50-48 #62: THE SEC BASKETBALL PREVIEW ISSUE (with an EMERGENCY UPDATE about tonight's game against State)

50-48 #62: THE SEC BASKETBALL PREVIEW ISSUE (with an EMERGENCY UPDATE about tonight's game against State)

Hello, everyone! Have the lingering effects of defeating two top 7 teams in a week worn off? Not over here at 50-48 headquarters. We’re plussing. And we’ve already started the day-long tailgate for tonight’s game against State.

This update is to let you know (particularly those of you outside of the broadcast coverage area for the game) that ESPN Gameplan is having a free preview this week. And so the Hogball-State game will be available for free! For Cox users, it will be on channel 603. Others can check your local listings. (Of course, it will be on television everywhere in Arkansas anyway, and some of you will be at the game, probably text messaging the 50-48 hotline and making us very, very jealous. You guys can suck it.)

And while I have you here, I might as well put off the work I’m supposed to be doing a little longer and provide some analysis of the team, cribbed as it will be from several personal emails we’ve sent to various Hogalites this week.

After being picked LAST IN THE SEC WEST in the preseason, the Hogs have proven that sportswriters are vagrants that never received legitimate college degrees. Courtney Fortson is the first true point we've had in a long, long time. He drives the lane too much, dribbles too high, and often misses open shooters on the wing, but 12 games into college, there’s reason to be optimistic. He has become the darling of the national media on this team, and any publicity he gets is good for recruiting and our eventual seed in the tournament. Also, as mentioned in a previous 50-48 installment, he has Predator dreadlocks.

More importantly, Michael Washington magically turned good this year. He doesn’t look appreciably heavier, but he’s playing like he weighs thirty more pounds. God love him, he’s our only real big man, and we here at 50-48 are coming to expect 20-10 every night he steps on the court. Despite Fortson’s publicity, he is the best, most important player on the team.

And then there’s Rotnei Clarke, who can rain threes at will. The problem with Rotnei is his ability to get good looks at the basket. 50-48 encourages you not to worry. Rotnei will ultimately be better once Courtney Fortson learns how to get him the ball. He can't really create his own shot, but he can nail them when he gets open. He just needs some set plays with high screens to get him free. (And Fortson needs to learn to pass without driving the lane.)

Michael Sanchez looks like fucking Frankenstein and doesn't play pretty, but he seems to get the job done. He looks terrible, but in every game he helps. We here at 50-48 are confused by this phenomenon, but we’re coming to grips with him. Besides, he's really the only 4 we have. And he’s a local. As long as he doesn’t accidentally kill a little girl while trying to demonstrate his affection for her, the villagers of Fayetteville probably won’t light up their torches and mob Dickson Street.

After a series of gutwrenching negotiations with the NCAA, Marcus Monk has joined the team and is a big help inside. Stefan Welsh is the same streaky shooter he always has been, but he seems to be streaking at the right moments, and he gives the youngsters a nice veteran presence. Marcus Britt can provide a couple of serviceable minutes every game, and Brandon Moore and Jason Henry are GOING TO BE GREAT. Trust us. As their minutes increase, they will continue to get better. They just LOOK like basketball players. They have all the tools, they just happen to play positions where they’re blocked from playing time by other starters. They’ll continue to get a little time every game. Watch them when they come in. They are going to be important parts of the dynasty we are about to create.

And with a down SEC, why can't we win the conference this year? We had no answers inside against Texas for three quarters of that game, but we more than compensated with surprisingly good perimeter defense, especially with freshmen playing it. Everybody hustles, even when it looks ugly. Everybody continued to think we could beat Texas, even after we had been down by seven for a good thirteen minutes. Besides, no one in the SEC is as good as either Oklahoma or Texas. We've won a true road game already at South Alabama, who's in the upper echelon of the Sun Belt. (50-48 loves the Sun Belt.) Sure we’re winning ugly. Sure we’re starting and playing a lot of freshmen. But 50-48 has proven time and time again that after severe rounds of heavy drinking, ugly can become beautiful very quickly. And the freshmen will only get better. They will face some hostile crowds on the road in the SEC, but they won’t face any teams better than the two they beat last week. And remember: Stan Heath isn't on the sideline to ruin them. He’s at South Florida, holding down that last place spot in the Big East, where he will stay until they unceremoniously fire him.

There ends the State of the Team as we enter SEC play. In the West, Alabama, Auburn, and State all suck. Ole Miss has the talent to be good, even though they aren’t playing like it. And LSU has a great record and a good new coach, but hasn’t really been tested yet. In the East, Tennessee is much better than their record, as is Kentucky. Florida and Vanderbilt also have pretty good teams. South Carolina and Georgia suck. There is no reason we can’t take the conference and remind all these dirty shitheads what Hogball is all about. We get both Tennessee and Kentucky at home, and as we’ve proven, no one is going to beat us at home. Our only intense road game will be at Florida on the 17th. And if we beat the two Mississippi schools this week and go into that game with the confidence of an undefeated conference record and a Top 15 ranking, we should be able to counteract the crowd. On a player-by-player basis, minus the crowd noise, we are hands-down better than them.

And on the topic of road games, barring some major catastrophe (and we here at 50-48 never rule out major catastrophes), 50-48 will be on the road this week, traveling to Oxford to see Hogball play Ole Miss. (Unfortunately, none of those fucks at the Tad Pad offered us a press pass. They have yet to master the core concepts of the printed word. That said, we’ve heard they will no longer be lighting the gym with lanterns, as electricity has finally come to campus! Thanks Tennessee Valley Authority!)

We are thinking about bringing a sign, saying something to this effect:

GREETINGS FROM FAYETTEVILLE!
WHERE OUR BASKETBALL COACH ISN’T A FLAMING RACIST
AND OUR FOOTBALL COACH ISN’T THE SCUM OF THE EARTH

50-48 welcomes any suggestions as to surrogates or improvements on the existing model. Here’s some more ideas to get your brain wheels turning:

GREETINGS FROM FAYETTEVILLE!
WHERE NO ONE DREAMS ABOUT BLOWING FAULKNER

Or how about this one:

I DROVE HERE FROM FAYETTEVILLE WITH A BLACK GUY
BUT SOMEONE IN CLARKSDALE LYNCHED HIM

Maybe:

PLAYING IN HIGH SCHOOL GYMS LIKE THE TAD PAD
REMINDS US OF THAT TIME WE FUCKED YOUR SISTER BEHIND THE BLEACHERS

All of these are good. Anything that will embarrass the nice people who invited us to the game will suffice. But we welcome your suggestions. Regardless, 50-48 will have a full report of the road trip next weekend.

Well, here we’ve gone and written a shitload of things, when all we really wanted to do was let you know about the ESPN Gameplan free preview. Oh well. We’ll reward you for your patience with this classic from 1984: CLICK.

GO HOGS! BEAT STATE! And then BEAT OLE MISS LATER IN THE WEEK!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Of course, the other big benefit of this update is that it covers up 50-48 #61, in which I shamelessly cut-and-pasted a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary, which is totally illegal.

Shhh. Don’t tell…