Welcome to Loserville, Population Duke and Georgetown

Since MD's NIT loss, I've been unable to talk about the Terps and thought I wouldn't really care about March Madness this year. Well, that wasn't the case, as I've been glued to the TV/internet for the past 4 days. More on that later. But I digress...

Life got a lot better for me and many Maryland fans after Georgetown and Duke both lost in the second round, to teams seeded significantly lower then them. Both of these teams losing was a huge disappointment if you're a Hoyas or Duke hoops fan but fantastic if you're a hater of those teams like myself. It's also great when you work in D.C. and many of your co-workers pick Georgetown or Duke to go far in your office pools.

More on these losses, MD's season, comparing Curry to Juan Dixon, and finally continuing with the ACC Student Section rankings in the coming days.

Cooked

Last night's game, as many games have this season, ripped my heart out of my chest, stomped on it, and then threw it into the trash. Maryland has been quite good this year at making their fan base go into a frenzy of madness...too bad they won't be giving those fans the opportunity to take part in the March variety of that madness...

As I told my girlfriend as we left the Comcast Center following the heart breaking loss to Clemson, Maryland's season is over. After the loss to Boston College last night in the opening round of the ACC's, Maryland can officially kiss the NCAA's goodbye. Honestly, I don't even think they deserve a trip to the NIT. Boston College just out hustled them, played more defense, and Maryland started playing scared and stopped attacking the basket. And to top if off, they turned the ball over 40,000 times in the second half. When MD went down by 10, I thought the game was over. But Gist pulled the team together and gave every bit of energy he had. In the course of a minute, MD went on a 7-0 run to pull them within 3. Too bad everyone else on the team didn't do the same and it was too little too late.

Md has a chance to get a second Junior College transfer but doesn't have the scholarship to offer. I'm hoping Eric Hayes decides to transfer, but a few other people might consider doing so as well.

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, good bye (WE SUCK!)

(from Baltimoresun.com)

I interrupt this ACC student section ranking to bring you this post...Maryland is going to miss the NCAA Tourney for the 3rd time in the last 4 years. Unless we beat UVA (which I don't even think we'll do), and then do some damage in the ACC Tourney, we're headed to the NIT yet again.

Maryland had a 68-55 lead with 4:48 to go. We got outscored 18-2 to end the game. Unfreaking believable.



I'm normally super optimistic about things like this, but not anymore. I'm not going to get my hopes up and allow MD to crush them. My health can't take it anymore.

ACC Student Section Rankings

A recent Baltimore Sun blog post that ranked the basketball Student sections in the ACC made me think “I can do this a million times better!” So below, is my attempt to rank each team’s student section. Tune back each day (or every other day) as I count down to the best student section in the ACC We’ll do this Top 10 style, starting with the worst section first.

Starting with the worst today, coming in at # 12, the University of Virginia


#12 – UVA

I hate UVA for a lot of reasons and # 1 on my list of “reasons to hate UVA” is their student section. UVA likes to think they’re an ivy league school. They dress up in ties for games, they wear pastel colored shirts with popped collars, and they give off this aura of “douchbaggieness.” (Yes, I just made up that word and when you look in a dictionary of the future, they’ll have a picture of UVA students next to the word and definition).
Maryland fans in particular probably hate UVA fans the most for several reasons, but number one on my list came in 2002, when Maryland was playing at UVA. The star on that National Championship team, Juan Dixon, overcame a lot in his life but I’m sure one, if not the most difficult things was having to deal with both of his parents passing away from AIDS. So how does the UVA student section welcome Juan Dixon to Charlotte? By chanting “Crackhead parents!” Maybe one of the most classless things I’ve ever heard or seen in my life. The Terps still managed to win that game by the way. Here was Dixon’s stat line for the game, in which he overcame that horrible showing of humanity from UVA:

player start? Mp pt fgm fga fgpct ftm fta ftpct r a b s pf 3fgm 3fga 3fgpct Juan Dixon 36 16 5 13 38% 5 5 100% 3 4 0 0 2 1 3 33%

UVA’s student section has also been know to try to use “cheersheets” like the Cameron Crazies do, but their cheers are often lame, unoriginal garbage, much like their student body. Here is an excerpt from a UVA cheersheet that the DC Sports Bog on washingtonpost.com got a hold of last year:
“As we all know, Maryland fans are thugs. They probably don't even own a tie, never mind a blazer, and chants such as "You are all thugs," and "We don't riot," are perfect. Other parts of the cheersheet include making fun of Vasquez’s big nose and calling Mike Joes a nobody. Hardly a nobody.

The other thing wrong with UVA’s student section is something they can’t control, which is their arena. Their old venue got a lot more sound out of it and was a much harder place to play. Their new arena, in which they try to copy Maryland’s Comcast Center, except sans the ability of the place to be loud and intimidating like Comcast is, doesn’t have the same effect as their old court.

Here’s UVA’s student section score, which is what I’ll use to evaluate each school’s student section:

Attendance of students at all games (1-10) – 7
Creativity of student cheers (1-10) – 4
Intensity of students at games (1-10) – 8.5
Ability of arena to get loud (including proximity of students to court) – 8
Ability to united student section in cheers, movements, etc. – 9

Total score = 36.5/50

People are finally realizing what I’ve said all along…

J.J. Redick isn’t an NBA talent. Sorry folks. He’s a lights out shooter and the ACC’s leading scorer, but in the NBA, he’s outsized, less athletic, bad at defense and not as fast as the competition he faces. And those are things you can’t teach. JJ made himself a good player by making up for his lack of size, athletic ability, and speed by improving on other skills hat anyone can learn – such as shooting 3’s. Although you can get by doing that in College Basketball, that shit don’t fly in the NBA.
Hence, on most nights, you’ll see a “Did not play – Coach’s Decision” next to JJ’s name in the box score. And I applaud Orlando’s coach Stan Van Gundy for letting JJ rot away on the bench. Now JJ wants out of Orlando. He’s quietly bitching and moaning about not playing. You can read more about it here in an article the Orlando Sentinel recently did.

Sorry JJ. When it comes to playing in the NBA, it’s REDICKulous to think you should be an everyday player. If the Magic we’re sucking this year, I’d say sure, play JJ and let him embarrass himself on a daily basis. But the Magic are doing good, so I think Stan Van Gundy should be coach of the year in the NBA. He’s got the Magic playing great AND knows how much JJ sucks and keeps him on the bench.
As long as you’re airballing on shots like this below JJ, you should continue being the Magic’s #1 bench warmer.

Think of the Children!!!

Ah, mocking the 18-1 Pats...it never gets old. Don't you just wish the NFL would punish Bill B. for spygate and for walking off the field early by making him go to these third world nations and hand out these shirts? Oh, sweet poetic justice that would be!
As most of you know, during each major championship game, there are two shirts and hats made so they can have them on hand after the game for each team that wins. It was often a mystery as to what happened to the shirts of the losing team until a sports journalists was in Africa a few years back and saw hundreds of Buffalo Bills Super Bowl Champion tee shirts. Once the word got out that the NFL is a good samaritian and donates the losing team's incorrect merchendise to poor third world countries, I was just waiting for pictures of the 19-0 Patriots shirts to surface. Today, on this glorious Friday, my wish has come true!


The clown pointing at the shirt is freaking hilarious.



And now, I leave you with an inspirational poster...
You stay classy, Bilacheat.

Hey hey! Ho ho! The Pats are not 19 and 0!

Another HILARIOUS Patriots 19-0 item that was made prematurely. A real post will be coming soon, I promise. If the Pats had gone 19-0, I probably would have enjoyed this ad a lot more because it made fun of the 72 Dolphins, who I hate.