Land of Stinkin

Perhaps 2011 just isn't the year for NCAA Division 1 basketball institutions in the Prairie State. In boasting 13 D-1 schools, the state of Illinois has failed to produce a single representative that is in the nation's top 25 or is winning their respective conference. The most glaring of the incidents at hand takes place in Champaign-Urbana, where an Illinois squad that was saddled with lofty expectations early is now hearing more talk about bubbles than a group of 7 year-olds planning a birthday party. But outside of the state's central public research university, the problems get worse. For example, of the 13 programs in Illinois, not a single one has a winning percentage over .500 in conference play. In fact, that underachieving bunch from Assembly Hall is the closest to that insignificant achievement with a conference record of (7-8). Say what you want about Illinois and Northwestern being a disappointment in 2011, but believe it or not they may be in the best position with the last month of the season drawing near.

It is often said that the state of Illinois represents a microcosm for the nation as a whole. We have the 3rd largest city in the country and miles upon miles of rolling plains all encompassed within the parameters of a single state. Similarly, Illinois can conceivably illustrate a microcosm of the country's college basketball landscape as well. We have two Big 10 schools and a Big East school (major power conferences), 3 Missouri Valley schools (High Mid-Major), 2 Horizon League teams (Mid-Major), 2 Ohio Valley Conference programs (Low Mid-Major), a Summit League school (Low) and one member of the Great West Conference (Who the _____ is in that besides Chicago St.?)

The more you look at the numbers, the more pathetic it seems for one of the country's premiere high school basketball states to show such low levels of achievement in the college ranks. In the Missouri Valley, the 3 schools that represent Illinois have all had their moment in the sun within the last 5 years. ISU had a few great years behind Osiris Eldridge and Co. and were within a 30 point loss to Drake in the MVC conference title game away from making the Big Dance. Bradley had a sweet 16 run powered by their fiery frontman, Jim Les, and center Patrick O'Bryant, who used the NCAA tournament as a springboard into becoming a lottery pick, only for NBA scouts to later realize why he was at Bradley in the first place (currently in NBDL). Southern Illinois, or 'SO ILL' as they were often abbreviated as on CBS, were once an NCAA tourney staple, priding itself on strong defense and great guard play. Now, the 3 aforementioned teams are the last teams listed in the MVC conference standings. Talk about peaks and valleys (pun absolutely intended).

We often talk about how bad DePaul is, and trust me, it's warranted, but how about the other institutions of higher education downtown? Loyola ranks 8th out of 10 in the Horizon League, and embarrassingly enough, that UIC Flames team that beat U of I in the United Center earlier this year--(2-15) in conference. Good enough for, you guessed it, last place.

If you want to try to head west to find some better basketball, good luck. The Leathernecks of Western Illinois are 9th out of a possible 10 teams in the highly-touted Summit League, ahead of only Centenary in fighting off the conference cellar. Also, strangely enough, Chicago St. plays in a league that refers to itself as the Great West Conference. Nobody has heard of the league, or any of its members, but after further research, I found that the Cougars are 5th...of 7.

I know what you're thinking now, at least we have the east, right? Well, The Pulse Man's beloved EIU Panthers are 9th out of 11 in the Ohio Valley. And to top it off, one of the two teams below Eastern in the standings is the newly-instated SIU-Edwardsville Cougars, who sit at a hardly respectable 7-20. Last, and quite possibly least, NIU sits at (3-9, 11th) in the MAC, which is surprisingly down this year. We're just going down, down in an earlier round. That's what happens, you have 13 teams, 2 in last place, 6 with less than 4 conference wins and 0 over .500 in league play, and I'm quoting Fall Out Boy. Despicable.

I admit, this is hard to do. It's like something that was once so good has gone to hell incredibly fast. Kind of like how we felt about Bob Dylan at the Grammy's; make sure he's still breathing and get the man another smokey treat, don't subject him to public performance during his worst hour. It really is a damn shame. I guess the times they-are-a changin'...

As for Pick of the Day, the Pulse Man covered the spread in Bradley's 1 point loss to ISU in Normal Tuesday night. After all, somebody had to win. For tonight, with the T-Wolves now victim to the collective curses of Eddy Curry, Darko and Mike Beasley all at once, I'll take the Grizzlies giving 2.5.

Pick of the Day: Grizzlies (+2.5) @ Timberwolves- GRIZZLIES

Record:(57-41-0)

Now I'm done. Rack me

Frost

Private Sector

Just in case you didn't hear any snide remarks at your place of employment today such as, "Did you hear DePaul won yesterday? Does this mean we have to start listening to Macy Gray again?" now you're covered. Yes, DePaul won a Big East Game. On the road. For the first time since March 6, 2008. The truth is, I cannot write anything about the actual game considering I watched about 5 possessions of the entire thing. I know that this probably solidifies me as a lesser fan than most, but this game showcased two of the worst teams in the Big East mixed in a sloppy, dogged affair that was being analyzed by two women. Not that I'm sexist or anything, but when is the last time you saw two females broadcasting a male sporting event that wasn't syndicated by a high school radio station? It was as if ESPN2 decided to air this game, which is puzzling in its own right, and then they couldn't even drag a loser like Jimmy Dykes (no pun intended) to voyage outside Providence to analyze it. Not to mention, the Bulls were on, the Shore was coming up, I had a few eps of Hawaii Five-0 DVR'd (shout out @UnclePdog)...you get where I'm going with this.

Even though I didn't watch the game, seeing DePaul and Providence battle it out for the Big East basement got me to thinking how far some of these teams have fallen. Look past the top 1/2 of the Big East and you will find some schools with reputably high-levels of basketball prestige growing mold at the bottom of the Big East standings. For example, DePaul, Providence, Marquette and Seton Hall all find themselves in the bottom half, and without taking into account Steve Lavin's revival of this year's St. Johns team, the Red Storm would be right along side of them. How did these private institutions come so far so fast? It's simple. They are smaller market, private schools that simply cannot compete with the 16 team royal rumble that is the Big East Conference basketball season.

A lot of times you will hear people rave about how tough the Big East is. Congratulations, you have just proved the most glaringly obvious point since the Scott Peterson trial. Of course it is! You have 16 teams including UCONN, Georgetown, Pitt, Villanova, Louisville and Syracuse--that's not a conference schedule, it's a pre-season top 25 tourney year after year. The glory days for the "Altar Boys" (DePaul, Marquette, Seton Hall, Providence, St. Johns) were all during a time when they didn't have to face the bigger state schools of the Northeast, at least not in conference play.

Although this is of course just a hypothetical seeing as only a few people outside of my immediate blood-related family even know this website exists, I figured why not put all the well-to-do Catholic/Roman Catholic/I don't know the difference schools from east of the Mississippi in one league. Genius, I know. It's like the Catholic league of the NCAA's. And better yet, since all Catholic schools hate each other, why not pit them against each other to maximize the religious experience? For instance, DePaul and Marquette don't like each other because they share a state border, St. Joe's and Nova can't see eye-to-eye because they share Philly, and simply put, nobody other than their own fans enjoys Notre Dame. Are all of you smarmy nerds from private high schools excited yet? Here we go.

It would be a 8 team league, narrowing the Big East down to the size of a normal conference. Think of it as an extraordinarily attractive woman getting a breast reduction. Of course, it makes her less appealing, but she's helping out other women everywhere in the process. Selfless. You have Villanova, Providence, DePaul, Marquette, St. Johns and Seton Hall pulled from the Big East and then you throw in St. Joes and Xavier from the A-10. St. Joe's and Xavier are the only schools who accomplish anything in terms of basketball in that conference anyways (since Marcus Camby left Umass), so if we extract them, we can make the A-10 entirely irrelevant. Fine by me.

So there is your 8 team league. All are rich in basketball lore; all are private, church affiliated institutions. I feel like this is a better way for past players and basketball ambassadors like Chris Mullin, Rod Strickland, Doc Rivers and Delonte West to feel a continued sense of pride in their alma mater. These schools are rich in coaching tradition as well. How can you forget Al Maguire, Rick Pitino, Ray Meyer and Bill Raftery? Leave the lingerie on the deck, and get the hell out of the Big East.

As for Pick of the Day, the Pulse Man already mentioned earlier today that he likes the pride of Highland Park, Chris Wroblewski, to carry the Cornell Big Red within a 4.5 spread at home against Harvard while simultaneously chewing Big Red. They're Ivy League kids, I think they can handle it.

Pick of the Day: Harvard @ Cornell (+4.5) CORNELL

Record: (56-39-0)

Don't forget to visit Zach Kelly's blog to hear about his travels with the roundball overseas. If you're apprehensive to do so because his name happens to possess the names of both main characters from Saved by the Bell, I assure you it's merely coincidental.

And last, special thanks to Sean Wallis (@swallball) for throwing a re-tweet in my direction yesterday. Unbeknownst to me, Sean has more followers than the entire Jehovah's witness religious practice, so thank you.

Now I'm done. Rack me

Frost

Cleveland Rocks

Anybody who has seen a single episode of the Drew Carey Show has unfortunately heard the worst intro song in the history of sitcom television, and thus sat through at least a couple minutes of one of the worst TV shows created since M*A*S*H, or at least since SKIN made its debut last night on MTV. "Cleveland Rocks" is a complete lie. That's why the Browns moved to Baltimore, LeBron moved to Miami and everyone with a job moved out of Ohio, or at the very least, out of Cuyahoga County, even the Bone Thugs. But, there is often times a silver lining to the word Cleveland when added into someone's name. For example, Grover Cleveland is the only American President ever to serve two terms (22nd and 24th president), and still managed to accomplish absolutely nothing while in office. Kudos to you, Grover. Also, that spinoff, lisp-ridden foil character from Family Guy got his own show, which garnered worse ratings than The Nanny, and eventually collapsed before it ever really started. In the case of DePaul basketball, there is another young, promising Cleveland making waves in the Big East, and his name is Cleveland Melvin. However, much like the aforementioned people and places, DePaul basketball sucks.

It's safe to say that Oliver Purnell's plan at DePaul hasn't exactly "took off" in Rosemont, which is strikingly ironic considering how close the multi-purpose venue is to the O'Hare airport. In fact, the only time I have heard the word "Demon" mentioned recently came when a good friend of mine, whom we will call El Don, referred to his cabin mates on a Wisconsin ski trip as "sexy, little demons". But that is neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that DePaul, although utterly atrocious and currently winless in the Big East, may still boast the Freshman of the Year in Baltimore native, Cleveland Melvin. "My favorite Melvin" is currently averaging 14.2 PPG on the year as a whole and has even managed to get even more buckets during DePaul's games in the best collegiate basketball conference in America (22.8 PPG in conference play). Melvin is also managing to pull down nearly 5 boards per game from the forward position and is somehow averaging below 1 helper per game (0.6 APG, 11 total on the season). Now that's DePaul basketball, low and behold.

Still, Cleveland's immense potential as a Freshman in the Big East can't go without being noticed. He's already dropped 29 on JT-triple sticks' G-town Hoyas and had his best game of the year (25 and 12) against Kemba Walker's UCONN Huskies. With DePaul going into the Bradley Center to face Marquette tonight, Melvin has a chance to make a Hamilton Porter-type splash in the Big East by knocking off an overachieving MU squad, ceremoniously kicking off this Chicago vs. Wisconsin week on the right foot. Remember, DePaul broke its "running the table in reverse" streak in the Big East against Marquette last year, thoroughly embarrassing the Golden Eagles. Will any of you watch this game? Eh, probably not. Hell, I'm not going to waste a perfectly good Tuesday night watching DePaul basketball. But, check the box score tomorrow and it might smell like Cleveland in the air, or maybe that's just the smell of unemployment.

As for Pick of the Day, in one of the most entertaining and spurt-heavy games I have ever witnessed, Pitt knocked off Syracuse at home by 8 (2 more than the spread), and gave the Orange, and the Pulse Man their 1st and 33rd losses of the season respectively. For tonight, the Pulse Man likes Illinois on the moneyline (-180) at home and coming off consecutive losses against Draymond "Trimspa" Green and Sparty. I-L-L.

Pick of the Day: Illinois (moneyline) vs. Michigan St.- ILLINOIS

Record:(46-33-0)

Don't forget to email your thoughts, opinions, predictions or lashings for this weekend's Packer/Bear game to chicagosportsnoise@gmail.com.

Now I'm done. Rack me

Frost

Loss for Words

During the first week of College Basketball's season in mid-November, we are forced to recall a few things: how peeving and repetitive Richard J. Vitale is (prompts an instant channel change from Dave Scott), how Doug Gottlieb somehow resurrected his life from a credit-card wielding burglar into a credible news source, and how distressingly awful DePaul basketball has become. When the Demons dropped a game to the Division II Lewis Flyers of Romeoville, Ill on November 7th, I was still optimistic. After all, when the 'Cuse lost to D2 foe LeMoyne last season, everyone wrote off the Orange as national title contenders. Then, Boeheim and the boys from upstate NY rattled off 12 straight to start the regular season. It's just an exhibition game right? In the first regular season game of the year against in-state rival Chicago State, DePaul ran up 114 points on Kanye's alma mater--"how could they be so heartless?" Needless to say I was inspired by the Demons season thus far. In theory, if DePaul somehow finagled its way into normality this season, I could sit in the upper bowl at Allsate and watch some decent Big East basketball and dispatch a plastic tray of lukewarm, stale nachos all for under the price of a rail drink at HUB51 (9$)! As it turns out though, the Demons are not who we thought they were, and the OPP (Oliver Purnell's Press) era is off to a rocky start--I'm not sure I'm down with it.

The first game of the year at Allstate Arena for DePaul's Men's basketball team was sandwiched between an Australian Pink Floyd Show and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, so right from the jump, skepticism was at an all-time high. If Jeff Foxworthy would have hosted an abbreviated set of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" at halftime of the DePaul/Western Carolina contest, Ticketmaster would have received more traffic for a DePaul basketball game than the southbound Kennedy at 8:30 AM. But, it turned out to be a commonplace home game for the some 7,000 DePaul faithful that made the trek from Lincoln park to Rosemont only to sit through an agonizing home-opener loss to the Catamounts of Western Carolina. It is often times said that an eye-opening performance is hard to follow up on. Still, I'm not sure anyone expected the eyesore that DePaul put on the floor Tuesday evening. The Demons fell behind early and found themselves down 12 at recess and eventually 21 points heading into the games home-stretch after the 10 minute mark. Whenever you shoot 15.4% from deep (2-13) and give up 17 O-boards, you're not going to climb out of many holes. No matter whether the lead is forged by a sub-.500 member of the SoCon (W.Carolina), or one of the Big East's elite, it's not in the cards if you can't stop giving up lay-ups to a team who just got run by 23 points by Clemson.

On a lighter note, Western Carolina's leading scorer (Harouna Mutombo) shares his surname with one of the NBA's all-time great low post defenders and interview candidates of all time. Not to mention their second leading contributor (Mike Williams),apparently doubles his time catching errant passes from the quarterback carousel in Seattle with the Seahawks. If we somehow find out that their starting forward, Blake Gallagher, is related to Liam and Noel of the brit-rock band Oasis, we'll just have to chalk it up as a defeat in character.

As for Pick of the Day, all of the hair product in the world couldn't save Steve Lavin and St. Johns against St. Marys as they dropped Tuesday's game by 5, missing the spread by a point and a half. For tonight, the Pulse Man likes both the Capitals (-190) and the Wild (-160) getting W's tonight against Buffalo and Anaheim respectively at (+148).

Pick of the Day: PARLAY: Sabres @ Capitals- CAPS, moneyline (-190) and Ducks @ Wild-, WILD, moneyline (-160). Total: (+148)

Record:(31-24-0)

Now I'm done. Rack me

Frost

Private Parts

In today's NCAA landscape, there are private schools across the country that are vying for national championship trophies in their respective sports. For proof, we have to look no further than 2009. A year in which we saw Duke (private) play Butler (private)in the most Caucasian laden NCAA championship game we will ever see unless Edward Norton's character from American History X inexplicably becomes head of the tournament selection committee. Moreover, in football, Texas Christian University finished in the top 5 of the BCS standings for the first time in their school's history. I guess Chicago sports fans are going to have to learn to gain a heavy interest in the Northwestern's Womens Lacrosse dynasty (woof), because that's the only Chicagoland University sport that has won anything notable in the past 10 years. I'm happy that the Northwestern has something, I really am. But Womens Lacrosse brings in about just as much revenue as the school would make hiring New York from Flavor of Love to make cold calls for donations to the school's alumni. With that being said, Northwestern at least has something to call their own. The only thing DePaul calls themselves is "last in the Big East" in just about every sport that they participate in athletically, particularly Mens Basketball.

In 2009, DePaul went 0-18 in the Big East and what's left of Blue Demon supporters insisted that the blame should be shouldered by Jerry Wainwright, who coincidentally happens to be identical to the principal in the Breakfast Club. No one man should be responsible for 18 consecutive losses. No matter how many mafia affixed delinquents in pinstriped suits sat in section 113 and screamed "You're done here Jerrrrryyyyyyyyy!!!" like he owed them 100 lbs. of capicola while they beat their fists in their palms like they're going to wack him in his post-game press conference, it wasn't all his fault. DePaul basketball had hit rock bottom, and everyone involved was mutually responsible. Wainwright does deserve some blame, he let recruits like Jerrel McNeal flee to Big East rival Marquette and even got a decommitment from Cully Payne, who found Iowa to be a better fit. Really? He lost a recruiting battle to Todd LickLiter and Iowa?!? The same guy who could barely get his maladroit son, Little John Lickliter to commit to be a Hawkeye? How this all transpired so fast from the Quentin Richardson era I'll never know, but it happened as fast as the uttering of possible side effects at the end of an Immodium ad. But the Demons had a chance to get on track again when they fired Wainwright and searched for a new face for their program. It's easy to see that DePaul's biggest recruiting coup is the city of Chicago, and they needed to put their inability to recruit the city in the past behind them, and hire someone who could get kids from the 312 to want to come to DePaul. Isiah Thomas could have worked, he would have kept DePaul administration sweating like an extra in A Time To Kill hoping that he wouldn't commit a recruiting violation, but there is no doubt that Chicago kids would have joined his camp. Equally as dangerous but similarly as rewarding would have been the hire of Memphis Assistant Coach Rod Strickland, who was a once a star at DePaul himself and acquired just enough grease off of John Calipari's hair to make DePaul meaningful in the Big East with some big-wheel recruits. Still, with the possibility to resurrect the Basketball program tempting them like a plate of Red Lobster's cheddar-baked biscuits in front of Tony Siragusa, they declined and took the well-lit city street instead of the shortcut through the back alley of Cabrini Green.

If you look at 2009-2010's AP All-American team, you will see a collection of talented basketball stars, a group of which hail from the same area of OUR state. However, Evan Turner, Jon Scheyer, Jacob Pullen and Sherron Collins all chose to attend a school that is a far cry from the rumble of the Armitage Brown Line stop where DePaul's campus sits. Perhaps the newly hired Oliver Purnell will bring an excitement to DePaul basketball that we haven't seen since Q and Bobby Simmons used to sell out the Rosemont Horizon against Cincinnati. Perhaps he could start a winning tradition that could pursue DePaul students to sit in traffic for an hour on the Kennedy Expressway to attend a game against Marquette on a Tuesday night. Or, perhaps Gerard Butler will win an Oscar for his role in The Bounty Hunter, Ron Santo will win the Chicago Marathon in record time, and ESPN personality Woody Paige will marry Lindsay Lohan in a closed ceremony at the Century Regional Detention Center (come on, that's funny).

As for pick of the day, the Pulse Man had a lot to say after last night's betting debacle. He affirmed to me that yesterday's pick was not entirely thought out as he completely forgot how bad the Brewers bullpen was. He also reiterated that they have LaTroy Hawkins under contract(a perfectly viable reason not to bet on them),and that he doesn't care "how fast his Coffey comes" as long as it doesn't give up 3 run homers. Although Soriano was the only Cub without a hit going into the 8th inning and made us think we had a chance at winning--like contestant 29 on the premiere of the Ochocinco show. Either way, we lost and are looking to the Phillies and Marlins (and Scott Stapp of course) to get us back on track today by combining for under 8.5 runs at (-115).

Pick of the Day: Phillies vs. Marlins- UNDER 8.5 (-115)

RECORD:(8-7-0)