Nitt Picks Plays Better With A Nickname

You will never believe this. But college kids like cheap jokes. 

Sometimes, the taunts are simple.

"Library Man!" came the refrain a couple of weeks ago at Indiana.

Others can't be printed in this newspaper.

And Stanley Pringle hears it all.

 We've had our fair share of fun with this here at BSD.  The whole story is, well, really funny.  After reading the intro to this piece I was all set to make a point that we should really stop piling on the kid.  Well...

"It's funny, because the more noise they make, the better I seem to like it," Pringle said. "Like when we were at Purdue, the guys were yelling all this stuff when I was at the free throw line, and I made both of them. The next time, they didn't say anything, and I missed one. I was like, 'Man!' "

Never mind, then.  I mean if I get to still laugh at "The Librarian" jokes and help the team improve their awful FT%, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.  Here's a chart (from statsheet) of how that FT%, currently at 64.6%, ranks in the Big Ten:

And while we're at it, nationally:

A new age of distraction. Guess who's gone ahead and given up being coy about the record? You knew it, Bobby "Give'em A Second Chance" Bowden:

He is the second-winningest coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I) history, one win behind another legend, Joe Paterno of Penn State. Bowden is 382-123-4 over 43 years as a head coach. JoePa is 383-127-3. Bowden is 79 years old, Paterno 82.

[...]

Bowden admitted he keeps up with Paterno’s game each Saturday during the season.

"After games, I’ll find out," he said. "Sometimes I’ll check at halftime. After the game somebody will always tell me how he did."

 

Nice, instead of making halftime adjustments he's logging on to yahoo sports to check the Penn State score.  Although I suppose when you play two D1-aa teams and follow it up with an ACC schedule, the job becomes less demanding.

Ending the madness.  This is a slight tangent from the topic, but because we criticize so much sports journalism on this site it seems worthwhile.

Kyle Whelliston used to write on mid-major basketball for the WWL until their latest round of cut-backs.  He was originally slated to have his posts cut in half, but after speaking out (delicately IMO) he was later told he was getting the full-on axe.

Well he seemed to take it very well, actually defending ESPN and calling its bashers "tactless vermin", but also adds this take I consider interesting insight from the inside [h/t on the link for IDK]:

[H]ere's some free advice: it's time for all of us to ratchet back our reliance on corporations, and fly or die on our own. I've been living off the Sports Bubble for so long that I've lost touch with the actual value of what I do, and I have no tangible idea if this operation would survive with a lessened subsidy. Nobody asked me to start covering mid-majors this way, nobody demanded it at any point, and the market didn't require a smartass traveling reporter who talks as much about losing as winning, who posts more about philosophy than basketball. It seemed like the right way to do it, so that's the way I do it.

So in one sense I'm a little confused; those who attack the WWL's ways are vermin, yet he fully admits that the writers who are part of the juggernaut are out of touch with a changing reality.

On the other hand, it makes perfect sense. 

In a lot of ways I'm sure this is a hard reality to take on and I commend him for doing it.  Most of these guys worked their way up by starting on a crappy beat, only to get close to the top and then have to deal with empowered readers who want to be part of the message instead of silent consumers.

So while this is encouraging, I think the days of a fisk-free world are still a lot closer to a dream than a reality.  Viva la FJM.

In scores of other games...Fans are selling their Nebraska spring game tickets for as much as $253 each.  I don't know how many of you have attended a spring game but the value of the event decreases rapidly from the time you first leave your tailgate, the thought of paying more than a couple of dollars to get in seems insane to me....Boiled Sports previews tonights PSU-Purdon't game.