The real games begin next Monday when the Cougars take on one of my least favorite basketball teams, the University of Illinois at their Assembly Hall. eCougarzone.com will be live court side, and I think the live chat will likely simulcast on Alestlelive.com. I will probably get killed by the Orange Krush. #OccupyAssemblyHall.
Here are a few things to keep you busy for five minutes on this time change Sunday (and, after all, we are in 100 percent basketball-mode.)
First, don't forget to pick up your Mark Yelovich jersey (on sale for $41.63) or Eddie fathead ($79.98 and MUST SEE) to get yourself ready for the season.
Illinois' Crandall Head (which sounds like some type of Cranberry or French wine) has been suspended by Bruce Webber (That guy) for the team's two exhibition games, season opener against Loyola and the potential upset of the year against SIU Edwardsville Nov. 14. Illinois' defeated national power Wayne State 79-51 a few days back in their exhibition game. They play our old GLVC pals Quincy next at the Hall of Assembly in Chambana. Head is not too important. He averaged less than two points last year and was caught by ole' Bruce violating team rules. Jeff Goodman had the report on CBS Sports.
PSA: Tickets for the game are up on StubHub for as low as $6. You could spend upwards of $80 but why would anyone do that? I don't understand big colleges. They will go down. If you decide to go that route, wait til' the last minute and make them eat it.
Ken Pomeroy's saber-metric cute little computer statistical pre-nalysis is a bunch of bullshit. His genius predicto-bot has the Cougars winning three games. The robots say there is a 100 percent chance SIUE defeats Hannibal LaGrange and Robert Morris III (I would put it at 95 percent, because you really, never know. This is college basketball after all, but thanks) and has SIUE defeating Chicago State 74-73, likely on an exciting buzzer beater in a battle of undoubtedly the two "worst" teams in college basketball. The game may be on ESPN to showcase how horrible these two teams actually will be. They should both probably be relegated to the NAIA. This blog probably shouldn't exist, because we waste our time on the 341st best team in the country. You know what Mr. Pomeroy? Fuck your computers. Butler and VCU both made the Final Four last year.
I feel like I am getting a little hostile, so I'll settle down.
Here is OVCBall.com's thoughts on the exhibition game. A little less optimistic perhaps than we are, but still a better opinion than that of the national media.
Here's the thing, 2 players played really well for the Cougars. One or two more played okay. But 42% shooting against a Division-III team is a bit curious. At least the Cougars held Blackburn to under 35% from the field.
Those two players that played really well? Jerome Jones, who had a game high 21 points, and pulled down 12 rebounds. Derian Shaffer put up 18 points on 9 of 13 shooting, adding 7 rebounds himself.
But much like Austin Peay, the bench didn't get many more minutes that you would expect them to get in a regular season game. That leads you to believe that the bench might be a bit weak.
Player of the Game: Jerome Jones with the double-double.
What I learned: I haven't mentioned how well the Cougars held onto the ball; only 12 turnovers.
Michael Messer is the latest Cougar to join Twitter. Pretty much the entire team is there now. Follow him @mmesser30. Mike walked the same high school halls as David Freese. I think he is in for a pretty solid year.
Lennox Forrester is still not on Twitter.
The local sports media still loves Marty Simmons. Steve Porter had this in the Telegraph earlier this week.
(No longer in basketball mode)
The men's soccer team finally stopped losing. They beat UMKC 2-1 Saturday in a non-conference game. The Cougars will head to Omaha Nov. 9 (happy birthday to me) to participate in the 2011 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, holding the sixth and final seed. It was determined today SIUE will challenge No. 3 Bradley. The Cougars and Braves don't really like each other.
Wish I was going to be there and best of luck to the Cougs. The winner of the SIUE/Bradley game gets the pleasure of facing No. 2 Creighton in a true road game. Yikes! Bradley was the 6 seed last year when they won the whole thing.
(Back in basketball mode)
Wish I could find the Eddie's junior E club Hyten dentistry ad that ran on the "jumbotron" Thursday, but this will have to do.
talk to you soon.
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