UConn finds something else to whine about

Thanks to Friarblog, it has been brought to my attention that UConn is a little pissed off about the Providence College soccer team’s recent overtime victory over them in the Big East tournament and have vented their frustration in their school newspaper.

Check out the article here. Read through it. Go ahead, you’ll enjoy it.

Now, I know it’s only early November, and our meeting with UConn on the basketball court is still well off in the future (January 27, mark it on your calendars NOW), but it sounds to me like it’s time for me to once again tell UConn to shove it up their collective ass.

First of all, I would just like to tell all the UConn fans in the audience that we’re flattered. We really are. It really means a lot that a program like yours that has had so much success (over the last 20 years) and so much history (over the last 20 years) and has won so many national championships (over the last 10 years) would even include a lowly school like ours that has had so little history (only 2 NIT championships that may as well have been national championships and 2 Final Four apperances dating back to long before anyone gave a flying fuck about UConn) in the rivalry discussion.

All that said, I really have to question this whole article. I mean I guess if whining about the other team’s “outrageous” behavior after the game makes you feel better, go ahead and do it. Just know that you really look like a bunch of babies to the rest of the world when you do it after every major loss. I don’t know how the student population at UConn is reacting to this article today (that is, if anyone actually reads the Daily Campus), but personally, if someone put this stuff in the Cowl I would not be pleased at all. Stop and think about the image that you’re basically encouraging people to have of your university before you write this whiny crap.

Let’s take a look at this article paragraph by paragraph:

“It would be one thing if we were out played – we weren’t. Instead, the Friars dropped everyone back on defense and were seemingly playing for penalty kicks. It was luck that got them the ball io the Husky side of the field for the first time in over 50 minutes and a freak bounce of Matt Marcin’s left foot put the shot in literally the only spot where Husky keeper Josh Ford had no chance.”

See, where I come from, the thing that matters is the final score of the game. I don’t care if you had the ball in your end for 80 minutes of the game, at the end of the day, the score was 1-0 Friars. Not being aggressive on offense was probably what our coaches would like to call strategy. And apparently it was pretty effective, since we WON the game. Honestly, the definition of “out played” seems to be pretty skewed here, because from what I’m hearing, UConn had the ball in our end for over 50 minutes and couldn’t score a goal. Sounds to me like either our defense was pretty god damn good, or their offense couldn’t put anything together. Doesn’t mean a damn thing how long UConn had it in our end, the simple fact of the matter is they got shut out. This apparently is a common theme because I can recall some moments when my favorite coach, Jim Calhoun, has played the “we’re actually better than them” card. You lost, you obviously weren’t the better team, or you would have won. Simple as that.

“Seconds after the victory, my scorn only grew. The Providence bench stormed the field as if they’d just won the national championship instead of staying alive in the hunt for a bid in the NCAA tournament. Congratulations – you live to play another day.”

And congratulations to you, too. You don’t live to play another day. Let’s review: a team that is not expected to get much past the first round of the Big East tournament shocks the top team in the Big East Blue Division with a goal late in overtime. Our players run on the field to enjoy the victory and they’re in the wrong? I’m confused here. I’d love to hear what the UConn fans would’ve rather had us do. Sit quietly on the sideline? Start packing up like nothing happened? There is no way in hell the UConn team doesn’t do the same thing if our situations were switched. In fact, given the situation, if UConn scores a goal in overtime to win it, unless they have zero emotion they’d probably still do the same thing even though they were the favored squad. And you know what? I would’ve been fine with that. They could have done it on our field and I would be fine with it. Sure, I’d throw a couple expletives at them but I certainly wouldn’t write a whiny column in the school newspaper complaining about their atrocious behavior. Why? Because our players are 18 to 22 years old. They can handle it. This isn’t a bunch of 9 year olds who are going to start crying. At least I hope not. This is how sports work. When you win, you’re happy and you celebrate.

“Outrageous celebrations are not new to the Friars as A.J. Price noticed in 2008 after Providence beat the Huskies at home. Not a small feat – but not worth the disrespect that followed.
‘Real disrespectful,’ Price said in March of that year. ‘They don’t know how to win, and it showed. They were laughing, mocking. I usually have a lot of respect for other teams but they showed a lack of respect last game. They beat up on us and made a mockery of it.’”

This is the part I love. Let’s go interview the shining beacon of respectfulness that is A.J. Price. I bet he was really respectful to those kids whose laptops he stole. I’m sure he left handwritten notes expressing how sorry he was that he had to take their property. Oh, and a note to the author of this article, maybe next time you should print the rest of A.J.’s quote. You seem to have left out the last sentence there. It’s OK, I’ll reprint it here. I’m sure it can only reinforce your article, right?

“We’ll be ready to go. … We want to blow them out. That’s what we’re going there to play for.”

Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound very respectful at all. In fact, to me, that sounds like it completely undermines the purpose of including that quote in this article. I’m sure the omission was just a mistake though. Oh, one more thing. The game Price was talking about there? Yeah, we won that one too. And I’m sure we made a mockery of that game too.

“They don’t know how to win because, aside from playing us apparently, they don’t.”

There ya go, insult our program immediately after reminding everyone that we historically have your number. That doesn’t reflect poorly on your athletic department at all.

“Last year the Huskies throughly beat Providence 94-61 – and it felt really good.”

This seems to be a good place to remind everyone that during that game, Stanley Robinson and Hasheem Thabeet probably broke a record for most screams into the air and chest pounding sessions after meaningless baskets by a pair of teammates. But God forbid one of our guys laughs during a game or our soccer team celebrates an overtime postseason victory. By the way, while we’re on the topic, I’d just like to point out that through his first 6 NBA games, Yinka Dare 2.0 is averaging 0.7 points, 1.8 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 block, 0.5 turnovers and 2 personal fouls per game. 6 words you’ll be hearing from Hasheem soon: do you want fries with that?

“Women’s hockey has been victimized by Providence in the past couple years, and despite it being her alma matter, head coach Heather Linstad was not afraid in 2008 to back up what Price said.
‘I think A.J. Price said it best in the Hartford Courant,” Linstad said on the eve of the Huskies match-up with Providence in the Hockey East tournament. “If you lose to them they don’t let you forget it. They don’t know how to win the right way.’”

I don’t know who Heather Linstad is or why she matters. I’ve also never gone to a women’s hockey game, so I admittedly don’t know how our team celebrates. The way the rest of this article has gone, however, I’m just going to assume they’re high fiving each other after goals, since that obviously is too much for the UConn fans/players to take. The basic problem here is not that we do not know how to win the right way, it’s that UConn doesn’t know how to lose the right way. I’m not going to sit here and say we’re the classiest fan base in the world, because we clearly aren’t. This is college, people are going to yell inappropriate things, and quite frankly that’s not the point here. The real difference here is that when we lose, we accept it, and move on. You will not see any articles in the Cowl this year saying that the UConn Huskies do not know how to win, and are completely disrespectful (at least I hope not). In reality, if you shut up and win the damn game in the first place, you won’t have to worry about it. If you do lose, whining publicly not only will do nothing to change the fact that you lost, but it also makes you sound pathetic and just as classless to the outside observer. Trust me, no one outside of the UConn community is reading this article and feeling any sympathy for you. See you in January. Here’s hoping you’ve learned how to lose by then.

-SM

Check out FB’s take here.

Excuses for why this blog will suck for the next week

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up, due to the combined factors of a large amount of work and the fact that most of my roommates aren’t here, I will almost definitely not be attending the exhibition game against Stonehill tonight. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if I wasn’t going to miss at least the next 2 games and possibly the next game after that since next weekend is JRW and for whatever reason we have three games scheduled for next weekend. I’m sure I’ll post something, it just won’t be as detailed as usual. For some better coverage, go check out Friarblog and the new guys, Providence Friars Basketball. There are links on the right side of the page. With any luck I’ll resume going to games after JRW.

-SM

Breaking news out of upstate NY!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4620949

This just made my year. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of kids. My only regret is that Devo wasn’t around for this one. My God, this is awesome.

Just for good measure, here’s a picture I found of Andy Rautins apparently on the verge of tears:

I'd like to think this is what he looked like when the final buzzer sounded tonight.

A side note to the basketball team: Don’t you dare consider pulling this shit against Stonehill on Saturday.

-SM

Exhibition vs. Merrimack Recap

Sorry for the delay guys, I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for the triumphant return of our blog for the season opener, but I’m a busy man. Also, the Yankees just pulled themselves to within one game of world championship #27. It’s alright, Sox fans, I’ll wait for you to finish throwing shit at your computer screens.

…

Ready? Alright, let’s get into a little recap:

The first half was ugly. I mean very ugly. Now you might be saying to yourselves, “SM, we were winning by nine at halftime.” My response: You’re an idiot. Last I checked, Merrimack is like a Division IV program. Not only did I not know they had a basketball team, but if they weren’t in the Hockey East, I’d have no idea they’re even a real school. I still couldn’t tell you where they’re located. Mass? Maine? New Mexico? Who gives a shit? The fact of the matter is that this team had no right being within 20 points of the Friars at any point more than 5 minutes into the game, and yet there Merrimack was, within 9 at halftime. The problem was twofold: the perimeter shooting was not there, and the defense didn’t show up. I wasn’t exactly religiously keeping track of stats, but I’m reasonably sure Merrimack hit more threes in the first half than we did. This concerns me, especially since as a small guard-heavy team, we’re going to need to have a good perimeter offense to win games. This team, much like last year’s edition, is going to live and die by the 3-ball, and this year it will be especially important due to our limited size down low. There won’t be too many second opportunities, so it’s going to be important to sink the threes on the first try. The defense was a big problem early, with Merrimack finding ways to break the press. Like the shooting difficulties, it’s hard not to chalk this up to a combination of rust and early season laziness. The team just looked like they were screwing around at Late Night Madness at times, and the (insert Merrimack’s mascot here)s were able to take advantage. Relatively speaking of course.

After the weak showing in the first half, Keno gave the team a good swift kick in the ass at halftime, and it seemed like they gave a better effort. The defense showed up, forcing turnovers. Marshon started taking over, actually acting as a leader (!) and quietly putting up 33 points. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but honestly, no one noticed how many points he had until he hit 30. It might have had something to do with the fact that 3/4 of the gym was sitting down quietly, as opposed to last year’s freshmen who did everything short of actually having sex with Marshon when he scored 20+ points early last season. Might be a good thing for his ego, actually. I’m still not a fan of the freshmen. Anyway, not to be outdone, Sharaud and B-Mac started hitting threes as well as the Friars started pulling away. Sharaud looked great down the stretch, hitting several of those signature threes from way too far out. The big men started working hard too, with guys like Bilal Dixon (16 and 14!) and James Still pulling down rebounds, coming up with huge, emotionally scarring blocks and putting back missed shots. Speaking of big men, this seems like a good place to mention that Russ Permenter will forever be known as “Chainsaw” thanks to the efforts of myself and that other guy who writes stuff every 6 months or so on this blog. The one section that remained on their feet and was loud all game was completely cohesive in chanting “We want Chainsaw” and making chainsaw revving noises every time he touched the ball. Best of all, Permenter himself approved, looking over and laughing several times. The nickname will stick, and you heard it here first.

This game wasn’t the best barometer, considering the limited size and skill level of Merrimack, so the real measuring stick will come when the Friars start taking on real, actual basketball teams with real, actual basketball players. I’d like to see how these guys do against a team with better size. As I said, the size could be a real problem with this year’s Friars, but the big men on this team are quick, athletic, and seem to be hard working and really feed off the crowd. It’s like having more than one Jon Kale. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out.

-SM

EDIT: One more thing I forgot to mention: I personally love the new Friar uniforms. Specifically the names on the backs of the jerseys. I know some of you out there are going to give me that old tired crap about how it’s not about the name on the back of the uniform, but the name on the front, but first of all, having names on the back of your jersey isn’t going to make you an asshole if you’re not already an asshole. Let’s be honest here, guys, no one would have any idea who anyone is on this team without the names on the back of the jerseys. Too many new guys.

Late Night Madness Recap

11:57 pm Friday: We’ve decided to bestow the nickname “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” upon our new player Russ Permenter, since he is, of course, from Texas. Also when he scores we will do some sort of air-chainsaw movement with noise accompaniment, obviously. I’m not exactly in a position to type accurately at the moment, so the rest of the summary of tonight’s events will have to wait until tomorrow.

4:15 pm Saturday: Alright guys, I’m back. A few more notes to recap last night’s festivities for those of you not present:

-The usual dance competition took place, but it seemed to be expanded a little bit more, which cut into the basketball related activities. The basketball team was introduced immediately, did their usual 5 minutes of dunking, and skipped the 10 minute scrimmage entirely.

-They also had a three point shooting contest which Sharaud Curry and Brian McKenzie participated in. Sharaud won easily since they matched him up with a non-basketball player, so no real news there. B-Mac’s competition was more interesting however, as he was matched up with one of the players from the women’s team, and he lost. Not sure what to make of this, because I don’t really follow the women’s team. However, from what I understand, this particular girl is legitimately good. Also, B-Mac lost despite making 7 shots in (I think) 30 seconds. So really it was a sneaky good performance for B-Mac. We’ll see if that translates to the court, because we’re obviously going to need him to step up after his cover-your-eyes awful year last year.

-As for the dunks, the one shocker was that Greedy Peterson just could not put one down. He made a living throwing down absolutely vicious dunks on opponents his freshman year. Without anyone to dunk over last night, however, he didn’t look nearly as impressive. On the plus side, if he’s lost that ability, maybe it’ll compel him to work on the other aspects of his game instead of taking stupid risks in games to try to get on the SportsCenter Top 10 (see 2008 Big East Championship round 1). The kid’s got potential, he just has to use it.

-Ray “The Ostrogoth” Hall was introduced with the team. I think we all wanted to see him throw a few balls down. No such luck.

-The freshmen (I haven’t really figured out which one is which yet) all looked good on their dunks. We saw a few through the leg dunks and several off the backboard dunks. Hopefully they’re actually good and not just going for the highlight reel.

-Keno Davis put in an appearance and said a few words. Not much of consequence, but he of course implored the fans to repeat their support from last year, making his obligatory mention of the defeats of #15 Syracuse and #1 Pitt. The crowd obviously went nuts. The guy could tell a PC student they have cancer, but as long as he mentions the Pitt game he’d walk away with a standing ovation. And rightfully so. He’s the anti-Tim Welsh.

-SM

More contracts…

Just a brief update on the contract front:

Jon Kale has signed with the Chernobyl Meltdowns (OK, I made that up. Too soon?) in the Ukraine according to Keno’s Twitter. A cursory look at Google has turned up no further information. Good for Jon though. I’ve always maintained he could be a good 12th man on an NBA contender down the stretch, of course in the all important role of guy who is never even considered for playing time, but still sits at the end of the bench and goes fucking nuts every time his team scores a basket. Donny Marshall pulled off this role flawlessly for the ‘03 Nets, and now he’s doing the halftime shows for the Celtics broadcasts on Comcast SportsNet. In all seriousness though, best of luck to Jon, who really was the emotional heart of this Friar team. I think I speak for all Friar fans when I say that the image of Jon kissing the court at the end of the Pitt game is one I will never forget.

Never forget Providence 81, Pitt 73.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this story broken by the Providence Journal earlier today. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the X is taking his show to Espana. What the Projo fails to mention here is that X is headed for the Liga Espanola Baloncesto Oro, aka the same league Weyinmi signed to play in just a few weeks ago. This means Weyinmi and X will meet as opponents this fall. Should be an interesting subplot to follow, provided we can actually get updates on this league from the US. At any rate, you can bet they’ll be throwing up the X in Galicia because an X is the same in any language (except any Cyrillic or Asian languages but who’s counting). “What the FUCK kind of shot was that”, however, sounds considerably different in Spanish. So I guess he’s got that going for him too. Just kidding. Good luck, Jeff.

-SM

Weyinmi is a Pro

Alright, so for those of you that don’t have Twitter, I wanted to make sure everyone knew that a favorite of our blog, Weyinmi Efejuku, has signed with Tenerife of the Spanish Liga Espanola de Baloncesto Oro. From what I understand from my extensive research (translation: Wikipedia), this league is the highest subdivision of the second most prestigious league in Spain. Unfortunately, at the moment, the only article on the signing I could come up with is this one (that’s right, we scooped Friarblog and the PC athletic department on this one… has that EVER happened?), on Tenerife’s website, which seems to be entirely en Espanol with no option to translate into Ingles. Fortunately for you guys, good ol’ SM took 4 years of Spanish in high school and got a 2 on the AP exam! OK, so a 2 means I got like 30% of the questions right. Screw you guys, the speaking section was impossible.

Essentially, the article raves about Weyinmi’s versatility, praising his ability to play multiple positions. Additionally, some guy named Ivan Deniz, whose position in the franchise I can’t seem to figure out from these weird Spanish idioms, apparently considers Providence College “muy importante” and believes Wey’s playing style will fit in perfectly with the Spanish style of the game. This signing, he claims, immediately gives Tenerife a huge boost in talent, and will bring them a player that can not only create scoring opportunities for himself, but also make his teammates better.

What does all of this mean? Look, it’s not the NBA, but it’s only like 4 or 5 steps below it. Spain has become an international power in basketball, and you’d have to believe more and more opportunities are being given to players in Spanish leagues. Weyinmi proved down the stretch last season that he is capable of taking over games at the collegiate level. With the way Tenerife’s brass are praising him in the above article, you’d have to believe he’ll get significant minutes and an opportunity to prove he can do the same in a competitive professional setting. If he continues to work, it wouldn’t be unheard of to see him work his way back to the US in perhaps a D-League setting, and then anything can happen from there. Either way, best of luck to you, Weyinmi. Make us all proud.

-SM

Twitter

Alright ladies and gentlemen, The Truth About PC Basketball has entered the 21st century. We’re on some newfangled thing called Twitter now. Our user name is TTAPCBBall (I know, crappy username, but it’s the best I could do), so go follow us. Beej will probably update it about as often as he updates the blog itself, so you should be hearing from him in a few months. In the meantime, check back for some off-season musings from yours truly.

-SM

Keno signs new contract, cures swine flu

Fantastic news from the PC athletic department this afternoon. Keno Davis, possessor of the best hair in the Big East (suck it, Jay Wright) signed a new contract today extending his potential stay in Providence through the 2015-2016 season. Personally, I’m thrilled, especially after last year’s success with a couple of reasonably talented (translation: D-League/Croatian league pros at best) players and several fundamentally questionable guys (translation: Jeff Xavier). The man knows how to coach, can draw big name recruits, is more than willing to take time out of his schedule to interact with the student body to create a better fan experience, and is just an all-around awesome guy. Simply put, he wakes up in the morning and pisses excellence. This news comes as Keno opens up his summer basketball camp, which presumably turns undersized and possibly even physically disabled children with little to no discernible talent and maybe even a lack of understanding of what basketball even is into 40 point per game scorers. He’s that good. In other news, earlier this week, Keno cured cancer, stopped the AIDS epidemic entirely in South Africa, ended the conflict in Iran over its recent presidential election by accepting the presidency himself, convinced Kim Jong-Il to stop being such an asshole, and saved 23 kittens from trees.

-SM

Some Off-Season News and Notes

Well, it’s July, and the return of basketball season is still a few months off, but after ordering my season tickets, I’m in the mood for an update.

First, and most importantly, I would advise all PC students to sign up for season tickets. The form went out in the mail recently, so keep an eye out for it. This year, the first 500 student season ticket holders get a ticket to the first game in Alumni Hall in 30 years. In addition, you get another year of hearing the sweet sound of my voice berating opposing players and referees at no additional cost. So go sign up for season tickets now (if you didn’t get the form in the mail, you can find it here). There’s my plug for the Friar Faithful. Don’t say I never did anything for you guys.

Secondly, exciting news from the recruiting front . Keno Davis has shown the kind of draw his name has added to the program in securing recruits Gerard Coleman and Ron Giplaye for the class of 2014. I just hope to God these kids turn out to be the real deal and play as  freshmen so I’ll get to see them before I graduate.

Third, the Friars’ Big East schedule was released on July 2. Providence will take on Marquette, USF, and everyone’s favorite scumbags from upstate New York twice this season. We’re also getting UConn, Georgetown, Louisville, Rutgers, Seton Hall, and West Virginia at home. All the other teams will meet the Friars on the road. It’s never too early to start preparing ways to heckle each of these teams, so here’s a few ideas to get started.

UConn- A good place to start would be the alleged recruiting violations involving ex-player Nate Miles. I’ve never cared much for Jim Calhoun, and any opportunity to imply that his record has been tainted is an opportunity that must be taken. If things don’t play out with the investigation (which I haven’t really heard much about recently), then we can always make fun of Hasheem Thabeet’s NBA career, which presumably will be over by the time Big East play starts.

Georgetown- The usual: “Hoya Suxa”, “What’s a Hoya?”, “Sweet chinstrap, Greg”, etc.

Louisville- Edgar Sosa has got to be like 32 years old by now. That’s pretty much all I got since I don’t know who the hell three quarters of the guys on this team are.

Rutgers- Fun fact: they invented their own STD.  Trust me, it’s true.

Seton Hall- As simple as it may sound, just referring to the school as “Semen Hall” is effective and underused.

West Virginia- Incest.

Marquette- Wisconsin: Like Canada, only fatter.

USF- They’re USF.

Syracuse- Eric Devendorf is gone. Paul Harris is gone. This will make things harder. Fortunately, since the Orange have effectively stolen St. John’s title as the biggest thugs in the Big East, we can rest assured that someone will commit a crime and be allowed to get away with it by the time we play them. We’ll also have Andy Rautins and his haircut, who I also just found out has Canadian citizenship. Do what you will with that information.

Fourth, congratulations go out to The Truth About PC Basketball favorite Weyinmi Efejuku, who led the Jamaican national team to a gold medal in something called the Caribbean Basketball Championships. I’m still holding out hope that an NBA team will give him a look. You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be worth it to take a shot on Weyinmi as a 12th man. You can’t.

Finally, Marshon Brooks recently attended the Paul Pierce Basketball Camp, presumably to learn how to not get stabbed 11 times. He can start by not sucking for the last 10 games of the season this year.

-SM