Straight ballin’.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
DWI Doesn’t Pay Matter

Breaking the law is bad, but if you drink and drive, you will have committed the crime of greatest moral turpitude of all. It’s bad enough that you become a threat to yourself and others, to person and property alike. But brother, it also shows you can’t hold your liquor, and there ain’t nothing less American than a man who can’t hold his sauce.

But feel calmed, citizens - everything you have been taught from a young age is true. When you commit this great breach of conduct and judgment, you will be caught and punished severely by both the public and private. Criminal sanction? Of course. Public shame? Absolutely. Distrust of loved ones? Possibly. Cautious reaction by potential employers? Practically certain.

Unless, of course, you are Ty Lawson, a pure point guard with strong defense, penetration skills, and a love of rollin’ saucy with the music pumping. Then, son, you have a chance to find work in Denver, if FOX’s Jeff Goodman is right:

My guess is that some teams may shy away from the North Carolina sophomore point guard, but I doubt Denver will be one of them.

Remember, the Nuggets, who pick at No. 20, are the team rumored to be extremely interested in Lawson.

The Nuggets have Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin on their roster.

Not exactly model citizens.

We couldn’t agree more, though we now question what types of “Nuggets” these modern Denver players are searching for … though we suspect a gram-sensitive scale is still appropriate.

Only gold from them thar hills, brah, we promise.

UPDATE: Apparently, Lawson didn’t show up for his scheduled workout with the Nuggs today. Either Lawson is an idiot, or he has a lock stock guarantee from another team that picks before the Nuggets at #20 that he’ll be their pick. A tip of the cap again to Jeff Goodman for his excellent work.

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WINNAR.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Dear Cancer: Die. Love, Coaches

We normally struggle to make light of potentially fatal diseases - even we have depths to which we won’t stoop, much to the surprise of our wife - but we do call the lede “the story everyone is talking about,” and the news late Friday that UConn coach Jim Calhoun once again had cancer qualifies for such title.

Calhoun had already beat cancer twice - prostate cancer in 2003 and skin cancer in 2007 - by catching it early (good for cancer and chicken pox; bad for gonorrhea). This time, he alerted his doctor to a growth on his neck that was determined to be squamous cell cancer. Growth removed, radiation administered, and four weeks later, scans show his lymph nodes and skin to be cancer-free.

Upon hearing the news, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski expressed relief - not only that his colleague was safe and would return to the sidelines, but also because Cancer’s third consecutive loss to Calhoun in a championship round gave it a slightly worse record than Coach K’s own 0-2 against Calhoun in games that count. (Not that we’re bitter.)

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Big East knows not to talk back.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Big Thursday Has a Ring to It. Sure.

Mid-majors status is something akin to owning a bakery in Little Italy circa 1935. Maybe you want to stay in your small shop, bake your panettone, earn a humble but honest living. But when La Cosa Nostra comes calling, asking for just a small favor here and there that they promise will lead to greater riches for everyone, you accept. You know it means you no longer control your shop, your destiny, your dreams. At first, you try to push back a little, but in the end you accept it for what it is. You lie to yourself, say it is for the children. And so life goes on, your community profile larger but more gray, and your sleep much more short.

Whoa, sorry - got caught up in a metaphor there. Long way of saying - when tWWL yells “Jump!”, mid-majors answer, and we whistle because we consumers don’t care about making the sausage so long as we get 10 games a week.

Case in point: the West Coast Conference (a favorite around these parts) got added onto tWWL’s Big Monday package three years ago in a deal that pretty much worked for no one but the Mouse. Well, the WCC tried to fight back a little - saying that the late Monday start times were bad for fans and players alike in a refreshing bit of truth - and they got Bristol’s attention. So much so that tWWL is now considering moving its contracted WCC games to Thursday nights in the same time slot.

Let’s review: no gain for fans - since Thursdays are only better than Mondays for single 25 year olds with jobs that don’t require thought five days a week; no gain for players - ditto; no gain for schools - ad revenue dips on a much lower profile night, where they will fight against more football early in November / December and more pro hoops in January / February. Meanwhile, La Cosa Nostra gets what it wants - a freed up Monday schedule ready to snatch up the Pac-10, a conference more willing to screw its fans, when its contract with FSN expires.

Don’t lie to yourself, WCC. Don’t say you didn’t know this is what it was. You knew their business when went into this thing.

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CHOOSE!

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Ohio - More or Less Frightening Than Mexico?

The question above poses an odd query to anyone with neither affinity or hate for either locale - your corn comes from the former, your patently racist joke tortillas come from the latter. But if you drink heartily of the haterade this country prides itself on, then you likely have a fairly negative view of one or both of these locations, making a choice between them difficult.

More evidence to confuse the decision: in Ohio, college basketball players are shooting at police officers:

Akron basketball player Rydell Brooks was arrested early Sunday after shooting at police officers during a foot chase following a traffic stop.

Akron police said the 20-year-old Brooks ran from a car and fired several times as police officers chased him. He was being held in Summit County Jail and faces attempted murder and felonious assault charges.

We guess that he won’t be suiting up for the Zips anytime soon.

But in Mexico, you can get the shit beaten out of you by two American hoops players, and nobody will be charged because “all you people look alike”:

The person who was injured, a Michigan resident who was down there on an internship, still maintain it was [Portland State player Scott] Morrison who broke his jaw. He and his family are still seeking to have charges brought (if they can find anyone who can corroborate his story) and are looking into a civil action.

Protecting and serving Akron while fielding bullets from a bench guard, or taking slugs in a foreign land, first from a countryman and then from a shady judicial system? CHOOSE!

TWO OTHER STORIES THAT WE ENJOYED FOR NO GOOD REASON

All-Night Buffets in Boca Raton, Be Warned

The reports range in commitment level from “we love him, but we’re not in love with him” to a journalistic post-coital cigarette, but
Mike Jarvis appears to be the next head coach at Florida Atlantic.

Jarvis’ kissy talk about how much he loves the school and the area may well be a necessary part of the contract, considering how well FAU’s last big name lay worked out.

Our Nerd Hearts Swell with Blood

We’ve roundly enjoyed Dana O’Neil’s work since joining tWWL’s hoops crew from the Philadelphia Daily News, since she forgot to burn her journalism degree when setting up shop in Bristol. Her latest filing about the Cal Tech basketball team is particularly superb, and not just because it mentions the Kuiper Belt. (Though we’ll admit a certain fondness for astrophysics. What?)

No, we love this article for its self-deprecating tone (O’Neil admits she has no idea what these guys are saying when speaking about their research internships) and for it’s subtle shot at the deaf (”Caltech won just one game this year and it was against Gallaudet, the nation’s leading university for the hearing impaired.”) And because it gives us the excuse to post the following, evidence that even at Caltech you’ll find many an ill-spent youth, albeit in the other direction:

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:

Where posterization happens.

THE GAMES EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Country 1, Hollywood 0
Memphis 78, UCLA 63

We’re guessing that whatever team ends up drafting Kevin Love in a few months will wish that this picture didn’t exist. With just under five minutes to go and UCLA fighting back against a seven-point Memphis lead, Chris Douglas-Roberts (or CDR, because apparently everyone needs an abbreviation) ran a perfect backdoor cut and slammed the ball down onto UCLA wunderkind Kevin Love. If we were Gregg Easterbrook, we would have written “game over” in our notebook. As we are not (and thank God), we enjoyed another delicious bite of honey chicken and resumed conversation with our family.

A nip-and-tuck game throughout the first half, Memphis pulled away early in the second half and never looked back. Both Sadie and Jamie were correct last week - the battle in the paint determined the outcome. We were just surprised that it was Memphis and Joey Dorsey that won that battle.

And Now Kansas Really Doesn’t Give a Damn About North Carolina
Kansas 84, North Carolina 66

In this game’s waning moments, Jim Nantz and Billy Packer described the match as “a play in three acts.” We think Jim was getting a little overdramatic, perhaps in preparation for the Masters this coming weekend. The better analogy was to a debate between two moody mean girls:

First 15 Minutes
Kansas [models in mirror]: I’m fierce!
Carolina [gorges on Doritos]: I’m a hiefer!
Result: Kansas 40-12.

Second 15 Minutes
Kansas [cries into pillow]: Why did he leave me?
Carolina [shoves pins into voodoo doll]: Serves you right, bitch.
Result: Carolina 38-14.

Final 10 Minutes
Kansas [beams as it applies blush]: He still loves me!
Carolina [gobbles antidepressants]: I hate you, God! I hate you! I wish I were dead!
Result: Kansas 30-16.

And everyone lived happily ever after. And, yes, we were visiting our teenage cousins this weekend. How did you guess?

We’re not quite ready to talk about the chalk-tastic weekend just yet. We need something to cleanse our palate with something far more soothing - something from a more simple time, a more hopeful time - something from, say, late Friday night:

Memories of Cinderella and jokes of forcible rear entry soothe the pain of chalk. (HT: Kleph.)

That’s more like it.

As you all know, Davidson missed their chance for the game-winning, lead-story-writing, script-already-in-development shot that would have led every tournament broadcast for the next twenty years because Stephan Curry couldn’t get an open look. Some people are crediting Kansas’ defense on the play - and there can be no doubt that in those last sixteen seconds, the Jayhawks clamped down impressively. Though we do not come to kick those that are down, we disagree.The scripted play (with Curry asked to bring the ball up and find his own shot) was macho but immature in design. Curry has thrived when working with teammates on ball screens and motion plays; on the most important play of the season, sending him up the court to go mano-a-cinque-mano with the Jayhawks was insane.

Though we of course mourn the loss of our last upstart in the tournament, we have a tough time feeling too terrible for Davidson. They had a great season by any standard, a phenomenal season by SoCon standards, and [insert clichéd dig at pampered lifestyle of students at a school where they do your laundry for you here].

However, anyone who has ever played on an underdog team that made it farther than it should have - and back when we could be confused with an athlete, we were on such a team - knows that when you do lose, the hurt is much deeper than it would have been earlier. Davidson’s loss mattered more yesterday because, unlike in any of the previous rounds, they actually had something to lose. While the loss eats at them today, the mere fact that a small liberal arts school from the SoCon made it to that level should be lauded and remembered for years to come.

As for the other three games? UCLA, suddenly awakened from its slumber through the first three rounds (and, really, the last three months), remembered that it had the defenders to shut down Xavier’s perimeter game and a big man who could bully them down low. Memphis, playing with a chip on their shoulder the size of … well, Texas … , shut down D.J. Augustin and forced the Longhorns to (unsuccessfully) rely on other scorers. And UNC continued to play the best ball of the tournament, taking the lead over Louisville five minutes into the game then holding it with a vise grip.

And thus, we are “treated” to the first Final Four with all four #1 seeds. We’ll have more thoughts on this later this afternoon.

Before we can move onto the games happening this week, it’s worthwhile to recap the action that happened over the weekend. No formal weekend digest format to this … just thoughts as they occur:

ACC: Clemson is the definition of a conference middle child - for many a year, they were the weak runt of conference basketball, unable to get over the hump against Big Brother, mocked and beaten up by their only-slightly-bigger-but-with-massive-chips-on-their-shoulders cousins. (Clemson has only made it to the Sweet Sixteen three times; every other “original 8″ ACC team has at least seven. Even Virginia.) And ever since FSU, daU, VPI, and BC joined the conference - well, no one seems to give poor ol’ Clemson any mind anymore. So (with no bias whatsoever) we cheered heartily for them against Carolina … and once again, Clemson came up short. One of these days, boys … one of these days. They got a #5 seed anyway, which feels right - the team is fast and solid, and may notch #4 into the school’s sacred scrolls.

Big East: Familiarity may breed contempt, but even taking that into consideration, we don’t know any Georgetown fans that expected the Hoyas to win against Pitt on Saturday night. Pitt is a dangerously good team, and Georgetown is a dangerously flawed team. Goddammit.

Big Ten: Don’t care. No, seriously. Don’t care. Wisconsin is the most boring “good” basketball team we’ve ever watched.

Big XII: See Big East. (Except the basketball is OK - its just that the results didn’t matter for anything, including seeding.)

Pac-10: In all seriousness, it was good to see the three good teams in the conference (UCLA, USC, and Stanford) play up to potential for a few days straight. (We don’t care what the committee says - Wazzu has no real talent, ‘Zona has talent but no teamwork, and U of O … has hippies?)

SEC: In journalism school, this would be called “burying the lead” - needless to say, this was the most interesting tournament of the weekend, what with tornadoes and upsets and the OIN-BE-LAVIN.

We loved the upstart Bulldogs winning the tournament. We love them doing it by winning three games in two days after the Georgia Dome got attacked by Tulsa. We really loved that they won it on the home floor of their in-state (if out-of-conference) rival. But we cannot STAND that they didn’t take a bid from one of the other middlin’ teams in the SEC. No one can convince us that UK shouldn’t have lost their bid to UGA.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Hoya Saxa, Bitches
#10 Georgetown 70, #21 Marquette 68 (OT)

In back rooms and dark robes across the land, Jesuits with steepled hands nodded with approval at this matchup even as it showcased all that is good and bad with college basketball. The good - exciting play down the stretch, star power with Roy Hibbert, and a loud presence by the fans from “the good land.” The bad - Georgetown throwing the game away (literally) with 20 turnovers, Marquette countering with pisspoor shooting, and Tom Crean chugging Diet Pepsi on the sideline. Because just that’s weird, dude.

Future lawya Jonathan Wallace led the way for the Hoyas with his usual combination of scrappy defense, clutch shooting, and boneheaded turnovers that kept the game close. John Thompson III displayed the proper attitude towards the game and the Big East regular season after the game by saying they Hoyas “will count their money when [the season] is done.”

That kind of quote, of course, gives us all the excuse we need to post this ridiculous video.

TWO WINS THAT SHOULD SCARE THE BEJESUS OUT OF COACHES AND FANS

History, Talent, Refs Overwhelm Pack
#6 Duke 87, N.C. State 86

For the first 35 minutes, N.C. State did everything necessary to beat the more talented Floorslappers - fought for high percentage shots (resulting in 54% shooting), created open looks from outside (7-13 from 3-point range), nailed their free throws (22-23 to that point), and took advantage of good luck (16 points off 8 Duke turnovers).

And then, the wheels fell off for the Wolfpack (again). Yup - nothing but hard play and sharp shooting by Duke and bad luck for State down the stretch determined this outcome ….

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The Game Everyone Was Talking About

No Elvis Mentions Here - #2 Tennessee 66, #1 Memphis 62: The first half looked like two teenagers having sex for the first time - lots of awkward energy, regular timeouts in a vain attempt to maintain control, and utter exhaustion after five minutes.

Thankfully, order was restored by the second half, and awkward apologies and tears were replaced by quality ball. Tennessee played inspired defense down the stretch to hold a slim lead, and proved they can win despite an off day for Chris Lofton. (And an off-day he had - only 7 points on 2-for-11 shooting.) Even in defeat, Memphis showed they haven’t lost too much zip on their fastball despite a steady diet from the Conference USA pupu platter for the last month.

ESPN’s coverage seemed surprisingly understated - which has to be the first time anyone has said that about a game broadcast by Dick Vitale. Too much Priscilla Pressley to be sure, but on the whole, the Mouse did an alright job of presenting the game without too much hype, even with the Gameday team on hand.

Two Games I Liked For No Good Reason

Jeykll and Hide - Ohio 69, George Mason 57: No offense to the Bobcats, but the story of this game is Mason’s utter collapse. After entering the break with a 13-point lead thanks to super-strong defense, the Patriots allowed the home squad to lap them in the second half, 50-25. When your team takes an entire half off … against a middle-of-the-table MAC team with less talent and no hopes of an at-large bid … chances are you aren’t going to look very good against stiffer competition come tournament time. Don’t think the selection committee won’t notice.

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