Tuesday, March 25, 2008

 

What are you doing on March 30?

Because I know what I'll be doing:


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Friday, March 21, 2008

 

Hey! NCAA Live Blog '08

So for some reason the city is closed on Good Friday, so guess what? You get to suffer through this crap all afternoon. There are some issues this year: my laptop has passed away, so I'll have to pause on TiVo and run into the other room to post from the desktop.

3:03 - Karate Chimp is kinda awesome.

2:59 - It's halftime, Austin Peay 24-39 Texas. Peay has clawed a little back, but don't have a serious chance.

2:43 - I'm in Texas of course, so after a quick look at South Alabama 26-39 Butler, we're back to this crap. Austin Peay 10-27 Texas.

2:42 - They look in on UMBC 17-24 Georgetown. Will they stick with it?

2:37 - The game is in Little Rock, and the announcers claim the crowd is anti-Texas, though I haven't heard any evidence of it. Austin Peay 8-22 Texas. Pretty grim, and I have opened my book and started reading.

2:28 - It doesn't look good: Austin Peay 3-17 Texas.

2:25 - A Texas player shoots over the rim, and we get "airball" chants. I guess it's technically an airball, but it's still more impressive than falling short. We should limit the "airball" chant to only those shots. I think I may have found a wedge issue for Obama to use against McCain.

2:13 - Texas v. Austin Peay are playing now. I may lean on the fast-forward button, as this should not pose the Longhorns much trouble.

2:08 - Holy shit! WKU hits a three at the buzzer to win 101-98! Drake's handsome, marketable white men will unfortunately for CBS not be advancing.

2:06 - Back from the break as the Drake guy hits the other and the announcers seem to be openly rooting for the scrappy Drake team to win. Western Kentucky 98-99 Drake.

2:05 - I forgot to mention that one of Drake's stars is Klayton Korver, brother of the Jazz' shooter Kyle Korver. There are apparently two other brothers, both of whose names begin with a K. I dearly, dearly hope that one of them has a middle name with a "K", but probably not, alas.

2:04 - The "relentless" white Drake PG "never gives up" when he drives to the bucket and misses a terrible shot. Loose ball foul, Drake's guy hits one, tied at 98.

2:01 - WKU has a large Cameroonian forward named Boris who just hit two free throws. That was very "clutch", if you believe in that sort of thing. Western Kentucky 98-97 Drake.

1:58 - OT has been pretty boring until now. Western Kentucky 96-96 Drake.

1:50 - Here is Adam Morrison. So jealous.

1:48 - The announcers - including Ian Eagle, announcer of roughly 75% of the Bengals' games - just love the scrappy white PG, even as he misses a terrible shot to send the game into OT.

1:47 - Absolutely awful fucking call as WKU's A.J. Slaughter (great name) charges over Drake's scrappy white PG, Emmenecker. Tied at 88.

1:42 - WKU is losing it. Their PG turns it over on an absolutely awful no-look pass, and Drake's other black guy hits a deep three. Western Kentucky 86-85 Drake.

1:41 - Over to the Drake game, where it appears that Drake does have a couple token black guys, as one of the has a thunderous dunk. Western Kentucky 86-80 Drake, lead is 10% safe.

1:36 - And that's a final, Davidson 82-76 Gonzaga. Tennessee also pulled it out against American, 72-57.

1:33 - Curry hits two free throws, Davidson 81-74 Gonzaga. 88% safe. Nantz relates a story about how no ACC schools recruited Curry, and Roy Williams says "we missed on him". Well, here's the thing. He's a 6-3/185 shooting guard who looks smaller than that. If he had gone to an ACC school, they would have made him backup guard who only shot threes, rather than a featured scorer. It always irritates me when people talk about how much better this player or that player would have done on this or that team, when you have no fucking clue how he would have been used or how he would have developed. Would the Curry of *right now* be a great scorer on an ACC team? Obviously. But if Curry had gone to UNC or Duke or wherever and been on the bench right now, playing 10 minutes a night and only shooting threes be a great scorer? I'm guessing not.

1:31 - Oh for Christ's sake. Loose ball foul on Davidson, shooting two. 80% free throw-er misses the first and a goddamn lane violation kills the second. 27% safe now.

1:29 - Davidson player hits both free throws, but who cares? They show Adam Morrison, former Gonzaga star and NBA Lottery bust, in the stands, still with the pede-stache and with lovely, flowing, long hair. I am very jealous. Of the hair, not the Justin-esque creepy moustache. Davidson 79-74 Gonzaga, game over, even though the Bill James Lead Calculator says it's only 6% safe. That seems low.

1:28 - Gonzaga takes a rushed three by the wrong player (a freshman, and not that guy who was lights-out in the first half), fouled on the rebound. Same score, ballgame most likely over.

1:25 - Gonzaga ties it up, and finally has a good defensive possession, forcing a bad three as the shot clock is running down. Of course they can't come up with the rebound, and guess who the ball gets immediately kicked out to? Curry, who hits a wide-open three. Davidson 77-74 Gonzaga.

1:24 - Nantz informs me that not only is Gonzaga's coach a heathen Protestant, he's a Presbyterian minister. Davidson's affliation? You guessed it, Presbyterian. We're fucked. Packer relates a "hilarious" anecdote about the coach's father's Minnesota Vikings fandom, and how the sermons were pretty short when they played! Hilarious! Davidson 74-72 Gonzaga.

1:19 - Deadspin is running a much better live blog in case you're bored with me, and really there's no reason you should not be.

1:18 - Davidson 73-72 Gonzaga. Zags keep taking bad shots and are now playing a zone for some reason.

1:09 - Well, I have all meat at my house and nothing to eat tonight. Anyone reading this (ha!), post ideas as to what I should eat this evening.

1:08 - Dammit, Davidson 68-67 Gonzaga. Gonzaga is now taking bad shots. Curry has 24 (!) in the second half.

1:03 - Davidson's best player by a mile, Stephen (pronounced "Steffen") Curry has 32 after hitting a 3. Davidson 62-62 Gonzaga.

1:02 - They showed a close-up of the aforementioned long-haired, curly-headed dude, and he looks just like Danny Noonan from Caddyshack. Davidson 57-62 Gonzaga.

12:55 - American 40-50 Tennessee, and we switch back to Davidson 54-60 Gonzaga.

12:53 - American 40-48 Tennessee. Too bad, as Tennessee just has too much talent. Interestingly, Tennessee appears to be running the flex-motion offense, which I thought went out of style with the granny-shot free throw.

12:51 - They appear to be switching full-time to American 40-42 Tennessee, which is okay. I love the Lundquist/Raftery pairing. Lundquist has a great voice, and gets excited without going all Gus Johnson-over the top, which is just grating. I have no idea why Simmons loves him so much.

12:46 - They cut in on American 40-40 Tennessee coming back from a break. After all of Pearl's bitching about not getting a #1 seed I sincerely hope they lose.

12:37 - Packer keeps talking about "squaring up" when shooting a jumper as if it is some rare thing.

12:36 - Back from the half (I fast-forwarded through most of halftime), and I think Gonzaga has cornered the market on goofy-looking white guys. They've got a ginger, a long-haired curly-headed dude, and a stupid-tattoo and goatee.

12:20 - The half's almost over, and it's Western Kentucky 47-38 Drake. The announcer calls WKY the "pride of the Sun Belt". The Sun Belt has pride?

12:17 - We drop in on Drake during halftime, and we have a white-out! Drake has five white dudes on the floor. They're also losing.

12:13 - Halftime: Davidson 36-41 Gonzaga. Zags are definitely better than Davidson, but keep turning the ball over. Davidson is playing too fast and keep taking early, dumb shots, though. Good game.

12:07 - I've decided to irrationally hate Davidson's point guard, who just got fouled on a three. He's very frat-tastic.

11:53 - This dude Gray is lights-out from three. Hand in his face, no problem. Davidson 17-28 Gonzaga.

11:49 - Is Britney Spears on How I Met Your Mother pretty desperate, or what?

11:48 - Another Drillbit Taylor commercial. This must have been during Owen's heroin period, because he looks just half-asleep in all his scenes. *sigh*

11:45 - They flash to the other games after a commercial, and we drop in on Drake v. Western Kentucky. It's funny, all the white guys (seriously, all) when picking brackets on Mr. Tony's show, said something to the effect of "love the Drake" when picking Drake, obviously referencing Seinfeld. The black guys who came on the show did not. I think Seinfeld should be featured on the awesome Stuff White People Like, if it hasn't already.

11:39 - Another bone to pick: Nantz was talking about Davidson's non-conference schedule, and they lost to UNC, Duke, and UCLA. Well, they lost to UCLA by 12 and Nantz said that was deceiving, as they at one point had them down 32-14 in the first half. What exactly is deceiving about a 30-point swing in the score? It seems to me that a reasonable person would conclude that UCLA took them too lightly and then adjusted and blew Davidson out.

11:37 - I love Billy Packer, but this is just dumb. They're talking about all of Davidson's international players, and Billy mentions how it's surprising that Canada has the most players in the NCAA's. How is that surprising? Here, let me lay it out for you, Billy:
  1. Canada is right there above the USA.
  2. In most countries, pro teams have youth teams that start paying players around their college age, making them ineligible for NCAA serfdom. Canada does not have this.
  3. Basketball is a fairly popular sport in Canada
  4. Again, Canada is right there above the USA.

11:36 - Back in high school CYO ball, the main goal (besides fighting through their hangovers to try to play at 8:30) was blocking a shot, which we called "packing". I'm reminded of this as a Davidson player just rejects a Gonzaga post player's shot. Alas, it bounces straight to Gonzaga's 3-point shooter, who drains one. Ha!

11:31 - This game is in Raleigh, which I'm confused about, as Davidson is from North Carolina and a lower seed than the Spokane-based Zags.

11:25 - And now we switch to Gonzaga v. Davidson, for some reason. Nantz and Packer doing the game. When you've got Jesuits versus the southern Protestant school, who do you think I'll be cheering for?

11:23 - American is hanging tough so far. I'll give Pearl credit, though, I like the way his teams play. The running, trapping, high scoring stuff I always dig, despite my objections to his cheesy persona.

11:20 - Bill Raftery's doing this game as well. I do like Raftery; he's got a little schtick, but it's not overpowering. He seems to have a brain at least as opposed to, say, Dick Vitale.

11:14 - We're getting American v. Tennessee first. Verne Lundquist is doing the game, and he's great. Not so great? Bruce Pearl. What a fucking clown.

11:00 - I imagine this is what Stephen looks like when he's at work, minus the goatee of course:



(Stolen from Cracked.)

10:57 - Mr. Tony is done for the day. Break until the games start.

10:52 - Did I mention how happy I was that blogtober ground to a halt?

10:46 - I think I liked The Duke on the old ESPN show better than Brendan. Brendan just does silly news that Tony can riff off of, whereas The Duke was just a perfect straight man for Tony, giving real news (okay, sports news anyway) that Tony can point out the absurdity of in opposition to the rest of the ESPN crew worshiping the news cycle and treating it as if it were Walter Cronkite talking about Vietnam or something. Which also may explain why the radio show is no longer on ESPN.

10:33 - Some writer friend of Tony's (okay, that doesn't exactly narrow it down, but I don't know who this guy is) is on talking about the Duke game last night. It always confuses people that I don't watch the games of teams I am a fan of. Well, first of all, I don't like caring about things I can't control. I get upset and stressed out, and over what? Some fucking game? There are real things that I can (and will) get upset over, so why add one more thing onto that fire?

10:26 - Oh Christ, fucking American Idol talk. Fast forward time. Oh, Andy doesn't like The Wire, but American Idol gets two big thumbs up. Go figure.

10:23 - I always skip through Brendan's live reads. Need more coffee.

10:22 - Shut up, Joe Barber. It was called Cloverfield, and it was good, you idiot.

10:21 - On the show is Joe Barber, and he's a terrible middlebrow, but I'm inclined to believe him about Drillbit Taylor. That looks like shit. I think Owen Wilson, in addition to needing a hug, needs a new manager. Or barring that, just to work with Wes Anderson full-time.

10:17 - As you may know, I'm 85% of an atheist, but that other 15% is Catholic. So I'm fasting today, and I will be cranky.

10:16 - Games start in an hour, so I'm drinking coffee and listening to today's Tony Kornheiser Show.

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

 

Random...

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