Same story?

Let me tell you a story.  There was once a point guard out of Massachusetts named Naadir Tharpe.  Now young Naadir was a really good point guard.  In fact, ESPN ranked him as the 17th best PG in his class and the 86th overall player in the class of 2011.  Naadir at one point had narrowed his list to Minnesota and Rutgers.  Then Rutgers signed a different point guard (Myles Mack, maybe) and Tharpe canceled his official visit to see the Scarlet Knights.  He took an official to Minnesota and it was reported that he enjoyed his time in Minneapolis and really liked Tubby and everything seemed great and Gopher fans were counting the days until he signed on.  And yet there was no commitment.

Some time passed, and suddenly Mr. Tharpe was a little more in demand.  There was an offer from NC State.  There was an offer from Oklahoma.  But we weren't worried.  His only official visit to any school was still Minnesota and confidence was still high.  Then Josiah Turner committed to Arizona and Anthony Wroten signed on with Washington and it turned out that those were the two PG targets of a little school I like to call Kansas.  The Jayhawks were suddenly late in the signing period without a PG on their radar and they needed one.  So they called Tharpe.

He schedule a visit to Lawrence, but it turned out he really didn't need to see anything because after Bill Self called with an official offer to become a Jayhawk it took Tharpe less than 48 hours to accept and like that, he was gone.  He redshirted and then was a back up last year, averaging 20 minutes per game and scoring 5.5 pts and tallying 3.1 assists, and to Self's credit he hasn't recruited over him and now Tharpe is in line to run the offense for one of the best college basketball programs in the country.

Here is what I wrote back then:

So basically the Gophers are the nice, safe, mildy attractive chick while Kansas is the super hot chick with the killer rack who puts out.  I'd like to make some kind of pro-Gopher joke here, but I can't.  Why wouldn't you pick the hot chick with the sweet ass?  The only thing the dumpy girl has to offer is you know she won't upgrade to a better guy in a year.

 Why is the relevant now?  Because do you remember way back on Tuesday when I wrote about how Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn was the most important recruit for the Gophers after J.P. Macura turned traitor?  Well, Mr. Nairn just got a call from Michigan State and you'll never guess what happened.  Despite having trimmed his list to Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Indiana and saying those were his only 3 official visits he has now already scheduled a visit to East Lansing.

The Spartans were after 3 point guards:  Tyus Jones, Tyler Ullis, and Quentin Snider (all but Ullis were/are also Gopher targets).  Snider committed to Illinois today (F that guy) and it sounds like Izzo is conceding Jones to Duke and Ullis to Kentucky, so he needed somebody since Keith Appling is gone after this season and their only other PG is that shitbox Travis Trice.  So enter Sparty into the Tum Tum sweepstakes and they have told him he'll be the guy at PG from Day 1, which I think was the Gophers #1 pitch.

This is another reminder of how important your brand is in college basketball, and the Gophers just can't compete with Kansas or Michigan State.  I'm not saying it's a lock that Tum Tum is heading to East Lansing, but the parallels between this situation and the Tharpe thing are too similar to be ignored.  And it just sucks because Izzo is a whiny little leprecaun man who reminds me of the Lucky Charms guy on cocaine.

There is some good news in that a bunch of recruiting analysts much smarter than me have switched their projections on Isaiah Whitehead to the Gophers, but I just don't know.  It seems like once one guy makes a prediction everybody suddenly switches to the same prediction and Whitehead isn't really giving any clues. I'd feel a lot better if Robert Johnson, another highly regarding wing, would just commit to Indiana already and I think I read he's going to make his decision soon so just hurry up already dick.  It just sucks.  I just checked the predictions thing and 50% of the analysts at 247sports.com have him going to Michigan State and they just fucking contacted him.  Ugh.  I quit.

A couple quick comments while I finish my last few beers while sitting on my balcony looking out over Hollywood because I'm awesome:

-  We went to this Mexican/Sushi joint right on Venice Beach for dinner tonight and it was pretty hilarious (to me) because there were a few people there who just would not eat sushi.  I'm not even a sushi fan really, and especially not in Minnesota (and seriously what's with you people who get a sushi tray out of the deli, I mean really) but why would you not get it from a place that is right on the ocean when that's their specialty?  I mean there were just trays and trays of sushi coming out (final bill was over $1,500) so these few people were just sitting there watching everybody eat and then they finally ordered and got either ribs or a burger.  Ribs or a burger.  At a sushi joint right on the Pacific.  Like I said I'm not really a big sushi guy but I'm not some weirdo who is grossed out by it and won't try it I just never have found anything I loved (I do love a nice ceviche).  Then the yellowtail sashimi came around and my life was changed.  I ate as much of the appetizer as I could and then ordered it for a meal.  I may have to try some back in Minnesota.  Unless they have ribs.

-  Speaking of seafood, I'm a huge fan of calamari.  Love it.  Made sure we always had at least two orders for an appetizer at each dinner this week just so I could get enough.  Also a huge fan of buffalo sauce.  Yet, somehow I had never had them together.  At our dinner Wednesday night the calamari came with buffalo sauce. So.  Freaking.  Good.  It's the perfect combination.  I mean calamari is usually served with a spicy sauce so why not buffalo?  I wish I had some right now.  I would eat it.

-  Man I really wish I could just pee off this balcony.  Turns out that's frowned upon.

-  I'm pretty sure I passed a porn star on the street today.  I was walking to the market to get some beer when we had a break from meetings and there was this blondie with super short shorts and a top that was both revealing on the top and bottom and she was with some dude and when I passed he was saying, and I shit you not, "Yeah it can be rough, even if you don't feel like having sex you have to perform" so I guess that's something.

-  I had a chance to try both Fatburger and The Stand out here, as far as regional burger joints.  I still think In-and-Out is the best, but I'd put The Stand second, mostly because their pickles are outstanding (and readily available - seriously they have a place to just go and fill up a cup with pickle slices and they're so good).  Fatburger is basically the same as Whataburger that I had in Texas, just a big ass burger freshly cooked with any toppings you want.  Both are definitely better than Sonic.  I've had Five Guys and I'd put it above Fatburger/Whataburger right now, but I need to have it again to double check.  I still think Dairy Queen has an underrated burger, by the way.  Not as good as most of these but way better than any other fast food and I'd even put it against Sonic.  I remember when they put a Sonic right by my house and I was like man we gotta try that but the line was crazy for a like a month and finally we had it and it was like lol what.  I almost had Umami Burger one day out of a food truck but the line was really long and I was hungover so I just went back to the hotel and ordered a really terrible steak from room service instead.

-  We went to the California Science Museum, which is really terrible, and they had Endeavour which is a space shuttle.  This paragraph is now over.

-  I mentioned last time how this hotel was crazy expensive and the beers, like a Coors Light, are $9 at the bar.  We ended up at this bar two of the nights I was here and I just ended up going back to the room and grabbing my beer out of the fridge and carrying them down in my pockets and drinking them at the bar.  Classy, right?  Yes, my company will pay for a $1,500 dinner but not a $9 Bud Light.  Say la Vee.