The Squeeze

My wife and I signed a lease in Champaign three years ago last week. The Covid-19 Pandemic was only a couple days old, and the NCAA Tournament had already been canceled, so we decided to stop our house search in Champaign and rent instead. The world

Head In The Game

Want to clear your head? Want to stop feeling sorry for yourself because your basketball team failed to reach the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the 18th consecutive year? Then go to a 7th-grade basketball game. You'll need some background

2023 NCAAT III: Fly By Wire

Every time we're in the NCAA Tournament I go back to my blogger-in-the-basement days where I number every post with a Roman numeral. And for this trip I got to THREE. An article to kick us off once I got to Des Moines yesterday, an evaluation of Nico

2023 NCAAT II: Scouting Niccolo Moretti

I can't tell you how nice it was to get to watch the shootaround today. The NCAA does it right - every team has an open shootaround in front of fans and media as the players get used to the shooting backgrounds in the arena. I'd probably pay $500 to

2023 NCAAT I: Made You Look

I don't really use TikTok. I'll watch a TikTok that someone sends me, but I've never just opened the app and scrolled through. Not sure why. Just haven't ever gotten into it. I don't use Instagram, I've never had a Facebook account in my life - I'm

2023 Comps

My brain lives in a world of comps. If you've read five or more articles I've written (and you probably have - I just looked up the total and this is article number 4,376 since I started the first blog), then you know that I navigate the world through

Selection Sunday Nerves

One thing I have going for me: random access memory. Not on my laptop - in my head. For whatever reason, memories that are erased from most people's heads remain in mine. I just have this thing where I can place myself in the emotions of a moment from

Big Ten Tournament Thursday 2023 - Moments

**10:00 AM** It's here! My favorite two basketball days of the year - Big Ten Tournament Thursday and Friday. What you ask? Not the first two days of the NCAA Tournament? Well, no. For one, I'm never in attendance for the first two rounds of the NCAA

Ben Trovato

I watch the last five minutes from the tunnel where the team comes out. I went there to pace, but I didn't need to pace. I just watched us slowly let the Penn State lead creep up to 12 before we tried to chip away but fell short. Tyler attended the

Killing Time

I'm killing time before the Illinois-Penn State game in the BTT. I sat in the arena for Rutgers-Michigan but don't feel like doing the same for Iowa-Ohio State. So I'm down in the media room thinking about the coaching decisions at the end of the