by Kent Sterling
My face isn’t really this orange, and I sure as hell won’t be dressed like this today at 11a, but this is a picture of me.
Today is a big day in Indianapolis sports, and we will be all over it beginning at 11a today on 1070 the Fan and 1070thefan.com.
The Indiana Pacers will either even their series against the eight seeded Atlanta Hawks or fall into a 3-1 trough from which they might have difficulty climbing out. Frank Vogel is coaching for his job, according to an anonymous source cited by ESPN. Roy Hibbert is playing for his legacy as a Pacer. Hitting 18% from inside the paint reflects includible ineptitude.
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Do the Pacers have the rocks to rise above their petty squabbles and beat an obviously inferior team? That’s the question they have not answered in the affirmative, minus a wonderful 19-0 run over a six-minute stretch in Game Two that produced the kind of basketball fans became accustomed to in the first half of the season.
Don’t mistake this for a must win game. It isn’t. This is a ‘Boy, it would be nice to win this game!’ Game time is 2p.
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Early yesterday, Yogi Ferrell and Stanford Robinson were arrested for illegal consumption and using a fake ID when trying to enter Kilroy’s Sports Bar. This is troubling for a couple of reasons. The first is how are these two very famous (in Bloomington) kids so damn dumb that when the excise police are everywhere for Little 500 Weekend, they whip out the fake ID? The second is that they appear to be totally fearless of the consequences for their actions. That may be the result of the absurdly lenient two-game suspension given to Hanner Mosquera-Perea for his drunk driving arrest.
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The Colts are looking at a schedule that makes anything less than a 12-4 record unacceptable. With the draft less than two weeks away, what do the Colts need to take the #1 seed in the AFC?
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The weather is beautiful for the annual running of the Little 500 at Indiana University in Bloomington, and that used to mean an annual visit down Ruel W. Steele Highway to the campus I called home for five years for a trip down memory lane. What is it about the Little 500, other than being deified in “Breaking Away,” that makes it wonderful?
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And instant replay is an unmitigated disaster in all sports but hockey, where somehow the league that gets it all wrong actually gets this right. The complexities of the various systems, and resulting delays disrupt the rhythm of the games, and erode the joy of the fan experience. It’s as though the organizers fallaciously believe the games are for the teams instead of the fans. Preposterous.
We’ll talk about all that and more beginning at 11a, and running straight up until Pacers Pregame with Mark Boyle from Atlanta at 1:30p.
Can’t wait!