#regular 4 posting will resume once i finish the battle pass | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 month

Text

Completely unedited and probably incoherent personal post that I didn't even try to justify writing about by connecting it to comedy in any way. Just needed to put it somewhere. Regular posting about comedians shall resume shortly.

A little while ago, I wrote about a friend of mine in a post, how we first became close 10 years ago, how we have been ever since, and at the end I said the connection between him and the actual topic of my post was a bit tenuous, I’d just taken any excuse to write about him because he was on my mind, I hadn’t heard from him in a while and was worried that he might be ruining his own life again. He does this sometimes. He’s very scatterbrained, he has almost no impulse control or organizational skills, sometimes I lose track of him and sometimes it means something’s gone wrong.

In that post I called him Rhod, because I don’t want to use his real name, and Rhod Gilbert reminds me of him, demanour-wise. Given the nature of this post, however, it feels weird to name him after any actual person again. So I’m going to call him Jacob. Because that isn’t his name but it also isn’t the name of anyone else in particular.

Like I said before, Jacob and I met in 2013 when I moved to a different city to compete on their university team, and he was there too. He was a little older than me, and a more successful wrestler than I was, he had stories of competing internationally that I was never quite good enough to get. I liked him, but I was also terrible at fitting in on the team where I didn’t know people, so I didn’t really get to know him or anyone else at first.

Long story short: end of the season, national championships, I’m in a quite important match, partway through I have a panic attack, the ref physically pulls me off the mat and drops me in my corner and says I have the three minutes of allotted injury time to get it together and be able to fight or I’ll forfeit, my actual coach is there but useless, the medical trainer is there but useless, Jacob is there as my teammate just to play backup/support to the actual coach, he immediately steps in, takes my hands, helps me breathe, gets me to bring what I’m aware of down from the entire arena full of screaming people down to just us, promises me I’ll be able to finish the match and won’t collapse again because he’ll be right there, I go back out and finish the match, I win, Jacob celebrates my win like he’s just won the championship, twelve hours later he and I are drunk in a hotel room at 3 AM and I’m telling him everything I think is wrong with the way our sport is run and he’s telling me how he ran away from home as a kid because his stepdad used to beat him up, because once you go through a moment like that one together, all emotional barriers are pretty much gone.

Years passed, I moved back to my home city and coached my home team, he moved to a bigger city and took a coaching job there, we lived five hours apart but saw each other almost every weekend at tournaments and talked on the phone regularly. We got elected to the provincial oversight board together and fought all our battles together to try to get rid of just the top few layers of corruption and predator protecting, mostly to no avail but we fucking tried. He saved my team thousands of dollars per year – and every one of those saved dollars meant my team was able to help more low-income athletes participate in the sport with their membership fees waived and their insurance/tournament fees covered – because when I told him it sucks that my team is full of athletes who don’t have the money for hotel rooms so even though we cover them as much as we can they can’t always afford to compete, Jacob told me that every time we compete near the major city where he lives, we should have our entire team bring sleeping bags and we can stay in the gym where he works. All of us – 20+ athletes and 4 or 5 coaches at most weekends – he let us spread out on the mats and all crash for free, any time we wanted. We sat in opposite corners from each other and took bets on whether my kids could beat up his kids. He got himself named coach of the provincial team and talked me into coming with him to big tournaments in the States to coach said provincial team, and I went even though I knew it would be a nightmare, and then the next year I went again even though I knew it had been a nightmare before, and by the end I told him that if I told him our friendship will not survive one more weekend like this and I will drown him in the Atlantic Ocean if he makes me sleep on another hotel room floor because he forgot to book enough rooms, but of course the next year I went again, one time I yelled at him in the middle of the night in the streets of Atlantic City because he was gambling in front of children “You know, I argue with people about you!” and he asked “What people?” and I said “People who think you’re not responsible enough to run a provincial team trip!”, because I do, people are always asking me why I’m so close with him even though he keeps doing incredibly stupid shit, and I can’t tell them it’s because he saved me one day in 2013, I just tell them he’s a good guy when you get to know him, I have defended him to a ludicrous degree, even when he didn’t make it easy, by doing things like gamble in front of children on a provincial team trip and then genuinely not know why I yelled at him in the street about it.

When he took an MMA fight in 2018, he was too nervous to tell his own people in case they came and possibly saw him lose, but he called me, and I drove 2.5 hours to theveorst small town I've ever seen, to see him fight in a cage they'd set up in a run-down dive bar-like building, where the guy nearly broke his nose but then Jacob got up and kicked the shit out of him, he won, and then we sat outside and I drank beer while he smoked a cigar and said he was glad I was there but I can't tell anyone what happened because it's too much pressure to live up to. And then he went and gambled all night because he does have quite a serious gambling problem. Though to be fair to him and not too sound too hypocritically condescending, I did then drink all night because I have a drinking problem. But at least I refrain from drinking in front of children. Anyway, that’s… that’s the short version of our relationship.

The last time I went so long without hearing from him, it was because he and his girlfriend had broken up, he ended up sleeping in his gym for a while, and then got kicked out of there due to some terrible decisions he made, which also meant losing his job, and had nowhere to go for a bit, though he did eventually end up back at a different gym and in a new apartment. During that time, I kept getting messages from mutual friends, from our old teammates, because people knew he’s fallen on hard times and kind of disappeared, and they knew I was close with him, and they texted me to ask if I knew if he was okay. And I didn’t. But eventually he started calling again, and he put things back together.

This year I didn’t hear from him for a few months. At first that was relatively normal; I’ll frequently send texts that don’t get answered because he sees a squirrel or something and then forgets about everything he was ever supposed to do before that moment. But he’ll usually reply to me if I follow up. And he usually calls me up every few weeks even if I don't contact him, more often if something’s actually going on. Sometimes less, it might be more like every few months sometimes. So I didn’t think much when the first text went unanswered, then a month later and I texted him again, still nothing. Then I heard from a couple of other people who know him, asking me if I know what’s going on with him, because they haven't heard from him lately. I didn’t know. I brought him up in a tenuously-related Tumblr post, because he was on my mind and writing about him made me feel a bit better, as I was worried he was ruining his own life again.

Well, we know the answer now. We have for a while, actually. A post appeared on Facebook a few weeks ago announced he’s having a baby. With a woman I’d never heard of. The last I heard there weren’t any women with whom he had a potential baby-creating relationship, though I don’t always keep track of those well.

It’s been over two weeks since that Facebook post went up and I haven’t messaged him. What the fuck are you supposed to say to a friend who’s proudly announced they’re having a kid, even though they definitely should not be having a kid? And this guy definitely should not be having a kid. It’s one of the worst ideas I can possibly imagine. I think almost no one should ever have a kid, but this guy really shouldn’t have a kid. Even my friends who think kids are mostly a good idea and most people should have them – even they think Jacob having a kid would be a disaster. And I know they think that, because they’re all messaging me asking what the fuck is going on with Jacob announcing that he’s having a child with a woman no one’s heard of. And I have to tell them I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him.

Because the thing is that if I send Jacob a text, 30% of the time I won’t hear back because he saw a squirrel. 10% of the time he texts me back. And 70% of the time, he calls me, anywhere from four seconds to ten days after I sent that text, to discuss that text via a vocal conversation.

I could figure out what to text him. It’s fucking weird, but if I put enough effort in, I could come up with some appropriate-sounding texts along the lines of “I see you are having a baby, that’s an interesting idea, what’s up?” But I couldn’t do a phone call. If I text him that and he calls me, I will have to maintain a tone of voice in a conversation that makes it seems like I think this is a reasonable idea. And I don’t know how to do that.

I’ve never had to do this with him before. More than that, our relationship has always been defined by us not having to do that with each other. If there’s a situation where I can’t be honest with anyone else, I can always be honest with Jacob. And I always know he’s being totally honest with me. I tell people that sometimes, when they ask me why I hang out with him even though he’s a mess, and I’m in my role as Jacob apologist. I say that actually, it’s very fucking relaxing to have a conversation with a guy who doesn’t have the psychological capacity to edit anything between his brain and his mouth. I never have to worry about where I stand with him or what he thinks of something, because he’ll just tell me. I never have to worry about editing what I say to him, because I know it can just be anything I'm thinking, even if that thing is "you're being a fucking idiot right now". I don't even realize how exhausting I find it to walk around avoiding saying what I think and guessing what other people think, until I talk to someone where I don't have to do that.

We’ve always been like that. When something horrible is happening and I have to spend all day around people who are letting it happen and at the end of it I feel like my mind is going to break from the effort it takes to pretend I think that’s fine, and I talk to my friends from my own team and they just say it’s a bit annoying but it’s not the end of the world, I call Jacob at the end of the day and whatever horrible furious things I think he understands. And he calls me and tells me how angry he gets and how fucked up everything is and I know he’s not covering anything up.

When my friend died a few years ago, the moment I heard the news, the very first thing I did was call Jacob. I didn’t even move. I found out via a text that came from someone who’d heard from the person who found the body. I read the text, and then didn’t even stand up, I just called Jacob. Didn’t think through the fact that in reaching out for someone to talk to, I’d also be putting myself in the position to have to break devastating news to someone who didn’t already know it, because the guy who died was a friend of Jacob’s too. They were competing at the same time and at about the same level. My friend who died used to tell stories in the pub about how wild things used to get on Team Canada trips with Jacob, when they were running around Europe and Asia together. Quite a bit more wild than just gambling in front of some kids in Atlantic City, it turns out.

Anyway, I called Jacob to tell him what happened, but he was at work, and then the reality of what I’d be doing to him hit me, and I said this can wait until he’s done because I can’t ruin his day. He could hear how upset I was, and just the week before I’d been on the phone with him while I was panicking about COVID, and he’d told me I can always call him if I’m having a panic attack and want someone to talk to, and I realized he thought that’s what this was, that I was calling to talk through anxiety and just didn’t want to burden him with that at work, so he told me it’s fine, he can take a break, just tell him what’s wrong. And I realized I wasn’t preparing him for the news properly, I was making him expect irrational anxiety and then I was going to drop something so much worse on him, and I didn’t know how to lay the groundwork so while he was telling me to calm down I just cut him off mid-sentence and said “[Guy’s name] is dead,” and I remember being shocked at how fast his voice turned from calm and reassuring to barely being able to speak through tears. The news had taken some time to hit me but it didn’t for Jacob, the very first words he said after I told him, he was already crying.

And in the few weeks that followed we talked a lot, and I realized why my instinct was to call him first, rather than my friends from my own team who’d been in those pubs with me and the guy who died. And it was because I didn’t trust myself to be appropriate enough for them. I told one of them that I couldn’t stop thinking about our other friend, who’d recently been kicked out of the group for trying to fuck a teenager, and how colossally unfair it was that he hadn’t died instead. I asked if she’d had any thoughts like that and she said… no, that’s a weird thing to be thinking right now, petty stuff like that doesn’t matter. I called up Jacob and told him the same thing and he sat on the phone with me and we made lists of people who deserved to die more than the guy who actually did.

A couple of years later, when a coach we both knew died, Jacob found out before I did, and he called me to break the news. We hadn’t been incredible close with that guy so it wasn’t anywhere near the same level of devastating grief, but we still knew and liked him, it was sad, we were sad together. A month later it came out that that guy had committed suicide because he was about to go to court for sexually abusing a teenage girl. Every other person I knew talked about how it was a weird mixed emotions situation, conflicting anger at him with it still being sad that he died, not knowing how to feel. Again I felt alienated, like I was the only one who had my reaction, which was: “He deserved to die and I’m glad he’s fucking dead.” I called up Jacob and told him about the reason for the guy’s death. First thing Jacob said was “Well the right thing happened then. It’s good that he died.”

This is a fucking weird set of examples. I swear Jacob and I have bonded over more than just agreeing that some people deserve to die. Those are just the first examples that come to mind because I’m trying to explain how much our relationship has been defined by him being the one person I can go to with my very worst thoughts and it’s okay because we can say anything to each other. And it turns out my thoughts about who deserves to really genuinely die are my worst ones. I can walk around all day listening to people say polite things about polite circumstances until I can’t stand the politeness anymore, and my friendship with Jacob is an escape where no one has to be polite.

Last spring, when my then-roommate tried to kick me out of my house and I was scared of where I’d live, and he had someone subletting for him whom I couldn’t stand being around for horrible petty reasons and she had a friend over that I couldn’t be around and I got home from work to find I couldn’t be in my own house, and all my other friends were off with their partners or wherever else and I couldn’t talk to them anyway because they’d tell me to just get over it and go home because it’s not worth getting so angry about, so I just walked off to a field and sat down to wait for my house to clear out so I could have somewhere to go, I called Jacob and told him all the most petty horrible reasons why I couldn’t go home, and he told me this sport is better with me in it and principles are worth having. And then he talked shit about a bunch of people from his own team who were annoying him until I forgot about my stuff. It was lovely. Two weeks later he called me when he'd been stuck outside his own living situation for similarly stupid reasons. And I talked shit with him as well.

This is what we do. We’re honest with each other. But I’ve learned in the last few years that that’s a big thing that changes when you go from your twenties to your thirties. In my twenties, my friendships were mainly based around me and some guys making fun of each other and making jokes about everything each other did. You know, basic juvenile and sometimes probably problematic – but successful – ways to bond. But when you get older, your friends start making serious, long-term decisions, and you’re not allowed to make fun of those because those are for real. And while there can be some nebulous difficulty in working out what is and isn’t fair game, the two hard and fast rules is you are never ever allowed to question their choice of serious romantic partner, or their choice to have kids. You just can’t.

I don’t fully understand all the rules around that – I just know that serious adult relationships have rules about how people outside the relationship are not allowed to know too much about it and are definitely not allowed to think it’s a bad idea, and if those people break that rule, they have to be cut off for the sake of the relationship. So because I know I’m not great at intuitively knowing where the line is (you know, autism), I try to err on the side of caution, and whenever my friends get into serious relationships, I just stop ever asking them anything about that side of their life, and if they volunteer a story about it, I just nod and say “Oh cool” and say absolutely nothing else and express no opinion whatsoever, no matter how much I’m thinking “This seems like a terrible idea.” But that’s so fucking awkward, it is anywhere from really annoying to outright psychologically painful to have to hang out with someone while constantly avoiding saying what I’m thinking, so I end up spending less and less time with that person, until they eventually break up, and then I’m allowed to say “Oh yeah, that seemed like a terrible idea,” and then we can be friends again. Until they find someone new and the cycle repeats.

But this was never an issue with Jacob. I never felt like there was something I couldn’t say to him. It was such a big deal to feel like there was nothing I couldn’t say to him, and nothing he couldn’t say to me. Not that he always did tell me every single thing that happened to him, or vice-versa. He doesn’t know I have a Tumblr blog and have tried stand-up comedy. I didn’t know he’d impregnated someone, at least until I saw it on Facebook. We’ve both got our own stuff going on, it's normal in our ten-year friendship to go months without talking. But I’ve always felt like I could say anything to him, and if I haven’t, it’s just because it hasn’t come up.

When a friend gets a partner and then we slowly drift apart until they break up – that’s not going to happen here. Jacob is never, ever going to not have that kid. That’s forever. And I know that is not what matters in this situation, at all. What matters is that this is going to do – whatever it’s going to do – to his life. What matters is a kid is going to be born to a guy who is not equipped to raise a kid. That’s what matters. That’s what I’ve been talking about with my friends, as we discuss what the fuck Jacob is thinking, and I apologize to them for not having the Jacob-based inside information I’d normally have, because I haven’t spoken to him.

I can’t tell them that I’m worried about the fact that a permanent barrier has gone up in a friendship I thought would always be there, because I’d look like a terrible person, for even considering that in the face of these much more important things. And that’s why instead, I am putting that concern on my Tumblr blog. It’s not even the classic case of “My friend’s having a kid and I’m worried they won’t have time for me anymore.” I mean, that is a huge issue in most cases, but probably not really here. Jacob and I have always had a long-distance friendship that can ebb and flow and be picked up where it left off. He could still do that with a kid, it’s not about that. It’s that I’m never going to be able to have a fully honest conversation with him again, he’s going to become just another person I have to bite my tongue around, and pretend I think this terrible idea is a good one. I’ve spent years outright telling him when I think he’s being a fucking idiot, but now he’s done the one thing I’m not allowed to question.

Even though you can't fucking do that. You just can't. You can't mess around with bad decisions when there's an innocent kid involved. I realize it's horrifically selfish of me to be worried about my friendship when the real problem is a kid. Why the fuck is the one decision no one's allowed to question, a decision this big and important and such a huge problem if someone gets it wrong? I know it's my worst opinion that no one should have a kidcunless they're incredibly prepared for every eventuality, which he is definitely not and almost no one else is either, but he's even less than most people, he's always been my friend who makes dumb decisions and I defend him and apologize for him because I love him despite his flaws and he accepts mine too. But if you're going to live like that, you can't involve an innocent kid.

0 notes

tfcrp · 5 years

Photo

GAME 07: PALMETTO STATE FOXES vs. GEORGIA SOUTHERN EAGLES

PRE-GAME

The Foxes arrive at the Eagles’ court an hour before first serve. With renovations planned for the summer with the income from their first Class I season, the court is noticeably less modern than everywhere else the Foxes have played this season, the locker rooms darker and more cramped as they don their orange-on-white away uniforms.

On the court, even with a smaller maximum capacity, there are noticeable empty pockets in the stands after the Eagles’ long losing season, the crowd less-than-enthusiastic as the Vixens run through their pre-game routines.

In the locker room, nobody notices Octavia slip away—but they do notice when the Eagles’ coach appears for a heated conversation with Wymack. He knows there’s only one person on his team that would prank their opponents right before the game, and he decides to bench Octavia immediately.

Half an hour before first serve, the Foxes are allowed onto the court for a brief warm-up. They line up in order of position—Strikers, then Dealers, then Backliners, then Goalkeepers, with Grant and Claudia in the front as Captain and Vice-Captain.

Once warm-ups are done, Grant and the Eagles’ captain meet at center court for the coin toss that will determine who gets first serve. The Foxes win, and the starting players enter the court for the start of the game.

Red Cards: N/A

Scratched: Octavia Dawson

Injuries: Leo Duarte (hand)

FIRST HALF

STARTING LINEUP:

Goalkeeper: Grant Rollins (Sub: Emmett Ashford)

Dealer: Claudia Jewell (Sub: Raphael Peruggia)

Strikers: Brayden Sykes, Arlo Booth (Sub: Carter Maddox)

Backliners: Sterling Walsh, Sydney McCray (Sub: Beretta Lepore, Elior Lowell)

The players take their starting positions and Claudia serves to start play.

Early, the Eagles prove to be no match for the Foxes’ speed: Brayden gets the Foxes their first goal of the night off of an assist from Claudia.

Claudia serves, and the Foxes continue to dominate possession, until the Eagles goalkeeper blocks on a shot from Arlo with a heavy swing of their racquet that sends the ball deep into the Foxes’ zone.

The Eagles make their first real push of the game, but Grant easily blocks the shot that makes it past the Fox defenders.

Sterling intercepts the rebound and tangles with an Eagles striker, who locks their sticks and pops the ball free from his racquet.

Sydney beats the Eagles dealer to the loose ball and makes a long pass up the court that lands squarely in Arlo’s racquet.

With a fast feint that fools the backliner covering him, Arlo gets off a shot on goal that the Eagles goalkeeper is too slow to block, extending the Foxes’ lead.

At the pause in play, Wymack sends in his subs: Emmett for Grant; Raph for Claudia; Carter for Brayden; and Beretta and Elior for Sterling and Sydney.

Raph serves to resume play and, when a turnover gives possession back to the Eagles, intercepts an errant pass meant for an Eagles striker, stalling their breakout.

Raph passes up the court to Carter, who puts his shot cleanly in the top corner of the goal out of the reach of the goalkeeper.

The Foxes are up by three, and as Raph serves again, the Eagles are getting frustrated—and sloppy. Behind the play, a trip on Beretta earns the Eagles the first yellow card of the night, allowing the Foxes another serve from where play was halted—dangerously close to the Eagles goal.

Raph serves neatly to Arlo, who is in the perfect position to score with just a snap of his racquet, just seconds off the serve.

Late in the half, the Eagles get the best chance they’ve had all game, but Emmett comes up strong, diving to block a shot coming into the lower corner.

Just as quickly, Emmett gets his feet underneath him to lunge forward with his stick, knocking the racquet out of the Eagles striker’s hands and denying them a rebound that looked almost assured.

When the buzzer sounds, the Foxes have dominated the half, leading 4-0.

HALFTIME

The Foxes retreat to the visitors locker room and, for the first time this season, they have a comfortable lead. While the Foxes are amped up, the mood back on the court among the scattered Eagles fans is much less enthusiastic, and the Vixens perform their half-time routines to the listless crowd. After fifteen minutes, both teams are called back to the court.

SECOND HALF

STARTING LINEUP:

Goalkeeper: Alis Tan (Sub: Caleb Fournier)

Dealer: Olivia Finch (Sub: Sasha Hart-Ashby)

Strikers: Akira Sato, Kent Cheong (Sub: Neel Avery)

Backliners: Grayson Sharpe, Basil Walcott (Sub: Casey Hendrix, Glory Hoskins, Sydney McCray)

The starting players take their positions, and Olivia serves to start the half.

Kent receives Olivia’s serve and, at the end of his ten steps, passes to himself off the wall to put himself within striking distance—he scores, extending the Foxes’ lead.

Falling even further behind, the Eagles rack up even more yellow cards: a late body check to Basil; an elbow to Kent’s jaw—and, finally, a red card when a backliner’s racquet makes glancing contact with Akira’s helmet.

The Foxes are awarded a penalty shot, which Akira steps up to take: he feints right and shoots left but, with the goalkeeper out of position and an open goal, his aim is off and his shot goes wide.

Olivia serves, but an Eagles backliner is faster to the serve than Akira. Caught flat-footed, Akira earns himself a yellow card for tripping as he flails wildly with his stick in an attempt to not be left behind.

Play is reset to the half court line and the Eagles are awarded possession, which they quickly capitalize on: a stick check from an Eagles striker rips Basil’s racquet from his hands, letting them slip a shot past Alis.

At the pause in play, Wymack sends in his subs: Caleb for Alis; Sasha for Olivia; Neel for Akira; and Casey and Glory for Grayson and Basil.

The Eagles serve, and Casey rushes to intercept it. With their head down as they battle along the wall, they take a hit into the Plexiglass from behind, sending them to the floor.

When Casey doesn’t get up right away, Neel tries to signal the referees to stop the play.

But play isn’t stopped, and Glory is left to fend off two Eagles strikers. She lunges with her stick, but is too slow to keep the striker from getting a shot off—one that gets past Caleb.

Pandemonium breaks out: the Eagles are cerebrating like they aren’t still down by three, but the Foxes are incensed at the apparent injury to their teammate.

At the center of the brawl are Glory and Sasha, but almost every player on the court is pulled in besides Neel, who’s helping Casey to their feet.

It takes all the referees to break it up, and yellow cards are given out liberally: to Glory, Sasha, Kent, and Caleb, and to all of the Eagles on the court save for their goalkeeper on the other end—and the striker who hit Casey, who is given a red card.

The Eagles’ goal is allowed to stand, though, a decision that has the Foxes enraged. They are awarded a penalty shot, however, which Wymack taps Neel to take after he sees Casey into Abby’s care.

Neel steps up to take the penalty shot as Wymack sends Sydney back onto the court. With a fast release, Neel gets the shot past the Eagles’ goalkeeper, restoring the Foxes’ four-point margin.

The buzzer sounds after a tense half and the Foxes have earned their first definitive victory of the season, winning 6-2.

POST-GAME

The Foxes have added another victory to their growing tally, a dominant performance from start to finish. The victorious Foxes line up by their bench to shake hands with the Eagles as boos rain down from the crowd—and, from the way the Eagles players hang their heads, the boos are as much, if not more, for the Eagles than they are for the Foxes.

The Foxes stream into the visitor’s locker room, loud and elated, and Wymack has to raise his voice considerably to be heard as he assigns Raph and Emmett to press duty.

The Foxes shower and change out, and load up their buses alongside the Vixens to make their way back to the hotel, ready for a rowdy victory party.

Once they arrive back at the hotel, Wymack gives them his familiar warning before leaving them to their own devices: just don’t get arrested, and don’t miss the bus tomorrow morning.

Though, this time, it’s with the reminder that, with the Foxes’ Thanksgiving holiday, some of their players won’t be making the journey back to Palmetto with them, deciding instead to leave from Statesboro for home.

ADMIN NOTE: And there you have it! You’re welcome to set threads during any of the periods listed above—(pre-game, expanding on the events of the game itself, halftime, post-game)—and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

I’ll see you back here after the Foxes’ Thanksgiving break for the last game of the regular season, which will be against the Gamecocks on the in-game date of December 7!

And, as always, please let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

#tfcgames

8 notes · View notes

junker-town · 4 years

Text

The first college basketball weekend after the Super Bowl lived up to the hype

Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

Duke-North Carolina was nuts, but it was far from the only noteworthy event of the weekend.

As is usually the case, the first college basketball weekend after the Super Bowl was loaded with high-profile matchups, rivalry showdowns, and some ridiculous finishes.

Here are the 10 things you need to know from the most jam-packed weekend of the 2019-20 college hoops season to date.

1. Duke-North Carolina

We don’t need to rehash the two buzzer-beaters or the comedy of hours that set the stage for both to take place. We also don’t need to dive too deeply into how Saturday’s loss probably doomed any hope North Carolina had of salvaging something out of this mess of a season. What does need to be discussed is how the top-16 reveal earlier in the day showcased why this win for Duke might wind up being massively important.

Ever since the NCAA tournament Selection Committee abandoned the standard S-curve in favor of geographical preference for the top four seeds, the top line has typically been a battle for the East, South and Midwest regions, typically in that order. That’s looking like it won’t be the case in 2020. All four teams currently pegged as No. 1 seeds are schools located west of the Mississippi River. This resulted in a situation where on Saturday we found out that if the tournament began today, San Diego State, by virtue of being the “worst” No. 1 seed would be forced to play its Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games at Madison Square Garden in New York.

We also discovered on Saturday that Duke is currently regarded as the strongest of the No. 2 seeds, which would also result in the Blue Devils heading to the Big Apple for the tournament’s second weekend. The Garden is like a second home for Coach K’s program, and the Dukies would almost certainly have a crowd advantage at MSG over whatever two teams it would play inside the building.

Duke already has two non-Quad 1 losses on its resume. Adding a third — North Carolina is currently No. 89 in the NET Rankings — would have almost certainly put the Devils behind at least Dayton and Louisville on the Committee’s updated seed list.

Winning round one with UNC may not ultimately wind up the difference between Duke getting New York and San Diego State as its one seed vs. Duke getting sent to the Midwest and having Baylor as its one seed, but for now at least, that’s precisely the situation.

2. Bob Knight back in Bloomington

On a college basketball weekend that saw nearly all of its ranked teams take care of business, the sport’s biggest upset may have been Bobby Knight finally returning to an Indiana game at Assembly Hall for the first time since being unceremoniously fired two decades ago. The eight minute halftime ceremony was touching, it was awkward, and it would have taken on a completely different tone had Knight punched Dick Vitale in the face, which seemed like it might happen for a brief moment.

Definitely thought Bob Knight was going to knock Dick Vitale smooth out on national television. pic.twitter.com/Osv25c3XKb

— Kyle Boone (@Kyle__Boone) February 8, 2020

Oh, by the way, Purdue dominated its arch-rival and won a pretty big game for both teams, 74-62.

3. Seton Hall is running the Big East

Three weeks ago, the Big East appeared to have a strangle-hold on the title of “top to bottom, the most competitive conference in college basketball.” Instead, the league now has a 10-1 team at the top and a 1-10 team at the bottom.

The team at the bottom, of course, is DePaul. At the top is Seton Hall, which went on the road Saturday and took down Villanova, 70-64. The result of that win is that the Pirates are now a full three games ahead of everyone else in the Big East, and remain undefeated in conference road games.

Not only do Myles Powell and company look capable of becoming the first Seton Hall team since 2000 to make the Sweet 16, they look like they have the potential to be the Final Four-caliber squad Pirate fans have spent more than two decades waiting for.

Villanova, meanwhile, has suddenly dropped three straight and is in desperate need of finding its footing before this slide becomes a free fall.

4. Michigan State is reeling

Speaking of high-profile slides, preseason No. 1 Michigan State has now also lost three in a row following Saturday’s 77-68 setback at Michigan.

The good news if you’re a Sparty fan? MSU went through a three-game slide at almost this exact point in the season a year ago. They responded by winning 14 of their last 16 games on their way to winning the Big Ten regular-season title, the Big Ten tournament title, and a trip to the Final Four.

We’re likely going to know pretty quickly if recent history is going to repeat itself in 2020. The Spartans will hit the road to face Illinois — currently tied for second-place in the Big Ten — on Tuesday, and then host league-leading and ninth-ranked Maryland on Saturday.

5. Madness in the Missouri Valley

With all due respect to both of Duke’s buzzer-beaters, this from Southern Illinois was the most impressive finish to a game of the weekend.

MARCUS DOMASK @SIU_Basketball wins a thriller over Missouri State with this buzzer-beater from the freshman! pic.twitter.com/bSkJjOxzrm

— MVC Basketball (@ValleyHoops) February 9, 2020

That’s Ronnie Suggs with the ridiculous pass and Marcus Domask with the even more absurd catch and shoot to lift Southern Illinois past Missouri State. The Salukis continue to be one of the most pleasant surprises in all of mid-major basketball. Picked to finish dead last in the Missouri Valley Conference before the start of the season, they’re now 9-3 in the league, all alone in second place, and just one game behind first-place Northern Iowa.

6. Louisville breaks its Virginia curse

After losing nine straight games to Virginia, Louisville finally got over the hump against the reigning national champions on Saturday. As is typically the case when these two get together, the game was weird.

Virginia entered Saturday having not scored more than 65 points all season and ranked 348th in the country in three-point percentage (27.2 percent). It promptly canned 11-of-22 from beyond the arc and hung 73 points on a Louisville team that entered the day No. 18 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency. None of it was enough, as the same Cavalier team that came into Saturday allowing opponents to score just 50.4 PPG let Louisville go off for 80. The previous high for an ACC foe against Virginia had been 63.

On Ken Pom, where massive ranking shifts are typically limited to the first two months of the season, Virginia’s offense jumped from No. 274 in the country to No. 228. Louisville’s offense moved from No. 15 to No. 8, and its defense fell from No. 18 all the way down to No. 31.

The projected final score for the game going into the day had been Louisville 59, Virginia 49.

7. Humanity in the Pac-12

Early in the second of what would ultimately be an 81-74 Colorado win, Stanford’s Oscar da Silva was momentarily knocked unconscious after being inadvertently elbowed by the Buffaloes’ Evan Battey. The elbow sent da Silva to the floor, where his head slammed against the court and began bleeding.

Battey, who suffered two seizures and a stroke in 2017, immediately broke down and began crying. Seconds later, players from both teams and both head coaches huddled on the floor to say a prayer for da Silva.

It was humanity, not just sportsmanship, that took center-stage this past weekend. Must-read from @TheAndyKatz: https://t.co/dA8nMrJ2jH ( - @Pac12Network) pic.twitter.com/4jkMRjc2w6

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) February 10, 2020

“I saw how shook up Evan was,’’ Colorado coach Tad Boyle told NCAA.com’s Andy Katz. “I told McKinley (Wright) to get them together. It was spontaneous, not choreographed. Both teams connected. Everybody who knows Evan knows how special person he is, a caring human being. He’s like that in his everyday life. Nobody appreciates being on the basketball court like him.’’

“Sportsmanship isn’t the right word (for what happened),’’ said Stanford coach Jerod Haase. “It was human decency. This was a human story, not sportsmanship. There were real emotions with real people. There was so much high character on both teams.’’

Da Silva, who is Stanford’s leading scorer, was taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a head laceration and stitched up. There’s been no initial word on when he’ll be able to return to the court.

8. Auburn-LSU gets nuts

Until Duke-North Carolina happened, it didn’t seem like anything was going to be able to surpass the madness we saw in the battle for first place in the SEC between Auburn and LSU.

Though each team tried to give the game away at the end of both regulation and overtime, it was Auburn, which trailed by as many as 15, which walked away with the 91-90 OT win. The winning basket came off the hands of J’Von McCormick, who needs to practice his post-shot celebration for the next time this happens.

A+ shot by J’Von McCormick. F- celebration. pic.twitter.com/Q4acKE78ag

— Mike Rutherford (@CardChronicle) February 8, 2020

“Never leave your feet without a plan” is solid basketball advice for both in-game action, and break in the action celebrations. If you’re going for the mid-air bump, you better be damn sure your leaping partner is just as committed to the act as you are. If he’s not, you’re gonna end up looking like a small fish leaping out of water.

9. Gonzaga makes its case

We’re into the heart of the annual national debate over Gonzaga basketball. With the Zags once again sitting as a top contender to be a No. 1 seed on Selection Sunday, the “they’re actually good” and the “they don’t play in a real conference” sides have once again loaded themselves down with all the familiar ammo and are set to fire back and forth for the remaining few weeks of the regular season.

The “they’re actually good” side received a jolt late Saturday when Mark Few’s team went into UCU Pavilion and absolutely hammered arch-rival Saint Mary’s by 30. Gonzaga had five players score in double-figures, it led by 25 at halftime, and was never remotely threatened by a Gaels team that is No. 39 in the NET.

The Zags are now 25-1 overall, 11-0 in the West Coast Conference, and have won those 11 league games by an average of 20.6 points per contest.

10. Darrell Walker can dance

One of the best stories in college basketball right now outside of the power conferences is what Little Rock is doing in the Sun Belt. Picked to finish 11th in the 12 team conference before the start of the season, the Trojans are currently 12-2 in the league and in first place by a full three games.

After winning a 90-87 nail-biter over rival Arkansas State on Saturday, Little Rock head coach Darrell Walker had to let his guys know that he can still move.

Had to show the young fellas some real moves after a rivalry win. pic.twitter.com/rIHduCoOmh

— Darrell Walker (@CoachWalker_LR) February 9, 2020

That’s the look of a head coach who hasn’t lost since Jan. 11.

0 notes