Note: I’m off to Greece this week, trying to catch up with Josh Childress and maybe Travon Bryant.  Look for Patrick’s triumphant return soonish.

So, the season is really underway.  What the hell do we know?

1.  Heehee.

2. My-T-Sharp: In case the comment threads at Uni Watch have always been a bit much for you, Michigan and UCLA are both all-adidas schools.  While Herr Dassler’s basketball shoes have been fail lately (patent leather shell-toes?  really?)  I think we can agree that if these two programs were OMG SWOOSH schools, we wouldn’t have been treated to this:

Seriously, making it work.

3. Ew: The SEC, she’s not so good.

3b. Not Ew: Tennessee is not on basic cable enough for my liking.  It’s hard to imagine how they could be.  I may have developed a soft spot for these guys.  Stay tuned.

4.  A Broken Watch is Right Twice a Day: S.A. Smith is very, very right about Dave Robbins.  Send him (Robbins, not Smith) to Springfield.

5.  If You Don’t Go to U.Va., Please Please Please Go to a Major Media Market: Fairfax (CA, somehow) senior Renardo Sidney’s dad is, ahem, quotable: “They [MAH HOOS] understand the difference between a Big Mac and a Whopper with cheese . . . Big Macs are good for resumes, Whoppers with cheese bring home gold balls.”  I love it.  I just . . . I love it.  Please please please be a Hoo.  Someone in C’ville: find this kid’s dad a sinecure and some blogging software RIGHT GODDAMN NOW.

BONUS!!!!!oneone11!!twelve!!exclamation!!!!

6. GITCHA GUNS UP WOOOO!!!

See you fools Sunday.

GHOST OF GEORGE MARSHALL: Ashley Juuuuuudd!  I have a spoooky message to deliver from beyond the graaaaave!

ASHLEY JUDD: I don’t usually take messages from ghosts, but I’ll make an exception for a Nobel Prize winner!

GHOST OF GEORGE MARSHALL: Coooool! I’ll tell Fiiiiiiinemaaan Feeeeeyyynmaaaaan!

ASHLEY JUDD: Maybe just Peace Prizes?

GHOST OF GEORGE MARSHALL: Fair enough. By way of waaaaarning, Myrdal quite liked Simon Buuuurrurch.

ASHLEY JUDD: That sounds lovely! This is going to be just lovely!

GHOST OF GEORGE MARSHALL: You say that nooooow!

ASHLEY JUDD: Whatever. Mom’s going to be so proud! What message of peace do you have for me? Do you need me to share some plan for peace with the President-Elect?

GHOST OF GEORGE MARSHALL: Eh? No. My message is this: WOOOOO! RAH VIRGINIA MIL! IN YOUR FACE, RACECAR LADY! THAT’S MY RUNNIN’ ROOS!

While it’s tempting to say that you or I would have handled our health or personal problems better, I think we know that’s wishful thinking.  The standards we (or at least Pat Forde) set for others in their final acts is kind of a joke.  Almost all of us will retire someday, but almost none of us will do so in a satisfying way.  Most of us will retire when we can’t make the commute anymore because of a slipped disc that never healed right, or when the people we work with stop giving us worthwhile work, or when the thought of one more condescending continuing ed seminar gives us the howling fantods to the point where we just fire off a retirement memo and hope we’ve enough in the kitty (or at least educated the shit out of our kids, so we can flip the script get our mooch on).

No matter what, very few of us will have what those of us who went to college in the late 1990’s consider to be the ideal retirement (NSFW, but you knew that):

So let’s go easy on Lute, even if we suspect he wouldn’t show us the same courtesy.  These last few months haven’t been his finest hour, but who among us can say they’d have handled it any better?

A STORY YOU MIGHT BE TALKING ABOUT: Oregon State Beaver fans: Help/Hope is on the way! this is a change you can believe in: Beavers coach Craig Robinson has landed what SI calls a “program-changing” recruit in Roberto Nelson.  Nelson turned down UCLA, Florida, tOSU and others to go to Corvallis.  How did Robinson land the kid?  After piquing Nelson’s interest by signing a Compton Magic teammate, Robinson used what some might call an unfair tactic: he acted like a decent human being.  Just speculating here, but Gary Williams is probably not impressed.

I’ve fired my assistants THIS MANY times since halftime!

OTHER THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED:

HE RECRUITS? ARP ARP ARP: Tommy Amaker has been cleared of recruiting violations at Harvard.  This is important, as he can now get back to the important business of making excuses and not getting anything out of those recruits.

NAMELESS RICHMOND ASSISTANTS NOT SO LUCKY: Some Spiders coaches have resigned due to text-y recruiting violations.  Former UR President Bill Cooper called the former assistants “mush” and recommended that the school deal with the problem by raising tuition 31%.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL MAJOR-CONFERENCE BASKETBALL STORY.  APOLOGIES.  Former Tarhole Alex Stepheson is a USC Trojan, and could play as early as this coming season.

UNC-ASHEVILLE WILL NOT BE MAKING A CLOVERFIELD SEQUEL: Reigning Big South Defensive Player of the Year (and just gigantic dude) Kenny George is probably out for his senior season with an infected foot.  While you and I might get an infected foot and spend some time off work playing Halo, neither you nor I are 7 feet 7 inches tall, so our feet are under considerably less stress.  This must be an infection of the Michael Crichton variety; 35S wishes a speedy recovery to George.

In closing: Don’t say there’s nothing to do in the doldrums.  It’s just. Not. True.

We’re on our incredibly-long-for-no-good-reason-except-woooo-vacation honeymoon, and still have a week to go, but we break radio silence with sad news – Don Haskins, the legendary coach at UTEP née Texas Western, passed away earlier this morning.

Haskins is, of course, best known for coaching the 1966 national championship team from El Paso, the first such championship team to feature an all-black starting lineup. Fans less familiar with history of the game, and more familiar with sugar-laden Disney biopics, remember Haskins and the ‘66 Miners from the 2006 movie Glory Road.

(In a rare breach of anonymity, here’s a much longer review we wrote of that movie when it came out. We cringe re-reading it, in part because it’s too long, in part because we were probably too kind to the movie, but mostly because we commented favorably about something written by Scoop Jackson.)

In later years, Haskins hoped he would be remembered as a coach rather than any sort of social mover – in his mind, breaking racial barriers in West Texas made sense because it allowed him to put his best team on the court. Makes sense to us.

Rest in peace, Coach.

Where have we been?  Minding our own business, and you?  We’ll try to make sure it doesn’t become a habit.

THE STORIES MOST ARE TALKING ABOUT

Coach K won a medal (with players who openly accept money for play, how gauche), Tom Crean got money (and cried himself to sleep), San Antonio got money (from the Final Four) and STOP THE PRESSES THE NCAA IS ON THE CASE!  Fire up the sirens and ready a perp walk!  Someone put a body on Jerry Tarkanian!   The NCAA is considering cracking down on “package deals.” This has nothing to do with calendars of your school’s water polo team, nor with East German Olympians*, it’s about the not-the-end-of-the-world-but-more-than-a-little-icky practice of hiring a kid’s coach as an inducement to get him to sign with your school (something we’ve touched on nyeah).  Now that the NCAA is on the case, I’m sure ACC and Big 12 schools will continue this practice without feeling any heat, and eventually an HBCU or a school in the Northeast with “St.” in its name will be put on probation when a coach puts his son on the team.  We can also be sure that Bob Ley is going to be deeply disappointed in someone.

What’s so bad about welding?  URI got to take Lamar Odom, fer chrissake!

THE STORIES I CARE ABOUT

Lars got dooced (impact: meh, for everyone but fans who only like sweaty white guys, and the bartenders at The Virginian, for whom this is an unmitigated disaster).  Tunji’s back (impact: yay, now that Lars is gone).  Will’s going to tranfer (impact: dammit, I liked that guy).  Jeff Jones gets money (the former coach, not the guard; that would be a much bigger story).  Dave Leitao plays golf, which is disppointing.  Golf’s nice and all, but let’s not confuse it with something men do.

*For my next post: what’s the deal with airline food? and how WASP-y is Vice President Bush?

Today’s not-so-savory news comes to us courtesy of the case of The Drowsy Chaperone:

A year ago, the Toledo Rockets were thrust into the most unfortunate of spotlights, when former football player Scooter McDougle was implicated in a point-shaving scandal.

But, as everyone knows thanks to the Tarkanian years at UNLV, point-shaving is the preferred method of cheating on the hardwood, not the gridiron. Which made it practically no surprise at all when the U.S. Attorney’s continued investigation of point-shaving at U of T led them to former Rockets guard Sammy Villegas, who was formally charged in Detroit yesterday.

But the prosecutor’s bill of information seems to, well, get its information wrong. The feds claim that Villegas’ intentionally missed two free throws to fix a game against Central Michigan on February 4, 2006. But when Villegas missed those free throws, Toledo had already covered the published spread. So, unless there is something going on here that we don’t understand – and, since we don’t gamble on sports, we admit that the universe of shit we don’t know here is HUGE – we’re not quite sure how that game represents any kind of smoking gun against Villegas.

The bigger indictment against him (hardy har har legal wordz) might be the rapid decline in his play cited by The (Toledo) Blade – Villegas was the MAC Freshman of the Year in 2003, but his play deteriorated so quickly that his coach publicly wondered what happened (registration required for link).

We’ll let the U.S. Attorney do his own investigation, but … and we can’t be the only ones wondering this … doesn’t the federal prosecutor for Detroit, named only last year as the most vulnerable point of illegal entry into the U.S., have bigger fish to fry than a two-bit guard in a Mid-American Conference RICO scheme?

(HT: It’s MAC news, so you knew it had to be Chuck.)

Want to cut your teeth in the exciting field of college basketball? Yearn for less nightlife and more wildlife? The University of Alaska-Fairbanks* has an opportunity for you!

That’s right – for the low low price of civilization, you can start your career as an assistant basketball coach for our own UAF Nanooks! (It’s not racist, because we’re honoring the Inupiaq people, and besides, look at the cute bear!)

Now, we can hear you thinking – why does this job opening exist? Why would someone leave such a unique location? Well, you’ll be excited to know that our most recent assistant, after only ONE YEAR with our program, was able to parlay that experience into an opportunity to coach high schoolers sell insurance get the hell back to the Lower 48 move up the coaching ladder! Next year, that could be you!

But what awaits you in Alaska – besides fast-paced, high quality Division II basketball? Just look at the vibrant student life on our campus of nearly 10,000 students!

Porch sitting! (Note: hazardous anytime but August.)

Silly string fights!

Toothless shrooming!

And don’t forget our favorable female:male ratio!

Yes, all this an more awaits you at UAF – where careers can begin (and sometimes end in tragic ways)! Come for the basketball, stay for the seasonal effective disorder!

* – We should note that we’ve been to Fairbanks, and to UAF specifically, and they are both lovely if very, very cold. So, prospective coaches, fear not – but pack a parka or twenty.

Thanksgiving in Maui – perfect.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Key Preseason Tournaments Announce Matchups

If the NFL preseason has taught us anything – unlikely at best, but roll with us for a minute – it is that “meaning” does not guarantee priority viewing. Preseaon NFL games may be both meaningless and poor in quality, but they’re still more entertaining to watch than Game #120 in the MLB season. (And, jeez, we actually like baseball.)

But that dirty secret is a double-edged sword, and it cuts football harshly around Thanksgiving. As anyone who has suffered through watching the Lions with a belly full of tryptophan should admit, the best sports on television during the Week of the Bird has nothing to do with a pigskin. Nay, it is the exempt preseason college hoops tournaments – they of the meaningless games and odd locales – that take the cake. And the pie. And whatever other deliciousness is left in the Thanksgiving cornucopia of metaphor.

The WWL released the schedules for three of this season’s premier exempt tourneys, and each features a few can’t miss early season matchups:

In Maui – Trendy pick Notre Dame faces off against Tom Crean’s Indiana(ish) squad, but undisputed preseason #1 North Carolina leads the field and will face host Chaminade in their first game. Given the air of infallibility surrounding this UNC team, pardon us if we cheer for the Silverswords to … ya know, pull a Chaminade.

In Anaheim – In its second year, tWWL’s own tournament might be labeled the Up-and-Coming Classic. Wake Forest, coming off a Top 10 recruiting class, will face the defending Big West champs and hosts Cal State Fullerton. The winner takes on a field consisting of former bottom-dwellers like Baylor and Arizona State, punched up with solid mid-majors like Saint Mary’s and Charlotte.

In Orlando – Also owned by tWWL but with two years of history, the Old Spice Classic pulls in an impressive field of solid teams from last year with major question marks. Tennessee post-Chris Lofton? Georgetown post-Roy Hibbert? Siena trying to become the new Gonzaga? Gonzaga trying to do better than … ya know, Gonzaga? This is literally anyone’s tournament. All we know is that Neil Patrick Harris better be there.

Three more headlines, including a lot more travel for teams and coaches, after the jump

THREE STORIES WORTH A FEW LINES APIECE

Places WAY Better Than Maui, and That’s Saying Something – Like Spain and Australia, where Cleveland State and Purdue (respectively) will spent the last part of their summer vacations, tuning up for next year. Maybe the basketball competition isn’t quite as strong, but what a travel experience for these young men. And by travel experience, we mean WOOOOOOT NUDE BEACHES AND DECENT BEER WOOOOOOOT.

Oh, We Could Think of a Few Things – Travis Ford says nothing has surprised him since coming to Stillwater from UMass earlier this year. Which is the nice political thing to say, but we imagine the answer he kept between his ears was, “Christ, if I wanted to hear nothing but country music and drink nothing but bourbon while driving down the road, I would have just gone back to Kentucky.” (Not that we condone DUIs, but OSU has a bit of a record.)

Speaking of Booze and Hoops – Because this is clearly an area where coaches have great moral authority, it makes total sense that coaches would call on the NCAA to ban alcohol advertisements from college broadcasts. No word on whether Bill Clyde, Huggy Bear, Eddie Sutton or any of the other dozens of coaches who have been pulled for DUIs despite being of-age, in public positions, and for God’s sakes KNOWING BETTER signed the letter.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Parrish: “I Don’t Really Love Sports Anymore”

If you’re anything like us, there was one great mystery left unsolved in CBS’ decision to let Billy Packer go out to pasture – how on earth were they going to hold onto the dour curmudgeon demographic? Sure, the 18-24 kids are the advertiser’s wet dream, but a network like CBS can’t ignore its base of tapioca slurpers, can it? Without Packer, where were these viewers going to get the “darn kids these days” coverage they crave?

We should have known the network brass were smarter than us. Just like their ad revenue, CBS is simply moving their crass, disinterested reporting online, in the form of Gary Parrish. From an Q&A with 35S favorite A Sea of Blue:

I mean, sitting courtside at this years [sic] national title game [as a life-long Memphis fan] should’ve been one of the highlights of my life. But it wasn’t. I was indifferent to the whole thing, and I don’t say that in an attempt to prove I’m impartial. It kinda makes me sad, actually, because the main reason I wanted to be a sports writer was because I loved sports, and I don’t really love sports anymore.

Bravo, CBS. Bra-f’in-vo. Somewhere in LA, Bill Simmons is mouthing “I told you so”. Gary, put on some Eddie Vedder and let the indifference set in.

Three more headlines, including some Grade A fan gouging, after the jump:

THREE STORIES WORTH A FEW LINES APIECE

Now Available at Concessions: Snake Oil! – Last month, Drake’s athletic department announced price increases for basketball season tickets along with new PSL requirements for high-priced seats. Which makes perfect sense, given their surprising run to the Valley title, a first round loss, the departure of a beloved legacy coach for Providence, and the graduation of 60% of your point production. When the stock’s on the rise, the fans will wanna can be forced to invest!

Trent Johnson Better Really Like The Food in Baton Rouge – Look at the bright side, Trent – you’ll have time to finish setting up your new home. Taking a page from Duke’s oh-so-successful profitable book, the Bayou Bengals will be playing only two non-conference road dates, if you count a neutral site game against Texas A&M in Houston as a road game. (And we do!) When asked whether his new team needed to geaux on the road a bit more often to prepare for the tournament, Johnson showed his readiness for the LSU job by responding, “ESS-EEE-SEE SPEEEEEEEEEEEED!!”

Even We Aren’t Tasteless Enough to Make Refugee Jokes – John Riek, a coveted Sudanese center, committed to Cincinnati over the weekend, but won’t be available until the new year while he nurses a detached ACL. We’d wonder if Riek is disappointed to play college hoops after he originally declared for the draft, but at Cincinnati, we’re not entirely sure there is a difference.

Meanwhile, Teeng Akoi, a 6′11″ forward also from Sudan, is shopping middle America after failing to qualify academically at South Florida. Nick Saban may laugh at that concept, but for a foreign student, Akoi seemed to show sufficient knowledge of Nebraska’s geography:

“I think I can help them,” Akol told the Journal Star on Sunday. “I’m not familiar with everything, but I know they’re in the Big 12.”

Son, that’s more than enough to get you into a Husker jersey. Everything else you need to know, you can learn from Wakko.

The mood music for this week’s final post, courtesy of Violent Femmes:

Sure, this might be a month old, but if Gary Williams lives by “better late than never”, then so shall we. While most teams are finalizing their recruiting Class of 2009 and getting started on 2010, Williams is still scrambling to find 12 guys to suit up for this season. Seems like he could just walk the streets of Baltimore with a pack of Cluck-U Chicken certificates, but what do we know?

Speaking of additions to the ACC, Raleigh jock-talk host Joe Ovies looked at the five-year results of the ACC’s expansion to 12 teams. Basketball? Meh. Profit? ¡Sí! Thanks to new football revenue, the nine pre-existing members of the conference can’t hear your complaints about the drop in basketball quality, what from all the money they are bathing in.

In a much more sad development, Jamar Smith has been kicked off of the Illinois basketball team after violating his probation. Eamonn reported Smith’s off-court woes with proper due diligence, but we’ll chime in to say that Smith appears to have a problem of some variety – might be booze, might be mental, might just be a case of incredibly immaturity. Whatever it is, we hope he gets help.

Meanwhile, his departure leaves the Illini in rebuilding mode for another year. Somewhere at New York’s offices, a emo-banged gentleman is crying in his drink.

Gin-and-tonic, or pure tears? Also, we actually believe he wears a tux to work now.

Wondering if a zebra is on the take? Our friends at A Sea of Blue point out that, with so many off-court relationships between refs and teams, you might be right – and the NCAA might be a-OK with the relationship. Nico Bellic doesn’t see what the big deal is.

Finally, Matt Smith at Bleacher Report believes he has found the evil among us, and it is a 17-year-old at a prep school in North Carolina. John Wall, previously known to college football fans as Mitch Mustain, is the number 1 point guard in the Class of 2009 – which makes his decision to attend Baylor make oh-so-much sense. Oh, wait, they hired his AAU coach as the “director of player development”? Must have been a coincidence.

Have a great weekend, folks, good to be back.

Working for a Fortune 500 company can be a drag. Sure, once you get to the top level you get money, perks, and fame*. But until that point, work can be a drag. Go to the office, sit down in your cubicle, keep your head down and hope that the paychecks keep coming.

But then comes the day that every corporate worker bee hopes for – the day that the the CEO of the company reaches out to you personally to say that you are doing a great job not just as an employee, but as a parent. So impressed is he, in fact, that he hopes that your child will attend his alma mater – all the way across the country.

Wait, wait – sorry, doesn’t that happen to everyone? You could have fooled Oseye Gaddy, since the customer service rep for FedEx got just such a phone call earlier this week from company CEO David Bronczek.

We share Gaddy’s joy in the well-deserved praise, and we’re certain that Bronczek’s choice to reach out to her personally had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Gaddy’s son, Abdul Gaddy, is a highly sought-after point guard in the recruiting Class of 2009, and that one of his top pursuers is Memphis, which happens to be Bronczek’s favorite local team**.

But just to be sure, those boy scouts in Memphis reported the phone call to the NCAA just the same – seems that boosters calling recruits is kinda-sorta-maybe a NCAA rules violation. Bronczek claims he was unaware of the restriction, which just shows that he didn’t watch very much college football in the early 1980s.

Meanwhile, Oseye will keep living the work-a-day life with her head held high. When you know that if you live right, work hard, and happen to parent an athletically gifted young man who becomes the (only slightly creepy) fancy of older, richer men, everything will work out just fine.

For Bronczek and his Memphis colleagues, though, they might want to figure out other ways to push Gaddy towards the Tigers – seems that a certain contingent on the interwebs already has him headed for Tuscon. Because we know how well young point guards mix with Lute Olsen.

* – By fame, of course, we mean “the ability to walk around with your d*** out in the office and the country club locker room, even if no one on the street knows who you are”.

** – Did we say “favorite local team”? We meant “chosen recipient of over $500,000 in athletic donations from Bronczek, and likely much more”.

Hello World.

After a well-deserved professionally mandated two week break, we’re back at the blogging desk [a state away from our mom's non-existent basement] and ready to get back into the swing of it.

A quick preview of what this site will start to look like until mid-October, when Midnight Madness across the country indicates the end of the off-season and the start of the pre-season …

The Morning Roundup will make its glorious return on Monday, featuring short quips about stories of … well, let’s face it, the stories that interest you, but that you expect me to find on your behalf. (And that’s why we’re here, gentle reader.) The Roundup will run each Monday and Wednesday until the season tips off.

The Blog Day Afternoon will take the place of the Roundup on Friday afternoons, with links to the best posts in the Basketball Province of Equatorial Blogfrica.

In between – the usual. Coverage. Insight. Slash fiction.

Later this month, we’ll begin to roll out our season preview of each conference. If you’re interested in helping us out – ESPECIALLY if you are a writer / blogger / fan from a single-bid conference, please get in touch; we want as much first-person opinion as possible.

To tip us up to a great story, volunteer to pitch in with a conference preview, or if you want to pitch yourself as a general writer for the site – the address remains the same: thirtyfiveseconds[at]yahoo[dot]com.

Finally, a big thanks to everyone reading – sorry that we’ve been out of touch. We promise really really really hope that the actual practice of the law won’t get in the way of writing here the way that studying it has the last two months.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – As you may have surmised by the silence of this site for the last two weeks, we’re in the final throes of bar exam hell. We’ll be back and better than ever – or, at the least, 100% less burdened – on Thursday, but in the meantime we wanted to introduce you to the newest writer for these here interwebs, now_a_hoo. His obligatory “who I am and what I care about” piece, on his equal hatred for Duke and UNC, appears below.)

All-

I’m now_a_hoo, and I’ll be giving your friendly editor a few innings of relief from time to time while he starts his career and tries to have, y’know, a life.

How did I come into this privilege? The Italians (maybe) call it: il nepotismo. He and I used to be roommates. (Ed: Close enough. Actually, we still owe him for a few orders of chicken from Wayside, and he accepted a gig here as accord and satisfaction.)

A few things to get out of the way: James Madison undergrad, UVa for law school. My folks went to Michigan and I grew up in Virginia, so I came up with Michigan and Virginia basketball (during the Fab Five Never Happened and Jeff Jones eras, respectively).

Likes: UVa, Michigan, JMU, small schools, HBCUs, and brunch.
Loathes: tOSU, VPISU, MSU, Bob Knight, Ron Curry, Digger Phelps, snakes, the word “poon”, and ranch dressing.

So in the words of Steve Harvey, now that we got that shit out of the way, I have a confession to make: I’m an ACC basketball fan, but I’m neutral on Duke versus Carolina.

Before you get your Columbia- or Royal- Blue draws in a bunch, let me say this: everything you say about [Duke or Carolina, whichever you hate] is absolutely right.

But here’s the problem: It’s also 100% wrong.

It’ll be OK, Tyler.

Most of the complaints rivals have about each other stem from student bodies, fanbases, individual players or coaches that the rival fans don’t like. Let’s deal with each of these in sequence:

Student Bodies

Shorter Duke fans: OMG h33l5 R teh DUMB!!!1!!

FACT: Duke is ranked twenty spots higher in the imperfect, bordering on arbitrary U.S. News rankings, and the average score on the still basically racist and classist SATs is about 170 points higher at Duke.

BUT ALSO FACT: Carolina’s still one of the best five or six public universities in the country. (Ed: And the undergrad co-eds are hotter. This cannot be reasonably disputed, sad to say.)

Shorter Carolina fans: OMG D00k135 r teh SNOBZORZ!!!

FACT: Lots of Duke students used to pop their collars back when lots of college students popped their collars.

Will this ever get old? Answer: no.

BUT ALSO FACT: Most of them, whether they admit to it or not, spent their years in Durham like this.

Duke: Like a bad ’90s sitcom, but more diverse.

Fan Bases

There are people all over the country with legitimate love for both teams, but here’s the rub: both have HUGE bandwagons. Gobs and gobs of daywalkers. The center of gravity for Carolina’s non-alumni (or family, or what have you) fanbase is Charlotte. Duke’s non-alumni base is north Jersey. Can we agree that NASCAR Country and Soprano-land are equally hateworthy?

Individual Players

“J.J. Redick sucked!” – No he didn’t. He currently sucks. He didn’t at Duke.

“Eric Montross sucked!” – If he had, you wouldn’t remember him or his awesome flattop.

“Wojo sucked!” – Kind of, yeah.

“Kris Lang was ugly!” – Kind of, yeah.

“Ron Curry sucked!” – And it was glorious.

“Cherokee Parks was ugly!” – And it was glorious.

“Carlos Boozer was already a back-stabbing evil-doer!” – Incorrect.

“Vince Carter was already a lazy, selfish showboat!” – False.

Most of the players in the history of the rivalry who you love to hate are memorable because they didn’t suck. I’m sick of hearing people on opposite sides of a rivalry say that [awesome player] is awful. Since when is it not enough just to hate his breathing guts?

As someone who roots for Michigan, I can tell you that I don’t think Mateen Cleaves sucked. But he had the unmitigated audacity to play for MSU while simultaneously not sucking, so he can sit on a tack as far as I’m concerned.

Coaches

If you take issue with the coaching in this rivalry, you’re a Heel. That’s fine. You can tell me about how Coach K looks like a rat and had an Amex commercial. Then you’ll tell me about Matt Doherty. And I won’t care.

In the 64-team era, there has been one coach (well, two if you count Pete Gaudet, and I don’t) you could score as below average. The two biggest names are both coaching royalty.

For Duke: Coach K has had an effect on Duke that can’t be quantified. During his tenure Duke went from a solid school (known mostly for humanities Ph.D. programs and hosting the only Rose Bowl outside of Pasadena) into a legitimate Princeton safety, which is a compliment.

For Carolina: Dean Smith is Dean Smith. He did his part to push integration along, and he could have run for any elected office in North Carolina, on any party’s ticket, and win handily. He probably still could. [/abe vigoda'd]

Conclusion

Since sport is just an elaborate goof we get to enjoy while sliding down the razorblade of life on the long march to hell, let’s agree: Carolina and Duke are awesome, in an incredibly loathsome way.

May they rot. Screw those clowns. Amen.

Not dead yet!

With only two weeks to go until the bar exam, it doesn’t take much to provide a ray of light into our lives. (”Leftovers of a bad meal for dinner??!! Hooray!! At least I don’t need to determine if the rubber chicken is a holder in due course of a negotiable instrument!!!”)

That said, we feel fairly certain that the news that maybe, just maybe, Rick Pitino will let Derrick Caracter come back to the Louisville team would have made us WOOT out loud on the brightest of days:

“He came to me one more time and asked for any option available to get back on the team. I have given him the same option I gave Scott Padgett when he played for me at Kentucky. [...] If Derrick is willing to grow up in the game of life and we can help him realize his potential, then we are there to help him. But that’s a big if.”

A big if indeed. Caracter will need to sit out next season to show he can grow “as a student, as a person, and as a basketball player”, and (notably) will NOT be on scholarship, so he’ll have to pay his own way to school. And get a job. And not get Fulmer-like fat again. So his odds of success are, shall we say, less than great.

In other words, a win-win-win for humble bloggers – either he succeeds and he gets a chance to fulfill his unrealized potential as a hoopster (and no one has ever questioned he has the talent to be great), or he fails epically and we can ridicule him on his way down the chute. Like we’ve been doing for the last few months.

Either way, we gleefully add “caracter issues” as a new category to the blog. Because if you think we’re not going to do a few more chapters of this now that there is an actual chance that Caracter will stay … well, you don’t know us very well.

In the meantime – we return to our office cave to execute some wills and devise some property. Word.

(HT: Eamonn, doing fine fine work as always.)