2014 Big 12 Championship BWI

Kansas won the regular season Big 12 title behind their fabulous freshmen Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid and enter the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship as the top seed. Embiid has been ruled out of the tournament due to a back injury. Oklahoma State's BWI numbers suffered when Marcus Smart was suspended. This tournament really is wide open. The Iowa State Cyclones led by Conference Player of the Year Melvin Ejim could make some noise also. This will be interesting to see how the BWI plays out.

2014 BWI Big 12 Conference Standings:

1.  3.7  Kansas
2.  7.2  Oklahoma
3.  7.8  Texas
4.  10.3 Iowa St
5.  10.5 Oklahoma St
6.  11.1 Kansas St
7.  11.7 West Virginia
8.  12.6 Baylor
9.  16.1 Texas Tech
10. 17.8 TCU

Follow all the tournament action and view the bracket by clicking here.

Crash Test Dummy

With the MHSC starting this weekend, we ran the FMHSC opener at Collins as a tune up last weekend. Putting together a race report.  To pass the time we threw together a video with a few bloopers from the 2013 hare scramble season and local riding areas. Had a great time and didn't get hurt.

2014 Missouri Valley Conference BWI

It's Arch Madness! Tip off is later today in St Louis. Gone are the Creighton Blue Jays, replaced by the Ramblers of Loyola. Usually the Missouri Valley goes into the NCAA Tournament under the radar and surprises a few folks. That wont be happening this season as Wichita St plowed through the regular season undefeated at 31-0 and the #2 ranking. The Shockers placed three players on the First Team All-Missouri Valley Conference squad and guard Fred VanVleet was named the Player of the Year on Tuesday.  It comes as no surprise that the Shockers grabbed the top spot in the MVC BWI.

2014 BWI Missouri Valley Conference Standings FINAL

1. 2.6 Wichita St.
2. 6.6 Indiana St.
3. 9.1 Illinois St.
4. 9.4 Southern Illinois
5. 9.7 Northern Iowa
6. 11.2 Evansville
7. 13.0 Missouri St.
8. 14.6 Bradley
9. 14.8 Drake
10. 15.8 Loyola, IL

All the Arch Madness news, stats, recaps, and the bracket can be found by clicking here.

College Hoops Tournament Time

Two weeks of NCAA conference tournament basketball action has begun. The passion, joy, and anguish the players of the smaller conferences go through is mesmerizing. There is nothing better than watching these kids cash in their ticket to the Big Dance.  Conference tournament basketball also means it's time for the annual BWI, an index that predicts the winner of the games. Creating the BWI is a very time consuming process but it's so much fun to dig through the stats of the Atlantic Sun or Ohio Valley Conference. It really opens your eyes. Unfortunately, tournament action snuck up on us this season, so we had to settle with conferences of local interest. The Missouri Valley index will be up tomorrow, followed by the Big 10 and Big 12 next week. ESPN has a great page that helps keep up on all the tournament action... click here. Enjoy the hoops action everyone.

Winter Olympics

Every two years most of the world comes together for the epic event called the Olympics. Picture this... you have won a trip to the Olympics and have a chance to cross something off your bucket list. But you now have a choice to make. Do you pick the Summer or Winter Olympics? It's a no-brainer for me. I'm taking the winter one.  The Winter Olympics include more interesting sports in my opinion. It may be the sicko in me, as I'll always remember the old "Agony of Defeat" commercial from when I was young. The sports just seems more dangerous and trilling.  The other reason the Winter Olympics win out is that they are usually hosted at more picturesque locations.  The Olympic facilities always look so cool with snow and rough terrain in the backdrops.

On the top of my to-do list is hockey. I'm a huge fan of Patrick Kane, Jonathon Toews, Ovechkin, and Jagr. It would an incredible chance see all your favorite players and many NHL stars at once. The teams play with incredible passion and tenacity that is sometimes missing in an NHL game.

The are a lot of sports that would be worth checking out and many that don't get mainstream television time in the U.S.  Skeleton is an event that I wouldn't be able to miss.  Those men and women are insane. It takes a special person to go head first on a sled at 80 mph. Not to mention their face is a few inches from the ice. Might as well throw in the lugers too. Cray cray.

Curling is another event I want to see. Although ear plugs would probably be needed. I almost have to mute the television when curling is on with the all the yelling of instructions. Short track skating, snow cross, and downhill skiing are the other events that I would make time to watch.

There really is just so much to see and do that a trip to the Olympics would be incredible.