Then Shurna made some individual plays when the offense broke down and he sort of took it on his own. We had talked about that because against Central Arkansas on Sunday when he was very hesitant. Things weren’t exactly the way he planned and he wasn’t sure what to do. We just told him, `Sometimes, things break down and it’s not always perfect, but you’re a ball player.’ I think he did some really nice things in making individual moves.

From NUSports.com

In other news, Nick Freundt played 2 whole minutes.  Considering our lack of depth in the backcourt, this is troubling.

Yesterday Al Yellon, over at Bleed Cubbie Blue, posted a story entitled, “Why The Cubs Need Ryan Dempster.” It told of the experience current Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Carroll Rogers had while visiting the Cubs clubhouse in 2004, and how she was flabbergasted by the niceness of Ryan Dempster. Al goes on to opine that “stuff like this matters”. That good clubhouse guys matter. Now, I am not 100% sold on the “clubhouse guy” philosophy bringing you more wins or money or ratings, but I will tell you it does bring you a fan here or there, and loyal fans at that…

[The ellipses above represents me breaking away from my introductory paragraph and into a story. I am bad at transitions, sorry]

Almost by happenstance, I had the great pleasure of going to Game 1 of the LDS this year at Wrigley Field. Even more amazingly, my seats were fantastic. Section 6, Row 1, Seats 1 and 2 - right by the Cubs bullpen.

Sitting next to us was a nice gentleman (pictured above). He was sporting a Dempster jersey and his companion (Janie) had brought a giant sign supporting number 46. He told us his name was Phil and that he was a longtime season ticket holder. He walked us through the personalities of the bullpen pitchers - - this guy was quiet, this guy was a jokester, you get the idea.  We asked him about Dempster (what with the jersey and the giant sign and all) and he told us that he missed Dempster being out in the bullpen, but he was happy he was doing so great in the rotation.  During Dempster’s years as a reliever, Phil explained to us, the pitcher spent some of his time out of the dugout developing a relationship with the wall dwellers there. A relationship we observed firsthand when Dempster came out to warm up and waived and said hi to Phil even though he was 15 minutes away from the biggest game of his career.

Right before the game started, we noticed that Phil’s jersey was signed by Dempster - - something along the lines of “Thanks for all the laughs… Ryan Dempster.” Like Ms. Rogers from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we were flabbergasted. “Wow, what a nice guy to sign your jersey like that,” “Man, how do I get season tickets here,” etc.  At that point, Phil told us how he got the signature. That is when I became a life-long Ryan Dempster fan.

The story? Well, its not mine so I won’t go into the details, but the jersey wasn’t Phil’s. It was Ryan Dempster’s. Game worn.  It was presented to Phil the day he returned to Wrigley Field after missing games to receive cancer treatments.

I don’t think that this story proves that the Cubs need Ryan Dempster, or that clubhouse guys are necessary on a major league baseball team. I just don’t. I do think that it proves that “stuff like this matters,” though, and I am very proud to say that Ryan Dempster, number 46, plays for my favorite team.

Given the money being thrown at C.C. Sabathia, this contract is absolute sanity by comparison.

I like the deal (especially if we find a way to snag Peavy as well), and here’s why:  Dempster may just be the rare pitcher who survives the injury nexus, the burden of expectation and disappointment, and trips back and forth between the rotation and bullpen and just “gets it.”  He’s always had the stuff, it sure as hell looked in 2008 like he finally learned how to harness it.  Some guys never make the transition from thrower to pitcher, but Dempster seemingly has.  Palling around with Greg Maddux during his stays with the Cubs probably didn’t hurt, either.

Updated:

For those of you interested:

2009: $8 million + $4 million signing bonus
2010: $12.5 million
2011: $13.5 million
2012: $14 million player option

“Its slowed down a little bit now once Atlanta was taken out of it. We are really focused on one team right now, which is the Cubs. We have been pretty clear in the way of players coming back from Chicago. I just don’t know if they have the right players in the way of offers to us needed to move a Jake Peavy. It’s definitely going to become a bit more complicated in dealing with the Cubs where we will have to involve a couple different clubs.”

Interesting….

I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, so updates will probably be made here. The audio is 15 minutes. Enjoy.

[hat tip: The Cub Reporter]

Something Old

The ‘Cats return their three leading scorers from last year, senior guard Craig Moore, junior forward Kevin Coble, and sophomore guard Michael Thompson.  Moore seems poised for big things, reportedly having worked himself into phenomenal shape this offseason and already tying Vedran Vekusic’s school record for three-point makes with a pair of triples in the opener with Central Arkansas.  Coble is an elite player and has the makings to become a legitimate Big Ten star this season — a much-improved supporting cast should take some of the rebounding and defensive pressure off of Coble, allowing him to deploy his arsenal of awkward floaters, leaners, and fadeaways with reckless abandon.  I don’t mean that last as a slight — everyone has played with that guy at the “Y” who seems to drop any shot from any bizarre angle.  In a way, Coble’s game is a much prettier version of Tim Doyle’s, only Coble is taller, a better ballhandler, and has much more range.  So really their game’s aren’t similar at all, but you get my point.  Thompson looked like a legit Big Ten point guard as a true freshman, flashing excellent decision-making ability and a knack for knocking down big threes.  Assuming even modest gains as he continues to mature, he should be a very exciting player for NU.

Something New

Size.  Depth.  If these words are unfamiliar to you as a ‘Cats fan, that’s because we’ve never been able to use them in the Bill Carmody era, at least not to describe our own team.  Of the five incoming freshman in 2008-2009, an astounding four are listed at 6′8″ or taller.  Most notable among them is 7′ Kyle Rowley from Lake Forest Academy.  Having a true shot blocker (or at least shot changer) in the middle is a luxury that Bill Carmody has rarely had, the abortive Michael Thompson v 1.0 experiment notwithstanding.  With Davide Curletti (6′9″) and Luka Mirkovic (6′11″) joining the returning Ivan Peljusic (6′8″), the Wildcats have a chance to remedy the rebounding disparity that has plagued them in recent seasons.  Early reports are that F John Shurna has a game that closely resembles that of Kevin Coble — if true, and if Shurna can mirror Coble’s ability to adapt to the Big Ten as a freshman, the future is bright indeed.  The fifth freshman, G Nick Freundt, was actually the most highly touted of the incoming recruits, but seems the furthest behind the learning curve a few weeks into the season.

Something Something

With five talented freshmen expected to get contributor’s minutes from Jump Street, Bill Carmody faces - perhaps for the first time - the unusual circumstance of not having enough minutes to go around.  Coble, Thompson, and Moore are locked in as starters, and if history is any guide they will each play 32 minutes or more a game.  Junior Jeremy Nash starts the season healthy for the first time in his NU career, and is the team’s best defender.  Though not much of a scoring threat, his energy kept NU in some ballgames last year and it would be surprising if he received less than 15 minutes a game.  I don’t recall Carmody ever playing more than 9 guys during his tenure at NU, so the odd men out at least at the start figure to be Peljusic and 6′6″ swingman Mike Capocci.  Ironically, Capocci and Peljusic are the two most atletic players on the roster, and Peljusic in particular played very well in the ‘Cats final 10 games of 2007-08.  How BC fits the pieces of this puzzle together is one of the many intriguing sublots for the season.

Jellybean Tears and Gumdrop Rainstorms

19-20 wins, Shurna establishes himself as Coble II, BC figures out the rotation to keep everyone fresh and happy, the big men learn enough of the PO to stay on the floor and do some rebounding.  NIT beckons, maybe some fringy NCAA hopes.

Blue Skies

15-18 wins, at least one of the five freshman proves to be a real Big Ten commodity, Big Three carry the team to a 7-10 game improvement.  Maybe an NIT home game.

Realism

12-14 wins, ‘Cats hang tough in every game.  A win or two in the BTT sneaks us into the postseason.

Disaster

8-11 wins, BC fired.  Chaos ensues.  Back to the drawing board!

The Braves’ deal for Jake Peavy is not dead. Sending Jose Ceda to Florida lessened the Cubs’ chances. The Yankees are not in the running at all. Frank Wren still believes the Braves will get this trade done.

As Wahoo and Baseball Prospectus noted earlier, as relatively minor trades go, Gregg for Ceda was already leaning towards unmitigated disaster.  When you factor in this gem…

If the goal of the college football season is to determine the best team (a point I disagree with, but more on that later), the BCS is the best means to achieve that end.  As we see in every major pro sport and the NCAA tournament each year, rarely do the two best teams survive the rigors of the postseason to play one another for a championship.  The postseason is, very simply, a different animal.  The postseason is dominated by momentum, energy, luck — often times everything but the talent on the field.  Obviously to get to the postseason requires talent, but the aforementioned factors play a larger role come December and January.

My contention is that every team makes the BCS playoffs — they begin in August and end the first week of January.  Keep winning and you’ve got a shot.  The money, corporatization, and questionable ethics that dominate college football in the 21st century have nearly destroyed any semblance of tradition that the game once held.  To further cannabalize the bowl system by rendering the Orange, Sugar, Rose, and Fiesta Bowls meaningless is to irrevocably change the game for the worst.  At that point, let’s just call it the NFL, Jr.

Realistically, 25 or so teams go into the season with aspirations of winning it all.  Maybe 15 programs have a chance to compete for the National Championship every year.  There are 119 teams in the FBS.  If the “masses” get what they want, the other 90 or so teams don’t even need to show up.  Why not create one superdivision where USC, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, LSU, Florida State, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Alabama, Missouri and the like can play every year?  Everyone else can play college football the way it should be played — building regional rivalries with the goal of a conference title every season.

I put masses in quotes above because I believe that the silent majority of college football followers are like me.  I went to Northwestern.  I’m thrilled to be in the midst of an eight win season.  The BCS is not on our radar screen.  The BCS has never been on our radar screen.  Most Saturdays, my college football viewership is limited to one game — Northwestern’s.  I could give a rat’s ass if Alabama beats LSU or Texas beats Oklahoma State unless it has some bearing on my team.  So far, in every college football season in history, the outcomes of those games have not affected NU in any way, shape, or form.  I’m hoping that at least once more in my lifetime my school gets a shot at winning the Big Ten outright and making the trek to Pasadena.  That’s why I watch.

This is a long-winded way to say that for 90% of college football teams (and, it would stand to reason, 90% of college football fans), the BCS National Championship is not the reason they play or follow the sport.  I’m not bothered that an arbitrary playoff system hasn’t been established to destroy the last vestiges of bowl history and further drive home the notion that anything short of absolute perfection is abject failure.

I said above that I don’t think the purpose of the college football season is to establish the best.  The purpose of college football is to help build a sense of community within each campus, each city, and each region where the game is played.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have accused billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban of insider trading for allegedly using confidential information on a stock sale to avoid more than $750,000 in losses.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban on Monday in federal court in Dallas. The agency said that in June 2004, Cuban was invited to get in on the coming stock offering by Mamma.com Inc. after he agreed to keep the information private.

The SEC said Cuban knew the 600,000 shares of stock would be sold below the current market price, and a few hours after receiving the information, told his broker to sell all shares in the search engine company.

via ESPN.com

Ouch. Solidify the loss of your chance to own the Cubs (and complete a $1 billion deal) over rich man chump change and a stupidly named company like mamma.

Update: The Cub Reporter has posted something very similar to this (at least in title), but notes a good comparison between Cuban and the Padres owner. It is annoying that MLB is so against a progressive free spending owner, but is willing to keep so many bad ones around.

Quantum of Solace:

Marty:

Thoughts:

The on-foot chase scene through the construction site and eventually the embassy in Madagascar literally made Casino Royale for me. The camera work, the stunts, the background visuals – everything just felt fresh and, dare I say it, cool. It established the new era Bond as both a physical badass and a reckless daredevil – two of the better attributes for any action hero. After that scene (which conveniently opened the movie), I was hooked.

Quantum of Solace lacked such a defining moment, forcing me to focus on other things like the crappy title, mind-boggling plot (who gives a damn about Bolivia?), and lack of a clear motive for the powerful, clandestine organization that Bond is attempting to uncover. Aside from good action (duh), an action picture needs two things to make it for me: a sense of conflict for the hero (which Bond has), and an established, non-harebrained objective for the baddies. Whoops. At the end of this film we know nothing of our antagonists (apparently they’re called Quantum), least of all what they want and how they intend to achieve it.

I understand that in past Bond films the crazy villains and the silly plots they hatched up were part of the fun – that’s fine, but the Daniel Craig-led Bond series is very obviously headed in a different direction. Give me something, even if it’s world domination. But world domination can mean many things – is it economic, political, or military power they’re after? All we know after Solace is that they apparently enjoy opera.

Craig is spot on as Bond, most of the fighting is fun (if at times dizzying), and there are plenty of babes. Man, I love me some redheads. This is an easy three stars and I’m sure I’ll watch it 400 times on TBS someday, but it could have been so much more.

Wahoobudd:

Thoughts:

3 measures Bond Franchise
1 measure Mission Impossible 2 style quick cuts
½ measure complex, fake out, Lost/Heros style story telling
Olga Kurylenko for garnish

That is Quantum of Solace for you.

A rumored $200 million production budget makes up for some unnecessarily complex storytelling and a painfully lacking resolution in this, the 22nd, installment of Bond. It’s not as good as any of the Bourne movies, or Casino Royale for that matter, but it is worth your $7-$12 (depending on region).

On a slightly unrelated note, I know that ’shaken not stirred’ = a drink not befitting of a man with a penis (especially not one who makes such use of it), but this new Vesper Martini shit is over doing it. Seriously, it takes like five minutes to order and puts Bond on par with J.D. from Srubs for cripes sake.

The big questions

How much can the team improve on last year’s abysmal 8-22 (1-17 in the Big Ten) season? How much leash does Bill Carmody have with new AD Jim Phillips? How quickly will Carmody’s cadre of promising recruits take to the motion offense?

The small(er) questions

Are there enough minutes to go around with all five incoming freshmen expected to contribute? How does Ivan Peljusic fit into the mix? Good God, can we defend someone on the perimeter? Will Michael Thompson have to play 40 minutes a game?