Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Bottom of Screen Closing Crawls – a Source of Big Laughs for Sterlings

by Kent Sterling

With a simple phone call, the closing crawl at the bottom of the screen can become a source of laughs and fun.

“Fun is where you find it.” Clark Sterling (1929-2002)

This has been a miserable winter that has refused to end, but that doesn’t mean every snow and ice event can’t be without joy.

The least pleasant seven hours of my life were spent answering the phone as the lone person in the WIBC Stormcenter during an afternoon blizzard in 1993. The damn phone never stopped ringing and the computer program we used for it was useless. Half the organizations, schools, and companies who called had no closing code, and the whole system was a total mess.

When local television started using scrolls at the bottom of the screen to alert viewers to school, business, and church closings, I remembered that bedlam and decided to use it for my own amusement.

A quick call to the newsrooms of the four local stations with a bogus cancelation kept me smiling for hours, and there was no end to the number of closings I could authorize. The Sterling Lutheran Foundation cancelled their annual taco dinner. Sterling’s Bowl-o-rama in Noblesville closed. Camp Sterling for Wayward Youth cancelled Bingo Night. Sterling-Pabst-Lanctot Schools closed.

Then I started using friends names with silly events that were postponed to odd hours, like the Witt Civil War Re-enactors Annual Breakfast postponed until 7 p.m.

The crawls were a cavalcade of my own idiocy limited only by my own imagination. What annoys all of Indianapolis kept friends and family laughing for an hour or two.

People think there is some level of security in posting closings because normal knuckleheads can’t just call in and close places. True, they are particular about closing existing schools, churches, and businesses. You need a code for that. But for the fictitious, they are surprisingly lax. The volume of closings is just too great to investigate each of them.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting that everyone reading this choose to clutter the system with closings that include their own name. This is just a funny little tale of a bored adult acting like a childish dork. Don’t try this at home kids.

Leave idiocy to the professionals.

Chicago Cubs Outlasting Rooftop Owners by Providing Terrible Product

by Kent Sterling

Watching the Cubs win from the rooftop parties can be great fun, but how good a time will it be to watch the worst team in baseball.

Sure, the Chicago Cubs are a terrible baseball team, but maybe the games on the field at Wrigley Field aren’t the most important being played in Wrigleyville.

The battle between the rooftop owners and the Cubs has made headlines for years as the video boards the Cubs would like to erect above the bleachers are being blocked by the less than cordial legal maneuvers of rooftop owners who are reluctant to agree that the view from their buildings be obstructed.

Tickets for the rooftop were listed today on Amazon’s Groupon-esque offering for $69. That ticket comes with an open bar and full unlimited access to a buffet. That special is evidence of a serious lack of interest in the Chicago National League Ballclub driven by a roster filled with untalented journeymen.

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It’s damn likely hunger for tickets available from the Cubs to actually sit in Wrigley Field during its 100th anniversary season are also soft as a goose down pillow, but the Cubs have deeper pockets than the rooftop owners, so destroying its own product is likely to cause their quarry more critical injury than the Cubs business office will suffer.

The insanity of the battle between the Cubs and the Rooftop Owners Association will continue until both sides are damaged equally by the lack of a resolution, or the expiration of the completely idiotic 20-year revenue sharing deal crafted 10 years ago which forces the rooftop folks to deliver 17% of their gross to the Cubs as a de facto fee for allowing fans to watch the Cubs without buying a Wrigley Field ticket.

The remedies for the Cubs are few without an agreement, and business life for the rooftop owners will end in ten years when the deal expires, and with it their standing to block the erection of the signs that have been approved by the various committees that wield such power in Chicago.

In the meantime, the Cubs can try to starve the rooftops by wounding their own product to the extent that fans will refuse to watch.

It’s lunacy to seriously suggest that the Cubs are seriously employing this self flagellation in order to harm their greedy neighbors, but the willingness for the Ricketts Family to invest so poorly in upgrading the roster is beyond any other explanation.

The Cubs starting lineup is likely to include Ryan Sweeney, Junior Lake, Nate Schierholtz, Donnie Murphy, Starlin Castro, Darwin Barney (coming off the second worst runs created number in Cubs history back to 1894), Anthony Rizzo, and Wellington Castro. The starting rotation is worse, and the bullpen is even more horrifying than the rotation.

If there is a more plausible explanation for the paucity of talent at every position for the Cubs, I’m all ears. As Mr. Spock said in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

So the Cubs will struggle to avoid losing 100 games this season, draw 2,000,000 fans, and watch the rooftop owners resort to massive discounts to lure fans to eat and drink in proximity to the ballpark.

Because the Cubs are controlling their expenses while marketing the future stars who will open the season in Des Moines, West Tennessee, Daytona, and other minor league outposts, they will continue to profit. The rooftop owners will cut checks for 17% of their take, serve endless food and drinks to those unwilling to pay $43.68 for bleachers seats (calculated by dividing the six-pack season ticket package of $262.08, including taxes and fees) plus concessions for the right to sit inside Wrigley Field.

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The Cubs vs. the rooftop owners is a battle that the Cubs will win eventually, and it looks like they are committed to making it painful for everybody, including the miserable fans who will force themselves to watch bad baseball for another season just so the rooftop owners profits wither.

Less Publicized Renovations at Rupp Arena Include Tips of Hat to Sordid Past

by Kent Sterling

Artists rendering of the new Rupp Arena, a showcase for all that is Kentucky.

Kentucky Basketball’s tradition will be celebrated in the architecture of the renovation to Rupp Arena that is scheduled to be completed by 2017, and will cost $310 million.

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There will be the typical upgrades like enough wi-fi bandwidth for all 23,000 fans, seat backs in all grandstand areas, and a transparent facade. A brand new video scoreboard will be installed at center court, but the upgrades aren’t limited to the arena itself. There will also be a series of immersive exhibition and displays to celebrate basketball in the Blue Grass State through the years.

“Blue and a Whole Lot of White” – A pavilion in the southern end of the new Rupp Arena will celebrate the University’s Kentucky proud tradition of caucasian-only basketball in Lexington that lasted into the late 1960s. “Below the Rim” will showcase Rupp’s Runts, the final all-white team to earn a berth in the NCAA Finals in 1966.

Buck-ets – This exhibit will feature a carnival-esque basketball shooting contest that will reward those who make a shot with Big Blue Bucks dispensed by men dressed like World Wide Wes, the power broker associated with Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, and John Calipari.

From Whisky to Meth – 200 years of substance abuse and capitalism! Hard to think of the Commonwealth of Kentucky without a tip of the hat to to hard liquor, drugs, and the financial success that can be reaped through taking advantage of the craving of addicts. This interactive exhibit allows fans to see and touch a cirrhotic liver and buy fake sets on snap-in corroded teeth.

The Bare-on – Adolph Rupp was known as the Baron, and in this strange NC-17 display his nude robotic image extolls the virtues of racism. This “Hall of Presidents”-esque event is still in beta testing and designers are battling with Rupp’s heirs over whether the mechanical image of the former winningest coach in college basketball history should appear clothed, with a towel wrapped around his waist, or completely nude. “The words are so horrifying than the nudity might distract those tempted to pay attention to what he says,” a planner reluctant to share his name told me.

You Be Joe B. – This is another interactive exhibition where fans get to take a talented freshman and decide how to erode his skills. Given the correct combination of audio commands and directives, video renderings of Charles Hurt and Derrick Hord digress from players with promise into hollow shells of their former selves.

Kentucky Dental Heroes – This display is designed to show that Kentuckians have a sense of humor about their stereotype. It’s a simple empty room with unadorned walls.

All signage and directions will feature pictures only, as though prepared for international visitors. One of the lead architects explained, “Kentuckians speak English reluctantly, and read it worse so we have designed signage in hieroglyphics. It’s like an Olympic Stadium. It was just easier than coming to a consensus about how to spell – “you-uns.”

Indiana Basketball – Tom Crean’s Seat Is Getting Warmer as Hoosiers Lose by 18 to Purdue

by Kent Sterling

Tom Crean has completely lost the insane Hoosier fans on the fringe, and the unreasonable are starting to squawk.

Indiana has six games left to try to find some redemption for this lost season. After losing 82-64 to Purdue yesterday, the chances of a late turnaround appear remote. The easily rankled Hoosiers fan base sped past the exit for agitated and judgmental, and are headed for vituperative and vengeful, the final outposts of a coach’s trek out of town.

Gakking up a nine-point lead without being fouled in the last 2:09 at home against Penn State is one thing, but losing by 18 to their rivals yesterday to run their Big Ten record to 4-8 has even formerly reasonable fans calling for change.

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Successful basketball is played by talented men who operate as one. Many coaches talk about the need for a team to come together as five fingers clasped into a fist. Indiana’s players have spent much of the season as five fingers attached to different hands belonging to people on separate continents.

What exactly has caused Indiana to spiral from the top of college basketball’s best conference to within a game-and-a-half of the bottom is hard to pinpoint – youth, poor priorities and immaturity exemplified by the Friday morning booking of Hanner Mosquiera-Perea for OWI, lack of floor leadership, poor bench leadership, global warming, and Obama Care are possibilities – but fans are more interested in action from athletic director Fred Glass than well-reasoned answers.

In the absence of informed perspective, fans are pointing a collective finger – as they always do – at the coach.

If you had told me I would spend the better part of an evening out with my wife defending Tom Crean on Twitter to Indiana fans blinded by rage caused by a team that has failed to live up to expectations, I would have thought you were crazy. I’ve never been confused with the rabble who blindly pledged their love and adoration to Crean, so this is new to me.

It’s been a long time since I was a fan of an Indiana basketball coach. Knight in the end was disinterested and erratic, Davis was incompetent and miscast, and Sampson an amoral and arrogant grifter. I was initially distrustful of Crean for two reasons – he was hired by a buffoon of an athletic director, and he seemed to be more flash than substance.

But something happened as I longed for a coach I respected to lead Indiana. I began to believe that coach might just be the guy who already had the job. Indiana won a Big Ten Championship outright for the first time since 1993, and was ranked #1 in America for longer than any other program. He recruited the best players in Indiana, and got a nice percentage of them to commit to IU.

The same fans who were thrilled with the five-year climb back to relevance and winning basketball in 2013 are now dyspeptic at the 14-11/4-8 records and hard to stomach basketball being played in Bloomington. The wins against Michigan and Wisconsin notwithstanding, they believe last season’s success was the result of players overcoming a coach, not responding to him. And they see the mounting losses this season as evidence that a change at the top is required.

They say I am an apologist for Crean because I believe a coach should be credited for the good as well as blamed for the bad. Fans jump on skewed statistics that show Crean has had a tough time winning without Cody Zeller. They say Crean had nothing to do with the development of top four NBA draft picks Victor Oladipo and Zeller, but blame Crean for the lack of development of others. They say Bo Ryan and Tom Izzo have never had a losing Big Ten season, but fail to mention that Michigan State has finished at exactly .500 five times under Izzo (1996, 1997, 2006, 2007, and 2011).

One fan tweeted that the last supporters of Crean are his boss and me.

We all agree that Indiana has not played consistently well this season, but because I would like to be able to review the complete body of work by the 2013-2014 Hoosiers before casting blame, I’m an idiot. Because I’m not jumping on the bandwagon to march on Assembly Hall to demand Crean’s immediate removal as though he’s the chief potentate of a small middle eastern fiefdom being burned in effigy in the palace courtyard, I’m a bootlicker.

To hell with trying to figure out what is actually going on, or watching the final six regular games of the regular season and whatever tourney games Indiana earns. The Hoosiers need a new coach because fans don’t like to watch a losing team that turns the ball over.

Who could Glass hire as the next coach? It doesn’t matter because anger demands change. That a new coach might not be as good as Crean is nothing but a confusing detail that derails outraged bleating.

APR score of 1,000 is par for the course. Banners aren’t raised for graduation rates. The 2013 Big Ten Championship is ancient history. Logic be damned. The snowball that is the passion for Crean’s removal is rolling downhill being pushed by the uber-passionate rabble, and the only thing that can stop it is winning.

The din of boos that ushered the Hoosiers off the Floor at Assembly Hall and all the message board posts calling for Glass to spike Crean won’t cause any action, but another year like this one and the wrong brows are going to start furrowing. Glass is way too smart to overreact to the passion of the kook lobby, but the softening pro-Crean lobby can’t be ignored forever.

As for me, I will believe Crean is the guy until it’s obvious he isn’t, and that day may never come.

NBA All-Star Break + IU vs. Purdue x Perea OWI Arrest = Lots of IU Hoops Talk on “Ahead of the Curve” at 11a on 1070 the Fan

by Kent Sterling

Some shows, hosts get to choose from a bunch of great guests and topics to inform and entertain listeners, and others have topicality thrust upon them. Today is one of the latter for “Ahead of the Curve” with Fox 59 sports director Chris Hagan and me on 1070 the Fan/107.5 FM (Indianapolis) and 1070thefan.com at 11 a.m.

Truth be told, I would rather talk about sports than some eight-minute-per-game kid who acted like the immature dumbass nearly all 19 year-olds are, but how IU coach Tom Crean chooses to handle his first behavioral crisis of which we are aware in his nearly six-year tenure is a very important component in figuring out what kind of culture he has created in Bloomington.

Hanner Mosquiera-Perea’s indefinite suspension was announced last night in a press release that included only the comment from Crean that pledged love and support, while saying also that he will not travel to Purdue and will not play for Indiana for an undetermined amount of time.

There are a lot of ways to go with the punishment of a player who exhibits such wanton selfishness, but as we found with the benching of Jeremy Hollowell for a period last month, Crean doesn’t grandstand with his discipline. Whatever happens stays within the family, and while there are rumors about Hollowell’s indiscretion, no one within IU has said a word.

While I have a morbid curiosity about what happened, there should be a small closet where the attitudinal education of a celebrity teen basketball player can remain the business of only those it directly affects. I know I’m glad that my dirty laundry as a 20 year-old belonged to me and wasn’t hung from the ninth floor of Briscoe Quad for all to gaze at.

Mosquiera-Perea’s incident is different because once an adult is arrested, we all get a peek at the public record. The booking took place at 4:45a, and his blood-alcohol level was clocked at 0.15%. That level of dumb deserves discussion if only to remind those who haven’t seen the carnage that can be caused by drunk driving that it can end and ruin lives.

There is basketball to be played today by the Hoosiers in West Lafayette at 4p. Indiana and Purdue have matching records – both are 14-10 overall, 4-7 in the Big Ten, and have lost five of their last seven. Both have disappointed their fans with uneven and unpredictable play.

We’ll talk to Stephen Bardo of the Big Ten Network and several others with unique and informed perspectives on both the mess caused by Perea’s indifference to safety, and the business of basketball to be played this afternoon.

There are other topics that are worth discussing. Indiana Pacer Paul George will participate in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest tonight, spring training has opened, and the Winter Olympics are in full swing. As I write, I’m keeping a close eye on the hockey game between the Russians and Americans. While most of the Olympic events are not riveting to me, the hockey is incredible. The game is in overtime tied at two. For hockey fans, a Saturday morning gets no better than this.

Can’t wait for the microphone to open at 11a.

Indiana Basketball – Hanner Mosquiera-Perea Suspended Indefinitely

by Kent Sterling

Sophomore forward Hanner Mosquiera-Perea has been suspended from the team indefinitely by Tom Crean.

Indiana University has released a comment from Tom Crean detailing the immediate consequence of Hanner Mosquiera-Perea’s early morning arrest for operating without a license.

“I had a chance to speak with Hanner before we left for Purdue,” Crean is quoted in the release distributed tonight at 8:46p. “The first things I told him were that we loved him and wanted to support him. We are disappointed in him but also disappointed for him.

“He knows he made some terrible choices which have turned into big mistakes. Hanner has let his family, loved ones and our program down and he knows that with choices come consequences. The law will handle some as will we. He will not be with us at Purdue and we will continue to work with him on a daily basis and will be witheld from competition indefinitely.”

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What the extent of the consequences are will go a long way not only what Mosquiera-Perea learns from this episode, but what Indiana players, future players, and students might be able to learn through this episode.

Crean’s consequences for Mosquiera-Perea will determine the extent to which Mosquiera-Perea’s teammates learn, while the legal system will handle those duties for the students. Given the reasonable proximity of the bars to campus, choosing to driving is truly moronic – not that it isn’t at other times, but walking to the dorms, frats, or apartments after a few too many drinks is something students have been quite good at for decades.

Driving drunk shows an indifference for human life that is truly hind-numbing. With the sheer volume of educational efforts that have been made to instill the potential for calamity in those prone to that profound level of dumb, there is no excuse for ever making the decision to hop behind the wheel after drinking aggressively, and the 0.15 that Mosqiera-Perea clocked shows a worrisome aggression.

So Indiana will be without Mosquiera-Perea’s average of eight minutes of action which is a shame because his learning curve had accelerated over the past few weeks. His hands have improved, and his was in better defensive position more consistently.

Mosquira-Perea’s bad decision betrayed a disinterest in the short term success of the team to which he belongs and the health and safety of those who might have been walking or driving early this morning in Bloomington.

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For that, consequence is required, and kicking him off the team seems just. There are some acts of stupidity that require a second chance be given by someone else, but the Indiana program under Crean has been almost entirely clean, so allowing him to exercise latitude in his judgment seems reasonable.

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Hanner Perea’s Arrest for OWI Comes at Terrible Time for Indiana and Tom Crean

by Kent Sterling

Hanner Perea made a mistake this morning, and how Tom Crean responds will be scrutinized.

On today’s Breakfast with Kent, I extolled the virtues of Indiana University Basketball coach Tom Crean, including the fact that players don’t get in trouble. Strike that from the list of Indiana Basketball’s attributes.

According to a report on Fox 59, developing big man Hanner Perea was arrested at 4:45 this morning in Bloomington for driving a vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.15.

Timing is everything in life, and Perea’s timing could not have been worse. Indiana has lost five of seven, and are now in danger of falling into last place in the Big Ten one year after winning the conference outright for the first time since 1993.

Talk radio yesterday was filled with judgment of Crean’s program, losers of a very important game against Penn State at Assembly Hall – a game the Hoosiers led by 11 points with less than three minutes remaining.

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To think that a kid would be dumb enough to get behind the wheel of a car while hammered defies belief. To think that he would have enough energy after a loss that corrupted the Hoosiers hopes for a berth in the NCAA Tournament to be drunk at quarter to five in the AM is madness. To think he was the only player out way too late acting like an idiot on a Thursday night is ludicrous.

Those who already doubt Crean’s leadership of the program will use this incident as further validation of their position, but the truth is that 19 year-olds tend to be dumbasses who make the mistakes that in the best of circumstances serve as lessons to lead them to a more productive life.

Excusing Perea is not my purpose, and Crean certainly has some culpability is this incident. How he chooses to handle this will help define his tenure at Indiana. He can choose to see this as a teaching moment, and suspend Perea, or bring the hammer down to teach everyone else about consequences for this type of dangerous stupidity.

Kicking Perea off the team is the safe play that might serve as a severe disincentive for others who might consider putting lives at risk by driving drunk, but it would inexorably alter the path of a kid who has been caught a single time doing something moronic.

The last thing Crean should do is consider the emotions of fans whom he is never going to be able to please anyway.

Unfortunately, there will be an easy to make assumption that the entire team has its head up its ass and doesn’t give a damn enough about the success or failure of the team to stay sober less that 48 hours from a game against the rival Purdue Boilermakers.

If Perea was out getting bombed, other Hoosiers were likely out, and what the hell commitment does that show?

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Back in the day, players were out often – in season – and had no problem sweating out last night’s beer. That was in the Knight era. I was there, and it was commonplace. That doesn’t in any way confer a pass on Perea, but for those who loathe Crean because he’s not Bob Knight, players drinking during the season has gone on forever.

If I were Crean, I would cut Perea loose, but I’m not Crean, and I don’t know what he knows. In Crean’s shoes, I would require dedication from players – a commitment to excellence. Being drunk at 4:45a after an important loss would betray a lack of such a commitment. That would be enough for me to demand a kid’s jersey. They might be kids prone to stupidity, but if my $3.16 million per year is dependent upon their determination to do what is necessary to succeed (and it is, especially today), I’m moving swiftly and surely to lance a boil that exhibits this wanton disregard for his team.

The proof of a punishment well wielded will be seen in the behavior of players from this point forward. If an incident like Perea’s doesn’t happen again, good punishment. If there is another OWI, the responsibility will belong as much to Crean as the idiot who made the decision to put lives at risk by operating a 3,000 pound projectile while addled.

Indiana Basketball – Because I’m Not Ready to March on Cook Hall with a Torch, I’m Now a Crean Apologist

by Kent Sterling

Last night was awful for Hoosiers fans, but the rancor against Tom Crean is not a reasonable response.

The truth always lies in the middle someplace, and as the chief potentate of Indiana Basketball Tom Crean isn’t as bad a coach as his critics believe nor as good as his ardent supporters assert.

This morning the critics voices are loudly decrying last night’s miserable collapse in Bloomington at the hands of Big Ten cellar dwelling Penn State (at least the Nittany Lions were in the basement before last night’s game).

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How bad a collapse was it? The Hoosiers led by 11 points until D.J. Newbill hit a three-pointer with 2:25 left, and took a nine-point lead with 2:09 left on an Evan Gordon free throw. From that point forward, Indiana scored zero points on two field goal attempts, four turnovers, and no free throw attempts.

I can’t remember watching a game – ever at any level – where a team lost a lead as Indiana did without missing foul shots. For Penn State to erase a nine-point deficit in two minutes without fouling is incredible. Indiana made a series of boneheaded plays that have reaffirmed the cases made by many Hoosiers fans who have never bought what Crean has sold.

Two backcourt violations, three turnovers on inbounds plays (including a critical five-second call on Jeremy Hollowell with 2:06 left), and a silly foul by Stanford Robinson also with 2:06 left have caused fans to look to Crean as not only the reason for that loss but for what they perceive to be the underachievement of the last two Indiana teams. Never mind the first outright Big Ten Championship in 20 years, bad games against eventual champion Kentucky and Final Four qualifier Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen, fans wanted a championship out of Cody Zeller, Victor Oladipo, Jordan Hulls, and Christian Watford.

They didn’t get one, so the wolves are howling.

Because I’m not joining the loudening chorus of those who would like to see Indiana move in another direction with a new leader, I’m now seen as a Tom Crean apologist.

That’s a baffling development I didn’t see coming. I’m no one’s champion, and I’m sure as hell no one’s lap dog.

A championship or bust mentality is the way Kentucky has turned into what it has become. Maybe I’ve grown soft as I’ve grown up, by I don’t demand the poleaxing of a coach after every negative result.

The negatives are mounting, and the intellectual development of players seems to have stagnated, but the positives are still profound. The players graduate, none have been in trouble for quite awhile, they have beaten two top ten teams in the last month, and despite losing 70% of their scoring from last year have been competitive as the freshmen physically matured.

There are holes in the performance of the team and in the recruiting of Indiana kids, but overall the work that Crean has done in Bloomington for the nearly six years he has been there has been quite good. Would it have been great to get Gary Harris and Trey Lyles? With Harris, there is no doubt he would have been force for good on many levels as a representative of Indiana University. With Lyles, who decommitted from IU and will attend Kentucky, who knows. We’ll see.

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If Noah Vonleh leaves for the NBA, that will be three lottery picks in two years for Indiana, which shows that Crean and his staff are recruiting and developing players at a high level. The flip side is that if Vonleh leaves, who is going to man the front gout for Indiana – Hanner Mosquiera-Perea and Peter Jurkin? Great question.

Indiana’s Academic Progress Rate was a perfect 1,000 for the 2009-2012 period. That is the demand from fans and the administration, and Crean has implemented a culture where kids perform in the classroom. That is the least that should happen for the players, whose only compensation continues to be their education.

Would a sixth championship banner look nice in Assembly Hall? Absolutely. Was last night a miserable train wreck of a loss that can’t be explained without pointing a finger at Crean and every single player on the floor over the last 2:30? You bet. A disappointing berth in the NIT is almost a given, which is a significant step back.

But before we turn as red in the face as the non-white stripes on our warm-ups, take a step back and evaluate Crean’s entire body of work. Just as important, think about who athletic director Fred Glass could get to come down to Bloomington to run things if Crean was told to clean out his office. Brad Stevens is making big money coaching the Boston Celtics. Who’s next on your list – Shaka Smart? Gregg Marshall?

Yes, Indiana is 14-10 with home losses to Northwestern and Penn State, and that’s disheartening to everyone, but a basketball season is like a novel with 32 separate and distinct chapters. I’m not putting the book down until I see how the damn thing ends.

Redemption requires adversity, and the Hoosiers have provided half of that dynamic. Let’s watch the last 25% of this narrative before judging where the Indiana Basketball program is, and how Crean fits as the pilot.

If that makes me an apologist, it also makes those calling for Crean’s head on a spit reactive hot heads.

Indiana’s 66-65 Loss to Penn State Likely Ends Dream of NCAA Bid as Season on the Brink II Breaks

by Kent Sterling

Penn State coach Pat Chambers was one of the few of the nearly 18,000 leaving Assembly Hall tonight with a smile on his face.

Trying to find a word that fairly and generously describes Indiana’s failed effort to hold onto an 11-point lead with two-and-a-half minutes to play is difficult. The best I can muster is “inept.”

Yogi Ferrell made Indiana’s final field goal of the game with 5:16 left, and the Hoosiers turned the ball over five times in the last 2:06. Three of those turnovers were committed by three different Indiana players on failed inbounds plays.

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Stanford Robinson committed a foul with 2:06 left in the game while up nine points that was unnecessary, ill-advised, and poorly timed. Three seconds into a Penn State possession, Robinson ran into Tim Frazier when the Penn State guard was in no position to attempt to score. The resulting free throws cut the Hoosiers lead to seven, and the unraveling began.

It’s unfair to single out Robinson for committing a silly foul because this was truly a team effort that led to a stunning collapse. The only player without a turnover or hard-to-fathom brain cramp was Hanner Mosquiera-Perea, whose minutes were limited.

Assessing blame for the debacle is difficult because we have no idea whether this was a case of a bad teacher instructing good students poorly, bad students ignoring a good teacher, or a bad teacher with slow-to-adapt students.

And blame is the purview of the fans and media. For the players and coaches, they are scratching their heads wondering what they can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again, not point fingers.

The result is much easier to describe than blame is to assign. It was a complete meltdown and critical hiccup in a bizarre and impossible to predict season that likely came to an end tonight – at least by any meaningful measurement.

Any real hope for an NCAA at-large bid left Assembly Hall before the Hoosiers left the floor. Home losses to Northwestern and Penn State will move the Hoosiers resume’ to the tall stack of the 280-ish Division One programs that will enjoy March Madness from afar. A recovery would require five wins in their last seven games, and anyone who watched Indiana host the team that was tied for last in the Big Ten when the game began tonight would find it hard to imagine beating two of the four ranked teams remaining on Indiana’s schedule, plus the three that are not.

Some on Twitter are calling this the worst loss in program history, and that is not only unfair but untrue. I recall a game played in the early 2000s against Minnesota when the Hoosiers led by coach Mike Davis blew a 16-point lead with 3:00 left. That was worse than this. NCAA losses to Cleveland State in 1986 and to Richmond in 1988 were worse. There have been a bunch of awful losses over the years, but this one joins them.

Credit on some level must go to Penn State for not allowing the Hoosiers to blow the game open when the chance existed. The Nittany Lions continued to compete, and were ready to take full advantage of the bevy of Indiana miscues when the game was on the line.

This Indiana team is a confounding bunch. Capable of beating top ten teams one night, and the dumping games against bottom feeders the next. Guessing what to expect is alternately as frustrating and validating as betting at the craps table.

Losers of five of their last seven, Indiana needs to regroup quickly, but after tonight it’s hard to imagine correcting the issues that caused tonight’s loss in the two days they have until rolling up to West Lafayette to play Purdue. Actually, it’s not so hard to imagine because immediately prior to their 11-point win vs. Michigan, Indiana lost to Nebraska.

Now the question is whether the players allow a game like this to cause them to resist the urge to compete. Despite erratic play, Indiana has given effort throughout each game of the season.

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While this game was a nightmare for players, coaches, and fans, there are still games left to play, and they are still meaningful. Every single opportunity a man has to compete has meaning, and although mounting a seven-game string of redemptive efforts seem as unlikely as you or me winning a gold medal in the giant slalom in Sochi, there are six teams and three games between IU and third place in the Big Ten, and the Hoosiers play five of those teams down the stretch.

Whatever the chances of each Hoosier finding a way to have the light go on simultaneously, impossible is a mathematical term that is not yet in play.

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Hey Cubs Fans – The Best Thing You Can Do Is Reject All Hope, Enthusiasm, and Urges to Buy Tickets

by Kent Sterling

Why is Cubs owner Tom Ricketts always smiling? Because you are willing to pay the 3rd highest ticket prices in baseball to watch a team without a chance in hell to win more than it loses.

Cubs fans need to resist all temptation to buy into the nonsense Cubs management is peddling. Owner Tom Ricketts and team president Theo Epstein talk about hope for the distant future with the same zeal with which they battle the rooftop knuckleheads for the right to erect a giant video sign in left field.

Listening to Dan Dakich on 1070 the Fan talk to a very excited Ron Hecklinski about the 2014 Chicago Cubs made me angry. Hecklinski talked Dan into being a typical Cubs fan who will enjoy the experience of going to Wrigley Field and following the team as they always have. My head almost exploded.

The Cubs are the Mega Millions Lottery of baseball. They sell hope without any chance of a payoff. Cubs fans are just like the lemmings who invest their cash in a 258,890,850-to-1 longshot to get rich. “So you’re telling me, I have a chance!”

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Fans mimic the front office types who sell that the answers to prayers to end 105 years of darkness with a championship are named Javier Baez, Jorge Soler, Kris Bryant, Mike Olt, Albert Almora, Arodys Vizcaino, C.J. Edwards, and Arismendy Alcantara.

Sadly, the odds are very good that exactly none of those players will open the 2014 season in Wrigley Field. They will be scattered throughout the farm system to hone their gifts to the point where they can be expected to contribute to a winning culture.

If you are a Cubs fan and haven’t heard that madness before, you are excused from the group that I am going to waste my time lecturing to – the morons who repeat acts of baseball fan related idiocy like there isn’t another answer to the riddle of fixing the Cubs.

How about this for a litany of misery? Brooks Kieschnick, Corey Patterson, Derrick May, Ken Johnson, Gene Hiser, Herman Segelke, Vance Lovelace, Shawon Dunston, Drew Hall, Lance Dixon, and Lou Montanez. There are many more names of infamously inadequate first round picks, but when the successful first round picks in the history of the Cubs leads with Rafael Palmeiro and includes only two others – Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, how in the hell can anyone believe that these guys are going to lead a championship parade in 2018?

The point isn’t even whether these Not Ready-for-Wrigley-Players are going to be average, good, or great Cubs one day; it’s that buying a ticket to watch the Cubs in 2014 will not allow you to see these people play baseball.

Cubs management has determined that Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo, Donnie Murphy, Nate Schierholtz, and Ryan Sweeney are more likely to produce success than those players, and all are returning from a 66-96 2013 team.

Second baseman Darwin Barney, the author of the second worst offensive stat line in the history of the Cubs all the way back to 1894 will be back with a one-year, $2.3 million contract. The Cubs are likely to draw somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.3 million fans to watch this slop, so if my advanced math is right – a buck of every ticket purchased will be used to fund Barney’s haul for being better than exactly one Cub in the past 120 years, and I’m surprised the Cubs haven’t reached out to Ronnie Cedeno (the worst) to return.

The only answer to this level of managerial hubris is to stay away from Wrigley Field. Only then will Ricketts begin investing in players who can be expected to ring up more than 70 wins.

I’m no supporter of overspending on mediocrity available through free agency, but to trot out virtually the same group of mutts who stunk last year while selling an uncertain future is miserably disingenuous.

Tickets to see the Cubs are being peddled at boutique price while the product is sub-Kohl’s. Only the insane could find a reason to overspend to watch bad baseball for a fourth straight season. So don’t do it.

If you go to Wrigley Field this year, finding the reason the Cubs suck again should be easy – look in the mirror. Send a message with your absence. Empty seats will serve as an excellent educational tool for a management group that is in dire need of one.