50-48 #15: IT IS NOT THE MOUNTAIN WE CONQUER, BUT OURSELVES

(Originally published 1/13/08)

50-48 #15: IT IS NOT THE MOUNTAIN WE CONQUER, BUT OURSELVES

Gary Ervin is the worst basketball player ever to put on a uniform. (To demonstrate the severity of this critique, allow me to note this regrettable but very real truth: I have put on a uniform. And I suck.) He has 33 turnovers going into today's game versus Alabama (there will be a paragraph below about the Crimson Tide game, but I'm writing the rest of this before the contest actually happens). But turnovers are only one facet of poor basketball decision-making. He doesn't distribute the ball as point guards should. He's made 50 of 111 field goals—far fewer than 50%--and many of those misses come at pivotal moments in the game; most stem not from poor shooting form, but from poor shooting decisions (driving into the lane with nowhere to go, then throwing up a doomed shot, pinning himself in the corner and attempting to evade the trap by shooting a three-pointer, seeing a wide open teammate in the paint, but deciding to shoot in hopes that a successful outcome will reflect the credit for winning in his direction). Quod erat demonstrandum. Of course, the word we used for this at North Monroe Baptist Church Preschool was selfishness. It is still selfishness. And selfishness is THE ONE CHARACTERISTIC THAT A POINT GUARD CANNOT HAVE. Last year he had 100 turnovers. His record for turnovers is 101 as a sophomore at Mississippi State. Can he break that record this year? Yes. He can. Even with his reduced minutes. And we will suffer for his achievement. For a complete compendium of disturbing numbers—the numerology of Ervin's particular insidiousness, if you will— CLICK HERE. For a stunning visual simile—a comparative interpretation of watching Ervin play basketball— CLICK HERE.

In our Thursday SEC opener against Auburn, Ervin had 3 turnovers in only 27 minutes. But luckily, Hogball survived the cancer within and squeaked out a 76-70 victory. It's always nice to be undefeated in conference, but we need to stay grounded. This team does not look good. At all. Keep in mind that our 6-point victory came over a team with only seven scholarship players, whose best player had a broken hand, and who played with a SIX MAN ROTATION! The "away" game had approximately 18 fans in attendance. It was almost the equivalent of last week's Arizona-Oregon State women's game. In other words, we have little of which to be proud. Now, there is something to be said, particularly for Hogball, to win any SEC game on the road. It is not something we do often. And even Ole Miss and Vanderbilt—two teams vastly superior to ours (at least at this stage of the season)—have already lost a conference game. But that victory at Auburn would have been a loss to any other team on the planet. Turning things around, however, IS POSSIBLE! We have the talent to overcome Gary Ervin. We just have to convince ourselves that it can be done. After all, it couldn't be as hard as turning Jimmy Carter into a shit-talking maniac, could it?

Wow! Grousing about the basketball team was pretty tiring. And I didn't even get to the ladies being shellacked by LSU! (If any of you saw that tragedy live and in person, I apologize.) Let's take a breather by watching Hawaii's mythic quest to get to the Sugar Bowl. 50-48 is proud to present June Jones and the Magic Temple of Doom (a film in four acts):

ACT 1
ACT 2
ACT 3
ACT 4

And besides, I really shouldn't be so upset anyway. There's a chance that the paragraph at the end of this email will talk about a Razorback victory over Alabama. Plus, things could be worse. Please click on that last hyperlink, even if you don't normally click on the hyperlinks. [AUTHOR'S NOTE: You should always click on the hyperlinks, shithead! These things don't grow on trees!] It will give you a brief bio of one of the most awesome people who ever lived. A sports pioneer. One of the most important human beings of the twentieth century. When Edmund Hillary got back from reaching the top of Mount Everest, his sherpa Tenzing Norgay in tow, he pronounced to the throng waiting for him, "We knocked the bastard off." This is just one of the bazillion things he did with his life that I will never do with mine. And though many probably would hesitate to put them in the same paragraph, I will also note that Hillary's death came on the heels of the death of a relatively similar American version. Hillary was opera; Knievel was the American musical—a bastardization, but a distinctly American one. Here's some highlights: CLICK HERE, AND HERE. Significantly—and to their enduring credit—both Hillary and Knievel would have responded to such gushing praise by telling me to go fuck myself. Rest in peace.

Okay. Depressing threnody over. Let's get back to more tangible depressing things. Darren is gone. His father is denying reports that he filed the requisite paperwork, but this is just a stall until an official announcement on Monday. This wasn't much of a surprise and we should wish him all the best. Felix's decision, however, is still up in the air. He will decide tomorrow, and is probably going to declare, but with Texas, Oregon, Clemson, and Central Florida all producing early-entry running backs, perhaps Felix will be persuaded to stay an extra season. We can only hope. (For a full list of early-entry players, CLICK HERE.)

But the big football news isn't about who is possibly leaving, it's about who is possibly coming! Arkansas's own Ryan Mallett has officially withdrawn from Michigan! (And yes, he did go to Texas High on the Texas side of Texarkana, but he grew up in Arkansas. He only transferred to the Texas side of the city because their football program was more developed.) On Friday, he and his family met with Coach Petrino and his brother, Coach Petrino. They were very impressed. While early reports that UCLA was a major player for Ryan were bogus, there does seem to be competition from Texas A&M and Tennessee. Suspicion, however, rests on the side of the Razorbacks, as Mallett appears to have cancelled a scheduled trip to Texas A&M on Monday. Expect an announcement either tomorrow or Tuesday naming Ryan the newest student at the University of Arkansas! (NOTE TO GRADUATE ASSISTANTS: If you get Ryan in your class, give him whatever fucking grade he wants.) If in fact Ryan's transfer comes about, expect 3, 4, and maybe even 5 star receivers to begin lining up to play for the Hogs. With Mallett and the Petrinos, we are going to look pretty attractive to recruits. Want a taste of Mallettball? CLICK HERE.

The other big football news has nothing at all to do with players, and everything at all to do with Jeff Long being a fire-wielding superhero from the coolest part of hell. Long is attempting to replace one of our creamier creampuff games with a contest against the University of Tulsa, home of offensive guru and resident 50-48 dreamboat Gus Malzhan. The game is said to be a November 1 contest, a slot held right now by Utah State. Our other two creampuff games are against Western Illinois and ULM early in the season. (Our fourth non-conference game is against the gaggle of syphilis-infected, illiterate child molesters from the University of Texas.) So, either Utah State will be bumped, or they will be moved to the early season, possibly for Western Illinois (I have no evidence of this, I'm just speculating). Western Illinois is a 1-AA team, and obviously (if the reports are true) Jeff Long is trying to beef up the schedule. If that's the case, it would behoove the Hogs to push Utah State to the front and get rid of Western Illinois. I don't know. But if it's true, our schedule becomes that much more reputable (in an already reputable season; we're TRAVELING next year to Texas, Auburn, and Kentucky, not to mention many brutal home games, including Alabama, Florida, and Old Lou). I love the move. That's TWO bowl teams in our non-conference schedule. Not to mention ULM (straight out of Monroe!), a 1-A team with one of the longest current winning streaks in the nation (3 games in a row). The better the schedule, the better you become. I hated the move to 12 games by the NCAA. I hated the acknowledgement of 1-AA opponents by Miles Brand and his coterie of masochistic flunkies. This seems like a justifiable move to balance the scales. Plus, let's not forget a certain coach that gets to waltz back into a now-Hootie-free Razorback Stadium…Gus! I can picture a ten-minute standing ovation. I can picture the Richter Scale registering in Little Rock. Gus is back in town, and Hootie isn't! This will be the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to Gus that we loved him all along. That we never blamed him for any of the stupid shit going on under the Hootie regime. Thus, if Coach Petrino ever decides to move on, Gus will feel far more at ease about coming back home to continue the inevitable dynasty that Coach Petrino will leave for him.

To make room for the game, Tulsa is dropping Texas Tech, who has no intention of letting them go without a fight. In these situations, however, there is usually nothing the dropped team can do. Expect the game to go on as planned. For our current 2008 schedule (pre-Tulsa), as well as those of every other SEC team, CLICK HERE.

[A couple more brief college football notes: There have been two notable Southeastern Conference attacks on the NCAA/ESPN establishment this week. Both are sincere. Both are effective. Both are eloquent in their own unique ways. The first comes from Michael Adams, president of the University of Georgia, who wrote a letter of admonition to Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, which includes a thrilling denunciation of ESPN and its inordinate power to influence the outcome of college football polls. The second comes from James Carville, political pundit and LSU alumnus, who skewers the current bowl system and, more importantly, Lee Corso and ESPN. Also, it appears at least possible that LSU might not be the difficult opponent they have been for us in the past. The idiotic troglodyte that runs that ship of criminals and fools has not been reading his Sophocles. "I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating." Maybe this will mean that the Little Rock beatdown they put on us back in 2006 will turn out to be a win! If so, I'd like to find that little old lady I was forced to verbally abuse and give her and her grandchild another go. As John Adams noted in 1794, and most politicians and political pundits have agreed since, "In a truly virtuous republic, the wearing of a purple feather boa would be grounds for the death penalty."]


And finally, we have the basketball game that just concluded:

Hogs win! Hogs win! 71-67 in overtime! I have no hyperlink because the game just ended, but I do have a few observations. We are (op cit above) still screwed. This team can't shoot for shit, and they attempt ill-advised three-pointers at an alarming rate. We are not Tennessee! We are not Vanderbilt! We do not have the shooters that they have! So fucking stop it! This trend is particularly disturbing considering that Darian Townes is no longer a monumental pussy. He actually plays, and plays well. Throw the fucking ball to him! Also, our spacing in transition is bad—a surprise considering the emphasis on transition play that Coach Pel has instituted since his hiring. Finally, we are SELFISH. Selfishness can work (see: National Basketball Association) but that strategy relies on a level of talent that WE DO NOT HAVE. Unless our guards become better passers into the post, we are not going to go far. And finally, Gary Ervin sucked yet again. He didn't have a high number of turnovers. But he had a crucial turnover with 3:17 left in the game. At that point we were ahead by six. They had never led. But the momentum shift that came from that turnover led Alabama to come back and tie the game, taking it into overtime. And yes, Ervin did have two critical buckets in the overtime period, but we never would have been in that position were it not for him. Ugh! Overtime against a mediocre team in your conference home opener?!? But, that said, we have another victory. We're 2-0 in conference play. We have bested the state of Alabama. And I am, at least for the moment, content.

"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things—to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated." –Edmund Hillary

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS