I catch you doing something you shouldn't…
John: Like hookers?

Will: Congratulations to the NCAA Soccer Committee for being the most disorganized POS I've ever seen.

(after talking to some Korean woman looking for a certain store)
Ben: We exchanged hello several times and I thanked her and hung up. I thought about telling her I loved her.

(in a drunken stupor talking about our bus driver)
Dave: We've got Fred the f*$#ing engineer!

(on the bus after the UCSB game)
Will: There was only one cheer that I had to stop…
Crabb Band: UC :clap: :clap: Sucks Balls :clap: :clap:

Current Mood – – A little stressed about my Spanish final tomorrow.

Until the next post…

Seems simple enough, right? Professors don't make new assignments, students are mostly done with school work and schedules for classes lighten up so that students can study for finals. It sounds great in theory, but 'dead week' has developed a new, metaphorical meaning since I've been in college.

Dead week is more about the physical characteristics of students and less about the amount of work students have during this week. Most students find themselves feeling like they are dead, walking around campus looking like they have just been hit by a Mack truck (dead). In fact, a lot of students want to kill someone or something during this week, making them or it very much dead.

The stress of dead week comes not from the students procrastinating; however, that is a leading cause, but more from the fact that professors do not assign homework during this week.

"Wait a minute. How can a lack of assignments lead to increased stress?"

I never said that students are lacking assignments. In fact, most students find themselves faced with many more assignments than usual. These assignments are assigned the week before 'dead week' with due dates toward the end of this fabled paradise. It's almost like professors are trying to get their last shot at the sanity of their students before the end of the semester when they will most likely never see their students in a classroom setting again.

Dead week is very much alive. For this reason, I suggest that we rename dead week to 'stress week'. That way we aren't lying to ourselves when we say that our course load will lighten up and things will become easier the week before finals…

In other news, tomorrow at 4:45pm, I pull out of Bloomington to go to Las Angeles for the weekend. I'm excited

Until the next post…

2004?

Guess who is going to Los Angeles, California!

Well, Carson, California, but that's close enough to LA.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the (2)Indiana Soccer Team defeated the un-ranked Tulsa Golden Hurricane (a.k.a. Golden Showers) 4 – 0 to advance to the College Cup for the second year in a row, sixteenth time overall. This means that I get to go to the College Cup to see IU play, and to play in the Crabb Band.

I'm pumped, as you can see. The only downside is that I have to give up 16 hours of work this weekend to be able to go. Luckily, I've already found a way to get eight of those hours back. We'll see if I can get the rest back.

Anyway, this post is short because I have a lot of work to do. I had to get that out of my system though.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Ole! – Indiana University Crabb Band and Superfans

Heroes of the Day – Jordan Chirico, Jacob Peterson and Greg Badger because of the four goals scored today, two by Peterson. Read more here.

Quote of the Day
Me: Who is that?
John: Sixteen.

Current Mood – – Ecstatic

Until the next post…