New York City Toughness.

Anybody else sick of hearing about "New York City toughness"??? How many times have they talked about that this game? "He's tough. He's physical. He's tough and physical." Shut it.  It's serious bullshit. I hate Jay Bilas. 

Because I'm from the midwest, I can't be tough or physical. Instead, I would have "fundamentals." But because they're from NYC- in Jay Bilas' mind- they have that "New York City toughness."

And then there were 8

Pretty disappointing games today--other than the KU/MSU game (which was decided by a free throw contest), the games were blowouts: a 21- and 39-pt game, as well as the 13-pt Oklahoma win that seemed like 20+. Still, some great matchups over the next two days. I'd love to see a Louisville/UConn Final Four matchup--they're playing the best of anyone in the tourney right now.

Tough to see Kansas get knocked out of the tourney, but they've overachieved all season and return everyone next year. While watching the game, I lost an online scrabble match in similar fashion--jumped out to big early lead, fought off a furious comeback, only to fade late and lose on a last-round move. Devastating. I know how you feel, guys.

A few notes:

• What's the deal with Gillispie running away from tv cameras? That was weird. Pretty sweet offices though.
  
• Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps won't stop yelling at each other right now.
• I went to a job fair today, except no one was hiring. Doesn't that make it more of a "walk around and awkwardly talk with people" fair?
  

Here's what it looks like when you jump so high you have to worry about hitting your head on the backboard. Luckily, that's one thing I can cross off my list of "things I'll never have to worry about ever in my entire life"

On to the second set of games

Finally, a real game--those last two were snoozers. Louisville by 39?!? Wow. At least we got to watch the brothers Griffin destroy Syracuse (for the record, Deebledouche went 3-12), with Blake having approximately 83 monster dunks including one where he hit his head on the backboard. The backboard. Awesome. Hopefully he'll smash one on Hansborough's hey-yud on Sunday.

The last inflatable-mascot video was such a hit that I had to steal another one from Club Trillion. Seriously, if you haven't read that blog at all, check it out. And make sure you watch this video to the end.

He's back!

I had a student/faculty dinner last night, which I bailed from early to catch the games. We went to a bar around the corner with the clever name "Drinker's," where they serve 40s. Yes, 40s. It was a mix of Jersey guys (see above) with frosted tips and a bunch of guys in white suits with neck tattoos, who I'm guessing were celebrating their friend getting out of jail. One of the guys had a Phillies "P" on his adam's apple, which means he either never wants to get a job or he's okay with wearing turtlenecks to interviews. They turned out to be pretty nice guys for the most part, but I was still happy to have 6'8" Stacy in our crew.

Anyway, huge win by Pitt, and I'm still amazed that Fields can hit such big shots on a regular basis. Once again, Sam comes up big and single-handedly keeps Pitt in the game, they make a big second-half run, and crank up the D when they had to.

I'll be watching from home tonight, so I'll do a better job of contributing to the blog. As I type, Deebledouche and Rautins are a combined 1-13 and they're down 10. If they don't heat up in the 2nd half, this could be a blowout.

Reason #57 I love Goshen Indiana.

Front page of the Goshen News is a story about a man who was sentenced for 12 years for attempting to rob the local Taco Bell- drive thru style. Using a pellet gun and a ski mask, LeBrian Pates demanded cash from the attendant at the drive thru window. The attendant closed the window, and called police. He was caught a few miles away. LeBrian told the judge "he wasn't thinking clearly." Really? Oh really? Well no shit. 

My take on what happened- Ol' Boy got bombed, and went for some late night tacos (We've all been there before), and got there and realized he had no money, but he had a pellet gun. Good thinking LeBrian. On a sidenote, that is an incredible name. Can you start calling me LeBrian?

When searching for images of Pyscho T, this is what came up...

An 18 year old has secretly painted a 60ft drawing of a phallus on the roof of his parents 1 million pound mansion in Berkshire. It was there for a year before his parents found out. 

Week 2, Night 2!!!

Back in action. And it's Friiiiiiidaaay. I'll get right to it. Here' my predictions for the night (if you didn't notice, I went 4 for 4 last night. I'm that good.)

• Louisville over Arizona. The Ryan Stiffney led Wildcats give Pitino and the boys all they can handle, but Louisville's press is too much to handle. 
• Blake Griffin over Syracuse. Here's the scenario I'm really looking for: Blake Griffin vs Eric Devendorf  on a breakaway. Blake soars and absolutely posterizes Douchendorf, then hangs on the rim and tea-bags Douchendorf. D-bags, crying his eyes out, dejectedly flexes his "muscles" one more time, and retires from basketball forever. Blake's brother goes crazy.
• Kansas over Michigan St. Rock Chalk Jayhawk. Nothing else clever here.
• Gonzaga over UNC. Upset of the tournament! Josh Heytvelt channels the spirit of Axel Dench, and just dominates Tyler Hansbrough. Psycho T ends his "amazing" college career with a rage of emotion not seen since he got smacked in the nose in the Duke game.

Snacks, Part 2.

So it turns out snacks for the second weekend of hoops is a little bit different, because, well, I'm at my parents house. Luckily I went shopping before the game, so I'm currently enjoying a cheeseball. And it's fantastic. Also, since I'm in Indiana, in honor of the Schrock household, I got a box of Chicken in a Biskit Crackers. If you've never had them, do yourself a favor and a pick up a box. They're crackers that taste like chicken.... I guess..

And Pitt goes through....

Fields comes up huge in the last minute of the game! They continue to find ways to win close games. Big East puts two teams into the Elite Eight, and 1 into the Final Four (Irish NIT). I'm about to go get some snacks. 

Yet another reason I hate Purdue

Because I'm in Indiana, I have to watch Purdue. Ughhhh. Ok, I guess its not that big of a deal, but since I hate them, I had to take the opportunity to complain. 

I did however watch the first half in my parents hot tub, which was a fun experience. When big plays happened I would jump and splash around for added effect. You have to do things like this when watching the madness by yourself. I think my parents thought I was drowning. 

On that note, Purdue's only down 4 with 11 to go. They're clearly channeling the spirit of this guy- Brian Cardinal.

Week 2, Night 1!!!

And we're back again. This weekend promises to have some great games, as all of the top seeds prevailed, making for some fantastic match-ups. Unfortunately, we will not be covering the action to you from our living room. James will be, and I will be providing updates from the home state of hoops, Indiana. Speaking of which, I'll also be blogging about my experience at the Notre Dame- Kentucky game I went to last night. For now though, since the action has already begun, here are tonight's picks-

• UCONN over Purdue- Suck it Boilermakers. Actually, I hate both teams. One's just clearly better, and that's Calhoun's Huskies. How awesome is it going to be when the NCAA brings down recruiting sanctions against them and they are forced to suck for years? The answer, awesome. 
• Pitt over Xavier- Pitt could easily be the first 1# seed to get knocked out if they don't figure out how to handle a press. I think that last weekend was a wake up call though, and they remember the basics of basketball and pull out a tough one. I'm really looking forward to some big Sam Young dunks here.
• Villanova over Duke. I'm torn on this one. Seriously, I'll probably change it a couple times. I'm expecting a great game regardless.
• MIZZOU over Memphis. I've been waiting for Memphis to lose. Tonight's the night. 

Runner-up

The dream has died. We finished the year with one loss, unfortunately in the final game of the year. It was a tough matchup against the #2 seed, but we couldn't overcome the loss of two important teammates and ended up losing by 5 or so (and by "or so" I mean probably more like 7). We got good looks but our shots weren't falling, and I couldn't get my outside game going. Our lock-down defense and tenacious rebounding kept us in it, but it was too big of a mountain to climb. A valiant effort that fell a little short. It all happened so fast--the bright lights, the Palestra packed to the rafters with literally dozens of fans...it's captured best in the words from one of the best songs in the history of music:

But time is short
and the road is long
in the blinking of an eye
ah that moment's gone

One shining moment...

I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game....

...in my book, we're gonna be winners!

A little something to help you get hyped for the big Championship tonight:



Well, our fallen solider had to have a double-root canal last night, followed by oral surgery today, and needless to say he's out for tonight's Championship. We'll be wearing black armbands in remembrance of the price he paid to lead us to the promised land.

Heater brought up a great discussion about players being subbed in to shoot free throws for "injured" players, followed by the injured player making a miraculous recovery and immediately re-entering the game (they must use soccer's version of the magic spray). It's happened at several crucial moments this tournament. Before I re-post Heater's comment here, I'll say that in both cases, the "injured" player was replaced by mediocre free-throw shooters who were coming off the bench cold. Granted, in both cases they were still better than the alternative, and it should be noted that they both nailed the shots. It's a bush-league move (oh really, Calhoun did it? Shocking), but until now I always thought the unwritten rule took care of the practice. Guess not. Here's Heater's comment--feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

----

Can we talk about the worst rule in college hoops? That an injured player can be subbed out to not take free throws and then come right back in? Something needs to happen here, the Missouri player wanted nothing to do with those last second free throws, but then he is at the scorers table waiting to come in right afterwards? Also Dirty coach Calhoun did this against the irish as well when they fouled Thabeet (goes boom, boom boom) down one with 50 seconds to play. Austrie gets to come in and drain two free throws and ten seconds later guess who is in to play defense. Not sure what the rule needs to be, maybe if you go out due to injury you have to at least sit out a minute of game time or something like that. Thoughts???

Fanboy

I hope Shorty makes it to the game tomorrow. Why? Because through the use of technology that included a combination of computers and robots, I was able to pull an image from the future that captures his first post-game encounter with a euphoric Harangody. And best friends were born...

Sweet Sweet NIT Action

Well, it's March, it's basketball, and it's madness. So who cares if its the NIT? I mean sure, it's not the big dance, but it still features what makes college basketball so awesome- young kids playing their hearts out, not wanting their season to end.  And I love it. Last night I stayed up late watching the St. Mary's- Davidson game. This game featured 2 of the best players in the country, Patty Mills and last years tournament favorite- Stephen Curry. It's really a shame neither of these two players are in the tournament. 

This evening I watched the thrilling end to the Auburn- Baylor game. Luckily, my boys from Waco pulled it out at the end. Now I'm watching Florida- Penn St.   

Why? Because I love college basketball? Kind of. Also, because I'm at home in Indiana for 10 days to take care of my parents. Luckily, because of this situation, I get to go to the Notre Dame- Kentucky NIT quarterfinal game tomorrow. Expect a full report, and a picture of me and Luke Harangody. God, that would be awesome.....

To close, I don't know if I've ever felt cooler. I'm blogging in my parents basement, about the NIT, watching the NIT, and going to an NIT game tomorrow. Oh yeah, and I'm drinking a beer from Mishawaka Brewing Co. 

March Madness.....

We made it

Thanks again for checking the blog this weekend--we couldn't have made it without your support. It was a long, arduous 4 days, but it was beautiful. Friday night's finishes were glorious--I hope you were all able to stay for them (I'm talking to you old guys with wives and kids and what not). I haven't confirmed this with shorty, but we may take the blog into the second weekend of games if anyone is interested. Count on more in-depth analysis and commentary, funny stories, random snack updates, and potentially another picture or two of Selma Hayek's boobs. What do you think?

It's Monday night, and I'm already having withdrawal....luckily we had an intramural co-ed tournament game tonight, so that fueled the competitive fire. It's actually pretty bad basketball in general, but our team is decent so it's fun. Tonight was the Final Four, and we played a lesser team that hung with us by fouling at every opportunity and causing general chaos with their swarming amoeba "defense." It's intramurals, so they miss a lot of calls, but tonight was worse that most. We even had a guy lose a tooth on a classic intramural foul where the defender reached new heights of clumsiness: he not only tripped him from behind on a break-away, but managed to fall on top of him, shattering two front teeth. Fantastic work--you win the Eric Deebledouche award for general douchebaggery. Our guy is in the ER now but should be good to go for the Championship.

Why am I telling you all of this? 1) Because you need tournament action during the off-days to get you through to Thursday, and the drama that is UPenn co-ed grad intramural basketball might be the ticket, and 2) Wednesday night, 7:45, we take our undefeated 5-0 record to The Palestra for the Championship game. If you don't know about the Palestra, it's one of college basketball's classic venues, and we'll be gracing it with our beautiful brand of hoops on Wednesday evening.

We'll be packing the place to the rafters. If you're within a 2-hour driving distance, this is a game you won't want to miss--it has ESPN Instant Classic written all over it. Unbelievably, there is no cost of admission.

Sorry to jinx it...

Still had some great finishes, but Siena fades down the stretch, Marquette turns the ball over with the chance to win it, and Michigan State keeps a two-possession lead to the end. Not quite the drama that it could've been, but solid nonetheless.

Have we not had a buzzer-beater yet this tourney? The Gonzaga game was the closest we've had, but I don't think we've seen a true walk-off, shot-at-the-buzzer game-winner yet this tournament.

And after a first round where some 10 and 12-seeds made it through, the 2nd round finished most of them off--the lowest seed at this point is Arizona (12), and they're through after a win against 12-seed Cleveland State. Together with Purdue (5), they're the only "underdogs"--all the rest are 1-4 seeds. Makes for some good match-ups Thursday and Friday though...

What dinner looked like.

And this is how it looks.....

Big Finish

Marquette by 1
MSU by 2
Both games with less than 4 min to go...
and Siena just took the lead over Louisville with 9 min left

We could be in for a huge finish...

Fact.

My last 3 post have had nothing to do with hoops. But it's ok. I'm giving myself a pass, because that picture of Chase Budinger and Ryan Stiffney is just too good. 

Oh yeah, and there's a bunch of pulled beef in the slow cooker. Its going to be great. Expect pictures. And expect to be jealous. 

Fact.

Guacamole is awesome. And a delicious snack during hoops. 

Panthers head to Boston

Pitt is on to the Sweet 16 after another less-than stellar performance. Thankfully OSU missed a few wide-open looks down the stretch, and Pitt's seniors made a few huge plays. Sam was huge yet again, saving the game with his 32 points, and teaming with Blair to pull down every big rebound in the last 5 minutes.

Here's my problem--once again the Panthers face a loose full-court press and some zone D in crucial situations. How they handle the press blows my mind: lazy cross-court passes, with no one flashing to the middle to recieve a pass. Is there something I'm missing here, b/c I always thought that was golden rule against the press: get the ball to the middle of the court, and don't pick up your dribble in the corner after crossing mid-court. I'm just saying. Rhodes, if you're reading, chime in here. I don't understand.

Also, what happened to the Panthers defense? OSU shot the ball well, but that will happen when you're wide f'n open. I was hoping for a Pitt/Duke matchup in the Elite 8, but at this point I wonder if that might not be the best matchup for Pitt if they can't guard the perimeter. Plus, it took them 3/4 of the game to realize they should dump it down to Blair (or as I said during the game, a half and a half of a half. Brilliant), so I'm not confident they'll learn their lesson.

Regardless of the uncharacteristic mistakes, the seniors came to play and are the reason Pitt moves on. It's a good thing they've got an excess of rebounding and leadership b/c at this point, it's helping them win games even when they don't look too good. If they limit their turnovers, they could be tough to beat.

Fact.

Jazz is a hell of a dog. 

Fact.

Salma Hayek has great boobs.

At the Half...

It's 49-49 at the half, and OSU just went 10-16 from 3...I'd like to say they were just unconscious and they'll cool off in the 2nd half, but they got a lot of wide-open looks. If Pitt doesn't pick up their perimeter D, OSU might hit 20 threes. Pitt has to keep up their rebounding edge to stay in this game.

Sam Young picked up 23 pts in the first half, to go along with 8 vicious pump-fakes.

Just when it looked like Kansas couldn't shake 'em, they go up 10 on Dayton. In the other game, Wisconsin and Xavier managed to combine for a whopping 17 points in the first 10 mintues of the 2nd half.

Fact. Chase Budinger (Arizona) Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool) and Ryan Stiffney (Painter) are the same person.

C

Fact.

Wisconsin has been on a mission to sabotage the NCAA tournament for the last ten years. Its just plain ugly. Fact.

Suck it, Bo Ryan.

Fact.

Sam Young is a man among boys. Fact. 

Fact.

Pitt/OSU:

Average height of the starting point guards in this game: 5'-10 1/2"
Total weight: 400 pounds.

Fact.

Keiton Page, Oklahoma St's backup point guard is 16. 

Pitt v OSU

Good to see Sam Young regain the outside shooting touch, but OSU is lights-out from downtown right now: 8-12 and counting. I hate to see Pitt settle into a 3-pt shooting battle--pound it down low and make them deal with Blair.

Huge collision, but everyone's okay. CBS doesn't bother to reply the alley-oop dunk that followed. Thanks, boys.

Sam's pump-fake is the best of all time: fact

OSU goes to the zone...the next 5 minutes could be critical.

Five minutes in, and we're deadlocked at 2-2

Should be another barn-burner, as Wisconsin slows the game pace to a crawl. Luckily we've got Kansas/Dayton, Cleveland St/Arizona, and Pitt/OSU all starting up in the next few minutes. Too pass the time until then, read this hilarious story about a guy trying to bargain w/ his utility company over his outstanding balance.

Liverpool just finished beating down Villa 5-0, which keeps Arsenal 3 points clear in 4th place. American keeper Brad Friedel gets sent off with a questionable red, but at least he didn't have to hang around for the end of the game. After the international break (US plays El Salvador and T&T in the next week), Arsenal may have Cesc and Adebayor back....

In the time it took to write this, Xavier and Wisconsin have exploded for 4 more points.

Picks

So I was 5 for 8 yesterday on my picks, and 2 of the misses were the games that came down to the wire. I'm feeling good about today's picks, here's what I got:

• Xavier over Wisconsin. This game will be ugly. 
• Dayton over KU the shocker of the day. Shocker! How' ya like that James?
• Cleveland St over Arizona. Anybody else think Chase Budinger and Ryan Stiffney are related?
• Pitt over Ok St. Expect a more focused Pitt this game.
• Michigan St over USC. I'm hoping for the return of Drew Neitzl. It seems like he was in college for 7 years. Kind of like me. Snap!
• Louisville over Sienna, in what should be a high scoring energetic game. I'm a big fan of Louisville's defense. The get all up in the grill of the man with the ball. 

Big news, and Picks of the day

Dominic James is cleared to play for the Marquette game--I' d like to see how the line for that game changed after the news. I'm skeptical how much he'll play, but it's still a huge lift for the Golden Eagles--they're a different team with him on the floor. Either way, it's nice to see the senior get a chance to play in his final tourney.

Picks for the day
Most of the top seeds will survive today, but I'm picking Marquette over Mizzou b/c it makes a great story. In the game of the day, Cleveland State becomes the tourney Cinderella by booking a trip to the Sweet 16. And they're down 9 with 16 to go, but I'm calling Arizona State in a big comeback, with Harden dropping the game-winner in # 23's grill. Why? Because I hate Eric Deebledouche.

Halftime!

So we're at halftime of the Syracuse- Arizona St game. I'll spare you the Eric Douchendorf talk, as we've already focused on that. I'm a big fan of James Harden, the ASU shooting guards, game, and his beard. And it looks like that's all he brought today. As nice as his beard is, he's currently scoreless at halftime. ASU is going to need to get him going if they're going to have a chance . 

This started a conversation about great beards. Here are a few for your enjoyment.

And we're back

We switched venues to watch the evening games last night, and although we had a blast (and scott's game-viewing setup was impressive) it clearly negatively affected our blogging rate. Today, we'll be producing an epic level of quantity and quality to bring you the best we have to offer on this last day of the first glorious tourney weekend.

In the words of Lucas, Duke plays with a 6th man. The last call was questionable, but the previous call as Texas was securing a crucial rebound was absolutely atrocious. It's a call I expect out of Ed Hightower (in classic pose, above) or any NBA referree--yes, it was that bad. If Pitt shapes up and makes it through to an Elite 8 Matchup with Duke, the officiating will be a major concern. But first things first....