Stupid People #2

So last night, I sidled up to my reserved table at one of my favorite sports bars around, Bru's Room in Boynton Beach, Florida, for a good night of watching sports and playing trivia. (Bru's Room is named for one of its proprietors, former Miami Dolphin linebacker Bob Brudzinski). Why was my table reserved, you might ask. Well, Tuesday night is trivia night, in which my boy Mark brings his company to the bar, and runs a live action trivia game in which teams compete against each other for gift certificates to the bar. My table is reserved because me and my boys usually gather at Bru's Room for trivia night. Unlike most teams, we change our name weekly. Last night, we were "The Vacuum Sealers".

Anyway, sitting at my table, with good views of the Marlins game, the Penguins decimation of the Hurricanes, the Cavs-Magic, as well as the actual NTN trivia, I was all set with my beer and wings. Then the trivia started.

Now, most of the trivia night customers are regulars. That is why the bar pays Mark to show up - he brings lots of eaters and drinkers. We recognize most of the usual suspects. However, we don't recognize this kid (mid-20's) that is sitting with what looks like his brother and a girl (not sure to whom she belonged). He is already sauced and beginning to get loud. Now, it is not quite 7:40. I foresee problems. I could not have foreseen what actually happened.

Now, I am going to skip the formality of actually listing reason #2 why we hate stupid people, as this scenario should be told without any distractions. Suffice to say, we hate stupid people.

So, the trivia game lasts about 2 hours. Now I mentioned that Beevis was already drunk when I arrived, so imagine his demeanor two hours later. He is screaming and yelling at everything. Jumping up and down at the bar. Slamming his hand on the bar when his team gets questions right. Yelling and screaming when he gets questions wrong. One of his favorite statements was "I may be young, but I am strong!" [Ed. note - he wasn't that strong]. Throughout the trivia game, he almost starts several altercations with various patrons. This is going to get ugly.

Then - the magic happened. My boy Tigger stated that it was the funniest thing that he had ever heard. It came straight from the mouth of Beevis. Now, we all say dumb things from time-to-time. We mishear questions during trivia, we are thinking of something else. However, nothing, and I mean nothing can excuse this statement.

The trivia question was, "If you spell out each number in succession, how long will it take you until you use the letter 'a'?"

We then hear, very loudly, Beevis jumping up and down yelling, "Mark it down. It's 8! 8! Mark it down, it's 8." Not quite mark it foul, but amusing nonetheless when you realize how adamant Beevis was that the answer to the question was 8. This doesn't even include the fact that teams are supposed to write down their answers and turn them in to the trivia guy, not yell them across the bar.

Surely you see where we are going here. As most of you readers will know - the number 8 is spelled "e-i-g-h-t", not "a-t-e". After Beevis' declaration, I sauntered up to Mark, the trivia guy, and said please tell me how he wrote down his answer. Beevis did not write the number "8", but rather spelled out "eight", failing to notice the lack of the letter "a".

Shortly thereafter, Beevis was cut-off and asked to leave, so I don't know what happened the rest of the evening, but I assure you, I kept laughing.

For those of you who haven't figured it out - the answer was "1000" or "one thousand".

For those that like trivia, I will give you two questions, both bonus questions from last night. The first is family fued style - which college football teams have won the most bowl games? The second was jeopardy style, which city has the most fountains? Your guesses in the comments.

Lessons Learned

As we are in the middle of a hard fought National Semi-Final game between Michigan State and Connecticut, I thought that I would just share my thoughts of the entire tournament (to date). Here is a list of the five things that I learned (or noticed) in this year's tournament.

5. The Griffin brothers are ugly. Really, really ugly. Ugly like you absolutely read about (or more particularly, are currently reading about).


See what I mean. Ugh! Times two. And after watching their parents in the stands, I just have to cheer, "M A M A, how do you think you got that way? Your Mama! Yeah, Yeah, Your Mama!"

4. Coach Pitino - what is Edgar Sosa doing on the bench for long, long stretches of time? I don't even say that because an (admittedly small) chance exists that we might be related. He is the only guy on the team that can legitimately handle the ball, and he is gifted offensively. In case you didn't notice Coach, you had a big problem scoring against Michigan State. I know that you don't think he plays defense well enough, but defense hasn't been your team's problem this year.


3. Levance Fields really should have led Pittsburgh to the NCAA Championship. Why, you might ask? Because watching him play helped me remember that the last two perfectly square point guards that led their teams far in the tournament ending up as champions; Mateen Cleeves and Khalid el-Amin. All 3 of those guards are exactly as tall as they are wide. In fact, when I googled, "Levance Fields Pictures" to add to this post, on the bottom of page 3 was a picture of Mateen Cleeves! I wish I made that up.

2. Goran Suton is really good. that guy can play. I had absolutely no idea before this tourney. He has a great mid-range jumper, a very good outside jumper because he doesn't force many shots, and he plays really tough defense inside. By far the player that has impressed me the most.

And, the number 1 thing I noticed during this tournament is ...

The remarkable resemblance of Oklahoma Guard Willie Warren to famous actor, Djimon Honsou. This picture from the school website doesn't do the resemblance justice, but it was the best one I could find. I swear I heard him argue with an official over a no-call by saying, "Give us, us Free (Throw)!" Maybe I was just drunk when I noticed it - you can decide.









What are some of the things you learned from this year's tourney?

Hoop It Up

It's almost time for the start of the Final Four, so I will make this brief in order to get the picks in before tip-off. North Carolina rolls, Connecticut close. This will make it a Big East - ACC final on Monday.

I'll take the Calamari with a shot of Campari

Wait, what's that? It's Calipari? I'll take one of those also please. And thank you very much.

So the failed Billy Gillespie experiment is over, but at least my beloved Wildcats have managed to make a tremendous splash during the NCAA tournament, despite not even being invited to participate. That is the absolute first step to becoming relevant again in the basketball world. I think that I will drink to that.

That's better. Now, let's go all the way back to two years ago, when Tubby Smith "resigned". I'll be honest with you, I was a big Tubby Smith fan. His teams always got progressively better throughout the season, which shows that the coaching staff is able to adjust to the talents of each team, and that the coaches learn as much throughout the season as the players. However, Tubby had become a bit stale. The talent seemed to be decreasing season-by-season, and the team always seemed to be missing that little bit extra that makes a team exciting. I always felt that Tubby got a bad wrap from his detractors despite winning a championship, since he did it with "Pitino's Players". Tubby coached that team, and he did it well, with the championship game against Utah never really in doubt (though Utah get trying to keep it close). Two years ago though, Tubby could have stayed or he could have left, I would have understood either way, and I wish Tubby nothing but the best in Minnesota.

Now, two years ago, everybody was on the Billy Donovan bandwagon. Not me. He doesn't seem to get a ton of talent, and none of his players seem to progress as they age. If Donovan hadn't been blessed with the Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey team, he wouldn't be as highly praised as a coach as people seem to give him credit for being. Out of that aforementioned class, only Brewer was a legitimate high recruit, with the others simply falling into Donovan's lap.

The coaches that I wanted were Jay Wright and John Calipari. Those guys can recruit, and they know how to coach talent. I wasn't upset with the Gillespie choice, having come off his big run at Texas A & M, but he wasn't Calipari or Wright.

That leads me to my biggest problem with Gillespie. I could care less about his relationship (or lack thereof) with the AD, the President or the boosters. I do care about his relationship with the players, but a lot of times the young, college age players are whiny, and self-absorbed, and they don't truly know what is best. My biggest complaint is that he doesn't know how to coach talent.

The Wildcats had Jodie Meeks, the sixth leading scorer in the NCAA this season, and Patrick Patterson, an absolute beast inside at the college level (although he will need to develop more of a mid-range game for the NBA). Yet, the offense struggled mightily during the season. The team would go for minutes upon minutes without Meeks even touching the ball. As prolific of a scorer as he is, teams could keep the ball out of his hands because Gillespie just couldn't run anything interesting or intricate enough to free his best outside weapon to even receive the ball, much less in a scoring position. Calipari does not have that problem.

Calipari had Memphis playing tough defense, that is for sure, but when it came to crunch time, Derrick Rose, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Tyreke Evens, or whomever, always seemed to be in a position to make a play. If Meeks and Patterson stay, and if Darius Miller continues to develop, and if DeAndre Liggins can finally get out of Gillespie's doghouse (and hold onto the ball), this Kentucky team can begin its retun to its rightful place of prominence. And this is even before Calipari begins recruiting.

Does Kentucky have a place for a couple of incoming Calipari recruits this season? Whatever the answer to that question is, this off season just became more interesting and optimistic.

Yes Wildcat fans, rejoice, rejoice. Good times seem to be near. And here's hoping that I don't have to repeat this column in 2 years, saluting Jay Wright, or whomever is next. Let's just hope that time is at least 8 years from now.

So here's a toast to John Calipari and Wildcat fans worldwide. A toast of your favorite bourbon for Kentucky fans, with a Campari for the lovely Jessica Alba.

File a Greivis

Ok - so maybe it isn't that punny, but Greivis Vasquez is legit. He might already be the greatest hispanic college basketball player ever, displacing Temple's immortal Pepe Sanchez (he of the perennial 9 points, 11 rebounds, 15 assists, 7 steals and 4 blocks type of stat lines), although he does have a long way to go until he can be mentioned in the same breath as Manu Ginobili, the flopping sensation. In the only game in which the lower seed beat the higher seed in the first half of today's games, Vasquez scored 27 points, with 5 boards and 4 assists, and 2 steals, with only 2 turnovers as the Maryland Terrapins beat the 7th seeded California Bears 84-71.

Not only did Greivis have a great first round game, this Terps team has played much better, more inspired basketball ever since Vasquez asked to be returned to the point guard role, a spot he occupied for most of last year. Maryland isn't quite yet a shadow of its former self, but with Vasquez at the helm, they could beat almost anybody.

Other stars of today's games include Bryan Davis of Texas A & M with his 21 point, 9 rebound performance in Texas A & M's 79-66 defeat of BYU and Wayne Ellington of North Carolina with his 25 points. Special congratulations to UNC's Tyler Hansbrough, who with his 22 points became the leading scorer in ACC history displacing J.J. Reddick from the top of the list. Anytime somebody knocks Duke off of anything, they get my kudos. SEC Player of the Year Marcus Thornton also went off for 30, 10-15 from the floor, including 3 of 4 from three and 7 of 8 from the line. If Ty Lawson thinks that he is going to have an easy game back from his toe injury, he needs to seriously reasses that situation. Thornton can play.

Speaking of Texas A & M, they started the game 10 for 10 from the field. If that isn't a bad omen for BYU, I don't know what is. If the Aggies keep shooting like that, the are likely to go much further than previously thought.

The shooting star of the early games was Roburt Sallie of Memphis, who scored 35 off the bench, on 10-15 shooting from three point range (12-17 overall), in a surprisingly close game for the Tigers. Up next for Sallie, Vasquez of Maryland, of course.

Opening Performance

If you are like me, nay, like everybody else, you completely discount the play-in game. You don't watch it, you don't include it in your brackets, and most likely, you don't even know who is playing. This excludes those of you who may actually be parents of the players in the play-in game. However, the game counts, the performances count, and most importantly, the statistics count. Including, well, especially, Moorehead State's Kenneth Faried's performance Tuesday in their 58-43 victory over Alabama State for the right to play overall number 1 seed Louisville. Faried had 14 points and 21 rebounds. That's right, 21 rebounds. I don't care who they played, 21 rebounds is impressive. Especially given that the second highest total for the entire game was 8.

Although nobody expects Faried to duplicate that effort against the likes of Samardo and Earl Clark, he will always have this game to remember. And he will likely be the leading per game rebounder in this tournament. Plus, it allows me to post this picture of Faried blocking the shot of none other than the immortal Chief Kickingstallionsims of Alabama State.

Have a great tourney everybody, it's just getting started.

Girl of the Week

Since its NCAA tournament time, let's take a walk through memory lane with former University of Tennessee hoopster, Brittany Jackson, our Girl of the Week.