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Having a hard time finding the 2014 brackets for the HOIC-McLean County basketball tournament . You are in luck.  Both Alan Look Photography and the N ormalite Newspaper have them!  - Chimper -

On January 11, 2014 Redbird Arena turned 25.  The Redbirds won their first game in the arena on that very same night.  The results were the same 25 years later with the Redbirds defeating the most recent addition to the Missouri Valley Conference and the two teams first such meeting.  The Loyola Ramblers are led by Porter Moser.  Moser, many will remember was the Redbird coach before Tim Jankovich.  Jankovich left and Dan Muller is now in his second year.  Final score of this game - 59-50. 20140111 Loyola Ramblers at Illinois State Redbirds Men's basketball photos - Images by Alan Look -Chimper -

20140105 Southern Illinois at Illinois State men's basketball photos - Images by Alan Look In the middle of a good old fashioned blizzard, Redbird Arena opened up for a Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball game between the Southern Illinois Salukis and the Illinois State Redbirds.  The crowd was sparse. The Redbirds led by as much as 18 points and ended up on top at the final buzzer 66-48. An errant scoreboard caused several minutes delay.

In their 1st conference game this season, the Illinois State Redbird women secured their 2nd win of the year giving them a 2-9 overall and 1-0 Missouri Valley Conference record.  The first half was highlighted by several 3 point nothing but net shots by Alexis Foley.  Foley led the Redbirds with 20 points in 33 minutes of play, followed by Octavia Crump with 17 points.  Drake's Kyndal Clark was the best in the game with 23 points in 34 minute of court time.  Final score was 80-71 20140103 Drake at Illinois State Women's Basketball photos - Images by Alan Look

I get it, but maybe not..., my tongue is in my cheek, but maybe not... If you are a NCAA basketball follower, you have undoubtedly seen the clip of Barry Hinson throwing was is being called a tirade after his Southern Illinois Salukis lost big to the Murray State Racers.  If you haven't seen the clip, snap over to Bing and google it.  I'm sure you will be able to find a couple hundred pagefuls of references. Not so fast.  I watched the clip and other than a bunch of sound bites that would be fun to edit into something even more meaningful, I didn't think it held a candle.  Considering some of my more favorite tiraders - Bobby Cox, Don Zimmer, and that guy from Indiana - o yeah, Bobby Knight, Barry was really pretty relaxed and witful (yeah, I know it isn't a real word) enough to come up with some pretty well thought out colorful PG rated language.  Besides, who ever mentions their wife once, let alone 2 or three times in a tirade about a men's basketball te...

Seems like most years the basketball season in Bloomington Normal for me starts with the Intercity Tournament.  This year it was a little bit different.  The ISU Men got my attention first, then the IWU Men.  Intercity Girls were third and then the Intercity Boys.  ISU and IWU Women have thus far eluded my schedule even though both have had home games.  Some weekends just don't seem to have enough days!  I'm sure everyone feels that. ISU had one in town Exhibition game at Redbird against Quincy.  It was a good opening.  The first IWU game I arrived at was against Aurora.  I believe I've seen all the intercity teams ( Bloomington Raiders, Normal Ironmen, Normal West Wildcats, UHigh Pioneers and Central Catholic Saints) for both genders.  I also got to cover a Bloomington Thunder ice hockey game against the Southern Professional Hockey League leaders, the Louisiana Ice Gators. It's only going to get busier, so watch for the galleries to...

This blog gets viewed by a lot of people world wide.  Most just stumble across it looking for, believe it or not, examples of how to make a Do It Yourself bandelero camera strap or a fresnel magnifier for a flash .  Some come here to take a look to see what sporting and other events I've recently shot.  All that is great, but how many of you have clicked on the link to my archive website and read my bio ?  I haven't looked at the stats for that page, but I'm guessing that it isn't high.  Really, who really cares?  I'm the same way.  Unless I'm find something really interesting on a website, I'm not going to just click on a bio link to find out about the person.  Our world just works that way these days. Let me bring you in closer a little.  Part of my bio explains that I like photography because I like to show things that we see every day, but really don't take the time to look at.  This post will explore a little of that. Nature i...