Madness means insanity, right? So by billing their postseason men’s basketball tournament as “March Madness” isn’t the NCAA showing the same insensitivity to batshit crazy people as some member institutions were by having a drunk 19 year old from Highland Park dress up in a pelt and some feathers and do a Native American hokey pokey?
I guess it beats their slogan for the women’s tournament which is either “March Malaise” or “Where when a coach has sex with a player they don’t go to jail. They go to Cinemax.” I forget which one they’re using.
With Illinois not fielding a team this year, my interest in the NCAA tournament has waned quite a bit. But I’ll still watch it. Come on, you’d have to be batshit crazy not to.
Wait! Now I get it!
Here’s what I don’t get. Virginia Tech and Illinois are clearly playing in the first round of the NIT, so why are they playing it at an NCAA tournament site? Is it on TV and everything?
I’ve been a fan of Illini basketball for three decades now, and this team is just brutal to watch this year. That’s some awful basketball they play. Wow. Make a free throw. Just one. How about a jump shot? When it doesn’t seem like a good idea to let Sean Pruitt touch the ball on every play, it seems like a GREAT idea, maybe even an IMPERATIVE one, you’ve got some problems. No wonder the guys drink so much.
And by the way, I know it seems arrogant to take credit for something like this, but now that the Bill Self toupee thing has gone mainstream, I need to take credit for it. I’ve been prattling on about his hairpiece since late 2000. If not for me and my eagle eyes, he’d still be getting away with not claiming his Hair Club Membership on his resume.
Bill Simmons mentioned it yesterday and even his Wikipedia entry includes reference to it.
Fine, I have to admit, I may have added it to his Wikipedia entry, just now. Fine, I did. Don’t judge me.
Speaking of Simmons (I did just a couple of paragraphs ago, try to keep up), his college basketball writing is still pedantic at best, which only proves how obvious it is that Rick Barnes is a complete dumbass. Every Texas game I’ve watched this year I’ve been stunned at how they can go very long stretches, I mean five or six minutes at a time, where they don’t make any effort to get Kevin Durant the ball. None. Zip. He’s only the best player in the country. So only a dumbass would pick them to get to the final four.
Oh, did I mention that I did?
When I filled out my brackets, I had a hard time picking Big Ten teams to do anything. Ohio State has a great player and several good ones, even if their coach looks like a Cornjerker (probably because he is one) who scrapes gum off of floors and eats it. In the past six years, my guess would be that Wisconsin has fielded four teams better than the one that they have this year. But the conference was so bad they just kept winning. Illinois is bad, Michigan State is bad, Indiana is worse, Purdue blows… Yikes.
The worst part is that they are all offensively challenged, so the games are brutal to watch. They are the collective dental drill of college basketball. When getting to 60 points seems like an accomplishment, it’s bad. At this rate of decay, next season the Big Ten will be hanging peach baskets and having jump balls after made field goals.
Stanford is 18-12 and they made the tournament? Stanford? The team with a pair of seven foot stiffs with chick names?
Brook Lopez
They’re like a more feminine version of Notre Dame’s infamous Ross Twins.
Don’t even get me started on the “play-in game” that they made Florida A and M and Niagra play in on Tuesday. That’s like being a freshman and getting invited to a hot senior’s kegger only to find out that she wants you to keep grandpa busy in another room. And by busy she means “busy.” And maybe grandpa has surprising strength for a wheelchair bound octogenarian. That’s the kind of thing that can scar a guy for…wait, how much of this was out loud?
Never mind. The play in game sucks. Dayton sucks. It’s a perfect fit.
I almost felt bad for Jim Boeheim when he made the rounds on Monday obligatorily making the case for how badly the Orange got screwed by the selection committee. I trot this out every year, so why not one more time? Here’s all you need to know about Big East coaches. Jim Boeheim looks like an asshole but isn’t. Jim Calhoun looks like he’s not an asshole, but is.
So how great is it that UConn missed the NCAA and the NIT? Hah! More time for Calhoun to go home and kick the crap out of his dog. What, like you don’t think he does?
Notre Dame got the draw nobody wanted when they ended up with Winthrop. The last two years, the Fighting Thrombosis (or whatever their nickname is) has almost pulled off big upsets. People are picking them to be (say it with me now) “this year’s George Mason.” Considering the fact that what George Mason such a great story was that a team like them getting to the Final Four almost never happens, there won’t be a “this year’s George Mason.”
When was the last one before George Mason? Indiana State in 1979? Or for that matter, Penn that same year?
OK, enough on the tournament.
The big news in Cubs camp this week was the Cubs sending a once promising superstar to the minors for some more work. No, I’m not talking about Koyie Hill (I don’t even know if they sent him down yet and I’m too lazy to look. Hey, I just had to Google to remember that Penn and Indiana State both went to the Final Four in ’79. Poor DePaul. Nobody remembers them…anyway…) But Mark Prior.
Let’s look at this two ways.
First, the pessimist figures that for all their talk about how nothing serious is wrong with his shoulder, something is. He’s lost velocity, he can’t throw a strike, it’s because something that used to be attached in his shoulder either isn’t anymore, or at least isn’t to the degree it should be. If this is true, eventually they’ll have to crack him open, fix it and then he’s a 50/50 shot to ever be any good again.
The optimist figures that here’s a guy who has been hurt for three straight years, and as a result, hasn’t thrown very much. He needs to build his shoulder back up, and pitching’s not all that easy, maybe all he really needs is to throw and throw and throw breaking pitches and remember how the hell you make it go where it’s supposed to go.
Either way, the guy with the career strikeout to walk ratio of nearly four to one, has five walks and ZERO strikeouts this summer. Hell, at that rate sending him to AAA isn’t going to help, he might need to ride the buses with Ryne Sandberg for a while to figure things out.
“has five walks and ZERO strikeouts this summer”
It’s winter.
Welcome back.
I wish it was summer when I post. Nope, still shitty out.
Who the crap is this Dolan guy?
I’m not sure what we should expect of a guy coming off of a shoulder injury. I’m sure he’s just not convinced he can use the mechanics he used to without pain. So his motion is way off. How long this takes to correct is anybody’s guess. If it takes a month and he’s back throwing smoke in the majors sometime this year, then Yay. If it takes all summer then Prior is what we thought he is.
I’ve improved big time. But imagine if I had one….ONE guard that could hit a jumpshot…oh I can dream. Instead I’ll just bust my ass for another double-double and hope the other team can’t score more than our 51 points.
It’s March 15. Still a long way to go before anyone should panic that Prior isn’t breaking off nasty hooks or throwing 93 mph with pinpoint control. For fuckssakes give the guy a chance to get back (at least more than three weeks). It’s already starting to feel like 2004 when the window-jumpers were bailing out in mid-April.
It’s like calling Henry Blanco Hank White. It had already been done for a couple years before Dolan came along and tried to take credit for inventing it.
So Dolan, you been hanging out with Jimmy Kimmel and other F list celebrities? Fuck no you haven’t.
(Prior) is who we thought he is! If you want to crown him, crown his ass!
Denny Crane.
Holy crap the Ross brothers. One Ross would flail around the court, get in foul trouble, go to the bench, and be replaced by…another Ross, who would flail around the court, get in foul trouble, go to the bench, and be replaced by the original Ross, ad nauseum–emphasis on the word nauseum.
Thanks, Andy, for bringing back memories of the nadir that was ND basketball under John Macleod in the early-to-mid-’90’s. I shall now go and dunk my head into a vat of hydrochloric acid.
Of course we made the tournament. We made nice with the NCAA by removing our beloved mascot. Now, we get some $ for playing in your tourney. That’s how this works, right?
Yeah, we were real morans to bail out early on that team.
I see that Stanfoo has had a first round exit. I really want to gloat, but (God forbid) maybe I have gotten too mature for that. After all, Cal didn’t even make it to the NIT. At least Cal beat UCLA in the PAC 10 Tournament
You have to admit, I did a nice job of stashing the toup reference in a part of Self’s Wiki entry that is going to stay there a while.
And you’re probably right, I’ll bet an Oral Roberts blog mocked Self’s toup first.
Maybe Oral Roberts himself.
Wait, shouldn’t this-be there?
Mah nayme is so gaaaayyyyy.
I love Cub fans. I honestly fall down on my knees (at least they still work, unlike my permanently Dusty-fied right arm) every night and thank God that I can occasionally play for a team whose fans get fired up if I can throw a simulated game by mid-June. I keep that prayer short though. Otherwise, I get mad at God for allowing a team managed by a man with no understanding of how to handle young pitchers. I ask him why my perfect mechanics didn’t protect me. Once, while I was doing this after about eleventeen beers, I swear I hear His voice say “blame the toothpick, kid. They’re killing people in Darfur, so I’ve been a little busy.” Fuckin’ Sudan.
Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. And sometimes your promising career is derailed by a toothpick munching fool who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, since he’s too busy staying “chill”, color coordinating his 14 wristbands, and making sure all the white guys play when it’s cold out. Mark, my boy, don’t blame me. Yeah, I made world, but free will’s a bitch.
I DID NOT post #17. My name is a family tradition, and also fitting, considering my golden tongued sermons, which draw the faithful to me. I save souls, friends, but I can damn them as well. Remember, I once saw a 900 foot tall Jesus in a vision. He was a ninja, and if you make fun of my name, he will kill you 47 different ways. God bless you all, as long as you’re not gay, Catholic, Jewish, black, or have failed to send me money.
“But imagine if I had one….ONE guard that could hit a jumpshot…oh I can dream”
You did Sean, but unfortunately, he couldn’t drive. Both on the court, and off it.
Hey – Andy’s back!!
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Where’d those other guys go? Bring them back.
I give up, where is the toupee reference on Self’s Wiki entry?
Oh yeah CT…care to look at Jamar’s stats before TreeGate? Shit, the guy was a shell of his 2005-6 self.
I’m just happy that Steve Alfraud’s crew didn’t make either tourney. What a joke. I grew up a huge Iowa fan, but since that slick-haired Indiana jackass took over, I’ve gone from loving the Hawks, to not caring, to openly rooting for them to lose. I can’t wait for the day they boot his ass out the door.
Go Salukis, representing the Valley.
We sucked all the way to a 3-0 start. Lets hope our shittiness continues.
as a member of the clinically insane I have been offended by this tournament name for some time. as a result I am in the process of kidnapping all the members of the NCAA executive committee and will parachute drop them over the Iraq/Iran border where their talents for placating every special interest group (especially those that give them money under the table) and making arbitrary decisions will come into extra special play.
it still is OK though for a drunk 19 year old from the Okeefenokee swamp to dress up in a pelt and feathers and ride some glue factory reject horse into the middle of the field and throw a burning spear into the ground.
and don’t even get me started on that drunken leprechaun that prances around at that religious cult school.
Yeah, the Big 10 teams beat a bunch of teams they were supposed to beat. Don’t worry, though. They won’t be around past the Sweet Sixteen.
People were saying the same thing about the Big 10 in me, and they comprised 75% of the Final Four. Go suck on a tailpipe, #28.
Marquette without Jerel McNeal, Gonzaga without Josh Heytvelt and Central Connecticut State are not me. Let’s hold off until Sunday night before unleashing the Big Ten triumphalism, shall we?
And #29, since when did Florida or UNC join the Big Ten?
We were one missed Xavier free throw away from me this weekend…
Got any more pro-Big Ten trash talk you want to throw at us, #29?