Showing posts with label BigTenNetwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BigTenNetwork. Show all posts

Sunday, September 1, 2013

#1-ranked Indiana Hoosiers, defending NCAA Mens Soccer Champs, host #9 UCLA Bruins on the BigTenNetwork today at 2 p.m.; @IUMensSoccer, #Hoosiers, #IUMS, @HoosierArmy,@JBushue17, @BTN_Indiana, #FillTheBill


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I never get tired of seeing this -I agree!
Or this...





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My last three blog posts on the Soccer Hoosier squad were these posts:


December 10, 2012 
The #8thStar fell in Alabama! Hoosiers’ Quest For Eight is Mission Accomplished! Hoosier goalie Luis Soffner pitches third shut-out in a row in leading Hoosiers to 1-0 win over Georgetown to earn their 8th NCAA soccer title; Jordan Hulls shows Hoosier Pride!; #Q48, #8thSTAR, @JordanHulls1

December 9, 2012 
Quest for 8: IU's Soccer Hoosiers battle Georgetown today at 2 p.m. Eastern for 8th NCAA Mens Soccer title; @IUMensSoccer, ‏@HoosierArmy, @KirkwoodBar in Chicago

December 7, 2012
IU's Soccer Hoosiers face Creighton in NCAA College Cup 2nd Semifinal at 7:30 p.m. tonight on ESPNU for record 18th College Cup appearance; Georgetown plays Maryland in opener at 5 p.m.

Official IU Soccer team web page:
http://www.iuhoosiers.com/sports/m-soccer/ind-m-soccer-body.html

Big Ten Network @BigTenNetwork  https://twitter.com/BigTenNetwork
@BTN_Indiana  https://twitter.com/BTN_Indiana
Indiana Athletics @OurIndiana  https://twitter.com/OurIndiana
http://www.idsnews.com/blogs/hoosierhype/


Thursday, April 19, 2012

2012 ACC Lacrosse Tourney TV schedule for Men & Women, other NCAA Lacrosse matches on TV, Friday thru Sunday, April 20-22, 2012



The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode One. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/fXoo-3OYQ1o

2012 ACC Lacrosse Tourney TV schedule for Men & Women, other NCAA Lacrosse matches on TV, Friday thru Sunday, April 20-22, 2012
The 2012 ACC Womens Lacrosse tourney is in Cary, N.C. this weekend, hosted by Duke, and games will be available online at ESPN3 and on certain RSN affiliates.


Check your area to see if you will get this on TV or have to go online. Here in South Florida, I will watch via Sun Sports, DirecTV Channel 653 to see thr two games on Friday and Saturday:
http://www.theacc.com/championships/12-womens-lacrosse-championship.html



Friday, April 20, 2012 - Quarterfinals


Noon ET – Boston College vs Virginia
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 10:30pm ET


2pm ET – Virginia Tech vs. Maryland
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic


Saturday, April 21, 2012 - Semifinals


1pm – UNC vs BC/UVA winner 
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 3pm ET


3pm – Duke vs UMD/VT winner 
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 7pm ET


Monday, April 23, 2012 -Championship Game
ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  amd at ESPN3.com
7 p.m. Winners of the two Semifinals on Saturday


------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012/04/19/acc-tournament-provides-big-stage-tough-competition-ahead-ncaas



Friday, April 20th, 2012  

ACC Mens Tourney in Charlottesville/UVA on ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  
5 p.m. Duke vs. Maryland 
Last weekend Duke beat UVA at UVA, and Maryland knocked-off Johns Hopkins at Baltimore. 

7:30 p.m. North Carolina vs. Virgina

7 p.m. CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 
Colgate at Bucknell


Saturday, April 21st, 2012

BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610
11 a.m. Air Force at Ohio State 

CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 
Noon Johns Hopkins at Navy

CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 
2:30 p.m. Women - #7 Notre Dame at #15 Georgetown
Georgetown is only team to defeat North Carolina this year.
Sheehan Stanwick Burch and Todd Harris will be doing color commentary and play-by-play here and you know how I love Sheehan. She's a keeper!

ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 
3 p.m. Georgetown at Syracuse

BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610
5 p.m. Women - #4 Florida at #1 Northwestern (Tape Delay)
Combining two of my favorite names, Shannon Smith of Northwestern, odds-on favorite to repeat as Tewaarton Award winner, lead the Wildcats against the young and speedy Gators, still reveling in their overtime win at Johns Hopkins last week.

usalacrosse8 video: WD1: Florida Sneaks Past Johns Hopkins in Sudden Death 13-12.  http://youtu.be/HV-G6gOKpIY

ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 
5:30 p.m. Notre Dame at Villanova


Sunday, April 22, 2012

ACC Mens Championship at Klöckner Stadium in Charlottesville/UVA
ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  
3 p.m. Winners of Friday's Semifinals

Head's-up for Women's lacrosse fans in the Baltimore/DC area
Ohio State's Women's Lacrosse team will be playing in Baltimore on Saturday April 28th against Johns Hopkins at 1 p.m. 
Glenelg High School grads Alayna Markwordt and Katie Chase are on the Buckeyes LAX team, as are Cara Facchina and her younger sister, Mary Kate, from Mount de Sales Academy. Katie and Cara also both played for Hero's.

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Friday, April 13, 2012

Must-see TV tonight: Women's Lacrosse - #1 Northwestern hosts #3 North Carolina on The BigTenNetwork at 8 pm Eastern




NCAA Womens Sports video: Northwestern University presents Title IX Trailblazer Kelly Amonte Hiller. April 9, 2012.
http://youtu.be/sRJgOGEPzkQ


Must-see TV tonight: Women's Lacrosse - #1 Northwestern hosts #3 North Carolina in a rematch of last year's NCAA title game won narrowly by the Wildcats 11-10, and The BigTenNetwork is televising it LIVE at 8 p.m. Eastern. DirecTV Channel 610


I watched the entire Johns Hopkins' Men win at #1 UVA a few weeks back to ruin the defending champion Cavalier's home winning streak in Charlottesville and that was a terrific match.
Everything you want in a match of elite teams, including the Blue Jays' never-die spirit to send it into overtime.


Hope tonight's match in Evanston, where I lived for two years, is similar!


Also worth checking out this weekend:
Saturday -Maryland Men at Johns Hopkins at 6 p.m. Eastern on ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208, and on Sunday on BTN at Noon Eastern, #10 Ohio State's Women host #13 Penn State.
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http://www.nusports.com/sports/w-lacros/nw-w-lacros-body.html


http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/lacrosse/ 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Yeardley Love in our thoughts: UVA & Charlottesville, extended UVA family & U.S. Lacrosse community are bracing themselves for the graphic details/photos that'll emerge in George Huguely V's murder trial starting Monday


WMAR-TV/Baltimore video: Reporter Sherrie Johnson reports on the case and its lasting effect on the UVA campus. February 3, 2012.  

Yeardley Love in our thoughts: UVA & Charlottesville, the extended UVA family & the U.S. lacrosse community are bracing themselves for the graphic details and 15 photos that both sides agree will come quickly in George Huguely V's first-degree murder trial that starts Monday, with jury selection and voir dire, in what is expected to be a two-week trial. 

Huguely's defense team have already made clear that they are uneasy with some of Judge Edward Hogshire's announced plans for group voir dire to get down to the final members of the jury, whose actual size with alternates is expected to be twelve plus three.

As most of you who come to this blog regularly know -but so those of you who don't will know- there are more than just a few things that color my own thoughts on both the sport and this story in particular, so here's what you need to know.

I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years and knew lots of people who were very proud UVA alums, including some past housemates.
The Charlottesvile area is one of my favorite places in all of the country, a place that's (almost) as nice as the beautiful, friendly and diverse sensibility and high Quality of Life that I came to know and appreciate in Bloomington while I was at Indiana University, IU

While I lived up in Arlington County, less than two-and-a-half hours northeast of Charlottesville, especially those last few years there, I used to frequently go down there with friends on weekend drives to see what was doing, often swinging by one of the many historical places there, as well as some of the more popular restaurants and haunts near campus.
(I never made it down for the well-known Virginia Film Festival, though I always wanted to.)

Especially on Fall weekends when the Hurricanes or Dolphins weren't going to be playing in a game that would be televised in the D.C. area, or playing an important game that, well, I just had to catch at a sports bar with a reliable satellite dish and the NFL Ticket, those drives down Route 29 and Skyline Drive were really enjoyable and fun, not to mention, relaxing.
For me, the Blue Ridge Mountains were always a real tonic for Washington's frantic and often exasperating hustle.

I'm a big lacrosse fan and watch or record nearly ever D1 Mens or Womens match that's televised on either ESPNU, TheBigTenNetwork or CBS College Sports, which means I've seen almost every televised match that Kelly Amonte-Hiller's Northwestern's Women's team have played on The BigTenNetwork the past three years when they won the NCAA title twice.
I also have a friend who used to play lacrosse for Duke and who told me what things were like in those years before the media witch-hunt of a few years ago, that badly tarnished the reputations of people who hadn't done anything, but who were convicted by the news media, anyway.

Not surprisingly, given all that, I've necessarily watched a ton of UVA matches on TV both before and since I returned to South Florida from Washington eight years ago, both the Mens and Womens' teams.
That includes not only the ACC tourney matches, but all the NCAA tourney games that were aired, as well as some streamed live at NCAA.org

I say that because over time, I've obviously become familiar with the names of both the standout players as well as the 'spark plugs' on those teams that kept them energized and operating at a high level, and I've rooted for them for years.
I was happy for coach Dom Starsia that his UVA squad finally won the NCAA title again last year, given everything that has happened.

I've also written several posts about college lacrosse here on this blog, including some about Yeardley Love's tragic murder just days after UVA played Northwestern up in Evanston -where I also used to live- a match that I watched on The BigTenNetwork, but which they chose not to repeat as originally scheduled in the days  after she was murdered.

If lacrosse had existed as a varsity high school sport in Dade County when I was a student at North Miami Beach Senior High in the mid-to-late '70's, I'd have definitely played, but it wasn't, and IU didn't field a varsity team, either.

Once I was living in the Washington area, I saw some of the NCAA title matches in College Park, where the University of Maryland is located, a school I'd applied to like two other NMB students who later went to IU the same year I did.


I also have a very smart, athletic and talented niece from suburban Maryland, who went to a high school that's one of the top Lacrosse schools in the country, having recently won the Boys and Girls state championships.
And now she's a sophomore at UVA, and she just loves it there.
As much as I and my sister -her mother- loved IU and Bloomington in the 1980's, which is really saying something.


So those are some of my biases and also some of the reasons that I have been following this story very closely. I knew the sport and had heard of the principals before the tragedy.

WTVR-TV 6/Richmond video: Tracy Sears explains the back-story   

Previous Channel 6 stories and information on the tragedy that stunned two communities

As many of you may well recall from what I've written here previously about this tragic and heart-breaking story, or what you might've gleaned from the national news coverage of this 21-month old story, the shock was particularly devastating in the Baltimore area, which is why I lead this post with a local TV segment from there.

Devastating not only because the greater Baltimore area is home to the largest concentration of high school and college lacrosse players and fans anywhere in the country, the home of the U.S. Lacrosse, home of the annual NCAA D1 college tourney at M&T Stadium -home of the Ravens- that draws huge and enthusiastic crowds, and even larger ones when it hosts the NCAA D1 Final Four, but more importantly, because it's where most of the people who loved and adored Yeardley Love lived.

Love grew-up in suburban Cockeysville, north of town, and attended Notre Dame Prep -aka NDP- in nearby Towson, a city that has recently hosted the NCAA DI Womens Final Four a number of times at Johnny Unitas Stadium.

NDP has been raising funds for their new artificial turf field that will be named Yeardley Love Memorial Field in her honor, and the good news is that many individuals in the greater Baltimore business community and the larger lacrosse community have stepped-up big time to make that a reality.

It's their lasting tribute to someone who not only passionately loved the sport, but who loved being a member of the UVA lacrosse team, a team she'd ALWAYS wanted to play for.

Here's two more stories from Baltimore on a fundraising effort of a different sort honoring the NDP alumna:

The Baltimore Sun
Murder trial of UVA lacrosse player set to begin
George Huguely V accused of beating former girlfriend Yeardley Love to death
Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun, 
4:57 p.m. EST, February 5, 2012
Nearly two years after Cockeysville native Yeardley Love was found dead, bruised and lying in a pool of blood in an off-campus apartment near the University of Virginia, her former boyfriend and fellow lacrosse player is scheduled to stand trial for her murder.
Read the rest of the post at:

The Washington Post
George Huguely’s trial in Yeardley Love’s death starts Monday with jury selection
By Mary Pat Flaherty and Jenna Johnson
Published: February 5

Culpeper Star Exponent
Huguely jury selection process further discussed
By Samantha Koon - Media General News Service
Published: January 30, 2012


WSET-TV, ABC-13 Lynchburg/Danville/Roanoke VA video: Jury Selection Begins Monday for Huguely Case
Reporter: Sally Delta, Posted: Feb 05, 2012 6:10 PM EST

WBAL-TV/Baltimore video: UVA Prepares Campus Community For Huguely Trial
Reporter Lowell Melser details what to expect this week at the biggest trial in Charlottesville  history.  http://youtu.be/TMG2ScUy-1s

The Daily Progress
With George Huguely, Charlottesville awaits its biggest trial in years
By: SAMANTHA KOON | The Daily Progress 
Published: February 04, 2012
...As a result, students must now report any changes in their criminal history each fall. Moreover, students must inform the university of any new arrests or convictions within 72 hours, or else face possible honor charges. Student-athletes must report arrests or convictions within 48 hours, Groves said...

The Washington Post
As ex-lacrosse player’s trial begins, spotlight on U.Va., changes made since student’s slaying
By Associated Press, Published: February 4
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In the nearly two years since a University of Virginia lacrosse player was charged with killing his ex-girlfriend, it’s become easier for possible abuse victims to get a restraining order and students must tell the school if they’ve ever been arrested
Read the rest of the article at:

The Washington Post
George Huguely’s murder trial begins; 2010 killing rocked U-Va. community
Photo gallery:

The Cavaliar Daily
The trial begins
Huguely trial commences today with jury selection; community reflects
BY MIKE LANG, FOCUS EDITOR on February 6, 2012


One Love Foundation: http://www.joinonelove.org/

U.S. Lacrosse:    www.uslacrosse.org

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

USA Today's Michael McCarthy wonders aloud what I've been wondering, too: "Is Big Ten Network avoiding Penn State sex scandal?"; Matt Millen's p.o.v.


BigTenNetwork video: Former IU head football coach and current BTN analyst Gerry DiNardo and Dave Revsine talk about the latest news involving the evolving Jerry Sandusky sex scandal and cover-up at Penn State and the future of head coach Joe Paterno. Sports writer Pete Thamel of the New York Times appears on the program to confirm his report that Paterno's reign in Happy Valley is nigh, and that Joe Pa will NOT be back next year.




ESPN video: Matt Millen talks candidly to SportsCenter host Chris McKendry about Jerry Sandusky, a man he has known since 1976. November 8, 2011.
http://youtu.be/3bc4raMo4QU

"Penn State has to stop the train or face the train and that's what it is..."
-Matt Millen

USA Today
Game On blog
Is Big Ten Network avoiding Penn State sex scandal?
By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY
November 8, 2011

The child sex abuse allegations rocking Penn State have dominated TV, with ESPN aggressively covering whether coach Joe Paterno will survive and national network morning shows weighing in on what's become a national and international story.

The TV network that seems to be tiptoeing around the scandal, so far, is the one billing itself as the "ultimate destination" for Big Ten Conference fans and alumni. Namely, the Big Ten Network (BTN).
Read the rest of the article at:
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As if to buttress the reluctantly admitted fact mentioned in the article that the BTN is NOT a "24-7 news operation," which is to say that they are NOT really quite the resource that many Big Ten alums like myself wish they were, on Wednesday, they do not currently have a single LIVE program scheduled.

Everything is videotape, so nobody would think to turn there to see anything that is actually news Tuesday thru Thursdays.

According to their website, they did have a Special Report Tuesday night, one I missed, again, largely because they have so convinced everyone that they are not a full-service sports channel in the way we've come to accept it -and neither is CBS Sports Network for that matter- who would've thought to turn there?
Certainly not me.

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Sun-Sentinel & Miami Herald snooze for hours as websites have ZERO on earthquake & tsunami in Japan as other sites move quickly; NHK's LIVE coverage


Screen-shot of CNN coverage of Japanese earthquake and tsunami at 2:25 a.m. Eastern


Early this morning I was watching the 12:30 a.m. repeat airing on
The BigTenNetwork of IU's loss to Penn State in the Big Ten basketball tourney in Indy at Conseco Fieldhouse, their ninth loss in a row.




Screen-shot of BigTenNetwork at Big Ten basketball tourney
During a second-half commercial break, l flipped over to Fox News Channel and it was then that I first saw the story that is developing as South Florida's news media snoozes -THE largest earthquake in the recorded history of Japan, and the seventh largest ever recorded in the world.
A tsunami warning is now in place for the entire Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada, with six-foot waves expected to hit Hawaii around 9 a.m. Eastern and smaller waves hitting California, Oregon and Washington state at 11 a.m. Eastern
.

Evacuation orders for all beach hotels in Hawaii are already in place, with nobody permitted to remain after 8 a.m.
Eastern.



Screen-shot of Fox News Channel
at 2:15 a.m. Eastern


The South Florida Sun-Sentinel finally posted something about the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northeast Japan at about 3:45 a.m., two hours AFTER other major newspapers started posting information to their websites, usually screen-shots from NHK-TV in Japan.


Watch
NHK-TV's LIVE streaming coverage in English at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42025198#42025198


After flipping around to check certain key news websites to see who was asleep and who was awake on this amazing story, the
Miami Herald was in its customary state -sound asleep.
At 4 a.m. Eastern there was still NADA on the Herald's website.




Screen-shot of Miami Herald
at 2:30 a.m. Eastern

http://www.miamiherald.com/



Screen-shot of The Drudge Report at 2:30 a.m. Eastern

http://www.drudgereport.com/




Screen-shot of The New York Times at 2:18 a.m. Eastern

http://www.nytimes.com/


Screen-shot of The Los Angeles Times at 2:30 a.m. Eastern
http://www.latimes.com/



Screen-shot of
Svenska Dagbladet at 2:45 a.m.

http://www.svd.se/

MSNBC even got into the picture for a change on this story, unlike their invisible news coverage early-on last year during the Polish Prime Minister's airplane crash in Russia and the Moscow subway bombing, where they stuck to their curious 'crime-block' programming, featuring repeats of their 'Predator' series or profiles of U.S. prisons, which is still a weird programming choice no matter how many years they run that overnight and on weekends, instead of actual news programming.

They were, however, 'punked' at 4:04 a.m. by someone claiming to be at
Narita Airport, outside Tokyo, who ended his personal account with the new maxim of 2011: "Winning!"

That's the lasting power of Charlie Sheen.



Screen-shot of MSNBC's coverage

The unseen male MSNBC anchor seemed a bit stunned but didn't let on that anything unusual had just happened.


Sometime around 4:30 a.m., the Miami Herald finally awoke and posted something.
Better late than never I suppose, huh?


Watch NHK's LIVE streaming coverage in English at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42025198#42025198
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1:15 p.m. Friday Update:

If you're looking for some LIVE coverage from Hawaii, try Hawaii News Now at

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_1

Remember, Hawaii is five hours behind Eastern, the same amount we are behind

GMT, to give you some perspective.
Hawaii gets roughly 4,000 Japanese visitors a day and the latest news that Narita Airport is going to remain closed due to physical damage from the disaster is NOT good news. According to what I heard on Hawaii News Now around Noon Eastern-time, three airports in Japan hope to resume flights soon to Hawaii, including Nagoya.

Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper website;
http://www.staradvertiser.com/

Friday, March 4, 2011

No. 2 UVA at No. 1 Syracuse Mens Lacrosse tonight on ESPNU at 6 p.m.; plus, will Lacey Myers show-up?; UVA to retire Yeardley Love's number Sunday


http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6173759


Well, it's not like I wasn't already looking forward to this exciting match tonight between UVA and Syracuse on ESPNU, ever since I got a good look two weekends ago during their Lacrosse Preview show and saw the schedule of televised matches this Spring.
http://espn.go.com/lacrosse/

That schedule will, apparently, include two Womens matches.
Last year I saw a lot of Northwestern's matches, but when
Maryland came back to beat Northwestern in the title game at Towson, that was easily one of the most exciting things I saw all year.


Frankly, to me, it was MUCH more exciting than the Auburn-Oregon BCS Title Game in Phoenix this past January.

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Baltimore Sun
Syracuse, UVa. gear up for 'game of the year'
By Edward Lee, The Baltimore Sun

5:44 p.m. EST, March 3, 2011


It doesn't have the levels of hysteria generated when the Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers clash or when the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees meet, but the series between Syracuse and Virginia has been gaining steam in the sport of lacrosse.


That's why Friday night's contest at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., is already being called the game of the 2011 season, and it's only early March.


Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/lacrosse/bs-sp-lax-feature-0304-20110303,0,4756447.story

But, the Internet being what it is, more than a few people who say they are fans of Syracuse student Lacey Myers, the subject of my July 21st, 2010 post, one of my most popular posts here ever -at one point earlier this week, 13 consecutive people from around the world came by the blog to look at that story on her and her well-publicized media forays on MTV and Channel 4 in England, which I had the links to- sent me emails
asking a question I can't possibly answer.


Say hello to Lacey Myers, one of "The World's Richest Teenagers" as seen on Channel 4 (U.K.) and MTV's Lacey Land. C'est la vie.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/say-hello-to-lacey-myers-one-of-worlds.html

I honestly have no idea one way or the other whether or not she will be at the Carrier Dome Friday night, rooting on her team.

But I will definitely know if she gets shown on TV, since even if I wasn't going to be watching the match anyway, some of you have pledged to let me know.
Again, as I've already written some of you, I appreciate it, but I'll be able to see for myself, so please save yourself an email and just watch the action on the field.


University of Virgina Mens Lacrosse homepage:
http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17800&SPID=10601&SPSID=88761

Syracuse Mens Lacrosse homepage:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/index.aspx?path=mlacrosse

FYI: The Maryland at Duke Mens match on Saturday at 1 pm will be streaming LIVE on ESPN3. I caught some of the Georgetown at Maryland match over the weekend.
http://espn.go.com/espn3/index/_/sport/lacrosse




Back in mid-February, on my birthday actually, I heard the news from some friends in the Mid-Atlantic that UVA was planning to retire Yeardley Love's number before their home game against Penn State.


Well, that emotional day for her family and friends is fast approaching.

Friday night, #5 UVA hosts defending NCAA champion and #1 Maryland, and Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at
Klockner Stadium, the ceremony takes place, so you can pretty well expect to see some media coverage of that event on Sunday and Monday, esp. on ESPN, which for a change, actually covered that tragedy and the weeks of following the team with a certain amount of class, instead of their usual pomposity.
Yeardley Love was #1.




As some of you may recall me having mentioned previously, I saw UVA's game in Evanston at Northwestern on The BigTenNetwork the same weekend that the Northwestern home
match against the first-year Florida Gators was also supposed to be telecast, but instead, the Gators match wound-up being an online P-P-V.

That was the very same weekend before Yeardley Love was murdered once she and the rest of her teammates got back to Charlottesville.

For whatever reason, once the news about that tragedy became public, The BigTenNetwork pulled the encore showing they has scheduled for that UVA-Northwestern match, and instead, showed some meaningless softball game.


The
CBS-owned network collectively put their head in the sand rather than utilize their "experts" and resources to actually bring some perspective to fans on the tragedy.
I really expected much better from them.

------

The Baltimore Sun's Lacrosse blog:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/lacrosse/blog/


http://www.umterps.com/sports/w-lacros/md-w-lacros-body.html

http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPID=10605&DB_OEM_ID=17800


http://www.gatorzone.com/lacrosse/

http://nusports.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/nw-w-lacros-body.html

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Finally something to smile about for Hoosier fans in a season of wasted opportunities

Been a little under the weather this weekend so my plan to drop a cache of posts here to get things stirring has taken a back seat to my health.
I did want to post this one, though, before IU's upcoming game in a few minutes against a reeling Michigan State team at East Lansing that I'll be watching on The BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610.



IU 52, U of I 49 - First win against ranked team while Tom Crean's been head basketball coach at IU.
Video highlights at:

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/generic/sports/video?autostart=true&bcpid=60234638001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEBQhU8~,kLn_EtefUBn-jd4QuQdKKKEE0M4y3HUj&bctid=766801782001

It's not by mistake that I've chosen not to write much about this disappointing college basketball season, the third in the Tom Crean regime in Bloomington. (Or even said anything about Kevin Wilson being hired as the new football coach, a move I welcomed.)

There's a lot of misgivings and discomfort among some Hoosier fans I know and communicate with on a regular basis, not only over players that have failed to develop as expected (or in some cases, even regressed) but about wasted opportunities on nationally-televised games, cementing the idea among key high school players -and some fair-weather fans- that IU can't show more toughness and grit in close games, and emerge victorious.

While this victory over the Fighting Illini was certainly nice, especially at a packed Assembly Hall where devout fans have been eyewitness to more losing than at any time since I've been a Hoosier -and more since these students have been alive- I still find that a lot of very frustrated IU fans living far from the Midwest, are having a hard time accepting "moral victories."

You can count me among them, and you can see that in the agitated and exasperated emails from Hoosier faithful that are sent to the Hoosiers homepage of the Indy Star
http://www.indystar.com/section/SPORTS0601?odyssey=nav|s|hoosiers&nav=2

That's especially the case with knowledgeable fans whose base of understanding for Hoosier basketball, both history and personality context, extends decades, many of whom frequently respond to Indy Star reporter Terry Hutchens' Hoosiers Insider blog at
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/


Hoosiers Insider
remains a great resource for Hoosier fans living far from the rolling hills of Bloomington, and remains one of the few places that I can consistently go and find out something, from either Terry or a reader, that I didn't already know or had considered about the team and its history.

People with an institutional memory about the team that recall things that happened before I got to Bloomington in the fall of 1979 the way I STILL remember things about the 1972 Dolphins Perfect Season -whether scores of the games, the team roster, mini-controversies, et al- which was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder.


When
IU plays Kentucky in mid-December, that's almost always been a nationally-televised Saturday afternoon game that got lots of eyeballs coast-to-coast. Now, it's almost forgotten and on ESPN2 or wherever it was, and not even brought up until late into ESPN's SportsCenter or into their radio programming -an after-thought.

The annual Michigan at IU ballgame which had so many memorable and clutch finishes from 1980-2000 while a CBS nationally-televised staple, has also become a victim of the recent mediocrity.


When I watched it recently on
TheBigTenNetwork, it was hard not to think of all those games with Coach Knight getting the better of whomever was patrolling the sidelines for the Wolverines, and the confidence IU fans had with Damon Bailey or Steve Alford bringing the ball up-court with less than thirty seconds to play against those excellent Wolverine teams.

You knew that the fundamentals would be there and that guys would come thru in the clutch, and if they lost, it would NOT be for lack of a proper understanding of what they needed to do and where they needed to be on the court for that last shot.


Now, I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen from play to play, and whether a player will repeat the same mistake twice before getting pulled from the game.


Rebuilding is definitely a bitch.


The
IU homepage at The BigTenNetwork website, full of IU-related stories & videos: http://www.bigtennetwork.com/subindex/schools/indiana