First off, good luck to the football team in Detroit. Due to my semi-retirement, I do miss covering the football side of things, but I still root hard and will do so on Tuesday.

Some thoughts on the upcoming Crossroads Classic. Wonderful concept, just way too long in coming. I applaud the coaching staffs and administrations of the respective schools for seeing this to fruition. What's not to like about a basketball event in downtown Indianapolis around the holiday season the ensures great play, energetic fans and national television coverage? Just makes perfect sense to me.

As anyone can imagine, it was a long bus ride home from Cincinnati on Saturday night. What almost turned out to be a spectacular week for the Purdue men's basketball team ended with a thud in the 66-63 loss at 11th-ranked Xavier.