As close to 24 hours as you're getting

(The entire Tech defense and offensive line pose for a team shot before the Emerald Bowl.)

I tried to give myself a few days to cool down, but this is the best that you're getting. Last night's Emerald Bowl was an absolute embarrassment and the worst part is that you have to lay it at the feet of the entire team. In fact if I had to put up a positives section for the game it would look like this:

PJ Daniels and Damarius Bilbo looked like they actually wanted to be there.

There that's the end of the positives. Good thing we got them out of the way. As for the negatives, I'm on vacation and enjoying being away from a computer too much to but together the Robert Jordan sized tome of suckitude that I had to experience last night. We flat sucked. We were the suckiest bunch of suck that ever did suck. Tenuta got his ass handed to him last night. The one thing that will keep him from being a head coach is his obvious stubbornness to not give up on the vaunted zone blitz when it isn't working. Let's be very clear here, we gave up four fucking touchdowns (and a 2-point conversion) to a back-up QB and a WR that run nothing but post patterns the whole goddamn night. It was apparent that it was down year in the ACC for QB's, because Ratliff showed all you needed to beat us was an accurate passer with an o-line that gave him a few seconds to make a decision.

It was obvious in body language that nobody wanted to be there and yet again Gailey forgot he had a running back average over 6 yards a carry, because they managed to stop 2 running plays in a row. He has got to hire an actual OC that has a firebrand personality. The Nix and Gailey combo is too nice and guys just aren't fired up to be out there. And for anybody that wants to ask for evidence of this it's been obvious in at least one game a season for 4 years now. My personal favorites are Wake'02, Clemson in '03, UNC in '04, and now Utah (congrats on bumping NCSU guys) in '05.

I guess hearty congratulations are up for bumping the b-ball performance out of my mind as well. It's been a shitty week in Jacket nation and I'm just glad that I didn't have to go to work on top of it all.

To Hell with Recruiting . . . Rankings

Scott over at the GT Sports Blog gives a great analysis of why we should take the recruiting rankings with a grain of salt.  I don’t always agree with Scott’s analysis of events, but I think he’s done a great and thorough job on this one.

Take a look.

A Shitty Christmas Present

Apparently Lewis Clinch is out 4-6 weeks with a stress fracture in his leg.  That’s really a shame since I think he had the potential to be a huge help during the start of ACC play.  However, this could be good for Lewis since watching from the bench next to the coaches could help him adjust the mental aspects of the game where he was obviously struggling some (defense, timidity, and shot selection).

Best of luck to Lewis and here’s to a speedy recovery.

Updates Coming

I'm in a pre-sales for a logistics software firm. Everybody and their brother loves to get software demos this time of year, because they don't have anything better to do and they're trying to set purchasing budgets for next year. I have been up to my ass in data studies and conference calls the last 2 weeks. On top of that things have been kind of slow GT wise anyway.

As we get into the swing of basketball season, I promise more content and ill-conceived vitriol. Sometimes even at the same time.

Blogtacular

There's another solid GT blog out there called Yellowblazer's World. YB has some excellent insights and topics of conversation. I also believe its proprietor is an active military servicemen (like both of my brother in laws).

So check it daily or the terrorists have won.

Well That's Embarassing

It’s a tough thing to admit, but sometimes you’re the asshole in the room. After last nights basketball shellacking old Dan here went off the deep end for close to 24 hours. At this point, I’m pleading head cold and NyQuil. As proud as I am of my overall dicketry, even then you can cross the line. So I’m going to throw up here on the old blog that sometimes you are the high horse fan that you hate so much. Wake up calls and self reflection are a good thing folks.

And because I do feel guilty about it and it will scroll off the front page of The Hive relatively quickly. I’m apologizing to SportsFisherman in this space as well.

You’re still not actually getting cookies though.

That sucks!

I had typed up a whole nice post about the men's basketball game versus UVA yesterday and it got eaten. Of course, this is the one time I don't save the post in Word before I put it up on the blog. Well live and learn I guess. Here's a much shorter version of what I saw last night live from the Thrillerdome.

Jeremis Smith via hustle and gritty play is quickly becoming my favorite player on this team. If he can incorporate a consistent stand-up jumper in his game, he's going to be a beast.

Anthony Morrow is developing ice water in his veins. He's not 100% there yet, but it's going to be fun to watch it develop. I think come his junior campaign he's going to incorporate the best traits of both BJ Elder and Marvin Lewis.

Defense was improved again last night and I felt like we won the game by out hustling the other team when our shots wouldn't fall. Good effort overall.

I was a little disappointed that we let a couple of bad calls get to us and take us out of our game. That mental toughness just has to be learned though.

Transition defense still needs some serious work. We're just not stopping the ball well at all and as ACC play progress folks are going to take advantage of it.

De'andre Bell had the best game of his career last night and more importantly proved that he can shoot from the line with a 3-4 performance in crunch time. As much as I loved Ish, Bell is going to be him and more by the time his career is finished at Tech.

Zam had an improved game although his stats didn't show it. His D looked improved, not revolutionary or anything, and he put the team on his shoulders for a few series when we needed some buckets. He is not and never will be a Jarrett Jack style guard, but few are. Hopefully the fans will realize that sooner rather than later, because I think he will be a solid player for us.

Lewis Clinch is pressing something fierce right now. I think he'll get it worked out, but it's a little tough to watch. I'm wondering if he's working on the mechanics to his shot or something, because it just looks off right now.


Finally, the frigging fans need to stay through an entire game. It was Sunday fucking night at 8:00 PM people and you're leaving with a 1 minute 40 seconds left in a 4 point HOME basketball game. That is just absolutely fucking pathetic. I might give you a 12-16 point lead, but you're bailing when the kids need your support. If I could take down names and seat numbers, I'd try to get your tickets pulled during re-seating next year.

It’s Official! I’ve Made it as a Blogger! My First Hate Mail!

Apparently my all in good fun article about Tyler Hansbrough and Josh McRoberts being the same goofy white kid who drives from one school to the other to play for both touched a nerve with the more satirically challenged portion of our fan base. Before I move into making fun of these PM’s let me first give a hearty thank you to the person that sent them to me. First, my wife and I got a big kick all weekend out of them. More in a laughing at you kind of way, but hey fun is fun. Secondly, I couldn’t have asked for better proof for my point about our humorless fans. Here is each PM in its entirety (grammar uncorrected), mocking to follow directly there after.

I made the mistake of reading your blog.

i find your constant referance to white bb players as goofy white kid to be extremely offensive. i dont see you refering to stupid black kids.

if your black than you are a racist. if your white than you dont have a clue.

if you were to call John Barry a goofy white kid i would hope he would knock your ass out. he appeared on the hbo with bryna gumble sports show and complained that the nba does not give white players credit. point being that their are many who feel this way but stifle themselves due to the pc movement.

as far as there being a lot of good black bb players i agree. reaason why they outnumber the white bb players is cultural.

many white kids grow up knowing that the key to being successful is an education. meanwhile the black community embraces success as being a professional athlete despite the fact that the odds are stacked against it. the fact that there are so many poorly educated black athletes that cant get a college scholarship bear that out.

the white guys are studying while the black guys are playing hoops. hmmmmmm.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

another reason could be that white athletes are a good bit more diverse wrt sports than blacks as far as sports played.

a VAST majority of black athletes concentrate on bb and fb. while the white athletes play fb bb baseball golf tennis sking wrestling field hockey skateboarding swimming skydiving soccer gymnastics etc. give the white athlete a choice of bb and fb only and things would even themselves out.

get it?

Apparently one day without the validation of an anonymous blog writer wasn’t enough for champ here so roughly 24 hours later I got another one.

I find your blog obnoxious.

your constant ref to goofy white kid is blatantly racist regardless if you are white or black.

i have a hunch your black.

calling any white kid goofy is similar to calling a black kid stupid.

the reason why there are more good bb players is societal at best otherwise you buy into the idea that we are all not created equal.

for you to even talk like that is an embarassement to the gt community.

Now for the fun part, derisive laughter and finger pointing. A choice selection of some of the more big belly laugh inducing arguments.

i find your constant referance to white bb players as goofy white kid to be extremely offensive. i dont see you refering to stupid black kids.

One, I think somebody forgot to read The Rules, but allow me to reiterate; I really don’t care if you find my blog offensive, that’s the whole point! Secondly, I specifically referred to two white basketball players as goofy white kids (Hansbrough and McRoberts) and implied that another one was in the past (Eric Montross.) What this has to do with stupid black kids is kind of a mystery to me, but I’m sure you’re about to explain it to me.

if your black than you are a racist. if your white than you dont have a clue.

And if I were Hispanic or Asian where would your arguments go then chief? It’s becoming clear that one of us has a black and white worldview problem, but I’m not thinking it’s me.

if you were to call John Barry a goofy white kid i would hope he would knock your ass out.

Look I like Born Free as much as the next guy, but I don’t know what British composers have to do with this. Oh, you were referring to Jon Barry former Georgia Tech player.

he appeared on the hbo with bryna gumble sports show and complained that the nba does not give white players credit. point being that their are many who feel this way but stifle themselves due to the pc movement.

First off the comedy in this paragraph is awesome. Who the fuck is Bryna Gumble and who gave her a show on “The HBO?” Secondly, god bless Jon’s goofy little heart, but Steve Nash, a non-goofy white guy by the way, was the league MVP last year. So I don’t agree with his assertion at all. There just aren’t many completely dominat white players in the league right now. In fact I can think of two, Nash and Nowitszki. I also don’t think either of them are goofy. Bogut is surprising me, but his junior high ‘stache pushes the goofy limit a good bit.

many white kids grow up knowing that the key to being successful is an education. meanwhile the black community embraces success as being a professional athlete despite the fact that the odds are stacked against it.

Yep and that pretty much confirms who has the racial issues here. I’d love to see some studies backing this assertion up, but since I believe it came from the la la land inbetween your ears where the world fits easily into black and white, bite-sized chunks I’m thinking they don’t exist. Well maybe if you’re over at David Duke’s website you could find something, but I’m thinking those results will be just a wee bit partisan.

the white guys are studying while the black guys are playing hoops. hmmmmmm.

Were you actually in that joke picture I put up about the Duke Alumni Basketball Game? Do you own a white pointy hat? Still lament the fact that blacks, women, and jews are allowed to vote? Because right now the only one that is definitely hung up on race is you sport.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

Where did I ever differentiate black vs white? I called two specific white kids goofy. I mean look at these two:

For the love of god, they look like they shouldn’t be allowed to use forks much less play basketball. Instead they are two of the best freshman basketball players in the country. I find that kind of stuff funny and impressive. Good for them I say, but I’m still going to make fun of them for looking slightly inbred.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

Only in your crazy little world of fucked up logic does this sentence even make sense.

another reason could be that white athletes are a good bit more diverse wrt sports than blacks as far as sports played.a VAST majority of black athletes concentrate on bb and fb. while the white athletes play fb bb baseball golf tennis sking wrestling field hockey skateboarding swimming skydiving soccer gymnastics etc.

I hearby dub the, King of Random Generalizations. I’d like to rebut this entirely, but you’re stretching my limit on crazy talk. The fact that you threw in field hockey is really just the icing on the big fat crazy cake you’re baking here.

give the white athlete a choice of bb and fb only and things would even themselves out.

get it?

Uhm, no you really lost me long ago. In the immortal words of the Nib Highschool Principal (slightly paraphrased): “I’m sorry sir, but you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone reading this blog is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Not content to attempt to drive me insane with your first incoherent grouping of words, you then followed up with these gems:

I find your blog obnoxious.

Excellent, I mostly wrote it for people like you who I am not completely convinced are actually literate.

your constant ref to goofy white kid is blatantly racist regardless if you are white or black.

I wrote a 1700 word post. In it I used the word goofy 4 time and the word white 10 times. Never in any of those words did I refer to all white kids as goofy. That would be a racist statement. Instead I made fun of two goofy white kids who impress me despite looking like they should be struggling to color inside the lines. Let me make it clear, I like the games of Hansbrough and McRoberts. Just like I loved every goofy red hair on Luke Schenscher’s big goofy head. Luke gets the allure of the big goofy white kid and even played up to with letting his hair grow out.

i have a hunch your black.

I have two hunches that I can’t decide between on you: angry old man or retarded high school kid. Both involve white velcro shoes and a pair of jeans that are probably a size too small. The funny thing is that your hunch is completely off base; not surprising given your lack of analytical skills. A school picture of me:

By god if anybody is qualified to discuss goofy white kids it’s me. I graduated with a bachelor and a masters from GWKU. I’m the goddamn president of the goofy white kid fan club. Hell, I barely tan I’m so white.

the reason why there are more good bb players is societal at best otherwise you buy into the idea that we are all not created equal.

I had no idea that being taller, faster, and stronger was societal. That’s fucking amazing, I think you just set the field of anthropology back at least 100 years. What do you mean the idea that we’re not all created equal? It’s not an idea, it’s a fucking fact. Otherwise I would be in the NFL right now and you wouldn’t be a dumbass.

for you to even talk like that is an embarassement to the gt community.

And I found your inability to capitilize words, tell the difference between your and you’re, or form an even semi-coherent argument to be an embarassment to the entire human race much less the GT community. Go out and rent to own a sense of humor, look up the word satire in the dictionary, and if all else fails don’t come back here, because last I checked nobody is forcing you to do it.

P.S. My wife wants me to thank you again! She was sick with the flu and miserable all weekend, and your two PM’s were the only thing that kept her smiling and laughing all weekend. So Thanks again Hoss!

Thank you, Chokies!

First you screwed up our chance to have righteous indignation over the Rose Bowl participants by forgetting to get off the bus against Miami.

Now the ACC looks like a bunch of fucking jackasses, because FSU is going to the Orange Bowl. 7 and motherfucking 4 FSU! Wait I guess that should be 8 and motherfucking 4 FSU.

Excellent gameplan of not blitzing the shakiest quarterback in the ACC. Fucking transcendent really. Couple that with letting him gain confidence by throwing all of the 7-8 yard routes he pleases with soft coverage and I think your coaching staff probably had the FSU moneyline.

Other Blog

Having thought about it some more, I have created another blog that will be more in line with the post that I put up by Stefanie yesterday and where I can vent other general frustrations, give book and movie reviews, and talk about things like her essay that fall outside the realm of general sports. There won't be much overlap between the content over there and what I write over here other than the contributors.

Staying Out of Anger Management

Outstanding Tribute

The senior highlight video put out by the GTAA this year is truly outstanding and well worth a download.

Senior Video

Hoops 11/30/2005

Just some random thoughts around Tech Basketball, the Big 10(11)\ACC challenge, and whether or not the same goofy white kid is actually playing for two different teams in the ACC.

Michigan State vs. Georgia Tech

Having not seen the UIC debacle, but assuming it looked something like the second half collapse against Elon; I wasn’t really sure what to think the boys were going to pull-off in this game. I knew we had the talent to win, despite what the overwhelming number of dumbasses on The Hive thought after the UIC game. What I wasn’t sure was if we had the mental discipline to stick in a game in a hostile road environment against a much more experienced and physically stronger MSU team.

Well, I’d say that question has been answered now. At least for a single game this season. I’m not about to crown the boys conference champions or anything and I’m sure there will be some more inexplicable losses a la UIC in the future, but the fire and the foundation are there. Just surrounded by a few rough edges that I know Hewitt and experience can round off.

Positives:

Dickey is realizing that he’s got the potential to be a dominant big man. Although I think Paul Davis is more Dirk Nowitzki than Shaquille O’Neal on the defensive end. He also was less of a black hole, though still pretty bad at times, than he was in other games that I saw this season.

Scoring points when we needed them. We might not shoot this hot again from behind the arc all year, but the boys are going to believe they can make those baskets in the future and that is always a step in the right direction. Morrow’s confidence grows by leaps and bounds every single game.

We hustled for rebounds. Unfortunately there is a negative corollary to this one.

Offensive spacing, ball movement, and moving without the ball were all very improved in the half-court offense. In the second half of the Elon game and I can only assume in the entirety of the UIC we did a very poor job of moving the ball around and moving without the basketball. That was much improved in this game.

Jeremis Smith will cut you. I have now seen Jeremis knock a man out completely in the Elon game and bust open pretty boy Davis. The thing I especially like is that they aren’t dirty plays just going hard after the ball and being 230 of rock solid whup ass. If he was a punk, I wouldn’t be as impressed.

We lost. Hear me out on this one. I would have loved a win as much as anybody else, but a loss is sometimes a better teaching tool, because now Hewitt can point at some of the negatives I’m about to get into and say “see, do this and this differently and we win that basketball game.” We barely lost a game that we were supposed to lose by a lot and hopefully that becomes momentum to win the games we’re supposed to win and steal a couple of the ones we’re supposed to lose.

Negatives:

Boxing out. We seem to be trying to pull down most of our rebounds off of athleticism. That works great in high school, but not against Michigan State and certainly not against the beasts in ACC play. It also allowed for a lot of easy second try buckets for MSU in the second half.

Help Side Defense. I made a lengthy post about this on the Hive and it’s just something we’ll have to be patient about as good rotational and help side defense is about turning everything into an automatic reaction to a situation. You can’t really teach that as much as just drill the boys over and over.

Stopping the ball in transition. We have got to do a better job of getting in front of the dribbler in transition defense. We hustle back, but I don’t think we do a good job of keeping an eye on where the ball is and gave up some easy buckets while we were trying to setup the half-court defense. Like the help side defense problem, I think this is just a matter of drilling it into the boy’s heads.

All in all, I was impressed with the gutty performance we had last night, but unless we turn that momentum into some wins before ACC play gets into full swing it might all be for naught.

Big 11\ACC Challenge

Work has been hellacious this work and my wife is sick so I haven’t gotten to watch as much basketball as I would have liked. So my thoughts around some of the remaining games in the slate will be fairly brief.

First and foremost the ACC pulled it off again which is always a good thing for the conference especially in a “down year” like the one we’re having this year. You also need to consider that two of the “rebuilding” ACC teams took top 15 Big 11 teams down to the wire. I think the ACC will be just fine when March rolls around.

Florida State 97 over Purdue 57

Where the fuck did that come from? Florida State ran a nice up-tempo game against a completely overmatched Purdue squad. I think they even managed to get at least 15 students together that knew the rules to basketball in their auditorium which is always a moral victory for the Seminole nation. I suspect many of them were probably just hoping to get an opportunity to throw things at Jeff Bowden should he be there.

Illinois 68 over UNC 64

In the first 5 minutes of this game, I thought UNC was going to get run out of their own gym. They stuck with it by playing solid methodical basketball and letting Dee Brown throw up some awful looking shots (my god he can handle the rock though.) David Noel is setting himself up to be the surprise player of the ACC this year. He looked very solid in what I saw of this game. And thank god for Tyler Hansbrough. Duke has held the goofy looking white kid monopoly for far too long. I don’t think UNC has had a kid this goofy and this white with this much talent since Eric Montross was a lock to be drafted by the Celtics. Bravo to Coach Williams on bringing back a Carolina tradition.

Although I think there might be something nefarious afoot with Hansbrough and McRoberts. See below.

Iowa 45 over NC State 42

I love NC State games. Whenever the score rolls by you have to double check to make sure they aren’t showing a football score. I tried watching some of this game last night and it was like watching flies fuck. I’d run their game down some more, but Hewitt is 0-4 against the Pack in his last two years. So I guess their old-time basketball works somewhat.

Next up on Discovery, NC State vs. Air Force. What a moment!

Duke 75 over Indiana 67

I’m just not 100% sold on the dominance of this Duke team yet. Redick has become an undeniable all-star player (even if he’s still a bad poetry writing fairy.) Chewbacca is still the landlord, although Killingsworth was giving him fits. And McRoberts and\or Paulus are set to carry the torch of annoying white Duke douchebags that stick a dagger in your heart at every opportunity.

Despite all of that, there’s just some congruence missing in how this squad plays together and they seem too foul and turnover prone to stay #1 all season. Paulus is becoming the new Jason Williams (Miami Heat version) in that he either makes a gorgeous feed or no-looks it into the Indian kid sitting just to the right of the Duke bench. I think Texas bumps them off on the 10th. Of course Coach Ratface manages to find ways to win when you think they’re down.

(Picture: I'd be careful if I was you. The Landlord has been known to rip people's arms off when he loses.)

Same Player Different Teams?

Finally, until somebody proves to me otherwise I’m going to continue believing that there are no such persons as Josh McRoberts and Tyler Hansbrough. I think they are the same superman cloned from the DNA of Larry Bird, Danny Ferry, and a small piece of Adam Morrisson’s junior high style mustache. I think this player then travels from game to game swapping jerseys in between and gaining power from the ridicule of opposing fan bases.

Look he even played for both sides of the Mickey D’s AA teams

First we need to consider the evidence of the case. One, there is no way that Duke let’s a goofy white kid like Hansbrough slip past them unless they knew he would actually be playing for them. This is a school whose entire basketball foundation is based on annoying white kids that look like they should be in homes for people with special needs that can play basketball. Bilas, Laettner, Hurley, Ferry, Redick, the list goes on and on from there.
Duke’s annual letterman’s game is a little different than most schools.

Secondly, I think we need to start looking into this recent trend of coordinated white kids that can actually play in the paint. Either Larry Bird was his generations Wilt Chamberlain and just didn’t write a biography about it or human cloning has come farther than we thought. McRoberts, Davis, Hansbrough, Morrisson, can all score from anywhere on the court when recent trends had tended to force the small white kid to the outside and the big white kid to the inside. I’m not too caught up on my bible, but I could swear one of the signs of the apocalypse had to deal with white kids with tiny mustaches being talented basketball players.

Most likely it’s a question without an answer, or until UNC and Duke actually play at the same time. Until then we’ll have to consider it one of the NCAA’s great unsolved mysteries.