Time Out Awards: Georgetown, Washington and the PGA

by Jason Frazier, Alestle Reporter

It’s that time for the weekly Time-Out awards, given by me to those athletes who have been sub-par on and off the field in the world of sports. Let’s start by giving out the first Time-Out in response to something near and dear to my wallet.

Like many this time of year, I made a monetary investment into an NCAA tournament pool, hopefully for my picks to bring my investment back with some extra cash. The Georgetown Hoyas men’s basketball team receives a Time-Out for possibly turning my investment into a donation. Georgetown was the definite favorite in their game with Ohio University Bobcats, which they lost by the score of 97-83.

Georgetown deserves this Time-Out for three reasons. First, Ohio, which only made the tourney because it got hot and somehow won the MAC tourney, hasn’t won a NCAA tournament game since 1983. Second, Georgetown had such a great performance in the Big East Tournament, you would think they would have a better showing in the Big Dance. And last but not least, they cost many people, including myself, a chance to win some cash.

The next Time-Out goes to Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington, who tested positive for cocaine for last season. In a press conference on Wednesday, Washington said, “I did wrong, and I take responsibility for that, and I’m sorry.”

Although Washington did openly admit to his mistake, I still have to give him a Time-Out because as the leader of a team, you can’t allow yourself to get in a situation like this. Washington is in charge of making important on the field decisions for his ball club. How can the Rangers trust him to do that when he can’t make important off the field decisions for himself?

Every golfer on the PGA Tour not named Tiger Woods is the recipient of this week’s final Time-Out. Woods announced he will end his hiatus from golf April 8 at the Masters. Shortly after, Las Vegas odds makers deemed him the 3-1 favorite to win the Masters.

I don’t think there are any golf courses at the sex rehab clinic Woods has been at, so he hasn’t had much time to practice. Somehow he is still the favorite. I think Woods is the greatest ever to play the game of golf, but maybe the crop of golfers he is playing against are just not very good. Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and the rest of the tour might not be the favorite to win the Masters, but they definitely win this Time-Out award.

That closes another edition of the Time-Out awards for this week. Athletes, coaches, and front office personnel: put your best foot forward and don’t make me give you a Time-Out.

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SIUE men’s basketball at Illinois

SIUE women’s basketball vs. Morehead State

SIUE and Charter reach TV agreement

SIUE sports information announced yesterday an agreement has been made with Charter Communications to air ten SIUE basketball games LIVE from the Vadalabene Center.

This is great news for the university, considering Charter reaches half a million homes in the St. Louis area, and the television contract will allow SIUE to further branch out into the St. Louis market, and put itself into the local college hoops conversation with Missouri, Illinois and SLU.

Don’t know the cost, or any specifics regarding the contract, besides the games will air on Channel 3, the Charter Communications Information Network (basically the public access channel, but it’s a channel nonetheless) as they happen and again in tape delay, Randy Karraker, a well known St. Louis media personality will be doing the play by play, and ten games, including the home openers are set to be broadcast.

This boosts SIUE’s television exposure this season to 12 games, Friday’s men’s opener at the University of Illinois will air on ESPN360.com (also a part of ESPN’s pay per view package on television, so I’m sure Charter will broadcast the feed live on television locally, as they did last season for a pair of games) and the Dec. 22 game at Purdue is on ESPNU.

That explains the new press conferences and confusion over media seating at the VC during the exhibition games. Should be a great thing for SIUE, hopefully it doesn’t take away from attendance at the games.

Here is Charter’s schedule for the season from the press release:

Date Opponent Game Time
Sun., Nov. 15 Milwaukee Noon
Sun., Nov. 15 Illinois State (M) 2:30 p.m.
Sat., Nov. 28 Lipscomb (M) 2:00 p.m.
Sun., Dec. 20 Loyola (M) 2:00 p.m.
Tue., Dec. 22 Missouri State 7:00 p.m.
Mon., Dec. 28 UMKC (M) 7:00 p.m.
Wed., Dec. 30 Murray State (M) 7:00 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 5 Milwaukee (M) 7:00 p.m.
Fri., Feb. 5 South Dakota (M) 7:00 p.m.
Sun., Feb. 7 North Dakota (M) 1:30 p.m.

Headed to the U of I tomorrow around two with T.J, should be fun, be sure to keep up with the live blog during the game, and as you watch online. Instead of blogging straight into this we will have a link available around 6 p.m with cover it live, so you can interact and ask questions about the game as it happens or share your input. Much more interactive approach, hope you join us!

Allan Lewis
Alestle Sports Editor

Previewing IC and exhibition number two

The SIUE women’s team will be taking the court in the next hour and a half against the University of Missouri-St. Louis, but for now let’s focus on the men, who will follow with their second dress rehearsal for the University of Illinois and their season opener next Friday.

We will see Mark Yelovich, Stephen Jones and Nikolo Bundalo tonight. They missed Wednesday’s game for “violating team rules,” and the suspension imposed on them by Head Coach Lennox Forrester was just for that particular game.

It will be interesting to see if the Cougars can keep a balanced offensive attack going with three additional weapons, and perhaps their biggest in Yelovich in the lineup, after six players scored in double figures against MacMurray.

Now to talk about Illinois College, the first of three teams SIUE will face with “Illinois” in their name, and by far the easiest of the group to handle.

This should be a walk in the park tonight. Just like MacMurray, IC is located in Jacksonville, Illinois, and just like MacMurray has an enrollment under 1,000 at 891.

They compete in NCAA Division III. They went 11-12 last season, and 8-8 in conference play.

This will be the second all-time meeting between the Cougars and Blue Boys, who first met in 1987, a 100-73 SIUE victory.

David Stewart is going to be the Blue Boy to watch, he averaged just over 11 points last season to compliment five rebounds per-game.

3 SIUE Players to watch

Mark Yelovich – Led SIUE in scoring last season, making his season debut tonight

Zeke Schneider – Important to see if the new recruit can rebound from a rough outing Wednesday. He fouled out and had four turnovers in 11 minutes.

LeShaun Murphy – Best second half of any Cougar Wednesday.

That’s all for now, look for live posts during both the men’s and women’s games this evening.

Allan Lewis

-Alestle Sports Editor