On a dreary Saturday ...

... I'm a little bit worried about tonight's matchup with Valparaiso. Lots of good things have been written about Valpo - they only lost to ranked Vanderbilt; they beat Wright State, which beat Butler, and Miami, which beat Illinois - and if we don't come strong it could be one of those shocking losses which really isn't so shocking.

On paper we seem to match up well, as their leading scorers are taller guys. But they seem to be a team that relies on shooting 3-pointers, which we haven't always defended well this season.

Apparently this game was supposed to be played last year, but Valpo was young and inexperienced and we had a great veteran team coming back, so Homer Drew asked to postpone it for a year. Why did we agree?

Anytime I think of Valpo, I think of two things: Andy Falkowski's law degree, and the Bryce Drew miracle shot off the pass from Bill Jenkins, one of the twins from Nicolet we played baseball against. The thing I always remember about the Jenkins brothers was senior year, our game against Nicolet at Regner, when Sam Blahnik hit Bill or Bob in the seventh inning (with us up 1-0) and their athletic director running onto the field as if he believed the HBP was intentional. Yeah, put the tying run on base on purpose, good call.

But I digress. Planning on recording tonight's game and watching it tomorrow morning ...

-The Journal Sentinel reported this morning that six key Tennessee players are ineligible for the Outback Bowl. A starting defensive tackle and linebacker are among the ineligible, as is Lucas Taylor, the Vols' leading receiver. This makes me feel somewhat better about our injured-riddled secondary's chances of holding up against Erik Ainge's passing attack.

There's also a little nugget at the end of the story about little-known transfer Chris Maragos's switch to safety. Earlier this year the coaching staff was raving about the kid from Racine, and I made a snarky comment, but it looks like they weren't kidding.

We can look at this two ways: either this guy is a good candidate to be the next Joe Stellmacher/Jim Leonhard/Jason Doering, or this does not reflect well on Aubrey Pleasant/Jai Valai/Kim Royston. Or both.