NCAA Lacrosse Final Four weekend -One of my favorite sports weekends of the year - 2013 NCAA Men's & Women's Lacrosse Final Four from Philadelphia

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9293097

Womens Semifinals being streamed LIVE Friday night via 
http://espn.go.com/watchespn/player?id=886438

2013 NCAA Lacrosse Championship - Semifinal #1: 

Cornell Big Red vs #7 Duke Blue Devils from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Saturday  May 25  2:30 p.m., ESPN2, DirecTV Channel 209 

2013 NCAA Lacrosse Championship - Semifinal #2: 
#4 Denver Pioneers vs #1 Syracuse Orange from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Saturday  May 25  5:00 p.m., ESPN2, DirecTV Channel 209

Repeat showings:

Semifinal #1: Cornell Big Red vs Duke Blue Devils 

Sunday  May 26  6:00 a.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

Semifinal #2: Denver Pioneers vs Syracuse Orange 

Sunday  May 26  8:00 a.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

http://espn.go.com/espnw/college-sports/9310210/2013-women-lacrosse-final-four-north-carolina-uses-toughness-advance-face-maryland

2013 NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship from Villanova Stadium in Villanova, PA.

Sunday  May 26  8:00 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

2013 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Monday  May 27  1:00 p.m. ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206 

SkyCam Presentation at 1:00 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship Post Game 

Monday  May 27  3:30 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

Recap of the championship game: highlights, analysis, interviews with players and coaches

Repeat showings:

2013 NCAA Women's College Lacrosse - Championship from Villanova Stadium in Villanova, PA.

Monday  May 27  7:00 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

2013 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship 

Monday  May 27  9:00 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

Tuesday  May 28  1:00 a.m.ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

Tuesday  May 28  7:00 a.m. ESPNU DirecTV Channel 208 

Taped broadcasts: 

2013 NCAA Women's College Lacrosse Semifinals: 
Semifinal #1

#3 North Carolina Tar Heels vs #2 Northwestern Wildcats

Tuesday  May 28  1:00 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

Semifinal #2: 

#4 Syracuse Orange vs #1 Maryland Terrapins

Tuesday  May 28  2:30 p.m. ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

Top-ranked North Carolina faces #2 Princeton Sunday in its quest for their 7th NCAA Field Hockey title, but you can't watch it on TV. Despite all the lip service given by U.S. cable sports channels -and advertisers- to taking Women's sports more seriously, unless you're in Norfolk, VA at 1 p.m., you'll have to watch via NCAA.com

http://www.goheels.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=1096205

So many cable sports channels offer third and fourth-rate programming opposite LIVE NFL telecasts, but despite it being an Olympic sport, one that the U.S. did very well at in London this summer, and defeating Argentina earlier in the year, apparently there's no time or space for the NCAA Field Hockey title match between Princeton and North Carolina on any of the following network of families that have about 15-20 channels among them on my DirecTV sports tier package: ESPN, Fox Sportsnet, CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network.

ESPN can show you a zillion NCAA Softball tourney games in the summer featuring a handful of teams teams you've already seen -or think you've already seen because that tourney seems to be 24/7 for 3-4 days, with each team seemingly equipped with one lanky left-handed pitcher and one very large right-handed pitcher- but they can't seem to find a space for two hours for the D1 title match of an Olympic sport, something that softball is decidedly not? Yes.
http://www.ncaa.com/sports/fieldhockey/d1

To me, it's not unlike the fact that U.S. gymnastics fans gets such crummy coverage of the NCAA Mens and Womens Gymnastics Championships, as last year Alabama won their second-straight  Women's title, and Illinois won the Men's title -ignored.
For years CBS Sports has not only shown the championships on a delayed basis, but weeks after-the-fact.

Which is why despite all the lip service given by those networks and advertisers to taking women sports more seriously, unless you're going to be in Norfolk, VA on Sunday afternoon, the only way you can see the Tigers-Tar Heels match is at:NCAA.com 

Video of semifinals, UNC over UVA and Princeton over Maryland is here:
http://www.ncaa.com/video?ncaa_mid=vod:fieldhockey#!playlists/sports/fieldhockey/d1



http://www.goprincetontigers.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=1096704
More highlights of Princeton over Maryland.

Watch the title match LIVE here at 1:00 p.m. Eastern: 

http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2012/11/18?SPSID=667882&SPID=12961&DB_LANG=C&SITE=UNC&DB_OEM_ID=3350

New York Times 

The Quad blog

Unfamiliar Foes in the Field Hockey Final

By Clare Lochary

November 17, 2012, 10:00 PM

Princeton Coach Kristen Holmes-Winn told her field hockey players that passion, not pedigree, would be the deciding factor in the Tigers’ N.C.A.A. semifinal game against Maryland, the two-time defending national champion, on Friday, and she proved correct.

Read the rest of the post at: 

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/unfamiliar-foes-in-the-field-hockey-final/

7 Days for the Miami Dolphins to end or add to their reputation for terrible NFL Draft selections. A last chance for sanity and common sense for long-suffering Dol-fans? We want Quinton Coples, DE from North Carolina

DE Quinton Coples on ESPN Sport Science with John Brenkus, April 8, 2012.
http://youtu.be/n6JO299HD4w

7 Days for the Miami Dolphins to end or add to their reputation for terrible NFL Draft selections. A last chance for sanity and common sense for long-suffering Dol-fans? We want Quinton Coples, DE from North Carolina.

Knowing that "only victory would suffice they produced a performance short on ambition, low on energy and looked and acted like a team that knew the game was up." 


And he's NOT describing the Miami Dolphins of the past dozen years!


No, BBC Sports chief football writer Phil McNulty was actually describing the flat tire on the road that has been City -Manchester City- of late.

But admit it, his spare and unwavering description reads like the true story of almost every upsetting Dolphins loss of the 21st Century, doesn't it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2012/04/citys_horse_bolts_as_balotelli.html

(I subscribe to Phil's blog about the Premier League and all thing England National Team, et al.)


Rhetorical question of the week:

Q: Dave, will you be mocking the majority of the 2012 NFL Mock Drafts that have the Dolphins "overdrafting" and drafting Aggies QB Ryan Tannehill? 

A: Wish I could, but sadly, I DO think the Dolphins will likely screw this up, too -if only out of habit!


Bleacher Report
Ryan Tannehill and Overdrafting Quarterbacks: An NFL Epidemic
By Dan Hope, April 14, 2012

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1145779-ryan-tannehill-and-overdrafting-quarterbacks-an-nfl-epidemic


Here's what longtime Dolphin fans know from first-hand experience, year-after-year.

Continuing the pattern that has seemingly existed since Joe Thomas left the Dolphins for the Baltimore Colts in the mid-1970's and drafted Bert Jones, Roger Carr, Lydell Mitchell and a host of very talented and exciting players to watch, thereby depriving Don Shula of a savvy partner in planning the Dolphins' future, this year's NFL Draft -starting at 8 p.m. on Thursday April 26th- will likely feature at least 8-10 players who are drafted AFTER the Dolphins first-round selection at #8 who will have more to do with their respective teams winning in 2012 than whomever the Dolphins select with the pick.

That is, unless they inexplicably wind-up with a chance to get their hands on future All-Pro RB Trent Richardson or the player we want.

To me, that particular scenario is likely unless the Browns beat the Dolphins to the overdraft punch and select Texas A& M QB Ryan Tannehill with their pick at #4, in which case they will also probably try to move up via a trade with a team with their #22 first-round pick for the 5th-7th selection, so they can get whatever WR St. Louis doesn't draft, either Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon or Notre Dame's Michael Floyd, so that Browns QB Colt McCoy will have a game-breaker to thrown to.

The Dolphins have floundered on the field and off for the past decade, and like Los Angeles  Dodger fans and their genuine, deep-seated animosity towards soon-to-be-former owner Frank McCourt, which explains why they are NOT using the parking lots that he still owns and a "record number of Dodger fans took public transportation" on Opening Day, to their dismay, Dolphin fans wake-up each morning with a buffoonish villain of an owner of their own in billionaire Stephen Ross,.


As has been written elsewhere in South Florida a million times the past few years, Ross
STILL seems far too fixated on extraneous matters fans don't care about, even if female Miami-area TV reporters do.
Frankly, most troubling of all, despite his recent PR moves to reach out to Dolphin season ticket holders, Ross seems genuinely unable to learn from his own past mistakes.


Yes, the very same upsetting personality trait that I complain about with great specificity on this blog with respect to how the City of Hallandale Beach, Broward County and the Sunshine State are, seemingly, regularly mis-managed in a world where serious decisions with lasting ramifications need to be made by serious, hard-working people who are focused on both the short-term and long-term.
We don't expect perfection, really, we don't.


But we don't think it's unreasonable to keep the financial and policy screw-ups to a bare minimum, to not actually be the rule rather than the exception, and not keep stepping into the same pot-hole over-and-over, like it was just put there.


Except here, at the city, county and state level, people in charge seem to studiously avoid solutions with a demonstrated track record of working in other multiple cities, counties or states, and instead, lamely insist that there's a unique quality here -too warm, too poor, too Hispanic, too car-loving, too many Homeless, too-something- that rules out using  those solutions here, so instead, elected leaders form task forces where they appoint friends and cronies, many of whom have serious self-evident conflict-of-interests, and we end up re-inventing the wheel.
It's so f-ing frustrating!


Watching Dolphins owner Ross is the same thing, exasperating in the extreme, and unlike many of what is now an army of critics, I actually want Ross to improve as an owner, not just keep screwing-up because it's such a great conversation starter around South Florida that instantly produces shaking heads in people.


Dolphin season ticket sales are at the lowest point they've been in in roughly thirty years, and with what can only be described as an ugly home schedule in an area where something being an "event" is not only well known but common knowledge, even among kids, I believe only the Jets and Patriots home games are likely to sell-out.


Consider this home slate and you'll see why I'm right:

NFL Week 2, Sept. 16: vs. Oakland, 1 p.m.

Week 3, Sept. 23: vs. New York Jets, 1 p.m.

Week 6, Oct. 14: vs. St. Louis, 1 p.m.

Week 9, Nov. 4: at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.

Week 10, Nov. 11: vs. Tennessee, 1 p.m.

Week 12, Nov. 25: vs. Seattle, 1 p.m.

Week 13, Dec. 2: vs. New England, 1 p.m.

Week 15, Dec. 16: vs. Jacksonville, 1 p.m.

Week 16, Dec. 23: vs. Buffalo, 1 p.m.

That means it's probably even-money that six games will NOT be televised in South Florida, this season, which perhaps helps the Hurricanes sell some game tickets to folks who believe Al Golden is selling.


The fact that all Dolphin home games are at 1 p.m., when the South Florida sun will bake you just as soon as look at you, will not help the Dolphins and Ross one bit.


In my opinion, the Dolphins should draft someone with playmaker ability who will play a lot in his first year and could blossom opposite Cameron Wake -UNC DE Quinton Coples, #90, who is 6' 6", 291 pounds, was First Team All-ACC, 24 sacks in 4 years. 

For those of you who question his desire, seems that I recall that Dan Marino's senior year wasn't so great, either, but unlike Marino's final year, the Tar Heels' head coach, Butch Davis, was fired just a few weeks before the season started, a lot of starting players were suspended for multiple games, so, the season was essentially over before it ever started.

DE Quinton Coples NFL Pro Day Highlights
http://youtu.be/QQmysrkRd3o

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thedailydolphin/2012/04/19/si-draft-expert-tony-pauline-defends-quinton-coples-against-his-critics/

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1146309-todd-mcshay-2012-nfl-mock-draft-analysis-for-each-pick/

Palm Beach Post

Brian Billick, Mike Golic agree: Miami Dolphins shouldn’t draft Ryan Tannehill just for the sake of taking a QB

by Ben Volin, April 12, 2012

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thedailydolphin/2012/04/12/brian-billick-mike-golic-agree-miami-dolphins-shouldnt-draft-ryan-tannehill-just-for-the-sake-of-taking-a-qb/

As regular readers of the blog know, I was at the Dolphins HQ in Davie in 2007 when they passed on selecting Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn at pick #9, after he had already been ignored by his hometown Browns with the #3 pick, and instead drafted Ohio State WR Ted Ginn, Jr., now with the 49ers, which caused the huge crowd of fans in the 'bubble' to explode in anger.

Above, the surprised look says it all. Brady Quinn at the 2007 NFL Draft HQ in NYC when Ted Ginn, Jr.'s name was formally announced. This is prior to Quinn dating U.S. Olympic gymnast captain Alicia Sacramone, whose moxie and spirit have long made her a personal favorite of yours truly. Screenshot by Mario J. Bermudez.

I was actually standing less than 15 feet from Dolphin broadcasters Jimmy Cefalo and the late Jim Mandich and their WQAM producers while they were doing their LIVE coverage of the NFL Draft, and when that announcement was made -and listening to them via my Walkman- when the cascade of boos reached a crescendo, it literally drowned-out what I was listening to.

The public's mood did not improve when then-Dolphins first-year head coach Cam Cameron came out and addressed the public on why the organization had chosen to make that decision.

As always, to quote myself in my last sentence of my 2011 pre-NFL Draft post of April 28th, 2011, where I called on the Dolphins to draft Arkansas QB Ryan Mallette, 

That's not a chill, that's a Draft: With Dolphin fans at emotional nadir, will team continue frustrating at NFL Draft? Pick Mallett!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/thats-not-chill-thats-draft-with.html
"The past is prologue."


Just saying, that's NOT good news for long-suffering Dolphin fans.


Ever since the Super Bowl ended, surprisingly from my p.o.v. with a Giants win over the Patriots, I've had a Google Alert for 2012 NFL mock drafts.
As you might imagine, though it started off with a trickle, for weeks it's been a veritable torrent, and I've looked at most of the citations.


Of all of these, though, as far as a Dolphins-related mock draft, the best I've seen thus far is the one done by the Palm Beach Post, and mostly Ben Volin and Brian Biggane, and not just because they agree with me on drafting Quinton Coples.


http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/09000d5d8280330b/On-the-Beat-Dolphins-No-8


http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thedailydolphin/2012/04/10/the-palm-beach-posts-2012-nfl-mock-draft/


Tannehill definitely makes more sense for Kansas City at #11, backing-up Matt Cassell and Brady Quinn.

Kansas City Star Video Star NFL correspondent Adam Teicher on Chiefs draft choices. 

http://videos.kansascity.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=undefined

-----

http://www.nfl.com/draft/2012

http://bleacherreport.com/2012-nfl-draft

http://www.youtube.com/user/usnikefootball

http://www.miamidolphins.com/

Dolphins' new Nike merchandise is here: 

http://shop.dolphins.com/Miami-Dolphins-Nike-NFL-Gear-Merchandise-_-848882224_PG.html?sourceid=906x75nfllaunch04112

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


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

Something to smile about: NCAA Women's Lacrosse Final Four Weekend in Bawlmer, Hon

NCAA Women's Lacrosse Final Four, Johnny Unitas Stadium,
Towson, Md. -Home of the Tigers

Friday on CBS College Sports, DirecTV Channel 613
5:30 p.m. #1 Maryland (20-1) vs. Syracuse (15-6)
8:00 p.m. #2 Northwestern (19-1) vs. #3 North Carolina (17-2)
Sunday on CBS College Sports, 5:30 p.m. Division I Championship

I'm pretty sure that Maryland will win the first game since I've seen Georgetown play Syracuse twice in the past few weeks, including for the Big East title two weeks ago where they beat the Orange, so I'm mostly waiting for the second game and here's why.

The Terps lost to the Tar Heels in last year's Semifinals which was brutal for Terp fans to take since many really thought they'd do the Field Hockey & Lacrosse double-championship thing -again.

But it didn't happen, though they could at least take solace in the Wildcats beating UNC in the final, for their fifth straight NCAA title.

The Tar Heels beat the Terps in the NCAA Field Hockey championship in November, scoring the winning goal with just 11 seconds left.
More brutality for Turtle fans!

Back on April 18th, I watched the Tar Heels' huge victory at beautiful Lakeside Park in Evanston on The BigTenNetwork, their first live Women's Lacrosse telecast since the network started, and what a match to start with. http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/recaps/041810aaa.html

As I've previously mentioned here, that was only THE single best women's lacrosse match I've ever seen, and was keyed in no small part by the elusive Megan Bosica, #2 for the Tar Heels. http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/unc-w-lacros-body.html

Megan's from perennial lacrosse power Mt. Hebron in Howard County, MD, where my sister's family lives, one of the real traditional lacrosse and field hockey hot houses on the East Coast that exports talent to teams all over the country.
My two oldest nieces played field hockey for Glenelg, playing in the state championship game for their division three times in five years.

Bosica's ability to find a hole in the defense or pass like a laser-beam reminded me of Isiah Thomas going thru the lane for the Hoosiers, once-upon-a-time, always getting that second defender to follow him, leaving someone wide-open for the pass.
She's uncanny and never stops hustling!

I'll have some comments about the Men's NCAA Semifinals at M&T Stadium on Saturday morning.


You're not really surprised, are you, that the geniuses over at the Miami Herald's Sports section didn't even bother to list these NCAA Women's Semifinal matches in the paper today?
It's par for the course at one of the WORST-designed and edited sports sections in the entire country.

They're the same geniuses who had nothing in the paper about the UEFA Champions League title game the day before it was played.
Yeah, that's normal at newspapers that think they've got something to brag about.

See for yourself:On TV / Radio Today
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/28/1652417/on-tv-radio-today.html

Exciting match expected today when Terps play Tar Heels for NCAA D1 Field Hockey title

At Noon on Sunday I'm watching the NCAA
D1 Field Hockey championship match on
CBSC -CBS College Sports, DirecTV 613-
between undefeated, # 1 and defending champion
Maryland and #3 19-2 North Carolina in what
looks to be a really exciting match from Winston-Salem.

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/w-fieldh/ncaa-w-fieldh-body.html

http://www.ncaa.com/brackets/2009/ncaa_bracket_DI_field_hockey.html

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/w-fieldh/champpage/w-fieldh-div1-index.html

http://wakeforestsports.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/spec-rel/09-wake-fieldh-final-four.html

In my opinion, the handful of matches televised
this past season on The BigTen Network were
much better than in the past, though Michigan
State naturally got the lion's share of the games,
befitting their national reputation and consistent
Top 15 ranking.

Last year's Big Ten tourney in Bloomington
was played under some cold, wet and windy
conditions on the field just off of 17th Street
between Fee Lane and N. Jordan.
The weather sometimes seemed to affect play,
which is always a possibility in early November
in Bloomington.

This year's tourney up in East Lansing,
thankfully, seemed blessed with much nicer
weather that allowed all the teams to flash
their skills.

I was very pleased to see IU make it to
the finals against the Spartans on Nov. 8th,
and to be able to watch the match from
beginning to end.

Though they ultimately lost 3-2 to an
excellent Spartan squad, whom I knew
fairly well from watching their earlier matches
on TV over the past few months,
the closeness of the match and the
gritty spirit and character the Hoosiers
displayed in hanging-tough with a top
national team on the road, clearly
demonstrated to all who are paying
close attention to the sport, that IU's
growing positive national reputation
is well-deserved.

Kudos to Hoosier Head Coach
Amy Robertson and her assistants
for getting the most out of the team
and making it to the NCAA Sweet 16
this year, before losing to a tough
Wake Forest squad, which is always
well-coached and full of very talented
international players.
http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/ind-w-fieldh-body.html


Efforts like those will only increase the
positive word-of-mouth about the
Hoosier's FH program's upward direction
and increase the flow of high-quality
recruits from field hockey hot-spots
on the East Coast and in the Midwest
to Bloomington.

Not that it wouldn't be great to get
some silly-talented girls from
The Netherlands or Great Britain,
though!
http://www.knhb.nl/


Thru fortuitous timing, that same day,
I was also able to watch the ACC
tourney final and watch the Terps
stage an amazing comeback in
overtime against a scrappy and
ultimately somewhat heart-broken
#2 UVA squad at Charlottesville,
one of my favorite places.
http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17800&SPID=10593&SPSID=92022

The talented Cavaliers regrouped
and later eliminated Michigan State
from the NCAA tourney 3-2 and
made it to the Final Four where they
lost 3-2 on Friday to UNC .
http://www.ncaa.com/splash/2009fhockeysplash.htmldefault.aspx?id=188

The sheer talent and ability of the
Terps in that game demonstrated
once again that no matter what the
score is, no matter how well you're
playing, you can NEVER EVER
take your foot off the accelerator
when you play Maryland.

They will not quit, no matter how
close to the end of the match it gets.
They are relentless!

The Terps tradition of winning NCAA
titles and playing tough matches even
when they are not at their best, is a
valuable lesson that ought to be more
widely-known and appreciated than it
currently is.
http://www.umterps.com/sports/w-fieldh/archive/090809aab.html
http://www.umterps.com/sports/w-fieldh/md-w-fieldh-body-main.html
http://www.umterps.com/view.gal?id=58544

I like them to win 4-2 over a talented
Tar Heels squad.
http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/unc-w-fieldh-body.html

Big Ten Network airing IU's 1981 NCAA title win vs. UNC at 8pm

South Beach Hoosier trivia: the entire time I was at IU, I never wore an IU cap.
Ever.

Instead, if I wore one at all, it was a Dolphins cap, which was a great conversation starter walking thru campus, as far as finding and meeting other IU students on campus or in town from South Florida.


For those of you in South Florida who can't recall ever talking to me when I wasn't wearing the cap
above, it's probably hard to imagine.
But then there's really no need to wear a cap when it's overcast and one degree above zero, as it was late last night in Bloomington.

The north side of Branch McCracken Court, Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington

Because of the last episode of Prison Break -part of which was set in Miami- I missed watching the Northeastern at IU ballgame Monday night on The Big Ten Network -thinking the game was Tuesday night.

When I went to the network website to see when the replay was scheduled, 3-5 pm Tuesday afternoon, I also saw they'll be replaying the 1981 IU-North Carolina NCAA title game at 8 pm as part of their Big Ten's Greatest Games Series.

The Sports Illustrated cover that said it all: The Champs!

For more info on that great team of 1980-'81, see the Bloomington Herald-Times' great website, Hoosier Historia: http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/sports/hh/1981/

As far as I'm concerned, perhaps because I watched so many college games in that era and have a great memory of so many of those teams, I think the series has really been sort of hit or miss,

since there seem to be far fewer of the really great games from the late '70's and early '80's, you'd expect to have seen televised by now.

Proof of that is that early this coming Sunday morning, the network will be airing IU's games from this past February at Illinois and versus Wisconsin, at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. respectively, as part of that series. Great?

Hardly!

IU All-American and Olympian Steve Alford on the cover of the 1987 IU Basketball media guide.

The guide was sent to me just a few months before we beat Syracuse for the 1987 NCAA title by IU Varsity Athletics' one-man Renaissance team (and Assembly Hall announcer) Chuck Crabb, when I was living in Evanston.

Preceding Tuesday's IU-North Carolina replay is a 6 p.m. airing of the December 18, 1990 U.K. at IU ballgame.

The encore showings of the IU-UNC game on Channel are as follows:
Wednesday 12/24 4-6 a.m.
Thursday -Christmas Day- 4-6 a.m. and 9-11 a.m.
http://www.bigtennetwork.com/schedule/

By the way, if anyone out there in cyberspace knows the answer to this, why does IU not have any campus programming on the network of any kind like so many of the other conference schools do, namely, Penn State and Northwestern, who seem to have more than any one else?

Also, for what seems like the 1,001st time, The Big Ten Network will also show the U-M-Ohio State BCS title football game from almost six year ago.

You know, the one that was stolen by the refs on that phantom defensive holding penalty?

That's still painful to watch, just like last week's replay on the NFL Network of the 1974 Dolphins at Raiders divisional game,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke7yAME-x8w and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWte184Lu6U&NR=1

The invaluable lesson learned by watching Benny Malone scoring too early for the Dolphins before the end of the game was over, thus giving Ken Stabler enough time to mount an epic comeback, has never been lost on me at any game I've ever played in or watched since then.