Bad Santa

A couple of things after watching some TV last night:

1. I watched a couple of episodes of And 1 Streetball on ESPN2. I know, it's stupid, but I saw that one of the Streetballers this year is Kenny Brunner. If you don't remember Brunner, he played for Georgetown in the late 90's for a season and was a pretty good point guard before he got into more legal trouble than Stephen Jackson. He started 16 games for the Hoyas as a freshman, and then got kicked out of school and transferred to Fresno State, which at the time, was a haven for troubled basketball players looking to land somewhere - thanks to Tark.

Anyway, Brunner was never even to take the court for Tark, because he was arrested for beating up a former student and then holding him hostage using a SAMURAI SWORD. He was then picked up for assaulting the LA Community College Basketball Coach and robbing him at gunpoint. After all this, Brunner served just five months in jail, and enrolled at the College of Southern Idaho to play basktball. He didn't last the year, getting booted yet again, before the equally shady Jim Harrick offered him a scholarship to play at Georgia. However, the University President caught wind of it and said no, and Brunner's college career was over.

He then bounced around a bunch of summer leagues, playing very well, before finally ending up on the And1 Steetball team, and is now known as "Bad Santa" which is a horrible, horrible name. He's still getting into trouble, starting a near-riot at a game in Missouri. And knowing is half the battle.

2. At one point in the show, they are going to offer one of the players on the other team a contract after they play them, and for good money (that's "paper" in the hood). Well, the interview the guys talking about how much they want on the team, and one guy is saying how much he needs this because then his family will know where their next paycheck is coming from and he can pay his bills. Within the next five minutes, they show him checking out his email on one of those super fancy blackberry like cell phones with the full keypad and large screen. I seriously laughed out loud.

3. I know they are undefeated and just beat Nevada by 30, but North Carolina is overrated this year, and I expect them to not even make the final four. They have played, well, nobody. It's a more impressive schedule than the Gophers, of course, but really they haven't played another top team. The decent teams they have played are Davidson, BYU, Ohio St, and Kentucky. Nevada doesn't even count here seeing as they lost four starters off last year's team.

Davidson was a cute little underdog going into the season, but has been revealed as a complete fraud. Their best win this season is against freakin' Appalachian State, and they have losses to Western Michigan and Charlotte on the resume. BYU has beaten up on the bad teams, and beat Louisville, who is pretty overrated itself until Padgett gets back. Ohio State beat an inconsistent Syracuse team and an ok Florida team, but got destroyed by both Texas A&M and Butler. Kentucky has been pretty much a joke, with losses to UAB, Gardner-Webb, and Houston.

So four ok wins, but nothing really good. And they'll continue to roll, because the ACC is as bad as I can ever remember it this year. Maryland, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech have a zero percent chance to make the tournament. UNC and Duke are good, and everybody else is mediocre at best. So UNC will roll through the regular season with three or less losses, and probably get a number one seed. This will be great because stupid people will pick them to get to the final four and even win the whole thing, and this will make it easier for me to win a bracket pool because it's obvious they will lose to someone like Xavier.

4. Seton Hall is garbage. I thought, with most of their team back, and a new coach in Bobby Gonzalez that they would be better. But they are really lazy. I noticed them standing around quite a bit on rebounds and loose balls. They suck.

5. My stalking knows no bounds, as I have located Rico Tucker's MySpace page. Warning: It's pretty obnoxious. Doesn't change the fact that he's awesome though.

6. Mark Prior is worthless. There's a reason he signed for only $1 million. He's DONE.

Ole Miss -7.5 vs. Southern Miss (W)
Butler -1.5 vs. Southern Illinois (W)
NDSU -4 vs. Bucknell (W)
Weber St -3.5 vs. San Francisco (W)
Northern Colorado -11 vs. Sac State (W)
Georgia Southern -3.5 @ Tex A&M-CC (W)
Siena +1.5 vs. St Joseph's (L)

Yesterday: 1-3
Season: 151-128