Sunday, January 30, 2005

Big Day

I had this written out last night, but I didn't save it and something happened and it was gone oh well.

Sammy
I had very mixed reactions about the Sosa trade when I heard about it at the bar Friday night. I knew he probably would not be back with the team in 2005, but I was still a little dissapointed to hear the news. Sammy has been one of the greatest Cubs ever and he made many summers more interesting when the Cubs were a horrible team. At one point, Sosa hit home runs in 8 straight Cub games that I attended from 1999-2002. Nothing was exciting at Wrigley when he hit one out. I have an old Playstation Game with him on the cover. In the opening video for the game, there's a video of Sosa hitting, hopping and running towards first. The camera doesn't follow him though, it focuses on the crowd behind the Cubs dugout, who all stand up to see where the ball is going. There are very few times in sports that you can get a whole crowd to stand up in anticipation of something happening. And it happened a lot for Sosa. I remember in '98 running out of the shower at home when he hit number 62 and slipping and falling because I could hear the game and heard he hit one. My favorite moment will be from Game 1 against the Marlins when Sosa tied the game with a 2 run HR, and all Al Leiter can say is, "He did it... He did it!"

All this being said, it was Sosa's time to go. He knew that his welcome and his teammates attitudes towards him were going down, and so did the fans. I think this year will be a much more enjoyable year for Cub fans, unlike last year when I didn't like all of the complaining and moaning throughout the whole season. Read this article and it pretty much sums up my feelings. The best line by Gene Wojciechowski was this: "he forgot how to take the temperature of a city that can stomach losing, but despises frauds." Do not read this article, by Jayson Stark. I don't know why I even provided the link. But Jayson, the Cubs couldn't manufacture any runs this season because nobody could get on base, not because they hit 235 HRs last season. The Cubs will be good next year. Hendry is not done dealing and someone else will be in the outfield, hopefully Huff or Wilkerson. So have faith, Cub fans, 2005 could still be "our year."

Marquette

Marquette had a real good win yesterday. It wasn't good that they beat a bad team by 4 points and it took them 2 OTs to do it. It was good that they won with out their star player. Mason and Chapman had some bad shooting days but their 3 pointers were huge. I got to see the highlights on the local news tonight. Mason's 3 at the end of regulation and Chapman's 3 at the end of the 2nd OT both were from about 22-23 feet. As for Diener, it will be interesting to see how long he is out. Stress fractures are strange. I have no idea which bone it is or where it is in the inflammation process to even think about how long he will be out. Hopefully, he will be back for Wednesday. UAB is a must win for us. It would help out our resume and really get us on a roll to start February. Click on links below for game wrap-ups.
Journal Sentinal (photo taken from there)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Uhhhhhhhh

Don't really want to talk about the game tonight. But did you see how many dunks Louisville missed? And MU had a couple of awesome ones by Marcus Jackson and Todd Townsend. Oh well, I have faith in Tom Crean. I think he's still about 50 games over .500, so any talks about a mistake in giving him the extension are a little pre-mature at this point. Saturday is a must win, if MU has any hopes of making the Big Dance.

Jason DuBois is pronouced Du- BOYCE, FYI.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Louisville Preview

Word from the Marquette Boards is that Travis will not play. If that's the case, look for a long night for Marquette. It will be fun to see everyone else get to play though. If Travis plays though, we will have to see what happens. Last season, MU was kept in the game at the Bradley Center when Louisville kept pressing. Marquette constantly broke it for open lay ups and wide open 3's. And they eventually pulled it out. Which leads me to the Top 5 games UL-MU History in the last 4 seasons (my history at Marquette).

5. February 24, 2001: Louisville 77- Marquette 74 (3 OT's). The main thing about this game was the fight at the end and then the whole Reece Gaines family flipping off their entire section behind the Louisville bench. The "fight" was Greg Clausen pushing a Louisville player who had "fouled" Brian Wardle on his last second three point attempt. This game was signficant, because it was the last game we would lose until...

4. February 15, 2003: Louisville 73- Marquette 70. This game was the most hyped game in my four years as an undergrad at MU. I remember getting to the BC about 4 hours before game time. My parents were visiting for the game and could not sit together as only individual seats were left. My old roommate was so drunk that he missed practically the whole second half passed out, but woke up for the last 1:20. I was so sick in the second half ( a severe cold) that I sat down for many of the timeouts, as I remember. It was a great ball game. It seemed like both teams were looking to get over a hump and couldn't do it. MU found itself down by 3 with about 45 seconds remaining. I remember looking at another old roommate and asking "2 for 1?" to which he agreed. But we didn't and ran the clock down to about 20 seconds and Travis nailed a 3 on the right wing to tie the game. But Gaines came down and hit about a 25 three to put Louisville in the lead. MU had a chance to tie but Diener's three was no good. The play went the whole length of the court and Wade had a wide open Novak on the other wing to pass to, but missed seeing him. The only loss on Al McGuire court in 2 seasons.

3. March 7, 2002: Marquette 84- Louisville 76. This was the win in the Conference USA tournament, the third time MU had beaten Louisville that season. Supposedly the MU players were chanting NIT at the Louisville players during the game, which got changed to outside of the locker room after the game. I don't remember it being a particularly good game, except we won, so that's why it's #3.

2. February 27, 2003: Marquette 78- Louisville 73. This game has so many stories attached to it. A couple of roommates were at a buddy's house who said he would take 10 straight shots if MU came back from 19 down to win. Beer bottles were thrown in the street. This was the first game that I went outside afterwards to celebrate, walking to a buddy's house on Kilbourn to high-five everyone. Wade and Gaines had a great duel. I remember Wade had a few lesser performances before this one, but afterwards I told myself that he was too good for college and he wasn't staying past this season. This game will probably be remembered for the devastating injury to Ellis Myles (torn patellar tendon) more than anything. And then Travis Diener screaming after his free throws that sealed it and head butting Steve Novak in the chest. Man did MU want to win that one.

1. March 6, 2004: Marquette 81- Louisville 80. I picked this as Number 1 because I have always felt that it was the best game ever in my 4 years as an undergrad, and it happened on Senior Day. I remember the last 5 minutes took about a half hour because the officials were trying to sort out three pointers and who was shooting foul shots. Diener got maybe the worst call I have ever seen when he picked up his 5th foul with about 20 seconds left. But MU had a chance down 2 with 20 seconds left. Brandon Bell took a shot from the top of the key that hit the back board and went in and out and tipped out off of Louisville, giving MU the ball. I remember looking at my roommate at the time and saying "I can't beleive Brandon Bell almost beat Louisville with that shot." MU still had to inbound the ball, and ran the wrong play (not surprising that season) and Merritt found Mason on the opposite baseline for a shot and was knocked over on the play, tieing the game and sending him to the line. The BC went nuts and I thought he had a 3 and the game was over. Mason calmly hit his free throw and Louisville's attempt was knocked away giving MU the win. I will always remember that one, it was unbeleivable.

So that's it folks. Enjoy the game. And agreat pre-game article by this site: http://cardinalempire.com/Empire/content/view/273//
I didn't know we have given Louisville 5 out of their 8 losses at Freedom Hall in the last six seaons.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Charlotte

Got to sit in some seats right behind the bench today which gave me a different perspective of the team in general. However, the game was another dissapointing loss. Official dad of I-94 says that we need to hold people under 70 to win. Two, three years ago we played great defense, but it has gotten worse since then. If we played like this against DePaul or Memphis, I would have been okay, especially a loss on the road. We had less turnovers at least. But I expect MU to take care of business at home and they couldn't do it today. We have three big games left and we have to win them all:
UAB
@TCU
Louisville.
We have to win all 3 to and win all of the rest to get to the tournament. I am counting losses at Louisville and at Cincy.

In other news, Cubs Convention started yesterday with loud booing for Sammy Sosa in the video montage. A lot of Cub bloggers think it might be a long year for Sosa if he stays in Chicago. We do have to remember that Cubs convention is filled with people like me, who would give up a weekend in Chicago to pay outrageous prices to attend a Cubs Convention. People like me are not the 40,000 that fill up Wrigley every day. If Sammy is in Chicago to start the season and starts off hot, people will begin to tolerate him again. Until we don't make the World Series and we then we can kick him and his $18 million dollars to the curb.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Welcome

Welcome to my site. If you know me, this will be devoted mostly to my two "crushes," Marquette Basketball and the Chicago Cubs. I will also throw in some other stuff too.