"First" on Monday

There was a first that happened yesterday in the sports world and another first in the sports world will happen today. Let's get right to them.

Softball Postseason
Here are the postseason hosts by class for softball.
Class 1A
1A will have Edwards County, North Clay, Wayne City, and a site to be determined hosting regionals that will feed into the Red Hill Sectional. Trico, Cobden, Pope County, and Crab Orchard will host regionals feeding into the Steeleville Sectional. The winners at Steeleville and Red Hill will play in the Super-Sectional at John A. Logan College.
Class 2A
2A will have Effingham St. Anthony, Fairfield, Greenville, and Robinson hosting regionals that will feed into the Newton Sectional. Carterville, Massac County, Sparta, and West Frankfort will host regionals feeding into the Pinckneyville Sectional. The winners at Newton and Pinckneyville will play in the Super-Sectional at Nashville.
Class 3A
3A will have Bethalto, Effingham, Marion, and Mascoutah, hosting regionals that will feed into the Centralia Sectional. Champaign Centennial, Jacksonville, Mahomet-Seymour, and Springfield HS will host regionals that will feed into the Lincoln Sectional. The winners at Centralia and Lincoln will play in the Mt. Zion Super-Sectional.

Baseball/Softball/Track
The last day of March shows a full schedule of games and meets today. Baseball features Nashville vs. Pinckneyville, Carterville vs. Vienna, Harrisburg vs. Herrin, and Centralia vs. Mt. Vernon. Softball features Pinckneyville vs. Nashville, Vienna, vs. Carmi, and Harrisburg vs. Herrin. As you can tell with the highlighted games, conference play really kicks into gear today. The track side has the Herrin Invitational going today. Of course, all of these events are going to be played weather permitting.

First for the Final Four
For the first time ever, the Final Four will feature all #1 seeded teams. Kansas will play North Carolina in a game of where Roy Williams used to coach and where he currently coaches. Game 2 will be Memphis vs. UCLA in a game bringing back memories of the 1973 Bill Walton game in which he went 21-22 from the field in the title game in St. Louis. We should be looking at 3 pretty good games next weekend.

First day of MLB for many teams
Today and tomorrow mark opening day for many MLB teams. 4 teams have officially opened the season already, but a majority will follow the next two days. It is an exciting time as many teams make opening day into a special ceremony. I know several will be making trips to MLB games during the summer. With the season starting, you know that spring is here.

Wrestlemania 24
In closing, we end with some sports entertainment. 74,000 plus packed the Citrus Bowl last night for the event. Ric Flair was beaten and thus ended a 35 year career in wrestling. That is a name that all people know even if you are not a fan. Floyd Mayweather won his big match over the Big Show which I am sure will make highlight shows across the country. Finally, Wrestlemania 25 will be in Houston, Texas next year at Reliant Stadium.

It is time to get this Monday morning started. Opening Day of the MLB makes the first work day of the week easier to handle. I'm out.

DC

Sunday Sports Bonanza

Most of you are waking up to a wet and soggy Sunday morning. It looks like a day to sit around and watch some TV on this day off. Luckily, there is plenty of sporting events to watch.

Baseball Postseason Assignments
On Friday, the IHSA released the postseason assignments for baseball. Here are the breakdowns by class of sites. I have those listed below. I will post the softball information on Monday.
Class 1A
1A will see Edwards County, Red Hill, and two sites to be determined host regionals which will feed into the South Central Sectional. Cobden, Pope County, Marissa, and Okawville will host regionals that will feed into the Goreville Sectional. The winner of the South Central and Goreville Sectionals will play in the Super-Sectional at Abe Marin Field on the campus of SIU-C.
Class 2A
2A will see AJ, Herrin, Hamilton County and Pinckneyville all hosting regionals that will feed into the Harrisburg Sectional. The other half will see Casey-Wesfield, Effingham St. Anthony, Olney, and Tolono Unity hosting regionals that will feed into the Robinson Sectional. The winners of the Harrisburg and Robinson Sectionals will play in the Super-Sectional at Abe Martin Field on the campus of SIU-C.
Class 3A
3A will see Althoff, Effingham, Mt. Vernon, and Troy Triad host regionals which will feed into the Centralia Sectional. Chatham Glenwood, Lincoln, and two sites to be determined will host regionals that will feed into the Decatur Eisenhower Sectional. The winners at Centralia and Decatur Eisenhower will feed into the Super-Sectional at the University of Illinois.

Benton Spring Fling
Sparta and Benton girls track teams looked very strong yesterday in their events. These two will see a lot of each other during the spring and in the postseason. On the boys side as expected, Du Quoin and AJ looked very good as well. Track is setting up to be very competitive over the next couple of months with some very solid boys and girls teams in the SI.

Baseball/Softball
Johnston City won the Pinckneyville Invitational yesterday beating the Lady Panthers 2-1. Kaylee Coonce defeated Olivia Pittman in the game in a matchup of two of the best pitchers in the area. Lebanon is very solid 1A team. Getting it out now, the 2A side of softball in SI is some of the toughest in recent years.

Weather
The rain has been relentless it seems here lately with the amount we have gotten. With another dose this morning and more on the way the next couple of days, it will be tough to get some events in at the start of the week.

NCAA Basketball
Can we get a close game? 9 of the 10 games in the last 3 days have been double digit margin of victories. I am hoping that the games today of Davidson vs. Kansas and Texas vs. Memphis will break the trend. UNC and UCLA punched their ticket yesterday for the Final Four with wins.

115,000 plus saw baseball in the LA Coliseum
Last night, the LA Coliseum hosted the Dodgers vs. the Red Sox. 115,000 plus saw the game in a setup of the field similar to when the Dodgers last played there in the 50s and 60s. This is the largest crowd ever to watch a baseball game. It was 201ft. down the LF line with a 42 high fence and then 440 feet out to right center. Vin Scully was on hand as he was 50 years ago to call the game and Dodgers manager Joe Torre played in a game in 1961 at the Coliseum. It was a very nostalgic night and I would recommend to check out the highlights of the game.

NASCAR at the Paper Clip
NASCAR will return to racing today a Martinsville. It is the shortest track in NASCAR and it is shaped like a paper clip. Jeff Gordon starts the race on the pole in what should be some good short track action.

Wrestlemania 24
The biggest sports entertainment event of the year is tonight at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. I mentioned one match yesterday and today I will mention Floyd Mayweather vs. the Big Show match. Mayweather is the best boxer in the world. Big Show is the biggest athlete in the world. It is a matchup of two different sports world. For local flavor, the Big Show played basketball at SIU-E with Centralia graduate Reid Shipley. Many, including myself, will be taking in the 4 hour event.

Sunday Night Baseball Returns
ESPN Sunday Night Baseball returns tonight when the Nationals host the Braves. Washington will be opening up their new park in the first official MLB game there and President George Bush will be throwing out the first pitch.

As you can tell, there is plenty of interesting sports events happening today on TV on this rainy Sunday. Have fun watching them. I'm out.

DC

Turning on the Spring sports season

Saturdays in the spring are usually reserved for big track meets, doubleheaders and/or tournaments for baseball and softball. Today is no exception. If you are heading out bundle up and take rain gear as well. Also, there is plenty of stuff on the national level as well.

Track
Benton will be hosting the Spring Fling today at Benton Middle School for boys and track teams. Also, the prestigious Edwardsville Invitational will be taking place.

Softball
Pinckneyville and Woodlawn are hosting softball tournaments today. Several very good teams are in each one.

Baseball
Several doubleheaders are on the docket today. Johnston City, Centralia, and Waterloo will all be hosting 3 teams playing 2 games each. Gallatin County is hosting their Hawk Tourney today as well.

NCAA Basketball
7 of the 8 games in the Sweet 16 were double digit wins. The bad thing is it makes for non-interesting games, the good thing is possibly we will have some good Elite 8 and Final Four games with high seeded teams. All the #1 teams are still in the tournament. Stephen Curry of Davidson is living a dream right now. He has scored 30 or more points in all 3 of his NCAA games this year. Today it is North Carolina vs. Louisville and UCLA vs. Xavier. UNC and UCLA are big favorites in their games. Tomorrow, it will be Memphis vs. Texas and Davidson vs. Kansas.

Dome Set-up for Basketball
If you noticed last night, the domes had different setups. The floor was placed on the 50 yard line and elevated off of the ground over 2 feet up. The benches were below floor level and stairs were used to get to the bench. The crowd also is not as close to the floor as in the previous corner setup. The shooting background wasn't bad at all with 2 huge black curtains placed in the endzones. The jury is still out on this new setup.

MLB
A return to the past will happen tonight in Los Angeles. The Dodgers played for 4 years at the LA Coliseum before moving to Dodgers Stadium in 1962. For the first time since 1959, the Dodgers will play an exhibition game against Boston in the LA Coliseum. They are expecting 115,000 people to watch this game. This would break a record for US sporting events record which currently is held by Soldier Field in 1927 when Notre Dame played USC in football.
Teams will wrap up exhibition play today and tomorrow and also finalize rosters during this time before the season begins for many on Monday and Tuesday.

NASCAR
The season will continue tomorrow after a week off for Easter in Martinsville. Jeff Gordon will start from the pole.

Wrestlemania 24
Tomorrow, the biggest sports entertainment event of the year will take place outside at the Citrus Bowl. The WWE will be putting on Wrestlemania 24. One of the biggest match will be possibly the last match of Ric Flair. He must win or retire during his bout. Those that watch or don't watch wrestling know that name. It will be the end of an era when his career ends. It has lasted since the 70s.

It is time to go and get ready for this big sports Saturday. I'm out.

DC

Full of Information on Friday

We head into the final weekend of March as the NCAA goes from the Sweet 16 to the Final Four and the MLB is ready to fully get underway. What a busy time of year it is!!!

Word to the wise...
If you are heading to a high school sporting event today, you better dress in layers and warmly as it will be rather chilly compared to the warm weather we have had the last few days.

Baseball/Softball
Weather permitting, there will be some good games today. Hamilton County vs. Harrisburg, Murphysboro vs. Marion, and Mt. Vernon vs. Du Quoin will be good games.
In softball, the Pinckneyville Invitational will begin today. This is a very tradition rich and excellent softball tournament.

Sweet 16 Night One
What word describes the games from last night..."snooze." 3 of the 4 games were double digit wins. UNC looked very impressive in their dismantling of Washington State. Louisville made a good Tennessee team look awful in all aspects of the game. Western Kentucky tried to hang around but UCLA had too much fire power. The best game was the overtime classic of Xavier beating West Virginia. Sean Miller, the Xavier head coach, is going to be a very hot commodity when the season is over for some of the bigger jobs that will be open.

Sweet 16 Night Two
I am hopeful for much better games tonight. The matchups, at least on paper, are much better with Davidson vs. Wisconsin, Kansas vs. Villanova, Texas vs. Stanford, and Memphis vs. Michigan State.

Funny Commercials
The AT&T commercials are some of the funniest going right now. There is one where the guy is shooting mini-hoops in the restaurant, knocking down shots, talking trash, but he can't get a cell signal in the building and his buddy can't get in touch with him on his wireless provider with Final Four tickets. The other is a guy shooting pool and playing air-guitar and his cell phone provider doesn't have a signal in the pool hall while his buddy is calling with Motorhead tickets. This is some good stuff.

Davidson's Trustees
The trustees at Davidson University have decided to pay for any of their students to take a bus ride, food, and hotel stay to Detroit for the game tonight. That is a gracious move by these people.

Bracket Fact
2 people out of 3.65 million people on ESPN.com picked the Sweet 16 correctly.

SIU Womens' Basketball
What in the world is going on? The Southern Illinoisian newspaper this morning has two incredible articles about some of the alleged happenings inside the program between players and coaches. It looks like the story will only get bigger in the next few weeks.

Missouri State Hires a Head Coach
The Missouri State Bears have hired Cuonzo Martin to be their head coach. The former East St. Louis Lincoln and Purdue graduate had been the Associate Coach in recent years under Matt Painter at Purdue. He will be taking another Purdue program employee in Kent Williams, Mt. Vernon and SIU alumnus, along to be an assistant coach.

MLB Spring Training
MLB teams have officially broke camp and have headed out to other sites for games this weekend. The Dodgers and Angels are playing in Los Angeles. The Cardinals will be in Springfield, Missouri. The Cubs and Mariners will be in Las Vegas. Most teams will play games this weekend before the season begins for many on Monday and Tuesday.

Wrestlemania 24
This huge sports entertainment event will take place Sunday night outside in the Citrus Bowl on Pay-Per-View. There will be more on it the next two days on the blog in previewing the event.

Time to head out and get some daily errands done before basketball get going tonight. I'm out.

DC

Thursday Rumblings

We are offically back into the rainy pattern with it starting last night and forecast not to end until late Friday. There is already rumblings of thunder going on this morning and it looks as if it could rain at anytime.

Preps
There wasn't a lot of games completed or even started yesterday due to the rain. With the weather forecasted for today, the term "weather permitting" will be key. I would check with the schools involved before heading to a game or event today.

Baseball/Softball
Games of interest in baseball include Steeleville vs. Pinckneyville, Murphysboro vs. Carbondale, and Vienna vs. Herrin. Highlighted games in softball today include ZRC vs. West Frankfort, Mt. Vernon vs. Carmi, and Murphysboro vs. Carbondale.

Track/Soccer
Carterville and Carbondale are scheduled for a dual meet today in boys and girls track. These are 2 very good programs going at it in an early season test. In soccer, Marion will play Carbondale today in a Rt. 13 rivalry. This is a heated game at both the boys and girls level each time they play.

Sweet 16
Finally, most of the talking is done and we are going to have NCAA Tournament basketball tonight. In Charlotte, we will have North Carolina vs. Washington State and Louisville vs. Tennessee. In Phoenix, we will have West Virginia vs. Xavier and UCLA vs. Western Kentucky. All very intriguing matchups with different types of story lines starting tonight at 6PM. The other half of the tournament will play tomorrow night in Houston and Detroit.

MLB Waiver Wire
WOOOOO HOOOOO!!! Spring Training is finally winding down. This means that there will be releases and players moved to minor league camps. Here are some names of note yesterday who either were released or sent to the minor leagues:
Jarrod Saltamacchia (Texas) sent to the minor leagues
(was in the Mark Teixeira deal to Atlanta last year)
Byung-Hyun-Kim (released by Pittsburgh)
(was the closer on the 2001 Arizona World Series Championship team)
Alex Cintron (Cubs) released by Chicago
(key component on the 2001 Arizona World Series Championship team)
There will be more names of interest that will either be released or sent to the minors. I will keep you updated.

Time to dodge the raindrops and get something accomplished. I'm out.

DC

Relief...half-way through the work week...

I made it up early enough today to check out the A's and Red Sox. The thought of knowing next week there will be games every day and night for a long time means much couch time in the evenings.

High School Baseball/Softball
With some luck, there will be more games today in Southern Illinois. Games of interest in baseball today is Seneca at Pinckneyville, Hamilton County at Benton, West Frankfort at Du Quoin, and Goreville vs. Warren. On the softball side, there are some very good games today. Vienna vs. Carterville, Mt. Vernon vs. Johnston City, Goreville vs. ZRC, and Sparta vs. Okawville are the headliners of a full schedule of games.

Baseball-Softball Diamond Notes
Defending Class A State Champion Columbia has started off 7-0 this season after an 8-3 win over Steeleville yesterday. Columbia has a special group of athletes who went to the Semi-Finals in Football and Sectional Finals in Basketball already this year.

Flooding moved some games for Harrisburg baseball last week. It was good to see they are starting to play games again at home yesterday with 2 wins over Rochelle yesterday.

The Pinckneyville Lady Panthers are off to another good start this year. Olivia Pittman has been picthing well again and got another win yesterday at Trico 6-0.

Nashville is 4-0 after a 10-0 win over Centralia yesterday. The Hornettes look to be very good once again this year.

NCAA Tournament
Today is the day filled with pressers for the teams and coaches of the teams left in the NCAA Tournament. The past few days, Davidson has been the media darling being on just about every sports network possible. You get to see which teams can handle the media crunch and still have the energy to concentrate on the games.

Logos and Floors
During the First/Second rounds, there were some problems at sites with the NCAA sticker at half court and other parts of the floor. It seems players were slipping on these during games. There will be no problem of this at the regional sites this weekend. The NCAA makes 4 separate floors with the logos painted on them and of course will also have a new floor at the Final Four.

Baseball in Japan Day 2
The Oakland A's managed to get a split by beating the Boston Red Sox 5-1. The teams will now depart for more exhibition games before the regular season begins again for them. The key will be to see how these teams react to the travel, time change, jet lag, and being tired over the first month of the season.

Feeling Older???
I don't know about anyone else, but I will feel a bit older today when Chris Webber announces his retirement from the NBA. Webber was a part of the Fab 5 at Michigan who took the college basketball world by storm in 1992 and 1993. They had the baggy shorts, style, and winning that made them a sensation, but also the cheating that went with them while at Michigan. This retirement leaves Juwan Howard as the only remaining member to be playing in the NBA.

Hair Coverage Eliminated???
At the upcoming NFL Owner meetings, the Competition Committee will vote on hair. Yes, they are thinking about voting a rule in that says a player's hair can't obstruct the view of the name and number on the back of the jersey. Aren't there bigger issues in the NFL that need to be dealt with?

I am out...have a nice day.

DC

Tuesday Ts...Transtion, Travel, and Trade Talk

The transition of seasons sometimes have days where you have some lulls in the TV sports world. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are those days. You have NBA, NIT, and some MLB exhibition games as choices to watch but not really much until Thursday when the NCAA starts. People, we can all get through this if we hang in and tough it out. ;) :) ;) :)

Creel Resigns
Longtime Mt. Vernon Boys Basketball coach Doug Creel has resigned his basketball coaching position after 13 years. He won248 games during that span which is good for 2nd all time at MVTHS. During his tenure, the Rams made the Elite 8 twice. Creel will remain at the school as the athletic director. As mentioned in previous typings, tis the season for coaching changes and hirings. Between now and the start of summer, expect a more to take place.

Southern Travelers
It has become a rite of spring where high schools from the central and northern part of the state use their spring breaks to play baseball and softball games in Southern Illinois. Tuscola, Danville Schlarman, Homewood-Flossmoor, Warren Township, Mundelein, Seneca, Rochelle, and New Trier among others make the trip this year. Credit these student-athletes for giving up their break to play for their teams and make the trip that takes several days.

Baseball/Softball Continues today
Windy but no rain means there will be plenty of games in the area today. Some of the baseball games of note are Nashville vs. Woodlawn, Herrin vs. AJ, Steeleville vs. Columbia, and Trico vs. Pinckneyville. The softball games to watch are Pinckneyville vs. Trico, AJ at Marion, and Gallatin County vs. Pope County. The down side is that the weather doesn't look very promising the rest of the week as rain is predicted the next 3 days.

Satellite Radio Dream
It looks as if XM and Sirius have agreed to merge. The Justice Department approved it on Monday but the FCC will need to put its final stamp of approval on it. The companies have pledged to offer listeners more pricing and programming options. Hopefully the red tape won't be so thick that a sports fan dream of getting all the sports you can listen too will happen. Interoperable radios to get both radio and satellite radio would be a delight if it were to happen.

162-0?
The Boston Red Sox are on pace to go 162-0 after defeated the Oakland A's early this morning in Japan 6-5 in 10 innings. Also, Manny Ramirez is on pace to drive in close to 648 RBIs. Projections after one game are so hillarious. Both teams will play a 2nd game tomorrow morning at 5AM CST on ESPN2.

Time to go and battle the wind with some outside work and lesiure. Have a good day.

DC

Sweet Monday

Waking up to a White Easter was a different thing yesterday. Seeing snowbursts every so often was a reminder that winter is just not quite ready to let go yet. Even with that, we are going to get some games in this week with the sunny and dry weather that is expected.

Baseball-Softball
There will be some very good games today in baseball and softball around the area. In baseball Carterville vs. Carbondale, Benton vs. Mt. Vernon, and Carmi vs. Vienna highlight the schedule. In softball Pinckneyville vs. Woodlawn, Johnston City vs. West Frankfort, and Marion vs. Murphysboro highlight the schedule.

Track Sectional Hosts
The IHSA has released who will be hosting track sectionals in May for both the boys and girls. Chester, Harrisburg, and Nashville will be hosting sectionals on the 1A side. Belleville West is hosting in 2A but there are 2 sites that have TBA by them. As soon as I find out who will host those two I will post them.
Benton and Sparta will host 1A Sectionals in girls track this year. This is also one site that will need to be added as it is listed as TBA. Marion will be hosting a 2A Girls Sectional.

Sweet 16
After 2 rounds of play, the NCAA Tournament is down to the Sweet 16. Here is a breakdown by conference as to how many teams from each are left.
Big East (3) - Louisville, West Virgina, and Villanova
Pac 10 (3) - UCLA, Stanford, and Washington State
Big 12 (2) - Texas and Kansas
Big 10 (2) - Wisconsin and Michigan State
ACC (1) - North Carolina
A-10 (1) - Xavier
C-USA (1) - Memphis
SEC (1) - Tennessee
Southern (1) - Davidson
Sun Belt (1) - Western Kentucky

I am guessing that many of your brackets are toast by now. However, of the 3 million plus brackets sent in to ESPN.com, there were 2 people who have all 16 teams left in the tournament. I am sure the mini-brackets will start to pop up now where you can start over and predict from 16 teams as well as the drawing of teams in local work places where the winner gets some cash.

Stephen Curry of Davidson has been amazing. He goes for 55 points in two games. His road will be much tougher when they play Wisconsin. Plus, there will be a huge throng of Badger fans in Detroit this weekend thus taking away the cinderella crowd to root for Davidson.

Arguably the two toughest regionals left is at Houston with Memphis vs. Michigan State and Texas vs. Stanford. The other regional is in Charlotte with North Carolina vs. Washington State and Tennessee vs. Louisville.

Another thought...Has coaching Team USA Basketball by Coach K. taken something away from the DUKE program?

MLB at Dawn
Don't forget that if you want to see the official beginning of the 2008 MLB season, you will need to set the alarm clock and get up early. Boston and Oakland will kick things off tomorrow morning at 5AM. They will play a second game on Wednesday morning at the same time.

Off to enjoy the sunshine and getting some fresh air.

DC

Easter Sunday

Is it spring? Yes, it must be because one day you can wear shorts and a t-shirt and the next you have frost on the ground like this morning. With the changing and ending of seasons, we also have all kinds of sports going on.

Track Dominant
If the Benton Girls track team and the Herrin Boys track team don't compete for State Championships at Charleston in May then something crazy has happened. These two teams are locked and loaded and doing very well early on in the season. Yesterday, the team won the boys and girls championships at the Colgate Indoor Relays on the campus of Illinois State University. These two teams are loaded with with luck and no injuries, the skill will carry these two teams very far.

Football Hiring at Chester
Chester High School has hired Murphysboro native Bryan Lee to be their next head football coach. Lee has been a head coach at Southern Lee High School in Sanford, NC.

Softball Favorite for East Peoria
If you are 2A softball school in Southern Illinois, you better be aware of Carterville. The Lady Lions are fresh off of 2 straight trips to State looked very dominating yesterday winning the Marion Invitational. They outscored the teams they played 50-1 in their games.

Baseball starts
Some very good baseball teams are off to good starts already this spring. Pinckneyville, Carterville, Du Quoin, and Benton have gotten out of the gate quickly. Early on in the spring, it seems the pitching is usually ahead of the pitching. Looking at the runs being scored early, it looks like things are reversed early on.

NCAA Tournament
Saturday was a really good day of college basketball. There were close games everywhere and it seemed when you got done with one then you had another close game go down to the wire. The big upset of the day was #7 West Virginia beat #2 DUKE. How sweet that was!!!

The other upset based on seeds was #5 Michigan State beating #4 Pittsburgh in a very physical and hard fought contest.

Stanford won in classic style in OT over Marquette with a last second shot.

UCLA came from behind and beat Texas A&M. We know that cats have 9 lives, but do Bruins have 9 lives?

In a battle of former Illinois coaches, Kansas beat UNLV. Illinois fans, who were you rooting for in that game?

The clock is ticking for the announcement that Michael Beasley will leave Kansas State for the NBA after the Wildcats lost to Wisconsin yesterday.

Sunday Games
There are some more intriguing matchups today. Can Davidson and Stephen Curry find the magic again and upset Georgetown? In Tampa Bay, it will be Cinderella battles of Siena vs. Villanova and San Diego vs. Western Kentucky. The game that could be an offensive slugfest is Tennessee vs. Butler. I am really looking forward to this game. When the day is over, we get to the Sweet 16 which will begin next Thursday night.

MLB Update
We are now under a week to go in Spring Training. Teams will wrap up shop at their sites and begin leaving for a couple of exhibition games in other parks before the season starts. Boston and Oakland open the season Tuesday and Wednesday in the early morning hours in Japan, there will be a Sunday Night game next weekend, and then a majority of teams open up on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Teams are starting to settle on their 25 man rosters and who will be making the team and I expect that we may have some trades before the season begins.

In closing, I want to wish all of my family, friends, and you the reader a very Happy Easter.

DC

Plenty of Sports on Saturday

The holiday weekend means no slow down of sports news at any level. There will be plenty of sports to watch either live or on TV.

Cassity to SLU
Pinckneyville standout Kyle Cassity has verbally committed to St. Louis University to play for Rick Majerus. The Billikens are getting an outstanding player and even better person. This is the 2nd recruit from the area signed by SLU as last year they were able to gain the services of Brett Thompson of Vienna. This continues the trend of players from Southern Illinois going elsewhere to play Division 1 basketball.

Rent One Park
The Home of the SI Miners is getting some major usage as expected when the place was built. The whole field is made of turf which means you can pretty well play everyday no matter the weather. (I, for one, still have problems with a baseball field having no dirt.) Several high school teams are playing there this spring, as well as SIU, and John A. Logan is even playing all of their spring games there. This facility is really getting some positive use out of it by many teams.

Spring Sports on the Outside
It looks like we will be dry and sunny for a few days so many teams will be able to escape the indoors and get some games and track meets in the next few days. Saturday is traditionally a day where teams will have tournaments and doubleheaders. There should be plenty of action in the area today.

NCAA Tournament Day 2
There was much more excitement on day 2 with some great games and individual performances. I am pretty sure that many brackets took some hits yesterday. ESPN said that out of 3 million brackets on their site put in before Thursday, there were only 24 perfect brackets before the evening games started Friday.

It's in the genes...
Stephen Curry of Davidson had the performance of the day by scoring 40 points in the upset in over Gonzaga. This marks the second year the Gonzaga has lost in the first round. If the name Curry sounds familiar, he is the son of former NBA sharp shooter Del Curry.

Tampa Bay...Upset City
Tampa Bay was the site of 2 overtime basketball games yesterday and higher seeds winning 3 of the 4 games. The first game of the day was the best of the tournament so far as Western Kentucky defeated Drake 101-99 in overtime on a last second 3 pointer. Then, San Diego defeated Connecticut 70-69 in overtime. After a brief break, a very good Siena team who was seeded #13 crushed #4 Vanderbilt followed by #12 Villanova beating #5 Clemson. This means that #12 WKU will play #13 San Diego and #12 Villanova will play #13 Siena. This was the site where I am sure many brackets made their last stand.

Problems
IU went 3-4 since the firing of Kelvin Sampson. They never got on track and looked bad last night in a loss to Arkansas.
Vanderbilt is a great team at home. However, when you get them away from the oddity that is their home at Memorial Coliseum in Nashville, TN they become very vulnerable.
The #16 seeds in the tournament had no chance in pulling an upset. No games were close.

Dominance
The Big East will have 7 of the 32 teams left in the 2nd Round. The only team to lose was UCONN.

Round of 32 on Saturday
This is where we start to see even more quality matchups. Pittsburgh vs. Michigan State, West Virginia vs. DUKE, Xavier vs. Purdue, Stanford vs. Marquette, and Kansas State vs. Wisconsin are the games that early on look like must watch TV games.

Women Begin
The 2008 NCAA Women's Basketball tournament will begin today. Can Tennessee repeat as Champions this year? The goal for teams will be to reach the Final Four in Tampa Bay, Florida. It all begins at 11AM this morning on the ESPN family of networks.

Time to roll out and get ready for a big day of sports. I hope you get out and do the same.

DC

Friday Fun

Day one of the NCAA Tournament is in the books and the weather has changed from rainy to sunny and some games were able to be played yesterday. We also are closing down Spring Training in the MLB.

High School Spring Sports
The sun made an appearance yesterday and some teams were able to play games. With the forecast to be sunny over the next couple of days, there should be more and more games played and track meets ran. Thanks to all who work on those wet fields getting them ready for play.

NCAA Thoughts on Day 1
It seems to me that the excitement and upsets of past tournaments just weren't there on the first day. The closest we came was DUKE losing to Belmont 71-70. Other than that, it really was a "chalk" day as far as the brackets go. This may be due to the fact that more and more teams are having their games on TV such as ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, CSTV, FOX, CBS, and ABC to name a few that the committee is able to see more and more teams and seed them correctly. However, do you get the feeling that we can't go 2 straight days with no big upsets?

Stats on Higher Seeds Winning
Higher seeded teams won 14 out of 16 games yesterday. Here is a breakdown at each site.
Washington DC - 4 for 4
Omaha - 3 for 4 (#11 Kansas State beat #6 USC)
Denver - 4 for 4
Anaheim - 3 for 4 (#9 Texas A&M beat #8 BYU)

Day 1 Tournament FYI Notes
UNLV held Kent State to 10 points in the first half.
Mississippi Valley State could only muster 29 points total in their loss to UCLA...OUCH!!!
Temple has lost 9 straight NCAA tournament games.
Kentucky had a streak of 17 straight first round wins snapped yesterday in their loss to Marquette.

Day 2
This is the second day of the tournament and the second day that work may or may not be done. Games will start just after 11AM today.

MLB Notes
The Boston Red Sox and Oakland A's have made their way to Japan. They will open the regular season next week with 2 games that start very early in the morning. Yes, due to the walkout by Boston players, all Red Sox clubhouse people will be paid accordingly. That is a pretty strong move by the players to get that done.
The St. Louis Cardinals have signed Adam Wainright to a 4 year, $15 deal. That is a solid move by the team to sure up their rotation for years to come.

Off to get something done before the NCAA games start today. Here is one baseball fan who can't wait until the MLB regular season starts. It seems that spring training takes longer and longer each year to get done.

DC

Hoops Hysteria!!!

We are just hours away from the start of one of the best sporting events of the year. All the brackets have been filled out or will be filled out this morning.

IHSA and Drug Testing
The IHSA Board of Directors approved a penalty applied to a student who tests positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The student would be ineligible for 365 days from the date test results were reported to the student and school. The student may apply for reinstatement for athletic eligibility after 90 calendar days following completion of an approved educational drug program and a negative test for performance-enhancing drugs. For more information on this, go to www.ihsa.org.
This is a step in the right direction because if performance-enhancing drugs were or are being used at the pro and college level then you know they have probably been used at the high school level.

Coaching Changes
Tis the season for changes in coaching positions all around the state of Illinois at the high school level. Vienna has hired Ross Hill to be the new boys basketball coach to replace Rick Metcalf who resigned. I am sure that there will be more coming from around the area in the coming weeks.

Weather Changes
As we know, wait a few minutes and the weather will change. After some rains that haven't been seen around here in quite some time, everything is saturated and flooded in many places. There could be some track meets today but baseball and softball games will be in doubt in most places. I would suspect a couple of days of sun and wind will dry things out considerably. Good luck to Athletic Directors and coaches trying to re-schedule games and umpires.

NCAA Tournament
We are just hours away from the start. I am figuring that many of you like me will find it very difficult to get work done from 11:00AM on today. Yes, I will be in the group that will have some sort of connection to the games as soon as they start. Be honest, I am sure those reading this will be doing the same.

Good luck on your brackets and have a nice day!!!

DC

The Mid-Week...

The rain has been going for basically 3 days and it is flooding in places many haven't seen in quite some time. It is hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago, there were lakes, ponds, and rivers around here that were showing the affects of not much rain at all from last year. However, with the rain, that means there won't be much action today on the fields and tracks in the area as well as possibly tomorrow until we get some sunshine.

Awesome Academics
The IHSA announced the members of the 2007-2008 All-State Academic Team yesterday. 26 students were selected from around the state. Each member had to have a minimum GPA of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale for 7 semesters, played in 2 IHSA activities, and displayed outstanding citizenship during their high school career. Those selected will be recognized at a banquet on April 21 in Bloomington. Two local players made the team. They were Matt Brown of West Frankfort and Matt Palm of Carlyle. Congratulations to both young men!!!
There were also 26 students selected as honorable mention. Those from the area included Shane Austin of Webber Township, Braden Christian of Harrisburg, Jessie Crabtree of Marion, Dana Fischer of Nashville, and Kevin Koeneman of Chester. Congratulations to these fine young student athletes as well.

64 Team Field is Set
Mt. St. Mary's defeated Coppin State 69-60 last night in Dayton, OH to become the 64th team to join the 2008 NCAA Tournament field. For winning last night, they will get to North Carolina on Friday night.

Bracket and Fever Humor
Time is running out to get those brackets filled out and that money put in the pool to draw a team or more. If you are planning to catch the "fever" the next two days, you better be getting sick now. HA HA HA

You get did what to get what?
New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss will be honored with a commemorative envelope by the US Postal Service. It will list career stats as well as his stats from 2007. I haven't heard where the envelope will be available. It makes you wonder if someone like Brett Favre was honored like this how big the envelope would have to be.

Classy Yankees Trip
The New York Yankees are usually the focal point of things in the media. However, they did an outstanding and gracious thing yesterday. Last fall after the shootings at Virginia Tech, George Steinbrenner donated one million dollars to the university and pledged that the Yankees would play a spring training game there this year. The Yanks did that yesterday by playing the Hokies team. The Yanks won 11-0 but the score didn't matter. The gesture was very nice and congratulations to the entire Yankees organization for doing this.

The hours are ticking away until tip-off tomorrow and when brackets are due. I guess today is the calm before the basketball storm with the pressers with teams and coaches today.

DC

Puddles of Ponderings

If you are a duck, then you love this weather. We have gotten much rain over night and obviously we are expected to get more today and into tomorrow. I don't expect many high school sporting events today or tomorrow because of the weather. So, with not much to do outside, I am going to put some items out there to hear from you the reader.

NCAA Basketball
The NCAA Tournament opens tonight with Coppin State vs. Mount St. Mary's from Dayton, Ohio on ESPN. The winner of this game will get North Carolina. One question...how can conference or conference tournament champions play in the "play-in" game of the NCAA Tournament? Shouldn't the two worst at-large teams play in this game?

NIT Basketball
The NIT opens play tonight. Oklahoma State is a SIU tonight at 8PM. The game will be televised on ESPN2. SIU will not have the services of Bryan Mullins tonight due to a stress fracture in his leg.

Gators need a new Swamp
Florida Head Basketball Coach Billy Donovan has kicked his Gators out of their 12 million dollar practice facility. He felt like his team have gotten to complacent and living off the back to back NCAA Championships. He also is not letting his team wear anything with Florida on it. This is not a first, as Urban Meyer did the same thing to the Florida football team in 2005.

Peoria in 2009
The early word is that hotel rates may be going up in Peoria for the State Basketball Tournaments. Has anyone heard this or seen this in their confirmations for rooms in 2009? Post some information if you have and your thoughts on this possibility.

I want to hear from you the reader. Post your thoughts on the following:

Should conference champions play in the "play-in" game?
Who is going to win the NCAA Tournament?
What are your opinions on hotel rates in Peoria?

DC

College Basketball is living up to expectations with the performances this past weekend as well as those who felt like they were slighted by not getting into the tournament. Also, we had a local track team give an oustanding performance over the weekend as well. Let's get started.

Benton Girls Track
Congratulations to the Benton girls track team for winning the Gene Armer Invitational on the campus of the University of Illinois on Saturday. They had 53 points followed by Chicago Lane Tech 42, Bloom Township 39, St. Charles North, 30, Bolingbrook 24, and Normal Community with 24. Obviously, the Rangerettes defeated some competition that comes from much bigger schools than Benton. Courtney Smith and Leah Orley combined to win 5 events. This team is loaded and is a favorite to win a State Championship in track if they can keep working at it, get a little luck, and avoid the injury bug.

High School Baseball and Softball
Some games were played last week, but look for local teams to really get into full swing this week on the schedule. There are many games scheduled and those Saturday doubleheaders everywhere begin in earnest this coming weekend. The only problem is that Mother Nature may not cooperate early in the week as big rains are predicted for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Sunday Notes from College Basketball
As I predicted yesterday, I got all 4 number one seeds correct. They were North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas, and UCLA.

Joe Lundardi does Bracketology for ESPN year round. He predicts who is in the field, who is out of the field, and then tries to match up a bracket of his own. Congratulations to him this year for predicting correctly the 65 teams to make the field this year.

There will be no teams from the state of Illinois in the NCAA Tournament this year. So if you are looking for a team to root for locally, it will need to be from another state.

SIU is in the postseason but it won't be the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001. The Salukis will host the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Tuesday night in an opening round came of the NIT. Yes, this is a rematch of a 2005 NCAA Tournament game in Oklahoma City in which the Cowboys came up victorious.

All credit and congrats to Georgia who won 3 games in 27 hours and 4 games in 3 days to win the SEC Tournament. Dennis Felton and his staff can't get enough kudos for this job done as well as the work done all season. They finished last in the SEC Eastern Division and with the win earn a 14 seed in the tournament.

NBA Note
I noticed this morning that the Denver Nuggets beat the Seattle Sonics last night 168-116. For a moment, I thought Doug Moe was still the head coach and Alex English and Dan Issel were racking up points for them.

Time to begin a Monday and I know that you have to study your teams to be fully prepared to fill out your brackets. Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

DC

Sunday Hardball

Saturdays in March usually mean some good college basketball games and moments and yesterday was no exception. Also, the IHSA finished up the boys basketball season in Peoria.

Dunking to the Title
Congratulations to Marland Johnson of Meridian High School for winning the King of Hill Slam Dunk Competition yesterday in Peoria. He beat the winners from Class 2A, 3A, and 4A to take the title.

Class 3A
Simeon was denied a third straight state basketball championship yesterday while the boys from Chicago Marshall joined the girls in winning a Class 3A State Championship this year. These two schools were also from the Chicago Public League.

3rd Place Game
Champaign Central 70
Washington 65

Championship Game
Chicago Marshall 69
Chicago Simeon 61

Class 4A
3rd Place Game
Evanston 56
Lockport 52

Championship Game
Oak Lawn Richards 67
Zion-Benton 63

SEC Tournament - Let's Play Two!!!
Georgia and Kentucky had to play their quarterfinal on Saturday afternoon. Georgia won the game in overtime 60-56. Then the Bulldogs had to play Mississippi State just over 6 hours later and won as well. Georgia Head Coach Dennis Felton doesn't get enough credit for the mess he has had to clean up following Jim Harrick at Georgia and hopefully this will start to give him some credit in the future. Felton is pretty darn good basketball coach.
Arkansas beat Tennessee by 1 in an offensive game to set up the upset game of Arkansas vs Georgia.

More Bleachers than Fans
There were only about 1500 fans in the building for each SEC game because moving from the Georgia Dome to Georgia Tech meant changing from 25,000 seats to 9100 seats. The SEC deemed that only parents, bands, and members of the athletic offices of the schools could get in.

ACC Tournament
Tyler Hansbrough...how special can one be when your jersey will hang from the rafters of the Dean Dome before you complete your junior year? Oh yeah...he also hit the game winner vs. Virginia Tech yesterday.
Clemson beat DUKE for the first time in 22 tries to advance to the title game vs. UNC.

Big 10 Tournament
Haven't we seen this before with Wisconsin playing Illinois for the title? It seems like these two always play in this game. Illinois has to win to get into the tournament.

Big East Tournament
Pittsburgh made their 7th trip in 8 years to the finals last night but had only won one title. Last night, they changed that by defeating Georgetown to win the championship.

Bilas and Knight
I would recommend to any basketball fan to check out ESPN when Jay Bilas and Bobby Knight are talking basketball. Bilas has already made himself one of the most knowledgeable basketball guys on any network. When ESPN hired Knight, some wondered what they were doing. I, for one, after watching Knight the past few days have enjoyed his work very much and look forward to more from him over the next few weeks. However, I still don't believe he will stay on the sidelines.

Number 1 Seeds
As I sit here on Sunday morning, here are my guesses as to who are the number one seeds. Memphis and UCLA are locks after winning their conference tournaments yesterday. If UNC can win today they will be one and the other will come from the Texas vs. Kansas Big 12 Tournament Championship game winner.

Hank Steinbrenner
Where has this guy been? He takes over the Yankees and before April 1st he is taking shots at the Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays in the media. Here is to more great reading material from him when the real baseball season begins.

Time to go...as there will be more good basketball games today followed by Selection Sunday at 5PM on CBS. Get your brackets ready and the time to study before you fill them out begins tonight.

DC

March Basketball...in like a lion

Friday was one of the wildest days in basketball in recent memory from plays on the floor to weather around a building. So, without wasting much time, let's get right to it.

3A Basketball
Here are the scores from yesterday as well as the games for today in Class 3A. Simeon will be going for their 3rd straight basketball State Championship tonight.

Chicago Marshall 63
Washington 57

Chicago Simeon 51
Champaign Central 46

3rd Place Game - Washington vs. Champaign Central
Championship Game - Chicago Simeon vs. Chicago Marshall

4A Basketball
Here are the scores from yesterday as well as the games for today in Class 4A.

Zion-Benton 54
Evanston 51

Oak Lawn (Richards) 58
Lockport 41

3rd Place Game - Evanston vs. Lockport
Championship - Zion-Benton vs. Oak Lawn Richards

College Basketball Madness
Big 10 Tournament
This tournament was the upset venture of the day yesterday. Michigan beat Wisconsin and Michigan State beating Ohio State, the day was less normal in the evening. Illinois beat Purdue in OT 74-67. The final game of the day was a classic. Minnesota lead Indiana most of the game. However, a total collapse by the Gophers in the final seconds lead to the excitement. The Gophers were up 2 with three seconds to go. Eric Gordon of IU was fouled. He missed the first, purposely missed the 2nd, and DJ White of IU grabbed the rebound and scored with a foul. He made a free throw to put the Hoosiers up one. The Gophers went length of the floor in 1.5 and scored on a final shot by Blake Hoffarber to win the game.

SEC
Mother Nature is the major player. A severe storm and possible tornado caused damage to the Georgia Dome and a delay in the evening's 1st semi-final between Alabama and Mississippi State. After an hour plus delay in which there was much damage in Atlanta, the game was resumed with the Bulldogs winning. However, the Kentucky vs. Georgia game was cancelled due to more weather rolling in. Thus setting up the chance that UK or UGA will play twice today. The games have also been moved from the 30,000 plus seat Georgia Dome to the 9100 seat Georgia Tech facility due to storm damage in and around the Georgia Dome. Tickets are going to be at a premium. UK and UGA will play at 11AM. Then, Tennesse will play Arkansas at 5PM while the winner of the first game today will play Mississippi State at 7PM tonight.

Thankful
Kudos goes to the people of the Georgia Dome and the SEC who did everything right in preventing what could have been a major disaster at the Georgia Dome. Swiftly acting and thinking people prevented people from stampeding to get out of the building. They prevented what could have been a more dangerous event from happening. Also, we are thankful that the building did not collapse from the storm onto 30,000 plus people.

With 2 days left in the conference college basketball tournaments, lets hope all of the excitement happens on the court and not on. On a much lighter side, there will be some very good games today and tomorrow leading up to Selection Sunday on CBS at 5PM tomorrow night.

DC

Filled with Sports on Friday

There are several things happening in the sports world so I am just going to get it started.

3A-4A State Tournament Basketball
This weekend in Peoria will wrap up the high school basketball season when the Class 3A-4A State Tournaments will take place. If you are lucky, you will be able to watch the games somewhere on TV, but not if you have a satellite. I will keep you posted on what happens from this weekend.

3A Happening Results
Logan Murphy of Mt. Vernon made 9 three pointers in his group but failed to advanced. Gavin Petrea of Salem made 7 three pointers in his group but failed to advanced. In the slam dunk, Adrian Dabney of Centralia had a score of 24 points but failed to advance. Congratulations to all three for advancing to Peoria.

Summer Basketball Tournament
It is never to late to start working to get better on basketball for the upcoming 2008-2009 season. Waltonville High School will be hosting a 16 team high school boys basketball team shoot-out on Saturday, June 7th. If interested, contact Mike Denault(head coach at Waltonville High School) at 279-7211, extenstion 113. This has been a very good event since it has started and basketball fans mark it down on your calendar to get an early preview of basketball teams in Southern Illinois for the upcoming season.

Cardinals Questions???
How many other things that could be termed as bad happen to the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals in the past week? (1) Albert Pujols has a torn ligament in his right elbow but will continue to play through it. Eventually, he will need reconstructive surgery but he and the Cards are going to have a plan on playing and rest to keep him in the lineup. (2) Matt Clement found out he will not be ready to pitch by opening day causing even more questions in the starting rotation. (3)Mark Lamping resigned from the Cards yesterday to take over a position as the leader of building a new football stadium for the Giants and Jets in the Meadowlands. He was a key person in renovating old Busch Stadium, building the new stadium, hiring Walt Jocketty and Tony LaRussa, and being part of the 2006 World Championship. (4) A major business backer of the Ballpark Village announced yesterday they possibly were pulling out of their agreement to build their offices in that area. The mayor of St. Louis is threatening to make the Cards pay the city millions if the Village doesn't happen. Remember, the new ballpark deal included the fact that a Ballpark Village was going to be built. If you are a Cards fan, then you are hoping things on the field go a little better.

Billy Crystal as a Yankee
Billy Crystal signed a one day deal to get an at bat in a spring training game with his beloved New York Yankees. After several days of working out, he got his chance yesterday. He looked pretty good in the batting cage leading up to the event, but struck out in his appearance to lead off the game yesterday.

Thursday College Basketball Conference Tournament FYI
It was a bad day for bubble teams yesterday according to the experts. Several teams including Florida, Villanova, Arizona State, and Mississippi to name a few. There will be several of those and more that will be holding their breath until Selection Sunday.

The Big 12 Tournament had a story line game in the opener yesterday. Texas Tech (coached by Pat Knight) and Oklahoma State (coached by Sean Sutton) was played. That is winning connections with a couple of coaches who have won over 1600 games.

The Big East wins the honor of upset day as 3 of the 4 teams ranked higher in games lost yesterday. Pittsburgh has been in 6 out of 7 of the last Big East Tournament title games. That is getting it done, and again they beat Louisville in a Big East tournament game yesterday.

The SEC had the best game of the day as Georgia beat Mississippi 97-95 in overtime last night.

This was a wild day of college basketball in conference tournaments. It will only get better as the weekend rolls on.

DC

Changing of Sports and Seasons...

The beautiful weather outside yesterday gave me a touch of spring fever. I am guessing like many of you that I am waiting patiently for those warm, sunny days. With the changing of weather, we go to the changing of sports seasons. There are some winding down and some getting ready to go full steam.

3A-4A Boys Basketball
Peoria will host the 3A-4A State Tournaments this weekend. As mentioned previously, Champaign Central is the fathest team south. Here is a little FYI. Kentucky Head Basketball Coach Billy Gillispie was in Springfield on Tuesday to check out Verdell Jones of Champaign Central. He is a point guard and is ranked on Kentucky and several programs wish list.
In 3A, it will be Washington vs. Chicago Marshall and Champaign Central vs. Chicago Simeon. In 4A, it will be Evanston vs. Zion-Benton and Lockport Township vs. Oak Lawn Richards.

3A Happening Qualifiers
Gavin Petrea of Salem and Logan Murphy of Mt. Vernon will be shooting in the 3A three point contest today in Peoria. Adrian Dabney of Centralia will be dunking in the 3A slam dunk competition.

Baseball and Softball
This is the first offical week that high school teams can play baseball and softball games. The warm and dry weather so far this week have allowed teams to get out and practice and play some games. So if you hear some "pinging" going on, that is the sound of baseballs and softballs hitting the aluminum bats. The problem is the weather looks to be rather rainy over the next 4 to 5 days. Welcome to spring in Southern Illinois and AD's having to schedule, re-schedule, and re-schedule again to get games in.

Filling up on College Basketball
For two weeks, there has been several teams already qualify for the NCAA Tournament by winning conference tournament championships. Starting today and running through Sunday, it is a college basketball fan's dream with all of the conference tournament games going on. Basically from 11AM until late at night it is a basketball bonanza. For me, there will be tons of couch time and TV watching which will culminate in the Selection Show on CBS Sunday evening.

Soaring and Streaking
If you haven't noticed, the Houston Rockets have won 20 games in a row in the NBA. That is an incredible streak of wins because only 2 other teams in the history of the NBA have won that many or more in a row. 20 wins is basically 1/4 of an NBA 82 game season. Though doing this without Yao Ming and many, like me, believe they can't play similarly in the playoffs, this is pretty impressive to put a streak like this together.

MLB
Anyone else tired of exhibition games and waiting on the regular season to start?

NFL Draft camp
The University of Illinois held a pro day for many college football players to perform in front of team executives for the upcoming NFL Draft. Du Quoin and SIU QB Nick Hill participated in this day. I wish him the best of luck and hope to hear his name called during the NFL Draft.

Time to roll and get something accomplished today before college basketball starts.

DC

3A-4A Basketball Score Update

Southern Illinois took a hit last night as both Mt. Vernon and O'Fallon both lost in Super-Sectional action. At the Springfield, Mt. Vernon lost to Champaign Central 44-37. At Bloomington in 4A, O'Fallon lost to Lockport Township 50-47. It looks like Champaign Central will be the furthest representative south this weekend.

Here is a look at the scores last night. The winners are in bracket order for this weekend in Peoria.

3A
Washington 56 Sterling 40
Chicago Marshall 84 North Chicago 54
Champaign Central 44 Mt. Vernon 37
Chicago Simeon 43 Calumet City 40

Washington vs. Chicago Marshall
Champaign Central vs. Chicago Simeon

4A
Evanston 50 Chicago Mt. Carmel 40
Zion-Benton 64 Elgin 50
Lockport Township 50 O'Fallon 47
Oak Lawn Richards 63 Neaqua Valley 42

Evanston vs. Chicago Mt. Carmel
Lockport Township vs. Oak Lawn Richards

3A-4A Super-Sectional Basketball Update

3A and 4A Super-Sectionals will be played tonight with the winners advancing to the State Tournament in Peoria this weekend. Here is a breakdown of everything going tonight in bracket order. Note that our representatives of Mt. Vernon in 3A and O'Fallon in 4A are playing and we are rooting for them.

3A Super-Sectionals
NIU Super - Sterling vs. Washington
Hoffman Estates Super - North Chicago vs. Chicago Marshall
Springfield Super - Mt. Vernon vs. Champaign Central
Chicago State Super - Chicago Simeon vs. Calumet City

4A Super-Sectionals
Hoffman Estates Super - Evanston vs. Chicago Mt. Carmel
NIU Super - Elgin vs. Zion-Benton
ISU Super - O'Fallon vs. Lockport
Chicago State Super - Neuqua Valley vs. Oak Lawn Richards

1A - 2A Favorites for 2008-2009

Yes, the 1A and 2A season has been over one day and it is now time to look ahead to 2008-2009. Obviously, Chicago North Lawndale is the prohibitive favorite to win the 2009 2A title with who they will have returning next year.

However, I want to hear from you the reader as to who are the favorites in 1A and 2A next year in Southern Illinois. Post who you think will be teams to watch as far as who could be playing in Peoria in 2009.

DC

More Peoria tidbits...

After driving 3 plus hours on the journey home, the mind seems to wonder a little and remember the weekend in different parts. So, with that being the case, I remembered some of the things I noticed over the weekend and thought I would put some more down.

Gunner Gillespie
It was great to see both Olney and Pinckneyville wear Gunner shirts before the 3rd place game last night. Gunner is a inspiration and great young man battling a brain tumor. Keep him and his family in your prayers each day.

New Hardware
Lewistown and Nokomis took home their first ever boys basketball state trophies this weekend. St. Anne and Warrensburg-Latham took home their second ever state basketball trophy.

NBA Roots
St. Anne is the home of Jack Sikma who led them to the 1973 4th place trophy in Class A in 1973. Sikma went on to play for the Seattle SuperSonics and Milwaukee Bucks. He was a member of the 1979 SuperSonics team that won the NBA Championship.

2009 Favorite in 2A
Is their any doubt that Chicago North Lawndale will be the favorite to win the 2A title next year with all the players they will have returning?

Offense Optional
8 games in the past two days yielded little offense. The most points scored in a game was by St. Anne in the 1A State Championship game 67-61 over Nokomis. The most on the 2A side was 56 by Chicago North Lawndale in the title game vs. Peoria Manual.

Peoria School System Questions
In a previous blog, I questioned what could be a mini-dynasty if Peoria Manual were to stay in 2A basketball the next few years. There is some decisions to be made in the city of Peoria at how to redistrict their 7 high schools due to federal funding problems. Let's hope that the school name of Peoria Manual stays for the history of basketball at the school.

DC

Leaving Peoria...

A beautiful sunrise over the city of Peoria has taken place. There seems to be a relative calm but that may be due to the fact that everyone lost an hour of sleep with Daylight Savings Time taking place shortening up the Saturday nights of everyone.

It seems this high school basketball season flew by and I can hardly believe that the 1A-2A portion of the schedule is done. One more week left of the 3A-4A season is left as well.

For everyone heading back home today, have a safe trip. Kepp checking back here for updates on postseason awards, all-star games, and basketball summer tournaments as well as anything in the sports world.

DC

Day 2 Notes and Tidbits

The first ever 1A-2A State Championship weekend for the IHSA is in the books. Overall, things went pretty smoothly during the weekend. At least from this viewpoint, the jury is still out as far as how this whole 4 class process will be in future years.

Peoria Civic Center
We were told that over 80,000 people will go through the turnstyles this weekend to the March Madness Experience in the Civic Center. Everyone in the Civic Center and Carver Arena were very friendly as were the people of the IHSA during the weekend.

Best Dressed
If you have ever seen Chicago North Lawndale play, you know where I am going with this. The coaching staff wins best dressed in the tournament.

Southern Illinois Officials
Mike Ausin, Dana Pearson, and John Sallee officiated their second game of the weekend on Saturday by doing the 2A Third Place game between Olney and Pinckneyville. Congrats to those 3 for earning the trip to Peoria.

Saturday Night Attendance
It seemed that the early view of the crowd was that the 1A teams were virtually non-existent as far as the teams and crowds to attend the night session. As the first game of the session started, the crowd wasn't too bad. Olney and Pinckneyville had very good crowds once again, but when they received their trophies and medals during the championship game, most of that crowd headed for the exits. By the end of the 3rd quarter of the title game, you could have put most everyone in Carver Arena in the bottom bowl that was left.

Pinckneyville Seniors
Schools enjoy years in athletics where teams get to the State Tournament. It is rare to have a class that excells in the classroom and on the field and courts as well as the Pinckneyville High School Senior class. Ryan Rushing, Kyle Cassity, Collin Woodside, and Hayden Hicks were members of two PCHS teams to reach the State Tournament and earn two 4th place finishes. They have also been a part of a 2nd place finish in Baseball in 2007. These 4 are part of a special group that as years go by people will respect and cherish more and more. They have been a pleasure to watch over the years.

Finishing up...
It was another fast paced but fun weekend in Peoria. The first weekend of the 4 class system has come and gone. Teams have their trophies and will enjoy a return to town parties tomorrow at their respective high schools. If you are a fan or member of these communities, get out and support your returning athletes and coaches. Enjoy these sports moments because they don't happen all the time. This 1A and 2A basketball season is in the books and it won't be long until the summer basketball camp circuit begins.

DC

2A is complete

The 2A basketball season is officially in the books.

In the 3rd place game, it was a rematch of the Duster Thomas Hoops Classic Championship in which Olney defeated Pinckneyville 58-54. This game was very similar. The game was very low scoring early and back and forth early on. Olney was able to forge ahead into a lead in the 3rd quarter much like the December game. Olney extended it to double digits before the Panthers charged back to get with 4 but could get no closer. Olney wins the game and 3rd Place in the 2A State Tournament 55-46.

Game number 2 featured the #1 and #2 teams in the last AP poll of the season in 2A. Chicago North Lawndale, who finished 2nd last year took on Peoria Manual who is the owner of 5 State Championships already. The game was very close in the first quarter. Both teams found it hard to get a rhythm. However, a very stiff Lawndale defense was able to force Manual to take many jumpshots and not penetrate. Manual wasn't hitting and thus fell behind by 9 at the half. 6-11 Sophomore Paul Bunch was a force in the game scoring 18 points while Zilijian Jones scored 16 and gave Manual fits on defense. Manual could get nothing going in the 2nd half and Lawndale pulled away to win the State Championship 56-42.

DC

1A is complete

Class 1A boys basketball is in the books. St. Anne will be a trivia question for years to come as they are the 2008 State Champions. They defeated Nokomis 67-61. In the 3rd place game, Warrensburg-Latham outlasted Lewistown 62-51.

In the 3rd place game, both teams came out very active even though it was an early morning game. There was much offense in the first quarter, but the defenses tightened in the 2nd. The teams exchanged leads in the 3rd quarter before W-L was able to go on a run and extend a lead to an amount that Lewistown couldn't come back from. Being highly rated all year, W-L really struggled this weekend in games and never really could put the knock out punch on Lewistown.

The championship game was very close for 2 1/2 quarters. It was at that point when the athleticism, size, and quickness of St. Anne started to take a toll on Nokomis. The defense was able to force turnovers and quick shots which led to fast break point scoring chances. Nokomis wore down a little and St. Anne had the lead to 18 points during the game. Nokomis battled back to make it closer at the end, but had no answer as St. Anne made their free throws to win the title.

There are 2 more games left in the 2008 Class 2A season. The 3rd place game will be Olney vs. Pinckneyville. The championship game will be Peoria Manual vs. Chicago North Lawndale.

I will blog later about these games and events of day 2 of the State Tournament.

DC

Saturday Morning

Late to bed...early to rise to make it back to the Peoria Civic Center for Saturday Morning Talking Sports on WQRL 106.3FM from 8AM to 10AM. The Civic Center was very dark and quiet when Jim and I arrived to begin setting up for the show. However, the life in the building has grown considerably as music is blaring, a band is playing, and the people are starting to roll through to begin their basketball day.

There will be four games today. Here is the lineup of games today:

1A Third Place Game
Warrensburg-Latham vs. Lewistown

1A Championship
St. Anne vs. Nokomis

2A Third Place Game
Pinckneyville vs. Olney

2A Championship
Peoria Manual vs. Chicago North Lawndale

Remember, if you are going to be around a radio, tune into WQRL 106.3FM for coverage of all of these games. Also, keep checking back here periodically during the day as I will be blogging live from Carver Arena.

DC

Semi-Final Day ramblings...

Attendance

It seemed the crowds for the games were no different then if it were 8 teams playing in one class. It was apparent that Olney and Pinckneyville brought the most people of the day, but many other schools had good showings as well. The crowd did seem to thin out halfway through the second game of the day, but didn't leave until the very end of the Pinckneyville/Lawndale game. We will have to see tomorrow the attendance totals for each session to verify.



Southern Illinois Officials

Three local Southern Illinois Officials were selected to officiate this weekend. John Salee, Dana Pearson, and Mike Austin worked the Warrensburg-Latham/Nokomis 1A Semi-Final game. They will work another game tomorrow to be determined later.



Say what?

For those of you who attended the second session, Brett Thompson from Vienna was the dunker instead of what was announced over the PA of Scott Thompson from (VEE-in-uh). Also, Rob Flanagan is the head coach of Olney and not the name announced over the PA.



Hopes Dashed

This is one guy who was hoping for a Madison/Okawville rematch from 1987 State Title game. Those hopes were gone when both lost in the Super-Sectional. Then, I was hoping for a Pinckneyville/Olney title game and those were gone with Semi-Final losses. Well, one can wish can't they?



Title Run

With Manual in 2A and looking like they are going to be in the mix each year to make the 2A State Tournament, just how many titles could they win in the 2A class? It seems to me that they are a 3A team in a 2A body. No one plays the schedule they do year in and year out with a majority of 3A and 4A teams on it. When you play that schedule, no wonder they have been successful this season. Olney gave them their closest game in postseason so far because all other wins by Manual have been double digits.



Southern Illinois has a 3A Super-Sectional Team

Congratulations to Doug Creel and the Mt. Vernon Rams. They defeated Cahokia tonight in the championship game of the Centralia Sectional. They will advance to play Champaign Central next Tuesday in the Springfield Super-Sectional. Central upset #1 ranked Decatur Eisenhower by 2 points. The winner will advance to the Final Four in Peoria next weekend.



Trophy Geography

Nokomis will be the furthest team south that can win a State Championship. The next furthest south is Peoria Manual followed by St. Anne and then Chicago North Lawndale. The south will have to settle for 3rd and 4th in 2A with Olney and Pinckeyville. The last time the championship trophy made its way below I-64 was 2001 with Pinckneyville.



Wrapping Up

I am looking forward to the games tomorrow. Each game should be very interesting. There are players who want to shake off bad games and those that want to continue their good play. It is getting late and early morning on Saturday has arrived so it is time to wrap it up.



DC

2A Semi-Finals

With much anticipation, the 2A games this evening were eagerly awaited by basketball fans. The first one was hard fought and the 2nd game was a classic.

Game one had the Olney Tigers playing the Peoria Manual Rams. It was a contrast of styles as Olney was able to play with Manual when the Tigers made it a half court game. Thomann was a hand full underneath. However, when Manual forced turnovers or took a missed shot from the Tigers, they were able to convert quickly into points. The Rams forced Olney to turn the ball over 17 times in the game while the Rams only did it 9 times. This ball pressure allowed Manual to build a lead that couldn't be overcome. Olney didn't give up and cut the lead to 5 late, but Manual held on to win 53-47.

Game two was a classic that will be talked about for years to come. Pinckneyville loses to Chicago North Lawndale 47-44 in a game that was evenly matched. The game went back and forth with leads never exceeding 5 points either way. Kyle Cassity was as dominating as ever leading the Panthers with 16 points. For Lawndale, Jonathan Mills scored 10 of his 12 points in the first quarter, but his rebounding was very good. Both teams traded leads several times down the stretch, but the Panthers couldn't get a couple of shots to tie at the end to go down and Lawndale prevails.

The 3rd place game will be a rematch of the championship game of the Duster Thomas Hoops Classic in which Olney won. I expect this game to be very good between two very good teams.

The title game will have some very good players on the floor. Lawndale will be trying to shake off a tough title game loss last year to Maroa-Forsyth while Manual will be trying to win their 6th State Title.

DC

1A Semi-Finals

There was a little bit of everything today in the two semi-final games. St. Anne used their athleticism and quickness to wear down a good Lewistown team. It was a low scoring game with several fouls which prevented the game from having much of a flow. It was a burst by St. Anne in the 3rd quarter to go up 9 points that Lewistown could never overcome.
I came away very impressed with Javonta Davis of St. Anne. He is only a sophomore. He can really leap and has a pretty good touch not only around the rim but in shooting the ball. The story of the game was Vernon Burdunice of St. Anne. He had 27 points in the game from various spots on the floor.
St. Anne wins the game 52-45 and advances to the title game.

Game 2 was the upset special of the day. Using a tremendous rebounding and defensive effort, Nokomis upset highly ranked and favorite to win the Class 1A title Warrensburg-Latham 36-33. Credit the Redskins as they have been picked against by a majority of people the past 2 games and have done a wonderful job of taking both Okawville and W-L completely out of what they like to do. Foul trouble early caused problems for W-L and took them out of their style of defense. Zack Boyd came into the game averaging 24 points a game but was held to well below his average. Big free throws made down the stretch helped the Redskins advance to the title game.

In the 3rd Place game tomorrow, W-L will play Lewiston and in the title game it will be St. Anne vs. Nokomis.

It will be interesting to see if W-L will come out and play they way they have most of the year. It seemed most people after the game thought they played one of their worst games all year. I am looking forward to see Boyd have a good game and show what he really can do. Lewistown will need big efforts from Adam Valencia and Cory Bishop to get a win.

The title game will be a contrast of styles as St. Anne likes to play man defense, pressure, and run the floor while Nokomis will play the 1-2-2 zone, grind it out defensively, and play a lower scoring game. The Redskins seem to be playing the best basketball of the two teams in the title game but we will have to wait and see tomorrow afternoon.

DC

IBCA All-State Teams

The IBCA (Illinois Basketball Coaches Association) selected members to their All-State teams on Friday. Here are the names of Southern Illinois players and teams they were selected too.

1st Team
Cornelius Chatt - Madison
Tommy Pelczynski - Nashville
Kyle Cassity - Pinckneyville
Keane Thomann - Olney
Sean Rakers - Wesclin
Brett Thompson - Vienna

2nd Team
Matt Palm - Carlyle
Brandon Kunkel - Red Bud

3rd Team
Marland Johnson - Meridian
Isaiah Cunningham - Eldorado
Isiah Simelton - West Frankfort

4th Team
Brad Buettner - Columbia
Kyle Heckert - Okawville
Brandon Brammeier - Okawville

Congratulations to all players who were selected to these teams.

DC

2A Three Point and Slam Dunk Contest Winners

Christian Thompson of Melrose Park (Walther Lutheran) is your champion for 2A in the 3 point contest. He made 10 out of 15 shots. Seth Thomas of Hamilton County finished in 2nd place with 9 out of 15 shots.

Vernon Young of Chicago (Holy Trinity) is your champion for 2A in the Slam Dunk contest. Brett Thompson of Vienna got 2nd and Isiah Simelton of West Frankfort finished in 3rd place.

DC

1A Three Point and Slam Dunk Contest Champions

Congratulations to Andrew Lauritson of Downs (Tri-Valley) who wins the 1A Three Point contest by hitting 12 out of 15.

Congratulations also goes to Marland Johnson of Mounds (Meridian) who wins the 1A Slam Dunk competition.

I will post later tonight the winners of the 2A Three Point and Slam Dunk contest.

DC

March Madness Experience

Before the games started today, I made walk through the March Madness Experience. It had its usual games to play, contests, wheelchair basketball, merchandise stands, and other such things that is there from year to year. The entire convention hall is used for this weekend. It is a rather huge place for the IHSA to put on their exhibit.
The one thing that really is fun to take in while in there is the pictures of teams and players past. It brings back memories of games from years ago and the great players that have played in the State Tournament. You have shots of Peoria Manuel, Lawrenceville, Quincy, Harvery-Thornton, and others. You have players such as Isiah Thomas, Sergio McClain, Frank Thomas, and the picture that is my favorite is of Jay Shidler of Lawrenceville taking a jump shot. It is poetry in motion.
However, the one thing I think is missing is the lack of pictures of teams, players, and other such things from Southern Illinois. We have Mt. Vernon with 4 state titles, Centralia with 3 state titles, Pickneyville with 3 state titles and many trips north, and a variety of teams downstate that have won State Championships and had some very good basketball players. I am hoping the IHSA puts some pictures up in the Experience that shows this tradition that Southern Illinois has starting next year.

DC

Slam Dunk Competition Finalists

Here are the finalists for the Slam Dunk Competitions.

1A
Dustin Broushous - Stockton
Austin Wieshaupt - Mackinaw (Deer Creek-M)
Zach Wood - Augusta (Southeastern)
Marland Johnson - Mounds (Meridian)

2A
Brett Thompson - Vienna
Isiah Simelton - West Frankfort
Scottie Brown - Peoria Manual
Vernon Young - Chicago (Holy Trinity)

DC

3 pt. shoot-out Happening Results

Here are the finalists in the 3pt. shoot out in each class.

1A
Bradley Ghere - Colfax (Ridgeview)
Nate Waggoner - Crete (Illinois Lutheran)
Wes Dukeman - Arthur
Andrew Lauritson - Downs (Tri-Valley)

2A
Justin Kunz - Braidwood (Reed Custer)
Christian Thompson - Melrose Park (Walther Lutheran)
Seth Thomas - Hamilton County
T.J. McNelis - Aurora Christian

DC

Arrival in Peoria...

My 3 hour plus trip to Peoria has ended. I am in the river city and ready to do some resting and relaxation.

Traveling up here today, the weather word is that Southern Illinois is going to be blanketed by a major winter storm system again with many inches of snow. In the city of Peoria, we are looking at unseasonably cold temperatures and wind chill in the city.

The 3pt. and slam dunk contest is currently going on right now. I hopefully will have reports of who are in the finals for both contests this evening, but for sure will have something tomorrow.

The teams participating have had media day, shoot around, and then will eat at a banquet tonight in Peoria. Then, it will be time for basketball at Carver Arena tomorrow.

It has been a quick turnaround to know just 24 hours ago many basketball fans were in Carbondale, and many are in Peoria.

Check back later for more updates from Peoria. As for now, it is time to go get some rest, relaxation, food, and some basketball discussion.

DC

It is "Get Away Day"

There is a term used in professional sports called "Get Away Day." This term is used when a team plays a game on a day and then that same day has to travel out to get to the next city. I am using that term today to describe everyone heading north to Peoria this weekend for the 1A and 2A State Tournament.

Quick Turnaround
With the games at SIU and Jacksonville last night, there will be several like me feeling that quick turnaround to get things packed and head north to Peoria today. Usually there is a night off between the Super-Sectional and this day, but the cancellation on Tuesday speeds up the schedule. It did feel different to hear the alarm this morning and know that today is the day to head north.

IHSA Activities Today
There will be several things going on in Peoria today and tonight. The 3pt. contest and slam dunk contest will take place this evening. The eight teams who will play this weekend will do the media round and have a shoot around. There will also be many coaches meetings as well.

Peoria Weather
The forecast in Peoria is predicting unseasonably cold temperatures both day and night. The highs for the weekend will be in the mid-20s and the lows will be in the teens and single digits with a strong wind out of north and then factor the wind chill on top of that. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Make sure to pack and dress accordingly this weekend.

The Weekend
Keep checking back here for updates from Peoria. Technology willing...I will be posting from Peoria all weekend to give you a taste of the happenings and events going on. To all who are making the trip from wherever to Peoria, have a safe trip.

DC

The Final Fours are set...

The Final Four in 1A and 2A are officially set.

1A
St. Anne vs. Lewistown
Warrensburg-Latham vs. Nokomis

2A
Olney vs. Peoria Manual
Chicago North Lawndale vs. Pinckneyville

DC

2A SIU Super-Sectional Game Notes

The crowd for this game is well above 8,000 in attendance. It is great to see basketball fans come out and support basketball here in Southern Illinois.

Another good officiating crew on the game as Dana Pearson, Mike Austin, and John Salee doing this game.

SIU Head Coach Chris Lowery and assistan coach Rodney Watson are here next to me watching the 2A game.

Atmosphere and excitement are the words for this game. It is electric in the SIU Arena.

1st Quarter
Both teams not showing any signs of nerves as they have come out very aggressive. PCHS leads 8 to 5 early.

PCHS has forced 5 turnovers in the game with just over 4 minutes left in the quarter and lead 10-5. It is obvious early that the Panthers are going to pressure Wesclin's guards early and often.

2 minutes to go and PCHS leads 14-11. Wesclin seems to be settling down in handling the defensive pressure by the Panthers.

End of the first quarter, the Panthers lead 18-15

2nd Quarter
Both teams are settling into a nice rhythm and this is shaping up to be an awesome game between two very good teams. PCHS leads T-W 21-17 wiht 5:32 in the first half.

PCHS leads 23-21 with 4:20 to go. Wesclin is really doing a good job of getting dribble penetration and getting to the rack or dishing off for points. They seem to be a little quicker on the perimeter at this stage of the game. Also, PCHS has Woodside, Priebe, and Hicks with 2 fouls apiece.

Slight scare for PCHS as Cassity dove out of bounds for a loose ball and came up a tad banged up. He has remained in the game.

Halftime
Halftime...PCHS leads 35-23. Cassity ends the half hitting a 3, getting fouled, and making the FT for the four point play.
PCHS has jumped out to this lead with a little run at the end of the half. They are in some foul trouble but are playing enough players to offset this disadvantage. Cassity leads the Panthers with 15 points.
TW has gotten better at handling the man pressure by the Panthers and cut the lead to 2 at one point, but really let the game get away late in the quarter. The Warriors are lead in scoring by Sean Rakers with 9 points.
The 1A Final Four is set. Madison was beaten tonight by Lewistown 57-52. So the games on Friday will be St. Anne vs. Lewistown and Warrensburg-Latham vs. Nokomis.

3rd Quarter
The first few minutes of the half are going to be crucial if T-W wants to get back into the game.

Neither team can get anything going an no one has scored in the first 2 minutes.

37-25 with 4:24 to go. Lots of time has passed and T-W has not made up any ground on the Panthers.

2:52 to go in the quarter, and the Panthers have exploded to a 44-27 lead. The Warriors are really struggling with turnovers and have only scored 4 points in the quarter.

End of 3 quarters...PCHS is dominating the game and leads 50-32.

4th Quarter
As we start the quarter, the Panthers have the chance to get a knockout blow on the Warriors.

This Pinckneyville team is on a mission and playing some very good basketball tonight. They lead 53-38 with 5 minutes to go.

Final Score
Pinckneyville 56 Trenton-Wesclin 38

The teams are set and now it is time to leave Carbondale and head to Peoria.

FYI
Neither winning teams tonight were able to take the nets home from the SIU Arena.
The crowd was great and hopefully Carbondale will host a doubleheader each year because the excitement and crowd was tremendous.
All in all a good night of basketball even with 2 double digit losses here.
It is time to head to Peoria tomorrow for the State Tournament.

DC

1A SIU Super-Sectional Game Notes

Local officiating crew on the game tonight in the 1A game. Roger Grumlee, Eric Brannock, and Steve DeClerck are on the game.

The crowd is growing as the night goes on. Okawville and Nokomis with pretty good crowds. The teams participating tonight are divided into the 4 corners here. The middle sections on either side is for fans who don't have a team playing tonight.

1st Quarter
We are at the end of the first quarter. Nokomis leads Okawville 9 to 6. Both teams are playing with some nerves but seem to be evenly matched. The 1-2-2 zone for Nokomis is causing Okawville problems on offense as the Rockets have 5 turnovers.

2nd Quarter
Okawville is really struggling from the field right now. Their shots are not dropping. However, the pressure of Okawville is starting to increase and cause Nokomis fits. The Redskins have been more aggressive in this game. Wade Kimbro has 11 points wiht 3:16 to go in the quarter and Nokomis leading 17-11.

Halftime
Nokomis is leading Okawville at halftime 24-17. The zone and pressure of the Redskins is really giving the Rockets problems early with 10 turnovers. Wade Kimbro has 16 points for Nokomis in the first half. The Rockets have been staying in the game with their free throw shooting going 6-7 from the line. Kyle Heckert has 3 points at half while Brandon Brammeier leads the way for Okawville with 9 points.

FYI
The Arena is starting to fill up with the arrival of the fans for the 2A game. There are many radio stations and media covering the event. So much so, their are media in the upper deck covering the games. It seems early on that the idea of having 2 games here for the Super-Sectionals is an awesome idea as many fans are turning out for the games.

3rd Quarter
Early on in the quarter, things are going much the same. Okawville can't get much to drop and Nokomis is dominating the rebounding category. 4:24 to go in the quarter, Nokomis leads 28-17.
The crowd is growing by the minute as well as the excitement level of the fans from Okawville and Nokomis. We will have over 5000 plus here tonight for the games.

The tide seems to be changing a bit with 2 minutes to go as Okawville seems to be gaining some momentum. They now trail by 7 but are starting to be more aggressive with 1:42 to go in the 3rd.

End of the 3rd quarter, Nokomis leads Okawville 34-25. Just as Okawville got back to within 5 points, Nokomis was able to extend it.

4th Quarter
Hecket hits a couple of free throws to get the Rockets back to within 34-27 with 6:24 to go.

Cahokia defeats Effingham 53-43 in the first of 2 games at the Centralia Sectional.

Clark Weeke hits a big 3 to pull Okawville back to within 37-32. Nokomis turns it over on a 5 second call and now the Rockets have the ball.

Okawville making a run and has cut the game back down to 39-35 with 3:30 to go.

2:32 to go and Nokomis leads 41-38 and have the basketball.

Wade Kimbro has 27 points for Nokomis with 1:38 to go.

56 seconds to go...Nokomis leads Okawville 46-41. Nokomis has made their free throws to keep the lead.

FINAL
Nokomis beats Okawville 56-44.

Final Stats
Wade Kimbro had 28 points for Nokomis to lead them in scoring while Austin Bertolino had 15 points as the other player in double figures for the Redskins.
Kyle Heckert had 17 points to lead Okawville in the game while Brandon Brammeier had 11 points and Clark Weeke had 12 for the players in double figures for the Rockets.
Nokomis was 16 out of 17 from the FT line in the 4th quarter and 19-23 in the game.

Nokomis will advance to the 1A Final Four in Peoria on Friday to take on Warrensburg-Latham.

There was no celebration on the floor. Security swiftly removed some fans who tried to join Nokomis in celebrating their win. The Super-Sectional plaque was presented and the teams took the floor to warm up for the 2nd game.

DC

Double Super Wednesday...

The weather is going to cooperate and there will be two basketball games tonight at the SIU Arena. Okawville will play Nokomis at 6:30PM and then Pinckneyville will play Trenton-Wesclin at 8:15PM. The winners will advance to the Final Four in 1A and 2A in Peoria on Friday. I will be blogging several updates from the floor of the SIU Arena. Check back here for these updates.

DC

Most of the 1A and 2A fields are set...

Several spots in the Final Four in 1A and 2A were filled tonight as there were Super-Sectional games played around the state.

1A Scoreboard
St. Anne 64 Lanark (Eastland) 44
Warrensburg-Latham 54 Fisher 28

2A Scoreboard
Peoria Manual 76 Savanna (West Carroll) 48
Olney 60 Stanford (Olympia) 45
Chicago North Lawndale 45 Palos Heights Chicago Christian 42

Wednesday Night 1A Super-Sectionals
At Jacksonville 7:30PM...Madison vs. Lewistown
At Carbondale 7:30PM...Okawville vs. Nokomis

Wednesday Night 2A Super-Sectional
At Carbondale 7:30PM...Pinckneyville vs. Trenton-Wesclin

1A Bracket at Peoria
St. Anne vs. the winner of the Jacksonville Super-Sectional
Warrensburg-Latham vs. the winner of the Carbondale Super-Sectional

2A Bracket at Peoria
Olney vs. Peoria Manual
Chicago North Lawndale vs. the winner of the Carbondale Super-Sectional

Musings...
--Is anyone else still remembering the days of Peoria Manual dominating and winning 4 straight Class AA State Championships and it seeming wierd now they are playing in the same class as a Pinckneyville, Trenton-Wesclin, and Olney? I remember Manual and Carbondale playing at the SIU Arena in a shoot-out and then playing for the 2A State Championship. My how things have changed over the years.
--Basketball fans in Southern Illinois should be salivating at the prospect of the 2 games at SIU tomorrow night. There is a lot of tradition with the schools and hopefully the weather or road conditions won't keep the fans away. Expect a huge crowd there tomorrow night to watch.
--With the games tomorrow night, there will be a quick turnaround for teams and schools who will be playing and then having to be in Peoria on Thursday for media, shoot around, and checking into hotels.
--Fans will also feel the affects of games tomorrow night with a short night for those going to games and then making the trip north to Peoria for the weekend on Thursday.
--Congratulations to Rob Flanagan and his Olney Tigers for making the Final Four. Coach Flanagan is a real gentleman in coaching in Illinois and I for one am glad he will be able to coach at Peoria and bring back a trophy.

DC

More Cancellations for 3-4-08

(2:00PM)
The weather is starting to cancel more games in basketball this evening. The 1A Super-Sectional at The Bowl in Jacksonville between Madison and Lewistown has been cancelled and will be replayed tomorrow night at 7:30PM.

The 3A Sectional game at Mt. Zion has been cancelled for tonight. Tonight's game between Normal Community West and Champaign Central will be played tomorrow night at 7:30PM. The Wednesday night game between Decatur Eisenhower and Springfield Lanphier will be played on Thursday night at 7:30 and the final will still be on Friday night at 7:30.

The Centralia Sectional game has been cancelled for tonight. Cahokia will play Effingham at 5:45PM and Mt. Vernon will play Jerseyville at 8:15PM tomorrow night.

Also, the IHSA website is reporting that several Scholastic Bowl Regionals have been cancelled for today as well.

With the cancellations, you can bet that there will be extra scouting going on tonight in Illinois as those teams that have been cancelled will be able to scout their next possible opponent. It also will give you the reader more time to pick your winners of these games tonight and tomorrow night. Post your picks.

SIU Super-Sectional Games CANCELLED!!!

As of 11:20AM, the games at the SIU Super-Sectional for Tuesday night have been CANCELLED and re-scheduled for Wednesday night at the same times of 6:30PM and 8:00PM.

Weather Wonderland

Winter is hitting most of Southern Illinois with a major blast this morning as it did last night. Ice and sleet seem to be the main factor right now with snow forecast to be hitting in the afternoon.

As I type here at 10:45AM, there are NO CANCELLATIONS for basketball events according to the IHSA website.

BRRRRRRRRRR
With this winter weather going on now, I decided to look ahead to the weather for Peoria this weekend. Though there will not be any ice or snow, it looks to be extremely cold. The highs are only supposed to get into the high 20s and low 30s while lows at night in the single digits and teens for the weekends.

Predictions needed...

We are now under 24 hours until the 1A and 2A Super-Sectionals.

1A Super-Sectionals
Lewistown vs. Madison
Lanark (Eastland) vs. St. Anne
Fisher vs. Warrensburg-Latham
Okawville vs. Nokomis

2A Super-Sectionals
Olney vs. Stanford (Olympia)
Savanna (West Carroll) vs. Peoria (Manual)
Pinckneyville vs. Trenton-Wesclin
Chicago North Lawndale vs. Palos Heights Chicago Christian

Post your predictions on who will win these games and advance to the Final Four in Peoria.

Calm before the storms...

Here are we the day before the 1A and 2A Super-Sectionals and the excitement just continues to build for these games. There is even more excitement in the fact that SIU will be hosting 2 Super-Sectional games tomorrow night for the first time. As a basketball fan, I can't wait to see two games with as much on the line as their will be tomorrow night. There should be a huge crowd at the SIU Arena tomorrow night.

1A Pairings in Bracket Order
Lewistown vs. Madison (at Jacksonville Bowl)
Lanark (Eastland) vs. St. Anne (at NIU)
Fisher vs. Warrensburg- Latham (at ISU)
Okawville vs. Nokomis (at SIU)

2A Pairings in Bracket Order
Olney vs. Stanford (Olympia) (at WIU)
Savanna (West Carroll) vs. Peoria (Manual) (at NIU)
Pinckneyville vs. Trenton-Wesclin (at SIU)
Chicago North Lawdale vs. Palos Heights Chicago Christian (at Lewis U. in Romoeville)

Elite 8 Stat Facts for the SIU Super-Sectional
Pinckneyville will be playing in their 5th Super-Sectional in 8 years.
Trenton-Wesclin will be making their 3rd ever appearance in a Super-Sectional.
Okawville will be making their 8th appearance in a Super-Sectional.
Nokomis will be making their 4th appearance in a Super-Sectional.

2nd Storm
As mentioned in the title above, I typed the word "storms." The first storm is the excitement of post season brewing for tomorrow night. The other storm I am talking about is the Winter Storm that is brewing to our west to hit much of Illinois from north of Springfield all the way to Cairo. It seems that winter doesn't want to give up its grip on the season and will send us another wave of sleet, ice, and snow our way. As of now, all games are still scheduled to be played but stay tuned and we will have any updates that possibly could happen.

DC

Final Wrap on Girls Basketball...

This past weekend marked the official end of the high school girls basketball season as champions were crowned in 3A and 4A. Here is a rundown of all 4 classes, the teams, and their places.

Class 1A
1st Place - Flanagan (Coop)
2nd Place - Newark
3rd Place - Moweaqua (Central A & M)
4th Place - Jacksonville (Routt)

Class 2A
1st Place - Warsaw (West Hancock Coop)
2nd Place - Rochester
3rd Place - Teutopolis
4th Place - Kankakee (McNamara)

Class 3A
1st Place - Chicago (Marshall)
2nd Place - Freeport
3rd Place - Lombard (Montini)
4th Place - Quincy (Notre Dame)

Class 4A
1st Place - Chicago (Whitney Young)
2nd Place - Bolingbrook
3rd Place - Buffalo Grove
4th Place - Chicago (Marist)

Stat Facts of the Weekend...
Dorothy Gaters has just completed her 33rd year as the head coach at Chicago Marshall. During that time, her record is 881-121. She has taken her teams downstate 17 times during that run. She has won 8 State Championships, three 2nd place finishes, five 3rd place finishes, and one 4th place finish during her career.

Boys 1A and 2A Saturday Sectional Results
In 1A last night at Pecatonica, it was Lanark (Eastland) over Stockton 44-25 and at Somonauk it was St. Anne over Donovan 58-45. In 2A last night at Byron, it was Savanna (West Carroll) over Winnebago 62-60.

Closing out...
The Girls season is now officially over with the first year of 4 classes in the books. Southern Illinois didn't have any representation at Normal, but it will vary from year to year and I am sure we will have some representation in years to come. FYI...the weather may play a factor in some events on Tuesday. It seems that some parts of Illinois are in line with a winter storm system that could have some ice, sleet, and snow.

DC

The Madness of March...

With the change of the day, we have entered March and now we are officially in March Madness. We wind up girls basketball this weekend and over the next 2 weeks we will wind up boys basketball as well.

Wrapping up the Elite 8
There are two 1A Sectional Finals tonight. At Pecatonica, it will be Stockton vs. Lanark (Eastland). Also at Somonauk, it will be Donovan vs. St. Anne.There is also one 2A Sectional Final tonight. At Byron, it will be Winnebago vs. Savanna (West Carroll).Once these games are completed tonight, we will have the Elite 8 in both 1A and 2A.

3A and 4A Boys Basketball
3A and 4A Boys Basketball crowned Regional Champions last night. In our area last night, the Mt. Vernon Rams beat Centralia 38-29 after the Orphans had won the first 2 matchups in the regular season. The Rams advance to the Centralia Sectional where they will play Jerseyville. The other game will be Effingham vs. Cahokia. The Rams have played the other 3 teams this season already. The winner of the Centralia Sectional will play the winner of the Mt. Zion Sectional in the Springfield Super-Sectional played at the Prairie State Capitol Convention Center. The games in the Mt. Zion Sectional are Normal Community West vs. Champaign Central and Decatur Eisenhower vs. Springfield Lanphier.

Girls State Tournament
There is basketballAt Redbird Arena today in Normal and the girls basketball season will wrap up. In Class 3A, the 3rd Place game will feature Quincy Notre Dame vs. Lombard Montini while the 3A State Championship game will feature Chicago Marshall vs. Freeport. In Class 4A, the 3rd Place game will feature Chicago Marist vs. Buffalo Grove while the 4A State Championship game will feature Bolingbrook vs. Chicago Whitney Young.

SIU Super-Sectional Doubleheader
Even though we are still days away from this game, the excitement is already brewing for the first ever doubleheader games for the SIU Super-Sectional site. How big will the crowd be? Will it be a sellout? Post your thoughts on the crowd and the games.

DC