Saturday, March 21, 2009

March Madness: Day 2

Day 2 brought way more thrills and upsets than Day 1, which was good for people who picked all of those games right. That wasn't me. I missed Siena, Utah (I had a feeling that would happen), Wake Forest (Cleveland St on 4/5 brackets except the one that counted), Utah St, Portland St, and Temple.

Thankfully, I only had Wake going to the Sweet Sixteen. That woman that was in first place? She had West Virginia in the Elite Eight and Portland St in the Sweet Sixteen. Anytime you make it through the first two days with all of your Elite Eight teams in tact, you're in good shape.

First place is now some guy who picked the rest of the 8 games correctly last night. He had Wake in the Sweet Sixteen too, but he's up on me by 1.

Now for yesterday's highlights, because I have a feeling if I continued on about my bracket, you'd stop reading.

Syracuse did as expected and spanked Stephen F. Austin. I watched about 5 minutes of the game and immediately hopped on to E-Bay to order my very own Eric Bell. He's almost life size!

Oklahoma St beat Tennessee. I've written an apology to Peyton Manning for picking Ok St, but I don't know if he's gotten it yet. Picking 8/9 games don't matter anyway, because unless there's a REALLY good sleeper, you're not putting them past the second round. Anyway, it was a good, close game, just as expected.

My Utah St. Aggies almost pulled off the upset. I call them mine only because I was so confident in them winning that I felt I should get some sort of credit if they actually did win. The worst feeling in the world is hitting a last second 3 pointer when you're 4 points down. It was a great game by them.

I didn't watch much of the Kansas/North Dakota St game. I hate Kansas, and I didn't even realize North Dakota was a state.

Temple sucked against Arizona St. Santa Claus can't do it all by himself, so effort from the rest of his team would've been nice. Thanks suckbags.

The Pittsburgh/East Tennessee St game was almost one of the greatest games I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen a 1/16 game where I really thought they were going to do it. 8 minutes left, I thought Pittsburgh was just going to collapse any minute. Nope, it didn't happen, meaning I didn't run around outside naked and screaming. Sorry ladies. And Adam.

Dayton beat West Virginia. I don't know much about basketball lingo, so I don't even know what kind of offense that's called. They basically do with a basketball what a football does with a football when they run a triple reverse option. And they really played off the fake handoffs beautifully. Imagine a bunch of tall, lanky, speedy guys playing basketball the only way tall, lanky guys can. Dayton's my upset pick against Kansas. Just watch.

Missouri beat Cornell, but didn't pull away until later in the second half. Reason being, Missouri sucks, and so does the fact that I picked them to go to the Elite Eight. I expect to regret that decision tomorrow, but I really thought they'd be playing Utah St (and then overranked Memphis who are bound to drop their Sweet Sixteen game).

At this point I went to see Watchmen for the second time. It's so much better on IMAX. Imagine Malin Akerman's beautiful breasts as she rides Patrick Wilson to the tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Now imagine her breasts are bigger than your entire body. Yeah.

Arizona spanked Utah. I picked against Arizona teams twice and have twice regretted it. I picked Utah teams twice and twice I have regretted it. Never again.

Southern Cal beat Boston College. Obviously. BC only beats good teams, they lose to bad ones.

Portland St. got rocked by Xavier. This makes my picking Wisconsin for the Sweet Sixteen much more unlikely. Crap.

I got back in time for the end of the first overtime for the Siena/Ohio St game. That game was incredible, even if you only started watching during overtime. Ronald Moore gets to be the first superhero of the tournament with his 3 pointers he hit under ten seconds in both overtimes, to first tie it up, and then give them the win. Brilliant.

I thought Cleveland St would upset Wake Forest, but I wasn't confident enough to pick them when money mattered. After all, Wake was at one time the best team in the country (or overrated by the media). Ohio's definitely representing this tournament.

Michigan St. left just enough breathing room that Robert Morris could have climbed back into it. They unfortunately didn't, but I would have sent links to every guy on ESPN to this blog just to tell them how bad I called an upset (except I would have cleverly edited my post so I didn't mention at the end that I was just kidding).

Wisconsin over Florida St was huge for me. It was also a great game, even though they would only switch over to it when there was about 30 seconds left in regulation (and there were like, 3 minutes in overtime for the Ohio St/Siena game). I was too lazy to grab my laptop and throw the game on there, so I just watched the bits and pieces CBS showed. Two seconds to go and they get a prayer thrown up that goes in, plus the foul. Trevon Hughes hit his free throw, and that was the game. Brilliant.

I'm going to keep it short today, because I need to start drinking approximately NOW to calm my nerves for the UConn/Texas A&M game. Ok, maybe it's not that bad, but I did realize something. Over in California, when my friend Kris and I were at a sports bar in Long Beach to watch the UConn/Syracuse game, people kept asking why we were so into it. I answered, "Have you ever been in Connecticut? Can you find anything else to be unashamedly prideful of except for UConn athletics?" At least when a team in California loses, they go out and take a walk amongst some palm trees and the beach before hitting up their local medical marijuana store. In New England, when our team loses, we have to go dig our car out of five feet of snow when it's -20 degrees and cigarettes are $7 a pack. THAT'S why we take our sports so seriously.

Games to most definitely not miss:

UCLA/Villanova. I think UCLA come in to this as a heavy underdog. If Nova were in another conference, they could've very well won it and gotten a #1 seed. Instead, they had to be in the Big East, where there are 3 #1 seeds and 1 other #3 seed. However, UCLA is the type of team that can shine in the NCAA Tournament, and if they're on today, it could be a tough time for Nova. My pick: UCLA

Maryland/Memphis. Memphis barely fended off Cal State Northridge, and Maryland had a tough game grinding it out against California. For my bracket's sake, I'm rooting for Memphis, but my heart is hoping the Fighting Turtles will knock the first #2 seed out of the tournament.

UConn/Texas A&M. Texas A&M is the type of team that can cause a lot of turnovers, especially against UConn who has sloppier ball handling than a heroin addicted hooker who hasn't had a fix in a week. Wait...let that sink in. Ok, let's move on. I definitely think UConn has the toughest 2nd round game of any #1 seed, but I also think they should be put up against #16 seeds the entire tournament. My pick: Texas A&M. To lose.

Purdue/Washington. This game's going one of two ways. It'll be close the entire game, giving Purdue a chance to take it at the end. Or...Washington dominates the entire time. I'm taking the latter. Jon Brockman is a beast, and I just hope he comes down with the 2 day flu or something after the game so UConn doesn't have to see him.

Western Kentucky/Gonzaga. Can the Gonzagas of this tournament beat Gonzaga? There is a very realistic possibility of it. This ought to be a shocker, no matter what happens.

Alright, it's past noon. Let's hit up those beers.

For all my UConn attending readers out there (Kris):

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN!

WOOF.

2:57 pm: UCLA was a dumb pick.

Friday, March 20, 2009

I swear to God if East Tennessee wins,

I'm going to have to run around Boston naked and screaming. I won't even know what to do with myself.

5:31 pm: A great effort by East Tennessee. Very close. I needed Temple and they lost, but I went 3/4 on the rest. 1st place in my tournament had West Virginia going to the Elite Eight, so I just took the lead by being the only person in the top 7 to pick Dayton. Good thing because I have them in the Sweet Sixteen. Dayton has one of the most fun offenses to watch. They could make it as a football team if they just kept running the ridiculous reverses they throw out there. Love it.

Break time. Going to see Watchmen again tonight. Not as good as on IMAX, but it'll do.

Upset picks: Portland St., USC, Wisconsin.

Friday Pic O' tha Week

Yeah Western Kentucky! Of course, my bracket will immediately look like poop after today's games, but it was fun while it lasted. Is anything better than watching basketball on the internet at work? Huge game tonight for the Celtics in San Antone. Leon suffered the first real injury of his pro career this week so we'll be keeping an eye on that. Tons of great sports to watch this weekend so there's no need to leave the house people. Also, the NFL draft is less than five weeks away. Sweet!

March Madness: Day 1

I'm going to write a thank you letter to Al Gore. Because of his invention, I was able to catch nearly every single game of the greatest tournament on Earth (Mortal Kombat is disqualified because only part of it takes place on Earth, but if we're talking about the greatest tournament in the universe, Mortal Kombat does take the cake). I had my TV on CBS while I flipped back and forth between the three remaining games on the internet, typically only needing to watch one at a time since half of them weren't even competitive.

I'm competing in 5 brackets. Up until the Illinois/Western Kentucky game last night, I still had one perfect bracket left. I picked Western Kentucky in 4 out of 5 brackets, but neglected to take the same common sense approach for my perfect bracket. It's no longer perfect, but I'm still doing better than I ever have in previous years. Maybe it's the lack of upsets, and the fact that everyone who SHOULD have won, won. I don't care as long as I finish in the money.

I'm going against about 70 people in the pool at my dad's job. My dad is maybe 5th from last, my grandfather's doing well, he only has 2 wrong so far, and my 1 wrong is good enough for a 2 way tie at 2nd place. You can be sure after today though, I'll have a good 7 or 8 wrong and half my Elite Eight will be out.

Texas A&M was far and away the better team going into their matchup against BYU. They can give a lot of teams headaches, and I'm happy I picked them in all 5 brackets. They're going to give UConn a tough matchup, and I'm not looking forward to that game.

Jon Brockman of Washington gets my "Most Badass Dude" award for Day 1, and definitely put himself far above everyone else for the entire tournament. If you didn't see the play, Brockman jumps up for a rebound, is completely horizontal about 7 feet in the air, and comes down ridiculously hard on the floor. Less than a second later, he turns himself over and flips himself up. It wasn't just the fact that he got up so quickly, but HOW he got up that was super badass. He just made it look like he fell into a pile of feathers, but you know the entire left side of his body was screaming in pain. Badass.

The look on the faces of the women behind the hoop tell the
whole story. My face looked like that, but was also accompanied
by a high pitched "Oh no!". Thankfully, the floor declined to
press charges for the cracks Brockman made when he hit the ground.

Cal State Northridge almost kept up with Memphis. Almost. People still think Memphis should have had the #1 seed over UConn? Proceed with shutting the hell up, now. Now, the Big West is no joke (I have to say that now, because my best friend Kris is about to be an athletic trainer at Cal State Long Beach), but UConn would have at least won by 30 points or more.

Jim Calhoun was in the hospital and couldn't coach the UConn/Chattanooga game. At least that's what he WANTS you to think. You see, George Blaney is a better head coach than a good handful of the head coaches in this tournament. He's just even better as Calhoun's right hand man. Early yesterday morning, Blaney called up Calhoun and said:

GB: Hey Jim, I got two plane tickets to Las Vegas. You want to go get wasted and bang some hookers?

JC: George, we've got a game today, remember?

GB: Oh yeah. Shit...well, how about this? You go, I'll coach the game for you. You've been through a whole ton of crap lately, you deserve a break. Go let off some steam.

JC: I can't just NOT show up George.

GB: Sure you can. You're Jim Calhoun, you're sick ALL THE TIME! Just get Doc Anderson to tell the media that you're not feeling well, and no one will even question you.

JC: You're a true friend, George.

GB: You got it, Jim! Now tell me, if you had $10,000, and you had to budget all of that between hookers, blow, booze, and gambling...how much money would you budget for food?

JC: Not a dime!

GB: Good boy Jimmy.

Note to self: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless
you're rich as hell and can bring the hookers back with you.

Michigan gave me a scare for a while, but eventually they prevailed and topped Clemson. Barely. The good thing for Michigan is that they play an overrated Oklahoma next round. The bad thing is that Michigan sucks.

Speaking of Oklahoma, I would love to get a lesson from Ameer Ali, who flipped Blake Griffin over, on how to do that. Now before I continue, that's a cheap, dirty move, and the guy should be banned from the NCAA. Griffin, while he is a giant toolbox, hadn't done a whole lot to warrant that extremely dangerous move. He could've landed on his head, and a serious injury like that would ruin March Madness for everyone.

Now that I've said that, if this were a wrestling match, I'd have been really excited about how badass that flip was. Their arms were slightly tangled, so he grabbed a hold of Griffin's arm, quickly did some long division and trigonometry and calculated the best angle to flip Griffin over. Then I think he actually tried to argue being ejected. There was room to believe when DeJuan Blair flipped Hasheem Thabeet over that it could've been unintentional. You couldn't really make that argument here. Ali, you win my award for "Most douchebag move that would be totally awesome if this weren't the NCAA Tournament". Congratulations!

Villanova gave me a big scare, but I've got them out in the 2nd round anyway, so it would'nt have been devastating if American pulled off the upset. It would have ruined my all Big East bracket though, where no Big East team loses except to another Big East team. It's like how the only thing strong enough to cut a diamond is another diamond. Or Jon Brockman.

UCLA also gave me a scare. Luckily the scare wasn't as big because I was asleep before halftime (that's what you get for working at 6am every day). Virginia Commonwealth, representing my suckbag conference, the CAA, put together a solid outing. Good game fellas, I'm just glad you didn't beat my sacrificial lamb to Duke in the Sweet 16.

I may have overlooked how tough Washington is. I've got a sinking feeling if they beat Purdue, then the Jon Brockman/Hasheem Thabeet matchup is going to be very bad for UConn. Brockman's not built like a basketball player, he's built like a guy who crushes rocks with his bare hands for a living.

Matchups you should be interested in today:

Marquette/Utah St. The Aggies might very well be the weakest 11 seed, and on a good day Marquette can play like a #3 seed, but Utah St. has the home court advantage. Their fans will travel a long way to see them, and while Idaho is a ways away, I've got a feeling it'll feel just like home for Utah St.

Syracuse/Stephen F. Austin. I'm interested in this game for 2 reasons. The first is to see if the guy on SFA I paid off to Blake Griffin flip Devendorf will actually go through with it. Wishful thinking isn't too terrible, right? The second reason is to see how Cuse performs. They've had time to rest since the Big East Tournament, and while I think they're ranked too highly, they've got a ton of confidence. They'll win this game, that I'm sure of. I just want to see what kind of matchup they'll be giving the rest of the South field this tournament. I need an Elite Eight out of them, but I'll settle for a busted bracket if they get knocked out early. Also, Eric Devendorf.

Michigan St/Robert Morris. If there's going to be a #2/#15 upset this year, it's right here. Michigan St. is far and away the best #2 seed, but Robert Morris has that undeniable swagger you can only find from a Pennsylvania school with 4,000 students. Tom Izzo probably feels his guys deserved a #1 bid, but after the Beasts of the Northeast start the game on a 10-0 run, he'll hit the panic button. Ok, in reality this should be a blowout for Michigan St. But I would love a Disney movie in 10 years about the improbable run Robert Morris made in the NCAA Tournament.

People shouldn't be surprised when Robert Morris proves to
be a basketball powerhouse, as their namesake was known
to be a hoops fanatic. Even before the sport was invented.

Utah/Arizona. If Arizona has watched absolutely ANY coverage of the tournament selections (which they have), they know that everyone felt they didn't deserve to get in. That's what makes this matchup interesting. Will the Arizona that we expect to fall on their face show up, or will Kurt Warner come and give a pregame pep talk about how no one believed in the Cardinals but themselves? Then before we know it, we have a stupid #12 seed in the Final Four.

Xavier/Portland St. This is my upset pick. On my official bracket (a.k.a. the one I care about the most because of the massive amounts of money I can win), I've got them facing off against Wisconsin in the 2nd round. Portland St. isn't coming in with the "We're happy just to be here" mentality, that I can assure you. Xavier's got a lot of weak spots and has played inconsistently as of late. Portland St. has a dangerous perimeter game, and it's teams that can knock down the 3's that can make a late run and get a huge upset.

I'll probably make a post later once I've lost 5 games in a row.

1:03 pm: Ok, so as of right now, it looks like I was right about the crowd for Utah St. They're definitely there to root for them. It looks like this game might not be as close as I expected though.

If North Dakota St. keeps it close and wins, that's alright with me. I've got Kansas losing 2nd round anyhow.

Eric Bell, the shortest player in the NCAA Tournament, is shorter than my mom. I just want to throw Eric Bell in my backpack and walk around with him, he's so tiny.

The Tennessee/Oklahoma St game looks to be better than I expected. I'll be rooting for OK St for my bracket's sake, but in my hurt, I can't go against Peyton Manning's alma mater.

1:17 pm: Utah St is staying in this now. If they catch fire the second half, just watch. An 8 point deficit can turn into a one possession game very quickly.

1:45 pm: Utah St now down by 1 point. I'm telling you guys, it can happen.

2:43 pm: Marquette won by a point. Total margin of loss in my two bracket losses: 5 points.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Ten Reasons to Hate Eric Devendorf

It's March Madness, my third or fourth favorite time of the year. My Huskies are a #1 seed, maybe deserved, maybe undeserved, but it doesn't really matter now. They've got to win the same amount of games as everyone else. Except for Morehead St, who need to win 1 more game than everyone.

However, I'm not going to talk about UConn. I'm going to give you my official March Madness 10 Reasons to Hate Eric Douchendorf.

1. He's ugly. He is honestly one of the ugliest looking dudes I've seen in a while. You show me a girl who wants to rail him because he's handsome and I'll show you a girl who thinks donkeys are handsome.

Luckily, Eric Devendorf goes to Syracuse, where 90%
of the student population is actually this ugly.


2. He hits women. If you don't remember, here's a reminder. The dude hit a girl. In the face. He claims it was in self defense. If you're the size of Eric Devendorf, and a girl is going after you, I'm pretty sure a simple hand up protecting you is defense enough.

3. Stupid tattoos. Stupid, stupid tattoos. Eric Devendorf is like the Kevin Federline of the NBA. Except Kevin Federline has more money, is more attractive, and plays the whole "I'm super white trash but I really REALLY want to be cool with black dudes" schtick much better.

I remember the first time I saw him and went "Wait...is that a fucking basketball inside of an cross?" Congratulations asshole, you have the dumbest tattoo I've ever seen. The great thing about the internet is that you can see the transformation of the tattoo from when he probably thought it was really cool, to after he got tons of work done on it to make it extreme and badass. Let's look at his before and after thought processes...



4. He wants to be Eminem. If you're white, from Michigan, you have a shaved head, and your nickname is 8 Mile, it's a safe assumption to say you actually want to be Eminem. I suppose the fact that I already mentioned he has less black dude cred than Kevin Federline means that being like Eminem is out of the picture. "Hi, my name is...what, my name is...who, my name is (tick-e-tick-e) Eric Devendorf" just doesn't have the same ring.

5. Seriously. I wasn't kidding about how ugly he is. Adam Morrison called, he wants his first month's growth of a moustache back.

6. His last name is Devendorf. I hope he enjoys his tenure at Hogwarts. Hey-ohhhhhh.

7. He makes Gerry McNamara seem tolerable. Do you know how hard it is for me to say that I like Gerry McNamara more than ANYONE? Being a UConn fan, McNamara was the bane of my existence for a small period of time. Now whenever I see Gerry at Syracuse games, I think "He's saving the seat next to him for you, Eric". Except you can't go to basketball games when you're getting your salad tossed in prison, which you will be.

8. For being such a tough wannabe gangsta thug, he is an unbelievably whiny bitch. Whenever Syracuse loses in this tournament in some heartbreaking fashion, expect a closeup of Devendorf sobbing on the shoulder of Jonny Flynn.


9. Be jealous, because he will probably have a better place than you when he moves back to his double wide in Michigan. I finally hit it big mama!

10. He yells way too fucking much. Yes, it's good when a player gets excited, but you can tell when a guy's just full of himself. That's Devendorf. He's the leader of his own fan club, and overdoes it in the limelight every chance he gets because he's well aware that his basketball career ends when he finishes college. When he's fighting to keep his spot on a D League squad 5 years down the road, I bet he'll tone his chest bumping down a bit. Also, we'll probably see some more abuse incidents. I'd put money on that.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Julian Tavarez is Still Crazy, Awesome

There's a name you probably haven't thought of for a while. You remember good ole Julian (ed. note - "The Ghoul") right? Famous for punching things, punching people, and various other transgressions. Well after an off-season of being unemployed, he's the newest member of the Washington Nationals. Why the Nats? Well let's allow Julian to explain for himself:

"Why did I sign with the Nationals?" Tavárez said on Sunday. "When you go to a club at 4 in the morning, and you're just waiting, waiting, a 600-pounder looks like J-Lo. And to me this is Jennifer Lopez right here. It's 4 in the morning. Too much to drink. So, Nationals: Jennifer Lopez to me."


I couldn't have put it better myself. I'll now be referring to the baseball club from Washington as the "4 AM J-Lo's" for the rest of the season. It's a mouthful, but it's worth it..... that's what she said.

The Walking Wounded

The Celtics are down to just eight players available for tonight's game against Scrob's beloved Heat, after Leon sustained a bruised kneecap in the opening minutes at Chicago, Ray Ray hyper-extended his elbow near the end of the game, and Rondo re-injured an ankle. All are listed as day-to-day, but the team described Powe's injury as the most serious of the three.

Even though he only played four minutes last night, Leon still managed 3 rebounds (2 offensive) and 2 points. Not too shabby.. now get healthy!

A fun note: for the first time since his days at Inglewood, Paul Pierce was forced to play center last night, due to all the injuries/Mikki Moore fouling out.

The next couple games should be interesting, as Doc will be forced to play his least favorite guys or else suit up himself and try not to get double technicals and get ejected. Seriously, NBA.. five games in seven days?!

Editor Update - Leon is out tonight. Big Baby makes his return.

Kate's p.s. to editor's note: Leon is out for at least two to three weeks. Ray Ray is day to day, and will not play this weekend, but will be the sharpest dressed guy on the bench.