Illinois May Be Looking For New Nickname

                            

THE "FIGHTIN" MAY BE DONE FOR ILLINI.  The NCAA put down Illinois' appeal to in the Offense Nickname Ban yesterday.  The NCAA did say that the school can keep the "Fighting Illini" name since it derived from the name state.  But, the image and mascot of Chief Illiniwek remains offensive.  Because of that, the school is banned from hosting postseason events and the mascot is barred from performing at any postseason events.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Unlike some schools that got the ban, Illinois is allowed to actually keep the Illini name....so they don't have to change it.  But it might be in their finanical interests to do so.  Stay tuned. 

NBA DRESS CODE EXTENDS TO THE COURT.  Last week, the NBA fined the Philadelphia 76ers for having "too baggy" shorts.  Stu Jackson, the NBA's watchdog, has said that several teams have been warned of uniform infractions.  The NBA stipulates that the shorts must not be longer than 2 inches higher than the knee.  I hipe we don't get back to those nut-huggers than Chris Mullin and John Stockton wore.

MLS CUP IS ON THE LINE.  The LA Galaxy takes on the New Revalution for the.....ah, who cares. 

SEATTLE GETS BLOWN OUT.  The Washington Wizards.....yeah, the Wiz....beat the Seattle Sonics 137-96 Friday night.  The loss drops Seattle to 1-4 and into a quite uphappy place.  Head coach Bob Weiss [after givin' his team the biz-ness] essentially threw his hands up after this game and let his players deal with it.  Add to the fact that Vlad Radmanovic is already stirring up bad vibes in the locker room.  Ugh.  Looks like a loooong season for Seattle and that their 2005 division title was a fluke. 

SOMEBODY HIRE STEVE PHILLIPS PLEASE!!!!  ESPN made a crappy idea a reality when they "staged" five faux news conferences which placed Steve Phillips [former Mets GM and current ESPN analyst] as the general manager of five different teams.  This was horrible.  (1) It just furthers the hatred for the big money teams.  I mean, why not have some cojones and see how he'd turn around the Royals, Pirates or Rockies??  How would he fix the Mariners??  Or the Mets??  Whoops, he already tried that one.  (2) The real reporters had to....uh....act like they were really reporting.  Guys like Jeremy Schapp had to fire questions to the fake GM [five different days] to see what Phillips' ideas were.  Horrible!  (3) The fake news conferences were quickly overshadowed by a real one.  Terrell Owens' news conference outside his home made all that puppetry of the Phillips' newsies so bland and much more fake.  Sometimes real life is more dramatic than the fake one.