Illinois schools did make NCAA tourneys; you’re looking at wrong ones

I have read several commentaries by sports-types all decrying the fact that no Illinois-based university qualified for the NCAA basketball tourney now underway.

We in Chicago or the rest of the state have no rooting interest – unless we happened to acquire a higher education at an out-of-state university.

EXCEPT THAT IT’S really not true. Unless you’re one of those people who are misguided into believing that “March Madness” is nothing more than the Division 1 tourney. That attitude actually bothers me more than the fact that the tournament itself won’t end until early April.

March “Madness” my duff!

Personally, I’m more intrigued by the tourney for Division III, where my own alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, has managed to make it all the way to the “Final Four.”

Sure enough, on Friday, the IWU Titans will be playing the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Remember them. Many years ago, the Chicago Bears held their pre-season training camp on that campus.

IF THE BLOOMINGTON-based college prevails, THE championship game will be Saturday against the winner of Williams/Amherst – the latter of which was last year’s national champion. I’m sure they’d like to have two titles in a row – compared to the last IWU national title in 1997.

Now I know there are bound to be some nitwits who will retort that I’m bringing up a tourney involving institutions of higher learning that nobody’s ever heard of.

Although I’d argue none of them are any more obscure than Wolford College – which would consider it a miracle if it were to manage to beat the University of Michigan on Thursday. That’s a real-live Division I match!

So for those of you who are complaining that there’s nobody local to root for in college basketball, I’d argue you’re not looking deeply enough.

ALTHOUGH THE FACT that the other NCAA basketball tournaments get less attention also mean they breeze right past us. Why else would the Division III tourney be nearly done just as the Division I tourney is starting.

Now if by chance you don’t want to join me in rooting for the Titans (you’re probably one of those deluded fans of Millikin University in Decatur), there were other local schools that managed to get into post-season play.

You have to look to the women’s basketball programs to find them. But they’re there.

At the Division II level, Lewis University in Romeoville and Quincy University both managed to qualify – even though neither made it past the first round of their tournament.

AND FOR THE Division I level for women, DePaul University is actually worth something. They’ll play their first match Saturday against Oklahoma.

That could give Chicago basketball fans something to root for. And it shouldn’t be looked down up. I’m sure the Blue Demons’ men’s program would give anything to still be playing ball this season.

Or any of Illinois’ Division I men’s programs. A part of me thinks they are fantasizing these days that they could be in Illinois Wesleyan’s position. Just one game away from playing for THE championship for the year.

A game that the men likely would remember for the rest of their lives.

ALSO ONE THAT I’m sure the men and women who are playing these past few weeks will take with them as they advance their way through life.

Now for those of you who are just absolutely determined to root for a large-enrollment school, I suppose you can follow the Fighting Illini men’s team as they work their way through the NIT (the ultimate in athletic consolation prizes).

Although by the time you read this, their season may be over as well – they played Boston University on Thursday, with that winner going up against Clemson on Saturday.

I suspect the Illini will be back in Champaign for good following this weekend. Then again, so will the Titans – hopefully with some athletic hardware showing them as winners!

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Admit it. You're thankful I didn't write anything political for Thursday.

EXTRA: A present for everybody! Or, Christmas comes to Ill. 5 months early

To Gov. Pat Quinn, his big accomplishment was in giving approval to a measure that will allow Illinois government to move forward in developing the long-discussed new airport near rural Peotone.

The Statehouse? Or Santa's workshop?

Which is true enough.

BUT I’M SURE there are others who are going to want to ignore the airport process.

They’re going to view it as the day the state kicked in some money for construction of a new arena near the McCormick Place convention center – the arena that is meant to be the new distant-from-campus home of the DePaul Blue Demons basketball programs.

Others will want to view Thursdays’ action as the permitting of fertilizer plants in Tuscola (not far from Champaign) to be eligible for job-creation incentives. And some will prefer to see this as the bill that helps develop the Mississippi River’s Port of East St. Louis.

For the bill that Quinn signed into law during morning ceremonies at Governors State University was the ultimate in “Christmas tree” bills – so-named by Springpatch denizens because they provide a little something for everybody.

IT WAS A bill that got its final approval from the General Assembly on the final day of the legislative session back in May. Back when everybody else was preoccupied by the passage of a concealed carry measure – and the failure of the Illinois House to do anything with legitimizing gay marriage.

It was a bill that most people managed to miss in the last-minute swath of legislation that did get voted on!

Christmas comes 5 months early

And it is a bill that will now have the potential to irritate so many different interests – from the people who hate the idea of a new Chicago-area airport being built on farmland to those who think it’s a dumpy idea to build a new basketball arena on the Sout’ Side when the school that would play there is up north.

Although at least this particular bill has issues that all sort of relate to construction or economic development – even if you believe that development is a mere fantasy.

IT’S NOWHERE NEAR as much of a mish-mash as a measure the Legislature approved in the mid-1990s to alter the state’s Leaking Underground Storage Tank fund AND implement measures for registering people convicted of sex crimes.

Legislators argued that both measures related to “public safety.” Although the tacky jokes about sex offenders and the “LUST Fund” being combined into one bill did nothing except create tacky puns that still make me groan some two decades later!

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EXTRA: Chicago-area’s true best team?

Suburban Naperville-based North Central College lost out Saturday on its chance to win a national title in men’s basketball, losing 52-44 to Amherst University – which now plays for the national title April 7 in Atlanta against Mary-Hardin Baylor College from Texas alongside the Division I tourney that will get all the public attention.

Although it should be noted that the Cardinals’ defense on Saturday managed to hold the Amherst defense to about 50 points – just one day after the Lord Jeffs managed to score 101 points in their victory over Cabrini College in Pennsylvania.

IT ALSO DOESN’T take away from the fact that North Central made it to the “Final Four” of the NCAA Division III tournament – which likely will make them the best-achieving college basketball program from Illinois for 2012-13.

I really doubt the Fighting Illini will make it much farther than their game Sunday against the University of Miami Hurricanes.

When was the last time any Chicago-area college did so well in a basketball tourney? There’s always that DePaul squad from 1979 that made it to the Final Four.

Or those North Park University basketball teams that between 1978 and 1987 won five national titles – including three in a row between 1978, 1979 and 1980. Which as far as I’m concerned is all the more reason to pay attention to the Division III athletic scene when considering college-level sports.

FOR THOSE OF you who are thinking I’m getting too worked up over small-college sports, think of it this way.

Would you really rather I get worked up over the thought of whether or not we should take Todd Stroger’s desires to serve as a commissioner on the Cook County Board that seriously?

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A tradeoff: Blue Demons for Cubs? That might be Rosemont’s unreal dream

DePaul University is back in the sports news these days, and not because the Blue Demons basketball program is anywhere near good enough to play in the NCAA tourney.

ALLSTATE ARENA: May soon be history

For it seems that the university informed the people at the United Center this week that they’re not interested in playing the men’s basketball games in the arena used by the Chicago Bulls, or any kind of auxiliary facility that would double as a training facility for the NBA franchise.

THE BLUE DEMONS, it seems, want to focus their attention on building an arena near the McCormick Place convention center – which would put them on the South Side right on the lakefront.

Which would also make some sort of deal with city government officials necessary as to how to fit an arena into the convention hall-and-hotel complex without making a complete mess of things.

That adds to the sports-related negotations taking place these days for city officials – who these days are devoting some time to trying to figure out how to do a renovation of the nearly century-old ballpark at Clark and Addison streets used by the Chicago Cubs.

A wrench was tossed into those negotiations by suburban Rosemont officials, where Comcast Sports News reported that village President Brad Stephens is willing to offer the Cubs a 25-acre parcel of land within his municipality.

TWENTY FIVE ACRES is much larger than the square block that contains the grandstand and playing field that the Cubs now use for their ballgames.

Stephens also indicates a certain flexibility to pretty much let the Cubs have control of what gets built on those 25 acres – compared to the negotations in Chicago where city officials are determined to prevent an expanded Wrigley Field from devastating the character of the few blocks of the Lake View neighborhood known as “Wrigleyville.”

Cubs want to make this decades-old postcard obsolete

Rosemont, of course, is the home of the arena once known as the Horizon that has been the home of Blue Demons basketball for the past three decades. Which makes some people wonder if this is merely an attention-grabbing stunt by Rosemont to try to stay in the sports game, should the Blue Demons really return to Chicago.

Somehow, I just don’t see either option under consideration as being in the best interests of the athletic teams/programs involved.

I COMPREHEND WHY the Blue Demons basketball would want to return to the city – DePaul University is a Lincoln Park neighborhood-based school. The theory is that playing in a city-based arena would bolster interest amongst the student body and make it easier for them to actually attend games.

But the area around McCormick Place isn’t exactly convenient to the DePaul campus. I could just as easily see students ignore the Blue Demons games played there just as much as they ignore the ones being played in Rosemont.

There might not turn out to be any real benefit whatsoever for DePaul – except to remind us of how far Blue Demons basketball has declined, to the point that nobody even thinks of them when it comes time for the NCAA Division I tournament that began this week.

As for the Cubs, the thought of playing in a suburban-based stadium merely reminds people of the thoughts of late Mayor Richard J. Daley when the Chicago Bears seriously thought of moving to the northwest suburbs back in the early 1970s.

DALEY, THE ELDER, said they’d lose the city name, and would have to become the “Arlington Heights Bears.” No matter how unrealistic that thought was, it would be felt by many, and would be a blow to the ball club’s image.

The “Rosemont Cubs” probably won’t ever happen. Too much of what makes the Cubs financially viable despite their pitiful record and lack of accomplishments over so many decades is tied into the building and the way it fits into Lake View.

Which may be the key factor for the Cubs to keep in mind as they negotiate with city officials and those dreaded rooftop owners on Waveland and Sheffield avenues.

The team may well need them more than the local residents need all those suburban crowds flooding into the neighborhood 81 days a year.

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Why can’t DePaul play in Lincoln Park?

I find it amusing to learn of the negotiations taking place about where the men’s basketball program at DePaul University will play its games for the long-term.



Blue Demons basketball hasn 't felt the same since they left Alumni Hall. Photograph provided by DePaul University



Because I always thought it short-sighted and stupid when DePaul, back in their late-1970s moment of glory when they actually were among the elite basketball programs in the nation, moved their games from the campus in the Lincoln Park neighborhood out to that generic-looking stadium in suburban Rosemont.

I STILL THINK of it as the Horizon – even though I’m aware it has some corporate name attached to it. And I can’t blame the Blue Demons officials for wanting to get out of there and back to a location in the city proper.

Yet I wish it were possible for the university to come up with a plot of land that actually would fit in with the campus. Isn’t part of the reason for having athletic programs that they’re supposed to bring the student body together – unifying them behind something?

What good does it do if the basketball team plays at a stadium that doesn’t have easy access to the students living on campus? And before you argue that DePaul reached out to a bigger market, how many basketball fans in the Chicago-area care that much about DePaul?

We’re either alums of another university and follow their programs (Personally, I say, "Go Illinois Wesleyan Titans!!!"), or some of us could care less about the collegiate game and prefer to follow the Chicago Bulls (no matter how dreadful they play) during the months between baseball seasons!

SO I JUST can’t see why city officials should be getting all worked up over the idea that the Blue Demons want to have a new stadium built in which their men’s programs could play.

They’re not Chicago’s team. They’re DePaul’s team, and those students and alumni ought to have easy access to them.

All this comes to my mind because of the reports Friday by Crain’s Chicago Business that the Bulls have worked out a deal with the city to make it financially viable to build a practice facility on land adjacent to the United Center.

No longer will the Bulls be the team that trains in far north suburban Deerfield (although I’m sure there are some season ticket holders who prefer that location).

THE CHICAGO BULLS will train in Chicago, which likely pleases the spirit of Richard J. Daley – who once told the Chicago Bears they’d have to give up the city identity if they really dared move to a stadium in suburban Arlington Heights (in the end, they didn’t go).

But it has some people believing that the training facility could also serve as an arena with some 10,000 seats (far less than the 22,000-plus that the United Center has) that would be perfect for a DePaul basketball program.

There also are those who believe that a new arena for DePaul could be constructed near the McCormick Place convention center on the fringe of the Bronzeville neighborhood.

I have heard Rosemont officials insist that DePaul isn’t going anywhere – they have a contract to play there through 2015. Which probably is just enough time to construct an arena and have it ready for the Blue Demons’ use come 2016.

YET WOULD IT really make much of a difference to the current student body if their school’s team is playing in Rosemont, the West Side or Bronzeville?

None of them are locations on campus. While I understand why DePaul would like to have an arena like the UI-C Pavilion (with its 6,958 seats), you have to note that arena is actually located in proximity to the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.

If anything, DePaul officials ought to be thinking in terms of how they can construct the New Alumni Hall (the building where the men’s team played from its construction in 1956 until their move to Rosemont, and where other school teams played until its demolition in 2000).

I know the site of the old building is now the newly-built student union. And real estate in Lincoln Park is excessively pricey – which would make a campus-based arena a more costly option.

BUT THE SPIRIT of that building may well be what is needed to give those Blue Demons teams a jolt back to the days when Ray Meyer’s teams were actually the highlight of the Chicago sports scene.

Instead of lagging behind the Northwestern Wildcats, the UI-C Flames, the Loyola Ramblers (with that NCAA title in 1963) and even on occasion the Chicago Maroons for the city’s winter athletic attention.

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Durbin DREAMs of immigration reform to benefit the youth of “America”

It’s “tick off” time.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., managed to “tick off” a certain segment of the population with his participation Friday in a forum at DePaul University, and now I’m going to irritate those same individuals by calling them out for their ignorance.

THE LINCOLN PARK neighborhood-based university was the site of an immigration forum where the senator told us the same thing that Democrats have been saying for months.

We’re not getting immigration reform this year, even though some members of Congress (including Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.) have hinted they are drafting bills that could be introduced before year’s end.

Democrats in Congress are so focused on getting something that can be described as health care reform approved so that President Barack Obama can sign it into law that they’re pushing all kinds of crucial issues aside.

That includes the serious revamping of the nation’s immigration laws, which the president has said will occur some time in 2010, and which Durbin reiterated will occur some time next year.

THE FACT THAT the rhetoric is so vague makes me wonder if the debate won’t even start until late in 2010 – the better to not give the nativists yet another excuse to drag out their cheap and stupid rhetoric for the November general elections.

But Durbin on Friday made it clear he, at least, will be supportive.

The senior senator from Illinois for years has been a supporter of the “DREAM Act,” the measure that is meant to help those young people who have lived the bulk of their lives in the United States and are fairly well assimilated – but were born elsewhere so their citizenship status is mucked up.

There are many cases across the country of families that are split on the immigration issue – some are U.S. citizens while others aren’t.

BUT WHILE PEOPLE of logic would figure that the solution to this confusion is to figure out the way to fully naturalize these families, the kind of people upset by Durbin are the ones who would use the non-citizen family members as the excuse to deport the whole family!

In the case of the non-citizen children, their lack of U.S. citizenship makes it impossible for them to apply for the standard sources of financial aid that most people in this country use to help them pay for a college education, particularly in states where the local government officials have gone out of their way to pass punitive measures meant to hold people back.

The DREAM Act would make it possible for those students caught between countries to be regarded the same as U.S. citizens, which would make it possible for those who otherwise would naturally advance to a college education to do so.

In the process, they will educate themselves and become of greater use to our society. Durbin on Friday let it be known that his individual measure will be included in any overall immigration reform proposal that eventually gets considered by Congress.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE always thought that the only people who truly get worked up over this particular issue are the people who, for whatever reason, don’t have as many opportunities to advance academically, and they see they are being surpassed by others.

Opposition to this particular act strikes me as being cheap and petty, and an attempt to hold other people down to their level.

In the long run, it hurts our society if the people who are here are not given the chance to advance themselves to their full potential. Note that I’m not saying they are entitled to achieve that potential – only that they should not be held back just because of some lunk-headed partisan politics that reek of xenophobia.

I know this issue will tick some people off. If you doubt me, check out the website of the Daily Herald newspaper of suburban Arlington Heights.

THEIR PUBLICATION OF a story announcing Durbin’s intention to partake in the forum triggered a reader commentary that reeks of ridiculousness.

“Liberal garbage,” “douche bag” and “clown” were among the phrases used to describe Durbin, while one would-be wit-less pundit suggested that Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport everybody who bothered to attend the forum – on the assumption that only non-citizens would be interested in hearing Durbin.

One of the reasons I write as much as I do about immigration reform, even though nothing is happening yet, is that I am trying to brace people for the intellectual level that the debate will take once the issue does finally get discussed.

For those who think that the partisan rhetoric over health care reform has become nasty or petty or vindictive, all I have to say is (with apologies to Bachman Turner Overdrive), “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”

DURBIN TELLING US Friday he will never give up on the concept of the DREAM Act brought out some of the trash talk.

But I’m convinced that historians some five or six decades from now will look at the health care partisanship as hugs and smooches, compared to the level of trash talk we will get next year. Because that will be where the partisans align with the nativists to try to take this issue down and hold our society back into some vision they have.

Let’s also hope those historians don’t remember our era as the time when our society’s weaker half holds us back.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Read the commentary for yourself. What is particularly sad about these comments (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=331175&src=143) is that they’re not at all unique to anyone who has studied the partisanship involved in immigration reform.