A few things on my radar this afternoon:

Gary Baise Is a Straight Shooter – I met Gary for the first time at a joint session of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and the National Agri Marketing Association. He spoke about the role litigation plays in modern agriculture policy on a panel moderated by ABN Radio’s own Lindsay Hill. I interviewed Gary after the session, and discovered his blog at Farm Futures this morning. He’s one of my new “must reads.”

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Accelerated Depreciation Drawing to a Close – The Precision Pays blog reports that 2009 is the last year for 5-year depreciation of farm equipment, and suggests a few things to consider when making your tax planning decisions accordingly.

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The Buckeyes Can’t Quite Cinch a Comeback – I have a disdain for the North Carolina Tarheels that I really can’t quite explain. I like Coach Roy Williams well enough, so perhaps it’s my long-seated dislike of Michael Jordan that fuels my low opinion of the program. Either way, I was really gunning for the Buckeyes to take down the #4 Heels last night in Madison Square Garden. Alas, it was not to be.

Without a doubt, NC was the dominant team physically. They are a big, fast, deep team. In terms of size, almost every matchup was a mismatch in their favor. And while at times it seemed they couldn’t miss, the Buckeyes couldn’t buy a basket. Our best shooters has some of the poorest scoring efforts (in terms of percentages), but amazingly enough, they battled back from a near 20-point deficit to come within four at the buzzer.

The good news: we have the talent and ability to win a lot of ballgames. The bad news: we are a streaky team. It is true, I think, that basketball is more prone to being a “streaky” game than say, College Football, but those runs when our team was shooting nearly 20% from the field really put us in a place from where it was near impossible to battle back. I did see one thing I really liked, and that was letting P.J. Hill run the Point. Lindsay and I (she knows FAR more about College Basketball than I will ever learn) discussed this setup, which was forced by Evan Turner’s foul troubles, as a real plausible scenario. Turner, for all his amazing ability – he is one of the best athletes in the nation – seems a bit uncomfortable running the point.

I think, at times, we put the weight of the world on that kids’ shoulders. John Diebler, potentially our most potent offensive weapon (when he’s got the hot hand from behind the arc), put it this way: “We make it harder on Evan when we aren’t knocking shots down from the perimeter.”

And that was extremely evident last night. Our many, many outside weapons weren’t hitting at all from three-point land through the first thirty minutes of the ballgame, and consequently Evan Turner was continually attempting to force shots in the paint, or what one of the halftime guys called “Sherwood Forest.” That, certainly, was one of the main reasons this superstar committed 10 turnovers.

Bob Baptist, as always, has a great recap of the game, but since I stayed up WAY past my bedtime to watch the game (midnight is WAY past my bedtime by about two hours…), I felt I should at least comment…