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Young Swole-Master has been giving the UGA Bulldogs basketball team a little too much air time lately, so I thought we might revisit our roots: The Indiana Hoosiers.

There has been much naysaing and ho-ha-ing lately about the Hoosiers, who inexplicably lost to Penn St. in the regular season finale then got stabbed in the heart (at the end of a game they deserved to lose) in the BTT.

Then they were rewarded with a disgutsing #8 seed, amounting to a mafia-style hit job by Myles Brand, against UNC right in the Heels' back yard in the event that Indiana and North Carolina both win their first round games.

So here is a more-or-less positive article I saw about the boys in red today, #10 on Dan Wetzel's article about 14 Things To Watch For in the tourney:
Hoosier Daddy

Conceivably Indiana’s interim coach Dan Dakich could get the Hoosiers back to mid-season form and push them to a Final Four. It’s not like the talent isn’t there with D.J. White and Eric Gordon. If he did, he might be named the full-time coach.

But ever since coach Kelvin Sampson resigned following an NCAA violations investigation, IU has mostly fallen apart. That means one of the game’s most storied and fervently followed programs will probably be more obsessed this March about hiring a new coach than about the actual games.

It’s not so different from a year ago at Kentucky. The Wildcats parting with Tubby Smith and pursuit of Florida’s Billy Donovan (they wound up with Texas A&M’s Billy Gillispie) was one of the chief story lines of the tournament.

As for Indiana, any number of future head coaches could be in this tournament. The short list includes Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Xavier’s Sean Miller, Washington State’s Tony Bennett, Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings and Marquette’s Tom Crean.

Indiana’s combination of local talent, tradition and ambition – and its brand new practice facility – makes it one of the most coveted jobs in the country. The downside, however, is that coaches are very concerned about going to work for such a dysfunctional administration.

(And no matter how much Dick Vitale blathers about it, Bob Knight is not getting the job.)

Now, I do want Dan Dakich to push this team to a Final Four. I do NOT want Dan Dakich to be the new head coach. Granted he had an impossible task of winning over a relatively undisciplined squad of players this year, but he is a capable mid-major coach at best. Recently I've come of the opinion that the best cantidates for the IU job are, in this order: Jaime Dixon, Tony Bennett, Sean Miller, Scott Drew. Anyone who has mentioned the words Tom Izzo, Bruce Pearl, or John Calipari need to get real. One probably wouldn't leave his job and two others are the LAST thing that we should follow up the shady Kelvin Sampson with.

Matters of the Heart

Well here it is Hoosier Nation. The date that has been circled on our calendars since, oh...the summer of 2006. It's Indiana @ Illinois, in what promises to be one of the most emotionally-charged, hostile, hyped games of the decade in NCAA basketball. And it's all thanks to Rivals 150's #1 Ranked shooting guard from Indianapolis, IN, and current Big Ten scoring leader: Eric Gordon, Jr.

This game is much more critical than the football meeting between these two rivals. A random fan's quote to the IU Live news broadcast summed that Illini victory up best: "We don't really care if we lose to them in football. We were never really that good at it anyway...However, we still have Eric Gordon. Boo Yah. (Long pause)." -Anonymous IU tailgater, woken up in the Woodlawn Fields.

EJ and the Indiana Hoosiers (#13) march into Champaign/Urbana with a 7-1 Big Ten record, and the top-two active scorers in the leauge (not to mention top rebounder). After dropping two of their last three, the Hoosiers need a win here against a very weak, vulnerable Illinois team. But as is often the case when marquee teams with All-American talent come to town, Illinois will be giving it a little something extra tomorrow night. Actually they will be giving a lot extra something, as Young Gordon has been the subject of the most fierce and bitter recruiting battle of the decade in college sports. The bad feelings resulting from Gordon breaching his original agreement with U of I to play for IU place this new rivalry right up there with any other in terms of raw hostility.


Illinois' campus paper has posted this article about how the vaunted "Orange Krush" are preparing to give Gordon a special welcome. He probably won't really give a shit. Have you ever heard the guy talk? Probably not. When he gives a quote, his comments make Bill Belichick sound like Shakespeare.

ILLINOIS WILL WIN IF:
Gordon gets fazed on the road.
The crowd throws the Hoosiers out of balance.
The Illini can figure out a solution to D.J. White.
Jessica Simpson starts dating Gordon, and sits in the front row.

INDIANA WILL WIN IF:
They play within themselves.
Gordon drives to the basket with authority, regularly.
They can take the crowd out of the game, either with an early lead or dictating the pace of play.
A disgruntled UofI fan runs onto the floor & assaults Gordon or Sampson for a disqualification.
There is any sense of justice or fairness in this world.

As an added bonus watch this semi-motivational IU video. Be sure to note Young Knuckleballer at the 1:32 mark, where he is (not suprisingly) posing with a flock of fattys. I'll bet he had NO CLUE he was in this.

Updated Power 10

Lots of shit has gone down since Young Porque posted his NCAA B-Ball Power 10, so how do things shake out now after this huge weekend of upsets?

1. Kansas (18-0). Probably the most solid, well-rounded team of the two unbeatens. Extreme depth. Many threats with Chalmers, now-healthy Rush, Arthur, etc. Not to mention it's much harder to play a Big 12 Schedule than in the CUSA.

P.S.: Just imagine how nasty IU would be if Darrell Arthur had honored his commitment to be a Hoosier. Oh well, if he thinks playing for Sampson is that much worse than Davis, he's probably so stupid that we're better off without him.

2. Memphis (17-0). Yeah yeah, they're undefeated. They also play a bunch of pretenders. Derrick Rose isn't even good enough to be allowed to wash Eric Gordon's jock strap.

3. Tennessee (16-1). Are they they best one-loss team? Maybe. But do they have the best resume of any one-loss teams? Yes. Vandy might be very overrated, but they have still taken care of their business.

4. Duke (15-1). Looked like dogshit earlier in the season, but the real Dookies are starting to show up. I think a lack of Dickie V seriously hurt this team, there was no one around to obnoxiously over-hype them. But now that UNC has been exposed as a team that can't play D, Coach K is pushing his team to show all the haters that the Devils are the true kings of the ACC.

5. North Carolina (18-1). Everybody knew they were probably the weakest undefeated team until Maryland did work against them. Young Hansbrough is still a man amongst boys, but why was he taking the last-second three against the Terps? I'll bet Roy & co. would like to have that shot back, but it isn't exactly curtains for the TarHeels. Look for them to rebound against weaker ACC foes, struggle with Duke (but maybe eek out a win), and go deep in March.

6. Your INDIANA HOOOSIERS (16-1). They're only loss was to a very strong, if inconsistent, Xavier club. They've won 12 in a row, and the Big 10 is the toughest conference to play in, night in and out, especially on the road where it's always hostile as hell. White/Gordon might be...actually IS, the best inside-out combo in the country, and the supporting cast is deep and damn good. Upcoming games against a resurgent UConn, Wisconsin, and Sparty will tell us a lot about how the Hoosiers will fare in March.

7. Michigan State (16-2). Very talented team, despite two losses, including one to Iowa, an opponent that they should be beating. And even though they did have a brutal pre-season loss, this is Tom Izzo we're talking about and his teams always show up to play hard when it counts. They will almost certainly win their next six games before I show up to watch them lose to the Hoosiers in B-town.

8. UCLA (16-2). An hour before they lost their second game of the season, everyone was SURE they were the best one-loss team in the country. Haha. Frankly I hate this team, but they are well-rounded and well-coached, so they are always going to be dangerous.

9. Georgetown (14-2). This team only belongs here on days that Roy Hibbert decides to play. Otherwise, Pat Ewing Jr. isn't really taking this team anywhere.

11 (tie). Washington St. (16-1). I hate to put them here, but they do only have one loss...never mind that they play stinky teams. If they hadn't pulled out a close one against Oregon last night they would have fallen very, very far down.

11 (tie). Wisconsin (15-2). Don't look now but Bo Ryan (aka undisputed master of winning no matter the talent level) has Landry and Flowers playing like two guys named Tucker and Harris. Oh and Bryan Butch is pretty good too.