I never thought there could be this much mystery behind where the Irish might be bowling, but I guess that's what happens when you go 6-6.  A not-so-brief rundown:

If Louisville manages to upset Rutgers on Thursday night, then there's an opportunity for the Irish to go to the Sun Bowl.  If not, Notre Dame can go any bowl that doesn''t have enough teams from a given conference to satisfy their tie-ins.  When you're skimming through these various links, asterisks usually denote a bowl missing a participant and in need of subbing someone in.

CBS Sports: Texas Bowl, versus Rice.

Scout: Texas Bowl, versus Rice

ESPN: Hawaii Bowl, versus Hawaii, and Poinsettia Bowl, versus BYU

MSNBC: Hawaii Bowl, versus Hawaii

SI: Texas Bowl, versus Rice

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While I'm fully in favor of Notre Dame athletics continuing to branch out in the Hawaiian islands, that spot will disappear if Arizona State can manage to knock off rival Arizona and earn their sixth win.  The Poinsettia Bowl appears to be in the process of trying to import Boise State into play TCU, which would be a fantastic way to kick off the postseason, but ultimately pretty disappointing for a Broncos squad that wants another crack at the big boys.

The other potential games Notre Dame could go to, as they're missing participants with one weekend of limited play to go, are the Motor City, Independence and Papajohns.com Bowls.  I have no idea who would get first pick between the Texas and Hawaii Bowls, but I would bet heavily on one of those two destinations for the Irish.  It's going to be a functional road game either way, with Jarrett Dillard and the Rice Owls in Houston or the Rainbow Warriors in Honolulu.

The Texas Bowl is December 30th (on NFL NETWORK!), the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve night.

The Quad , the New York Times college sports blog, usually has some really interesting content up, including bringing in current college athletes to describe their experiences (Jarrett Dillard, wide receiver on potential bowl opponent Rice, has been blogging the Owls' season all autumn).  Imagine my surprise today when my friend Mike directed me over there to see that Fighting Irish forward Zach Hillesland was beginning to chronicle Notre Dame's quest for the 2009 national championship.

His first post is all about nicknames on the team and is absolutely awesome.  Seriously, go read it now.  Luke Zeller's dunk against Marquette about which hundreds of words were written because it was so awesome and so totally out of nowhere?  Called "The Baptism."  The scary resemblance between Tory Jackson and Ja Rule?  Noted.  Multiple references to Omari Israel, who perhaps totaled more nicknames coined than points scored in his Notre Dame career?  Done.  Kudos to Mike Brey and the rest of the athletic department for letting Hillesland do this.

"Z" is now part of the East coast liberal media elite.

Notre Dame plays South Dakota tomorrow night before traveling to Indianapolis for a showdown with Ohio State Saturday afternoon.  "Dispatch From A Domer" will hopefully be running all season.

To preface this, I have no inclination either way whether Charlie Weis will be coach of the Irish next season.  In perhaps the most telling sign of how bad these last two seasons have been, I'm sort of numb to the whole decision, simply wanting it to be over with no matter what the result is.  I believe there are pretty solid arguments to be made in both directions, even after the pathetic offensive effort in the Coliseum and a six-win season that many thought would at least tick up to seven, if not eight or nine.

There's a sour taste in everyone's mouth after last night, but here are the abridged versions of both sides of the argument.

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The Case For Keeping Charlie: Weis is an alum who gets Notre Dame and who has become considerably less prickly (despite random Chicago Trib columns stating otherwise) after the humbling experience of 3-9, a tireless recruiter who is about to bring in another top five or ten class to South Bend, barring .500 record-induced defections.  This is his first head coaching job and it is clear there are plenty of things he needs to learn, as not all coaches "get it" right away, but he showed in 2005 and 2006 that he is far from a complete incompetent on the sidelines.  The team bottomed out from a talent standpoint in 2007 and is utilizing a lot of young, inexperienced players who are learning on the job, just like their head coach.  If given another season, a junior and senior-led class with a reserve of five star goodness behind them on the depth chart will click and begin to dominate like Irish fans hope they would.  If the Irish keep Weis on, he's going to bring in another solid group of recruits and return a talented team to a winnable schedule in 2009.  If there is not marked improvement next year, then Weis should either step down or be let go.

The Case For Firing Charlie: He's gone 9- 15 the last two seasons with questionable decisions along the way, including the retention of certain coaches and some quirky in-game strategy.  The team plays sans any sort of fire or passion most of the time, and while halfway through 2008 it looked like a step in the right direction, Saturday's season finale blowout at Southern Cal looked more like the impotent offense of 2007 than the Brady Quinn-led juggernauts of 2005 and 2006.  From the start of the season, Jimmy Clausen has gotten worse, the offensive line is less capable and the play-calling has become more vanilla.  The team is without identity, and bringing in a new coach to mold and hone the troves of talent up and down the two-deep will result in championship contender over the next few years.  It doesn't matter if you recruit five-star players if they play like walk-ons, and therefore his value as a recruiter is negated unless the coaching improves.

~

Those are the arguments in a nutshell, abbreviated for the sake of brevity and the fact every Irish fan has heard both sides over and over and over again.  Coming into the Southern Cal game, I was still strongly in support of Weis coming back, as were many of my friends.  Part of this was due to the natural urge to go against the wailing hordes on the messageboards, the other part because this is a young team with an inexperienced staff all trying to learn together under one of the brightest lights in sports.  But as I watched the game with family and friends, they would point out something from this Irish season - a loss, a decision, a specific play in the game - and I would have an excuse available for them immediately.  Part of the reason is because I've seen every play Notre Dame has ran this season (up until the last few minutes of the Southern Cal game) and therefore have a little more insight than they do, but on the other hand, these are people that watch a lot of football, Irish and otherwise year-in and year-out, looking at this team with fresh eyes.  At some point, shouldn't we just stop making excuses?

Last week I was reading a great post on FreeDarko about the evolution of the Knicks from competitive and fun to watch into full 2010 free agent pursuit mode.  In a basketball post, on a basketball blog, this random line was dropped:

It allows Mike D'Antoni to be completely free of accountability. Screw up this year, and it's , "What did you expect? We're rebuilding." That type of Charlie Weis good-ole-boy-ing will lead to nothing but complacency and lowered expectations.

Is that why I'm so onboard with whatever decision Swarbrick makes and just wants it to be made?  Notre Dame will never reach the levels of the halcyon past like so many across the messageboards think it will, and I totally understand that, but Jesus, shouldn't we at least look like a real football team week-in and week-out?

As I worked my way through this post, it appears I've talked myself into letting Weis go, but in my heart of hearts, I really don't want to do that.  I want to see him succeed, and giving him another year to both learn and teach will only improve things.  Probably.  Or maybe all this team of highly talented players needs is a new voice to guide them to infinite glory.

I just want to get something up here to start the discussion.  I'm not sold either way and would love a clear-cut case to be made to me in one direction or the other, just so I can get off this extremely uncomfortable fence.  If you've got that ironclad plan for fixing the program, please put it out there for me.

We've been a little light (non-existent) on covering the Trojans this week.  There was the very entertaining Maui Invitational going on (Ty Lawson is sort of fast), Pirate Watch 2008 (these guys might not be hired for security again), the Thanksgiving hoilday and the fact that every time I research Rey Maualuga I get very jealous and very scared for the health of Notre Dame's offensive players.  Witness (but don't listen, the music is horrendous):

But this is rivalry week, and crazier things have happened.  There's a tasty selection of games - some with big-time BCS implications, others simply with bad blood - and I'll be watching from a partially Penn State house that will be pleading with the football gods to wreak havoc on the landscape.  I'll also tip my hat to that, if only due to the greatness of Loki and the fact Boise State probably deserves to go to a BCS bowl and I have no idea how they're going to get there unless everyone at the top starts accruing losses at an uncomfortable rate.

Oh, and drink every time you hear the term "style points."  It'll have you in the proper state of mind (unconscious), for the 8:00 Eastern kickoff.

Just pretend it ended after this.

Hooked 'Em: An absolutely fantastic game from Maui last night.  I can't speak highly enough of the McDonough-Bilas-Raftery team, as they all obviously know and love the game.  Do things get a little weird sometimes?  Of course, Raf is in there, but it's fantastic anyway.  Bonus points for Rick Barnes for using his halftime interview to insult Bilas' weight.  I've been sure since the TJ Ford teams that Barnes was some sort of evil gnome, but he's always a class act and his coming back to Jimmy Dyke's mic to say "There is no rebuttal" was the highlight of the night that didn't involve Luke Harangody knocking in a thirty-five foot three pointer.

The mood over at Burnt Ornage Nation is all "Notre Dame didn't win. We lost." (although to be fair, Pete's dealing with the possibility of his rival going to the Big XII Title game - and possibly the Mythical National Title game - after they beat them by ten on a neutral field, and he congratulated me last night, so we'll cut him some slack) and listing the things Texas could have done differently to come away with an easy win.  Mmm, let's explore this a bit, shall we?

This was mostly a half-court game and played at the tempo that Notre Dame preferred. I would have liked to see the Longhorns apply more full-court pressure, like they have in their previous three games, and try to disrupt the Irish offense.

Right, because a Mike Brey team would be upset to be put into a full court game.  The Irish were constantly pushing - not to the extent they were against Indiana, where everyone was doing their best Bill Walton impression on outlet passes - but they were never pressing, which is important.  Notre Dame being comfortable in the half-court is something new and exciting that has slowly developed as Luke Harangody emerged in the post, and now with Master of His Universe Tory Jackson controlling everything and Kyle McAlarney knocking down whatever the hell he wants to, you need a helluva defense to slow them down.  Ryan Ayers and Lucas Zellervich combined for nine points, with the bench kicking in Zellervich's three, and the Irish still beat a deeper top ten team on the second night of a back-to-back.

There's also the concept that AJ Abrams shot them out of the game, which he obviously did, taking 27 shots, 17 (?!) of them from behind the arc.  But most of those shots were contested, as the Irish guards stayed with him and Zach Hillesland continually switched out and hedged to take away an open look.  While the Longhorns were going inside early and having some success, Dexter Pittman picking up a bunch of fouls early in the second due to the Irish being more aggressive and the general success Hillesland and Ayers had defending Damion James and Gary Johnson lead me to believe that most of Texas' offensive woes was caused by a great effort from the Irish defense.  They also didn't have a bigger, slashing two-guard like Jerel McNeal or Derrick Low that the Irish always have difficulty matching up with.  There were some great match-ups for the Irish, and they took advantage of them enough for the win.

Good note: Notre Dame had six turnovers in the entire game against a pressing, swarming, athletic defense.  Bad note: Seriously, hit your free throws.  Is it something in the Hawaiian air?  This has never been a problem before.  Stop it.  Please.  My mom even e-mailed me about it this morning (Direct quote: "ND needs some touch up work on their free throws - otherwise a pretty good game.").  I realize it's early and small sample sizes, but this is the third game in a row where too many points were left at the charity stripe.

Can't say enough how fantastic the Harangody-Jackson-McAlarney combination was, and it seems Tory has some official cheerleaders in the media to make sure his efforts don't go unnoticed this season.

Then there's the matter of tonight: 10:00 Eastern on ESPN, the Irish face the presumed national champion and number one team in the nation, the North Carolina Tar Heels.  The Heels stomped Oregon last night, playing fourteen four minutes or more.  I think the Irish starting five is more than capable of banging with the boys in baby blue, but once that third and fourth wave of Heels come running in the second half and the fact you're playing your third game in three days sets in?  We'll see.  No matter what happens tonight, this trip was a success, just because the Irish get to face off against what they need to become if they want to win a championship, while also beating Tom Crean (haha) and notching a quality win.

And oh by the way, the rest of the Big East: Syracuse defeated two ranked teams who happen to account for the last three national titles (Florida and Kansas), Connecticut waxed the floor with two more (Miami (FL) and Wisconsin) and Seton Hall knocked off Southern Cal, all in the last week or so.  I didn't even mention Pitt, Louisville, Marquette, West Virginia, Cincinnati or Georgetown.  If you get ten wins in league play, you might clinch the banner.

Dr. James Andrews Strikes Again: Brady Quinn will miss the remainder of the regular season after breaking his right index finger, which got worse after Sunday's game against the Texans.  Brady went 1-2 in his three starts this season, playing pretty well, but also essentially playing out the string on a disappointing Browns season.  Is Romeo Crennel a goner?  Phil Savage, too?  With all the NBA writers focusing solely on where LeBron is going to jet to in 2010 and Quinn missing the final four games of the season, it is not a happy time in the city of Cleveland.  If there is any silver lining to his injury, its that perhaps Fathead will temporarily drop the price of their Quinns so we can finally buy a dozen of them and finish wallpapering our apartment.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold and Undefeated on Alumni Field: A program we criminally haven't touched on at all this season, the Notre Dame women's soccer team is a sterling 24-0, a unanimous number one and sitting pretty in the elite eight after toughing out two 1-0 games in the rounds of 32 and 16.  (Your national player of the year, Kerri Hanks, banged in the winning Sweet Sixteen goal in overtime against Minnesota.)  The Irish's reward?  A date with the Florida State Seminoles, the team that unceremoniously knocked Notre Dame out of the College Cup Final Four last November.  While the Noles are surely looking to spring the upset again, the Irish will be looking to advance to their fourth final four in the last five years (the only year they didn't make it was in 2005, where they lost on the road to eventual national champion Portland in the Elite Eight). 

:The game is Friday at 7:00 at Alumni Field, and if last season's freezing Elite Eight win over Duke was any sort of indicator, bring your hand warmers and wear extra socks.

Hey, all that stuff. . . : ...and we didn't once bring up Charlie Weis!  See how easy that is, everyone else who writes about the Irish on the internet?  I wanted to address this entire snowball thing (which is so ridiculous it's probably not worth bringing up) and then look at the cases for and against firing Weis, but let's wait until after the regular season is over.  I don't say that implying Notre Dame is going to beat Southern Cal - they're not - but let's see how the team plays and while we're doing that, maybe everyone needs to chill out and look in the mirror.

That was more interesting than it needed to be at the end.  Tory, K-Mac and Harangody combined to play 116 of a possible 120 minutes, notching 64 points on 24-for-44 points.  They might not have any legs left against North Carolina tomorrow, but it was a hell of a win tonight.

This isn't going to be a day at the beach.

via rumorsandrants.com

Key match-ups:

1) Tory Jackson and Jonathan Peoples trying to slow down AJ Abrams.

2) Zach Hillesland attempting to contain Damion James.

3) The Irish offense as a unit not being bothered by the tenacious Texas defense.

I was at work for the majority of the Indiana game yesterday, but was keeping track of it through Gametracker and streams of GChat thoughts from a couple friends.  I hope they don't mind them using them, but here's a stream of some of the superlatives coming my way from fans who hadn't yet seen the Irish play yet this season:

wow

  just wow

  i love it

  nd bball

  they might be good

  imagine if they come out hot instead of ice cold

  perfection

  zeller looks athletic

  harangody has calmed down

hillesland is under control

  everyone can f*cking shoot

  unreal

its so fun to watch

  you are gonna love it

  it is just 30 ft shots all day

  people jumping and passing and shooting

  unreal

  i think mike brey is the reason we shouldnt fire charlie weis

  have a little faith

~

we look great

  but indiana is awful

  peoples under control, tory can hit jumpers now, luke z crashing the boards with authority

  everyone is better

  ayers slashing

  hitting everything

After a very cold start, yesterday was a clinic on offensive basketball.  Even with Luke Harangody having a slow day (still tossing up 14 points, 5 boards, 5 steals and 2 assists), the offense didn't miss a beat, mainly because Tory Jackson played like the player we all hoped he could become for the entire time.  He dominated the ball on offense, but in the way you want a point guard to.  If the defense backed off, he banged home a jumper in the first half.  When they pressed up on him after the break, he slipped right around for an easy lay-up (or a dish).  I think I can say with near one hundred percent confidence that if Tory is hitting his jumpers, there might be no way to guard him.  He is going to get quite a workout from the Texas backcourt of AJ Abrams and Justin Mason, but there's the potential for Maui as Tory's coming out party.  He's disappeared for games in his career, but on Mike Brey's team of men, he may have matured the most in the offseason.  Never pressing but constantly pressuring the defense.

Also a man yesterday?  Lucas Zellervich, who threw up a stat line of ten points and eleven boards off the bench, but did it by hitting two of his six threes and collecting six offensive rebounds.  How many players are grabbing a half dozen half dozen boards and putting up the same number of three's?  If Zeller can stretch the floor and crash the boards on offense while protecting the lane on defense, he'll have finally reached the acme everyone imagined he could as a freshman.  I cannot wait to see him spar with Connor Atchley, his Longhorn doppelganger.

I loved the entire attitude of the team in transition, with the number of passes twenty or thirty feet ahead reaching double digits.  Probably the most notable was Kyle McAlarney's three-quarter court pass to Harangody, where he awkwardly (but beautifully) finished with a scoop lay-up.  K-Mac finally found his range, which happens to include any space in the gym, and combined with Zeller and Ryan Ayers to show that there is no way to zone this team.  If Ayers can consistently go one dribble and pull-up, like he did early on in the game for one of his first baskets, it is game over.  He also was smoothly efficient yesterday, tossing up 13 points on 5-7 shooting and collecting five boards, two steals and an assist. 

Great effort from everyone, though.  Zach Hillesland didn't get a lot of scoring opportunities, but that's fine, as he contributes in a hundred other ways, twenty minutes of controlled chaos on the offensive boards and defensive side of the floor.  Jonathan Peoples ran the break well and was obviously very upset he missed a wide open three, but didn't let it affect his defense, while Tyrone Nash and Carleton Scott show why a lot of people are very excited for them to get some extended minutes should the opportunity arise.

I apologize if this recap is overflowing with superlatives when Indiana is a team in a really bad place right now, but the team looked so incredibly good a majority of the time, and did so with subpar efforts from behind the arc (10-for-26-) and the free throw line (a paltry 2-for-7).  Tonight's game against Texas (7:00 on ESPN Original Recipe) is going to be a great measuring stick.  While the Longhorns are still adjusting to Abrams as their primary ball-handler after DJ Augustin moved onto the Charlotte Bobcats (tossing up a 25-11-5 last night, actually), Rick Barnes has a fantastic defensive team to go with the great offense he puts on the floor year-in and year-out.  From our great Texas counterpart on SBN, Burnt Orange Nation:

Texas will advance if they keep Luke from catching the ball with a foot in the paint and if they can take advantage of their depth advantage with a quick, yet smart tempo.

Notre Dame will advance if the Irish guards can handle the Texas pressure and if Harangody can get others involved in the offense.

The writer admits he hasn't seen Notre Dame play a lot, which makes sense because everyone one of those points is easily countered by something this Irish team naturally does.  Harangody can score from outside the paint, I would love to play at a "quick, yet smart tempo," I would be extremely surprised if Tory was bothered by their pressure and everyone is involved in the Irish offense from the go.

Beautiful but dangerous.

This is not going to be an easy game.  Texas' fantastic forward Damion James (I can't type the names of Texas players without hearing Fran Fraschilla or Ron Franklin's voice in my head) is coming off a rocky outing against St. Joes, while Abrams is a quicker version of McAlarney, a true nightmare to try and keep track of on the floor.  Gary Johnson, Dexter Pittman and Atchley (I'm serious, he and Zeller are nearly identical, from fans hating seeing them on the floor to totally putting it all together, although Atchley did it a year sooner) will be the primary big bodies thrown at Harangody, but expect to see Barnes go deep into his bench to make up for playing the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back.  All of those misses lay-ups and threes from Indiana are going to be converted by the 'Horns, so the Irish are going to have to be a lot sharper on the defensive end.

Go Irish, Beat Horns.

I know Indiana is essentially starting their program over from scratch, but that, friends, is how you play basketball.   Full recap later, as AJ Abrams, Damion James and the Texas Longhorns await tomorrow night at 7:00.