BU vs. Drake, a couple paradoxes, and more on medical news...

Saw a couple odd things in the sports section today..

First one was the column about the BU-Drake game...there were numerous statements I would like to address...

"Programs aren't turned around overnight"

...what?? This was a program that Keno actually DID turn around OVERNIGHT!!
Keno Davis took over a Drake program in 2007 that had gone 12-16, 13-16, 12-19, and 17-15 in the previous four years, then carried them to the best individual season the Missouri Valley has seen among it's members in a long, long time...
going 28-5 and winning both the league and the tournament convincingly -- and doing it in entertaining style by demolishing Illinois State in the NVC Championship game 79-49 and it wasn't even as close as that score suggests...as Drake held a 20+ point lead well before halftime!

So why does a 28-5 team need to be "turned around"???

Well, maybe it's because of this next statement by the PJS...

"Most of that team departed"...

...meaning the great team that Keno had in 2007-2008 must have almost all left, right??
Well....let's actually check facts....this statement isn't even close to being true!!
I doubt anyone would define "most" as anything less than significantly more than half the team.
But that team had only THREE seniors!! One of course was Adam Emmenecker, the others were Klayton Korver and Leonard Houston.
Those three players who departed accounted for 1091 of the team's 2440 points, or less than 45%...and far less (38%) of the team's rebounds...

Their top scorer (Josh Young) and their top rebounder (Jonathan Cox) returned along with everyone else!!

So how anyone can say that Drake lost most of their team is beyond me...they returned way more than Bradley did thatyear and same for most other Valley teams.

Just for a simple comparison...in that exact same year..Bradley lost Jeremy Crouch, Daniel Ruffin, Matt Salley, Rashad Austin, and Tyrone Cole-Scott.
That's over 1400 points and more than 50% of BU's scoring that was lost, and almost 50% of the rebounding as well!
BUT -- I sure as heck don't recall an apologetic local press sadly stating that Bradley had "lost most of its team" and that they needed time to rebuild because trying around from such huge losses "takes time".

This confirms what others have said for a long time...that other teams -- no matter who, are treated way more favorably than Bradley by Bradley's own local press.
Call it what ever you want, bias, naivte, ignorance, but whatever you call it -- how can you deny that the way they describe Drake and how they've done since their great year in 2007-2008 differs TREMENDOUSLY from how they've hammered on Bradley year after year to get it done.

One last thing that's not quite accurate in that column...this statement...
"Drake staying patient" and "(Drake fans) seem to be encouraged"...and even more comments that the Drake fans are ok with the team's progress and are being patient...

All you have to do is go to their message boards or even go to this BradleyFans thread...
then you will see that's just not true...the fans are growing very impatient and are frustrated with the current head coach for some horribly lopsided losses this year and terrible performances despite having such good recruits...and their squad is fully healthy and isn't hampered by unfortunate injuries.
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17326



Then on the back page of the sports section were two really contradicting articles...
a paradox that had me chuckling...

One was the story about LaMichael James and how he says "attention" doesn't win ball games and he doesn't care at all whether he gets attention..
Then right beneath it was a piece about how the people at Oregon go way, way overboard and fiddle with every conceivable combination of colors and uniforms and helmets so they can be as flashy and attention-grabbing as humanly possible!!

So what is it -- don't care about attention or maybe care so much about it that they stay up at night devising new ways to get more attention!
The two pieces seemed a bit contradictory to me.



Dodie's brother Brandon Dunson earned his first start at struggling Arizona State (and played 29 minutes - nearly half of his total for the entire season prior to that game). Brandon was 0-4 and scoreless, but then the entire team played terrible and scored only 41 points...losing to Stanford 55-41.



One score from last night caught my eye...
Denver 62 - Western Kentucky 59 (WKU rallied from 18 points down just to get that close!)
Denver was only 6-9 coming into this game and now WKU falls to 0-2 in the weak Sun Belt and 5-9 overall...and on a real slide, losing 8 of their last 10 games!

So -- does anyone remember just a year and two ago -- that many Bradley fans were ooohing and awwwing at how great WKU was, how tremendously they had recruited, and how they were going to be a solid mid-major power for years to come...
and that Bradley SHOULD BE JUST LIKE THEM!!!

well...now WKU is losing at home to weaklings like Denver, and they can't even use the excuse of being without their stars -- they are at full strength!



As predicted Saint Louis has reinstated Kwamain Mitchell to the team after the rape and sexual assault charges...and even the players' admissions of horrifically foul actions...
What does it take, a murder or two, before a kid gets serious discipline?
I guess the coach's desperation for talent is something I will never understand.
Watch for Willie Reed the other player involved in the assaults to also get reinstated.
http://www.slubillikens.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/010611aaa.html?source=rss_teams_Saint_Louis_Billikens

Here's the comment from the sexual assault victim...

"..the alleged victim and her family said they "are extremely disappointed" that Mitchell is allowed back at SLU. "It is obvious to the family that the needs of a struggling basketball program take precedence over the university's Code of Conduct, Jesuit principles and the safety of its female students," the statement said. "By accepting this type of behavior, the school has set a dangerous precedent."
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/article_841e3efd-934b-5e97-9223-d450ccdb1962.html

Mitchell and Reed both need NCAA approval to be eligible again because of the missed semester and lack of any academic record....I hope the NCAA has some ba**s and says "NO!"...



Yet another Bob Huggins player in the news for drugs...Tilford never played for Huggins but was recruited to Cincinnati by Huggins.
http://www.wlky.com/news-archives/26392572/detail.html



Here's a funny headline -- FWIW --
"Diana Taurasi doping and nobody cares"
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports-sentinel-sports-now/2011/01/07/womens-basketball-diana-taurasi-doping-and-nobody-cares/



BTW -- if you want to see a really great local paper and their sports coverage -- check this one out..
it's the Quad City Times..there's so much coverage you simply can't read it all -- has everything you'd ever want -- stats, stories, features, rosters, individual stats...way more even than the Sun Times and subscription sites...
what a great source......
http://qctimes.com/sports/high-school/basketball/boys/



Non-sports...
Here's a story from yesterday..
"Rifaximin to the rescue?.."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20027606-10391704.html

It's a story that claims a new and VERY expensive antibiotic named rifaximin can help the symptoms of an intestinal condition called irritable bowel syndrome.
IBS as it is called is actually quite common and can be very troubling causing some patients to focus so intensely on their bowels and their symptoms that it literally ruins their lives.

BUT -- just look at a couple details here...

--first -- that story says 41% of people who took rifaximin got better. It also says 32% of people taking a placebo got better...(meaning that in the rifaximin-taking group, 32% of the improved patients can be attributed to the placebo effect not the medicine! -- see below)

So really only NINE percent of patients might be said to have gotten better due to the medicine's effect.
JUST 9%!! If any doctor offered you a pain pill, a vaccination against some disease, or a birth control pill and said it would be just 9% effective...then I guess you'd call that a horrible failure!! MOST medicines for any purpose need to be close to 100% effective -- and certainly way, way more than 9%.

BUT -- I am puzzled why this story is just being reported now...
in 2006, TWO major studies had already shown that this antibiotic helped IBS symptoms..
http://www.annals.org/content/145/8/557.abstract
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/02/16/15942.aspx

And in 2008 yet another study confirmed the medicine worked and even named SIX other researchers who had also found and reported the same thing...
So this is NOT news...it's been known for 4 or 5 years already!!

But -- here's the clincher...don't those people who write these medical articles for the press check the rest of their own recent news stories??
If they had, they'd have seen this from just two weeks ago...
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20026483-10391704.html

It is a separate study from just two weeks ago saying..

"Placebo works even if patients know"

..and it cites that even if a placebo is given to patients with irritable bowel syndrome, and even if they are told it is a placebo and that it should NOT help their symptoms...
then 59% (FIFTY NINE PERCENT) of the patients taking the placebo STILL reported substantial improvement in their symptoms!!

So if the rifaximin helps maybe 41% of patients, and placebo helps well over 50%, the you have to wonder if anyone reading or reporting on this "science" knows what they are even saying!!
Looks to me like this "new antibiotic rifaximin" doesn't help patients more than giving them a placebo -- and maybe doesn't help any more than giving them a bottle of pills labelled placebo and even telling them that it's a placebo and that it shouldn't work at all!
BTW -- the group of IBS patients who were simply told to "do nothing" had 35% report improvement over the course of the study!!
Whoa....the only possible scientific conclusion one can then draw is that anything works and that this new antibiotic doesn't work any better than placebo and we should NOT be using it. It's a huge waste of time and certainly money.

BUT -- the media has already let the cat out of the bag...
I guarantee thousands of IBS patients are already calling their doctors demanding this new, costly but worthless medicine!!
Let's refer them to Michael Jackson's doctor....