I'm drunk and depressed and really dont have much to say, other than it's going to take a near miracle for Northwestern to make the tournament.

And that when you're down to a six man rotation due to injuries and an inability to reach the maximum number of scholarship players, you need all six guys to play well. And Davide Curletti had probably the worst game of his career, yet Bill Carmody still went to him on defense in favor of Drew Crawford on the last few possessions. Why, I have no idea.

It was made official today during the basketball game against Purdue (that is making my eyes bleed and driving me to alcohol), that Kyle Prater will transfer to Northwestern.

Prater is a former five star recruit, which is really good. Based on the past five star recruits who have transferred to Northwestern revenue sports programs from perennial powerhouses, Prater won't be any good (see: Thompson, Mike). Sample size of one means everything!

No but seriously, this is very good news for Northwestern. Prater will have to sit out next season but will still have three more years of eligibility after that, which is nice. Pat Fitzgerald is doing a great job of bringing in talented receivers; the future at that position is perhaps the brightest of anywhere on the field for NU. An excellent off-season of recruiting appears to be turning the tide of optimism for this program despite the disappointing season.

Sup!

Northwestern plays Purdue and it's on ESPN2! This is the point where I genuinely don't really know how I'm going to fill up more stuff to write about stuff with stuff in it, so, well, here's stuff. Stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff. This is the worst thing ever written by anybody about anything ever. In case you were wondering, I'm not in my writing mood today because well, whatever. I just watched Friday Night Lights (the movie) on TV and am now watching The Longest Yard. I am being ridiculed by occasional commenter Mr. Big Cup as he calmly sips on a Mississippi Mud. (I have an Olde English, because you know me, and I'm rap's MVP and I ain't going nowhere so you better get to know me.) If you're still reading at this point, well, I don't think you can be helped.

Go Cats, y'all! Don't let them make those boilers!

Friday, Friday, gotta write posts about Robbie Hummel while skipping class on Friday, everybody's getting ready for the Robbie Hummel

In good omen news for Northwestern, my IM basketball team, which we all agree is inextricably linked to Northwestern basketball, brought 11 guys to its matchup with some seniors in Pike and won going away, 30-11, marking Sigma Nu's first victory since the 2010 season. My point is, anything is possible. If Sig Nu can win, surely Northwestern can find three to four extra scholarship athletes capable of competing on the Big Ten level by tomorrow and dress more than seven players. Mark my words: Sig Nu's improbable playoff run will coincide with NU's first ever tourney appearance. (Okay, please stop marking my words.)

Jump for talk.

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The Wildcats managed to keep it close for most of Thursday night's game against the No. 13 Purdue Boilermakers with a really scrappy defense, but ultimately fell short, losing 80-70. The loss drops NU to 12-9, 2-6 in the Big Ten.

Really, just one bad stretch of play, from about 2 minutes remaining in the first half through the first four minutes of the second half, doomed NU. Just before halftime, NU committed a couple of bad turnovers, leading to a 7-0 Purdue run, including a three-pointer at the buzzer, and the Boilermakers took a 43-33 lead into the locker room. Then the Wildcats came out a bit flat to start the second half with a couple more turnovers, before Kendall Hackney, in one of her more forgettable stretches of play, picked up her 2nd, 3rd and then 4th fouls in the span of 1:51, with 15:56 left to go in the game.

But let's not be too harsh on Hackney, who scored her 1,000th career point and became the 14th Wildcat to reach that milestone. Hackney, who finished with 13 points, is the team's leading scorer this season and probably the most consistent player game in and game out.

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I'll preface the most critical thing I'll write about the Northwestern basketball team in some time with a story from the Blomquist gym.

My fraternity has two white league intramural teams: the a-squad, the Fighting Chabraja's, named after alumnus and former CEO of General Dynamics, Nicholas Chabraja, and the b-squad, named Sigma Nu, after the abandoned fraternity next door. (Apologies to any former members of Sigma Nu for taking your name - also, any of you want your composites?) For two years, I have been the star and leading scorer of Sig Nu and have led us to a blistering 1-7 record. But this year came with hope; some of our freshmen can really play, and for the first time, we had a group of about ten guys who actually routinely play basketball.

Last week, we had our first game, against a bunch of kids from Plex whose roster was about half-female. We figured it would be an easy victory. However, on gameday, conflicts began springing up. About half our team had some sort of conflict or other, and with about an hour before tip-off, I found myself running up and down the stairs looking for available bodies, which turned into seven guys, one of whom was a chain-smoker hadn't shot a basketball in 11 months, one of whom hadn't eaten all day, and the last of which was, in his words, "too high to be good at basketball, but not high enough to think I'm playing well". The other four of us aren't great at basketball, but we figured we had a shot against a weak team.

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So the women's team played some games while I was out of the country last week. Let's get to the highlights. There was the, uh, 59-58 squeaker the Wildcats pulled out over a 6-12 Illinois team on MLK Day. Then there was....well, that's about it as far as highlights go. NU came close but lost on Wednesday to a very good Michigan team, 58-48, and then yesterday, the Wildcats got completely blown out by a very bad Wisconsin team, 75-55.

The results bring NU's record to 12-8 overall, 2-5 in the Big Ten. As with the men's team, things aren't looking so good. The loss to Wisconsin, in particular, really hurts. A once promising season teeters on the brink. With nine games left in the regular season, this is a good time to take stock of where the Wildcats are and what they'll need to do to make the tournament.

The Wildcats' RPI as of today is 77th, according to this site, putting them on the extremely flimsy part of the tournament bubble, which is still very fluid at this point. By my calculations, NU has gone 1-4 against top-30 RPI teams, the lone win coming on the road against LSU (29). That's not a great record, but it's not what's going to hurt the team the most. That would be the three losses against teams with RPIs 100 and above: Toledo (116), Minnesota (100), and Wisconsin (129).

NU hasn't played anybody with an RPI between 30 and 50. So add all this up, and that means that the Wildcats have just the one resume building win against LSU and a handful of bubble-busting unimpressive losses.

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand crap.

Northwestern didn't score for the game's first eight minutes, several key players laid eggs, Drew Crawford had five points on ten shots, peole didn't hit free throws, and lackadaisical defense allowed Minnesota to put up 75 points on 52 shots. Nothing went right, nothing went right, nothing went right. Sure, Northwestern played decent ball for a long time after the initial drought, but, well, this was no fun.

We were all really excited after Northwestern beat Michigan State last week. Then NU hit the road, and two 20 point blowouts. I'm sure the fire such and such talk will be in the comments section, but this wasn't a must-win game - although it certainly was important. However, it does suck to see Northwestern play two awful, awful games.

On the plus side, Northwestern plays well at home (as opposed to the road) and that's where Northwestern's next game is! Yay!