Sunday, January 25, 2009

Georgetown Hoyas Basketfail

I wish John Thompson III would tell his team that they are bigger than other teams and that means they don't have to, and should not, shoot so many 3's. The best freshman in the country, Greg Monroe, is playing center for the Hoyas. If he gets the ball in the area around the basket he's almost unstoppable. I don't know if his teammates feel threatened by this or if they are unaware. They seem to try and keep the ball as far outside the basket as possible. How can a team be as big as Georgetown and have a reputation for playing disciplined ball and still find a way to give up 45%+ shooting, lose the rebounding battle by a substantial margin, and shoot so many ill-advised three-pointers that they never have a chance to get back in a game (against SETON HALL!?!?!?!?!?) even when they are only down by 1 point? This team is baffling. I think after they beat UConn JTIII called up Louisville's Rick Pitino and asked him "Hey, you want to switch the personalities of our teams? I've noticed you've been able to disappoint a lot of people in the regular season so far and my team is about to get a shit-storm of hype at just the tip of a really brutal bit of scheduling. I've got this machine that could make it work..." The point is Louisville's playing out of their minds (one of my best friends is a Louisville die hard) while Georgetown might not have even shown up for the last three weeks. At this point I would actually be thrilled to hear a report of JTIII racking up an assault charge for beating DaJuan Summers mercilessly while screaming, "YOU, SPECIFICALLY YOU DAJUAN SUMMERS, CAN'T MAKE IT TO THE NBA BY SHOOTING 3-POINTERS!" My life is a big ball of self-inflicted frustration and meaninglessness, so I would really appreciate it if external factors that are meant to be recreational didn't fill me up with so much rage and annoyance. Between the Hoyas, the Terps, the Matadors, and UVa (don't want you to think I'm a Lebron bandwagoner. He's a nice player but he plays for a team I don't care about and seems like kind of a dick for the whole openly wanting to play in New York without quite exactly saying it even though he plays for his supposed favorite team growing up; so I'm not calling them the Cavaliers - maybe I could've gone with Hoos? But I never went to UVa and I never pledged a frat so I decided against that, as well) I am really kind of sick of this basketball season after it started off so well. It is unfortunate that the high-point of the year happened in December. UConn's only loss now looks very aberrational. If only I could actually force myself to get whole-heartedly behind an NBA team and just go with it. But the teams I really want to like, the Washington Bullets and the Buffalo Braves, are horrible franchises.

The Bullets are apparently run by their PR department. I hope nobody with a history in basketball actually looked at Gilbert Arenas situation and thought, "Now this guy's gonna really start helping us win!" He barely played last year, he's had more surgery, and he hasn't been good since he became a star. Hey, Ernie Grunfield, can I have $117M? I promise I'll score as much as Gilbert has and I'll probably get about as much on the open market in the NBA at this point as he would. You can just sign me to a huge one-year deal and then trade my expiring contract because NBA general managers are all geniuses. I actually stopped cheering for the Bullets when they stopped being the Bullets and became the Grand Wizards instead.

The Clippers? What good can be said of the Clippers? Mike Dunleavy reminds me of The Riddler somehow. I mean that he physically reminds me of The Riddler but he also leaves clues that his crimes against basketball are going to happen. Things like alienating Cory Maggette and bringing in Zach Randolph. Dunleavy's a perfect foil for the real-world evil of Donald T. Sterling, a mountain of bad influence and shameful behavior who is partly responsible for the high prices of apartments in L.A. So, to keep from even raising my heartbeat I'll just say that it is morally reprehensible to spend money to help Donald Sterling. Boo Clippers. But it is fun to root for the losers if you don't expect anything from them.

Anyway, I'm going to treat this like an offensive rebound for the Hoyas and just give up. Maybe I'll write about my problems with Dell and FedEx later today. Maybe I'll finally get around to writing a full-bore critical piece about The Dark Knight. I doubt it. Enjoy Sunday.