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Exit Paterno

 

Joe Paterno, the man, died last night after a short battle with cancer.

JoPa, the legend,  died last November amid revelations that he did little when confronted with allegations that one of his long time coaches had molested a child in the Penn State football showers.

How do we reconcile the man with the legend?

Many say that we put too much stock in our sports figures. But if any person seemed worthy of admiration it was Joe Paterno.

Maybe he started to believe his own press. Surely the excuses he gave for his inaction during his final interview were embarrassing. He certainly wouldn’t have accepted lame excuses from one of his players.

Today we’ll we hear from his former players, many of whom credit Coach Paterno with being major reason for their success.

Let’s honor man while remembering that we’ve learned he’s not quite worthy of being a legend.

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Nothing But ‘Net – Week #12 – 01/16/2012 – An Ugly Week

It was an ugly week for the (#13) University of Michigan men’s basketball team last week.  They played two games, and they won one and lost one, but the win was ugly, and the loss was even uglier.  On Wednesday (01/11/2012) they beat Northwestern 66-64 in overtime in Crisler Arena, then on Saturday (01/14/2012) they lost at Iowa 75-59.  This brings Michigan’s record to 14-4 (4-2 in the Big Ten).

OK, I’ll admit that Michigan’s narrow victory over Northwestern looks a little better after NU beat (#7) Michigan State convincingly in their next game.  MSU came into the game unbeaten in Big Ten play, and NU handled them, so I guess NU is better than their record would suggest.  So, maybe the UM win over NU wasn’t quite as ugly as it looked in person.  Michigan played very poorly for most of the game, and were trailing by 8 points (44-36) with 13 minutes to go.  They fought their way back into the game, but they still trailed by 3 (54-51) with less than 3 minutes left.  They managed to tie it up and force overtime, where they scratched out a 2-point win.

Continue reading “Nothing But ‘Net – Week #12 – 01/16/2012 – An Ugly Week”

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Big Ten Report – Week #03 (01/16/2012)

It’s a cliché: “Anything can happen in the Big Ten”.  However, this week proves it: Michigan State lost at Northwestern, Ohio State lost at Illinois, and Indiana lost at home to Minnesota.  Oh, and Nebraska finally won a league contest.  It was quite a week.

 

Standings

Here are the current Big Ten standings:

 

Team

Big Ten

Overall

Wins

Losses

Percent

Wins

Losses

Percent
Illinois

4

1

0.800

15

3

0.833
Michigan State

4

1

0.800

15

3

0.833
Ohio State

4

2

0.667

16

3

0.842
Michigan

4

2

0.667

14

4

0.778
Purdue

3

2

0.600

13

5

0.722
Indiana

3

3

0.500

15

3

0.833
Wisconsin

3

3

0.500

14

5

0.737
Iowa

3

3

0.500

11

8

0.579
Northwestern

2

3

0.400

12

5

0.706
Minnesota

2

4

0.333

14

5

0.737
Nebraska

1

5

0.167

9

8

0.529
Penn State

1

5

0.167

9

10

0.474

 

Results

Here are the results from last week’s games (Week #3):

Continue reading “Big Ten Report – Week #03 (01/16/2012)”

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Nothing But ‘Net – Week #11 – 01/09/2012 – Almost Perfect

The (#16) University of Michigan men’s basketball team played two games last week, and they won one and lost one, to bring their record to 13-3 (3-1 in the Big Ten) on the season.  On Thursday (01/05/2012) they lost at (#12) Indiana 73-71, then on Sunday (01/08/2012) they beat (#18) Wisconsin 59-41, in Crisler Arena.  They came very close to winning the game at IU, and keeping their Big Ten record perfect.  So, they were “almost perfect”.

The IU game was exciting, and frustrating.  Michigan never got the lead, but they battled back from a couple double-digit deficits to get within a point or two, or even tie the game up.  In fact, they tied the game at 68-68 with 3:00 left, and got within one point (72-71) with 4 seconds left, but they just couldn’t quite “get over the hump”.  UM just started a little too slowly, and had to play from behind the whole game.  Not so in the Wisconsin game, where UM jumped out to an early 10-2 lead, fell behind 14-13, regained the lead at 16-14, and never looked back.  They led by 6 (25-19) at halftime, pushed the lead up to double digits midway through the 2nd half, and kept it there the rest of the way.  It was a good, convincing win against a quality opponent.

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