Sports
Bulls beat the Mavericks with Luol Deng (19 years old out of Duke) scoring 30 points and 10 (or more?) rebounds. A career game for him. Curry scored 24 points.

Today Guatemala plays Panama in the final phase of qualifying for the World Cup.

BC LOSES
BC is no longer undefeated, god damn Irish ruined it. Well, at least that helps out for those that believe it's bad to go into the tourney undefeated. But we do have to beat Syracuse, of this I am adamant.

Weather
It's 50 degrees and sunny in Chicago. Really nice.

It seems Ordonez will wind up signing with the Tigers for (get this) 5 years and 75 million dollars. Can you believe that? That's an average of 15mil per season! And since contracts usually start low and go up as the years go by he may be making around 17-18 mil towards the end of that contract, ridiculous.

Bulls
Here is a great article on the Bulls by Sam Smith of the Tribune. He makes a great point when discussing why some of the big stars don't have any playoff experience and why their teams aren't winning as much - as opposed to the Bulls who don't really have a number one star:

"It may be as simple as this: The NBA is changing. It's a much younger league with fewer true stars. Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Amare Stoudemire, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Steve Francis, Ray Allen, Gilbert Arenas, most of the top "stars" in the league have had little or no playoff success.

If you get players from winning programs--like Duke, Connecticut and Kansas--and if you find players who just love to play basketball, regardless of the money and stardom--gym rats like Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Chris Duhon and Andres Nocioni--you can have success with what seems like lesser talent."

He hit it right on the money - we have guys that have won in college or in International play. They come from championship caliber teams, they know what it takes to win.

More Sosa stuff
Looks like the Cubs' plans are to sign Jeromy Burnitz - not Ordonez, who is close to getting a 5 year 55 million dollar deal from Detroit (!). Looks like if your team sucks you have to overpay for the big names.

So it would put Hairston into a utility role and leave us with a pretty inferior defensive team. Plus, Burnitz is old and has sucked outside of Colorado. Oh man....go Bulls!

Sammy Sosa Traded
Looks like he's finally being traded to the Orioles for Jerry Hairston Jr and minor leaguers Mike Fontenot and David Crouthers. Fontenot is rated by Baseballamerica as the Orioles number 7 prospect while Crouthers is number 10. Crouthers also has the best slider in the Orioles' system.

The Cubs will also send around 10 million dollars to the Orioles. I figure Hairston will play left or right, depending on whether or not Ordonez is signed. I can't see this happening, it would be such a waste. THat would leave DuBois AND Hollandsworth on the bench and we'd be spending WAY too much money for a guy filled with injury questions (Ordonez). Hopefully this will be the last move they make and go to Spring Training with this lineup:

Hairston Jr. RF
Walker 2B
Nomar SS
A. Ramirez 3B
Lee 1B
DuBois/Hollandsworth LF
Patterson CF
Barrett C

DON't sign Ordonez!!!


Bulls and Boston College plays today.

Bulls
Bulls win again behind a strong fourth quarter by Janner Pargo - a guy who rarely plays. Skiles didn't play a single one of the starters in the 4th quarter. Was it because it was a blowout? Nope, the Bulls were down by a point. I was shocked but it ended up working. We have the best bench in the NBA.

Piatkowski - 16
Nocioni - (my favorite player) 17
Pargo - 14 (all in the 4th quarter)

Let the good times roll

Bulls, Eagles, the Website
Bulls won on Wednesday, I got to see the final 10 minutes, plus I get to watch the whole game tonight. Playing so well, so well...

BC won again last night and Duke lost, so it's only the number one ranked Illinois team and BC that remain undefeated. Dudley and Smith each scored 21 points.

The website is all crapped out right now. I'm an idiot and I'll fix it soon, not that anyone cares.

PE Class in college?
Looks like it, from what I've seen. It seems there are Physical Education classes at DePaul for undergrads. This, to me, is ridiculous. It really makes me look at the school in a whole different way. I mean come on, PE Class? We used to joke about this stuff at BC, "Oh you have Breathing 101 today?"

And our athletes are nationally recognized. Come on DePaul...

Bulls
They really have to change their marketing strategy. On one of their TV commercials they are sitting around in a barbershop a la "Coming to America" commenting on the Bulls and stuff - it's pretty humorous. But the whole slogan is "Through thick and thin" - stressing to Chicagoans to support the team throught these tough times. Well the tough times are over and, while I understand why they marketed the team this way at the beginning of the season, it's time to update this to the current situation.

The current situation is the Bulls kick ass.

Oh they won again yesterday...