Injury Update

I figured that I know more about injuries than most I should write about this.

Injured: Dusty Baker
What: Torn Rotator Cuff

Baker has had shoulder problems for years and has just this year decided to have it looked at. He has a torn rotator cuff, although not completely through. Baker has decided on the rehabilitation, not surgery and will probably only need rehab. for about a month.

Impact to Team: None

Ticket Update
I waited 3 hours outside of Miller Park this morning and got 2 tickets for four games, May 3rd and 4th and September 20th and 21st. The wind chill might have been about 10 and I will probably get sick sometime this week, but I get to see the Cubs now 5 times this season.

State of the Program

There was a lot of talk this afternoon on Ahoya about the state of our basketball program and what our expectations were. My expectations for this season weren't too high. First, I didn't like the leadership of this team and I still don't after watching the games this season. I don't want to go into specifics on this one, maybe after the season. Otherwise, I didn't feel we had enough playmakers, guys who would take over games if need be. We didn't have any guys like Robert Jackson and Cordell Henry, who could win a bunch of games for you, but could take over and win some. So I expected we would be worse than last year. Looking at the Sagarin ratings, right now, we're about the same. What dissapoints me is how poorly we played to start off the conference season. I really felt that we were just into the tournament with our out of conference resume. We played horrible in back to back Thursday nights at Memphis and at Depaul. Then Diener got injured and I think a lot of people used that as a crutch for Charlotte and UAB, two more winnable games. Then we lost two "stomach-punch" games, @ TCU and Louisville which would have really helped put us back on the bubble. I read an interesting analysis by a Clemson fan last night who said that he knew his team was improving because they were winning games on the road again. Look who we have beaten on the road this year: Oakland, Tulane, SLU, and ECU, not too stellar. And I really do expect more out of a coach who gets paid the money that he does. I expect us to average Top 50 in three years (including Final Four) and we aren't even there right now (52. 3, by my calculation). We need to improve, bottom line.

Cubs/ Ticket Day
I was in the virtual waiting room for about nine hours today, trying to get tickets to a game and I finally got in about 8 PM tonight. I'm going on April 10th to see the Brewers on my way back to Milwaukee, when I'm home that weekend. Tommorrow, I plan on getting to Miller Park early, so I can get tickets for 4 of their night games when I know I will still be at good old MU. No new news, although Arizona Phil over on Cub Reporter reports that Hollandsworth, Ramirez and Dubois are really smoking the ball. Good sign.

Cincy/ Sosa

Marquette
Well the game turned out pretty decently for MU. I don't think they could have expected much more, maybe be in it a little bit more in the second half, but they played well down the stretch. It was obvious that the talent level was not the same as Cincy's especially on the interior. I also think Cincy was holding a lot back, but not pressing us, maybe saving themselves for TCU on Saturday, who frankly had a better chance of beating them than MU. After tonight, I expect 2 wins next week and will be dissapointed if we don't win both. This team has a lot of heart and I'm proud to support them in the student section.

Sammy Again
Sammy,

As a Cubs fan, you were terrific and a great ambassador for our team and the city of Chicago. You made some dumb decisions and wore out your welcome when you never apologized to your teammates, manager or those fans in right field who paid $30 to ask you how many outs there were. Quit talking about Chicago, and saying that the Cubs lie about your role on the team this year. Are the Cubs better this year with you gone? Maybe, maybe not. Will it be more fun to watch this team, without you standing 10 ft. away from home plate? Yes. Will be the clubhouse be a more enjoyable place, without all of that salsa music? Probably. See you in Interleague sometime Sammy and quit talking about your former team. Unless you are saying, "I apologize to the Cubs organization and fans, and I only wish them the best of luck."

Lots of Stuff

Diener
It was dissapointing to hear the news of Travis's injury today. The saddest part for me is the fact that he will not be around to play his final games as a Senior, and won't even get to play on Senior Day. I don't really have much else to say. I was never a huge Diener fan, and I'm a little excited to see how the team will do without him. I know they were awful in the debacle in Louisville and struggled to beat SLU, but I think a lot of players have improved since then, like Chapman and Townsend, and even Novak. So we will see what happens, although I'm still predicting about an 11 point loss.

Bulls Game
I got to go to the Bulls Heat game last night in Chicago and I was treated to a classic. Shaq was knocked out early, so I figured Wade would take over and he never really did. He had a great game 21 points 10 assists and 6 rebounds. I was kind of dissapointed in his play, until I realized that the Bulls were one of the best defensive teams in the league. I am a Bulls believer now. The place was rocking last night and Ben Gordon is just so clutch, it borders on absurdity. I think I'll try to see them when they come to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks.

Cubs
It was good to see Sosa show up to work a day early, something he never did in Chicago. I recommend anybody read the article in ESPN the Magazine this week about Sosa by Gene Wojciechowski. I don't know if he is a Cubs fan or not, but he definately stuck it to Sosa and blamed him for all of the negative publicity that he got. Oh well. Everybody keeps telling me they have good feelings about the season. I feel like I did before '03, comfortable with a wait and see approach. That is a lot better than last season's high expectations by me that resulted in real dissapointment. And it's also good to see #23 being retired. My biggest Cubs wish this offseason would probably be for Santo to be annoucned into the Hall of Fame, next Wednesday. I really hope it happens and would set a real positive to tone to the start of the season.

The Day After

I don't have much to say, even though I think I should have a ton to talk about. This one of the most dissapointing losses in my MU history (5 years). It would have been more dissapointing if we were actually really good and had a chance to do things, like '03. I can't pinpoint exactly what went wrong either. MU had a lot of bad luck, when Diener missed two "no-footers" as Homer likes to call them and Louisville had 3 of their 4 infamous free-throws bounce around the rim and back in. Garcia's 3 just topped everything off as he was way far out. Garcia, by the way, was very unclassy at the end of the game. I didn't really feel like the crowd was on him more than any other player. It wasn't like he had a spectacular game. The possession before the made 3, he fumbled the ball away after Townsend had fallen over in front of him. Whatever happened to players just playing above their norm against another team and not scream about it. Wade has taken it to Arenas twice this season in the NBA, but we don't hear on SportsCenter how Dwyane trash-talked the whole night. Either way, I'll be there Sunday against DePaul.

Oh and to the students, don't boo your own players. 90% of you couldn't even name an opposing player on Louisville's team last night. Idiots.

Pitchers and Catchers Report

The Cubs pitchers and catchers reported today, but with no workout. The most exciting news was Borowski stating that he is 100%. Whether that means velocity or pain free, we don't know. I'm still cautious seeing that he only went the rehab. route instead of trying surgery, probably to try and save his season last year.

Big Louisville game tommorrow. I hope we can pull it out, but I'm less confident than I was last year when we won on a last second three point play. We'll just have to see.

Tournament Chances

As for our tournament chances. I just don't see it at this point. We have to go 5-1, if not 6-0. Our out of conference just sucked this year. We were 40th in the Sagarin before the Memphis game and that caused us to have a lot of ground to make up. Maybe the committee takes Diener into consideration, but he played at Memphis, at DePaul, Charlotte (injured), and at TCU, and we lost those 4. I just don't see it, without a couple of upsets in the Conference USA Tournament.

Diener Again

Lead by Travis's 31, Marquette was able to slip by ECU in OT 71-69. Once again, MU blew a second half lead, 12 points this time. At one point, MU was up 5 and let 3 straight ECU lay-ups, the last one a three point play, giving ECU the lead. I think during that ECU run (down 5 to up 7), MU did not stop them on one possession. The defense has to get better. A good win to roll into next week against Louisville and DePaul. I'm not looking forward to it, too many tests this week.

East Carolina, Come On and Raise Up!

If anybody remembers that song, it came out the year that East Carolina joined our conference ('01-02). East Carolina is the only team that we do not have a road conference victory over. Both games in February '02 and December '02 were horrible outings on the MU side, costing us a good seed in '02 and coupled with a Dayton loss the same week, a fall out of the rankings in '03. That's if my memory is correct. Enjoy the game tonight. I'll be listening on the radio.

TCU/ Farnsworth

Interesting that the same day we play TCU, is the day that Kyle Farnsworth, the most likely Cub to be from Texas (I know Kerry Wood is). First MU, well it's NIT time, unless we win the Conference USA tournament. We haven't done that since I've been in school, so this year would be a good year to do it. Why not? I didn't see the game, so I can't really comment on any specifics. I'll be there next Thursday against Louisville however, even with a huge test the next day. You have to support the team.

Farnsworth
This trade didn't mean much to me either way. On one hand, he was a physical freak and had a lot of potential. On the other hand, he had a chance for 6 years to do something and managed a 4.87 ERA. If for any other thing, we lose one good fighter out of our bullpen. I can't wait for the season to start. There are very few things better than Opening Day with summer right around the corner.

Dynasty

Super Bowl
Wow, another 3 point victory by that great dynasty, the Patriots. The news outlets are running stories about the domination by the Pats in the second half. The score in the second half: NE 17- Philly 14. Huh? The Pats defense played an inspired game. McNabb only threw for 357 yards, had 3 INTs, but still got the ball back in the end to try and tie the game. So what I'm basically saying, is this win will be blown way out of proportion. Look back, I think last week, on Skip Bayless's column on the Patriots. He basically blew up any comparison between the Pats and the 49ers. And again, I'll have to agree with them. The Pats have won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, which is a great accomplishment. The other season they were 9-7, and really should have been 8-8, if not for some crazy officiating in the Bears game. Either way, they didn't make the playoffs. They have won the 3 Super Bowls by a combined 9 points. No 55-10 or 46-10 wins in there. And when did the Pats become such showboats? They kept making the "Eagle swoop", which was Terrell Owens's thing, not Freddie Mitchell's. Their awesome defense let a guy with a broken ankle have 9 receptions for 122 yards.

Diener's Back

Although not starting, Travis Diener returned for Marquette today and helped them win 81-72. Marquette did not play that great, but still manged to pull away at the end and win. Todd Townsend, Ryan Amaroso, and Steve Novak all good games to complement Diener. Joe Chapman also played after not practicing yesterday. I think it's time that Crean goes to an 8- man rotation if Diener and Chapman stay healthy. Diener, Chapman, Mason, Townsend, Novak, Jackson, Amaroso, and the rest could be split between Grimm, Kinsella to Barro. A couple of stupid things that I notice: At one point, Southern Miss had numbers 00,1, 2, 3, 4 on the floor. I don't think I will ever see that again. Right after that #5 came, but for number 3. As I was running dowtown today before the game, I watched as the BC officials take down the barricades at about 10 AM. Things have changed a ton in two years, when you couldn't sit down stairs if you didn't get there about an hour and a half before the game.

Overall, a nice win today, and hopefully the momentum will carry into two more victories this week.

Streaks

An impressive streak was continued today as the Cubs were able to re-sign Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano to one year deals. Jim Hendry and Andy MacPhail have never gone to arbitration with any player, 20 years for MacPhail. I hope it shows the young talent that the Cubs have stand up men in the front office and don't want to see contract disputes escalate to an arbitrator.

But the most interesting part of the article on Cubs.com is this quote: "I think it'll be very interesting to see the competition in the outfield and see how [rookie] Jason Dubois comes in and competes with Todd Hollandsworth," Hendry said of the proposed left-field combination. " Compare this with Dusty Baker's just two weeks ago about the Cubs outfield this season: "Baker says the 31-year-old outfielder could play 135-140 games this season, although he hasn't topped 100 since 1997." I don't see how one guy playing 135-140 games is really competition, while the other guy sits on the bench and gets to pinch hit. So we'll just have to see. A comment on Cub Reporter (see link on right) talked about all of the great right handed closers in the National League, sans Wagner. If you think about the Cubs division, you have Izzy, Lidge, Graves and Mesa. The Cubs need some pop off the bench left-handed and it isn't going to come from Macias or Perez.

Marquette
TMJ-4 reported tonight that Chapman and Diener both did not practice tonight. Chapman was on crutches on campus yesterday, so I doubt he will be in the lineup. This is a must win for them, absolutely if they think they can make the tournament. I'll be there and give a report after the game. By the way, I heard that Crean ordered an 11:00 meeting after the UAB game, the other night. I wish all of the hard work would turn into some results for these guys.

Burnitz

I was dissapointed to see Burnitz as the Cubs replacement for Sosa for 2005. Burnitz was always a guy that when he came up, Steve Stone would say, "Another one out of the zone and that will get him," or "that's what he's always been during his career. I'm still excited for this Cubs season and see what this "team" can do. I remember a game in Milwaukee against the Cubs in 2001 when Miller Park first opened. Jeromy hit a HR that went out of Miller Park, one of 3 HR's that day. The ball hit a beam in right center field and bounced out. It was much farther than that one that Branyan hit against Maddux last season that people claim as being the longest. The real key to the outfield however is whether DuBois gets his at bats and doesn't sit on the bench as Dusty likes to put rookies and new players. So we shall see, but I'm excited for the Cubs season and I can't wait for it start.

UAB

I thought things were going to go well tonight when the "Fly Guy" on the UAB didn't come up during MU's starting lineups. The first half, MU did all of the things they needed to, to stay in the game. Marcus Jackson did an excellent job bringing the ball up the floor under the circumstances. Joe Chapman was great with 5 3's and 17 points. But I did see some glaring weaknesses on the defensive end again. I thought if UAB would just wait around and be patient they would get wide open lay-ups which they were getting time and time again. Still, we led at the break 39-38.

The second half was awful. Again, and this is happening way too much this season, the other team jumped on us and took a huge lead. I think at one point it was 55-43, UAB meaning that they had gone on a 17-4 run to start the second half. We used to be awesome in the first 10 minutes of the second half, that was where we would jump on teams or climb back in games (at Louisville, '03). Chapman's injury didn't look very good, but I'll wait to hear how it is. My roommate said that his knee had huge gash in it. The good thing was that he looked like he was putting some weight on it, as he went back to the locker room. By the way, there was a no call on the play where Joe got injured, after he drove the lane, and banged into. Basically, UAB was way more aggresive on the defensive end on the second half, and we never adjusted and neither did the officials.

If you see on a previous posts, I put 6 games on our C-USA schedule and we are now 0-4 in those games. Unless we beat Cincy, there's no way we are getting to the tournament with our resume. I just don't see it at this point. We haven't lost to anybody bad, but we haven't beat anybody good, sans Wisconsin. So, rest Diener for as long as he needs it. Save him for Cincy and the C-USA tournament, where I think this team could do some damage.

I'll try and post some Cubs stuff tommorrow, big day.

UAB Preview

I have no idea what's going to happen tonight, but hopefully MU can pull it together and win by 2, 84-82.
A couple of preview, linked below.

Journal Sentinel
Everything Alabama

I will hold off on Burnitz commentary until he actually signs. I hope a "Tony Womack" happens, and somehow the Cubs get Huff.