Hardwood…The Boring Kind

So I lived through six (6, for those who can only read numbers, which seems idiotic given that you can read the rest of these words, presumably) live-action college basketball games. I would write about them, but then this post would be doubly boring, and in two temporal spaces. So I will only use the past to sparingly flavor the future, the way I only use my man juices to sparingly flavor your mother’s mouth. Yessss (strokes chin approvingly and/or sexually).

So, because there aren’t enough people covering it, here’s a preview of the Sweet 16, done in order of individual teams I can think up jokes for:

Western Kentucky – One great player with a girl’s name (Courtney Lee), a good player with a black name (Tyrone Brazelton) and some other guys. In other words…a team. They beat a mid-major with a Korver on it, then another mid-major with no Kutcher look-alike. Congrats. Now they get UCLA. Wrap up the baby and throw it in the dumpster, this Southerner’s prom is OVER.

UCLA – Their ”best” player is a white guy who can draw fouls inside. They are my co-favorites to make the final/win the tournament. These facts are not unrelated.

North Carolina – Their “best” player is a white guy who can draw fouls inside. They are my co-favorites to make the final/win the tournament. These facts are not unrelated.

Xavier – Their PG is 5′7”, at best, and has two “variations” on his shot: a deep three when no one guards him, and a running floater (I call it a “teardrop” because it makes me cry to watch…and not in the “autistic kid making eye contact with House in the episode of House where the autistic kid makes eye contact with House” way). They have one other good player (Duncan) and spare pieces. I picked them to the Elite Eight, a pick I still agree with, and one which suggests something about this tournament and college basketball in general. Hint: It’s a thing….

West Virginia – Their “best” player is a white guy who shoots nothing but terrible fadeaways from 13 feet out. They are going to be beat by the team described above. These facts, too, are not unrelated.

Michigan State – They beat two teams from Pennsylvania, a feat almost certainly equalled by plenty of teams in the past. However, judging from the coverage of their upcoming match with Memphis (the number one team in the country entering the tourney, but now only slight favorites to win), it is also apparently a feat that Maurice AUGERS well for their future. (See what I did there…I took a guy from Michigan State’s past (Maurice AGER) and used his name as a pun for “predicts things for”…fucking brilliance). Anyway, they suck, and are boring. Luckily for them, Tom Izzo is an excellent coach and can probably point to a Memphis player and say “foul him.” Probably. I’m still taking Memphis.

Memphis – Hi kids! Do you like Memphis? (Yeah yeah!)
Wanna see Billy Packer stick a sharp knife through each one of his eyelids? (Uh-huh!)
Wanna copy Derrick Rose and do exactly like he did?
Try punching fans and get messed up worse than Joey Dorsey is?
His brain’s dead weight, he’s tryin to get his head straight
but he can’t figure out which stripper he wants to impregnate.
And John Calipari said “CDR, you wasted”
Uh-huh, so get him the ball, you fucking basehead.

Texas – Players on Texas >>> all other teams in country not named Kansas or “UCLA”
Rick Barnes <<<<< All other Coaches still in the tournament
Splitting the difference makes them a Final Four loser to Kevin “I don’t” Love “to look clean”

Louisville – Their “best” player is a white guy who can draw fouls inside AND passes well. They are my sleeper pick to make the final/win the tournament. These facts are not unrelated.

Stanford – Their “best” player is a white guy who can draw fouls inside. And his just-as-gaily-named brother is also on the team. Brook and Robin go home in a blaze of Texas 3’s and androgeny.

Davidson – His name is apparently pronounced “STEF an.” That’s really all I got. Focusing on names and colour of skin here, folks. This shit doesn’t always write itself.

Wisconsin – Probably the best team with absolutely no freaking shot of winning the title. So, uh, they got that going for them. If they were named the “Beavers” instead of the “Badgers,” that would be two things they had going for them. As it is, though, they really only have the one.

Villanova – I work with a kid who went to ‘Nova, and I live 25 minutes away from Philly. Just thought you should know.

Kansas – The team that likely has the best athletes, the best sense of playing as a team, and the most actually GOOD defenders who PLAY defense. They also have Bill “Rick Barnes” Self. I will lose money on them, and I will hold it against them for, say….at least 5 years.

Washington State and Tennessee – D    o    n    ‘   t      c     a   r    e…but for Phil’s sake: PENIS PENIS PENIS

The Unbearable Terpness of Being

Watching a live ESPN GameCast (on ESPN.com, brought to you by ESPN Sports on ABC) of a game between Wake Forest and my alma mater last night, I had a sudden, startling and partially crushing realization. I AM Maryland Basketball. No, not in the Nik Caner-Suckley way. Nor in the way that my best players through the past 5-6 years are: a Snakeman ala James Earl Jones in Conan: The Barbarian, a cross-eyed point guard who may or may not have punched a gay guy in the face for being gay, a guy whose best chance of getting a shot off in the NBA came in a car while driving near the White House, and the nephew of the mayor for the “Greatest City in America.”*

No, I mean it in the metaphorical way that people mean things when they are trying to come to a point, and want to use an inanimate object or non-sensical antecedent to obfuscate their point, albeit poetically. I mean it in the way that I could just have easily replaced the 200 words above with: “I am probably the most maddeningly inconsistent person I know.” But I didn’t, so now you will read through at least a few paragraphs stretching the limits of personification of a sports team, all to find out that the one sentence above, combined with a “I am also great at times” would have sufficed. So it goes. If that all becomes too boring, go look at this (warning, PDF), and realize your life could be more boring…you could find that page exciting, like I do.

So, Maryland. They’ve beaten UNC in Chapel Hill, and lost to the mighty Bobcats of Ohio (4th in the MAC, bitches!!!) in Comcast. They are 4-3 in road games in the ACC, but still rest firmly on the bubble to make the NCAA tournament. Even within games, they take 10 point leads, then piss them away with failed alley-oops and off-the-foot dribbling. (Note: That means dribbling the ball off one’s foot, not a white boy’s misbegotten attempt to use some version of “off-da-chain”….though of course if you read critically for context, you would know that, and wouldn’t need this note, moron)

Such is my life, and in all facets. I can be an extraordinary worker for extended periods of time. I finish in hours what takes others weeks. I routinely solve the long-standing problems of a team with 2-3 sentences delivered after minutes of thought. However, I also will sit around and blog about how great a worker I am when others around me are helping each other prepare for an enormous project vital to the continuation of our group. I take entire days off of real work to look for jobs and read about basketball similarities, but even then, I don’t DO those things particularly well or consistently.

Case in point: I own a fantasy baseball keeper team with Phil. We are defending champs (by “we,” I of course mean our pooled money, since I do 99% of the work and he bitches about Matt Holliday not even being a real person), and have a studly rotation of keepers that give us a leg up on competing again this year. I LOVE fantasy baseball, and am very good at it (those two are completely unconnected, I’m sure). I took a free trial of Amazon Prime in mid-January just so I could pre-order 9 different baseball books, at least half of which are in some ways predictative of the coming season. And yet…I have barely read the predictative books; I have started, but not completed, a spreadsheet that would make things easier for me to follow at the draft; and I have yet to formulate any sort of plan for the coming season, or sense of what others’ plans might be. The draft continues to approach, and I do nothing, hoping that Phil will somehow contribute, which is basically like risking my entire team on Cole Hamels staying healthy (if Phil even knew who Cole Hamels was).***

On a personal level, I have to assume that Laura and my friends have figured out that I will be a pretty average friend or lover, respectively (hah…that means I have sex with my friends, see), about 50% of the time, with the other half of the time clearly split between “careless douche” and the “greatest person in America.”** (Yeah, my asterisks are out of order…screw off) I also have to assume that this is probably a fucking annoying-as-hell trait. Luckily, today is not in the 25% of the time I don’t give a shit about your feelings.

Anyway, this post has no “catch,” or really a “point,” per se. Just a note that I am somewhat heavily invested in the Terps doing well the rest of the year, but not necessarily for the common reasons.

 UPDATE: Ouch.

*Everything written on street benches is 100% accurate, so I have no worries that Baltimore can fully back this claim up. Also, that Freddie both “wuz heer” and “sux dix.”

** I scrawled this on a park bench I passed in Baltimore today, so it is true.

*** Phil, this is what Cole Hamels’ ass looks like, just FYI. I know that’s how you remember men. See….’cause you’re gay!!!! Beware of any Steve Blakes in the area.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is an exciting time of the year for me, with two of my favorite “three-week spans” occurring nearly simulateously. Unshockingly, they both revolve around sports and are largely scoped by hatred. First up, the three weeks of every year that I look forward to the coming baseball season. Spring training starts, fantasy baseball drafts are held (and dominated by me), and there is promise that this season will be different…that this is the season where baseball is not ungodfully boring, where going to games means more than a sunburned neck and a stomach bloated with beer and hotdogs, where…well…where I actually LIKE baseball. I know it’s stupid, and that by the end of July, I will find it hard to care who is getting the most time at 2B for the Colorado Rockies, but for now, it’s comforting to think that baseball exists as anything but a soul-crushing game worth very little outside of number crunching fantasy. I might write again about (fantasy) baseball as the season nears, but for now, will focus on the second reason to love March:

 College basketball ends.

Put in its simplest form (which I will immediately complicate with words and “explanation”), this is how I view NCAAB:

College Basketball:Sports::Microcosm of X:X

Actually, that about does it so far as explanation goes. I LOATHE much about sports, but find they ultimately redeem themselves with some small bangle that sparkles my eyes. It’s like sports is an abusive, yet rich and good-looking boyfriend with a diamond necklace in his hand, and I am any woman ever. The NCAA tournament is a very, very shiny necklace.

It probably helps that my analogy holds true even during the trying months of college basketball (i.e. the REST of the season). I slavishly pine over regular season matchups, I look forward to special occasions (“THIS SATURDAY ON ESPN!!! #2 TENNESSEE AT #1 MEMPHIS….THEY’RE NOT JUST FIGHTING FOR TENNESSEE ANYMORE (ESPN)….THE SOUTH HAS RISEN AGAIN!!!!…WE MEAN THAT IN A NON-RACIST WAY!!!! ESPN!!!!”), and I know every hair on the back of my lover’s hand, even if it took getting slapped again and again with it.*

The NCAA tournament, then, is my day in the sun, when I can cart around my charming little lover, and everyone praises me for the choices I’ve made relationship-wise. All that being said, I have developed some coping mechanisms over the years, and learned a few things to make that day in the sun just a little bit brighter. And, because I’m this far into an extended post about a sport I openly hate, I will share them with you:

1.) White stars both a.) happen in college basketball and b.) are important in tournament success.

Their teams may not win the whole enchilada (I’m only trying to prepare you for the endless Tex-Mex references, since this year’s Final Four is in San Antonio…other phrases to slowly immunize yourselves for: any version of “Riverwalk” to discuss a traveling call, or a team’s passage to SA; “alamo” used in reference to a team making a valiant last-second stand, or really any time a team does anything; “deep in the heart of” used to refer either to long range shooting at the end of a shot clock, or a way of nicely saying that black players on the Final Four teams will mostly stay in their hotel rooms after dark, for safety reasons), but there will be one or two white led teams that way overachieve in the tournament and they will be, in hindsight, ridiculously easy to predict. Think Wallyworld time for Miami (Ohio) a few years (almost a decade now) back. Generally, these teams will have EXTREMELY good white players, but they will also a very good second or third player who can pick up the slack when the white guy gets tired, and they either play in terrible conferences where no one sees them, or achieve just above mediocrity in great conferences where more athletic teams dominate the coverage. Teams that fall under this category currently include: Stanford (hah…their parents named twins Brook and Robin…did they not know whether they were males?), Notre Dame, Butler (depends on their seed, really…if they get shafted with a 4 or 5 and end up in a bracket with Tennessee or Duke as the 1, I could see an Elite 8 appearance), St. Mary’s and Purdue. Teams that seem to fit this mold but actually suck: Vanderbuilt and Brigham Young. Hilariously, one of the teams I almost guarantee will not live up to expectations is Georgetown, who historically REFUSED to recruit or play white players, and who seems to have a reverse racist on its current roster.

P.S. I know that is not a picture of Wally Sczczczerebizak. It’s Todd MacCulloch, if you really have to know. He’s just a funnier picture than Wally.

2.) Teams whose success is tied to their “playing as a team” or “playing hard, scrappy defense” will not win…anything.

If you do not have at least 1 blue chipping college star, it will be nearly impossible to earn your seed. Failure to have at least one (and in most cases, 2 or more) NBA caliber players will doom you to watching Gus Johnson ejaculating all over himself about how a better team than you was just SPURred to eternal remembrance (his words, not mine) by a guy who is promising to forgo many millions of dollars in the coming months to get one more chance to lead his alma mater (if one calls a school they never graduated from an alma mater) to victory. (I DARE you to follow that sentence). Teams that should worry: Duke (who might also defy the white boy category above, but I think their two best players are Nelson and Henderson over Singler), Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Xavier. Teams that probably fit, but might still have a chance (read as: I irrationally love them for another reason): Louisville and Rhode Island.

3.) Don’t be Kansas.

Look, I know that Kansas has reached about a hundred consecutive Elite Eights, and people use that as an example of how they aren’t REALLY underachieving in the tournament, but…Kansas is routinely one of the best 2-3 teams in the country come tournament time, and they are almost always a top 2 seed. It’s been 5 years since they made the Final Four and 20 years since they won a tournament. In that time, they are the only MAJOR program (UCLA, Kentucky, Duke, UNC) to not go through some sort of slow period, and yet, they have nothing to show for it, while each of those other schools won at least one title. Teams that should worry about this: Kansas.

4.) Freshmen until the Final, older guards after that.

The final nugget for now (over 1100 words by the end of this, somehow) is probably pointless this year, since basically ALL teams are run in some non-negligible way by freshmen. However, it’s something to thnk about when filling out the last few bars in the pool, especially the very last. Greg Oden and Mike Conley lost to 5 guys who had been around the block before in the first year post-bullshit NBA draft rule. I expect something similar this year. Maybe something like Derrick Rose and Memphis losing to UCLA (guided by Kevin Love, true, but LED by Collison). I could also see Kansas State making a run to the final under this rubric, but can’t see them winning it all for the same reason.   

*This analogy is now sort of disturbing, both in the way I recognize my obsequience to college basketball and because I don’t believe that domestic violence is ever funny, or warranted. I mean, unless she REALLY deserves it, of course.