My Amsterdam Bachelor Party

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And Thus Endeth the Iowa Season

The Iowa Hawkeyes fell victim to the biggest upset of the tourney so far, falling to Northwestern State 64-63 on a long three-pointer at the buzzer.

Now, a lot of people are going to talk about how this shouldn't tarnish a great 25-win season, a Big Ten Tournament title, and a season that our seniors can be proud of. But you know what? It does.

Say what you want about conference record, RPI, or however else you measure success in college basketball- all that matters is where you get seeded in the Big Dance, and how far you are able to go. And for the second year in a row, Iowa got beat in the first round.

A lot of people are also going to express sympathy for our seniors, in particular Jeff Horner and Greg Brunner, because they went out on a sad and disappointing note. Those guys were great players and represented the Hawkeyes really well for four years, but I have zero sympathy for them. Here's why:

This. Team. Choked. This was one of the worst of many epic choke jobs that Steve Alford-led teams author the minute any sort of pressure is applied. Consider the following:

1) We had a 17 point lead on a #14 seed with a little less than 8 and a half minutes to play. They went on a 27-9 run to win the game. That is a collapse of almost indescribable proportions. There is no excuse for allowing your opponent to come back like that, especially when you pride yourself on your defense. None.

2) Our senior center, Erek Hansen, went 2/4 with 1 offensive rebound and 5 turnovers.

3) Jeff Horner was 4-13 from the field, including 1-7 from downtown. That just isn't going to get the job done.

4) We got 7 points on 1-4 shooting from our bench.

5) We turned the ball over 18 times.

6) Northwestern State managed to shoot the ball at a 38% clip and still beat us.

7) Greg Brunner missed a free throw with 14 seconds to go that would have put us up by 3.

All of this leads me to a couple of, in my view, inescapable conclusions. They are hard to swallow, but even as a person who lives and dies with the success of the Hawkeyes, we have to be honest here. They are:

1) Steve Alford is, simply put, a loser. It took him 5 years at Iowa to author a .500 season in the Big Ten (Tom Davis never had a sub-.500 year, ever.). He has won precisely 1 NCAA tournament game in 7 seasons at Iowa. He has gotten beat by inferior teams the last two years in the first round, both played fairly close to home.

2) This team is composed of post-season choke artists. We haven't gone on a post-season run in the Alford era, and it's not just in the NCAAs either. Remember when we got beat by St. Louis University in the first round of the NIT a few years ago? We just can't perform in a one-and-done situation.

3) We desperately need to shake up our program and recruiting. We are not going to get Iowans like Brunner and Horner on a regular basis, and right now, we're not effectively recruiting anywhere else. Time to get a new coaching staff and a new attitude in our program. For tips, call Kirk Ferentz.

4) Time to start laying blame where it belongs. Lack of preparation and mentality is on the coach. Lack of poise and odd absence of fundamentals in crunch time is on the players.

Thanks to our seniors. Horner and Brunner had great careers at Iowa, and I believe they will be remembered for their entire body of work, not just today's game. But no excuses: they were beaten by an inferior team because they couldn't hold a 17-point lead for 8 minutes.

That's a tough thought to ponder on the way back to Iowa City, and for the rest of the off-season. See you guys next year.


Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. Be proud of your Irish heritage, I know I am.

t

And Thus Beginneth the Madness

The Hawks returned to Iowa City last night after finishing a victorious run in the Big Ten tournament by beating Ohio State 67-60 in the final and claiming the first tournament championship since 2001. By finishing the year with three straight wins in the tournament, the Hawks ran their record to 25-8 to go along with the tournament trophy.

While that's a big story in Hawkland, it also propelled them to a #3 seed in the Atlanta bracket of the NCAA tournament, which pits them against #14 seed Northwestern State (La.) in Auburn Hills, Michigan on Friday.

Overall, I'm pleased with the seed that Iowa received, but we sure got a tough draw. Check out the full breakdown and analysis of the Atlanta region here. We'll likely have to beat a battle-tested West Virginia team to come out of the Auburn Hills sub-regional, and then we'll likely have Texas and Duke in the regional semi-final and final. So there's a lot standing in the way of our road to the Final Four.

A few more NCAA tourney notes:

1) I'm a little surprised that GW, with only a couple of losses, got an 8 seed. That's good news for those that think they can upset Duke and blow the Atlanta region wide open, but I consider an 8 seed to be a little bit low for a team that went 14-0 in conference play and won 26 games.

2) Biggest snubs, according to the Offering: Missouri State (21 RPI in a tough conference), Michigan (Big Ten deserved 7 bids), and Cincinnati (deserved an at-large after going .500 in an exceptional Big East and then losing their conference tourney game on a last-second Gerry McNamara three-ball).

3) Easiest Region: My early feeling is that the Oakland region is the most wide-open. I think the top 4 seeds are beatable, and anyone down to a 5 or 6 seed could come out of that bracket.

4) Dark Horse Final Four Picks: Here's one team from each region that didn't garner a high seed, but I think could surprise people: Pittsburgh (Oakland), West Virginia (Atlanta), Michigan State (D.C.), and Georgetown (Minneapolis).

5) Bracket tips: When filling out your office pool bracket, remember that of the 32 first-round games, the lower seed will win approximately 1/4 of those games. To put a finer point on it, in the 5-12 matchups in the first round, the 5 seed is only 11-9 over the last 20 such games. And when you're torn between two teams, go with the one with better guard play and free throw shooting as a team. Those two traits are magnified in the Big Dance.

I haven't done my usual thorough analysis on each of the regions yet, but I'll post some Final Four thoughts later in the week when I post the picks for the head-to-head blog-off with the Sofa King. The annual Confidence Pool is for money as well as dignity, so when I put up our chosen teams, I'll also make some predictions about who will be cutting down nets in Indianapolis.

Here's a good printable bracket.

Hope you're enjoying the Madness.
T

Fritaturday Eve

Hello everyone in the entire world. Apologies for the lack of content this week, but I tried to post a rather sizeable entry on Tuesday and a mechanical failure made me lose it. My frustration with Blogger.com caused me to wait until now. But I shouldn't bite the hand that hosts my website for free, so I'll hold my tongue now.

Anyhoo, a few quick hits from the week that is/was:

1) R.I.P. Kirby Puckett. He was a great player, with 10 All-Star appearances in 12 seasons, over 2,000 hits, a lifetime .318 batting average, and two trips to the playoffs, each of which netted him a World Series ring. The Sofa King will tell you that he was a different person off the field, but baseball people love him and he was the face of the Twins for over a decade.

2) R.I.P., what was left of Barry Bonds' reputation. Personally, I've never liked Barry Bonds. I hate his smug, disdainful attitude toward the media and the public, I hate his me-first attitude, I hate he uses his family to gain sympathy, I hate his sense of entitlement, and I hate how a person who was perfectly situated to have a Michael Jordan-esque relationship with baseball fans continually chose to be a whiny, sulking, angry child at every possible opportunity.

Now it looks like the new book Game of Shadows is going to blow the doors off Bonds' systematic cheating and shed light on how he has been a human pharmaceutical experiment since 1998, when his jealousy of Mark McGwire's home run chase led him to start taking all manner of steroids and illegal substances. Sports Illustrated excerpted some relevant passages from the book this week, and they certainly get down to all the dirty details.

The authors of the book, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, are journalists of impeccable credibility that are respected in the sports world. I sincerely hope this book causes Barry Bonds to retire immediately, and in shame. I don't want him breaking Babe Ruth's record, but mostly I don't want him breaking Hank Aaron's record, so I'd be happy if he retired short of 755.

3) It's Championship Week! The Big Ten Tournament kicked off in Indianapolis today, with Minnesota, Penn State, and Michigan State moving out of the first round. The Beloved will host Minnesota Friday at 5:40 local time, and I'll be in a rowdy sports bar cheering them on. With a win, Iowa will play the winner of the Illinois-Michigan State game on Saturday just after noon local time for a shot at the semi-finals. After that, it'll be time to strap on the dancin' shoes. Iowa is looking like a solid #5 seed right now, and a run in the Big Ten Tournament will likely move them up to #4. This is a fun time of year when your team actually has a chance to do some damage in these tournaments.

4) The UAE port deal seems to have caused a rift in the GOP before it imploded today. G-Dub promised to veto any legislation blocking the deal, while congressional Republicans and Democrats promised to pass such legislation with an overwhelming majority anyway, thus forcing the Prez to explain to the American people why he was overriding the legislature's wishes to sell our ports to an Arab country known to support terrorism. That'd be a tough sell considering what comes out of the White House regarding the war on terror. I'm not certain this deal would have put our country at risk (federal and state authorities still would have handled security for the ports), but I suppose maybe this is a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It's interesting that in an election year, GOP congressmen are all too eager to defy the President when their constituencies are concerned about something like port security. These elections are going to be fun to watch.

5) Box office receipts are down 8% last year. I attribute this to higher-quality home theater systems, ease and availability of pay-per-view and digitally transmitted films to the home, general economic downturn, and rising costs of seeing movies. Personally, I have invested a ton of money in my television, DVD collection, and sound system at home, but I love to go to the movies. I like real laugh tracks at comedies, I like seeing all films on the big screen, and while you don't necessarily talk during the movies, I still consider it a social event. I hope that going to movies doesn't become a thing of the past.

6) Speaking of movies, I watched the Oscars last weekend and enjoyed Jon Stewart very much. Also, I was very glad to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman win Best Actor and Ang Lee win Best Director. Everything else was not important to me. I think the Crash-Brokeback Best Picture controversey was much ado about nothing. Even if it was a homophobic bias in the Academy, so what? Brokeback probably got more publicity because of the scandal allegations. And it already set an all-time record for buzz about a movie anyway. Don't worry, activists for gay rights: everyone in the nation has already been innundated with stories about Brokeback Mountain. It's a really good film, and it is and has been recognized as such.

Other Oscar notes: Most Beautiful Woman there was (no surprise here) Jessica Alba. Honorable mentions go to Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley and Salma Hayek. Michelle Williams sure cleans up well too. Best pregnancy/post-pregnancy rack goes to Jennifer Garner, with honorable mention to Rachel Weisz.

7) Now this is an exercise trend that I fully support.

8) Glad to see that the NFL finally worked out its labor troubles and we will continue to have lockout-free football in the fall. It's good to know that rich, spoiled, selfish athletes can come to an agreement with richer, more spoiled, and more selfish owners over how they are going to split the billions of dollars they make each year by selling tickets to games for $85 each and authentic jerseys for $250. You guys are truly the model of the charitable, philanthropic human spirit.

Go Hawks tomorrow. If I don't get a chance to post before the end of the day, have a great weekend. t

You make me laugh, Dwight Schrute.

Although I was a huge fan of the BBC version of The Office, I have also come around on the NBC remake. Anyway, Dwight Schrute, a character on the NBC show (who is based on Gareth Keenan from the BBC version and played by Rainn Wilson), writes a blog on the show's official site.

Some of the entries are outstanding, especially if you know a little bit about the characters Dwight and Gareth. You can check out his blog here.

Dwight covers a variety of topics on his blog, but some of my favorites are:

Sleet: "Here in Scranton it is 46 degrees and SLEETY. I love sleet. It's so bracing. It's not snow (wimpy) or rain (annoying). It's sleet. It's its own thing. Sleet is the most unappreciated type of weather. This winter, let's all try and have a deeper respect for sleet and what it does and what it is."

The Epiglotis: "Think about the way the throat and swallowing works. The epiglotis decides what goes where down the trachea and/or esophogus. But it gets no respect. This tiny flap of skin in your neck decides if something is food or air. The food goes to your tummy. The air goes to your lungs. Without it your food would go straight into your lungs and clog them up. You'd have soup in your lungs. Or a sandwich. Or doritos. Or Fresca. OR you would get air in your tummy and be a big gassy fart bag all the time. All that from the tiny, powerful epiglotis.
In many ways, I am like the epiglotis. Small, unappreciated, not well thought of or respected, but POWERFUL. So powerful that without me you'd have food in your lungs."

And the current entry is a teaser for Dwight's new book about the world of sales, co-written by his beet-selling cousin Mose. It's called SELL THIS!: How to Literally Kill the Competition, By Dwight and Mose Schrute.**

That's comedy. I may start "borrowing" some of his blogisms around here, because sometimes my funny just isn't as funny as Dwight's funny.

Hang in there. It's almost Friday.
T

**Completely off-topic note: I HATE how our society has collectively forgotten how to use the word "literally". To most people, "literally" now means "figuratively" or "if you can believe it". The joke about the above fictional book is that title, correctly interpreted, implies that the book teaches you to kill people, not beat them in sales. Dwight is therefore making the same mistake that most people (at least, around me) make; he means "figuratively" killing the competition.

The other week I was at a bar and a young lady was talking about how she "literally" had to push a co-worker out the window to get them to do something, and was "literally" having to beat people over the head to finish a task. Unless you are actually committing assault and murder in your workplace, you weren't "literally" doing those things. You were "figuratively" doing them. Here's an easy guide to use of the word "literal":

Step 1) If you didn't actually, in reality, do, think, or say the contents of your sentence immediately following the word "literal" or "literally", you are using the word incorrectly. In that case, proceed to Step 2. If you did, and in fact you are expressing factual events, then feel free to express them as they "literally" happened.

Step 2) Don't use the word "literal" or "literally", jackass. Use a) nothing at all, and just let the sarcasm be implied (as in "I was going to kill him!" as opposed to "I was going to literally kill him!"), or b) skip the "literally", finish your thought, and say "figuratively speaking of course" or some such similar caveat (if you feel that nobody will pick up your facetiousness).

Here's the point: people use "literally" nowadays as "figuratively" or a modifier to emphasize their point, as opposed to using it to distinguish actual events from figurative speech. Don't. Don't say "I literally thought my head was going to explode" unless, at the time, your cognitive process was "I am so angry that I am gravely concerned that my cranium is going to spontaneously combust, resulting in my immediate death." Because if that thought didn't run through your mind, you didn't "literally" think your head was going to explode.

Dwight gets it. The rest of you don't.

A Few Quickies for Hump Day

Hello world. The week is flying by, as usual. A few quickies for you on this lovely Wednesday:

1) Death Cab covered Freety Johnston's Bad Reputation a while back. It's a good tune, you can download it here. [Insert standard disclaimer about downloading music in this space]

2) As a corollary, check out the Sofa King's recommendation on good tools for music posted on blogs. The blogosphere has quite a lot of good music out there.

3) Finally, I'm going to see some music tonight myself. I'll be checking out the Fray, who is managed by a good friend of mine JDI.

4) Bird flu is rearing its ugly head once again. I'm not worried. I hardly ever eat raw birds.

5) This labor dispute in the NFL is starting to grate on me. As I understand it, the stalemate is over revenue sharing with players; the union is at 60% and the owners are at 56.2%. Split the difference and let's move on.

6) I love IMDB. And I love this guy's IMDB picture even more. But most of all, I love this movie. It stars Mike Norris (Chuck's son), Chad McQueen (Steve's son), and Don Swayze (Swazyehorse's brother). And it's called Death Ring. The joke pretty much writes itself.
(via daily links)

7) Wow, Takanami in Iowa City is good. I had some Kobe steak there last weekend, along with about a dozen other things. And speaking of Iowa City, here's a fun article about a good way to spend the weekend there from the NY Times travel people.

That's all for now. Hope your week is just spectacular.

T