The worst road construction idea ever

From the Star Tribune regarding the rebuilding of 494 and 169 last Thursday:

Hwy. 169 will be reconstructed this year, together with a new bridge for local traffic. Some of the six roundabouts planned will be in use this year.

... SIX ROUNDABOUTS?!
Are you freaking kidding me? If there is any way to make an intersection more confusing for American drivers, it's by introducing a roundabout. If there is a way to cause complete and utter destruction at a major metropolitan interchange, then put SIX at the interchange between an interstate and a US highway? Awesome. Rush hour in the southwest metro is going to be fantastic.

Vermont at Stony Brook, a recap

This picture was not from tonight's game, I should point out, but I do want to provide a frame of reference every time I mention Evan Fjeld. He is the guy that either played bass in Cream, or perhaps drives a windowless van. I don't want to go through a blow by blow of the game, because there are several game summaries out there, but I'll just drop some thoughts on you.
- It started with Stony Brook running out ahead early, because they hit a lot of open looks. They definitely had energy, and the tiny arena seemed very loud, with a lot of good, interested fans in attendance. They wanted to run, and they did just that early, but you could tell that as the game went on, Vermont slowed things down, and the game started to move to their pace. They couldn't hit anything, so it took a while for them to come back. Fortunately, they held the Seawolves to 20% shooting in the second half as well as they tried to come back. Vermont ended up winning 55-49.
- Before the game, my friend Anthony put the line at Vermont -6. I just wanted to give him props.
- Could these teams make noise in the tournament? Well, I don't know that I expect either to make the tournament, but if they got there, these are the type of teams that do it. Stony Brook, especially Marcus Rouse, was successful when they were hitting from downtown, the greatest of giant killers in the tournament. Vermont is technically and fundamentally sound. They should have won this game by about 20, but struggled to hit open jumpers. They definitely don't have the athletes to run with a bigger school in the dance if they get that far (I mean, John Oates up there is the best player on the team) or the shooting to get lucky, but if they run into a young team that makes mistakes, Vermont is sound enough to take advantage.
- I was really impressed by the overall sportsmanship. I heard nothing overly critical of the officials, even after hard fouls, I saw players going out of their way wo make sure things were still cool. The two teams exited at the same time down the same hallway towards the lockers, and there were no issues at the end of the game, It's something that you don't see much, and I definitely wanted to compliment the teams and the fans.
- There was no commentary on my feed, but they had the game audio piped in. There was the PA. guy, but I couldn't make out what he said. Instead, I heard the Stony Brook coach Steve Pikiell shouting instructions at his team, especially Anthony Mayo. Also, you could hear the Stony Brook AV club shouting back and forth and scorekeepers keeping score. It was an interesting perspective.
- The other guy, besides Fjeld and Rouse, that stood out for me was Dave Coley. He looked a lot like Stevie Wonder. not many black guys named Dave. Speaking of black guys, not many black guys playing for Vermont.
- The real reason I didn't notice anyone else out there was because the feed was so grainy, and there was no zoom on anyone. It was really hard to tell anyone apart, except the players who were lighting things up, and Coley with his hair. I should point out that Brian Voelkel for Vermont had a double-double, but I couldn't tell. Just another white guy in a green jersey.

It was a well contested match that I wish I could have made it to, if only for a close up look at Evan Fjeld's mustache, as well as a chance to enjoy the atmosphere in that small gym on Long Island.

Upcoming: Vermont at Stony Brook

It's sneaking up on me, but the first game of 2011 for the Victoria Times Ryan's Random Road tRip is coming up on Tuesday. Do to extenuating circumstances, I will be unable to get to the game, so instead I will be watching it from home online. The team selected was the Vermont Catamounts, and their 13th game of the season, which ends up being their America East conference opener against Stony Brook, a New York school on Long Island.

Vermont, the road team in this competition, has pretty much handled their business this year. They went 9-3 in the non conference portion of the schedule, with their three losses to a now ranked Connecticut team, Brigham Young and at Fairfield. Vermont doesn't really have a marquee win to their credit, so it's hard to say what their talent level is at, though blow out losses to BYU and the loss at Fairfield don't say anything good. Evan Fjeld is probably the premier player for the Catamounts, averaging 17.2 points a game from his spot as forward. The senior also posts a strong 7 rebounds a game, which is second to freshman forward Brian Voelkel's 10 a game. Joey Accaoui is a secondary scorer for Vermont with 13.5 a game, while little used Sandro Carissimo is the winner of the "best name" contest.

The Seawolves are a different story. It's pretty easy to see where they stand. Stony Brook isn't so good. They stand at 5-6 and actually start their America East schedule today against Maryland-Baltimore County. They definitely have no good wins and certainly a handful of bad losses, like games against Wagner, Lehigh, Columbia, Sacred Heart and an 88-62 dismantling at the hands of Notre Dame. The leading scorer for Stony Brook is Bryan Dougher at about 15 points a game. #2 on the list is Chris Martin, who is presently injured, and even so only has a bit more than 8 points a game. Dallas Joyner is the leading rebounder, with about 7 a game. It's hard to say that this team has a star. Preye Preboye is the strongest name in this bunch.

I think the Seawolves injury issues and lack of a true identity will lead them to struggle against Vermont. I don't really have faith in the Catamounts, though, either, especially on the road. If the Vermont scorers can get going and stay out of foul trouble (a problem for Fjeld at times), they should be able to come away with the victory, but I am going to go with Stony Brook as my official prediction.

Change of plans

Well, I took a quick look at Vermont's basketball schedule. They decided to label a couple games as "exhibitions" which pushed their Game 13 back by two games, and now Game 13 of their regular season is January 4th at Stony Brook. That means it is officially one of this years games, and I won't be waiting all the the way to December. Unfortunately, it also means that I will be unable to go to the game, as it interferes severely with Real Job Inc. I do plan on watching the Stoney Brook video feed from here in the comfort of my mother's basement.
This will be the conference opener for the Catamounts, who will travel to Stony Brook, which is on Long Island. The Catamounts and Seawolves (best matchup I've had so far in terms of nicknames, I think) play in the America East conference. Last season, Vermont won the conference tournament, while Stony Brook won the regular season title, so this is a pretty big matchup. I'm disappointed I won't be able to go, but I'll still enjoy catching the matchup.

Colorado State at San Diego State... the Recap

As I have mentioned several times, one of the games I drew to attend this season ended up being a contest between the Rams of Colorado state and the Aztecs of San Diego State. they played on Saturday, providing the basis of my road trip this past week. I'm not going to lie, the game was tremendously ugly. San Diego State turned the ball over 5 times and had the ball for only 4 minutes in the first half.... and they still won. Colorado State somehow had the ball the entire first half and couldn't move the ball, and in fact the first touchdown they scored was on a fumble recovery, returned about 90 yards. The Aztecs would have destroyed Colorado State had they played the second half the way they did in the first, but it ended up being a fairly close game, where the Rams scored their first offensive touchdown with 2 and a half minutes to go, bringing the game to within 5. A few stories and observations from the game and the events surrounding.

- As soon as we checked into our hotel, which was right down the road from Qualcomm Stadium, football home of the San Diego State Aztecs, and immediately found out the hotel was home to the Colorado State team and traveling party. Before we went to the game, my friend Joel and I stopped at the hotel bar to take advantage of Happy Hour (the wings were excellent). Joel must have a pleasant disposition, because out of nowhere, a gentleman named Norris came up to us and started talking to Joel about the upcoming game. Turns out, he was the father of the Rams' starting free safety. After Norris introduced himself to Joel, he had to ask how to get to the stadium, and then Norris got to know Joel, even introduced us to his family. Naturally, come game time, we kept our eyes peeled for #22 Elijah-Blu Smith. He ended up recovering one of the Aztecs' fumbles in the 4th quarter, but his efforts were not enough.

- Ronnie Hillman can really run. He is only a freshman, otherwise he would get some attention in the NFL draft this year. He ran for 151 yards and didn't seem to break any big runs, he was just incredibly consistent. This must be the way he always is, because he already has over 1000 yards in his freshman campaign. Excellent recruit for SDSU.

- After we got there and got our tickets, Joel decided he wanted some SDSU apparel. We stopped at one of the San Diego State shops inside of Qualcomm and he got himself a sweatshirt. Joel must have a pleasant disposition, because a woman and her college age son asked to bother him him. "Look at him, Jack, isn't this a nice sweatshirt?" The son looks horribly uncomfortable. "Yeah... great." "But isn't it nice? Look at it, Jack!" Son looks uncomfortable. "Yeah, it's nice". Then they thanked us and moved on.

- Colorado State QB Pete Thomas has the weakest arm I've ever seen in person. If his passes were animals, they would be ducks. I don't think he through a single hard, tight spiral on the evening. I have no idea, then, howe he kept connecting on so many long third down passes.

- Every team has a big third down chant or cheer or something. The Aztecs used this from 300, followed by a big cat growly screech. Let me tell you, Colorado State reached third down a lot. And they always played that damn sound effect on third down at Qualcomm. It never worked.

- I complain about uniforms a lot. This is what Colorado State wore.

- All the Chargers stuff around the stadium was pretty funny. Everything had lightning bolts, even the beer cups at the game. And there were an absolute ton of Philip Rivers pictures littering the stadium. Loser.

- There seemed to be a lot of people just wearing red shirts in order to show their support for the Aztecs. We saw Indiana, Wisconsin and Nebraska. At the end of the game, Nebraska must have thought Joel had a pleasant disposition, because he stopped to vent about the Aztecs inadequacies in keeping the ball, Joel just smiled and nodded, and guy in the Nebraska shirt felt like he made a friend. Everyone came out a winner.

- A group of Colorado State female fans got a little rowdy (I've heard things about Fort Collins) and were giving the SDSU fans the finger and hollering. Meanwhile, behind them, Ronnie Hillman was running for  a 30 yard touchdown. Justice.

I really enjoyed my time in San Diego. Mostly, fans of each team were enthusiastic but very friendly. Tomorrow, I'll chat a bit about the rest of the trip

Akron-UIC.... the rundown

Last night I streamed the Illinois-Chicago versus Akron basketball game right here to my location in Minneapolis. Given the weather that I would have had to contend with on the way back, I'm rather glad I wasn't able to make it down there. Next time I head out east, though, I will stop in Akron.
Anyways, the web stream was odd, in that it was a live video feed with the only audio the stadium announcer and the Akron band. It was very odd. Anyways, the game was a closer than expected battle. That sounds cliche, but I don't mean that based on the pregame scouting report. I mean the score ended up being closer than I would have though having watched the game.
The Zips were the clearly bigger and more athletic team, and played relatively mistake free ball, all the while dominating the turnover battle. Somehow, the Flames only lost by two and kept the game close until there were about 5 minutes to go.
Still, while watching the game, even when the game was close, me and my friend knew that eventually the Zips would wear the Flames down. It didn't happen as quickly as we thought, but when it did, it made you realize who the best athletes were on the court, as there was a lot of good inside passing, fastbreaks and just quality inside scoring.
Brett McKnight of the Zips looked to be the best player on the court, cleaning up a lot of rebounds and leading all scorers with 16 points. He was also recognizable because he looked like he was 38 years old and/or Dmitri Young. Humpty Hitchens and Steve Mcnees were the point guards for the Zips and did a good job distributing to the 4 players who ended up with double digits in points for the Zips. Jimmy Conyers had a whopping 19 rebounds.
The Flames saw 5 players score in double figures, however their bench wasn't as deep. Only 6 players really had much time on the floor, with the other 4 coming in when the game was all but over. For what it's worth, Zavion Neely led the Flames in scoring, but only played 24 minutes.
You can read more about the game at ESPN.

A few other notes
- During every free throw, they would post a commercial for either the Barley House or Donjoy, whatever they are.
- The arena actually had a few people in it. Pretty good attendence for a non conference game 3 days before Christmas.
- The half time show was a troupe of jump ropers. Like, kids and their parents with jump ropes. Only in Akron.
- There was a blimp give away in the second half.
- Akron's student body is nt much for dancing.

Well, only one more month until my next trip, to Capre Girardeau, Missouri. Hopefully I can actually go!

Good news and bad news

Good news! I am getting a house! I am taking advantage of the faltering economy and my steady employment! I move next week!
Bad news! I will likely have to forgo my intended trip to Akron to watch Illinois-Chicago take on the Zips. This means I will not get to go on a date with my kangaroo girlfriend, as I had hoped.

Hot.
Anyways, that's a bummer. But there is more good news! During my whole ugly moving process on Monday, me dear friends from Barry Melrose Rocks will stop by and grace you with coherent posts. For once.

North Texas-Arkansas State... What I missed

If you have been following along, you will know that one of the games I was supposed to attend was a college football game between Arkansas State and North Texas, but due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, I ended up going to Middle Tennessee State and watching them play Arkansas State instead. Anyways, the UNT-ASU battle was this afternoon, so I thought I would do my due diligence and check out what happened.
I had to work, but I still followed along with the game on Game Center. Arkansas State jumped ahead thanks to the communal effort of their backfield. Playing in his last game in Jonesboro, running back Reggie Arnold lead the way with 111 yards, but it was Don Jones that scored the first touchdown of the game.
North Texas, 2-9 coming into the game, appeared to be rattled early, as they turned the ball over a couple of times early and couldn't stop the Red Wolves. Thanks in large part to freshman quarterback Ryan Aplin and his ability to run (he ran for 2 touchdowns and 122 yards), Arkansas State was up 27-7 at the half. Arnold scored the 4th touchdown of the game, his final one in Jonesboro.
While the first half was almost all Arkansas State, the second half definitely belonged to North Texas. A fumble by running back Lance Dunbar was picked up by Kevin Dickerson and brought in for 6. The Mean Green used three quarterbacks, perhaps preparing for next year, and two of them tossed more touchdowns. In the end though, one late field goal and two botched extra points for North Texas were what it took for Arkansas State to hold on for the end.
I wish I had been able to go, because this sounds like a pretty good game. Ryan Aplin sounds like he will be a force to be reckoned with in the Sun Belt conference for years to come. North Texas' disappointing season comes to an end, while Arkansas State looks to close out on a high note next week against Western Kentucky.