LamarCheeks

A third OT!

Yikes. That shot by Tyra wasn't even close ...

Great pump fake. ... Not so great shot.

No bucket! A second OT.

No foul there? Are you kidding?

We have the ball. Tie score. We're holding for the final shot. We don't even take said final shot. ... I cannot tell you how much that infuriates me.

From what I've deduced from all the reports -- truthful or not -- Dawkins might have tried to arrange payment from Arizona for Bowen, but not Ayton. Or if he did try to arrange payment for Ayton, Miller wasn't involved in the conversations. So maybe Miller did talk to Dawkins, but not about Ayton. And maybe he just listened to Dawkins ... I don't know. This statement below is interesting, however ... ESPN already has admitted a couple critical mistakes in its report and obviously, nobody at ESPN heard the alleged wiretap. ... Poor Seth Greenberg. In an interview after Millers presser, he was torn between standing up for Sean and standing up for his employer.

Interesting. Sean Miller is taking the defiant route.

IU 69 Rutgers 61

A nuclear family is a mother, father and their children -- so that excludes cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.

If everyone stays, I will be interested to see which of the younger guys makes the biggest improvement to next season. I recall that as a sophomore, Victor couldn't throw the ball in the ocean. But he got in the gym, busted his butt and not only became a very good shooter, but became one of the best players in the country. ... I'm embarrassed to say (write) this, but after their sophomore years, I thought Sheehey would end up being the better player of the two. He was bigger, I thought he was just as athletic as Vic and I thought he had a better shot. Boy, was I wrong. And in a big way.

Social media, myriad websites on internet, TV crawls have all added to this. It's almost as if it's become more important to be first than to be correct. Everybody's so eager to get something out there, they don't seem to even care if it's accurate -- or important. ... Back in 2008, when there was just one NCAA tourney play-in game, Coppin State won the MEAC tournament, but had a losing record. First of all, it was the MEAC, which typically has the lowest, or one of the lowest, conference RPIs in the country. Second of all, it was the only team with a losing record that could make the field. Yet about two minutes before CBS was to air its selection show, ESPN had this crawl: "BREAKING NEWS! ESPN's Andy Katz reports that Coppin State will be in the play-in game on Tuesday night."... Honestly, that happened. My 7-year old mutt could've figured out that Coppin State was gonna be in that game. But ESPN, for some reason, felt the need to let everyone know just before the selection show. Also, here's this fun tidbit from a few years back about Bret Bielema and Notre Dame. It's from a Notre Dame fan board: Here's an object lesson in how rumors get started, and how quickly they spread in the internet age. 1. Friend of BGS decides (not at our behest, by the way) to email the rumor site FootballCoachScoop.com with a choice tidbit. FootballCoachScoop seems to post all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors, and said friend wants to see how easy it is to get something started. 2. Friend composes a very short, but specific email: I used to work in the athletic department at Notre Dame(a lie), and I have heard that Jack Swarbrick is interested in Bret Bielema, the head coach at the University of Wisconsin. This was at 6:56pm last evening. The email is sent from a free gmail account. There is no other email sent from friend, no attempt to "sell" the rumor beyond the initial communication, and nothing else to back up his credibility. 3. Meanwhile, friend has another buddy randomly tweet a few times about the Bielema rumors, and goes to bed. 4. FootballCoachScoop does not reply to the email. FootballCoachScoop does not ask any followup questions. FootballCoachScoop, to friend's knowledge, makes no attempt to verify emailer's bona fides in any way. 5. The next morning, FootballCoachScoop runs the rumor almost verbatim. Friend chuckles and shares the development with a few friends. 6. Later in the day, BGS notices a piece posted to "the Examiner", a Huffington Post-style blogging site that allows anyone with an email address to register as a "reporter." Joshua Burns picks up on the FootballScoop item and pens this: "Examiner" posts have sometimes popped up in my google reader, linked alongside legitimate news stories from legitimate news outlets. I wonder if it will show up. UPDATE: voilà, there it is. This is now on a national newswire. In the meantime, please know that to our knowledge, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Jack Swarbrick is in any way interested in Bret Bielema as the next coach for Notre Dame. And please, most of all...don't trust the internet! UPDATE II: John Taylor, blogging for NBCsports.com, picked up the rumor from FootballCoachScoop, but then realized it was a goof, and printed a pretty entertaining retraction. UPDATE III: This is officially hilarious. A Madison.com reporter, Jim Polzin, picked up the FootballCoachScoop rumor and actually tracked down Bielema in Hawaii for a statement. He also called Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez. Both men, of course, had no idea what Polzin was talking about and denied any contact between Notre Dame and themselves. UPDATE IV: Polzin catches on, and updates his story with a link to this post. In the meantime, ESPN blogger Adam Rittenberg has also published the rumor but quickly retracted it. Okay, enough rumor-busting for the evening. Have a great weekend, everyone.

I actually looked it up -- because you got me curious. In 2000-01, Davis' interim/first season, we played Iowa once during the regular season -- in Iowa City -- and lost, then lost to them again in the B1G title game. Recker was on that Iowa team.. ... The following season (the year of our NCAA title-game run), we dusted Iowa twice, then lost to them in the B1G tourney -- but that was in the semifinals. That was Recker's senior year. ... And as far as I remember, 2001 was the only time we got past the B1G semis.

Or Bob Knight. Or Mike Davis. Or Kelvin Sampson. Or Dan Dakich. ... Hell, I think in all the years of the B1G tourney, we've only even reached the final once. And in that one, we lost to that weasel Alford.

I'm guessing this whole FBI deal will turn out to be a bigger scandal than back in 1994, when the Western University Dolphins bought Matt Nover a tractor, Shaquille O'Neal a car and a house for Penny Hardaway's mom. And they got off with three measly years of probation! That just cried out for death penalty, especially when on top of all that, Tony had been shaving points! ... And what really chaps my behind is that they beat us when we were No. 1 that year, with a team that was dirty through and through. ... No wonder the NCAA is such a joke.

Statement from Sean Miller: "I believe it is in the best interest of our team that I not coach the game tonight. I continue to fully support the University's efforts to fully investigate this matter and am confident that I will be vindicated. For now, my thoughts are with our team. They are a great group of young men that will support each other and continue their pursuit of winning a Pac-12 championship." How on Earth is he gonna be vindicated? ... It'll never happen in my lifetime, but just for once (OK, more than once), I'd love to hear someone say: "Yep, I did it. I got busted."

Having the B1G tourney in MSG always seemed to be just throwing a bone to the Eastern teams -- Maryland and Rutgers (I still don't understand why they're in our conference) -- but the fact remains that we are a Midwest-based league. The tourney should be in Indy or Chicago. I could see even Detroit as a possibility. Maybe Cleveland or Milwaukee -- if they were looking for something different. But IMO, the tournament should always be in the Midwest.

I might be in the minority on this -- hell, I might be the only one -- but this really bums me out. I actually liked Sean Miller. When I went to watch IU play in the 1991 NCAA tournament in Louisville, Sean was there with Pittsburgh. He was the point guard. I saw and heard him at the press conferences. He just seemed like an old-fashioned baller, a kid who grew up in the gym as a coach's son and had to earn everything he got -- because he certainly wasn't the most talented kid on the block. They talked at that NCAA regional about how he had essentially been running the team since his freshman year -- because he knew his sh-t, and even his older teammates recognized that. He was one of those guys who, because of his background of busting his butt, seemed like he wouldn't even want to take shortcuts. ... And to find out he's pulling crap like this is really, really disappointing. And as someone mentioned earlier, like it or not, I think Archie automatically gets a cloud around him because that's his big bro.

That doesn't auger well for big brother, does it?

Text messages. Freaking' text messages ... After seeing this whole poopstorm of FBI investigations and payments and strippers and cheating, I'm still flabbergasted that we got busted for text messages. And that set the program back years. ... Granted, considering the type of kids he was recruiting, I wouldn't have been surprised if Sampson had taken us further down the slippery slope of seediness, but still -- text messages. Good grief!

Hoosiers 71 Skinless nuts 68

Oh well, it's a lovely night here in Virginia. My pooch wants to go for a walk ... To quote the late, great Harry Caray (who passed away 20 years ago Sunday), "So long, everybody."

I wonder if carrying this team on his shoulders all season is starting to wear Ju Mo out. He didn't look good tonight at all.

I'm tired of hearing how tough of a place to play this is. If we play the way we've been for the past 6-7 games, we win this. Even with our limited roster, we are better than Nebraska. We just pooped our pants tonight.

Game over.