And Vince Lombardi Will Coach The Bears

There's a lot of talk going on in the city of Chicago today about possible coaching replacements for the Bulls and the Illini. According to a report from Philadelphia Inquirer, the Bulls have been in contact with Larry Brown (Second item) about taking over the team next season, and there's also a Rick Morrissey column in the Tribune saying that the Illini should go after Bobby Knight.

I think I can safely say that neither is going to happen, but should they?

First let's start with Bobby Knight coming to Champaign. It's not going to happen, so get it out of your head right now. Knight just retired last week, claiming he was too tired to even finish out the season, and he handed the reigns over to his son Pat at Texas Tech.

Of course, according to Morrissey, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be interested next season.

I know, crazy talk. The very thought of Knight rolling up the sleeves of an orange sweater is very, very painful for those of you who agreed with Lou Henson that the General is "a classic bully."

But it's intriguing crazy talk, is it not?

Obviously, this discussion is all very much hypothetical, but with some of Weber's critics continuing to call for his head, it's a legitimate discussion. When Knight decided to quit, he called his longtime friend, Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Sid Hartman. Hartman wrote that "if a job in the Big Ten opened up, I am convinced he would give it great consideration."

So again: If you were Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther and one of Knight's representatives called to say he'd be interested in the job if it ever opened, what would you do?

I'd say thanks but no thanks.

First of all, no matter how mad you or I am at Bruce Weber for the struggles of this season's Illini team, and the downtrend the program has started on since their Final Four appearance in 2005, Ron Guenther isn't interested in replacing Weber. He likes him.

And honestly, one of the biggest gripes I've had about Weber is his inability to recruit the top talent to Champaign. He lost Jon Scheyer to Duke even though his high school coach at Glenbrook North was Weber's brother, and we all know about the Eric Gordon fiasco.

So it's easy to criticize Weber's recruiting, but if you've been paying attention to the Illini lately, you may have noticed that freshman like Demetri McCamey and Mike Tisdale are coming along rather nicely at this point.

In Illinois double overtime loss to Indiana last week, Eric Gordon was the freshman who got all the attention, but McCamey was the freshman who played the better game. He scored a career high 31 points, and honestly gave me Deron Williams flashbacks at times.

So is it really that bad to not get Gordon for one year only, and instead get a guy like McCamey for four years? Not to mention that next season the Illini will get their designated driver, Jamar Smith, back after he was redshirted this season, and also Alex Legion, the transfer from Kentucky.

Illinois isn't going to be half bad next season, under Weber, so making a big change that would obviously be pretty expensive if you're going to bring in Knight, just doesn't make sense for the school.

Now the Larry Brown to the Bulls rumor is a lot more likely to happen, but at the same time, I still don't see it coming to fruition.

It would be nice to see the Bulls go after a big name coach for once, and there aren't many bigger names out there than Brown's, but I really don't think he'd be a good fit here. Wherever Brown has gone he's always wanted a lot of control over personnel decisions, and I'm not sure John Paxson would be willing to go along with that.

There's also the fact that Larry likes big money, and has a habit of skipping town without warning. Not exactly two things Jerry Reinsdorf looks for in a head coach.

So no, I don't think Larry Brown will be patrolling the Bulls sidelines next season, and I know Bobby Knight won't be wearing any orange sweaters anytime soon, but it is the middle of February, so I'm just grateful I had something to talk about this morning.

Foul Balls

The Blackhawks Got Screwed - I watched the Blackhawks take on the Vancouver Canucks after getting home from work last night because the team I've finally started watching the last few weeks has been without Jonathan Toews. So with Toews making his return last night, I thought it was only fair I give the team another chance with one of their best players back in the lineup.

Not much changed.

The Hawks are still struggling to get good shots on goal, and they needed an incredible amount of luck to even get their second goal of the game. Cam Barker took a shot in the third period with the game tied at 1 that was deflected by a Vancouver stick into the air. And I mean high into the air. High enough that nobody on the ice had any idea where the puck was until it literally fell from the sky behind Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo, and into the net.

Of course, the Hawks would blow that lead with a little over a minute to go and after a scoreless overtime period, they got screwed in the shootout.

The lone goal in the shootout came when Vancouver's Ryan Shannon did a spin-o-rama in front of Nikolai Khabibulin and backhanded the puck into a wide open net. Of course, he totally skated into Khabibulin and knocked him out of the crease while doing it, but apparently the refs just wanted to go home because they sure as hell didn't call interference.

Does it mean I'm starting to enjoy hockey again if I nearly punch my television after that blatant no-call? I think it does.

More Fun With Chris Berman - Chris Berman videos are flooding the internet recently. First, Deadspin brought us Boomer's tirade on set at ESPN because people were walking around, and now we're learning all sorts of new things about Berman.

He hates sitting by old people.

He knows his white wines.

He loves the F-bomb.

And my personal favorite, he can also teach you how to smuggle drugs across borders.


My only fear is that all of these are a pre-cursor to the Berman sex tape.

Hockey Is Bloody - Yeah, if you thought taking a skate to the face was bad, wait until you see this video. I didn't see it last night, but thanks to Gepetto from Luol's Dong, I saw it this morning.

If you're not a fan of seeing Richard Zednik get his throat cut, you probably don't want to watch.



Jesus.