November 2009 Archive
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On Saturday night, Hot Tub, Shortround and I went to the Bloomington South High School basketball game against New Albany. It was a match up of the #1 and #2 teams in Indiana Class 4A basketball and featured 5 division 1 college recruits. Four of those play for Bloomington South! Purdue recruit Donnie Hale is the lone standout in New Albany, and he has real promise in matt Painter's system. He is 6'7", long, and has a great sense of the block. He is advertised as having a big motor, but South kept that from showing. What they could not prevent from showing was excellent shooting touch and good coordination around the bucket. Not only that, but only in Indiana will you find big men that take the time become solid free throw shooters. This game had two, Hale and the 6'8" Erik Fromm of South who has committed to Butler. Though Hale is clearly the superior big man to Fromm, having better feet, hustle, and athletecism, From was far from bad. The game keyed, though, on Xavier bound Junior Darwin "Dee" Davis. Davis is a defensive force, and has the ankle breaking ability you would expect in an undersized D1 recruit. While the big men were able to balance each other out, with Hale perhaps gaining the edge, New Albany had no response to the dribble penetration of Davis and the perimeter play of Matt Carlino, a future IU guard who shows a the ability to play point or wing and shoot the lights out. Though New Albany was game, they were not deep enough for South, and the game degenerated into a Jimmies and Joes session. It was still fun.
After watching the Colts play, fans are going to have to start asking questions about who is responsible for the draft board the Colts are putting together. Why is the run game not working? We are trying it with two different first round draft picks. We spend a lot of time nosing around for dark horses. What is the result? Well, we get very little push. We just get very little push. Tony Ugoh, who cost us a first rounder to move up in the second to draft when there was no indication that he was in danger of dropping off the board, has lolligagged his way out of the rotation. That essentially cost us two picks, the first rounder and the second. A uncharacteristic risk and an obnoxious bust. We may have had a shot at Chris Johnson with that pick. In addition, the investment of picks in Steve Justice and Mike Pollak have resulted in neither being a substantially key player in this season's line up with Justice not making the team and Pollak being a back up behind and UNDRAFTED ROOKIE FREE AGENT! in Kyle DeVan. Clearly, we have done a good job drafting mining for winner like Jerraud Powers, Antoine Bethea, and many more. Still, we have not made a significant draft pick concernning the run game since drafting Edge James in 1999. Polian et al has done a good job at several positions, but from here on out we are going to have to do some more conventional drafting at positions like offensive line, line backer, and maybe running back.
Houston was a good win for us, but only served to show that all Manning needs is one break or one mistake to blow a game open. Sunday, it was phantom pass interference call of Reeves that gave the Colts a chance to turn thigns around. That was all we needed.
The Colts may not be the most dominating defense in the league, but they make plays. Robert Mathis is a play maker and a name taker.
Colts fifth come from behind win of the season. Manning's 40somethingish 4th quarter comeback. Dan Patrick noted on the NBC show that when the Colts went to half and everything looked like it was going to Hell, Dungy was unflapable. If anything, Tony Dungy gave that to the Colts and that is why they are never out of it. That is why it is always within reach. Killers. Calm, cool, collected. Dyed in the wool killers.
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The cell phone was abuzz Sunday night as Racha, HT, and the GM were staying in contact during the course of the game. Was it a nail biter? I was way past my nails and three quarters the way up...
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Jack couldn't make it for this round of 10 Paineful Questions, so the GM, of Arin it Out, has stepped in to plug the gap in the line. ...
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We had lost three in a row and now we were playing our rivals, who we were favored to beat. Our previous two games had been absolute heartbreaking losses.....one to a team we should have beaten where I took an...
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Can Jack Cobra ruin his marriage in a single weekend? Can short hair be sexy on a woman that isn't built like a brick shithouse? Have the Buccaneers completely reverted? ...
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This photo of Albert Pujols denting the baseball was sent in by friend of the site, Keith. I'm doubting this was a home run by Pujols but it certainly was a ball hit with a lot of force.So now you've...
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2008 Cubs Preview
