In an effort to pump up interest in their product, ESPN has deemed this "rivaly week" where longtime rivals like Duke and North Carolina, UConn and Syracuse, or Oklahoma and Baylor clash in titanic battles that leave hundreds dead, thousands wounded, and millions of people all across America hoping for Dick Vitale to get some fucking laryngitis. Of course the marquis matchup is Duke verus North Carolina, because nothing gets America's blood going like unathletic white kids who have no chance to succeed at the next level running slowly up and down the floor heaving three pointers. This may come as a shock to you, but I didn't watch that game. I DID watch UConn versus Syracuse, which turned into an ugly slugfest filled with turnovers and badly missed shots. Sometimes low scoring games are unwatchable. Other times, they result from grossly overmatched teams trying to pound it inside against 7'3" behemoths who kind of suck at basketball but can block the shit out of crappy layup attempts. If you were to watch the video highlights on ESPN.com, you might think the most entertaining parts of the game were UConn players hoisting 25 footers. If you click through the pictures, you might find some of this:
and a whole lot of this:
Almost every single memorable highlight from last involved Thabeet blocking or altering a shot. He stuffed a dunk attempt. He hustled back to break up a 3-on-0 fast break that featured a bad pass preventing an easy layup. He stood with his arms stretched to the sky as diminutive point guards drove the lane, looked up, said, "Oh shit," and travelled because it was less embarrassing than having another lame layup attempt swatted back in their faces. The man may be nothing more than another tall, lanky, unskilled bench player in the NBA, but wholly bejebus is he a force in college basketball!
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