When you think about it, nothing says “Midwest sports fans” like a big white guy rapping about money, “the game”, and Ricky Stanzi.

Hawkeyes…Hawkeyes…

And yes, this is apparently very real. (hat tip: Deadspin)

The 2010 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament preview post is live.

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We are now firmly in the heart of the conference schedule as the 2008-2009 college basketball season sprints towards the glory of March Madness. Earlier today, we offered up a quick preview of the 2009 NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament, and now we will get a little more granular and preview the 2009 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament.

I have to admit that doing this preview is a little bittersweet for me as an IU fan. This season’s Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament will most likely mark the first (and hopefully only) time that Indiana comes in as the #11 seed. As IU fans, we all understand that It is the price we have to pay for the era of the lying-cheating-bastard-who-shall-not-be-named, but it does not make it any easier to handle.

Still, there will be a twinge of excitement come March 12th when the Hoosiers tip off against whoever the #5 seed winds up being in this topsy-turvy season of Big Ten basketball. Maybe Devan Dumes and Matt Roth can get hot from the outside and the Hoosiers can pull off an upset. Not likely, I know. Still, the Hoosiers will have a definite home-court advantage playing in front of their fans in Indianapolis, and after last season’s heartbreaking loss to Minnesota on a wild last-second shot, the Big Ten Tournament owes us one.

Anyway, enough pipe-dreaming from me. Onto the particulars of the 2009 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament:

• Dates: March 12-15
• Location: Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana
• TV: Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, CBS Sports (see below)
• StubHub Tickets: Buy Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Tickets
• StubHub Tickets:2009 NCAA Tournament Tickets

And let’s take a quick trip down memory lane and count down the past Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champions: 1998 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #4 seed Michigan defeated #3 seed Purdue 76-67
• Chicago, IL

1999 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #1 seed Michigan State defeated #11 seed Illinois 67-50
• Chicago, IL

2000 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #2 seed Michigan State defeated #4 seed Illinois 76-61
• Chicago, IL

2001 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #6 seed Iowa defeated #4 seed Indiana 63-61
• Chicago, IL

2002 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #2 seed Ohio State defeated #9 seed Iowa 81-64
• Indianapolis, IN

2003 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #2 seed Illinois defeated #8 seed Ohio State 72-59
• Chicago, IL

2004 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #2 seed Wisconsin defeated #1 seed Illinois 70-53
• Indianapolis, IN

2005 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #1 seed Illinois defeated #3 seed Wisconsin 54-43
• Chicago, IL

2006 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #2 seed Iowa defeated #1 seed Ohio State 67-60
• Indianapolis, IN

2007 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #1 seed Ohio State defeated #2 seed Wisconsin 66-49
• Chicago, IL

2008 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #1 seed Wisconsin defeated #10 seed Illinois 61-48
• Indianapolis, IN

2009 Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament Champion:

• #3 seed Purdue defeated #5 seed Ohio State 65-61
• Indianapolis, IN

Who will this year’s Big Ten Mens Basketball Tournament? At this point, it looks like a major toss-up. Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State, Minnesota, and Penn State have looked capable of winning it at different points this season. And if history is any indicator, a dark horse may emerge once the balls get rolled out on March 12. Four times in the brief ten-year history of the Big Ten Tournament, a team seeded #8 or lower has played in the championship game. The lowest seeded team to ever win the Big Ten tournament, however, is #6 seed Iowa in 2001. So the smart money would go on one of the teams listed above.

Either way, I’m sure it will be an exciting weekend — and the only chance for Indiana to crack this year’s field of 64. No, it isn’t likely. But you better believe Hoosier Nation will be out in droves on March 12th hoping their undermanned Hoosiers can pull off an unlikely first round upset.

I have been following Indiana basketball since the mid-80s, and rarely have I been as geeked up over a regular season win as I was last night when Indiana broke its 11-game losing streak by beating Iowa 68-60 at home. I was jumping up and down like a madman when Devan Dumes hit the three from the top of the key that sealed the Hoosiers’ first conference win of the year, and the first Big Ten victory for Tom Crean.

A little background: back in the day, my dad had two season tickets and went to the games with my mom, until one fateful night when Bob Knight grabbed the jersey of then-IU freshman Delray Brooks and she vowed never to go to an IU game again. (Brooks, of course, later transferred to Providence and played on their Final Four team under Rick Pitino.) Her loss, however, was my gain. I slid into her seat and never missed a game until the year after my family moved from Bloomington in 1994. And I guess the timing of this move was fitting, considering the 1993 IU basketball team is my favorite sports team of all time, and IU basketball has never been as good since.

Well, in the more than 20 years that I have been following Indiana basketball, from both up close and afar, I would rank last night’s home victory over Iowa in my all-time Top 10 most rewarding and appreciated wins. Sure, scores of wins have meant more in the conference standings or for tournament seeding purposes. And it isn’t like IU knocked off a conference giant — quite the contrary, as Iowa is in 10th place and was playing without their best player. And the game was at home, in Assembly Hall, where victories used to be a given and not a cause for jubilant celebration.

But this is not a normal season, nor a normal team. And I do not feel one iota of shame or embarrasment or foolishness for feeling, at least for a split second, like IU had won some kind of championship. When you have 5 national championships, a history of consistent success, and are one of the winningest programs in the history of college basketball, you aren’t supposed to be excited about being 1-8 in the conference. Well, screw that. I am excited, and I am really proud of Tom Crean and the Hoosiers.

I would also be remiss if I did not dole out some well-deserved kudos to Devan Dumes. He has taken all kinds of flack — and deservedly so — for lacking poise late in games and making silly turnovers or taking unnecessary shots. Think back to the Michigan game. But last night, Devan Dumes literally put on a shooting performance that is among the best ever witnessed in Assembly Hall. For one night, Devan Dumes allowed IU fans to harken back to the days of Steve Alford, Greg Graham, Calbert Cheaney, Damon Bailey, AJ Guyton, and Tom Coverdale, among others. Look at his statline:

Devan Dumes versus Iowa:

• 27 points
• 8-9 FG
• 5-5 3 FG
• 6-8 FT
• 4 Reb
• 2 Assts
• 2 Stl
• 2 TO
• 35 minutes played

If you substituted Calbert’s name atop that statline and told me it was a game against Michigan and the Fab Five or Jim Jackson and Ohio State, I’d believe it. That’s how good Devan Dumes was last night. And he was certainly not the only one who brought it.

The entire team only committed 11 turnovers, which is how many the Hoosiers have by halftime a lot of games. Kyle Taber played very solidly inside, grabbing 8 boards and scoring 7 points. Nick Williams was his usual scrappy and AJ Moye-esque self, grabbing 9 rebounds (6 offensive) and scoring 14 points. And Malik Story came off the bench to score 9 points in 15 minutes, while being the confident and assertive player that we have seen emerge over the last few weeks.

And as Dumes said after the game, according to the Big Ten Network, the team is looking forward to more such victories over the next month:

“I’m just focused on the second half of the season, and coach told us we can make some magic things happen,” Dumes said. “It’s just really exciting to finally get that first win. There was a lot of smiles in the locker room and a lot of relief.”

Ah yes, the coach: Tom Crean. He is off to one of the worst starts, record-wise, in the long and storied history of IU basketball. Yet, I feel more confident about the direction of our program right now than I did at any time under Mike Davis or the jackass who shall not be referred to by name. Crean’s attitude and positivity and optimism just speak to what I have always wanted IU basketball to be about. And I have been so impressed by how hard we have played all season long despite the consistent losing.

IU fans remember the NCAA tourney flameouts during the final years of Knight’s tenure in Bloomington, and the often disinterested look that Mike Davis’ team gave, and the complete lack of discipline displayed under the lying snake of a man who shall not be referred to by name. Sure, Tom Crean is only in his first season and all of the players are fresh and new — but for a team that has been so consistently beaten down this year to just keep getting up and fighting, and to never give up, well it’s all I want to see out of my basketball team. Wins, no doubt, will follow.

After the game, Tom Crean and the Hoosiers stayed on the court for a little while and soaked in their first victory. The Hoosiers high-fived the fans and Tom Crean even took the microphone to personally thank the fans and tell us that this win was ours. Watch the highlight video from the Big Ten Network if you didn’t see it last night. For any IU fan who has suffered through the last 11 games, and who will probably suffer through more losses this season, last night was a great reprieve from a very frustrating season.

And Coach, while all IU fans appreciate your dedication of the victory to us, last night’s win was yours and the teams’. You guys have battled, and fought, and clawed your way to so many close losses against teams with a lot more talent. Last night, you earned a well deserved victory. We’ll take the next one, but last night was yours.

And the first of many, many, many memorable wins that will happen under Tom Crean at Assembly Hall.

It is time for our daily discussion of the Cleveland Browns’ GM and head coaching positions.

When I left off yesterday, I mentioned that Browns owner Randy Lerner had interviewed Scott Pioli for the GM position. As of last night, a report out of Boston indicated that Lerner had placed a pretty immediate deadline on Scott Pioli to make a decision. However, as reported by Mary Kay Cabot in the Plain-Dealer this afternoon, sources close to the Browns say that no such deadline was placed on Scott Pioli.

So who knows what the real deal is with all of these unnamed sources floating around. All I know is that at this point no announcement has been made that Scott Pioli is or is not the next GM of the Cleveland Browns. So I shall continue hoping that eventually the announcement is made that he takes the job.

Over the past few days I have spent some time discussing many of the candidates for head coach that Randy Lerner has already scheduled interviews with, and others who are rumored to have a chance at Romeo Crennel’s former gig. One name that has been thrown out that I have not discussed much is Kirk Ferentz, the head coach at Iowa.

The rumors of Kirk Ferentz having a chance at the Browns job are based upon his close relationship with Scott Pioli. The two worked together with the Browns back in the mid-90s when Bill Belichick was in Cleveland. The conventional wisdom has been that, should Scott Pioli leave New England and become GM at another franchise, that he might bring his good friend in as head coach.

You may remember that back around the 2002-2004 seasons, Ferentz’s name was mentioned often for NFL jobs. During that three-year span, Ferentz’ Iowa Hawkeye teams compiled a 31-7 record. In the years since, however, a couple of factors have cooled the Ferentz-to-the-NFL talk:

1. The Hawkeyes have fallen off a bit. Before this season’s 9-4 record and Outback Bowl victory, Iowa was only 19-18 from 2005-2007.
2. Many of the high profile college-coach-to-NFL experiments have fizzled big time. Nick Saban left LSU for the Dolphins, and stayed only two years before bolting for Alabama and leaving lots of hard feelings in Miami. Bobby Petrino infamously walked out on the Atlanta Falcons mid-season to take the head job at Arkansas and not only left bad feelings, but forever became an icon of douchebaggery in the eyes of NFL fans everywhere. These are just two examples of many over the years.
3. The last few seasons have seen many incredible year-to-year turnarounds, in which an NFL team is pathetic one season and good the next. Just this season the Dolphins, Ravens, and Falcons completely defied preseason expectations to make the playoffs. All three teams had rookie head coaches who were assistants in the NFL the previous season. That is why names like Jim Schwartz, Josh McDaneisl, and Steve Spagnuolo, among others, have become such hot commodities this offseason.

With these three factors working against him, it is no wonder that Kirk Ferentz’s star has faded a bit with respect to his potential candidacy as an NFL coach. Plus, when many teams made overtures to Ferentz when he was hot in 2002-2004 (and even a few during 2006), he rebuffed them to stay at Iowa where he had been a coach under Hayden Fry in the 1980s. Ferentz signed a contract extension in 2004 to keep him at Iowa until 2012, and then restructured his deal in 2006 to become the highest paid coach in the Big Ten at $2.7 million annually. (All of this bio information is from his Wikipedia page, by the way.)

Earlier today, as reported by College Football Talk, after Iowa defeated South Carolina in the Outback Bowl, Kirk Ferentz addressed the renewed speculation that he could be a potential candidate to become head coach wherever Scott Pioli ends up.

Here as an excerpt from the CFT story on Ferentz:

Said Ferentz: “Scott’s a great friend of mine, and I think it’s a mutual thing. I think it’s presumptuous to think anybody knows what he’s doing right now, and he and I haven’t talked in three weeks. We’ve both been doing our jobs. I’ve got a great job at Iowa, I’ve said that many, many times. The people are fantastic, and I just feel very, very fortunate.”

Asked where the NFL fits on his “to do” list, Ferentz said, “I don’t have a ‘to do’ list. I never have. I just try to live every day and enjoy them, and I can’t think of a year I’ve enjoyed much more than this one.”

I don’t know about you, but I certainly do not read anything in there that leads me to believe that Kirk Ferentz is 100% committed to staying at Iowa. And I’m certainly not saying that to be negative in any way — it’s much better than Nick Saban chastising reporters for asking him if he is interested in Alabama, and then lying and saying no, only to leave shortly thereafter.

What I am saying is that it certainly appears that if Scott Pioli gets a GM gig in Cleveland, Kansas City, or anywhere else, that Kirk Ferentz will be right at the top of the list of candidates to be head coach. Add up the success that Ferentz has had at Iowa, his close relationship with Scott Pioli, a realization that he may be running out of chances to jump to the NFL if that is one of his goals, and the obvious bump in pay he would receive, and I think it is actually presumptuous to not consider Kirk Ferentz as a possibility to be the next coach of the Cleveland Browns. Scott Pioli is the #1 choice of Randy Lerner to be GM, and until Pioli is ruled out, you have to assume the possibility that Kirk Ferentz could follow if Pioli takes the job.

How do you feel about that?

My position has always been that I do not want one of my teams reaching into the college ranks for its head coach. Just look at the litany of failed experiments bringing college coaches to the NFL. Lou Holtz, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis, Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino, and I could go on and on.

(As a quick aside, look at the picture of Bobby Petrino to the right, and notice how uncomfortable he looks holding the Falcons helmet. This is a perfect metaphor of what happens to college coaches in the NFL. They are out of their element, out of their comfort zone, and it leads to problems.)

Now try to list off the successful examples of college coaches jumping to the NFL. I can come up with Jimmy Johnson, and that’s it. Please, if I’m leaving someone out, tell me in the comments section.

The fact remains that there have been far more failures that successes. And when you look at the history of the Cleveland Browns since they returned to the NFL, the franchise itself has had far, far more failures than successes. So how would it possibly make sense to take a strategy that fails more than it succeeds, add it to a franchise that fails more than it succeeds, and expect success? Sounds like a pretty ill-advised strategy if you ask me.

Look, I have gone on record saying that I want Scott Pioli to be the next GM of the Browns, understanding all the way that he very well might tap Kirk Ferentz to be the head coach. So my endorsement of Pioli and my criticism of the idea of Ferentz-to-the-Browns certainly seems contradictory, even to me. And if a Pioli-Ferentz combination is what we get, Kirk Ferentz will certainly have my support as I take a leap of faith that Scott Pioli knows much more about what he is doing than I do.

But boy would I be skeptical and a little nervous.

NFL teams keep trying to make college coaches into NFL coaches, and it keeps failing. Perhaps Kirk Ferentz is different though. Nick Saban and Butch Davis, for instance, failed because they were control freaks whose coaching style is much more suiting to dominating college boys that working with and motivating professional men in the NFL. They also tried to handle personnel responsibilities as well. Kirk Ferentz obviously would just be coaching, while Scott Pioli would be handling GM/personnel duties. So that right there is one advantage over some of the other college-coach-to-NFL scenarios we’ve seen in the past. And Kirk Ferentz does, at least, have some NFL experience having coached with the Browns and Ravens.

Can you tell that I am trying to talk myself into a potential Kirk Ferentz era of Browns football?

I suppose I could be wasting my time. I have heard no rumor of Kirk Ferentz to the Browns that does not involved Scott Pioli being named the GM. And there is a very real possibility that I could post this and immediately find out that Scott Pioli has said no — rendering this post useless and making me want to bang my head against the wall for wasting my time, at least from a Browns perspective.

But I still think that Scott Pioli will end up in Cleveland. And after reading the post on CFT about Ferentz’s statements, it sure as hell sounds like he would be interested if Scott Pioli came calling. So as a Browns fan, I feel it is only prudent to prepare myself for an outcome that goes against my own personal philosophy for how to build an NFL winner — never choose a college coach for an NFL team.

Luckily, my #1 philosophy for building an NFL winner is to have a proven winner in place at the top, and trust him to make sound decisions. Scott Pioli is as proven a winner as there is available to the Browns right now for GM, and obviously has infinitely more qualifications than I do to choose a head coach. So I trust that if he is the Browns GM, he will make the right choice.

Even if it is…*gulp*…Kirk Ferentz.