Yesterday, in my preview...

...of the St. Ignatius - Morton game, I wrote about the Wolfpack:

They had their scare Friday night when they needed overtime to defeat Kenwood after leading the Broncos by 18 points at the end of the third quarter. Coach Rich Kehoe won't let that happen again.

This morning, Bob Narang began his recap in the Tribune by writing (my emphasis):

Morton senior forward Weisner Perez did the heavy lifting early in the fourth quarter Wednesday against St. Ignatius.

Senior forward Tony Haley provided the thunder.

Perez scored eight of his game-best 21 points in the fourth quarter, and Haley added a thundering two-handed dunk to spark an 18-1 run to close the game, leading Morton to a 58-44 win against No. 17 St. Ignatius in a Class 4A Morton Sectional semifinal in Cicero.

What is it with these guys and giving up 18 points in the fourth quarter? (Morton actually outscored the Wolfpack, 24-9, in the final period.)

Trailing by one after the first quarter, Ignatius was up by six points at halftime and one at the end of three. In fact, Morton didn't take the lead again until about four minutes left in the game.

What happened? Was it coaching? Was it youth? (Morton started five seniors; Ignatius, in contrast, is a young team.) Was it home court advantage? (Morton's fans really showed up; I was impressed.) Or were the Mustangs just the better team last night? I'll let fans who know more about basketball answer those questions.

As for me, I was kicking myself for not allowing more time. When I finally saw the school it was even more impressive than I had imagined. I wish I'd had more time to take pictures. (I will definitely be back, though; besides the school itself, the area immediately surrounding it -- as well as Cermak and Roosevelt Roads -- has a ton of interesting architecture. I have to admit, the home of Al Capone was much nicer than I had expected.)

The only picture I took was that vanilla one at the top of this post. The Ignatius student body has the annoying habit of standing the entire time in the middle section of the bleachers, making it nearly impossible to watch the game sitting down. Why don't they pick one side of the court or the other like everyone else? Oh, well.

My final thought is that Morton, according to the IHSA website, is not only the largest school in the state -- 8327 students! -- but the largest by a lot. (Waukegan is next with 4402; that's only about half as big.) From Wikipedia -- where else? (my emphasis):

Since 1986, Morton West and Morton East have operated a unified athletics program, recognized by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) as Berwyn-Cicero (Morton). From 1958-85, Morton West had its own athletic program.

Time to split them up again?

It was a good game last night and a fitting end to my (abbreviated) high school basketball season. Now bring on spring!

The Tom Toles cartoon of the day:

Frank Bruni has a good column...

...in the Times this morning, "Hillary's Prickly Apologia," in which he says:

But the real problem with the news conference wasn’t anything specific that she said or didn’t say, any particular tone of voice or set of her shoulders that she aced or bungled.

It was what kept coming to mind as she stood before the cameras once again, under fire once again, aggrieved once again by Americans’ refusal to see and simply trust how well intentioned and virtuous and good for the country she is:

Yesterday.

It was all so very yesterday.

And elections are about tomorrow. Yes, that’s a cliché, but it’s also unassailable political truth.

And Clinton’s challenge is to persuade an electorate that has known her since the Mesozoic era and trudged wearily with her through so much political melodrama that to vote for her is to turn the page, to embrace a new chapter, to move forward.

And Bruni's right -- to a point. Hillary's Hillary and the Clintons are the Clintons and none of that is going to change. If she's elected -- as I expect she will be -- the Clinton White House, Part II, will be full of scandals and drama and everything else one would expect from the nation's most famous and controversial power couple. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

But I don't think any of that will prevent Mrs. Clinton from winning in 2016. Even if Jeb Bush isn't the nominee (and all signs point to his being the GOP standard-bearer), Hillary will win because it will be -- once again -- a referendum on President Obama. And, as much as Republicans can't believe it, the nation will choose him over any of the GOP's candidates. Why? Because they've done it twice before and the economy may be even better next time than last.

Just as George H. W. Bush was elected as a proxy for Reagan's "third" term, so will Hillary be elected to serve Obama's "third" term. (Just keep those good jobs numbers coming in.)

I'll be at Morton East...

...in Cicero tonight to see the home team Mustangs host the Wolfpack from St. Ignatius in the sectional semifinals. The winner will take on No. 1-seed Riverside-Brookfield on Friday.

That's Chodl Auditorium, above, built in the Beaux-Arts style in 1925. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it seats over 2,500 and has a stage large enough to serve as a basketball court. But I expect the game will be played in a gym of some sort. 

If the name Morton rings a bell, maybe it's because the school, founded in 1894, was named after J. Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day who served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland. No? Nothing? Crickets?

Okay, how about this? Morton's son, Joy Morton (Joy?), was the founder of the Morton Salt Company and the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. Small world, huh?

As far as the game tonight (oh, yeah -- that), the No. 9-seed Mustangs upset both De La Salle, 64-58, and Whitney Young, 65-64, to get here. Ignatius, for its part, defeated Proviso East, 56-47, and upset Kenwood in overtime, 65-64, for the right to play in the semis. (For my take on that last one click here.)

So who wins this one? I don't know. Morton has a basketball tradition dating back to at least 1927 when it won something called the "Interscholastic Championship of the United States," organized by Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago. But the Mustangs last won an Illinois state championship in 1941, when my dad was still in college. (I haven't found any famous basketball players among Morton's alumni, although Joe Mantegna* attended in the mid-1960s.)

The Mustangs are 16-11 and ranked No. 71 in the state by MaxPreps. They lost to Kenwood, 74-72, back in December but beat Proviso East, 74-58, just a couple of weeks ago.

St. Ignatius, which is known more for its academics than its athletic teams, is 22-8 and ranked No. 37 in the state by MaxPreps. The Wolfpack split with De La Salle, losing 52-48 in January but besting the Meteors a few weeks ago, 60-56.

So, again, who emerges victorious tonight? Despite playing on Morton's home court, I'm going to go with the Wolfpack. They had their scare Friday night when they needed overtime to defeat Kenwood  after leading the Broncos by 18 points at the end of the third quarter. Coach Rich Kehoe won't let that happen again. As for Morton, I'm afraid their Cinderella run may be coming to a screeching halt tonight. That last-second, one-point upset over Whitney Young on Friday may turn out to be the highlight of their season. (And it's a good highlight.)

If you can't make the game tonight, I'll be live-tweeting it @BoringOldWhtGuy. Otherwise, I'll see you there!

* If all you know about Joe Mantegna is his "work" in The Godfather Part III (one of the truly worst movies of all time) and as the voice of Fat Tony on The Simpsons, do yourself a favor and watch him in three David Mamet films, House of Games, Things Change and Homicide. You won't be disappointed. (Why haven't these movies gotten more attention?)

Senator Lindsey Graham, who's...

...considering a run for the White House, admitted on Sunday that he has never sent an email:

"I don't email. No, you can have every email I've ever sent. I've never sent one. I don’t know what that makes me."

How about: Disqualified from the presidency?

I'm not entirely joking. This guy doesn't have a brother or a friend who emails him?

And what does Senator Graham claim is his reason for never sending an email? It prevents him from saying "the first dumb thing that comes to mind."

Now, that can't possibly be. Have you ever seen this guy on TV? In the video above, for example, Graham finishes a rant by saying, "Before we all get killed back here at home."

No, Graham says "dumb things" all the time.

So what's the real reason he's never sent an email?  Is it because, as a United States Senator, Graham has lived a particularly sheltered life? Just listen to what his buddy John McCain -- another senator -- said back in 2006:

"I'm a Neanderthal—I don't even type. [My wife is] just a wizard. She even does my boarding passes—people can do that now. When we go to the movies, she gets the tickets ahead of time. It's incredible."

(No wonder President Obama was in such a hurry to get out of the United States Senate -- it reminds me of my mother's seniors' residence.)

Can you imagine being so cosseted from everyday American life that you have never sent an email? What else has Senator Graham never done, his own laundry? The grocery shopping? How could he expect to lead the country when he's so removed from the average person's experience?

The real email scandal here isn't that Hillary Clinton used her own server; it's that a senator who is seriously considering running for president has never sent one in the first place.

An article in the Times...

...last week about the impact of exercise on one's health, "One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t," got me to thinking on a different subject, that whole "Nature vs. Nurture" debate.*

From the piece (my emphasis): 

Identical twins in Finland who shared the same sports and other physical activities as youngsters but different exercise habits as adults soon developed quite different bodies and brains, according to a fascinating new study that highlights the extent to which exercise shapes our health, even in people who have identical genes and nurturing.

And genetics and upbringing matter when it comes to exercise. Genes affect our innate endurance capacity, how well we respond to different types of exercise, and whether we enjoy working out at all. Childhood environment also influences all of this, muddying the results of even well-conducted exercise experiments. 

All of this makes identical twins so valuable. By definition, these pairs have the same DNA. If they were raised in the same household, they also had similar upbringing. So they can provide a way to study the effects of changes in lifestyle among people with the same genes and pasts. 

Same nature, same nurture -- but different outcomes. So that settles it then; we all have free will, right? Not so fast:

The researchers were looking for young adult identical twins in their early- to mid-20s whose exercise habits had substantially diverged after they had left their childhood homes. These twins were not easy to find. Most of the pairs had maintained remarkably similar exercise routines, despite living apart.

And the sample size was small: 

But eventually the researchers homed in on 10 pairs of male identical twins, one of whom regularly exercised, while the other did not, usually because of work or family pressures, the researchers determined.

Of course, the study was small and not a formal randomized trial, although it involved identical twins.

But, still: 

More subtly, the findings also point out that genetics and environment “do not have to be” destiny when it comes to exercise habits, Dr. Kujala said. For these particular twins, whether their genes and childhoods nudged them toward exercising regularly or slumping on the couch, one of the pair overcame that legacy and did the opposite (for better and worse). 

The debate goes on...

* Right now I'm about 90 percent nature, 10 percent nurture.

Have the recent scandals...

...involving Hillary Clinton's email account and/or the fundraising practices of the Clinton Foundation changed the outlook for the 2016 presidential race? Not yet.

In fact, according to Paddy Power, Ms. Clinton's odds of winning have remained steady at 6/5 while Jeb Bush's have actually deteriorated since we last checked, from 5/2 to 4/1. (Marco Rubio and Scott Walker are way back at 10/1.)

How about PredictWise? Mrs. Clinton's percentage has dropped from 48.3 to 43.9, but Jeb's has also declined, from 17.3 to 16.3. (Rubio's is 7.1; Walker's is 6.6.)

So it still looks like Hillary's race to lose.

While we're at it, how about the Republican nomination? When we last checked, Paddy Power had Jeb Bush leading the field at 6/4 odds, with Marco Rubio (9/2) in second and Scott Walker (5/1) in third. But now the race looks like this:

Jeb Bush (2/1)
Scott Walker (7/2)
Marco Rubio (9/2)

Walker has also moved up to second place from third on PredictWise:

Jeb Bush (28.9%)
Scott Walker (16.4%)
Marco Rubio (15.7%)

So what's changed in the last couple of weeks? Walker has overtaken Rubio for second place in the GOP race, but Hillary still beats Jeb.

P. S. Wouldn't it be great to see Bibi Netanyahu go down next Tuesday after last week's stunt? Don't count on it. PredictWise has him at 80 percent chance to win.