NIU B-Ball falls in first round of MAC tourney

Recaps of NIU basketball games are becoming all too similar:

MAC Freshman of the Year Jake Anderson scores 22 pts
Shaun Logan and Sean Smith score 12.

We continue to not match up offensively. Or defensively against Central Michigan who shot over 53% for the game and even better than that in the 2nd half.

Preach it Patton

"I am extremely proud of our young men the way we battled today. We ran into an extremely hot basketball team and we weren't able to return fire. I told the team that our record is not a good indication of the winners we have in this program. We have laid the foundation for this team and we're looking forward to the future.

"We had some miscommunication on defense and at times they made some tough shots. They hit some contested shots. You can't totally fault our defense on that. Good players are going to make plays and hit shots.

"Experience is the best teacher. The only way to learn how to do it is to be involved in it. If you watch the games on TV at this time of year, you can see that players have elevated their level of intensity and taken the game up another notch at this time of year."

Thank you Shaun Logan

You were a solid, hard-working player for the 2 years that you were here. No matter what the circumstances were, you always kept your cool and were a leader on the team.

Thank you Egan Grafel

Congrats on improving your playing time from under 20% of the minutes to playing over 55% of the time this year. You were the first player on the team to solidify a starting spot with Ricardo Patton as head coach, which is a tough thing to do.

Thank you Michael Hart

Thanks for continuing to follow your dream and eventually play for a D-I school in Northern Illinois under Patton. Though you didn't receive much playing time, you were definitely a fan favorite for the time that you were here.

Thank you Ben Rand and Ryan Paradise

Throughout your injury plagued careers, you fought hard through rehabilitation and played through as much as you could through the pain. And Paradise is a name nobody will ever forget.

NIU to face CMU in first round of MAC Tourney

NIU will be extremely pumped up for this game, whether it will be from unruly CMU players from NIU's senior night or the fact that HC Ricardo Patton had to be escorted out of EMU Convocation Center last Sunday.

#11 NIU vs. #6 CMU - 2 PM @ Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena

Anything and everything about the tourney can be found on the MAC Website

All the games will be televised online through All-MACces. This year it will cost you $8! I believe last year it was free. Oh well.

You can also listen online here: http://www.wups.com/index.html

It's a shame the women lost their tourney game today 75-67 against Kent State. They have a young team and should be improved next year, but lose top scorer (and my favorite player) Whitney Lowe.

I'll be in Los Angeles for the next few days FYI...

NIU Seniors show class on their night...

...because CMU definitely didn't show any.

First lets talk about the game, in which seniors Shaun Logan, Egan Grafel, Mike Hart, Ben Rand and Ryan Paradise were honored. Those players will be missed. An odd mix of players, in which Paradise was the only freshman who played here. Logan and Grafel are from JUCOs, while Hart is from D-3 and Rand transferred from Iowa. The Daily Chronicle said it best:

Without a steady, consistent core of players that mature through the course of their career in a basketball system at the Division I level, NIU has struggled.

We lost 80-73 in a tough fought game. The greatest part about this year's team is that they never gave up. Game in and game out they would fight hard at home, even if they were seriously outmatched talent wise.

Future STUD Jake Anderson had 23 pts and 11 boards. I have no idea how he's been out-rebounding our big men all year! Nichols filled in with 17 and Patton with 14. Jarvis Nichols was also 11 for 11 shooting free throws.

Central Michigan is the dirtiest team in the MAC Conference without a doubt. In the nation? Arguably.

This guy is the NIU's public enemy #1:



Nate Minnoy. All 6'3" 270 of him. Senior F Shaun Logan reaches in for the basketball and is called with the foul. Then Big Nate goes ahead an gives Shaun a straight elbow to the face. It was so blatantly obvious and there was almost a bench-clearing brawl. Clearer heads availed, and everything got back to normal until the next play when Logan got pummeled again by a CMU player going after the ball. Unbelievable. Can't wait to play these guys again next year. I'll be in the front of the student section yelling at Minnoy the entire game. Absolute garbage. He's from Chicago and I'm glad we didn't recruit this guy.

Position Analysis - CMU Game

What went wrong?
Turnovers, Penalties, Dropped balls, Bad tackling, Bad Special Teams. No red-zone offense. Fundamentals.

Crowd/Tailgating - 8/10
CMU girls aren't very attractive I would say other than their cheerleaders. The other CMU fans were pretty cool. There were more jello-shots on the ground walking around the parking lot after the game than I had ever seen in my life!

Stadium - 8/10
I really liked Kelly/Shorts Stadium. They had a really good audio system and they actually play good music at the game.

Officiating - 0/10
The CMU refs were corrupt and we got shafted on many a calls. Especially the BS late hit calls.

QBs - N/A
We don't have any QBs. We have some dude throwin INTs and balls over WRs heads. And we have no other options.

RBs - 6/10
Justin Anderson had 28 rushes for 159 yds. BUT HE FUBMLED THE BALL in the redzone. It's weird that #4 David Bryant is his backup now. Chad Spann must be in Joe's doghouse. Anderson doesn't have a huge burst and doesn't have enough to power the ball in to the redzone (blame the o-line).

WRs - Icomplete/10
We only have one good WR. He is #85 Matt Simon. 9 catches for 205 yds and a TD. He has all the tools to be a decent receiver. The other guys? Not so much. Turner is slow and awkward and nobody else can catch a ball or run a route.

O-Line - 0/10
These guys can't help push the d-line enough so we can score a TD in the redzone.

Defense - N/A
Nope, didn't see a defense out there. Doorknob needs to go. It's a good thing I was sitting right by Mark Reiter's parents...

Special Teams - 0/10
So Patrick George fumbles the ball and we put Greg Turner & Matt Simon back there on KO returns. Turner has no speed. Another TD was given up on a KO return by the other team.

Joe Novak Quotes:

“We are not a very good football team right now,” said NIU coach Joe Novak. “We've got to work and coach on a lot of things. We've got to get back on track and get better. We didn't throw the ball well and had some dropped passes. Our mistakes definitely helped out (with CMU pulling away).”

“We didn't tackle well, especially in the first quarter,” Novak said. “We looked like we were playing in mud, offensively and defensively. We looked like we had no quickness at all.”

“That kick-off return was ridiculous,” Novak said. “Then that fumble knocked us out of it.”

"Our young guys have lousy ball security," Novak said. "We just gave it away. We don't get it done when we have opportunities."

“He's a tough kid,” Novak said of Simon. “He rolled his ankle last week and rolled it again today. He's a warrior. If we have 44 guys like him, we'd be all right.”

Players chime in:

"We put 500 yards of offense on the board," Simon said. "To come away with just 10 points is pretty disheartening."

"All day we were in a good rhythm," Nicholson said. "We had a good bead on what they were doing."

Ramblings on Central Michigan Eve

So I'm going to the game tomorrow @ Mt. Pleasant. I'm leaving @ 3 AM tomorrow!

I told some of my friends I was going to the game. Their responses:

"Why? What's the point?"
"You're crazy!"
"Where the hell is Mt. Pleasant?"
"Why don't you go watch a good game like Michigan against some Big 10 team?"



Rascal Flatts' new song "Take Me There" has to be one of my most favoritest songs in the world (and I'm not a big Rascal Flatts guy). Give it a listen:

Now watch this UF student get tasered protesting at a John Kerry speech. "Don't tase me bro!!!":




And in other Chicago news...

CUBS CLINCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CMU Game Preview

Well, first let's talk about CMU's secondary. The glaring spot where we can exploit on the Chippewa D.

From CMU's game notes:

Secondary Shake Up
CMU has seen eight different players start at least one game in the secondary already this season. The Chippewas have started four different quartets in the secondary in four games in 2007. Last week against North Dakota State, three sophomores (Tommy Mama, Tim Brazzel, Kirkston Edwards) all made their first career start. South Carolina is the only other Football Bowl Subdivision program to start a different foursome in the secondary each week this season.

Youth Movement
At least 12 true or redshirt freshman have played in every game this season for CMU, while more than half of the players to see action in each game have either been freshmen or sophomores. For the season, a total of 21 players (including kicker Andrew Aguila and long snappers Chris Starkey and Jake Ekkens) have either made their first career start or made their first start at a new position.

They've had to start 8 different players in the secondary so far! Great. So we'll probably throw a TON! Good time to develop the talent of our WRs (Hello Britt Davis). I also expect to see a lot of Justin Anderson catches out of the backfield.

Next, let's talk about the mental state of CMU's football team:

LETS PLAY FIREMAN!

There were people calling for Butch Davis' head after this incident:

Since the loss the reviews for the Chippewas have been critical. One of the issues that came out of Saturday's loss involved an incident on the sidelines where strength and conditioning coach Dave Lawson was seen spraying down a CMU football player with water on the sideline.

Fans in the crowd may have interpreted the incident as disrespectful, but it is actually something that the CMU team does during practice. "That is an inside thing with the team," Jones said. "We make reference to our guys being like fire fighters and Dave is there to help put out the fire and the guys get around and get the water sprayed on them. The players were laughing today at practice about it because to them it isn't a big deal and they were surprised at all the attention it got. I didn't even know it was causing so much discussion until today and we just can't worry about those things. We just need to stay focused on improving as a team and preparing for Northern Illinois."

This would be too literal an interpretation of "Fire Up Chips!"

Here's another question:
Will the Central Michigan fans stay the whole game?



"Bison over the Chippewas!"