In addition to tonight's live-blog here, a few SLGT regulars and/or staffers will be also at other places.

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...yes, that's right, the Olympics. As someone who always gets caught up wondering why the US can't get over that hump when on foreign soil, last night I took the role of Larry Pleau/Brian Burke and thought about who I'd select to go to a cut-down camp. If anything, I tended to look for good young players who have the speed that could keep up with the European nations.

So, here's Turd Ferguson's Vancouver Games Camp Invitees, with a bit of comment after each group:

Goaltenders - Ryan Miller (Buffalo), Jonathan Quick (Los Angeles), Al Montoya (Phoenix), Tim Thomas (Boston), Scott Clemmensen (New Jersey), Ty Conklin (Fuck Detroit)

Notice that the two goaltenders who always seem to pop up on US national teams, Rick DiPietro and Robert Esche, aren't on here because of the fact that they're some combination of crap, over-the-hill or DiPi. Of my picks, Miller and Thomas are no-brainers, Clemmensen was excellent for the Devils this year when he got thrusted into the starting job after Brodeur's injury, Quick has showed a lot of promise on a very young Kings team, and Montoya/Conklin have international experience.

Defensemen - Jack Johnson (Los Angeles), Ron Hainsey (Atlanta), John-Michael Liles (Colorado), Mike Komisarek (Montreal), Matt Carle (Philadelphia), Rob Scuderi (Pittsburgh), Zach Bogosian (Atlanta), Tom Poti (Washington), Brian Rafalski (Fuck Detroit), Ryan Suter (Nashville), Jordan Leopold (Cal/Gary), Matty Niskanen (Dallas), Matt Greene (Los Angeles), Mark Stuart (Boston), James Wisnewski (Anaheim), Erik Johnson (Blues)

You can really see the youth here: the oldest players on the defensive list are Poti and Rafalski, but many of these defensemen have played a lot of international games on the Junior teams/during the Worlds. Komisarek, Poti, Hainsey or Stuart could easily wear the "A" among this group.

Forwards (*asterisk denotes centerman, ALL CAPS means player is under the age of 26) - DUSTIN BROWN (Los Angeles), DAVID BACKES* (Blues), T.J. OSHIE* (Blues), PHIL KESSEL (Boston), MARK PAVELSKI* (San Jose), Mike Modano* (Dallas), Chris Drury* (New York Rangers), Scott Gomez (New York Rangers), KYLE OKPOSO (New York Islanders), PATRICK KANE (Chicago), Keith Tkachuk (Blues), Brian Gionta (New Jersey), ZACH PARISE (New Jersey), Tim Connolly* (Buffalo), JASON POMINVILLE (Buffalo), DUSTIN BYFUGLIEN (Chicago), RYAN KESLER* (Vancouver), BOBBY RYAN (Anaheim), Erik Cole (Carolina), Chris Clark (Washington), PAUL STATSNY (Colorado)

Out of this group of 21, a full 12 are under 26, and we also have 4 NHL captains (Brown, Clark, Modano, Drury) as well as 4 NHL alts (Walt, Gomez, Pominville, Kesler). You can see that I looked for a lot of fast players who have junior international experience (many of these guys have at least medaled in the U18s or WJC), as well as a few "energy" guys like Byfuglien. I could honestly see a few Blues come out of this hypothetical group to an Olympic team, especially if they want Keith to be a leader.

I'd appreciate your views/suggestions on the list, what you want to see Team USA look like, what kind of photos Rick DiPietro has that keep him as the top goalie, etc. This is all speculating, and honestly I don't know if USA Hockey will pick a team based more around an NHL style of play, especially considering they're playing on a 200x85 rink.

Namely, that commentators on Deadspin often trend towards the idiotic. As seen today when they posted a picture of that massive sign some kUchebags put up when the game was starting to get out of hand. You know, the one with John Brown holding the NC trophy in one hand.

Of course, the large contingent of Beakers on that site (one of its editors, Pete "PeteJayhawk" Gaines, went there and will often try to bring in the fact that Mizzou fans are "slavers" into any discussion even tangentially related to the Tigers or anything from Missouri: his presence brought a shed-load of dittoheads there as well) had a field day with it. A selection of their wit and wisdom:

"Missouri fans responded by advocating the return of slavery."--Self Respect (more from him later)

"Greatest banner ever in the history of sports.

Anti-slavery > slavery
Kansas > Missouri" --Mr Gaines himself, who clearly flunked his Civil War-era history class...plus, this guy's a LOOKER! 

via cache.gawker.com

Mr. Self Respect then went on to post that "Missouri One Shining Moment" video some Beaker with a editing program put up last year, which gained a lot of +1s and heart-clicks from the commentariat, and then closed it by bringing up Ricky Clemons and poor attendance, along with telling a brave Mizzou fan that he was in the wrong place.

In conclusion: The Internet's most popular and influential sports blog hates Missouri, Kansas fans are myopic dolts whose argument about being so "forward" loses all credibility when Fred Phelps has said he's a fan of your team, and I'm still angry about yesterday and willing to take it out on anyone.

So remember when I said I'd post my thoughts after every home basketball game? Well, that clearly didn't work out as planned, as studies/trips to peoples' houses afterwards/nights out on Ninth Street got in the way, as did my own admitted laziness. But as we're going into Big XII play on Saturday at Nebraska (a team that lost, at home I might add, to the Fighting Duff Goldmans of UMBC), here's some of my thoughts and things to look out for this year in conference play.

On the game against Coppin State:

• Attendance was good...for the first 20 minutes. 7,000 people came, they saw Bowers tomahawk a ball, they actually saw the Grey Goose hit threes with regularity, and they left. And in all honesty if I wasn't obligated to stay the entire game, I'd have left too...my god was the second half boring. People will come to conference games, yes, but it'll take a lot of convincing (wins over the Squawks and Illini, a tourney bid) to fill the arena on a regular basis.
• Kimmie English? At this point I don't understand why he's having to sit behind MLaw for so long on the bench. He's clearly much more of a inside threat (did you SEE Lawrence try to play inside early last night? He looked like...I'll try and think of a better metaphor later, but something just wasn't right) and his shot, when it's on, is silky-smooth. I see good things from him.
• Apparently the band has begun to sing this ad during crucial moments in the game, which some of you all here should like (although the commercial deals mostly with sausage, not their fine bacon offerings). Plus those pesky Antlers are back, with #23 for Coppin taking the court with his jersey tucked into his underpants providing a lot of material.
  

But back to more important things: starting the conference season. I see no way we can't take the first three: Nebraska has a good couple of players (Cookie Miller being the one that comes to mind first) but noted Tiger-killer Aleks Maric is gone (thank God). Colorado has the two hyphenated big men who could cause some trouble as well as their Princeton offense, but not unlike Nebraska their best player and another person who always seemed to come out of a long slumber against Mizzou, Richard Roby, has finally used up his 3,503rd year of eligibility. And the less said about Iowa State (especially on the road), the better.

Another thing I think a fair number of people I've talked to are forgetting is that our schedule actually is a bit easier than many of us thought: yes Mizzou has to travel to Austin and I don't see them getting a win at the Erwin Center, but at the same time they play the consensus top team (Oklahoma) and the consensus sleeper (Baylor) in Columbia. But, there is a game that I'm really nervous about on the schedule: the 'Pokes in Stillwater, a team that despite not having a credible inside threat, shoots well and is really coalescing around their new coach. Plus, if you've ever been to Gallagher-Iba you'd have to agree with me that it's a VERY hard place to play in.

So the outlook? A winning record in the conference is feasible: an easy six wins against the bottom-feeders, beating Texas Tech at home, and one each over the Kansas teams will get you that without that much trouble. But to really break through Mike Anderson's team needs to get double-digit wins in conference--get that and this team's dancing.

Ed. Note from The Boy: Promoted to the Front Page.

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Since those of you that know me know that I'm a regular attendee at basketball games, I've decided to post my thoughts and impressions post-game. And even though the intra-squad scrimmage isn't exactly that great of a barometer for how much the team has progressed since last year, I was still able to see that they've come a long way from the debacle of the Athena 5.

• Marcus Denmon? He's for real. He got 36 points, was an excellent dribble-drive threat, and also has a nice shot from outside. Defensively he still seemed a bit raw, but that's what these early games are for.
• Zaire Taylor easily had the best moment of the night, dunking over JT Tiller off a rebound. I can now see why he came to Mizzou from Delaware, as he's almost exactly the type of player CMA loves: smaller than normal, fast and with an excellent vertical.
• The other freshmen looked nice as well, with Kim English standing out most.
• Safford's improved his inside game a lot over the summer, and those rumors that he grew looked true to me. Look for him to surprise this year.
• The team's got a fairly good home schedule this year, hosting California as part of the Big 12-Pac 10 Series, and in conference hosting both the conference favorite (Oklahoma) and the team most have pegged to be a breakout threat (Baylor). I'm interested to see what the road game at Georgia will be like--will we see the team that won the SEC tourney, or the one that played the rest of the year?

Overall, I have a pretty good feeling about this year, mostly due to the new additions. I knew they'd do a lot, but it's feasible that we could see two of them in the starting five (Carroll-Denmon-Lyons, with Tiller and Taylor as the guards).