My dad passed away this morning. He was 94, dementia is an awful beast transforming kind and caring people into, in Dad's case, a difficult and demanding human all while requiring the kind of care you'd give a toddler.

Dad was not a baseball fan, not a sports fan. I'm kind of jealous as I think of all of the ups and downs of being a fan. But somehow I became a fan. And so in the summer of 72 dad took my 8 year old self to a Yankees game in the house that Ruth built. And in 73 he took me to several Mets games in an exciting year to be a Mets fan. And in 75, this man who was probably bored stiff took me to a Mets game and watched Joe Torre ground into 4 double plays. Illinois Bell wanted my dad back from ATT where he was an engineer and so we moved to Downers Grove. And this non sports fan took me to a Sox game and we saw an entertaining game in which a fan threw a lit M-80 out of the seats behind Bobby Bonds who was already wearing a batting helmet in the outfield because of the fans.

When I matriculated at KU I had the fortune of being in town for the Larry Brown years. April 4, 1988 I get a call from my dad saying Go KU. He told me he'd had a KU pin and was going to wear it to work that day. I'm sure if you'd ask him about that game a few months later he would have not known that it even happened.

Enter adulthood and now I took him to a game, first time for him in New Comiskey and the only memorable thing was watching a fire in the projects across the expressway. I think that was the last game he went to all the way back in 91.

He was a father who didn't really like baseball who cared enough to help develop my passion for the game. Just thought you'd like to know a little about my dad.

Christian Braun presser:
On the way out the door he was asked if he heard about Kansas beating undefeated Arizona

“No big deal. That was expected”

Svi started and scored 23

I'm back.

@Jayhawk_69 said in Kansas Jayhawks at UCF Knights Game Chat Sat. 1/3 1:00 CT:

Unfortunately this game gives us a lot of negative takeaways and only 1 positive.

The positive: Melvin Council is the real deal. He is a stud who can hit big shots, play defense, and get to the rim at will.

The negatives:

1. DP will not play a second half for us all year. It does not matter if he is "100%". It just isn't going to happen.

2. Our defense, it turns out, was a paper tiger.

3. We have no heart. This is the only explanation for us not getting any defensive rebounds. We have the size and athleticism to be great on the glass.

4. We have no toughness. Everytime we tied or took the lead we gave up an easy basket at the other end. In the last minute with a chance to win we allowed 100% 3 pt percentage, 100% shooting from the field, and gave up 2.67 points per possession.

5. Flory has not taken the step forward needed from him.

6. Tiller is not ready to be a big 12 starter.

I suppose, on the bright side, all these issues (minus number 1) are fixable, but as of now it looks like we are a bottom half of the Big 12 team.

Overreaction city, not based on our full season of work.

1. We still don't know. I wish if he was on a minutes restriction that they'd be allocated out a bit so we have him at the end of the game.

2. Our defense is really one of the better units in recent memory. Today 1st half was ugly but 2nd half was much better. Against a tall team we had 7 blocks

3. We have no heart. Really. How is that measured? I'd say we've showed a lot of heart this season in the way we've played against really good teams, even shorthanded without DP.

4. We have no toughness. One game we were down by 1 with 10 seconds left on the road against a well coached and 1 loss team. Come on man, again how are you measuring toughness? Since the championship, this is the toughest team we've had by far, we've all been saying it. Don't let a bad result (that we win if DP plays) cloud your judgment on this team. They're a fun team to watch and have given us thrills this season we haven't experienced since 22.

5. Flory has improved in many ways since his freshman year. More minutes sure, but he's been indispensible to this team.

6. I might agree on Tiller.

There was a lot of negativity on the board today. Disappointing loss for sure. End of the world? Not ready to go there.

KU wins, first sweep in the little apple since the year before I was born, 1963. They've won 17 of their last 18.

Never knew there was a Funny category on the Bucket. Here's a few. What are some of your favorites?

Roman guy walks into a bar, holds up two fingers and says give me 5 beers.

Dyslexic guy walks into a bra.

Skeleton walks into a bar, says give me a beer and a mop.

When they installed artificial turf at KState football the cheerleaders realized they'd have to find a new field to graze in.

Nebraska stressing academics decided to put the letter N on their helmets for knowledge.

Drug dealers in Missouri not so smart. They didn't want to risk jail time so they sent one of their interns down to Mexico to get some coke they could sell. He came back with a couple of 12 packs of Pepsi saying it was cheaper.

I hate it when people use your and you're wrong. There so dumb.

@FarmerJayhawk

Yeah, even when he had an off game yesterday he got 17 points seemingly almost effortlessly.

The series was started Feb 11 1926 so we're on to the 2nd century of KU-OSU basketball!

@approxinfinity So you're saying Vitale has become a diaper dandy?

@kjayhawks2.0 I can't rewatch those painful losses. 86, 03, when the refs tried to help us!, and 2015 which is just about my favorite single college team ever.

Upon my morning perusings on the WWW I've had occasion to become all outraged again over the Duke Whistle. From our viewpoint it started at the Final Four in 1986 and our great team had the chance to win a title stolen by a 26-14 foul count against Duke. It's only been 40 years! I think the soothing memory of '88 helps, but it still stings.

In 1991 we played Duke in the final and while it maybe doesn't sting as much because that wasn't our greatest team, Duke did shoot 28 FTs while we shot 8 in that game. To be fair, we played Duke also in the 88 FF and refs called 19 on them and 16 on us, but they shot more FTs than we did.

In the 1992 Final Four Indiana played defending champ Duke. Duke was the favorite but needed a boost of 4 IU guys fouling out and a 5th having 4. 33-18 was the foul count plus a tech against Bobby Knight from Teddy valentine. Early in the 2nd half IU star Damon Bailey was whistled twice in 4 seconds giving him 4 fouls. Then he got hammered on a layup and no call. Ted was standing right next to knight, some say on purpose, and when the bench jumped up Bob got nailed. Duke wins by 3 while shooting 42 FTs compared to IU's paltry total of 16. No bueno.

It's still too soon to talk 2015 from my unique perspective, but that was pretty bad as well.

The strange thing to me is I've never disliked Duke players. Maybe it's the ivy league nature of that school, maybe their admission standards are higher than many other elite programs. Duke generally has had likable guys. But the guy on the sideline just really turns stomachs to so many.

Fun fact. Since 2002 KU and Duke both have 2 titles. They're not outperforming us. They should have a lot more but we have just as many because we've kept players on campus while so many of there's have left after 1 year. Their loss.

I wonder what other teams feel victimized by the coach K whistle?

Summer league means nothing in predicting a players success does it? Not saying DP won't be successful, but we've gushed over KU guys a lot because in a silly league game they scored 23 with 12 boards and then not even make the team.

Here's another

I live near a narrow, but active shipping river, the Calumet. One of my hobbies is looking at my marine traffic app and seeing what's coming. This Oberstar ship is a classic lakes freighter, 800 feet long

@Jayhawk_69 "woeful...pitiful...lowly...Herculaean...Princely, stately"
Great use of the English language!!

@Texas-Hawk-10 Awful. Hope the shot person recovers and Lagerald gets some help.

On the same trip we were treated to this sight. Mackinac Bridge tower.

I love clouds, well at least the interesting ones and this taken in northern Michigan looking south caught my eye the other day.