Posts Tagged ‘Basketball’

Breakfast All Day? 3 Sports What-ifs That Mirror McDonalds’ Potentially Dope Decision

Posted: May 20, 2013 in Sports
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At the end of April, a monumental moment in human history occurred.  It was something important, something game-changing, and something that will have far-reaching ramifications on life for all citizens in these United States of America.  Oh, and a basketball player came out of the closet, too.

What I’m referring to, and if you are a devourer of pop culture and useless internet memes run rampant as I am you probably have already heard, is that McDonald’s has announced that there is the potential for the McGriddle to get served all McDamnDay.

That’s right, fellow fatties, McD’s has announced that they’re considering serving their breakfast throughout the course of the entire day.  That chilled out, laid back cacophany of, “Sweet, bro”s you just heard was the sound of 10 million stoners climbing out from the basements, strapping on a hemp jacket and skate-boarding their way towards the fast food mecca right now just in case they change their minds and you can score some hotcakes at 3:30 PM.

This reversal of the age-old McDonald’s logic that stipulated that breakfast was only to be available during the morning hours got me to wondering, what would the sporting equivalent of this time-oriented reversal of philosophy be?  Let’s sit down, have an imaginary (*Author’s note: but delicious) mid-afternoon Egg McMuffin and ask three questions that are weird, intriguing, and will absolutely, positively never happen.

What if the NBA was played in the morning?

Can you imagine the horror of watching a hung-over Boogie Cousins take on an exhausted-from-clubbing-with-Jay-Z Carmelo Anthony at 8:15 AM?  I’m not sure if that would be awful.  Or awesome.  Or awesomely awful?  One thing is for sure, it would revolutionize the way the game was played.  Vendors would be forced to serve waffles instead of hot dogs and even the “City That Never Sleeps” would probably end up passed out courtside from exhaustion.

The only people who should play basketball before noon are kids wearing generic league t-shirts and the old, hairy-backed dudes in rec-specs and cotton shorts playing at the local YWCA.

The promotional tie-ins with Red Bull replacing the Gatorade in the teams’ coolers wouldn’t be worth the fact that the performance enhancing drugs would suddenly just be replaced with piles of morning blow to start off the day.  Just know that the first time ESPN had a 1080p closeup of Andrew Bynum upchucking at center court after a night spent galavanting at the Playboy Mansion and the NBA would probably consider moving games right back to the evening like they should.

What if baseball was played in the winter?

Baseball has long been a spring/summer/early fall sport.  It’s so long that the only months it doesn’t play in are the winter ones.  But what if that changed?  What if, instead of starting in April like they have for decade upon decade, Major League Baseball started in January?

It’s already awesome when we’re treated to either early-season or October playoff snow-games, but how great would it be to see them all the time?  How awesome would it be to watch baseball players sliding in the snow like kindergartners in snow pants.  No need to worry about pitchers illegally adding moisture to the ball when their hands are covered in flakes.  Plus?  Snowball fights.  Bench clearing brawls mixed with slush balls, mixed with potential skiing hazards?  Listening to Joe Buck try to figure out whether there’s a player running the bases or just doing Moguls?  Why am I asking so many questions?  Your move Bud Selig.

What if they played football at midnight?

Let me set the stage.  It’s September 7th, 2013.  It’s 11:55 PM in Lincoln, Nebraska.  The heat from the Midwest dog days is only now starting to unclench it’s white-knuckled fist.  The lights are on at Memorial Stadium.  89,000 people have packed the stands.  They’ve been drinking.  All day.  The football season is finally here and they are about to take part in the inaugural Midnight Mayhem Football Game of the Week on HBO.  There’s something different about the Midnight game the fans are about to watch.  Tougher, more exciting.  Badass.  It’s an electric, outdoor, party that avoids the heat of the day, and causes a media sensation.

Once a week, have HBO pick a college game, throw their gigantic checkbook behind the production, and have them televise a rabble-rousing, Adult-version of the game of college football.  Since it’s HBO, all rules would be off.  They could make it a rebellious, fascinating, take on the game.  Have Kevin Hart do the color commentary, have Norm McDonald as the sideline reporter.  Who wouldn’t love it?  (*Author’s note: besides the coaches)  The students?  They’d liquor up all day and it would immediately turn into the best party of the year; a hybrid combo of Midnight Madness and tailgate Saturdays   The players? They get to sleep in, hang out during the hot part of the day, and break new ground on something that felt rebellious and untouchably cool.  The athletic department could cash in on the massive amount of cash that could be behind grabbing this wild opportunity.

FIN

5 Ways (Other Than Cash) Chris Hansen Could’ve Convinced the NBA to Move The Kings to Seattle

Posted: May 17, 2013 in Sports
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On May 15th the NBA rejected a group of investors’ bid to move the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, Washington, the home of the one-time Seattle Supersonics.  The team, the league’s Board of Governors (*Author’s note: this is the part where I started imagining Marc Cuban wearing a powdered wig and shouting out “Nay, good sir!  Nay!” during an antiquated voting scenario.  Board of Governors?  They shouldn’t be allowed have such an awesomely old school name without wearing black robes and wigs worn by the Whigs.  Your move, David Stern.) ruled on Wednesday, would be staying right where they are.

This comes on the heels of the Seattle group’s latest attempts to woo the oft-times waffling Maloof brothers, the current owners of the Kings, with another fat valuation increase that saw the potential northern invaders offering up an additional 50 million in cash for the team; a kind of financial middle finger to the league for rejecting their initial proposal.  A kind of, “oh, you don’t think we want the team bad enough?  He’s another 50 large to calm your nerves.”  Or as Chris Rock playing a the ghost of a black guy trapped inside a living white guy’s body once said, “Shut up before I crush you with my wallet.”

So why did the NBA reject the offer from the Seattle investors?  It certainly wasn’t money.  Maybe it was something else.  Something less in the public eye.  After all, the cliché mongers say, it’s the little things that count, right?

That got me thinking.  What could the Seattle billionaires have done differently?  What could they have used to sweeten the pot, to entice the all-powerful Board of Governors to appease their request and return a franchise to the once-great basketball city of Seattle?  Here’s a few ideas that I firmly believe would have let the Board of Governors know they really meant business.  Had they utilized these options, I think we’d be discussing what to call the newly purchased Seattle Kingersonics and talking about the ramifications of another team headed further north on the west coast.

1.  Make every night a Detlef Schrempf bobblehead night.

Say his name.  Go ahead.  Try it.  You’ll sound like Elmer Fudd after his fourth keg stand.  That name will gloriously roll off your lisping lips and crash-land onto someone’s ears with all the grace of a Kamikaze airplane.  Detlef needs to be remembered.  Not for the 13.9 career scoring average, or even his delectable cocktail of ‘80s hair (*Author’s note: Two shots flat-top, one shot military buzzcut, two shots mullet.  Mix in a blender and pour over goofy whiteness.  Enjoy!).  No, Detlef needs to be remembered as a Seattle Supersonic.  A team and a place where a guy who looks like this can get his own Taco Trading card.  (*Author’s note: how did I NOT know there were taco trading cards?!?!?!?!?!?!?!)

2.  Get Sir Mix-a-Lot on board as a minority owner.

(*Author’s note: no, not that kind of minority.  Racists.)

Seattle doesn’t have much of a hip-hop past.  I checked Wikepedia and there really wasn’t much.  So who should the Seattle investors have rolled out as their rap-game mogul that wanted in on the action?  Look no further than Mix-a-Lot.  Yeah, I understand we’re all completely sick to death of hearing morons do karaoke impressions of “Baby Got Back.”  But Sir Mix-a-Lot had a ton of other hits, right?  Right?!?!  Well I still love this song, and besides, who can’t picture Boogie Cousins, Jimmer Fredette, and John Salmons all doing the “jump on it” dance at the start of the second half?

3.  Hire Shawn Kemp as the team life coach.  Then have the team do the exact opposite of everything he tells them.

The team could air these little segments called, “It’s Reigning Men”, on the team’s big screen during halftime of the games.  Who could say no to that?  Plus, Shawn Kemps 18 kids need the money.  Here’s one guy who we know not only had a taco trading card, he probably used that taco trading card to buy a few 6 Pack and 6 Pounds meals.

4.  I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, I’ve said it fiftyleven times.  Get Phil Jackson on board with the team in some capacity.

How hard could it be to get Phil, his bong, and his motorcycle collection to a place that has legalized weed, a salivating (*Author’s note: or on Salvia) fan base and long stretches of isolated coastline to ride on?  He’d be in faster than you could hotbox a hookah tent.

5.  And speaking of legalized marijuana. . .

Pot brownie concession stands.  Think of all the revenue that would generate?  Sure it’s a nightmare for the league’s image.  Sure Boogie Cousins would be spotted during 30-second timeouts hammering down a gigantic brownie loaded with canibus, but if you think people spend a lot of money at the concession stand now?  Wait until they’ve gotten stricken with the munchies and their team is down 23 in the 4th quarter.

In short, the Seattle guys totally botched this one.  Thankfully, in about 15 minutes the Pelicans, Bobcats, and any other terribly-run organization will probably be looking to pack up and ship out.  Hold onto your money, boys.  And next time, call me when you’re getting ready to do the negotiations.

FIN

Burnpoetry Presents: The ONBAA (The Other NBA Awards), Regular Season Edition

Posted: April 18, 2013 in Miscellaneous
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The NBA Regular season is over.  After running for nearly 7 months and 82 games, the 2012-2013 season has finally ceased to exist.  But, damn, what a year!  We had historic winning streaks, coaches getting axed like they were shouting “Freeeeeedoooooom!” at the end of Braveheart, and a wide swath of Hall of Fame talent that has continued to impress with athleticism and skill that was missing in the mid-2000s.

If you’re an NBA fan, you probably already knew all that.  If you’re not an NBA fan, you probably didn’t care about all that.  The bottom line is this: one of the most exciting regular seasons in recent memory just came to an explosive conclusion and the NBA Playoffs are about to start.  But before we look ahead to the glorious, beautiful stretch of non-stop NBA hooping action, let’s recap the season that was by handing out some end-of-the-year awards.

Let me be clear, however, that this won’t be the awards you’re used to.  These are more off the beaten path.  Since every news outlet with a keyboard is currently cranking out columns with their take on who should get MVP and the 6th man of the year, I’ve decided to try to break out and (*Author’s note: even though it’s illegal in the sport) take the path less traveled on.

Ladies and Gentleman of Burnpoetry, here are your Other NBA Awards:

Best Ejection:  Larry Sanders, Milwaukee Bucks

Sanders had this one on lock from the moment he started firing his thumbs around in mock approval of the job the referees were doing.  Sanders had just gotten tossed for arguing a charging call in a March 13th game against the Washington Wizards.  You probably missed the game, because everyone missed the game, because it was a Wizards game.  Sanders wins this award strictly based on the fact that this was the first time I’ve seen someone sarcastically chuck up a thumb to a ref in game.  (*Author’s note: Sanders ended up getting ejected more than pilots in a Top Gun remake this year, but this is by far his single greatest effort.)

Best Potential Sale of a Franchise: Sacramento Kings to Investors from Seattle, Washington

Kings? Sonics? Either way, this would be awesome.

Kings? Sonics? Either way, this would be awesome.

I’ve detailed my lost-love with the Seattle Supersonics in a breathless post from earlier this year, when the news first broke that the Maloof brothers had finally found a way to cash out their hand and get the team out of Sacramento.  It hasn’t happened yet.  It might not happen, according to various sources.  The situation is so fluid that tomorrow I could be purchasing a Shawn Kemp throwback and the next I might be checking into some Vlade Divac gear.

The Maloof brothers appear to have been inducted into the Brett Favre Decisiveness Hall of Fame and seem most likely to emerge from this so baldly scathed that their only chance at rehabilitating their public image is to pull a couple cameos with their sister on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  This needs to happen.  For too many reasons to count.  But just picture this, basketball fans: DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins in a state with legalized marijuana. . .

Dunk of the Year:  DeAndre Jordan, Los Angeles Clippers

DeAndre Jordan obliterates Brandon Knight.  He dunks on him so hard that he turns him into Brandon Squire.  He catches the alley-oop, smashes through Knight like a wrecking ball through a decrepit, rotten, condemned building.  After the game, the dunk erupted from Mount St. Twitter and the blowback became so violent that many experts took to the net to defend Brandon Knight for trying to stop the dunk instead of just getting out of the way.  You know you got dunked on hard when people are actively taking to the internet in an attempt to defend your honor.  On the plus side?  Blake Griffin will probably serve someone up harder in a short amount of time to take the emphasis away from this one for Brandon Knight.

Commercial of the Year: “Uncle Drew, Chapter 2″ starring Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love

Somehow they’ve combined heavy makeup, a ludicrous-but-somehow-captivating storyline, and Bill Russell into the best NBA Player commercials in years.  I have long been obsessed with the first Uncle Drew ad, but this new one, and it’s addition of Kevin Love has only increased my fervor for the next current NBA player to don a wig, some aging makeup, and go out and dunk all over young people in games of amazing streetball.  Long live Uncle Drew.  (*Author’s note: Pepsi Max still sucks, though.)

Weirdly Fascinating Team of the Year: Minnesota Timberwolves

Sure they lost 20 more games than they won this season, but this isn’t an award for being good.  This is an award for being weird.  Captivating.  For making me want to watch for reasons other than the obvious fact that I love the NBA.

They have a young All-Star who can’t stay healthy, a Spanish point guard that couldn’t buy a basket with his hefty Footlocker endorsement deal but is still somehow one of the most fun players to watch in the league, a bevy of honkies and they put out a team video where the beat up someone in a Miami Heat jersey with a baseball bat.  I could write a 1,500 word post on their facial hair/Hanson hair combos alone.  What’s not to love?

The regular season was great, sure.  But strap yourselves in, hoops fans, becuase the NBA Playoffs are right around the corner.  I, for one, can’t wait.

FIN

Rejected Court Designs for Nebraska Basketball’s Pinnacle Bank Arena

Posted: April 12, 2013 in Sports
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The Nebraska Cornhuskers are getting a new basketball arena.  A sparkling gem of modernity that, university officials hope, will spark a resurgent interest in the much maligned program.  It’s a fresh, sparkling start for a team that desperately wants to put the past few seasons behind them.  So, even though the Bob Devaney Sports Center held many a fond memory, a good deal of people are excited to see it fading into the rearview mirror as the team moves down to their brand-spanking-new digs.  The floor design for Pinnacle Bank arena was just released yesterday.  Here’s what it will look like:

Personally?  I love it.  I love the state logo in the middle, replete with the proud Husker “N”.  It’s part old school, part new school, and every bit the splashy, interesting new look that should help cleanse the collective palate.

Is it weird that another bank is sponsoring the floor, even though it’s located inside Pinnacle Bank Arena?  Kind of.  Will some people think the colored three point lines and state outline at center court are making the court a little too busy?  I suppose.  But, on the whole, I think this floor could be home to some of the best Husker basketball memories yet.

But what did the other floor plans look like?  What were some of the designs that  didn’t make the cut?  Burnpoetry has obtained an exclusive look at some of the other floor plans for the Pinnacle Bank Arena that were rejected, for one reason or another (*Author’s note: some obvious, others not so much) along with a brief explanation of what the general idea was behind the plan.

#1.  Ghost of Sadler Past. . .Court

Spooky.

Spooky.

Replete with a ghoulish 101-89 record, the Ghost of Sadler Past is a haunting reminder of the last coach who came along and briefly provided us the same kind of hope that Tim Miles has done.  Sadler, too, was a charismatic man.  He, too, was from a smaller school that he took to the NCAA Tournament in spite of the staggering odds and lack of funding/basketball tradition.

While the plan was ultimately rejected, due to the fact that Sadler is A) still way too alive to technically be a ghost, and B) coaching for the KU Basketball powerhouse at the moment, the pasty mask of anguish that was set to haunt center court has been forever burned into my consciousness.

#2.  #suckitIowa Court

Hashtag Suckit

This idea is fairly self-explanatory.  Designed by legendary artist, and Omaha native, Frank Lloyd Wrong, this stirring, emotional, anti-tribute to the state directly to our East is a visceral blitzkrieg on your senses.  Designed after having a fever-dream, brought on by grain alcohol and four helpings of corn on the cob, Wrong allegedly created his masterpiece overnight.

Coupling his artistic genius with the University of Nebraska’s desire to modernize and branch out onto social networking sites, they were able to create a one-of-a-kind court design that, ultimately fell just short of approval.  Damn you, Shawn Eichorst.  Damn you.

#3.  Starbury Court

College athletics is big business.  It’s a simple truth in 2013 that schools want to make the largest amount of money that they can, be it from Ad revenue, ticket sales, or merchandising.  Nebraska is no exception.  In a secret, underground auctioning process, the Husker athletic staff attempted to sell off the rights to naming the court to a shoe company.

After Nike bailed, Reebok pulled out, Adidas balked, Skecher Shape-Ups fell through, Timberland boots canceled, and FILA didn’t return Nebraska’s calls there was only one last option on the table.

Starbury.

The creation of legendarily head-tatted Stephon Marbury (*Author’s note: AKA “Starbury”), this shoe brand rose to infamy in 2006 despite the fact that he hadn’t been worth a damn on the court in at least two years, due to its $15.00 price tag.

The Huskers ultimately decided to pull the plug on this particular line of endorsement since Stephon is currently playing in China for a team called the Beijing Ducks.

#4.  Wait, we have a basketball team in this state? LOLOLOLOLOL. Court

Football

Created by famous Husker tailgate aficionado, Hammered Jerry, after drunkenly staring at ‘Lil Red’s balloon-face for 25 minutes during the pre-game festivities at Memorial Stadium this tribute to Husker football is a monument to one man’s belief that it will always be stunningly hilarious to ask, “Wait, we have a basketball team in this state?” anytime anyone mentions the Nebraska Men’s Basketball team.

Hammered Jerry, known for slurringly shouting this catchphrase at the TV in his parents’ basement during Nebraska basketball highlights on the local news, became so overcome with his own high-brow, intellectual humor that he felt compelled to send in this artist’s rendering of what the court should look like at the new arena.

In the end it received zero votes, no praise, and only Jerry was left laughing.  Alone.  In his parents’ basement.

#5.  Timmenator Court

Timmenator

No one knows for sure where this court design came from.  Legend has it that a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in a ball of lightning, drew this sketch on a white board in Shawn Eichorst’s office and then walked out to the tune of “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood, never to be seen again.  Until they release The Expendables 3: Expendable Harder.

The athletic department eventually decided that this logo was too intimidating, too darkly brilliant to be allowed to sit at center court of the new arena.  The cost of hiring more floor wipers, to sop up the inevitable urine of the opposing team as they repeatedly peed their pants in fear of the Timmenator, was deemed too immense.

Not wanting to waste such sublime beauty, however, the University sent this piece to the Louvre where it was immediately hung up over the Mona Lisa, blocking out the now-less-famous piece.  Not even Tom Hanks with a terrible haircut has been able to decipher the complexities of this piece, but you will now have to go to France to see it in any non-digital format.

FIN

The Loch Hess Monster: A Bitter, Sour-Grapes, GIF-Report on Wichita State’s Loss to Louisville. . .Kind of

Posted: April 8, 2013 in Sports
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(*Author’s note: I’m not one to complain too much about officiating.  I hate being “that guy.”  But. . .I do love hating on incompetent officials.)

The call came a little too fast, for my liking.  There and then gone, a moment captured in time by a ref that literally the entire planet hates.  Wichita State and Louisville got tangled up for a moment and evil intervened.  Karl Hess, known by legions of NCAA basketball fans as a human Chernobyl Meltdown, intervened.  Jump ball.  Here’s what it looked like:

Here’s a GIF of Hess ejecting two former NC State players (*Author’s note: who by all accounts are local legends for their play for the Wolfpack)  for heckling him from the sidelines of the game.  One of them is former NBA player, Tom Gugliotta.  Hess cited his reasoning for the ejection as “excessive demonstration” by the former players.

But wait, there’s more. . .

The next GIF is a pretty boring, standardly low-quality joint (*Author’s note: work with me on a few of the home-brewed GIFS, people.  I’m still learning.  In fact, if anyone has a good — and more importantly — free GIF-maker, I’m interested.  Let me know in the comment section or an e-mail.) but let me explain why I included it.  First, here’s the GIF.

image

Looks like a pretty standard ref-huddle, right?  Just some zebras talking about the game, or page 56 in their 900 page NCAA rulebook.  But in this case there’s two things you should know about this GIF-huddle.

1.  It has Karl Hess in it.  So you know that he probably did something stupid/obnoxious/accidentally put his cup of coffee down on the nuclear launch button for the missiles aimed at North Korea.

2.  This was moments after these refs had lined up the teams going the wrong way during the tip, in overtime in the UConn V.S. Marquette game earlier this year.  ”Oh, no big deal,” you might be saying.  Here’s the kicker: the refs didn’t notice, despite both benches screaming at them after the jump, until Marquette drove to the hoop, had their shot goal-tended, and was awarded two points.  They subsequently negated the two points, despite it being their error in the first place and Marquette went on to lose by 1.  Ladies and gentleman, bow down before Karl Hess.

I’m ready to implement a Code Black Boozer Alert, here, people.  We need someone to take Karl Hess out.  Hard.  And there’s no one man who’s better at cleaning house on the referees of the world than Carlos Austin Boozer, Jr.

Why, just take a look at what he did a few days ago to an NBA official.

image‘

(*Author’s note: In conclusion: great season, Wichita State.  You’re dirt Karl Hess.  Go Michigan.)

FIN

Burnpoetry Presents: 7 More Reasons to Root for Wichita State

Posted: April 5, 2013 in Sports
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Last Saturday I posted 6 reasons to root for Wichita State in their Elite 8 game against the Ohio State Buckeyes.  They won.  They played great for nearly the entire game and seemed like they were genuinely the better team on the floor.  Since then, there have been other videos and columns urging you to cheer on the Shockers.  Since I’m not very original, and since I superstitiously believe that my ridiculous column was probably the key element to Wichita State University’s Elite 8 win, I’m going to sit down and do it all over again.  Here are 7 more reasons to root for Wichita State to advance to the NCAA Championship game.

The Sheer Madness of it All

What Wichita State has done in the tourney this year lands them somewhere between Linsanity and Air Bud on my Basketball Believability Index (*Author’s note: Basketball Believability Index).  They’re a 9-seed.  From the Missouri Valley Conference.  With a bunch of JuCo guys.  That was supposedly rebuilding.

The last time an MVC team made it to the Final Four was when they had the pubic-mustachioed Larry Bird carrying them on his shoulders.  Yeah, 34 years ago it took one of the 10 best basketball players ever to get an MVC team through to the finals.  And not a single team from that conference has been back since.  Until now.  (*Author’s note: and here’s a picture of the aforementioned pube-stache for your enjoyment.  It’s so light you can hardly see that it’s there.  Sweet look, Lar.)

Most of the their players have more former schools attached to their names than Bobby Petrino.

They have JuCo schools.  They have other, smaller colleges in their past.  They have transient, winding roads that have somehow led them to this.  Led them to the promised land of College Basketball.  They’re like a collage.  A mosaic.  Somehow they have been pieced together and the end result is a really, really good basketball team with a chance to pull yet another incredible upset.

Carl Hall.  That’s it.  Just Carl F-ing Hall.

Hall has a heart condition.  It got so bad at one point that he was passing out from the complications if he tried to play basketball.  He ended up working a factory painting flourescent lights for a living while he contemplated his future.  Eventually he decided that he would roll the dice and continue playing despite what might happen.  Before you say that he was risking everything for a game, remember this: there wasn’t an “everything” to risk, because to Carl Hall, “everything” included basketball and without it, he wasn’t truly living.  (*Author’s note: my words, not his, but check out the below quote, from an ESPN.com article for an idea of what the game means to him.)

“I was willing to live with the situation I put myself in,” Hall said Thursday night after guiding Wichita State to a 72-58 victory over La Salle in the Sweet 16 at Staples Center. “If anything happened, like if I possibly died or something on the court, I told her I would’ve died happy because I would have died doing something that I loved to do.”

Rick Pitino

Last game I offered up a reason not to root for the opposition.  Here’s another one.  Ricky P.  He’s slimy.  He’s grimy.  He looks like a Mafia member in charge of extortion and was, himself, once extorted.  He makes $3.9 million a year and he enjoys flipping off the nation during interviews.

He also makes fun of people who wear glasses.  Classy, Rick.

Sure, Louisville’s good and Pitino has orchestrated their rise to power.  But let’s be honest with ourselves, do you really want to root for the guy that came in and took the first big time basketball recruit in 20 years from the state of Nebraska away from the state’s desperately clutching hands?  I’m still shrilly screaming as I watch his long, gel-covered fingers reach in and pluck away the Huskers’  best chance at landing a star.

I know it was a terrible, terrible injury but I don’t want to hear another 42,000 reports on how inspirational Kevin Ware has become to his team.

Maybe that makes me a bad person.  Maybe that makes me cynical or a little too plugged into sports media.  But the chugging, huffing steam-engine known as the Hyperbole Express is already running at maximum capacity over this story and if Louisville wins again in this round it’s going to become a runaway train that will end up with me saying something wildly inappropriate about a nice-enough young man who was unfortunate enough to suffer a gruesome injury on TV in front of millions.  Wichita has a chance to be our Denzel Washington’s and Chris Pines.  Stop this train.  Before it’s too late.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a GIF from when he got hurt.

Psych!

Psych!

The Best GIF.

Don’t make me be that guy, Wichita State.  Win the damn game.  I’m tired of hearing Kevin Ware stories.  I’m tired of seeing him on Letterman and ESPN.  I feel for the guy.  I really do.  But since ESPN and other news outlets seem intent on flogging that dead horse until it becomes a bloated carcass of overexposure, I have no choice but to ask for a merciful ending.

Gregg Marshall’s speeches.

They’ve been fiery.  Inspirational.  Candid.  Marshall truly seems like the real deal.  (*Author’s note: I have friends in Wichita who are vigorously nodding their heads and saying, “I told you that 2 years ago, you moron.)  His speeches, shown in snippets on CBS either pre-game or after halftime have truly been some of the better ones I’ve seen caught on film.  Let’s hope he keeps it up.

Finally, Gregg Marshall’s glasses.

Because I’m still pretty sure this is how he got gold-framed glasses and anyone who tells me otherwise will be completely ignored.

Dr. James' optometry.

Dr. James’ optometry.

FIN

10 Things I Heat About You: Miami Finally Loses, GIFS and Dumb Jokes Ensue

Posted: March 28, 2013 in Sports
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#1.  Hey LeBron, how did botching the streak taste last night?

Yum.

Yum.

Oh, that good, huh?

#2.  The Heatles got Yoko Ono’d.  And by a team without their two best players.  The Heat somehow lost for the first time in 27 games to a team with a guy that looks like he’d be the on the Bachelorette – as the contestant who is the lead singer of a Dave Matthews cover band– running the point guard spot.

#3.  When reached for comment Jerry West (*Author’s note: AKA The Logo) had this to say:

The Logo strikes again.

The Logo strikes again.

#4.  LeBron complained after the game about the referees.  Considering that, at one point he went some 250+ minutes without getting called for a foul this year, I’m not sure that he’s really justified.  I know a lot of you will point to his unbelievable skill and his disdain for committing fouls, but his absurdly low foul rate this year pretty much renders any complaints about refereeing by James laughable.

#5.  Make no mistake about it, LeBron got pushed around last night.  Considering he’s built like a defensive end, I think he was probably okay.  However with only Shane Battier and a point guard that he verbally berates as often as possible to have his back.  LeBron decided he needed to take matters into his own hands.  Here’s a fun GIF of him screaming at Chalmers.  Strange that the dude didn’t have his back when the going got tough. . .

#6.  Vigilante justice by Sheriff James!  It didn’t go well.  He ended up with a flagrant and a bunch of microphones in his face for him to complain to.

#7.  Every streak has to end.  In this case, Miami was Frank the Tank and the Chicago was his soon-to-be-divoring-him wife from Old School.  I hope Eric Spoelstra climbed into the team bus and said, “Do you think KFC’s still open?”

#8.  It looks like the 1972 LA Lakers’ streak of 33-games is safe for now.  Somewhere, Wilt Chamberlain’s ghost is smiling.  And having a ghost 3-way.

#9.  Is 27 straight still completely un-friggin-real?  Of course.  I still think the Heat will win the NBA title.  They just seem too good not to.  But anytime I can cheer wildly for LeBron to lose to anyone, you’d better believe I’m going to Carpe the hell out of that Diem.

#10.  As for all the coverage of the heat and their Harlem Shake video and their insane streak?  The Minnesota Timberwolves summed it up best with this response video:

FIN

Dispatches From The Madness

Posted: March 25, 2013 in Sports
Tags: , , , , , , ,
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Last week I gorged myself on basketball.  If you’re American, own a TV, or even accidentally turned on the radio yesterday, you know.  March Madness has begun.

You’ll hear the word “Bracket” in one form or another roughly 2 Billion times in the next 4 weeks.  Whether it’s in the form of Eeyore Bracket Guy — “I didn’t get a single pick right.  I never get any picks right.  You suck, March Madness.” — or the I-Picked-Every-Upset-Just-So-I-Could-Stand-Up-and-Shout-”I TOLD YOU SO!” Guy, lauding his brilliant pick of Harvard over New Mexico in the first round, you had better get used to people forcing unwanted information onto you like a drunken frat boy having an emotional chat with someone he thinks is his bro.

I watched.  I listened.  I Gamecasted and Twitter-feeded my way through day one and day two (*Author’s note: I’ll explain why I didn’t watch a little later).  I channel-surfed and gamehopped my way through days three and four.

Here are some of my dispatches from the Madness, a collection of random thoughts — sane or otherwise — that I noted during the first week of the NCAA Tourney.

The NCAA Tournament All-Hair Team:

This is a squad picked purely on their luscious locks.  These guys aren’t worried about cultural norms. They don’t need to attempt to wear their hair like a guy-trying-to-impress-girls.  They’re 6’7″, can shoot the lights out of the gym and are the NCAA Tournament, Damn it!  They’ll wear their hair however they please.  Cue that crappy musical that my parents love, Hair, because here they are:

Kelly Olynyk, Gonzaga

Does he look like a 7-foot tall Hanson brother?  Mmmmmbop he does.  Is that the longest hair on a dude at the athletic zenith that I’ve seen since watching Wiley Wiggins turn in an incredibly dominant pitching performance in Dazed and Confused?  Of course.

Mike Bruesewitz, Wisconsin

His hair looks like a combination of Carrot Top and Blacksploitation movies.  A phrase I had only dreamed about one day being able to write.  Only at Wisconsin could a guy who looks like this find glory on the basketball court.

It is a sad day when Mort from Family Guy ruins my brackets in the first round.

Kevin Young, Kansas

I’ll see your flattops, every young player in the NCAA, and raise you a grown-man afro, says Kevin Young.  Watch your back, Andrew Bynum. . .Young is coming for you.  Okay, he’s still got a ways to go.

(*Author’s note: just F-ing look at Bynum’s hair in this picture.  Just look at it?!?!?!)

Christophe Varidel, Florida Gulf Coast

This Swiss guard for the Tournament Darlings, the Eagles, has established himself as one of the premiere haircuts left in the sweet sixteen.  While it’s not overwhelming, huge, or absurdly colored, it is rather Euro-Trash-chic.  When you watch it flopping in the breeze, held back by one of those hipster-playing-ultimate-frisbee chords during the FGCU patented Eagle dance(*Author’s note: I think that’s what they’re doing) then you’ll know why it’s on the list.  Sasha Vujecic would be proud.

Tom Crean, Indiana Head Coach

Crean’s hair appears to have been parted by Moses, forming two flopping brown arches; a human McDonald’s sign that has a few bulbs blow out to reduce the color.  During the game, he constantly reached up to brush at it.  This constant fussing over the perfectly-preened hair was reminiscent of a 15-year-old girl nervously sharing a “Love-It” sized ice cream on her first date.  Since I don’t really have a celebrity doppelgänger to compare his ‘do too, here’s a picture of the other Tom Crean.  You know, the guy that explored the Antarctic in 1911.

The Biggest Upset of the Tournament So Far?

My psyche after being unable to figure out a way to get to the live tournament games on NCAA.com.  Thursday and Friday both I was frantically attempting to hack my way through the block set up at my work so that I could stare vacantly at basketball all day.  I was desperately trying to worm my way through any chink in the wireless servers’ armor so that I could use the wireless access on my phone to watch games.  I was stymied.  I was upset.  I was watching choppy, impossibly-hard to decipher games on my shoddy 3G coverage from my phone.

Sprint, predictably, blew it.  The games looked like something you’d pick up on rabbit ears during a rainstorm.  I watched anyway, craning my eyes and repositioning my phone as often as I could to stay one step ahead of the satellite’s orbit.  It didn’t work.

Desperately fiending for a hit of hoops, I searched for a vein to poke.  Finally, I thought I found one.  I downloaded a web application that claimed to have live streaming coverage of all the games.

What, I thought to my reeling-with-tournament-induced-delirium self, it’s not like there’s bad stuff out there on the internet.  People on the internet are nice, honest folk.  They just want to help you watch the game.  You don’t need to worry about potential virus-laden software and encrypted, hidden downloads that will haunt your very existence being in this program.  No way!

You can probably guess what happened next.  I was the gate keeper of Troy waving my stupid hand and saying, “Hell, yeah, I want to get a better look at that horse.  Bring it on in, boys!”

I downloaded the program which immediately exploded into a viral screw-job, spewing out unnecessary add-ons and firing up a veritable montage of warnings on my work PC.  As I desperately hammered on the keys and un-installed everything as quickly as I could I felt certain that my PC was about to explode with some kind of computer syphilis that would incinerate the processor at napalm-level speeds.

I’m still un-installing random web browser search engines that were discreetly set as my default by some malevolent download along the way.  The moral of the story?  Don’t get greedy.

All I Have in my Notes Here is “Colorado State Weed Joke.”

Insert your own, I guess?  I loosely remember wanting to make some kind of marijuana-related joke about Colorado but it’s slipped my mind.

Whomever Invented Picture in Picture Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize

I’m not sure who invented PiP, but let me go on record as saying that they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.  Seriously.  Isn’t there just a little room left on Mount Rushmore to add them to it?  Can’t we squeeze out a spot Somewhere by Abe Lincoln?  Watching two NCAA tourney games at one time is as close to sports-Nirvana as I’ll ever get.

The Biggest Winner of the Tourney So Far?

Probably TruTV, Turner Broadcasting’s flagship network.  Prior to the tournament the only people watching TruTV were convicts, fools, and stoners (*Author’s note: see: the aforementioned CSU weed joke).  Millions of searching people either flipped through 313 channels or nearly exploded Google as they asked the question on a million lips, “What friggin’ channel is TruTV on?”

I am disappointed, however, that all this basketball did cut into my re-runs of Cops, my weekly marathon of Cheaters and, most of all, my nightly watching of the 19-time Emmy Award Winning Upload With Shaquille O’Neal.

I don’t think you understand.  You see, it’s funny because he’s tall.

This is Still the Simultaneous Highlight/Lowlight of the Tournament:

wpid-a13ca9d57c9145a8b5acf8f28ac79311_2x.gif

The worst/best part of this is that you can tell he sees it coming, but he’s powerless to react.  Watch his mouth.  You can tell he’s screaming out, “Noooooooooooo!”  and flailing around wildly like a fish in a net.  You can also see that even the guy inflicting this brutal out-of-bounds play isn’t proud of what he’s done.  He starts to shrug his shoulders up into a giant cringe.  Thanks, NCAA Tourney, for helping me create my first GIF.

And that was just opening weekend.  What did you guys think of the start to the madness?

FIN

Burnpoetry wants to remind you: no matter how bad your bracket is doing, things could be worse. . .

Posted: March 22, 2013 in Burnvisuals, Sports
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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You could be this guy.  Talk about getting your brackets busted. . .

image

Talk about getting your brackets busted. . .

March Madness is Here: Let the Legal Insanity Begin

Posted: March 20, 2013 in Sports
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Barack Obama’s filling out his bracket.  Office pools are pooling.  People everywhere are installing panic buttons on their computers so that when their boss walks by they can hit a special hot key and have it take them directly to a mundane, office-looking graph and away from Picture-in-Picture NCAA awesomeness (*Author’s note: mine takes me to my job’s intranet homepage).  Dickie V. is getting pants-crappingly excited.  If you’re a sports junkie, March Madness is like stumbling onto Tony Montana’s private stash.

Here are some of the less-talked about things that I’m most excited about for this year’s tournament:

1.  Bucknasty Nell

Bucknell is an 11-seed in the East Region and has actually gotten some love from pundits lately as a potential sleeper team.  I didn’t pick them past the first round, but that’s not why I’m excited about them, anyway.  Any chance I get where I can make a cheap, poorly-thought-out reference to Buck Nasty, you’d better believe I’m going to carpe the hell out of that diem.  Who is Buck Nasty?  Only the funniest thing the Murphy family has done since the ’80s.  Here’s a snippet of why I’m so excited to have Bucknasty Nell back in the tourney:

Go to 10 seconds in and there he is in all his purple-pimp-suited glory.

Buck Nasty was a member of one of the singular greatest sketch comedy moments in history, “The Playa Hater’s Ball” and he will forever go down as one of my favorite characters from my all-time favorite show.  That’s why I’m so crunk I get to repeatedly reference Bucknasty Nell.  Even if no one else knows — or cares — about it.

2.  Watching All the Highly Paid Analysts’ Picks Devolve Into Dumpster Fires

Imagine you’re a highly paid “expert.”  Your job is to analyze a highly volatile, fluid, rapidly-changing phenomenon and you have to do it in front of millions of people.  Predicting the NCAA tournament is such an out-and-out crapshoot that I enjoy every year watching analysts of all shapes and sizes step up to the plate, take a giant cut, and whiff so hard that they wrench their backs.

I’m certainly no better at predicting the outcome of March Madness than anyone else.  I usually have a good first day (*Author’s note: or hour) and then my brackets turn into a post-explosion meth lab.  But I will always enjoy watching the obnoxiously boring college basketball analysts stodgily attempting to defend why they took a team to the final four that got booted in the first round.  (*Author’s note: I only included the following bracket to show how indescribably boring the “Bracketology” shows are.  Check out Jay Bilas’ really wild and crazy upset picks last year.  Dude went out on a limb.)

Wow, Bilas really went out on a limb last year.

(*Author’s note: Nate Silver did, however,  come out with statistics-based grouping of percentages to try to predict which teams had the best teams win.  And, as we all know, Nate Silver is a witch.  So watch out for that.)

3.  Fake Brackets

In our internety/memey world, everyone’s a comedian.  It’s what I love and hate about Twitter and blogs and Facebook.  (*Author’s note: but mostly love)  I’m certainly no better, and definitely no funnier, so here’s my own, home-brewed example of a fake bracket:

Here's to hoping LeBron doesn't sue me.

Here’s to hoping LeBron doesn’t sue me.

4.  Chuck Barkley & Co.

My love for Charles Barkley is well-documented.  He’s the most refreshingly honest, hilarious voice in the sports world today (*Author’s note: not named Bill Simmons).  He won’t hesitate to critique where others would tip-toe or toe the line.  Barkley, as Buck Nasty’s creator Charlie Murphy would say, is a “habitual line-stepper.”  And it’s great.

Does he mangle players’ names?  Absolutely.  Does he mangle the English language?  Completely.  Does any of that get in the way of my enjoyment of his incite and gleeful basketball-related shenanigans?  Hell no.

And this is not to denigrate Barkley’s co-conspirators on the show.  Kenny “the Jet” Smith and Ernie Johnson are both in my top five basketball analysts in the game today (*Author’s note: with the aforementioned Simmons and Mike Wilbon rounding out my list.)  and the whole crew of analysts employed by TNT are easily the most enjoyable group to watch in any of the major sports.  Not even Shaq’s attention-starved bungling can drag down the rest of the crew.

Watching basketball with the TNT crew is like watching a game with a bunch of your boys.  There’s teasing, taunting and even some hard-hitting analysis.  I’m glad that they’ve brought on the best crew in basketball to showcase the best part of collegiate hoops once again.

5.  The Game-Within-a-Game on Thursday and Friday

Everyone knows the tourney will be here.  The companies are gearing up to try to boost company productivity.  The workers are hacking their way through the dense underbrush of corporate security settings. We’ll be using wireless internet, 3G connections, ear buds, panic buttons.  Watching the games live on Thursday and Friday have turned into a form of diabolical espionage.

There’s more twists and turns and near-misses between offices and their supervisors than a dog fight in Top Gun.  I for one, have equipped myself to the best of my ability and will be trying to find back door entries to any of the websites showing live feeds of the games.  Worst case scenario I will gladly cubicle-dodge.  In fact, this could be me on Thursday at the office:

Regardless of what you’re looking forward to, keep your earbuds close, your brackets closer, and one eye furtively on the cubicle entrance for anyone looking important.  It’s madness, son!

FIN

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