THE PERPETUALLY OFFENDED. Former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry had the visitors' locker room painted pink, an act of interior decorating that has irritated numerous visiting coaches. (The idea of just ignoring it and putting your pants on one leg at a time apparently hasn't occurred to people. Well, maybe it occurred to Iowa State.) The locker room has recently been repainted (drunk tank pink?) and some people are getting their ... no, let's not go there ... knickers in a knot over it.

Now comes a visiting professor of law from somewhere in the east who is offended. (Link from Tongue Tied.)

Erin Buzuvis, 29, who moved from Boston to Iowa City to begin teaching at the law school, said she and several friends, colleagues and neighbors have been concerned for months about the message behind the locker rooms. She said the locker room promotes negative stereotypes.

Must be a real fun bunch to drink beers or play cards she hangs with.

Iowa's president, noting that some people have not taken too kindly to Professor Buzuvis taking her gripe public, has trouble sounding like a tough-talking sheriff.

University President David Skorton said Saturday that he is upset at the threats.

"It is deeply offensive and completely unacceptable that a spirited public discussion about the pink locker rooms at Kinnick Stadium has been degraded by threats of violence," Skorton said in a statement.

Skorton said the university "welcomes and open and civilized debate" on the issue.

"However, threats of violence will not be tolerated. For that reason, today I am asking the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the Department of Public Safety to review these threats and to take appropriate actions based on their findings," he said.

What, a mandatory locker-room repainting party for mouthy miscreants? What ever happened to "We're going to smoke those jerks out of their sports bars and bring them to justice?" I suppose diplomacy ought be given its chance first.

Buzuvis said she will raise the locker room issue Tuesday when a committee seeks public comment on a report it recently compiled on the university's compliance with NCAA regulations. The NCAA requires that each school investigate every five years to see if it is complying with NCAA rules. The locker room issue was not raised in the report. Gender equity apparently was one item on a list of topics for which the panel has solicited comments.

But this series of quotes defies parody, as does the copy editing.

"I did not wake up yesterday with a plan to discuss pink locker rooms," Buzuvis said Friday. "I don't want any more hate mail. This has got to stop."

Buzuvis has not contacted police over the threats.

"With a pink locker room, you're saying that 'You are a girlie man. You are weak, like a girl,'" Buzuvis said. "That implies that girls are nondominant, therefore, lesser. And that is offensive."

Law professor Jill Gaulding said the issue also is a sore spot among members of the women's hockey team, and she has heard similar complaints from others on campus and around town.

"This is an Iowa City issue," Gaulding said. "There are a lot of people out there who, if they felt safe saying so, would say that this has bugged them for years."

If you didn't have a plan to discuss pink locker rooms, why did you go to the NCAA with a gripe about pink locker rooms? And it really amuses to have these beneficiaries of sensitivity training, who model the proper behavior of saying "I'm offended" at the drop of a pink paintbrush, to suggest there is a climate of oppression out there.

REVEALED PREFERENCES.

Hartland Arrowhead High School, in the lake district of southeastern Wisconsin (west of Pewaukee, east of Oconomowoc) does not have a planetarium, or astronomy and organic chemistry for seniors, and its graduation requirements include two years of mathematics, all the way through advanced algebra.

But a donor pledged $275K to renovate the varsity locker rooms at the north campus (attended by juniors and seniors, and thus where the varsity plays.)  There were cost overruns.

In August 2014, the school board approved the renovation of the North Campus girls and boys basketball locker rooms after an initial $275,000 donation from a donor. The end result required more money from the donor, who ended up giving $361,224 to a project that cost a total of $662,602, according to Superintendent Craig Jefson.

Well, the school is located in the Lake District, probably home to the kind of affluent extroverts who make sure their youngsters get sailing and tennis lessons early on, and the school garnered recognition from Sports Illustrated as "best athletic high school in Wisconsin."  I heard this story on Milwaukee radio this morning, along with remarks about "Hartland, Texas" (the Packers, after all, practiced for the 2010-11 Super Bowl at Highland Park High School's indoor practice field) or "Homestead University."  Follow the money.

One Arrowhead parent told WISN 12 News reporter Terry Sater it’s over the top.

Sater spoke to a college scout at the Arrowhead-Kettle Moraine basketball game Thursday night, who told him it's a lot nicer than his college's locker room.

Some Kettle Moraine School District parents would talk about the locker rooms.

“It just seems like a lot of money for a high school locker room,” Phil Ekins said.

“We need to keep these kids focused on doing everything we possibly can to lift up everybody in the school district. And I'm sure that money could be spent helping other kids to advance their education,” George Fuller said.

Arrowhead's principal didn't return Sater’s calls, and the school board president referred him to the superintendent, who Sater was told is out of town until next week.

Sater talked with a female Arrowhead athlete who said they also got new locker room, but it isn't as nice as the boys'.

Right. This is the Lake District.  And if Wisconsin took a page from the Tennessee playbook and required high schools to reimburse colleges for doing remedial work, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Arrowhead Union District get a bill.

Wicked thought ... would that Tennessee proposal also apply for students admitted with athletic scholarships?

LET'S JUST SAY WE REMEMBERED.

I've maintained that the Packers might do better if they have to work to win their division.  It helps that the Bears field a good team; it helps even more to beat the Bears.

The Packers, though, have to win.

That photo is from eleven years ago.  It's representative of conditions on the ground here today.  That stringy little maple seedling has grown some since.

IT'S BEEN CRUMBLING FOR A LONG TIME.

So much for the Experts suggesting the Green Bay Packers would contend for the conference championship this year.

Observers can’t help but wonder: What is wrong with the Packers?

It’s been nearly a year since Ted Thompson stepped down as general manager. But to understand what is happening in 2018, you must look back a few years. Many interviewed for this story say the Packers’ struggles can be traced back to Thompson’s final years as GM; others who won’t say it still suggest it with their actions.

Thompson, of course, had a wildly successful overall run in Green Bay. He began his career as a front-office executive in Green Bay in 1992. After leaving for a five-year stint in Seattle, he returned to the Packers as general manager in 2005. The first selection of his first draft was Aaron Rodgers, and the team went to the postseason nine times in 13 seasons of Thompson’s GM tenure, including a Super Bowl XLV title. He will deservedly be inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in May.

Perhaps so, although if you're going to follow the draft-and-develop model, you've got to have draft choices developing in two or three years. The 2015 draft class was a failure.

THOSE NEUTRAL SITE RULES.

Years ago, Northern Illinois University hosted first-round games in the Big Dance.  That mean some of the features on the scoreboard could not be used.  In those days, the games were in the zeppelin hangar, er, Evans Field House, and jumbotron technology wasn't what it now was.  Never mind that, the animations the scoreboard operator could use to fire up the fans had to be turned off.  There might have been some restrictions on how frequently the band could play, even if the opponent's band wasn't along for the show.

It's in that same spirit that some of the home field features cannot be used at Tampa Bay's football field.

In an attempt to keep this "neutral site" game as even as possible for both the Bucs and Cheifs, the league is not allowing Tampa Bay to fire the cannons from their famed pirate ship after touchdowns and big plays.

"The firing of the cannons after big plays is a tradition that defines what it means to be a Buccaneer fan and serves as a signature element of our home game experience at Raymond James Stadium," the team said in a statement released on Tuesday. "However, we also acknowledge and understand the NFL's position with regards to maintaining the integrity of a neutral site atmosphere for Super Bowl LV. While the cannons may not fire in their typical fashion, we look forward to showcasing parts of our tradition while working within the league's guidelines."

Kansas City will be the visiting team again, but that's because Kansas City was the visiting team, representing the upstart league, in the first NFL-AFL Championship Game. That made the Oakland Raiders the home team in the second such game.

The Buccaneers are technically the home team for this Super Bowl, but it has nothing to do with the fact that they are in their own building. It merely has to do with it being the NFC's turn as both conferences alternate who will be the home team each year. That really is only significant as it relates to picking what jersey they want to wear. Everything else -- logos on the field, endzone paintings, etc. -- will all be designed from a neutral standpoint.

Presumably the home team gets to pick locker rooms first? That can matter: at the start of 1994, Wisconsin, because of the alternating home team convention governing the Rose Bowl, got to use the home locker room, and UCLA, which uses the Rose Bowl as their home stadium, had to dress in the visitors' locker room. The Badgers won the game, and the Wisconsin fans won the Fifth Quarter.

JUST LET THE KIDS PLAY.

It's been the practice of the Louisiana State women's basketball team to go back to the locker room to rehydrate and brush up on the game plan during the pregame formalities, returning for player introductions.

THE BOTTOM NEWS STORY OF THE DAY.

A Washington Post reporter called Ben Strauss files it.  "A reporter keeps asking about Caitlin Clark. Players want her banned."

It's the usual Culture Wars stuff.

One day last week, with her team, the Connecticut Sun, in a first-round playoff series against WNBA star Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever, guard DiJonai Carrington was surrounded by a group of reporters. Carrington had swatted Clark in the face while reaching for the ball in the previous game, leaving her with a black eye.

USA Today columnist Christine Brennan had a question: Did you do that on purpose?

Brennan followed up: Were you laughing about it later in the game?

“I just told you I didn’t even know I hit her,” Carrington said.

The exchange came at a thrilling but tense moment for the league, which has long been powered by women of color but has seen its recent success largely attributed to Clark. The attention on the league has never been greater, but players during the series were subject to upticks in online harassment, and security was added at Connecticut’s home arena.

It was with this backdrop that the questions didn’t sit well in the Connecticut locker room, and a few minutes later, the Sun’s DeWanna Bonner confronted Brennan.

Brennan repeatedly tried to introduce herself and explain what she said as Bonner implored the columnist to treat her teammates like humans. After nearly two minutes of mostly talking past each other, Bonner returned to the locker room. (Brennan confirmed the confrontation to The Washington Post.)

Brennan, who is working on a book about Clark and routinely appears on TV, approached the other reporters and remarked that something like that wouldn’t happen in the NFL. She asked why the WNBA was so sensitive and told multiple reporters that if anyone had questions about her awareness of the racial dynamics at play, they should read her coverage of former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick, among other work stretching back decades. (Brennan is White; Carrington is Black.)

Three days later, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association issued a statement calling for the league to revoke the credential of Brennan, one of the most recognizable sports journalists in the country.

“To unprofessional members of the media like Christine Brennan: You are not fooling anyone. That so-called interview in the name of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating into a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure,” the statement read. It added: “You have abused your privileges and do not deserve the credentials issued to you.”

Good grief.  That sounds like your typical campus struggle session, with the reporter taking the place of the professor, and the players' union taking the place of the student protest community du jour,  right down to the accusations of thought crimes, the "hide behind your tenure," and the accused reporter pointing to her civil rights bona fides, which might or might not justify the fact-checking she was engaging in.

THE AXE REMAINS IN MADISON.

Minnesota goes into the locker room at halftime with a lead.  "UW senior safety Leo Musso grabbed Paul Bunyan's Axe in the locker room at halftime and reminded his teammates what was at stake."  Four second-half interceptions, three second-half touchdowns, thirteen straight seasons the Axe remains.

Retrieved from Wisconsin athletics site on 27 November.

Up next: a trip to Indianapolis.  Win the week.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE?

Last night, Indiana Pacers guard Oscar Tshiebwa scored his first points as a Pacer.  Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a personal and team best 64 points in a Bucks win.  The game took place in Milwaukee.

I can think of two simple rules for ownership of the game ball, it belongs to the home team, which would vest property rights in the Bucks, or it belongs to the winning team, which would vest property rights in the Bucks.  And yet somebody on the Pacers' bench had the presence of mind to hang onto it for Mr Tshiebwa.

BEYOND THE LOCKER ROOM. Young children take an interest in their bodies, and they explore their sexuality. Nothing new there. York University's Peter Cumming buries the lede.

"Technology does change things, and there can be very serious consequences" Cumming said. "But that obscures the fact that children and young people are sexual beings who have explored their sexuality in all times, and all cultures and all places.

"A distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn," he added.

Yes, but let's distinguish bragging, sometimes embellished, in a junior high locker room, and providing hard evidence for all the world to see. It was hard enough for a kid to live her (or sometimes his) reputation down when there was only gossip, without moving away. It's harder now.

Trust The Nation to find an author who sees only the upside potential.

The new means of production carries pitfalls as surely as the fleeting passions of a teenager. The rude boy documenting a girl going down on him unawares to share behind her back with his MySpace buddies will always be with us, but her problem, and his too, started before the shutter clicked. The girl who has mastered the nude self-portrait may later regret its mass circulation, but she may also have got comfortable in her skin while taking pictures. Maybe the Polaroid Land Camera should make a comeback, but it is just possible that the 15-year-olds are envisioning, however inchoately, a saner world than the one the grown-ups lecturing them have constructed, one where their life chances won't be ruined by a "compromising" photograph on the Internet. If sexting really is as common as is claimed, it's more likely to proliferate than to abate, and then the issue won't be scandal or embarrassment but banality.

The truth is, a lot of good can come of taking nude pictures. Not so much the image as the act, and less the act of sex than the play of love, or imagination or freedom among friends. Remember play? Remember dalliance? Remember the captured glimpse of a lover stripped and weak with need?

Make the transgressive so common that it becomes boring. We have much to look forward to.

DAK CAN'T SMACK CARDIAC PACK OFF TRACK.

That was an interesting Sunday afternoon.

In the first half, the Packers defense had trouble getting off the field, including Dak Prescott flipping the field on a third-and-thirteen on the opening possession.

It's a sixty minute game.  The Packers rallied from fifteen points down to take their first lead early in the fourth quarter.  Cowboys answered with a field goal, then forced a punt.  Then Damarious Randall executed a pick-six.

Retrieved from Dallas Morning News.

Yes, that's the same Damarious Randall who was banished to the locker room during the victory over the Bears two Thursdays ago.  "It was Randall’s first pick-six since intercepting Oakland quarterback Derek Carr in December 2015 as well as a step in the right direction for the former first-round pick after being sent to the locker room against Chicago a little more than a week ago."  If memory serves, that was part of another rally that turned a close game into a rout.  Mr Randall was also flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, tossing the ball at Mr Prescott.  Sometimes the X and O is the least important part of coaching.

Then the Cowboys ran most of the clock off and Mr Prescott sold an excellent play fake, into the end zone on a keeper,  Cowboys up by four with 73 seconds to play.

This morning, though, there are Monday morning quarterbacks suggesting he should have taken a knee at the one, setting up a first and goal.  That's being too clever by half.

But 73 seconds is plenty of time when Mr Rodgers and his supporting cast know what they are doing.

“Very proud of Aaron Jones,” [head coach Mike] McCarthy said. “He earned the opportunity to start today and he produced. That’s what you look for. This was his first chance to take a big load in the run game, and I thought he played outstanding. I love his running style.”

So does Rodgers, who had no qualms with the rookie being his pass protector in the backfield with the game on the line. Rodgers (19-of-29, 221 yards, three TDs, 122.9 rating) even called Jones’ number on the final drive, giving him a handoff out of the shotgun that he took 15 yards into field-goal range, smartly getting out of bounds with 39 seconds left.

“I told him before the game, I have absolutely zero worries about him back there,” Rodgers said. “He’s a great kid. His vision as fantastic.

“That’s stuff you can’t coach,” Rodgers continued, regarding the cut to the sideline that both moved the chains and preserved Green Bay’s lone timeout on the final possession. “You love the instincts there.”

The Packers moved into touchdown-pass range, and executed the same play twice.

Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams for the lead.  Note the receiver in a position to high-point the ball.

Retrieved from Dallas Morning News.

Strategic play calling: earlier in the series, same players, different play.  "Rodgers’ opening 14-yard back-shoulder pass to Davante Adams did more than that. To hear Rodgers tell it, the first play set up the last one, the TD toss to Adams near the end-zone sideline with 11 seconds to go."  If you're a rookie defensive back, do you anticipate them going back to the other shoulder because that previously worked, or to some other receiver instead?

The Packers actually ran the same exact play one snap earlier, on first-and-10 at the Dallas 12, with Rodgers missing Adams low on the back-shoulder fade. As Adams went back to the line of scrimmage, the two decided to try the pass again.

This time, Rodgers put it higher and Adams caught the touchdown, his second of the day.

“I came back and let him know, ‘Do it again. Let’s go back to it,’” Adams said. “He gave me that look and I was like, ‘Let’s do it again.’ He threw it over there and threw a perfect ball. I didn’t really have to do much.”

Sometimes, it's the body language.  "Rodgers said Adams gave him a look with his eyes when he came back to the huddle that told him to go right back to him."

New cheerleaders, same body language.

Retrieved from Dallas Morning News.

And yes, that's the same Davante Adams who was in the concussion protocol after being smacked by a Chicago Bear.  "Adams said he was cleared from the protocol on Friday afternoon. Still, nobody would’ve faulted Adams if he’d preferred to sit out a week and gather himself."

Unfortunately, because of the intrusion of National Anthem politics into football's pre-kickoff rituals, we have to consider a further self-destruction of the Dallas Cowboys.  Owner Jerry Jones appears to be taking Our President's advice, and threatening players who do anything other than stand at attention with a firing.  That provoked ESPN's Jemele Hill to suggest that people boycott the Cowboys ... as if the anthem protests aren't doing that already ... and ESPN have benched Jemele Hill.

The Packers, on the other hand, have been locking arms and standing for the Anthem.  On one of the local fan shows, receiver Jordy Nelson explained that the team is looking for a way to call attention to the reality as many of the young men have perceived it: difficult circumstances and disrespect from officialdom (and we could add to that taking on the risks of concussions and a shortened life with shattered mental faculties) without appearing to be disrespectful to the country.

That might be part of how team players learn to believe in each other, and we'll see if Mr Jones does more damage to Cowboy morale than another big Packer comeback did.

And yes, there was another big Packer comeback, four years ago.

Unattributed Green Bay Packer photograph.

Aaron Rodgers was not the quarterback that day.  Next man up, and of late the rookies have been rotated into games from the beginning.

TIME FOR HOLLYWOOD TO STEP UP? The Northern Star discovers more deferred maintenance in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

"The CL is for closet, not computer lab," said Alex Gelman, NIU director of the School of Theatre and Dance, while he pointed to the door of a computer lab that was formerly a janitor's closet in the Stevens Building.

"We're making the best of the situation we have," said Anna Goller, scene shop supervisor at the Stevens Building.

First occupied in 1959, students and administrators feel the Stevens Building is long overdue for renovations.

"You can only polish a turd so much," Goller said.

The building houses three theaters and several offices and classrooms for anthropology and theater departments.

"It's pretty sad when the condition of your building makes it hard to learn," Adam Liston, a scenic design graduate student, said. "We have leaks that blow up our computers."

In the absence of funding to fix the building, Goller said students and staff invest their own time doing patch-up work.

That building is on the main campus, well to the west of the also-dilapidated sculpture studio. I'm not sure what it says about contemporary higher education that the theater program's reputation remains strong despite the conditions.

Despite the conditions described by those using the Stevens Building, NIU's theater program is considered by many to be one of the top in the country.

"They're here for the training; the teaching is superb," Gelman said. Liston said he had a class in the lab that was so overcrowded that two students had to sit out in the hall and rest their own laptops on TV trays.

"You have no idea how distracting it is when you've got people sitting on the floor with laptops," Liston said. "When the teacher has to walk up to talk about something on the projection he has to step over students."

That is, in times in which the head football coach meets with potential recruits anywhere but his current office. He will have an office more suited to making the proper impression on seventeen-year-olds with good times in the 40 yard dash once the new locker room opens.

At University Council on Jan. 24, President John Peters said renovations on the Stevens Building have been a top priority for the university for upwards of a decade. However, Peters said the lack of a capital bill to provide money delayed the necessary renovations. Even though NIU has not received a capital bill in four years, Peters said he still hopes to receive one from the state.

"The reputation of the school is strong because of the quality of its faculty and success of its alumni," Gelman said. "It's hard to imagine where we would be if we had an adequate facility."

The capital argument is incompletely convincing. On the one hand, the university did manage, by refinancing its existing construction bonds, to build a parking deck, some administrative buildings, and an extension to the physics and chemistry building, which was also crowded. On the other hand, the locker room, for all the misplaced emphasis it might represent, is the consequence of generosity large and small by satisfied alumni. The new building for the College of Business, for all the infringements on freedom of expression disguised as modeling business aesthetics, is also the consequence of such generosity. Where's Hollywood?

THE WOUNDS HAVE NOT YET HEALED.

A SUNY-Binghamton professor of electrical and computer engineering has a lapse of judgement.

Binghamton University engineering Professor Victor Skormin has been roundly condemned by his campus community after his quip to the campus chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers didn’t go over too well.

It all started when the NSBE club recently sent out a mass email about their planned fundraiser at a local steakhouse. Professor Skormin replied back to all, saying: “Please let me know about a dinner of the National Society of White Engineers. Thank you.”

That reminded me of a column by Milwaukee Journal (the Sentinel being a separate morning paper in those days) columnist Edward H. Blackwell that Trains reprinted in its January 1971 issue.  The writing is old enough that the Journal-Sentinel have no current archive of it, although it's available on the Trains CD of their first 75 years.

Mr Blackwell was the son of a Pullman porter, and sometimes an engineer colleague would take along an unauthorized rider.  "When I went to school one day, I suddenly found myself 'in.'  A schoolmate had seen me riding a locomotive."  In the late Twenties or early Depression years of this recollection, that was a very big thing.  But locker room talk could be cruel.

I was in the boys' locker room telling all who would listen about my ride from St. Paul.  The grade between St. Paul and Minneapolis is steep, and on this ride we couldn't make it and had to wait for a helper engine.

As I was telling my tale of how the engine was slipping and finally had to give up when we ran out of sand used on the rails for traction, the tale was getting mixed up with my fantasy of becoming a locomotive engineer.  A white student snapped my fantasy:

"Don't you know there aren't any n****r engineers?"

Mr Blackwell served in the Merchant Marine in the War, worked his way through college as a dining car waiter, and began writing for the Journal in 1963.

The National Society of Black Engineers started in 1975, and current members suggest there is still work to be done, getting young people the STEM chops.

Siaki Tetteh-Nartey, a student member of Binghamton’s National Society of Black Engineers, told WBNG.com that she doesn’t want to see Skormin fired, since it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind about the issues at hand. Instead, she said she wants a “dialogue about why these [diversity-based] groups are still relevant in this day and age, in addition to what they do.”

She added, “We cannot expect people to learn from their misstep if we do not sit down with them.”

A joke gone awry might be the simplest explanation of the continued social value of such societies.  Perhaps their continued presence in another twenty or fifty years might illustrate something else gone wrong.

TAKING AN EDUCATION.

March turned into a month of exciting finishes to basketball games.

Two weeks ago, Wisconsin excused last year's champion, Villanova, in the final seconds.

A week later, it was Wisconsin's turn to be excused, as time expired in overtime.

As March wound down in Houston, Mississippi State excused Champion-for-Life Connecticut, as time expired in overtime.

Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma used the setback as a learning opportunity.

This is real life, he told them, not the utopian basketball world the Huskies had been living in for the past two and a half years, and especially since the start of this season. Auriemma — plenty of times during the regular season — wished the streak would just end, providing him with the coaching tool he needed to get through to a young squad that didn’t know how to handle adversity, let alone losing.

“We kind of lived a charmed life for a long time,” Auriemma said.

This loss wasn’t a fluke. Auriemma said Mississippi State played better, from the opening tip through the critical final moments of overtime.

A year ago, Connecticut excused Mississippi State from the round of sixteen, and rather decisively at that.  Their coach, and their returning players, took their education (in basketball, as in chess, the after-game analysis might be more important than the game itself) and did what they had to do.

Barely more than a calendar year ago, UConn had dominated Mississippi State 98-38 in the Sweet 16, the biggest margin ever at the regional level in the women's tournament. The 60-point loss had become a motivating factor for Mississippi State, with the number plastered in the team's weight room for offseason motivation.

Summon the echoes. In the 1940 football title game, the Chicago Bears edged the Washington Redskins, 73-0.  Two years later, the Redskins and the Bears met again.  Let's say that 73 was not a good number in Washington's locker room, and that year, it was Washington hoisting the trophy.

After last year's round of sixteen game, the Harrison Bergeron types were raising the possibility that Connecticut being so good was bad for the sport.

When the Huskies eliminated Mississippi State in the Sweet 16 last year in Bridgeport, they were up 61-12 at halftime and won 98-38. That was the game that ignited the controversy over whether UConn was killing the sport with its brilliance.

As Auriemma said early on this season, a lot of teams would be looking for payback this season. The Bulldogs went back to Starkville. They hung the number "60" in the weight room.

"It was personal," said Victoria Vivians, who led the Bulldogs with 19 points.

Breanna Richardson said the same: personal.

"We had our pride stepped on last year," [coach Vic] Schaefer said. "We got our tail handed to us.

Back to Starkville they went, and before they dismissed for the season, they spent sixty minutes breaking down the tape of the first five minutes of the game, by which time it was already well out of hand.

Then they broke down the rest of the game.  And went to work on improving their game.

The outcome is way more satisfying than it would be if this year's tournament were played by Harrison Bergeron rules.  Does anybody really want to see Mississippi State 66^(*), Connecticut 64.

And it's likely Connecticut's ladies will also be taking an education, and if you thought facing them was scary this year ...

There's more at Women's Hoops Blog.  This year's final will be echoes of the old days of Tennessee and some other Southeastern Conference team going after it.

^(*)As adjudicated by the Performance Handicap Rating Formula.  Yeah, I stole a sailing term.  Deal with it.  Do we really want coaches to play a smaller lineup for a theoretical point advantage?

WORDS ARE PLENTIFUL, DEEDS ARE PRECIOUS. Northern Illinois University begins a national search for a new provost. President John Peters has ambitions.

“Our next provost must rise to the challenge of creating a great intellectual environment, enhancing the student experience, driving an aggressive research agenda, expanding our graduate programs, creating sustainable scholarly and creative initiatives, encouraging active engagement in our region and continuing our efforts to internationalize the campus.”

High sounding words, to be sure, but follow the money. First comes the new alumni relations center. Next comes the study hall and weight room upstairs from the locker room. Today comes a field trip.

Administrators have set up transportation to the NIU football team’s first MAC Championship game at 6:30 p.m. CDT Thursday at Ford Field in Detroit.

The first 300 students who buy a $5 ticket will receive free round-trip bus transportation, a box lunch and a T-shirt commemorating NIU’s MAC West Division title.

Yes, you read that right. The prize for winning the Wednesday afternoon game rescheduled for TV from the Tuesday evening game is an opportunity to play in a Thursday evening game. Because Friday is the last day of classes, a Saturday game would technically be during exam week, not permitted. And there are prizes for those who stick around for those Thursday summary classes.

If the Huskies win, a post-game celebration will be held in the Holmes Student Center’s Regency Room until midnight. The event will feature a disc jockey, snacks and beverages. The first 300 students to arrive at the event will receive a free T-shirt. For more information about tickets and the postgame celebration, call the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership Development.

(I wasn't aware we had such an office. Perhaps that falls under the rubric of "enhancing the student experience.")

Anybody in headquarters ever hear of an opportunity cost?

BUYING BOWL ELIGIBILITY. Phil Miller at The Sports Economist discovers that the hottest college football program at schedule completion time is ... Buffalo.

Buffalo became such a hot commodity in the off-season that it broke contracts with West Virginia and Rutgers because Auburn and Wisconsin were offering at least double the money. Troy State of Alabama will receive $750,000 from Nebraska to play in Lincoln this season. Louisiana-Lafayette will get the same amount from Tennessee next year.

With the weakest teams in Division I-A becoming more expensive, top programs are stooping lower for competition. Iowa, a Big Ten favorite this year, wooed Montana, a Division I-AA program, for $650,000.

“It’s all about the money — any administrator will tell you that,” said Rich Rodriguez, the head coach at West Virginia. Buffalo dropped West Virginia from its schedule, without even a courtesy phone call, to earn an extra $300,000 to play at Wisconsin. Mr. Rodriguez added: “It’s not for the excitement of college football. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

The joys of life in the Mid-American. Poor Troy University, last seen in these pages giving Northern Illinois an opportunity to come from behind at the Silicon Valley Bowl, is still Troy State as far as the New York Times is concerned. (Sorry, Richard.) Northern Illinois has climbed out of the "bought win" category, going for the two point conversion and a shot at a win in Evanston and getting robbed on their last trip to Madison, thereby extracting a visit from Iowa to Soldier Field, but the opener at Ohio State and the Iowa game, as well as a division winner's schedule in the Mid-American, expose the guys to a risk.

When the N.C.A.A. proposed allowing 12 games, most coaches objected. Some saw the proposal as exploiting players to fill athletic department coffers. When the extra opponent is a bigger, faster and stronger team, not only does the risk of embarrassment rise, but the potential for injury also increases.

N.C.A.A. officials agree that the change was about money. Football home games are typically the primary source of revenue for an entire athletic department. Other than football, the only college sport that makes consistent money is men’s basketball. The other men’s and women’s sports, except in rare cases, cost more to run than they generate.

David Berst, the N.C.A.A.’s vice president for Division I, said the organization’s board authorized the 12th game because universities could increase revenue. He said data showed no significant injury risk in playing one more game. Coaches are resigned to the change.

Catch that "no significant injury risk." Small sample!

That is because the 12th game means another Saturday to fill hotel rooms, pack restaurants and bring in millions of dollars more in ticket and concession sales. Wisconsin and Auburn, for example, have stadiums that hold more than 80,000 fans and can usually sell out any game, regardless of the
opponent.

Adding a weak team like Buffalo can be beneficial for two reasons. First, it practically guarantees a victory. Second, weak teams will visit for a lower price than better teams, meaning a higher profit on each home game. And many of the weaker teams do not insist on a home-and-home series that would require the better team to visit the next year. That means the better team has an open home date for the next season, which it can use to play another weak team.

But Buffalo, which was once a solid State University of New York operation with no athletic aspirations, is unlikely to attract the kind of beer-and-circus student buzz its decision to join the Mid-American and obtain visibility in athletic programs. (Read Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus for the elaboration of this argument.) The newest member of the Mid-American is Temple, where the attendance and revenue pressures will also be growing.

One suspects, however, that the Times reporter has never been to Madison.

Fans at Wisconsin may complain about sitting through home games against Western Illinois, San Diego State and Buffalo. But the coaches love it, even if they oppose the idea of a 12th game. Wisconsin will be favored in all three games and, by winning, would be halfway to qualifying for a bowl game.

Answer me this, New York Times: how many Badger fans are actually watching those games? Western Illinois, incidentally, is not an opponent to be taken lightly. But the bought wins are not prostituting selling themselves cheaply.

[Wisconsin associate athletic director John] Chadima, who has arranged Wisconsin’s schedule for 17 years, said he had seen a sharp increase in the cost for nonconference foes over the past five seasons.

For the weaker teams, a bigger appearance check means a chance to upgrade. Buffalo Coach Turner Gill said the Bulls were able to buy new furniture for their football complex and improve their weight room with the $1.5 million from their three nonconference road games. Buffalo plays in the Mid-American Conference.

But there appear to be some troubles.

Not everyone is so rosy about the frenzy involved in finding a 12th opponent. West Virginia and Rutgers learned via the Internet during the off-season that Buffalo had broken their contracts for 2006. When Buffalo did not return phone calls about whether the deal was off, West Virginia’s president wrote to Buffalo’s president demanding an explanation.

“The manner in which it appears that this situation is being handled has detracted from the considerable respect we have gained over the years for your school and conference,” David C. Hardesty, West Virginia’s president, wrote on Feb. 26.

When Buffalo responded two weeks later, it said that the Mid-American Conference was in charge of its scheduling. Buffalo’s athletic director, Warde Manuel, said he regretted the way the situation was handled and that he, and not the conference, would handle Buffalo’s future scheduling.

“It literally had nothing to do with money,” Mr. Manuel said. “This wasn’t a money grab for me at all.”

Rick Chryst, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, said he took over Buffalo’s scheduling because of Mr. Manuel’s being new to the job and the poor financial situation for the university’s athletic department.

Question: is Buffalo effectively in receivership with the conference facing being de-rated out of the major bowl circuit? (And $1.5 million for the weight room is well short of the new locker room, weight room, and study hall a-building in DeKalb.)

DEPLORABLE-SHAMING WILL GET YOU NOWHERE.

A chat-room conversation among Young Republicans, some approaching middle age, went public a few days ago, and another round of deplorable-shaming has followed.

These people are weirdly disinterested in policy except for policy in service to their psychological issues — marginalizing the poor, minorities, and women who are not properly under their control. See The Symbolic Politics of Status in the MAGA Movement by a couple of academic nerds. Really, it all fits — the obsession with immigrants, often coming from people who are first or second generation Americans themselves (like Trump and Miller). The obsession with enforcing a weirdly un-Christian version of Christianity at a time when people are losing interest in organized religion. The disenfranchisement of minorities, the control of women’s bodies, the dismantling of the social safety net to provide more money for the rich. This is coming from people who, deep down, are terrified of a changing and diverse world. All this locker-room talk is false bravado masking their fears.

Perhaps Barbara "Maha" O'Brien should have recognized how pathetic those academic nerds are.  Here's the abstract, full of the expected nerdy tics.

While existing explanations emphasize partisanship, economic anxiety, racial resentment, rural identity, and media polarization, we underscore a less-explored explanation for Trump’s core support: it is a status-based social movement. We find that Trump’s activists are not simply voters responding to policy preferences or culture-war appeals but are also participants in a grassroots social movement organized around a shared perception of lost honor, declining esteem, and institutional disrespect. To make this argument we use the concept of the symbolic politics of status to explain how political conflict extends beyond contests over material distribution or moral values to include battles over whose values and lifestyles are considered worthy. For MAGA activists, reclaiming lost status means seeking public affirmation for identities they feel have been unfairly denigrated. The MAGA movement blends grievance with joy, cultivating pride, belonging, and celebration alongside anger at elites. By centering status in our analysis, we offer an integrative framework that connects material, cultural, and emotional motivations into a broader account of MAGA as a right-wing social movement grounded in grassroots populism.

All of what you'd expect of a Minimal Publishable Unit in Perspectives in Politics.  None of it of any value.  A chart in Ruy "Liberal Patriot" Teixeira's "Democrats and 'The Vision Thing'" does more than all the culture-studies-integrative-framework bafflegab can ever do.

Searchlight Institute "doomsday chart" retrieved from Liberal Patriot.

NO DEFENSE, NO CHAMPIONSHIPS.

There's accountability in Wisconsin.  Last summer, the Milwaukee Bucks replaced head coach Mike Budenholzer, who got his team to a championship for the first time in fifty years, with Toronto assistant Adrian Griffin.  "The Bucks, however, are in a different place than the Packers when it comes to underachieving in the playoffs.  There is still a lot of second-guessing about whether that team wasted a quarter century of quarterback talent with two Super Bowl wins in three appearances, and we'll see whether a coaching change at the Bucks produces another title or two, or provokes a different sort of second-guessing."

THE GIMME MORE FREE STUFF CROWD GOES ON THE RAG.

It is a truth universally accepted that there is nothing the lunatic left can't argue ought be paid for by somebody else.  The latest:  Common Dreams contributor and poverty hustler Cara Brumfield, taking a shot in the dark.

Access to menstrual products and other basic necessities is too important to the wellbeing of our society to leave up to corporations. We should use this opportunity to start treating menstrual products like what they are: a public good.

I have trouble thinking of a product I'd rather have its use being exclusive and rivalrous than a tampon.  But we don't expect diversity hustlers and poverty pimps to be conversant with the discourse practices of political economy.  Heck, Robert Reich committed that error.  "That litany of public goods conflates 'government provision' with 'collective consumption' (read 'nonexclusive and nonrivalrous'; perhaps Mr Reich should familiarize himself with the terms of art of political economy before he writes another column.)"  So, too, with Ms Brumfield.  Bring on the socialist propaganda!

Price increases for essential goods are tolerated by consumers not because they can afford them, but because they cannot go without basics like tampons, diapers, toilet paper, and toothpaste (all products sold by Procter & Gamble brands, by the way). While everyday people struggle to make ends meet, corporations like Procter & Gamble pull in massive profits, much of which is funneled to shareholders through stock buybacks.

I suppose you could create a schedule of goods whose production ought to be subsidized in order that everybody could have access.  That's worked so well with roads.  Moreover, don't put it past Procter & Gamble to rent-seek off such a subsidy, the way Moderna and Pfizer have with those corona shots.  "Period poverty—the lack of access to sanitary products due to financial constraints—is a public health crisis deserving of a coordinated response that profit-driven private corporations are neither motivated nor prepared to provide."  Oh, I don't know, isn't a government contract to buy the stuff motivation enough?  That is, until you run out of other people's money.

PRIVILEGE CHECKING AT MILWAUKEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE.

The Milwaukee Brewers have ways of keeping players from getting too full of themselves.

Those in the Brewers organization insist there is no classified formula for their success, but the answer might be best summed up in an internal game the organization plays called the "Check Game."

"It started in the coach's room," Brewers manager Pat Murphy told ESPN recently. "To remind us, it's not about us. It's about the team. Anyone is fair game."

The rules of the Check Game are simple. If you talk about your own accolades, you get a check. If you try to defend yourself, that's a check. If you pass on blame to someone else, that might be a check as well.

"And if you bitch about a check, you get a bigger check," Murphy said with a smile.

"[General manager] Matt Arnold was a two-time defending champion. If he said something about a player like, 'We drafted him in Tampa,' that was a check."

It's not privilege shaming.  It's a tradition a generational player might not buy into.  It works as a team-building activity.

The point of the game exemplifies the concerted effort across the organization to align the different departments, so every voice is heard and valued -- and the game makes it clear to everyone that making the team better is more important than who gets the credit.

"The Check Game is a really important game inside the clubhouse and the culture and the ecosystem of the team," Brewers play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson said. "It's a little bit of a borderline shaming game, so if you're in it for yourself, you're going to get a check and you're going to be on that board.

"No one wants to be on that board."

The way baseball works, it might be the bottom of the order that has to start the rally and bring the top of the order up to bat, and thinking of yourself as that Little League kid remembering to protect the plate with two strikes and make the pitcher pitch to you gets you on base more effectively than trying to be what you're not.

The Brewers can go toe-to-toe with the $300 million powerhouses at the top of the National League standings because instead of trying to compete dollar for dollar, they've created the kind of unique environment that the Check Game fosters. It's a vibe that feels more like the atmosphere in a college locker room than what you would expect in a professional clubhouse.

As you make your way through American Family Field on game day, you come to understand that notion when you hear the team's manager, known simply as Murph throughout Milwaukee, refer to his first- and second-year players as "freshmen" and "sophomores."

Murphy, 66, coached 22 years at the collegiate ranks, first at Notre Dame and then Arizona State, and old habits die hard.

"We joke around with each other and say that it's Milwaukee Community College just because that's how we play the game and that's the kind of guys we have," Christian Yelich said. "And Murph's the manager and there's a lot more talks about fundamentals and baserunning and little details of a game that you might hear in college."

Murphy waves off any talk that his team performs fundamentals better than most. He even gets text messages about his club's ability to do the little things from friends -- but he won't take the bait and risk receiving a check in the game he helped cultivate.

"I don't think we have a secret sauce, and I don't think we do things that much better than anyone else," he said. "We've got a great group that competes. We're under construction. We're not setting limits on what we can do. How do we get better today? That's the emphasis. That will always be the emphasis."

So this season has gone.  "After making history at Yankee Stadium for a number of the wrong reasons, the Milwaukee Brewers won their home opening series."  You don't give up on the season after a week, you steal a lot of bases on Easter Sunday, you cash in on the George Webb promotion, and you better not let up once you're the first team into the playoffs.  Maybe mentioning the playoffs too loudly gets you a check.