Welcome to the end of November. Make sure to change over those calendars tonight. Here’s the weekly look at the grade book. If you have anyone in the sports world you’d like to grade, send it into the WGEM SportsCenter program via text at 217-617-9437 or by email at sportscenter@wgem.com. Host Josh Houchins and I will go over these around 8:20 on Wednesday’s program.
A — Saint Louis University men’s basketball. The Billikens are off to their best start in ages. I can’t ever remember SLU being relevant since I moved to the area in 1997. There was the one season with Larry Hughes, but that’s about it.They’re ranked for the first time since 1994 after a 6-0 start. Rick Majerus is still the team’s head coach. He’s in his fifth season and the next NCAA Tournament game he coaches at SLU will be his first with the Billikens. They’re starting to get some national recognition for their fast start, which came to a halt on Tuesday night with a 75-68 loss to Loyola Marymount. We’ll have to see where they’re at when March rolls around.
B — South Shelby football. The Cardinals didn’t win a Class 1 state championship last weekend, but the fact they made the game is a heck of an accomplishment for a team that looked dead in the water midway through the season. Valle Catholic ran past the Cardinals 49-7 at the Edward Jones Dome on Saturday, but that shouldn’t diminish what the Cardinals accomplished. Credit South for not giving up when it was 2-4. They kept things together to get some momentum going into the postseason. They beat Westran and East Buchanan in playoff games that not a lot of people were giving them the chance to win. With a young offensive line, Rob Wilt’s crew seems destined for a return trip to the Gateway City in the not to distance future.
C — Quincy University women’s basketball. The Lady Hawks’ season started out good enough with three straight wins, including another QU/Subway Tip-Off Tournament title. However, the Lady Hawks slipped twice last week, losing by 10 at Truman State and by a point at Central Missouri. The Lady Hawks start Great Lakes Valley Conference play this week with winnable road games against William Jewell and Rockhurst. William Jewell is the newest member of the GLVC and is 4-0. The Cardinals have two wins over NAIA schools and another over a Division III, so QU will proved the newcomers their toughest test of the season so far. I think QU will be just fine in the long run, but the Lady Hawks have to turn it around this weekend.
D — Urban Meyer. So much for taking a step back for health and family reasons, huh? On Monday, Meyer was named the new head football coach at THE Ohio State University. Sure, the $4 million a year the school promised to pay him probably had something to do with him making a comeback after a whopping one year off. I can’t wait to see him whine about stuff in Columbus like he did when he was in Gainesville. Can’t believe I’ll actually have to root for Michigan at least once a year now.
F — Nick Novak. First, the San Diego Chargers quarterback kicker urinated on the sideline. Then he peed down his leg with the game on the line in overtime Sunday against Denver, missing a field goal attempt that could have saved us another week of people bowing down before Tebow. Novak laughed off being caught by the cameras when relieving himself late in Sunday’s game. Guess guys taking a bathroom break on the sideline happens more often that we think. The NFL doesn’t have a policy on people peeing on the sidelines. How about if they spring for a porta potty on each sideline. I’m sure they could find someone to sponsor it.
[...] Wednesdays on WGEM SportsCenter Don O’Brien puts on the teacher hat and hands out grades. Here was his blog post with grades dealing with sports from today. I wanted to be different, so I handed [...]