Purdue Basketball Non-Con Unveiled; Critics Yawn

The 2013-2014 men's basketball schedule is coming into focus, way out there on the horizon, and it's been met with little fanfare, given the opponents this year.

For example, in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, the Boilers get underwhelming Boston College. Now, don't misunderstand: I'm not saying they're underwhelming in the sense that Purdue will have no trouble with them. I'm just saying that even if Purdue wins by 30, it's not going to register much of a blip on the consciousness of college basketball fans. By comparison, last year's pounding of Clemson actually did get some attention and made people -- including us -- think the Boilers were turning a bit of a corner. Sadly, around that corner was an alley with locked doors and mean street toughs waiting to beat up our Boilermakers.

Two other highlights of the pre-con schedule include a road date at West Virginia on December 21, which will be no picnic, and the Crossroads Classic in Indy against Butler on December 14. Butler, as you'll recall, came back from a large deficit to nip the Boilers in the Classic two years ago. If nothing else, playing Butler is not nearly as gnawingly irritating as playing UND or IU. Regardless of where Butler is in the national consciousness at that point, though, it would be good PR to win that game.

The Boilers are also playing in the Old Spice Classic at Thanksgiving time in Orlando, Florida. That field includes LSU, Memphis, Siena, Oklahoma State, St. Johns, Washington State and Butler. So it's conceivable that Purdue could play Butler twice in a two week span. While some will probably say that's stupid, I actually enjoy unique scheduling anomalies. That could be kind of neat. Unless, of course, the Boilers get trampled twice.

Some of the other squads in the Old Spice Classic also appear to have a chance of being competitive/significant programs in '13-'14, so another quality matchup or two could happen in the land of Mickey and Minnie in November.

As the headline notes, several outlets have sort of turned an ambivalent attitude towards the non-con schedule, which I can't completely blame them for. However, it it helps the Boilers get out to a fast start and on their way to a 20+ win season and a return to NCAA tourney action, I'm pretty sure none of us will care.

Seeing Red: A Trip Behind Enemy Lines (and Gumbo)

A pal of mine sent me a text this afternoon asking if I'd like to go to the Butler v. IU game in Ass. Hall...so after making sure LBD, TBD and Mrs. Boilerdowd were all good for the evening, I took the trip to the wretched squalor town of Bloomington, IN.

I worked on a project a few years ago that took me into the bowels of the Hall, and hadn't been back since...and tonight's visit provided me with some much-needed ammo info.

First off, I was reminded of my first sports hate: IU fans congregating at Ass. Hall.  Back when Knight was there, I loved watching Bobby clones in their red sweaters over-react to each of the two or three fouls called against IU each contest.  While there's no doubt the Hall can be a loud venue, it's at its most-deafening when the IU faithful are giving a collective groan or boo.  They've always been great at group-think negativity, but they've added chanting mediocre and underexperienced players to their repertoire as well.

Wednesday Gumbo

I don't even like the WBC, but...
If you're like me, you stay up too late this time of year trying to gather all of the games and highlights you can to get as educated as possible in preparation for over-thinking your bracket. One bonus of staying up too late is you get to see stories like this before the highlights have been over-produced and there's still some drama to the story breaking.
The second Dutch oven...errr...upset (and subsequent elimination) of Dominicana is as astounding (to me at least) as the Miracle on Ice of 1980...but in a much-less important event. To put it in perspective, the Netherlands' players make about 1/160th in professional baseball salaries of those on the Dominican squad.

Granted, I probably still won't watch more than an inning-or-two straight of this made-for-TV event, but the highlights are awfully fun.

Speaking of Bad TV
I have owned my own business for about 10 years...and one of the many advantages of being your own boss is you don't get yelled at for watching sports in the middle of the day. Whether it's the Masters, NCAA tourney or anything else that tickles my fancy, it's an all-around good deal. But yesterday, it backfired.

At around 2:00, I figured I should check on the mid-major games and see if anything had tipped off. Well, the programming sadists at EsPN decided to waste everyone's time with soccer...and WBC games. What the heck, yo? They have taken the most wonderful time of the year and perverted it with over-acting, silky-shirt, short-short wearing, grainy coverage of the ugly game.

Thanks for nothing.

Hey, that reminds me...
Like most of you, I watched the over-rated Butler Bulldogs play last night...and I was pulling for them. I like their coach and their players, it's their fans that I struggle with. One of my brothers graduated from BU, and my parents lived a short bike ride from the campus, so I know the place well.

But, last night's game, especially the second half, was eerily similar to Purdue's performances versus Northwestern and MSU. The Bulldogs couldn't score for a large span of time and seemed to wait too long to try to close the gap (though it wasn't too sizeable).

Plus, like Purdue, Butler has a good Soph. big man and a shooting forward who's a string bean who grew up a Purdue fan. When I watch Butler, I can't help but think about how fun it'd be to have Howard and/or Heyward playing for Purdue...*sigh*

My next thought though, is I want Purdue to play Butler in the tournament and make those two regret their choice of where they ended up...If not regret it, at least think- "man, Matty's handsome and tall...I wish I was playing for him."

Butler's loss surely doesn't help the many bubble-sitters in the Big Ten...but it probably all but kills hopes for teams like Davidson (Steve- you should have gone pro last year).

Fair is Fair...
Alright, in the interest of fairness, I must do this...A few months ago, I gave a shout-out to Scout.com's Purdue site Boiler Sports Report and said everyone should give them a chance. Well, their effort reminds me a lot of my three year old son- They tried hard for about 15 minutes and seemed to have given up. Their Purdue coverage seems to be nothing more than copied and pasted links from other sites...Even when Purdue beat MSU in basketball...and whipped aOSU, the articles had a noticibly opposing-team-slanted spin.

Plus, as signing day approached and passed, they didn't report anything more than one-line blurbs about what was going to happen...and most of the time they were wrong. In fact, the "insiders" on their message board who are just schmoes like me seemed to be right more than their reporters.

They seem like well-intentioned, nice guys...but they also seem to be either A) In over their head or (more likely) B) Completely disinterested in Purdue sports as West Lafayette is second-fiddle to the big programs, in their collective minds. Plus, their interface/site design is bad-looking, cumbersome and out-dated.

I think a quarter of a year, especially in a news-packed period of time, is enough of a trial...Scout.com is overwhelmingly un-noteworthy. While the KHC board is worth little-more than used Charmin, the writers on GBI are good at what they do, and get this- they care about Purdue sports. If you've got $10.00/mo. burning a hole in your pocket, either get a subscription over there or send it to us via PayPal (we can give you our account e-mail if you'd like!!).