Eleven Dubcast

First off, and it can't be said enough, thank you all so much for donating to the Respect the Basement fundraiser. Your donations have enabled us to hire a beat writer and really raise the profile of Eleven Warriors in the blogging world. A beat writer will allow us to bring you the kind of content that we've always dreamed of providing, for free, and hopefully you're just as excited about it as we are.

And speaking of beat writers, on today's Dubcast we bring on the esteemed Bill Rabinowitz from the Columbus Dispatch. Bill's dog Lucy makes a cameo as well, but the real draw here is his insight into the inner workings of Ohio State football, and in this regard Mr. Rabinowitz doesn't disappoint.

Look, I love Jim Tressel, you love Jim Tressel, Bill Rabinowitz probably loves Jim Tressel and would say so if it didn't amount to a conflict of interest. But you've gotta admit, Urban Meyer is like a highly pressurized blast of fresh air into our collective faces, and Bill lets Sarah and I know just what has changed and what we can expect with the team going forward.

Finally, we bring back our popular(?) Ask Us Anything segment, in which you can do just that by either grabbing a hold of us on Twitter (not literally, please don't do that), or by sending us an e-mail at elevendubcast@gmail.com. We're both very smart, attractive individuals who love answering questions, so please send 'em on over!

Also Sarah was dogsitting for a friend, and they make a special guest appearance of their own. VIVA LOS PERROS.

Basketball is gone. Sad. Baseball is back! Yeah!

Such is the nature of this week's Dubcast; Johnny and Sarah are joined by 11W's own, Chris Lauderback, to help break down the recently expired OSU men's basketball season.

If you want to know what went wrong, what went right, what the real deal is behind Matta's foot, and how two well informed people plus one guy trying really hard to fake it feel about Sully and company's efforts on the court, sit down and have a listen.

FYI, the Dubcast is now entering into "Ol' Sleepy Bear" mode, meaning that things are going to slow down a bit here at podcast HQ (my apartment). Sarah and I will return after the Spring Game on the 21st, but after that we'll be a once a month affair until football ramps up again.

Because of that, however, we really want your input! Don't forget about our Ask Us Anything segment (where you can indeed ask us anything), but if you have any other questions, comments, or suggestions, let us know by sending an e-mail to elevendubcast@gmail.com. Thanks guys.

"So, five-card stud, nothing wild. And the sky's the limit."

Today Luke and Johhny tackle the upcoming Final Four game against Kansas with Steve Fetch from RockChalkTalk.com, but we also have some other business to address.

It's been a weird, awesome, hilarious year and half, which unfortunately is coming to an end as Luke Zimmermann is moving on from Eleven Warriors to his next epic hustle in life. Luke and I started this podcast with the intention of becoming award-winning superstars, loved by the old and young alike and invited to the most exclusive line dancing clubs Columbus has to offer.

We never really did make it past the bouncers, and I'm still an O and a T away from my EGOT, but who cares? I've even more fun doing this thing with Luke than I ever thought I would back in December of 2010. Along the way we've interviewed guys like Mo Clarett, Doug "The Thug" Lesmerises, Ken Gordon, Jim Jackson, and a ton of other writers, bloggers, and players that otherwise I know I never would've gotten the chance to speak to if it weren't for the Dubcast.

And Luke made it happen. By recording, editing, getting guests, and generally being way more witty and informative than me, he pretty much made the Eleven Dubcast what it is today: an occasionally listened-to slice of kickass. Rest assured, the Dubcast will continue on, but it won't be quite the same.

So, from myself and everyone else who listened and read his excellent writing over the years, thanks man, and happy trails.

It's been a somewhat surprisingly good week! The weather is warm (which Johnny secretly hates), birds are chirping, and Ohio State basketball has looked like their previous competent selves in two consecutive games. With Aaron Craft as our guide, OSU fans have every reason to be happy and optimistic.

Onward and upward we go this week, as Luke and Johnny discuss the finer things in life, like 7 dollar an hour jobs, transferring into OSU from another college, and perhaps most importantly, beating the University of Cincinnati Bearcats.

Joining us is the equally upbeat and confident Matt Opper from DownTheDrive.com, who can't help but be absolutely tickled at Cincinnati's recent success on the hardwood. Everyone's excited, everyone's cheerful, but someone has to lose. Find out who the gang thinks is going to pull it out on this week's Eleven Dubcast!

Spoiler alert: we think OSU will win.

Baby's first podcast!

With Luke away on important government business tracking down gun runners in the Rub' al Khali, Johnny is left to his own devices. His mission? To record, edit, and publish a podcast all by himself, for the first time ever. It's a tall task, but luckily his easily confused ass will be assisted by one Sarah Hardy, Eleven Warriors' resident all-around basketball guru.

In this episode they discuss OSU's run through the B1G tournament, why Big Ten teams might be on most teams' hit list during the NCAA's, that warm feeling you get in the cockles of your heart whenever Tom Crean is sad, and why Community is the smash hit of the mid-March (in terms of shows once thought to be cancelled but then not cancelled).

So sit down, stay a while, try and not begrudge my horrible editing skills too much! It's the best Eleven Dubcast ever, at least until the next one.

So what's the deal with consensus preseason Top 5 basketball teams mentally checking out, showing no signs of cohesion or unity, and little care for anyone other than themselves anyway?

Ohio State's men's basketball team has left much to be desired of late. And yet, given the sheer talent of this group, could very conceivably still win the national title. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except the illusion of control is false and all endings result in death/losing in the Sweet 16. Wait, wasn't that like *most* of the Choose Your Own Adventure books?

In order to scope out our deterministic fate, we welcome in a Dubcast double step (/head slap) of authority on Ohio State's next (and final) two regular season opponents. Will Northwestern be just or just Northwestern? Will Sparty party hard or merely hardly Sparty party? All this and famed internet denizen Johnny Ginter and I talking over each other.

83-67. How you like them apples, Bruce? Last night's Ohio State victory over the free falling Illini certainly gave us if but one fleeting moment where we felt like everything was right in the world again... Or did it?

As much as a nice #BEATEMDOWN can warm the soul and make one feel some genuine purpose in their lives, in the same light, it also points out the maddening inconsistency and high variance in effort as demonstrated by the group throughout the course of the last several months.

Just in time for your newly minted onset melancholy, we bring you a Wisconsin-Ohio State-centric podcast! Remember how mad the Badgers make you? Yeah, us too.

This week's edition of the Dubcast casts a wide net but stays mostly around international waters (you know, so we can stage our unregulated, anything goes little people mixed martial art bouts) heavily populated with the topic of this weekend's forthcoming Ohio State-Michigan: Redux basketball event. In order to address the contest with any sort of expertise, we welcome in Alex Cook of the newly rechristened Maize 'n Brew to share his expertise on the matters at hand.

National Signing Day. It's just like if college football decided to stage it's own Super Bowl but it wasn't actually a game and instead was a bunch of athletic eighteen year olds filling out paper work and sending them via facsimile machines. I jest; the day where hope springs eternal for every team in the land (and we can safely emphasize 'Spring' with the likes of Midland, Texas getting more aggregate snow fall than Minneapolis or Chicago this "Winter *knocks on wood from ancient Indian burial ground*) has come and gone, and with it so has any trepidations about the future of the Ohio State football program.

Despite adopting a class many felt earmarked for fringe Top 20-Top 25 status, the take-no-prisoner new regime of Urban Meyer drop the mic having hauled in a consensus top 5 nationally recruiting class. 'Sup, Brady?

In order to pay the occasion the grand attention it deserves, Johnny and yours truly dive right in into the day that was. We also welcome in the phenomenal Marc Givler of BuckeyeGrove.com infamy to provide some expert analysis on the class, give us the latest on the Davonte Neal situation, as well as give us a look ahead to the best of the 2013 recruiting class. Signing Day'd out or not, you'll want to book end your experience with this podcast.

The Ohio State Men's Basketball Team this past week delivered the force of a thousand suns in laying waste to B1G cellar dwellers Nebrasketball and Penn State. Wednesday night's action went roughly as follows:

"Sorry, Penn State. We know you've had a tough week and all but, um, we got you this 24 point loss. We forgot to get a gift receipt. Sorry about that."

With the tyrannous empire of northern ill contempt looming on the horizon, Aaron Craft seems finally to be returning to form and who knows, maybe we could soon be watching a renaissance of The WB.

Alas, that's not why many of you are here. That's not why even those amongst us (present company included) that don't eat, sleep, and breathe recruiting have a purpose for the next week. National Signing day looms ominously with but a week to go for Urban Meyer to continue to make head coaches around the country both lose sleep and require weekly consultations with Dr. Paul Weston.

In order to get the straight dope and get you covered on all things recruiting, we welcome back 11W's Senior Editor and Director of Scouting/Recruiting, Alex Gleitman. While we certainly care about the future of the program and love to celebrate little victories as much as the next, Johnny nor myself are anything close to what you could call recruiting experts. After having taped this edition of the podcast, both of us were infinitely better for it, and you will be too for having listened.

The Eleven Dubcast rides again.

The second full week sans the sweet, sweet nectar of football is upon us and consequently we do everything we can to starve off resorting to cannibalism this early in the process. Ohio State did their part by taking a disappointing week before and converting it into a satisfying #BEATEMDOWN of the once mighty Indiana Hoosiers.

For the second time in as many weeks, Johnny and yours truly get deep and introspective as we seek out all of the answers to the universe -- or at least pretend we have them. Whether you love to learn or love to laugh, the probability is high that there's something for you in the hills of that there podcast, I reckon.

We also look forward to the awkward second date with Bill Nebrasky. Sorry about that whole 71-40 thing last time but... Would you mind if we went to your place this time and had the exact same outcome play out? I'd promise it's not like this every time, but... The basket-Bucks never claimed to be good ambassadors for the conference or anything. As per usual, the affair ends with us dramatically performing a real user's comment we deemed to be particularly engaging. Could it be you? There's only a 1-in-a-number-higher-than-either-you-or-I-is-comfortable-counting chance.

The Eleven Dubcast is back. Women and children first in this edition, as the #trollgaze'ing-est college football season on record is finally laid to rest. Ohio State had a fairly unsatisfying basketball week as well really not finding themselves until the second quarter against Iowa and never really asserting themselves in Champaign. I was saying "Boo-urns". While losing is never fun, you know what else isn't? Ignorance. In an attempt to sate our collective quest for knowledge, Johnny and I open ourselves up, dig deep, and attempt to answer the most important questions in the universe. We also preview the forthcoming grudge match with the Indiana basketball Hoosiers. Kill it (with fire, preferably). As has become the tradition of late (two is a trend; three is forever), we also read an actual readers' comment on air. Job well done, comrades. If this is your first time experiencing this you're about to experience something so cold.

2011 was forgettable. Not just in a like "man, that could've gone better" sense, but in a "HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS GOOD THAT WAS JUST THE WORST' sense. To bury it properly, Johnny and myself kick things off by rehashing the Gator Bowl. Did you turn it off early? Ordinarily this would merit your very character being questioned. That particular Monday afternoon? Maybe not so much. We also recap a crappy weekend that was in Buckeye hoops. Conveniently Bill Nebrasky cures what ails for most (and how).

While Ohio State may not any more games, that hardly means college football's biggest prize doesn't still remain. To bring in some perspective specific to the two teams playing for college football's national title, we welcome in Roll Bama Roll's C.J. Schexnayder. C.J. joins us in discussing how the title fight edition of the rematch will relate to its predecessor, a few key personnel match ups to keep an eye on, and even what happens if Alabama wins but not impressively. Finally, we pick his brain as someone who saw Urban Meyer in two #1 vs #2 SEC Championships what Ohio State fans can expect from their new head man (as well as if there are any 'gotchas' Ohio State should be concerned about with respect to the Buckeyes' new head coach).

Finally, we talk about the remaining bowl games. College football's 2011 season? We won't miss you.

Bowl season is in full swing and after at long last taking our medicine from the NCAA, we can move on to discussing Ohio State's pending bowl swan song for the next two seasons. Of course naturally we must first air our grievances with one Gene Smith before then moving on to start to break down how we see Ohio State's contest with Florida playing out.

In order to really get the inside angle on what the 2011/12 Florida Gators bring to the table, we welcome in the Orlando Sentinel's Rachel George. Rachel discusses what makes 2011 different from the latter stages of the Meyer era, what happened with Chris Rainey/Jeff Demps and the Gator offense, as well as where John Brantley is developmentally in relation to expectations going into his career. She also discusses what to expect game plan wise with Charlie Weis bound for Kansas, defensively what (if anything) Florida can do to curtail Ohio State's rushing offense, and more names to know on both sides of the ball as the game draws nearer.

Finally, Johnny and I pay lip service to the number two ranked nationally basketball team (in the interest of time; <3 u Sully & co.) before running through the remaining Big Ten bowls and a few other choice match ups that caught our attention.

For the second time in as many weeks, we also humor you (and ourselves) by performing an emphatic reading of a bonafide comment fresh from the pages of the 11Wtariat. Could it be you? Listen and see.

Good Thursday, 11Wtariat. We're but one day to go in the week before when office's customarily observe Christmas Day. That means you've probably already mailed it in. What better way to make it official than to spend the next hour of your life listening to the latest Eleven Dubcast?

This week's episode begins with a terse but acknowledging hat tip to last weekend's less than rewarding loss to Kansas. For all intents and purposes, we'll chalk that one up as an exhibition contest and move on with our lives. Can this team wins without Jared Sullinger in the long term should his back issues flair back up again? Conveniently it probably won't matter as long as he's good to go by the end of a very meaty conclusion to conference play.

To really dig deep on everyone's favorite topic of the moment (one: Meyer, Urban F.), we bring in Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples. Andy served as a beat writer during Meyer's first 3 years in Gainesville and also has the unique vantage point of being not only a national college football writer/personality, but also is a former University of Florida football player. We discuss what we can expect in the early stages of the Meyer regime, whether the spoils of Monday & Tuesday with respect to recruiting will represent the norm or just a temporary flash in the pan, as well as what (if anything) we can expect from January 2nd's Gator Bowl. Lastly we dish on the BCS title game and what possible outcomes represent and most importantly, delicious, delectable barbeque.

Lastly, Johnny and myself dish on our thoughts on Urbz' poach-a-palooza and what's to come for the basketball team. Please to enjoy. BONUS: We're pleased to introduce a special new running feature at the end of the program where we do dramatic readings of a real life, unaltered 11W comment that catches our eye for any variety of reasons. Be the shining golden statue of liberty that you are and it could net your words being performed by one of us two. Exclesior!

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