Ruffled Feathers

- State of the art facilities are in place

- Outstanding attendance, growing yearly

- Fan support- Dugout club raises tens of thousands of dollars yearly

- No BCS impediment to compete in championship

- CUSA is a strong baseball league

Draw your own conclusions.

I just got a new flat screen.  Anyone who lives in or around Hattiesburg and has DirecTV, I have a question- can you get distant local channels (from say, New York or Chicago) to provide you with NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox? 

I have Comcast now and will have to keep it for internet (thanks to AT&T’s outdated infrastructure in Lamar County, I cannot get DSL.)  I don’t care a lick about having local programming from WDAM, WHLT, etc. but most major sporting events come on the networks.

Comcast has about 35 true HD channels.  It looks like DirecTV offers many more, but I do want to get network programming in HD for football season and need to confirm that I can get network programming from out-of-state locations.  Any advice?  Thanks…

Rice (who was off this weekend)- vs. Houston, @ Tulane

ECU- vs. Tulane, @ Memphis

Tulane- @ ECU, vs. Rice

Southern Miss- vs. Memphis, @ UAB

Houston- @ Rice, vs. Marshall

Obviously, advantage Southern Miss, playing the two worst teams in the conference to finish out the season.  Rice appears to be uncatchable, so the five teams listed here will be trying to finish second or third to avoid the Owls’ side of the C-USA bracket.  If Southern Miss can win out, it will have a great shot at securing a spot opposite the Owls.

In the C-USA tournament, seeds 1, 4,5, 8 are in a bracket, while 2,3,6,7 are in the other.

Standings/RPI as of 4-26-08

Rice (11)                          13-3

Houston (42)                      8-5

Tulane (58)                        7-5

Southern Miss (16)            7-6

East Carolina (8)               8-7

Marshall (94)                    7-8

UCF (50)                        5-11

Memphis (156)                 4-9

UAB (167)                       4-9

(RPI from warrennolan.com)

Still to play:

• Rice- UCF, Houston, Tulane
• Houston- Southern Miss, Memphis, Rice, Marshall
• Tulane- Memphis, UCF, ECU, Rice
• Southern Miss- Houston, Marshall, Memphis, UAB
• East Carolina- UAB, Tulane, Memphis

In 1984, this was as cool as sh-t:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6XroCc66Eo&feature=related

1984.  God, what a fun year.  Even the NBA was interesting.

Now one of the best TV shows ever.  Except for the weird ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUT07eZoXPw

Yeah, they whacked Tony’s ass.

Now, an underrated one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ih3ECjDVT9Y

Rescue Me.  Pretty solid show.

Any Harry Anderson fans out there?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2WRCggZ3GQU

Not a theme song, but one of the coolest dudes ever on TV:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ajFAzn0GnYQ

Lieutenant Castillo was the man.
 

THEN: Arkansas State 2007

NOW: Spring Game 2008

Thank you, Richard Giannini and Dr. Martha Saunders. Thank you very much.

It was a weekend where almost nothing went as planned for Southern Miss in the big weekend series vs. ECU:

• USM lost its edge for the conference title and a host bid.  Now the Eagles must rely on other teams for help in regaining the C-USA lead
• Trey Sutton was unavailable due to a back injury
• Barry Bowden came up lame with a shoulder strain
• David Clark continued to be ineffective
• The offense left 39 runners on base in the three-game series

With LSU coming to town Wednesday, the team cannot sit around thinking “what if”.  We’ll see what mettle this club has in the coming weeks.  Has the program stepped up a notch, or will it remain on the dreaded regional plateau?

East Carolina (RPI 19) at Southern Miss (RPI 10) play two games starting at 1:00 PM at the Pete and conclude the series tomorrow at 1:00 PM.  No rain should affect the rest of the series.

The winner of the series will take the lead in competing for a regional hosting slot.  In conference play, ECU is 3-3, while USM is 4-2.  A series win by USM would nearly certainly vault the Eagles into contention for a national seed and the chance to host a super regional.

Following last night’s games, Tulane and Houston currently lead C-USA with 3-1 records.  USM and Rice are second at 4-2.  Rice’s game at Memphis was rained out also, and the Tigers and Owls will play two Saturday at 12:00.

Welcome home, Eagles.  Time for a ten-game homestand in the Roost…

4/1-2/08 Troy at Southern Miss:  Troy is 17-10, with a current RPI of 52.

4/4-6/08 ECU at Southern Miss:  ECU is 18-7 (3-3 C-USA) with a current RPI of 17.  ECU took 2 of 3 from UCF in Orlando over the weekend.

4/9/08 LSU at Southern Miss:  LSU is 16-10 (3-6 SEC) with a current RPI of 39.  LSU beat #18 Florida on the road on Sunday.  LSU’s trip to Hattiesburg will be the Bayou Bengals’ only out-of-conference road trip of the season.

It gets little easier for the Eagles.  After hosting Arkansas State in a weekend series starting April 11th, USM travels to Turchin Stadium, a house of horrors in the past for the Eagles, then hosts struggling Mississippi State for two midweek games, and then hosts Houston.

Taking 2 of 3 at Rice was, to state the obvious, huge.  The Eagles are now a nose ahead for a hosting opportunity.  It gets no easier coming home for ten in a row.  Two with Troy, who knocked us out of the tournament as a 4 seed, three with always tough ECU, then Arkansas State.

I cannot think of a bigger win since the C-USA win over Tulane at Turchin in May 2003.