Monday, November 05, 2007

RANDOMIZATION: 11/05/07

A bit later in the day than usual, but oh, well. I have a few quick-hit thoughts.

Bye weeks suck. Best wishes to UMD freshman D Evan Oberg, who was injured during practice last week. He'll be out until January, from the sounds of it. Hopefully, the fact that he suffered a lower-body injury won't set him too far back as far as conditioning goes, and he'll make a quick return to the lineup once he's healthy. But the future is bright for Oberg, so let's get him healthy first.

Speaking of hockey...the Gophers are 0-4 in the WCHA. This has not happened since, well, ever. And I doubt that anyone around the league will be singing songs of sympathy for UMTC. Minnesota hasn't finished outside the top five in the league since 1997-1998, when Doug Woog was still the coach. That was also the last time they missed the Final Five. They're due.

Also, as a reminder, I'll be with the Bulldogs in Colorado Springs starting on Thursday. Colorado College should present the toughest test UMD has faced so far (no offense to Denver). With CC playing on Olympic ice out there, the weekend should be quite interesting. I'll be there for a preview later this week, and more stuff from our road trip during the weekend.

Skipping CDGate? This might be the stupidest thing ever. Apparently, the Patriots whined complained to the NFL about what they alleged was piped-in crowd noise at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis Sunday. The allegation appeared to originate from this particular sequence (I first saw the video at Awful Announcing):



It's not normal for me to be able to call upon experience working in radio. But this isn't a "skipping CD", as stated by some moron in the media or with the Patriots.

My first clue? The audio was nowhere to be found on Westwood One's national radio broadcast, which I was listening to at the time.

It sounds nothing like a skipping CD, really. It sounds more like feedback, which is what CBS seems to believe it was.

Seems like a few moonbats in Patriots Nation tried a bit too hard to get some controversy at the expense of their rival in Indianapolis. Try harder. This is just dumb, and it's a greater waste of time than most of the crap that came out about this game.

Hoops! College basketball is underway. Some teams are beating the crap out of lower-division teams in exhibition games. Others, like Michigan State, are losing overtime games to lower-division teams. Minnesota students are already chanting Tubby's name, and all he did was lead them past Minnesota State.

I'm too busy to get into serious team previews, but Blue Ribbon did a bang-up job on all of Division I. You can read their work on ESPN.com ($).

What I will tell you: Despite the loss to Grand Valley State, Michigan State will be a player in the Big Ten. Despite the loss of Alando Tucker, so will Wisconsin. Despite the fact that their biggest star is their head coach, the Gophers will make the postseason. I love this Indiana team, though I still don't know if Kelvin Sampson can get them to the Final Four.

Outside the Big Ten, I expect North Carolina to have a quality team. I think UCLA is going to be very good. I don't know what will happen in the Big East, but I look at Marquette as being a contender.

Basically, I don't know. Same as college football.

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