Round 1 of the NCAA tournament. The Hoosiers are playing Arkansas. The first half hasn’t been stellar. Seems like there is a fair amount of standing around by IU. At half time, they trail 37 – 30. The officiating hasn’t been horrible, exactly, but I’ve seen what seemed to be about 3 significantly bad calls or non-calls. The first was DJ White in the lane, making a basket and getting fouled. He was called for a charge, but there was no way that was a good call. On the other end, there was almost immediately a make up call where Arkansas was called for some ticky-tacky offensive foul. But, the damage was done – that was 3 points the Hoosiers wouldn’t get and an unnecessary foul on White. That was the big one.

The last one was White going up for a dunk and missing with a lot of contact in the lane and in the air. There was another one in between those I was fairly annoyed with at the time, but I can’t recall at the moment.

I can’t swear that there haven’t been similar transgressions on the other side for Arkansas; but they’ve shot (and made) 10 from the line. Indiana has only shot 4 free throws. Even worse, they’ve only made 1 of those shots. The Razorbacks have also been pretty strong from behind the 3-point line, shooting 5/12 for 42%. Fortunately, they’re shooting at about the same percentage inside the line; otherwise the score could be really ugly.

IU is shooting about average from 3 — 30%, but very poorly from closer in and at the line (38% and 25% respectively).

For the second half, we’ll see if IU has some life in them or if they’re just going to phone it in and put this season to an end.

———

Second Half:

Jeeze, this is frustrating. 16 minutes left, and it seems like IU keeps flirting with getting back into this thing and then making stupid mistakes that snuff out what could be a nice run.

And, as I type this, at the 15 minute mark, a couple of good stops and made threes get this thing a little closer.

Man, that charge way back in the 1st half on White is looking huge. He just got another foul, his 3rd, and now he has to play tentatively, which opens up the lane a little for Arkansas.

Gordon is having a horrible night.

And, suddenly, IU is down by 9 with about 9 minutes to go.

Down by 10 with 4 minutes to go. This sucks.

Down by 12 with 3:10 to go.

Gordon has just disappeared. 2-12 from the field, including 0-5 from three. Also 2-6 from the line. Does this mean we get him for a sophomore year? Commentators just said that he’s 7-50 from three since Dakich became the head coach.

Down by 13 with 2:00 to go.

This wasn’t worth staying up late for.

D.J. White’s last game. Great player. Too bad he never got to play for a great team.

Down by 13 with 1:00 to go. Why are we still fouling? Put this team out of its misery. Maybe we can get a coach, rebuild, and get back to the tournament in 3 or 4 years.

Down by 14 with 40 seconds. Here come the scrubs.

86 – 72. Final.

I am, or at least was, once upon a time a golfer. With kids, work, limited time, and other uses for my money, I don’t get out to the course very much. I grew up in a golfing family, worked at a golf course for 5 years in junior high and high school, and pretty much lived at the golf course most summers. That’s not to say I ever got terribly good. In fact, I felt like I was pretty mediocre compared to the other guys hanging out at the golf course.

Hell, there was even one kid who was 3 or 4 years younger than me who could routinely play better than me. Little did I know, he’d go on to the PGA tour. Today, Bo Van Pelt is leading the field at 12 under par after two days. Hope he can hang in there and turn in a solid performance.

Of the other rogue kids who roamed the golf course with me, at least one of them ended up being a country club pro and two others went on to be high school varsity stand outs. That’s not to say I was actually good and didn’t know it; just that my competition was a bit stiffer than I realized at the time.

Taking Down Words has created an ESPN Tournament group here. I had considered creating a pool, but I’ll just encourage all the good folks from the Indiana blogosphere to go there.

The 25-7 Hoosiers got an 8 seed and will play Arkansas in the first round. The 24-7 Fighting Irish got a 5th seed and will play George Mason. The 29-3 Bulldogs got a 7 seed and will play South Alabama. And, the 24-8 Boilermakers got a 6 seed and will play Baylor.

IU finished weak after Sampson got fired and appear to have been seriously penalized in the seeding because of the lackluster finish. And, frankly, based on what I’ve seen under Dakich, I don’t blame the NCAA committee. I don’t really like their chances against Arkansas, though I would be happy to be wrong and see the Hoosiers, who have considerable talent, pull it together and make a run.

A win is a win, even over 7-18 Northwestern. With Sampson out as head coach and Dakich in, the Hoosiers headed to Evanston and pulled out an 85-82 win. Jason King says that the team was just exhausted on the trip up. That makes sense. From a scheduling perspective, it’s fortunate that the Hoosiers played a relatively easy opponent. They went through the strain of their head coach getting fired, pulled out a win, and have until Tuesday to get ready for Ohio State in Bloomington. Hopefully they can get some rest, shake off some of the trauma, and be more or less up to speed for the stretch.

John Branch and Greg Bishop, writing for the New York Times, have the latest on the Patriots under Bill Belichick. The short version is: 1) Yes, they cheat; 2) they have cheated since Belichick started in 2000; 3) this sort of cheating is not common in the NFL; 4) owners and coaches don’t want to be seen bellyaching about the Patriots; and 5) they want the league to continue investigating and for the truth, whatever it may be, to come out.

The Patriots’ pattern of illicitly videotaping the signals of opposing N.F.L. coaches began in Coach Bill Belichick’s first preseason with the team in 2000, a former Patriots player said. The information was put to use in that year’s regular-season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Belichick’s debut as New England’s coach.

. . .

According to several executives in the league, the season opener against the Jets was not the first time the Patriots had been spotted taping another team’s defensive coaches at Giants Stadium. In the final preseason game of 2006, the Patriots were caught taping a Giants defensive assistant giving signals, the executives said.

. . .

Bill Polian, the president of the Indianapolis Colts, said: “It’s behind us. It’s time to move forward.”

But emerging details continue to pull the league back in time. On Feb. 2, The Boston Herald reported that the Patriots might have taped a St. Louis Rams walkthrough practice the day before the teams played in the 2002 Super Bowl. The Patriots won, 20-17, on a last-second field goal.

. . .

And that doesn’t even mention the curious headset problems opposing teams seem to have had on critical drives while playing the Patriots in Foxboro.

Rich Nye of WTHR is reporting that Hoosiers basketball coach Kelvin Sampson will not finish the season as coach. He is not expected to coach in Saturday’s game against Northwestern.

A source close to the situation tells Eyewitness Sports that officials from the IU administration have met with assistant basketball coach Dan Dakich about taking over the basketball team as interim head coach for the rest of the season.

Dakich began this season in an administrative position with the team. He became an assistant coach when assistant coach Rob Senderoff resigned in October for his involvement in improper phone calls to recruits. Dakich is a former IU player and assistant coach under Bob Knight.

IU won as big a game as they’ve had against Purdue in a long, long time. I had visions of Sampson and Painter starting up where Knight and Keady left off. But, Sampson’s troubles with the NCAA make that a dubious proposition at the moment.

In any case, IU and Purdue were ranked 15th and 14th and Purdue led the Big 10 with IU close behind. Now those two teams along with Wisconsin all have two losses apiece.

I’m so out of my element with respect to racing that I’m not sure I’m even qualified to link to a racing article. But, I haven’t let competence, or lack thereof, stand in the way of my blogging yet, so in the interest of being a good Hoosier, I point your attention to the following.

Robin Miller, writing for SpeedTV, has an article entitled REPORT: Champ Car/IndyCar Deal Done.

Most Champ Car teams were told to quit working on their Panoz chassis Monday and expect delivery of their new cars in a few days. Paul Tracy is coming to Indianapolis later this week for a seat fitting. And one of Champ Car’s co-owners admitted to a fellow owner there would only be one series in 2008.

After 12 years of warring that cost open-wheel racing much of its sponsorship, audience and momentum, common sense has finally prevailed.

SPEEDtv.com has learned that the Indy Racing League and Champ Car have officially, and mercifully, agreed to become one entity. A press conference could come as early as Wednesday if Kevin Kalkhoven is back from England in time.

This might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

Isiah Thomas once said that the only college coaching job he’d ever consider would be at his alma mater, Indiana University, and there is a chance that position will be available before long.

Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live commercial for “Bad Idea Jeans.”

Guy #2: Normally I wear protection, but then I thought, “When am I gonna make it back to Haiti?”

[ image on screen: BAD IDEA ]

Isiah turned a good Pacers team into a mediocre team before he went off and destroyed the Knicks. Bring him to IU, and I’m just flat out going to give up on the team.