Golden Nuggets for 01.15.09

Many may not be all that excited about Jeff Horton (largely because nobody has heard of him), former Ram's coach Scott Linehan had plenty good to say about him. 

"I definitely think he's ready," Linehan said of Horton. "He's got organizational skills that are second to none. He's very outgoing and charismatic. Players like him and respect him."

Obviously none of us know how charismatic he is or what he would actually bring to the table.  But if the kids want to play for him, if he can lead an offense and if he his charisma can translate into recruiting this hire might be alright. 

The Cosgrove outrage is understandable because he utterly failed at his last position.  But the Horton dislike seems to stem from the fact that he is a complete unknown.

• Myron has a story on Tubby cutting off the pipeline of basketball players to Wisconsin.  Jon Leuer looks to be a solid typical Badger big man who will step into the starting line up next year.  But he may be the last in a line of Minnesotan's who helped the Badgers to multiple seasons of NCAA tournaments.
• If you thought we focused too much on rankings and projected seedings, check out the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Badger Blog.  The first three or four stories are about how AP voters voted and where the Badgers are projected in the Tournament. 
  
• Leuer is the focus of the MJS as well and of course he says he's downplaying the match up with Minnesota.  I don't buy it.
• Badger Beat talks about the commonalities between the two schools.  Maturi, a ton of FB coaches and others in the administration side all have Wisconsin ties.  I say we fire them all, it is a Trojan Horse!