Via Torpor Indy: IU Purdue fans to be left in the dark tomorrow. Apparently the IU-Purdue game is being carried on ESPN’s offering, ESPNU which is not carried by most cable companies because the subscriber fees are high. That blows.

Wow! Talk about your stingy Colts defenses. That was one of the most thorough defensive performances in a playoff game, ever. Holding the league’s second best running back to 32 yards. Holding a team to 0 (that’s right, ZERO) first downs in the first half (and through most of the 3rd quarter as well, I believe.) The Colts winning handily despite Manning throwing 3 interceptions. Nice to see.

I’m not going to plan the Super Bowl party quite yet. During the second half of the season, the Colts couldn’t win on the road. Hopefully they’ll get a whole earful of “can’t win on the road” so that they’ll be as pissed off going into Baltimore as our defense was coming into the Chiefs game. I’m not surprised we won, particularly. I’m surprised at how we won.

With a victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, the Colts advance to a 10 and 1 record. Joseph Addai set a franchise record with 4 rushing touchdowns. Oh, he also ran for 170+ yards. Oh, and he’s only the second runner in NFL history to score 3 rushing touchdowns with runs of more than 10 yards on each. Poor Peyton Manning had to settle for 183 yards and 1 touchdown. I’m sure he’s all broken up by that what with only a 45-21 win to console himself with.

So, Colts good. But, for me anyway, flex scheduling bad. Flex scheduling is something the NFL is trying out where they take one of the Sunday games out of the line up and reschedule it for Sunday night. What this means for me is that instead of watching the Colts this afternoon, I’ll end up not getting to sleep until about 2 hours after my normal bed time. So, I’ll not get to the gym tomorrow morning and, quite possibly I’ll be tired all day. So, poor, poor pitiful me. But, anyway, I don’t like the night games. And, as long as the Colts are successful, that’ll mean more night games for them. Overall, probably a good problem to have. Still, annoying.

Well, o.k., you can call it a comeback. The Pacers pulled out an improbable win against the Bucks after being down 88 to 79 with 3 minutes to go. They closed with a 14-0 run to win the game 93-88.

Mark Montieth’s article in the Indianapolis Star is a good one. He takes Coach Carlisle’s comparison of this game to a Jackson Pollock painting and runs with it.

“It was one of the more bizarre games I’ve even been involved with, regular season or playoffs,” Carlisle said.

It was no work of art, but damn the critics. The public bought it.

I officially apologize for watching IU’s game against Lafayette. They were up something like 15 or 18 when I started watching toward the middle of the first half. Then they began a steady descent and were only up 5 when I stopped watching at the end of the first half. According to the final score, they finished with a 15 point victory. So, they seem to have done well for the parts I didn’t watch, answering the age old question — If an IU basketball team plays where Doug Masson can’t see them, do they score? Yes. Yes they do. (Surprisingly, having an ego so large as to cause delusions that the universe much cares whether I’m watching the IU game does not cause a great deal of discomfort.)

Apparently the victory happened this way:

With IU clinging to a 51-47 lead early in the second half, Calloway took over offensively to keep the Hoosiers afloat before help arrived.

Utilizing his blazing speed off the dribble, Calloway would score 10 of IU’s 12 points over a 5 1/2 -minute stretch to keep IU ahead 63-60.

“They had a hard time defending Earl’s penetration, and obviously that was a big factor,” Sampson said.

Employing a 2-3 zone defense to take away Calloway, Lafayette all but dared IU to beat it from the outside, which it then proceeded to do.

After two straight missed three-pointers from Wilmont that took the breath away from the Conseco crowd, senior reserve Errek Suhr drained a three, and so did Wilmont. Five straight Lafayette turnovers were turned into 12 straight IU points, and the entire state could breathe and sleep in peace when IU started a runaway when the Hoosiers outscored Lafayette 28-6 over the last seven minutes.

The Colts beat New England 27 to 20 last night. Man I hate those night games, makes me really, really tired the next day. But at least I stayed up for a win. Now, after the Colts won at Denver and now at Foxboro, I guess maybe they’re for real. And, in large part, they did it with defense — picking off Brady 4 times.

It really helped having Bob Sanders back in the game. Not only did he stopped the run, but he stopped it hard. I imagine the guys he hit were thinking about his hits, just a little, during subsequent games.

For the moment, let’s just ignore the Colts’ defensive troubles and the years of having great teams that get stopped just short of going to the Super Bowl. Like Bob Kravitz, let’s just wallow a bit in how good the Colts’ offense was yesterday. Playing Denver, they went up against the stingiest defense in over 70 years and lit them up for 34 points, including 28 points in the second half. At times, it seemed like Denver kind of forgot Reggie Wayne was playing. Note to Broncos – next time you might want to cover him. Rookie running back, Joseph Addai looks like he’s going to be a solid replacement for Edgerrin James. Yesterday, he averaged 5.5 yards per carry and racked up 93 yards. And Manning was, well, Manning. 32/39 for 345 yards, 3 touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

Super Bowl or no, we’re really going to miss these guys when they’re gone.