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Badgers

Congratulations Wisconsin Men’s Basketball

Congratulations to the University of Wisconsin’s Men’s Basketball team on their victory over Arizona to win the West Regional bracket and advance to the Final Four.

Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal has an excellent article on what this means for Coach Bo Ryan.

The game was a nail biter, with the last 18 minutes of regulation being a one possession game before finally going into overtime and the Badgers pulling out a huge win. On to North Texas and a chance to play in the national championship.

Photo: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

I have seen the future of TV

…and it is the ESPN app on the new Xbox 360 update that was released today.

I’ve been in the beta for the new Xbox 360 dashboard for the last month or so, and with its release today, the embargo on blogging about it has been lifted.

Since I cut the cord and got rid of cable TV last February, the one thing that has been missing is sports. I’ve been tied to whatever the four major networks want to shovel at me. And I’m a sports junkie. I’m a huge (American) football fan, cheering for both the University of Wisconsin Badgers and Green Bay packers, and as soon as football season ends I dive right into college basketball. Having been a DirecTV customer for ten years I would pay hundreds of dollars for the NFL Sunday ticket and the March Madness packages. I’ve also started getting back into MLB the last few years cheering for the Minnesota Twins. And this summer I could only watch them on Sunday afternoons – the only time they were available over the air.

The ESPN app on the Xbox 360 changes all of that. It’s amazing – especially for college football. Branding the app as “ESPN3”, it’s a repackaged version of ESPN360 with more content available live and on demand. If you have ESPN as a cable subscriber, you’ll get to watch the game they pick for you at 11am (CST) on Saturday. With ESPN3 on the 360 you have access to every game ESPN has rights to – 4 or 5 games at 11, and about the same at 2:30. Using my IP, they did blackout the 2:30 p.m. game if it was on ABC but I still had access to all the other games. And the best part was, you could choose to watch it live or you could start at the beginning if you were tuning in late. On the 360, ESPN3 offers full DVR functionality – you could pause, rewind and fast forward. A number of games are also archived for a few days and you can watch them on demand after the game was over. It was fantastic watching the Badgers beat the Buckeyes a week ago on ESPN3 – without having to pay for cable TV.

Other content available includes NBA games, a number of second tier college sports, and selected ESPN content. There is no NFL content, including Monday Night Football games – not a huge surprise, considering the draconian rules the NFL has to protect their brand. The available ESPN original content is the only thing I’m disappointed with. You only get some highlights and clips from SportsCenter – I didn’t expect the whole show, but I did expect more. But where it really lets me down is ESPN shows like Rome is Burning, Around the Horn, E:60 and PTI (especially PTI!) aren’t available. They might have one or two clips from each, though with the official launch today I can’t find PTI at all. I don’t know if it’s a rights issue that they don’t show these original shows as they features clips and highlights from the sports broadcasts themselves or why they’re not available, but I had hoped for more original content. And the updates too those clips, at least during the beta, weren’t very timely.

The only catch with ESPN3 on Xbox360 is you have to have a broadband provider who has partnered with Microsoft. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing it has to be someone who offers TV service of some kind. My dashboard shows co-branding with Comcast as I have Comcast cable internet service.

As a college football fan, and general sports fan, this fixes the one major downside I had in cutting the cable. It’s an awesome experience. Live and on-demand content available at my fingertips. This is what the future will bring once the content providers figure out their new business models. If they do.

Oh, and the Netflix app in today’s update finally added the ability to search so you don’t have to use your PC to add titles to your Instant Queue. Finally!

Packers vs. Bears (10/7/07)

I was at Lambeau Field this past Sunday to watch the Packers eventually beat themselves and lose to the Bears on national TV.

Having grown up in Wisconsin, and now living in Minnesota, the residents of Minnesota think they have a rivalry with the Bears, but any true Packer fan will tell you the only rivalry we have is with the Bears. It was my first Bears game, and the normally nice crowd was just mean when it came to the Bears.

It didn’t help that the Packers had almost 100 yards of penalties, 6 turnovers, and didn’t rush the ball in the second half to eventually let a 10 point lead slip through their fingers.

I’ve added two sets of pictures from the game to my Flickr pages. I’m still having issues with focus on my DSLR when using my zoom lens in sports mode, I apologize if any are still blurry.

If you’re a Packer fan, join the Packer group on Flickr.

We were graced with the University of Wisconsin Marching Band before the game, during halftime, and during the second half doing their routine they also do at Camp Randall.

Here’s my favorite picture from the evening:

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Go Pack Go!

My father and I were able to purchase season tickets again this year from a family member.

I spent this past Sunday driving to and from Lambeau Field (about 4.5 – 5 hours each way) and it was definitely worth it.

Prior to the game, there was a convention in Green Bay this past week hosting most living Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. Before the game, Brian Williams of NBC introduced, by war, those living Medal of Honor recipients who were able to attend the convention and game. The four living Wisconsin recipients were also honorary captains for the day. Prior to kickoff, four F-16s did a flyby.

Most of the drive to Green Bay once I hit Wisconsin was cloudy and rainy. Sure enough, the drizzle started at kickoff for 30 minutes, but by halftime the clouds parted and the sun was shining brightly.

The game was a nailbiter – after a 10-0 Packer start in the first quarter, I had visions of the Saints game from last year which I was at, where the Packers jumped to a large lead only to give it away. The defense was phenomenal, as was the special teams play. The offense, well, let’s just say they have their work cut out from them.

I brought my new Digital SLR (Canon Rebel XTi) to the game, but I ran out of battery by kick off as I was practicing taking photos with it during pre-game. It was the first time I’ve used the telescopic lens, which I was very impressed with when in Sports mode on the camera firing off 3 shots / second. I still have some learning to do on proper focusing when using that lens though. You can view the set on Flickr here, and here is one of my favorite pictures I took watching Favre warm up:

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Next game: Sunday, October 9th against the Chicago Bears. This will be the first time I’ve seen the Bears at Lambeau, and is the only real rivalry the Packers have.

Where'd who go?

I haven’t blogged much in August, and here it is at month end already. Things should be settling down soon (I hope) leaving me more to blog and get back to work on Foresight.

I had a couple trips in August, lots of stuff going on at work, and we’re looking at building a new house, so the month just flew by.

The storm two days ago knocked my DirecTV dish out of alignment – not having TV for a week should free up some time. More on that later, but at least I have HD off air so I can watch the (7th ranked!) Badgers kick off the the college football season tomorrow.

I’m also in the process of transferring all my websites to a new server, so that’s eaten up some time. I spent almost a weekend working on getting apatheia.org moved from my account to a friends who is paying for it now.

More to come soon.

Football!

I love this time of the year – I think I’ve watched a football game every day for the last 10 days. Even the first few bowl games with teams you’ve rarely heard of we’re quite good (and I’m still laughing at George O’Leary).

I was ecstatic to see the Badgers win decisively in Coach Alvarez’s last game. I had been walking around the last few days convinced that what the analysts said was true – Auburn’s defense was going to rip in to Wisconsin, and the Badgers had little chance to win. Was I wrong – the Badgers won, and won big. Forget about the 10.5 point underdog status – Auburn couldn’t get it together all day and the Badgers offense was hot in the first half, and the defense played a heck of a game.

I was shocked to see the Packers fire Mike Sherman today – it wasn’t the $6 million they owe him for the last two years of his contract, it’s the question of who will replace him. In a year where there will be more head coaching vacancies than normal, will there be enough talent to go around? I also question if Ted Thompson is doing it for the right reasons – is Sherman definitely the wrong guy, or is Thompson trying to put his stamp on the team.

Time will tell. This leads me to believe Favre will retire, and is will be interesting to watch the Packers enter the next generation.

Good Sports Weekend

Badgers & Packers both win big this weekend.

With the exception of 2 minutes in the 2nd half, the Badgers were dominating, even with 3 defensive starters out.

Packers looked simply awesome (where have they been all year?!) – Grady Jackson was back stuffing the run and knocking down a pass, the secondary looked good, and the offense looked awesome. Go Go Javon and Ahman!

Badgers are off this weekend, and the Packers are at the Redskins. I need to look in to that whole superstition about the Redskins and Presidential picks, and make sure the Packers get to win.

Badger vs UNLV Review – 9/11/04

The Wisconsin Badgers hosted John Robinson’s UNLV football team at Camp Randall yesterday.

Looking at the history of these two teams, once again it was another strange game. Two years ago UNLV’s stadium suffered from power outages during the game, and last year UNLV stomped the Badgers 23-5 as the Badgers only scored on a field goal and a safety.

Bob Davie, former Notre Dame coach, and current color commentator for ESPN was eerily prophetic when in the first quarter he references last year’s safety by Wisconsin as UNLV is once again preparing ot punt from within their 5. Davie comments that UNLV won’t have forgotten tomorrow and may be nervous as the ball is hiked promptly sails over the punters head for a Badger safety.

Badger’s led for most of the first half 2-0, after missing 2 field goals early, including one from the 10, and a failed 4th and 1 from the Badgers 2. Badgers proceeded to score on a blocked UNLV field goal for a touchdown by Jim Leohnard and another safety. The only other scores were a field goal by UNLV and a later Badger touchdown.

All in all, it was kind of painful to watch, especially the first half. You would think a game featuring 2 safeties and a blocked FG for touchdown would be exciting, but the Badgers lack of offensive power was disturbing. True freshman running back Walker shows promise, but Booker Stanley is no Anthony Davis, and until Davis returns from an eye injury, the Badgers could have some trouble. QB John Stocco in his first year starting looks fairly good, with Owen Daniels and Brandon Williams being favortie targets.

Two games into the season, I’ve been pleasantly suprised with the UW defense. Led by a new defensive coordinator, they haven’t done anything flashy or given up really big plays, but solid and consistent play in and play out.

Next week: @ Arizona.

Go Badgers!

Badgers looked good today in QB’s John Stocco’s debut. The ESPN crew touched on his story briefly: After passing Matt Schabert last year on the depth chart to #2 behind Jim Sorgi, John was a bit shy and uncomfortable replacing Matt, who was also his roommate. After being demoted to #3, Matt left Wisconsin for a Division I-AA school this year, where he could be the starting QB.

Anthony Davis looked good, until getting hurt, again. Booker Stanley was so-so at RB. The new defensive coordinator’s scheme seemed to work, but nothing stood out about it. Not a lot of blitzing, and Scott Starks at CB will never start in the NFL.

I had told my dad this morning I would be happy to see the Badgers run up the score on University of Central Florida, as they are now the home to disgraced coach George O’Leary. I made the remark because after O’Leary was forced to resign at Notre Dame he spent 2 years on Mice Tice’s staff at the Minnesota Vikings, with the second year as defensive coordinator. Turn on the game today, and O’Leary isn’t even at the game as he’s attending his mother’s funeral. Oops.

Badgers should have a good year. If Stocco emerges in the mold of how Trent Dilfer played for Baltimore a few years back, as a steady, mistake free QB who doesn’t have to put up big yards, the Badgers could make a run at things. With Ohio State and Michigan struggling early in their wins today, there may be hope yet!