On The Plate ... 3/22/06

Musings From A Loco Hombre After A Weekend of Doing the Flamenco

Here's a free head's up…don't drink 48 Dale Jr's during the Thursday of the first round of the Dance and expect to feel money when you get on an Amtrak headed to Philadelphia early the next morning. Here's another free head's up…do not not drink the 48 Dale Jr's just because you're going to be feeling like ass on the Amtrak early the next morning. Morale of the story…it's all worth it. How worth it? Well, if I had called it quits "at a normal hour" last Thursday night I probably wouldn't have rambled my way into a Pakistani sports bar where I found roughly ten crazed Hoosier fans crushing beers while very anxiously watching their boys in striped warmup pants come back from a ten point second half deficit to the SDSU Aztecs. And I wouldn't have been able to do a "we're advancing, bitches" shot with them after Robert Vaden buried a triple with 3.3 ticks to put the Hoosiers ahead for good. Never miss a second of the Dance...that's the rule I try to live by during the greatest four days in sports. Unless of course, you are sitting in the Wachovia Center at 12:30pm on Friday, which I was, for the tip-off of Wisconsin vs Arizona. If you're live, you're live. You just hope that the clown who is updating the scoreboard isn't f'ing things up…which inevitably always happens. And if you're really lucky, you have John Feinstein sitting 8 rows in front of you who yells live scores up to Andy North, who is sitting behind you, even though you've been chewing off your right hand waiting for the GD scoreboard clown to update the scores. It went a little something like this…scoreboard at Wachovia Center…Iowa 63, Northwestern State 61…

Feinstein: Hey Andy! Andy! Iowa just lost at the buzzer. Unbelievable! Lost 64-63.
North: What? No way! Iowa lost at the buzzer? F.
CSG: Will you two shut the F up? I've been watching that GD scoreboard for the last 10 minutes and guess what? It hasn't changed. And now you two f'ers have gone and ruined it for me. When the score changes and the whole crowd give a collective "Ohhh!" I won't be saying "Ohhh!" with them. Thanks a f'ing lot. By the way, Wisconsin sucks, North! Go the F home!

That didn't happen. Well it did, but without me losing my junk. Feinstein and North…always f'ing with me. Come to think of it, it would've been funny if I had blown up on them. I was non-existent for the crowd's "Ohhh!" when the score was announced. Those SOBs. Now I'm pissed I didn't say something. Anyway, Philly was fun, except for the Villanova game which was painful to watch. I didn't want to talk about it then, and I don't want to talk about it now, other than to say I'm glad they won. And I'm pretty sure all of Philadelphia felt the exact same way on Friday. Let's just say there was a lot of anxious chatter on the city streets after the 'Cats unimpressive W over Monmouth. However, much to my joy, where there's anxiety there's some cold beverages, especially on St. Patrick's Day. Without further ado, here's my Philly Top Ten from the 11 hours I spent in the City of Brotherly Love…

1. In the cab en route to the Wachovia Center, the cabbie asked me what team I was in town to see. When I said Villanova, he asked why I didn't know the streets of Philly better. (My buddy and I had been asking where the money areas were for bars, etc.) I gave him my Villanova scoop, and he responded with "Yea, Villanova is like a country club compared to the sh*thole we're in right now." We were in downtown Philly, two blocks from City Hall. For a kid from Charm City, it looked pretty nice. Apparently I wasn't looking close enough.
2. After walking into the Wachovia Center, we got in line to grab some grub and a Coke. Standing in front of us in line was Bracketologist extraordinaire Joe Lunardi. He's not an especially large man. For example, the Wachovia Center only serves footlong hot dogs. If Joe had ordered a footlong, he would have resembled a "+" sign. If that imagery was too difficult to grasp, what I'm trying to say is the man is no bigger than a ruler.
3. Andy North sat behind us. For the record, I was sitting eight rows off the court in the Wisconsin parent/old alumni section. Money. You know Andy North…the ex pro-golfer who commentates with Mike Tirico on ESPN during all of the majors. Yea, that guy. Seems pretty relaxed on TV, doesn't he? Yea, well that's TV. At one point, North let out a "What the F! We're getting our asses handed to us!" He wasn't wrong. The Badgers got destroyed by 'Zona.
4. The following are actual quotes from the group of jackasses I was with regarding the four mascots we saw,.."Nobody F's with Wilbur the Wildcat…he's so f'ing money…Look at that hat!"…"Is Bucky the Badger wearing a striped turtleneck? If so, GD, that's classy."…"Buddy: Does the Villanova Wildcat have a name? Me: Don't think so. Buddy: His teeth scare me. He's ferocious. God, he really is scary."…"Question: Where is Monmouth? Answer: New Jersey. Comment: OK, then the Monmouth Hawk looks way too Disney to be from f'ing New Jersey. But the Monmouth cheerleaders, on the other hand, are perfectly Jersey for me. I can handle that trade off."
5. To no one's surprise the 'Zona cheerleaders were strong to quite strong. To my surprise was whenever a Badger player missed a free throw the Arizona cheerleaders would yell "Nice shot, buddy!" in a painfully sarcastic way. I found it highly amusing, especially since we were sitting in the Wisconsin family section and my buddy who went to Arizona was yelling "Nice shot, buddy!" in lock-step with the cheerleaders. Needless to say, he didn't get many friendly looks from our neighbors. He didn't care, though…he was working on putting a pint of Smirnoff 100 Proof in his belly.
6. After 'Zona started blowing the doors off of Wisconsin and Hassan Adams was sillifying the crowd, I really wished I had had a sign that said…Got DUI? How money would that have been? In fact, I'm thinking about selling those T-shirts in Tucson next winter. "Got DUI?" on the front and the Arizona "A" on the back. A simple shirt with a simple message - we're Arizona, we get DUI's and we throw dance-fighting parties on top of cars, but that doesn't mean we're not going to kick your ass when we play you on the hardwood.
7. I've been to five first rounds prior to this year - Baltimore, DC, Charlotte and Nashville (x2) and I've never seen an arena as packed as it was for the 'Nova first round game. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. And there was a very palpable, anxious electricity in the air. It's a shame the game didn't live up to expectations. But like I said, we won. So F it.
8. After the 'Nova game, this boy needed a beverage on the quick step for three reasons: 1) The 'Nova game rattled me, 2) It was St. Patrick's Day, and 3) I was parched. So we busted a move on the SEPTA, aka the slowest moving subway in the western hemisphere, to Center City where we walked into the first Irish joint we saw - The Irish Pub on Walnut Street. The Irish Pub was a perfect harmony of gloriousness and disgustingness. When I walked in, I wasn't sure if I should smile or puke. The place was absolutely packed. Sweaty, smokey, dirty, loud and the mutants had been let out of their cages. But the kids poured a tall cold Stella Artois and at that point that's all I really cared about. And I also enjoyed hearing a different drunk kid yell every 7 minutes…"Villanova is f'ing #1, you bitches!" (Yea, I realize that drinking Belgian beer on St. Patrick's day doesn't make any sense. But the Pub didn't have Boddington's and I wasn't about to get my Guinness on in that sweat factory.)
9. At about 8:45, after several hours in the Irish Pub mixing it up with the locals, hitting on their chicks and drinking their beer, my buddy and I decided that we were probably going to perish if we didn't eat some grub as soon as possible. Solution? The random Chinese restaurant one door down. Why? Why not. We were really hungry. What was the restaurant called? I couldn't tell you, but I can tell you that those GD geniuses make a deliciously crushing Moo Goo Gai Pan. Yes sir, I'm capitalizing that junk it was so damn good. And, the homeboys had the UConn/Albany game on the tube directly by where we were sitting. AND, when asked if we could kick the volume up on the game, there was no backlash, no guff, no nothing. All there was was a "Hells yea!" and the volume got turned up. Now, that folks, is money ding ding.
10. The rest of the DC donkey crew stayed the night in Philly. I rolled home. Lame? Kind of. But had I stayed I would have broken the one rule I try to follow during the greatest four days in sports…never miss a second of the Dance. Of course, by leaving, I missed partying with the Monmouth team, including their 7'3" 330 pound giant center John Bunch. But whatever. I wouldn't have seen Bradley shock Pitt on Saturday because I probably would have been asleep in a gutter. And frankly watching the Bradley upset is a lot more important to me than hanging out with some kids from New Jersey…and sleeping in a gutter.

Regional sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches from Thursday's tip to Sunday's final buzzer (kind of)…

HOTLANTA

How money was GW's 18-point come from behind win versus UNC-Wilmington? Maybe it wasn't that money for any of you kids outside of the District but the folks were live at Bailey's in Ballston last Thursday night during the comeback. Definitely fever-pitch material by Colonial fans - lots of yelling at the TV, lots of "yea, I'll have another" comments directly after ordering a new beer, lots of under-aged children, even babies, chain-smoking, you know how it is…I know I rap negatively about Duke when Dicky V or the officiating makes me want to rip my trachea out, but I'm not going to now. Why? Because after watching GW lose to Duke in the second round, I was reminded of something that you have to give Duke respect for no matter how much you hate them - the Devs play smart. And if a team doesn't play smart against the Blue Devils, their chances of winning diminish greatly. Why am I writing this? Because if you watched any of the GW/Duke game, you would have come away with 3 conclusions: 1) GW has oodles more quickness and raw athleticism than Duke, 2) If GW could have thrown it in the ocean the game would have been much closer, 3) You can ignore the first two conclusions because Duke played smarter than the Colonials. Duke converted when it needed to. GW couldn't. Duke went to the line when its offense broke down. GW turned it over. Play dumb against Duke and you'll lose. Period. For the record, GW got negative calls in this game. The officiating, once again, was abysmal. But I'm not getting into that. I'll save that for after the LSU game when Big Baby gets called for two tickey-tack fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game.

A note to John Brady at LSU: if the Bayou Bengals walnut-sized brain performance against Texas A&M made you proud of your players, proud to be alive, or proud to have coached that game, you need to be on some very, very serious narcotics. Because if that's LSU's A-game, aka the single dumbest team performance I've seen all year, Duke will beat LSU by 50…My favorite player in the Hotlanta bracket is clearly Northwestern State's Clifton Lee. A Cadillac grill and an afro? Can't be beaten. Being money as money can be in an interview with Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis? Straight up solid…I'm glad Syracuse lost. I was tired of folks acting like they were good just because they ran the table in the Big East tournament. The 'Cuse team that I knew all season was the 'Cuse team that looked completely lost against the Aggies…But that doesn't mean I'm taking anything away from Billy Gillespie and his A&M boys. Do you have any idea what a school's first Dance win since 1980 will do to some folks psyche? I'll tell you. It'll have A&M fans holding up signs that say Texas A&M: College Basketball School during a second round game against LSU. For the record, kids, them's fighting words in College Station. Do you think Dennis Francione was happy to see that? Don't think so.

Speaking of unhappy, who is more disappointed in Iowa's first round choke: Iowa fans or Indiana fan? My vote is with the Iowans. Big Ten tournament champs to first round chumps. Remember that hot seat, Mr. Alford? Well, get ready to get back on it. Tournament wins are highly valued in Iowa City. On the flip, Indiana officials are beginning to realize that their Golden Boy Steve Alford might have been an amazing player, but he's a lousy coach. There is no way he should get the job in Bloomington. If he does, it'll be the third huge mistake made by IU officials concerning their head coach in the last 5 years - firing Bobby Knight, hiring Mike Davis, hiring Steve Alford…The folks in Raleigh want to hate Herb Sendek but they can't - he keeps taking the Pack to the Dance and keeps chalking up victories. Despite the Wolfpack miraging people into believing that they were a potential Final Four contender earlier this year and finishing with a stretch of three straight losses to end the regular season, I'm not sure how anyone can truly complain. State danced again and advanced again as a #10-seed. Not bad, right?... One comment on West Virginia - they rolled through the first two rounds. A rematch with the 'Horns, who woke up versus NC State, is on the horizon and it should be nothing short of a gem.

THE DISTRICT

If UConn's shaky showing in the first two rounds of the Dance have you concerned about the Huskies chances of advancing to the Four, you've lost your GD mind. I can count on one hand the teams that were highly impressive in winning both of their first two games - Memphis, West Virginia, and Florida. Relax, UConn nation. The Huskies have a walk to Indy…In the words of my boy Lee Corso, the Huskies-West are chirping "not so fast my friend" as they get ready to tee up a Sweet 16 rematch with the Huskies-East. Rematch? Don't remember? You will soon. CBS will show the clip 7,451 times before Battle Huskie ensues. In 1998, Rip Hamilton broke U-Dub's back with a fallaway buzzer beater to send UConn to the Elite 8. There's mo doubt in my mind that both teams will see many a replay of that shot over the course of the week. What I don't know is how much old school motivation the loss will give the Huskies-West to punk the Huskies-East? They're going to need it when they see that UConn frontline brandishing firearms.

By the way, Washington broke my GD heart twice over the weekend. First, those Pac-Dime bastards punked me by whipping my upset pick Utah State and then they cut me deeper by ending Chief Illiniwek's, all-class Dee Brown's and Bruce Weber's orange jacket's run in the Dance. Illinois should have won that game, no doubt about it. The fact that the Illini led by 9 with 7 minutes to go and only scored 6 more points is, honestly, pretty pathetic when you have two All-Big Ten, tournament proven seniors on your squad. The Illini took bad shots, turned the ball over and most importantly never got to the line when things broke down. And that's not the Illini I've grown accustomed to over the last three seasons...How about Tubby Smith's stern post-game comments pointed at the Kentucky program? "Going forward, those players have to understand the standard set here at Kentucky. There's not going to be any bending in how we have to do things." Ouch, my Kentucky basketball hurts. Quick, someone get Ashley Judd a valium. Good for Tubby. I can only imagine the amount of xrap that dude had to take from Bluegrass State citizens this year. His team sucked. Period. But unlike past Tubby teams that have, in my opinion, lacked serious athletic talent relative to other powerhouse programs and relative to Rick Pitino's squads of yesterday, this team lacked the toughness, poise and discipline that overcomes athletic deficiencies and has exemplified Tubby teams at UK. For example, see last year's Kentucky team. It's the same team as this year's squad plus Kelenna Azubuike and Chuck Hayes. Kelenna and Chuck were good, but they were nowhere close to All-World. What they did though is lead, and win, through toughness, and defense, and hitting the glass hard. Those traits were missing from this year's team from Lexington. And that's why they blew.

Guess who isn't crying that Tennessee didn't make it past the second round? And guess who told you that Tennessee wouldn't make it past the second round? Yep yep. Bruce Pearl did an amazing job with the Vols this year. So much so that I now hate him deeply. Those bastards in orange are going to be really good from here on out. Thank God they lost…What do I say about George Mason that hasn't been said to death already? Nothing really, except that I bet Roy Williams never thought he'd be crying to the media after a loss to GM. Absolutely amazing. I am intrigued to see what Patriot Nation looks like when they come out of the Fairfax, VA woodworks and filter into the District trying to stir up junk with the crazed UConn bandwagon that will make the trip south in size…My favorite player in the District bracket is …the Wichita State cheerleaders. SHOX on the front of their uniforms? Doesn't get any better than that. For the record, I'm not shocked by the Shockers. The MVC is good and WSU won the regular season title. Boom. No "Oh my God's" coming from this kid. (Coming in a tie for second - George Mason's Tony Skinn and Jai Lewis. Why? Skinn clipped a dude in the nuts in the CAA tournament, had to sit out round one's win over the Spartans, and could have acted like a psycho killer against the Heels. Instead, he played within himself and at crunch-time calmly went to the line and made the four biggest free throws of his life. And he didn't tag anyone is the nads in the process. As for Jai, I just flat out like the biggin's game. Why the hell haven't I seen anyone from George Mason on the District streetcorners selling "Jai Rule" T-shirts? Come on Patriot Nation! Let's get this done.)

OAKTOWN

So much for my "Battle for the Memphis Playgrounds" prediction. The Bison of Bucknell put that ghetto-noise to rest with their White Men Can't Jump style of ball. But hey man, the Dance be crazy like that. Bucknell is now officially old school mid-major, like Gonzaga. Yea, Gonzaga has gone further in the Dance and has more notoriety, but the BuckNell Carters can hang their hats on two, not to mention back-to-back, money W's - Kansas from one year ago and the supposedly red-hot Hogs this year. Propers are in order for the Children of the Rising Bison…Speaking of the "mighty" Zags, I'm so off of them it's not even funny. For one, Xavier had those donkeys beat. The Musketeers straight up blew it. For two, Adam Morrison's showboating is making J.J. Redick's old antics look like chump change. And I'm definitely not a buyer. Morrison needs to stop talking junk, and start playing. His hitting himself in the head with the ball? Lame. Show some composure, Morrison. The Zags just grabbed the GD lead against #14-seed Xavier in the final minute of play. Act like you've been here before. See that wasn't "showing emotion." That was "I'm on TV right now so watch this." Sure, the Mustached Wonder dropped 35 on Xavier and without those 35 Gonzaga would be going home. I don't dispute that. Dropping a mere 14 on the Hoosiers on the other hand isn't exactly a "hit yourself in the head" performance. If he wants to beat the Bruins, he better bring his game, not his mouth.

Why? Because the Bruins are playing ball like "West Coast Big East." Comprende? Ben Howland has totally instilled his gritty style of ball into his kids in SoCal, bringing that suffocating defense, don't come in my paint, beat you up mentality to the previously ultra-finesse Bruins. Dangerous? Highly. Give the Bruins three more years and Howland will have created a legitimate "every year Final Four contender" program, just like the good old days under the Wizard. Not to say that they aren't capable of reaching Indy this year, because they clearly are, but give the New Wizard a few more of those LA McD's All-Americans, and you'll see what I'm talking about...Marquette blew up my bracket. Maybe I got a bit aggressive with my Big East love. Well maybe, although the Big East is still representing large. 'Bama, and most notably Jean Felix's eight trifectas, were the better team. It's like I've always said…when dudes are dropping ocho treys on your noggin', get out of the way. And unfortunately for me, that's what the Golden Eagles did.

Back to Indiana. Let me explain the Pakistani sports bar situation. Two seconds away from my place is this joint called Summer's that happens to be owned and managed by some Pakistani folks. It's like an old Howard Johnson turned into a xrappy sports bar. It's pretty much disgusting. And weird people hang out in this joint. People that watch European soccer and professional wrestling at the same time. Bizarre. All that being said though, Summer's does have a money setup of TVs, and always has "the package" no matter what the season is. And, of course, they pour tall cold beers. But never eat the food. It'll straight up murder you. Anyway, you have to understand my delight when I walked into this hellhole and found 10 normal hoops fans getting their hoops on. I mean Summer's was my only shot at watching the 'Cuse/A&M, IU/SDSU, and Washington/Utah State games all at once at this juncture of the night. And so I did. And I was quickly adopted by the Hoosier cause when I gave the correct answer to the question: "You're not from California, are you?" No, I'm just a guy who has the Hoosiers way too deep in his brackets that is comfortably seated at the bar with open barstools on either side of me. Well, at least I did for about 25 minutes or so. Only in Summer's can you come back from taking a leak to find a dude occupying the chair on your left who won't shut up about the kick-boxing on the one random TV in the joint and a mentally retarded guy sitting to your right who roots against everything you cheer for. Unfortunately, I'm not making this up. Summer's…it's an experience.

True or False: someone in Lawrence, KS has already set Bill Self's car on fire kind of like the nihilists did to The Dude's car in Lebowski. My gut says true. I might not be right about much, but I can promise you I am right about this…there are many people in the state of Kansas that H-A-T-E Roy Williams more now than they ever did when he left for Chapel Hill. Roy's departure brought them Bill Self, and Bill's lost consecutive first round games to Bucknell and Bradley. If there's a big nihilist movement in the US over the next few years, we'll know where it started…My favorite person in the Oakland bracket is Bradley coach Jim Les. Why? Because he has taken the program that he has been associated with for 30 years, including being the Braves point guard back in the day, to their first Sweet 16 since 1955. Les is a Bradley lifer, a Bradley guy. And when guys who are lifers win, especially at a place like little Bradley from Peoria, IL, it makes me happy…Two words on Memphis…watch out. The Baby Tigers got lucky and didn't have to play the Hogs and don't have to play Pitt. Double blessings. And they have gotten over the "it's the tournament, we're young, so we're nervous" hump. Coach Cal can now unleash his kids and just tell them to go play. And they will indeed. Again, watch the F out. Tomahawk dunks, 40-foot three-pointers and furcoats are coming.

MINNEAPOLIS

Shhhh. Respect the silence.

On the flip, a recount of the 16 to 8 to 4 weekend including news and notes from the noise outside the MCI Center and potentially inside as well.