Boiled Sports' Expanding Reach

While you're enjoying your Easter ham and some college basketball, we wanted to let you know that our reach will be expanding to other places on the interwebnets this coming week. Travis Miller of Hammer and Rails has decided to step down and we will be taking over editorial duties at H&R.

BS will continue on in its pleasant, collegial way, so no worries there.

For more on this transition, stay tuned to H&R.

As you were (eating your Peeps).

Optimism About Purdue From A Purdue Site

If you've been reading/listening long enough, you know we love to have Travis from H & R come visit us on the Handsome Hour podcast and sprinkle some optimism into our negativity milkshakes. He's a guy who can find something positive about being in a line for airport security, so he always finds a scenario for Purdue that ends with Danny Hope being carried off the field by his players at the National Championship Game. (I'm only slightly kidding.)

So today he chimes in over at Off Tackle Empire in an insanely long, nearly-5000-word post that is ostensibly about Purdue football but seems to spend a fair percentage of the time talking about Ohio State's classic colors. Yeah, I don't know, either. It's a lot of words.

I'll save you some time and give you my favorite excerpt from it, which naturally comes from the lovable Travis:

I am cautiously optimistic that we might sneak into the Big Ten title game. It will take some luck, but OSU is ineligible, Penn State and Illinois just changed coaches and are in disarray, and IU is still IU. That leaves Wisconsin, whom I think is the heavy favorite in the division. If we beat Penn State at home and shock Wisconsin, who knows what will happen. We might slide into the title game at 6-2 or even 5-3 (losing to OSU, Michigan, and Iowa) with some help at that point because of OSU's issues. Sure, it might be through the crawl space instead of the back door, but I'd take it.

To the other guys in the roundtable... how did you not go after him on this? All Purdue needs to do is sneak past PSU and shock Wisconsin? It's a formula, people!

B-Dowd Joins T-Mill And Others For Some Sweaty On-Camera Action

What? Is there something wrong with that headline?

Your favorite dunkerrific co-editor of Boiled Sports -- Boilerdowd himself -- joined H&R's Travis "T-Mill" Miller for a spirited two hours of sweating, panting and peeling off layers of clothing. And then they played basketball, too! Hey-yoo!!!

See Travis' video below for yourself. B-dowd is the square dude with the JJ jersey early on and then the gray, sweated-through muscle shirt later in the video. Strangely, they cut out the part where Travis hoses him down.

See the video, after the jump.

Getting Amped...BS prepares for football season

With media day just around the corner, we at BS are excited for the advent of football season. As we prepare, you can too by catching up a bit on some of The Handsome Hour's highlights from last season.

For those of you who haven't had the chance to partake in the weekly podcast, the Handsome Hour is the interwebnet's single-greatest information-bearing show. See for yourself:

Challenging Ron Zook to a prison-style fight

TMill from H & R tells J Money and Boilerdowd how Purdue nearly won a national title and change the trajectory of humankind during the 2009 season.

We're excited about football season as the halls of the BS world headquarters begin to spring to life with the chatter of interns researching topics for J's posts...We hope you're looking forward to the fall as much as we are. The dry sports season is almost over.

Opening a Can of Orange Worms

Last week, T-Mill of Hammer and Rails posted an opinion on some of the more overrated teams in men's basketball. Among them, in T's opinion, was Syracuse. Mainly, he said, because they lost to a D-II school in an exhibition game and that made their otherwise gaudy record hard to take seriously. While we might not have made such a statement, he was more than entitled to express such an opinion. You know, as a blogger. Writing on his own site.

Well, Syracuse knuckle-draggers did not approve. Unsurprisingly, some clown at a Syracuse site posted T's story, effectively sic-ing the dogs on the too-nice T-Mill. It was not pretty, with hundreds of comments being posted attacking both T and Purdue. Neither of which, of course, have anything to do with Syracuse and whether or not they are overrated.

The major defense point that was made (at least, by the Syracuse fans who could breathe with their mouths closed) was that the Orange (Seriously? "The Orange"? You guys are going with that, huh?) weren't really giving full effort against D-II Le Moyne. Ah, yes, the old "We weren't really trying!" defense, a favorite of third-grade children everywhere. "You guys only won at kickball because we weren't trying!" You can spot these people as adults, too -- they're the ones incessantly talking smack during a game of Cranium but are the ones who walk out of the bar if they're losing at darts.

Let's be clear -- we don't think Syracuse is a bad team. Far from it. They're obviously an extremely talented group and Boeheim is a fantastic coach, along with being a snappy dresser. But let's not anoint them great just yet, 'cuse fans. Let's take a look at some facts, shall we? I know they're pesky, but they're fun to look at.

Syracuse is 24-2. Impressive, to be sure. However, they have lost three times at home this season.

Once was the exhibition against Le Moyne (and, let's not pretend for one second that if Purdue lost an exhibition game to a D-II school that it wouldn't be constantly used to bash the Big Ten).

Once was by ten points to Pittsburgh. Not an awful team, but Pitt wasn't ranked at the time.

And once was yesterday to Louisville, another unranked team that is in danger of not making the NCAA tournament.

As for Syracuse's signature wins?

They beat then #4 UNC in November. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we now know UNC wasn't deserving of being #4.

They beat then #11 Florida in December. Yeah, they're probably not an NCAA tourney team, either.

They DID beat West Virginia (who was #9) and Georgetown (who was #11), though how tough is Georgetown if they just lost to Rutgers? (Oh, I forgot, the Big East is pure awesomeness from top to bottom.)

Of course, they've sidestepped Villanova to this point, but they get them at home on 2/27. Should be good.

Also padding Syracuse's record are the following:

--They beat Robert Morris by 40. (Was poor Robert playing alone, 1-on-5?)

--They smoked Columbia (who is currently 9-13).

-- They blasted Colgate (who is currently 8-16).

-- They ganged up on Maine by 46 points.

-- They beat St. Francis (NY), a 10-15 team.

-- They beat down St. Bonaventure, a 10-13 team.

-- They hammered Albany, who is currently 7-21.

-- They also get to pad against Seton Hall, Rutgers, DePaul, UConn and Providence.

What's the point here?

Well, it's that Syracuse is good, there's no doubt. As we've said before, you need to be good to beat even bad teams and not have letdown games, and the 'cuse have mainly done that. But before everyone gets pissed off that someone might have an opinion that this team could possibly be (GASP!) overrated, one should check the facts. They've won some decent games, but they've also beaten a ton of really crappy teams and lost a few times at home when they honestly should not have.

Oh, and they lost to a Division II school.

We Demand An Apology!

The other day, our compatriot Travis of the esteemed establishment Hammer & Rails, put forth an opinion on a number of teams being a bit overrated. In his opinion. One of those teams was Syracuse. A 'cuse site then publicized Travis' post and sent in the dogs after him. Some of them made valid points, most made obnoxious, antagonistic remarks.

In the end, the result was that Travis put up an apology. AN APOLOGY! For his opinion. Understand, he didn't insult anyone, he didn't curse at anyone, he said nothing about anyone's mother. He simply gave his opinion. Which is what bloggers do.

I sincerely hope when Syracuse flames out before they should (as they always do, except for the one time Carmelo Anthony carried them to a title) that the 'cuse chest-thumpers who came after Hammer and Rails can offer their own apology.

(Oh, and by the way, SYRACUSE LOST TO A DIVISION II SCHOOL THIS YEAR. This is not up for debate. They lost. To a D-2 school. LOST. I don't care that it was exhibition. Syracuse should not lose to a D-II school if they're on a playground playing with only four players. There is no excuse for that. So stop it.)

In the meantime, I'd like to point out that dear Travis made a prediction on the Purdue-MSU game the other night. And that prediction? MSU 72, Purdue 68.

That's right. He picked against our Boilermakers. And I've decided that this is a sign of disrespect. And as such:

WE DEMAND AN APOLOGY!!

Top Purdue Sports Moment of 2009

The erstwhile proprietor of Hammer and Rails (pictured) would like to know what you think the top Purdue sports moment of 2009 is. And he gives you a list of options to choose from.... they include the following two:

-Women's Basketball makes Elite 8
-Women's softball reaches NCAA round of 32 for the first time

And do you know what's not included? The game that this year moved Danny Hope to tears. The game that encapsulated something not done in 43 years. That may have been part of ushering in a new era of Purdue football. The win at Michigan.

So go on over, cast a vote, and let him know how handsome he is.

(Yes, it's a slow week so I'm picking on Travis. We kid because we love.)

UPDATE: He has added the Michigan game as a choice. I demand a mistrial! Revote!

A Veritable Cornucopia of Purdue Talk

Remember how NBC used to rule Thursday nights with their "Must See TV" lineup? Well, Purdue talk will rule the...uh...Internet radio dial... um, oh well.

Anyway, Wednesday night -- TONIGHT -- you can get doubled up by the Purdue guys. Oh yeaaaah.... what young lady, or college-age male, could possibly resist that?

First off, at 8 PM, Eastern, tune in to the Hammer and Rails podcast, with a special guest from The Only Colors.

Then call in and tell T-Mill he's a stud.

When you're done with that, it's Boiled Sports After Dark, with the Boiled Sports Handsome Hour, airing at 10 PM, Eastern. We'll talk about the Michigan win, the upcoming MSU game, the state of things in general, and the hoops season that's about to launch. Heady times to be a Boilermaker.

If You Can't Get Enough of Our Dulcet Tones...

We're off from the BS podcast this week (while we learn what we're doing and make it actually tolerable), but we'll be joining T-Mill over at Hammer and Rails on his podcast on Wednesday evening at 8 PM Eastern.

So give it a listen. Because if there's anything better than two aging dudes talking about Purdue football, it's three aging dudes talking about Purdue football.

Peering Into The Windows of UConn

So while doing my usual porn-surfing this afternoon, I decided to look into what UConn blogs are out there and to see if they're giving us any ammunition -- that is, mocking Purdue or taking them ultra-lightly. I didn't necessarily find that yet, but what I did find was, well... take a look.

At UConn Huskies Basketball, they've located a YouTube clip of a Purdue...student, I think. She's surely hot, but I don't think she represents Purdue quite the way we might like to be represented.



"This is Purdue's bell toweerrrrrrrr.... it's kind of like the center of Purdue's campus..."

*wince*

"The rule is you're not supposed to walk underneath it, or you'll fail your next three tests... or something like that...."

*holds head*

At least she sort of knows part of the fight song. And is hot.

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Over at The UConn Blog (imaginative name, by the way -- do you think this guy's kid is named "Son"?) they have a Q&A with Travis from Hammer and Rails (whoever that is).

If you read us at all, you know we are allies with Travis, but I have to give him some ribbing for this exchange... when asked what Purdue's weaknesses were, Travis went with:

Rebounding, Free throw shooting, and general shooting have all been bugaboos at times.

Holy crap! What else is there? If ever you wanted to encapsulate the mind of a Purdue fan, there you go. We may be in the Sweet 16, but we're weak everywhere. (You know we love you, Travis.)

Travis Is Growing Up

In case you haven't noticed -- and we know many of you don't realize there are other sites out there since this one is so awesome -- our friend Travis, who has been doing very thorough Boilermaker writing over at Off The Tracks has shed his skin like the snake that he is and moved on up (like the Jeffersons) to a fancier new place.

It's called Slammer and Nails. Or, no, wait... Blubber and Whales? Shoot, I can't remember... no, that's not it. Hammering Stacey Dales? No... hmmm... Black Heart Gold Penis? Wait, no... Ramming Hay Bales? No, despite being in Indiana, that's not it, either.

Ah, I'm sure it'll come to me and I'll be sure to let you know so you can go check it out.

(I got it! Jamming With Snails! Or... Scamming Always Fails? Ah, I'll come up with it.)