Rick Pitino: Phew. Recruiting season is over for the fall, so I can finally enjoy the summer a little bit before things get cranking again next month … make a few bucks on the speaker circuit, maybe work in a week back in Italy with the wife. But first, I gotta check in on my ponies down at the race track.

[walks into stable]

Pitino: Hey there, Val. Good horse. You want a carrot? You want a little nuzzle with Daddy Rick? Yeah … just you and me here now …

[stall door swings open]

Derrick Caracter: You better do that question thang!

Pitino: Shit.

(more…)

35S: Uplifting and Informative.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
And Sometimes You Get Lucky

After yesterday’s legal-heavy day, we thought we would take the roundup into the weekend with the happier stories from this week. Odd though it may be, the happiest story broke last night, as incoming Louisville center Clarence Holloway found out he would never suit up for the Cardinals.

UK fans likely would this was good news on its face - hardy har har Rick Pitino sux har har - but in this case, Holloway’s basketball career was brought to an end by a series of medical problems, including a leak in his aortic valve and a rare muscle condition known as Marfan Syndrome:

“God works in mysterious ways,” said U of L Coach Rick Pitino. “Clarence developed a stress fracture his senior year [of high school], which kept him sidelined and probably saved his life. Detecting his heart condition and the subsequent surgery when he arrived at U of L was also a life-saving measure. Now, after this special testing, we know that the condition he has will make him unable to play basketball for the rest of his life. He will now begin a new journey, which will hopefully lead him to gaining a very strong education here at U of L and to prosper in a different walk of life. We’re behind him 100 percent.”

(HT: Fanhouse.) Obviously rough news for young Clarence, but obviously good news that they caught both conditions early so treatment and monitoring can begin before something terrible happens. Good on you, Mr. Holloway, and best wishes as you begin a non-basketball life.

And now, some requisite rock to get pumped for the remainder of the roundup.

(more…)

Ride on, Man of La Mancha.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Windmill Tilting Never Goes Out of Style

‘Round these parts, we appreciate anyone willing to take on the impossible opponent - the higher seed when it is loser-go-home, the 7′2″ center when the ball comes off the glass, or our mother-in-law when it’s time to leave for any event. (We kid, MM.) In the sports world, there are two great mountains that cannot be challenged - the NCAA, and Ticketmaster, both relying on the other to extort the greatest rents out of you, humble fan.

Which is why it’s all the more impressive that a group of fans, led by Tom George of Arizona, is taking on both dragons in the same lawsuit, claiming that the NCAA and Ticketmaster are illegally operating a gambling operation (!!) through their lottery ticket distribution system.

“Defendants’ scheme requires Plantiff and putative class members to purchase one or more entries for the chance to win the right to purchase tickets to a particular tournament game(s). This scheme satisfies all three elements of a lottery: (1) a prize, (2) an element of chance, and (3) consideration for the chance to win the prize. The consideration is the entry fee and the free use of applicants’ capital, and the prize is the right to purchase game tickets at face value. An element of chance exists because the winning entries are chosen by an (allegedly) random drawing, and not all entries can win,” the lawsuit states.

Full complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, available here. We would comment more thoroughly on the merits of the action, but our bar review course hasn’t gotten to any of the relevant substantive topics yet. All we can say now is that the suit was filed properly in this particular court. It’s going to be a long summer.

(more…)

THE (LET’S BE HONEST, ONLY) STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Feeding Frenzy

The offseason, as we have noted, often offers scant fare for the chosen few who write about college basketball. So when the O.J. Mayo scandal hit the wire … well, the result wasn’t exactly pretty:

Shark Week 2008 - Sports media covering an offseason scandal.

We weren’t sure it was possible to extend food analogies with O.J. Mayo any further, but there you have it.

Everyone has thrown their own opinion into the mix - from the MSM (Luke Winn at SI, Gary Parrish at Sportsline, Adam Rose at the LAT, Michael Ventre at NBC Sports) to ye olde national bloggers (STF, The Dagger, Rush, and tons at Fanhouse.)

In the cacophony of tsking, Bruin Nation asks, when will the local paper start snooping around USC’s athletic program? Both the Bush and Mayo scandals were broken by national media, not than the LA Times. But the paper did report today that the NCAA has opened an investigation.

But amidst all this seriousness (or faux seriousness), we’d be lying if we didn’t say that our favorite part of all of this was licking up the tears of the vanquished. And in that light, we give you Conquest Chronicles as Paragon goes through the five stages of grief.

Perhaps an ill-advised cover shoot.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Inconceivable!

Pop quiz to start your weeks, ladies and gentlemen - and we don’t want to hear any complaining, because if you’ve been reading the assigned material, this one will be easy: Which of the following post-season events, all related to one Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo, was the most predictable? Was it …

A) His decision to go pro after one year at USC?
B) An investigation by tWWL revealing Mayo received thousands of dollars worth of benefits from a sports agency’s middleman?
C) The post-investigation denial of wrongdoing by Mayo?
D) The hand-wringing column from Pat Forde decrying the lack of ethics by Mr. Mayo and USC?

If you answered (D), congratulations. Clearly, the most predictable of all these events was the column, for the Louisville Loudmouth is like a well-oiled machine, students - steely and efficient to be sure, but deadly and fear-inducing. Our guess is that Forde wrote yesterday’s column three years ago, while Mayo was still a Appalachian lad, and simply edited to include the relevant facts in record. Had nothing newsworthy happened, he would have found a reason to post the column anyway.

If you answered anything but (D), for shame. With all the evidence we have about the NCAA’s successful oversight of ethical conduct (99% of athletes haven’t been caught yet!), that O.J. might receive illicit benefits was … well, we’ll let Vizzini explain:

TWO STORIES THAT INTERESTED US FOR NO GOOD REASON
No Wonder He’s Recruiting Middle Schoolers

Last week, we noted that while transfer #1 may be ignored as a fluke for any program, transfer #2 can be properly viewed as a sign of trouble brewing. (We noted this in reference to our own alma mater, so maybe red flags jumped up too early, but still.) We control-c, control-p this advice again today as Kentucky announced two player transfers over the weekend.

Marginal players seeking greener pastures and more playing time? Perhaps. But given Billy Gillespie’s youth-oriented recruiting strategy - with commitments for every class through the next presidential administration now on the books - perhaps these gentlemen wanted to get out of Lexington before being replaced by zygotes.

It’s Only Hubris If You Can’t Back It Up

After a week unintentionally filled with Carolina-fueled stories, apparently our subconscious mind felt it necessary to offer equal time to the Blue Devils, which inevitably leads to much silliness. Case in point - a beautifully homer-tastic look by DBR at the so-called Duke Curse, in the wake of Huggy Bear’s slip-and-fall at the Greensboro airport last week.

We applaud the research efforts of DBR and their affiliates. However, tracking a would-be curse on each team that eliminates your squad in the tournament sounds like a more academic approach to the old standby chant for fans of the losing team:

Travel and work have once again bit us in the nose - we’re stuck between preparing for a big trial on Monday and preparing for our bachelor party this weekend. (We’ll let you guess which is more fun - or, for that matter, which is more work.)

That said, the blog waits for no man. We’ll have a coaching update later today, hopefully something else fun up on Monday, and we’ll be back full force on Tuesday. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, it is downright criminal for us not to have posted this yet, because we are a little gay for One Shining Moment. (NTTIAWWT.) Sure, you probably saw it on Monday night. But if your eyes don’t get a little misty every time you hear this tune … well, then, brothers and sisters, we don’t know what to do for you.

-Mgmt.

So, how’s everyone doing? Had a good weekend? Got in a little yard work with spring starting? Good, good … oh, us? Eh, work. Busy as shit. You don’t want details … did we have any fun? Nah, not really.

Oh, THAT? OHHH … we had plenty of that. Sorry - we thought you meant sex-swing type fun.

In short … FUCK and YES. We have plenty to say about this weekend’s events and the games to come, and we’ll get to that in due time. We don’t want to turn into tWWW and repeat the same hype for four days straight, so we’re trying not to blow our wad in one day. So, patience, my friends - there will plenty to talk about before noon tipoff on Thursday. Let the excitement of Madness Week decant like a fine pint of Guinness on this most holy of holidays.

The Church can move the Feast to Saturday, but the Feis goes until tonight.

So, as you might have noticed, no roundup this morning - or funny posts this afternoon. Three reasons, and three reasons alone:

1) Too many games to cover adequately.

2) Work on other (and hopefully funnier) pieces.

3) Responsibilities outside of this here blog.

Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday.

This will come as a shock to many of you, but when we were in middle school, we were … how shall we put this … nerds. We programmed games on our TI-85. We were on the Geography team. We lost the only fight we were in. (In our defense, that guy is now a captain in the Air Force. But still.)

There but for the grace of God (and failure to master game theory at age 12) go we …

But we digress. The NCAA Tournament was the proverbial pork chop around our neck - running pools was pretty much the only way to get the cool kids to talk to us. We sat in class and drew hundreds of brackets from memory so that our classmates could submit as many brackets as they wanted. (Photocopiers and rural middle school didn’t mix.) And for ourselves, we would fill out dozens of iterations of our own picks, because we were somehow more indecisive then than we are now.

So it is with great pleasure that we received a link to the super-fantastic-awesome Dream Tournament from Ed at National Sports Rankings. Click through and simulate the tournament (using the current ESPN Bracketology projected field) to your heart’s delight - the replay button is at the bottom of the page. Oral Roberts in the Elite Eight? Possibility! Brigham Young playing for the title? Possibility! Arizona, #10 seed and champion? Possibility! Carolina losing in the second round to Baylor? FUCK YES.

This post has been edited for your safety.

[beep] Carolina. [beep] their [beeeeep] [beeep] right in the [beeeeep] ear. [beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep]. [beeeeep], that was one [beeeeep] [beeeeeep] game. Can’t [beeeeep] believe that Duke couldn’t score one [beeeeep] point in the last five minutes. Can’t [beeeeep] believe pretty much any [beeeeep] thing that happened during that [beep].

And I don’t want to hear a [beeeeep] thing ever again about Duke getting all the [beeeeep] calls. Those refs wouldn’t know their [beeeeep] from their [beeeeep] whistles.

Don’t [beeeeep] get me started about Tyler [beeeeep] Hansbrough, either. That [beeeeeeeeeeep] mouth-breathing [beeeeeeeeep] could [beeeeep] bring Mother Teresa back from the dead, and I would still want to [beeeeep] take out the back of his [beeeeep] knees with a [beeeeeeeeeeep] baseball bat.

[beep]. [beep] [beeeeep] [beep] [beep] [beep].

We love us some small conference basketball for approximately one billion reasons, but the short list looks something like this:

1) Defense (they play it);
2) 3-pointers (manna and nectar for small teams);
3) Funny looking white dudes (see (2));
4) Underrated trim (especially brainy and/or outwardly pious trim);
5) Curiosity towards students who actively sought schools without big time sports.

But when we’re honest with ourselves, we know the real reason we love these conferences – and, we suspect, the one reason that brings us all together in their support – are their ridiculous names. So as we enter conference tournament season and teams begin to make their official exit for the season, we want to take a moment to look back and remember the ridiculously funny teams we’ve enjoyed throughout the year. Today, we put up tombstones for two perennial favorites: The Liberty Flames and the Stetson Hatters.

Gentle … men? … you will be missed.

Mouthguard AND brand placement?

Well done, sir.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Timber …
#3 UCLA 77, #7 Stanford 67 (OT)

The bigger they are, the harder they … something something. This kind of loss should take the wind out of the sails of those damn treehuggers sleepin’ in that redwood. [listens to whispers backstage] Wait, that’s at Berkeley? Eh, one of them hippie schools in the Bay Area; pretty much the same place, aren’t they?

Utter collapse by the Cardinal, which will never cease being a really lame mascot. Double digit lead with five minutes to go? Meaningless - when the Bruins decide to switch it on, it’s ballgame. But it should scare the shit out of Ukkluh fans that it took 35 minutes for such a switch to occur. This is unquestionably the most talented team in the country, and we still think they are losing before the Final Four. Also, the golden ‘C’ on the jersey is remarkably stupid. Unless it’s to commemorate something historic. In which case it’s only whisper-behind-its-back stupid.

THE GAME YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED INSTEAD

There wasn’t one. UCLA-Stanford was the best game of the night on paper and on hardwood. Of course, there are some people whose cable/internet went out for twelve hours, so just for all of us you …. (not that we’re bitter):

Arena Finally Lives Up to Name; Immediately Closed
St. Joseph’s 71, #8 Xavier 68

Last night was the last home game in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse for the Hawks (they’ll play in the Palestra next season while AMF gets renovated), and they scored a huge win over Xavier to set up a “loser gets the NIT, winner gets heartburn” matchup against Dayton on Saturday.

St. Joe’s won the game with teamwork (five players in double digits) and strong defense down the stretch - but not if you read the lead for the AP wire story afterwards. Noooo …. you know who won this game for the Hawks? Jameer Nelson - just by showing up. Has nothing to do with the fact that he’s the only person from St. Joe’s most sportswriters can name (save Dr. Jack, natch.)

FOUR TOURNAMENTS WORTH ONE LINE APIECE

Atlantic Sun - Mustache-tastic Lipscomb shaved by MTSU.

Northeast - Hehehe … Mount St. Mary’s … hahahahah … [wipes tears] … but seriously folks, we’re going to hell.

Missouri Valley - Thousands of teenage boys accept what we have long known: Shockers are surprisingly ineffective.

Big South - Top-seeded UNC-Asheville rolls to finals, but must face three time defending champs Winthrop. Don’t ever fuck with Winthrop.

Looking good, Billy Ray! Feeling good, Louis!

Sure, be a dick and focus on the good teams with possibilities. We like the teams we know are horrendously flawed and not really capable of winning anything but the flukiest of NCAA tournaments. Like Tina Fey and her mysterious scar, they are flawed beauties we’ll take, because the prettiest ones are a.) already overbooked, and b.) not answering our phone calls.

USC. The idiot savant squad who while brilliant will play the idiot part of the role in losses like their early season flukebomb they lost to Mercer. They also do the hyper-brilliant part of the equation, too:

Dramatic rap synth strings aside, he’s bad, and is Davon Jefferson. If the two stayed around for another year, USC would be an easy pick for preseason top 10 material next year. Since they will both pass up relatively unpaid labor for the piles of cash in the NBA, you’ll have to make do with the boom or bust dynamic of the USC team this year.

Mississippi State. They’re fun the same way watching a car wreck is: mangling defense stopping all forward momentum, causing everything to come to a screeching halt. They allow around 60 points a game, so if you’re pitting teams against each other in fantasy matchups and love low point totals, you’re already matching Wisconsin against them in your head.

Syracuse. Five starters averaging double digits in scoring, two freshman and two sophomores in the starting lineup, and Boeheim zone defense madness. Pure funsies just to watch for the potential.

Florida. Ditto for Florida, especially point guard Nick Calathes, who’s averaging 15.3 points a game and passing like Jason Williams would if Jason Williams were accurate and not baked off his ass on five pounds of primo chiba.

He jumps just like his pappy!

Did you hear that the Pitt Panthers were playing without two starters? Did you hear that this will be the case for the next two months? So can we drop it now and move on to the basketball?

Because that’s what Pitt is doing.

The Panthers defeated Georgetown 69-60 last night at the Oakland Zoo in the regular season’s lone matchup between these latter day rivals. The game pitted the Big East’s most dominant young big man against the conferences elder giant. Some speculated that the 6′7″ monster known as Cloverfield DeJuan Blair would lose some of his effectiveness against the ungodly tall Roy Hibbert, but that was not the case. The freakishly long-armed freshman scored 15, grabbed nine rebounds and ate half of a Toyota Yaris The points were nice, but it was the rebounding that put a more physical Pitt team (does that go without saying yet?) ahead of the favored Hoyas.

Nobody could get the Georgetown offense going in the second half and Ronald Ramon’s hot shooting (finally) carried the Panthers to the nine point edge. Pitt now stands at 15-2 despite the losses of Levance Fields and Mike Cook while Georgetown’s second loss will leave them searching for answers.

One guy who can’t help is Chris Wright, the talented freshman scorer is out indefinitely with a broken foot. Now I’m not going to pretend to know how Chris got hurt (or you know, look it up) but I’ll bet it has something to do with the fucking cobblestones on 35th Street. When those fuckers get wet they start claiming ankles like Lance Stephenson.

One of the men pictured above is responsible for the success of the Saint Louis Billikens basketball program and the other is a goofy looking talisman, but they both enjoy a good luck belly rub. Neither one of them is doing their job all that well.

Last night Sweet Saint Lou set a new benchmark for shitty offense that will remain on the books for the rest of Rick Majerus’s life. That’s right, two full years! The Billikens were in my own backyard for a matchup with the Colonials of GW in what will surely go down as the worst basketball played in the District since the halcyon days of Craig Esherick. The team managed to eek out 20 points in the whole fucking game.

The numbers were about what you’d expect, 5% 3-point shooting, 14.6% overall from the field, and one 18 minute scoring drought. Jesus Christ, I got bored just typing that, imagine if I’d actually sat through the entire two hours of action basketball utter crap. If I had I can guarantee you that I wouldn’t be back here writing about the game. They’d still be picking little pieces of my corpse off of the Metro train.

By the way, Saint Louis lost by 29.

Billikens Blitzed
Billiken Basketball Blog Is Dark