It has been a while... but lots of things have been happening....

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything. This post will be slightly different from previous posts because I have a lot of items to mention. I will try to start making regular posts once again. I do enjoy writing about various events and posting them here. I have received some interesting comments about what I have posted, so I hope others are finding this at least somewhat entertaining.

Basketball

• The Kansas Jayhawks have been playing well since they beat the Texas Longhorns 84 - 74 in the Big Twelve Championship game. Since March 16, they have advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tourney. Winning with scores of 85 - 61 (over PRST), 75 - 56 (over UNLV), and 72 - 57 (over Villinova). They now have a date set for Sunday, March 30 to play Davidson.
  
• A win for the Jayhawks and they advance to the Final Four for the first time in a lot of tries. A loss, and Bill Self is left with a disappointing season of not making it to the Big Dance.
  
• I am feeling good about the Jayhawks at this time of year. We are playing well and the team seems to be focused on what they need to do to win. Last night in their win against Vill, I was concerned because we kept letting Vill. back into the game. When watching North Carolina play I do not see NC let their opponents back into the game; they put them away and do not look back. Kansas has a problem of losing focus in games where they have a large lead and it allows their opponent to get back in the game.
  
• As far as my brackets go... Well, I have no shot of winning any of the seven or so brackets that I created. Three of which I am completely out of except that I still have Kansas in them to win the whole thing. Wow, a whole 100 points to win that in those brackets.
  
• Kansas State's Beasley and Walker... What is going to happen to them? Will they be around next season? The odds say no for Beasley. If he is smart, he will not be in the Little Apple next year. Already athletes are announcing for the NBA draft, but so far there has not been any mention about Beasley being part of that draft. Only speculation about why he should do it. Walker, well, I heard that he has to talk to his people to make the decision about going pro. From what I saw from Walker this year, he should stay another year to drop weight and sharpen his skills (and attitude). If Beasley and Walker leave for the NBA, what will Kansas State be left with for a basketball team next year? Will it be worth the gamble they did on intense coach? Time will tell and it is going to be interesting to see who is around next year for the Wildcats.

Baseball

• Baseball season has officially started. It started earlier this week in Japan during the early hours here in the United States. The Kansas City Royals are about to finish up their Spring Training "season" with one of their best records in my recent history. They play their last game today against the Brewers (they are losing currently 2 - 3 in top of the 8th). Their record for Spring Training is 16 and 13. Hey, they are over 500 for Spring Training and I am hoping that can continue into the regular season.
  
• I still feel excitement about this team managed by Trey Hillman. He had what local sports radio shows referred to as unusual management style during Spring Training, but I think what he did was needed to knock some sense into this team. If you did not hear about it, Trey called the whole team on the field at the end of a loss about half-way through the ST season. He basically chewed them out in front of the opposing team and fans. I heard 610 and 810 sports radio talking saying that he should not have done this sort of thing and that it is something that would be done with a little league team. Well, I think it was needed and obviously he has the team producing because I do not think we have been over 500 in Spring Training for as long as I can remember.
  
• The season kicks off on Monday at Detroit with a 12:05 start. Gil Meche will pitch the first game of the season for the Royals. Lets try and get off to a good start just like we did in Spring Training.
  
• This morning I participated in my last live draft for the 2008 Fantasy Baseball season. I have five teams going into this season. It is going to be fun watching all of my leagues and making sure I have starters playing each day. My of my friends did not want to participate in fantasy baseball because it does require so much more work than fantasy football. But, I think it is fun and keeps it interesting to have fantasy teams. Let the fun begin!

Car and Ticket Update

• Carrie and I once again are a two car family. We went out about two weeks ago and purchased a Honda Accord 2008. When we first looked at the '08 Accords, we did not like them at all. Well, that has since changed and we love this car more than we did the '07 Accord that was wrecked. A lot of things were changed in the new '08 Accords including the arm wrest that we did not like in the previous car; it would slide forward when coming to a stop. The new one locks in two places and works much better. The new car also includes a MP3 jack which is nice to have and not have to worry about listening to our MP3 players using radio stations. Overall, we like the new car a lot and we got a much better APR on this car than we had on the previous '07 Accord.
  
• Carrie and I went to try and battle the ticket that she was issued for the wreck on February 6. Oh, that was interesting! This was Carrie's second trip to the courthouse and my first. The first time Carrie went to set our date for March 27 where we thought we would talk to the judge and hopefully get out of the ticket. Nope! Instead, we sat with about thirty other people all getting out of similar tickets (many worse than simply a ticket for wrecking). There were interesting people in the courtroom as you would expect. One guy had a hat on and a policewoman asked him to remove it. The guy mumbled something that involved a curse word and than did not hear the policewoman asking him what he had said. Carrie and I looked at each other and mouthed "Oh My God!". Later we realized that the guy was actually deaf, but that did not excuse him for being a dumb ass and not removing his hat when it was requested. So, we get to go back for a April 22 court date where apparently we get to represent ourselves and try to get out of the ticket. I plan on stopping by the Washburn Law School to try and get some assistance with the process because neither Carrie or I have any idea what we are doing. So, we will work on building our case and hopefully get out of a ticket on April 22.
  
• I will see if I can get a picture taken of our new car and posted on here in the next week or so.

Well, a lot has happened since my last post back on March 16 (see Wow! Big Twelve Championship Game and NCAA Tourney). Hopefully in another short week or two there will be a lot more to post about regarding basketball, baseball, and a ticket that we manage to remove from our record.

Have a great weekend and a great week!

Basketball Thoughts through Monday Evening

What a weekend it was for Washburn mens and womens basketball. WU played Emporia State on Saturday and won both games. The men won 76-58 and the women won 78-52. Both are playing well coming down the stretch of the season and playing when it is the best time to be playing well so they can go strong into the post season.

The Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday afternoon did not perform well. They never got things going in the game against going in a 60-61 loss to Oklahoma State at OSU. This is the third loss on the season for the Jayhawks and about the forth or fifth time this season that they did not appear to be playing as a team. Nothing was clicking early on in the game and they certainly did not get their typical half where the team clicked. Nothing seemed to go well for them on Saturday. There was discussion that I heard about on Monday that it was caused by the death of cousins (or relatives) of two Kansas players; according to Coach Self, this took away from the focus of these two players on the game. If this it in fact the reason, perhaps those two players should have been left behind to deal with their grief.

Saturday night found the Kansas State Wildcats losing to Baylor. Beasley and Walker combined for seventy plus points and lost the game. I did not see any of this game, but looking at the stats afterwards it would appear that no one else showed up for the game except for Beasley and Walker. Scoring that many points between two players and not able to pull out the win; something seems wrong with this picture.

Tonight found Kansas State playing the Texas Longhorns on Big Monday at 8 pm on ESPN. It was overall a good game, but once again K-State could not close the deal. They let it get away from them late in the game while leading some of the first half and starting the second half tied. Beasley had a double-double in the first half to keep that streak alive. Meanwhile, Walker only had one point in the game. So I go back to ask what happened in the KSU vs. Baylor game? Seven-five points combined and then Beasley/Walker only combined for 31 points in this game which was another loss. What is wrong with this picture?

The next game for Kansas is Wednesday night and then next Saturday it is Kansas State vs. Kansas in Lawrence, KS. After the way these two teams have been playing, it is going to be a interesting weekend!

I have to point out that there are no undefeated teams left in the NCAA. Memphis finally lost on Saturday night to Tennessee. So, as we are a week away from March it is only going to get more interesting.

Tough Night for Kansas

It was a good game tonight for the Kansas Jayhawks. Did they finish it off strong, no? Out of timeouts and no set play to try and tie the game was not the way to finish the night at Texas. The Longhorns looked strong and played Kansas well.

While the game was being played I was playing poker (Blackjack and Texas Hold'em). Hold'em was going well, but a friend wanted to go to play Blackjack instead. This was not for real money of course, but all for free on Face Book. Granted my attention was diverted toward the end of the game while trying to watch the KU game and also focus on what I was going to do with my hand.

Going back to the basketball game, the Jayhawks simply could not contain the Longhorns. KU got off to a slow start and and could only tie it up most of the time. They never really got the lead or were they able to keep it.

Until the next game....