It’s Rivalry Week in college basketball!
This Saturday, the Purdue Boilermakers will head down to Assembly Hall to take on the Indiana Hoosiers in the 204th meeting between the two men’s basketball teams.
It is a special game this year as both teams are ranked in the Top 25 (Purdue #17, Indiana #22) for what feels like forever, and it is the only time they’ll play each other (Big Ten Tournament possibility aside). Since the Big Ten expanded a couple of years ago, they’ve only played a few times during the regular season, which is a shame since it lessens the amount of taunting between Purdue and IU fans that I see on Facebook. I miss it.
Anyway, it should be a great game for my Boilers - they have a similar size advantage as they had last year, when Purdue won 67-63 behind their two 7-footers, A.J. Hammons and Isaac Hass and their combined 32 points and 13 rebounds in the last game.
This is also the time I’d like to remind readers that Purdue is topping the all-time series at 115-88, a 56.6% winning percentage. I hope we’ll see the big 1-1-6. Yes, I am a Purdue guy.
Boiler up! Here are your Links of the Week:
Some awesome shots from the Grammys. For some reason I find it funny that Justin Bieber can barely grow facial hair. [Mashable]
The Great Bill Simmons announced the name of his new website this week, called “The Ringer”. I saw the announcement on Twitter but then listened to his podcast, which sort of broke down the past nine months since he was let go from ESPN, and how he formed his production company, signed with HBO, and began working on the website. Not bad for a guy who started a sports blog in the early-2000’s. [SI.com]
Proof that everything is awesome: the IKO Creative Prosthetic System is a prosthetic arm that is build from and for LEGOs. [BBC News]
There was a huge (and I mean hu-yuge) new development for NBA nerds this week as NBA.com unveiled a new “Layman’s Data Search” tool that allows you to ask something like “What is Durants highest point total ever?” and it find that number. It is still in Beta, but awesome nonetheless. [NBA.com]
The Battle for Razors is real. #TeamDollarShaveClub [LA Times via GQ]
University of Southampton scientists are claiming to have a new data format and storage system that can save data for almost 14 billion years. I read that and I’m all like, “Prove it,” ya know? [The Verge]
If you have some time to yourself this weekend, take a listen to this podcast on the secret behind the success of Nest, a smart thermostat, which has been booming in popularity in the past few years. (I want one.) [TechCrunch]
A guy who writes for Harvard Business Review wants to get rid of email. I endorse this. [Harvard Business Review]
“The 12 Greatest Challenge for Space Exploration” went up this week on Wired. Number one for me would probably be “Get to space.” [Wired ]
The darling of the NBA season has definitely been Draymond Green, a guy I saw play in person when he was at Michigan State and is just built like a brick outhouse. SBNation’s Paul Flannery had a great in-depth piece on his rise to become an NBA All-Star, and he’ll probably end up as a Top 5 MVP candidate by the end of the season. [SBNation]
It was Michael Jordan’s birthday earlier this week. Let’s celebrate with five minutes of his “forgotten” highlights! Have a good weekend.