an aces trip to evanston tonight, the first two of five davenport-to-chicago area trips to made in the next eight days. (a trip to watch the bulls and do some intern recruiting on monday/tuesday, the christmas return on thursday night)

the company included former co-workers geoff and chris. geoff, a depaul grad, was arranged in september. chris, a badger fan, was arranged in three hasty emails, our first contact in at least three weeks, this afternoon. the destination was welsh-ryan arena, where my mighty cats felled geoff's mighty demons.

the trip started a bit late, as geoff's arrival to the port (from his new place of work, peoria) came at 4:50, 30 minutes after the appointed time. this meant driving faster than normal, in the 83-87 range (and yes, i'm currently pricing out auto insurance...). we made it without a hitch, and we got in the gates at approximately 8:06, shortly after the tip.

the result was a 29-29 halftime tie, and a 56-52 come-from-behind wildcats victory. the demons opened up a 45-37 lead at the midway point of the second half, as sammy mejia (a legit player, despite the late missed layup and turnover) and quemont greer (quiet 20 points) hit back-to-back field goals. but then vukusic, finally, got a bit aggressive. he canned consecutive three balls to close the gap, and the Cats tied it up when Mike Thompson brought the house down with a ferocious two-handed jam.

the next bucket wouldn't come until mejia's aforementioned lazy pass led to a vukusic steal and layup, and the cats hit their free throws down the stretch to put it out of reach.

from my perspective in section 206, i grade thompson as a legit inside presence, and somebody who is capable of becoming an all big ten performer this season. his offensive game seems a bit limited, as a backdown, baseline spin seems to be his main go-to move. he clearly isn't comfortable in the framework of the offense, and i don't know if his skills play to it (my instinct is that the jumper isn't part of his game). however, depaul played almost exclusively out of a zone, and we know how ugly northwestern's lake shore loop attack looks against the 2-3, so perhaps we reserve judgment here. defensively, thompson reminded me of a 6-7 public league sophomore, playing poor position defense and flailing wildly for the blocked shot. of course, we didn't get to see much down-low d from thompson, as depaul's greer played primarily away from the basket and brumfield simply is not a presence in the uptempo look they try to establish.

of course, thompson's results are tough to argue with: 12 points on 6-11 shooting, along with a (low) five rebounds, two offensive...and he did it against a 2004 tournament team, one weakened by the losses of their starting center and a starting wing player.

perhaps the best news came from nemo, who offered these: "woof. nice win. i think they could be pretty good." that was in voicemail form. nemo's never excited about things, so this is a positive development.

a few other notes:

- the cats tried a thompson-duvancic-vukusic frontcourt for about a 26-second defensive stretch. a foul or batted ball resulted in an almost immediate return to a 3-guard, 2-post look. however, this is a unit that can play defensively and will trouble opponents offensively during the conference season. bear in mind that, outside of davis (msu), petway (umich), hanson (iowa...i love him but he's just a stringy shot-blocker at this point), and augustine/smith (illinois), and perhaps that butch cat (wisconsin), there's not much in the way of a great post presence in the conference. (i haven't researched it, it just seems that way.)

- seacat was huge, and he's not done that much in his career. a pair of zone-busting threes in the first half seemed to change the complexion of the game and the timbre of the crowd (!)

- with finals finishing up last friday, the student section was empty in a chance to shine on national tv. of course, most probably aren't in town. because of this lack of students, music was provided by lyons township high school's "brass impact," sadly not featuring jimmy maley.

- tim doyle reminds me of a 45-year-old rec leaguer, right down to the brace on his left leg and his slightly-too-short shorts. he's slooooooowwwwwwwwww, and was saved by a timeout from committing an awful traveling violation due to what was an apparent 'dribble off the thigh.' i've devised a theory that his left leg is an inch or two longer than his left...watch him 'hobble-run' around screens, and you'll probably agree. i've come up with the nickname 'hip hop,' due to his rhythmic gait.

- i wish vukusic were more aggressive with his shot. he's real good, and shouldn't be content to dump off the lazy one-handed pass as much as he is.

- blee did not get off the bench for the first time this year. neither did vince scott or ivan tolic.

- i often printed the football media notes available at nusports.com during the football season, and i used the hoops notes for the first time of the season for this one. nu media services has begun tracking the most ridiculous stat in the history of media packets, on a page titled "I SHALL CALL THEM MINI-GAMES." And yes, they do track scores between media timeouts, a study that reflects no game trends and nothing worth actually reporting. as a media relations employee and a conniseur of media notes myself, i love it. long live minutiae!

- i got to see my dad, and my uncle tom, and my uncle tom's brother vince, and my uncle tom's brother vince's son david, who were in the 'rich guy purple-back seats.' there was no room in their vicinity, so we returned upstairs.

- while i was tired towards the end, the seven hours in the car were a blast. chris, it turns out, may be leaving town as soon as friday at 8 am, so it was nice to catch up a bit.

in other news, my hands are extemely dry. i've been moisturizing and moisturizing and moisturizing, but it's not working.