National SemiFinal #2

I'm still basking in the glow of the world's greatest fantasy baseball draft, but I'm also basking in sitting in my bed with a Michelob Golden Draft Light 12 oz. can and watching the basketball game on a 19 inch television and since I'm here I see no reason why I should hide my most intimate thoughts with you, dear friend.  Keep in mind that I have made my biggest bet ever on this game, a 15-unit wager on WVU +2, so I care more than I probably should.  I also know that Snacks is "All in" on West Virginia.  I don't know how much money that actually encompasses after the Michigan State loss left him a broken man who stopped watching at the ten minute mark, but at least he's on my side.  I also know that Bogart has 5 units on WVU scoring first.  Let's get to it.

20:00 - Oh, I also have 5-to-win-15 that the first basket of the game is a 3-pointer.  Had the same bet in the first game and it hit, so if it hit here it would just be gravy.

20:00 - I hate Duke so much.  Other than this chick, I mean;

20:00 - Stay with me now, perv.  Eyes up top.

20:00 - You realize the Gophers beat Butler, right?

20:00 - I just read something where the guy was saying that Butler winning is terrible for CBS.  What?  That's the best thing that could have happened.  The only people who care about Michigan State are their own fans, die-hard college hoop junkies who were going to watch anyway, and gamblers.  Causal fans are going to be interested in the Butler story.  Hell, I told Mrs. W about Butler and even she's interested.  And I can tell you this month, like every March, she is so sick of college basketball right now she's probably strongly considered taking a croquet mallet to my cubes.  And yet, she perked up a bit when I told her about Butler and all the blah blah crap.  So, in conclusion, that guy who wrote that thing is an idiot.

20:00 - I hate it when they don't tell you the major of the players when they do the intros.  I bet at least 4 out of 5 WVU starters are majoring in African American Studies and the other guy is in Communication.  And what do the Dukies major in?  Like, is Singler majoring in Bio-Chem and Nolan Smith in Genetic Engineering?  Or are they in Communication too?  I seriously want to know this.  Someone go look it up.

20:00 - AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGgghhhhhhhhhh!  Sorry, I thought there was a gigantic female chicken running lose.  It was just Singler.  My bad.

19:49 - 5 second call on Mazzulla to open the game.  They already miss Bryant.

19:12 - WVU with a blocked shot on Singler and a offensive rebound already in the first minute.  They're going to athletic Duke to death. 

18:54 - And Mazzulla throws his layup attempt over the backboard.  It might be time to sit him down for a few minutes, ask him why exactly he's attempting to take over the game when he averages like 6 points per game.

18:10 - Easy lay-up for Wellington Smith to tie the game at 2.  If Huggins doesn't melt down WVU could end up running away with this, they look far better than Duke.  And there's a third blocked shot by the Mountaineers.  This is like that scene in Rushmore where Bill Murray rejects that dumb kids shot.

16:39 - Well somehow Duke is up 7-4 after a Scheyer three.  And since I know you're wondering, no, Scheyer didn't close his mouth at any point, and he's seriously threatening Tyler Hansbrough's NCAA record streaking of never ever closing his mouth. 

15:12 - Between this Robin Hood movie and Clash of the Titans I am as amped for movies as I have ever been.  I think the only times I've been more exited were when Lord of the Rings were coming out (happy about the result), the Star Wars prequels (so-so), and Jurassic Park 3 (kill me in the neck).

14:41 - Shot clock violation on Duke for being gay.  Time for WVU to get after it.  And there you go, they go inside and get a foul.  Kevin Jones misses both, of course, but at least they got the ball inside.

13:57 - Jesus Duke is just shredding the WVU defense at this point.  They can't stop penetration (like your mom) and can't seem to figure out a high pick-and-roll.  This does not bode well.

13:26 - At least Singler is still shooting like that guy at the Y who sucks but thinks he's good so he always shoots no matter what even though he hasn't hit a shot in a month.  And as I say that WVU throws up an airball from 15.  You can tell they're feeling a lot more pressure than the Dukies right now, even though the pressure should be the other way around.  Because all of the media really want to give the Duke players handies if they win, and the Duke players really want handies, so that's why.  Feel free to re-arrange that sentence into something more coherent.

12:30 - That perimeter handoff is not supposed to result in any easy layup for Duke.  Everybody runs that play, and unless you are the Gophers and you're playing Wisconsin it doesn't ever work.  Until tonight.  It's only 13-9 Duke but I think this one is over, and I'm going to have to root for freaking Butler.

11:05 - And the big giant chicken hits a three.  18-11 Duke.  The Blue Devils are hitting everything, and it's not luck, it's just piss poor defense.  Huggy Bear needs to do something here (he called timeout), but I think we're in trouble folks.  Huggins isn't exactly what I consider a great good mediocre adequate fair in-game coach.  God I hate Duke.  More like Puke, am i right?

10:55 - You know one thing I hate about summer?  Those people who are a little too into grilling, you know what I mean?

7:50 - A second three of the game for WVU's Flowers and it's 23-21 Duke.  Flower si s aguy who was something like 6-20 from three on the season, but that makes both Duke and Kentucky who basically played defense on him by backing off in the lane and daring him to shoot, and he hit a huge one against Kentucky and like I said that's now two tonight.  I don't get it.  He's 6-20, not 0-0.  It's obviously not a huge weapon of his, but he's not worthless out there as if he was Al Nolen or something either.

6:16 - This is the worst game I've seen WVU play all year.  Poor defense, tentative offense, just sick.  Duke now up 31-21, and Huggins is barking at his players which means this one is done.  Almost not even worth watching.  I'm going to try to hedge my bet a bit with a live bet on Duke.

5:47 - God Mazzulla is basically Al Nolen without the defense.  He can drive, but he just jump stops and picks up his dribble with no idea what he's doing.  And then Duke misses, offensive rebounds, and hits a three.  Ugh.  Can't this at least be entertaining?  37-24 Duke. 

3:44 - Alright let's move on to 2011.  I'm predicting Michigan State to win it all.  And speaking of winning it all, have you heard about me and Snake's fantasy baseball team?  Wow, just crazy good.  Want to hear our starting pitching staff?  Greinke, Hamels, Billingsley, Tommy Hanson, and Matt Garza.  Wow.  And waiting in the wings we have have Strasburg, Homer Bailey, and Madison Bumgarner.  Yeah, we're loaded.

3:40 - 5 seconds on Duke trying to inbound.  This is the break we need.  LET'S GO MOUNTAINEERS.

3:22 - Ebanks with a nice move for two, 37-28 Duke.  I feel a run coming except then instead Nolan Smith found a wide open layup.  I can't get over this suddenly shitty WVU defense.  It's just awful.  Duke currently shooting 59%.  Ridiculous. 

2:54 - Ebanks with another nice move and a three-point play.  He's single-handedly keeping this from being a blowout.  Where the hell is Butler?  1-4 for two points.  Nice job assface.  You're telling me he can't score on Lance freaking Thomas?  Disgusting.

0:47 - Christ, Zoubek must have 10 rebounds already.  I have no idea what is going on.  This West Virginia team is not the same team I saw all year and bet on.  Huggins you killed yet another talented team somehow.  This guy is a bigger choker than Darius Washington.


0:00 - 39-31 Duke at half.  I'm no so much worried about the score, but the defense of WVU is just crap right now.  CRAP I SAY!!!

20:00 - Ok I'm back.  Took a short break there to watch an episode of the Office ("Frame Toby", hysterical) and grab a couple of Stroh's Lights out of the fridge.  Yep, Stroh's Lights.  WVU doesn't deserve better right now.

19:49 - Da'Sean Butler and Nolan Smith are basically complete opposites of each other right now. 

19"17 - Mazzulla hits from 17.  I guess he's not like Nolen after all.

18:59 - Wide open jumper for Singler.  And I mean WIDE open.  This is baffling.

17:27 - I can't quite give up on WVU as Wellington hits a three to make it 36-43, but they need to get their defensive scheme figured out in a hurry because Duke is one short run away from blowing them out.

16:04 - Duke just not missing.  This is like the opposite of watching Trajan Langdon in a Final Four.  WVU hanging in, but right now if feels like when the Gophers played Xavier and you knew they were basically just holding on for dear life and any moment they were going to be out of it.  WVU just hanging on by a thread.

15:21 - Another open Sheyer three wins me my OVER 14 threes for the game bet, but that is pretty meaningless considering I have 15 units on WVU.  This sucks.

13:43 - Another Duke layup and it's 51-42.  This is like watching the Gophers play defense.  I probably won't post anything else.  Game over.  I suck.

12:41 - Huggins completely melting down and just started screaming at Flowers.  If it wasn't over already (it was) it's over now.  Guy is really not a very good coach.  I have no idea why I was backing him so hard.  Pretty sure it was nothing but anti-Duke bias coming through. 

11:44 - Looks like Nolan Smith took a nice shot to the nads.  Of course it would happen to the only duke dick that I don't hate.  I would pay good money for somebody to take a shot at Singler's giblets.

11:44 - Technical on Duke for hanging on the rim after dunking back a miss.  Butler shoots the free-throws and makes both, which is one more field goal than he has on the night.  That should tell you what kind of night it is.

10:35 - I just took the Yankees to win tomorrow night for a unit, just to make me feel better. 

10:02 - I'm sad.

8:59 - I'm almost positive Huggins is trying to make out with Da'Sean Butler who is down after some kind of knee injury.  This probably actually a good coach/player moment but it looks really creepy on TV.  Also Duke is up 63-48 and I'm guessing with Butler now out and being carried off that takes whatever energy/motivation WVU might have had left and kills it.  Duke's going to win by 25.

6:37 - It upsets me greatly that Duke is going to win the National Championship.

0:00 - Well that ended up being pretty boring.  At least they hit the over.  I can't believe I'm going to be rooting for Butler.

Week in Review - 3/29/2010

 I'm pretty sure this is the best NCAA Tournament I can remember in quite some time.  I know that can't really be trusted since people have a tendency to overrate whatever is current (more on that later), but it just seems like almost every game has been great.  Close games, buzzer beaters, overtime games, upsets - it seems like we're getting more of these things this year than in any other year.  Maybe I'm romanticizing it a bit, but I'm ok with that - I love this year's tournament, and I'm sad to see it come to an end.  Of course, the poop in the swimming pool is that Duke made the final four, and I really, really, really hate Duke, but as long as somebody else ends up winning I'll be happy.  Hell, I'll even end up rooting for Butler if they end up going against Duke.  That would be hilarious, talk about a bunch of white guys.  I'm almost hoping for that now.  Almost.  Even so it's still been an awesome tournament, and it sucks that's it's basically over.

I'm pretty sure they time it so the NCAA Tournament wraps up right before baseball kicks off and end the world series just before the college hoops season starts because the powers that be know those are the only two things really worth watching.  God bless you sports overlords, you have it all under control.

 WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Butler.  I considered the Bulldogs to be more getting lucky than being good, catching Murray State in the second round and getting Syracuse on a night when they seemed pretty disinterested to be there, but a weekend spent by beating both the Orange and then K-State is pretty impressive.  At some point I have to stop thinking of them as lucky, overachieving white nerds and realize they are a pretty good team, and what better point than now, with them on their way to the Final Four.  They really play some solid, solid defense, and it wasn't luck that Jake Pullen and Denis Clemente, the heroes last round, combined to shoot just 11-28 with six turnovers and just two assists on Saturday.  With the Bulldogs being on the wacky side of the bracket, they can absolutely beat Michigan State and end up in the final.

2.  West Virginia.  I pretty much got almost nothing right this entire NCAA Tournament, but at least I was right about West Virginia being a Final Four team.  I just love this team.  Ebanks, Butler, Kevin Jones, and Wellington Smith give the team four super-athletic 6-7 to 6-9 guys who play great defense, can handle the ball, hit the boards hard, and can score inside or out.  There's no real need for a point guard since all those guys can just play point forward, and they did beat Kentucky with their only real PG, Truck Bryant, out with an injury, but the good news is that in case they do need him Bryant will be back for the Final Four.  This is good because the guy who filled in for him, Joe Mazzulla, had his career best game last round and there's no way he'd be able to do that again.  The Mountaineers will be my adopted team for the Final Four, and if they end up being underdogs I'll be hammering that line like I was at a conjugal visit with your mom.

3.  LaceDarius Dunn.  Holy crap is this guy good.  I remember watching a few Baylor games the last couple of years and he was always a good scorer, but with Curtis Jerrells graduated he has taken his game to a whole new level.  Unfortunately, Duke conspired with Dunn's teammates and they figured out a way to take him out of his game late in that regional final, but prior to that he was doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.  There was one possession where the undisciplined hyper-athletes that make up most of the Baylor team were running around like jackasses just throwing the ball wherever and doing mostly nothing except almost turning it over.  The shot clock got down to under 10, Dunn finally got the ball, looked and saw Scheyer on him, and just put the ball down and drove in for an easy floater.  And he could have done that all game.  At least he's only a junior, so we'll get to see him play for another year.  Also WVU is going to destroy Duke.

4.  Durrell Summers.  I've written about him already this tournament in passing, but I really think Summers has taken a leap this post-season and is going to be in the Big 10 POY running next year.  He had a rough Big Ten tournament, but in the NCAA tourney he's been unstoppable, scoring 14, 26, 19, and 21 while shooting 56% from the floor and has just looked like a more confident, take over when I need to take over kind of player.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what he can do next year, but not against the Gophers because without Damian he's going to shred them like Bogart playing me in Madden.  I'm betting he ends up being close to a 20 point-per-game scorer.  Believe it.

5.  Jordan Crawford.  I know he only played one game this week and his team lost, and I know there's a good chance you might be sick of hearing about Crawford already, but he really, really impressed me in this tournament more than any other player, even Summers or Dunn.  Inside, outside, off the dribble, off the catch, rebounding, defense - he can do it all.  He also seems to have matured quite a bit, and looks like he might be putting it all together.  My fear is that he's going to get some really bad advice, let his nice tournament run go his head, and enter the NBA draft this year, which will just suck.  I'm too dumb to know if he's going to be a good pro or anything, but I know he'll be an absolute pimp next year in the A-10 if he stays, which he should.  Plus he needs to beat down Dayton again.  I hate those hippies.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Syracuse.  I still think the Orange were the best team this year, along with Kansas on a whole nother tier, but they really didn't come to play against Butler.  I gave Butler their props above for creating these kind of situations, but it really seemed like the Cuse were just waiting for Butler to go away.  Then, with five minutes or so left, they hadn't, and Syracuse panicked - specifically Andy Rautins and Scoop Jardine, who just started launching anything and everything, completely rushed, completely covered, and early in the shot clock and shot their come back attempt right out of the water - like Snake with a Squirrel that is in the water.  Also, I think maybe at some point we should start talking about whether or not Boeheim is an epic choker or not.  I'm not ready quite yet since he does have that national championship, but I really think he should be winning more than he does.

2.  Kentucky.   Speaking of epic chokers, hello again John Calipari.  Once again Slimy John has the most talent and ends up bowing out early in what has become nearly as predictable of a rite of Spring as the salmon returning to Capestrano.  4-32 from three, which is really shitty shooting, but maybe the coach needs to reign in the chuckeration a little bit.  And why is Patrick Patterson hanging out around the three-point line all day?  It's like playing with Rick Rickert (or Bogart).  Get your ass inside, big man, and quit it with this perimeter shit.  That's on Calipari, too.  As is the piss poor defense they played in the second half.  Why did they continually refuse to stop dribble penetration in transition?  Just a poorly played, poorly coached game by the team with the most talent in the tournament.  Cal is a hell of a recruiter/cheater, but he couldn't out coach your average fifth-grade girls coach.

3.  Kyle Singler.  In case you needed another reason to be pissed that Duke won, and I'm sure you don't, it's that this beak-faced fake ACC player of the year (blatantly stolen from General Greivis) laid the biggest egg possible in the biggest game of the year.  He shot 0-10 from the field, 0-5 from three, and turned the ball over four times while grabbing just three rebounds despite being 6-8 and playing 34 minutes.  Just an absolutely brutal performance, but because the refs received a mandate from the NCAA that Duke needs to win, it's going to be ignored.  I hope he chokes even harder against West Virginia.  He's the embodiment of the irritation that is Duke.  And he looks like a damn chicken.  And a girl chicken at that.  Seriously, he looks like a girl chicken. 

4.  Fran McCaffery.  The Iowa job?  Really?  Wouldn't you rather coach at either Seton Hall or St. John's?  They both have better recruiting bases, and St. John's especially has to be a much more attractive job.  But Iowa?  Iowa?  Good luck, Fran.  I have a feeling this is going to end up being a terrible decision on both sides, and Iowa will remain irrelevant in basketball for four or five more years before they end up firing McCaffrey.  Fine by me, that's how it should be.

5.  Len Elmore.  And all announcers, really, but Elmore was the one who put me over the top.  I'm pretty sure Vern Lundquist hasn't watched an actual game outside the tournament in years, and Dick Enberg looks like death in HD and made the wrong call at least ten times in the WVU/Kentucky game, but Elmore is still the worst.  He has some speech impediment that causes him to constantly refer to time outs as "times out" as in "Xavier calls times out" which is annoying, but his constant harping on how Kansas State was "fatigued" on Saturday after their double-OT game two nights before made me want to stab my ears with an ice pick.  He must have mentioned it twenty times in a ten minute span, including pointing out how "All the Wildcat players on the bench are looking down", "Curtis Kelly is breathing out of his mouth", and "Jake Pullen is shifting from foot to foot while he's standing", all as some kind of proof they were tired.  I've never quite heard anything so bizarre, nor listened to somebody with such a single-minded focus on one subject before, not counting John Madden and Brett Favre.

The icing on the cake, however, was some doofus I heard on the radio talking about Wall, Cousins, and Bledsoe and how "no group of three freshman have accomplished what they have."  Dude, what?  A quick look tells me that Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and Juwon Howard combined to average more points and rebounds than the Kentucky trio.  Carmelo Anthony, Gerry McNamara, and Billy Edelin were all major contributors on a national championship team, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better group of freshman both stat and winning wise than Greg Oden, Mike Conley, and Daequan Cook.  And those are just three rebuttal examples I thought of in 30 seconds after that moron made his statement, I'm sure there are many more examples.  Look, I understand people tend to overrate what is in the now, and the Kentucky freshman are great, but let's try to have enough historical perspective here so you don't sound like a complete jackass.  I swear to god they just pluck half of these people right off the street and tell them to cover something they know nothing about.  It would be like me trying to cover hockey, or Super Sioux Fan writing about high class living - it just isn't going to work.

The End.  Oh, and.....

GO MOUNTAINEERS!