Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Chicago Cubs Are the Powerball of Baseball

by Kent Sterling

The Chicago Cubs blew another lead yesterday. Up 5-0, they collapsed under the weight of Starlin Castro’s indifferent defense to gak up four unearned runs in the fourth to run their record to a predictably terrible 3-6.

Castro’s three errors in nine games has him on a pace for 50+, and three wins have lovable losers on pace for a 54-108 record. History tells us that neither the Cubs nor Castro will be quite that bad, but 65 wins and 28 errors will be very close.

Year after year after year, the Cubs disappoint a fanbase that is both a loyal as the dog who waits every night on the front doorstep for his dead master – and just as stupid.

Cubs fans keep walking up to the ticket booth at Wrigley Field like the lemmings who stand in line ready to pour cash into a lottery system designed to fund schools, not make rich its lemming participants.

Attendance yesterday at Wrigley was 25,460, which is startling. Chicago is a fun city – lot’s to do for free – and people dug into their pockets to cough up the cash to pay prices for tickets that are among the highest in baseball.

The soon-to-be number one seeds in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Indiana Pacers are struggling to attract 12,000 to Banker’s Life Fieldhouse, and the Cubs get 7,000 more than its capacity. Not entirely sure who’s dumber, those staying away from the Fieldhouse or those who pour into Wrigley to watch bad baseball and drink beer at two and a half times the price of the bars across the street.

People mock the rich with caracatures that show them lighting cigars with $100 bills. The only difference between those fat cats and Cubs fans is that between tickets, food, beer, and knick-knacks for the kids, Cubs fans are lighting two or three $100 bills.

The most galling part of the exchange is that there is no apology from the Cubs whatsoever, just an empty promise that money will be spent of talent once the farm system builds a little depth. Then, we get the news that one of the magnificent prospects, Jorge Soler, has taken to chasing opponents around with a bat. Even if Soler can’t play, watching him run around taking hacks at opponents is more interesting than the endless mediocrity that North Siders can’t wait to overpay to watch.

Stupidity on display everyday at the Lotto machine and the corner of Clark and Addison.

The odds of winning Powerball – 1 in 175,223,510. The odds of the Cubs winning a world championship in 2013? Considerably worse. Powerball is looking like a better investment with every Castro error.

Indiana Basketball – Tom Crean Is a Fascinating and Enigmatic Figure

by Kent Sterling

My guess is that Tom Crean is tired of seeing pictures of his less proud moments – like this one.

The desire to be the head coach at Indiana is irrational, and those who embrace it are more than a little screwy. To expect anything else is ridiculous.

There are thousands and thousands of alums, students, boosters, kids, recruits, media, and fans of other teams that evaluate every public act of a coach at a program like Indiana.

The message board kooks light up coaches not only for their strategic choices, but for their quirks. The media examines every single adjustment and substitution, and when a mistake is made, hell is raised.

When Tom Crean’s Hoosiers had trouble attacking Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, there were threads a mile long on message boards, and millions of texts exchanged that all said the same thing – that Crean is an idiot for not getting the ball into the middle. When Michigan beat the Orange by popping the ball at the elbow to Mitch McGary, Indiana fans pointed at the screen and yelled, “SEE!”

Bob Knight has more than a few legacies that are still on full display within the Indiana Basketball fanbase, and a big one is that he taught everyone willing to listen enough about basketball to be very effective critics. That, among many other things, makes IU a tough job for a head coach.

That Crean wanted the job makes him interesting. That he seems the revel in being the coach at IU after five seasons makes him fascinating. That people watching closely still can’t figure him out makes him one of the more enigmatic figures in sports.

“It’s lonely at the top,” is often repeated and rarely understood. Being a coach is difficult because while all the subordinates (assistant coaches, players, support staff) in the organization has peers, the coach has no one. The players all believe they should play more or be put in a situation better designed to feature their best attributes. The assistant coaches are all doing time as they hope to be head coaches, but need to be sycophantic enough to hold onto their gig. All share private moments of doubt about the coach. It’s human nature.

Then there are the people to whom the coach answers. The bosses need to be fed a narrative filled with attainable expectations, or the train can run off the track in a hurry, and all of a sudden, the wife and kids are being carted across the country to a new town.

That’s true at every job. At Indiana, the pressure to improve and behave without fault is so intense that success is nearly impossible.

The constant critiques of Crean – both personally and professionally – would cause many men to dive under their desks and scream for the madness to stop.

My wife is a wonderful and generous woman. As she watches the cutaways to Crean on the sidelines of Indiana games, she says with disdain, “Look at the way he drinks water.” She’s one of the nicest people I know. God knows what the rest say.

I yell about the pacing and posing, what I perceive to be the micromanagement, and the fact that he never sits.

Imagine going to your job, and having people critique the way you answer the phone, type, and twirl your pen during a meeting. Once in awhile, people in my workplace have bitched about my typing – I hit the keys hard. They say, “Man, you type loud.” I always respond that I type with purpose, like Sean Connery told the kid who played Jamal Wallace in “Finding Forrester”.

The constant bitching and praising from fans is a given, and no one should apologize for it. Sure, it shows a less than attractive side of humanity, but damn, none of us are saints. This isn’t about the behavior of fans, and how it should be altered to make Crean’s life more pleasant. This is about the craving that any man might have to coach at Indiana.

Crean clearly loves building the program, and accepting all of the ongoing challenges that go along with it. Yeah, he makes roughly $3-million per for the trouble, but the din of the feedback is unending, and the loneliness would wilt the spirit of 99% of us. There is no chance that a person who can successfully navigate the rising and falling tides of that position could be a person we might describe as normal.

This is a guy who wasn’t a good enough player to earn a spot on his high school basketball team, and somehow or other, he fought and clawed his way to the top of his profession.

There are people who wonder what the holiday dinners are like at Jack Harbaugh’s house. You have “Captain Comeback”, a great collegiate quarterback at Michigan who played 14 years in the NFL. John was a defensive back at Miami of Ohio. The Harbaughs coached against one another in the Super Bowl two months ago. That’s a table that might be tough for a brother-in-law, but Crean relishes being a part of the family.

What Crean has, he earned through the sheer force of his will and ability to never be dominated by a situation. Maybe there have been private moments of doubt. Alone, he may have buried his head in his pillow and wept, but he has never stopped moving forward publicly.

There are reportedly moments when he’s a jerk, and this isn’t an excuse, but to go from where he started to get to where he is makes for a great story of how someone who wakes up every morning with purpose can achieve something enormous.

Getting there is one thing. Continuing to respond positively morning after morning when critical, deriding, and meanspirited tweets cascade constantly into his smart phone is quite something – not necessarily admirable – but certainly fascinating.

Big Ten Expansion – Texas Will Eventually Move to the Big Ten

by Kent Sterling

Texas needs to slide to the Big Ten or it’s going to get stuck by it’s own horns.

Physics is impossible to resist, and consistent gravity drawing the University of Texas to the Big Ten. Commissioner Jim Delany will announce the expansion of the conference to 16 teams within the next three years, and Texas will be the 15th member.

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What will happen eventually is that four conferences will amass 16 members each, abandon their NCAA membership, and form their own oversight organization that will allow them to self-govern in ways that suit them.

For the same group to enforce rules to regulate the athletic endeavors of operators as disparate as Alabama and Loyola of Chicago is lunacy. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, human beings demand logic. Logic requires that members of the SEC and Horizon League use separate business models and a much different legislative body to separate right from wrong.

The race for the Pac 12, SEC, Big Ten, and ACC to reach 16 members each will run through Texas, and the Big Ten is the partner that fits best because it’s the conference that is the most profitable. The SEC is a superior brand, but when Texas A&M joined, Texas was effectively locked out.

Because Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina have bonded to form an alliance to exert state exclusivity against Georgia Tech, Florida State, Louisville, and Clemson. Texas A&M will join that club to block Texas.

Texas is currently a member of the Big 12, which continues to degrade under the weight of the deal designed to save the conference that allowed Texas to form the Longhorn Network. By allowing Texas to isolate itself in branding and ability to generate the cash available through subscriptions to the network, the Big 12 saved itself for the short-term, but signed its own death warrant. The choice was Texas leaves the Big 12 and the conference collapses immediately, or allow Texas to print its own money and alienate the schools that it could lose but not die.

So Missouri, Texas A&M, and Colorado joined Nebraska in vacating the Big 12, and several of the other schools would bail if a superior option existed.

The game for the conferences is in gathering TV markets, and the monster in the realignment is Texas because the brand for the Longhorns is statewide, and that state has the fifth largest market (Dallas), #10 (Houston), #37 (San Antonio), #49 (Austin), and #94 (Waco). That level of tonnage demands attention, and the Big Ten would become the unquestioned kings by coming to agreement with Texas.

Rutgers gives the Big Ten New York, and Maryland adds Washington DC and Baltimore. Bringing Texas in would lock up 11 of the top 26 markets, including five of the top 10.

The motivation for Texas to leave the Big 12 is to maximize its negotiating position before the rest of the conference’s important members leaves. Waiting until Oklahoma and Oklahoma State bounce to the Pac 12 would change the dynamic entirely. Texas would move immediately from buyer to seller, and they would run the risk of being the tallest midget along with Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas State, and the other bottom feeders among those that might not be invited to play with the big boys when the final deal goes down.

Gravity demands Texas join either the Big Ten or SEC, and A&M, by jumping first, is now in the position to make the Big Ten the only viable option for what was formerly one of the biggest fish in the pond.

That pond is shrinking, and so is the fish. The sooner Texas acts, the better.

“42” Will Celebrate Importance of Hero Jackie Robinson

by Kent Sterling

Today, the thought of a man or woman being denied access to earn a living because of race is crazy. America has an African American president, CEOs, and a litany of athletic accomplishments that were produced by blacks. Sixty-six years ago, one man’s behavior as the first made all that came after possible.

Jackie Robinson accepted a challenge from Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey to keep his anger inside him as teammates, opponents, and fans unloaded unending torrents of fear-based invective. He set an example that successfully diffused ridiculous concerns about interracial – well, everything.

Whoever first said that ignorance is bliss was a fool. Ignorance is a necessary tool for the manipulators who try to exclude. The fearful loathe change, because change takes society to a new place, and ‘new’ means we haven’t been there before. The unknown can be thrilling or scary depending upon perspective.

And there were more people than any of us would like to believe who were outraged that Robinson became the first black member of the very exclusive club of major league baseball players. That put Robinson in the line of fire for those fearful and ignorant men and women who saw that change as a challenge to what they embrace as a purity of the national pastime.

That people under the age of 30 can’t remember a time when overt racism was practiced is thanks to Robinson’s patience, coolness, and ability to wake up everyday looking forward to playing a game rather than dreading the unending hate that he faced in cities where segregation was the accepted way to deal with “black problem.”

Except in stories that deal with history, I can’t remember the last time the word segregation was used in a news story in print or television. That’s Jackie Robinson’s legacy, and the reason that the number 42 was retired by all 30 major league franchises.

We tend to bury the less savory parts of our past under a whole lot of smiley rhetoric about how far we’ve come – how enlightened we are – but that evolution continues. The racism that was out in the open and accepted by the majority in Robinson’s time is now spoken only in hushed tones after a quick glance around the room.

Less than two years ago, I asked a co-worker about the Metrolink in St. Louis as a way to get from the airport to downtown, and she told me, “Oh you don’t want to take the Metrolink. I goes through areas where it gets dark early.” Yes, the idiots are still lurking, but there are less and less of them. That’s Jackie Robinson’s legacy.

Picking on the weak is easy. The intimidation game is what kept racism alive for so long. Punching a bully is easy, but can ignite a larger group of bullies. Bullies rely upon a response of either violence or fear to justify their hate. Robinson ignored the bullies and went to work everyday. The discipline needed was extreme, and the result was that the bullies lost all power.

Racism didn’t end with Robinson’s controversial entry into the majors or his graceful exit. The Watts riots occurred almost a decade after Robinson left Ebbets Field for the final time. Even the most logical and moral changes take time. Changing the belief structure that led to the Civil War is a glacial evolution, and while it took the brave acts of many men and women to get us to where we are today, Robinson’s legacy continues to inspire.

There is more to be done in order for all men and women to value one another based solely upon the content of their character, but shoving the idiocy of racism into smaller and smaller places where people have to keep their hate filled rhetoric to a whisper is a great accomplishment, and it belongs to Jackie Robinson as much as any person.

My hope for the movie is that they didn’t Hollywood it up too much. Some lives and actions require no embellishment, and Jackie Robinson’s is certainly one of them.

Tom Crean’s Behavior at the Oladipo and Zeller Press Conferences – Excellent

by Kent Sterling

There are several people I know and respect who have told me that Indiana Basketball coach Tom Crean is an asshole. They worked with and around him when Crean coached at Marquette. They are good people who were treated poorly by Crean. I’m not a fan of assholes, so I’m constantly on the lookout for behavior that reveals a person to be one.

There have been a few a-ha instances of weirdness. The strange smirk after the run-in with Michigan assistant Jeff Meyer, the bizarre demand for an explanation about the criteria for selection as the conference’s player of the week from a Big Ten assistant media relations director, the cutting down of the nets at Assembly Hall after a loss, and rings for a trip to the 2012 Sweet 16 were all troubling.

So when watching the press conferences announcing that Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller would forego the remainder of their collegiate eligibility to enter the NBA Draft, I looked hard for any sign that Crean would use the big moment that should belong to these young millionaires to be to communicate a graceless self-aggrandizing message.

Crean brought exactly the opposite. He was generous with his praise for the character of both players, and without a hint of a “look what I built” vibe.

My opinion of Crean continues to evolve. In my former profession of managing the programming departments for talk radio stations, the key to hiring great talent is being able to recognize a personality that is immediately accessible. Raw, honest, and true makes for great radio, just as it does in a bar when you meet a stranger.

Because that hunger to ‘know‘ a person immediately goes unsatisfied by Crean’s words and behavior, I judged his personality negatively. While watching the press conferences, I kept asking myself what fans should want from a coach.

Wins – The job of a coach is to teach the game well enough to allow players to win games. Given the facilities and proximity to great high school players, there is no excuse for a good coach to not win.

Chance to win a championship – Let’s face it. Banners matter. Fans don’t need one every year, but getting to a Final Four every four or five years is important, or at least it will be until the football program starts contending for a Big Ten title. What paradigm shift might occur when that happens on a regular basis is anyone’s guess as it is unprecedented.

Meaningful degree for players – Fans should demand that the student-athletes, whose only compensation for generating millions and millions for the university, is a degree that will serve as a gateway to success. The patent immorality of the business model for big time college football and basketball requires a legitimate education, and the future it facilitates.

Recruit successfully without cheating – The dads, uncles, cousins, and bobos who try to cash in on the talents of an 18-year-old need not apply at Indiana University. If the Hoosiers ever go rogue again, I will make it the mission of my life to bring pain to the lives of the cheaters. That’s not a tremendously powerful threat, but it’s all I have. The misery wrought by Kelvin Sampson must never be repeated. College education isn’t confined to a classroom. Examples are important, and the lesson that cheating is needed to succeed is an anathema to any legitimate institution of higher learning.

From any reasonable perspective, Crean has succeeded in addressing those four criteria. His players appear sincere in their praise for him as a mentor, and that’s a bonus.

Fans don’t need to be buddies with a coach; they need to respect his work. After five years of watching Crean closely, after watching his unending energy for the position, his work deserves a hell of a lot of credit.

Everything he does is done with purpose and the belief it will lead to a better result both on the court and in the maturity of the players who trust him.

The previous two press conferences were distinguished by solid performances by a comfortable leader. It wasn’t shocking, but it was pleasing.

Arnold Palmer Still Whacking It at Augusta

by Kent Sterling

This was Arnold Palmer last year after running in a long putt.

There are very few truly transformative athletes in the history of sports. Babe Ruth, Wilt Chamberlain, Jackie Robinson, Muhammed Ali, and Arnold Palmer are the five that immediately come to mind, and Palmer is the only one who can still play the game he transformed.

The King was back at Augusta National today giving it a go at the Par Three Tournament that is always held the day before the competition begins in earnest at The Masters.

Palmer won The Masters four times every other year from 1958 through 1964, and his excellence coupled with his charisma took golf from a country club game for the elite to a pastime for the masses.

It’s tough for anyone under the age of 50 to remember Palmer winning his last PGA tour title at the 1973 Bob Hope. Hell, people under 30 have no idea who Hope was, and many have no inkling that an Arnold Palmer is something other than a half lemonade/half iced tea.

They watch the old guy ambling along the hilly par three course, and listen to their elders talk about what a great champion he was and is. The guy was always tan and so athletic. He wore very short sleeves and sported some guns, and while he played as well as anyone for a time, it was the emotion he showed that captured the imagination of the entire golf world.

He smiled easily, grimaced angrily, and beamed when he won. And he was and continues to be exceptionally

Arnold Palmer in his prime turned watched golf on TV into a good idea.

gracious. Palmer had a clothing line – one of the first athletes to take in significant cash for endorsements.

Palmer was a blue collar golfer with a “unique” swing who did things the way we would if given the chance.

Now, he’s an amiable past champion who is adored but can no longer compete. The last time Arnie’s Army got a chance to roar in earnest was at the 1989 PGA when he shot an opening round 68 as he neared his 60th birthday. The tournament was at Kemper Lakes outside Chicago, and any doubt that the fire continue to burn in Palmer’s belly was put to rest during the post-round press conference. Some tool asked Palmer whether he thought he could still win. The glare said all that needed to be said.

The ability to compete may fade, but the desire to win is always just beneath Palmer’s grin. While we revere and mourn the losses of Ruth, Chamberlain, and Robinson, and grieve for the loss of Ali – both as an athlete and spokesman; we can still see the old guy hit it as well as he can hoping to raise the echoes just one more time.

Indiana Basketball – Top 10 Reasons Why Indiana Will Be a Bubble Team for the 2014 NCAA Tournament

by Kent Sterling

A lot of moving in and out to be done in this room. Both those leaving and those arriving will play huge roles in the success of the 2014 Hoosiers

Yesterday, I did my best to find reasons for hope that Indiana would find a way to cut down the nets in Dallas a year from now. Today, we look at the other end of the spectrum for the Hoosiers 2013-2014 prospects.

A lot of things would have to go exactly right for Indiana to be as highly regarded next season as they were throughout the 2012-2013 campaign. They were the default #1 team this season. No one expects that to happen next year, but the stakes are higher in Bloomington now that order has been firmly established and Indiana is back in the national college basketball conversation.

Here are the ten reasons that Indiana will have a challenging year that will make Hoosier Nation nervous on Selection Sunday:

10 – Assistant coach Tim Buckley is taking a look at other jobs, which can be extrapolated to mean that he believes his stock will not grow as a member of Indiana’s staff. Buckley is an outstanding tactician, and his loss will mean a reduction in the brain trust to which Tom Crean has access.

9 – Recruits are flaky, and foreseeing with certainty whether Noah Vonleh, Troy Williams, Stanford Robinson, Luke Fischer, Devin Davis, and Collin Hartman will be able to contribute to a winning team straight out of the gate is difficult. They all have the physical gifts needed, but knowing whether a hitter can drive a curve ball is tough until one is thrown to him. Based on previous evidence, these guys can be projected to get better and embrace the Indiana culture, but whether that translates to 20+ wins – who knows.

8 – Hanner Perea and Peter Jurkin are total unknown quantities. Are they capable of fulfilling their promise as significant parts of an outstanding recruiting class? Sure. Is it possible neither will ever play a meaningful role on a successful team? Sure. The body of work is too skinny to judge. Perea seemed to lack a level of court awareness on the defensive end to be able to help stop teams from scoring. He scored only 17 points, grabbed 29 boards, and had eight turnovers in 114 minutes. Jurkin scored no points in seven minutes. Both are impossible to project with any degree of confidence in either direction.

7 – The Big Ten is not likely to be the gauntlet it was in 2013. Ohio State, Michigan State, and Michigan will be excellent again, but the rest might struggle a bit. Northwestern and Minnesota will rebuild with new leadership. Illinois and Wisconsin lose some of their best players. Nebraska is a long way away from being a Big Ten challenger. Iowa could lose junior Roy Marble Jr. to the NBA. Purdue is going to be better as Ronnie Johnson and A.J. Hammons become sophomores, but shouldn’t leapfrog Indiana. Penn State is, well, Penn State. Indiana slots nicely in that fourth, fifth, or sixth slot, and that will put them in the field.

6 – Jeremy Hollowell is facing a huge year. The sophomore year is the one when a non-exceptional kid and his coaches figure out whether he can play at the level required for him to be a success, and Hollowell is walking into an offseason where a switch needs to go on. He has the measurables, but faded in and out of effectiveness during 9.7 minutes per game his freshman year. Hollowell appeared more engaged toward the end of the season, so there is reason for optimism, but it’s impossible to predict which direction he might track.

5 – Three very solid leaders are graduating. Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, and Derek Elston set the culture arriving at Indiana following a 6-25 season. They struggled to win 22 games in their first two years, believed in what Tom Crean was selling, and won 53 in their final two years. Their work ethic served as an excellent example for the youngsters. Will Sheehey and Yogi Ferrell will have to step in a lead.

4 – Indiana ranked eighth among Division 1 teams in field goal percentage in 2012-2013. The Hoosiers made 48.2% (951-of-1,971) of their shots. The four starters leaving made 51.5% (623-of-1,210). The remaining players hit only 43.1%.

3 – They went to the Sweet 16 with two lottery picks and two other 1,000 point scorers. How could anyone in his right mind project the Hoosiers to exceed or reach the same level? Those four scored 1,876 of the Hoosiers 2,831 points. Throw in Derek Elston’s 21 points, and IU loses 67% of their scoring. Not having any notion whether the incoming freshmen can pick up a significant portion of that offense, and projecting players like Remy Abell, Hollowell, and Perea to breech that gap makes any prediction total guesswork. Sheehey and Ferrell scored 17.1 ppg between them. They are the known quantities, and even if they both score 17 per contest next year, they still need to find another 35.7 points on offense.

2 – Not only do the Hoosiers lose 67% of their scoring, they watch 82.7% of their three-point field goals, 63.4% of the rebounding, 67.1% of steals, and 73% of blocks walk out the door. On the plus side, they lose 57.8% of their turnovers and 54.5% of their fouls. You get the idea. There is a lot of statistical significance leaving Bloomington.

1 – Two first team All-Americans leaving for the NBA Draft will certainly not make the Hoosiers better – at least not initially. Recruits seeing the IU is capable of turning top high school players into lottery picks will be a big deal in the long run, but for the 2013-2014 season, Indiana needs players who can put the ball in the bucket, and keep opponents from doing the same.

The top ten is really a top three – there are historically meaning players walking out the door, there are unknown quantities walking in, and there is no way to gauge the improvement by the players who remain. Crean is a constant, so while he will be a obviously key figure in 2014, Crean’s contribution is not a variable.

There can be a good argument made that this top ten list should be a more positive look at the Hoosiers because making the tournament is wishful thinking. I’ve chosen to assume in perpetuity that the most conservative expectation should always be that Indiana will make the field in the NCAA Tournament. There was a time when less was acceptable to Indiana fans because of the chaos following Kelvin Sampson’s arrogant destruction of the program, but those days are over.

Fans like to say, “This is Indiana.” Well, Indiana earns bids to the NCAA Tournament.

Indiana Basketball – Another Goodbye Likely Today as Cody Zeller Will Announce

by Kent Sterling

Cody Zeller surrounded by some excellent reasons to stay in school.

Yesterday’s announcement by Victor Oladipo was entirely without drama, but today’s scheduled press conference for Zeller will bring with it a little doubt about the outcome.

It’s not a certainty that Zeller will announce that he will forego his last two years of eligibility at Indiana to enter the NBA Draft, but a press conference would be an odd choice for a kid whose primary message would be that he does not consider himself ready for the next level.

Zeller is smart, and smart kids don’t put themselves in a position to diagnose the weaknesses in their own NBA resume’.

There are holes in Zeller’s game that were evident in the number of shots of his (six) that Syracuse defenders blocked in the Sweet 16 loss that was likely Zeller’s last game as a Hoosier. If he can’t get the ball to the rim against college bigs, his success rate isn’t likely to be very good against the best in the world.

Holes can be more easily plugged during workouts unencumbered by a schedule of classes than with those interruptions, and it won’t take long to teach Cody tactics and build the muscle necessary to clear enough room for him to get his shot.

The same lifestyle reasons exist for Zeller as Oladipo to stick around in Bloomington – like when the hell are you going to have more contentment in your life than when your biggest worry is when the next rain will come so you can go splash students at bus stops with your 1992 Ford Taurus – but the same allure exists to jump.

Cody’s brother Tyler was not nearly as highly regarded while at North Carolina, but was faced with a decision himself after his junior year, and decided to stay. Last night after playing the Pacers in Indiana, Zeller told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s Mary Schmitt-Boyer, “I always tell him it’s something you can’t get back. When it’s time you’ve got to go, but at the same time, you can’t get college back. It’s kind of a balancing act. I’m really glad I went back. It was a great experience.”

Would Tyler be surprised if Cody came back to IU next season? “Not at all, he’s on pace to graduate in three years. Indiana’s a great school, and he has a lot of support there. It will be interesting to see what he does. It’s his decision and he needs to make it based on what he wants to do, not on what other people want.”

If Hoosier Nation is looking for a Lloyd Christmas level of hope for Zeller’s return, his brother has provided it with those quotes.

Lottery pick cash and the challenge to play among and against the best players on Earth are tough to pass on. There is an impatience to the behavior of 20-year-olds, and there is nothing wrong with that. The rule of thumb is that if a kid will get drafted in the first round, you take the guaranteed cash. If not, you might be better off trying to improve your stock.

NBA scouts are a weird bunch, as the measure of a basketball player is mostly subjective. Kids get hot, ride a wave, and go in the top ten. If they stay in school, there is a risk that scouts will find more holes, and their stock will cool. Same player, different perspective, and less cash.

And that’s why kids like Zeller get hot feet. If he stays, and shows only slight improvement, the slide could land them in the second round, like Duke’s Josh McRoberts. It’s no one’s dream to play in the NBDL, so it’s hard to blame Zeller for listening to the experts that have him being drafted in the middle of the lottery.

One of the least fair aspects of this life altering decision is that the NCAA requires players to withdraw from the draft on April 16th or earlier to retain their eligibility. That’s before the draft camp in Chicago or any other meaningful assessment can be made by the player or his family. And why? Because coaches want more time to recruit a replacement. Sure, college athletics are for the kids.

So armed with the information he, Tom Crean, and his parents have been able to gather, Cody will announce today whether he will return or not to the Hoosiers. Three starters are already gone, and that can’t make the thought of staying any more attractive. There is virtual certainty that Zeller will make Yogi Ferrell the lone returnee of the starting five.

The growth curve for the Hoosiers basketball program has been steadily upward since Crean arrived in Bloomington almost exactly five years ago. Now, if Zeller leaves, Indiana’s future is becoming more uncertain.

The press conference announcing Zeller’s intention will be held at 4p ET today at Assembly Hall.

Fanarchy Day – An Idea to Cripple the NCAA Whose Time Has Come

by Kent Sterling

Want to make Mark Emmert angry? Mike McCall’s Fanarchy Day will do the trick.

There is nothing better than a subversive idea that could cripple a hopelessly pompous and archaic operation like the NCAA.

Mike McCall posted a magnificent piece today on Outkick the Coverage that asks for college football and basketball fans to walk up to their favorite athlete, and hand them some cash. Videotape the transaction while saying, “Hi, you’re Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Based solely on your skill as a football player, I am presenting you with a cash award of $10.” Then, you forward the video to the NCAA.

The idea is to create such a cacophony of violations that the NCAA would be forced to throw up its hands and declare itself useless. A rule with no one willing to follow it is not a rule.

This needs to happen thousands of times, and at every division one program. The NCAA would be forced to reform its rules, and accept that treating student-athletes generating millions for each school’s athletic department as serfs defines unfairness.

Other ideas, like a strike by the players in the BCS Championship game or the NCAA Championship will never happen. There is only so much that can be expected of 20-year-olds. To collectively sacrifice the biggest night of their lives for an ideal which will never benefit them is too much to ask. Isiah Thomas was pissed off in 1981 because coverage of the assassination attempt on President Reagan preempted his soap operas. College athletes are not unanimous in seeing the big picture.

This is like the wonderful moment as third graders that the people in my class bought into my notion that if none of us obeyed Mrs. Zimmer’s heavy-handed directives, she would be rendered powerless. What I didn’t count on were the drunken rants she launched at my parents, and the Ds on my report card despite my superior performance.

Finally at mid-year, our anarchic class was merged with Mrs. Randolph’s class, and instead of having all the goofballs separated into two rooms, we were one massive insane group of power mad nine-year-olds hell bent on hatching subversive plans to make ourselves laugh and the teachers miserable.

We saw ourselves as miniature passive resistors, and that is exactly the course opposition should take in trying to reduce the NCAA to nothing more than a building filled with baffled academics running in circles as they ponder what the hell went very wrong.

Not only will we achieve the correct result, we will make self-impressed pseudo-intellectuals miserable. This could be the biggest win-win in the history of collegiate sports.

For a more detailed explanation of Fanarchy Day, click here

Despite Great Advice, Victor Oladipo Declares for NBA Draft

by Kent Sterling

Let’s just pray Victor Oladipo gets drafted before Detroit picks fifth. No one deserves to spend his early 20s in that purgatory.

Victor Oladipo will leave Indiana University with some unfinished business. He’s forfeiting 25% of his college experience to roll with the pros in the NBA.

Good for Oladipo because he is going to be a top ten pick, and maybe a top five pick. Because Oladipo isn’t a moron who who buy 12 Bentley’s, money will stack up from that first contract that he will never run through. Bad for Oladipo because you need to embrace a worry free lifestyle for every second you can while you have it. That life ended with his announcement.

From today forward:

Every chick he meets can’t be trusted because she could be after his money.
Every friend outside of basketball might be after his money.
Every teammate will have one eye on game results, and another on how his stats will affect his next contract.
Every lunch of dinner he enjoys with others, he will be expected to pay for.
Every time he comes back to Assembly Hall, he’ll wonder about what might have been.

There is a lot of good too:

No classes to interrupt workouts.
Ability to take care of family in a meaningful way.
Use cash to start a foundation that helps those who can’t help themselves.
Opportunity to compete with and against the best in the world.
When someone buys an Oladipo jersey, Victor will get paid.

Victor is one of my favorite college athletes. He’s a great interview, and deserves whatever rewards in which he decides to indulge. He’s been focused on being the best player he could be since getting to Bloomington just under three years ago.

His life is going to change, and not for the better in every way. That’s the reality of the situation.

People spend four years (or six in my case) trying to beat a path out of town. A year or two after leaving, we figure out that life was pretty damn sweet.

Oladipo is going to figure that out, but no one can blame a guy who has gone from being the #144 ranked senior in the class of 2010 to being one of the best five amateurs in the world.

Good luck to Victor Oladipo, a student-athlete who embodies all that being a good Hoosier should mean.