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The Big Blue Mist Heading for Indianapolis

Kentucky Fans

I come with a warning to Indianapolis residents. Let it not be said that your friends at The Pylon aren’t watching out for you. If you are sticking around Indianapolis for the Final Four this weekend, a storm warning has been issued for the greater Indy metro area, a storm known as the Big Blue Mist and it’s coming straight at you. I warn you not as a casual observer or as a protector of Hoosier State citizens. I warn you as a member of said Big Blue Nation. In the words of Bray Wyatt, “Indianapolis… we’re here.”

So what can you do? In the words of Randy Johnson, “Suck on it and like it.” seems appropriate. In seriousness, though, if it were me, and I were an Indianapolis area resident, I’d do the following:

  • I would take every expendable dollar I had in my budget and lay it all on Kentucky for the next two games with our friends at William Hill sports betting. Your city is overcome with UK fans and your wallet will be overcome with dead presidents. Sounds like a fair trade to me.
  • List any extra bedroom in my house on some house sharing website. I’m not kidding when I say hotels in Indy booked out last summer when Andrew and Aaron Harrison announced they were returning to Lexington. Closest hotel I could find in the fall was in Columbus. Not Ohio, but still. Easy way to make a quick buck or two and meet some great people in the process.
  • Become a Kentucky fan. No, really. It’s an enjoyable experience especially over the last few years. I know, I know, you may be an IU fan or a Purdue fan or even a Ball State fan. But there’s still room in the Big Blue canoe for a few more educated souls like you. You already read this blog so you’re clearly smarter than most.

Every college sports fanbase will tell you their fans are the most passionate, the most rabid, the most caring. Tree poisoning, mascot stealing, message board baiting pales in comparison to what UK fans do. They commandeer your city. They take over your hotels. Your bars and restaurants? Avoid them at all costs. It is a madhouse where the insane run the asylum and much like a summer church revival, once the event is over, they’re gone. Up and vanished like a fart in the breeze. But for Friday through late Monday night (if things go according to plan), Indianapolis is ground zero for the Wildcat Revival and it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

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Get Your March Madness on the Right Way with Slingbox

* This post sponsored by Slingbox*

slingbox logoThe Monday after the tournament field is announced is always a day of terrible productivity. Oh sure, I’m working. Oh no, I’m not doing anything other than looking at who’s under-seeded, who’s over-seeded, and who’s going to inevitably bust my bracket as my admin assistant picks based on mascot fierceness or point guard hotness and thoroughly stomps my bracket out in the process.

The crummy thing is the first (or not, if you count the play-in games) two days of the tourney, which are now the second and third rounds of the tourney for some reason, happen at noon on Thursday and Friday. You’re trying to watch basketball and all your boss is doing is complaining about the office supplies missing from the cabinet or how listening to NWA full blast without headphones isn’t great for the office. But thankfully, there’s a solution for that.

Slingbox, in its most simple form, allows you to watch your tv from anywhere that you can connect via a network. Smartphone? Tablet? Laptop? Computer? No problem. Television at your fingertips. Or screentips. Whatever. Close your office door, tell your secretary you’re in a meeting, and giggle all the way to the bank. That’s what wins brackets.

And speaking of brackets, aside from jumping in sponsorship bed with your friendly neighborhood BSU bloggers here at the Pylon, Slingbox is giving away the ultimate cubicle makeover so you can enjoy the NCAA’s March Madness tournament in style. They’ll come to your office and deliver a truly comfortable chair, your own Slingbox 500, and an epic party meal for you and your office mates. So enter today for a chance to win. PLUS 68 runners-up will win a Slingbox M1 to set themselves up for the big dance. You can check that out here.

Watch Out: NCAAB March Madness Is About To Run Wild with Mybookie

NCAA LogoThe month of madness is just a few days away, and already we are sensing a most exciting season coming up. For those of you who do not know what the March Madness is all about – what a pity – it is the annual basketball tournament held every spring in the United States. Get to know the NCAAB March Madness Contest, it currently pits 68 college basketball teams against each other, and starts on the second week of March ending by the first week of April and Mybookie.ag is your window to it all.

Cream of the Crop
As in all annual tournaments, there are national favorite teams that dominate the playing field. For years, these teams have shown professional playing prowess and determination to win the game and take home the national pride:

UCLA Bruins
Founded in 1920, UCLA Bruins boasts of 11 Division I NCAA Championships, giving them the record of the most championships. Its unforgettable coach, John Wooden, won the team 10 national titles in just 12 seasons from 1964 to 1975. Right now, with its coach Steve Alford, we are yet to see if the Bruins still have what it takes to bring home the victory.

Kentucky Wildcats
One of the strongest college basketball teams we have is the Wildcats, proud of its record of most all-time wins (2167) and second to UCLA’s record of NCAA championships (8 titles). It holds the record of the most Sweet Sixteen appearances (40) and Elite Eight appearances (35). With its vast history of victory as well as prestige, will the Wildcats grab the championship this year?

Connecticut Huskies
The NCAA champion last year, the Uconn has in its sleeves four NCAA championships, seven Big East Tournament Championships, and ten Big East regular season titles. Uconn is the home of professional basketballs like Ray Allen. Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lamb, Richard Hamilton, and a lot more.

How the March Madness Bracket Works
The NCAAB March Madness works through a single-elimination system called the March Madness Bracket. First, thousands of teams undergo a selection process which comes up with a final list of 68 qualified teams. These 68 teams are then grouped into four regions ((East, South, Midwest, and West) and arranged in a single-elimination bracket system. The bracket system predetermines which team, upon winning the game, will face next.

Then each team is ranked, or most commonly termed as “seeded”, within its region. When the College Basketball Bracket is done, we now have lower-ranked teams and higher-ranked teams. The tournament advances by pitting lower-ranked teams against the higher-ranked ones, with three quarters of the teams eliminated every weekend. From Division level, the tournament advances to Regional and on to the National Level.

The game progresses as such until it reaches the last weekend of the Tournament of the Final Four. The final four teams, one from each region, face off in one location for the national championship. Here is where the most awaited moment happens.

Nothing beats the adrenaline rush we get from watching our favorite teams play in the field, and the extreme euphoria from seeing our team bag the title. Will your best bet make it to the championship? Do not miss out!

Ball State Releases Basketball Schedule, People Moderately Care

james-whitford1

Coach Whitford excels at holding jerseys, it’s good training for banners.

Yes, our bread and butter around these parts is football, and yes, we are going to be pigskin-centric over the next few days as Ball State plays the most “name” opponent of the year in the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore the other Cardinal sports. BSU basketball announced Wednesday that they have a schedule for the 2014-2015 season, and if that’s you’re thing, then plan ahead. To the release…

Ball State released its complete 2014-15 men’s basketball schedule Wednesday in conjunction with the announcement by the Mid-American Conference of the full league schedule.

The Cardinals will prepare for their 18 MAC games with a non-conference slate featuring marquee road trips to Utah and San Diego State in addition to games against traditional in-state opponents.

“We have put together a schedule we believe not only challenges our team but also offers a good competitive balance as we continue to build our program,” second-year head coach James Whitford said. “It was a good summer of improvement for our players, and we are excited to begin a new season.”

Utah returns the bulk of its team that won 21 games last season, while San Diego State is coming off a 31-win season and its fifth straight NCAA tournament berth. The Utah contest, scheduled for Nov. 14, is the season opener for both teams and is the second game in a two-for-one series that will see the Utes visit Muncie next season to complete the contract.

Ball State will continue its longest standing rivalry when it hosts Indiana State in the 129th all-time meeting between the teams. The Cardinals will play Valparaiso for the 61st time and IUPUI for the 10th time since 2000 with both of those games coming on the road.

The home opener at Worthen Arena is set for Nov. 17 against IU Kokomo, while the remainder of the non-conference opponents include Grambling State, James Madison, Longwood and Bethune-Cookman at home in addition to Eastern Illinois on the road.

Ball State begins its MAC schedule Jan. 7 at Eastern Michigan and plays its first league home game three days later against Central Michigan. As always, the Cardinals have two games against each fellow West Division team, including defending regular season league co-champions Toledo and Western Michigan.

Additionally, the Cardinals drew home-and-home matchups with Kent State and Bowling Green from the East Division. Ball State also has home games against East opponents Ohio and Buffalo while traveling for road games at Akron and Miami University.

The MAC Tournament is scheduled to begin March 9 with first-round games on campus sites. The top four teams will receive byes straight to Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.

Want the basketball schedule in handy printable form? Then you can go ahead and get that baby right here. The biggest game, and also the most meaningful with the backstory of Rick Majerus is the season-opener at Utah. No “name” Indiana opponent like the Hoosiers, Butler, or Purdue, but there is Valpo, Indiana State, IU-Kokomo, and IUPUI. Fire up!

Ali Landry Wants Monday News and Notes

Note to future girlfriends... Doritos do not make you look like this.

Note to future girlfriends… Doritos do not make you look like this.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Pylon has been eerily silent lately. If in fact you hadn’t noticed, thanks a lot, jerks. If you had noticed and assumed that Fearless Leader, RV, and Jason were too busy out saving the world amidst myriad tragedies and issues, then you should continue under that assumption. But as Occam said in his razor, the simplest explanation is often times the right one, and this is no exception. Coupled with a significant increase in real life workload thanks to some changing personnel landscape at the office and a promotion for me with virtually no news coming out of BSU footballland that couldn’t be quick hit on Twitter, and the result is a couple of weeks of a Pylon-free existence for you. That ceases to be the case now, as we are only five Saturdays away from the 2014 premier of the Fighting Football Cardinals. The offseason has been a whirlwind of news, so the short break the last couple weeks has been nice. No new locker rooms, no new buildings, no transfers in or out, and the chance to take a breath.

But what would a triumphant return to regular posting be without a news and notes post? Today’s celebrity is birthday girl Ali Landry, the poster child for Doritos-eating youths going through puberty in the late 90’s. She was a former pageant star and also was married to AC Slater Mario Lopez, and if you ask me that was the peak of her life career. In a moment of confession, I at first had her confused with Ali Larter and was really excited to use  the Varsity Blues whip cream bikini photo. Alas, we have to settle for the pitchwoman for Nacho Cheesier Doritos who celebrates her 40th birthday. On to the news and notes….

NewsNotesLogoPreseason Watch Lists are a good way for a program to generate some buzz and headlines in a long and boring offseason. Take last year for example, when it seemed like everyone who donned a BSU jersey was on some sort of list. This season, Jordan Williams has landed on the Biletnikoff Award Watchlist for the top WR, Jacob Richard has been named to the Lombardi Award Watchlist for the nation’s top down lineman, and Quake Edwards has been named to the Doak Walker Award Watchlist for the nation’s best RB. Good luck to all.

NewsNotesLogoJuly is preseason countdown month across the internet, and USAToday’s Paul Myerberg’s is usually one of the most well-documented and fair. He also used OTP’s Obama-ized Lembo icon as his Twitter avatar for a while, so suffice to see, Paul is A+ in my book. He ranks the Cardinals at #57 in his piece here. He ranks Indiana #69, so there’s that also.

NewsNotesLogoSpeaking of countdowns, the Orlando Sentinel ranks BSU #46 in their preseason previews. It always entertains me to read MAC previews from folks who don’t cover the MAC, especially when they act like the defensive unit will ultimately decide the fate of the team. I agree the defense is important and may even be the more productive unit this fall. But counting on your defense to win you a MAC title is like bringing a spork to a gatling gun fight. (via)

NewsNotesLogoI’m not sure what Rant Sports is, but if you can get past the pop ups and ads, they rank BSU #50. There. I saved you the click. (via)

NewsNotesLogoFrom the hardwood, the BSU Sports mothership takes you All Access with new BSU basketball assistant coach Danny Peters. (via)

NewsNotesLogoIn not-sports-at-all-but-definitely-more-important-news, BSU has implemented new Student Conduct standards for sexual assault, cyberstalking, and posting nude photos on social networking sites. As most who frequent OTP know, I’m in the field of higher education when not being a sarcastic prick on the internet, and it’s safe to say that creating an environment where students feel safe to come forward about such things is not an issue, it’s THE issue in higher ed at the moment. Between Jameis Winston, the Notre Dame sexual assault/suicide case, and the US Department of Education’s reveal of 55 campuses that were under scrutiny for their handling of sexual assault, it will be the issue of the next while in education. You can check out the details of BSU’s new policy here.

NewsNotesLogoIn happy trails news, BSU police chief Gene Burton is retiring July 31 after 34 years of service. I would estimate the number of parking tickets Burton’s office gave me to be 7 and the total number he was ultimately responsible for over three-plus decades of service somewhere in the neighborhood of eleventy billion.

 

 

Ball State Announces Coaches Caravans

dodge caravan

If they want to be literal, they’ll caravan in a Caravan. I’m not optimistic.

Well hello there, BSU fans. I hope you’re having a stellar Monday. If you’re not, I have some good news for you, assuming you live in Muncie, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, or Chicago and would like to meet the power brokers of BSU athletics. Because much like Big and Rich, the likes of Pete Lembo, Bill Scholl, James Whitford, and Brady Sallee are comin’ to your city, only without Cowboy Troy or the little person they always play with.

Your relevant dates to start penciling in:

Muncie:
Thursday, May 22
The Players Club (Yorktown)
In conjunction with the CVC Golf Classic
Noon to 1 p.m.

Fort Wayne:
Thursday, May 29
Champions Sports Bar & Restaurant
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Indianapolis:
Saturday, May 31
Victory Field (Comcast Room)
In conjunction with the Indianapolis Indians Outing
4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Chicago:
Tuesday, June 3
Harry Caray’s Restaurant
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. CST

It’s a great chance to be a part of some CVC events and also get your very own photo opp with CPL, Coach Whitt, Coach Sallee, or Bill Scholl. Hell, maybe even all four. Suitable for framing and makes a wonderful Christmas card. If you celebrate Christmas. Do they send cards for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? If not, they should. And they should put pictures of BSU big wigs on them. For more information and especially to register for the Indy and Muncie events, please contact the Ball State Alumni Association at 765.285.1080. If you’re hitting up Chicago or Ft. Wayne, enjoy spending some time at a sports bar type place with the BSU folks. Mozzarella sticks or nachos make a wonderful appetizer. You’re welcome.

Skeeball Lingerie Parties Want Friday Ball State News & Notes

SkeeBallGameEvery morning I have a digital routine that I do that usually involves checking texts, checking Twitter, and checking Facebook for the various stories and comments that I think might require additional examination on this site. This morning, I was surprised to see a growing outrage over an adults only party at a kids party place (think: Chuck E. Cheese) in Long Island, NY. To be clear, there were no children present, it was adults only, and from as far as I can tell it was more nightie’s and pj’s than Caligula-style horse orgies.

I’ll own the fact that I don’t have children, but I would like to think that if I did, it wouldn’t stop my ability to be somewhat rational about all this. I’m neither a scientist nor a child psychologist, but I’d hypothesize that just because a bouncy castle or a Dance Dance Revolution machine had someone in a nightgown play on it doesn’t make it or its users bound for eternal damnation because OH MY GOD SKIN!!!! And if the concern is your children being in a place where adult activities may have occurred, I might suggest to you to never let your children leave the house. Oh wait… they were born so they can’t stay there either.

Whether or not your delicate sensibilities were offended isn’t really the issue. You can choose whether or not to engage in naked skeeball, and even I would take a pass on that. It’s hard to look sexy when you’re rolling for four straight 50s with laser-like focus. But let’s pump the brakes on acting like this is the worst possible thing that could happen or that some law was broken. Poor taste? Perhaps. Though I would argue that’s a matter of internal measure. But to act like the mere presence of lewdness in an area where children may be TEN HOURS LATER somehow destroys their innocence is beyond stupidity.

Your kids are going to find nudity and adult themes in myriad places like the internet, television, movies, their friends, in their friends’ dad’s game room in the third cabinet from the left, etc. Perhaps all that energy you spend complaining about things like this would be better spent educating your children on how to live in a society where this is a thing (right or wrong) and pursue responsible decisions around it. Because acting like the whole nature of sexuality and/or adult type things is EVILEVILEVIL KILL IT is only going to make little Johnny or little Suzie that much more persistent to try it to see what all the fuss is about.

And for the record, if you’re one of those people who are outraged about the possibility of your child being in a location where people were perhaps thinking impure thoughts or engaging in activities that would make their parents blush and you live in southern Indiana, I’d go ahead and steer clear of the Dairy Queen in Floyds Knobs. Just, uh… go ahead and take Uncle Alan’s word on that one. On to your Cardinals news and notes…

  • The Cardinals football recruiting class that was signed, sealed, and delivered on Wednesday ranks anywhere between 3rd and 7th in the MAC depending on what service you look at. One thing to keep in mind is that the rankings are often impacted by the number of people in the class. It’s a cumulative point system that benefits those who sign massive classes. For BSU to land there with only 19 signees is a great sign about the quality of this class and the players within it.
  • And while the rankings are flawed, OTP did a little research and found that our preferred recruiting service (Scout.com) has kept rankings back since 2002. This 2014 class is the highest ranked Cardinal recruiting class ever. Even with only 19 signees. So be excited for that.
  • If you aren’t up on Ball State softball, you need to be. ESPNW certainly is, as they write a stellar profile on senior pitcher/outfielder Jenny Gilbert, calling her the best-kept secret in the college game. (via)
  • In not so great athletics news, the men’s and women’s basketball teams had a not so good week as the Lady Cards turned in two losses (@Kent and CMU) and the men one (@Buffalo). The men stand at 4-16 and the women at 9-12. It’s going to take a miracle for either squad to reach any form of postseason play at this point, but that’s no reason to stop supporting them. The men play at home on Saturday at 2 against Toledo and the ladies go on the road Sunday to Northern Illinois.
  • If you’re somewhere close to the nation’s capital, BSU men’s volleyball will be at George Mason this weekend to defend their newly minted #15 national ranking. If you’re near Princeton on Saturday, you can catch them also. Both matches start at 7.
  • No Ball State Tweet of the Week this week because most were either lauding a white trash party kegger or complaining about the snow. We have certain hurdles of classy here that we have to clear. (NOTE: We do not. This post started with lingerie skeeball parties)

The Olympic opening ceremonies are taking place as I write this, but because the suits at NBC are cramming a delayed broadcast down our throats, there is no way in America to watch them live. I, for one, welcome our new delayed television overlords. At any rate, stay warm this weekend, Cards fans. And make sure you disinfect your skeeballs. Hit the comments with your thoughts on whether you’re #TeamLingerie or #TeamPurity.

Cuba Gooding Jr. Wants BSU News and Notes

cuba gooding jrHowdy there, friends and neighbors. It’s the first workday of 2014, and the first opportunity you’ll have to misdate things for the next few weeks. Of course, this was significantly more troublesome and hard to remember back when things like personal checks were written, but considering how I haven’t written a check in probably two years, perhaps we can all get the date right for once. A guy can dream.

What’s also special about this particular day, short of it being the first day you couldn’t roll out of bed about noon and immediately start day drinking while watching wall to wall football, is that it’s the day of birth of one Cuba Gooding Jr. You remember him, right? For me, he’ll always be Rod Tidwell, the feisty Arizona Cardinal repped by Jerry Maguire on his road to redemption. He won an Oscar for his performance. Then he played the Navy diver with Robert Deniro and it seemed like everything was coming up Cuba. The next few films were anything but notable, well received, or good. There was the movie about the dogsleds, the movie about the gay boat trip, and a dozen other terrible attempts at cinema. Fastest drop from winning an Academy Award? Gotta be in the running. Wherever Gooding Jr. may be today, I hope he at least gets a longer break to take off his paper hat, put down his squeegee mop, and enjoy his 46th birthday.

To the news and notes!

NewsNotesLogo From Mobile, there’s a pretty solid piece about the Cardinals first practice and a good photo gallery of the goings on. Nothing necessarily news-worthy, but scrolling through some photos and reading a non-beat reporter perspective on the Cardinals is a good way to spend the afternoon.

NewsNotesLogo Chris Johnson from Sports Illustrated breaks down the GoDaddy Bowl, and you’ll want to check it out if for no other reason than it’s a national writer giving the Cards some credit and expecting a victory. So there’s that.

NewsNotesLogo Some quotes from BSU and A State players and administrators about the Go Daddy Bowl and Mobile in general. From all I’ve read and heard, people are stoked that this was the bowl and team that BSU ended up with. It certainly beats Boise.

NewsNotesLogo Men’s basketball traveled to central Virginia to take on James Madison, but it was JMU that came away with the W beating BSU 73-68. I would imagine a 2-8 start isn’t what James Whitford had in mind, but this early part of the schedule has done the Cards no favors, with 5 of the last 6 on the road. The Cards out the non-conference season on Friday at Worthen Arena versus Oakland City at 7pm.

NewsNotesLogo Women’s basketball is doing markedly better than their male counterparts, with a 5-6 record, a win last weekend at IPFW, and their MAC opener Saturday at Akron. On the individual side of things, senior guard Brandy Woody was named this week’s MAC West C0-Player of the Week following a terrific stat line from IPFW: 22 points and four assists, including 13 of 14 from the free throw line.

NewsNotesLogo Men’s volleyball opens their season on January 4th versus UC-Irvine at home at 7:30. You’ll get the chance should you go to check out senior Matt Leske who has been named to the pre-season all conference team for the MIVA conference. The Cards were picked to finish 5th by the league head coaches.

NewsNotesLogo Your BSU Tweet of the Day comes to us from @RebeccaEstherS:
BSUTotD

Move in day at BSU was one of the best days of my life. It was the beginning of a tremendous experience and something that if I ever had the chance to go back and revisit a time in my life, my times at BSU would be probably number one on the list. I’m jealous of those who are starting the next chapter of their lives in the next few days.

Big Papi Wants Monday BSU News and Notes

ortizOh, Monday. You reared your ugly head once again and the lovely budding relationship with me and the weekend was cut short once again. One of these days perhaps you’ll stop doing that. But since you did, I guess we’d better check in on the happenings around the Nest for the weekend and celebrate some celebrity birthdays, right? Right. Thought so.

As a baseball fan, David “Big Papi” Ortiz is one of the ones I’ll probably be happy to tell my kids I saw play. While I am fully aware a good majority of Americans don’t care for baseball like they used to, thanks largely in part to megahuge contracts and steroids, it’s still the American Pastime, dammit. And Papi is one of the most clutch players to play the game. As a Yankee fan, I’m obviously a little anti-Sox, and no player is more representative of the Sox return to dominance than Ortiz, but to overlook his impact on the diamond over the last decade would be not accepting reality simply because he was cheered for by rude Massholes. And that just wouldn’t be fair. Papi turns 38 today and I would be willing to wager his birthday parties are not at all unfun. Off we go…

NewsNotesLogo As if 2013 wasn’t already the Year of the Cardinal and their wide receivers, Willie Snead was announced as a semifinalist today for the Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best wide receiver. The other nine names are household ones in college football so it’s nice to see such a talented and deserving player make the cut despite not having ESPN slurp and slobber him all week long. That’s the definition of talent.

NewsNotesLogo Your BSU football team is off from game action for the next two weeks, next taking the field on Black Friday. It’s the final home game for a fantastic senior class, it’s a chance to hit double-digit wins and move the Cards to 10-2, and with a win the Cards are still alive (albeit perhaps not as of Wednesday pending other games) for a MAC Championship. Some people will want to skip the game because they would rather go and buy a bunch of wondersale type things at whatever retailer is around them, but as a former retail employee who worked black Friday: there are very few worthwhile sale items that the employees haven’t already pulled back and reserved and you won’t get what’s left unless you’re there at the asscrack of dawn. Which still leaves you time to go to the game. Excuses? You has none. See you Black Friday.

NewsNotesLogo For those of you who didn’t spend much time on the web looking for BSU things on Friday afternoon, the recreation and wellness center, some residence halls, etc. were put on lockdown after reports of a man with a gun filtered to police. The photos on Instagram and Twitter were scary and working in higher ed while things like  Virginia Tech and NIU happen make you realize just how bad something like that could be. No one and, more importantly, no gun was found in the complex and from all reports, the students and staff along with police and first responders did a great job with a difficult situation. A+ y’all.

NewsNotesLogo Andy Thorpe, who should be your go-to recruiting expert for BSU football, has a great piece about two Cardinal recruits that are on track to play against each other in the Indiana 5A Championship game. You can check that out here.

NewsNotesLogo BSU women’s volleyball clinched a share of the MAC West title and the #3 seed in the upcoming MAC Tournament by beating Western Michigan on Saturday. The Cards are back in action against WMU again on Friday in the tournament. The Broncos are the 7th seed. Oh, by the way, that was the first win by BSU on Western’s home court since 2006. Nice job, ladies.

NewsNotesLogo At the end of last week, the BSU cross-country team had their season end at the NCAA Great Lakes Region Championship. Though the Cards’ season is over, five of the six competing runners posted career bests in the event. I am most definitely not a runner, but the term “career best” is transcendent across every sport. (via)

NewsNotesLogo BSU head baseball coach Rich Maloney announced the signing of eight recruits for the BSU baseball program on Friday. Welcome to the new Cardinals and batter up! Unless you’re a pitcher. Then it’s batter down. But you get the point. (via)

NewsNotesLogo BSU men’s basketball is back in action tonight at 7 at home versus Southeast Missouri. Game tips at 7 and you might as well jump on the BSU Basketball Bandwagon now while there is still space.

NewsNotesLogo Your BSU Tweet of the Day comes from @jessica_moak:
BSUTotDIt’s funny, but I hear that from alums all the time and usually from people who thought once they were done with BSU they would kick that Muncie dirt off their shoes and never look back. Yet, even now, a decade later, there are crisp fall days or sunny and bright spring days when I would give just about anything to be back in Muncie and reliving some great years. Don’t take it for granted kiddies.

Sam Waterston Wants Friday BSU News and Notes

SamWaterstonMy gosh, Friday, you look amazeballs. It seems like it has been so long since I’ve seen you! 7 days, at least. What’s that? You want some BSU news and notes? I got you covered you beautiful sexy day, you. Thursday almost made me forget about you, but that trollop of a weekday could never make me forget what you and I have.

You know who else probably wants some BSU news and notes? The legendary actor Sam Waterston who celebrates his 73rd birthday today. The roles that people know Waterston for are ultimately decided by how old they are. People in their early 30s like myself remember him best for his portrayal of Jack McCoy on Law and Order. The older crowd may remember him for his performance in The Killing Fields. Younger folks and current intellectuals know him for his outstanding work on The Newsroom as network president Charlie Skinner. He’s one of the best actors working today (in my opinion) and even makes Old Glory Robot Insurance seem like a plausible thing. Happy birthday to Sam and look out for those robots. On to the Cardinal news…

NewsNotesLogo Women’s basketball opened their home season on Thursday at Worthen Arena on the wrong side of a 63-58 loss to Pittsburgh. It was a close game throughout, and BSU actually led the Panthers with just over four minutes to play. If you haven’t gotten to see the women’s team, they play at home next on December 7th against Western Kentucky. The 1-2 Cards start a 4-game road swing next Wednesday at Evansville.

NewsNotesLogo Quintin Cooper’s locker room tweet about a broken leg was correct, as BSU has confirmed that is the case. The tentative recovery time barring any setbacks for the junior should be in the neighborhood of 4-6 weeks, which means playing in a late bowl is an outside possibility.

NewsNotesLogo Speaking of bowl games, it’s that time of the year when people attempt to slate in where the Cards are headed. It’s important for folk to keep in mind that the order of selection this year is 1) Mobile,  2) Detroit, and 3) Boise. After those slots are selected, the MAC can fill in other at-large opportunities. We likely won’t know where BSU is headed for a while, as NIU’s potential BCS invite means everything for the bowls above. I have to believe if NIU gets a BCS bid, then the Cards are first off the board to Mobile. If the Huskies are slumming it with the rest of the MAC, then I’d say BSU is heading to the Pizza Bowl in Detroit (which truthfully, is my dream situation for numerous reasons). Really, the mantra at this point should be “Anything but Boise”.

NewsNotesLogo In general higher ed news, Ball State faculty/staff senate members have voted to approve a motion opposing the marriage amendment that is working its way through the Indiana legislature to outlaw same sex marriages via the Indiana constitution. BSU joins IU, Wabash, and Depauw in putting something like this in their administrative record.

NewsNotesLogo If you’ve been to BSU lately, you’ve noticed a ton of construction and demolition taking place in the Village area for student apartments and retail. It’s been a heated debate about how and why this is happening, but the newest renderings of what the Village Promenade will look like have been released (click the photos to go bigger):
Village PromenadeVillage Promenade 3Village Promenade 2

NewsNotesLogo Your BSU Tweet of the Day comes from @CardinalChels:
BSU TotD
I cannot even fathom the amount of expectation the current generation of college students has for technology related issues and fixes. I know how angry I get when my wireless internet drops out for thirty seconds so I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have technology impact things that actually matter.