Everything else for your Thursday

If anyone plays Uno online on Xbox Live, get at me and let's be friends so that we can play. I can comfortably admit (OK, not comfortably) that I've become obsessed with this game. It's not a game of chance, it's skill!!

The big news here in Indiana is that the Hoosiers finally found a coach in Marquette's Tom Crean. I think he's a nice fit for the Hoosiers, but it'll be a few years before the Hoosiers are back in the national spotlight. What about Dakich kicking JaMarcus Ellis and Armon Bassett off the team a day before Crean was hired? Hmm. Anyway, onto the rest of your Ball State news for Thursday.

Even after the loss to Penn State, the Ball State men's volleyball team rose one spot in the national rankings, to No. 6. (Ball State Sports)

Ryan, you're a fine boy. Baseball player Ryan Chenoweth named MAC West Player of the Week. (Ball State Sports)

The baseball team continues its winning streak with a 5-2 win over Dayton. (BSU Daily News)

After 61 years of playing, Indiana State and Ball State will not play each other in men's basketball next year. (The Star Press)

The women's golf team won its second straight invitational title. (BSU Daily News)

Ray McCallum supposedly has some interest in the open Toledo job. (Toledo Blade)

Congratulations to Julie DeMuth, who earned Academic All-MAC honors. (Ball State Sports)

Remember the dumbass cop that took the three girls on a joy ride and ended up crashing in front of LaFollette? He plead guilty yesterday. (Indianapolis Star)

Please come to Ball State, Tyler Koch

The Star Press' Scott Duncan has been all over this story since the IHSAA Tournament, based on the number of blog posts dedicated to him, but Ball State men's basketball coach Billy Taylor officially offered Winchester's Tyler Koch a scholarship yesterday. Hooray! I've been driving the Koch bandwagon for awhile now and I'm glad Taylor pulled the trigger. Taylor has been recruting him heavily so that certainly helps. Who knows if we'll actually get him or not. Wright State and Evansville have already offered and there's a pretty solid chance bigger schools will notice this kid by the time it's all said and done. As much as it pains me to say it, he seems like a Butler player, but at this point there doesn't appear to be any connection between the two. Koch averaged 22.5 ppg last season.

On his blog, Duncan embedded a YouTube video of Koch highlights. Good stuff here.

What to make of the Tracy Roller resignation

I wish I had some deep insight as to why Tracy Roller resigned as the Ball State women's basketball coach last night, but I do not. I think we're all in agreeance that this is a very fishy story, to say the least, with many, many holes throughout it.

She told Greg Fallon that the reason she left the team was NOT because of mononucleosis and an inner ear infection, as previously reported. It's something more serious. However, Roller was vague about what it was exactly.

"It's not fatal," Roller said. "It's not physical."

"It's of a mental nature, and that's why I'd like to keep it as private as I can."

Roller was also quick to squash any rumors that might be circulating through the community regarding her departure.

"I think I've heard them all," Roller said. "I've been in rehab for drug addiction. I've been addicted to pain killers. I've been pregnant. I've been in Europe. Sleeping with a player, I've heard that one. Sleeping with an assistant, I've heard that one. None of them -- none, I promise you -- are true."

Very interesting. When I first read it, the first thing that came to mind was that she was bipolar. Although I have no evidence to back it up. Then I thought it was cancer, but she did say it was a mental nature. The most likely seems to be that she's battling depression. She didn't even speak to the team from December until Senior Night, and that night she refused to talk to The Star Press, with whom she's had a fairly good relationship with. Remember, these are just guesses I'm throwing out there. No truth to it at this point. Regardless, I wish Tracy the best and hope whatever ails her can be cured.

In the Daily News article, Roller said she didn't resign to take the Alabama job, which I didn't even know the Tide were interested. But the most curious note in the story was that Roller said she has put her house in Muncie on the market. So whatever she's doing, it's apparent she's leaving Muncie.

I also thought it was interesting she addressed the sleeping-with-the-players or assistant coaches rumor. I have heard rumors of an assistant coach (don't know who, so i can't say if it's past or present) sleeping with more than one player, but no concrete evidence to back it up.

Some people think she is a terrible person for lying to the administration. I get the impression she didn't lie to them and that the athletic department covered up for her whatever the real issue was. Roller's a class act and would never do that.

Here's a quick timeline of Roller's past year:

March 2007: BSU narrowly loses to Kentucky, 85-82, in the NIT.
Late March 2007: Roller rewarded for great season with $182,000 contract, making her, at that time, the highest-paid coach on the team. Billy Taylor and Brady Hoke now make the same.
October 2007: Roller takes to the billboard on IN-332 in order to raise season tickets. She's ordered down by AD Tom Collins a day before homecoming.
Nov. 2007: In what was supposed to be a banner year for BSU women's basketball, the team started off 3-8, including six in a row.
Dec. 29, 2007: Roller leaves team for remainder of the season
March 2008: Cardinals unable to make postseason run, lost first game of MAC Tourney after winning MAC West.
April 2, 2008: Roller resigns.

Basically what we have is a lot of information going a lot of different ways. She's not leaving to take a new job, but has put her house up for sale. She wasn't sick of mono, but couldn't disclose why. Sounds like we're going to be talking about this one for awhile.

Sunday night links

ONIONS! You can't beat Bill Raftery.

In the Best Comedy of 1999 voting, with an absolutely loaded crop of movies, American Pie was the runaway winner. In fact, the only other movie to receive votes was Office Space. I'm still convinced those five could win in almost any other year. The class of 2000 is atrocious, so just a forewarning. That will run on Tuesday. My vote went to American Pie as well, obviously. It's this generation's American Graffiti or The Big Chill, depending on when you grew up.

A little bit about the NCAA Tournament first. Hell of an effort by Davidson today, but that last possession was U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. First question, why did Stephen Curry bring the ball up? My best guess is that coach McKillop was worried that, because of Kansas' tight defense, Curry wouldn't be able to get open and fire off a shot. So what we ended with instead was Curry being hounded by KU and forcing Curry to pass the ball to Richards, whose wild three missed left. I'll tell you what, from the one angle it looked like it was going in, but actually hit to the left of the rim. Pretty weird. I think McKillop would love a re-do on that. My brackets are shit at this point, it's not even worth discussing. Onto the links!

Remember the glory days of Ball State basketball? Although it's $25 for each game, you can get the DVDs from our NCAA Tournament run in 1990. Awesome! In case you forgot, Oregon State's star was a man by name of Gary Payton. BSU b*slapped the Beavers! (Amazon)

The Ball State men's volleyball team's match with No. 1 Penn State was derailed by the fact that the start time had to be moved back to 8:30 p.m because of vehicle issues. Let's see, 11-hour bus trip, get off the bus, play match against No. 1 team in nation...yeah not good. Penn State won, 3-0. Hopefully we get another chance. (BSU Daily News)

Former women's basketball player Tamara Bowie is back in the WNBA. She was an absolute force for Ball State. (Sports Page)

Included in this article is a brief update on former Ball State football player David Gater's doings these days. Best memory: interception return for a touchdown against Eastern Michigan in 2005 which sparked the huge comeback win. (Journal-Gazette)

The baseball team swept Kent State this weekend. Starting to come together, Pepper, starting to come together. (Ball State Sports)

The BSU gymnastics team placed sixth at the MAC Championships. (Ball State Sports)

Bye bye, McLemore and Twyman

In certainly what was the least surprising move post-basketball season, Deontay Twyman is leaving the Ball State men's basketball team. He found himself in the doghouse early and often supposedly because he didn't like playing defense.

On the other side, a lot of us are surprised about the departure of Rashaun McLemore. He played very well toward the end of the season and started the final 11 games. Sure, he couldn't shoot the ball, but he was a body, and more important, a starter.

Basically, the carousel goes round and round with this team. The Cardinals only have six returning scholarship players for next season. How many more years are we going to have players defect en masse? I keep hearing, rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, but is there any reason we couldn't have tried it with the current crop of players instead of letting them go or giving them the boot.

I found it surprising that both players are probably going to try the junior college route. I've said this before, but I just have a feeling that Twyman is going to pull a Rawle Marshall on us. For a quick refresher, Marshall found himself in Tim Buckley's doghouse, transferred to Oakland, led them to an NCAA Tournament appearance (maybe two) and even had a cup of coffee in the NBA. Yet, we ran him out of town. We certainly could've used him in a few of those years.

Some people seem positively optimistic about next year's team...me, not so much. Let's just take a wait-and-see attitude. We do have five commits for next year, and they're all high schoolers instead of juco's, so at least it's a start.

Those signed in November are 6-6 forward Maurice Hubbard, 6-8 forward/center Eric Wormely and 6-4 swingman Pierre Sneed. Two more, 6-8 center Jarrod Jones and 5-11 guard Randy Davis -- have committed and should sign in the spring. Which leaves us with two more. Taylor said he wanted to use the schollies for a guard, a big man and leave one for next year (Tyler Koch!!). Rumbling on the street is that we should use the big one on Washington's 6-11 center Seth Coy. Ehh, I'm not sold on that possibility. But then again, you can't teach height.