Sippin' On Purple - All Posts

Northwestern women's lacrosse: Wildcats play Penn State with trip to Final Four on line

2013-05-17T19:15:22Z

It's a good old-fashioned catfight (editor's note: PHRASING) with a trip to the NCAA Women's Lacrosse Final Four in Philadelphia on the line. Northwestern and Penn State play at Lakeside Field at 7 pm on Saturday. It's the last home game of the year for the 'Cats, so go to the game if you're in the area. It's also on the real Big Ten Network, which is good for you all who want to watch the game on TV. But it also means that I've done my last broadcast of junior year and I know you're all heartbroken about that.

Northwestern is 2-0 against Penn State this season, but another Final Four for Kelly Amonte Hiller's crew is not a given. Northwestern needed overtime to defeat the Nittany Lions 9-8 in the semifinals of the ALC tournament on May 3. Penn State outscored NU 3-1 in the second half, but NU escaped with an OT goal from Amanda Macaluso to advance to the tournament final. Northwestern had a considerably easier time the first time these teams met this season at Lakeside Field. NU defeated Penn State 11-3 behind four goals from Erin Fitzgerald when the teams met in the regular season.

Speaking of Fitzgerald, she was one of four Wildcats to be named a 2013 IWLCA All-American on Wednesday. Northwestern's leading scorer was joined by Taylor Thornton on the first team, senior Gabriella Flibotte made the second team, and goalie Bridget Bianco is a third team All-American. Thornton became the second NU player ever to be named an All-American four times (the other is Kristen Kjellman). My only gripe would be that Kerri Harrington wasn't honored, but her defensive capabilities aren't captured well in stats.

Penn State eked out a 14-13 victory over Canisius in the first round before beating UMass 12-9 last week to reach the quarterfinals. The Nittany Lions are seeking their first trip to the Final Four since 1999. They are coached by Missy Doherty, who roomed with Kelly Amonte Hiller when the two played at Maryland.

Pen State is led by second team All-Americans Kelly Lechner and Maggie McCormick. McCormick has 49 goals and 35 assists on the season, while Lechner is second on the team in goals with 46. She leads the teams with 49 draw controls. Mackenzie Cyr is also a dynamic offensive player with 32 goals and 34 assists. The Nittany Lions have three other players with at least 26 goals and have the 14th best scoring offense in the country.

Northwestern has a penchant for stopping good offensive teams this season, giving up under 8 goals a game. In two games against a Penn State team that is averaging 13.30 goals a contest this year, NU allowed a combined 11 goals. The big question in this one is the status of Alyssa Leonard. I haven't seen anything on her, which I'm hoping is good news for NU. The junior from Bay Shore, New York left last weekend's game against Stanford after a collision with Megan Lerner in the second half and did not return. She walked off the field without any help and the 'Cats were up big at the time, so it may have been a precautionary measure.

The game will be the first NCAA tournament meeting between Penn State and Northwestern. It will also be the first time Kelly Amonte Hiller will have faced the same team three times in a season as the coach of Northwestern. Penn State had more success against NU's defense the second time these two teams met. If they handle Northwestern's pressure defense like they did in that match-up, expect another close game.

Wednesday sips, starring Taylor Thornton and Demetrius Fields

2013-05-15T14:20:27Z

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's a lot of stuff! Starting with Northwestern lacrosse, carrying on to Northwestern football and then moving on to Northwestern basketball.

TAYLOR GANG: In case you didn't notice, Taylor Thornton - who, if you didn't watch the game Sunday, is double plus good at lacrosse - is one of SI's College Athlete of the Year nominees. You can vote for it! (Although she does face a somewhat uphill battle against Brittney Griner.) Girl sorta deserves it: she's not the biggest scorer, but she's huge, extremely fast, and really skilled, capable of dominating whichever facet of the game Northwestern needs her to dominate on any given day. The writeup at SI is worth reading.

However, I do find it exceptionally weird that amongst the five male players nominated for the award is Tyler Thornton, the almost identically named Duke backup point guard. Sure, Thornton seems like a really nice guy, hit a big three at the Maui Invitational two years back, and does lots of charity stuff, which is great, but he averaged 3.6 points per game this year, and while almost everybody else nominated is a senior, dude is a junior. Is there any way this isn't a Taylor Thornton-related typo? Or perhaps they're just trying to claw at Chris Collins' heart. I don't know. Go vote for Taylor Thornton, and not Tyler.

While we're talking lax, Philip Hersh's profile of the team for the Trib is must-read. They sound angry and motivated and I'm super intimidated by all of them.

Soldier Fields: We got ourselves another Northwestern Wildcat-turned-Chicago Bear:

Wanna first give glory to God and thanks to all the ppl whove held me up thru the process. Signed FA w/ the Chicago Bears. #focusingon53 now
— Demetrius Fields (@King_Fields_) May 13, 2013

Saying Fields is a long shot to make the roster. The Bears have 11 wide receivers on the roster - eleven! - and although a lot of them are also longshots, they're only gonna keep five. You figure Brandon Marshall, Earl Bennett, Alshon Jeffrey and Devin Hester are locks. The rest of the guys are either undrafted or, in Marquess Wilson's case, a seventh-round pick, a guy you could cut. But it'll be tough to beat out seven dudes fighting for one spot. Here's pulling for Fields, and here's to the Bears, who have gone out of their way to bring in Northwestern dudes - be it actual players like Corey Wootton, Sherrick McManis, and Nick Roach, or training camp dudes like Eric Peterman. As you can see, they've got the lead in the Northwestern alumni players in the NFL category.

This tub is on fire: EDSBS has been murdering it with tangentially-Northwestern related posts of late. If you dont read them every day, GET OFF MY SITE, but also, click these links: first, a run-down of Ohio State's joke of a schedule:

NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS. The police interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of ticket holders, but not a single one could recall anything about the game. What they did remember was far more chilling: a three hour Greco-Roman wrestling match between Pat Fitzgerald and Luke Fickell that ended in a tie and both men shouting "BROS FOREVER."

But more importantly, a post almost perfectly entitled IT'S MARK AND HELL IS HOT, running down the Big Ten as rap puns. I guffawed. They also have a prize for Mississippi State's Gator Bowl runner-updom and a new field for Illinois.

Only the hood die young: Michael Bird profiled five teams that "died a good death," and 1995 Northwestern's on there.

BALLLDWIN!: For starters, read Nick Medline's profile of new NU director of basketball operations, Chris Lauten, really worth a read, especially for the fact the Drake-referencing title. Then watch Pat Baldwin talk for a few minutes.

The semi-Rivalry, esq: Sure, bud:

AD Mike Thomas says #Illini were not trying to tweak #Northwestern by scheduling the Evanston event. Says he and NU's Jim Phillips r pals.
— Teddy Greenstein (@TeddyGreenstein) May 14, 2013

Northwestern's basketball schedule is basically out

2013-05-15T13:17:58Z

It's May 15, and after some news yesterday, we already know the vast majority of Northwestern's basketball schedule next year. Neat! Let's talk about it.

The first news we got yesterday was this from Teddy Greenstein:

Thumbs up to this: #Northwestern close to 2-yr home-and-home agreement w/#DePaul hoops. Cats would host round 1 this December.
— Teddy Greenstein (@TeddyGreenstein) May 14, 2013

Love this, even if its probably going to hurt Northwestern's RPI a little bit - DePaul is absolutely wretched, and will continue to be so for the near future.

I think its important to maintain some connection to local opponents, especially if you can do it while winning. Instead of outsourcing and bringing in SWAC squads from the middle of nowhere why not reach out to the schools closest by? It probably saves your department money, and if you have the basketball skills to back it up, you can show you're the area's top dog, which is nice. Add Loyola-Chicago as one of your mid-major non-con opponents. Play Chicago State instead of one of those SWAC squads. We had UIC on the schedule last year, and we lost. It was embarrassing and we wanna get back at them. (UPDATE: If I'd waited an hour or so, I would've read Teddy Greenstein's hoops notes mentioning Northwestern will play UIC at UIC. Northwestern fans should go fill up that gym and make that not a road game.)

DePaul is the most prominent of the bunch. They've had good stretches and good players - Quentin Richardson, Wilson Chandler, not even going back and thinking about Mark Aguirre - but right now are mired in a particularly bad one. Fine. Get the win and make sure no Chicago kid would rather go to DePaul than Northwestern. Northwestern beat DePaul in a pretty lopsided victory my freshman year, 2008, and then someone opted out of the deal. I thought it was DePaul at the time - bummed they were finally losing games to Northwestern - but its seemed more recently like DePaul was interested in engaging.

They're now building a $300 million arena in Chicago - not in O'Hare's flyover zone 14 miles from campus where they currently play - so they're interested in getting back in the Chicago mix. Let's bring back this game in the rotation - we'll call it "The McGee's Classic."

With that, we know a pretty large portion of Northwestern's non-con schedule.

Vs. DePaul (RPI 204, KenPom162)
@ NC State (RPI 33, KenPom 38)
@ Stanford (RPI 77, KenPom 50) (finishing up a home and home)
@ Butler (RPI 22, KenPom 45) (finishing up a home and home)
@ UIC (RPI 169, Kenpom 196)
Vs. UCLA, neutral site (RPI 26, KenPom 47)
Vs. Mizzou, neutral site (RPI 36, KenPom 22) (I had originally assumed that Northwestern would play one of UCLA and Missouri at the Las Vegas Invitational, but since UCLA and Mizzou are already scheduled to meet, they won't play in Vegas - the tournament won't have a bracket, but will be played "classic-style," with the team in the best record in the four games winning)
At home vs. two of: UT-Chattanooga, IUPUI, Morehead State, Gardner State. The two Northwestern wants for RPI purposes are probably Morehead State and Gardner State.

That leaves Northwestern needing, I believe, five more opponents. As is, its one of the more aggressive non-conference schedule I can remember Northwestern playing: a high percentage of road games, a lot of teams that made the NCAA Tournament this last year. One hopes the remaining non-con games keep the RPI up, but that's more a matter of luck - I imagine Northwestern will be looking for relatively mediocre-to-bad opponents to get wins. (Don't forget that stuff I said about UIC and Loyola, guys.)

But huzzah - we also have Northwestern's conference schedule, although sans the dates. The single-plays have been released - doesn't that sound like some record terminology? - and we can figure out the rest.

Teams NU plays twice

Purdue
Indiana
Nebraska
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa

Teams NU plays once on the road

Ohio State
Michigan

Teams NU plays once at home

Illinois
Penn State

I think this is about as favorable as you can ask for. It takes the possibility for an Ohio State upset at home - something NU's been quite close to - off the board, but they've only gotten close, and haven't pulled it off. And I don't want any part of Michigan, anywhere.

The disappointing thing is that Northwestern only plays Illinois once. That's now a rivalry, sort of, and they've split the series down the middle four years running. The fifth, there was only one game between the two, won on a Demetri McCamey jumper. It's nice to have as many opportunities to win against them as possible, and this takes one away. The Penn State game is a must-winner at home or on the road, so that doesn't really bother me.

I'm proud of the NU basketball twitter feed for trolling hard:

A little disappointed not to get to play at Illinois and Penn State next season. #B1GCats were 4-0 there over the last 2 years.
— NU Men's Basketball (@NUMensBball) May 14, 2013

Just looking at the games Northwestern plays next season, one thing is clear: the opportunities will be on the table for Northwestern to make the NCAA Tournament. That's not always true, cc: Iowa. But it's all you can ask for. It'll be up to Chris Collins and crew to actually make something out of it.

Northwestern advances to NCAA quarterfinals with win over Stanford

2013-05-13T12:00:06Z

Coming into Saturday, Stanford had beaten three teams they lost to earlier in the year. But none of those teams were the defending national champions. Northwestern did away with Stanford Sunday thanks to a dominating second half performance at Lakeside Field. Box score is here and you can check out my video recap here (shameless self-promotion!).

This game was almost a carbon copy of the first meeting between these two teams on April 14. Stanford battled hard early and held a brief first half lead before the 'Cats pulled away in the second. Consecutive goals from Meg Lentz and Lucy Dikeou gave Stanford a 4-3 lead with 8:46 left in the first half. They led for about three minutes until Alyssa Leonard scored two goals in less than a minute to give NU a lead they held onto for the rest of the game.

Northwestern had a 6-4 advantage going into halftime and the lead was still two about 10 minutes into the second period. Then the 'Cats took control with five straight goals. Kate Macdonald scored her second goal of the game (a career high) to complete the run and NU was up by seven, which turned out to be the final margin.

The game was physical in the final moments, with Stanford picking up a pair of yellow cards in the final two minutes. Overall, the Cardinal received five yellow cards (NU got none) and committed 30 fouls (to NU's 15).

Northwestern got hat tricks from seniors Taylor Thornton, Ali Cassera and Alyssa Leonard. Thornton in particular was sublime. She scored three goals and added her third assist of the year. Once she beats her defender, there's no stopping her. Her combination of size (she's listed at 5'9") and speed makes her almost impossible to defend. When defenders stepped out to stop her, she laid off a perfect pass to Kelly Rich inside the arc for an easy goal.

The 'Cats also got a great performance from Alyssa Leonard, but she left the game after a collision with Stanford's Megan Lerner late in the second half. After a draw, Leonard leaped for the ball, but came down tumbling after making contact with Lerner's stick. The senior walked off the field without any help from NU's training staff, but did not return. It might have been precautionary as NU was up big at the time, but it is still cause for concern. The 'Cats looked less formidable with freshman Lauren Murray in the circle. Leonard had an impressive eight draw controls on the day before leaving, bringing her career total to 301.

The defense was solid as usual, giving up just eight goals to a Stanford team that averaged over 14 during the regular season. The Cardinal were only held to under 10 goals five times this season and two were when they faced Northwestern.

Goalie Bridget Bianco didn't face much trouble, but made four saves. She made a couple mental mistakes, though. A bad pass in the first half led to a turnover and goal by Stanford's Kyle Fraser. In the second half, she was called for a 10 second violation (holding the ball in the goalie circle for 10 seconds without passing it). Julia Burns scored for the Cardinal on the ensuing possession. Bianco has been great all season so those are probably anomalies rather than something to worry about.

Northwestern outshot Stanford 29-15, but the 'Cats won this game in the draw circle. Northwestern had three times as many draw controls as Stanford, and had a 12-2 advantage over the Cardinal in the second half. For that reason, Alyssa Leonard's status for next weekend's game is very important.

Penn State earned the right to face NU for the third time this year in the NCAA quarterfinals with a 12-9 victory over UMass today. NU has already beaten the Nittany Lions twice, but by just a combined three goals. The 'Cats needed overtime to defeat Penn State in the semifinals of the ALC tournament.

The game is at 7 pm on Saturday, May 18 at Lakeside Field. It will be their final 2013 game in Evanston, where they are 18-0 all-time in the NCAA tournament.

Northwestern women's lacrosse begins quest for 8th NCAA title against Stanford

2013-05-12T14:03:42Z

(Lax is upon us, and our bro Brandon knows enough about it that TV networks pay him money to talk about it sometimes. He'll tell us about Northwestern vs. Stanford now, for no money.)

The first round of the NCAA tournament is done, so that unwieldy 26 team bracket that Rodger talked about is just a regular old 16 team tournament now. Northwestern will face Stanford in the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament after a wild first round game in Evanston on Friday.

Stanford beat Notre Dame 8-7 for the right to play NU, and the game might have been even better than the final score. It was a brisk night on the lakefront, the two teams started slowly, with Stanford leading 4-2 at the half. The Cardinal took a 6-3 lead in the second half after Julia Burns scored an unassisted goal with 17:06 to play. The Fighting Irish had been listless all game, but finally woke up with just over 11 minutes left. Lindsay Powell scored the first of four consecutive Notre Dame goals (all by non-starters) to give Christine Halfpenny's squad a 7-6 advantage (also, Halfpenny is the probably the best name a Notre Dame coach can have). It was their first lead since the opening minutes of the match.

Notre Dame had all of the momentum. Stanford didn't look to have much going offensively, but after a timeout Lucy Dikeou created some space for herself and whipped a shot past Notre Dame goalie Ellie Hilling for her third goal of the game. Stanford won the ensuing draw and ran the clock down. In the waning moments of regulation, Hannah Farr charged in on the right side of the fan and a couple Notre Dame defenders took position between her and the goal. A controversial shooting space violation was called with just seven seconds remaining, giving the Cardinal a free position opportunity. It was a difficult angle for Farr, but she converted with four seconds left in regulation. Stanford's team rushed the field in celebration of the program's first ever NCAA tournament victory.

Their celebration couldn't have lasted too long, though. Less than 48 hours after the conclusion of that thrilling game, they will face have the Northwestern Wildcats in Evanston for the second time this year. Northwestern won the first game 12-8 on April 14 behind three points from Sports Illustrated College Athlete of the Year Nominee Taylor Thornton. But that doesn't mean this one will be easy. Stanford had an early lead in that game and only trailed by one at the half before NU shut down a potent Cardinal attack in the second half.

Stanford has made their mark as an elite offensive team this year. Coming into the tournament, they averaged 14.22 goals per game (9th in the NCAA). Their 356 points as a team were 10th in the country. They're lead by Teewaraton Award nominee Rachel Ozer. After missing almost all of last year due to injury, Ozer leads Stanford with 47 goals and 22 assists. Behind Ozer, Rachel Bokker's team has five players with at least 27 goals this season. They've scored 20 or more goals three times.

Over the past three games, though, Stanford has shown they can win defensive battles as well. They've given up a combined 19 goals in those contests. After a 16-6 win over rival Cal in the Mountain Sports Pacific Federation (Yes, that is a thing) tournament semifinals, they beat top seeded Denver 7-6. Their past two games have been against teams ranked in the top 11, so it's not like they're shutting down easy competition.

Northwestern is the better team in this one and will have a good chance to advance to the quarterfinals next weekend.

The good news for Northwestern is that they they match up pretty well with Stanford. Stanford has only failed to reach double figures in four games this season, and one of those games was against NU. The aforementioned Ozer has scored in 17 of Stanford's 19 contests this year, but both of the games that she's been held of the scoresheet have been at Lakeside Field (including Friday's game against Notre Dame). Kerri Harrington is generally regarded as NU's best one-on-one defender, but expect the 'Cats to throw different looks at Ozer with Christy Turner and Taylor Thornton spending time on the Cardinal's best attacker.

Draw controls will be a huge factor in this one. Stanford thrives off of possession and the ability to control the tempo. Coming into the weekend, they led the country in draw controls with 15.22 per game. They're led by Megan Lerner's 61 in that department, but Anna Kim isn't far behind with 55. Northwestern counters with Alyssa Leonard. The junior broke the single season draw control record last weekend against Florida and has a ridiculous 112 on the year (She is also NU's career draw control leader with 293).

Northwestern is the better team in this one and will have a good chance to advance to the quarterfinals next weekend. Northwestern won the last meeting between these two largely because they controlled possession and outshot Stanford 19-8 in the second half. They also got nine saves from goalie Bridget Bianco and were able to keep Rachel Ozer from scoring. Kelly Amonte Hiller will want to use a similar blueprint on Sunday.

If you're in the Chicago area, come down to Lakeside Field. You have to pay for tickets because it's an NCAA game, but students get in free thanks to Coach Hiller. But if you're not in town, be sure to check out the game and my play-by-play on the Big Ten Digital Network for free (Link here). Game is at 1:00 pm central.

Northwestern-Illinois SEETHING RIVALRY update: Tim Beckman steals "W.I.N.", Snoop Dogg stokes flames

2013-05-09T13:19:51Z

Another day, another case of HIDEOUS AFFRONTS in the HEATED, VICIOUS, LIFE-DEFINING rivalry that is Northwestern-Illinois.

Our first shot fired came from the radio, where Tim Beckman, John Groce, and Mike Thomas did a spot on Chicago's 670. I didn't listen, but some people did, and this happened:

@sippinonpurple It was apart of Illinois' new deal with them. Among other thing he said "our motto is W.I.N. Whatever Is Necessary Today."
— Kiernan Ambrose (@chisoxinmob) May 8, 2013

First up, buddy: that's "WINT." This isn't the first time in recent days our Illini pals have miscalculated the amount of letters in something.

Secondly, in case you haven't noticed, that's already sort of a Northwestern thing. It's posted prominently in a lot of the NU football facilities, and it's riiiiiiiiiight on the front of Northwestern's helmets, on the nose bumper:

Photo credit: Benny Sieu, US Presswire

I know that I've seen it everywhere around the team, but sorta never understood what it meant, because, um, why would I. But I asked the internet, and it's "What's Important Now."

Tim Beckman came up with his own mundane way of pointing out that a) winning is the point of a football team b) the word "win" is comprised of letters, letters that can be used in their own unrelated words, and unintentionally happened upon the same motivational tactic that Northwestern already uses, or Beckman saw the "W.I.N." thing and decided that he would crib literally the most mundane, uninteresting thing possible about Northwestern football.

Either way, we have reached an impasse, and the future of Northwestern-Illinois football will clearly come down to whether "What's Important Now" is a better backronym than "Whatever is Necessary (today)." I think the best way to settle this is a best-of-3 acronym competition. We should call Amar'e Stoudemire to be the judge. I think we'll beat those Idiotic Losing Losers Idiotically Nagging Idiots, although an acronym flamewar would be Super Tedious, Unimportant, Piddly Insignificant Drivel.

There was also this:

"I guess we just figured out we were never going to be Evanston's Big Ten team." - Mike Thomas
— TheChampaignRoom.com (@Champaign_Room) May 8, 2013

But that wasn't the only piece of Illinois-Northwestern drama Wednesday. The Champaign Room found this picture of Snoop Dogg wearing an Illinois jersey on D.J. Richardson's instagram:

OH, HOW QUICKLY YOU FORGET YOUR ALLEGIANCE, MR. D-O-DOUBLE-G:

What happened, Snoop? Was there so much drama at UIUC that it was kind of hard remembering Kyle Row-ley? Was that time you put on a Kyle Rowley jersey at a concert at Welsh-Ryan Arena, bopped around awkwardly to "California Gurls," then left the stage really nothin' but a G thang to you? Did you really take your Northwestern allegiance and completely drop it, as if it were excessively warm? Of all people, I would think Snoop, who has claimed gang allegiances since he was a 20-year-old who rapped instead of just showing up on pop songs and kinda whispering for a few seconds, would know about the dangers of wearing the wrong colors in the wrong neighborhood, and in this instance, he's made the mistake of thinking Northwestern-Illinois isn't EXACTLY as intense a rivalry as Bloods vs. Crips.

For shame, Snoop. You know what? After this, I'm GLAD I never made those t-shirts with pictures of John Shurna and Juice Thompson's faces on them that said "Sippin' on John and Juice." You don't deserve them.

(The best part of that picture is still Shurna's head popping out the top, by the way.)

Just another day in the bitter, cutthroat rivalry that is Northwestern-Illinois.

Northwestern playing NC State in Big Ten/ACC Challenge

2013-05-08T16:35:06Z

Northwestern will play North Carolina State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, per Joe Giglio of the Charlotte Observer:

N.C. State draws Northwestern in the Big Ten Challenge, will be a Triangle homecoming for new NU coach Chris Collins
— Joe Giglio (@jwgiglio) May 8, 2013

That makes it seem like a road game, which is nice for the RPI. Remember the Las Vegas Invitational?

Northwestern had a RECORD four-game win streak snapped in 2012 by Maryland, whom I had foolishly maligned when news of the pairings broke, so, I won't do that this time around.

However, it is worth noting that NC State in 2013-2014 is going to be a very different squad than the offensively elite squad that earned a No. 8 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. C.J. Leslie and Lorenzo Brown, the squad's two best scorer and an elite point guard, both left the school early for the NBA. Richard Howell and three-point specialist Scott Wood graduate. Freshman forward Rodney Purvis is transferring to UConn. That's five of their top six scorers, leaving only rising sophomores T.J. Warren and Tyler Lewis.

They'll still be good - Warren was a double-digit scorer, and they bring in three (three) four-star recruits. But they'll be a squad trying to figure things out without much experience at the point of the year they face Northwestern.

The last time these squads played was in 2009, when the Wildcats won in Raleigh behind 22 from Juice Thompson. NU's also lost three times to the Wolf Pack, so temper expectations.

On the plus side, IF WE DIE IN RALEIGH, AT LEAST WE WILL DIE FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Wednesday Sips, ft. preseason football talk!!!! J.A. Happ, John Shurna and Juice Thompson and more

2013-05-08T15:55:17Z

We got a lot of links up in here, people!

BIG THANGS POPPIN: Remember how I said something like "YO SON I'M SUPER PUMPED ABOUT NORTHWESTERN FOOTBALL YO YO YO YO YO?" Well, other people are too. Andy Staples has the Cats at No. 22 in his preseason rankings. B1G blog has NU at No. 3 post-spring. Jerry Palm is less hype, putting NU in the BDubs Bowl, but that's the same as the Gator Bowl last year. Vegas thinks we have 5-1 chances of winning our division, which isn't too good - its fourth, tied with IOWA - but they basically think its a crapshoot.

And look! Venric Mark is a "Big Ten Player to Watch!" Everybody's gotta stop saying nice things about Venric Mark, because I can't keep up anymore.

Seriously, get well soon: Really scary stuff from Tampa Bay, where former Cat J.A. Happ - one of two active Northwestern players in the MLB - took a line drive off the head. The Blue Jays pitcher is in stable condition at a Tampa Bay hospital.

Sippin on John and Juice: The Daily caught up with John Shurna and Juice Thompson, talking about their postgrad experiences in the NBA and France. Awesome piece that you should read.

Operator: Northwestern has a new director of basketball operations! Wait, who was Northwestern's old director of basketball operations?

Anyway, it's Chris Lauten. He was a manager at Duke - ahhhhh, Chris Collins! - and now is going to do the big boy version of what managers do, arranging stuff like schedules for the team. Lauten worked in the D-League, so I like him already.

COME ON DOWWWWN! I can't stop watching:

You know what the Big Ten West is, young and reckless: Real nice breakdown of the new B1G divisions over at the .com. Personally, I'm, uh, um, pretty okay with the West as it relates to Northwestern's chances of winning the Big Ten.

#LetsBroWildfrats:This is what NU alum Craig Sager - he of the fancy suits - looks like after a few too many, in a Milwaukee hotel hosting what has to be a formal. Needless to say, Craig Sager is one of my favorite NU alumni.

Illolni: Chad does mean things to Tim Beckman, but in fairness, he deserved most of them.

This story about Dareian Watkins: Crazy.