Doin' it to it.
- First off, you clearly don't need me around these parts: I want to highlight some things going on in the fanpost section in the right, because the last few days have seen three good posts over there and I feel like I'm hogging the spotlight.
- Chadnudj posted his plans for the conference expansion, and, quite frankly, made a better case for his viewpoint than I've seen anybody else do for their respective viewpoints elsewhere, so, props on that. There were two basketball posts reinforcing the fact that it's a good time to be an NU fan: Loretta posted his weekly Big Ten basketball power rankings, so go disagree with those, and G1000 described the week in NU basketball, without discussing NU, which is something I do in my head pretty much every day but am too lazy to post it. My only point is that regardless of what happens in NU's next few games, win or lose, rain or shine, deal or no deal, their RPI will drop like a stone due to the rankings of their opponents. That's not really basketball analysis, just a true inevitable statement, so, if my overlords are reading this, make a note of that.
- Bama Hawkeye made this a fanshot down there in the bottom right, but I feel like bringing it up here: over at Rivalry Esq., the crew did something I kind of wanted to do here: ask an Alabama fan why I should hate Auburn. Well, now doing it here would be redundant, so go read what they said. Some good insult fodder.
- I feel obligated to discuss what's been the #1 issue around the Big Ten blog vortex, which is, the Big Televen becoming the Big Tenwelve. Personally, I'm close to 95% indifferent: I'll probably focus on this in the offseason when there aren't exciting football and basketball games to think about. And even so, I'm extraordinarily ambivalent. I don't see the point in expanding, except, obviously, getting that paper, but at the same time, I don't see any drawbacks. (Except from the silly naming issue we'd have. As a journalism student, I disapprove of our soon to be really inaccurate name.) I really like the plan Chad set out in his post, as Mizzou seems like a better fit than a lot of other schools, and they seem like they want it judging from stuff I've read. I mean, it's not Penn State, but who is? (Oh, and to anybody who thinks that Rutgers and Syracuse would make New York a Big Ten market, you're blatantly wrong. As I type this, staring down the Chrysler Building, I can assure you that no New Yorker I know that isn't a current student of Syracuse University cares about the athletics teams of either of those schools, and even if they did - which, it should be noted, they don't - it's not like the Daily News would start covering Minnesota-Ohio State basketball games.)
- But it really does seem as if the wheels are in motion for this to happen, but chill out. It would take about three years for us to figure out what school we'd add, and then probably about three years before they actually joined the conference. So calm, people.
That's all for now. My incessant Auburn posting is taking a rest today so y'all can focus on tonight's ESPNU showdown with the University of North Florida, which, judging from the University of South Florida's location in Tampa, is probably situated on a beautiful oceanfront campus on Key West. So stop by for that gamethread later, until then, stay in school, and don't do drugs unless they're prescribed by a licensed medical physician.