Loyola/Michigan basketball becomes the battle of the deli sandwiches

Just in case anybody had doubts about how significant the Loyola vs. Michigan semi-final game in the NCAA Men’s basketball tourney is to Chicago, we have the latest bit of evidence.

Manny's gets free publicity from latest sporting bet

It’s VERY significant, because the mayors feel compelled to turn it into a sporting bet.

AS IN ONE of those things where the mayor of Chicago feels compelled to defend the honor of the Second City against that of the other city. Which in this case is Ann Arbor, Mich.

And in which case, each of the mayors puts up some food item supposedly significant to the respective city. Somebody supposedly will get to do some good eatin’ depending on who manages to prevail in Saturday’s game that leads up to the NCAA championship game scheduled for Monday.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is willing to buy corned beef and pastrami from Manny’s Deli and send it off to Ann Arbor IF Loyola’s “Cinderella” surprise team finally meets its match to Big 10 powerhouse Michigan.

But if it turns out that Loyola prevails and winds up playing in the championship game against the winner of Kansas/Villanova, then Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor will be sending sandwiches to City Hall from Zingerman’s Deli.

SPECIFICALLY, THE GEORGIA Reuben sandwich – which I’m told is turkey, cheese and cole slaw served on rye bread and slathered with Russian dressing.

It doesn’t sound appetizing to me (something about thick, creamy salad dressings is a turnoff), but I’m told by various University of Michigan alumni that it is a big deal – and something many of them crave when they think back to their collegiate days.

Will Chi win piles of Georgia Reubens?

I’ll have to admit to thinking this particular political bet is a little more intriguing than most. Usually, our public officials manage to put up a generic list of food products that they claim is associated with Chicago.

I remember back in the days of Richard M. Daley as mayor, the bets usually produced something resembling a grocery list that only Chicago-oriented geeks would ever think of buying.

TURNING THE WHOLE spectacle into little more than a marketing ploy – free advertising for Chicago-based companies. Rather than something that anybody with a real sporting interest would have put together.

I’m certainly glad to learn that Chicago isn’t offering to send pizzas to some other city so as to show off the superiority of the local product compared to whatever Little Caesar’s-like product the other city thinks is edible.

Largely because too many Chicagoans can’t agree on what a “real” pizza consists of, or how its slices should be cut (party-style into squares, I argue, and certainly not into triangles that one folds over. That’s playing with one’s food, rather than eating it).

Anything we’d send to another city would create a local conflict over whether we truly sent our best representative of pizza. Unless you’re so convinced that the Chicago-oriented ball club will prevail and we won’t have to send anything!

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of this bet? I like the part where the mayors also say they’ll make a contribution to the charity of the winning city’s choice. Which probably says more than the shipping of sandwiches.

Although to get within the spirit of the event, let’s say that Loyola manages to defeat number 3-seeded Michigan (Loyola’s ranked 11^th) and takes on the Kansas/Villanova winner.

Do we get to see our public officials make another bet? I can’t think of anything edible in either of those places. Particularly from anything in and around Lawrence, Kan.

Is this the ultimate Loyola over Villanova prize?

But if it became a matchup between Loyola and Villanova, would we get an Italian beef vs. Philly cheesesteak brawl? If so, we all know the superiority of a “hot, dipped combo” over any gooey mess that becomes a cheesesteak.

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EXTRA: Loyola - 78/Kansas State - 62

The Ramblers of Loyola University are in the Final Four.

They defeated the Kansas State University Wildcats 78-62; having an eight-point lead at half-time of Saturday's game in the NCAA men's basketball tourney, and grew the lead as the game progressed.

NOT EXACTLY THE one-point victory with Loyola's fate uncertain until the final second that all of the Ramblers' other victories were, to this point.

Loyola now gets a week off, with their next game set for March 31. If they manage to win then, the championship game would be April 2.

Which means that college basketball won't have the decency to be complete when Major League Baseball kicks off its own activity March 29 -- with the Chicago White Sox starting their season in Kansas City and the Chicago Cubs traveling to Miami to begin 2018.

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Sports are so unpredictable; or, How Dare da Bulls screw up by winning!

I didn’t watch the Chicago Bulls as they began their playoff stretch Sunday against the Boston Celtics, but I did stumble onto some of the pre-game ritual that focused heavily on the fact that Celtics player Isaiah Thomas had a sister who was killed during the weekend in an automobile accident.

Spouting off too quickly?

We got to see the closeup of his game shoes that had her name written on them as a tribute and the moment of silence by the fans, along with the sight of Thomas sobbing. It was supposed to be the motivating factor that would inspire the Celtics to go out and win this game for their teammate in mourning.

DURING THE TNT pre-game broadcast, analyst Charles Barkley came right out and proclaimed the Chicago Bulls to be “losers” Sunday night, and likely of this entire round of playoffs. They have no chance!

The Celtics would just have too many reasons to win, and not just because theoretically they’re a better team.

Now I don’t know if this belongs on the list of ridiculous things Charles Barkley has said during his time as a professional basketball player and post-player career hanging around the game. Heck, it’s not even the dumbest thing he said Sunday – what with his remarks that another player would spend that night in a gay bar.

But let’s look at the actual on-court results for a second.

CHICAGO BULLS 106-Boston Celtics 102.

It’s almost like that moment from the film “Brian’s Song,” when the Chicago Bears learn that teammate Brian Piccolo was seriously ill and they take it upon themselves to say they’ll give Piccolo the game ball.

Didn't get the desired Sunday tribute

Only to cut to the next scene where the Piccolo character belittles his teammates for going out and losing the game! So much for the tribute to and sister Chyna.

Either that, or we can blame the Bulls for screwing up what would have been a touching sporting moment. Or at least something that the sporting fan mentality would want to perceive of as being touching.

SINCE ALL TOO often, that mentality does have a knack of making something out of what the rest of the world would consider nothing.

Now I’m not particularly following the Bulls as they try to work their way through what theoretically could be a couple of months of playoffs leading up to the National Basketball Association championship, to be played in June.

I'll bet MJ could tell us tales about Barkley

I realize this first round against Boston could be THE END for Chicago. The Bulls of the 21^st Century are nowhere near the domineering team they were in the final decade of the 20^th Century.

In fact, managing to win the game that Charles Barkley said they were supposed to lose and had no business even thinking of being competitive in could wind up being the highlight of the 2016-17 season.

THERE ARE STILL up to six more games to be played in this round of the playoffs, and it is totally possible Boston will rebound. In fact, it probably is likely they will rebound, and people will “little note nor long remember” what was said by Barkley.

To steal a thought from one A. Lincoln and his most famed of speeches he made that day in Gettysburg, Penn.

"You're supposed to win the game!"

That we will get to see for ourselves when the Bulls take to the court again Tuesday night for another game against Boston before traveling back to the United Center for Game Three against those mighty Celtics.

All of which strikes me as a bit much attention for a sport that should have had the decency to wrap itself up in March, since playing for an NBA championship in June is almost as obscene as the baseball World Series in November.

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Bo knows, or claimed to know, just about everything back in the day

Bo Jackson, the professional athlete whom marketing would have us believe was the best ever, is back in the public eye again.

Bo's Sox tale didn't last long enough

For Jackson, the man whom in the late 1980s played both for the Kansas City Royals AND the Los Angeles Raiders, is now saying he wishes he had never played football.

EVEN THOUGH HE was a Heisman Trophy winner in that sport and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame (Auburn University, where future White Sox star Frank Thomas also played a year of college football) who also played for the Raiders before injuring his left hip back in 1990 in a career-ending game that also caused the Royals to release him.

Leading to his comeback attempt of the early 1990s with the Chicago White Sox, where he wound up being a part of that division-winning team of ’93 where his power bat helped the team and also resulted in him winning a Comeback Player of the Year award.

Not so much because of his 16 home runs in 85 games as a designated hitter and spare outfielder, but because his injury was so severe it was a wonder he could even walk. The fact that he became a reliable role player on a White Sox team that nearly ended the team’s pennant drought some 12 years earlier than it actually ended was impressive.

Once a dual sports star

Of course, I’m not implying that a football-less Jackson would have somehow been the key to another championship ball club or two for the White Sox.

BECAUSE IT’S NOT likely the Royals ever would have got rid of him if he had remained physically sound and had the potential to be the star slugger that he was for a couple of years in Kansas City.

Gave up Sox for Knicks

As it turns out, Jackson is amongst the crowd of people who are now denouncing football because of its potential for severe head injuries that – even if not fatal – can leave one disabled for the remainder of their lives.

No matter how many helmets or how much padding is used, asking big guys to maul each other physically on the athletic field is always going to be a physically-risky endeavor.

Found athletic niche in Boston

As Jackson told the USA Today newspaper, “If I knew now what I had known back then, I would have never played football. I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. And the people that did know that, they wouldn’t tell anybody.”

AS IT IS, every time Jackson makes a public appearance on behalf of the White Sox (he’s on the team payroll as an “ambassador” and also is an honorary coach who shows up in Arizona every spring for team workouts), it is a reminder of “what could have been.”

Particularly for those who remember that game against the Seattle Mariners when Jackson hit a three-run home run that would up winning the game, and the division title, for the White Sox that year.

Would you really rather ponder Hall chances?

I’ll have to admit my memories of the Jackson dual role in baseball and football always seemed freakish – even though there have been others who have tried multiple sports professionally.

Danny Ainge of the Boston Celtics also played a couple of years with the Toronto Blue Jays, while back in the mid-1960s, White Sox pitcher Dave DeBusschere later went on to play for the New York Knicks.

BUT PERHAPS IT is the almost freakish nature of football (a game I must admit I never really ‘got’ even though I appreciate the role of the Chicago Bears in the city’s sporting culture – even in years when they go 3-13) that made the Jackson outcome seem inevitable.

So hearing now that Jackson wouldn’t let his own kids play football or be a part of the sporting spectacle that football creates at just about every level of its existence makes me wonder why Bo couldn’t “know” this fact two decades ago?

Ouch!!!!!

Could we be talking about the chance of Bo Jackson one of these years being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame instead of obsessing about whether one-time White Sox Tim Raines will finally get in this year, or whether Sammy Sosa of the Cubs will finally get kicked off the ballot due to all the steroid suspicions that surround his name.

At the very least, baseball bat manufacturers would have loved his presence in the National Pastime, remembering that moment in August of ’93 when he expressed frustration at being struck out by Oakland Athletics pitcher Bobby Witt by snapping his bat in two over his right knee.

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Wade thinks Trump behavior sorry, but not completely because problem is real

New Chicago Bull Dwyane Wade got himself some national media attention Friday, what with an interview he gave to ABC News where he talked about the death of his cousin – who was killed a week ago by a stray bullet fired on the South Side.

ALDRIDGE: Celebrity death due to her cousin

The death of Nykea Aldridge, who was only 32, truly is a story of how stupid and pointless life can sometimes be – she was walking along the street with a baby carriage when she was hit by the gunshot.

THE BABY WASN’T hurt. But the mother is now dead. The child is orphaned.

The sad part of this story is that nobody would be paying any attention to Aldridge’s death if not for the fact that she’s a cousin to Wade – the one-time prep basketball star from Richards High School in Oak Lawn who has played the past 13 seasons with the Miami Heat and now hopes to spend the final days of his time as a professional athlete with the Bulls.

Almost as though her life had no meaning in and of itself. Then again, that is the real problem with the homicide rate in Chicago – too many people are willing to presume that the problem only impacts people who don’t matter.

All of this got national attention last weekend when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump used Twitter to make a comment about how a vote for him would be a vote for reducing urban violence.

HE SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED Wade by name (and managed to mis-spell it in the process).

Which led to George Stephanopoulos of ABC (and also one-time communications guy to former President Bill Clinton) asking Wade for his thoughts.

I’m sure he offered aid and comfort to the Hillary Clinton camp when he said he was bothered by Trump bringing up his family to score political points for himself.

WADE: From his days as a local prep star

But he also said he realizes that anything drawing national attention to the urban violence of Chicago is a plus. Because otherwise, we’re too likely to continue to ignore it.

OF COURSE, WADE also made a point of saying he wants tougher gun laws in Chicago – which definitely is something that the Trump types will oppose.

For Chicago has tried to pass absolute bans on firearms ownership within the city, only to have conservative-leaning courts issue rulings that have thwarted the city’s desires.

If anything, the Trump types are the kind of people who probably think they ought to be allowed to carry their firearms on their person so they can shoot first, so to speak, at anyone who gave off a menacing aura in their presence.

They’d probably argue that if Aldridge had been armed, she could have shot back at the two brothers who now face criminal charges for the incident. Of course, she didn’t realize a shot was fired until it was too late. Which makes that kind of logic completely absurd!

REALIZE THAT I have my own bias when it comes to firearms – I think they’re the equivalent of automobiles. Many government officials are quick to cite the cliché that a driver’s license is a privilege, not a right, and that such license can be revoked.

But talk about restricting firearms brings up an illogical rant about one’s right. Even though I’d argue that in daily life, one needs access to an automobile more than a pistol.

It will be interesting to see how Dwyane Wade continues to bring up this family situation; what with Aldridge’s funeral set for Saturday. Could Wade become a figure of prominence both on urban violence and on the basketball court for the Bulls?

Or is he going to be more important back in Miami, where he will be part of an event on Sept. 17 where he will bicycle for six miles with Miami police to promote public safety.

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Bulls can keep their glory, not that they were ever in danger of losing it

It has been some 20 years since that season when the Chicago Bulls managed to set a record 72 victories in the regular season – a record that finally fell this year with the Golden State Warriors (that’s the Oakland, Calif.-area) managing to win 73 games.

 

Fell one win short of ultimate goal

Is it possible that these Warriors are better than the high-and-mighty Bulls teams that we had back in the 1990s – the one time that Chicago sports got to experience a taste of the kind of athletic glamour that New York Yankees fans expect routinely?

NAH!!!

It certainly isn’t going to be remembered as big as those teams led by the duo of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, and also had characters like Dennis Rodman (what color would he wear his hair on any given night?) playing regularly.

The Warriors led by Stephen Curry (I have to confess, when I hear the name “Curry” it brings to my mind Eddy, the high school sensation from Thornwood High in South Holland who didn’t quite become the next Bulls superstar) may be able to claim to have won one more game than did those 1995-96 Bulls.

But those Bulls went on to be National Basketball Association champions for that season – and five others within that 1990s decade.

IN THE END, the Warriors fell Sunday night to the Cleveland Cavaliers. History will record these 73-win Warriors as merely a second-best team and NOT champions like the Cavaliers – led by LeBron James, the other high school sensation who turned out to be the elite player that sports fans thought Eddy Curry would be for the Bulls.

 

Still on top of the ultimate champion category

I don’t doubt that Golden State fans feel something special about this season that is now finished. Although I doubt anyone else will get all worked up over it.

For all I know, they will be quickly forgotten while basketball fans will debate for decades to come whether those 1990s Bulls were THE elite team of professional basketball.

That, and they’ll remember how Jordan himself was a Saturday Night Live guest (remember the sight of him in a grass skirt doing the hula dance with the Superfans cheering on his merits (Jordan was almost as sensational as Mike Ditka himself, to listen to those old comedy sketches).

 

Nobody would confuse him with Stephen

ALL OF THIS has come to a wrap-up, and I have to admit to feeling glad – in part because I think the professional basketball season stretches on far too long. It’s even more ridiculous playing NBA Finals games in late June than it is playing the World Series in the days leading up to Halloween.

We can now relegate the Curry Warriors vs. the Jordan Bulls debates to semi-drunken bar quarrels, and wonder how many times in the future the issue will lead to an outburst sensational enough that the cops will have to come in and break things up.

Because it just wasn’t a quarrel I cared to have all that often, and not just because I’m not much of a basketball fan.

Of course, the Chicagoan in me is going to find it difficult to ever have anyone challenge the significance of the Bulls back in that era.

SIX CHAMPIONSHIPS IN an eight-year time span is historic no matter what the sport.

 

One of Chicago's true sports characters

Although others will go on and on about the historic significance of Cleveland managing to come from as far behind as they were in the final round of the NBA Finals to actually win the whole thing.

Some will cry about Stephen Curry’s dream season falling one game short. While those people who think LeBron James is some snotty, arrogant punk will be upset to see him on yet another championship team.

And those of us with a Chicago rooting interest will wind up crying the loudest – wondering why the Bulls stink so much and when it will be their turn to win yet again.

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Would anything be accomplished by a ballplayer choosing to take a “stance?”

Who knew?

All those seasons and all those games that Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls chose not to play, he was being a revolutionary. He was making a bold statement toward justice and racial equality for all!

AT LEAST THAT seems to be what certain activists in Cleveland would have us think, what with the way they say it would mean something if LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers chose to not play in the next few games his NBA team plays – as a way of showing his outrage over the fact that prosecutors in Cleveland will not be seeking criminal charges against the local cops who killed a 12-year-old black boy.

That decision was made Monday, and the outcry on Tuesday was trying to make James himself a visible part of their contempt for the police and for society as a whole.

Now as of my writing this, James himself has kept his mouth shut. He hasn’t given any indication that he’d even consider the request of the activists.

A part of me suspects that he, and most other professional athletes, live in their own little world and certainly don’t want to be bothered by anything that doesn’t happen directly on the court.

CHECKING OUT THE gams on the dance squads that many sports teams use as half-time entertainment is about as much of a statement as many of these guys want to do.

So when I hear of James being asked to make a political statement, I can’t help but think back to the days when Michael Jordan was predominant and he was asked to get involved in electoral politics – particularly to make statements against some of the most outrageous nonsense being spewed then by the ideologues on the Republican side.

Jordan, we recall, refused. He kept quiet, although he made a brief statement about how “Republicans buy shoes too,” referring to the “Air Jordan” brand of athletic shoes. He wasn’t about to risk his financial bottom line by doing anything that would offend potential customers of a product being his identity.

Why do I suspect LeBron James will be inclined to take the same attitude, no matter how much pressure any activist types decide to try to push on him. He’ll say as little as he has too.

BESIDES, I CAN’T help but think that the idea of a ballplayer deciding to sit on the bench for a few games would not have the desired result. Particularly since many sports fans most enjoy it when their professional athletes behave like dumb ballplayers who know even less than the sideline cheerleaders.

It’s why I joke about the concept that Rose was being a revolutionary when he refused to play. We all know that just isn’t true.

He may well have been recovering from surgery and decided not to rush his attempt to come back to play. But the only cause he was touting was himself and his lazy streak.

Of course, my own attitude about this issue may be swayed by the fact that I’m from Chicago, and there are many of our own professional athletes we’d rather see less of because they manage to stink up the field every time they take too it.

TAKE JAY CUTLER for instance. The quarterback of our Chicago Bears ought to be the ultimate sports figure in the Second City. Yet for as much as he manages to infuriate us, what would happen if someone were to suggest that Cutler sit out a few games to show support for those who want police punishment for the death of Laquan McDonald?

It would probably have the reverse effect of driving up support for the Chicago cop who now faces six counts of murder for McDonald’s death! Heck, we local sports fans would probably support anything if it meant that Cutler were to just wither away.

Somehow, I doubt that sports fans in Cleveland are all that much different.

Besides, any city that actually defends the image of Chief Wahoo by its baseball club isn’t going to be a place that feels the need to influence police/black people relations on its ball fields and athletic courts.

  -30-

Sports fans arguing about anything can result in some serious stupidity

It always amuses me to learn of people whose arguments about professional sports get so over the top that the cops need to be called in.


That seems to be the case this past weekend, where a man managed to get himself arrested twice by police on Saturday – with arguments that began over who was the greatest professional basketball player of all-time.

THE KID FROM Ohio, LeBron James? Or "His Airness" himself, Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan!

The Chicago Tribune reported that Daniel Mondelice was arrested early Saturday at an apartment building in State College, Pa., after his quarrel with someone else on that very subject got out of hand.

He was able to get himself released by police after charges were filed. Yet he returned to a nearby apartment building and then managed to get into another quarrel when he refused to leave when asked, according to the State Collegian newspaper at Penn State University.

That caused his Saturday night arrest that resulted in him spending the rest of the weekend in jail. Associated Press reports indicate he was still there as of Monday morning. He is scheduled to be in court again on Wednesday.

THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS didn’t indicate whether Mondelice was a Jordan backer, or was delusional enough to think that James reigns supreme! Although considering his age (22), he might be in the latter category.

For it usually turns out in these sports-themed arguments that people desperately want to believe that their own generation’s athletic heroes reign supreme. Just as I'm sure my own remembrances of one-time (and now deceased) Chicago Bear Doug Buffone are elevated because he played when I was a kid.

This guy would have been a bit young to have seen Jordan at his peak – and might want easily to dismiss what some claim is Jordan’s ultimate piece of evidence as to his superiority.

As in those six NBA championships in an eight-year period (two strings of three straight titles apiece) that gave Chicago its only taste of what it’s like to be a New York Yankees fan with perpetual strings of championship teams to root for.

THEN AGAIN, THE Yankees of the past two seasons didn’t even make the playoffs – thereby giving Yankees fans a taste of what it’s like to root for a Chicago ball club.

So what should we think of Mondelice – who may well have got the moment of infamy that now will perpetually crop up on search engines any time anyone does an Internet search of his name (and may wind up producing the bulk of the people who will ever read this particular commentary)?

I was amused to read the typical anonymous reader commentary that turned up on the Tribune website for the people who recalled the film “Bad Teacher.”

Because those of us whose minds have a knack of collecting clutter and trivia will remember the scene where actor Jason Segal’s gym teacher character argues about Jordan versus James with a student – ultimately saying the six titles is “the only argument I need” in Jordan’s favor!

EVEN THOUGH I’M sure there are those who want to think of Jordan as the aging (at 52, he’s only a couple years older than I am) owner of a mediocre basketball team in Charlotte, N.C.

Although I’m sure those James fans will get their comeuppance a couple of decades from now when some smart mouth will argue that some kid ballplayer yet to be born shows LeBron for the foolish old man he truly is.

These kind of sports arguments go on and on for generations, and we only hope that people have enough sense to keep their behavior in check so the police don’t have to get involved.

Because if you do wind up getting arrested, you might not be able to watch “Bad Teacher” for its classic scene – the one where Cameron Diaz in her short shorts shows off her physical attributes and gets soaking wet while washing cars!!!

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Easter/Passover to give us massive sports brawl for public attention

This coming weekend is going to be one of those points in time each year that infuriates the portion of me interested in sports.

The baseball Opening Day, scheduled for Sunday at Wrigley Field and on Monday for all other teams, is going to get drowned out by the nonsense that has become “March Madness.”

AS IN THE NCAA’s men’s basketball tourney – which is now down to four college teams who will play on Saturday, with the two winners advancing to a championship game on Monday.

Opening Day, that ritual that is supposed to be a part of the rebirth of our society each year from the doldrums of winter, is going to get overshadowed by college basketball teams that I suspect the bulk of sports fans could care less about.

It always works out that the basketball tourney commonly called “March Madness” (even though any knowledgeable sports fan knows the term was first used with regards to the Illinois state high school basketball championship tourney) spills over and invades what ought to be baseball’s time clock.

And yes, I’ll be honest and admit I find it equally ridiculous that the World Series always gets played each year in a mad race to complete the event before Halloween. It’s like the sports spectacles we watch don’t know how to keep track of time or when they’ll be played.

IF IT’S REALLY “March Madness,” then why are we still playing it in April? Is this an April Fool’s gag (albeit a few days delayed) on baseball?

Don’t tell me that the average sports fan really cares that much about Duke or Kentucky (a part of me is spiteful enough to hope that the championship game comes down to Big Ten teams Wisconsin and Michigan State, just because it would screw up the thought processes of those who actually care about the game).

Besides, the Great Lakes states could use the public attention. Which they otherwise would have got from the season opener Sunday when the Chicago Cubs take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

And we’ll get to see for ourselves just how far from completion (mid-May is the current time estimate) the Cubs are from rebuilding their outfield bleacher section with ultra-modern video board that won’t look totally ridiculous in a 101-year-old ball park!

ADMITTEDLY, IT IS a novelty for the entire baseball season to begin in Chicago – a move that hasn’t happened since 2006 when that season began at U.S. Cellular Field and the then-defending champion Chicago White Sox (who wound up being a third-place team that season) beat up on the Cleveland Indians 10-4 before a national audience, courtesy of ESPN.

The same attention (on ESPN2, to be exact) that the Cubs are expecting to get from their Sunday opener (the White Sox start their season in Kansas City and don’t get to play a home game until a week from Friday).

But how much of the sports fan attention will wind up getting shifted away to pontificating about who will win Monday? And on Monday, will the basketball winner wind up being the “big” story, rather than the assorted Opening Days taking place across the country?

Somehow, that just seems wrong for a tourney that could have ended a week earlier (the NCAA basketball tourneys for Division II and III are already complete), with those athletes having to return to campus to go back to pretending to be full-fledged college students for the next couple of months.

OF COURSE, THIS isn’t the only intrusion, of sorts, taking place this weekend.

For Sunday is Easter. Major League Baseball has the nerve to use its holiest (allegedly) shrine of Wrigley Field to kick off the season on the holiest of all holy holidays. For those who are Jewish, Passover is Saturday. Does this mean the NCAA semi-finals are intruding on that holy event?

How many clergy of so many religious denominations will have something to rant about this weekend?

Are we likely to see family battles reminiscent of Thanksgiving, where one faction of the family wants to sit down and eat while the other just can’t tear themselves away from the television to watch some football?

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Who do we call the “home” team this time of college basketball season?

We’re at the point of the year where much public attention will be spewed upon the NCAA men’s basketball tourney for Division I, yet we here in the Land of Lincoln don’t have an obvious team to root for.

Now I’m sure there are many Chicagoans who went to college at various places across the country who can turn to their alma maters that were worth anything this past season to root for.

YET FOR THOSE of us looking for a local team, there isn’t much of anything. No Illinois school was able to get a bid to partake in the tourney.

Admittedly, Valparaiso University in Indiana is on the outermost southeast fringe of what could be called the Chicago area, although I’m sure people living north of 95^th Street would prefer think of it as alien turf. And some people like to think of Notre Dame as an area college, while just as many detest the very concept.

But the Hoosiers definitely got more on us this time of year – Indiana U. and Purdue also made it while the west side of State Line Road got nothing.

Those of us whose sporting attention isn’t totally dominated by spring training baseball and fantasies of that all-Chicago World Series taking place this year will have to look to the so-called lesser college basketball tournaments.

WITHIN THE CHICAGO area, there is Loyola University which got an invitation to the College Basketball Invitational. Where they will play their first (and potentially only) game Tuesday night against Rider College, and we likely will hear many repeats of how the Ramblers won the whole thing back in 1963!

There also will be Tuesday night basketball for the University of Illinois in Urbana, which got selected to participate in the National Invitational Tournament – which once was a big deal but now comes across as the ultimate consolation prize for failing to make it to the NCAA Division I tourney.

But they get to play the University of Alabama, which is noteworthy because they recently fired their basketball coach. Just BEFORE getting selected for the NIT.

I’m sure on a certain level, it would be a more intriguing story if Alabama were able to achieve some success under these circumstances. Could this mean the sporting nation would view a Fighting Illini victory as the ultimate bummer – completely ruining the story line?

I ALSO CAN’T see much enthusiasm for the other Illinois-based school that made it to the NIT – Illinois State University in Normal, which on Wednesday will have its first tournament game against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Will anyone (outside of alumni with fond memories of Garcia’s pizza) get worked up rooting for a team whose own NCAA tourney dreams came crashing down with a loss in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament to the University of Northern Iowa (which did get the NCAA bid)?

Perhaps if we pretend to ourselves that the team from Green Bay is the Packers, then we could get Chicagoans to care. Otherwise, I just don’t see it happening.

We may wind up finding a better tale if we drop down to the NCAA Division III level, where their national tourney began a couple of weeks ago. They already are down to their “final four” schools (out of 64) playing for a national title.

AND THERE, WE find an Illinois-based school with a serious shot at winning a championship – the Rock Island-based Augustana University, which will play Babson College Friday and possibly the winner of Virginia Wesleyan/University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for the championship on Saturday.

Those of us with an Illinois rooting interest may have to look to the banks of the Mississippi River to find a local team to cheer for, although I’ll have to confess to feeling some confusion about this prospect.

The Illinois Wesleyan University alum in me knows of Augustana because the two schools both play in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (and the Vikings beat IWU in the conference tournament last month), while the Titans’ own national title dreams fell short last weekend with a loss to Stevens Point.

If those two schools make it to the title game Saturday in Salem, Va., it really would become a choice of which one’s victory would annoy me the least. It also could have me looking forward to the coming of a new baseball season all the more.

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Why should we care if Rose does not care? He is not the Bulls’ savior!

We are of a society that places so much value on the abilities of its top athletes that it’s no wonder more don’t turn out to be like Derrick Rose.

He’s the point guard for the Chicago Bulls who once again has turned up injured. It’s a knee problem, and he had surgery last month.

BUT AS THE Chicago Sun-Times reported, the ball player whom many believe the key to whether or not the Bulls will ever be a significant basketball team in coming seasons doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to recover.

While team officials say they’d like to think he will be healed in just over a month, Rose said he’s not about to rush himself to play again this season. “Whenever I feel well, that’s when I’ll step back on the court,” he told the newspaper.

On the one hand, I have no doubt that Rose thinks he’s being particularly honest in assessing his recovery. He’ll play when he plays, and not a moment sooner. Maybe he thinks he’s saving himself for future glory to be performed on the basketball court.

Maybe he envisions this as an isolated incident that will be long forgotten by that future date many years from now when he is inducted into the professional basketball Hall of Fame.

BESIDES, HE’S AN athlete, someone who is used to being coddled because he’s special. He’s Derrick Rose. His knee is more important than any body part of a mere mortal.

But let’s be honest.

Sports fans are willing to mollycoddle the athletes who on a certain level perform. In the case of Rose, this is the third time in seven seasons playing in the National Basketball Association that he has suffered a severe injury that disrupted his playing time significantly.

Learning that he doesn’t care enough to want to return to play makes him come across like some sort of wimp. I can’t help but wonder if the Rose legacy is now set in Chicago as some sort of flake who wasn’t tough enough to endure on the court.

IF THAT’S THE case, then the biggest joke in this commentary was that line five paragraphs ago that hinted Rose will become a basketball Hall of Famer. He could wind up as the most disappointing athlete to ever wear the jersey of a Chicago professional sports team.

He definitely has surpassed Eddy Curry as the most disappointing hometown boy who was drafted Number 1 and expected to lead the Chicago Bulls to championship success for years to come.

Perhaps Rose still mentally thinks he’s the Simeon Career Academy athlete who will be coddled because, in his mind, “I’m Derrick Rose.” The guy who once faced allegations that he had someone else take his SAT college entrance exams and had his high school boost his grades to keep him academically eligible to play ball.

Sadly for him, Rose probably won’t realize how much his attitude stinks until he has washed out with the Bulls. He may wind up latching on to another NBA team, like the one-time Thornwood High School star Curry did. He may even be better off away from the pressure of playing in Chicago.

BECAUSE THE EXPECTATIONS here are turning out to be something that Rose doesn’t seem capable of living up to. Unfortunately, the Bulls’ roster these days seems based around the idea that Derrick is the team leader.

Without him, there is little chance of the Bulls accomplishing much of anything resembling success. While those years of athletic glory in the 1990s drift further and further into our city’s memory.

To the point where the Luv-a-Bulls’ routines could wind up being the only thing worth checking out at the United Center these days.

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EXTRA: Weren’t ’14 Chicago Bears merely typical of local sports scene?

It was everybody’s good laugh this week. Virginia McCaskey, the matriarch of the Chicago Bears (and daughter of team founder George Halas) is “pissed off” (or so says team management) at the Bears’ performance this season – which came to an end Sunday with a 5-11 record and no playoff performance.

Now I’m not any kind of a football fan (I’m eagerly counting down the 90-plus days to the beginning of baseball season, plus the month until the Caribbean Series). But it just doesn’t seem like this season’s awfulness was particularly awful.

PERHAPS IT’S BECAUSE I’m old enough to remember the years of the 1970s following players such as Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers – seasons in which playoff appearances were rare, that 2014 doesn’t strike me as being unusual. In fact, that decade was just truly awful for all the Chicago ball clubs, regardless of what sport they played.

Watching a youthful Walter Payton become the football equivalent of Ernie Banks and Luke Appling (Hall of Fame baseball players who were surrounded by losing Chicago squads back in the 1950s and 1930s, respectively) was what the Bears were usually about.

Let’s be honest. Michael Jordan was the basketball equivalent in the 1980s. Does anyone remember how bad the Bulls were prior to those two streaks of three 1990s championships in a row?

So to learn that McCaskey is displeased with the Bears? You’d think she’d be used to it by now. Because 1985 and that Super Bowl victory over New England was truly a team oxymoron.

I FIND IT interesting that one-time Bears quarterback and San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh finds the prospect of coaching Michigan in the Big 10 to be more intriguing than being with the Bears.

Take into account her other statement from Monday when the firings of the Bears general manager and coach were announced – that she had been alive for eight of the nine NFL championships won by the Bears during their 95 years of existence (including the season they were based in Decatur, Ill.).

But eight of those championships came prior to the creation of the Super Bowl – which itself will be 49 years old. Making them seem about as relevant as the fact that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series back in ’07 and ’08. And I don’t mean 20--!

So what should we make of McCaskey’s feelings? Perhaps she will succeed in finding competent team management that can bring another championship team to Soldier Field in the near future. At the very least, she gave us a chuckle.

ALTHOUGH I THINK the real outburst will come down from the heavens in the form of Halas’ spirit. He, of course, who once said, “We’ve run out of time outs. Go in there and get hurt.”

Somehow, I feel Bears fans would be in complete agreement these days.

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