Basketball erudition

If John deVille won't start posting on his own blog again, I'm just going to have to start reposting his comments from mine.

Like this one:

The last [UNC basketball] game was my favorite of the year. After the first five minutes of clock time, when Hansbrough took off the protective man to return to the floor to play like a man possessed for the rest of the game -- it took me back to 1993 UNC championship team when George Lynch (my all-time favorite Carolina player) simply willed the championship.

Hansbrough has a fire, an indomitable will to go along with mediocre talent and his will wins almost every battle near the rim. He's expanded the range from where he's comfortable shooting during a game (story has it, that he regularly drains 15-footers and beyond during practice). Watching him bang around inside, knowing that he knows there's an 85% he's either gonna score or get a foul and score (big men, learn how to make free throws like Tyler) always gets the adrenaline hitting my system.

The Reyshawn Terry of last year resurrected during the ACC tourney and has been spectacular on both ends of the floor. Hopefully Wright gets more touches - Lawson seems to feed Tyler better than Brandon; Quentin and Brandon share the same alley-oop neural circuit. Teams are starting to learn that the if-I-hear-it-one-more-goddamn-time label of "defensive stopper" hung on Ginyard only tells half the story - the man will take your sleeping ass on the baseline with a reverse before he heads back down to the other end to harass you like a tabloid paparazzi.

Lawson....you mean the Flash? A Carolina point guard that's the fastest in history WITH THE BALLS TO SHOOT? Well, fuck me and fuck all his opponents because Ty is the new sheriff and he takes no prisoners. And that's a freshman? Only in the press guide - he's Mr. Prime Time. And if he needs to grab some air well there's last year's starter Frasor who is perfectably serviceable for as long as you need him and then Quentin who is only 1/100th of a second slower than Lawson and has some outstanding moves of his own if not the court command of Lawson.

Green doesn't dazzle, he just comes in and outscores the starters on a per minute basis while the starters are resting, that's all, nothing to see here, move along. Wes Miller, who looks and plays like a Duke point guard, which means he's got a center of gravity about three inches off the hardwood and is as ramped up as a Jack Russell on Mountain Dew and visualizes the ball as a chew toy on defense so he can dish it to a pick on the other side while he's scouting territory about 30 feet from the basket to launch his gorgeous mortar which finds the target the longer he's in the game.

There's this Thompson kid who has Sean May's hands which Sean must have left -- they're "soft" as we say -- that means go ahead, throw him a shitty, uncatchable pass - he'll catch it and stuff the rock in the basket while Stephenson blocks out for the rebound.

Love this time of the year - well, let's just say I want to see Dewey "Biscuit" Burke play in four more games.

(For the uninitiated, Dewey Burke is a player that UNC Coach Roy Williams puts in for a few minutes at the end of the game, when victory is well and truly clinched. He earned the nickname "Biscuits" because the regional fast-food chain Bojangles offers a two-for-$1 sausage biscuit special to the holder of a ticket stub for any game in which Carolina scores 100 points, and Dewey made that happen a few times this season.)

V-C-U

"For whatever reason, Duke – in a way that, say, Stanford or Northwestern or Vanderbilt doesn’t – represents a certain snotty, privileged, sweater-draped-over-the-shoulder elitism that we love to see taken down a few pegs."

[...]

Duke became the Yankees wrapped up in Notre Dame and divided by the Lakers; without the cuddly presence of Dean Smith at North Carolina and with the decline of Bob Knight at Indiana, playing Duke became the game every player, fan and coach circled on their schedule.

BSL

Basketball as a Second Language:

With conference tournaments in full swing and the N.C.A.A. tournament fast approaching, I think this is a good time to offer a remedial B.S.L class: Basketball as a Second Language.

This is for you fans who enjoy watching the games and have a vague idea of what the analysts are talking about. Or you fans who simply want to review the terminology. Or you fans who want to impress the gang at the water cooler the day after by tossing out a few nuggets like: “Did you see how the Heels forced tempo when they went small? When they switched to four out, one in they opened up plenty of back cuts for Reyshawn Terry,” and “How about Wisconsin mixing halfcourt sets with their swing offense? Bo Ryan ran Tucker off those staggered screens, and Taylor beat his man with dribble penetration.”

It still won't help you understand Dickie V, but it's a start.