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Monday, January 14, 2013

Weekend Hoops Update and also Iggins! Eating Crows

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This will be unpleasant


- Yeah, so when Kaepernick threw that interception to start the game on Saturday I sent the following text message to Red:

"Oh, Kaepernick is failing? Whoda thunk?"

Then, as if he somehow knew I had pulled an Erik and claimed victory WAY too early, he went bonkers, destroyed Green Bay, and shoved a murder of crows down my throat. So, random 49ers fan who wandered in here weeks ago, I apologize to you and your fan base. Though I still don't think the Niners win the Super Bowl, I will admit that Alex Smith does not beat Green Bay in that game, so my point is invalidated. Switching to Kaepernick was clearly the right call. How dare I ever question Jim Harbaugh, my favorite Bear QB ever (This is not sarcasm, it is disturbingly very true). That is all.

- After the Bulls beat the hell out of the Knicks (the box score says they won by 7, but they were up by more than 20 half way through the fourth quarter), then returned home to AGAIN be beat to hell by a very bad team, this time the Phoenix Suns, the majority of Bulls players were saying their issue was that they get too comfortable at home because they think the UC is going to win them games by itself there, so they get complacent and get their ass kicked. They are missing the obvious here. It isn't the UC that won them games while they were sleepwalking the last two years. It was Derrick... freaking... Rose. Somehow they have all forgotten that Rose goes into Golden Sonic mode whenever he sees his team down by 7+, takes over the game, wakes up his team, and pulls out wins at home even though the team seems less than motivated. The Bulls without Rose don't have the luxury of being able to half-ass anything. If they play to their full capabilities they can play with anyone in the NBA, but that isn't because they have overwhelming talent. Quite the contrary. The current Bulls are loaded with hard workers and coached by an amazing gameplanner. Their strength comes from effort. Without that you get what we saw Saturday night: 79 points against a terrible defense, and an allowed 97 points to a terrible offense. Derrick Rose is so talented that he can lift the Bulls to victory when they slack: without Derrick Rose the Bulls need to realize they can't slack at all.

-I'll digest half a crow for Wisconsin, but I'm reserving full judgment until they play at Indiana on Tuesday and Iowa at Carver on Saturday. The 74-51 win over the Illini was very impressive, but the Illini have been flagging of late, and it's hard to tell how much credence to give this Wisconsin W. The Illini reverted to last year's group on Saturday. Brandon Paul went 1/11 from the field, the Illini were 2/14 from three, and any time that happens they are going to go down hard. Whether Wisconsin really is good or they just caught the Illini on a very Illini night will be determined by how they fare in their next two games. It cannot be reasonably expected of Wisconsin to beat Indiana at Assembly Hall on Tuesday, but keeping the game close will go a long way in maintaining a good public perception. The game at Iowa on Saturday is huge for both squads. If Wisconsin wants to prove they're a contender, they need some B1G road wins, and getting one against the team most likely to take their bubble spot would be great. Iowa grabbed a 20 point win at Northwestern on Saturday and needs to hold their home court to get to the hypothetical 9-9 in conference that will get any B1G team into the NCAA tournament. Added to that is that Fran has owned Wisconsin recently: not only did Iowa sweep them last year, the Hawks also stole Jared Uthoff from them this offseason. That will be a big game.