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Well here we are, the end of the regular season of men’s basketball for another year. This week is the Big 10 tournament and March Madness starts in a week.

Thanks to the Big10 Network, ESPN and no thanks to CBS, I got to watch every single MSU Spartan game this year except one: the final MSU-UofM game on CBS (not televised on the West Coast). (A perfect example of how traditional media companies don’t get the Internet future.)

Normally I am excited to watch my team do heavy damage in March Madness but not this year. This was the strangest Spartan year I can remember and the first time in my fandom that the team may not even get into the tournament. Wow.

After starting the season ranked #2, the team steadily lost rank until the middle of the season when the wheels came off. They haven’t been ranked at all since then and are fighting for one of the last 4 spots of the 31 at-large bids. Crazy!

The year started fine. The team played rocky but fine in Hawaii which is totally normal. Izzo’s teams always struggle and then pull it together at the end of the season. They play tough defense, rebound, struggle on offense and play really hard opponents, then “surprise!” folks at bracket time.

At least they do in a normal year but this was not a normal year.

Over the summer Izzo interviewed to be a professional coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chris Allen (a good shooter) was cut from the team. Kalin Lucas had his Achilles tendon explode last season (jeez, you should see his scar!) but he was back and steadily got better as the season went. Green is still short, slow and chubby but he has had some great games this year as a shooter, ball handler and passer. When he plays well, everyone plays well. And Delvon Roe finally looked healthy and he played fantastic defense; easily his best ball in college. Some of the freshmen and sophomores look good too and had good games: Nix, Payne, Sherman and Appling.

And then something went horribly wrong.

Corey Lucious, the #6 man, was kicked off the team suddenly. Durrell “Summertime” Summers’ play went to shit. He couldn’t hit a jump shot, he didn’t play hard on defense, no more alley oop dunks. The team’s top scorer just disappeared and has not come back. Worst of all, Delvon Roe, who was playing the best basketball of his college career, hurt his knee again on a meaningless layup at the end of a game. He hasn’t looked the same since.

What a topsy-turvey year! Kebler and Thornton – both bench-warmers – are now key players who get lots of game time. Its just plain weird.

I have said before that bball is a mental game. Clearly something happened to the team psyche and I have doubt they can pull it together at this point.

Izzo teams always play tough defense, rebound and struggle to score. The mental thing again. Offense is a totally different head space from defense (just look at the pros). This year Lucas is scoring with confidence but no one else on the team looks comfortable taking a shot. Not good.

They have had some great games. The one against Ohio State was a standout with great play from the entire team against a #1 opponent but there is no consistency. They just don’t look good.

So long 2010-2011. I feel bad for the seniors (Lucas, Summers, Kebler) but I hope the team gets back to form next year.

Not sure why I did not publish this last year but here is a post from March 2010. (And now we know that sharp-shooting Allen was also "lost" as he got kicked off the team.)

Well the year is finally over. Michigan State made it to the Final Four and then lost to Butler. A disappointing game. A disappointing finish.

My main regret with this game is that it was Raymar Morgan's last game and he did not play well. He didnt even play much as he spent most of the game on the bench with fouls. And that has been the story of his career. I doubt he will make it at the pro level and I have never seen a guy so down on himself when get gets into foul trouble. You can see it on his face. He gets down on himself and plays worse. I really wanted him to have a great, last game in college.

The story of the season (other than injuries) was Durrel Summers. The media has talked about Morgan, Lucas, Green, Allen but I think Summers is the best player on the team, the most exciting player on the team, and the most likely do do well in the NBA. Christ he can sky! And he showed in the tournament this year that he can also score. Dunks and 3-pointers (of which he only had a few in this last game).

Someone has to lose.

The best thing about this season is that we are only losing one senior - Raymar Morgan. The rest of the team should be back and better than ever next year.

The crazy thing and most enduring thing about this season was that everyone played. And I mean EVERYONE. With injuries to Morgan, Rowe, Allen, and Lucas, the bench played; the freshman played; the walk-on played; the practice squad played. I have never seen so many people play in the last 10 years of watching Izzo teams.

That is one of the things I like best about MSU. They dont get the media attention; they dont get the refs calling games their way; and they dont get the star players. MSU teams are almost entirely players from Michigan and the states around Michigan. While Duke, Kentucky and the other elite programs get the best players from around the nation, Izzo gets the folks from Michigan and makes them winners. It doesnt get talked about much as the media mainly focuses on the winners but I am proud to see my team outperform expectations year after year. I am proud to see them do more with less. I guess it speaks to me. There will always be the best of the best but then there is the rest of us. Knowing that the good can beat the best in a team sport says a lot to me about life. With teamwork, focus and passion, good performers can get great results.

Looking at the rosters of the top basketball programs, the stars are never from the school's actual state. Duke and North Carolina both have 3 players from North Carolina; Kentucky has 3 players from Kentucky and so on.

So 2009-2010 is over. Time to drop Comcast and enjoy a summer break before the next season starts in November.

So I am standing at the meat counter in Whole Foods. I want some chicken for a BBQ.

They have a "100% natural chicken" and for a little more money they have an "organic" chicken. What is the difference, I ask.

"The "natural" chicken is from Washington and its fed corn. The "organic" chicken is from California and its fed soy. I think the corn chicken has more flavor."

Hmmm.

Buying local is good because there is less transportation but corn is evil and chickens dont naturally eat corn.

Chickens dont naturally eat soy either and its more expensive.

The natural chicken looks kind of yellow. The soy chicken looks kind of white or greenish white.

You are what you eat and so is chicken...

Hmmm.

So I bought them both and cooked them both in our Traeger grill.

20 minutes on high; 70 minutes on medium; 10 minutes on smoke; with regular basting.

Both chickens tasted good but the corn chicken was a little greasier. Maybe that is the flavor? The taste test was a draw because they both tasted good.

The difference came when I picked all the meat off the bones.

The organic chicken was perfect. Perfectly cooked. All the meat came of easily.

The corn chicken however still had pockets of uncooked fat inside. It was stringier and greasier even though the organic chicken was actually larger and they cooked for the same time.

So I will be sticking with my "no corn" rule and paying a little more for soy chickens in the future. Bon appetite.

Two weeks ago I wrote about why I have not been blogging this year. Answer? I have been busy.

One of the things I have been busy with is finally over. A beta release of Messenger for Mac.

A year and a half ago, I left Amazon to work for Microsoft on Mac software. My project since then has been Messenger for Mac.

Messenger for Mac (or MM) provides real-time communications (like IM chat and video calls) and presence information for Windows Live users (ie normal consumers like you and me) as well as for enterprise customers using Office Communicator Server.

This is my first product release at Microsoft as well as my first corporate blog post and thus a big deal for me personally. (When you are in the software business, any time you actually ship something is a big deal.)

Releasing the beta does not mean that things have slowed down at work or that I am off relaxing on vacation. The real accomplishment will be our next full release for Mac Office 2011 and we are still working hard on that but I wanted to at least mark the moment of the beta release.

With the iPad release coming up this week and Valve's announcement of Steam for the Mac, there is a lot of news to discuss. Hopefully I will find a few minutes to turn some of my recent discussions into posts. 2010 is turning into an exciting year.

Here we are again in the best time of the year. No not Christmas. It's college basketball time!

I can wake up on a Saturday, drag myself to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee and then drag myself to the couch and behold some terrific basketball on television. It does not get any better than that.

Except for Dick.

If I died today and never had to hear the phrase "diaper dandy" again, it might be worth it. Every year I wish for the same thing for Christmas - Dickie V to retire. Not yet it seems. Another year of those annoying phrases, stupid pizza commercials and hearing him plug his charity when the other commentator asks him about Michigan State.

Dick Cheney. Dick Clark. Dick Vitale. Do not name your child Dick.

A few weeks back I got to watch UNC dismantle my Spartans fairly easily, although not was completely as the championship last year. Finally Tyler Hansborough is gone so I can at least root for UNC when they are not playing MSU.

Like today when they played Texas. In past years Texas has been ranked highly and MSU has gone down to Texas to beat them. This year that seems unlikely. Texas is a monster and they made UNC look easy today. Not good for MSU next week.

After that great game, CBS is showing Duke against Gonzaga. Two observations:

1) The HD camera's on CBS seem different this year. The picture quality is different. The picture seems closer and more intimate, more like a hand-held than the traditional TV-camera-from-afar look Im used to. Could be a good thing.

2) Duke continues to recruit the best playing, worst looking basketball players in the nation. What is up with that?

For the first time ever, MSU was ranked #2 for 3 weeks. Before they started loosing.

It is just not normal for MSU to be ranked highly. They are never the best team in America and they are never consistent. I think that is part of what I enjoy about them. They are always emotional and you never know what they will do. It makes March Madness even more fun and they almost always deliver in the tournament. Having them in the championship last year was a bracket buster for my office pool competition.

I really thought they would not be very good this year after losing Suton so I was surprised by the high ranking but its over already. Top 20 is ok but top 10 is a distraction for the boys in green.

The other notable difference about this year is that we dont have cable TV and havent for months. Thanks to free over the air HD broadcasts and free games online with ESPN360, I am seeing all the sports I normally would. ESPN360 is not great picture quality, about comparable to analog cable, but the price is right.

Next month I will have to decide how much the Big10 channel and HD content matter to me and whether it trumps my dislike for cable TV companies.

I dont know who The Oatmeal is but I enjoyed this quick read about coffee. Especially the "tons 'o milk" part. Starbucks, I'm looking at you!