B5Q Blogopean Union: B1G Media Days are over; football starts soon!

Good morning! This is going to be a daily(ish) post that discusses the goings on of the rest of the Big Ten Conference, and the country as needed. Much like the European Union, the Big Ten is a loosely confederated group of entities that sometimes have the same goals (like free movement of people between countries or not winning national titles in football or basketball) and sometimes accept new members that they later regret (Estonia or Rutgers).

We hope that you will use this post to comment on things happening around the conference and also as a sort of daily open thread to discuss breaking news or argue about Spotted Cow.

• Wisconsin Badgers basketball legend Ethan Happ will be starting his professional career overseas for Greek powerhouse Olympiacos.

Happ will be playing in both the domestic Greek League as well as the continental EuroLeague and will be coached by David Blatt, formerly of Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

There is also this added bonus of Happ playing in Europe:

Nothing better than searching for suspect Russian feeds of a Zalgris/Olympiacos EuroLeague game in order to watch Nigel guard Happ in garbage time!

• The Midwest Messi, Rose Lavelle, was honored in her hometown of Cincinnati last week.

It has got to be pretty cool returning to where you grew up as a world dang champion, especially when you make it to Skyline before it closes.

This blogs official stance is “Skyline is gross” but for Lavelle, we may be willing to revisit this.

• Big Ten Football Media Days were this past Thursday and Friday and if you were following along with our man Tyler Hunt, you were kept abreast of all the goings on down in Chicago. Just in case you missed anything, here is his Day 1 recap, his Day 2 recap, his sit down with Joel Klatt of FOX Sports and his story on how amazing Jonathan Taylor is. It should be noted that Taylor thinks you’re pretty awesome too.

• A couple more Badgers made preseason watch lists for major end of season awards.

• I was able to interview former Badgers point guard Jordan Taylor last week about playing in The Basketball Tournament and the Wisconsin Alumni team proceeded to get upset in the first round.

I don’t think it was entirely my fault...but I also didn’t do anything to help the team win soooooo.

• I’d have to imagine one of the benefits of playing hockey at a school like Wisconsin is seeing all of the success that former players have had right in front of your face.

• Bad things never happened at Penn State when Joe Paterno was in charge. Smh James Franklin. TWO players suspended until fall practice starts???? Embarrassing.
• Nebraska already in damage control mode about winning the Super Bowl this year.

• Fuck It, Carl, I Don’t Know was my favorite Game of Thrones character. Ohio State’s special teams are going to bad this year if Matt Barnes is any indication.

• How do the returning players for Northwestern stack up with the rest of the division?
• Rutgers has a new stadium name and...well...it stinks.
• Jim Harbaugh wants to play a game in another country. That’s cool I guess, but why stop there? Play Purdue on the moon, coward!
• IU is getting worse at shooting threes as the rest of the world is putting more emphasis on it. Seems...bad.
• Speaking of college hoops, I don’t know if we touched on this when it came out about a month ago, but Joe Lunardi does not have Wisconsin in the field of 68 currently. Yikes.
• Are we really going to realign the divisions again? I can’t even remember who is a Leader and who is a Legend!
• Let’s end this morning with a note on All-B1G center Tyler Biadasz from our own offensive lineman, Owen Riese.