Looking ahead to basketball

While hockey and football have been pretty miserable so far (I even heard that my high school is below .500 which is very rare), basketball season promises to be much better.

In the first pre-season basketball poll, Kentucky and Ohio State are ranked #2 and #3 behind North Carolina. Coach Cal believes that Terrence Jones is the best player in the country, and Jared Sullinger will likely have another big year.

The Kentucky women are picked to finish third in the SEC. I have not seen any national rankings yet for the women.

 

Finally, some wins

After losing their first 8 games of the season, and for a long time being the only team in the NHL without a win, the Blue Jackets beat Detroit last night 4-1. Steve Mason played up to potential for the first time this year, and looked a lot like he did in his rookie season. Another difference was that highly-touted defenseman James Wisniewski played his first game of the year after being suspended for the first 8 games.

Ohio State traveled to Illinois and won its first Big Ten game of the season. Illinois had several turnovers, especially late, and that made the difference. After a bye week, the Bucks play host to Wisconsin this coming Saturday.

A lot of us thought that Jacksonville State, one of the best teams in the OVC, had a real chance to beat Kentucky. But the Cats prevailed by 24 points.  Next up are home games against the Mississippi schools, both of whom are struggling this season.

October 22nd option expiration

Busy week, so I’m just now getting caught up on last week’s (October 22) options expiration.

I already tweeted about the WLT 75 calls expiring worthless. I then wrote 80 calls (expiring October 28).

I was short BEXP 25-strike calls so my shares were called away. Total profit +2.00. Those who had unencumbered long shares made a killing with the announcement of the takeover. I kind of hate to see BEXP bought out as it was a great stock for trading and option writing.

I was short JWN 46 calls, and so was assigned a short position in the shares. This position is hedged by a long position in January (2012) 35 calls. Profit on the written calls was +3.03.

The Misery Continues

The Blue Jackets lost their first 3 games, 2 of which were at home. They scored 2 goals in each game, and have given up 10 across the three games. I believe newcomer Vinnie Prospal is the only multiple goal scorer so far this season.

Kentucky continues to look worse and worse in football, having lost 54-3 in Columbia Saturday. On the defensive side of the ball the Cats look pretty good at times, but are on the field far too much each game.

Ohio State traveled to Lincoln and it appeared their offense awakened as they took a 27-6 lead on the Cornhuskers. But a collapse in the third quarter led to a 34-27 defeat.

The ham bands continue to be in pretty good shape, and in a few minutes I’ll be making a few contacts in the North American QRP CW Club Sprint contest.

There is no offense anywhere

The Buckeyes and Wildcats are struggling mightily this year, and the problem is a lack of offense. Neither team has won a conference game, and are a combined 5-5 overall. Ohio State will have some suspended players back in action for the next game. Both the Big Ten and SEC look pretty tough, so it will be a long year.

The Blue Jackets take to the ice Friday night for the first game of the 2011-12 season.

With the pick up in sunspots, propagation on the shortwave bands has been excellent lately. I have spent most of my operating time on the 12-meter band (24.9 MHz) and have had a number of enjoyable contacts.

The KY-QRP club had another “field event” at the Kentucky Horse Park yesterday, and you can see pictures to the right.