Please join the ESPN tournament challenge group. The Poop, as always. Vote early and often. Do one for the kiddies, one for the wife, one for the family dog.
Good job by CBS showing Amanda Marcum, coach Andy Enfield's wife. They did a short feature on her early in the game and when the game got tense at the end, just as I predicted they showed her incessantly. She's still very attractive but not model hot anymore. But she is over 40 with three kids.
Georgetown almost made the incredible comeback. They hit a few threes and FGCU turned it over, missed some free throws, it was 72-68 with 52 seconds left. And Georgetown fouled. I think that was too early. They should have backed off. Tried to force a turnover. Or get the ball back with 15 or 20 down 4, you have a chance. This way Georgetown had to keep hitting 3s and FGCU had to keep missing free throws, which didn't happen.
In the first 25 years of the 64-team format there were 4 15 over 2 upsets (Richmond over Syracuse, Santa Clara over Arizona, Coppin State over South Carolina and Hampton over Iowa State). This is the third in the past two years (Lehigh over Duke, Norfolk State over Missouri).
Ohio State and Florida looked good in their opening round games and their biggest impediments to teh Elite 8 were already eliminated, New Mexico and Georgetown.
Oklahoma is the 5th team Lon Kruger has taken to the tournament (Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV), the only coach to do that. And he won games with all of them too.
San Diego State is a pretty good team. We saw them against Syracuse on the aircraft carrier but that was a weird game. They salvaged a little something for their conference here. Mountain West goes 2-3 losing a huge team in New Mexico, but San Diego State has a pretty good chance to make it to the Sweet 16.
Jamaal Franklin did a risky move at the end of the game, tried a reverse dunk and it bounced out, then went in anyway. I didn't like that play at all.
Notre Dame and their ugly uniforms (which they did not wait) bounced from the tournament in humiliating fashion, finishing up another bad first round for the Big East (3-5 including that nailbiter for Marquette).
Late in the Kansas-WKU game Kansas got a layup but the TV score graphic accidentally credited it to WKU, So I look up and see 53-49
and think really? A few seconds after that it changed to 55-47 but they freaked me out for a few seconds.
Minnesota's mild upset of UCLA ends a very exciting first round. Obviously Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown and Harvard over New Mexico were the big upsets, but if you look at the others, Oregon, Cal, Ole Miss and Minnesota are all big conference teams, that may have been underrated.
I did nail a 12-5 and 11-6 upset, but I lost two Final Four teams.
I love having four games on 4 channels simultaneously. Does anyone else remember when we were all watching CBS and all the games were ending at the same time and there would be two close ones and we'd be begging them to switch? Thank God we don't have to worry about that anymore.
You knew Duke wasn't going out as a 2 seed to a 15 two years in a row. It just wasn't going to happen. But Albany did hang in there with them for a while.
What a horrible shooting game by Wisconsin (15-59). It can go either way with them. Either they harass you into an off night or they have one themselves.
Marshall Henderson is a little bit exciting, a little bit annoying, but he's a pretty good player and made shots down the stretch when Wisconsin couldn't.
Only VCU kept it from being a clean sleep by the 12 seeds. I'd love to go back and look but I would say that if you bet on the 12 seeds either with the money line or with the spreads, over the years you probably made a lot of money.
Valiant comeback by NC State but they dug themselves too big of a hole. They almost came all the way back, down 65-62 they ran a great pick and roll and kicked it out to Lorenzo Brown for a wide open 3, but he missed it. They also had another chance, looked like a clean block on a breakaway which would have given them a chance to cut to 2, or even 1, but the refs called it a foul.
Dominant performance by Miami. They are a good team, and probably a serious contender to win this thing.
This elbow rule is out of control and it almost cost Creighton the game. 60-54 McDermott gets the rebound and is sure to be fouled, he swings his arms, hits the guy in the face with an elbow and its 2 shots and the ball. Cincinnati missed both free throws but hit a 3, which could have taken a 6 point lead to 1. Wouldn't have been a great way to end that game. Yes the player should swing his elbows lower, learn to do that so if you strike an opponent you do it in the chest, but it's being enforced too tightly.
I'm beginning to think teams in automatic fouling situations should feign the foul and try to force a mistake. It worked for Marquette and it almost worked in this game too. The guy who receives the ball should just wait to be fouled instead of trying to make a crazy pass.
Valiant comeback by Kansas State thanks to the huge size advantage by Jordan Henriquez. But some poor decisions down the stretch really hurt them. They didn't even get a serious shot off on their last posession.
The Atlantic-10 is now 6-0, with two wins for LaSalle. That will help salve some of the mid-major sting of the Mountain West's poor showing.
The West is the upset regional with the the 12, 13 and 14 (Ole Miss, LaSalle and Harvard) all advancing and at least one of them is going to the Sweet 16.
And now we have to hear about how LaSalle had an advantage by playing an extra game.
This is the 6th straight year a 13 has beaten a 4.
You knew a team with Oladipo and Zeller wasn't going to play a close game with a 16 seed like James Madison.
Illinois-Colorado started simply enough, 17-16 Colorado to start the game. Illinois went on a 23-6 run. Colorado scored the next 21 points, then Illinois scored 9 in a row. There was also a stretch when neither team scored for 4 minutes. But Illinois did hold on to end the afternoon session and knock out the first Pac-12 team.
Saying "do you know the way to San Jose" is not clever or original Orange fans.
James Southerland dribbled more than 2 times without turning it over. Well, he almost turned it over but Christmas just happened to be there.
Christmas is looking like a monster in this game. Which means Montana is severely undermanned inside.
Everyone keeps talking about how great a 3-pointer shooter CJ Fair is because of his high percentage on few attempts. And they say he should shoot more often. Maybe his percentage his high because he only shoots when he has a good chance of making it. He's very judicious. I think in his case selection is as much a part of his excellence as his shooting skill.
Wayne Tinkle is a pretty funny name for a coach. Brian Anderson seems to be having fun saying it. But he keeps using his full name because it sounds silly to call a grown man Tinkle. I would say they mentioned Tinkle about 20 times as often as they said Boeheim.
Boeheim was positively glowing in his halftime interview. I guess with a 23 point lead you have to crack a smile, even if you are an old curmudgeon.
Nice to see DaJuan Coleman getting some playing time. And all the walkons too. Matt Lyde-Cajuste and 5 foot 10, 150 pound Nolan Hart (no relation to Jason) even got to chuck up a 3.
I actually felt badly for Montana by the end of this. They worked hard, dreamed of this their entire lives and they played their worst game at the worst time. I know Syracuse was a better, bigger, faster team, but shooting 20% from the field is just a poor performance.
Great win for SU. It will have no carryover to the next game, which will start at 0-0 again. But if confidence was a factor, winning by 47 certainly helps boost that.
SU may have gotten a break by getting the weaker opponent in the next round but Cal is certainly good enough to win if SU plays at less than their best.
So Seth Davis wore an orange wig on TV to pay up for picking Montana to beat Syracuse. This is one of the dumbest things ever. The guy gets paid to give his opinion and make predictions. It doesn't mean he hates Syracuse or has no "respect" he just made a knee-jerk guess that Syracuse was going to lose. This is a total non-story and he shouldn't have dignified it with anything more than an acknowledgement of how off his prediction was.
South Dakota State was a trendy upset pick but I didn't see it. Michigan wasn't playing great down the stretch but they have a lot of good players.
It's a shame that Nate Wolters had such a bad game. He's better than what he showed in this game.
Louisville's domination of #16 North Carolina A&T is more typical of what we see of 1-16 games. Every once in a while you see a game like Southern versus Gonzaga. But this result is much more typical of what we see with 1-16 matchups.
But don't conflate these results to have any grander meaning. Don't assume Louisville is unbeatable or Gonzaga is vulnerable based only on what we saw today.
I misjudged the Belmont-Arizona game. I thought Arizona would be lazy on defense and Belmont would be able to run and gun on them. But early on it was Arizona nailing 3s and Belmont couldn't make it close.
Maybe we all underestimated the Pac-12. They started off 3-0. The most impressive of which was Cal over UNLV. UNLV has a lot of big, strong athletic guys, but the couldn't make a shot. Moser and Bennett were all over the place, but couldn't put the ball in the basket.
It wasn't just the poor shooting, UNLV made some stupid mistakes and got lazy on defense. They deserved to lose this game.
Good strategy by Cal to foul with ten seconds left and again with 6. It's so easy to make a 3, so hard to rebound a purposeful miss. I think UNLV screwed up by making the free throws. And being unable to foul right away.
Cal's victory had nothing to do with playing an hour from campus. There were a lot of fans there, but UNLV had people too. It had zero impact on the outcome.
Missouri has Alex Oriakhi formerly of Uconn. He was one of the big thugs who rebounded and blocked shots while Kemba Walker shot the ball 20 times a game. He won a national title, but elected to transfer, citing UConn's ineligibility from postseason play. His diminished playing time may have also been a factor. But he ended up at Missouri and didn't even have to sit out a year.
Nice to see Larry Eustachy has recovered, but he will never live down these pictures. It's just a shame they cost him his marriage to Stacy Eustachy. But at least he's got a ticket to the second round. Good luck against Louisville.
What VCU did to Akron was ugly. It's just one of those things that snowballs. VCU was staying in an aggressive press for a long time. I know that's the only way they know how to play but when you're up 40, maybe you want to give it a rest.
With 15:32 left in the second half Chauncey Gilliam hit a layup to make it 65-34. Akron didn't score for the next 7 minutes, and VCU added 12 more points for a 43-point lead, which ended up as a 46-point victory. I will like to see how that press does against Michigan.
Now, on to the big upset of the first round so far, the show stopper, the Cinderella, Harvard over New Mexico.
But first, a couple non-game observations. Doug Gottlieb said "things were Breaking Bad for New Mexico." Inside reference, but totally unnecessary. Glad to know he is a fan of the show. Makes me hold him in slightly higher esteem.
Why do they have to say "AT&T at the half is presented by AT&T?" Don't they think we could have figured that out.
New Mexico didn't choke, or even play badly, they just got beat by a better team that night.
I think there is something to this Ivy League thing. We saw Princeton beat UCLA, take Georgetown to the wire as a 16 seed. Cornell made the Sweet 16, in 2010. I know there were also a lot of years when the Ivy champ got bounced in the first round, but it sure seems as if Ivy players keep their heads and execute the game plan even under pressure.
New Mexico just couldn't get any consistent offense going. Bad day for the Mountain West, 3 teams out so far. Good day for the Pac-12, 3 teams advancing so far.
If Harvard can hit some threes and slow down the tempo they can pull off the upset of Arizona that Belmont failed to do.
And personally, my bracket is shot to shit because I had New Mexico in the final game. Yikes! But that's March Madness for you.
Valpo held in pretty well against Michigan State for 10 minutes, it was only 13-10. The next 15 minutes after that MSU outscored them 36-12. And that was that.
Bucknell scored only 14 points in the first half. Yikes. But Butler only had 21. One touchdown and Bucknell could get back in it. And then blamo!, Bucknell gets hot, 9 minutes into the second half they scored 150% as many points as the entire first half. And they have a 35-31 lead, still a football score.
A lot of people talk about parity in the tournament, and it is true. But the bigger reason we have so many upsets and so much uncertainty is because of the 3-point shot. One team is hot, the other is cold, and everything changes. It can overcome a wide talent disparity.
Bucknell led Butler 37-33, and to that point Butler was 0-13 from downtown. Butler hit its next two 3-point attempts. And that minirun was enough to lead them to the victory.
They showed New Mexico State's mascot, Pistol Pete, on a bump shot going out to break on TruTV and when one of commentators (can't keep track of who) said his mustache was askew, which it was. Another said it looked like Elmer Fudd's. I really wish I had the name of the idiot who confused Elmer Fudd with Yosemite Sam.
And that was the highlight for New Mexico State. St. Louis is a good team, seeded properly, but underrated by the broader audience.
Mrs. Poop is fascinated/amused that there is a team called the Shockers. And even happier that Wichita State fans and cheerleaders have adopted the hand gesture.
Pittsburgh once again playing below expectations in the tournament. They never overachieve come March. I think their physical style hurts them on offense, they just can't fill it up when they get behind.
Though the pace of this game, the low scores, the horrible shooting percentages, should have favored Pitt. The two teams combined to make 3 of 37 3-point attempts.
Doug Gottlieb is not a good game analyst. He knows a lot of stuff, has interesting things to share, but tries to be too cute, too smart, and ends up talking too much. He's much better in a studio role, like the one he has with the smoking hot Allie LaForce, who by the way was doing sideline reporting for the games in Lexington.
Funny thing about these new playoff games featuring bubble teams. When the winning team wins its next game everyone makes it out to be a huge advantage, playing that extra game, getting momentum. When they lose all you hear about is the travel demands and the unfairness.
Nice win for Memphis but they were much better when John Calipari was arranging illicit payments for their recruits.
They did almost blow that game. Same shitty free throw shooting that cost them in the Calipari era. 3 for 6 in the last minute as St. Mary's cut the lead to 2. St. Mary's did get a very lucky crazy banked-in 3, followed by a Memphis turnover to get one final shot with 1.9 seconds left. But Dellavadova who is awesome, just couldn't get a decent shot off.
Davidson has a halftime lead on Marquette (Davidson started the game up 12-2, Marquette came back with an 11-3 run) and Buzz Williams took a long drink of water on the way to the locker room.
Junior Cadougan is now a senior. Vander Blue is a junior. I will miss neither of them when Syracuse moves to the ACC next season.
And Vander Blue took over the game. Hit a huge 3, then hit the game-winning layup. He was 3-13 before those two baskets in the final 30 seconds.
Devastating breakdown, I won't call it a choke, by Davidson. They did make 7 of 8 free throws down the stretch. They made one big turnover. If Marquette does what most teams do they foul right away and probably lose. Instead they backed off, Davidson threw a reckless cross-court pass out of bounds and Marquette got the ball one final time. I don't even blame them for Vander Blue's seemingly easy game-winner. Marquette ran a good play and Blue is quicker than anyone on Davidson. But that one stings for the little guy.
It was a little too close for a little too long, but eventually Gonzaga closed out Southern. They dominated with size, killing Southern on the offensive glass, and getting the ball to Kelly Olynyk who could not be stopped in the second half. But still did not look dominant the way a number one seed should.
And Oregon closes out the afternoon with a big win over Oklahoma State. I nailed my 12 over 5 upset and started the day by getting all 8 games correct. Hopefully I can get the next 55 correct as well.
You're never as good as you think you are when things or going good, or as bad as you seem when things start to go bad.
That's the story of Syracuse's season in 2012-13. They weren't as good as people thought when they started 18-1 and ascended to #3 in the country. Because they beefed up on a fairly easy schedule.
But they are better than they seemed when they limped to a 4-5 finish. But please remember those 5 losses came in 5 games against top 15 teams, Georgetown twice, Marquette, and Louisville twice.
So which team will show up in the NCAA Tournament? It really depends on James Southerland. When he is making shots as he did in the Big East Tournament, it changes everything. Teams must stick a man on him at all times, creating driving lanes for Carter-Williams and Triche. When he is missing shots, or not in the game (the second half against Louisville), Syracuse is much easier to defend.
While part of me is worried about the first round match-up against Montana, I know Syracuse should win the game. But we have seen SU get upset many times, most notably, by Vermont in 2005 and Richmond in 1991.
The second round against UNLV (assuming the beat Cal) will be a much tougher game. Anthony Bennett is a great player, only a freshman, but probably a one-and-done guy whole will go in the first round of the NBA Draft.
If SU sneaks by UNLV, I just don't see any way they are going to contain Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller with the 2-3 zone.
Of course every year you hope for the National Championship, and would be satisfied with a Final Four. But this year I would just like to see SU make the Sweet 16, and maybe pull off the biggest tournament upset in Jim Boeheim's career by knocking off Indiana.
You've watched enough NCAA Tournament games to know what happens when an underdog is in a close game with a top seed. They show shots of the small school's fans. They show the bench players cheering after a made basket. And they show the coach's wife looking nervous during tense moments. So let us hope Florida Gulf-Coast takes Georgetown to the wire so we can see as much of Amanda Marcum Enfield as possible.
She is a model who once appeared on the cover of Maxim. Her husband is the coach of FGCU. They apparently met during the 2003 NCAA Tournament. She was a model from Oklahoma living in New York City back then. She wanted to go to Oklahoma State's second round game in Boston. She hitched a ride with Andy Enfield to watch OSU lose to eventual champion Syracuse, despite holding a big early lead. But despite the loss love bloomed and the smoking hot model married the dorky gap-toothed coach. A classic love story.
Let's start off with the number one seeds. The committee got three of them correct. Louisville is the best team, Gonzaga and Indiana also very deserving of their spots. I do quibble with Kansas over Duke though. They both had 5 losses. They both played murderous non-conference schedules but Duke's was a little tougher. They both played in good but weaker than normal conferences, but again Duke's was better. They both have a lot of good wins and a couple bad losses. But Duke lost to Virginia, Kansas lost to TCU. Other than "playing better lately" or "winning the conference tournament" I can't see any area where you compare these teams and say Kansas was more deserving.
I think the committee gave the Pac-12 the lack of respect it deserves in regard to seeding but it still got 5 teams in.
If any conference got underseeded it was the Mountain West. You do realize it was the second-toughest conference this season? Everyone of its teams should have been a line higher, including New Mexico, which even as a 3 seed is a serious Final Four threat. It drives me nuts that the committee would put the only non-power conference top 3 seeds in the same region, to avoid two of them getting to the Final Four. I hate conspiracy theories but there is so much evidence that the committee does that shit that it almost has to be true.
For instance, pairing Boise State versus LaSalle in a play-in game. And Middle Tennessee State versus St. Mary's in the other.
And why wasn't Cal in a play-in game? If they are one of the last teams in and got a 12, why do two 11s have to play against each other. Why not give MTS a game against Cal instead of SMC?
And why not give Akron the chance to knock off Oklahoma State or Wisconsin? Why put them against VCU?
I'm not one of these mid-major apologists. I like the big schools with the tradition and the fans and the best players. But don't stack the deck against the small schools.
At least they let Middle Tennessee get in. I was sure they were going to be left out despite a fantastic record and a good RPI. I understand they didn't beat anyone except Ole Miss, but 3 of their 5 losses were to excellent teams (Belmont, Florida and Akron). If MTS didn't get in, you're basically telling the really small schools that they have to play a tough non-conference schedule, win a couple of those games and/or be perfect in their conference. Too tall an order especially when compared to 12-loss teams from the bigger conferences.
Let's stick with Belmont for a second. They're going to beat Arizona in the first round. And they might not be the only 11 over 6. Minnesota has an excellent chance to beat UCLA.
But I'm not going to bury the Pac-12. I'm going to give Oregon the coveted 5/12 upset slot. This is basically a vote against Oklahoma State because I like VCU, UNLV and Wisconsin to all advance.
Now to find the 2 seed that will lose in the second round. I will say that I have an incredible record at this. I'd say I get it right 50% of the time. Unfortunately, I almost never get the right team doing it. I am confident about Ohio State and Georgetown so it's down to Miami and Duke. I loved Miami at the beginning of the year, hated them late and really am not sold on them. But I really don't like Duke and think the Creighton matchup is bad for them. So I will go with Duke missing the Sweet 16 as a 2 seed for the second straight year.
The committee did do a good job of matching big conferences and mid-majors in the 8/9 and 7/10 games though. 5 games like that among those and I will guarantee the mid-majors win at least three of those.
In order to see my Final Four picks and champion you need to join my Tournament Challenge group on espn.com. The group name is of course, The Poop.
Two more notes: the stupidest thing in the world is people who complain about things like Syracuse going to California despite being part of the West region. A few years ago the committee changed their rules. The region names only refer to the site of the regional semis and finals. For the first weekend teams from any region can go anywhere with the preference to give the higher seeds close proximity to home. Like it or not those are the rules. Stop complaining about it. Stop making snarky remarks. Deal with it.
The second stupidest thing is the branding attempt to call the the four play-in games the first round. They are play-in games. Call them such. The games that begin on Thursday will always be the first round to me, on this blog, until they expand the tournament to 96 teams like Jim Boeheim wants.
You've heard the testimonials all week, everyone who loves college basketball is saddened by the demise of the Big East. But instead of being sad, I decided to celebrate it. Billy and I made a vow to each other that we would not miss our last chance to see Syracuse play at Madison Square Garden in the Big East Tournament. Everything was going smoothly early in the season, it seemed like a lock that SU would earn a top 4 seed and a double bye, guaranteeing a Thursday game, but the late season slide messed all that up. But still we took our chances and once the seedings were finalized we bought our tickets to Thursday's afternoon session. We got the tickets on Vividseats.com which is just like stubhub, but it is the official secondary market ticket partner of the Big East Tournament. The tickets were $67, not bad considering the face value was $70, but once we paid the fees and shipping (FedEx), they were $87 each.
We had to sweat out a Wednesday victory over Seton Hall, which earned Syracuse a game against Pittsburgh Wednesday at 2pm. Papa Poop arrived at the game on time but Billy and his dad were late while looking for NYC parking. The first game was a blowout by Georgetown of Cincinnati. Very unremarkable game. And then the SU-Pitt game started. Here's the vantage point from our seats:
Not great, very high up, behind the basket, and in the reconfigured Garden there was a section or a suite above and in front of us so we had no view of the scoreboard. But we did have high-definition monitors right in front of us for score checks and replays.
I decided to wear my Kirby Puckett jersey to honor him on what would have been his 53rd birthday. And the late great Puck brought us some luck. SU got our to an early lead thanks to some great shooting by James Southerland (a pattern), but gave it up in the second half (also a pattern), but managed to hold on for a victory.
So I decided to do it again the next night. Master Bates got free tickets so he invited me and Nails and off we went. I left work a little early and parked my car on 38th and 8th at 6:47. The area was restricted parking until 7, so I hung around, check for parking police and took off at 6:52, taking my chances. I got away with it, luckily, and we arrived at our seats just in time for tip. Our seats were much better than the previous day. The Georgetown student section was right behind the basket and we were in the section facing them on the side.
The game followed a similar pattern as the previous day, Syracuse built a big lead thanks to hot shooting by James Southerland (and even more surprisingly, Trevor Cooney) but blew the lead in the second half when Boeheim slowed the offense down and it went stagnant. Some dubious fouls helped Georgetown tie the game and force overtime, but Syracuse held on for the win.
This game was amazing because James Southerland had 13, so did Baye Keita who made 7 of 7 free throws (I was there, and I watched the entire game again on DVR the next day, and I still went to espn.com to check that stat because it was so hard to believe) and Trevor Cooney had 10. Michael Carter-Williams and CJ Fair combined for 9 points on 4 of 23 shooting.
But Fair did throw down this monster jam in the overtime to help seal it.
This win was particularly satisfying because of the obnoxious Georgetown students in front of us. But also because of the sour taste in our mouths after the huge beatdown in the final regular season meeting. This one was a classic, on the biggest stage for the Big East, and it got a large measure of revenge in the rivalry, which is now officially closed.
And I got to wear my "Your Mother's a Hoya" t-shirt one more time.
Now I suppose I have to talked about the Big East Final, a game which I thankfully had the good sense not to attend. SU got off to another hot start and when James Southerland canned a 3 to make it 45-29 with 16 minutes to go, it seemed like SU would certainly blow the lead, but still be able to hold on. What happened next was a total collapse by Syracuse. James Southerland went out with his 4th foul, and the Orange went about 10 minutes without a field goal. Louisville went on a 44-10 run in that span, turning blowout loss into blowout win in record time.
A few reasons I'm not that upset about the loss:
1) The tangible stakes were very low. SU was only playing for seeding. It got a 4, which is what the team deserved, and may not have gotten a 3 even with a win, though probably would have.
2) It had been a good run. I feel the team rebounded from it's late season slide, found its offense again and has renewed confidence going into the tournament that really matters, even though they got blown out in the second half.
3) Better to get an epic collapse out of the way, and hopefully learn something from it. Like take Southerland out when he had 2 fouls late in the second, and continue to be aggressive on offense even with a lead (more from the previous two games than the one against Louisville.)
Two reasons I am upset about the loss:
1) It would have been nice to have the final Big East Tournament title. It would have been very memorable.
2) James Southerland didn't win Most Outstanding Player. He averaged 15.5 points and 5.5 rebounds but more importantly, he made 19 out of 33 3s. Taking nothing away from Peyton Siva, who had a fine tournament and had been in a good player in his 7 years at Louisville, but it is called the Most "Outstanding" Player. Not valuable, not best on winning time, outstanding. Will anyone remember what Siva did in this tournament? No. Are people going to remember the shooting clinic Southerland put on? Yes! 57% from behind the line, on 8 attempts per game. That will stand out in people's minds. Stand out, outstanding, get it?
I like to send people e-mails. When I see a story or a video that I think someone might be interested in, maybe it's about their college, their favorite actor or their hometown, I e-mail that person. All too often the response is "I saw that."
I know I am not the only person who is plugged in and following stories on the internet, and I don't mean to come off that way, but don't you have something more interesting to say than "I saw that?".
Why do you feel the need to let me know that I am not the first person who told you something. And so what? Sorry, you've heard it before, but can't you pretend you didn't and have a conversation with me about it?
2004 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Greg Raymer was arrested in a prostitution sting in Wake Forest, NC.
The men were lured to the hotel by an ad on a website often used by hookers.
We don't have anymore info about how it all went down, but I assume it was something like we see on "To Catch a Predator." The guys set up a date online with someone they believed to be a hooker (of age) and when they got there, cops were waiting for them.
Raymer, also known as Fossilman, won $5M in the first Main Event after the poker boom, and finished 25th the next year, which is quite an accomplishment, with the help of his goofy holographic glasses.
I did a Zillow search for his house. He paid $1.539M for a 6,500 sq ft home in Raleigh. Looks like it is right on a golf course.
Mrs. Poop normally works out in the mornings so that I have to take care of the little monsters and get them off to school. But on Monday night she is going to be at the gym in the evening.
The sign says a reality show is being shot at the gym, Retro Fitness, and if you want to work out during that time you have to sign a release. She is convinced it's Undercover Boss because Retro Fitness is a big chain and the show's usual gimmick is to tell the employees they're filming a competition show and the winner will be awarded a franchise.
I think the most likely thing is some small production company is shooting some dumb reality show it hopes will get picked up. But it could also be something like Real Housewives of NJ or Snooki and JWowww where they just need a 15-second gym scene.
Not sure what to think, but I hope whatever it is, they feature the gym's baby-sitting service because that's where Chase and Julian will be while Mrs. Poop mugs for the cameras.
One of the sneaky-popular posts in Poop history is this frame-by-frame photo montage of someone slipping on ice. People like watching other people slip and fall.
Which brings me to the idiots on the North Platte Community College Girls Basketball team. They decided to celebrate a win by dousing the coach with Gatorade/water. While this is a bad idea on a football field, at least the turf absorbs the liquid. That doesn't work so well on a basketball court.
The first time I saw this video I chuckled but didn't pay much attention. But then I watched it again, more closely, and noticed, not only did the coach fall down, some good Samaritan from the bleachers also wiped out and fell on his ass.
The overly pretentious Bill Simmons website, grantland.com, is running a bracket-style tournament to pick the most hated college basketball player of the past 30 years. The players are broken up into 4 regions: 80s, 90s, 00s and Duke.
I agree that Duke should have its own region, having 8 hated guys (and another 8 who could have made it) is the ultimate compliment. That's why I'm glad to see Syracuse is one of the few schools with 3 players in the bracket, Derrick Coleman, Sherman Douglas and Eric Devendorf. I wouldn't have thought people hated Sherman Douglas that much.
A lot of these players don't even seem that hateable to me. I loved Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson and Larry Johnson.
I would pick Reggie Miller from the 80s bracket (can't separate his NBA days), Eric Montross from the 90s and Adam Morrison for the 2000s (he'll never live down the crying). And though I know, and everyone else including the people at grantland who came up with the idea knows Christian Laettner is going to win (lose?), I would still pick Shane Battier. I hate that prick, especially because of the undue attention he gets.
I remember a game Dick Vitale was broadcasting when his play-by-play partner said Shane Battier would be joining them. Vitale's response ("Shane Battier! We're going to talk to Shane Battier?!") is an enduring signal of my hatred for that alien-headed jerk.
I am saddened by the end of Syracuse's tenure in the Big East but even more disheartened by the way it ended, 4 losses in the final 5 games (though all four against teams in the top 12 RPI) culminating in an embarrassing 61-39 loss to Georgetown. I've written before about the conference realignment, and I continue to be sad about Syracuse leaving the Big East, but I understand it was needed and I will enjoy our new opponents in the ACC.
But Syracuse will never be to UNC or Duke what it is to Connecticut and especially Georgetown. Having Georgetown as a foil is part of what made me such a devoted Syracuse fan at such a young age. The details of the early 80s games escape me (though I've seen the Pearl Washington game several times on classic) but I do remember being a young kid and needing to go shopping for a suit for someone's Bar Mitzvah. So I set the VCR to record the Syracuse-Georgetown game. But I was a rookie at this sort of thing and only recorded 2 hours, missing the end of the game.
It was this rivalry with Georgetown that encouraged me to march into Manny's as a freshman and buy a "Your Mother's a Hoya" t-shirt. Still fits!
And it was my first SU-Georgetown game that is still my fondest memory. February 1997, Otis Hill and Etan Thomas both in foul trouble, they'd foul out eventually. And a 6-foot-2, seldom-used guard comes off the bench to score 10 points and grab 6 rebounds (4 offensive), in only 19 minutes. That guard also happened to be the football team's star quarterback, Donovan McNabb, which added to the mystique of the game.
A year later in the last regular season game SU beat Georgetown and we stormed the court. In the picture of the fracas you can see my friend EZE, in the right side of the picture, with the green hat.
After John Thompson and Allen Iverson left Georgetown wasn't a consistent national power again as it had been in the 80s, but those games always meant a little something extra to the fans and according to this oral history from the Washington Post, to the players and coaches as well.
Note: this video is only diminished by the lack of rights to video for rebroadcast on the internet.
I'm hopeful SU can keep the rivalry against Georgetown alive, because those games always provided a chance for SU to be in the national spotlight.
But even if they never play again, your mother's still a Hoya!
Dr. Amy Dunbar, a St. Louis OBGYN is in trouble for posting this on her Facebook page.
I really don't blame Dr. Dunbar for posting this. If the patients truly has been this late, this often, then Dr. Dunbar is justifiably angry and venting her anger in what should be a safe place, her own Facebook page. Her mistake here was accepting a friend request from the person who shared this. Your Facebook friends should be people who don't want to see you hurt or embarrassed, not people who will take one comment they don't like and make it public to the world.
The patient is an asshole too. Yes you are paying the doctor for her time and service, but that doesn't mean she works for you, serving at your pleasure. I've occasionally seen people throwing fits in doctors' offices, being jerks, and I've always wondered why they don't tell that person to go find another doctor. I used to sit near this really nasty woman at my old job, and when her daughter had the sniffles she would call and berate (this same woman once spelled that word "barrade" in an e-mail) the staff. I wondered why people put up with this shit.
So maybe not doing that was Dr. Dunbar's second mistake. But I don't think she violated this patient's privacy. No one reading that post would have any idea who the patient is. Therefore her privacy is protected. Unless you hear about a woman whose OB showed up late to her delivery.
Doyle Brunson is one of the greatest poker players of all-time and he mostly does it on instinct. He almost always makes the mathematically correct move, without ever hardly considering the mathematics of the situation. One math whiz player conjectures that Doyle naturally came upon the best strategy without thinking about it, and his years of experience confirmed it. That's what happened to me.
The folks at Business Insider decided to compare how much filling was inside a burrito compared to a burrito bowl. And they found out what I instinctively stumbled upon, there is more food in a burrito bowl, for the same price.
71% more food. So business insider suggests you order a burrito bowl with the tortilla on the side. I suggest you listen to me when it comes to food-related matters.
After causing a near panic at the casino by suggesting a group of old men and I would burn down the place with a pair of hot dice, I had stayed away from Foxwoods for more than 7 years.
But Mrs. Poop found a weekend with nothing to do so we planned a romantic getaway into the Connecticut tribal lands. We left the kids with Mem and Poppy and landed at Foxwoods at about 2pm Saturday. We checked in but were told our room wouldn't be available for an hour, so we gave the front desk our phone number and gave the bellman our baggage and walked away. We didn't get far before the phone rang, our room was ready. Kind of annoying, but nice to get into our room early. Though I had to pay the bellman a dollar to hold our bags for literally 2 minutes.
Mrs. Poop had a spa treatment (if you want to know about her pedicure you'll have to send a separate e-mail) so I had about three hours to play poker. I saw Paul Pierce putting his name on the list, later on I would see James Woods, the actor. Both apparently frequent the Foxwoods Poker room. At my table, I got an unfortunate seat draw and sat on the direct right of a really good player with a huge chip stack. He kept bullying me and my tight style encouraged this. I did get him for a couple small pots, and eventually got one big pot when I hit trip kings on the turn. I may have overbet the river costing me some value but at one point I had more than doubled my $200 buy-in. I lost most of that in a hand with the bully, I played it right until the river when he raised me, I should have folded, but I paid him an extra $55.
I still booked a $40 win, not bad.
Then I went back to the room to get ready for dinner at Cedars steakhouse. We had to wait 20 minutes after our reservation time before we got seated. But when we finally did we were taken to a lovely table in a backroom right next to a knob that controlled the volume of the background music. I was very tempted to blast it up to ten and see what happens, but as I found out, loudness is not tolerated well at this restaurant.
I had a delightful bowl of lobster bisque and a great surf n turf. Mrs. Poop enjoyed the french onion soup and the baked stuff shrimp.
As we were finishing our meal a group of 6 or 7 women, ages spanning the 30s and 40s, came into this little area which contained two large tables and two tables for 2. The women were being very loud, bickering with each other, and arguing with the wait staff, complaining the waitress read the specials too quietly and too quickly. And some of them were clearly intoxicated. So drunk, in fact, that one of them stumbled into the manager on her way into the restaurant. At that point the manager decreed that at least two of the women should not be served alcohol. When they were told this they freaked out. If they were loud before, now they were screaming demanding to see the manager. He told them it was his decision and it would not change, they stormed out but not before saying "we were going to spend 500 dawllors!" On the way out one of the older, more mature members of the party asked us "how bad were they?" We said "pretty loud" and she apologized and left. But she had to come back not once, but twice more because the drunkest, loudest, most obnoxious woman had lost her eyeglasses, which were eventually found under the table. Embarrassing to storm out of a restaurant then have to come back to retrieve your lost property.
The wait staff and the manager apologized profusely to us (didn't discount our bill, it really wasn't that bad) and we told them they did the right thing and then we got the hell out of there because we were meeting friends anyway.
Mrs. Poop went off to play slots with her friend, and I went to play poker with her husband. We actually got seats at the same table with only one very chatty guy in between us. The first hand I guess I was rushed and opened my hand sloppily and he saw my hole cards. He told me that he saw them and made a big deal out of how nice a guy he is but if he sees him again he's not going to tell me. I only get one warning. I was more careful after that but he still insisted he could see my cards. Now, I don't doubt that I am not super careful about peeking at my hand but for him to have seen it he had to be looking for it. Anyway, he didn't beat me a pot the whole time so it didn't much matter.
I won a huge pot with the nuts, but I misread the board and called the river, instead of raising, technically against the rules. I also made a straight flush, my first ever in live poker, but couldn't get any action. I got chastised for not checking it, but thought my opponent was more likely to call a bet than to make one himself. For the session I booked another small profit.
At one point a very hot girl in a very short dress was over by the cashout window. Chatty Guy kept talking about her, even making our female dealer very uncomfortable, though she tried to fit in by saying "I like looking at pretty things." This prompted Chatty Guy to compare this hot chick to a car "I like going to the showroom but I always go back to my car. She's got a few dents and scratches but I love her. Plus cars like that require a lot of maintenance."
Later as I was explaining Chatty Guy and the hot chick to Mrs. Poop and her friend, that hot chick walked right by us. And Mrs. Poop agreed she was hot, dressed slutty and probably a lot of work and money to maintain.
We walked around played slots and I even got in on a craps table. I had a decent roll going until the pit boss coolered me. He told me to make sure the dice hit the back wall. I did, it bounced oddly and I sevened out. Not before booking a small win. See a pattern?
The next morning I woke up early played in a poker tournament, $60 buyin, about 50 players total, I had good cards early, nothing late, blinds rose very quickly so I had to push all in with top pair (queens) and a weak kicker and got called by a Queen with a better kicker and that was that.
But it was still early so I decided to hit a $5 craps table. Bad idea, lost a little over $100. Which for the weekend put us down a little less than $100 which isn't bad considering how much fun we had. No crazy gambling stories, no threats to burn down the casino. Just a nice quiet weekend with my wife.
A bus with a student driver sign on the back! I have never seen anything move this slowly. I could have pushed this bus faster.
Two clarifying points:
1) It was not unsafe to take this picture while driving because behind this bus was analogous to being stopped at a red light.
2) There was actually another car in between the bus and me. But that car was turning right where I normally do. So in order to get this shot, I followed the bus another block down the road.
Rapper Jim Jones was charged with disorderly conduct and hindering apprehension by the Fair Lawn Police Department.
Jones, a Fair Lawn resident whose real name is Joseph G. Jones, 37, was arrested in the morning on Feb. 13 after he was questioned by police about a vehicle on Ward Street.
Police say Jones's car was ticketed on February 6th for a parking violation, and it had not been moved in the days following the big snowstorm on February 8th. This obviously creates a problem for snow removal. Since the officer thought the car to be abandoned, he was in the process of having it towed.
That's when Jones came out, he agreed to move the vehicle and pay the towing fee. The officer did a background on Jones and found two outstanding warrants, one for $43 for failure to remove snow from the sidewalk and a $150 warrant for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle.
Jones got angry when questioned about the warrants and attempted to flee while being arrested.
Just a typical day in Fair Lawn. Actually, I'm glad the police arrested this hoodlum. In 10 years as a Fair Lawn resident it's the first time I've heard of the police doing anything other than sitting behind a work site with their lights flashing. Not criticizing the FLPD, just saying it's a pretty boring and quiet town.
Now back to Jones for a second, he is the the leader of the rap collective, The Diplomats or Dipset, with his friend Cam'ron.
His biggest hit was "We Fly High."
But I like this newer jam, "Mary's Prayer."
Story suggested by Pa Beers
Like most of you I agree the "Fred Sanford" is a much better dance craze than "The Bernie," which as slept the Oakland area.
Now one of Oakland's most prominent athletes, Stephen Curry, demonstrated the Bernie while running back down court after hitting the 10th of his 11 3-pointers against the Knicks in a 54-point tour de force performance.
But that wasn't the only time the Universe brought us a "Weekend at Bernie's" reference this week. There was also a very clever open to the latest episode of "How I Met Your Mother". The link isn't working so I will just set up the premise for you if you missed it. In Barney's Playbook of ways to get laid, there was a gambit called "Weekend at Barney's" with Barney playing the role of Bernie and Ted and Marshall as Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy.
"Groove With You" - Isley Brothers
I don't have enough Isley Brothers songs as SOTWs. Of the more than 300, this is only the second Isley Brothers jam.
President Obama is proposing $50 billion in new infrastructure spending, according to the New York Times "$40 billion of that amount would be directed to work on the highways, bridges, transit systems..."
But he seems to be forgetting something:
"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads."
They were going to 2015. Only two years form now we won't even need roads. So why waste $40 billion fixing them? Unless you are telling me Doc Brown was wrong.
Sometimes funny things happen at small-time basketball games. For instance, this free throw:
According to PTI, the girl who shot it said she sneezed as she was shooting. If we believe her cover story, we can make a lot of good jokes, like Kornheiser did. Snot Going In, Snot Even Close, etc. But I think she was just try to save herself some embarrassment. Truth is, when I sneeze I know it's coming for about five minutes beforehand. I throw my head back, I start to breathe funny, I try to pinch my nose to make it stop, then I sneeze. No way this sneeze sneak-attacked her into this horrible free throw. Snot a good excuse.
But then there is this: Ashlee Arnau is a cheerleader at William Carey University who likes to try trick shots during halftime:
Note: with this shot, and all trick shots, you only seen the one that goes in, not the 100s of misses that happen first. Arnau had been trying this shot at halftime all year, and this was her 5th attempt on this night. That doesn't mean it's not incredibly cool and really awesome that she made it. It just means it's nearly a total fluke and mostly the result of luck. But people who try the hardest often get the luckiest.
Seeing as how this is Syracuse's final year in the Big East it seemed like a good idea to get to as many games as possible in the old cities before those games were no longer played. I couldn’t go to UConn because it was a Wednesday night, there is no MSG game vs. St John’s but that rivalry is continuing, Rutgers did not host SU this year (maybe I should have planned this better) but we did get one more game against Seton Hall at the Prudential Center.
Billy and Michael were in, Pizza Parlor Derek drove up for the occasion and the entire Beers mispochen made it, though fashionably late.
First order of business was to eat at Dinosaur BBQ, a Syracuse staple, of which the Newark location is basically right in front of the arena.
A really good idea. Such a good idea that everyone else thought of it too. I arrived 3 hours before tip time and was told there was a 4-hour wait. Not sure how reliable that is because so many people were just camping out at their tables and not leaving until the game starts. So we gave up on that and tried to other restaurants which were just as crowded. Then we stumbled into Loft 47, which had an entire section that was closed off. We literally grabbed a table and some chairs and moved it into the seating area. This seemed like a great idea at the time until we realized no server was assigned to a table that previously had not existed. The service was terrible, I was given crab legs instead of a crab lump and it took almost an hour to bring our food which I had to scarf down. But it’s better than standing around Dinosaur for 4 hours.
We finally arrived at the game in plenty of time to take our seats. Seton Hall and the Prudential Center releasing tickets piecemeal, at first offering only the lower bowl. Once that sold out they offered the first two rows of the upper level. And since Ticketmaster now allows you to choose your actual seat, by clicking on a dot, I chose seats that were perfectly aligned with center court. The view was amazing. The seats weren’t great as in being close to the floor, but it was sort of like sitting right behind home plate in a upper level at a baseball game. You’re not close, but the vantage point is amazing.
We got a really good look at the 2-3 zone which got torched early. But then the Orange got hot, especially Brandon Triche and ended the half on a 22-9 run.
The rest of the game was pretty unremarkable with SU maintaining a solid lead, but not blowing them out. The best part was the crowd reaction to Fuquan Edwin's baskets. (They're not booing, they're saying Foo.) I tried to convince one of the Beers kids to change his name to Fuquan but they're too savvy for that.
One annoying trend that has emerged recently, and I am guilty of it too (especially when I am unable to check in at a game on Facebook) people spend way too much time on their phones during games. You pay for the ticket, you're surrounded by thousands of people, presumably some of them are your friends and all you do is text on the phone. I forbade people from using their phones while the ball was in play. Pizza Parlor Derek blatantly disobeyed me. I thought he was very disappointed that we didn't get to eat at Dinosaur. But turns out he was just tweeting. After the game I read several funny tweets from him which I would have enjoyed had he just said them to me.
But after the game we did retire to Dinosaur for a drink (not a brisket) and I had a nice chat with PPD. And next time we'll know that we have to arrive at Dinosaur four hours before game time in order to get a table. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time.
There are two hilarious dance crazes sweeping the nation (or perhaps have swept) based on the actions of dead or dying characters in TV in movies.
First there is the Fred Sanford, which involves clutching your heart with your right hand, throwing your left straight into the air and teetering about with your head thrown back.
Here's Redd Foxx doing the Fred Sanford
And now these expert dancers demonstrate it
The Bernie Lomax has gone a little more mainstream, there's actually two songs "Moving Like Berney [sic]" by ISA and "The Bernie Lean" by ATM and IMD which caught on with the Oakland A's.
And here's the original set to music.
Lakers owner Jerry Buss died this week at age 80. Buss bought the team for $16M in 1980 (as part of a deal that included other properties) and now the Lakers are worth an estimated $1B. Once Jerry was asked if he would ever sell the team, he said "what could I buy that I would want more than the Lakers?"
He is certainly one of the most successful owners in the history of team sports, winning 10 titles and making the Finals 16 times (roughly every other year of his ownership). It's hard to calculate exactly how much credit he deserves for that, but he certainly was a great owner in that he hired good people and gave them the money and the autonomy to do their jobs. And the results are phenomenal.
The other world Jerry was involved in was poker. Most of the top pros will tell you Jerry was a good player and I'm sure that's true. But from what I saw of him he was clearly over-matched against the top pros and probably added millions of dollars to the poker economy by playing against tougher opponents.
One memorable televised poker moment involving Jerry Buss came during the NBC Heads Up Tournament. Buss was playing Daniel Negreanu (who was wearing a Ben Wallace jersey, just to needle Jerry after the Pistons beat the Lakers in the Finals) and not only did Jerry take a bad beat, it happened in a sick fashion.
Note: Even if you don't know poker, what happens hear is very clear and easy to understand.
I haven't watch professional wrestling in at least 10 years, and really hadn't even heard anyone talking about it. I literally have no idea which of the old school guys are still around, and who the new stars are.
But then I came across this video of the always entertaining The Rock from WWE Raw's 20th Anniversary show, serenading someone named Vicky:They took down my first video, try this one, but go a minute in and ignore the horrible hiss
"And then she'll ask me
Do I look alright
And I said 'no biatch
You look horrible tonight.'"
Noted Staten Island orthopedist Dr Mark Sherman is in some hot water over a picture he texted to a a female patient.
According to the Daily News he sent a picture of his dick to Wanda Arena, a bikini contest competitor and 9/11 widow.
Arena says the phone calls and texts went on for several years before Dr. Sherman stepped up his game with the dicpic.
There's a second woman also accusing Dr. Sherman of being a perv. When she told him her arm hurt when she pulled her pants down, he said that would interfere with her sex life.
It's all pretty unremarkable to me, Dr. Sherman is divorced, he can do what he likes. But it's just another example of the deviants and lowlives we encountered during our youth.
Story suggested by Nails
I started a policy with my children to wait until they are 5 years old before taking them a major sporting event. Mostly because I want the first game to special, I don't want to waste money on a kid who won't enjoy it and I don't want to go to a game with a kid who won't sit still.
Now there's a new reason:
Turns out this kid was part of an on-court promotion set to take place during the timeout. But he got excited and ran on the court too early.
And a brilliant SIIJ reference!
This isn't exactly breaking news because Jim Boeheim has been doing this for years. Because of his success and his position at the University he feels he can say and do anything he wants with no repercussions. He can make a knee-jerk statement about child molestation accusations and get away with it, and now he insulted a reporter, ESPN's Andy Katz, after Syracuse's loss to Connecticut.
It's not 100% clear what Boeheim was angry about. It's possible this dates back to Katz's reporting on the Bernie Fine scandal. But here's a theory I tend to believe. It comes from Katz's report on James Southerland's suspension. In the first half Katz reported that Southerland's academic issue was regarding "two paragraphs" in a paper. At the time I discussed this with Billy, and we both thought it seemed implausible that an issue that minor could have taken 6 weeks to resolve. Maybe Southerland lied to Katz, knowing the University would likely not refute his statement (to protect his privacy), maybe someone else did, or maybe Katz's source told him the truth. Either way, it's possible Boeheim did not wish Katz to share that information. Maybe he didn't think Katz should have been pumping JaySouth for info, maybe he thought the conversation was off the record. Not sure exactly how that might have played out, but it seems third most likely reason for him to be angry, with the first two being they lost and that Boeheim is just a dick.
Leonard Cooper is now the coolest winner in Jeopardy history. Granted, there isn't a lot of competition for that title but Cooper won the teen tournament with an impressive amount of flair and bravado.
First of all, he absolutely did the right thing risking it all on that Daily Double. It was an all-or-nothing move, but he'd have to do one on final Jeopardy anyway, and this clue was likely to be easier.
Second, his victory of the $75,000 was not a sure thing. The other kid could have gotten it right and wagered enough to beat him, coupling in his huge advantage from the previous show.
Third, Chase might have known that first answer. When I was teaching him eyes, ears, nose, etc., I also taught him where his clavicle is. For Julian, I did sternum. Funny parlor trick.
"Fire We Make" - Alicia Keys featuring Maxwell
I love a good male/female duet and this is two of the best voices out there right now. It has a soulful melody, like something the Isleys might have done in 1977.
Really loving this jam right now.
One time, in a class in college, two groups were doing a package on crime on Marshall Street, both groups interviewed the same t-shirt store employee. But in their packages, they called him two different names. One was the correct name, one was a made-up name they conjured because they had forgotten to ask his real name.
Similarly, as I have pointed out before on this blog, the 1996 Susan Wagner High School Yearbook misidentified several girls as NHL players, because VinJuice loves hockey and forgot to go back and get their correct names.
I could have sworn the same thing had happened when I watched a special about the NFL. A bald man identifed as the NFL Director of Programming Digital Media (sounds like a made-up title) was named as Tom Brady.
Surely, the producers had forgotten to get his name, inserted Tom Brady to hold the space and never went back to change it. But I Googled it, and came up with Tom Brady, Vice President, Programming & Production, NFL Media (a more believable title). He even had his own LinkedIn account.
That seems like an impossible coincidence, but I guess Tom Brady is just a more common name than I thought.
