Like Gus Johnson? Of course you do. Even at his most annoying, he’s impossible to dislike. The sort of enthusiasm he brings to even the most mundane of Sunday afternoon NFL games — third quarter drives full of screams and whoops and “ha-HA’s!” — it’s a beautiful thing.

So of course it was a pleasant surprise to hear that Gus Johnson is moving over to the Big Ten Network. Big Ten basketball can occasionally be a plodding affair. This year’s Hoosiers are going to be a struggle to watch. But at least we’ll have Gus shouting at us. More Gus is good for everybody.

DATE, DAY, OPPONENT, SITE, TIME, TV
Nov. 7, Friday, Anderson University (Exhib.), Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN.com
Nov. 11, Tuesday, Bemidji State (Exhib.), Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN.com
Nov. 15, Saturday, Northwestern State, Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN
Nov. 18, Tuesday, IUPUI, Bloomington, Ind., 6:30 p.m., BTN

25th ANNUAL EA SPORTS MAUI INVITATIONAL
Nov. 24, Monday, Notre Dame, Maui, 5:30pm, ESPN2
Nov. 25, Tuesday, TBA, Maui, TBA, ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU
Nov. 26, Wednesday, TBA, Maui, TBA, ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU

Nov. 30, Sunday, Cornell, Bloomington, Ind., 4 p.m., BTN

ACC/BIG TEN CHALLENGE
Dec. 3, Wednesday, at Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, N.C., 7:15pm, ESPN

HARTFORD HALL OF FAME SHOWCASE (at Lucas Oil Stadium)
Dec. 6, Saturday, Gonzaga #, Indianapolis, Ind., 1:30 p.m., BTN

Dec. 10, Wednesday, TCU, Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., ESPN2
Dec. 13, Saturday, at Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 4 p.m., CBS
Dec. 22, Monday, Northeastern, Bloomington, Ind., 9 p.m., BTN
Dec. 28, Sunday, Lipscomb, Bloomington, Ind., 6 p.m., BTN

One thing of note here: the Big Ten Network will be streaming all of IU’s exhibition games online, which I think is pretty neat. So if you’re stuck in the office late on Tuesday, Nov. 11, that Bemidji State matchup will be there to comfort you while you work on your Excel documents.

According to a report late last night by Teddy Greinstein of The Chicago Tribune, a deal between Comcast and the Big Ten Network should be announced this week:

Comcast, which had been losing customers to DirecTV, the Dish Network and RCN Cable, will have video-on-demand features that will allow customers to access their favorite team’s greatest games and replays of condensed, “snap-to-snap” games, according to sources.

The BTN completed the deal without caving on its central demand: that the channel be placed on expanded basic, rather than a sports tier, in the eight-state footprint. Only Philadelphia will be excluded.

So not only will Comcast carry the Big Ten Network, they’re going to have some on-demand features and condensed games for your viewing pleasure. Probably not enough to get you to climb up on your roof and take down the dish, but for those of you still left in the dark due to this fiasco, this is good news. Better late than never, right?

While it looks like Comcast is getting the win — after all, the Big Ten Network’s original pitch was that it deserved to be alongside ESPN and Comcast Sports Net as basic programming for everyone — the bottom line is that IU fans will be able to see games they’ve missed this year. That’s no doubt a good thing, even if you’re stuck paying for 12 or 14 extra channels you’ll never use once.

Those of you stuck in a Comcast-only market, I’m sure you’re eager to get your greasy paws on the BTN. Little do you know that all you’ll really be getting, besides the games, is a mess of boring production, blue graphics, Shon Morris, Dave Revsine, Tim Dolan, Big Ten’s Greatest Games (a feature not nearly as interesting as its name) and various women’s competitions. So, you know, get hyped.

– As much as I pride myself on taking in — and caring about — every game the Hoosiers play, it was hard not to feel apathy yesterday. After two tight, well-contested wins (a big road win at a revitalized Minnesota and a blood-feud victory over Illinois), it was pretty hard to ratchet up any emotion for Penn State. Minus Geary Claxton, the Nittany Lions are on paper arguably the worst team in the Big Ten, which is saying something.

But the Nittany Lions shattered that early yesterday. Not only did they push the Hoosiers to the limit on defense, they were somehow consistently effective on offense, hitting threes and slicing to the hoop and exposing a truly light IU defensive effort.

If I may use a Simmonsian analogy, the game reminded me of an open gym performance between a team of high school buddies and a bunch of out-for-the-exercise scrubs. Playing with friends at the SRSC or the HPER, it was easy to get trapped into games playing against kids who looked like they’d never touched a basketball before. Within one or two possessions, you know you’re going to kill this group of band geek-looking dudes; why try too hard? So you lay off on defense. You take goofy bad shots on offense. You try to flex ability rather than play to win, and before you know it the scrubs start making a few ugly chucks here and there and the score is tied at 10-10. What the hell just happened? Usually, the better team wakes up, says “Let’s go” about a hundred times, and runs the idiots off the court. Sometimes the damage is already done and the scrubs win. Fortunately, the Hoosiers finished with the former yesterday.

Right around the ten minute mark, you could actually read Jamarcus Ellis’ lips as he screamed “Let’s go!” after a defensive stop. You could feel IU realizing the urgency of the moment. They proceeded to pick up the pace on defense, tighten things up on offense, and won going away. The way good teams do.

— With that said, don’t discredit the Nittany Lions; they played extremely well. Talor Battle was especially impressive. Battle looks like the kind of player that will become a very good, efficient point guard; it’s clear he can already shoot and handle the ball well. If he improves his gamesmanship and passing, he’ll be a player I’d love to have at IU at point guard. And perhaps the Nittany Lions aren’t the worst team in the Big Ten after all. Probably one of the bottom three, still, but maybe not the worst. That’s got to be worth something, right?

– Penn State’s zone was troublesome. Two players helped things immensely: D.J. White, who was still able to catch the ball in the post and score before the double team came; and Jamarcus Ellis, who is great on the baseline, and in the pivot, at quickly using angles to get the ball near the hoop. It feels like I sing Ellis’ praises after every game, and maybe that’s just thanks to my man-crush on him. But maybe it’s also thanks to the fact that because he’s such a versatile player, he seems to do something different to endear himself each game.

– One more thing about Ellis: Of any player I’ve seen at IU, or anywhere else, really, Ellis has the most old-school offensive game. If you look at old films of guys like Earl Monroe (that linked video is awesome, by the way), Ellis has the same high dribble, the same reliance on the spin move, the same soft finishes at the hoop — even, as he showed Sunday, the finger roll. I don’t mean to compare them in skill level — Monroe was one of the all-time greats — but for pure aesthetic value, Ellis’ game looks more like the smooth hoopers of the 70’s and early 80’s than any post-Jordan NBA style. Maybe Jamarcus was born in the wrong decade.

– As our team is in the Big Ten, we’ve always taken more than a passing interest in the Big Ten Network’s bid to become a staple on cable companies in prime target areas. What’s unfortunate is that while the BTN obviously has the trump card in this argument with cable companies, it’s doing little to reward viewers who switched companies to have it. In other words, it’s providing the games, the baseline expectation, and nothing more.

What are the things we expect from Big Ten Network? Programming, for one: If you’re going to have a 24-hour channel, you’d best provide decent proramming for, say, at least eight of those hours. Beyond Big Ten’s Greatest Games, can anyone make that claim? Does anyone go watch the BTN when their team isn’t playing? Another expectation is analysis, both in-game and afterward. Thus far, with the possible exception of Gene Keady (blasphemy, I know), each talking head on BTN is just, well, boring. My roommate and brother and I joked yesterday during the game about how we didn’t know who either play-by-play man doing the game was; we just assumed it was two boring white dudes like it always is. That seems to be the BTN’s strategy: Find the most boring, milquetoast white guys, and let them talk about the game. People will still watch!

Yes, yes we will. But we won’t be happy with the network’s strongarm tactics and inaccessibility in the meantime. You want to be a must-have network; you need to do more than provide games to get that done.

– Comments and additions welcomed, as always. The motto at this point, as cliche as it might be: A win’s a win. In the past few years, 16-1 would be a dream start. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

I bring this up not to rub it in your face — I would never do that! — but to point out that someone in power cares too. A story in today’s Star notes that state representative Scott Reske plans to introduce legislation which might force cable companies to accept arbitration somewhere down the line:

“People are frustrated because they don’t have input on their programming,” Rep. Scott Reske, D-Pendleton said. “There needs to be some way of arbitrating this. That’s what I’m proposing — not to dictate anything, but to resolve this. People are demanding it.”

Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said he’s sympathetic with fans who are missing games but disagrees with government intervention. Long said he wants to “let the free market operate.”
“It will benefit consumers more than if we try to control everything,” Long said.

Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, who teaches telecommunications policy at Indiana University, is skeptical about the legislature’s power in this situation.

“All these issues are basically under the purview of congress and the FCC,” Pierce said. “As much as legislators would like their constituents to know we care, the fact is we don’t have power to do much about it.”

While a nice thought, Reske’s proposed legislation is not only sort of feckless in and of itself — If you don’t do what we say, we’ll … um … make you keeping talking to each other? Yeah! — but the legislature likely has little power in this arena anyway.

So Reske scores a few cheap political points of the “I feel your pain” vein, while a majority of viewers remain left in the same predicament as before: Dish Network, DirecTV, a milieu of regional cable networks, or no IU basketball. Choose wisely, ITH-ers: your dollars are your votes. Milton Friedman would be proud.

Devin Ebanks, Derek Elston and Matt Roth, three players already committed to the Hoosiers, are slated to take in the festivities. Ebanks will be on his official visit while Elston and Roth will be on unofficial visits. Roth took his official visit alongside Tyler Zeller a couple of weeks ago. Zeller will be at Notre Dame this weekend and will finish his visits with a trip to Purdue next weekend.

Kevin Jones, from Mount Vernon (NY), will be on hand for his unofficial visit with his brother, Gerard. Jones is one of the final 2008 targets still on the board and is also considering Ohio State, West Virginia, UMass and Pittsburgh.

The 2009 class will also be well represented at Hoosier Hysteria. As I talked about a few weeks ago, Nolan Dennis, Lance Stephenson (pictured) and Dexter Strickland will all attend.

Lawrence North’s Stephan Van Treese, who recently visited Louisville and is being recruited by several other high major programs, will make the drive down from Indianapolis.

If you include Elston, five of the top 100 players in the 2009 class will be at Assembly Hall.

Other notable guests include Ray McCallum Jr., Jordan Prosser and Jacob Jenkins. Prosser, a 2009 forward from Goodfield (IL), has an IU offer and played with Indiana Elite and will attend per Midstatehoops. Jenkins, also a member of the 2009 class, is from Manual high school in Louisville and does not have an offer from IU. He was in the Rivals top 100 for 2009 but dropped out of the rankings after the summer.

Also, I’ve received a few e-mails asking about TV coverage of Hoosier Hysteria. The Big Ten Network is planning to have live reports from around the Big Ten beginning at 9:30 PM on Friday. Indiana will be one of the schools featured along with Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin.