DePaul needs a splash hire to revive their dormant program; and ESPN’s Steve Lavin could be it. The Blue Demons need someone to come in and convince local talent to stay home and start something, and I’m not convinced SIU’s Chris Lowery or Jazz Assistant (and former Blue Demon) Tyrone Corbin is that someone.

Then I saw this on the Twitter account of CBS’ Seth Davis yesterday:

“Some dish on DePaul job: Steve Lavin and Craig Robinson are interested. So is Isiah Thomas, but admin cool to him. Sleeper is Tony Barbee. 3:17 AM Mar 1st via TweetDeck

Lavin declined to comment on this situation.

Thus far, Lavin’s “World Wide Leader” star power makes him the most interesting name in the job mix. Here are the pros and cons:

Why this would be a good fit

-Chicago is a very attractive location for any prospective coach, but especially so for an individual so familiar with the area. Most of the games that Lavin calls on ESPN are Big Ten games, and Chicago is unquestionably the capital of “Big Ten Country.”

-He already has Midwest ties (serving as an assistant on Gene Keady’s Purdue staff from 1988-1991) which would help in recruiting an area that’s a hotbed of prep talent.

-Going from UCLA to DePaul is somewhat akin to Ron Zook going from Florida to Illinois (where Zook goes from here is obviously anywhere but up, but that’s another story). The expectations are much lower, the pressure is off, and victory is defined by much smaller goals.

-During Lavin’s tenure as head coach, the Bruins qualified for six consecutive NCAA Tournaments. Making Lav one of two coaches (also Mike Krzyzewski) to have led his team to five Sweet 16s in six seasons. Lavin’s record in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is 10-1. His first weekend of the tourney winning percentage (90.9%) is second only to Dean Smith.

-Lavin lead his team to victory over the No. 1 team in the country in four consecutive collegiate seasons (Arizona ’03, Kansas ’02, Stanford ’01, and Stanford ’00.

-Lavin has a chance to rebuild a program that was once proud in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And with the exception of Ray Meyer, he could easily surpass the accomplishments of any DePal coach in recent memory without doing a whole lot.

Why this wouldn’t work

-Lavin has a sweet gig right now that thousands of broadcasting professionals would KILL for. He even gets to spend a ton of time traveling around the nation with super-babe Erin Andrews. Would you want to give that up?

-Coach Lav’s coaching style certainly has its share of critics. Baron Davis called him out recently. And there is a wide perception (justly or unjustly) that his practices at UCLA were glorified shootarounds.

-One of the most popular UCLA blogs, Bruins Nation, referred to him as “the Blagojevich of College Hoops,” and their opinions reflect negative memories that many UCLA fans have of his tenure in Westwood.

-While DePaul resides in the prestigious Big East conference, and their campus is located in the upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood, the Blue Demons also play their home games at Allstate Arena which is located adjacent to O’Hare international airport; WAY out there for any college student living on campus. And, let’s be honest here, many college students require getting extremely drunk before attending home games (DePaul’s less than .100 winning percentage in conference recently doesn’t help) and that’s very difficult to do when your home gym isn’t easily accessible by walking and public transportation. And that arena is far from state-of-the-art to begin with.

So how much of an attraction would this program truly be to Lav? Especially after the bright lights of Bristol and college basketball’s most storied program; located in Hollywood nonetheless.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

Well not only did he talk the talk, he walked the walk.  He literally slathers his column with salsa and then proceeds to eat it with Noah getting his respect throughout.  Fast-forward to 5:00 if you want to see less bitching from Morrissey and more newspaper eating.

Earlier today when I heard it, I thought the stunt was a bit over the top and gimmicky. I still feel that way, and I still hate Morrissey, but that was hilarious. They should literally sit down all the great sports “journalists” out there and force them to do this with all their columns. I’m looking at you Mariotti!

For more Chicago Bulls coverage from this author, check out Pippen Ain’t Easy.

One of those idiots is Rick Morrissey.  Now you might be sitting there thinking that I’m the one starting this battle, that us bloggers are the ones that initially waged war on the mainstream media.  With Morrissey you would be wrong.

Anyways, he made one of his more ridiculous statements a few years ago, and now it has come back to bite him in the ass.  According to Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald:

Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey showed up at practice carrying an old copy of his sports section and a jar of salsa. Apparently on draft night 2007, he wrote that if Joakim Noah becomes a useful player within three years, he’ll eat his column with salsa.

Well, Noah had 21 points, 16 rebounds and 4 blocks in Saturday’s win over Charlotte, so Morrissey actually showed up to eat the column. I didn’t see it happen, but the stunt was videotaped and I’m sure the two-year old newsprint was delicious.

Come on Rick!  You thought there was no possibility at all that Noah would even be “useful” within 3 years?  We all thought he would be useful.  At 5 pts and 5 rebs a game he would be useful.  99% of Chicago were way ahead of your idiotic prediction about him being completely worthless on draft day.  We knew he would be a decent rebounder and perhaps a solid role player off the bench (which definitely would have counted as useful).  Most of the reasonable-minded Chicagoans following the Bulls were more concerned that he would take the next step to double-double guy.

(Sidenote: Noah is an all-star so far this year.  Only Dwight Howard is playing better than him at the center position in the East.  You could argue Brook Lopez deserves it, although he plays for a losing team, but even then many all-star teams carry three centers.)

And what’s with the salsa stunt?  I know business is bad, but really?  I don’t see how that’s necessary.  Just admit that another stupid column of yours was completely moronic and wrong and move on.

Obviously, as a member of the Ernie Johnson fan club I wouldn’t applaud a berating of the best on air talent in the business.  This was aimed directly at TBS.  Despite the network being owned by Mr. Turner of Atlanta Braves allegiance, I’m going to go with the idea that the people of Philly were booing the atrocious coverage TBS has provided throughout the playoffs and for the NLCS. 

The MLB playoffs have drawn terrible ratings this year and while the product may not be what it once was, you can’t convince me that TBS didn’t hurt MLB’s cause.  No one is thinking of TBS when they’re looking for a game.  TBS is the home of countless My Name is Earl reruns once the Friends and Seinfeld (God bless em) marathons are over.

For all their shortcomings, I’ve really come around to the idea that every major sporting event should be covered by ESPN.  Sure, the hype train blows its whistle twice as loud when something is on ESPN/ABC–look at all the athletes on Dancing With the Stars!…next on SC, Brett Favre takes out garbage–but they put together the best broadcast by far. 

In no way should this be an endorsement of Joe Morgan calling baseball games, or talking.  Seriously though, die TBS and well done Philadelphia. 

h/t: Awful Announcing

Sometimes I wonder: Is it just me?  Am I taking crazy pills?  Since I’m a Bears fan, I naturally hate Favre, but maybe people love him everywhere else?  Then I see this screenshot, and it calms me down and makes me realize I’m not the only sane one out there:

Sigh.  Truth be told I’ve googled about half of those things, but so have a ton of other people apparently.  Whew.

h/t: Deadspin

But there is this twist: One of Joe Ricketts’ kids, Laura, is a lesbian. Technically, then, she will be one of the Cubs owners. “If that’s not enough of a reason to buy a bleacher seat to a Cubs game, I don’t know what is,” wrote Trish Bendix as part of her “L-Blog” page on Chicago Now, the Tribune’s blog site.

At this point, Cubdom doesn’t really care who owns the ballclub. If Laura Ricketts can produce a championship, hundreds of thousands of fans surely will show up for the next Gay and Lesbian Pride parade.

Wait what?  This quote is not being taken out of context, trust me.  He was literally talking about whether the Cubs would spend money on good free agents now and went right into this crazy “twist”.  So is the point that Cubs fans will keep coming to Wrigley because the daughter of the owner is a lesbian?  And when is Laura Ricketts going to start producing championships?  Does she have a controlling interest in the team?  Will she be running day to day operations?

h/t: Wrigleyville23

ESPN Customer Care to me

Dear Todd,

Thank you for contacting us.

Unfortunately, there is not a way to change the time zone settings. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

For live assistance with this or any other issue, please call Customer Care at 1-888-549-3776 (ESPN) between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. EST.

Regards,

Eric
ESPN.com Customer Care

————— Original Message —————

How do you change the time zone setting in an ESPN fantasy league? I don’t live in the Eastern time zone, and I’m tired of converting.

ref:00D480H6.50048SEzv:ref

God I hate those pompous, arrogant, self-important ESPN f#%&ers.

h/t: Viva El Birdos

The Chicago Cubs are less than four games out of first place in the National League Central, but they just lost five in a row and only three of their last 10 while the first-place St. Louis Cardinals seem to be going in the other direction, winning seven of their last 10.

The word is that Cubs executives are not amused. And they aren’t afraid to express their feelings to manager Lou Piniella. His Cubbies had recently won 16 of 22 to get into a first-place tie that now is looking pretty distant again.

The rumor going around is that the team may be losing patience with Piniella, according to the Chicago Tribune. After all, he hasn’t been able to get his North Siders to win it all in the three seasons he’s been managing and this off-season won’t likely bring the team much on the free-agent front to bolster the current roster.

It could be time to cut Lou loose.

That’s all well and good to speculate about whether Lou should take the blame for the Cubbies recent demise, but this story seems to be reporting it as a fact that “Cubs executives are not amused” with Piniella’s performance.  Unfortunately, that statement is completely unsubstantiated.  If you click through on the link about the team losing patience with him, it is a Tribune article explaining how Brenly was critical of the teams preparedness and how the Cubs have been playing poorly, but no word about anyone connected with the front office blaming it on Lou.

Should Lou be worried? Sure, the Cubs are playing poorly and he may well be on the hot seat for it.  Is the Tribune article or any other reliable source claiming the team has explicitly (or even implicitly) blamed Lou? No.  The mainstream media strikes again, and yet why do I still have to hear about the “unreliability” of blogs and the “trustworthiness” of big media conglomerates?

"I'm a giant, loudmouthed idiot."

Well that didn’t take long.  After railing against print media and how its dying, Mariotti left the Sun-Times to take his lucrative gig at AOL Fanhouse and focus more on his awful, awful appearances on ESPN’s Around the Horn.  Apparently he thinks that he can save print media from extinction, however, since he is now returning to it in the form of a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune:

I’ve learned that effective September 1, Mariotti will join the Tribune as a weekly columnist – this the same man who spent nearly two decades mocking the same venerable daily which now extends him a byline…Mariotti’s contractual non-compete clause with the Sun-Times officially expires at the end of August, one year after he quit his position. So you can expect his ink-jetted invective to begin emanating from the Tribune in September.

This guy clearly has no shame.  On the bright side, we can be sure he will provide plenty of fodder for Chicago sports bloggers and fans alike to rip on.  I’m curious how (or if) he will try to explain that writing for the Trib is somehow not inconsistent with his earlier bullshit about print media dying (side note: it is dying, but that’s not the point).  I hope he gets in another feud with Ozzie, that would be fun.

***UPDATE: Apparently the Tribune is denying these rumors, but I’ve got a gut feeling that Jay will be writing for the Trib in some form or another very soon.  We’ll see how this plays out.

I also believe I’m past the days of picking apart everything the WWL does and blasting them for it. Instead of being pissed that the Red Sox and Yankees led off the show even though they may have played the Orioles and Rangers, I’ll need a full 15 to 20 minutes of Sawks-Yanks to start the show in order to fume. Now with the emergence and swarm of the blog world, this has turned into more of a blogs vs. msm issue.

For all the slamming of blogs done by the mainstream media, they were quick to use us in regard to some stories this week. Not “us” as in NQTC–we’re trying to keep the Andrews thing on the DL until Stormin’ Norman can destroy evidence–but blogs in general. Where was the Erin Andrews story in the mainstream media early this week? Even if you picked up one of those archaic newspapers you wouldn’t have seen it mentioned.

Was it really news though? I honestly wasn’t sure, because as much as the sports blog types and their readers are infatuated with Andrews, she’s probably not that big of a deal. So msm got a pass for staying mum on the story. Then it hit CNN, it hit Fox News; I even saw a story in the Tribune. The story is almost a week old! Some of these “reputable” media outlets even played the video or showed stills from it. With the Andrews story, it is clear to see what new function blogs are performing: testing.

All these news outlets allowed the story to make its way around the Internet for a few days and sat back to gauge reaction. Not only that, but they let the shock factor wear off. By the time these stories hit, just about every male sports fan had either seen the video or picked up a nasty computer virus, allowing the networks to show the video while falling just short of being completely appalling, which I guess is what they strive for.

ESPN gets a pass on the sideline princess saga, because…you know…awkward! However, shame on them for the Ben Roethlisberger incident. Their official comment was something about how they don’t report on civil cases? Really? Deadspin pointed out that most civil cases they have reported on are at least tied to criminal matters, but this sounds more like an excuse on the level you use to get out of going to someones wedding. In fact, one civil case involving Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia comes to mind as an example to the contrary.

The WWL’s Blog Buzz has also been suspiciously absent from the program.  I guess they only use it when they like what blogs are talking about. 

So do what you like, mainstream media, but we’re not going anywhere and now that you’ve figured that out you’re changing the way you do things.  We’re in your brain-case!

When the mom yells “In your face!” I don’t think she was playing around. She seems really pissed. Hilarious.

h/t: Awful Announcing
And thanks to StevieY19 for the tip.

I’ll give you a hint, take a look at the building on the left.  It’s the Sun-Times building, right?  Well one minor problem, that building came down about 5 years ago and was replaced by Trump’s wonderful new masterpiece.  Can ESPN really not afford to get a live shot of the City?  And if not, wouldn’t it be better not to LIE and make us think that’s a live shot?  ESPN is so awesome.

h/t: Deadspin

h/t: Luol’s Dong

The new site seems to be just like their main site (ESPN East Coast) with all Chicago stories.  I haven’t been doing this blogging thing for very long, but from what I’ve seen it’s natural for bloggers to react with some fear anytime mainstream media do something that seems to tread on our territory.  Especially with a company with the power of ESPN, the idea that it can provide the same thing we do for readers with the advantage of all their financial backing and unparalleled access is scary.

I can’t say for sure what ESPN Chicago will be all about, but from spending just a short time on it today, I get the feeling it provides the same thing as ESPN.com does.  It’s your straight up sports news with some commentary from people that not everyone cares to hear from.  All due respect to the writers over there, but if something is going on with Lou and Ozzie, I’m going to Bleacher Nation and South Side Sox before I even think about heading to ESPN Chicago.

Blogs provide something deeper than the general interest that ESPN is based on.  When they try to get in depth or personal on a story all you get is another manufactured story from their hype machine.  When I say deeper, I don’t mean in an intellectual sense (blogs still have the market on poop jokes and pictures of drunken athletes), but in a personal and passionate sense.

ESPN Chicago will likely be nothing more than a great resource for some Chicago sports news.  It will be a good place to stop by once in a while to skim the headlines and look for an interesting story we can go check on elsewhere.  But when Orton and Cutler square off in a game of flip-cup, we still know where to go.  So I guess I missed an opportunity to hate on something ESPN has done, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, and will hopefully produce more good than bad.