Almost made it

I heard most of the second half. I think I fell asleep with about 8 minutes left.

Apparently, Kansas State made quite a run. I'm glad I slept through it, because I think I can envision how it happened: turnover, K-State layup, turnover, K-State 3-pointer, missed shot, K-State short jumper, turnover, etc...

If Liggins sees the court tonight, I'll be very disappointed. I don't know all the details, of course, so I can't suggest any more discipline than that. But at the very least, a player who refuses to enter a game should be benched for at least the next game.

It's not like it will matter. How much worse can the ballhandling get?
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On to the important stuff...
Seems to be a lot of doom and gloom about UK's chances at Tennessee. I guess a 23 game losing streak can do that. Plus the fighting Bluetick Coonhounds whipped Vandy last week, a week after Vandy whipped the Wildcats.

I refuse to be pessimistic, so here's my positive spin. Neither team has put 2 decent games in a row together. Tennessee played their best game last week and so the trend shows a bounce is likely.
Kentucky is also coming off a bye week.
Here's how they've faired in their most recent games with more than a week to prepare:
2008 Beat WKU 41-3
2007 Beat Florida State 35-28
2007 Beat LSU 43-37
2006 Beat Clemson 28-20
2006 Beat Mississippi State 34-31

I guess I could also factor in the Louisville game this year- that was a long bye, after all- 8 months. And the opening day win over EKU last year would count that way, too. So that's a pretty long winning streak. And some impressive wins.

Early projections for the Basketball BCS

Championship game: North Carolina vs. Connecticut
Orange Bowl: Louisville vs. Texas
Fiesta Bowl: Duke vs. Notre Dame
Sugar Bowl: Gonzaga vs. Tennessee
Rose Bowl: Michigan State vs. UCLA

Sorry about your luck, all you non-championship game teams. You can’t win the title. Neither can you, Purdue, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and the rest of the top 25- especially you, Xavier and Memphis. Just forget about it.

I know it's unseemly to have a team like Gonzaga in the BCS, but according to the rules, they qualify. Don't worry, we'll change the rules next year. It won't happen again.

Note: Michigan State, Purdue, and Wisconsin have each lost a game. You might think Michgan State's loss to Maryland will keep them out of the BCS, since it is worse than losses to UConn or Oklahoma. However, that loss was a day earlier than Purdue's and Wisconsin's, so the Spartans are still expected to get the bid.

Light Up Louisville

I sincerely hope that the geniuses in charge of Light Up Louisville are not the same people in charge of figuring a way out of the budget crisis.

I keep reading and hearing about the big bad lawyers who wouldn't let Louisville use a Grinch theme.

I say good for Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Copyright laws are in place for a reason. What I want to hear more about is who the idiots are who didn't realize there might be a problem with stealing copyrighted material.

SEC 1-2

Alabama and Florida are now ranked 1st and 2nd in the BCS rankings.
(Monday 4 pm- Sorry for the wrong ranking information. That's what I get for trusting another blog for my news. Bloggers are completely unreliable. Except for me. Except for this time. But my point remains the same)
Here's the flaw I see in the whole ranking thing.

Those two teams will probably win next week and will still be 1 and 2. Then two weeks later they'll play each other in the SEC championship game.

I think Florida will win handily. But for argument's sake, let's assume it's an excellent game, close throughout, very hard-fought, and Alabama ends up winning 34-31.

Florida would then drop in the polls. Even though they lost by only three points to the #1 ranked team. That makes no sense.

Likewise, if Florida won 34-31, they would then become the #1 ranked team. And Alabama would drop somewhere lower than #2, even though all that happened was that that they lost by 3 points to the now #1 ranked team.

Something is wrong with that.

I remember that the Arkansas-Alabama game last year was a perfect example of this flaw. Arkansas was ranked in the high-teens prior to the game. Alabama was unranked. Alabama won the game by 1 point, and the following week they were ranked 16th and Arkansas dropped out of the polls. If Alabama truly deserved the number 16 ranking (turns out they didn't), then shouldn't Arkansas have been right behind them? Or if Arkansas didn't deserved to be ranked, why was Alabama's 1-point victory over them so impressive?

Golf & other

1) Since I hyped it to Brian on the way home from the golf course, and I'm watching an episode from the NBC site now while I type this, and I also really, really don't want the series canceled because I enjoy it tremendously, I want to recommend the NBC series "Life" to anyone who reads this. It's great. It's on Wednesday nights and I think you can enjoy it without watching previous episodes, but if you want to catch up first, most of season one is on-line.

2) Golf. We did okay. I was our D. It's been a long time since I was a D player. I think I did a good job. I gave a good read on the first putts, I made a few decent-length putts, and I provided a few nice safety shots. But I still stink.
We were twelve under. We could definitely have played better. Nobody played really well. Our three excellent golfers- Brian, Jim, and Monty- could each have played better, but they played okay. Sixteen under won it.

****8:30 pm. Okay. 18 under, according to Brian. I have no reason to doubt him. Even though he's a godless atheist. Which reminds me of this: In high school, I once lost grammar points on an essay because I purposefully used a small 'g' in the word "god." I resented it terribly, because I intentionally phrased the term so that "god" was appropriate- I avoided using it as a proper noun. I think I said something like "...their god." Afterward, I argued the point vehemently. I believe all I achieved was a lower grade on later papers.

A little late, but...

No way does Texas Tech beat Oklahoma tonight.

I just got home and saw the score is 7-0, so Oklahoma is giving me a little bit of a head start, but I swear I was thinking it all evening. So that's my prediction.

Also, I heard something on the radio today that I never, ever thought I'd hear: "And in the SEC today, Tennessee upset Vanderbilt by a score of 20-10."

The conversation on "Talk of the Nation" today was about the the auto industry. They talked a lot about plug-in electric cars.

I couldn't help but wonder how Louisville would have coped with September's power outage if all the cars had no juice.

And I'm still depressed by the stubborn insistence on sticking with personal vehicles.

Leaving aside the environmental concerns, I still just can't fathom the reason for the reluctance to embrace mass transit. The many millions of drivers in this country spend such vast amounts of money on vehicle insurance that it boggles my mind. This is all basically just wasted money. Plus fuel, parking, maintenance, etc. And fuzzy dice.