Friday, February 23, 2018

PSU Goes Down, NCAA, FBI Probe & More


Duncan Poole – Wait – I mean Jordan Robinson – Wait – Ahh…screw it.
Robinson and Poole had GREAT GAMES on Wednesday! 
Here’s the first half “Poole Party Dunk!” in case you missed it. 
Whatever Robinson did on Wednesday he needs to repeat for each and every game left this season. 
What he ate. 
What he read.
His Undershorts – Don’t Wash ‘em!
Phone calls, texts – everything.
To say that he was “On Fire” implies that fire is merely hot.  Robinson played like a senior possessed, doing things I’ve never seen DR do before.
Don’t get me wrong, this was a team win.  But if THAT Robinson shows up every game from here on out, look out.  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:  Dream all you want ‘cause this might actually happen this season!
Kudos to Wagner and the continuous elbows he took the entire game.  I think Mo Buckets pisses people off with his aggressive style and they take it out on him however and whenever they can.  I saw a lot of elbows going his way. 
MAAR, Teske – everyone contributed. 
Again, Great Win.  
Games – Dates – Time – Result - Record
Illinois(H)                  January 6th               Noon                          WON  79-69              14-3
Purdue (H)                January 9th               9:00 PM                     Lost    70-69              14-4
Sparty (A)                   January 13th              Noon                          WON  82-72              15-4
Maryland (H)            January 15th            6:30 PM                     WON 68-67               16-4
Nebraska (A)             January 18th              8:00 PM                     LOST 72-52              16-5
Rutgers (H)              January 21st             Noon                          WON  62-47              17-5
Purdue (A)                 January 25th              7:00 PM                     LOST  92-88             17-6
Northwestern (H)    January 29th            7:00 PM                     WON  58-47              18-6
Minnesota (H)          February 3rd             2:30 PM                     WON  76-73 (OT)    19-6
Northwestern (A)      February 6th              6:00PM                      LOST  61-52             19-7
Wiscy (A)                   February 11th            Noon                          WON  83-72              20-7
Iowa   (H)                   February 14th           6:30 PM                     WON 74-59               21-7
Suckeyes (H)           February 18th           1:00 PM                     WON  74-62              22-7
PSU (A)                      February 21st            7:00 PM                     WON  72-63              23-7
Maryland (A)             February 24th            Noon
One more and the regular season is done!
Michigan has an opportunity to win 24 regular season games this year, nearly matching the 25 regular season victories from the 2012-13 season when they went to the FF!!!
The NCAA’s –Update
So the PSU win looks really good and with another Quad 2 victory.  Everyone now has Michigan solidly in as a 6-Seed, but looking at the other teams on KenPom and the BPI, I’m trying to figure out how to differentiate the 5 and 6 Seed lines.  Very small gaps here.  4-5-6 seed lines are blurry, at best.  Michigan could easily be a 4-Seed.  Win the B1G Tourney, perhaps?  The BTN analyst last night had Michigan as a 5-Seed, so everyone is confused.
Sparty would probably prefer the 2-Seed at this point as they’ll be playing at LCA in front of a home crowd. 
The suckeyes have slipped to a 5-Seed in Boise, which, have fun with that.  Boise?  As in Idaho?  Why have a round 1 & 2 in Boise??
FBI Probe Leaks Are Starting
This is a good article that takes a look at what the FBI probe may turn up and features information from people that have “Seen it all” meaning, the evidence and data and are telling Forde and Thamel that “Yeah, some big names and schools are going down…”
So, putting 1 and 1 together to get 2, and looking at the committees first release of the 16 teams in the 2018 Tourney and figuring out where the 1 and dones went and who’s probably on the FBI list, I’m coming up with:
Villanova
Duke
Arizona
North Carolina
Kansas
Auburn
Cincinnati
And……
Michigan State
I suppose you could argue for Xavier in there, but not so much.  Those are the bluest of the blue bloods and they’ve all recently had some 1 and done players in addition to some “Late Flips” during recruiting.  (Yep – I’m looking at you Bridges)
Just sayin’.
I Wrote The Above On Thursday And Lookie What The FBI Fairy Gave Us TODAY!!
When I woke up this AM and was thumbing through Twitter, I stumbled on the article by Thamel and Forde (link):
There’s potential impermissible benefits and preferential treatment for players and families of players at Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC, Alabama and a host of other schools. The documents link some of the sport’s biggest current stars – Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Alabama’s Collin Sexton and Duke’s Wendell Carter – to specific potential extra benefits for either the athletes or their family members.  
And lo and behold, look who is named as receiving “hundreds of dollars in advances!”
Among those receiving hundreds of dollars in advances, according to Dawkins’ expense reports:
·         The mother of current Michigan State player Miles Bridges.
According to the documents, Dawkins has dinners listed with plenty of boldface names in the sport – Tom Izzo, “Villanova coaches,” Fultz and the family of wayward five-star prospect Mitchell Robinson
LNU & Izzo:  I have two words for you: 
You’re Screwed
And before every Sparty out there reading this writes me and tells me that it was “only” a couple of hundred bucks and these other kids were getting THOUSANDS”, I’ll politely remind you:  The Domers just had 21 games vacated due to a couple of term papers that were written by one of the kid’s girlfriends.  Same punishment as Louisville for Hosting Stripper and Prostitute Parties.  No Difference in the Eyes of the NCAA.  The NCAA doesn’t care how much you got, just whether or not you got ANYTHING. 
In the eyes of the NCAA – You can’t be just a little bit Pregnant.
What does all of this mean?  Are all of these schools going to sit the current players listed in this article?  (There’s a total of about 25 active, by my count, but there could easily be more).
I dunno’.  I mean, if they’ve already played, game vacating is coming anyway.  Why not just try to win and take the rap 4-5 years down the road, similar to Louisville?
That may end up being the strategy that these schools decide to move forward with. 
Here’s what the head NCAA Ass Hat had to say on the matter:
NCAA President Mark Emmert issued a statement early Friday morning about the Yahoo report.
“These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America,” Emmert wrote. “Simply put, people who engage in this kind of behavior have no place in college sports. They are an affront to all those who play by the rules. Following the Southern District of New York's indictments last year, the NCAA Board of Governors and I formed the independent Commission on College Basketball, chaired by Condoleezza Rice, to provide recommendations on how to clean up the sport. With these latest allegations, it's clear this work is more important now than ever. The Board and I are completely committed to making transformational changes to the game and ensuring all involved in college basketball do so with integrity. We also will continue to cooperate with the efforts of federal prosecutors to identify and punish the unscrupulous parties seeking to exploit the system through criminal acts.”
Larry Nassar University REALLY DOESN’T GET IT!
Engler blew Crisis Management 101 (Keep your mouth shut) in his first week talking without thinking and “condemning” the ESPN’s Paula Lavigne OTL article.  I thought he would know when to remain silent on such issues.  And now there’s this:
In an attempt to discredit Paula Lavigne and ESPN in general, there’s a fool (An Attorney who’s also a Sparty Grad – so, you know what that means) out there by the name of Sean Campbell that wrote a piece entitled, “Paula Lavigne is a Liar”.  A link to that article can be found here:
(It’s a lengthy article, but I can summarize:  Sean tries to defend each and every investigation with “They were never charged” or “After Questioning, there wasn’t enough evidence to support a charge or an arrest” or “The coaches went by the book when investigating this assault”.)
What Sean fails to comprehend, assuming you’re taking everything he lays down here as the truth (I don’t) and is in complete transparency, is this:
It’s too late.  Larry Nassar Happened.  The Barn Door is
WIDE OPEN.
Everything IN the ESPN article that was laid out by Paula Lavigne HAPPENED!!!
You can’t deny that Payne and Appling double teamed a coed in their dorm room.  That happened.  There was questioning and an investigation.  That happened.  No charges, so no big deal? No Blood, No Foul?  Travis Walton HAPPENED!!!  HE HIT THE GIRL!!!   And was ultimately charged for littering…
But not sexual assault or aggravated assault.  That’s essentially Sean’s impossibly weak position here that he state’s ESPN has sensationalized.
The entire point of the ESPN article was to paint a picture of a university that has a pattern of repeated alleged sexual assault, regardless of the eventual outcome.  There’s no defending it at this point.  Its indefensible because it HAPPENED!
For anyone trying to defend anything that’s happened at MSU over the last several years, some advice:  Once you’ve had a scandal like Larry Nassar hit your university, it’s time to say less and do more to fix the problems.  You can’t lash out at people that are using your own history and events against you.  Whether they’re right or not. 
The Incidents ALL HAPPENED!!!
And when you do go on the attack, like Sean did, you make Paula’s point CRYSTAL clear.
All Paula needs to do is reference Sean’s article above and say, “Look.  They are once again going after the victims and trying to defend the programs and the players.  It’s an atmosphere that condones and allows predatory sexual acts to happen.” 
And she’d be right.  By trying to defend anyone in any of these alleged crimes or investigations, you’re propagating the image of being a University that supports sexual predators.  Now is NOT the time…
If Larry Nassar hadn’t happened and ESPN writes the “smear” article in an attempt to bring down MSU, THEN MAYBE you could try to do something like this. 
Not Now.  It’s too late.  The Barn Door is OPEN.
I really hope this isn’t something that’s being pushed and supported by the brass at LNU.  If it ever got out that they ANYONE FROM LNU’s LEADERSHIP TEAM was supporting this type of attack piece, look out.  You might as well lump LNU in with anyone else that is not part of the #METOO movement. 

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