Go BU - beat ISU and more -- but I've spared you the Keith Olbermann jokes...

Kind of a bummer weekend -- with BU going to 0-9 and the Bears losing...but there's always next year!!

I am still anxiously looking forward to the ISU game Wednesday and I think we were ever so close to getting a road win at Evansville -- but need to shore up a couple problems, in addition to late free throw shooting!

I have a couple suggestions...maybe I'm being harsh...but I guess it might be time for a little harsh rules of reality!

I felt the game was put in jeopardy early because of the turnovers and the Evansville 3-pointers.

We had turnovers on each of our first TWO possessions, then on several more in the first 10-15 minutes.

Also -- we lead at the 15 minute mark 7-6, then SIX three pointers (by Cox, Jahr, Holmes, Ryan, Harris, then Jahr again) in the next 10 minutes..ran the score out to a double digit lead for Evansville.

SO -- here's my suggestion...
WE MUST take better care of the ball in the first 10 minutes, and we need to stop every single team we play from cashing in on early 3-pointers (just as SIU, InSU, MSU, and Creighton did)...

A) I'd instantly bench anyone who commits a turnover in the first five
minutes, especially one that is due to simply not paying attention like
dropping a ball out of bounds or dribbling it off your foot!

B) I'd instantly bench and go with a walk on if necessary -- any players
whose man drains a 3-pointer in the first 10-15 minutes of the game.

I know this sounds a little harsh and maybe isn't always fair as defenders do get lost on a switch or a screen, but seriously -- every game the past month has basically been lost in the first 10 minutes because of turnovers and hot 3-pt shooting by the opponent!

Note that from the point where the lead hit double digits, all the way to the end of the game -- we outplayed and outscored them 54-47!



In basketball news elsewhere....
Even more turmoil for Bruce Pearl and Tennessee -- on the heels of the nationally televised loss to UConn...and discouraging 2-2 conference start...
and if they haven't had enough turmoil, arrests, drugs, cheating (although the NCAA will snooze on this one for a bit longer), etc..
now even MORE...

Rumor has it that several players are in trouble because of an altercation among team members...
but the only one being punished so far is freshman Jordan McRae..a 4-Star, Top 50 recruit.

The answer given to the press is "violation of team rules" but the heavy talk on the boards is that others were involved too but Pearl can't afford to suspend anyone who plays more than 6-8 minutes per game.
http://is.gd/7Hp42P



Max Bielfeldt was at Illinois over the weekend (he also swung by Valpo)...here's what he says about Illinois...
"They think I would be a good piece to their team in a couple years. They think it would be best if I redshirted."

Hmmm...memo to Max....you'd play right away at a place like BU, and you'd dominate - not just be a little "piece" of a team.



I saw this in the news...that a nova of the star in Orion named Betelgeuse is soon to affect earth. Seriously -- so how do they know this?? After you read, you realize they don't this is just more media tripe with little basis in facts.
http://is.gd/J86CZH

These guys even hint that it's a sign of the end of earth in 2012?
http://is.gd/4kJtZT

BUT -- what these articles fail to note is how truly scarce novas really are...given the enormous number of stars out there that if they DO nova, we'd see it!
The brightest one ever seen from earth was a nova of a star over 8000 light years away....(they talk about that one in those links)

But as I noted in a previous blog entry -- just given the number of stars out there -- we can see perhaps a billion trillion (10 to the 21st power)...should any of those even too distant to see with clarity go nova, then we'd probably see it anyway...
thus there's 10 to the 24th stars that we'd see should they go nova -- yet we only see one or two distant new novas a year and none close by!
http://is.gd/HJtxpy

Just statistically based on the believed age of the universe...the age-expectancy of stars, and the number of stars that exist -- we should be seeing tens of thousands or even millions of novas, but we are not...
it does throw a monkey wrench into the theories about the age of the universe!

Anyway even the WORST imaginable nova of Betelgeuse, some 640 light years away -- would never harm or affect earth in the slightest -- so to somehow connect this event to the doomsday theories of 2012 is silly.



Here is what may be a far bigger threat to us and to much of earth...

The Yellowstone area has been much more seismically and volcanically active over the past few years and the magma dome is bulging -- hinting at a possible mega-eruption sometime relatively soon....
if a major eruption happened just 1000 miles west of us, our whole area and certainly all the area in between might be greatly affected or destroyed!
http://is.gd/fTbURK



Here's a semi-scientific topic....
Jack LaLanne just died at 96 years of age and a million articles and reports all over are claiming it was undoubtedly due to his healthy lifestyle..
and so you and I ought to do just like he did...right??

His old age - 96 -- proves it, so nobody even raises a question about it...surely they just accept the spin that his health was something unique and was due to his habits.

BUT -- I will raise questions -- not to profane the old guy but to point out that just maybe he owed his health and long life to yet another source.

-First and foremost -- he and his family made a living on their talk about health and juicers, etc...so what do you expect them all to say??
People will always sell out and sell their soul to say whatever makes them money...

I likewise personally believe that even Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling was smart enough to engineer his loud and pervasive opinions about vitamins into a lucrative and money making business that all his family and descendants have enjoy for decades since he died...
He probably knew if he hyped up and exaggerated the benefits of vitamins than somewhere down the road his family could and would market "Linus Pauling" brand of vitamins or sell their name for brands and make money-- and guess what, THEY HAVE!!

So bingo -- it's all about making a buck off the stupid, uninformed and unsuspecting customer or sucker who buys and believes all this.
So I wouldn't believe a thing coming out of the Jack LaLanne camp as it's all about money...it's a business.

2nd -- for every 100 people who stay healthy until 96 or who live well into their 90's....
99 of them NEVER exercise and don't do any of the things that Jack LaLanne did...
but you'd laugh if I said this proves LaLanne wrong....
No it doesn't but it clearly shows the more likely thing is that a certain percentage of people WILL live long and healthy lives...and most do NOT do any of the "healthy things" that were promoted by the LaLanne camp.

By the way -- if you read his bio you see he really did have numerous health problems and the final 6-10 years of his life were NOT completely healthy and he even had heart surgery!!

Also -- it's obvious that Jack LaLanne had dyed his hair and his eyebrows, had plastic surgery on his wrinkles, and in his final years was even getting a little "Alzheimery"....

I would bet if we did the math and found how much time and money each person spends on exercise, health, and fitness stuff...
then we'd find that the amount spent does NOT correlate with long life or good health.

I'd suggest the vast majority of those living healthy well into their 80's and 90's never exercised nor ever spent a penny on vitamins or health food....and I happen to meet a whole bunch of them in my line of work...most giggle and scoff at the idea of finding breaks of time while they were raising their 8 kids or farming to work out at the gym, exercise regularly, or shop at a health food store! Most never did any of that and credit their long and healthy lives to something else altogether.
Oddly -- I have never seen an article written by a guy who goes and interviews all the healthy, old folks out in the country or at retirement homes....
nobody seems to care what they say and yet the fawn all over one guy who made a living as a health freak.

BTW -- I'd say that as a general rule, the people who are now living to be 90 -- those born in 1920 and before -- grew up and lived MOST of their lives in a time when NOBODY knew what vitamins were, nobody ever exercised or used health food items...etc...

BUT -- the generation now growing old who were born in the 50's, 60's, 70's etc...

AND -- just what is it everyone is saying about that generation??
They are saying they might be the FIRST generation that does NOT live longer than their parents...
HOW CAN THAT BE???
That's the exact group of people who have taken the MOST vitamins and spent the MOST time, effort, and money on exercise and health foods, etc!!!!

So I say just show the evidence that vitamins and exercise actually help!
Maybe they do, but I am not stupid enough to fall for the line that just because LaLanne, who was making $$ on all this, lives to 96 that he must have done it all right.

There are also gobs of stories on fitness freaks dying young and not living long healthy lives...
Remember Jim Fixx?? He was the guy often credited as the running guru that started the entire freaking trend of running in the western world!!

He dropped dead of a heart attack at age 52!!!!
I say for every La Lanne, there's at least one Fixx...
There are also a whole lot of extremely fit athletes that die quite young -- from Hank Gathers and Lenny Bias to Pete Maravich, Darryl Kile and Jose Lima -- two baseball players in their thirties who recently died young of massive heart disease despite leading quite healthy life styles.
http://is.gd/1Qhq5x

So -- believe as you wish, and there's nothing wrong with trying to be healthy and trying to find a healthy life style -- but I'd say don't spend a bunch on books, gimmicks, juicers, and the like -- just lead a decent, stress-free life, and follow the rules laid down a few millennia earlier..